you didn't see that coming?

Fun fact!! It's cuz your body feels your pulse falling rapidly and is like "I don't know if you're dying or falling asleep and I'm not willing to gamble" so it shoots you up with adrenaline fuel to make you not die™. It's one of my favourite facts

how bout it gets with the fucking program we’ve only been at it nearly every single night for my entire goddam life

+ Bonus

LOKI | 1.01

granted i havent read lotr since i was 13 but the way legolas joins the fellowship always cracks me up, like hes literally a prince but they sent him as a messenger to basically tell the council like "whoopsiedoodles we fucked up and gollum is gone, that's what you get for entrusting him to the party elves of mirkwood you know how we get" and he feels SO bad he joins this super deadly quest like imagine you're thranduil and you're like "hey son can you go to elrond's house and tell him we fucked up royally" and your son is like sure pops can do but then you don't hear from him for like two months so you call elrond like hey e-dog what's good have you seen my son. and elrond is like. well i dont know how to tell you this but he went on a homoerotic voyage to the most dangerous place on earth. id be so mad

and then he comes home with a DWARF like what's up dad we eloped

even when/if everyone gets vaccinated and we are able to reach heard immunity i am NEVER going to forget how selfish and ignorant and hateful some people were during the pandemic. i can’t look at some people or businesses the same way again and tbh i don’t want to. if your own feelings over the safety and health of others then i don’t want you anywhere near me idc if the pandemic is “over” which it’s not btw :)

I hope im not just a blog you follow but also the only person with 100% correct opinions about the little mermaid

Dish those opinions, let's hear it

My biggest issue is the absolute ice cold take of "Ariel gave up her life/voice for a boy" when the film repeatedly shows Ariel was preyed upon by Ursula. She was exploited and stalked by the literal antagonist of the film into making a really bad decision, especially when Ursula knew Ariel was at her most emotional and the least unable to reach out to her support network.

And the deal Ariel made was meant to be an impossible task that she was tricked into taking AND STILL Ariel was smart enough to almost achieve it if Ursula wasn't playing dirty and directly interfering in with it all.

Ariel was absolutely a victim of manipulation and circumstance, and people who use this as an irredeemable flaw in her character act like they got big brain energy when their brains are smooth as fuck.

(not to mention she was 16)

Also?

URSULA is the one who says Ariel’s doing it all for the guy.

According to Ariel herself, what she wants is:

—to be where the people are

—to see dancing and walking

—to ask her questions about the human world and get answers

—to not live in the ocean

—to be part of the human world

—to explore the human world

WHERE DOES ERIC COME INTO ANY OF THIS?!

She wants to see a world she isn’t able to see! She wants to have adventures, not a boyfriend! What the hell!

I would argue that she was totally fine with the boyfriend, but Ursula was the one who forced it to be a priority.

AND ANOTHER THING

Her first impression of him is a dude who is both attractive, capable, and willing to jump back on to a burning ship to save his dog.

Later, dude climbs aboard a SHIPWRECK that's caught in a WHIRLPOOL so that he can RAM IT into a 150-foot-tall MAGIC SEA MONSTER in order to save her.

It's not like girl was settling.

Ariel is a field anthropologist. That she happened to fall in love with a member of the culture she was studying isn't exactly a problem.

YES okay adding more

6) they have essentially no bodily power - in addition to their sight, their abilities are also mostly derived from their mounts, so when they were on basically-dragons, one of them could force an entire military city to its knees just by flying over it; mounted on horses,they were Quite Intimidating in Bree, and eight of them gave Glorfindel a run for his money; on foot they could be defeated by Farmer Maggot's barking dog

7.) They kindly levelled up as the heroes did so it would be fair

8.) Sauron explicitly gains power throughout the series and possibly has more to share with his minions

9) the Shire exerts a dampening effect on all attempts at majesty... genius new theory in which the Ring is nearly harmless, Gandalf known mostly for his fireworks, the Witch-King of Angmar is reduced to interrupting tea parties, etc because the land is just not very magical at all

10) Bilbo wrote the first book and a half and could not resist making chase scenes into slapstick comedy, Frodo wrote the rest and didn't even bother trying to hide his moods

I'm pretty sure the wraiths were laying low because the Shire was constantly watched by the Rangers, of which there were far more than nine, each of whom was a Diet Aragorn also something something tom bombadil, yeah

I like theory 9. It also has implications on why hobbits in general have an odd take on things with no obvious purpose, aka manthoms. It becomes a giant game of hot potato to avoid getting cursed.

All of which could be attributed to the nearness of Tom ‘Anti-materialism’ Bombadil.

At the beginning of The Hobbit when Bilbo recognises Gandalf as "Gandalf who gave the Old Took a pair of diamond cufflinks that only come off when they're ordered" (and are never referenced again despite being a fairly startling item, in a universe where intelligent jewelery is something to be highly suspicious of). In the framework of theory 9, these cufflinks could be immensely powerful items - haunted, precious gems that obey the will of their owner! - who have an ENTIRE series worth of their own lore, which were recovered during the hinted-at adventure of the unrepentant Gandalf and The Remarkable Belladonna Took, and delivered to a place of perfect safekeeping, where they would never cause any problems at all. The Old Took just has magic diamonds what of it? And just like Mad Baggins became a local fairy tale and Frodo never received recognition in his homeland, we will never ever ever know what exactly happened there.

If I might suggest

11) Sauron's connection to the Ringwraiths is like wifi, and the signal in the Shire is like half a bar because it's bloody far and there are mountains in the way, and the rings at Imladris and Lothlórien (and on Gandalf) are like strings of Elven fairy lights that interfere with the wifi signal - so the Ringwraiths' awful wailing screams heard in the journey from the Shire are them unsuccessfully trying dial-up modem

Hnnnnnnng every single one of these takes is so GOOD

Galadriel: you're back early

Gandalf, loading gun: bag end is a Faraday cage

Actually, the Wi-Fi thing makes a lot of sense, have you ever been to deep rural England? Phone signal and wifi is fucking terrible there

Regrettably, I really, really have

Writing advice #?: Have your characters wash the dishes while they talk.

This is one of my favorite tricks, picked up from E.M. Forester and filtered through my own domestic-homebody lens.  Forester says that you should never ever tell us how a character feels; instead, show us what those emotions are doing to a character’s posture and tone and expression.  This makes “I felt sadness” into “my shoulders hunched and I sighed heavily, staring at the ground as my eyes filled with tears.”  Those emotions-as-motions are called objective correlatives.  Honestly, fic writers have gotten the memo on objective correlatives, but sometimes struggle with how to use them.

Objective correlatives can quickly become a) repetitive or b) melodramatic.  On the repetitive end, long scenes of dialogue can quickly turn into “he sighed” and “she nodded” so many times that he starts to feel like a window fan and she like a bobblehead.  On the melodramatic end, a debate about where to eat dinner can start to feel like an episode of Jerry Springer because “he shrieked” while “she clenched her fists” and they both “ground their teeth.”  If you leave the objective correlatives out entirely, then you have what’s known as “floating” dialogue — we get the words themselves but no idea how they’re being said, and feel completely disconnected from the scene.  If you try to get meaning across by telling us the characters’ thoughts instead, this quickly drifts into purple prose.

Instead, have them wash the dishes while they talk.

To be clear: it doesn’t have to be dishes.  They could be folding laundry or sweeping the floor or cooking a meal or making a bed or changing a lightbulb.  The point is to engage your characters in some meaningless, everyday household task that does not directly relate to the subject of the conversation.

This trick gives you a whole wealth of objective correlatives.  If your character is angry, then the way they scrub a bowl will be very different from how they’ll be scrubbing while happy.  If your character is taking a moment to think, then they might splash suds around for a few seconds.  A character who is not that invested in the conversation will be looking at the sink not paying much attention.  A character moderately invested will be looking at the speaker while continuing to scrub a pot.  If the character is suddenly very invested in the conversation, you can convey this by having them set the pot down entirely and give their full attention to the speaker.

A demonstration:

See how cheaply and easily we can get across Drizella’s five different emotions about Anastasia leaving, all by telling the reader how she’s doing the dishes?  And all the while no heads were nodded, no teeth were clenched.

The reason I recommend having it be one of these boring domestic chores instead of, say, scaling a building or picking a lock, is that chores add a sense of realism and are low-stakes enough not to be distracting.  If you add a concurrent task that’s high-stakes, then potentially your readers are going to be so focused on the question of whether your characters will pick the lock in time that they don’t catch the dialogue.  But no one’s going to be on the edge of their seat wondering whether Drizella’s going to have enough clean forks for tomorrow.

And chores are a cheap-n-easy way to add a lot of realism to your story.  So much of the appeal of contemporary superhero stories comes from Spider-Man having to wash his costume in a Queens laundromat or Green Arrow cheating at darts, because those details are fun and interesting and make a story feel “real.”  Actually ask the question of what dishes or clothing or furniture your character owns and how often that stuff gets washed.  That’s how you avoid reality-breaking continuity errors like stating in Chapter 3 that all of your character’s worldly possessions fit in a single backpack and in Chapter 7 having your character find a pair of pants he forgot he owns.  You don’t have to tell the reader what dishes your character owns (please don’t; it’s already bad enough when Tolkien does it) but you should ideally know for yourself.

Anyway: objective correlatives are your friends.  They get emotion across, but for low-energy scenes can become repetitive and for high-energy scenes can become melodramatic.  The solution is to give your characters something relatively mundane to do while the conversation is going on, and domestic chores are not a bad starting place.

I actually first learned this lesson when doing improv. Always have your character doing something, but don’t make the scene about what your character is doing. Come in and start putting groceries away and confront your roommate about sleeping with your boyfriend while you’re putting the groceries away. Be working in a clothes store folding shirts and be reunited with your long-lost cousin while working. Etc etc.

And then much later (partially bc I started writing regularly years after I started doing improv but even then it took me way too long to figure it out) I realized this can be applied to writing, and it’s great. Anytime there’s a long dialogue scene and it feels flat, rewriting it so they’re doing something else - something that on the surface is totally unrelated to the conversation - is a sure-fire way to make it more dynamic and open up whole new avenues for conveying thoughts and feelings to the reader.

Anthony Mackie as Sam Wilson | The Falcon and the Winter Soldier | 1.05 "Truth"

Star Wars: Episode VI - Return of the Jedi (1983)

#i know it’s not the most iconic one but i really think this is my favourite ‘i love you’/‘i know’  #she’s just so cool and rightfully smug and all the things people (men) try to project on han’s ‘i know’  #meanwhile han’s just completely gone for her. totally smitten. would marry her on the spot were it not for the stormtroopers (via @yoyomarules)

It’s my favorite, because it is the best turn around of a set of lines in a franchise, and it’s so utterly calm compared to the last time they traded them.

This is not an act of desperation. This is not something they are driven to by circumstances. This is not “we’re going to die, and I don’t want you to die without knowing I love you” “I’m trying to keep up a brave face so my best friend and the woman I love will keep it together in the hell that they’ll be trapped in alone together after I’m gone.” This is “wow, this woman is the most amazing woman ever, and she could kick my ass, she could kick stormtrooper ass, she could kick the entire EMPIRE’S ass, and she’s going to do it, too, and my deep and sincere love for her is overflowing” “I know he’s sincere but I’ve got to give him a little shit for what he pulled last time, and it’s our thing now, and isn’t it great we’re both secure in our relationship and can kick the Empire’s ass together.”

finnpoe + couple tropes: a study

bonus:

[grabs u and shakes u] i don’t care if a female character is badass, is she IMPORTANT

exactly 👆🏽