What do we do tonight, Brain?

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See, that’s what the app is perfect for.

Sounds perfect Wahhhh, I don’t wanna
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"Dragon!" the knight shouted. The villagers surrounded him and his horse. "I shall slay it!" One by one, people went to the dragon and sobbe
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Gonna pin this one and start adding links and updates.

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Are fedoras really that bad? (3M notes babey)

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[Transcription:

Hi, Dr. Tony here! And we have some questions about, what do we do with the tissue - the breast tissue - after we remove it during top surgery? Well, one of three things can happen. The most common is most of my patients are young, their risk of breast cancer is pretty minimal so we'll just dispose of it in one of these biohazard bags. This biohazard bag gets picked up on a regular basis by a company called Stericycle and they will actually incinerate it and give us a receipt back saying that this tissue was incinerated at this time and this date. The second thing is, if you've had a history of breast cancer and you're concerned about breast cancer, we'll actually package it up and send it to the pathologist. And the third option is some of my patients want to take their tissue home with them. I have one patient that was quite interesting in that he wanted to throw the breast tissue in his freezer and one year later, he wanted to pull it out and have a party and bury the boobs he never wanted in his backyard. And it's perfectly legal to do that, we just have to package it up in the right way. But, what a great way to celebrate your one-year man-niversary.

/end transcription]

Source: tiktoksthataregood-ish
reblogging for the pun
avelera
avelera

Yes, Your Character Does Want Things

I’m thinking a lot still about the whole characters “wanting” things and how much it really took the veil from my eyes as far as what characters are actually interesting.

Yes, you can absolutely introduce a character who is being buffeted about by life, who is directionless, who is beset by troubles but doesn’t act on desires, who is depressed and moping and lost in the world. Those characters absolutely exist and can be compelling. 

But the moment those characters become compelling is when they choose to do something. Bilbo Baggins is a reluctant adventurer, but the moment we care about him isn’t when he’s sitting down to dinner, that’s just our introduction to him and his status quo. It’s when his dinner gets interrupted and suddenly he wants very badly to chase out these intruders that we are suddenly embarking on a story and when we care what happens next. The moment he comes alive and the story truly commences, is when he decides (movie version) that he wants to go on an adventure, and his adventure becomes complex when he must wrestle with whether he’d rather stay and help or give up and go home, and must choose again and again to stay.

Screenwriter C. Robert Cargill had a great quote about this the other day on Twitter, 

“Characters are made up entirely of their choices. A character that makes no substantive choices or never feels the weight of those choices isn’t a character. They are a prop. A character’s choices should propel the story rather than simply always react to it.”

This is why so many female characters feel lifeless - they are written to be props by male writers who can’t conceive of them having an inner life or desires of their own. It’s why so many dull protagonists exist - they are buffeted by events instead of having any thoughts or desires about how they want to interact with those events. They just… go along with them. They are props for the author at that point, dolls who are being forced to act out a story instead of living, breathing characters of their own. 

Again and again I put out these thought pieces on how to make characters want things, and every time, without fail, a writer responds with, “But I have this character who is like me and is directionless and doesn’t want things and is forced onto this adventure and eventually rises to the occasion, is that ok?”

Keep reading

maggie rambles writing writing advice long post character motivation
wonderlandflamingo
bauliya

i'm never getting over the fact that romance as a genre, as the HIGHEST selling genre, exists largely because straight women fantasise about being loved and treated kindly by men and men constantly make fun of this because they think it's just that unrealistic that they could cherish women and that women are stupid in the first place for wanting such an impossible thing

bauliya

everyone keeps talking about fifty shades in the notes but I wrote this post thinking about pride and prejudice which is basically the blueprint of all romantic novels and romcoms and romantic relationships in media ever since—a bookish loner has a fight with a guy that is above in the social hierarchy than her because she thinks he's an ass and he later turns out to be a sweetheart when he's kind to her/helps her out.

many romantic works that are labelled as romanticising abuse simply focus on the wrong aspect of this equation, where they make him an ACTUAL rich inconsiderate arse. Twilight falls in this zone (Bella has only one personality trait which is she loves Austen, how obvious can it be) and so does, consequently, fifty shades.

but that doesn't change these fact that the CRUX of the liz-darcy formula is this: a man will listen to what I have to say and apologise for his behaviour and put my needs first. a man will love me for the bits (headstrong nature, a preference for solitude) that society asks I change. that's the female fantasy. a rich handsome dude will love me for who I am and put my needs first.

and straight women have been mocked for this! for decades! because of wanting to be seen and heard and loved by the men they're dating! and I say straight because while self indulgent romances exist for wlw's and queer men, I have never, in my life, seen a queer person mock another queer person for reading romance. this derision only exists by straight men for straight women because the idea that they could dare to have standards in their relationships deserves to be mocked and shamed.

cishet men don't need a romance genre because their dream fantasy woman pervades every single genre in every single medium, in all her hundreds of iterations where she sacrifices every aspect of her self to fulfil their needs and effortlessly fulfils impossible standards and finally is killed off so he can heroically avenge her before promptly finding another male fantasy to use and discard. but women are labelled shallow for wanting a darcy, when darcy has a personality and friends and family and motivations and isn't dressed in gold bikinis and sensuously brutalised and tortured for our benefit.

Source: bauliya
q u pride and prejudice romance novels assholes gonna asshole
anyotherdaysstuff
guerrillatech

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headspace-hotel

I thought this was my hometown for a second

enchantingcoffeenightmare

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tacofrend

So this has actually been cited by academics as part of the major draw to online spaces is the fact that just existing in public is reacted to with hostility and punishment. Gretchen McCulloch discussed this is in her book Because Internet, citing research that shows teens and young adults want to be outside! We want to spend time in social places, it’s just that there aren’t any places to exist in public without being charged for it.

learn2anarchy

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binch-worm

When I was homeless as a kid my little brother and I loved to go to the library. We would keep warm in there reading good books all day long. Until residents of the town complained about us “loitering” at the library each day. The library staff then told us we were no longer allowed to stay more than an hour at a time. Imagine seeing two homeless children spending their entire days quietly reading just to keep out of the cold and having a damn problem with it.

allthingslinguistic

Here’s a relevant passage from Because Internet! 

Even the fact that teens use all kinds of social networks at higher rates than twenty-somethings doesn’t necessarily mean that they prefer to hang out online. Studies consistently show that most teens would rather hang out with their friends in person. The reasons are telling: teens prefer offline interaction because it’s “more fun” and you “can understand what people mean better.” But suburban isolation, the hostility of malls and other public places to groups of loitering teenagers, and schedules packed with extracurriculars make these in-person hangouts difficult, so instead teens turn to whatever social site or app contains their friends (and not their parents). As danah boyd puts it, “Most teens aren’t addicted to social media; if anything, they’re addicted to each other.”

Just like the teens who whiled away hours in mall food courts or on landline telephones became adults who spent entirely reasonable amounts of time in malls and on phone calls, the amount of time that current teens spend on social media or their phones is not necessarily a harbinger of what they or we are all going to be doing in a decade. After all, adults have much better social options. They can go out, sans curfew, to bars, pubs, concerts, restaurants, clubs, and parties, or choose to stay in with friends, roommates, or romantic partners. Why, adults can even invite people over without parental permission and keep the bedroom door closed! (page 102-103) 

The source I’d really recommend for lots more on this topic is It’s Complicated: The Social Lives of Networked Teens by danah boyd, a highly readable ethnography spanning a decade of observation of how teens use social media. Here are a couple relevant excerpts: 

I often heard parents complain that their children preferred computers to “real” people. Meanwhile, the teens I met repeatedly indicated that they would much rather get together with friends in person. A gap in perspective exists because teens and parents have different ideas of what sociality should look like. Whereas parents often highlighted the classroom, after-school activities, and prearranged in-home visits as opportunities for teens to gather with friends, teens were more interested in informal gatherings with broader groups of peers, free from adult surveillance. Many parents felt as though teens had plenty of social opportunities whereas the teens I met felt the opposite.

Today’s teenagers have less freedom to wander than any previous generation. Many middle-class teenagers once grew up with the option to “do whatever you please, but be home by dark.” While race, socioeconomic class, and urban and suburban localities shaped particular dynamics of childhood, walking or bicycling to school was ordinary, and gathering with friends in public or commercial places—parks, malls, diners, parking lots, and so on—was commonplace. Until fears about “latchkey kids” emerged in the 1980s, it was normal for children, tweens, and teenagers to be alone. It was also common for youth in their preteen and early teenage years to take care of younger siblings and to earn their own money through paper routes, babysitting, and odd jobs before they could find work in more formal settings. Sneaking out of the house at night was not sanctioned, but it wasn’t rare either. (page 85-86)

From wealthy suburbs to small towns, teenagers reported that parental fear, lack of transportation options, and heavily structured lives restricted their ability to meet and hang out with their friends face to face. Even in urban environments, where public transportation presumably affords more freedom, teens talked about how their parents often forbade them from riding subways and buses out of fear. At home, teens grappled with lurking parents. The formal activities teens described were often so highly structured that they allowed little room for casual sociality. And even when parents gave teens some freedom, they found that their friends’ mobility was stifled by their parents. While parental restrictions and pressures are often well intended, they obliterate unstructured time and unintentionally position teen sociality as abnormal. This prompts teens to desperately—and, in some cases, sneakily—seek it out. As a result, many teens turn to what they see as the least common denominator: asynchronous social media, texting, and other mediated interactions. (page 90)

Anyway, more people need to read It’s Complicated, danah boyd really takes young people and technology seriously and doesn’t patronize or sensationalize, and it was a huge influence on me in figuring out the tone for Because Internet so I want to make sure it gets credit! 

Source: guerrillatech
frenchtoastpanda
funnytwittertweets

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atopcat

Lord of the Rings:

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Originally posted by marta-bee

Vs.

Game of Thrones:

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Originally posted by riderj123

birdyyyyyy

"But where's that light coming from" BITCH IT'S FANTASY WHO CARES

mornington-the-crescent

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the-tin-dog

Ok but also from a like, theatrical storytelling perspective, there’s a thing called “willful suspension of disbelief” which is basically the concept that in order to let ourselves be immersed and enjoy a story, we need to turn off our knowledge that it’s all fake anyway.

like yes, we all *know* it’s unrealistically bright for a night time war, but it needs to be so we can SEE the story being told, and the lighting designer used blue light to show it was night time. We KNOW that Sir Ian isn’t actually a wizard but we SUSPEND that DISBELIEF because we want to be entertained.

brunhiddensmusings

theres the moon, theres the stars, in this fantasy world the stars might be four times as bright or there might be two moons

or, considering this is a land without electric lights, its assumed that everyones eyes, including those of the viewers, have adjusted enough to the darkness that yes normal ass moon and stars provide sufficient illumination to actually see that the elf king is not wearing sweatpants like youd be able to tell or who the hell was that who just got stabbed thats kind of an important detail in an action scene

winterbythesea

Elijah Wood said he brought this up with Andrew Lesnie, cinematographer on LOTR, once and asked him where the light was coming from in a particular scene, and Lesnie just smiled and said “same place as the music”.

Source: funnytwittertweets
aldergroves
tinsnip

When we’re new to adulthood, it doesn’t immediately occur to all of us that you’re almost always allowed to leave a situation, because growing up we’re forced to stay in situations until someone dismisses us and/or takes us home, or if we do leave on our own accord there’s someone waiting at home to say “we don’t quit in this family!” Boring party? You can leave. You don’t like the lecture? You can walk out. New doctor not working out? You can end the appointment, you don’t need to wait for them to dismiss you. Bad date? You can just go home. Leaving a situation prematurely might have consequences, but unless you’re under arrest or serving prison time, it’s pretty much always allowed.

--commenter Allison @ askamanager

obstinaterixatrix

da share zone's if it sucks hit the bricks image
Source: tinsnip
YEAHHHHHHHHHHH reminders important !!!
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