Cheat Sheets For Writing Body Language

Zechs should have stayed dead. Few characters have clean hands, but he is among the most egregious due to his order to fire Libra’s canon at the Earth and subsequent attempt to crash it to create a disaster that would kill untold millions of civilians and render the planet uninhabitable. His sacrificial act of replacing Heero in the job of destroying the falling block’s generator loses much of its narrative redemptive power if it doesn’t actually require him to give his life to accomplish it.

strongly agree | agree | neutral | disagree | strongly disagree 

one of the few good things about Zechs surviving is that if he tries to start an argument with literally anyone else, they can just throw back “at least I didn’t try to start the APOCALYPSE” in his face

Zechs STFU you’re a 19-year-old disaster you fuckign wreck of a human being

How Long is this Fic Really?: A Guide

Word count in the HP Series: 

Sorcerer’s Stones: 76,944  Chamber of Secrets: 85,141 Prisoner of Azkaban: 107,253  Goblet of Fire: 190,637 Order of the Phoenix: 257,045 Half-Blood Prince: 168,923 Deathly Hallows: 198,227

Word count in the LOTR Series:

The Hobbit: 95,022 Fellowship of the Ring: 177,227 Two Towers: 143,436 Return of the King: 134,462

I saw a post recent about the idea of, what happens after the revolution that some people are yearning for, and I have a lot of thoughts about that, but it actually also got me thinking about how a lot of people conceptualize government, and particularly how this shows up in books.

I've read a lot of books where someone is secretly or not-so-secretly the heir/rightful king or queen/the one true chosen leader/etc., and one thing that I see in a lot of those is this idea that government is its leader, and if you have an evil leader then the Government Is Bad and if you replace that evil leader with a good leader then the Goverment Will Become Good.

And there is definitely truth to the idea that an ineffective, immoral, greedy, cruel, etc. leader will generally lead to the government being worse and doing bad things, but a government is not simply the will of the person in charge taken form.

There are a few ways to think about a government, but I'd think of it like this:

A government is the services it provides, the rules it enforces, the external engagement it has, the people who decide all of that, the people who make it happen, and the fact that people agree that they are the government.

You'll see there that only one part of that is the leadership. Anyone can stand up in the middle of a town square or go on YouTube or whatever and say "I'm in charge and here are the four thousand rules that everyone needs to follow" and if they don't have legitimacy and enforcement power, it doesn't mean anything.

It also means that changing the head of state can't automatically change everything else. Most governments (especially national governments) have a large set of professional civil servants who do the business of government regardless of who is in charge, and that is a huge ship to resteer.

Often, the fastest way to resteer that ship is to literally fire everyone--and as we've seen in instances like the de-Ba'athification of Iraq, it can have massively negative impacts on the country and its ability to provide services.

There's a certain branch of fantasy that I've read where the government "is in charge" but doesn't seem to actually provide any of the services that exist in the world. There's a king or a ruling counsel or whatever--but there are no departments/ministries/public sector.

Who provides utilities? Who provides human services? Who collects taxes? Who manages the allocation of government funds? Who enforces regulations or laws? Who manages public spaces? Who delivers mail? Who prints money? Who facilitates relations with other countries? Who maintains public safety?

A lot of these stories act as though all of those things just happen, that they are self-perpetuating machines that have always existed and will always exist, and government is an unrelated piece of the world that is just there to look important and make decisions.

Heero: I need to kill her.

Duo, boredly: Why?

Heero: [glaring at Relena from a distance] I don’t know how to flirt with her so she has to die.

The Great Gundam Wing Rewatch ‘14 Episode 06: PARTY NIGHT

Thrown into a new, uncertain destiny, Relena returns to the Earth. What awaits her is a school party and notice of Heero’s transfer. Knowing Heero’s secret, Relena figures out that the transfer is related to his next mission. OZ assassins come for Relena, and Heero ends up saving her.

This episode’s highlights:

That Relena-Mrs.Darlian moment. Relena says that whatever happens–whatever the truth may be–Mrs.Darlian will always be her real mother. (This scene is this mod’s first taste of a soap opera moment in an anime when she was, like, nine.)

Treize believes that VFM Darlian is exactly the type of person who is “sacrificed to a new era”. We love you Treize, but sometimes you make our skin crawl.

Relena goes to their school party. She invites Heero–who, ever the gentleman we always know, points a gun at her. But they go anyway and Relena tells him she has met Dr.J.

Meanwhile, Wufei, in Gundam Shenlong, is destroying the naval port. Sometimes we wonder what the boy does in his pastime.

In the circus, we find out Trowa is not afraid to lose his job. Or, you know, he just doesn’t care. When the Ringmaster scolds him for being late, Trowa responds, “I made it here. That’s good enough.” Catherine ushers him onto the stage for their act.

Also, Trowa is not afraid to die. Cath realizes he actually wants her to mess up her knife-throwing act and kill him. (This begs for one whole meta! Anyone?)

Back at the party, Heero and Relena are having a conversation on the dancefloor. Then Lady Une attacks, with the intention of eliminating Relena. Heero mistakenly thinks that the OZ is there for him, so he suits up and fights. Lady Une wonders if the Gundam is protecting Relena. 

…and it is. Heero himself doesn’t know why exactly he is protecting Relena. He is confused. “What in the heck am I thinking? I’d be better off if she died, wouldn’t I? What’s wrong with me?!” he yells, before destroying the last OZ mobile suit.

Just as when Lady Une decides she’ll go after Relena herself, Treize calls, telling her to stop the mission because he just decided to let Relena live. We find out that Lucrezia Noin has called Treize and told him the connection between Zechs and Relena. 

Back at the school, Relena is questioning Heero–she’s asking the same questions Heero is asking himself. Heero tries to kill her again, but realizes he. Just. Can’t. So he flies off, leaving Relena behind.

To be continued on: EPISODE 07: SCENARIO FOR BLOODSHED. Previous episode: 1 2 3 4 5

Duo: Do you guys blow your food when it’s too hot or do you just hasafashafsas till you can chew it?

Heero: Oh hasafashafsas for sure. I’m no coward.

[on the Lunar Base]

Wufei, to his own internal private log: It’s day 5 of being locked in with Yuy and Maxwell. I don’t know how much more I can take. They’re driving me-

Duo: [to the tune of Final Countdown] IT’S A MENTAL BREAKDOWN

Heero: [off-key kazoo]

Wufei:…

Wufei: …fucking insane.

SEXY

Relena: *appears in field of vision*

Heero: *internally* my favorite person has arrived she is pretty and smart and my favorite I must greet her in a manner indicative of my appreciation for her existence

Heero: I’ll kill you.