#Positive Examples

[bikiniarmorbattledamage]

So, this image has been viral on the Internets in armor nerd circles a few times, but I never saw anyone talk about the artist and how she also does amazing stuff like this.

And this.

And this.

Gambargin is mostly active on Facebook, but has a huge, HUGE backlog of amazing drawings of warrior women on Instagram and deviantArt.

In summary:

-wincenworks

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Burning Rotten Bridges

[First] Prev <–-> Next

[gejnialnie]

hi I don't think this duo gets enough love, so here are my fave screenshots of Raph and Leo mirroring each other! :D

+bonus:

look at this frame! don't their poses look similar, even though they're in totally different places?? well, there's a simple reason for it! we can see raph in the driver seat, his left hand on the wheel, while the other one's searching for someting, it's symbolising his active role as leader, while leo stands alongside him, his left hand on a handhold while he gestures with the other, showing him being less active and more of a passive presence, but he's ready on his feet, it's symbolising his potential as raph's co-leader but also him not yet being ready, still gripping the safety rails instead of the driving wheel-

(nah i'm kidding- like, was it just artists drawing similar poses in one scene? oh yeah most definitively! will that stop me from over-analysing? nope! :D this basically wrote itself!)

[micobacteriumtuberculosis]

It kills my soul each time I hc a character as aroallo or even just more interested in sex then romance and there's only alloace content that comes up with scraps of aroace. Brother. This is the opposite of what I wanted.

The fwb tag is filed to the brim with friends to lovers bs. NO. Can't those characters just fuck and be buddies?? Is this so hard to imagine??? Can't you just bang your friend without falling for them or be emotionally close without romance??? The platonic sex tag isn't much better.

The slutshaming in some fanworks is still SO BAD. Like "oh, I fucked around but it was soooo bad for me and now that I found the one true love and sexual partner for the rest of my life I'm healed ❤️‍🩹". Like Shut upppp.

Some people still view romance as more morally right than sex and couple/married sex as more morally right then hook ups. They seriously need to think harder before I go on a murder spree/hj. And the worst part is, I'm not even aroallo, just romance indifferent/repulsed and generally sex favorable/interested. I don't know how you all survive this.

[fuckyeahchinesefashion]

Beauties in 1986 chinese drama Journey to the West西游记

yutujing玉兔精 jade rabbit spirit

zhizhujing蜘蛛精 spider spirit

chang'e嫦娥 moon goddess

jin bi bai mao shu jing金鼻白毛鼠精 Golden nosed white haired mouse spirit

nv er guo guo wang女儿国国王 The Queen of Women's Kingdom 

[bikiniarmorbattledamage]

Baldur's Gate 3 (Part 2 - Minthara)

Okay, I covered the stuff in Baldur's Gate 3 is mixed and complicated. Let's talk about an objectively well executed character and visually designed - Minthara.

From a general writing perspective, she's exactly what I mean when I say it's not enough to support, women's rights - we need to support their wrongs. She is complicated, ruthless and villainous in a way we rarely get to see female characters - and every aspect of her design supports and conveys it.

Spoilers below the cut.

We are first introduced to her in here scheming:

And then when you get to meet her in game, the vibes are immaculate. No notes.

The armor design here is genuinely AAA grade. Multiple layers of protection, intimidation through jagged designs without endangering the wearer. Decorative pauldrons to convey power, materials indicating her fantastic background.

But she has camp gear and even underwear that expresses additional elements of her character and personality.

Check out her majesty... then compare it to her camp clothes, and her underwear.

What I really like about this is the general trend that is consistent upon key character traits of Minthara's: she is pragmatic in the field, a dreamer in private and determined to live, love or die on her own terms.

Her camp attire is sexy, but in a way that conveys her domineering and confident attitude. Her underwear is sex, but not uncomfortable or or any sort of indicator of that she feels her gender also demands submissiveness.

And, without going into the details - the writing makes her a unicorn evil woman character who is uninterested in changing her ways, but as complicated and feeling as her more moral peers.

Now, all we need is for society to evolve to where she can also be the kind of buff muscle mommy you expect to rush into combat dual wielding maces with perfect confidence.

-wincenworks

(This still from Heart of Flames by Miracle of Sound with Karliene, footage created by Mispap1)

[backjustforberena]

RHAENYS TARGARYEN: And I must stand alone.

[crow-caller]

I really do think looking at bad writing is one of the best ways to learn about writing in general, especially for beginners.

the thing is, writing in general is highly subjective- a good sentence will be good in different ways to different people, or not impress someone at all.

a bad sentence? most people can spot bad sentences easy, especially if it is presented to them as 'here's an example of a bad sentence, let's unpack why.'

bad writing can also be very funny, which I think is again often more engaging than 'here's a work of literary genius go analyze it'. Like here's some bad writing from lightlark3:

The moment it was out of Horus’s grip, his body became bones. The flesh turned to ash. He became a corpse.

it's dumb as hell, but I think could foster a solid discussion when you ask 'why? what is the author intending to say? what about it makes it feel 'clunky'? How would you write the same idea?'

[gammija]

ig another annoying thing about the 'this transcends language 😲😱' comments about the most obvious of cognates and literal english loanwords, is that it's another example of how native english speakers (and, by virtue of their population size, mostly USamericans) are the arbiters of what gets seen as 'universal' vs what's weird and foreign on the anglophone internet. cause to me as a dutch speaker, a lot of german compound words would '''transcend language''' - but the tweets that go viral about those kinds of words are about how they're silly little nonsense words to laugh at, can't be a real language, can you believe anyone speaks that!

[freyholland]

Fellow Physical Media Warriors - if you don’t already know, there is a website called DoesItPlay that tests newer physical games to determine whether they’re genuinely playable off the disc (yay) or if they’re essentially a digital game with more steps (boo).

It’s also great if you like to thrift games, because it warns you if content is restricted to a one-time-use code.

This problem will only worsen as systems age and servers shut down. Don’t accidentally buy coasters!

[tobethemselves]

I’d love to know why Louis is ONCE AGAUN forced to stunt! WTF! Why?!!!

I understand your frustration but this is sadly the reality for a lot of closeted people in the industry. And if you look at what happens in the US and so many other countries at the moment, I think it's really clear why Louis and Harry decide to stay in the closet for now, and stunting to appear straight is part of that.

And as much as a lot of us hate it, it's a big part of the industry in general too. Not only for queer people, a lot of stars use this for several different reasons, mostly to promote a project of theirs, stay relevant and create stories that will keep their names in the press.

Apart from that I don't really see Louis or Harry being forced to do it anymore. If they are stunting now, it's definitely something they agreed on. And that doesn't mean that it's their fault, it means I think they have more ability to have a say in things since they started their solo careers.

If you want to read more about why so many stars including HL do stunts you can look through my hashtags PR STUNTS, LOUIS' CAREER and MUSIC INDUSTRY. And I also recommend reading these posts here and here.

@daisiesonafield-blog has a lot of information on her blog too, it's very organized if you go there on web.

[angstandhappiness]

Incredible

Soldiers of the Iron Griffons, by Giulia Carli

We love a faction design that’s recognizable for all faction roles, while visually distinguishing them and maintaining the functionality of their armor. Even the magus gets a breastplate! I love that, we need more of that. 

Check out the original piece for separate pics of each gal. 👀

-Icy

[iristial]

The fact that Shouma hid his heritage out of fear of being ostracized and hated on for being the same 'monster' as the ones partaking in human trafficking and drug dealing, because everyone he's met up until now gets terrified at the sight of him so it feeds into his poor self-image and insecurities, and Hanto's reaction basically 'proved' that Shouma was right to think no one would love him for who he was no matter where he goes...I'm gonna be sick

[reineydraws]

had to draw this to understand the way i feel about him now that the manga's ended. 🥲 on that note: if you like hawks and his ending, maybe don't read my tags lol. it's not bashing (imo) but they're not v nice. 😅

bg + unobstructed pose under the cut!

his expression's a lil different 'cuz i only changed the merged layer, all the lighting effects already flattened onto it. 💀 alas.

[graveyard-galaxy]

You know I actually think Douglas Graves is more spineless than Andrew could ever be. Douglas seems to simply view himself as an extension of his wife, I do not think Andrew consistently views himself as an extension of Ashley.

This one’s interesting, because I do conceptually agree, but I also think I have a little more to say than just that.

Where Andrew and Ashley vs Douglas and Renee gets interesting to me is that Douglas isn’t necessarily portrayed as uncomfortable just doing what Renee wants in the same way that if nothing else, just the ____ in a box ending (Choosing Andy ending in episode 3) shows that Andrew is completely miserable just being Ashley’s plaything. It does get a little hard to say, because we are very deliberately shown very little of Douglas, typically, because the story is told from Andrew and Ashley’s perspectives, and he is completely absentee to both of them. (We don’t even get his portraits until we’re in a vision from Renee’s perspectives, for instance) I would say though, that whereas Andrew feels confined and consumed by being under Ashley’s thumb, Douglas seems to be comfortable under Renee’s direction, from what we see.

He won’t stand up to his abusive father, but Renee will do it for him. (They had a plan to kill his parents together, and though we have no idea how much Douglas really liked the idea of this, we know that he was perfectly prepared to go along with the plan before they discovered and decided to keep Renee’s pregnancy.) He doesn’t get the social mind games the surgeon plays with him, but Renee does, and he’s perfectly happy for her to just speak for him entirely in the opposite way to how the surgeon speaks to him for her. And even just in the car on the way to the grandparents! He tries to stammer out to the kids why they shouldn’t ruin the car, but they don’t respond, and then he’s perfectly happy to let Renee bark out the orders. (Only to Andrew, passing that chain of responsibility right along, as well….)

Andrew wouldn’t take this from Ashley. We’ve all known for a while that his ‘doormat extraordinaire’ descriptor is a good bit of unreliable narration, and is exactly what he wants us to think, but it’s still worth noting for that all he does give into Ashley and appear to be that doormat, it’s reluctantly. A lot of the time he’s only battered down into agreeing with her, which is part of why he’s so frustrated and often times verging on nihilistic in episode 3.

So whilst, yep, I do think Douglas would be happy to call himself an extension of Renee, because when he comes home from long hours of work, feeling tired and frustrated and perhaps verging on nihilistic (note, we do not know this, but considering he has to tell Andrew in an episode 2 flashback that he isn’t about to jump off the balcony, it’s not hard to see potential parallels to our very suicidal and nihilistic Shots and Such Andrew) she makes everything right again.

But it really is more complicated for Andrew. Just in this framework, Andrew is both happiest when he has Ashley right beside him, but also at his most miserable when he’s ‘forced’ to put up with her. When he’s apart from Ashley, he feels wrong. But when he’s with Ashley, they so frequently fight and he does things that he doesn’t like. If he thinks of himself as an extension of her, it’s in a very miserable sense; he wants to be more to her than just what she wants to be, and more than just Leyley’s Andy, and feels confined as just her plaything. He views her as fundamentally incapable of drawing any kind of lines between them, so when he is Ashley’s anything, for all that he claims to be happy to be her everything, it isn’t offering any kind of safety or fulfilment in the same way that being Renee’s husband offers something to Douglas.

To put it succinctly, Andrew yearns for an equal partnership; Douglas yearns to be with Renee in any capacity.

Or, well, it’s hard to say exactly how Douglas feels, because we never see his perspective, and because most of the thoughts we have on their relationship are from Renee’s perspective. But we know that they both feel as though they saved each other — it’s just that Renee’s words about this are a lot stronger. She very fervently insists that meeting Douglas is practically the only good thing to happen to her, in her time capsule letter, but Douglas’s is more… wishy-washy, I suppose? He says that being with Renee gives him a reason to stay alive, but practically everything else he says is along the lines of “I want to do this because you do”. Even in Renee’s vision in the vision room, mostly Douglas seems to just test the waters more saying anything concrete, so it’s hard to get his thoughts on things beyond just the obvious “I love my wife”.

What I will say is interesting about that vision is how he does take some actions without Renee’s direct input. He, at the very least, is in tune with her enough to act on her behalf sometimes, as here, he unplugs the phone for her, and is the first to tentatively bring up that they don’t have to do anything about Andrew and Ashley potentially being Nina’s killers. But I think more relevantly here, we also observe he easily he backpedals. He thinks out loud about how the punishment for Andrew and Ashley can’t be that bad if they killed Nina, because they’re both just kids – very apathetic to the situation as he’s apathetic towards the kids – but quickly changes his tune when Renee snaps about not wanting to be seen as the mother of two kids raised so badly they’re murderers. After that, that’s when he starts of his casual avoidance – the “We don’t know that it actually happened, so therefore it probably didn’t” type attitude. (Curiously, this is more of a parallel to Ashley’s line of thinking about Nina with her whole “If you don’t think about something for a really long time, it’ll be like it never happened” type mentality.)

We see Andrew test the waters in similar ways, especially in episode 1, where he lets Ashley dictate a lot of his behaviour for some kind of plausible deniability (“Do we, uhh… Do you want to go check on him?” about the neighbour once on his balcony, and the infamous “Wanna go take a peek?” “Nope. But I’ll come along if you do…” about going to see what the music is about the first time) but I think this comes from a bit of a different place. Douglas tests the waters with what he says because he fundamentally trusts his wife’s judgment over his own, seemingly, and because he doesn’t want to go against her. But Andrew speaks like this because his mask is still so far up in episode 1, especially when we don’t see him from his perspective, so he’s still very much shifting responsibility for what they do onto Ashley because he doesn’t want to accept it. It’s not that Andrew especially trusts Ashley’s judgment, clearly not, given how much he doubts and insults her plans and motives in later episodes, but if she makes the decisions, then it’s just not his fault if things go wrong.

Or once again, to summarise, Douglas lets Renee be responsible for his actions and opinions because he trusts her and because he wants his thoughts to align with hers, whereas Andrew lets Ashley be responsible for his actions and seemingly at fault for his opinions only when it’s both most convenient for him to have her to blame, and when he’s willing to entertain her as actually Ashley – when he’s having enough fun with her to actually want to hear her thoughts.

Because if there’s one big thing that stops Andrew from being an extension of Ashley, it’s that most of the time, he doesn’t see her as her own person. Most of the time, if anyone’s an extension of anyone, she’s just some extension of him, as he’s the stand-in mother, father, boyfriend, whatever the fuck she feels like that day to her, whilst he consistently dehumanises and infantilises her. He can’t be the extension of someone he views as never having grown out being a child at the best of times, and as simply an “it” – some kind of object that can’t be consistent because it doesn’t have its own thoughts – at the worst. And when she attempts to force him into that position – when she chains him up or puts him away in the toy box – he’s miserable, because he is only willing to be Ashley’s if it’s on his terms.

[sergle]

the idea of dogs needing a Firm Hand to learn (aka mild to medium animal mistreatment) is so funny to me, because Hugo had his feelings MORTALLY WOUNDED while being taught to Play Dead because I gently pushed him into a laying-on-his-side position... heartbroken from being gently pushed