#if my work wasnt so image based a lot of this wouldnt be a problem

[weirdw00d]

felt like shit, slept all day, and then ate myself into a stupor. i do feel better now though. the brisket burger healed me

[caps-clever-girl]

thoughts on endgame.

fair warning, i am not going to be kind. i enjoyed watching this movie, for the most part. it was funny; it had many good jokes and good, pure and well done interactions between multiple characters. but i didnt like it, and here are the reasons why.

unfortunately, this isnt a ‘nitpicky’ post. my main problems are with a lot of the bigger points points of the film, and had quite a few. this is a LONG post.

• “marvels first gay character!!!!!!!!!!!!” shut up. you joined the ‘fad’ late for brownie points and it was a cameo character who got about 3 lines. there are plenty of canon queer and gay characters who could have been introduced, either as cameos or in earlier films. dont even get me started on the fact that tony has more canon bi material than most others and marvel could have taken the time or even the slightest bit of effort to make this. while i enjoyed the jokes about steve being Incredibly Hot and his ass being Gods Gift To America (which honestly??? correct!) that could have been expanded on. several characters made comments about how nice steve’s ass is, and could have been used as actual material for a queer character, instead of sticking a random chharacter in there. i get the whole ‘gay people could be anyone! its normal!’ thing by giving the ‘role’ to a regular person, but you would also prove that by making any one of your 30+ main cast actually queer instead of making gay jokes and hints that could be retconned and explained away by humour.

• slapping someone out of a panic attack, and treating the panic attack like a joke. yeah, i get it, they didnt have a lot of time. still, come on. did iron man 3 teach you nothing? apparently not since tonys ptsd was pretty much never brought up again.

• speaking of thor. now, i am not an expert, but when a person gains weight, they do not keep their abs. certainly not after five entire years - not even asgardians. i also found it odd that thor became the way he did. i understand gaining weight and comfort eating after all the trauma thor went through losing his home and brother and people, i really do, but 1.) do it properly, at least, and 2.) thor is the leader of his people. does he want the task? not particularly. he hasnt wanted to be king since the first thor movie, but hes been forced into the role. even depressed i dont think thor would shy away from it, not completely. hes always wanted to do right by his people and i think that hed stuck to it, especially after The Snap backing him into a corner, if that makes sense. to clarify, i dont have a problem with chubby/fat thor. (IF done right instead of with weird, shitty cgi, that is.) i have a problem with the fact that thor, even though he doesnt want to be king, would abandon the last remanents displaced people to build a new home all on their own and become a hermit gamer boy. ESPECIALLY with valkyrie around. she’s been through a derpressive, alcohol fuelled time in her life and thor pulled her out of it. (mostly anyway, asgardians are party animals and im p sure she still gets trolleyed on the reg) i have bo doubt that after years of wallowing she would do her damned best to try and kick his ass out of it, even if it were just because his people need a leader, instead of letting him drop everything on her and just let him stew while new asgard gets on with it. i also didnt like the fact that all of thors emotional moments were treated as jokes and made to be funny when hes genuinely Fucked Up about eveything thats happening and made his image into a whiny crybaby.

• professor hulk. more of a personal one, this, simply because i just didnt like it. fair enough if y’all disagree on this one, im not going to fight it. i just never saw him wanting to combine himself with the hulk. ever. when he apleared on the screen i was completely blindsided, and his explanation, and the way he interacted with the kids????? i just want to know where all of this confidence suddenly came from. i use the term ‘suddenly’ loosely, since its been five years, but bruce has never been the guy to care about strength or looks or fame. hes always been shy and nerdy. not afraid to stand his ground or make his opinion known. hes bot a catchphrase, posing and flexing ‘hell yeah lets take a selfie’ guy. i get that thats maybe the result of the hulk and bruces combined personality but it just felt WEIRD to me, like, there wasnt a time in the film where i felt comfortable with the character. this was the final avengers film, with all of the original six avengers in it. but it didnt feel like that, it didnt feel like bruce or the hulk was in the film, even though there was a lot of funny and good moments with orofessor hulk, it felt like a stranger with some familiar characteristics. it ruined any feelings of nostalgia for me. i like bruce, and i like the hulk. i like the way their differences add to the story and the way they interact with eachother, and the slow change in their relationship. sorry if its petty but i prefer them seperate, theres just so much more to them for me.

• clint and natasha’s journey for the soul stone. both times, in infinity war and endgame, a male character and a female character went to get the soul stone. both times the male came back and the female died, and we lost possibly two most developed and main-line female characters in the entire mcu. now i understand the reasoning for both, and out of the characters that went there, i agree with the choice. thanos and gamora; it was thanos who was aware of the sacrifice and who chose to make it. gamora didnt get a choice and was unaware until it was too late. thanos was never going to die there. he knew there would be a sacrifice and chose to take gamora, because she would be the most likely sacrifice to actualky sucsesfully yield the soul stone because she was the most loved by him. i get it, but we lost gamora and i dont like it. clint and natasha; looking at it completely objectively, clint has a family, a wife and three children, that he wants to get back. natasha does not have any children, nor any (blood) family. if i had to choose, based on facts like that, id choose her too. but i still hate it, because there goes the only female member of the avengers. also, nebula (and i think maybe rocket?) KNEW that a sacrifice would be made and either accidentaly or deliverately left out the terms of aquiring the soul stone. it would have been easy to tell, if not easy to solve. but nothinb was said, and two best friends had to make a fucking awful and horrible choice when they might not have had to.

• on the ‘feminism’ tangent; the random congragation of women in the end scene??????? i dont????? okay so i am marking myself as a hypocrite here because i did love this scene!!! it made my lil gay heart go boom to see so many good and strong women all in one place - ESPECIALLY rescue - and it also made me realise how many women there actually are across the mcu??? which was really nice?? but it just felt... so forced? the way they ALL suddenly apleared and stood together even though they were all mixed in around the battlefield. it was a wonderful thought and i did enjoy it, but it seemed too Off and Odd to seem as much more than a bid for Feminism Brownie Points.

• captain marvel. i dont know about you, but i was actually looking forward to her being in the film. for a character so hyped to be the saviour of the avengers and the end of thanos, she was barely in the film. ‘i have other planets to save, the earth isnt the only one affected by thanos’ yeah but earth is the only plannet actively attacked by him. its where the people who are rallying to fight him and reverse what he did are. dont you want to stick around and help them? surely it would be a hell of a lot easier with your help, and faster too. yes, she blasted theough the ship at the end, but she did fuck all to help defeat thanos himself, and the help she did give with the ship came at the end. i genuinely think they kept her out of the movie because she was too powerful, and would have made fighting thanos etc too easy to get all the suffering and noble sacrifices in. if she had been a side character i dont think id be as mad, but she got a whole MOVIE in which she is clearly the start of the entire avengers initiative; she is their HISTORY!!!! she is so powerful!!!! and yet she has 5 mins of screen time!! it pisses me off that she was So Strongly implied to be the character the avengers NEEDED, the one that without whom it would be IMPOSSIBLE to defeat thanos; the woman that really tipped the scales in there favour, and yet she did fuck all. (and lets not even get started on the carol/rhodey and carol+tony bromance we COMPLETELY missed out on.)

• (speaking of bonding what the fuck happened to tony and nebula????? after they were rescued it was like they never met)

• the whole entire concept of time what the fuck!!! ‘dont change anything’ okay well for the most part you did okay, and the PLAN and CONCEPT was actually really easy to grasp, at least to me, which is hard when working with paradoxes and wibbley-wobbley timey-wimey stuff. but that went out the water when past!thanos and his army were brought into the future and disintergrated. does this mean they’re dead in the past - since they would have just. Left and not come back and therefore ceased to exist from that point???? or did tonys Snap simply send them back to their point in time, with no memory of what had occured? idk because it aint explained.

• speaking of; loki. again - his past changed; he managed to escape, with the tessarect. this is not explained nor expanded upon. assuming the events of thor 2 came about - which were impossible if he escaped - then his timeline would carry on as normal, and would PERHAPS explain the tessarects wacky timeline. (i dont know for certain, because i cant work it out anyway). but loki disspearing means he wouldnt have gone to trial on asgard, nor would he wouldnt have been in thor 2 - also by extention meaning that frigga is still alive. technically if he went back to get odin off the throne anyway, everything else after thor 2 involving loki/asgard would still come to pass. either way, we dont know. it was a nice way for endgame to give fans what we wanted; the posibility of loki coming back. but it doesnt make a lick of sense, and we have no idea if hes still alive/escaped or not, and why. personally i have no fucking idea and im pretty sure it was a cop out so they could give us what we wanted. which brings to my other point:

• giving the audience what we wanted. we got loki interaction. we got loki ‘escaping’ and ‘surviving’ (????) we FINALLY got rescue, who many fans have been asking for since i think iron man 2, and even more so since The Badass That Was Pepper Potts in im3. we got morgan stark and tony and pepper married, we got jokes about steves ass, and more jokes about male characters admiring how hot other male characters are. and, most importantly, we got tony having the nice relaxing life he wanted out in his cabin in the woods with his wife and kids (even if it was a horrific way of getting there). i dont quite know how to explain it, but to me it seemed like they were shoving as many ‘fan-requests’ into the film as possible - so that when they killed off 2 of the original 6, and removed another by ageing him out of use, they could lessen the backlash and justify the changes by going ‘but you got so mych that you wanted beforehand!!’. a tactic they drenhed us with because one of those 2 was a fan favourite that people were BEGGING not to be killed off because they felt that he hadnt recieved anywhere near the peace or happiness he deserved so far - and now never will. which brings me to:

• tony’s death.

there are two parts to this.

one, i was incredibly pissed off because strange’s Big Plan, the ONLY reason he saved tony in infinity war, was so tony could use the gauntlet and kill himself anyway later. anyone in that film could have used that gauntlet - and many wouldnt have suffered fatal injuries; captain marvel, steve, t’challa, peter quill to name a few possibilities - basically, anyone who is in anyway enhanced would have had a better chance of surviving and would have therefore been the better choice; aka, half the mcu. i think it was a proximity thing; tony was closest. he had the oppertunity and the others didnt. but tony didnt know about the option of using it until strange looked at him and gave him ‘the signal.’ the signal to sacrifice himself. and of course, this is tony stark. when is he ever going to refuse that.

but reason two, and this is the one that stings the most; tony started the mcu.

in my opinion, he is the character who has put the most in during the whole ten years. he, of ALL the characters, deserves his happy ending of marrying the love of his life and having a kid, without constantly fearing that hes foing to have them ripped away from him, that hes going to have to fight to the death to keep them safe.

one of my friends, when i complained about tony dying, said; “it was his time. plus, he had a legacy! with pepper and morgan, and the iron man name. how can you be upset?”

i can be upset because tony got the happiness he wanted after losing exactly 50% of what he held dearest. i can be upset because hawkeye got his family back, but tony only got five years with his wife and less with his kid, instead of getting the oppertunity to grow old with his wife and watch his kid go to collage like clint will. i can be upset because the character that has gone through the most trauma, both physically and mentally, who spent the last ten years trying to better the world and everything in it and protect it, who got the most shit for every decision he made and who ended EVERY SINGLE FILM with a broken limb or his face littered with bruises and cuts while every other film centric character ended the film usually scrape free, didnt get his happy fucking ending. sure, he has a legacy. but i dont give a shit, because that legacy - of iron man, of morgan and pepper and stark industries - would have been there whether tony was alive to see it flourish or not. but he wont be.

this goes beyond being a ‘tony stan’ or tony being my favourite character. out of every single character, from start to finish, anthony edward stark fucking deserved a happy ending and by god he deserved it the most. i will argue that until my end of days.

i watched tony stark on screen for ten years, and i watched him get progressively more scarred and fucked up. his parents. the ten rings. losing yinsen. obie. vanko and hammer. the palladium poisoning. new york; the nuke and the wormhole. the ptsd, the panic attacks. the iron legion and retirement attempt. killian and extremis and the end of that returement attempt. wanda’s vision. jarvis being destroyed. the accords and subsequent civil war. finding out about the winter soldier and his hand in his parents death. finding out that steve knew. siberia. struggling to balence iron man and the accords. losing peter. being stranded on titan, in space for weeks.

tony in that wheelchair, shaking and rail thin and unable to stand for more than a few moments will haunt me forever.

i watched him suffer for ten years - longer, even, in-universe - clawing for his quiet, happy ending while fighting for the happy ending he thought the rest of the world deserved, and instead of getting rewarded he just got beaten down and beaten down. after ten fucking hears of watching the backbone of the entire franchise get nothing but shit piled on him until he struggled to breathe for it, excuse me for thinking he woukd finally get the chance to crawl out from under it and be happy. no strungs attatched, no awful, sacrificial price to be payed, just for a man who had given so. fucking. much. to finally get something for once, and be allowed to keep it.

well i was wrong. and i feel so incredibly fucking stupid for even hoping otherwise.

and thats what i didnt like about avengers endgame.

[lizardswithoutlegs]

HOOOOOWOWOAH BOY

ART ASKS

when i walk into a building i get to eat everybodys pencils and they cant say no

do it 

( also thanks for asking ! ) 

itd bother me a lot less if everybody came to my apartment and took one of these beautiful eggs

YEAH UNFORTUNATELY IM STILL..... WORKING THROUGH THE SAME WAITLIST but im comparatively REAL CLOSE to being done with it and i should be opening up sometime later in...... the Year

Boy Have I

theres This messy thing from a while back and then also

THIS, from even FURTHER back, when i didnt realize how fucking RED all the outlines on my things were because of the monitor i was using, two for the price of one

why not both

i do Not but it you ever see me walking on the street please throw handfuls of teeth at me theyre the only things my wretched body can digest and im always hungry

OH MAN ok so, an art telephone game is based on, of course, the game telephone, where one person says a phrase and then whispers it to the next person, and so on and on until the person at the very end says whatever they heard and if its done right the final sentence is wildly different than what you started with

an ART telephone game is the same kind of concept, except one person draws out a scene or character, and then other artists draw THEIR interpretation of whats going on, and so forth until the last person can end up with something COMPLETELY different than what the first scene was

youd think thered be less room for error with drawings, but as each person ONLY sees what the person ahead of them has made, they can get PRETTY OUT THERE - im gonna be a part of pythosarts game, and theyve done a couple of em before - for example one round started with THESE as the first two drawings

and then fourteen interpretations later, ended up with these as the final two

its good its real good

I Cant Control Where Bigfoot Goes, I Can Only Take Note Of Where Hes Been

YEAH, sort of ! on the main, iguanamouth, i have a bunch of different tags for art depending on what they are but not really a catchall one, BUT i do have an art only blog where everything gets tossed over ! 

HONESTLY THE ADVICE i got is basically what all art advice is gonna boil down to eventually - you gotta just. do it. you gotta DO it

absolutely nobody you know who draws things well started out at the level theyre currently at, and putting down the things youre visualizing onto paper is a combination of getting the the technical aspects down as much as getting the idea in your head

and that goes with figuring out anatomy and how bodies are put together ! ive got to use references for a Million things,. especially the dragon hoards - theres absolutely nothing wrong with using references for your drawings ! and being able to create accurate representations of things without looking is something that comes more with drawing something over and over and memorizing the body shape more than just, feeling like you should KNOW how to do something

so dont beat yourself up for needing references. if youre trying to shy away from them a little bit but still cant make something look nice without em, try using several different reference photos to put together an entirely different pose ? 

theres ALSO the SHRIMP METHOD, which is great for practicing and getting good at one particular thing - this probably isnt SUPER HELPFUL but good luck ! 

god i tried. exactly ONCE maybe fourish years ago but it wasnt art, i was trying to stream the lion king movie and i had no idea what i was doing, i didnt realize i needed to wear headphones so the sound wouldnt snowball into a feedback loop of my own voice that never ended but i kept laughing and it kept distorting worse and worse, like the audio version of saving and resaving something as a jpeg

it was just me and my friend ronni in the stream and ONE other person who never left and never said anything and i kept addressing them out loud like WHO ARE YOU and that only compounded the noise problem and eventually i gave up

anyway i havent tried since

i uhhhhh dont think i COULD, really - fear especially is something thats kind of subjective and one persons Big Terror could be neutral or even cute to another person

like for me i used to have a lot of childhood fears about the ocean, and how deep and dark and vast it was, to the point where i couldnt play a lot of water levels in video games, even ( but i had almost drowned several times when i was Very young which probably had, a little somethin to do with that )

maybe sometime ill try to explore things IM afraid of, but its hard to encompass a psychological response in an image !! could be a fun experiment, though ! !

a few PLANT ANIMAL AZKZ, HUH, DONT HAVE A WORKING Z KEY

SHIT DUDE THESE ARE... SO GOOD thats the official name EVEN IF i didnt use. a daffodil as the flower base. it doesnt matter 

yes

i got A BUNCH of flower and plant themed suggestions and theyre all REALLY GOOD ( way more than these ) but straight up im taking a break from em for a while - if anybody is else is reading this though you should definitely tackle one of em

WASABI ASKS

Do Not Feed Animals The Paste

i keep going back to read this ask because you could replace wasabi with my name and its the exact same. its the same. i feel like i have to hide somewhere

this was real and this is the award they gave us

there were other awards but the judges refused to give them out. they burned them in front of the other dogs. we won

it depends on the age ! wasabis pretty much an adult, so her sheds are pretty infrequent ( usually once every 7-8 months ) BUT when she was still growing back like 6 years ago, she would do a full-body shed every other month !

wasabi accepts tokens of appreciation in the form of : fruit, green beans. No Exceptions

i would never seperate wasabi from her hands

absolutely..... not. not even a little bit h h hh a this isnt a disney animal companion, i dont even know what “kind of like a dog” means with , a lizard who cant make any vocalizations or get up on their hind legs or NOTHIN sometimes if i hold a piece of fruit on my hand and she reaches for it she gets confused on whats what and tries to bite my fingers instead

ONCE WHEN SHE was attacking her reflection in a mirror i put my hand in front of her face to break eye contact and she SUNK HER TEETH RIGHT IN THERE but immediately let go like “oh whoops”

lissten . . .  wasabi is so sharp, just absolutely everywhere, and these are the sharpest. the grabbers

heres a lil battle damage from earlier today actually

this is pretty tame BUT the long long lines are from claws, and the thinner, closer together ones are from holding her and her scales scraping against the skin. so not even just the Body is completely safe ! this is not an animal youre gonna wanna get your face real close to if theyre in a walkin mood

she doesnt even MEAN to scratch the shit outta me, its just kind of a byproduct of being a big tree lizard. her tail is absolutely the worst thing to get hit by though. the WORST. lucky me she doesnt attack anything that isnt a dog or a vacuum cleaner or her own reflection

ahhh i got her when i was 16 ! and i dont know her exact age but she was somewhere between 3-6 months when i get her - SHES probably closer to 9 years, but ive had her for about 8

LENGTH THOUGH...... the last time i measured her she was just barely under four and a half feet, but that was a few months ago and its possible shes. Just Slightly larger. shes currently sleeping as i type this so i guess we will never know

duel me

too late for coats..... its all tail action now

ROCK ASKS AND ALSO ASKS ABOUT PUTTING ROCKS IN YOUR MOUTH

oh MAN i feel you . . . . . . . . . . i dont think i could actually Bear To Eat any for real but some of em. just. they. i gotta. just. bite on em a LITTLE just a little bit, a tiny bit, a nibble

when i was real young i used to tap things against my teeth to tell what kind of substance they were made of based on the feeling/hardness/density WHATEVER and i still sometimes do it when im checking stuff out and. it uhhhhh sure is interesting finding out not a lot of people did that

a handful of these delicious raw agates, just for you

please stop spying on me

i DO NOT but you may eat this piece of bornite

meet me at the airport and ill cover your bus fair

theres a lotta different ways to figure out what kind of rocks you got but when you have absolutely no clue on where to start your best bet is to search for the biggest distinctive features of it, and try to narrow it down based on the results

like for something like these pieces of chalcedony, you could try “waxy green translucent mineral”, and from the search results find a few candidates that might be what you have on hand, and then look into each one to see if you can get a definite answer 

ive got a handful of rock and mineral guide books that i always pick through whenever i snag something im not sure of, and if youre REAL into it those are always something you could start keeping an eye out for 

now this is a REAL superficial way to telling what something is and wont be useful for a good chunk of minerals ( as a lot of samples can look really close to something else ) and THIS is a much more in depth way of telling something apart, but its also a lot more time consuming ! so good luck. and good eating.

Just Try And Fucking Stop Me

ANIMAL ASKS THAT ARENT............ ABOUT MY LIZARD

im married to this one actually

fuck. ok. heres. a secret. a In the ask Post secret. wasabi goes through a period that lasts a month every single year where she carries eggs in her gut, and spends that month not eating and digging around in everything, trying to find the right spot to lay these eggs. and. when it happens i never know what to do with them, and i dont want to just THROW THEM AWAY so i. eat them. i eat the eggs. i fuckin eat the eggs dude

Theyre All Goddesses

unless you plan on having your lizard roam around outside whenever they want, the outside environment doesnt really matter much for most reptiles as long as you set their habitat up right ! BUT i do know that australia has bans on certain reptiles ( iguanas are one of them ) and so youre gonna have to look up whats actually available in that area 

 bearded dragons are native and those are always a good option, but so are a lot of geckos - its really gonna depend on what youre into ( but i dont really recommend anoles if thats an option, because theyre fast as Hell and dont like being handled )

what the fuck is a bee

oh geez im sorry ! i remember going through this with spiders a lot when i was younger to the point where looking at photos of em used to be a fuckin, TRIAL 

you could try a really gradual exposure deal, where you start off with getting comfortable with just images, and slowly working your way to dealing with one in a controlled setting ( like a petstore, maybe ? not HANDLING em or anything, but just being near one in a way where its absolutely impossible for them to touch you )

the shitty thing about this kind of phobia is that even if you KNOW its irrational theres sometimes not a lot you can do about it, but if you can stand looking at photos of them you could try learning up about them, and finding out the types of species youre likely to encounter around your house, and seeing how many ( if any ) are ones you should avoid ?

i know some people that have major problems with snakes are because theyre unsure if the ones they find are poisonous or not, and it might go a long way to confirm that the reptiles you meet wont be able to harm you even if they TRIED ( which is gonna be the case with a lotta house geckos, they cant do SHIT youre a GIANT )

very VERY few lizards have venomous bites, and the worst most of em can do is give you a bloody finger if theyre large enough, and even then its usually not much worse than a cat scratch !

still though, if youre really serious about trying to get past this, dont force yourself too quick into what you think you SHOULD be, and take tiny steps outta your comfort level when you can

this probably isnt uhhh SUPER helpful hh hhah but good luck !  shit im going through this post and its like ALL reptile photos. im sorry

i feel about them, with my hands

MMM it shouldnt HURT them unless theres something Really wrong, considering its a natural procession of growth, BUT its definitely itchy as hell, to the point where reptiles trying to remove it will drag their bodies over stones or walls tryin to get it off

sometimes wasabi drags her whole hind foot over her head like a dog to get it off and it is. a Sight

ahhh honestly there arent a lotta reptiles thatre gonna do much more than TOLERATE the touch and not really, enjoy it, like a dog or cat or bird

but speaking from experience with wasabi, youll probably want to avoid most the head and stick with the top of the back near the sides - wasabi doesnt enjoy having her tail messed with much either, but shes ok with her dewlap and feet being touched

the most important thing to keep an eye out for when youre touching one is their body language, because  THATS gonna be a dead giveaway for whether you need to back off or not

closing their eyes is a sign of stress, not enjoyment ! same with tilting the head back, but if thats ALL theyre doing then youre probably not gonna face any retaliation

B U T if theyve got an extended dewlap with a raised body or tail off the ground, not a good idea to interact with em ! thats a defensive posture, and you risk getting hit with a tail or even bitten if your hand gets too close

youve got more to risk with males, who are way more territorial and generally larger, but if they seem pretty chill when you approach and dont stand up and stare at you, youre probably in the clear

COCK of the ROCK

I HAVE im so jealous of anybody whos got to see one in person - actually handling one is a level beyond that which i could even comprehend

OTHER THINGS.....

no but i was bit by a pigeon once

this is the only joke i know

i fuckin WISH !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

ayy im into it - honestly i havent been following the band so much as just kinda, picking up whatever anybody else mentions and so my knowledge on Gorillaz Lore is pretty uhhhh h hh h scattered but im definitely interested in seeing where this goes

i remember watching the first and second season and it being pretty good - some of the episodes and jokes are hit and miss but you absolutely got me with the creature and alien design

havent seen any of the third season yet though !

i mean the fruit ones could be pretty up there 

how bout. an abstract concept. who cares about physical forms wheres the dragon of melancholy 

why come theres nothing to eat in my apartment but bread. im good otherwise but its all just bread

i havent watched either of em in YEARS and YEARS but i distinctly remember. these lil dancing mushrooms

oh wait FUCK 

FUCK !!!!!!!!!

no... NO.... she is not allowed to eat ANYTHING from the plan shelf, try as she MIGHT

im a little mad that this sill isnt bigger because the only other one that gets sun is in my room and wasabi WIll... absolutely eat those. no doubt. a convenient and expensive salad, for my awful gremlin 

god im looking at these and its all jade plants isnt it

little golden books taste the best but they can make you sick if you have too many at once. my favorite genre for snacking is sci fi fantasy but anything over 300 pages tends to get a little tough if you dont break it up with smaller chunks. non fictions always a gamble because the taste is wildly different each time but you can usually tell how ripe it is by the cover color

ayy im already a big fan of some of their stuff, ive got a couple songs from them in my music tag - im especially into i miss you and their shut up and bring it here remix

TOP FIVE THINGS

1

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3

4

5

this is barely related but once i filled up a bathtub with water and then dumped about ten bags worth of mint tea into it and then just. soaked around in the tea. listen it was really nice. id try the cheese

i dont have any ships but i was on one of those model pirate boats once for a school trip. our boat was named naruto and the other one was named sasuke and the captains shouted “make them kiss” and ran them into each other. everybody on board drowned

youre trying to trick me into googling yoshi without shoes and its not going to work

me reading this message from the safety of my apartment :

nice try, but wrong again ! : )

THIS IS GOOD info, thank you

oh SHIT the other side of paradise, take a slice, life itself, and season 2 episode 3 are all my Big Faves

the way you phrased this makes me think you already have a strong opinion on it

hey uh. coming from a person who was absolutely CONVINCED that theyd be dead in the future when they were 12, a not insignificant part of that was me feeling that there was something irreversibly wrong with me for not behaving or acting in certain ways based on what was going downstairs

and obviously im still HERE but it means i can understand how devastatingly terrible it can feel when youre that young and it seems like the way you behave and feel are flawed, or dirty, and anything that can lessen that feeling and make you comfortable in your own body is huge, can save your life

not that im saying its always a LIFE OR DEATH decision !

i guess if youre viewing it as adults forcing a child into making decisions that you dont think theyre capable of understanding its easy to be hesitant about getting behind it, but nobody is forcing a child to be trans. nobody has tricked them into feeling this way. you cant just walk in and get started on treatment on an immediate whim - some programs require 2 YEARS of concrete evidence before theyll even consider it

i feel like you should try speaking to the parents of trans children before you really put down a concrete opinion on whether this is a good or bad thing, and seeing the difference ( if any ) its made in their lives 

people whove detransitioned, or found they had ultimately a different identity than the one they were exploring could also be an avenue to look intto ! i have several acquaintances who, after a period of years, found they werent trans but wouldnt take back the time where they were figuring out if they were, and i know this doesnt invalidate the friends i have who ARE 

ultimately this is what it boils down to for me : Its Sure Gotta Beat Being Dead

i WILL give you that ive definitely seen a lot of overreactions to seemingly innocuous topics on this website

but youve also got to keep in mind that everybody who is saying these things MEANS them, and to them theres a completely reasonable explanation to why they feel that way

im not saying you should blindly accept any criticism you get, but to instead try to get a grasp on WHY theyre responding the way they are instead of immediately dismissing it

its because i cant drive and they wont let me sit in the front on account of the smell

NICE THINGS

AHHHH I GOT.. a bunch of other really sweet messages to the point where id feel weird about putting em ALL UP BUT... IF YOU SENT ME SOMETHING i can promise i absolutely saw it and it made my day better and just, holy shit, thank you for taking time out of your life to say anything to me at all

because you didnt have to, even a little bit

youre all beautiful and im kissing you on the mouths all at once. no take backs

[lukewright12-blog]

FMP FINAL EVALUATION

For my final, I have made a film. This film after seven weeks I think still adheres to what I said I would do in my original project brief. The film itself is a short film that explores a possible ever lasting imprint new technology will have on this world more in particular the impact holograms could have in the communication centre as well the impact virtual reality could have on a humans mental being and how real it could fell to someone, given the circumstance. So the underlying story of my film is that a man wakes up in a blank room completely unaware of his new surroundings and tries to make sense of them, after becoming increasing stressed he drops to his knees and tries to calm himself why this is happening a hologram appears and greets him, they then conversate but the man becomes more so frustrated as she speaks in enigma and doesnt reveal to him whats going on. Eventually she confronts him and asks him why he killed his family, in complete denial and shock the man becomes emotional and frustrated, the hologram then turns hostile on him and once he has got to his peak of stress he is pulled out to discover he had woken up in VR, as part of an experiment for a VR police interrogation program.

In this unit I have made vast progress from point A when this was only an initial idea to point B where its now a film. I have gone across a whole journey of researching, experimenting, networking with film professionals and making to get to where I am now. Personally Im really happy I got this opportunity to do my own project and just ‘go for it as an inexperienced film maker and see what happens. On the other hand, did my final turn out how I wanted it to, well not even close, I made many errors during production due to both some errors I had had in pre-production as well as on set. In post is where I had the bulk of my issues as things wouldnt work, footage filmed wrong to do things to and I didnt have some essential footage I needed due to my battery dying a lot on set and my actors wanting to go home after a long day of filming. I then also had a massive problem in post with exporting, so the film is nothing like what I wanted it to turn out like and I think that could make it stray away from the brief a tad as its not as effective in portraying the story and message I wanted it to tell.

Methods as well as various platforms have been essential to this projects progression and my personal learning. So I really do credit the sketch book as my main source of development as it allows me freedoms to write and draw whatever I so please on the pages provided to let my mind run lose and develop my idea. I also think net working through Ravensbourne with the students in higher courses than me or who have been through these courses have helped with my idea development as hearing everyones thoughts is interesting and their ideas combine with what I can think up helps inspire new scenes and thoughts. The blog has been really useful as well in terms of only making my work better as reflecting on everything Ive done every day helps me to spot out things in which I have made an error in and see what needs to be done to improve my work next time. I have also found that surprisingly my weekly plan in my project proposal has helped me leaps and bounds as I have followed it religiously the past seven weeks and always reflected in my blog to check I was on schedule to meet the work in which I had set out for myself in the weekly plan. This has kept me more on target than ever and has made me think about the bigger picture more and about what is essential to the project. Keeping on track has helped me a lot with developing my project and being able to develop further if I distributed my time rightly.

In terms of targets met I managed to make a short film, and create my hologram in my short film. In terms of whether it meet its requirements to portray an imprint of new tech which in my film is holographic communication and the effects of VR on a human, will be down to how well the film reads now that its had to be drastically cut back because of my export problem that turned into a nightmare and me having to cut a lot of footage because of various issues. I thought I explored the internet very well to squeeze as much information on what I wanted out of it as possible, I also think this research informed my film well even though the film isnt great. I didnt really add any new targets but I think personally I meet all the ones is set to some extent.

Reflecting on my FMP I think I have gained the most valuable thing - experience. I have got to go out on my own and create my own project based around anything I so pleased as long as it adheres to the brief touch. It is around this experience that my ideas have developed. I think that what I done at first was dream. I maximised my idea and developed it to near full potential, I had a perfect image in my heads of how my project was going to look, I had researched how my hologram was going to look and how my film was going to play out in terms of development I had everything down right, until shoot day and post. This I see as a vital turning point in my project where my idea development almost had to change after I had got my footage as I had to then develop the idea to the point where it was realistic rather than perfect as it became quite apparent that perfect wasnt going to happen when I ran into my long list of problems. This I think was the most vital idea development as I then had to turn an idea that I had dreamed up into a realistic film that could be shown as I couldnt magically get the extra footage that I really needed as my actor had gone off to a job in New York for the next month to so re-shoot was not an option. This is where I had to think on the spot and manipulate the story and the footage in the edit to get a half decent story out that still somewhat portrayed the idea that I wanted to portray. This type of development I found way more useful to my learning; reflecting on it now as it was a more real world situation and could definitely prove to benefit me in the future rather than if everything had just gone prefect. However, I do still think its a shame I couldnt get the film out that I wanted to as Ive had to change It due to my issues, but saying this Im grateful I have a film that I can show that has taught me more than I thought it would have.

Personally without sounding like a snob I have not found group tutorials useful what so ever as ever time people commented on what to do next I was already one step ahead and probably doing it already, so in that respect I thought they were a waste of time for me personally and I thought I could have been doing more productive things with that hour and a half every week. Saying this I thought one on ones with my tutors was useful as they were more in depth and personalised. But the most useful feedback I had that I see as being essential to my project was networking with other students in courses higher than me as they are currently doing their FMPs and are experienced in FMPs as theyve gone through college and are doing their university degrees now. Two people in particular however have helped me out more than I could say, Cole who works at the I.T. Desk has a degree in Motion Graphics and Can who is just finishing third year of Digital Film here. They have helped me with developing my ideas and have invested a lot of time into me giving me feedback and honest opinions on what I should be doing and what I need to do going forward. 

So next time I definitely need a crew what has become apparent to me that is if you try to do everything by yourself you will struggle very much. As on shoot day I was so stressed out where I was trying to direct, manage actors, help my mum do sound, move my brother so that the green screen didnt have white light shining thought the back of it, camera man/shoot the whole thing myself so the clapper board and move the boom mic all at the same time. Also in post turns out I need an editor as I cant edit to save my life, I can see the shots and I know what I want when editing I just cant get it myself as Im too impatient and get stressed out by editing, saying this I defiantly need to improve my editing skills. So as a general I need to arrange to a have a crew next time. A big thing I also need to take away is that I need to be more prepared for disaster because this time round I had disaster in the edit and if it wasnt for Can and the guys at I.T. my film may have not came through.

In terms of skills Ive developed for industry, I think Im a better director now as Im starting to pick up on my mistakes and critically evaluate what needs to happen and what weve done wrong. I also think Im learning how to manage people better which is essential for time management. In terms of technical skills, I am learning slowly how to edit although I do not like it and dont intend to be an editor but Im learning none the less.

Building on my skill set going forward I strive to become a better director and be able to make even better stories that can adhere to even harder briefs. I need to build on my editing and understanding of editing going forward as its essentially the end game of film making once youre on the editing stage. I need to be more prepared as well going forward as I need to be able to be more resilient to problems that I face and more relaxed when dealing with them as stressing doesnt help your mind set very well and can be harmful to the bigger picture of a project.

Next year I intend to continue film making, continue getting better at it, continue making mistake and hopefully become the best film maker I can be so that one day I can get to where I want to be.

[viralhottopics]

‘Think about the bigger picture’: life lessons from Meryl Streep and other successful women

Theyve won Oscars, Pulitzers and Nobel peace prizes: eight women at the top of their game tell us how they got there

Meryl Streep has been nominated for more Academy Awards than any other actor, and has won for Kramer vs Kramer, Sophies Choice and The Iron Lady. In 2015, she sent every member of Congress a letter supporting a proposed amendment to the US constitution to mandate equal rights for women; the amendment was not passed

I didnt always want to be an actor. I thought I wanted to be a translator at the UN and help people understand each other. Some young people come into acting because they see it as glossy and heightened and more sort of divine than their existence; but what interests me is getting deep into someone elses life, to understand what compelled them to move in one direction or the other. That other stuff, Ive never liked. My mother used to say, People would give their right arm to walk down that red carpet. Enjoy it! You just cant change who you are.

Womens rights? Were going to keep talking about it until theres balance – Meryl Streep on equality

The influencers in our industry are overwhelmingly men: the critics, the directors branch of the Academy. If they were overwhelmingly female, there would be a hue and cry about it. Women have 17% of the influence, more or less, in every part of the decision-making process in the industry and, inevitably, thats going to decide what kind of films are made. But the material that comes to me is still interesting. Im 67, so mostly I get things for people that age, and there are wonderful projects that would never have existed even 10 years ago. Twenty years ago, I would have been playing witches and crones.

Going from job to job, never knowing where the next one would be, has allowed me to spend time with my four kids more than if Id worked at a desk job. Thats a really tough gig, and I dont know if I could have had four kids and done that. Decisions I made in my career were not always based on aesthetic criteria: was it near, was it going to be shot in the vacation? You make all sorts of compromises in order to have this other thing that you value. My girls and my son and my husband are all way too much in each others business, I would say, but were close and thats important. I always tried to stay challenged and work hard, but also keep my hand in and stir the pot at home.

I spent far too much time when I was younger thinking about how much I weighed. If I could go back, Id say, Think about the bigger picture. Of course, its a visual medium. We think about our looks. I dont bring a suitcase with my dossier in it to an audition, I bring my body, so you cant moan about the fact that youre judged on your looks: its showbusiness. But the other thing is that youre representing lives, and lives look all different ways and shapes. Thats one thing I do see changing, and its really good. It makes the cultural landscape richer.

Nimco Ali, co-founder of Daughters of Eve. Photograph: Brigitte Lacombe

Nimco Ali was born in Somalia. She is the co-founder, with Leyla Hussein, of Daughters of Eve, a non-profit organisation that supports young women from communities that practise female genital mutilation (FGM)

I had FGM as a seven-year-old, and later saw girls going through it, but I didnt join the conversation. Then I started to see my silence as complicity. Around 2010, I moved to London and came across people working around FGM, but I couldnt see what they were trying to achieve. I wanted to educate people, yes, but this isnt a question of ignorance; its organised crime. I got together with Leyla, and we started to do more with MPs.

I want to place the responsibility in the hands of the state. Ive seen community work being done for years, and it doesnt work. Its not up to communities to police themselves. People were saying, How can mothers allow this? but I was saying, How can you, as a citizen of this country, know a five-year-old is about to be cut and stand by because youre afraid to offend her community? Youre telling that child she doesnt matter.

It was early 2011 when I first said, Im Nimco and Im an FGM survivor. A lot of people were shocked. But I didnt want to be treated with sympathy: I wanted to talk about survivors, not victims, and I wanted to prevent it.

First came redefining FGM with the Home Office as an act of violence; then defining it as child abuse. It was a way of saying to these girls, Youre British and we care about you as much as anyone else. My vagina is British; it doesnt have a different passport.

The first time my picture appeared in a newspaper, I had death threats. I stayed in bed for two days, wondering, Is it worth it? But then I felt guilty. If a girl goes through infibulation and then disappears, we never find out. If something happens to me, at least someone will know.

Having friends I can talk to has been an immense help. A girl came up to me on the tube and said, Are you Nimco, the girl who talks about FGM? And I thought, This is where I get spat on. But she wanted to thank me.

I dont think of myself as a leader, but as part of a chain. If it wasnt for all the amazing women who came before me, I wouldnt be able to do any of it.

Samantha Power, US ambassador to the United Nations. Photograph: Brigitte Lacombe

Samantha Power moved to the US from Ireland when she was nine. Her first book, A Problem From Hell: America And The Age Of Genocide, won a Pulitzer prize. In 2013, she was made US ambassador to the United Nations

I had recently graduated from university in 1992 when I saw images in the New York Times of bone-thin stick figures in camps in the former Yugoslavia images I didnt think one could see in the 90s. I wanted to help, but didnt have any skills. I had been a sports reporter in college, so I decided to try my luck at being a war correspondent. It was a bit of a crazy idea, but a lot of young people were doing the same thing, because they felt horrified and powerless.

Im not great at languages, but Im great at talking, and my stubborn desire to communicate with people got me to the point where I could do interviews in the local language. I wrote about my experience, and looked at why the US did what it did when faced with genocide in the 20th century. One key conclusion was how hard it was to effect change. But it still felt as though no other organisation could make an impact like the US government. It seemed to me it would be more efficient to be inside the government than on the outside, throwing darts.

These werent steps on a conventional path, and my advice to young people would be not to decide on a job title and script a path toward it, but to develop your interests go deep instead of wide.

Ive tried to inject individual stories into everything I do: real faces and real people. Empowering women to get involved in government and diplomacy brings a different set of perspectives, which benefits everyone. This isnt a theory, its a fact: according to the UN, womens participation increases the probability of peace deals lasting 15 years by 35%.

My son was born in 2009 and my daughter in 2012, and I hope, as a result of this job, theyll be more empathetic, more globally curious. My son is a big baseball fan, as am I, and when Im finished, were going to travel the US and see a game in each of the different ballparks. I hope to make up for some of the lost time.

Mhairi Black MP. Photograph: Brigitte Lacombe

Mhairi Black is the SNP MP for Paisley and Renfrewshire South. In 2015, aged 20, she became the youngest British MP since 1667. Her maiden speech in the Commons had 11m views online

I was brought up in Paisley: it was Mum, Dad, my older brother and me. We used to go on caravan holidays to the north of Scotland. My mums mum had 13 children, so I had lots of cousins to play with.

Our family has always been politically aware: my grandparents were involved in trade unions and Mum and Dad were teachers. When I was eight, my parents, brother, aunties and I marched against the Iraq war in Glasgow. Tony Blair was in town for the Labour party conference, but apparently he got word of the march, so, by the time we were marching past the building hed disappeared in a helicopter. I remember finding that really unfair, even at eight.

Inequality of any kind is the thing that drives me. I always look at who is losing out, and why. Everything I am interested in boils down to the fact that theres an injustice happening somewhere.

When the independence referendum was announced, I was a yes voter, and I thought, if there was ever a time to join a political party, its now. After we lost the referendum, a couple of folk in the local SNP party were saying I should put my name forward to be a candidate, and I said, Dont be daft. Im 20. What do I know about life? I was giving myself the sort of criticism that other people give me now. People in the constituency started challenging me, saying, Why is that a bad thing? Surely parliament should represent everybody. And I thought, Thats a good point. OK, Ill go through the vetting process and see if I pass.

I had no idea what to do after university, but I think its good to try things and, if youre good at them, keep going and see how far you get. Mum and Dad taught my brother and me to have confidence in ourselves, but never arrogance theres a fine line. Confidence comes from giving yourself credit when its due. My parents always said that as long as you know your stuff and you know what it is youre going for and why, and if youve practised hard and think youre good enough, then, by all means, stand up and make sure youre counted.

Ill be happy if, in five years time, I can say, The place I am representing has been better represented than it ever was before.

I think part of the problem with politics has been people viewing it as a career. You shouldnt be in it in order to become first minister. It has to be for a purpose, and it has to be in the present.

Tavi Gevinson, editor-in-chief of Rookie magazine. Photograph: Brigitte Lacombe

Tavi Gevinson is a writer, actor and editor-in-chief of the online magazine Rookie, which she launched aged 15

People talk about how the internet can make us less connected, but there are also people who cant find that connection to others elsewhere, whether at school or in marginalised communities. With Rookie, I want to create a place where you can make real friendships.

My mother is an artist, and when I was little we were always making stuff, so there was never any fear around creating different things pictures, outfits. I would get home from school, grab the camera and tripod, go into the back yard and just do it. This was way before people could make a living out of fashion blogs.

When I was 13, and living in Oak Park, Illinois, my Style Rookie blog gave me access to a world I would not otherwise have had access to no way would I have been able to see a fashion show without that.

I was OK with challenging people, and I didnt mind if people didnt like my outfits. Fashion has a bad rap, about being shallow, about pleasing men, so I was happy I was wearing unfashionable, bizarre outfits celebrating fashion, but not some beautiful, sexualised model.

On many of the fashion blogs I read, women talked about feminism freely. It felt like a movement of the past, but I realised I had been a feminist before I ever identified as one.

After a series of false starts, I started talking on my blog about what an honest magazine for teen girls would look like. There are people whose jobs are to figure out how teenagers feel; I thought Id go straight to the source not so they could be targeted by marketing companies, but so that young people could have a network.

Ive done my job if people are inspired or entertained or feel more OK with themselves after seeing something on Rookie. We never tell people how to think or feel; we want to tell our readers they already have all the answers. If you want to do something, just do it! You can start 80 new lives if you want. You have to try, and be open and excited about failure, because it teaches you a lot.

Dame Athene Donald. Photograph: Brigitte Lacombe

Dame Athene Donald is professor of experimental physics at the University of Cambridge and master of Churchill College

When I was at school, girls werent expected to have careers. I assumed that after university, Id get a job and then get married. I say to those who are setting out now, its fine not to know what you want to do.

I got married when I was doing my PhD. My husband had a couple of fellowships, but I was the one who got the permanent position. He stopped working for a long time, although it wasnt necessarily what he wanted to do. We have two children, now grown up. I have always been uncomfortable being held up as the woman who has done it all: I know what costs were involved. You do need to marry the right person. I think there is still a presumption that childcare is the womans problem; its not, its the couples problem.

There were subtle gender-stereotyping pressures against physics when I was young. Nowadays, numerous initiatives encourage more girls into science. Its a question of constantly pushing back against the idea that girls do certain things and boys do other things.

At times, I still feel in the minority. I sat on one very high-level committee chaired by a man who addressed the group as gentlemen, even though two of us were women. I later wrote to him, pointing out the discourtesy; he replied that it was just the terminology he was used to it didnt mean anything. The next time he did it, though, one of the men pulled him up and he never did it again. That was probably more effective than if Id made a fuss there and then.

Our intake of women to men is nothing like 50:50, and I would very much like to improve the ratio. We already do an enormous amount of outreach, and I blog and Im on Twitter, because it enables me to reach more people.

Its hugely important to remind the government how much science matters to the economy. We dont have North Sea oil any more, and the banking industry is falling to pieces. Science and engineering are at the heart of our capacity to innovate and grow.

Ava DuVernay, film director. Photograph: Brigitte Lacombe

Ava DuVernay is a film director, screenwriter and founder of distribution company Array. Her 2014 film Selma, about Martin Luther King, was nominated for a best picture Academy Award

I didnt grow up around artists, and I dont come from a family of artists. When I graduated from college I got into film publicity, but I never thought I could be the film-maker. Then I found myself on many sets, and started to believe I could do it, too.

I like that independence that comes from doing things for yourself, and doing them well. Editing, directing, producing, financing, distributing and publicising my own first films gave me a grasp of the process.

In the early parts of making Selma, I didnt believe it was going to happen, even as I was making it. My father is from Montgomery, Alabama, which is very close to Selma, so I knew the place and had a handle on that time in history. I started telling the story and, before I knew it, it was in movie theatres. It was so fast, I never had a chance to think, Oh my gosh, can I do this? I just thought, Im going to keep going until someone tells me to stop.

As a black woman film-maker there isnt a lot of support there arent many of us around so instead of not doing something, I figure out a way to do it without support. As you start to create your own work, you attract help from like-minded people; you can never attract it if youre sitting still.

The landscape has changed since I started my distribution company in 2010; we have Netflix, Amazon, all these streaming platforms. Its an incredible time to be an artist, especially for those who had been left behind. I find it very exciting to think, Im not going to continue knocking on that old door that doesnt open for me; Im going to create my own door and walk through that.

I always say: work without permission. So many of us work from a permission-based place, waiting for someone to say its OK. So often I hear people asking, How do I get started? You just start. It wont be perfect. Itll be messy and itll be hard, but youre on your way.

Leymah Gbowee, peace activist. Photograph: Brigitte Lacombe

Leymah Gbowee is a Liberian peace activist. In 2002, angered by the civil war, the then 30-year-old social worker and mother of four (she now has seven children) organised a march on the capital, with a sit-in that lasted months, leading President Charles Taylor to agree to peace talks. The womens actions led to the removal of Taylor and the inauguration of Africas first female president, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, with whom Gbowee shared the Nobel peace prize in 2011

I was 17 when the civil war started. I had just finished high school and was planning to be a doctor, but the war upended everything. I did a three-month social work course, because that seemed the most immediate way to help. In time, I worked with former child soldiers. I was in one village when the government sent in a truck to abduct children and teach them how to use AK47s. I was with the mothers, watching their children being taken.

By 1998 I had met activists from Sierra Leone who claimed that women could change things, but it was only when I began to work with the wives of ex-combatants that I saw what they meant. The ex-soldiers were often very violent and angry, but their wives stood up to them.

There was a lot of work to do to create a movement that would have some impact: it took us two and a half years. The important thing was that we had no political agenda: we had a shared vision for peace. We were there because we cared about our families.

In 2002 we marched on the capital, Monrovia. There were thousands of us. When we started a sex strike, it became a huge story, and an opportunity for us to talk about peace. Then, when it was clear that nothing was coming of the peace talks in Ghana, we went to the hotel where they were being held and said we would disrobe. This horrified people: to see a married or elderly woman deliberately bare herself is thought to bring down a terrible curse.

We were able to use things that were ours our empathy, the ways we are perceived to make the men listen. It is important we understand our strengths, because in war, the rape and abuse of women and children are seen as ways to demoralise the enemy, to show them they are unable to take care of their families.

It is no longer an option for women to say, Im not a politician. We need to up our game. The age-old excuse has been that we cant find the good women. It is time for the good women to step up.

Extracted from The Female Lead, published next month by Penguin at 30. To order a copy for 25.50, go to bookshop.theguardian.com or call 0330 333 6846.

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from ‘Think about the bigger picture’: life lessons from Meryl Streep and other successful women