the-fire-lord-zuko:

“Zuko, please, my love, listen to me. Everything I’ve done, I’ve done to protect you. Remember this, Zuko. No matter how things may seem to change, never forget who you are.”

Happy Mother’s Day!

cheering-charm:

Day 9: Favorite Couple > Rapunzel and Eugene/Flynn

Frying pans! Who knew right?

yeahwriters:

erinbowman:

Michael Hauge’s Six Stage Plot Structure. (Or: infographics I want to hug.)

Graphic by Eduardo L. Lozano

Ugh so pretty

suzushinayuriko:

無題 (Untitled)

emedeme:

Howl’s Moving Castle as a live action movie

“More about Howl? Sophie thought desperately. I have to blacken his name! Her mind was such a blank that for a second it actually seemed to her that Howl had no faults at all. How stupid! ‘Well, he’s fickle, careless, selfish, and hysterical,’ she said. ‘Half the time I think he doesn’t care what happens to anyone as long as he’s alright—but then I find out how awfully kind he’s been to someone. Then I think he’s kind just when it suits him—only then I find out he undercharges poor people. I don’t know, Your Majesty. He’s a mess.” 

Harry Lloyd as Howell Jenkins/Wizard Howl

cosplayer credit (please don’t remove)

[Castle in the Air] [House of Many Ways]

The Rings of Akathen + Scenery

If I stay awake I will go all night on this train of thought, so I’m gonna have to call it a night. Going to see The Great Gatsby tomorrow—I hope.

colonelmustangsnipples:

17xinfinity:

colonelmustangsnipples:

17xinfinity:

I don’t know how other people define what passes the Bechdel test, but for me, the conversation can reference a man so long as it’s not the only thing two women talk about. If they bring something else up or the guy is just included in the main subject (hypothetically, Sheska and Winry talking about how Winry got into automail engineering and Winry wryly mentioning that Ed is one of her best customers), I think it passes.

If, on the other hand, the major subject of the conversation seems to be a guy, even if the guy is referenced because of something else (Rose bringing up Ed to tell Winry her backstory, which I’m sure she went into more detail about offscreen) it doesn’t pass for me.

Is that just me or is that a general assumption here? 

/sorry for interjecting my opinion, but i feel like having a bechdel test is counterintuitive to the purpose it’s trying to fulfill. it’s trying to perpetuate feminism by holding female characters up to a standard, while we don’t see anything of the sort for male characters. i mean, i’m a woman, and i don’t particularly enjoy the presence of other women. if i constantly talked about my brother or my father or my best friend who happens to be male, that doesn’t make me any less of a person, any less of a woman. but i would fail a bechdel test were my life a movie, because apparently i’m not satisfying enough. because even feminist women hold other women to their own standards.

did that even make any sense i’m sorry it’s late

That makes sense, and I understand it. I think it’d be important to use discretion and remember that the Bechdel Test does not necessarily apply to everything—a lot of people have noted Mulan doesn’t pass the Bechdel Test, and it doesn’t need to considering the context (and considering that given her character, Mulan probably did not have a lot of great relationships with women at that point in her life).

But in a lot of cases, women do have relationships with other women. It’d be ridiculous to hold a female character accountable (much less a real woman) for not having relationships with other women, but if they’re indicated to have such relationships in the narrative, I’d like them to be emphasized. 

So I think it depends on the context, honestly. You cannot apply the standard to every single woman/character (otherwise you’d call Mulan anti-feminist, and that would be ridiculous), but I think the Bechdel Test is applicable if the character is shown to have close relationships with other women. Then it becomes a question of whether those relationships are very developed or emphasized or not.

(/emphatically reads your tags) no no no no no, trust me, you’re not offending me at all. i definitely understand what you mean about the emphasis of female relationships where they do exist, i just feel like the bechdel test is taking the wrong approach/ coming at the issue from the wrong angle. i mean, i feel like the test in and of itself implies that a woman shouldn’t talk to her female friends about men, that there’s something wrong with it. for women who are attracted to men, it’s normal to want to talk to girl friends about them, particularly in that way. if a woman wants to bring up that subject, that’s fine, that’s dandy - that’s her choice. taking that away from her by saying she can’t talk about it because it doesn’t fit someone else’s definition of what and how a woman should be. to me, it’s akin to telling a woman she can’t be happy staying at home and raising a family. it’s undermining her agency in the decision, which is missing the point of feminism completely.

i feel like i’m beating a dead horse but i don’t know, basically if a story contains women who actively make their own choices - whether or not they have anything to do with men - and aren’t portrayed in a negative light simply for being female, i’m a happy camper.

In that case, I agree with you, which is sort of the subject of the original thought. Women are (usually) in close relationships with men, and people tend to talk about other people. So for myself, I’m happy with f/f conversations that talk about men but do not always talk about men and nothing else going on with the characters.

There’s this trend where that is the only type of conversation writers want to write between women—when it involves a dude. Which is a bit of a reach because if women are close, they’re probably going to talk about all sorts of things. And the thing about only ever showing them talking about guys is that it usually reduces the conversations to something plot relevant—two girls talking about this guy the woman likes, and nothing is particularly wrong with that, but the man is brought up because something is going to happen with him and one of the women in the story. (Obviously it’s important to the characters as well, but heh, my point is that conversations between women have a habit of being written for plot significance only and it leaves something lacking in their relationship development.)

So the Bechdel Test to me is a gauge of how much importance the narrative places on this relationship between a couple (or more) of women. Two women can totally talk about a guy, it’s just that I want to know if the writer finds this f/f relationship significant beyond the man they are talking about in that particular instance. I want the conversations to be about silly banter or even just other things that impact the characters as well as about guys, which inevitably some of them will be about guys.

I am rambling and I could probably end up writing a meta reply to you so I’m gonna cut it there. 

But yeah! Not every conversation needs to pass the Bechdel Test. Women are going to talk about men and that’s not the bad thing to me. I just don’t want it to become the only thing women talk about.

so-very-otaku:

Team: Gai by ~MIUX-R

colonelmustangsnipples:

17xinfinity:

I don’t know how other people define what passes the Bechdel test, but for me, the conversation can reference a man so long as it’s not the only thing two women talk about. If they bring something else up or the guy is just included in the main subject (hypothetically, Sheska and Winry talking about how Winry got into automail engineering and Winry wryly mentioning that Ed is one of her best customers), I think it passes.

If, on the other hand, the major subject of the conversation seems to be a guy, even if the guy is referenced because of something else (Rose bringing up Ed to tell Winry her backstory, which I’m sure she went into more detail about offscreen) it doesn’t pass for me.

Is that just me or is that a general assumption here? 

/sorry for interjecting my opinion, but i feel like having a bechdel test is counterintuitive to the purpose it’s trying to fulfill. it’s trying to perpetuate feminism by holding female characters up to a standard, while we don’t see anything of the sort for male characters. i mean, i’m a woman, and i don’t particularly enjoy the presence of other women. if i constantly talked about my brother or my father or my best friend who happens to be male, that doesn’t make me any less of a person, any less of a woman. but i would fail a bechdel test were my life a movie, because apparently i’m not satisfying enough. because even feminist women hold other women to their own standards.

did that even make any sense i’m sorry it’s late

That makes sense, and I understand it. I think it’d be important to use discretion and remember that the Bechdel Test does not necessarily apply to everything—a lot of people have noted Mulan doesn’t pass the Bechdel Test, and it doesn’t need to considering the context (and considering that given her character, Mulan probably did not have a lot of great relationships with women at that point in her life).

But in a lot of cases, women do have relationships with other women. It’d be ridiculous to hold a female character accountable (much less a real woman) for not having relationships with other women, but if they’re indicated to have such relationships in the narrative, I’d like them to be emphasized. 

So I think it depends on the context, honestly. You cannot apply the standard to every single woman/character (otherwise you’d call Mulan anti-feminist, and that would be ridiculous), but I think the Bechdel Test is applicable if the character is shown to have close relationships with other women. Then it becomes a question of whether those relationships are very developed or emphasized or not.

woodendreams:

(by wboland)

Things that could impede Roy and Riza’s potential (romantic) relationship 

I usually hate taking shots at fanon because it’s your writing and you’ll cliche if you want to, and most of the time that’s fine unless you’re going to blatantly disrespect a sensitive issue. But I sense that something like fraternization laws are employed more often than not as a problem Roy and Riza work through in their developing romance. It’s a way for them to run into obstacles and add angst to the story. There are other ways to do that, IMO?

I just think that Roy and Riza wouldn’t feel a lot of need to be all that cautious about their relationship in the event that they build one like that post-108, but they’d run into other personal challenges.

-Let’s be real: they both probably have PTSD. One thing PTSD can do? Inhibit relationships (and probably inhibit sex drive/desire for physical affection).

-I strongly suspect that Roy and Riza tried to avoid being attached to each other romantically because the consequences could be severe. It’s one thing for them to display a professional demeanor in front of everyone else, but I see them doing it a lot even when they’re alone. In other words, it’s probably an angst-fueled case of everyone can see it. Which would obviously hinder romantic development and smooching.

-If you’re writing a plot fic post Promised Day, remember that possibly every terrorist or resistance faction in the country is going to be gunning for Roy and Riza—and probably a few outside of the country.provided they keep ascending towards greater positions of power, some people will be angry that they “supported” Bradley during the coup (he had opponents who engaged in terrorism, after all). I imagine that if Roy and Riza make or allow their relationship to become public knowledge, they’ll be targeted ten times more for their affection for each other. 

So yeah, you really don’t need frat laws to throw wrenches into their romantic development. This has been an analysis by a woman who is procrastinating on her own unpublished fanfiction and should probably refrain from giving other people advice.

funkyfine:

#SHINE BRIGHT LIKE JOAN WATSON