#but it's also unrealistic to expect all of that

[dresshistorynerd]

Hilarious video, but I'm known to be not fun at parties, so I have some notes about the first section about the clothing. Regency women of course did have underwear, they were wearing a shift, stays and stockings. These are all underwear, since they were hidden under the outer wear and you would not be considered to be dressed by only wearing them. Their underwear were much more covering than modern underwear too, since they did cover most of the same area as the outerwear. They did not wear underpants however, which is 100% true. Women had not worn underpants in Europe ever really*.

What I find so odd in this video is that this is called "ridiculous beauty standard". It really had absolutely nothing to do with beauty standards. It was a very simple practical thing. Underpants had not been necessary with long hems (underpants were also only popularized for men as short hemlines became popular during Medieval era), and if you've ever had to piss in a bush while having 1) vagina 2) a long skirt, especially with multiple layers, 3) underpants, you intuitive understand why they were not wearing underpants. The satirical cartoons are not mocking the lack of underpants, that had long been just an expected reality of a woman's dress so it does not make sense to make fun of that. They were just making the same joke as like any number of anime, where you get an accidental panty shot. It's just a horny joke. I'm sure that was not actually realistic scenario at all, just like today all those anime scenarios where the women accidentally show their panties are actually exaggeratedly unrealistic often to the point of becoming accidentally (or sometimes intentionally) funny in itself, even when you take into account modern short skirts.

But the main point is correct. You could very easily do a bit of fingering. It's depicted quite often in art.

(*I have seen some evidence that in Late Medieval Germany women did sometimes wear underpants, but most evidence even there in that period depicts women without underpants. It could have been for example a period product of that time and place. But even so the abundance of evidence points to women's underpants were largely not a thing until mid 19th century.)

Was it possible to get finger basted inside a regency carriage?

A PowerPoint presentation by esme.louisee

[literaryvein-reblogs]

Writing Notes: Hope

Hope - the expectation that one will have positive experiences or that a potentially threatening or negative situation will not materialize or will ultimately result in a favorable state of affairs. It has been characterized in the psychological literature in various ways, including as:

a character strength;

an emotion;

a component of motivation that is critical to goal attainment;

a mechanism that facilitates coping with loss, illness, and other significant stresses; or

an integrated combination of these features.

Types of Hope

According to research, there are different types of hope.

REALISTIC HOPE. Realistic hope is hope for an outcome that is reasonable or probable (Wiles, Cott, & Gibson, 2008). In this sense, an individual suffering from chronic pain might hope for a small reduction in pain, knowing that complete eradication is unrealistic. According to Eaves, Nichter, and Ritenbaugh (2016) being realistic is a way of hoping that allows individuals to observe and understand their situation while still maintaining openness toward the possibility of positive change.

UTOPIAN HOPE. This way of hoping is a collectively oriented hope that collaborative action can lead to a better future for all. According to (Webb, 2013) the utopian hoper critically negates the present and is driven by hope to affirm a better alternative. Consider utopian hope presented by a political movement; a movement that effectively articulates the hopes of a social group to expand the horizons of possibility.

CHOSEN HOPE. Hope not only helps us live with a difficult present but also with an uncertain future. In addition to physical suffering, a diagnosis of a serious or terminal illness is a major contributor to psychiatric syndromes and distress. Understandably, multiple factors such as grief, fear, and concerns about loved ones can contribute to experiences of hopelessness within this population. In the palliative care context, for instance, chosen hope is critical to the management of despair and its accompanying paralysis of action. Garrard and Wrigley (2009) suggested that hope for even the most restricted range of goals within the limits of a life is essential to the regulation of negative emotions.

TRANSCENDENT HOPE. According to Eaves, Nichter, and Ritenbaugh (2016), transcendent hope encompasses 3 types of hope, namely:

Patient Hope – a hope that everything will work out well in the end.

Generalized Hope – hope not directed toward a specific outcome.

Universal Hope – a general belief in the future and a defense against despair in the face of challenges.

Transcendent hope is also referred to as existential hope. It describes a stance of general hopefulness not tied to a specific outcome or goal; put simply, it is the hope that something good can happen.

Snyder’s Hope Theory

According to this theory, hopefulness is a life-sustaining human strength comprised of 3 distinct but related components (Snyder et al., 1991):

Goals Thinking – the clear conceptualization of valuable goals.

Pathways Thinking – the capacity to develop specific strategies to reach those goals.

Agency Thinking – the ability to initiate and sustain the motivation for using those strategies.

Hope does not necessarily fade in the face of adversity; in fact hope often endures despite poverty, war and famine. While no one is exempt from experiencing challenging life events, hope fosters an orientation to life that allows a grounded and optimistic outlook even in the most challenging of circumstances.

Source ⚜ More: On Emotions ⚜ Notes & References ⚜ Writing Resources PDFs

[starlene]

Anne of the Island Book Club: Chapter 14

Okaaaay.

Faced with Ruby's dying fears, Anne feels "it was difficult for [her] to speak to any one of the deepest thoughts of her heart" – but even so, she deals with Ruby better than I think many professional therapists or theologians would.

Maybe it's because I've always been of the socially awkward sort myself and thus I cannot understand how anyone as young as Anne here can be anything but a fumbling mess with other people, let alone in a literal life-and-death situation... but even if I disregard that knee-jerk reaction, I feel like for a 19-year-old who gets upset when people post constructive criticism in her Wattpad comments, Anne is unrealistically good with people.

We've already seen she's brilliant with children (or at least, brilliant with Davy), and now, she's also brilliant with the dying. I mean, good for Ruby, it's great that she can have this conversation and pass away peacefully – but yeah, I just kinda feel like Anne is exhibiting quite a lot more wisdom and/or people skills here than you'd expect of someone of her age.

~

I also want to say that I think the part where Anne thinks about Ruby's attitude towards life, "She had laid up her treasures on earth only; she had lived solely for the little things of life" etc., is a bit... uuuuggghhhh.

In my mind, no matter how religious you are, a 19-year-old dying of an incurable disease is a tragedy, and said dying 19-year-old feeling upset about it is not indicative of some kind of a character flaw.

Ruby expresses sorrow that she'll never get the chance to be a wife and a mother. I don't know, I'm neither religious nor do I dream of becoming either of those things myself – but I feel like having to give up your dream of having a family because you're dying at 19 is always awful, no matter whether you've been a hopeless flirt all your life or an extra pious model Christian. The narrative paints Ruby as unreasonable here, which I think is incredibly unfair.

Oh well. It is what it is; I guess some ways, this book is simply very much a product of its time.

~

Anyway, I don't think this chapter is all bad, it's just incredibly heavy-handed when it comes to delivering the moral of the story. I've always found the description of Ruby dying touching, I think "And, while light feet danced and bright eyes laughed and merry tongues chattered, there came a summons to a soul in Avonlea that might not be disregarded or evaded" is a beautiful way of putting it.

I'm from a culture where open-casket funerals are not a common thing, so a a child, and to some extent even know, Ruby in an open casket and especially Avonleans talking of the sight of her for years afterwards (!) feels macabre to me. Macabre, and just plain weird.

"Ruby Gillis was the handsomest corpse she ever laid eyes on" – who says that!! I mean, yeah, Mrs. Lynde does – but really? The handsomest corpse?? Maybe it's just a culture difference, or maybe Mrs. Lynde is overstepping some boundaries here even in the original context, but to me, that feels like such a disrespectful thing to say it's making my skin crawl.

~

In any case, I think it was an especially interesting experience to reread this chapter an adult.

As a nine-year-old, I think I just read through this thinking, uh-huh, makes sense, if you're pretty but not intelligent in life then death will fix that, yeah.

Nowadays, I vibe with Diana feeling uncomfortable at the end of the chapter. You and me both, girl. You and me both.

[punk-bed-junction]

I also don't think targeting the middle class is any way productive and takes away the fact that the rich and wealthy are the ones behind the horrible events that we've all been exposed to constantly.

While there have definitely been major events forever, I do think 2020 did sort of "start" the focus on many major political events that are opening people's eyes very often. Let's not ignore the very real efforts that people have done and organized even long after the "public" have moved on from it, let's also acknowledge that the idea that everyone should be focused on this 24/7 is unrealistic and a recipe for burnout.

We can't expect to see a revolution like we wish we could see when this country has specifically been building isolation between eachother.

Even if it's smaller, even if I'm not changing the world from what I do, participating and creating community even in smaller groups can help. Donating resources that I can get helps. Providing information to protect yourself helps.

We aren't comfortable. But we have limits too.

It makes me sad how a huge political event will happen and catch the internet up in a storm + everyone will be like “this is the beginning of a revolution!!!” “We are finally opening our eyes!!!!” And it all seems like the end of the world to them but a week later everyone forgets about it….. like??? I don’t get it???? Is everyone just too comfortable in their middle class lives that they just completely forgot??? Did your sons soccer game distract you??? Were you too busy at your golf club meeting????

[lilyimmsim]

talking with my bf about this girl (me), in a story i was making up, about where she'll be when she's 35. and i was tired and he was asking me what she'd be doing, what would she be thinking, and i didn't have the heart to say to him that she'll be exhausted and will probably hate her life and feel so stupid for caring about school when she could have been enjoying life before it got hard. she'll regret the things she spent her time doing, and she'll regret the things she didn't do and i didn't want to think about it, because i don't want to imagine that depressing of a life for myself. but the truth is, i don't know myself enough to know what i would like to be doing. i don't know what job, where i would like to live, what i would be hopefully thinking. i would like to imagine my life gets better, but i don't believe it.

[brainrot-jikan]

im not the biggest alhaitham/kaveh shipper (because im a rare pair ho) but it seems to me that in alhaitham/kaveh getting-together fics tend to be... unequal.

the beautiful thing about alhaitham and kaveh is that they're both equally right and equally wrong and equally dicks about it. but the writers for alhaitham/kaveh much more frequently seem to give alhaitham the burden change (the burden of the character flaw) instead of kaveh.

in any good character arc, the main character has a fatal flaw or misconception, and by the end of that arc they have addressed that flaw in some definitive way. scrooge was a scrooge and learned that being that way was detrimental; merlin from finding nemo was overprotective to a fault and had to learn that he couldn't (and shouldn't) control everything and to let go; the wolf from little red riding hood learns that you should stop while you're ahead.

stories centering around romance tend to lean heavily on character arcs, which makes sense. and since romance generally requires two individuals to be vulnerable and open and emotional with each other, it makes double sense that alhaitham/kaveh authors zoom straight into alhaitham's lack of emotional vulnerability.

this bothers me.

in society, individuals are expected to experience and present emotions in a specific way. if someone dies, you cry. if someone smiles at you, you smile back. if you're at a party, you're supposed to be having fun. if you don't do these things, you're seen as impolite at best and a inhuman freak at worst. when these behaviors are frequent it's often viewed as emotional immaturity, or a lack of ability to feel at all. the inability or lack of willingness to conform to societies emotional expectations of you is seen as a flaw and a reason for exclusion.

alhaitham is canonically disliked and avoided for being the way he is. he prefers it this way, but that doesn't mean the people perpetuating this avoidance are in the right. they are the societal pressure to conform that alhaitham blows off. alhaitham could be the way he is for a lot of reasons: avoidant attachment style, trauma, following someone else's example (eg. his grandmother), or just his base personality. it doesn't MATTER. he is the way he is. kaveh having to accept that should be part of the story.

putting the burden of the fatal flaw on alhaitham, making the way alhaitham treats kaveh and the people around him the problem, feels invalidating. it implies heavily that alhaitham's way of interfacing with the world, alhaitham's very SELF, is incorrect. my suggestion is to flip a larger portion of that burden onto kaveh. kaveh 👏 character 👏 arcs 👏

some examples/recommendations:

- make kaveh project his insecurities onto other people but especially onto alhaitham; he's overly reliant on other people for his own self worth, and he perceives alhaitham's lack of positive feedback as a direct reflection of how alhaitham feels about him. but learns along the way that alhaitham doesn't hate him, kaveh's actual struggle is with hating himself and being unable to his own self as worthy of love. maybe throw in how you are responsible for your own recovery, other people can help but you can't rely on them to carry you through self actualization.

- or, kaveh tries to make alhaitham behave more like a "normal" person, to be more pleasant and emotive and forthcoming, and then realizes he's in the wrong for trying to make alhaitham into something he's not, possibly for all the wrong reasons (not because he likes alhaitham better like that, but bc society says that's healthier and a better/more conforming way to be)

- or you could go ahead make alhaitham's issues the main problem but they're too complicated to overcome in a short period of time, so kaveh has to accept alhaitham is doing his best in his own way and not push for unrealistic and unhealthy changes. he could alter his own behavior to give alhaitham space and time and a safe place to land.

that got sappy so it's past time for me to dip out. go forth and ship things; but maybe consider letting alhaitham be a rude stone-faced bastard if he wants to be.

[ganondoodle]

so ... that stupid totk masterworks book has been out for a while hasnt it?

does anyone know if its possible to find a version somewhere you dont have to pay for? (especially the german version) so i can avoid that at all costs of course, i definitely totally plan to spend money on it

[cerulianecho]

Let's check some numbers and face reality now. Dragon Age Origins sold 3.2 million units in the first three months, back in 2009. The first game of the franchise. A new IP that could only attract players on its own merit instead of using a legacy of previous games. A new IP game managed to get more players and more money than a game that people were waiting for eagerly for 10 years. Dragon Age 2, a game that was also very criticized at the time of its release, but for gameplay reasons rather than writing, managed to earn more than Veilguard with 2 million sold copies in two months, in 2011. Dragon Age Inquisition sold 1.14 million copies in the first WEEK alone, in 2014. Veilguard barely managed to scrape by a similar amount after a couple of months, 10 years later. It really says something when one can only barely reach a past success.

Let's compare this with Veilguard's 'engagement' of 1.5 million users in the first two months since its release. That number includes not only sold copies, but also users who tried it out via the EA subscription. This means Veilguard's sales are even lower. There's no need to talk about inflated budgets and high expectations when they can barely reach what they had before. In what universe is it unrealistic from EA to expect their latest 2024 game to sell as many copies as a risky new IP did back in 2009? No matter how much I hate EA, I have to say they were actually very modest with their expectations (for 3 million sold copies if I recall correctly), which says a lot about how they viewed their own product. If they were acting like those big movie corporations they would have inflated both their budget and expectations for a fourth game in the series and expected at least the triple amount of sold copies as their first game in the franchise. EA/Bioware also kept firing its talent, so I doubt they threw money at the game like those movie makers did. So, all in all, that argument has no purpose here. EA/Bioware didn't push for bigger, more expensive projects. They couldn't even reach their previous results, let alone surpass them.

You dislike when people use sales numbers as a measure of a game’s quality because it is a concrete proof that you cannot deny. Veilguard wasn't one of Steam’s top sellers, it was merely somewhat popular when it released and there was only talk of it being EA's top selling DA game, which isn't that hard to achieve considering previous games could only be bought via their own launcher Origin (which morphed into the EA app now) until fairly recently. I bought all the previous Dragon Age games before they were even available on Steam, as did many other people. It's a nonsensical argument for anyone who knows that EA selling its games on Steam is a recent development. You don't want Veilguard compared to its previous games, you don't want it compared to its rivals. It seems to me you don't want Veilguard compared to anything because it looks bad next to everything.

Remember how, around 2019, Marvel movies regularly crossed the $1 billion mark? Not just Avengers films, but even standalone superhero movies. Seeing this, studios started throwing massive budgets at their own blockbusters, convinced they could replicate that success. Disney, in particular, bought into its own hype, leading to ballooning production costs. Suddenly, $250–300 million budgets became the norm, meaning these films needed to gross at least $600 million just to break even. Spoiler alert: many of them didn’t.

How does this relate to Dragon Age? Corporate sales expectations aren’t always grounded in reality—they’re often based on shareholder messaging and wishful thinking inspired by a handful of outliers rather than a true understanding of market trends.

“But Baldur’s Gate 3 and Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 sold millions! EA’s expectations weren’t unrealistic.”

Sure. And by that logic, it wasn’t unreasonable to expect The Marvels to hit $1 billion, but it didn’t. The reality is that success isn’t easily replicable, yet companies continue to push for bigger, more expensive projects while treating employees terribly. At major studios, game development often isn’t about passion or creative vision—it’s about crunching numbers and maximizing output, no matter the human cost.

I also dislike when people use sales numbers as a measure of a game’s quality. Veilguard was one of Steam’s top sellers and could have performed even better with corporate support.

[thefloatingstone]

There are certain artists and animators online who will often get soooo many questions on how they got into the industry and do they think it's really that hard and what did they do to become successful and it always infuriates me to see with these specific people because they will be like "well it's hard but don't give up :)" or "Just work hard :)"

And I'm like

"I remember following you in the mid 2000s where you were already one of the most popular artists on deviantArt before social media was a thing."

or

"You said you graduated high school in your teens and then went directly to art school. You both had extra years AND you clearly excel at Academia"

or

"You live and grew up in LA."

And I think it's insane that normal ass people who would like to become artists or animators asks THESE people for advice on how to do it.

It's like asking a person who was born with wings how they learned to fly and they answer "well it wasn't easy but just keep trying! :D" because they genuinely have no concept of what it's truly like to not be them and not have massive advantages in their favor.

[aethersea]

devastating to go into the tag for an obscure vampire movie I've been quietly obsessed with for years to find mostly gifsets of minor characters (played by big-name actors) and review blogs saying they didn't like it :(

@ everyone who made a post saying "I liked it :)" I am blowing you a kiss. everyone who made a lovely gifset or photoset of the cinematography I am tipping my hat. that one poster that said "bro did y'all just miss the Entire Message about class and race or???" I am shaking your hand with enthusiasm there was SUCH a message about class and race

anyway everybody should watch Night Teeth and revel in glitzy flashy modern vampires in LA with me

[red40exe]

michael to jeremy: hey this thing you said and did bothered me

jeremy starts overly apologizing and doesn’t let michael speak, unintentionally being a bad listener / feeling too sorry for himself

is my favorite thing ever. 12 yrs of friendship is a lot of weight to carry. whenever someone coined me as their best friend, i could never regard that as anything but a sign of doom. call me jaded. i headcanon michael to truly be extremely unsociable outside of direct interactions that are a must. hes deeply loyal to jeremy to a fault and oh baby the co dependency is bad bad bad!

once Michael becomes aware of it, he’ll hang so far back until he fades into the background. the painful part is watching your friends move on bc that’s just how it happens sometimes. love from afar is a bittersweet thing

[firesnap]

The reactions to q!Wilbur have honestly been wild. I think he's the least offensive character Wilbur has ever created and yet there are people out there making it their jobs to call him a shitty person. What's going on here.

[stormyoceans]

you're definitely onto something because it all feels so rushed and "fake"... like someone with dylan's personality wouldn't magically be fine with everything all of a sudden, he could be such a complex and great character and i was expecting him to! but alas... this feels like a show for children where conflict just doesn't make sense and gets resolved by the power of friendship or something lol also some ppl on twitter are making good criticism and very good points (mostly band fans) but they are getting attacked which 🤦🏻‍♀️ anyway you're not alone in that, it's gmmtv after all

NOW WHY WOULD PEOPLE ATTACK SOMEONE JUST FOR SHARING THEIR OPINION ON A PIECE OF MEDIA ✋😭

like i understand. reading criticism about something you love is never easy, which why i tend to keep my more negative opinions to myself or at least not put them in the main tags, because i don't want to make people feel bad for liking something, however i think we really need to stop equating criticism with hate, especially if it's constructive criticism that's being talked about without any malicious intent behind it

thamepo, for example, has a lot of strengths – it's a visually gorgeous show, william and est have great chemistry, the romantic moments make you feel butterflies in your stomach and are built on thame and po getting to know each other – but i do personally believe it's falling short when it comes to storytelling and character building

i mean, the show is called thamepo, so i knew from the beginning that the romance between them was gonna be the focus of the show rather than mars as a group, however i did expect their relationship to slowly develop along with the two of them trying to get the group back together, and for the members to still play a major role in the series and in thame's growth as a character, but 4/5 of the group has already reconciled and we're only at episode 4

and you know, i don't think this would be as much of an issue if i felt like we got to know each member properly and the reconciliation between them and thame felt earned, but i don't and it doesn't: pepper suddenly appeared like nothing ever happened, and dylan's story got told by jun rather than by dylan himself (and as i mentioned in my tags i could also talk about how it feels like the writers refused to let any of them make any real mistake and be a little bit of an asshole but it would get too long so i won't)

as i said, it's ONLY episode 4, so there's still time to get to know the characters, but at the same time it does feel like there have been a lot of missed opportunities, and if i were a big fan of lykn i would definitely be at least a little bit disappointed rn, so i think people expressing that or even giving some criticism is perfectly understandable

ANYWAY. we'll see how things go from here, and in the meantime im glad to know im not alone in this, so thank you for your message, anon!!!!!

[mjuuuk]

i'm aware it's a symptom of unrealistic expectations and unhealthy competitiveness my brain has been instilled with during art school but the way *every* time i see a stunning piece of art on here and the artist is like 15 is SENDING me

[guinevereslancelot]

starting to kind of date someone right before christmas is so stressful fr. do i get him a gift or what we've been on two dates but i'm seeing him tonight n it's christmas eve.....but what if he didn't get me anything then it will be weird.....

[cherry-treelane]

everytime i feel bad and stressed about my life i remember that i might be in a troubling situation and having a bad time but im not season 4 fiona gallagher in the clink after leaving crack on the counter which my 3 year old baby brother happened to ingest resulting in a fatal near-death experience thats wracked me with never-ending guilt and forever altered my life