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Questions for the Ghost

Hey y’all, I don’t normally do this but there’s a black man in Texas about to be wrongfully executed so please consider signing this petition:

FREE RODNEY REED

FREE RODNEY REED

FREE RODNEY REED

Okay so I keep seeing people unironically posting this on my timeline all the time

I just wanna clear something up about it

1)It is an undoubtedly bad drawing, yes, the rule of art is generally “it’s wrong if it looks wrong” and this clearly looks wrong 2) The person who did that draw-over doesn’t have a much better grasp of anatomy and, I’m going to assume, isn’t very familiar with what bodybuilders look like

The Liefeld drawing was referenced from this photograph of Arnold Schwarzenegger;

this is a pretty common bodybuilding pose and photography technique, to do these slight upshots to emphasize the size of the chest as much as possible. You can find a million photos of even just Arnie striking this exact pose in different situations;

The thing about competitive bodybuilders is that their dimensions are so outside the realm of what the average person is accustomed to that they can look “out of proportion” in real life. Parts of the body that can’t change size like the head and hands appear comparatively small, and the girth of limbs can make them appear shorter than they really are

(In order these guys are Ronnie Coleman, Moustafa Ismail, Daniele Seccarecci, and Jay Cutler if you want a source) side note, comments about the body type being “unattractive” aren’t necessary in this conversation, bodybuilding on this scale is a form of body modification, akin to being heavily pierced or tattooed. In other words, they aren’t doing it for you.

The problem is, if you make art referencing a body type that appears out-of-proportion to the layman and don’t fudge the scale of individual elements to make it seem stylistically balanced, it will look wrong to the audience. You can show someone a tracing of a body like this and it will more than likely appear more “wrong” to them than a version taking artistic license to enlarge the hands and feet and enlongate the limbs to something the contextually feels correct.

Honestly, it is technically possibly to fit a fairly correctly proportioned human arm behind that shield;

The wrist on a human body is about even with the groin when the arm is out straight, there’s room to fit a limb that long behind the shield. But the arm looks incorrect for a number of reasons; The chest wouldn’t appear at that angle if his far arm wasn’t wrapped around to hold his wrist like it was in the reference, the shield obscures line of his spine which causes his midriff to look massively thick, hiding the forearm behind the shield emphasizes how comparatively short the limb would feel even if the proportions were perfectly accurate, and the star on the shield causes viewers to assume at a glance that his arm is bent (if you look at the shield assuming the first point clockwise from the top is the actual top of the star it looks more in-proportion, but you have to stop and think about it so the drawing has already failed)

If you were to dump the shield and put the arms in a position that matches the way the chest is flexed, it makes a lot more sense what he was going for;

Which honestly isn’t even outside the realm of what actual human bodies can potentially look like;

I know this drawing is a long dead horse that everyone is sick of seeing beaten, but I wanted to throw this out there because hey, it’s a good example of what liberties to be mindful of taking when you work from references.

disney: we're going to buy you

marvel: why

disney: so we can put "aint got no strings to hold me down" in the age of ultron trailer without copyright issues, trust me, it's gonna be so rad bro i swear

marvel: bro

when i die i want my skull preserved and donated to a theater group to function as the skull of yorick in a production of hamlet

I’m really tired of seeing people broken up into labels of absolutes.

People are not just “good” or “bad”.

People are not a list of labels. 

People are complex, situations are complex.

I know, that makes it a lot harder when you want to just write off everything someone’s ever done as bad – but that’s not how people actually are, and it would do everyone good to stop pretending they are.

I am tired of hearing about the fear people have in putting themselves out there. And it is a scary thing! Putting yourself out there means subjecting yourself to people who want a really good reason to tear you down, who will jump at the first chance to feel “good” by labeling someone else as “bad”.

I reject this. I reject the idea that there should be fear in speaking up and talking about experiences and trying to reach an understanding of a situation.

I’m unhappy to see people spitefully urging others to cut off ties with their friends under the guise of “well, that person’s just inherently bad, so if you talk to them you’re bad too.” That is fucked up. You definitely have the right to let the friend know you don’t want to hear about whoever troubles you, but you do not at all have the right to decide who their friends should be. This includes guilt trips.

Anyway, just try to be more aware of others. Everyone else is a person like you. They might not have the same experiences as you. They might not understand how their words are harmful, or how what they’re doing is wrong. They certainly won’t if you never tell them.

Most people are trying to be good, but they’re going to mess it up sometimes. Try to keep that in mind. Even when people do really fucked up shit, sometimes they are trying to do good. “The road to hell is paved with good intentions” and all that.

Nothing gets solved, no growth happens when you put people into a box from which you’ll never let them escape.

Yes, you absolutely must be careful about people who have tendencies and patterns that are harmful to you. Sometimes people try to overcome those patterns and they fail, and you have to distance yourself from them: that is the sad reality of life. Sometimes though, they can overcome it. But they certainly won’t if the first thing you do is write them off after a fuck up. 

Be sincere. Use your best judgment.

STOOOOOOOPPPP 😩

swords? sexy

everyone’s having their mid-life crises at like 19