Spartacus Blood and Sand

listen to this and picture cassian showing all the Valkyries how it’s done. getting lost in the movements. hair tied up but some has come loose. panting, sweating, shirtless. perfect movements as he swipes and twists. cutting across in exact arcs. spinning on his heel, a sword in both hands as he works, focus in his eye like he’s on a battlefield not a training ring. ducking and weaving and showing such power, siphons blazing a little brighter as he goes.

now listen to this one and imagine cassian and rhys fighting in the dirt. adrenaline and tension and stress as cassian helps rhys get through a little of that mating bond frenzy he never got to indulge in with feyre. all the illyrians flying above in the sky, az leaning on the side of the wall watching, just in cass needs him. growling and punching and grunting.

now think about azriel and cassian sparring. when the music is fast they’re using their swords, flipping between the blades to switch them like that knife scene from TWS. the slow is them circling one another, panting and reevaluating. it’s azriel smirking as he assesses cassian, and cassian watching azriel’s shadows for his tells, for his next move. it���s sweat and bare skin and dust and the class of steel.

anyways, you’re welcome.

I decided to try drawing Nagron (Nasir/Agron) for the first time! I think I did okay for a first try

365 Days of Men // Day 311 // Todd Lasance

More Gannicus screenshots

i remember once i mentioned to someone that spartacus was one of my favorite shows and he immediately was like “oh you only like it cause of all the shirtless men” as though i couldn’t like a show for anything more than that. 

Ok I hate 300 bc of the dumb leather diapers but it’s very funny in Spartacus bc he’s like “oh I must go to war” and he shows up shirtless. Hope ur good at dodgin sir bc ur pecs will not save u

I was trying to write fanfiction and somehow ended up with this instead. (It bounces around, but bear with me)

You ever notice how friggin’ jacked superheroes are?

Like, take Captain America: The First Avenger for instance. In that first scene where he’s just been turned into Erskine’s super-beefcake, Carter (or, more accurately, Hayley Atwell, because that was not scripted) couldn’t keep her hands to herself when he popped out of the pod shirtless with washboard abs and boobs that rivaled mine.

And every time we get a female superhero, she’s this stick-figure thin girl with an absolutely flat belly and no scars (unless they’re the Black Widow) and no stretch marks because those are considered “gross.”

But here’s the thing.

The actors aren’t naturally that way. It’s not even healthy to be that way.

I remember reading how Chris Hemsworth got his “look” for his shirtless scenes in Thor by not drinking water for a few days and right before he would need to be hospitalized for dehydration, they called, “Roll it!” (I legitimately cannot remember where this was. Someone help me?)

At another point, I remember reading an interview where Chris Evans said those super-tight shirts from the Captain America movies were really uncomfortable. He even hinted that they were painful.

And in another movie, (Was it Spartacus?) the cast pretty much survived on chicken and lettuce. Look, I’m not a nutritionist in any sense of the imagination, but even I know that’s not safe, physically healthy, or good for your mental health.

In Fight Club, Brad Pitt screwed himself up big time by cutting his weight constantly to keep his “perfect” physique.

Slightly off-topic, but Brendon Frasier nearly killed himself with the stunts on top of the weight/muscle-tone demands for The Mummy 3. There’s a serious problem with the industry here.

And let’s get onto the women’s body image here that affects literally every woman on screen: Flat bellies? Dudes. Cis women have these things called ovaries that are in there. We need more room. Plus, it is actually unhealthy for anyone of any gender to have less than 8% body fat, at bare minimum.

Then there’s the issue with erasing scars and stretch marks. I am twenty-two years old. I have scars from everything from an accident in the kitchen to skinning my knee as a kid on a patch of shattered glass. You (the writers and directors of the films) give them to the dudes, but not the girls? Just work those scars into your BAMF super-heroines. They already have the backstories for them to be viable and even likely. I, as well as more than half of the people on this planet, have these things called stretch marks. They are what happens when we grow. It means I started out as a baby and turned into an adult. They are not shameful and only serve to remind me that I, and the person on my screen, were once small and innocent. (Also, they either look like tiger stripes or lightning bolts, depending on how you look at them)

My point is, we the viewers (whether children learning how to view our own bodies and the world, teenagers struggling with self-image in a world that tells us we aren’t ever going to be pretty enough, or grown adults struggling with all of the above and more) deserve to be able to see heroes that are real and the actors portraying these characters deserve to not only feel better about themselves but to also be able to do their job without causing permanent damage to their bodies.

@fightyspidey and I came up with some ideas, if Marvel Studios wanted some suggestions.

Give us Thor, mighty Viking warrior king, with the fat from too many feasts. (Human weightlifting champions are known for being “a bit pudgy” but they can also kill you with a pinky. It’s not that far off the mark)

Give me Steve Rogers with stretch marks and scars from growing too fast after Project: Rebirth.

Give me a Natasha Romanov with scars that aren’t there to maximize the mangst and aren’t perfect little circles that are easily hidden.

Give me Tony Stark without a shirt and his scars aren’t some “sexy work of art,” but rather an ugly reminder of pain and hardship.

Give me Sif coming to visit the Avengers and she comes in with shorts or a skirt on and we see how she doesn’t shave her legs and literally no one cares.

I want to see the Hulk with stretch marks and Bruce completely chill with his pudge.

I want to see Peter, Shuri, and Wanda with acne and acne scars. (Please?)

I would love to see Scott Lang telling a story about the time he fell out of a three-story window (”And Luis did nothing!”) and he ended up with a bald-patch on the side of his head from where his helmet cracked his skull open. (I actually have one of those)

I want to see burns on Pepper, because her Extremis is still imperfect and can’t heal everything without leaving something behind in its place.

Happy should still have scars from Iron Man 3.

In short: Give me characters that I can see myself in.

The fans aren’t perfect. We don’t have clear skin, no matter our ages, and we have scars and fat in weird places and hair in even weirder ones.

Give us heroes that we can identify with.

Give your actors a chance to breathe. Give them a chance to be okay with themselves.

bisansastarks

replied to your

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Diana Gabaldon “I’ve gotta say that my fans don’t...

wait she’s saying they’re not attracted to Jamie or she’s saying they’re ONLY attracted to Jamie

Ugh lol it’s so fucking dumb

So the Starz head basically restated the strategy that I have ALWAYS stated on this blog is the reason for them keeping the really bad Philippa Gregory adaptations alive...  Starz’s bread and butter is the female audience that pays for premium cable.  Or as he calls them, the “premium female audience”.  Here’s his quote, per TVLine:

“Outlander — you can say that it’s great because women like it because she’s a surgeon who goes back in time, but there’s also another side of that, which is there’s some eye candy for that audience and people like when [Heughan] has his shirt off. You have to be really thoughtful about when you’re looking at a piece of content and whether it’s really going to be female or not. And it’s not easy.”

And I’m not here to defend some rich dude making money off of women or say that there’s nothing ~problematic there, but like.  I kinda think he’s right lol.  He’s not saying that we ONLY watch for a shirtless Jamie, but he’s stating the obvious, that it’s a big part of why women are initially drawn to the show--and I think he’s also talking about what shirtless Jamie represents, which is the romantic female gaze bodice ripper shit.  You may STAY for other shit, but the show has most certainly been promoted as a fucking romantic drama featuring a shirtless hot guy.  That is the lure.  And you and I both know that the fandom is constantly bitching about how there needs to be more shirtless Jamie, more OTT masculine Jamie, every fucking season.

Diana, who as you know HATES the idea of her books being romance novels, even though they absolutely fucking are, clapped back with this bullshit:

“I can’t say I see a lot of people talking about Jamie with his shirt off, unless it’s mentioning the shock and poignancy of his scars.”

Which is fucking bullshit, and I don’t know if her assistant is sorting on the emails that are like “MEEEERGH DIANA THE SHOW SUCKS BECAUSE JAMIE DIDN’T CUM ON CLAIRE’S TITS IN 4X03″ and only giving her the thoughtful deep ones, but.........

The thing I hate about this is that like...  It’s absolutely fine for the female gaze to be the draw for a show.  It’s not ALL the show is.  There is plenty for men and women to like, and there are plenty of men that like men who tune in for the gun show and stay for the poignant emotion too.

But it’s OKAY and it’s GOOD for a network to court the female audience, because the hard fact is that they weren’t for most of the time that TV has been a thing.  At least not in the way that Starz is.

Do I think that Outlander--at its best--offers a beautiful love story, fantastic acting, and great character development?  Yes.  But when the show premiered, I remember that so many people talking about the wedding episode (really, the wedding night episode).  And that’s how I got so many people to watch this show.  Because it kinda blew their minds that a show that was run by the dude that did Battlestar Galactica or whatever (attracting the attention of dude nerds like my uncle) was dedicating basically an entire episode to a woman deflowering her fucking hot virgin Scottish Highlander warrior husband in an arranged marriage trope right out of a Harlequin novel, and yes there was explicit sex, but the scene lingered on HIS ass, her pleasure, his sexual inexperience.  This is the female gaze, it is a shirtless Sam Heughan, and it felt cool because the female audience and everything WE stereotypically wanted was being courted.

Usually, it’s literally the other way around and nobody says that men are stupid for liking it.  Like, it’s a bit of a joke, sure--the guy tuning in because a beautiful actress is in a bikini in one scene.  But if the rest of the series is fucking solid, the men aren’t considered idiots for tuning in.  And tbh, I don’t think men should get all huffy if a showrunner admits that he advertised with tits and ass in order to get eyeballs to watch his otherwise serious show.

Another Starz show, Spartacus--probably its biggest show before Outlander--was advertised as blood and guts and naked chicks and softcore pornographic sex scenes..........  But first off, when you actually watch the show--another favorite of mine lol--there is a LOT for people who like dick to enjoy, and more importantly there is a very emotionally resonant, well-crafted plot and a shit-ton of lovable characters and great development.  I think the showrunner has admitted to capitalizing on the blood and guts and ridiculously OTT shit to get people’s attention, while also giving a lot of love to his story.  He probably enjoyed the OTT shit too, and that’s fine.  (By the way, Spartacus also featured a lot of really heavy shit, and for the most part dealt with its characters’ trauma much better than Outlander has of late................................  And had far more developed and nuanced non-white characters and LGBT characters butwhateveritsfine.)

Again, he could have worded it better and I doubt he really cares if Outlander is a quality show as long as it gets eyeballs trained on Starz, buuuuut Diana Gabaldon going off on leaning in and shit is also hysterical to me because this is a woman who consistently injects needless sexual violence into her novels.  Of her lead characters that I can think of: Claire, Jamie, Brianna and Lord John have all been sexually assaulted.  Sexual violence is what she’s made HER bread and butter, so I don’t want to hear about her defending the honor of her female fans.

And her “straight dudes watch Outlander too!!!” bit was weird as well, I don’t give a fuck if straight dudes watch it, I’m glad that they enjoy but I don’t think it was made for them and they don’t have to.....................

Edited to add: obviously, reading his comment, there is nothing “intrinsically female”, but I do think he was kind of trying to get at balancing the fact that typically women aren’t satisfied by just a dick shot or something, we want hot shit but we want STORY typically, or at least that’s the general stereotype, whereas dudes are stereotypically more easily satisfied with out of context nudity lol.

Good Trouble S4 E4

Here is a List of Every Single Male FGO Character That Has Nipples

Arjuna Alter (Presumably also Arjuna, but as he is covered, unknown)

Asterios

Ashwatthama

Fergus mac Roich (either that or it’s a discolouring on my screen, but I’m taking it)

Gawain is the only knight of the round table to have nipples. Weep for his fallen brethren, weep.

Gilgamesh is the first case of Schrodingers Nips. In the Craft Essence ‘Our Conquest on the Ocean of Stars’. Gilgamesh has nipples, but in every other appearance, no nips. Make of this what you will.

Karna does not have nipples and despite the fact that this is a list for characters with nipples I am listing this as an oddity because pretty much every time pako gets a character shirtless, they have nipples.

Li Shuwen the Younger (presumably older as well)

Robin Hood

Spartacus

Tawara Touta

EDIT: Achilles has nipples now

I was very tempted to not put clothes on them, but sweatpants and boxers are good too. Nagron is still so good. drawing Agron’s face is SUCH a struggle for me and i’m not 100% happy, but it’s good enough.

got my first “you have posts that contain adult content which violate our diibadaaba bullshit rules” notification today. can’t post screenshots for obvious reasons, but one was a recommendation of a gay movie, that had a pic of two guys embracing each other in bed, they had a blanket on and were just happily cuddling. the other one was a spartacus gif with two shirtless guys sitting next to each other and smiling. so yeah. i just. you know.

More Crixus screenshots <3

So, I am sort of considering a possibility of a possibility of watching Teen Wolf, and I just need to ask at what point should I stop watching, like a season or an episode? It's just your tumblr slowly wore me down to the idea, like it literally took years, but I am almost there, but according to some of your posts, there is a point where it goes wrong, and I just to know when is that in the show? Sidenote, your blog has made watch so many shows/movies, so there is that.

Gosh. Thank you. 

I completed S1 and S2. I watched the first episode of S3, which aired not long after Sterek won the first AfterElton shipping thingie, and it just made me angry. Not for shippy reasons entirely. I was already angry at the show for the last scene in S2 because it looked like they were building up to something interesting with a lot of character development and introspection and then it was as if the rug was pulled out and none of it mattered and I was left gasping at the utter foolishness of it all. The first part of “Tattoo”, the first episode of S3, was so stupid and pointless and I wanted to scream. (Not really a spoiler but Scott gets a tattoo, hence the title, but it goes away because werewolf healing. The entire reason for this is because the actor got a tattoo and they couldn’t be bothered to cover it with make up so they spent literally the first five minutes of the first episode of the season to explain it away. I’d been watching Spartacus at the time and a lot of those actors are heavily tatted and shirtless for the entire series which made me even more incredulous with this decision.) Anyway, with such a disappointing episode I stopped watching and just enjoyed the fanon aspects of the show (and all the fix it fics). Then S3B was focusing on Stiles so I started to watch again and for Dylan O’Brien’s performance alone it’s worth checking it out.  However, because this is TW I couldn’t finish it. There was an episode near the end of the season that was a flashback to one of the side characters who was imprisoned in a Japanese Internment Camp during WWII and I just didn’t trust the show to do that with any respect so I quit while I was ahead.

Don’t expect any greatness here. Honestly the first two seasons are cheesy fun with oodles of potential that never come to fruition. If you decide to watch 3B, which I recommend, do yourself a favor and stop at "Letharia Vulpina" and then head over to AO3.