starlitsecrets

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funniest title drop ever

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Honestly, my favorite part about the whole “Ed will try to kill Stede” and “Stede will have to beg for forgiveness” and “there will be ANGST and FIGHTING” thing is that Ed acted like a Mean Girl for all of two hours and then folded like a deck chair when Stede blinked slowly at him.

And this was more in character than any of the angsty projections.

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The Izzy Discourse isn’t about shipwars or people being harassed “just” for liking a character. I suspect that the majority of us would agree that liking Izzy isn’t bad or inherently racist or pro-abuse because—obviously—liking a character is not indicative of a person’s morality.

The Izzy Discourse exists because folks deep in the Izzy Canyon (let’s call them Cayoneers) continue to characterize themselves as a victimized minority, claim that criticism and disagreement are harassment, and dissuade the larger fandom from having important conversations about topics like racism and abuse by calling anyone trying to have those conversations a racist or an abuse apologist.

First: Canyoneers are not a victimized minority who receive the majority of harassment in this fandom. Other fans frequently disagree with them—either directly in their posts or indirectly in their own posts—but disagreement is not harassment. Critiquing an interpretation of canon that contradicts most other interpretations is not harassment. Receiving pushback after making a statement that most fans find ridiculous? Not harassment.

When Canyoneers refer to doxxing incidents, they only bring up the one where someone was doxxed by antis “for being an Izzy fan.” I was in the fandom when this happened and, as I remember, the kid who doxxed this fan did so because they thought that it was immoral for them to like Izzy and Calico Jack AND that the content of their writing was morally deplorable. This puriteen was called out by everyone and the fan who was doxxed received support from every corner of the fandom. Canyoneers tend to leave out the full stated reason for the doxxing (liking Calico Jack, writing ~taboo~ content) as well as the fact that the kid responsible was broadly condemned. They make the incident entirely about loving Izzy, which it was not.

I never hear about when Jac deactivated from Twitter in 2023 under threat of doxxing from Canyoneers. No one talks about the Tumblr user who was harassed about their fundraiser for trans-affirming surgery. What about the Tumblr account made specifically to document alleged abuse towards Izzy fans that engages in its fair share of harassment and calls out users Canyoneers don’t like by name? If anyone calls out any of this bad behavior, Canyoneers close ranks to protect their own. They deny or justify their actions. They make it everyone’s fault but theirs.

Canyoneers aren’t the only people in this fandom who have been hurt. I’ve received death threats, and so have some of my friends. Several people I know have genuinely been harassed off of social media platforms by Izzy stans. Canyoneers dogpile on posts that they disagree with, even if the post is tagged in whatever way they prescribe (and their preferred tag for Izzy critical content is always subject to change). It’s ridiculous that this splinter of the OFMD fandom has decided that they’ve suffered more than any other part when they demonstrably have not.

The Canyon is largely united by their perceived suffering, so it’s not surprising that they characterize Izzy as a character who has also suffered unfairly. Poor Izzy suffers from classism due to his Northern accent. Izzy behaves the way he does because he’s losing the man he loves to the kind of posh aristocrat who oppresses people like him. Izzy is punished for trying to get Ed to do his job. Izzy is only cruel because he’s anxious, because he’s scared, because he’s just trying to keep himself and Ed alive. Izzy died even though he’s the most queer, the most femme, the most disabled, the most everything. 

It’s all about being the victim and maintaining that Izzy is himself a victim.

Second: Canyoneers make it difficult to talk about racism and abuse—topics that we should absolutely be able to discuss as a fandom. 

Liking Izzy does not make someone racist. Granting Izzy infinite grace while condemning Ed, grafting Ed’s characteristics onto Izzy while pushing Ed out of the narrative, claiming that Ed needs to be managed, and maintaining that Ed is violent and abusive? Racist. But challenging Canyoneers garners violent pushback and insistence that you’re the real racist for disagreeing with them.

Indigenous people and men of color have historically been depicted in media as savage and violent. They’re portrayed as frightening, animalistic, abusive, incapable of control, in need of the civilizing influence of the dominant culture to be accomplished. OFMD consciously pushes back against all of these stereotypes only to have Canyoneers bring them back! A fandom that should be a safe space for people of color, especially men, becomes a hostile environment because fans of a white character need to make an indigenous man worse to justify their takes.

In canon, Ed is not a violent or abusive man. That’s not implied—it’s a huge part of his character and his struggle. He’s a kind man trapped in an abusive culture that he wants to leave behind. Canyoneers have a tendency to make Ed worse in order to make Izzy look better. They turn Ed into a monster and call it canon, and if they’re challenged, they try to turn the argument around. If I say that interpreting Ed as more violent than he is in canon feeds into harmful racist stereotypes about indigenous men, I’m told that I’m denying the experiences of people who have been abused by indigenous men by claiming that they can’t be violent. If I say that Izzy pushed Ed into his Kraken persona, I’m told that I’m the real racist for denying Ed’s agency. 

Talk about abuse is shut down in the same way. Izzy abuses Ed—this is made explicitly clear in season two for anyone who denied the existence of emotional abuse after season one—but who’s brave enough to talk about it when the Canyoneers are ready to attack anyone who doesn’t think that Izzy’s the victim? They’ll say that Izzy’s only crime was saying some mean words and that anyone who thinks Ed is in the right approves of abusing people who are mouthy or unpleasant. They deny the reality of reactive abuse and the devastation that emotional abuse can wreck. They hope that anyone who doesn’t think that Izzy is the victim of abuse never gets anywhere near real victims of abuse, completely dismissing the lived experiences of fans who have experienced abuse and see their abusers’ words and actions in Izzy’s.

Canyoneers can’t stand discussions about racism and abuse as they relate to Izzy, and I understand why. Many of them relate to Izzy in all of his meanness and humorlessness (and at least one has flat out said that an abusive behavior of Izzy’s is something they do); all of them consider themselves good and progressive people. They have to deny that their defenses of Izzy and condemnations of Ed are racist by any means possible to avoid cognitive dissonance, so they shut down discussions and harass people who don’t fall in line.

The discourse isn’t really about Izzy. It never has been. If Canyoneers “just” liked Izzy and enjoyed pairing him with random characters, no one would care. The Izzy Discourse lives on because the Canyon continues to overstate harm, mischaracterize past events or fully ignore things that paint their group in a bad light, tell new fans about the suffering Izzy fans have had to endure, and refuse to accept any discussion about racism or abuse that dares criticize their takes and behavior. 

I’m tired.

#481.

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Me coming to tumblr to post my thoughts on the symbolism of Stede’s outfits but finding other people have already articulated them better than I will anyway so ig I’ll just say “👆🏻👆🏻 THIS” and maybe put my own thoughts here later 😅

The Jester and the King

The journey this man has been on.

I love nearly all of Stede’s outfits, but the one on the left made me gasp a little with horror even the first time.

The neck detail is reminiscent of a jester’s cowl. Stede is dressed as The Fool. It’s how he feels. A joke. Sneered at within his marriage. Unknown to his family. A misfit. A clown. An irrelevance. In fact, he looks like a toy. Not real. A puppet?

We don’t know how authentic this memory is; we see a different one play out later, but that doesn’t matter. This is how Stede feels. And one day, he just cannot continue…

Cut to the second picture. Sure, we all love Stede’s increasingly-plunging necklines, but they are symbolically important. His new clothes are about freedom, embracing a newly-realised form of friendship, love, sexuality. And we see Stede’s flesh. He’s a hot-blooded, sensual, real-live human being, not a painted doll. He’s glowing with vitality. The thing is, Stede was always alive. It’s why he couldn’t go on any longer in a smothered state. And now he’s allowed truly to exist as his wonderful messy self.

Stede’s reborn. He’s in love with his ‘babe’, and is king (or queen) of his own life.

That’s the face of a man who won.

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Watching canyoners still trying to deny this is honestly a case study in how powerful denial is lmao

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Ed Teach + tongue 👀

OUR FLAG MEANS DEATH

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Oh um hi! Sorry I hardly ever post here lately but I’m just jumping in to say I posted my first ofmd fic to ao3 if anyone is interested <3 (Also my first time writing smut so please be gentle haha) https://archiveofourown.org/works/48765628

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a reminder for any new from-twitter follows its me AJ (aj_in_moonlight there). I am not here super frequently but if twt dies I will be a bit more active I guess haha

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Taika Waititi: I like playing friendly characters. In What We Do in the Shadows, my character Viago [is] a helper, he’s a friendly character […] Basically, [Viago] is a mix of C-3PO and my mum.

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It's Frenchie Friday

Frenchie (Joel Fry) in every episode | s1e1

To death we go, to certain death we go...

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The parallels between Will Byers and Henry Creel | Peter Ballard | Vecna | 001

(Updated version)

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Xena & Gabrielle | Xena: Warrior Princess 2x13

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I’ve been sitting on this sketch for a few weeks now so I figured it was about time I posted :B what I’d give to experience Our Flag Means Death like I did the first time all over again 😭💜

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Summer in Finland

jukkarisikko

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i dont care that shes a union buster. im in love with her.

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Chris Pine as Captain James T. Kirk in Star Trek Into Darkness (2013)

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Arwen’s purple cloak in 4k