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arsenicflame · 7 months ago

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It's a time-honoured tradition- every time Sam comes across Izzy (and Ed) in their travels, he asks Izzy to marry him. And every time, Izzy turns him down.

At this point, Sam is asking more for the sake of it than any belief Izzy will ever say yes, a remnant of childhood dedication touched with 30 years of heartbreak and regret- though even now, a small part of him still holds out hope. Sam's promises have only got more extravagant over the years, from a job as his first mate, to a captaincy, a fleet at his command, a whole fucking island if that's what Izzy wants- but he knows it isn't though, not really. If Izzy was ever going to agree to marry him, to leave his life and go with Sam, it wouldn't be for anything Sam could offer him. Izzy never did care for flashy shows of wealth, for a ship or to be captain. The only thing that ever mattered to him was loyalty given, and loyalty shown in return.

It all comes to a head after Stede left and came back, after Izzy lost a toe, lost his leg. Sam hasn't seen him since before things with Ed started to really slide off the rails, before stress permanently set into the lines of Izzy’s face. So, when he sees a dishevelled man with a hoof for a leg in a no-name port, he doesn't even consider the idea that he might know him. It's only when he turns towards him, and Sam catches a glance at those oh too familiar tattoos, he realises this is Izzy, his Izzy, that stands before him.

Knowing Izzy's discomfort with pity, he doesn't treat him any differently than he would in years gone by, positioning himself in Izzy's line of sight before approaching and sweeping him up into a bone crushing hug.

“Israel-goddamn-Hands!” he exclaims, as Izzy grumbles back a begrudging “Samuel-fucking-Bellamy”, a tradition almost as old as their friendship itself. Izzy might not hug him back, but he can’t keep the corner of his mouth from twitching, just for a second.

(If Sam holds Izzy a little tighter and a little longer than usual, well. That's his business)

By the time Sam lets go, most of the crew has appeared in the town square, drawn in by the commotion. They may have given Izzy his leg and welcomed him as one of them, but still there’s an underlying tension, with nobody quite ready to set aside everything that happened before the Kraken. Seeing him cosying up to an unknown man sets everyone on edge, unsure whether to come to their first mate’s aid, or to assume that they've been betrayed once again.

When Ed sees that the yelling was Sam, his hand goes tense where it's held in Stede's. He knows the routine, has seen it more times than he can count, but as he watches them part he realises that this is the first time in a long time he's unsure of what Izzy's response will be.

Knowing that something’s different, knowing that Izzy's feeling vulnerable already, Sam doesn't go for the same flashy proposal he’s been giving for years. He doesn't promise Izzy the world, he doesn't cause a scene (or, any more of a scene than he already has, anyway). He looks at the fractured man in front of him, takes his face in his hands, and says the exact same thing to him he said when they were little more than boys. “Israel, I have to ask you. I know what you'll say, but I have to try. Come with me. Marry me and sail away with me. I'll keep you safe”

And Izzy… hesitates. He glances over at Ed, at Stede, and says to Sam “...We’re staying in port for a week. Ask me again then”

That's the moment Sam knows there is something deeply, horribly, wrong. He's not just looking at an Izzy who got seriously injured in a fight and is struggling to cope, this is something so much bigger than that- and that Ed has something to do with it. Izzy wouldn't even be considering leaving if he didn't. Whether it was negligence or something more sinister, Sam doesn't yet know, but he intends to find out.

#i feel like the little paragraph about the crew is real clunky and out of place but i wanted some kind of establishment of where those #dynamics are at. its important that the crew is something for izzy to consider in his decision; but also that their relationship isnt so #solid he would stay for them alone; yknow?#im sorta aiming for a s2e5 era but like. early in those themes. he cant be all sorted yet i need him to be struggling #anyway this is part of a much larger scenario in my head that im never ever doing anything with but i wrote THIS bit in a daze in like. jun #and i got thinking about it again and i think?? it holds its own as a 'hey think about THIS' snippet. idk you decide #youre welcome to interpret this as solo bellhands but in my head it Has morphed into sam/izzy/ed/stede #because i cant not put edizzy in things any more. izzy has two hands #i also think the comedy potential of one of your boyfriends HATING your other boyfriend is gold. 10/10 dynamic #stede is mostly along for the ride in this but also i think they need him #aaaaand. the sam/ed bracket i think can only be closed in exceptional circumstances. i think they 'hate' each other too much #...which is WHY someones getting kidnapped!!! yay #anyway its all irrelevant because ill never write it out. i can do silly chill things but thatll require work #nyxtalks #ofmd #our flag means death #izzy hands #israel hands #sam bellamy #bellhands #i wanna also say. the general concept of repeated sam proposals has been floating around my head forever #it used to be a more silly thing like i referenced at the start but. s2 gave me angsty feelings i guess #i cant not have izzy have feelings for ed right now which inherently adds layers to Any bellhands scenarios i think.#but yeah. its a Classic Bellhands vibe for me. sam seeing izzy at sea or on shore and asking him to marry him (again)#i like to do this with jackie too. i think i just want that man to be obnoxiously desired #(theres also layers of my personal hornigold era lore built into this but i hope it holds up without u knowing it. tldr. sam lost izzy by #being an idiot n fumbling the bag. thats what matters. izzy went with ed and sams been trying to fix it ever since)#i probably should have readmore'd this but i didnt think it was Quite long enough. or had a good break point. sorry <3

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basket-of-radiants · 19 days ago

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Why were you so disappointed by Rhythm of War?

This has been sitting in my askbox for years. I've taken several cracks at answering, only to get frustrated with the subject matter and burn myself out every time. I didn't like Rhythm of War. More than that, I didn't like it in a way that tainted my enjoyment of the entire series. And despite what it may seem, I don't actually enjoy discussing things which I don't like. I always want to talk from a place of good faith. Which is why now that my feelings towards the series are a little more positive, I think I can finally answer this.

I'm going to try to stay away from specific plotpoints and story beats for this post, because my goal isn't to nitpick (if for no other reason than it would take a week to write this post), I'm just looking to talk about my overall impressions. I think that might mean the only spoilers here will be structural? idk, if you haven't read Rhythm of War yourself then you should probably do that before looking for other people's opinions anyway.

I liked Way of Kings when I first read it. I didn't love it at the time, but I liked it. Certainly enough to keep reading once I'd finished. One thing that made me a bit uncomfy, however, was the war against the Parshendi. They were this unknowable enemy which the book was not interested in knowing. An inhuman army. Their main purpose was to kill Kaladin's friends, or else be killed by Dalinar's armies. And yet the Parshendi, and the parshmen in the form of Shen, did show hints of personhood. And so it bothered me how Dalinar spoke so casually about how the Alethi had decimated their numbers, how the others used the war as a means to amass wealth and power. (It didn't bother me in a "this is a bad book" way but in a "these characters are bad people" way.)

One of my foibles as a reader is that when a book is very clearly treating one side of a conflict with more humanity, I tend to be a bit predisposed towards the other to account for that. And with the Alethi clearly being the invading party and superior military force, there was also some underdog favoritism. I didn't really like how the book treated the Parshendi. This is to say that going forward, the singers would be more important to me than any other through line.

So imagine my delight at reading Words of Radiance and meeting Eshonai, one of the Parshendi, who even gets her own point of view sections! They were no longer being treated as a faceless mass, we were getting to see things from their perspective as well. And it became plain to see the damage the Alethi had done to them. I couldn't really bring myself to root for Dalinar or really any of the humans against the listeners. I couldn't even bring myself to like most of these characters. I still enjoyed the book but once it became clear there wouldn't be a peaceful conclusion, let's just say that I wouldn't have wept for Dalinar and Adolin if Szeth had managed to off them. Like everyone in the book, I assumed that going forward all the parshmen would be turned into evil voidbringers in the everstorm and that the listeners were mostly dead. Except for Rlain, and Eshonai because I'd read or been told that book 4 would be Eshonai's book and thus had assumed she was fine. (Oathbringer spoilers, she was not fine.) So ultimately it was still a bit of a downer way to end the book.

So imagine my delight at reading Oathbringer, where for the first time singers were being treated as people, full and real people, and where the human characters could no longer ignore or dismiss them. We met Khen and the others, common singers who were sympathetic and just wanted freedom from bondage. We see Venli grapple with the loss of her home. We see Leshwi and Moash connecting with and understanding one another. We learn of a history where singers were the original inhabitants of the planet. Parallel to this, Dalinar is having a truly excellent character arc about confronting one's past actions and acknowledging them to move forward and do better. I loved Oathbringer, for some years it was my favorite book, and I was excited as hell to see what came next. At the time, it seemed to me that there is a clear direction the story is going. Two books about needless war, and then a third where the main cast is forced to acknowledge the personhood of their enemies. This was so cool, all of my feelings from the previous installments were being validated, the characters were going to have to face what they've done in the past and outgrow their militaristic mindsets, I was so sure of that.

Imagine my disappointment when that does not even remotely resemble the direction the story went in Rhythm of War. RoW presented a clear, straightforward “us vs. them" narrative, where every character was totally fine with killing singers. Characters aligned with the singers were either flattened into wholly evil versions of themselves (Moash) or were expected to turn on their side in favor of the humans (Venli.) Because clearly there was no reason good people would be on the side that's all former slaves trying to stay free. Maybe there's some sort of accord or understanding between Navani and Raboniel that I might have found meaningful if the seeds of mutual understanding weren't already there in Oathbringer and then apparently ignored for a year by all the characters.

I have a lot of issues with how the listeners are handled in these books. (Here's some elaboration.) Following OB, I had thought that all my concerns were going to be addressed. Following RoW, I knew they never would be.

Which is my main complaint, because that's the thread that matters most to me in this series.

I have a lot of other Things as well. Gonna just talk about a few big ones.

One outsized source of disappointment that may seem a little petty, and which probably is, is that I felt mislead by the premise of the book. It had been announced that this book would center Venli and Eshonai, and I was unbelievably hyped for that. That did not really turn out to be the case. The purpose for their backstory chapters felt less about exploring them as people and contextualizing their arcs, and more about filling in gaps of world history. In the main plot, Venli was a POV character and she certainly played a role, but honestly not a very important one overall. To me she felt like a side character in her own book. I don't think it's controversial to say that the main character of RoW was Navani. A lot of people really like Navani and are happy about that. Unfortunately I'm not one of those people, and I found it all the more difficult to enjoy her when it felt like it was coming at the expense of some of my favorite characters.

This particular gripe somewhat comes down to preference, obviously everyone prefers to read about characters they like more than those they don't, and it can go both ways. (For instance, on a craft/technical level RoW is probably the superior book to W&T, but I liked the latter a lot more because of my stupidly outsized attachment to Szeth and Nale.) But I do think there's something of a real criticism in how the book would rather focus on the feelings of a queen rather than those of a genocide survivor, and how the former's are given significantly more weight and import. It ties in with my main criticism, I think.

And then there's how human/human racism had also been wholly cast aside as a plot point. Jasnah fixed slavery so that's resolved, and the only person who still cares about structural racism is the evil bad bad evil villain Moash/Vyre, who is now wholly irredeemable and who you're allowed to totally write off because he's sold his soul to Odium. I've already talked a lot about this. Other people have already talked about this, probably better than me. The writing was actually on the wall for me in OB, but again, RoW was when I fully accepted that this was never going to be addressed.

There's something else that probably deserves its own discussion rather than being quickly tacked on at the end here, but here we are. This book changed how the series approaches war.

In WoK, war was very clearly portrayed as a bad and inglorious thing. It was brutal, it was painful, those at the bottom died cruelly and unceremoniously and pointlessly while those at the top turned a profit. Every day was a new horror. The enemy were never evil, they were always just more people forced to go through the same thing. Through the next couple books, it felt to me that even if the characters had accepted war as necessary, there was still a tragedy to it. Conversely, in RoW (and W&T) war is basically a series of boss battles, in between which our protagonists can kill dozens of footsoldiers with barely a thought in the same way WoK had criticized.

Final note on all this, it sucks how we have no perspectives from the former-slaves-singers demographic. Those guys are really thrown under the bus, and seemingly get no self-determination now or ever. It was a glaring problem to me in RoW. Conscripted and enslaved humans and singers probably have just as much ground to form mutual understanding as a fused and a queen. (In fact they already had. In Oathbringer.)

In essence, RoW disappointed me because it left me with the distinct impression that none of the series's most important through lines (well, most important to me) were going to be resolved well. I liked W&T, but I haven't revised my opinion very much about the overall handling of these topics across the series. Maybe one of the reasons I was able to enjoy W&T so much more was because I no longer had such high expectations.

#sorry i sorta need to get this stuff off my chest to unpack my feelings about the series.#i hope posting this out of the blue doesn't come across as too mean spirited. my sensitivity reader DID sign off on it.#(that is a joke. although i do let my sister look over any 1000+ word posts ahead of time. and i would respect any disapproval from her.#but normally she just tells me i'm allowed to be more forceful in my opinions without qualifying them or apologizing all the time. pfff.#the reason i've been hesitant to write any especially spoilery w&t meta is mostly because she hasn't read it yet.)#discourse #asks #hey anon if you're still here after all these years. thank you.#at the time i was kinda fishing for an ask like this bc i wanted to vent but it felt mean to do so unprompted #of course this was still really hard to write. mostly because every time i tried i completely spiraled.#the version of this post that was sitting in my drafts was honestly a lot better than this one. in basically every way. except.#except it was nearly the same length and all i'd gotten to was the oathbringer paragraph #below which was a stupidly thorough outline of my itemized complaints #you KNOW i don't care about brevity but my god that would have taken forever to write and finish #and i did not want to spend that sort of time with a book i didn't like. which i would have had to do to get all my planned citations #sorry past self. you were clearly writing from a place of much more passion and that made your work better than mine. and yet.#so as i said. i'm only writing this bc i now like the series enough to talk about it again. sincerely not trying to be a hater.#side note: if any of you have thoughts/opinions about the shift in the way war is used in these books. i would love to hear them. lets chat

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hawkinasock · 8 months ago

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I hc that yanqing does coding for fun (this is to cope with the fact that my current computer science lessons are all about coding and im going to lose my mind)

Also side confession ive accidentally misread your username as hawk in a cock and im so embarrassed

HELLPPLP Very... interesting image. To say the least... Honestly my name and user have been debauched to greater extremes before.

Building off that headcanon, though, I think Yanqing would get so frustrated not being able to find a game calibrated to his own very specific interests and tastes that he went off and learned coding for the sole purpose of making his own. Because his game is so specific though, no one else plays it but him. All except for one user who is hellbent on beating both him and his hardest levels.

#autism be damned my boy can work a computer #- jing yuan probably #ask #hsr #yanqing #jing yuan #yanqing aus #you mightve meant a different kind of coding beyond video games #but thats the only kind of coding im sort of familiar with except maybe toyhouse #so #gamer yanqing au #it is

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bradleysbradshaws · 5 months ago

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I don't know if I was so much of a Rooster non-perceiver before that I wasn't aware this photo existed, or if it really is new, and we are all seeing it for the first time, but I am *gasps* *hand flies to my mouth* Miles/Bradley looks SO good here!

*shakes Maverick* MAVERICK - appreciate your boy because there are a lot of people (me) out there who will.

#I think the old me would have said something like 'look at how Rooster is staring at the old MILF'#except the new me is like UMMMM look at how Bradley LOOKS here. the most beautiful creature whomst I have perceived (delusional)#Miles Teller #Tom Cruise #Roosmav #I had only seen the photo from afar where Miles is sort of standing a distance away and looking at the ground before #this is new to me so I must make commentary upon it

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owlyflufff · 1 year ago

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one thing I love about bokuaka is that they bring out the best in each other as much as they bring out the one braincell they both have

#bokuaka #bokuto #akaashi #eli rambles #I love that their shared dialogue is of them trying to make sense of something #and then not make sense at all xD #on that note is that they both have some sort of language that only they understand #akaashi saying he wants to play with a star player and the rest of fukurodani go ???#bokuto trying to explain something and everyone else is confused except akaashi #haikyu #haikyuu #haikyu!!#haikyuu!!#hq

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iamdeltas · 8 days ago

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I derive so much enjoyment from calling Agatha Harkness a "murderous Twilight Sparkle."

#agatha harkness #agatha all along #making mlp comparisons is fun! especially for characters that it feels the weirdest to make mlp comparisons for!#if i were to get more specific i would say agatha personality wise is 60% twilight sparkle 30% discord and 10% rarity #with the powerset of tirek sort of. except her siphoning doesn't work the same way so that's a bit of a stretch #marvel #mcu #s says some words #mlp:fim #i hope this doesn't show up in the mlp tag lol. i tried to bury it by adding a bunch of tags beforehand. i'm only tagging it that for my ow #blog sorting reasons

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jellycreamjammedart · 4 months ago

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*Definitely not Canon*

Doey: What happened, Cassie?

Cassie: ...I tried to resurrect the dead the Fazbear way...

Robots made from Doctor bodies that are possessed by ghosts: *waves hello*

What could possibly go wrong???

#i know this is kinda shitpost-y but #this made me think of cassie being so grief-struck she tries bringing those she held dear back to life thru robotics like roxy or her dad #... except its that whole 'you came back wrong' sort of anguish bc its just not really them no matter how hard cassie tries to make them be #and at the end of the day it only further widens and deepens her grief #haha ouch #ppt #poppy playtime #doey the doughman #fnaf sb ruin #cassie #anon #anonymous #jellycream answers #playdough and glitter au

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francy-sketches · 1 year ago

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I think it's so funny how differently people talk about the hypothetical zombified jonsnow vs other undead characters like when people theorize about lady stoneheart it's always 'Who's gonna kill her and put her out of her misery' But with jonsnow it's like 'omg who's gonna have his incest babies >w<' could you imagine if we did that with LSH. Omg guys what if she has an enemies to lovers arc with roose and then they have a beautiful daughter together 🥺 that's #my twow theory

#.txt #and they would call her rat (mashup of roose+cat) ❤#ive made my peace with resurrected jonsnow HOWEVER if he ends the series alive im gonna be mad #only exception is if he becomes a sort of coldhands figure. id be fine with that #I love how people treat jonsnow's death as a minor inconvenience 💀 guys he died #to be fair they also do that with quentyn. girl he got barbecued and died ON page. fym he's alive

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certifiedsungod · 1 year ago

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I'm obsessed with drawing them like this it's comforting for some reason,,,,

Also I don't feel pressured for it to be perfect when drawing these two for some reason yippiee

#art #svsss fanart #svsss #scumplane #ffvii #aerti (kinda)#crossover au #except it's only a sort of crossover because it's only these two

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captainsjack · 2 months ago

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au where gus is a little too stupid and repressed so when shawn finally does take the chance and tells him he loves him, well gus has to let him down (gently of course) because he’s straight. (“you know if i was then you’d–” “please don’t finish that sentence”). and it hurts gus to see shawn so broken in front of him and to see how much it affects him and how hard it is for him to even hide it, and if gus could change anything in the world this would be it because he’d do anything to make shawn happy. but that’s not how life works, is it?

and i think it takes a long time, the better part of a year, for him to figure everything out. but eventually he does, because it’s all he thinks about. why did it hurt so much to tell shawn no? why did it feel so wrong to say those words? why does it feel like there’s something missing when he already knows that what’s missing is something he doesn’t want? (he doesn’t? right?). and i think it’s gradual, something he keeps thinking about and questioning in the back of his mind for a long time, and idk how he gets there, maybe there’s an ‘oh’ moment when he looks at shawn one day, maybe he wakes up and everything just clicks, or maybe it’s even subtler than that. but eventually gus realizes that he’s gay and in love with shawn (and has been for a lot longer than he’d like to admit).

he sits with it for a while before he decides to say anything because he has to make sure, really sure, because this isn’t something he can screw up. but eventually he’s confident enough to want to tell shawn, and when he finally decides to do it, he’s struck with the realization that he might be too late. he might’ve missed his chance. shawn told him he loved him almost a year ago and gus doesn’t know just how far his feelings went, so what if shawn was over him by now. he’s acted like it after the first few weeks, so what if gus is too late?

but then i think gus would suck it up and tell him anyway because if there was even the slightest of a chance that shawn still loved him, then gus would take that chance over the millions of ways it could go wrong. if shawn could be brave and do it then so could he.

i think he plans a speech, spends too much time going over all the words and apologies and explanations, making sure he has it all memorized, but when shawn answers the door, all the words in the world other than four disappear. when shawn looks at him as gus shoves his way out of the rain and into his apartment, as his breath shakes and startles and stops at all the what ifs, the only words he can find are “am i too late?”

shawn frowns and looks around a little, because, “i don’t think so, it’s only 8:30. wh–” and then gus shakes his head and grips his sleeve so tight his fingers hurt and his voice breaks a little as he says “no, shawn, am i too late?”

shawn blinks, and gus is still looking at him, eyes big and wide and wet, and then shawn softens as he realizes what gus is asking. he swallows over the lump in his throat and all it takes is a little shake of his head for gus to take the leap and kiss him.

#well and then of course they get distracted making out for a while before gus pulls them apart and asks ‘are you sure?’#because really it had been almost a year and how did his timing get so fucked and yet he still got so lucky?#and then shawn just looks at him the most serious and open and vulnerable gus has ever seen him except for when he first told him he loved #him. and he says ‘i’ve been in love with you since we were 14. i couldn’t get over you if i tried.’#and then gus starts crying (of course). and then through his tears and shawn’s comforts he tries to get through his whole i love you/apology #speech (which he only sort of makes it through bc he’s still sobbing in shawn’s arms)#but shawn gets the gist of it and then they watch movies and make out some more and everything is okay <3 #maybe it was a little delayed but they both got everything they’ve ever wanted in the end <3 #hrnrngnbggggggg #if you can’t tell they are eating my brain again!!!!!#psych #shus #shawngus #*

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