#Every second Anne and Ed aren't there

[sarucane]

OFMD Spiral Parallels 32: Manipulative Pirate Buddies 3

Intro: What I love most about how season 2 builds on season 1 of OFMD is the spiral narrative structure. Ground is repeatedly and explicitly re-trod from season 1 to season 2, but in season 2 everything goes deeper than season 1. Symbols appear and reappear, transformed. Meanings are shuffled, emotions are stronger and truer, and transformation is showcased above everything. The first season plucks certain notes, then the second season plucks the same ones--but louder, and then it weaves them together to create a symphony.

---

In the middle of both episodes, private conversations about the nature of Ed’s and Stede’s relationship takes place between a manipulative pirate and one of our main characters. However, in the first episode, only Stede has a private conversation with Jack, but in the second both Stede and Ed have private conversations about with Anne and Mary. And while both the first episode and the second involve the new pirates manipulating our main characters, the outcomes of the scenes highlight how the meaning of the past has changed from one season to another, from destructiveness that must be avoided to chaos that invites transformation.

Anne and Jack both want to get information out of Stede, but they go about doing this in completely different ways.

Jack makes Stede defensive, provoking discomfort in Stede—and, crucially, denial about what’s happening between him and Ed. Stede obfuscates, pointing to an insecurity that Jack then exploits using repeated references to the past. Jack’s goal is to make Stede as uncomfortable as possible—use the shadows of Ed’s past and their connection to the present—to push Stede to isolate himself from Ed, and he entirely succeeds.

Anne, on the other hand, makes Stede comfortable. She is genuinely interested in what’s actually happened between Stede and Ed, because her goal is more open-ended than Jack’s. She wants to use the past to create drama, not destruction. And drama is actually what Ed and Stede need, because the only way to resolve the central conflict is for them to have a dramatic conversation.

Meanwhile, both Anne and Mary individually draw comparisons between themselves and the boys. Anne builds on what she learned about Stede’s personality—and its similarity to hers—in the antique shop, then tries to get Stede on board to make both their partners “so jealous,” to provoke drama in both their relationships.

Ed is actually the first one to draw a comparison between himself and Anne by bringing up how Stede stabbed him once. Anne then invokes the past, like Jack did, but not as a way to destroy the present—as a way to explain the present. Jack told Stede that he and Ed are “the same man,” but Mary tells Ed that both couples are involved in the same experience, are bound together by a chaotic “whirlpool.”

The scenes also illuminate important ways that Ed’s and Stede’s ideas of the past can shift.

Before, Stede was enjoying the “ideal past,” and to move forward with Ed he needs to accept that the past had negatives, too. He starts doing this with Anne, describing the problems of his past that arose when he went back to his wife.

Ed, on the other hand, was focusing on the negatives of the past, on the pain that resulted from Stede leaving. To move forward, he needs to think about the closeness that made the pain worth enduring. And he starts doing this with Mary, smiling and reminiscing about being stabbed by Stede. Before this, Ed rejected each attempt Stede made to suggest that their past relationship was a good place. But the bad ending didn’t define the whole relationship—the past influences the present but doesn’t determine it—and Ed starts to believe in that in this scene.

Other posts in this series:

Part 1

Part 2

Part 4

Part 5

[suffersinfandom]

I don't care when people have takes that don't agree with mine or love characters that I don't. What does get under my skin is when people are smug and self-congratulatory about a take that's just wrong.

"The story of the show in season one was that it was a bunch of people with conflicting personalities shoved onto a boat together."

The story has always centered Stede, Ed, and their relationship. The initial idea of it came from the fruitiness of historical Stede Bonnet and Blackbeard's whole situation, and David Jenkins always meant for it to be a romance about those two guys. (He talks about it in this interview. The romance wasn't added partway through filming, it was changed because of the way Rhys and Taika played it.)

"Season two of OFMD was an ensemble show and season two wasn't."

OFMD was never an ensemble show. Stede and Ed are the primary characters and everyone else, however much we love them, is secondary. Even Jim, the only other character who gets a flashback and a through-line in season one, is a supporting character. And their story is fantastic! It's about finding a place where you can be who you are, learning who you are beyond assigned roles, and finding belonging and family -- and that's also what our A-plot is about. Jim's story supports the main story.

The crew does have considerably more screen time in season one, and that's because season one has more time. I truly, sincerely wish that season two had the space to feature the crew the way season one did because I love almost all of them and wanted more of them. I think that the crew's relative absence in season two is, overall, to the show's detriment.

But let's think, just for a second, about why there was less time devoted to the crew in a season that was much shorter. If the crew's storyline was the main one and if all characters were equally important, why did David choose to spend the time he had focusing on Ed, Stede, and their relationship? Is it because he lost the plot of his own show?

No.

Season two is shorter. Cuts had to be made, so David cut back on the crew's stories and kept the main story -- the Gentlebeard story -- intact. A writer does not sacrifice their primary story for subplots. When you show me that season two has more Gentlebeard per episode, you're not proving that the nature or focus of the show changed. You're underscoring the importance of the story that has always been the show's center.

If you liked the show better when it had more time to commit to the supporting cast, that's okay. I sincerely don't mind that some people liked season two less because it was heavier on the Gentlebeard. I just don't understand why it's so important to downplay the importance of Ed and Stede in the first season. OFMD has always been their show, and insisting that that's not true is bonkers to me.

Literally no one is saying that Ed and Stede should be the only characters onscreen. No one who loves Gentlebeard hates the crew; I'm deep into Gentlebeardie tumblr and there's tons of love for every single character (with maybe one exception). No one is saying that Ed did nothing wrong or Izzy is the devil incarnate or time given to characters who aren't Stede and Ed is time wasted.

There is a right answer when we're talking about what OFMD is about and who the main characters are.

Also: anyone who's still struggling to understand Anne and Mary's importance should read this. Atticus wrote a lovely and concise essay that ought to clear everything up.

Also also: anyone who harasses people, anonymously or not, is the worst kind of fan. There are no fandom opinions that warrant racism, transphobia, homophobia, doxxing, etc.

[batsarebetterthanpeople]

ok what do you think every character in ofmd's highest dnd stat is?

Oooh ok let's get going. Ed and Stede are both very long and the others are rather short.

Ed- ok so I think Ed is definitely maxed out in both intelligence and wisdom. I think he's actually got a surprisingly low charisma. He just has expertise in intimidation and proficiency in deception and maybe persuasion. But more likely his player is looking at that persuasion skill and asking can I make an intimidation check instead.

Now if I was playing a d&d game and the assignment was play Ed in d&d I would give him a high charisma because I would stat him out as a lurker of the deep warlock BUT I think in canon where they're all rogues and fighters his charisma is ass.

Stede- Stede's difficult to stat out. I think most of his stats are probably pretty bad but he has the lucky feat. And some other means of making sure he roles well. He's not dexterous, I'm not sure on his strength, his constitution seems middling, his charisma is hard to pin down because everyone initially hates him (implies low) but he frequently wins people over with the power of friendship (implies high) but I'm leaning towards low on charisma because the winning people over is through persistent whimsy rather than true people skills. They become begrudgingly fond of him because he's impossible to get rid of rather than because he's charming is what I'm saying. He's a good problem solved he thinks on his feet and he's got a good insight which makes me think high wis but also every survival check he makes fails in comical ways so maybe this is another situation of his proficiencies tricking me into thinking he's got a higher wis than he does. The one thing he does have going for him is that he's pretty book smart so I have to go with int by process of elimination, but again, maybe strength, that's kinda the dark horse stat for him he doesn't show it but he doesn't fail any strength rolls either. He knocked a guy out with a punch tho so maybe strength. But his defining trait is problem solving so maybe wis? Idk. Not Con Cha or Dex tho those ones are definitely negative modifiers. If I had to guess middling wis, middling but slightly higher int, most of his proficiencies are in int and Wis skills, medium to high strength but he never uses it.

Jim- Dex. I will not elaborate.

Olu- I generally see Olu as the Jack of all trades build. He's a well rounded individual. None of his stats are all that exceptional but he's good to have around because he's got no negative numbers, and can do it all if push comes to shove.

Lucius- Charisma. He's an artist and his most used non-technical skill is being good with people.

Zheng- Charisma. I feel like this doesn't need any explanation.

Archie- fighting your way out of a snake takes grit, not being digested, and quite a few successful checks to not pass out while holding your breath. Constitution.

Frenchie- Frenchie is very cerebral, but not very book smart. That being said artificers are intelligence casters so I'm going with INT.

Pete- strength or con. He's a silly little guy but his mental stats aren't great and he's not giving me dex vibes either. Human fighter build.

Fang- Strength. See him breaking a guy over his leg and him holding onto the side of the ship with the goat in hand for an hour at least so Ned Low wouldn't find them.

Roach- survival and medicine are both Wis skills and historically my DMs have made players role wisdom for cooking checks.

Wee John- Strength but Charisma is definitely second.

Buttons- Druids are Wis casters.

Swede- drank poison. Lived. Con.

Ivan- he wields an Axe which is a strength weapon so probably strength.

Spanish Jackie- Charisma or Dex, but she displays more charisma.

Calico Jack- Charisma definitely.

Anne- Charisma is the one we see her use but I'm gonna go out on a limb and say her Dex is better.

Mary R.- Strength on the Ivan principle. Definitely not charisma

Mary B.- Commoner stat block with proficiency in painters tools

Izzy- Strength. But much like Stede this is a process of elimination. His Constitution is the worst Constitution we see in OFMD (Izzy the spewer), his Charisma is ass (see everything about him) his wisdom is so bad he can't succeed on an insight check to save his fucking life (and his life has depended on it) intelligence is not so good, Dex is good given how often he lurks in the corner unseen and appears places and the thing he does to Stede's shirt in 1.02 but the beginning of the duel with Stede is the most clear instance of a character using a versatile weapon with their strength stat I've ever seen so I think his strength is probably equal to or better than his dex. Also all the things we see him teaching Stede in 2.05 are strength and dex skills so I think that's where his skill set is.

Damn this crew is not a dexy bunch. Jim said "I'm playing an assassin rogue that throws knives" and everyone else said "alright let me not step on your toes then"

[riverstardis]

series 32 episode 37:

alicia :(

oh isn't that the actress who played young yaz's grandma in doctor who?

lmaooo bea and rash trying to use the coffee machine i miss them sjdjsfjfd

leigh-anne🙄 apparently they're taking kiegan off the oxygen today and ethan said he'd be there but the eds really busy because there's been a coach crash so he says he's sure she'll be fine without him and mr barling knows what he's doing but she insists

alicia volunteering to go out to the crash to get away from eddie :(

connie's mad that she went without permission and ethan says he and bea will help with the backlog but then immediately leaves bea when he gets a text from leigh-anne. what are you doing man😭😭

oh no leigh-anne runs over to ethan and hugs him when he gets to paeds and he's uncomfortable and mr barling's starting at them😭😭😭 then when jonathan's gone she says they shouldn't have to skulk around in the shadows and she wants to tell people now that kiegan's no longer a patient... which is an interesting thing to say when they're standing next to his hospital bed... ethan says they need to be careful and he just seems annoyed tbh i think forgiving alicia snapped him out of whatever he thought he felt for leigh-anne lmao

oop ethan goes to speak to mr barling, presumably to try and convince him there was nothing inappropriate going on but it's too late lmao mr barling has clearly already figured it out and warns him that there are boundaries they don't cross and ethan's like "yeah, i admit, she has come to rely on my support more than i would've liked" which i think is probably true tbh, though obviously missing out a HUGE chunk of the whole story, bc she has become weirdly distrustful of every other doctor and will only trust him, and yeah he got way too involved with helping her with kiegan to appease his guilt about scott, but he never tried to isolate her or anything so i do believe he didn't want her to end up like this. mr barling's just like "i've seen too many careers cut short because of a doctor who has confused the personal and the professional. i hope you aren't about to add to that number." so true make him see sense. go onnn ethan break up with her i know you want to!

wall collapses on the coach with alicia, iain, sam, and their patient still inside :/

leigh-anne's sitting in reception waiting for ethan??? girl go home what is wrong with you??? he is not happy to see her and tells her that barling knows and she says she doesn't care "tell them all" and he says it's not that simple and he's broken rules doing this and she says he's done nothing wrong and tries to take his hand and he pulls away and eventually manages to convince her to go home. mmmkay now how long til she's back again

lmaoo david tells ethan his patient from the crash's "girlfriend was trapped inside, and by all accounts so was dr munroe" and ethan turns his head SO FAST SJJSDJFSJ soo you see why he's lost patience for leigh-anne😭😭😭

aww he looks so worried🥺

oh look who it is! she managed to leave for one whole scene. kiegan's lips are blue or something and elle rushes him through meanwhile leigh-anne's trying to get her to get ethan

sjsjdf jacob answers the phone and ethan rushes over and jacob tells him that their lot are fine and they're on their way with the patient and ethan says to keep him posted because "the boyfriend's out of his mind with worry" mhmm yep he wasn't the only one though was he?

iain's worried about how cold alicia looks but she says she's fine :/

elle literally got mr barling down to look at kiegan and he says he's breathing fine it's just cold outside but leigh-anne isn't happy she's demanding a second opinion from ethan. i'm sure elle's wondering why she would trust an adult doctor over a paeds doctor with considerably more years of experience

sam finds blake using her punch bag in the ambulance station and says he might as well do it right and demonstrates and he's staring at her in awe. yeah you and me both buddy

aww alicia collapses in resus and they ofc assume she's hypothermic because she's soaking wet and ethan leaves bea to observe dylan doing the procedure and takes alicia to resus 2 to warm her up and she's saying she's so sorry and he's like don't be silly🥺

awww bea comes to check up on alicia🥺🥺🥺🥺 hey listen, alicia has two hands🏳‍🌈 bea says she got soaked out there so no wonder she's hypothermic but ethan says her temperature's actually fine so alicia attributes her collapse to the day taking it out of her :(

alicia comments on how good bea is after she's gone and ethan says she's a fast learner and alicia asks if they can swap mentees for a bit and then she's like "we are friends aren't we?" and he's like "yeah? yeah, i hope so" and she's definitely about to tell him what happened with eddie but elle interrupts them to tell ethan about leigh-anne urghhh ffs

"ethan, you have an admirer! leigh-anne carr is demanded your professional attention for her baby and she won't settle for anything less" "leigh-anne's baby kiegan was discharged?" "well he's back. she said he wasn't breathing but his test results show that he passed with flying colours"😭

ethan reassures leigh-anne that mr barling is a brilliant paediatrician and she goes "yeah. he thinks a lot of himself." huh????

yesss finally he breaks up with her! "i made a mistake, and i'm so sorry, but that's what i do. i just make things worse." oh :((((( ethan PLEASE go to therapy

alicia was waiting for ethan but she gets a call from eddie and he leaves a voicemail saying he's going to come and find her at the end of shift so she leaves early :(

then ethan's looking for her and bea says she's gone home and he says he's worried about her getting home safely because she was so shaken up earlier and eddie offers to go and check up on her and ethan's confused why he would and says it's okay he can do it and rash is smiling at eddie and bea is also confused and asks rash if he's withholding gossip from her😭😭

aw alicia :(

oh shit that made actually made me jump too wtf😭 she looks in the mirror and sees eddie behind her (he's not actually there)

ethan's brought her a bottle of wine and says he was worried about her and they never finished their conversation and then says that he lied earlier about them being friends. WHY WOULD YOU PHRASE IT THAT WAY😭😭😭 she's upset and he clarifies that he means he doesn't think they can be friends because he's still in love with her🥺 yeah wbk bestie but you have TERRIBLE timing AGAIN😭 if he'd told her that literally 24 hours earlier they would've got back together and then eddie never would've had the chance to get anywhere near her :(

her reaction clearly isn't what he hoped for so he apologises for dropping that on her like that and goes to leave but she grabs his arm and says she has to tell him something but she needs a glass of wine first. noooo alicia JUST TELL HIM WHILE YOUVE GOT THE CHANCE

he goes to the kitchen to get glasses and sees a note eddie left on the fridge and assumes that was what she wanted to tell him and he's like "i'm so stupid. he offered to come round, i practically elbowed him out of the way." "ethan this is not what you think" "that's why you wanted to work with bea?" "no! well, yes, but not because i..." "i'm gonna go" "no, please don't!" "i'm such an idiot. i shouldn't have come." she's crying and begging him to stay but she can't say what she means properly so he just says it's fine and he'll see her tomorrow and leaves :((((

alicia burning her bedding😢😢😢😢😢

[brettyimages]

@menneskeforbruger this is too long to send a response as an ask (soz I don't know how to do a read more on mobile either)

Re the Radio 2 thing I agree and understand that a lot of the UK audience are Radio 2 listeners but the problem with that is that it doesn't matter what the UK thinks about our entry, we can't vote for it. Obviously it matters that people get behind it and support the entrant but ultimately it's in the hands of the rest of the continent (world, now, apparently). I can see how sending something too edgy/modern/novel might alienate some of the viewers though.

When it comes to the Radio 2 playlist of course it's getting 'younger' but you and I are also getting older... The 'oldies' when we were kids were songs my parents listened to growing up and now they're songs that were around when I was little. They play modern music but modern music that is palatable to my 60-something mum, who grew up with punk and disco whereas the modern music that would have been palatable to her mum would be the mawkish ballads that feel like dead space when you watch an 80s TOTP repeat. That doesn't mean it's all bad but they're more likely to play Dua Lipa than PinkPantheress or hyperpop. Mae Muller to me is very Dua Lipa-lite, very Anne Marie, very pop music for girlies who countdown to the next Love Island and their experience of live music is going to Ed Sheeran or Adele in a mega stadium with their mum. Maybe I'm influenced by having watched with my mum this year and she liked Mae better than any of the other sassy girl pop tunes. However as I pointed out to her, it's probably because she's heard it on the radio a bunch so it's had time to get in her head which I reckon contributes to Radio 2 demo British people saying we deserve better every year.

There's definitely not a formula to winning but you have to have *the* sassy girl pop song or *the* ballad or *the* rock song I think - people aren't going to vote for the second best song in the style they like and for me we couldn't compete with Israel's energy or Norway's ear worm chorus so of course we were going to suffer in the voting.

Bringing back a selection show - was it called Making Your Mind Up? - with a bit of everything might at least give the BBC an indication of what the public want out of Eurovision. They could put up a Mae Muller type of song, a big ballad, a metal band, a mad verging on novelty thing like Cha Cha Cha, and see what the current Eurovision audience goes for. Given the public in the UK gave Finland 12 points I don't think our voting public's tastes are far off Europe's as a whole so I think a temperature check would be a good thing.

[forloveoflibertea]

The USUK Database | Part 02: The Drafts

( I have also included a couple other fics which aren’t necessarily USUK, but well... you’ll see. )

WARNING: Please do not steal these ideas.

If you are interested in adopting any of these fic ideas, please talk to me first. I am an approachable person, and if—only if—I allow you to adopt an idea, please take the time to give me credit. That’s all I’m asking of you, dear reader. And, if you have been inspired to write something similar or based upon one of these ideas, feel free to do so, but still with proper credit. Also, please refer them to me, because I’m always open to read anything.☺️

I’m posting this list in order to get feedback, so, if you can take the time to leave a comment, please do so. It’s very appreciated by an amateur author like me.

Now, onto the list!

| 0 1 | The Through Boundless Seas Duology

| 0 1 . 1 | Main Storyline: And LiberTea For All | YouTuber, Soulmate AU ; main pairing: USUK ; side pairing/s: brotherly! FrUK, RusCan, PruHun

synopsis: ���When the whole world tells you who to love, listen to your heart."

In which fate (and humorous circumstance) brings them together.

| 0 1 . 2 | Prequel: Ocean Eyes | YouTuber, Soulmate AU ; main pairing: USUK ; side pairing/s: RusCan, one-sided AsaKiku

synopsis: “You're lovely but you're an ocean away."

"But when you love someone, you'll always find a way."

In which they reach out into the void and find each other.

| 0 2 | The Divide Collection | a collection of songfics based on the album, “divide” by Ed Sheeran ; main pairing: USUK

| 0 2 . 1 | To Fall In Love | based on Galway Girl | tagline: “Hold my hand, let's pretend we know how to fall in love one more time."

| 0 2 . 2 | Let Me Know | based on Dive | tagline: “Let me know if I'm crazy for loving you when I know better."

| 0 2 . 3 | If I Told You (I Love You) | based on How Would You Feel (Paean) | tagline: “If I told you I love you, can you look me in the eyes and lie that you love me too?"

| 0 2 . 4 | Empty | based on Save Myself | tagline: “I emptied out my love for you, waiting for you to give me yours in return. But you didn't."

| 0 3 | The Painted Hearts Duology

| 0 3 . 1 | Book One: Impressionism | Modern AU ; main pairing: USUK

tagline: “The simplest acts of love are captured in the most fleeting moments."

| 0 3 . 2 | Book Two: Surrealism | Modern AU ; main pairing: USUK

tagline: “They say it's better to be late than never. But it doesn't change the fact that it's already too late."

| 0 4 | Hellfire | HS AU, inspired by Kuroko No Basuke ; main pairing: USUK ; side pairing/s: PruCan

synopsis: There was a time when he thought he knew it all.

He thought he had it all. He thought he could make everyone of those he cared for stay by his side. He thought he was strong enough to protect. He thought he was a hero.

He was proven wrong.

He didn't have it all—he never did. He didn't make them stay by his side—he was the one who pushed them to their limits, made them snap, drove them away. He wasn't strong enough to protect—he was weak enough to hurt them beyond repair.

He was no hero—he was the one who ignited the flames which burned everything he knew to ashes.

| 0 5 | Pater Noster | Omegaverse, Canon-Divergent, includes Nyotalia ; main pairing: USUK ; side pairing: Franada

synopsis: There are three irrevocable things that Amelia and Alice know about themselves.

First: They're orphans. No one knows why, but the twins have always been sheltered in the care of the orphanage since they can remember. What Nonno Roma, their caretaker, could tell them was that they had been left on the doorstep of the building one stormy night, tucked safely within their blankets, which were each patiently embroidered with their names.

Second: Their parents must have been an Alpha-Omega couple. There was really no chance of one or both of their mysterious parents being a Beta, as Amelia is an Alpha, whilst Alice is an Omega.

And third: they should be dead, after living for more than a century. But they aren't—and the most puzzling of it all is that they look no older than eighteen.

| 0 6 | The Prince | Omegaverse, Cardverse AU, inspired by “The Selection” series by Kiera Cass ; co-written ; main pairing: USUK

tagline: Ten Suitors. A cynical Prince. A race for the crown... And to capture his heart.

| 0 7 | To Have And To Hold | Hitman Jones/Assassin Kirkland, Dystopian Cardverse AU ; main pairing: USUK ; side pairings: PruCan, GerIta

synopsis: “There are no sides when it comes to love—or so it was believed.”

Thirteen-year-old Peter had always known he was different, and there were three things which alluded to this fact.

First: He had grown up in the care of the 'Hellion Arrest and Recapture Squadron’ which was more commonly known as the 'HEARTS', specifically under their Commander, 'Joker's, supervision.

Second: He was the son of the most wanted criminals in all of Albion: the so-called 'King' and 'Queen' of the SPADEs.

And third: His parents would do everything to have and to hold their young 'Prince' once again—and if it meant declaring war, then so be it.

| 0 8 | I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings | Omegaverse, Dystopian AU ; main pairing: USUK ; side pairing: platonic! FrUK

synopsis: ‘They call him a monster, the devil raised from the flames of Hell itself.

‘I know differently.

‘He is only a man, flawed and imperfect, bathed in the blood of his enemies.

‘He is only the man I have always loved.’

| 0 9 | Lentamente | Bearerverse, Dystopian AU ; main pairing: USUK ; side pairings: MapleTea, DenNor, PruAus

synopsis: Associating with the Triumvirate only leads to trouble—he knows that better than anyone now.

When a one-night-stand goes wrong, straight-A Student Council President Arthur Kirkland finds himself being pursued by none other than the leader of New Haven Institute’s troubles: Alfred F. Jones. Notorious for being a reputed casanova with dashing good looks and witty pick-up lines, the American is a force to be reckoned with, and Arthur arms himself with his usual cynical attitude and volatile demeanour in order to rebuff the younger’s advances.

All's fair in love and war—or is it, really, when the ‘war’ is declared in order to capture a pessimistic Englishman’s heart?

| 1 0 | Thrice Promised | Bearerverse, Medieval AU, inspired by “The Thrice Promised Bride” by Cheng Chin Hsiung ; main pairing: USUK ; side pairings: past! FrUK, past! SpUK, platonic! EngMano, platonic! England x Belarus

synopsis: He was thrice promised to be wed, twice broken with lies, and once upon a time, he hoped to be redeemed.

| 1 1 | If I Die | Sweet Devil AU ; main pairing: USUK ; side pairings: PruCan, France x Seychelles

synopsis: There are many ways to die.

Arthur Kirkland knows this, for he has attempted them all.

| 1 2 | The ‘S’ Files Duology

| 1 2 . 1 | Part One: Still Here | HS AU, inspired by a song of the same title ; main pairing: SpaMano ; side pairings: USUK, GerIta, PruCan

synopsis: Lovino Vargas has a secret.

No, really—his family owns a flower shop, of all things, and he helps out at the store every time he's free. (Since his younger brother, Feliciano, is always with the Macho Potato he calls his lover.) It's not a bad thing, in theory—but that's where life screws with the hotheaded Italian.

When there's a spray-painted plethora of insults about his part-time job, it's about time things stir up—but not in the way he's expected.

| 1 2 . 2 | Part Two: Someone Like You | HS AU, inspired by a song of the same title ; main pairing: USUK ; side pairings: GerIta, SpaMano, PruCan

| 1 3 | I See You | Modern AU, inspired by the film Kita Kita ; main pairing: USUK ; side pairings: past! FrUK, France x Spain, past! America x OC! Philippines

| 1 4 | Let Love Bleed Black | Superhero AU ; main pairing: USUK ; side pairing: Franada

| 1 5 | Satisfied | Dystopian AU, inspired by the song, “Satisfied” from the musical, “Hamilton” ; main pairing: USUK ; side pairing: platonic! FrUK

| 1 6 | Inferno | Omegaverse, Magical Strike AU, inspired by the song, “Burn” from the musical, “Hamilton” ; main pairing: USUK ; side pairings: Ameripan, platonic! England x Belarus

| 1 7 | The Last Dance | tentative title ; Omegaverse, inspired by the song, “Dance With My Father,” cover by Michael Pangilinan ; main pairing: USUK

| 1 8 | Defenseless | tentative title ; Omegaverse, Secretly married Model! Alfred x Popular Singer! Arthur, inspired by the song, “Rockabye” by Clean Bandit ft. Sean Paul and Anne-Marie ; main pairing: USUK

| 1 9 | On My Own | tentative title ; HS AU, inspired by the song of the same title from the musical, “Les Misérables” ; main pairing: USUK ; side pairings: MapleTea, PruHun

| 2 0 | Submissive | Omegaverse, Canon-Divergent, a take on the popular “England as the 51st state” trope ; main pairing: USUK

| 2 1 | Hollow Fire | tentative title ; Canon-Divergent, inspired by the songs, “Paradichlorobenzene” and “Antichlorobenzene” ; main pairing: USUK ; side pairing: platonic! SpUK, SpaMano

| 2 2 | The Story of Us | HS AU, where the students of the all-boys academy are forced to present the musical “Hamilton” for their final project ; main pairing: USUK

| 2 3 | Fallen From Grace | Sweet Devil AU, Devil! Alfred x Suicidal Human! Arthur ; main pairing: USUK

| 2 4 | Scarlet | HS AU, inspired by the musical, “Heathers” ; main pairing: SpaMano ; side pairings: MapleTea, USUK, GerIta

[betsynagler]

1.8 Insults a Day

On inauguration day in 2017, which was also, sadly, my birthday, Damon and I were feeling shitty about the world, and so one way we decided to resist was by creating a Twitter bot called About a Bully, with the handle @insultingdonald. For those of you who don’t know what a Twitter bot is, it’s a Twitter account that you digitally alter to run automatically. Most bots tweet on a regular schedule or in response to certain stimuli, like people tweeting at it who want to see what it will come up with when it answers them. You can make it generate its own material if you know enough about AI (although if you think you know about AI and you don’t you can end up creating something like this, so it’s best not to fuck around), or you can create a bunch of material that it can mix up according to formulae you give it and send out at random. The material we chose for About a Bully was Trump’s insults, but rewritten so that they are directed at him. So if you follow @insultingdonald, about three times a day you will see it tweet out things like “Trump is a liar!”, or “Sleazebag President Donald Trump,” or “Never in the history of our Country has the ‘president’ been more dishonest than he is today.” If you're familiar with our current president, you will recognize a lot of these tweets for who they are typically directed at. For instance, from time to time you'll see something like “Donald Trump, who I call Pocahontas,” which refers to Elizabeth Warren, or something about “FAKE TRUMP,” which fills in for his many tweets railing at the media, and of course lots of “Crooked Donald”s — which you'd have to be living under a rock to not know was in its original form “Crooked Hilary,” something that also comes up at lot because he’s still regularly tweeting about her this way, two and half years after the 2016 election, especially when he’s feeling defensive about the Mueller probe, which is basically always.

Which brings me to something that I didn't anticipate when we created this bot. Because Damon is the coder in our duo, I do most of the analog end of our work. To maintain About a Bully, this means that I am the one who has to go in every few months and collect and adapt Trump’s insults, which means I have to comb through months of his tweets at a stretch. Given how industrious he is in this one area (as opposed to pretty much anything else, other than maybe watching Fox), that generally means I spend several hours immersing myself in…well, just garbage. A stream of pure, steaming, foul-smelling offal. At least that’s how it feels. 

This is not what most people experience when they follow the president on Twitter. For them, he’s just one person in their feed, that flow of tweets from all of the people they follow, that appears basically in real time. If you're following maybe 200 people, one of whom is Trump, you'll see his tweets mixed up with everyone else’s, popping up a few times a day — which is why lots of people I’ve always assumed are sane, like some of my friends as well as Jordan Peele, Chris Pratt, Chris Rock, Seth Meyers, and John Cusack, who don’t have to follow him for work like journalists or politicians presumably do, can tolerate following him (although the comedians do also need to generate material, so there’s that). 

But if you go to Trump’s Twitter page and read three to six months of tweets at a stretch, the picture is very different. First of all, you see just how much he repeats himself, over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and just keep going with the overs. He hammers away at the same claims, complaints and attacks, day after day — sometimes the exact same, when he retweets himself, as he frequently does, or when he uses his regular slogans, like some version of “THE FAKE NEWS MEDIA IS THE ENEMY OF THE PEOPLE.” He also repeatedly uses the same words or phrases, such as

exciting 

beautiful

tremendous  

great

smart

sacred (this one’s especially bizarre, given all that we know about him)

special 

NO COLLUSION

PRESIDENTIAL HARASSMENT (ironic)

not smart / low IQ (also ironic, for someone who threatened his high school and college not to divulge his transcripts or SAT scores) 

crazy (okay, let’s just say they are all ironic)

disgrace / disgraceful

conflicted (used to describe someone or something that has a conflict of interest, not someone who feels conflicted. Yeah, took me a while to figure that one out, since my reaction was always, “I don't really think Bob Mueller is conflicted at all about the Russia investigation.”)

dopey 

fake or FAKE 

failed, or failing 

illegal

dishonest

lying or lyin’ 

Crooked, as I already mentioned, always capitalized because it’s always used as part of, or a substitute for, Hilary Clinton’s name. 

Whether this repetitiveness is a strategy or something of which he's unaware, or a combination of the two, is hard to say since we can’t actually go inside his mind (although reading his tweets gets pretty close, which, again, is why I feel covered in filth after doing it for a few hours). Regardless, it is mind-numbing, and thus hard not to read as both the work of someone absent-minded and slightly deranged, and propaganda. Especially because, second, his tweets are just full of flat-out lies, which he also repeats. This is a technique we’ve seen perfected at Fox News and then passed on to the entire Republican Party as “staying on message,” but it’s especially necessary if you’re trying to generate a "fact” out of thin air. Here are just the ones that he said so far today:

“The Wall is being built and is well under construction.” People on both sides of the aisle (most blatantly his friend and foe Ann Coulter) have pointed out repeatedly how untrue this is. 

“We are apprehending record numbers of illegal immigrants - but we need the Wall to help our great Border Patrol Agents!” Impossible, since only 521K were apprehended in 2018, and the trend is downward overall, from a high of 1.5 million in 2000. He actually claimed himself that the numbers were down throughout 2017 and 2018, as proof that his border policies were working, and has only now 180-ed on that to prove we have a “state of emergency.”

“Both the Judge and the lawyer in the Paul Manafort case stated loudly and for the world to hear that there was NO COLLUSION with Russia.” What the judge actually said was that Manafort was “not before this court for anything having to do with collusion with the Russian government to influence this election,” which is not at all the same thing, and the lawyer who said there was no collusion was Manafort’s lawyer, who also claimed he wasn’t guilty of bank fraud or cheating on his taxes, two things of which he was just convicted.

And this is not an unusual amount, since, according to the Washington Post the president averaged 15 false claims a day in 2018. 

Third, his tweets are full of incorrect grammar and spelling. Typos like “hamberders” and “Covfefe” have become the most famous instances, but nearly every tweet has something wrong with it. There's erroneous capitalization (most of which he claims is for added emphasis, but in the case of, for example, “Where are the new Texts between Agent Lisa Page and her Agent lover, Peter S?”, what is there to emphasize about Texts?). There is the weird/incorrect use of punctuation, like dashes and scare quotes where they don't belong and missing apostrophes where they do (here's one that contains all three!: “Without strong Borders, we don’t have a Country - and the voters are on board with us. Be strong and smart, don’t fall into the Democrats “trap” of Open Borders and Crime!”). And there are the most basic mistakes like spelling “lose” as “loose,” “heal” as “heel” (very Freudian), “there” as “their” and vice versa, “too” or “two” as “to,” etc etc. Of course with any of these, you can say that lots of people make these kinds of mistakes, but you must always remember, they aren't the president of the United States.

Which is what's so remarkable and disturbing about diving into this stream of spew: it’s yet another appalling example of something we've just accepted Trump does that you cannot imagine any other president would have been caught dead doing, of something that is not normal that we've just gotten used to. Even W, who we all thought was not the sharpest tool in the shed, knew enough to delegate things he wasn't good at (and if the world as we know it is fucked because he delegated too many of them to Dick Cheney, that’s not because Cheney was not competent at achieving what he wanted, but because he was). Trump’s Twitter feed shows him not only to be just as stupid and arrogant as you think — because he figures that all of this thoughtless, repetitive crap that comes into his head and then out of his tiny fingers is exciting, beautiful, tremendous!, just as it is, and thus doesn't need to be vetted or edited, even when it potentially obstructs justice or reveals information damaging to national security — but even more self-promoting, defensive, childish, crude, and vindictive, and obsessively so. It's the feed of someone who so believes that the only truth is what he wants it to be, and that he can make the whole world that way if he just continues to hammer it into submission, repeatedly, day after day after day. And on a lot of those days, it seems that America keeps proving him right. Republican lawmakers are certainly trying.

Perhaps the saddest thing that we’ve figured out since 2015, when the New York Times started collecting his insults (and we give them full credit for tracking this phenomenon before we did), is that Trump has averaged 1.8 per day. And that means, since he actually can go for days without an insult if things are going well for him or if he just feels like retweeting other people (and we only include the insults that originate with him), that the concentration of insults you’ll encounter on a given day can often be an impressive four or five. Now, I’m sure we all know people who average more insults than this — the worst bully you ever encountered in junior high, the most horrible boss you ever had, the crazy neighbor down the hall who made your life hell, Howard Stern, Rush Limbaugh — but again, none of these people are the President of the United States, to whom we somehow chose to give more power than anyone else in the nation, and in doing so, perhaps the world.

One other thing I noticed this time around, though, was that there are now a lot of people trolling Trump. More people who are anti-Trump than pro respond to his tweets these days, and there are people who do it relentlessly. Sometimes they have cogent arguments with evidence to support them, but a lot of the posts just include memes and name-calling. Then the MAGA people troll the trolls, and then other people troll them, and on and on, until all the yelling and insults surrounding his feed become a reflection of it. It’s sort like what our bot does, only we created our thing to purposely hold up a funhouse mirror to Trump’s tweets and point out their ugly absurdity, whereas this flow of comment bile just shows how he's actually reshaped so much of the way people “talk” about politics now into a warped reflection of himself. And yes, you can and must also blame the internet for that, and Newt Gingrich, and Steve Bannon, and Roger Ailes, but Trump is their golem, the ultimate manifestation of what we let them do, brought to life in such horrible fashion that many days it still doesn’t seem real to me. And then I go read his fucking tweets.

I used to think that if your average Republican — not his die-hard supporters, because I've given up on them — read his feed the way that I do, with all the repetition and lies and mistakes, and repetition of the lies and mistakes, over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and hopefully you get it now, they'd recognize how appalling it is that Trump is our president, and realize they can't vote for him in 2020. But now I think maybe they'd just see it all as normal, as the way we talk about issues, the way we talk about each other: us vs. them, good vs. bad, my truth vs. your truth because I make mine real, everything justified in this zero-sum conflict which is best expressed not in conversation, but in insults. And where do you go from there? 

[sarucane]

Stede Bonnet's Stories (S2)

In season 2 of OFMD, Stede has finally figured out the stories he wants to tell about his life--and has even begun to believe them. But he hasn't figured out how to make those stories real. How to tell a story with others, rather than to them.

When season 2 begins, Stede is isolated within his stories. He's telling his most important story--his romance--to anyone who will listen (and anyone who can listen in the case of his roommates). He's writing letters to Ed every day and telling his love story again and again, cementing it, willing it to be real. But he's avoiding true vulnerability. He's scared that connection will bring pain, will send him back into an old story he is trying to escape, and his fear is controlling him. Pure storytelling isn't going to move Stede's life forward, as Zheng points out to him.

And he's not wrong to be scared. Stede's stories in this episode aren't going to come true the way he envisions them, because they're too disconnected from reality. This isn't a new problem for Stede: in the first season, this same problem made Stede vulnerable to mutiny and manipulation.

But Stede's grown since then. In the second season, Stede knows there's a disconnect, knows his stories are in tension with reality. He admits it in his letters, that he knows Ed probably doesn't want to see him, will probably never read his letters.

But he keeps writing them, every day. Because even though he's scared, he does want Ed to find the letters. He does want to tell his story.

And his stories will shape reality--but not until after reality shapes them.

It's not bad that Stede is cultivating this story. But it's part of why, in the first episodes of s2, Stede is purely reactive. He is so preoccupied with his own insecurities, with a story that disconnects him from everything around him (like how he yells at Richie in an alley about wanting privacy), that he doesn't go looking for Ed. And by the time he finally reaches Ed, it's almost too late. Ed's story has broken him off from everything and everyone.

But Stede does reach Ed, does manage to reconnect with him. And he does this by not clinging to his misty-eyed romance. Lucius forces Stede to let go of his ego-driven idea that Ed's life is "better without me," and to let go of his misty-eyed romance. To look at Ed's crimes and think about what they mean. To think about how Ed experiences himself and his own story, not just how Stede experiences it.

And then Stede understands that the only way to move forward is to weave together his story, reality, and other people's stories. And that lets him move from vision to action.

After three episodes of passivity, it's Stede who makes the decisions that determine how the story of Ed and the Revenge mutiny are going to end. And that lets him do more than he ever could before. Be more than he even understands he can be.

But in an achingly human development, Ed and Stede go two steps forward and three steps back. Because Ed has a whole different story, all his own.

Ed rejects the story Stede brought with him. He's fighting Stede's stories all through the scenes at Anne and Mary's, right up until Stede corners him with reality.

The entire complex reality of their story now--the problems of their original relationship, the truth of Ed's hurt and Stede's failure, the difficulty of what lies in front of them if they want to move forward--is stronger than Stede's romantic dream that Ed would "melt back into his arms."

And that's a good thing, because Stede's story was as reductive as a story of an impossible bird. Stede'll never be a swashbuckler who can defeat Izzy in a duel, Ed'll never have a beard that long again.

The stories Stede told himself about their relationship being "on a break," the story Ed told himself that his time with Stede was "the best it's ever gonna get for him," those stories weren't real. But the core truth of both of their stories was love. And though love has as little objective reality as hope or mercy, it can be real.

When Ed and Stede talk at Anne and Mary's, Stede puts aside any hopes he'd had in a reunion, his idealized fantasies of what he and Ed can be to each other. Instead, he focuses on love. On a bond with Ed that is entirely unconditional, that asks nothing of Ed. That gives Ed space, to accept Stede's story--or to reject it. Stede sets aside all his stories to focus on the most basic building block of true connection: vulnerability.

And when Ed doesn't reject him, Stede connects his vulnerability, his love story, to the simple reality in front of him: Ed's life.

In the past, Stede's vulnerability through stories has led him to become self-obsessed, to get caught up in his own ego and what he wants the world to become. But as the season goes on, Stede learns to listen to other people's stories. To embrace the vulnerability of changing his stories, so he can connect other stories to his own. So he can let go of some things (like a cursed suit) but hang onto others (like a red velvety shirt).

This is far from a perfect transition. Stede holds onto the suit for so long he has a near-mutiny on his hands. But he also sets aside his own story so he can respect Ed's vulnerability and fears, helps Ed and the crew turn poison into positivity, then slips through a hole (literally) in Ned Lowe's story.

But then Stede gets caught up in his own story, in his own fears and insecurities, and messes up with Ed. He clings to Ed too tightly, tells a story that goes too fast for Ed at the end of ep 6. And in episode 7, Stede gets completely caught up in his own story, to the point that he again disconnects from Ed.

He brushes over the nuance of what actually happened with Ned to enjoy the benefits of righteous fame--until he loses literally track of Ed, and of Ed's story. Until he's addressing Ed as "Blackbeard."

And then, Stede's tested. His out-of-control story runs headlong into Ed's. What he thought of as the best day (and probably night) of his life turns out to have been a crisis point for someone he loves.

Stede could have panicked or frozen when this happened. Could have disconnected, could have ;lashed out with a story where his vulnerability led to victimhood, or retreated into the story that swept him up last year (the fear that he'll bring Ed nothing but ruin). Could have told his preferred story as loudly as he can, just as he has in the past.

Instead, he listens. And he does everything he can to connect with Ed, even mirroring Ed's body language in this scene. He meets Ed's vulnerability with his own, recognizes the truth of Ed's different experience, and seeks a way that they can connect and tell their story together.

Stede can do this because he spent the season learning how to listen to other people's stories. How to decode the tales of his own crew, Ned Lowe's crew, and Ed, and how to connect his own stories to theirs.

So when Ed announces he's leaving, Stede knows what's actually happening. Knows that Ed isn't invalidating their relationship. That life is hard, change and dealing with insecurities are scary, and sometimes we panic, and we react in ways that aren't useful. Stede's still hurt, but he isn't broken by this.

And so, even when Ed and Stede are separated and confused, their bond survives. And it turns out that Stede's commitment to Ed, the story he wove at the beginning of the season--it wasn't everything, but it was enough. Enough that even when all their plans and the world have fallen apart, Ed and Stede can put it all back together.

Because Stede wasn't alone, even when he feared he was, when he wrote those vulnerable letters daily on a lonely beach. We saw in the first episodes that Ed was thinking of him, right when Stede was thinking of Ed. And Ed did get one of his letters--and right when he needed it most.

Stede's stories have led him down a lot of mistaken paths, have nearly gotten him killed more than once. But when he consciously told stories that made him vulnerable, that spoke to what he truly wanted, he became more himself than ever. And when real vulnerability is met by vulnerability, it can turn into strength. Instead of Ed and Stede knocking each other over, as they did in the opening fantasy scene of 2x1, they hold each other up when they meet in 2x8.

When Stede and Ed reunite, Stede doesn't get hung up on resolving conflicting stories or worrying about his own insecurities. He just accepts Ed. Offers Ed a story in which he can make mistakes not because he's a bad person, or doesn't love Stede, but because "life's a dick" and sometimes we fuck up.

And when Ed offers Stede his story, offers his vulnerability, Stede doesn't try to match it with something identical. Doesn't echo it or risk overwriting it with his own words. He listens to it. He lets Ed know that he's safe with Stede and always has been. He folds Ed's words into his own story--and just like that, (like Lucius and Pete with their wedding vows) Stede and Ed really can tell the same story, with two voices.

From disconnection comes connection.

Ed's and Stede's stories intertwine, and then they shape reality around them. Together, they throw themselves into a fight against the British. When Stede makes the plan to sneak out--to slip through a hole in another enemy's story--Ed is the one we see stripping the soldiers to carry out the plan. When Izzy's dying and Ed demands help, Stede's the one who goes to get bandages.

The season ends with Ed and Stede setting out to tell another story together. One that balances both their stories--Ed's need to not be a pirate, Stede's and Ed's desire to give their relationship a real chance--and has space for both of them to tell.

And in the last lines of dialogue, Stede tries one last time to impose his own idealized story on reality, talking about how the house "smells like the future." It's a pretty story, but not helpful. So Stede lets it go. He and Ed'll find whatever's making that stench, they'll clean it up--and they'll make a safe space where they can tell their story together.