#anyway thanks for coming to my angry tedtalk

[boy-above]

venti is already an adult i am so tired of some people insisting the 2600(+) year old depressed alcoholic god is a child because he looks feminine. i'm tired of people doing "adult venti" designs as an excuse to make him more masculine. there's female characters that have the same proportions as he does but they dont "look like they're 12" to these people because they're women therefore femininity is acceptable, but a male character having feminine proportions means immediate infantilization for any male character no matter how obvious it is that they're an adult. "adult venti" my ass you just made cisgender venti / adheres to gender roles venti 🙃🙃🙃

[tinyjordan]

exCUSE ME, BUT WHY THE FUCK DID THE PREREQUISITES TO GETTING GALE'S "I'M NOT GONNA BE A GOD ENDING" CHANGE???

AND HOW COME EVEN AFTER THE BOAT SCENE AND THE DC 30 SKILL CHECK, IT STILL DOESN'T EVEN MATTER AT THE END BECAUSE "oH, yOu ChOsE oPtIon 3 InStEaD oF 2 wHiLe In ThE sToRmShOrE tAbErNaCkLe So NoW YoU'rE lOcKeD oUt Of YoUr BeLoVeD's GoOd EnDiNg"

fucking BULLSHIT WHY DID IT HAVE TO CHANGE ALL OF A SUDDEN IT NEVER WAS THAT WAY BEFORE I AM SEETHING

like. what was the point of everything else huh? it also makes ZERO sense for Gale to just do a 180 right at the end after everything we just been through and after everything seemed to be going rather splendid

seriously, if this doesn't get patched, I'm never fucking picking this game up again which I'm rather disappointed to say because i fucking love this game to death

[meiloorunsmoothie]

On the Other Side 💞

[tfp-is-my-lifeblood-lol]

Reasons Why I Think TFP Jack is Underrated:

Welcome to my organized bullet list of why I think Jack is cool. I used to think he was boring too, but now I think he's the goat and here's why:

-He has Main Character Energy, but he's more snarky than most cliche main characters

In fact, he is a petty king:

-He doesn't wanna be on Team Prime at first, but eventually accepts it...

...He then proceeds to BURN Airachnid's ship to the GROUND with a stupid survival kit for babies

-HE DEFEATED THE ALIEN SPIDER QUEEN WITH NOTHING BUT A LIGHTER AND A POCKET KNIFE, BRO

-HE WAS DONE WITH HER BULLSHIT LOL

-Plus he tricked Silas by pretending to beg for mercy, when really, he was stealing his walkie talkie.

-Jack is boring, BUT the fact that Jack has nothing special about him IS his superpower; Miko has the Apex Armor and her brave personality, Raf has genius level computer smarts, and Jack has PURE SPITE. It's beautiful.

-He has zero skills, but he'll figure out how to defeat his enemies anyway, SOLEY because he's tired and doesn't get paid enough for this shit.

-For example, in one of the Titan Magazine comics, Jack literally kicks Silus in the balls

Evidence:

Iconic✨

Apex armor? Cybertronian technology?

Screw that. How about I KICK you in the balls?l

-A true legend

-He's also a mess though, and I relate so hard

-He's so petty he talked two aliens into helping him cheat at street racing to piss off his classmate

-His romantic subplot is treated like a complete joke, and I love that. Normally, the Main Character✨ is awkward, but gets the girl in the end. Not Jack, though. Nope. He just constantly looks stupid in front of Sierra, nothing ever happens between them, and Arcee is just watching with popcorn as his life falls apart. It's hilarious.

Also, if I'm correct, isn't the last time we see Sierra when she sees Arcee's homoform, and thinks Jack has a girlfriend, and then Jack is like "She's my mom😅." And Sierra's all like: "Your mom looks good in leather😐...on your bike😐😐😐😐..." Maybe I'm wrong, but if that's the case, it's funny. Jack is a simp and it gets him nowhere.

-His sarcasm works perfectly with Arcee's sarcastic attitude.

-Also Tailgate is voiced by Josh Keaton (Jack's voice actor) in the flashbacks, so I headcanon that Jack reminds Arcee of Tailgate, and that's why she has such a soft spot for him.

Tailgate and Arcee's dialogue had the same vibe as her and Jack's

Also, it gives more context to why she was so scared to lose him when Airachnid showed up. It would've literally been like losing Tailgate all over again.

-Jack is Team Prime's designated Good Ideas Guy

It was Jack's idea to hijack the spacebridge to send him to Cybertron

It was also his idea to drain the dark energon out of The Nemesis when it came alive and froze everyone

-I'm probably just projecting, he has generalized anxiety disorder vibes

-I feel like he prefers a comfortable, predictable life because he gets nervous easily

-He's always the first to freak out, and overthink, and Arcee always has to calm him down

-And she's so patient with him it's so sweet😱

-I agree the writing behind his existence is meh, and a lot of the cool stuff about him is probably unintentional, but I don't care, so take that!

Anyway, the moral of the story is:

Jack is just an angry little harmonica boy. Leave him alone. He's trying his best😭

Thank you for coming to my TedTalk.

[nicossunshine]

Had a sudden random realisation I had to yap about:

So I feel like it’s a common misconception (not just among viewers but among the characters of HTTYD as well) that Hiccup and Stoic are polar opposites because of how much they butt heads and their views don’t seem to align. But in reality they are incredibly similar - both are protectors with large hearts. But where Stoic sees his duty in protecting his people from the dragons (and this forms a hatred that he’s later blinded by and which causes him to be downright cruel to Hiccup when he says he’s not his son), Hiccup sees a duty in protecting anything innocent.

For example, Stoic had downed Toothless instead of Hiccup, he would’ve killed the dragon, yes. But not out of “im a man and have to prove I’m strong and cool”, but because he would see Toothless as an embodiment of harm and think that he’s protecting his people and his son by killing a nightfury.

But Hiccup obviously spares Toothless, and not because “I’m not a man and I’m weak”, but because in that moment Toothless isn’t a threat, he’s an ‘innocent’ animal caught in a trap that Hiccup made. To kill him goes against Hiccup’s morals of protecting and caring for the helpless and innocent.

So, though their world views cause them to act very differently, Stoic and Hiccup are both fierce protectors at heart. But it’s their differences in world view that makes Stoic be downright mean to Hiccup in the first movie as all he can see is that fundamental difference between them.

Now take Hiccup’s daughter, Zephyr. In (I’m pretty sure) a Christmas short movie (???) Zephyr reads up on old books about dragons and deems them dangerous and starts setting up traps around the house to protect her family from dragons.

She shares this same fierce protective quality as her father and grandfather, but is more like Stoic in that she sees dragons as something dangerous that needs to be eliminated in order to protect those she loves.

But what’s really interesting to me is Hiccup’s approach to her vastly different view of dragons (that really stems from her never having seen or met one). Hiccup doesn’t barrate her, yell at her, make her take down her traps. He tries to explain to her that dragons are amazing creatures that don’t have to be feared, and then, when she doesn’t agree with him and sticks to her own ways, he’s keeps trying to change her mind but not by trying to force her to have his world view like Stoic did to him. He lets her keep building her traps that makes her feel safe, and tries just showing her the friendliness of dragons through sharing his own stories with Toothless.

And what really hits for me is that, even though Hiccup gets fucking twatted by these traps (that he fundamentally doesn’t agree with) multiple times, he never gets angry. In fact, every single time he’s knocked flat on his ass, he tells Zephyr, and anyone who’s around to hear, that he’s “so proud”, because he sees their shared qualities of being fierce protectors (as well as creative inventors) in her building her traps.

Where Stoic would say openly that he was embarrassed and ashamed of Hiccup for having this difference when Hiccup was young, Hiccup is sure to repeatedly assure Zephyr that she makes him proud and keeps uplifting her in what she does, even though it’s completely different/ wrong to him. I just can’t stop thinking about it, how openly Hiccup raises his children with nothing but love and pride and acceptance, so differently to how his father was to him.

(This isn’t Stoic hate btw, he ends up being such an amazing character and dad by the end of the first movie but we all have to agree he was pretty shit at the start)

Anyway Hiccup’s a great dad. Thanks for coming to my TEDTalk.

[theragethatisdesire]

after seeing this i just HAD to drop by and dump some of my own personal hc’s of the death painting so forgive me(no curse au in my little brain)

- Choso’s love language is physical touch but he despises pda. If youre out together he gives you your space & isn’t overly clingy. he’ll have a heavy hand on your back, guiding you through the crowd or keeping you close. He’ll let you wander off with friends but he will always know where you are.

-Gets very nervous and flustered in public and he’s really bad at hiding it. The tips of his ears will be an angry shade of red when you look at him a certain way. He’ll stutter his words, slur the simplest of sentences. He’ll tug on the collar of his shirt that he swears wasn’t that tight earlier in the day.

-In private, he won’t keep his hands off you. He wants to lay on your stomach while you read your book so you can run your fingers through his hair. He’s snuggled up to you on the couch while you watch your favorite show together, he snakes his arms around your waist while you cook him breakfast & he definitely wants to be the big spoon at night.

-He wants to bathe you during a shower, he’ll ask you to fix his hair for him & he likes it when you pick outfits out for him.

-He’s a gift giver; clothes, jewelry, flowers, your groceries. Maybe he just wants to spend his money on you, even if he doesn’t have it.

-He definitely helps you hook on a necklace he gifted you, gold chained and decorated with his initials. (Since he hates pda, he’s gotta put his mark on you somehow)

-he doesn’t intervene when someone hits on you. In fact, he gets a little satisfaction watching you turn someone down. I also believe his scary dog privilege is top tier. He may be a sopping wet kitten in private but if someone you turned down continues to bother you it doesn’t take long for him to step in a shut it all down.

anyway thanks for coming to my tedtalk rage💜

EMMMMMM EM EM EM EM

i had to wait until i had emotionally mentally physically processed all of this to post.....bc wow

are you trying to turn me into a choso girlie? bc if that's ur evil plan, it's working and i'm happy to follow along. the chain? the snuggles? the pink ears??? I LOVE HIM!

everyone say THANK YOU for this delicious food. em you're my hero.

[kierans-crow]

Just personally:

I’ve been doing my best to edit the word ‘deserve’ out of my vocabulary. At least for the big things. Because sometimes, truly, I do just deserve a ✨treat✨— sometimes I am allowed. Sometimes a milkshake will be the perfect cherry on top of a great day, and sometimes it will be the consolation prize for surviving a shitty week. And in those instances nothing matters but the fact that I deserve a ✨treat✨ because it will, in fact, make me feel good.

Sometimes, I just see the Golden Arches and think “I deserve milkshake?” and some automatic process in my head starts calculating how close Pay Day is and whether I have Lactaid with me because otherwise my lactose intolerant body is going to feel Bad and sometimes it is just not worth it — In that case “deserve” is appropriate. Because the sneaky thing about the word “deserve” is that it looks like it’s giving permission but it’s not.

It’s a very sneaky word. And if used improperly it gets in your head, and it turns into this terrible insidious voice. “Deserve” leaves just enough room for doubt to be dangerous. And the only combatant to that doubt is “earning.”

But do you, though? What have you done to deserve that? What have you endured to deserve that? In the case of a milkshake, this voice delays a milkshake. Usually until either a very good day or a particularly bad one.

Which is why I don’t use “deserve” for the Big Things.

I do not deserve to eat. I do not deserve to sleep. I do not deserve love, or peace, or a shelter.

Vitally: Those are needs.

If I put sleep, or dinner, or a few moments to myself behind a door of having to earn it I am a person in trouble. Because what I need to do to earn those things is arbitrary. If I am hungry and have convinced myself I need to deep clean the apartment before I allow myself food and it’s already 7pm I am going to feel very Unwell very quickly and I’m probably going to be angry on top of it. My window of tolerance shrinks and my ability to take care of myself diminishes. It’s a shitty domino effect that does not end well.

There’s a lot less room for doubt in the sentence: “I need to eat because my body and brain need fuel.“ That is a fact. And if my body and brain are fuel: I'll be able to complete whatever task I've set before myself. Food is no longer a reward it is a necessary part of completing the task.

Similarly: "I need to sleep because it is good for me."

Or: "Humans are social creatures, so I need to maintain healthy, robust connections with the people I love, and if I don’t have those connections I need to set about making them."

And this subtle distinction in how I talk to myself does genuinely change things. Language and the words we use have a very real impact on how we perceive our realities, I have a tangent about language and color that will make an already very long post even longer and muddy the thesis, so I’ll save the dissertation, but the words we use effects our realty in surprising and profound ways.

Maybe I’ll replace my other uses of “deserve” with “allow.” Ask myself “am I allowed a milkshake?” instead. Same process of checks and balances, just without the strings, and it puts me more directly in charge of myself instead of leaving it to ??? whatever my perception of "earning" and "deserving" comes from.

Anyway I’ve been thinking about this for nearly an entire year, so, thanks for coming to my tedtalk.

[carmenized-onions]

Oh gods, I apologize for the long long rambling, but here it goes:

First of all, you are a genius! I can’t believe the way your words were converting to an actual TV scene in my mind d, with cut and editions, the whole thing!

I could see Carmy finding the file with Mike's writing and the pictures and I could feel and see his distress with every picture he saw! My friend you are a genius 🙌🏽

Ok on to the theories:

After reading it again, because the first got me too angry to process anything, it is clear that Tony was pretty involved in Mike’s recovery program, but how much? I didn’t connect the nickname “Chip” until I read in one of the comments that it was because of the chips the program gives to the person once they get to a certain goal, so this makes me think that she was in the program (being a first respondent puts a lot of stress, anxiety and trauma on those poor people) and that is how they met.

And I think they were so close because either she was his sponsor, buuuut, those photos give me the tingles because if he was the one getting the goals then Chip would have made him carry the cupcake. After all, it’s his celebration, so maybe he was his sponsor? And she being in recovery could be the reason she is no longer a paramedic, maybe she got busted and could no longer be one? And would be also the reason she disappeared when Mickey died because she didn’t realize how bad was it for him because he focused on her recovery. Not to mention the hero complex Chip probably has, there is a reason Chip was a paramedic and now is a fix-it-all all 🤷🏽‍♀️

Oh god the next but is going to be so hard and painful… ok last comments:

-Love Richie and his “ I’m trying to be Zen, moment during the almost dinner with Fak”

-RIP the most delicious dish created-never tasted, and F that idiot ex-boss!

-Bless be the "Ratatouille moment”

-“Tina don’t shout at us because we cry 🙈”

-Tony screams at seeing Carmy's hair, we want those beautiful curls back!”

And so much more but this has been long enough, thank you for sharing your story!

And thank you for coming to this TEDTalk ❤️

You will literally never need to apologize for giving critical thought to a silly little thing i wrote and then TELLING IT TO ME THANK YOU MY LOVE!!!

I'm so so happy to hear that you see it as the show, it's exactly what I'm aimin for every time, and I think the stress of this chapter hit that head quite heavy this time.

Incredible line of thought, this ted talk. There's so many little caveats to it, which, I think Phoenix Wright taught me how to bury leads like this. THAT BEING HOW THEY MET WOULD BE WOWOJEFIwoo WOO! Pain. It's been a reoccurring query simply not trusting that Tony really did just quit being a paramedic for her dad and you know what-- good, i've sewed the seeds of mistrust in you all. And that's wonderful. But it would make sense! Can't always fix people, but you can always fix stuff.

oof.

Anyways, CLOSING COMMENTS!!

The amount of restraint it took Rich, you've gotta respect it

I'm almost certain I wrote that cherry lamb section while hungry and i do think that made me make it even more painful. FUCK THAT BOSS!!!

chip and carms first real date will be ratatouille. if they live through this next one.

It's important to be vulnerable with your kitchen and let them know if they raise their voices even slightly you will! have! a meltdown!

There's a reason Jeremy with the slick back is a meme. I know he's also standing like that but he also just looks insane. It's terrible.

NEXT CHIPPIE CHAP IS COMIN OUT AFTER MY LAST SYNTAX READ THANK YOU SO MUCH BABYYYY I LOVE TO GET THESE TREATS IN MY INBOX THANK YOU FOR THE TED TALK!!

[konnichibot]

Apparently, comicsgate wasn't relatable enough to people, so we now have a thing with Western manga artist making mangagate.

Get some hot tea for this cause you're gonna need it.🍵

You have manga publishers trying to be the #1 EXCLUSIVE go-to magazine for Western manga but get salty at smaller competitive manga magazines. This includes badmouthing rival magazines and getting angry when their former artists migrate from their magazine to a rival magazine.

You also have a nutcase that once held Japan to a golden standard, now trying to coin a new term for Western manga. But it's not OEL manga, no no, it's called "ManaA" and it's apolitical and adheres to gender norms, and this guy made a whole MANIFESTO for "ManaA" and he continues to tear down other (more skilled) indie manga creators that don't fit his vision.

I'm not a manga artist, but what I DO KNOW is that Japan has SEVERAL manga magazines, and they all coexist with each other, so idk why people are trying to gatekeep who's the "legit" or "most diverse" indie manga magazine for westerners.

A big pet peeve of mine is these magazines trying to claim exclusivity to artists and getting pissed when they move to another magazine. Unless you made a REAL LEGAL contract for exclusivity and payment (PAY YOUR ARTISTS), you do not own them. They are free to work for others.

Also, Western manga is a very NICHE market, and unless you move to Japan and debut as a formal mangaka, you have to navigate and utilize the western comic market to promote your manga. Internet makes this easier, of course, thanks to webcomics over the years. And there are HUNDREDS of webcomics!!

That's why gatekeeping, whose western manga magazine is more legit, or the standards that western manga have to adhere to is useless. In the end, they are all webcomic artists who just utilize the manga style and format. And there's nothing wrong with that.

It's a niche genre in an oversaturated webcomic market. Webcomic collectives coexist with each other with no problems, so why can't indie manga magazines? That's why ego comes into play with who can be "the next shonen jump," the "next Eiichiro Oda," the "next Akira Toriyama," or just the most SUCCESSFUL plain and simple.

Anyway, you are not immune to egotistical and overcompetative comic artists, and thank you for coming to my TEDtalk.

[adagaium]

SHOUTOUT TO THIS TOP TIER POST ! BECAUSE HELLO, op you’ve kicked me into gear on talking about. more ardyn symbolism, more of how things work on this blog for my own portraya , in general, you know. 

let’s start this off with ardyn is meant to be Christ, not noctis, and adagium is, while ardyn, not fully so? adagium is the anti-Christ, (the angra mainyu, the all the world's evils). there, i said it, i will die on this hill, and there are so many reasons for why. ardyn being the Christ figure is also why i’ve got a meta on his nature as the son of the astrals, rather than his mortal brother, somnus, but that’s a different topic. anyway, in the end, the only logical thing for the starscourge to be is a manifestation of human sin. it’s poorly explained in game at best, and this answer lines up with the many other allegories that ffxv decided to slap in there. so of course the scourge is a sickness of the soul and by that logic, ardyn’s death and noctis’ death … didn’t end the scourge, it ended the ability of the scourge to turn people into daemons. it offered humanity a chance at salvation. 

for 2000 years, ardyn has lived with the SINS OF THE PLANET in his body, they try to smother his own soul, but as we see in ep ardyn, even after verstael has him do all this awful shit, even as angry as he is at somnus, in the resist path ( which is the only path in my mind ), BAHAMUT TORTURES HIM INTO SUBMISSION TO HIS ‘FATE’. ardyn’s calling was as a savior, and what was done to him was unnatural and cruel. not to say that he wasn’t cruel, too, because he DID do horrible things, but let’s also think of how it was also confirmed that ardyn does’t remember most things about HIMSELF, because he has so many other people’s memories. he has so many other people’s sins. 

so here we are . ardyn has absolved others of their sins by taking those sins upon himself, and thus by the logic, he has turned into the daemon of daemons. or to go to my zoroastrianism influences, deva of devas, the ahriman, angra mainyu. of course he’s bitter. he’s been used by others to absolve them of their sins. so humans can be free to sin, he suffers, and it’s still his kneejerk reaction under all the daemonic influence of the scourge for him to do that. squenix mentions ardyn is also meant to be ‘the sin eater’, who takes the sins of others away. his ‘true body', where he weeps black tears ( or, in his first death, most certainly blood ), is referencing the phenomenon where holy statues are said to weep blood — the sign of a miracle . ARDYN CONTINUOUSLY IS COVERED IN ALLEGORY OF MIRACLES !!!!!! HELLO ??? not to mention his whole ass design, from name to his color scheme, is that of the dawn, the sun. to go as a foil to noctis, the night sky: ardyn, who was originally just ‘arden ( brilliant , burning )’ in his concept art … ardyn [arden] lucis caelum … burning light of the sky … the sun.  

ok you’re probably wondering what the heck the point of this is, but i sure do ramble huh. the point here is ardyn is, while doing badly, the savior. it is still ARDYN who must die for the scourge to be defeated, otherwise … there’s a chance if it was just noctis who needed to die, he … would’ve been killed. which is a horrifying thought. 

ardyn is … dealing with so much. for so long, ‘the sun’ has been smothered by darkness. when he dies, the scourge’s manifestation can no longer take hold of mortals, regardless of sin or lack thereof — although, in the end, all humans make mistakes, in some religious context, humans are sinners and that’s why Christ died. ‘to absolve us of sin’. but Christ’s death did not make sin go away, it only opened a path for forgiveness and salvation. similarly , ardyn didn’t make the scourge go away, simply his death ( or his blessing as a healer ), made it so that the sin of the person would not turn them into a daemon, so that they could find salvation thanks for coming to my tedtalk. 

[earthseaelephant]

If one more professor at my uni tells me autistic ppl don't have empathy and cannot properly care for people I WILL become a ghost just to haunt them in their dreams, Mr Scrooge style.

[tacendisms-a]

what i say: im fine

what i mean: if peaches never dated margo and henceforth never got into drugs he wouldn’t be in the music scene and he’d be a really fucking successful chef that sometimes teaches cooking classes at the local college bc he knows its hard to make food worth your time when you’re a broke college student and actively donates to charities and visits foster homes and he’s a huge dick to any adult and calls them “panini-head” and “fuck face” but hes so sweet and gentle with kids he ends up adopting like two older kids when he turns 25 bc he knows the older the kids get the less chance they have of getting adopted and even though he loves his kids he ends up fostering hella other kids as he gets older bc he hates the lack of stability that growing up in the foster care system has

[magdaclaire]

.

[aswarmofbisexualbees]

Okay I know that this had been said before but it is late and I cannot sleep so bear with me

Anyone who adapts Sherlock Holmes listen the fuck up!

1. Holmes is someone people went to when they were scared of or knew they would be dismissed by the police. That is why there are numerous stories where abused women come to him for help, the speckled band, the copper beeches, the solitary cyclist, and also stories about people from a lower social class coming to him for help because he wouldn't charge them for his investigations and he would treat them with the same respect, if not higher, that he would treat the upper class.

2. Yes he is misogynistic in the beginning but there is literally a story about him unlearning his bigotry because a woman outsmarts him. This is why in adaptations IRENE ADLER HAS TO OUTSMART HIM!!! It is a vital part of his character arc. (Looking at you Moffat) If you make Holmes outsmart her, not only are you incapable of letting a woman be smarter than a man, you would also fail high school English class because you don't understand how character development works.

3. Holmes is not an asshole to everyone! He is purposely an asshole to the police and to rich people. He is an asshole to people that think they are better than him, and sometimes his client, because of their wealth/social standing/gender/perceived intelligence. Yes, he is sometimes accidentally an asshole because he has a difficult time with social cues (also this man is neurodivergent) but he apologizes! Usually right after he says something and if not then, always when Watson calls him out!! There are also times when he gets a case wrong and he asks Watson to remind him of these cases in the future when he becomes too full of himself to remind him that he makes mistakes!!! He wants to be reminded that he is human and makes mistakes, he wants to learn from them!!

Anyway, I am angry at the modern misconceptions of Sherlock Holmes. Thank you for coming to my TedTalk

[knowlesian]

i was chatting about this over messages and hadn't seen anyone else post about it, so i figured what the hell: why my fourth favorite joke might be izzy’s pissy little ‘i do this, i do that, you're so erratic’ rant, and the subversion/setup/foreshadowing it provides. 

(third: montezuma’s revenge joke via izzy the metaphor colonizer. e5 setup, e9 punchline. now that’s some next level comedy writing.)

anyway! let’s take it line by line. 

For years, I’ve followed your every whim. I’ve managed your increasingly erratic moods, I’ve massaged this crew when they were worried about your judgment.

Mmm. Sounds stressful, Izzy.

so! it would be very easy to just take izzy at his word and create scenarios to suit, where izzy is a reliable narrator and actually doing all these things.

(and just as a structure nerd note while i’m at it, since i think that term gets used colloquially so often that much like filler, it needs clarifying sometimes: unreliable narrator doesn't mean never right or always lying. it just means unreliable, and their ultimate narrative purpose is to force an audience to think critically and examine the text as a whole to try to find what is empirical reality and what is not, instead of sorting them into liar or honest and leaving it there, thanks for coming to my tedtalk & etc) 

izzy himself is urging an audience to fill in those gaps, to create pre-canon scenarios that support izzy and silence ed. to make us imagine an ed who is out of control and in need of a constant exasperated minder; to implicitly and thematically render him a violent, angry child and not a full man in his own right. an ed who cannot face the world or make his own choices, unless izzy is there to guide him and set boundaries so he does not ruin his own life.

and izzy feels so, so burdened by this. he tells us so! 

hmmm. a burdened white man... which would make ed a white man’s burden.

now, where have i heard that before? it’s on the tip of my racist system of genocidal white people of all classes rolling up into places where people are living and dying and making good choices and bad choices alike all on their own just fine thanks and saying, party’s over kids. daddy’s home now, and you better listen up because father knows best tongue.

that’s izzy’s purpose in the narrative, at least when it comes to the specific angle of implicit bias and the stressful and constant unavoidable racial power dynamics that come into all our social interactions whether we like it or not. because if we are honest and genuinely want to dismantle white supremacy, we need to name the beast so we can fight it. that means admitting even when class is figured into the matter, white men of a certain age who act like izzy acts and say the things he says are unconsciously processed as being logical and in control no matter what, and people who are not white get the exact opposite treatment.

it’s the rule of who would the cops believe. (or, in this case, his majesty’s royal navy.)

izzy holds social power ed does not, alongside institutionalized power. this show is playing out very modern racial dynamics with izzy, so he’s blind to this power— we as an audience can’t be, or we’re... izzy.

and to be very blunt, because i feel i need to be: if you think being izzy is a good thing, then oh boy. time to think about why a white man who makes the black crew members do hard labor and none of the white ones is someone you are cool making excuses for.

i do not believe izzy cannot change his ways; i do believe he very, very much needs to change them.

which brings me to the undercover joke.

so, the first line is doing a lot, right out the gate: izzy says he's followed ed’s every whim.

first layer: izzy, hon, this is ed’s ship. he’s captain. his whims are what you literally signed up to follow. if you don’t want to follow them... go find a different captain, or be your own captain! these are very, very easy things to do, especially as the things canon backs izzy up on is that he’s a competent sailor and a fantastic fighter, when he's fighting people who actually play by traditional rules and not stede and his hijinks-heavy style of fighting.

(and just to say it: izzy losing to stede does not make him a bad fighter. it makes him an inflexible one, who is not good at improv’ing solutions outside blunt force ‘uhhhh we could kill things about it????’ type answers, and one who didn't see that cherrywood mast coming when he popped stede’s getting stabbed cherry. skilled people fuck up sometimes even before you get to not being able to predict new factors in situations you think you have thoroughly prepared for; it’s not impossible to lose, even when you are very very good at something and you prepared as well as anybody could. even serena williams has off days, and izzy hands you are no serena.)

second layer: uhhhh, do you follow his whims iz? because we see you push back, all the time forever, several times to the point of just saying fuck you, i won't let you make this choice and i am gonna make it for you. 

third layer, crunchiest of all? actually, ed ends up where he's at by the end of the finale because he decides to follow izzy’s whims, and just give that sad little man the blackbeard he asked for: a cartoon legend who cuts off toes for a laugh.

then we get to the next claim: he's managed ed’s ‘increasingly erratic moods’. 

now, don't get me wrong— we see ed respond to bad situations with sometimes outsized despondency, he gets real mad at racists and yells at nature/snakes, and when specifically triggered by very literally his worst memory that was also the moment that convinced him he's a bad person he cries in a bathtub and decides he’d rather not repeat that action, especially not when this time he’d be directly killing a man he's starting to love.

so i’m not like, ah yes. edward teach: famously always on an even keel and doing just fine.

but what's actually erratic about those things? erratic means unpredictable, not dramatic. he’s responding to bad situations in ways that indicate he's nearing the end of his desire to keep juggling all the plates he’s got in the air and that weariness combined with a certain amount of arrogance is making him stop double-checking for mistakes, but we see nothing that says he’s losing the ability.

only izzy tells us that. izzy, who is constantly being managed by ed throughout the run of the series. izzy, who seems to exhibit somewhat erratic behavior and mood swings of his own; izzy, who calls down the royal navy upon them all because he's butthurt and jealous and all his cds are in the car, regardless of what he tells himself about protecting ed from ruin.

izzy is shocked ed would sign the act of grace, but if he actually knew ed that would be a somewhat predictable action; anybody can see that ed really fuckin’ likes stede. he tried to stop izzy from the duel, and then when stede won he stuck to his guns and kicked izzy off the ship. ‘i wonder if he’ll just give up on this guy if i track down his crafty frat boy ex and get him to do a reverse parent trap’ is sort of a stupid plan, unless you’re assuming ed is genuinely just longing to go back to the old days and need to be shocked back into reality.

you know what i’d argue is actually fairly erratic, because erratic actually means unpredictable? that fucking plan of his.

how on earth would anyone be like, ah yes. jack was sent by izzy to break them up and lure ed off the ship so the royal navy can come crashing down on all their heads. nobody could have immediately predicted that, right after the sandwich bonked izzy on the noggin.

because izzy expresses horror that ed would lick the king’s boots: the unspoken there is there would be no boots to lick if izzy had not gone and fetched said jackboots and licked them to a shiny gleam first himself.

so when izzy is like, ewwww ed. you'd work with the KING??? we as an audience need to remember: izzy is a textual hypocrite. izzy still has the taste of bootleather on his tongue, and he’s got the gall to get all snotty at ed about the act of grace— a choice ed makes under duress with a literal gun to stede’s head, where izzy made a choice of his own free will out of misplaced emotions and a condescending colonizer mindset that tells him he has the fucking right to look at ed and see a burden to be shouldered and a man who is half-insane, not a fucking genius at the top of his game who keeps telling izzy to please just knock it off and stop being so fuckin rigid.

which brings us to the third part, and the text’s subtle confirmation that everything izzy says he does for ed in that speech, ed actually does for izzy.

he’s massaging the crew when they doubt ed’s judgement, izzy says.

we know that’s not true. fang and ivan don’t respect him for a myriad of reasons, and anytime ed is gone and they can express it they do.

then, once they think ed is gone for good— it's curtains for ol’ izzy. fang and ivan would rather sail under the leadership of one oluwande boodhari, Genuinely Good Captain Material than spend one single more second dealing with izzy’s version of the same.

what saves izzy from meeting the devil at the bottom of the deep blue sea?

ed’s arrival, and ed’s desire to have a familiar face bring him tea. because he'd rather it be stede, but he doesn’t want to be alone; and izzy is still there while stede is gone, potentially forever as far as ed knows.

so, the text tells us: if there was any massaging of the crew going on, it was ed’s legend and the idea of what ed would do if he woke up and somebody had shoved his purse dog overboard keeping izzy afloat.

we know that, because they showed us. 

so what the text shows us is ed, keeping him around even though nobody else has faith in him, managing izzy and knowing his mind well enough to do so successfully. we see ed ask izzy for tea once; to make up scenarios where izzy did that for so long he’s just tired of taking care of ed at long last is to ignore what we see, and just listen to what izzy tells us.

because what does ed say? that sounds stressful, izzy. sounds; not is. 

i just wanna TALK to these writers, you know? jesus fuck.

he’s mocking izzy, because ed knows what the fuck is going on. he knows everything izzy claims to do and wants to take credit for, ed is actually doing and deserves the credit for. this is what it is, to exist in the world and look like ed: there is always, always a white person ready to take credit for your labor while they devalue you and say it's for your own good.

heartbreaking part loud: most of the time, they fucking believe it is. racism is also an unconscious reflex action, floating along in the cultural bloodstream, popping up in ways people don't often see in themselves, or care to investigate at all when someone points it out to them.

to wit: we know ed asked izzy to bring him lucius. he did not want izzy for comfort; we do not see izzy witness him cry, not once. pointedly: ed cries alone, once lucius is gone.

to ignore that and to assume izzy has been watching that happen, over and over and over because ed is erratic and lacks control and surely could not hide things from izzy, World’s Least Emotionally Intelligent Man, is to ignore ed’s version of events— and the version of events we see play out in front of our eyes— because we heard izzy’s point of view before we got the truth of the matter.

to take izzy at his word at first is understandable; he literally spoke first, and the action then showed his version of history to be untrue afterwards, episode by episode. these are careful writers and subtle ones to boot, so it’s easy to forget this is not a show where the curtains are just blue, leave the matter there and then filter all future action through what izzy told us to see. 

and beyond that, we are all trained to see men like izzy as reliable sources and arbiters of empirical reality and history via the dominant culture set by those who most benefit from these assumptions. sadly, most media has at best a surface desire to break that narrative pattern. i very much know that in most shows, izzy would be reliable and ed would be erratic, and it would be a pattern repeated on accident without malicious will or conscious intent ever entering the chat— that’s what makes defeating it so hard to do. people genuinely do not mean to do these things, so they tell themselves they could not be doing it at all.

antonio espera (aka, poke) gives a whole speech about this in generation kill, another piece of media that considers these issues and (due to the subject matter and the real men it portrays) has the approach of presenting us a rainbow of izzys to understand, see them as fellow complicated humans worth empathy who have a specific history that made them what they are, then hold them to narrative account for the horrible things they do, anyway.

white man’s gotta rule the world, says the conventional wisdom via a us marine who combines dark humor and honesty when discussing his lack of ability to be a powerful white man and his job enforcing a broken fucked up power system for them. it’s just a job; and that’s just destiny.

on ofmd, they’re far more interested in building a world where none of that is the case at all.

[arcarii]

like,,,,i love clint barton but i feel like i can’t underscore enough that he can be an absolutely exhausting person to be around.