#con-sequence what does con mean

[howarddevotoeater]

Sometimes it's like. aargh...

[lijojo]

genshin sugar daddies: leaving hickeys on you

premise: you have seven sugar daddies: one for each day of the week. it’s a bit overwhelming, but you try you’re best to keep each relationship relatively independent from the other. that means no hickeys. except, well, each one of them wants to make you theirs exclusively and they’re not above marking you secretly to send a message to tomorrow’s person. (yandere! possessive! genshin reverse harem x reader) (modern au!) 

*if you want more yandere genshin sugar daddy content the introduction is here but this can be a standalone read! 

tags: nsfw, dark content, afab reader, fingering, dirty-talk, unprotected sex, dub-con, smut smut smut smut smut

diluc is no stranger to jealousy. you can sense it in the way his eyes constantly beckon for yours. the way he grips tightly onto your waist. he never asks anything more than your gaze on monday evenings. they have to be on him. always. not for a second more are you allowed to look at anything else but him. he’s greedy, always pulling you to look at him once more. naturally, his gaze is always on you. 

you feel it drag up and down your back. crawl into the little dip in your neckline to see what’s underneath your clothes. 

so the one time, the one time, kaeya’s crafty attempts to leave hickeys on your folds and inner thighs in the midst of eating you out, diluc catches it. 

he sees it the moment he peels off your panties. what should’ve been a slow sequence of him sinking his tongue into your pussy is immediately halted at the sight of a very small but noticeable bruise in the juncture between your thighs and your labia minora. 

kaeya’s warning. 

the change in his demeanor is undeniable. his heavy gaze flits over to your face. intentful. unaware of the hickey, you’re understandably confused. 

if diluc’s seen something, he doesn’t tell you. instead, he internalizes the sight. it’s a warning and a challenge. 

mine. 

he’s quick to grab onto your wrists and pin them above your head. before you can brace yourself, he’s slipped a finger inside you. you gasp at the sudden intrusion, but welcome him as he curls his finger towards him, gently brushing against that spongy spot that leaves you breathless. 

he chuckles lightly as you roll your eyes back. his thumb presses on your clit, nudging it side to side. “you’re soaking wet,” he mutters, sliding another two fingers inside you. “all for me?” 

your hold on the sheets tightens. 

he leans closer to your ear. “i can’t wait to smear the remnants of your orgasm on my cock. make it slick enough to slip inside you. make you feel good. we want my darling to feel really good, right?”

you hiss when he starts thrusting his fingers into you at rapid speed. desperate. eager to make you spill your affection onto his hands. 

“that wasn’t a rhetorical question, sweetheart.”

you can’t help the moan that leaves you as you approach your climax. “y-yes! yes—ah—diluc!” 

his grin looks so unlike him. his thumb starts to draw circles on your clit, going quicker and quicker the more you squirm and moan. 

“cum on me. do it for me, princess. cum all over my hand. give me all your everything.”

you can barely understand the undertone in his words. instead, you reach your high. your orgasm pours out of you, onto his beckoning fingers. and instead of letting you go, he continues mercilessly until your left whining for him to stop. 

and he does. eventually. he slowly pulls his digits out of your crying cunt. he collects the droplets that trickle out of your lower lips and let’s it drip onto his twitching dick. he runs his hands along his shaft, letting out a shaky groan. 

“look how pretty you’ve made me. this is all you, darling.” 

he fucks you like it’s he’ll die if he doesn’t. blinded by the mixture of pain and pleasure, you close your eyes and submit to the feeling of overwhelming bliss. 

you’re so overwhelmed, that you don’t register how he’s kissing your neck like a man on a mission. 

დ

the two of you are in the middle of a normal tuesday brunch when childe sees it. when you turn to accept the menu from the waiter, he can see the slightest marks that you couldn’t hide, even with the most expensive foundation. 

you curse internally when you see his eyes narrow in on you. you should’ve known better than to ever believe that diluc would ever follow one of your only rules: no hickeys. 

and now childe, notoriously competitive, will feel compelled to have his fill. 

you should’ve worn a scarf. 

you thought that the position of the hickey, and the slight fadedness your foundation was barely able to provide would’ve been enough. you were wrong. 

like a built-in reflex, you smile. “what’s the matter? is there something wrong?”

he gives you a smile, an all-knowing smile as he takes the menu from you. “nothing is wrong at all, girlie. i’m just admiring that new necklace i bought you.”

you’re good at pretending nothing’s wrong, so you fiddle the crystals with your hand. “i love the way it shimmers,” you add, “i love how sparkly you’ve made me.” 

if you’ve done anything to settle his displeasure, he doesn’t show it. instead, he averts his eyes to the menu. you know better than to believe that nothing bad will come out tonight. 

for the rest of the night, he engages in small talk with you. about the weather. a new store that’s just opened up. some story about some poor guy who borrowed more money than he could ever give back. the thought makes you tighten your grip on your fork.

when you get back to his penthouse, he’s quick to strip you of your luxurious gown and all of it’s accompanied gold accents. when you reach to take off the necklace that decorates your neck, he stops you. 

“keep it on,” he whispers, his hand crawling up your thigh to grip your ass. “wanna fuck you looking so pretty in my jewelry. wanna make you shine with sweat as pretty as those gems.” 

“oh really?” you retort, sliding your hand between the two of your bodies and cupping his sex. he groans as you run your fingertips down his groin. “wanna make me shine with your cum?” 

“yes,” he gasps. in the heat of the moment, his eyes catches the faint outline of diluc’s mark just below your jaw. overtaken by some primal instinct, he presses your waist against him. “you’re letting all those side-fucks give you hickeys?” 

his words almost make you want to freeze. but you’re quick to resume back to normal, to pretend that those words don’t phase you. that you don’t hear the implications in the undertones of his voice. 

it’s worse if you tell him it was unintentional. 

“it’s a new development.” you tug at his hair as he digs his face into the crook of your neck. “you get only one.”

you need to have the upper hand. in a sea of seven men who are constantly demanding things from you, you have to take what you’re dealt with and do something before they overtake you.

he grins.  “you’re such a tease. which motherfucker left this on you?” 

you know better than to tell him. everyone knows that there’s seven who you’re regularly seeing. but they don’t know the names—not the order. you know better than to give names. these men are as powerful as they are rich, you wouldn’t do anything that’d upset the city’s dynamics. 

so you avoid the question, like you’ve always done. 

“i can think of better ways you can use that mouth, other than asking silly questions.” 

his brow twitches, but he doesn’t do anything else to push you. instead, he smiles into your neck. “only one?”

“only one,” you confirm.

he doesn’t hesitate to take off your necklace. his hands dive to the back of your neck to unclip it and toss it to the side. you let out a yelp in surprise when it clangs onto the coffee table. 

“i’ll buy you a better one,” he says in-between open-mouthed kisses on your jawline. “fuck, i’ll buy you a thousand more.”

he sinks down to your collarbone. “’been dreaming of this. my girl, my pretty, pretty girl, wearing reminders of me.” 

♡

the two of you are in the comfort of kazuha’s home. wednesdays are reserved for writing, and like always, you’re pinned under his watchful gaze while he writes his thoughts away in his notebook. 

with every few scrawls, he peeks over the paper to steal glances at you. you hum, pretending to be blissfully aware. you’re just here as his muse. 

as of this moment, you snuggle into your comfortable place in the back of his study, leaning against the window that expands to his backyard that oversees the sunrise and sunset. your own notebook rests on your thighs, your knees pressed close enough to your chest to allow you to write smoothly. kazuha sits across from you, his feet sometimes brushing against yours. if you laid your legs out straight, no doubt that the balls of your feet would meet his waist. 

he keeps stealing glances at you. has been for the past hour. no matter how much you try to focus on your own poems, you can’t brush away the feeling of being watched. 

his eyes are impeccable, and can spot the marks that occasionally peak underneath your scarf when you move a certain away. 

“you let them mark you?” he asks out of the blue. not accusatorily, per se, but you can detect the edge in his voice. 

the corners of your lips perk unnaturally. the moment you’d been dreading since you woke up had arrived. you let your eyes soften, as if it could soothe kazuha by any means. with a gentle hand, you reach out to softly grasp his hand that tightens around the edge of his notebook. it’s something he accepts readily, enveloping your hand with his. 

“i was meaning to talk to you about this, kazu,” you say tenderly. “it’s just something i’m trying out. everyone gets one. see if everyone’s okay with it.” 

kazuha doesn’t say anything. his gaze is fixated on your intertwined hands. “my love, they mark your skin like animals.”

you smile like it’s no trouble. because that’s what you need him to believe. you feel like kazuha’s a loose thread. tug him in the wrong direction, the wrong idea, and he’ll undo the entire sweater. 

“it’s only going to be seven,” you reply, trying to lessen the tension. 

“it’s better if there’s just one,” he retorts gingerly. “they aren’t gentle at all, are they?”

you don’t like the way his eyes sweep over your entire figure. you hold back a shudder, feeling as if a ghost had just passed through you. 

“they are,” you mumble, although you can hardly say it’s true. “don’t you worry kazu, i can handle myself.” 

your line of sight flits back to your intertwined hands; he lets go, instead running the pads of his fingers down the back of your hands before settling on your wrist. his hold is firm. it’s not tight enough to cause you pain, but not gentle enough to let you pull away. 

“i’m sure you do, love,” he mutters. but the way he says it makes it seem as if he doesn’t believe you.

his eyes connect with yours intently.

the rustle of your clothes shuffling echoes through the quiet study as he pulls your wrist towards his mouth. in doing so, you’re forced to lean forward. his eyes never leave you, not when he presses a soft kiss to the inside of your wrist.

“they just want you for your body,” he says, more to himself than you. “they don’t love you at all. everything would be so much better if you just dropped them. let me take care of it. take care of it all.” 

you don’t say anything back. he doesn’t want you to. and even if you did, it wouldn’t be something he’d want to hear. you have bills to pay. you have enemies a wealthy poet wouldn’t be able to defend you from on his own. 

his tongue slides out of his mouth to lick a long strip up your wrist, all while looking at you. he presses open-mouthed kisses in the same spot, sucking and nibbling with purpose. in-between kisses, his tongue draws letters on the expanse of your skin in a sentence you’ve begun to fear.

A L L M I N E  

დ

when spring comes, tighnari will sometimes give you hickeys. he’ll do it in the heat of the moment in a passionate rut. he can’t think of anything else but you. how perfect you are for him. how beautiful. how you belong to him. 

while he drives his cock into you the only way he knows how, his lips will find their place in the crook of your neck. on the curve of your breasts. on the plush of your thighs. he’ll kiss you like you’re his air. 

he’ll whimper into your skin. in that moment, you’re powerless to stop him. his pace is godspeed, pummeling into you like you’re his lifeline. driven to leave his white reminders of his love and devotion into your aching pussy. you can barely hold yourself up steadily. your fingers tremble. overcome with an insurmountable high, you can’t push him away as he leaves hickeys all over your body. 

it’s not to send a message to everyone, per se, but to express the feelings he’d been keeping pent up during autumn, winter, and summer. the overwhelming infatuation and adoration he feels for you. 

his pension for leaving nonstop hickeys on you starts to settle on the fourth day. and by the end of the week-long rut, they’ve faded just enough that you can cover it up with foundation and expensive jewelry. 

but when he’s not blinded by his sexual desperation during the spring, it’s a different story. 

it’s a perfectly fine thursday mid-afternoon in the comfort of tighnari’s study when he sees it. 

he catches a glimpse of kazuha’s kiss on your wrist when you pass a cup of tea to him. your sleeves ride up just a bit under the beaming sun. you notice too, and are quick to pull back. but it’s too late. the moment he’s set down the cup he’s grabbing onto your wrist and pulling back the sleeve. “what’s this?” 

you’re tempted to let out a breath of relief that he didn’t notice the hickey that barely rested on the edge of your collar. when you donned on the turtleneck sweater, you feared that he’d notice it if it slipped down and grow even more livid. 

just play it off. pretend. if you’re lucky, by the end of this week, you’ll end up with only six hickeys. 

“oh, i must’ve bumped into something.” 

tighnari scowls. “this doesn’t seem like an ordinary bruise. how’d you get it?” 

you’re scrambling for a believable response. “i was leaning back onto the counter and didn’t realize the corner was there.”

he chuckles. “clumsy you.” his forefinger inches up the slightest bit to press on it. 

you wince. subsequently, your entire body tenses. this isn’t like those times where you can lie sweetly to him whenever he asks for you to stay for good. this isn’t like one of those times you can charm your way out of a situation. the way he looks at you is knowing. feral.

“i wasn’t born yesterday, love,” he hisses. “i know a hickey when i see one, especially when i leave them on you every spring.”

the way he kisses you after is rougher than usual. desperate. needy. aggressive. he presses into you, his tail wagging tentatively. he brings your arms to wrap around his neck. his tongue caresses your own, exploring your mouth like it’s a new discovery. a new treasure trove. 

he whimpers into the kiss, his little squeaks and moans muffled by his need to devour you. 

you close your eyes and let yourself get swept up with the pacing. to get distracted by him. you hardly register the time pass before the two of you are naked, your clothes strewn across the floor in his bedroom. 

your back is pressed against his chest, your ass hugging his dick while he slides his hand down the valley between your breasts, stopping to pinch your nipple until it hardens. his other hand is left to its own devices, settling on your waist. 

his fingers find themselves in the comfort of your pussy. he whimpers at how amazing you feel around his fingertips. how every time he pulls in and out, there’s squelching noises that almost overtake his little whines and yelps. every time he pushes his fingers back in, your ass presses a little closer to his dick. 

he moans like you’re the one pleasuring him. like he’s on the cusp of euphoria, only silencing himself to press open-mouthed kisses on your shoulder. 

“it’s m-my turn,” he says in-between whines. “m-my pretty l-little pet.” 

დ

when alhaitham gets home after a long week of working, all he wants to do is relax in warmth of your embrace. friday is his reward. 

he eats dinner as always, asking you questions in-between bites while delivering long stares that still make you feel like you’re being researched. but this week, instead of insisting you two spend quality time together reading on the couch, he coaxes you into the bedroom. 

he groans into the kiss, pressing you to the wall as he helps you out of your clothes. but when he opens his eyes to admire your body, he doesn’t like what he sees.

he lets out an unamused chuckle. his hand brushes over your shoulder. “what’s this?” 

you try to speak, but he cuts you off with another kiss. when you gasp in surprise, his tongue dives into your mouth. 

he leaves you breathless; his pace is rough, almost angry. 

“what a bad girl you are,” he seethes, “letting all those bastards touch you like that? bruise your pretty, pretty skin?”

he doesn’t let you talk. he envelops your opportunity to reply with his relentless kisses. he presses harder into your mouth, your teeth almost gnashing together. it’s almost painful, as if he wished to bind you two together. 

“every friday is my solace, my holiday, didn’t you know?” 

you gasp for air. “i-” 

“i’m not done yet.” he brings his lips to yours for another hungry kiss. “every week i work so hard so i can see you, cherish you, and this is how you repay me? i thought you were my good girl.” 

he chuckles darkly. “but you’re just a bad apple, aren’t you? i’ll have to fix that.”

he continues to kiss you. to ravish you with his mouth. he swallows your moans, his hands eagerly exploring your body like it’s his first time. and like always, his hands find their place on your chest. 

“i’ve always loved your breasts: the way they curve, the way they sway so sweetly every time you arch your back for me, how your nipples perk up with every caress of mine.” he flicks one and you yelp. 

“those imbeciles really have no intelligence at all.” he licks a long stripe in-between the valley of your breasts. “your body is a canvas.” 

his eyes connect with yours, beckoning your gaze. a silent connection, a guarantee that you’re looking at him. at what he’s doing. at what he’s making you feel.

he stares at you attentively, and once again you feel like you’re being studied. every gasp that comes from your lips. every twitch of your brows. every time your eyelids flutter is under his watchful gaze like it’s the only thing his sight is for. like he’s a scientist researching the cure to his very own hunger. 

his lips find purchase just on the edge of your areola, sucking intently. “to mark you is a form of art.” 

he relishes in the way you shudder. but he needs more. 

with one hand on your waist, his other comes up to fondle your other breast, craving for more reaction.

“only idiots wouldn’t be able to realize it.” 

დ

unlike all of the other saturdays, where you’re probably swept up in the grand scheme of things (attending formal events, meeting politicians, or shopping like ayato’s wallet depended on it), you’re lounging in ayato’s home office on a calm evening. 

the two of you decided to end things a bit earlier today and relax a bit. and by that, you suggested to spend some quality time alone so that you didn’t need to walk anymore. although you prided yourself on stamina and tolerance to soreness, even you couldn’t keep up after just about a week of aggressive men fucking their jealousy into you. 

“it was hot today,” ayato mutters lazily as he gently runs his fingers through your hair. your head rests on the plush of his thigh, just as he likes it. “are you sure that you’re comfortable in that turtleneck, love?”

you curl into yourself a little bit more, tugging the collar up. “yes, i’m perfectly fine.”

you’re not fine. you’ve been sweating up a storm underneath your sweater but you were adamant on ending this week with six hickeys instead of seven. your stubbornness refused you the pleasure of ice-cold showers to wash away how your clothes burned you. 

he pouts. “are you sure? you look awfully uncomfortable, dear. you can take a shower in my bathroom, if you’d like.” he smiles. “i won’t look, promise.”

you turn to look at him, contemplating. on one hand, you don’t believe anything good will come out of undressing in ayato’s house. you don’t believe his promise, either. if you knew him any better, he’d walk into the shower on the grounds of saving water, where he’d see all the hickeys imbued into your skin. while diluc, childe, and kazuha’s marks were getting a little faded, you doubt you could somehow explain alhaitham and tighnari’s hickeys. 

but on the other hand, you’d been in this sweater for a whole day already. and your skin was started to get irritated. you felt gross with all of the sweat you’d accumulated. maybe five minutes wouldn’t hurt. 

you smile like there’s nothing to worry about. like you’re an adoring lover. like you’re whoever ayato wants you to be. you reach out to cup his cheek, to which he warmly receives. 

“okay. i’ll be back soon.”

he chuckles as you get up from his lap to head to the shower. you had to be quick. 

you all but run to the bathroom once you’re out of sight. you head to ayato’s bedroom where some of your clothes are. dresses, lingerie, t-shirts, jeans, shorts, and all other items of clothing he’s ever bought you hang neatly in his closet. you pluck whatever seems practical and make a break for the shower.

you slip off the diamond ring he’d given you months ago. you all but slam it onto the counter, relieved your ring finger can breathe for once. 

the quicker you take, the more likely you can shower without incident. 

but the moment you’ve stepped out of the shower, towel wrapped secure around your torso, to your horror, the door opens. 

“hey, love, i was wondering—”

just before you can close the door shut on him, his eyes connect to the discoloring on your shoulder. 

regardless of his discovery, you move to usher him out. but mid-way, your feet are halted in the middle of the bathroom floor. the words are crawling in your mouth. you want to tell him that you’d like to shower in peace, tell it to him teasingly, but you don’t think you can. 

that’s not what he wants. that’s not what pays the bills. 

you offer a tight-lipped smile. “like what you see?”

he paces towards you, caressing your shoulder. he leans closer to you, examining the color, the shape, the size. “hm, so that’s how they want to play this game,” he whispers, ignoring your question entirely.

his hands gently tug at your towel. he smiles. “won’t you open up for me, love?”

he guides your hands as you drop the towel, revealing alhaitham’s mark. 

“hm.” he looks at you as if he’s silently critiquing an art piece. “i see what’s going on here.” 

he takes the ring that you left behind on the counter and works to slide it slowly onto your finger again. “you almost forgot to wear the symbol of our love, dear.” 

“oh, it must’ve slipped my mind.” it’s like there’s cotton in your mouth. your throat feels dry.

he chuckles at that. “poor thing. my poor lover can be so forgetful.” 

 his eyes drift down to your chest.

he presses a kiss above your breasts, where your heart is.

“she almost forgets that she’s mine.” 

დ

even if he’s your designated sunday, if you aren’t careful enough, kaeya will create a week full of trouble for you. 

when he eats you out, he becomes pussy-drunk. he kisses your lower lips like it’s his prize. his reward for working so hard this week. his tongue runs up your pussy to your clit in a slow, deliberate stroke. 

when he reaches your clit, he lets his mouth mold over your nub. he licks at it gently, cherishing it like it’s his only rose on a lonely valentine’s day. 

he makes love to you like he’s reached his happily ever after. his lewd slurping overshadows the shuffling of the sheets, your moans. when he dips his tongue into your cunt, he whimpers. 

his fingers dig into your thighs, holding you in place. even when you’re overstimulated, begging for a break, he won’t let you go. he savors the way you tremble so cutely under his touch. how your cum leaks out of you in small streams after your fifth release. he’s immersed in your cunt, yearns to make out with your lower lips while his nose nudges at your clit.

it’s too much. the feeling of your climax is so overwhelming. 

he wants you to feel this euphoria, to remind you of how he feels every time he looks at you. 

he wants you so much. so fucking much it hurts him when he can’t see you. when he can’t hold you. when he can’t be with you like a real lover. he needs you like he needs air. he needs to feel you wrapped around him to give him life. to give him purpose. 

that’s why when you’re so swept up in the feeling of a constant climax, when your legs feel numb, he gets so carried away. 

if you don’t catch him in time, kaeya will leave secretive hickeys along your inner thigh, dangerously close to your folds. he needs the others to know he’s staking his claim.

to know he’s making you feel so good that there’s definitive proof. 

at the end of the week, when you see him again after seven days of trying to calm down the jealous storm among your seven sugar daddies, he’ll grin. 

it’s that same devious smirk he gives you at candlelight dinners, except it isn’t one to mask his vulnerabilities with charisma and one-liners. it’s one to tell you that he knows exactly what he’s done. 

he knows what he wants, and he’s finally had enough of the fucking waiting. 

[hotvintagepoll]

What are some screwball comedy pairings you wish had been a thing? Can definitely be gay ones :)

Okay finally!

One of the reasons I made this blog in the first place is that few things bring me as much blinding rage as imagining the movies we could have gotten, if old Hollywood had stopped being racist/homophobic/anti-everyone for ten fucking seconds. There were so many talented hotties working through our tournament era who only got cameo spots or no-budget movies! for no reason beyond white supremacy! there were so many stories that didn't get told because heaven forbid we acknowledge gay people! If this blog has a mission statement, a big chunk of it would be about highlighting all the amazing hotties who never got what they deserved in their heyday.

So! Let's tear Louis B. Mayer a new one and make some better movies.

Diamond Eyes (1946)

Harold Nicholas, the bored but fabulous son of a Manhattan millionaire, decides to take himself off on a transatlantic cruise to recover from the boredoms of socialites, constant martinis, and west side glamor. When working girl Rita Hayworth snags him into a fake dating scheme to throw off a jealous ex (Cesar Romero), he doesn't mean to fall in love with his false fiancé—or to set the ex up with his scheming accountant (Tyrone Power).

To the Tune of Millions (1945)

Ann Miller and Lena Horne are conwomen besties who use a fake dance act to get into casinos, which they then promptly rob. Unfortunately, an over-enthusiastic talent agent (Gene Kelly) sees the act and thinks they're legitimate, hiring them on the spot as the lead number in a newly opened but already failing musicale review. Who can they hustle at a theater that's barely bringing in a dime? The two ex-cons fall in love with show business, Kelly and Horne smooch at the grand finale, and Miller has an intense will-they-or-won't-they sparring relationship with the hot stage manager (Ethel Waters—and they will).

Untitled Three's-a-Crowd Film (1942)

Cary Grant, Jean Arthur, and Ronald Colman are running interference on a corrupt justice system while trying to keep up the act that they are all simply cohabitating in a shared AirBnB and definitely not falling in love with each other. Wait. This is actually The Talk of the Town. This movie actually exists and does veer this hard into polyamorous romance.

Tomatoes and Toast (1928)

Anna May Wong and Greta Garbo eat sandwiches for three hours. It's riveting.

One Soul, Two Bodies (1948)

Farley Granger and Vincent Price star as Alexander the Great and Hephaestion in this sword-and-sandals period piece. Though clearly made on a studio backlot with a budget of $3, the dashing romance grounds the chariot races and cardboard sword battle sequences.

Grand Central Station (1931)

Interconnected narratives of Josephine Baker, Joan Blondell, Dolores del Río, and Fredric March all vying for the last seat on the 5:45 train out to Poughkeepsie. When they realize they're jostling to sit next to the same sugar daddy who's been stringing all of them along, the four decide to unionize. Pre-code thrills; the four-in-a-bunk Pullman car scene remains notable for a reason.

I have more but I think I've gone a bit delirious.

[cravingpepsimax]

Headcanons for 30s!Stancest?

ohohohoh

so, obviously, 30s stancest isn’t canon compliant at-fucking-all. this means that when discussing it, you kinda have to ask how it’d actually happen.

personally, i’m a fan of “everything’s canon compliant up until the portal incident, which just doesn’t happen”. they fight, but the specific sequence of events that leads to ford being put in the portal just don’t happen. stan starts living with ford — he’s homeless, and ford clearly needs someone to take care of him because goddamn he’s in rough shape. he learns about bill and helps ford actually get sleep, handcuffing him/restraining him to the bed and only letting him out when bill’s not in control.

another 30s stancest headcanon that i LOVE is that ford is REALLY into stan’s mullet. didn’t get the opportunity to appreciate it in canon since he was sleep deprived and promptly sucked through the portal, but in an au without the portal incident, this isn’t a problem. sad that ford has to go through a “oh god i’m attracted to my twin wtfwtfwtf,” a “oh god the guy i’m attracted to has a mullet,” and a “oh god i think the mullet’s hot” crisis at the same time.

stan gets the unicorn hair so that a protective barrier can be made around the shack. could’ve either obtained it from a con or from violence — the latter’s more likely, but i think the former has some stupid looney tunes comedic potential. anyways, this is important so that 1. ford is no longer terrorized without having to install a metal plate into his head, and 2. it allows stan and ford to sleep in the same bed without the fear of bill taking over and fucking everyone’s shit up.

since the research grant’s realistically running out, stan does various odd jobs to bring in an income. though ford is very against using his research as a marketing ploy, stan’s still a con-artist. (though, of course, they still adventure together — it’s just that isn’t a viable career). stan is great at dealing with any kind of fae or fae-adjacent entity.

this is one of those rare instances where i think ford would be the first one to confess. stan doesn’t wanna say shit because he JUST got his brother back, and he doesn’t wanna risk not just losing him again, but being kicked out again and becoming homeless again. hell, i think stan would be so unwilling to risk it despite his feelings that ford would have to be the one to first make any moves or flirt with him, which has its own funny factor since there’s no way in hell he’s good at it.

stan’s pretty into weird supernatural drugs. half the time when they discover a plant stan’s first thought is “hmm… what if i smoked/ate/snorted/shot up this?”. this has ended in a fair share of… Situations. i will leave you to think about what these Situations may be.

i don’t think of either of them as being particularly physically affectionate, but when they sleep in the same bed, they pretty much always wake up cuddling.

[rin-and-jade]

Torn Apart or Stitched Back: A Guide on Identifying Splits and Fuses

Halved, merged, halved again, and merged again.. a never ending sequence of our system life. Will it ever stop?--Sadly no, as it is a natural process of our adaptation.

But can we atleast know how to identify, be able to anticipate the first signs, and know what to do accordingly? Yes! We do, and being educated will make a huge difference on how you'd handle a situation, for example, like today's topic.

This is what the guide is all about: Making your life a little bit easier.

TLDR FAST PASS: AVAILABLE!

Can you recap us first?

So you've caught the drill!

In general context, a split means: "to (cause to) divide into two or more parts" - Cambridge Dictionary

And, in general context, a fuse means: "join or blend to form a single entity" - Oxford

In system context, this would be to a more specific split/fuse when it comes to identity, memories, and feelings. As to how dissociative disorder works, sometimes, other things can be compartmentalized, such as senses or physical pain, that can be split apart or fused.

Dissociation and integration are the main players in this topic, these two will be used to explain everything related about splits and fuses!

Why does this happen?

Both splitting and fusing actually serve a very important role in how we adapt and navigate certain situations.

This is to how splits can be a great shortcut to disconnect and detach from overwhelming elements in order to continue and stay functional within the current stressful moment. Although, splitting do have their own cons too,, and usually cause some problems--though some alters got split for the better, containing painful experiences within fragments in a way that it would not disturb daily functioning,, until the right moments to assess them arrives. They're not meant to be floating around and waiting, you know?

When a split happens, it is better to counter it with a fuse, because when you are too fragmented, this often leads to a small scope of awareness, or harder time accessing knowledge, or separated qualities that hinders performing a skill that requires multiple aspects of experience. Fusing can be very beneficial and is a natural process when it comes to healing--because it is all about integrating and demolishing the walls of dissociation.

If you fuse, you will be able to combine and utilize various knowledge that was once compartmentalized, creating a more flexible and creative way to navigate life. I will help you with this, too.

Ah.. How does it work though?

Splits? oh, actually;

This process exists outside of system context too, its where you detach and intentionally deny or separate your experiences, in order to keep our identity going and update our sense of time, or memories, or situations that happened is by accepting them and consider them as a part you have went through.

If you do not accept and deny that you went through, or experience such,, this detachment would be strong to create something equivalent to a fragment (for us, system) which holds and identifies with the things you denied at the first place.

Remember, your body records everything, splitting doesn't mean you fully eradicate the painful elements or memories. You only create distance between it, but it isn't going anywhere.

Fuse is basically about undoing all these walls of dissociation, it would be understanding, as if its on a telepathic level, or closest to like a best friend,, where you can integrate these different views to conclude a singular answer. Who says you're gone or mashed up into something different? Fusing is just the same as how you'd treat your best friend, appreciating those different pov and insights, but not let it blindly take the wheel without your cooperation!

To the main topic of the post:

Now that you've been told the basics and the mechanics, it is more than enough to start identifying, taking action, and handle an aftermath!

All about splits!

When it attacks you: - Often, in times of stress - Moments of denial - Periods where specific qualities needed got separated to maintain functionality, solving a situation.

These are the 3 main circumstances that creates a higher chance to split. There's more, though it happens seldom. --

Signs of pre-splits: - Noticeable mood swings - Stabbing head pains - More disoriented than usual - Becoming more forgetful - Think in 2 (or more) opposite views back and forth--unable to integrate as one conclusion

Sometimes, a split can cause severe headaches or pain around other areas. Splits are often companied by an increased amount of dissociation or brainfog which can be very uncomfortable and disruptive. --

What to do when a split happens: 1. Gather intel and find the cause of a split 2. Understand and accept the new split alter/frag They're oftentimes scared/confused/emotional, tend to them. If they are not, explain or ask what had happened 3. Identify what the split part holds 4. depending from number 3, you can: let the split exist and complete a certain task / learn to re-integrate back / heal it's hurt and address it's problems --

Ways to prevent a pre-split from completing: - Accept and feel your feelings--do not push them away - Trust yourself you can make it through, practice stress control - Understand and acknowledge every facets you have, do not deny - Assure yourself you want to keep these memories and experiences integrated, that your brain doesn't have to detach it for you

These tips above will lessen the chance of your stress and friction causing your brain to split a part of yourself into a new alter/fragment. --

How a split can manifest: - Creates a new alter/fragment This is when the part who is stressed intends to separate a quality, or a painful element out from its awareness. - Creates a subsystem This is when the part cannot fully detach a quality as it still retains a cohesive sense of connection, rather creating a less dissociative result of only detaching facets. Though still a part of the alter.

and - Amnesia-present split This is when the split was intended to create a barrier between memories, or other qualities it deems needed to be compartmentalized. Usually this type creates EPs - Amnesia-absent split This is when the split was intended for integration issues--though not done out of a need to separate or compartmentalize a quality. Usually this type create ANPs

All about fuse!

When it does the magic: - Bonding with other alters, understanding their views and emotions (Lvl 1) - Doing activities together, co-fronting together and have a seamless experience (Lvl 2) - Perceive them as a part of you and your identity, both still feel separately yet one (Pre-fuse)

When it comes to fuse, different levels of integration can be noticed, everything exists in a continuum ofcourse, just like how you can find different kinds of parts such as shards, fragments, and alters!

Detecting levels of Integration:

Level one: lowest form of integration, dissociative barriers still stands tall, but you are starting to learn and hear more insights and pov outside of your own. You can also start to recognize which alter who you are talking to without fail.

level two: Moderately getting there, you start to understand and feel other part's favorite activities and foods--and start to find joy and like them too! Thoughts and feelings flow much better, and you can vaguely understand what the others are feeling intuitively.

Pre-fuse/functional multiplicity: You can understand the in-and-out of a part or multiple, as in, you can understand why they feel, or do something. Oftentimes leaks of behavior, likes and dislikes, or thoughts got into you,, being a sign of achieving the lowest dissociation barrier. You still can choose to be multiple, but this is an effective moment to prune some member count or pursuing final fusion.

What to do when a fuse happen: - Integrate by accepting these aspects to further solidify and steady your new, fused self - Explore how you feel, learn to navigate your life again in a new state - Accept that fuse is part of a natural process, to lessen the chances of splitting (yes, you can split-relapse)

Sometimes, fuse is not as seamless either, it would take some time and practice in order to be one without popping off accidentally. If it doesn't work first time, don't worry! Keep practicing.

Takeaway: A Paper, Scissor, and Glue

So basically, your brain has a habit to snip up these paper to pieces, its up to you to let these pieces live or glue it back together,, there are no right or wrong ways to function!

May this guide, and the rest of the unplanned bonuses written along the way, be able to prepare you to when the next scissors will be picked up, and how to protect your integrity of the paper--or glue it back. Go attempt to freestyle. If you want my devious advice, it would be glueing the scissors, slam shut. All your problems would disappear aint it?

Happy paper-crafting, ciao.

--

TLDR SECTION

General Definitions

Split: To divide into parts (identity, memories, feelings).

Fuse: To join parts into a single entity (integrate dissociated parts).

Why Splits and Fuses Happen

Splits: A mechanism to handle overwhelming situations, detaching parts to maintain functionality.

Fuses: Integrating split parts to reduce fragmentation, enhancing awareness and skills.

Identifying Splits

Triggers: Stress, denial, need to separate qualities for functionality.

Pre-Split Signs: Mood swings, head pains, disorientation, forgetfulness, conflicting thoughts.

Handling Splits

Identify the cause.

Accept and support the new split part.

Determine what the split part holds.

Decide to let it complete a task, reintegrate, or heal.

Preventing Splits

Accept and process emotions.

Trust in handling stress.

Recognize and integrate all facets of yourself.

Reassure yourself to keep memories and experiences integrated.

Manifestations of Splits

New alter/fragment

Subsystem

Amnesia-present split (creates barriers for memories)

Amnesia-absent split (for integration issues)

Identifying Fuses

Levels of Integration:

Hearing and understanding other parts.

Enjoying activities and foods together, intuitive understanding.

Pre-fuse: Feeling as part of one identity with minimal barriers.

Handling Fuses

Accept and solidify the new fused self.

Explore feelings and navigate life anew.

Practice and embrace the process.

- j

[raayllum]

PAWN-OF-AARAVOS DARK-MAGIC-SCARRED CALLUM WITH LITERAL BLOOD ON HIS HANDS IN THE TRAILER

HOW DOES THAT VINDICATION FEEL?

I love that Claudia gets the white hair and he gets the facial scarring, just like you speculated about! They’re two sides of the same coin!

Also ICARUS CALLUM? HE FLIES TOO HIGH AND HIS WINGS FALL APART? THEY’RE JUST GIVING US EVERYTHING

Listen we Knew ever since he got that cube he'd be a pawn and worried about it (+ increased Claudia and Viren parallels to boot), the blood on his hands even in a dream was a lovely wish come true already, and white streak Callum will always be famous but I gotta say I am loving the corrupted face variant, showing the initial inklings of corruption

I already talked about it in my trailer breakdown post and it's like that singular screencap is Crazy, it's Nuts like the implications no matter which way you play it? Because it's clearly a nightmare or scary vision sequence and like

If it's Rayla's nightmare (the way Runaan is), that means she knows what he did on Finnegrin's boat and that she's scared of what Callum's becoming—Rayla, who's had more faith than arguably anyone that Callum is special ("No, Callum's different!") and amazing with or without his magic ("Humans could take their fates and change them" / "He's noble, and true") and so confident that his destiny was a book he could write himself she refused to even consider the possibility of her needing to be his (and the world's) safety net, because Callum has regularly done the impossible. If her confidence in him is shaken, his must be abysmal

However, if it's Callum's nightmare or vision or whatever (and that's what I'm leaning towards) it does show a shift of sorts. I'm gonna copy and paste what I've said earlier about it and then go into more detail if well, there's detail to go into:

We know from 6x01 details that he has a nightmare regarding Aaravos, and we also know from people at cons that this screencap was not there. Looking at the scene itself, the deep purple lighting highlights that it’s not quite 'real’, nor is it necessarily possible due to the background being Finnegrin’s office on the Sea Legs, where Callum last did dark magic. I could very easily see this being a dream where Callum is having horrifying visions of himself outside his body, and this is one. I do find it interesting that, rather than black dark magic slug goop like I first thought on his hand, it’s actually blood on his hand, and the changes this indicates of Callum’s psyche / fears. Normally when Callum breaks things (primal stone, moon opal necklace, the green slug) it’s with his other hand, for starters. But more importantly, I think it’s interesting that this nightmare isn’t Just about being flat out possessed, but of being more of a dark mage: the eyes, the corruption, the blood, etc. and how that may lead to Aaravos’ will being further enforced over him. It speaks to a recognition of his own agency as well as growing fears of being not just controlled, but corrupted along the way.

One of Callum's greatest assets has always been his self awareness. He's intelligent, attentive, growing in confidence in his own capabilities for more than just magic. This is one of his biggest differences from both Viren and Claudia. However, this awareness of what he could do—what Aaravos could get him to do, possession or otherwise—may make him more stressed, worried, fearful, and paranoid.

Additionally acknowledged is that like in S4 and even in 6x01 Callum seemed mostly concerned with being possessed, as stated. Obviously S4 still had indications it was going to grow into More than just "what if my agency is stripped away" to "what if my agency is stripped away (and it's 'my' fault / because of my previous choices)" from Callum himself ("What if I'm on a path of darkness" is no longer a flimsily founded worry) and even from other characters like Soren ("I know you love magic, Callum, but I hope you're careful, 'cause it can change people").

Which makes sense! Possession is a loss of agency and that's accordingly terrifying, esp to a character like Callum who is the thematic embodiment of Freedom in the series and who cares about agency and being able to Do things 110%. Just having your agency stripped away from you wholesale, though, doesn't give much of a character arc — even if Callum only makes decisions out of paranoia next season > love, he's still making decisions — so like... He can and should be worried about his choices and what they may lead to, honestly. Not only is there set up, it's a much more standard TDP storyline (when is anyone ever let off the hook?) and it's more interesting. Callum is also very good at keeping his fears logically grounded (i.e. not worrying about Viren after 3x09, but stressed about not being a mage in s2) so that's another point in the "yeah this is Setup" column alongside 5x08 and... all of s4 and s5 honestly. So this screencap is very exciting cause it seems Callum is having increased fear and self awareness about his previous dark magic use and the possibility of using it or doing something else he considers awful in the future and I can't wait!

Icarus chose to fly too close to the sun after all

[fuckyeahizzyhands]

Con: I think the show deserves a season three whether I'm involved in it or not. It was always David's dream to make three seasons. I would be gutted for him if season three didn't happen. As far as Izzy being involved, that's entirely up to David Jenkins.

Screen Rant: I did some Googling, and I found articles. One of them was titled “Our Flag Means Death Season Two's Best Character Isn’t Who You Think”, and it was talking about Izzy. The other one was “Izzy Hands is the Real Star of Our Flag Means Death Season Two”. Those were both headlines I found. What was it like to find out what Izzy’s journey this season was going to be? It’s had such an impact on so many people.

Con O’Neill: David and I spoke about it quite a lot before we shot, about the redemptive qualities, and I was delighted that we didn't suddenly turn him into a saint overnight. I was delighted that the redemption was complicated and layered, and I don't feel that Izzy disappears in any of it. I think he's very much who he always was, but with slightly more of an open soul. I was so grateful to David and the writers for creating an arc that was playable rather than Hollywood-ized and too easy. It was challenging; it was a very, very lonely shoot for me. I found myself gravitating towards my own company most of the time, mainly because of the hours. And, because if I wasn’t shooting, I was learning to walk on that f***ing leg. If I wasn’t doing that, I was sword training, and if I wasn’t doing that, I was body training, and if I wasn’t doing that, I was recording a song in French. So, I was busy. Our group is a group of beautiful people, and we would meet every Sunday for lunch. Christine used to arrange that. I found myself initially quite hesitant to join that, because it felt like I had this weight on my shoulders, certainly for the first four episodes. I loved it as an actor. I found it really challenging as a man on his own in New Zealand, where it rains [a lot].

Screen Rant: I'm a music nerd, and kind of a musical theater nerd; my favorite episode of this is the one where you're singing in it. I love those sequences so much, your voice is insane, and it's such a good character moment. How did the decision to make that happen—singing, and specifically that song--come about? Did they write that for you because they knew you were a singer?

Con O’Neill: We’re all walking around backstage, telling jokes, playing music, and singing; that’s just what happens when you shoot a show. David called me up while I was in Wellington. I was in Wellington for a week shooting something else. He called me up and he asked me if I knew “La vie en rose”; I knew it, vaguely, but I don't speak French at all. Then, he mentioned that they wanted to do it in an episode. So, I learned the English version, Dean Martin’s version, and then they asked me if I could learn the French version. I don't speak a word of French, not a word, but my partner does, and I had a friend who just played Edith Piaf piano—Jenna (Russell)--and between the two of them, they taught me the French version of the song. If somebody had asked me prior to this, “What song would Izzy sing?” “La vie en rose” would never have entered my head. And now, there's no other song that fits. That's the genius of David. David's very clever with music. We know that--we’ve all experienced how clever he is—but to pick that song for him, at that point in his life? Yeah. F***ing hell. That was genius.

Screen Rant: Your character died this season. How far in advance did you know that, and did that affect how you approached or thought about the season?

Con O’Neill: No. I mean, to be honest, I felt it was going that way. I've been around a long time, and when a character starts this kind of arc, especially in something as interesting as our show is… When David took me out for dinner, I kind of thought this was where it was going, and, partly, I was relieved. I'm not an actor who likes to just repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat. And, I knew that Ed and Stede were going to end up together at the end of this season, so Izzy, as he stands, wouldn't make any sense to still be there. So, it was a relief that the decision was being made. I was a bit upset because I love playing him, but leave them wanting more, you know? I will be eternally grateful for what they gave me; how they played him out in the show. The beautiful speech they gave me, the opportunity to do “La vie en rose”, and the opportunity to die in Taika’s arms and to be able to honor that relationship… I couldn't have asked for a better play-off, really.

Screen Rant: This season did introduce, with the Gravy Basket, the potential for someone who has passed on to return. If there was a season three, do you think your character would have anything else to impart on Stede or Blackbeard in a similar scenario?

Con O’Neill: You’d have to ask David Jenkins. I don't know where David wants to take it, and I wouldn't preempt that with me making up stories for Izzy in a flashback or ghostie Izzy, or whatever. I have no idea where David wants season three to go. I think the show deserves a season three whether I'm involved in it or not. It was always David's dream to make three seasons. I would be gutted for him if season three didn't happen. As far as Izzy being involved, that's entirely up to David Jenkins.

Screen Rant: So much of this season and Izzy’s journey is his relationship with Edward and his love for Edward, and so much of the conflict is about how much Edward is changing. Did you have an understanding of what version of Blackbeard, or Edward, that Izzy was looking for, and wanting to be around?

Con O’Neill: That’s a great f***ing question. Between season one and season two, in the interim, Izzy experiences a broken Blackbeard, and a Blackbeard that's never going to go back to what he was, because he's heartbroken. Everyone who's been heartbroken knows that you never go back to who [you] were. He just wants to fix Blackbeard. That's why he takes his life in his hands by confronting Blackbeard; he just wants Blackbeard to be fixed, to find his soul again, [and] to find his heart again. Whether he's involved in that is not relevant. What's relevant is, he loves Blackbeard so much that he wants him to find himself again. So, it's never Izzy’s version of Blackbeard that Izzy’s looking for. He's looking for Blackbeard to find himself again, and that's only through Stede.

Screen Rant: I was looking up the real-life Izzy Hands, who testified against allies to get a pardon and supposedly died a beggar in the streets of London years later. Would you have been interested in that, dramatically, if that was how his story ended on the show?

Con O’Neill: No, that's not our show. We're not historically [accurate to] those times. If we were, they wouldn’t have cast a guy who is 50 to play a 16-year-old pirate. I don't know. I'd love to be able to tell you what area that season three, if it ever happens, would go, but I literally have no idea. I don't think we're going to go down the historical route. I’d be very surprised if we do that.

Screen Rant: I don’t know if you’ll have an answer for me, but I saw that you initially auditioned for a different role. I love Taika so much; I feel like you would have also made a great Blackbeard. Is that who you were going for, initially?

Con O’Neill: Absolutely not, but thank you for saying that. I don’t see anyone else as Blackbeard but Taika. When Taika was announced, I knew what our show was. But no, it wasn’t Blackbeard. And no, I’m not going to tell you.

Screen Rant: Okay. Perfect. Well, clearly it all worked out for the best. I mean, you're incredible, and the whole cast is so perfect in their roles. It's been a pleasure to watch you and… yeah, congrats on the show.

Con O’Neill: Thank you so much.

[metatronhateblog]

The Opening Sequence Pt 2 The Cemetery

Welcome back to the opening sequence breakdown. It only took me forever to get back to this thanks to con crunching (curse you Crowley's leather vest), split attention, and work. Today I will be, you guessed it cause you probably read the title, talking about the cemetery sequence.

Now there isn't too terribly much here, and I'm sure a lot of this has already been talked about. I've no doubt people were smart enough to already find all this.

But as I have no self control and am in fact procrastinating finishing my Crowley cosplay, here we are. I promise we'll get into some more....weird? Less noticeable??? I don't even know? Stuff as time goes on. We're just starting off with the basics cause it's easier on my brain.

So in the cemetery, we already know that Jim is hiding out behind some headstones next to the mausoleum they enter. Nothing too weird there, aside from the fact he's hiding. BUT WE'RE NOT HERE TO TALK ABOUT JIM.

Instead I'm here to talk about all the weird little things on the headstones. Again, I wouldn't be surprised if it's all already been found, I just personally haven't seen anyone talk about it?

We start off seeing this little mausoleum that says 'ARCHER' on it

Which we also see make an appearance in episode 3, when our beloveds are in Edinburgh.

(Did I start this draft then immediately drop everything to lighten/color correct all of season 2 episode three so I could see if there was anything in the background? Maybe...)

Then we have our lovely statue of the one and only beloved yet self absorbed Gabriel. Again, nothing too fancy.

And this little cross with an very interesting symbol on it right next to Gabriel. The symbol from a glance looks to be a money sign but when you take a closer look, I think it's actually three crosses? Or maybe one cross with two little lines on either side and a big 'S' slapped over top.

Then we have our 'Everyday' headstone which is of no surprise due to reoccurring song appearances in the season.

But then something else caught my eye while I was making this post that I didn't notice previously... See that little guy up in the corner of the everyday headstone?

Him?

yeah well idk who he's supposed to be but he's not the only one...

And then a third that is hidden behind a cross

Perhaps important characters? Or maybe a little hint about something that I don't know yet. Or maybe even just put there to fill in the background with no meaning....who knows.

Either way these gentlemen (or ladies) appear in the actual episode behind the Gabriel statue.

Then here we have two...stone caskets? Above ground graves? Where they both look the same, but one appears to be crossed out, maybe worn away with time, and you can't see the other because it's hidden by a headstone that says 'Peter Paintball.'

I have no clue who Peter paintball is. Maybe it's a reference to Season 1, or maybe it's someone on the crew or something. But I have no Earthly clue.

Moving on. As our boys continue their cemetery date with a trail of people and creatures and...objects? Behind them. We see the mastermind behind our Clerkenwell Diamond Robbery. Miss Austen herself.

I'm just as unphased at her name being in this cemetery as I am 'everyday.'

From here, I've had to do a lot of tweaking and playing with the lighting, and I won't lie, some things are still kind of...not quite able to be made out imo. So now we have...

A two for one that kind of leaves my brain churning questions like butter. I'll start with the more legible one.

"Here lies the former shell of Beelzebub."

I mean 'they're just such a little ray of sunshine' so of course this headstone makes sense. But also...why? What exactly does this mean. Like what's it referring to? I get that demons are dead inside which...mood. But could this possibly be referring to whoever Beelzebub was before falling? Or maybe the fact that Beelzebub feels some sort of happiness after meeting Gabriel and therefore the shell has been buried? I don't know. I just sit here and mull this over sometimes and maybe it's not a detail I should agonize over, but still.

Then we have 'here lies...Adam...' with the words underneath that I can only barely make out some of. I have tried fixing this so many different ways, and maybe it's just my lacking photo editing skills but still. I believe Neil has said this headstone is referring to Adam as in Adam and Eve? (Correct me if I'm wrong.) And if I squint I can make out....(from my best attempt at cleaning this up enough to see it)

"I do not understand, surely your very existence requires....of the world..."

Some of the words I can't make out, and the whole bottom line is a mystery to me because it's blocked entirely by the shadow that I can't fix.

Buuuuuut using my skills of deduction I'm going to assume this is a quote from Adam in the show? Gonna assume show and not book all things considered. (Upon further investigation it's Death who says this to Adam.) I can't remember. But the quote is something like

"I do not understand, surely your very existence requires the ending of the world. It is written."

Which...well hell that's a very interesting thing to put on a headstone (once again questioning which Adam Neil said that headstone belongs to...)

(Maybe it's a reference to Adam Young but Neil is saying he's not dead? Because he never actually confirms which Adam this is a reference to but I suppose it could be either considering it begins and 'ends' with an Adam.

But the thing I find really interesting is actually the headstone right next to it, also a take on something Death says in season 1.

'Left early to beat the rush.'

Which. Hell this one took me by surprise the first time I read it. Death says it to the mail man in Season 1 'Think of it as leaving early to beat the rush.' And if I recall correctly (I don't know where the source is) Neil has said something similar about Terry? So for all I know this headstone could be a nod to Terry Pratchett....or it could be two very interesting Death quotes on back to back headstones.

Could the Adam one possibly be referring to the fact that Adam, by the end of season 1, technically reversed the end of the world? Or something along those lines? I just find it weird that amongst a bunch of (i'm using this word lightly) joke headstones we have two very intriguing Death quotes....

Finally, we have this little interesting bit on the side right here.

We have that symbol from before but a little clearer now...and? A head? There's a bust here in the corner in front of Gabriel.

At first glance it reminds me of the Gabriel angel statue...and maybe this is supposed to be Gabriel...But if you look a little closer...you can see a button up.

Now this is the best shot I can manage of it.

This looks specifically like Jim. Not Gabriel, but Jim. It's dressed similarly and I think that's his hairstyle. The face looks similar. I momentarily thought it might be Aziraphale or even Crowley but that wouldn't make sense...right?

So for now, I'm thinking that this is a bust of Jim. Very interesting considering Jimbriel is hiding right in front of it and there's a different statue of the Archangel Gabriel earlier in the cemetery....So what the heck is this all about...

Now if I missed any, or if any of the headstones in the background have writing that is hard to make out, let me know and I'll update this post.

But as I said before, I'm sure someone has already done this. Consider this a reference post, maybe let your gears turn a bit about some of the epitaphs because they're certainly some head scratchers if you ask me.

Thank you for reading this, and keep a look out for more of the opening sequence breakdown series in which I slowly lose more and more of my mind staring at this thing and picking out little tiny details.

[londonspirit]

Spoilers follow for the season finale of Our Flag Means Death.

After starting the season with its lovable cast split in two, Our Flag Means Death concluded its second season with the entire crew of the Revenge sailing off together into the literal sunset—well, almost the entire crew. With Rhys Darby’s Stede and Taika Waititi’s Blackbeard staying behind on land to make a go at being innkeepers, they’ve found their happy ending, which could be where the story of Our Flag Means Death finishes for good.

But according to series creator David Jenkins, there’s still more story to tell, and the fans rallying behind a third season may just help make that dream come true. After witnessing the filming of the season finale on the show’s New Zealand set—including Black Pete (Matthew Maher) and Lucius’s (Nathan Foad) emotional knife-swapping wedding—we caught up with Jenkins to discuss the most emotional moments of the finale, the dramatic action sequences, and what might come next.

Vanity Fair: What did you hope to achieve with the ending of season two?

David Jenkins: It’s bittersweet. There’s death and there’s the rebirth of Stede and Blackbeard’s relationship; there’s a funeral, there’s a wedding, and the idea that this family is going to keep fighting even as they lose members. And then it’s about belonging to something. It’s not just a bunch of people who are desperately stealing from each other and killing each other. There’s a way of life that they’re fighting for.

You’ve talked in the past about a season three. Fans are already circulating petitions, hoping there will be a third season. Will we get to see these pirates again?

There’s always a chance, if viewership is good. I think we all need to figure out what era of television we’re going to be in when we come back and who can afford what. I like our odds. It’s a cool show. We have a really good following. We have a passionate fan base. Max has been great in terms of publicizing us. I’d love to do another season of the show. I’m sure they’d love to have a reason to do it again. You can feel like it’s special making it. It would be nice to be able to get everybody together again for one last shot at it.

So despite the happy endings in the finale, you’ve left things open for a third season.

A lot of times, with this narrative of characters, same-sex relationships end on a dour, downbeat note, where one of them dies and it’s unrequited or it’s unrealized; something horrible happens and they’re punished in a way. So it was important to leave it open and a lot more show to go, but also leave it in a place where it’s happy. The end of the first season isn’t a happy ending. It’s kind of happy. Stede learns what love is and that’s happy. But I think it was important to be like, Okay, these boys did their work this season. They get to have a little happiness at the end of it.

I visited the set when you were filming one of the final episodes. Izzy (Con O’Neill) had been killed off, and he couldn’t talk too much about that. But now: Why did Izzy have to die?

There’s a trope that I like with mentor stories, where the mentor dies in the second act. Our protagonist outlives the mentor and then they have to go on. We felt like Izzy’s story had reached its conclusion, where we put him through enough. And then there was the realization that he is kind of a mentor to Blackbeard and that he is kind of a father figure to Blackbeard. It felt nice to have him die and have Blackbeard be upset by it, because Blackbeard killed his father. But this is a father figure that he’s losing that it’s hard for him; it's sad and he doesn't want him to go. Izzy has such a beautiful arc in season two; he does a lot of the things, has a lot of the breakthroughs that you want that character to have. It felt like: It’s time to give him a full meal. And it’s also a pirate show, so he’s got to die.

How would you describe the filming of season two?

It was good work, but it was hard, hard work. It’s a big show; it’s basically a one-hour show that we’re doing on a half-hour budget. So everybody has to work triple time keeping up with it. There were tactical challenges in season two. Now we’ve got two ships and two crews, and we had the unique challenge of filming the mermaid scene in a tank, and a storm in one episode. I love the fourth episode, and Buttons turning into a bird, and Izzy losing a leg. Blackbeard is saying: “I want to turn into a bird.’’ He’s kind of saying, I need to change. The idea that if you want to have something with this guy (Stede), you’ve got to change. And that seems to me to be the key to the season.

As a New Zealander, I loved seeing the scenery on the big screen—the lush bush, big, windswept beaches, and wild, expansive landscapes. How were you able to use the setting in season two in New Zealand?

It was jaw-dropping. In New Zealand, you go out the west side of Auckland, and it’s like the most beautiful beach you’ve ever seen. You go to Bethells Beach, and you can turn the camera here; you can shoot the entire thing. You’d shoot it a little bit this way, you’ve got, like, a Bergman movie. You go to the ocean, you’ve got From Here to Eternity. The freedom that you have and the beauty, I’ve never experienced anything like that before.

The battle scenes seemed to be far more elaborate and really felt like the show was leveling up. What went into filming those?

Jacob Tomuri, our stunt coordinator, is exceptional. He did Mad Max; he’s Tom Hardy’s stunt double, and he’s just so capable and good. And so a lot of it this season was that we have a short time frame, we move very quickly, and, again, we have a half-hour budget. We don’t have a one-hour budget, and we don’t have a one-hour shooting schedule. So a lot of it was just picking our shots and saying, Okay, we’re going to do a battle sequence. Let’s storyboard it. Let’s make sure that we know what the stunts are going to be, and let’s make sure that the location is spectacular. So we shoot it on that sandbar behind Bethells Beach, and it was like a dune which went on forever…. A lot of it is just seeing what New Zealand has to offer geographically. And then deciding, yes, let’s do that, and then building it around that, and then making sure that we’ve planned enough, that we can pull it off in a way that’s safe but also has enough size.

What was the idea behind having Stede as a merman in episode 3?

The idea was to make something that was just beautiful, and to get beauty and have beauty around them seeing each other again and their need for each other. To do that and to do it in a way that it’s a comedy, but to do it in a way that’s earnest and genuinely doing it and singing a Kate Bush song. We hit on the idea of a mermaid early on in the season two room, and [we said], Oh yeah, well, we have to put that in. There can’t really be mermaids on the show, but there can be in limbo, kind of purgatory, brain-damaged land as Blackbeard’s dying.

I particularly loved Zheng Yi Sao and the new female characters. I know that she’s based on a real-life pirate. Tell us a bit about the character of Zheng and how she came about.

Zheng Yi Sao is the most successful pirate in history. And we never knew anything about her in the West. She was so talented and so good at what she did that the Chinese government had to broker a treaty with her. She was about 100 years apart from Blackbeard and Stede. So we’re making that up, that she’s in this world and that she’s in the West. But it just seems like there should be so many stories. What she did was amazing. Her crew was largely female and largely women that have been discarded by society.

She was doing a social movement on top of robbing shit and doing everything that pirates do. Her reasons for doing it are more impressive and perhaps can be read a little bit more as altruism than somebody like Blackbeard, who is not a good guy. Or Stede, who’s probably not the best guy. And it just felt fun. It’s like, Well, who’s a cool third captain that we can put into this season that would give Blackbeard and Stede a run for their money?

As a female heterosexual viewer, I particularly loved that storyline. Were you wanting to reach a broader audience?

The first season is a lot of dudes. And so it’s nice to think, Okay, who else can we add into the stew? I started thinking about her while we were shooting season one. And it looked like perhaps we could get a season two, and she seemed like the most formidable person to add.

How do you feel about the attention from the fans?

I love it. I can’t possibly hope for this to happen again on another project. I hope I make things that people like and they want to engage with. But I would say the thing that separates this fandom is the level of positivity, like almost uniform positivity that just makes it nice to be able to engage with. And I think that’s rare. They’re so kind and interesting and talented, and so why wouldn’t you want to engage with that? It’s an honor.

Do you think of Our Flag Means Death as primarily a queer romance?  For this show, it’s important to me just to write a really bold-bodied romantic show that happens to be between two characters of the same sex. I think that the story beats don’t matter, because if you’ve been in love and you’ve been hurt and you met someone you love—hopefully we all know what those feelings are. And then in terms of listening to the room and having a room that’s on a spectrum of queerness and has nonbinary writers, if it's working for everyone in the room, the story’s working. And if it’s bumping for anybody, then you go in and retool: Hey, what should we do here to make sure that we’re getting all of it right and we’re not just assuming that?

Because on some level, love is love. And on another level, I get to see myself in a rom-com all the time. Someone who’s nonbinary and someone who’s queer doesn’t get to see themselves in a mainstream rom-com pirate thing almost ever.

Are there any other characters you want to talk about in terms of their development in season two, that you feel are relevant to the script?

Izzy’s the big one of the season. Just to give him a whole meal and see that character go from a villain into somebody, really, that you can identify with and care about. And Con O’Neill did such beautiful work. I love him as an actor. His character is a joy to write. And maybe it’s masochism, but I do feel like the character that’s a joy to write often dies.

How about Blackbeard and his arc?

He’s a damaged guy. He learns to love and he almost dies. And he comes back. He kind of goes through rehab. He has to wear a bell on his neck like a cat. No one trusts him. He’s like in Superman 2, where Christopher Reeve loses his powers, and he’s immortal. What happens if Blackbeard loses his powers and his outfit but still has to be in a pirate world? Who is that guy? The first season is about Stede Bonnet’s midlife crisis, and the second season is about Blackbeard’s midlife crisis. And then when they both have their midlife crises, they can open a B&B together. The chemistry between Rhys and Taika, and that friendship of 20 years, is key to the season.

How would you describe Blackbeard and Stede’s relationship in season two?

I don’t think Stede and Blackbeard are ready to be married. They’re emotionally saying: “Let’s give this a go.’’ Black Pete and Lucius are a little further along, and I think a little more mature. And yeah, it was also nice to see a formal union, I think, and between those characters. I love that relationship, and I love Matt Maher and Nathan Foad together; they have such a wonderful chemistry. It’s nice to see that couple kind of come to the fore in terms of maturity, that they are in fact a little more mature than Stede and Blackbeard.

A left field question: What level of research have you done on gay relationships on pirate ships? How common was queer romance among pirates?

Pirating has been so whitewashed and straightwashed, and it’s guys on boats confined to small spaces, and they’re also people that didn’t fit into normal culture. And so I do think there’s a history of same-sex romance at sea because it’s people who don’t fit in on land.

To not talk about that in a pirate story is to not really tell a pirate story. They’re criminals and did some really terrible things, but also, like, they were counterculture, and there was a reason they’re on those boats beyond the fact of being poor. I have to believe that in a society that has a term for marriage between crew members, same-sex romance was common.

The season’s third episode is called “The Innkeeper,” which fans definitely took as a hint toward a potential fate. How did you seed that outcome for Stede and Blackbeard through the season? And did you want fans to see it coming in a way?

I don’t know that you could really see it coming. We like the idea of Blackbeard pining for something. Beyond lighting ships on fire and shooting people, he’s longing for a normal life. We knew where we were going with that, and we knew that they would eventually end up perhaps opening an inn.

Back to the whole community around OFMD: Did you feel an enhanced level of responsibility, because people are feeling so seen by the show and have an affection for the show, when you were creating season two?

As opposed to responsibility, it feels more like relief—that people feel seen and they feel good about it and they liked what we did. And so it feels like, Okay, somebody’s out there and wants the show. The makeup of the writers room looks a lot like the makeup of the fan base. So as long as we’re true to our stories in the writers room, I think we just feel excited that there’s somebody waiting on the other end to enjoy it.

[breadvidence]

'34! The Les Misérables adaptation which asks "What if these characters talked straightforwardly to each other?" Quick top notes on part III only:

I felt catharsis from all the other version of these goddamn characters while watching Cosette and Valjean openly discuss Marius and the barricades. The dynamic here is believable and well balanced: Cosette is angry and afraid and a little hurtful with it, but still seeking comfort from her father (and comes across very much sixteen—as one might imagine, given Josseline Gaël was herself only seventeen); meanwhile, Valjean looks a little helpless (I am reminded of the novel dwelling on how unprepared life left him to raise a daughter) and very pained. Valjean hurts his own feelings asking Cosette if she loves Marius above all else, which gets the predictable answer that anyone would understand does not actually mean she wants to abandon her papa utterly, but which you can clearly see him interpreting as precisely that. All in all, this portrayal makes them much more normal, particularly Cosette, while still retaining the kernel of Valjean's profoundly damaged understanding of his role in Cosette's life. Not shoddy work for ten or so minutes of film.

Harry Bauer's strange hand flaps when he protests "I have my own reasons for emigrating!"—why are you being so relatable, sir?

Is Harry Bauer a fucking beast or did they use wires to help support Jean Servais' weight? Bauer tippy-taps his way around the streets and sewers as if he's not fifty-and-change with a grown-ass man sprawled over his back. You get a sense throughout '34 of Valjean's strength and imposing physicality even though Bauer is on the surface kind of dumpy looking, which I found impressive.

I am also impressed by the intensity of Bauer's "fuck this!" expression during the shit quicksand sequence. Later, he will refer to a "wound"—I never actually saw him acquire such a thing (probably due to Criterion's glitchy playback), so I'm left to think he's referring to the psychological/emotional damage of this moment.

Harry Bauer gives Marius a little pat after dragging him through the sewer, which for me echoes Gabrio, and just as in '25 I find the gesture very sweet and gentle. Bauer is a somewhat cantankerous Valjean—very growly—and moments like this balance him out.

Javert also picked up clear communication skills in this adaptation and writes a straightforward suicide note to his superiors, who proceed to cross his name out of a big book?? I laughed, I'm sorry, why is there always an element of comedy to these suicides?

Further catharsis: Valjean's attempt to gaslight and push away Cosette is strangled by a combination of Marius' equanimous reaction to his confession and his own inability to reject Cosette's need for comfort. I prefer the book—I'm here for the emotional agony that is this idiot character's idiot self-martyring—but I am nonetheless here for '34 going "that will take too long (and is too fucking sad)".

The final lines are giving me fits (bad). Namely: "God is just. It is man who sometimes is unjust." I might be going off harebrained on this, but it seems to me that Les Misérables is (among other things) about change, and this is a statement that proposes a kind of stasis, a things-always-are-thus. It isn't even particularly meaningful or thematically pertinent in the context of '34 taken as its own work. It's particularly galling me because I imagine it is riffing poorly off Valjean's "Parce que les choses déplaisent [...] ce n'est pas une raison pour être injuste envers Dieu"—which is a very clever line, meaning something entirely different, and doesn't deserve this treatment.

Irrelevant to Les Mis as such but occasionally a certain camera angle on Jean Servais' face would remind me how gay I am, while other times he has fuckboy vibes?

Overall: a solid film, not quite on par for me with '25, but I'll doubtless rewatch. In particular I appreciate that it deviates from the source material in ways that are consistent and meaningful (though I will say—god, does this movie ever have its silly moments; I forgive/applaud it for them).

[the-resurrection-3d]

@glitteronin activated my autism trap card so I decided to expand on my "the poison song in Hazbin ep 4 feels like rape porn" hot take.

I'm kidding. My actual hot take is that the episode is pretty alright anyway.

So this originally was going to be a reblog of someone else’s posts about how Angel’s characterization "makes it obvious [Viv] doesn’t think abuse is bad,” but I decided to just leave that person alone. I’ve also revised this quite a bit, because I want to present ways of thinking about representation of trauma that aren’t just “graphic = bad” and “metaphor/off-screen=good,” and preserve my own attempts to think through this conflict. So don’t expect a definitive thesis or anything too prescriptive—I welcome other perspectives here!

It is also worth noting that someone with a rape kink DID help storyboard the Poison montage. Last I heard, they are not a survivor and just grew up very repressed. I didn’t bring this up before because the Instagram post I saw from them only said they helped “choregraph” the dance, so I wasn’t sure if they has only storyboarded the dance sequences or if they’d done the entire thing.

Anyway.

Based on the latter part of episode 4 and what Viv has said in the past about being a survivor (IIRC) and Angel Dust being her comfort character, I feel like she does care about abuse, but there are a ton of little different points of friction that are all coming together to undermine Angel Dust's arc as a part of a larger anti-abuse project for many people.

I want to say I’m coming at this from the perspective of someone who largely appreciated what the episode was going for, and was not triggered by the montage. Not to say that people who were triggered are wrong in their criticisms – just that I’m not coming from a place of immediate emotional distress, and I’m not judging Angel’s reactions to his trauma against my own.

I’ve said elsewhere that the Poison montage has the same energy as a lot of rape porn—meaning it has the same focus on the heightened emotional states but none on the real physical toll of these events. Specifically, the scene made me think of this quote from Angela Carter’s The Sadeian Woman, which is a book-length academic work on the rape porn of the Marquis de Sade:

It follows that prostitutes are favourite heroines of the pornographic writer, though the economic aspects of a prostitute's activity, which is her own main concern in the real world, will be dealt with only lightly. Her labour is her own private business. Work, in this context, is really dirty work; it is unmentionable. Even unspeakable. And we may not talk about it because it reintroduces the question of the world. In this privatised universe pleasure is the only work; work itself is unmentionable. To concentrate on the prostitute's trade as trade would introduce too much reality into a scheme that is first and foremost one of libidinous fantasy, and pornographic writers, in general, are not concerned with extending the genre in which they work to include a wider view of the world.

Of course, this does not perfectly map onto Hazbin Hotel: indeed, the project of episode 4 (however successful the individual viewer found it to be) is to introduce a lot of reality into Angel’s facade of a Being A Walking Hole.

Still, to me, a lot of the episode still works on a similar wavelength as the porn author’s “libidinous fantasy,” as even the parts of his story we are supposed to find upsetting and painful are still the parts that are sexualized in conventional rape/non-con porn, and follow the same fantastical logic. By which I mean, Angel can be shown briefly in pain or tired from being attacked for hours, but never for too long, and he certainly doesn't get too tired or high he stumbles in his high heels, or so tired or sore he messes up a take and they have to stop and redo shots (something that is very common in the production of even regular ass porn, btw). Hell, his bruised eye from Val slapping him is gone by the time the montage is over.

Indeed, the montage revels in forcing us to become not merely witnesses, but spectators to Angel’s victimization: the song is energic, the cuts frenetic, with tons of small shots that can easily be clipped out and used as regular pornography—the shots of Angel and Val fucking being probably the most obvious example, as without context, there’s nothing to suggest that Angel is being coerced, even as he is bitten. Part of this is intentional, since Angel Dust is supposed to be "addicted" to the lifestyle—the song itself is clearly supposed to have the energy of something like "Toxic" by Britney Spears, which Viv said in a Q&A was Angel's audition song.

And despite our culture’s increased awareness of and (lip service) empathy to survivors, it is truly daring to be portraying this kind of reaction to abuse. I saw multiple people on my timeline say this made them feel seen, and I am happy for them.  

 But then we have Husk calling Angel a loser over being abused a few scenes later, and them singing a fun, jazzy song about it. Sure, we now have a good grasp of Angel's character motivations—and I wouldn't be surprised if this pacing decision was in response to Angel getting blasted for years as an offensive caricature of gay men—but would someone who just got gangraped for hours really be receptive to THIS message from someone they were just fiercely arguing with? Furthermore, on a purely character level, why is Husk doing this and not Charlie, who is the one Angel was having actual conflict with earlier in the episode? The scene itself is fine, and it's completely understandable why they would want to end the episode on a lighter note, but the way the story is being paced makes it feel like Viv wants to just rush through to get to the HuskDust stuff.

Revising this essay, I revisited an old essay by Will Harris that I frequently cite when discussing ethics of representation, wherein he points out that the “I”/eye of the [there poet, here viewer] is not ethically neutral:

Witness carries no moral imperative in itself; the act of seeing is not inherently virtuous. Or you could say, its moral charge lies less in the “evidence” it provides than in how it’s rendered in language. The viewing “I”/eye is a fiction, inasmuch as it cleanly separates the subject from the object. So the job of the writer is not just to choose what to look at, but to work out how to represent the complex relationships embedded in the act of looking.

The paragraph before this has Harris cite Scenes of Subjection: Terror, Slavery, and Self-Making in Nineteenth-Century America, wherein scholarSaidiya Hartman refuses to reprint Aunt Hester’s beating from the first chapter of Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass. “It’s too easy to put such horror into words and so think that you’ve faced up to it,” as Harris writes. “Accounts of extreme hurt may prompt indignation, but Hartman argues that they eventually “immure us to pain by virtue of their familiarity.” That in some sense, to demand “suffering be materialized and evidenced” is more “obscene” than the original torture.”

Of course, placing this quote here in this essay about a show that is currently being lambasted for portraying graphic rape at all, in an online culture that often conflates representation with endorsement or some secret moral deviancy on the author’s part, would be to suggest that portraying rape on-screen is itself an issue, when representations are always bound by their historical and social contexts. Sometimes you do have to be that graphic, but like Harris says, it’s easy to think just showing the horror in itself is meaningful — and I think we all are a little too blackpilled here on Tumblr to think that just Showing The Horrors is enough to produce meaningful change within the average person.

However, I think the more useful idea of Harris’s is “withness.” Harris writes that in these more ideal poems,

Subject and object are no longer distinct from one another. In such a state, the self is implicated—emotionally and ethically—in the other. It’s impossible to conceive of “being” without “being-with.” Hopkins writes: “With witness I speak this.” In my head that line always reads: “With withness I speak this.”

I think this is what the episode was attempting to do—to force us into the uneasy position of a spectator before moving us into witness (as Husk is asking the same kinds of questions we would be asking about Angel’s behavior, reacting with concern as we would even as we see through Angel’s facade) and then withness. Literally, two characters dueting about finding comfort in their core similarity. This is why it had to be him and not Charlie: Husk is in a much better position to produce withness than Charlie, given how the episode clearly parallels his deal with Alastor to Angel’s contract with Val.

Still, this kind of emotional-logic-driven storytelling leaves out any viewers who don’t resonate and does not offer them anything else to latch onto. It also does nothing to satisfy the structural questions raised earlier (couldn’t Charlie have sent Husk to deal with Val for some reason? It probably would be a dumb reason but at least the episode would have symmetry).

I still hold the big problem with the episode is that we are directed to think—indeed, are told directly—that Angel is “addicted” to this lifestyle, but we aren’t given a real origin point for this behavior: the trauma and addiction to said trauma are a closed loop. Val is such an obvious piece of shit, to the point of even sexually harassing the literal Princess of Hell the very second he meets her, that we get no sense of what drew Angel in. Sure, we can make inferences that he likes sex, likes drugs, liked fame, but if Val has always acted like an obvious psycho, Angel blaming himself for his abuse is, in a very cruel way, completely justified.

But in real life, even people who get with obvious shitbags often have reasons for this laid in their past: it’s rarely the case that a normal, well-adjusted person is just so fucking stupid they end up marrying Mister Rape.

This disconnect between what I’m being told to think and what I’m actually being shown is where this attempt at withness failed for me, and the lack of attention to reality and general indulgence of the montage is probably what people are picking up on when they say it gave them kink vibes.

But still! Looking at the montage in context, I can appreciate what Viv was trying to do. The real sickening thing, to me, is that the internet is so unwilling and unready to engage with Viv’s work and with this type of representation in any type of good faith, so even if it were a 10/10 absolute masterpiece, it wouldn’t have mattered. Can’t wait for the next Angel episode so we can have this discourse all over again!

[quetzalpapalotl]

Tf eu #5 rambles under the cut

Obviously, the most important thing is that MY WIFE IS HEEEERE YEAAAAAH. Love how they lettered her name here omg

She's wonderful!!!! Her bait and switch intro was funny (but please don't actually corner The Girl One into a love interest) and her stunt saving Carly was so cool, I'm glad we're establishing her right. I wish she didn't look so much Like That, but at least DWJ is as willing to deform her for action as anyone else. Her buccal fat removal look makes her look like a skull, which would be cool if it were on puporse, but it's not so. I like the shade they picked for her, is more of a lilac but it looks pink with the rest of the color palette and meshes well with the setting.

This series is really good at the appel to the inner child thing, because I'm like genuinely excited to see the Autobots have the advantage for once!! But ofc, they can't really because the arc ends next issue and they're not gonna have a decisive win until that.

Tho, Optimus and Cliffjumper are carrying the Autobots in regards to being the heroes we root for. I mean, Arcee and Jazz are very cool and that has their appeal, but I do wish once things have settled and they can interact in more situations that aren't just life and death, because so far I feel like we only get a good grasp of who Optimus and Cliffjumper are as individuals, their personalities. I want to see what makes each Autobot unique.

Speaking of, still absolutely eating the Carly and CJ dynamic. She is great and when she said that what does if matter if she's at risk when her family is dead and Spike is in a coma, that reallly got to me. It's unwise, but Cliffjumper relating to her and bringing her to give her a sense of closure it's really good. I think that this kind of bringing the kid character into danger would be because Carly sneaked her way, or because Cliffjumper would disregard orders for the hell of it. But like this feeeling of "I know how she feels and I would want come in her place too" works really well.

Also, I care about Sparky now, lol. Not that at hated him before. I'm not a fan of the first page, as cool at it look, because comparing OP to the US military like the later are the good guy is mmmm... but I'm loving his rapport with Optimus. And also there's how he looks when he's told the generator will give them a decade of power. It's not like "amazing tech woaaah!" It's softer like... this isn't an affluent town, these are people who are used to struggle and they just lost their power source. Ten years of power like that is a godsend that he can hardly believe that will do the whole town a lot of good and he cares about that. Maybe I'm reading too much into it but you know.

And ooooh dear, I was already unwell over Optimus getting his Megatron's canon arm grafted, but I understimated what seein him actually shoot the canon would do to me. I need... several moments.... the fight scenes are pretty gone but this one was particulary brutal. Optimus is really fearsome. And given how he has been so carefully characterized as this bleeding heart figure, seeing him decimating his enemies so efficient is quite something. And by something I mean gap moe. We love to see it.

RIP Reflector, your camera jokes will be missed, but that sequence was amazing lmao

Love seeing Optimus hit Starscream where it hurts. But OP saying that last time Starscream was cowering from Megatron's canon brings a lot of questions about the sequence of events in the Ark (which we'll get to see in teh special it seems). And I've been wondering if Starscream had something to do with Megatron falling or dissapearing or whatever, this does make it seem more like it and well, if that's the case I wonder how the rest of the Cons will react.

Man, the Autobots really shined this time and I already forgot what I was thinking about the Decepticons!! But hey!!! Thundercracker is here!!!!!!!! My guy!!! Given that his characterization as per toy bio is the guy that's not so sure about the cause, I wonder how he'll take it when he find out what really happened to Skywarp.

Also, are the Constructicons newly made??

Anyway, good stuff.

[adickaboutspoons]

The Curse of "The Curse of the Seafaring Life"

So now that I've had some time to come down from the euphoria of watching two middle-aged men kissing in the moonlight, I've got to admit episode 5 is... bad. Like the kiss is divine and perfect and I love it with all my heart and soul, but the rest of it doesn't make a lick of sense, within the context of what we've seen this season, or within the themes of the show as a whole. And it's not just a matter of inserting a couple of lines of dialogue to fix it as with episode 4. To me, it requires a full tear-down to the very studs.

I understand that for future plot purposes implied by the trailers, it will become important that Stede knows how to do fighty pirate-y stuff, but the way they get there challenges credulity. Stede states that he "hasn't really felt [that he is the captain]" since they got back on the ship. But... why? He's called and led at least two all-hands meetings in the past two episodes (letting the crew know Ed was not dead after all, and mediating the non-pology sesh), collected votes for the decision to exile Ed (and stayed with the crew rather than going with Ed, even though finding Ed was, like, supposedly his entire motivation, god that still makes me so angry writers I am in your walls!), and convinced the crew to, at least temporarily, let Ed be un-banished. No one is challenging him for his position. No one is questioning his authority. No one is being insubordinate or any less respectful to him than they generally are, considering he encourages open and honest dialogue (which sometimes invites less-than-respectful expressions of ideas with this crew.) No one is even suggesting that his feelings for Ed might negatively impact his objectivity or his ability to perform his captainly duties. For heaven's sake, half of the crew (eventually) followed him in applauding Ed's feeble scrabble at an apology. And quite aside from all that - how many times, exactly, does he need to prove himself? He JUST orchestrated a successful escape plan using fucking TOWELS. He's ALREADY captain material! So why would he have that less-than-captain feeling?

And the only thing that I can think of is that they needed to get him to train with Izzy somehow (why did it have to be Izzy, though? More on that in a moment). So how to get him there? Well, Izzy's mean, right? So maybe Stede needs to think that he needs to get mean, so he'll go to be trained at the foot of the master. But why would Stede suddenly think he needs to be mean? Especially considering how delighted he was when Yi Sao clocked his energy as soft? Well, maybe Ed tells him the way to Feel More Captain-y is to be more assertive.

But as much as Ed-in-a-collar asking Stede to order him around is going to find a forever home in my fanfic plotbunny document, that just... doesn't make any sense. Ed LOVES that Stede is out here doing things completely different from anyone else. One of the main theses of the show is that Stede's people-positive management style is CORRECT, actually, and another is that living life as your authentic self is more important than duty or obligation. Stede needing to "butch up" to be a proper captain runs antithetical to both those ideas AND to the established dynamic between Ed and Stede. Honestly, it reads a lot more like validation of Stede's insecurities about not being enough for Ed, and that whole dream sequence that opened the season. Which would be fine if Stede was going through an arc where he thinks he needs to be more manly and learns in the end that he's fine just the way he is, but that doesn't seem to be the case? As such, it's frankly pure contrivance, and just sloppy writing.

So taking out that pin about training with Izzy. I'm gonna be real, this feels like pure fanservice to me, and I'm not just talking about Con O'Neil's magnificently sculpted tits. Izzy's "redemption arc" (and, yes, I'm putting it in scare quotes) feels completely unearned to me. What - he's absolved in his suffering? Even though we've seen not one hint of remorse for what he's done to others (only for how the repercussions of his actions actually impacted him)? Not even the barest scrap of a non-pology? Then Why Isn't Ed? Ed who has suffered too. Ed who was so fucked up he made MORE THAN ONE attempts at suicide by proxy in episode 2? Ed who keeps getting kicked when he's already down and NOT extended the same sympathy and understanding from the crew? It's a real bad look, y'all. In fact, it looks a lot more like Izzy is not going through a "redemption arc" so much as an "he's already redeemed, trust us" arc, and training Stede is more about him proving that he's part of the community by offering support and expertise, and resolving his personality crisis ("who am I to you?" and "what even are you?") - roles which, by all rights, would be better filled by Jim (who had JUST given up on their vengeance quest to try and see what being part of a family might be like, only to be caught up in the Kraken's shit and having to fight for survival, and could now have an opportunity to work through their trauma by using their skills to HELP someone rather than hurt, and learning how to be soft - like the flesh of someone becoming human after so recently being someone's puppet) or Ed (who needs to learn to reconcile the various aspects of his personality, and that violence doesn't have to come coupled with the baggage of being unlovable, and who needs to relearn how to trust and be trusted by Stede, and how to earn the crew's forgiveness). Because the fact of the matter is? Stede MUST be lying when he tells Izzy that Ed attributes "everything he knows" to Izzy's teaching. The whole point of the escape from the Spanish relies upon the premise that there is knowledge that Ed possesses that Izzy doesn't and can't. Look at Stede's face when he says "More specifically, he said you taught him everything he knows.":

(corporate needs you to find the difference between these 2 pictures) It's giving very "Stark Revelations" vibes. I'm thinking Stede is getting Izzy to buy in to his training by using a little of that weaponized empathy he picked up studying at the feet of the master: Yi Sao. I don’t love Stede pandering to the ego of a mediocre white dude by conferring upon him the responsibility for Ed’s achievements and brilliance in order to get what Stede wants out of him, but it’s immeasurably better than the suggestion that Ed’s achievements and brilliance actually ARE down to Izzy. Neither way of interpreting the implications of the scene are great, though, which is uncharacteristically sloppy writing from this show. All the more reason why Stede’s training should be in the hands of anyone else EXCEPT Izzy.

The training montage itself is… not a training montage. It’s a cringe compilation. Just scene after scene of Stede being bad at things and no follow-up scenes that show him improving. The line about him just letting his body take over in the field and it working out for him is just bad and wrong. First, it conveys Plot Armor on Stede, and obviates the NEED for training. Second, really, Stede? How about the time you almost stabbed Doug for the crime of *checks notes* putting his hand on your shoulder? Or the time you blacked out and walked barefoot to Bridgetown after Chauncy shot himself? Like, let's please not suggest trauma-induced fugue states are Stede's super-power. Third, that's really not how we have seen Stede earn his victories up until this point, and it really undercuts the fact that Stede is VERY smart, clever, and resourceful, great at improvisation and using his environment to overcome mightier or more skilled opponents (think of the way he bested Izzy at their first encounter, or even, more recently, how he used his habit of putting scent on his towels and how everyone inevitably wanted to breath it in deeply to knock out the prison guards and orchestrate their escape - again, using towels as a zip-line). One of the things about Stede that I think gets under-acknowledged is that he's actually kind of low-key a master of seeing a thing once and figuring out how to do it. In spite of what my Advanced Maneuvers  fic would have you believe, the Unhand Me Or Bleed move actually comes from him observing the bar brawl in ep 2, and then there’s all the stuff with the duel with Izzy and the butt swat and taking it on the left that Ed had shown him only once and only a few nights previously. But what does any of that matter if he’s just going to Dead Zone it and let his body do what it will?

It also bothered me that, when his training is “complete” and he’s going on raids, he's just brute forcing things? Like, his plan was the same every time - run in shouting and waving your blade around. Where’s the clever planning? Where’s the distraction? Where’s the style and finesse? What happened to his rapture over fuckeries?

The resolution of the curse storyline/training montage is bothering me in a way that I feel is emblematic of the bigger problems with the season as a whole so far. The whole point of a training montage is either to payoff with a scene SHOWING the use of all the accumulated skills, or a subversion of that; why they CAN'T use those skills (like in Galavant where he over-trained for the joust and therefore couldn't move when it came time to actually participate). But instead, we get exposition fairies. "Wow - that sure was an epic battle we just did! With us fighting back-to-back and Archie swinging from a rope!" All the interesting and important stuff is happening off-camera, and we're just being asked to accept that it happened. Just like we’re asked to accept that the Swede’s time with Jackie is more fulfilling in some way that his time with the Revenge was not. Just like we’re asked to accept that everyone’s just cool with Izzy now - even the people who last saw him when he was marooning them, even to the point of working together to make him a peg leg and calling him their new unicorn. Just like we’re asked to accept that Black Pete or Olu missed their SOs, even to the point of “crying every night” for the former, but never seeing them actually mention it/crying about it.

And about that - although I was initially overjoyed by it, now that I’ve had some time to reflect, I'm not sure I'm so happy about the Proposal. Like, Lucius is still clearly in a v. vulnerable and traumatized state, and it's maaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaybe not the BEST time to be making big life choices? Juxtapose with Ed finally learning to maybe not charge full-speed-ahead. Maybe handing the U-haul keys to another couple isn’t all that great an idea, actually?

Now on to the Curse. What the dying priest literally says when Stede and Jim enter the room is "We were voyaging to the Vatican to seek an exorcism." My auditory processing is sub-par, especially when more than one person is speaking at the same time, so I can't really make out most of what he says after that because Jim keeps babbling about curses (which? I’m sure Vico had lines they were written for them to be saying, but it to present as a translation something that is v. much NOT what the person is actually saying in the mouth of a native speaker of the language is SO weird to me), and maybe it's me splitting hairs, but exorcism is v. much a casting demons out of a PERSON thing - not a "cursed artifact" thing. But fuck it. Let’s go with the “translation” Jim gives us and stick with cursed items instead of bedeviled people. There’s a real missed opportunity here to have done something extremely clever linking the "curse" and the crew's trauma and, through the process of coming together to formulate a plan for how to free themselves from the curse, managing to take the first steps toward exorcising their own demons. I mean, this is just surface-level metaphor stuff, and it's troubling to me that instead we got Stede the Rational White Dude pandering to the superstitions of his mostly POC crew.

I LOVE that Fang reached out to Ed, and that he brought to Ed’s attention the fact that Ed often defaults to problem-solving mode, trying to FIX problems. Which is great when you need to make an impromptu lighthouse to escape the Spanish, but is not necessarily the best approach for emotional problems, where the better answer is sometimes listening rather than talking, or even just actually sitting and dealing with negative feels (though I am not loving the implication that Ed's a non-stop chatterbox. Sometimes he is, but there are plenty of examples of him being introspective - like literally any time he stims with his silk - and also, sometimes soundboarding is an effective tool for processing complicated or painful concepts, too. And also, we see MULTIPLE scenes of Ed crying alone. He’s clearly sitting with his feels. Admittedly there is a huge difference between wallowing/indulging and PROCESSING, but Ed sitting alone in silence with his feels is v. much NOT the problem). But I HATE the messaging about retributive justice in that scene.

So retributive justice - the idea that a person who has caused damage has to be punished to an appropriately equivalent degree in order for 1) justice to be meted to the wronged party, & 2) the wrong-doer to be redeemed for their wrongdoing - is all kinds of problematic to begin with, but especially when seemingly exclusively applied to a MOC. And we have two examples of that in this episode - we have Ed offering to let Lucius to knock him over the rail so that they're squaresies (v. eye-for-an-eye, that), and we have Fang explaining that he's cool with Ed because he brutalized Ed's unconscious body after Jim knocked him out with a cannonball, so that makes them square for all the shit that Ed did to him.

With Lucius, we see that it DOESN'T actually make things square. Lucius is still traumatized, and just as obsessed with Ed as ever, possibly even moreso. With Fang, we see the exact opposite. He and Ed ARE cool, and Fang doesn't seem to have any lingering issues.

So not only is the scene with Fang kind of gross and reductionist, and reinforces the "broken people do broken things" idea that's been uncritically floated earlier in the season, instead of recognizing that sometimes people have maladaptive behaviors in response to suboptimal circumstances and insufficient support systems, but also, when juxtaposed with the scene with Lucius, the show is refusing to come down one way or another on the topic, and I think that's pretty cowardly on the "toxic masculinity and racism are unequivocally wrong" show.

So how would I fix it?

1) Frame Stede’s practical pirate training urges as Stede self-enriching by re-taking up the reigns of his pirate lessons, not as him needing to learn how to captain

2) Make Ed his teacher, and thereby allow for a gradual rebuilding of trust and strengthening of their relationship (and also some flirtatious banter and UST because they're both trying to hold back and re-figure things out, but also that undeniable chemistry is still there. For me. As a treat)

3) I guess Izzy can help. But HE has to ask. As a "trying to find my place now that so much has changed for me" kind of thing, and also expressing some fucking gratitude to Stede for saving his rat ass

4) My training montage would be an ACTUAL training montage with the comedy failboating at the beginning, and showing actual progress until they're ready to do the Curse raid (which sets up the subversion of payoff for the training montage because they ARE ready, but there's nothing to fight on a ship of the dead). Nix the second raid altogether so I don't have to get cranky about expositing the action sequence. Also that line about blacking out and just letting things happen would be erased from history, too. 

5) Ed's participation in the "exorcizing the demons" plot is what starts to mend bridges with the crew and starts to bring him back into the community. (Also, I want Ed to be able to see Stede feeling himself in his red suit, and it is a CRIME that we were denied that.)

6) It’s my drastic re-write, so in my version, we’re gonna nix the Fang line supporting retributive justice, but we’re KEEPING the Lucius interaction. Maybe in the 'exorcize the demons' brainstorm sesh, Ed proposes that he dress in the devil suit and Lucius be allowed to push him overboard (a 2-for-1 expurgation. Also, there would be a line where Ed goes up to Stede and is all "I really need to get you out of those clothes", and Stede breathlessly replying, "Oh, Ed!" and then Ed awkwardly having to walk it back with hasty explanations, and Stede apologizing for making assumptions, and Ed having to beat a hasty, flustered retreat, because even though he has 100% seen Stede naked before, there’s an unbearable tension to the idea of seeing him like that now). But the overboard plan doesn’t work on EITHER front. Once Ed is back on board, still wearing the devil suit, something goes wrong that convinces the crew the curse is still there (maybe it's Stede doing target practice in the background with Izzy, and THAT'S when the sail falls on everyone's head), and Lucius' can still have his "That didn't actually give me the closure I thought it would have" mini-arc. Ed can start in again, pitching more ideas and talking over people, and Fang can gently suggest that Ed doesn't have to be the one to come up with all the plans. Sometimes it's ok to just sit back and listen, and realize that sometimes your input is doing more harm than good, and it's ok to take a step back.

7) Lucius and Pete aren’t getting engaged. Sorry. Maybe Lucius can propose, but Pete would gently tell him that, while he absolutely wants to and plans to spend the rest of his life with Lucius, he’s concerned that Lucius is moving a little fast, and maybe flailing for something to make him feel better immediately rather than taking the time to work through his trauma, and as much as Pete loves him, he’s not going anywhere; Lucius can take all the time he needs to come to terms with what happened to him, and then, when he asks again, Pete will say yes.

8) After the Curse plot is resolved Ed has been sitting and stewing with the bad feelings that your input can be deletory and unwelcomed. THEN Fang can impart the "sometimes you just have to sit with your feels and let it be uncomfortable" wisdom. Maybe Ed shares what he’s been going through on his own and hiding from the crew. But knowing how to process your emotions instead of just ruminating on them is a learned skill. I don’t know if Fang is the person to teach that to Ed, but honestly I don’t know who IS since Lucius would NORMALLY be the emotional intelligence guy, so I guess Fang can be the one with emotional insight since he is quite the softy under it all.

But also I still want moonlit middle-aged men kisses, so maybe Fang also suggests that just because your input isn't needed in some places doesn't mean it would be unwelcome in all - and sometimes it's a matter of redirecting your energy, and him indicating Stede (in his shirt) brooding over the rail at the loss of his awesome (I am only saying this word for Stede’s sake, because I actually fucking hate the hideous cutaway tailcoat with its tacky, poorly applied appliques) suit. And things are better between them because of training montage, but still awkward, and Ed is now the one taking the initiative to meet Stede where HE'S at and complimenting the shirt, "wear fine things well," etc.

(And, hell, since this is essentially a fix-it fic in essay form, there may or may not be a plotbunny brewing in my head about them agreeing to "take it slow" and then sloooooowly walking together to the captain's cabin and Whoops! they forgot there's only one bed now. Should one of them maybe take the pile of furs on the floor? No! they can totally share a bed platonically. Yup. Just two platonic buds sleeping and nothing else at all in the same bed. Except Stede DESPERATELY has to masturbate about what just transpired between them. He is not as stealth as he thinks he is. And maybe when he wakes in the morning, Ed informs him that he was moaning Ed's name in his sleep all night…)

[huntingteeth]

author headcanons for i know how we got here (give in again) that don't spoil the fic but and might be fun to know

part 3, aka chapters 11-14

chapter 11

this chapter went through about four drafts before we ended up here and it's SO MUCH BETTER than it was initially.

i think it would be fun to do a side by side comparison of the first draft to the final product but uh here is not the time nor place and also that's probably not as interesting lol

initially this chapter was going to burst open with vessel and the gang and have it go straight into the action but!! this scene both gives us a break from the tension of the previous chapter and lets us check in with iv.

again, i wanted there to be a throughline between iv's first dream with sleep and this dream sequence, so he comes to in the forest and transitions to the shoreline, both places that briefly show up in the first dream.

sleep explains some things in its own peculiar way while explaining nothing at all, tbh.

but wait, didn't you say that ii cast protection from good and evil on iv before he was pulled through the portal? i mean yes but i don't think sleep is trying to possess, frighten, or charm iv here. it's just trying to communicate with him and the best way for sleep to communicate is through his dreams while he's unconscious. i know irl dreaming while passed out can be a symptom of a specific type of epilepsy, but for the purposes of this fic this isn't the case and sleep uses it as a way to speak to iv.

i've been calling the small voices that also speak to iv the echoes. they echo things that sleep has said, they echo things from the waking world, but they're also able to generate their own speech.

"think of how happy you'll be to see them" > "he'll be so happy to see you" to iii from the start of this fic, aka sleep said the right thing at the wrong time initially because sleep, unlike humans, isn't tethered to time.

if it makes you feel worse, i think iv was probably conscious while he was in the trance in the previous scene. he could do minor things like cover his bleeding ears, as long as he didn't look away from the mirror, and watching marc in the mirror. the flinching was definitely iv flinching every time marc tried to break through the mirror on his side, but he was unable to move away or call for help.

again, protection from good and evil is keeping bune at bay in this moment, but iv is still aware that he's near

iv casts arcane ward here and it activates just as marc opens the door.

i needed marc to be close enough to iv so iv could use the ring sam gave him to cast burning hands. unfortunately, marc is exactly the type of creep who would get that close to iv to keep him where he wants him. if you're picking up on the weird non-con vibes here, that's because they're definitely there.

this scene with marc asking him where he learned that kind of magic went through several iterations. originally originally there was going to be a conversation about how marc told iv not to use magic in the past and how it's a real shame he disobeyed him but it didn't fit in correctly with the first blocking of this scene. then, i left in the part where marc asks him where he learned magic like that and left in the part where iv says, "i don't belong to you" because i thought it still conveyed the same idea, mostly because i think we're all aware of the type of asshole marc is. in the actual chapter they don't really have the conversation but i put back in that marc had told him not to use magic in the past, because i think it illustrates better the mindset and beliefs that marc has about who iv is in relation to him.

spirit shroud, the spell marc uses to demonstrate what new powers he's gotten from bune, slows a target's speed (and does some other stuff that doesn't happen here in this fic) so iv finds it very difficult to move away.

this ending line really demonstrates how much marc has lost the plot, so to speak. "all i had to do was give you up"? what the fuck, man.

this second scene was originally all in iii's perspective and ended differently than it does in the fic. it started different, it ended different, and it had a totally different vibe. it had a funny ending! wild that i had a totally mean aha! moment by draft 4 and changed everything.

small disclaimer, it's really hard to write a) an action scene, b) an action scene with so many people, and c) an action scene with so many people who are also fighting using magic, so i hope you liked the final product as much as i like it. after writing the first draft of this scene, i had a huge moment where i was like "oh my god, this sucks, it doesn't capture what i was trying to portray, it's going to be a huge letdown when people read it for the first time" and i stewed in that for a significant amount of time. drafts 1-3 were in iii's perspective and then i flipped it, on a whim, to ii's perspective and i think honestly that made a difference.

for example, in the first draft, iii only dimension doors vessel to the apartment because i was going to use that as a way to introduce that ii can bop from one shadow to the next (aka, hidden paths, a feature of his circle of dreams druid class) and could use that to travel quickly and because ii being able to use hidden paths was going to be a major point later in the scene. but i ended up scrapping that entire plot line lol.

when iii smacks marc's spell out of the air, that's either an off-label use of foresight or a counterspell, but i haven't really decided which and honestly i don't think it's integral to the story to know which it is!! it's fucking cool is what it is!

iii goading marc here, you're right, is a direct reflection of real life iii yelling at the crowd on stage, how did you know?

"a familiar blue string of light unfurls" that's the mind spike from earlier that's still in effect.

marc casts maddening darkness here and then lyns casts faerie fire on him -- to be clear, idk that this is how faerie fire works in a real dnd game but it's fucking cool so it's happening here. she casts another spell on iv here as well, but you don't know what it is in chapter 11, tee hee!

after he gets stabbed, marc casts eyebite. i tried to stick with spells that fell under the "necromancy" category for marc. that's just some extra flavor for you.

in the first draft, marc did not do as much talking as he does in the final chapter and it was really lacking lol. i also like how it vacillates between marc and the boys and then paige and sam. i think it creates a sense of things are happening and they're happening quickly.

i wanted bune to be really scary and also really gross and i think i achieved that. also, what the fuck did sleep ever do to bune? idk, that's literally the only plot point i didn't try to figure out.

bune puppets marc here because truly that's all he sees marc as. he doesn't want marc, he doesn't really want to give marc powers, but marc is a means to an end.

get it, mattie!!!! i think this is supposed to be kind of like holy aura and then she casts sleep, but to be honest about halfway through writing this i stopped referring to my copious notes on dnd spells and just started doing things that seemed cool. it's my fic, i can do whatever i want.

you can break the sleep spell if you take damage, ergo bune injures marc so he can keep casting spells through his body.

sam!! sam!! sam!!

again, we're doing that thing where we switch from one thing that's happening in the scene (iii pushing iv back) to another thing that's happening during the scene (bune tearing down the wall) to create tension and a quick pace before they merge together to continue the story

originally there was going to be venom in the fic. like, bune was going to spit a venomous substance onto iv and it was going to be narsty.

chapter 11 continued, because apparently there's a character limit per block and tumblr hates me

i wanted to sandwich iv getting impaled between two big godlike moments. i wanted to undersell it in the moment and make you think, "wait, what?" i didn't want you to realize he had been impaled and injured until iv realized he had been impaled and even then, i didn't want to explicitly say the word "impaled"

i think i already established that ii can't heal iii's throat because it was an injury made by sleep, but i'm officially retconning that only injuries made by sleep can't be healed. any injuries made by gods can't be healed by ii, which sucks, but also how would they know that if they've never been in a fight with another god?

actually, if you for whatever reason are in a situation in which you need to staunch the flow of blood in someone's torso area, you should pack the wound with gauze or a t-shirt or other fabric, and then apply pressure. simply applying pressure isn't going to do anything in the long run.

ok ok ok ok this really short scene at the end of the chapter! it's short on purpose. we're back in the forest, bay-bee. "you're losing a lot of blood/you've lost a lot of blood" is from the first dream iv had with sleep. did i know when i wrote that first scene that it would culminate into this? no

yes, parts of this are directly lifted from the first dream. i like the parallelism of it tbh. "[...] like there's someone who's supposed to be sitting just outside his periphery who he can't see when he turns his head because they're not there." in the first dream, iv knows it's sleep who sits just outside his periphery. sleep is missing from this scene in chapter 11 on purpose.

this forest is also familiar to us because we've already read about it in iv's first dream with sleep.

i wasn't originally ever going to share the dreams that iii shared with iv because uh ultimately this is a story about the things iv knows and the things he doesn't know. he knows iii is already in love with him; what he doesn't know is why. but it felt kind of cinematic and right to pick the places that he flashed through in the first dream and transpose them so that ah actually they're places that iv and iii shared together in dreams. i like how it ties everything together; i like how it turns these things and places that were bad into things that are good.

again, tying what sleep said in the first dream back to the current moment. was the gift the powers or was the gift iii and ii and vessel? was the gift both of those things? iv deserves to be able to protect himself but he also deserves to be loved.

"i don't want to die" = "i'm not dead/i didn't die" and then the echoes repeat what sleep said to iv, tying everything back together

i really love this chapter, you guys.

chapter 12

starting out with mattie's pov for the first time in the fic! i wanted her to feel very shocked, but the kind of shock where you know what you have to do and you do it because that's all you CAN DO, you know?

i feel like iii irl with the red body paint probably alludes to something to do with blood so i just incorporated that in the fic here.

the spell lyns casted on iv was death ward! i used it here to kind of bolster the effect of mattie's healing spell, which i think was neat and another example of sort of layering spell work and also that magic in this universe is a communal effort!!

i wanted iv's injury here to have meaning and to leave an impact in the story, which is why it's not a one and done spell-heals-wound situation. gut wounds are serious and i think sometimes that sort of thing gets glossed over in fic so i hope this feels as realistic as possible in a fic where magic is centered lol

i feel like mattie in this fic is a little more stoic so having her have this big emotional moment and then immediately having her hide her face in sam's shoulder was a+. i think she's probably in shock right now but knows that she has a single job to do and that's to get iv stable.

it's really important to iii that iv not wake up in the room he was taken from.

there's something very comforting in having someone who knows you so well. i want the reader to feel like each character knows that they have a good support system lol

i need you to understand for real how hard it was to think of more dreams for iii to share with ii and vessel. it was so hard. for a long time in the draft it was just like DREAM 1, DREAM 2, DREAM 3 etc.

iii continues to blame himself. water is wet.

i have alluded this whole fic to the idea that iii is able to manipulate their soul bond in ways that vessel and ii can't and i finally delivered upon it. i guess since i already broke that seal of iv getting to see the dreams he didn't remember, i figured i could loop all of them into it and just really tug at your heartstrings that way. i always wanted it to show like a progression, like here's how they were in the beginning of the dreams and here's how they were toward the end of the dreams. no wonder iii fell in love with iv, right?

again, really wanted the sense of community to feel very prevalent with sam and the girls taking over the running of the household so that the boys can take care of iv.

hell yes, sleep! sleep definitely won that fight. i haven't decided in the canon of this universe if a god can kill another god or how that works, but sleep definitely came out on top here.

it's time for ii to have his breakdown. he's dealing with his worry by cleaning but i bet it's really hard for him to try and clean iv's room, especially considering it's the place where he couldn't grab onto iv fast enough.

as you know, magic is a communal effort in this universe! i wanted to punctuate that with mattie helping ii complete the hearth spell. so mattie helps him and chooses the herbs that she thinks they need in the moment (a direct contrast to how iv helped earlier in the fic and was mortified to have done so). i specifically highlighted orange blossom because it represents family. mattie totally has a soft, gooey center

and then again with paige, who just effortlessly slips into that role of "my family is hurting, here is a little something i can do to make their lives easier"

of course mattie is a little manipulative here. she's got strong older sister energy if you can't tell. she knew iii wasn't going to bother to try and eat if it was just about him, but telling him that you haven't seen vessel eat recently?? of course iii's gonna jump at the chance to share a sandwich with vessel

this whole kitchen scene was also an excuse for levity because this whole chapter is pretty emotionally rough all things considered.

fun fact this scene was originally written in vessel's pov! i changed it to ii because it flowed better, something something if i had a nickel for every time i changed a scene to ii's perspective, i'd have two nickels

chapter 13

weirdly hard chapter to write tbh i think i noted that in the author's note on the chapter, but it's like, the main plot line has wrapped up, iv's awake, and now it's time to wrap up the emotional plot line.

this first scene in the chapter was not the first scene that i wrote. the second part with mattie in the second scene was actually the first part of this chapter that i wrote. i had a pretty good grasp of how i wanted that to go early on in writing this chapter, but it was the first and last scenes that gave me the most trouble.

idk if you've ever healed from an abdominally-related surgery but i have and the important parts of that that informed my writing here is that the wound has to heal from the inside out otherwise just the top heals and it can cause problems down the road AND they hurt. they really mess up your core. so even though iv is being healed through magic i wanted to illustrate how a wound like that would affect him. he needs help getting up out of bed and walking sucks.

then we get a sweet moment between iii and iv, which we all deserve tbh

big ol' guilt monster that lives in iii's chest rears its ugly head once again.

ii to the rescue, obviously. that man can't stand to see his partners being mean to themselves

HE'LL BE HAPPY TO SEE YOU finally happened, it only took 13 chapters

if it feels like the chapter kind of tonally shifts here, that's because it does and that's because this chapter was a beast to write.

is it surprisingly emotionally mature of him, mattie? is it even emotionally mature of him????? is that just what you think being emotionally mature is?

i want mattie and iv specifically to have a sibling relationship, i think it would be good for both of them tbh

boof, we're still getting painted a picture of what kind of asshole marc was and what kind of hang-ups iv is bringing with him. i don't love the picture it paints tbh!!! honestly i know the broad strokes of the exact sort of asshole marc was because that was definitely something i had to think about so that information could inform how i wrote this story.

iv verbalizing that he feels safe with them is something that can be so personal actually

but mattie, who all are you in a polyamorous relationship with??? WHO ALL? i'm never going to tell you. you're gonna have to decide on your own, dear readers

"sponge bath with sam" was a phrase that would not leave my head. idk.

iv tugs up his shirt here, displays bare skin for the first time on purpose (bare arm out of the shower curtain doesn't count; sorry vessel) and with intent!! it's a big moment in a small sentence tbh.

oof, iv shares that he remembers the dreams: some emotional vulnerability from our boy iv, which iii reacts to by being completely overwhelmed. it's been just him for so long who remembers the dreams.

iv immediately asking if he did something wrong because he hasn't been awake to see how iii's been working himself up throughout this whole situation.

if you're getting soft dom vibes from ii, good, because they're there lol.

once again, i think iii is very adhd-coded in this fic, and i definitely think there's some rejection sensitive dysphoria in his character here too. i do think his anxiety would be largely present in his body language, which was what i was trying to get across here.

but i'm still reinforcing that sense of community with paige and lyns cleaning up iv's bedroom, and showing the little ways in which they take care of the boys.

"iv has always left" ooh boy, there's some unexplored trauma there i guess

if i ever write like a lil one-shot based off this fic, it might be the scene where ii helps iv shower l m a o. you know he was So Respectful and So Aware of iv's boundaries, you just know it.

chapter 14

there was such a gap between this chapter coming out and the last chapter coming out because i was feeling burnt out at work but also because i knew this was going to be like "the last chapter"

obviously there's the epilogue, but i also didn't want this story to end lol

i was also very nervous that the audience was going to be let down that there wasn't necessarily a "sexy" scene between all four of them, but i think i was able to genuinely explain in fic why there was never going to be a sex scene in this chapter. iv's not ready!

anyway, vessel knows iv is healed. iv knows he's healed. iv knows vessel knows he's healed. i think vessel would still be worried about iv despite the fact that everyone knows he's been healed through magic. like vessel said earlier in the fic, the body knows it's healed but the mind is slow to catch up.

cheese on toast. i think at the time that i was writing it, i was craving a good cheese toast lmao. but it also helps to develop these characters to give them little things that feel real -- cheese on toast, friendship bracelets, sam who likes to work on his projects at their house, etc. -- to make them feel fully fleshed out as people.

i think he probably makes enough cheese on toasts for all the people in the house but definitely is very excited when the girls say they already ate hahahaha

i also needed to get sam and the girls out of the house.

this scene, where they talk, was arguably the hardest scene to write in the fic. it went through very many iterations and i think i landed at a place where i'm happy with it.

the scene was originally broken into two different scenes and the part where they're in the living room was originally in ii's perspective, but i just smooshed them together and made it all from iv's perspective because it was a little confusing having ii have to guess where iv's anxiety was coming from.

and of course, iv's worried that he won't be able to jump into a sexual relationship with them right away and that it won't be fair to them -- wild perspective, but sort of understandable when you consider what relationship iv is coming out of, and i really needed there to be a scene where they're like, we don't want you for sex, we want you for you. we love you.

i did waffle on whether it was too much to have them all kiss iv one after the other, but i figured they've been waiting so long to be able to that it was probably the move lol.

did he kiss him in the back garden because it reminded him of the dreams they had in fields? yes

again, we're kind of flipping between two things that happened in the story -- vessel kissing iv and more of the conversation they all had that we didn't necessarily get to see explicitly in the fic. i also wanted to circle back to that repetition that's happened throughout the fic, little callbacks. so when vessel kisses the side of iv's head, it's a promise again.

what does sleep say to iii!!! i gotta know!! idk but i really liked the image of this big unknowable thing that drew them all together settling around them as they all finally get what they want.

ii and iv at the hearth is an obvious parallel to the first time iv joined him at the hearth, but we get to see how much iv's grown and how comfortable and safe he feels. love that for him!!

they nap so much in this fic, lmao. oh well

"oh, definitely," iii continues. "it's like... ii's element. all the trees turn their leaves to give him shade." is definitely iii's equivalent of vessel telling iv in the beginning of the fic that iii can see the future. kind of overstating what the power is because you know they all riff on each other about their powers when given half a chance.

i also wanted to emphasize here that ii is a druid lol. he uses hidden paths here, which is a feature of his dnd class lmao, circle of dreams.

a gift before you knew it was a gift!! a gift you deserved!! sobbing

part 2 | back to part 1

[xchemoni]

Pitchfork’s Album Review on “Embrya” by Maxwell

“ The reissue of Maxwell’s second album from 1998 showcases the mercurial spirit that followed the R&B auteur down new, aqueous corridors.

In 2011, during the filming of his “VH1 Storytellers” episode, Maxwell attempted to describe his second album, 1998’s Embrya, and its uneasy position in his discography, the way it wriggles away from the more concrete and clarified R&B statements that surround it. “It’s one of those records where you’re like, ‘Should I have done that or should I have not done that record?’,” he said, seeming to pose the question to his own audience.

When Maxwell arrived on radio and MTV in 1996, he brought a sound back with him, the quietly storming soul music of the late-’70s and early-’80s, a genre that could hover politely in the air between neighbors at a cookout or totally collapse the air between two people in a bedroom. His debut, Maxwell’s Urban Hang Suite, modeled itself after records like Marvin Gaye’s I Want You, linked sequences of seduction that either blossomed toward or shrank away from the possibility of love; it eventually sold two million copies and earned Maxwell a Grammy nod.

Now he wanted the sound he had pulled from the past to follow him and bend around whichever corner he turned. As he told the Sydney Morning Herald in 2016, “What I did with [Embrya], on purpose, was that it was the anti-Afro ’70s funk-soul record.” He resisted the notion that his music could be pinned down and examined, and he seemed to want to write music that could circulate forever, that slipped away from any attempt to capture it, like a wave of water or an anxious thought. The songs he wrote for Embrya respond to this inner stubbornness, loosen themselves from their points, spread and pale like watercolors. It was as if had he had opened a window in his urban hang suite and the ocean poured in.

Made primarily as a reaction to his own debut album, Embrya has few previous models for its itself. It is the only R&B record I’ve ever heard that’s submerged as it is. (Even the Sade records that producer Stuart Matthewman worked on periodically come up for air.) At an hour long, it spills itself across four sides of vinyl on its new reissue, released on the occasion of the album’s 20th anniversary. It can be difficult to focus on its individual hooks; they rear up and break apart like waves in bottomless lakes of songs. Flamenco guitar solos ripple and die off like pulses on a radar screen. Strings stir and resettle like clouds of silt at the bottom of an aquarium.

There’s simply not enough water metaphors on this green earth to describe Embrya. This is by design; few R&B albums, let alone albums in general, embody the liquid rush of desire as completely as it does. Maxwell’s piercing tenor is double-tracked so often that even its edges seem watery, and his lyrics crumble from the direct romanticism of Urban Hang Suite into impressions and feelings that aren’t necessarily certain of what they are; he sings words like “plush” and “blush” almost interchangeably, and they melt away in pale petals of near-meaning.

As each song wades gradually from chord to chord, it grows harder to determine one’s position in them, whether at their middles or near their ends or slipping away into new, just-forming instrumentals, as when “Matrimony: Maybe You”—a pop-jazz track smooth and untroubled as the skin of a pebble—narrowly forks into a funk workout called “Arroz con Pollo.” Which isn’t to suggest the sound of the album is uniform; its songs are as various and vivid in their depth charges of color as Monet’s “Water Lilies,” which he painted as his vision was failing and the world itself was melting into streaks of color. There are indeed verses and choruses on Embrya; there’s a deep mysterious pull in the groove of “Luxury: Cococure” from which the chorus seems to bubble upward. “Drowndeep: Hula” is one of Maxwell’s tenderest yet murkiest ballads; if its drumbeat were a little slower and dilated it might’ve produced an early draft of Massive Attack’s “Teardrop” instead. “Gravity: Pushing to Pull” finds Maxwell descending to a pressurized depth, his voice riven with low distortions. But as Embrya advances it can feel just as often like a lens is dwelling over different gatherings of sound—hands swimming up the keys of a synthesizer, basslines played so flexibly they’re invertebrate—briefly snapping them into focus before they sink back into the texture of the record.

In this way Embrya somewhat foreshadows D’Angelo’s 2000 masterpiece Voodoo, both artists searching for something even beyond the outer limits of their debut albums, both records achieving something close to perpetual motion in the slow circulation of their grooves. But where Voodoo stretches time out until it’s crisp and brittle, Embrya’s time feels thick and immeasurable and seems to pass in gradual stirrings, the liquid counterpoint to Voodoo’s spare, desiccated funk. It’s an album of traceless, amnesiac swellings, never seeming to quite know where it’s going or where it’s just been, flowing without ever seeming aware of its flowing, which is its truly remarkable achievement. According to Maxwell, Embrya is “a story that unfolds,” but it’s impossible to pick up a single thread of it and follow it to its original source; it’s all source, a concept album in which there is no concept, just feelings, impressions, intimacies and their absences, wave after wave after unending wave of them.”

Original review

[emodialisse]

The guy from GamingWins really gets me, used a whole video just analyze the stupid little details that I tend to notice too.

Not sure about hater, but yeah, it's a bit sad. But at the "bright side" Doc Ock and Spider-Man's origin stories had a bit of instinct to it since the beginning (get it? Animal analogy, hah), both suffered from a radioactive accident that changed their lives but decided to follow their own path after that. And it's amazing how the game managed to bring this together rather than just implying like the comics did.

The exception is that one Tom DeFalco story where he decided to write Otto as someone who views his and Spider-Man's conflict like a cord primal thread to hold their relationship together, something that gives him purpose, to look forward to the next day.

Like Scott Snyder said in a comic con panel on his story "Death in the Family" that Joker sees Batman and him as "these two halves where he says, you love me the way I love you, and they're essential parts of one conflict and it's the only conflict that matters in Joker's mind".

So the game offers us a chance to connect with their relationship, through their mutual project together. And makes sense that said project will always mean something to them even though the concept is deep covered in many layers of hate and regret.

Yuri Lowenthal is really the perfect Peter Parker voice imo. And yet he's totally humble about it. He said in one episode of the podcast Super Conversations With Hero Mentor that he felt "terrified about playing the part and wake up everyday feeling like he was going to screw up something".

I saw many people compare this scene to Far Cry lol. Anyway, it's one of my favorite sections from the game and I have the dialogue between Otto and Peter memorized because I tried to find this full scene in other gameplays.

It's really on the nose, but I love how the sequence changes when we go further into Peter's self degrading subconscious, Bill Salyers voice acting as Doc Ock and my boy Scorpion being a creep.

I think takeout's on Otto, and Peter brings the coffee. He knows the place well, it's the Coffee Bean after all, they give him a good discount.

He gets my humor too. Call me later?

If I stop to talk about this I will get a little Pepe Silva insane, yeah. Like the first scene with Otto, he gets off the power damperer and Peter scorts him away from it, the camera pans out and instead focus on these two as to say "this is their story, yeah the Octopus arms are a product of it but give your attention to these two first".

Or when Otto first rises with the help of his arms, he prefers to hover over Peter instead of talking to an eye level, because when he does it's to give Peter false reassurance. Otto thinks his place is above everyone else, which is why is cathartic to him "for the first time in my life, I don't feel like a failure, I feel like me".

Or the many moments the camera goes back and forth to Peter and Otto like they have some sort of synergy together. Anyway, you get my point.

"I have a father, his name was Ben Parker" lol, sorry. Look, I'm not gonna call out anyone, this just my opinion, but I don't understand why people would view Otto as a father figure to Peter. It's a bit cheeky coming from the guy who ships them, I know. But it's not because of some personal vendetta I have against the trope or fanon headcanons, I just don't see the appeal. Their relationship is already pretty interesting how it is portrayed in comics and I don't think a father/son connection really brings much to the table except being pretty boring.

What I see in their relationship is something entirely transactional, until they start to see each other beyond employer and emoloyee. Otto is a very lonely guy, companionship is important to us dumb humans, so he would love to have someone like Peter to take care of to some extent, to share his knowledge, etc, someone he can be close to.

I kind of get it how the writers twisted some screws to throw in a father/son dynamic, just like Spider-Man 2 did. Not gonna try to argue against it, it's just my preference to think of them as friends and enemies with some benefits. Not saying I'm not into that father/son shit, but it's in the gross way. Sorry not sorry.

So, on the topic of their friendship imma show you another guy, this time WritingOnGames, who sums everything I said better than I can articulate here.

(Meme not exclusive from the video)

Otto has stated in an audio draft from the game that he doesn't want Peter to think he's his assistant, but his equal partner.

Although, there's still that invisible barrier, right? I don't think they use to hang out, that's for future fics I didn't finish writing, but I'm certain their socializing takes place mostly through phone calls, e-mails and their Brokeback Lab. He's Peter's boss anyway.

But the way they met was very unusual. Otto didn't even have an internship program, he just followed the word of an old friend (May).

He took interest in Peter and so they spent two years together and have shared many personal stories and dreams with each other. Peter is aware of Otto's habits and personality and vice versa:

Couldn't have said it better myself.

It shows their relationship doesn't revolve just around their work.

And once he finds out Peter is Spider-Man, he doesn't anchor himself on Peter's superiority to humankind right away. He did that later to prove his point right, to make Peter stick to his side.

Otto genuinely shows appreciation for Peter's efforts and genius, but he also admires his good will to do the right thing. In return, Peter strives to make Otto proud of him, but also wants to protect Otto from himself. Which is why he walked so many lengths just to try to take back the Otto he once knew, because it's better if he hears Otto says it was just a miscalculation, right?

Peter knows Otto did wrong to him and everyone else in New York, but still wanted to talk some sense to him, even though Otto insisted he was doing it for the greater good. They're weird, complicated and I love them.