#people are wild lmao

[emblazons]

The heteronormativity is bad but it’s not even just that. I think the bigger problem in the Byler vs Melvin ship war is that since mlm fandoms have a reputation of being misogynistic and hating the female character for “getting in the way” everyone automatically assumes that Bylers fall under that category too (I’ve had sapphic friends who don’t watch the show tell me that they hate Byler because they think that the fans hate women even though most of us are queer women ourselves) and so we have to be extra nice and accommodating and apologize every time anyone even mildly criticizes El on here otherwise we’re labeled misogynistic (and even ableist even though El has no canonical disabilities). Which I think is so dumb because El is a flawed character and that’s a big part of what makes her interesting. Discussing her mistakes doesn’t mean that we hate her, in fact I would go as far as to say that people who recognize her flaws and love her for them care about El more than fake-woke Twitter feminists who try to strip her of all her less than perfect qualities. And don’t even get me started on how acceptable homophobia is in the Melvin fandom. The way that they shit on Will all the time and want to erase him and have him die in the name of “supporting women” is disgusting and idk why Bylers try so hard to cater to these people and just get along. There is no need and there shouldn’t be any desire to get along with homophobes. It’s okay to just hate things and it’s not morally wrong to dislike Melvin and want to stay far away from it.

Mmmm. Well first off I appreciate your honesty and want to (sorry for phrasing it the therapist way lmao) hold space for your irritation with how ignorant people can be in fandom spaces, because it is very real—and especially given the complicated history mlm ships carry in fandom historically, I can see how byler being pigeonholed into the same "you just want to get rid of the girl for your mlm ship" space is frustrating as hell, especially now that it's officially semi-canon.

Also, to your point about El: I agree that there are far too many people who behave as though acknowledging that characters (especially female ones) can be multi-faceted + make mistakes / be imperfect is somehow tantamount to a misogyny, even though good characters (male or female) must have internal challenges and conflicts so they aren’t one-note in the narrative. Too many people act as though their personal resonance or projection onto a character should define everyone else’s understanding and analysis of that character, and that’s something that happens a lot with El, especially in the case of the space she occupies in relationship to Byler.

Personally, I've avoided most of that discourse by not engaging with Byler "versus" Mlvn conversations for the most part, but that I still notice and react to myself when it comes into my space—particularly the "you're misogynistic or ableist" conversation, considering almost all of that is rooted in headcanons and projections, and not El's (or Mike's...or Will's) canonical characterization. You’re completely right to want to stay far away from that kind of discourse/energy—staying away from how I’ve kept myself sane and enjoying st in spite of how chronically online some of the fandom's takes can be.

I don't think there is any solution to it (people are like that in every fandom space, and I don't think they're gonna stop being willfully ignorant or heteronomative now), but...it helps that I know most of the argument surrounding "byler is trying to get rid of El" is based on either not knowing the show, unchecked emotion, or poor media comprehension, because media literate analysis makes it clear that all three characters involved are deeply complex, growing individuals whose stories all have their own purpose—El's is just moving independent, while Mike & Will's are moving toward each other.

People who don't understand or can't see that—or who want to start arguments over byler based on nothing but their understanding of other mlm ships, or their need to posture solely for the sake of being "right" on the internet—are, quite frankly, not people I'm trying to converse with if I can help it. I don't need to be an advocate for byler badly enough to put up with any of that lmao.

Thanks for the ask!

[midoristeashop]

Long car trips mean hunch over my ipad and film dumb stupid videos in restaurants at 11pm 😍 (future me screw u idk if it’s shaky also do not perceive me)

(That one vine)

Also have the things

[bird-surveillance-machine]

[katnissandpeetamellark]

HERES THE DEAL

Lucy gray’s fate is meant to be a mystery

Like Highbottom said… mystery’s drive people crazy like that’s THE WHOLE DEAL. She haunts Snow because he doesn’t know WHAT happened exactly

Sitting there and telling people they’re stupid for believing either she’s alive or dead ??? Wack move. It’s literally not confirmed for either and I really doubt it ever will be as its supposed to haunt us as well.

[chitinleg]

got him off-balance!

[s-citrus]

Woe, madcom be upon ye! Updated designs/headcannons!

[vero-niche]

when you tell your therapist something from your past and it leaves them speechless

[glolyst]

I like to think if Hera visualized herself as humanoid, she’d wear her flight suit like Eiffel and her hair like Minkowski

And probably not intentionally :,)

[artigas]

I’m really happy that Black Sails is experiencing a bit of a renaissance, but (predictably) some of the takes I’m seeing online are so busted. It’s wild to me that anyone would complain about the fact that Anne Bonny kisses Jack after she’s developed this life-changing relationship with Max. It’s absolutely wild to see anyone roll their eyes or feel uncomfortable about the fact that Flint has sex with Miranda when he returns to her in season one or that Max is most likely a lesbian but actively has sex with men for pay and knows how to make that pleasurable. It’s crazy to me that some of the very audiences who claim to want queer representation feel so discomforted when they actually see the mess and seeming inconsistencies of queerness that they asked for.

The reality is that there are lesbians who have had (and will have!) meaningful, mutually-gratifying, and deeply sexual relationships with men. There are gay men who’ve enjoyed having sex with women, who are gay as the day is long and nevertheless feel sexually attracted to a woman or two and are nevertheless gay men, full stop. There are gay cis men who are happily married to trans women. There are femme dom tops and butch bottoms and there are mascs afab people who like femme boys. There are non-binary people and trans men who actively identify as lesbians. There are ace and aro people who enjoy thinking about and engaging with sex — sometimes in fiction and sometimes in real life. Queerness, in fiction and in reality, defies neat categorization. That is the beauty, power, and (perceived) unorthodoxy of queerness.

Now, I’ll say this — do I think the straight men behind Black Sails were actively thinking deeply and insightfully about the paradoxes and fuckery of queer identity when they wrote Black Sails? No! By their own admission, Steinberg and Levine have owned up to the fact that some of the writing of the show was really hinged on their own blind spots as people who are not (to my knowledge) members of the queer community. If I want to be generous, I think that the beautiful mess of Black Sails is that, in not feeling like experts enough to designate specific identity labels to any of their characters, the writers stumbled their way into more authentic representation of lived queer experience, which is to say that the notion that James Flint was actively thinking of himself as a gay man was anachronistic. As many lesbian archivists and theories have noted, the notion of a queer identity — as in, queerness is who you are, not what you do — was patently unthinkable for most cultures in the past. In other words, the idea that Anne Bonny operates in the eighteenth century as a lesbian and thus would not willingly engage in relationships with men is not only untrue of the series, but untrue of most recorded lesbian experiences in the real world. The notion that a lesbian would operate her entire life without engaging sexually or romantically with men, for instance, is a very new privilege that some of us are very lucky to enjoy, but it is not true for the vast majority of human history — hell, it’s not even true of our present world.

This is all to say that think that there’s something really funny about how we want queer characters to fit into neatly organized boxes. This isn’t a new problem, either. When the show was still airing, the BS fandom would get itself into tizzies about wether or not Flint is gay or bisexual, wether or not Anne Bonny is a lesbian, wether or not Silver is queer when his only canonical relationship is with Madi, etc etc. We’ve been having these discourses for years and I don’t know. I get that much of it is fueled by how badly some people want to see themselves represented in media, but . . . well. The siloing of queer characters and queer narratives into neat little boxes has never felt very authentic to me and nine times out of ten, it’s also just so damn boring.

[habken]

middle school deku fighting the toughest battles

[honeyhare]

More glamrock doodles ive accumulated YIPPEE

Last two are from when HW2 first came out. Roxy and Chica had some of my fav mini games<3

[mamawasatesttube]

it still boggles my mind a bit that people on the internet will just try to call you a bitch in a friendly way when they're like. complete strangers. are you aware that the only reason playful insults between friends work is that they are Between Friends. your basic manners... where are they...

[a2zillustration]

I carried this thing for MONTHS with the EXPRESS PURPOSE of putting Raphael in it (knowing full well Larian wouldn't let me do that, mechanically) and I had one major miscalculation.

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[[ All Croissant Adventures (chronological, desktop) ]]

[[ All Croissant Adventures (app) ]]

[luna-loveboop]

Ok, so I know the update came out literal seconds ago so it’s probably a liiiittle weird to already post about it but hear me out

I already know my favourite panel in this update because look

Hyrule’s like the little guy wants to talk to you! Which is great but I look at wild and he just looks so scared

I’m just imagining he’s thinking “but I’m terrified of the little guy now”

[ploppythespaceship]

Saw a FB post talking about this and now I'm randomly curious.

If you had more than one, pick the one you had for the longest.

[greenpitbullzombie]

Mr. Whitmore having an aquarium of coelacanth in the year 1914 is hilarious. 😅