#phew ok done

[pineapple-split]

Ok ALSO (and then I promise I’ll shut up and dive in to the celebratory rewatch): EVEN IF IT WERE TRUE that Black Sails only has queer subtext (and let me make it clear, it absolutely is not true) that still doesn’t invalidate it as a piece of media?? The queer characters aren’t the only reason we love this show. We love this show because it’s beautiful.

It’s heart-wrenching. It dares to ask the questions “what if your civilized society isn’t all that civilized? Who does it leave behind? Whose blood is it built on? What lengths will people go to and what will they sacrifice for even the tiniest bit of agency and freedom in a world that is actively trying to kill them? Are they justified? Can you even make that judgment call?”

It’s a story about storytelling. It has narratives within narratives and foils and tragic flaws and parallels and overarching themes that begin in the very first moments in episode one and last all the way to the end. It’s a Greek tragedy put to the screen. It’s still so hopeful somehow, even when so many things fall apart. It’s the epitome of “the love may not have been enough but it’s important that it was there.” The writing is wonderful (mostly, I have a few hangups but that’s not important here), the cinematography and score is almost reverent. People who worked on this show still gush 10 years later about how it was their masterpiece.

Those headlines of “the best show nobody watched”? There’s a reason for that. Those of us who love Black Sails love it passionately, and the complex and wonderful queerness of it is only one of the reasons.

[teenytinyapprentice]

NPC appreciation week - Day 7: Free day

Nils from Miracle Mask

I almost forgot about the last day!! fjdhfd SO I went with Nils, I really liked him! His design is super cute and I loved all his almost snarky commentary and smarts about the goings on in Monte d'Or... and it's lacklustre police force haha. I just thought he was a lot of fun - and maybe kind of ripping off Henry's fashion sense jdhfsjdf

@layton-npc-appreciation-week

[gemharvest]

(id in alt - do not repost, please ask before using as icon/ banner etc.)

habby pride. it says, 12 days in.

[anoant]

Realized I never posted these here, troll sprite edits

[presidentbungus]

how the mercs deal with anger (please god get them some group therapy)

scout: gets white-hot over threats, mother-related insults, or stubbing his toe, but stays SO FUCKING MAD for a total of about thirty seconds and then he's fine again. tries to hold grudges but is really, really bad at it, since he usually starts missing whoever he's mad at within two hours, and anything that manages to stick around residually he forgets about the next time he falls asleep. be expected to have to hold him back from fights in public, but if there's an argument he won't stay mad at you for longer than half an hour. averages out into a kind of chill guy. kind of.

soldier: his default state seems to be anger, if you could call it that; maybe something closer to conviction, or blind, self-righteous stupidity. he never really leaves said default state outside of extreme circumstances that would make anyone react twice as much as he does, anyway. fights anyone who looks too long at him but that's just kind of a result of who he is. if he likes you he'll accuse you of being a traitor-communist at every conceivable opportunity but barely seems to believe it, if such a thing were ever possible. if you're friends now you're friends forever. have fun with that.

pyro: exists in a constant state of "fuck it we ball". if you fuck up his shit she'll fuck up your shit but like who give a fuck. chillest guy alive have some fire

demo: fierce-tempered in battle, relatively cool outside of it, with an honor code so esoteric and layered you'd need a spell book and about nine thousand history textbooks to figure any of it out. aside from the routine massive deals he makes out of the regular things like bravery and chivalry, he's mostly pretty chill; a little more aloof than strictly necessary, but thinks most situations a lot of people would get mad at are just pretty funny, but aye if you wanna pick a fight with me I don't mind chopping off a few heads. likes to fight for the sake of fighting; initiates brawls just to punch people, as god intended.

heavy: grudgeholder, to put it simply. burns impossibly slow with the patience of a mountain and the stereotypical stoicism of a large bald man who grew up in a wintry wasteland but, trust me, he remembers everything you have ever done to him. he forgives easily but he does not forget. god forbid you manage to set his temper off; your death will be slow, painful, and if you manage to claw your way out of it you will wish you hadn't. that said, it usually only happens when you commit some deep infraction against something he holds dear, like his trust in you or, god forbid, somebody he cares about. good fucking luck

engineer: is by all accounts a very small, angry man, who will give you a list of everything he doesn't like about you in alphabetical order if you're a little too annoying for a little too long, and who knows about nine-thousand ways to ruin your life forever and is kept away from deploying them by rapidly declining sanity and a seemingly endless supply of straight black coffee. very good at pretending to be calm, that said, and you'll almost never know he's mad at you until you've got seventy guns pointed at you in the middle of the night. cries when he's real mad; gets angrier that he's crying; cries more. seems mature on the surface but has the emotional development of a piece of wet toast. he'll get there someday.

medic: irritable, but it seems difficult to slight him beyond mild annoyance considering his general aloofness in almost every situation. prone to barking his words when he's mad, and gets in murderous fits, but he doesn't like to hold grudges because, frankly, they're stupid and he doesn't have any time for them. just give him an hour or two to cool off and you'll both be fine. don't keep pushing him when he's already reached his breaking point or he'll get dangerous, though, because he doesn't care about killing someone in broad daylight and he certainly won't care about dismembering you right here in the infirmary. whatever he needs to do to get some peace and quiet.

sniper: gets annoyed at people over extremely trivial things, gets mad at them for weeks afterwards, and feels super bad about it. rarely feels anger without some massive tinges of sadness. tends to self-isolate and mope around for a while when she's mad about something, since even the thought of confrontation makes her want to puke. has no idea how to handle any of this

spy: practiced not to feel anger, since anger leads to mistakes, long-held habits slipping on the flip of a dime. still gets mad sometimes, but in private, where he can take it out on a punching bag and then smoke until he falls asleep. very good at not letting situations overtake him. past a very specific point, though, if he does end up getting overwhelmed (which happens despite his best efforts); almost as a defense reflex, he completely shuts down, and often either runs away or finds another way to discreetly escape the conversation as quickly as possible. master emotion bottler in all the world. hasnt cried in 50 years. should probably get that checked out

[twentyfivemiceinatrenchcoat]

https://www.tumblr.com/twentyfivemiceinatrenchcoat/747358492889858048/sugurus-route-sounds-interesting-i-know-a-lot-of?source=share

is it just me, but if reader and suguru are in their twenties, i don't see the four year age gap being a big deal? and later on, it becomes even less of a big deal.

i get that there may be some moral deliberation on suguru's part with the growing up aspect, but for them to keep their relationship a secret forever? really? that's kinda weird imo and making a big fuss out of nothing

if they're like 24 and 28, why the hell do they have to hide? i literally don't get it at all. they're not doing anything immoral. and reader is not a child by any means, and it's not like they have some cognitive gap or anything. i just don't get it. maybe it's a cultural thing, and for you it's a bigger deal than it is for me.

obviously fourteen x eighteen is super fucked up and wrong, but we're not talking about that, my god

aaa and !!! as for riko !!!! kairo COOKED w the shoko thing.

i think... that this pairing makes a lot of sense! i think it makes more sense than riko x reader, tbh

i just... i don't see the need of turning every best friend friendship into a romance

like irl i don't want to fuck my friends (pardon me for being crude) and i will never want to fuck them, and that's okay. i'm perfectly satisfied with our friendships staying friendships, and the transition to a romance is not necessarily a signification of a 'higher-level' relationship

at the end of the day though, as others have said, it's your stories so you get to do whatever the hell you want to do with it

…. anon i talked abt this a bit in another ask but maybe you missed it so i’ll say it again :’3

(this got very long i’m sorry in advance 😔)

the gap itself isn’t the problem, it’s not a big deal in their twenties. the issue here is the way their dynamic started. satoru always viewed reader like a younger sibling, and it was the same with suguru. don’t you think that would be awkward for them at all? 😭 i think you’re focusing on the present point of their relationship which is fine, but their history as a whole is important too!! if you grew up with a younger kid who was crushing on you, while you viewed them as a sibling, wouldn’t you also feel weird about developing feelings for them later down the line? i definitely would!!

the important part is the shift in their dynamic, not the age gap (but i mention the gap bc it’s so central to their prior dynamic). satoru can’t bring himself to shift his view on reader, bc he still sees them as someone younger that he needs to protect. there’s a kind of power dynamic there that’s important to remember, and it was established when they first met. he’s older, he’s known you since you were a little kid, he’s spent all those years making sure not to give you the impression that he’s leading you on at all. satoru doesn’t want to break that pattern, and he views that choice as important.

so don’t you think he’d be kind of pissed if he found out suguru had gotten together with you? if he found out suguru had made a choice to break that pattern, when he was so adamant on not doing so? there would definitely be a lot of tension there. satoru literally spends the fic talking about how he thinks reader should be with someone better, someone closer to their own age, someone who they didn’t meet from such a young age — and then he finds out they’re with suguru??

like . there’s no way there wouldn’t be a fight there. i’m not saying it’d be the end of the world or their friendship or anything, but satoru would absolutely be upset with suguru. especially since he places him on such a high pedastal. it’s less about morality and more about convictions. there’s nothing immoral about them being together, but it goes against the convictions satoru’s found himself sticking to.

so!!! that’s the reason i think they would keep their relationship secret. to avoid that tension. i can’t see it being anything other than a sneaky summer romance. maybe in the future they could tell everyone, but i also just don’t see suguru/reader as an actual endgame couple in this au… i didn’t specify this in the fic but the two of them aren’t nearly as close as reader is with riko and satoru, since they only met when suguru was hanging out at the gojo household.

anyway!! that’s my take on that. again, the gap isn’t the issue, it’s everything surrounding their dynamic, and the history of it. bottom line is that stsg grew up viewing reader as a sibling of sorts, so of course any kind of shift from that pattern would feel strange. if you meet someone when they’re fourteen and you’re eighteen, i’d argue that it’s a lot weirder to not consider that part of your dynamic important when thinking of them as a potential romantic interest in the future.

like, imagine someone asking you and your partner for your age, and you tell them you’re 27 while your partner is 23. not a big deal, obviously!! but then they ask what age you were when you met and you have to say you were eighteen and they were fourteen. even if you quickly explain that you didn’t get together until you were both adults, don’t you think that would earn you some weird stares? it’s not immoral but it’s a delicate situation, and i think satoru would get angry at suguru for not handling it delicately enough from his pov. remember that satoru himself can only see it as totally normal like. a decade into the future LMAO. his view doesn’t have to be the same as yours or mine, but it’s satoru’s own view that’s important here.

….. hopefully that made it all a bit more clear 😭 sorry for rambling so much anon!! hopefully you’re still with me :’3 obviously you’re free to root for whichever couple you want, but i don’t see myself changing my stance on these two. it’s a fun what-if bonus ending and i think that’s more than enough!! nothing that’s meant to be angsty or whatever, just suguru and reader sneaking around a bit because they know riko and satoru will be angry.

AH ALSO one more thing !! :’3 i’d argue that there is a cognitive gap between reader and suguru. reader is 22-23 in the fic, suguru is 27. it’s not a big gap but the human brain doesn’t finish developing completely until your mid/late twenties!!

i just... i don't see the need of turning every best friend friendship into a romance like irl i don't want to fuck my friends (pardon me for being crude) and i will never want to fuck them, and that's okay. i'm perfectly satisfied with our friendships staying friendships, and the transition to a romance is not necessarily a signification of a 'higher-level' relationship

wait nevermind i also wanna talk abt this 💔 a bit more rambling incoming.

overall!! you don’t have to like riko/reader anon. that’s totally understandable!! a part of me also prefers them staying as friends and nothing else, and i’ve always hated the idea that romantic love is seen as stronger as platonic love bc it just . isn’t. platonic love can be and often is just as powerful!! canonically reader and riko are best friends, nothing else, but i still think they’d be cute in a what-if scenario, that’s all :3 if it’s not your cup of tea then that’s totally fine, none of the endings are canon anyway.

as for the sexual aspect 😭 i just wanted to point this out bc i never write any of my character dynamics with a sexual aspect in mind, even the romantic ones. sex doesn’t have to be a part of romance!! maybe you were just joking so i’m sorry if i’m reading too much into it, just wanted to mention it bc i do see it as important :’3 being lovers doesn’t equal to having sex!!

[saltedcoffeee]

relapsed (thought abt xander watching david's shitty fucking tiktok lives after his family's death to cheer himself up and sending him fanmail that david opens and answers and it makes him cry so hard because he's so kind and patient with all the grieving sad questions xander asks him)

[venjamin-kingdomhearts]

Roxas and Ventus Appreciation Week Day 1: Stars

"And sometimes, I don't really think they'd understand!" Ventus laughed as though it were some inside joke, rather than a confession. "Ha! Crazy, right? I've known Terra and Aqua my whole life, and yet . . . ." Ventus' smile began to falter, and his eyes drifted towards the night sky. Roxas only watched in silence - he didn't need to say anything to tell Ventus' happy facade was slipping. To tell that Ventus was finally realizing how lonely he actually was. ". . . the only one who really knows how empty I feel without Sora here is- is you." Ventus pressed his lips into a thin line, and stared ahead at his Master's grave, and the memorial they'd set up for Sora there. It'd been quite a few months since his disappearance and Kairi's return. . . . The aching in Roxas' heart hadn't stopped since that day. He knew very well that Ventus could feel it, too. Even if, over time, the pain had dulled, it hadn't stopped. It wouldn't stop. But Roxas could offer a bit of comfort, in the way he leaned his head against Ventus' own, and grabbed for his hand. I'm with you. Ventus' breath hitched, but he stayed staring at the stars.

[kdramaxoxo]

Frustrating Story Time:

I have a lovely mutual who makes a lot of gif sets, mostly of ladies (which is great - we need that in the k-drama fandom). She has a troll bully who is constantly sending her anon asks (or writing from a clearly fake account that I won't name for now) just to tell her her art sucks...IN DETAIL. I mean in a LOT of detail.

I'm upset not just because I like this friend (and her gifs) but also:

There's such an easy solution for this bully:

BLOCK 👏 MY 👏 MUTUAL. USE THE BLOCK BUTTON. DO IT.

Literally, that is what the block button is for! It's not an insult, it's a tool. Don't like what you see? BLOCK IT and you'll never see their gifs again!

Before you feel like hurting someone's feelings by insulting their fanart hobby, consider hitting the block button.

[marchsage]

misc date family art... they are all so family :)

+ bonus aiba!

[penpanoply]

June: Picaresque

Challenge: Cover the Cover

With this, we’re done with another year and another album!!

[teenytinyapprentice]

LBMR week: day 7 - chair

Alfendi isn't as noodle-armed as he looks!

Phew! That wraps up LBMR week for this year!! - lots of fun and work as always fjkshfsd exciting to see everyone's work this year ^^ !!

[wrestlezon]

If I allow myself to believe that Jay White's place in this feud against MJF was originally supposed to be CM Punk I will never recover. So I won't think about it. Simple as that. I see people saying things like "this was supposed to be Punk" and my internal response is "that's just conjecture." We don't know what anything would've been for sure. I see Jay White challenge MJF to find anyone backstage who tolerates his insufferable ass enough to team up for a multi-man match and I just close my eyes and pretend I'm not seeing the direct parallel to when MJF challenged Punk to do the same during his feud. I just won't mourn any hypothetical futures that may or may not have ever existed. We're getting Jay White vs MJF at Full Gear, the PPV I'll be at, and it's probably going to be a cool match. The potential of seeing a CMJF2 feud world title match, live and in person, would have also probably been very cool, maybe even the best, but we don't know that's what would've really happened, you know? That's just a hypothetical scenario. A hypothetical scenario I won't spend my time considering. It's ok. It's fine. The current show that exists in the reality I live in is acceptable. It's fine. It's fine.

[cloudcountry]

im sorry for what yoru dashes are about to become...im answering my inbox.

[dindjrins]

most realistic (and human) scene from good omens 2 is crowley driving his car in silence as he cries. crying listening to sad music in your car is one thing but sitting in complete silence is a whole other level of heartbreak that’s how you KNOW your ass is devastated

[tamaslin]

doing astarion and shadowheart's act 3 quests back to back feels very much like i got throat punched and then kneed in the stomach