#sorry for the negativity y'all

[saragrosie]

I have been sketching. So much tma. Here's some expansions on my Jon and Martin designs I've been doing.

Another note I forgor to mention is I love how after hearing Simon go "it's enough to make your hair turn white" about Martin's office in s4 many of us collectively agreed his hair turned white because of his association with the Lonely. The shared consciousness is real and we use it to play hot potato with the communal brain cell dedicated to the sillies.

Closeup of apocalypse boyfriends (also to the person who said they love my s5 Jon's fancy white girl updo: I think about that every day)

[redysetdare]

If you're first response to a repulsed person's identity is "As long as you're not sex/romance negative" then you don't ACTUALLY support repulsed people. if you're first response is basically "this is the qualification you have to meet for me to view your identity as valid and it's up to my interpretation on if you reach this unknown criteria" then you don't actually support repulsed people.

you can't go around saying how repulsed people are valid ONLY IF they're the "good ones" that's not how that works buddy.

[suffersinfandom]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

No.

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

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

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

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

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

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

[anthhonypadildo]

anyone else sooo tired of all this discourse about "old smosh" and the decline of ianthony content. can I just be in any smosh tag and have more than every third post not be discourse

[pinkcatmaid]

Me when I see a pink blog saying positive words about food and plus size fellows girls: 🫶🏻🫶🏻🫶🏻🫶🏻

[wayfinderships]

Oh boy! :D I can't wait to look through my f/os tag!

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[cuddlytogas]

an incomplete list of terrible but extremely popular Our Flag Means Death takes that I would like to never see again please

(and I do mean popular, as in, lots of people seem to think they're canon, to the point where I feel slightly insane and like I was watching a different show to everyone else)

1. Ed's mum was loving and nice and supportive, if hampered by her bad situation

this comes up more in fic than analysis, to be fair, but good god, what show were some of you watching? this isn't to vilify her, because yeah, she's clearly a product of colonialism, white christian supremacy, and domestic abuse, but like. that doesn't make how she raised Ed good. clearly she was trying to keep him safe, but "we don't deserve nice things", and especially "it's not up to us, it's up to god", speaks to me of someone who squashes down any ambition on her son's part, has fully bought into the lies of christian colonialism, and tries to pass them down to her son.

as does happen in colonised communities, particularly among older generations. I know us white people like to think that every indigenous person is a perfect left-wing anti-imperial activist, but that's simply not the case, and Ed's mum is so clearly an example of an older conservative christian indigenous parent who had to believe the lies told by their coloniser in order to survive, but is now passing on that trauma to their children. and I just...

if I read one more fic where Ed's mum is a perfect loving supportive angel who always believed in her kid and always supported and protected him, I'm gonna scream. yes, it's sweet, and it's fun to sometimes veer from canon and give your blorbo nice things, but it's still veering from canon. and yet, I see very few people acknowledge that, or actually talk about the nuances of Ed's mother, and how she definitely tried to protect him, but was far from sweet, doting, and unconditionally supportive.

2. Ed's loving look when Stede is picking food from his beard in 1x07

like most of these things, I enjoyed it as a joke or exaggeration at first, until I realised that people were actually being serious. but every time I watch that scene, I see Ed looking absently-mindedly over Stede's shoulder, because a) that's what you do when someone leans in to pick something off you, and b) surely the point of the scene is that they're so comfortable and easy together that they don't notice the intimacy of what they're doing, but Lucius, an outside observer, thinks it's obvious. right?? I can't be the only one seeing it???

[sigh]

anyway. finally, the really really big one:

3. Ed is a soft uwu babygirl princess femme bottom sub who loves her cat collar and is teaching Stede how to dom him in the "say you're the captain" scene

I mean, there's not much to say except to link to duke's absolutely phenomenal twitter thread about "how the 'babygirlfication' and infantilization of ofmd ed teach is an extension of racist perceptions of indigenous men being inherently violent and thus needing to be emasculated to be considered sympathetic"

but especially That One Fucking Scene, good lord. talk about taking shit out of context. everyone looked at a slowed-down gif of one shot in the trailer and cried "babygirl!! he's such a simp, he just wants to be dommed!!", when actually that scene is about how a) Stede is cringefail and terrible at being a typical harsh, commanding pirate, and b) Ed is lovingly embarrassed by this. he encourages Stede to assert himself (and give Ed something to do during his probation/help him make amends with the crew), but like. normally. he's acting perfectly normal in that scene, and mostly annoyed by the outfit and embarrassed by how badly Stede fails. but just because he's sitting down while Stede is standing, and he happens to take a breath in that one shot (because, you know, people breathe sometimes), everyone's doubled down on their "submissive babygirl" bullshit, and I can't get the fuck away from it.

which - listen, it's fun for me, too! it's fun to explore exaggerated aspects of a character, it's fun to read/write/draw that angle in smut, I get it! but I keep seeing people keep claim it's literally canon, and I cannot stress enough that that is Straight Up False. for the love of god, please just watch the show without your (potentially kinda racist) bias glasses on, and remember to treat the characters with respect instead of projecting onto their every interaction a shallow dom/sub binary just because you find it hot.

Our Flag is a show very specifically about masculinity, and what it means to be a man; how assumptions about that can harm and restrict men; and how men can grow beyond them. it's a nuanced and sympathetic examination of this. the whole point is that Ed is allowed to like nice fabrics and be tired of violent piracy and still be a man. the point is that two men fall in love - equal, honest, sincere love - and are still men, still exactly who they are.

(on that note, insisting that Ed is canonically trans or femme because of these things often ends up just leaning into gendered stereotypes: men are harsh and active and dominant, and women are soft and passive and submissive, and if Ed's not the former, he must be the latter, right? it also tends to hetero-ify the central relationship, casting Stede as "the boy" and Ed as "the girl", needing one to be masc and one femme. not always, and again, I understand and have enjoyed transformative works that take those elements and run with them, and explore what the story could be like if Ed were trans/nb/etc - but it's still a transformative interpretation. it's not canon.)

relatedly: those fucking wedding toppers! it seemed blatantly obvious to me that half the point of those scenes was that Ed is distraught and blaming himself for Stede leaving because he wasn't the ideal partner. it's his entire arc for the first half of season 2! Ed hates himself and believes there's something wrong about him that makes him unlovable. so he keeps and then discards the wedding toppers, painting himself onto one of them, because he's projecting himself onto an image of ideal/successful romantic love that he thinks Stede wants, and in which he doesn't fit. he's trying to mould himself into someone else to make himself lovable, not realising that Stede already loves him for himself.

like, it's important that the groom figure isn't actually like Stede, either. yes, it's blond and has a nice, peach-coloured suit, but a) Stede was very specifically unhappy in the posh, heterosexual, married state the figures represent, and b) Stede by this point looks nothing like that figurine. it's directly contrasted with the image of him in the rowboat, scruffy and plain and earnestly in love, rather than fancy, cold ceramic.

so it's important to the whole narrative that Ed's yearning for/projection onto the wedding toppers is false, and born from his insecurity. he gets drunk, and play-acts a stereotypical image of romantic happiness into which he doesn't fit, but real love looks nothing like that, because real love isn't found in stifling hegemonic cultural structures, but honest, emotional connections between people allowed to be their whole, vulnerable selves. Stede is not like the groom, and Ed is not like the bride, because they shouldn't have to be. Ed should not (and does not) have to warp himself into a demure bride in order to be worthy of love: he's already lovable and loved exactly as he is! that's the point!! of the scene!!!!!!

but no, I have to wade through swathes of art and fic and meta about how badly Ed wants to be a sweet little demure kitty princess, how he wants a wedding night and a ring to prove he's Stede's property, and acting as if this is somehow canon, because people on the internet have zero reading comprehension and are scared of brown men.

the whole point of Our Flag is that you don't need to compress yourself into prescribed social roles, and in fact, doing so will only make you miserable; and that racist, patriarchal, colonial institutions should be resisted and dismantled at every opportunity.

so tell me again why the ultimate message is that Ed and Stede should get married under an arch in front of an altar and their lined-up friends, with flowers and rice falling around them, all dressed in white, one in a suit and one in a dress, with rings and a kiss and a honeymoon after, before they move into a detached house with a yard and a fence and re-adopt the kids that Stede abandoned? and this isn't about promises, fidelity, or even monogamy - I'm specifically talking about everyone in this fandom who seems to think that the ultimate goal is the most stereotypical 20th century cisheteropatriarchal christian wedding, but with the name "matelotage" slapped on top, as if that takes away all of the underlying baggage.

just - I know we're all meant to hate men and masculinity and yadda yadda yadda, but actually, to be earnest for a second, men deserve respect too, because all people and all genders do. and two men are allowed to be in a relationship and still both be men - complex men, with their own, layered relationships to their gender - without having to fall into neatly-arranged dom/sub masc/femme roles, or seal the deal with a hegemonically-approved ceremony.

so please, stop reducing an indigenous lead character to a caricature of a femme uwu princess bottom just because he has long hair, wore a robe once, and you're too scared of brown men to imagine him with proper agency. and then please, for the love of god, stop claiming that that interpretation is canon.

[the-one-who-lambs]

Me: I don't know if my ideas are worth sharing, I'm losing engagement from my readerbase these past few months so I must be doing something wrong, I don't think I've really accomplished anything as a writer.

Some person in my AO3 comments hyped as FUCK for the Risen Lamb/Fallen God rewrite:

[fiona-fififi]

"Bobby's been the father I never had."

Okay, but why did that have to be said instead of shown.

[boilingheart]

best thing about mathias shaw is that there's just no sex appeal. zero. none. nada. this guy's got no rizz or whatever they're calling it these days. nothing. yeah he's like well built he's a master spy and one of the top rogues for sure, he's uptight and got that van dyke mustache and wears a corset 24/7 but he's just so fucking stick in the mud boring he's a vibe killer being around him is rancid he's so uptight and to the book you can't stand him. he curls his fuckin mustache he smiles at nothing. in theory he is hot as hell. catboy type of modern middle aged man babygirl. my girlfriend in theory. right. but he's so comically unfuckable. old white guy child soldier who's never fucking smiled in his life until flynn fairwind showed up. shout out to flynn fairwind, who is overflowing with raw sex appeal and charm and charisma, who took one look at this boring unsalted alliance spymaster who curls his mustache and hides his personality behind 37 reinforced walls, said "i can fix him" and then he DID. it's so funny to me. i'm correct about everything btw.

[moodymisty]

Just saw a post of someone snooping at the fics where their gifs are used (apparently you get a notif if someone does) in xreader fics and shitting on all of them and wow, new fear unlocked...

EDIT: reblogs are off because this is starting to breach containment, but dang, didn't know so many of y'all felt the same way. I'm happy to have found such welcoming people <3 Write or read your little hearts out.

[softambrollins]

'fumbled punk and jade' lmaoooo one's a literal piece of shit who attacked people and got fired after being given everything and the other one had an insane undefeated streak and title run even without much experience. FUMBLED???? the most brainless people in the world i swear. seek help.

[coollyinterferes]

"Back by unpopular demand:"

"Us!"

[lonesomedreamer]

“The Rings of Power” Liveblog: Udûn (Episode 6)

Or: how does this episode have by far the highest rating of the season on IMDb?!

Starting with the Orcs again. No thanks. I just don’t find the supposed mystery of Adar’s identity very compelling.

“Where is he? What happened to Sauron?” Speaking of mysteries, they were never even remotely subtle about Sauron’s in-show identity, were they?

Some obvious CG/hokey stunts ensue…the construction of buildings in Middle-earth must be really shoddy, because the tower crumbles almost instantly and was apparently held together by some ropes??

Nothing about the Southlanders’ plan is explained/clarified in any way. They’re going back to their village to “make [it] ready,” but ready for what? A siege? (As if.)

Galadriel offers Isildur some wise-sounding words about the value of humility. But she certainly isn’t speaking from her own lived experience…

“You have the look of your father.” This must have been written before any roles were cast: the actor who plays Isildur looks nothing like the one playing Elendil! Funnily enough, he does resemble Bronwyn and especially Theo, but I’m sure that’s just coincidence.

The Southlanders were feeling hopeless/powerless enough to surrender to the Orcs literally one day earlier, or did I imagine that??

This (slightly paraphrased) Tolkien quote about passing Shadow is beautiful and moving…except it doesn’t make sense to put it in Bronwyn’s mouth. It doesn’t sound like the kind of language we’ve heard these villagers use. Besides, it’s not a line of dialogue in the book.

“It is believed that one of the Valar watches over growing things.” Her name is Yavanna, and you should say that!

This scene with Arondir and Bronwyn looks good, and it would be touching if I was actually interested in their underbaked romance.

I can’t tell if this scene is ripping off the Jackson movies, Game of Thrones, or both, but either way it feels…low-stakes. The scale isn’t there. Why do the Orcs care so much about this one village? Are these the only free humans left in the Southlands? If so, they should be easy to subjugate. If not, and without Sauron, what’s their significance?

This scene is going on forever, AND it’s become unwatchable grimdark nonsense with some added eye gore/horror to revolt me, specifically.

The actors, Bronwyn and Theo in particular, are giving it their all. It’s not their fault that I’m not remotely invested in what happens to them.

How tf does time work on this show? When did the Númenórean forces land? How close is this village to the coast? And how many horses did they bring with them on their three little ships?!?

How did they know to come to this village? Is this Halbrand’s home? (iirc he’s supposed to have amnesia or something, so he wouldn’t even know!) I have to ask again: is this the only village in the Southlands???

Horrendous costume design. I award them zero points.

Isildur told Galadriel that he’s stablehand! But now he has his own armor, weapons, and a horse and is being given orders on the battlefield by the queen herself…?

“The item he possesses: he must not escape with it.” Adar: immediately escapes with it.

Halbrand asks Adar if he remembers him, because they almost could not be broadcasting his [Halbrand’s] identity any louder.

Their half-assed explanation of the Orcs’ origin story is maybe the only worthwhile thing to come out of this episode so far…(checks watch) 47 minutes in.

“I killed Sauron.” Too bad you can’t kill a Maiar (see example A: Gandalf) the way you can a normal person. Galadriel should know that.

“We are all creations of the One…the same as you.” This is great philosophy in, say, Star Trek, but in Tolkien’s universe it’s…not true? Elves and Men are the Children of Ilúvatar (Eru, lit. “the One”), while Orcs were created by Morgoth out of spite and envy as a mockery of the Elves. They’re the product of torture and evil magic. Ilúvatar reprimanded Aulë for making the Dwarves, and he made them out of love! The writers want me to feel sympathy for their horror movie monster Orcs because, idk…they have names?

“Your kind was a mistake, made in mockery.” The thing is, she isn’t wrong.

Galadriel is pretty spiteful and bloodthirsty herself. If only they’d made ambition her driving force. Less “relatable,” maybe, but so much truer to the character.

Love that all these villagers just accept the first decent-looking dude who claims to be their “true king” with no questions asked. Very Monty Python of them.

Reverse Excalibur, but make it evil and able to operate a giant Rube Goldberg machine! How stupid.

They could have just made a show about Elendil, the fall of Númenor, and the Last Alliance. It probably would’ve been better, and there would be more of his face.

“The look of his father,” apparently.

Mount Doom origin story? Incredibly dumb. So dumb. No one asked for or needed this.

The Good:

Some very pretty landscape shots

Galadriel’s chain mail is sparkly and aesthetically pleasing

They almost made me feel something re: Theo and Bronwyn.

An explanation of Orc origins at last (though I’m unsure why the show treated that as some big mystery in the first place)

Decent to good acting for the most part

The Bad:

Did we just…forget the rest of the show existed? No Lindon? No Khazad-dûm? Not even any Harfoots??? Even though I’m still mad about the idiotic mithril subplot, at least the Elves and Dwarves make the show feel fantastical and Tolkien-adjacent. To me this was dark, depressing, and unlovely—tonally, a Two Towers kind of episode but without any of the whimsy/charm that cut through the book’s gloom. A discount, low-effort GOT.

The battle scene went on forever. It was hard to see anything, unpleasant to watch what little you could see, and it all felt kind of meaningless.

To expand on that: this whole episode was UGLY. Especially for a show whose biggest redeeming feature is its lush visuals.

Either tell us Halbrand is [redacted] already or try to mislead us. Don’t just keep winking awkwardly at us!

The overall writing has serious problems. Too many things are convenient, inconsistent, contradictory, totally illogical, and/or explained either poorly or not at all. A lot of this could be alleviated by having more episodes to explore/develop the story and characters more thoroughly…some of it’s plain old bad writing, though.

Why are they earnestly trying to make us sympathize with Orcs via Adar while also making the Orcs…like that?

My already-teetering suspension of disbelief toppled out of a window watching this one. The unbelievable speed of the Numenoreans’ travel—both by sea and land—combined with the whole “evil Sauron sword-hilt that destroys a dam and starts a chain reaction that activates Mount Doom and destroys the Southlands” thing and the fake-out ending (half of the MCs seeming to be consumed by pyroclastic flow)… Someone shared a Tolkien quote that perfectly sums up the problem with this:

The moment disbelief arises, the spell is broken; the magic, or rather art, has failed. You are then out in the Primary World again, looking at the little abortive Secondary World from outside.

So yeah…this feels like a bad Game of Thrones episode—and apparently that’s what people want, because it has rave reviews compared to the other seven. But this show claims to be Tolkien-inspired, and imo it should therefore aspire to emulate Tolkien’s style more than it does Martin’s. This was not Tolkien. If this episode is your particular cup of tea—which is fine!—your fantasy is probably in another castle.

[savage-rhi]

MAGENTA.

[jamiethebee]

After seeing all the different ways people are interpreting the ending of my hero, I think what gets me isn't how Horikoshi is finishing it. For a story, it's good! Tying up loose ends and showing the path forward within society, I think it's fine! Good even!

What I don't like, is that we saw all these issues in hero society - we spent time with the villains and seeing how these issues manifested in different ways and affected the villains (and heroes!) in nuanced ways

And then the ending is so simple? It feels like slapping a bandaid on something that needs debrided and stitches. Like the vibes of the whole manga do not match up with the ending vibes. Unless of course you only read for the heroes and Izuku "here's how I became no. 1 :D " Midoriya. In which case, yea the ending matches up with the hero side of things really well, and is a sweet ending.

(this isn't criticism or negativity and I'll fist fight people behind the Wendy's or whatever if they try to skew it as such*. I'm just thinking my way through the different emotional reactions I'm seeing and the split of people does seem, by and large, between ""villain stans"" and "hero stans")