#title character (anne o'neil)

[a-mysterious-anom-girl]

"BUUURUUPH!"

There goes another scambot, reduced to scrap metal and partially-digested clothes, then to pseudo-anon blubber- a black bra and white sleeveless top, this time.

[queen-anne-music]

ok no. i'm not done.

firstly, from a meta standpoint of izzy's death representing the dying age of piracy, I can kinda get it.

BUT, hear me out

we didn't need that parallel, we got slapped in the face with it in episode 7 when ALMOST ALL OF THE SHIPS BLEW UP, that was representative of the "death of piracy"

additionally, the same meta-commentary could be made by saying that ed's retirement means blackbeard's death and again we get the death of piracy thing from a narrative standpoint

now by this point it is probably VERY obvious that izzy became one of my favorite characters this season, and I have to acknowledge that some of that is definitely clouding my view of this finale

but

i really, really think that this could have been handled better, don't get me wrong Con O'Neill's acting in his final scene was amazing, and I am so, so happy that izzy and ed finally talked about their relationship with each other, but this show has had crazier things happen then a character surviving things that should have killed them, off the top of my head: ed surviving this season, stede surviving being hanged, auntie surviving a whole explosion, buttons TURNING INTO A BIRD, and of course I think there is something to be said for izzy having a leg amputated!! and somehow not getting any kind of infection from that despite the less-than-ideal circumstances

while i don't think that David Jenkins intentions were to say a big fuck you to older disabled members of the lgbtqia community, this still hurts

also seeing time and time again a character go through a redemption arc only to be killed off at the end of it just gets old

but i have to wonder

maybe this isn't meant to be the end of izzy

here's what I think, recall the ending of season 1 where ed throws lucius off the boat and we were all like HE BETTER NOT BE DEAD, I have to wonder if this is meant to parallel that

i'm not trying to pull a tjlc here, but here's a few other things that don't quite add up that support this theory

firstly, the title of the episode. perhaps I'm looking in all the wrong places but I haven't really seen anyone discuss this? the title of each episode usually plays into the events of the episode in some way (sometimes in obvious ways like calypso's birthday and sometimes in less obvious ways like impossible birds) but I can't really see the connection here? its an obvious callback to stede's mermaid scene but it never really came up in the episode which seems a bit odd

next, izzy was buried on land, this feels wrong for so many reasons (yes I know half the time pirates were buried on land shush), there feels like no good reason to bury him on land, something could be said for the fact that he's watching over ed and stede's inn but for someone who represented the pirate ideal I would have thought they would bury him at sea, which leads me to my next point

buttons landed on izzy's grave again i repeat BUTTONS LANDED ON IZZY'S GRAVE the same buttons who turned himself into a BIRD, magic is canonical to the OFMD universe, and it has been established that buttons is an actual sea witch, they didn't do much to establish the limitations of these powers so it would not be out of the question for buttons to potentially bring izzy back, which maybe he can only do if he has access to izzy's body?

i feel the need to also mention that from a narrative standpoint ed and stede's ending feels a little bit rushed (this could be for a lot of other reasons that have nothing to do with this theory I'm not in denial nooooooooo) but it did feel a little bit interesting that we got the whole scene with ed trying (and failing) to be a fisherman contrasted with the ending of him as an innkeeper to say nothing of stede's love of being a pirate captain (and subsequently leaving all of his crew behind) also there was one other scene that make me think that this doesn't feel quite right, the anne and mary dialogue. while I do understand that it was an interesting look into how their relationship turned sour because they both sucked at communication I have to wonder if it is foreshadowing the downfall of ed and stede's relationship now that they've left piracy? again I'm very happy that they seem to be able to communicate a bit better this season, and that they are happy living what ed would call the simple life, but I'm not confident that this ending means smooth sailing for them

(it also seems a bit odd that ed isn't on the ship to take revenge on ricky? but maybe he needed some time to process?)

i think a solid case could be made to bring izzy back in season 3 if we get one (but they also say denial isn't just a river in egypt and I don't wanna give anyone any false hope)

at any rate they certainly have given the fandom quite a bit of stuff to play with for fix-it fics

[byneddiedingo]

Barbara O'Neil and Barbara Stanwyck in Stella Dallas (King Vidor, 1937) Cast: Barbara Stanwyck, John Boles, Anne Shirley, Barbara O'Neil, Alan Hale, Marjorie Main, George Walcott, Ann Shoemaker, Tim Holt. Screenplay: Sarah Y. Mason, Victor Heerman, based on a novel by Olive Higgins Prouty and its dramatization by Harry Wagstaff Gribble and Gertrude Purcell. Cinematography: Rudolph Maté. Art direction: Richard Day. Film editing: Sherman Todd. Costume design: Omar Kiam. Music: Alfred Newman. I'm bothered by an inconsistency in the title character of King Vidor's Stella Dallas. When Stella's estranged husband, Stephen (John Boles), shows up unexpectedly at Christmastime bearing gifts for her and their daughter, Laurel (Anne Shirley), Stella makes a determined effort to look "respectable": She rummages through her closet, rejecting all the flowery, overtrimmed dresses she usually favors, and chooses a black dress, removing most of its trimmings, and even goes so far as to wipe off the lipstick she has just applied. But later, when she takes Laurel to a snooty resort, she's a blowsy horror again, swaggering vulgarly through the amused upperclass crowd -- and thereby precipitating the final separation between her and Laurel. What happened to the self-aware Stella who knew how to present herself as a suitable mate for Stephen Dallas? But the thing about this inconsistency, and other little melodramatic clichés that infest the film, is that it doesn't matter: Stella Dallas triumphs because Barbara Stanwyck believes in her and because King Vidor knows how to manipulate our responses to the characters. Stella's appearance at the resort is played as simultaneously comic -- who doesn't laugh at the way she's dressed, swanning around with a white fox fur? -- and tragic -- Stella's insistence on being herself is her fatal flaw. Similarly, when her friend Ed Munn shows up drunk, wagging around a large turkey he has brought for Stella and Laurel's Christmas and stuffing it head, feet, and all into the oven, the scene is hilarious -- Alan Hale is wonderful here -- until it isn't, until we realize the damage it is going to do to Stella and her daughter. And the celebrated final scene, of Stella watching Laurel's wedding through the window, is beautifully performed by Stanwyck, chewing on her handkerchief, and magisterially staged by Vidor. Tears are flowing in the audience as Stella strides across the street, but she's beaming, having accomplished her chief goal: to see Laurel happy. Critiques of the movie's treatment of maternal self-sacrifice, or of marriage as the consummation of a woman's happiness, are many and cogent. But let's just take a moment to reflect on the skill with which these ideas and attitudes, retrograde as we may find them, have been presented on film.

[a-mysterious-anom-girl]

"OUURPH- BOUUURUPH!!"

Two more bot accounts dealt with, two more skimpy black dresses- and a pair of glasses- burped up before being scooped up alongside metal scraps and crammed back into the greyface's guts.

[a-mysterious-anom-girl]

Another three bot accounts devoured, another three problems reduced to scrap metal and partially-digested clothes, then to nothing but pudge, heralded by three more hefty belches ringing out.

[a-mysterious-anom-girl]

"OUUAAAAAARUUUUPH!!"

Partially-digested bikinis and remnants of a few different skimpy outfits come flying out of Anne's mouth alongside some chunks of now-ruined metal, all of which is scooped up and shoved into her mouth before being sent back down her throat to her absolute trash compactor of a stomach. "That's another five spambots dealt with... reduced to part of a superior datamass, you could say. Heh."

[a-mysterious-anom-girl]

ANNE THE SHARK ANON?

"Not a shark. Would be cool if I was a shark, tho- I just have big, sharp, pointy teeth.~" A somewhat mischievous little giggle escapes the pseudo-anon's mouth... "AAAAAAAAAND..." She opens her gaping maw wide... briefly revealing and showing off her long, prehensile, point-ended purple tongue. "I got a freaky tongue, too.~ Big-as-fuck appetite as well, heheh.~" "...shit, now I kinda do wish I was a shark gal."

[a-mysterious-anom-girl]

Nobody willing to challenge her to a one on one fight, she had gotten bored once again of Turf Wars and Ranked Battles and there wasn't even any missions for her to go on either! It is times like these where the Sanitized Inkling known as Agent 3 headed down to the Deepsea Metro and headed specifically to the Girl Power Station test. The Sanitized Octolings there ALWAYS provided a challenge... Plus, they were fun to swallow down after beating them down to the ground~ Though what the overweight squid didn't know was that this time, her trip to Girl Power Station would be different... In a good or bad way is yet to be decided.

@immense-inklings

Some time after her encounter with the hyper-muscle variant of Agent 3... Anne accidentally warped. Again. But this time, it was to somewhere she didn't recognize at all. She was in some sort of... seemingly underground area, with MASSIVE old computers, monitors, and keyboards floating in the air, standing on a platform with nine floating cans on it, and just beyond that, a bigger platform with a bunch of small walls, a few catwalks, and some wooden crates surrounding some sort of glowing orb.

"...oh, for FUCK'S SAKE, where the hell did I derp-warp to this time?!" Yes, she's even come up with a name for her accidental time-space jumps: derp-warps. "Fucking hell... well, at the very least, that kind of looks like ink down there, so... I guess I'm still in the world that Inklings and Octolings are from?" She sighed, shaking her head and shrugging. "I can't go down there using the jump pad thing since I'm not a cephalopod, and those doors to the train won't open... ugh..."

Understandably frustrated and quite stuck, Anne simply sat down on the platform, then opened one of the cans out of curiosity, and... "...a bucket?" Indeed, that can somehow contained a bucket much larger than it. It was, however, exactly that- a bucket, and nothing more. Just... bucket. "...the fuck am I supposed to do with this?"

[a-mysterious-anom-girl]

I have never seen one of you casttt off your anonymittty and gain a tttrue form before. Fascinattting! Perhaps you could tttell me abouttt yourself?

"Heh, gladly." "Soooo... to be honest, we can stop being truly anonymous at just about any time- however, it's a big decision, seeing as there's no undoing it, so a lot of anons stay truly anonymous."

"When we decide we want to gain a true form, the first step is determining what we actually wanna look like in our new form. Some anons don't change their appearance at all, some just make small changes, like I initially did, some change up their form majorly but leave some clear traces of the original form- for example, there's one who became a bright green horse, but kept the anon shades- and still others completely abandon all signs of having been an anon, taking on a 100% new form."

"And it's not just the OUTSIDE that we can determine- we can also determine what our INSIDES look like, and how THOSE work- hell, we can even sort of choose what we're made of when we abandon anonymity in favor of a true form. Like, uh... for example, I basically ended up makin' it so that my stomach and lungs are bigger than most beings' guts and lungs, so that I can hold my breath for way longer and fit loads more stuff into my stomach." "I also, uh... kinda made it so that I'm pretty much entirely made of magic, and, due to my permanent connection to Tumblr itself, binary code. An EMP still won't hurt me, but if I get hit with some sort of, like, magic nullification spell... hoooooo boy. That's going to end VERY badly, seeing as I have a heart but no blood- no veins at all, in fact. Me + anti-magic area = dead. Granted, I'll come back good as new in 24 hours, but... still. Dying is not fun."

"What else, what else... ooh, yeah. I also made it so that my stomach pretty much carries out the functions of not only the stomach, but also the liver, bladder, and large and small intestines. I don't excrete any waste- my stomach can break down almost ANYTHING, though some stuff, like metal, takes longer than other things. Anything with a huge amount of magic energy in it is gonna take quite a while to digest as well- but the more magic stuff I digest, the better my guts will be at taking care of it, heheh.~" "So, uh... yeah. There's a whole buncha info about me. If ya got any other questions, then by all means, ask away."

[a-mysterious-anom-girl]

vore is. pretty cool

"Hell yeah it is."

[a-mysterious-anom-girl]

M Y S T E R Y

"Ooh, I like mysteries. Hell, I'm a mystery myself. Soooo, what's this mystery, eh?"

[a-mysterious-anom-girl]

"UUURPH!"

Out from the maw of the pseudo-anon comes a large black wrist bangle of some kind, as well as a hole-filled, formerly-colorful dress and some metal scraps- the bangle ends up on Anne's own wrist, while the dress and scraps are sent back into her guts to be fully obliterated. "Another bot account dealt with."

[a-mysterious-anom-girl]

Anne where are your eyeeeeeeees

She lowers her sunglasses...

"I don't have eyes. The sunglasses ARE my eyes."

Sure enough, there are ZERO eyeballs on her face. None. Zip, zilch, zero, nope, nada, nothing. "If the shades break and I run out of spares, I'm fucking blind."

[a-mysterious-anom-girl]

A grey creature being reported falling somewhere within the Splatlands? Why did that sound familiar?... Bah, whatever the reasoning, it didn't stop Captain 3 from rushing out into the field to check out this mysterious creature for herself; Bringing along New 3 for the sake of furthering her training out on the field. However, during their search for this mysterious creature, some... Thing had caught the attention of the newbie of the NSS; Causing her to immediately pounce the source and start attacking it without any hesitation! Unfortunately not knowing the one she was attacking was a certain Pseudo-Anon that the Captain had encountered around three years ago...

@immense-inklings

"Wh- oh, goddAAAAAAAAMNIIIIIIIIT!!" Anne derp-warped YET AGAIN, and this time... this time, she had the same misfortune as when she first ended up in 3's world, but worse. The fall this time was around like... 30 feet. Anne's durability and the ground below her being primarily sand would certainly help... but the landing still hurt like hell. "AUGH! Ugh, fucking hell... my ass... and everything else... where the hell even am I?"

And then Neo Three pounced on her.

"GACK! GET IT OFF, GET IT OFF, GET IT OFF! RABID INKLING, RABID INKLING! GAAAAAAGH!" Well, this is... certainly not the reaction one would expect from Anne. No proper attempts to fight back, just panic and flailing... but that voice... that ever so slightly husky female voice... it just might bring to mind some old memories for the Captain.

[a-mysterious-anom-girl]

"Odd question, but do you only eat people? Or do you eat non-human foods too?"

"Food is food, regardless of whether or not it's alive. Sure, I find swallowing people whole to be hot as hell and quite satisfying, but nothing really beats stuffing your face with actual food."

[a-mysterious-anom-girl]

Hearing about a rather... Mysterious entity having appeared in the mountainous region of Octo Valley, the New Squidbeak Splatoon had sent their best - and most buff - agent to check out the reports of the mysterious entity. If it was dangerous, then Agent 3 would be able to take it down. If it wasn't, she'd have to escort it out of Octo Valley and back to the New Squidbeak Splatoon base located back in Octo Canyon. Which either option shouldn't be too hard, especially considering... Well, the veteran agent doesn't exactly NEED her Hero Shot to take down any serious threats anymore, even if she still uses said weapon.

(@immense-inklings from Hyper Muscle Agent 3)

Anne warped into Octo Valley- wait. "Wait a fucking minute. Wasn't I just in 3's apartment...? Ah, damnit." It seems that while Anne was stretching after getting up from the couch, she accidentally warped again... and this Octo Valley felt different from the one she had been in the previous day. Different in a way only folks who travel to different realities would recognize.

"Great. Juuuuust fucking GREAT. Wake up in a new world for the first time, and the first thing I do is throw myself into a different version of it without trying. Well, let's see what sort of difference this version of the world ha-" Anne ALMOST finished her sentence... but then she saw this alternate world's Agent 3 approaching. And she. Was. FUCKING. HUUUUUUUGE.

"...hooooooly shit." Anne's jaws dropped and her eyebrows shot up at the sight of the alternate Agent 3 approaching her- not only was she taller than the 3 she'd first met, but much more noticably, her muscles... they were nearly big enough to fit entire other Inklings inside of them! Aside from that initial response... Anne was left speechless.