#what does it mean to be in couple

[thephantomoflove]

❤️ it’s talk to me

[sabertoothwalrus]

I know Senshi is canonically furry and kui doesn't draw him hairy to save time, but I think it's funny that the only character that IS drawn with body hair is Chilchuck. of all people.

[hypewinter]

I've had a brainworm for a few days now so here me out.

After an accidental reveal gone wrong, Danny is forced to flee the country with both his parents and the giw after him. While he's trying to find some place internationally to settle down, he comes across a secluded complex.

Said complex happens to have access to an ectoplasm run off which Danny is in desperate need of. Though it has been corrupted by whatever the people of the complex have been doing to it, that's no problem for Danny as he can easily purify the portion he takes in to survive.

Deciding this is the perfect place to live off the grid, Danny sets to work figuring out how to blend in. It turns out that's the easy part. With his temporary stint as a ninja, his training with his black belt mom, and his general ghost physiology, he fits in pretty well.

He fits in so well in fact that he is told he'll be training someone one of the head bosses has their eye on. A kid his age.

Basically what follows is Danny accidentally ruining Talia's plans for Jason by unconsciously purifying his corruption and just talking him through his emotions. When Jason gets back to Gotham, he returns without a clouded mentally and realizes just how much Bruce went through after his death.

Instead of unleashing his complicated plan, he quietly takes over the underworld. He loves his father but also knows there are situations in Gotham that require a more firm hand. Jason decides to be a firm hand in his dad's place.

(I imagine he is only revealed on accident yet his reunion with his family is just as dramatic as Under the Red Hood. Tbh it probably has something to do with the joker suddenly going missing.)

Meanwhile back at the League of Assassins, Talia is impressed by Jason's training and is under the impression that his failure in Gotham is due to him getting cold feet at the last second so she puts Danny in charge of Damian's training.

Danny this time takes a more conscious role in ruining the league's brainwashing by challenging Damian's beliefs and teaching him he should use his weapons to protect, not to harm. By the time Damian gets to Wayne Manor, there is significantly less deprogramming that needs to be done.

[travelling-hydaelyn]

Lahabrea possessed Thancred before this questline even started which means these are back to back Laha interactions. Here is how he greets the WoL in the Waking Sands immediately after his Disney villain introduction.

Meanwhile in Minfilia's solar:

presumably he took a brief break from running Alphinaud's errands to go dramatically laugh at the WoL

[fireladybuckley]

I can’t believe a boyfriend made a silly sex joke to lighten the mood after both partners had a moment of vulnerability. The audacity. The horror. The normalcy! Unbelievable. How dare a conversation about feelings turn to levity. How dare a couple have a light chat about trauma-related things over dinner that doesn’t turn into an incredibly deep heart to heart instead of a joke and moving on. Unbelievable. I’m never watching this show again! 👎🏻

[hawkeyeslaughter]

the fact that radar clarifies to henry that pierce and mcintyre are hawkeye and trapper respectively despite that fact that henry almost always refers to them as pierce and mcintyre implies the fact that henry rarely remembers who has the last name pierce and who has the last name mcintyre , and the only explanation i can draw from that is that hawkeye fully just responds to the name ‘ mcintyre ‘ as though someone were talking to him and trapper does the same thing with the name ‘ pierce ‘ , therefore th

[soups-archive]

more signs were discovered around the spawn area!

[firbolgfriend]

Scrapped stylized discord

[fictionadventurer]

There's something about reading really great writing that's so relaxing. You can just sit back and let the words wash over you, knowing that you can trust the writer.

[cuddlytogas]

there was some Twitter madness recently where someone left a comment on someone's art to the effect of, "Ed shouldn't wear a dress, he's a man!" which I do disagree with on principle, but unfortunately, it brought out one of my least favourite trends in the fandom

so, naturally, I had to write a twitter essay about it. and I already largely argued this in a post here, but the thread is clearer and better structured, so I thought I'd cross-post for those not on the Hellsite (derogatory). edited for formatting/structure's sake, since I no longer have to keep to tweet lengths, and incorporating a couple of points other people brought up in the replies

so

I want to point out that the wedding cake toppers in OFMD s2 aren't evidence that Ed wants to wear dresses. Gender is fake, men can wear skirts, play with these dolls how you like, but it's not canon, and that scene especially Doesn't Mean That.

People cite it often: 'He put himself in a dress by painting the bride as himself! It's what he wants!' But that fundamentally misunderstands the scene, and the series' framing of weddings as a whole. I'd argue that Ed paints the figure not from desire, but from self-hatred; it's not what he wants, but what he thinks he should, and has failed to, be.

(Yes, I am slightly biased by my rampant anti-marriage opinions, but bear with me here, because it is relevant to the interpretation of the scene, and season two as a whole.)

The show is not subtle. It keeps telling us that the institution of marriage is a prison that suffocates everyone involved. Ed's parents' cycle of abuse is passed to their son in both the violence he witnesses then enacts on his father, and the self-repression his mother teaches, despite her good intentions ("It's not up to us, is it? It's up to God. ... We're just not those kind of people. We never will be."). Stede and Mary are both oppressed by their arranged marriage, with 1x04 blunty titled Discomfort in a Married State. The Barbados widows revel in their freedom ("We're alive. They're dead. Now is your time").

But even without this context, the particular wedding crashed in 2x01 is COMICALLY evil. The scene is introduced with this speech from the priest:

"The natural condition of humanity is base and vile. It is the obligation of people of standing ... to elevate the common human rabble through the sacred transaction of matrimony."

It's upper class, all-white, and religiously sanctioned. "Vile natural conditions" include queerness, sexual freedom, and family structures outside the cisheteropatriarchal capitalist unit. "The obligation of people of standing" invokes ideas like the white man's burden, innate class hierarchy, religious missions, and conversion therapy. Matrimony is presented as both "sacred" (endorsed by the ruling religious body), and a "transaction" (business performed to transfer property and people-as-property, regardless of their desires), a tool of the oppressive society that pirates escape and destroy. That is where the figurines come from.

When Ed, in a drunk, depressive spiral, paints himself onto the bride, he's not yearning for a pretty dress. He's sort of yearning for a wedding, but that's not framed as positive. What he's doing is projecting himself into an 'ideal' image of marriage because he believes that: a) that's what Stede (and everyone) wants; b) he can never live up to that ideal because he's unlovable and broken (brown, queer, lower-class, violent, abused, etc); c) that's why Stede left. He tries to make himself fit into the social ideal by painting himself onto the closest match - long-haired, partner to Stede/groom, but a demure, white woman, a frozen, porcelain miniature - because, if he could just shrink himself down and squeeze into that box, maybe Stede would love him and he'd live happily ever after. But he can't. So he won't.

The fantasy fails: Ed is morose, turns away from the figurines, then tips them into the sea, a lost cause. He knows he won't ever fulfil that bride's role, but he sees that as a failure in himself, not the role. It's not just that "Stede left, so Ed will never have a dream wedding and might as well die." Stede left when Ed was honest and vulnerable, "proving" what his trauma and depression tell him: there's one image of love (of personhood), and he'll never live up to it because he's fundamentally deficient. So he might as well die.

This hit me from my very first viewing. The scene is devastating, because Ed is wrong, and we know it! He doesn't need to change or reduce himself to fit an image and be accepted (as, eg, Izzy demanded). Stede knows and loves him exactly as he is; it's the main thread and theme of season two!

(@/everyonegetcake suggested that Ed's yearning in these scenes includes his broader desire for the vulnerability and safety Stede offered, literalised through unattainable "fine" things like the status of gentleman in s1, or the figurine's blue dress. I'd argue, though, that these scenes don't incorporate this beyond a general knowledge of Ed's character. Ed is always pining for both literal and emotional softness, but the significance of the figurines specifically, to both Ed and the audience, is poisoned by their origin and context: there is no positive fantasy in the bride figure, only Ed's perceived deficiency.

Further, assuming that a desire for vulnerability necessarily corresponds with an explicit desire for femininity, dresses, etc, kind of contradicts the major themes of the show. OFMD asserts that there is nothing wrong with men assuming femininity (through drag, self-care, nurturing, emotional vulnerability, etc), but also that many of these traits are, in fact, genderless, and should be available to men without affecting their perceived or actual masculinity. It thematically invokes the potential for cross-gender expression in Ed's desires, especially through the transgender echoes in his relieved disposal, then comfortable reincorporation, of the Blackbeard leathers/identity. It's a rich, valuable area of analysis and exploration. But it remains a suggestion, not a canon or on-screen trait.)

Importantly, the groom figure doesn't fit Stede, either. Not just in dress: it's stiff and formal, and marriage nearly killed him. He's shabbier now, yes, but also shedding his privilege and property, embracing his queerness, and trying to take responsibility for his community. In a s1 flashback, Stede hesitantly says, "I thought that, when I did marry, it could be for love," but he would never find love in marriage. Not just because he's gay, but because marriage in OFMD is an oppressive, transactional institution that precludes love altogether. All formal marriages in OFMD are loveless.

So, he becomes a pirate, where they reject society altogether and have matelotages instead. Lucius and Pete's "mateys" ceremony is shot and framed not like a wedding, but as an honest, personal bond, willingly conducted in community (in a circle; no presiding authority, procession, or transaction).

That is how Stede and Ed can find love, companionship, and happiness: by rejecting those figurines and their oppressive exchange of property, overseen by a church that enables colonialism and abuse. Ed is loved, and deserves happiness, as he is, no paint or projection required.

ALL OF THIS IS TO SAY: draw Ed in dresses! Write him getting gender euphoria in skirts! Write trans/nb Ed, draw men being feminine! Gender is fake, the show invites exploration, that's what 'transformative works' means! But please, stop citing the cake toppers as evidence it's canon. Stop citing a scene where a depressed Māori man gets drunk and projects himself onto a rich, white, silent bride because he thinks he's innately unlovable and only people like her can find happiness, shortly before deciding to kill himself, as canon evidence it's what he wants.

(Also, please don't come in here with "lmao we're just having fun," I know, I get it. Unfortunately, I'm an academiapilled researchmaxxer, and some of youse need to remember that the word "canon" has meaning. NOW GO HAVE FUN PUTTING THAT MAN IN A PRETTY DRESS!! 💖💖)

[seagreenstardust]

I know I’m so lasered in on bkdk that I don’t often talk about togachako, but one of the things I’ve noticed this time around is how often Toga will lump Izuku and Ochako together when she’s talking about the people she loves. As far as Toga is concerned the two of them are interchangeable nearly from the beginning. If she means she loves Izuku romantically (as much as she’s able to understand it), then she’s also saying she loves Ochako romantically.

And it will never not floor me that Toga straight up compares Izuku and Ochako’s relationship to her own with Jin, then says immediately after how Jin was like a brother to her. In canon someone compared izu*cha to a sibling relationship. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: the way bkdk and togachako are written feels incredibly intentional. If they haven’t been building up to an eventual canon ending then this is the cruelest longest running fake out of all time

[sysig]

They’re both so cute, what’s up with that (Patreon)

[jhonny]

.....hold up

[bookwyrminspiration]

real quick because the fandom's experiencing some growing pains--reminder to be nice to new fans! yes they'll have different dynamics, energies, and ways of doing things, but that's not a bad thing

we are all here to enjoy ourselves, so let them enjoy themselves. we were all new at one point. if its harmless, who cares! block if its that much of a problem/nuisance

we do not need a fandom generational divide, please and thanks <3

(and to new fans: hi! sometimes we have genuine points about etiquette like spam and tagging conventions to make the space better for everyone, but otherwise! just have fun!)

[ask-lu-wild]

[oceanwithouthermoon]

i posted abt this on my tiktok story but i need to rant more so im putting it here 😭😭 the way a lot of mikosai shippers (on tiktok, pinterest, reddit, etc) are is such a big reminder to me of why i hate the strictly romantic soulmates trope with every fiber of my being 😭😭😭 people who interpret soulmates as "that means theyre canonically together" regardless of how the characters actually feel about each other and if they ACTUALLY get together is so fucking gross to me oh my god its so fucking gross i hate forced romance so bad 😭😭 someone cant just say "hey, we're soulmates so you HAVE to date me and its literally weird and impossible for you to like anyone else because i said so!!" and also aiura WOULDNT do that anyway ???? HELLOOO???

you have no idea how many people ive seen call all saiki ships with anyone other than aiura "problematic ships" just because "theyre soulmates"