#Comedy and Tragedy

[ahb-writes]

"And I'm not gonna tell you, here, how to live your life. I'm just saying, I guess, that I got very lucky. You know, I'm looking at a strange and unpredictable future in a tough business with rules that I'm not completely familiar with, and when I become familiar with them, I, you know, I don't know whether I like them that much."

(Anthony Bourdain, quoted in Roadrunner: A Film About Anthony Bourdain)

[thatraccoonthing]

I did some shading practice :)

[wondering-whispers]

One of the best things about Dan Da Dan is that it came out of nowhere with a plot that seems so ridiculous on the surface but one which has so much depth and I absolutely love it

[sclerites]

if only someone would fix his comedy mask…

same issues as always as tumblr eats image quality vampire style

💨💥❗️reblogs over likes⚡️🌪️🔥

[trek-tracks]

Tumblr told me to check out the duality of man

[cat-hesarose]

Izzy Hands and broken promises

Now that I've had a day to digest the ending, I'm still in the "Izzy should have lived" camp but can better understand why it soured an otherwise great season finale for me.

Keep reading if you like rants about storytelling and queer catharsis from people with a Bachelor degree's worth of overconfidence and strong opinions.

Bar a handful of icks (Zheng Yi Sao getting outsmarted by Ricky, etc), I loved this season and don't see a wealth of problems that would not have been solved by two additional episodes. That said, Izzy's death is one of the things I can't see making any more sense if they had more time to explore his journey because his journey is what problematizes djenk's stated reasoning for his death.

In that one interview (and to be fair, we only have a brief window into his intentions as of right now), djenks positions Izzy as two things, specifically to Ed: a mentor and a father figure. And yeah, mentor figures often die. Their student surpasses them, or acquires a new narrative drive from their mentor's death to continue a quest.

Neither of these things feel like a fit for Izzy and Ed's dynamic nor their respective arcs. Neither does "father figure". Izzy was a love interest. He was described as a love interest. He confessed love to Edward. His mentor relationship was more established with Stede, if anything, who is an unreliable narrator and may well have been lying about Edward claiming that Izzy taught him everything he knows.

The journey that Izzy went on this season was parallel to Ed and Stede but it was with the crew. It's one big queerplatonic love story essentially, of him finding himself as an individual through the support they give and the space they hold for him. Season 2 Izzy Hands is, among other things, a love letter and showcase of the queer community's power to revive hope and purpose.

Izzy has the world's messiest breakup with Ed when they're both at their worst, and his healing begins with the crew of the Revenge. He only interacts with Ed again after bonding with, and growing through, the crew. So yes, it absolutely makes sense that his journey would proceed towards making peace with/saying goodbye to "Blackbeard". But it does not make sense that it would end there, with his death.

Djenks says that they're pirates, and people die. And yeah they do. But in the hand-wavy logic universe of OFMD it feels dismissive to say that about the death of a major character. And odds are, David "Izzy is my favourite character" Jenkins is not dismissive of Izzy, so that leaves tragedy.

My issue with that is, season 2 Izzy is no longer an innately tragic character. If you told me at the end of season 1 that season 2 would end with Izzy dying in Edward's arms telling him to go forth and change and accept love, I would've gone "that's sad but it makes sense." Because it would have, at the time. Season 2 Izzy departed from the trappings (so I thought) of the doomed fate of the bitter old repressed grimdark pirate when he put on the gold-painted wooden hoof and embraced his new role as First Mate of Stede Bonnet's gay floating kindergarten.

His death feels like a betrayal because, in a show that does queer characters Really Well, Izzy's arc feels like a broken promise. To say nothing of the politics of having a character attempt suicide, begin to heal, then say "I want to go" before dying, I wanted Izzy to want to live. It really felt like that was where his character was going, where his character was supposed to go.

Death for a character who is showing all this potential is only a natural ending in a tragedy. It isn't presented as peaceful or to punctuate another character's growth. Season 2 Izzy Hands had ceased to be reliant on and subject to Blackbeard. If anything, he was tied to the crew, who all stood back and felt much more removed from his death than they probably would have been if the show had more time to show their emotional responses. Having him die in Ed's arms, apologising for fueling Ed's destructive tendencies and encouraging him to be himself and accept love, feels like he got shunted off his new arc and back onto the old one. It feels like he went through all of that just to take a last-minute huge step back and re-subjugate himself to this character who does not reciprocate his devotion.

It makes me wonder if his death scene was one of the first ones written, before all that energy was spent giving him a new life and new connections and new, you know, new reason to live.

Anyway, that's how I feel about it. TL;DR Izzy's growth should have included LIVING HIS HARD-WON NEW LIFE and if I ever see djenks i'm going to cross the road and avoid eye contact.

[halstar-the-clown]

Two clowns, two VERY different emotional states. At least they’re both funny (well, they try to be at least)

[ominous-feychild]

The simultaneous hilarity and tragedy of looking at a character whose arcs all center around "I feel so lonely and isolated and just wish I had someone to lean on" and deciding to ship them with the character I've been planning to kill from the beginning.

[its-jackiemcsoup]

New addition🥰🎭

[cellsynchronization]

Hetalia AU! What if America Became King Arthur?

DNA (Dyna) here! I been cooking up an au for hetalia for a while and the oneshot will be posted soon! Currently it is being beta-ed by Mito and Nui (who make up our group Cell Synchronization) right now.

Here's the synopsis:

It's been exactly 4 years since America vanished off the face of the Earth. At first, everyone lost their minds, especially the Americans, turning over what felt like every stone to find the vanished representative. England himself never gave up.

England's tried everything between his own spying and espionage to satellite surveillance but it was all for naught. The UK rep turned to his tried and true methods. Where science failed magic will prevail!

“I ask again,” The knight says in a more serious and threatening tone, “Who are you?” The summoning was supposed to be perfect. It was perfect. The spitting image of America stands before him...

Only there's a discrepancy.

“Don’t you remember, America? Did your brain gone bonkers while you were missing?” England asks in shock.

”America… America… Why does that word seem familiar?!?!?” the King mutters in distress, as he sheaths his sword with one hand while another holds his head upright. “Are you calling me America??”

What the bloody hell is going on?

[anechomirrored]

Concerning Rubber Ducks -Comedy & Tragedy AU

[endlesscar]

Whatsapp thing: the sequel

[melancholy-lute]

Play Recommendation: Comedy and Tragedy

"Mdlle. Clarice is secretly married to a man whom she loves, a certain d’Aulnay, who for the sake of being near her has resigned the military profession and turned actor; but for a whole year she has been pursued by the unworthy attentions of the Regent. In vain d’Aulnay has challenged this notorious roué to fight; his status as an actress’s husband unfits him to cross swords with a gentleman. But Clarice resorts to a stratagem which at length brings about the desired encounter." (G&S Archive)

[stealthkragen]

hi katana zero fandom

species & unmasked electrohead under cut!

fa yuan - manul psychiatrist - porcupine headhunter - maned wolf zero - german shepherd mutt little girl - tadpole dj electrohead - townsend's big eared bat mr. kissyface - cougar leon - leopard seal receptionist - caracal fifteen - eyelash viper v - wolverine comedy & tragedy - ringtailed lemurs snow - demoiselle crane

[moxtoons]

Silly whiteboard warmup doodles this morning with friends!

My theater twins deserved to finally be drawn with their partners 👻🎭🎈

[lady-bee-holmes]

The problem with the art instinct is that sometimes it makes sense. You see a beautiful sunset or a flower and you’re compelled by it, eyes taking in every shimmer of the light or the grace of the forms.

Other times you have to hold back the need to take a picture of the fish in ice at 99 Ranch Market