#I just think it's funny how many parallels are there

[4ranghaes]

soo,, you're not-compared-to-others-good at song fics (i'm reading them with a great pleasure that you can imagine!! ty for your hard work 🐝⭐) butt what if you find time to write maybe some kind of your associations with boys based on 80s-90s movies?? i think they're all a type of retro bfs ❤️‍🩹 shout out to leehan and patrick swayze parallels istg.......

ੈ✩‧₊˚ bnd as old movie bfs

ot6 bnd x reader [fluff]

a/n - anonie your mind😍😍 i LIVE off old movies this is one of the best asks i’ve ever received

sungho ~ william thacker from notting hill

thinking specifically about the scene where he crawls across the bed to look at her boobs under the duvet. constantly wearing his glasses as you sit and watch films. stuttering as he tries to be polite as possible offering any food or drink he has available, always such a gentleman. sitting out on the terrace in a terribly boyfriend fit of button-ups and barefeet. protecting you in situations even when he comes across as a total fool. actually does many foolish things, but it’s okay, because you think he’s lovely <3

riwoo ~ cameron james from 10 things i hate about you

smitten from the moment he lays eyes on you. will learn new skills specifically to try and get closer to you. unrelentless in his pining, but always polite and respectful. drives you home. waits until you want to kiss him. may be one of many waiting in line, the more extroverted, brash men trying their hardest to get to you. but he knows he’ll get you in the end.

jaehyun ~ duckie from pretty in pink

for this i’m going back to the original ending of duckie ending up with andie. your best friend. loud, bright, funny, eccentric, and absolutely head over his heels in love with you. even as a friend, is loud and proud about how much he loves you and how beautiful he thinks you are. diligently plays his role as a friend, because he knows you’ll see him for what he is in the end. watches you love and be tortured by other men, helps you when you fall. dedicates everything to you. is so serious about being your future, he’d buy you a house ^-^

taesan ~ kevin dolenz from st. elmo’s fire

tortured poet who would rather go months and months without any romantic or sexual interaction than not have you. watches you with your boyfriend (his best friend) in a haze of jealousy while trying to bury it down deep. he knows he’s cheating on you, he knows you deserve better, but he doesn’t want to break your heart. doesn’t mean to hurt his best friend by swooping in after it falls apart, he’s just loved you for so long he can’t wait another moment for you. starts writing again after you finally know his feelings for you, he’s found happiness again.

leehan ~ ferris bueller from ferris bueller’s day off

okay this is such a strange decision to make im sure because anonie i also agree about patrick swayze, but think about it. charismatic extrovert, not overly loud but just brimming with confidence in everything he does. just wants to have fun and spend time with his loved ones while enjoying his youth, but at the same time, he knows he loves you so much he’s already ready to marry you. he’s not joking either, no matter how much he jokes about other things, this, he’s quite serious about. will organise the craziest things and go to the strangest lengths just to see you smile.

woonhak ~ knox overstreet from dead poet’s society

obsessed. this is his yawp. this is his reason for poetry and art. he doesn’t think he can go on unless he gets you, or at least lets you know how he feels. he knows you have a scary older boyfriend, but maybe you’d see how much of a tool he is once you knew how much he loved you instead! you inspire him and he was right in the end, once you knew him, you did need him too.

[ramenwithbroccoli]

Hey, listen about this series I just finished. It's set in workplace environment, there's plenty characters but the constant ones are two guys, one shorter, associated with green and eye imagery, the other is taller than him, associated with blue. They're often on fanart together, there's even a ship of them.

Anyway some time in their work they discover that their boss (often shown in classy clothing, and he's also associated with eyes) is evil! And their workplace? Basically one big trauma machine, using human fear for energy. There's also a big deal with doors in the universe? The don't quite lead to where they're supposed to, sometimes to really weird places.

Sounds like The Magnus Archives? Well too bad! I'm talking about Monsters Inc.

[zoennes]

2.03 ♡ 2.04

[mistninja]

On that topic can Martin release winds of winter so I can write about the jon and fitz parallels!!!!

[remma-demma]

Ffxvi asks the brave question: (big bad villain monologue)

What if Emet-Selch was yucky disgusting instead of hot old man.

[bradycore]

i’ll be serious i did not even realize colette could be interpreted as a cas parallel until i saw destiellers talking about it. not saying that interpretation is right or wrong just we’re really all out here watching completely different shows. wild

[rivilu]

Wait. Logistically speaking. Would Elluin even know how to read.

[asfdhgsdkjhgb]

me 🤝 my ex bf

getting into a new relationship way too soon following the end of ours with a blonde who has less than based political stances objectively isnt a great person and got very overly attached to us far too quickly and it was suffocating

[starlightbright]

RIP Ricky September they had to kill you because it would have been unrealistic to not keep you on as a companion 😔

EDIT: I've noticed some people taking this post really seriously, so to clarify: no, I don't think Ricky was literally a perfect uwu anti-racist angel. This post was mostly a joke about how he was running around doing companion shit and, most of all, how the Doctor and Ruby both thought he was a hottie. My actual feelings about Ricky are that he's a complacent white liberal. Character reading under the cut if you want an explanation.

I do think the implications of making him unplugged from the racism bubble, paralleling him with the Doctor (man who shows up with knowledge about history and technology and guides the other character through dangerous situations), and directly contrasting to Lindy (including being open to trust the Doctor without second guessing him the same way Lindy and all her friends did) are supposed to be that he wasn't like the other people there and is thus LESS racist since racism comes to be what defines their society. I've seen some people basically ask "then why'd he move to White People City?" but within the text it's actually Rich People City; the reason everyone there is white is because systemic racism financially benefits white people. Making him LESS racist is NECESSARY to giving his death any meaning - because if he definitively would have called the Doctor a slur and walked away, then the Dot killing him quickly was a mercy kill because we KNOW all the other residents are going to die in the wilderness.

THAT SAID, I also don't think he was a progressive anti-racist. Do you know what Ricky actually is? A white liberal. He might disengage from the White People Bubble, he might not be outwardly cruel to black people, but he's still surrounded by people who are and benefits from a system where ONLY WHITE PEOPLE ARE RICH. The culture might be fucked, but he still benefits from it without doing anything to actually fight it. It's like how many a white liberal will read about the history of slavery, feel sad about it, and then be uncritical of prison labor. If Ricky was meant to be progressive, there'd be something, ANYTHING in the text about how he's tried to educate his followers on their society's problems, but it got deleted. He is COMPLACENT.

That's sort of the point, I'd say, since the theme is about how priviledged white people put themselves in a bubble of people like them and choose to look away from what's wrong in society. Those people become complacent at best with no effort to actually speak out or change things. Hell, even within the text, Ricky SEES a problem others are looking away from (the slugs eating people), but only tries to fight it by making a TikTok about it and becomes complacent again, accepting that people are just going to be eaten.

So tl;dr: no, I don't think the white liberal kid literally would have been a companion. I think if you stuck him in the Ood episode, for example, he'd have shaken his head when he found out about their plight, maybe made a TikTok with sad music playing over footage of them, and then said "welp, nothing else can be done." I think it's FUNNY to imagine another companion that the Doctor and Ruby both are giggling like schoolgirls over.

Also I kind of thought he was ugly - no offense to the actor but the makeup they had him in combined with the lighting and closeups made him look way older than 27 so he gave off this uncanny "how do you do fellow kids?" look.

[dickheadcanons]

So the timeline is contradictory in many places, but what makes the most sense to me is:

Dick is fairly newly 9 y/o when his parents die. He meets a 26 year old Bruce, who has been Batman for 1 year.

He is Robin for nearly a decade, until he’s fired at 18 y/o

Jason meets Bruce at 13, and is Robin til he’s 15. He’s 5 years younger than Dick. Note that he is 23 years younger than 36 y/o Bruce, a gap that suits their more parental relationship.

Tim is 13 y/o when he finds Dick again. He and Dick met when he was 2 y/o and the Grayson’s death is his earliest memory (to the point where he thought it was a dream for many years). They have a 7 year difference.

Tim is Robin until he’s 17 and Damian becomes Robin at 10 y/o. Dick is 24-25, and Jason is 19-20.

This allows a couple of fun things. The first is that Jason was a shitty teenager in UTRH which is just kind of funny. The second is that the Damian-Dick-Bruce parallel can exist, but also a Damian-Tim-Dick parallel, which I think is almost juicier. Dick was the perfect older brother to Tim, and yet Tim and Damian’s relationship is nothing like that. Tim is no longer Robin, but he’s also no longer the baby, which is almost harder. And I think is a reminder of how tiny Damian is at introduction. Tim is on the verge of high school when he becomes Robin. Damian is in 5th grade. And Dick is 25 trying to stop them from fighting.

[inkskinned]

she's three years younger than i am, and i put on cascada as a throwback, cackling - before your time! i've been borrowing my brother's car, and it's older than dirt, so the trunk is like, maybe permanently locked. when the sun comes through the window to frame her cheekbones, i feel like i'm 16 again. i shake when i'm kissing her, worried i won't get it right.

in 2003, my state made gay marriage legal. where she grew up, it wasn't legal until 11 years later - 10 years ago. if legal protections for gay marriage were a person, that person would be entering 5th grade. online, a white gay man calls the fight for legal marriage boring, which isn't kind of him but it is a common enough opinion.

it has only been 9 years since gay marriage was nationally official. it is already boring to have gay people in your tv. it is already boring to mention being gay - "why make it your entire personality?" i know siblings that have a larger age gap than the amount of time it's been legally protected. i recently saw a grown man record himself crying about how evil gay people are. he was begging us, red in the face - just do better.

i am absolutely ruined any time my girlfriend talks about being 27 (i know!! a child!), but we actually attended undergrad at the same time since i had taken off time to work between high school and college. while walking through the city, we drop our hands, try not to look too often at each other. the other day i went to an open mic in a basement. the headlining comedian said being lesbian isn't interesting, but i am a lesbian, if you care. as a joke, she had any lesbian raise their hand if present. i raised mine, weirdly embarrassed at being the single hand in a sea of other faces. she had everyone give me a round of applause. i felt something between pride and also throwing up.

sometimes one thing is also another thing. i keep thinking about my uncle. he died in the hospital without his husband of 35 years - they were not legally wed, so his husband could not enter. this sounds like it should be from 1950. it happened in 2007. harassment and abuse and financial hardship still follow any person who is trying to get married while disabled. marriage equality isn't really equal yet.

and i don't know that i can ever put a name to what i'm experiencing. sometimes it just feels... so odd to watch the balance. people are fundamentally uninterested in your identity, but also - like, there's a whole fucking bastion of rabid men and women who want to kill you. your friends roll their eyes you're gay we get it and that is funny but like. when you asked your father do you still love me? he just said go to your room. you haven't told your grandmother. disney is on their 390th "first" gay representation, but also cancelled owl house and censored the fuck out of gravity falls. you actively got bullied for being gay, but your advisor told you to find a different gimmick for your college essay - everyone says they're gay these days.

once while you were having a hard day you cried about the fact that the reason our story is so fucking boring to so many people is that it is so similar. that it is rare for one of us to just, like, have a good experience across the board. that our stories often have very parallel bends - the dehumanization, the trauma, the trouble with trusting again. these become rote instead of disgusting. how bad could it be if it is happening to so many people?

i kiss my girlfriend when nobody is looking. i like her jawline and how her hands splay when she's making a joke. there is nothing new about this story, sappho. i love her like opening up the sun. like folding peace between the layers of my life, a buttercream of euphoria, freckles and laughter and wonder.

my dad knows about her. i've been out to him since i was 18 - roughly four years before the supreme court would protect us. the other day he flipped down the sun visor while driving me to the eye doctor. "you need to accept that your body was made for a husband. you want to be a mother because you were made for men, not women." he wants me to date my old high school boyfriend. i gagged about it, and he shook his head. he said - "don't be so dramatic. you can get used to anything."

the other day a straight friend of mine snorted down her nose about it, accidentally echoing him - she said there are bigger problems in this world than planning a wedding.

[yenich]

I once had a funny thought "haha what if turtles showed Casey a series of one of my favorite animated films?" And then I analyzed the 1st equestria girls movie and realized how many parallels there are between Casey and Twilight Both: - go to another dimension to pick up the stolen artifact and save the world from the "apocalypse" - sent there by their teacher/their sensei - looking for their friends/family - getting used to the new world - they stress that it doesn't work out I think Casey would've watched it and thought "o mi gosh... she's... she's so me....... TT" And then Twilight goes back to her old friends and teacher and Casey is just (: |: )_: end of my weird thoughts thank you x)

[dontbesoweirdkira]

Platonic ¡yan! Dick Grayson x Batsis x Jason Todd

A/N: Another discussion post because we need to talk about Grayson! Thank you for your contribution, mootie! You are so good at bouncing off of ideas. I hope you don’t mind me writing this🤭

@siririus

Context

Masterlist

Craziest thing about all of this is, it's a paradox. Is Dick really only this upset because his batsis is prefers Jason?....Or is it also because it's almost like she's taking his brother away from him and they are becoming each others favorites?

In the previous post, i said how dick has a fear of being pushed to the side and forgotten. He's scared of no longer being needed anymore and this relationship kind of symbolizes that. You never needed Dick, even in the beginning. Jason leaned on Dick a lot as they knew each other the longest and it took so much work to mend the fractures in it. Now Jason is confiding in you more...you understand each other way more.

It's a complex issue.

One solution you might say is just for them to form some kind of trio...But he's tried. LOL Grayson has crashed many of your hangout sessions to use it as an opportunity to become close to you.

He knows you won't leave because you like Jason too much and he also gets to spend time with his brother. perfect. NOT.

Dick cannot seem to grasp the concept that you and Jason have a "parallel play" kind of thing going on. Like you mentioned Jason is subtle. He's not really trying to do something over the top, he just wants to chill and do his own thing. SO you guys might chat for like five minutes then he turns around to go read his book while you're playing a phone game. It's enough for you two to just be near. But Dick, he's internalizing it. He thinks you stopped talking because he's there. He thinks you guys are having way more action packed hangouts when you're alone. To him, just sitting next to each other isn't "hanging out".

He'll try to keep pushing for a conversation and you guys are like...eh. Or he'll try to force you all to do fun games ect. and it usually ends with you leaving first or Jason getting upset then you walking out together.

But that couch thing is so funny. I think that Dick would've been like waving you down to sit next to him all smiley and he has your favorite snacks in a cute little box but Jason just motions his head and you choose that. Stab right in the heart. He's not even watching the movie anymore, he's just paying attention to you guys.

Do not fall asleep on Jason. I think that'll high key bring Dick to tears. He wants that so badly. Dick is super physically affectionate but he's constantly craving hugs and all of that. You falling asleep on Jason reminds him of when Jason and him would have sleepovers in the living room, and Jason would always end up sleeping on his shoulder or lap.

He's tried hugging you before but you just go incredibly stiff and shaky so it's not even fulfilling to him. He wants to carry you on his back, do your hair in the mornings, cuddles, handshakes..ect. He wants to be your best friend. I do think you just even holding his hand would calm him down or holding his arm would help him to feel better.

He does attempt the subtlety of Jason. It doesn't really work the same way because well, he cannot contain himself. He's feral. Plus you assume the seat is for Cass or Babs instead so you never choose it. Like he gets to the dinner table first, saves the seat for you, and you sit next to him but he makes it so weird AHHAHA. Like he's trying to remain calm but he's breathing so hard. You finally chose him. (it was the only seat left) BUT YOU CHOSE HIM. You didn't scurry away like usual. He's just staring at you because he's so happy and you are sending help signals to Jason who is finding this all very amusing. Dick, wont stop talking either and he keeps filling up your plate with food. He gives you a corner piece of the brownie..he loves you so much.

[child-of-the-danube]

I'm still in my Lilia brain rot era and I keep thinking about her and Agatha, and their dynamic and parallels.

Like, Agatha is a dick to everyone from the start, even Teen, but she's extremely chill and even, for her being who she is, weirdly respectful towards Lilia. Maybe it's because of the age, maybe it's because Lilia was the only one to show she still had true power when they first met, maybe it's because they share experience and persecution the younger ones don't truly understand, maybe Agatha just has a soft spot for those who are very clearly outcasts and weirdos.

The only sting at Lilia I can recall is calling her "Dory" in the last trial lmao

She never once questions or mocks her gaps. Hell, she said "we came to the right place" AFTER she saw Lilia scream her head off in ep2 over, to them, nothing. "Hmm, this bitch a lil bonkers, but that's exactly what I like and need :)"

She told Lilia that she couldn't take her power unless she's blasted with it - something she was certainly aiming for if the door didn't open and that ended up saving them in ep2 when she was using her ye old technique of being a menace. She may have told it to her only to get her in, but that's a big minus to her plan B.

When everyone had their hallucinations, Agatha didn't mock Lilia when she was, once again, "being weird". She believed her and reassured her in a soft tone that it was ok.

One interaction I found really funny is in ep3 when Teen asks about a sous vide machine and Agatha turns to Lilia with that "What the fuck is that? That wasn't around in our time" look

Usually when one of them starts spewing wisdom, someone will give a snarky remark, usually Agatha, but when they were talking about summoning a new green witch, Agatha let Lilia speak and was the only one who, at least somewhat, listened to her advice (50/50 but still haha). It was Lilia after all who was the first one to, tho reluctantly, agree to Agatha's idea of summoning a back up green witch.

Also the way Agatha looks at Lilia when she calls Jen out for giving Sharon only one dose of antidote when she had two glasses of wine. It's just so "mmm 😈 I like this one"

Agatha's first choice for "who could possibly play piano" wasn't Alice. Ya know the daughter of a rock goddess who would be the most logical choice. It was Lilia and I find that sweet and a lil funny too.

Lilia didn't tell Agatha's Salem story with judgement, even if she said "when Agatha killed her original coven". It was delivered as mere fact to explain the story.

Then when Evanora showed up and Lilia looks angry and almost disgusted at what she's hearing her say to Agatha. Even after Alice's death, she didn't jump on Agatha's back and accuse her. She let her be cause she was clearly distraught.

Agatha "I'm not drinking the poison. You can suffer but I won't!" Harkness jumped on Lilia and covered her with her own body in the latest episode when the sword was about to impale her. And then she let her do her magic even if it didn't seem to work as the ceiling was still falling and even if she thought tarot was bullshit. She trusted she knew what she was doing.

And the look they give eachother when Lilia reveals Rio is Death. Lilia's face reads as terrified, but more than terrified, she seems to have a moment of compassion. It's the look of "How deeply fucked must your life have been that the only one that ever showed you love and kindness is the one who everyone else sees as the bringer of pain?". Death broke Lilia's heart many a time, but in that moment she understood, she broke Agatha's heart too in even worse ways.

AGATHA LIKED HER! SHE LIKED HER FROM THE START AND RESPECTED HER! AND LILIA LIKED HER TOO, DESPITE THE INITIAL SUSPICIONS!!!

I need to know what her reaction to finding out Lilia sacrificed herself to kill the threat that was specifically after her will be. Will she brush it off and pretend she doesn't care to keep appearing stern and emotionless or will this be the thing that finally makes her realise people care for her? Cause Agatha has never had anyone, except literal Death, show her kindness, much less sacrifice themselves so she could keep living. And I find it beautifully poetic that the one other person Death has known well for centuries, who Death has acknowledged by name in that coven, was the one to do that.

Again, I'm aware that this is just my brain rot speaking, but Lilia was truly the MVP. She's the one with wisdom, the biggest experience, the one with seemingly most patience, the hype man ("Jennifer, look what you did", "It was all for you", "Don't worry, baby. We're cool"). Her trial is the only one where the rest was in fact not needed and was of no help. Actually, all they did was make it worse. The first three trials depended on teamwork. Lilia's was truly solvable ONLY by Lilia.

Anyways, Lilia mentally adopted Agatha and realised she truly was part of her coven and therefore worth dying for and I will never fucking recover 💔💔😭😭

[dragonmuse]

Keep It In The Box : An Essay on OFMD Season 2 and the Failure to Heal

(here in is my season two reaction. It contains many many spoilers. It's also about 3k words long so you know what you're getting into.)

“See, I have a system for dealing with all the terrible things I've seen. There's a box in my mind, and I put the things in the box..” -Frenchie, Season 2 of Our Flag Means Death

…..and then he never opens it. Chekov’s locked box has no key in season two.

On first watch, it seemed clear to me that Frenchie’s declaration was a narrative plant. Clearly the whole season would be about that box of pain and trauma being opened, sorted through and at least the beginning of healing. The show had developed a reputation after season one of being kind and focused on queer narratives of healing from childhood. Ed and Stede’s parallels in their childhood traumas were frequently on display through season one and were repeated in flashback throughout season two. Jim’s season one arc about becoming someone who doesn’t think just of revenge and can now forge meaningful connections was profound, beautiful and often funny. Izzy is an antagonist because he doesn’t want Ed to move on or stop acting like the trauma-response version of himself. The antagonist wants to stop healing. The point is to grow, to change, to learn how to love. It’s one of the things that made season one work for me at the time, despite reservations about pacing and tone.

So naturally season two should follow suit. It’s a kind show! About healing and falling in love!

For the first several episodes, the remaining crew on the Revenge go through a gauntlet of trauma, forced to do and receive violence at Ed’s whims as he careens from self-destructive behavior to self-destructive behavior. This is the wounding setup. It was dark, but it seemed like it would have a payoff and at first it did.

Perhaps one of the most beautiful moments of the season comes in one of the small respites in those early episodes as Jim recounts Pinnochio to Fang to soothe him through his grief. That was the show that I expected. The kindness of that moment struck me very deeply. It gave me some understanding of Archie too, who seems to fall for Jim right at that moment.

That scene is the show season one promised. Season two led with packing Frenchie’s box full to bursting. Here is the fight to the death between lovers, there is a first mate who is mutilated and rotting in the very walls (the rot of the Revenge itself), and there is the storm of Ed’s rage and pain that threatens to consume all of them.

So surely these remaining episodes would concentrate on finding the humor in healing from those moments. That is the setup. Frenchie has a box. The box must eventually open.

Except time and again, all the characters who suffered are told that the only way to deal with what they’ve been through is to stick it in the box and never open it again.

Pete tells Lucius that he’s unable to move on and needs to let it go. Izzy has a story about a shark. Ed’s apology to the crew which doesn’t even contain the words ‘I’m sorry’ is just…accepted. I kept waiting and waiting for a meaningful apology to the people Ed had hurt the worst with his actions, but it seems all we get is Fang saying ‘eh, no problem, I got to hit you back so I feel better’.

The playful theme of ‘pirates are just violent sometimes’ from season one becomes a grinding horror machine in season two when every atrocity visited on someone is forgiven because the narrative needs it to be. Ed and Stede spend more time making amends with each other over the bloodless night on the beach than either of them spend trying to repent for their actions towards anyone else.

And let’s talk about Ed. Arguably this season pivots on his narrative, on his path to healing and growth. A path that starts at a very low point. His moment in the gravy basket, deciding he wants to live because there are still things to live for is so great! So one might assume that what would follow would be him pursuing those things, making amends, making connections. He and Stede have a wonderful moment, talking about being whim prone and how they’ll work to avoid that, build a relationship by going slower.

Yet, at no point do either of them stop following whims. They never heal or learn from what’s happened to them. They both keep running from thing to thing, particularly Ed. It’s a whim to sleep with Stede, it’s a whim to run off to fish, and the finale gives us just more of their whims. Ed drops fishing as fast as he picked it up. He finds those leathers in the ocean, murdering the symbolism of leaving them behind. Even the inn is a whim, one of those things Ed decided he’d be good at without evidence. And Stede joins him in that without a single on screen conversation about it ahead of the moment.

Ed needs to heal himself and to do that he needs to confront what he’s done and do the work to heal the wound. Instead, he doesn’t meaningfully apologize to anyone, besides Stede and Fang. Despite Izzy’s dying words (we’ll get to that), not only do we never see the crew caring about Ed, working to make him family in the same way they do with Fang and even Izzy, he also doesn’t choose to stay with them. So what is the point? Where is the healing? Or does even Ed, beloved main character, have to live with it all stuffed in a box?

He ends the season in the leathers he threw away, in a relationship that’s barely stabilized, going to live in a house which we are told by the narrative (in that they are very very clearly paralleling Anne and Mary with Ed and Stede or why do we even get that whole Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? episode) will only end in them setting fire to each other to stay warm.

But Vee, I hear you cry, it’s a ROM-COM. This is all meant to be ha-ha funny and you are taking it so seriously!

Cool beans. Then why the hell isn’t it funny? Healing is often filled with comedy because people deal with pain with humor. You can heal and laugh at the same time. The finale especially is almost entirely devoid of laughs, almost entirely devoid of joy until the last minute for that matter. The episode that should show off with a flourish how far everyone’s come, mostly serves to show that no one has grown.

Okay that’s Ed. I want to talk about Lucius next. Our former audience surrogate (that’s taken away in season two when he doesn’t get enough screen time to perform that role and no one takes his place) really goes through the wringer. He experiences many many terrible things, including sexual assault (which is made into a grimace-laugh line that doesn’t take away from it’s seriousness because oh hey, that can be done as it turns out). He’s nervous, he’s smoking, it’s clear he’s suffering.

There’s a beautiful moment where Pete tells him ‘hey, I was also in pain. I grieved’ and that’s great. It’s good that Pete sets a boundary about Lucius not obsessing over the past to the point of occluding their future.

We even get our comedic moment where Lucius pushes Ed off the boat (still not apology, but I’d lost hope for that by then) and that doesn’t help enough. So Izzy comes in with a shark and the advice that you just have to move on.

Just…you know. Play pretend. Forget.

Shove it in a box. Ed didn’t take my leg, a shark did. Ed didn’t kill you, a shark did. Live with the person that tried to murder you because it’s your fault you dangled your leg over the side of a boat. That is the show’s message. I thought on first watch, that surely this would also come back up and be explained that you can’t live that way, that that is no way to heal. That it would become clear that this was no way through. You cannot make everything into sharks.

Lucius can move forward and still carry pain. He can still want a meaningful apology and still want to talk to his lover about what he’s dealing with while moving forward toward a brighter future.

And what of the flirtatious promise of relationships and connections being the way to heal? Look to Oluwande and Jim, whose heartfelt romance from season one was relegated to the bins of history in favor of a narrative that made him a brother Jim once had sex with. They could have had Archie AND Oluwande, who in turn could also have Zheng, but that never seems to be an option. With a single short conversation, they are broken up with, despite a brief tease at the birthday that they still ‘dance’ together, it never actually manifests. Jim and Archie never talk about what they went through. It’s swept under the rug as fast as knives are lowered.

Lucius also no longer flirts with other people, the solution to his pain is to propose and get married (but not too married, lest we forget that they’re two men, they don’t even get to be husbands or even the more respectful mates, no. They’re mateys.) This season proposes that the only happy endings are monogamous ones, where no one talks about anything painful that went before.

To ensure that message, beyond assuring the success of Oluwande and Zheng’s relationship, Jim and Archie almost entirely disappear from the narrative. Sorry you guys were given layers of trauma and no growth and not even much to do this season, we need to make sure that everyone remembers Oluwande is the break in Zheng’s day so when he says that to her five minutes later we know exactly what he’s referencing. No time for Archie to learn what an apology is or for Jim to get one line in with Oluwande that isn’t affirming their newfound broship. Must do more flashbacks to things we just did two episodes ago!

The show even dangles the conversation of the Revenge being a safe space. Why would any of them ever feel safe when the man who tortured them is allowed to walk among them and they are expected to forgive and forget? What’s safe about that? The ship is never made safe for any of them, but that’s never addressed.

And Zheng! Amazing, hysterically funny Zheng! She loses her ships, her entire way of life, the kingdom she built for herself and then…she doesn’t even get to captain the Revenge. We don’t know what becomes of her fleet, of her plans, her ambitions. Don’t worry about it, she has a romantic partner and isn’t that what every lady wants in the end?

(But Vee, I hear you cry again, there will be a season three! Maybe it will be All About Zheng! To which I say: then why did they present us with the most series finale feeling episode ever? If there’s more, I have no idea where it’s going. BUT VEE: BUTTONS AS SEAGULL ON THE GR- Fine. It’s time.)

Let’s talk about Izzy Hands.

Izzy manages more healing than anyone else this season. He reaches his lowest point, suicidal in the bowels of a ship that’s become a prison (very much in contrast to Ed’s suicidal low). The person he loves most in the world has shredded him physically and emotionally (and if you’re in the camp that thinks Izzy deserves the abuse that Ed gave to him, I would really like you to sit quietly with yourself and ask why you think there is ever anything anyone can do to deserve that treatment). He’s low, he shoots Ed to protect everyone, and then seems to plan to drink himself to death, mourning his losses.

And then another beautiful moment! The crew move past their own pain to help him. They work together for the first time and it’s to give Izzy mobility back. He treasures it. He cries over it. He uses that kindness extended to him to reach a new understanding of Stede and help him succeed, doing the work to make real amends. He sings in drag, he’s vulnerable and beautiful, celebrating the side of himself that he must’ve loathed in the first season. He’s an elder queer man, coming into himself.

He never gets an apology though. (‘Sorry about your leg’ without eye contact is not an apology. There is no responsibility taking, no acknowledgement of the weeks of torture that came with it.) Izzy also never really has an honest conversation with anyone about what it means that the man he loves punished him so severely for the crime of trying to protect the crew (yes, lest we forget, Izzy lost his leg because he was trying to keep Ed from re-traumatizing the crew and himself).

Izzy does all this work, but even he’s not allowed to take it out of the box. It’s a shark, not Ed. Ed is just ‘complicated’ (the language of abuse here is so upsetting and I think not even intentional).

And then he dies. His last act? To apologize to the man who tortured him and shot at him. To have done all this work, to take on all the blame. And then die.

In a rom com.

This show ends in a profoundly unfunny moment of telling the audience: this is the one character that did the work, that made amends, that tried his hardest to accept the parts of himself that he had a hard time embracing and formerly embittered him. He’s fully accepted his queerness and turned it into beautiful music. He’s disabled, and he worked hard to accept that. The man he loves will never love him back, so he worked hard to make Stede able to meet Ed on an even playing field. The Giving Tree gave up its limbs and its trunk, and it’s not even allowed to be a stump to sit on.

Kill the queer elder, who has managed to figure out how to live and in his own way how to heal. Kill him before he manages to teach anyone else how to meaningfully move forward (he almost gets it with Lucius, almost, but it’s meant to be rule of three, you know. Cigarette..shark…and then…and then fuck it, Lucius doesn’t even get to say a word at his funeral).

The message of this season again and again is that there is no healing, just moving forward. Like a shark. Like a bird that never lands.

That is not a kind show.

Season two is not a kind season.

It splinters people up and jams them back together without purpose or reason. It tells everyone who experiences pain that they should shove it in a box and not deal with it. No one who really needs one gets an apology of any sincerity. No one puts in the work to gain forgiveness. (Ed wearing a onesie is not The Work. Ed fixing a door is not The Work. Ed broke people that the show wants us to care about. Ed never does the work of making those amends. He fires off a Notes app apology at best. After all, it’s what he told himself via Hornigold in the gravy basket: you move on or you blow your brains out! Good thing he took his own advice and therefore had to change nothing to get his just rewards.

I would’ve taken just fifteen minutes of Ed trying to actually make amends. It could’ve been hilarious! Imagine awkward Ed trying to dance around what he’s doing with Jim and the two of them having a knife throwing competition about it. Or him and Frenchie attempting to make music together, writing a song about the raids they went on! It’s not just the crew robbed of their healing because of this, it’s Ed himself. He never meaningfully changes or makes amends. How is he any different at the end of the finale then he is standing on the edge of that cliff with Hornigold? He hasn’t moved on, he hasn’t healed. He tried one thing (fishing) that doesn’t fucking work and then he runs right back.

No one leaves this season better than they went into it. They’ve lost an elder queer, they’ve lost their joyous and queer polyamory, they’ve lost a chance for meaningful reconciliation with Ed and Ed lost any chance of looking like he gave shit if they did. Stede grows enough to accept the crew’s beliefs as important and then leaves them behind without a care.

Izzy gets a beautiful speech about piracy being larger than yourself. Ed and Stede, within twenty minutes of that speech, leave piracy. They are incapable of giving themselves to something bigger, apparently. They haven’t learned to be a part of a community. They haven’t healed from their childhood trauma or their fresher wounds. They are still just following their own whims.

Zheng’s life work is in tatters, but it’s fine, she has love. Oluwande and Jim aren’t together, but it's fine because they both have dedicated monogamous partners. Lucius was deeply scarred by what happened, never recovers much of his first season personality, but hey he got-well it’s not married exactly- but you know good enough!

Frenchie, who has a box forever locked in his head, is captain. Because the key to success is to lock it all in a box and never open it. What a message. What a show. Conceal, don’t feel. Smile because it’s a happy ending. Don’t mourn the dead, don’t try to tell people what happened to you (they will literally run away or cry too hard to listen and really you’re just bumming them out), and any meaningful change you make is only rewarded with death.

Frenchie is now a pirate captain with a box in his head full of trauma that’s never been opened, leading a crew with more wounds than scars. Wonder how that could turn out? Wonder how many years before he might want to retire and then happen to run across a gentleman pirate. As if no one learned anything at all.

[sp4cecrypt1d]

Fanfic Tropes I find funny (Stony edition)

basically things everyone accepted as canon and it’s kinda funny that we all went “yeah sure”

• Peter being their kid. I understand after homecoming/civil war came out but it’s been a thing since Andrew Garfield’s Spider-Man.

• Steve looking up at the ceiling when he talks to Jarvis. We’ve never seen him do this, how did we all just decided that’s what happens.

• Steve sketches in Tony’s workshop because, parallel play.

• Also Steve sketching/making art in general. This is very present in stony fics but we only see him draw twice and one was a deleted scene (from my memory). But also I really like this human part of Steve apart from the past that he’s this big hulking figure and a soldier but he likes to draw the avengers.

• Steve being the Dodgers number one fan. Again this makes sense, he recognized a game he was at by listening to ten seconds of the announcers on the radio.

• Does Peter even have asthma? Why did we all agree he has spider powers but also still uses an inhaler?

• Steve being a freak in bed or a blushing virgin. No in between

• Steve is nice to the bots and tells Tony not to be so mean to them.

• Tony can lock down the lab and not let anyone in?? Again, makes total sense that he could do this but we’ve never seen him do it but it’s in every other fic. /pos but confused

• Steve really wants to punch Howard

• Italian Tony? Steve is canonically Irish, his parents were immigrants, but Tony being half Italian seems like an amalgamation of many things.

• Steve wakes up at the crack of dawn to go on a run, Tony wakes up at noon (but this is okay because he was up late working obvi)

• “His dog tags clinked against the arc reactor” WE’VE NEVER SEEN HIM WEAR DOG TAGS AFTER THE ICE 😭😭😭😭😭 (we have seen Bucky wear them tho)

• STEVE’S REFRACTORY PERIOD BEING NON EXISTENT?? WHY TF WOULD THE SERUM DO THAT? IS THAT CONSIDERED ENHANCED HEALING????

• Also Steve can’t catch or give anything so we fuckin raw

There’s more but that’s all I can think of rn. See you next time!