#and so very spot on

[londonspirit]

Imagining what could have happened if the creator dared to dream bigger is fandom’s driving ethos. Whether or not the people behind the scenes expected to have the most passionate bloc of their audience fixate on a queer romance that may or may not have been intentional is irrelevant. When queerness is still on the periphery of society, it’s unsurprising that the relationships fans obsess over and seek to actualize are predominantly queer.

Our Flag Means Death, whose second season is now airing on Max, doesn’t require its fans to dream of the queer possibilities. Instead, it’s that rare breed of work that raises the romantic subtext—typically buried under bromatic jokes or subtle ambiguity—to undeniable text from the very beginning. And when fandoms and creative teams are both on the same page of the same unabashedly queer love story, as is the case for Our Flag, the experience is nothing short of sublime.

Queer media, particularly TV, has entered something of a golden age since the aughts. There are the early mainstream pioneers like The L Word and Will and Grace; the wholesome coming-of-age romcoms like Heartstopper and Love, Victor; and the adaptations taking beloved stories one big step further, like Interview with the Vampire, Good Omens, and Hannibal. There are gritty, inspired-by-real-life dramas like Orange is the New Black and Pose, murderous thrillers like Killing Eve and Orphan Black, raunchy comedies like What We Do in the Shadows and Sex Education, and many more stories featuring queer leads with fully fleshed-out storylines.

But even among these big names, this silly gay pirate show stands out by taking what these shows do best and fulfilling a particular need few have met before. The reasons are myriad: It refuses to use queer subtext as a prop or ransom for audience loyalty. It eschews the will-they-won’t-they dance that positions love as an end rather than a beginning. It defies the trope that you must renounce your past in order to move on. It scoffs at the notion of a ceiling for complex queer characters and relationships in a single show. And it demonstrates that depicting the experiences of queer people (and, just as importantly, people of color) don’t always have to center brutality and trauma—that healing can come from making acceptance the norm and bigotry the butt of ridicule, and that being kind doesn’t necessitate being passive.

As a show that didn’t explicitly market itself as “LGBTQ,” one of Our Flag’s most striking aspects is how it subverts the way this genre typically approaches romance. You could argue that the love story begins when Stede Bonnet (Rhys Darby) is recognized as the pirate he wants to be—while three-quarters of the way dead—by none other than the dread Blackbeard (Taika Waititi). Or you could say it begins when Blackbeard, a.k.a Ed Teach, is seen, for the first time, as someone who deserves softness and finery by the epitome of softness and finery himself. Or when Stede comforts Ed as he curls up in a bathtub reliving his worst memories. Or when Stede picks roasted snake out of Ed’s beard. Or when Ed gives himself up to the British to save Stede’s life. Or when…

You get my drift. There’s an entire season’s worth of scenes that make up the foundations of a fandom: moments of intimacy and connection that gesture toward the possibility of something more. These are the planks and rigs of a ship sturdy enough to outpace the fleet of fanworks chasing such moments down until feelings are admitted, consummated, and set sailing off into the sunset. In hindsight, Our Flag was undoubtedly heading in this direction. But it wasn't until the most incontrovertible on-screen gesture of romance happened—a kiss—that fans heaved a sigh of relief. Because fandom, for all its capacity to will alternative universes into being, is inherently bound to the media from which it springs, and many have only ever cast queer love as bait.

But with Our Flag, most fans aren’t at all concerned about what direction the story will take. And the key difference is that they trust the creators wholeheartedly.

For many queer fans, it’s a novel experience to interface with a creative team that is not only aware of exactly who the audience is and what they care about, but also proudly and vocally celebrates them. In interviews, producer and lead actor Taika Waititi has stated that he collects fan art on his phone. Vico Ortiz (who plays the nonbinary pirate Jim Jimenez) has shared that fan art encouraged them to get gender-affirming top surgery. Creator and showrunner David Jenkins once remarked that fan discussions are so spot-on, it was as if they had “been in the writers’ room.” And several queer actors on the show have expressed that the fandom has made them feel even more connected to the LGBTQ+ community.

Our Flag is one of the rare cases where fans and creators share the same vision for a given work. There are no calls for the figurative death of the overly originalist author, nor strict separation of the "canon" of the original work from the "fanon" interpretations of the audience. There is no need for fans to dig for subtext, because what they’ve been searching for has been on board with them all along—not as a blink-and-miss-it pantomime or a nothing-left-to-lose Hail Mary, but a queer love story that was intentionally, thoughtfully crafted from the beginning.

Our Flag presents fans with a vibrant world where everything is mostly beautiful and almost nothing hurts—at least, not yet. Fans can surmise the shape of the second act and the close of the third, even if they don’t know exactly how they’ll get there. But with full confidence in the creators, fans have the opportunity to stretch their imagination beyond tallying evidence and righting wrongs—and it makes for a fandom experience less a eulogy at a funeral of another buried gay, more a toast at the most extravagant and absurd cruise-ship wedding to ever grace the seven seas.

We are all on the same page of the same story, and the experiences of everyone involved is so much richer for it. Or, as Stede would say, treasure is the real treasure.

Fandom, like being a pirate, is in many respects a very queer enterprise. It centers on abandoning the rules so you can survive; grabbing every scrap of home you can find and making it your own; sharing the spoils with the people who see and accept you for who you are and who you want to be. Or, in the words of the show’s pseudo-antagonist, Izzy Hands (Con O’Neill), it's about belonging to something—a something that, I believe, could be enough to help you fall back in love with life and the world.

I think often of the scene that first drew me into Our Flag: Stede asks his former wife, Mary (Claudia O’Doherty), what it feels like to be in love. Looking back at it now, I realize her response describes what the experience of being a part of a community a show like Our Flag creates can feel like. Because love, she tells him, is as easy as breathing. It’s understanding each other’s idiosyncrasies and seeing the charm in them. It’s exposing each other to new things and laughing a lot. It’s passing the time so well together.

To every queer fan out there: I hope you find that, too. I hope you can name it without fear. And I hope you will be embraced for that revelation, and all the wonder and joy it brings.

[sopuu]

animation of jimmy getting owned in real life

bonus gif of him celebrating i made for funsies :] oh the oblivious bliss...

[egophiliac]

crossing my fingers and wishing upon every star that chapter 10 finally brings us the tweel cards 🤞🤞

[notbecauseofvictories]

I'm re-reading the Discworld series for reasons, and honestly the most relatable part of reading these as an adult is how many of the protagonists start out being tired, used to their little routine and vaguely disgruntled by the interruption of the Plot. Sam Vimes wants to lie drunk in a gutter and absolutely doesn't want to be arresting dragons. Rincewind is yanked into every situation he's ever encountered, though he'd much rather be lying in a gutter too. (Minus the alcohol. Plus regretting everything he's ever done said witnessed or even heard about fourth-hand in his whole life.) Granny Weatherwax is deeply suspicious of foreign parts and that includes the next town over; Nanny has leaned into the armor of "nothing ever happens to jolly grannies who terrorize their daughters-in-law and make Saucy Jokes"

Only the young people don't seem to have picked up on this---and that's fortunate, because someone has to run around making things happen, if only so Vimes and Granny and Rincewind have a reason to get up (complaining bitterly the whole time) and put it all to rights. Without Carrot, Margrat, Eric, etc. these characters don't have that reason; they're likely to stay in the metaphorical gutter and keep wondering where it all went wrong or why anything has to change.

............well, that's not quite true. You get the sense that Vetinari knows how much certain people hate the Plot. And as the person sitting behind the metaphorical lighting board of Ankh-Morpork, he takes no small pleasure in forcing the Plot-haters specifically to stand up, and say some lines.

[bigfatbreak]

Birds of a Feather previous / next

[kaidatheghostdragon]

Good reveal au, where after learning phantom's identity and realizing the atrocities that the GIW have committed (or alternatively, ethical science au, where they find out the GIW plagarized them), the fenton parents decided to create the 'ultimate ghost-ending weapon' and sell it to the agents.

They go absolutely overboard, describing to the agents in meticulous detail how it evaporates any ghost it hits near-instantly and describing it quite ruthlessly in the blueprints, and soon the GIW have raplaced all their main weapons with the new gun.

Except it doesn't actually kill ghosts. It's the Fenton Bazooka. You know, the one that creates a portable portal to suck the ghost back into the ghost zone? What they actually did was retool it slightly to make it look more grusome than it actually is. They even added a beacon in Phantom's Keep, which all Fenton Bazookas will target when they open a portal, so the ghosts are always delivered to the keep.

From there, Phantom stationed an emergency medical team at the keep to treat the many injured and ragged ghosts that the GIW 'destroyed,' and to explain what just happened.

What they didn't anticipate was that now that the GIW have a mass-produced weapon that they believed would effectively eradicate ghosts, they would go on the offensive. They have a number of cities they've been monitoring but didn't want to get involved in without better tools.

One of those cities is Gotham.

And the Bats are ectocontaminated enough to register as ghosts.

Batman witnessed several of his children get evaporated by green energy weapons within mere moments of each other. He's absolutely gutted. Devastated. They didn’t even stand a chance.

He'll get his revenge, and it's frighteningly easy to track the weapon to private subcontractors. The Doctors Fenton, in Illinois. Their research calls for the genocide of all ghost kind, and apparently, that war started by killing his own children.

His children will not die in vain.

He gets to Amity Park and finds the Engineer's Nightmare of a building that is Fentonworks, but that night, before he can hack through the security and break in, one of the windows opens.

It's one of his kids that he had watched evaporate before his very eyes. They give him a silent signal of one of their identifying security codes and gesture for him to come inside.

Is it a trap? A prank in poor taste? Utterly genuine?

He goes through the window.

All of his dead kids are there, wearing borrowed pajamas and only their dominoes to conceal their identities. Daniel Fenton (son of the Fentons, this is his bedroom, has voiced a few arguments against his parent's views, but still an unknown) is among the crowd of teens and young adults, twirling on an office chair and obnoxiously sipping a capri sun.

"First thing you need to know, Bats," Daniel says after finishing his drink, "is that my parents are absolutely NOT genocidal ectophobic scumbags, and that is the reason why your kids are still alive."

[kizzer55555]

DP x DC: The Most Dangerous Card Game

Ok so Danny has essentially claimed earth as his. And he is fully aware that there are constant threats to the planet. Now he can’t stop a threat that originates on earth (that’s something he’ll leave to the Justice league) but he can do something about outside threats. Doing some research on ancient spells, rituals, and artifacts, he cast a world wide barrier on the planet to protect it from hostile threats so they cannot enter. This will prevent another Pariah Dark incident. However, barriers like this come at a price. You see, there are two ways to make a barrier. Either make one powered up by your own energy and power (which would be constantly draining) or set up a barrier with rules. The way magic works is that nothing can be absolutely indestructible. It must have a weakness. The most powerful barriers weren’t the ones reinforced with layer after layer of protective charms and buffed up with power. Those could eventually be destroyed either by being overpowered, wearing them down, or by cutting off the original power source. No, the most powerful barriers were the ones with a deliberate weakness. A barrier indestructible except for one spot. A cage that can only be opened from the outside. Or that can only be passed with a key or by solving a riddle. So Danny chooses this type of barrier and does the necessary ritual and pours in enough power to make it. And he adds his condition for anyone to enter. 

Now the Justice league? Find out about the barrier when Trigon attempts to attack, they were preparing after he threatened what he would do once he got to earth. How he would destroy them. The Justice league tried to take the fight to him first but were utterly destroyed, so they retreated home to tend to their injuries, and fortify earth for one. Last. Stand. Only when Trigon makes his big entrance…he’s stopped.

The Justice league watch in awe as this thin see-through barrier with beautiful green swirls and speckled white lights like stars apears blocking Trigon and his army’s advance. The barrier looks so thin and fragile yet no matter how hard the warlord hits, none of his attacks can get through and neither can he damage said barrier. That’s when Constantine and Zatanna recognizes what this barrier is. Something only a powerful entity could create. For a moment, the league is filled with hope that Trigon can’t get through yet Constantine also explains that it’s not impenetrable. And clearly Trigon knows this too for he calls out a challenge. 

And that’s when, in a flash of light, a tiny glowing teenager appears. He looked absolutly minuscule compared to Trigon and yet practically glowed with power (this isn’t a King Danny AU though).

And that is when the conditions for passing the barrier are revealed. And the Justice realize that the only thing stopping Trigon and his army from decimating earth. The only way he can get through….is by beating this glowing teenager in a card game. 

Not just any card game though. The most convoluted game Sam, Danny, and Tucker invented themselves. It’s like the infinite realms version of magic the gathering, combined with Pokémon, and chess. And Danny is the master. So sit down Trigon and let’s play.

(The most intense card game of the Justice league’s life).

After Danny wins, this happens a few more times with outer word beings and possibly even demons attempting to invade earth, yet none have been able to beat the mysterious teenager in a card game. Constantine might even take a crack at it and try to figure out how to play. He’s really bad though. Every time this happens, the Justice league worry that this might be the time the teenager looses. Yet every time, he wins (even if only barely). 

Meanwhile, Danny, Sam, and Tucker have gotten addicted to the game and play it almost daily. Some teachers might seem them playing the game are are like ‘awww how cute’ not realizing this game is literally saving the world. Jazz is just happy they aren’t spending as much time on their screens playing Doomed.

[canisalbus]

What if I told you that RoobrickMarine went and wrote an entire novella starring my 16th century dog couple? It's very canon-adjacent, well researched and thoughtfully put together, has inspired me a ton during these past months and it's now publicly available at AO3. I highly recommend it.

✦ Separation ✦

[lilybug-02]

Patience and responsibility....that's a promise....right?

Part 27 First || Previous || Next

--Full Series--

An exorcism? In my family-friendly Deltarune? It's more likely than you may think. The backgrounds here were very interesting! Much more complex than how I usually do them (especially that computer).

Player POV:

Feral energy.

[yubriamakesart]

Shortly after uploading this I saw a post where someone mentioned how Mr. Qi is canonically a creepypasta character now. And like. Surely. If you've read my webcomic. You know I can't resist that.

[ramblingguy54]

If there was any moment that made me cry most, it would be this one.

[wherewolf]

the responses i’ve seen to shiv’s ending seem very quick to write her off as just another sad victim of the cycle, which isn’t without truth BUT!!! that is not even remotely the summation of shiv’s story.

i don’t think she votes yes to “save kendall” or to try to finally set her brothers free. and i don’t think her main concern was that ken was becoming their dad. she absolutely noticed and didn’t love it, but that was not her motivation in betraying him. she was thinking about herself.

it’s tempting to make a martyr out of her as she is the only female child and we see her suffer the onslaught of misogyny that comes with that. but to make her into a saintlike figure who got beat takes away the power and intelligence behind her decision.

at this point she’s stuck between two non ideal choices, but she recognizes that they have accidentally made her the single most important player in the game. because while she can’t have the outcome she’d prefer, she has the power to decide the fates of everyone else. the written off lone woman now holds in her hands the fate of every man in her life.

so she thinks about the long term benefits of both options and realizes that one side leaves her completely without any leverage.

her brothers have proven to her multiple times in the last few days alone that they will cut her out and walk all over her the first chance they get. siding with them leaves her nothing to bargain with. she would just have to hope that ken would actually take care of her. and that level of vulnerability is not only unacceptable to her, it’s stupid. and shiv fuckin roy is not stupid.

so she thinks about the other side and about what she actually wants for her life. and against her better judgment, it’s becomes unfortunately clear that she wants tom. the way she wants him is not altogether loving or even good but it is necessary to her. she sees relationships as having winners and losers and she chose this man specifically so that she could be confident in her ability to win. except now he’s grown some balls and made himself unavailable to her.

she may not like the way her husband is evolving but she already placed her bets on him, so she’s sure as hell not losing to him now. there’s also a part of her that feels intrigued by this new man she’s married to. it’s interesting to have a sparring partner in him instead of having to looking for excitement outside of their marriage.

so for maybe the first time ever, she processes what tom has said to her and thinks about what he actually wants.

he needs her to prove that she cares. he needs to know that she is capable of sacrifice. if she can’t find it within herself to do this for him, then she will lose him, and by extension, she will lose.

siding with tom gives her the opportunity to once and for all make a grand-stand gesture of love, but more importantly, it creates leverage for her. never again will he be able to hold the moral high ground over her head. never again can he say she doesn’t love him. never again can he call her selfish or uncaring. above all, he can never betray her again, because she just removed all of his moral justification for turning on her. he doesn’t realize it yet, but she’s just taken back all the power in their relationship. just in a more subtle way than she’s used to operating.

and just like that, she has the ceo of a multi billion dollar company in her pocket, while situating herself as the only descendant of logan roy to still be playing the game, having removed her brothers from the equation permanently. she may still be far from the top but she’s creating a path for herself to climb.

so yes, she’ll let tom play king for a day, and she’ll have his baby and say “congratulations,” and play the gracious wife, but tomorrow is a new day with lots of room to maneuver. and when her husband puts out his hand, she’ll place her own on top. but she won’t grasp it because she doesn’t need to.

[choccy-milky]

finally drew clora and seb's kids!!🙌🙌

Celeste Sallow: OK THIS IS THE NAME IM SUPER PROUD OF BAHAHA because not only does the name celeste relate to the stars (in typical ravenclaw fashion...clora picked the name) but celeste sallow is also an alliteration. BUT, its an alliteration that begins with a C, which means clora gets to match with celeste in the form of both of their names starting with a C, whereas sebastian gets to match with celeste because both of their names are an alliteration/they're alliteration allies🥹ITS THE BEST OF BOTH WORLDS!🥳

Lewis Sallow: as for lewis, if you've read my fic then you know that seb has a vendetta against names that start with an L bahaha, but 'lewis' was actually HIS idea. when celeste was born, seb wanted to find a muggle story to read to her, since clora's favourite story is ALSO a muggle one (sherlock), and he wanted to stick with tradition. so he ended up finding alice in wonderland, which he loved because of how adventurous and clever alice was and of how much she reminded him of clora and celeste (both personality and looks wise). it became his favourite for those reasons, to the point that when they had lewis, sebastian overcame his L-name hatred by naming their son after lewis carroll.

Houses: celeste could have been sorted into either gryffindor or slytherin, but ultimately ends up in slytherin because she wants to be like seb. kinda like how clora also probably could have been in gryffindor, tbh. as for lewis.....him being 10000% in ravenclaw doesnt need any explanation BAHA, just look at him.

Appearance: since clora has a tiny bit of veela blood in her, thats obvs passed down to their kids, too, and so they mostly take after her as a result of it. but there's still little bits of seb that shine through in each of the kids: for lewis its his brown curly hair, and for celeste its her complexion/freckles. and the fact that celeste looks so similar to clora only doubles up sebastian's stress/protective instincts when he watches her BAHAH. he's ofc still proud that she takes after him so closely, but seb also cant deny that he wishes it had been their SON that had taken after him instead, to keep her out of danger.

Celeste & Lewis: for celeste and lewis’ relationship, celeste is a super proud big sister, and treats lewis kinda like how seb treats clora. if there's anything that needs to be done, she offers to do it for him. and although she doesn’t have the patience to read stories herself, she loves playing outside and having lewis read to her in the background, and loves to act out/use his stories to fuel her imagination. and lewis makes sure to pick stories that he KNOWS she’ll like (which mostly involve heroic and daring feats of adventurers or pirates. he's tried to read more classic fairytales and romances to her a few times, but celeste always gets bored). she loves to draw though, so sometimes when lewis reads books that have no pictures, she'll draw them herself.

Celeste & Seb/Clora: celeste is a daddy's girl LOL and always tries to impress seb with the stuff she does, especially after hearing how HE was at her age, and so its half to impress and half because shes competitive that she wants to do the same/be just as good. and seb always gets a kick out of hearing her feats in the crossed wands club, or in defense against the dark arts class, and he also goads her on, telling her she'll have to do better than that if she wants to be as good as HE was. and whenever celeste gets detention, clora always stresses and asks why, whereas seb just tries to keep the smirk off his face. as for celeste and clora, clora also reads to celeste, and bakes and cooks with her, which is something celeste actually likes doing. not only because it keeps her busy and she likes to help and get messy in general, but also because she likes the fact that it results in good food afterwards LOL, and constantly asks when things can be taken out of the oven. also, for as tomboy-y as celeste is, she honestly doesn't mind/likes the clothing that clora puts her in and likes when clora dresses her up, bc it makes her look like one of the princesses from the storybooks, and it just amuses her more than anything else. once she enters hogwarts, though, its mostly trousers. but she still DOES like the occasional girly clothing.

Lewis & Seb/Clora: lewis is a momma's boy LOL and unlike celeste, doesnt care about duelling or of proving himself or anything like that, and is only concerned with stories and his future studies. so ofc clora had to show him sherlock, which he naturally loved. it even inspired lewis to want to write his own stories, so that he could challenge his own skill and see if he could, but also because he wants his mom to read them, and likes the idea of writing his own sherlock-esque story with equations and mysteries to be solved that he can offer her. lewis also wants to write a book for celeste as well, bc although he wont admit it, he basically wants to write a story tailor-made for her and her interests. one that he thinks will have everything she’d love in it. and part of it is genuinely because he WANTS to do it for her, but the other part of it is also for his ego, and to see if he CAN write a compelling story, and write something that would actually get THE hyperactive celeste to sit down and read it in its entirety (not to mention of her own volition). as for with seb, lewis looks up to him more than anyone else, due to how well-rounded he is and how hes so good at practical stuff AND studying, and he kinda sees seb as a main character/protagonist from one of his books, and uses sebastian as inspiration for his own stories. if hes stuck on what he thinks the dashing main character should do next, he'll ask his dad what HE would do, which results in seb getting very weird questions that he nonetheless is always happy to answer. also, when lewis is older and finally learns the full story of what happened with clora and seb and ranrok and rookwood, he writes their story in novel form, except he just changes their names/some of the details, and it becomes a best seller LOL. and i didnt know where to put this, but the four of them all read a story before bed every night, with lewis in the middle and seb and clora on either side of him. though celeste stands at the foot of the bed, basically doing a charade/mime show of what theyre reading, and putting on a little play to go along with it BAHHA.

OK thats all i can think of for now ive yapped enough😩 if youve read all of this ur a real one.... ive also considered giving them a 3rd (and last) child, which would be a boy that looks exactly like seb, and seb would just be praying like please.....let this son take after me🧎‍♂️🙏 BAHHA

[hinamie]

もう一回、もう一回

[quinnonimp]

qsmp language charms !! a little headcanon of mine ive had since the start that i finally like enough to talk about

[gray-warden]

I just realized I never posted photos of this really pretty harvestman i came across a while back. Note the green pedipalps and the dark and light spots on its back.