#and thank you for your input!!

[theorist-fox]

“thinking about Simon” always

CW: stalking, masturbation, voyeurism

You're always thinking about Simon.

No matter how many times you smack the heel of your hand to your temple, curse yourself under your breath, get lost in someone else's body.

It's a nightmare and a dream. He haunts your head like he owns it, like he's taken his rightful place in it—created a nook for himself, at first, then tore down the walls and built a home.

Even when he's not there, you catch a whiff of his cologne, of the tobacco clinging to his clothes.

Even when you close your eyes, you're met with his own—brown irises deep and pitch-dark. Judgmental, like he knows.

And you know he knows.

Because when he walks past, his hand lingers on your tailbone, fingers barely grazing the waistband of your trousers.

Because when he delegates orders, his voice pitches lower, huskier, until it's engraved in your eardrums and you hear it grate at your bones.

Because when he shakes your hand, he grips it a little too tight, tugs you a little too close.

You're always thinking about Simon.

Even now, with your bullet vibrator pressed to your clit. Sweaty and naked, whispering his name into the fabric of your pillow, pretending it's him.

What you don't know, is that Simon is always thinking about you.

Even now, as he watches you cum from the camera in your room, hidden in the smoke alarm he once fixed for you.

[guzhufuren]

Wooyoung pout 🥺

[katydoodles]

More Azula x Aang content xD

Thanks @ig-korrasamishipper for editing my little blurb 🙏🏼💓 ur the best🖤

Aang leaned down toward Azula’s ear before speaking in a low and husky voice. “I will start at the other end of the hall.”

The heat from his breath tickled Azula’s ear and a blush grew on her ears and cheeks. He then placed his hand on her upper back which made her stand straighter. She refused to believe that he had any affect on her. She forced herself to pay attention to the group of young giggly girls on the opposite side of the hall. Foolish unsuspecting fox-antelope.

That's when his voice rang through her eardrums again, “Play nice and gather information from the noble ladies. The scandal will spread fast through gossip and the Dai Lee will find us soon after.” Aang looked around the other earth kingdom nobles were not yet aware that the avatar was among them.

Azula looked to her side and the Avatar was clearly annoyed at the nobility in the room.

Aang turned and caught her eyes. For whatever reason, his eyes softened before he spoke in a soft voice. “I know this will be uncomfortable for you.” He reached for her hand with his other hand.

“Don’t assume what I can and can not do,” Azula bit back, annoyed that he could sense her hesitance about socializing with the bubbling girls and despite her jerk back, he did not let go of her hand.

Aang gave her hand a small squeeze. He then shifted his eyes toward the small blush on her ear. As he breathed in, the scent of fire lilies soothed his nerves. He brought her hand up before giving her a small push away from him, ready for their plan to take action. Azula’a fingers lingered in his grasp until the last second.

[booksooks]

THANK YOU. Thank you for calling out how mischaracterized Sylus is in almost every damn fanfic I come across.

I get that media literacy is dead, (it's so frustrating) but I just wish that people would stop seeing him as such a domineering big bad shadow daddy, because CANONICALLY, he isn't. He even tells us that. He gives/hands over power to her in almost every situation, tells her to take what she wants from him, hell, he even tells her that he wants to be a good boy for her. lol

People can headcanon what they want, of course, and no, it doesn't technically hurt anyone, but there's no faster way to tell me that a fanfic author paid no attention whatsoever to his character or anything he says than to write him as only dominant and disrespectful.

So thank you for calling it out.

AAA thank YOU guys 😭 i genuinely didn't think this many people would agree with me, let alone anyone lmfao

and yeah, its really frustrating how characters (specifically men) that have an ounce of i guess domineering vibes? get immediately turned into booktok daddy doms who think the way to forgiveness is through a woman's vagina. its icky, really.

thanks for stopping by!!

[amanitacurses]

[gin-juice-tonic]

If you check the reblogs of that monty python post @ lesbiansandco points out the picture on the "cipher speaks" journal page greatly resembles one of Bills fake book covers at the very start of tbob and honest to god I consider that the nail in the coffin

Ford didn't create that page. Bill did.

[scuderlia]

cinematic parallels

[haveyoureadthisbook-poll]

not a submission, just rebutting the last anon. i actually love that there's so many books i havent heard of!! i add tons of new books to my tbr based on the polls that come across my dash :) it doesn't dampen my interest at all

I'm glad! Thats the best outcome i think

[barib-yariel]

me after bradley smith from Oregon tells me "go back to your country"

[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!! 💖💖)

[orokay]

These are now available on my ko-fi! 15 slots for now so I can pay my bills but I may open more in the future!

[starflungwaddledee]

wanted to do a "year" in review, though actually i only joined tumblr in october! so instead i just did twelve pieces i'm proud of, in roughly chronological order!

can't believe it's been three months? feels both longer and shorter at the same time! thank you so much for having me, i'm looking forward to creating more art and interacting more with this wonderful community in the new year!

ps. for fun: if you remember what art piece you found me through, or your favourite of mine, i'd love to know in the comments!!

[theoddbun]

HELLO FOLLOWERS. I NEED YOUR HELP. I am working on Natalia’s Tea Party costume to match with Ingo but I’m not sure which colors I like more! Please help me!

[mayhemspreadingguy]

I just wanted to draw Dream wearing tight pants and fancy shoes... idk how this happened but it escalated quickly XD

[fanceknight]

When was the Final Control Room built?

Do you guys remember that Eret said that there was a tree stump on top of the Final Control Room and that she put a dirt block on top of it to remember the location? In case something went wrong? Using this information, we can pinpoint when exactly the Final Control Room was built!

First, take a look at this screenshot from Dream's stream from July 31st:

Here, we can see the tree stump in the bottom right corner. There were many tree stumps around L'Manberg that day, since the Dream Team had burnt down a lot of the trees, leaving only the stumps. But our focus should be this particular stump, as t stands directly above the coordinates of the fcr.

This stream was the one where the Dream Team bombs L'Manberg with TNT canons and Eret is all alone to defend the country, if anyone was wondering.

We can clearly see the bright top side of the stump, meaning no dirt block was placed on it yet.

However, if we take a look at this screenshot from Tommy's stream not even 24 hours later:

We can see that there is now a dirt block on top of that tree stump. Meaning that the Final Control Room was built.

This means that Eret built the fcr between the evening of July 31st and the evening of August 1st british time.

Considering Eret's timezone and the fact that none of the others caught her in the act, I think it's save to say that Eret built the room that very night.

[nothorses]

I saw a post about it and like.

"doesn't have friends" is a red flag if the person in question is complaining about not having friends, not making an effort, and/or framing it as if the reason they don't have friends is because of everyone else in the world- and not themselves.

it's a red flag because people will sometimes use this as a manipulation tactic, to pressure you to stay with them, be their friend, be "better", and "prove them wrong".

some people don't have friends because it's a skill they're learning and they acknowledge that, and they're working on it.

some people don't have friends because they treat everyone they come across like shit- or they do have friends, but they downplay or lie about those relationships because it benefits them for you to pity them.

it's absolutely a red flag. it should be a red flag. but a red flag is just something to look into a little more; if you treat every red flag like a definitive reason not to connect with someone, that doesn't mean those things shouldn't be red flags. it means you don't know what a red flag is- or you're looking for excuses not to connect.