#and when you enjoy it

[naranjapetrificada]

This is going to be long so the short version is this:

I convinced my therapist to watch the 🌟Gay Pirate Show🌟 and now I have to confront a previously unidentified and terrifyingly deep emotional wound that could be as transformative to heal as it is terrifying to approach.

My therapist and I have a lot of let's say...demographic things in common that have made this the most successful therapeutic relationship I've ever had, but also that just made me think he might like the show. It's no secret that ofmd has been a deeply moving experience for its viewers, and queer, neurodivergent, and/or people of color have written at length about the special ways it touches us (or doesn't). Those are three categories both he and I fit into and it feels relevant to say that for context.

So yes I thought he might like it, but I also wanted to pick his brain about Big Feelings it was giving me that I hadn't experienced with the same intensity with other media/fandoms. Y'all, he gave me a completely unexpected reading on the show (and its story and its fan works) and why it makes us feel So Much that I haven't seen anywhere before.

When I say Big Feelings, I mean like I've literally had to swear off a couple of pretty innocuous categories on AO3 ("Growing Old Together" and "Domestic Fluff") because they would devastate me in ways that I couldn't attribute to anything specific. Growing Old Together comes with the possibility of death separating them, which is heartbreaking, but that didn't feel like it was the thing that was gutting me. Domestic Fluff could probably be called the most innocuous tag ever, but anything that saw our blorbos settling down and watching the Revenge sail off into the distance was fucking me up as well.

There are plenty of reasons why OFMD makes queer people feel so much, but when I say this was fucking me up I mean like, well, remember when people outside of classical music started learning about appoggiatura? Like intellectually knowing why I was crying but at a loss how intense everything felt. And my therapist (who is as good at analyzing a text as he is at being a therapist) was like "oh, it could be all the grief."

The grief.

The audacity of this motherfucker (affectionate).

It's a romcom! It's a romcom that we were explicitly told would have a happy ending! It's a romcom where the characters will get to sail off into the sunset together like they want and like we want for them! Stede and Ed, after four decades of self-hatred and trauma and fear and isolation, somehow find each other. And one of the sweetest things about their story is that it's a late in life love story, because it's incredibly inspiring for someone to get to experience a part of life they thought wasn't for them. The inescapable fact that their time together will be shorter than any of us would like is sad but not unaccountably sad to me, because of how much joy they'll be able to cram into the time they have left. I could be wrong but I don't think that alone is the source of what's been overwhelming me.

Grief is a constant presence in the world-building and the storytelling because grief is a natural response to well, so many things about being alive. Grieving is some of the hardest shit any of us ever have to do, but it's also so universal and so many of the things that make us uniquely human also make grieving well, maybe not easier, but something we can endure and process through ritual, community, and the example of those we've witnessed grieving their own losses. Many kinds of grief come with narratives that you can accept or reject all or parts of, but the narrative exists.

But have you ever heard of disenfranchised loss? Loss that's not easily labeled or classified or given the time or space or understanding it deserves? Have you experienced a loss like that? Can you imagine how much more difficult it makes the grieving process?

Well what my therapist suggested, the thing that knocked me on my ass hard enough that I had to come have Online Feelings about it, is that eventually, we all have to mourn ourselves. Not necessarily in a "mortality is inevitable" way (that happens to everyone) but in ways that are often unique to people like him and me (black, ND, queer). Even if we work on ourselves, if we grow and heal our trauma and feel at home in our identities and our bodies and build beautiful lives, eventually we will be forced to mourn the selves that we never got to be in the societies in which we live and the selves we once had to become to survive this long.

And that mourning is a kind of disenfranchised loss, with no clear path forward. Obviously this conversation happened within the context of everything my therapist knows about me as an individual, but I thought certain things might resonate with other fans as well so I wanted to talk about it. The story of this bizarre little man and his remarkable second act and his lovely little found family and his incredibly beautiful love story (that we've been guaranteed will end happily) is still haunted by the specific kind of grief that comes from learning what's possible, and regretting that you didn't know it was possible sooner.

And does anybody have more delayed milestones, later-in-life discoveries, and/or need to invent places for themselves than those of us on the social fringes? Than those of us in societies unequipped for (or actively hostile to) the ways we exist and the things we need to survive and thrive? Than those of us who have to create our own narratives or be saddled with inaccurate or harmful narratives created by others, or even no narrative at all?

And narrative is so much. Narrative is everything. Narrative is the story we tell ourselves and each other and that literally shapes our reality. So those story beats where we discover something better than what came before are inherently stories with loss and will require mourning, because we mourn loss.

Even when the story has a happy ending. Especially when the story has a happy ending for someone who never thought they would be allowed to have one.

I mean just like, FUCKING HELL. I can't blame anyone for this but myself. I know my therapist. I know how insightful he can be. I did this to myself and now I have to live with it. But my god is it a massive mountain I'm about to have to climb now. My therapist and I have always found it helpful to discuss media that makes me Feel Things (see all the trauma work that came from Life is Strange) but if you had told me that I'd be looking into this new dark cave of unprocessed shit thanks to what I thought was just gonna be a harmless little gay pirate show starring fucking Murray from Flight of the Concords I would probably just have assumed you were in the middle of having a stroke and taken off to get you the medical attention you desperately needed.

[jotasuis]

How I found out about trump getting shot

[druid-for-hire]

[image id: a four-page comic. it is titled "immortality” after the poem by clare harner (more popularly known as “do not stand at my grave and weep”). the first page shows paleontologists digging up fossils at a dig. it reads, “do not stand at my grave and weep. i am not there. i do not sleep.” page two features several prehistoric creatures living in the wild. not featured but notable, each have modern descendants: horses, cetaceans, horsetail plants, and crocodilians. it reads, “i am a thousand winds that blow. i am the diamond glints on snow. i am the sunlight on ripened grain. i am the gentle autumn rain.” the third page shows archaeopteryx in the treetops and the skies, then a modern museum-goer reading the placard on a fossil display. it reads, “when you awaken in the morning’s hush, i am the swift uplifting rush, of quiet birds in circled flight. i am the soft stars that shine at night. do not stand at my grave and cry.” the fourth page shows a chicken in a field. it reads, “i am not there. i did not die” / end id]

a comic i made in about 15 hours for my school’s comic anthology. the theme was “evolution”

[planefood]

rules for thee and not for me

[awetfrog]

Do u think gales autism would just make him immune to astarions manipulation tactics

[1930sdarlin]

(Meme made by Me, @1930sdarlin )

[brainrotcharacters]

TW: Wolverine Badonkas

I laughed rewatching because like

[buggachat]

something so fucked up about Chat Noir’s whole deal is that he is in a lot of ways Adrien playing a character. Like Adrien picked up his miraculous and was told he’d be a superhero so he was like “ok, time to act like a superhero!” and he lets himself have fun w it and play up the role and let loose and kind of just allow himself to be silly and goofy and have fun and for once in his life not care about performing Perfection™.

But. But none of the other characters KNOW THAT. So everyone just sees Chat Noir and is like “look at this guy’s ego. He’s so full of himself. Surely it’d be fair to knock him down a few pegs” without being aware of how few pegs he actually HAS. He’s like the “insecure character who overcompensates in ego” trope except he’s really not doing it unironically, he’s just having a fun LARP pretending to have self worth in his off-hours but nobody else is on the same page about it being a game and he refuses to tell them. He just dramatically pouts about it and lets them laugh and pretends like he’s not internalizing it and it is almost 3 am and my brain forced me to write this instead of sleeping I’m gonna take a melatonin

[altarofthedeep]

i want her overstimulated and straddling my strap when i’m flat on my back and she’s grinding against it and whimpering so sweetly. i tease her at how cute she is and how she’s starting to cry from how deep it is inside her. i grab her boobs and squeeze and rub her clit every so often to torture her some more. and then i don’t move as i hold her hips and help her move back and forth until she begs me so sweetly to fuck her and when i can’t resist her anymore i’ll move up into her and make her cum so hard against my strap until she collapses on my chest and and hold her tight against me as i still move inside her and whisper in her ear how well she takes me

[foldingfittedsheets]

Imagine you were roommates with someone who didn’t speak your language. And like. You guys are best friends, you love your roommate so much. You hang out all the time and it’s great.

But sometimes when you go to scratch an itch they suddenly get so upset. Like they’ll yell or clap or make weird sounds. You have no idea why because you’re itchy. You gotta scratch the itch! But it makes them so upset that you only scratch itches when they aren’t around.

Otherwise stuff is fine, they feed you and you’re happy living with them. You play games and stuff and even though you don’t speak the same language you both have a lot of fun. It’s just that sometimes they’ll burst out for no reason and you just get to deal with it.

That’s basically what it’s like for our pets, I think.

[inkskinned]

the thing is that they're so fascinated by sex, they love sex, they can't imagine a world without sex - they need sex to sell things, they need sex to be part of their personality, they need sex to prove their power - but they hate sex. they are disgusted by it.

sex is the only thing that holds their attention, and it is also the thing that can never be discussed directly.

you can't tell a child the normal names for parts of their body, that's sexual in nature, because the body isn't a body, it's a vessel of sex. it doesn't matter that it's been proven in studies (over and over) that kids need to know the names of their genitals; that they internalize sexual shame at a very young age and know it's 'dirty' to have a body; that it overwhelmingly protects children for them to have the correct words to communicate with. what matters is that they're sexual organs. what matters is that it freaks them out to think about kids having body parts - which only exist in the context of sex.

it's gross to talk about a period or how to check for cancer in a testicle or breast. that is nasty, illicit. there will be no pain meds for harsh medical procedures, just because they feature a cervix.

but they will put out an ad of you scantily-clad. you will sell their cars for them, because you have abs, a body. you will drip sex. you will ooze it, like a goo. like you were put on this planet to secrete wealth into their open palms.

they will hit you with that same palm. it will be disgusting that you like leather or leashes, but they will put their movie characters in leather and latex. it will be wrong of you to want sexual freedom, but they will mark their success in the number of people they bed.

they will crow that it's inappropriate for children so there will be no lessons on how to properly apply a condom, even to teens. it's teaching them the wrong things. no lessons on the diversity of sexual organ growth, none on how to obtain consent properly, none on how to recognize when you feel unsafe in your body. if you are a teenager, you have probably already been sexualized at some point in your life. you will have seen someone also-your-age who is splashed across a tv screen or a magazine or married to someone three times your age. you will watch people pull their hair into pigtails so they look like you. so that they can be sexy because of youth. one of the most common pornography searches involves newly-18 young women. girls. the words "barely legal," a hiss of glass sand over your skin.

barely legal. there are bills in place that will not allow people to feel safe in their own bodies. there are people working so hard to punish any person for having sex in a way that isn't god-fearing and submissive. heteronormative. the sex has to be at their feet, on your knees, your eyes wet. when was the first time you saw another person crying in pornography and thought - okay but for real. she looks super unhappy. later, when you are unhappy, you will close your eyes and ignore the feeling and act the role you have been taught to keep playing. they will punish the sex workers, remove the places they can practice their trade safely. they will then make casual jokes about how they sexually harass their nanny.

and they love sex but they hate that you're having sex. you need to have their ornamental, perfunctory, dispassionate sex. so you can't kiss your girlfriend in the bible belt because it is gross to have sex with someone of the same gender. so you can't get your tubes tied in new england because you might change your mind. so you can't admit you were sexually assaulted because real men don't get hurt, you should be grateful. you cannot handle your own body, you cannot handle the risks involved, let other people decide that for you. you aren't ready yet.

but they need you to have sex because you need to have kids. at 15, you are old enough to parent. you are not old enough to hear the word fuck too many times on television.

they are horrified by sex and they never stop talking about it, thinking about it, making everything unnecessarily preverted. the saying - a thief thinks everyone steals. they stand up at their podiums and they look out at the crowd and they sign a bill into place that makes sexwork even more unsafe and they stand up and smile and sign a bill that makes gender-affirming care illegal and they get up and they shrug their shoulders and write don't say gay and they get up, and they make the world about sex, but this horrible, plastic vision of it that they have. this wretched, emotionless thing that holds so much weight it's staggering. they put their whole spine behind it and they push and they say it's normal!

this horrible world they live in. disgusted and also obsessed.

[theoldkyokodied]

The Allegiance of the Ascended Vampire and the New God of Magic

[aerequets]

(part 1)

(short comic) (you can otherwise search 'spy x pta' on my profile)

MY GOODNESS. it's been a hot minute since i posted the first part and i guess i just couldn't SHUT UP because this is FOURTEEN PAGES LONG. FOURTEEN. you can even see some pages where the linework is slightly different because i drew it like 6-ish weeks ago, that's how long this has been cooking. drawing in general has been hard lately because of time constraints, BUT i am so happy i finished this. this is like my fav project even tho it isnt as popular, but who cares!!!!! POPULAR IN MY HEART

[trashmakerarticle]

Everyone thinks that dick was the golden child when in reality it was Jason.

Clark: Bruce who was your favourite robin?

Dick: obviously it’s me?

Tim: it’s dick

Damian: I am superior robin, it will be me.

Bruce: it’s Jason

Everyone: WHAT?!?!???

Bruce: why are you so surprised? He didn’t jump on too my chandeliers which I had to replace each week

*everyone looks at dick*

Bruce: he didn’t drop out of school

*everyone looks at tim*

Bruce: I didn’t have to stop him from killing everyone who annoyed him

*everyone looks at Damian*

Bruce: in fact, he enjoyed school and handed all his homework in on time, we would spend hours in the library reading his favourite classics. He even helped Alfred with most of the cooking, He was my little boy

Jason: stop spreading lies, I hate you go away

Bruce: my precious little boy

[erabu-san]

I enjoyed every second of this quest

[This art has platonic intention. Thank you for not tag ship!]

[padmestrilogy]

love how jedi in the acolyte all think about attachment differently…when jecki says that sol shouldn’t keep holos of his former padawans and sol counters that memories help you grow. they feel like a real religion with their differing interpretations! and that’s what it’s all about, truly.