#miserable couple

[kirame90]

SniperSpy uses his silver tongue

YES, MICK, SPEAK FROM YOUR HEART!

Well this wedding almost turned into a disaster. Again. Luckily Mick is able to improvise when needed and he did deliver one helluva speech. It's pretty safe to say that J is lovestruck.

And now Soldier will do his thing...whatever that may be ^^'

The next page is now available on my Patreon!

The charity of May 2023 is Operation Underground Railroad - OUR

Working in almost 40 different countries OUR rescues children from sex trafficking and sexual exploitation. Since they started in 2013 they have rescued over 6,000 survivors and the arrested over 4,000 predators.

Thank you for reblogging the story! It means so incredibly much to me!

The characters don’t belong to me, the artwork does.

First part / Previous part

All dem other parts:

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[wardingshout]

Little visit

[lesbiradshaw]

my favorite unwilling duo <3

[linghangyaw]

Belfort and Lupin look like Enjoltaire.

I'm going crazy.

FRENCH GAY COUPLES.

[starscream-is-my-wife]

Megastar activities include fighting, making out, and harassing Ratchet

[alicornze7]

I'm back at it again

bonus (inspired by a note):

this is true love y'all

[rookflower]

to me there's a kind of bonus meta horror in the bristlefrost's death 'only love' scene where like. ok discussion of misogyny in the series has shifted a bit since then but you know how a few years ago people's main gripe used to be that after completing their arcs female characters would lose their personality and fade into the background to fulfill the generic role of 'mother'? and you also know how bristlefrost's personality and focus began to shift and diminish halfway through the arc where out of nowhere she suddenly reciprocated rootspring's feelings and was rushed into a poorly written romance arc? yeah well there's something really chilling (though not in a way that is in any way tonally intentional. in fact kind of the direct opposite of what the erins were going for and i think i would feel differently about it if her relationship with rootspring was not so uncompelling and short lived until this point) about how in her final moments before her existence ceases and she is denied her afterlife the visions she sees are of romance and love and rootspring and babies. just a total loss of individuality into generic warrior cats love interest and mother. to not be feeling for yourself at the end of it all but what you bring to another character. to just kind of embody the status quo of your series and fade away.

[nortism]

ignoring the bit where they all died at the end, building a barricade seemed like a really fun team building exercise

[skarloeyspa]

[meringuehearts]

i miss them

[kirame90]

SniperSpy smiles like they mean it

Have I ever told how horrible I am with titles?

No one run away and so far we have not experienced any signs of meteor showers. I suppose anything can still happen, though...

This was just a quiet page, Sniper anxiously waiting for Spy to appear. I also checked some YouTube tutorials for sign language. Jonathan isn't the best with words but lucky for him and Mick he can express his feelings in other ways. Woot woot!

The next page is now available on my Patreon!

The charity of May 2023 is Operation Underground Railroad - OUR

Working in almost 40 different countries OUR rescues children from sex trafficking and sexual exploitation. Since they started in 2013 they have rescued over 6,000 survivors and the arrested over 4,000 predators.

The characters don’t belong to me, the artwork does.

Thank you so very much for reblogging the story! It means the world to me!

First part / Previous part

All dem other parts:

Part1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Part 5

Part 6

Part 7

Part 8

Part 9

Part 10

Part 11

Part 12

Part 13

Part 14

Part 15

Part 16

Part 17

Part 18

Part 19

Part 20

Part 21

Part 21,5

Part 22

Part 23

Part 24

Part 25

Part 26

Part 27

Part 28

Part 29

Part 30

Part 31

Part 32

Part 33

Part 34

Part 35

Part 36

Part 37

Part 38

Part 39

Part 40

Part 41

Part 42

Part 43

Part 44

Part 45

Part 46

Part 47

Part 48

Part 49

Part 50

Part 51

Part 52

Part 53

Part 54

Part 55

Part 56

Part 57

Part 58

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Part 60

Part 61

Part 62

Part 63

Part 64

Part 65

Part 66

Part 67

Part 68

Part 69

Part 70

Part 71

Part 72

Part 73

Part 74

Part 75

Part 76

Part 77

Part 78

Part 79

Part 80

Part 81

Part 82

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Part 84

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Part 87

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Part 91

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Part 95

Part 96

Part 97

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Part 101

Part 102

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Part 105

Part 106

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Part 108

Part 109

Part 110

Part 111

Part 112

Part 113

Part 114

Part 115

Part 116

Part 117

Part 118

Part 119

Part 120

Part 121

Part 122

Part 123

Part 124

Part 125

Part 126

Part 127

Part 128

Part 129

Part 130

Part 131

Part 132

Part 133

Part 134

Part 135

Part 136

Part 137

Part 138

Part 139

Part 140

Part 141

Part 142

Part 143

Part 144

Part 145

Part 146

Part 147

Part 148

Part 149

Part 150

Part 151

Part 153

[petrichal]

I like to think that in the afterlife, Ace gets to meet Rouge but he discovers that Roger and Rouge are sickeningly sweet to each other that whenever Ace wants to talk with his mom and finds Roger with her instead, he just stands off to the side like 🧍‍♂️

[honeyplus]

On ye latest post I need jondami to be as dramatic as Romeo and Juliet for like a month b4 coming to their senses and just being awfully sweet and in love in front of everyone. Need Damian to be serenaded at his balcony.. need Jon to wait excitedly for the sound of a motorcycle running.. I think u cooked with this one

Thanks! I think both of them have made up completely ridiculous reasons to do these things to each other, whether it be outdoing each other or trying to prove that their few week Shakespearian drama was a fluke and they do actually love each other.

But I also think it’s funny if you push it to its absolute limit of romance tropes.

I think they become sickly sweet after that but only for a little bit and then when it all dies down it becomes a more normal, romantic routine. Think married 70 year old married couple. But then it goes insane again. They are ridiculous but also madly in love. It’s like flirting. Their relationship is in front of a crowd and by god if they won’t give you a show.

[arsenicflame]

an alternate (significantly sillier) way to get Izzy onto the revenge in S1E2:

[camera shot of The Revenge & Queen Anne conveniently anchored or beached on opposite sides of the island]

Izzy: alright, crew, you have TWO HOURS to mess around while we trade with the islanders. I expect you all to be on your best behaviour, and back on time, or we LEAVE YOU BEHIND, YOU UNDERSTAND?

[the crew chorus in agreement like a bunch of school kids]

Izzy: Fang, I expect you to count them back. It'll be bad for moral if we actually leave anyone behind

[play the episode, buying the hostages, dealing with Stede, etc]

Fang: OK, that's cargo all loaded and the last of the crew back aboard, we are good to sail!

[cue a very slow, drawn out scene of them raising the anchor]

Fang: you know, I can't help but feel we've forgotten something

Ivan: You know you worry about these things, I'm sure it's fine. Can't be anything important anyway, Izzy would have yelled at you about it by now.

Fang: ...

Ivan: ...

Both: IZZY

Izzy, who had gone back with the extra gold for the unexpected hostages, now watching his ship sail away: YOU TWATS!!!! USELESS FUCKING FUCKERS!!!!!! YOU FORGOT ME!!

[jondrettegirls]

incredible how victor hugo created the whole thing of grantaire’s name being one of those that “is only written preceded by the conjunction ‘and’” as a reference to the barbie movie’s iconic “and ken”…….... she’s such an influence💕

[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!! 💖💖)