#so we're not fulfilling any personal vendettas

[onwriting-hrarby]

f(r)ee the mind

sometimes, i get too busy to think about things—this is a general statement. i work too much to read, watch any interesting documentaries, and often want to listen to catchy music to avoid listening to podcasts. entertainment clouds my mind and vision—and only when i get a chance to feed my mind with critical thought, i get a sense of strange dopamine and fulfillment.

i am not saying this from a classist, judgmental kind of way. entertainment works for so many people, me included. i could live off only entertainment, and i could be happy and be intelligent and be everything "good", because i do not believe that "intellectualism" makes us better in any sense. (i understand, though, that there's a type of privilege that allows me to understand, even attend, some of said "academic/intellectual events".)

i could live off entertainment, if i was another person. but i do get easily bored, and repetition of the same formulas that don't pose any new questions tire me. so when i have the privilege to slow my life down i get the energy to feed my mind. it makes me balance things out, and get hopeful, and positivist again.

for example, about hate. as you know, i received some anons last week—they kept on and on, until i had to deactivate guest anons in my fics. i was gutted, and i spirilized onto it until i ended up, yesterday morning, writing a goodbye letter to the fandom. which i will still do (i'm not sure i will write an em fic again), but i wrote it in despair, hate, resentment, wanting to point fingers and rage. at the same time i was boiling, i stopped to read james williams' clicks against humanity in which he talks about harassment and hate online as a sort of vendetta for the status of one's own and not so much to fight for justice—with much more nuance, of course. in the afternoon, at the gym, i listened to the podcast the gray area from vox in which they talked about "the hater", and how we live in a world of positivity and reinforcement and therefore we see the hater (the critic) as a danger to ourselves. of course, they talked about the "constructive" hater, and not the harassment that we writers receive. but it got me thinking about how i was not really putting into balance the hate i was receiving vs the amazing comments i have read over my works. and today i went to a conference about how the economy of emotions and emotional intimacy plays an amazing role on populism. it was very enlightening, and the author explained again on the happycracy we're living in, the love, the language of pain that is made private, and how the radicalisation of people (incels, tradwives) don't stem so much from the emotion of hate but the emotion of fear of losing privileges.

i don't know where i'm going with this, but i guess the main thing would be that after listening to so many people, i am somehow freed. free because i was listening too much to myself, without giving it a real thought—i was losing myself in a twirl of emotions and self-validation, entitlement and self-pity. i am freed because maybe it is not necessary to have an opinion—rather, this is a process, and i will never understand my own relationship with hate or haters, because i cannot fully empathize with those who feel are losing their values, and therefore i do not need to fight so fiercely over them. maybe it's just okay to feel discouraged and wronged, and to dismiss the emotion and not dwell on it because this, as everything else, will also pass.

[adickaboutspoons]

It really is SO bizarre that they decided that the season's "Big Bad" should have zero investment in or interaction with the show's main characters after the first episode, and I think it really makes him more toothless as a villain. Like. Think of Chauncey - he's an admiral in the King's Navy and, because of that position, ostensibly dedicated to eradicating the pirate menace, but he cares FUCK ALL about Blackbeard - someone who he identifies as history's greatest pirate - and will blithely let Ed go off to continue to pillage and plunder (under Izzy's supervision, of course) if it means he can get his hands on the man who killed his brother. I mean, it's terrible news for Stede, but it makes Chauncy an awfully compelling villain - putting him in a position of competing loyalties (dedication to family vs. dedication to country/responsibility to the position he's spent his entire life working toward). We don't want him to succeed in his vendetta because we're invested in our show's heroes, but we understand where he's coming from. There are stakes. With Ricky? Like. He gets his nose cut off trying to pull a heist (on land, even. He's not even a pirate - he's just a thief), and suddenly he's anti-pirate. But he doesn't bear any animosity toward the man that inspired him to try his hand at the life, nor who abandoned him to be maimed. Normally you would expect to see a personal vendetta under the guise of a more generalized, socially palatable motivation. Snippets of him hearing about Stede's exploits and Ricky suddenly showing a renewed zeal for "eradicating the pirate menace". Hearing that Stede joined Zheng's crew on the night he abandoned Ricky and maybe peppering in questions about that when he meets with her. Hearing that Stede's at the Republic of Pirates (and being CELEBRATED) and deciding it's time to launch his attack, maybe even against the advice of his tactical advisors who insist that all the pieces aren't in place yet/they're still awaiting reinforcements to secure the town after the attack (thus creating a weak point that Stede can exploit during the escape). But we don't get any of that. Instead it's just. Piracy. In general. That is the target of Ricky's ire. Maybe a little animosity toward the person who cut off his nose in specific, but even then, not enough to enact revenge on her or try to have her killed or maimed or even jailed - just, like, humiliating her a little? (And even so - as much as I love her, Jackie is a tertiary character AT BEST. A sometimes friendly antagonist. There's really just not enough there to ask the audience to be really invested in what happens to her.) And the fact that none of this has anything to do with Stede at all? It contributes to that weird feeling in the last episode that the show has forgotten that Stede is the main character. But it also robs Ricky of any kind of depth. There's no conflict of interest. No stakes for him succeeding or failing to fulfill his goal. He's just a bland nothingburger of a villain.

I feel like Ricky would have been a way better character if they just hadn’t brought him back. Stede Bonnet fanboy Ricky was fun, but when he came back in episode 6 he’s was just basically any generic English naval officer. Theoretically Jackie cutting his nose off is why he’s so anti-pirate now, but not in any way that actually feels meaningful or impactful. And he literally never mentions Stede again! He’s just boring now.

So yeah, have Jackie cut his nose off, and then he’s never to be seen again. Leave us all like, well, probably he died of blood loss or infection or something, but in our hearts he ran off to join Doug, Hornberry, and Jeffrey’s Stede Bonnet Fan club.