#sorry I'm going to rant again here

[mari-lair]

I feel like as Nene's world expanded and she started to mature, Aoi slowly become less and less of a fundamental part of her life.

Aoi is introduced to us as Nene's first and best friend.

And it is easy to see their bond: Nene loved to spend time with Aoi and always ran to talk to her about boy problems, even talking about Hanako despite Aoi not being able to see him.

We also get references of them hanging out outside school sprinkled in extras.

Strangely though, we never see them hanging out outside school or have Nene make a reference of a fun time they had hanging out in the main manga.

Even the spin off manga, which was made to explore dynamics without leting the plot get in the way only has toilet trio centric chapters.

We get so many dynamics in the spin off, from Fairy and Tiara, to Aoi and Teru, or even Nagisa, Yako, and Tsuchigomore, but not Nene and Aoi. The closest we got to a 'nene and aoi hanging out' after class chapter is one where Akane was the one to organize the event

It makes all the times Nene goes 'i do that with my bestie Aoi!' feel somewhat detached from the main story, like something from the past, before the manga started.

The thing that makes me believe this isn't just a case of bad exposition and Aoi and Nene truly had been spending less time together is this: Aoi biggest concern is that Nene is too busy to spend time with her.

Aoi is a girl known for bottling up her emotions and avoiding vulnerability. The idea that Nene was going out of her way to avoid her, secretly hating Aoi, was so prevalent in her anxious mind that Aoi forced herself to actually ask Nene for reassurance, this is such an insane level of insecurity, it wouldn't had happened if they goofed off outside school. To her Nene 'abruptly' started ditching her.

You can find fun facts about their friendship in extras but in the actual manga, Nene only spend time with Aoi during classes, where her other friends can't follow her, or when Aoi is in danger and it is a matter of saving her life. They don't make plans, they don't hang out. Slowly but surely, Aoi started to take a back seat in the narrative.

Nene doesn't even seem to garden with Aoi anymore. Or at the very least, Nene doesn't priorize their club, because the gardening club (Which i'm assuming is a small club since we don't know anyone in it besides Nene and Aoi) had a herbal tea stand in the og festival and Nene never mentioned that. Not even once.

Helping Aoi with this stand was never an option to Nene.

Nene had no interest in spending the festival with Aoi in the original timeline. During the festival preparations she stayed with Hanako and during the actual festival they just took a picture and went their separate ways.

The next time Nene is shown, she is already with Hanako. And she check out every attraction with Hanako, Kou, and Mitsuba. Not a single "This was so fun, I wish Aoi was here!" panel to be seen during their montage.

Even Aoi's usual role of being the "Boy talk" friend it's no longer exclusive to her.

The person that gave Nene love advice recently was Mitsuba.

And yes, Mitsuba was the one to approach her, but that's the point. Aoi rarely approaches Nene, so Nene is the one with the power to decide if she'll talk with Aoi and Nene simply doesn't want to talk with Aoi that much, nowadays Aoi doesn't cross her mind even when Nene is dealing with love problems.

It's interesting because Nene claims she want to brag about her love life with Aoi when Aoi is gone.

But when push comes to shove, she does not. She keep her love life private, separate from Aoi:

She has been doing that for a while.

Who does she brag about getting a 'love letter' to? It should be Aoi right? That's her 'boys talk buddy'! And it happened in chapter 29, a relatively early chapter, but the idea of going to her friend of two years never crosses Nene's mind.

Nene searched the whole school to brag to Hanako, and while she could have showed the letter to Aoi first (she found Aoi first!) and Hanako later, she has no interest in showing it to Aoi. No thoughts of how the letter may cheer Aoi up, or afterthoughts on their encounter, the moment Aoi is gone, she is gone from Nene's mind too.

Her dynamic with Aoi never changes, so their relationship is still shallow (Which i talk about it Here)

But Nene has changed, she got a crush that isn't superficial, she got a lot of friends that made her grow, she isn't the same shallow girl that always run to the popular girl to talk about pretty boys anymore: her bond with her new friends run deeper than with Aoi's.

Even something as huge as Aoi seeing supernaturals does not catch Nene's attention.

Nene goes "i'm happy you're okay." before going back to fun times, because that's all Aoi ever will be. A dear friend but not a very deep one, someone Nene goes to have fun not open up or vent, so the idea of a serious talk probably never crossed Nene's mind.

Of course she doesn't take this as an oportunity to talk about everything she's been hiding from Aoi. Why would she? Nene already has people to talk about it, people she trust and that had been with her throught her hardest of times. People she connect on a deeper level (since she idolizes Aoi way more than she relates or relies on her)

The relationship Nene has with Aoi remind me of this moment:

Because she never questions Aoi, or her own feelings for acting certain ways. She calls Aoi "my friend!" but doesn't dig deeper, doesn't nurture this bond, as if that's the finish line so no focus is needed on it anymore.

The moment Hanako takes his hat of served to push Nene, to realize he has dept, but the moments Aoi acted strange were dismissed "If Aoi said she is fine then she must be fine" regardless of the situation or how out of her 'bubbly and cheerful' persona she acted.

As if Aoi, who was so entangled in Nene's life when she was a shallow girl who only cared about being loved and getting a boyfriend, is unable to have dept.

Because Nene is a very sensitive and understanding girl, the hat scene isn't a 'the romantic interest has privileges in the narrative' situation. Nene usually wants to understand why people are troubled, and create deeper connections with them, she want to make sure they are alright.

She has come a long way from the girl that want to preserve her normal high school life, running away at any signs of trouble and baggage.

He is no longer the girl Aoi know, the girl who all questions always relate to silly crushes.

Her world expanded, so it's no wonder Aoi ceased to be a main player in it.

Is also why I have mixed feelings on the new timeline.

The Nene who never got involved with supernaturals, the shallow girl forever stuck in her early 'i need a pretty boy to love me!' mentality, and has no development...

...is the one that has the bff relationship with Aoi that we were alluded to them having before the manga started.

The world had to literally reset and push most of Nene's friends away to make them feel close again and let Aoi have a role in her narrative.

[vaguely-concerned]

powerful mental image of lucanis expounding passionately about any given one of his limited but extremely deep areas of interest (the wyvern/knives/coffee/cooking/murder continuum of lucanis dellamorte special interests if you will) while rye lounges around and Beholds him with palpable twink boutta pounce energy

[triaelf9]

honestly one of the most disgusting things ppl can do is weaponize the various atrocities occurring around the world to "gotcha" people online and win The Morality Game.

Especially if the ppl you're going after are part of those targeted.

[cuddlytogas]

an incomplete list of terrible but extremely popular Our Flag Means Death takes that I would like to never see again please

(and I do mean popular, as in, lots of people seem to think they're canon, to the point where I feel slightly insane and like I was watching a different show to everyone else)

1. Ed's mum was loving and nice and supportive, if hampered by her bad situation

this comes up more in fic than analysis, to be fair, but good god, what show were some of you watching? this isn't to vilify her, because yeah, she's clearly a product of colonialism, white christian supremacy, and domestic abuse, but like. that doesn't make how she raised Ed good. clearly she was trying to keep him safe, but "we don't deserve nice things", and especially "it's not up to us, it's up to god", speaks to me of someone who squashes down any ambition on her son's part, has fully bought into the lies of christian colonialism, and tries to pass them down to her son.

as does happen in colonised communities, particularly among older generations. I know us white people like to think that every indigenous person is a perfect left-wing anti-imperial activist, but that's simply not the case, and Ed's mum is so clearly an example of an older conservative christian indigenous parent who had to believe the lies told by their coloniser in order to survive, but is now passing on that trauma to their children. and I just...

if I read one more fic where Ed's mum is a perfect loving supportive angel who always believed in her kid and always supported and protected him, I'm gonna scream. yes, it's sweet, and it's fun to sometimes veer from canon and give your blorbo nice things, but it's still veering from canon. and yet, I see very few people acknowledge that, or actually talk about the nuances of Ed's mother, and how she definitely tried to protect him, but was far from sweet, doting, and unconditionally supportive.

2. Ed's loving look when Stede is picking food from his beard in 1x07

like most of these things, I enjoyed it as a joke or exaggeration at first, until I realised that people were actually being serious. but every time I watch that scene, I see Ed looking absently-mindedly over Stede's shoulder, because a) that's what you do when someone leans in to pick something off you, and b) surely the point of the scene is that they're so comfortable and easy together that they don't notice the intimacy of what they're doing, but Lucius, an outside observer, thinks it's obvious. right?? I can't be the only one seeing it???

[sigh]

anyway. finally, the really really big one:

3. Ed is a soft uwu babygirl princess femme bottom sub who loves her cat collar and is teaching Stede how to dom him in the "say you're the captain" scene

I mean, there's not much to say except to link to duke's absolutely phenomenal twitter thread about "how the 'babygirlfication' and infantilization of ofmd ed teach is an extension of racist perceptions of indigenous men being inherently violent and thus needing to be emasculated to be considered sympathetic"

but especially That One Fucking Scene, good lord. talk about taking shit out of context. everyone looked at a slowed-down gif of one shot in the trailer and cried "babygirl!! he's such a simp, he just wants to be dommed!!", when actually that scene is about how a) Stede is cringefail and terrible at being a typical harsh, commanding pirate, and b) Ed is lovingly embarrassed by this. he encourages Stede to assert himself (and give Ed something to do during his probation/help him make amends with the crew), but like. normally. he's acting perfectly normal in that scene, and mostly annoyed by the outfit and embarrassed by how badly Stede fails. but just because he's sitting down while Stede is standing, and he happens to take a breath in that one shot (because, you know, people breathe sometimes), everyone's doubled down on their "submissive babygirl" bullshit, and I can't get the fuck away from it.

which - listen, it's fun for me, too! it's fun to explore exaggerated aspects of a character, it's fun to read/write/draw that angle in smut, I get it! but I keep seeing people keep claim it's literally canon, and I cannot stress enough that that is Straight Up False. for the love of god, please just watch the show without your (potentially kinda racist) bias glasses on, and remember to treat the characters with respect instead of projecting onto their every interaction a shallow dom/sub binary just because you find it hot.

Our Flag is a show very specifically about masculinity, and what it means to be a man; how assumptions about that can harm and restrict men; and how men can grow beyond them. it's a nuanced and sympathetic examination of this. the whole point is that Ed is allowed to like nice fabrics and be tired of violent piracy and still be a man. the point is that two men fall in love - equal, honest, sincere love - and are still men, still exactly who they are.

(on that note, insisting that Ed is canonically trans or femme because of these things often ends up just leaning into gendered stereotypes: men are harsh and active and dominant, and women are soft and passive and submissive, and if Ed's not the former, he must be the latter, right? it also tends to hetero-ify the central relationship, casting Stede as "the boy" and Ed as "the girl", needing one to be masc and one femme. not always, and again, I understand and have enjoyed transformative works that take those elements and run with them, and explore what the story could be like if Ed were trans/nb/etc - but it's still a transformative interpretation. it's not canon.)

relatedly: those fucking wedding toppers! it seemed blatantly obvious to me that half the point of those scenes was that Ed is distraught and blaming himself for Stede leaving because he wasn't the ideal partner. it's his entire arc for the first half of season 2! Ed hates himself and believes there's something wrong about him that makes him unlovable. so he keeps and then discards the wedding toppers, painting himself onto one of them, because he's projecting himself onto an image of ideal/successful romantic love that he thinks Stede wants, and in which he doesn't fit. he's trying to mould himself into someone else to make himself lovable, not realising that Stede already loves him for himself.

so it's important to the whole narrative that Ed's yearning for/projection onto the wedding toppers is false, and born from his insecurity. he gets drunk, and play-acts a stereotypical image of romantic happiness into which he doesn't fit, but real love looks nothing like that, because real love isn't found in stifling hegemonic cultural structures, but honest, emotional connections between people allowed to be their whole, vulnerable selves. Stede is not like the groom, and Ed is not like the bride, because they shouldn't have to be. Ed should not (and does not) have to warp himself into a demure bride in order to be worthy of love: he's already lovable and loved exactly as he is! that's the point!! of the scene!!!!!!

like, it's important that the groom figure isn't actually like Stede, either. yes, it's blond and has a nice, peach-coloured suit, but a) Stede was very specifically unhappy in the posh, heterosexual, married state the figures represent, and b) Stede by this point looks nothing like that figurine. it's directly contrasted with the image of him in the rowboat, scruffy and plain and earnestly in love, rather than fancy, cold ceramic.

[EDIT 29/12/24: I ended up writing a whole Twitter essay about the wedding cake toppers that I then gussied up for Tumblr; so if you want a clearer, more substantial, and better supported argument about those, check that out!]

but no, I have to wade through swathes of art and fic and meta about how badly Ed wants to be a sweet little demure kitty princess, how he wants a wedding night and a ring to prove he's Stede's property, and acting as if this is somehow canon, because people on the internet have zero reading comprehension and are scared of brown men.

the whole point of Our Flag is that you don't need to compress yourself into prescribed social roles, and in fact, doing so will only make you miserable; and that racist, patriarchal, colonial institutions should be resisted and dismantled at every opportunity.

so tell me again why the ultimate message is that Ed and Stede should get married under an arch in front of an altar and their lined-up friends, with flowers and rice falling around them, all dressed in white, one in a suit and one in a dress, with rings and a kiss and a honeymoon after, before they move into a detached house with a yard and a fence and re-adopt the kids that Stede abandoned? and this isn't about promises, fidelity, or even monogamy - I'm specifically talking about everyone in this fandom who seems to think that the ultimate goal is the most stereotypical 20th century cisheteropatriarchal christian wedding, but with the name "matelotage" slapped on top, as if that takes away all of the underlying baggage.

just - I know we're all meant to hate men and masculinity and yadda yadda yadda, but actually, to be earnest for a second, men deserve respect too, because all people and all genders do. and two men are allowed to be in a relationship and still both be men - complex men, with their own, layered relationships to their gender - without having to fall into neatly-arranged dom/sub masc/femme roles, or seal the deal with a hegemonically-approved ceremony.

so please, stop reducing an indigenous lead character to a caricature of a femme uwu princess bottom just because he has long hair, wore a robe once, and you're too scared of brown men to imagine him with proper agency. and then please, for the love of god, stop claiming that that interpretation is canon.

[crispyliza]

[himewonu]

hey guys, i kinda forgot i have tumblr even tho i talk about wanting to write fics...! anyways, I'm kinda conflicted on which fic to write cs I have too many wips so you guys can pick for me <3

[sunsetcorvid]

genuinely been really wanting to get into music composition but it's one of those things that i've never fully learned and that everyone who actually does it has just been doing it since a young age and knows more things which. yknow is normal.

the Want to learn music and the Fear of Fucking It All Up Somehow

[dafpork]

my master plan is i'm going to draw so much Dafpork that it makes everyone sick and then i'm going to post it on all accounts on all social media platforms and reblog it constantly and spam tags, and i'm going to keep doing this so much that any time you try to look up Daffy, anything at all, maybe even anything Looney Tunes related, it's all going to be Dafpork. google search will just be flooded with Dafpork. it's all going to be Dafpork. and then humanity will be saved.

[shadowed-yet-vibrant]

Today, our firm hosted a CLE about mental health and substance abuse in the legal profession. It was a well-done presentation, trying to fit the breadth of a decades-long systemic issue into a neat PowerPoint while keeping it at only one hour long (not .1 more or .1 less).

It feels like a pointless uphill battle. You're asked to make 2100 billed hours per year (or more). As a junior associate you need to achieve perfection - but you don't even know where the standard is, not yet, you're too new and you're trying your best. You're asked to attend non-billable CLEs and networking events and participate in bar associations and look ahead to business development and go out with your colleagues and socialize with clients in non-billable events and. and. and. You know who at the firm is an alcoholic - maybe you are too. You laugh at jokes about online gambling - you know the partner who gambled away his last paycheck, and he's laughing. You know who's filing for their third divorce. Who's about to lose the kids. Who missed their son's state-level championship game because they had a call with a prospective client (he won't forget, he'll never forget).

But they ask you to take care of your mental health (but you're chastised if you don't respond to the 1am email from the partner within 10 minutes). But they ask you to take care of your physical health (but there's a beer fridge in the break room). But they ask you to practice well-being (but they expect you on-call 24/7). But they tell you to get enough sleep (but the junior associate got less than an hour because of the partner's poor planning). But you need to look out for signs of mental health concerns in your peers (but you're also thinking about dying).

I could write a novel on this. Many attorneys have written similar ramblings, articles, studies, surveys, so I don't really need to. It's a problem. But there's been no real attempts at change. Sure, yes, there's awareness. But billable demands keep rising. So do standards in not just federal court, but state court. But you're at a firm that pays so well you'll endure whatever demands they put on you because that's just too damn good to lose. But you feel like shit every day. But- hey, well, the partner has been doing this for 45 years now. Why can't you?

[sillyfudgemonkeys]

How I look when I see my IRL Coworkers/friends (who follow me on here) in real life, after I go on a fucking bender gushing about Kyoshi/Rangshi/Avatar in general:

[eddiesilverstar]

omg I didn’t realize you are barely watching the show for the first time like how exciting indeed!!! welcome to this crazy firefighter show :) and your gifs are amazing 🫶🏻

hiiii thank you so much for your message and for the welcome!!! and also yes, i'm just starting s7!!!!! i'm so excited indeed! can't wait to be caught up and oh boi what a journey it has been!!!!

i've been tiptoeing around this show for ages, watching it through gifs on my dashboard and getting so invested especially with buddie dfadfaf and i'm so very happy i finally caved and decided to actually watch the show! now i'm just obsessed with it and the characters and buddie and can't wait to watch it live for the first time when s9 starts!!!!!

[stop-breaking-my-heart-telltale]

if dorian didn't show up, do you think louis would have shot minnie?

I do. I know some people think either he wouldn't have or he would've missed so that's why the writers had him shoot Dorian instead, but mmmmmm no, I don't personally think so. I like to think that if he had taken the shot, his shaky hands would've caused him to shoot her fatally.

Mostly because I'm already so normal about the fact that of the Ericson crew, Marlon and Louis are the only ones with a body count. Well, that we know of, but shown to us in the game, at least. Plus, we know it's Louis' first kill.

Like yeah, Clementine and AJ become part of the crew and they have bigger body counts, and if we're counting indirect kills caused by actions, then Tenn has a count... and I guess everyone has blood on their hands for blowing up the boat... but I'm talking about killed directly with a weapon like....... I lied, I'm not normal about that at all, Louis and Marlon are the ones who have killed someone in Louis' route. I'm also not normal about the fact that Louis kills Dorian and then even as he's clearly in shock, he tries to go with Clementine to get AJ, and then later on when they talk about it, he says it feels like bile but not quite and he's glad he has it in him to do it.... listen, listen, listen... I'm obsessed with that.

Anyway, so if Louis shot Minerva, I think he would've accidentally killed her and can you imagine? He's already enough of a mess after killing the woman who pinned him down and tried to cut his finger off [or succeeded] but he knew Minerva, they were friends before the twins were taken. Even Violet couldn't kill her even though that would've been the smarter thing to do, and we know thanks to meta knowledge that killing her would've saved lives, but Violet couldn't, and I don't think Louis would intentionally either.

Speaking of Violet, if Louis killed Minerva, I hate to think about what that would've done to Vi. I think she might've actually left at that point, like what was planned before it got changed to her being burned. I don't think she would've attacked Louis over it, though, like yeah she attacked Clementine in the cell but Louis? I don't know, but I don't think so just because it's Louis and he'd be a mess about it anyway.

Though if he did kill her, it would be a neat parallel to draw... y'know, because Louis forgave AJ for killing Marlon even though he was pissed and heartbroken, and Violet was annoyed with him the entire time... but could she ever forgive Louis for killing Minerva? Y'know? We already have a similar parallel with AJ shooting Tenn, but still.

If Clementine killed Minerva in that moment, though, then I could see Violet attacking her since in her eyes, Clem proved her right.

So yeah, I get why they added the Dorian kill to his route. It adds another compelling element to Louis as a character, but we also need Minerva alive for episode 4; Louis can't kill her, he can't miss, and he's not going to stay with her because we need Violet to stay on the boat and him to be on shore for all routes.

[sskk-manifesto]

ಥ‿ಥ

[jackpot-art-dude]

the revival of the campaign she's from might've died in the horrible house fire of the scheduling discussion before it could even start again (she wasn't planned to appear again anyway i don't think) but i still love her

rare moment that i'm not giving her platforms

this out came entirely from my brain, she looks very gorgeous i think :)

[100shark]

May the universe give everything good to my math teacher oh my god I feel so bad for never understanding anything in his class but at least it's one less thing to worry abt

[oveliagirlhaditright]

Square Enix, learn how to market games again, 2025.