#that's how you should enjoy a media

[ladsofsorrow24]

i really should further the "go reread chainsaw man" agenda because some people read it in one go then come out with Very Wild conclusion

[cockworkangels]

truly a moment in tv history. like they are directly addressing the audience with these questions while the spn tptb are in real life bullying the show's fans over these exact questions

[secondbeatsongs]

when you're into the Big Ship™ in a Big Fandom™, you have the luxury of having an OTP - a real One True Pairing, where you can read about just them for ages, and you will never run out of fics, and everything is perfect and beautiful and nothing hurts

but when you go to a smaller fandom, you'd better pray to whatever god you worship that someone else in this room ships the same thing that you do, and that if they do, they're writing more than late-night crackfic, because you're on thin fucking ice!

and how small is your small fandom? is it less than 100 fics? maybe even...less than 20 fics?

welp, then it's time to make peace with that god and either open up a text document or learn how to ship everything, because it's swim or drown babey! and your ship is sinking fast

anyway all of this is to say that after hanging out in small fandoms and shipping less-common pairings for a while, going back into a Big Huge Fandom™ is wild because suddenly it's like...wait, why didn't I ship these people again? I don't remember. why was I only sticking to one ship in this fandom?? boring of me, honestly. these guys should make out.

[alexkablob]

not to wade into discourse about shows online which I swore to stop doing but I think some of you need to recognize that not every piece of media is about you, and that focusing only on the themes that you personally identify with while erasing the ones you don't is Not Great

[botlabyrinth]

the percy jackson tv show is actually great when there isn’t a little shit in your ear telling you it’s not “book accurate”

[whoatemyshoe]

[gncrezan]

some old @chrysanthemumgames hermes-seph sketches!!! some of it is established-relationship daydreaming but also a peek at my dark and twisted mind (sprawling intricate spidey au)

[aq2003]

rtd's finales are badly stacked conflicts that are suddenly solved by deus ex machina (but that doesn't matter bc it's filled with genuinely beautiful & heartwrenching character writing that will make you forget about everything) and moffat's finales are convoluted nonsense that make you confused as to what the fuck you're even watching. technically neither of these are good but between these two poisons i will pick the former every time

[wasabikitcat]

community college is so funny because half of the teachers are like "For this class you need to use lockdown browser for all quizzes and tests. You need to buy this 70 dollar textbook, and all papers turned in must be in APA format with a title page even if they're only 500 words long. I will not accept late assignments. Also you have a minimum of 4 assignments a week." and the other half are like "you don't need proctoring for the final exam I trust you. here's a download link to a pirated copy of the textbook. as long as your writing is coherent and demonstrates an understanding of the material I literally could not care less what format you use. I can't figure out how canvas works so I'm not giving you due dates, just make sure it's turned in before the grading period ends. your only weekly assignment is a forum post with a minimum of 100 words."

[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.

[slightlytoastedbagel]

actually On Your Feet gave us two good things (well. three if you like Realize which I do). Kohane's "it's frustrating" line and the great crack fic idea of Vivid Bad Squad getting cancelled online for skipping school to yell at The Kotaki Taiga as he was about to go back to America.

[pagib1g]

none of my business whether yall self ship with hazbin hotel characters or whatever, but since im seeing an influx of it (likely because of the new show) i'd like to remind yall to please boycott it (and pirate it if you must). it is being hosted on amazon, one of the BDS's pressure targets in the strike for palestine's cause– while it is acknowledged that you realistically cannot fully boycott targets like amazon (because of their monopoly over shipping), it will still be helpful to drop things sponsored by it that you ultimately do not need.

the self ship community has presented itself as an open and diverse community for years– prove it by being willing to stop giving profit to media that has a stake in hurting others.

support palestinian self shippers.

[caruliaa]

despite the whole theater kid-ness of pokeys i feel like maybe its just me being a certified logan disliker having a more critical view of him but the whole singular voice thing not tolerating anyone elses voices or thoughts is soo logan like hes always wanting to have thomas do his life exactly by his plans and his order yk and ofc they r both dark blue but im trying not to factor the colours into this bc thats so boringgg it should be either about thematic links or vibes. tinky is remus ik theres no time and space link to remus but they both have the same chaotic almost playful in a kinda twisted way energy to them and idk if remus is ever called a bastard in canon but i feel like he is in fanon/by the fandom a lot sooo. roman and nibbly is like soo obvious imo if u dont get hung up on the very weak idea that pokeys theater kid nature means hes roman by defult like i mean beyond being creativity roman is the personification of thomas' dreams and desires and nibbly is a not only the "hungriest" of the lords in black but feeds on the people that have the most passion and desire or need for something. virgil feels like an obvious choice for blinky bc of the idea of like anxiety = being always Watched (and ourple but we arent counting that) but i also cant stop thinking abt the "weve been watching you gracie, someones been a little naughty" line and linking blinky to the idea of failing strict xtian ideas of morality and the belief of always being watched by the xtian god and always being watched by blinky so i almost want to say patton for tht reason (tho iirc pattons whole thing was like catholic upbringing and morality specifcally and grace wld think thats not real xtainty but this aint abt her sorry) but yk there r five lords and six sides so they can share blinky yay. and then janus and wiggy which even tho there isnt really that much of a strong link between them i feel like still rly fits just bc like i feel like they have a similar demeanor in the way they like talk and act i guess and i feel like they both have a conniving nature to them. but all of this could be bs i havent watched tss in so long . but i dont think it is i think im right . okay bye .

[dennisboobs]

top tier testimonial

[nyxofdemons]

four years for this show...

[thedrotter]

sweet sweet re:kinder community... I would like to ask y'all how you came upon the game and your experiences with it because i wanna know. im genuinely so curious to hear about other people's experiences and little opinions about this game because of how wild the game is (/pos) I'd love to hear it. do ramble to me about it