Hey!
The way you drew Mr. Qi makes me feral, thank you.
I love that man in a way one would love their neighborhood cat. Mysterious, I wish to know more of where he comes from, who he is, yet it's better to be kept secret.
Again, thank you for drawing him in such a nice way, loved it, will continue to love it, and once I've sent this ask, I shall continue to stare at it like the feral animal I am over that man. Thank you.
thank you anon! <3 i miss him lots lately so here's some sketches
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Okay, I wanna talk about Fun and Games and the Anne and Mary plot.
First thing: the whole setup with Anne and Mary is a very one-to-one reference to the play Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf, as many have already pointed out, but unless you've seen the play you might miss just how clear the reference is - there are lots of direct, kinda subtle references, from Anne kissing Stede to Mary throwing an axe at Anne's clock, but the main plot of this episode is so heavily rooted in what happens in the play that it's very worth talking about. "Fun and Games" is the title of the first act of the play.
A brief synopsis of the play, if you've never seen it. It will sound very familiar. The setup is an older couple having a younger couple (who mirror them in many ways, down to occupation) over at their house. George and Martha, the older couple, have a relationship that at first seems normal but quickly becomes obviously dysfunctional. They're passive-aggressive with each other, have all these little games they play with each other with rules obvious only to them, and frequently get into heated arguments and try to embarrass each other in front of their guests. Nick and Honey, the younger couple, are revealed as the play goes on to have some issues between them that could very easily lead to their marriage going the same way as George and Martha's, just fun and games because they can't handle actually talking like adults and accepting each other as they are. When George and Martha are forced to stop playing little games with each other, the play concludes with an open ending, and we as the audience are left to wonder if George and Martha will be able to actually talk through their emotions and problems without the impuse to avoid them that they've been leaning on for years.
The name of the play is a reference to Virginia Woolf, who was an author very invested in earnest exploration of a character's inner thoughts and feelings - playwright Edward Albee says that the play's title can be read, really, as "who's afraid of living life without false illusions?" and when Martha says she's "afraid of Virginia Woolf," that's what she means. The characters in the play constantly play games and create little illusions to hide from their real feelings and what happened in reality because it's too scary for them to be honest with themselves and with each other.
Anne and Mary are a cautionary tale for Ed and Stede, but it's not a simple "if you quit piracy you're going to get bored with each other and regret it." The cautionary tale is "if you refuse to talk with each other, if you refuse to actually address the reality of the situations you're in together, if you allow yourselves to become so bitter with each other because you would rather pretend you can get by with fun and games instead of acting like adults in a relationship, that is when you'll end up like Anne and Mary." It's notable that Mary mocks Ed and Stede for acting like teenage boys and not having an "adult" relationship, because she and Anne approach their relationship very childishly, snipping with each other, trying to get a rise out of each other, and refusing to actually talk, and when Ed and Stede are having an open, earnest, heartfelt conversation, they laugh and mock them for it.
And I think a lot of analyses of this episode miss that Anne and Mary broke free from the fun and games cycle at the end of the episode. When Anne set their shop on fire, she's burning the illusions they've been living with, too - their version of George and Martha's game is trying to "kill" each other, so scared of that final mystery, which of them is going to keel over first, that they have to make it into a game. The episode is not saying that it was a mistake for Anne and Mary to quit piracy and settle down. It's saying that their problem is refusing to actually talk to each other and communicate like adults, and when Anne commits to Mary over their shop, this symbol of the life they've become so bitter about and all the games they play to talk around their feelings with each other, they share a hug and we get the sense that their relationship is on the mend.
This episode is extremely well-crafted. It references the play without becoming overly derivative, but the central themes remain strong. It's a cautionary tale for Ed and Stede, but it's not a basic one, and it comes back at the end of the season when Ed panics and runs away to live an illusion of a fisherman instead of communicating with his boyfriend. Ed and Stede are not becoming Anne and Mary when they settle down together - it's the opposite, they're committing to what they want and living a life without illusions.
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just saw someone say that macdennis shouldn't become canon cuz that'd be toxic and I'm just... yeah, that's the point?? they are both terrible but they deserve each other! do you wanna sic either of those two onto some poor unsuspecting person, are you mad??
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⚠️WARNING: RANT/GENERAL PSA AHEAD⚠️
I can’t believe I even have to come on here and say this, but let’s get one thing absolutely straight; racists and bigots do not belong in this fandom. You can take one look at the Na’vi, glorify and obsesses over their fashion, over their hairstyles, arguably their facial features too, when this fictional race is very clearly inspired from not only African likeness, but also numerous indigenous groups across the world. At the end of the day the physical and even some of the cultural attributes you like about the Na’vi are in these different cultures and groups of people, yet you see no problem being disgusting and nasty to them and talk down to them just for being another skin color than you?? Make it make sense.
‼️Sensitive content under the cut‼️
I want to briefly make a disclaimer that this ask was not sent to me, but was sent to another blogger in this fandom BY another Avatar fan. I am so utterly appalled that anyone, fandom or not is using this sort of language WITH ANYONE. The audacity to come into this fandom that is supposed to have the ideology of respecting those who are different than ourselves and then saying some shit like this to another person in the fandom??? Undeniably disgusting and heartbreaking.
If you think shit like this is okay, then promptly see yourself out, I’ll even hold the door open for you and shut it when you leave.
We are better than this and we stronger than this hate.
✊🏻✊🏽✊🏾✊🏿
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Randomly thinking about “tolerate it” (narrator voice: it was not random) and how under the cloak of fiction it is ostensibly inspired by works like “Rebecca” (which Taylor said she read during the 2020 lockdowns I believe?), with the line of “you’re so much older and wiser” indicating that the speaker is significantly younger and inexperienced compared to the person she’s speaking to and a pretty direct reference to the plot of the book.
But I saw something somewhere once that stuck with me about how it might not be referring to relative age between the characters but chronological age as in the passage of time in a relationship. And that made me think about how in a contemporary context, it might not necessarily be referencing an actual age gap between the two characters, but rather a sarcastic or cynical response to the man’s claims that he has matured (“you’re so much older and wiser [than you were before/than you were when we met/etc.]”), which then made me think about that line in relation to the woman. And that it could be taken like, “you act like you’ve matured so much in our time together and like you know everything, while I’m supposedly still stuck as the girl I was when we first met.”
Which then made me think of the “right where you left me” of it all and did you ever hear about the girl who got frozen time went on for everyone else she won’t know it and the bit in Miss Americana where she talks about how celebrities get frozen at the age at which they got famous, and how she’s had to play catch up in a lot of ways not just in her emotional growth but kind of in general. (Which also made me wonder if she’s ever been called out for immaturity/lack of curiosity/lack of education about things in her life…)
Which then made me think about the rest of the song, and @taylortruther’s posts yesterday about “seven” and “Daylight” and the way Taylor idealizes her youth yet contrasts it with an almost sinister reality in its wake, and the line, “I sit by the door like I’m just a kid,” because the discussion raised that her relationship let her recapture some of the childlike joy and wonder she’d lost. So this line is a double-edged sword: the speaker sits by the door with childlike hope that the person will come home and cherish her, but on the darker side, feels like the child dealing with the monsters she doesn’t have names for yet and the feelings of isolation she felt as she aged.
I’m not saying the song is necessarily autobiographical; like most of the songs on folkmore, it’s clearly a fictionalized story based on media she’d consumed and created, but we know a lot of the fictional songs were infused with her own feelings and experiences and… This idea swirling in my head picked up steam and now I kind of can’t stop thinking about it. Sorry but I’m a little obsessed now.
Like maybe it might start to shed light on why she identified so strongly with the novel in the first place…
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