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#post of a textual nature
magitekbeth · 2 years
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Welp. I cried yesterday during my 7th period 8th grade Creative Writing class because my boss yelled at them and I thought I was going to get in trouble for their behavior.
I have a dog now.
And a house. With my boyfriend/almost fiancé/we might be going to the courthouse over Spring Break?
I am burnt out.
How are yall today?
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sorenthestoryteller · 2 years
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A Metaphysical Interlude While Writing a Paper
Social media is a terrible place for explaining anything of importance, much less how a spiritual journey with years that had the heights of joy followed by a decade-plus of the most devastating loss and misery.
The pain has led me to a place of empathy and compassion I never knew was possible.
Empathy doesn’t happen by accident.
It requires painful and excruciating life experience coupled with the imagination of how things could be even worse for another person.
I’ve lost sleep over the past year from doing a deep dive into how white nationalism has infiltrated and come to rule in large segments of the American evangelical church. I don’t even pretend to know how much damage I did by accident.
The only way I’ve remained sane is by having a faith that has become more open-ended, more beautiful, and more compassionate than I ever knew was possible.
I am not quite as angry as I used to be, but what anger I still have is centered around those who are quick to attack and slow to listen. But, can I judge people for the same sins I used to bask in?
Oh well, back to working on the paper which is *checks watch* seven months overdue...
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chamerionwrites · 10 months
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Certain sections of fandom really are full of people who will write multi-paragraph essays dissecting 1.5 seconds of dubiously shippy eye contact between their faves, and then scream DUDE IT'S NOT THAT DEEP 😡 if you dare to say "LOL that worldbuilding detail accidentally implied something kinda fucked up." It's so funny? Like I do get that people sometimes do this in really bad faith ways, and I fully sympathize with that frustration, but it is verging on self-satire to cultivate and celebrate a culture of gleeful the-ground-is-soft-and-I'm-ready-to-dig overanalysis of tiny details only to get mad when someone aims their analysis in a direction you don't enjoy. It's both or neither, buddy. You can't accuse people who don't swallow a narrative exactly as it's served to them of having no media literacy when rule #1 of media literacy is that what a text is stating is not the sum total of what the text is saying
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cryptotheism · 4 months
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Saw your religion magic post, what's the loophole in Qur'an??
Oh that post isn't referring to a specific theological loophole or anything like that.
Islam has a very inflexible canon. The Quran is the Quran, you can't really add or subtract anything from it. (as opposed to Judaism, with it's myriad pseudocanonical texts and elevated rabbinical commentaries, or Christianity and it's constantly fluctuating list of canonical texts.) However, it also has a long tradition of highly highly specific textual analysis.
Because of this, Islamic occult writing generally comes in two main forms; Natural-Philosophical texts (as in alchemy, math, astronomy, etc) or Mystical texts (as in attempting to achieve a direct oneness with god.)
Magic is also definitely banned within Islam. You're not allowed to do magic, but Islam also has quite a bit of theological tools for using complex textual citations to prove that what you're doing is not actually technically magic.
So, Islamic Esoterica often has this fascinating academic, almost legalistic, quality to it. The authors are often concerned with exactly how an idea might fit into overarching Islamic thought, and it leads to Islamic occultists being REALLY good at syncretism.
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spider-xan · 10 months
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So this is not something I'm going to do regularly, but in anticipation of tomorrow's update for May 24, I'm just going to give a heads up to first-time readers who may want a warning that the entry will include a racist and specifically anti-Black line, as I remember some people being caught really off-guard by it last year, especially given which character says it and the nature of the update otherwise.
The point of this post is also NOT to be like, look at this evil racist character, you're not allowed to like them or you're also racist, etc., it's just for people who may prefer to know it's coming, even if it's to be expected in a Victorian novel.
If you want to know what the actual line is and the textual context for it, I've included it and some brief commentary under a cut, but there are SPOILERS for tomorrow, so click at your own risk!
Well, my dear, number Two came after lunch. He is such a nice fellow, an American from Texas, and he looks so young and so fresh that it seems almost impossible that he has been to so many places and has had such adventures. I sympathise with poor Desdemona when she had such a dangerous stream poured in her ear, even by a black man.
This excerpt is from a letter Lucy writes to Mina, the character in question is Quincey Morris, who is first introduced on May 24, and Lucy is obviously referencing Othello the Shakespeare play and the character himself.
Now, Quincey's race is never confirmed in the text, and while some people read the line as proof that he's Black, it could also read as Lucy comparing being attracted to an American as an Englishwoman to a white woman being drawn to a Black man, and you could also make a case for Quincey being white like the real-life figure he is very likely based on (William Frederick Cody, aka Buffalo Bill, who was friends with Henry Irving and thus Stoker also knew him) and context clues or mixed-race based on Stoker's other writings and his belief that having pure white ancestry was a weakness that could be countered by racial mixing (which might be surprising for him, but is still rooted in eugenics and racist ideas), but regardless of what Quincey's racial background is, it's a racist line both bc of the 'dangerous Black man seducing white women' and 'incredible that a white woman could be attracted even to a Black man' readings.
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justrustandstardust · 2 months
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in honour of geto's birthday, i want to talk about the fandom discourse that paints him as a mother. he definitely has a degree in motherology (with a minor in babygirlism), but i also think it’s possible that gege is genuinely using his character to say something interesting about motherhood and maternity.
this post is inspired largely in part by @virgobingo's thoughtful meta on geto and monstrous femininity, which you can find here. i want to extrapolate from the trope of monstrous femininity and extend it to monstrous motherhood. (which @virgobingo also touches on; you should really check out their meta— it's awesome!)
geto's character is immediately established in a protector capacity, which is intensely reminiscent of the tropes that mothers embody in media. his whole thing is that the strong must protect the weak; it's his core belief. his character is premised around this belief, much like the way mothers' constitutions in media are premised on the principle that they'll go to any length for their children.
we're repeatedly shown his caring side during hidden inventory— he cares for riko, he expresses concern for gojo, he even asks about kuroi after he finds out toji supposedly murdered his best friend. it's made very clear that he's an outwardly caring person with a strong sense of duty. in this way, he parallels the textual role of mothers, whose function is to care and provide above all else. the repeated emphasis on his caring nature is what directly likens him to maternity, whose characteristic trait is tender love and care.
he also houses curses in his body. he unleashes them from inside of him, almost like children leaving the womb. these curses obey him and operate according to his will in a very parent/child dynamic. they are powerful, but they can only do what he tells them to do. he uses them to fulfil his duty according to his core belief: to protect the weak.
when he defects, his ideology fundamentally does not change— it just inverts. instead of the strong protecting the weak (the weak necessitating their strength because they can't protect themselves), now the strong must be protected from the weak (because the weak leech the strength from the strong, therefore rendering them weak).
nothing really changes; he still cares —fiercely— it's just in the opposite direction. he takes the tropes associated with motherhood and inverts them— he'll do anything to protect those under his care, including killing, because he wholeheartedly believes in fulfilling his duty as a protector (like a mother). his unwavering conviction and willingness to die for his beliefs (which are directly about those he's protecting) is the most flagrantly maternal thing about him.
toji's worm calls him "mommy" and it's not wrong. he takes in daughters and becomes the central figure of his "family"; his emphasis on family throughout the story (even as a youth) also speaks to his maternity, as mothers are often written as the binding emotional centres of familial structures.
after he dies, his body is taken over by someone who is Iiterally a mother. he embodies monstrous motherhood during life and after death, leading us to the question of what gege is trying to say about all of this. is caring too much a bad thing? does caring in one way open the door to caring in another? what happens when a mother's love, supposedly strong enough to lift fallen trees off their children, goes in the “wrong” direction?
there's also the fact that geto is male. i think gege is also asking us to reckon with how the tropes of maternity have been confined to women, showing us that these intense convictions and the depth of care attributed to mothers can apply to anyone, even (especially) if they are distinctly masculine. in doing this, he's also expanding the conceptual definition of motherhood, suggesting that mothers can exist beyond their provident care and one-dimensional duty to their beloveds.
geto's monstrous motherhood is an explosive reclamation of agency in a trope where women have been historically limited by the categorical imposition of maternity. it seeks to disrupt not only who we consider to be mothers but also what we consider a mother to be. perhaps the monster is not the maternal figure whose love turns vicious or violent, but us, who monstrously imprisoned them in the fixed role of "mother".
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actual-changeling · 3 months
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I have tried to find a way to word this that isn't accusatory because that is not my goal here, but after writing and rewriting this a dozen or more times I've given up. I'm just upset about it all but I don't intend this to be taking it out on you specifically. I am truly sending it in good faith!
It's been incredibly difficult to be an ace fan with ace headcanons lately because of constant "Let. Them. Fcuk!" shouts from all corners, as though A/C must have sex on screen for their relationship to count. There are many posts insisting all headcanons are valid followed immediately by more posts insisting they have to be sexual creatures because of this or that reason and any thought to the contrary is just wrong. My "favorites" are the ones arguing that because they love human things so much then of course they must want to have sex because all humans want to have sex!
Needless to say as a human who has never once in my life wanted to have sex I find that incredibly othering. It's not the only argument that's been verging hard into acephobic and exclusionary rhetoric lately either.
Ace people can and do have sex. Ace people can also be sex repulsed or just uninterested. Aziraphale and Crowley could easily be any of those things just as easily as they could be sexual beings. What we see in the show and the book are two beings who canonically have demonstrated nothing about their thoughts on sex and sexuality. There are things some take as hints at a sexual nature but those same things can be read as something entirely nonsexual. As Neil said, sometimes an oxrib is just an oxrib. Canonically and textually all that scene shows is the birth of Aziraphale's hedonistic (in the philosophical sense of the term) desires. And yet, as hedonistic as that scene is, it is still not inherently sexual. It's one possible valid reading of the subtext to be sure but also not the only possible valid reading. You can take that scene to mean Aziraphale's gonna screw Crowley's brains out the second they avert Apocalypse 2.0 or you can take it to mean he's gonna drag him on a whirlwind tour of the dessert trays of every good restaurant in town instead. Both are valid interpretations of what Aziraphale going to town on that rib could be representing and neither is more correct. Both readings fit under the hedonism umbrella but true hedonism does not and has never mandated sexual activity. Aziraphale is a fine example of an ethical hedonist and yet his canonical hedonism is not concrete proof that he must want to have sex, as I have seen argued. Hedonism can include sex but it can also be entirely focused on food and drink or art and music or philosophy. Yes, you can be asexual and a hedonist, they are not contradictions in terms.
As a final note I just want to add my own stance on it. I personally think they may be idly curious about sex, perhaps enough to indulge now and then, but it's not something either feels they need in their relationship to feel valid and loved. I also feel I must say that I don't agree with the faction that says they'd be too pure as non-humans to even consider sex as an option. I find that just as othering, in a different way, as saying they must want sex because all humans do.
And so finally I come to my question at the end of all the rambling. If every headcanon is valid as canon does not show their thoughts on sex one way or the other, then why is it fine to see them as sexual and insist it has to be in the show and yet worthy of mocking to see them as ace and to not want a sex scene?
Good faith recognized and accepted, so no worries on that front.
I'm glad you felt comfortable enough to send the message in the first place, it's one of the reasons I always have anon asks on. I don't mind playing middle man (gn) for fandom discussions.
Edit: I just realised I might not have made it clear enough, but I'm alloaro myself, so same hat and all.
If every headcanon is valid as canon does not show their thoughts on sex one way or the other, then why is it fine to see them as sexual and insist it has to be in the show and yet worthy of mocking to see them as ace and to not want a sex scene?
The short answer is that it is not fine to mock or attack people for their headcanons, and I really wish I could tell you that it's simply a matter of kindness or working through some aphobia, but it's so, SO much more complicated than that.
I will try my best to explain my interpretation of why the above happens, but if I lose anyone at any point, don't hesitate to ask questions! Hopefully my red string will hold though.
The problem you describe is not specific to this fandom, it will pop up in literally every single one at some point or other, and in some corners it turn into queerphobia on all sides just being thrown around.
With Good Omens in particular, the canon Neil gives us is incredibly pliable, everything and nothing can apply, and you are not restricted by gendered subtext or implications. It's great! It really is! BUT it also means that people start projecting heavily on a character, headcanoning their specific labels for them, etc. which by itself isn't a problem.
It becomes one when a headcanon that does not align with theirs suddenly feels like a personal attack—as if headcanoning that character as something you aren't is invalidating your identity through that character. I hope that makes sense, simple version is people project a lot, and it gets very messy very fast.
Queer sexuality has a long and complicated history, and I really recommend to everyone to read up on i at least a little. In the media, you usually get one of two depictions of it: predatory or pornographic. Both suck, both are bad representation, both further already existing stereotypes.
However, that means any depictions of queer people that are not one of the above tend to be non-sexual to a point where the intention behind certain choices is very clear. Queer sexuality is bad and dirty, it should be hidden away, and is only allowed to exist if it can be consumed by cishet people or used for their amusement.
So where does that leave us with Good Omens?
Many people are desperate for good representation, myself included, and with the way Neil is writing the show, everything is possible, and some things even likely. He said himself that one of the reasons for the kiss was the destruction of deniability of their relationship.
We need to have queer sexuality on our screens because otherwise it will always be seen as other, and queer relationships will be denied on the basis of a 'lack of intimacy'. It sucks, it is completely inaccurate, and unfair, but that is where we are.
If we take this information and tie it back to the projection issues I talked about in the beginning, I think it's possible to understand the point I'm trying to make.
Suddenly it is no longer the character's sexuality that is not shown but their own, and that opens Pandora's box for all kinds of difficult emotions.
Everything above also applies to aspec people, just that most of us are usually looking for a lack of something rather than a presence, which is not better or worse than wanting queer sexuality explicitly shown. People end up butting heads—and it gets incredibly personal way too quickly—because you have group A, who want to see a sex scene because of above reasons, and then you have group B, who would prefer for that not to happen.
While that's a perfectly fine headcanon to have (and it SHOULD be respect, every hc should be), some people from A will see a post about them never having sex and interpret it (mostly subconsciously, I presume) as an attempt to repress queer sexuality from being shown.
The 'solution' (easier said than done) to the problem is learning when to step back and how to recognize when one is getting too caught up in their character(s)—or simply how to not be an asshole and scroll past something. Tumblr has great blacklist and blocking features, use them, people.
Bottom line, harassing people for their headcanons or other fandom ideas is rude, inappropriate, and makes you an asshole that needs to log off and go on a fucking walk.
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lloydfrontera · 4 months
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wait lmao what I didn't know there was such a skip. I'm sorry this is comedy to me. so you're telling me they have this crazy ass dimension-jumping shenanigans with Javier tearing up as he finally finds Lloyd, his best friend, the most important person in his life, while it's a mutual statement for the both of them, and then we get no dialogue. and skip to Lloyd getting shoved into a hetero romance with no build up. sorry I can't believe this is real. this sounds like a joke and I choose to treat is as such. this is the most hilarious ending and the marriage now feels even more out of place hdufiskaoa9o
OH MY FUCKING GOD RIGHT?!?!?!! it is weird isn't it???? i'm not being crazy for feeling like it's a weird ass choice??? i felt like i was going insane!! i swear to god i felt like i was being gaslighted when i read it!!! there was no way that was the ending!! there was no way that ch 401 ended with one of the most romantic and heartfelt scenes i have ever read and then the next chapter just????? did a time skip where none of that was acknowledged and lloyd was just fucking married off to alicia??? completely off-screen if i may add!
i made a post about it before but i simply need to rant all over again oh my god
general warning for spoilers because i'm about to dissect the entire novel through a llojavi lens
AGAIN. SPOILERS WARNING FOR THE ENDING OF TGED.
i literally cannot express how much of a mid fuck it is when you realize that lloyd and javier's relationship is very much Thee Slowburn of tged. like. this is an indisputable fact. even if you don't think there's anything romantic between them, which, holy fuck that's such a fucking reach one must be really be in denial to not see it but whatever, even then you simply cannot argue that their relationship isn't the most important one in the entire story.
javier is the very first person lloyd talks to in the first chapter. he's the first person that welcomes him into his new life. he's the one he has to work the hardest to endear himself to. he's the one he spends the most time with. he's the one that follows him around literally everywhere he goes.
from the very beginning their relationship is given a special attention that few other things get in the plot.
through the entire story we get constant moments of them getting to know each other as people and getting closer as a result. they're constantly in each other's thoughts, which is very natural as they're in each other's company almost 24/7. it is actually hard to find a chapter where they not talking to each other or at the very least together. i cannot emphasize enough how,,, enmeshed and entangled they are with one another as characters. i mean it when i say they are a set do not separate them.
it takes lloyd 222 chapters to even admit to himself that javier is his friend and that he wants to keep him safe not because he's the protagonist of the story or useful to him or anything like that but simply because he cares for him and doesn't want him to die. because, and i quote, 'he thought he'd always be with javier for the rest of his life. just like now, he thought they'd spend all their time together moving forward. and like they always did, they'd be by each other's side during hard times. happy moments. relaxed days. they'd share all these moments as they exchanged insults and corny jokes, growing old as a lazy lord of a fiefdom and his knight. lloyd always thought so. the thought just came naturally, without much effort from him, much like breathing. lloyd believed that javier would always remain by his side as that was how it had been until now.' (ch222) <- actual textual quote. btw. if you even care.
and then. it takes javier 320 chapters, a hundred chapters more, to realize that he cares about lloyd much more than a knight cares about his lord's son. because he, and once again i quote, 'is [his] true master in [his] heart. lloyd was his friend. and now, javier wanted to protect lloyd. he would sincerely protect him with everything he had.' <- this is, if i may add some context, said as javier is fighting against a goddamn angel, literally heaven's will, to protect lloyd. after figuring out lloyd is a fake. that he's been lying to javier for several years about almost everything including who he is. and yet. this is what javier feels for him.
they are the definition of a slowburn. it takes them this long to even admit they are friends. and this is with us getting to see them together almost every chapter of the way. we get to see every step of the way. we see their relationship develop with all manner of detail.
and then. when you think you cannot get even more dramatic about them. guess what the major conflict of the plot is. guess fucking what the last obstacle for the story to get a happy ending is.
let me set the scene for you:
lloyd has just finished the jewel of truth, the artifact that will get him the answer he seeks on how to stop the restoration of fate, how he can stop destiny from making the original events of the novel come true and destroy everything he has worked and kill everyone he loves. he has javier at his side, who rushed to join him underwater to make sure he was safe and sound while using it, and he can't help but fondly think how lucky he is to have javier, who is loyal and true and has never abandoned him.
a quote of lloyd's thoughts in this scene:
That’s why, you bastard. I’m going to take care of you until the very end. Once I, your wise and older friend, solve the restoration of destiny problem, you’re going to enjoy the rest of your life by my side in peace. [...] He smiled at Javier and thought to himself. You’re my only friend, Javier. I couldn’t have overcome all the obstacles in front of me without your help. So, my trustworthy and reliable comrade, stick with me until I become a lazy lord and you become my personal guard. I hope we will be able to grow old together… -ch 327
as you can see. he's once again planning on spending the rest of his life with javier. canonically. not even an interpretation this is straight up textual i cannot emphasize enough
and then. the jewel of truth gives him the answer. how to stop the restoration of fate. it's very easy. very simple solution in fact.
either lloyd or javier have to die or otherwise vanish from existence.
that's it. there can only be one protagonist in the world and because of everything lloyd has done he's now being acknowledged by fate as the protagonist of the story along with javier. which cannot stand.
so that's the only thing stopping lloyd from getting his happy ending. he just,,, has to either kill his best friend or kill himself.
let me rephrase this from a narrative perspective: the major conflict of the story is now lloyd facing either the choice of letting everything he's achieved and everyone he loves be destroyed. losing his best friend, the person he cares the most about and has been developing an extremely close relationship through the entire plot. or dying himself.
lloyd of course then spends the rest of the plot trying to find a way to avoid having to die. that's literally what the rest of the novel is about. lloyd trying by all means possible seeking a way to not having to die. because at no point, does he ever consider letting javier die in his place even an option. he doesn't want to die of course, but he never saw javier sacrificing himself as the solution to that problem.
the entire conflict of the last part of the novel is lloyd finding a way for him and javier to be able to remain together without either of them having to sacrifice their lives for the other.
he doesn't succeed.
they end up in a battle down in hell where both of them try to give for one another leading to this absolutely delightful parallel
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so fucking tasty oh my god i still go crazy when i see this set of illustrations actually
lloyd wins btw. he gets to sacrifice his life for javier. to javier's absolute heartbreak.
but lloyd doesn't die. he does end up stuck in korea tho, a place he would've rather died than go back to, so he has that going on for him. he's back in his goshiwon, absolutely heartbroken and without knowing what to do.
and then we end up with that scene. javier at his doorstep, having crossed dimensions, tearing up as he sees him and tells him how much he's missed him, looking at him with this face:
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now. let's pause here. let's take a moment. take in everything i've just explained. everything that has happened to get to this point.
be honest with me. what would you say is the most natural way the story can progress from here.
take into account all that i have recounted and that i skipped so many other things of the same nature so we wouldn't be here all day.
what do you as a reader would expect to happen next
well, i'll tell you:
cut to black we're now an unspecified amount of time later lloyd has already had all the important conversations we've been waiting to see the entire time off screen and is now preparing himself for his wedding to alicia that we will also not get to see by the way
and you know what the funniest thing is. you know what is the cherry on top.
fucking guess who's the last person we see him talk with.
guess who's the person he ends the novel sharing a smile with.
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yeah. Yeah.
i really don't know what else to say. i don't know how else to explain how insane this feels. how incredibly dissonant it comes across. i don't want to use the worse gaslighting like this but it's the closest word i can find to describe what it feels like. i feel like i'm being told something is happening when i can see with my own eyes it is not. or rather that i'm seeing something happen and i'm being told that no it is not and that i'm making it up.
i don't know what bk moon was going for. i really don't. especially when this is what he has to say about chapter 401 aka the chapter with javier coming to find lloyd in korea
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clearly he feels very strongly about this scene too. it's the one he's been wanting to show the most, he must have analyzed it from every angle possible, must have put special care to get across what he wanted to convey with it.
so why does it feel like the last true chapter of the novel is meant to,,, undercut the feeling of it?? it almost feels as if the last chapter is telling us 'yeah yeah those two are extremely devoted to each other and would and have given their lives for one another and plan on growing old at each other's sides but don't worry :) it's nothing more than them being pals :) just two guys being really good friends :) see, lloyd is even getting married to a woman that's his real happy ending he's not gay or anything :)'
and this is not me saying that two friends cannot be devoted to each other. absolutely not of course friends can love each other platonically and that be more than enough to justify their devotion to one another.
but. it feels weird when the entire novel is dedicated to building up the relationship between lloyd and javier, taking so much time to make us really feel like their relationship is growing at a realistic pace, take almost 3/4 of the novel to even make them come to terms with how much they care for one another, spend actual years following their development,,, and then make lloyd just marry someone else. someone the novel really didn't spend enough time with to justify him developing feels for her.
this is not a diss against alicia i have nothing against her i just don't... buy that lloyd developed romantic feelings for her. much less that he acted on them that easily.
this is a man who took 222 chapters and several years in-universe to even accept that javier, the person he spent all day with, with whom he spoke almost every single day, who he had risked his life for and had been saved by several times at that point, was even his friend.
and now i'm expected to believe he's in love with someone else who, by comparison, he meets a couple of times and spends a little amount of time with.
well. i don't! it's not in character, it wasn't properly built up in the text and truthfully they don't have enough chemistry to make up for it.
i don't know what happened there. i don't know why bk moon decided to add a romance when the novel didn't need it. i don't know why he chose to make it happen between two characters that didn't have a relationship as deep as the one he spent the entire novel building up and promoting as the most important one. which may i add was between his two protagonists. y'know. the ones the novel is supposed to be centered around.
i don't know. i don't know what happened. i don't know if it was censorship, last minute panic, fear of opposition or rejection or actual obliviousness to what he had written looked like, i simply do not know.
i really hope it wasn't homophobia tho that would absolutely suck lmao
but uh. yeah. i do think the ending is very funny when you put it like that askhdsjkfds
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suffersinfandom · 4 months
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A Summary of The OFMD Meta (Part III)
Thank you for all of the likes and comments! I’ve never really had anything noticed on tumblr and it’s very cool. And scary. Thank you!
This is part three of an incomplete summary of A Meta-Discussion Of The Subtext by meratrishoslee (Mera) on AO3 (linked to, as the author requests). I’m trying to stay impartial and keep all of the important bits in.
This chunk includes chapters sixteen through eighteen, which are an analysis of the final episode of season two. The overarching thesis of the first two chapters is, as it was in the previous part, this: “Ed’s the face, head/mind and body of Blackbeard, Izzy is Blackbeard’s heart/soul -- as well as the heart of the show itself.”
I can’t recommend not commenting on this meta on AO3 enough. Replies that aren’t completely positive will just fuel more “defending myself from the haters” chapters. If you’re inspired, maybe write your own tumblr meta with these takes as a jumping-off point? That way, there’s a chance that someone who’s willing to listen to what you say will read it. 
Other posts Part I Part II
Chapter 16: The Sacred Heart (Part 5)
Episode eight opens on Ed and his girlblogger nature journey, where “we get to see the real people who are having to do the real actual labor to prop up Ed’s navel gazing. Edward does an incredibly colonizery prayer at the dinner table until [Pop-Pop] sets him straight with a smack across the face. [...] The truth comes out about Ed’s lack of skills and experience, and [Pop-Pop] goes into (what I feel is) a justified rage again. But it’s not about Ed’s lies or laziness or self-absorption. It’s again about ‘we are not simple! We’re not simple!’”
We’re not that simple doesn’t make a lot of textual sense because we need to look at the subtext. “Both the skilled labor of fishing for survival and income, as well as this entire show and specifically this episode, are not nearly as clear cut as they initially appear. Perception is NOT reality, so question the logic of what you’re being told and shown.” It’s not that simple. 
Pop-Pop is subtextually telling Ed that he’s not his father -- he’s a textual good father figure (a mirror of Izzy) “trying to instruct/correct Edward while reminding him: we absolutely do not have a father/child relationship.” Ed goes into another non-apology, fucks up dinner, and “gets thrashed not simply for that but *gestures expansively at the previous three minutes of broadcast*.”
(It’s telling that Ed leaves both Stede and Izzy behind and immediately seeks out a replacement for Izzy instead of Stede.)
Ed yells that ‘it’s just a fish,’ but “it’s not just a fish -- it’s dinner, it’s livelihood, it’s disrespect, it’s dealing with this bullshit after a full day of physical labor,” and this is only “our first example in this episode of Ed minimizing a loss that he should in no way be minimizing.”
The fish is also Izzy: “here we have one loss of a creature of water dumped into the fire, as mirrored to the later, greater loss of Izzy -- a creature of water and air, who belongs on or in the ocean -- inexplicably buried in the earth.” (Don’t forget: Stede and Ed are ALSO fish.)
The next scene is Ricky at the Republic of Pirates. He’s polishing his small hidden pistol -- the one that will be so deadly later in the episode. Ricky’s uniform is tailored to make him look smaller. He’s now a mirror to Izzy: “often underrated, underacknowledged, and treated as a joke by the people around him.” His outfit details mirror Izzy’s: ” the ruffled shirt cuffs, the saber on his left side, the cravat at his throat with its own gold accent -- a pearl for purity instead of an emerald for grief. Lots of white/cream/gold in contrast to Izzy's unrelieved and unornamented black.”
At Spanish Jackie’s, Ricky makes Jackie fish his nose out from the nose jar, or “reach into a grave to retrieve something he’s lost,” and “we don’t see Jackie locate the object of her search, exhume it from the grave the jar and show it to him…”
We see Zheng Yi Sao devastated by the loss of her fleet and, she thinks, Auntie. She’s not sobbing; she’s numb, shocked, unable to so much as cry. Stede’s being an insensitive idiot. “Stede’s heard of empathizing, but has no idea how it actually works -- and has also never had a failure as awful as this one. He’s mansplaining struggle and loss to a woman of color.”
The closeup on Ed’s face as he sees what has become of the Republic of Pirates mirrors the closeup at the wedding in S2E1. “I want you to drink it in: We have been here before. We are doing it all again. You don’t have to be afraid of it; the same road just looks different in the dark.” We’re also watching Ed go into shock (Mera is “feeling a few motes of compassion here”).
“Edward doesn’t actually need the Blackbeard kit to be a warrior. He just killed two soldiers with his bare hands, [...]. But in this moment of shock and grief, Edward craves the invisible mantle of something more powerful than mere knives or guns: the image he and Izzy created between the two of them, the incredible and indestructible myth that deals death and cannot itself die. An Izzy mirror [Pop-Pop] told Edward something he could construe as ‘become Blackbeard again’ – and, alone in this instant of world-shattering shock [...], he clings to the thing he trusts the most, at the instruction” of a character who mirrors Izzy.
We see Ricky descend into a basement. He tells the jailed crew that they will be hung and their stories will be lost. “I hereby re-invoke my personal prohibition against Season 3 speculation, other than the certainty that we will see the text bear up and explain what the currently available subtext so fulsomely insists: that Izzy is alive in the last frame of this episode.”
Izzy is sitting in the middle of the room, primed to make himself the best target to protect the crew, given a position of respect on what might be the only chair. Either Izzy has had a chance to rest (he was exhausted and in pain the previous day) OR “our Sacred Heart, determined to watch over and protect everyone else in the room, has not fucking slept a wink all night. That’s two nights and a day of effort, for a disabled man (who, if you believe the HIV/AIDS coding, is also in a constant battle of autoimmune illness).”
“And now: our beautiful, hurting, self-sacrificing Sacred Heart is drawn into the dance of death -- one that, because it happens almost entirely in silences of the mind, can be and is ignored by people who only see the pretty pictures flashing in front of their eyes.”
Izzy baits Ricky so thoroughly that “Ricky will put off having them all hanged just so he can get Izzy’s full and undivided attention -- as well as keep Izzy’s family as functional hostages to Izzy’s good behavior.”
Izzy and Ricky sit down to chat. “Izzy’s defense of his loved ones is like chess, and he’s his own most useful (and yet sacrificial) game piece. Izzy does change his tactics whenever he realizes something isn’t gaining him ground -- but he’s got Ricky fairly well figured out.” Izzy knows he needs to keep Ricky occupied until Ed, Stede, and Yi Sao show up. He needs to keep him interested. 
Ricky is projecting when he calls Izzy the brains of the Blackbeard operation. “He’s his own ‘brain’ with no heart. We have it proven by his plan to immediately double-cross Zheng [...]; that’s devious and clever on a level Izzy (who doesn’t even carry a pistol so that all his violent power remains connected to his body so he can control every bit of it -- and you can’t redirect a bullet or change what it’ll hit once it’s in flight) would not have gone to on his own.”
Izzy stops playing with the candle flame (recall that both he and Ed toy with flames when they’re lying). This is his ‘it’s about belonging to something’ speech.
“The Sacred Heart is level, unmoving, and intense when he delivers his raison d'être into Prince Ricky’s hearing. What response does he get, upon confessing his all? The worst possible one, unfortunately. Ricky can’t resonate with Izzy’s essential truth spoken blatantly into the text: Ricky has never once done anything in his life simply for the love of another person, much less a whole group of them.”
But it’s fine, because “Izzy is subtextually confessing, via the text, to us as the Unseen Crew. The Sacred Heart put into the text the reason for everything he’s done this season, and everything he will do before the end of the episode: not for glory, gold, public acclaim, or even the satisfaction of personal desire or the pursuit of romantic love. It’s for the crew, and the crew alone. It is utterly selfless, having let go of the ego-self. It is agape love.”
Zheng Yi Sao, Stede, and Ed are all at the beach. Ed and Stede reunite and Stede gets an actual, real apology from Ed. Stede responds to Ed’s love confession with an ‘I know,’ and maybe that’s supposed to feel a bit off. (When something feels off, look at the subtext.)
Ed and Stede run off to battle with their two battlecries: ‘Die, motherfuckers!’ ‘For love!’ And guess what? “...We will get to see someone do just that: die for love.”
“Now the center of the mirror episode, held between its textual and subtextual midpoints: Archie and Fang trying to create a literal ‘narrow escape’ by twisting fabric around the bars until they bend.” 
Olu finds Auntie, “who is such a capable person that she’s already decided she’s dead and went off to a quiet spot to finish dying where it wouldn’t bother anyone else,” and calls Jim over to help her. 
Why Jim? “...While Buttons bit Lucius and the wound got infected and he nearly died from sepsis -- Jim’s Nana said that they once bit a priest's finger off and the priest swore that he'd die of rabies, but he didn’t. [...] Jim’s assistance also contributed to Izzy surviving an unsurvivable amputation and healing up afterward; we can go ahead and say that Jim’s hands are canonically (and magically) healing.”
To recap: “an Izzy mirror character [Auntie] thinks they’re dead and all’s lost so they ‘bury’ themselves as best they could… and then they resurrect with a beam of holy white light. It’s possible that the addition of a dove in the scene was rejected as being ‘too on the nose.’”
Back to Izzy. Ricky calls himself the ultimate pirate, but of course “Izzy's the ultimate pirate: not because he's loud and brags and destroys things, but because every other real pirate knows him and follows his orders when he gives them.”
Izzy plays RIcky and “...we see Prince Ricky absolutely stunned and captivated by Izzy’s all-encompassing conviction.” Izzy continues: ‘Our spirit will last throughout your entire fuckin’ empire because we’re good. And you are a rancid, syphilitic cunt.’ Izzy looks on Ricky with pity and “Ricky’s damn near openly weeping, because the Sacred Heart’s speaking of the unspoken truth has always and without fail been fucking devastating.”
Why does that hurt him? “Ricky’s presenting with a ‘saddle nose’ deformity/infection due to raging untreated syphilis,” and “Izzy’s just told Prince Ricky: Jackie only took what you were probably going to eventually lose anyway, and you and I both know it.” As you can see, “...these two mirrored characters are both infected with STI’s that can cause pain and dementia, prevent safe intimacy with others, and eventually result in death.”
Chapter 17: The Sacred Heart (Part 6)
We pick up with Zheng Yi Sao, Stede, and Ed arriving on the scene a bit too late. “As the soldiers begin dying all around them, the rage on Ricky’s face is turned -- not toward our sword-wielding heroes or to Jackie’s crew who have so deftly distributed their poison -- but to the Sacred Heart, who played an immaculate game that no one else spotted until it was too late.”
Speaking of poison, there’s a Bible passage about that: ‘And these signs will follow those who believe: In My name they will cast out demons [Ed and Auntie referring to demons]; they will speak with new tongues [Buttons reading the magic scroll]; they will take up serpents [Lucius roasting snake on a stick]; and if they drink anything deadly, it will by no means hurt them [Jackie’s household is poisoned trained]; they will lay hands on the sick, and they will recover [Jim healing Auntie].’
Is this too much of a reach? Nah. “For myself… I’ve never seen we queer folk portrayed as holy in mainstream western media to such a loving, complete, and human extent before. I have never seen us be both the divine and the disciples before, so textually and overtly.” 
Mera continues:
Last night the Universe gave me a quote, from an unexpected source: “Hell is not what you expect it to be.” That part, I been knew. [...]
I’m pleased to confess: ‘Jesus was not what we expected him to be!’ 
And that feels like it’s given that ideal back to me: Jesus doesn’t have to be conventionally pretty, conventionally young. He doesn’t have to be spotless and pure and inoffensive to the point of being bland, untouchable and unsexed, in order to represent God and reunite us with the divine power of the Universe. 
He can be a small, aging, angry, bitter, disabled, leather-clad, lust-filled queer man with a filthy mouth and AIDS in his arteries -- as long as he carries God’s agape love for his chosen family.
And that means any of us can be Jesus, too -- as long as we truly love. 
That’s the only part that matters. [...] It makes me better understand the Christ that bad Christians have tried to make all of us forget: the one that loves the whole world, no matter what. No exceptions, because he can love them and they need to be loved, and so he does. 
I can love that Christ in return, because he’s the real one.
Auntie and Zheng Yi Sao reunite. The blocking in this scene emphasizes the mirroring of Auntie and Izzy: “Auntie [is] in the center of the shot (because she’s a badass) [with] Izzy occupying the far left frame [...]. The candle’s brilliant flame is equidistant between these two mirrored characters (as if Auntie removed Ricky from the scene only to step into his place again as Izzy’s mirror); its light shines on Izzy’s family in the space on the other side of the table that they bracket. And here, too: Izzy’s one deadly, naked hand, clenched in a loose fist on the table’s surface. The cross he always bears. The living death he cannot escape.”
Auntie’s wound is on her left side.
“But moving on: Stede says we need a plan. And… we the Unseen Crew don’t get to hear the plan but from the looks of everyone who was present, it’s probably not a totally great one.”
Closeup on Stede’s face. Cut immediately to Alex Sherman’s ass. “THIS. IS. NOT. AN. ACCIDENT. So I’m not saying that Stede’s an ass. I’m saying that the show is subtextually showing you that Stede’s an ass.”
It’s time for the “Roads To Moscow” by Al Stewart montage. Every line of this is analyzed in the meta, but let’s cut right to the end: “It jumps to the last and most tragic verse of the song, that describes how a triumphant soldier returning home is instead assumed by Russian command to be a traitor, and sent to die a horrible lonely death in the gulags and never see his home again.” During this verse, “Ricky glances down to prompt the camera to glance down from the soldier’s POV, spotting Izzy’s golden hoof behind Ricky’s boots. Ricky draws his hidden gun from his left side and shoves Izzy back from him --”
“The song’s mostly about a soldier going home after a victory against a truly evil enemy: the Nazis. However, someone (mistakenly) thinks he’s a traitor and therefore he’s sent to die alone in a gulag in the freezing cold of Siberia and never see his home again. A traitor's death. Traitors die like that. Judases die like that.”
Izzy is the one holding Ricky at knifepoint. Significantly, the hand that he’s holding his dagger with -- his right -- is initially ungloved. “Izzy’s not just threatening Ricky with the tiniest knife I’ve ever seen anyone on this show use for something that wasn’t eating a meal. Izzy is threatening Ricky into compliance with his own blood.”
They turn a corner and “Izzy’s put his glove back on – but Ricky doesn’t know this. That’s why he shoves Izzy back before taking the shot. He can’t risk getting cut with a blade also contaminated with Izzy’s blood.” Ricky could have shot Izzy then if that was his intention, but…
Ed is centered in the shot, gun drawn. “Ricky wasn’t aiming for the Sacred Heart.The traitor Edward Teach, sometimes and most famously known as Blackbeard -- traitor to the British Crown and traitor to Izzy Hands -- was his intended target. Ricky was aiming for Ed, and Izzy took the bullet meant for him.”
Izzy positioned himself as he did because “...he's done the next five or six chess moves in his head already, then planted himself without comment or drama wherever it is he needs to be in order to best respond to it.” He intentionally placed himself between the threat and his family. “He's sacrificed himself to save them, and specifically the one among them he has loved the longest: Edward.”
Mera compares this to a scene to one in the 2005 adaptation of The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe. In this scene, the White Witch demands that Aslan give her the traitor (Edmund). Aslan protects him.
“Here’s the important part that I do recall from the story: that there is nothing the traitor can do to save themselves, or to deserve or earn the sacrifice that is given in their stead. (So it’s not that Edward deserved to be saved or somehow deserved to live more than Izzy does.) It’s something that only Aslan, the Christ-figure, can give through his divine grace and agape love.”
In The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe, two sisters see the lion Aslan tortured and sacrificed. He’s completely dead, but the following morning, he is resurrected. When one of the sisters asks how this happened, Aslan says, “...when a willing victim who had committed no treachery was killed in a traitor’s stead, the Table would crack and Death itself would start working backward.”
Anyway.
The crew makes their escape. Ed finally notices that something’s wrong with Izzy; he and Frenchie help him to the ship. No one else has been injured. “No one else has blood on themselves at all except Edward. Not even Frenchie, who was closest to Izzy's wounded side.” Ed is “practically washed in Izzy’s blood.”
“No one else but Edward interacts with Izzy’s bloody clothes and body. At least half the crew that was in the boat with them now knows not to touch Izzy’s flesh or blood.”
Going off of the blood on Ed’s vest, he held Izzy and they were both brought up to the ship using the barnacle-scraping swing. Ed may have even held Izzy on the ride to the Revenge, trying to minimize the amount of blood that the rest of the crew was exposed to.
Once on the ship, Roach and Stede run off. “Why? Bandages? Sure. But also: Stede’s brown leather gauntlets from S2x05. We’ve seen he has them. If he can find them and they’re not too damaged from the rope work, Roach can help bandage Izzy up.”
Izzy weakly fights Ed off and Ed pokes at the injury; he’s worried about Ed examining the wound without the protection of gloves. “Even now, he carefully keeps his hands separate from Edward’s. If I was dying in the arms of someone I loved… oh, I’d cling to them. I’d grip their hands and I’d touch their face; I’d knot my fingers in their shirt. I would cling to them as I’d cling to life itself, for their sake if not my own. Izzy does none of this. His physical love is death, and he knows it. The last of his emotional love he can demonstrate is to still try to keep Ed safe.”
Izzy apologies, and Ed says that no, he’s sorry. Izzy says no -- not in response to what Ed said, but because Ed’s drenched with his dangerous blood. 
Izzy tells Ed that he fed his darkness -- that he needed Blackbeard. “It was their partnership, a closeness not shared with any other person. It was their marriage of mind and heart. Was there a supernatural element in this intimacy? I’ll wager there was and is, even though we've not seen it in the text and it's barely hinted at in the subtext. But even if there wasn’t… it was intimacy nonetheless. They never could leave each other for long. And when they couldn’t touch each other at all, they still at least had the Blackbeard union.”
Ed tells Izzy that he can’t go, he’s his only family. “Thing is? Ed’s absolutely correct, here -- and he has no one to blame but himself. He’s figuring things out with Stede, but that’s barely hours old… this time around. He hardly got to know Fang before he was brought back from the dead; he’s only spent a few hours with him. He alienated the rest of the crew and hasn’t bothered investing in them since.”
“Thing is? Before Edward lashed out as the Kraken, the crew really did like him. He was charming. He was interesting and cool. And if he really tried again, he could win their hearts again.”
Jim is standing behind them, watching, not trying to help even though “...they did fine during the amputation that Izzy otherwise shouldn’t have survived or thrived after, and they healed Auntie enough she came back from what she thought was going to be certain death.” Someone must have told Jim the rules about touching Izzy (the HIV/AIDS victim). 
Jim can’t help. “But we see Jim twitch and fidget in the front line of the crew now, their eyes filled with unshed tears, shaking their head in negation. They want to try to help, no matter what. Even if the bullet from Ricky's textual gun carries Ricky's subtextual syphilis into Izzy's bloodstream, making his blood even more dangerous.”
Izzy tells Ed that the crew loves him. Remember that Izzy’s flaw is projection. “This is the last projection, and it is half-conscious, and it is entirely a gift since it is from the Sacred Heart in the last moments of his self-sacrifice: Izzy’s last gift to Edward.”
Izzy realizes unconsciously that the crew loves him. In Mera’s words:
And he’s not ready to be able to accept their love on a personal basis. His reception of it in the form of his new unicorn leg prosthetic resulted in obligation: they gave to him, and he had to give back in order to earn it, to feel himself in any way worthy of that affection and acceptance. 
What would he give? 
Everything he’s ever had: his entire life, all of his heart, his very last breath. 
Izzy gives it now. 
Something in him does know that the crew loves him… and in his last dying seconds he knows he’s going to leave a gap in their lives. They need a protector. They need someone to love them and take care of them like he did. 
And if Edward decides to, he could step right into that empty place and fill it, and become a loving heart of his own to the entire crew -- beyond simply loving Stede. 
If Edward had made the decision to try… the end of this episode would be very different indeed.
‘There he is,’ Izzy tells Ed. “Not Blackbeard, if Ed’s ready to let go. He could just be Ed now. His heart told him so.”
The crew stay back for two reasons: 1) AIDS; 2) “The Christ-figure reason: they are dressed as the modern Roman empire; they are garbed in the enemy’s clothing who crucified Christ and stood around and callously watched him die. They are also prevented from approaching and interacting with his dying body as Mother Mary, Mary Magdalene, and the other disciples were all prevented from doing.”
Why aren’t they crying? Now “… the much beloved new unicorn of the crew [is] dying in front of all their eyes and no one can take his hand or hold his arm or touch his face to comfort him in any way as he dies, because it will kill them. These. People. Are. All. In. Emotional. Shock. And people who are deeply in shock often don’t cry!”
“The next scene is the burial. But we’re not there yet. There’s a timeskip where we the Unseen Crew have not seen the things that would have had to happen.” They have to return to land with Izzy’s body, “which is a beloved relic now, and also a biohazard on an incredible scale.”
Ed is covered in Izzy’s blood. Did he prepare Izzy’s body for burial? That task was once considered women’s work (we had a song about that when a man was coming back to life). Ed may also clean the deck, since he’s already covered in blood.
“Then he has to bathe his own body before anyone else can touch him, probably in the ocean so as not to contaminate Stede's tub. He’ll have to scrub clean, and scrub again, and again, and again. What’s finally safe? Does he know? Can he trust, when it’s now Stede’s life at stake? [...] (Edward might not be safe to lay in Stede’s bed, in Stede’s arms, anymore.  He might never be again.)”
Why was Izzy given a simple burial by the shack? “Any other supernatural speculation aside: the simplest reason is because Ed’s not ready to let Izzy go, just as Izzy wasn’t ready to let go of Ed’s body in S2x03. Where Izzy is, Edward wants and needs to be. If he put Izzy’s body into the ocean -- the simplest and most hygienic means of burial, and appropriate for a pirate, yet one that Izzy too also rebelled against for Ed… it would separate them too far.”
At the funeral, Ed’s back in the Blackbeard leathers that used to protect him.
The burial itself is “fucky” because “the creators of OFMD have, apparently rightfully so, been concerned that they didn’t give enough previous subtextual clues to the viewers that Izzy Hands will rise out of his grave (again), this time to fully conquer HIV/AIDS and his own queer grief.” 
The song is too different from the other songs in the show. It’s not semi-contemporary, and information about it is hard to track down. “What if it's the right title... but not quite the right song?  What if it's text that covers up or obscures the subtext? What else comes up if you search ‘that's alright lyrics’?” You get Fleetwood Mac’s That’s Alright. “...It's not quite the correct tone for a death scene, of course.  But for a long-term relationship that's about to be changed or left behind between two people who do still love each other in some way…”
Izzy’s prosthetic leg is used as the gravemarker. “It’s not going to last in any sort of weather. And for another reason: imagine that it was a taupe plastic prosthetic shaped like a naked human foot and leg and perhaps that helps you visualize why IT’S WEIRD. IT’S GROSS ON A SPIRITUAL LEVEL. YOU DO NOT DO THIS THING.”
Additionally: “They’re using IZZY’S FUCKING SWORD AS THE SPIKE FOR THE MARKER. WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK.” Izzy was a legendary swordsman. “You’re taking his saber and, instead of laying it to rest honorably at his side, ARE STICKING IT BLADE FIRST INTO THE DIRT ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?!?!”
“They took his cravat and ring off and laid it over the top of the makeshift driftwood/leg cross. NO.  Just... no. It [...] was so important and significant to him that he has worn every moment we’ve ever seen him except removing it one time for exercise and sweaty exertion. No, just like his sword: they didn’t lay it to rest with him, leaving it on his throat so that it goes with him into his grave. They hung it out where the elements will visibly rot it eventually.”
Why? 
1) “The OFMD creative crew wants you to be reminded of Pet Sematary… and of what happens in it.” In this movie, there is a pet cemetery on land where anything buried will come back. Now the ground is “sour,” and when things come back, “they Come Back Wrong: they’re strange, overly aggressive, and most tellingly? They smell bad.”
It’s also “gross and fucky” that they’re burying Izzy in a way that, at least superficially, gives ‘pet burial,’ “visually [coding] Izzy as something like Ed's pet.”
“The other reason the cravat and its mourning ring is on the grave marker? It’s the symbol for queer grief -- not only for living under the specter of HIV/AIDS but of everyone we’ve lost to it and queer/transphobic violence since the dawn of time.” 
Con O’Neill said that he wanted the stone to be set in Izzy’s ring to be emerald, in honor of his recently deceased mother. He wanted a reminder of one of the “freshest and most present griefs. [...] The most queer-coded character of the show, who is also HIV/AIDS coded, has carried around his overwhelming grief constantly with him, usually tied so tight to his throat it nearly chokes him [...]. The crew part this grief from his dead body to hang it on the cross.”
In Protestant churches, you hear about “sin or grief or some other unwanted thing being ‘nailed to the cross.’ If Izzy’s grief is now visibly left behind on Izzy’s cross, he will rise again without it.”
The crew leaves without getting to “perform any of the other socially acceptable parts of the mourning rituals that help the living internalize their loss and let go of the dead. Blackbeard’s heart has been put into the ground to keep it close to where Blackbeard’s mind is determined to wait for… whatever happens next. But it couldn’t lay in state like Edward’s own body did; unlike Ed, Izzy’s body is just as dangerous dead as alive. These people are still in deep emotional shock -- and the Sacred Heart of the show lies dead in its grave, leaving everyone feeling listless and directionless.”
Ed and Stede stand alone, touching:
That’s the strained and sad expression of a man trying to figure out how to have an honest, mature conversation with the man he loves about the fact that he might now be carrying a deadly disease and so they can’t fuck anymore, and probably shouldn’t even be touching that much. 
Because look at that: Ed’s hand not on Stede’s bare skin but on his shirt over his shoulder.  It may look like a caress but to me it also looks like a restraining gesture; it stops Stede from getting closer. Stede’s hand on Ed’s elbow, because Stede doesn’t Get It yet. 
The curse continues: the mind of Blackbeard loves what it will lose the ability to touch. (And, once the Sacred Heart of Blackbeard and the show is dead, this is the most we see these two ever touch again.)
Ed is apathetic about going after Ricky. Why? “With Blackbeard’s heart dead, Blackbeard’s mind will soon die also. It might be a matter of hours.” Alternatively, “with Edward now infected with Izzy’s ‘curse’, he may die in a decade or so… or much sooner. Average lifespan of HIV/AIS without treatment is 8-10 years but there’s many different factors involved.”
We head to the Revenge for a rushed wedding, and “during this matelotage ceremony, Edward gives Stede a Look – definitely seeming like he’s thinking about Stede in a marriage sort of way himself. But we don’t see them kiss or even touch again. We can’t even be sure they’re holding hands or touching at all during this ceremony...”
We get one final shot of the Revenge and its crew. What’s the last we see of the ship? “The damaged unicorn figurehead, still protecting its crew.”
“I said it before and I’ll say it again: I believe that every time we see a shot of that unicorn sailing with the Revenge, it means Izzy’s alive and present in the universe.”
There’s a lot to analyze in the final shot of Ed and Stede:
First off: omfg, this is a horror movie “creature about to jump out at you” camera POV. Why would we get this shot during what we’re told by everything else is supposed to be a triumphant romantic ending? What the fuck would be in the house to be looking out at our two heroes? [...]
But also… that’s Stede and Edward, our two new lovebirds… standing pretty far apart for two guys supposed to be hot for each other’s bodies and totally alone with one another. (See that long leather sleeve? That was the side best armored because that’s where Izzy stood most often. That’s what’s between Edward and Stede now.) 
And look at that blocking/framing; Stede’s in the center, and it looks like that left arm of his is menaced/sliced at by the broken glass. Being alone in the center of the frame means Stede is therefore the most important thing and not their romantic partnership; Edward is shoved all the way into the right third of the frame. 
And subtextually? ‘Izzy’s Revenge’ has now come between Stede and Edward. It’s keeping them separate.
Ed’s smile is “fake tight tense.” 
“...Stede and Edward stranded themselves on this beach with no supplies or food or tools that we can see -- and the crew of the Revenge just… fucking… let them do that, too. Without even a sammie. (Their Heart is dead and their immense grief at that fact is not even a full day old. Have you ever had anyone very close to you die suddenly? How soon was it before you were back to anything like normal on the inside, even if you still had to fake it?)”
Ed asks Stede if he’s having second thoughts. “Ed might be (is) having second thoughts and has no idea how to begin to talk or even think about them, much less the massive horrible thing he needs to share with his lover… before he shares anything ELSE with him.” (The “horrible thing,” remember, is HIV/AIDS.)
The shack is small and shitty. “This is only 384 sq ft of floor space at best.”
Stede and Ed stand far apart. This is the closest that Ed gets to a real smile. There’s a bad smell.
“(How long was the rest of the crew back aboard the Revenge for the LuPete wedding? Could say maybe two hours or so? Long enough for something dead to grope its way back toward life (because the crew's unicorn can't rest in peace if Blackbeard's mind won't be taking up the mantle of crew's protector!), crawl out of its shallow grave, drag itself up the hill toward shelter… and not quite make it up the ramp stairs to the porch to be spotted immediately?)”
Seagull Buttons lands on the cross that marks Izzy’s grave.
Mera references The Tell-Tale Heart by Edgar Allan Poe. “Our boy… our beautiful and much beloved boy Izzy Hands… is, I believe, under the floorboards awaiting discovery. He couldn't make it up the stairs with as weak as he was, so he crawled under the house.”
We’re here in this new reeking pit (Izzy survived his first death in this season, remember? He got over it, just like Con said) and you and I both have hold of Izzy’s warm bare hands, because we have no fear and we know that he left his living death behind him in the grave, along with the queer grief nailed to hung up on his cross. 
We have hold of his hands because that’s what the lovers do to call someone back into life; Stede showed us how it works in this fairy-tale realm of OFMD. 
Izzy doesn’t have lovers in the text yet. But we can be that for him, because we love him just as much as the Visible Crew does. We will sit here however long it takes.
Chapter 18: Mirror, Mirror: S2x08
“Our Flag Means Death Season 2 Episode 8 is an intense internal mirror to itself, in that most of the emotional beats and plot points of the first half of the episode are repeated in reverse order for the second half. In addition to that, TWO midpoints are made visible when examining the thirds and quarters timestamps -- that hold between them a THIRD midpoint scene that is the key to understanding the stinger after the end credits... and the episode in its entirety.”
I’m not going to go into a lot of detail here because I am not serious enough in my media analysis. Here’s the chapter if you want to read!
And here’s the super-short version:
In their initial timestamp calculation, Mera finds that, “In this textual reading, Izzy's sacrifice and death are fucking ABSENT from the major beats.” The Gentlebeard reunion kiss is at the midpoint. That couldn’t be, “so I did it again, the other way, with end credits and stinger included in the overall run time... and got something WAY different.”
The quarters: face closeups of the two halves of Blackbeard, talking about or actually becoming Blackbeard. [Closeup on Ed’s face when he thinks Stede may be dead, Izzy’s face as he talks about feeding Ed’s darkness.]
The act transitions: Izzy and Ricky in a dance of death; first Ricky appears triumphant, then Izzy. 
The midpoint: Oluwande, Petra to Izzy’s Jesus throughout the last half of S2, unshrouding an Izzy mirror (Auntie) in a beam of holy light; this moment leads to Auntie being [sic] restored healed by Jim’s hands. [...]
So now we’ve discovered a textual midpoint (the Gentlebeard kiss) and a subtextual midpoint (Oluwande and Jim “resurrecting” Auntie from the dead). 
Season 2 Episode 8 is an internal mirror to itself, with not one but TWO midpoints -- and a THIRD midpoint centered between them that appears irrelevant on first watching, but is actually key to the episode’s message!
The center of this entire “mirror” is “Archie and Fang trying to bend the cell bars while Olu, somewhat undressed Lucius, Wee John, and Frenchie watch.” Why? “The way out is the way through! This one otherwise apparently useless scene, centerpiece of the mirror, aims us at the stinger of the episode after the credits.”
Okay, but why is that really the center? Why is the stinger Frenchie squeezing through the cell bars? “Because it’s literally a narrow escape that happened during the episode but is only explained after the credits -- achieved by Izzy’s closest mirror this season [Frenchie]. Frenchie squeezed through a very tight spot that several others thought might be impossible to get through. 
“With everything else I’ve just showed you that were mirrored events/beats in this episode… it’s highly suggestive of a possibility that there’s a second narrow escape that happened during the episode that will only be explained after the credits: in Season 3.”
There are a ton of mirrored events, but here’s the most important one: “Ed has attempted a bucolic life twice; first one failed miserably. Is that second attempt looking any more well prepared, well thought-out, or in line with his textual skillsets?”
On to the next!
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knowlesian · 2 years
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i have a longer and more eloquent post coming on this later, but because i want to say it now: i firmly believe it is basically textual analysis malpractice to ignore that izzy is a white man telling a māori man his “natural state” is violence and brutality, let alone sort of yadda-yadda’ing past the lengths izzy goes to try and force ed to act out that belief.
and like, i get it! these are not the kind of things that often get talked about outside circles largely made up by people who look more like ed than they do izzy. that’s a factor i am plugging into the equation; it’s a large part of why i’m writing these long-ass posts.
but it’s there, and it’s really key to their dynamic, and i think given the show we are all watching and the values we profess to share, giving that more attention feels super important.
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scoobhead · 2 years
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there’s a popular dracula post right now by a very very popular blog that argues that mina and lucy are gay (absolutely valid) by claiming that mina’s letters to and about jonathan come off as platonic. which is just.. untrue?
jonathan and mina have one of the healthiest and most devoted relationships in victorian literature. it boggles me that someone can look at the things they write about each other and even begin to claim that stoker failed at writing their romantic relationship. do we not remember jonathan collecting recipes he thought mina would like? do we not remember mina’s continually expressed anxiety over not hearing from jonathan - and her ability to immediately clock that the short letter he was coerced to send her felt off? are we just going to disregard the ENTIRE WEDDING SCENE???
the post in question bends over backwards to downplay or altogether avoid including passages where mina expresses her concern, worry, and genuine love for jonathan - which is ridiculous! i literally AGREE with the point being made about mina’s passages about lucy being extremely sapphic in nature, but something absolutely rubs me the wrong way about trying to support that argument by claiming that mina sees jonathan as nothing more than a “good friend”.
argue for lucy/mina all you want! god knows that there’s PLENTY of textual evidence to support you! mina is an entire bisexual and should be recognized as such!! but don’t disregard or actively undermine her relationship with jonathan to do it!!!
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magitekbeth · 2 years
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Hello again, Tumblr.
Let’s see what shenanigans we can get up to
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triptychgardener · 1 year
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In regards to that harleycrockerbert post, there’s something about how homestucks first real flash is there to describe the weirdly desolate, isolating feeling of the suburbs, with the audio of wind whipping down the street with chimes. I feel like that was meant to be a bigger theme somehow but got dropped
YES, EXACTLY! Like, that flash is the literal title card for Homestuck! It's notable that, whenever we see June/Jane's neighborhood, there's almost no one around. Just row upon row of near-identical houses, and besides from one possible neighbor, there is absolutely no "community" that exists there. All the kids, to one degree or another, grow up in a place of physical isolation. Dave being stuck on the top floor of a huge apartment complex, Rose being sequestered out in the middle of the woods, Jade on her island, but June's isolation is that particular American Suburban Desolation that's captured perfectly: a neighborhood, ostensibly for people to live in, but completely devoid of life. Even small details allude to this particular interpretation: why the hell does Dad Egbert have to constantly take his car to get more baking supplies? It doesn't take him that long to get back, but it's clear that a car is necessary for getting around in the suburban sprawl. The sort of archetypal nature of the tire swing, attached to a single, scrappy tree in the front yard. The continuing use of "can hardly be considered to be a proper [] at all!" applied to what would be considered normal for a Proper American Suburban Family. I could go on! And this is a much bigger discussion, but isn't it interesting that the game "Sburb" mainly functions through building up an endless, tumorous growth of the same housing, over and over again? One might even say that the goal of the game is to create a Sburban Sprawl so overwhelming that it makes a whole new universe, which certainly has... implications for the world beyond. I'd need to do a thorough reading of like, the Epilogues to see if that's actually conveyed/dealt with, but these continuing motifs of the suburbs never really leave homestuck even as it becomes more fantastical. I do kind of wish there was more textual stuff in the comic that dealt with that, but I think Egbert (and a lot of the kids) in Homestuck proper lack the necessary context and introspection at the time to grapple with the world that came before.
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clatoera · 11 months
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What are your thoughts about the epilogue? Specifically this sentence :
It took five, ten, fifteen years for me to agree. But Peeta wanted them so badly.
How do you interpret it?
Disclaimer : this question is for textual analysis, it's not meant to incite fandom war. please DNI if you don't like this topic.
Thank you so much.
@curiousnonny
BUCKLE IN BESTIES
So
I personally have always been a huge fan of the epilogue. Back when I was little (I say little, I was 11 when it came out) and read it I was like omg yay babies, but as I’ve grown and reflected on it I genuinely have come to love it for the depth of what it represents. 
Katniss makes it clear in The Hunger Games that the reason she does not want children is because it is not safe. It is not because Katniss inherently dislikes children or doesn’t want them because she’s tired of raising kids, it’s because the world is literally unsafe. She can’t guarantee them a roof over their heads, or food to keep them alive, and especially she cannot protect them from the games.  Katniss actually demonstrates a lot of maternal instinct towards her sister and Rue, so I would venture to say she has the instinct if she chose to pursue it. If i’m not mistaken I also think there's a piece of CF where Katniss considers what a good father Peeta would make. Katniss is afraid of having children because of the world she lives in.
The growth to the epilogue is none to be ashamed of. I think it’s actually a natural progression sometimes, as you get older, too. For example when I was Katniss’ age, I certainly was adamant that I didn’t want children. And now, I’m twenty five, and while I'm not itching to be a mother, I am far less opposed to the idea of it. I am by no means saying that people should be told they’ll change their minds or be ignored when they insist they don’t want kids, but again, Katniss was more afraid than she was against it. The world was not safe for her children. The world was not safe for the children in twelve NOR the children of Victors. I think Katniss, after 5,10, 15 years saying yeah. I think I could have a kid. Is a HUGE testament to the world she lived in after the war.  She felt safe enough, finally, after all that time to make the step forward and have children. 
The fact that 15 years later Katniss felt secure enough to have children means the world changed in the way she wanted it to. Everything she did, everything she gave, everything she sacrificed, was finally worth it 15 years when the world she came to live in was one where she could have kids.  This is a sign of a safe world. Of a world where there are no more games. A world where she doesn’t have to be the mockingjay anymore. A world where she can be mom/mama/mommy, instead. This is the world she fought for, where Peeta Mellark’s kids could be safe. 
I also think it’s imperative to say I do not think “it took 5, 10, 15 years for me to agree. But Peeta wanted them so badly” is ANY indicator that he manipulated her or anything of the sort. We know Peeta is the master of the scene, he could manipulate the audience of the capitol, but he never once manipulates Katniss. I don’t think that changes post war. Do I think it’s a conversation that could have come up naturally after..all that time together? Yes. Of course. But a conversation is not manipulation, in fact it’s healthy to check in with your partner where you stand on these sort of things. It could be as simple as a quick off handed comment after seeing kids leave the bakery. Conversing about your future is not inherently manipulation. It’s normal and really should happen in any long term healthy relationship.  In that same vein, I don’t think saying “Peeta wanted them so badly” is saying he’s begging for them. If someone wants kids…you can tell. In the way they smile at babies at restaurants. The way they wave back at them when they pass them on the street. The way they smile and shake their heads when they do something that a parent may find embarrassing but you’re trying to make it clear that they’re kids and you know that and its okay. It is obvious, when someone with a big heart, who wears it on his sleeve, wants children. I don’t think Katniss needed Peeta to say “i want them” for fifteen years. She knew. She saw him interact with them at the bakery. She saw the way he talked about Finnick and Annie’s son. Katniss knew because she loved Peeta, not because Peeta was harassing her about it. Baby fever is absolutely written on some people’s faces, and seeing how Peeta holds his son in the epilogue in the film, there is no doubt that Katniss knew, from loving him for 15 years, that he wanted them. 
 I also think, for Katniss, this was something she could control in her life. Her life in Twelve was really not her own. The lives of ANYONE in Panem were not their own. I have a long long essay here about the illusion of reproductive choice in Panem, so I won’t repeat myself too much. But I think exercising her control over not having children is a way for her to take control of her life and say “I won’t give them my children to slaughter. I won’t give them my children to starve.”
I also think Katniss’ age shouldn’t be overlooked. She turns 18 at the end of Mockingjay. Eighteen years old. That is SO incredibly young. Do I think people in Panem tended to have children starting around 18/19? Yes. But that wasn’t going to be Katniss, who is in mourning. And then okay five years later…23. So young, thats the age you graduate college. 10 years later? 28. Okay understandable, normal. 15 years? 33 years old. When I was younger I thought omg that is SO late in life to have kids that is SO old. No. That’s..a very normal, very healthy, very adult age to have kids. If I had them i’d be 32/33. Thirty Three is such a normal age to have kids, she’s still young, but she’s an adult. With life experience. And years to process her trauma. I think fifteen years makes SENSE when you are eighteen. Live. Figure out what your life is like in this new world, this world without games, or mentoring, or peacekeepers and district lines. She learned had time to grow, she had time to adjust to life. Fifteen years..it makes sense that after that time she’d be like you know what? I have proof the world is safe. I have faith. I feel comfortable and confident and ready to take this next step. 
This part I am treading lightly because I don’t want to get controversial. However, I think a lot of the rejection of the epilogue and the idea that Katniss would choose to be a mother comes from the idea that motherhood and things that may be considered ‘traditionally feminine’ are a weakness, and I think there's some deep societal misogyny at play. The beauty in life  as a woman is having the choice. THAT is feminism. The choice to have kids or not. The choice when to have them. Accepting and loving and embracing your fellow woman whether she has chosen to make a career as a homemaker or as a politician. That is what it’s all about. Having the choice and supporting each other. Having Children does not make you weak. It does not mean you settled into the patriarchy. You can be the mockingjay. You can be a mother. You can be a doctor. You can be a chef. You can be a teacher. You can be a nurse. You can be a writer. These things are not separate. You can make the choice to do these things, and that's what is so important that Katniss CHOOSES this life. She Chooses to have children.  We are not shaming women for that choice, just like we don't shame them if they choose NOT to have children.
She chooses to become a mother in a far more authentic, genuine way than katniss chose to be the mockingjay.
Leading a rebellion. Being the mockingjay. That was not really her choice. She didn’t really have the choice to not be the mockingjay, did she? There wasn’t really an option.
But Katniss CHOSE to have children. She CHOSE to become a mother fifteen years later after the war that stole the person she loved most.. By her own accord. Katniss finally got to choose and direct her own life's path. And Katniss chose to have babies with Peeta Mellark and more power to her for it. 
 Katniss led a revolution and it can all be traced down to the love she had for her little sister, who she raised. I don’t think having children is particularly out of character for a woman who changed the world out of love for a young girl.
For Katniss to go from the mockingjay to mom is probably the most peaceful and well deserved transition of her life.
And most importantly of all, it was clearly her choice.
thank you!
@curiousnonny
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mrmallard · 1 month
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The thing about Avery being banned right now is that people have been pushing back against the site's moderation for well over a year by now citing overzealous moderation - specifically, flagging trans selfies as sexual content even when the user is fully clothed - while dragging their feet on accounts that explicitly break the TOS.
We've seen users arguing between buying the checkmarks and the crabs to make the website profitable for the reason that this may be the first avenue of monetization to actually sustain the website, ever - and users who don't want to reinforce the haphazard standard that the website is being run by. We've even seen staff try to push users towards mass-buying the Tumblr crabs on a specific date, calling it "Crab Day", using the same rhetoric, only to be rebuked by users who are unhappy with the way the website is being run.
The issues that led to Avery being targeted by TUMBLR'S FUCKING CORPORATE BOSS have existed for well over a year by now. This is simply a progression in a direction that Tumblr has been criticized about before. What makes it notable is how explicitly targeted this has been towards a single user of the website, and how gormless and petty it reflects on a figurehead who singlehandedly reflects the management of Tumblr - the captain of the ship.
The core issues that led us to this point have existed for longer than this blowup, this is just the most public, unbelievably immature way that it could have crossed from "plausible deniability" to "explicit, textual confirmation".
And I just want to say: Tumblr users have never been beholden to the administration of the website. Historically, Tumblr users have rejected changes to the site whether it be the visual design, changes in TOS or whenever the website has changed hands. I remember when Tumblr was bought out by Yahoo for over a billion dollars, everyone was melting down over "yumblr" and fearmongering about a massive corporate entity forcing sterile corporate values onto our vibrant community.
That certainly did come to pass with the porn ban, but for most of the time it was just Yahoo flailing around trying to monetize the site and getting pushback at every turn, before ostensibly admitting defeat by selling the website for just over a million bucks. The porn ban sucked and we feel its effects to this day, and frankly it's probably the harbinger of this exact scenario - where again, the CEO of the website is beefing with a user after that user was harassed for years, WITH EVIDENCE, only for the administration to ban her for life and dismiss her concerns entirely on the way out.
But the sheer majority of the naysaying didn't come to pass, and the stuff we didn't want that Yahoo did try to push? Users fought back. People weren't afraid to say to management "this isn't why I use Tumblr, it sucks ass and we're going to bug the fuck out of you for it". People complained when post editing was taken away. People complained about ask limits and fanmail. Tumblr users have been complaining about Tumblr for longer than any other userbase on the internet. We have never been beholden to the administration of the website.
Are we bound by TOS? Sure, but look at all the cowards who flag users en-masse and send them death threats, who somehow come out the other side unscathed. Fuckfaces break TOS all the time. Being noticed by staff obviously puts a lot of pressure on you to follow the TOS, but think of every bastard on this website you've ever seen break the rules and go unpunished. Secondly, think about the raw, hyperbolic nature of Tumblr's comedy. This website has always had leaner guidelines than other social media sites. Short of making terroristic threats - and Christ, can't that be exploited by the world's most thin-skinned CEO - Tumblr users are known for taking a joke way further than it probably needs to go.
I'm getting off track, so here's my point.
Tumblr's culture, its norms and community, come from us. And that has always come at the expense of the reigning power over the website - whether it be David Karp or Yahoo before Automattic. Tumblr users have been enjoying the website at the expense of the website for years, but it might be time to become more vocal about it. Go back to your roots as Tumblr users. Complain. Make memes. Make sure this shit goes down just as noticeably as shit like Do You Like The Color Of The Sky. That has always been what we do.
This was not an isolated incident. It was the most visible instance of this happening, and given that once again, the CEO OF THE WEBSITE - THE CAPTAIN OF THE WORLD'S STUPIDEST SHIP - is the one going after this one disgruntled user in front of the entire userbase, this is arguably the most notable case of transphobic moderation happening since Automattic bought Tumblr.
It's not transphobic solely because the user is transgender - it's transphobic in the way that her posts were mass-marked by bad faith actors, those posts were slapped with sexual content disclaimers, the user disputed these claims (successfully, until the team reversed that decision later) and she was personally banned while nothing happened to the people whose harassment of her and admittance to abusing the moderation tools to make her a target were catalogued and submitted to Tumblr staff. As if to add insult to injury, they followed up as they banned her a second time, saying that they found nothing wrong with the evidence of harassment she submitted.
Trans users have been reporting unfair treatment ever since Automattic bought the site Avery is just one of multiple trans women who've had to deal with this treatment, and she arguably got banned for being the most vocal about it. A bit hyperbolic in what she said, but nothing that other users haven't said before and perfectly in the spirit of the Tumblr community openly and brazenly taking the administration to task for their fuck-ups.
I do feel sorry for the staff who chafe under Matt Mullenweg. A former staff member has come forward to answer questions and talk about their time working at Automattic, and there are people working there who are employed around the world, who are always putting out fires, who need the steady paycheck for the work that they do. This isn't a call to harass or single out staff.
But I do think that Tumblr users have rested on their laurels in regards to criticizing and challenging Tumblr's administration. The institution of Tumblr. And given that the foremost authority over this entire fucking website is singling out and personally banning users, and threatening to report them to the police and the FBI, I think that has to change.
I think Tumblr users have to rediscover their sense of civil disobedience and challenge this horseshit as far as it will go.
All that Matt Mullenweg can do is shut down the website. That's bad for sure, but WE are Tumblr. WE give this website its value ("value" as in the content of its character, its beating heart. Revenue-wise, we suck the place dry lmao). And I would rather take Tumblr down in a blaze of glory than let this malignant cunt fail his users and personally go after them when they get too loud in criticizing how he runs the site.
So do what Tumblr users do best, and complain. It's all we really can do imo. The worst case scenario is that Matt Mullenweg goes full meltdown, drops an orbital nuke on some tags and/or decides to ax the entire website. And that would genuinely fucking suck - I would lose a lot of longtime internet friends who have shaped my life for the better over the course of a decade.
But if the CEO of Tumblr got so ass-blasted he wiped out a bunch of tags, that's a point where we can point at him and go "that's wrong, you fucked up and broke your own terms of service, you literally cannot justify that outside of sheer petty anger". And if he nukes the website? That would genuinely be hilarious. There's no coming back from that. Dude would go down as the most high-profile ragequitter in the history of the entire tech industry.
I've lost my original point in the mix. Point is, Tumblr users have never taken this corporate dogshit lying down. Make memes. Bake this horseshit into the history of the site, and never let Matt forget the day he lost the trust of Tumblr's entire userbase. There's no way for Matt, or Automattic, to win this. So make it as hard as possible to justify what happened to Avery, and shitpost as hard as you can.
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thesweetnessofspring · 9 months
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What are your thoughts about the epilogue? Specifically this sentence :
It took five, ten, fifteen years for me to agree. But Peeta wanted them so badly.
How do you interpret it?
Disclaimer : this question is for textual analysis, it's not meant to incite fandom war. please DNI if you don't like this topic.
Thank you so much.
@curiousnonny
I have already made a post on why Katniss deciding to have children was her biggest and final rebellion against the Capitol and in that point out that Katniss's decision previously to not have children came from her trauma and not because she wouldn't want to be a mother.
Katniss is very maternal and clearly enjoys taking care of others, even if that comes with "terror." She loves Prim and has a very maternal role with her in a way that is not a given for an older sister. We see it again with Rue, with Wiress in the Quell, with noticing children in the Seam and the little girl in yellow in the Capitol. And it's also worth noting how she dreams of Peeta being a father and how warm and happy that makes her even through the next morning.
As for the quote, the key word here is agree. I've seen some people take that as if Katniss is a light switch and she was fully against the idea of having children until Peeta nagged her enough that she switched from "disagree" to "agree." But really, agreement is a bit of a spectrum. Obviously ultimately having children, Katniss had to be on board. And that process took 15 years. But was Peeta nagging and guilting a Katniss who was vehemently opposed to having children for 15 years?
I really want anyone who thinks this to find one instance when Peeta guilted Katniss over anything. Not Katniss feeling guilty he loved her so much when she wasn't there yet, but where he was arguing and manipulating her to do something she told him she didn't want. That idea is so against everything in Katniss and Peeta's relationship and against Peeta's character.
Most likely, Katniss spent 15 years thinking...it would be great to have children...but what if something happens to them?...but look at that cute little kid over there...is this world safe enough?...Peeta would truly make the best father a child could ask for...would I be a good mother?...how dare that person speak to their child that way, I would never...
When she says "but Peeta wanted them so badly" is giving us what ultimately tipped the scales for Katniss to agree, that Peeta's desire was bigger than her fears.
Also as a note, it's important to remember that the epilogue, like the rest of the series, is written in present-tense. So we are getting Katniss's thoughts in the moment. And in the moment, she's seeing her children literally dancing on the grave of 90% of the District 12 citizens she grew up with (including her children's paternal grandparents and uncles). I think it's natural her mind would be more on her concerns in that moment than anything. But like Katniss says, "only the joy of holding her in my arms could tame" the terror (emphasis mine). And that's what I walk away with and love about the epilogue. That Katniss, ever the protector, has fears and concerns for her children, but love for Peeta and love for her children also give her the joy to keep living. And isn't that how life is? "It's the things we love most that destroy us" but also, it's the things we love most that give our life meaning.
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