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extremelyblackandwhite · 3 days

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pairing: dad!bucky barnes x au pair!reader

warnings: age gap (reader is 10 years younger than bucky), mentions of smut (18+, dni if under 18)

author’s note: last time i posted was december 31. i am very sorry is all i have to say 🤣

masterlist

i keep these longings lost in lowercase inside a vault ...

- But I wanna go! - Sadie whined as Y/N was preparing her to go spend some time with her grandmother.

Sadie wasn't one to really enjoy being away from her father and Y/N had made the grave mistake of telling her she and her dad were going out for a meal which in Sadie's mind roughly translated to they're going out to eat without her.

- I know, munchkin but you won't like the restaurant me and daddy are going to. They don't sell any chicken nuggets.

- But daddy always makes them have it.

- That's sweet, baby, but I don't think daddy can change menus. I think.

The red head pouted as Y/N finished sorting her out. She wondered if Bucky had a nugget empire of restaurants he could choose or if he was that well respected a chef would just prepare it for him just because his daughter wanted it. Whatever way it was, she stood there realising she'd never gone on a date with someone that high up. Sure she had her little affairs with men that had a trust fund but they were just that, the sons of powerful men. Bucky was both - the son of a powerful man and a powerful man himself. Did she even know how to dress for a man like that?

She sighed, entering her bedroom and opening her closet, crossing her arms at the sight in front of her. "Downtown at 7", what kind of information was that? It could mean a myriad of things which required a different dressing code. Damn you Bucky and your vague instructions. Y/N eventually decided on a black dress, hoping that would work for everything.

Y/N looked at herself in the mirror and put her lipstick on. The same mantra was going over and over in her mind "it's just a date", yet every time she did she rationalised that it wasn't just a date. It was a date with Bucky, her Bucky, her boss Bucky, father of Sadie Bucky. Just do it, she told herself as she went to grab her purse to meet Bucky at his office, just do it.

- Has anyone ever told you you take as long as my daughter to get ready? - she jumped a bit as she heard Bucky's voice.

- What are you doing here?

- We have a date, have you forgotten? - he got up, his hands inside the pockets of the neatly tailored suit as he approached her. - Or are you chickening out?

- I'm not chickening out. I thought I was meeting you at your office. I mean, you usually finish at 6:30 and since you said 7, I thought ...

- I forgot that you're the boss of my company. - he interrupted with his characteristic smirk. - I got off early. Got a new suit, fresh shave.

- Shame. I do like the stubble. - she said as she caressed his face. His cheeks warmed up at her touch. - Maybe now I do need to cancel my date with you.

- You like Italian? - he said as he helped her put her coat on. It was almost like a scene from an old movie. - There's this restaurant downtown a friend of mine opened, really quiet and private.

- Wanna hide me, huh? - she smirked.

- No, no ... shit, that's not what I meant. I thought you'd like something more private? I don't wanna hide you I mean look at you, you're so gorgeous and ...

- I'm just joking, Sergeant. - she interrupted him as she saw him get into a state of rambling. Bucky always knew what to say so to see him so tied up and awkward was rather enjoyable for her as she was the one to usually end up in that situation. - I think it sounds good. You really didn't need to go through all of this.

- Why? Did you prefer I skip right over to sex? - he smirked, making her cheeks flush with warmth as she recalled the last night. - See? I can joke too.

- Yeah sex with you is kind of a joke. - she retorted which made Bucky smile at her wit. - I dropped Sadie off at your mother's but she may call you at some point.

- Yeah, I called my mum to speak to her but apparently she is upset because there's no chicken nuggets? Care to explain?

- Long story. - Y/N shrugged. - Is she okay?

- My dad's probably boring her to death with model trains and my mum is feeding her every sweet treat they can find, so I'd say she's fine.

- She's going to be impossible tomorrow, isn't she?

- I was hoping she stayed at my parents tomorrow as well.

- Why? I'm bored, I have nothing to do until I hear back from my VIVA and Sadie keeps my mind away from it.

- I have plans for you tomorrow.

- What kind of plans?

- Y/N, doll, do you ever stop asking questions?

- I'm a scholar, my job is to ask questions. It's almost like I asked you to stop being bossy and impossible.

- I am not bossy and impossible.

Y/N snorted a bit at that statement. She adored Bucky and he had been nothing but a great boss - to her at least. He was a perfectionist and liked everything done with the best results in mind which sometimes led to him being quite impossible, specially if her was in a sour mood. Heck, sometimes she'd even been on the other end of it yet it usually ended up with him apologising.

- Let's just go before you decide you don't wanna go out with a bossy and impossible man.

- Jokes on you, maybe I do prefer my men bossy and impossible.

- And still you dated ... what's his name?

- Oh c'mon.

- Bet he didn't take you to a nice restaurant.

- It's not a competition and right now you haven't taken me anywhere.

- The driver is waiting downstairs, I was just waiting for you.

- You got the driver? Bucky, I could've driven us there.

- In the yellow monstrosity? I think not.

- HEY! Ducky is a great car.

- The fact you named your car makes it worse. It's a Fiat 500 cosplaying as a Tweety Bird.

- You know the word cosplay? Wow, you're a very advanced old man in your pop culture.

Bucky rolled his eyes, wrapping his arm around her waist and bringing her downstairs. He didn't exactly knew how to act on a date with her, she was not the type of woman he usually dated - he actually hadn't even dated in a while, he was one to just go to dinner for one night stands only. His last date, Sadie was 5 months old and he went out with a woman named Elizabeth who worked in Wall Street - a date which had been cut short by his constant wondering about Sadie.

This was different, first Y/N didn't work in an area which matched his and, at least in his head, was a lot more educated than him and probably worried about his daughter as much or sometimes even more. It was just different and he didn't exactly knew how to handle it in a suave manner and she seemed to notice as they sat. She gave him a knowing look before opening the restaurant menu.

- How many people here do you think are convinced I'm your sugar baby? - she attempted to break the ice, her little mischievous smile as she looked at him over the menu. Bucky laughed at this, looking around before looking back at her.

- Probably no one. If you were my sugar baby, your dress would fit you properly.

- Hey! - she playfully kicked him under the table. - This is Marc Jacobs.

- You wore that dress for your interview to be Sadie's au pair.

- That was ... a while ago. I had just started at graduate school.

- You had these really funny bangs and you used to carry around all of these really colourful notebooks.

- Yeah the breakup bangs. - she giggled. - You know, I had just cut them the night before and I cried so much when I woke up because I thought they would ruin the interview.

- Maybe your true calling is being a hairstylist.

- If I don't pass, then it may be an avenue.

- You really think you're not gonna pass your VIVA? C'mon, you're the smartest person I know.

- You're just saying that so I'll end up in your bed tonight.

- Uh, no, if I wanted you to end up in your bed tonight, I wouldn't need flattery. Just fifteen minutes alone with you in the restaurant bathroom and my hands.

She opened her mouth to respond back but immediately closed it, not sure of how to exactly answer to that. She'd heard stories, she knew he was right ... heck, she had experienced it just last night and she had to admit the idea of it was not entirely off putting.

- Don't change the subject.

- You changed the subject first, doll. - he shrugged. - You're the only person I know that doesn't believe you.

- I don't wanna talk about it, Sergeant.

- Bucky.

- What if I prefer Sergeant?

- Darling, you can call me whatever the hell you like, as long as you're calling me.

taglist: @talesofadragon @winters1917 @vladsgirlxx @stinkerbelle007 @maybefoxysouls @blackwood-bodecker-housewife @chipilerendi @kandis-mom @belennasif @abitofblues @floralwsloki @montyrokz @sealxfredweasley @legendarytrashcopeclipse @sydariah @purple-vegan @mrs-bucky-barnes-73 @slowdownbeforeyouregretit

#sebastian stan #sebastian stan x reader #sebastian stan/reader #sebastian stan imagine #sebastian stan x y/n #bucky x reader #bucky #bucky barnes #bucky/reader #bucky/you #bucky x you #bucky x y/n #bucky/y/n

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rxttenfish · 3 days

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Asking because I’m extremely curious about this, how did MonProm’s writing get different over time? I remember you saying that the lore and characters feel different, and that it's missing sincere character interactions, too. I know almost nothing about the lore and I’ve only seen a few people mention the characters, so I’d be interested in a rundown of what aspects you think got worse in the series

I wouldn’t mind a very long response since I’m not that active in the fandom, I need to catch up on what happened

sorry for taking so long to answer this! i kinda waffled on it for a long bit, mainly because i started doubting myself again, and whether or not this was me simply overreacting or being tinted by nostalgia or simply being extremely picky and choosy in what i like (the last of which is true, i seldom get into fandoms at all for this reason and stay away from most popular media, but i wasn't sure if it applied here). i've posted about it already, but i'm in the middle of a psychotic episode where i can't feel a lot of pleasure to begin with + most things i do experience ending up solidly in the "very bad" category, so as you can imagine, i really didn't want to mislead and check that i was actually in objective reality.

as it is, this is also when a lot more screenshots started to be posted in the monster prom tag, and that helped me bridge the gap back into returning to the games themselves and feel like i was making a more accurate judgement. if you're one of those people who have been posting screenshots, i sincerely thank you, and i appreciated seeing you in the tag greatly.

for those not in the know — i've been in the monster prom fandom since it first released, prior to even the first additional ending to be added (the "Punch the sun" ending, and i recall the minor fandom drama that happened at that time due to it). my impression of monster prom is very much influenced by this, as what got me into the first game was the fact that the characters genuinely seemed to care for each other and were friends with each other (not merely tolerating each other's presences nor dressing it up, they sincerely thought of each other as friends and were open about that fact), on top of the wide variety of small details and statements that, if taken at face value, could create compounding complexity in the lives of each and every character and had wider implications for their lives.

no, they were not necessarily explored nor even necessarily "real", with so many conflicting events and statements, but i liked this too, because it meant a wider flexibility in what you could imagine, helping to create a more tailored experience for everyone who thought about these characters. this was what i liked about the early fandom too. what was baseline "canon" was so vague and minimal that you could have wildly different interpretations of the same characters' histories and relationships with each other. you would have radically different perspectives on what the world itself looked like, what it was like, that there wasn't really any wrong answers so long as their personalities remained the same. this is where you got the old headcanon of polly and liam being childhood friends who knew each other as humans, or that the world of monster prom was post-apocalypse where humanity itself had gone extinct or only existed in tiny pockets, or my personal headcanon that both monster and human society existed right next to each other and had minimal crossover for petty cultural reasons. this was also prior zoe-as-ro, and there were wildly different interpretations of zoe's personality, with most going for a far more disquieting creepy-cute than the deep nerd we got.

this is why you get stuff like the timeloop theory, where everyone is repeating the same weeks leading up to prom over and over, and are perhaps vaguely aware of it but broadly unconcerned. this is also why it felt like the joke that, the characters were still in high school but were all fully legal adults with most in their 20's, best landed, because it was absurd and strange and didn't quite make sense, but the world itself was inherently absurd and semi-malleable to begin with. realistically, i felt like everyone understood it was making fun of the trope of having adults play teenagers in american sitcoms and wildly casting outside the age range, but for more in-universe explanations it wasn't any different from the way that you would have a large, dramatic ending in which everything changed, but then you'd restart and everyone would be right back at the beginning with nothing different, or even having conflicting events in the same run. it was a dream-logic that fit with the tropes and, thus, diagetically made sense.

to be clear, i don't mind canon having a set, well, canon on which it refers back to itself. i don't mind expanding that or including more things which are set in stone. but there was a perceivable shift in how the games handled this over time, becoming a lot more... bitter, it felt, towards all of these different branching ideas and concepts that, yeah, the people making them knew wouldn't necessarily be "canon" because "canon" already liked to contradict itself so much. most people weren't even sold on any one idea, and there was a much greater sense of enjoying and appreciating all the varying ideas people would come up with even if you personally didn't share them. making the characters be out of character was the real crime, because then it didn't diagetically make sense in the same way, didn't wholly fit.

(again, this is not to say fanon didn't happen and characters weren't smoothed down into a simplified personality that fit these varying fan-interpretations instead of the game itself. certainly damien love/lust was just as bad as it had ever been, and everyone loved to mangle his character into a more stereotypical "bad boy with a heart of hold" all the time. but it certainly felt less set-in-stone about it than it does now, with any deviation from the norm being considered strange and odd and even broadly shunned from the wider fandom.)

all of this is setup for establishing what the writing, lore, and characters felt like in the earlier days. the characters were the strongest part, with their relationships to each other being equally as important. the lore played it fast and loose and was far less interested in setting anything in concrete because that wasn't the important part. the lore wasn't the important part, which was what made it all the more intoxicating to think about, all the more fun to play with.

montrip is easily the biggest offender when it comes to setting everything in all-or-nothing terms and demanding absolutism from the world. broadly i blame the hitchhiker conversations for the worst of it, but i think ultimately the way they handled the entire premise of the game is where this problem stems from. it's not really an exploration in the same sense that you might explore the first game, discovering different perspectives and different people with different relationships to each other. it's an exploration in the sense of a sequel that over-explains the monster, that takes the most boring option out of all those that were possible and floating around and settles on something that was blatant, obvious, typically rejected not because of how novel it is but how trite and par for the course it is in the rest of the genre.

yeah, okay. humans know nothing about monsters and there's a "monster dimension" that exists separately from the human dimension. there's no crossover between the two of them. of course there's a big grand-scale fight between the eldritch powers that zoe used to be a part of, from which not only are slayers the main organization against them, but also the merkingdom has some horse in this race too. it's an urge to make things so universal in explaining them, in revealing connecting threads which unite everything that's ever happened in here, that makes the worldbuilding and lore immediately much more boring than it ever was before.

and it didn't have to be this way! nothing in the first game contradicts any of this too explicitly (see the above, the first game loves to contradict itself), and i would even be happy if this was basically canon but never stated or confirmed to be the big overarching everything going on underneath it all. i believe you should probably know these things about any world that you create and have them in the back of your mind. the difference is that you can know these things and keep them in mind, even focusing on things where its very relevant, and still not reveal them. this is why you have lore bibles, after all. every horror writer knows exactly how their monster works and the full underlying reason for everything that happens, but that doesn't mean the audience will see it or possess this same information too, and leaving it intentionally obscure will make far better stories.

which, this is bad enough, but it wouldn't be the breaking point for me if this was all there was.

but the worst thing of all has to be the slow decay of the very same characters that sold me on this world, this lore, this game in the first place. monster prom is nothing without the characters in it. it's a dating sim, it has nothing but characters to get you to play, and liking these characters are the entire reason anyone would pick up monster prom in the first place.

and the first game pulls this off extremely well. it's all in the tagline: be your worst self. they are, indeed, all terrible people. yes, even that character that you just thought of right now. they all have points in the game where they commit atrocities, where they kill or hurt people, where they do inexcusable things that could not be ignored in a more serious setting.

but that's the point. i think there's something very powerful in creating a character who not only do you love and love their personality and the way they interact with the world, but who also are inapologetically terrible, and to have the humor and the charisma be so good that you don't get bogged down in the "this is awful". likewise, it never feels the urge to really go out of its way to justify what's going on. this is not to say theres no discussion of if someone "deserved it", but usually there's still the sense that the joke is on them, that this is still an extreme reaction specifically for comedy and not necessarily something that can be justified. you can have damien set leonard on fire and have it feel earned, without prompting the needed reaction of what it's actually like to watch someone burn to death.

this is what sets the prank masterz ending apart from the rest of the game, and really establishes it as the first real "bad ending". because nothing that you do or happens in the prank masterz ending is any different from anything else that happens in any other run. you summon evil beings from other dimensions as a throwaway gag on how visiting one location raises your stats. you kill other people and damn them to terrible fates. you watch as body horror happens. the only difference is that, in the prank masterz ending, the laugh track doesn't play.

the rest of the game and the writing echoes this philosophy, this careful interplay of tropes that keeps everything tongue in cheek and yet sincere enough to make sure emotional beats still land when they're needed. the characters feel true to themselves and their own emotions, even when the world is extreme and excessive, when everything else runs on comedy logic.

this is also what i noticed failing first as time went on.

like i said, fanon has always existed and there's always been very specific ideas as to what characters are like in the same way fanon always flattens down characters into the same tropes over and over. scott is stupid and innocent and doesn't know what sex is. damien is violent and hot and too cool for anyone else. miranda is the idiot girl character. repeat over and over and over until you get sick of it.

but it's been an issue as time has crept on that canon has started to approach fanon and began to merge with it. now, scott is so innocent that he can't even curse. polly starts being mean to her friends and saying things that would be very hurtful to hear. the merkingdom isn't really super evil and fucked up, it's just miranda that's like that. they become simpler, easier to digest, streamlined for social media posts and mass-sharing. they become less and less subversions of existing tropes and moreso just another example of them, something else to add to the collection, not their own individual stories.

even further from this, what more complex traits they had are now stated and not shown. polly is stated to be smart and clever in a way that her party girl persona doesn't imply and to be sincerely rather down to earth with the people she cares about, but we seldom ever see this anymore unless its the game specifically trying to make a point about it, in which case it won't let her do anything that implies cleverness and moreso will just outline it in the narration. vera is stated to care for people in a very genuine and heartfelt way, but seldom will get a chance to do so, and every opportunity for her to do so to their faces is missed while she will just outright state it later. it does not feel consistent, it does not feel like any of these are intended reads of their actions. it feels like the devs have something they want to do but no idea on how to actually do so. and forget it if you want these traits to manifest in small ways that show up in unrelated moments and scenes.

the dialogue becomes harder and harder to tell between each speaker, if you are just looking at what's said and not at the pictures attached to it. the characters' distinct voices have been eroded away, so that they speak more and more like each other, relaying the same terms and ideas in the same words. perspective becomes a suggestion, instead of a must.

this is something that started back in monster camp too, as all of the endings in that game felt ultimately the same as every other ending. it's very hard to place or define the full reason why, why there feels like there's no emotional stakes nor investment, why everything feels moreso like selecting different coats of paint and trying to find all the different ending pictures rather than being interested in exploring the characters as characters.

stranger yet, the series that started with the tagline of "be your worst self" has experienced a kind of... softening, for lack of a better word? what i mentioned about being able to handle the balance between terrible people who do terrible things and the light tone of the game starts to change, as abruptly the same characters who were down with violent murder in the first game start to lose their nerve, acting more and more on more typical morality. it's one of those things that feels like it's starting to damage the tone, as abruptly it's not as absurd as it used to be, demands less suspension of disbelief which could buffer and support the rest of the setting on it. there's even a part in one of the endings in montrip which involves current-polly and current-scott looking back on their monprom selves and reacting in horror at how violent and careless their pranks are, in a way that fundamentally felt like it was undercutting and disparaging all the things that felt fun and made monprom what it was.

which is odd, really, because more and more i feel like the characters in these games like each other less and less. the friendships and genuine enjoyment of each others company that brought me to this game in the first place has gone. now they don't mention each other as much, don't care for each other's feelings and reactions as much, aren't as willing to support each other. they are more and more found on their own, relied on their own, seem to seek out contact and interaction with their own friends less and less. it feels like they're all separating out into their own worlds, but also feels like they wouldn't willingly want to interact with each other if they weren't already forced together by some other outside contrivance.

if anything, i'd compare it to every other dating sim out there, where you, the player, are the most important person in these characters' lives, and they only feel ambivalent or antagonistic towards every other character. which, again, is not why i picked up monster prom or why i liked it so much in the first place.

and it's because of this that it feels like the current state of the series has to focus on its increasingly weak worldbuilding and lore, trying to form a more serious foundation without character relationships being so tightly bound together, without the characters themselves being more developed and rich, without an aspect of absurd humor to rely on.

more and more i've noticed monprom has to rely on referencing other series to make itself funny and create humor, which, again, it's always done. it was just easier to ignore back then, if you didn't know what was being referenced, because there was always more going on in the exact same scene to bolster it and give context clues as to the setup and punchline at play. it feels like the current games are much more dependent on you knowing pop culture references in order to have any fun with it, and i'm someone who, again, is very picky in what i like or what i'll seek out. i'm not interested in a stream of references about other things that i would much rather be doing than playing through a game that feels like it hates that i like it at all, when i could, again, just be engaging with the thing that takes itself seriously and knows what it wants.

#all the care guide says is 'biomass'#monster prom #asks #vanillabeenflower #this is. so long i am so sorry.#and its still not my entire thoughts because i have so many thoughts #this is an unedited ramble tbh and im very sorry for that #i have more complaints like #how fucking snide and condescending the narration is to its own characters #which it already had but gets even worse in the later games #which is why despite loving aaravi i dont want to play moncamp at all #where a character says they like something or feel something and the narration has to be so. sarcastic about it?#like how i mentioned about how it feels like how its looking down on them as people #instead of whats probably the intended read which is #more jokingly calling them dumb in an affectionate way like how you might do with friends #and ofc theres the whole miranda rant #i hate what theyve done with the merkingdom and i HATE adrien as a concept i wont lie #just. cool. this female character is too stupid to count as a lore character. we obviously need a MALE character to fill in instead #we cant just have miranda talk about this or center any of the other female characters #and how they feel about this and whats going on for them #no we need to make up a new man to talk to instead #im. im still really bitter about it i wont lie.#like i said i could go on and get way more specific about it #i just feel like any and all emotional weight to this has died and the characters are more and more obviously actors on a stage #for your own self gratification rather than their own people living their own lives #this is so bitter and i really shouldnt put this in the main tag #i am so sorry everyone who will see my rant. but my peace must be made.#dont worry im already asking myself if im just making all this shit up myself #what if some of us liked that the characters were so mean to the player and had no qualms about aggressively rejecting us #because it gave some illusion of them being able to make their own choices and decisions in what they wanted

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wyrmswears · 2 months

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more libber super hell au because i COULD be normal but no i wont be

#i should specify. libber isnt one of the forbidden five in this au. assuming kai and bonzle escape wirhout the blood moon.. theres some kind #of other exit. this serves as her entrance. i havent decided if ill come up with my own reasoning or try use what we get in canon #libber gordon #ninjago #ninjago dragons rising #SORRY FOR THE DOOMED YURI. except not actually. last post i vaguely hinted that she had a crush on maya and now ive gone all in for lily #libber loves all women i believe this truly.#ninjago libber #kai smith #ninjago kai #ninjago au #ninjago spoilers #dragons rising spoilers #dragons rising s2 #ninjago dragons rising spoilers #wyrm draws #libber superhell au

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pizzaqueen · 1 year

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Eddie is forever grumbling about “losing” his shirts, storming out of their room and flopping dramatically on the couch, declaring his favorite shirt is gone forever, it was there one minute and now it’s just gone. Gone gone gone!

And Steve will sigh and say it can’t be lost, shirts don’t just get up and walk out and Eddie will say this one did! all but harrumphing. So Steve will go in their room, look through the same pile of shirts Eddie looked through a moment ago, and come back out, holding it up, saying “this shirt?”

And Eddie will say it wasn’t there when he looked and they’re all black, it was camouflaged, and take the shirt half-annoyed, half-sheepish and murmur something about how there’s definitely a shirt stealing gremlin living in their walls that takes Eddie’s shirts then puts them back for Steve to find and make Eddie look like an idiot

And Steve will roll his eyes and try not to smile knowing it will happen again and again. And some days he finds it amusing, others annoying, but it’s all part of living together

#steddie #Steve x eddie #steddie headcanon #Eddie munson #Steve harrington #brought to you by me being convinced I lost my softest Metallica shirt for the last two days #and then finding it right where I’d already looked lmao #Steve definitely does this too and doesn’t have the excuse of most of his clothes being black :P #or he does the where are my glasses thing when they’re on his head lol #we’ve all been there right?#also why did I write most of this in future tense except a couple of sentences in present ¯\_(ツ)_/¯#alsooooo sorry if someone’s written something similar!!!#i had a vague feeling after posting someone might have 🙈😫#pizzaqueentxt #pizzaqueenfic

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wolviez · 13 days

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morph+wolverine as that fucking "hes an ally i might have a chance!!!" img

#x-men #xmen #x-men 97 #xmen 97 #morph #wolverine #logan howlett #james logan howlett #logna x morph #wolverine x morph #morpherine #sorry im just posting random shit these were the last 2 eps so i ws keeping my mouth shut 4 now 😭 lettin it sink in 4 everyone lmaaoo #so any gifs/screencaps will b late. but i can vague abt morpherine its funny

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kyouka-supremacy · 1 year

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Thoughts on akutagawa being drawn with no highlights in his eyes, hair, coat, or on rashomon,,,like everything is drawn pure black? I like when he's drawn a little bit like not-human--contrasts real well with Atsushi's dilemma of being a tiger, personally thinking. Also like when he's drawn like a void. Little bit like the cryptid creachur he is. I think you wrote something about it in the tags on panels in his introduction in the Manga. I like to think other characters also see him the way we see him so his void ass scares the fuck out of others too. Man's skeevin and tweakin even in his design

I'm OBSESSED with Akutagawa's design. Look at him. This is what he looks like on a white background:

And this is what he looks like on a black background:

It's BRILLIANT. He literally disappears in the black. He's the ultimate monster. In his appearance, he embodies what above all is most scary for the human psyche: the darkness, the unknown. The way Harukawa took advantage of the the art rule of never using pure black by breaking it in the most clever way! No light gets reflected on him, because his form absorbs everything– is absolute darkness. Visually, his figure itself is Rashomon eating everything it encounters, and it's genius.

He is so nightmare coded. I love his big, inscrutable eyes that look like two voids, two black holes. I love how oftentimes you can't tell where Rashomon ends and where he starts, I love how sick and unhealthy he looks. I love how he looks scruffy like an abandoned dog. I love how young he looks– way younger than he is. It gives the impression of a ghost, someone who was killed before growing up and is now stuck with his young appearance no matter how many centuries pass.

I adore everything about these chapter 33 pages. The way he initially appears as just a single black shape, hardly resembling a human. His crunched, unnatural stance. The staggering. The way you can feel with your senses the thick and sticky blood. The top picture is the left page of the manga, so just imagine the visual impact of turning the page to be hit with an almost full-black page- it's meant to impress, it's meant to shake. The way he's one with the darkness: no textures on him, only white making out his outlines. The way you can't tell where his coat ends. His left arm hanging numb, limp, lifeless, inhuman. The spurts of blood on his face. His smile, how you won't notice it at first and how that makes it all the more disquieting; its juxtaposition with the violence that surrounds him and that he is the cause of. The way he covers his face, the impressions of hiding and looming. His face being split, which only adds to the horror elements. Akutagawa's character design as a whole is an ode to the gothic and grotesque.

And then this. Hello??????????????? The progression from how Akutagawa used to be to the last time we saw him alive is astonishing. It's upsetting. It really makes me wanna cry from a technical execution standpoint alone (imagine from a plot related standpoint). All the black is now replaced with predominant white, everywhere. His shirt is white and candid and pure, emphasizing contrast with the splash of blood in a way that almost results sickening. The blood on him is his this time. His face looks rounder, and healthier, and he overall looks more mature. His smile is sincere and genuine, it's light, it's affectionate. This scene is the culmination of Akutagawa's character both visually and thematically: the monster, Akutagawa, too, can be good, and arguably had good within him since the very start. Does it really matter if he lives after this? His character already developed to be the best version of himself‚ and this panel here is the proof.

Further readings: (1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6)

#Sorry I blacked out and now it's been three hours #Don't kill me over the last line akdbfjksndjeks I love Akutagawa I swear #No wait I think I got it: Me 🤝 Atsushi → bullying Akutagawa as love language #ryūnosuke akutagawa #bsd #bungou stray dogs #bsd ch 04 #bsd ch 33 #bsd ch 88 #Me: I will NOT compare chapter 88 panel Akutagawa to an angel. That is NOT something I'm willing to do.#bsd analysis #people asks me stuff #Thank you for the ask!!!#Actually someone reblogged a post from me with a very clever addition about Akutagawa's physical appearance #I haven't gotten around to reblogging it yet because I wanted to take a good read to it but it was very clever!!#I'll try to reblog it as soon as possible #I also love how half the time his coat will just look like a gown. I adore it.#I love his heels. He does have a very feminine figure‚ in a way– especially in how thin / feeble he looks.#It's real fuel for my transmasc Akutagawa agenda #Back to Anon's words– I only have a very very vague memory of writing tags about this it must have been from a very old post?

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kangaracha · 2 months

Note

daffodil + chan

a song

the prompt: daffodil (a god bows before a mortal)

read it on ao3

---

"You have no power over me."

running through his hands like water, and suddenly the earth is not his to control. The skies do not turn with the twist of his head, lightning does not fork in the air when his eyes, dark as night and yet still lit by some unearthly light, fall upon you, his mouth wide as if to gasp for a breath he cannot take-

And yet, still, it shivers down your spine; the magic that draws you here even as you rip it apart, the prize of your conquest to rip the world into two.

"Take it back," he hisses through his teeth, the ground trembling with every syllable that slides down his tongue. You watch his mouth as it forms the words, the flash of teeth behind thin lips reminding you of the way that the swordsman you'd fought through to get here had smiled at you - the last of his seven challenges, the last of his demons, or angels, or citizens of the sprawling, damned city he claimed as his kingdom.

And here you stood, at the pinnacle of the eighth, and stared him in the eye without cringing away because now you knew the truth. Now you knew that what he whispered in the dark was a lie and what you saw with your eyes wasn't always true, and though he may be a god and a king amongst beings that you could never hope to rival, a god can only hold as much power as you give him. A god can only claim dominion over a beast that bowed to his dogma.

You see now that you are no beast. You are no believer in any lie he utters to the darkness.

"Take it back," he says again, the note of his voice changing. He pleads, his brow furrowing and his shoulders curling in as if waiting for the final blow. "Take it back now, before it's too late."

"I can't," you tell him, and you watch him fall to his knees, and you know that it's wrong and your heart pounds in your chest and it

like the ground does at the impact of his knees, crumbling into the pieces it was in when you first took his hand, alone on the side of the road with only one thing to call your own. And what was that thing, the little warmth you'd held to your chest in the dark and the cold? What had you traded away for the comfort of the house that crumbled around you now? Why had you destroyed him to get it back, where was it now, why did it not appear within his hands at this, the hour of his reckoning?

"Please," he spits into the cold ground, the dirt and the leaves and the curl of ivy that grows up the walls around you, old and ancient and not yet sprouted from its roots all at the same time. His hands curl in the dirt like he can reach down and pull the earth to him, like he can stop the wane of his power if he just tries to hold on a little bit tighter. "I know what you want, and I don't have it. I can't lose-"

Broken, fragile thing. Small god of limited earth, crouched at your feet like he might worship you instead. You'd thought him all-powerful once, and then you'd thought him severe and his servants and beasts and playthings petty, and then you'd thought him

because he'd smiled at you in the garden that bloomed from his own hands when you expressed your desire for a flower to tuck in the braid of your dark hair, and his hand had been soft in yours, and when he looked out across his kingdom and the clamouring faces of the people he'd brought to live there, he'd looked at them the same way that he'd looked at you.

Beneath your foot, the ground cracks, fracturing outwards like a spiderweb. It's your heart, you realise morosely, sinking from your chest and into the depths of the earth, disappearing with whatever he'd taken from you; and it was a wretched thing and it had betrayed you a hundred times over, but you still mourn at the loss of it and all the dreams it had carried with it. It blooms in your flowers in the corners of the room, embeds itself into the land and sings along with the song of his power, a thing you can hear but cannot touch, a beast once born that now does not belong to you.

"I'm sorry," he says, his breath like mist in the cold air, and even without your heart, you can't bear to see him so cold.

Your hands reach for him without permission, your body kneeling in the dirt before you can stand your feet firm upon the earth and refuse to move. He flinches away, but your fingers are soft upon his chin and the curve of his jaw, gentle when they brush the soft dip of his neck. "I only wanted to know what it was," you tell him with a voice that cannot hold itself steady. "I thought if you loved me, you would give it back." It's the only voice you have - you are not like him, or like Felix, speaking with many tongues. You don't have any power of your own.

"It's because I love you that I can't give it back." His voice is hoarse, every word a knife that he swallows without ever once flinching. "It's because I love you that I couldn't tell you what it was."

"But didn't I deserve to know?" you question. "Doesn't my life belong to me?"

Finally, his eyes rise, looking up at you with a fire that belies the cold of his skin. "Of course it does," he gasps, and his hand reaches up, dirt-stained fingers dragging at your cheek. "That's why I gave it to you, and I never asked for anything else."

"But you wouldn't give back what you took in the first place."

The sudden violence of his voice crumbles the walls and fractures the sky, the clouds blooming te dark colours of a bruise. The absence of his hand on your cheek stings in the cold; his face turns away, screwed up in regret and a pain he won't allow you to feel. You lurch forward before he can disappear, drawing him into your arms; stiff shoulders, spine of beaten steel, slow beat of a heart you once held in your hands.

He'd stood so tall and unmoving in the morning light, when you'd first walked down this path, and now in the dark of the setting sun and the ending of the earth, his weight slumps into your grasp, his resolve melting into the warmth of your body. "I didn't want you to suffer again," he says to the soft cotton of your shirt and the curve of your collarbone, his breath a whisper against your skin. "I couldn't watch that, when you asked me to make sure it would never happen again."

Surprise comes in the pause of your breath and the still of your arms, the jump of a heart you're not sure you still possess. "I asked you to make me forget?" you question the world behind his back, and into your neck, he sighs.

"You couldn't forget," he murmurs. "She was dead before I found you, and when I took her from your arms - you couldn't forget. There was nothing I could do to fix what had been broken. And then you begged me to let you forget, so I remembered her for you." He pauses, his throat hitching like he's swallowing something down. A sob maybe, or the tears he will never let fall. "I can't give her back though. She's not here anymore."

You push him upright, your hands on his shoulders, his neck, his face. Brushing away the hair that falls in his eyes, wiping at the blood that drips from the cut on his cheek. "Why didn't you tell me?" you ask, because the answer is incomprehensible. "Why did you let me go this far?"

"Because I was scared," he admits, and his teeth clench and his spine stiffens against the urge to hide away from you again. "Because I'm a wretched, evil, stupid thing who thinks they can-"

His words die in your throat; vile, wretched things that you store away to spit out later, into the ground where they belong. He is none of that; he is soft, and hesitant, until your fingers find the sharp curve of his hip and the lines of his back, dragging him closer and his lips open like there is nothing in the world to devour but you and

#sorry about the images everyone but tumblr wouldn't let me keep my aesthetic #and i refuse to bow to any shitty website #how tf do you align text on here #anyway #stray kids #bang chan #stray kids chan #bang chan x reader #stray kids x you #y/n without the y/n #lee felix #is mentioned #lee know is also in here if you can spot him #roo writes #the fight i had to a) finish this and b) post it #anyway 7k written for the last three days #a lil treat for #well for me because keeps refused to write me a fic and i got desperate #but for the love of god please someone read this please someone talk to me #i feel like i really cooked with this #one hour of my life spent going down a rabbithole #oh what else was i going to say #vaguely inspired by labyrinth #we went way off the labyrinth rails but #it's there #alright shit alright i'm gonna post it lets go i'm nervous

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sparring-spirals · 2 months

Text

There is a universe in which i was caught up properly on CR whenever what the fuck went down and Imogen verbally and definitively declared that- after everything leading up to this and the back and forth and indecision- that she'd be willing to take down her mom if need be. and i would have been deeply insufferable and writing 20+ separate meta posts and liveblog yelling posts and shitposts. This is not that universe so instead we will put this post here where i can have wildly uninformed (aka 20 eps behind) Emotions about it until someday i actually catch up.

(I know. i accidentally wrote potentially wildly off base/deeply out of date meta again. what can i say. i like shaking the concept of An Imogen (even if it is Outdated Imogen) in a jar. sorry.)

Because i was watching long enough, I think, to see Imogen in the throes of the hope for something better, to understand that Imogen was viewing her mom was a figure and an idea and an answer, that would make things easier. Her mom was- gone, so early. And so her mom, in her mind, was not a person she was an idea, and there was so much hinged on that! Dogged determination and anger at her father and a deep seated dislike of the powers in her hands and head even as they gave her a guilty rush. There were promises there that maybe no one else had made, but Imogen believed. Things built up. Expectations made. Lore crafted, even unconsciously, around someone who was, yes, important to Imogen, but more importantly: Missing. Gone. A blank slate to be filled in. A promise of an answer guide to open questions.

And then she meets her mom, and Liliana Temult goes from a figure to a person- with all the bells and whistles and rough edges. She meets her mom and her mom turns her away. Tells her to run. Tells her she should go. Tells her to leave.

And Imogen doesn't. In the same way she kept visiting libraries, keps asking, kept pushing for answers when it was just about her magic and her headaches and the voices. Imogen always, always wants to know. She keeps digging, she keeps trying, she reaches out, over and over and keeps trying to touch this figure in mist until she's real under her hands, and. Evidence piles up- of deeds gone wrong, blood on her hands, a figure standing next to Otohan (her friends bodies scattered, lifeless, around Otohan). She keeps reaching out, keeps trying, and is rebuffed, over and over. Things get worse and the skies get redder and magic goes dead and she's still- unsure, because what if there's a better reason, what if there's a better way, there has to be a reason, why. There has to be, right- maybe if- maybe. Maybe-

Its just like- a person as an idea. As a symbol. As a promise. One you build yourself up around and towards. One you talk about, not talk to.

And then the fog clears, and they are a human.

(And she's your mom, and she's not what you imagined. She's done you wrong. She's done your loved ones wrong. She's hurt you. She's hurt others. She's going to keep hurting you. She is going to keep hurting everyone. She is too far gone to reason with. She is not listening to you. She is flawed. She is. dangerous. She looks so much like you. You look just like her. You are so similar. You have always known you were similar. You always hoped. You.

Are not her. You are not hers. She is not yours. She is not who you thought she was. She was always someone else. So are you.)

Imogen walks through the bases pretending to be her mother. Liliana is a known face- a powerful one, a figure people fear. A well known silhouette. Imogen slips into the shadows of it, sometimes, when it serves her, but we know- she knows- its all an act. All a lie.

Liliana, after all, is alive, and well, making choices that she believes in and fighting for things with a dogged determination maybe only matched by her daughter.

Imogen knows this. I think. There's a part of her that maybe wishes that wasn't the case.

"There is no loyalty with this blood." And after all- only living people bleed.

#im so sorry for yet again writing deeply uninformed. idk if this counts as meta. its more me going 'hey if this IS whats happening. WILD.'#critical role #cr spoilers #c3e88 #imogen temult #spar speaks #liliana temult #this is REALLY just a word vomit based on gut assumptions from what i actually watched. my vague knowledge from posts ive seen. and now thi #im functionally playing connect the dots here which is. Not How Meta Should Be Written so take this more as fun speculation prose i guess??#no one take this too srs its mostly so if/when i finally watch everything i can reference how off my assumptions were #this is def based off where things were around when the solstice happened bc thats when i was last mostly caught up #so the odds of me fully MISSING some important imogen dev and character things since then are. actually its not odds. its like.definitive.#but maybe this is true for at least early campaign imogen to ep 50 imogen #and it would be VERY cool if it actually applied to her now #i kept saying 50 eps but looking at my last liveblogs it might he closer to 20-30. ... still.

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ofmoonsandlight · 3 months

Text

sorry about your boyfriend. hes been a little stabbed. it was an act of affection though really. an embrace.... a cuddle even! lets call it a cuddle.... sorry though. would you like a hug?

#sorry for posting one of these right after the other i have the Brainrot #these have been marinating in my head for the last week .#tmagp #tmagp 6 #tmagp vague #needles tmagp #tmagp shitpost #the magnus protocol

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averlym · 7 months

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" just...come here. just sit here with me" (...that one scene from princess momonoke, click for better resolution)

#tw death mentioned for the tag rambles!! (sorry)#meme redraw gone wrong (high effort). don't ask me how i did this- i don't know either. consider this perhaps an AU of the pyre scene?#or more accurately just my internal wonderings visualised. sometimes the vibes from the implications don't pan out the same way #i also lost the original sketch somewhere in my papers. alas. i vaguely recall thinking this would be haha funny and then somewhere down #the line it turned to angst. other quotes that inspired this from the show were 'ily. i'm sorry' and 'i will always be so proud of you'.#smth smth they met on the roof!! vincent stops quincy from jumping off and then. vincent tries to die + eventually quincy kills him on the #very same roof. anyway the quincent death scene was spinning around for a bit in my head and out of the miscellaneous sketches this won out #wanted to play w the strong blue lighting + bg + silhouette things that you get w stage lighting // replaced the knife w vincent's scalpel #quincy is kneeling bc poses + idk why it's fun staging for him ;-; // also the proximity + intimacy.. // the pyre is also in the bg #but it's silhouetted behind quincy. i think the last quincy post made me associate symbolism (help??) bc as i was painting i was thinking o #angel wings ksdjfh // not to mention the halos. halos are always fun to paint.. shiny stuff...#and from the last vincent art. i guess the star and eye imagery carried over. hm. tried to get the quincy halo to match so its like a #rounder less spiky star? which hehe aligns w the sun vibes (that i??can't explain??) but more importantly here i was thinking about #binary stars for the glowy parts. two in orbit in pull to one another.. tension.. ue. also the glow for vincent goes to stabby eye so like #behind the face shown to viewer. meanwhile for quincy it goes in front of the face #and of course u have the downward linking implied line from quincy's tears +scalpel + glowy eye.#this is supposed to be rotatable.. in landscape form u can have either quincy or vincent upright (pov) + it should work both ways #//bonus stuff is vincent holding the skask w bloody hands + shadow looks like blood spatters. like it would if quincy did the stabby.#hhhh this is the most. confused i have been making a piece lately.. just toss in a lot of fun visual stuff and mix..#if the rambling analysis here seems pointless and confused i think that's why. this is why u should plan out your essays o.O..#oh. stuff i just remembered: the whole impetus for vincent planning his own death was so quincy would be happy / it's already #mentioned before quincy kills vincent that he's severely injured- vincent says it's fine- ig u could intepret it as a finishing blow?#hastened over the phaethon announcement- when they make the second announcement quincy looks up smiling until the admin gives it to #beatrix-he didn't know.. // <- so for this it's possible to infer that vincent wasn't very attached to living anymore.. hence why they look #more accepting above. while quincy is looking very angsty and conflicted. yeah.. // tldr! don't look into it too deeply it's a meme redraw #adamandi #quincy cynthius martin #vincent aurelius lin #tw knife

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todayisafridaynight · 3 months

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everyday i constantly think of masato's wheelchair and if that's his only one/main one no wonder he's so pissed at everyone

#snap chats #someone pointed this out to me like last year so im stealing it sorry cause I Think Of It Constantly #the handling of masato's disability will forever annoy me esp with how vague it is but esp his chair #one day ill draw masato with an appropriate wheelchair. maybe then he'll be happy for once #in a way i guess it could tie into how restricted or trapped he felt since the type of chair he's shown is more like. a hospital one #and not one youd really use as a regular user- like in that vein it is a bit of storytelling in that he can ONLY go out with help #since hospital chairs are SO much different from home chairs ESPECIALLY in regards to mobility and independence the user has #AND NOT TO MENTION HOW UNCOMFORTABLE THOSE CHAIRS ARE get his ass a proper cushion P L E A S E #like it portrays the idea that its unfathomable for him to go anywhere on his own and so in that vein . Interesting Storytelling #theres a lot of implications going on here if im so honest and again it makes for Really Interesting Story Telling #however i refuse to give rgg credit like that when it comes to disabilities. ... they havent earned that from me yet #see this is why the vagueness of his condition annoys me because he's shown to be independent enough to roll himself to his elevator #and presumably get himself dressed but he cant have a proper chair ?#because ik there are people who have expressed they have conditions where even writing is tiring #so if his condition was in-line with that and it was hard for him to push himself in his chair then i could buy it #obviously the issue lies with his lungs but i just want to know the full extent yk...#to wrap this up tho ive been thinking of character design in rgg and how we dont give credit to it enough #sooooo if i make a second post ten minutes from now thats why cause i keep forgetting to spam my thoughts on here LMAO #ok bye

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cuddlytogas · 28 days

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[sigh]

anyway. finally, the really really big one:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

#I can't tag this for my own blog organisation without putting it in the wider fandom tag so uuuhhhhhh #sorry to everyone who sees this but fair warning I'm being very critical of some popular fandom trends. dnr if you wanna avoid negativity.#Our Flag Means Death #gender stuff #Togas does meta #it's not an accident that all of these are about ed -_- i s2g some of y'all just CANNOT be normal about that man...#this was actually going to be a fairly concise post but then i decided fuck it i'm putting that whole last rant in writing #it's been building for a long time. and i've said lots of it irl before lol #it always feels sorta vaguely transmisogynistic but i s2g that's not the point #again i'm all here for trans reinterpretations and you can get off to whatever smut you like but they remain that: reinterpretations #they're not canon and stop saying that they are.

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