#another essay!!!!

[kithtaehyung]

RE: your response to my last ask: Yes I have to note take!! I’m definitely one of those people who will get to the end of anything, a movie, show, album, fic, book and just be like “yes, it was amazing! Vibes immaculate!!” But not be able to tell you why. I’ve just enjoyed interacting so much on here, ive started to take notes while reading from authors of fics i like so i can give feedback on WHY it is I like it!

Also, reading this was so therapeutic for me. The starkness of Yoongi’s dislike of himself was so… there’s definitely been moments where i could relate to that. And seeing the similarities and contrast between how reader and Yoongi think really was moment for me to like parallel that in my own life, like the people who care about me are in their own head on some level and not thinking about me like i think about me. This whole series has been pretty therapeutic for me on that level if you couldn’t tell from past comments, so… thanks for that *finger guns of unnecessary and anonymous vulnerability*

Back to the topic at hand, I love the contrast between the things reader is worried about and what Yoongi is worried about, and it’s really highlighted to me in the flashback to sidewalk talk, where he tries to commit to living in the present in that moment instead of worrying about the past. He seems very focused on how his past demons may manifest in the present, that he’ll repeat old mistakes, having regrets about how he’s negatively impacted her already with basketball. Meanwhile she’s focused on the future kind of. What people will think, how strange it will be, what her brother will think and do. Yoongi isn’t even actively thinking about that stuff because he’s blocking any future, that’s just off limits, on top of his worries about the past! That was a really interesting part of him, and them, to see!!

Also loved getting understanding of when he started thinking some type of way about her when she’d come back from college and give him hell!!

I just loved seeing his shyness and nervousness around her come through as well. It was so clear even through his guilt and regret and worry that she still was knocking him off his feet at every turn! He’s very clear even to himself that she’s someone he cares very deeply for on a personal level, even if he believes he can’t act on it. Not that that wasn’t apparent before, but this gave us a whole new look of just how deep he’s in.

I just wish reader knew how much the things she says and does matter to him!! I think she’s starting to, but still!!

It was also great re-reading Stay w Yoongi’s pov right before. I had forgotten a lot of the details in there about how much he appreciated her not testing his boundaries by sleeping on the couch, how shy he got when she called him hot, how nervous he got about asking her to stay when he went into work.

This part specifically had me all in my feels from Stay:

“The point is that, despite having several chances to do so, you didn’t overstep. Despite showing him—and telling him—how much you wanted to be here, you just… 

He might be in trouble.”

But having read some of your responses to feedback already about how this chapter was wanting to portray the turmoil he’s going through AND something you said a while ago about having planned around 12 main parts to this series has me nervous about 3tan9!! I just have a feeling that things are about to come to a head in a really angsty way as a last hurdle to the end!! Ofc i trust you to bring all the feels and in your no unhappy endings policy, and in every good story ive read the darkness before the dawn always makes the dawn so much sweeter! But whatever way it goes im so along for the ride!!!! You always feed us well even if it’s so different then what i guess at!!

Also rereading stay was a kick i needed to do my own job search and applying things this weekend like reader! If only I had a Yoongi encouraging me… His cloud pictures have been nice though… Wish me luck!!

-🚌

BUS I LOVE THE NOTE TAKING!! it's so smart! when i used to read fics on here, i would literally do live commentary with my author friends or just write down my thoughts on another tab while reading so i didn't forget! i wanted to make long/thoughtful reviews, and that was the easiest way to do so! let's get into this one under the cut bc i may have another essay coming along LOL

therapeutic?! omg.. that's so :')) i'm glad you found it that way. i've related to this, too, sadly. it's not a good place to be, and you really have to claw your way out once you actively work to get out of that headspace.

love the commentary about the different ways of thinking! it's so true. the people that care about you are thinking about their own fears, worries, goals, lives. if you're worried about how people perceive you? guess what. everyone is thinking about themselves and their own problems most of the time, so try not to put too much stock in what people think. at the end of the day, we have our own thoughts about our own lives. all of us are just living our own lives in our own ways. *finger guns back* aren't we all just people?

YES! the contrast between what each of them are talking about omg. he really does try that in sidewalk talk, with the exception of past references being reader's food stand moments. while he's focused on his past mistakes usually, reader's looking to the future. he isn't thinking about the future because, you said it, he's holding it from himself. at least, the future we know he wants. it's like he's stuck in a weird timeframe of the past and present.. he's in both. just not the future. i love this commentary so much wow.

AHAHAH HELL YEAH. reader didn't give a shit back then (at least, from his pov) and she doesn't give a crap who he is now if she wants to bring him down a couple pegs. i knowwww yoongi found/finds that attractive as hell.

3tan yoongi is the shyest confident boy. his aura is legitimately intimidating if you don't know him and don't know what he's going through inside his mind. but around someone he kinda sorta is into? so shy. it's endearing af and i love him. if only reader knew exactly how much she means to him... yoongi if you don't do something, move over bc i'm coming for reader mySELF LOL

OH MY GODDD i'm so glad you brought up those moments in Stay! bc yes, we can already see that shyness coming through! him getting a little flustered when reader called him hot/unfair got me kicking my gd feet dsdkfs if reader only KNEWWWW I WANNA SCREAM. yoongi loves his privacy and boundaries, so when this one person didn't cross them when they had plenty of opportunities to? of course he's gonna start thinking some type of way. especially if they're also caring and smart and just a good person..

DKHVDKF i'm just gonna say.. i'm not holding anyone's hand through 3tan9 LMAO i'm just gonna sit there while y'all read it. and you'll see why when it drops ahahahahahahhelpmehahahah. but real talk, i'm glad and honored that you trust me. we all know there's more to come, including angsty moments, but no sad endings<33

WISHING YOU ALL THE LUCK WITH JOB HUNTING!! omg that's so exciting :D you can do it i believe in you with all my heart. thank you so much for this fantastic review and have a great week!

#another essay!!!! #damn y'all #i love you #🚌 anon #lovely people #asks:3tan #3tanDS #*ryenfictalk #mailbox💌 #long post

[cosmarrrs]

get this boy out of the magnus institute NOW

#cosm's art!!!!! #magnuspod #the magnus protocol fanart #the magnus protocol #samama khalid #jon sims #the wires behind him are supposed to look like canary wings #This is another reach piece #IM GONNA FAIL HISTORY I FUCKING DREW THIS INSTEAD OF DOING MY ESSAY IM GONNA DIE #but it's okay #Hashtag dropout

[cock-holliday]

Idk a lot of the backlash to broadening who falls under what terms comes from the need to distinctly fall under the specific label you worked towards…but distance from adjacent labels only limits your allies and puts you in a rigid box you can’t come back out of either.

Saw a post by a trans woman horrified by the concept of having overlapping experience with femboys because “fuck you I am a woman.” You are. A woman with a lot of overlapping experience with a GNC man. You’re not a GNC man. He’s not a woman. And the gap between you two is not a chasm.

“How dare you say trans men are similar to butch lesbians. Trans men are men.” Yeah, men with similar experiences to butch lesbians. The butch lesbian isn’t a man. You aren’t a woman. And the gap between you is not a chasm.

This mindset doesn’t even account for GNC men who also ID as women, trans men who use the label of lesbian. Butch can be a label for a person of either AGAB.

Binary trans people wanna separate themselves from each other and from nonbinary people sooo bad. Now it makes eggs feel like the jump from GNC woman to man is an insurmountable journey. A femboy gets told he’s making a mockery of trans women’s experiences. A transmasc femboy is seen as just a faker. A butch trans lesbian is seen as a faker.

These labels are all just plots on the map, not one side or the other. You journey to the farthest edges and you find twinks and lesbians who look and act identical despite being supposed opposites. It’s all made up, we’re all queer.

#LJsm #anyway whether you are butch or not #please read the titular essay Butch is a Noun #it does a beautiful job of hitting on how a label can encompass so many identities #and one persons use may contradict anothers and that’s fine #if you take two cis women and hold them up to each other is their presentation feeling and grasp of womanhood the same?

[bakedbeanchan]

AU where Zuko doesn't practice helmet safety

#baked bean originals #avatar the last airbender #zuko #sokka #iroh #atla #what would even happen after this. aang's firebending teacher is dead #he'd have to learn from. jeong jeong. #on another note i love how violence is such a big deal to aang #but it's just a chore to sokka #he did not gaf about killing all those guys in air ships or combustion man #“YEAH BOOMERANG :D!!” sokka you just murdered a man. #he cheers after he murders combustion the exact same way i cheer when i finish writing a tedious essay

[ahaura]

i saw someone point out the frequency with which liberals back social justice movements... how, for instance, when ferguson happened under obama it was not popular and there were many, many liberals who found the blm movement, in a sense, "in violation of [liberal] sensibilities" (when liberalism as a rule does not challenge the status quo, only maintains it and sees any call for revolution or real change as disruptive or 'bad for optics' and therefore not acceptable) but then when trump became president and he opposed blm a lot more liberals decided that the blm movement had merit because they viewed it from a team-sports perspective rather than a worldview based on morals and an understanding of the systems in place in the U.S. - that it was more comfortable for them to operate from a "trump bad" basis rather than "the american justice system and the police are inherently white supremacist, which are inherently, automatically, and always violent"

+ that, if trump was president while israel is carrying out its genocide, liberals would have NO problem denouncing israel and demanding for a ceasefire because they're comfortable operating from the 2-party system basis, NOT from a framework based on material conditions or factors or any acknowledgement or analysis of imperialism, colonialism, or capitalism. but because biden is a democrat, and democrats are supposed to be "the decent party" "the lesser evil" "more respectable" when, in functionality - in real practice, they don't want to disrupt the status quo. (internally, maintaining systems of white supremacy and capitalism; externally, furthering U.S. imperialism by maintaining hegemony and continuing the practice of exploitation and extraction of labor+capital+resources from the global south)

which is why we're here, a month into a genocide, and liberals are so cowardly and gutless that, in the face of our democrat president allowing and funding the genocide of palestinians in order for the U.S. to maintain its military base in the middle east, liberals IMMEDIATELY jump to "well, you HAVE to vote for him still, because trump will be worse!" and go "well im powerless there's nothing i can do", immediately folding like a wet paper bag in the face of the american empire rearing its ugly head in the most blatant, naked way in years, instead of thinking "this is unacceptable, i should pressure my elected officials and do everything i can - be it combating propaganda, contacting my congresspeople or senators, protesting, or engaging in direct action - to ensure this stops as quickly as possible".

there are liberals STILL IN MY NOTIFICATIONS who go "well you'll be electing a fascist if you vote for trump" not realizing that YOU CAN'T SIMPLY VOTE FASCISM AWAY. (which is not to say you should vote for republicans; that's not what i'm saying. none of us have said it.) we're pretty much already there. it's 2003 all over again, with the patriot act and all. the american war machine is pumping out racist, orientalist, pro-colonial, pro-genocide propaganda on behalf of the ethno-state america and its allies have backed since the so-called state's inception. people are being doxxed, fired, harassed, and attacked for visibly supporting palestine/opposing israel. islamophobic hate crimes are on the rise; a 6 year old boy was murdered not one month ago, an arab doctor in texas was stabbed to death. antisemitism is on the rise as well, thanks to the conflation of antisemitism with anti-zionism (which nazis have and will attempt to co-op in order to 'justify' + then act on their antisemitism, racism, and genocidal worldviews). our government is silencing people, brutalizing protestors, and arming and funding an ethno-state committing genocide - everything that would have been called fascist if it was under trump. but because it's a *democrat* liberals place "vote blue no matter who" and "optics" over the extremely basic moral stance that "genocide is wrong and people have the right to self-determination, autonomy, and life". arabs and muslims are already so dehumanized in the west that liberals (whether they consider themselves liberals or not) consider it an inconvenience to talk about the ongoing genocide that is happening with the blessing of OUR government. in this they expose their selfishness, the shallowness of their morals, their chauvinism, and their racism/orientalism/islamophobia/et cetera.

for example, if you see israeli troops waving a gay pride flag and the israeli state touting its support of gay people while said iof soldiers are murdering men, women, and children en masse every single day and you somehow????? think that because gay people are the ones doing the killing or a state claims to support gay people is doing the killing is ok then 1) you have fallen for pinkwashing propaganda and 2) that you find the murder of palestinians, or any people, permissible by a colonial force that uses causes liberals may genuinely care about in order to disguise, whitewash, or "lessen" the severity of the injustices it does unto usually black and brown people outside of the U.S., then you are just as bloodthirsty and depraved as anyone you would personally assign those descriptors of.

once again, it goes back to resorting to a team-sport understanding of the world rather than approaching it from a material one.

#uspol #another mini-essay directed specifically at usamerican liberals. #pre-emptively blaming left-wing people or arabs or muslims for the inevitable loss of joe biden #instead of the fact that biden IS SUPPORTING GENOCIDE and also has been. generally a failure within the US as well. #like bitch look around you! look at the state things are in! AND A DEMOCRAT IS PRESIDENT!!! #📁.zip

[sexybritishllama]

in case anyone's wondering how neopets has been doing lately

#eloise talks #neopets #neotag #might type up another essay about the uc drama later

[tsururoach]

you ship ryomina because ryoji is a disaster of a bisexual. I ship ryomina because of the beauty of a suicidal boy that can love life enough that death can agree.

#I didn't have the strength to properly draw this out #maybe another day #but I really wanted to post it. #Ryomina #ryoji mochizuki #minato arisato #persona 3 spoilers #persona 3 reload #I have a whole essay I've written in my head since like #high school about how much persona 3 is a game about loving life first and foremost #alas no one would listen to me if i wrote it out so here we go #oomfs who are still leeching off my reload look away

[lukecastellanshandholder]

I think that the one thing that I will always absolutely loathe the movies for (other than single handedly screwing up the whole plot of the story) is for making up that bullshit rule about Zeus declaring that no god can have any kind of contact with their children. That’s completely not true but now a huge chunk of people in the fandom believe that rule as canon( because most like to pick and chose what is canon and what is not, and sell head canons as being canon to the books ).

The only rules that are stated in the books relating to demigods and their parents is that 1). Gods cannot blatantly and outwardly help their demigod children during a basic quest (such as help them fight monsters or help them travel somewhere for the quest). 2). That as of the time right after WW2 the big 3 gods are not to sire any demigod children as part of their oath that they made on the River Styx (which Zeus and Poseidon definitely didn’t break ). Gods are still able to spend time with their demigod children and mortal lovers on times out side of quests. However, it’s seen as taboo mainly because the other gods use them having to much to do, and too many demigod children as an excuse to just not do anything for them. Not send them a birthday card, not a visit, and not even being claimed in most cases.

That’s giving the gods too much slack! People like to say "well, they’re gods. They’re trying their best." No they’re not! And this is what Luke’s character blatantly points out!

Hermes not even bothering to visit every once and a while? Hermes not trying to help in even any little way with Luke and May's situation? It’s a main reason why Luke becomes so angry at the gods and even thinks about saying yes to Kronos’ proposal.

And who is the example of what could’ve happened if Hermes would’ve done literally anything? Anything at all? Percy.

Percy didn’t like the gods and Poseidon very much in the beginning ( he doesn’t really like them much now but, you know) but Poseidon at least helps Percy in little ways that can fly under the radar of Zeus and the others. The Pearls to help Percy escape from the underworld? Tyson? Poseidon even crashes Percy’s birthday party ffs! Sure Poseidon isn’t there every time Percy scrapes his knee or fights a monster, but he still shows Percy that he somewhat cares about him.

All Hermes does is tell others how much he cares for Luke and "really truly loves him", but does nothing to prove to Luke that he truly cares. But it’s not just Hermes who does this, almost all of the gods do this! Why? Because they know that they can just say "oh, well I was busy and I tried my best" and others will just believe them and carry on. Or worse, they’ll take what the gods say to heart and demonize anyone who would try to oppose the gods so that it’s seen as a bad thing to hold the Gods accountable for the way they act.

And this is a clear example of the overarching theme that the gods are actually just an oppressive establishment that won’t ever really change unless it’s destroyed or overthrown.

In this essay I will…

#I swear that I’m actually going to write an entire essay about this series #one day #but seriously #it annoys me so much that the movies made everyone think this #and that now it’s harder for others in the fandom to see that the gods aren’t all good themselves #they’re just the lesser of 2 evils when it comes to the titans or giants #another rant about (mostly) Luke? #yeah but what’s new? #luke castellan #percy jackson #pjo #percy jackon and the olympians #pjoverse

[kbsd]

when a lovely flame dies, smoke gets in your eyes

OR: what were we supposed to take away from episode 3 if not ‘bucky is a war widow’

#masters of the air #motaedit #hbowaredit #bucky egan #john egan #clegan #like it's genuinely a 1:1 parallel and i'm NOT supposed to read bucky in ep4 as a grieving widow??? #this kind of also turned into a rumination on how willfully optimistic bucky is that they'll both make it through the war #(he has no other choice. his heart couldn't take another—) #hence the titular smoke getting in his eyes. you understand #he's blinded by love and then by rage. and i adore him #this ended up being more of a video essay than an amv so i hope people enjoy it!! #i had a really good time making it and i'm really proud :') #particularly the sequence of him seeing the bomb in london -> seeing the bomb in germany -> the sunset in algiers #also clearly continuing my mission of making mota amvs to big band / jazz :))) #ANYWAY. #kbsd.amv

[crazykuroneko]

Tfw you saw this and went "oh silly Lestat with his silly god complex lol"

But then your mind gave your war flashbacks to:

And you remembered this tiny detail from their bedroom:

Then you realized who came when Louis confessed and asked for God's help :

And it's not funny anymore 🥲

#What If You Fell in Love with A Violent God #an essay by LDPDL #my sicko ship is properly sicko #who's doing it like them #and there's still that quote from IWTV #but reading is one thing seeing it's applied is a whole another thing #interview with the vampire #iwtv #lestat de lioncourt #louis de pointe du lac #loustat #leslou #moi.txt

[dendrochronologies]

it’s just me and this essay by hanif abdurraqib against the world

#yes i cannot keep my friends safe & i can't undo the long trajectory of harm inflicted on the universe !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! #BUT. i’d like to keep trying to make my own corner of this tragic spinning pebble as clean as i can #GOD. was on a lucy + julien spiral & one thing led to another & now !! #i'm back at American poet & essayist hanif abdurraqib talking about the dead lead singer for a band i listened to in high school. & Crying #and just really needed to pin this to my mental corkboard #LIKE. GOD #and of course. the yellow #💛 #y #hanif abdurraqib #frightened rabbit #scott hutchison #essays #lit

[turtleblogatlast]

Something I really like about Raph and Leo’s relationship is that Raph noticeably doesn’t hold back with Leo nearly as much as he does with Donnie and Mikey, and it’s really nice to see that from him.

Leo too would frequently fall into a natural strategist and second-in-command role of sorts, often actually giving his worries and thoughts to Raph where he wouldn’t normally.

Then the Shredder happens and this dynamic is thrown into a loop where they both stay solidly in their own camps of “we’re heroes, it’s our duty” and “we’re teens, who cares?” And during this, Raph not holding back from Leo is cranked up to an eleven and Leo flips around to mask more with Raph than he ever had before and deliberately riles Raph up so that fights are all but guaranteed.

Post-invasion, it’s clear they’re (mostly) back to how they were before for the most part, with an added level of respect and maturity (and trauma) there too, and it’s great to see because they’re an amazing duo when they’re on the same wavelength.

#rottmnt #rise of the teenage mutant ninja turtles #rottmnt raph #rottmnt leo #I love their dynamic a lot actually #it is funny to see Raph be all ‘hey buddy ☺️’ sometimes to Donnie and Mikey but Leo he’s like nah it’s on sight #and Leo for his part is like okay we should probably not trust the spider lady right Raph? RIGHT Raph?? #they work really really well together tbh and cover each others weak points amazingly #strong and defensive Raph and quick and strategic Leo #lethal combo #I could say more but that essay is for another time #codependency mention below / #okay but *eyes my post-invasion codependent Raph & Leo idea because the movie could so easily lead to that*

[jamiesfootball]

Actually I will say this in regards to Beard, Wembley, and James Tartt Sr

I think Beard After Hours really shows how much the tone of Ted Lasso is seen through framing lens of Ted himself. Even if Ted says the story wasn’t really about him, the thematic weight of the show is absolutely about Ted. And Beard After Hours may be a crazy hallucinatory version in its self, but it’s still basically our only glance into this world when it’s not actively being Ted’s World.

And i think it being Ted’s World is why at Wembley, we only see the implication of violence. It’s always been the undercurrent when Jamie tells people about his dad - that he pushed him to dominate, that he’s a dick - but in that locker room scene? Man. Despite the show avoiding using the word ‘abuse’, everything from the acting to the staging to the dialogue fucking SCREAMS the impending threat of immediate violence from the top of the scene onwards.

I don’t think I have ever seen anyone disagree on the reading of that scene. The way Jamie tells him ‘don’t talk to me like that’ — we all agree that that’s something he learned from Dr Sharon. We are all in agreement, after watching him punch his dad, that it was the first time he’s ever fought back. And we all believe it, that when James got up saying ‘you can have that one for free’ that the threat was immediate and very real.

But before it can reach that point it’s cut off. Beard pulls James away. It’s a tense, hard scene to watch, but the actual violence shown is very minimal.

And then we get to Beard After Hours, where James has followed Beard out of Ted’s world, and we see the actual violence that just as easily could’ve taken place, and likely has before, in a world where Ted Lasso was not the lens with which we viewed things.

#beard after hours #coach beard #james tartt #jamie tartt #ted lasso #special shout out to It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia because I think what they’ve done with the word ‘implication’ is the most subversive #aspect of that show #it has literally ruined the word for me it has neutered it’s ability to hide otherwise dark subjects #under the word ‘implication’. because Sunny made the word ‘implication’ as bad as the words it was hiding #but that is another essay for another time #abuse cw

[seadeepspaceontheside]

lol did we just forget that stephaine meyer is a bigot and funded for anti-abortion and anti-gay legislation during her height of her career. as well as her racism. what is up with everyone rewriting history all of a sudden. if we are boycotting JK wouldn't we want to do her as well.

#sea talks #ITS PROBABLY ANOTHER YOUTUBER SAID SOMETHING ISNT IT A STUPID VIDEO ESSAY TO SAY ITS ACTUALLY ANTIFEMINST TO CRITIQUE HER

[saw-tistic]

saw vi is like edging for ppl with competence kinks because hoffman will pull off some of the hottest, most mouth-watering and brutal quick thinking i've ever seen in my life and then, just to shake it up, just to keep me humble, he'll make some utterly incomprehensible decision like using strahm's fingerprints to cover his tracks again, despite the fact it clearly didn't work the first time. and he does it in a room he was gonna set fire to anyway. the money i would pay for a single glimpse into his mind

#at least you finally get to nut when he gets out of the bear trap #genuinely tho i am tying him to another chair and making him write a five page essay explaining his thought process behind the fingerprints #[hoffman voice] the inner machinations of my mind are an enigma #cider.txt #mark hoffman #saw

[celluloidbroomcloset]

Man, I think about that first beach kiss in Season 1 and how everyone said it was awkward and uncomfortable (it was, but damn there were a lot of claims about the actors being homophobic or some shit because of that). That kiss was REFLECTIVE OF THOSE TWO MEN AT THAT MOMENT. Stede had never kissed another man. Ed had probably never kissed another man he was really in love with. Ed surprised Stede, and he definitely wasn't 100% certain how it would be received. Fuck, Stede didn't know he was gay. He may not have known what gay is. He just knew that he was "different" and that his difference wasn't acceptable to a lot of other people. And suddenly he discovers what his feelings mean and what that difference is and he's doing it while also working through a shit-ton of complicated emotions about this one particular man? Of course the goddamn kiss was awkward; they didn't know what they were doing.

And then their second kiss is the one in the moonlight? Stede has worked through all those issues of difference; he's accepted that he's gay, he's embraced that he's gay and that he's in love with Ed, and what's more, that he wants Ed. He's had months to do it and probably also to maybe come to terms with the fact that he doesn't just love Ed, he wants to have sex with Ed. (When, I ask, has this repressed man in a loveless marriage likely felt defined sexual desire for someone before? And now he's quite obviously have sexual fantasies about this man and keeping his crewmates awake at night?)

Ed has gone through a suicidal spiral, hurt a lot of people that he does actually care about (and a bunch more besides), nearly died, woke up to find the man he thought had abandoned him sobbing at his bedside, decided to open his heart to that man again, amassed a ton of guilt and horror at his own behavior, and has no idea who he is at the moment except that if he goes back to being "Blackbeard," he's probably going to die.

After a day of peace and fun (pirate-style), they get to be alone together, really for the first time since Ed woke up (since they spent most of that day at Mary and Annie's, getting Virginia Woolf'd). But it's not awkward. They haven't fallen right back into their old pattern of being uncertain about their own feelings or about the other guy's feelings. They're both way more confident about their relationship and where it's going.

Stede deepens that kiss because he's been pining for literal months and now he's got Ed back. Ed's very much not ready to go further than a kiss, but he's obviously happier, and Stede is ready and willing to meet him where he's at. But, like, man, that's their second kiss. Like their first, it very much expresses where they both are - it's open, and it's tender, and, yeah, it's sexual in a way that the first one wasn't because they're moving towards that in their relationship.

I hope we get to see more casually intimate relationship things with them in the next season, when they've actually been together for longer and open with each other for longer, but I really love how this season builds on everything that the first one established. Of course their first kiss is awkward and of course their second one reflects how they've both changed, separately and now together. Then their third kiss is all desperation and longing and desire to feel alive (don't get me started on how Ed nearly died and Stede just killed someone and they both want to feel each other's heartbeats, dang it).

A lot of romantic comedies and dramas just treat the various kisses as stepping stones to the next point in the relationship, but the situations and characters developed in this silly gay pirate show prove how very complex and messy relationships are, and each kiss reflects that complexity and messiness. They're not stepping stones; they're reflections of what the characters already know and feel for each other.

10/10, David Jenkins and directors and actors, et al.

#ofmd s2 #ofmd spoilers #ofmd kiss #our flag means death #stede bonnet #ed teach #gentlebeard #ofmd meta #yet another essay #my apologies to my avengers peeps