#i want my silly little queer pirate show back | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

theimprobableone42 · 4 months

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I wanted to try and write something that would eloquently sum up my feelings, but I am not sure that’s possible.

I think I have been fluctuating between every stage of grief for the last 9 hours. When I saw the news about season 3 I was not in a place where I could react. I had to pretend that it was a normal day for another 5 hours until I got home. I didn’t want to be told “it’s just a show.”

The truth is it was, and will continue to be, so much more.

Ofmd came to me at a time when I truly needed it, as I am sure it did for many others. Truth be told I think it came at a time the world needed it. When queer peoples rights to be people are being debated and criticized left right and center, when hate is filing the world around is, OFMD came in with an open embrace. It came with acceptance and unconditional love. With it we found friendship and community. It helped us find our place in the world.

I am not the same person I was when I first sat down to watch the silly little pirate show. It has left a permanent mark on me, and I hope one day I can put this energy back into the world.

I still have a small sliver of hope that as a community we can turn this around, but I am scared to set myself up for more sadness.

Simply by existing OFMD has made the world a better place. I can not express the deep sorrow I feel that it will not be able to finish telling its story. We have had far to long a history of obscuring queer stories from public view.

The last line spoken by Holmes in Arthur Conan Doyle’s stories was “someday the true story may be told.”

OFMD was one step closer. Todays news doesn’t prove the word isn’t ready, it proves that we are still being held hostage by the same structures and ideals that were in place what Conan Doyle wrote those words. OFMD was revolutionary but it shouldn’t have to be. Real or fictional, everyone deserves their stories to be told.

That’s why todays news was more devastating then “it’s just a show.” It’s another battle lost. But we mustn’t stop fighting. Not for Our Flag Means Death, not for anything we believe in.

I just want to thank everyone who worked on Our Flag Means Death for putting so much joy into mine, and countless others lives. While I am devastated it’s over prematurely, I am so glad it existed.

“Nothing’s sad till it’s over. Then everything is.” - The Doctor.

#ofmd #our flag means death #ofmd season 3 #blackbonnet #thank u thank u thank u david jenkins #david jenkins #rhys darby #taika waititi #hbo max #someday the true story may be told

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libertyeveningsun · 6 months

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This has been a really tough year & a half for me as a lover of queer shows. First, it was the cancellations: First Kill, ALOTO, Willow, and ROTPL. Then it was Willow and ROTPL being erased. Now, it's what the writers did with OFMD (spoilers ahead)

OFMD season 2 was such a good season, it was perfect, and we had the most incredible scene with Calypso's birthday. They gave me the perfect Izzy Hands. And then, 2 episodes later they rip him away from me and then have the other character's just move on like it was nothing? I know they're pirates but that's not the pirates I've come to love

Obviously some ppl applaud the writing but it's left me feeling dead inside. The pure queer joy they gave us with episode 6 Izzy Hands meant so much to me and then they just killed him and forgot about him. I'm not sure yet if I'll watch season 3 without Izzy but I for sure will never forgive the writers for what they did to him

At least I got Bottoms, but it doesn't even come close to filling the hole in my heart. I feel like I can't afford to watch queer shows anymore and risk falling in love with characters that inevitably get taken away from me

I know there's plenty of shows out there with queer content that I can watch, but the problem is I want to watch my comfort shows. Especially when a show like Willow so fundamentally changed my brain chemistry, everything else pales in comparison to it. I just want my silly little queers back, but I guess that's too much to ask

#ofmd s2 spoilers #first kill #a league of their own #willow 2022 #grease rise of the pink ladies #ofmd #our flag means death #its been a wild month ofmd fans but i think i'll be showing myself out soon #this fandom is too large and i cant find comfort in it with people expressing their (valid) opinions on how izzy's death was a good thing #its back to willow for me

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nightgoodomens · 2 months

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I'm sorry you're seeing so many bad takes. Fandom can be so toxic! I hope you don't mind some storytime?

I was very active in Supernatural fandom for 8 years. I watched the toxicity grow as some fans became so blinded by their obsession with a character that they hated anyone who disagreed. Those fans ended up harassing me out of the fandom and I swore I'd never be that involved in something again. Then, along came a silly little pirate show called Our Flag Means Death. It had been a decade since I'd engaged in fandom, but I was pulled in. And again, I watched those fans grab onto their character and twist the narrative to be only about him. Twice, actually. Both instances caused me to turn off anons because I was being bombarded by anon hate telling me to kill myself. I also had "fans" trolling my fic, telling me I was a shit writer and all sorts of lovely things. Again, I left. Frustrated. These trolls had ripped away the joy I felt at these ridiculous queer characters out there finding love. And now I'm loving Good Omens (and Michael and David because I have eyes) and I feel relieved that I haven't received any hate over it. I hope it doesn't come, but fandom has taught me it will.

Anyway, this got way out of hand and I apologize. I just wanted to say I see you and I understand. You're one of my favorite blogs and I look forward to seeing you on my dash. I hope you were able to do something fun today. Thank you for being you!

Awh, anon, I love you!

The last time I was in a fandom was… a good many years ago. I criticised one fictional character and then someone sent me a website where people were discussing how people like me and me specifically should be dead.

It was… an experience to see that.

All these years later it’s Good Omens who pulled me back in, which was a lot of fun for many months. I was so shocked at the beginning how everyone seemed to generally have the same view and were kindly discussing different theories. It was so much fun.

Now… now I mostly stay away from the dash. But luckily by now I know a bunch of fabulous people so I don’t mind staying in a smaller circle. It’s always a shame when fandoms turn into a mess but they always do. It happens every single time.

I’m so sorry for the awful people you had to deal with, anon :( I’m glad this fandom is still being lovely to you. And I had a fantastic day, thank you for asking 🥰

“because I have eyes” you and me, boo, you and me 😁

#NightGoodOmens answers

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spiderh0rse · 1 month

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freeman's mind notes part 6, e26-30

e26

new intro scene! AMS.

wants a gnome. Does not know what he's talking about here.

would feed his gnome granola and house it in a cage

gnome agnostic

can't think of anything people other than him have done right today

still waiting for hidden treasure...

knows German

"eeeh"

a bit surprised shooting road signs is the correct action to take

you are indeed number one, buddy

i hesitate to tell gordon about the deeply ableist roots of freak shows

would attempt to headbutt a headcrab

thinks the OAR tram is just for fun

[makes banjo noises]

HATES spinning tram

should have been a pirate

e27

PIRATE EISODS PIRATE EPISODE

MECHANICAL LONGBOAT AND MUSKETS

still wants to surface

it's still his exact speech patterns hes just doing a voice and slang

repeating flintlock.......

milksops,,,,, I am just going to be repeating back his silliest words here

oh yes raid those empty boxes

MONKEYSHINES

Miniature grapeshot is pretty clever tbh

he must sound nuts to anyone who happens to survive his passing

fighting.... fighting roosters. I will not quote directly.

"there be all manner of queer beasties in this hole" very true

should that be slur count five actually???? uh.. nah. Nah.

awwww we're done already :(

e28

drops the voice. Coughs horribly

has a LONG way to go before his voice sounds like that normally

ambassador pineapple!!!!

the HECU KNOWS his NAME

SNRJJDMRKRK THEY KNLY KNOW WHO HE IS BECAUSE OF THE BEARD

immediately distrusts something convenient

looking for money in a side room

headcrab SNOT MONSTER couple in the vomitorium

"yore dead."

yeah this amount of explosives underground is unpleasant

not yet at the phase in his life where he has to double tap people

not being paranoid would kill him, he's pretty sure

frog people mentioned AGAIN

owls are very dumb beasts. They probably can't read minds

freeman please stop being ableist i beg you. i BEG

has a perfect shot on some marine that isn't in his way. Doesn't shoot at him.

has $10,000 of gold in Massachusetts.

once again I cannot recognize the language but I can only assume he's speaking Hindi here

Eddie mention AGAIN. this time about transit

curious if his suit can stop heavy caliber bullets

"ha HA" goofiest laugh I've ever heard.

humming AGAIN

Finally thinks this isn't a rescue operation

e29

lack of corpses indicates he is going to wrong way

grappling hook Longing

nitroglycerin would be insanely unstable. Not shelf stable

insists he should not be this impulsive

confused at the lack of destruction in the wake of high explosives

wants to see explosive hurdles at the olympics

today's episode brought to us by the number eight

he keeps devising more and more unsettling tram plans

would love to engage in psychological warfare

wants some PILLS.

being on a submarine wouldn't make him feel better

that is too many shotgun blasts

silly voices continue

this IS a world where not all glass is bulletproof

the military probably doesn't have object permanence yeah

wants to make ghost noises. Makes straining noises instead

worse Marco Polo yeah yeah

does sit down to listen to the marines. Kills em when they're done though

does a little jump for joy when outside

what are these noises sir

HOWLS. WOLF NOISE

e30

new intro! flashing monitor room

howl CONTINUES

thinks he can pry blast doors open

the code to the door is not "leet"

familiar with the three stooges. Thinks Mo would kill the others

climbs up to the launch bay's window instead of puzzling his way by the dynamite

does consider not killing a couple of guys that aren't in his direct path

shaken by bullets getting near his head

resolves to just kill any member of the military he comes across regardless of their intent

the microbiology department was not a controversial bunch

"if somebody's grandma is cold and she puts on a camo blanket? she's DEAD."

presses the launch button without knowing what it does

drama queen <3

"i did not leave any fingerprints. I was wearing my suit." My favourite line in the series

climbs on out of there! Climbs back down! He knows he won't survive a multiple day trek across the open desert

he's just so matter-of-fact about killing everyone. It's delightful in some way i can't put words to

he has RENOUNCED his status as KING OF THE UNDERWORLD

tram based pizza delivery system

#will say i think the series of notes culminating in 'gnome agnostic' is some of the funniest stuff ive written in a while #freeman's mind #gordon freemind #rmanotes

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lets-play-pirates · 2 years

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(little disclaimer: I wrote this as a reply to a post that I was sure I had liked in order to be able to find it later, but apparently I didn't 'cause now I can't find it, what's wrong with my brain gkrjhk... EDIT: here it is!)

As someone on the wrong side of 40, OFMD hit me hard. Like, really, really hard.

And I know, I'm aware there's a lot more going on with the show - it handles queerness, race, toxic masculinity, class, and a lot more. I love it for this, for how wonderfully multi-faceted it is. And I'm queer as well (I realized I was aroace in my 30s - before then, I didn't even know there was a word for who I am, I just thought I was weird -and I've recently, now that I'm in my 40s, started to question my gender identity) so it's not like age is the only reason why this show resonates with me.

But it's especially refreshing for me, even inspiring, to see mid-life crisis being treated not as something laughable, wrong, disruptive, regressive, childish, a mistake to fix.

I love that in this genuinely hilarious comedy Stede's and Ed's unhappiness in their lives is never the butt of the joke. We hear that Stede used to cry by himself and it's not funny or pathetic. It's sad, and relatable. I've been there. I still am, sometimes. And when Ed says, "I'm a ghost" and rages at how boring everything has become and wonders out loud if this is all there is, I can feel those lines in my bones.

Nigel finds the idea of Stede leaving behind his family and his comfortable life to embrace piracy ridiculous; Izzy doesn't understand Ed's depression, his emptiness, calls him "half-insane" and "a shell of a man" and does everything in his power to pull him back where he thinks Ed belongs.

But the narrative tells us that Nigel and Izzy are both wrong. Leaving eventually proved to be right choice for Stede, the one that allowed both himself and Mary, the abandoned spouse, to live a more fulfilling life, free to pursue their happiness and their passions with a partner of their choosing; it was trying to get back to normal, to return to the old status quo, that was a mistake.

And Ed's falling back into his old life as a fearsome pirate, with no room for love or laughter or softness or silliness, is a tragedy, a defeat. It leaves him empty and broken, hopeless in a way he wasn't before he met the Gentleman Pirate and his crew, crying alone the way Stede used to.

OFMD tells me that there is no deadline for figuring yourself out. That craving for something more, something different, when your hair starts to go gray, is not foolish, is not frivolous, and is not wrong. That it's ok if you start your journey later in life, even if your face is lined and your joints creak. That you are not insane or broken or ungrateful if your life doesn't fulfill you anymore and you want to change course, no matter how many years of your life you leave behind.

OFMD tells me, look, the old tree still has some fruit to give after all.

#ofmd #our flag means death #thisle rambles #this show has seriously f*cked me up

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leatherbookmark · 6 months

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oops, objective "don't read stupid ass takes" failed :(

"izzy is not suicidal, like yeah he shot himself in the head but he missed and besides that was EPISODES ago, he has since found community and joy and acceptance and saying he's suicidal is erasing all that. now ed, however," ah, well, if it was only once, then it doesn't matter i suppose.

"blackbeard is both ed and izzy, ed can't be free of blackbeard if izzy is alive, and if izzy dies, ed will never return to being blackbeard" i'm sorry. let me make sure i heard you right. even when both izzy and ed have found love and acceptance, even when izzy is his own person, having "divorced" ed in episode 3, even after izzy's shown being supportive of ed loving stede and quitting being a pirate... izzy still has to die to free ed. and this is fine and normal, and not the proof that there's something kinda Fucking Wrong with ed. sometimes you just can't be fully happy until that one person who's moved on from you and from whom you have moved on as well is fucking dead. and that's okay! hashtag self care. i gotta be honest i'm impressed. i don't remember hearing of a more fucked up dynamic, and this one belongs to a silly comedy show! truly, the writing for this show is exceptional. and by that i mean at this point i'm starting to wonder whether i've had a stroke at some point and it's only catching up to me now

"what would izzy do? just stay on the revenge and whittle? he's not fit for hard physical labor, and he doesn't want to be a captain, so he has to go!" uh oh, black pete, i have bad news for you. no no, enjoy your husband first, taste the marital bliss, make some precious memories! god knows you're going to need them once we kill him off for being useless unfit for physical labor. ha! lighthearted jokes aside, um, wow. i, er, can't quite find my words yet, so, um, well, it's. it's a pirate story, and pirates were famously all fully abled, like, can you imagine a pirate with a wooden leg doing pirate shit? that's, that's unrealistic, it doesn't-- hm? "he’s found value in not having a distinct role or purpose on the ship, decoupling his worth from the job he’s expected to perform"? aah, huh. hmm. well. well that's. hm. yknow guys i'll get back to you later i think, i need to sit on this one

"do you really think con, an experienced actor and an adult, would feel bad about izzy dying? especially after getting to explore this character so well, especially after djenks has said he took it well?" well i can't say what con would feel because i don't know the man personally, right, but if i had a chance to explore a character i really like, play him finding his happiness, queerness and place to belong unconditionally, and then found out -- halfway through the shooting, despite my character's death apparently being known to the writers from the very beginning -- that he dies shot by the antagonist who symbolizes everything he hates, not even during a fight or a duel, not even protecting someone he loves, but just because he was the nearest pirate, and his last words are all about inspiring the guy whose lil depressive episode cost him a leg to fucking, hashtag be free and live his truth, while everyone else kinda just stood by and watched and didn't even try to help, i guess because eh, if he dies he dies, then actually yeah, i would think it's a little bit unfair, i suppose. but that's just me of course

#shrimp thoughts

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bobtheacorn · 1 year

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Film RED bullet review below the cut bc of spoilers but also it’s living in my mind rent-free and i gotta holler for a min (though I should preface this with saying i haven’t read wano yet bc I keep procrastinating but If I Don’t See EVERY one piece film in Theaters I WILL Die! Waited 32 years of my life for this and I’ll get my spoilers via the big screen if i have to!)

THAT BEING SAID lmao

the only reason i went to see this film is bc of JINBE it was BABY’S FIRST FILM and he had 8 entire minutes of screentime rip

the COWARDS didn’t dub the songs for some reason???? but Uta’s english VA AmaLee did her own version of Genesis and it’s a FUCKIN BANGER give it a big big listen she deserved to drop the entire album on the big screen!!!!!!!!!!

in spite of that, me and my friend are huge Jpop nerds so this movie felt tailor made for us and we were alone in the theater thank God so we got to be absolute assholes and jam 100/10

Uta’s EXCELLENT Cult Vibes my girl swung so far to the left she curved right back around A for effort

Every song being a little more deranged than the last as her mental health plummeted bc of sleep deprivation / stress MWA we love to see it we love a girl saying Fuck the Government AND the Pirates and streaming her absolute break down live on global television and taking EVERYBODY DOWN WITH HER only bc it is SO FAR REMOVED from Oda’s typical villain trope of Bitter Old Man who wants to destroy the world bc he is Sad Z i am looking you in the face

the Things I Care About and the Things This Film Wanted Me to Care About Divergence was... Incredible! Uta being Shank’s daughter got crickets from me bc ask me why i should care but it was immediately followed by “Strawhat is The 5th Emperor” which received uproarious applause and that was a spoiler for me lmao

Oda/etc Stop Cramming 48 Random and Unnecessary Characters into every Film Just Because They’re High On The Popularity Poll Challenge

We have a full entire cast of STRAWHATS. There are TEN STRAW HAT PIRATES. Would have loved to see a little bit of oh i don’t know Interaction and Shenanigans that lasted longer than a few seconds, i mean jesus christ I remember the older movies always having lots of fun banter and moments with the strawhats and that’s what made them fun to watch, i remember when there were Character Driven plots give me some of that back I come here for the StrawHat Pirates!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Did i enjoy Trafalguy turning up to babysit his queer platonic BF? Yes!

Did this movie in particular benefit from him being there? NO.

Fleeting Lullaby (song/scene) is Unhinged, Uta i love u

Luffy who recognizes No One Ever spotting that girl he saw like twice when he was 7 from 40 yards away and being like Hey Stop The Show I Think Know Her sklfsjfasd;lk KING

He said he was gonna go take a nap and Uta had a meltdown abt it, say you have Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria without saying it

ALSO Uta sitting in the rain stroking Luffy’s precious sleeping face and crying got me cryin in the club fr

That very quick flashback of shanks thinking abt Roger and Rayleigh also punched me in the chest but I went into the film not caring abt shanks and his daughter and I left the film still not caring i’m sorry lmao

Usopp’s observation haki connecting him to his dad and them both working to coordinate their respective crews was GODTIER OH WE LOVE TO SEE IT. USOPP THANK U FOR SHINING SO BRIGHTLY

the very quiet scene where Uta gives Luffy his hat back and she’s trying to be silly with him but you Don’t See His Face At All that entire scene so you KNOW he’s upset and something is wrong made me fucking feral I love Luffy’s growth I love his character development I LOVE HIM SFM

Coby was the REAL MVP of the Film

Jinbe deserved more screentime

Rob Lucci struggling to trouble-shoot the Elders TV sent me right into the stratosphere HOW fucking embarrassing sdfljslfksl

Uta fuckin died????????????/ Unconfirmed but implied

Oda Stop Martyring Women Challenge

this movie is GREAT but it’s not Film Gold

#film red spoilers #my shit: personal #one piece #i loved this movie and it was SO FUN TO WATCH but it also fell a lil short at critical points for me i guess there is just no topping Gold #and Strong World #and the Baron movie #and the turtle movie

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these-written-reveries · 9 months

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About Me!

*I figured I would make a little post to tell y’all a bit about myself. If you’re interested, keep reading!

» Hi, I’m Kalista! I also go by Kal, or whatever other sweet name you wanna call me 🥰

» I’m 24

» My pronouns are she/her

» I identify as demisexual and lesbian/queer 🌈

I know it may be silly/confusing to hear this, considering I write/post/fawn over mostly fictional men 🤭 I am, in fact, in love with/attracted to male fictional characters because they’re…well, fictional. If they were real, that would likely be a very different story lol. Take a look at “compulsory heterosexuality/comphet” if you’re interested to know more about that -or ask me, I don’t mind!

» I have autism and adhd (audhd). This discovery about myself has opened many doors to self-acceptance that were previously locked by shame and confusion. I’m very proud of my neurodivergence!

» I am also physically disabled. I have a nice lil’ handful of chronic conditions lol. I like to laugh about it because it’s the best way to cope through the misery.

» I’m a “maladaptive daydreamer”. Have been since I was a child. Reading/writing was always a primary outlet for me to cope with and escape my reality and delve into dream worlds. Fanfiction was a huge part of that, so I’m very grateful for it.

» Music is a huge inspiration for me when it comes to…just about everything. But especially my writing. I also have a very eclectic taste in music. I like at least a little bit of almost everything.

Favorite artists/bands: Lake Street Dive, Taylor Swift, Fleetwood Mac/Stevie Nicks, Qveen Herby, Ashnikko, Superknova, Ella Fitzgerald, Cigarettes After Sex, Anna Calvi, Sammy Rae & The Friends, Doja Cat, Laufey, Hozier, BTS (I’m trying not to list a lot, it’s very hard 🙈)

» Some of my fav shows: Supernatural, New Girl, My Hero Academia, Stranger Things, Pose, Grace and Frankie, Ouran High School Host Club, Sherlock, Haunting of Bly Manor, Orange is the New Black.

» Some of my fav movies: Joker, Batman: The Dark Knight, Pride and Prejudice (2005), Pirates of the Caribbean (1-3), Ratatouille, Legally Blonde (2001), Beauty and the Beast (1991), Peter Pan (2003 & 1953 -minus the problematic bits), Howl’s Moving Castle.

» Brevity is not my expertise. Can you tell?

» I love rats! Had 8 of them as pets, but recently decided to stop caring for more due to my disabilities and busyness of life that made it hard to keep going with it. I do not intend on having kids, so I hope in the future I can get back to being a rattie mom again. I also want cats…yeah, idk how I’m gonna make that work 🤭

» I live in America…It’s not fun here, guys…😭

» I am currently preparing to launch my candle business as I write this -should be happening sometime in September! I anticipate that some of you may be interested as my candles are inspired by fictional characters/places/etc.! (Update: Moonkissed Reveries has officially launched! You can find all the links to my shop/socials below!)

Etsy: moonkissedreveries.etsy.com Tumblr: @moonkissedreveries Insta: moonkissed_reveries TikTok: moonkissed_reveries Pinterest: moonkissedreveries Youtube: MoonkissedReveries Linktree: linktr.ee/lady_reverie *Thank you so much for any support on my shop/socials! It means the world to me! 💖

» I am also working on writing a novel that will likely become a series! I plan on being published or self-published -not sure which yet, as I am still in the early-ish stages of worldbuilding and whatnot. This is my dream and I’m working hard to make it happen!

» One of the reasons I am committing myself to getting back to writing and posting fics again is because I want to keep my writing skills sharp while I work on my novel. I want to learn and grow and challenge myself more to become a better and more confident writer. The other reason is because I have held myself back for so long from doing this out of fear of not being good enough. I’m quite frankly tired of holding myself back from the things I want and I’m working on healing these parts of myself. This is part of that process! So, for those who have read my fics, thank you for supporting me through this journey!

» I’m always open to making new friends, so please don’t hesitate to reach out to me -I promise I don’t bite!

I can’t really think of much else right now. Thanks for reading if you’ve made it all the way through! If you have any questions about me or wanna talk about something I wrote here, you can certainly send me an ask/message -just please be respectful, of course!

Hope you have a wonderful day/night wherever you are! 💖

#about me #k.info #k.talks

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the-late-one · 2 years

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Me since like ten years : Why do I feel so close to the LGBTQIA+ community ? Why do I identify to gay men all the time ?

Me after binge watching OFMD again : Did a silly tv show about gay pirates on a queer boat was the final straw that made me realise I was non binary ?

My brain : Pfrrt ! Girl ?

Me : What ?

My brain : You are since forever.

Me : But I'm an ally... wait...

My brain : Want some wake up call ? Here, take a big box of flashback tape and watch it all. Here we go !

First of all, when you were a baby (Yes a baby) everybody thought you were a little boy, until your mom let your hair grow.

Then when you were 3 years old, going to school for the first time, who was your first friend ? A little boy yeah. And the year after ? Oh a girl, yeah but the less girly girl of them all. The year after, again boys, only boys. Because you were never fitting with other little girls. But you were on a point where you didn't wanted to play with the girls and their dollies, and the boys didn't want to play with you and let you access to cars and plastic dinosaurs. The only time you were playing "mama and papa" with the girls, you were always the papa. And not because they were telling you to be, no, YOU WANTED to be the papa !

At home now. You weren't the princess, you were the king ! You were never identifying to female characters in movies and TV shows. Or if you did, it was for the badass ones, the "tomboys".

You grew up, always feeling like the "other girl", developing social anxiety because people were rejecting you, because you were the weirdo. Only a few BOYS wanted to be your friend.

Skirts ? Dresses ? Make up ? You never got interested in all of this at that time.

You became a teen and then again, not fitting. It got worse because the gape between you and the other girls was becoming bigger and bigger. And the boys didn't wanted to be with you anymore because well, you were a girl.

Oh yes a few wanted. The gay ones !

You were becoming more and more a tomboy, taking your father's place at home. But deep inside, you were a girl, but what kind ?

And you became a young woman, and you found other people like you and you were like "That’s a bit extreme but they look like me". No girl, they're not extremes, they are themselves.

You got your first boyfriend, whi admitted his bisexual ass chose you because you were interestingly both man and woman (DING DONG HELLO ?!). And you were having male fantasy ? You were into gay shit imagining it was you ? Oh come on ! It's because part of you is gay, because part of you is male.

But at the same time you embraced your new body with all those forms, and you learn to put make up and feel pretty in dresses and everything you never did before.

You always complain you don't have beard, or you wish you could have a more androgynous body.

You have to remember yourself that you are a woman sometimes because you start saying things like "I wish I could look like him" or " dress like him" .

HIM !

You never take other women as exemples, always men. Yes okay a few women, but who was the last one ? You don't remember.

Even for make up you're watching tutorials made by men...

And your mom that one day said "I feel like I have a son sometimes", and is mind fully opened of how much manly you can be. And is totally okay with that. And your sis, same !

You are twenty seven now, and you feel fine and sexy in your woman body, but there is always something inside you that say "If only I had a switch button to be a man today". Because you wanna feel like a fine and sexy man too.

You just feel everyday, since you are a little kid, that inside you, there is a mix of a boy and a girl, and you just learned a few years back that it as a name, and now you can name it, because you are not alone.

Me : I am non binary...

My brain : YES ! Yes you are !

Me : Oh my... That explains a lot.

My brain : And you're totally insane by the way 'cause you are having a conversation with yourself at three in the morning right now, but we'll talk about that later.

#should I say thank you ?#I feel weirdly relieved #joining the party a bit late I guess ?#also a bit lost but so clear minded #lgbtq #our flag means death

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naturallygravitatedtolondon · 2 years

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a little wooden boy: quick notes on OFMD and The Adventures of Pinocchio

Naturally I have not stopped thinking about the silly pirate show for a single second since having finished it and recently I have been especially fascinated by the way it incorporates storytelling and performance as such prominent themes and how that is used to explore identity. This show is good bread! Really good bread. Anyway, in my attempt to somewhat organize my thoughts on all that I decided to look into The Wooden Boy story a little more and OF COURSE stumbled upon an absolute treasure trove, what did I expect from these writers.

The Wooden Boy story we hear in the first episode is so good and works on so many levels just by itself: It is first introduced in the “do the wooden boy voice” scene (EXCELLENT) and then picked up again at the end of 1.01 with Stede reading the story as a bedtime story to his crew. That’s such a beautiful moment of community (god I love that scene) and gives us a really good sense of the characters. It establishes that despite the talk of mutiny earlier, the vibe for this crew is beautiful found family (I love them I love them I love them). And it introduces an interesting thing about literacy that I need to think about more. And just that very simple story we actually hear (though it is implied that Stede has read the entire thing to them) – a wooden boy who wanted to become a real boy – sets up some major themes of the show: 1) Stede and Ed both feel disappointed in their life, “treading water waiting to drown” etc, they feel like wooden puppets and want to feel fully alive again. And 2) of course this is also about masculinity and the question that comes up again and again: how to be a real boy/man? And the failure to live up to that toxic ideal and then the space that this in turn opens up for a variety of other ways of being a man! and the rejection of the very idea of “real men”. But that’s another post (such as this excellent one on masculinity in ofmd by @edwardsilkheart as well as this equally excellent one by @sitzfleischh on the queer art of failure).

So. I think it is pretty unambiguous that the wooden boy story is supposed to be 1883 Italian classic The Adventures of Pinocchio? There is an obvious timeline problem but I think by this point it is established that ofmd will not be constrained by the shackles of historical accuracy and is the better show for it so whatever. This did however make me think that there might be a more elaborate reason why the writers insisted on having the story of Pinocchio in their show about gay pirates despite the anachronism.

I looked up the plot summary of the Pinocchio story on Wikipedia because I was only very vaguely aware of the details of that story, though maybe other people are more familiar with it and got all the narrative links immediately (Probably more people have seen the Disney movie than read the original novel but I can’t remember what exactly happens in the movie either so I can’t say how similar it is to the book). I did not, so I just experienced a long series of oh shiiiit moments while reading that Wikipedia article. Here is a list of all the things that immediately stood out:

First of all, the plot of this children’s story is WILD. Jeez.

At the beginning of the novel, Pinocchio meets a cricket which “warns him of the perils of disobedience and hedonism” and then Pinocchio “throws a hammer at the cricket, more accurately than he intended to, and accidentally kills it.” Reminds me of a thing that happens in the first episode of a certain pirate show..? ALSO the cricket then “ comes back as a ghost to continue advising the puppet” come oooooon

Pinocchio visits a theatre performance. This seems to be a minor plot point in the novel, but with the aforementioned focus on performance in ofmd, it’s worth mentioning.

The director of the theatre is a man called Mangiafuoco who has “red eyes and a black beard that reaches to the floor”. Wikipedia says that “despite his appearances however” this character “is not evil”. This is literally Blackbeard. And he is the director of a theatre! It's perfect.

There’s a cat and a fox character that pretend to be blind/lame and then later actually become what they pretended to be. (Jim??)

Pinocchio arranges a meeting with the cat and fox but the meeting does not happen because he is betrayed by them. Just stab me in the gut will you.

Pinocchio is hanged at one point but is rescued. I mean COME ON.

A NOTE ON THAT Pinocchio hangs from that tree for a looong time and is completely fine afterwards, it seems to me that he can’t really die from that because he is, you know, a puppet. Sorry to fuel the conspiracy @knowlesian but make that sentence about Stede Bonnet and swap out one letter in “puppet” (I am JOKING mostly but also am I??)

Pinocchio buries coins in the ground, like a little pirate

A “judge sentences Pinocchio to four months in prison for the crime of foolishness” that one made me laugh

there is an enormous snake with a smoking tail that attacks Pinocchio and then literally chokes and dies from laughing too hard at his fear and vulnerability. Honestly not entirely sure if/how this is relevant, but it reminds me of the two times antagonists (the British and especially Captain Badminton as well as the fancy party guests) are shown to laugh hysterically at our main characters and then die because of it…

Pinocchio’s father figure is swallowed by a giant sea monster (!)

(quick note here, I have been thinking about how the flashbacks emphasise Ed’s and Stede’s fathers and how both Ed and Stede are traumatised by abusive fathers and how that shapes them both in different significant ways. Ed’s father being physically abusive, Stede’s father being verbally abusive, which corresponds with the whole stinging with swords vs. with cutting remarks thing! And that ties in so well with the Pinocchio story! He is a boy who is literally carved and shaped by his father figure! Makes me think that we should talk more about Ed’s and Stede’s childhoods)

Pinocchio is disliked by other children at school

Pinocchio and a friend of his “go to a place called Toyland where everyone plays all day and never works” and “have a wonderful time for the next five months”, ummm?????

And then beyond those plot details, and I’m just directly quoting from Wikipedia here by the way, there is this:

“The structure of the story of Pinocchio follows that of the folk-tales of peasants who venture out into the world but are naively unprepared for what they find, and get into ridiculous situations” Yeah. I think that’s pretty crystal clear.

Also: “The Adventures of Pinocchio, is a work in which a hero experiences symbolic death and rebirth”, which now makes me want to think a lot more about death and rebirth in ofmd

And last but not least: “Although they are part of a comedy, Pinocchio's adventures are not always funny. Indeed, they are sometimes sinister. The book's fictive world does not exclude injury, pain, or even death”

In conclusion. The writers of this show put such a shit ton of thought into every stupid little detail. And this is literally just what I got from frantically skim reading a Wikipedia article, I’m sure there is so much more I missed or misread. But that is some insanely intricate foreshadowing, and it seems to me that they must have based parts of the story directly on the Pinocchio story/at the very least took lots of inspiration from that?

So yeah. This show. I just think it’s neat.

#this got quite long but I just kept finding stuff #also am I missing some obvious reason why you would link a fictionalisation of Stede Bonnet with the Pinocchio story?#or is it just that this matched super well thematically with the story they wanted to tell in ofmd #I have no deep analysis here just putting this neat little treat of intertextuality out there #ofmd #ofmd meta #our flag means death

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ehditaan · 2 years

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So, I saw this on Twitter:

And I maaaaaay have just written the following letter to HBO:

“Greetings great corporate entity! I come with much praise and a simple request. Our Flag Means Death is the best damned show I have watched in a hot minute. And I have watched a lot of shows in this year of our Pandemic Unending. It’s funny, it’s so deeply heartfelt, and by gods it is some of the best queer representation I’ve seen! As a nonbinary queer person I rarely see myself reflected on screen, rarely even get to hear my pronouns used. Our Flag Means Death is an absolute delight and as much as it is a wonderfully silly gay pirate show, it also says a lot of real and important things about humanity, identity, friendship, loyalty, and the never ending process of becoming yourself. Which feels particularly poignant now, as so many of us have slowly emerged from each fresh wave of Covid a little changed, a little more true.

Please, please bring back Our Flag Means Death for season two. You know you’ve gotta. I mean come on, look around. We clearly need it. Look at Texas. Look at Florida. Look at godforsaken Missouri. It’s a tough time to be trans and queer. Just give us the gay pirates back.

P.S.

By Blackbeard’s left tit, I swear if Lucius is fucking dead I’m kidnapping Nathan Foad, dragging him to set, and hijacking an episode to perform a resurrection miracle my damned self. You have been warned. (I’ve got the perfect hat for it too).

(For legal reasons the above statement is pure is hyperbole)”

Did I lay it on a little thick? Yes. Do I care? No. I just want season 2 and a tearful Lucius x Black Pete reunion. (And maybe a slightly stabby Ed x Stede reunion)

#ofmd #our flag means death #con o'neill #ofmd season 2 #our flag means death season 2 #lucius ofmd #queer representation #nonbinary representation #hbo #hbo max #gay pirates #representation matters #queer culture #queer cinema #Ehdi talks #image description in alt

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nonbaznary · 2 years

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its technically still Wip Wednesday!!

i got back to school, so i couldn't really finish anything i wanted for @trans-mages week 🥲 figured i might just as well post some snippets here so they dont go ignored until the hypothetical moment i finish them

before that, though; my first Our Flag Means Death piece, being birthed

im really proud at how Blackbeard is coming to be, though i may be physically unable to draw a decent Stede (hence sketch phase)

love these funky little queer pirates <3

now, onto the funky little queer mages

first off, a small something from the Mordelia-centric fic i started working on back during sapphic week (and tbh, might as well re-do what i have in it for the pick n mix instead of transmagesweek if i dont have the time)

The dress looked fucking ridiculous on her.

She wanted a cool suit, like Baz’s; or at least some fancy trousers paired with one of those extravagant shirts they wore to things like this.

If Aaliyah were there, she’d know exactly what to do to make the dress look better – or just feel better.

But she wasn't there, was she?

She never showed up on their spot. Maybe she wouldn't even come at all.

So Mordelia was stuck with the ridiculous-looking dress. Like a girlfriendless loser.

and so this isn't too long, just a little something else from another transmages fic.

this one i started for the prompt fest, and its so cute and silly i love it. excited to post as soon as i can ✨

“What are you doing over there?”

He shrugs – well, as best as he can while lying on the couch, at least.

“Lying flat on my back so my tits disappear.”

“Of course.” they smile, sitting down next to him. “Is it working?”

“Partially.” Simon sighs, grabbing Baz’s hand and starting playing with their fingers. “Don’t wanna wear a binder though. They hurt. It’s period pains, before you ask- not the bloody binder.”

i guess that's it folks! see you on ... six sentence sunday maybe? 👀

(thanks @wellbelesbian for tagging me on stuff like this for the past few weeks btw!! means a lot <33)

#wip stuff #wip wednesday #transmagesweek #transmagesweek22 #mordelia grimm #baz pitch #snowbaz #simon snow #co/ws/awtwb #doodles #ofmd #our flag means death #stede bonnet #the gentleman pirate #ofmd blackbeard #edward teach #blackbonnet #gentlebeard #blackbeard x stede

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hellomynameisbisexual · 3 years

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Here's a shortlist of those who realized that I — a cis woman who'd identified as heterosexual for decades of life — was in fact actually bi, long before I realized it myself recently: my sister, all my friends, my boyfriend, and the TikTok algorithm.

On TikTok, the relationship between user and algorithm is uniquely (even sometimes uncannily) intimate. An app which seemingly contains as many multitudes of life experiences and niche communities as there are people in the world, we all start in the lowest common denominator of TikTok. Straight TikTok (as it's popularly dubbed) initially bombards your For You Page with the silly pet videos and viral teen dances that folks who don't use TikTok like to condescendingly reduce it to.

Quickly, though, TikTok begins reading your soul like some sort of divine digital oracle, prying open layers of your being never before known to your own conscious mind. The more you use it, the more tailored its content becomes to your deepest specificities, to the point where you get stuff that's so relatable that it can feel like a personal attack (in the best way) or (more dangerously) even a harmful trigger from lifelong traumas.

For example: I don't know what dark magic (read: privacy violations) immediately clued TikTok into the fact that I was half-Brazilian, but within days of first using it, Straight TikTok gave way to at first Portuguese-speaking then broader Latin TikTok. Feeling oddly seen (being white-passing and mostly American-raised, my Brazilian identity isn't often validated), I was liberal with the likes, knowing that engagement was the surefire way to go deeper down this identity-affirming corner of the social app.

TikTok made lots of assumptions from there, throwing me right down the boundless, beautiful, and oddest multiplicities of Alt TikTok, a counter to Straight TikTok's milquetoast mainstreamness.

Home to a wide spectrum of marginalized groups, I was giving out likes on my FYP like Oprah, smashing that heart button on every type of video: from TikTokers with disabilities, Black and Indigenous creators, political activists, body-stigma-busting fat women, and every glittering shade of the LGBTQ cornucopia. The faves were genuine, but also a way to support and help offset what I knew about the discriminatory biases in TikTok's algorithm.

My diverse range of likes started to get more specific by the minute, though. I wasn't just on general Black TikTok anymore, but Alt Cottagecore Middle-Class Black Girl TikTok (an actual label one creator gave her page's vibes). Then it was Queer Latina Roller Skating Girl TikTok, Women With Non-Hyperactive ADHD TikTok, and then a double whammy of Women Loving Women (WLW) TikTok alternating between beautiful lesbian couples and baby bisexuals.

Looking back at my history of likes, the transition from queer “ally” to “salivating simp” is almost imperceptible.

There was no one precise "aha" moment. I started getting "put a finger down" challenges that wouldn't reveal what you were putting a finger down for until the end. Then, 9-fingers deep (winkwink), I'd be congratulated for being 100% bisexual. Somewhere along the path of getting served multiple WLW Disney cosplays in a single day and even dom lesbian KinkTok roleplay — or whatever the fuck Bisexual Pirate TikTok is — deductive reasoning kind of spoke for itself.

But I will never forget the one video that was such a heat-seeking missile of a targeted attack that I was moved to finally text it to my group chat of WLW friends with a, "Wait, am I bi?" To which the overwhelming consensus was, "Magic 8 Ball says, 'Highly Likely.'"

Serendipitously posted during Pride Month, the video shows a girl shaking her head at the caption above her head, calling out confused and/or closeted queers who say shit like, "I think everyone is a LITTLE bisexual," to the tune of "Closer" by The Chainsmokers. When the lyrics land on the word "you," she points straight at the screen — at me — her finger and inquisitive look piercing my hopelessly bisexual soul like Cupid's goddamn arrow.

Oh no, the voice inside my head said, I have just been mercilessly perceived.

As someone who had, in fact, done feminist studies at a tiny liberal arts college with a gender gap of about 70 percent women, I'd of course dabbled. I've always been quick to bring up the Kinsey scale, to champion a true spectrum of sexuality, and to even declare (on multiple occasions) that I was, "straight, but would totally fuck that girl!"

Oh no, the voice inside my head returned, I've literally just been using extra words to say I was bi.

After consulting the expertise of my WLW friend group (whose mere existence, in retrospect, also should've clued me in on the flashing neon pink, purple, and blue flag of my raging bisexuality), I ran to my boyfriend to inform him of the "news."

"Yeah, baby, I know. We all know," he said kindly.

"How?!" I demanded.

Well for one, he pointed out, every time we came across a video of a hot girl while scrolling TikTok together, I'd without fail watch the whole way through, often more than once, regardless of content. (Apparently, straight girls do not tend to do this?) For another, I always breathlessly pointed out when we'd pass by a woman I found beautiful, often finding a way to send a compliment her way. ("I'm just a flirt!" I used to rationalize with a hand wave, "Obvs, I'm not actually sexually attracted to them!") Then, I guess, there were the TED Talk-like rants I'd subject him to about the thinly veiled queer relationship in Adventure Time between Princess Bubblegum and Marcelyne the Vampire Queen — which the cowards at Cartoon Network forced creators to keep as subtext!

And, well, when you lay it all out like that...

But my TikTok-fueled bisexual awakening might actually speak less to the omnipotence of the app's algorithm, and more to how heteronormativity is truly one helluva drug.

Sure, TikTok bombarded me with the thirst traps of my exact type of domineering masc lady queers, who reduced me to a puddle of drool I could no longer deny. But I also recalled a pivotal moment in college when I briefly questioned my heterosexuality, only to have a lesbian friend roll her eyes and chastise me for being one of those straight girls who leads Actual Queer Women on. I figured she must know better. So I never pursued any of my lady crushes in college, which meant I never experimented much sexually, which made me conclude that I couldn't call myself bisexual if I'd never had actual sex with a woman. I also didn't really enjoy lesbian porn much, though the fact that I'd often find myself fixating on the woman during heterosexual porn should've clued me into that probably coming more from how mainstream lesbian porn is designed for straight men.

The ubiquity of heterormativity, even when unwittingly perpetrated by members of the queer community, is such an effective self-sustaining cycle. Aside from being met with queer-gating (something I've since learned bi folks often experience), I had a hard time identifying my attraction to women as genuine attraction, simply because it felt different to how I was attracted to men.

Heteronormativity is truly one helluva drug.

So much of women's sexuality — of my sexuality — can feel defined by that carnivorous kind of validation you get from men. I met no societal resistance in fully embodying and exploring my desire for men, either (which, to be clear, was and is insatiable slut levels of wanting that peen.) But in retrospect, I wonder how many men I slept with not because I was truly attracted to them, but because I got off on how much they wanted me.

My attraction to women comes with a different texture of eroticism. With women (and bare with a baby bi, here), the attraction feels more shared, more mutual, more tender rather than possessive. It's no less raw or hot or all-consuming, don't get me wrong. But for me at least, it comes more from a place of equality rather than just power play. I love the way women seem to see right through me, to know me, without us really needing to say a word.

I am still, as it turns out, a sexual submissive through-and-through, regardless of what gender my would-be partner is. But, ignorantly and unknowingly, I'd been limiting my concept of who could embody dominant sexual personas to cis men. But when TikTok sent me down that glorious rabbit hole of masc women (who know exactly what they're doing, btw), I realized my attraction was not to men, but a certain type of masculinity. It didn't matter which body or genitalia that presentation came with.

There is something about TikTok that feels particularly suited to these journeys of sexual self-discovery and, in the case of women loving women, I don't think it's just the prescient algorithm. The short-form video format lends itself to lightning bolt-like jolts of soul-bearing nakedness, with the POV camera angles bucking conventions of the male gaze, which entrenches the language of film and TV in heterosexual male desire.

In fairness to me, I'm far from the only one who missed their inner gay for a long time — only to have her pop out like a queer jack-in-the-box throughout a near year-long quarantine that led many of us to join TikTok. There was the baby bi mom, and scores of others who no longer had to publicly perform their heterosexuality during lockdown — only to realize that, hey, maybe I'm not heterosexual at all?

Flooded with video after video affirming my suspicions, reflecting my exact experiences as they happened to others, the change in my sexual identity was so normalized on TikTok that I didn't even feel like I needed to formally "come out." I thought this safe home I'd found to foster my baby bisexuality online would extend into the real world.

But I was in for a rude awakening.

Testing out my bisexuality on other platforms, casually referring to it on Twitter, posting pictures of myself decked out in a rainbow skate outfit (which I bought before realizing I was queer), I received nothing but unquestioning support and validation. Eventually, I realized I should probably let some members of my family know before they learned through one of these posts, though.

Daunted by the idea of trying to tell my Latina Catholic mother and Swiss Army veteran father (who's had a crass running joke about me being a "lesbian" ever since I first declared myself a feminist at age 12), I chose the sibling closest to me. Seeing as how gender studies was one of her majors in college too, I thought it was a shoo-in. I sent an off-handed, joke-y but serious, "btw I'm bi now!" text, believing that's all that would be needed to receive the same nonchalant acceptance I found online.

It was not.

I didn't receive a response for two days. Hurt and panicked by what was potentially my first mild experience of homophobia, I called them out. They responded by insisting we need to have a phone call for such "serious" conversations. As I calmly tried to express my hurt on said call, I was told my text had been enough to make this sibling worry about my mental wellbeing. They said I should be more understanding of why it'd be hard for them to (and I'm paraphrasing) "think you were one way for twenty-eight years" before having to contend with me deciding I was now "something else."

But I wasn't "something else," I tried to explain, voice shaking. I hadn't knowingly been deceiving or hiding this part of me. I'd simply discovered a more appropriate label. But it was like we were speaking different languages. Other family members were more accepting, thankfully. There are many ways I'm exceptionally lucky, my IRL environment as supportive as Baby Bi TikTok. Namely, I'm in a loving relationship with a man who never once mistook any of it as a threat, instead giving me all the space in the world to understand this new facet of my sexuality.

I don't have it all figured out yet. But at least when someone asks if I listen to Girl in Red on social media, I know to answer with a resounding, "Yes," even though I've never listened to a single one of her songs. And for now, that's enough.

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kolbisneat · 4 years

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MONTHLY MEDIA: June 2020

Still staying in as much as I can and reading/watching/playing lots of stuff. Stay safe out there, wear a mask, and maybe check out some of this stuff!

……….FILM……….

Color Out of Space (2019) I didn’t know much about this outside of it being based on a story by Lovecraft and seeing the poster and I’m glad that was the case. It was trippy and tense and a little arty and silly in moments but all great.

……….TELEVISION……….

Mad Men (Episode 3.04 to 4.06) First, this show continues to be fantastic. The season 3 ending would’ve been a great place to end but I’m really digging the change of scenery in season 4. It sets the characters up as underdogs again and that’s fun. Also I can’t believe Don Draper was ever seen as a role model; he’s clearly the worst. Sure he’s charming and comes up with some cool ideas, but I really appreciate that the series isn’t shying away from showing him as a garbage dude. He’s a garbage dude. Peggy driving a motorcycle, that’s what a true role model looks like.

Queer Eye (Episode 5.01 to 5.10) I’m not sure what’s happened but this season felt different for me. Maybe it’s Antoni’s....chaotic energy, or the way it seems to show the class and race divide in Philadelphia, but it’s not landing the same.

……….READING……….

Dracula by Bram Stoker (Page 114/325) The classics often don’t quite click for me but this is really great. Maybe it’s that the horror genre taps into the core of humanity and so ages better than other speculative fiction? I dunno, but that bulletin about the ship’s crew slowly getting picked off by Dracula while it transports him to England is enough to carry its own horror movie.

The Pirates! In an Adventure With Scientists by Gideon Defoe (Complete) Wonderfully silly and an excellent pastiche of those classic young reader adventure novels. I admit I’m not sure if kids will get half of the jokes but it’s still fun and full of pirates and a little danger that I think they’d enjoy.

lluminatus! Part 1: The Eye in the Pyramid by Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson (Complete) I really wasn’t sure about this. The plot was, and continues to be fun, but it’s so thoroughly interrupted by monologue after monologue on the goals and methods of the illuminati. It’s all fun, but I’m hoping that parts 2 and 3 serve as acts 2 and 3 to the bigger story so that we can move past all the introductions and setup.

The Sheriff of Ynrameer by Michael Rubens (Abandoned) I really wanted to like this, but I just couldn’t connect with the lead character (a Han Solo-type...and those sorts really work best as compliments to the true lead character). Dissecting humour is a fool’s errand so I’ll just say the jokes didn’t land for me and while I can’t describe why, I will contrast it to say that I lean towards the Terry Pratchett/Douglas Addams-end of the spectrum. So if you want a sci-fi comedy with a roguish scamp as the lead, check it out.

Delicious in Dungeon Vol. 8 by Ryoku Kui (Complete) Every volume is consistently strong and it’s just baffling. The new characters are engaging (and having picky eater as a party member is such a logical and interesting pairing) and the world-building is excellent. Each volume really does a great job at blending character development with that world building while still delivering the core concept (making meals using monster parts) and I’m still amazed it all works. Plus it’s funny! Maybe not as funny or silly as earlier volumes, but I feel like it’s been a natural evolution. Ugh it’s just so good!

Hellboy In Hell Library Edition by Mike Mignola (Complete) Oof. What an ending. I’m really glad to have this as a nice capstone to the Hellboy mythos (even if he continues on in the future). It was nice having Mignola illustrate these last handful of adventures and storytelling and it’s absolutely some of his best. The pacing was maybe a little weird at the end, but who am I to push back against such a singular vision?

……….AUDIO……….

Walkin' My Cat Named Dog by Norma Tanega (1966) A song really stood out in one of those “made for you” playlists by Spotify so I went to listen to the album and the first track is the theme song from the What We Do in the Shadows tv series so that’s pretty awesome. This whole album is great and as haunting/fun as you’d expect.

……….GAMING……….

Neverland: A Fantasy Role-Playing Setting (Andrews McMeel Publishing) I’ve started posted more in-depth campaign diaries on Reddit (not for my players to read) and right now they’re doing a little regrouping in the Gnome Hamlet before setting off on one of their...3 quests right now. Gotta capture a star, gotta kill some spiders, gotta find the bespoke jacket of a mermaid. So much to do.

D&D Homebrew Adventure (Menace of Merlin) The group is stuck in a daisy chain of quests (kill the yetis so the ents will show the Party the way to the unicorns so they can get some of their hair so that the hermit can make a cure for the town’s stone curse). They’ve spent an entire session avoiding a young dragon but next time it won’t be so easy.

And that’s it! As always, let me know if you have anything to recommend and stay safe out there!

#Monthly Media #Rambles #Kolbisneat #Andrew Kolb

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merrysithmas · 5 years

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you may have talked about this before but do you believe boris already knew he was queer and first approached theo bc he liked him or that he started crushing after they developed a close friendship and theo was what made him question his sexuality? i think theres reasons to believe either side- boris being bold enough to cuddle him in bed seems like he was making a move but him suddenly “loving” kotku seems like an impulsive move out of fear bc he realized he might like a boy. oof idk

I think Boris knew he was attracted to boys — which is evident by his playful, charming, almost teenaged-desperate pursuit of Theo. I think he probably inherently knew this about himself for a long time. I think Boris has always been physically attracted to boys since he’s entered puberty and since he’s still a young teen it is kind of a fun, funny, interesting, enlivening thing for him.

He’s never had a stable life and despite being all over the world he’s led an extremely sheltered existence in a certain way with only one terrible person as his constant (Vladimir). Boris lets it slip to Theo that everywhere the miners go they are hated — this includes Boris. Boris is hated by the public everywhere they go. So long as he is part of their unit, he is hated. That is mortifying to intelligent good-natured Boris. That is why he learns to slip out and around, to be so personable and friendly. His world travels have not been so glorious but probably rather extremely lonely and isolating (as with Judy in Canada), hurtful, and damaging. That is why Bami and Judy (and eventually, Theo) stand out to him so much — people who were kind to him in a childhood of isolated misery and directionlessness. Boris has no moral hang ups about his same-sex attraction - why should he? This directionlessness in his key developmental years is also a good thing: He never grew up around any sort of organized belief systems or stayed bound within an orthodox culture for too long for it to indoctrinate him as its own.

I think people really underestimate how incredibly remote and friendless Boris’ life must have been. Boris is a cheerful boy who Theo says is often plagued by black moods and sullen attitudes. He is an abused and secluded child dragged from location to location with literally no love or stability and constantly brutally beaten to the point where it does not even phase him. Boris actually equates love with that abuse — and nonchalantly claims his father loves him. That is painful to read, that amount of damage.

Living with a bunch of derelict miners whose leader was HIS FATHER (so surely then mostly assholes) and who are “hated everywhere they go” Boris has probably seen any NUMBER of things a conservative-minded person would (likely often erroneously) see as “morally unacceptable” — it’s like Boris is traveling the world with a crew of pirates. He’s probably seen drinking, all kinds of drugs commonly used in front of his face. He has esoteric knowledge about drug use that a child of his age should not — so he was taught by the miners: roll like this, dont include the stems, never mix this, tuck snuff like this, you can get this kind of drug here here and here, it isn’t safe if it doesn’t look like this. His young child’s mind eager to learn sucked up this black information from men who probably didn’t have a second thought to a child or what his developmental needs were. He’s probably first hand witnessed sex workers copulating with his father’s crew (how else would be have learned about the opportunity to lose his virginity in an Alaskan parking lot to a sex worker?), definitely thievery, and said he saw his father murder a man in the mine once and cover it up. Boris’ mind is full of a lifetime of this morally shadowed behavior being presented as normal, or at least secret but common.

I think he understands his attraction to boys in this same way. I think he feels it isn’t “appropriate” to share with Outsiders but it is something that Happens, something that is no one’s business but his own, and something that brings him pleasure and happiness and therefore something he will look for. However he knows it isn’t common or visible or “appropriate” to be showy about it in front of others — especially not people who could judge him (kids at school), kick him out (society), or hurt him (his father). Boris treats his attraction to Theo like his other vices and “bad” habits - barrels head first — but secret: deep dive into happy drug use (but don’t show his dad), steals everything he ever needs (but don’t let them see, put it in my coat), lies when it suits him (lies to Xandra and Larry and his father and Theo too), happily sleeps with Theo and has sex with him (but this is between you-and-me).

He knows other people might have a problem with his actions — but he does not. So that’s his hangup there. He is aware of and ever-vigilant of his surroundings. School: a safe place isolated from his father. He is free and happy to do what he wants at school — including crush on and go after Theo who he clearly likes. He thinks Theo is cute, flirts with him, tries to get him to notice him, talks to him after class, sits next to him on the bus, begs him to come over his house, tries to impress him with far-flung stories, gives him alcohol because it’s what he’s seen his father’s men do in pursuit of romantic partners or as a bonding ritual with one another.

Theo’s house is also a safe place. So safe in fact that Boris starts to leave behind some of the maladjusted development of his childhood and become more of a happy, clear-minded person. Boris and Theo suffer from arrested development and one of themes of the book is childhood lost. They are forced to mimic adults either knowingly or unknowingly, and act in ways that children should not have to in order to survive this Adult World alone. With one another they begin to heal from their traumas, their affection for one another the catalyst. Theo cooks for him, talks to a babbling eager-to-talk Boris (imagine how few people have listened to or understood the ideas of a smart boy like Boris, often surrounded by oafish alcoholics, his violent father where he is expected to keep quiet, or cultures where he does not speak the language), Theo sleeps next to him willingly, he likes Boris, a boy from New York (the top of the world!) he think Boris is funny and smart and worldly, shares his dog with him, hangs on his words, becomes his companion, cares for him if he drinks too much, tried to tend his wounds, welcomes him gratefully into his broken family, watches his favorite movies with him, celebrates holidays with him, inherently values him — and so starts to mend Boris’ broken heart.

A lot of things and viewpoints Boris has are clearly repetitions of things he has heard his father or the miners say — “Christmas is for children” (of course they’d say that to a tiny Boris longing for the magic of Christmas as a child stuck in a mining camp watching the peripheral joy of children around him and coming back to bleak hunger and a dark home), or “god yes I loved having sex with her” (about his hooker in the parking lot — Boris then says he knew she didn’t enjoy it and never shows enjoyment but rather avoidance towards women and girls in any genuine way afterwards, yet covets Theo’s physical company).

Theo on the other hand, who for a short while and then so painfully ripped from him, grew up with love. His natural disposition in Vegas comes from a place of being so recently loved and cherished by his mother and he here, in this lonely place, turns the focus of this disposition onto the one person who is kind and protective towards him: Boris — his one light in a life that has turned very dark. This is like an alien world to Boris. Lonesome and neglected Boris is touched and startled and soon changed by this kindness. So much so that Theo, unknowingly, alters the rest of Boris’ life (Boris feels Theo saved his life).

So that is why I believe the Kotku Gay Panic came about. After their climactic Vegas pool scene where their abuse and trauma is opened to one another (their wounds from their fathers, from fire, literally pouring into the purifying chlorine of the watery womb - mother - pool as they try to drown one another, angry at their attraction to one another, but then cling to and save one another instead) Boris begins to not just have fun and have sex and have freedom with Theo (all okay things by Boris’ standards as long as it is secret) — after that scene and they sleep together and Boris satisfies that teenaged human sexual need... they continue to hookup and be at bliss for a very long, happy time where they both begin to psychologically heal— Boris doesn’t just have sex and fun with Theo, he realizes he starts to love Theo.

Love - an extremely foreign concept to Boris who literally freaks the fuck out because he has no baseline for it. It isn’t the type of “love” that his father gives him (violent, untrustworthy), it isn’t the type of “love” the men who grew up around valued (cheap parking lot sex), it isn’t the kind of “love” his idol Larry has with Xandra (Larry lies to Xandra all the time), it isn’t the kind of “love” Boris has seen in his favorite movies (men and women over and over). No, this love with Theo is very very scary to him. Very perhaps dangerous. He doesn’t know.

I think Boris accepts his physical attraction to men as nbd. I think he probably feels most people feel such attractions or some other harmless private desires that certain people may see as an aberrant from “normal” for whatever reason (either typical kinks and silly hush hush sex shop porno stuff - or other far more despicable things he’s witnessed his father’s men do) and so thinks nothing of his own innocent, consensual goodtime-centered desires. Boris, who likely grew up with little exposure to healthy LGBTQ representation and has a very isolated POV in some ways, likely to some degree at the Vegas point in his life (however casually self-accepting he is) equates same-sex attraction with hush hush taboo sex activities — nothing to be ashamed of, but you’re not going to tell your dad.

As long as it is a personal thing, for him only, Boris embraces it. But it is the emotionality, the healing, the care, the love that freaks Boris out and makes him make a run for it to Kotku — only to recede to what he knows and repeat the exact kind of fake “love” he was taught by his father: unbelievable exclamations of devotion (Boris’ dad sobbing and telling him he loves him + “I love her I love her! She’s beautiful and perfect!”) coupled with the black truth (Boris’ dad beating the shit out of him + Boris beating Kotku).

Boris knows he likes boys but when he starts to love one — that’s when he runs away. Because that means something totally different: societally and personally.

#ask #anon #the goldfinch #boreo

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