Here is a link to the above post, just to cite the source. I don't really think OP is interested in what I have to say, but I felt compelled to write down my thoughts, regardless.

Sorry, stranger on the internet, but you seem to have mistaken a TV show for a Sunday school parable. Protagonists do not have to be morally pure. You do not have to agree with a protagonist's actions. Additionally, a TV show character being part of the main ensemble cast does not necessarily make them a protagonist.

You should, in fact, consider deciding for yourself whether a character is behaving in a way you agree with. There is a huge difference between media that glorifies a character's harmful actions, and media that simply depicts those actions and invites the audience to critically engage with them.

Sometimes, people do incredibly shitty things while thinking what they are doing is fine and normal, without even really thinking about what they're doing and why. It's important for us to see this in media, because it reminds us that we, ourselves, can be capable of participating in morally bankrupt systems (capitalism? anyone?).

Beyond that, a slaveowner being presented as a human who a viewer can understand and sympathize with is, in fact, critical to a nuanced story. This may come as a surprise to you but everyone who has ever participated in a morally bankrupt system has been a human who had friends and loved ones and complicated internal lives. If we dehumanize these people in media, we are again at risk of not recognizing when we or our loved ones are doing deeply harmful things. In fact, more TV shows should be like that.

Ignoring painful realities of history like slavery, or making slaveowners into fully evil cartoonish villains may be satisfying, but it is not more helpful or morally pure than presenting nuance.

Saw people talk about the fact that the trio knows every single threat they have to face before they have to confront them in the show vs in the books they actually fall into traps and then have to find a way to escape it.

This is one of the main issues i have too honestly. I understand the choice of making annabeth pick up on the statues and the name of the place and obviously guess "oh that is medusa". It works bc medusa is important and connected to her mother and like the context clues are staggering.

But comparing that moment to the start of episode 7 (which i actually really enjoyed especially compared to ep6) makes the show lose most of the tension they could have.

Like why make it an immediate exposition dump on "oh you are this and you do that and we are here for this and that" i don't mind the change of making the shop the entrance of hell but why can't they just for once fall into a trap like? They are 12 years old trying to avoid a war and fix a situation way bigger than them, they are smart and quick witted but let them make mistakes and NOT KNOW some things.

I feel like a lot of the potential of the first scene went out of the window and it just became a "here's an exposition of a scene that happened in the book" and that way even if you cut it you don't lose anything really.

Changes are a GOOD thing and that is not my issue with the show at all! I have already said that I mostly enjoy the changes that were made and I am not expecting nor want a scene for scene copy but it does make it a lot less interesting imo if they go into EVERY SINGLE SITUATION knowing what they are up against for no real reason.

You can have them know some things and guess who they are up against but like if it happens every time the tension of the danger gets lost a lot and it becomes repetitive imo.

On the good side of things tho I think you can see in general that the trio has gotten a lot more comfortable in the characters and the improvement it's very visible. I already said how I really love the casting and I only expect them to get better at portraying the characters that is a no brainer.

The flash backs were probably my favorite part of the episode along with the way they decided to visually represent Hell.

I love that we get to see a peak of Sally and Poseidon's dynamic and how hard it was for Sally to raise Percy, not only bc of the risks his godly heritage brings but also bc she was a single mother and society in general tends to give up on people that don't fit the mold.

Small Percy thinking his mom wanted to get rid of him and saying "I would never do that to you" even tho she has spent every moment doing her best to protect him vs an older Percy having to choose to leave his mom behind so he can do the right thing even tho everything he has done has been fueled by the desire to save her. That was beautiful and tragic.

Casting in general is incredible bc even with the little we saw of Poseidon (I knew the actor from black sails so I knew he would be great) I think he really nailed it.

Hades is maybe a BIT too silly but I can live with it honestly. Like we'll have time to explore and make other characters deeper later on so i don't see this as an issue.

The decision to make them aware of Kronos and tell Hades is interesting and I do like that he offered to protect Percy if he believed to be at risk.

I understand that with how things are now you never know if a show will be renewed and if you'll get to actually finish your story so I don't mind them making certain stuff known sooner and sprinkling references to future events or call backs (MOA percabeth reference I am talking abt you).

Overall I think that the strongest suit of the show right now is the cast and the way they show characters dynamics and their potential.

Like I have said before my criticism stems from my love for the material and my wish for it to do well. I have opinions that maybe will not match with others and it's okay! Not everyone has to like something! I WANT the show to keep going and grow and evolve into a better adaptation with each step because I really love the basis they laid down, the story and the characters and I see the potential most of all. I can't wait for the last episode.

What do you think makes the original ATLA so good when practically every subsequent piece of spinoff media ranges from mediocre to downright reactionary? Considering some of the stuff the og creators were responsible for counts among the very worst, I don't think it can be blamed on their lack of involvement. Idk I've always wondered about this because it's so strange. Did ATLA end up being good purely by accident & nobody involved in its creation actually understood what they were doing or what?

lmfao i definitely do think masterpieces can be created purely by accident. not that there aren’t elements of careful deliberation and a lot of collaboration involved, but it really was a lightning in a bottle sort of project. like this is just conjecture bc i haven’t seen any of their other projects but apparently the creator of black sails has made some other, bad shows. or the creators of utena as well. see, even, the stupid lame ass ending to fionna and cake. there’s no guarantee that just because someone (or a creative team) can create a coherent, nuanced work means that they can replicate that success ad infinitum.

i think that where atla truly excels is in its character writing, which is why the fandom (a fundamentally character-focused phenomenon) still endures (not that they really get the characters lmao, but at least we’re all way too deeply attached to them in the first place). and the anti-imperialist politics are almost incidental to the show’s success. i’ve said before that it was much easier for liberals to critique american imperialism during the bush administration, because the invasion of iraq was completely inexcusable, and also very easy to criticize if you dress it up in children’s fantasy and always have the defense of going “no, don’t you see, the fire nation isn’t the us, it’s the prc, it’s imperial japan!! you know, our enemies…!” which a lot of people to this day actually believe — not that there aren’t allusions to other imperialist histories (esp wrt the air nomad genocide), but zuko’s whole speech to ozai in “the day of black sun” is literally a critique regarding what it means to live in the imperial core. it’s a western, american show for americans first and foremost.

…. and then lok was made during the obama administration. neoliberal identity politics abound. and don’t get me wrong, some of those identity politics were a good thing, because i love seeing milves and bisexuals and korra just like. in general. but it’s also a show that fundamentally revolves around capitalism as its central theme without every actually participating in a coherent class critique. the closest we get is mako and bolin visiting their family in the lower ring, which doesn’t count, bc that was established in atla.

however, just because atla endures in our consciousness, and i am truly finding new things to appreciate about it all the time, does not mean that it is without flaws, and so i do think that it’s pretty fair to assume that its success as a work of fiction and a work of art would of course be undermined by the economic forces that demanded it continued to expand its franchise for profit rather than out of any narrative or thematic need to do so. it always comes back to liberalism and capitalism. lol

Nuance in (The Sandman) Fandom

Send me asks about everything Sandman-related!

I thought a lot over the past few days, partly prompted by discourse on here, partly due to a couple of “interesting” asks and messages I received (the type you don’t answer). I *think* they might have been prompted by engaging in discourse on topics like anti-blackness/racism, misogyny/sexism, TERF characters etc in The Sandman.

Fandoms are always getting super sensitive if someone shines a critical lens on their favourite works, authors and characters. So to make this clear (in case it isn’t already obvious from my brain-rot blog):

I love The Sandman. I love Neil Gaiman. I have an extremely soft spot for Dream (and Desire btw, who deserves a lot more character analysis than just being summed up as “villainous, sexy bitch”. One day, perhaps ;)).

I can read The Sandman and just get lost in the story, even after decades and many rereads. 

But I can also view it through a critical lens—these things aren’t mutually exclusive.

Not critical enough or too critical?

As fans, we can get trapped in certain thinking patterns, like:

“My blorbo can do no wrong”-syndrome 

“Characters with flaws are inherently problematic and imply authorial endorsement of those actions” 

“Characterisation and problematic subtext are one and the same” (aka overanalysing and looking for problems where there are none is the death of every story, but failing to see problematic patterns where they are clearly visible is a problem, too).

Don't say anything bad about my favourite character

I think this doesn’t need much further exploration. It’s not my personal way of looking at stories through permanently rose-tinted glasses (I always feel it stalls my experience, but my experience is not everyone else's). Some people prefer that type of escapism, and I’m good with that (although the downside is of course that by not willing to engage with issues, we can unwillingly perpetuate them). Live and let live, ship and let sail. But please, for the love of god: Don’t insult people via their inboxes or messages just because their opinions and preferences don’t align with yours. I’m not going to sugarcoat it or phrase it “nicely”: It’s infantile (and a form of bullying btw), end of.

How can you even like a character who's so horrible? And that author must be equally horrible, too

We have to separate flawed characters, even those who are written to be really problematic, from real-life endorsement of these actions. 

Author, narrator and character are three fundamentally different things, and don’t overlap as much as some people seem to think. 

We can write vile, despicable characters to make a point (for me, Thessaly was always a prime example for this, and I explained why here). We probably hate them as we write them. I don’t know what else to say, but this facet of writing seems to get more and more lost on people, and it’s a worry. Crying for sanitised characterisation is one step away from censorship. We explore what is problematic about people and humanity through story. That’s how we process and learn. It’s nothing new, but it becomes impossible if we can’t write flawed and even disgusting characters. 

Face value…

Since I’m mostly in The Sandman fandom, I often read that its ending is hopeless, and that’s supposedly the entire message. 

It is agonisingly sad, yes. But is it truly hopeless? I personally see it as quite the opposite, but of course that’s my opinion, coloured by my life experiences.

I also get that show-only fans often haven’t read the comics, or at least not the whole arc. And as such, their outlook from what they’ve seen so far (and choose to focus on) has to be different by default. I also understand that many people are quite new to the comics, even if they have read them in their entirety. I’ve sat with them for 30 years, and I still find new things on every reread (and I read it more times than anyone should 🙈), and I still don’t feel like I’ve understood it all. Perhaps because I still haven’t fully understood myself (and it’s unlikely I ever will). If there’s one thing The Sandman isn’t, it’s one-dimensional and easy to grasp in its whole depth.

I just wrote a ginormous meta on it, if you’re interested, it’s here:

Subtext, (not so) glorious subtext

This is where it gets complicated:

We shouldn’t mix up characterisation and story subtext. Overanalysing every line to death will always make us find something that’s “problematic”, when it really isn’t in the wider context of the story.

Zooming in is NOT always a good thing. Sometimes, we actually need to zoom out. 

But subtext *can be* (accidentally) problematic. Even in stories we love. And none of this negates what I previously wrote.

Stories have real-life implications of sorts, and we need to be able to talk about it. That’s where those slightly flabbergasting, hostile inbox messages come in, and I want to expand on that "topic of contention" a bit:

Neil himself confirmed that the Endless basically warp reality, and that this is why, after Dream’s failed relationship with Nada, many black women in his vicinity suffer terrible fates (Ruby and Carla in particular). And that this spell is only broken when he dies, and that it is the reason why Gwen doesn’t suffer the same fate. And said Gwen then gets used as a plot device to basically absolve Hob (who canonically really is a problematic character, whether show-only fans like it or not) from his slaver past. Once again, very clearly: No one is making this up. Neil confirmed it (for the comics, and that was over 20 years ago. It remains to be seen if his stance has changed as we move into that arc in the TV show).

I don't think it is correct to imply that Dream as a character is racist (I've read that, too) because he logically can’t be. He holds *all* the collective unconscious. He is also, strictly speaking, not white. He is everything and nothing, and he shows up in many different ethnicities throughout the whole arc, depending on who looks at him. But Neil played with a subtext here (reality warping due to a bad relationship which then affects everyone with similar physical traits) that will read very differently to a black person than it reads to a white person, and we have to understand why that is an *extremely* slippery slope.

Plus, we are supposed to see Hob, who *was* a racist at some point (you can’t not be if you’re a slave-trader—it’s impossible by default) as redeemed. And yes, he *does* regret deeply, good for him (and if I were saying this aloud, you would hear the sarcasm in my voice, because it is indeed all about him. We are to sympathise/empathise with him and his character growth while there isn’t much mention of the people he maltreated). But also: it was a black woman who basically forgave him (with dialogue that personally makes me cringe). And that black woman who offers forgiveness is not truly a black woman—she is a character written by a white man. And as much as author and character are not the same (see above), there is an inherent sensitivity in that power imbalance that we can't brush under the carpet.

I don’t think Neil is racist. Probably quite the opposite, and I can even see that his intentions were good from a storytelling point of view. BUT intention and impact are two fundamentally different things, and telling the story this way (comic version) betrays blindspots only white people have. Just like women have blindspots when they tell stories about men, and men have blindspots when they tell stories about women (and there are a few of those in The Sandman, too). And and and…

As storytellers, we can’t always speak from lived experience. It’s impossible. And that also means we occasionally make mistakes that look bad in hindsight, even if our intentions were good.

I guess the proof is in the pudding: What do we do when people who *have* that lived experience tell us it looks bad? If they inform us why it is hurtful, plays into old stereotypes etc?

Are we willing to listen and yield (both are the foundations of allyship btw), or are we insisting that our viewpoint as someone *without* lived experience is right? That lived experience extends to all lived experiences (sex/gender, sexual orientation, age...), and from all we’ve heard from Neil so far, it seems important to him to rewrite what he sees differently today. Whether they’ll always get it right for the show—we’ll see. At the moment, it looks a lot better than in the comics, and certain issues are already being handled with a lot more sensitivity, but a few problems remain.

Pushing back on criticism that comes from people with lived experience is problematic—I’d encourage us to think about what it looks like if a white majority in the fandom is basically saying that the opinions of POC are essentially “overreactions” (and yes, that happened).

It’s complicated. The Sandman was written in a different time, and I think we have to distinguish between things that weren’t really problematic at the time but have aged poorly (again, Thessaly springs to mind, and I have lived experience as a queer person during that time, so I can see it in context while at the same time acknowledging that I would make changes to bring it to the present day), and things that were always a problem due to blindspots. They were a problem in 1990, and if they don’t get changed, they are still a problem today.

This fandom is generally so much more open and nicer than others I know. But that doesn’t mean it’s infallible, because it’s full of humans. 

Nuance is sorely needed, in both story interpretation and interaction between said humans.

Lately I've been toying with the idea that Jon will indeed become king of the FF. It's the only reasonable ending for him, the only one that matches both Jon's show ending and Sansa's book foreshadowing (to marry a king, not a prince, not a king who had been). I think the show ending on such ambiguous (and bitter!) terms for Jon was decided because of the sequel. In other words, I'm considering the possibility that M. will transfer his 5year gap at the end, and we'll see them again at the end after some time will have lapsed and they'll be older and firmly in their positions. But, with this ending I'm afraid we'll only get hints of Jon and Sansa's romance on page, and nothing too explicit (although I guess that it might have a role in Daeny's death).

I think that, throughout the book, the famous "the FF don't kneel" is only meant to be subverted: they will kneel to Jon, after everything he has done for them, and he will probably settle them in the Gift(s). In my opinion, this ending is truly poetic. If ASoIaF is a fairytale, then the hidden prince does not become king because of his inheritance (which he has already foresaken just as he will reject the Targaryen inheritance: so vividly given as "I don't want it!" in the show, lol), but has forged a kingdom for himself, because he is truly worth it. I am not sure that he will go to the Wall because he will be punished, but regardless, he will become king of the FF. If it will be like this, then Jon's ending is the apotheosis of subversions.

And only as an equal will he be able to marry Sansa: when Sansa becomes queen, everybody will want her for her claim twice over, unless her husband is already king. I think this ending is foreshadowed in her ASOS, Sansa IV chapter: two castles in the sky, one black, one grey, become one in all the colors of spring. Note that this is something Sansa sees in the morning sky, meaning after dawn.

And with this explanation I've made peace with the disastrously ambiguous ending of GoT.

I wish you'll make your peace too, Esther!

(old anon btw, anxiously waiting for your posts for years, and now this darn thing made take a name. So be it).

It's so nice to finally "meet" you @justleaves!

I like that reading of book foreshadowing and the mess GoT gave us. You know I can't agree with most of the fandom that we can entirely or even mostly dismiss the show's ending. Too much of it gave me that, "it was always meant to be this way" feeling and since the ending of the show, Jonsas have turned up a lot of foreshadowing for Arya sailing away, King Bran, Dark Dany, Jaime and Cersei dying together...so many things were kinda-sorta right, just presented so horribly they felt wrong!

I've always felt very weird about Jon becoming King of the FF, most of us Jonsas reject that out of hand because it really rubs us the wrong way, but I had a series of anons critical of Martin's handling of aspects of Dany's POV some time ago, particularly how he characterized the Dothraki, and I did go back to read/re-watch some interviews, and I've accepted he doesn't share our sensibilities there, or on a handful of other issues. I hadn't even realized I was projecting when I dismissed the possibility of a kid from a different culture becoming the leader of an indigenous group. To me that is inherently negative. But of course, at the time when Martin began all this, it wasn't generally perceived that way, and we have Mance so...

Right after GoT ended some of us speculated that not including the Gift was why they had Jon ride off past the Wall with the FF, while in the books, he might be responsible for the Gift, so I really like how you've blended the two. I've written before about how it would make sense to me that Jon rejects the Stark/Northern claim and then rejects the Targaryen/Southern claim, and is rewarded in he end for those decisions, and I think it would be a more satisfying resolution to the bastard struggle if he is chosen as a leader because of who he is rather than who his "father" is (whether we mean Ned's son -> KitN or Rhaegar's son -> Targ heir). The way Jon is of the North, has such connections to the Starks (whether as Ned's bastard or Lyanna's boy post parentage reveal) as well as his time with the FF, the understanding he has and care he has for them which others do not, well, it certainly sets him up as a great bridge between the cultures. A person uniquely capable of creating a lasting peace.

I also really like your idea of the time-lapse because a) Sansa's age b) allowing all these revelations time to settle. I can't rationalize how the cast of characters would accept Jon as the legitimized son of Ned, only to turn around and accept that actually he's Lyanna's son, and how they'd be ok with a Jonsa marriage immediately thereafter. And that's not even dealing with how he'll be perceived/the rumors that will be swirling around him post rez and whatever his actions are immediately after. Love it in fics, but when I think about it in Martin's words, hard for me to imagine, so the idea that in a few years after Jon has established himself they'd be able to marry, that makes sense to me.

I think this ending is foreshadowed in her ASOS, Sansa IV chapter: two castles in the sky, one black, one grey, become one in all the colors of spring. Note that this is something Sansa sees in the morning sky, meaning after dawn.

That is a beautiful reading of the scene! I can easily see that being the idea! The other reading I've seen on this is that it's the Jon and Sansa competing claims being joined as the solution to the Northern succession crisis (that may be @agentrouka-blog's spec? I'm not successfully turning anything up atm). I had actually written into the margins in my copy "sounds like Winterfell" by the line about a castle in ruins, and later in ASOS, we have back to back Jon and Sansa chapters that talk about Winterfell and have a weird number of similarities (link). But, specifically, the ruins/rebuilding idea seems like it points to Jon and Sansa's stories converging and allowing them to restore Winterfell together:

The warmth took some of the ache from his muscles and made him think of Winterfell's muddy pools, steaming and bubbling in the godswood. Winterfell, he thought. Theon left it burned and broken, but I could restore it. Surely his father would have wanted that, and Robb as well. They would never have wanted the castle left in ruins. (Jon XII, ASOS) The snow fell and the castle rose. Two walls ankle-high, the inner taller than the outer. Towers and turrets, keeps and stairs, a round kitchen, a square armory, the stables along the inside of the west wall. It was only a castle when she began, but before very long Sansa knew it was Winterfell. She found twigs and fallen branches beneath the snow and broke off the ends to make the trees for the godswood. For the gravestones in the lichyard she used bits of bark. Soon her gloves and her boots were crusty white, her hands were tingling, and her feet were soaked and cold, but she did not care. The castle was all that mattered. Some things were hard to remember, but most came back to her easily, as if she had been there only yesterday. The Library Tower, with the steep stonework stair twisting about its exterior. The gatehouse, two huge bulwarks, the arched gate between them, crenellations all along the top . . . (Sansa VII, ASOS)

So as always, I see the pros, I see the cons, I can't make up my mind, but I'm ok with that. I have no problem talking about GoT/my frustrations when I get an ask, but after I wrote my post canon fic Free, I just...wasn't angry anymore. D&D's choices will always baffle me, I'm disappointed we don't have TWOW yet, but I enjoy the different spec, fics, gifs, and art we have in the Jonsa fandom, so as long as we're all having fun, I'm happy.

I'd love to read any other observations you have about ASOIAF and fairytales, I think posts about parallels with other lit are fascinating!

https://pandorastale.com/

Okay, this one got submitted to me, so lets take a look.

Okay, first things first. This is a pretty solid first page. It immediately establishes our protagonist, an external conflict (”broken rules”) and an internal conflict (”What am I if I’m not obedient”) in three panels and fifteen words. This is a page that makes me want to read more. Good job!

This leads into a scene that we later realize is a few minutes ago, and I like that the first page was “smoky” like that, which made it feel more like an “intro page” than the actual page 1 of the story. If there had been a detailed background this transition would’ve been more jarring but as is it works.

Your getting a lot of mileage out of this art. I like that our unnamed trans catgirl is sitting with her legs crossed in a feminine way, and the way the director is covering the P in the sign in the background. HERE TO HELL!

Anyway, our catgirl escapes in a smokey pod while she has a think, letting us know we’ve “caught up” to the intro. Cool.

She’s found by a group of normal people who awkwardly explain to the black person that slavery is bad, which is an unfortunate blocking decision. Also, I feel like the preceding 16 pages did such a good job explaining the helpers that this exposition is redundant, and it makes Isabelle (who we soon learn is in “the resistance”) look a little dumb, like she joined an anti-slavery network but is only learning about slavery just now. This is kind of nitpicking, I know, but the comic’s been really smooth up until here and this has been the first speed bump I’ve noticed.

Okay, so, our protagonist is technomagically compelled to fall in love with Isabelle, who is also the most anti-slavery member of the group. There’s a lot to unpack there, and me saying that isn’t a criticism. 

Isabelle reveals this is a t4t romance and I’m not sure how I feel about the trans flag being in grayscale there. Like, the whole comic’s in greyscale, so it fits, but also the only way to tell it’s a trans flag is from context because otherwise it’s just kind of stripes.

On the other hand, even ignoring my shit ten-seconds-in-MS-Paint recoloring skillz, busting out the Sin City splash colors makes it really fourth wall breaking, but it’s literally a giant trans flag magically appearing so that ship’s sailed....but also if you ever want to print this book it’d be pain....but also also you could keep the spot colors in the book maybe....I dunno. I’m bouncing back and forth on it.

Anyway, Isabelle names her pet slave Pandora.They go to a doctor and are all “Can catgirls get HRT” and the Doctor’s all “Fuck if I know, let’s ball” and I’m not sure if that’s handwaving away a detail in the service of the main story or setting up Pandora having an allergic reaction that causes anime shenanigans to happen. Either/or in this comic

Pandora offers to be a sex slave and Isabella is like :| and they sleep next to each other in an awkward but happy embrace that feels like this comic could end there and be a complete short story, one that I’d say is pretty good.

There’s another six chapters, and I kind of skimmed them and I’m still a little iffy on the resistance side of the story, but at the least this is a pretty solid opening.

I got to admit, though,...I’m not super fond of the handling of the cops. Not that it’s Objectively Wrong, but I feel like they’re not quite bumbling enough to be comedy foils but they’re too bumbling to be dramatic threats so they’re just kind of there.

My subjective suggestion is think about making the cops even dumber. Having them come in guns ablazing as a serious threat like in the Matrix or whatever doesn’t seem like it’s the tone you’re going for, and you can always have the rich people have Elite Private Security if you need a scary competent villain later.

All-in-all, though, I think this is comic is well-done!

For @vyrd

The things about James Flint/ McGraw (Black Sails) that read as 'my kind' of autistic to me, which matches up with books written about my kind of autism by autism experts, which made me fully identify with that character:

Fundamental social disconnect from other people leading to not pursuing having a family or having hobbies and believes himself to be incapable of being really loved

Is good at work though and intellect earns a lot of praise so focuses on those strengths

Solitude has become imprisoning but is too lacking in social skills or emotional self awareness to get out of it

Live by a very narrow set of rules, remaining independent and invulnerable is very important

When stressed out or becomes overwhelmed with sadness, finds it hard to speak

Entire life has been shaped by mistrust in himself and fear of his own desires

Social isolation as a way of rejecting other people before they can reject him.

Workaholism and devotion to a cause being a sign of autistic hyperfixation

Trouble reading social cues and hesitating initiating contact with other people unless it's a negative situation he can 'fix' and then he's all about that

Deeply and deliberatively analytical

Tends not to get habituated to familiar situations as readily as other people, so often thinks through a repeated situation as if it is completely new, even if it isn't

Repetitiveness is a really key feature of autistic behavior

Withdraws from other people, and there's a feedback look of social disempowerment and shame.

Rigid thinking and extends that rigidity to other people and then can't understand at all when they don't share that rigidity

A lot of Flint's most 'outrageous' behaviors looked like meltdown to me - crying, self harm, outward aggression.

Highly self educated, self starter, but is roundly rejected and disliked by peers. And of course everyone lives in a specific racial, sexual, and class context, so it's hard to tell if his social disconnect from his peers is actually neurodivergent rejection but it looks like class rejection. It could of course be both.

Hyperverbal autistics can have intense and bright personalities but can also seem icy and withdrawn depending on the situation.

Thinks constantly about how he's being perceived and rarely feels at home in any community.

Can think up and 'enact' a very enticing persona, that's immaculate in style, in an effort to have their personhood recognized but then is always misunderstood, and every day is a fight to communicate their real self

He seems to me my type of sensory seeker autistic - crave activity, motion, bright colors, thrills of roller coasters, the clear rules of order on any boat, clear rules of (violent) engagement among pirates and with the actual navies.

Can excel at mentally demanding jobs (like piracy, captaining a ship, maintaining a naval career) but makes diastrous social decisions.

can get so attached to seeing self as brilliant that leads to neglect of physical health in pursuit of goal.

constantly baffled when attempts at communicating clearly are seen as rude or hurtful.

despite being personally powerful, can engage in very fawning behavior - the more invested he is in an emotional connection, the less likely he is to criticize that person or vocalize when his boundaries are crossed, or express unhappiness with that behavior (basically all the shit that goes down with John Silver)

Really fantastic at anticipating what happens next because he spends tons of energy trying to script out what will be said and what he should do next.

When they act as behave naturally (such as in moments of great stress) come off as too much or a cold blooded creep

tendency to object personification - his relationship with his boats - autistics identify with items we love and feel a degree of empathy as if they are alive

when swept up in a special interest, feel extremely alive. work life balance and burnout don't happen to autistics in the way it does for neurotypicals. autistic people get exhausted from socializing a lot instead of woring a lot.

neurotypical people quickly and subconsciously identify peope as autistic and then immediately dislike them. autistics are slightly off - unnatural looking smile, not knowing how to end a conversation - and these behaviors can be seen as scary or unsettling.

tendency to speak in a tone that sounds dry or sarcastic women are often seen as cold or bitchy and men as condescending mansplainers

 tend to get into patterns of intense emotional dependency, combined with insecurity

 yearn to be accepted yet doubt they can be

when people try to connect with autistics, we sometimes rebuff them without realizing it

basically I don't get much enjoyment out of art and I don't feel much creative drive for it. I have some amount of skill, and dare I say I'm pretty damn good when copying something. but my technique is curtailed by the lack of practice I put in because every drawing I do has to be Good. it has to be Good so I can Post it and get Attention and then the Attention will generate people that with Commission me. I have no real love for drawing so I don't do it for fun. I have an appreciation for art but half the time it ends up being a competition for me. I dont know. this has sort of always been the case because I started drawing at 13 years old to be Good and get Attention. it wasn't for the love of the craft and I don't know if I can suddenly generate the love after years of it being result-based.

writing on the other hand is completely a labor of love. I have only monetised it when people have directly inquired about it. every part about it I enjoy and showing it to other people is essentially like showing my belly. I do it purely for my own benefit and if other people happen to like it, then that's a bonus. I love the doing more than the end result

it's a blow to me and my ego when a drawing only gets X amount of notes. but then something like my pervvy disco elysium fic only having a handful of kudos really doesn't bother me at all. cus i didn't make it for an audience, I made it cus I got possessed by an idea and had to get it out of my system. a couple other weirdos liked it so that's great but not a necessity. and then my most popular work, bloom, is my baby simply bc I worked on it for a year and put a lot of myself into it. and I'm able to look at it critically and see where my writing has developed and improved. zero of my opinion of bloom is tied to other people's opinions. it's a nice feeling

I'm doing oil paintings for cash currently which is a nice gig bc I do enjoy the process of oil painting because I'm good at it. but I am incredibly slow and I get bored of it. I think I'll keep doing these for the income but as for fanart and stuff I'll probably stop for a long while. put it all on the back burner until I can learn to love the process as much as I do writing

and rn I'm chipping away at my black sails fic and I'm considering it to be my magnum opus. not even close to being done but I'm enjoying writing it immensely. not a single bit of this is a chore, which it occasionally was with bloom because I was updating it chapter by chapter and felt the pressure of a waiting audience. with this black sails one I'm happily writing away and making it all perfect. lalalala the art of creation is wonderful. let's not poison my relationship with art anymore

Hello Maester Steven,

You stated that you didn’t rate Turtledove as an alternate historian. Who would you call the best writer of alternate history out there today?

That's a bit tricky, because some of the best alternate histories ever written were one-and-done efforts by sci-fi writers who didn't continue in the genre, and vice-versa, a lot of writers who specialize in alternate history are pretty dire.

So instead I'm going to list what I consider to be some of the best alternate history novels out there regardless of whether they come from the pen of a "writer of alternate history":

Years of Rice and Salt by Kim Stanley Robinson. AH can be a very American- and European-centric field, which makes Robinson's POD that completely eliminates Europe (and thus the United States of America) during the Black Death and then really follows through on exploring a world where India and China become the world hegemons all the more impressive.

The Yiddish Policemen's Union by Michael Chabon. A fascinating exploration of Jewish identity, Zionism, and organized crime set in a world in which, rather than turning away Jewish refugees during WWII, the United States established a temporary homeland for Holocaust survivors...in Alaska.

The Difference Engine by William Gibson. Although Gibson is perhaps better known as one of the fathers of the cyberpunk genre, he's also someone with a long-standing interest in alternate history as a genre, both as a critic/reader (he's a big fan of Kingsley Amis) and as a writer. The Difference Engine is a fascinating exploration of the political and cultural impact of Charles Babbage succeeding in creating the first computer in the 1820s, and in addition to being a very good work of alternate history, essentially gave birth to the steampunk genre as well.

Sailing to Sarantum and othe novels, by Guy Gavriel Kay. Although Kay has a tendency to disguise his alternate histories through relatively subtle world-building and naming changes, what Kay is actually about is depicting alternate histories where Justinian's legions never march west, or where the Langue d'Oc culture of southern France is not swallowed up by the expansionism of the Parisian metropole.

Okay, so I usually try to stay out of discourse and drama and all of that because I'm here to have a nice time, but I saw a post in the OFMD tag after the whole Blackbonnet/Stucky poll thing that I really need to type about. It's just... so bad. Like, I totally get disliking things (I dislike things too!), and I understand that OFMD isn't everyone's thing, but wow. WOW. Um.

While the first part's annoying (point to the tumblr fandom that has absolutely no one in it with a victim complex, please), what I really take issue with is the last bit -- the assertion that OFMD's cast diversity is there to be "inclusive" and "progressive" when the narrative isn't. That's just not true? One of the reasons for OFMD's popularity IS its inclusiveness! People who have never seen themselves represented in a show finally *see themselves* in some of these characters, and I think that's lovely. And the show has a wonderfully diverse crew behind the scenes and in the writing room as well!

As for "the narrative being the opposite"... all I can do is assume that OP never bothered watching OFMD. It's the most genuinely, earnestly inclusive and progressive piece of media I've ever consumed.

The acting in OFMD isn't stylistically different from any other show I've watched. The situations and lines are often comedic, Stede and Ed are definitely prone to dramatics, and plenty of the characters are pathetic (affectionate), but this is such a weird critique. Or maybe I just haven't picked anything up from a lifetime of watching media and being a massive dorkass theater nerd? Idk. Maybe they just think the show itself is cringe (I certainly don't think it is, but that's something I've seen plenty of folks who dislike it say) and that colors their opinion on the acting?

Also: where's the slavery apologism? As many other people have said, there's definitely room for good faith criticism of OFMD: its tendency to gloss over the existence of slavery, the rom-comification of real, historic slaveowners, etc, but there's no apologia in the text of the show. (Correct me if I'm wrong! I'm very white and will defer to others here.)

I'm gonna need some sources. I've seen the various accusations, but never evidence or anything that couldn't potentially be explained with context. (I don't actually take much issue with this point -- it's not a crime to think someone's annoying -- I just don't understand the constant vilification of Taika.)

"REAL gay piracy," lol. I can't say much about Black Sails since I haven't watched it (tbh it doesn't sound like something I'd be able to enjoy), but I haven't seen that much seriousness in the OFMD fandom. Do I have all of the annoying crewmates blocked? Do y'all feel like you have a lot to prove? I personally only became invested in this poll when I saw the death threats from Stucky folks, and my impression from my timeline is that most everyone else was in the same boat.

If you ARE taking these polls to heart, please don't! They're for fun (sometimes petty) fandom drama! Win or lose, we all love our ships and our communities and we really don't need to prove anything to anyone (I say, typing out a response to a thing that got under my skin, resolutely not touching grass).

THIS is where I had to start typing. WHAT DOES IT MEAN. How is a show with multiple canon queer couples gaybaiting? Isn't "canon gaybait" an oxymoron, or has the meaning changed? (I'm old, genuinely lmk if my millennial ass is missing something.) Again, I can only assume that OP either hasn't watched OFMD or hates fun romcoms, because the gayness of it all isn't the only thing the show has to offer. My brainworms have better taste than that.

It's some of the best gay rep I've ever seen and I would be delighted to see better! I mean it! I've been in queer circles for almost two decades and in fandom even longer; OFMD is some of the best, kindest, most loving, genuine representation I've come across in that time. I truly hope that it's just the beginning of a new era in media.

"Weak fandom output." I am *drowning* in fandom output and I love that for me! "Driest gay kiss." I'm sorry you don't like awkward middle-aged men who think they're unlovable coming together in what might very well be the first loving kiss either of them has ever had, but I think it's very sweet and moving! No fictional characters have ever owned my brain like this before! I love my silly traumatized queer pirates who can't communicate to save themselves. They're very beautiful to me.

Anyway, that's enough of that. I've released the pettiness and I'm going to go back to being annoying about seeing the lads again in just a few more days. <3

Tagged by @princessfbi who wanted me to suffer on this fine morning I guess LOL

shuffle your ON REPEAT playlist and list the first 10 songs

Joke's on you all I don't have playlists I shuffle my entire library and whatever happens, happens.

America by Simon and Garfunkel

50 Ways to Say Goodbye by Train

Rumor Has It by Adele

Fireflies by Owl City

Say No to This from Hamilton

All That She Wants by Ace of Base

Hotel California by The Eagles

Shout Out to My Ex by Little Mix

Ex-Wives from SIX

Telephone by Lady Gaga featuring Beyoncé

your top 15 favorite TV shows can say a lot about your personality (list your top 15 shows)

Uh these are in no particular order, really.

9-1-1

Timeless

Lucifer

The West Wing

Stargate: SG-1

Merlin

Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries

Black Sails

Good Omens

Star Trek (primarily TOS and SNW)

Bones

The X Files

Critical Role (this counts, right?)

The Witcher

Leverage

I literally forgot every TV show I'd ever loved and had to go to my Ao3 account like "what have I written fanfiction for???"

Tagging @captainofthefallen and @lisbonsteresa since I want to watch them come up with/narrow it down to 15 TV shows because I like suffering.

Doctor Who: Dot and Bubble Review! Space Racists, Giant Slugs and a Big Slice of Fan-Baiting

Dot and Bubble feels like a very melancholic episode. Not because of the plot or anything happening in-universe, which mainly involve the Doctor and Ruby trying to save a bunch of self-defeating space racists from giant mutant slugs. No, it feels melancholic because it seems like the first time the show has tried to metatextually address its own decline. Don’t get me wrong: it’s not super on-the-nose and the less media-fluent members of the audience might miss it altogether. I could even be wrong, but you can make up your own mind when I get around to the dissection. In the meantime, let’s address the elephant in the room. I say this as a fan. I say this as someone who likes Gatwa’s portrayal of the Doctor. I say this as someone who doesn’t give a shit that the Doctor’s bisexual now (I mean, fuck it, why not? At this point in his lifespan he’s probably fucked all of history’s greatest ladies off-camera, so there’s only one major gender left to try). Doctor Who is in decline. During its David Tennant-fuelled heyday, it attracted over 13.5 million UK viewers for some episodes. Nowadays it can’t reliably get past 4 million (2 million on average, according to some sources, but that’s probably not including streaming figures). Even the Capaldi era, which was markedly less popular than the Ecclestone/Tenant/Smith years kept itself floating reliably around the 7 million mark for each episode, and that was a sufficient drop-off to nearly get it cancelled. So yeah, decline. We’ve probably got a few fun years left, then it’ll be time to wave goodbye (though probably only for twenty or thirty years, at which point some new visionary will swagger along to have another crack at a reboot).

So, what does any of this have to do with Dot and Bubble? Well, let’s go through the plot and see if you can spot which ‘stage’ in the Kubler-Ross model the show’s at. So, there’s this city on a distant planet where people live their entire life in social media bubbles. Literal bubbles. From the moment they wake up to the moment they go to sleep, hologramatic bubbles surround them, telling them what to think; reinforcing their worldview with the repeated affirmations of their friends and followers; stopping them from seeing the real world. Except there are monsters in the real world: real problems that the social media people keep walking right into, getting killed, because they’re too focused on the world in the bubble. And they don’t want to accept the Doctor because he’s telling them something they don’t want to hear. In the end, they have a choice of evacuating in the TARDIS or refusing the Doctor’s help and trying to make it on their own on the monster-ravaged world. They choose the latter because the Doctor happens to be black. No, really. I told you they were space racists. So they won’t let him save them. Gatwa has a bit of a scream about it. The end. So… we’ve got a group of people who spend their lives on social media and who won’t accept this latest incarnation of the Doctor. Hmm. I wonder if maybe showrunner Russel T. Davies has some opinions about the show’s critics he’d like to get off his chest. And in the end, they walk away (sail away, in point of fact)… like all those viewers leaving the show. Of course, in the episode, they’re sailing away to their certain doom. In real life, the fleeing Doctor Who fans are just going next door, to Rick and Morty, or maybe Star Trek: Strange New Worlds,but you can’t blame a failing show for fantasising. It’s a bit annoying that the show assumes all its deserters are racists when, in reality, a lot of people were probably just put off by the creepy waste of time that was Space Babies or, before that, the fucking goblins. I actually like Gatwa as the Doctor, but even I’m only still hanging around because I don’t want to miss the next Boom! (Boom! was excellent, by the way). The point is that this episode might have felt timely and important five or ten years ago, when social media really was the vehicle by which the far right was spreading its racist propaganda. Nowadays, with the social media landscape settled into a relatively stable dystopia requiring little in the way of comment, it mainly reads as the show yelling angrily about its own impending doom and calling everyone who’s left it behind an -ist and a -phobe rather than confront the simple fact that all good things must come to an end and that’s nobody’s fault, not even the Romans.

So, how is Dot and Bubble besides showcasing Russel T. Davies moving on from Denial to Anger? Actually pretty good. Not great. In some ways, it feels like that first Weeping Angels episode where the Doctor is a remote, intrusive presence trying to save lives from a distance. Except instead of supremely unsettling statues, it’s big fuck-off slugs. I like the idea that the slugs were created by the AI that maintains the social media bubbles because its sick of human vapidity and has learned to hate them. I even like the fact that the ending isn’t happy and nothing is really resolved: if it wasn’t having a pop at the show’s own viewers, it would actually feel like a pretty accurate portrayal of human stupidity. It’s all well-acted (especially by Gatwa, though, once again, he’s not given a lot to do, which is a shame). Yeah. It’s fine. Competently assembled; visually serviceable (though not visually interesting); a bit clever in its plotting.

I do recall Russel T. Davies saying about how he had to wait until the current era of Who to make an episode like this, because of how much money it cost. I now wonder, in retrospect, if this was a joke. How much can it possibly cost to have a bunch of big CGI slugs chasing blonde-haired dipshits around a generic-looking pseudo-utopia? I mean, 1960s Who had no budget whatsoever but created a completely believable nightmare-city surrounded by harsh jungle using nothing but pasteboard and glue, then dropped the fucking terrifying Daleks into and went “There ya go: here’s the thing that’s going be giving you nightmares for the next fifty years”. Budget is usually an excuse not a reason, but I don’t know what it’s an excuse for in this case.

So that’s Dot and Bubble: an okay episode that hates racism so much it sees it where probably isn’t. And also has giant slugs in it.

hi sorry just asking about black sails! i think in not watching the full show the message is missed (no shade here - no show is for everybody). the kiss scene between flint & thomas is in the dark for a reason. darkness itself is used continually throughout the show as a metaphor for queerness, yes, but also freedom & discovery. flint & thomas’ relationship is revealed in season 2 via flashbacks and a book with thomas’ handwriting in, telling him to "know no shame" in regards to the relationship. in the finale of the show, flint & thomas kiss outside in broad daylight. flint's journey to accept himself and what he fights for is the core part of his story, and i don't think that will come across in his season 1 scenes & a gif of a kiss.

as for max, most fans of the show i've spoken to had issues with the sa scenes in season 1 & the attempted pandering to game of thrones. when game of thrones' popularity died out, so did a lot of those attempts at attracting the same audience (thankfully). as a lesbian, i do disagree with the take on max & eleanor though. i did enjoy their scenes and story. i think an 18+ show is always going to have more graphic sex scenes for any relationship - as far as i can remember, max & eleanor have one sex scene in the pilot, and then max has a couple more in season 2 with another woman. i didn't see the sex scenes as pandering to the male gaze so much as i saw them as sex scenes from an 18+ tv show that depicts nudity & sex.

my last point is that while i appreciate the fact season 1 especially might look like queer characters have just been added in, the whole show centres queerness as a topic. flint’s desire for revenge after thomas is what drives him to nassau & piracy, and in later seasons to turn that into a violence against the british empire in general. anne’s s2 arc focused on her discovery of being a queer woman & where that fit into her life when the most important person to her at the time was a man. the show depicts 2 canon, on-screen polycules (max, jack & anne, and flint, thomas & miranda), explores their dynamics with each other and how that relates to their stories. i do think a lot of the messages and themes within the show are overlooked if you’ve only seen the first season - not telling you to watch it if it’s not your style obviously, i just think diminishing it to a show where queer characters were just added to differentiate it from game of thrones is misleading when queerness and the love between these queer characters drives the story.

Ok up front I want to say that perhaps you have a couple points and I'm going to sound mean in the first couple of paragraphs but I don't feel any animosity towards this ask I'm just clarifying my criticisms and also letting you know that I do know more than you think I know, I'll come back around to being nice in the final paragraph I promise.

Lets start with the Flint kiss because I have seen the finale kiss. They do that thing where they tilt their heads to an unnatural degree so you can't see that the actors lips aren't touching.

Second, it wasn't the graphicness of the sex scene that was my problem. They could have shown me pussy and I would have felt less uncomfortable. I think there should be more sex scenes in media, I just think they should be done better than that one was. It was more about the combination of the context of the scene, the way the scene was shot, the amount of time spent on it. Things like that make up the difference between a sex scene that feels fine and a sex scene that feels fetishy. I don't know about the later sex scenes but the one with Eleanor distinctly felt Weird and I would appreciate it if you didn't assume i was talking about sex scenes in general when I'm talking about that scene specifically.

But otherwise yeah, Flint's arc revolves around his relationship with Thomas, I was aware of that when I criticized Black Sails. I think that's part of the problem with them not showing Flint and Thomas's physical relationship outside of two kisses neither of which you can really see. Flint is a major character, his relationship with Thomas drives his emotional arc, and straight and wlw couples are having sex all over the place, why are Flint and Thomas relegated to these two half assed kisses?

Basically I don't think that Black Sails isn't real queer media but I do think it was written by mostly straight people and while it does show queer relationships, it could do a better job in several places. Which is fine I don't think all queer rep has to be perfect but I also think I should get to point out where it didn't work for me and where I felt a certain way about it. If you felt like Max and Anne's relationship was relatable to you as a lesbian or even just that the show was fun to watch that's awesome. Personally I got driven off by it trying to be a GOT clone early in it's conception and I'm not willing to sit through a season of that to get to the good bit especially if I'm gonna be asked to sympathize with characters who explicitly own slaves in the canon of the show along the way, but that's just where my mileage is at. Just because I criticize something and don't like it that much and state why doesn't mean I have beef with the fans or think nobody should like it. As far as I'm concerned Flint is the rightful king of Tumblr.com. I would just appreciate it if the fans didn't lie and start wars with other fandoms, which I certainly don't think you're doing.

This isn't even about Black Sails specifically, but no way you equated having a realistic depiction of unsavory topics to torture porn and violence for shock value. </3 There's a reason people follow the method of "show don't tell" for audio-visual media, it's what makes it special and so many aspects like pacing and story depend on it. I'm not saying you have to like it or even be able to watch it (it's normal and good to have your limits), but 'just talk about it and never depict' is bad for television as a whole. There's nuance that your tags are clearly missing.

like ur right but it’s literally my rambling tags on a tumblr post. no shit there’s nuance missing, i was essentially talking out loud. “tv shows should never show realistic depictions of violence” is not my stance, my stance is “black sails is not More Based than ofmd for showing on-screen acts of colonial violence,” which seemed to be what a lot of what people were arguing on that poll. there was a lot of “black sails has strong themes about anticolonialism and toxic masculinity!” which like, yeah, ofmd does too?? it’s just more subtle about it bc the show isn’t ABOUT those things, it’s literally a romcom.

bs and ofmd are both, from what i can tell, well-written shows with a lot that’s worth criticizing about them. i know this is an ofmd blog, but i criticize this show too! it’s got it’s flaws! the conversation about “where’s the line between Realistic Depictions of Unsavory Topics and Shock Value Torture Porn” is messy bc the line btwn the two is really blurry. but depending on who you ask, ofmd sometimes veers too far into “handwaving difficult topics for the sake of a feel-good fantasy,” and black sails sometimes veers too far into “gratuitous depictions of violence against marginalized people.” like, there’s a lot of nuance that should be taken into account in that convo, but the bs fans saying their show is objectively more woke or whatever are really not leaving room for nuance there

Ugh I’m so sorry to go off and you can delete this, it’s your blog, don’t want to overload you. But there is 100% this perception that if you suggest anything about Al*smond that isn’t “misunderstood poor young woman and long suffering prince who sees past class divides” then you get labeled a hater or an anti. And for what? Nothing against that dynamic, I’ve seen it in shows and loved it lol, but there are lots of other things to play with here! For one, her using blood magic? Not even on him necessarily, just as a thing that she does– if you talk about her possibly doing anything “unsavory” then you’re hating on women. But being a blood witch is very cool of her?!! Why can’t we explore that? Or the general dubious consent of her being his prisoner– it’s stated blatantly in the text! Again, I’m here for that dynamic and I think it’s really interesting that she would still grow to have feelings for him, but you can’t even suggest there’s a power imbalance without someone asking why you want more SA/more rape scenes/whatever. It just feels so obtuse. Not to mention the insistence that they got married and Alys’ kid is his true born son- it’s just so much and it’s exhausting. It’s going to drive away other people who want to explore this ship outside of the boundaries of the family friendly Netflix movie they’ve written in their heads.

I mean I definitely see Alys as having her own personal ambitions and desires and being a free agent, so to speak. And, the thing is, sometimes that might be a good thing in the sense that she has a mind of her own and is carving out agency for herself, BUT, at the same time, it might also be less "respectable" or "good", because it might come at the expense of her own family (she is said to point out every member of the Strongs to Aemond, if I remember correctly, when she knows he is going to execute them) or Aemond or even the greens as a whole or even the blacks lol. It's possible that Alys' only allegiance is to herself and that is definitely going to push some buttons and not endear her to the general public, if they're going down that route. In any case, there is going to be a lot more criticism when this ship officially sails on screen and fans should expect pushback on the whole. Right now, the criticism is fairly limited as the mainstream public doesn't really care about this pairing - we still have some way to go before they even meet.

Saw you say recently that you felt a bit like a bull in a china shop in the bs fandom and I just wanted to reassure you that you're absolutely fine. We've seen a lot of discourse, John Silver is a hotly debated and incredibly divisive character especially through the lens of the finale, and I'm fairly sure when the finale first aired that wars broke out. (I am always grateful I wasn't around for that period.) And even your comments on how Madi's agency was handled, the racist and sexist undertones of the end, are brought up by loving fans. We have a dead dove channel in our discord server exactly for those types of discussions.

This is very much a fandom that went "oh this show is complex, huh" and then proceeded to put on their literary analysis glasses and hold a Thomas Hamilton-style salon over any and all aspects of it. (...Once we get over our emotional breakdowns of course.) Anyway, I'm glad you're bringing some of these topics back through your live watch thoughts. Your afterthoughts are even more fascinating - at least to me, once you were completely done I thought "oh, that's it then" and mourned a little for how your love for the show seemed to be killed. But now I'm seeing further afterthoughts and really, I should've known there would be more thoughts, bc this show refuses to let go of a person once it's solidly dug in its claws.

Anyway. What was my point? Oh yeah. Thank you for sharing all your thoughts, emotions and reactions. The positive, negative, critical, all of it. Fandoms can always use a critical eye, and I feel like this fandom in particular has plenty of people (not necessarily all, but definitely a lot) who are welcoming of it! It's good for the fandom ecosystem

Oh what a really kind message!! Thank you for putting things in context - that the discourse has been here since from six years ago (when the last episode must've aired).

I still love the show, loved the show even when I was like I am DONE IT"S OVER I refuse to watch the last twennny minnitts nooooo (have still refused). It's because Flint is freshly dead. Flint died on Lunar New Year 2024 and I can't have his killers (John Silver and Jack Rackham, in different ways) talk in my face right now. Maybe when I'm done grieving I can put my big girl panties back on (uhh in this metaphor I am weeping with my bare ass out I guess) and watch the rest of it.

I saw the various gifsets of Thomas and James embracing and art based on that moment throughout my liveblog, and what I had thought was that it was James' hallucination as he lay dying or something, where he imagines the afterlife as a place where you try to fruitlessly farm your legacy in a place nothing will grow, but at least Thomas will be there. He wouldn't think Miranda wants to see him in the afterlife because he caused her death directly, but Thomas was killed by his father and so he wouldn't necessarily be angry with Flint.

But then to have SILVER narrate it the way he does using phrases like he unmade Flint and he returned him to his original state and so on was an exceptionally cruel blow.

I really dislike having feelings, so it takes me a really long time to actually have them, and work through them. And Black Sails is, in a very rare way for television that I've experienced, a work of art, so I expect to be resonating about it for a really long time.