Okay, so, there's one thing that I'm kind of tired of beating around the bush with white fans about, and it's this: if you pretend to "ignore" race in OFMD, you will miss a lot of what the story is trying to tell you.

Now, I do not truly believe that race is something you can ignore in a story. I just don't think it's possible, and when you try, what you wind up with is something like the conservative worldview of "not seeing color." Trying to ignore race will make you sound racist and ignore important racialized themes.

You can't understand Stede's need for character growth at the beginning of the show if you just focus on how he's "cringe" instead. When Stede makes his crew members of color serve them at dinner when the English board, this is gross, and their faces tell us exactly how they feel about it. Stede unlearning his biases here isn't subtle (guy who called him and Pete "fucking racists" I love you forever), and learning to take all of his crew members seriously as fully actualized people, moving away from the sort of Kindergarten-teacher behavior at the start to truly valuing them as people and taking their input and suggestions, it's an important aspect. Stede asking Abshir for intel at the party isn't just funny, it's also proof he's learned to see value in people in positions like Abshir's.

You can't understand the motivations behind Ed's actions, especially the violent ones, if you ignore the racist overtones. Ed is not a randomly violent person - he gets angry at a captain for calling him a "rich donkey," and if you think it's unreasonable for a brown man to want to get revenge on a white man for calling him that? Then fuck I'm glad you can't see the conversations I have with my other black friends, man. Ed's anger and frustration at the party aren't just because he fucked up with some spoons, lol, you can't get it unless you realize he's the only brown guest in that room. Yeah, he's ignoring Stede's advice, but he's immediately under a pressure Stede never has been. Ed's wanted posters in s2, too, rely on heavily caricaturizing Jewish features to make him look grotesque and monstruous. We're supposed to be horrified by that aspect.

And, yeah, when we ignore the racist tones to Izzy's behavior, I think that's undermining an important aspect of who he is as an antagonistic character. Him buying Ed from the English should feel like a gross violation, because it is. When he sits in front of the crew eating and making Fang and Ivan serve him, I think it's a pretty obvious parallel to how the crew members of color were similarly insulted in the pilot. It's impossible to ignore race in the way he dehumanizes Ed and tries to force him back into a caricature of behavior he hates and is horrified by - when he calls Ed a "wild dog" in s2, if that doesn't cause a visceral reaction of disgust in you, I dunno what to tell you. This doesn't mean that Izzy is irredeemable - just as Stede wasn't - but it does mean that racist biases are things Izzy had to unlearn.

OFMD so often takes so much care with how its characters of color are depicted. We get thoughtful, relatable moments (those French boat people getting humiliated and setting their boat on fire after they'd tried to touch Ed's beard is so satisfying, guys) and excellent, supportive friendships between men of color. The characters of color on OFMD are clean, smart, respected, and it's wonderful. And just because these things aren't always relatable to you specifically doesn't mean they're not important parts of the story.

Annon-Guy: What are your thoughts on Rachel Alucard and Mei Amanohokosaka as characters?

I'm asking because Tsundere type characters being devisive, with Harsh Tsunderes being hated for being "abusive" girls that deserve to die for attacking physically and/or verbally.(whether they're in love or not)

It's apparent that we Western Fans (no offense to you) don't view them the way Japanese Fans do.

It is interesting how widely JP and Western tastes differ! I have a buddy who is really into studying fandom culture, and we’ve talked about the wildly different reactions to tsundere between the cultures! I wonder if I should call her in sometime to discuss why that is…

Anyways, personally I have no problem with the archetype. Sometimes they can annoy me, especially if they feel ‘forced’ into their archetype; if the character seems mean for “absolutely no reason,” to the point where it breaks my immersion, then I tend to dislike them.

I’ve never had this issue with BlazBlue, though. I really, really like BlazBlue’s character writing. I’d still say that if I ever met these girls in real life, I probably wouldn’t want to go drinking with them… but as characters in their stories, and as believable products of their environments, I adore them!!

- - - - RACHEL = ALUCARD

Rachel is SUCH a tragic fucking character. You can like or dislike how she’s coping with it, but if you engage with her character on any meaningful level, you have to acknowledge that her cruel, jaded behavior is a believable response to the situation she’s in. It’s not nice, it’s not pretty- neither is the life she’s trapped in. In what world has trauma or helplessness ever made us prettier, cleaner people?

She’s cold, distant, unempathetic- because if she lets herself remember how much she cares, the weight of it all might break her. She’s incredibly sensitive under that cold porcelain shell; she snaps into aggression very quickly when under pressure. Specifically when confronted things that she hasn’t been able to distance herself from, things she cares too much about to feign distant superiority.

- - - - MEI = AMANOHOKOSAKA

Powerlessness is something of a through-line among the tsundere characters in BB. Mei is also a character struggling with powerlessness, pain, and fear; and she responds to her situation n a lot of the same ways Rachel does.

To avoid feeling weak or trapped, she falls back on her lineage, seeking escape in her sense of pride. She’d rather tell everyone (including herself) that she’s separate and above everything around her. The alternative would require her to face the horrible truth that if she did try to seek comfort or companionship under her employment (servitude, extortion, etc.) to Unomaru, she would be denied it.

Her fear turns to aggression when backed into a corner, when her mask of aloof superiority can no longer protect her. In these cases, she can be explosively emotional; which isn’t at all surprising, considering how much she’s bottling up all the time.

Thinking about it a little, Rachel and Mei share a few more parallels, don’t they??? They both get very quiet when they let down their walls, reflecting the exhaustion they suffer from. They’re both in a uniquely knowledgeable position, with access to information about the world that most people don’t have, which further serves to alienate them- and creates this sort of “being the world’s protector” feeling I’d argue they both express.

They both lost their parents incredibly young, inheriting positions of nobility, leadership, and responsibility they were certainly not prepared for. They both keep going in the hope that a specific man in their lives will one day be able to have a future.

Their designs share several elements too. A delicate, doll-like feel to their features. Long straight hair that veils them from the world (despite Rachel tying hers up) and, in JP media, often symbolizes spiritualism and divinity. They both wear lolita fashion, with many layers that could also be argued to ‘shield’ them from the rest of the world, providing a form of mental armor and obscuring how small and fragile they are under it all.

I doubt these similarities are coincidence.

Sunflowers: Brendon Acres x Reader

Tagging @kmc1989

Companion piece to Lifeline

You don’t make much money working for the FBI. They pay you a modest stripe end, one that parallels how much it would cost to house you in the penal system. It’s just enough to afford a shitty apartment in an even shittier part of town. When you factor in transport, utilities and food, there’s barely enough cash left over to purchase art supplies, let alone any luxuries. It makes things harder when Brendon’s birthday comes around. He’s a man of wealth, of means and you barely have two dollars in your purse to rub together.

It shouldn’t matter but it does.

Brendon was the first person who showed you any kindness when you agreed to work for the FBI, he treated you like a human being, saw you for who you are. It was him that lobbied for you to consult with Special Investigations because you were dying out there in Art Crimes under Henderson’s control. Brendon had given you back a part of yourself you thought you’d lost, he’d shown you a different path and you will forever be grateful for that.

It’s your dress that helps you figure it out, the black one with the yellow sunflowers. You’d picked it up at a thrift store a couple of days before, it’s in surprisingly good condition. It’s insane that you used to spend thousands of dollars on clothes in your previous life and now you’re trying to work out if you can make a twenty stretch.

You’re sitting at your desk when Brendon sets a mug of coffee down in front of you. He takes up his usual perch on the corner as you tidy away the pictures of the Degas you’ve been studying. It’s a fake, you can see it even without seeing the piece of art up close.

“I’ve always loved sunflowers.” He tells you, his fingertips brushing over the fabric of your sleeve. “The problem is I’m allergic to them, I break out in hives if I’m anywhere even close to one.”

“What do you like about them?” You had asked him and he’d given you that smile and a half-hearted shrug.

“They just make me happy.” He tells you, you can see the truth of it in his eyes. It’s such a silly little thing but the fact he’s chosen to share it with you, speaks volumes. “They’re fun, colourful, they make me think of brighter days. I think that’s why I’m smiling so much this morning, your dress…”

He trails off, his gaze slipping down to his coffee mug as his cheeks flush pink.

“Maybe I’ll try to wear it more often.” You tease and he laughs at that. It’s such a rich, vibrant sound and it lights up something inside of you.

You like this man, really like him.

You haven’t felt like this in a long time.

It takes a few days for you paint the picture. You choose an A5 sized piece of paper because you feel canvas would be too intimate and you aren’t ready to give that much of yourself to someone else. Creating art, it’s a private experience, when you gift it to someone else you’re really handing them a piece of your soul, showing them your true self.

You spend your evenings hunched over the battered desk in your apartment, working to the sound of Vance Joy as you mix your paints. You have a very specific colour pallet in mind. A rich blue that matches the hue of Brendon’s eyes, a vibrant sunshine yellow that contrasts against it. You have a scene in mind from the last time you were in North Dakota, four sunflowers swaying lightly in the breeze alongside the barn your family used to own. It’s the last happy memory you have of that place and you’re giving it to Brendon.

Brendon doesn’t expect to spend his birthday shuttling between LA and Salt Lake City but then again it’s the nature of the job. He’d been looking forward to getting dinner with Simone and Cutty but it’s past midnight by the time he gets into the office. His birthday’s over before he even realises it.

It’s when he collapses into his desk chair that he notices the brown paper envelope sitting on his  desk, his name written in your pretty looped scrawl. He’s intrigued when he picks it up, his fingers breaking the seal eagerly.

He can’t help but smile when he sees the artwork. It’s an original piece, painted by your hand, he’s known you long enough to recognise your style. The bold use of colour, the delicacy of the drawing itself. He thinks he’d know you anywhere.

When he turns over the piece, he studies the words written in dark pencil and something just blossoms in his chest.

Brendon,

May all your days be as bright as sunflowers.

Mona.

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Like My Work? - Why Not Buy Me A Coffee

These two panels live rent free in my head so y'all have to see them

"there's nothing new under the sun, only the players change"

1x01 || 1x04

#enemies to lovers

somewhere in my soul it makes me sad that this bit is like, difficult to translate/localize well, because when vanitas is calling ven brother and he’s having none of it he’s using the same word xehanort uses to refer to eraqus in his journals (it does literally mean sibling but in context of xehaqus it likely means something closer to like… sworn brother (samurai flavor)), and Ventus is NOT having it, which is just a little extra flavor that doesn’t come across. Like hey we are not making this parallel to our masters and you do not get to insert yourself into our lives like this we’re more similar than we are different it’s not unsalvageable (you idiot) and Vani has just given that up because he was kind of also talking about something else entirely (you idiot) so the conversation becomes less “hello. I consider you family” and more like

vanitas: hello my other half. Day to my night. My brother in arms. The bond which will inevitably end with one of us dead

ven: would you cut that out

Karlach and Sera are the "they put us in different universes because they knew we would be unstoppable as best friends" kinda characters, methinks

- I got over being surprised at you a long time ago. - It's a poem about the sea. I know a great deal about the sea.

pandora and the flying dutchman (1951) / dark shadows 464, "dover beach"

Taylor Swift Songs That Mention Cars That Are Totally About Phoebe and Silas - Mary's Song (Oh My My My)

i looked at you like the stars that shine / in the sky, pretty lights

"She terrified him. She grounded him. She should have been named after an epithet of the sun instead of an epithet of the moon, because it was inevitable that everything in Phoebe Hong's vicinity would circle her in orbit."

and our daddies used to joke about the two of us / growing up and falling in love

This one isn't really exact. But this has similar vibes to Orion constantly third wheeling with them and being really tired about it. Especially since Phoebe and Orion are pretty each other's only constant family members.

take me back to the house in the backyard tree ... take me back when our world was one block wide

Maybe it's just because we have TPATS or maybe because Phoebe and Silas have such a long history, but I can picture both of them being very reminiscent of the time they spent together in London. Before the trial and both of their recruitments.

i dared you to kiss me and ran when you tried / just two kids, you and i

ok but am i the only one who thinks they would have done this.

well, i was sixteen when suddenly / i wasn't that little girl you used to see / but your eyes still shined like pretty lights

Even though a lot has changed since their initial promise to "do well together," they still have each other. At least in theory, but this song is happy so we'll go with that for now.

they never believed we'd really fall in love

At this point, being around their miscommunication has probably become such a fixture in Orion's life that once they actually get together it might surprise him a little bit.

two a.m. riding in your truck and all i need is you next to me

Obligatory car line + "I just want to do well. That's it." ""Let's do well together."

take me back two the time we had our very first fight / the slamming of doors instead of kissing goodnight / you stayed outside till the morning light

In FHH they are going to fight. I don't think there's a way around that. However, regardless of what either one of them thinks, I don't think either of them would truly leave the other, no matter the circumstances.

a few years had gone and come around / we were sitting at our spot in town / and you looked at me, got down on one knee / take me back to the time when we walked down the aisle

It's either going to be this or an open ending I think.

take me home where we met so many years before

Phoebe and Silas are each other's home in a way that is parallel with every other ship in the Secret Shanghai universe (absolutely insane how this keeps happening). They both feel a ton of pressure to do well while still feeling forgotten by their families. Roma and Juliette both were raised as gang heirs despite not being blindly committed to their sides. Ben and Mars lived together for years. Then there's the whole, "She was not a remnant of his life before who expected a foolhardy version of him," thing for Rosalind and Orion. And the balance between loyalty to a cause and caring about people even when doing so might make you take actions that don't align with The Cause 100% thing for Celia and Oliver.

after all this time, you and i / i'll be eighty-seven; you'll be eighty-nine / i'll look at you like the stars that shine / in the sky, oh my my my

Even though everything will continue to change around them, they will still have each other. Unless Chloe decides to be really mean but shhhhhh

for the ship bingo: keefe x dex

tbh i don't have many thoughts about this one but they're cool 👍

i think my ultimate ideal dream piece of entertainment media would be if hideo kojima made a dune video game

You know . I've mentioned this at some point on here before but I've heard jo was created as a character that's meant to be ThE fEmAlE dean and I really really don't see it.

for a while i lived in an old house; the kind u.s americans don't often get to live in - living in a really old house here is super expensive. i found out right before i moved out that the house was actually so old that it features in a poem by emily dickinson.

i liked that there were footprints in front of the sink, worn into the hardwood. there were handprints on some of the handrails. we'd find secret marks from other tenants, little hints someone else had lived and died there. and yeah, there was a lot wrong with the house. there are a lot of DIY skills you learn when you are a grad student that cannot afford to pay someone else to do-it-for-ya. i shared the house with 8 others. the house always had this noise to it. sometimes that noise was really fucking awful.

in the mornings though, the sun would slant in thick amber skiens through the windows, and i'd be the first one up. i'd shuffle around, get showered in this tub that was trying to exit through the floor, get my clothes on. i would usually creep around in the kitchen until it was time to start waking everyone else up - some of them required multiple rounds of polite hey man we gotta go knocks. and it felt... outside of time. a loud kind of quiet.

the ghosts of the house always felt like they were humming in a melody just out of reach. i know people say that the witching hour happens in the dark, but i always felt like it occurred somewhere around 6:45 in the morning. like - for literal centuries, somebody stood here and did the dishes. for literal centuries, somebody else has been looking out the window to this tree in our garden. for literal centuries, people have been stubbing their toes and cracking their backs and complaining about the weather. something about that was so... strangely lovely.

i have to be honest. i'm not a history aficionado. i know, i know; it's tragic of me. i usually respond to "this thing is super old" by being like, wow! cool! and moving on. but this house was the first time i felt like the past was standing there. like it was breathing. like someone else was drying their hands with me. playing chess on the sofa. adding honey to their tea.

i grew up in an old town. like, literally, a few miles off of walden pond (as in of the walden). (also, relatedly, don't swim in walden, it's so unbelievably dirty). but my family didn't have "old house" kind of money. we had a barely-standing house from the 70's. history existed kind of... parallel to me. you had to go somewhere to be in history. your school would pack you up on a bus and take you to some "ye olden times" place and you'd see how they used to make glass or whatever, and then you'd go home to your LEDs. most museums were small and closed before 5. you knew history was, like, somewhere, but the only thing that was open was the mcdonalds and the mall.

i remember one of my seventh grade history teachers telling us - some day you'll see how long we've been human for and that thing has been puzzling me. i know the scientific number, technically.

the house had these little scars of use. my floors didn't actually touch the walls; i had to fill them with a stopgap to stop the wind. other people had shoved rags and pieces of newspaper. i know i've lost rings and earring backs down some of the floorboards. i think the raccoons that lived in our basement probably have collected a small fortune over the years. i complain out loud to myself about how awful the stairs are (uneven, steep, evil, turning, hard to get down while holding anything) and know - someone else has said this exact same thing.

when i was packing up to leave and doing a final deep cleaning, i found a note carved in the furthest corner in the narrow cave of my closet. a child's scrawled name, a faded paint handprint, the scrangly numbers: 1857.

we've been human for a long time. way back before we can remember.

Been thinking about why the argument that OFMD is inherently a bad show because it's based on historical slaveowners so often feels disingenuous to me as a person of color.

HUGE disclaimer up front: if you don't wanna fuck with the show because of that premise right out the gate, that's 100% valid and I completely get that. I'm not talking about that. What I'm specifically talking about is White fandom people in particular who argue that OFMD must be "problematic" because of this, especially when they say this as some kind of virtue-signalling trying to win points in fandom wars, stuff like that.

My big thing is that the resemblance the characters in OFMD have to their real-world namesakes begins and ends with having the same name. The show feels more to me like it's playing with the vague myths around these names, not the people themselves. Can you make an argument that they should have come up with original characters instead? Sure, but let's be honest, even people who study the irl counterparts have very little knowledge of their actual lives, and the average person has all but none. To add to that, this show has absolutely zero interest in historical accuracy; the moment they cast a Jewish-Polynesian man as Blackbeard that became obvious. No one is saying the real-life Blackbeard and Stede Bonnet were good people, least of all the show itself; the point is that OFMD's versions are basically original characters already.

It always feels like an incredibly disingenuous claim to parallel the show to Hamilton, because Hamilton both did care about historical accuracy and also brought up the slave trade. Hamilton is uncomfortable for so many poc because it writes poc into the story of otherwise very faithfully portrayed racists, colonizers, and slaveowners and just handwaves the racism. In OFMD, racism exists, but the stance is always explicitly anti-racist and anti-colonialist in a way that is just so fun to see (whom among us has not wished to skin a racist with a snail fork?).

The other thing that sticks for me is...there's an appropriate amount of slavery I want to see in my romcoms, and that amount is none. I am so sick of historical fiction where Black characters are only there for trauma porn about the horrors of the slave trade. You can make a legitimate argument that OFMD is handwavey about the slave trade, but I'd argue that including discussion of the slave trade is something that should be done with such incredible care that it would leave us with a show that can't really be a comedy at all anymore. OFMD's characters of color are allowed to be nuanced, complex characters with their own emotions, and it's incredibly refreshing to see, and I'd much rather have that than yet another historical fiction show where the only characters of color are only there to make White audiences feel virtuous about how sad they feel for them.

In conclusion, I guess: every yt person who makes this argument to win points in a fandom war owes me and every other fan of color a million dollars

Imagine all the time you wasted overthinking, daydreaming, fantasising about the last guy, the guy before, the guy before that… And where did it land you? Disappointed? Resenting? Grieving, what could have been?….Because you used your precious energy to create a parallel fantasy life of you and him. Your maladaptive day dreaming, which probably started as a trauma response in childhood is quite likely ruining your dating life and here’s why. 

You can’t control the actions of others, in fact you have very little control when it comes to dating, it’s often divine timing, energy compatibility, and a huge part is surrendering. Letting go of the fantasy so the beauty of the unknown can unfold. Unmet needs play a huge role in this. The need for safety and control when dating often leads to creating a mental picture of what you want the future to look like and taking actions that dictate this. For example, you’ve had cute first date, but on your way home you’re already checking your diary to see what dates you’re free next week, maybe he can take you to the theatre on Thursday to see that new show, or maybe you can move your dinner with the girls on Saturday night so you can spend the weekend with him…MEANWHILE he hasn’t even asked you on a second date. All this overthinking and trying to control the future puts you in your masculine energy. Not only is this repelling to a masculine man, but also removes the opportunity to see how things will unfold naturally. So am I saying don’t think about the future with a man? Don’t have hopes and desires? Absolutely not. What I’m saying is when you spend your time away from him overthinking your future with him, imaging conversations in the shower, texting him from a place of trying to control the future - you’re setting yourself up for a fall. You’re wasting your precious energy on overthinking him when that same energy could be spent on you. You’re creating energetic friction between your desires and reality which will show up in how you are with him. You’ll become disappointed he didn’t take you to the theatre on Thursday because he has football, even though that was never the plan. You’re perpetually setting yourself up for disappointment. So here’s the hot take - you want something to control, to obsess over, to love, to cherish, to have and hold forever. Let. That. Be. You. Give yourself the love you’re desperately seeking outside of you, pour into you the way you only dream men would. Buy yourself the gifts you want him to buy you, tell yourself the words you can only imagine he would tell you, love on you so hard that when you are dating you become a reflection of love, love shines through your eyes. Not desperation, not control, not seeking, not wanting. But love, because the most beautiful and wholesome love you could ever imagine - starts within.