#no matter the context
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This is going to be long so the short version is this:
I convinced my therapist to watch the 🌟Gay Pirate Show🌟 and now I have to confront a previously unidentified and terrifyingly deep emotional wound that could be as transformative to heal as it is terrifying to approach.
My therapist and I have a lot of let's say...demographic things in common that have made this the most successful therapeutic relationship I've ever had, but also that just made me think he might like the show. It's no secret that ofmd has been a deeply moving experience for its viewers, and queer, neurodivergent, and/or people of color have written at length about the special ways it touches us (or doesn't). Those are three categories both he and I fit into and it feels relevant to say that for context.
So yes I thought he might like it, but I also wanted to pick his brain about Big Feelings it was giving me that I hadn't experienced with the same intensity with other media/fandoms. Y'all, he gave me a completely unexpected reading on the show (and its story and its fan works) and why it makes us feel So Much that I haven't seen anywhere before.
When I say Big Feelings, I mean like I've literally had to swear off a couple of pretty innocuous categories on AO3 ("Growing Old Together" and "Domestic Fluff") because they would devastate me in ways that I couldn't attribute to anything specific. Growing Old Together comes with the possibility of death separating them, which is heartbreaking, but that didn't feel like it was the thing that was gutting me. Domestic Fluff could probably be called the most innocuous tag ever, but anything that saw our blorbos settling down and watching the Revenge sail off into the distance was fucking me up as well.
There are plenty of reasons why OFMD makes queer people feel so much, but when I say this was fucking me up I mean like, well, remember when people outside of classical music started learning about appoggiatura? Like intellectually knowing why I was crying but at a loss how intense everything felt. And my therapist (who is as good at analyzing a text as he is at being a therapist) was like "oh, it could be all the grief."
The grief.
The audacity of this motherfucker (affectionate).
It's a romcom! It's a romcom that we were explicitly told would have a happy ending! It's a romcom where the characters will get to sail off into the sunset together like they want and like we want for them! Stede and Ed, after four decades of self-hatred and trauma and fear and isolation, somehow find each other. And one of the sweetest things about their story is that it's a late in life love story, because it's incredibly inspiring for someone to get to experience a part of life they thought wasn't for them. The inescapable fact that their time together will be shorter than any of us would like is sad but not unaccountably sad to me, because of how much joy they'll be able to cram into the time they have left. I could be wrong but I don't think that alone is the source of what's been overwhelming me.
Grief is a constant presence in the world-building and the storytelling because grief is a natural response to well, so many things about being alive. Grieving is some of the hardest shit any of us ever have to do, but it's also so universal and so many of the things that make us uniquely human also make grieving well, maybe not easier, but something we can endure and process through ritual, community, and the example of those we've witnessed grieving their own losses. Many kinds of grief come with narratives that you can accept or reject all or parts of, but the narrative exists.
But have you ever heard of disenfranchised loss? Loss that's not easily labeled or classified or given the time or space or understanding it deserves? Have you experienced a loss like that? Can you imagine how much more difficult it makes the grieving process?
Well what my therapist suggested, the thing that knocked me on my ass hard enough that I had to come have Online Feelings about it, is that eventually, we all have to mourn ourselves. Not necessarily in a "mortality is inevitable" way (that happens to everyone) but in ways that are often unique to people like him and me (black, ND, queer). Even if we work on ourselves, if we grow and heal our trauma and feel at home in our identities and our bodies and build beautiful lives, eventually we will be forced to mourn the selves that we never got to be in the societies in which we live and the selves we once had to become to survive this long.
And that mourning is a kind of disenfranchised loss, with no clear path forward. Obviously this conversation happened within the context of everything my therapist knows about me as an individual, but I thought certain things might resonate with other fans as well so I wanted to talk about it. The story of this bizarre little man and his remarkable second act and his lovely little found family and his incredibly beautiful love story (that we've been guaranteed will end happily) is still haunted by the specific kind of grief that comes from learning what's possible, and regretting that you didn't know it was possible sooner.
And does anybody have more delayed milestones, later-in-life discoveries, and/or need to invent places for themselves than those of us on the social fringes? Than those of us in societies unequipped for (or actively hostile to) the ways we exist and the things we need to survive and thrive? Than those of us who have to create our own narratives or be saddled with inaccurate or harmful narratives created by others, or even no narrative at all?
And narrative is so much. Narrative is everything. Narrative is the story we tell ourselves and each other and that literally shapes our reality. So those story beats where we discover something better than what came before are inherently stories with loss and will require mourning, because we mourn loss.
Even when the story has a happy ending. Especially when the story has a happy ending for someone who never thought they would be allowed to have one.
I mean just like, FUCKING HELL. I can't blame anyone for this but myself. I know my therapist. I know how insightful he can be. I did this to myself and now I have to live with it. But my god is it a massive mountain I'm about to have to climb now. My therapist and I have always found it helpful to discuss media that makes me Feel Things (see all the trauma work that came from Life is Strange) but if you had told me that I'd be looking into this new dark cave of unprocessed shit thanks to what I thought was just gonna be a harmless little gay pirate show starring fucking Murray from Flight of the Concords I would probably just have assumed you were in the middle of having a stroke and taken off to get you the medical attention you desperately needed.
#not to be dramatic#but I definitely worry this might still be dramatic#my therapist is great#but the problem with a good therapist#is that sometimes they will fucking read you#and then you get whiplash#don't be afraid to bring up media that speaks to you in therapy#you never know what might come of it#or how much it might shake you#I should also be clear that all this grief in a story with a happy ending isn't a bad thing#it just kind of is#and when you enjoy it#just enjoy it#every moment of joy is a gift#no matter the context#go ahead and grieve yourself#also I couldn't find an elegant way to fit this in#but the storytelling is very neurodivergent#or at least unfolds in a way that is friendly to my neurodivergence#that's why I'm not a big TV watcher anyway#but I was able to sit down and mainline this#it's the first new show I've watched in literal years#ofmd#our flag means death#ofmd meta#our flag means death meta#🤯🤯🤯#😳😳😳#disenfranchised loss
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eren gets hard when you play with his hair btw
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currently crying bc aaron hotchner
#how is it possible for someone to make my heart BURST so much#no matter the context#its a full time job at this point
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#imagine if we all just commented on ig posts about men football how it's the worst thing we've ever seen#and that you can't call this football at all#my five year old daughter could do it better#imagine ... we would get death threats#and yet all men get is a 😂 emoji#when they do the same commenting on posts about women's football#no matter the context#IT'S THE SAME SPORT YOU DUMBASSES#my favourite is how those kind of fans always hate on games that finish like 0:0 or 1:0 because they are boring#and then go comment on a post about the england norway game and say :#mhhm no i like games more that don't have that many goals it's so uneven#just say you hate women#congrats to the german girlies!!! you did well yesterday
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forcing myself to go thru my 1000 tabs and actually take notes in obsidian, and really getting a kick out of this one
#love to read about martial arts and knuckle conditioning and when they say “hey this is actually bullshit don't do this”#think hm. how much bullshit has keith done to his hands#and the answer is: a lot#no matter the context#the wall always wins#(or the tree. in his specific experience)
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If I'm in a conversation with someone and they say the word blockchain I immediately tune out everything they say
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Hi!
If you're comfortable,
For the OC ask game, questions 1 and 15
Best,
Overanalyzer
number 1 got answer over here so i'll answer 2. if you wanted another question you can ofc ask!
2 - Do you have a personal favourite among your OCs?
at the moment, it's for sure Cass!! my lesbian ex-oracle gardener. She doesn't have a very big role within the story, but i just find her really interesting to develop! she was born into a family that is known for prophecy magic (they focus on writing and interpreting prophecies, an oracle is the best way to describe it) she dislikes how certain prophecy interpretations get viewed as the true interpretation, despite the fact prophecies are inherently unpredicable and can only be understood in hindsight. she just doesn't like the idea of lacking control and having things set out for her, and being surrounded by the mindset that everything is written out already. she ends up cutting off contact with her family and moving away to figure out what a life of her own choice looks like. grows a big cool garden.
otherwise it's quinn but that's everyone's favourite
15 - Do you like to talk about your OCs with other people?
yes for sure! i love sharing ocs with people and am trying to do it more
ask me oc questions
#if someone sends me number and it's already been answered i just to the consectutive one#no matter the context#cybil answers#my art#second choice#cassandra salus#thanks for the ask!!#my ocs
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"you know, my therapist says everyone needs a safe space, a place where you can fully be yourself"
[image description: 2 large gifs of evan buckley and eddie diaz from 9-1-1.
gif 1: from season 6 episode 12. in the diaz home, eddie (out of frame) watches buck sleep on his couch, his arm draped across the sofa.
gif 2: from season 7 episode 5. at buck's apartment, the camera pans as eddie, holding his phone, turns to face buck as buck rounds the corner of his kitchen island.
/end ID]
#the way they both seek refuge in each other makes me so incredibly unwell actually#its just. its always been them#no matter the homes they've tried and failed to build with others it's always been the two of them#also don't even wanna go into the “a place where you can fully be yourself” / “you don't have to be anything for anyone” of it all#especially not in the context of both buck and eddie's storylines in 7.05#maybe that'll be its own fun and separate set for when im less sleep deprived lol#eddie diaz#evan buckley#buddie#buck x eddie#911 on abc#911 abc#9-1-1#alicia edits
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It's alright
| 26122023
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Based on a scene of @asterbae's story "Perfect Slaughter". I already did some simple character art before, but this particular scene in chapter 10 just hit differently and I wanted to bring this to paper since the first time I read it.
reader discretion is advised, pls read the tags before checking it out
#my art#bg3#fanfiction#art for friends#OC#Tyrus#Astarion#first proper work in forever#I'm very proud#and very amused about the subject matter#because I'm sure it's confusing as hell without context lol
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invisible scars (referenced previous talk here)
[ID: A colourless, digital Trigun comic of Vash and Wolfwood talking about Wolfwood's scars. They're both laying in bed and topless. Vash lays on top of Wolfwood, playing with the rosary around his neck. Then, Vash kisses a spot on Wolfwood's chest. Wolfwood asks, "What are you doing?" Vash smiles sadly, "You got shot here. In the last town we visited. You didn't even bother moving."
Vash props himself up over Wolfwood, who frowns slightly. Wolfwood is quiet for a moment before he says, "You remember that, huh?" Vash grabs Wolfwood's left wrist and brings it to his face. "And here." He kisses another spot there. "When you helped free the hostages from that robber..." Wolfwood dismissively says, looking away, "Was a lucky shot." Vash huffs, “Don’t brag. Jeez.”
Half of Wolfwood's expression is shown, eyes returning to Vash who is now sitting up, continuing to say, "And..." Vash goes on and kiss Wolfwood's right palm. "You got cut here, even though that girl was aiming at me." A moment from the past flashes, of Wolfwood grabbing a knife aimed at Vash, his hand bleeding.
At present, Vash moves down and puts another kiss on Wolfwood's right shoulder. "And here, from watching my back." Another memory flashes of Wolfwood and Vash back to back. Vash looks back as Wolfwood grins while holding Punisher, bleeding from multiple gunshots in his shoulder.
"And," Vash combs up Wolfwood's hair to reveal his forehead, "Here." A final memory shows Wolfwood with a regeneration vial in his mouth while getting shot on his temple. The next panel is framed in blood with Vash at the center, eyes wide and stunned in horror. The next panel is a closed up shot of Wolfwood's eye, locked on Vash's face.
Back to present, Vash’s head is bowed down as Wolfwood raises a hand to his nape and says, “Spikey.”
Wolfwood looks serious and frowns as he says, "We talked about this. Those were my decisions. They're not there anymore. Forget about them." Vash looks very sad before he smiles ruefully and says, "I still see them. All the time." He leans down so they touch foreheads. Wolfwood’s sorrowful expression can be seen as Vash says, "You protect so much. I could never forget what you've done to me. And many others..."
In the last image, they're drawn more cartoonishly. Wolfwood sweats and asks, "You don't actually remember every wound, right?" Vash points at a spot on his chest. "Kuroneko left a scratch here 7 times." Wolfwood, startled, says, "Why the hell are you keeping count—" End ID]
Credits for ID here and here
#vashwood#vash the stampede#nicholas d wolfwood#trigun#trigun maximum#another scars comic for one of the vw week days!!!! frankly i think about their scars WAY too often . most notably wolfwood's because#it really symbolizes a lot for him imo bc for vash it's a history of all the people that's ever harmed him betrayed him and the trust he has#given to humanity despite it all. its a beautiful reflection of his character and then u look at ww and presumably#since we dont really see him half naked Ever (shame) and i mean. i guess technically its a hc -- i assume he wouldn't have any scars bc#of the regen potions (which is why he doesnt have his t scars btw the regen pot took them away :pensive:)#in a way its like washing his hands of blood. giving him the body of someone who might never been involved in a fight never held a gun#but he knows thats not true yet he cant really do anything about it anyway bc he's still just human. if he stops taking the regen pots#he can't press forward. so its just a rinse and repeat and growing accustomed to whats inflicted on him because he knows it'll go away at#the end of the day. he's human but he's also not he's far beyond what could be considered a normal human but he still just is.#mortal but also not immortal. idk. i overthink about it a lot GMSKGMDK frankly i dont think it matters THAT much in the context of trimax#but it means a lot to me somehow. also thinking about how no matter how many times ww kills he's never numb to the sensation of it. maybe#the adrenaline gets to him for the beginning half but ive been rereading like.. vol 3? and that entire fight for ww#u can slowly see him spiral as he keeps on going on. anyway anyway. i love ww#ruporas art
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shoutout to rebecca romijn for changing the entire trajectory of my life when she just casually lifted john larroquette's entire six-foot-four self on her back
#that made me scream#for context not that it matters her character was helping his character with his hurt back#but yeah she grabs him turns him around and casually just bends over with him on her back#all while delivering lines#it's so hot it's ridiculous#rebecca romijn#john larroquette#the librarians
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Time & Space pages 1-2 ( This is the start || ao3 (not yet!) || next )
Starts less than 24 hours after the death of Willy Stampler. With the job done, there's finally time to sort some things out. They just need the right amount of space.
#dungeons and daddies#dndads#normal oak#henry oak#normal oak swallows garcia#dndads 2#fanart#kineticallyart#time & space#Coming at chu live from my first dance chaperone duty#Monkeys paw is not over btw! In case this made you nervous#I'll be doing both#Next 4 pages of mp already in the works#They're delicious you're gonna love them#Anyway canon didn't have the framework to peel apart the oaks like a surgeon with a grape#So here we go :)#Don't worry normal i gotchur happy ending#For you. Personally.#Anyway i don't have this planned quite as meticulously as mp#Plotwise#But the script doc is like 6k words long so there's gas in this tank#That said updates on this will be slower than on mp until mp ends#Getting mp done is still priority 1#Anyway (x2 combo)#Implied context here is that at the “Willy is dead and we saved the world” after party at the S-O-G's place#Normal kinda lost it#At who and what about doesn't really matter#No one's holding it against him#But the result is that they're not gonna let him pretend to be okay anymore#Normals done a lot of taking care of other people; time for other people to take care of him for a bit
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hate when people are like "no reason but zoro just seems gay" he literally gleefully licks his swords in anticipation. regularly
#IN A NARRATIVE CONTEXT WHERE SYMBOLISM AND SHIT MATTERS THATS. PRETTY GAY.#TO SAY NOTHING OF THE GAY SOUNDING TAUNTS#adddna#1pc
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Imagine for a moment that reincarnation is real... and now imagine senior, gray muzzle Vasco rescuing a sickly albino horse who seems very frightened and uncomfortable with the concept of being a horse. Vasco is too old and frail to ride anymore, as you've mentioned in the past if i remember correctly, but he takes this horse in.
No one at the stable can even make eye contact with this pale steed without its ears pinning back and its eyes threatening to bulge out of its head. However, Vasco visits every day he is physically able to, so he can gently comb its mane and tail and handfeed it oats and hay, since it refuses to eat otherwise.
Vasco doesn't give the horse a name, but in a voice soft enough for the two of them to hear, he calls it various old pet names only he should know. He swears the horse's eyes light up at his words despite not fully believing the possibility.
Regardless, they comfort each other.
.
#hwhhhaugh#you can't just whip up a sad elderly horse girl Vasco scenarios and make me read them with my own two eyes#probably the last of many horses he's had#hhhwh#'various old pet names only he should know'#answered#majima420#I don't know much about horses but I think I've read that horses are never truly albinistic? or that there are no comfirmed cases of them?#horse people do you know whether that's true? or am I just not misunderstanding the whole thing#but if it's a sufficiently white/pink horse to bear a resemblance does it matter in story context#'uncomfortable with the concept of being a horse' hehe#Vaschete scenarios
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It pisses me off so much when people try to hold older queer media to today's standards.
Oh, is The Rocky Horror Picture Show "PrObLeMaTiQuE"????
Homosexuality was only taken out of the DSM 2 years prior to that movie's release. Shut the fuck up.
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This is unnecessarily long, but: I was just thinking about Wickham's predation on fifteen-year-old Georgiana Darcy and then, almost exactly a year later, Wickham's predation on sixteen-year-old Lydia Bennet.
There are obvious parallels between the two incidents. In fact, they're so obvious that I think the incidents are sometimes treated as equivalent, with the consequences only differing by happenstance. I don't think that's true, personally.
There are some mechanistic sort of differences—Wickham put a lot more effort and planning into the Georgiana situation. He wanted to marry her for her money and to make her brother suffer. She had to be isolated from people who would look out for her interests, he had Mrs Younge in place, he had known Georgiana as a child and was able to exploit his own previous kindness to her as her father's godson, etc.
And Georgiana, despite all of this, and despite being swept away by a teenage infatuation with an extremely attractive man, was still uncomfortable with it. She was worried about disappointing a brother who raised her and whom she deeply loves and admires. When her brother actually showed up by surprise, she decided to tell him everything; Darcy takes pains to give her credit for this. Adaptations generally downplay Georgiana's active decision-making here, but the only element of chance is Darcy deciding to go to Ramsgate at all. He insists that he was only able to act because Georgiana chose to tell him what was going on.
This isn't meant to be an indictment of Lydia, though. Does she admire the parents who raised her? No. But why would she? Especially why would she admire a father who treats her mother and sisters and herself with profound contempt and no sense of responsibility? Why would she ever confide in him?
It's not like Lydia doesn't confide in anyone. In fact, she too confides in an older sibling, her sister Kitty. And in one sense, her trust in Kitty is not undeserved. Kitty does keep the secret. Presumably, she does this because, despite her occasional annoyance with Lydia, she is very much under her influence and goes along with whatever Lydia does. Regardless, she is trustworthy in that sense. Moreover, we see at the end of the book that Kitty is easily improved by being placed in better environments and taught how to behave. She just didn't know better.
How was she going to judge Lydia's situation correctly? Who was teaching her to judge anything correctly? Certainly not their parents.
If Mr Bennet had bothered to interest himself in his younger daughters and try and influence them for the better, impressionable Kitty is probably the one who would have benefited the most. The whole Lydia/Wickham thing would have fallen apart before it went anywhere if all the girls had been been properly raised, even if Lydia did exactly the same things.
And Lydia likely wouldn't do the same things if she'd been brought up properly and, you know, treated with a baseline of respect rather than being openly mocked by her father, the person most able to affect her development. Instead, at barely sixteen, she's been continually rejected by her father, over-indulged by her mother, and flattered by adult men (28-y-o Darcy says he and Wickham are nearly the same age). And she still tells someone what's going on, even though she doesn't care about her parents' opinions or the consequences of her actions. And she was under the protection of a colonel and his wife at the time, who also could have told someone or acted, and didn't.
It's not that nobody could have done anything about the Lydia/Wickham situation. It's that nobody did until Darcy found out and tried to extract her. But it was, in one sense, too late. To Lydia, he's just some unfun acquaintance who says boring things like "go home to your family and I'll do what I can to cover for you." That is, he tries to do what he did for Georgiana.
But Lydia is not Georgiana—she did not choose to tell him about any of this. She did not want to be extracted because she didn't know and couldn't be quickly made to understand what marriage to Wickham would mean in the long term. And she didn't care what her family thought because she had no reason to, pragmatically or psychologically.
Georgiana, otoh, did care about her family's welfare and the good opinion and affection of the head of her family. But despite their radical differences in personality, the most fundamental difference between the girls IMO is that Georgiana had every reason to believe that disappointing Darcy and losing his respect would be a change from the norm.
Normally he is affectionate and attentive towards her. They write each other long letters, he defends her to other family members, and praises her frequently. Georgiana, quiet and intimidated though she may be, talks more when he's around. Disappointing him had actual stakes for her.
Put another way, the potential loss of his good opinion mattered to her because he's gone to the trouble of raising her as well as he can and forming a good relationship with her. She chose to tell Darcy the whole thing because he had earned her affection and trust in a way that Mr Bennet has utterly failed to do. Even Darcy happening to visit Georgiana at Ramsgate comes from his affection and attention to Georgiana's welfare, even if he couldn't have known what would follow from checking on his sister at that particular moment.
Chance is always part of life, and it's part of the novel and these situations. But a lot of how these scenarios wound out was not determined by chance but by long-existing patterns in these girls' educations and relationships.
#this actually spun off from a different post about the contrast between darcy and mr bennet#they're alike in some ways but it only makes the differences all the more glaring#and i don't think we see that more than in how they conduct themselves towards the young girls in their care#and in the drastic consequences of how they educate and relate to those girls#georgiana and lydia made choices but there's a point at which harping on choice!!! and personal responsibility!! doesn't have much value#and the contributing factors and context of those choices matter so much more#anghraine babbles#long post#austen blogging#austen fanwank#georgiana darcy#lydia bennet#fitzwilliam darcy#george wickham#mr bennet#catherine bennet#some unflattering references to mrs bennet but this is more of a mr bennet hate post :)
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