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#this is one of the reasons i realized i was nonbinary
kerubimcrepin · 2 days
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Liveblog - Dofus, livre 1 : Julith [PART 11]
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As I've mentioned, Kerubim and Julith have Beef.
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As far as she is concerned, whether he was behind her framing (he wasn't) he is one of the people to blame. He defeated her that fateful day, and then she never saw her son again.
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I've already went into detail, on the way "killing" her has affected him, (A mixture of horror and duty. Killing a mother and making a child an orphan for the sake of a city. Being grateful for her dying because it made him a father instead. Feeling awful for that thought.) but it is interesting, how he reacted to her turning out to be alive, when he killed her with his own hands.
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Seething. Perhaps even coping.
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This is chichala, which we had seen. I suppose he uses it to buff himself up before the boss fight. Drinking alcohol before a fight is very much RPG logic.
Sadly, there are no interesting buffs to it in-game:
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I think a lot about the way Kerubim, Joris, and Atcham would be characterized in video game logic, by the way. I still have no working theory of how the hell their fighting styles would synergize. Would Joris be their buffer/debuffer? Their glass canon? Both? And do any of them take ranged weapons on missions...?
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They probably do. It'd be kinda dumb not to. Personally, I like to imagine that Atcham would be the one using those, most of the time. He has that "skyrim stealth archer" vibe to him. (Though they're all melee users, through and through.)
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Despite how smug he is at a couple of moments, he really was struggling during this fight.
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My honest reaction whenever Kerubim does this fucking face is just:
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This is very much a "deeply mentally ill adoptive father (who inadvertently ruined his child's life by adopting them to atone for his sins + because he was abused as a child) fighting through an army for his child before dying in their arms and saying they're the only good thing he ever had" look for him.
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Another reason that one has to support both women's rights and wrongs when talking about Julith, is that, like.,.. what was she playing at, here? There are two possibilities:
That she would destroy whoever has the dragon's soul and set it free, giving her an advantage.
That Kerubim would shield that person.
Either one is good. :)
Either way she was perfectly willing to risk/attempt blowing up a random, innocent person, who was hiding from her.
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My personal headcanon is that while Julith is physically stronger than Kerubim, she lost ten years prior because she couldn't stop thinking about The Baby. Where were they taking Joris? Did Bakara leave with him? Is Joris alright? Didn't Jahash give him to this cat man, who was now trying to kill her? What the fuck is going on, who did this, why, why, why?
I imagine seeing him lose for the exact same reason brings her great pleasure.
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the nonbinary slay here was insane
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Guys I think this might be bad for Joris's long term mental stability.
On a more serious note, I think there should be more content about Joris fucking hating Julith. During the movie? There's too much going on to work out what he feels.
But after? He has all the time in the world to hate her for everything she did.
I do think that he probably grew up and found whoever framed her to take revenge on/to get justice. But hating her, and wanting to clear her name of the crimes she DIDN'T commit so she could have some peace in death, so that people would stop smearing her name, — are two things that can coexist.
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Like to slap his bald scaly head, reblog to slap his bald scaly head.
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Kerubim never changed his stupid ass baka "George George the Farmer Farmer" name.
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Though we've been knew.
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BAD. I DON'T LIKE THIS.
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AND she recognizes him by the blue eyes. AND, this implies that, for the entirety of the Dofus show, — and the entirety of Wakfu as well, since he, once again, has yellow eyes there, — he had dragon eyes.
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Imagine being Simone, waking up at 3am, realizing because you forgot something in Joris and Kerubim's bedroom, sneaking in, and seeing this.
It also raises some questions about adult Joris, because we know he no longer has Grougalorasalar in him. The easiest explanation is that he spent so much time with the dragon, that after their final separation, his eyes couldn't change anymore.
After all, — the changes the dragon made to his height/skin/hair are permanent. It would make sense that, with time, even his eyes would be permanently altered.
I don't think it's a sad thing, by the way. Imagine going your whole life with beautiful brown eyes that look a bit like your adoptive father's. Then imagine suddenly having blue eyes (scary) and that they're your Dead Father's Who You Never Met but whom everyone misses. Like which pair of eyes would you choose? Because I think there IS a right answer to this riddle.
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I think Julith has convinced herself that whoever took her and Jahash out wouldn't want loose ends, and that Joris was taken out as well, or something. Maybe that's why he wasn't really on her mind.
Mind you, this is a tinfoil hat headcanon.
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This is so beautiful, to me... She was so emotionally stricken by seeing him again as his mother, that his father, who was both fatally wounded and stricken by seeing her perform deeply painful dark rituals on his son after traumatizing him, could land one last hit on her to save said son.
Julith has been a mother for a grand total of a few days to a month, while Kerubim has been for 10 years. Of course, her first concern is getting surprised it's him, and not that she hurt him. Because she couldn't even dream that she'd ever see him again.
There's a tragedy in that. She never even had a chance to learn how to be his mother, or who he is as a person, — she was the mother of an infant. Her love for him is far more theoretical than Kerubim's.
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It's a love for Joris not as a person, but as a lost opportunity.
So she has no regrets about hurting him, — and she will hurt him as many times as it takes, if that's what it takes to get back her family.
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nowendil · 6 months
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been thinking a lot about womanhood lately
#like. i don't exactly identify as being a woman. in contrast i do have a strong nonbinary/muunsukupuolinen identity#yet i do feel and acknowledge that in most contexts i AM a woman#not only because that's what most of the world sees me as but that's also consecuently how i move through the world#there is no one set way for women to experoence the world but i do feel like my experience is one of those. because i am gendered as a woman#it used to make me uncomfortable and dysphoric and i'm not saying that now it never does#but i have made my peace with it? like. i feel like i have “let womanhood in” as a part of my identity#and i have also realized that it's not actually being seen as a woman that makes me uncomfortable but being seen SOLELY as a woman#like my friends calling me a woman or my partner calling me their girlfriend doesnt sting usually#because i know they also see the other parts of my gender identity#but when a coworker refers to me with she/her or includes me in “ladies” it stings. because i know that's all they see#like YES i can be a woman. if you acknowledge that i am a bit of a weird woman.#i can be a woman if you acknowledge that i am a gnc woman. a bisexual woman. a queer woman. a woman who is sometimes bit of a man.#if you see and acknowledge that we can talk#however i am NOT a nonbinary woman. i am nonbinary AND a woman. which to some people is the same thing#but to me it's an important distinction. being nonbinary and being a woman are both parts of my gender identity but in very different ways#and very distinctively. lumping them together as equal parts of my identity as i feel the term “nonbinary woman” does doesn't describe me#i am enthusiastically nonbinary. i am begrudgingly a woman. i'm a woman with a long footnote explanation. woman¹#“nonbinary woman” also doesnt feel like it accommodates the way i relate to manhood or boyhood. but that's a whole another tedtalk#i'm not a man but i like how it looks. and i'm not a man i'm just borrowing parts of it for genderfuckery reasons#idk how to explain it in english...#in finnish i would say that en oo mies mut joskus lainaan tai iahn vaa ihailen asioita mieheyden kuvastosta.#but because in social situations and In Our Society That We Live In you mostly can just choose one gender and it's either man or a woman#thennout of those i would rather be a woman. legally. with strangers. you know. not a woman but kind of yes because i relate to other women#if i could be seen only as nonbinary i would. but then again my nonbinaryness does encompass some parts of both womanhood and manhood.#so i guess people would have trouble seeing it as “only nonbinsry”#idk man. it's complicated and also changes emphasis multiple times a year#ask me again a month from now and the gender landscape will be interpreted completely differently#gender#nowe talks
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its so weird to read some of my old fics (do NOT do it but i'm just being hypothetical rn) and reading it. like who even was this person?? i completely was in a haze back in 2020. i literally was posting 3 chapters a day. A DAY. what in the WORLD was that shit.
anyway i remembered some STUPID sappy shit and i didnt remember if i'd put it into a fic or not BUT I FOUND IT.
She and Hope had been dating in secret for months anyway, and any attempt to go talk to Ryan only filed her disposition of displeasure upon knowing that she couldn’t tell anyone, Molly especially, it destroyed herself mentally. They couldn’t really go anywhere near the school, always having to lie to everyone about having projects together when Molly wasn’t around them. It’d consisted with 9 PM - 2 AM intervals of being able to actually see each other. Hope would sneak through her small bedroom window with a portable record player and whatever she had gotten from the vintage record store downtown, and Amy would always fall asleep around eleven because of her internal clock. She would always wake up to find a single sticky note stuck on the edge of her desk whenever she woke up to her alarm the next morning. One of them, Amy still had tucked inside of her phone case, a heavily detailed human heart, with blue and red ink sketched onto a neon pink sticky note, there was a caption that headed the small paper reading the phrase over every now and again makes her almost melt every time. “You have my heart.”
yeah idk why the fuck but i thought of this fucking idea again today and i was like "omg did i ever put that heart note thing in a fic???" yeah you fucking did.
all that to say ME AND WHO???? imagine. thats so fucking.... RAHHHH.
#NOT TOH FANFIC#see this is why i write fanfic. to enact some gay ass shit like this.#the fucking STICKY NOTE WITH A DRAWING OF A HUMAN HEART AND SAYING “YOU HAVE MY HEART” I AM ON THE FLOOR.#*sighs* sucks i cant reuse it on lumity though.#my friend making me realize i actually have rizz but am just too much of a disaster to actually understand cues with people#its a MESS. im just all over the place. i literally ranted to THE SAME FRIEND yesterday (or the day before??) abt some girl jesus.#anyway i remember writing A LOT OF POETRY back in hs about this one girl and then the same girl i got to talk to--#--my first actual conversation with her i blurted out that i wanted to shave my head. she was like.... oooooo god i was A MESS#still slid into her school dms during covid and was like “haha guess what i actually mf did???” anyway all that to say underlying dysphoria#they're nonbinary now too and i kinda ghosted them like a complete idiot :(. its been two years or so but i still think of them... a lot...#actually i have more lore about this person and its like istg they actually really liked me but i could not pick it up.#we had such SUCH good chemistry and vibes. n they were really pretty. ughhhhhh.#anyway yeah idk crushes are weird sometimes. the universe knows how unstoppable id be with a partner#i feel like i was the reason they were able to find themself and their identity because when we were talking i always encouraged them#and told them to do what felt right. im glad they did. i think sometimes that brings me peace. like i served a purpose.#STILL showed them toh. STILL SHOWED THEM TOH.#we were talking about amity LMAO “this green haired girl seems interesting” SHE SO WAS.#...yeah i wish i could text them but i kinda probably fucked it up.#shitposting shit#idk what this post is i just wanted to talk about this dumb sticky note thing because im rotating it in my brain and remembering how#mentally ill i was back in 2020#talking into the void yk how it isssss
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rexscanonwife · 10 months
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OMG HI! i must have been living under a rock when you came out as lesbian bc i had no idea until a few seconds ago! and i’ve been ur moot for 4 years 😭😭😭 my title has been revokeddddd *dramatic*
MARNIEEEE 💖💖 no you're totally ok because tbh...I didn't officially come out online 😅
I came out to close friends and ofc my partner, but I just wasn't sure how to announce it, if it was necessary to. And tbh was a little worried bcs I ship primarily with guys and I didn't wanna get backlash for it
But I've done a lot of thinking about myself in the last few months and I'm pretty sure now that I am a lesbian and I'm proud of it!
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nomaishuttle · 8 months
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like itpisses me awfff actually my mom outting me. bc my family on my dads side is like. fairly conservative. and she just went in calling me connor using he him like. dude. do you wanna hse a tiny bit of fuckin tact. i didnt ask her to do that and she NEVER considered what name she should use for me. and like. luckily my extended family Just kinda went with it i think bc they felt guilty for. The zoo. and related events LOL. and theyve been rly good abt it even my papaw and i wasnt sure he would. so yk... but i wish i had like. gotten to choose who knew yk. IDK basically
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existentialistqueer · 2 years
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i've realized that part of watching heartstopper that hits me so hard is a sense of grief for a teenage experience that i never got to have. so much of the show is full of such powerful, uplifting moments. but being someone who wasn't out and never had the chance to have that first love as a teenager where it feels like that person is everything... man it's bittersweet
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sirompp · 1 year
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enough about YOU, whats your OC'S pronoun pipeline?
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k1rishiki · 11 months
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maybe it's a good thing i didn't find gundam sooner bc i DEF would have changed my name to char
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ff2-soda-pop · 1 year
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the amount of characters i liked in the past for reasons i just Could Not Explain before i discovered things about my identity grows every day </3
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fordtato · 1 year
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For an essay I am working on:
"trans" here includes anyone, binary, nonbinary, intersex, etc. who uses the trans label or feels aligned with the community.
For those who are not trans, even if you do not take the survey a SIGNAL BOOST/REBLOG would be appreciated.
Also, I understand that there might be multiple items on this list that apply, but try to pick the one you feel the strongest.
LASTLY, I feel as though all of these reasons for identifying as trans are incredibly valid. THERE IS NO BAD REASON FOR BEING TRANS.
Accompanying survey on pronouns here
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cats-in-the-clouds · 2 years
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for me personally back when i was a crazed young internet leftie, abortion was the one thing they never managed to change my mind on. and i think it’s because 1. it’s probably the easiest to argue against from a secular/purely ethical point of view (not that you can’t do so for the other issues but they’re trickier) and also 2. it’s like the one modern controversy that they were willing to actually touch back in Catholic school. they were willing to condemn the atrocity that is abortion to young kids and teens who like. didn’t even know where babies came from. always found that kinda funny. but i guess as long as you know what pregnancy itself is then you get the gist.
but nobody wanted to talk to the kids about the various issues surrounding gender and romantic/sexual attraction. they never wanted to teach that because they never even wanted to touch that. possibly because back then it honestly wasn’t even a mainstream topic yet- it was still just some horrid taboo to be laughed at in passing at most (which just absolutely sucks no matter what you believe- nobody should be mocked for a feeling they didn’t choose). but if you don’t teach your kids about a topic, then someone else will do it for you. and if that someone is wackos on the internet, your kid is fresh outta luck.
i didn’t start hearing actual well-formed Church arguments on sexuality and gender stuff until i was in high school and already indoctrinated otherwise by hyper liberal internet circles. it’s a miracle i met this one really great teacher who finally explained stuff in a way that made sense to me because otherwise i probably would’ve gone the rest of my life hating the Church and hating myself.
anyway basically proper Catholic education makes a world of difference and people need to find a way to incorporate it into the lives of the kids they’re raising/teaching. without seething with contempt or insensitive, ignorant mockery. because the depressed girl who’s convinced she’s a nonbinary lesbian or whatever sitting in the back of the classroom hearing you say some nasty crude stuff that demonstrates how little you understand about her life experience is not gonna wanna jump into Jesus’s arms is all i’m saying
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demilypyro · 3 months
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Ok
If your first pick was Sol honestly I get that. He's cool. You might just have terminal main character syndrome tho
If you pick Ky you're just boring. You definitely have main character syndrome but also you're the least interesting person at the function
If your first pick is May you're either a literal demon who heard about the totsugeki memes and wanted in, or you're a cutesy femme and Bridget and Elphelt weren't in the game yet
If your first pick was Axl you think you're the funniest motherfucker in the room at all times and I'm gonna kick your ass. Whether you stick with him will depend on whether you can stand his accent.
If your first pick was Chipp you not only have main character syndrome but you're also a weeb
If your first pick was Potemkin you're going to hell. You picked him specifically because you hate me.
If your first pick was Faust you DEFINITELY think you're the funniest motherfucker in the room, even moreso than Axl
If your first pick was Millia you're either a straight dude who wanted to pick I-no but is ashamed of being horny on main, or you're a chick who describes herself as a "dommy mommy"
If you picked Zato you have main character syndrome but also you liked Shadow more than Sonic
If your first pick is Ramlethal you were either looking for the girl with the biggest sword in the cast, or you have a foot fetish. I'm not kinkshaming, just acknowledging.
Leo seems like he's very popular among gay dudes but that's second hand info. Idk he leaves zero impressions on me
If you picked Nagoriyuki because he's cool you're the only mfer here I respect. If you picked him because he's OP I retract the last statement.
If you picked Giovanna you either wanted to play a cool girl but thought Millia looked too difficult, or you're a furry. Maybe both
If you picked Anji you are bisexual
If you picked I-no youre either a horny straight dude or you're a chick who describes herself as a "dommy mommy" but doesn't actually have sex
If you picked Goldlewis you're based
If you picked Jack-O you either saw the memes but didn't realize how hard she is to actually play, or you played Xrd
If you picked Happy Chaos you either saw the memes or heard he's OP and wanted in, not realizing he's been nerfed since. Idiot
If you picked Baiken you're horny AND a weeb. But honestly I get it
If you picked Testament you're probably a goth, nonbinary, or both, and you're just happy to be represented. Good for you
If you picked Bridget then she's probably the only reason you even bought this game
If you picked Sin you're kind of boring but not quite as boring as people who pick Ky. You might still be pretty cool
If you picked Bedman you were just looking for the weirdest character in the cast and automatically picked that one. If Bedman hadn't been out yet, you would probably have picked Faust
If you picked Asuka you're a nerd and I'm shoving you in a locker
If you picked Johnny you either think you're funny as fuck, or you have ADVANCED main character syndrome. It's inoperable. We have to amputate
If you picked Elphelt you're a lesbian
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harveywritings92 · 1 month
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Stolas : There's one thing I've got to know. Why'd you stay with me all day? Risking your butt for someone who's never given you anything but trouble?
R/n: I know what it's like, y'know? Trying to rebuild a life.
[They hold up a bag, and gives Stolas a book he wanted to buy; but it was sold out, which led to them both getting in to so much trouble] 
R/n: I've had a few bad days, myself.
[Ecstatically, Stolas takes the book and hugs it.] 
Stolas: Nice ones like you shouldn't have bad days. *Bends down and kisses R/n on the forehead.*
R/n, touches their forehead and smiles:
[Stolas felt his heart skipped a beat his eyes widened. He tosses the book over his shoulder and picks a surprised R/n off the ground and gives them a big dang kiss in front of Blitzo and Octavia, who looked at each other incredulously shrugged then looked back at Stolas and R/n just as Stolas set the out breath human back on the ground.]
Stolas, blushing: Call me!~
R/n, smiles shyly as they walk away: Don't push your luck! *Notices Blitzo smirking* Whaddya looking at Blitz?
Blitzo: You realize this makes us proxy F*ck buddies now, right? Maybe next time we can have a threesome!
R/n, facepalming as they gets into his van: Agh....Doubt it.
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[R/n = Reader name.]
{Just to note Stolas is gay he loves the reader Platonically. (the reader is AFAB Nonbinary). the reason he kisses them was due to the overwhelming emotions of joy and gratitude brought on from being treated kindly and shown that someone genuinely cares about him and his interests.]
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transmascissues · 8 months
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i just got back from my first ever gynecological exam and somehow, despite the doctor being really nice and way more knowledgeable about trans bodies than i was expecting, it still ended up being incredibly upsetting and honestly probably mildly traumatizing. i’m sure it’s no secret to anyone following me that going to the gynecologist is a uniquely shitty experience for a lot of trans guys and i knew that but i really was not prepared for that.
first of all, everything you read says that the pelvic exam and pap smear shouldn’t hurt even if they’re super uncomfortable, but let me tell you, that shit fucking hurt. like, i have a pretty high pain tolerance and usually even when something does hurt i don’t show it very much, but that was maybe the most painful thing i’ve ever had a doctor do to me and it showed. to be fair, i’ve never had good luck with things like that — i couldn’t even use tampons back when i had a period because the one time i did, taking it out was really painful — and i’m on t now so i’m sure that makes things even harder and i was prepared for it to hurt, but i really wasn’t ready for just bad it was. it’s been an hour since the exam finished and there’s still some pain so, yeah, so much for “it’s just uncomfortable, not painful”.
(and a side note: when it did hurt, the doctor told me to relax my muscles because the tension makes it hurt more. what they didn’t seem to realize is that if your brain and body are collectively rejecting the presence of something inside you, making those muscles relax is a fucking herculean task and i for one was not in any way capable of it so it just…kept getting more painful.)
i also was never informed ahead of time of what a pelvic exam actually entails; i had assumed it was a more general external checkup, and that the pap smear was the only really invasive part. as it turns out, i was very wrong, and “pelvic exam” actually means the doctor sticks their finger up you to feel around. she asked me if i was comfortable getting the exam because it was so obvious that the pap smear didn’t go well, but i had no clue what i was saying yes to and it was a total surprise for me when there was something inside me again. and she knew it was my first time, so she had no reason to assume i knew that the exam would be like. by the time i realized i absolutely should not have said yes to it, i was too late and it was already happening. it really feels like common sense that if you’re going to be giving someone what basically amounts to a professional fingering, you should probably make it clear that that’s what’s about to happen, but i guess that doctor would disagree.
and of course, the whole time i was also being misgendered. the doctor used the right name for me, but the other staff didn’t and everything about it was so excessively gendered (i’m pretty sure the appointment i had was literally called a “women’s wellness visit” on the same sheet that had trans man and nonbinary as gender options). not to mention, when i told them i’m getting top surgery and have the exact date set, the nurse made a comment to like“well aren’t you one of the lucky ones,” which really felt like it had “i think trans guys have a super easy time getting surgeries that cis women have to fight for” energy.
and the irony of all this definitely isn’t lost on me — i just did a project this past semester about how trans guys are fucked over by reproductive healthcare practices so a lot of us just never go, and now i got some firsthand experience in exactly why so many of us just say “no fucking way”.
i just want to put this out there for anyone who hasn’t done it before because i think this would have been a lot less awful for me if someone had just told me “yeah, it might hurt way more than you think, and also that thing they call a pelvic exam is actually an internal exam.” i thought i was prepared and i totally wasn’t, so hopefully this will reach someone else who will be better off knowing all of this.
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swede-ishfish · 9 months
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So, I was engaged in my screencapping today. With the absence of new episodes, I now find myself constantly going back through the episodes in slow motion to capture each little detail and nourish my hungry, queer little soul.
I was going through episode one kind of idly, just taking screencaps of interesting expressions, enjoying the range of personalities going on as all of the actors have given their characters such unique traits and vibes and there's always some great things going on in the background, whether it be Lucius "working" by fake hammering a canvas or Buttons' delight in his tea.
Today I was watching on mute and it was easier to notice a lot of the small details with things slowed down, but it didn't really catch my eye until the tea scene. I watched through the scene once, paused, then went back over it again. And again.
Something about the entire scene was tickling at my thoughts, making it itch, forcing me to dig down deep in my brain to figure out just what nerve it had touched. And as I watched the crew's faces change, over and over again, I finally hit on it. The Realization.
A quick recap of the scene, for anyone who hasn't watched it at least 200 times during this hiatus from hell:
The four British Naval Officers - whom I shall from now on dub: Nigel, Hornberry, AssHat and David Jenkins - are having tea with the Revenge crew. All of the white-passing crew members are there and dressed as High Society Lads to varying degrees of success, save for Wee John who couldn’t possibly fit into anything that Stede has in his wardrobe. All of the Black crew members are dressed as high-class “servants” - though AssHat can’t resist pointing out what would be the wide perception at the time - that they would be seen as Stede’s slaves.
Everything is tense in the room and then Nigel asks Stede to give him a tour of the ship, to which Stede reluctantly agrees and off they go.
And this is important, my ladies, my lads, my nonbinary buddies, my fellow alphabet soup members of every stripe. It is VITALLY IMPORTANT that Stede is not here for this part. He would have gotten in the way of what is potentially the most important formative moment for the Revenge crew. Stede brought them all onto the ship, but this is where they first come together and it’s such an important shift in the paradigm that they would not be the same crew - the same family - without it.
Hornberry finds their finished flags on the floor and this is the first time we as the audience really get to see what they’ve made. The making of the flags was presented initially as Stede’s way of trying to appease the crew by giving in to their most reasonable demand, which was their need for a flag. But it had a secondary goal of making the crew work on something so they would be distracted from their potential mutiny. As a contest between the crew members, they’re all obviously most attached to their own flags and think their own flags are the coolest and should win. 
So of course when Hornberry starts holding up the flags for the remaining officers to look at, the crew members are showing their obvious biases at first. 
Lucius’ flag is the first one and the poor man looks like he’s on the verge of a panic attack. He’s having trouble breathing and Black Pete steps in to defend his flag - a significant moment for their later relationship, of course, as I don’t think they’ve hooked up yet at this point. But Lucius was the only one actively expressing interest in Pete’s mutiny attempt and he’s not in any shape to defend himself. Plus, even if Pete thought that making the flags was stupid, one of these flags WILL presumably be his flag when he successfully mutinies and becomes captain, and it’s better if it’s the flag of the guy who believes in his cause.
He warns the British that he “wouldn’t want to mess with those guys” and this immediately causes the other crew members who made flags to get a bit defensive, as we see when the Swede’s flag is held up and he immediately tries to defend his flag as “even tougher” than the previous one. He and Black Pete bicker briefly, similar to the petty disagreements over the mutiny attempt earlier, but unlike before, they’re in the presence of the British Officers which adds an extra air of tension to the entire proceeding.
The room was already tense to begin with but the tension only builds from there, as the crew is forced to swallow down all of their previous anger and frustration that’s bubbling up again. 
This is not a disagreement about flags at all, not really. This is a rehash. All the arguments that came up during the mutiny being dragged out again and this time they can’t just squabble and get into fights with each other or they risk blowing their cover and getting arrested or killed by the British officers. They’ve been forced together in this situation and they’re pushing back against it initially.
The moment it clicks is when Roach’s flag is held up and the entire crew seems to realize that the British officers don’t think ANY of their flags are cool. They’re mocking all of them. There is no “best flag” to these people when every flag is deemed to be weird and ridiculous and unworthy of respect. At this point, the crew realizes that it’s not “you vs me” anymore, it’s now “us vs them”.
It’s in the midst of this dawning realization that they hold up Frenchie’s flag, and the laughter and the meanness cause Frenchie to break character and try to yank his flag away and defend it. He’s truly upset and hurt by this mockery and he has an emotional outburst that’s met with AssHat’s biting shout, trying to put him in his place, calling him “Slave”. Everyone on the crew is already so keyed up, so anxious, so agitated, it’s a keg of gunpowder just waiting for a spark to ignite it. 
And because of this attack against “One of Us”, the crew is finally, genuinely, in agreement on something for the first time. Though there’s not a ton of coordination to their efforts at this point, they’re still working together as they take down the British officers. The tension that was pulled taut finally snaps and the crew is on an adrenaline high during their short and very one-sided fight. It’s their first victory and it’s one that they all share TOGETHER.
That’s about the point when Stede interrupts to get help with his whole Nigel issue, after the Revenge crew has already successfully defeated the enemy. One reason this struck me as significant after rewatching several times, is that it does two important things and ties together the threads of the episode in a clever but subtle manner.
Because you see, upon previous watches, I’d always gotten to the end scene, where we pan up the mast and we see the multiple flags, as being Stede’s doing. I, like many others, smiled and pictured Stede deciding that they didn’t need to vote on the flag as he’d promised before, and instead choosing to hang all of the flags up like a proud dad hanging all of his childrens’ art on his refrigerator so as not to play favorites.
As much as it’s a cute mental image, when  I think back on it, I feel like it’s too dismissive of the beginning of the crew’s Found Family arc. 
So I present this image instead:
After successfully convincing the crew that he “did this on purpose”, Stede does indeed have that vote on the best flag. It’s just the smart move and it tries to do two things. Firstly, Stede is trying to lean into the mindset of them being Real Pirates with a Real Flag, because as far as he knows, he still has a potential mutiny on his hands. It’s also a way he can distract himself for a moment from thinking about the fact that he’s now a Killer.
Stede is surely expecting more arguments, as that’s how it’s been going since they started out, but instead, the crew unanimously decides that they want to fly all of the flags. Though the British Officers made fun of each of their individual flags for its unique eccentricities, the crew has come to realize that even though they are all Weird in their own ways, and even though they don’t always agree on things or even understand each other some of the time, they are all still Real and Valid Pirates.
It’s also the conclusion of the crew’s arc as set up at the beginning of the episode. When Black Pete tries to get them to mutiny earlier, he doesn’t succeed. But his failure isn’t because the crew decided not to mutiny. The crew didn’t actually decide anything. They were so far from being on the same page that there wasn’t even a consensus to vote. Yet when given another vote, the chance to decide on which flag will represent them as a crew, they do come to an agreement. They agree to fly all of their flags together. 
This is the point where they go from being a rag-tag group of rejects to being an actual crew. This, even more than Stede hiring them, is the real start of their found family dynamic. And it’s telling that Stede, the man who brought them on, who pays their salary, their would-be father figure, is not there when this significant moment takes place. I love Stede, but he’s intensely self-centered, especially early on. If he’d been there, the scene would have been about him and it wouldn’t have allowed the crew members to come to all these realizations on their own.
It is also worth noting that Frenchie’s flag is at the very top. His flag is the one that ultimately galvanized them into action and is thus the most unifying of all of the flags. It’s a clear choice to make, and one that leaves ego out of things. 
This is all great enough character building on its own, but there’s another thing that’s brilliant about it too. A more meta thing.
See, “Our Flag Means Death” is the name of the show, but we’re not shown a singular flag. We’re shown a bunch of flags, we’re even shown different versions or states of a few flags, as with Frenchie’s bloody cat flag or the updated angsty Hot Topic version of Blackbeard’s flag. There’s not inherently “one flag” that can easily be said to be “our flag”, right?
Except there is. 
The queer community is also one with lots of flags. It’s a community where we have disagreements and different goals and different needs. It’s a community that works together because we understand that there are many valid ways of being Real. And like the crew of the Revenge, the decision to unite under a single flag but to still include all of the others as well is part of a unique queer experience that we share.
So what I suggest to you, gentle readers, is that this is the real significance of "Our Flag Means Death" as a title, and why it’s not just about having a badass name or a badass flag. We too are a community of many unique and diverse flags and they all deserve to fly together.
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AITA for taking a cross-country trip without telling my parents?
🔜🚇 for ID purposes, my friends will get it lmao
This is being submitted after the trip was taken, so it's in retrospect. I can live with being an asshole if I'm labeled one, I just had a lot of conflicting feelings preceding said trip, even if by now I don't regret it because it was fun. At this point I'm just curious!
I am 26yo and AFAB nonbinary. This is relevant.
During the first week of the year, I took a trip across the USA to go to a convention to meet up with some internet friends I am close to; some id met before, but most were mutuals/people I video chat with regularly.
My parents are extremely catholic. They're very suspicious about online friends in general (so much so I stopped talking to them about going online when I was in high school), and are very transphobic so I'm not out to them. Since I'm AFAB, they're very "oh be careful out there and NEVER do anything alone because it's DANGEROUS." Which feels like a load of crap to me; I'm taking a vacation, not going for a jaunt down a dark alley. My mother in particular is also very into conformity, so I've never told her about my con-going, fandom loving ways.
So I planned and went on this trip, entirely in secret, and lied the entire time I was there. And I had a genuinely great time, no regrets, and not once did I feel unsafe. I told my housemate (almost 26) my flight details and whereabouts so I had backup if needed, and figured that was fine on the safety front. Also I am financially independent, so none of their money was used.
The conflict: obvious I lied a lot. I know my parents would disapprove and would be so mad if they knew. A few of their ideas just center around me being safe, so I felt kinda bad, you know?
A lot of folks will see my age and say I can do what I want, but being brought up by overprotective Christians will indeed make realizing if you're being reasonable or not a whole lot harder! I'm also working on figuring out how to proceed in the future; I still talk to them bc of my elderly pets and extended family. It's complex to navigate. I wanna throw this one to tumblr to decide, I think it would be good to get some random perspective in here. I'll be replying to questions in the comments off anon once/if it's posted :)
So tumblr AITA for taking a secret trip that my parents would've disapproved of top-to-bottom and straight up lying about it?
What are these acronyms?
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