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#yes this is about Sarah Z

sodalite-fulll · 2 years

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I love video essays as much as the next tumblr user but some of those people are the most annoying mother fuckers on the planet

#yes this is about Sarah z #i know she’s ‘canceled’ but I can’t find any credible evidence for anything wrong she did #but god damn is she insufferable #idk. she just seems so high and mighty. ‘let me tell you about the tumblr freaks’

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letmetellyouaboutmyfeels · 3 months

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I also would bet a LOT of money on the writers of this show not speaking fandom 💀 Like a sinking ship is really just a sinking ship to normal people, i promise.

I'm not gonna answer anything more about this just because I don't want my inbox full of people chiming in with their opinion (nothing personal, just me getting overwhelmed quickly), but essentially - in my experience as someone who has been in fandom for almost two decades and shipped a bunch of non-canon ships, some of which the writers 100% knew people shipped - writers speak 'fandom' to a certain extent. They are aware of ships. We know they are.

But they're not making every single thing as a 'message' to shippers.

It's important as much as we enjoy clowning to not slide too far into conspiracy theory. Writers and crew members care a lot about the story and will do everything in their department to have things serve the story. This is why costuming matters, why props and set decor matter, etc. Costume designers will use color, pattern, and style to enhance the story being told, to talk about the character and their state of mind and their arc. Set designers will use a character's home to show stuff about the character's past and inner life and current journey.

But there's a difference between that and thinking literally everything has to do with your ship. So I'm going to take the opportunity here, as we are getting BTS and a month-ish out from the premiere, to remind everyone to not dive too deep into "everything on this ensemble show has to do with MY SHIP!!!" ways of thinking. There is stuff on this show other than Buddie. Writers are aware of fandom but are not pandering to us 24/7. Cast and crew will make decisions and choices with care but sometimes they painted a wall green because they thought it was pretty. Etc.

Temper expectations, think critically, and remember that thinking everything has to do with one thing (in this case 'everything on this show has to do with one ship') is conspiracy thinking. Don't go down that road.

#mads answers things #that's all I'm saying about this #not to be rude I just don't have the energy to keep chatting about it/answering questions #yes writers are aware that we ship Buddie it would be silly to think they didn't #but it's just as silly to think that they're making everything about one ship all the time #there are other characters on the show and other dynamics that matter just as much #to reverse a saying from Sarah Z's TJLC video #tea is tea food is food and phone is phone #no deeper meaning than that #(if you haven't watched that video by the way please do)#(it's an excellent example of conspiracy thinking in fandom)#(and can help you to recognize and avoid it)#(also it's just very entertaining)

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saiditallbefore · 8 months

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I wish the conversation about "queerbaiting" and actors/writers/artists was less centered on how it's okay if someone who appears to be straight/cis portrays queer characters because that artist might not be straight or cis

I mean, it's a valid point, and no one should be forced to come out of the closet to prove that it was okay for them to do! That's fucked up!

But I also dislike this trend of saying that only queer people should create queer content. I think there is value in queer art being made by queer people! I think it's an understandable reaction to queer people often being sidelined by straight/cis people telling our stories! I also think it's a way of ghettoizing queer content and removing any responsibility from straight/cis artists. I think when you reduce the things people can create art about to things they have personal experience with, everyone loses.

#thoughts #yes this is about the sarah z video #it was fine #dumb in places but fine

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dragonlands · 6 months

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There's so much negativity around Izzy's death so I wanted to address some of the points I keep seeing thrown around.

"Izzy's death was pointless"

No, he just had his big speech about how basically they can kill him but they cannot kill the movement. That is a clear paraller to a lot of real life protestors of unjustice. He died protecting the community, he died so the community could go on.

"Izzy's death made his healing pointless"

No it didn't. Healing is always good, feeling happiness and belonging are ALWAYS worth it. We never know how long we've got, doesn't mean we gotta stop trying to be better or happier. His healing was still real. It still mattered.

"Izzy's character arc was left unfinished, it's bad writing"

Oh my god. If you open any writing guide about how to write impactful deaths, and the first thing that comes up is to leave some part of their arc unfinished. And his arc did go through quite a beautiful line, sure there could've been more but his story didn't end like, mid arc. As a writer, of course you want to make the audience sad when a character dies. It's good storytelling. Good stories are supposed to make us feel.

"Izzy died on the arms of his abuser"

Where the hell did this idea come from? Ed and Izzy have been in a toxic codependent relationship way before this show started. You could argue that Izzy was Ed's abuser, but that is not the argument I want to make here. Yes, we saw Ed driven to madness shoot Izzy on screen, but we know Izzy's the one that forced him to be Blackbeart when he didn't want it anymore. There's turmoil all around them. But the final moment is them finally meeting as people, not as components of Blackbeard.

"Izzy's death was unnecessarily awful"

His death was sad, yes, but it was quite beautiful as far as deaths go. He was surrounded by family who cared for him. He was loved, and accepted as he is. He knew his legacy will be carried on.

"They killed off the only character that showed us healing is never too late"

Did we watch the same show? That begins with then unhappy 40+ year old Stede deciding it's finally time to reach for his dreams? Where we see Blackbeard slowly gaining back his humanity? Where Black Pete starts off as toxically masculine dude but ends up in a soft gay marriage? Where most of the crew wanted to mutiny but then they realized being soft is good, actually. Jim's whole purpose in life being revenge but them learning to let that go and instead concentrate on love and fun and family. And so on. Izzy's arc is beautiful, but he's not the only person healing who thought it was too late already.

"Izzy's death was bury your gays trope"

No, what, no. In a pirate show where everyobody is queer some queer people will die. Bury your gays is about only having one or few queer characters and killing them off while the straights get their happily ever afters. This is so far from that.

Also, I want people to be aware of the phenomenon, where creators of diverse shows are subjected to more critism than those of non diverse shows. If this intrests you, Sarah Z on Youtube made a great video on it called Double standards and diverse media. Our flag means death has given us so much, queer love story with a happily ever after, finding community, nonbinary character. And the creators have always been so kind to fans, so let's show them tht kindness back. Because critizicing this one aspect can easily turn to seeming like the whole story is just unwanted. That stories like Ed and Stede's aren't worth telling. And I'm so aftraid that will happen, when just now for the first time in years we are finally getting queer stories.

Also, I understand people are sad. I am sad too - Izzy was an amazing character and his death was sad but that's just. Good writing. You can grieve, but trying to turn it into a moral or dramaturgy issue is just not a good look. And attacking the creators of this wonderful show is just horrible.

Remember - this fandom is a safe space ship 🏴‍☠️🏳️‍🌈

#ofmd s2 #ofmd season 2 #ofmd #ofmd spoilers #izzy hands #our flag means death #ofmd meta #ofmd izzy #blackbonnet #gentlebeard

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hanyuleum · 5 months

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Hbomberguy's video reminded me of when my photo was used without my permission and wasnt given credit in this dashcon video.

At the time I pretended to be happy about it despite actually being extremely annoyed and upset by it.

Sarah Z never asked me to use this photo. She didn't even tell me that it was in the video. In fact, I only knew about my photo being used after being messaged by several people.

That photo was linked to ALL of my social media and it would have been so easy to find me after googling "dash con cosplay" (which is the exact search result I used to find myself during my own investigation)

Yes it's just a photo but the basic principle of being asked didn't happen. It was genuinely upsetting that I wasn't asked and wasn't given credit.

#sorry not a usual post but im gonna make it #its not hard to ask for permission #its not hard to credit #its not hard to find original sources #like it really isnt that hard #hbomberguy #sarah z

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kamehamehamlet · 2 months

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The Tumblr reblog sensation is returning. But like the Sayians or Shakespeare’s folios, it has the potential to develop in many forms.

Visit kamehamehamlet.com to be notified when we have more details.

Follow this blog for a peak behind the curtain.

And read on to learn more about the show, how we got here, and where we’re going.

Thank you for waiting just a little bit longer.

Revival Project Q&A

Who are you?

Hi! I’m Daniel Cole Mauleón (@writepictures), the writer of Kamehamehamlet. In 2015 I co-founded the theatre company Play-Dot Productions with KHH’s director Shalee Mae Cole Mauleón.

What is Kamehamehamlet?

Kamehamehamlet: Good Night Saiyan Prince, was an hour-long one act play, performed during the 2015 Minnesota Fringe Festival. It’s a staged retelling of Vegeta and Freeza’s battle on the planet Namek. Marketed as a Dragon Ball Z and Hamlet mash-up, the parody quickly shuffled off its weighted gi, revealing it was actually a Waiting for Godot spoof. After five performances, Vegeta hung up his helmet of spiky hair. Seven years later, K (@amokslime) wrote this incredibly gracious post on Tumblr, which inspired two people to reach out to me via Reddit to ask if I had a script or a recording of the performance.

I want to pause the semi-marketing voice and say a heartfelt thanks to K. Kamehamehamlet was brought to life by an incredible team of artists during a summer I’ll never forget. We got laughs at jokes, gasps at fight choreography, and we broke even on the budget (a Fringe miracle TBH). K’s post gave me the chance to revisit that show through someone else’s eyes. The mix of pride and humility it stirs up is truly indescribable.

If there is art which has changed you, and especially if the artist is still alive I encourage you to non-intrusively share that with the artist.

Is there a copy of the script?

Yes, I’ll speak more about that at below.

Is there a recording of the performance?

There was, but I genuinely lost the files. And that’s for the best, honestly. It was a last-second attempt, filmed from two cheap cameras (with different qualities and resolutions!), both at bad angles and with truly awful audio. Trust me. It’s better this way.

That said, I do have other archival footage from rehearsal's, tech, etc. that I look forward to sharing for those curious.

What’s next?

This is the question I’ve been asking myself over the past year and the reason it took so long to post anything. Especially since one thing I want to do differently this time is make sure that any artists involved are meaningfully compensated for their time and skill. However, I can’t plan without a better estimate of what kind of support we would have, and I didn’t want to share our intentions without concrete details.

Right now, the best way you can support this project is by signing up for the announcement on kamehamehamlet.com.

The second best thing you can do is to share with others about this project, if I’ve learned anything reading through the comments on K’s post, it is that there’s a much bigger audience for KHH than I could have ever imagined, and you likely know at least one more person who would be interested.

And while I don’t want to promise anything I can’t deliver on, I will share that I’m planning on making the script available this year and I’ll be writing a separate post about that in near future.

If you’ve read this far thank you so much.

Photography by Ann B. Erickson. Vegeta is played by McKenzie Shappell. Freeza is played by Cayla Marie Wolpers. Costumes by Sarah Noel Simon.

#kamehamehamlet #theater #dbz #dragon ball #shakespeare #hamlet #waiting for godot #vegeta #freeza #goku #this is about as good a place as any to share that...#I only just realized after spending a day in Adobe Illustrator that I've just made the IKEA logo...

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thelegendofmik · 8 months

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Stop Defending Ableists Challenge (Level: Impossible)

So the other day I made a post listing all the ableist things Jacob Richmond has included in Legoland and Ride the Cyclone.

And the response was abysmal - the amount of "well actually..." kind of responses I got was disgusting and I took down the post because I find it counterproductive to argue with teenagers on the internet. However, I stand by the belief that if you think you are old enough to post publicly on the internet, you are old enough to be held accountable for what you post.

But I think what I had to say was quite important, so I am going to reword it here.

TW here for the discussion of ableism and ableist slurs (they are all censored)

There is ZERO (0) justification for the use of THREE (3) ableist slurs across both works. I don't fucking care if it was the 2000's. The ADA predates both shows and disability activism had existed for decades before that (as yannick very kindly reminded me). So no, it was not ok for Richmond to use those slurs in his works, regardless of the time period. Because there is nothing "correct" (politically, or otherwise) about ableism.

And before you say "Oh, but it was the character who said it, not the writer..."

CHARACTERS ARE NOT SENTIENT BEINGS! They are not created in a vacuum. Their thoughts and actions are often a reflection of the author's own beliefs and morals.

It was not Ocean who decided to use the word cr*pple. It was Jacob Richmond who decided to use it. Same with the r word and sp*z in Legoland. It wasn't Penny and Ezra who decided to use those words, it was Jacob Richmond. Because each character's actions are dictated by the decisions that the author makes for that character. And in this case, the author decided to be an ableist asshole.

Yes, characters can be assholes. They can be complex and nuanced beings. But there are better ways to portray such experiences than being violently ableist (i.e.: without using slurs). And why does the ableist character get complexity and nuance, but the disabled character is simply the sad, disabled kid, with not much else in his personality until he magically becomes abled bodied. Like we deserve nuance and complexity as well, people!

In a 2022 interview with Curtain Call Bway (here), when asked who his favourite character to write was, Richmond responds with the following:

Ocean is definitely my favorite character to write because it’s based on certain people I’ve met and certain aspects of myself too.

Like he literally admits it himself, that his decisions when writing an ableist character were based off aspects of his own personality.

The reality is, disability has never been more than a comedic plot point to Richmond. He has never cared about portraying a realistic disabled experience. He has never cared about disabled people.

And the cherry on top is that his response to yannick-robin being hate-crimed was to rewrite Ricky so that he could be played by an abled and therefore production teams wouldn't have to give a shit about ensuring their spaces are safe and accessible for disabled performers. If he actually cared about disabled people and properly representing our experiences, he would have worked with a disability consultant and fixed the issues within the show. Instead, he doubles down and causes even more harm.

To add insult to injury, he then licensed that script to Sarah Rasmussen and her team of ableist cronies for the DC production. Because him choosing to continue working with Rasmussen and her team just shows that he shares the same ableist values as the McCarter/Arena team.

So by saying that "its the character, not the author", you are defending Richmond and his violent ableism. You are attempting to justify the harm he has done and CONTINUES TO DO to disabled people. YOU. ARE. A. PART. OF. THE. PROBLEM.

Ride the Cyclone and Legoland (in ALL its forms and versions) contains so much ableist violence. This violence has traumatised REAL PEOPLE, but yannick, myself, and other people speaking out are the ones ruining the vibe by calling it out? Be fucking for real people.

Now if only my university papers were this thorough...

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battyaboutbooksreviews · 1 month

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🌙 Ramadan Mubarak - Books ft. Muslims

🦇 Good morning, my beautiful bookish bats. To celebrate this Islamic holy month, here are a FEW books featuring Muslim characters. I hope you consider adding a few to your TBR.

❓What was the last book you read that taught you something new OR what's at the top of your TBR?

🌙 A Woman is No Man - Etaf Rum 🌙 Amal Unbound - Aisha Saeed 🌙 Love From A to Z - S.K. Ali 🌙 Hana Khan Carries On - Uzma Jalaluddin 🌙 Yes No Maybe So - Becky Albertalli and Aisha Saeed 🌙 Evil Eye - Etaf Rum 🌙 I Am Malala - Malala Yousafzai 🌙 Exit West - Mohsin Hamid 🌙 Written in the Stars - Aisha Saeed 🌙 The Night Diary - Veera Hiranandani 🌙 Much Ado About Nada - Uzma Jalaluddin 🌙 The Eid Gift - S.K. Ali 🌙 More Than Just a Pretty Face - Syed M. Masood 🌙 Yusuf Azeem Is Not a Hero - Saadia Faruqi 🌙 If You Could Be Mine by Sara Farizan 🌙 Snow - Orhan Pamuk 🌙 Sofia Khan Is Not Obliged - Ayisha Malik 🌙 The Proudest Blue by Ibtihaj Muhammad 🌙 And I Darken - Kiersten White 🌙 The Last White Man - Mohsin Hamid

🌙 Hijab Butch Blues - Lamya H 🌙 The Bad Muslim Discount - Syed M. Masood 🌙 Ms. Marvel - G. Willow Wilson 🌙 Love from Mecca to Medina - S.K. Ali 🌙 The City of Brass - S.A. Chakraborty 🌙 The Love Match by Priyanka Taslim 🌙 A Map of Home by Randa Jarrar 🌙 A Very Large Expanse of Sea by Tahereh Mafi 🌙 An Emotion of Great Delight by Tahereh Mafi 🌙 The Love and Lies of Rukhsana Ali by Sabina Khan 🌙 The Moor’s Account - Laila Lalami 🌙 Only This Beautiful Moment by Abdi Nazemian 🌙 Salt Houses by Hala Alyan 🌙 When a Brown Girl Flees by Aamna Quershi 🌙 Jasmine Falling by Shereen Malherbe 🌙 Between Two Moons by Aisha Abdel Gawad 🌙 Sea Prayer by Khaled Hosseini 🌙 A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini 🌙 The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini 🌙 Unmarriageable by Soniah Kamal

🌙 Home Fire by Kamila Shamsie 🌙 All My Rage by Sabaa Tahir 🌙 The Bohemians by Jasmin Darznik 🌙 Ayesha at Last by Uzma Jalaluddin 🌙 A Case of Exploding Mangoes by Mohammed Hanif 🌙 Chronicle of a Last Summer by Yasmine El Rashidi 🌙 A Girl Like That by Tanaz Bhathena 🌙 Other Words for Home by Jasmine Warga 🌙 The Mismatch by Sara Jafari 🌙 Does My Head Look Big In This? by Randa Abdel-Fattah 🌙 You Truly Assumed by Laila Sabreen 🌙 Saints and Misfits by S.K. Ali 🌙 Once Upon an Eid - S.K. Ali and Aisha Saeed 🌙 Tell Me Again How a Crush Should Feel by Sara Farizan 🌙 Alif the Unseen by G. Willow Wilson 🌙 The Henna Wars by Adiba Jaigirdar 🌙 A Show for Two by Tashie Bhuiyan 🌙 Nayra and the Djinn by Michael Berry 🌙 All-American Muslim Girl by Lucinda Dyer 🌙 It All Comes Back to You by Farah Naz Rishi

🌙 The Marvelous Mirza Girls by Sheba Karim 🌙 Salaam, with Love by Sara Sharaf Beg 🌙 Queen of the Tiles by Hanna Alkaf 🌙 How It All Blew Up by Arvin Ahmadi 🌙 Zara Hossain Is Here by Sabina Khan 🌙 Punching the Air by Ibi Zoboi & Yusef Salaam 🌙 She Wore Red Trainers by Na'ima B. Robert 🌙 Hollow Fires by Lucinda Dyer 🌙 Internment by Samira Ahmed 🌙 Against the Loveless World by Susan Abulhawa 🌙 Love in a Headscarf - Shelina Zahra Janmohamed 🌙 Courting Samira by Amal Awad 🌙 The Other Half of Happiness by Ayisha Malik 🌙 Huda F Are You? by Huda Fahmy 🌙 Love, Hate & Other Filters by Samira Ahmed 🌙 Mad, Bad & Dangerous to Know by Samira Ahmed 🌙 Muslim Girls Rise - Saira Mir and Aaliya Jaleel 🌙 Amira & Hamza - Samira Ahmed 🌙 The Weight of Our Sky by Hanna Alkaf 🌙 Nura and the Immortal Palace by M.T. Khan

🌙 As Long as the Lemon Trees Grow by Zoulfa Katouh 🌙 Counting Down with You by Tashie Bhuiyan 🌙 Zachary Ying and the Dragon Emperor by Xiran Jay Zhao 🌙 The Yard - Aliyyah Eniath 🌙 When We Were Sisters by Fatimah Asghar 🌙 The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi by Shannon Chakraborty 🌙 Maya's Laws of Love by Alina Khawaja 🌙 The Chai Factor by Farah Heron 🌙 The Beauty of Your Face - Sahar Mustafah 🌙 Hope Ablaze by Sarah Mughal Rana

#ramadan #muslim writers #muslim #books #book list #ramadan mubarak #ramadan kareem #batty about books #battyaboutbooks

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strange-aeons · 1 year

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love the my immortal video! in your next one, are going to be talking about the sarah z video with the toby alts? bc that fried my brain & id love to hear someone else discuss it

Yes! I won’t be going into detail about his non-my immortal antics but I did come across her video while I was researching and oh my god what a nasty little freak of a guy

The three authorship conspiracies I’m covering are: Todd/Toby/what ever the fuck his name is, the xxblo0dyxkissxx YouTube channel, and rose christo

#my immortal

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suffersinfandom · 5 months

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A Summary of The OFMD Meta

Sooooo... this is part one of an incomplete summary of A Meta-Discussion Of The Subtext by meratrishoslee (Mera) on AO3 (linked to, as the author requests). I hope it’s helpful to the folks who’ve been curious about it -- heyooo @fahbee and @pushbuttonkitty -- but maybe not quite 90K-words curious! I’m not going to comment on anything; this is meant to be an impartial -as-possible summary.

It's massively long, so this is just the first eight chapters.

“There’s every possibility you are still in your feelings as you read this, even weeks after the finale. You are in your autonomous knee-jerk reaction, adrenaline-spike, slapped across the face, feeling-so-betrayed-right-now moment. You’re valid. That’s absolutely what’s happened… on the surface. But as you take a deep breath and begin to examine logically what’s in the show and engage with the material both in its text and subtext, you will see a new concept begin to take shape.” (Mera)

Chapter 1: Overview

Some background: Mera was involved with The Johnlock Conspiracy and believes that TJLCers weren’t wrong. (If you want a fun watch, I recommend Sarah Z’s YouTube video.) Essentially, TJLCers believe that Sherlock and Watson of BBC’s Sherlock were supposed to be endgame, and this can be proved with careful analysis. This is often paired with the idea that there is a missing fourth episode to the show’s fourth season that will eventually air and confirm all theories.

Mera defines ‘text’ and ‘subtext.’ Text is “dialogue lines / Shot choices and directions / Visible actions, describable as stage directions.” Subtext is “every single other thing, as well as what is suggested by or can be inferred from the text above.”

“Whenever something doesn’t make sense in the text, it is a BEACON (or maybe even a LIGHTHOUSE) to look at the subtext. Your subconscious mind recognizes subtext long before your conscious mind parses it -- assuming it ever does.”

The rest of the chapter is devoted to short descriptions of Mera’s key assertions with links to relevant chapters and their convention experiences. They cite talking to Con O’Neill at Florida Supercon 2023 as one of their reasons for believing so strongly that Izzy Hands is alive:

I asked him for advice in a specific time of trouble, and he gave me something real that had worked for him. I asked for a hug and he gave that also.

As I was pulling away I said "I’m glad that I gleaned one absolutely true thing from your portrayal of Izzy."

“What’s that?”

I said: "The character (in my original work) that Izzy inspired – when he’s out of pain at last, it’s impossible not to love him."

That seemed to hit him on an emotional level; he couldn’t hold my gaze after that. He said “That’s what I’ll be taking with me today.”

This was July 1st 2023, after completion of the filming of Season 2. I've thought about it often as the season went on, and how it must have affected him.

We have to love Izzy so that he'll live.

Mera spoke to Con again at NYCC:

The last thing I managed to get to say to him was: "They gave Izzy Hands a Passion Play."

"They did?" he asked.

"Yes, they did!" I replied.

And I watched that brilliantly swift mind again at work, because he considered it for the briefest beat -- and said in a tone of joy: "They did; yeah, you're right!"

I remember for the minutes and hours after I was amazed: did he not know, somehow? Did the writers not tell him (and he didn't realize at any time since) that in first quarter of the series they'd given him Gethsemane, a betrayal, a crucifixion (okay, getting shot in the leg and head, but don't get stuck on the details), a burial, and then a full on canonical resurrection?

Con then said another very important thing:

"But I got over it."

[...]

If Izzy's dead (for real and forever dead) and he knew it, then what he said to me was on a level of cruelty that I could never countenance from him. If Izzy lives, then those words are yet another piece of proof to me that Con was clever enough to be right both for someone who'd only seen five episodes, and someone who would eventually see all eight.

Chapter 2: The Cup and Ball Trick

The chapter is an extended “game” of cup and ball (where a ball is hidden under a cup and the guesser needs to determine which cup it’s under) interspersed with pictures from OFMD at various points in season two. It ends on a shot of Izzy’s grave where his body definitely isn’t.

The important takeaway: Izzy returns from the dead once to shoot Ed during Ed’s final suicide attempt. Ed returns from the dead after the near-fatal mutiny. Why would you think Izzy’s actually dead and in his grave at the end of the show?

“I didn't cry at the finale -- I was too filled with joy and excitement. I was Mary Magdalene at the grave; I was one of the first to know the truth of the resurrection, whether or not anyone believed me!”

Chapter 3: OUR LOVE MEANT DEATH

"..because if [Izzy] doesn't [live], with what I know now, his death is a cruelty struck at every queer individual alive or dead since 1981.”

Mera observes that almost no one touches Izzy’s bare skin and Izzy bleeds more than any other recurring character.

There are two times someone touches Izzy’s bare skin: first when his screams are being muffled when he yells at Jim and Archie to kill him, second when Ed puts the gun in Izzy’s ungloved hand during his first go at suicide.

Conclusion: "Izzy is coded with AIDS.”

Ed holding his bloody hand up to the rest of the crew away when Izzy is dying is a “warding-off gesture.”

Izzy is pale and sickly-looking as he’s dying. “My gorge rises. In the year of our Lord Shiva 2023 -- THEY GAVE THE MOST QUEER CODED CHARACTER ON THE SHOW A FUCKING AIDS DEATH.”

Izzy touches someone else’s bare skin twice in the show, and both instances are Ed. The first is in S1E10 “where he puts his left Death-marked hand on Edward's wrist as he's choking him.” The second is in S2E8 as he’s dying “in his ex-lover’s arms” (notably, this is the same hand with the spade tattoo).

“If Izzy's well and truly dead, for real and stays dead... He is in media both the first historically and the most recent chronologically to receive a full on AIDS death.”

“Until they prove to me and all of us that only Izzy's grief and the specter of AIDS remains in the grave -- and the rest of our beloved boy, our new unicorn (oh hey do you know what Problematic Modern Culture says about unicorn blood?), our pure-hearted risen being, our self-sacrificing queer man, will get his chance to be touched, held, kissed, and LOVED in Season 3.”

Chapter 4: “The Third Was For Death”

“Season 1 was Pinocchio: a wooden puppet wants to become a real boy -- and does! Hip hip hooray; that was pretty easy. Wow, the cute tall young guy of the crew lost a finger and the mean nasty short grouch that some people hate and some people like (because they understand him on a visceral, subconscious, subtextual level) lost a toe -- but if that's the worst that happens, we came out okay!”

Season two is “The Monkey’s Paw.” Mera tells the story with pictures from OFMD to emphasize the connections. Importantly, there’s an instance of a couple’s son coming back wrong after a wish (Lucius). The final wish returns the son to his previously-dead state and Mera ends on a picture of Izzy’s grave.

The cast’s and crews’ interviews might not support the real narrative because they’re not allowed to say what they want to (“Ever had to develop code language to hide your queerness from your parents, your teachers, the state?”) They’re all “in distress” and trying to tell us without telling us.

“Why does the new (old broken down) house smell like death? Why does everything we wished for that we got feel bad? Why does everything we're supposed to be happy about feel sad? How long would it take YOU to spot someone blinking out the word T-O-R-T-U-R-E?”

Mera hopes that the next season won’t tell us certain a new story: George Orwell’s 1984.

Chapter 5: Where Were We? Oh Yes, In The Pit Of Despair

This chapter is about The Princess Bride as it relates to Izzy’s story in seasons two and three of OFMD. It’s a comparison based mostly on costumes and lines; there are no one-for-one character comparisons. Vitally, the plot of TPB is used to predict the next season of OFMD.

Season two of OFMD ends at the part of TPB when Westley is thought to be dead (Izzy in his grave). Westley is revived, soooo…

“At what point does a preponderance of evidence flip over into fact? At what point does a handful of chance coincidences become planning and architecture? At what point do you go beyond a reasonable doubt into conviction?”

Chapter 6: Birdman and Blackbeard: Or, How To Watch Media

This chapter is about analyzing media. Once you learn how, you stop being a passive watcher.

“Instead you read its rhymes and rhythms like a sonnet. You go to the media in return – you meet it halfway, like a lover. You engage with it. You find themes embedded in the subtext that, once unearthed and examined, continue to inform and expand your experience of the text.”

“The people that like things nice and easy are the ones that watched the finale of Season 2, got angry and upset and – instead of examining those feelings and sitting with them and figuring out why everything felt weird and fucky – wrote it off as bad writing and cruel showrunners, and are already onto the next piece of media to pour into their open eyes and ears.”

And that’s fine! But if you like to think, you interrogate the media and see what else it’s saying.

Mera summarizes The Hero’s Journey through the lens of Orpheus’ story.

Season two mirrors season one almost too well. “...Why are they recreating their first season almost beat by beat? Why is this “second verse, same as the first – only a little bit louder and (in many cases) worse? Then Episode 8 hit… and I realized. They wanted to make sure that, in every conceivable way, the fans had a subtextual map of the meaning of Episode 8. So the mirrors between seasons had to line up almost exactly.”

Now we go into the three-act structure and how the hero’s journey maps onto it. Mera then uses Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue Of Ignorance) and to show how they personally analyze meta, but I don’t care nearly enough about what they’ve gleaned from Birdman to go into it here. You’ll have to go read it yourself if you want their methods.

“Remember: Everything on screen in the finished and published movie is a choice. If something doesn’t make sense on a textual level, it is often a signpost (or LIGHTHOUSE) to look at it on a subtextual level.”

Mera points to an article about three-act structure and notes that “fun and games” is both part of that author’s second act and the title of an OFMD episode.

“Are we being fucked with? Or are we being instructed?”

Chapter 7: If You Strip Away The Myth From The Man

It’s the Jesus Christ Superstar chapter and it’s massive. I’m only including the most substantial comparisons and points.

Mera starts by linking to a gifset of Con talking about Taika saying that Izzy and Blackbeard are comparable to Judas and Jesus (and then Taika and Con sang songs from JCS while getting their makeup done). Notably, Con didn’t specify which character was which.

Blackbeard is a myth created by (of) two men, Ed and Izzy. “there's always two male bodies involved: Jesus and Judas, and both sacrifice themselves to the cause.”

It’s easy to say that Izzy is Judas, but wait -- there’s a better and deeper interpretation! Look at this picture from S1 that resembles the Last Supper and frames Izzy as Jesus! “Now I finally understood. Sure: Izzy is Judas-coded. That's plain for anyone to see. But Izzy is also Jesus-coded… from the under/reverse side.”

Izzy is Jesus-coded for all of season one (even more than Ed), and the comparison is solidified by the end of S2E3: “Izzy Hands is almost fully and directly Jesus-coded, and after Ed's own resurrection (not as an agape-love self-sacrifice for the saving of others, but through selfish personal/eros love alone) Edward is now obviously the betrayer of the whole crew who is permitted to stay aboard only on terms of sackcloth clothing and uneasy tolerance.”

Judas died by hanging himself according to the Gospel of Matthew. The only characters we see hanging are Ed and Stede, which clearly aligns them with Judas.

Izzy is a good person. He cares about the crew; Ed never does. When Izzy’s wrong, he fesses up to it and apologies; Ed does not (or when he does, the apologies are bad). “Does he lie? Yes, ostensibly to protect his captain and crew. Is he fairly mean to the Revenge crew until they [...] become his crew? Pretty much, although I could argue otherwise in places -- especially the fact that while Ed throws Lucius violently and bodily off the ship without any warning, Izzy carefully puts the crew on a safe island with a minor fuckery of his own to keep them calm and happy until he leaves. (It's obviously not Edward's idea, although he does permit Izzy to put himself between the deadly Kraken and the Revenge's crew in order to accomplish it.) Is he selfish? Yes, and who of us aren’t sometimes selfish about the people we love?”

Jesus and Judas have massive amounts of sexual tension (yeah, can confirm). Izzy is Jesus-coded because, while he doesn’t initiate contact like Jesus does in JCS, he’s always looking directly at Ed. Ed is Judas-coded because he has a hard time looking at Izzy and finds it difficult to touch him.

“...If Izzy Hands is a queer man who is Jesus-coded, who we see go through not one but TWO passion plays during Season 2... [near-death after having his leg removed, end-of-season death] he is conquering the death of HIV/AIDS and queer grief. He has to die so that he can vanquish that very real death, and arise again triumphant over it.”

“One direct correspondence with Jesus is that Izzy is convinced of one right way to be (whether or not it actually is), and everything outside of that offends him viscerally at this point in the series.” Izzy is convinced that there’s one right way to be a pirate, and Stede’s fucking that up.

And back to AIDS/reverse-Jesus Izzy: “Now among the lepers we're back to the reversal: no one touches Izzy. He’s desperate for it yet can never allow it. Jesus’s touch, kiss, love cures – and everyone seeks it and craves it. They demand it, they swamp and overwhelm him. Jesus's naked touch/kiss/love cures disease -- Izzy's carries and spreads it.”

“Judas/Edward makes his deal with the priesthood/King George to betray Jesus/Izzy – his price is 30 pieces of silver/Stede’s life.” That is, Ed is the one doing the betraying in season one.

But the real betrayal happens when he cuts off Izzy’s toe and feeds it to him while he’s vulnerable. Important note for the AIDS stuff: “...Edward puts on leather gauntlets immediately prior to this assault -- he ‘gloves up.’ He doesn't have direct naked contact with Izzy's blood or flesh during this scene.” The toe-feeding scene is absolutely framed as sexual assault.

And the toe thing continues into season two. “Sit with that also for a moment: the faux consent of making Izzy remove his own clothing to bare his body parts for this violation. Is it too far a stretch to think that Ed also made him eat each one, in their own private, gristly sacrament? He did threaten to ‘feed him the rest’ after all.”

Here is the outline of Izzy’s first “passion play”:

Izzy's Last Supper: all the toes eaten before as well as the one threatened now.

Izzy's Gethsemane, wherein he begs his God for the cup to be removed: he tries to bargain his and the crew's way out with his conversation with Blackbeard, to find an alternative to the self-destructive violence.

Izzy is betrayed by his Judas (again): shot in the leg for the 'crime' of mentioning Stede Bonnet's name, or Blackbeard's affection toward him.

Izzy descends into the grave: lays in a secret tunnel in what we can believe is the lowest part of the ship, while rotting enough to be smelled throughout.

Izzy dies: he shoots himself in the head and both we and Blackbeard believe him to be dead.

Izzy is risen: he hauls himself up out of his own grave without assistance from anyone else, crawls to the main deck, reloads his pistol somewhere along the way -- and shows himself to his followers crew at last, in order to bring about their salvation.

Con himself said that this is a passion play, and it takes up a massive chunk of the first part of the season. You don’t throw something massive like that into a show unless you’ve got something bigger coming.

But Judas dies before OFMD ends (mapping OFMD onto JCS), so now who is Ed? He’s Pontius Pilate. There’s the whipping of Jesus (Izzy’s back scars), then Pilate kneels down to hold the bleeding Jesus in his arms. It’s this specific Pieta statue.

“Izzy has to die to conquer his own living death, to end the curse that has kept him untouchable and unable to be loved as he so desperately desires.” There’s the crucifixion for you. Izzy dies and is buried, and we’re still waiting on the resurrection.

The last shot in JCS is of the empty cross; the last shot of OFMD S2 is Izzy’s grave. “If the cross in the last and arguably the most significant shot of JCS symbolizes the triumph of resurrection and rebirth... the one in OFMD S2 must also.”

Alex Sherman liked one of Mera’s Izzy Lives tweets that he was tagged in.

Chapter 8: The Dual Substance Of Christ

Now we’re looking at The Last Temptation of Christ. This is another long and involved one, so I’m cutting a lot of minor things that don’t serve the overall meta. (I also know fuck-all about this movie, oops.)

“An argument can be made (and I will attempt it) that Judas in this instance is not only the show creators/writers room of OFMD who had to put their much beloved boy Izzy Hands through all this agony... but also we the Unseen Crew who adore him, who have suffered alongside him through all he's endured, and who want nothing more than to have him back and whole in resurrected triumph.”

TLTC presents another reason to identify Lucius with Mary Magdalene (and notably, Jesus can’t touch Mary -- because Izzy is AIDS-coded). Once again, there’s an immense amount of sexual tension between Jesus and Judas.

This Jesus is angry and this God is fearsome. Judas does a lot of slamming-Jesus-into-walls, much like Ed and Izzy in S1E10.

Jesus confirms that he is a heart and he loves, which solidifies Izzy’s position as the heart of Blackbeard.

In his final trial in the desert, Jesus’ final tempter appears as flames. Izzy and Ed both play with flames when they lie.

“Izzy is pretty much Jesus-coded as I explained in the JCS meta… but here also due to the timing and content of this scene, Izzy’s also Lazarus-coded.He dies, he goes into the pit of the grave, he smells of rot, then he is raised from the dead.” Lazarus and Izzy both have a rough time of being alive again and drink about it.

Jesus says “I have to die on the cross, and I have to die willingly.” This parallels Izzy saying that he wants to go when he’s dying. Judas doesn’t want Jesus to die, which puts him more in line with Jenkins and company than any characters.

“But Izzy has to die, in order to conquer death. He’s lived with the specter of HIV/AIDS that has separated him from loving touch and the sharing of physical intimacy. He has to go into the grave to leave his disease and his queer grief behind, and to be reborn to love.”

On the cross, Jesus says, “Father, stay with me. Don’t leave me.” As he’s dying, Izzy tells Ed, “Sit with me, Eddie.”

“I feel sick, and I think I’m supposed to. It’s supposed to hurt. Both Izzy's death and Jesus's crucifixion are supposed to be two of the realest and most awful and most beautiful things I’ve ever seen on television.”

In TLTJ, there’s an extended part of the movie where Jesus is in a kind of gravy basket. The events are all kind of odd. They involve Jesus sleeping with Mary (the reborn unicorn, free of AIDS and safe to touch). Jesus returns to his body, suffers, and dies.

TLTJ doesn’t cover Jesus’ resurrection. “We have to trust what we know of the story: that Jesus is risen, and only death itself remains in his grave.”

On to the next!

#ofmd #ofmd meta #but like ofmd meta summary #which is wild #izzy critical #i mean not really #it's a summary #no commentary from me #continuing the trend of spending hours on something for like three people to read #hey tumblr why is my spacing wonky when i post

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certified-scoundrel · 10 months

Text

i just realized why i was so convinced Good Omens is just queerbaiting during my first watch through of the show-

ITS BECAUSE FUCKING BBC SHERLOCK DID THE "PEOPLE MAKING JOKES ABOUT THE TWO MAIN CHARACTERS BEING GAY" THING-

why did the man saying "i've been there, you're better off without him" feel so familiar? because it's the good omens equivalent of Irene Adler saying "yes you are" when john says he and sherlock aren't a couple.

when i read the book, hearing the line about how Anathema "had been safe after all" when Crowley called Aziraphale 'angel' made the "this sounds like the kinda thing Sarah Z would make a video essay about" alarm in my brain go off-

however, based off the trailers and Neil Gaiman's internet presence, this time it won't result in a conspiracy surrounding the presidential inauguration and a fake ARG

#tjlc #sarah z #good omens #aziraphale #crowley #anthony j crowley #ineffable husbands #crowley x arizaphale #aziracrow #good omens season two #neil gaiman #just realized that his last name is basically gay man #lgbtq

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