This Got Numbers On Twitter So I’m Posting Here Cause I Literally Have Nothing Else Going On But Working

DUMPING ALL MY ABANDONED GOOD OMEN WIPS BECAUSE I DONT HAVE TIME TO FINISH IT!!!!!!!!!!

KOKAY BYEE

to me in a modern au, falin and laios grow up in a tiny little country town, one of backwater areas where everyone knows everyone. their dads definitely the town preacher or something. half the food they eat is deer patties and rabbit stew from the game their dad caught. falin comes out to their parents for the first time when shes younger. their mom says she accepts her but openly complains about wanting grandkids one day and it makes falin sad but she doesnt comment on it. laios never once came out to their parents, but he and falin talked about it for hours after she came out and it opened up a little box that had been taped firmly shut in his brain. falin did not go to the hospital for falling and busting open her chin, which bothers laios to think about but falin only remembers how many popsicles their parents let her eat while she healed. falin and laios can both run on sharp gravel barefoot, from years of practice. falin used to feed stray cats and would hide them in their treehouse. do you understand my vision

So a ton of these God x follower ships tap into the need to be worshiped. Not just shipping, but also platonic relationships too.

But what about the need to be needed? That urge from the follower and the pride they have that some giant strong entitiy needs their help?

What about those quiet moments when they're still figuring things out, the moral or lower falling in love, and in return learning this giant in their eyes needs them?

That relationship of back and forth?

What about the woman who follows and learns her patron God has been longing to be needed by someone and is showering her in all these blessings because they had no one who would ask until now?

The man who's desire to be required, for someone to be unable to do something without him because he just didn't want to be alone anymore, is fulfilled as a prophet for this God?

How about the child who was never wanted by their parents and now there's a demigod who desperately needs someone's help? And the child is able to be loved and needed by someone so strong?

Where are those moments of need?

I used to think that the reason I wasn't satisfied with Izzy's death was because I was too attached to his perspective as a character and couldn't focus on the big picture of the season and the main Gentlebeard relationship enough. I mean, I was still convinced that his death and the way it was carried out was a shit writing decision, but everyone else outside the Izzy Canyon circles seemed fine with it, so I was starting to think that maybe they were right.

So I looked back on the rest of the season and rewatched the finale... And realised something that I'd been trying to ignore because it was too painful to admit. A huge part of why Izzy's death hit so hard (in a bad way, not that delicious masochistic pain of having a beloved character die a good, narratively satisfying death) was because throughout this season he was the only character who actually had a satisfying arc and development. Practically no one else did. I didn't actually care for Gentlebeard this season, not the way I cared in S1. From episode 1 to 8 and a half, Izzy's arc was crafted with more care, kindness, subtlety and narrative weight than the main Gentlebeard arc which, in comparison, felt like a string of choppy beads badly tied together in an approximate shape of an arc, but collapsed as soon as you looked at it too closely.

Yes, we all know this season suffered for being 2 episodes too short, but I don't think that's all there is to it. This is starting to feel like GoT season 8 all over again. Would it have been better if it wasn't so rushed? Maybe. Or maybe it would have been even worse because this season just didn't seem to know what to do with itself or the characters. The themes and symbolism are all over the place and completely inconsistent. Ed and Stede's characters are practically back at the same place they left in S1. All they did was bounce off the walls back and forth with no real growth. As soon as they took a step towards fixing their relationship or growing as people, they either tool three steps back or it just got dropped. Stede letting fame get to his head? Interesting and realistic development. And how was it resolved? It wasn't. Stede and Ed being whim prone? I'm glad they brought it up. And then they just fell for another whim and it was presented as a satisfying ending.

Ed went from the Kraken, to taking the first steps towards being Ed, then suddenly all the way to being Ed by way of a Night of Magical Healing Sex that he he didn't actually want to happen because he wasn't ready. And then all of a sudden he pivoted to abandoning Stede and piracy and becoming a fisherman... for 5 min. And then back to Blackbeard again because two fishermen were mean to him for 5 minutes. And then abandoning it again to open an inn. How was any of this even remotely coherent or satisfying? They didn't even have a single conversation about any of it. Ed had more proper closure and communication with Izzy during his dying scene than with Stede and the rest of the crew put together. Izzy's arc got sacrificed to do the heavy lifting for Ed's arc and became nothing more than a shortcut to speed run his character growth. Except it didn't even lead anywhere. "Ed, they're your family, they love you" no they don't, he didn't even have a single positive conversation with any of them except Fang. Of course this could have been the point, and Ed could have seen Izzy's death, his own discovery of found family and his dying words as a pretext to repair his relationship with the crew. But he just left them and stayed with Stede instead.

Sure, you could say this was only the second act of the story, and S3 will resolve everything. But the second act is still meant to move the story and the characters forward in some way. Yes, of course if we get S3, I imagine Stede and Ed's life as innkeepers won't exactly be idyllic. But the problem is that the conflicts they'd have will only be a rehash and repeat of the same conflicts they've already have, or were supposed to have, this season. Multiple times, even. We already know that Ed is simply unable to live with himself no matter what life he chooses. The title of S1 was literally "wherever you go, there you are". We already know Stede's love isn't enough to fix him. We already know their goals in life are completely opposite. Maybe they could have shown Stede realising, after his humiliating in S7, that piracy wasn't all it was cracked up to be or he isn't suited for it, and that's why he chose to leave it behind and open an inn, but that's not the explanation we were given. It was just another whim. They literally didn't learn anything this season. They had two baby conversations in E4 and E5 and didn't take anything from it, just kept doing the complete opposite of anything. "We're both prone to whims, let's take things slow" became "let's take things extremely fast by moving in together permanently and becoming entrepreneurs". They never talked about the actual, deepseated, longstanding trauma issues they needed to resolve before they could even begin to have a proper relationship. They literally got a heavy-handed glimpse in what their life would become if they just stuck together without addressing their own personal issues, and chose to do that very thing. It that's what S3 is going to address, then why were Anne and Mary part of this season instead of the next one?

I remember everyone saying they wanted Ed and Stede to reunite as quickly as possible in S2, and I get why. They have great chemistry together. The season is about them. But for it to work, spending more time apart is exactly what they needed. They needed to learn how to live with themselves and others, first. Romantic love alone can't fix you as a person. You have to fix yourself first. Community can help (as with Izzy's case), but you still have to put in the work. In retrospect, I'm glad that Izzy didn't get a love interest this season - because he wasn't ready yet, and had to learn how to have normal relationships and friendships with other people before attempting an intimate romantic relationship, lest he ended up falling head first unit another toxic mutually dependent relationship. That's what Stede and Ed should have tried too. Instead the show just ended up using Izzy's death as a quick surgical fix, robbing Ed of his agency and having to do the hard work repairing himself and his relationships with other people. There's a sad irony in getting exactly one character's arc just this, and then using it as a sacrificial lamb to patch over the main character's arc.

AU where Vi gets raised by Silco after s1e3 loosely based on the initial drafts..

always wished they got to interact normally in canon (where they weren't at each other's throats lol)

Hopefully how we find them a few years down the line 💖

Ed + loving Stede for all the things he was always mocked for

a list of 100+ buildings to put in your fantasy town

academy

adventurer's guild

alchemist

apiary

apothecary

aquarium

armory

art gallery

bakery

bank

barber

barracks

bathhouse

blacksmith

boathouse

book store

bookbinder

botanical garden

brothel

butcher

carpenter

cartographer

casino

castle

cobbler

coffee shop

council chamber

court house

crypt for the noble family

dentist

distillery

docks

dovecot

dyer

embassy

farmer's market

fighting pit

fishmonger

fortune teller

gallows

gatehouse

general store

graveyard

greenhouses

guard post

guildhall

gymnasium

haberdashery

haunted house

hedge maze

herbalist

hospice

hospital

house for sale

inn

jail

jeweller

kindergarten

leatherworker

library

locksmith

mail courier

manor house

market

mayor's house

monastery

morgue

museum

music shop

observatory

orchard

orphanage

outhouse

paper maker

pawnshop

pet shop

potion shop

potter

printmaker

quest board

residence

restricted zone

sawmill

school

scribe

sewer entrance

sheriff's office

shrine

silversmith

spa

speakeasy

spice merchant

sports stadium

stables

street market

tailor

tannery

tavern

tax collector

tea house

temple

textile shop

theatre

thieves guild

thrift store

tinker's workshop

town crier post

town square

townhall

toy store

trinket shop

warehouse

watchtower

water mill

weaver

well

windmill

wishing well

wizard tower

chilly mornings in piltover

a perfect excuse to lend your partner your jacket

(also available as a print!)