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on why am I crying today

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The thing I am fucking feral about today: this shit.

Look. Look at this.

Stede, by and large, is not a Toucher. (That’s a whole separate essay.) He’s hesitant as fuck about it, and tends to initiate contact, if at all, through some intermediary: clothing, air, etc. Later, with Ed, he’ll do incidental touches, little things that could be explained away like the brush of arms together, etc.

(THIS IS NOT THAT ESSAY.)

But look at this shit. “May I?” Stede asks, and he gives it a moment but Ed doesn’t actually hand it over. He doesn’t even answer.

And Stede just reaches out, takes an end of the silk, and

slowly

drags it

through Ed’s fingers as Ed fucking tilts his eyes upwards in complete silence, his gaze clicking from spot to spot as his heart gets unwound from his lax – but not relaxed – grip.

And while I like the meta where Stede has NO FUCKING CLUE ABOUT HOW SEDUCTIVE HE’S BEING, I also like the idea that for the first time in his life, because this is a Queer Situation, Stede has the glimmerings of Game. Because, my god, the forwardness of it. He didn’t wait for Ed to give it to him. He just reached out and took, but in such a syrup-slow manner that Ed could’ve said no, could’ve just tightened his fingers if he didn’t want to let Stede take this precious thing– and Stede’s giving him that time while simultaneously also making some pretty great allusions, intentional or not, to how exactly he’d make his move, if a move he ever made.

Like, “May I?“ Stede would ask, and Ed (Blackbeard) wouldn’t move, wouldn’t say a word, but he wouldn’t step away either, would just watch Stede with a clicking gaze as Stede stepped forward, raised his hands, and drew Ed syrup-slow toward him, every moment one where Ed could turn away and every moment clear that Stede was here, wanting this, wanting him, and deliberate in his want.

So my god, the pure queer seduction of this scene: the intermediary object as a stand-in for themselves; the plausible deniability; the silent consent (a subgenre of plausible deniability); coded language; “innocent” touch as protective camouflage…

(It’s a little distressing to consider how much queer romantic context comes from trying to be both Open to a possibility while simultaneously trying not to get the shit beaten out of us for being wrong. It’s a powerful language. It’s a tragic one. It’s what makes it feel so special if it goes right.)

Anyway. Stede may have no idea the levels he’s playing at here, but he’s a man who was explicitly and in canon abused for displaying a particular flavor of non-masculine behavior. Even if he doesn’t know he’s queer, he knows the need for the language of safety; he’s been learning it since childhood. So he speaks it– and Ed, who engages in at least “when at sea” levels of queer living, picks up on it like the Stede-radio he’s been tuning for ages now to find a signal that explains him has suddenly gone from static to the crystal-clear notes of Gnossienne No. 5.

Is it any wonder that Ed’s oh no moment is fucking palpable here? Is it any wonder that Stede comes away from this scene a little more certain of himself around Ed, able to argue him into staying, pull him into a treasure hunt, touch his bare arm against Ed’s when they become co-captains?

GAH these fuckheads, look at them.

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no bc why is he actually so fucking cute and pretty in telstar we NEED to be talking about it more as of RIGHT fucking now

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more of Izzy's best lines

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Fashion plate of 29 June 1833 in La Mode (detail), Met Museum. “Gloves, with both sexes, were now becoming conspicuous and important.” — C. Willett Cunnington and Phillis Cunnington on the 1830s, in Handbook of English Costume in the 19th Century.

The gentlemen have yellow gloves, tassled canes, and wear frock coats with cinched waists. Sir Hardy Amies describes the fashion in his book The Englishman’s Suit:

The frock coat appeared about 1830. It was probably of military origin as it fastened high at the neck and was usually double-breasted. It was the same length as the morning coat but the fronts were not cut away. By the middle of the century, Norah Waugh (again!) says, ‘It now became a very worthy and somewhat dull garment, a coat for the well-to-do and professional classes — the hallmark of Victorian respectability’.

To accuse these Romantic fellows of ‘Victorian respectability’ seems harsh, but the Cunningtons describe a growing sense of prudery in the opening chapter to Handbook of English Costume in the 19th Century (“A View of the Century”):

In 1830 Leigh Hunt remarked that ‘so rapid are the changes that take place in people’s notions of what is decorous that not only has the word “smock” been displaced by the word “shift” but even that harmless expression has been set aside for the French word “chemise”, and at length not even this word, it seems, is to be mentioned nor the garment itself alluded to, by any decent writer’.

It was just at this time that parents began to discover additions to their families under gooseberry bushes; polite euphemisms for homely things were springing into use and in place of trousers gentlemen wore nether integuments, inexpressibles, unmentionables, ineffables or unwhisperables.

Frock coat-wearing men in Journal des Marchands-Tailleurs, December 1838: officially in the Victorian era now. (Well, maybe Monarchie de Juillet for these gentlemen).

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ROMEO + JULIET (1996) dir. Baz Luhrmann

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Still insane over this, FYI.

Drew this for me and my 8 homies who will go insane

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Our Flag Means Death + tumblr textposts (part 8)

pt.1, pt.2, pt.3, pt.4, pt.5, pt.6, pt.7

izzy version, twitter version

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ANDOR 1.12 “Rix Road”

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Touch me and see what happens. Engraved kitchen knives, 2022. instagram

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Source:  PacingPixie

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Riverlore Mansion, c. 1865 // Cairo, Illinois

Jessica McDaniel • vegetativesoul

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Portraits of Lili‘uokalani, the last Queen of Hawaiʻi.

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They’ve been rebuilding the Tower of Babel, but this time they have a team of linguists on site. Every time God smites the builders and invents a dozen new languages, the linguists have a dozen decently sized translations in about a month and work can start up again.

The linguists have been really into it. They say the new phonemes are fascinating. As for God, I assume that at this point he’s just curious to see how far this goes.

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The Sandman promotional poster based on 1-star Google reviews + what one reviewer thought the show should be named instead