#ed and stede will have my heart until the day I die

[unadulteratedkr]

I don’t think even I’m ready for just how feral I’m going to go for Madeleine Sami in ofmd s2

#our flag means death #ofmd s2 spoilers #like.... I've now watched their taskmaster series twice #I'm watching a fucking MURDER MYSTERY SHOW for Mads #I have a friend who regularly sends me madeleine's selfies just to make me yell #I'm going to go so fucking bonkers for archie y'all #ed and stede will have my heart until the day I die #but archie is gonna settle up in my soul #I can FEEL it

[dragon-kazansky]

Spirit of the sea

Izzy Hands x Reader (GN)

You were a member of Blackbeard's crew long ago. Then you became a ghost story. Izzy Hands only sees you in his dreams these days, until he sees you for real when investigating Stede Bonnet. This sets him on a rollercoaster of emotions between you and what his captain is doing.

{Masterlist}

{Previous Chapter} - {Next Chapter}

Warnings: Swearing. Izzy likes to swear. Buttons is naked. Also I'm pretty sure Izzy makes heart eyes at you without me actually typing out heart eyes.

Chapter Eight - Captain Hands

♡♡♡

The English came aboard the ship and promptly captured every pirate onboard. They cornered some of the crew and tied them up. A naked Buttons runs past you at one point, everything hanging out. You try to blink the image away.

One of the sailors grabs you from behind and takes your hands behind your back. You're then pushed down to the deck, face against the wood.

Edward and Stede are next to each other, looking at one another.

One by one everyone is taking in for questioning. It's only here you learn that this was about the murder of Badminton. You had totally forgotten about that guy.

This was his twin brother.

You're taken back outside with the rest of the crew and left to sit there. It's only then that you realise who else is here. Someone you thought you wouldnt see again.

"Izzy," you whisper, looking at him.

He's looking right at you.

It feels like all the air has been sucked out if your lungs. You've forgotten how to breathe. You don't even realise a tear has formed until it trails down your cheek. It splashes on the deck below, silent and unnoticed by anyone. Anyone except Izzy.

You turn your eyes away from.

Apparently Stede confessed to killing Nigel Badminton. His punishment was death by firing squad. At least it would be quick, you supposed.

Izzy was watching mostly you as Stede and Blackbeard were being given their sentences. He has missed you.

"In the name of His Majesty King George, this tribunal shall come to order. Edward Teach, or Black Beard."

"It's just Blackbeard. Like, just run it together as one word. 'Blackbeard'. Don't have to put a gap in there." Ed spirals on.

"You face death for general crimes of Piracy against the Crown."

"Yeah." Edward agrees.

"But a friend of the Crown has prevailed upon me to remand you to his custody. You shall be released to Captain Hands in exchange for his service to the King."

You turn slowly to see Izzy give Ed a little wave. Oh, now you get it. Izzy had made a deal with these bastards for Edward's protection.

While the crew of the Revenge boo Izzy, you try and find a way to control your breathing.

"Stede Bonnet. For the wanton murder of Nigel Badminton... your sentence is death by firing squad."

"We'll find a way out of this, OK?" Ed says to him.

"Ed, no. I deserve this. At some point in a man's life, he has to face the music." Stede speaks calmly.

Except, when he's up there with his blindfold on, he's screaming about much he doesn't want to die.

You had been cut free and permitted to stand with Blackbeard. One of Izzy's other demands was that you were safe.

You watch Stede with a sad expression.

"Edward... I know you're upset, but it was the only..." Izzy tried to explain himself, but Ed turns and punches Izzy hard. Izzy falls to the deck harshly. At any other time you would help him up, but not today.

The crew applaud what they just saw.

"Oh... that's fair." Izzy grunts as he stands up and brushes his hair back again. "Remember, though. You said when you made me first mate, 'Above all else is loyalty to your Captain.'"

"Rifles at the ready!" Chauncey orders.

"You're my captain, and I was never gonna stand by and let you destroy yourself for that... twat. And this, this is a humane way of ending it."

"Aim!"

"It's quick. It's clean. Edward you KNOW that." Izzy is basically pleading with him.

"Act of Grace!" Blackbeard calls out.

"No... No."

"Act of Grace!" Edward stands in front of Stede. Izzy looks defeated. "Act of Grace!"

The crew shout for Stede to say it too. "Say it! Act of Grace!"

"What he said!" Stede calls out.

Edward removes the blindfold from Stede.

"Fuck me," Chauncey mutters.

Edward explains the Act of Grace to Stede.

"So, you want to go to war for the King?" Chauncey asks them.

"We'd rather eat our own faces, but, yes." Edward replies to him.

"Two acts of Grace, please." Stede pleads.

"Ah. I'm afraid the offer doesn't extend to you, Bonnet. After, the King was only referring to real pirates. He turns to Edward, "He's from my world, not yours."

"Raise your rifles!"

"June 3rd. An excellent day!" Lucius stands up with Stede's diary in his hands, reading from it. "Raided a commercial vessel after overwhelming the hardy crew. We claimed a prize of lush vegetation in conquest." Lucius turns around to show a drawing of the plant.

Oluwande holds the plant up. "And here's the vegetation in question."

"They'll never forget the Eccentric Pirate Bonnet and his savage, insane, vengeful pirate horde." Lucius closes the book. "See? He's a pirate. a real, proper pirate."

"That man is a fearsome pirate if e'er I seen one." Buttons joins in.

The rest of the crew begin to agree. Stede looks proudly at them.

"Well, rule-of-law-wise, I'd say that settle it." One of the Navy officers says.

"A plant and a drawing?" Chauncey asks. "Settles nothing."

"It's enough for us. Blackbeard renounces piracy to serve the Crown? We'll be dining with Ol' King George himself."

"Why?" Chauncey asks the crew. "Why do you all show such loyalty to this... this... nothing?"

"I'd attribute quite a lot of it to a people-positive management style," Stede says.

Chauncey draws his sword. "Shut up!"

"Stand down, Admiral." He is warned. "Or will be forced to use measures."

"Measures? Against me?! He's the criminal!" Chauncey says, waving his sword about at Stede. "He's the murderer!"

"All right! Calm down, Mr Wavy Blade." Says Stede. "Chauncey! Sometimes, when we get a bit angry, do you know what we like to do? We talk it through."

"As a crew!" The others join in.

You smile from where you stand. Izzy notices.

"Oh, I know. I know what's happened. Yeah, we've somehow drifted south of the equator, and ended up in Backwardsland!"

Chauncey is promptly restrained.

You laugh softly. Izzy can't seem to keep his eyes off of you.

♡♡♡

Edward and Stede are taken into the captain's quarter to sign the contract for the Act of Grace. Izzy is in there with them.

You're sat on deck looking out at the sea.

It isn't long until the Navy retreat, taking Stede and Edward with them. You watch them go. Edward looks at you before leaving the ship.

That's how you know Izzy is standing behind you. You refuse to look at him.

Stede and Edward have gone.

Izzy opens his mouth to speak, but you're already pushing past him to walk away. He calls your name but you don't stop. He sighs as he watches you go.

♡♡♡

While Izzy sets things his way on the Revenge, by getting the crew in order and showing his leadership, you sulk down in his old cabin.

Since he's captain now, he won't want this old room back. You curl up on his bed and hide your face in the crook of your arms. It has been a long day.

You're not sure how much time has passed, but eventually your solitude is interrupted.

"Thought I might find you here."

You don't look up. You don't move an inch.

"You not gonna look at me?"

You remain still.

You hear Izzy sigh and he walks across the small cabin toward the desk. You hear him put something down, the item hiding gently against the wood. You can tell from the light rustling sound that he stands there for a moment before leaving again.

You look up once you're sure he's gone. Your eyes are drawn to the desk. Sitting there, just as you remembered it, was the wooden sparrow you whittled for Izzy.

Another tear escapes your eye.

♡♡♡

Izzy works the crew hard, all while not lifting a finger for himself. He throws round orders and makes sure every man onboard does his job. He states he's tough, but he's also fair

The crew still hate him.

They don't hate you, however.

Lucius finds you sulking away. He was sent to grab something for Izzy, but he decided today least check in on you.

"Dizzy Izzy confining you?" He asks, half joking.

You look up at him and sigh through your nose.

"What's he doing?" You ask.

"Ordering is around."

"Course he is."

Lucius frowns as he looks at you. "Thought you might be glad he was back, despite literally everything else."

"Would be had he not sold us out to the Navy and pushed Ed enough to go serve the King."

"He sucks, for the record."

"Yeah. He's a dick."

Lucius and you share a smile. The moment is only broken by the yell of "SPRIGGS." Lucius bolts out of the cabin to reach Izzy before he gets mad.

You return to sulking.

♡♡♡

As evening draws in and the crew go about their business, you come up to deck for some air. You hold the wooden sparrow in your hand as you rest against the railing of the ship. The breeze is a bit chilly tonight, but you don't mind it much.

You've become aware of when he's nearby. It's like you have a sixth sense for Izzy Hands.

"You'll catch a chill up here."

You do nothing but hum quietly in response, turning the sparrow around in your hand carefully.

"At least talk to me."

You keep twirling the sparrow.

Izzy shifts his weight to one leg as he stares at you. You can't see the pleading look in his eyes, at how desperate he is get you to look at him.

"I did this for us, you know. Edward was never supposed to do what he did. He wasn't even supposed to be on the ship... Jack was meant to take you and Edward with him."

"You sent Calico fucking Jack to get us?" You ask, hissing the question out. You still refuse to look at him.

Happy that you're at least talking to him, Izzy goes on.

"I wanted you safe. Safe with me. We could have had Blackbeard back. We could have been a crew again. No more Bonnet. No more ghosts. Just us and the sea."

You inhale sharply. Izzy realises in that moment that you're upset. He wants so desperately to reach out and hold you.

"Safe? No one is ever safe, Izzy."

You drop the sparrow and it falls down into the waves below. You grip the railing of the ship, knuckles turning white as you lean against it.

"I should have stayed dead. Maybe none of this would have happened," you say softly.

"Don't say that. Don't ever fucking say that." Izzy takes a step forward.

"You left me, Izzy!" You turn sharply and glare at him. "You bastard! You left me behind over some stupid fucking duel and then sold us out!"

You lunge forward and smack Izzy across the chest. He tries to block your attacks, but not with much effort. Izzy wants you to let your anger out on him.

"You bastard! You fucking idiot! Why? Why do any of it? Why did you leave me?" You cry out.

"What choice did I have?" He asks, still blocking your attacks.

"You could have stayed! We could worked something out! Anything. We could have done anything! At least we would have done it together."

"I offered you to come with me," he says softly.

"No!" You yell. You stop hitting him and glare at him. "We belong out at sea. That's our home. We made a promise once, do you remember? A promise to stick together and explore the world. Well, fuck that promise I guess!"

He says your name softly.

"No, Izzy. You betrayed me twice. You left me and then sold us out. How can I ever forgive you?"

He falls silent as he looks at you.

You push past him and walk away again. Izzy is left standing there, looking at the sea.

♡♡♡

Izzy wasn't ready to give up on you. Not now. Not ever.

He waited an hour or so before coming down to the cabin. His old cabin. It warmed his heart to discover you had taken it as your own. He knew you missed him just as much as he missed you.

"Leave me alone," you mumble.

"No."

You sigh as you sit up on the bed. "What do you want from me? Want me to scrub the deck? Shine your boots? Worship you?"

Izzy frowns. "No. None of that."

"Then what?"

"I want... I want us to talk it through."

You look at him silently, and then start to chuckle softly. "Talk it through? Now you want to talk it through. What? Like a crew?"

"Like friends."

"Oh, so we're still friends are we?" You scoff.

"Never stopped, at least on my end."

"Well it did on mine."

Izzy stands there staring at you. His eyes are soft and there is something about this posture that feels wrong. Not in a sense that he would do something to you, but like something that doesn't belong there. He's standing wrong.

"What is it, Izzy?"

"I fucking missed you, ya know."

"Did you?" You ask flatly.

"Yeah, I did."

You take a deep breath and calm your mind. You let most of your anger put on him up on deck, so the least you can do is be civil. Your choices were limited.

"I'm sorry about the sparrow. I, uh, I appreciate that you took it with you."

Izzy almost smiles. "Couldn't leave it behind."

"I'll have to make you a new one."

"Only if you forgive me."

"Maybe not then," you sigh.

"Do you hate me?" He asks.

There's a few moments of silence that pass that make him believe that the answer is probably yes. You have every reason to, he supposes. He left. Then Edward, for a moment.

You have every right to be upset.

"No."

Izzy finds his whole body relaxing from that word alone. Relief floods his heart and his lips actually do curl into a gentle smile for once.

"Good. Pretty sure the crew do, but I can live with that. I can't live with you hating me, though."

You meets his eyes and suddenly feel lighter. You never thought a simple gaze could take away so much heartache and pain.

"Pretty sure they're planning a mutiny. They tried once with Stede."

"Fuck."

"You are a bit of a dick, though, Izzy."

He looks at you with a faux sense of betrayal in his eyes. You chuckle softly, but know that the crew would most likely throw him off the ship.

"I'll see what I can do."

Izzy smiles gratefully before leaving. He has said his peace and for now that's enough. He bids you goodnight as he goes.

"Goodnight, Izzy."

♡♡♡

Yeah, the next morning the crew planned a mutiny. Izzy was promptly tied up.

"You said you'd see what you could do." Izzy looks at you, fire beginning to burn in his eyes. He kind of felt betrayed.

"Yeah, I tried. I talked to them for hours. They are adamant on throwing you off this ship." You tell him, looking at him firmly.

"You're just going to let them?"

You keep your eyes on him. "Yeah."

"If this is about leaving you-"

"Izzy, no, no. It's not like that." You raise your hands. Izzy furrows his brows. There's rope around your wrists.

"What?" He asks softly.

"I said, if they wanted to throw you overboard, they would have to throw me too. Or I'd kill them all in their sleep."

Izzy states at you.

You give a smile

"You...? You told them to banish you too?"

"Yeah. Either you stay, or we both go together."

Izzy is at a loss for words.

The crew come over and picked him up. He pleads with them to change their minds. He will listen and make changes. He will do what they wanted him to.

He wanted to stay on this ship with you. You shouldn't banish yourself for him. He had no idea you would go so far.

Did this mean you had forgiven him?

He looks at you, head bent as far back as it could go to look at you. You stand there and smile at him. God, why are you smiling? You can't be this happy to be mutinied with him.

"One!" The crew start to count.

"No! No! No!" Izzy pleads.

"Two!"

Izzy looks back at you again.

"Three!" "Hold it!" Pete stops them.

Everyone turns to find Blackbeard unexpectedly climbing onboard the ship. You stare at him confused.

"Izzy... I'll take tea in my room." Ed says, walking past everyone.

Everyone just stares.

Izzy is put down.

"What happened to his beard?" Roach asks.

You turn back around to Izzy and bring his attention to you as you work on undoing his restaints. He stares at you as you do so. You look at him and then back at his hands. Once his hands are free he reaches out and gently holds yours.

"You were really gonna do it?" He asks.

"Yeah," you say softly. "I was gonna do it."

Izzy really wanted to kiss you.

"Why?"

"For the same reason Edward protected Stede."

Izzy looks confused.

"Forget it."

All Izzy Hands can do is look at you. He untied your wrists and Olu sees to it both of your feet are intied too.

Izzy's heart was racing.

He wondered, did you mean what he thought you meant?

♡♡♡

@grippleback-galaxy - @askmarinaandothers - @godlikegallagher - @for-fuck-sake-im-alive - @whiskeyswriting - @lxsm2 - @bloody-bunni666 - @the-chocoholic-writer - @bugbugboy - @callmemana -

#izzy hands x reader #spirit of the sea #ofmd #our flag means death #dragon writes

[house-afire]

Every Precious Thing (Stede/Ned noncon, background Ed/Stede)

Prompt: 100 words of cock cages

“Oh, now this is a twist,” Ned Low said. He looked like a cat who’d found a mouse struggling in a bucket of cream, as if he could never have expected to be enjoying himself quite this much. He tapped one nail against the slender ivory bars of Stede’s cage.

Stede closed his eyes. He tried to just cling to Ed’s fascination with it—the way his lips had parted when Stede had shown it to him, how he’d hung the key Stede had given him around neck, on a cord long enough for the key to fall over his heart.

Only when you’re ready, Stede had told him. I don’t want anyone but you until then. Not even me.

“So Blackbeard likes to lock up his treasures,” Ned said, closing his hand around the cage in a grotesque parody of touch.

Well, he was Ned Low. Everything he did, so far as Stede could tell, was a grotesque parody of what it should have been. An hour ago, Stede would have told him so, but an hour ago he’d still had his clothes and some rough semblance of dignity.

“We were going to take it slow,” Stede said. He tried to ignore how his voice seemed to wobble.

“Ooh, past tense. That’s one of the parts of this I like best, you know.” Ned managed to get his pinky in between the bars, to be the first man to ever touch Stede like that. His hands were cold. “When someone realizes how much their life is already over. When the notes start to understand that they’re a song played by someone else.”

Stede had to say something, had to distract himself. “Do you come up with all these lines in advance? Because some of them feel very rehearsed.”

There was a dark flash behind Ned’s eyes, but he sounded maddeningly unruffled as he said, “All improvised just for you, my little caged bird. You’re so inspiring.” He drew back his hand. “Let’s leave your boyfriend’s property untouched for right now, shall we? There’s such a … lack of professional courtesy in taking another pirate’s plunder. Then again, if you were to beg me for it—”

“I won’t,” Stede said. “I’ll never.”

He was going to go home to Ed, and Ed would unlock the cage and stroke and kiss away the feel of Ned Low and his cool amusement, and they would have time, they would. They weren’t only a matter for the past tense. Their delayed gratification didn’t have to become a missed opportunity. He couldn’t believe that. They had gone through so much for each other already.

And even aside from his passionate adoration of Ed and their grand love for the ages, he also just wasn’t going to beg Ned Low for fuck-all.

He just wished Ned agreed with him on that.

“You will,” Ned said. “You have no idea how much you will. What sounds you’ll make.” He turned Stede over, forcing him face-down, the chains around his wrists rattling and clanking where they twisted up. “A few days on the edge, with the right fingering striking the right notes, and you’ll sing. You’ll forget Blackbeard’s name. You will beg me to break you out of this little trap, beg me to steal what’s his … and I won’t.”

“Well, I’m certainly not going to do it then!” Stede said. “You can’t tell me in advance that it’ll be pointless!”

Ned spread him open, forcing Stede’s legs as far apart as the chains would let him.

“You’ll do it anyway,” he said. “Everybody does. You don’t understand yet how thorough your transformation is going to be. Everything about you is going to change, except for this." He reached beneath Stede and grasped him by the cage again. “This is forever. Well, until you die and I cut your cock off and send it to Blackbeard, adorable toy and all.” He patted the inside of Stede’s thigh like he was consoling him. “But as far as you’re concerned: forever.”

#stede bonnet #ned low #stede/ned #ed/stede #tw: noncon

[go-bonkers-go-foolish]

okay for real i have thoughts on the ofmd finale, and they're mostly positive, but i've seen a LOT of takes that are just. not using critical thinking at all. so i wanna outline my stuff here. spoilers under the cut

okay. so, first things first, a round of applause and a bouquet of flowers to con o'neill. brilliant, BRILLIANT work from him in both seasons - no exaggeration, maybe one of the best performances i've ever seen. he put his heart and soul into that role, and i cannot commend him enough. i was moved to tears multiple times this season, and he did wonderfully.

second, i know it's hard to hear, but izzy was ready to die. did he HAVE to die? no, of course not. was it fair that he died? no, death is never fair. but was he, as a character and in terms of the narrative, ready to die? yes. and before we go any further, i am saying this in explicit terms: i love izzy. i've loved him since day one. i've never been one of those people who was rooting for a bad ending for him. and this ending isn't a bad one.

izzy was exhausted. he was ready to resign last season. he was put through the fucking wringer this season. in season one, he explicitly says that the only way out of piracy is death. is that necessarily true? no, but for HIM it is. izzy's whole life was the sea. his whole life was piracy. everything he knew and loved belonged to that life. a life of piracy, constantly surrounded by violence and constantly in danger, isn't a place you can really thrive, but for him to leave it all behind would be torture for him. can you honestly imagine him retiring the way ed and stede did? i can't. i really don't think he'd want to retire. he wouldn't be happy. this post sums it up the best - it just makes sense, both narratively and in terms of symbolism.

and if the only way out for him was death, well, FUCK, then it's only fitting that he got the kindest death imaginable.

imagine if he'd died the minute he was shot and the crew had to leave him behind and we never saw him again. that would have been cheap, empty, and an unfair ending. imagine if his suicide attempt earlier this season had been successful, if he had died alone in the dark from a gunshot to his head. can you IMAGINE how hollow and bitter and cruel that would have been?

but look at him. izzy crawled his way back from the brink of death, he watched the person he loved most become a monster, he did the bravest thing and saved his crew over the person he'd been loyal to for decades, he literally dragged himself to a better life than the one he had before, and then, episode six. la vie en rose.

he was beautiful. he was radiant. he was joyful and surrounded by joy. most importantly, he was loved. i've rewatched that scene half a dozen times and i am not ashamed to admit that i've cried at nearly every watch.

that kind of queer joy and character redemption is not something i have ever seen before, and con performed it perfectly. he was there, surrounded by the crew, literally held up by a physical manifestation of their love for him. that is the apex of a character arc if i've ever seen one. that was his moment.

and for a time, he was happy. did it feel short because the pacing was incredibly rushed this season? oh, absolutely. but that's not the fault of anyone but hbo and their corporate bullshit. they had to jam-pack a dozen character arcs into eight half-hour episodes and do justice to all of them, so of course it felt rushed. but that moment, la vie en rose, and all the times after, that was a character done justice.

and then, he died. but did he die alone, or unloved, or unhappy, or before his time? no.

izzy hands died surrounded by the people who loved him, in the arms of the person he loved most in the world. he died forgiving and being forgiven. he died having experienced pure joy for the first time in a very, very long while. he died accepted and he died belonging to a family, with a leg made by his crew holding him up until the end. he said he was ready, he knew it was his time. he was a fighter, but he died letting himself rest, having fought and having lived beautifully.

it's like he said to ricky. he's gone, but he endures, because he was GOOD. he knew he was good. and for a man that was so thoroughly broken and beaten down at the beginning of his arc, that's a beautiful thing.

we watched him physically drag himself away from everyone who loved him, repeating "you are born alone and you die alone", and then we saw him die surrounded by their love. we saw them prove him wrong.

izzy died knowing he was good, and he died knowing he was loved.

death was not his redemption arc. he was redeemed from the moment he walked out into that rainstorm and saved his crew's lives by standing up to ed. this whole season was his post-redemption life, and he got to experience beauty and joy before he died in the way he wanted to - like a pirate - in the kindest way he possibly could have experienced.

we watched him go from the antagonist to the heart and soul of the crew, and saying it was all for nothing because he died is so blatantly missing the point. (and, just saying, no shade, but the venn diagram of people mad about this and people saying the good omens season 2 finale was bad is a circle. sometimes bad things have to happen in the narrative because it's right. a character you like doing something bad or dying is not bad writing.)

so, izzy, rest in peace. rest surrounded by love. rest knowing you were good.

and con o'neill, rest knowing that you did an amazing character justice, knowing that you blew everyone's minds, and knowing that you kicked ass in every single way possible.

and third, the phrase "rancid syphilitic cunt" is going to enter my vocabulary forever and no one will stop me.

#our flag means death #ofmd season 2 finale #ofmd season 2 #ofmd #ofmd meta #ofmd spoilers #ofmd season 2 spoilers #izzy hands #con o'neill #honestly? my only complaint is how rushed everything was #hbo pay your fucking workers and give your team more fucking time and space to work #if this season has taught me anything it is that con o'neill is a fucking icon #and i will never ever EVER be over the la vie en rose scene. i WEPT man.

[knowlesian]

having hit two notes (izzy’s and stede’s, twice over) in this fucked up three part finale harmony: it seems only fair to close it out and finally get to do the one that hits me in the face and says ‘you are going to cry about this until the day you die. now say thank you’.

ed’s turn at the pain wheel.

so: it’s been a tough week for him. a real fuckin’ tough week. ed offered more than his heart to stede— he offered himself. he told stede the truth, again and again. he gave things up. he was willing to fold socks and lick the king’s boots; he was ready to run away to china and kill the men they used to be, to be new people together. 

these were things he was ready to give up, and he very much wanted that life together: but the way they were about to obtain it would have ruined it for them both in the end.

i’d like to think, down in the part of ed’s soul that understands it is fucking imperative he keep an eye on all the exits in dangerous situations and had to build up an immunity to this sort of thing, he knows poison fruit from a poison tree when he sees it. that’s why he turns melancholy, not angry; he lost the thing he wanted most, but that life wouldn’t have lasted.

half-truths you build out of half-lies start to taste sour, once you get down to the rind. ed of all people knows that.

so he’s sad. he’s ready to listen to taylor swift alone in his blanket fort and cry, until lucius introduces him to the healthier version of what ed proposed to stede on the beach: what if, every single time we take a breath, the version of us that lived before that breath is gone?

what if that isn’t just dying? what if it’s... finding our way into this newest, complicated self, and living again?

and, in ways that break my heart, in ways olu and jim would understand and in some ways, their reunion echoes: ed hears every fucking word. they understand each other; lucius cries for his pain, and ed glimpses a pathway out.

twigs and all.

he sings his sad little breakup ballad on the deck this time, in full view of the family he’s trying to guide in stede’s absence; it’s so real it kind of makes me cringe, but in the way where i want to shield him from view because i too have been trained that when you are open like that they hurt you.

watching ed sing his song makes me feel the way i feel when i can’t deal with my shit enough that i lose it and cry in public, and i mean that as a compliment. you’re not supposed to do that outside your bedroom or the shower in a pinch. we can only get that open where people can’t see us, my training says.

my heart is happy for ed, my instincts say: look out, baby, they are going to hurt you.

which is why i both hate and entirely understand what one mister izzy big ol’ motherfucking duffel bag of shit hands does next.

he looks at edward, the man he’s built his self-image and career around, considers losing it all in one go, and thinks: look out, baby, they are going to hurt you.

(is the you in that sentence izzy, or is it ed? 

yes.)

and then. ohhhh, and then.

izzy decides, why the fuck not. one more hold his beer moment for the road. and then this dumb motherfucker goes nuke-ya-ler, dubya style.

ed has no idea it’s coming. izzy was clearly not thrilled by his performance: but hey, he’s perfectly aware izzy spends a lot of time being not exactly thrilled with shit ed does. still. ed saved him from from meeting the devil at the bottom of the deep blue sea for a reason.

for better, but mostly for worse: izzy’s been there. izzy has been his sad, violent version of loyal, and when you do the emotional math as edward shows he is capable of, again and again he knows: in izzy’s mind, he licked the king’s boots for ed. can’t you see? i did it for you, edward. i did it for us, and if you want me to stay with you by fucking god you’re going to have to stay down here with me, fucking silent and fucking violent until we fucking die, hand in unlovable hand, is the desperate sad ballad izzy’s singing here. and edward can’t be edward but only in private with izzy if he’s edward in public, too.

fear, turned outward through anger and devastating words and made a weapon. jealousy, trauma, pain, all melted and formed into a shield that grows into a wall and becomes a weapon all its own: what do we mean, when we say violence?

because what comes next sure feels like violence to me.

ed’s trying to clean up: he’s talking to izzy like they’re still the unit they were before stede rolled up, but in a way that incorporates the more authentic man he’s trying to feel his way into being. 

this is what fucks me up most on a long list of things that fuck me up about these two, if i’m honest. izzy makes me think in ways that are uncomfortable and very valuable about certain parts of myself i am less fond of; and as a fictional exercise in ‘why are we all so grubby and weird and why do we ruin our own lives sometimes????’ case studies, he is Peak. for a million reasons, he makes me sad.

but what ed shows here is a flickering attempt to build himself up into the sort of hearthfire olu gives jim. (and why i think olu and jim and ed and izzy carry a lot of sad/dark mirror narrative beats together.)

come with me, iz, the subtext here says. can’t believe we were living like this.

if i can save you i can save me, if i can save me i can save you: we don’t have to do this, you know that right? stede didn’t want me; stede left. he didn’t want to be new people with me.

i’m so fucking sick of just surviving. i want to have space to be new people, ed keeps begging everyone around him. lucius heard what he meant, and gave him the words for it. now he’s offering to share with izzy the kindest, most beautiful gift ed’s ever been given; even more beautiful than stede’s finery, or his unsure confession of happiness and desire, because ed thinks it was a lie.

all that happened, and ed still has the courage— the generosity, the need to not be alone, the fear and the altruism all wrapped up in one very beautiful and very complicated man— to clean up the evidence of his grief bender and say to izzy, a lot of shit has gone down lately, but why not. let’s do this whole new people thing together. 

he’s sad; he’s healing. he’s still off-kilter.

and here comes the push.

I should have let the English kill you. This... whatever it is that you’ve become... is a fate worse than death. 

the way ed’s face falls as he hears the man he’s lived alongside for years say he wishes ed wasn’t alive; he draws in this little breath and it’s almost like he can’t quite process izzy’s actually said the horrific thing he just heard. it stabs me in the heart, every single time.

because here's the thing; there are a million killers. there are a million sailors and a million first mates and a million cranky lil boat guys who want to serve under a legend.

i’m sure a lot of them would have been the kind of yes-men who would have also hated stede, and hated this change; they would have dealt with it and shut the fuck up, or left, or done a million things but do izzy’s sad and gross version of fighting like hell to keep his subtextual man.

i think it’s that sad and gross fight that spells out the answer to the obvious: so why keep him? question.

because they saw something in each other. and because emotionally, ed got something he needed from izzy; and emotionally, izzy got something he needed from ed. people will do horrible, painful things to get what they need, if they think that’s their only way of getting it.

for years they did those kind of things to themselves, and to each other.

ed kept izzy around for all this time, his purse dog-slash-middle manager from hell sidekick, and now he would like to keep him around in this new world. for better; again, mostly for worse, they kept each other safe at the same time they kept each other in pain.

and izzy just said: i wish you were dead. i wish i hadn’t done it. my years of loyalty and my recent betrayals, the ones you understand i considered both unsavory duties to my captain and sacrifices made for the man my captain becomes, but if and only if he is alone with me; i will take all of it back if you keep trying to be new fuckin people, edward, izzy is telling him. if you won’t stagnate here with me, be my monster and my subtext boyfriend, you can go ahead and just die. these are your options if you want to keep me in your life.

(and what kind of life could you have, without me in it?)

ed thinks stede could only want him when he’s a gentleman like stede is a gentleman— like he was a gentleman, before he entered and exited the underworld of his original flavor toxic masculinity, entirely unknown to ed— and now he knows: unless izzy ever figures his shit out, he will only want ed when he’s a monster.

and then, quiet part horrifyingly loud: izzy says what whatever he is now? this beautiful complicated man with his soft underbelly and heart on display at once, finally, who is taking such extreme emotional risks despite very recent disappointment? who is braver right now, breathing deep in the face of izzy’s fury, trying to keep it together and stay open, than he has ever been in his entire life?

(because make no mistake: ed has had to be very, very brave, for his entire life.)

better ed be dead than be... this. “whatever it is”, the writers choose to have izzy say, and throw in vague tones of dehumanization via ‘it’ as well as the way they have izzy refer to ed in terms that imply he holds dominion over ed’s life and death. (which sets up their later use of ‘boyfriend’ even better.)

not i wish they had; not they should have. i should have let them.

these writers are precise and very, very mean.

so ed pulls back, trying to salvage some of his power and assert who he is while dealing with that fucking... load of soul-crushing pain, all without losing sight of the path lucius revealed to him.

Well... I am still Blackbeard, so...

No! This... this is Blackbeard. 

they give this moment time to breathe in a way that kills me. izzy shoves the cartoon in ed’s face; ed stares at it. stares at the monster the world wants him to be; the monster izzy says is all he could ever be.

and i think maybe, deep down in his heart, ed thinks: the monster that stede might have actually wanted, more than the failed attempt at pretending ed could be a gentleman. izzy wants the monster, the world wants the monster. stede left, after seeing the monster’s a man, too; maybe that’s why.

maybe this is all they will ever want. all anyone will ever want.

the man he was falling in love with, and thought might be around forever left him; the man who has proved he will stick around forever, even when ed tells him not to, has just said he wishes ed would die if he won’t be what izzy wants. he’s found izzy’s limit, after years and years of spiraling into greater depths of toxic pirate bullshit together.

the limit: ed. being a full fucking person. ed, doing things he wants to do instead of things other people want him to do, because they want him to do it.

‘what have they done to your face’; ‘i should have let the english kill you’. 

‘this is blackbeard.’ ‘a bloodthirsty killer, born of the devil.’ 

even in the dialogue, even when they don’t know they’re doing it, even when he doesn’t know they're doing it: people keeping this shit to ed. he is so, so tired of people doing this shit to him.

which leads neatly into:

Not some namby-pamby in a silk gown, pining for his boyfriend.

in the same way stede can’t know why ‘from the devil’ would cut so deep, i doubt izzy knows why what he’s just said is such a specific cut. the general surge: yeah, he knows. he’s trying to provoke ed; you provoke people by being provocative.

but silk. a silk gown, this sad and mean and in desperate need of therapy and like... so, so many more punches to the nose in this moment man said.

izzy thinks he is communicating, in so many words: edward. you're being weak. shape the fuck up and get with it again. it’s like a very smart sock once said: this is how the world works. those who do not hurt others get hurt by others, and i have chosen my motherfucking side of the knife here. have you forgotten how this dance goes?

ed is taking all that in, and on top of it seeing a red silk handkerchief and a mother who loved him as well as she could, but only in the ways she’d been taught; and she had been taught in so many ways that to yearn for more than your lot is to set yourself up for heartbreak. you reach: you fall.

and when you fall, it will be because god wanted you punished for the sin of thinking you could ever deserve more. whenever you hurt, whenever you suffer, whenever you have no family or food or shelter, not even an emotional place you can feel safe and call home: that’s where god finds his home, ed’s mother was taught. that’s where god finds his joy. your joy comes at the end of a life of silent, willing service to those god loves best. 

god is not there, not when you are joyful; not when you are not serving them.

they own everything; why shouldn’t they own god, too? how kind they are, to share these scraps with us and teach us to call them the road to glory.

these are the things ed’s mother was taught; these are the things she taught him.

what do we mean when we say violence? the generational trauma forced christianity wrought centuries ago is still hurting us today. still keeping us trapped in these horrible, binary cycles.

one above; one below. how can god we own love us more, if he doesn’t love you less? that’s the secret at the heart of why the world needed ed’s mother to hold her child close, and try to convince him not to look violence in the face and call it what it fucking is.

and so ed explodes. hand around izzy’s throat, calling izzy the dog izzy implied ed might as well be, by saying he should have essentially allowed the english to put him down; and worse, izzy enjoys it. ‘there he is’, izzy says. breathless: worshipful. touch tender as his words weren't, one hand coming up to cup ed’s cheek; this is how we love, izzy thinks. i hurt you until you hurt me back, and once we slice each other to ribbons we can use the wounds as an excuse to touch each other gently and say it’s because we have to, not because we want to.

we could never want to. if we wanted to, what would that say about us?

this is not ed’s world; this is not ed’s love. not his tenderness. he’s used violence as a tool and been horrified by it. he’s been scarred by it in more ways than one. then he’s enjoyed it, sometimes, or at least acknowledged its helpful byproducts in his life.

it’s never his instinct. in one of the ways he makes up a narrative pair with olu, ed’s about community.

ed will hurt people; still, ed doesn’t want to hurt people. it’s a fine line, but like ed’s own distinction in canon it’s an important one.

so he shoves izzy away, disgusted with everything going on right now. his life is hell; lucius promised him it could be better. that ed could be different. stede lied; maybe his playthings do nothing but lie, too. stede took a while to reveal himself, didn’t he? that felt so good at first, didn’t it? he thought he was safe then. thought he finally wasn’t alone.

and now here he is: alone again, anyway.

alone with izzy! who is fucking elated. this man is nearly crying with joy, he is staring at ed’s mouth, he is like... way, way, way too fucking horny on main. this is it: he can taste forgiveness resting heavy on the back of his tongue, even now. ed needs a little more pushing before he’ll do it right and let izzy breathe easy, but that’s fine. the end’s in sight, gory gory what a hell of a way to die. just a little bit more now, and they can forget it all happened and go back to the way it all was before. hell, it can be even better! because it can be even sadder, now, and a whole lot worse.

so izzy pushes ed again. blackbeard’s his captain, it’s blackbeard he serves. edward, on the other hand? edward better prove he’s worthy of being a man again when they’re alone, or izzy is going to keep this shit up until he does.

izzy thinks they’re connecting; izzy thinks this is how they keep each other safe. this is how they love each other. 

ed looks at a man who loves him, but doesn’t see him. izzy’s love is conditional as god’s ever was; if ed wants to keep it, there are going to be rules he has to follow and boundaries he has to stay inside. 

there has to be one above, and one below.

suddenly, the things ed thought he might have been wrong about start to settle back in. 

when izzy leaves it there and stomp stomp stomps off in his little booties, unaware he is enjoying his last day on earth still in possession of all his toes, this battle is still only sort of won. because ed might have pulled it back here! maybe! if by the magic of things happen when we want them to, fuck you, ofmd definition of time, stede arrived then and confessed everything, maybe that would help. maybe lucius could have walked in; maybe ed could have had five fucking minutes alone to deal with izzy’s shit and not get immediately thrown into yet another reminder of his trauma.

instead of any of that, the crew calls for a song with a new, even more affectionate nickname. eddie, they call him, and ed does some emotional time travel as he’s thrown back to the party in e5. they pretended to like him, too; they said he could be funny without being a joke, if he was with them.

they were lying; stede fucked them up for him, but stede’s gone now and might have been lying, too.

is this the latest lie? are they making fun of him? is he a fucking joke again? 

izzy just told him he’s better off dead if he keeps trying to be authentic; izzy has done the opposite of laugh at him. and izzy, for all his many... many flaws, has never entirely flat-out lied to ed. gone behind his back! obfuscated and left out key details in service of his own agenda! but izzy just looked him in the face and said the meanest fucking thing you can say— their shit’s aaaaaalllll out there now. so in a way: izzy has been honest and now he’s safe, for some very narrow and horrifying values of both words.

ed understands what izzy wants from him. what does the crew want?

moving through the world on his own, ed has learned he has two options: he can be an unthreatening joke, or he can be a monster. 

ed also knows that when he doesn’t pick fast enough, the people around him will pick for him. 

izzy just said it right out loud. he wants the monster, and being the monster kept ed safe at the same time it hurt him. he knows he can survive that pain. 

what does the crew want? they want eddie to sing them another song. and they might want it because they’re laughing at ed’s stupid song and his stupid pain and his stupid reaching for better. how could ed ever know? how could he trust them? 

that’s the problem. there’s no litmus test for love, and izzy has offered concrete evidence for his sad version of the word. the crew asks ed to take it on faith he’s not the butt of their joke.

the crew calls for him, inviting him to join them topside again and enjoy the stupid, silly, joyful things they can do and be together. this is what hurts the most: we as an audience know they love him more than they ever have, in this moment. they see ed: all they want to do is have some fun, with ed. none of their laughter would hurt. they love him: he could make jokes with them and not be a joke to them.

but stede left ed, and izzy has made it clear he’s out for good if ed doesn’t straighten up and fly right p-d-fucking-q; and you can’t know for sure people are lying when they say they love you, not until it’s too late.

illuminated by the window, ed makes his choice.

all right, then. monster it is. 

monsters don’t need hearts; monsters don’t wear fine things well. and so: overboard goes the red silk, floating off into the stede-less moonlight.

(i want to do something else longer about ed and lucius so i will just paste this in the gap now: the way lucius is confident in his ability to call ed by his name and speak to him like an equal, and the almost deadened look on ed’s face as he allows lucius to twist in the wind, letting the gift lucius gave him die to an down to ember until the mood shifts and ed shoves him over the side all do a lot of painful things to my heart. ouch.

also: lucius is alive, his shoe goes flying and does a ZOOM WHOOSH thing, there’s a whole sound!!!!! he clung to the rope or the side and he is now in the walls eating paper. the end.)

which brings me to: one gun, one knife, and gloves that keep a barrier between ed and everything he touches.

we don’t see ed’s face in full, not once in this scene; we see the whole of the cartoon, but only fragments of the man. his body; his weapons. his cheek, as he draws back on the beard that made him safe. we see his eyes reflected in an implement of violence and of penetration, as ed tells himself: i am the kraken.

not blackbeard, a mantle that in some ways allowed ed to try and bridge the gap between ed the man and ed the monster, but the kraken. 

this is how he heartbreakingly survives everything going to shit at once, naming himself all monster and no man. stede didn’t see enough worth sticking around for in the man; the world keeps demanding the monster.

and izzy. sad, cruel, suffering izzy: izzy wants the monster.

and now, ed’s going to give them all what they want. 

let’s see if they choke on it.

that’s right. let’s do this: the Weird Vore is nigh.

this scene is very jesus-flavored. there are jesus sprinkles atop this horrifying sundae of pain and a crunchy jesus shell coating. this shit is like... thirty one flavors of super gross in the most catholic and subtextually gay way possible.

so obviously, i fucking love it.

izzy is posed on the bed in a way everyone dragged to mass and forced to stare at a bleeding, ripped white dude in an equally white loincloth would find familiar. (izzy’s is black, which is a neat inversion as well as a hilarious nod to the white hat/black hat cowboy movie politics that in some ways helped build our cinematic language on these things.)

his feet are bare, his legs are bare, his chest is bare. he’s almost naked; he’s vulnerable. open.

in polar opposition ed is armored up and closed off. he touches izzy: izzy does not touch him. his hands are going to stay clean under their leather, no matter what he does next.

and what he does next is use some big fuckin’ scissors and make himself a diy first communion starter kit. he’s got body and oh boy does he have blood, and izzy ever so kindly holds his mouth wide fucking open while he screams, a parishioner waiting for the host.

he’s held edward up as his god. now, after all izzy’s years of service and suffering, edward’s going to be his priest, too. and why not? this is what izzy wanted, wasn’t it? 

unfortunately: yeah. stede got what he wanted and was properly horrified to see the rot at the bottom of it all. izzy, on the other hand? after years of waiting at edward’s elbow and watching him cut off other men’s toes, loom up over them and force them to swallow, izzy has played himself some very, very stupid games. 

and worst of all— he is so, so very happy that he is at long last going to receive his very stupid prize.

ed always knows what to say to put izzy off when he won’t quit it and give ed a little breathing room. the trick is telling him what he wants to hear in that moment. i’m not interested in stede, oh no. i’m going to kill him, and then i’m going to prove i don’t care that everybody talks shit about you literally shitting your pants last time you babysat alone. i need you, i hate you, i want you to go, i wish that you’d stay. 

he also knows words aren’t going to cut it, not this time. if he wants izzy to back off enough to let him breathe, he’s going to need to give him more. izzy wants the monster; ed will be nothing but the kraken. 

so who takes izzy’s toe? who makes sure ed doesn’t have to be the kind of alone that doesn’t come complete with a crowded room to be alone in, the monster or the man?

the answer is once again just yes, because on this show it’s almost always both/and, not either/or.

half-truths, half-lies. it’s like arguing about the existence of ghosts or god, determining where the exact ratio sits, like trying to find a way to measure and quantify love so you one hundred percent absolutely no doubts know it’s the kind that won’t crumble and leave you in more pain than before you had anything to lose at all.

ed is edward is blackbeard is the kraken is ed, on and on into forever. 

we are a choir, a mob, a whole fucking world, even when we are all alone. we contain multitudes; i draw a breath, you draw a breath, and the people we were crumble to dust and then linger in the corners, haunting us with their presence and the ways we can’t ever go back to who we were before, not really. no matter how hard we try.

we die and become new people a million times, every day, until we don’t. 

so who exactly is it that rests his hand on izzy’s chest, right over his heart? who clamps the other over his mouth, as gentle as izzy’s notions of love are not? and who feeds those notions to a man who only wants ed when he’s not the entirety of ed, making sure he chews them up good so they don’t get stuck in his throat? who subtextually fucks izzy through the mattress, and who hates himself the whole time because none of this was what he wanted?

all of them, all at once, because it’s all ed or none of it is. like the ghosts of the people we were, the gods we own or love we can be sure isn’t a lie— either it’s all real because you can’t prove it’s not, or it’s all bullshit because you can’t prove it’s not. 

we want things to be simple. we want there to be An Answer, so we don’t have to exist in uncomfortable, ambiguous spaces.

fortunately, ofmd is pretty fucking comfortable in those spaces.

#our flag means death #ofmd spoilers #this is so long i have no idea how it happened it's like. 5k for five minutes of screentime #this is what i have been training for i guess #THESE WRITERS FUCKIN SUCK I WILL FIGHT THEM THEY ARE MEAN #like what the fuck how DARE THEY #ugh ed makes my heart hurt i just want him to have some room to breathe and figure his shit out #SOMEONE LET ED HAVE A NAP AND A BREAK 2KFOREVER #if you made it through all this: sup #you are my Real Ones #my ofmd meta #this fucking show is like. yeah. i have a lot to say

[alexibeeart]

apropos of current events here are my top picks for a Prince song in Our Flag Means Death:

Nothing Compares 2 U "it's been 7 hours and 13 days / since you took your love away"

Diamonds And Pearls "if I could I would give you the world / but all I can do is just offer you my love"

The Most Beautiful Girl In The World "when the day turns into the last day of all time / I can say I hope you are in these arms of mine"

Mountains "but I say it's only mountains and the sea / love will conquer if you just believe"

Erotic City "we can fuck until the dawn / makin love til cherry's gone"

I Wanna Be Your Lover "I ain't got no money / I ain't like those other guys you hang around"

Purple Rain "I never meant to cause you any sorrow / I never meant to cause you any pain"

some more thoughts under the cut to save your dashboard from a long(er) post 💜💜💜💜💜

Nothing Compares 2 U "it's been 7 hours and 13 days / since you took your love away / I go out every night and sleep all day / since you took your love away / since you've been gone I can do whatever I want / I can see whomever I choose / I can eat my dinner in a fancy restaurant / but nothing, I said nothing can take away these blues" yes surprise if you didn't know this is a Prince song, anyways I could just copy + paste the entire lyrics trust me, cut to Ed in the captain's cabin having his daily cry sesh

Diamonds And Pearls "this will be the day / that you will hear me say / that I will never run away / I am here for you / love is meant for two / now tell me what you're gonna do / if I gave you diamonds and pearls / would you be a happy boy or a girl / if I could I would give you the world / but all I can do is just offer you my love" again? perfection. Stede pledging his love and loyalty to Edward, THE PEARLS, they both need it, it's happening

The Most Beautiful Girl In The World "when the day turns into the last day of all time / I can say I hope you are in these arms of mine / and when the night falls before that day I will cry / I will cry tears of joy cuz after you all one can do is die" not ironically i need this used in 100000% sincerity and it is absolutely being sung about Edward Teach no i will not be taking questions at this time

Mountains "once upon a time in a land called Fantasy / 17 mountains stood so high / the sea surrounded them and together they would be / the only thing that ever made u cry / you said the devil told you that another mountain would appear / everytime somebody broke your heart / he said the sea would one day overflow with all your tears / and love will always leave you lonely / but I say it's only mountains and the sea / love will conquer if you just believe / it's only mountains and the sea / there's nothing greater you and me" this song just makes me so happy it's very joyful and I can picture them sailing out over the horizon together hand-in-hand it's beautiful! could be a fun callback to The Jam Room gag with the whole crew playing together as Frenchie leads, Roach on ye olde pirate trumpet, Lucius on tambourine

Erotic City "we can fuck until the dawn / makin love til cherry's gone / erotic city can't you see / fuck so pretty you and me" CMON LIKE you can't tell me this would not be hilarious and very sexy at the same time which is the correct tone for Our Flag Means Death, the thumping beat could be used for like quick cuts of clothes hitting the floor, hands gripping bedsheets, fullbody silhouettes behind the curtains of [redacted] ... also it could easily be like a montage cutting between things happening around the ship with say a certain Lucius and Pete, Oluwande and Jim, Edward and Stede, etc etc

I Wanna Be Your Lover "I ain't got no money / I ain't like those other guys you hang around / and it's kinda funny / but they always seem to let you down / and I get discouraged / cause I never see you anymore / and I need your love babe yeah / that's all I'm living for yeah" this one's just fun classic early Prince singing about wanting to be your lover! a certified toe-tapper!

Purple Rain "I never meant to cause you any sorrow / I never meant to cause you any pain / I only wanted one time to see you laughing / I only wanted to see you laughing in the purple rain" THE emotional climax power ballad, PURPLE as the color of Ed's love blossoming, the potential to get the most over-the-top dramatic and romantic scene ever filmed in a rain storm? under a purple fucking sky? hello? it's got a lot going for it but I will be extremely surprised if they manage to both a) get the Estate's permission, and b) be able to pay the $$$ royalties for this one

#our flag means death #ofmd #ofmd s2 wishlist #Prince #purple rain will be expensive as hell like more than the chain do you understand #they all will but hes worth it #long post #im floating on cloud nine right now about this please understand #Prince Rogers Nelson #prince and the revolution #prince and the new power generation

[douwatahima]

tag 9 people you want to get to know better!

thank you @thermoskind for tagging me!

three four ships: look, i tried to narrow this down to three but i thought of these four and got sad at the thought of not including them all so y'all are getting an extra one.

doumeki/watanuki/himawari (xxxholic) - MY BABIES WHO I LITERALLY NAMED MYSELF AFTER!!! listen, my son watanuki deserves to have a stoic but protective boyfriend and a sunshiney girlfriend who hug him lots and help him see he's worth loving. AND my daughter himawari deserves to be loved without fear of accidentally doing harm. AND my son doumeki deserves to be with the people he cares about despite the fact that they're both self sacrificing as fuck. this is the trio of my dreams and i will love them until i die.

satoshi/daisuke (dn angel) - so like...this ship is from a manga that a) isn't popular and b) i would not recommend despite the fact that it had a vice grip on me as a fourteen year old. that being said these two anime boys are truly THE BLUEPRINT against which i compared all other ships for YEARS. like, there was a time where how much i loved a ship could be directly correlated to how much they reminded me of satoshi and daisuke. they were IT. and this ship truly gave us everything! the romeo and juliet parallels of them coming from feuding families!!! the enemies to friends (to lovers in my heart) of it all!!! they are THEE fire and ice ship!!! THEE sunshine one and stoic one!!! literally never talk to me about the canonical dn angel ending i want to believe in my imagined ending where they were allowed to be in love.

nico/karolina (runaways) - this is specifically about the comic book version but the tv show version is also good! i remember reading the first few comics series like...a decade ago and OHHHH MAN these two messy girls really got me. i remember reading the first conversation that implied karolina was a lesbian and becoming the living embodiment of this emoji 👀. and then nico's whole mess of a sexuality crisis after karolina leaves? poetic cinema if i've ever seen it. i spent so many years holding a torch for these two that when they actually got together in the comics in 2018 i legit bawled my eyes out. i read the words "i'm not confused anymore, karrie. i'm not scared. i know what i want" and i DIED. their first kiss has been the background on my phone for nearly five years. they are my everything i am soooo serious.

ed/stede (ofmd) - OH YOU KNOW THE GAY PIRATES HAD TO BE HERE. when i say they rewired my brain that is in no way and exaggeration. i can vividly recall scrolling through tumblr and seeing how much people were talking about this show and thinking "okay but is it really gay or is this just another tumblr thing?" LIKE. I HAD NO IDEA. staying up until two a.m. to watch episodes 9 and 10 and feeling every human emotion all at once is a moment i will never recreate. i could've done anything that night. i could've fought god and won. it's ten months later and i still think about these two every fucking day. i truly can't wait to see more of them. david jenkins thank you for my life.

first ever ship:

arnold/helga (hey arnold) - i was like...seven and didn't know what fandom was yet but i watched every episode with baited breath waiting for these two to get together lmao. the romeo and juliet episode is burned into my brain for all time. when the jungle movie came out and they finally got together after OVER A DECADE of waiting i literally went out and bought a cake to celebrate.

last song:

grace kelly by felix hagan & the family - what can i say? this song is a bop!

last film:

glass onion - listen, i would watch benoit blanc solve murders for another fifty movies and never get bored. also janelle monae i am free on thursday if you are also free on thursday and want to meet up on thursday when i am free.

currently reading:

i'm between books at the moment but the one i most recently finished was lost boy by christina henry. it was genuinely the most five out of ten book i've ever read. like...not bad by any means but so meh i have no words.

my plan is to read the magicians by lev grossman next because i miss those characters more than i can say but like hell am i gonna watch the show again after...all that. i heard the books are worse soooooo we'll see how far i get.

currently watching:

the mayfair witches - i recently watched the first two episodes and i really enjoyed them! i've never read the books so everything is new and exciting to me. i'm looking forward to seeing where this story goes!

currently consuming:

a caramilk bar. ❤

currently craving:

the ofmd season 2 trailer. please djenks i need to see ed again my crops are dying.

tagging:

i feel like most of the people i would tag have already done this so instead i'm gonna do a cop out and say if you're reading this consider yourself tagged!

#facts about me

[kharti]

[ In Over His Head #89 ]

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Ed knew he should react, especially with the nervous energy radiating from Stede as the silence lingered.

      ( Continue reading on AO3 or... )

Ed knew he should react, especially with the nervous energy radiating from Stede as the silence lingered.

But he was unable to speak. Barely able to breathe. Struggling to think.

Stede wanted forever with him. That was the only thought in his head: forever.

Every morning and goodnight. Every kiss. Every cup of tea. Every flower.

Every misunderstanding, argument, disagreement.

Every moment, good and bad, all of them.

Forever.

That was what he meant, right? Ed slowly angled his head to look down at the fearful eyes gazing at him. He wouldn’t have that expression otherwise. No, they were on the same page. They had to be.

But Ed wasn’t ready to dive headfirst into assumptions when the rest of his life and the whole of his heart were on the line.

And he was done with the caution and uncertainty and half-speaking, half-staring. So he sat up, his hands under Stede’s arms to hoist the man upright and stared directly into his eyes.

“Stede.” He sighed, his hands moving to the man’s shoulders and squeezing them. “’M’not smart. Not in the way you are. Y’know words better than I ever could.” His gaze lowered, unable to maintain eye contact. “I can read the words on a page, but I can’t always understand what they really mean. Symbolism an’ all that shit.”

“Edward?” Stede asked in a soft voice.

Ed shook his head. “Just… say what y’want. Plain an’ simple. Don’t confuse me with yer flowery tongue, much as I love listenin’ to it any other time.”

He looked up to watch Stede’s expression as it opened up, blossomed with surprise and the faintest smile, a tiny bit of hope.

Stede pulled his bottom lip between his teeth, seeming to try to smother that smile before it could grow too much too soon.

Hells, they were both so afraid. Was this what love was supposed to be like? He had no fuckin’ clue.

“I love you,” Stede said, and folded his hands in his lap. “Plain and simple, I love you. And I want to love you forever, until the day I die.”

Ed felt his chest tighten as he forced a joke to be said with sincerity. “Careful. That sounds like a proposal.”

Stede’s eyes widened briefly, then crinkled with the smile he couldn’t hold back this time. “Would you say yes if it was?”

A laugh caught in his throat, and unexpectedly, tears pricked his eyes. “I don’t know much, but I know that’s not how proposals work. Y’don’t get to know the answer without askin’ the hard question.”

“Right, of course.” Stede rubbed his thumb over the back of his hand and shifted positions to sit on his knees, back straightened. “Sorry. I actually haven’t done this before.”

“Me neither,” Ed whispered. His heart was in his ears, but he tried to focus on Stede’s voice over the thudding sound.

Stede huffed a breathless laugh, then unclasped his hands and instead clasped them around one of Ed’s. “Edward Teach. The love I have for you, that you’ve inspired in me…” He shook his head without breaking eye contact. “I don’t have the words for its intensity or depth. But I might, some day, some year, and I want nothing more than to spend the rest of my life trying to find those words. Together. With you.”

Once again, Ed found himself silent and desperately wishing otherwise.

It would almost have been easier if Stede had said anything else. That this was a wonderful time, and he’d had fun, but he was sorry for leading him on.

But the truth stared at him, smiling and waiting for a response, and he finally leaned in to press their foreheads together.

“Yes,” he mumbled. “I want nothin’ else.”

“Yeah?” Stede’s smile brightened, unrestrained. “So… yes? That’s a yes?”

“I said yes, di’n’t I?” Ed chuckled. “Yes, Stede Bonnet. My everythin’ is yours. Has been for a while now.”

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📚 view a list of all my current stories!

#our flag means death #ofmd #blackbonnet #gentlebeard #ed x stede #in over his head - blackbonnet ficlets

[phantom-ellie]

The Art of (Smashing) Crockery Chapter 2 - Katie Cruel

Summary: Stede visits the Rage Room a second time. Awkwardness ensues.

Click here for CWs/Full Chapter List

Stede Bonnet’s “World’s Okayest Dad” mug is missing.

Sure, it’s a silly mug, probably cost a couple of dollars on Amazon, but it’s the only gift his daughter has ever given him. She favors her mother. Both of his children do. And Stede doesn’t blame them. They aren’t old enough to understand why he spends so much time at work, they don’t understand that he doesn’t like being away from them. He just has to be. That’s his duty, that’s the role he was assigned before they were even born. He tries to be there for them, he does. But still, things are awkward at home. Stede doesn’t really understand why. He goes through the motions, says and does the right things. At least he thinks he does. But there’s some sort of barrier, some disconnect between him and the rest of his family unit. And deep down Stede knows it’s his own fault, because it’s always been that way, with everyone.

So when Alma shyly handed him this stupid mug for Father’s Day this year, he completely ignored the subtle insult of just being just an okay father and smiled his best smile and gave her a hug. And they played pirates, which is the only thing Stede does with his children that causes them to open up and show their true, happiest selves to him. And when Louis accidentally bumped the dining table and knocked the mug to the floor, Stede stopped everything to make sure the mug was whole and intact (it was).

But now he’s at work, and the mug is missing. He didn’t remember leaving it in the breakroom. In fact, he’s avoided the breakroom for weeks now, only going when absolutely necessary. Mugs can be cleaned with antibacterial wipes, anyway. Right?

He sighs and leaves his office for the breakroom, hoping against hope that he’ll be alone in there as he searches for it. He takes in a deep breath as he pushes open the door.

There it is. The mug. Both halves of it, plus some extra dusting of ceramic, on the break room table. He lets out the breath and looks at the woman standing not two feet away from it. She is shorter than Stede, but somehow still looking down on him, smiling.

“Gabby,” Stede says in greeting to Chauncey Badminton’s personal assistant.

“Call me Ms. Travers, please.” Everyone else in the office calls her Gabby, but Stede just nods.

“Ms. Travers… did you… that’s my mug.” Stede walks over and starts to pick up the pieces.

“Oh, is it? Mr. Badminton found it on the floor, I was just about to throw it in the trash.” Stede knows he didn’t just find it, and knows she had instructions not to throw it out until Stede had seen it. He’s used to this process, it’s like a well-oiled machine, or bike chain. Or just a chain.

“Well, I am very grateful that I found it first, I’m sure I can repair it, I’ll just take this back to my office-”

“Mr. Badminton wants to see you in his office, I was just coming to let you know.” Stede feels something in his chest die, just a little.

“I-I’ll be right over then, let me just…” Stede scoops up whatever he can of his mug and returns to his office. Honestly, he shouldn’t bother trying to repair it, he should just purchase an identical one. And possibly a few back-ups just in case. But still, he doesn’t have the heart to throw the pieces away and instead dumps them in the drawer of his desk. He can’t wait to hear what Chauncey wants.

He wipes down his shirt and makes his way towards Chauncey’s office like a prisoner going to his execution.

And that’s another day wasted of Stede Bonnet’s life.

---

The second it happens, Ed feels something in his chest, something resembling fondness. He doesn’t know why, he doesn’t even know this guy’s name. And yet, Ed had spent the better part of the last few days thinking of the rich man crying in the rage room, making up stories in his head to justify his presence, his anger, his sadness.

The man walks in looking a bit sheepish, but asks for another 40 minutes in the rage room. Ed doubts he can suddenly making it the whole duration, but that’s this guy’s business. Also, Ed is tired of calling him Billy, or Tom, or Steve. He really needs to put a name to the face. Ed can’t even sneak a peek at the name on his credit card, because he has been paying in cash.

“Uh, what name should I write down here? On the reservation card. You know-”

“Ah! Sorry.” The man holds out his right hand and gives a solid, businessman shake. “My name is Stede-”

“No shit?” Ed bursts out laughing. “I knew you looked like a Steve!” He immediately regrets his outburst when he sees the odd look on Steve’s face.

“Sorry about that, man, I wasn’t thinking.”

Steve just gives a goofy shrug and waves it off. “Nothing wrong with being a Steve.” He leans in a bit conspiratorially. “I’d have been offended if you’d said I were a Nigel or a Chauncey.”

“Oh, gross. No fuckin’ way, mate. Steve is much better.” Ed writes his name down on the card. Steve it is. Ed had cut him off before he could give a last name, but it doesn’t matter.

“Oh!” Steve lifts up a paper bag that gives the familiar clinking sound of ceramic. “Is it all right with you if I brought a few things of my own to… smash?”

“Yeah of course, more the merrier.”

Steve gives a thumbs up and puts on his protective gear. When he’s finished, he’s escorted to the rage room again, while Ed stocks it with a few more crappy items for Steve to destroy.

This time, it’s easier for Steve to get his bearings and start breaking things. He goes for the baseball bat immediately and starts out on a toilet bowl that is probably stained yellow due to the passage of time (probably). But the baseball bat doesn’t do much to the toilet and Steve ends up needing to grab the sledgehammer again. He doesn’t look like he’s used one a day in his life. He raises it awkwardly over his head and brings it down, and Ed cringes a bit, imagining Steve dropping it on his head. But he gets the hang of it after a few tries.

Ed waits a further ten minutes before he gets the itch to be social, which is rare for him. He usually wants to be fucking ignored. But beneath Steve’s rage and sadness, Ed can see something light and happy. He saw a glimpse of it last time, and is somehow aching to see it again. So he shoots his shot.

“Hey mate?”

Steve looks up at the ceiling again (adorable), panting. “Yeah? Is everything all right?”

“Yes, it’s fine, just wanted to know if you wanted to hear a song or something, you know, for fun.”

“Uh, sure! That sounds great!”

“Any requests?”

“No, I trust you, I’m sure you know what you’re doing.”

That’s just what Ed was hoping to hear.

“Bet you’ve never heard of this one, my friend.” Ed starts Le Bien qui Fait Mal from Mozart Rock Opera, but as the violins start, Steve just smiles and shakes his head.

“I think I have, mate.”

“No shit!”

Steve reaches into his plastic bag and begins setting up what he’s brought. It’s a collection of mugs, six or seven of them. Ed can’t completely read what’s on them, but there seems to be some text that says, “World’s Greatest Dad” or somesuch (he has kids?) and a bunch of other mugs with logos from no doubt fancy and prestigious universities and corporations.

Steve lifts up the baseball bat to smash, but seems to think better of it. He puts down the bat, grabs a mug, and hurls it full-force at the wall. It shatters into a dozen pieces, but all Ed can look at is Steve’s strong upper arm.

Oh yeah, he definitely played baseball, Ed thinks, licking his lips. Then he realizes he’s being a perv. Then he remembers that he doesn’t really care. He sits back and watches the show, occasionally listening in on the headphones.

“You’re gonna smash my fucking mug and then invite me to dinner, is that it? You… you… wanker. How do you like your mugs now, huh?”

It takes Steve until the 30 minute mark before he begins crying this time. He sits against the wall for the second time, twirling pieces of smashed ceramic in his hand. Ed decides to leave him be. Maybe this is part of it for Steve, maybe he needs this. Ed isn’t going to judge, and he hopes Steve knows this. He hopes Steve keeps coming back to cry in a small enclosed space where only Ed can be there for him.

Wait, there Ed goes being creepy again.

When Steve is finished removing his safety gear, he leaves, but not without looking Ed in the eye this time and giving a weak smile.

---

Excerpt from the blog Hear Something Weird:

Hi all! Ready to hear something weird?

Bit of a depresser today, sorry my tiny-yet-efficient HSW fam. Take care of yourselves.

When I first came to town, They bought me drinks of plenty. Now they change their tune, And hand me the bottles empty.

The purpose of folk music is to tell the story of a culture, a society, a community. Sometimes these songs celebrate the joy of family and friendship, sharing drinks together and holding hands and telling someone what they mean to you. This isn’t that kind of song. If you don’t have that kind of community, but long for it, Karen Dalton shares your pain with the American folk song Katie Cruel.

If I was where I would be, Then I’d be where I am not. Here I am where I must be, Where I would be I cannot.

Dalton had a harsh, passionate voice that reminds me of Billie Holiday or Janis Joplin. She lived a hard life. I think this kind of folk resonates with a lot more people than we think it does. We have dreams, we have hopes. We see something in our future, something we know must be there. But maybe it doesn’t happen. Maybe it’s bad luck. Maybe you’re a coward and don’t seize the opportunities when they arrive. Or maybe you take the wrong opportunities all together. I’d like to think that for those of us who feel that way, there’s a chance for something better for us. A chance to leave where we are and enter a new town, find a new family where the drinks will be aplenty forever.

That didn’t happen for Dalton, though. She died homeless and alone, addicted and impoverished. But her voice lives on, her story continues every time you hear her music. And that’s a bit beautiful, isn’t it? Maybe we all can do a bit better. For Karen Dalton. I know I try every day.

Comments: Be the first to leave a comment.

Chapter 3: My Secret Friend

#ofmd fanfic #our flag means death fanfic #modern alternate universe #ofmd modern au #stede x ed #blackbonnet #gentlebeard #cross posted on ao3 #ellie aosc #ellie modern au

[candied-cae]

One of my favorite things about watching Ed and Stede fall in love, is how clearly we see the consequences of their lives effecting how they are able to perceive their own feelings.

Where Ed was shown bad examples of love, Stede was shown nothing at all. When Ed was shown freedom, Stede was still trapped. But when Ed found himself caged, Stede found his way out. And all those things shaped how they realized they were in love.

On one hand, we have Ed.

His first exposure to "love" is his mother's abuse at the hands of his father, that at a young age he felt he carried the responsibility to end. It paints it bad: Even if there was once love there, it withered and died until it became violent, or perhaps there was never love and it was just the thing adults did because that's the world we live in, you get married and hate each other because what else are you going to do to pass the time?

So he runs off, becomes a pirate at a young age, rebelling against society and its expectations, and its rules, and its nuclear families. Fuck them all, Edward Teach doesn't need any of it. And in his new life, he finds power and control over what happens to him for probably the first time. He's good at piracy, he has tense companionships, earns respect, and it's fun. It's new and different from the mainland life.

And then he get's used to it, and suddenly it's just another trap again. It's not the same game as the land fairing people of the world, a different charade, yet still one he has to play just because the world says so. Maybe he didn't get married, but he's got this nickname and reputation and now he had to fill its role. All these expectations he tried to avoid, but he just created new ones. And it's probably somewhere in here, that even if he had let himself believe he could love and be loved, that he lost it again. Such a thing surely wasn't real, people just lie and pretend they loved each other because that's just what you do.

But then he finds Stede. This crazy, weird, fantastic guy who just isn't doing it like anyone else. He is doing what he wants just because he wants and there's no one's stopping him. And it's beautiful and refreshing to see that freedom, after all his years had made him jaded. And at first it was just fun, really exciting and wild and thrilling and joyful, but it was just fun. Something to fill that void of boredom.

Then he really falls. When Stede tucks that silk into his pocket and tells him he wears fine things well. When he really sees everything that Stede is and it's amazing. He's so undoubtably his own person, unwilling to bend to the ways the world wants him to be. He is in open rebellion to society in every way, and in every move he makes he heals a little bit of Edward's broken heart. He gingerly holds it in his hands and assures him that he is worthy of sweetness and finery. And when Ed loves Stede, it's entirely its own feeling. So different from his parents, his crew, his companions. It's just something new to the world that it's never seen before, and it's all his. It's so powerful and beautiful, and he's willing to die or give up any other freedom he has for it. That love meant too much to lose. So when he kisses him, it's his unabashed, unafraid, leap of faith into love's embrace.

And on the other side, there is Stede.

His father's love to him did not exist. All their interactions were cold and dripping with hate. His father hated him. Hated his softness and his hope and all that made Stede himself. And he had no one else to turn to. In school, with the other boys his age, he was hated exactly the same. Tormented and abused in the name of asserting superiority over him. Ripping him to bits for daring to love flowers.

He never had family love, he never had friendly love, and when the topic of romance was finally brought up, he was told he got none of that either. His entire life was a series of business transactions the rich would move around as they organized themselves in their hierarchy. And so he did his job in it. He was "baby Bonnet" so other boys could be better that him, and he was "Mr. Bonnet" so he and Mary could combine their families wealth.

Then he ran away. When he could no longer stand all these different roles he served for everyone but himself, he ran away. And he was only on the waters for less than a year. That was not enough time for him to even begin to understand love. He tried his best, he did have such a large heart despite his life. He showered his crew with respect and gentle understanding, giving to them all the love he held, wanting not just his dreams of piracy, but companionship for the first time in his life. Of course it was strained, he had a lot to learn before they could really bond.

So when he meets Ed, he's almost entirely entranced by his first friend. Someone who is actively enjoying every single thing about him. Every ridiculous character quirk, all his strange priorities, the way he caries himself, his humor - all of it is beloved by Ed. For the first time in all his life, he has someone who actually likes his personality. He was falling in love, but he had no idea that wasn't just how friendship felt. The prospect of companionship was something so foreign to him. All of his love was genuine, just vastly underestimated by himself who couldn't place the name of all the feelings he now carried.

Even when Ed kisses him, he knows he likes Ed, he knows Ed is his favorite person in the whole world, he knows he liked the kiss. But he still wasn't sure how serious it was. Still couldn't be sure it wasn't just a best friendship. It was only when Mary walked him through it would he admit to himself that it was real. It was actually love.

What all those kids did to him, what his father told him before he met Mary, all the times he has felt like an outsider to his own heart: none of it mattered. Despite all of it telling him that he would never get love, he went out and found it. And now that he knows it, he's going to fight like hell to get back to Ed so he can enjoy it.

More OMFD

#Cae Has Lots of Feelings About Our Flag Means Death #God I fucking love them so fucking much #This was just my excuse to ramble about them #And how even though Stede didn't know he loved Ed during the kiss he absolutely did #They fell in love so differently because of the everlasting events of ✨trauma✨ in their lives #And it so goddamn beautifully written and portrayed #Again - lets have some applause for motherfuckin 👏🏻David Jenkins👏🏻 👏🏻Taika Waititi👏🏻 👏🏻Rhys Darby👏🏻 #Their work on Our Flag Means Death will literally follow me until the day I die and be so revolutionary to the entertainment industry #Stede not knowing how love is supposed to feel is actually something that can be so personal #I stg they can't make me relate more to Stede Bonnet #I see that man on screen and I just see myself in a million different ways #only main divergence is I don't have a dad -period- and I am not a wealthy middle aged man from the 1700's #Pretty much everything else tho? That's me. He is me and it's utterly gut wrenching and heart warming to watch. #I don't think I've ever gotten to see such a good representation for me in my life - and we don't even share Gender/SocialClass/TimePeriod #Our Flag Means Death #OFMD #Our Flag Means Death Season 1 Spoilers #Stede #Stede Bonnet #The Gentleman Pirate #Edward #Edward Teach #Blackbeard #Gentlebeard #Show Analysis #Stede Bonnet Character Analysis #Edward Teach Character Analysis

[leupagus]

You know, the thing I keep thinking about is Stede having to complete these impossible trials to defeat Blackbeard and win back Ed’s heart. Very fairy tale, “making a rope of ashes” type stuff, to prove that his heart is true.

-

She'd been given the list when she was barely a woman, by her first and deadest husband Paul; he'd gotten it long ago, he'd said, from a witch. "Didn't think much of it at the time," he'd gasped, his beautiful face now waxy and sunken with disease. Jackie had gripped his hand tighter. "Witches were a dime a dozen 'round here; never hurts to tip your hat and take what's offered freely. I put it in my pocket and might've forgotten it; but not two days later, that bastard Hornigold's ship comes into harbor."

"You're telling me Hornigold was the—" Jackie'd said, smiling wide and bright the way she'd done in his last days, making sure he never saw her weeping. "Honey, if you could get up out of this bed I'd tell you you've got sunstroke."

But Paul had shaken his head, chuckling soft enough not to start coughing again. "No no. Not him. Hornigold comes swanning off the boat, his crew behind him, and I see this lanky young hand with a limp in the crowd."

"You're talking about Blackbeard?" she'd asked, her smile slipping.

"The same," Paul had whispered. "I saw and I knew, my ruby. I knew then that he had come crawling back into the world, on the back of that sad-eyed boy." He'd patted her arm with his other hand, pointing to the scrap of paper on the blanket. "Keep it close, and keep yourself in his good graces as long as you're able."

It was almost three years before Jackie could read well enough to understand all the words on the list. She'd been furious to realize it wasn't anything more than the rhyme she'd heard countless times growing up, in lullabies and field hollers and once, set to the music of a fiddle and banjo on the deck of a ship. There'd been comfort in that fury, in feeling something other than the roaring grief that still howled in her chest every time she thought of Paul. But she'd kept the list; kept it closer than her knife and pistol.

Bonnet protested when she handed it over, his voice climbing the register faster than a deckhand swarming up the rigging on a clear day. "There's no such thing as a rope made of ashes!" he protested, while his scribe boy squawked at something else on the list. Oluwande, staring at her from Bonnet's other side, gripped his scimitar more tightly. "This is preposterous, it's a child's nonsense song—"

"Then you're refusing?" Jackie asked as she leaned back in her chair, one of her husbands (Bernie? Herbie?) helping her prop up her feet on a stool. "You said you wanted Edward Teach back. Only way to do that, Blackbeard's got to die. And there's only one way to do that without killing Ed, too." She took a deep drag of her cigar and waited until Bonnet settled back down, his blotchy face shifting from red to grey.

She'd done her spy-work on Bonnet in the past few months since he'd first crashed into her tavern, scattering chaos like buttons from his hot-white coattails. For all Bonnet's high manners, he was born in the salt-sands of Barbados, just like her; the island ran through his veins as thick as his blood. He knew the stories. Hell, he'd probably sung this list himself.

"I'm not refusing," he said, quick enough to make her mouth twitch. He knew the stories, all right. "But this can't be — are you saying it's real?"

"That's outside my purview, as the mermaid hooker so famously said," Jackie shrugged. "But it's not like you can lure him out with milk and plantains."

"No," Bonnet sighed. "Nor am I likely to find a bottle to fit him in." His voice was thinner now, reedier. Not with fear, though; Jackie could smell fear, and Bonnet had reeked of it before now. This was something else. "Do you really think I can — do you think there's any chance at all?"

"Better chance with you than anybody else."

"A better chance with me?" At least Bonnet was smart enough to find that hilarious. "Why?"

"Because you're an idiot," Jackie told him, figuring he needed the truth. "Because you left a rich and easy life. Because you don't know what you're doing, or just how impossible it really is." She tapped at the paper, the last time she would ever touch it. "Because you came to your mortal enemy and asked her for help, knowing she's been itching to add you to her nose collection. Because you're so in love with a man that you're gonna try killing the monster who lives inside him with nothing more than a fairy-tale list and a pair of soft hands."

Most folks would be smart enough to leave it at that, and leave. But Bonnet really was an idiot; probably part of his charm. Jackie wondered how many pieces he'd come back in, if he failed. How terrifying he might end up being, if he didn't.

Instead Bonnet smiled, said, "Thank you, Madame Jackie, for the pep-talk," got to his feet and honest-to-God bowed. His flunkies stumbled upright and followed him to the door, where he turned back. "We're not mortal enemies, surely?"

"Get the fuck out of my bar," Jackie said. "Don't come back until you've got one of those things."

She'd say it eleven more times, before the end.

#I love Jackie a lot okay #for a 25 year old she knows a lot of shit #ofmd fic #ficcage of interest #promptfest '22 #our flag means death motherfuckers

[chained-to-the-mirror]

PREFACE: I never make text posts, but I have been having insomnia for at least two weeks now and nothing else helps, so I’m trying this, per friend suggestion.

So, I have been watching Our Flag Means Death obsessively, and feeling feelings about Ed in particular. I don’t think I’ve ever felt this strong a connection to a character before, which is a bit strange, because I’m outwardly so different from him. He’s cool, beautiful, smart, feared - and I’m none of these things! But listen... That’s the surface. That’s how he appears - and of course he is all of those things too, but he’s SO RELATABLE in what motivates him and how he reacts to things.

Ed has many faces. He has a face for every person (or group of people) that he interacts with. He can be whatever the audience wants him to be, right? But who IS he really? I think that’s what he needs to figure out, and S1 has started with that... but we have yet to see the True Ed. Anyway, he is all about expectations. I relate to that so much! Always thinking about what others want from me, not really knowing who I am? That’s been most of my life. These days I’m a lot better about it, but I still catch myself doing it. Like Ed, I have a compulsive need to give people what they want, at the expense of my self. Neither of us has a very good knowing of self, which is why I guess it used to be relatively easy to just adapt to the company we keep. 

I read a fic last night that made me realize another thing that we have in common: we are both terrified of failing and looking stupid. Ed can’t handle people laughing at him, he can’t handle not knowing how to do a new thing instantly, perfectly. I think what he does with Stede is incredibly brave, when he lets Stede teach him about dining and things like that. He makes himself vulnerable (and Stede of course never mocks him, bless him). I often don’t even try things because I hate failing, and I would rather die than be laughed at. I guess it comes from years of bullying, I don’t know, but I can’t take a joke AT ALL, and I feel like me being bad at something is a joke. When those “fancy” people at dinner at the party laugh at Ed, I feel his panic. It’s very difficult to watch. I also get the violent impulse he has, pulling his gun and saying “Nobody laughs at me” - and I’m not really a violent person, not towards others, but the thoughts I’ve had... yeah. Poor Ed, I just want to wrap him in a blanket and hug him tight.

Also, at the very end when he is crying his heart out, all alone in the dim captain’s quarters... I feel gut wrenching pain every time, and it doesn’t get any easier. I may be fortunate in my life now in that I rarely feel like he does in that moment, but it was a very common experience for me, and it still happens sometimes. It’s the feeling of making your own prison, then wanting to claw yourself out of it, but realizing you have no fingernails left. He is completely empty, completely alone, and it will be like that forever until he finally dies. He realizes all that, and of course the heartbreak of Stede abandoning him is a part of it, but it’s nowhere near all of it. The fic I read yesterday really goes into this, into how Stede was really just a catalyst (this is the fic, read it and die, it’s so good) and all the emptiness, all the loneliness, all the numbing boredom was already there long before he arrived. I know Stede is really the main protagonist, but to me it’s just so much a show about Ed and his journey. Maybe I’ve read too much meta? Anyway, what I think Ed feels is that he is forever on the outside. As Blackbeard, he has to keep everyone at arm’s length - and who he is with Stede is another role, one he feels much more at home in but still, it’s a role, and it’s him pushing the Blackbeard side in the shadows in favor of being this soft person that people maybe would love (instead of fear). And he still feels like he’s not belonging, not really. And now he can’t be Ed anymore, even that softer role has been ripped away from him. He will forever be doomed to being Blackbeard, and really, how long will he able to keep it up now that he knows there may have been other options? (I need S2 right now! I need to find out who he is!) 

So he cries alone, like a lost child. it’s so painful, I die just thinking about it. It’s the chronic feeling of emptiness, that Stede partially filled - but now that Stede’s gone, he’s back to square one. Or actually several steps behind that, because he’s had a taste of other things. 

I don’t know where I’m going with all this. I just feel so strongly for him and with him... I think my subconscious is keeping me awake, or keeps waking me up, and I don’t know what to do about it. I keep reading fic, and meta, and rewatching the show over and over. It’s taken over my life. It’s vitally important to me that Ed gets a happy ending. I don’t mean that I want him to be together with Stede and happy (though OF COURSE I WANT THAT) - I want him to be happy, period. Just as himself, as Edward. I want him to know who he is and accept it, at least mostly. 

This was supposed to be a gay pirate comedy! How am I in this situation? 

#our flag means death #edward teach #blackbeard #just thinking out loud

[kharti]

[ In Over His Head #107 ]

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Stede wondered how difficult it would be to discover and utilize time travel. Would within the next five minutes be feasible?

      ( Continue reading on AO3 or... )

Stede wondered how difficult it would be to discover and utilize time travel. Would within the next five minutes be feasible?

In the heat of the moment, as he’d tried and failed not to feed into Ed’s irritation with his own, he’d said—too much. Much too much.

He sat in his secret closet, surrounded by the fine clothes that had always made him feel comfortable in a world that never did.

And as he wrapped another layer of cashmere around himself, he was far from comfortable.

He was hot and sweaty—eight layers of cloth tended to have that effect. But more than that, he was absolutely freaking out.

What had all that been about?

He hadn’t thought about those moments in so long, had intended to keep them locked away until the day he died. Embarrassing didn’t begin to describe his spur-of-the-moment confessions.

Horrifying. Disgusting. Despicable.

And now Ed was avoiding him, and it was ruined, and it was all over.

He breathed in and reached out to yank a jacket off its hook and draped it over himself to join the growing pile.

Perhaps he would just die here like this, surrounded by the clothes that had disguised him as a gentleman for so long. If he’d been wearing them yesterday, perhaps he wouldn’t have been exposed for the dreadful little deviant he was.

He heard the latch as the lever was pulled, and he went as still as he could as the secret door creaked open.

“Stede? Y’in here?”

Footsteps.

“What the—”

The movement stopped.

A pause.

“Lamb, are y’hidin’ under there?”

Stede made a small sound in the back of his throat.

There was a sigh, and he heard Ed settle onto the floor next to him. A hand pressed to his cocoon without removing any of it.

“We need t’talk.”

“I hate those words,” Stede mumbled.

Ed chuckled. “Yeah, but I think it’s good t’talk. Look what happened yesterday.”

“I don’t need to. It’s all I can think about, in fact.”

“Figured that was the case.” Fingers started to work their way through the layers, searching for him. “I needed a bit of time t’process what y’said.”

Stede shivered when he felt the fingertips brush against his cheek. “Or you could forget about it entirely.”

“’M’sorry. I knew you’d do this, think it’d be a bad talk.”

That stilled Stede’s racing heart, for just a moment.

“But I didn’t want t’talk too soon, so I wouldn’t think with m’cock instead of m’heart.”

“And?” Stede lifted his head some.

“Cock said t’shove it down yer throat an’ make y’gag on it. Heart said… well.” Ed chuckled. “Heart said, yeah, mate, fine, but maybe later. First thing’s first, an’ that’s t’have the boundaries talk.”

Stede reached up to push some of the jackets aside so he could see out of his soft shell.

And Ed greeted him with a smile full of warmth and love. “There he is.”

“Boundaries?” Stede prompted, still mostly buried in soft fabric.

“Yeah. Like.” Ed waved a hand and waggled his fingers. “Do y’want an orgy, or do y’think I want an orgy?”

Stede felt his face grow unbearably hot, hotter than the rest of him that was sweating from all the clothes piled on top of him, and he ducked his head back down.

“I don’t know,” he answered, quietly. “Those were urges born of desperation and loneliness. I haven’t had them since I gave up on getting anything I wanted.”

“So, yeah or nah?”

Stede took a moment to think, then got tired of hearing his own voice scraping the inside of his skull, so he just let the words fall from his lips.

“Frankly, I’m willing to try anything at least once, and happy to do anything that you enjoy. I—I don’t think I’d want to participate in anything with complete strangers to begin with, but I also don’t know if I could handle it if the crew was disgusted by my presence in some sort of Revenge orgy.”

Ed laughed, fondly. “They love ye, almost as much as I do. An’ they probably had their own orgy after we left.”

Stede blinked and lifted his head again. “Do you really think so?”

“Pretty positive, yeah.”

Stede pursed his lips as he thought, chewing on his tongue to try to remind it to behave. “It would make it… easier, in a way, if it was people who weren’t going to judge me too terribly much.”

“I’ll have Roach make a stew out of anyone who judges you,” Ed said in a tone that was somehow light-hearted and deadly serious.

“No crew stew, please.”

They looked at one another for a moment, then fell into quiet laughter while some of the jackets slid off, and he felt lighter inside and out.

“So then,” Ed continued, scooting closer. “’Bout the whole… tyin’ ye up an’ abuse fantasy.”

“Exaggerated by unfathomable loneliness,” Stede quickly cut in.

“Yeah, I know. But.” Ed tilted his head to the side. “Do y’want that? Be honest with me, Lamb.”

Stede sighed and started to sit up straighter, pushing his pile of clothes off himself. “I honestly don’t know. It only lived in my head and in the dark. Anything and everything is appealing under those circumstances. But…”

“But?”

Stede lifted a hand to cover his face. “I did, once, though I was and am deeply ashamed of myself for it.”

Ed’s voice lowered in pitch. “Yeah?”

“Before we… before anything, before us, when you were just this handsome, sexy man I secretly longed for, I did have one dream where you snuck into my quarters and took me while I was sleeping. In the dream, you were… rough, everything I always imagined a pirate to be, and I woke up having thoroughly soaked the front of my nightshirt with at least one, if not two… emissions.”

“Y’came in yer sleep,” Ed clarified with a hint of something dark and wanting in his tone.

“Yes,” Stede managed to say, nodding, then waving his hands. “But that doesn’t mean I want that. I don’t have the faintest idea what I want. I… suppose it’s easier to say that I want.” He swallowed. “Everything, at least once, if it’s with you.”

“Even lickin’ m’boots clean after y’have an emission on ‘em?” Ed grinned.

Stede groaned and buried his face in both hands. “Would you hate me if I admitted I actually wanted it the other way around? Just… not boots, but…” He let one hand leave his face to gesture at where his nicest shoes sat on display, with their ribbons and bows neatly tied.

Ed was quiet a moment. Too long. Stede dared to move his fingers to look and, to his relief, Ed’s face was anything but disgusted.

The man looked like he was fighting against his own accidental emission—oh, now he couldn’t help his playful sarcasm at his own expense. Stede watched as Ed rubbed the front of his pants, his lips parted and eyes dark.

“Fuck, Stede.” Ed pushed his heel against the hard, growing bulge. “I can’t handle another bout of thinkin’ of somethin’ dirty y’say and not getting’ t’act on it.”

Stede swallowed, and he felt a new rush of heat down to his own groin. “Do you mean—”

“Please.” Ed fumbled with his pants, his hands visibly trembling. “Please tell me yer serious.”

Stede just stared a moment, watching as his lover took himself in hand, his cock dark with too much excitement all at once.

Ed looked up at him, his eyes half-lidded and dark and desperate as his hand stuttered along his shaft in an erratic stroke. “Please put them on, love.”

“Just the shoes, or—”

Ed’s eyes went wide and he shuffled forward on his knees to reach out with both hands, pulling at the buttons and fastens of Stede’s clothing, not saying a word while making his answer exceptionally clear.

Stede laughed, though it felt a little awkward to do so when his emotions were so suddenly clouded between lingering uncertainty and overwhelming desire. “Okay, yes, all right. Just the shoes, then.”

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📚 view a list of all my current stories!

#our flag means death #ofmd #blackbonnet #gentlebeard #ed x stede #in over his head - blackbonnet ficlets

[kharti]

[ In Over His Head #107 ]

      ( first | prev | next )

Stede wondered how difficult it would be to discover and utilize time travel. Would within the next five minutes be feasible?

      ( Continue reading on AO3 or... )

Stede wondered how difficult it would be to discover and utilize time travel. Would within the next five minutes be feasible?

In the heat of the moment, as he’d tried and failed not to feed into Ed’s irritation with his own, he’d said—too much. Much too much.

He sat in his secret closet, surrounded by the fine clothes that had always made him feel comfortable in a world that never did.

And as he wrapped another layer of cashmere around himself, he was far from comfortable.

He was hot and sweaty—eight layers of cloth tended to have that effect. But more than that, he was absolutely freaking out.

What had all that been about?

He hadn’t thought about those moments in so long, had intended to keep them locked away until the day he died. Embarrassing didn’t begin to describe his spur-of-the-moment confessions.

Horrifying. Disgusting. Despicable.

And now Ed was avoiding him, and it was ruined, and it was all over.

He breathed in and reached out to yank a jacket off its hook and draped it over himself to join the growing pile.

Perhaps he would just die here like this, surrounded by the clothes that had disguised him as a gentleman for so long. If he’d been wearing them yesterday, perhaps he wouldn’t have been exposed for the dreadful little deviant he was.

He heard the latch as the lever was pulled, and he went as still as he could as the secret door creaked open.

“Stede? Y’in here?”

Footsteps.

“What the—”

The movement stopped.

A pause.

“Lamb, are y’hidin’ under there?”

Stede made a small sound in the back of his throat.

There was a sigh, and he heard Ed settle onto the floor next to him. A hand pressed to his cocoon without removing any of it.

“We need t’talk.”

“I hate those words,” Stede mumbled.

Ed chuckled. “Yeah, but I think it’s good t’talk. Look what happened yesterday.”

“I don’t need to. It’s all I can think about, in fact.”

“Figured that was the case.” Fingers started to work their way through the layers, searching for him. “I needed a bit of time t’process what y’said.”

Stede shivered when he felt the fingertips brush against his cheek. “Or you could forget about it entirely.”

“’M’sorry. I knew you’d do this, think it’d be a bad talk.”

That stilled Stede’s racing heart, for just a moment.

“But I didn’t want t’talk too soon, so I wouldn’t think with m’cock instead of m’heart.”

“And?” Stede lifted his head some.

“Cock said t’shove it down yer throat an’ make y’gag on it. Heart said… well.” Ed chuckled. “Heart said, yeah, mate, fine, but maybe later. First thing’s first, an’ that’s t’have the boundaries talk.”

Stede reached up to push some of the jackets aside so he could see out of his soft shell.

And Ed greeted him with a smile full of warmth and love. “There he is.”

“Boundaries?” Stede prompted, still mostly buried in soft fabric.

“Yeah. Like.” Ed waved a hand and waggled his fingers. “Do y’want an orgy, or do y’think I want an orgy?”

Stede felt his face grow unbearably hot, hotter than the rest of him that was sweating from all the clothes piled on top of him, and he ducked his head back down.

“I don’t know,” he answered, quietly. “Those were urges born of desperation and loneliness. I haven’t had them since I gave up on getting anything I wanted.”

“So, yeah or nah?”

Stede took a moment to think, then got tired of hearing his own voice scraping the inside of his skull, so he just let the words fall from his lips.

“Frankly, I’m willing to try anything at least once, and happy to do anything that you enjoy. I—I don’t think I’d want to participate in anything with complete strangers to begin with, but I also don’t know if I could handle it if the crew was disgusted by my presence in some sort of Revenge orgy.”

Ed laughed, fondly. “They love ye, almost as much as I do. An’ they probably had their own orgy after we left.”

Stede blinked and lifted his head again. “Do you really think so?”

“Pretty positive, yeah.”

Stede pursed his lips as he thought, chewing on his tongue to try to remind it to behave. “It would make it… easier, in a way, if it was people who weren’t going to judge me too terribly much.”

“I’ll have Roach make a stew out of anyone who judges you,” Ed said in a tone that was somehow light-hearted and deadly serious.

“No crew stew, please.”

They looked at one another for a moment, then fell into quiet laughter while some of the jackets slid off, and he felt lighter inside and out.

“So then,” Ed continued, scooting closer. “’Bout the whole… tyin’ ye up an’ abuse fantasy.”

“Exaggerated by unfathomable loneliness,” Stede quickly cut in.

“Yeah, I know. But.” Ed tilted his head to the side. “Do y’want that? Be honest with me, Lamb.”

Stede sighed and started to sit up straighter, pushing his pile of clothes off himself. “I honestly don’t know. It only lived in my head and in the dark. Anything and everything is appealing under those circumstances. But…”

“But?”

Stede lifted a hand to cover his face. “I did, once, though I was and am deeply ashamed of myself for it.”

Ed’s voice lowered in pitch. “Yeah?”

“Before we… before anything, before us, when you were just this handsome, sexy man I secretly longed for, I did have one dream where you snuck into my quarters and took me while I was sleeping. In the dream, you were… rough, everything I always imagined a pirate to be, and I woke up having thoroughly soaked the front of my nightshirt with at least one, if not two… emissions.”

“Y’came in yer sleep,” Ed clarified with a hint of something dark and wanting in his tone.

“Yes,” Stede managed to say, nodding, then waving his hands. “But that doesn’t mean I want that. I don’t have the faintest idea what I want. I… suppose it’s easier to say that I want.” He swallowed. “Everything, at least once, if it’s with you.”

“Even lickin’ m’boots clean after y’have an emission on ‘em?” Ed grinned.

Stede groaned and buried his face in both hands. “Would you hate me if I admitted I actually wanted it the other way around? Just… not boots, but…” He let one hand leave his face to gesture at where his nicest shoes sat on display, with their ribbons and bows neatly tied.

Ed was quiet a moment. Too long. Stede dared to move his fingers to look and, to his relief, Ed’s face was anything but disgusted.

The man looked like he was fighting against his own accidental emission—oh, now he couldn’t help his playful sarcasm at his own expense. Stede watched as Ed rubbed the front of his pants, his lips parted and eyes dark.

“Fuck, Stede.” Ed pushed his heel against the hard, growing bulge. “I can’t handle another bout of thinkin’ of somethin’ dirty y’say and not getting’ t’act on it.”

Stede swallowed, and he felt a new rush of heat down to his own groin. “Do you mean—”

“Please.” Ed fumbled with his pants, his hands visibly trembling. “Please tell me yer serious.”

Stede just stared a moment, watching as his lover took himself in hand, his cock dark with too much excitement all at once.

Ed looked up at him, his eyes half-lidded and dark and desperate as his hand stuttered along his shaft in an erratic stroke. “Please put them on, love.”

“Just the shoes, or—”

Ed’s eyes went wide and he shuffled forward on his knees to reach out with both hands, pulling at the buttons and fastens of Stede’s clothing, not saying a word while making his answer exceptionally clear.

Stede laughed, though it felt a little awkward to do so when his emotions were so suddenly clouded between lingering uncertainty and overwhelming desire. “Okay, yes, all right. Just the shoes, then.”

      ( next )

📚 view a list of all my current stories!

#our flag means death #ofmd #blackbonnet #gentlebeard #ed x stede #in over his head - blackbonnet ficlets