#but also Ed to Stede 😌

[blakbonnet]

well since you don't like yourself, I'm just going to have to like you enough for the both of us

[pennybunpirate]

Tiny boyfriends with tiny flower hats 😌

Inspired by this post by @blakbonnet . I was playing with ideas for Mermay but then Meow punched me in the heart (pos) with the idea of flower hats and this happened instead. Thank you for the inspiration, I hope you don't mind I played with your idea! 💕

[hiimcanadia]

what if we exchanged tummy freak ideas. ok so stede and trans ed meet before ed gets top. ed gets fat then gets top. he's so happy afterwards with his totally flat chest and his fat lil tummy sticking out round and soft underneath it. once ed heals up stede loves dragging his hands down ed's front and feeling where his tummy begins and how much it sticks out. very sexy.

Yessss I love this so much. Ed's cute little tummy sticking out so much, even more obvious than before now that it's paired with his flat chest 🥺 I'm sure he's so much more confident going shirtless around the house now, so Stede gets to see the tummy so much more than he used to and he's trying to get his hands on it as much as possible (bless these two but absolutely nothing is getting done for like a week after the bandages come off<3) Also not to always be on my wonky chest agenda, but if Ed has little skin wings under his arms after surgery I just know Stede would love squishing those too 🥺

[castieldelamancha]

n'awwww ed appreciating stede's letters in bottles even if they were the least efficient way to try and communicate with him because the gesture is actually so cute (i desperately need one of the bottles to find them so they can read one of stede's letters together before the end of the season)

[bakasara]

Trying to parse my thoughts on Izzy's death and why I had a different reaction to it than I thought I would. To summarize: I thought I wouldn't like it, but also that they wouldn't do it; the opposite happened– they did it but I'm ok with it.

I'm also feeling like talking through some mourning for an amazing character, so follow along if that's you, too 😌

(I should probably clarify the following thoughts are coming from someone who deeply enjoyed this season.)

I first wondered what would be of Izzy around the end of season 1. I expected him to have a heel-face turn – which I object to calling a redemption arc and I'll get into why, because the distinction ties into his death imo. A lot of antagonistic characters' changes of heart end directly in death, but I thought they'd subvert that trope. And they... did, actually, despite Izzy dying. Not an option I had imagined.

What the show avoided is the logic, the set of tropes attached to the deaths of this kind of character. These deaths usually come as a consequence of the character's changed ethics or "redemption". My being against that scenario came from the diverging natures of traditional redemption arcs and OFMD's rhetoric.

A traditional redemption arc functions by a kind of catholic logic, if you will: the villain can become one of the good guys by balancing out his "sins"/bad deeds with enough good deeds to tip a moral scale. This often involves a purifying suffering, which acts as an agent to expiate one's faults. To the viewer, this suffering can serve to activate our empathy and make the character more sympathetic. It can also legitimize his quest: our trust in the character's good intentions comes from seeing that the character is ready to make sacrifices to become better and he isn't deterred by the hardships of doing the right thing.

The death occurring at the end of a traditional redemption arc acts as the ultimate sacrifice and/or purification. A number of ideas might be at play behind it, depending on each story: only in death can the soul become fully pure, or a final sacrifice is "needed" to demonstrate the change once and for all, or change was only possible up to a point after which there is no viable/acceptable future – the character deserves moral points for changing, but not so many that he also deserves a full life, or past crimes make him more expendable, etc.

But these are all ideas that aren't evoked in any of the crew's journey in OFMD. For starters, the show isn't interested in "catholic" redemption; its focus is on reintegration/rehabilitation into the community. Rather than appealing to the more traditional (in Western media) and more christian principle of "purification of the soul through mortification of the body", it plays with notions of restorative justice.

We see it especially this season with Ed and Izzy. Ed's arc is a whole little lab for it. We have the community being made to decide whether he can stay or should leave; catbell!Ed is made to apologize to the people affected – which he initially does abysmally, with what fandom has dubbed his "CEO's/YouTube apology". Later, he's given the opportunity to have a more honest and genuine conversation with Fang where he learns about how he hurt him. He's made to repair some of the material damage his behavior caused. Some members feel repaid by the idea that they did to him the same he did to them (Fang) while others don't (Lucius), and the show touches on what this means for each/legitimizes both feelings. Arguably, Ed using his treasure to throw Calypso's birthday party – a much needed refrain and moment of social (re-)connection within the community – is an additional form of reparation. While Stede's belief in Ed has a clear role in helping Ed change for the better, Izzy's s2 journey focuses even more intensely on the role of social support within an individual's constructive (re-)integration into their community. The show is condensed by choice of format, but the beats are all there.

With that kind of rhetoric set up, I'd never be able to accept Izzy dying in a way that feels like a punishment for his past crimes, nor in a way that should "confirm" his positive change/"purify" him for good. And he doesn't! By the time he dies, we know full well he's deeply changed, it's already established to completion. How it happens has nothing to do with proving himself – he's randomly shot in battle. It's never questioned that the time he got to live surrounded by affection mattered. The speech he gives Ed is only possible because he's changed, accessing a completely different perspective on piracy/life than before, like we see when he talks to Ricky earlier. The reason the whole crew is paying respect and crying is because he became "the new unicorn", a treasured member with a defined role. But his death itself is the show going back to the initial symbolism of Izzy as ultimate pirate. The narrative function of his death is underscoring that the age of piracy has come to an end. It's nothing to do with his change. It's posited as the "natural conclusion" (again, by symbolic function) of a character that represented piracy through-and-through, not the "natural conclusion" of a process of becoming better.

And for me, that difference changes everything. I can see and accept the logic behind it, even as I mourn Izzy as a character. It makes the grief feel like a catharsis I experience within the context of the story I'm watching, rather than a grief I feel from a show "betraying" me.

It's also a difference that completely changes how Izzy's death relates to his queerness. Izzy's change is intertwined with being able to express queer affection openly. Becoming "a unicorn" is this extremely queer imagery already – a magical rainbow creature. His role becomes akin to a mother to the crew (the mother hen!Izzy many headcanoned last season, tapping into his potential), a position that isn't extraneous to older queens, including our honored real-life mean-old-queer men. Last season he threatened another queer man for showing too much delicacy, effeminacy, vulnerability. Now, his change is a process that culminates in him singing a tender love song among the crew in drag. He's given the privilege of playing the soundtrack to our protagonists making love for the first time, which ties him symbolically to the event in a way it does no other crew member. Suffice it to say that insinuating his process of change should end in death would have been disastrous, as far as I'm concerned. Antithetical to the show's supporting ideology.

But that's not how it went. Grief occupies a big role in the queer community, but it's so rare that we get to experience it cathartically. In real life, we often have to contend with the ways queerphobia causes us trauma or even shortens our lives, or the lives of our friends. In fictional narratives, a lot of characters that get to express queerness unabashedly still die for the transgression. They're still usually the only queer character with relevant screen time or at all, at best one of two that formed a tragic couple.

We almost never have the opportunity to just mourn some motherfucker who died because they meant something else as well that was central to their character. To mourn and know we're mourning someone who wasn't ever punished for being queer-as-in-fuck-you and going all out. To mourn and not feel like it's another message of queer doom, because for once the character is surrounded by an entire crew of other queer characters that go on to live and be happy. To know the story is saying something about life, not about being queer. To know this kind of crafting was deliberate, too, because the creator has talked about working to avoid those tropes. I struggle to remember another time I had the opportunity to grieve for a queer character like they're a human being, without the implication that it's queerness itself that's a death sentence.

And honestly? It feels good. It feels like a form of catharsis I do not dislike. That I'm maybe kinda glad for. OFMD is and stays a magical world. Beyond that, in a show full of queers, one of them dies after getting some extraordinarily meaningful happiness, and it's peaceful, and I get to just be sad for the fucker without the gutting of being reminded that if you're gay, better not shoot too high. It feels like a completely different emotion that no other show, for now, would give me, but OFMD. To me, it's yet another thing it's pulled off.

As it's been known to do.

[libroseitm]

From this post by the wonderful, kind, incredible @gentlebeardsbarngrill. I LOVED this post and I also couldn't pass up the opportunity to draw Ed-heart-eyes-Teach staring at Stede's bare arse 😌💜

[ladyluscinia]

Hi there! I just read your meta about how Izzy knows the real Edward and not just Blackbeard, and that got me thinking… why does Ed tell Stede he doesn’t have any friends? I’d initially chalked this up to Izzy only wanting to be friends with Blackbeard, but if Izzy knows and is loyal to the real Ed, why doesn’t Ed consider him a friend?

Hi! You just stumbled on one of my favorite things to talk about that now I get to add S2 context to, so thank you!

Ok... Edward & his total denial of friendship. There's the big reason - which is completely divorced from the reality of any of his relationships - and then there's the smaller, related reason that I'm not even sure Edward is fully aware of.

Reason #1 (the big one) why Edward says he doesn't have any friends is because he's having a depressive breakdown in a bathtub when he says it.

It all comes back to the fact Edward hates himself, which was fairly clear in S1 and now made explicit in S2. Specifically in 2x03. Which, in a season full of excellently timed flashbacks and echoed scenes from S1, still contains the single example that made me leap from my seat in pure vindication.

When Edward tackles his conjured Hornigold to kill him, before he realizes he's in the gravy basket, we great a great line...

"It all boils down to this. You're afraid you're unlovable."

...followed by a set a flashbacks that feel chosen specifically for me 😌

Edward killing his dad, with the voiceover "I'm not a good person Stede..." cut to Izzy's destroyed laugh right before Edward left the room in 2x02, and then cut back to the bathtub from 1x06 to finish "...That's why I don't have any friends." Stede affirms he is Edward's friend and then it ends on the crew's mutiny from 2x02 and the absolute darkest point of Edward's depressive spirals so far.

That is literally an explicit connection I couldn't have dreamed of in the S1 hiatus.

Because, like... Edward's whole thing is that he's been on the edge of drowning under this lifelong struggle against depression since we met him. He does fundamentally believe in his darkest moments that he is monstrous and poisonous and no one could ever love him, but it's not a logical belief. He's not making an assessment of his relationships as he sees them, he's voicing his self-loathing and depression.

And the parallel between "I don't have any friends" and "I'm unlovable" is soooo crunchy because we know for a fact the second statement is just depression talking. Not even just Stede! Edward spends the first two episodes actively resisting evidence to the contrary in his spiral because it hurts too much - Izzy blatantly confessing his love didn't break through, it just got him shot for trying.

To go back to the bathtub in 1x06, Stede's affirmation there wasn't any more effective than Izzy's confession in S2. It gets Edward to get up out of the bathtub and pull himself back together, but the very next episode opens with Edward getting antsy and trying to leave before Stede can reject him. In 1x08 he's still half-waiting for Stede to notice there's something wrong with him.

Edward always has a little dark voice in the back of his mind saying that Calico Jack isn't his friend, and Izzy isn't his friend, and Stede isn't his friend... but it's Edward's voice. One he'll have to fight against forever, one that will sound really persuasive in his darkest moments (like when he's in a bathtub admitting its source out loud for the first time in his life), but also one that is lying.

So... that's the big reason.

Now, Reason #2 is a bit more nuanced - Edward is really repressed.

This is pretty much entirely the fault of Reason #1, but it is technically a different thing. Because Edward hates himself and has a flawed perspective of all his relationships, he instinctively holds himself back from them to some degree.

This kinda gets into the whole Izzy vs Stede thing, because Edward has a very small collection of interests and desires that he shoved into a small box as things he didn't deserve well before becoming a pirate (due to both mommy and daddy trauma), and then he never brought those things up with anyone close to him. Until he met Stede, who was basically the walking embodiment of several of those interests/desires and a person who Edward uniquely did not have a script or baseline for interacting with, so he ended up doing the reverse and diving into exploring all that as the core of this one singular relationship.

Which has left him very unbalanced.

Like, he's not wholly engaging in the relationship due to fear of rejection either way. There's nothing intrinsically healthier about letting Izzy know all his ugliest bits or Stede know all his most hidden emotional vulnerabilities. And the fear of rejection in both cases is based in his depression / conviction he's unlovable, not evidence that Izzy would react poorly or whatever.

But if he was capable of evaluating his relationships objectively, he might have felt a little like even Izzy who knew him so well wasn't as close of friend as he truly desired, simply because he puts away that box of things around him. Only... Izzy doesn't make him do that. That box was probably put away before Izzy even met him.

And like... Edward can feel his feelings about Izzy not knowing the super important emotional things he wants him to know, but it's still on Edward for not even trying to tell him.

(This got longer than I meant it to, lol. Anyway here's my hiatus post where I'm nice to Calico Jack on this topic too.)

[blakbonnet]

[graphic by @ofmdlovelyletters]

AUTHOR OF THE WEEK @xoxoemynn

I've loved featuring some of the most incredible artists in the fandom for the AOTWs, and thanks to Connie's (@spirker) big brain, this week is dedicated to some of the most beloved fandom authors. I hope everyone will go and check out their fics, maybe discover some new works or give extra love to older beloved fics. There will be 3 authors featured this weekend, please give it up 🥁 for the first one: Emy who we all love.

When I think of an author whose writing feels like a warm, lovingly prepared bowl of soup by someone who wants you to eat and eat well: I think of Em's fics. It's impossible to imagine this fandom without her - not just her words but everything she is and does for her friends. I also strongarmed her into answering a few questions for me (kidding, she was very gracious, I kept harassing her to send the answers over 😌 I have no shame):

What's your writing process like? Do you start with the beginning or the end? Do you write in order or as the scenes come to you?

First comes the idea, which usually presents itself as “haha, wouldn’t it be funny/weird/wild if XYZ… wait a minute. I think I might be serious about that.” Once I’m pretty confident I’m actually going to write the story, I make a channel for it in the private Discord I created to keep myself organized. I’ll start jotting ideas down — doesn’t have to be in any particular order, just tone, beats I want to hit, any particular detail that’s pushing its way to the surface that’s demanding the story be told, and also grab any links, images, music, whatever, and stash them away for inspo later. I almost always have to create an outline for myself, even if it’s just a few bullet points, because otherwise I tend to just sit there spinning my wheels. If it’s a longer story, I’ll create a pretty fleshed out outline, and may also supplement it with an emotions matrix to keep track of the characters’ evolving mindset throughout the story. Tragically, I’m very much someone who needs to write in order. I’ve tried skipping around before, but inevitably I start feeling the tension of “well, how can I possibly write Scene 10 if I don’t know exactly what happened in Scene 5?” But if there are some scenes that feel more vivid to me in the brainstorming phase, I may write a few sentences just so I don’t lose that energy.

One Ed/Stede headcanon that's very dear to you and you love to explore it when you write.

I don’t know if I have one specific one. I generally treat them as my all you can eat buffet and like to play with different ones all the time, depending on my mood. But I’d say my “tell,” if you will, is taking some kind of ridiculous concept (being horny for clocks, running a sleepaway camp for singles, tooth fairies) and sussing out the Big Emotions, which often do circle around learning to be vulnerable in front of the one you love.

Whose voice is easier to write - Ed or Stede? Why?

When I first started writing OFMD fic after S1, I would have said Ed. There was something about that vulnerability and raw heartbreak that I found really accessible, perhaps because I was finally coming out of the fog of my own recent traumatic breakup. But as I spent more time writing and in the characters’ heads, I realized it’s actually Stede. I see a lot of myself in him, and have discovered getting his voice right is a rather cyclical process: the more I understand him, the more I understand myself, and the more I understand myself, the more I understand him.

Your personal favourite thing you've written that you'd like more people to read

I’m going to cheat and list two. The first is The Merry Strays of Lighthouse Sanctuary, which is my heart story. It’s not the first thing I wrote for this fandom, but it feels like it. I wanted to write a fic with a setting that felt to all the characters the way so many of us felt about the show itself — a place of hope, where everyone is loved and accepted and celebrated for exactly who they are. The second, which is definitely a harder sell due to the subject matter, is All Of These Lines Across My Face, which is the most personal thing I’ve ever written that I think has taken on a new, more meta meaning since the cancellation. Love is eternal; it changes everything it touches for the better. Ed and Stede’s world was forever changed because they loved each other; our world was forever changed because we loved OFMD.

What is the one word that you think you use a lot?

Exquisite. But it’s NOT MY FAULT. They ARE exquisite!!! What am I supposed to do, just call them pretty? They are EXQUISITE!

Do you have a beta reader? Have they made you a better writer?

YES! My beloved Hugo (@monksofthescrew/offsammich), who I’ve been working with since Merry Strays. I used to say I’d only use a beta if there was something I was particularly worried about in the story, but honestly Hugo makes everything I write SO much better that I don’t consider a story complete until her eyes are on it. Brainstorming the initial idea, helping me get unstuck in writing, pushing me to look at a scene from a different perspective, fixing all my verb tenses… truly could not do it without her.

Why OFMD?🥹

I found OFMD at a very transitional point in my life, when I finally started to feel healed from a few big traumatic events but didn’t know what to do now that I’d emerged from the fog. I experienced some panic that I had wasted too much time and the world had moved on without me while I was still struggling. OFMD showed me that it’s never too late, that you can always have a second (or third, or 300th) chance, that you deserve to be loved for exactly who you are, and, most importantly, that there’s always hope. It was like someone gently took my hand and said “I don’t care what your brain/society is telling you, there is a beautiful future in store for you, and you deserve all that it brings you.” These days it’s rare to find something with a message like that, that’s equal parts fierce and earnest. It’s something beautiful and precious, and I’ll be holding onto it forever. ❤️

Please head over to @ofmdlovelyletters and send your love for Emy and all your favourite authors (and authors of the week 😈 watch that blog for some special letters coming your way)

[bizarrelittlemew]

I have a burning curiosity that can only be relieved by an OFMD author. Why is there so much AU fanfiction in this fandom?? 😆 My AO3 search results with every alternate universe tag I can think of blocked are coming up with almost every result on the page filtered out! 🤣 I have nothing against them existing and I'm all for everyone writing what makes them happy, I just wonder how this fandom ended up being so full of them. I used to think SPN was oversaturated with AU's, but it can't hold a candle to OFMD! 😅

okay i wanted to give this a proper answer and also asked a few other authors, so here are some of the reasons we came up with - i think it's a combination of all of these:

while the show takes place in a historical setting, it's not historically accurate or even trying to be. it uses anachronistic dialogue and gives piracy a vibe more like a modern workplace. the characters become timeless in the sense that they are already "modern" characters put into a historical setting, and therefore fit just as well into any kind of AU setting. the characters are what make up the show more than the historical setting

the themes that the show deals with - relationships, sexuality, gender, trauma, family, self-image, mental illness - can be explored in so many different ways given different settings. it's very interesting to examine how the characters would deal with them when thrown into different circumstances and time periods

canon is really good, so while there are gaps in the narrative that can be explored, a lot of people are drawn to putting the characters in entirely different situations and/or feel like canon ground was covered pretty quickly

the story itself translates to other universes very easily. people want to enjoy that story and/or their favorite plot points again and again, but just writing down the plot of the show in the canon setting wouldn't make much sense. by throwing the characters into a different universe, you can pull scenes and plot from canon without just repeating it, putting a different spin on it

very few shows have (canonically) older queer people, and people like the idea of how that translates to other universes

we have (relatively) little canon and had a lot of time between seasons. considering the size of the fandom, amount of canon, and time since canon, the proportion of AUs is not surprising

if we assume proper tagging, AUs make up around 27% of all ofmd fanfics by number of works, but probably much more by word count, since a lot of canon fics tend to be shorter. in comparison, that number is around 20% for SPN and 34% for Merlin 🤷

also i've seen a lot of people starting out by only wanting to read canonverse fics until they gave an AU a try and BAM they were hooked 😌

and last but not least:

Ed and Stede fall in love in every universe 💗

[xoxoemynn]

for the wip ask game: Ed's chest hair 😌

and tree law please!!

ED'S CHEST HAIR MY BELOVED!!! Okay this would be a short and sweet PWP that I'm hoping to knock out this weekend maybe. The tag line will be "five times Ed's chest hair drove Stede absolutely insane, and one time he actually did something about it. Plot twist: it all takes place within one afternoon." It will be post-S2, and Ed and Stede will be working on renovations for their inn, and Stede's going to be extremely distracted by the way the sunlight just glistens on Ed's chest, illuminating his salt and pepper chest hairs... the way Ed takes a sip of lemonade and some of it spills and catches those hairs... how Ed just scratches his chest and Stede is at full attention. And then they fuck with some fun body worship focusing significantly on those luscious hairs.

And TREE LAW, also tagging in @chocolatepot who asked about this one. This is a leftover from a previous @ofmdjanuaury that I wasn't able to get to and am hoping to this time. But Stede is moving back into his family home after his father dies, and he mostly hates it except he loves these trees at the back of the property because he used to read underneath them when he was a boy. 🥺 Except THEN the fucking BADMINTONS on the next property smell weakness since they know Father Bonnet died and they hate the trees because it interferes with their view, so they chop them down. Stede is devastated, and he recruits the assistance of famed tree law attorney Ed Teach to THROUGHLY fuck the Badmintons over. Because TREE!!!! LAW!!!!!

Ask me questions about my WIPs!

[gilmores-glorious-blog]

episode 5 thoughts:

- not the bell around his neck 💀💀

- ed looks so goofy i love

- pete definitely came up with the bell idea didn’t he

- something is so deeply wrong with every single character in this show <3

- i feel like it shouldn’t be that hard to accept buttons turning into a bird it kinda tracks for him

- i am so here for the jim polycule interacting

- oh yep there it was pete came up with the bell

- “the bar is on the floor”

- fuck yes con and nathan getting to have scenes together

- izzy taking the cigarette from lucius,,,, kinda gay 👀

- god i love stede

- ed is back in his depression robe era

- “oh hey friend :)” “OH FUCK YOU!!!!”

- lucius’ reaction to ed is definitely the most fair

- “i will let you push me off the ship” “…actually that could be huge”

- izzy tittes.

- “what did he say about me specifically?” oh izzy you poor man

- izzy slapping stede in the ass 😌

- stede shooting the sail was so fucking funny to me

- i love fang so much he’s so special to me 😭😭

- izzy and stede’s dynamic >>>>

- HORROR EPISODE?!?!?!???

- HELL FUCKING YES CURSES AND BODY HORROR FUCK ME UPPPPPP

- stede is slaying so hard in his cursed shit

- “i did a punch 😀”

- “that shit is decadent”

- why is izzy watching stede check himself out 🤨

- “i once watched a crew gouge their eyes out over a curse” “sounds like syphilis” …what.

- pete using the phrase “living rent free in your head” was goofy to me

- i love pete so fucking much!!! oh my god!!!!

- “but i never hear anything about the fact that you lived” …….holy shit.

- polycules who fight curses together stay together 😌👊

- oh yes, renowned non-superstitious man of science, frenchie

- so true always remember to thank the fairies

- knife parade 💀💀💀

- “i got it out of my system when we beat you to death :)”

- oh izzy’s just living in denial okay

- he made lucius a little shark :’)

- roach refering to frenchie’s “beautiful body”

- “he’s blaming the bean!” “it’s a legume”

- “those fucking barbarians 😩”

- stede telling izzy to fuck off was very satisfying ngl

- okay but fang have you considered that ed just has adhd

- stede’s serving so much cunt in this shirt (also i would kill for that shirt)

- “does that make us horrible people?” “or does that make us smarter people!” is such a change in character for pete and stede compared to last season

- tragic that ed’s not around to see stede be baddass and sexy

- lucius defacing the ship to make a little mural of pete i love them

- okay but there was absolutely a second there where pete thought lucius was gonna suck his dick

- HOLY SHIT ARE THEY GONNA GET MARRIED?!?!?!!!

- OH MY GOD im so mentally ill about them,,, they’re gonna be husbands!!!!!!!!

- this scene paralleling the end of s1ep5,, they can’t not kiss

- “that wasn’t a long story at all”

- the direct callback to “you wear fine things well” 😭😭

- KISS!!!!!!!!!!!!

- hand hold!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

- communication!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

- kevin.

- oh whoops i forgot about the post credits scenes

- ed teach my most special girl <3

- this preview for next week is insane,,, also are they in bed together? is stede pushing ed up against a wall? 👀

this is so long i’m sorry i am simply so mentally ill over them

[saltpepperbeard]

Oooh- in regards to the who you like more/relate to more poll I think feeling like Stede but liking Ed more is like…..doubly stede coded LOL. I click that and I’m going, “yes yes. Just like the man himself. Get double meta-ed, NERD” and then I go back to watching the same Ed gif over and over. It’s what stede would have wanted 😌😌

hey also once again. TAGS??? TAGS. We have similar brain wrinkles. JUST GIRLY THINGS INDEED LMAO.

OH FOR REAL LMAO. That does indeed play a HUGE huge part into my Stede-coding as well. Like, being the president of the "Edward Teach did nothing wrong actually" club? Falling over myself whenever I see him? Wanting nothing but the very best for him always? Yeah. YEAH,,,

STEDE BONNET ²

[gothicafish]

Ok shifting into ofmd mode....

- ok it's hilarious that stede kissed the bottle lmao idk why he's just such a loser in love I am living for it

-and the trailer playing out in the beginning like a romcom (especially with the music) lmao

-I love stede "he's actually a good guy" bonnet like babe he left your crew YOUR MAKE SHIFT FAMILY, YOUR CHILDREN on a rock to die in the sun

-love the new black beard Crew going FUCKING ballistic love them

-also izzy helping stede become a pirate is what I'm most excited for and like everyone else I'm wondering what drove him to help "stede fucking bonnet" (izzy redemption arch 👀👀👀👀)

-not about s2 but I'm convinced gabriel (nick Kroll from s1 e5 is deffo Simon the devious)

-also idk if anyone's pointed this out but we see izzys hands ?? Have we seen them before??? I don't remember ?? Either way his hands look normal fellas. (I thought maybe they called him izzy hand bc of something physical about his hands)

-SPANISH JACKIEEEEEÈEEEEEE and the swede ? (Also can you BELIEVE I didn't used to like Leslie Jones??? Wtf was I lmao)

-I want lucious to live

-also I get the feeling jim and Ed are going to be beasties idk why just vibes

-Also Ed kneeing the FUCK out of that British soldier was something I didn't know I needed

-I SWEAR IF ED HURTS IZZY IM GONNA

-also Ed painting himself on the bride figure was also not something I had on my bingo card

-also why tf did they mess up that wedding ?? Just cause ??? Kinda funny

-stedes stupid red jacket is a need

-buttons doing Tai chi sounds right. Unphased

-cant belive the first time I watched ofmd I didn't like izzy now I love him so much...that's growth 😌

-also whoever that girl with the sword is needs to come ruin my life

-roach is wearing flowers ? Love the look but why?

-i can tell stede is becoming a man because he's giving me the man ick (lesbian things)

I have no theories rn my head is EMPTY. loving the look of s2. I'm probably gonna cry. I can't wait.

[pairofsunflowers]

what are you writing about pirates? 🌚

hiii hehe i'm actually writing a fic for a siren/pirate au for me and my friends' monsterhearts pcs... they Are part of an actual play podcast called the valkyrie cycle, and as much as i love that story, i also love to take the characters and play with them like dolls and stick them into various aus and write fics for them :> i had the pirate life article up partly bc i was like.... could i justify them having a bed on the ship 😭?? but at a point i was like well. idk if it's historically accurate but idc, if ed and stede get to have a bed on ofmd, my guys also get to have a bed 😌

[thats-preposterous]

it's not weird for a noncanon ship to win a fanfic poll but also Ed & Stede are canonically NOT DATING!

They're canonically romantically involved, never said they're a canonically dating. Doesn't change they're a canon romance either way, it's just nitpicky at this point. I don't even see a point in explaining myself further this much should be obvious 🤷

Anyway I think it's a shame to compare these two at all, much less for Stede/Ed to be losing so I'm hoping people will see the light and vote for the gays 😌

[pennybunpirate]

"Santa Tell Me" by Ariana Grande plays on the radio at work.

My brain: Ed is listening (and dancing around his room, and flouncing on his bed) to this in the pining stage of things, which happen to fall over the holidays and he is kinda terrified about the upcoming festive party Stede will also be attending.

(said party obviously includes misteltoe kisses. Was gonna write ends with, but we all know it doesn't end there.)

😌