#life aboard ships

[ltwilliammowett]

Smoke on the Water

Sailors loved to smoke, it was a distraction from the hard work, the conditions around them and the often scarce food etc. Tobacco could now be consumed in different ways, either smoked in a pipe or chewed.

In addition to the pipe, officers from the 18th century onwards also liked to have a cigar from time to time, conveniently in the last days of sailing ships when the hand-rolled cigarette emerged, which incidentally was then very popular with all sailors.

Three Sailors having a break at the galley, smoking a pipe and having some tea or coffee, HMS Union of London, by unknown 1823 (x)

Now there was only one problem, because smoking was not always allowed, only at the smoking lamp or in the galley and at permitted times, and so many people chewed their tobacco, which could be consumed in between. The only thing that was a little more difficult was storing it, because it was not so easy to simply put it in your pocket if you had to expect to lose it while working in the air. That's why the sailors put their chewing tobacco under their hats and the inner lining became soaked with sweat and tobacco juice over time. Now there wasn't always tobacco to buy, or the gentleman didn't have enough money to buy it, so he took the lining out of the hat and chewed it instead. Hence the exclamation "Eat my hat".

What did a tobacco plug look like? The leaves were dipped in honey, molasses or flavoured syrup. A hole was drilled in a block of wood - hickory was preferred, but other types of wood were also sufficient - and the soaked tobacco was pressed into it, hence the word "plug". As soon as the tobacco had hardened, the plug was pulled out of the hole and wrapped in cavas so that it could be used.

As tobacco was considered essential for survival, it was almost a catastrophic event if it ran out. So worn cordage, whether manila or hemp, was tried and found to be very pungent and intoxicating; tea leaves had their devotees, and some hardy spirits experimented with some of the green weed that graced our waterlines when dried in the sun. The most popular smoke, however, was a combination of dew sausages, coffee grounds and the bark of a pork barrel, grated into small pieces and mixed in equal quantities.

[insteading]

Inspired by blakbonnet gifset from s2e2.

I've been thinking about how the showrunners decided Breakdown-Era Ed would be so hot. OFMD has things it is Looney Tunes about-- physics, abdominal anatomy, the historical record, the value of gaydar as a navigational device across large spans of ocean. But as many people have pointed out, it's pretty emotionally realistic, to the point where the fights Ed and Stede have are recognizable to many of us.

I don't know about you, but I find that crying all night on the floor results in blotchy skin, red eyes, a generally puffy face, a wicked dehydration headache, and a hoarse and adenoidal voice. The magic of fiction rescues Ed from some of that. But also: "I want my corpse to look fantastic" is absolutely a thought Ed would have at this point in his trajectory (and I think is one signal of how ambivalent he feels about dying). His depression hasn't blunted his emotions and convinced him that nothing matters: feeling abandoned still matters a great deal, even as he's starting to abandon the hope that he'll feel better some day. And he still cares about how other people perceive him-- which is frankly essential if he's going to goad crewmates into mutiny against him.

I've seen some great metas about how Ed wants someone to care enough about him to kill him-- or how he really wants to be talked out of wanting to die. Both those takes are even more plausible to me having watched season 2 in its entirety! In s2e6 Ed tells Ned Lowe "I don't respect you enough to kill you: you're not worth the poison." Ed thinks of killing as something that inextricably and intimately links two people. And at the beginning of s2e7 Ed credits the vision of mer!Stede with saving his life-- though I fully endorse the idea that Ed conjured mer!Stede up because of the persistent hope Ed so admires in Stede. Just as Ed's internal Hornigold pushes him off a cliff, Ed's internal Stede reminds him that he is capable of feeling something other than pain, and that there is reason to hope his life will not always look as bleak as it has been recently.

In this moment, though, before Ed comes up for air and life begins again, Ed goes to Izzy with a loaded gun. Why Izzy and not Fang or Archie? I think Ed sees Izzy as the QAR crew member with both the most reason to kill him and the most reason to talk him out of wanting to die, due to a combination of toxic masculinity and what I see as frustrated romantic obsession. In the "Izzy probably cares enough to kill me" column:

s1e10: Izzy threatens mutiny: "I serve Blackbeard, not Edward. Edward had better watch his fucking step."

s2e1: Izzy blames the "fucked" atmosphere aboard the QAR on Ed's "feelings for Stede Bonnet." Ed hasn't talked about those feelings because that's not the relationship he has with this crew. From Ed's perspective, Izzy is publicly calling him out for not having rid himself of those feelings. Which means somehow Ed hasn't watched his fucking step enough, despite throwing himself into raiding. Izzy's threat from the end of s1 still echoes.

s2e2: Izzy's gunshot wound has gone septic. Even if he survives having had his leg removed? Izzy lashed out at Ed at the end of s1 for being soft. He's got a very calvinist understanding of where human worth comes from, not just incompatible with a disability rights framework but also incompatible with accommodation and support from the crew. All Izzy's emotions convert to anger.

In the "Izzy might try to convince me not to die" column:

s1e10: The torture scene in s2e6 established in canon something that many viewers intuited at the end of season 1, when Ed lashed out and choked Izzy, and then again when he fed Izzy a toe: Izzy finds pain arousing. Izzy manifestly gets some satisfaction out of Blackbeard's attention even-- and maybe especially-- when the terms of that attention are painful for him. (It doesn't seem to matter to Izzy whether Ed enjoys causing him pain or whether the dynamic between them compounds Ed's suffering.)

s2e1: Izzy told Ed-- in a voice that made it absolutely clear how much he resented saying it-- "I have had ... love for you."

I think Ed's presentation in most of s2e2 sets up the scene where Ed hands Izzy the gun and plays on both his anger and his love. The Ed of "Red Flags" is simultaneously Peak Outrageous and Peak Hot, and that's why many of us reacted to the stills the studio released from this episode with variations on "s/he's so gender," long before we knew the context in which those stills would appear. Ed's wearing the leather that's his longtime crew's shared signature, calling to mind the history he shares with Izzy. But he's also wearing the pearls and the dangly sword earring, and he's got soft strands of hair framing his face that an early 2000s sorority girl would envy. And, well, we know that a silk gown to Izzy is like a Red Flag to a bull: he seems to find femme touches in menswear infuriating.

Seriously bbg, wild to say to someone who's romantically obsessed with you that *anything* they did in your dream last night was good for you, even if it was murder.

Ultimately, Izzy refuses both to kill Ed and to talk him out of dying. He acts neither on his femmephobia nor on his need for Blackbeard to stay around and satisfy some fraction of his obsession. "Clean up your own mess," from the person on the QAR who both loves and hates Ed the most, must sound to him like "You're not worth the poison." And coming from someone whose tolerance for poison is astonishingly high? Ouch.

[theinternetisfulloftrash]

So... uh...yeah...

I made a Stiles sandwich with Derek last night in Slumberland 😏

How did everyone else sleep?

[braisedhoney]

CAPTAIN!! THERE'S A HUGE WORM THING OVER IN STORAGE PLEASE HELP

~#225

OKAY UH there's a fifty-fifty shot on that thing either being something that breached containment or the good doctor pulling a stupid prank again. if it's goopy and looks vaguely like sentient spilled oil it's probably the doctor, but either way try not to engage with it until that's less of a random guess. i'll lock down the doors and have the area scanned. hopefully whatever it is it doesn't damage the cargo in the meantime, bc dammit we just GOT those shipments!

[keii]

“you’re a long way from home, huh?”

[bumblingbabooshka]

[Not] Weird Kids

[maxkirin]

remember how i said i had 9 days left to finish this roleplaying game? well my dumbass decided to do nanowrimo this year so i now have even LESS time

whoa am i being promoted to captain of the S.S. Crunchtime? such an honor ✨⚓✨

[paeinovis]

IM GOING TO FUCKING KILL COX INTERNET

[deaderthandoubledead]

Well Izzy, apparently you do.

“...he [Blackbeard] grounded his ship, and then, as if it had been done undesignedly, and by accident; he orders Hands’s sloop to come to his assistance, and get him off again, which he endeavouring to do, ran the sloop on shore near the other, and so were both lost.” -  A General History of the Pyrates by Captain Charles Johnson

[medievalthymes]

miss the days you could show up on the docks without a penny to your name, wringing your hat in your hands and the captain of the ship would squint down at you and begrudgingly yell, “eh well, get on lad we need an extra set of hands” and you’d go aboard and set off to god knows where, but you wouldn’t care as long as it was away from here. it would be hard work — harder than anything you’d ever done in your life — your hands would turn raw and callused from the long days of labour at sea. but slowly you would earn the respect of not only the crew but the first mate and one day when the rest of the crew goes ashore to spend their pay, you and the first mate stay back to watch the ship and suddenly he’s looking at you like the sea isn’t the only thing he worships anymore.

[ltwilliammowett]

The wardroom on board the HMS Trincomalee (1817), by 70023venus2009

Here set with the usual china tableware for officers

[fashionsfromhistory]

Sailor's Slops

1600s-1700s

Extremely rare survival of a shirt and breeches, called slops, as worn by sailors from the late 16th through to the 18th centuries. This unique set of loose, practical sailor’s clothing reveals life aboard ship. They are made of very strong linen to endure the hard, rough work. There is tar across the front from hauling ropes. The breeches are heavily mended and patched, which the sailor would have done himself.

The Museum of London (ID: 53.101/1b)

[top5series]

Tumblr Top 5 - Episode 4: Ships

Put your life vests on, batten down the hatches, and prepare yourself to be absolutely soaked as Ryan Bergara, Shane Madej, and Coppy dive into the sopping wet world of ships.

Stay aboard for an exclusive sneak peek of Tumblr Special Event, Total Ship Show, with guests Michael Vlamis and Tyler Blackburn from The CW’s Roswell, New Mexico.

[pirate-scum1741]

"No man will be a sailor, who has contrivance

enough to get himself into a jail; for being in

a ship is being in a jail, with the chance

of being drowned.."

Samuel Johnson, The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides.

[bumblingbabooshka]

Neelix really said “Oh me? King of the garbage pile? No no no....there’s nothing you could offer me....unless you had....water??” this fucking GUY <3 

[reddragon-cowboy]

[ooc: tag drop]