teeny-tiny-revenge - Tumblr blog

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Endearing things about Sim!Ed and Sim!Stede that keep making me smile, in no particular order:

This is Sim!Stede. (It took me a while to find suitably slutty shirts for him.) Who is he looking at like that?

Sim!Ed of course. They have been sitting there (the bar in their open space kitchen/living room) for a while, completely absorbed in chatting each other up in the cute simlish gibberish language. You can just sit one of them down somewhere and the other is going to join and talk to him for hours. They will ignore anything else.

- In a hilarious parallel to canon, after Ed confessed his crush to Stede and told him he's into guys in general and into Stede specifically, Stede went on a while like "this is my best friend Ed who's great" (they were already best friends at that time). Sim!Ed was sitting there making heart eyes across the breakfast table (because OMG they were roommates) and Sim!Stede was like "gotta tell my best friend Ed how much I like spending time with him and talking about hobbies!" 😂

Then Stede caught on, and decided to make up for the delay by being very into the wooing bit. Like, he'd get up, and immediately think of wanting to kiss Ed. No thoughts, only Ed.

- He's not alone there, Ed is equally Stede-focused. I had them spend a date at a local park early on. They had barbecue, then wandered around. Stop to chat with each other. Some random female NPC walks by. Takes one look at Sim!Ed and apparently decides he's her new crush (not blaming her, he's adorable, probably irresistible if you are another little virtual person), so she stops and starts hitting on him. Unfortunately for her, Sim!Ed is a) gay and b) currently busy staring at Sim!Stede, who just offered him a rose. Sim!Ed has little hearts floating around his little head and only eyes for Stede. He doesn't even notice the NPC trying to hit on him. Sim!Stede notices her, but instead of saying anything to her takes Sim!Ed by the waist and dips him in a kiss. NPC girl throws a fit and stalks off. Sim!Ed has failed to notice anything about that. He still has hearts floating around his pretty little head, and absolutely zero thoughts inside it. 💖

- It took like what felt a ridiculously short time until they were both completely obsessed with each other. One of them is doing something, no matter what it is, and chances are he will randomly think of the other one and how much he needs to flirt or just hang out with him. They see each other and bam, their mood goes right to either very happy or directly to flirty.

At this point they frequently just stop in the middle of an activity if the other happens to walk by. Yesterday Stede was supposed to make pancakes for breakfast. He got up before Ed (he usually does), so I figured that means he's in charge of breakfast, so I sent him to make pancakes. He got out a little bowl and mixed the batter. The next step would have been taking that to the stove and getting a pan to make the actual pancakes in. But, alas, Ed got up, and wandered by the kitchen on his way to the bathroom, in a purple robe and fluffy socks, looking really soft and cute, and Stede forgot about the pancakes entirely. They made out and chatted for half an hour, and I was sitting there like "Stede, your pancakes! And Ed really needs to pee!" 😂

- They also have really cute little character quirks I didn't set or expect to be there in the game at all. Stede has a bookworm trait, so his love of reading is understandable. But he's also obsessed with his phone (kinda more than with books, tbh). It's the only thing that can mildly distract him away from his one-track-Ed-focus mindset. He gets that thing out mid-conversation. He doesn't stop talking to Ed, he just also scrolls his phone. (Ed also has a phone, but he only opens it when nothing else is going on.)

- Ed is a napper. Stede sleeps and naps when he has low energy, which is reasonable. Ed just likes naps? He doesn't even need to be tired. It's like he sees a vaguely suitable piece of furniture, asks "is anyone sleeping on that?" and doesn't wait for an answer. If you wonder where Ed is, chances are he'll be having a nap. In the bed in the middle of the day. On the small living room/library loveseat by the fireplace. On the. Park bench in the public area that borders their garden? Ed, you have so many nice napping spots at home!

He slept on all the couches in the house, on either side of the bed, on the pool loungers, on a random bench in the public area that borders his and Stede's garden... He's just a sleepy little guy.🥹 (Sometimes I just watch him for a while. It's so cute. Very peaceful. Blorbo simulator is going great, guys, I get to watch them be happy!)

- Ed loves bubble baths. When I first got them into their (then) little house, I got them both a shower and a tub. I sent them both to try out the bath and shower. So they know they have options. (Do you need to do that? Probably not, but I do it like that.) But when deciding to go wash up on their own, Stede takes a shower and is done with it. Ed only showers when told to. Ed has tried the bathtub once and fell in love with it. (I was actually a little bummed that Stede doesn't do that, because in my head canon!Ed and Stede are a bathtub queen for bathtub queen couple, but I'm not going to take away Sim!Stede's shower if he prefers that, who am I, an evil god?)

- Stede cheats at chess. Ed overall seems to like the chess set better, he plays with it by himself, too. Stede only plays video games unprompted lol. He plays chess with Ed when Ed invites him to. And then he distracts Ed by pointing at something behind him and when Ed turns to look he rearranges the pieces.

Ed, sweetie, don't look so confused, you are losing because your boyfriend is cheating!

Also I think that particular game of chess was foreplay for them. They were sitting there at the table, doing 90% flirty conversation and 10% chess playing. And immediately, unprompted, decided to fuck after. (I don't even know who won the game or if they completed it.)

I suppose the game went well enough? They don't look unhappy about the outcome. 😉

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❤️A little sketchy piece inspired by @piratecaptainscaptainpirates beautiful, sweet, soulful fic Any Port In A Storm ❤️

💕Perfect for a rainy day, make yourself a cup of tea (or a bowl of soup) and go read it! 💕

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ed wants to swan through a breezy meadow of tall grass in his bare feet so bad but there’s bugs in there and dirt and mud and pebbles that hurt when you step on them and when he complains to stede that maybe there should be a meadow WITHOUT any bugs or dirt or pebbles all stede says is “i think that’s called a carpet” and ed gets SO huffy

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nothing will make me nope out of a fic quicker than a bad Ed characterization. if he's written as extremely angry or violent or mean etc I'm exploding you with my mind. leave him alone! he's a sincere and kind and friendly guy who feels things so deeply and sincerely and people have got to stop being so fucking racist in their characterization because who even is this guy that some of these people are writing. sure as hell isn't Ed!

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Controversial opinion (?): the Kraken Era wasn’t all that dark.

There’s a whole lot of meta and fic out there that portray early season two Ed as a bloodthirsty, hyperviolent monster, and when that portrayal is challenged, the rebuttal is usually along the lines of, “I’m just doing what canon did. Did you even watch the show?”

I did watch the show, and honestly? I expected Ed to be so much worse than he was! When I see people say they didn’t think Ed did enough to redeem himself or that he went past the point of no return, I just… don’t understand.

I already went into this in my way-too-long meta about Ed and abuse, but I do think it bears repeating (in a shorter post) because it seems like Ed’s actions -- more than the actions of any other character -- are scrutinized and discussed outside of the context of, y’know… a comedy about pirates. There’s tons of casual violence in Our Flag Means Death. Sometimes the violence is even funny! 

So what does Ed actually do?

As far as I can remember (I’ve only seen season two a few of times, so correct me if I’ve missed something!), we see Ed directly harm someone twice in the first two episodes: first on the wedding boat, and then when he shoots Izzy in the leg. Kind of unimpressive numbers, yeah? Tbh, I'd expect more out of a heartbroken Blackbeard.

The first instance involves Ed shooting a man during a raid. That man has a sword through his chest before Ed fires, leading me to believe that Ed’s still following his season one pattern of keeping himself a step removed from murder (technically, the sword killed that guy). We also don’t see the murder happen; the man tumbles offscreen before Ed shoots. This makes the action less brutal. If the writers wanted us to be appalled by Ed’s violence, we would’ve gotten a graphic kill (or several).

And the second instance is Izzy. Ed shoots Izzy in the leg after he suggests that the shitty atmosphere is because of Ed’s feelings for Stede. Hot take, maybe, but I don’t think that was entirely out of line -- definitely not for a pirate captain whose first mate is acting out! Ed’s feelings for Stede are not the only problem; a significant chunk of the problem is Izzy. Izzy called in the navy and led to their capture and, more importantly, Izzy bullied Ed back into the Blackbeard persona. This is what Izzy said he wanted.

We’re also told that Ed has taken more of Izzy’s toes between seasons. This isn’t cool -- bosses definitely shouldn’t be asking for their employees’ toes -- but there is a precedent for it: in season one, Ed told Stede that he used to feed people their toes for a laugh (yuck). For a laugh. This, to me, implies that it’s not a huge deal. It’s certainly not completely unexpected pirate behavior, and it seems more lenient than, like, a keelhauling or a whipping. I think both of those things would've felt way more gruesome and dark.

As far as violent actions go, that’s not a lot. Like, numerically.

Things get darker in S2E2 when Ed becomes increasingly desperate for someone, anyone, to send him to doggy heaven. He’s unhinged and working his way up to a murder-suicide before he’s stopped, but he doesn’t lay a hand on anyone. He orders Archie and Jim to fight to the death. He ignores anonymous crewmembers as they’re swept overboard in the storm. This is bad! It’s self-destructive and selfish! But violent? Monstrous? I don’t really think so.

In my opinion, the worst thing Ed does is force his crew to do violence for him -- not because it’s violence (again, they’re pirates), but because the violence hurts them. THIS is what traumatizes them! Their trauma flashbacks are scenes of them hurting others, not of Ed hurting them directly. Ed didn’t physically torture his crew (with the exception of Izzy, and that’s complicated). His crime was driving them to do one violent raid after another, killing and plundering without any joy or theatrics. Ed feels trapped in the role of Blackbeard -- the role that he’s been desperate to escape -- and, in his heartbreak, he opts to trap his crew with him. 

Yeah, Ed is messed up in the first two episodes of season two. I don’t blame the crew for almost killing him; it’s what needed to be done. I think that Jim, Archie, Frenchie, and Fang had every right to want Ed gone after Stede’s return. 

But I don’t think that Ed was a super violent monster who tortured his crew and murdered his way through his breakup. He engages in very little onscreen violence, and the person that most of his violence is focused on -- Izzy -- is the same person who told him to be violent. I think that anyone who says that Ed’s actions in the first part of season two are extremely dark is either looking at them out of context, misremembering what actually happened and just recalling the dark tone, or working with some kind of motive.

In conclusion: Ed is a man who, at his very darkest, was still operating pretty firmly within the bounds of "stuff pirates do" (but not stuff Ed has historically done, presumably).

Also look at him. Thank you.

GIF by unearthlydust

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Every Ed Teach Scene (21c/?)

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sunday morning, I've been up since 4am 💀

logging into tumblr on my phone was actually a rly good idea because now I can check in quickly and can avoid my laptop if I don't feel like using it. keeping notifications off tho, I have them turned off for all social media on my phone so I don't feel that compulsion to respond immediately 😂

anyway I have gotten rly into rings over the past few months, there are my current ones, the tentacles 🐙 and trident 🔱 are obv for Ed n Stede, and I wasn't rly sure if it's Cool to wear silver and gold at the same time, so I got a definitely cool silver/gold combo ring set for the other hand to make it look cohesive ☀️🌙

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co-captain cuddles

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Ed is just. He’s so happy. He’s fucking THRILLED to be back together with his boyfriend. It’s got him saying nearly incoherent shit in a room full of people. He’s rambling about cats in a life or death situation. That man is delirious with happiness after a lifetime of suffering.

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Thinking about Ed in the gravy basket and his three reasons for living.

Thinking about the glimpses we get of Ed as a child; living in a cold and drafty shack with insufficient clothing, eating whatever they could afford to, with a dad who punished him for being "soft" (no doubt standing in for a much stronger word).

Ed's formative years he was always cold, hungry and being told he would never have love.

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I love how big Ed's emotions are.

I love that he feels things so intensely. When he's excited, his whole body is bouncy and wiggly, his gestures big and his entire face lighting up. When Stede agreed to run away with him in s1e9, the way he has to squirm around and look over his shoulder because he just can't contain the excitement breaks my heart. When he's upset, his pursed lips and his crinkly eyebrows make him look the most pitiful anyone has ever looked ever. You can tell why he had to have the beard - the guy's face is an open book!

I love that he has such a big, vulnerable, loving heart. I love that he'll do anything for love, and he gets tears in his eyes when he argues with his boyfriend, and he knew he had to go make sure Stede was okay after Calypso's Birthday. I can just imagine him as a new captain, having to carefully hide his facial expressions so he could only let out his joy or fear or heartbreak where no one could see him, because he just feels everything so much.

And, most of all, I love that now he's safe to feel things, and show his emotions with all their intensity, and he never has to worry about being judged for it again.

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🖤🤍

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also if that's how ed talks sober imagine what happens after getting some wine in him. tipsy stede giving tipsy ed physically impossible heart eyes while ed talks for 2 hours straight.

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i love everything about you

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like i know we already know this but they’re best friends. yes they’re in love and wildly attracted to each other and are probably having weird sex (affectionate) right now but before all of that existed and after all of that is gone they are and always will be best friends who just want to talk and play together