Insteading

Small things about Ed that make me take video game poison damage irl

THANK YOU for having "punished for sneaking" on your list. That has been bugging me for the last year.

“Of Monsters & Milkmen” by Quaintly Fig

Rated T

Ed & Stede meet at one of their favorite restaurants. On Halloween, Ed asks Stede to go to the carnival with him on a date. This is their Halloween date night, and it is very sweet 🧡🖤

This was written for the Our Flag Means Trick-or-Treat Halloween charity zine & the Somethin' Witchy Afoot event with the prompt:

🎃 Someone is at a carnival.

🎃 A costume & kissing are involved.

🎃 Story element: a first date

Fic link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/60545299

Chapter 13 is here! And a whole day early 🙀 only one more chapter after this 💛

Ed. His name is Ed.

Sometimes I do get annoyed by fanon reactions to Ed, and then I remember that the OFMD writers were very careful to ward off the already-silly "Ed is abusive!!" takes by having other characters say to Stede "do you think Ed is going to murder/hurt you" and then having Stede respond every time with "wtf what is wrong with you, no??" And then, of course, Stede (who textually knows and understands Ed best) is right about that, and once he's feeling safe and supported again Ed is literally just hanging out being a little kitty. So I guess RIP to everyone who thinks Ed sucks but I actually paid attention to the show and I'm different <3

LITERALLY like

Ed in his mind: extremely quick to anger and responds with violence at the drop of a hat

Ed irl: will let someone tackle him to the ground and will literally just cower about it and not lift a finger to defend himself, won't even yell back that this guy's a dick until he's rowed his little boat out of retaliation range

psst you ever think about how ed doing violence against hornigold even inside his own imagination isn't triggered by hornigold being aggro at ed himself, it's only when hornigold brings up stede?

and actually that's the pattern for EVERY time we see ed lose his temper to the point of becoming directly personally violent outside the context of a raid, every single time the last straw is when they bring up or threaten somebody else ed loves? his mom, "pining for his boyfriend," "your feelings for stede bonnet," the soldiers reading the letter, etc?

and in that context probably part of the point of the pop-pop scene is to establish that there's actually NO level of threat to ed himself and his own physical safety that drives him to violence, not even a situation any normal person would view as pure self-defense, as long as pop-pop doesn't threaten someone else he's perfectly safe?

i just think that's interesting. in light of, you know, everything.

I agree with all this, except I think we do see it once - with Lucius. Because Lucius isn't a threat to anyone, and I think it's interesting that it's the only time in the entire series we see him respond with violence to something that isn't clearly a threat.

I know there's been discourse about this, but I think it's notable in the context of this discussion. In this case I think it is to defend himself? But is it because Lucius saw Ed vulnerable? Is it because Lucius would make it too hard to be the Kraken (and thus put Ed at risk?) Is it because he was present for his vulnerable moments with and about Stede?

It's a moment that breaks a clearly established pattern for Ed

One of the reasons that moment is so terrifying is because it’s such a stark break for Ed—he becomes the monster he thinks he already is. It also has the flavor of “the fire killed those guys”—he does not murder Lucius directly, he pushes him off the ship (“the water killed that guy”).

himbo this, bimbo that. in my day there was mambo, and there were five of them.

Ink with reed pen and brush on mixed media paper

I’ve started posting a new WIP for the last day of AU-gust ‘Even Nicher AUs’ featuring ASMRtist Stede Bonnet and a very tired Ed Teach.

https://archiveofourown.org/works/58598500/chapters/149301886

Oooh look it’s Chapter 2

(In which we learn a bit more about these two weirdos)

Chapter 3 is up!

(Sorry I’m dragging out them meeting a teeeeny bit longer)

Wahey it's Chapter 4!!!

(I think they might meet in this chapter?? Exciting!!)

Rhys Darby talking about Uproar. [x]

Just posted this little bit of S1 canon-compliant fluff, set after episode 5. Ed gives Stede a harpsichord lesson, and Stede tries to make sense of his developing feelings for Ed.

Read on AO3

Snippet under the cut

I think we all need some soup right now. Reblog to give prev a bowl of their favourite soup.

I think about the songs at the end of S1E4 and S2E1 all the time.

At the end of S1E4, Ed turns away from Izzy after laying out his "plan" to kill Stede and steal his identity. We get Caetano Veloso's "The Empty Boat," and the lyrics from this song that hit me are:

From the stern to the bow Oh, my boat is empty Yes, my heart is empty From the hole to the how

Ed's smile drops. He looks tired, uncertain, unhappy.

At the end of S2E1, Ed gives his impossible bird speech while turned away from Frenchie. Our song this time is Francis Bebey's "Pygmy Love Song."

My heart, my heart is full of love I have nothing else My heart, my heart is full of love And all is for you

This time, Ed's near tears. He's miserable, but so much more emotive than he was in season one.

I mean! In both scenes, Ed turns his back on his first mate and we see emotions on his face that he doesn't want anyone to see.

His heart is empty.

His heart is full of love.

I just think about these two scenes and songs and where Ed is in S1E4 versus S2E1 a lot, that's all.

(Second gif is by blakbonnet, btw. I don't know what Tumblr's doing.)

*girls when it is literally eating away at their psyche* whatever

Hana-Rawhiti Kareariki Maipi-Clarke, the youngest MP in Aotearoa, starts a haka to protest the first vote on a bill reinterpreting the 1840 Treaty of Waitangi

Goes insanely hard

To provide further context from what I understand the bill wanted to take the rights guaranteed to the Maori in said treaty and expand them to all New Zealand citizens. The issue with that is that it sort of defeats the point of the protections of the treaty.

The Treaty of Waitangi is not even that good of a treaty. But it is better than any treaty the Crown signed with indigenous peoples

And it absolutely was not meant to be

The treaty as written screws over Māori, and was written in Te Reo Māori and English with deliberately misleading translations to Te Reo Māori. I'm not an expert by any means, but basically the Te Reo Māori version has clauses that promise much more independence and sovereignty, while the English version does not

However

The English version promises them rights as Citizens

From what I remember from University 10+ years ago, this clause, this sentence, was added last minute by the writer of the treaty. Like, right before the big signing at Waitangi.

And the Crown was PISSED

Because now they had a legally binding document that promised, in their own language, to treat Māori with the same rights as they would English. Which was absolutely not the goal. The goal was to trick Māori into signing away their lands and that honestly still did happen. The treaty was not a good faith proposal by the Engliah.

But its still better than anyone else got, and it's better than no treaty. And because nowadays we can't just ignore the Te Reo Māori side of the treaty, the government's of the past few decades have been honouring Māori sovereignty, honouring their stewardship of the land, and undoing a lot of the bad faith "sales" or straight up stolen land.

Except our current fuck nuggets, who want to make Te Reo Māori an endangered language again, and steal back that land because they want to mine on it and sell it and they hate that Māori stewardship is so environmentally focused and not profit driven.

So, in a way, the current government is more true to the intentions of the Crown who initially came up with the treaty.

But since those guys were colonising bastards, I don't see "honouring" them as anything good.

Even with criticism of the treaty, without it, Māori would lose a lot of protections to their lands, their culture, their language, and as a country we would go backwards to a time when they were even more discriminated against

Toitū te tiriti

Uphold the treaty