Westernredcedar

Bind suggestion number 1!

Every rule I had by @thewesternredcedar suggested by @running-rabbit.

I’m getting better at these smaller books (this one's a quarto). They have literally less room for error, after all. But I love this one. The cover gave me some fits (this was my second attempt) but I really like how it came out.

Go read this angsty little when-harry-met-sally-esque gem of a fic here!

Body font: Coelacanth Section dividers: DJ Kitchen Texting: Articulat

Bookcloth: Dubletta in Teal/Black from Colophon

Oh my god oh my god oh my god!!!! Hyperventilating!! What an honor and a joy!! I am all teary actually!

I was missing some more interactions between Ed and the crew before the finale so I wanted to draw a few bonding moments and @cocaptainsinlove suggested some !

i remember when in the flesh was cancelled and kieren and simon’s story never got to conclude - ended on a shitty cliffhanger, at least ofmd didn’t - and in the end, dominic mitchell (creator) ended up tweeting the moments and scenes he’d had planned. and now, a decade after it was cancelled, he has a gofundme for a fantasy season 3 script so that the story can at least finish for these characters.

it’s a consolation and not at all what anyone would ideally choose, but i hope if renewal efforts don’t work (touch wood, gotta have a little life in us yet) then we can at least get some kind of official ending - whether it’s in script form, or a book, anything from david & co. yes, it would never quite hit the same as seeing it on-screen, but if it got to that point i’d take it and support a writer and creator’s efforts to tell their story any way they can.

Yeah a show that touched a deep place in our hearts that reawoke a passion for life in many of us is over, but you fuckers forgot one very important thing

It’s Calypso’s motherfucking birthday

I’m gonna need everyone to reblog this and raise a glass (metaphorically or not) to something you love about this show or this weird little corner of the internet.

I love how unapologetically OFMD allows itself to be camp and queer without cringing away from it or feeling the need to dilute how earnest it is! They put our leading man in a mermaid tail and it was fuckin gorgeous.

It’s the most SINCERE and loving show I’ve ever seen - and on top of that it’s also SO FUNNY. God, I love every second of it 💕 *raises a glass*

It bothers me to see folks complaining that Ed can’t possibly be abused or feel fear or make mistakes because that would make him weak, and obviously he is not weak.

Ed is the big, tattooed, badass pirate. That’s a part of who he is. He’s a brilliant sailor and tactician; he understands drama and how to use fear. He can put on his armor and emerge from the sea and use the violence that he understands intimately to fight for the people he loves.

He has also been craving softness and tenderness for years. That’s what his story is about—he's been trapped in this hypermasculine role, likely originally to protect himself and to fit into the society that would absolutely break him if he was anything else. But from the moment we see him as a child, he's wanted the silk. He wants that gentle hand that will touch his heart and tell him that fine things belong to him, and that those fine things are not shameful or embarrassing. He’s scared of becoming the Kraken; he’s traumatized, he’s afraid of being killed or hurt, and the only way he knows to stop that is to be the meanest, biggest, baddest pirate he can be. He flinches when people get too close to his face. He’s afraid to show his emotions because what if others think he’s weak and use that against him?

Ed's softness is right below the surface. Stede just has to talk to him for half an hour to bring it out—hell, the gentleness with which Ed treats Stede even before that reveals his softness. And that's not "weakness"—that’s care and compassion that toxic masculinity tries to couch as weakness.

Ed’s entire arc uses the concept of how exhausting it is being constantly STRONG, when strength means not having emotions other than anger or showing any sign of vulnerability. He shows that exhaustion the first time we meet him. Everyone depends on him; he can't show fear because then everyone else will be scared too. Not even being able to talk about your fears or even the things that make you happy. He can’t even be joyful! That just shows that he’s crazy!

He and Stede become co-captains almost immediately, even if they don’t call themselves that, because suddenly the weight can come off of Ed and he can indeed be creative and let his mind work again.

Ed is told that all the things he wants are weakness, and all the things that Stede represents are weakness. He has to be violent. He has to destroy the things he loves. And he has, in the past. He’s hurt people and he’s been cruel to people and he’s destroyed things and other people. He’s been shaped by violence and told that’s all he is. He can’t be in love and he can’t be soft and he can’t even have fun—having fun is weakness too.

And the show clearly develops that the things he’s told about strength, about what "being a man" means, is abuse! He’s being abused—both by a culture and by an individual (yes, by Izzy) who is himself trapped in that culture. He can’t love anything; he has to kill it, to show that he’s still Blackbeard. And constantly having to kill those things is destroying him bit by bit because he thinks that’s all he is and all he deserves.

Ed is not "weak." Ed has survived in a world where he's been told everything gentle in him is a weakness and that world has still failed to kill those things. It takes a few minutes of conversation with a man who understands that experience to bring those things out and for him to see that he might be safe with this person.

Ed decides to live. He decides to overcome all the bullshit that has been thrown at him, including by people who claim to love him, and to say that it's not true he's a monster and he's unlovable. He decides to shed the persona that has shielded him because it's now trapping him, and to put it on again in order to protect the man he loves. He decides to trust Stede again. He decides to tell Stede he loves him.

He's exceptionally brave.

— In his own time. Would you go back to yours? If you could? — Why? Would you miss me? — Yes.

Wee John wanting all the good workplace gossip

OUR FLAG MEANS DEATH | Impossible Birds (s02e01)

a gift to @bizarrelittlemew 💗

Started this little series last week and just added a second chapter this morning. I'm deep in my feels about season 2 of OFMD, and getting a little of it out through writing some missing scenes. Currently focused on the time between episodes 4 and 5 as the crew and Ed and Stede work on forgiveness. I plan to keep adding to this as I go!

Completed this little series this evening! Had so much fun jumping around to different crew member’s pov, though in the end my brain just loves to live in Ed’s headspace. Anyway, hope to do some more missing scenes for season 2 soon!

I'm rewatching in bits, and: When Frenchie reports for his First Mate-ly duty and Ed tells him about the birds that never land, it's kind of a devastating repetition of Ed and Izzy's conversation about clouds last season. Ed tells the truth in metaphors and stories and games, all modes of communication that Izzy "everything is just one thing" Hands was utterly incapable of comprehending. So Izzy didn't get what Ed was trying to say about the clouds.

But Frenchie is a whole other story - he might be the straight-up smartest person on board barring Ed, he's a canny little shit, and he knows a metaphor when he hears one. He would have gotten that a cloud can be a frankfurter, and he instantly understands that the birds aren't just birds.

It's just another layer of sorrow on top of all the rest in this scene, because Ed found someone who gets him, and he is in absolutely no position to appreciate it.