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honeybleed · 23 hours

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ARCHIVED.

I’ve had a lot of thought about this but I figured it’s time. I joined Tumblr not as somebody new because I’ve been on this app before. But as a writing blog inspired by amazing black authors who wrote for anime that I loved. I’ve given those girls their flowers and there was a real sense of community.

But I’d say the first two months of 2024 on Tumblr was the roughest. I can take accountability, I know I have not handled things the greatest. I have a pattern of fall outs and I have an abrasive personality. I have opinions that differ and I’m stubborn. That being said, the way I was treated by a lot of authors on here in the name of “kinks” and “dark content” when I merely said minors shouldn’t be involved with adult fantasies on here is and was unacceptable.

A lot of the people I disagreed with regarding that issue following Ezra and Tee either blocked me completely and probably sent around my user to their friends so I’m blocked by a LOT of authors on here because they think I’m a purist who hates dark content and it’s not a nice feeling. There’s really no point of me even being here if I’m treated like some social pariah and people want nothing to do with me.

Lack of engagements which I know everybody experiences on here especially now fuels this too. I’m bitter, I know I write well but I notice I’m always the one trying to encourage other authors.

I don’t feel happy on here. Writing has always been my hobby but the fact I can’t even put anons on because I get a slew of slurs is not okay. What I answered differed greatly from what was truly in my inbox. I had a lot, and the humiliation of people tormenting my mutuals about me was just…yeah. Nobody can say my writing is bad or my blog is ugly. Nobody debates or argues with me. It’s straight to dehumanisation by calling me slurs. Like I’ve said before, as a child I experienced extreme racism in England so I guess slurs shouldn’t bother me.

But I guess what gets me is that everybody on here pretends to be all “uwu baby soft me and my blorbo” with the kaomojis and pastel pink but I know it’s mostly likely them. There was even a subpost regarding a post from Monica talking about the racial abuse we suffered and a majority of popular authors were laughing in the comments.

This is not about dark content. This is not about aging up because frankly i don’t care. i filtered out certain characters names n just went about my day, I spoke my peace about how I choose not to do that so do not use me as some soap box about that cos I’m not fighting battles cos people can’t do that themselves.

It’s not all negative. I love every friend I’ve made! I’m grateful for all the people who liked my work and made works I love. I’m happy I met so many people, I’ve laughed with them. In all the fall outs I’ve been in, I still have a certain degree of love for people I no longer talk to. If you want my disc just dm, I’ll still be around to read!

Deuces! I had fun!

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knowlesian · 2 years

Text

okay: i’ve done the toe scene from several thematic angles already, but i think a more granular text read is worth doing, because there are some very understandable misinterpretations of this scene floating about that rely on personal feelings and real world standards vs what the text gives us.

now, to be clear about something that feels... sort of obvious, but i will say anyway: when viewed in real life terms, the toe scene is very different. it’s bad to sneak up on people and cut off their toe in the night and make them eat said toe.

like, super really bad. for many reasons. we should not do such things, i do not endorse them. that’s legally and morally wrong and also, gross. yucky disgusting, in point of fact.

but you have to meet fiction where it’s at to analyze it from a ‘what’s the text trying to convey, what’s going on in-world’ level.

and in ofmd’s world, stede wasn’t super phased about ed’s face/off plan, lucius whacked jim in the head with a big branch trying to run away and then didn’t really bat an eyelash at jim stuffing him in a box and planning to murder him, etc. this is a world of outsized comical things happening, some of them violent. it’s like gonzo getting stretched on the rack in muppet treasure island— if we take that as the real world equivalent and go ‘gonzo is secretly traumatized, even if he’s grinning and yelling POOOOODLEY POODLEY POODLEY!!!’, it’s missing the specific rules the story is playing by.

we have to hold the standards of the text in place when it’s not the ‘i know this isn’t canon’s take, but this is how i want to play with the paper dolls anyway as is my right’ headcanon lane. which is not to devalue said lane— love me some of that lane, but it is a different lane.

now, all that said: within canon, we are not meant to be like ‘yay ed! good job! this is a thing we should root for and a good choice! do it more, this is actually good for anybody involved!’ it’s a choice ed makes in full possession of his faculties, and it is a bad one.

however: the toe scene doesn’t come out of nowhere, and the text does not set it up as a method of real punishment or act of singular brutality.

in e9, ed says he’s tired of “making some poor bloke eat his own toes as a laugh.” and drinking all day. and biting the heads off turtles. you know! just normal stuff. (he also says he wants to be just edward, which implies those activities are not what he considers just being himself which is sort of beside the point here, but a very deft piece of writing that i love and wanted to shout out.)

this show is very, very careful with wording in important moments, even while they allowed for an amazing amount of very cool improv to breathe in between those moments. arguing for a lack of intentionality in random areas seems to be a little bit of an odd stance— we all seem to agree they were very careful and thoughtful in general.

so ed tells us there: cutting off multiple toes and making somebody eat them was something that happened enough he brought it up alongside something as commonplace as drinking all day/turtle head mastication, and it was considered ‘a laugh’.

now, i’m with stede (and the overall narrative) when i say where’s the laugh in that? once again: i do not endorse the cutting off of toes. only you can prevent weird toe crimes, by not fucking doing them.

but e9 contextualizes this within the world of ofmd for us. when ed was hiding in plain sight under the mantle and then the legend of blackbeard, he cut off toes for a laugh. it seems like he never actually liked it that much via ‘poor bloke’, but either way the text has told us: blackbeard cut off toes and made people eat them, casual-like and often enough it’s mentioned in the same breath as going on a bender. the text reaffirms this in specific through ed in e9 and in general in e8 through jack.

so, that leads me to izzy. who has lived with and served under blackbeard for years, and who tells us he was initially attracted to that legend when he mentions becoming ed’s first mate in e4.

izzy says he was “honored to work for the legendary blackbeard. the most brilliant sailor i had ever met.”

again, the wording is precise: izzy just told us he first met blackbeard. the legendary blackbeard, to be exact, and the most brilliant sailor izzy had ever met.

so when they met ed was already a brilliant sailor. a legend with a name already made and established, one izzy was attracted to and wanted to work for.

izzy is not so hot at defining his subjective emotional realities or those of the people around him (or... noticing them happening at all) but we see no evidence he is incapable of recalling general timeline of empirical events— in fact, he accurately assesses the passage of literal time as a plot point but misreads the emotional room over and over as well in the same function, so the show is careful with this as they are careful with just about everything.

so izzy wanted to work for a legend. the text tells us so, and i want to be understanding about missing that subtlety in wording and wanting to create a backstory where ed and izzy built blackbeard together. in a vacuum, there’s nothing wrong with that! however, we don't live in a vacuum, we live in a society (tm), and giving izzy credit for ed’s past and his history and efforts unfortunately ends up unconsciously echoing some of the very same patterns the show is deconstructing by purposefully having izzy do that very thing.

because why would we think ed needed izzy to build blackbeard? on this show, of all shows, why would the text be implicitly arguing that ed needed a white man to help create his legend? that he was not smart and careful and talented enough to become the legendary blackbeard on his own, without izzy to guide his steps and keep him safe?

to be honest, on a less careful show, one that emulates old patterns instead of examining and then breaking them, aka ...most shows? i think that would be the story.

ofmd is much more self-aware, as far as i can tell. izzy tells us he wanted to work for a legend and a brilliant sailor; why would we not just believe the characters when they say ed became all that on his own, and izzy was drawn to the legend because ed is just that skilled despite any given limitation the world/his own mind or body puts on him?

that’s not a question i’m asking facetiously. there’s a reason ancient aliens-type shows and theories exist and those kind of people are very rarely like ‘i bet these ancient white people had no fucking idea what they were doing and needed aliens to teach them how to build their massive and technologically advanced civilizations’. sometimes they do argue that! i don't want to argue in bad faith, myself. it does happen on occasion that the accidental condescension gets spread around— but if you look at the bigger picture, there’s a clear pattern in which groups people find it hard to believe did anything impressive all on their own.

and again: i get missing the subtlety here, just like i get missing that fang’s izzy spewing out both ends anecdote is a set-up for a montezuma’s revenge/overall izzy is a metaphor colonizer stuff. i actually missed the montezuma joke myself on first watch, so i’m not out to scold anybody or to be like ‘fuck you for not knowing any of this already’; i’m just trying to point out the fly in the ointment, and hope people think deeper about this stuff before firing off a take that echoes these patterns on accident.

okay, all that said: back to the text and the toe itself.

it's very understandable to process the toe scene as a punishment. ed says threaten me again and more toes WILL BE TAKEN as he does it, which when removed from the larger context of eating toes tuesday being a regular thing in ed and thus also izzy’s old life, seems much more intense.

not to mention that’s how any normal human would react to what the fuck happens there. i myself would be HORRIFIED, once again i do not endorse non-consensual toe cannibalism and have no comment on any consensual versions other than ‘yeah, i read that hannibal fic too, and it was weird then hate to kink shame but i do not wish to have my toe cut off so i may consume it. please stop asking me about toe cannibalism as anything but thematic meat. this is a strange place to find myself in.’

but izzy is not us, the audience. izzy is a daddy moaning little nightmare. he wants to touch fire: he is the least healthy masochist on gay god’s green earth and the deep blue sea. he is weeeeeird about this shit and has never even heard of the acronym ss&c, let alone rack.

he is the sort of man who is like ED. BE A TOE CUTTING LEATHER DADDY. THAT IS WHAT IS COOL AND FUN FOR ALL OF US, NOBODY LOSES HERE. LOL EXCEPT ME! I LOSE A TOE, AND I MAKE IT EVEN WEIRDER WHEN I REFUSE TO BE ANYTHING BUT THRILLED ABOUT IT.

within the world ofmd created, they made sure to set up that Ye Olde Blackbearde cut off toes for a laugh. and one episode after they carefully gave us that precedent, izzy thrust a monstrous caricature of ed in his face and said: this is blackbeard. by no logical leap could izzy possibly be ignorant of the forced toe-eating, regularly done as just a fun little game to play at sea, just like drinking all day, or biting the heads off turtles. not if he’s known ed for years and was attracted to the legend of a man who did shit like that.

so izzy is saying to ed: be this guy again. the narrative made sure we know part of that is being the guy who casually cuts off toes for a laugh.

so when izzy smiles that big ridden hard and put away wet smile and proclaims hey la, hey la my boyfriend’s back? he's being sincere. he wanted ed to be the guy who cuts off toes like it’s not a thing again, and edward did that for him. he’s been reassured that the old blackbeard is himself again, and that’s why he says so.

(and that’s why canon set it up so that we would know: this toe thing is an old, established bit, which was not done as anything but a fun little prank.)

now, if anybody wants to write fic in the real world logic applies au, i will not poop upon that party. that’s not my issue, in part because i also think there’s utility to saying yeah but counterpoint, canon: i do what i want.

my angle is that if we talk textual analysis and actual canon, we have to meet stories and characters on their level and look at the world from their perspective.

ed and izzy (and jack, which is a lot of his narrative utility in e8 beyond just throwing a wrench in the works and setting up the arc with the navy and thus endgame, fuuuuuck me running these writers are just ridiculously good) both reaffirm this, in their separate ways.

textually, the person who most hates the toe scene is ed. izzy said be the guy cut toes off again; ed said he doesn’t want to do that. that’s the text itself, no extrapolation.

now, having said all that: i hope and assume izzy will come to realize this shit is very weird and bad behavior, knock it off and then course correct.

to own my personal bias, my activist fantasy is not that men like izzy— or my personal izzys, for values of people who actively hurt me in specific— suffer or that they feel exactly what they made me feel. my fantasy is they wake up one morning, look at me, and go well fuck. i’ve been kinda shitting the bed here, huh? i’m gonna fight for my natural allies now, not against them. solidarity!!!! then i am validated, they can become happier people, and there’s one more of Us and one less of Them. the better world i’m fighting for ultimately wins, in that fantasy.

i’m not saying that’s where anyone else has to be, to be clear; it’s just where i’m at.

so when i try to read the tea leaves on the potential of that being what happens with izzy, i could 100000000% be reading in what i would like to see and not what is there. that’s always a thing that could happen, on any given prediction, and to say otherwise would be silly.

however: when it comes to the toe and its precedent and context, that’s not attempting to suss out future movement. that’s reading the text with my own biases acknowledged and set to the side as much as possible, and trying to see what the characters of this world, with this world’s rules feel about what happened vs what i would feel, in my world with my rules.

because, i must reiterate to close: oh GOD, i do not endorse the nonconsensual cutting off of toes. just don’t do it.

tldr: it’s important to recognize the tropes we might be reinforcing on accident, and though the toe scene is horrifying real world terms in terms of how izzy the character in the text’s world processes it, the toe is ed coming through for him and being the blackbeard of the old days— who we were purposefully told used to regularly cut off toes and feed them to people as a laugh.

...and just. because i think i might have to, just one final time for good measure: please don’t cut off people’s toes. nothing in this piece is an endorsement of doing that in our real world. it's bad.

#our flag means death #like: look. please do not cut off toes i am begging people not to misunderstand me #in the real world none of this is okay #but in the world of the show (which is the world i am analyzing) and not of headcanon #they gave us all this context and setup for a reason #also: i know nobody is consciously being all ancient aliens about ed and izzy #and yet... it is happening #everybody's gotta do their own thing! i am not fun police here #but the pattern exists and it is what it is #and if your fun means ignoring why exactly people like me hate ancient aliens #then i think that's an indication to consider: why is my fun not fun if i'm honest about history at the same time #and does that mean anything else?#anyway yes now back to lucius and pete and how stede has filled the ship with chintz #but to keep it real they fuck on the floor #my ofmd meta

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