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something-about-sunflowers · 1 year

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Alright, this might be a long post so, fair warning lmao.

I realize my previous post may sound like I’m doing some deep dive conspiracy exposé or something, just getting out ahead of it: this isn’t that. This is mostly speculation and educated guesses. For the sake of clarity, this is just how I am reading the situation and may not, in fact, reflect what is actually happening (Even though, I’m pretty positive it is).

Disclaimer aside, I’m gonna get into why (I think) Izzy and the real living human beings who are fans of Izzy are getting so much aggressive hate. And why there’s so much inflammatory discourse around the character.

The gist of it is:

1. Its Ship War Bull Shit

2. The Entitlement

3. Silencing And Scare Tactics

4. We’re Not Falling For It

5. As Good Of A Solution As We’re Gonna Get (At Least Until Something Big Changes In Fan Culture As We Know It)

Now, actually Getting Into All That:

1. Its Ship War Bull Shit

Exactly what it says on the tin. I’m not saying and I don’t want to imply that everybody with their own preferred non-Izzy ships are the ones encouraging and participating in this behavior. What I am saying is that a non-zero number of, particularly Blackbonnet/Gentlebeard, shippers (though this isn’t unique to them) don’t like seeing other people ship Izzy with one (or more) of the characters in their ship. The same could be said for other fan favorites/popular ships as well. Jim, Lucius, Frenchie, etc. There is almost always another popular ship that the other party is involved in.

Though this does go beyond shipping as well. The way I see it, even people who don’t have ‘overlapping’ ships (or who don’t have ships at all and simply like Izzy on his own merit) are a target because of association with other fans who do. Whether that is actual interactions with said other fans or only imagined by way of them both being fans of Izzy.

This idea of a zero-sum game where, if people ship Blackhands that means there’s less people who ship Blackbonnet/Gentlebeard! (Or Ouizzy vs Room People, or Sprizzy vs Lucius’ polycule, or Jim/Izzy vs Tealoranges) is a false one. Multi shippers exist. Some people are more than capable of shipping two overlapping pairings with no problems. Sometimes people just don’t ship your ship. Its unreasonable to be mad at a Tealoranges shipper for not shipping Blackbonnet/Gentlebeard, so should it be unreasonable to be mad at a Blackhands/Gentlehands/Ouizzy/Sprizzy/etc shipper for not shipping your preferred ship.

Which brings me to my next point, being:

2. The Entitlement

Hi. I’m someone who is very particular in my ships. I have a handful that I like and I don’t particularly like to see ones that I don’t like, especially if they involve a character I ship with someone else. The difference between me and The Problem is that I am fully aware that my fandom experience is my own responsibility. If I don’t like something, its on me to remove myself from situations where I might encounter said thing. I don’t go into tags for ships I don’t like. I don’t go into tags for characters I don’t like. If I read a fic that deals with topics or ships that I don’t like I simply back out and move on with my day (provided the fic was properly tagged, please make sure you’re tagging your fics properly).

The Problem comes when people don’t take responsibility for their own fandom experience and expect everyone else to cater to their tastes. You are not entitled to other people’s: time, energy, enjoyment. If you are not paying someone, they don’t owe you anything.

I understand it can be frustrating when it seems like there’s not enough content for something you enjoy but there’s an apparent abundance of content for something you don’t but the only person who’s problem that is? Is you. Be the change you want to see in the world. If you think there’s a lack of content for your preferred thing? Go make content for that thing. If you don’t think you have the talent to make content for the thing? Do it anyway. Talent is not inherent and practice doesn’t make perfect but it does make improvements and for every imperfect thing you do make you’re increasing the amount of the thing you like. If you’re not inclined to make then consider commissioning someone. If you can’t be bothered to do either though? You’re not allowed to complain about a lack of content because you are part of the problem.

The entitlement doesn’t do you any favors either. When I joined this fandom I was over the moon for Blackbonnet/Gentlebeard. Now? I only read it if its written by a small handful of people because I don’t/can’t trust that anyone outside of those people aren’t going to be Weird About Izzy (and unnecessarily aggro at me about it). I don’t engage with the content for it anymore because The Problem has made it unsafe to do so. I have no intentions of making any sort of content for it now either. I do not cater to bullies and, for my own sake, I don’t care if ‘innocent’ people get caught in the crossfire. They are missing out on content because of people they are either passively allowing to remain in their spaces or actively encouraging. I am not the only one who has adopted this policy in light of The Problem.

Again, you are not entitled to other people’s: time, energy, enjoyment. If you make your spaces inhospitable for them, they are well within their rights to remove themselves from said spaces and blacklist the community from their own spaces.

Speaking of inhospitality:

3. Silencing And Scare Tactics

This is where the issue really lies. Fueled by The Entitlement, The Problem decides the best way to avoid/discourage content they don’t like is to make it seem like said content causes harm. Basically: ‘Its Problematic!’

This is where the ‘Izzy is racist/homophobic/a colonizer/etc comes from. It doesn’t matter what the canon says. It doesn’t matter if its interpretation or bad faith or anything else. ‘Izzy is a bigot’ is by and large, true or not, a silencing tactic to scare people into complying with the demands of The Problem. Its why ‘and that makes you an apologist/part of the problem’ always follows. Regardless of whether or not the person being told this is a part of any of the groups Izzy has allegedly wronged (for the sake of being part of those groups).

Its why several BIPOC have been accused of racism for being fans of Izzy. Why abuse survivors have been called abuse apologists for liking him.

The average person, when interacting with the fandom, will hear the loudest voices yelling ‘Izzy is problematic and so are you if you like him’ and avoid the topic for fear of coming across as problematic themselves. They won’t bother looking into the accusations because there is a risk in digging deeper and moreso of speaking out. ‘Its Problematic’ is a shield to hide the abuse being thrown at people who would really rather just be minding their own business.

Which isn’t to say its bulletproof, since:

4. We’re Not Falling For It

Which means that we’re being, perhaps not just as loud but, as loud as we can be about it all being Bull Shit. To some this might come across as apologia and ignoring the actual wrongs the character has done, its not. What it is is disputing false accusations towards the character and towards ourselves. Its quoting Word Of God and citing canon and saying ‘hey, this interpretation doesn’t really match up with the themes of the show’. Its poking holes.

Which The Problem doesn’t like.

Which leads to doubling down on accusations towards the fans. ‘Racist/abuse apologist/etc’. Over a fictional character. This isn’t to say that no Izzy fan is (consciously or unconsciously) racist, though the same could be said for fans of any character, just that its not because of association with the character. Personally, I think there is more issue with removing the agency from a BIPOC character and making all their faults be the fault of their white henchman (and all their virtues being attributed to the influence of their white boyfriend), but that’s just me.

What it also leads to is death threats and suicide bait. Which, I don’t know about you, but I think that’s a much worse offense than ‘liking the wrong fictional character’.

The excessive vitriol (the anon hate, the doxxing, the death threats, the outlandish accusations) comes from the fact that we’re doing our damnedest to show that The Problem is an actual problem and they don’t like having the spotlight shining on their bad side.

Which leads me to my last point:

5. As Good Of A Solution As We’re Gonna Get (At Least Until Something Big Changes In Fan Culture As We Know It)

The best thing we can do, until something big changes, is to remove the spotlight entirely. Deplatform the worst of them as we’re able to, which means not debating and not correcting (This’ll be especially difficult for me, I like to argue lol. Though, if you’re like me, you could also make a separate post disputing the argument after you’ve blocked the original poster. Just make sure you don’t mention their name/@ when you do, otherwise you’re just giving them back their platform by giving people access to them again.), and block liberally.

Blocking is a solution to two problems: 1. It avoids the possibility of seeing bad faith takes that you might want to argue with, and 2. It keeps The Problem from having access to you. It also provides you with a way to report The Problem if they do that fun thing they like to do and go around blocks to get to you anyway.

I know I’m probably not saying anything we didn’t already know, but I think its a good thing to remind people (and myself) of sometimes. We’re not The Problem, we deserve to have a space where we can enjoy ourselves in the fandom without harassment, and we have at least some level of ability to make that possible. This is hardly the first or only fandom to be experiencing this sort of issue, but given its the fandom we’re in right now, we gotta do what we can to make sure its a safe one (Which means, anybody who isn’t experiencing this, but who isn’t speaking out about it? Maybe start doing that. Its not just us that need your help, its fandom as a whole. Many voices make changes.).

#the dork is being a dork #izzy hands #edward teach #stede bonnet #jim jimenez #lucius spriggs #oluwande boodhari #frenchie ofmd #there are simply too many ship names for me to tag here so i will not bother #i am tagging other popular characters because this is a fucking psa #hey #if you didn't know this shit was going on in the izzy enjoyer side of the fandom?#now you do #can yall give us a hand with this issue and call it out if you see it?#this is not debating whether or not the meta of 'izzy is a bigot' is a valid interpretation of the canon #AND I WILL NOT BE ENGAGING WITH REPLIES THAT APPROACH FROM THAT INTERPRETATION (FOR OR AGAINST)#where was this essay energy when i was in school lmfao

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asoulwithadream · 8 months

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Day 5: Favourite OFMD Main Character(s)

This is unfair, for a) I love all the main characters, and b) all characters are main characters.

In all seriousness, I think I'll have to go with Stede.

Especially after what this post pointed about about similarities between the author and Stede; I felt that it resonated too hard with myself and my own personality. I am just like him too, I realised, and seeing someone like me represented so well on screen was a bit overwhelming.

I think that he as a person—excited, embarrassing, compensating, avoidant, queer–is such an incredibly real topic which has so neatly and seamlessly weaved itself in a pirate comedy ffs. And it has been beautiful. One small detail, or rather similarity, which me and Stede share is our obsession (in his case, piracy; in my case, piracy) not really being reflected back at the same magnitude of excitement as we put out in the first place. Plus, for someone so loud he's surprisingly quiet, and that just hits in ways no other character has hit before

The fact that the main character doesn't have to be conventionally cool or uncool is nice.

#30 days with ofmd #day 5 #26 days to go #ofmd #our flag means death #i guess that means i'm waiting for my ed then #stede bonnet #rhys darby #he's me #but ofc i love blackie too #especially drawing him #can't get enough of depressed blackbeard as sad pathetic doodles on the corner of my school paper #but yeah #did i mention that as a blonde i did attempt (and succeed) in getting his hairstyle once?#i have a pirate shirt too so i kind of went around the house dressed as him at the end of ep 10 just shouting “i'm coming for you ed!!!”

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krak-house · 2 years

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Me, constantly: i suck at art

Also me, at 3am that same day with a mechanical pencil that lost its eraser decades ago:

#ofmd #stede bonnet #lesson learned: i need to shut the fuck up and trust myself #anyway have this sketch of stede staring out at the revenge with equal parts hope and wariness #ofmd fanart #my art #i almost went to art school too i just have very little self esteem #well. thats not true #my self esteem veers wildly from 'i suck at everything all the time'#to 'im actually the hottest most talented person on earth and also god'#thats being bipolar for u (i mean. probably. therapists r expensive lol)#also. rhys' eyes are weirdly square?#everything abt him is weirdly square now that i think abt it #anyway. hit me up if yall want more sketches ig?#i need an excuse to break out my expensive tablet lol

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batsarebetterthanpeople · 2 years

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Ok I’m gonna jump on my Calico Jack apologia for a bit here. To be clear I don’t think that Calico jack being mean to Stede like that was ok, it had underlying tones of toxic masculinity and misogyny and a little bit of homophobia and it was uncool, and I think he had the cannonball to the chest coming for what he did to poor Karl. also I think the nickname was a bad writing call. I will not defend this character from those things. What I do want to apologize for is everything else

Ok now with that out of the way because no one on tumblr understand nuance. Here goes. STEDE DID TO MARY AND DOUG EXACTLY WHAT JACK DID TO ED AND STEDE EXCEPT STEDE DIDN’T HAVE AN EXCUSE AND JACK DID!!! Allow me to explain. First off I’ll just acknowledge the way in which Jack was worse. The only way that he was worse in fact. Jack never apologized. Stede did, point for Stede there.

Now brief aside to talk about Izzy Hands (i.e. Calico Jack’s excuse) Izzy is clearly talking about how shitty Stede is to anyone who will listen. How Ed has been seduced by him and how he’s done something to Ed’s brain and all that bullshit. We also know that Jack was sent by Izzy to extract him before the British show up. That was Jack’s mission. Now I want you to imagine that you’ve got an old friend, you and this old friend haven’t talked in a couple years, but you went through a lot together when you were younger. You’re friend’s current best friend approaches you and tells you that they’re currently fighting with your old friend because this friend has a new boyfriend and his new boyfriend is shitty blah blah blah you probably stop listening. But then this friend of a friend who you’re talking to mentions that the new boyfriend has a warrant out for his arrest, and you happen to know that the old friend in question has done something that that they could get put away for life for, and if the cops show up, your friend is defiantly going away for a really long time. The best friend then tells you that he’s made a deal with the cops to get his own record scrubbed in exchange for information about where to find the new boyfriend. What might you do to save your friend from getting locked up for the rest of his life?

Now that you’ve seen things from Jack’s point of view. Jack is no longer trying to maliciously break Ed and Stede up, is he? No he’s trying to save Ed’s life. Could he technically have warned everyone? Yeah. But he doesn’t know Stede, all he knows about Stede is what Izzy Hands told him. And I’m guessing someone like Jack isn’t going to be too terribly charitable to a pirate hobbyist, as is his right, frankly. Stede doesn’t have to do this and he’s putting everyone else at risk by doing it. So if Jack deems Stede to be a liability, which he almost certainly has, he’s going to try to get Ed out of there without Stede figuring out what’s going on, so that Stede goes down and Ed walks, -1 liability that’s gonna get his ass shot. Jack doesn’t know that Ed’s in love. Jack just knows he’s in danger. That is the context in which Jack tells Stede that he doesn’t know Ed at all and pisses on his boots. That is the context in which Jack calls Stede a “Store Bought type” as opposed to a real pirate. That is the context that Jack has.

Another thing I want to touch on is that Jack almost defiantly thought Ed knew what he was doing. I want to remind you of that scene where Ed finds out what’s going on. Jack says “When I heard you shacked up with him I said-” and Ed cuts him off and asks “Where’d you hear that?” and Jack’s eye twitches a little and he furrows his brow and cocks his head in confusion. Then he start’s laughing and says “Took you long enough, the old Blackbeard would have seen me coming a mile away.” Like, he thought Blackbeard knew what he was doing the entire time. He was under the impression that Ed knew and agreed to come with him in full knowledge of that.

Also The entire time he was there up until the point of Ed breaking up with Stede, Ed was having a perfectly good time. He was laughing, and smiling and jumping around and when Ed did give off vibes that he was uncomfortable, Jack laid off. He of course didn’t lay off Stede, but as soon as Ed adjusts himself uncomfortably in the chair and Says “Stede doesn’t want to hear about that.” Jack stops talking, let’s Ed and Stede have their moment, and suggests they do a new activity. He’s not there to bully Ed or make Ed feel like shit. He’s there to cause problems on purpose and get out while the getting's good.

Now I get that Jack was still super manipulative and he still says really shitty things like the whole ‘pirates don’t have friends’ line, which almost definitely fucked with Ed assuming he wasn’t too under water to hear it. But I think that Jack being kinda Shitty can in fact be forgiven, at least as it relates to Ed and Stede, not as it relates to Karl there is no excuse for what happened to Karl, given that Stede is so much worse to Mary and Doug.

Now that we’ve compared Stede’s POV of the Calico Jack incident to Jack’s Pov of the Calico Jack incident, lets consider Doug’s POV of the Stede Bonnet incident.

I am going to make an assumption about Doug. I will assume he’s a wife guy who loves Mary very much.

So you fall in love with someone, right, you have a lot of common interests, common interests that you have been engaging with for a long time but which they have never really been encouraged for and have even been insulted for at times. They ask you to show them more because you’re the expert, and you do and as you do you very slowly fall in love with this person and they fall in love with you and you get closer and closer over time and everything is going great. Then their ex from a time when they were unhappy and had to hide a part of themself shows up and expects them to be the same person they were when they were unhappy and causes problems when they aren’t that person anymore. Does this sound familiar? It should because that is both the Doug, Mary, Stede dynamic, and the Stede, Ed, Jack dynamic.

Except it’s actually not the same, because the whole time Jack was there, up until the breakup, he was getting positive feedback. Stede was the only one who didn’t want him there. Stede didn’t get any positive feedback. Mary’s friend openly wants to kill him from the moment that he steps in the house. Mary vomits when he shows back up. And when Stede get’s drunk he’s not fun he’s violent. Calico Jack ruined a perfectly good pair of boots, Stede almost ruined Doug’s neck. What Stede did might have been acceptable in Spanish Jackie’s bar I guess but at an art showing in Barbados where Stede (and maybe Evelyn Higs) is the only criminal? That's insane. It’s the moment when Mary decides if she doesn’t get rid of him he’s going to hurt people.

So you know I give Stede credit for apologizing, but he really fucked up, and I think that despite Jack and Stede displaying similar behavior in these two scenes, Jack is fundamentally more sympathetic here than Stede because of their motivations. Jack wants to extract Ed from a life threatening situation. Stede wants to.... ???

Thats the rub isn’t it. Stede’s not doing this because he has some reason for it. There’s no end goal that is ultimately understandable. He just feels weirdly possessive over Mary despite having abandoned her. He doesn’t even want to be in a relationship with her. He just feels like she should be behaving like his wife despite him never once behaving like her husband. If we’re gonna give Jack shit for being casually misogynistic and homophobic and fatphobic for the “Who’s the big gal” comment we have to give Stede shit for being violently misogynistic with his behavior towards Mary and Doug by proximity. Did he make amends, did she forgive him? Yes. Did he redeem himself? Yeah. But there was so much to redeem dude.

Anyway Calico Jack is actually an interesting and complex character who is also a dick some of you were just bullied in high school and are letting your innate fear of jocks and frat boys get in the way of you accepting that. And you’re more willing to let an autistic gay nerd get away with actually terrible shit because he’s on your side of the high school predator pray dynamic that you were supposed to have turned in with your cap and gown.

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stizzysupremacy · 15 days

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okay. Okay so. This is ridiculous but. The idea won’t get out of my brain ever since I started rewatching an old sitcom:

Izzy Hands as The Nanny

no no hear me out.

Izzy works in his bf Ed’s tailor shop (vs a bridal shop cuz even in an au I can’t stretch to see Izzy doing anything bridal for a living) until Ed wants to give Jack Rackham Izzy’s job and oh also he wants to start dating Jack too. So Izzy is out of a job and a relationship that’s been in the pre-engagement state for years. Izzy gets a part time job selling fine chef’s knives door-to-door (instead of makeup. Because it’s a good excuse to slip Steak Knife into the story and also because my bestie used to sell knives and I love him)

Izzy happens to show up at the Bonnet mansion household around the time they were expecting their newest nanny to come for an interview. Izzy thinks he is being invited in to give his sales pitch. In classic sitcom misunderstanding it takes a while for Stede to realize that Short Dark and Handsome here is not actually a manny with a resting rage face.

But by then Izzy has had a chance to interact with Stede’s kids and his household staff. Stede has fondness for anyone who is kind to his kids and has a secret awe for anyone who seems to get along with less awkwardness than he himself does. Izzy just talks to the kids like they are adults because he doesn’t know how else to deal with tiny people except to treat them like big people. Alma appreciates it.

The rest of the household (Buttons as the butler? Lucius as a PA? Roach as chef, Jim as driver, etc you get the idea) are surprisingly on board with hiring the guy who came to the door with a briefcase full of knives to provide daily childcare. He’s got no experience or qualifications but Izzy clearly does not take shit from anyone and won’t get scared off in under two months like the last nanny.

and look, the pay is really good. Even if Mr Bonnet is supremely annoying, he pays well and the kids seem fine, old enough to entertain themselves most of the time and not be very interested in interacting with some greying old man. He can get them to school and home from school, and deal with the occasional snotty cold or scraped knee for such a huge salary, with room and board on top! plus staying in the rich part of town cuts down on the chances of running into Ed and/or Jack.

So Izzy moves into the mansion and chases the Bonnet children around for a living. (Izzy quickly learns that the kids are still young enough to love playing pirates, something Stede started with them but has been too busy to do. Izzy, wearing an eye patch and brandishing a plastic sword, taunts Stede into joining their play by challenging him to duel (yes Stede smacks his ass with his sword))

obvious stede would never get full custody lol so there’s plenty of time when the kids are with their mother and Stede’s only company in the big empty house is Izzy Hands 😮😀

#stizzy #gentlehands #a modern au with an ‘izzy hands is good with kids’ agenda #Izzy hands

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amuseoffyre · 2 years

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I’ve been having some thoughts about the Badmintons, their relationship to Stede and Chauncey’s line “God’s perfect little rich boy”.

We know from the flashbacks that Nigel was always a violent bully towards Stede, citing how soft and weak and vulnerable he always was. From what we see of his interactions with his own crewmen, this is his entire modus operandi. He’s violent, aggressive, rude and inconsiderate.

Chauncey, on the other hand, is much more restrained as an adult. While he does refer to Stede as “Baby Bonnet” when he’s crying, he’s otherwise quite impassive until he’s told he may lose his opportunity to avenge his brother’s death. It explains a lot that Nigel only ever made it to the rank of Captain of his own ship while Chauncey is an Admiral.

But then I got thinking about the “God’s perfect little rich boy’ thing, because the Badmintons are clearly upper-class. They are deferred to and respected, but they are also in the service of the Navy. This implies they are younger sons of their family.

Rule of thumb in those days was that the eldest son inherited lands, title and everything and it wasn’t divided between the younger sons. Big brother got everything and any younger sons were generally given the option of military or church. This suggests that the Badminton twins inherited nothing and had to go into service.

And then you have this school chum of theirs, this firstborn boy, only son of a wealthy landowner, destined to inherit everything from his father. And he’s soft and he’s delicate and he likes flowers and frilly things and in their eyes, he’s completely pathetic, but still got it all, God’s perfect little rich boy, cavorting through life with it all handed to him on a silver platter.

While Nigel is a blunt instrument who enjoys being abrasive and messing with Stede because he’s too different, too odd, too soft, Chauncey’s rage towards him feels much more pointed, rooted in jealousy and anger.

Also, this means there’s a third Badminton brother out there somewhere XD Let’s have Rory Kinnear show up again, this time in a giant over-the-top aristocratic wig and fancy clothes.

#our flag means death #ofmd

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bizarrelittlemew · 1 year

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fic masterpost

with links to tumblr posts in case you want to make my day and rec one ❤️ one-shots under the cut since this was getting long (yay?!)

this post will be updated as I add more!

tag for scrolling through them all | my AO3

Multi-chapter (6)

Something timeless going on (post) 9 chapters, ~37.3k words, E, canon divergence au (different first meeting) - COMPLETE

Where Edward Teach is 20 years old when he first meets Stede Bonnet, and they become friends with benefits (and a lot of feelings) through the years until Stede goes to sea.

Wanna share? (post) 2 chapters, ~12.9k words, E, modern au (music festival) - COMPLETE

Ed, a music festival veteran, helps music festival newbie Stede feel very welcome on his first day after meeting him in line for free condoms.

Matching spark and flame (post) 4 chapters, ~29.8k words, E, medieval fantasy au, Reverse Big Bang 2023 - COMPLETE

When prince Stede Bonnet is accused of murdering the royal family, the kingdom calls upon warlord Blackbeard, also known as the Shamer, to use his magic powers to prove Stede's guilt.

Circus Nights (post) 15/31 chapters, ~41k/? words, E, circus au, inspired by the ofmd kinktober 2023 prompts - ONGOING

In all his years with Hornigold's Circus, Ed has never had such a distressing season. The cause? Newcomer Stede Bonnet, with whom he has to share his wagon. The problem is not that he doesn't like Stede – no, it's that he likes Stede a bit too much. And when Stede asks Ed to teach him his most popular trick, sword swallowing, new opportunities arise...

Five Birthdays and a Funeral (post) 6 chapters, ~58k words, E, modern au - COMPLETE

When Ed and Stede's friend groups merge, they meet at a birthday party, and Stede's life is turned upside-down. As they collide again and again, he not only has to figure out what Ed means to him, but what he means to himself. Or: The five times Stede wasn't ready, and the one time he was.

In the sack (post) 2 chapters, ~8.3k words, E, post-s2 - COMPLETE

To be very honest, Ed had planned on making Stede wear the sack for like, half a day. But once Stede put it on, it was like the air changed around them. As the latest observation in an interesting chain, Stede in the rice sack onesie is… oh boy. One word does come to Ed’s mind here, and that is obedient.

Microfic

warmth, good food, orgasms (post) 319 words, M, post-S2E3

One-shots (26)

First Snow (post) ~3.5k words, T, modern au (winter)

Edward wakes up to the first snowfall of the year. He cuddles a depressed Stede, who is totally just his roommate, and takes him to a nearby market.

Prescriptions (post) ~2k words, T, modern au (medical)

Ed is a chief physician on night shift, and it’s a big deal when the hot, new pharmacist (guess who) comes by with a question.

Out of my head (post) ~6.2k words, E, modern au (rock star)

In which Stede gets to do more than just meet his rock star crush after the show.

A dollar short (post) ~6.6k words, T, modern au (coffee shop)

A new coffee shop in Ed’s neighborhood has a Dutch auction-style book sale, lowering the price by one dollar each day. Ed gets very attached to one particular book, and one particular coffee shop owner.

Hiptyscoop (post) ~6.7k words, E, modern au (magic)

Stede takes his school team for a Hiptyscoop tournament at Queen Anne's Academy, but ends up taking on a different challenge.

Save it 'til the morning after (post) ~2.9k words, T, modern au

Ed wakes up in a stranger's apartment and needs the stranger's help to piece together the night before over breakfast.

Throw away the oars (post) ~10.5k words, E, modern au

Ed joins a rowing team over the summer with ulterior motives. The only problem is that Stede, the instructor, is twice his age. This doesn't stop Ed from trying, anyway.

From gloom to grace (post) 8.2k words, T, modern au

When Ed and Stede get lost in Iceland, they happen upon an eerie place, and have to deal with the consequences of being poisoned by a strange substance (cuddle pollen, it's cuddle pollen).

Call your wife (post) ~3.2k words, E, modern au

Ed’s best friend of several years might be getting divorced. He also might have his hand down Ed’s underwear while they sit around the campfire with their colleagues.

I adore seafood (post) ~5.5k words, T, 19th century au

Ed answers a personal ad in the newspaper, but has a hard time figuring out if Stede's intentions are what he thinks they are – and whether Stede is aware of it.

Keep your 'lectric eye on me, babe (post) ~15.3k words, E, 70's au

Glam is rocking the Sunset Strip in LA, and Edward Teach is rocking glam. But then he hears rumors about Stede Bonnet, a groupie who might just provide the excitement he's been longing for.

Who are we saying is captain right now? (post) ~6.8k words, E, 90's au, Ed/Stede/Roach

When Roach’s car breaks down in the middle of nowhere, he has to count on the kindness of the strangers who live in the only house nearby.

Overcompensation (post) ~9.2k words, E, modern au

Ed is pining for Stede, who is dating Ed's best friend Mary. While Mary is aware that Stede is likely gay (which Stede hasn't realized), she has no idea Ed is in love with him.

A Series of Cases of Penetrating Stab Wounds of the Abdomen (post) ~1.9k words, T, fix-it in the format of a published medical case report

Abstract: We present five cases of penetrative stab wounds of the abdomen (all involving the same two patients) and the care and interventions that led to successful recovery (and reconciliation).

Cashmere and lace (post) ~2.3k words, E, modern au

As far as Stede knew, men like that didn’t usually wear lace panties and garters.

Getting dressed (post) ~3k words, E, post-canon (post-reunion)

Stede has trouble finding something to wear other than his white stockings and yellow robe, Ed suggests an activity that doesn't require getting dressed.

Know real love when it aches (post) ~4.8k words, E, post-canon (reunion)

Stede Bonnet is dead, and Ed has made his peace with it. Until Stede stumbles onto deck and right into his arms.

Five-star review (post) ~5.2k words, E, modern au

“D’you think I came all this way to not suck your dick?”

Losing count (post) ~2.7k words, E, canon compliant, missing S2E6 scene

Ed went there to talk. They don’t talk.

Out the gates (post) ~2.9k words, E, modern au, in the Throw away the oars universe

The summer is coming to an end, and as Ed and Stede share a morning in bed, Ed realizes that his crush has bloomed into love.

Testing the waves (post) 8.1k words, E, modern au, Stede/Ed/Mary

Ed is thrilled when his best friend (with benefits) from college, Mary, gets hired at the hospital where he works. He’s even more thrilled to meet her husband.

Five Hours and a Minute (post) 6666 words, M, modern au, follow-up to Five Birthdays and a Funeral

On New Year's Eve, Stede ponders his relationship to Ed and where he wants it to go. At the very last minute of the year, everything turns around.

Heatwave (post) ~3.4k words, E, modern au

During a heatwave, Ed lounges around in his underwear playing video games until Stede comes home from work.

Turning a page (post) ~5.3k words, E, modern au

Stede orders a lot of books. Ed delivers them.

The next adventure (post) ~3k words, E, modern/70s au, prequel to Who are we saying is captain right now?

Ed shows up to a gangbang set expecting a normal, boring work day, when it turns out they have hired the cutest fluffer he has ever seen.

Bathtub beginnings (post) ~4.1k words, M, modern/60s au

Roach is trying to find a new home in 1960s New York.

#my fics #fic masterpost #ofmd fanfic #ofmd #ida.stuff #ofmd fic

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house-afire · 2 months

Text

Old Chums (Stede/Nigel)

Prompt: 100 words of "we're not gay, we're sailors"

Nigel had seldom been so pleased to see someone. The long journey to the Caribbean had looked to be intolerably boring—this downright crawl across the ocean was not how he’d hoped to celebrate leaving school. But Father had insisted on seeing what England had made of him before he wrapped himself in its colors for good, so here he was, in the middle of blasted nowhere. Milling about at sea in his private life before he’d be strongarmed into doing it all his life. And there was very little chance of fun on this stodgy ship—

Or so he’d thought, until he’d seen Stede.

“Little Baby Bonnet, all grown up!” Nigel said, clasping him by the shoulders. “I honestly never thought about you existing outside of our dear old school.”

“Was it dear?” Stede said, squirming under his hands, soft and shaky as a pudding, bless him. “Can’t say I’ve given it any thought either, since I left. I finished up—”

“Oh, were you in England too? I’m surprised we didn’t run into each other before now.” Nigel patted himself on the chest. “I was at Eton.”

“Harrow,” Stede said, with another of those appealing wriggles. This time it slipped him out from under Nigel’s hand—clever little fish.

Nigel decided to be magnanimous. “Well, that’s nearly as good. You’re headed home, then?”

Stede nodded. He looked a bit miserable about it, poor fellow. But then Stede just tended to look like that, didn’t he? Like a little stomped-on rose, all crumpled and red-faced and dew-damped, their dear Baby Bonnet. Nigel had decided early on that he couldn’t possibly be as unhappy as he looked, because only an absolute spoilsport would properly sulk through all their romps and fun.

Actually, aside from the rather pathetic cast of his features, Stede looked … good. He had quite unexpectedly acquired some definition about his jaw and shoulders, and his mouth had shed some of its poutiness. The wind ruffled that Goldilocks hair of his.

Nigel was vaguely aware that one didn’t technically consider such things, not when it came to a friendly handy—it was obviously very far afield from, say, choosing a wife. You just wanted a chum. Had nothing to do with proper intercourse. More like how you couldn’t tickle yourself. It was just useful to have somebody else involved.

He was probably only thinking of Stede that way because Baby Bonnet had always been a bit of a girl. They’d forced him into one of the matron’s dresses once and told him he looked almost pretty. So there you were, Nigel thought, relieved. They had all said that much.

“Let’s go see the stores,” Nigel said, putting an arm around Stede’s shoulders and steering him belowdecks.

Stede stumbled as he followed along. “And, ah, why should we want to do that?”

“Like the games shed, you know. Lots of clutter to duck behind.”

“Duck behind for what?”

Oh, playing hard to get, was he? If he thought Nigel was going to turn foolish over him, like one of those soppy, soft-handed boys who used to turn half their tuck over to the cricket captain and moon all about him, he would be sorely disappointed.

Then again, it was a long voyage. If he absolutely had to give Stede a fruit tart and a silly compliment about his lovely hair to make him behave like a proper pal, he could probably be talked into it. It would be entirely understandable if Nigel chose to indulge him like that, just to make it all go over without any fuss.

Only a real problem if you did it on land, when there were plenty of women to be had. Then you were just a deviant. At sea, one simply made compromises because one was healthy and red-blooded.

“Ah, here we are,” Nigel announced. He swung the door open and had a look around for any sailors already making use of the place. None at all. What a lucky day it was turning out to be.

Stede let Nigel drag him in and close the door behind them, but he still had an endearingly baffled look on his face. Maybe he truly didn’t know. God, he really was a babe in the woods, wasn’t he? Nigel decided to clarify things by pushing Stede back against the door and doing his best to get Stede’s breeches off him.

“Mmf!” Stede protested against Nigel’s mouth, which had wound up overlapping a bit with his.

“Oh, come on, Stede,” Nigel said, pulling back because one didn’t kiss during this sort of thing. They were both gentlemen. “There’s nothing else to do on this unbelievably dull boat. And anything goes when one’s at sea, you know that.”

“I do?” Stede’s voice trembled like a maiden’s, but—in a move that made something inside Nigel flash bright, like the sun had hit upon it—he tugged his own breeches and drawers down and thrust forward into Nigel’s hand.

His cock was rosy and far more sizable than Nigel would ever have guessed. He wondered what it would be like—

No, he didn’t. He put that aside firmly. He was going to be an officer in His Majesty’s Navy, yes, but he was not going to be a sailor in that sense. He would get accustomed to whatever was convenient, but he was still going to have some decorum.

“Obviously,” Nigel said, stroking Stede’s prick and feeling it twitch in his hand. “We wouldn’t be doing this on land. Not unless you wanted to dress up like a girl again and pass yourself off as my wife.” He mashed their bodies close together, his burning cheek against Stede’s temple.

“I didn’t even—” Stede’s breath hitched. “I didn’t even want to dress up as a girl the first time!”

“Oh, it was all good fun. I did it for that panto, remember?”

It was foolish of Stede to pretend that the stage, or lack thereof, made that much of a difference. So what if he’d been shoved into that frock in the dark, by more than one set of hands? They’d all been high-spirited, and Stede had squeaked so marvelously back then that he’d made for wonderful entertainment. And Nigel remembered perfectly how Stede had blushed when they’d all told him he was pretty, and how well he’d curtseyed when they’d finally talked him into it.

He had thought of it a lot over the last few years, really.

“Be a good chap,” Nigel said into Stede’s ear, “and shoot off in a hurry. I’m more than ready for my turn.”

“Maybe you shouldn’t surprise people if you want them to be ready,” Stede said, with a very Stede-ish blend of querulousness and heat, as if Nigel could possibly be cowed by him. He honestly was very fond of Stede. Always had been. He suspected Stede was fond of him as well—Stede had always watched him, back at school, as if Nigel’s every move had needed to be charted.

Then again, he had watched all their circle of school chums that way. Little harlot.

But all those fellows were far away, and even if they’d been aboard, Nigel wouldn’t have minded sharing Stede with them. An Eton man was generous. Anyway, he was sure they’d understand that Stede would always prefer him.

“I think this trip is going to turn out to be quite bearable in the end,” Nigel said, pleased.

Stede threw his head back until his skull cracked against the door, sinking his teeth into his lower lip as his hips juddered in helpless little spasms.

Not on land, Nigel reminded himself, even as he further reminded himself that obviously he needed no reminding. Pretty as Baby Bonnet is, there will be prettier women, of course.

But would any of them be wrung out like this, shaking, their spend slicking Nigel’s hand? Would any of them ever be so gloriously flushed, so sweet and so petulant? Would they tug at his cock with this look of utmost concentration, like they were trying to understand some sophisticated machinery? Yes, of course they would. Of course they would have to be all those things and better, and whatever they were not, he wouldn’t want. This was a matter of opportunity. He was clear on that.

And if he closed his eyes and imagined Stede in a turquoise silk gown, approved as Mrs. Badminton by popular delusion, well—it was only because he had no proper girl in mind. And might not for some time.

Very abruptly, he felt a sudden, awful gratitude at being pushed into the Navy. What a lot of long voyages there would be, so unavoidably.

“It’s so good,” Nigel said afterwards, panting into Stede’s almond-scented hair, “to have friends. Old friends. Isn’t it?”

“I suppose it must be,” Stede said.

#nigel badminton #stede bonnet #stede/nigel #tw: dubcon #tw: bullying #(past)#tw: internalized homophobia

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wistfulcynic · 2 years

Text

do you know why we have the sunflowers

Prompted by this:

I refuse to apologise for my excess of italics.

AO3

Stede Bonnet loves museums.

He always has, from the very first time he visited one as a child, on a school trip. A trip that was, in all other respects, thoroughly unmemorable. The standard ragging from the Badminton twins and their cohort, the standard lonely solitude, just Stede and his books and his thoughts.

He remembers the painting, though.

He remembers the two men on the deck of their ship, so vividly rendered in strokes of oil that he fancied he could feel the wind as it whipped through their hair and filled the sails of their vessel. He remembers the way they stood, proud and fearless. He remembers how they stood together, united, joined by an unmistakable thread of connection, palpable even through paint and across three hundred years. He remembers the ache of yearning in his young chest. How he wanted that. That unity. That connection. That someone who would look at him the way the pirates in the painting looked at each other.

No one ever looked at Stede Bonnet like that.

No one looks at him like that still. Not his parents, not his ex-wife. Not even his children. He moves through life as he moves through the streets of London, alone amidst the seething crowds of people—families, friends, lovers. But none for him. Never for him.

He still loves museums, though.

He’s the curator of the 18th century wing of the National Gallery in London now, a dream post, one he’s worked his whole life for. He should be triumphant and he is, truly. Just... quietly triumphant, and mostly to himself. The fact that he has no one to share it with doesn’t matter, really, he tells himself. Going in to the museum every day, knowing that it’s his place, a place he’s earned, that makes him happy. Happier than he’s ever been. It’s enough.

When he acquires the painting, the painting, the one he first saw as a lad in Auckland all those years ago, his happiness is complete. Every day he goes to his gallery and stands in front of that painting and just looks at it. He stands and he looks and he feels again that ache of yearning in his chest.

Gradually he comes to realise something, a most peculiar thing, a thing he’s not sure quite what to make of. One of the men in the painting, the man on the right, the blond man with the short, pointed beard and the dashing mien, the billowing white shirt and the turquoise sash around his waist, that man… he looks like Stede.

Just like Stede. To the point that it’s eerie. He never noticed it as a boy, of course, how could he have? But now that he’s older—the same age it seems as the man in the painting—the resemblance is unmistakable.

He grows a beard, out of academic curiosity he tells himself. Just to see if the resemblance is enhanced or hindered by it. He lets his close-cropped hair grow out a bit, more like the shaggy curls depicted in the painting. He introduces colour to his wardrobe, bright blues and cheery greens, even the occasional cheeky yellow. Getting dressed in the morning becomes a treat and not a chore.

He finds he no longer collides with people in the street because they fail to notice him. Instead, strangers nod as he passes and return his cheery smiles, even on occasion make small talk in queues. They chuckle when he makes a mild joke. He starts making jokes on purpose. When he does, people laugh. They laugh with him and not at him. To Stede, this is a revelation.

This more confident, more colourful Stede, delighted beyond measure at how perfectly he now resembles the man in the painting, begins to look more carefully at the other man. The one who, even as a child, he found almost too magnificent to gaze upon. That tall, handsome man dressed all in leather, his long hair and beard wind-whipped and glorious, who looked at Stede’s painted doppelgänger with the softest eyes Stede has ever seen.

His new confidence notwithstanding, still no one has ever looked at Stede Bonnet like that.

“Helluva painting isn’t it, mate?”

Stede turns from his perusal of the leather-clad pirate, surprised and delighted to hear the cadence of a familiar accent. It’s rare that he meets another Kiwi in London, despite the fact that the city is full of people from every corner of the world.

“You know, it’s funny,” the voice continues. It’s deep and resonant and it caresses Stede’s skin like cashmere. “I remember seeing this painting when I was a boy in New Zealand. I think I stared at it for a solid twenty minutes. The rest of the class moved on without me, teacher had to come back and practically drag me away. Can’t recall the teacher’s name but man, I never forgot that painting.” He turns his head so Stede can see his whole face. “This is gonna sound mad, but would you say—do you think that that man, the one on the left… do you think he looks like me?”

Stede is struck speechless, gaping. Mouth hanging open like a fish. Because yes, he wants to say, yes. The man in the painting does look like you and if anyone can declare that with authority it’s Stede. He’s only been looking at that painting every single day for the past year. The man beside him has the same height and build, the same long hair and magnificent beard. And when he turns and their eyes meet, Stede’s breath catches in his throat. The eyes are the same as well, that soft warm brown, and as they take in Stede’s face they widen first in recognition and then in awe.

“It’s you,” he breathes. “The man, the other one. He’s—he’s you.”

Stede knows he must say something, anything really, and so he blurts out the first words that come into his head.

“Are you real?”

It’s a ridiculous question and he feels foolish for asking it, but the man’s lovely eyes just crinkle at the edges as he laughs. Laughs with Stede, not at him. Stede knows the difference now.

“Real as you are, mate. I’m Ed.” He holds out his hand.

“Stede,” Stede replies, taking it. An electric thrill dances along his skin, from the point of contact clear to the tip of every nerve ending he possesses. He barely holds in his gasp. “I’m the, uh, curator. Of the museum. Well, not the whole museum, just the eighteenth-century portion but that’s not important really, what’s important is that me too.”

“You too?” echoes Ed.

Stede nods eagerly. “Me too. I also saw this painting as a boy in New Zealand. I couldn’t take my eyes off it either. And I—”

“Never forgot it?”

“Never forgot it! Acquired it the first chance I got. Only realised later that it was, er—that the man in it had—”

“Your face?”

“Yeah.” Stede gives a little shrug. “My face.”

“It’s a nice face,” says Ed, and the sizzle on Stede’s skin grows hot. He realises he’s still holding Ed’s hand.

“Do you know what I like best about it?” he asks.

“About your face?”

“No!” Stede protests, before he realises Ed is teasing. He can feel his cheeks go pink but he presses on. “No, not about my face. About the painting.”

“What do you like best about the painting?”

“It’s the way they look at each other,” says Stede. “The way they’re so connected and the looks on their faces, it’s—”

“Love,” Ed finishes. His voice is gruff. “They’re in love.”

“They are.” The words almost choke Stede. He has to force them through the tightness in his chest. “I couldn’t see it as a boy. I mean, I saw it. I felt it. But I didn’t know what it was. All I knew was that I wanted someone to look at me like that. But no one ever has.”

“Never?”

“No. Not—” Stede breaks off, caught in Ed’s eyes. The look in them takes his breath away.

Ed holds his gaze as he releases Stede’s hand, as he cups his instead around Stede’s jaw, fingers sinking into his hair, curling around the back of his head and tugging him closer.

“Not until now,” he murmurs, and then his lips are on Stede’s.

The kiss starts out soft, tentative. Stede’s never much cared for kissing; he’s had little practice at it and none of it great, despite his ten-year marriage. But this kiss, this kiss—it lights him up from within, that electric tingle sinks through his skin and into his bones. He finds himself leaning in to Ed’s body, gripping his waist, giving a small, helpless moan that draws a deeper one from Ed and then the kiss grows hot, wet, completely inappropriate for a rainy Tuesday morning at his place of work but Stede could not possibly care less.

When it ends they just stare at each other for a moment, wide-eyed and gasping, and then in perfect unison they turn, as though drawn by a thread, to look at the painting.

The two men in it are smiling down at them. At them, of that there can be no doubt. Ed’s lookalike gives them a wink, while Stede’s nods with a pleased, proud smile. “I knew you’d find him,” Stede hears his own voice say, in his head to be sure but the words are as clear as though he’d spoken them himself.

He turns to Ed. “Did you hear—”

“Yeah,” Ed replies. “I did.”

When they look back again the painting is just as it always was.

“Come to lunch with me,” says Ed, abruptly.

“It’s ten thirty in the morning!”

“Brunch then. I know a great place, not far from here.”

“Oh?” Stede’s so happy he feels like his blood has been replaced with champagne. “Where’s that?”

“My restaurant.” Ed grins at him. “Just opened it. Blackbeard’s Bar and Grill, it’s called.”

“Ooh, fab name. So you’re… planning on staying in London, then?”

“For as long as London will have me,” says Ed, and Stede knows he’s not just talking about London. “So. Brunch? I have marmalade.”

Stede gapes at him. “How—how did you know I love marmalade?”

“Lucky guess,” says Ed. His eyes twinkle, with warmth and affection and interest and yes it’s finally real, it’s really, actually happening. Someone is looking at Stede Bonnet Like That.

Right here in his beloved museum, in front of his most treasured painting, the most beautiful man he’s ever laid eyes on either painted or in person is looking at him in the way he’s always dreamed of but never thought he’d know.

And there’s an ache in his chest again but it’s no longer a yearning one. It’s yearning fulfilled. It’s completion. It’s happiness.

It’s love.

“Brunch sounds great,” says Stede. “It sounds perfect.” It feels like the start of something spectacular.

And so it is.

#blackbonnet #blackbonnet fic #blackstede #blackstede fic #gentlebeard #gentlebeard fic #ofmd #our flag means death #ofmd fanfic #do you know why we have the sunflowers #profdanglaisstuff

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ghostbustermelanieking · 5 months

Text

..... yeah, there's a reason the lighthouse metaphor in ofmd appeals to me so heavily

#actually it's just. the reason the show itself appeals so heavily to me. outside of it just genuinely being a good show lmao #trips to the north carolina coast as a child fueled an obsession with lighthouses and pirate history (yeah we learned about blackbeard #in school and stede bonnet too)#one of my favorite places in the world is the town that now exists in the spot where stede bonnet was captured #(and ofc im not trying to glorify the real guys i just like history!!)#but yeah lmao i have a bunch of pictures of me in the spots where sb got captured and blackbeard got killed and their ships were run aground #and the musuem where the queen annes revenge is #ANYWAYS. i have a lighthouse problem. my first tattoo will prob be a lighthouse #also sidenote the lighthouse stede and mary get married beside is the ugliest fucking lighthouse ive ever seen #and ive seen skeleton lighthouses #some college friends referred to oak island lighthouse as cigarette butt lighthouse

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triflesandparsnips · 2 years

Text

So I just went on a whole tangent talking about Stede's mum, the older lady on the left in this gif:

And y'know what's weird?

She's wearing half-mourning: lavender and grey with black ribbons/detail work, and minimal jewelry (of which her earrings, visible here, could conceivably be made of the mourning-acceptable jet).

Now, was half-mourning a Thing in the early 1700s? No. The most you got was apparently a second mourning, which still mostly involved black clothing; half-mourning wouldn't appear among the wealthy until the early 1800s (Regency period). But equally, white wedding dresses also weren't a Thing until more than 200 years later with the marriage of Queen Victoria, so Mary's ahistorical anyway, and Stede is at least 50 years too soon with his macaroni fashion, so fuck it, let's run a little with Ma Bonnet's vibe.

Who wore half-mourning, when, and for how long, depended on the degree of relationship with the dead. It was also very family-oriented, and, at least prior to the Victorian period, wasn't particularly regimented. So what I see, with Ma Bonnet, is a woman in half-mourning (suitable for a distant relative if the death was recent, or a close relative after the period of full mourning was complete, however long that was), while her son and her husband aren't. Which means that whatever appropriate level of mourning Stede and his father might've done, they've gone well past it-- but Ma Bonnet has stayed in it.

Y'know who got to just stay in mourning if they wanted to, regardless of how much time had passed?

Widows.

So wouldn't it be interesting if, say, Father Bonnet is actually Stede's step-father. If Stede was a lad who grew up either under another, softer sort of fellow, or was raised almost entirely by his mother right up until she married the big local plantation owner who could take care of her and her fatherless son.

And who, upon seeing his new wife's child, a weak little brat who'd spent too much time under only a woman's hand and influence, took it upon himself to man the boy up. Teach him to run the land; send him to boarding school to get some sense whipped into him; find a wife for him when he couldn't manage even that.

(And... listen, when Stede was a boy, he could look Father Bonnet in the eye, and keep his eyes open and staring even when he was being torn down inch by inch. By adulthood, though? He doesn't have that ability anymore. He shrinks into himself. His eyes drop when someone yells at him. He's been under the old man's thumb too long. But this is important: he used to know how to stare.)

Do I have any evidence for this? Not a drop, beyond a guess at a reason for ahistorical costuming choices in a show that literally has a Mad Max leather daddy outfit wandering around pretending to be a real person.

But gosh, wouldn't it be interesting.

#our flag means death #stede bonnet #mother bonnet #fashion #history #mourning customs #wild guesses about historically inaccurate things #the costume department is speaking #trifles the amateur history enthusiast strikes again

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straightupsickfics · 1 year

Text

something sweet and full of care

ed/stede - ~4k - modern college au

i managed to finish something i started in january... who IS SHE?

college au stede is suffering and missing his boyfriend very much and really not having a good time at all <3 too bad ed's school is soo far away :(

****

Stede Bonnet is… well, he’s not doing very well, honestly. The spring semester is just getting started in earnest, which means he’s got about a million assignments to complete and studying to get done. He's also coming down with the cold he always gets this time of year, and to top it all off, he’s missing Edward more than ever. It’s always ten times harder getting used to being apart again after being together through the entire three-week winter break, and Stede feels his absence so acutely he wants to cry.

Now, Stede is back on campus, back in his single room that feels like both a blessing (not sharing with strangers) and a curse (not having anyone to study and commiserate with), and missing Ed so much he thinks he might just let himself wallow in it for a bit. Crying sounds both necessary and entirely unavoidable at this point, what with the way his head is throbbing, his stomach is growling, and his laptop seems to glare at him with a particularly threatening energy.

Stede: I miss you :(

Ed: I miss you already is that pathetic

Ed: Okay, that was weird <3 i love you

Stede: Somehow this makes me miss you MORE

They would text each other the same thing at the same time, Stede thinks, sighing heavily and sinking onto his bed. He’s made the best of the small bed, covered it in the highest thread-count sheets he could find and covered it in an admittedly absurd amount of soft blankets and pillows, trying to make up for the absence of Ed, the softest thing he’ll ever find in his bed, really. His small creature comforts help for a minute, but as soon as he lays down, Stede knows he’s made a mistake. He’ll never get back up now, he’s too tired, his head pounding too hard for him to be of any use this evening. He stretches and groans, blinking up at his phone as another message from Ed comes through.

Ed: Me too, I have so much work to do I’m about to say fuck it and go to sleep

Stede: Ha. I’m in bed having the same thought. I wish you were here, though

Ed: Let’s see then

Stede: [img]

Ed: I always ask thinking it’ll help but it also makes it worse?? How is this possible? You look fucking exhausted, sweetheart

Stede’s eyes prick at the easy endearment, and he squeezes them shut to push away the tears he knows are coming. No one is even around to see him, there’s no reason he should feel so… ashamed about crying in his own room, but, well.

Stede: think I picked something up, a cold or something. My head’s killing me and my throat’s all scratchy :/

Ed: Poor Stede. Though I guess it’s that time of year… I could set my watch to it

Stede: Could not

Ed: Totally could. How do you know I haven’t?

Stede: Did you actually??

Ed: No 💜 I just know you

Ed seems set on inadvertently making Stede cry tonight.

Stede: That you do :(

Ed: Aw, hey, I miss you, I love you, I wish I could come cuddle you better. You should take tonight to relax and see how you feel in the morning. Don’t force yourself to stay up and study!!

Stede: 😇

Ed: You already said you’re in bed! Order takeout and stay there… doctor’s orders

Stede: Twist my arm

Takeout consists of hot and sour soup that tastes delicious but makes Stede’s nose run, fried rice he only pokes at, and a chicken thing he ordered by accident that Ed usually eats.

Stede dabs at his nose and takes a picture of his dinner and sends it to Ed, explains about the chicken, and manages a smile when Ed sends back a running emoji.

By the time he’s finished and the leftovers are stashed in his fridge, Stede feels marginally better. At least he’s eaten, which means he can take some cold medicine and hopefully knock himself out for the night.

Tomorrow’s another day.

Ed: goodnight 💜

Stede: goodnight 💙 I love you

Ed: love you more, no arguments 😇

When Stede wakes up the next morning, he knows immediately that today isn’t going to be any better than yesterday. In fact, if the immediate rush of sneezes is anything to go by, today is going to be infinitely worse.

“hhIH… hIHh’NDGt! hiH!…’NGDshH! Hh!” Stede manages to stifle two ticklish, insistent sneezes against the sleeve of the sweater as soon as he tugs it over his head, grimacing with the knowledge that this will hardly be the last time he does that today. At least it’s Friday, and there’s a long weekend, so he can sequester himself to his room if he has to.

He knows, deep down, that he’ll end up doing exactly that once he gets through the three classes he has today.

Ed: Good morning, love of my life

Stede: Bet you say that to everyone <3

Ed: Caught me, you’re one in a long, long list, Bonnet

Stede: Okay, I know it was my joke, but I regret it immediately

Ed: I love you the most. How are you feeling this morning?

Stede can’t text and make tea and walk to class and keep his nose in check all at once, so he pops his headphones in and calls Ed while he finishes getting ready. He’s downing a dose of liquid cold medicine when Ed picks up, and Stede’s heart swells a little when he hears the smile in his boyfriend’s voice.

“Good morning, darling,” Ed says in greeting.

Stede would love to return the sentiment, he really would, but his nose gets the better of him at the exact wrong moment, so what Ed actually gets in return is a flurry of damp sneezes, an entire fit of them all in a row.

“Hih! Iiiidshh! Heh’ushhh’ue! MmptshhH!” Stede has to set his phone down to blow his nose a few times, and is a little breathless by the time he picks it back up again.

“God, so sorry, that was gross,” Stede says immediately, but Ed is already making sympathetic sounds into the phone.

“God bless you! You’re not feeling any better, I take it,” Ed says. It’s not a question, and Stede just sighs again.

“N’dot quite,” he sniffles. “It’s going to be a…heh! Snf! long day.”

“Bless you?”

“Hdt’UdshhH! IIshhiiew!”

God, Stede really has to get a grip before class. His cheeks heat at even the idea of sniffling and sneezing through the lectures he has this morning, all back to back with hardly enough time to grab tea in between. He'd thought it was smart, when he’d registered, getting all of his end of the week classes out of the way at once, but now that he feels like this he’s having his doubts.

“Why don’t you just skip and email your professors? Not like you’ll use absences to skip class,” Ed says, voice gentle but teasing. “Too smart to slack off like the rest of us heathens.”

Stede smiles. That much is true, he rarely (fine, never) skipped class, but that’s more to do with the fact that he doesn’t have many people to skip class with than some outstanding academic record. Still, though, his Oceanography paper is due soon, and they were doing a peer review today that he didn’t want to miss. His paper is solid so far, but he could really use the feedback, though Stede already feels bad for the poor person assigned to swap with him.

He explains the situation to Ed, and notes that his throat already hurts, and he’d only been talking for a few minutes. He really is in for the longest day ever. Stede listens to Ed talk about his own busy day (class starting at noon, followed by a few hours of tutoring, and a warning that Stede might not hear from him for most of the day, but to please call or text him if he starts feeling really bad).

Stede makes himself a travel mug of tea while he listens, his throat feeling heavy and tight with emotion right along with the sore throat. Ed really is sweet.

“Still there?” Ed asks as Stede locks his door and sets off down the stairs and towards his first class of the day.

“Mm, yes, sorry! Just thinking…”

“Uh oh,” Ed smiles.

Stede laughs, then winces, because that hurts his throat, too, as it happens. “Maybe once things calm down and I don’t feel like I’m going to infect everyone in my path… I could come visit? I have some money saved, and…”

Ed’s quiet on the other end of the line. “That would be amazing,” he agrees after a beat. “But let’s cross that bridge when we get there, yeah? You focus on getting through today and feeling better for now, alright?”

Stede wants to cry. Deep down, of course he knows Ed wants to see him as badly as Stede does, knows that he’s just being protective, but still, that nagging voice at the back of his head, the one that never leaves him alone and hates to see Stede happy, pokes at him. What if Ed doesn’t want him around? His friends are more fun, cooler than Stede, and what if Ed doesn’t want Stede around them again?

No. Stede forces the thoughts from his mind as he huddles into the soft fabric of his coat, tugging his sleeves down over his gloved hands. Ed’s right. One thing at a time. Focus, Bonnet.

Stede repeats that to himself until he gets to his first class, sniffling as he takes his usual seat and sipping his travel mug of breakfast blend tea to keep himself from falling asleep in his chair.

Oceanography goes well enough, though his partner Lucius makes almost no effort to hide his grimaces every time Stede has to turn away to cough to sniffle or blow his nose. As if Stede himself prefers it this way, he thinks, miffed.

He gets the feedback he wanted, though, and despite his dazed, stuffy head, Stede manages to provide Lucius with some helpful direction, too, he hopes.

“Here, you look like you need these more than I do,” Lucius says at the end of class, holding a travel packet of tissues out with the tips of his fingers, as if even a brush of their fingers will ensure transfer of Stede’s cold.

God, maybe it would, Stede really does feel bad.

“Thanks, Lucius. Sorry about all this,” he says again.

Lucius has the decency to look sympathetic, even momentarily. “No problem,” he chirps. “Feel better. And maybe don’t leave the house this weekend. See you!”

With Lucius gone, Stede lets himself outside and proceeds to fall into the coughing fit he’d put off for the duration of his class. Best to get it out now before the next one starts. That’s the goal, anyway, though he knows, deep down that it will be impossible to keep all of his cold symptoms in check for another four hours.

Four hours. The idea of it is enough to make him want to turn right around and head back to his room. It feels like a marathon. He really can afford to miss the classes… but…

But he’s stubborn. Stede can almost hear Ed telling him as much over the phone, and smiles a little to himself as he makes his way to his Earth Science class. Maybe he is stubborn, but it’s also the busiest time of the semester, and besides, Stede likes his classes. He loves to learn and always has, and finally having the ability to study exactly what he wants hasn’t worn off just yet.

So, Stede blows his nose a final time, thankful for the backup tissues from Lucius, as he’s sure he’ll be running through his own in no time, and trudges across campus to his next class.

He can do this.

By the time the day ends and Stede finds himself back in his room his head is throbbing with congestion and he can hardly think straight. Fever, he thinks dimly, but he doesn’t have a thermometer that he can find, so he settles for a lukewarm shower that leaves him shivering, a glass of water, and a dose of cold medicine. He’d been hoping to make it through some of the reading he needs to get done, but anything more than a glance at his laptop sends his eyes swimming with tired, irritated tears.

He’s pressing his face into yet another handful of tissues, his eyes and nose seemingly in some kind of contest for which can run the most, when his phone lights up with a text from Ed.

Ed: How’re you feeling now? Make it back to your room okay?

It’s the first Stede’s heard from him in hours, he realizes sullenly. Ed mentioned his busy day this morning, and Stede had completely forgotten. He knows it’s silly to think that he’s the only one of the two of them trying to slog through the rush of the semester, but he feels just bad enough that he lets himself get away with it.

Stede: Pretty bad :( I’m back, yes, probably just going to end up falling asleep and hoping for the best. How was your day?

Ed: Good :) busy

Stede frowns down at his phone; nothing to smile about as far as he can see.

Stede: Good

Ed: ;)

Stede: What

Ed: Nothing, you get comfy and maybe we can FaceTime in a bit. Don’t fall asleep without me!

Stede’s heart gives a little squeeze. He wishes he could fall asleep with Ed here. He feels a little better about the doubts he’d been having earlier, too. Ed misses him, too, of course he does.

Stede: Wouldn’t dream of it

Ed: <;3

Stede does drift off, though. Almost immediately, in fact. He’d sprawled onto his bed after his shower, wanting nothing more than to get warm as he texted back and forth with Ed, but surrounded by his blankets and the beloved stuffed animals Ed had bought for him over the years, well, he didn’t stand a chance.

It’s his phone that wakes him up. Shit. He was supposed to FaceTime with Ed. Stede coughs into his shoulder, catches his breath, and rubs at his face before he picks up the call. It’s unlikely to do any good, but it’s worth a shot.

“Edward!” Stede says when he answers.

“Stede?” Ed’s somewhere dimly lit, his face pressed in close to his phone.

“Where are you?” Stede asks, yawning. His eyes feel so heavy. His whole head feels heavy, really, thanks to this monster cold. He hadn’t even taken NyQuil, but he might as well have for how overwhelmingly tired he feels.

“Mm? Nowhere,” Ed says quickly. “You fell asleep,” he smiles. It’s not even a question, and the fond tone of his voice makes Stede smile right back. He can’t help it, not when Ed looks like that, warm and smiling and happy, no matter how shitty Stede himself might be feeling.

“Maybe?” Stede says, rummaging around on his bed for the box of tissues he had beside him before he fell asleep. “H-hh! Hang on’d…Snf! Snf!” Sniffling helps for a minute, if that, but Stede finds the tissue box just in time to grab two tissues out of it before he sneezes. “hDT’SSHH! Ii’eishh’uh!”

“Bless you,” Ed says, his voice sympathetic and a little tired-sounding.

“Snf! Thanks,” Stede says. “And sorry,” he adds. “All our conversations today have involved mbe sndeezing at you…”

Ed laughs and Stede wishes he could bottle up the sound of it, let it out whenever he’s feeling bad or missing him. “You’re sick,” Ed reminds him gently. “Don’t need to be sorry for that.”

Right, well. The thing about that is Stede’s still getting used to it, even after two years. Not being an annoyance when he’s sick… having someone to remind him to take medicine and give himself a bit of a break… It's a lot. Stede’s tired and sick enough that his eyes and throat burn with the threat of tears at Ed’s words, and he forces himself to swallow them away.

“Think this cold’s gettin’g worse somehow. I really do miss you,” Stede says. It sounds pitiful and he knows it, but at this moment, he can’t bring himself to care. Ed’s seen it all by now, and nothing’s managed to scare him away so far.

“Mm, yeah, about that,” Ed says, smiling widely now. “I missed you too. And I know how you feel about being alone when you’re sick. So you have to promise not to get mad at me for doing something crazy, yeah?”

Stede sits up, suddenly wide awake as he tries to make sense of Ed’s words. “What do you mean?”

There’s a knock at his door and Stede’s heart leaps as his stomach swoops because of course.

“You’re… no! No way. Ed?? What did you do,” Stede’s sputtering, caught in a tangle of blankets on his narrow bed, and Ed’s laughing as he tumbles out of bed in a surprised little scurry.

“Let me in, you lunatic.”

Stede throws his phone onto his bed and moves as fast as his over-tired, cold-ridden brain will allow him, and then the door’s open and Ed’s here right where Stede’s wanted him every moment of this neverending day. Ed wraps himself around Stede without a second thought, pressing himself in as tight and close as he can manage, Stede’s face tucked into the warm skin of Ed’s neck, breathing each other in for one long, endless moment.

“You’re here,” Stede says without pulling away.

Ed laughs, the sound as warm and familiar as always, except now Stede can feel it vibrating right through him, and even this is enough to make him want to cry all over again. Everything about Ed feels so warm and safe he wants to sink right into him.

“I’m here,” Ed repeats. “Some of us don’t mind skipping the occasional class,” he teases. “D’you know the panic you sent me into this morning, talking about visiting soon when I was literally on my way to you?” He brushes his nose against Stede’s, then smiles when Stede has to sniffle a few times as the contact. “Thought you were about to come to me and we’d be in one of those movie situations where I’m here and you’re there.”

“Don’t think I could’ve managed a drive like that feeling like this, to be honest. And.. I thought you didn’t want me there,” Stede admits, a little ashamed.

Ed looks at him, brushing his thumb gently beneath Stede’s eye and then turning Stede’s face in his hand until Stede’s looking at him.

“Stede Montague Bonnet,” Ed says, and Stede is already smiling and feeling silly for all of it. “I always want you there! Anyone who didn’t want you around before didn’t know what they were missing. Fuck ‘em.”

Ed’s right, Stede knows. None of it matters now, not when Ed’s here in his small single room, wrapped around him and kissing him everywhere he can reach.

Stede does his best to make Ed at home, tucking his bag away and fussing until Ed pushes him gently onto the bed, insisting he can manage two cups of tea while Stede “rebuilds his sick person nest.”

“S’not a nest, really… more of a fort,” Stede huffs, gesturing to the warm white Christmas lights he still has strung from the ceiling. They give the whole place a more cozy vibe, and he keeps them up year round.

“Yeah, yeah, budge over, let me into the Stede Bonnet Fortress of Germs,” Ed says, making his way over to the bed with two steaming mugs of tea.

Stede shifts, rolling over towards the wall and letting Ed settle in against him until they’re pressed in warm and close, wrangling the blankets over themselves. It’s a small bed, but they make it work — Stede tends to sprawl out over Ed anyway, and this time is no different. He’s not inclined to leave even an inch of space between them when he’s spent the last few weeks dreaming of exactly this.

“Koala mode,” Ed murmurs, one hand stroking softly through Stede’s hair, the other drawing patterns over his back.

“You’re going to put me to sleep if you keep that up!”

“That’s the point, darling,” Ed tells him.

Stede shakes his head. “Want to enjoy having you here, not sleep through it.” Stede’s eyes feel heavy though, the events of the day catching up with him all at once. Everything melts away with Ed holding him like this. And, for a rare moment, Stede realizes can breathe through both of his nostrils at the same time, making sleep actually possible.

“We have all weekend, and you’re sick,” Ed reminds him, as if he can possibly forget. “It’s late. You’d be asleep already if it wasn’t for me.”

“You did try to warn me,” Stede smiles, leaning up just enough to brush their lips together.

“So I did. Didn’t want to be locked out, banging away at your door like a jilted lover.”

“Never jilted,” Stede says with a yawn.

“Mm, hope not. Drove a fucking long way; you’re stuck with me.”

Stede can’t imagine ever feeling stuck when it came to Ed, but that was an argument for another day. He lets Ed take charge of the remote, putting on a Planet Earth episode they’ve watched together before but both enjoy, and it really is no time at all before they’re both asleep, lulled by the company, the warmth, and the soothing voice of the TV.

Tomorrow’s another day, after all.

#of//md #my fic #it might not seem like a big deal but #I am actually so proud that I finished something older because 99.9% of the time it I don’t finish something in two days #it’s dead #and I even like the result so 😌 happy Friday to me

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adzeisval · 5 months

Text

On Guns

A nicer fic this time. Izzy teaches Stede how to use a pistol. Brief mention of Izzy's suicide attempt. Also on AO3.

Izzy briefly considered not teaching Bonnet to shoot at all. He didn’t really fancy getting shot again and if anyone was accidentally going to shoot him it would be Bonnet. But the man needed to know how to shoot if he was going to continue being a pirate.

“Have you ever held a pistol before?” Izzy asked.

“Yes!” Stede said brightly, proud that he had done such a simple thing.

“Did you fire it?”

“I did yes. It was back in boarding school. I only fired one twice. Then I gave it up.”

“Did you load the gun yourself?”

“Ah no,” Stede said.

“Well I guess that’s a start,” Izzy said, “Let’s go over loading a pistol first, then we’ll work on firing, then cleaning.”

“Sounds fun,” Stede said. Izzy had taught many pirates over the years, gave them tips here and there, showed them the right way to do things but he had never had such an enthusiastic student. It was actually kinda annoying.

Izzy showed Stede how to load the pistol and the man did a decent job for someone who had never loaded his own pistol before. Izzy fired the gun off the edge of the ship and then had Stede do it three more times. It was a decent effort, Izzy supposed.

“Now let’s work on shooting, especially aim because you don’t want to accidentally shoot your own crew,” Izzy said.

“That would be terrible,” Stede agreed.

“I’ve seen it happen,” Izzy said, “And look it does happen to even good shooters, but if you’re a shitty shooter it’s gonna happen more than once.”

The one good thing was that Stede didn’t seem afraid of the gun. Izzy had seen some young pirates be a little timid with guns, thinking they might go off and kill them and being hesitant to use them or be too much of a perfectionist when loading the pistol. They didn’t tend to last long. Stede shot and reloaded and sucked while doing it but he didn’t seem freaked out.

However he missed every single thing he aimed at. Didn’t even get close at first but he got more toward the general area.

“Until you get better, if you get better, aim for the center of someone and maybe you’ll hit something,” Izzy said.

“Izzy?”

“Hmm?”

“How does one get used to…umm. Killing.”

“It’s either them or you in most cases. Or you don’t have the resources to keep someone alive, or them being alive might come back on you and get you killed. Things like that. It’s…not always easy,” Izzy admitted.

“Was leaving my crew on a little sandspit easy?”

“I was ordered to do so.”

“Ed told you to abandon them on a sandspit?”

“He told me to get rid of them,” Izzy said, “I chose how.”

“Did you choose that because there was a chance they would make it?”

“Not really. Maybe. I don’t know. Most of your precious crew nearly killed me. Tied me up to an anchor and were seconds away from tossing me over when Ed got back. But that’s in the past, they are my crew now and I would die for them.”

“I would prefer it if you didn’t,” Stede said.

Izzy found himself smiling a little bit, “Alright let’s move on to cleaning a pistol.” He took a couple of steps toward the stairs where he had set the supplies. On the next step he stepped wrong on his prosthetic leg and cried out in pain.

The pain ran from his stump up his lower back and then back down, Izzy stumbled a bit and realized he was probably going to fall. Then Stede was there and managed to catch him and helped him sit down on the stairs.

Izzy was shaking slightly with the pain.

“Izzy? Do you need Roach? Or Jim? They’re getting really good at medicine…”

“I’ll be okay,” Izzy said.

“Can I get you anything?”

“No. It’ll pass,” Izzy said. Stede sat down beside him and thankfully shut up for a while. Izzy got his breathing under control and stopped shaking as the pain started to fade.

“Does that happen often,” Stede asked.

“Occasionally. It’s still healing. If I step just wrong it hits a nerve or something. Fucking hurts,” Izzy said. To distract himself from the feelings that were coming out Izzy took the pistol Stede had been using and started to clean it.

“You know, you’re quite the badass for surviving that,” Stede said.

“Just dumb luck honestly. That and Jim being determined to get the job done,” Izzy said.

“I’m sorry you had to go through that Izzy, I’m glad you’re doing better.”

“Didn’t know if I was going to make it at first. Crawled out from below deck to stop Ed from killing the others. Almost fainted several times in the storm. Fell a couple of times. Was sick for days,” Izzy said.

“Did you hurt your head in the storm?”

Izzy hesitated. He should tell Stede to fuck off. Stede didn’t need to know all that happened that night but…what was it about Stede Bonnet that made people want to open up? Izzy had thought it odd but it was starting to work on him.

“No. I tried to kill myself. Ed…I’m not ready to talk about it all but he left me with a loaded pistol just after the amputation. I held it to my head and fired and somehow I missed,” Izzy said.

“Oh Izzy…”

“I’m alright now Bonnet,” Izzy said, “Getting better at least. I won’t be doing that again.”

“Every single person on this ship is glad that you are here Izzy,” Stede said.

Izzy nodded, “I know.”

“You really are quite the badass Izzy. You got shot and then almost…and you’re still here able to teach me how to use a gun.”

Izzy shrugged, “Maybe.” He didn’t feel like a badass, he was just doing what needed to be done, but he would take being called a badass over pity any day.

Just then Ed came from below talking with Fang. Fang looked like he was at ease as they talked. Izzy heard Stede sigh next to him and looked over at the man. The fucker was utterly besotted. There was no doubt that Stede loved Edward. Stede…was probably more of what Edward needed. Ed was certainly happier now that Stede was there.

Izzy would give anything to be able to do that for Ed, but…he couldn’t. He could take care of some of Ed’s basic needs, he could protect Ed, he had helped Ed become skilled enough to protect himself. Izzy tried to take care of Ed as best he could but when it came to emotional needs…he’d failed. Badly. Ed needed someone like Stede to help with that and Izzy thought the best he could do now was teach Stede enough so the man didn’t die.

Izzy wanted Ed to be alright.

“You’re not even mad at him are you?” Stede asked and Izzy realized that Stede had been looking at him.

“I’m not,” Izzy said, “Well maybe a little but I’m more mad at myself than anything.”

“Izzy, I won’t keep you away from Ed. If you want to work on your relationship with him I’m not going to stop you. We can both love Ed,” Stede said, “We don’t have to be enemies.”

Izzy nodded. At the moment he didn’t even know what he would say to Ed, how to begin to talk to the man again but he would have to eventually.

“We don’t have to be enemies,” Izzy said, “Now, let's see if you were paying attention to pistol cleaning or if you were too busy staring at Ed.”

Stede groaned and Izzy laughed.

#ofmd s2 spoilers #ofmd #izzy hands #stede bonnet #fic

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