dimplyowl

[dimplyowl]

art for sam @margaritaville ‘s fic “softness, heavenly kiss”!!

[dimplyowl]

I’ve debated making this post, because I don’t want to make what Atticus has done about me. The hurt and damage he has caused goes much further than this, particularly to POC members of our fandom community. However, I would like to explain my side of the story as it relates to his plagiarism.

In April last year, I published my story ‘Held in your hand’. I wrote it quickly, I was pleased with it, and it got a positive response. A big win for me. A few days later, it was brought to my attention that A had published a very similar story, with lightly rewritten passages and phrasing that were very close to mine.

Obviously, I was upset. I felt betrayed, by someone I had considered to be a friend. I was also informed that he had done similar to other writers, and had a reputation for rewording tumblr posts, etc. I was advised to block him, so I did. A short time later, A posted about how blindsided he was to be blocked, how upset he was and how puzzled. I decided to talk to him privately and explain what had happened.

Unfortunately, this was an opportunity to pull the wool over my eyes, and play on my emotions. He swore blind that it was a mistake, that he had no intentions of copying my work. He offered to take his work down, to do rewrites, whatever it took to make it right. He apologised in a way that I found genuine, and I decided to accept his apology. I unblocked him, and we went back to having friendly interactions, although I kept more of a distance after that, particularly from his writing.

I know that others have disagreed with my actions, that other people have wanted to do a public call out about his plagiarism in the past. I disagreed with that, and with the information I had at the time, I stand by my position. I don’t think I’m an idiot, or desperate for approval or popularity. I was trying to give him the benefit of the doubt, and to be kind. None of us saw the race faking, or the fake brain tumour, coming.

I’m sorry to people who feel like they should have been told about the plagiarism, but I honestly didn’t think he was capable of this level of deception and betrayal. I hope this doesn’t stop anyone from wanting to participate in this fandom.

Sending love to everyone who is hurting right now <3

[dimplyowl]

🥹🥹🥹 this made my morning! Lovely anon, whoever you are, thank you so much 💜💜💜

This lovely letter is for Ally @dimplyowl - one of my favorite people in this fandom, a good friend, a haver of great takes, and an incredible fic writer who deserves more love. Go check out her ao3 if you haven't!

Hi @dimplyowl! You've received a lovely letter. 💌

Crew, you can read her fic here.

[dimplyowl]

on my mind today is ed telling stede he was "thinking of packing it all in" when they first met. in light of the conversations about retirement he has with stede and izzy later on in the episode. like had he actually never heard of retirement when he said that. not feeling great about the implications behind "packing it in" here

[dimplyowl]

The Izzy Discourse isn’t about shipwars or people being harassed “just” for liking a character. I suspect that the majority of us would agree that liking Izzy isn’t bad or inherently racist or pro-abuse because—obviously—liking a character is not indicative of a person’s morality.

The Izzy Discourse exists because folks deep in the Izzy Canyon (let’s call them Cayoneers) continue to characterize themselves as a victimized minority, claim that criticism and disagreement are harassment, and dissuade the larger fandom from having important conversations about topics like racism and abuse by calling anyone trying to have those conversations a racist or an abuse apologist.

First: Canyoneers are not a victimized minority who receive the majority of harassment in this fandom. Other fans frequently disagree with them—either directly in their posts or indirectly in their own posts—but disagreement is not harassment. Critiquing an interpretation of canon that contradicts most other interpretations is not harassment. Receiving pushback after making a statement that most fans find ridiculous? Not harassment.

When Canyoneers refer to doxxing incidents, they only bring up the one where someone was doxxed by antis “for being an Izzy fan.” I was in the fandom when this happened and, as I remember, the kid who doxxed this fan did so because they thought that it was immoral for them to like Izzy and Calico Jack AND that the content of their writing was morally deplorable. This puriteen was called out by everyone and the fan who was doxxed received support from every corner of the fandom. Canyoneers tend to leave out the full stated reason for the doxxing (liking Calico Jack, writing ~taboo~ content) as well as the fact that the kid responsible was broadly condemned. They make the incident entirely about loving Izzy, which it was not.

I never hear about when Jac deactivated from Twitter in 2023 under threat of doxxing from Canyoneers. No one talks about the Tumblr user who was harassed about their fundraiser for trans-affirming surgery. What about the Tumblr account made specifically to document alleged abuse towards Izzy fans that engages in its fair share of harassment and calls out users Canyoneers don’t like by name? If anyone calls out any of this bad behavior, Canyoneers close ranks to protect their own. They deny or justify their actions. They make it everyone’s fault but theirs.

Canyoneers aren’t the only people in this fandom who have been hurt. I’ve received death threats, and so have some of my friends. Several people I know have genuinely been harassed off of social media platforms by Izzy stans. Canyoneers dogpile on posts that they disagree with, even if the post is tagged in whatever way they prescribe (and their preferred tag for Izzy critical content is always subject to change). It’s ridiculous that this splinter of the OFMD fandom has decided that they’ve suffered more than any other part when they demonstrably have not.

The Canyon is largely united by their perceived suffering, so it’s not surprising that they characterize Izzy as a character who has also suffered unfairly. Poor Izzy suffers from classism due to his Northern accent. Izzy behaves the way he does because he’s losing the man he loves to the kind of posh aristocrat who oppresses people like him. Izzy is punished for trying to get Ed to do his job. Izzy is only cruel because he’s anxious, because he’s scared, because he’s just trying to keep himself and Ed alive. Izzy died even though he’s the most queer, the most femme, the most disabled, the most everything. 

It’s all about being the victim and maintaining that Izzy is himself a victim.

Second: Canyoneers make it difficult to talk about racism and abuse—topics that we should absolutely be able to discuss as a fandom. 

Liking Izzy does not make someone racist. Granting Izzy infinite grace while condemning Ed, grafting Ed’s characteristics onto Izzy while pushing Ed out of the narrative, claiming that Ed needs to be managed, and maintaining that Ed is violent and abusive? Racist. But challenging Canyoneers garners violent pushback and insistence that you’re the real racist for disagreeing with them.

Indigenous people and men of color have historically been depicted in media as savage and violent. They’re portrayed as frightening, animalistic, abusive, incapable of control, in need of the civilizing influence of the dominant culture to be accomplished. OFMD consciously pushes back against all of these stereotypes only to have Canyoneers bring them back! A fandom that should be a safe space for people of color, especially men, becomes a hostile environment because fans of a white character need to make an indigenous man worse to justify their takes.

In canon, Ed is not a violent or abusive man. That’s not implied—it’s a huge part of his character and his struggle. He’s a kind man trapped in an abusive culture that he wants to leave behind. Canyoneers have a tendency to make Ed worse in order to make Izzy look better. They turn Ed into a monster and call it canon, and if they’re challenged, they try to turn the argument around. If I say that interpreting Ed as more violent than he is in canon feeds into harmful racist stereotypes about indigenous men, I’m told that I’m denying the experiences of people who have been abused by indigenous men by claiming that they can’t be violent. If I say that Izzy pushed Ed into his Kraken persona, I’m told that I’m the real racist for denying Ed’s agency. 

Talk about abuse is shut down in the same way. Izzy abuses Ed—this is made explicitly clear in season two for anyone who denied the existence of emotional abuse after season one—but who’s brave enough to talk about it when the Canyoneers are ready to attack anyone who doesn’t think that Izzy’s the victim? They’ll say that Izzy’s only crime was saying some mean words and that anyone who thinks Ed is in the right approves of abusing people who are mouthy or unpleasant. They deny the reality of reactive abuse and the devastation that emotional abuse can wreck. They hope that anyone who doesn’t think that Izzy is the victim of abuse never gets anywhere near real victims of abuse, completely dismissing the lived experiences of fans who have experienced abuse and see their abusers’ words and actions in Izzy’s.

Canyoneers can’t stand discussions about racism and abuse as they relate to Izzy, and I understand why. Many of them relate to Izzy in all of his meanness and humorlessness (and at least one has flat out said that an abusive behavior of Izzy’s is something they do); all of them consider themselves good and progressive people. They have to deny that their defenses of Izzy and condemnations of Ed are racist by any means possible to avoid cognitive dissonance, so they shut down discussions and harass people who don’t fall in line.

The discourse isn’t really about Izzy. It never has been. If Canyoneers “just” liked Izzy and enjoyed pairing him with random characters, no one would care. The Izzy Discourse lives on because the Canyon continues to overstate harm, mischaracterize past events or fully ignore things that paint their group in a bad light, tell new fans about the suffering Izzy fans have had to endure, and refuse to accept any discussion about racism or abuse that dares criticize their takes and behavior. 

I’m tired.

#481.

[dimplyowl]

the sleepies, brought to you by this post by @dimplyowl:

[dimplyowl]

The notion that I see repeated about how Ed “should have loved” Izzy is honestly very concerning. Even if Izzy were the kindest, loveliest person in the world, no one is owed the love of another person. That’s incel rhetoric.

And Izzy, in his anger at not being loved as he “deserved,” abused and harmed both Ed and Stede. He’s an abuser, not a tragic victim of unrequited love.

[dimplyowl]

Bucky Barnes & Steve Rogers MARVELous - A Risqué Parody

[dimplyowl]

Here's another thing: for a good bit of Season 1, Ed does not know if Stede returns his feelings. He obviously gets mixed signals, he's obviously confused by Stede's behavior. He saved Stede's life, but at NO POINT does Ed appear to believe that Stede owes him anything. In fact, when he starts to think that Stede doesn't return his feelings, and that he's getting in deeper, he decides that maybe now is the time to leave.

Ed doesn't own Stede. Stede doesn't owe Ed love, even though Ed has done a great deal for him. Ed knows this. He never tries to force Stede to love him.

Even to the point that he kisses Stede for the first time, Ed is waiting to be rejected. And there's never an indication that he will take this badly or violently. He will be sad, but he doesn't believe that Stede is leading him on or doing anything wrong. His heartbreak after Stede leaves him is because Stede said that they would go away together, and then doesn't show up. And even then, Ed is hurt and he has a right to be hurt, but he doesn't turn this into Stede owing him anything. At most, he's hurt because it seems like Stede lied to him.

This show goes out of its way to depict what a real loving and consensual relationship looks like. There's no possession, no desire to possess. At every point, they choose to be with each other. They value each other's personhood. They don't own each other; they love each other.

If you look at that, what the show is actually depicting, and think that Izzy's toxic and possessive "love for Ed" is the real and desirable kind, I'm honestly quite concerned.

[dimplyowl]

I wonder if Ed thought Izzy was testing him

We all remember Izzy basically saying “Be Blackbeard or I kill you”, right? Catalyst for the original toe thing we’ve litigated this to death. Izzy threatens his life.

So when he suddenly starts saying “can we talk it through?” it’s reasonable that Ed thought this was a litmus test. Was Blackbeard as back as he claimed to be, or were pieces of Stede’s Ed who wanted to throw a talent show still in there? If Izzy found them, would he follow through on his threat.

When Izzy mentions Stede’s name, Ed takes that as proof that Izzy’s seen through him. Knows that deep down he’s still the guy who fantasizes about marrying the love of his life and does arts and crafts with cake toppers.

So he eliminates the threat. Shoots him, appoints a new first mate who he thinks is loyal to him.

“No more booze, no more drugs, no more Izzy” was Ed committing to recovering, similar to episode 10. He was removing the threats to his mental and physical health from his life. Getting rid of Izzy would allow a fresh start.

Then the crew saves Izzy’s life. The man who had never been anything but a dick to them. They band together to keep him alive. From Ed’s perspective, they take his side. He’s got no one, they chose Izzy.

I don’t think “treacherous liar” was some random insult. Ed’s been betrayed again.

Is it any wonder he sails into the storm? He thinks he has no one. He thinks he’s unlovable.

[dimplyowl]

This poll uses "gay" as an umbrella term to include gay, lesbian, bi, pan, etc.

This poll is asking about orientation only, not transgender identity.

Anon is aroace and doesn't really consider themself to be gay or straight. They don't feel attraction to anybody and are still working through what it means for them to be aroace.

Obviously there's more to sexuality than just "gay or straight" but they are curious if others think of orientation as being a complete dichotomy (there are only two pools and everyone falls into one pool or the other) or as more of a spectrum.

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We ask your questions anonymously so you don’t have to! Submissions are open on the 1st and 15th of the month.

[dimplyowl]

Feb 4, 2025 - Thousands of Los Angeles high school students walked out of class and marched on the city capitol in third straight day of Anti-ICE protests. (Source)

PROTESTS ARE HAPPENING. THEY ARE JUST NOT BEING COVERED OUTSIDE OF LOCAL MEDIA OUTLETS. DO NOT RELY ON MAINSTREAM MEDIA.

There was a huge Trans-rights demonstration last night in New York outside of NYU Langone hospital in protest of their decision to halt gender-affirming care under Trump's order. (Source)