#Ed the kraken

[attractive-nuisance-esq]

so here’s the thing that’s really going to destroy me about this season, and why This Woman’s Work has already dashed me against the rocks: we’re going to watch Ed go through recovery. (Or rather his journey will be parallel to recovery, because Ed isn’t literally addicted.) David isn’t playing around; he’s just giving it straight to us. Ed’s drinking, snorting shit, indulging in toxic fantasies, pushing away everyone who cares about him. he’s descended into the worst cycle of addiction, where you hate yourself far more than anyone else around you, where you keep grasping at the same self-destructive coping mechanisms long after they’ve stopped working, where you cannot see further than surviving the next five minutes and your only goal is making it all stop. this is classic rock bottom. the entire purgatory hallucination is essentially exactly how it goes when you wake up after the worst night of your life and quite literally have to decide whether or not you want to keep living.

and when you reach rock bottom, you look around to find you’ve lost almost everyone you thought ever loved you, and it feels so fucking pointless to fight. if everyone is gone, if you’ve destroyed all your relationships because deep down you believed that’s what you deserved, why even try to get back up? what’s the use? hasn’t their leaving confirmed your lack of worth? how could anyone ever forgive you? how could you ever forgive yourself?

but that’s This Woman’s Work now, isn’t it? Stede will stand outside, because it’s on Ed now to find a way to love himself. recovery won’t stick - fuck, it won’t even start unless you decide to do it for yourself. Stede can’t fix Ed, but he can say, “I know you’ve got a little life in you left. I know you’ve got a lot of strength left.” but the relationship this song has to be referring to in this moment is the one between Ed and himself. Ed and Blackbeard and the Kraken and the child he was and the man he will be. There are things he should have said to himself but never said, done but never did. He’s never cared about himself before, and there is a straight fucking line from that self-loathing to addiction.

and you can’t survive addiction, you can’t get sober, you can’t heal for anyone else. you have to do it for yourself. but that glimmer of hope - sometimes someone else gives you the glimmer it takes to start picking up the pieces. Stede’s calling to him, telling Ed that he hasn’t lost him yet, that he loves him. that’s the glimmer of hope streaming down into the depths where he’s drowning: that Stede sees something in him worth loving, and maybe - just maybe - he’s right.

I am so fucking excited for the gentlebeard ship to sail, and I’m a total sucker for the mermaid reunion and the hand-holding and just ALL OF IT! but I hope so desperately that we get to watch Ed recover this season. I hope for it even as I know watching it will probably give me (more) flashbacks/require some therapy. that’s the relationship I really want to see mended this season. let that boy find his inner worth before he finds external love, or else the latter will never survive. also I’m pretty sure watching it all happen will Fix Me but let’s not put that pressure on @davidjenks lol

[thecoolestcowboy]

girls be like “i’m fighting demons” and the demons are some little rich dude who wears a little striped night gown with a matching nightcap and snores ‘HONKK shooo HONK shooo’

[merricatblckwood]

After months of work (and mostly procrastination) i finally finished Ed's *kraken era* earring. It was a challenge as I had to base myself on a bunch of moving pixels but I think it turned out nicely. It's made in gold plated bronze, with mother-of-pearl.

It's available on my Etsy shop, you can get yours! (It's made to order btw)

[vlcimor]

[pennybunpirate]

✨I finished it✨

The Lighthouse and the Kraken, my silly little idea for something to do with a damaged ceramic lighthouse I had that turned into one of the most labour intense art projects I've ever done. I poured so many hours and love into this thing, and posting the progress on here and having you guys cheering it on kept me motivated to see it through❤️ (even when I had to take a break for a few weeks because my shoulder got worn out from working on it)

More closeups and a video under the cut ❤️

Check out #pennybunpirate's lighthouse for all the progress posts if you're interested 🙃

Thank you for following along, it's been a fun ride❤️

[fright-designs]

throwback to the Our Flag Means Death embroidery i made last year 🏳️‍🌈🏴‍☠️

[lydiajoypalmer]

The Kraken 🐙

shop / sticker club

[stinkyeggbow]

''I could fill oceans with what I feel for you''

[eefaevie]

what’s he looking at

[crimson-and-clover-1717]

Chauncy’s character assassination of Stede Bonnet in 109 is brutal. I want to explore the imagery and connotations of monster. Typically, we think of monsters as grotesque, ugly and something to be feared. Monsters are deemed anti-normative by the majority who set the standard for what is considered desirable, normative.

Stede has been ‘monstered’ by everyone his whole life. His father others and bullies Stede for being a gender nonconforming boy; Mary cannot understand Stede’s desperate need to ‘break the monotony’ in their marriage; the Revenge crew can’t initially comprehend this new, life-affirming approach to piracy and consider mutiny. To the likes of Nigel Badminton, Stede has been a ‘monster’ since childhood with his gentle, crying, flower-picking ways. Ed is the first person to see beauty and worth in the monster. When Ed attempts finally to shed the costume of toxic masculinity worn as protective armour for so long, he is accused of being a monster too: ‘This…you’ve become’. This. Unnamable. A whatever. All because Ed isn’t performing masculinity to Izzy’s expected standard. Effeminate behaviour will not be tolerated. Emotion outside of anger is weakness.

But this show loves to confound and it confounds well.

In 203, Ed’s mind subverts the trope of the monster into something transcendental. And by doing so rescues his own self from the Kraken-monster imagery that has imprisoned him, the stone falling from his waist, albatross-like.

Because what is more monster than a human-hybrid. A scaly, underwater-breathing, half-man, half-goldfish. Merstede is a monster. An effeminate one. And a beautiful one! Ed reclaims the word from Chauncy, rehabilitates it, and allows the wonder of Stede Bonnet to blaze across his dying consciousness. This enigmatic man, frequently reviled for being unashamedly himself, turned Ed’s world upside down and inside out. Who challenges Ed’s own perceptions of self again, and again, and again. Whose anti-normative qualities are not grotesque, but rather exquisite. This undefinable, miraculous creature who left Blackbeard completely and utterly undone.

Stede mirrors Ed. I am you and you are me. Let’s be anti-normative together. Let’s redefine the trope.

Here be monsters, both.

[asmeanasiamnice]

posters

[edsrosetattoo]

Ed to the crew of the Revenge:

[tvxqmylove]

OFMD Releasing the Kraken in S1 versus S2

They used Swede's siren song from the fuckery in first season to show how the murderous Kraken (Blackbeard) came back in the second season. It was a great touch.

[artsyhamster]

Rambled on Twi, thinking about the october events and then I doodled it:

Angsty Edizzy & Steddyhands week mashup idea: Ed convinces Izzy to do a partner costume for Halloween, a unicorn, and Izzy accepts reluctantly, only if he can be the head at least. In the end Ed stands him up though and does a partner costume with Stede instead. Anyway Stede sees Izzy at the party eventually and finds out Ed stood him up for him. He's offended on Izzy's behalf and offers to be the end part. Ed feels left out. The end result is a squished unicorn with 6 legs

[vlcimor]

The kraken A timelapse video for you all as an apology gift for my lack of activity.. :´)

[pennybunpirate]

Guys. Guysss. Took me 3 weeks but I finished the sculpting 🤩🤓

Now I get to paint it (awesome) while hoping it'll continue to go well (mildly stressful). Ah, the rollercoaster of making art 🙃

Some closeups and a video under the cut, for ✨funsies✨

Ps. The light is a random led fairy light I had, the battery box is covered in clay and the cable is inside a tentacle 🙃