#HE'S THE ONE WHO SOLD ED/STEDE OUT TO THE ENGLISH IN THE FIRST PLACE???

[saint-cecilias]

#like. don't tinge my edstede time with his nonsense please he keeps turning up like a bad penny

anyway i'm gonna whinge again now very briefly but i didn't like izzy being the one to interrupt them in the morning or the docking joke or 'make your boyfriend blush' or the singing or 'one more song'

great that he's moved past whatever homophobia he had going on last season. awful that it's gone completely unaddressed while all his development happens off screen

local homophobe who made your life hell comes out and gets so much support for the very things they bullied you for. tale as old as time. more at 6

except also he seems to think he gets to tease you like you're friends and to make jokes about your relationship and to embrace the femininity he wouldn't let you have with the exact same people he wouldn't let you have it with and to give you and your boyfriend advice about a relationship he tried to end by getting you both killed using emotional intelligence he's apparently grown overnight?

feels bad folks. don't like it

[xoxoemynn]

OFMD Fic Writer Appreciation Day - The Fics!

For fic writer appreciation day, I asked OFMD fic writers to share the story they’re the most proud of -- not necessarily the one with the most hits or kudos or comments, but the one that holds a special place in their hearts.

I’ve really enjoyed making my way through all the responses and wanted to share with all of you! We’ve got fics of all lengths and ratings and fitting pretty much any mood. The list got really long so I put them behind a cut, but I do hope you’ll check these out and leave some love for the creators. (I just compiled basic info, so please mind any tags or warnings in the link.)

Also, once again, writers! Please do not be shy! Share out the stories you worked hard on, the ones you struggled with, the ones that flew out of your fingertips, the ones that have extra special personal meaning to you. Reblog your fics out the wazoo, add your stories onto this list, or just drop them into my inbox.

Thank you all for sharing your creativity with us. 💕

Prisons Of Our Own Perceptions by @chocolatepot [Mature | 22K | Ed x Stede]  Ed had been interested in tracking down the so-called "Gentleman Pirate" for months. What sort of gentleman commissioned a ship and fled his life of luxury for one of bloodshed and backstabbing? And by all accounts, particularly Izzy’s, he was a terrible pirate. Completely incompetent. It made no sense … but it was compelling. And the thing was, Ed didn’t find much compelling these days. After being sold out to the Spanish, the Revenge was "rescued" by Charles Vane rather than Blackbeard - and unlike Edward, Vane doesn't see Stede as an equal. After weeks of captivity on Vane's ship, Ed and Stede meet, and something begins ...

baby, would you find that so odd? by @eluciferate [Teen | 6K | Ed x Stede] Ed shaves his beard at the reformatory and thinks he might like what he sees. even after everything is over, he's less sure that Stede does.

the earth of me by @eluciferate [2K | Mature | Ed x Stede] tfw you go to the get tied up store and you accidentally end up with a gender

the importance of outspokenness by @eluciferate [Teen | 5K | Ed x Stede, Ed x Anne Bonny x Mary Read] How Ed found herself the first time, then found her way back.

riches and wonders by @emi--rose [Explicit | 9K | Ed x Stede, Ed x Mary, Ed x Stede x Mary] Ed Teach and Mary Bonnet get along like a house on fire, as they find out when a totally reasonable attempt to drop off birthday gifts for Alma goes off the rails.

Hungry for love, ready to drown by @epersonae  [Teen | 8K | Ed x Stede] Later, much later, Stede realizes he can divide his life into two parts, split by that exact moment: when by all rights he should have been dead, gut-stabbed and strung up, and instead the most beautiful man he’d ever seen strolled up to him through fire and smoke and men screaming. A re-telling of the story as Stede grapples with his (unknown even to him) feelings for one Edward Teach, aka Blackbeard.

intricate rituals by @forlorn-kumquat [Teen | 6K | Ed x Stede] a pirate's life is not one that leads to casual touches. luckily for Ed, Stede's not the typical pirate. (or: five times Stede braided Ed's hair and one time Ed returned the favor)

Clarity by @kat0nline [44K | Explicit | Ed x Stede, Mary x Doug, Jim x Oluwande] After an accident upends Stede and Ed's fragile new relationship, Ed fights to bring Stede back.

If You Were Mine to Keep by @mysterybees [53K | Explicit | Ed x Stede] Caught between the gallows and the end of an English sword, Ed accepts the Act of Grace: marry into the aristocracy, leave the English ships alone, and live to sail another day. But who in their right mind would ever agree to marry the mad devil pirate Blackbeard?

The Inked Moth by @newnewyorker93 [1K | Gen | Ed x Stede] Ed gives Stede his first tattoo.

Chasing Storms by @not-nervous-jester [167K | Mature | Ed x Stede] Blackbeard returns to The Revenge to discover that Izzy Hands is no longer on board. He navigates his grief and Stede navigates a way back to the man he loves.

The Kraken and the Lighthouse by @nyominebula [27K | Teen | Ed x Stede] Ed puts Stede in the closet until he can deal with his emotions.

all that i am led me to you by @profdanglaisstuff [16K | Teen | Ed x Stede, Mary x Doug] For ten years, Mary Allamby Bonnet has barely given any thought to her "late" husband Stede. She's been far too busy enjoying her life as his wealthy widow. Until the night that Stede appears at her door, badly wounded, in the arms of the most feared pirate in history. Until that moment Mary had never truly believed the Wanted posters that claimed Stede as a "known associate" of Blackbeard's. Yet here he is, in her home, less the legendary pirate captain than simply Stede's Ed, a man terrified of losing the love of his life. He won't, though. Not if Mary has anything to say about it. Or, Mary and Ed nurse Stede back to health and in doing so form a friendship.

Lighthouse Coffee by @profdanglaisstuff [7K | Mature | Ed x Stede] Ed Teach is the best P.I. in the business. Brilliant, observant, always two steps ahead—and completely fed up with all of it. He’s frustrated, burnt out, yearning for something different. But what? Nothing ever changes in his narrow, rigid life. He’s starting to think that nothing ever could. Until one day a new coffee shop opens up on the floor below his agency, run by a man unlike any he’s ever met before. Stede Bonnet doesn’t play by any of the rules—he doesn’t even seem to realise they exist. He fascinates Ed from the moment they meet and makes him think that maybe… maybe he might be able to have a different sort of life. The kind he’s always wanted but never thought he deserved. Now if only someone would stop trying to kill Stede long enough for that to happen.

stay the course by @sarriane [35K | Teen | Ed x Stede] Ed has been stuck in a rut since Stede left. He would like nothing more than to shut himself away, but his crew needs a captain, there’s a cat inside his cabin, and bounty hunters have begun to target pirates on the high seas. And Stede? Stede has a plan to take back the Revenge and make things right. What’s a little piracy amongst pirates?

Ace of Hearts series by @thetardigrape [28K | Explicit | Ed x Stede] Asexual Stede explores being in a physically intimate relationship with Ed, the love of his life.

The training of Izzy Hands  by @elfenixnegro [33K | Explicit | Ed x Stede, Stede x Izzy, Ed x Izzy, Black Pete x Lucius, Jim x Oluwande, Izzy and Jim] Israel Hands was efficient, brutal and loyal, which got him a spot at Blackbeard’s side. But Blackbeard is dead now, only Edward Teach remains, a man who has no use for a brutal masochistic first mate. But chance it has it that maybe Stede Bonnet who killed Blackbeard could give purpose to the broken Izzy Hands.

Chains of Love by @three--rings [26K | Explicit | Ed x Stede] When Blackbeard learns Stede Bonnet isn't dead, but is instead being sold as a prisoner, he rushes to buy him.  He thinks that this may be the perfect opportunity to show Bonnet that you don't fuck with Edward Teach. Stede, on the other hand, just sees this as a perfect opportunity to explain himself. After all, he knows where he belongs now, and it's by Ed's side, even when Ed is...not quite the same man he left behind.

The Merry Strays of Lighthouse Sanctuary by @xoxoemynn [3K | Gen | Ed x Stede] An AU where Stede Bonnet owns a rather unusual animal shelter that prides itself on always being able to find the perfect match for anyone seeking a companion, and Edward Teach has decided he's in need of a pet.

[triflesandparsnips]

Weird canonical Izzy Hands things have led me to a New Theory.

Behold first, the evidence:

Is just as ridiculously dressed as Ed, wears one glove constantly even when he's not sword fighting, these two are both drama nerds

Runs Blackbeard's ship and allows it to have even poorer safety standards than the Revenge, is not a super capable sailor, can merely play one on TV

Is totally fine and doesn't berate Fang for having a breakdown about his dog. Fang's allowed to have feelings, and he's allowed to show them. That's on his character-sheet, so Izzy's down with that

Did the Act of Grace and sold out to the English first, and Izzy's Revenge is 100% supposed to be a British ship or something now, whoops. Still doesn't know how to be a captain or run a ship effectively -- does know how to draw focus for a solid "I am villainously eating good food in front of you" bit, though he'd intended Ed to be part of this return to the script-- when forced to improvise, is lousy at it ("Izzy's Revenge")

Asks Ed if he wants "the boy" to take notes, like wtf man, Lucius's job is completely made up but you ask if Ed wants him? Why??? What possible purpose would Lucius have in this situation? Does Izzy think Ed's gonna dictate "my life as a badass, chapter 2: the dark side of the moon" because this is all just another layer of theatricality?? WHAT CHARACTER DOES IZZY THINK HE'S PLAYING?

SO, fun new reading of the text is:

Izzy is just as big of an overly dramatic nerd as Ed and Stede. Ed is a character actor who's been pigeonholed into "cool pirate villain". Stede is the guy who's never acted but just bought himself a theatre so he can always play the lead. Together, they discover that they actually make a great improv double-act, allowing Stede to actually earn his place among real actors while Ed has the chance to break out of his career rut.

And then there's Izzy, who not only believes that the script is sacrosanct and actors shouldn't deviate from the writers' Perfect Words, but he also firmly believes that the only true way to embody a role is through goddamn method acting.

[pikechris]

the funniest thing is that the whole thing would be nearly the same only you have space and warp engines instead of the sea and sails. because the characters? could act exactly the same.

maybe stede is from a nice little human colony in federation space, born into a cushy life and dreaming of adventure while he's bored with a wife who hates space so he commissions a ship and runs away. maybe he knows nothing about captaining a starship and his ragtag crew don't respect him at first but he eventually grows on them. maybe they can read but not english so he reads old earth books to them, which he has more of on board than jean-luc picard because he's that kind of nerd. maybe he dreams of being a pirate but doing it differently and not actually just firing phasers and robbing ships and being violent. maybe he's never been in love before.

maybe the crew are a bunch of humans and aliens who have somehow come together and became a family and are all queer and weird (affectionate). roach is the cook who wanted to be a doctor. jim is an orphan raised by a romulan qowat milat nun to get revenge on the people who killed their family. the swede is an andorian. buttons talks to birds because he's some kind of telepath or something. olu is the only sensible one there, forced to run and join the pirate crew for some reason. frenchie loves to sing and play an acoustic guitar or something. lucius is charged with keeping the ship's log and draws stuff (and the crew) in his downtime. black pete tells stories about how he was on blackbeard's crew to seem cooler. maybe there are all the relationships, and maybe they're bad at being space pirates, and stede gives them enough replicator rations and fresh food and wages in latinum.

maybe ed is from a shitty human colony that borders orion space and gets raided a lot and isn't a nice place to live. maybe he and his family were poor, left to fend for themselves by the federation, maybe his father was a cruel drunk and he killed him and thought himself a monster but he was forced, maybe he ran off to join a crew, orion syndicate-adjacent, and built a reputation for himself and became a feared captain of a stolen klingon bird of prey. maybe he's depressed and bored of this life and wants something different.

maybe he hears of stede, rescues him from some klingons he was sold out to and sits by his bedside as he heals from getting stabbed by a bat'leth and admires his collection of actual paper books and fancy clothes and the eccentric starship he's got. they get along famously despite what everyone might think, and ed promises to teach him how to be a better space marauder if stede teaches him about being a well-mannered gentleman who wears all those nice clothes and parties with whatever the equivalent of high society is (people from earth and the good colonies?). he helps him avoid the klingons with a clever trick involving a warning beacon and crashes a party on a starbase somewhere where some of his crew scam a bunch of ferengi and give away the money. maybe they almost kiss under the starlight, under a viewport.

maybe they put on a show to escape some other crew trying to steal from the ship and the truth about ed's father comes out but it's alright and they're friends but falling in love and no one gets killed. maybe they have a bit of shore leave and send the crew to get some fresh fruits and veg because they're out and it's just not the same with replicators. there's a treasure hunt and no one finds anything and jim meets their romulan nana and stays to complete their quest and lucius sees that the co-captains have feelings for each other. maybe an old friend who's a bit of a twat drops by in a shuttle because his crew mutinied and stede and him don't get along and ed leaves but then boards an escape pod when he finds out it's a ploy.

maybe they're caught by starfleet admiral badminton and faced with serving time at the new zealand penal colony (hehe) or something worse (not death, the federation doesn't execute people, but they'd be apart all the same) but ed makes a plea to work for starfleet in exchange for information on the syndicate and some other elusive bastards and they're sent off to a starbase to go through a training course. ed leaves captain blackbeard behind and is content like this but stede doesn't believe it. ed finds him on a holodeck one night, sitting on a beach and watching a sunset, and they kiss and hatch an escape plan. maybe the mad admiral (and isn't that a theme in trek) finds him and ends up accidentally killing himself with a phaser pointed at stede but the damage is done and stede is faced with all his purported failings and doubt creeps in and he steals an escape pod and goes back home.

ed waits, and eventually leaves in a pod of his own and finds the revenge, but he's devastated because for once he opened up and showed someone the person under the monster everyone thinks him to be and look how it turns out? so he mopes for a bit but izzy is disgusted that this should be his captain, blackbeard, with a quarter of klingon blood in him—so he throws lucius and all of stede's stuff out of the airlock (lucius survives somehow, through the transporter?) and maroons the crew on an uninhabited moon somewhere and goes all monster, klingon warrior, mek'leth and all, even if he's heartbroken on the inside.

stede, meanwhile, sees his family be happy, mary prosper as an artist, dating another man. he's still miserable and can't stop thinking about ed. eventually, after a foiled murder attempt, mary helps him see that he's in love and he decides he has to go back. together, they fake his death (it involves a local wild animal, a hovercar, and a heavy cabinet that got transported wrong and fell), and he get himself a warp-one-only shuttle and heads towards his ship.

he finds the crew on the moon because there are life signs where there shouldn't be any, picks them up and finds out what happened, comes across an asteroid field that's just his books and artefacts, picks them up too, and makes his way back to the revenge eventually, even if it's warp capability is better. by this time, ed has heard of his death because it's all over federation and orion news, so when he sees just who is hailing his ship, there's just stunned silence. he lets them beam aboard and points a phaser at stede the first thing, but they talk it through and go right back to being co-captains and sharing quarters and being slightly incompetent space marauders, after they stole a cloaking device so as to avoid being caught by starfleet or anyone else.

they get married eventually, fully legally, by the first officer. that's the only big change that really happens, but other than that, the story can be pretty much the same. oh and also, all the modern technology makes them finding each other all the time make sense and be entirely possible, so that's nice.

people are coming up with and writing modern aus for ofmd which is great and I honestly love those in any fandom but. my trekkie brain immediately went STARSHIP CAPTAINS AU. pirates in space even. and now I can't get rid of it