#low life records

[defjux]

King Kashmere. The Ill Hand. Lord Rao. Obiesie Adibuah. Galaktus. Chuck Enzo. Kashmere the Iguana Man.

[ruinedholograms]

(1985)

[space-dinosaurs]

Might never used this program again but here's a low quality benrey animation. 💀

[sarucane]

Ed Teach's Stories

From practically the moment we meet him, Ed's identity is unstable. We know who is he (Blackbeard) from context, from the story told by the the room around him, by Izzy and the flag his crew. But the thing is, Ed doesn't fit the story of the Mad Devil Blackbeard. Two of his first few words are "good" and "love" for crying out loud. He's called "Blackbeard," but his beard is grey.

This instability exists because Ed himself isn't sure what story he's telling--or wants to tell. "I shouldn't be bored, I'm fucking Blackbeard!" All through his early episodes Ed is in increasingly desperate tension with his own identity. He's trying to tell stories within stories, wanting all the stories to be true at the same time, yet aware of the reality that the world is constantly trying to wipe one or another of the stories away. And not really trusting that he can tell the whole story of who he is.

In the first season of OFMD, Stede wears a different outfit every episode. Yet Stede remains the same: despite his internal tensions (almost despite himself) there's a stability to his identity. But all through both seasons of OFMD, Ed putting on a new outfit means he's trying to tell a completely different story about himself.

And underneath this cacophony, there's Ed. And Ed is himself a chorus of stories, a living contradiction. A patricidal murderer who was protecting his mother; a paragon of masculinity who longs for softness and fluidity; a man renowned for violence and madness who has in fact carefully cultivated that reputation and is extremely careful with his violence; a killer who doesn't kill, yet who does kill all the time just at a bit of a remove; a half a dozen names and personas and yet always Ed; unloveable, yet deeply loved.

At the beginning of the show, Ed isn't actually good at telling his own story. He's good at listening to other people's stories, and conforming himself to them often without conscious effort. But when he tries to really tell his own story--asking Stede to run off to China, singing his break-up song song, going to become a fisherman--he fails. We don't understand in the first season why his judgement clouds, why he becomes weak when he tries to tell his story. But in the second season after spending half an episode in Ed's mind, a painful truth is undeniable: Ed, like Stede, doesn't think he's worthy of telling his own story.

So instead of telling his own story, Ed let other people tell his story. In the first season, Ed built off what Izzy told him he had to be. But he couldn't lose himself in Blackbeard, no matter how hard he tried. So in the second season, when Ed couldn't face living with his contradictions anymore, he wrote an ending worthy of Blackbeard.

All this, because Ed thinks he can only be "himself" by telling one, single story about himself. By denying his contradictions, rather than embracing them. Splitting himself in two to tell himself a story, rather than telling the story himself.

What Ed doesn't believe or trust is this: For Ed to really be himself, he has to be impossible. Two contradictory things, at the same time.

The second season of OFMD is about learning to embrace all these contradictions. In each episode of OFMD, character look at the same object or situation (a wanted poster, a unicorn, a velvety suit, a relationship, a past trauma) and they tell two completely different stories about it. Sometimes one of those stories turns out to be wrong, but more often than not both are true, and something else--something beautiful-- is born from the place where those contradictions meet. And the characters, Ed most of all, learn to accept and balance this dissonance.

Thematically speaking, I'd argue that's why the second season of OFMD is more fantastical than the first: fantasies are contradictions, real and not-real at the same time. And isn't that what transformation is, in the end? What you are and what you are not, meeting and becoming "you"?

Transformation isn't all good. At first, Ed's fantastic stories hide his pain or invoke despair

But later, the fantasies make their way into reality. The impossible begins to shape reality--and opens a way for hope.

In the last episode of S2, Ed emerges from the waves as the kraken--but there's 3 musical tracks playing, three themes: the kraken, Ed, and Blackbeard. Then he reads a love letter, and has a deeply romantic moment with his boyfriend. He puts on a new outfit to escape the British, yet his personality doesn't change at all. When Izzy first apologizes to him, Ed says "I'm the one who should be apologizing," but then Izzy changes his entire understanding of their relationship. Becomes the first family figure to offer Ed permission to be himself.

Contradictions galore, and yet Ed is still Ed. Both who he was formed into by other people (his father, Izzy, Pop Pop) and yet who he is.

In the final scenes, Ed begins to finally accept the tensions of his life. He tells Zheng that yes, he wants to kill Richie--but he doesn't go on a revenge quest. And while before his forays into being someone else meant changing his name, his clothes and mannerisms, his whole story, he doesn't act like that at all in the last scene of the ep.

And Ed's been able to do all this, to come this far, because of Stede. Stede, who Ed was drawn to because he was a "fancy man who leads a brigade of imbeciles," yet had won a fight with Izzy. Stede, who looked at Ed at his lowest moment, after Ed had admitted that the entire basis of their friendship had been in bad faith, and said, "I'm your friend." Stede who, even knowing Ed wouldn't want to hear from him, poured his heart into letters about how their bond was unbreakable.

Stede is everything he is, all at the same time. And when Ed was drowning in his own contradictions, (a rope tied around him that he could not undo and yet had put on himself) trapped somewhere "inevitable, yet impossible," Stede appeared as a fantastic, beautiful creature and brought him home.

Stede lets Ed be everything he is, and sees it all as true and worthy of love. Even when Ed fucks up, it's all right.

And sometimes, telling two different stories about something doesn't lead to a fragmented self, doesn't drive people apart.

Sometimes, it means understanding. Means acceptance, safety, connection.

From discordance (contradiction), harmony. A gentleman can be a pirate. A man can be a bird, or a unicorn. Izzy can have been one of the good ones and a fucking nightmare. And Ed can tell all his stories, they can all be true--and he can still be Ed.

[akkivee]

ALSO!!!!!! HAPPY FIVE YEARS ANNIVERSARY TO THIS ICONIC INTRO!!!!!!!💜💜💜💜💜💜💜

[innerxsanctum]

It’s always Christmas or the sound of summer in the Schlager hit parade.

[bandsandwristbands]

And what if I were to fist fight the entire NFL what about that

[munefille]

hi bb! i hope you’re having a good day/night and that you’re taking care of yourself!! 🫶 remember to drink plenty of water and to take breaks when you need them 🩷

thank you for the reminder ♡

[gynandromorph]

modern CPR is around 60 years old. that's just wild to me. related but tangential: also wild to watch people resuscitate animals, solely with chest compressions

[toddandersonn]

Halsey and TGI, get behind me

[anti-gravity-insanity]

TURNED IT IN TURNED IT IN MOST RECORD AMOUNT OF ALL NIGHTERS IN MY LIFE BUT I DID IT BY GOD TURNED IN MY THESIS IM FREE IM FREE IM FREE IM FREE

[ruinedholograms]

(1985)

[leapinarmadillo]

man he really BURST outta motown. you don't particularly get the feeling he was held back at motown, apart from the songs being not that great, but then he leaves and it's like OH. OHHHH

[seven-snails]

i don't normally do new year's resolutions but i think this year i want to start and finish a new piece of media every month, and i'm probably going to start with ikuhara's filmography because i have been meaning to watch mawaru penguindrum and yurikuma arashi and sarazanmai for like. multiple years at this point. after that i don't know but i have like 30+ shows *just* on my anime watchlist so i shouldn't be running out of options anytime soon lol

[jasperwocky]

i think one of the craziest things about biphobia is that no matter the gender people doubt our attraction to women. bi women are assumed to be straight and looking for attention, bi men are assumed to be gay and looking to avoid attention. like have you even met a bisexual person? fuck, have you met a woman?

[septembersung]

Alas, poetry has fallen by the way.

…I was going to turn my “no poem” announcement into a poem but I am.. that. tired.