#what this person did was not piracy but it makes me think about how like. some vrc avatar pirates think

[ironicsoap]

had to ban a ripper from my discord yesterday, feels kind of strange someone could be such a huge fan of my models but still steal from me and break my TOS, and think they deserve to be in my community

[jaskierx]

anyway posting some thoughts from the discord about how many 'irl relationship' things they're dealing with in ep7 and how much i am eating my mattress about it

they rushed into sex and ed regrets it and that doesn't stop it from having been consensual and fun but the fact that it was consensual and fun doesn't mean that it was a good idea

ed feeling like he can't watch stede make the same mistakes he did but also feeling like he can't ask stede to leave piracy for him when stede is just getting started. and ultimately he's too scared to ask stede to leave piracy for him because what if stede says no? what if stede looks him in the eyes and confirms yes, you are unloveable, yes i'm choosing piracy over you, no i don't love you enough, why would you ever think i could love you enough to do this for you?

just the overall turmoil of being at a different life stage to your partner - like the difficulty of when you're at the beginning of your career and they're established in theirs, or when you've had lots of relationships and they've only had you, or when you're ready to settle down and have kids but they're not, and nobody is in the wrong, it's just difficult

making a breakup about a completely unrelated issue bc you can't voice the actual problem. twisting it into 'we're fundamentally incompatible' (fishermen and pirates are completely different) so you can convince yourself it's not because you're not good enough. if you hit self destruct and leave without explaining things maybe it'll be less painful than opening up about what's actually wrong only to have them throw it back at you and leave you anyway. maybe if i pretend it was never going to work out i don't need to think about why it stopped working in the first place

stede still feeling like he's not good enough for ed and trying to change himself to make himself feel more worthy. unable to comprehend that anyone could possibly love someone so soft and inadequate. feeling like he doesn't even want ed to like him for who he is, feeling insecure that ed only likes him bc he's weak, feeling like he needs to toughen up to earn ed's love. the eternal worry of 'my partner is the best person in the world and i am just a worm so why are they here, why are they staying with me, what's their motive, what can i do to change myself so they actually want to stay for me and not for whatever reason they've got going on'

basically these 18th century gay pirates are experiencing every problem you've ever had with a partner and they're gonna be fine and so are you i love you

[piratecaptainscaptainpirates]

One of the things that still really frustrates me is how we know the crew of OFMD were so intentional with cutting off any "Ed is abusive!" allegations at the knees.

There are three things from Ed's kraken spiral that we know for a fact did not make it into the show. One of them (the scene of Ed throwing a knife at Izzy) even made it into the trailer before it was cut; the other two I'm thinking of are the bts footage we have of Ed drinking heavily the night he has his last fantasy of looking at the cake toppers and a still of Ed making the bride cake topper push around the groom.

I think all three of these things were very wise to cut and it's obvious why they did it. The drinking and throwing stuff ran the risk of making Ed look too much like his abusive dad (not to mention heavy drinking tied to abusive behavior runs into deeply uncomfortable stereotypes about indigenous men like Ed), and when all we see of Ed is him gently caressing the cake topper that reminds him of Stede, it reinforces a core aspect of Ed as a person, which is how he would never, ever hurt Stede and wants nothing but gentleness and tenderness for and from him.

And it's incredibly frustrating that these things weren't enough. We're shown over and over again that Ed during the kraken spiral, right up until his mutiny-as-a-suicide-attempt, is doing normal piracy (that's why Archie is here! The only characters who are emotionally affected are the ones who know what life was like on Stede's ship!), and the only person who is actually physically harmed is Izzy (for good reason in Ed's mind; he was the trigger for the whole thing and Ed lists him along with booze and drugs as destructive influences on his life). We even get other characters say things to Stede like "do you think Blackbeard is gonna murder you" and Stede, who explicitly knows Ed better than anyone, is always like "what the fuck are you talking about? Of course not," and he's obviously right.

It's just so disheartening that there can be this much intentionality in making sure it's next to impossible to read a man of color as abusive and it will still happen. White fandom has such a tendency to center itself and white characters that it doesn't even matter how much effort they put into taking the audience by the shoulders and saying "this guy isn't abusive, he's being an imperfect victim in response to being abused himself," up to and including having the white guy in question say on his deathbed "sorry for abusing you for years." And people still wonder why fans of color are sick and tired of this shit to the point where some of us just want to leave fandom altogether.

[bobsyourdylan]

Okay, so – a few thoughts on Izzy’s death. I’m sure other people have also laid this out, but I haven’t stumbled across it yet, so this is partially for me to get my thoughts organized. For the record, I love Izzy – he fascinated me (in a horrified sort of way) in season 1, and then he grew on me significantly in season 2. What a weird little guy. But also – I’m fine with them killing him off, and also with how they did it, because I think it makes sense for the story. But I know that a lot of people are super upset about his death, and also about the way he died. So, a few semi-coherent thoughts on that: 

Why not a sacrifice play?

This writer’s room is so self-aware, so deliberate about engaging with tropes – there is no possible way that they sat around breaking the story of Izzy’s death and no one said “woah, wouldn’t it be symbolic and gut-wrenching if he sacrificed himself for Ed? Or Stede?” No way. So why didn’t they go that route? 

Izzy’s arc in season 2 has been all about becoming his own man, separate from Ed/Blackbeard. Like – that’s what he’s worked towards, this whole season. That is his growth. It would be insulting to take that away from him at the last minute, and make his death purely about Ed and Stede.

Listen, I love a sacrifice arc as much as the next person. But Izzy’s life isn’t about sacrifice anymore – that’s the whole point of his season 2 arc. He has spent decades sacrificing both himself and Ed to the altar of Blackbeard. No more. 

It also means that Ed and Stede’s mourning doesn’t have to be tinged with the guilt of “he sacrificed himself to save me/my partner.” They can mourn Izzy purely for himself, because he is worth mourning. This, I would argue, is the send-off that Izzy’s character deserves.

Izzy’s death wasn’t accidental on Ricky’s part – it wasn’t a stray bullet.

We see from the scene when the crew is locked up in Spanish Jackie’s that Ricky recognizes Izzy. We know from their conversation that, for Ricky, Izzy is the epitome of piracy – Izzy, not Blackbeard, is the legend.

The thing is – Ed and Stede are both in the scene where Izzy dies (I’m not sure if you can see Stede on screen, but the bts photos show Rhys’ position, on what would be the far right of the shot). Arguably, Stede would have been the easier shot – Ricky wouldn’t have had to complete a full 180-degree turn before he could pull the trigger. So why doesn’t he go for Stede, who abandoned him to the tender mercies of Spanish Jackie in the first place? Or Blackbeard, arguably the greatest/most famous pirate alive, with the possible exception of Zheng, who he’s already targeted? Sure, you could argue that he’d going for Ed here… but I don’t think he is. The shot’s too low to be accidentally aimed for Izzy – it would hit Ed’s knee or something, probably. I think that yes, it’s a panicked shot, not well-aimed at all. But if it’s aimed at anyone, I think it has to be Izzy. And at the very least, the symbolism of it is very much not accidental.

For probably the first time since they created Blackbeard, Izzy isn’t just a stand-in for Ed. His significance is his own in this scene – in all of his interactions with Ricky. He’s not targeted because he’s Blackbeard’s first mate (why go for the first mate when you could go for Blackbeard?). He’s targeted because he’s Izzy Hands – because he is significant, powerful, famous, respected in and of himself.

And more than that – this is an arc about the end of piracy. And Izzy Hands is piracy – the show has been telling us from the beginning that piracy is a mixed bag, full of the good and the bad, and Izzy represents that  – represents both the toxic, violent side of piracy, and the side of piracy that he grows into, that he explains to Ricky – piracy as family, home, belonging. Izzy dies, and it hurts, because not only is he a great character, but he represents in one person all of the complicated, hilarious, heartbreakin, violent, loving aspects of piracy – and of the show. But it is so, so important that Izzy dies as himself – not as a symbol or shield of Ed, or Stede, or Blackbeard. Not even as a symbol of piracy, but instead as the active embodiment of piracy – as something/someone who grows, changes, ends. Not as static or passive, but as better than when we first met him, as transformed as Buttons in his own way. 

Izzy’s death sets up a possible revenge arc:

We know that everything in this show ties back to the main relationship between Ed and Stede. Izzy’s death is, I think, significant on its own, for him as a character – but it is also, by necessity, significant to Ed and Stede’s relationship. Namely – it sets up an interesting conflict for season 3 re: a potential revenge arc for Ed. 

Now, clearly they’ve carefully ended season 2 on a relatively high note in case we don’t get a season 3. But we know they’re gonna be terrible at running an inn, and we know there’s unfinished business with Ricky. Ed’s current strategy of dealing with everything that’s happened seems to be “I don’t want to be a pirate, get me out of here” – which, while fair enough, won’t last, because that’s the nature of unfinished business. So, at some point, Ed and Stede are going to need to confront Ricky again. And, if the writers decide to lean into the revenge arc, I’d say the odds are pretty high that, when Ed lays eyes on Ricky again, we get a flashback to Izzy’s death. 

And this sets us up for a pivotal, and necessary, moment in Ed’s character arc: when confronted with pain, loss, negative emotion in general – can Ed deal with it without losing himself? Ed needs a balance between the Kraken, Blackbeard, and Edward, and we see at the end of season 1 and beginning of season 2 how challenging that balance is for him to find, especially when confronted with loss or pain. We can see Ed working towards that balance when he’s interacting with Low – Low’s taunts don’t push Ed to violence, but instead get to Stede. But comparatively, Izzy’s loss is a much greater blow, and at some point, Ed is going to need to confront that.

Plus – we know the writing team are thinking of Izzy’s death at least partially in terms of the mentor/mentee arc, which often confronts the question of revenge – after the mentor’s death, the mentee is required to choose on their own how to go on, what kind of person they want to be. And this often requires a confrontation with both the mentor’s loss and a decision about how far they want to take their desire for revenge.

Why not a cooler death?

Okay — I get this criticism. I do. Izzy is an amazing fighter, we all love that about him. And you can keep most of the above symbolism and still have him die fighting two dozen British soldiers. 

But — again — we are back to the root of this show: Ed and Stede. 

Izzy has two deaths this season: one in the premiere, one in the finale. The first is Stede’s fantasy. Cool swordfight, and Stede triumphs, obviously — but the premise of the fight is that Izzy’s a great swordsman and Stede bests him because now Stede’s a great pirate. This is Stede’s ideal pirate fantasy. 

But Izzy’s actual death is not like this. It is messy and inelegant and painful and no one gets any glory from it at all and Ed is crying with Izzy dying in his arms, and Stede wants to help, goes for bandages, but he doesn’t know what to do and it’s not enough anyways — And this is not a fantasy anymore. This is piracy, and this is the piracy that Ed wants to escape. And it’s important that Stede sees this, sees what Ed is done with. 

And it’s also important that Stede tries to save Izzy. Izzy isn’t just a symbolic barrier between Stede and Ed anymore, to be sacrificed to Stede’s reunion fantasy. He’s his own person, with his own death, and Izzy has grown, yes, but so has Stede.

And by using Izzy’s death to make this point, we both get Stede learning the reality of piracy and growing beyond his fantasy, and the glorious fantasy fight kiss i love you reunion between Ed and Stede (if Ed and Stede had reunited by fighting off dozens of British soldiers, but Izzy had died doing the same, the dissonance would have messed with both the death and the reunion, because we the audience wouldn’t be able to distinguish between the fantasy and reality worlds). And getting both of these is the premise of the show — fantasy and reality both. 

And sure — you can be mad that the show used Izzy in this way. But that is the show’s premise — everything is in service of the protagonists and their relationship. This is not a surprise— it’s been openly talked about since day 1. 

You don’t have to like what the writers did. You don’t have to agree that it was the correct choice. But they have proven to us, time and time again over the last year, that they are self-aware and careful with this show that they know we love so much. So we absolutely owe it, to them and to ourselves, to ask why they made a choice that not everyone may agree with. What is the payoff? Why did they decide to do this thing that they knew would upset fans? Because we know it’s not that they hate us. So what is it? You don’t have to agree that the payoff is worth it. But do the writers, and the show, and yourself the favor of recognizing that there is a payoff here.

[celluloidbroomcloset]

So this came up in conversation elsewhere, and it got me thinking: something we don’t talk about much is how Izzy doesn’t really start attacking Ed until Ed starts acting more like Stede.

After he returns to the Revenge and gets over his heartbreak enough to come out on deck with the crew, he's wearing Stede’s clothes, repeating Stede’s words and attitude, treating the crew as Stede treated them, behaving vulnerably and without shame, as Stede did. He has completely dropped the Blackbeard performance. The last time Izzy saw Ed, Ed was choosing Stede over him and over Blackbeard and piracy. Now Ed is STILL CHOOSING STEDE. Even gone, Stede is still on the ship because Ed and the crew are keeping him there.

It is not just that Ed is being less like Blackbeard, or that he’s pining over the loss of his love; it’s that Ed’s response to his grief is to become more like Stede. And Izzy, who hates Stede, who hates his representation of non-toxic, gender nonconformity, who hates what Stede has "done to my boss's brain," is now faced with Ed discarding Blackbeard and "becoming" Stede Bonnet (just as he said he would at the beginning). Ed is working towards a reinvention of himself as "Edward," modeled after the person he loves who has changed his life. Eventually, Blackbeard will no longer exist because Ed and Stede together will have killed him. And that's the moment that Izzy moves against Ed.

Stede's still there. He's haunting the ship. He lives as a part of Ed and the rest of the crew. He's gone but he's a part of everything. Izzy tries to kill him again, and fails.

It is no wonder, then, that one of the last straws in Season 2 is when Izzy invokes Stede’s words. Ed had attempted to live by Stede's ethos and Izzy is invoking that ethos again after Ed was threatened with death for it. That hypocrisy is what makes Ed finally break again.

[foone]

Alright, listen up:

We need to stop with the anti-rooting attitude for brainpals, alright? You're just doing mnemonocorps job for them. Cut out the discourse about people with modded brainpals, for TF's sake.

(scifi worldbuilding by way of fictional Tumblr discourse under the cut)

There's tons of valid reasons for by people would hack their brainpals! Testing new memory/skills without paying for a dev kit, piracy of skills (and do not @ me with that "but you're stealing from the original skill creator!" bullshit. All the legit skills on the market now are from people who did work for hire by mnemonocorps, and THEY ALREADY WERE PAID. It's only mnemonocorps that is losing money!), home ptsd/cptsd/jptsd treatment, the list is endless.

And before you jump into the comments, YES I KNOW PEOPLE DO SEXUAL MEMORY PLAY. People do every kind of weird shit, name me a technology that no one has used for sex in some way? Hell, the first topless photo was taken within a week of the invention of the daguerreotype. But we need to be adults here, okay? These things can be simultaneously true:

1. People do memory play

2. No kids have memorypals

3. The vast major of memory play is NOT VP.

Mnemonocorps has done a lot of work to try to keep people from using brainpals for memory pal, with their artificial limits on how much you can block at once, but that's fundamentally an over reaction to the negative press from the whole VP scandal. The news loves a juicy story like "people are using a new technology for weird sex shit" because their readers/viewers are always interested in Weird Sex Shit, either because "ooh, sexy!" or "BAN THIS FILTH" reactions.

And like all big companies, the last thing mnemonocorps wants is a new law aimed specifically at regulating them! So they stuck a bunch more restrictions on brainpals so they could say they have taken steps to prevent VP.

Now, I need you to listen to me before I say this: I am NOT saying I condone VP, alright? I'm not going like "oh but no one is hurt, everyone is (technically) adults, it's basically roleplay"? This is not an excuse for VP, alright?

Memory play is not just VP, and it's deeply insulting to everyone who engages in memory play to conflate the two!

The reasons people would do memory play are many and varied, as are the things that people do with memory play. And I think people are extra quick to jump on the "memory play is bad" bandwagon not just because of the spectre of VP, but because it's all "eww, kinky sex things".

And yes, I'm not going to try to sugarcoat memory play, alright? There's a lot of weird stuff going on there, and it definitely isn't for everyone. But the thing y'all need to keep in mind is that it's between consensual adults and they (usually*) know what they're doing, okay?

It's safe and mind healthy and consensual. (yes I know these are the same arguments the veepers use to definite VP but I'm not talking about VP here, damn it!).

People can do CNC play with mblocks. People can do roleplay with temporary personality patches, either because they're too awkward/shy/whatever to have sex or because they (or their partners) want to do some vcheating. All these are perfectly safe if done correctly and don't hurt anyone. Especially not you, who aren't even involved in their memory play!

And I promise the slippery slope argument is bullshit: even if people use mblocks to age regress, that doesn't make it VP, alright? There's plenty of people (especially us elderly trans who missed out on a gender-correct early adulthood. (I wasn't able to get genespliced until I was nearly 60!). If I want to experience how my 25-year-old self would have had sex as a girl, that's my own god damn business! And it's not VP and it hurts no one. And all these non-vp uses of memory play are completely blocked by the stock brainpal software, because of their heavy handed approach to trying to prevent VP.

But with this whole stigma against hacking brainpals means that if I ever even mention I've got mine modded, people immediately start side-eying me because they think the only reason anyone would want to hack their brainpal is VP.

No! Piracy of skills and mblocks and yes, memory play. Which isn't entirely VP, even if it keeps getting tarred with that brush.

The piracy argument you'd think would be an easier one to make. I know half of you have all the PS6 ROMs downloaded onto your tangles. How are you gonna steal half the video games on the iarchive and then turn around and say it's wrong to download fluent-Japanese or woodworking to your brainpal? Come on.

Basically my whole point is that mnemonocorps has done a great job convincing the general public to associate illicit (by their rules) brainpal use with VP, and it's solely because they know the average person (rightly, I would add) thinks VP is abhorrent. They're using that disgust to turn the general opinion against the idea of brainpal modding.

And look, look me in my eye, do you really think mnemonocorps is doing this because they genuinely think VP is bad and want the public to help them stop it by shunning people who hack their brainpals? Or is it, just maybe, because they don't want to lose trillions of n$ on skill piracy? And they're just using VP as an excuse?

It's like, come on gals. No one ever went broke assuming companies are acting out of the most basic capitalistic greed, because THEY ALWAYS ARE.

And don't get me started on the people clitriding mnemonocorps for inventing the brainpal in the first place. Look, we all love the brainpal, yes, but it's not like you owe them endless loyalty over it, okay? They can and have done wrong in the past. Accept that you can love the work and hate the company trying to control it.

(it's like: is Thomas Chellae an abusive asshole who should not be out of crimrehab? Yes of course, no question. Is Shadowed Skies the best album of the last 30 years? Also yes! It can be both! Bad people can make good things)

Anyway: end of the day, stop bringing up VP every time anything involving brainpal modding comes up. Don't judge people for modding their brainpals.

(especially since half the problem people have with memory play isn't VP, it's just y'all being antisex. Which is bullshit given how many people subscribe to those "expert oral sex" skills! You're using your brainpal to have better sex, then turning around and going "but I'd never use it for WEIRD sex!". Grow TF the fuck up!)

Also, just because I know someone would bring it up, the whole mind control thing is A MYTH. There have never been any legitimate cases of people getting hacked through their brainpals, hacked or not, okay? I mean, who knows what the nsa or uhsa can do, but no one has ever been able to demonstrate a remote hack on a brainpal. Anyone being "mind controlled" through their brainpal did it to themselves, either with a ppatch or intentionally routing their admin to someone else. "you'll get hacked and turned into a bpZombie!" is a bullshit reason to be against brainpal hacking: it simply does not happen. I used to be a rengineer, I've looked into the brainpal security: it's well done!

* Yeah, Adrian Reach was a tragic case, but it was definitely a million-to-one case. Make your backups, run the ccheck, and don't try to mblock your whole damn life on a failing bp! You'll be fine.

EDIT: I forgot to elaborate on the "no kids have brainpals" thing: yes, I know there are some kids who do have them, BUT they're not the same as regular brainpal installs. They're only done in some extreme cases of mental distress (like survivors of the cWar) and they're locked down. Only their doctor can adjust them, it's not like regular consumer brainpals where you can just fiddle with the settings themselves. So all this memory play stuff we're talking about is only between adults. REAL adults, alright? Even when people are doing VP, everyone involved is of age.

[goddessofmischief]

Hey, thanks for tagging :) I am 34, so the "old men" are not so old to me and quite frankly, watching Shanks, Buggy and Mihawk in OPLA is feeling like coming home to old friends back from 20 years ago. (I was crushing on Shanks and Buggy so much...😅) So I thought, maybe you could write something where fem!reader already knows them and has a soft spot for each of them, since back when they were flirting and making fun when they were young. Now as adults they meet again and the chemistry is still there.

I remember one of my stories from back then. I was jealous of mermaids, because all the pirates got stupid once they're around, and a drunk Shanks said: "nah, you wouldn't like to be one; You'd be missing slamming doors and Buggy would drown on daily basis just to say hi-." Both Buggy and Reader: "shut up! So not true!". Just like young stupids are... :)

Anyways, thanks for your writing and I can't wait to read more about the "get-shit-done"-squad Mihawk, Shanks and Buggy

     — MERMAIDS (YOUNG SHANKS X READER, YOUNG BUGGY X READER)

A/N: Hope this is alright: since your formal request was so in line with what the theme of the series will be anyway, I used the excerpt of your line as basis for this particular fic. All credit of course goes to you for coming up with the lines and the idea. On a personal note, I just want to say how much I respect that you were an OG fic writer and still have interest in and love for these characters. Welcome home.

...

You would have believed that you had been at sea for years, until Buggy reminded you that it had only been weeks.

Granted, this is how he reminded you:

"It's been wee-eks," Buggy whined, stretching out on his hammock. Shanks was collapsed against the wall, fingers knotted together, eyes not really focused on any particular place.

And you? You were lying on the floor, gazing up at the wooden ceiling, wondering if it would be a good idea to leave the cabin and see the stars.

Being on the ship for weeks was highly irregular for your crew. Great captain he was, Roger knew he could only keep this ragtag group sane if they stepped onto shore and ate an orange every once in awhile. This concern was triply inflated by the fact that he had three young adults onboard who became very antsy if they had to stay in one place for too long. Your patience certainly rivaled Buggy's or even Shanks', but even you had your limit, and you had met it long ago.

The ship would have planned to make port nearly a week before, but the World Government was closer to finding you than ever. It was simply too dangerous.

You soon learned how your friends reacted to a situation such as this. Shanks had retreated mostly into silence, with exception of the odd joke or attempt at conversation, and Buggy had decided he blamed you both somehow for this situation and that any words exchanged with either of you would only be of the complaining nature.

"I know, Bugs," said Shanks, and you were surprised to hear him answer Buggy's complaint. You exchanged glances with him, then turned back to Buggy.

"Let's go outside, yeah?" you suggested. "Do something fun."

"Everyone's outside," Buggy complained. "They've been yelling over something for hours."

"And you didn't think that was important to mention, Bugs?" Shanks asked, irritably. Buggy shrugged.

...

The thing that had sparked such interest in the crew was simply that, as your ship had sailed very far into the deepest waters, much farther than usual, you had sailed into a home of mermaids. Extremely dangerous, and the crew knew it.

It did not negate their interest whatsoever, though.

Pirates get stupid when mermaids are around. It is a core trait of pirates and no less than a sacred tenet of piracy itself. More than a few decent men have been seduced to the sea by the very concept of mermaids, and to that end, the idea of finding one.

Shanks and Buggy were no exception.

You had never really taken the care to notice how they behaved with girls. Their flirting was of no interest to you, and so you didn't bother to surveil it. But it came to your attention now that they had terribly different styles: namely, that Buggy was mostly content to sit and watch from the edge of the deck, and Shanks was more interested in yelling, waving, and nearly falling off the boat.

Granted, by this time, alcohol had become involved, and all bets were off.

Despite all the excitement, the first in weeks, Shanks had begun to notice how quiet you'd become. He approached you, somewhat cautiously, hoping you wouldn't react with a retort or a threat.

"You okay?"

You nodded, staring at the drink you held.

"You sure?"

You shrugged, whispering something under your breath that Shanks struggled to hear.

"What's that?"

You spoke again, slightly more than a whisper, but Shanks heard it all the same.

"...I wish I was a mermaid."

"You wish you were a mermaid?" He repeated loudly, almost outraged. You shushed him, and he just laughed.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, it's just... nah, you wouldn't like to be one. You'd be missing... slamming doors, and Buggy would drown himself on a daily basis just to say hi-"

"Shut up!" you giggled. "So not true!"

"And then, of course, there'd be all the pirates. I wouldn't like sharing you with them."

"I'm a pirate. You're a pirate."

"I'm a different sort of pirate. And you're barely a pirate at all."

You shrank back, inexplicably hurt by Shanks' drunken offhand insult.

"I'm as much of a pirate as you."

"Of course you are. I didn't mean that. Not like that. I mean, you're just... you're very careful, you're much too good for us. You're not messy or mean like the rest of us are."

"What do you think I am, then?"

"A princess," he blurted out, and you tried not to laugh. "I've always thought so."

"Always?"

"Mhm. The whole time."

You studied Shanks' face, seeing him in a new light that you'd never glimpsed anyone in before. Had he always been this cute, or charming, or kind?

Well, it didn't matter if he always had been, because he was now, and before you had given much thought to it at all you were pushing his straw hat back and he was meeting your lips in a kiss, your first, his first.

"You're a terribly nice pirate," you mumbled.

"You're a terribly beautiful princess," he replied.

You both parted awkwardly, staring at each other with confused half-smiles and resigning to focusing your attentions back on the ocean. For now, it was merely a strange evening, a shooting star, but later on, you would remember that night as the precise moment you began to love Red-Haired Shanks.

And Buggy, watching from across the ship, would remember that night as the second time a deep knot of resentment grew in his chest, one that would only become larger with time. The first time had been as a child, when Shanks had done something exceptionally well where Buggy had failed, and Roger placed his famous straw hat onto his head.

The second time was tonight, because of you.

taglist: @sawendel @twinklesnake

[adickaboutspoons]

Oh boy. Okay. Here we go

A totes calm and measured response to this post over here by @themetabridge. Forgiveness for the whole new post. I had too much to say to fit into what Tumblr apparently thinks is an appropriate length for a re-blog.

First? I mean. Text just means the words and actions as they are said and shown in a given piece of media being analyzed. Which is what I’m here to do with my meta – textual analysis. That’s why I insist on textual support for any argument interpreting the media in question. Naked assertions do nothing to explain how you arrived at your conclusion. Vibes aren’t good enough. Show me what IN THE TEXT made you think what you think, and I will do you the courtesy of the same. Otherwise, I don’t see how we could possibly have much to say to one another.

The fundamental breakdown we are having is that you have failed to provide a textual basis for why you think Ed is a bad person. While I respect your assertion that a person’s essential goodness is predicated on the actions that they perform, I cannot respect the corollary supposition that there are actions that are either “good” or “bad” in a vacuum, as this completely ignores circumstance and motivation. WHY someone does something is AT LEAST as important as WHAT they did.

For example - Stede killed Ned Lowe in cold blood. Does it matter that he did it because Ned “shit-talked [his] friend and damaged [his] ship,” and “fucked Calypso’s birthday”? Does it matter that Ed, the person whom Ned’s shit-talk actually impacted, told Stede not to do it? Twice? Does it matter that Ned was a subdued enemy combatant, and as such could have just as easily been gagged like Hornberry and the overtly racist Wellington, who survived imprisonment and went on to watch Ed and Stede sign the Act of Grace? Do we compare Ned to the French Captain who got flayed for his racist rhetoric, though Ned’s comment was, strictly speaking, about Ed’s class rather than his race? How far are we going to go to disentangle class and race when one absolutely informs the other?

How about a more straight-forward example; Stede set an unnamed man on fire and quipped about it like some asshole 80's action hero. Does it matter that he threatened Stede’s life? How about if, when he did so, he was twenty feet away, armed only with the bottle he had just broken over his head, and there were half-a dozen pirates between him and Stede who all thought Stede was hot shit, and so Stede was in no immediate danger? What if Stede has a long history of people making attempts on his life, and being unsure that he even deserves to live, and this is meant to show that, now that he has something to live for, he’s done with the part of his life where he lets anyone try to take that away from him?

This is what I mean when I say that the show is careful to never outright condemn the use of violence. The narrative tells us clearly that, within the context of the show, some things are more important than an unnamed or one-off character’s life – preservation of one’s own life or the lives of one’s loved ones, dignity in the face of racially-based persecution, resistance to colonial oppressors. The reasons for and direction of violence matters. Context matters.

And speaking of context, you misunderstand me when you suppose that only what literally appears before our eyes counts can be “read into the text”. I refuse to give extra-textual sources of information (such as the historical reality of sergeant recruiters and being pressed into service or the historical Golden Age of Piracy) any weight unless they can be validated by in-text support, because the show itself cares fuck-all about historical accuracy. But extrapolations about the in-show universe based on in-text support are fine.

So, considering that the very first thing we hear in the show is Frenchie’s little ditty about the violent reality of a pirate’s life, and considering Jack’s comment at brekkie about how pirating is an "ugly profession”, and considering what we see of the raids in 1x5 and 2x2, we can reasonably conclude that pirate culture is steeped in toxic masculinity where the expectation of performing violence is de rigueur. Because Ed has carved out a successful reputation as Blackbeard, and because we see the ease with which he can go from being casually conversant with Stede to “giving it some oomph” to scare the location of the treasure out of the French captain in 1x5 with the THREAT of violence, we can reasonably conclude that he can successfully perform the required violent displays of piratical society (or at least, given that we know by his bathtub confession that he has not personally killed anyone since his father, he can adopt a convincing enough posturing that no one would doubt he COULD). From his interactions with Jack and familiarity with “yardies” and “whippies”, and his ruminations about “the old days” of “drinking all day and biting the heads off turtles or making some poor bloke eat his own toes for a laugh”, and Fang’s assertion that Ed made him kill his dog, we can reasonably assume that Ed has a history with casual violence for the sake of fun and cruelty for cruelty’s sake.

However.

I think “the old days” is an important qualifier there. Season 1 Izzy may be frustrated that Ed is not performing Blackbeard sufficiently well to suit him (on that point we can agree), but even by his own deathbed confession “for YEARS I egged [him] on, even though I knew [Ed] had outgrown [the Blackbeard persona]” (emphasis mine, and pin in that for a moment). In 2x1, Fang is crying into his cake saying “I’ve never seen Blackbeard like this” - indicating that the conditions of the Kraken era are NOT the norm. The slivers of Ed we see in 1x3 before the Spanish raid are marked by him speaking calmly and rationally to Izzy (in stark contradiction to Izzy’s insistence that he’s half-mad) never even raising his voice much less using threats or any actual violence to get Izzy to do what he wants. In fact, it is Izzy who suggests a course of action involving very normative piratical violence (“Do we open fire? Or would you rather we just attack them, kill them, throw them out to the sharks, sir?”), which Ed counters with a genteel proposition - inviting (not even ordering!) Stede aboard for a face-to-face meeting. Izzy being comfortable enough to push back against orders (“Oh, Edward, can’t I just send the boys?”) even suggests that he feels no threat from Ed at all. Every indication is that by the time we meet Ed, well before he ever meets Stede, he’s already well past done with violence for violence sake.

When Ed does meet with Stede, before he’d fallen in love (Even though the are the U-Hauliest, I would argue “fascination” with a possible side of “infatuation”, but certainly not yet love), one of the early conversations they have is about the depiction of Blackbeard in Stede’s book of pirates. Ed expresses revulsion and anger that the persona that he’s worked so hard to cultivate has been twisted into a hyper-violent parody - a “Vampire Viking Clown” that’s barely even human, with a head of smoke and overladen with weapons and hardly bears any resemblance to the real man. We’re meant to understand that this is not a valid or accurate representation of who he is. Violence is a normative part of pirate life, but he has “one knife, and one gun JUST LIKE EVERYBODY ELSE” (emphasis mine, again) - he doesn’t shirk from using the tools of violence when it’s necessary, but he is NOT excessively or wantonly violent. 

And we SEE the evidence of this because of how Stede reacts to the way Ed acts around Jack. Jack keeps Ed drunk all day, decoupling his inhibitions from his decision-making processes and, in spite of Ed explicitly saying that he’s mellowed out, Jack eggs him into the kind of hyper-violent Jackassery that is excessive even for pirate society if the nervous reactions of Stede’s crew are any indication. Of course, this is all part of Jack’s plan - to manipulate both Ed and Stede and force them apart - and the reason that it works is because the way Ed acts around Jack is NOT the way he chooses to act under his own volition, hence Stede’s frustration and disappointment.

While I agree that piratical violence is not political praxis, I would argue that, considering that every raid we have witnessed Ed participate in has been against a representative of colonial power and, more often than not, specifically the enforcing arm thereof, it’s not unfair to conclude that Ed’s reasoning goes that if piratical violence is to be done, better against someone who deserves it than not - i.e. those who perpetuate the violence of colonialism. Regarding instances of violence outside the context of raids, here’s where we take that pin out of Izzy. Izzy and Ed are locked in a cycle of abuse over the first season, wherein Izzy decides that Ed is not Blackbearding hard enough, and, because he feels entitled to controlling Ed’s actions, bullies and harasses him into capitulating  - typically in the form of performing violence. Afterwards, Izzy performs some form of deference - apologizing and/or acting as though he’s going to leave, which Ed “talks him down from” and mercifully allows him to stay. It’s why, when Ed sees Izzy packing up a dinghy (lol. With what? It’s not like he’s on his own ship or would have brought his things with him, or sacked plunder from the Revenge. Clearly he was just stalling until Ed noticed him and swooped in to do his part of the cycle) he tells Stede he “should deal with this,” as though it’s tedious, but normal occurrence. I think an important part of this cycle as the season progresses, though, is how Izzy keeps upping the stakes.

So by the time we get to the end of the season, when the last iteration of the cycle starts up again (when Ed is once more insufficiently Blackbearding by being emotionally vulnerable and open with the crew following his return to the Revenge and his stint in the pillow fort (note that Izzy is apparently FINE with Ed not being Peak Pirate, just as long as he hides it away from everyone), and Izzy once more bullies and threatens Ed) this time it is especially cruel - Izzy is a thumb in the wound, attacking Ed at his most vulnerable and saying it would be better if Ed was DEAD than “pining for his boyfriend.” This iteration now also brings with it a history of escalation (first in Izzy bringing Fang and Ivan in to force Ed's hand about killing Stede, lest he look "weakened by the love of a pet" before his crew, and therefore in danger of mutiny, and then by bringing in the British Navy to force Ed to take Izzy back - or rather, to force Izzy back into Ed's life because the terms of the agreement see Ed remanded into Izzy's custody as though he is property to be distributed at the will of the Brits) - an established pattern of the lengths to which Izzy will go to get what he wants, and so a very real threat implicit in Izzy’s warning that “Ed had better watch his step” as Izzy serves only Blackbeard. So Ed gives him what he wants. He Blackbeards it up just like Izzy insisted, and lets Izzy know in no uncertain terms that the insubordination is done. It’s not a "frat boy prank" when he cuts off Izzy’s toe and feeds it to him, or even something from which he's deriving pleasure as he might have in the old days; it’s a calculated, proportional response, done under duress and against his own inclinations, but exactly the tool required to get the message across clearly.

As to the question of why it matters if Ed is bad, first and foremost, because saying that he is bad requires you to explicitly read contrary to the text. If you’re not going to engage with the text on its own terms, I don’t see how you can do any analysis of what story it’s trying to tell. I already discussed the ways in which the narrative is specifically about how Ed is NOT bad, even when he himself thinks he is. I have also discussed how, while “violence is never the answer” may be broadly understood to be the correct way of comporting oneself in real life, the show never condemns violence across the board. The show condemns cruelty, both on an interpersonal and societal level, but positions the use of violence as an acceptable and reasonable response thereunto. It treats circumstance and motivation with nuance and weight. Living within this context, Ed’s use of violence by the time we meet him is well within the normative acceptable application thereof. Judging him by standards outside the context of the story within which he exists makes as much sense as judging the Stede from the show for being a slave owner because that’s historical fact - that’s just not applicable to who he is in THIS story.

But more importantly, it matters because Ed is a POC character. Describing him as “cruel and perverse” for utilizing violence, particularly when the violence he uses is NOT excessive or impulsive, perpetuates negative race-based stereotypes about hyper-violent men of color. Characterizing him as “bad” for his use of violence when other (white) characters, such as Stede, use violence in similar ways, or are cruel or petty, but can still be considered, on balance, “good” means that Ed is being held to a different, higher standard than those white characters, and perpetuates the frankly racist criteria of expecting POC exceptionalism for POCs to be considered for the base-line assumptions of acceptability that are afforded to their white counterparts. Saying that Stede’s love is what changed Ed’s behavior from cruelty to wholesale abandoning piratical principles is not only antithetical to what actually happens in the show, but suggests a read that POC Ed needs a good white man to show him how to behave, a real white knight to tame his savage heart. That’s some real White Man’s Burden shit there, bro. I highly recommend you put it down.

[sapphicsigh]

I don't want a 3rd szn without Izzy. I just don't. Call me dramatic or whatever, but I'm so genuinely heartbroken by his death. I feel so betrayed. Izzy was the heart of the show, and now he's gone.

The aftermath of his death felt rushed, he wasn't buried at sea (like what the fuck, a lifelong pirate like Izzy would've wanted to be buried at sea) and the crew was just happy to get back on the revenge and set sail without their unicorn? Everyone just gets a happily ever without Izzy? Izzy died a painful death shot by a pompous asshole and for what? Some metaphor about the end of the golden age of piracy? Piss off. Closure for Ed? That could've been achieved a number of other ways. Izzy couldn't get any assurances that HE was loved? Even on his fucking deathbed? The man who protected the crew with life and limb? It doesn't feel right, and it never will. Izzy deserved so much better, and so did Con.

And worst of all, perhaps, is that Djenkins was planning on killing him all along. The whole time, while we were falling in love with the little angry man, rooting for him and rejoicing when he wore makeup in front of the crew and was vulnerable with them...he was a dead man walking.*

*I've seen ppl make rlly good points about how death was treated throughout the show and I wanted to add that context here. If I can find whose post I'm thinking of, I'll tag them

**Edit: Izzy's death was an incredible shock. EVERYONE ELSE IN THE SHOW survived their near death experiences!!! Stede got choked near to death, stabbed (twice!), and survived all of that unscathed. Ed got his head smashed in by a FUCKING CANNONBALL, pumbled by the crew and made it out with barely a scrape. Even Calico Jack could've (apparently) escaped death after being shot with a goddamn cannonball. The Swede was poisoned but was already immune to it. Wow! We (at least I felt this way), as an audience, believed that there wouldn't be any character deaths due to the overwhelming evidence we'd been given thus far. So after alllll the in show evidence that the laws of medicine or physics don't apply to ANY of the pirates, why suddenly apply it when it comes to Izzy? Hmmm??? It makes no fucking sense. It's cruel and unusual punishment. They really killed off the queer disabled elder??? Jesus christ. Did not a single person in the writer's room have a qualm about it? The optics alone are bad. But more importantly, killing off the queer disabled elder is inherently political, whether djenkins thought of it that way or not (& i dont think he did). The mere existence of queer people is inherently political in a society (the US), which wishes for our eradication. So killing off a beloved queer disabled elder, on a show which seemed to promise us queer joy and a happy ending, IS POLITICAL. it's a slap in the face and a punch through the fucking gut.

It feels doubly awful because we, as an audience, were given something we've never had before, an unapologetically queer show. One that didn't soften or censor itself for straight viewers. It was created with such love, at least it felt like, for us. So to be given that gift, and to feel recognized and seen and appreciated, only to have it snatched away...

I can only speak for myself, of course, but it's genuinely heartbreaking. I'm so utterly disappointed. I wish so badly that Con got more time with Izzy. I think Izzy means a lot to him, and he means a lot to us, too.

❤️‍🩹🦄❤️‍🩹I love you, Izzy, and I always will. Rest in peace, my little meow meow, you were and are so loved.❤️‍🩹🦄❤️‍🩹

[veeagainsttheday]

Ed, Killing, and the Kraken in Our Flag Means Death S1 and S2

This meta contains a whole heckuva a lot of spoilers for Our Flag Means Death seasons 1 and 2. Thanks to @petrichorca who gave it a read through and left some helpful comments!

When we first get to know Ed in s1e4, the episode concludes with him telling his first mate, Izzy Hands, about his plans to murder Stede Bonnet and steal his identity so Ed can retire from piracy. Ed and Izzy discuss the plan in a casual manner, like this act isn't shocking or deviant from previous conversations and schemes Ed and Izzy have had before. This is consistent with how other characters, especially Black Pete, have described Blackbeard in previous episodes (‘when Blackbeard kills man, woman, or child…’). While Black Pete is (probably) lying, Buttons was with him until the flip. 

As the song ‘The Empty Boat’ by Caetano Veloso plays, Izzy tells Ed, 'You've still got it' and Ed says, 'I know,' turning away to face the empty deck. Only the audience witnesses his true facial expression - the Blackbeard mask falling, a kind of dead-eyed exhaustion (echoed by the lyrics of the song) taking its place. 

In s1e5, we see Ed threaten violence against the French captain, but he doesn't actually hurt the man himself. We also see him act as if he's about to go kill the French partygoers before Stede steps in and 'handles it'. At this point I think we the audience would, if asked, have said that Ed seems to have a casual attitude towards killing that you would expect from 'the legendary Blackbeard'. He's scary ('next one goes through your fucking eyeball') and almost cartoonishly violent ('skin him. And use the snail fork'). So we the audience maybe make some assumptions about where the show stands on violent killing - not only that Blackbeard is familiar with it, but that it's a commonplace act for him.

Then we come to a pivotal moment. In s1e6, Izzy pushes back on Ed for not killing Stede, there’s the conversation about doggy heaven, and Ed promises Izzy that he’ll be the one to do the killing. We see Ed hyping himself up (‘You’re a killer bro. So kill.’) and then holding his knife while standing next to Stede behind the curtain in the captain’s cabin. They’re interrupted by Lucius cutting off his finger. Ed doesn’t go through with it; the moment passes as Stede exits the curtain to announce the entrance of the Kraken. 

At this point, I as an audience member fully believed that Ed couldn’t kill Stede because of his feelings for him. I wasn’t yet sure what those feelings were, but I knew that Ed had a deep affection for Stede, and for a moment I believed that was all that was holding him back. Then, of course, we see Ed have a PTSD/panic attack trigger from the Kraken fuckery that sends him into Stede’s bathtub, hiding underneath Stede’s robe, where he and Stede have what I believe is the most intimate moment of the entire first season (a reading supported by s2e3). Ed tells Stede, ‘The Kraken didn’t kill my dad. I did.’ We are shown the flashbacks to the way Ed’s father abused him and his mother, and the Kraken story he told on deck earlier is shown again with the figure of the beast in the water replaced by himself, as a young teen, on the dock. 

Then Ed tells Stede, ‘If I’m being honest, I haven’t killed another man since.’ Stede tries to comfort him by reminding him how much he loves a good maim, but Ed is still preoccupied with how the fact that he killed his abusive father as a child means that he’s not a good person, and that this is why he doesn’t have any friends, aka, isn’t loveable. Stede tells him, ‘I’m your friend,’ in essence, To me, you are loveable, and Ed reacts by saying, ‘No,’ and banging his head against the tub.

The next important point happens in s1e8, when Jack invites himself to breakfast and regales Stede (very deliberately, as he’s trying to push Stede and Ed apart) with the tale of Ed setting a ship alight and killing many people. (Also note - the show’s first mention of Hornigold! ‘He treated us like dogs! Worse than dogs!’ and ‘Ground us down into nothing!’) While Jack emphasises the horror and brutality of what Ed did, Ed’s demeanour completely changes - ‘No, Stede doesn’t want to hear about that.’ Jack obviously doesn’t listen to Ed; Stede’s face passes from horrified listening to Jack to squinting at Ed like, ‘Is this - true?’ Ed looks thoroughly guilty as the story continues and Stede asks him, clearly doing his best to preserve Ed’s secret in front of Jack, ‘I thought you’d, uh, given up the killing?’ Ed surges forward in his seat and, not making eye contact with Stede, says, ‘Yeah, well, technically the fire killed those guys. Not me.’ The camera then cuts to Jack looking at Stede with a bit of an incredulous expression as if he’s both gauging Stede’s reaction to the entire thing and thinking, ‘Wow BB’s in deep here if he’s making up some weird story about not being the one who lit that fire.’  

I don’t think the show intends for us to believe that Ed was consciously lying to Stede in the bathtub scene in s1e6. Instead, we see the complex way that Ed - who is shown to be both brilliant and possessed of an internal monologue that just cannot shut up - has constructed mental barriers to protect himself from the trauma of killing while still achieving the highest possible status in a very violent profession and existing in a world marred by colonial violence perpetrated specifically against people like him. 

S1e9 shows Ed continuing to posture to everyone but Stede as Blackbeard, seasoned killer (for example, telling Chauncey that he barely remembers killing Nigel because he’s ‘a real “life is cheap” kinda guy’). At the Academy and briefly after, in the beginning of s1e10, Ed seems set to have given up killing and violence for real, but Izzy’s threats in the cabin in s1e10 send Ed reeling back to the Kraken persona he assumed when he killed his dad. The season concludes with him pushing Lucius off the ship and Krakening up to sail, rob, and raise hell forever - but the final shot shows Ed crying alone in his cabin, his Kraken makeup streaking down his face. It’s heartbreaking, but it’s one of my favourite scenes from a character perspective. Imagine if the season had ended with Ed fully transformed into the Kraken, rather than clearly miserable and heartbroken under his mask? 

Season 2 begins with Ed trying to set a record for most consecutive raids, working his crew to death under brutal and traumatic conditions. His list of crimes on his wanted poster certainly suggests a lot of violence and killing, yet the show is careful to show us Ed himself only seeming to kill one person - firing a gun into a man’s back during a raid - and if you look closely, you’ll see that the man was already dying with a dagger through his body. It feels vital to me that the only direct ‘killing’ action we see Ed taking is shooting a man who we presume he can justify as having been already on his way to death. 

In s2e1 and s2e2, Ed can’t kill Izzy, though he does try desperately to get Frenchie to do it for him. He can’t even kill himself, trying to get Izzy to do it instead. When he thinks Izzy has committed suicide with the gun he gave him, he says, ‘I loved you, best I could,’ as if any love Ed could give would by its nature not be good enough. 

Ed wakes in s2e3 in the care of his old captain, Hornigold; of course, he’s really in the gravy basket and Hornigold is serving as a Jacob Marley-esque psychopomp. They key to Ed realising that he’s really [Buttons voice] ‘down in the old gravy basket’ is the conversation that concludes his attempts to be Jeff the Innkeeper. Hornigold tells Ed that he’s not good with people - after all, he did strangle his father. Ed reacts first with disbelief then cold fury, saying he never told anyone that; Hornigold reminds him that he told one person and Ed flashes back to telling Stede in the bathtub in s1e6; then Hornigold reminds him that the one person he told left him, and we see Ed crying under his Kraken makeup at the end of s1e10. Later, when Ed (finally, even Calico Jack would have had it sooner) realises that Hornigold represents himself, he says that he’s unloveable. Here’s the crux of it - he believes that he is fundamentally unloveable because he killed his father, because he is the Kraken, the monstrous beast capable of lethal violence. That’s why Stede left, his brain is telling him even as he’s dying. 

Then Stede actually proves him wrong by returning, saving him from death, and telling him that he ‘love[s] everything about [him]’ in rapid succession. Whether or not Ed fully accepts this information, we do see him very quickly, yes, melt back into Stede’s arms. Which brings us to s2e6, and Stede’s killing of Ned Low. 

Quick digression into killing and Stede: Stede accidentally kills a man in s1e1, is haunted by his ghost in s1e2. He’s so haunted by dead Nigel that he spends a lot of s1e2 asking first Oluwande and Jim for advice on being a ‘mur-der-er’, and then asking Black Pete how his former employer, Blackbeard (!!!) handled killing. (How Pete says, ‘When Blackbeard kills man, woman, or child-’ lives in my head at all times, Matt Maher with the line deliveries of all time.) Finally in s1e2, during his court-mandated therapy with the tribal elder, Stede admits that he doesn’t feel bad about killing Nigel - he was a horrible person even when he was a child! Stede's guilt is coming from somewhere else. We see this again in s1e9, when Stede says it is time for him to face the consequences for what he’s done - it might seem like he means for killing Nigel, since that’s why he’s about to face the firing squad, but we know that Stede’s guilt is about abandoning his family (the people he’s hurt!). Similarly, when Stede kills Ned in s2e6, he seems to get over it very quickly. Ned is clearly a bad guy, and although the act of killing him was traumatic for Stede (much like the act of killing Nigel), Stede presumably reconciles it by knowing that he was protecting Ed and his crew (and avenging Calypso’s birthday). Stede as a character is shown to have a tremendous amount of natural resilience. We later see him immolate a guy and dispatch a number of British soldiers without hesitation. Stede is also one of the two main protagonists of the show, and his attitude towards killing seems to reflect the attitude of the show itself - killing colonisers and torturers to protect your loved ones is ok, actually. 

(Side note but I found this idea about how zero tolerance policies actually hurt victims very informative on the topic of why it's ok that Stede killed his childhood bully; I got that link from this very interesting post where several people are in conversation about how Ed is not Izzy's abuser.)

Back to Ed in s2e6. He asks Stede not to kill Ned; when Stede does anyway, Ed is visibly saddened and ignores Izzy telling him to give Stede a moment; instead he goes immediately to check in on Stede in his cabin. He knocks on the door and in that soft voice that he only ever uses with Stede, he starts to say, ‘Hey. You okay? Look, I was a wreck after my first kill as well.’ Then he pauses, before rambling, ‘I mean, well, it was my dad, so there's that,’ which feels like a little moment of self-reflection. Like. Yeah. Ed. Baby. You might be super fucked up about the act of killing because the first guy you killed was your dad, when you were a literal child! Also, Ed has never been to (as far as we know) court-mandated tribal elder therapy, so of course his decision to kill his father fucked Ed up for decades! Also as a very clever friend pointed out, we don’t know anything about what the consequences of that were for Ed - how did his mother react, is that why he ran away to sea, etc.

There's another important thing here that the audience knows, but that Ed has never told Stede (or, we have to assume, anyone) which is that the catalyst for Ed becoming the Kraken to kill his father was abuse. The audience is shown through his panic-attack-induced flashback that Ed's father physically and verbally abused his mother and presumably him too. All Ed has ever said to Stede or anyone about it, as far as we know, was his joke to the crew during scary story hour that his dad was a dick. Stede can probably infer roughly why Ed killed his dad, but he doesn't know the details, and he loves everything about Ed anyway, and now Ed knows that Stede does too. 

So Ed and Stede have sex, and as many metas have pointed out (like this one!), it's so meaningful that Ed feels safe enough to give up his Blackbeard/Kraken identity the very next morning. He attempts to get Stede to see that it might be nice to not be pirates anymore due to the high chance of death but Stede manages to completely misread it and laughs it off. (To be fair to Stede, they're both horrible at communicating and Ed is not saying what he wants in any direct manner.) Ed proceeds to have his big beautiful brain start to spiral out of control as Jackie points out how popular Stede is becoming as a pirate; Ed panics, tells Stede he doesn’t even know who he is, and leaves to become a fisherman before he can get left (again!). 

As Ed rows away from his failed career as a fisherman in s2e8, his boss Pop-Pop (who he has managed to recreate a fucked up father-son dynamic with that like so many things in his show is played for laughs but has pretty dark undertones) yells after him, 'If you were ever good at anything, go and do that, you bum.' Ed rows back into the port of the Republic of Pirates and sees the destruction Prince Ricky has wrought upon the pirate community. Ed's first thought is, Stede, and then he imagines Stede calling for help before straight up murdering two British soldiers. He remembers Pop-Pop's words and says, 'Have it your way,' before diving into the sea, retrieving his leather, putting it on underwater, and emerging from the waves fully dressed. It's fantastically hot and the exact level of drama I expect from this man. The Kraken musical cue is playing as it happens. 

We now see Ed murdering British soldiers in the coolest ways possible, demonstrating his skill at fighting in hand to hand combat. One way to read him taking Pop-Pop's advice is that this is what he's good at - killing and violence. 

But you know what Ed’s even better at? Protecting the people he loves. His mother, himself, and Stede. Each time Ed becomes the Kraken, he fulfils that. He protects his mother from his father, himself from Izzy after being warned that ‘[Edward] better watch his fucking step’, and Stede from the invading colonisers who want to destroy their freedom. But something has changed the third time he does it - this time, he can tell Stede that he loves him and he doesn't mean it as a tainted thing, but something that he knows Stede will treasure. He's both loveable and capable of loving. He always has been, of course, but now he knows it. The Kraken, the part of him that is capable of killing, was always a defence mechanism for Ed, but the third time he understands it and himself enough to know that it doesn’t make him a monster. 

[thegreatcaptainusopp]

Straw Hats Ranked on how important being a pirate is to them

10. Zoro

He went from pirate hunter to pirate and it didn’t even cause any kind of internal crisis. His past with pirates is basically negligible, he wasn’t raised by any or befriended any until he met Luffy. He joined the straw hats first as a way to achieve his dream faster, then out of loyalty to the crew and to Luffy and particular. But being a pirate? He’s neutral to that, most likely. He is that now and he doesn’t think about it more than that.

9. Nami

She started out with a very negative view of pirates because of the way she was traumatized by them. None of her friends or immediate family were pirates, so she had no positive emotional connection to them prior to meeting Luffy. So unlike Zoro, who has 0 emotional connections to piracy, she does have one even though it isn’t a positive one. Nami taking on the role of pirate is thus very meaningful as her view on them has changed, and as a result, what it means for her to be one. However, I don’t think she has any particular need to hold onto that title in her personal goals.

8. Franky

Like Nami, Franky initially starts with a negative view of pirates because of his pirate parents abandoning him, and he rejects offers to join pirate crews prior to meeting Luffy. However, I don’t think he hated them to the same extent that Nami did, and hated the world government a lot more. His mentor, Tom, was also allied to and worked with pirates (Gold Roger), and Franky’s ultimate goals very much rely on the freedom that piracy provides. I think Tom is the deciding vote here in placing his importance to the “pirate” title above Nami.

7. Robin

Robin, like Zoro, didn’t have any particular emotional connection to the title of pirate in her childhood, as she didn’t know any pirates during her time in Ohara and only really saw the marines and world government as villains in her life. When she became wanted at age 8 she joined a pirate crew out of necessity before getting kicked out, and later making her way to Baroque Works. So I think being a pirate was her only available option to survive and she saw the role as just that. After joining Luffy and after Water 7/Enies Lobby in particular I think the need to live & travel & find joy in adventure ended up meaning a lot more to her. So I think her association with the pirate title is slightly above the other three mainly based on the newfound context it provided in her life.

6. Sanji

I think Sanji is the first person here who had a loved one that was a pirate before becoming one himself. Sure, his first encounter with Zeff probably turned him off pirates a bit but that resolved itself pretty quick after Zeff sacrificed so much for him. He also interacted with pirates all the time at the Baratie in order to feed them and found a lot of personal satisfaction in feeding hungry pirates. So I think mainly based on Zeff’s pirate past and his job in feeding them, Sanji generally saw pirates in a more positive light and it’s probably meaningful to him to have the same job that Zeff did. On top of that, the freedom the piracy represents contrasted with the prison of the Vinsmoke family means he really values what piracy can provide for him.

5. Brook

We don’t really know Brook outside of piracy, and I think that says a lot about how much he values being one alongside of being a musician. Brook’s whole life and death have all been taken up by being a pirate, and it was pirates who saved his afterlife after he’d been stuck in thriller bark for so long. All his loved ones also seem to be pirates too. It seems he has nothing but positive associations with piracy and very much sees himself as one and nothing more, and it’s a core part of his identity but not necessarily one he thinks about constantly.

4. Jinbe

Jinbe’s emotional connection to piracy I think is very much tied to his reasons of initially joining under Fisher Tiger & the Sun Pirates. It’s pretty clear to me that joining that crew represented freedom & equality for Jinbei, especially under the tutelage of Fisher Tiger. In my opinion Jinbe connect being a pirate directly to his & fisher tiger’s goals of providing freedom and equality to the Fishmen, and therefore being one is very important to him because it is directly tied to his dream. His loved ones also all seem to be pirates, even though he didn’t start his life being one or being connected to them. Gaining leadership roles & warlord titles also I think indicate that he also takes pride in being a pirate specifically.

3. Chopper

I placed Chopper above Jinbe here because while they both place being a pirate in very high regard, I think Chopper got there sooner just by virtue of when he actually encountered pirates & pirate symbolism. I think Chopper’s emotional connection to piracy is a bit more intense than Jinbe’s because of his specific experience and how young he was when he encountered it. To him, piracy was directly connected to Dr. Hiriluk, and he was so certain that the skull & crossbones of the pirates were a good thing that the poison symbol to him meant safety. Even the symbolism of piracy carries emotional weight for Chopper, and Luffy protecting the pirate flag for him is what wins him over completely. Piracy, through Dr. Hiriluk, saved his life and gave him personhood and he very clearly places it in the highest regard.

2. Usopp

Usopp gets placed above Chopper here but only just. Like Chopper, Usopp’s emotional connection to piracy is also family based: Yasopp’s job as a pirate is a great source of pride and love for him. He is fiercely protective of the role of pirates as a result and won’t hear anything negative about them, and about his dad in particular. Because if pirates are bad guys it means his dad is one too, and he absolutely will not accept that. This also means that he’s wanted to be a pirate his whole life as a way to emulate his dad, so piracy has been a goal ever since he could conceive of one. He also places over Chopper here because unlike Chopper, his dream (brave warrior of the sea) is also directly connected to being a pirate, so it’s a one two punch if emotional connection through family and also through his dream.

1. Luffy

Being a pirate is everything to Luffy. It’s the beginning and end of who he is and what he wants and all he loved. It defines his dream and has been the driving force of everything he does ever since he was a child. It is everything that he is, the freedom of it and the journey of it and the reason he met all his dearest friends and family. Luffy is piracy, he is not Luffy without it.

[cursedvida]

SAD EYES, BROKEN SMILE VII (Buggy x F!Reader)

PART VI

RATING: +18. EXPLICIT.

WARNINGS: Explicit sex, smut, swearing, inadecuate use of a devil fruit, angst and a lot of fluff aftersex.

N/A: just enjoy and thank you for liking, commenting and rebloging <3

"Why did you decide to become a pirate?"

The question catches him off guard. In his room, already in the evening, Buggy has apologized to you for having to take care of some business about the ship's accounts. It's an issue that has come up at the last minute, but he has promised to finish quickly to have time for both of you. You don't mind, you've never slept much so you don't mind going to bed a little later. Sitting on the edge of the bed, you watch your captain - and now, it seems, also your lover - as he goes over the ledger on his desk with a grumpy face.

If you think about it, this is the first time you've had a moment of real intimacy with a pirate of renown. Whenever you've been alone with one, it's always been to cut off his head and take it to the marines, so you've never had much time to talk about trivial things. Why a person decides to go into piracy is something that has always fascinated you. You are not a bounty hunter because you like it, but because you were trained for it, you were trained to kill and you don't know how to do anything else. It's the only thing you were taught and, therefore, the only thing that feeds you.

Buggy looks at you somewhat confused, as if he doesn't understand where such a question comes from. He turns his head back to the papers on his desk and answers you without giving you too much importance.

"I don't know any other life" he replies casually.

"Then it's true?" you insist. You had heard rumors on the subject, but you had never quite believed it. Despite the feelings you have for Buggy, no one can say he's a top pirate, at least not like Whitebeard, for example. "Is it true that you were part of Roger's crew?"

For some reason that question seems to make him uncomfortable. It's odd, something like that, for a person like Buggy who loves to brag about anything, should be cause to puff out his chest and spout some kind of speech replete with bragging. However he clears his throat a little, shakes his head and tries to change the subject.

"I was a kid then."

It doesn't suit him at all to be so modest. Well, you wouldn't say he's being modest, but rather discreet, and that's not something that suits his personality either. You wonder what that experience must have been like for him, if there's something he's keeping hidden, if he had a bad time or if he prefers to forget certain things. Curiosity is killing you, but he doesn't seem very willing to talk.

"And what was Roger like?"

"Not as handsome as me."

"You're an idiot" You shoo him away, throwing a pillow at his head.

"Hey!" He exclaims, then giving you the attention you deserve "But what's all this interrogation now? Did you get the urge to write my biography or something?"

"No, it's just… I wanted to know more about you" You shrug "You never talk much about your past."

"Well, you don't talk about yours either."

There is absolutely right, but telling him about your past would imply confessing that you came on his boat with the sole intention of hurting him and that is something you obviously can't say. You conclude that it's fair that everyone has their reservations when it comes to talking about certain things, it wouldn't be right to demand from him what you don't want to give at the moment.

"The past doesn't exist" Buggy sighs, as he gets up from the chair and begins to undress. He seems to be done "It's not something that can be changed, I prefer to live in the present. Especially when I have a cutie doll waiting for me in bed."

"How corny…"

"Come on little girl, come with daddy for a little while."

He sits next to you, kissing you slowly, taking his time to make every hair on your skin stand on end. It's a patient, intense, wet kiss. You feel his bare hands run over your face, your neck, the opening of your cleavage. They are rough hands, rough from so many years at sea, hands that rub your skin igniting it with every millimeter they run. Little by little he lays you down on the bed, placing himself on top of you without stopping kissing you. Your mouth moves down to your neck, then to your breasts. He undresses you little by little, but this time he undresses too. Before you know it, you're both naked, he's on top of you, rubbing your pussy with his huge erection.

Buggy sits up slightly, gazing at you with fascination. His gaze makes you nervous, he has you totally at his mercy, under him totally naked and vulnerable.

"From now you are forbidden to be in this room with clothes on, it's sacrilege."

"And what do you want, for me to walk around naked every time I come in?"

"You said so, not me."

He lets out a mischievous laugh and you smile. He's a real jerk, but a jerk who goes down your belly, leaving traces of saliva and paint, until he hits your crotch and starts licking it, causing you to let out several sighs of pleasure.

"I have an idea, little one. Come on, get on top of me."

Buggy guides you to sit on top of his face and bend over his huge erection. He begins to lick your pussy, while you lean down curiously. You have never tasted a cock, nor did you think it was something you could be attracted to, but the pleasure he makes you feel with your tongue is so great that you feel the need to give it back to him. You are afraid of not doing it right, you have never had to make love to a man before, but you will do it as best you can. With one of your hands you take his cock gently, while the tip of your tongue runs along his shaft until it reaches the glans. You can feel Buggy tense up as you lick his cock, but it's not until you suck his glans that he lets out a grunt of pleasure. That motivates you to keep going, slowly taking his cock into your mouth, until it almost reaches your throat and start to push it in and out.

"Fuck, how hot is that little mouth of yours" moans Buggy, as he opens your pussy to stick his tongue inside.

You let out a gasp, noticing how Buggy's tongue slips inside you. One of his fingers has gone to your asshole and -previously wet with saliva- caresses the outside. It's something you find strange but it makes you very horny at the same time. You keep sucking his cock, giving it your best.

"Don't stop, my little girl. Keep it up" he asks you, letting out a couple of moans.

Buggy puts his index finger in his mouth to fill it again with saliva and starts to introduce some in your ass.

"Not there, please" you exclaim, somewhere between horny and upset.

"Does it hurt?"

"No, it's not that. It's just…"

"Let me just a little bit, if you don't like it I'll stop."

At that moment Buggy moves from your pussy to your ass and starts licking it with his hot tongue. You find it embarrassing, almost humiliating, but you feel your pussy more swollen than ever, so much so that it even bothers you a little bit because you are so horny. You would never have thought that something like this would turn you on so much.

"Look at the state of you, you look like a little bitch in heat" he chuckles, listening to your moans, seeing how much you're getting all wet "Do you like it when I suck your ass, little girl?"

"Yes, yes, I love it Captain"

"But look how dirty you are when you want to be, you naughty girl."

Buggy's various body parts suddenly separate, leaving you totally discolored and on all fours on the bed. His body rejoins right in front of you, on a couch on which he appears seated, legs spread wide and one of his hands stroking his erect cock. He stares at you, pleased, excited. You naked, unprotected on the mattress.

"Get nice and horny for me, little girl. I want to watch you as you cum."

And before you can respond, you feel one of his fingers lightly push into your asshole, while another caresses your clit. Buggy has separated his hand from the rest of his body and also some fingers, which he is inserting into your various cavities. You feel how he penetrates you gently with one and the other in both holes, you start moaning as if he is fucking you. Your breasts move at the same rhythm as Buggy's fingers move your body and when you watch him he is looking at you with a hungry, almost animal expression from that armchair he is sitting on while he jerks himself off watching how he himself makes you cry with pleasure.

"You don't know how much I want my cock to have you like this" he says, panting "Little girl, your freshly fucked virgin face is the most incredible thing I've ever seen in my fucking life."

"Buggy" you moan, now the finger in your vagina has moved on to caressing your clitoris, while the other one goes a little deeper inside "Buggy I love this, I want this all the time."

"Mmmm you've got me almost ready."

At that moment he stands up, pulling you closer towards you. His huge erection close to your face, it's an invitation for you to open your mouth to him. You do so without him telling you, letting him penetrate you in it and fuck it. You hear a moan of pleasure come out of your mouth, while the ones he rips out of you with his fingers are silenced by the throbbing cock that won't let you speak.

"Like this little girl, let me fuck that cute little mouth of yours" he tells you, thrusting in and out over and over again "Y/N you're amazing. You don't know how fucking horny you make me feel."

"Mmmmm" you moan on his cock, noticing how you have less and less left to climax.

This time you're the first to cum, followed by him, who seeing how you scream in a choked way can't take it anymore and spills all his fluids in your mouth. It is the first time you taste the semen, it is salty, somewhat sour, you decide to swallow it not knowing very well what to do. Buggy collapses on the bed and you do the same, leaning on his chest. Both of you are panting, sweating, breathing fast.

"If this feels like this now, I don't know what will happen when I can penetrate you" he laughs, looking sideways at you "Fuck, Y/N. It's amazing."

You snuggle even closer on his chest. It's the first time the two of you have been like this, enjoying a moment for the two of you after you cum. You've never thought about how much you liked the idea of cuddling with him after climaxing until that moment. You can smell Buggy's natural scent mixed with the smell of sweat and sex, a scent that makes you feel strangely good and safe. You would give anything to be able to be like this for the rest of your days.

Buggy notices that you're not in a joking mood, but in a very uncharacteristically affectionate state. He instinctively hugs you, although he doesn't quite know what to do in a situation like this either. He has never been a man for cuddling after sex, but rather for sporadic sex and quick goodbyes. But with you it is not like that, with you he is born to correspond to your need for affection, to embrace you, to entangle his legs between yours, to play with your hair. He wants to have you by his side every night, to tangle with your naked body whenever he wants.

After a while in silence, enjoying each other's company, you hear Buggy murmur, almost in an exhalation of air.

"I grew up on Roger's ship, I was there until I was eighteen. I've always been a pirate."

You smile but don't say anything, you don't need to. He has answered your question, he has opened up to you. Your response is to hug yourself closer to him, who is grateful not to hear any comments from you.

When you fall asleep, the smile is still plastered on your face.

[chuplayswithfire]

re the ask about stede not doing enough to make up for ditching ed - did it not balace out that ed tortured his crew for weeks and tried to kill lucius? idk why everybody is woobifying ed as if being sad or having a hard life is a justification for any of the shit he did like he has autonomy and chooses to behave the way he does when stede leaves. same goes for blaming all of eds actions on izzy as if izzy forced him to do anything? i think its weird and doesn’t do justice to his intentionally morally gray dimensional flawed character

okay so anon you are bringing up multiple things and conflating them, i think so let's take this one bit at a time

re the ask about stede not doing enough to make up for ditching ed - did it not balace out that ed tortured his crew for weeks and tried to kill lucius?

so first, let's be clear: ed's actions towards other people do NOT balance out stede's actions towards ed. that's uhhhh not how it works. when it comes to if stede did enough to make up for ghosting ed, that is a situation resolved only within ed and stede's personal relationship. stede leaving doesn't justify ed being callous and later cruel to the crew, but likewise, ed being callous and later cruel to the crew doesn't mean stede didn't owe something to ed if he wanted their relationship to work.

now let me further say that...i don't think that ed tortured (members of) stede's crew for weeks. in fact, i don't think he's physically harmed any of the crew aside from izzy, and I would argue that his dynamic with izzy is it's own special beef. if anything, i would say that between season 1 episode 10 and season 2 episode 1, ed's been a classic overachieving boss pushing his staff to the breaking point by having them work long shifts with no breaks and low pay.

this is not good, by the way, i am not saying he is being a good boss; kraken ed is fully that shithead boss who schedules 13 hour days and thinks a pizza party or donuts in the lounge make up for it. izzy tells him morale is low and he asks if they got cake, and then if they want drugs. the crew does not describe being worn down from specific fear of ed - they are worn down by day after day after day of endless raids without breaks; all the worst parts of piracy (the raids, the violence, the death) with none of the benefits (the break time between targets, the shore leave, getting paid).

again i say this is not good because it's not, but also, i think the fandom has marinated in this idea that because ed took izzy's toe he'd be doing all kinds of violence to the rest of the crew, and s2e1 doesn't really bare that out. they're shocked and horrified that he actually shoots izzy, and none of them are missing bits - in fact, the behavior is apparently so unique to izzy that they think izzy and ed have a toxic relationship. if it was any of them getting that, it wouldn't be an intervention getting plotted.

(he did for sure try to kill lucius though, which is why i'm glad lucius got to dump him overboard lol. lucky lucius. izzy tried to kill stede twice and stede didn't even get to stab him once.)

idk why everybody is woobifying ed as if being sad or having a hard life is a justification for any of the shit he did like he has autonomy and chooses to behave the way he does when stede leaves.

now half the fandom is woobifying ed because we love him and like him and also because the other half of the fandom is wildly racist about him so.

but, also, it's important context that the showrunner describes ed's actions as "a bit much" and "not entirely inappropriate". in the context of their environment, most of what ed did is not that shocking or stunning; he has hurt people, but even the people he hurt move on from it relatively soon, and we can see from spanish jackie (who doesn't give her employees enough money to pursue their own ambitions/perfectly fine with killing a husband to remove an obstacle) and ned low (literally all of that in episode 6) and izzy (in the like ten minutes he was captain and forced people to season his food and threatening folks with going hungry for laughing at him) that pirate captains are, generally, pretty shit, actually.

roach and archie at various points express sentiments that show this is all pretty normal for pirates; it's not that ed wasn't a dick, it's that he wasn't uniquely evil or fucked up. it's also that his behavior is sympathetic to many people because the show makes it abundantly clear that he's incredibly depressed and suicidal, and while it's definitely NOT okay to hurt people because you're in a bad way, the show is definitely more geared towards "even when you do all that fucked up shit, you still can be deserving of love and compassion if you reach for it" rather than "if you do fucked up shit you instantly are on the death list".

same goes for blaming all of eds actions on izzy as if izzy forced him to do anything? i think its weird and doesn’t do justice to his intentionally morally gray dimensional flawed character

izzy's not responsible for ed's actions in the sense that he put a gun to ed's head during every move, but he plays a critical role in making all that shit happen. it's like how stede wouldn't have ghosted ed if chauncey hadn't of dragged him out of bed - the festering self hatred that chauncey tapped into was there in stede, but he wouldn't have given in without a jolt from his past. the festering self hatred in ed wouldn't have broiled over into the kraken without izzy, but that was all still in ed.

izzy is pivotal in all that shit happening. if izzy hadn't of come in and jabbed ed in every sore spot he had and been a huge homophobia ridden pest that *also* threatened ed if he continued behaving in a way izzy didn't like, ed wouldn't have gone all kraken.

however, ed still DID go all kraken, so like, yeah, he did that shit. izzy is the explanation for why he did, but it's ed who did it so he has to make amends.

but also like ed is only as morally gray as literally everyone else. frenchie and roach are both in full support of torture. jim fully tried to kill a guy for throwing a glass at archie. all of them are professional murderers who make their living being the absolute living nightmares of people who are just living their lives doing their thing.

ed isn't any more morally gray than anyone else, but it's very weird how people try to make it out like ED is the intentionally morally gray character when it's just that this is a show about professional violent criminals, so the show doesn't really moralize about acts of violence.

now taking it back to the top though:

nothing ed did to the crew would change stede's need to re-earn ed's trust for ghosting him without a word and not being honest about his feelings and doubts. if ed wanted stede to atone for that, that would be ed's right as a person in the relationship - just like it would be the right of frenchie, archie, jim, or fang to want to ed to do something more before they offered their forgiveness. the fucked up shit you do to other people does not retroactively justify the fucked up shit someone else did to you. stede doesn't get a get out of the doghouse free card for ghosting ed just because ed was a dick to other people; he gets a get out of the doghouse free card because ed decides to forgive him and try again.

[ideas-4-stories]

helloooo! I am once again sharing the cross guild Argentina au ideas. the brainworms are brainworming

also, Romantic Cross Guild!

•Alone, Mihawk would only drink fernet straight up and treat it with as much reverence as a glass of wine. But! With Buggy he starts to be fond of sharing it back and forth as it is meant to, a drink to be shared and enjoyed, he starts to get more loose and eventually he learns to share the moments and be a part of a group that loves him just as much as he loves them. Crocodile wasn't fond of fernet to begin with, but he also got fond of it after Buggy taught them the love that can be shared with it.

•Buggy has an atrocious sweet tooth, borderline solid diabetes. What else did we expect from a clown? Anyways, aside from all the piracy criminal stuff that Cross Guild does, I genuinly think that Buggy would beg on his knees, on his hands, pouting, crying and doing the biggest pretty please he could so Crocodile lets him hire bakers so that they would make him his favourite facturas and sweets every morning and also sold off for a little profit, but mostly for him to eat at mreakfast and merienda. Crododile does try his hardest to resist the pouting clown but he's helpless and obligues after a little while. They now have the best bakers money can get in the island and Crocodile and Mihawk get sugary kisses every morning now. They might have started liking sugar more if it is in their daily clown kisses...but nobody has to know that shhh. Also now on their list of services to offer they have Sweet Argentinian Facturas among other silly little things like murder, kidnapping, taking down pirate ships, y'know, the usual.

•Crocodile is one of the only people in the whole island that drinks mate the bitterest shit yerba can get it and as hot as volcanic lava, nobody wants to drink with him. Mihawk doesn't drink mate, he's more of a terere guy, and Buggy drinks mate with one kilo of sugar on top and midly cold (hes just like me fr). So that's why all three only share the table they put the things on. Every evening at merienda time the table has one stanley termo (like a one liter thing that stores water and keeps it hot), one jug of iced juice, one flashy hand-painted classic metalic kettle, and a distressful amount of sweets and sandwiches and bizcochos of various types and forms. It is always full of color and warmth and love.

▪︎Buggy can and will gobble up a whole jar of dulce de leche with spoonfulls. Croco and Mihawk are horrified.

▪︎Mihawk mainly dresses whith white loose shirts, used to hot climate like in Cordoba. So the moment winter starts he does not go out at all, he is deep in blankets. Buggy and Croco are very amused, but also find it a little cute

▪︎Crocodile gets up at 6am no matter what, even worse, he is an old ass cranky morning person. Mihawk and Buggy do not like it but, he is THEIR old ass cranky morning person, what're they gonna do about it?

(In this AU I headcanon Karai Bari island as looking less tropical and more like the woods around El Bólson(a village?city?town?in argentina) incluiding all the mountains and cascades and rivers and lakes and woods there are there, so the next places i will name are real ones, you can google them i love them all)

•As their first official date together they decide that nothings better than the Bosque de las Hadas (Fairy Forest) because of how magical and quiet it is there, after all, the fairys and gnomes are just stories, right?

Well, turns out stories are there for a reason, the start the date and everything is beautiful and they have the whole forest to themselves so they go al lovey dovey and suddenly they start hearing weird shit until they have to run out of the forest with Crocodiles help. At the end they had a disastrous date and Mihawk was kinda devastated inside, cuz he had suggested the Fairie Forest, but his partners made sure to make him know that it was interesting anyway and they spent a good time even if they were chased off by tiny feral fairies. Smooches are required and they do...other things too...

•As for their next day, they try a place with less magic in it, they fo to the Waterfalls. They have to do a little hicking; Mihawk is unbothered and enjoying the forest, Crocodile cheats with his sand a little, and Buggy whines the whole way up even if he is enjoying it, his whining stops when Crocodile puts him up on his shoulders and does indecent and spontaneous ass-grabbing. The Waterfalls gets to witness public indecency. It is a beautiful and succesful second date.

oooops i got carried away. anyway thank u for your time! have a good day :}

Sorry it took so long to reply, many long projects for school came one after another. Then I had no motivation for some days, but I'm back and I just have to say that I love these ideas. Them drinking together with something they either don’t drink with others or don’t drink at all is so cute to imagine!

I’ve heard ideas where Devil Fruit users need something that gives them energy or something like that… it could be food of some sort or smoking. I wonder if that’s true, Buggy’s must be sugar. Poor Mihawk and Crocodile, watching Buggy eat an entire dinner worth of sugar a day like Crocodile smoking through a pack or two of cigars a day isn’t bad as well.

I’m chuckling because I see Mihawk popping his head out of some blankets with Crocodile and Buggy, thinking Mihawk is being so cute. Love that Crocodile is their cranky old person in the morning. Karai Bari being more woodland area than topical looks nice in my mind, the fairy forest with little feral fae chasing them is so funny to think about. I wonder who pissed them off? The second date is everything, Buggy complaining about the shits n giggles, then gets lifted up onto Crocodile’s shoulder, now able to see more things with price of some public indecency.

[jamisonwritestf2trash]

Please rant about it!!

Ok!

But also, I'm linking the videos just incase people stumble across this and want to watch the videos after seeing this:

HBomberguy's Video

Todd in the Shadows video

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I'm starting out with some of my favorite parts before a mini rant bc, yeah! (This is nowhere near all of my favorite parts, but there's just so much it'd take me hours to compile.

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Immediately starting with a Harlan Ellison moment was amazing

The "world's most fuckable twink" line absolutely took me out, but then him going into the explanation about plagiarism being disrespectful right after was like two back to back gut punches, in the best way. Because he was so fucking right about it.

The grammar mistakes he points out are so funny

Him overlaying Brian Deer's documentary over Blair's video was also great.

Him calling Blair out for being lazy and honestly a shitty person was also great.

ALSO! BLAIR CITING HER SOURSE AND IT BEING A PIRACY WEBCITE!?

Also also him making fun of how her sprite moves 😭

Him calling out Internet Historian for being a piece of shit

German board game joke

How he points out Reilly's skill and talent

"Just don't touch the screen or move the mouse awa..."

"MASTER OF SHIT!" (rips the wall down)

"There's one group more important than historians, or journalists, or anyone else with a real job, and that's gay people."

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Rant time :)

My mini rant is just about how fucking stomach churning the second half is. Like, let me tell you, I watched that entire section, mouth agape, in shock and horror. I can bearly fathom how lazy, pathetic, and malicious you'd have to be to pull some of the shit he (Somerton) did. (The first half stuff was insanely bad too don't get me wrong)

Hbomberguy did an amazing job showing the visual of how many parts of the queer horror video were plagiarized, I legitimately gasped when the highlighted portions were shown.

Every time you think he can't get any lower, he does. It's baffling, and honestly, I wish I could say more about how mad this makes me, but I'm so mad and tired that I can't think of words so mini rant over, I suppose.

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But also, sorry, this is one thing I feel like no one is mentioning, and it's driving me insane. I also watched Todd in the Shadows video (which is also really good btw) and at least three parts of the video debunk lies Somerton said about nazis, the main ones being, (and I'm taking the titles from the yt video so you can find these in the time stamps)

1. The SS was "teeming with homosexuals"

2. The hitler youth was also run by homosexuals

3. The nazis created our current body standards.

In the three mentioned above, Somerton's lies are genuinely just him writing gay fan fic about nazi Germany (at least that's how I felt about what he was speaking and wording things) and it's fucking disgusting. He says things in such a skin crawling way it makes me sick.

And no one seems to be talking about it or how fucking weird it is, but hey, maybe I'm reading too much into it.

Anyways, I hope you enjoyed my mini rant and my favorite parts. Sorry it's all kinda messy.

[the-furthest-city-light]

Question just for funzies I do not ship them, but do you ship mishanks?😂

I’ve just seen a variety of people who shipped zolu, ship also those two together. (Your fics are the ones that really sold zolu for me tho so thank you 🙏)

Shanks is one of the few characters I ship with basically all his major ships. Benn Beckman? I'm a sucker for the captain/first mate dynamics obviously. Buggy? Childhood not-so-unrequited lovers. Tragic. Gorgeous. Actually hilarious how pathetic they both are.

Mihawk and Shanks are interesting to me as individual characters so far with a potentially really interesting history. I really like the interactions we've gotten with them in canon. I like the theory that Shanks used to be Mihawk's only real rival for the title of "greatest swordsman" until Shanks lost his arm (which tbh just makes Zoro's willingness to cut his own feet off even funnier if true). It's not something that's really been explored in canon or elaborated on but they clearly have some kind of history there. Mihawk met Shanks's boy and booked it to whatever island he was hiding out on (in the new world??? How???) Immediately. It's an interesting reaction if nothing else.

Also, spoilers for egghead and Wano flashbacks below the cut.

My personal pet theory is that mihawk may be the one who inspired Shanks to get back into piracy in the first place. Mihawk was at Roger's execution and witnessed the birth of the great pirate Era. We know from the flashbacks that this invention inspired despair in Shanks, and he took a break from piracy for a while after.

We don't know what got him back into pirating, but imo, Mihawk seems like a likely option. Shanks never really saw Buggy as a rival (which isn't to say Shanks doesn't like or respect buggy, just that he never saw himself in competition with him the way it seems Buggy did with him). Mihawk calling Shanks out on his apathy when he clearly cares so much about the world and Roger's legacy (and whatever it was that had him crying when Roger and Co. Returned from Laughtale) would be a really interesting situation to witness Shanks in, and it would actually kind of mirror both Mihawk's initial meeting with Zoro ("don't despair kid, you've got a ways to go before you should think about giving up") and Shanks' role in Luffy's life as someone who inspired him to go to sea in the first place.

A lot of this is speculation obviously and I'll be interested to see how Oda characterizes Shanks and Mihawk's relationship and/or past going forward. But I can see something like this making for a really interesting foundation for a romantic relationship. We just don't have a ton of context!