an open fire! on a wooden vessel! @epersonae - Tumblr Blog | Tumgag
an open fire! on a wooden vessel!
@epersonae
middle-aged, divorced, widowed, tired (bi she/her) | currently 80% gay pirates by volume (plus The Adventure Zone) | AO3: epersonae | header by @darthameus
I write fic, currently primarily for Our Flag Means Death, previously for The Adventure Zone, but also the tiniest dash of Star Trek. Below the cut are some recommendations and also some related tags.
I knit (I'm on ravelry!*), do embroidery, and am learning to sew, at the moment stuff is just tagged #fiber arts but I might come up with a tag for my sewing in particular.
*also I've published two fandom-related patterns, an Olu hat and a Bureau of Balance bracer
I cook, sometimes, and sometimes post about it under #food as play, notably I have done some work to rewrite the 40 Orange Cake Recipe to be more usable.
Last year and in 2026 I am taking a monthly tree photo, tagged #monthly tree. (If you are seeing this in April 2026, yes I missed March 1 and April 1, I keep forgetting the post the April photos, and I was out of town that weekend in March.)
I wrote quite a bit of my TAZ fic with my late spouse Ryn (@taakovapes). Ryn died in September 2021; here's the post I wrote the week they died. I often post/tag about them and death and grief. (See tags #not all exits are made equal, #[grief dab], and #posts I wish I could send to Ryn in particular.)
ok, so these are fic of mine that I'm particularly proud of:
Commit to the Bit, modern AU engagement and wedding which is largely based on the circumstances of my own engagement and wedding. It was a real joy to be able to use that experience in this way.
"Carlita"
This is me going off on my weird limb for almost 165k, starting with for the benefit of all the broken hearts, the not RPF but not not RPF that is one of the best things I've ever written in any medium for any reason: a fix-it fic for the gorgeous and weird Water Flowing Underground, told from the perspective of the unnamed second wife. My exploration of the aftermath of tragedy, the possibility of repair, and varieties of love. (there's also a follow-up fic of missing scenes, end up several worlds away, which someday will get a final chapter.)
And then, I wrote a weird non-linear AU of alternate endings, back on my beat, which led to Beach House, which is an AU that is neither a bad ending or a fix-it, but a secret third thing. It is about creativity and grief and identity, and I love it as much as benefit but differently.
Posts tagged #carlita coded content or #beach house are related to this work, sometimes very obliquely.
(If you liked any of these, try Call Her Daddy, which is a also fic of a fic about a pop star and Ed Teach, but in a very different key.)
Some canon-era OFMD faves
Hungry for love, ready to drown - a Stede POV retelling of season one starting with episode four, lots of missing scenes.
Repair - sort of a similar vibe, my reverse big bang fic with @emcolbs's amazing art, shorter and more impressionistic. I have plans for a pair of follow-up pieces.
Every fugitive hour leaves its mark - soulmates (derogatory) AU
I spit on your grave - post-S2, Stede and Ed have a serious conversation, starting with how Ed didn't "happen" upon Stede being gut-stabbed, and going some tough places from there. Everyone who has ever commented on this, I love you. there is a follow-up fic with the crew!
in case I never make it through to where you are - bad ending AU set at the end of 2x3. MIND THE TAGS, it's a rough one.
No More Running and All through the morning rain I gaze are explorations of Stede dealing with his long-standing issues post-S2. I might still have a third one in me, someday.
and for something fun to round it out: that's what makes us good in bed, some good old-fashioned co-captains smut, an alternate POV to @oatmilktruther's superlative Can't We Be Friends.
hey btw the ofmd depression robe is a great etsy purchase for when you want to really elevate your “missing my gay pirate show” moping. just letting u guys know
Jamelle Bouie pointed out something a while back that I hadn’t realized before, which is that it took like fifteen years for Jim Crow to really develop after Reconstruction ended, and a big motivation was the growing and potentially politically powerful alliance between black people and lower-class whites. This had in part been spurred by the Panic of 1873 (demonetization of silver contracted the money supply and raised interest rates). It’s really not until the late 1880s/early 1890s that Jim Crow is entrenched. And of course a major pillar of Jim Crow is disenfranchising most whites, too: the “popular vote” in South Carolina in 1900 is about fifty thousand people total, in a state of 1.3 million.
for sure! reconstruction didn't "fail" so much as it was abandoned--the Republican party got wrecked in 1874 because of the Panic and turned to its pro-business wing, and Hayes accepted ending Reconstruction as the price of ascending to the presidency in 1877. and even after this period, the federal government could have done a lot more to support civil rights in the South (like actually enforce the Civil Rights Act of 1875, or respond to the Supreme Court gutting the law in 1883)
Tags from the original post:
# jim crow was a lot more than just segregation
# but segregation was an important pillar for breaking up potential cross-racial alliances
# it didn't just push black people out of the economic system in a way that prevented them from building capital
# it also meant you didn't send your kids to the same schools or attend the same churches
# or use the same public facilities
# it's going to be a lot harder to form common social bonds in that context
# even among people who don't support segregation as a system!
Fig. 483. The meteor storm of 9 October 1933. All the meteors appear to diverge from the same point - the so-called “radiant.” Larousse Encyclopaedia of Astronomy. 1962.
The Rodeo Rule: you only have to do it for the first time once.
The Rohan Rule: if you are at a social function full of new people and you want to be liked, find someone doing important work like setup or food prep and offer to help.
The Tutorial Mode Rule: to navigate an unfamiliar situation where you fear you will mess up an interaction, preface the interaction by mentioning that you've never done this before, and let them know if you have a specific concern or question.
The Rocket Science Rule: most new things you want to try seem very complicated but are simple when taken step by step.
The [X] Will Remember That Rule: if you need to make small talk with the same person on a regular basis, try to save one fact or current event in their life from a given conversation and bring it up next time you talk.
The Cool Binder Rule: by wearing clothes and accessories that are to your taste instead of trying to blend in, people will be more likely to compliment you and show interest in you as a person.
heartbreaking: well intentioned person who needs detailed instructions to function is giving extremely detailed instructions to person who gets overwhelmed with large volumes of information
heartbreaking: well intentioned person who gets overwhelmed with large volumes of information is telling person who needs detailed instructions to function to just wing it
As the dust settles and i can bear to think about this season, it is quite telling that despite the heavily racialized violence enacted towards louis (and the treatment of every single black character on screen), racism as a concept is quite literally never brought up in the narrative. Even the scene where daniel tells louis tv execs weren’t interested in a black man’s voice ("no, we want the white guy") meant nothing: what we originally thought was the foundation for broader racial commentary within the season and a way to question audience reception bias and sidelining of black voices (in line with the scene of the trial and its examination of white-centric fan reception) was just a throwaway line in an unending list of throwaway lines, and feels almost cynical in hindsight. Yeah! We sure know you wanted the white guy; it has been made abundantly clear.
At the end of the day, iwtv will always be remembered as a beautifully written, beautiful researched text interested in the intersections between race, gender and the concept of monstrosity and immortality. TVL will go down as a reactionary tv show that isn’t just apolitical and uninterested by race but is actively and cynically antiblack as well as being fundamentally anti-victim.
OFMD is wish fulfillment in the sense that racists and colonizers are routinely punished for their actions but also in the sense of Ed getting an actual heartfelt apology from his abusive father figure that he never got from his actual dad.
Izzy's Season 2 arc is all about getting him to the point where he can finally look Ed in the face and say "I hurt you on purpose for completely selfish reasons" and Ed can move on with his life knowing it wasn't his fault and he's not a monster for fighting back and he's not a monster for protecting the people he cares about (his mother, Stede, etc.)
