Nerd Shit.

Mikayla, 30s, she/her.

[mysterybees]

Caught between the gallows and the end of an English sword, Ed accepts the Act of Grace: marry into the aristocracy, leave the English ships alone, and live to sail another day. But who in their right mind would ever agree to marry the mad devil pirate Blackbeard?

Chapters: 1/25 Rating: Explicit Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Blackbeard | Edward Teach/Stede Bonnet Additional Tags: Alternate Universe, Arranged Marriage, Slow Burn, Getting Together, First Time, First Kiss, Hurt/Comfort, Happy Ending, Canon-Typical Violence

Chapter 1

In the course of a man’s life, he might wish for many things: a home of his own, to rule over as king of his own land. A wife to tend to his needs, a family to carry his name. Wealth and renown and a legacy to be remembered by.

In the course of Stede Bonnet’s life, he had only ever wished for freedom.

He’d managed the land, and the wealth, though not from any doing of his own. The rest was a wash. The wife he had refused, and along with her the family, and the longevity of the family name. His father’s bitter rage made itself known in every moment of spitting criticism, every venomous remark on Stede’s inadequacy as a son, as a man. The tittering pity of the townsfolk was never far behind as they sniffed out the blood of his failings like so many circling sharks: No wife, at his age? No heirs, no prospects. What a shame. What a waste of good money.

Years of these comments Stede had endured, following him around in whispers and pointed looks, exchanged behind his back and in front of it. An endless, pointless parade of balls and soirees and luncheons and salons, each one so tediously similar to the last, each one brimming with people he couldn’t stand, all pageantry and foppery and greedy, gossiping faces. No work to occupy him, no joy to fill him besides the insufficient comfort of his books, his clothes, his empty house.

Well. No more.

As he stood at the top of a sheer cliff overlooking the harbor below, where a large ship slowly settled into place amongst the docks, its crew scuttling around the deck, Stede had the grace to wonder if perhaps he’d made something of a hasty decision.

[missjamiekaye]

uh oh pirate show is very good, like very very good

[apllecrash]

Dreams of you all the time Feels so good when we're together, love

[werewolf-transgenderism]

here he is! king of having eyes!

[stedebonnets]

A love like ours can't disappear in an instant.

[neenarchive]

they're hiring me at the extra virgin olive oil factory as the oathsworn knight who protects the chastity of the olives

[neenarchive]

many dishonourable knaves in the notes of this post

[vlcimor]

The Night on the sea

[daedrachampion]

long time no see </3 my dearest gf put me on our flag means death and now im mourning them even though its already waay too late

[waldos-art]

The You Drew Me A Lovely Frame project is live! Go check it out! This was one of my frames 🥰

[dooglax]

[beelikesbirds]

being staunchly anti-censorship is crazy bc almost everyone agrees with you but not actually bc then they go “except for (thing) ofc, that should be wiped from the face of the earth”

no! not ofc! that defeats the whole point! cmon man!

[mysterybees]

I see this happening all the time in library land. The American Library Association hosts Banned Books Week every year, and libraries often put up displays of books that have been challenged or banned to highlight the dangers of censorship etc. And always, always, always, we get people coming in who are SHOCKED to see some book on the display like Charlotte's Web, because who would ever ban that???

And sometimes the trap works, because it gets people thinking about how absurd book challenges are, and how the opinion of an extreme minority shouldn't dictate everyone else's freedom to read whatever they want. But often it goes exactly like OP describes: "Well obviously nobody should be trying to ban THAT book, that's ridiculous. There's nothing offensive about THAT book. But obviously there are SOME books that are definitely offensive and the library shouldn't have them/kids shouldn't be exposed to it/etcetcetc"

and man, I have gone round and round with people about it. people REALLY want you to agree that there are some topics that shouldn't be freely accessible at the public library, and when you don't do that, they get stuck and don't know how to get out of the loop. I talked to a lady on the phone once for a solid 10 minutes who was like "obviously I think banning books is bad. but obviously some things shouldn't be in a library, right?"

It's more complex than people want to admit, because everyone's got a topic that would cause them to waver (should the library carry books about conversion therapy for children? should the library carry books about homeopathic cancer treatments that might lead someone to refuse their doctor's recommendations?). collection decisions really can be thorny, and that's okay, we can and should have good conversations about what books to include in the collection. but so many people never think about it harder than "censorship = bad (except when it's good)"

[acianoh]

Here's a health to the dear lass that I love so well

For her style and her beauty, sure none can excel

There's a smile on her countenance as she sits on my knee

There's no man in this wide world as happy as me

[morcian-draws]

Boyfriends 💖

[mossworth]

Guys, queers. Specifically my fellow queers.

I work at a library. We do this thing where, every so often, we weed the collection. It hurts to see books go, but it's necessary to make sure there's room in the library for new materials.

I have seen so much support for the library in text, and I've seen folks pass around those beautiful "queer your library" flyers. Keep doing that. That's great. Nothing wrong with that. But you HAVE to turn your words into action. We MUST remember to actually go to our local organizations and libraries and actually, with our own fucking hands, interact with these materials we want to see more of.

My branch is medium-sized for a library, maybe a little small. We don't have as many materials as I'd like, but we have fundamentals. Tell me why, even with all the verbal support I've gotten from my local community for the library as a resource for our LGBT+ community, every single trans biography and a good chunk of our vaguely queer theory books were on the list. This isn't a scheme to take the books off the shelves, it isn't another bigoted American governmental push. The only thing we look at when we weed is how long it's been since the last time the item was checked out.

Three years.

No one in my community interacted in any meaningful way with the few books on trans life and history we physically had on the shelves for three fucking years.

I promise you the materials you want and need are there, but this isn't a horde. This isn't a static safety net. You have to use them. You MUST use them or, in the future, maybe in three years, they *won't* be there anymore.

This isn't a vague post, there's no one person I'm hinting at or calling out. I'm not even talking directly to anyone who's directly in my line of sight. I just want everyone to hear this. Big library, small library, whatever. Doesn't matter. Please, we cannot be losing our shelf visibility like this.

[mysterybees]

This x100000000. Weeding is a normal and necessary part of curating a library, particularly a public library, which is not an archive but a living and changing collection that should reflect the widest possible swathe of the interests and perspectives of the community. There's only so much money, and there's only so much space. If we buy a book and nobody checks it out, it's gonna get weeded, and it might impact what we decide to buy in the future.

If you've been looking for a simple and manageable thing to do to make some small amount of difference, this is a fantastic place to start. Go to your local library once a week. Check out one queer book. Come back next week, return that book, and check out another. Check out one from the kids section or the teen section. Non-fiction and fiction. If you want to see queer literature in your community, you gotta help these books get the circulation stats we need to keep them on our shelves.

[izzymalec]

You're still here. I forgot about you.

[arinchez-png]

[morcian-draws]

Boyfriends 💖