The Eschatanomicon

Give Sanity a Longer Leash, Some of Us Have Sharper Teeth.

[ysabeauwilce]

do you ever plan on writing more about Flora, Udo and Val? Just re-read the Flora books and I can't stop thinking about what is going to happen next for the characters..

She who lives will see, as Nini Mo said...I don't think there will be another full length book, but one never knows! I am gratified that you are wondering what happens next--let your imagination run wild!

[ysabeauwilce]

Hey, I've been a fan of your writing for a long time and was wondering how much of the unpublished Flora Redux was reworked into Prophecies, Libels & Dreams. I know you've said there won't be an actual Flora Segunda 4, but I remember those interviews from '08 and was wondering?

Sorry to take so long to respond! Flora doesn't appear at all in "Prophecies, Libels and Dreams" which consists of short stories. Most of the stories do take place in Califa and might have familiar names in them, but there's no reworking! Everything is all new (well, all old now, years later, but you know what I mean!)

[getmean]

fallow land & bigger sky // 4832 words // mature

Spring is as much of a dying season than it is a living one. Ed had died in the spring.

chapter one // full work

img 1 img 2

[ysabeauwilce]

This fic has got me by the short and curly feels.

[amuseoffyre]

Stede’s flashbacks of love montage: bonding over clothes, going to parties, sword fighting together, drinking and laughing and having fun, every bit of it together together together together after a lifetime alone and dismissed for the things that he enjoys

Ed’s flashback of love montage: that one time someone made him feel like he was actually deserving of good things despite the entire world and all his life experience telling him otherwise

[ysabeauwilce]

Stede's flashback of love montage: Ed threatening to put a dagger through a Frenchman's eye.

[elapsed-spiral]

An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works

This is so good I'm giggling, I'm wailing, I'm gnashing my teeth, I'm having a blast. Go read it now.

[ysabeauwilce]

The part of my brain not occupado by Fallow Land and To Feel Anything at All is full of Up, Down, Turn-Around.

Come for the ADHD Ed, and stay for the gorgeous musings on art, and love at first sight, and British Library fu.

(One of the glorious things about this fandom IMHO is that the same source material can generate a gorgeously slow meditation on grief and loss (Fallow Land), a heart-wrenching coming out story (To Feel Anything At All) and a high concept modern romance. (Up, Down, Turn-Around.)

“Oh, Ed.” She propped her elbow on the table and her face on her hand. Her earrings were bright green, peridot maybe, and they looked incredible, glimmering like spring. Ed never had a sister. “What are we going to do with you?”

“Put me in a bag and shake me up? That’s what my mum used to say.” She’d never actually done it though. Maybe she should’ve, might’ve shook something loose. Done them both some good.

[ysabeauwilce]

was listening to the absolutely brilliant Betwix the Sheets podcast (full disclosure: i have a crush on kate lister)--Lady Chatterley's Lover edition, interview with biographer Frances Wilson about Lawrence etc. Too lazy to go back and get actual citation, and couldn't find a transcript but anyway, of course, they discussed how utter ridiculous the sex bits of Lady Chatterley's Lover sound now, so comical and hilarious, could easily win that Bad Sex Writing Award, maybe even a special citation for Worst Sex Writing EVER--Dr Wilson was so sweet about Lawrence and his Porn With Plot trials, pointing out that (I paraphrase here) that he was really just trying to write about something we don't really have the right words for--

And my first thought, of course, was: get thee to some fanfic, my friend...

By far the best writing I've ever read about sex, lust, longing, attraction, emotion, desire, fear, power and Porn With/Without Plot has been in fanfic. Is there Chatterley Level Awful smut in fanfic, oh yea. But there's also truly amazing insightful incredible writing about sex, too.

Viz, out of many, these two:

Love Me by the Hour by getmean (On AO3)

To Feel Anything Anything At All by 2unfit2quit (On A03)

DUE DILIGENCE: both these fics are rated E for explicit. Read the tags before reading the fic.

There's a lot of good stuff out there; I'm only singling these two because they are foremost on my mind, and they are both sublimely wonderful!

(And getmean has an awesome tumblr but I don't know how to link to it, sorry! search hackerman and you'll find it.)

i have a full Manifesto on Fanfic that i've been boring friends with for months, I was gonna unload it here tonight, but i can't be arsed, so anyway, if you don't wanna read some explicit fiction, go listen to Betwixt the Sheets, it's an awesome podcast, and did I mention I have a crush on Kate Lister? She should do an episode about fanfic! That's a great idea. Someone should suggest it to her...not me, I'm too shy.

[ysabeauwilce]

there's only one bed

thinking how i adore the only one bed trope the forced intimacy the lying breathless so close so far thinking do i dare will they dare what will happen breathing in the same air the rustle of sheet an exterior effigy interior roiling i have to say its probably my all time favorite trope

which is why i find it so hilarious within the context of OFMD because mostly throughout history there truly only one fucking bed! (if there was a bed at all--lots of pallets on the floor back in the day). historical blackbeard and stede bonnet probably never slept alone in their entire lives, siblings, servants, spouses, slaves, parents, even rich people shared beds because beds (furniture and fixings) themselves such a scarce and fabulous commodity that people actually bequeathed them in their wills, as famously shakespeare did with his second best bed.

perhaps the most famous there's only one bed in all of literature:

"'But avast," he added, tapping his forehead, "you haint no objections to sharing a harpooneer's blanket, have ye? I s'pose you are a goin' a whaling, so you'd better get used to that sort of thing.'"

No footnotes we die like Badmintons but of course that's from Moby Dick (and yeah I'm aware that the next two pages are reasons why people don't like to share beds but we're talking the middle of the 19th century and separate beds were starting to be a thing)...(along with worries about sanitation sexual purity etc.)

I had it in mind to write a fic where Stede has never slept alone and isn't about to start now (sort of like Lincoln forcing his secretary to sleep with him when Mary was away) so he makes Lucius sleep with him instead. When Ed finds out about *that* oh does a plan start form in his tactical genius brain.

But I didn't write it because I'm lazy. Someone else should. It's a great idea.

I give it to you.

[ysabeauwilce]

The sad fact is that in my heart of heart i think ed would have eventually gotten bored of stede. so in some ways stede did ed a favour by scarpering while they still had spark. now ed gets the high drama of big feelings and that should tide him through ennui for quite some time. in the end, that's is probably worth more to ed's long term mood than actual true love. do people fix their shit? maybe, but i have yet to see it. are blood-thirsty pirates without access to anxiety medications, adderall and talk therapy able to fix their shit? nope. not trying to shit in anyone's oatmeal here, cause i'm enjoying this oatmeal very much its very tasty oatmeal indeed...but one can only eat oatmeal for so long, before one eye starts wandering to other starches. ed can't possibly love stede in proportion to his actual heart-ache because he doesn't know fuck-all about stede. his hurt is solely located in the fact that he wanted stede, and put himself out to stede, and stede rejected him. season two maybe they'll learn more about each other and by extension themselves, enough to see beyond their own imaginations of who they project the other to be. lucky for ed and stede they live in a faery tale, not real life. and not the kind of faery tale where stede goes under the hill and ed has to hold onto him while he changes into a serpent, while the wild hunt all laugh, but the kind where they will live get to live happily ever. good for them! i'll love to see it.

[ysabeauwilce]

I loved the Flora Segunda trilogy! It was action packed and the character Flora was amazing! I love that she is strong and does what she feels is the right thing, I was just wondering if there was a chance for a Flora Segunda book 4? Everyone I know who has read the books loves them and is dying to know what happens to Flora! Sorry for rambling, Thank you for the great adventure!

I am so thrilled you enjoyed Flora’s adventures enough to want more! Alas, I have no current plans to directly continue Flora’s story, but who knows...someday she may decide that she has a lot more to say!

[ysabeauwilce]

dipping into the gorgeously thicc "quest for blackbeard: the true story of edward thache and his world" by baylus c. brooks. Brooks is a historian after my own heart never met a nuggety fact he didn't kiss tenderly on the nose before placing its citation neatly in his footnotes, and he loves all nuggets equally so his citations are off the fucking hook, as they should be. no pesky editor here saying oh no i don't think we need to put the Whetstone genealogy exactly here, how about in a nice appendix, but Brooks is his own editor and can do as he like, and so the Whetstone genealogy is staying right smack there, in between Stede Bonnet's trial and the sinking of the Whydah.

Not my point, anyway. Or even the thought I was thinking...my thinky thought, as I read through all absolute mass of information in this chucky boi of a book is that sometimes history is just so fucking disappointing. Not New Thought! But case in point, the whole spark of OFMD was David Jenkins (and others) thinking "WHAT THE FOOKING FOOK was going on between Blackbeard and the Gentleman Pirate"? And then taking that thinky thought to a Super Fun Adventure (trademark Stede Bonnet) that has now consumed us all. Why did Blackbeard let Bonnet hang around in his nightgown? Why did he hang with Bonnet at all, fearsome pirate and foppety fop? The imagination boggled, and then raced to fill blank with BRAINROT that now consumes us all.

Of course the answer is quite simple, if Jenkins had done twenty minutes of homework, which thank doggess he did not. And has nothing to do alas with Unhinged Lunatic Love, and all with the family connections that oiled the clockwork of the early modern world.

Boring.

So yeah, this is exactly why I gave up professional historydom. ran away to sea to be a pyrate, so to speak. The stark truthiness of history can not compare with the glittering lies of my imagination.

"In my heart it is true."

It's an axiom (well if it wasn't, it is now) that we get the history we deserve. But, what if, instead we got the fantastical lies we desire, we deserve?

Such fun.

Anyway, if you like trivia about the eighteenth century Caribbean definitely pick up a copy of The Quest for Blackbeard. Your abs will thank you, and Baylus C. Brooks looks so sweet in his author photo, and you'll get all the foot-notes you can eat.

Also, fanficcers out there: Ed's mother's name was Elizabeth. Or maybe it was Rachel.

I'm gonna go get more coffee now.

[kuutamosonaatti]

It’s all right. It’s not fatal. Not with the necessary precautions.

[ysabeauwilce]

My favorite fucking movie. I could write a book about this movie. I saw this movie twice in the theatre. I have the VHS of this movie, I have the out of print soundtrack, and when the DVD came out, I accidentally bought 21 copies of the DVD and I kept them all. If you are worthy, I might give you one.

[lyoneve]

The new crew member on Hornigold’s ship gets real flirty when he drinks and Izzy has finally stopped pretending to be annoyed by it

Young!edizzy anyone? 👀

[ysabeauwilce]

Young love!

[frownyalfred]

me, quietly whispering to the ao3 page of an author who doesn’t even know I exist: I am obsessed with you

[newskyillusion]

me, whispering to the ao3 page of an author who hasn’t updated anything in four years: I think about you often and I hope you’re alright

[yesterdaysprint]

Barnard Bulletin, New York, December 20, 1935

[ysabeauwilce]

I'm with D.H.

[wrizardhat-2023]

pirate hunter izzy but make it?? IN SPACE????

i blame lj and fi and vic

--

Izzy comes to curled up in a corner, face smashed up against a lucentsteel wall and entire body fucking aching. His head throbs, and he groans a little. His tongue is thick and dry in his mouth, sour with ale and the sweet-metallic aftertaste of a fucking GoodNite jab; he doesn’t remember taking it, not that he’s ever been able to afford drugs since a lifetime ago, back before the black marks on his credit record.

Roofied.

Great.

No use panicking, he thinks purposefully, choking down a rush of adrenalin. Analyse the circumstances, tally advantages and disadvantages, and get the fuck back to his fucking ship.

He forces his breaths to slow and his pounding heart to calm. He’s not dressed for the black — whoever it is took his oxygen canister and emerg suit, leaving him barefoot in his underclothes, but he’s not freezing and there’s no wind. Closed room, then. The floor under him is smooth and cool, like a storage locker, and hums just barely with the subtle, familiar buzz of a light-engine. He shifts just a little, and his shoulder butts up against the wall. Wherever he’s been stashed, it’s no bigger than a closet. Unlikely to be a purpose-built brig. That might save him some time getting out.

He goes to rub his wrist over his mouth, praying whoever snatched him left his wrist implant EMPs intact, when he notices the fucking cuffs.

His eyes shoot open.

The bright, hot blue of quantum cord glows against the soft grey of carbon fibre, a beacon in the dark of his cell. The cuffs are light. Almost skin-tight. Barely an inch wide, and thin as coins. He’s never seen Q-Lock cuffs with his own eyes; they’re the sort of expensive that means they rarely appear outside of private Gentry security ships, let alone outer-rim backwaters like he frequents. They’re not bound together, or attached to anything. They don’t have to be. They’re quantum-locked, and the second they’re activated they will lock in relative position to one another and to their anchor, leaving him completely immobile.

His captor is either wealthy enough to buy the highest-level security equipment in the galaxy, or skilled enough to steal it.

Izzy’s fucked.

“Ha,” comes a sharp, familiar voice. “Knew you’d get there eventually.”

The door of his — enclosure? Closet? Prison? — buzzes into transparency, and there, cross-legged on the tile, watching him with sharp, eager eyes, is Edward — the tall, handsome fellow from the bar. He’s got his long salt-and-pepper curls pulled up in a half-tail, no longer dressed in the unofficial bounty hunter’s uniform of forest-green emerg suit under military-issue outerwear but skin-tight black with riveted leather, like a fucking holo-star. He grins with all his sharp, white teeth.

“You,” Izzy croaks.

“Morning, starshine,” Edward coos, propping his face on one black-gloved hand. He grins, beautiful as a razor, eyes void-dark. “Sleep alright? Not too hungover? I hope not, because whoo, man, you’ve got a busy day ahead.”

Izzy swallows. Every inch of him screams to run, to lash out, to fight for his fucking life, but he’s not that fucking stupid; he relaxes his jaw. Struggles up to sitting. Creators, his fucking ankles are cuffed, too; why in the hell would someone need four Q-Locks on one man? Izzy can’t kid himself — he knows he’s not nearly dangerous enough to warrant that kind of caution. “Holding an agent of the Crown is punishable by spacing,” he says, evenly.

Edward just laughs, bright and amused. “Oh, Iz, don’t you worry your pretty little head about all that. You’re exactly where you want to be, after all.” With a smooth, practiced motion, Edward taps at his collarbone. Something clicks.

In a rush of writhing tubes and wires, his right arm comes alive. The flesh roils, curling back to bare a mass of slithering, snake-like coils, all twisted around a familiar long-clawed prosthetic hand.

“Blackbeard,” Izzy whispers.

The Scourge of the Stars gives him a cheeky wink. “At your service, Master Hands.”

[ysabeauwilce]

*squirm*

[tizzyizzy]

Why Ed Got Kraken: The Benefits of Being Blackbeard

As the climactic emotional turning point of the season for Ed’s arc, we pay plenty of attention to the confrontation between Ed and Izzy in the captain’s quarters. Here’s my take.

“I should have let the English kill you. This, whatever it is that you’ve become, is a fate worse than death.”

Right out of the gate, Izzy speaks what are actually his harshest words in the conversation. He says he should have let Ed die, that what ever he has become is worse than being dead. Between a different pair of characters, these cruel words would be the point of the scene. Ed would be dealing with his longtime friend and ally thinking so little of him. Wishing he was dead.

But, whatever bond they may have forged over the years, one of the most consistent things we see over the course of the series is how little Ed takes Izzy’s emotions and concerns into account. Sure, Ed listened and bowed to pressure when Izzy and the other crew members had a meeting about Stede being a pet. But Izzy both had back-up and was holding Ed up to his own rules and standards.

In general, Ed doesn’t pay much attention to Izzy’s emotional state, and when he does, he finds Izzy’s anger more amusing than upsetting. That’s not to say that Ed doesn’t care about Izzy at all, or that they aren’t friends. However, as their relationship has strained over the years, Ed seems to have gotten into the habit of tuning out Izzy’s ever growing list of complaints. Makes sense for the emotionally stunted pirate guys. Instead of leaning in to the relationship and dealing with the issue together, Ed leans away to escape Izzy’s pressure, only for Izzy to push even harder, which makes Ed lean away, etc.

And let’s be honest, Izzy can be pretty dramatic when he gets upset; it’s very possible Izzy has made over-the-top statements about how Edward will “rue this day” or whatever in the past in the heat of some fight only for things to cool down and return to normal.

So while Ed seems taken aback by how harsh Izzy is here, he responds more or less the same way we saw him respond in episode 4, where he just looked at Izzy in bafflement while the latter frothed and ranted.

This is just Izzy being Izzy. He’ll get over it.

Keep reading

[ysabeauwilce]

I totally agree. I never thought Ed was afraid of Izzy. He was afraid of losing Izzy. and afraid of losing Blackbeard, for without them, who would he be? And he's justified in those fears. Making the choice to be Edward also meant making himself vulnerable. And in Ed's world there is no room for vulnerability. Izzy was reminding him of that.

[warl0ck-arts]

“Le Morte de Blackbeard”

I’ve been obsessing over ofmd and I haven’t found the time to do fanart until now!

This was only supposed to be a fun little redraw of the painting “Meeting on the Turret Stairs” but it turned real sad real quick…

[ysabeauwilce]

good gravy marie do I love this. I am a sucker for this painting anyway but ah the flowy hair, the black boots, the twisty tummy with the snake on it (can i just say i love the fan canon that the snake goes ALL THE WAY AROUND AND DOWN? the banyan the white shirt...ah sigh this is magnificent.