@gayforgoodomens Just gonna… leave this here, if you don’t mind…
“It, it really is a beautiful ceremony. Don’t you think?”
It took Crowley a moment to figure out who was talking to him. The polite, tentative voice came from his right, behind the curtain where his betrothed awaited him. What was his name again? Aziraphale? Yeah, that sounded about right. Betrothed and soon to be husband, in about ten minutes.
Not that either of them had a say in the matter. Crowley scowled at the spread of food in front of him and said nothing. He had protested this whole arrangement, loudly and vocally, all the way up to the ceremony itself and been soundly ignored by the rest of the family. It was for the greater good, they said. It would bring peace to this feud between their families, save countless lives, and give Crowley a wealthy husband, what was not to like?
(Not to mention the added convenience of shuffling Crowley off to another man’s house and making him someone else’s problem. No more dealing with his questions and his rebellious ways and his constant making a nuisance of himself. Beelzebub hadn’t stopped gloating ever since the match was announced.)
He should have run away, Crowley thought not for the first time. Just packed his bags, stolen some money, and taken his chances out in the world. Now more than ever, the fantasy appealed to him. There was still time, wasn’t there? Everyone else was distracted right now, their family members going through the motions and gearing up for the big moment, while Crowley and his betrothed were expected to sit here quietly and not make a fuss. He could slip out of the back of the tent right now, while no one was looking…
He heard shuffling on the other side of the curtain. Then his betrothed - Aziraphale - spoke again. “I’m sorry, I know we shouldn’t be talking just yet. Tradition and all of that. But, erm, it couldn’t hurt to get to know each other? Before…”
He trailed off, but Crowley knew what he meant. Before the final words were spoken, the vows exchanged, and they were left alone together to make the best of it.
Crowley felt a strong urge to pick up a plate and hurl it at someone. How was he supposed to ‘make the best of it’ with someone from that family? Gabriel was an utter prick, Michael was cold and haughty, Uriel was self-righteous, and Sandalphon was cruelty incarnate. Any brother of theirs was doomed to be at least one or all of those things, and Crowley couldn’t make up his mind on which combination would be worse.
“Do you like books?” Aziraphale asked. The man sounded a bit desperate now, maybe spooked by Crowley’s silence. “I have a bit of a collection, maybe we could…”
“My cousin Beelzebub told me that your ugly and soft,” Crowley said, mostly out of spite. He wished Aziraphale wouldn’t try so hard, wouldn’t try at all. Neither of them wanted to be here, so there was no point in pretending. Might as well get the snide insults out of the way.
“…oh.”
Crowley glanced at the curtain, taken aback by the tone. Aziraphale sounded… resigned? Upset? Dare he say fragile? That hadn’t been at all what Crowley expected.
“News travels fast, I see,” Aziraphale said softly, almost to himself. “Sorry. Not even married yet and I’m already a disappointment…”
Oh, well done, you arse, Crowley thought to himself. He sighed and affected a nonchalant air. “Eh. Beelzebub’s usually a liar.”
“Oh. Er, why would your cousin lie about me?”
Crowley scoffed. Like Beelzebub needed an excuse to lie. “She hates your family. Hates me, too. Thinks this is good riddance.”
“Oh, my brother Gabriel thinks the same,” Azirpahale said. He sounded almost as nonchalant as Crowley, like horrible, uncaring family members was something the two of them could bond over. “Frankly, I think there must have been a better way to end the feud, other than this… arrangement.”
“Such as?” Crowley said. He knew he was being sarcastic again, but he thought he rather deserved an outlet. “A contract? An official trade? A pinkie promise to be the best of friends forever?”
“Well, if they would all stop acting like children and just talk to each other-!” Aziraphale snapped. But he bit off the end of that sentence and cleared his throat. “I’m so sorry, I shouldn’t be venting my frustrations on you, on our wedding day. And insulting your family on top of that…”
Crowley glanced at the curtain between them, intrigued now by that tiny slip. The tetchiness was more attractive than he wanted to admit. Crowley liked tetchy. He could be the epitome of bitchy and petty when he wanted to be. Was his betrothed the same? Was it just barely possible that they had more in common with each other than with their respective families?
Before he could talk himself out of it, Crowley reached for the curtain between them. No one was watching, no one would know. He drew it aside and raised his other hand to lift his shawl, just enough to see, to have a little peek…
Aziraphale looked at him with wide gray eyes under a cloud of white-blond hair. He was… oh, he was soft, but that could only be a compliment, as far as Crowley was concerned. More than anything, he looked gentle and shy and desperately nervous. And maybe it was the lighting, but the red flush creeping up his cheeks was very fetching. Crowley swept his gaze over his betrothed from head to toe, fascinated by how his throat bobbed, how his plump hands kept fiddling with his rings, how he couldn’t seem to tear his eyes from Crowley now that they were looking upon one another.
“Beelzebub is such a liar,” Crowley murmured.
Aziraphale made some kind of strangled noise in his throat, nearly as red as Crowley’s shawl. Crowley winked and let the curtain fall between them again, suddenly far more pleased with this whole arrangement. For the first time, he was actually looking forward to the end of the ceremony when their families would sod off and leave them alone with each other.
He had soft, anxious, handsome husband to ravage tonight.
Oh my god @rainydaydecaf please PLEASE tell me there is a next part to the story. I NEED to read about their wedding night.
“So, erm.. I know, we’re supposed to do it, tonight, it’s expected, the consummation of marriage is what seals the deal and all, but..”, those plump, finely manicured hands were fumbling with the silky blue fabric of their owner’s tie, “.. I’m not going to.. force you, obviously..”
Crowley hid his face in the late-night mug of spiced mulled wine, stifling a grin. The idea of this beautiful creature forcing him was pretty amusing, in more ways than one. But he wasn’t in the mood for mocking, which was a rare occasion. This whole situation was a rare one.
For a moment he was tempted to say something as mildly patronising as don’t be scared, but he did not need to lay his newly acquired husband bare in this particular way. All of the other ways promised to be more than satisfactory.
“You know.. this is not going to be my first time”, Crowley looked straight into the pair of anxious blue-grey eyes, hoping he had not miscalculated the risk those words brought along. “Or my second. Or.. anywhere in the single digits.”
“What..?”
Aziraphale stared at him in a shock so genuine and innocent Crowley failed to stop one corner of his mouth from quirking up this time.
“You have -.. I mean.. we’re not supposed to..”
There it was again, that adorable throat bobbing. To his own surprise, Crowley was already growing quite fond of his husband’s little quirks.
“I could -.. you realise that our marriage could be annulled, because of that..”
“Yeah”, Crowley shrugged, “but you’re not going to tell anyone.”
They had only been acquainted for a few hours, even if those hours had been some of longest he’d ever lived through, but Crowley could already tell that his husband knew what that felt like, to be the black sheep of the family.
Aziraphale was the whitest black sheep he had ever met.
“I’m only telling you this to say that I can take the lead, if you like. You can just lie back and.. enjoy.”
Crowley took another sip from the mug, watching as his husband’s pupils flared, tugging on a dark, predatory part of his nature in the most delicious way.
Finally finished part 1 of this behemoth! A take on ed and stede’s possible confrontation in season 2! Part 2 is in the works where they talk it through. Enjoy!
Hey sorry I'm like a couple years late for this ask ik but i just found out about HYLW from an old reblog and… well are there only 2 episodes on the website for the public? Or is the rest of it for patreon only? Cuz I can't find the 3rd one and I might just pass out if I don't know what happens next so.. could u maybe lmk what I need to do? :>
Bad news: We only released two episodes of Hug Your Local Werewolf with our first run approximately five MILLION years ago so I can’t link you to episode three……
We actually just got off a strategy video call (which mostly consisted of us reading through our years-old notes going, “what the fuck were we on about with this??”) so we are underway!
I can’t give you an exact timeframe because there’s a lot to go over but I can say we have episode three pretty much finished (it just needs a few edits) so once I get the website updated etc we should be back in business.
Thank you so much for the interest in this little project and I’m sorry to everyone else who sent asks that I left unanswered. Life definitely life-ed us for a while there and HYLW suffered for it but it’s a story we definitely want to keep telling.
If you want to support us and/or get updates on episodes you can do so at our Patreon here. I’ll be updating the website and our email list soon so I can link you through to that once I have it sorted. Any interested parties can send me an ask off anon and I’ll link you through to the signup form so you can get update notifications once I’m done.
Chapters: 1/1 Fandom:Our Flag Means Death (TV) Rating: Mature Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Blackbeard | Edward Teach/Stede Bonnet Characters: Blackbeard | Edward Teach, Stede Bonnet Additional Tags: Lucius Spriggs, (just a brief cameo), Post-Finale, Apologies, Hand Jobs, Makeup Sex, angry makeup sex that becomes emotionally overwrought makeup sex, they’re both soft and bad at communicating, Prequel Summary: He doesn’t know how this is going to go. Will Ed be waiting to lunge with his sword as soon as Stede walks in? Will he shoot him from across the room? Ignore him completely? Will he even be there?
Expect nothing, prepare for anything. Spanish Jackie’s words echo in his head, pulling his spine straight, and he pushes in through the open door.
Stede finally catches up with The Revenge, ready to do whatever Ed needs to make things right.
Why Isn’t There a Poll Option?? (Some Unofficial Fic Polls)
FRIENDS i can’t insert a poll here because we still don’t have that option for some reason (and also because i refuse to create an account on a polling site just to get an embed link) so i’m just gonna link to these twitter polls
(if you don’t wanna go on twitter you can cast a vote in the replies! or DM me! or like. reblog with your opinion? look i don’t know your life, just follow your heart and chase your bliss here.*)
FRIENDS i can’t insert a poll here because we still don’t have that option for some reason (and also because i refuse to create an account on a polling site just to get an embed link) so i’m just gonna link to these twitter polls
(if you don’t wanna go on twitter you can cast a vote in the replies! or DM me! or like. reblog with your opinion? look i don’t know your life, just follow your heart and chase your bliss here.*)
So, I want to talk about the lighthouse, and what it means
for Stede to be the lighthouse.
I’ve seen fanart that frames the lighthouse/kraken imagery
in a light vs dark, oppositional way. Like Stede is a light that needs to
rescue Ed from the dark. And jarring with that use of the imagery made me
realise that I see these symbols completely differently, not in opposition but
in parallel. To me it follows that if the kraken is Ed at his worst, then the
lighthouse is Stede at his worst.
It’s easy to see the negative attributes of a kraken
(frightening, violent), but the negative attributes of a lighthouse are less
straightforward (yes, you can get smashed on the rocks, but what exactly does
that tell us about Stede?).
When I considered it, it brought to mind the apocryphal tale
where two nations are in contact by radio at sea. They each demand the other
divert to avoid collision, going back and forth until one country says “This
is the biggest, most heavily armed warship in our country’s big and heavily
armed fleet. We demand that you divert course or we will fire upon you,” at
which point the other country says “This is a lighthouse. Your call.”
A lighthouse is not going to divert course to avoid a
collision. It’s going to stay exactly where it is, and if you don’t divert course
to accommodate for it, you’re fucked. A lighthouse is a perfect metaphor for obstinance, for inflexibility. Stede can be bad at taking other people’s perspectives
into account and adjusting accordingly. At his worst, he can’t even take
in that other people’s perspectives may differ from his in the first place.
We see this with his family. He wants to uproot their lives
and go to sea. He presents his dream as a present to Mary, and assumes she will
be just as thrilled as he is, because he’s too wrapped up in his own excitement
to connect with Mary as a separate individual. The dialogue then explicitly
tells us how Stede is unwilling/unable to hear Mary expressing her perspective/experience:
Mary: “You know I hate the ocean. I said so just the
other day.” Stede: “What? When?” Mary: “When we were standing by the fucking ocean.”
Mary isn’t upset that Stede has an interest in sailing, she is upset
that Stede has no interest in actually knowing her, merely trying to fit her
into his own interests. The scene where Mary repeatedly tries to get Stede’s
attention and he ‘Mmm’s without looking up from his book also show us how he
does not respond to her attempts to communicate. It’s telling that when she
presents her anniversary present to him, Stede does not know Mary paints.
(Honestly, I would find it completely in character for Stede if she had
mentioned her painting to him several times in the past, but he just hadn’t
taken it in because it’s not what he’s interested in.)
Which takes us to the consequence of this inflexibility: the
lighthouse is isolated. Stede is so inflexible at times that he cannot forge
the back-and-forth communication required to actually connect with other
humans.
We also see this at the start of the show with his crew. I
think the underlying reason that the crew wants to mutiny is how
Stede cannot see things from their perspectives or accomodate for them.
Stede went into piracy with no experience, and decided to
impose his own views on how to do things on his crew, without seeking to first
learn from them about an area in which he has no experience. Throughout
the first few episodes we see Stede trying to push his crew into being the people he
expects and wants them to be, rather than trying to get to know them.
In the first episode, in the ‘talk it through as crew’ call
and response, we see Stede
(frankly, quite
patronisingly)
trying to push the crew into adopting his
perspective and participate the way he wants them to. We hear Stede narrate “I pay my crew a salary. Same wage,
every week, no matter what. Course, it took them a while to come ‘round to the
idea”, and while Stede probably thinks he’s doing what’s best for them and
they just can’t understand that, consider what difference it makes to the
power dynamics if the results of
everyone’s work are shared versus if they are completely dependant on Stede. Consider
how Stede is disbelieving when Lucius says he’s the only crew member who can
read (“That’s not. Is that true?”), dismissing this input to
the point that a couple of episodes later, when he tries to replace Lucius with
Frenchie, he is surprised to discover Frenchie cannot write.
When Stede decides that the crew should vacation in episode
two, he says explicitly “Your time is yours to do with as you please”
and “There’s literally no way to mess this up.” He then almost
immediately starts telling the crew what they can and can’t do, responding to
their methods of unwinding with “That is NOT what I was talking
about!”. You’re not allowed to spend your downtime roughhousing, becasue Stede does not enjoy roughhousing. Stede’s preconception of himself as a captain is that he is
accepting and he listens, but the actuality of his captaining style is that he
tries to push his crew into complying with his preferences.
In the third episode, Stede is completely unwilling to learn
from his crew – most of whom have visited the Pirate Republic before – about
how things work there. When Lucius tries to advise him (repeatedly) he
dismisses it (repeatedly).
If the kraken represents a toxic masculinity aligned with aggressive and threatening behaviour, then the lighthouse represents a toxic masculinity aligned with is mansplaining, blind
confidence and the assumption of authority.
In episode four, their meeting starts Stede and Ed’s arc of
mutual character development. I think it’s a crucial moment in Stede’s
development when he excitedly presents Ed with Stede’s preconception of who Ed
is – a picture of Blackbeard from one of his pirate books – and Stede actually
sees and takes in Ed’s response. Stede listens to Ed. And after having listened,
Stede adjusts his course. While Stede’s perspective is firmly that being
Blackbeard would be great (he says that he’d give up everything for just a day
of being Blackbeard), what he says to Ed isn’t encouragement to keep going,
insisting that surely Ed’s life is amazing. Instead, it’s: “Look. I can’t
believe I’m saying this, but have you ever considered retirement?” This
might be the first moment in the show where Stede is considering things from
someone else’s perspective. And that’s the start of him being able to reach
past his previous isolation and actually connect.
Stede still struggles at times with seeing past himself for the rest of the show, but episode four is a turning point.
It introduces his capacity to change and a new willingness to learn.
For the rest of the show, we see Stede succeed when he stops
trying to be the isolated beacon that gives detached direction, when he can see
past his preconceptions, connect and adjust, and we see him fail when he can’t.
In episode five his moment of triumph is rooted in a moment of connecting with
and listening to Frenchie. When Frenchie expresses his experience – “I was in
service for a minute so I now the lay of the land and trust me, servants, they
see everything. This lot, they’re not so fancy” – Stede actually takes it in,
and that gives him the idea to ask Abshir for the information that Stede
builds into his passive aggression bomb. In episode six Stede comes pretty
close to explicitly naming the problem and solution himself: “I’d like to
apologise for my behaviour earlier. As total as my theatrical knowledge may be,
I did forget the most important thing: company!”
I think what takes the crew from where they started at the
brink of mutiny, to the intense loyalty they have by the end, is not a change
of heart on their part, but Stede changing. Stede softening his dismissive streak,
starting to genuinely rather than superficially listen to his crew and to respect
their input.
When Stede feels he needs to be the lighthouse, he feels he must
be the guiding light all on his own. He can’t have his guidance questioned, because
then he’s failing in his role.
I think this sense that ‘knowing best’ is supposed to fall entirely to him is one of the reasons why he feels
so guilty about leaving Mary: he is supposed to be her guiding light, so surely
without him she must be lost? Surely, without his light, his family have been
smashed up against the rocks? It is his sense that he has failed in his duties
at being his family’s lighthouse that makes him falter at the crucial moment
when he leaves Ed. Stede seeing that actually, his family are just fine at
finding their own direction (and Stede finally, finally, listening to and allowing himself to be changed by Mary) is what shows him that he doesn’t have to be the
lighthouse.
I don’t think he returns to his crew as a guiding light. I
think he returns ready to adjust course as he goes, with his crew’s support and collaboration.
so both the lighthouse and the kraken hold specific story significance to stede and ed as well as functioning in several different metaphors at once! this show is A Lot.
the thing i just put together (thanks to that why not to be a lighthouse post, i will link when not on my phone!) is that when you isolate the ways in which the world expects them to perform their masculinity and how it fucks up their emotional economies, lighthouse and kraken are the perfect ways to describe those damaging expectations.
stede is expected to be steadfast and rational, a distant light guiding his wife and children (and our very culture/society, in some ways!) to what is good and right and civilized. he is supposed to be alone on his lofty perch atop the social ladder. he is supposed to be cold and logical and need nothing.
ed is expected to be wild and irrational, a brutal but seductive monster warning our wives and children (and our very culture/society, in some ways!) that this way lies sin and sloth and untamed madness. he is allowed to be surrounded by a group of fellows instead of a wife and kids, but he too is meant to stand alone. he is supposed to be hot-blooded and illogical and need far too much.
they are both expected to display toxic masculinity and the utmost strength, but in very different and damaging ways.
i have the chain of events from the finale to the start of this massive “stede courts ‘seduces’ ed” make-up fic fully plotted out, and
to build myself up to writing that fic i’ve started writing the final scene of the pre-plot, which involves a) angry make-up sex that turns to b) emotionally overwrought make-up sex and culminates in c) an awkward, hesitant agreement to try to move past this unfortunate portion of their (still undefined) relationship
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