this whole page is under construction, so please excuse the mess! <3

in a word: obsession.

he takes himself, his word, his things very seriously.

you might not have wanted to belong to him. but you do, and he takes care of what's his, in the best and worst ways.

"I love you, and I'm going to hurt you for it."

consummate masochist, izzy hands

izzy matches ned. their broken edges fit, even if they cut themselves to align. ned loves his subjects, every single one, in the moment he has them. but izzy? izzy can do more than sing for him; izzy can survive him. and where izzy had hoped for scraps from edward, ned offers all of himself, obsession clear as day. izzy never once wonders that ned loves him; ned loves izzy like the sun rises in the east.

the question, often times is choice.

is ned choosing to let izzy love him?

is izzy unable to choose ned when edward might one day yet love him?

or will ned show izzy where he belongs?

adorer of the broken, stede bonnet

stede is an easy target for ned. but stede has a profound upper hand: his boundless support and enthusiasm, shining a light on the rot feeding ned's insecurities.

maybe ned captures stede. maybe he manipulates him.

or maybe, just maybe, ned never hurts stede at all, playing his fiddle during a chance encounter on the Republic.

but sooner or later, stede will say the kind things about ned that ned has gone his whole life without hearing, and it'll break him.

break him how? it's kind of like snowflakes, only question is where the violence goes. stede, maybe. any who dare say an unkind word to ned's ray of sunshine? most definitely. 🔪

reflection of violence, ed teach

ned IS edward.

more specifically, ned is the darkness of edward: violent, cunning, manipulative, performant, destructive.

does edward need to turn that darkness away?

look upon it, and care for that part of himself with a lover's hands?

feed it until it destroys him?

in some sense, blackfiddle as a ship is about change:

the way Edward needs to give himself a chance, even when he lashes out, even when he fucks up.

or, it's about the contrast between these two paths, Ned and Edward, where one of them changes and has to watch the other stagnate—by his own choice.

the one that got away, lucius spriggs

lucius was probably a nephew to francis spriggs, ned's first mate. if lucius ran to frank when he fled his home, the young man would have been off limits to ned's normal predilections.

leaving them to actually get to know each other.

but when faced with the reality of ned, lucius falls back on his fatal flaw—he flees.

ned never gets over it.

whether he's chasing edward down for killing lucius, or rescuing lucius from the pirates who forced him, or simply setting the world alight for the loss of lucius' love—lucius runs, and ned will carve the seas with his longing.

richie.

I don't necessarily ship Ned with Richie (although I'm not opposed). I focus a lot on their relationship as codependent, and often emotionally incestuous. Richie relies on Ned to survive, and that dependence eventually kills him, long before he's in the ground.

will ned find breathing room before it's too late?

will richie hold on like he's fighting for his life?

AO3 links here!!!

-_-;;;;;

Possession

is it wrong to pickup girls on a pirate ship