app.

[massiveaggression]

Player Info
Player Name: Rona
Pronouns: she/her
Contact: ochrona

Permissions: here!
Invite: nah

Character Info
Character Name: Edward "Ed" "Blackbeard" Teach
Canon/Canon Point: Our Flag Means Death, 1x09 before shaving his beard
Character Age: 40something
History:

First, set aside anything you know about the real historical Blackbeard. This is gay romcom Blackbeard, and his story goes like this:

Edward Teach was born to a poor family in late-1600s England. His mother was a nobleman's servant; his father was a violent alcoholic. As a young teen, having watched the domestic abuse, Ed followed his father one night and strangled him to death. This was his first murder, and the only one Ed considers real.

After all, his other killings are hands-off: setting ships ablaze, throwing men overboard, ordering their torture. He became a pirate at a young age, serving under the likes of Captain Hornigold. That lifestyle was loud, brutal, and fearless: the crew was constantly drunk, violent, hedonistic. They bit the heads off turtles, strapped knives to animals and made them fight, struck each other with bullwhips, and did a lot of arson. Ed befriended pirates like Calico Jack and took the name Blackbeard.

He became the most feared pirate on the sea. Other pirates consider him a mad genius and don't dare to cross him; merchants who see his flag immediately surrender. He's untouchable. And he's bored of it.

When Ed meets Stede Bonnet, a runaway aristocrat, he encounters a whole new world. He's thrilled by Stede's earnest, impractical love of finery. His ferociously loyal first mate, Izzy, isn't pleased. When Edward repeatedly snubs Izzy in favor of antics and frippery, Izzy declares his resignation.

Ed can't bear to see him go, so he proposes a plan: murder Stede and steal his identity, riches and all. But Ed's resolve falters right away. He loves spending time with Stede, luxuriating in kindness and comfort. He confesses his fears, his crimes, the planned murder.

Izzy, realizing this, is furious. He challenges Stede to a duel, effectively for Blackbeard's heart. Stede wins by technicality, and Izzy storms away... to sic the English navy on them, with Calico Jack sent to distract Blackbeard. Izzy wants his legendary captain back, with everyone else left to rot.

Ed, realizing this, abandons his escape with Jack. He intervenes in Stede's execution: he sells his own freedom for Stede's life. They're forced together into the King's navy, where Ed has to shave his famous beard. He takes this with good-natured optimism and a sense of freedom from his old title. Here, he confesses to Stede that he's never been happier than in their time as friends. He says they should run away together.

But while Edward is arranging their escape, Stede is confronted by an old enemy. Stede survives, wracked with guilt; he abandons his getaway with Ed. Without a word, Stede leaves to reunite with his abandoned wife. Ed waits for him all night. He never comes.

For a bit, Ed is openly heartbroken. He writes bad poetry, buries himself in pillows, and cries to their friends. But Izzy pushes him, demanding a return of Blackbeard-- and so Ed snaps. He guts the ship of everything soft or gentle and maroons its kindhearted people. He cuts off one of Izzy's toes and force-feeds it to him, just to prove he can. Izzy venerates him for it, and on the surface, Blackbeard rises again. His breakup era will be more brutal than ever.

When he's alone, though, he still clings to silk sheets and cries.

Powers: literally none

Role in Ashbrook
Character Skills: sailing, navigation; improvisation, resourcefulness, keen awareness of surroundings; leadership, intimidation, performance, bravery; fighting, shooting, committing heinous acts of violence

Character Values: Freedom for all; bravery, creativity, ability to act under pressure; novelty, enjoyment of experiences; love, loyalty, community.

Role Opt-Outs: none whatsoever

Bonus details?: YES

Personality

Blackbeard has perfected the art of "fuckery": overwhelming his victims with a terrifying performance, then coasting through on the reputation he's built. He wields showmanship as a weapon. Scare everyone shitless, and you won't have to fight half as hard again. By the time we meet him, he's a legend; he's a monster; he's a ghost story.

It leaves little room for him to be a man.

When we meet Blackbeard, he's become numbed to the violence and victories. He barely registers the deaths of his men: they drop around him and he seems to feel nothing. By making himself untouchable, he's lost any thrill of danger or sense of satisfaction. His first mate tries to rattle him out of this malaise, but Izzy wants to rally Blackbeard, the mad genius monster-- not Edward, the man underneath.

Edward is a man who craves connection. He brightens the moment he meets Stede Bonnet, a man of pure delight and whimsy: Stede is the sort of "pirate" to throw out all his gunpowder to make space for fancy marmalade. The novelty, and the genuine openhearted joy, seem to bring Ed back to life. Eager to explore a new world, he asks Stede to dress him up and teach him about dessert spoons. He laughs warmly about the impracticality of it all.

But there is no Ed without Blackbeard. When a prisoner mocks his interests, Ed flies into a rage: he shouts, bristles, gets in the man's face. Then he goes cold, and gives the order for the prisoner to be skinned alive.

Blackbeard is made up of two parts. One is Edward's hot-flaring temper, his love of brutal hedonism, fierce and crass. Even as a friend, he's alarmingly intense: he forces his crush to run him through with a rapier and laughs at his open horror. He doesn't seem to comprehend a social scene where people don't discuss wanton murder. He's a pirate.

The other part is a cold, remote cruelty. He constantly pushes at the world to see what will break, testing for limits, waiting for anyone to stop him. Mostly, no one does. He made his own men kill their dogs; he mutilated his loyal first mate and fed him his own flesh. Each brutality is more over-the-top than the last, performative, mythologized. Blackbeard is a fuckery.

There's a powerful high to it, being a monster. Blackbeard claims he doesn't feel fear, because he's the thing to be feared. It gives him distance from anything within himself he doesn't want to touch: the brutality is his armor.

But it's an open relief to drop the performance and just be a man. With Stede, Edward is whimsical, good-humored, warm and unworried. He's tactically clever, but without Blackbeard's distant chill. He smiles; he sings; he tells his crew to be gentle with their prisoners. It's Edward who suffers flashbacks, who curls up in a sobbing heap and wants to be comforted. He wants to be forgiven. He wants to be loved.

By the end of S1, Ed is brokenhearted and betrayed, so he draws on his old armor. He destroys everything soft in his life; he kills or maroons everyone who'd been kind to him. He enacts over-the-top violence on his first mate, trying to prove to them both that he's capable of it. And then he curls up crying, alone in the ashes of his life, having tried to prove himself unlovable. Blackbeard destroying all connection doesn't mean he no longer craves it; it just means that Edward now mourns his humanity all alone.

For now, though, he'll be coming in from a canonpoint before crossing that line. This is a softer, easier Ed: he's just been conscripted into the Queen's navy, but isn't terribly worried about it. He still has hope and an open mind. Once he does remember... that'll be a different story.

Samples
Please link two threads (or a TDM toplevel) displaying your character.

TDM: Here! Please forgive the dropped threads, I posted and then immediately left on a cycling tour rip