#once the immediate rush fades and the fries cool: suddenly they taste lowkey gross

[knowlesian]

quick indulging in some stede angst while i procrastinate on finishing my piece on e5

i’m consistently fucked up over the blacked out form that used to be stede in the family portrait, and the metaphor it provides about the way stede handled his life and trauma: everything’s pretend. he’s not truly there, he’s living a story in his head in ways both lovely and inadvertently cruel.

lovely: looking at the world and demanding it bend to his delusional belief things could ever be other than they are. that it could be better.

inadvertently cruel: leaving mary and the kids (leaving ed) to wonder: was it me? if i was better, if i had been kinder or a more supportive wife, a better behaved child or a co-captain with less baggage or a better man, would he have stayed? would i have been worth staying for?

stede’s got a whole basketful of reasons he leaves without explaining why in both cases. but he does leave, and he doesn’t explain: those actions ripple out and hurt the people he leaves.

but also, we know stede’s general self-worth is under the fucking ground!!! less than zero!!! he has absolutely no inkling that his absence might affect someone just as much as his presence. he thinks: i am a burden people suffer. when i remove myself from their lives, i am ultimately making those lives easier, in heartbreaking part because he cannot imagine a world in which somebody actually wants him around.

i know i’m a big old hippie and a reconciliation will come faster than we might think truther, but goddamn i just want ed and stede to have the mutual validation moment! because ed needs to hear “it was never about not wanting you or not wanting to be with you, it was a gross cocktail of trauma and old fears and chauncey being a walking nightmare in so, so many ways” from stede and stede needs to hear “you leaving me? fucked me up real good in ways we may need to do some work to overcome, but only because you are somebody i always want to be around, even when things are not pleasant and conflict-free, all forever-like” from ed asa-fucking-p.

#look i love me some angst but like. i want these two to be back on the same page so much i could leap into the sun over it #this is my hopeful pirate show about: what if life could be better and people kinder #and ultimately i ask myself: what do ed and stede actually want #to punish each other for harm done or to find a way to heal and move forward #i’m super biased because i think that shit is just a waste of time and weird jesus shit in a party hat #why demand people who hurt you hurt in turn? how is more pain ever the answer? etc #it feels good in the same way mickey d’s fries taste good #piping hot: lowkey addictive #once the immediate rush fades and the fries cool: suddenly they taste lowkey gross #punishing people feels right for reasons i try to identify in myself and fight against #i try and remind myself cruelty can never ever be the point #or i’m just everything i hate with better policy positions etc