#then abandons it for stede and to be really himself

[brigdh]

I want to talk about Izzy's rant to Ed in episode 10, the one that brings out the Kraken. I've seen a lot of different descriptions of what is going on in this scene – death threat, homophobic slurs, etc – and I don't think either of those are what's actually what's happening.

Let's look at it closely, line by line, and the way Ed reacts, from the very beginning of the scene.

Ed: Well, feels nice to tidy up a little. Can't believe I was living like this. Can you, Iz? Izzy? Izzy: I'm going to speak plainly. Ed: Wonderful. You know we share our thoughts on this ship.

Izzy, cont: This, whatever it is that you've become... is a fate worse than death.

Okay. So there we've got what some have interpreted as a death threat. But does Ed seem threatened? He's startled, certainly, put on his back foot – literally – but he doesn't look afraid or alarmed to me. He draws in a slow breath, assessing the situation, but overall seems more confused than frightened.

In fact he laughs it off with his next line:

Izzy then escalates the level of aggression in the conversation:

But Ed, again, looks more confused than anything. Check out that furrowed brow, that head tilt! This is a man going "what is your deal?", not a man thinking "uh-oh, you might kill me!".

Extremely noticeably, even when Izzy storms right up into his face, Ed holds steady. He doesn't run, doesn't lean back, doesn't hunch his shoulders or drop eye contact – there is no vulnerability or defensiveness in Ed's body language at all. Ed is in supreme control of this confrontation – look at the slow way he deigns to turn back to the paper Izzy's holding! As though he's making the point that he chooses when to turn, not Izzy:

Then we have the "homophobic slur". But watch closely:

Ed does not react to "namby-pamby", "silk gown", or "pining" at all. He doesn't even blink. He barely seems like he's hearing Izzy. His entire attention is on the picture.

Ed's body language and behavior changes at one word and one word only, and that is "boyfriend". As soon as Izzy says it, Ed's furious:

(It's even easier to notice when you actually watch the scene instead of using gifs, because Izzy really draws out 'piiiiiiining', putting a lot of time between the first half of the sentence and 'boyfriend'.)

Why is the use of the word 'boyfriend' so important?

Well, what has Ed been doing all episode? He's been crying in a blanket fort and singing sad songs, yes, but he's been keeping a careful level of mystique about why he's doing it. Ed often uses distanced circumlocutions instead of directly acknowledging his emotions, but he's doing it in this episode even more so than usual:

Here are the lyrics to his song:

(Version one, with Lucius) Hanging on By a thread Hanging on Shouldn't let go If I let go, all will fall Fingers bleeding down to the bone now Can't let go Nothing makes sense Hold on Hold on Hold... on

(Version two, performed for the whole crew) Just let go Make yourself let go Make it go away Away, away today Life's a hard sad death And then you're Deaaad

Notice something? There is no mention of Stede, or love, or break-ups, or abandonments, or relationships in general. All Ed discusses is a vague life-sucks attitude, which could apply to basically anyone under any circumstances. He seems pretty okay with people knowing that Blackbeard is having some sort of weird emotional breakdown as long as he convinces himself that no one knows it's specifically from having his heart broken

This is true of everything Ed says and does for this entire episode. He never once even mentions Stede's name, unless "Farewell, Bonnet's playthings" at the very end counts. The only thing Ed openly admits to feeling bad about is a fictional character who's having a hard time "holding on" (holding on to what? he never says). There are no allusions to heartbreak or romance anywhere in his dialogue.

Now, Ed's not stupid. I'm sure he knows Izzy and Lucius and the rest of the crew can connect the dots and realize that something bad happened with Stede, even if Ed doesn't fill them in on the details. But Ed is also traumatized, and has a whole host of coping mechanisms set up to help him avoiding thinking about things that he doesn't want to think about. If he's not a murderer because "technically the fire killed those guys", then no one knows he's heartbroken because technically he hasn't acknowledged it.

Until Izzy says the word 'boyfriend'. Suddenly the secret is out, and Ed can't handle it. Izzy knows his weakness. That's why this word effects Ed more than anything else Izzy says in the whole scene.

At the end of the confrontation, he hears the crew calling for another song. Look at Ed here. He looks as haunted, as disturbed, in this moment as he does at any point in Izzy's rant.

This is an important part of the scene, not just a closing note. Because if Izzy (the Caribbean's most emotionally constipated man) can see through him, obviously the whole crew can too.

Obviously Lucius – who advised Ed on his and Stede's relationship, who played along with Ed's 'fictional character' claim, who wrote down Ed's lyrics – can do so most of all.

There's a direct emotional logic to Ed killing Lucius because he had a fight with Izzy, and it doesn't involve Ed having been threatened or hate crime'd at all. Ed doesn't deal well with his own feelings (from Stede), so he chooses to become Blackbeard/the Kraken and gets rid of all the witnesses who saw otherwise.

#meta #our flag means death #I've been thinking about writing this up for a while but finally got motivated to finish it before S2

[avelera]

OFMD S2 Meta - Stede's Garbage Self-Worth with regards to Ed is still unresolved

(And I'm so hyped for this plotline)

H'ok! So of all the scenes in episodes 1-3 of OFMD S2, this is the one I've been most hyped to discuss but I've been putting it off a few days so people had at least a little time to watch the new eps.

Gifs are courtesy of @ratchet from this gifset:

Hoooo BOY this is such an interesting scene to unpack! Because to me there's at least 3 levels going on here.

What Lucius hears

What the audience "hears"

What Stede literally said

Thing is, I believe when Stede says, "I'm not ready to believe that," the tone that Lucius hears and that the audience is at least 50/50 expected to hear based on the sort of cadence of the scene is, "I'm not ready to believe that Ed's best days are behind him. I'm going to change that."

But I'm not convinced that's what Stede is saying, what Rhys Darby is portraying, or what is literally on the page.

Literally, on the page, Stede says he's not ready to believe that. And given that Stede is very neurodivergent coded, Rhys is self-confessed autistic, and I believe Rhys is bringing that to his portrayal of Stede, I think we really should look at literal words as written and not just run with they're implied to say. This could be read as a declaration that Stede refuses to accept a reality where Ed's best days are behind him or the literal reading: he still can't process that Ed Teach's time with Stede Bonnet was the best Ed's life is ever going to get.

I believe this is for multiple reasons:

Stede isn't going to throw off a lifetime of low self-esteem and bullying overnight just because he's realized he's in love. Especially when the manner of realizing it (end of S1) was hurting the person he loves pretty badly by abandoning him without a word. He's determined to fix his mistakes but each step of the journey is revealing just how big of a mistake it actually was. Not exactly the stuff of sudden self-confidence and positive self-image change.

It requires a full re-write in Stede's brain of every single assumption he had about his relationship with Ed before their separation. Stede in S1, to my eyes, very much saw himself as the junior partner in the relationship. He saw Ed as taking pity on him, to some extent. He felt blessed to have Ed there. It informed so much of their relationship and it especially informed him taking off when he thought his presence was an active burden on Ed. Basically, what Lucius is saying here attacks the very foundations of Stede's understanding of the happiest part of his life so far. To learn that Ed wasn't just the happiest part of his life, but that he, Stede Bonnet, was the happiest part of Ed's life? Whew. Fuck. Not good. Very not good.

Because it's really not good if he was the happiest part of Ed's life, that he so fundamentally misunderstood their dynamic because of his low self-esteem, that he ended the happiest period of Ed's life without warning, without a note, prematurely, and left Ed with the inescapable conclusion that Stede doesn't care about him.

I think worse, even worse, is that Stede has evidence that Lucius is right that he was the best part of Ed's life. But in S1, we're heavily in Stede's POV and Stede's POV of himself is that he's a joke, pathetic, garbage, lucky to have someone like Ed in his life. But Ed's literal actions, louder than words, are that he chose Stede. He gave up piracy for him. He stayed by him. He offered his life for Stede's. Stede wasn't ready to hear that then, he couldn't hear it over the sound of his own low self-esteem whispering poison in his ear, externalized by the Badmintons (both real and imagined). He took their words as fact, rather than Ed's actions as fact. Reexamining Ed's actions shows just how wrong they were. Just how wrong Stede was. And just how badly he hurt Ed because he didn't listen to Ed, the person he loves, over the voices of his own trauma, self-doubt, or of the Badmintons, people who literally hated Stede.

It's a lot. It's a lot for Stede to take in. He's not there yet. But I love that we've had it said aloud: this is a major plot point still. Stede's end-of-S1 glow-up didn't signal that he's self-confident now enough to realize he might be as good for Ed as Ed is for him. He's still grappling with that. It shatters him to even begin to realize this. They have to work through that still. Stede is ready to start listening but he still doesn't, can't literally can't, believe it just yet. It's just too big.

And I am absolutely salivating to see how the rest of the season deals with this thread.

#our flag means death #ofmd #ofmd spoilers #ofmd meta #stede bonnet #my meta #spoilers

[jennaimmortal]

Musings on OFMD Season 2

I’m feeling a bit sad today for the OFMD writers. After rewatching S1 & 2 a couple times, it’s become blatantly clear to me that Izzy’s arc this season was a very obvious love letter to both Izzy fans & the great Con O’Neil. Izzy was very clearly written to be an obstacle to Ed’s healing & personal growth, a snare that Ed needed to be freed from, albeit with plenty of nuance hiding under the surface. It would have been much easier for them to kill Izzy off while he was still the toxic, abusive, sadomasochistic terror of S1E10.

Instead of taking the easy route, though, the writers flipped the trope on its head! They utilized every bit of the potential buried beneath Izzy’s super fucked up shell. This season Izzy got

• a fully fleshed out redemption complete with terrible consequences of his 1x10 actions

• a realization of the possibility of another way of thinking & existing that he’d spent all of S1 running from & trying to destroy,

• genuine love & support from his crew mates which he was actually able to accept,

• exploration of the long abandoned softer side of his nature,

• an apology from Ed w/o first offering one of his own,

• a powerful, devastatingly poignant speech that mentally demolished a new nemesis, and finally

• a beautiful, meaningful death in the arms of the man he’d dedicated so much of his life to, known that he was truly loved by him & completely accepting of the fact that Ed’s love was not in the form he’d always hoped for.

It was so much more than we could have hoped for, and was very obviously done in service to the MANY fans that had fallen in love with Izzy even after S1, as well as to give Con a storyline worthy of his immense talent. Considering the face that Izzy was never going to end up becoming the show’s third protagonist, it was more than we could have hoped for!

OFMD has two protagonists, Stede & Ed. All the secondary character narratives that haven’t directly involved Ed and/or Stede have been icing on the cake, but the cake has always been the Gentlebeard love story. I feel like some people forget this, expecting them to treat the secondary characters as if it were an ensemble show instead of a show with leads.

Izzy’s arc really was an amazing gift! The writers gave us this incredible journey for Izzy this season, and what did a disgraceful number of people do? They attacked David directly, insulted the entire show, the writers, & other characters, even wishing actual harm & misery to other characters or even to David himself!

While I know that comparatively speaking, the percentage of show fans who reacted this way was relatively small, it was still an astounding amount of hatred & vitriol thrown at the people who had obviously worked very hard to give Izzy fans something beautiful to hold on to after his inevitable death. Much of the discourse honestly shocked me, considering the fact that OFMD isn’t even an adaptation of another work.

When fans get angry at shows written as adaptations of books, it’s a bit more understandable for them to have extreme reactions. They’ve had certain ideas and headcanons about characters they’ve felt very strongly about for a long time. It can be really jarring & painful when expectations like that aren’t met, the characters or plots are taken in totally different directions, or even excluded entirely.

OFMD, however, is an original creation. This is David Jenkins’s story. These are David Jenkins’s characters. He knows his story, his plotlines, his characters far better than anyone else does because they came from HIS brain! So while we as fans can have our own interpretations & head canons, they are always going to be at risk of being proven totally wrong by the ACTUAL canon.

One of the worst aspects of fandoms, in my opinion, is the way people become so proprietary over the story & characters, insisting that their own interpretations & theories are the only correct ones, which is exactly what happened with Izzy. Fans’ individual & collective interpretations, theories, hopes, & other head canons became concrete & true in their minds. So much so that when the actual story didn’t meet those expectations, so many of them lashed out in some truly unpleasant, sometimes hateful ways.

My only hope is that the rest of the fandom’s love, appreciation, constructive criticism, heartbreak, pain, joy, & excitement has been enough to drown out the deluge of vitriolic comments directed at David & the other writers.

If you stuck with me through this unintentionally long diatribe, thank you! Maybe take a moment to give the writers some comments or replies on social media, showing your love! I know I will!

#our flag means death #ofmd #ed teach #ofmd s2 spoilers #ofmd season 2 #ofmd s2 #ofmd izzy #izzy hands

[edandstede]

racist fucks out here acting like ed is doomed to become abusive like his father, like he is a violent monster, as if his arc isn’t about learning that he isn’t a monster at all but just a man. how are you looking at ed accepting himself, overcoming feeling like he’s the literal kraken, that he’s loveable and worthy of compassion and kindness even when he thinks the worst of himself, and drawing the conclusion that he’s an irredeemable thug - which is, by the way, what every fucking villain and antagonist thinks of him. you’re aligning your view of him with the bad guys, y’know, the ones who call him a donkey, low-born, and try goading him into violence over and over again because they think that’s all he’s worth? and yeah that includes izzy, because he did that too, it’s 90% of what he fucking did, treating him like he only deserved to live if he was performing hyper masculinity the entire time and the second he stopped he was worse than dead.

we are supposed to feel sorry for ed. the way he feels is heartbreaking. he was abandoned, had his worst fears confirmed to him by stede leaving and izzy pressing on the wound in the worst possible way, and then he fell completely into depression and suicidal ideation. he thinks it’s all he’s good for. he can’t be loved, he hates himself, he’s just the dick who killed his dad and nobody wants him for him. how can you see this very obvious spelled-out agony in him and say “hey, that guy is gonna abuse the man he loves, he’s an abuser just like his dad” you guys are just absolute bottom of the barrel scumbag dickheads, you really really are. you could not be more blatantly racist. you know damn well the show is not saying what you’re claiming it is.

also, insisting that he would ever hurt stede is just completely ignoring every single fucking thing about him. ed would never. the only fucking time stede is physically hurt by ed is when he wakes up from literal death and headbutts him. that’s it. i think we can all agree he didn’t even know what planet he was on when that occurred, and he petulantly says “good it was supposed to hurt” during a squabble that ends with stede telling ed he loves everything about him. pull the other one if you think this was ever framed as ed seriously wanting to hurt stede and not an incredibly hurt and vulnerable man still acting on a half-dead brain.

like for fuck’s sake this is the same man who hides under stede’s robe and presses his head to stede’s hand when he cries after telling him - the only person he has EVER TOLD - about killing his dad. he tells stede about the plot to kill him, and he cannot do it. he can’t lift a finger to him, he never would. he holds stede’s face with both hands when he kisses him and tells him he loves him. he brings him breakfast with a bit of twine on ‘cause he panicked and thought it needed a flourish. he rubs stede’s cashmere against his cheek. the first thing he says makes his life worth living is warmth. he imagines stede with a big goofy sweet grin and gold sparkly goldfish tail coming to save his life. he just wants to retire and have his inn with the man he loves and not worry about stede ever being in a near-death situation again. he wants stede to be safe with him. at no point are we remotely told in the text that we should be genuinely worried ed will ever, ever physically hurt stede. he protects this man with his WHOLE BODY twice and signs an act of grace to avoid him being shot. he tries to get ned to leave him alone when they’re being tortured. he jumps off the boat with jack to swim back to him and he rows back to the republic to find stede too.

he loves stede, would never hurt him, and you’re all just fucking sour your fav died and you’re saying any old shite as a result. swear to god if i catch one more of you even so much as insinuating ed is abusive i’m gonna start lobbing off toes as well.

#i’m mad #so help me if the izzy apologists find this I’M going to become monstrous #quill to paper

[celluloidbroomcloset]

A good bit has been made of Ed saying that "last night was a mistake" and I get the sense that a lot of people are interpreting things through a lens that he means they shouldn't have slept together, they should have waited, Stede was pushing things too far too fast, etc. So I want to go into some detail on why I don't agree with that, and what I think is happening in the aftermath of Calypso's Birthday, as well as in the love scene itself.

(This is kinda long, because I am not witty and cannot be brief. These are just my thoughts, so of course I'm not trying to tell anyone how to understand what happens in these scenes.)

Them having sex and what happens after is very much related to the things that they've both gone through, and especially Ed's fears and trauma after his depressive spiral. When we first meet Ed in Season 1, he's already borderline suicidal. Stede gives him a new view of life by showing him things that he's never seen before, and emotions he's never experienced before. He falls in love and anchors himself to Stede. Then his anchor breaks and lets him float off. He's alone and heartbroken and quite literally goes insane with grief and self-loathing (spurred on by Izzy) on a ship filled with people and things that keep reminding him of how he wasn't enough.

In Season 2, he knows that if he goes back to being Blackbeard, again, after everything, he might very well never be able to come back. He's still terrified of Stede abandoning him, and I think the fact that he did consent to the sex, that he did want to have sex, that he did feel loved and desired and happy, is a huge part of that. He says it was a mistake because he wanted it so much and got exactly what he wanted and is afraid that, again, he's going to lose the person who made him feel like he was enough. So he's doing exactly what Stede says he's doing - panicking and trying to run this time, so that he's not the one who gets hurt again. That's not the same as truly regretting the night before; it actually says that them sleeping together meant so much that it's frightened him because now he stands to lose even more. (If losing Stede once ripped him apart, after they had just barely kissed and admitted they care for each other, what would losing Stede now do to him?)

Should they have waited? Doesn't really matter. They didn't. Are they overwhelmed with emotion? Well, yeah. There have been other posts floating around discussing the relationship between sex and death and the concept of funeral sex, which are quite accurate IMO.

But...I'd say the moment when Stede first grabs Ed at the door is the "overwhelmed with emotion" part. Remember that Stede has killed before, accidentally, and is absolutely wracked with guilt by it. The guilt is also associated with Ed and with his masculinity/sexuality - "you defile beautiful things" - and Ned's words earlier poked those wounds. The last thing that Ed said to Stede before he killed Ned was not to do it because "you can't come back from that." So Stede does what he did before - he runs and hides. But he's not alone anymore. Ed shows up. He's not angry, he's not rejecting Stede or lecturing Stede; nothing has fundamentally changed in their relationship because Stede killed Ned. He's there to say, "Hey, it's OK, it's hard, I know, I've been there." Stede is overwhelmed with emotion - guilt at what he's done and all its associations with his past, fear that he's ruined something in his relationship (defiled a beautiful thing), uncertainty about what this means about him as a person. And there's Ed, standing there and saying "Are you OK?" Nothing has been defiled.

It's not Ed who crosses the threshold - maybe Stede needs his space and really doesn't need his sympathy right now, so he waits there and doesn't invade the space - but Stede who grabs him and drags him across. That's the impulsive moment, not the sex. Ed is surprised by it, as we can see on his face, and Stede is in pain and almost crying. He seems incapable of speech at that moment, which says a lot about his state of mind since this is a man who cannot shut up. He's not behaving rationally or thinking things through deliberately; he's coming apart and Ed's there and Ed holds him together.

Now, the next cut could've been to Stede throwing Ed down on the bed or kissing him aggressively (as, indeed, has happened in plenty of shows and films with these kinds of scenes). But that's not what happens. The next cut is to the end of the impulsive moment, Stede backing Ed up against the wall. Then there's a pause. Both of them are recalibrating. Stede in fact keeps his distance (wish we could actually see their expressions up close), and he waits. He's done something he likely shouldn't have in grabbing Ed; he's stopping himself from doing anything else he shouldn't. He's making a choice and it's an important one, just like when he stopped the kiss when Ed told him to, when he stopped saying "I love you" because Ed couldn't hear it, or when he asked if it was OK to hold Ed's hand. He didn't do anything wrong in being impulsive, and he's waiting for his partner to help him know what to do next.

Could Ed say no at that point? Yes, absolutely, and we know from the moonlight scene that Stede would not try to go farther. Would Ed say no at that point, with the knowledge of how much this man needs him? Yes, I think he would. I don't think this is a case of Ed going "well, he needs this, so I'll sleep with him." That interpretation I think undermines Ed's autonomy and misunderstands his character - he's not going to do something that he doesn't want to, not even for Stede, and he's not going to damage their relationship by having their first time be a result of pity or sympathy. It's going to be about mutual desire, or it's not going to happen at all.

That pause is where they look at each other (again, wish we could see expressions better) and Ed nods. And even then, when Stede leans in to kiss him, it's not Stede who increases the intensity. I think we could even read this as Stede not consciously planning for the kiss to lead to sex. It's Ed who grabs Stede, pulls him up against him, lets his body support Stede's, who's practically collapsing. It's Ed who snatches Stede's waist and wraps his arm around his shoulders and caresses his neck.

I think it's really important that Ed is the one who ups the intensity. His actions are pretty much the definition of enthusiastic consent. That's needed for the scene, just like all the other scenes where Stede stops when Ed tells him to. It's Ed who wanted to take it slow and so now his choice to go ahead is necessary. There's no indication that this is rushed or only a result of passion and pain.

The next scene, Stede is closing the curtains, and he's shirtless, but Ed is still mostly dressed (and no, that is not the face of a man having second thoughts or being pressured into sex. That's the face of a man who's so in love he can't see anything but fireworks). What's happening is very deliberate on both their parts, and the entire scene is a culmination of their desires and - very importantly - their love for each other. It's not Stede needing comfort or validation and Ed rewarding him with sex. It's them both needing, wanting, and loving each other.

It's really tempting to make this all more angst-y than it is, especially with Ed's later "last night was a mistake!" But once more, this silly gay pirate show gets at something that a lot of less silly films and TV shows don't - that human relationships are messy and complex, and messiness and complexity are not inherently Problematic. Just human.

Tl;dr: seems like neither of them regretted having sex, and not just because it was definitely good sex.

#ofmd season 2 #ofmd s2 #ofmd spoilers #ofmd meta #stede bonnet #ed teach #blackbonnet #gentlebeard #yes i have feelings about the silly gay pirate show #and must write essays about them #our flag means death

[piratecaptainscaptainpirates]

I really like reading Ed's story as a trans narrative. I know there's a great posible read of the slide into the Kraken era as a detransitioning narrative, but personally I prefer interpreting it as a forced return to being extremely careful about passing.

I love to read Ed as a trans man because it's so fucking juicy, and because the urge to lean hard into hyper-masculinity is such a common one among trans guys. You feel like you have to be the perfect man in order to be seen as a "real" man, and I see this so strongly in Ed. I mean, he named himself after his beard!

And then there's Stede, and he's a guy with an undeniably more feminine affect to how he presents himself. We know Ed doesn't just like softer things because he wants to fit in with Stede, he wishes he was the kind of person that got to have it. It reminds me of being younger, before I could pass, and wishing I could wear a skirt and be seen as a man in a skirt. And Stede helps Ed feel like he's safe to explore his gender presentation a bit - he puts flowers in his hair and little bows in his beard, dressing up his masculinity with a bit of femininity.

When Ed comes back to the ship after Stede abandons him, having a safe space to explore his gender expression seems like it brought him a lot of comfort. He writes song lyrics, wears a soft pink robe, and paints his nails with glittery pink polish. And, yes, none of these things are inherently gendered, of course, but they're not things that you get to have when you're trying to live up to some ideal of hyper-masculinity.

Through this lens, what Izzy tells Ed in s1e10 isn't just, like, really mean and homophobic, it also feels like all those transphobes who tell you they won't respect your gender unless you pass to their standards. "Namby-pamby in a silk gown" hits harder because it feels like Izzy is digging into Ed's femininity. It feels like he's telling Ed that he's not a real man unless he performs masculinity to Izzy's standard, and if Ed dares to be a feminine trans man, he's not safe.

Ed's slide into the Kraken era feels to me like a return to him focusing on passing perfectly as the ideal man, because sometimes when you're a trans guy you feel a lot safer when you feel like you're taking away all the ammunition anyone could possibly use to question if you're really your gender. He paints on a beard, which just screams beard dysphoria - I imagine Ed's gender dysphoria in that regard got a lot worse after Izzy yelled at him.

(One of my favorite little things about this read? Ed only wears full-fingered gloves until the start of s2, when we see him wearing fingerless gloves again, and I like to think that's so he could hide his painted nails.)

When Ed's at his absolute lowest, he gives himself one last indulgence, looking at the cake toppers and imagining a happy life with the man he loves. And he's painted his to look like himself, a bearded brown man in a dress. Fuck if that's not just the fantasy for a lot of trans guys who like to wear more feminine clothing, being able to be a man in a dress without being seen as any less of a 'real man' for it.

#ofmd #our flag means death

[theshippirate22]

I have a theory

listen up bitches (gender neutral) (affectionate) i’ve been cooking this for an incredibly long time and i’m very very excited to share it but it is gonna be long so i’m putting it under a cut

my theory is that there has been a new set of archetypes created by popular m/m media either in canon or coding and i would love if it was more widely recognized by a distinct name so here we go:

I present to you: The Mirrorball x Running Up That Hill Boyfriends™️ Theory

i need to preface this by saying that i am absolutely not an english major or expert but i have done so much analysis that i’m 98% positive i’m on to something here

so usually mlm ships- at least in my experience- get boiled down into typical Grumpy x Sunshine, Golden Retriever x Black Cat, or like. Babygirl x Badass. and i hate that because those are like really watered down hetero romance stereotypes and i think queer people deserve to get our own archetypes instead of trying to force queer characters into prepaid boxes but that’s a story for another day so:

basically, all content with widely accepted mlm ships (even if they are more in coding than in canon) has this pattern with the ship that fits into Mirrorball x Running Up That Hill

(name pending- open to suggestions)

Boyfriend No.1 of course is the epitome of Mirrorball by Taylor Swift (i know, i know. bear with me here). He’s constantly trying to prove himself and his worth and usually he’s driven to hide or overcome 1-3 specific and intense insecurities/character flaws. He often has innate loyalty to a system or person who has repeatedly abused/neglected/abandoned him and thinks that this treatment is a result of his own character rather than a reflection of the abuser. In relation to the plot and audience, this is the “more dangerous” of the two because he’s so desperate to hold onto the status quo that he’ll often act in a way that makes things more difficult for himself, often by leaving Boyfriend No. 2, sacrificing himself, or doing “the wrong thing.” He also commonly has an older male figure that is breathing down his neck constantly, haunting his perceived inadequacies, and fueling his self-loathing. He’s constantly mischaracterized because he’s either boiled down to “the silly one” or a visage of his trauma and the people that relate to love these characters are usually extremely sad people. Usually this character is also the “mean girl” of the couple.

Examples of the Mirrorball boyfriend: Dean Winchester, Aziraphale, Stede Bonnet, Lucius Spriggs, Sherlock Holmes, Eddie Munson, Mike Wheeler, Prince Rupert, etc.

Boyfriend No. 2 then, is the Running Up That Hill Boyfriend, based of course, on the song by the same name by the perfect Kate Bush. He’s the one that’s seen The Horrors™️ and gained a layer of cynicism that Mirrorball doesn’t have. He was once loyal to something that used/hurt him but he rejected it and used his newfound freedom to restructure his entire personality and reach his much higher potential. Usually, he has passed so far from having a few insecurities to perceiving himself as utterly worthless and unlovable but he’s so convinced that it doesn’t even haunt him, he just goes with it and usually comes off looking overly-confident or cocky. This is The Bitch (affectionate)™️. There’s probably a scene of him covered in blood. This is The Girls’ favorite blorbo and ultimate whump. He tends to be really good with kids and he’s the kind of character that would and often has to CLAW a life out for himself by his fingernails.

Examples of the Running Up That Hill Boyfriend: Castiel, Crowley, Ed Teach, Black Pete, John Watson, Steve Harrington, Will Byers, Prince Amir, etc.

unfortunately i haven’t seen a lot of popular queer stuff so if you can think of other mlm or mlm shaped characters that fit into these archetypes please please please tell me

i’m specifically curious about:

-Hannigram (Hannibal)

-Buddy (911) (@criminally-obsessed if you would mind weighing in but obviously no pressure)

-Lokius (Loki) (@henderdads same thing)

-Any of the marauders but specifically WolfStar

-Stucky (MCU)

-RWRB (i’m so sorry i don’t remember the guys’ names)

-Nick and Charlie (Heartstopper)

-What We Do In the Shadows has one I think?

-literally anyone else please and thank you 🙏🙏 love you all

if you want like explicit examples of each piece for a character lmk for sure because i could talk about this all day long

#shut up jay #mlm thoughts #mlm #mxruth theory #steddie #ineffable husbands #lupete #gentlebeard #destiel #johnlock #byler #hannigram #lokius #wolfstar #red white and royal blue #heartstopper #what we do in the shadows #911 #buddy #stucky

[portraitofadyke]

Ed's 'inevitably violent streak'

I would also like to point out that despite the show skipping most of Ed's spiraling era and only showing us a very quick montage and his list of crimes, we never actually see him physically hurt any crew member but Izzy.

In s1, Ed never explicitly harms anyone. Maiming during the educational raids is mentioned by Stede, but Ed never lashes out on anyone but the 'other guys'. He threatens some guy to show Stede how it's done, he tells Fang to skin a guy. What is his reaction when the first person he lays himself bare for abandons him?

Yeah, he curls up into a ball, cries, eats shitload of marmalade in a pillowfort and writes shitty breakup songs. But wait, there is a guy in s1 who repeatedly slaps and threatens the crew! Someone who, coincidentally, also attempts to kill Stede after Ed tells him not to!

Oh, wait, it's Izzy. It's Izzy bc he cannot stand Ed going 'soft' around this crew. So he comes up with a plan to sell the crew and Stede out to the English and get them killed, despite knowing about Ed's feelings.

Of course, Ed throws Lucius overboard. Notably, right after Izzy threatens his life unless he becomes Blackbeard again. It's a breaking point for him, because he laid himself bare for Lucius the most, and in killing Lucius, he might kill that side of him. But, as we know, Lucius survives. We never really doubted it, to be fair, because Lucius is still A Good Guy.

In s2, we get the montage. It's said that Blackbeard has gone mad and is probably working the crew relentlessly, always raiding and looting and chasing after the next thing. I do believe the saw him do some pretty fucked up shit, and he's probably driving them crazy by making them do more fucked up shit on each raid. In fact, the crew knows he's fucked up, and Izzy even says they're all 'worried about him'. Izzy makes the mistake by not only quoting Stede and mentioning his name, but suggesting they talk about it, after years and years of prohibiting Ed from expressing his feelings and threatening him whenever he becomes 'soft'. Good thinking, just hypocritical and way too fucking late. In fact, when he comes on board after Izzy suggests talking, nobody seems all that alarmed until he pulls out the gun, which he never fires at anyone but Izzy, after he mentions Stede, the man Izzy almost killed multiple times. The crew is uncomfortable, they think he's crazy. It's never said that he hurt any of them. In fact, they all just kinda sit around until he shoots Izzy. After Izzy dares to talk about his 'feelings for Stede', something Izzy threatened to kill him over before. They actually seem pretty fucking shocked Ed did that. Would they react that way if he repeatedly hurt the crew?

After that, Ed just goes back to being depressed. In fact, I rewatched the first two episodes AGAIN, and Ed just goes to play with his dolls, cries like crazy, and presumably starts coming up with more passive ways to kill himself. In his interactions with Frenchie, he even holds Frenchie, and he never flinches, doesn't seem to be afraid to be in his proximity. Even when Ed knows Frenchie is lying about killing Izzy, he never lays a hand on him.

Even when he's sailing them into a storm, the crew is hesitant to take him down. They know he's fucked up, they wanna know if he's better. Sure, they are probably also afraid of him, but Ed once again never hurts them. He's at his lowest, ready to die, and yes, he makes Jim and Archie fight (bc he saw them kiss lovingly and that's... touchy). Even as he's ready to die, he doesn't go out to hurt any of them. When they finally take him down, he's just ready to go. At that point, he's just completely out of it.

My point is, certain people like to paint Ed as this inevitably violent person. And sure, everyone knows Blackbeard is insane. A maniac. He tortures both mentally and physically. But Ed, even as Blackbeard, goes after other people, not his crew. He hurts people in raids and soldiers and shit. Of course, he did send the crew through Hell, but for someone who is 'abuser' and 'gonna domestically abuse Stede', he doesn't hurt his crew other than Izzy, who fucking gets it after repeatedly trying to kill Stede and abusing Ed for years. They explicitly TELL US Ed's go-to answer isn't violence unless the other person threatens him. Maybe, just maybe, all of you are a bit racist?

#ofmd spoilers #ofmd meta #ofmd fandom crit #the izcourse #izzy critical #and once again it's OKAY TO ENJOY IZZY AS A FUCKED UP PERSON #it's not okay to pretend he is a victim

[cononeillbreastingboobily]

Stede and Ed really suck this season. Looking back, lots of their scenes were extremely cinematic and/or quotable: the dream sequence at the start, the mermaid scene, the thing about breathing the same air, the kiss under the moonlight, them banging with fireworks going off outside, Ed reading Stede's letter, the kiss and love confession during the fight with the English, and finally them standing together in the dilapidated house that is supposedly going to become their inn.

It felt heavily like style over substance. Meanwhile they spent the entire season flip flopping between being together, breaking up, taking things slow, taking things fast. It led to a severe case of arrested development for both of them, because at the end of the season neither of them really changed, they never talked through their issues which could help progress their relationship in a meaningful way.

I mean hell, Stede is worse this season than he was before. In the past he was self-centred and a bit of a dick, sure, but at the end of the day he did seem to care about his crew. And there he is, being the one to suggest that Ed go back to the ship and the crew, one half of which he marooned, and the other he spent weeks or months traumatizing. And on the same day that the very crew unanimously decided to kick Ed off the ship. Like??

Ed, similarly, seemed so... Confused is probably the best word to describe him this season. And I don't even mean the character himself, but the way he was written. We have established looong ago that he doesn't want to be a pirate anymore, yet after he abandons his leathers, he immediately retrieves them within like one day. And sure, he did it to protect Stede. But then he kinda... Did a complete 180° and suddenly wants to actually go back to piracy? Then he's supposed to rejoin the crew of the Revenge only to then stay on land with Stede with the intention to run an inn?

He seems all over the place, and not in a way that feels interesting or entertaining anymore. I mean hell, the first three episodes of the season were amazing, and he was definitely one of the highlights of them. He was incredibly intense in everything he did, hurting, heartbreaking, wanting to go down and willing to take the entire world with him. Those three episodes were probably my favourite bit of television that I've ever seen.

But then... Stede showed up.

And in the end Ed got reduced to this hollow character that doesn't seem to know what he wants at all, and it feels like it's going to bite him in the ass very soon, and hard. He didn't do any of the heavy lifting of development he could've or should've gone through. Izzy did. And then he bled out in Ed's arms.

What worries me is that DJenkins said in interviews before that ideally the show is supposed to end after three seasons, and (if we get season 3 at all, that is) if that is the case, if Ed and Stede are supposed to get a happy ending together that is meant to feel earned and gratifying, they won't have nearly enough time for it. I mean, they hardly talk about the things that matter, that are important to talk about if you want to have a serious relationship with another person. And sure, they might both feel this intense pull towards one another, but that isn't nearly enough to make it work between them. For one, love sometimes simply isn't enough. And I hope that they realize it in time.

#ofmd #ofmd s2 #ofmd s2 spoilers #ofmd spoilers #ofmd critical #sorrryyyy but i realized i still have a lot more to sayyyyyyyy #it sucks because i used to really like these characters #sigh

[izzyshandz]

I swear if i see one more mf say izzy has been 'redeemed' or needed a 'redemption arc' im literally going to scream into my pillow until i lose my voice.

redeem is such a black and white way of looking at his entire character and dismisses everything hes gone through and yall (izzy haters and others) are just so fucking snob nosed and ignorant to sit there and think hes a villain because of how he acted. theyre fucking pirates. theyre not perfect, none of them are. eds a villain, stedes a villain, if youre doing it like that. ed has killed so many people, stede literally left his wife and kids and also had a hand in killing people; it may be easier for them to change because of the perspective the show gives them and they had love but izzy did not. everyone hated him, ed, his own crew, stedes crew.

normalizing peoples reactions to things as something other than villainy and heroism is so god damn important in a show that's trying to accurately involve our perspectives in this day and age. its a tale as old as time, making someone 'completely in the wrong' because their perspective isnt the one you aligned with as much.

like the rest of the crew izzy had his own bad things hes done, he didnt need this 'redemption' everyones blabbering on about. he needed to be fucking heard, to be seen, and acknowledged-- not thrown aside and abandoned because of a whim. you all can ride up blackbeards ass because oh hes so hot, hes so pretty omg wow; but that wont ever change the fact his character is a fucked up person... youre allowed to love him anyways, why not izzy? we didnt see blackbeard before screen but how hes mentioned it shows he was a shit awful person, the only reason no one cares is because on hes fuckin gay for stede or whatever so the main characters get a free ride. ( i agree they all get a free ride, im just tired of this izzy isolation man )

why does he need to be redeemed in your eyes? just because youve seen what hes done? he was literally a product of his environment in season one he was a product of blackbeard's leadership. only with the loyalty and solidarity of the crew did he really begin to find himself, thats fucking hard to do that late in life. instead of calling it some bullshit black and white redemption arc, lets just celebrate izzy being himself and being fucking loved for once in his god damn life.

hes also way more fucking mature and put together than people give him credit for. love you izzy.

edit: thank you all for the reblogs and insights in every single one, i read them i promise i do. im just so mf heartbroken we have to tag things as discourse when its really just about people not being compassionate. (as a couple people have pointed out) i will said id reblog and comment on every single tag but this is my side </3 EVERYONE PLEASE READ THE REBLOGGED TAGS TOO / / theyre so real ! ive also opened up that ask box thingy i havent been on tumblr in yrs and have 0 clue how any of that works if anyone wants my perspective on anything izzy related. *or otherwise ofmd related

#izzy hands #israel hands #our flag means death #our flag means death spoilers #ofmd #ofmd season 2 #ofmd spoilers #cont rant #i just got really passionate dude i cant #im tryna sit here and scroll through tiktok and its fkn #redeem this redeem that #he was FINE; he just didnt respond to change the same way you do #normalize every form of expression even if it doesnt fit your mamby pamby shy baby lifestyle #he did nothing wrong #mf hypocrites i say

[bizarrelittlemew]

warmth, good food, orgasms (microfic)

inspired by Ed's three main reasons to live. enjoy! (I put it on ao3 too for good measure) M-rated, 319 words

⁕⁕⁕

Warmth.

The logs crackle in the fireplace. Golden light dances over the ceiling, the walls, the furniture. Heats Ed’s naked skin.

Good food.

Empty plates and cutlery abandoned on the table. That really was a great meal, though.

Orgasms.

Ed is heaving for breath as he swims back to the surface of reality. Glad he kept those fur rugs, nice and soft under his back.

Stede ducks his head out from under the rather exquisite cashmere blanket that Ed could never make himself throw away. Ed’s fingers tangled in golden curls. Stede’s smile brighter than the firelight.

He sounds a bit funny when he talks, though. Mouth full.

“Hwhat do I do with hthis? Shwallow, or—shpit somewhere?”

Before Ed can answer, Stede makes his decision. Lips pressed together, Adam’s apple bobbing in his throat.

“Seems the easiest solution.” The aftertaste makes Stede’s face go on a journey. He licks his lips. “Not bad, actually. Rather salt—oumph!”

Ed pulls him into a kiss. Stede hums into it and shuffles up to lie properly on top of Ed. Broad, solid body pressing him into the furs. Golden hues everywhere. Time dragging at an infinite pace.

Stede’s lips are flushed, his smile warm and excited.

“Did I do it right?”

“Think it’s pretty obvious you did, mate.”

“What next?”

Ed adores him. Brushes a curled strand of hair away from Stede’s forehead. It falls back down immediately. Ed adores him.

“My dick’s pretty done for now, but we can do other stuff.” Gotta finish with the good shit for Stede too. Can’t leave him hanging. Well, standing.

“What would you like?” As if it’s all about what Ed wants.

“We could have a different kind of—erh, intercourse.”

“You want me to fuck you?”

Ed laughs. Feels as if it’s coming from his soul, has traveled with it all the way to hell and back into Stede’s arms.

“Fuck yeah.”

#my fics #ofmd fic #fanfic #ofmd s2 spoilers #i guess #microfic #this was fun i should write short stuff more often

[dancing-with-the-madmen]

The Massive Aggression of Calico Jack, redux

Several kind souls have complained brought it to my attention that my failure to use cut tags is, in fact, not optimal. I don't have any good reason that I don't use cuts - mostly I'm just throwing these thoughts out here so they don't endlessly rattle around my brain. Frankly, I'm endlessly astonished anyone but me can be arsed to bother wading through them at all. So, after a truly epic tantrum thoughtful consideration, I've decided to edit my longer posts to add cuts. If you've already read them, (may endless blessings rain down upon you) there's no new content (vile lies and calumny. I'm going to take this opportunity to fix errors and add a line here or there, but nothing major). Just making it more scroll-friendly. You'll know it when you see the word "redux" in the title. So without further ado...

I’ve been trying for a while to put my finger on exactly what it is about Our Flag Means Death's Calico Jack that makes me want to crawl out of my skin and smother him to death with my own abandoned ecdysis.

I mean, I normally love me a spurned admirer/cock-blocking ex. Romantic comedies have their beats, and there’s obviously no serious danger the love interest will end up with anyone other than their intended, so I may as well sit back and enjoy the machinations. After all, the course of true love never did run smooth, and these bitches are here to rough some shit up for sure. I also love Will Arnett. Hands down favorite recurring character on 30 Rock. The second best Batman after TAS (fight me). I can even cheerfully bear his Reese’s commercials if I must bear commercials at all.

Real-life Calico Jack? One of my v. favorite pirates. He wore floral-printed cotton from India as a fuck you to the British tax man. He had an affair with Anne Bonny and offered to purchase her divorce when her husband found out. The two ran away together into piracy when Bonny’s husband refused to quit her and had her whipped for her infidelity. Mary Read was part of Jack and Anne’s crew, and possibly their lover. We love a hopeless romantic, possibly polyamorous king. 

So what is it about OFMD Calico Jack that makes him so acutely punchable?

I’ve rewatched the episode several times (oh my v. dears, I really hope this write-up is worth it. I am SO BRAVE to subject myself to this), and I think I’ve finally got it. It’s not just that he’s a loud, vulgar, hectoring, drunken jackass of a bird-murderer. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I have as little patience for his brand of mindless destruction and violence-for-violence-sake as Stede does, but that’s not all.  It’s that he’s also a master of passive aggression.

Jack does the little whisper-y “Sorry! Sorry!” when Stede wants to know what’s with all the cannon fire, but immediately starts grinning like an unrepentant varlet as soon as he drops his hands.

And then accepts Stede’s introductory handshake with clear derision.

When Stede says he wasn’t expecting guests and there’s only two settings at brekkie, Jack doesn’t wait for Stede to sort things out, and he’s already lowering himself into Stede’s chair by the time Stede invites him to take his spot. He then purposefully keeps steering the conversation to topics that exclude Stede from participating, and cuts Stede short when he tries to reign the conversation back.

He insinuates Stede is less of a pirate for being “store bought”

He refuses to get Stede’s name right, even when corrected. Twice.

And is just SO insincere when calling him back.

And, just, the whole pissing contest scene.

But so what? We’ve had other passive aggressive assholes on the show; Badminton with his cracks about Stede’s tiny dick ship, the French captain’s slurs, Gabriel simpering about Jeff the Accountant’s dining manners. I’m not shedding any tears for their respective fates, but none of them made me want to crawl through the screen and sew all their face holes shut. Because Jack isn’t just passive-aggressive (and aggressive-aggressive), he might just be the most savvy reader-of-rooms we see on the show, and purposefully and systematically leverages his passive aggression to manipulate the actions of those around him for the purpose of making Ed and Stede betray their better selves and make them do the work of driving a wedge between themselves.   That was a lot in one sentence.  Let me break it down.

Jack uses passive aggression to achieve one of four goals: to nettle, to undermine, (seemingly paradoxically) to reinforce connections, or to coerce. And, if he can manage to achieve different goals for more than one target with the same attack? So much the better. And he’s frankly just astonishingly good at doing so. Like, I’d admire him for it if it didn’t also make me want to make him swallow all of his own teeth.

The basic gameplan goes thusly (this is not a strictly chronological list, a lot of these tactics take place concurrently and recurrently): Stede is the primary target, so Jack nettles him with passive aggressive comments, which puts him on the back foot and undermines his self-confidence. He reinforces his relationship with Ed in ways that excludes Stede and undermines Stede’s relationship with Ed and Ed’s relationship with Stede. Jack uses coercive tactics with Ed and the crew, which undermines Stede’s relationships with them, isolating and othering Stede, which further tanks his mood, which leads him to self-isolate. When Stede eventually lashes out at Ed for falling for Jack’s bullshit, Ed has no idea what’s got Stede so out-of-sorts; Jack has so carefully lead Ed to making the choices that have alienated Stede that they seem like they were Ed’s ideas in the first place. And if Ed has made the choices to do these things, then they are clearly just a reflection of who he is, which, if Stede is lashing out against them, then Stede is rejecting him. Wedge set and match.

So let’s look at the specifics.

Jack’s interactions with Ed are like a masterclass in neurolinguistic programming for evil. First, he plys Ed with booze from the very start. Just look at the bottle in this shot from right after they blow up the dresser drawer.

That bottle or rum is over half gone, and the sky in the background is the peachy-pink of sunrise. This isn’t the bottle Jack had with him in his dinghy; that one he drained and then threw in the air and tried to shoot before coming aboard the Revenge. Which means that they’ve consumed over half the bottle between just the two of them in a very short amount of time.   Alcohol, of course, is a social lubricant - the physical warmth it produces mimicking the “warm, fuzzy” feeling of true comradery, and, more importantly, decoupling the decision-making process from inhibition (that is to say, Ed isn’t necessarily doing anything he absolutely wouldn’t otherwise do, but he might otherwise think twice).

But it’s more insidious than just having a few drinks with an old friend. Jack specifically gamifies the consumption of alcohol to reinforce the coupling of the feeling of inebriation with the comradery engendered by teamwork and excitement of success in order to encourage Ed to drink more than he necessarily otherwise would. Ed confirms to Stede during his apology that the idea to use the drawers of the armoire for target practice came from Jack, and we saw that a bullseye meant that Jack had to take a drink, but Ed didn’t. Presumably, there would have been some consequence for a “miss”, and it seems likely that it would be Ed has to take a drink and not Jack. In this way, Jack is able to exert a measure of control over how much Ed is drinking (by missing on purpose) while making it look like the responsibility lies with Ed and his skill as a thrower. This pattern of sneakily controlling Ed’s actions while making it seem like Ed is the one who made or is responsible for the decision will pop up again and again during their interactions.

After the apologies for waking Stede, Jack steps into the space where Ed is gesticulating to make himself readily available to be touched, reenforcing the bond between them, but letting Ed be the one to instigate the touching.

At brekkie, he pours rum into Ed’s teacup without asking or being asked while Ed’s attention is diverted by getting food.

Jack’s collaring of the conversation does not just function as a means of making Stede feel excluded, he’s also refreshing and reinforcing the bonds he and Ed forged under adversity. Talking over Stede also demonstrates that what he has to say is more important than anything Stede might contribute.

Note that just before Jack cut him off, Stede had referred to Ed as Blackbeard (“Blackbeard and I met on a ship”). This may be innocently explained away; if you meet a person from a facet of a close friend’s life with which you do not intersect, you might refer to said friend by their given name instead of a nickname that the other person might not know, for the sake of common frame of reference. But this is the opposite of that - referring to a friend by a nickname instead of the given name that you both presumably know. That suggests to me that the seed of the Ed/Blackbeard dichotomy has already been planted in Stede’s mind by the morning’s shenanigans. And when Jack invites Stede back into participating in the conversation by talking about something he knows Stede would find upsetting (the wanton cruelty of Ed purposefully trapping people to be burned alive, couched in what sounds like sincere admiration for his friend’s piratical prowess), Jack has picked up on that distinction and is leaning into it HARD. He WANTS Stede to see Ed as a collection of behaviors he finds palatable, and Blackbeard as a collection of behaviors he finds repulsive, and then coerce Ed into performing those “Blackbeard behaviors” in order to coerce Stede to drive the wedge by rejecting him. Fucking diabolical.

When Jack is calling Stede a “big girl,” or “store-bought,” or purposefully getting his name wrong, he’s not just throwing barbs that play on Stede’s insecurities (and with such harrowing precision, too; calling on the effeminacy for which he was tormented as a child, his body image issues that we’ve also seen him struggle with under the tender mercies of Badminton - both brain-ghost and original flavor - and the authenticity of his claim to piracy, which we’ve seen him confess that he fears he’s ill-qualified to claim to Jim, Oluande, and Ed. I mean,triple bullseye for this fucking guy). He’s also using these public declarations to undermine Stede’s authority in front of his crew, and establish himself as the real authority on things like piracy and masculinity. He further reinforces this idea by withholding the story of how he saved Ed’s life under the guise of false modesty; people never want something more than when they’re told they can’t have it. And what they’re being told they can’t have is the story of how Jack was so amazing that he even managed to save the life of the coolest, most legendary pirate they know. This withholding primes the crew to think even more highly of Jack and hang on his every word.

This puts Jack into a position where he can pressure the crew into things that sound fun at first blush (like diving off the yardarm or having a snowball fight, but with coconuts), but end up hurting more than anything. Of course, within this dynamic, no one wants to admit they aren’t having a good time, or don’t want to do it; to do so would be tantamount to admitting you are less of a man or not a real pirate. So when Stede refuses to participate, or admits his discomfort or disgust with the proceedings, he’s doing Jack’s work for him, and further alienating himself, and solidifying the roles Jack had put into place where Jack is the fun, cool guy, and Stede is the killjoy that no one should listen to.

Stede unwittingly plays right into Jack’s design when he tries to stand up for himself and wrest back a modicum of respect before things get too far out of hand. He’s well-versed in the world of passive aggression, and sees what Jack is doing. He also knows that you can’t call it out because passive aggression comes with a built in cover of plausible deniability gaslighting. So instead, he tries to push back with a little passive aggression of his own, suggesting that a real pirate has a ship and a crew. Sadly, Stede is not nearly so adroit at wielding passive aggression as Jack is. Jack uses the story (and we know that Izzy sent him, so I wouldn’t be surprised if the whole mutiny thing is just a story; I could even easily read that slight hesitation after Stede asks his question as Jack deciding on what would be the most effective cover story, instead of hesitancy to admit to something shameful) of his crew’s mutiny to casually re-sow the idea of mutiny on the Revenge. It’s played for comedy when the crew starts talking about how they almost mutinied on Stede and probably will again, but you can’t tell me this hasn’t been a major concern for Stede ever since the first episode. So Jack’s not only got the crew trying to buoy his spirits by assuring him that his crew mutinying on his doesn’t mean he’s a bad person; it’s just something that happens! He’s also got them low-key committing to a future mutiny WITHIN EARSHOT OF STEDE.

Additionally, while Stede is well-steeped in the ways of passive aggression, his crew and Ed are not. They are not particularly sophisticated at identifying passive aggression on its own merits as opposed to the reaction it provokes, which can make it look like they don’t care when it’s being leveraged against Stede, undermining his ability to trust they will look out for him. Stede stoically putting up with Jack’s jibes makes them even more difficult to identify as hurtful. Jack’s (fake) emotional reaction to Stede’s sally might make him look momentarily weak, but allows Ed and the crew to unequivocally identify who is in the wrong and react accordingly. By positioning himself as a victim, he villainizes Stede, further undermining Stede’s authority, and placing him in a position where he owes Jack recompense. Thus, Jack is able to manipulate Stede into the trap of Dead Man’s Cove and make it look like it was Stede’s own idea. I mean, the Xanatos Speed Chess of it all.

What’s heartbreaking to me is how Jack’s wedge-driving and othering of Stede is working so well that at this point we start to hear it from other sources. As they approach the island and Stede suggests going for a swim or taking a nature walk, Ed is the one who tells him, “I think with this crowd, I think they want something a little more…” Not Jack would want something more exciting, this crowd. Jack’s exclusionary rhetoric out of Ed’s mouth.

Which is exactly the time Jack decides to up the ante.

I want to take a minute to look at the immediate lead up to yardies, because I think it’s an excellent illustration of how Jack looks like a lumbering boor, but his actions are actually so carefully considered and nuanced. He runs up from behind Stede and Ed and throws his arms around them shouting “Yardies!” literally insinuating himself between them, which interrupts anything that was going on between them, puts them off balance, and focuses the attention on him. Then, when he says “Who’s up for yardies?” he makes eye-contact with Ed - the implicit social expectation being “You, Ed, are up for yardies.” When he turns to Stede, it is to literally laugh in his face. I mean, the absolute cheek.

Until this point, the crew of the Revenge have been passive participants in Jack’s hooliganry. They watched him perform whippies, and got whipped at without encouraging him to do so. They listened to his and Ed’s stories. But now Jack is cashing in on his established expertise of what real pirates do to coerce the crew into taking part in a dangerous stunt. It’s more of the “Blackbeard behavior” dichotomy he started sowing in Stede’s mind at brekkie, but now he’s extending it beyond Ed to the whole crew. He wants Stede to feel like he’s all alone in a sea of idiocy, but he wants him to come to the conclusion on his own by making it seem like Ed and the crew are doing things of which he would disapprove of their own accord.

Once we get to the island, we see the activities take a turn from the careless Jackass-ery of whippies and yardies to the abject cruelty of turtle vs. crab. There’s no saying that Jack organized the fight, but we do see the crew handing him various trinkets to be used in gambling on a winner, which certainly suggests he was the central figure in how the game was established. We also see that, though he has been presenting himself as a drunkard, there’s no bottle in his hand or around him in the sand. There is, however, one in Ed’s hand, who is directly to his side. I can easily see him handing it off so he could handle the gambling stakes, the real intention being to keep Ed readily supplied with booze.

And then we have the pissing contest. Jack’s got Stede literally and metaphorically isolated, and now it’s time to really drive it all home. Every moment of their interaction is designed to drive Stede to distraction; the amount of derision he lays on the phrase “Your good, close buddy,” the insinuation that he and Ed are just alike, and then being as rude and crass as possible. And because he’s read the room - the intimate breakfast for two, Ed’s little touches and the way Stede smiles at them, the way they keep going off together for little chats - of course Jack’s just got to twist the knife and allude to his and Ed’s former sexual history. So now that he’s got Stede primed, it’s time to name the fear: “Maybe you don’t know him at all.”

At this point, Stede is left to wonder: does he? Blackbeard’s reputation preceded him, after all. And he’s been acting so differently since the appearance of one of his oldest friends. It’s not the violence qua violence, per se; Stede is by turns delighted and impressed by the violence he’s seen Ed and his crew employ in the heat of battle in the pursuit of piracy. It’s the cruel and senseless violence that Stede objects to, and that’s exactly the brand that Jack has been peddling, and which Ed has gone along with so enthusiastically. And it’s not JUST the violence; Ed apologizes for Jack when he recognizes Jack has crossed a line in a typically agro way (destroying Stede’s belongings, and insulting Stede to his face), but it never occurs to Stede that his insistence on persevering with quietly aggrieved dignity in the face of Jack’s slights would make it nigh impossible for Ed to identify that Jack has crossed all sorts of other lines, and Stede is hurting because of it. For Stede, it must be frustrating and mystifying why Ed keeps letting his friend get away with his passive aggressive bullshit. Doesn’t he care? 

Is it any wonder that one more failure to notice how Jack has riled him, and one more act of coconut-flavored Jackass-ary is enough to break the dam, and for Stede to spill all that built-up hurt on Ed?  Is it any wonder that Ed is bewildered at where all this is coming from? I’ve talked before about Ed’s tendency to fawn on people, and how, as an emotional chameleon, he would have difficulty identifying when the motivation for his actions is self-directed or externally dictated. Jack has further confounded this distinction by manipulating scenarios to make it seem like participation in all the Jackass-ary he has instigated was voluntary instead of coerced. When Stede says “I don’t like who you are around  this guy” what he means is “I don’t like how this guy is able to manipulate you into acting on your very worst impulses”, but what Ed hears is “I don’t like you”. For who is he, if not the collection of behaviors he chooses to exhibit? And were those choices not entirely his to make? With the rift clearly established, if in its infancy, of course Jack is going to do everything he can to foster its growth. So again, he interrupts Stede, again implicitly signaling that Ed should pay attention to what he says and not Stede. By lobbing the coconut at Ed at that moment, he forestalls any possible clearing of the air between Ed and Stede, and causes Ed to literally turn his back on Stede, in the way Ed feels Stede has emotionally turned his back on him just moments earlier. Jack reinforces this idea of turning his back on Stede again moments later when he says “Don’t go!” and immediately turns Ed around by the shoulders.

I know that I’ve been laying it on a bit thick and prolly sound like the written embodiment of the red string conspiracy meme, but I’m about to get a whole lot worse, and I’m going to ask you to stick with me, oh my v. dears. I think Jack killed Karl on purpose.

I know, I know. It was an accident! He was flailing drunkenly! But was he?

Have we seen him take so much as a single drink since the cannon fire at the beginning of the episode? Even though he’d been drinking earlier, did he not have devastating precision and accuracy when he first demonstrated Whippies - shattering every glass, snapping the cards from the Swede’s fingers, and ball-tapping Ed without permanently maiming him or even splitting the leather of his pants? In fact, while nearly every other crew member on the deck has a bottle in hand, just like on the beach, Jack does not.

Jack knows he has to get Ed off the ship before the British show up, but he can’t just say “Let’s ditch these losers” and expect Ed to agree, especially since he’s spent most of the day roping the crew into his schemes. The most effective way to get Ed to follow is if Jack is rejected for just being himself and doing what he does, just like Ed feels he was earlier by Stede. I think the original plan was to goad Olu into seriously hurting the Swede, the fallout of which would be recriminations that Jack made them do it, and Jack getting aggrieved that he was just trying to show this ungrateful lot how to have a good time, skulking off and leading Ed to follow him and reassure him that he’s really a good guy - how could he have known it would turn out like that? But when Buttons calls a halt to the proceedings and it looks like everyone is going to pack it in, Jack has to think fast. If HE maims a crew mate, that would be a bridge too far, painting him as the bad guy. But Karl? He’s just a bird. And if Jack can get a little revenge on the weird bird guy who made him change his plan, so much the better. AND, as people with far fewer auditory processing issues than I have pointed out, Jack mutters that he expected there to be more feathers. Could the evidence be any more damning?

Of course the whole ship turns on him, and then here’s Stede to order him off, explicitly rejecting him the way he metaphorically rejected Ed. But when even that isn’t enough to get Ed to follow him, Jack pulls out one last, desperate manipulation - the debt of life.

Jack’s tragic flaw is that he can’t turn it off. Once he and Ed are alone, he turns his passive aggressive assault on Ed, pressuring him into drinking the morning away by sarcastically saying he didn’t know he had an audience with the pope when Ed expresses disinterest, and, ultimately, giving up the game when he mentions with casual derision how he’d heard of Ed shaking up with Stede, and then deriding Ed for his failure to spot Jack’s machinations.

Too bad Jack didn’t know that the punishment for passive-aggressive fuckery on this show is death…

#ofmd #our flag means death #ofmd meta #calico jack

[celluloidbroomcloset]

I think part of the point with Izzy’s arc in season 2 is not really about him, but about how Stede’s ethos does have the capacity to help heal damaged people. But those people have to be willing and able to embrace it - they have to accept the grace offered to them. Look at Low’s crew - Stede speaks to them for thirty seconds and they see that there’s an alternative to the way they’ve lived. Same thing with Archie and Jim, and really the entire crew at the start of season 1. And Ed.

Izzy starts as the least redeemable, and any of the crew would be justified in abandoning him. But they don’t - they offer him a better life. But he HAS TO TAKE IT. No one is going to save him or force him to be better. He has to do it himself.

Ignoring that element of Izzy’s arc seems to me to ignore the underlying message of the show as a whole. Stede is not some naive little man saying that love will save the world; he is showing that there’s an alternative to the violence and toxicity and abuse that people live in, and we can all embrace that. But we have to make that choice, and even making that choice does not suddenly erase the hurt we’ve caused others. Izzy doesn’t stop being abusive in the past because he tries to be better, but at least trying to better is preferable to getting worse.

A small portion of this fandom has obviously missed that, because they want to say that the man most representative of the capacity to change through Stede’s ethos, isn’t ever toxic to begin with. They are denying Izzy’s right to try to be better by claiming that all his violence and anger and self-loathing (and a lot of his horror at Ed becoming Ed instead of Blackbeard is a deeply internalized hatred of his own queerness) are perfectly fine and normal, or don’t exist at all. Izzy finds something to live and die for and they don’t want to grant him that grace.

Weird.

#ofmd #our flag means death #ofmd season 2 #Izzy hands #it’s a beautiful show and some folks don’t want that beauty #kinda sad really #stede bonnet #OFMD meta #revenge crew

[piratecaptainscaptainpirates]

I want to talk about Man on Fire.

Stede's arc in this episode is one that a lot of people struggle with. I think it's a great episode, but I don't think you're stupid if the transition from Stede feeling bent out of shape after killing Ned Low in s2e6 to him happily setting a man on fire in this one feels abrupt and jarring. This episode really could've benefitted from some extra time and I honestly think they did it a disservice by not airing the last two episodes together (if it was up to me after seeing it all, the release schedule would've aired Calypso's Birthday on its own so the last two could air together), but I think we can still put together what we're supposed to take away.

The scene where Stede happily sets a man on fire, I think, is the focal point of this episode. I mean, they named the whole episode after it, we're obviously supposed to think it's important! So let's go through it.

This whole episode, Stede has been getting the approval and validation he's been longing for his whole life. It's no coincidence it's almost exclusively other men we see fawning over him - Stede's pain in the last episode is hinged around how he still felt bad for killing Ned, and how he wishes he was able to do "a man's work" as his father depicted it without emotion.

S2e7 is him seeing that wish through. It's also not a coincidence that Stede remembers his father in a blood-spattered leather apron and he spends this episode seeking the approval of another older man in a blood-spattered leather apron. The costuming in OFMD is always extremely intentional so I'm confident we should understand that as a sign of where Stede's mind is in this episode.

You know what the whole man-on-fire scene really reminds me of? When Stede is telling his pirate stories to a bar full of his peers in s1e10, and he badmouths Ed when they ask him what Blackbeard is like. He backtracks from "he's absolutely lovely" to say Ed is "a bloodthirsty killer, born of the devil" - something he had to know damn well would absolutely fucking break Ed's heart if he heard Stede say it. In the moment, all he could think about was what he had to do to get a crowd of his peers to approve of him.

The same thing's happening in this scene. All Stede cares about is how he said a cool thing and everyone laughed!

Just like the scene in s1e10, I think we're meant to be watching this and thinking "Stede buddy wtf are you doing?" It's a moment of regression in Stede's character arc, just like him talking bad about Ed was; Stede is kind and lovely and he's abandoning the parts of himself he thinks are too soft to appeal to a crowd of people he wants to admire him.

#ofmd #our flag means death

[sweet-little-goldfish-stede]

Thinking about Stede building the Revenge for him and his family. How he knew he was unhappy and so was Mary and probably so were the kids, but his first thought/plan A was for them all to go live at sea together instead of running away himself. A stupid plan based on a self-centered idea of what might make things better? Absolutely, he clearly had a monkey playing symbols in his brain listening to Mary talk about her hatred of the ocean. But he built the Revenge as a home for his family, with a room for the kids (Jim and Olu's room?) and a library which contained children's stories and secret passageways for fun, for playing games.

Having listened to a lot of true crime podcasts with shitty-father villains, it strikes me how the idea that Stede could have just taken the kids is literally never touched on. Yeah, he probably knew he couldn't take care of them on his own, maybe didn't want to (we only really see him interacting with them by playing pirates), but Alma and Louis remain the only people Stede has canonically said the words "I love you" to (yes yes he loves Ed he was about to say it to him in s2e4 and switched tactics, but putting them in a similar category with Ed is pretty telling imo). Like...it probably never once occurred to Stede that another man might have taken the kids with him to spite his ex or to live their happy life of playing pirates on the high seas. Mary said I don't want a boat, I don't hate our lives, and Stede went welp, guess I'm on my own then.

There's a lot that can be said about Stede as a distant father who abandoned his family. I'm not saying he's the bastion of perfect fatherhood. But he's so clearly torn up about leaving them because he knows, morally, that was wrong, and even after he sets things right, he still talks about them ("two messed up kids probably/ didn't fit in with Mary and the kids") which tbh, I thought we were never gonna mention the Bonnet family again after s1e10.

Idk. I think Stede loves his kids as best he can for someone who probably never wanted them, and ultimately helped them out in the long run by not having them have to grow up in a miserable household with unhappy parents and an emotionally distant father who simply couldn't do better than playing games with them.

Also, thinking about how a lot of OFMD is thematic rather than verbally explicit...I think it's incredibly telling how upset Alma was when Stede came back, and that she wanted split the orange so they would still be connected no matter how far apart they were. That in a show with pretty heavy-handed symbolism of physically/emotionally abusive fathers and cycles, the kids are never, ever shown to be afraid of Stede, that when they play together they're all happy, that Stede says he loves them even though they were asleep and didn't hear it, and that the one time they physically touch, it's Alma reaching out to tug Stede's hair in a playful way, and he responds in kind. That Stede breaks the cycle of emotionally distant and abusive fathers by A. Not belittling them ever and B. Leaving when he realized his presence was making things worse.

Tl;dr Stede Bonnet is objectively a bad dad, but he still loves his kids.

#idk im having feelings #and im very willing to be wrong on this and hear other opinions #but yeah stede as a dad gets to me #ofmd #stede bonnet #alma bonnet #louis bonnet

[ontologicalsynaesthesia]

Queer Metaphor and Queer Literality

People have been comparing Our Flag Means Death and Good Omens a lot, but the similarity that stands out most to me is on the meta level of how they do their storytelling. I think they both feel like a similar flavor of meaningful queer story because they depict queerness at both a literal and a metaphorical level, where the positive elements occur at the literal level and the negative elements are depicted through metaphor.

On a literal level, both series are full of explicitly, textually queer characters who have actual romances with kissing and everything. Characters can be trans and express their gender in non-normative ways without reprecussions (mostly). There's almost no depiction of overt homophobia onscreen. I'm not sure whether Neil Gaiman or anyone else involved in GO has talked about this choice, but I know David Jenkins has said that he wanted to avoid making the characters in OFMD constantly deal with homophobia and queer trauma. It's not that they take place in queernorm worlds, exactly; it's more that the bad stuff largely happens offscreen. (I've addressed this in an OFMD meta about season 1.)

But the thing is, neither show actually shies away from depicting homophobia and queer trauma - it's just that they happen at the metaphorical level.

In GO2, both Crowley and Aziraphale's relationship to heaven and hell is, metaphorically, that of queer people to a stiflingly heteronormative society that will never truly let them belong and be themselves at the same time. They find community in each other - they are the only people in the world who have experienced the things they've experienced (and isn't that a relatable queer feeling!), and they also find community in queer humans, in a way. But to their home societies that originally gave them belonging and purpose, they're outcasts, and that's very lonely for both of them. They both deal with this very differently; Crowley abandons heaven and hell entirely and embraces his outcast-hood and independence (even though it's still lonely), while Aziraphale still longs for that sense of belonging and eventually decides to try to assimilate again (even though he can't really be himself there).

There's a lot more you can say about metaphorical queerness in GO (like in this recent Tor.com article). But basically, Crowley and Aziraphale's differing reactions to the ostracism of their native society mirror two different ways a lot of real life queer people respond the ostracism of their native societies, even though Crowley and Aziraphale themselves don't really face explicit homophobia for their queer romance onscreen.

OFMD intertwines the metaphor with the literal in a different way. In a way, piracy is a metaphor for queer community; we've all heard Izzy's "piracy is about belonging to something" line in the trailer (even though we don't know the context yet.) But pirates also commit acts of violence, and most people consider them horrible monsters. Stede and Ed both struggle with feelings of monstrousness that are about their piracy-related actions on the surface; but those feelings are instantly and horribly recognizable to a lot of queer people. Chauncey Badminton's "you defile beautiful things" speech is burned into my brain in part because that's exactly what my internal monologue sounds like sometimes (and I think you can pretty easily interpret that speech as being about Stede being literally queer as much as it's about Stede killing his brother; Badminton comes just short of outright saying it.)

When Stede leaves Ed, Ed dives headfirst into being the monster everyone believes him to be. He hates himself; he thinks he's unlovable; he commits as many atrocities as he can in the hope that someone will put him down, and he'll deserve it. I think he feels that Stede left him because Stede, too, saw him as an irredeemable monster, and he tries to make it true to justify his own self-hatred. Ed's self-destructive rampage is an over-the-top expression, in the context of a pirate story, of some deeply recognizable and relatable queer emotions. It's easy for society to make us feel monstrous; Stede dealt with that by trying to remove his influence from the world and return to the (heterosexual) status quo, and Ed dealt with it by trying to live up to the monstrousness he felt inside himself until it destroyed him.

I think one reason these two shows have been so effective - and been effective in similar ways, to more or less the same group of fans - is that this combination of literal queer joy and metaphorical queer suffering feels like a very deep, authentic, relatable portrayal of queer experience. It's fun and wish-fulfillment-y, and avoids getting too close to the reality of the negative experiences a lot of fans have probably had. But at the same time, it filters those negative, complicated, and familiar experiences through the lens of the fantastical, which gives them a certain clarity and emotional grandeur that they couldn't have in a work more true to life.

I'm pretty skeptical about equating "representation" to quality (I've read a lot of deeply mediocre queer books), and I don't think it's quite accurate that these shows have been so successful simply because they depict queer protagonists in queer romances; I think that take misses something, because in this day and age, there are a lot of queer romances out there and easily accessible. But I think the way queerness is embedded into multiple levels of storytelling in both these shows gives them a lot more depth of meaning and emotion, and I think that's a big part of what fans have latched onto.

#our flag means death #ofmd #good omens #ofmd meta #good omens meta #ofmd stede bonnet #ofmd blackbeard #ofmd os #ofmd s2 spoilers #ofmd spoilers #ALSO if you like stories that are queer on both literal and metaphorical levels of storytelling #please watch revolutionary girl utena and sarazanmai