#ED IS THE MAN AND THE KRAKEN IS THE BEAST

[antichrists-plus1]

Ed's exact words when he's telling stede ab him catching the fish in s2 ep5:

"And so I started pulling this thing in, winding and reeling. Man against beast. I'm the man and the beast was beneath the sea.

So I pulled and in the end... I triumphed."

[crimson-and-clover-1717]

The show is about the stories we tell ourselves about ourselves. With Stede’s love, Ed is able to rewrite the narrative of who is he is.

Man against Beast. Ed against the Kraken.

The Truth vs The Lie. Ed triumphs! Behold!

The unlovable monster imagery is now a small fish. Ed’s gonna eat it!

[spenglernot]

STORIES TELLING: THE BREATHTAKING EFFICIENCY OF WRITING IN OUR FLAG MEANS DEATH

One of the things I most admire about Our Flag Means Death is the efficiency of the writing. So much happens so fast, but nothing is dissonant or feels like it comes out from left field. I think part of the reason it works so well is that the subtext does a lot of heavy lifting; setting the foundation for what comes next. There is always more than one thing being conveyed. It isn’t simply storytelling, it’s stories telling.

Case in point: Ed's stories about underwater beasties...

S1 E6, The Art of Fuckery - Ed telling the crew a story about the Kraken. S2 E5, The Curse of the Seafaring Life - Ed telling Stede a story about fishing.

S1 E6 Young Ed sees the kraken (himself). It’s foreboding, powerful and uncontrollable.

S2 E5 Ed clearly delineates between himself and the beast (rage, violence, protection). He is the man (an adult, above the water), conscious and in control. The beast is beneath the sea (subconscious).

S1 E6 Ed describes the kraken as hideous, rising out of the water (of its own volition) while young Ed stands nearby, powerless.

S2 E5 Ed describes pulling to bring the beast out of the water. This is a conscious act, over which he has control.

S1 E6 Ed describes the kraken attacking, before Ed even knew it had done so.

S2 E5 Ed describes triumphantly pulling the beast from the water.

S1 E6 Ed describes his warning about the kraken coming too late, and the kraken takes its victim. The kraken is in control.

S2 E5 Ed shows Stede the beast he subdued: a small fish.

Why is this so damn heartbreaking and funny and touching?

We have two stories that are highly entertaining and work within the context of the episodes to move the narrative forward. But they also say a whole lot about how Ed sees himself at each moment in time.

In season 1, the beast is safely underwater, but it can always rise, with overwhelming strength and power, to wreak havoc and keep Ed safe. It’s not something Ed is fully in control of, and it can (and later does) do tremendous damage.

In season 2, episode 5, the beast is safely underwater. Ed has to put effort into keeping the beast on the line and reeling it in, but he is in control of it.

And, while the small fish silhouetted triumphantly against the moonlight is beautifully sweet and funny, what made me crumple on the floor is what it says about how Ed is beginning to manage the kraken (himself) now.

The kraken is still there, under the water, and maybe Ed isn’t ready to control it in its full form, but he’s working on it. He wrangled a small sea (subconscious) beast and is celebrating his success in that.

And then Stede says this:

(Sob. You're such a good boyfriend right now, Stede!)

Yeah, Ed. That is really beautiful. Good on you, mate. Keep going.

This post was written before OFMD season 2 fully airs. No idea what’s going to happen in episodes 6, 7, and 8 (and I’ve generally fled social media to avoid spoilers). I’ll be back, looking at everyone’s fascinating posts after the finale airs.

[edandstede]

loved when ed said “man against beast, i’m the man and the beast was beneath the sea” because i know he was talking about catching a little fishie but also, he’s the man not the beast!! he isn’t the kraken, isn’t some sea monster, just a man who went fishing with his friend, who fixed a door, who wants to compliment stede’s shirt and shimmy on in to give him a little kiss under the stars.

[lilopossum-9]

So I was just rewatching the end of episode 5 once or twice (no particular reason), and realised Ed specifies really clearly when he says about fishing being man vs beast: 'I'm the man and the beast is beneath the sea' and that sentence is so meaningful coming from a man who for all his adult life has thought of himself as a kraken or a monster who deserved to drown.

He is healing through fishing 🎣 And the crew are healing through shared creative projects like the unicorn leg and the bizarre cursed suit raid.

[extremefrogrefrigerator]

"the stede mermaid scene was so stupid" "the stede mermaid scene was so dumb" no no please hear me out on this one

there's something so poetic / symbolic / beautiful about the man who once believed he was an evil sea beast / kraken being saved by a sea creature symbolizing beauty / hope / good things and love. i know it's kind of cheese but please - it's so beautiful as well. it means so much. it was an incredible writing choice.

as in, it symbolizes that ed IS worthy of good things and love and isn't the irredeemable monster he believes he is. as in, in shows that, in the end, he chooses Hope , he chooses life. it's the juxtaposition between the life he once thought he couldn't escape (being a kraken) to the life that he can have , to the life that he is deserving of (a mermaid) - and it's a life that he can have with stede.

it shows how important his love for stede is, even if he can't show it. it shows that he can, one day, finally love *himself* as well - one day he can believe the truth - that he really is worthy of fine things. as in, he is worthy of Life. it's okay for ed teach to be alive. it's okay for ed teach to be alive and not want to die anymore.

this show is saying something Quite beautiful about what it means to want to live (and how hard it can be to do so) and what it means to love. and no matter how cheesy, i think that we should all take a look.

[veeagainsttheday]

Ed, Killing, and the Kraken in Our Flag Means Death S1 and S2

This meta contains a whole heckuva a lot of spoilers for Our Flag Means Death seasons 1 and 2. Thanks to @petrichorca who gave it a read through and left some helpful comments!

When we first get to know Ed in s1e4, the episode concludes with him telling his first mate, Izzy Hands, about his plans to murder Stede Bonnet and steal his identity so Ed can retire from piracy. Ed and Izzy discuss the plan in a casual manner, like this act isn't shocking or deviant from previous conversations and schemes Ed and Izzy have had before. This is consistent with how other characters, especially Black Pete, have described Blackbeard in previous episodes (‘when Blackbeard kills man, woman, or child…’). While Black Pete is (probably) lying, Buttons was with him until the flip. 

As the song ‘The Empty Boat’ by Caetano Veloso plays, Izzy tells Ed, 'You've still got it' and Ed says, 'I know,' turning away to face the empty deck. Only the audience witnesses his true facial expression - the Blackbeard mask falling, a kind of dead-eyed exhaustion (echoed by the lyrics of the song) taking its place. 

In s1e5, we see Ed threaten violence against the French captain, but he doesn't actually hurt the man himself. We also see him act as if he's about to go kill the French partygoers before Stede steps in and 'handles it'. At this point I think we the audience would, if asked, have said that Ed seems to have a casual attitude towards killing that you would expect from 'the legendary Blackbeard'. He's scary ('next one goes through your fucking eyeball') and almost cartoonishly violent ('skin him. And use the snail fork'). So we the audience maybe make some assumptions about where the show stands on violent killing - not only that Blackbeard is familiar with it, but that it's a commonplace act for him.

Then we come to a pivotal moment. In s1e6, Izzy pushes back on Ed for not killing Stede, there’s the conversation about doggy heaven, and Ed promises Izzy that he’ll be the one to do the killing. We see Ed hyping himself up (‘You’re a killer bro. So kill.’) and then holding his knife while standing next to Stede behind the curtain in the captain’s cabin. They’re interrupted by Lucius cutting off his finger. Ed doesn’t go through with it; the moment passes as Stede exits the curtain to announce the entrance of the Kraken. 

At this point, I as an audience member fully believed that Ed couldn’t kill Stede because of his feelings for him. I wasn’t yet sure what those feelings were, but I knew that Ed had a deep affection for Stede, and for a moment I believed that was all that was holding him back. Then, of course, we see Ed have a PTSD/panic attack trigger from the Kraken fuckery that sends him into Stede’s bathtub, hiding underneath Stede’s robe, where he and Stede have what I believe is the most intimate moment of the entire first season (a reading supported by s2e3). Ed tells Stede, ‘The Kraken didn’t kill my dad. I did.’ We are shown the flashbacks to the way Ed’s father abused him and his mother, and the Kraken story he told on deck earlier is shown again with the figure of the beast in the water replaced by himself, as a young teen, on the dock. 

Then Ed tells Stede, ‘If I’m being honest, I haven’t killed another man since.’ Stede tries to comfort him by reminding him how much he loves a good maim, but Ed is still preoccupied with how the fact that he killed his abusive father as a child means that he’s not a good person, and that this is why he doesn’t have any friends, aka, isn’t loveable. Stede tells him, ‘I’m your friend,’ in essence, To me, you are loveable, and Ed reacts by saying, ‘No,’ and banging his head against the tub.

The next important point happens in s1e8, when Jack invites himself to breakfast and regales Stede (very deliberately, as he’s trying to push Stede and Ed apart) with the tale of Ed setting a ship alight and killing many people. (Also note - the show’s first mention of Hornigold! ‘He treated us like dogs! Worse than dogs!’ and ‘Ground us down into nothing!’) While Jack emphasises the horror and brutality of what Ed did, Ed’s demeanour completely changes - ‘No, Stede doesn’t want to hear about that.’ Jack obviously doesn’t listen to Ed; Stede’s face passes from horrified listening to Jack to squinting at Ed like, ‘Is this - true?’ Ed looks thoroughly guilty as the story continues and Stede asks him, clearly doing his best to preserve Ed’s secret in front of Jack, ‘I thought you’d, uh, given up the killing?’ Ed surges forward in his seat and, not making eye contact with Stede, says, ‘Yeah, well, technically the fire killed those guys. Not me.’ The camera then cuts to Jack looking at Stede with a bit of an incredulous expression as if he’s both gauging Stede’s reaction to the entire thing and thinking, ‘Wow BB’s in deep here if he’s making up some weird story about not being the one who lit that fire.’  

I don’t think the show intends for us to believe that Ed was consciously lying to Stede in the bathtub scene in s1e6. Instead, we see the complex way that Ed - who is shown to be both brilliant and possessed of an internal monologue that just cannot shut up - has constructed mental barriers to protect himself from the trauma of killing while still achieving the highest possible status in a very violent profession and existing in a world marred by colonial violence perpetrated specifically against people like him. 

S1e9 shows Ed continuing to posture to everyone but Stede as Blackbeard, seasoned killer (for example, telling Chauncey that he barely remembers killing Nigel because he’s ‘a real “life is cheap” kinda guy’). At the Academy and briefly after, in the beginning of s1e10, Ed seems set to have given up killing and violence for real, but Izzy’s threats in the cabin in s1e10 send Ed reeling back to the Kraken persona he assumed when he killed his dad. The season concludes with him pushing Lucius off the ship and Krakening up to sail, rob, and raise hell forever - but the final shot shows Ed crying alone in his cabin, his Kraken makeup streaking down his face. It’s heartbreaking, but it’s one of my favourite scenes from a character perspective. Imagine if the season had ended with Ed fully transformed into the Kraken, rather than clearly miserable and heartbroken under his mask? 

Season 2 begins with Ed trying to set a record for most consecutive raids, working his crew to death under brutal and traumatic conditions. His list of crimes on his wanted poster certainly suggests a lot of violence and killing, yet the show is careful to show us Ed himself only seeming to kill one person - firing a gun into a man’s back during a raid - and if you look closely, you’ll see that the man was already dying with a dagger through his body. It feels vital to me that the only direct ‘killing’ action we see Ed taking is shooting a man who we presume he can justify as having been already on his way to death. 

In s2e1 and s2e2, Ed can’t kill Izzy, though he does try desperately to get Frenchie to do it for him. He can’t even kill himself, trying to get Izzy to do it instead. When he thinks Izzy has committed suicide with the gun he gave him, he says, ‘I loved you, best I could,’ as if any love Ed could give would by its nature not be good enough. 

Ed wakes in s2e3 in the care of his old captain, Hornigold; of course, he’s really in the gravy basket and Hornigold is serving as a Jacob Marley-esque psychopomp. They key to Ed realising that he’s really [Buttons voice] ‘down in the old gravy basket’ is the conversation that concludes his attempts to be Jeff the Innkeeper. Hornigold tells Ed that he’s not good with people - after all, he did strangle his father. Ed reacts first with disbelief then cold fury, saying he never told anyone that; Hornigold reminds him that he told one person and Ed flashes back to telling Stede in the bathtub in s1e6; then Hornigold reminds him that the one person he told left him, and we see Ed crying under his Kraken makeup at the end of s1e10. Later, when Ed (finally, even Calico Jack would have had it sooner) realises that Hornigold represents himself, he says that he’s unloveable. Here’s the crux of it - he believes that he is fundamentally unloveable because he killed his father, because he is the Kraken, the monstrous beast capable of lethal violence. That’s why Stede left, his brain is telling him even as he’s dying. 

Then Stede actually proves him wrong by returning, saving him from death, and telling him that he ‘love[s] everything about [him]’ in rapid succession. Whether or not Ed fully accepts this information, we do see him very quickly, yes, melt back into Stede’s arms. Which brings us to s2e6, and Stede’s killing of Ned Low. 

Quick digression into killing and Stede: Stede accidentally kills a man in s1e1, is haunted by his ghost in s1e2. He’s so haunted by dead Nigel that he spends a lot of s1e2 asking first Oluwande and Jim for advice on being a ‘mur-der-er’, and then asking Black Pete how his former employer, Blackbeard (!!!) handled killing. (How Pete says, ‘When Blackbeard kills man, woman, or child-’ lives in my head at all times, Matt Maher with the line deliveries of all time.) Finally in s1e2, during his court-mandated therapy with the tribal elder, Stede admits that he doesn’t feel bad about killing Nigel - he was a horrible person even when he was a child! Stede's guilt is coming from somewhere else. We see this again in s1e9, when Stede says it is time for him to face the consequences for what he’s done - it might seem like he means for killing Nigel, since that’s why he’s about to face the firing squad, but we know that Stede’s guilt is about abandoning his family (the people he’s hurt!). Similarly, when Stede kills Ned in s2e6, he seems to get over it very quickly. Ned is clearly a bad guy, and although the act of killing him was traumatic for Stede (much like the act of killing Nigel), Stede presumably reconciles it by knowing that he was protecting Ed and his crew (and avenging Calypso’s birthday). Stede as a character is shown to have a tremendous amount of natural resilience. We later see him immolate a guy and dispatch a number of British soldiers without hesitation. Stede is also one of the two main protagonists of the show, and his attitude towards killing seems to reflect the attitude of the show itself - killing colonisers and torturers to protect your loved ones is ok, actually. 

(Side note but I found this idea about how zero tolerance policies actually hurt victims very informative on the topic of why it's ok that Stede killed his childhood bully; I got that link from this very interesting post where several people are in conversation about how Ed is not Izzy's abuser.)

Back to Ed in s2e6. He asks Stede not to kill Ned; when Stede does anyway, Ed is visibly saddened and ignores Izzy telling him to give Stede a moment; instead he goes immediately to check in on Stede in his cabin. He knocks on the door and in that soft voice that he only ever uses with Stede, he starts to say, ‘Hey. You okay? Look, I was a wreck after my first kill as well.’ Then he pauses, before rambling, ‘I mean, well, it was my dad, so there's that,’ which feels like a little moment of self-reflection. Like. Yeah. Ed. Baby. You might be super fucked up about the act of killing because the first guy you killed was your dad, when you were a literal child! Also, Ed has never been to (as far as we know) court-mandated tribal elder therapy, so of course his decision to kill his father fucked Ed up for decades! Also as a very clever friend pointed out, we don’t know anything about what the consequences of that were for Ed - how did his mother react, is that why he ran away to sea, etc.

There's another important thing here that the audience knows, but that Ed has never told Stede (or, we have to assume, anyone) which is that the catalyst for Ed becoming the Kraken to kill his father was abuse. The audience is shown through his panic-attack-induced flashback that Ed's father physically and verbally abused his mother and presumably him too. All Ed has ever said to Stede or anyone about it, as far as we know, was his joke to the crew during scary story hour that his dad was a dick. Stede can probably infer roughly why Ed killed his dad, but he doesn't know the details, and he loves everything about Ed anyway, and now Ed knows that Stede does too. 

So Ed and Stede have sex, and as many metas have pointed out (like this one!), it's so meaningful that Ed feels safe enough to give up his Blackbeard/Kraken identity the very next morning. He attempts to get Stede to see that it might be nice to not be pirates anymore due to the high chance of death but Stede manages to completely misread it and laughs it off. (To be fair to Stede, they're both horrible at communicating and Ed is not saying what he wants in any direct manner.) Ed proceeds to have his big beautiful brain start to spiral out of control as Jackie points out how popular Stede is becoming as a pirate; Ed panics, tells Stede he doesn’t even know who he is, and leaves to become a fisherman before he can get left (again!). 

As Ed rows away from his failed career as a fisherman in s2e8, his boss Pop-Pop (who he has managed to recreate a fucked up father-son dynamic with that like so many things in his show is played for laughs but has pretty dark undertones) yells after him, 'If you were ever good at anything, go and do that, you bum.' Ed rows back into the port of the Republic of Pirates and sees the destruction Prince Ricky has wrought upon the pirate community. Ed's first thought is, Stede, and then he imagines Stede calling for help before straight up murdering two British soldiers. He remembers Pop-Pop's words and says, 'Have it your way,' before diving into the sea, retrieving his leather, putting it on underwater, and emerging from the waves fully dressed. It's fantastically hot and the exact level of drama I expect from this man. The Kraken musical cue is playing as it happens. 

We now see Ed murdering British soldiers in the coolest ways possible, demonstrating his skill at fighting in hand to hand combat. One way to read him taking Pop-Pop's advice is that this is what he's good at - killing and violence. 

But you know what Ed’s even better at? Protecting the people he loves. His mother, himself, and Stede. Each time Ed becomes the Kraken, he fulfils that. He protects his mother from his father, himself from Izzy after being warned that ‘[Edward] better watch his fucking step’, and Stede from the invading colonisers who want to destroy their freedom. But something has changed the third time he does it - this time, he can tell Stede that he loves him and he doesn't mean it as a tainted thing, but something that he knows Stede will treasure. He's both loveable and capable of loving. He always has been, of course, but now he knows it. The Kraken, the part of him that is capable of killing, was always a defence mechanism for Ed, but the third time he understands it and himself enough to know that it doesn’t make him a monster. 

[sesamie]

on ed teach and the dehumanization of indigenous people

man i feel so much analysis on ed looks right past his indigenous-ness for fear of stereotyping or whatever but it really does him a disservice. i knew right away why he would choose to call himself the kraken; an animal, a beast, a being so cruel and savage and capable of such horrific violence you'd only hear about it in legends. because when is ed ever seen as more than an animal by anyone else (other than stede, of course, as is the point of the show)? izzy hands wants him to be a ruthless inhuman legend. "a rich donkey is still a donkey". ed is dehumanized even when he is being worshipped as blackbeard - blackbeard doesn't feel fear, he is a killer, he is a beast, he is not like the rest of the legendary pirates, blackbeard isn't an ordinary man at all. and the kraken? the kraken is an animal, through and through. it makes complete and total sense to me why "the kraken" is what killed ed's father, and is what he returns to when stede leaves. even though ed, the person, not the idea, is shown to be very clean, very human, very capable of kindness and flawed in equal measure. intelligent life. the worst that is ever said to stede - and corollarily the worst he believes about himself - is that he is weak, he is too soft, too flawed, too human. the worst that is ever said to ed is that he isn't human at all.

[amuseoffyre]

From episode 6 of season one, there has been this association for Ed of the sea as the two sides of himself: the surface and what lies beneath.

The first reference to this is when he describes the kraken in the story he tells the crew, stirring in the briny depths, this monster that surfaces and kills his father, but it's only later that he confesses to Stede that he was that monster.

Even describing himself as "Edward Teach, born on a beach" carries this duality - a man caught between the land and the sea, the water always there and present.

This motif becomes a recurring theme over and over throughout season two. "That's the Caribbean for you: sunshine one minute, cataracts the next" embodying his emotional highs and lows as sunshine and crashing tumbling waterfalls, often found underwater.

In the Gravy Basket, he literally becomes the cataract - the rushing plunge over a precipice and falling, falling, deep into the dark water. His subconscious chooses the way he ends and him choosing to put himself deep into the darkest water is tied in with his self-hatred.

Only he's drawn out of that dark place by a glimmer of light. This is where his headspace gets interesting because he's fighting for his life against the ropes pulling him down, but the minute he hears Stede's voice, the ropes fall away and he stops trying to surface. He doesn't fight his way up. He's in a dark place, but Stede comes to him. He doesn't have to make his way out.

And more especially, Stede comes to him in a shape that is safe, even in the darkness. This isn't human Stede almost drowning himself to get to Ed. This is a Stede who fits in this space, who is part of it and accepts it all and they stay there, under the water, just floating together.

This is the point in the story where Ed starts working on himself, trying to figure things out. He sits with himself and the metaphor of him taking control of himself in the way he took control of the fish on his line is a big part of that.

That moment at the beginning of episode 6 when he's looking out to sea, when he's beset by flashbacks, is an allegory for how he is feeling. The sky and sea are a perfect split in the shot, above and below, but he feels like there's a storm coming. They will be at odds soon enough and he's growing anxious about it.

After all that happens with Ned Lowe, he tries to act to avoid the storm. He ties up his leathers and he puts them below the surface. The beast beneath the sea. The hideous creatures returned to the depths. It's a very child-like action, throwing away something because you don't like it and saying "bye-bye".

When he chooses to leave in episode 7, he says it's about being a fisherman, but again, it's about him using that space to take control of himself and his surroundings and work out who he is and what he needs to be.

But all of this is building. You can't just keep pushing parts of yourself under the water because they are still parts of yourself. He even said it himself in episode 10 when he was dressed down and relaxed - "I am still Blackbeard".

Yes, he wants a peaceful life. No, he doesn't want to be a pirate anymore. But he is still Blackbeard and pushing those things under the water hasn't changed that. It's just a matter of him choosing how much of that he wants to be. It's a matter of him having the choice and seeing that it isn't necessarily all monster. There's a middle ground.

That thing he called a monster arose because he needed to protect people. It scares him, yes, and all he can see is the horror surrounding it, but it's more than just a monster. It's born out of love and protection and the need to be strong enough to stand his ground.

Ed tried to bury Blackbeard beneath the waves but he's not a fisherman, not entirely. He's more than just the surface. He's the surface and he's the hidden depths, and when the time comes, him accepting those parts of himself is key.

At first I wondered if he would fish up his leathers from his little boat, but now it makes all the more sense for him to make that choice and that decision. I don't think he will accidentally drag them up - he will actively choose to dive down and get them himself, bringing them to the surface himself.

[sylvies-chen]

don’t know if this was talked about already but have we had a collective breakdown yet over the fact that when ed was telling stede the story of how he caught the fish, he made sure to specify that he was the man and the beast was beneath the sea?

like there’s so much to consider there… the subtle assurance ed shows that he knows he isn’t the kraken like he once thought he was, no longer viewing himself as a horrible monster, no longer self-mythologizing as a coping mechanism… but then also… the beast is under the sea… he was under the sea when he was in purgatory and he almost died but fought and came back to life and it was a rebirth, like the old version of him is gone, he isn’t lost in the sea (metaphorically and literally) anymore… he’s found… the darkness is at sea and he isn’t it anymore, he’s still grappling with it but he isn’t the darkness itself, he’s not a mess or an unlovable beast, he’s just a man who has shit to reconcile, and that’s okay… and he feels the need to specify that to stede and let him know… yeah so like… need to be locked up… going to be not normal about this…

[my-thyla-my-captain]

hey djenks what'd you mean about having edward's fear, rage, violence, guilt and self loathing being depicted as sea beasts (kraken and shark respectively) only for ed to say "man against beast. i'm the man and the beast was beneath the sea." and he triumphed. hey, david? i'm breaking down your door david

[missingintern-blog]

I want someone to write an innkeepers blackbonnet fic

I want filthy, silly, tooth rotting, fluffy snap shots of their shenanigans

I want them innkeeping in, sexy, hilarious, cringy, inept bliss for at least a month.

I want stede to be taken by an old enemy and ed in full on kraken beast mode stopping at nothing to get his man back

I want stede sassy, sexy, cunning and bitchy in his captivity

I want ed to burn the world down or die trying but not really die

I want ed to lose it so thoroughly that when he gets stede back stede needs to talk ed down. use his Captain voice and call him a good boy. I want witnesses to this sexiness. And I want the witness to be Lucius because for reason but I don't know why. 

I want Frenchie to drag Lucius away because he wants to stay and watch ed needy and on his knees. dontjudgeme

I want all that and I want it now 😭

[feartheartists]

“I’m the man, the beast was under the water.”

This one line from his telling Stede about his emotional support fishing trip is a huge step from how he’s described himself before. Every time before he’s been the monster or beast. Now he has spent time beneath the waves as that monster he thought he was and Stede met him there and said “Now look at us both. Creatures beneath the waves. The kraken doesn’t frighten me.”

Now Ed can just be a man.

[gaps-between-stories]

Fic Preview

Check out a sneak peek at my current beast of a draft WIP (featuring my love, my pride, my joy Alma Bonnet): don't blame me (love made me crazy)

Two years ago, Edward Teach met the love of his life. 

In those two years, Edward Teach’s life had been flipped upside so violently it made his head spin. 

When he first started tracking the Gentleman Pirate across the Caribbean, an intriguing rumor the wind kept whispering in his ear, he’d thought it would be a fun disruption to the mind numbing monotony he’d found himself drowning in lately. A side quest, a treasure hunt, a distraction. Then he stepped onto that Spanish warship and was so instantly, violently, taken by the half-corpse of the most beautiful man he’d ever seen that it was pretty much game over for him. 

And then Stede had the absolute audacity to make Ed fall in love with him. 

Two years ago, Edward Teach was abandoned by the love of his life. 

One year and ten months ago, the love of Edward Teach’s life’s daughter snuck her way onto Blackbeard’s ship. 

That little blonde girl, whose sense of self-preservation seemed to rival only that of her father’s, looked the Kraken in the eye and refused to flinch. 

She quickly managed to weasel her way into the crew with more determination than he'd thought possible, looking at Ed's leather clad crew of top-shelf pirates and deciding that the one she wanted to play with most was Israel fucking Hands.

And in a twist Ed would have lost so much fucking money betting on, his sea-urchin of a first mate allowed it, shedding some of his prickly spines to make space for her in underneath all that armor. 

With just as much misplaced confidence and tenacity as the man who'd abandoned them both, Alma soon found herself running with one of the most feared pirate crews currently terrorizing the Caribbean. And not only was she running, she was fucking keeping pace. 

And despite Ed’s best attempt at keeping her away from him, of refusing to hand another Bonnet his heart, she just seemed to know exactly which buttons of his to press to get him opening up. 

Just over a year ago, the love of Edward Teach's life came back to him, groveling for forgiveness and carrying with him his own list of grievances (starting first with a very alive and very pissed of Lucius Spriggs). 

Now, after the year of rebuilding what had been broken between him and Stede, of taking to Alma as if she was his own, of having his heart broken every single day by these two people that he loved more than he ever thought capable, tonight they both seemed determine to do his fucking head in. 

[asongaboutpirates]

I posted 825 times in 2022

That's 2 more posts than 2021!

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#our flag means death - 54 posts

#ofmd - 24 posts

#ofmd spoilers - 17 posts

#samuel vimes - 17 posts

#havelock vetinari - 17 posts

#vetvimes - 17 posts

#discworld fanfiction - 15 posts

#blackbonnet - 13 posts

#stede x ed - 12 posts

#stede bonnet - 10 posts

Longest Tag: 117 characters

#did i acquire a vetvimes obsession in the year of our lord 2022 after successfully avoiding it for the past 15 years?

My Top Posts in 2022:

#5

Okay, so obviously season 2 (which we ARE going to get - willing it into existence) will be about Ed and Stede finding each other again and coming to terms with their feelings and it will be beautiful, but I NEED a season 3 that focuses entirely on Lucius planning a pirate wedding for them. Like, there is all this dramatic stuff happening at the side lines, but the viewer will only be vaguely aware of it, because the real drama is getting a hold of fresh petunias in the middle of the freaking Atlantic ocean.

211 notes - Posted March 30, 2022

#4

Is it me or does OFMD still feel like a fever dream? Like, one day you’re desperately searching for a genre show with a queer love story that’s not about being queer (nevermind it being the main story!) and hope tentatively that maybe, just maybe, you’ll get to see something like that in your lifetime.

And then... OFMD just happens and David Jenkins is like ‘What, like it’s hard?’ How is that real?

291 notes - Posted May 5, 2022

#3

What I love about the kissing scene (except for everything of course) is that Ed and Stede wear these plain, uniform clothes. During the whole season clothes are so important to show the characters and their states of mind, to show how Stede and Ed are from completely different worlds and how they get closer to each other and more accepting of themselves (e.g. the fuchsia robe and the purple top respectively). But during their kiss they are not their roles. Ed isn’t Blackbeard, Stede isn’t a gentleman. For this one precious moment they are just themselves with no charade whatsoever between them. Ugh.

623 notes - Posted April 2, 2022

#2

Heteronormativity, or as we say in Germany

1,284 notes - Posted May 24, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

Another little detail about OFMD that makes me go feral: The song the Swede sings in 1x06, immediately after Ed put the dagger away, is called Voi che sapete. It’s a Mozart aria about a young man who experiences love for the very first time and is dazzled by it. Cut to Stede who says “Oh, this is my cue.”

And then, THEN he says: “The siren song has awoken a beast”, meaning the kraken, and if that isn’t fucking brilliant foreshadowing about Ed’s love for Stede being what ultimately leads him to unleash the kraken again.

*insert ‘I connected the dots’ gif here*

28,208 notes - Posted April 1, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

[our-flag-means-death-ao3feed]

"CU" On the Other Side

by WearerOfFineThings

Ed and Stede have been best friends since college, and are the co-creators of the popular youtube channel "Cryptozoology Unmasked". One day, Stede finds a new adventure for them, a man who claims to know the infamous Kraken. Ed's skeptical, but goes along with it for Stede's sake. What could possibly go wrong?

(The answer? A fucked up ritual. A lonely beast. A 24 hour time limit. And two cases of nearly twenty years of repressed feelings.)

Words: 6396, Chapters: 1/5, Language: English

Fandoms: Our Flag Means Death (TV)

Rating: Explicit

Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply

Categories: M/M

Characters: Blackbeard | Edward Teach, Stede Bonnet, Mary Allamby Bonnet, Buttons (Our Flag Means Death), Karl the Seagull (Our Flag Means Death)

Relationships: Blackbeard | Edward Teach/Stede Bonnet, Mary Allamby Bonnet/Stede Bonnet, Karl the Seagull/Olivia the Seagull (Our Flag Means Death)

Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, YouTube, Crytozoology, Alternate Universe - Cryptozoologists, Trans Male Character, Trans Female Character, Author is trans, Trans Stede Bonnet, Trans Blackbeard | Edward Teach, Trans Mary Bonnet, t4t, Actual Kraken Blackbeard | Edward Teach, but with a twist, Witchcraft, Rituals Gone Wrong, Karl's the Kraken, There Was Only One Bed, Humor, Some angst, Fuck Or Die, but not quite and also there's TONS of consent, Consentacles, Tentacle Sex, Double Penetration, Double Penetration in One Hole, Double Penetration in Two Holes, Anal Sex, Vaginal Sex, Hair Playing, Friends to Lovers, Soft sex, Slow Sex, I know this sounds insane but trust me it's very tender and soft, Stede Bonnet can and will take anything, Bottom Stede Bonnet, Bottom Blackbeard | Edward Teach, Top Stede Bonnet, Top Blackbeard | Edward Teach, Vers Stede Bonnet, Vers Blackbeard | Edward Teach, Demisexual Stede Bonnet

source https://archiveofourown.org/works/45388732