#as he is for Stede’s joy

[stargirl-and-potts]

@kathyyy1997 exactly. Stede loves to tell stories, but nobody else ever wants to hear them unless they’re not his own. And he’s trying to hold himself back, to not ask too much of Ed or the crew or the universe, to be steady and ready and easy to be with, and Ed doesn’t need him to do that. The steadiness, yes, but not the holding in. He wants Stede to overflow — he goes toward the spilling of his soul like a dying man to water. He always has. It fills him too.

It strikes me that Ed knowing Stede wants to hear “You wear fine things well” from him is massive growth. He understands now that Stede is not as steady as he seems, that he needs reassuring. He realizes Stede treasures and relies on his opinion, not just of Stede as a pirate, but of Stede as a man. He understands Stede gets panicky and is helped by comfort and praise and gentleness as much as he is. He sees that he has something to give Stede not just as a captain but as a lover.

[edslacefront]

Izzy Hands fucks me up bc Everytime I'm over here happily thinking/ typing away about Ed and Stede, feet swinging back and forth humming to myself, I slowly turn and there's Izzy, lurking in the corner, making my silly show infinitely more fucked up when I start thinking about his role in it and my head starts spinning and echoing in my mind is David Jenkins saying "Stede, Izzy, and Ed are ultimately in an arc together" and I'm like oh god oh goD OH NOFUCK OHGODOH NO THE TEXT IS OVERWHELMING STOP ITHURTS

[cleothelittlerockstar]

Sometimes I study.

But most of the time I just bawl up and cry to my silly pirates show ⭐

LIKE FYM STEDE IS NOT PEAK RELATABILITY?

LOOK AT HIM

LIKE

LITERALLY

ON A METAPHISICAL LEVEL

ME IN ANOTHER LIFE

MY LIL GAY PIRATE <3

[wanderingwoodpecker]

Our Flag Means Death Season 2 Wishlist

Things I want from the new season in order of how badly I need them:

Lucius is inside the ship

Ed thinks Stede is dead

Stede finds Ed's handkerchief

Izzy and Ed Backstory

Fang gets a dog

I would also eventually like Stede and Ed to fake their own deaths to retire happily alive with each other, but please let that be the finale for whatever the last season is (hopefully not this one, I want more than 2 seasons of my beloved pirate show)

[talesfromthebandgeekmafia]

omg so the new season is nothing like I’d expected but it’s so good

[electric-friend]

how am i supposed to have the only thing i live for, steddyhands, still be worth living for under these conditions? please god i’m struggling lol

[fist-amidst-the-hands]

hi I haven’t been able to stop thinking about this all day so. what if ed had admitted to izzy that he’s bored out of his skull even slightly earlier. before stede. what then. ‘is this all there is?’ what if izzy responded with ‘it doesn’t have to be’ what if what if what if

[hang-on-lil-tomato]

I. Love. This. Soooooooo. Much!!!!!!

I almost forgot how much I missed him

[queerly-autistic]

I don't think I'll ever be emotionally over the beautiful queer journey represented by these two kisses.

Firstly, we have Stede, a repressed gay man who has probably never even entertained the idea of loving a man, being kissed by a man for the first time and (although enjoying it) clearly being a little bit stunned and nervously keeping his hands down because he has no idea what to do with them.

And then we have Stede a few months later, the very next time he gets a chance to kiss that same man, having gone on such a journey of self-discovery that he's absolutely figured out who he is, and what he wants, and this time he's ready to grab what he wants with those same hands (literally).

Stede Bonnet is the character of all time and I could cry for thirty million years over his gorgeous arc of queer discovery, queer love, and queer joy.

[piratecaptainscaptainpirates]

One of my very favorite things about OFMD is how both Ed and Stede are allowed to be gender-nonconforming men in their own ways.

So often, queer relationships will look like a very simplistic "one of them is the boy and the other is the girl in the relationship!" and OFMD avoids that trope so, so very wonderfully. Both Ed and Stede are allowed to have their own unique relationships with masculinity and their expression of their masculinity, it makes them feel so real.

Stede is one of those guys who just cannot pass as stereotypically masculine. No matter what he wears, he is a gender-nonconforming man by virtue of how he talks, acts, gestures, and generally his entire bearing. Rhys Darby plays him with so much sympathy and care that he avoids becoming a stereotype of a femme gay man, but he still is a flamboyant gay man who takes a lot of joy in stereotypically "feminine" things. The man's a queen. He still takes a lot of joy in being seen as a "man's man," though, and some of that's trauma and some of it's just that he likes it when others perceive him as masculine in a way that feels so true to me as another queen.

And Ed's whole thing is how horribly stifled he feels by the need to conform to a hyper-masculine standard, and he wants to be able to indulge in softer things. He's the one who imagines himself in a pretty wedding dress, and the show never takes this as making him "less" of a man. The closest relationships we see him have, outside of Stede, are with women. Ed doesn't like being seen as a hyper-masculine ideal, but the best way to describe his relationship with masculinity, I think, is the image of those pretty purple bows in his beard in s1e5.

Both Ed and Stede have such realistic relationships with their queerness and their masculinity, and both of them have different ways that they embrace different facets of those parts of their identities. Stede has a much more flamboyant manner, he's gnc no matter what he does, and he loves being recognized as a man alongside that. Ed is more understated, and enjoys bringing in more traditionally feminine elements to blend with his masculinity - he'll paint himself in a wedding dress, but he wants his beard, too.

It's just such a wonderful celebration of queer masculinity in a way we so rarely get to see. I love it.

[pastryjay]

~

Izzy started it. He saw Ed was in a bad place mentally and instead of doing literally anything else, he decided to mock him and threaten his life. Ed now knows Izzy will follow through on his threats. He threatened he would do something when he lost the duel with Stede then orchastrated the English capturing the Revenge and they nearly killed Stede. Ed's a pirate, his captain. What did Izzy think would happen by repeated attempts to push him too far? Peak fuck around and find out moment for Izzy tbh.

Fans of any character are allowed to ignore their faves flaws, it's fiction, it literally doesn't matter how you enjoy your blorbos. Izzy's an interesting character, I get it. But that's not an excuse to be coming at other fans when they talk about canonically bad things characters have done. Izzy has done some awful shit, he's an antagonist and people are allowed to be uncomfortable by things he's said and done/ dislike him for it. Same applies to any character who has done bad stuff on that show... like most of them, they're pirates.

‘what was ed doing straight before izzy caresses his face huh’ glad you asked! he was responding in a defensive way to an unprovoked homophobic death threat, hope this helps :)

[vroomvroomwee]

The way Ed tries to kill Hornigold, over and over and over, but fails every time is so much more tragic when you realise Hornigold is basically the voice in his head telling him he's worthless, unlovable, evil. The voice telling him to die.

And he tries so hard to get rid of it, to get rid of the voice, but loses the fight again and again. And if it weren't Stede fucking Bonnet, the complete opposite of Hornigold, the one who showed him love and fun and joy and happiness, that voice would have won.

[edwardteachswombtattoo]

I will never get over Ed throwing his arms around Stede post-lighthouse fuckery. How this is probably the first time Stede has ever been held and it happens so spontaneously in a moment of relief and happiness over having successfully pulled off their first fuckery together. How Ed was so bored with his Blackbeard persona and piracy, but here he is throwing his arms around Stede in pure joy. How they both reignited something in each other with the lighthouse fuckery.

[nicnacsnonsense]

Not only this, but Stede is actually very quick to shake off this conditioning as soon as he’s given positive feedback.

In episode one, Olu and Jim are sent to check in on Stede, and Stede tries to get their help on the fact that he does not know how to handle himself in a fight and is not comfortable with committing violence without actually admitting to either of those things. Olu reacts by reaching out to engage Stede in a supportive and nonjudgmental (well, Olu was judging him a little bit, but he was keeping it on the inside) conversation about it, that was unfortunately interrupted by canon fire, but not before Olu’s consideration and kindness were clear.

In episode two, Stede proactively reaches out to Olu and Jim to ask them for help, and states flat out that he is struggling emotionally with having killed Nigel and would like advice on how to process it.

Then by episode eight, Stede is completely comfortable with being perched up in the window sill like a gremlin and free-form snarking about any thought on Ed or Calico Jack that cross his mind while Olu is in the room listening.

Olu showed Stede he was a safe person who was willing to listen and be supportive and Stede was almost immediately like, oh, thank god, because I needed one of those.

just thinking about how when stede's told he's getting married to someone he has no interest in the most protest he can muster is a very cautious hypothetical about how he thought he maybe potentially could marry for love and it gets immediately slapped down as irrelevant, and years later someone asks him to run away to china and the only concern he can articulate is a vague cautious "it's very far away," and this is not a criticism of ed who has perfectly valid reasons to be too caught up in his own emotions to parse that right then, but i think sometimes we forget that stede's inability to clearly voice his own feelings isn't just something he's decided to be difficult about, it's a result of years of being taught that they don't matter and it never helps

[edandstede]

you ever just think about how truly sweet stede is on ed. takes him on a treasure hunt because he thinks he’ll enjoy it. busts down his own door because ed’s upset and says he’s ed’s friend when ed says he has none. learns how he takes his tea. sets two places at his breakfast table every morning. gently but firmly insists ed stand down when he’s angry and hurt and goes to deal with ed’s tormenters himself. reassures him he’s sophisticated when ed is being hard on himself, and tells him he wears fine things well with the biggest sparkliest warmest smile. lip-wobble cries when ed leaves with jack, and beams like the sun when he comes back. watches ed’s fuckery excitedly like it’s the best thing he’s ever seen, and suggests the theatre of fear as a name for it. he’s so enthralled by ed, so obviously falling in love, and it’s never any less of a joy to watch.

[saltpepperbeard]

i love love LOVE that stede had little to no reaction towards the captain's quarters being empty/trashed. like, he reacted exactly how i expected him to, how i hoped he would, ie making some kind of quippy comment about how it works for the space.

because yes, the library was his "pride and joy." yes, he had an entire auxiliary wardrobe dedicated to different outfits. yes, his entire space was decked out in finery and material things.

but at the end of the day, they're just that: things.

you know what matters more to him? his crew. his family. his beloved.

he willingly gave up his wealth to his family back on land, and then struggled right alongside his family at sea. he didn't scramble to make money for himself, but instead tried to get a bit more financially stable for his crew, for his love. he stayed right alongside his new family, and prioritized their wellbeing above his own.

it doesn't matter that those things are gone; what matters is that those he loves are safe and sound.

((and like, also, he is probably going to want to rebuild/get more little knickknacks and trinkets. but he'll be able to do so with his family, for his family. it'll be their collective space, their home and heart))