#hornigold boys

[beelze0-0]

Act 1: Raid (First Meeting)

CW: violence

(ID: sequential art

image 1: young Izzy Hands in a dark room, scowling as his shirt is pulled off by a smirking unnamed royal navy officer.

image 2: young Izzy Hands holding onto a ship mast as he is whipped by royal navy officers in the background, including the unnamed officer from the first image, his back is bloody.

image 3: wide shot of an English merchant ship chased down by a pirate ship.

image 4: low angle scene of young Jack Rackham holding a gun, dressed in an oversized royal navy jacket and young Edward Teach wearing baggy pants and a saber on his hip with sky in the background and smoke in the air.

end ID)

[arsenicflame]

taking submissions for a ship name for Sam Bellamy, Izzy Hands, Ed Teach & Stede Bonnet that isnt just. samizzyedstede

[dracothelizard]

I was just minding my own business when I was hit in the head with an idea for Hornigold Week, so here we are.

Pairings: Stede Bonnet/Benjamin Hornigold (I think I'm in the first to have written that?? Well done, self!)

Rating: Explicit and Dead Dove

Summary:

Captain Hornigold seems to be around his father’s age, and there’s some silver in his dark hair. He has a short-cropped, well-maintained beard, a barrel chest under a plain white shirt, and leather trousers that hug strong thighs. His leather boots come to just below his knees. “And who are you?” he demands, crossing his thick arms over his chest as he stares down at Stede, his face impassive.

“St-Stede Bonnet, Captain!” Stede aims for a salute, and his cheeks redden when he hears Izzy mutter something about how they’re pirates, not the fucking navy.

“Stede Bonnet, hm?” Captain Hornigold’s voice is curious, and he looks at the travel bags. “And you’re here to join my crew?”

“Yes, Captain!” Stede lowers his arm, not sure what to do. “I’m very keen! And capable!”

Stede Bonnet is on a trip with his father when he meets Eddie and Jack, two pirates on-board the Ranger. Eager to escape the stifling future ahead of him, Stede runs away. After all, serving under Captain Hornigold can't be worse than staying with his family, right?

HEED THE TAGS.

[arsenicflame]

It used to be that he and Ed would sit together upon an evening, sharing a drink and some quiet time together after a long day. Ed would do all manner of things, puzzles, smoking, whatever's captured his attention at this moment- but Izzy would always do the menial tasks, the things he didn't have time for in his day, too busy running around from dawn till dusk. But in these quiet moments, he would get to do those small things, he'd get to turn his brain off and sharpen knives, or blacken leathers, but most often, he'd do the mending.

It became such routine that Ed stops noticing, it becomes just another thing Izzy does for him, another part of his job, add it to the list.

Eventually, as their relationship breaks down, they stop having their evenings together. But Izzy never stops mending Ed's clothes. He brings the pile back to his room, working by the light of a candle, returning the clothes before Ed ever notices they're gone. It continues even on The Revenge, Izzy scooping up Ed's repairs as he spends time distracted by Stede, by the crew, by his rediscovered zest for life. All the while Izzy goes on unnoticed, declaring his love in every stitch.

When things settle down after the reunion, Izzy starts picking up Stede's mending. He picks it up before he restarts with Ed's, still (justifiably) angry at everything that happened. But Izzy's duty has always been to his captain, and Stede's his captain now, even if he might not be ready to say it out loud.

He drags the clothes to his room, at first, things damaged in their sword fighting training and found in their raids, but Stede's way more aware than Ed, especially about his clothes, especially when he has so few, and he notices the repairs quickly. It takes him a lot longer to pick up that its Izzy doing it, assuming its the usual Frenchie / Wee John repair team, but one night Ed's telling tales from his past, and his nights together with Izzy come up, and it all clicks.

Stede wont stand for Izzy doing the mending in that tiny cabin of his, and drags him back up to the captains cabin. Its awkward at first, with tensions still running so high between all of them. The obvious issues with Ed and Izzy, the yet unspoken words between Ed and Stede, and the now new bond between Izzy and Stede that has this sitting between them- the fact that Izzy did it, and the fact that Stede noticed.

It was never a thing he and Ed addressed and Izzy doesn't quite know what to do with himself, with Stede taking an active interest in what he's doing- to be fair, Stede doesn't know what to do either. Even if he never said it in as many words, Ed's story showed him the sentimentality of this for Izzy, and he doesn't quite know how to react to this being offered to him- of Izzy offering this to him- he doesn't even know if Izzy truly understands the weight of why he does this, but Stede, looking in from the outside can see the meaning plain as day.

All he knows is that he likes it and he wants more- and maybe he wants more from Izzy in other ways too. Having him sat on their sofa with their mending, a kind of domestic bliss that he never had, but is maybe beginning to realise he wants. Its never like that with Ed, they feed off each others energy too much, get too amped up, but here, with Izzy, he can sit in complete silence but know he's not alone.

The first time he kisses Izzy is on one of those nights. He's just finished fixing Stede's favourite shirt and offered it to him to check over and Stede all of a sudden finds that he's unable to help himself, pulls Izzy down by that fucking necktie and kisses him so hard it knocks his glasses askew- things progress quickly after that.

After, Ed will be told what happened. After, Stede and Ed will stop dancing around where they stand. After, Ed and Izzy will finally talk about all the things they never said.

It ends much as it starts, with them sat together on an evening, with a drink or a book, chatting and laughing, with a pile of mending, fixed with love.

imagine izzy pulling out that sailor’s sewing kit and quietly mending stede’s torn clothes, without being asked to. this is something he did for ed all the time (ed Can sew but he gets too restless so it never gets done) and now it’s what he does for stede. stede loses his mind in a combination horny/sentimental way.

[something-about-sunflowers]

ALRIGHT, *cracks knuckles* let's get into that teaser, shall we?

Should I itemize this? I think I'm going to itemize it lmao.

So:

Starting here because this is a baseline for Stede, he's got no neckerchief here. This is likely early in the season, probably the very start.

Man's got a fuckin' ARM.

This is Ed. You can see the bare right arm in both shots.

Red neckerchief. Ed's scrap of silk? Beat to shit if it is, which, he did toss it out to sea so, it would be.

Ed's not wearing the knee brace. Or gloves for that matter. I know the knee brace being an actual mobility aid is unconfirmed canon/fanon but it does make me :(c to see him without it. Either it wasn't actually considered as a mobility aid or he's lost it like he's lost his gloves OR he's going without it because he doesn't care if it hurts.

Closer shot of the neckerchief.

I just wanted to point out all the knives stabbed into the table. Also, those look like bits of paper on the windows, did they keep some of the books to repurpose for window blocking purposes?

THERE HE IS!!!!!!!! Other people have already pointed out the makeup and his ring still on his tie, along with the whip on his hip cjizzy real. He's got a new baldric but I also think his clothes look. Darker? Than in season 1? This is a darker/heavier contrast setting but it carries into other shots of him too I think? Like they're less sun/saltwater faded or something?

Other thing to note: If I have my orientation right, this is to the right of Stede's bed nook and to the left of the library, which means this shelf is the one with the auxiliary wardrobe opening mechanism. Which I bring up because:

This little guy seems to be in the place of the mannequin. Ed kept the auxiliary wardrobe and gothed up the mannequin to justify it still being there.

SO much here. This is, I'm fairly certain, Benjamin Hornigold. This camp he's set up (along with what he's wearing) looks like it was made out of a shipwreck. Ed's barefoot and missing his jacket and gloves, and his shirt's torn up at the sleeves. Definitely where he washed up from his dip in the ocean.

Note the trees and the lighting, that comes up later. Ed shoots here and Ben moves with the shot but it doesn't look like he was actually HIT by it to my eyes.

'Wanted. |Blackbeard| Villainous Pirate. Murderer, thrice over. $400 Reward for the criminal responsible for: theft - brigandry - larceny - arson - tax evasion ➡' Presumably there are more crimes/info on the back, though we see the reverse side in the next cut and it's either blank or all in very small text, I couldn't quite tell.

The poster to the right says 'Port' something which has me wondering Port Royal but that's just the only 'Port' something I know, could def be somewhere else.

(Also, just for fun:

Here's how much abouts Ed's capture would be worth now.)

Wider pic than it needs to be but I didn't wanna cut out Olu lol. ANYWAY. Neckerchief again. Also the back of the poster, see what I mean about it either being blank or very tiny?

Babygirl. . . But also that Bride Ed figure kinda slays. Little bralette with the midriff showing, I see you Babygirl. When will he be allowed to just rest and do silly little crafts WITHOUT heartbreak looming over him?

Well. Four is not nine. So. There's that. The other five could be used or out of frame though, of course.

OH. He's back to his fingerless gloves! They might actually be different from his original ones though, they look different at the wrist to me, not quite sure though.

The BOYS!!!! Frenchie looks like he's having a GREAT time. Considering he suggested they turn the hostage into a table and complained about the Republic of Pirates being a bit gentrified I'd say this is more in line with what he's used to in piracy. I 100% buy he was going along with Stede's way because he knew it was an easy ride compared to real piracy. This wouldn't necessarily be a return to form for him but definitely something he's more used to? And he gets to be kitty :3c

And FANG!!! Look at him showing a bit more skin!! Good for him!!

Everybody say 'Thank You David Jenkins'. Right now. Look at this Mad Max shit. Fuckin' Imperator Jimenez right there. LOVE that tye added the 'beard' after the 'fuck's wrong with your face?' bit in 1x10. Full 'it looked weird on you but I slay' energy.

Jim

Izzy

Fang

Near as I can tell at least. I can't make out if Frenchie is in the shot and I'm pretty positive Ed isn't cause he stayed by the cake when they charged in.

Man, yknow I know we were all kinda clowning on it a bit at the end of 1x10 but this look really is so JARRING. Like, in the dark it's menacing but in the light? It's unhinged and that reads as more dangerous imo.

Also just for comparison's sake the pre-Ed-ified version of the bride figure. He really did full on customize that thing lol.

I DON'T THINK ANNE KISSED STEDE HERE. It feels out of character of the show to pull the 'It's fine if a woman does it to a man' kind of thing with regard to unwanted kissing. This is the frame the scene starts on in the trailer. She's leaning back from him and isn't nearly close enough to his mouth to say for certain that's where she was coming from. My money is on her leaning in to whisper something into his ear, maybe under the guise of it being an advance/intended kiss, which would also explain the annoyed look when she's interrupted. She either got ACTUALLY interrupted or it's part of the act. Stede doesn't look nearly as uncomfortable as he would be if she'd kissed him or tried to, he looks confused.

Izzy going for his sword when this guy tries to get the drop on Stede. He either is starting to care or he knows how much Ed needs him alive.

Also, this is the other potential source of Stede's neckerchief. Mr, Knife right here has a red one and Stede doesn't have it in this scene. I do think this one is a little less distressed than the one Stede has though so it could just be coincidence.

See? No neckerchief. He DOES have a sword at his hip tho! So this, I think, is after Izzy's started training him.

Also, he actually looks really good in red lol.

Baby. He's definitely missing the ring in this shot. It sits higher than the baldric is covering. I want to give him a little kissie on his ouchie and then let him have a nap, he needs that.

The pants match the coat. Also, black shirt. Stede is kinda slaying ngl.

Still missing her head :(c. Isn't that bad luck?

Maybe yall didn't hear me properly with the Jim pic. I'll repeat:

EVERYBODY SAY 'THANK YOU DAVID JENKINS'.

I can't get over how Stede's just standing there politely with his arms behind his back lmfao.

Also, Izzy's got his right leg up, he's putting his weight on his left. . . 'foot'.

I SAID EVERYBODY SAY-

I know tits and all but also. The belly. I would like to. Bite.

*ahem*

ANYWAY. On the left (our left) side of the barrel you can see the tip of his right boot so he's def got that leg off the ground. Perhaps someone is trying to relearn their footwork? Now that they've got a different balance than they're used to? And perhaps a difference in sensory input in the leg he's standing on? Possibly?

This is the same beach Ed was on when he did the fuckin' RAD takedown of the other officer but it definitely looks like different times of day. Having both in the teaser is def meant to be a red herring. He doesn't have the neckerchief in this shot either.

Bra för honom. (Is how google translate tells me you say 'Good for him' in Swedish.)

Is Jackie's hair the same here as it is in the VF pic with Ed? Or like, similar enough to be a 'later in the day after some Fun™ messing it up a bit'?

Roach!!! Fully sleeveless now, added a belt, got some flowers tied to the strings/straps of his apron. Looks like he's having fun lighting that cannon lol. Pretty sure this is the same scene as that one leaked photo of him dancing with Fang and Izzy's green screen sock. He had the flowers in that, right?

[Ran out of allowed images, please hold]

[piratecaptainscaptainpirates]

I love how Ed treats Stede so gently. He's always so careful with him. He has this special soft voice he only uses with Stede, when they kiss he cradles Stede's face like he's the most precious thing he's ever held.

Ed doesn't know yet that Stede has probably never felt love before him. He doesn't know that Stede has never been given such care in his entire life. But still, his instinct is always to give Stede all the gentleness he can muster.

It's all the more poignant because Ed doesn't have a blueprint for this. He was raised in an abusive household and grew up in piracy, famously a culture of abuse. Many of the times he's cared for people, he's had to watch them get hurt in front of him (his mom, Felix the cabin boy, etc.). But this reaffirms that even though he grew up with his terrible abusive father and then Hornigold as examples of how men should act, Ed's instinct is never violence or even roughness. It's to treat the man he loves with gentleness and care and hold him with all the love in the world.

[rockscanfly]

something something “you know me better than anyone has ever known me” something something “I loved you. best I could”, something something Familiarity breeds contempt, relationships as self-context, someone who knows your past may be in the worst spot to understand your potential for change, emotional inertia, cycles of abuse, so on—

A lot of people think Izzy is fooling himself with that line. And sure, Izzy Hands didn’t know that Ed killed his own dad. But Izzy knew Ed wasn’t actually fine, after Stede left. He wasn’t getting *better* with the depression robe and the singing. He was just running, again. From himself, his actions, his emotions. Again. And Izzy has lived through *decades* of Ed pulling that kind of shit, of deflections and obfuscation. He miscalculated, yeah. But Ed wasn’t going to get better if Izzy had just kept his mouth shut. Something was going to set him off, sooner or later. Because Ed still hasn’t grown from the guy who sets people on fire and has them skinned with oyster forks then slumps through weeks long depression cycles.

Nothing about Ed and Stede’s first relationship actually forced Ed into confronting his own self-compartmentalization (and boy can a bitch compartmentalize. The Kraken, Izzy being the one to kill him in the dream, Hornigold, who he was with Jack, Jeff the accountant, just Ed—babygirl at some point you are going to have to decide who you are if you ever stand a chance of getting what you want). They were going to run away to China because it meant NEITHER of them had to deal with being the people who have done what they’ve done. If Stede and Ed had made it off that island together then they wouldn’t have grown.

On the flip side, Izzy was never going to be able to save Ed from himself because their relationship was static before meeting Stede. They’ve been together for so long that nothing Izzy says *counts* as new input (the first genuinely surprising thing Izzy ever does in-show is surviving killing himself). Iz is an extension of Ed, which is why he’s subject to torture and derision and punishment in a way no one else was. Ed fucking HATES himself. Izzy is a part of him.

So, yeah. Ed loved Izzy the BEST that he could love himself—poorly, mercilessly, as willing to hack off parts of Izzy’s body as he was entire facets of his own personality and history. So Izzy was never going to pull Ed out of the suicidal pit he’s been in for years. Knowledge, knowing someone, that doesn’t mean insight. Izzy’s so close to Ed that their perspective is practically a perfect overlay. There’s no new angles, no way to see where the light could shine through.

That’s why Ed needed Stede. The complete and total lack of context allowed Stede to take Ed as he was, to question him and force Ed to ask questions of himself that Izzy simply was not capable of. Ed is a social chameleon—he changes himself constantly to fit the image he thinks other people have of him. Stede refuses to provide the Blackbeard scaffold. There’s no context to cling to, no familiar script to follow. Stede has his own narratives and pre-conceived notions, but they’re NEW.

Context, perspective—you need both to get a whole image of a person. Maybe Stede and Izzy working together this season will finally be enough to help Ed see himself in a light that allows him to love what he sees in the mirror.

[amuseoffyre]

I'd done a post before about the intimate violence of face-contact within the pirate world of OFMD, but for Ed especially, when we see the flashback to his childhood, it's something that has clearly stayed with him.

S2 added even more layers into that with the story of Felix the cabin boy and Hornighost physically force-feeding Ed, implying this is something he has seen and probably experienced himself under Hornigold in his youth.

It's something that he is instinctively on guard for at all time. He flinches and recoils when people touch his face. He jumps out of a chair, a makeshift weapon upraised, when someone tweaks his moustache unexpectedly. He slaps Izzy's hand away when he touches his cheek and backs away. He also weaponises it himself against people when he's doing a threat-demonstration.

And there's two exceptions to this:

Because Stede doesn't invade his space or grab him or touch him unexpectedly. The first time, Stede touches his shoulder in comfort and Ed chooses to initiate face-to-hand contact. The second time, Stede offers and says gently "come here" and Ed feels safe enough to do so, leaning into him and letting this silly little man brush some food out of his beard.

And it got me thinking about how much Ed craves that kind of gentleness. To take something that has always been a threat of violence and to have it be soft and intimate and personal.

Which leads me to the way he kisses Stede, gently cupping his face.

And what I really like is the fact that Stede doesn't go for his face in the later kisses either. Stede's instinct is to cup the back of Ed's head instead. Combine that with Stede listening when he says to stop and waiting for him to nod and consent to his touch? Ed feels safe with this kind of touching.

And now that he feels safe to do it, oh Ed loves to touch his man's face. He loves it a lot.

[xoxoemynn]

something something about Ed being suicidal and trying to get others to kill him, but then fighting so hard when he suspects Hornigold is going to poison him.

my boy's got so much trauma my heart is breaking somebody help him.

[beelze0-0]

Act 2: Red Sky (Mutiny)

(ID: sequential art

image 1: low angle shot of a pirate ship’s crow’s nest, the small figures of young Jack Rackham, Izzy Hands, and Edward Teach perched upon it.

image 2: young Izzy Hands draped over a splintering ship mast, holding onto young Jack Rackham as the boat is torn apart by a storm and lighting strikes the water below.

image 3: close up of young Izzy Hands and young Jack Rackham, faces illuminated by he glow of a fire, looking with pride at someone out of frame.

image 4: young Edward Teach standing alone with a billowing fire in the background in the middle of the night.

end ID)

[jaskierx]

i need to rewatch to find all the parallels but they made it so clear that ed was deliberately trying to channel hornigold when he was trying to get the crew to turn on him

from the arbitrary punishments with terrible consequences (hornigold makes the cabin boy eat a live crab, ed tries to get archie and jim to fight to the death) to how hornigold calls ed 'old chum' after we've seen ed use this phrase for the first time when he's just given the gun to izzy

ed has had two father figures. one of them was so awful that ed killed him. the other was so awful that ed tries to emulate him when he wants to get killed.

[chuplayswithfire]

so ed was almost definitely felix's contemporary, probably higher ranked than a cabin boy - maybe a full member of the crew - but almost definitely of similar age, because he recalls that felix was a great guy, not a great kid or boy. cabin boys were typically the youngest members of the crew, sixteen at the oldest. ed was likely of similar age, maybe just slightly older than felix.

ben hornigold made felix eat a live crab and then watched as he died in what was most likely agonizing pain and terror as he was cut open from the inside out by the escaping creature he was forced to consume.

for the crime of stealing rations. for the crime of being a hungry boy and taking a little more.

hornigold's ghost in ed's mind says this was a lesson about stealing rations - the lesson, i'd say, was for ed and calico jack and any other young pirates on hornigold's crew, that their lives are worthless, that they'll die in screaming horror if they step out of line, if they dare to take more than what's owed.

ed was probably a kid, just like felix. at most, a young adult. this, as much as his abusive father, is what he grew up with, what shaped him into a man: nightmare fuel.

[ladyluscinia]

There are obviously some people not taking Edward's S2 arc very well. Or - more often - twisting it to fit into absolutely wild takes and then pretending they are taking it well while everyone else is wrong and problematic for beliefs like "S2 clearly establishes Edward was harming his entire crew in his depressive spiral and he's still in the process of making that right." One of them wrote this section from a post that I found absolutely fascinating (if also wildly off base) in the way it buys into Edward's clearly faulty POV without hesitation...

...and I really want to talk about Knife Parade now.

Because I don't think that's what's going on here, obviously.

Edward has internalized some very fucked up shit in his piracy career, a lot of it probably going back to his time with Calico Jack (and others? Fang was with him for 20 years, and Izzy "all his fucking life"?) under Captain Hornigold, aka the man who killed Felix the cabin boy by feeding him a live crab. Edward didn't really emulate Hornigold until Kraken Era because he hated the man, but we can see from how he and Jack act in 1x08 that he still developed a very skewed understanding of violence and social bonding.

And, as unpleasant as it makes him, the Edward of the past was absolutely the kind of guy to "fuck with his crew like that for shits and giggles."

Like - hold the defensiveness because this is not a one-to-one comparison - Edward describing chasing Fang around screaming and terrified as just a fun game sounds like how someone's childhood bullies would describe tormenting them. Bullies often feel like they were just joking around or just playing a game, even when the other party was clearly not having a good time. The show even invokes this with Nigel and Stede in the first episode.

And the reason bullies typically feel this way is because the social environment that they are in treats their behavior as acceptable (or fails to treat it as unacceptable because adults/other children are consciously or subconsciously designating the bullied kids as fair targets).

Edward thought chasing after Fang with a knife and shouting "come here you little fucker" was okay because he grew into adulthood in a culture where that and way worse was normal. Maybe he even got the idea watching an adult do it to someone (for likely non-playful reasons). He was probably older and/or higher ranked than Fang, in a culture where rank entirely out-ranks obligations to give a shit about someone else's feelings.

Just think about how he describes being Captain:

"Oh fuck no. Apologizing? Nah. Didn't apologize for jack shit."

The idea Edward didn't want to hurt Fang is not even on the table, because he didn't pay enough mind to the people below him to register hurting them was even a thing his "fun" actions could do. He's entirely rewritten the events in his mind.

And, again, this is a funny joke and a very understandable mindset to develop that literally no one has ever pushed back on until this moment, so good for Edward thinking back and going "oh fuck I guess Knife Parade was less Yardies and more Torturing Felix" and then immediately acknowledging that Fang has justifiable basis for beef with him. That's pretty big of him. Growth.

But "didn't care about Fang being terrified to the point he legit forgot because peer-accepted behavior" is still not quite the same thing as "genuinely didn't realize Fang was terrified" lol

[izzyliker]

& w/ edizzy the presumed age difference hits so hard too. when god is a boy you love. when god is a boy seven years younger than you that you needed to keep safe. when you grew up together. cleaning up your messes all my life. taught him everything he knows. when god is a boy you love. when god is a boy you protected and can’t stop protecting and can’t stop loving, when in your mind he’s still fourteen and shaking with a fever on hornigolds ship, when you hid him away and kept watch so he wouldn’t get found, wouldn’t get killed. when god is a boy who grew up and became your boss. when you love him, when he hurts you and you love him, when you hurt him because you love him, because you forget he’s not fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, doesn’t need you, doesn’t want you to meddle, when your love has never been normal or definable. when he asks you to kill him and all you see is him with his wild, big eyes, hair sticking to his slick face, sick and tinged green. always with the dramatics. always with the longing for death. when god is a boy you love. when you’re his best friend and right hand man and mother and part time lover.

[piratecaptainscaptainpirates]

The thing that really annoys me about the conspiracy theories going around (especially the Izzy-centric ones and especially That One Meta, iykyk) is the complete and utter lack not only of genre awareness but any realistic understanding of how OFMD operates.

If you actually watch the show, you should understand two things.

This is a rom-com. The central romance between Ed and Stede and comedy are therefore the two most core parts of the show, with Ed and Stede's romance taking priority over everything else. That's not to say OFMD doesn't have dark themes, it absolutely does; it's to say that comedy is always important to how the show is written, acted, and filmed. If the most obvious explanation for "what is this line/scenario trying to tell us?" is "it's funny," then that's clearly why the scenario is in the show.

This is not a subtle show. That's not to say it's a simple one; one thing I love about OFMD is all the background details and gags you only pick up on a rewatch. It's amazingly layered and emotional responses by characters are often extremely complex. However, when the show is trying to tell you something, it's not subtle and it never tries to hide it. The closest it ever gets is Ed in the gravy basket, and even then it's written so we find out the instant Ed does and we've already had clues to suspect something from how the mutineers are acting. If you're watching OFMD and thinking "hmm I wonder what they're trying to tell me here," you're probably doing something wrong.

That's why I'm so completely baffled by conspiracies such as

"How much was Ed hallucinating/dreaming??" After he gets out of the gravy basket, none of it. Very obviously none of it. Why would you assume they had time to waste this season on trying to confuse us about what's actually happening?

"What if Ed actually killed Buttons?" Okay, putting aside that just not happening on screen and therefore the most reasonable assumption being that he didn't, what would that actually do for the story? Buttons turning into a seagull underscored season themes of change. Ed killing him would be confusing, weird, and extremely out of character.

"What if Ed was the one who killed Felix the cabin boy?" This one absolutely baffles me. That story is transparently there to show us what Hornigold was like as a captain and illustrate why Ed hates him. Ed doing that instead of Hornigold would be wildly out of character and inconsistent with everything Ed does.

And my favorite, the one that made the author of That One Meta instantly lose all credibility for me when I skimmed and saw it:

"What if Ed and Stede's new shack is stinky because they actually have Izzy's body in there and Ed's in denial of his death, etc. etc."

Well. Given my awareness of the show I'm watching. I feel pretty safe in saying that it's stinky in there because, and I can't stress this enough, this is a comedy and sometimes it is funny for things to be stinky.

[crimson-and-clover-1717]

Ed Teach, Gods, and Beautiful Things

We don’t know if Ed ever picked flowers as a boy. But if he did, he’d likely be thinking about the potential in owning a florist’s. Because Ed knows it’s not in god’s plan for him to have beauty for beauty’s sake.

Ed chides himself even in the gravy basket: ‘Everything’s got to have an angle for you’. ‘Hornigold’s’ shoes cannot simply exist as beautifully crafted objects. They need to be monetized. Ed continues to wrestle with his demons a long time.

Ed’s worldview is entirely rational for a child who knew hunger; who saw limited food thrown against walls in acts of domestic violence. Told he wasn’t one of those kinds of people. Who killed a brutal father in order to survive. Leaned into himself, trauma-driven.

But Ed’s also an artist. He thinks in metaphor. He cultivates a larger-than-life persona so convincing it smothers him. He can produce an astonishingly creative fuckery. But there’s motive to his art which usually involves pecuniary interest i.e. the plundering of a ship. Cloud-gazing serves a wider purpose. The romance removed from the rainbow. It’s not that Ed can’t see beauty for beauty’s sake; he believes he doesn’t have the right to see the world with such eyes. Nor the luxury. He’s hidden his silk. No time for sensibility with constant threat of storm. Extrinsic value is what matters. Don’t starve is what counts. Such an approach to life, however, is making Ed increasingly ill and world-weary.

Ed’s quest for security, financial and physical, and the extraordinary pantomime he’s built to achieve it, has buried him alive. He’s trapped within a chrysalis. A butterfly with unspread wings. And he’s attracted the fanatical devotion of a self-appointed little god, entirely in thrall to the hyper-masculine performance, who refuses to let the show end. When Ed wobbles after many years, and hints at changing the script, he is rebuked to his crew as increasingly insane and half-mad. He’s neither; but he is, at the very least, utterly depressed and passively suicidal.

When Ed hears of ‘The Gentleman Pirate’, and despite the obfuscation of his over-zealous prison-guard, he realises the door to the cell has opened a crack - this is a jailbreak. The chasing down of the Revenge is Ed’s decision to live with meaning, and to live freely. To find beauty in the world for beauty’s sake. To attempt to heal his inner child. To flip his middle finger at the gods…all of them. It’s still trauma-driven, but less strategy, more instinct. That in itself is a beginning.

Ed breaks open the chrysalis and heads for the light.