#i swear its on every episode

[blackblogz]

take a shot every time Sam gets choked

[sarucane]

Why didn't Ed always protect Stede?

I'm a bit late to the party and only really got into OFMD with S2, so I've started watching S1 really thoroughly only recently. And I've noticed that there's this narrative in the fandom that Ed and Stede are super protective of each other, particularly Ed--but as I've gone through S1 (number redacted) times, it's been driving me nuts how much Ed doesn't protect Stede.

Sure, there's the meme we all love when Ed stands in front of the firing squad--but for most of the scene before that, he's been standing and watching Stede beg for his life. He's upset, but he doesn't intervene until it's nearly do late. And before that, Ed doesn't say or do a thing about Calico Jack treating Stede like shit--sure it's believable that he just doesn't notice the passive aggression, but not even catching the "Steve" thing? That's something that isn't even intervening, Jack could be making an honest mistake. But the thing no-protection moment that's really driven me nuts is this moment

In the scene before this, Ed and Stede have just had an incredibly emotionally intimate conversation. Ed is clearly at least half in love with Stede at this point. This is a relationship that means something important to him, this is a person he cares for deeply. And…and Izzy almost murdered Stede in front of him, because of him, and he just looked away.

But at the same time, Ed does love Stede, he does intervene to protect him from the English--at great personal risk and cost. By the end of S2 Ed's much better about this kind of thing (though I'd argue he's never as super-protective as I've seen suggested).

So what was going on here? Ed's a total softie inside, especially with Stede, so why was he like this?

And I've got a theory! Here goes:

Mr. "greatest pirate who ever lived" is, in fact, an overachieving rule-follower (cough teacher's pet cough).

Ed doesn't intervene to help Stede because Ed conforms himself to the rules set by whoever has the strongest personality in a room, or whatever "code" is being pushed on him/is easiest to follow.

I think this is part of why Ed often struggles to identify what he wants, or hold onto a firm sense of his self-identity. And I think it's a lot of why he's so attracted to Stede, and why that relationship is so important to his development: Ed is much less likely to follow the rules when he's one-on-one with someone, and spending a lot of time alone with Stede gives him much more mental space to understand what he wants.

And just like Stede is most successful when he doesn't try to follow the traditional rules of pirating, Ed is most successful--in his relationship with Stede and outside it--when he doesn't obsess over bending to the rules, and instead picks and chooses which ones to follow and which ones to discard.

I have a partly-written super-long version of this where I go episode by episode looking at how the rules theme works with Ed's character mechanics, but I'm just going to focus on the topic question here (I might get around to posting the long version, but I also might be distracted by something shiny;) )

So let's start with The Art of Fuckery and the thing that was driving me crazy.

Ed's core conflict in this episode was whether he'd going to send Stede to "doggy heaven." Why would he follow Stede to doggy heaven? Because according to Izzy, Stede is categorized as a pet, and Ed has "a policy regarding pets aboard your vessel." It's a rule. Ed has to follow it.

And Ed fully intends to follow it, right up until the kraken turns up and the rules go out the window. And then he's in a safe space with Stede, drowning in memory of the good rules he broke (don't kill people you love). But Stede rejects the idea that Ed breaking that rule makes him a bad person. He appeals, instead, to friendship. And offers his own rule: that they could pretend the murder thing never happened.

Because that's the amazing thing about Stede: he lives at the intersection of aristocratic and pirate rules (which isn't supposed to exist, and which drew Ed to him), and he makes up his own rules.

When Ed's with Stede, he can follow different rules, unlike anything he'd imagined. Can even sometimes make up his own rules. Can actually pay attention to himself, think about what he wants, what he likes and fears.

But when Ed's in a crowd, or alone with someone trying to impose something on him, he conforms. So when Izzy invokes Pirate Rules and steamrolls Ed ("no you're not doing this,") Ed lets him.

It's a character flaw, and it's a serious one...but it's also one Ed works on when he stops complaining about the treasure hunt business. And when he and Stede discuss the idea of co-captains, and arrangement that would break the rule that "a ship has only one captain."

Which Ed is able to do because he's in a safe space. Calico Jack disrupts that, and introduces a succession of games with clearly defined rules, which Ed follows one after another. And Ed has so little self-awareness, is so easily swamped by Jack's personality, that he doesn't notice how Jack's treating Stede, let alone defend him, and he bows to every hint of pressure.

And all that culminates in Ed having to make a decision: follow pirate rules, where everyone's just at "various stages of screwing each other over," or do what he wants. Go help his friend, the guy he loves.

Which just ends up with him being absorbed right back into the pirate system of rules. He tries to use this at first, faking a confession on the grounds that he's a "life is cheap sort of guy." But Izzy's outsmarted him, and Izzy invokes pirate rules again: that Ed told him the rule for a first mate was "above all loyalty to your captain."

Ed doesn't call out for the Act of Grace until the last minute. He could have done it at the trial--he didn't. This is a hard thing for him to do, because he's surrounded by rule-following pressure, from Izzy and from Chauncy. The last time he was in a situation like this, Ed just looked away and let Stede die (he thought).

But the thing about Ed is that he's "half insane." For years, he used the combo of being considered "mad" and also having Izzy around to have his cake and eat it too with rules, to be the world's greatest pirate and also hang onto his own authentic self.

As a result, Ed got good at finding loopholes. Places where you can follow the rules and break them, at the same time. Getting run through, but in a place that missed "all the important bits." Being sentenced to death, but asking for an Act of Grace.

It's a big deal when Ed steps in front of Stede like that. He's acting against pirate rules, risking being absorbed by the rules set by the English.

He does it for Stede--and that starts to set him free. After that, Ed's never just following the rules again. He actually can't, even when he tries: his going kraken at the end of S1 and start of S2 is doomed from the start and full of contradictions, starting with the fact that he's on Stede's ship, the ship with hidden passages where rule-breaking can be hidden until it's needed.

Ed struggles a lot to figure out which rules to follow ("I will abide by the guidelines"), which rules to set aside ("Can we take it slow?"), when to make up his own rules ("So we're innkeepers now."). And Stede helps him, telling him things like "This can be whatever we want it to be," and "you're not a dick, life's a dick."

I don't really have a clever conclusion to this particular meta. It's a messy thing, and individual figuring out how to their life does and does not intersect with society. This theme doesn't resolve neatly, it just stops at the end of the season, like the tension between Ed/kraken/Blackbeard.

But there's a lot of hope here, I think. When Ed acts to protect Stede, and to fight alongside him, he's not just being a protective partner. It's a learned action, the physical manifestation of a decision Ed's made about who he wants to be in the world. Rules be damned.

[13leaguestories]

Sneak Peek: Superstition Ep5

“Fuck you,” Bradley shouts, “I’d rather stay here anyway. This team, if that’s even what we should call this mistake is going downhill fast.”

With that, he turns and heads back inside, slamming the door behind him.

“When was this vote done?” Syd inquires, reminding us all that she is still there, “because I don’t remember it.”

“You weren’t there,” Zillah tells her, “though I’m sure we all know what you would have voted in favor for.”

“You know," she chuckles lowly, "I don’t remember signing up to a damn //democracy//.”

“I’m sure you would feel differently if people were more prone to vote with you,” Rahim mumbles.

“I wouldn’t care if everyone agreed to lick my –”

“Let’s not,” Amari shouts, and though Sydero does stop that line of expression, she continues as if not hearing Amari.

“The point is. I don’t care. You’re the one who needs to be liked to get his fucking willy wet.

“You’re just mad that we received what we've been searching for,” Rahim sighs, “can you ever be happy? Content?”

She recoils in disgust, “first off, stop acting like you know me, it’s disgusting. Secondly, no. I refuse to be happy about some backward ass deal that was done behind all our backs, including yours. You’re being toyed with and you’re fine with that? Are you truly or is this just your way of trying to make the best of it all?”

[sometimesmaybespoof]

FREAK OF THE WEEK AWARD GOES TO

*drum roll* 🥁🥁🥁🥁🥁

KRUGSTON‼️‼️‼️‼️

[princesssarcastia]

the thing about the leverage series finale.

Does Parker even know you got Hardison killed?

the thing is. if the second story Nate spun for the interpol agent and Sterling were true. If Nate got Hardison and Eliot and Sophie killed as part of his crusade while Parker was trapped inside the server room, waiting for a reunion that isn't coming...if Sterling says, does Parker even know you got Hardison killed, as Parker is standing in the crowd of agents, wondering where her boys are, prepared to carry on without them but so so so worried, the kind of worried Archie always tried to warn her against, the kind of worried her team spent five years teasing out of her so she could feel things again.

If that were true, if that was what happened. Idk man. There's a good argument to be made that Parker would kill Nate then and there. Whether that's out of rage and loss, or a kindness so Nate doesn't have to finish the job himself, I'm not sure.

[katniss-evermeme]

Update regarding last night's post: My brother (age 13, definitely has heard worse when he went to public school) has now been banned from watching Spy X Family because of the "language".

If you want evidence that my mom is an absolute whackjob, she willingly let him watch Deadpool and Venom when he was in elementary school.

[kang-yina]

My character flaw is that i used to not give a shit about protagonists as a kid and when i was still like 16 but now i basically see the protagonists as my fav character of everything i like, except things i used to like when i was younger

[wurm-food]

anyway, beam attack that makes you watch Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End

[sskk-manifesto]

(*・ω・*)b♪

[ibrokeeverything]

I love so much that echo isn't forgotten about. You feel his absence from the very beginning and it's a focus throughout the entire episode. I've seen many a lesser show sweep this kind of thing under the rug and pretend it never happened, and it makes me so happy to see people hurting and feeling that absence. A part of their family is gone and they need time to process. Idk it just means a lot to me 🤧

[lnkedmyheart]

There was only one reason why we never got Andre and Tori in a relationship.

[sonknuxadow]

I'm not too big a Sonknux shipper (I don't really ship anyone with Sonic full stop) but for the sheer amount of Sonadow and rabid Sonadow shippers that popped up, I'm half tempted to create a 2:30 hour long Sonknux cinematic animation out of spite. It would be a quirky romcom with musical scenes which starts with Knuckles first meeting Sonic and ending with them kissing in front of the Master Emerald at their wedding.

i dont really have a problem with sonadow necessarily or people making jokes about them being gay in the new episode, i also went "🏳️‍🌈?" a few times while watching it. im mostly just annoyed that its everywhere at all times and so many people seem to have sonadow as their number one priority always and dont care about anything else.. like if you search sonic prime on here its just sonadow sonadow sonadow with not nearly as many posts about what actually happens in the episode or theorizing about what might happen next or even discussing sonic and shadows interactions beyond just going "omg sonadow!"... like is that really all you guys took from it? you dont care about anything else? just shipping? ok...

[overlords-number-one-fan]

MB REALLY GOT ME GIGGLING AND KICKING MY FEET RWHEGHEJE I ADORE HIM SO MUCH ITS UNREALL "Maximum power it is. Oh, the indignities I must suffer." RRGHGHRG SIR UR LIFE IS LITERALLY ON THE LINE AND YOU STILL MANAGE TO BE THEATRE KID ZESTY ABT IT ... IM

[whosplayerthree]

Couples: remember to get concent (pre agreed on or in the moment) before restricting your partner by wrapping them in your serpentine dragon form while talking about being a "real naughty boy".

[c0smiccom3t]

Ladies, gents and everyone in between with whatever gender you are,

My current hyperfixations.

Current Blorbo i love so much and also who i'm rooting for:

[timeforsomethrillingheroicsblog]

had to reset the jack stalking counter

we back at zero days lads 😔