#not tagging stede and ed

[casebasket]

don't know when we went from queerbaiting to

whatever the fuck this is

but i am so emotionally drained this "getting dumped by my idiot blonde boyfriend" year my dudes

like it's leaps better than before but jesus christ. at what cost.

[whats-mine-is-hers]

*proceeds to create the most discombobulating crossover the human mind could possibly imagine*

[stedesmoth]

You're a fuckin' tease, Stede Bonnet.

[blakbonnet]

well since you don't like yourself, I'm just going to have to like you enough for the both of us

[kori-senpai]

I have never played smash bros in my life

(Edit: I did a part two ayeee ✨ you guys are persuasive (affectionate))

[annannjay]

blackbonnet tomfoolery i almost forgot about

[azvhaalk]

capt. whiskey dick

[sixstepsaway]

so here's the thing

i've seen a bunch of people say on twitter and stuff how... ed's behavior is very abusive and his anger is dangerous and he isn't romantic lead material because of it

and i get where they're coming from

but to me the main issue isn't putting ed in the position of a romantic lead, but not crafting the narrative around his characterization so that it allows for a spicy romantic pirates-in-love narrative instead of...whatever this is.

i'm going to try and explain this. idk if i'll do well but i'll try

the way she show presents stede is as an innocent baby who isn't really equipped for pirate life. he goes into a fugue/disassociative state whenever there's any real violence, apparently, and needs protecting by other characters when things get too rough - for example when ed is telling ned lowe not to take the poker to stede.

that's fine! it's honestly adorable to see a masc character being so soft around the edges and being protected by other characters this way.

(i'm not going to touch on stede's... eh... not great characterization this season rn)

then there's izzy, who is shown as a bit violent, a bit rough around the edges. he's more likely to draw a sword or throw a punch or hit someone with a chair or take a punch like a champ. violence is just part of life for him and that's okay, it just Is, from small things like smacking stede on the ass to bigger things like being wall slammed, it's not all that big or bad for violence to happen around and with him, he tends to give as good as he gets (there's some nuance here but i'm talking the macro themes not the micro of what izzy does vs is done to him)

and finally there's ed

ed is presented as violent (stabbing knives at guys, telling fang to use the snail fork etc) and used to a life of violence, and then in season 2 he's presented as really violent, his anger coming out in dangerous and terrifying ways

and frankly, i'd be super into it if he and izzy were the main ship and that twisted dynamic from the first two episodes of s2 was explored and fleshed out into something deeper

friends to enemies to lovers who fight and fuck. angry pirates who lay hands on each other, who break the whole ship with each other in the heat of passion.

except instead, s2 gives us... abuse. it gives us izzy cringing and lowering his head and trying to protect the kids crew from ed's angry outbursts.

so when stede comes back and he's still soft around the edges and ed headbutts him and it's deliberate, it's... not a great look, and the vibes are a bit skewed

if stede fought back, if when ed struck out at him he struck back, if they fought rather than it being one-sided, if it was friends to enemies to lovers and not presented as healthy, but maybe they can work their way there, who knows, maybe even more like anne bonnie and mary read because hey, they were doing something very similar?

except they were both into it. they were both enjoying the fighting and the fucking and the burning down the house.

stede's not enjoying it.

i cannot describe how much i hate this sequence just because of the way stede flinches

anne and mary don't!! mary jumps at the unexpected bang but she doesnt flinch, she doesn't cover her face like she thinks the vase will be coming for her not the wall and anne? looks so into it

and the thing is that in real life, no, you don't want to date someone who throws shit around, or headbutts you

but in fiction when it's two fucked up people doing this shit together like anne and mary?

that can be fun.

but instead what we've been given is stede flinching and apologizing to ed and then all of ed's...what, semi-redemption???? is done away from the other collection of people he abused, and then he spends some time on a fishing boat wearing a dog collar and everything is fine because he's good now and won't be doing anything bad ever again

and it's just... poor writing. the vibes are rancid.

i spent a really big chunk of time between s1 and s2 defending ed. i kept saying how what he did to izzy by making him eat his toe wasn't abuse, it was a one-off and abuse isn't a one-off thing it's a pattern, and then s2 made it a pattern.

explicitly. explicitly a pattern.

not just one toe but three.

jim saying "you're in an unhealthy relationship with blackbeard"

and all ed offered izzy was a "sorry about your leg" which might've been fine if izzy survived and they could work on this more, but instead that's all the apology and closure izzy will ever get

ed threw a chair and a vase and made stede flinch in fear and stede was right to do that. what part of any of this implies this will never happen again? that stede won't press the wrong button at some point and be on the receiving end? none of it

and if we'd been presented with a s2 stede bonnet who could handle himself and stand up for himself and fight back, then maybe i could imagine that turning into a weird sexy fucked up anne/mary like thing and maybe that could be why they put that episode in, but instead it feels like that episode was going, "look, see, ed's violence is fine because these two are fine with it with each other"

but stede isn't

ed and izzy or ed and stede in an unhealthy battle of a relationship could be such a fun, interesting and downright sexy thing to watch unfold on tv, and could honestly end somewhere far more down the chill end of the spectrum, but that's not what we've been given here

i cannot argue that ed isn't an abuser anymore, and not just of izzy but of the whole crew. he terrified frenchie.

it's not good writing to try and lean into the idea that ed and the pirates are violent and live a life of violence, so it's okay that ed's been violent, while simultaneously presenting his violence as traumatic and abusive, and then less than three episodes later saying oh it's fine now, he's just a little meow meow who can do no wrong, see?

especially considering they had him murdering people at the end of the season. and sure, you can say the english are just cannon fodder and they dont 'count', but they did before. ed explicitly did not kill before, and that included the english, or the spanish, or anyone else. so either they count or they don't, but flipping him on a dime makes no sense.

ALSO

having ed be the son of an abusive man who threw plates at his mother and made her cringe and then having ed kill his father to protect his mother and then a season later having ed become the kind of man who throws chairs and vases and makes his love interest cringe is, again, not bloody optimal

i want to say again i dont CARE about tv always presenting healthy relationships or tv always giving us aspirational goals. i want messy fucked up dynamics and terrible people making terrible choices, and still, to this day, i fucking love ed teach. i would honestly love to have seen them continue with ed's darkness and bring stede into it and see where they went with that, to have stede kill ned lowe and not just bury his feelings in ed but get off on it, enjoy the violence, and see where that led, but no

and so instead all we end up with is a protagonist who is being set up for a lifetime of abuse from an intimate partner, and a romantic lead who abuses his love interests (and yes. izzy is a love interest, he is set up like one and positioned like one and treated like one), frightens his love interests with his violence, is erratic and most of all inconsistently written. he was so sorry about scaring fang as though he hadn't been deliberately terrifying the whole crew for fuck knows how long? what?!

the whole fandom has spent so long saying, "no no, i know stede bonnet irl was a slave owner, but ofmd is using the names and not any real piracy, it's more disney piracy, you know? so that kind of stuff doesnt exist!" and then they flipped around and went "blackbeard is blackbeard and so he is evil and does all these horrible things" and i dont know how to rationalize the two sides of that because it feels so out of place

i'm getting rambly, this isnt a particularly well constructed thought process, i just feel like we were robbed both of a toxic, violent relationship that could be fun to see explored on tv and a soft and sweet love story between two middle aged men exploring their first loves in one fell swoop and there's no way for s3 to bring either of those things back because they got utterly torpedoed by making ed a horrible person

ugh

[elwyvern]

OFMD 2 SPOILERS -

Because i am very autistic(tm) about both Hans Christian Andersen and OFMD 2 I need people to understand how much the ending of episode 3 means to me.

The Little Mermaid is a classic fairytale, a fantasy, but a tragedy. The mermaid doesn't get loved in return and instead kills herself. The story is also an allegory for homosexuality/queerness and the unrequited love it comes with as Hans himself was queer and in love unrequitedly.

When Ed tries to kill himself by throwing himself to the sea, just like the little mermaid, believing he is unloveable, in his last moments hears the love of his life, another man, begging for him and appears to him as a mermaid.

ARE WE CONNECTING THE SAME DOTS HERE???

He is reborn into a world with the man he loves with the vision of a mermaid, and the acceptance of love and hope.

I'm gonna go cry again now. Mr. Jenkins i am canonically in your WALLS.

[arsenicflame]

Keeps me awake still now Retracing what happened

TO RAGE - DAUGHTER

[somelokivariant]

IM SCREAMINGGGGGGG

[babykittenteach]

Went ahead and colored my response to @cahootings from here. Personally I do like the scenes in 2.4 and 2.8 as they are, so consider this at some other point I guess? Ed overreacting to some issue with the inn or something, lol.

[mostlarkly]

braidbeard hehehhahauaggaghu

(full mini comic has been posted)

[lunar-system]

Izzy Hands: The Moon.

Re-imagined from the traditional Rider-Waite-Smith tarot, this version of the Moon shows Izzy taking the shape of a lone Lover, longing for what he cannot reach.

Longer exploration of the card's symbolism under the cut.

Symbolism of the card

I initially meant this card to be specifically Izzy's, but he is once again unseparable from Ed. Though the moon itself is depicted as Ed, it is through Izzy that I interpret the journey of the card. Feel free to invent your own interpretation as well!

In the original version of the Moon we see a dog, a wolf, and a crayfish. Izzy takes the place of the wolf, marking him as wild and untameable. He is accompanied by a dog, symbolizing his loyalty. The crayfish has retreated, and we can see a monster lurking in the depths of the water, reminding us of the beasts that lie within.

Rachel Pollack (2011) writes: "The Moon signifies the dangerous time between the end of one world structure and the beginning of another. On the emotional level it can indicate the strange state when something powerful has ended and you find yourself thrown back on your instincts."

In the card Izzy already has his wooden leg. He his stepping into his role as the Unicorn, marking a shift in his loyalty and his place in the world. His reign as Blackbeard's first mate is ending, and a whole new world order is being imagined.

Ed is also seen in a new light. With his short beard, he is at the end of his captaincy, possibly even at the end of his piracy. He as the Moon is illuminated by the light of the Sun, personified by Stede in another card, The Sun.

Izzy bears witness to their combined light, unreachable to him on the ground. He teeters at the edge of the water illuminated by that very light, and is faced with a choice. Will he turn, follow the path and try to reach the unreachable? Or will he explore the unknown waters in front of him?

In tarot, water symbolizes emotions, intuition and subconscious. Pollack writes: "Here in the unknown territory our animal selves take over. We cannot suppress the wild emotions but only travel through them." The message of the Moon beckons Izzy to step into the water and face his emotions.

However, there are also dangers in the murky waters of the subconscious. Pollack continues: "The Moon card calls forth powerful dreams, visions, and the power of the feminine." In tarot water is a feminine element. Izzy, a beacon of masculinity, has in the past confused the feminine with the monstrous. He is now dared to invite the feminine within him to the surface. His posture already mirrors that of the feminine lover from the Lovers-card. It also calls back to the Fool, to someone at the beginning of their self-discovery.

Tl;dr: Izzy, the Fool and the Lover, is on a journey from one world to another. Will he follow the path and try to reach the unreachable, or will he find the courage to plunge into unknown waters?

A comparison between the original Rider-Waite-Smith card from 1909 and the re-imagined version

Izzy's pose mirrors the feminine Lover

Sources

Image source: Pamela Colman Smith, 1909, republished as Tarot of A. E. Waite, 2016, AGM-Urania, Germany

Text source: Rachel Pollack, A Journey of 78 Steps, 2011, as cited in the booklet for instruction and guidance of Tarot of A. E. Waite, 2016, AGM-Urania, Germany

[seance]

WHAT'D YOU DO WITH HIM? I KNOW HE WOULDN'T HAVE LEFT BY CHOICE. I KNOW YOU THINK YOU UNDERSTAND HIM.

[ourflagmeansgayrights]

context, if such a thing even exists

stede: i think we should ask the crew to provide their own linens when they visit

ed: aw, what? what kind of shitass inn doesn’t even do linens for their guests?

stede: we can still do linens for regular guests, i just think-

ed: oh, cmon, we can’t give the crew worse service, they already hate me

stede: they do not hate you-

ed: well they might if we skimp on the linens!

stede: ed-

ed: i’ve gotten really good at washing linens, actually. i don’t know if you’ve noticed that. see how little jizz is on our sheets?

stede: …i mean, there is that rather large—

ed: ok that’s from literally a twenty minutes ago that doesn’t count, you know that doesn’t count

stede: alright, alright

ed: we literally haven’t even gotten out of bed yet

stede: fair enough

ed: if i wasn’t good at doing laundry this sheet would be just one big jizz stain and you know it

stede: this is true, you’re right. you’ve done an excellent job, sweetheart

ed: aww thanks babe :)

stede: im just a bit worried about the foursome

ed: (experiencing a sudden coughing fit) the what?

stede: the foursome? jim, olu, archie, and zheng?

ed: oh. oh. (clears throat) i thought you—nevermind. um.

ed: uhh what about them? you think i can’t handle their post-orgy cleanup?

stede: well…

ed: wait, seriously? it’s just two extra people, mate, it’s not that much more mess

stede: it’s not the quantity i’m concerned with, it’s the. well.

ed: …well?

stede: well. the thing is, archie always refers to sex with her partners as “goop sex”

ed:

ed: goop sex

stede: yes, goop sex

ed: are you sure she doesn’t call it “group sex” and you’re just mishearing her?

stede: no, it’s definitely goop sex

ed: hm

stede: admittedly i’m not completely sure what goop sex actually is—unless you happen to be familiar…?

ed: yeah no i’ve never heard of goop sex

stede: darn. well, in any case, i imagine there’s a very strong possibility that goop sex stains fabrics!

ed: hm, yeah, probably

stede: so you see my concern

ed: i do, yeah

stede: with the linens

ed: mhmm

stede: especially since we only have the one set!

ed: mhmm

stede: which we should probably do something about, actually, if we want to provide free linen service to our guests. although maybe we can wait until after the crew visits so we have an excuse for not doing their linens? what do you think?

ed: mmm

stede:

stede: ed, darling

ed: hhwhat sorry huh

stede: you zoned out for a moment there

ed: oh shit, my bad, babe

stede: no worries! i was just wondering where you’d gone to

ed: right, well, i’d gone to goop sex

stede: yknow i probably could’ve guessed that myself actually

ed: specifically i was thinking that we should try and figure out what goop sex is

stede: i

stede: hm.

stede:

stede:

stede: okay, but—

ed: oh cmon don’t give me that

stede: ed, th-

ed: i saw your face just now! i bet you already have some ideas!

stede: ok but ed we really only have the one set of linens!

ed: and you’re telling me you’re not willing to risk those linens to try out some of your guesses about goop sex?

stede: y—i’m—well. I-I mean,

ed: yeahhhh that’s what i thought, you fuckin pervert

stede: alright well i better not hear any complaining when our only set of sheets is reduced to one big goop stain!

ed: that is a price i will gladly pay to let you try out your goopy sex theories on me