#ofmd s1e2

[adickaboutspoons]

Tea Soup and Sympathy

There’s already been plenty going around fandom about the significance of soup this season, so I’ll just condense soup discourse down and summarize that it’s about love and nourishment. But sometimes, soup is not real soup.

When we first meet Zheng Yi Sao, she is posing as Susan the Soup Merchant. But before the end of the episode, it’s revealed that her soup-slinging ways are all artifice.

And just as soup is love, this Yi Sao’s soup-slinging pretense is indicative of the fact that she uses the semblance of sympathy to manipulate people to her own ends. Let’s look at the case study of her interaction with John Bartholomew: Having successfully sacked his ship, she gets news that he wants to shoot himself, but only with the captain that bested him watching. Yi Sao attends the cabin of of the clearly panicking John with Stede and Olu in tow, and lets John show his ass with his inground racist and misogynistic assumptions; with him first identifying the white guy as the captain, then the MOC, and finally the WOC. In spite of the insult, Yi Sao meets him with the contrivance of compassion to give validation his heightened emotionally volatile state, acknowledgement of the cultural assumptions that are making this a particularly difficult defeat for him to accept, but also plays INTO his misogyny by suggesting that if he follows through with killing himself that his final deed in life with be the (implicitly shameful) act of surrendering to a woman.

Once she has gotten him to a place where he feels like someone is listening to him AND understanding where he’s coming from, and shamed out of taking his own life, she applies the social lubricant to foster that warm, fuzzy feeling of camaraderie by suggesting they have drinks.

Pay close attention to the language she’s using when she’s talking John around. After John complains that he’s just trying to feed his crew, and maybe make a little extra money on the side, Yi Sao jumps in with more affirming statements to demonstrate that she understands and appreciates the obstacles he’s facing in obtaining his goals, and concludes with a restatement of his thesis:

“Sure, but they won’t let you. The Spanish, the Dutch, the fucking English! Everyone is cracking down on the little guy! Like, hello! How’s a pirate supposed to make a living?”

Having established that she understands where he’s coming from, she starts the bridge-building portion of her agenda; inviting him to identify with her because of common interests, but simultaneously downplaying her authority, AND using a rhetorical question to which he can easily agree in order to prime him to continue agreeing with her further down the line:

“I don’t speak for everyone, but I didn’t get into this business to fight other pirates, did you?”

She’s also using neurolinguistic programming: all the while that she’s talking to him, she’s reaching her hand out to him - a gesture that mimics the way she is metaphorically reaching out to him, and inviting him to reach back. She then floats a hypothetical that ALSO is easy to say “yes” to, but posing it as a question rather than an order to encourage him to buy into the idea rather than just submit to it:

“What if we could all work together, support each other?”

From here, she plays coy - feigning reticence to float an idea as though it’s TOO audacious, and employing a little false modesty, suggesting her idea is stupid, to not only, once again, play into John’s misogynistic zeitgeist, but to allow him to feel that, when she DOES give voice to her ultimate plan, he can feel like HE won one over on HER by enticing it out of her.

“I don’t know… be, um…Oh! Forget it! It’s stupid. What if… What if we could be partners?”

And that, ladies, gentlemen, and those betwixt and beyond, is how you get someone to cheerfully buy into their own subjugation in the coming invasion.

And make no mistake - invading and conquering the Caribbean IS what Yi Sao is after. She's not looking for partners - she's looking for subordinates. She’s very clear about that with Stede back aboard the Red Flag.

Her soupy subterfuge in the Republic of Pirates was a reconnaissance mission to scope and get info on the local talent in order to try and get them to either join her or die. But she’s not picky either way. Her red flag fleet is already making its way over land at the isthmus of Panama. This IS going to happen. So are you on-board or not?

“Okay,” I hear you say (or not. I don’t know you well enough to put words in your mouth), “but she’s really nice to her crew, providing them with gentle exercise and kind words and soup that, according to all the Caribbean pirates who taste it, is so good it might be the best thing they’ve ever tasted. What makes you think it’s manipulation and artifice, and not the real thing. Maybe she’s just actually compassionate, but her compassion has its limits - the proverbial iron fist in a velvet glove, as it were?”

Because we’ve already seen this behavior before. Using alcohol to lower inhibitions, using both shame and sympathy to motivate participation, using neurolinguistic programming to let the other party think that THEY’RE the one driving the action, and even being calculatedly withholding to make people think they’ve won something when they extract it from you:

That’s right. It’s Calico Jack, the master manipulator (RIP, asshole) all over again. But whereas Jack leaned further on the typically masculine end of the shame-to-sympathy scale with bullying and establishing himself as a subject matter expert, Yi Sao is coming at it from a decidedly more typically feminine place, encouraging self-identification and downplaying her strengths and contributions. But Yi Sao also ups the game transforming into what the other person needs her to be to close the deal. With Jackie the bossbitch businesswoman, Yi Sao is the Money Bitch. With John Bartholomew the prototypical pirate drowning in toxic masculinity, she’s a feminine fount of sympathy and understanding who, gosh, just CAN’T be sure that her silly little ideas are any good unless a big, strong man affirms that for her. And with Stede, she’s a girl-friend who has BEEN THERE and wants to dish about his toxic ex and all the complicated feelings about that.

So when we hear:

It should immediately throw red flags, both for us AND Stede. He was THERE when she used this voice with John Bartholomew. There might not be any liquor, but she KNOWS that Stede has said that he encourages this kind of “talking it through�� behavior, so she doesn’t need to get him to buy into it first. Instead, she launches directly into the same kind of tactics she employed before. She hears Stede say “[The crew] couldn’t keep living like that. Ed can be quite troubled.” Out come the affirming statements to demonstrate that she understands where he’s coming from, and restatement of his thesis: “You must feel so weird. Like you’re glad he’s alive, but then he did all this evil shit to your friends?”

Then on to bridge-building (literally and figuratively - look how she reaches out to clasp him on the shoulder) to invite identifying with her: “I’ve dated my fair share of guys on ‘Wanted’ posters.They’re hot.”

She doesn’t bother with downplaying her authority, because Stede has just confessed to being a novice in terms of romance, but she is so calculated with her wording, floating a scenario that invites Stede to come up with a solution for: “But it always ends in a massacre and then the wrong people get hurt.”

So when she “caves” to his suggestion of “Maybe we could avoid that happening here?” with “I AM feeling a little merciful today,” it begs the question:

What, exactly, was going to be the price of this “mercy” if Auntie hadn’t interrupted?

So Roach isn’t wrong when he praises the soup they get aboard the Red Flag as “Beautiful, complicated, and balanced.” It IS a complicated act, an artfully balanced deception, and beautiful in its artifice. It HAS to look better and more enticing than the real thing. Because it will never give you the actual nourishment you need.

[ourflagmeansbts]

Source (Season 1 - April 2022)

[sarucane]

OFMD Spiral Narrative 49: Whims, Self-Knowledge, and Committment

Intro: What I love most about how season 2 builds on season 1 of OFMD is the spiral narrative structure. Ground is repeatedly and explicitly re-trod from season 1 to season 2, but in season 2 everything goes deeper than season 1. Meanings are shuffled, emotions are stronger and truer, and transformation is showcased above everything. The first season plucks certain notes, then the second season plucks the same ones--but louder, and then it weaves them together to create a symphony.

---

Stede and Ed both make many decisions impulsively (although Ed more than Stede). But their whims are rather different: Ed's are the result of things he's been brooding on for a long time, which rise to the surface and become actions in the form of whims. Practically everything he does in S1E4 falls into this category: the way he's drawn to Stede and acts on that feeling, telling Stede "I'm Ed," the clothes swap: it all points to deeper dissatisfaction and longings.

Stede, on the other hand, acts on whims as a form of denial, as a bad coping mechanism to avoid dealing with or thinking about something he's having trouble getting his head around. The whims build on things that have been bubbling, but they amount to "X makes me scared/nervous/anxious, I'll throw myself into Y." The whims are fundamentally misguided ways of dealing with those X things. Going after the hostages in S1E2 is an example of this: Stede is transferring his fears about how he let down his family (his daddy issues) onto an unrelated situation, trying to prove that he's "adequate."

Some of their whims lead to disaster (Stede's more than Ed's), but others lead to goodness, and all work out in the end (since it's that kind of story). Whims aren't bad in this show, but over the course of season 2 Ed and Stede develop better, more self-aware relationships with whims. Because the problem isn't having those whims, or even acting on those whims: problems arise when they act on the whims without fully considering about how they'll negatively affect others, or engaging with those negative effects afterwards. Things like Stede dragging Olu and Pete into the woods with him to save the hostages, and Ed not thinking about how what Izzy might do in response to Ed's changes.

The first time the word "whim" is important on OFMD is in season 1 episode 10.

Mary has completely called him on this. Stede had been brooding about his family even before, but his decision to come back is so impulsive that he's not actually wearing shoes when he arrives. Instead of dealing with what a horrible person he thinks he is--or the intensity of what's happening with Ed--he tries to run back into a life that was empty, but safe. It didn't register on him 1) that he might not be welcome home and 2) that he'd be completely breaking Ed's heart. He can't deal with what's happening in his pirate life by running off back to his married life. But in season 1, Stede refuses to own this until he's forced. His reaction to being called on this shit is denial.

The next time the word whim appears on OFMD, it's also being thrown at Stede by an angry ex after his unwelcome return.

But this time it's Ed, and this time Stede doesn't reject the accusation. Instead, he goes wide with it: he points out that technically their whole relationship was founded on whims.

Whims aren't necessarily a point of conflict with Ed and Stede. They can be a point of empathy, of understanding.

The problem isn't the fact that Stede left on impulse, the problem is that he left. He didn't respect Ed's feelings, at the moment it was most important.

But under the whims, there's love. The whims aren't bad, but they're not a solid foundation for a long-term relationship.

Ed figures this out, and decides he wants feel more secure in his choices in future by considering them first.

He doesn't want to have whims bubble in his unconscious, unrecognized, and then manifest in real life without him understanding what's really happening in his own head.

He wants more solidity, more trust in himself and in Stede than he'll feel if they don't temper their impulses.

Because whims mean his actions may spin away from the kind of person he wants to be--and Stede's important to him, this relationship is important, and he doesn't want it to fail.

Stede recognizes this, he recognizes why it's important.

And then he and Ed proceed to both completely fail to follow through on that.

Each acts on one of their classic Stede and Ed whims. Sure, Stede's been "longing" for Ed for weeks--but sleeping together right now, when Stede knew that minus pressure, Ed wanted to take it slow, and when Stede's clearly freaked out by what just happened with Ned and trying to avoid fully dealing with it? That's a "Stede tries to deal with X by focusing on Y" kind of whim.

Still, it's worth noting that Ed doesn't at all blame Stede for acting on this whim and pushing Ed to go faster than he was ready for. The fact that what happened was impulsive isn't used to invalidate the relationship, like in the conversation at Anne and Mary's. There's an acceptance of the reality of Stede's "whims" implicit in the whole conversation. But rather than communicating about what's gone wrong and how to move forward, Ed panics and whims out.

And Ed's been thinking about leaving behind being a pirate for a while. He's been brooding over his own confusion about his sense of self--and what that means for his relationship--for a while. It's a panic move, but it speaks to real needs for a self-identity that's not dependent on piracy, and for surety that he's emotionally safe.

That said, Ed also isn't considering how this will impact Stede. He leaves insisting "fishermen and pirates are nothing alike." And he's horrified later when he realizes he might not have been there when Stede needed him most.

But by facing these whims and their consequences, each man grows.

Stede doesn't panic when Ed tells him he regrets their night together. He doesn't lash out over any hurt this causes him, or try to displace his pain (though later, he does exactly that and almost gets killed by Zheng). Right in the moment, he demonstrates real growth.

Stede sits with the kind of problem that used to send him running, and he engages constructively with the consequences of his whim.

Ed, meanwhile, thinks at first that his fisherman whim has worked out perfectly. Except it turns out that whims don't always work out against reality. Then he finds that following whims unquestioned meant he wasn't there when Stede needed him.

Ed's whims speak to real issues. Leaving Stede spoke to a sense of insecurity about himself and the relationship. But when he finds Stede's letter, he rediscovers security in that relationship.

And when he finds Stede, Stede understands why Ed followed that whim, and doesn't blame him.

Instead, he offers Ed security. Ed might not fully understand why he follows some whims, but Stede does. And Stede understands Ed well enough that Ed acting on his whims, even when he's careless, doesn't invalidate the relationship.

And then we come to the boys' final whim of the season: turning a shack (which they have clearly never entered) into an inn.

This could have been a negative whim. Ed becomes an innkeeper for a lot of the reasons he tried to become a fisherman, after all. But this is also more considered a whim than something like "we'll go to China."

And most important of all, Ed goes out of his way to make sure that he isn't steamrolling his partner by following this whim (like with the China thing). That they're in it together.

And Stede following his boyfriend to become an innkeeper could have been a displacement. He did just wind up in a world of trouble over being a pirate, after all. And he's watching his own ship sail off.

But this isn't displacement from Stede. This is commitment. Faith that the bones of the relationship are solid, whatever whims are laid over them. Knowing his own blind spots, knowing Ed's, and choosing which whim to follow--together.

[piratecaptainscaptainpirates]

Now that s2 has had some time to settle, how would you all rank all the OFMD episodes? I don't care about how good you think they are objectively (because I know if I was ranking them from what I think are objectively best to worst, that would be a different list entirely), I care about how you rank them personally!

For me, the ranking goes:

Fun and Games, s2e4. She's everything to me. Ed and Stede making up and communicating, Ed's cute little smile, Izzy being a fucking nightmare (affectionate). Perfect episode in my eyes.

The Innkeeper, s2e3. I don't even need to justify this one, you all KNOW.

Mermen, s2e8. I know she's a little messy but I love her. My go-to comfort episode and a happy ending to the season. Ed and Stede fighting to each other across the beach is my favorite scene in OFMD full stop.

The Art of Fuckery, s1e6. I looove her. The OG bathtub scene that spawned a million bathtub scenes in fanfics, plus Stede beating Izzy in a duel and the best open in s1.

Act of Grace, s1e9. Solid episode, first kiss, Ed saving Stede's life, a heartbreaking ending. Fantastic.

The Curse of the Seafaring Life, s1e5. This to me is the perfect mid-season episode of a show like OFMD. It's fun, I love it, plus we get a moonlight kiss!

We Gull Way Back, s1e8. I love when Calico Jack is here fucking stuff up.

Wherever You Go, There You Are, s1e10. It's hard watching this now to believe this is how our show ended for over a year! Now when I watch it I think about how far they've come.

This is Happening, s1e7. It's just great, it's only so low because I like the first eight more!

Red Flags, s1e2. This one hurts me and I love it. It's a damn compelling episode of television.

Calypso's Birthday, s2e6. I can see why people don't like this one but I'm willing to give it a pass for a lot of shit. I really like Ned Low.

Discomfort in a Married State, s1e4. It's a wonderful episode. The bad thing about ranking OFMD episodes is I love all of them so I feel bad for putting one of my beautiful children all the way down here.

Impossible Birds, s2e1. Solid season opener that also hurts me. I love it.

The Best Revenge is Dressing Well, s1e5. Lovely episode, I just get sad when those racist assholes are mean to Ed :(

A Damned Man, s1e2. Again this episode is great and I hate that it's so low

Pilot, s1e1. This is a super solid pilot and I love it! Sets Stede up so so well. I love watching it and marvelling at how far he's come!

Man on Fire, s2e7. This is a fine episode! I like watching it and it's got a lot to love! I just like it better when you watch it with Merman as opposed to on its own.

The Gentleman Pirate, s1e3. It's fine, just not as good as the others! My cringefail friend Stede is especially cringefail in this one but I adore Spanish Jackie's introduction here and of course Our Prayer at the end!

[jaskierx]

it would definitely just start drama and get out of hand but i wishhh the ofmd fandom could just have an anonymous ask game night or something where we could whine and moan a little (🤨) about things that don't really matter like i don't want big discourses i just wanna BITCH with the girlies... i wanna gossip :(

maybe this is exactly what we need

no more Big Discourse. no more 'ed's the real abuser' or 'izzy is a main character' or 'racism doesn't exist in ofmd at all'. it's time for Bitching With The Girlies

you thought beloved needle drop this woman's work was meh? your favourite episode is s1e2? you wanted pop pop to have more screentime? time to post your

✨Mildly Controversial Opinions✨

[alphacygni]

An OFMD fic that asks:

What if Stede had taken Izzy hostage instead?

A post S1E2 canon divergent AU in which Stede and crew take Izzy Hands hostage, and they get to know each other before Ed is in the picture.

Then Ed is in the picture, and all hell breaks loose.

Now complete, 68K

3 chapters POV Izzy, 3 chapters POV Stede, 3 chapters POV Ed.

[bringinghometherain]

Alright @thetragicallynerdy I need you (and everyone else on this site) to know how much you've DERAILED my week.

I am not much of an AU gal with my fanfic, but I generally enjoy your writing, and I saw you'd put up a 2nd installment of the OFMD Ed/Jim Remington Steele AU and I was like "ah hell let's try something new, I can trust @thetragicallynerdy."

Well, I didn't know ANYTHING about Remington Steele except that he's played by Pierce Brosnan. I CERTAINLY did not realize that Remington Steele is about a lady private investigator who makes up a fake male boss so that her agency will be taken more seriously and then conman Pierce Brosnan swindles his way into assuming the Remington Steele identity and line of work. That's WAY more interesting than some secret agent thing I had assumed the show was about.

And then THEE tragicallynerdy has this brilliant idea to cast Jim as the serious-but-perpetually-overlooked private detective and Ed as the smooth con man who semi-accidentally ends up working as a private detective. And tragicallynerdy, if you didn't already know, writes possibly the BEST Jim-centric fic I have ever seen, so like OBVIOUSLY this was going to be good. My god, what a perfect set-up.

I am kicking myself for not having read this fic earlier. Not only does our dear tragicallynerdy write excellent characterizations of Jim, and not only is this actually a GREAT alternate universe in which Jim has been placed, but my god the smut is EXCELLENT. I have read it over TWICE.

And now, as to how my week has been derailed: I am WATCHING REMINGTON STEELE. Because of YOU @thetragicallynerdy. And it is QUITE AN ENTERTAINING SHOW AND PIERCE BROSNAN IS VERY CHARMING AND STEPHANIE ZIMBALIST IS GREAT AS LAURA HOLT.

This bit especially (S1E2) got me right in the gut:

So thank you! I enjoy both your writing and your taste in 80s TV shows.

[ourflagmeanslegos]

i am not a professional lego artist and this is all just for fun! legos are a special interest of mine and i've had a great time so far of making all the blorbos and putting them in Situations.

feel free to leave requests for scenes to recreate in my ask box! i can't promise that they'll be any good—it really depends on what pieces i happen to have—but i'll try my best!

my regular ofmd sideblog is @our-flag-means-love

MEET THE CREW

DISCLAIMER regarding racial diversity

FILTER BY TAGS (coming soon!):

buttons • calico jack • ed • evelyn • fang • frenchie • ivan • izzy • jim • lucius • mary • oluwande • pete • roach • stede • swede • wee john

s1e1 • s1e2 • s1e3 • s1e4 • s1e5 • s1e6 • s1e7 • s1e8 • s1e9 • s1e10 • s2e1 • s2e2 • s2e3 • s2e4 • s2e5 • s2e6 • s2e7 • s2e8

[serious-goose]

wanna waᵍᵉʳ ᴵ ᶜᵃⁿ name a thouˢᵃⁿᵈ differᵉⁿᵗ sea creᵃᵗᵘʳᵉˢ ?

𝓾𝓶, 𝓲'𝓶 𝓷𝓸𝓽 -

sᴛᴀʀꜰɪsʜ﹗ sᴇᴀʙᴀss﹗ wⁱˡᵈ alᵃskaⁿ ˢᵃˡmon!

*loud explosion* ᴘᴜꜰꜰᴇʀ fⁱˢʰ ! sᴘɪɴʏ fⁱˢʰ !

𝓯𝓾𝓬𝓴 𝓽𝓱𝓮 𝓫𝓮𝓪𝓬𝓱 !

[ourflagmeansbts]

Source l Source (Season 1 - March & July 2022)

aaronepstein: Jim...

[sarucane]

OFMD Meta Series Master Thread

My brain works in meta series for some reason, and a couple of my individual metas have been really popular! So in case you're looking for more of my stuff, or to read a meta related to one you already liked, here're my series. I'll update them as I go.

Metas about Stories and Storytelling in OFMD

Do we just keep telling the same story forever? Meta on OFMD S1E7 "This is Happening"

(Note: writing this while on a holiday, there'll be more metas in this series once I get home and go through drafts ;) )

The Fuckery's the Thing: Finding truth through lies in "The Art of Fuckery"

True Stories, False Stories: "The Best Revenge is Dressing Well"

Stories within Stories (within more stories!): OFMD Meta Analysis of Ep 1 E4

Stede Bonnet's Stories (S2)

Ed Teach's Stories

Stede Bonnet's Stories (S1)

Storytelling in Our Flag Means Death

Character Analysis Question Metas

Why was finding Stede's letter so important for Ed?

Why did Ed think becoming a fisherman made any sense at all?

Why did Ed throw away his leathers?

Why did Ed want to "take it slow"?

Why didn't Izzy shoot Ed (then)?

Why did Ed headbutt Stede?

Why didn't Ed always protect Stede?

How did Stede leave pirating so easily?

Did Ed really want to die?

How did Stede know that Ed wanted to "watch the world burn"?

Why did Ed shoot Izzy then?

Spiral Parallels: The second season of OFMD references the first a lot, generally in ways that add a lot to the emotional depth of an original scene. Here's a heap of metas about that because I think it's cool.

53: Ed's Suicidal Spiral (S1E10, S2E1-3)

52: Weddings (S1E4/10, S1E1/2/8)

51: Pinocchio (S1E1, S2E1/8)

50: Beards and Unconditional Love

49: Whims, Self-Knowledge, and Commitment

48: Lessons of Episodes 5 (S1E4/5 & S2E5)

47: What would Jeff do? (S1E5 & S2E3/6/8)

46: Izzy Being Wrong Part 4--Izzy's redemption (in which he learns to be right) (S1E10-S2)

45: Izzy Being Wrong 3 (S1E6-9)

44: Izzy Being Wrong 2 (S1E5)

43: Stede's Fantasies Creating Reality (S1E1/3/8, S2E1/3/4/8)

42: Sandy Beards and Self-Hatred (S1E8 & S2E3)

41: Izzy and the Queer Community of the Revenge (S1E5 & S2E6)

40: Izzy Being Wrong Part 1 (S1E2-4 & S02E8)

39: Wearing Fine Things Well (S01E05 & S02E05)

38: Mad Devil Blackbeard (S01E04/10, S02E01/02)

37: Ed and Izzy in Those Scenes 2 (S01E10 & S02E08)

36: Ed and Izzy in Those Scenes 1 (S01E10 & S02E08)

35: Lighthouses (S01E04/10 &S02E06/08)

34: Manipulative Pirate Buddies 5 (S01E08 & S02E04)

33: Manipulative Pirate Buddies 4 (S01E08 & S02E04)

32: Manipulative Pirate Buddies 3 (S01E08 & S02E04)

31: Manipulative Pirate Buddies 2 (S01E08 & S02E04)

30: Manipulative Pirate Buddies 1 (S01E08 & S02E04)

29: Silk Robes and Ed's Self-Identity (S01E10 & S02E07

28: Izzy and Stede Talk Blackbeard (S01E06 & S02E03)

27: Ed's Despair (S01E10 & S02E02)

26: A Fall into Dark Water (S01E10 & S02E03)

25: Mary and Stede, Stede and Ed (S01E10 & S02E08)

24: The Character Development of a Belly Flop (S01E01 & S02E03)

23: Stede's Duels (S01E06 & S02E07)

22: Ed Leaves Stede (S01E08 & S2E07)

21: Executions of Stede Bonnet and Ned Lowe (S01E09 & S02E06)

20: Lucius and Pete (S01E6 & S02E05)

19: Ed and Izzy Sing (S01E10 & S02E06)

18: Izzy's Interventions (S01E06 & S02E01)

17: Stages of Intimacy (S01E06 & S02E06)

16: Poison and Positivity (S01E06 & S02E06)

15: The Kraken (S01E06 & S02E08)

14: Party Time 4 (S01E05 & S02E07)

13: Party Time Part 3 (S01E05 & S02E07)

12: Party Time 2 (S01E05 & S02E07)

11: Party Time Part 1 (S01E05 & S02E07)

10: Attention Crew of the Revenge, may I present… (S01E04 & S02E05)

9: Breakroom Chats (S01E04 & S02E06)

8: Ed, Izzy, and the Death of Blackbeard (S01E04 & S02E02)

7: Blackbeard and his First Mate (S01E03 & S02E01)

6: Cowards (S01E04 & S02E07)

5: The Unicorn (S01E04, S01E08, S02E04, S02E08)

4: Stede's Letters (S01E04 & S02E08)

3: Rise and Shine, Pirate (S01E04 & S02E04)

2: Stede's Grand Entrance (S01E03 & S02E08)

On the Spiral Narrative of OFMD 1: Pirates and Mermen (S01E03 & S02E03)

[serious-goose]

!!!!

[alphacygni]

This Isn't Over

a canon-divergent OFMD fic

Upset by the loss of their Navy hostages, Stede and crew take Izzy Hands hostage instead. They plan to ransom him back to his captain: funny, he didn’t mention his captain was Blackbeard…

A post-S1E2 canon-divergent AU in which Stede takes Izzy hostage, and they get to know each other before Ed is in the picture. And then Ed is in the picture, and all hell breaks loose.

Chapters: 1/9

Rating: Mature, No Archive Warnings Apply

Relationships: Gentlebeard, Stizzy, Blackhands, steddyhands

Additional Tags: AU Canon Divergence, POV Alternating by chapter, Enemies to Lovers, Competence Kink, Israel Hands has a praise kink, possessive Blackbeard, nautical knots turned romantic, steddyhands endgame obviously

source https://archiveofourown.org/works/41921148

[skygemspeaks]

in ofmd s1e2 lucius says "i know what it's like to live in disguise. after all, not all beards are actual beards, if you catch my drift" which means that he's dated at least one woman in the past which is WILD can you imagine LUCIUS with a WOMAN?

[biceratops7]

It’s a very literal interpretation of “love makes you feel young again”, like living out the fairytales you read as children

but it's the whimsy of love, isn't it?? stede's steadfast pose in episode two- sunlight hitting his bare chest, illimunating that wisp of a curl against his forehead! the sweeping arrival of ed in episode three- this divine intervention of a thing, blades clashing and hope thrumming! the full moon in episode five magnified to fantastical proportions, casting a gentle light on the budding romance! the colourful sunsets, swinging lanterns, legs happily dangling off the sides of ships, red silks, red robes, empty marmalade jars, fantastical blanket forts, wayfaring dinghies,

[ourflagmeansbts]

Source (Season 1 - March 2022)