#one day I'll learn to stay on topic in a post I promise ahhhhhh

[teeny-tiny-revenge]

I love those messy relationships, because yeah, real relationships are like that. It's hardly ever just sunshine and rainbows and hardly ever just terrible things, either. I wrote something a while ago about how Izzy's (and to a lesser degree Jack's) reaction to Ed embracing parts of himself he used to hide reminds me of family reactions you can get for coming out as queer. There's this thing where someone has like a headcanon about you made up, based on old data, or limited data, or wildly ignoring all the signs that were always there, and they love this person they think you are, and then they are mad at you when you say you are someone else.

You can love someone and have lots of history and familiarity with them, but they're not good for you and your relationship isn't a positive influence in your life anymore. OFMD is full of those. Ed and Izzy. Ed and Jack. Jim and Nana. Why does nobody speak about Jim and Nana? Jim and Nana is super toxic!

I think it flies a bit under the radar because Nana is cool about Jim's gender. She immediately accepts the new name and pronouns, which, yeah, lots of brownie points, but once you look past that, also Nana has a headcanon about Jim and the person they're supposed to be (the righteous avenger of their family) and reacts with rejection and disappointment when Jim fails to perform this assigned role. (It's just a different context; details aside this is a very similar interaction to Izzy's rejection of Ed's new chosen path and presentation. Izzy wants leather wearing Blackbeard who is tough and has no feelings, not someone wearing a silk gown and openly expressing his emotions, and Nana wants a ruthless avenger who'll kill all the Siete Gallos, instead of a person who killed one of them and then decided to do something better with themselves. There's a definite parallel here IMO.)

And what's so messy about it is that I'm sure Nana loves Jim (and Jim loves Nana, she's the only family they have after all - toxic and complicated but not allowed to fail as you said). Nana also thought she was doing what's best for Jim. She took them in as a child, she cared for them, and for her that care meant to prepare them for a harsh life and for a life where they'd want to have their revenge. Just, Jim didn't grow up really wanting it. They kinda do, but they also kinda don't. Once they set out on their path for revenge, they end up meeting Oluwande instead, they become a pirate, they make new friends, and they put the revenge plot on the backburner. And then Nana corners them about their progress and basically tells them that their entire purpose in life is their revenge, which they sort of abandoned a bit, and oh my god op I'm sorry I didn't even mean to be this long but it really is a big fat parallel to Ed and Izzy all over, isn't it? Nana tells them off for straying from the expected path, Jim relents, leaving on their own, leaving Oluwande and their new friends behind to go back to avenging, until they realise that's a toxic way to live and that they were happy before, so they go back. (And Ed just isn't there yet, because Ed end of the season is where Jim was end of episode 7.)

Anyway, I have completely rambled this thing off course by now, sorry again, but, parallels: also Izzy is probably convinced what he does is best for Ed. He doesn't stop to consider how Ed might be feeling or what Ed wants, because Izzy only sees his headcanon version of Ed, but in a twisted toxic way, he means well! (Like Nana!)

Another messy relationship: Stede and Mary. They don't love each other. They would have never chosen each other, but they got kinda used to coexisting, they didn't want to see the other unhappy. Mary was happy Stede was gone, rightfully mad at him when he returned and acted the way he did, she decided to kill him, but not because she hated him, you know? And once they talked it through, she's happy for him. They're friends, they have children together, they don't get along, it's a bit of all of that. I love Mary and Stede because it's one of those messy relationships that's absolutely toxic in some parts but it has a happy ending. Gives you some hope that for all the other complicated, messy relationships there's hope there, too, that they can find a dynamic that balances out the good and difficult parts.

i think one of the things about ofmd that's so great is how it really pushes us to think about characters and relationships in ways that people maybe don't really think about too often

like, here's the thing: edward teach was not always so exhausted and tired and done with the life of being a pirate. he found enjoyment in aspects of it, he sought life in it.

i think we can definitely argue that he was not a happy person, when he was at his peak as blackbeard. i think we can safely say that blackbeard, an identity that is his but is also very much a shield, a way to stay on top, to never be vulnerable enough to be hurt again, is not someone who was happy. someone who enjoyed good times! loved a good fuckery! caroused and drank and loved a good maim, yes. a man who was happy, and comfortable, and lived in his skin? no.

he was happier than he was at the start of the show, at one point, yes. but the things ed hates about piracy were always there and things he hated they were just outnumbered by things he still liked.

in the same way, ed likes jack, hangs out with jack, pals around with him, drinks and laughs with him but also very clearly doesn't think of him as a friend (and jack agrees! jack does not see ed as a friend!)

there is a thing about life where you can meet people and be close to them and like them and even owe them and yet you are not friends, not enemies, more than acquaintances, you love each other in a way and yet you don't. you are something, but you can't define it because well, what does it matter? you know them.

that's what ofmd captures well with jack, and with izzy, and with ed. these are characters who know each other to varying extents, knew each other, cared for one another in varying configurations, but do not consider themselves friends or loved ones, there's just. a bond. a rotting one, poisoning both sides, not yet allowed to fall.

it's complicated. it's murky and messy. and i love that, because that's life, that's human connections. sometimes the simple words don't fit.