#suppose there's something there prob

[sarucane]

OFMD Spiral Narratives 43: Stede's Fantasies Creating Reality

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.

---

At the beginning of each season of OFMD, Stede is living in a fantasy. In the first season, it's a fantasy of being "the greatest pirate who ever lived." In the second season, it's a fantasy of romance (and a bit of uber-pirate fun). In each season, the fantasy is tempered over time by reality. Stede adapts, changes his expectations, and figures out how to keep moving forward. But a funny thing happens: over time, his fantasy ideas of reality reshape reality around him. It's not the perfect reality he once imagined and projected on the world. By the end of each season, it's a fantasy that has outgrown him, spread from him to others and enriched their lives, and the result is imperfect, hard-earned, and absolutely beautiful.

In season 1, Stede is blissfully unaware of how out of touch with reality his fantasy is. By all signs, he genuinely seems to believe his first "raid" goes well, and that he came off as a "real" pirate while stealing a plant.

And he thinks he's doing a great job as a pirate captain, even though he's totally unaware of what's going on in his crew. They don't remember his crazy shit about "talking it through," and they don't care.

They don't really get what the hell he's trying to do with his "amenities," (Pete demands to know what game he's even playing), and Stede's attempts to overlay his class-shaped fantasies onto reality lead to a "ballroom" and a library full of books the crew can't read. He doesn't think he's living in a fantasy world, but he is.

Stede's fantasy world of Season 2 is spiraled in to become more intense: he's literally in a fantasy when the season opens.

The fantasy starts with the season 1 fantasy: he's a super-pirate, complete with sword skills to match Izzy's, one-liners, vengeance for betrayals, and an earring. Then the older fantasy merges with the more recent fantasy, as references to Ed appear--followed by the man himself.

But this isn't the real Ed: this is a fantasy super-pirate version of Ed (hence the return of his beard, even though Stede last saw him completely clean-shaven). And this is a fantasy version of Ed who isn't mad at all over what Stede did last season. Love conquers all and sunset bearded* beach sex awaits. Fantasy (adolescent) romance.

And then the reality of Stede's situation attempts to suffocate him to death: Ed marrooned his crew and went off to chase madness in Stede's ship (largely as a consequence of what Stede did to him, although Izzy gets a hunk of blame for that one too), so now Stede and the gang are living in squalor.

Just like, in Season 1, Stede was lost in a fantasy that Lucius was inscribing (a literal example of Stede imposing his fantasy on reality, the idea being the this book of shit will be what future generations think of him) so it would eclipse any reality--right up until Buttons intervened with bad news.

In season 1, Stede is able to avoid reality tossing him overboard by imposing a second layer of fantasy over reality, claiming he killed Nigel so the crew will respect him.

In season 2, Stede is also using writing to avoid reality, also presenting a narrative of what's happening around him that only bears the most basic resemblance to reality (like the book Lucius wrote).

But this time, his relationship to the fantasy is more complex: it's his way of trying to cope with how quickly his life spiraled out of control; to cope with the distance between him and Ed right now; to banish the insecurity-birthed fears of his past.

But despite the fact that Stede is still struggling with the mismatch between fantasy and reality, he also demonstrates real growth in the second season.

In season 1, Stede really believed that his fantasy would come to life in front of him, as soon as he arranged it so the conditions would be right.

But in season 2, Stede knows he's creating a fantasy. He knows the fantasy that things are going well is pure copium. And that fantasy is an evolution of his "perfect pirate" fantasy from season 1, the fantasy that meant Stede's dream started with dueling and defeating Izzy, not with reaching Ed. But in season 2, Stede is able to recognize and set aside that fantasy before it takes over his life and gets him killed, like it almost did in season 1.

But the second part of Stede's season 2 fantasy is Ed, and his desperate belief that their romance will survive what's happened since they last met. Stede could have written these letters and then set them aside, to give to Ed when they meet again. Instead, even after acknowledging that the odds of Ed finding the letters are slim, even after acknowledging reality, Stede chooses a fantasy. Chooses to hope, and defies reality to hang onto that hope.

Stede's different relationships with his fantasies foreshadow his resolution this season: his fantasies about being a super-pirate captain will fade, but his romantic dream of Ed will not. And by the end of the year, of course, he'll set aside one in favor of the other.

But in the meantime, as the seasons unfold, Stede's fantasies run up into reality and lose--but not before they get him where he needs to be.

In the first season, Stede hangs onto his fantasy and hangs onto his fantasy and ends up on a Spanish warship, where he's stabbed and almost dies.

But even though riding his fantasy here was insane and misguided, it's changed his life forever--for the better. Because Stede's fantasy of being the Gentleman Pirate had a measurable effect on reality.

If Stede hadn't held onto his fantasies well past knowing "I'm not a pirate, I'm an idiot," if he hadn't imposed one layer of fantasy after another on reality, he never even would have met Ed. The odds were slim, as Stede said, of him and Ed finding each other in the first place--but Stede grabbed reality with both hands, closed his eyes, and hummed, and here they are.

And something similar happens in season 2.

If anyone had asked Ed at this point whether he wanted to see Stede--that Stede wanted to apologize--the answer would probably have been a deafeningly loud "NO." Stede's been wandering around telling anyone who will listen how crazy he is about Ed and how they're "on a break" but it'll all be fine, and if anything the obstacle will be that Ed's doing so well without him that Stede'll disrupt his life. All of this is ridiculously out of sync with reality. But it all got Stede where he needed to be. Stede believed so hard, and so long, that he was in the right place at the right time to make something fantastical really happen.

The structure gets a bit tricky here, because Stede's reckoning with his fantasy in season 1 comes before it works out for him (with Ed's arrival), but comes after it works out for him in Season 2.

In season 2, first off, just as Stede's pirate fantasy led straight to him being stabbed, his romantic fantasy leads right to him being headbutted.

Reality asserts itself, and Stede has to deal. Both times, he starts dealing with some denial.

And both times, his attempt to deny is punched in the face by reality.

In season 1, Stede's development balancing fantasy and reality is fairly straightforward--Stede believes his fantasy long enough to attract Ed, who then helps Stede not get killed by his fantasy. In season 2, Stede sits and talks to Ed and does the relationship work that lets them move forward, embracing real communication instead of romantic fantasies. He works with Izzy and learns how to bring his piracy closer to reality, to respect other people's fantasies (the cursed suit)

But here's the thing: even as Stede adjusts, sets out to become a better pirate (by taking notes, but still, he is trying) and to become a better partner, the seeds of his fantasies have been sown.

The fantasies Stede tried to impose on reality return, and they serve to reshape reality--to save him, and to give hope in darkness to the man he loves.

In season 1, Stede's fantasies of being a bloodthirsty killer and having murdered Chauncy almost get him executed--but they also get him saved. And in season 2, Stede's fantasies and resulting brief reign as a "super-pirate" may be gone, but he's still gained enough skills in pursuit of that fantasy to survive for this:

It's hardly equivalent to defeating Izzy Hands in a duel, but Stede's fantasy followed by his work has gotten him where he wants to be.

And then, in both seasons, Stede's Episode 1 fantasy appears in his Episode 8 reality. His dream of being a different kind of pirate captain is animated by his crew. His fantasy of creating a place where traumatize pirates can grow as people has come true, because other people came to want it as much as he does.

And in Season 2, going deeper as usual, the same music as in Stede's dream plays as Ed and Stede reunite. And when this fantasy becomes reality, it's more complicated than it was in Stede's dreams. But it's shared, and so it goes deeper--and it's all the more true for being earned by two imperfect men who defied the world and their own fears for each other.

And of course Stede knows. After all, his knowing made all of this happen.

[xxplastic-cubexx]

do u think either charles or erik had trouble coming to terms with their love for one another?? like religious guilt, internalized homophobia, etc.

Many such cases really … not hard to imagine them dealin with that …

[todayisafridaynight]

call him cake cause he's got layers baby

[dare-g]

I was so positive I'd get this job I had two interviews and passed a typing test for but I just got denied uuugh

[freakinator]

so the final round huh 🚬

[lesseraive]

ive had multiple conversations with ppl and always see ppl talk about how much they love interstellar. how its the best movie its their favorite and yeah its a great movie but i could NEVER rewatch it. the amount of anxiety and straight up dread that i felt while watching is so heart wrenching i never want to feel that again. also its 3 fucking hours

[neonbodyache]

“a metab day should be 2k cal” i hear you and i understand you. However. what the hell are you saying to me

[narutosux]

another thing i sit here and i think about with the punisher show is that i think a major disappointment for me is that his kids weren't more important than his wife. i think its a mistake to have him be someone more focused on relationships w/ adult women and less focused on making sure kids get to be kids and, most importantly, grow up.

i think it was just so annoying in the show that they made him flashback to his wife constantly and it was always like sexual tension and w/e bc i think..... i think its better if hes still there just looking for his daughter. wondering who she would have been. hes looking for his son, fearing what it would mean if he grew up to be just like his father.

i think for one of his grounding things to be his wife asking him to join her, or for him to be in a mental space of having sex with his wife while being tourtured, not only was the scene really fucking weird, i think it was just disappointing. bro was like deployed more often than he was at home with her?

maybe its just because im a daughter who wants the love of a father, but i also just felt as though the love he had for his daughter in daredevil S2 was more powerful than anything they attempted to portray in S1 of the punisher with his wife.

[cobaltfluff]

happy april fools' from your big brothers, dumbass (affectionate)

[microsoftoutlook]

yeah yeah yeah matt wearing shorts in the new episode (slap his bare thigh sound like a screenshot) but what's (conor mcgregor burger king ad voice) got me really fired up is the heretofore unseen leg tattoo....like who are those guys...

[truethes]

that last post gutted me like a fish so tbh i am going to talk about ku.ro and how his martyrism never ended with adam.

the interesting thing about this page is the discovery that killing the count does not come without a curse (one that puts you to sleep for more than a hundred years with no real guarantee of when you'll wake up) - while it's porminent to know that this is something tsub.aki, lil.y, jej.e and the alicei.ns are aware of, it's placement hints a rather interesting truth.

these panels are in the middle of ku.ro's memories, meaning that ku.ro was aware that his decision to kill the count would ultimately lead to some sort of curse that would make him disappear for at least 100 years at that.

when we see him in the scene where they decide the counts fate, he appears almost out of it - much more depressed and desolate than he had been when even called to attend it, because there is a chance that this scene (and it's revelations) happened between the two. while the other three voted to kill the count, the words from mrs alice.in were probably running through his head in the same tune: he was responsible, and therefore it would become his responsibility to bare the curse and this unknown fate at the same time.

it explains his reactions to both lawl.ess and gea.r more honestly: lawl.ess calls him out for being this martyr and ku.ro does not answer because he knows it's the truth. he refuses to look gea.r in the eye when he promises they can fix the cieling in the roof when he gets back because truthfully, he doesn't know if he'll ever be.

the "geez .... what a pain" carries such a heavy burden without anyone but the one's in that room knowing. the situation was worse than ku.ro thought, but if there was one thing these people knew about him the most - it's that he would always sacrifice himself in place of those he cared about in the same vein.

[atanxdoesstuff]

i drew a furina in a modern fit :3

rb >>> like

[scare-ard--sleigh]

okay so speaking of the finale i didn't have time to finish anything new but i rounded up my favorite archer fics for your viewing pleasure, all are rated E <3

💥 no light, no light / 8.8k / While Archer's in a coma, Cyril builds himself a whole new life (for better and for worse.) Messiness predictably ensues when Archer returns. / cyrling

💥 you are everything i want (cause you are everything i'm not) / 4.5k / Archer and Cyril hate each other and are stuck sharing a hotel suite. There's only one bed. / cyrling (vicious hatesex edition)

💥 part of that dream / 7k / There’s an aspect of Fabian’s life that he keeps very secret. / fabicyril, dilf fabian cinematic universe

💥 out of network / 5.9k / Takes place right after 'out of network' (13x05). Cyril has some things to say about Archer's relationship with his therapist. They talk about their feelings later that night. / cyrling (feelies hours)

💥 Prelude, Fugue and Riffs / 3.9k / Takes place before 'fugue and riffs' (04x01), though it's slightly au. Bob and Linda take Archer in after he discloses that he needs a new identity and a place to stay. Tension develops between Bob and Archer, which they happily explore. / insert bob/archer portmanteau here

💥 best friends / 4.3k / Takes place right after 11x05 ("Best Friends.") Cyril helps Archer with his post-coma dry spell. Aleister may have had a point. / cyrling (h/c edition)

💥 like a heathen clung to the homily / 5k / Sterling dresses as a priest for the gang's latest mission. Cyril has some feelings about it, which they explore. / cyrling (priest kink edition)

💥 nothing will feel the same (because nothing will be the same) / 16.5k / This takes place during and then immediately after mission: difficult (12x08.) Life after the Agency takes a toll on Archer. He finds comfort in places that are both novel and very familiar. / cyrilanarcher

[flufflecat]

Can someone explain what the narrative stakes are even supposed to be anymore in jjk. All the characters are essentially guaranteed to die, the current cast is comprised almost entirely of characters who showed up 2/3rds into the story and we're supposed to care about them for some reason, and I do not even know what the threat is supposed to be anymore. The apocalypse? Destruction of an amorphous innocent society? Like has ANYTHING been shown of "here's the regular world that apparently needs to be saved" or are we just supposed to assume "this society is just Real Life+, so you're REQUIRED to care if some guy threatens to kill all humanity, because one of those humanities may be... a child" or something. Can you spare two seconds to show anything other than some magic randos fighting, or is it just a superhero story all the time now, minus the fun. Remember when yuuji had friends.

[subaru-meteorlight]

the very incredible experience of scrolling phaidei thirst trap fanart and thinking “if anybody saw this on my phone im gonna get outed as gay” before realising that im perceived as a girl so. ??

[zackstriker]

for a layout of a new fanfic (5-10k words) that takes place over two different alternating years (2025 and 2012) would yall prefer a multi-chaptered fic with shorter (1k-ish) chapters OR a one-shot piece with clear 2012/2025 headers each time the year switches?