#to take advantage of the vulnerability and his soft underbelly that hes shown him and tear him to pieces

[s0fter-sin]

thinking about ghost protecting tommy from their father just for tommy to scare him with the skull mask. how much it must have messed him up to be tormented by someone he’s protecting, someone he loves, just for him to keep protecting him anyway

[amuseoffyre]

Ended up lying awake last night thinking of Ed and Zheng as mirrors of one another.

Both of them are at the top of their game, the Pirate Queen and the Legendary Blackbeard. Both of them are brilliant tacticians, clever and astute and excellent at reading a situation and using it to their benefit.

While Ed leans into visual Fuckeries with smoke and mirrors to inspire terror, awe and confusion, Zheng inclines more towards emotional Fuckeries. Auntie said it herself - "men are so fucking emotional" and Zheng uses that over and over again to get the results she wants.

We see it in the way Zheng takes control of situations with Bartholomew, Stede and Ricky. Where she lures them into a false sense of security, assures them, encourages them, tells them what they want to hear (only Ricky is more murdery than she anticipated, which is why that one goes so horribly wrong. She thought he was just weak. She didn't know he was spiteful and brutal - the fact he's someone with a legitimate source of power is the difference here. The others are desperate or have no other choice but he has choices and his choice is to be "the worst").

It's very similar to Ed's "fear is a powerful emotion: turn your enemy's fear against him and you'll own him". He uses it to make Stede run him through and to scare people into behaving and submitting. Both of them target peoples' emotions but while Ed goes for fear, Zheng goes for the soft underbelly, finding their emotional vulnerabilities and playing on them.

At the end of 2x08, Zheng does to Ed what Ed does to Izzy in 1x04: suggesting something she assumes he wants (Ed offering the captaincy to Izzy/vengeance for Izzy), indicating that there's a way to get it (Ed's retirement and vacating the spot / joining forces), flattery ('the crew are going to need someone who really knows the ropes' / 'the Pirate Queen *and* Blackbeard'). They operate using the same playbook and he recognises it when she not only tries it on him, but refocuses it on Stede to keep him sweet as well.

It's also a demonstration of the weaponising of gender and race for both of them. Ed is fully aware of how he is perceived and has seen it printed in black and white in the British propaganda. He hates it, but when he's in his deepest despair, he uses it, dressing and acting as they assume he will to terrorise them - the nine guns, the black around his eyes, calling himself "the fucking devil" after the print of the "the devil pyrate blackbeard".

Likewise Zheng knows there's a certain expectation of women, especially in a region where the colonising forces are primarily shown to be white, and uses it to her advantage to keep people off balance, knocking the emotional legs out from other people and keeping them down before they can work out wtf has happened. The scene with Bartholomew when he goes to the white guy first, then the black guy and only then to Zheng herself and the way she uses that to take control of the scene is beautiful. She also plays it sweet and nice and gentle, friendly and self-depracating, to make herself seem less of a threat, even when she has just kicked ass in front of them and they fall for it.

Both of them have a certain kind of reputation and an earned respect, but likewise, they are both also hankering for something else. A break in the day when it's become a bit of a grind. A bit of softness when everything else about their life is hard.

The difference comes from Zheng choosing the path she's on and expanding her conquests, while Ed has been pushed onto his by circumstance since childhood. Zheng actively pursues her ambition while Ed feels strangled by the reputation and name that precedes him.

I'm so curious where they'll take their arcs if/when we get S3, when Ed has made moves to step back from that life, but will inevitably be dragged back into it, while Zheng has faced her first major loss and needs to recalibrate and change her tactics.