celluloidbroomcloset
So F**king Earnest
An Avengers blog (British TV show, not the superheroes), with a hefty side of Our Flag Means Death. Feel free to leave a message, an ask, or a request!
51046 posts
Don't wanna be here? Send us removal request.
Last Seen Blogs
myriath
Cluttered brain & random thoughts
officehuddleweb
Office Huddle
hiroshimamovies
Hiroshima Mon Amour | Scarica Film Gratis
yama324
いつも心に
彩りを
Text
This is what I mean. I’m not sure that it’s “moralizing” to say that it’s not OK to start humiliating a character who has an arc about learning self-worth after a lifetime of being harmed by the kinds of bullies that that angry blorbo is. (And Stede and Ed COULD play with those dynamics within the safety of their relationship because it’s based on mutual respect and consent. There is never a point in canon where Izzy really respects Stede, and more than a few times where he violates Stede’s consent.)
Tbh, can we please just start calling this all what it is?
I've been encountering more Stizzy out there lately, and whatever, ships aren't moral indicators, don't like don't read, etc. And so I do not read!
But, like. What do Stizzy folks do with Ed?
Stede adores Ed and would never so much as consider someone else, especially not someone he has a mostly antagonistic relationship with. In-show-Izzy is so tied up with Ed that I don't even know what you'd do with him in an Ed-free environment. Do Stizzy writers kill Ed off? Make up whole new universes where Ed never existed (and in that case, why don't Stede and Izzy just hate each other forever without Ed to bring them together)?
I don't like any Izzy ships because I think everyone else on the show deserves better, but this is really the only one that makes absolutely no sense to me, not even as an enemies-to-lovers situation.
53 notes
·
View notes
Text
Definitely working off the Zaddy energy...
37 notes
·
View notes
Text
His fucking smile...
And Steed was all, "LOL, I technically own Emma Peel. She's never gonna hear the end of this."
8 notes
·
View notes
Text
Thing is...if you lift Ed's characteristics and drop them onto his white abuser, then give his boyfriend to that abuser...I just don't see how that's not just fucking racist. At least. And also a weird way of ignoring the themes of abuse and power and race in the show itself.
Fanfiction does have resonance in the real world. It does matter how writers tackle issues and how characters are presented, and we're talking about a show that is very deliberate about who does what with and to whom and very careful about its depictions of relationships, and class, race, gender, and sexuality. The concept of "ship and let ship" seems fine, but how these things are approached is not meaningless or superficial and writers/artists should be aware of that.
I mean, the statement "I just like the thought of Stede and Izzy together!" might seem reasonable, but....why, exactly? Why does that appeal, but not the canonical relationship? And if you shift over Ed's characteristics so that what you've got is really...Ed but a white dude? Well...then I have questions...
I've been encountering more Stizzy out there lately, and whatever, ships aren't moral indicators, don't like don't read, etc. And so I do not read!
But, like. What do Stizzy folks do with Ed?
Stede adores Ed and would never so much as consider someone else, especially not someone he has a mostly antagonistic relationship with. In-show-Izzy is so tied up with Ed that I don't even know what you'd do with him in an Ed-free environment. Do Stizzy writers kill Ed off? Make up whole new universes where Ed never existed (and in that case, why don't Stede and Izzy just hate each other forever without Ed to bring them together)?
I don't like any Izzy ships because I think everyone else on the show deserves better, but this is really the only one that makes absolutely no sense to me, not even as an enemies-to-lovers situation.
53 notes
·
View notes
Text
And Steed was all, "LOL, I technically own Emma Peel. She's never gonna hear the end of this."
#the avengers#john steed#emma peel#patrick macnee#gif#the smug look of a man who will never ever let his girlfriend forget this
8 notes
·
View notes
Text
I like to think that at some point Mary Allamby Bonnet will come across some random pirate-turned-artisanal-bread-maker and they'll hear her name and go:
"Oh, any relation to Stede Bonnet? Yeah, he overthrew my old captain. Made him walk the plank. Then he went on a rampage at the Republic of Pirates and fought the Pirate Queen, but they joined forces with Blackbeard and Bonnet's crew slaughtered, like, half the Royal Navy. Him and Blackbeard got married last month. Great guy, always asks about my mum."
61 notes
·
View notes
Text
Can we talk about how absolutely fucking unhinged it was for Stede to introduce himself to a woman as "Stede Bonnet, Lover of Beauty"?
Also how Anne was 100% prepped to just have an all-out orgy with him and Ed and Mary? Just, like, totally down for that? Like, probably actually very excited about the prospect?
(This might be the only multiple partner pairing with Stede and Ed I could get behind, just because the dynamics would be so off the fucking wall.)
42 notes
·
View notes
Note
Hello, this post-
'Izzy, after attempting to purchase Ed from a colonial power: You really want to lick the king's boots?
Stede, whose life literally depends on Ed signing the Act of Grace: You really don't have to do this.
Izzy tries everything he can to literally possess Ed. Stede would rather give up his own life than for Ed to be coerced.'
Did think it was weird that Izzy would say something like that when he practically just became something like a privateer, helping the English literally hunt down a pirate ship and all, but yeah being that determined to keep Ed somehow and get Stede killed totally jibes.
Stede reassuring Ed that he does indeed have a choice in the matter ❤️
For Ed's part I honestly kinda sorta maybe see this scene as his 'I'd rather be his whore than your wife' moment, if ya know what I mean? Him signing that document was like pretty much spitting straight into Izzy's face and for good reason 👍
I noticed that Ed never actually talks to Izzy until after he's returned to the ship when Stede has left him. The most he does is hit him. Izzy talks at him quite a bit, but I think at the point where Stede is about to be executed, Ed isn't hearing a word.
But Ed does know that Stede has treated him differently, that Stede has never acted like he had any claim on Ed or had wanted to possess him. And we see how often other men try to define Ed, down to what he's allowed to be called. (Hell, even when he's begging Ed to come back to life in "The Innkeeper," it's all framed as reassurance about his faithfulness. He never says that Ed can't leave him; he says "I'll never leave again.")
Izzy has absolutely agreed to serve the English, and for Ed to serve under him as a subordinate. He's not only trying to buy Ed; he's trying to subjugate him.
22 notes
·
View notes
Text
Something a number of people rely on is the fact that Ed is actually a decent person. Like, he is kind and he doesn’t actually fuck people over. CJ and Izzy both rely on that because they think it’s a weakness and they use it to manipulate him. A worse person than Ed would have killed Izzy a long time ago. A worse person wouldn’t have felt any sense of obligation to CJ.
So, yeah, a good bit of Izzy’s resentment of Ed is that Izzy “saved” Ed from the English (by purchasing him) and Ed decided that he’d rather save Stede’s life. Izzy crafted this narrative in which he sold them out, then moved in to rescue Ed and make him beholden to “Captain Hands” and Ed rejected it entirely.
And Izzy brings it up in the cabin scene: “I should have let the English kill you.” Never mind that Izzy himself was the one who brought the English in; he still would style himself as Ed’s white savior, the sole thing standing between Ed and death. His LIFE belonged Izzy, and he was insufficiently grateful for what Izzy so graciously bestowed on him. He would rather give himself to save Stede.
Ohhhhh, the layers.
76 notes
·
View notes
Text
So, yeah, a good bit of Izzy’s resentment of Ed is that Izzy “saved” Ed from the English (by purchasing him) and Ed decided that he’d rather save Stede’s life. Izzy crafted this narrative in which he sold them out, then moved in to rescue Ed and make him beholden to “Captain Hands” and Ed rejected it entirely.
And Izzy brings it up in the cabin scene: “I should have let the English kill you.” Never mind that Izzy himself was the one who brought the English in; he still would style himself as Ed’s white savior, the sole thing standing between Ed and death. His LIFE belonged Izzy, and he was insufficiently grateful for what Izzy so graciously bestowed on him. He would rather give himself to save Stede.
Ohhhhh, the layers.
76 notes
·
View notes
Text
Heeeeyyyyy, I found this one again! And I'm still right!
Our Flag Means Death is quite deft at not falling into binaries where one "world" represents freedom for all characters, and for showing how things like wealth, class, and piracy itself become prisons depending on who you are.
(Note: obviously the show deliberately avoids a good bit of the reality of the 18th century in Barbados, including slavery, and most of the historical elements of the real Stede Bonnet, Blackbeard, etc. But as OFMD proves in all its deliberate anachronisms, none of this is about historical authenticity, but using the broad strokes of history to craft a narrative about authentic human experience.)
Stede's wealth and status (and gender) allow him to become a pirate in the first place and to forge the family that he wants. But it soon becomes imprisonment, because it ties him to a society and a culture that cannot accept him (and that's fundamentally colonialist, racist, homophobic, classist, etc., all things that Stede clearly abhors). It is a world pushing him towards death by trapping him in an arranged marriage and a culture where he cannot be the man he is - he's uncertain, at the start, if he even wants to live. He's able to become a pirate because of his wealth, but he cannot remain one just because of it - and much of the show develops how the more Stede sheds trappings of wealth and status, the more authentic he becomes.
Where piracy initially represents freedom for Stede, it has come to represent imprisonment for Ed. He longs for the fine things that he got to brush up against but never be a part of. He's been trapped in the Blackbeard persona - the persona that undoubtedly once protected him and still enables him to survive. Stede holds out to him the things Ed thought he could not have - and Stede does it freely, right from the start, not as an act of bribery or condescension, but of friendship. Ed doesn't have to kill or steal to have those things; he doesn't have to be Blackbeard, but just Ed.
But the fine things are also hollow; Ed's foray into that world is ultimately degrading. And Stede, once again, reaches out to him with gentleness and the words that he needs to hear, from the man that he needs to hear them - the "fine things" already are his, and he wears them well.
In some ways, Season 1 has Stede as the fine thing that Ed wants and believes he can't have, and Ed as the freedom Stede wants and believes he can't have; the conversation in the moonlight represents the barrier breaking and both of them, simultaneously, starting to realize that they can have each other.
But class and the demands of two different worlds are working against them. Stede is captured and about to be executed and Ed demands an act of grace. At this point, Ed has been sold to Izzy and Stede has been sold to the English - their lives and bodies now belong to the two worlds that entrapped them and from which they were escaping towards one another. Stede accepts his execution as his just punishment, but then breaks down - having experienced freedom (Ed), he no longer wants to die.
But Ed refuses to be sold. Izzy's shock that Ed would rather symbolically kill Blackbeard than live without Stede is mirrored by Chauncey's shock that both Blackbeard and Stede's crew will show loyalty to him. Chauncey initially reclaims Stede from Ed - "he's from my world, not yours" - pulling Stede back into the prison of his class and towards death (both real and symbolic). But both Ed and the crew refuse to let Stede die - Ed won't move from in front of Stede, and the crew speak up for, and prove, Stede to be a "real pirate." They say that Stede belongs to their world, not Chauncey's.
Ed and Stede's first kiss happens when they're on equal footing - Stede Bonnet is "dead" and Blackbeard shaves his beard. But they're still imprisoned, and not just by the English. Ed has moved farther ahead in his search for freedom, having discarded his black beard (his piracy) that was imprisoning him, but Stede is still being pulled back into his prison by his guilt and sense of having failed as a man, and by Chauncey himself.
Of course, Stede's return home reveals that his death has actually freed his family. Where wealth and status represent a prison for Stede, they represent freedom for Mary. As a widow, she has financial independence. She has security for herself and her children. She's able to start doing the things that make her happy, and that take her out of the necessity of being "a wife" to a deeply unhappy husband and allow her to be "a person." She's able to fall in love with someone who understands her, supports her art, and loves her back.
It is by talking with Mary - perhaps the only authentic conversation they've ever had, because it's the first time Stede has given voice to his homosexuality - that Stede is finally set free. He can return to Ed on a more equal footing by turning his wealth over to those for whom it's actually freedom, his wife and family - it is both the fairytale "giving everything up for love" and the divesting of burdens to become more his authentic self. Stede hasn't actually given up anything; he's becoming himself, a man able to love Ed as he should be loved.
192 notes
·
View notes
Text
And to note: Stede has been passively suicidal the entire season, but not an hour before this he was sobbing that he didn't want to die. He wants very much to live. And he is still looking Ed in the eye and telling him that he doesn't have to do this—he's giving Ed every opportunity to back out.
Izzy, after attempting to purchase Ed from a colonial power: You really want to lick the king's boots?
Stede, whose life literally depends on Ed signing the Act of Grace: You really don't have to do this.
Izzy tries everything he can to literally possess Ed. Stede would rather give up his own life than for Ed to be coerced.
187 notes
·
View notes
Text
Honestly, unpacking the veneration of Izzy by a subset of the OFMD fandom would be goddamn fascinating if it weren't so annoying.
I've seen him referred to as a "Hays Coded" character (not sure what that means, but I think I can make a guess), and as the only truly queer character, and as a "punk" and "problematic" queer character (which is implied as making him more valuable than the "acceptable" queer ones because he's not being assimilated into straight culture? Or something?). I am convinced that there is a whole wealth of trauma and justified resentment of the straight media world that is at the root of this, but it's complicated by these baseline assumptions about romantic/sexual relationships, queer relationships, and gender identity, not to mention some unexamined racism, rape culture, and internalized homophobia.
Lord, to pull this all apart would be fascinating and make people so very angry.
33 notes
·
View notes
Text
This is how I feel about the OFMD "it's more exciting if it's not canon!" posts and the weird-ass veneration of Izzy Hands as a "Hays Coded" subtext character. I know that this comes from a place where we're still SO USED to being baited and where believing that a canon queer relationship can be healthy and happy, and still complicated and human, seems to just break people's brains, but when a show offers you real representation that is the FOCUS of the narrative, not a subplot or characters in service to the heteronormative world, you should not be sitting around deciding that it's actually not a good thing.
Tumblr shows that the best way to get queer people to like your show is to not put any explicitly queer people in it. So long as nothing is canon, they will 'Candle Cove' up a whole entire show with EXCELLENT queer representation out of nothing. If you put actual canon queer representation into it, you'll get ripped to shreds for being problematic about it.
4K notes
·
View notes
Text
why is it always the fancylad boy-king type whos the bottom. maybe his tough loyal knight who uses his body to protect and defend him and lives to serve him wants to get railed
90K notes
·
View notes
Note
Hey!
It's the anon asking about Ed in S1 and S2.
Your thoughts are what I'm seeking, so thanks for answering with such detail!
I concur with a lot this - how Ed is depressive and passively suicidal, that he's goes into the caricature of Blackbeard, and that the Revenge is a safe space that was constantly being invaded by Izzy - and that whole last part about him dying on Stede's ship with his cravat around his throat (near his pulse!) and by Stede's crew is a particularly strong ouch, like a beautifully heartbreaking ouch 💔 Maybe that's why Ed is also determined to break up the lovers? Perhaps because it's a little bit of envy and/or spite, but also what could spur them on more than to take their loved ones away, like he's thought he's lost his? Jim especially? Or maybe not that complicated?
Curious to see if any thoughts change after the watch if you'd like to answer!
Thanks again.
So I was waiting on this initially but I think the answer is: hope. Ed is trying to kill hope. Throughout we see him actually being driven by hope: that life can get better, that there’s something more than the life he lives, that people will actually treat him right. And when he meets Stede, he’s given further reason to hope. Things can get better! This isn’t the only way to live! He can have friends and he can be loved and he can love others.
People like Jack and Izzy laugh at that hope, and tell him he’s a fool to think life can ever be any other way. But even in the darkest moment, Ed still hopes. (I think that his “fuck you, Stede Bonnet” is because Stede let him really hope and then that seemed to be snatched away). Ed’s despair is still not without that little spark.
And love is a part of hope as well. Being willing to love others is an expression of hope. So pushing Jim and Archie to kill each other or kill him is another way of destroying the hope that made him think he could have more. He’s trying to prove that love dies (and remember that he’s still in love; he hasn’t been able to kill that) and that there is no reason to continue hoping that things will get better (note how often the crew keep thinking had Ed himself will get better). This is it. But Jim won’t do it, because they value life and love now - they have hope. And as hard as Ed tries to kill it, he does too. Stede is part of all of them.
(Please, if folks have other thoughts, add on! I’ve got some muddled ideas about hope runs through this show but I want to hear more.)
15 notes
·
View notes