#but the second he realized that stede was doing this for ed
Text
🚨This is a Stede Bonnet season 2 appreciation post 🚨
There's not enough love for my guy Stede on my dash. Some of my favorite excellent Stede moments in season 2:
Apparently having so many dreams about Ed that his horny moaning is a major source of frustration amongst the crew
The way he kisses the bottle before tossing it into the sea still makes me fucking feral
Trying to do a little Ed voice while venting to the wanted poster and then immediately getting mad that Ricky saw him doing that ("can't a man have a little privacy?") even though he made no attempt to move out of a public area
"Sorry if that's a bit creepy-" "YOU ARE CREEPY"
Getting tf out of there when Ricky starts fooling around. Say what you want about Stede but he knows when to leave a situation
Just fucking bitching constantly while he's on Zheng Yi Sao's ship. He hates the wake up bell and he is overqualified for towels 😤
*about the wanted poster* They drew him to look like a ghoul :/
Trying to figure out Ed's location based on a map he's drawn himself and then getting confused about where Cuba is. On the map he's drawn himself
Circling "alive" on the wanted poster
The way he put his own pain and grief aside to prioritize keeping his crew safe, even when he thought some of these people who he cares about so much just killed the love of his life
The way he fondly, mournfully calls Ed a nut when he believes he is dead. The way he beats on Ed's chest to try and bring him back. The love and desperation of it all
"Don't you want your sammie?"
Continuing the trend of venting at length to anyone who asks him about how he's doing, only this time to Anne, who will weaponize this information
For what it's worth. I like your beard. the length
Describing Anne kissing him as "she jumped on my face!!!"
The way he runs in general. Limbs akimbo
His cunty little twirls in the red suit
The way you KNOW Ned Low is a dead man walking from the instant he plays with Ed's hair and insults him. Stede was never going to let him leave that ship alive
The way he immediately compliments the piece of twine Ed brought him on his breakfast tray when he realizes how much this means to Ed
Shouting "FOR LOVE" as a battle cry immediately after getting his boyfriend back
Zero hesitation when Ed asks him if he's having second thoughts about becoming inkeepers. Zero. He knows his priorities now and he knows his number one priority is Ed!
🚨 This has been a Stede Bonnet appreciation post 🚨
#ofmd#our flag means death#ofmd stede bonnet#he's come so far this season and i'm so proud of him! go white boy go!
1K notes
·
View notes
Text
so, hastiness of the sex and the literal and figurative distance that follows aside, something was really bugging me about the morning after. i couldn’t put my finger on it for a while, but now that i’ve sat with things, i think it’s finally clicked in my head:
stede’s reactions to ed’s sweetness. or lack thereof, really.
because goodness, they just slept together. they just bared body and soul to each other. they just survived a dangerous situation and made it to see the sun rise once again. they’ve been through so much, and faced so much adversity.
and despite all they’ve been through, ed is kind. ed is thoughtful, and soft, and sweet. he brings stede breakfast in bed. he tries to make it as pretty as he can. and then weaves beautiful gratitude and admiration in the form of his goldfish tale.
something that should make anyone sigh with fondness, really. something that make eyes flutter with hearts to match.
…and yet.
and yet stede reacts almost…casually to it all. not glittery how he was at the end of episode 5, for example—so warm and so bright and so very clearly in love. it all felt a bit more…stunted? reserved? unnecessarily curt?
and upon sitting with it as i said, i have two lines of thought, two theories.
one, it’s a sort of look into the heightening poison in his system, the good ol’ villain that is toxic masculinity. he feels the need to perform around ed, to be a man worthy of his love. he feels the need to be more than just “adequate,” more than just an “amateur.” and so he feels the need to be more masculine as a result. he’s not quite at his peak of course, not quite in the absolute thick of it—he still has moments closer to himself throughout the day. but the more poisonous seeds have been planted.
and what does that sort of masculinity often lead to? reserved emotions. stunted reactions. you’re not allowed to show vulnerability, or softness, or anything of the sort; you’re expected to be just a wall of strength and flat composure.
which, also, would align with the show: ed actively tries to combat that mentality in the morning. he straight up tells stede that the man who saved him was a fantastic, orange, sparkly mermaid. not some swashbuckling hero. not some colder, mysterious, more reserved man. but a beautiful, soft, dazzling goldfish.
and stede sort of just shrugs it off—turns it into a “well i hope we’ll both get through the violence” as opposed to realizing that ed is complimenting his true character.
but that brings me to my second theory: maybe stede reacts the way he does simply because…he’s never been loved like that before. he doesn’t know what to do with it. he’s never been brought breakfast in bed before, and now there ed goes doing so for him.
he seems to be fine when he's the one in the driver's seat. like, he's very romantic when he's dealing out the romance. but the second it's turned back on him, he can't seem to conceptualize it, even when it's coming from a man he knows he's in love with. like, ed complimenting his shirt led to a more incredulous reaction. ed saying that stede wears fine things well also led to a more incredulous reaction. and like...
"then you shaved your beard off...for me?"
he just can't grasp it. he can't grasp something so new and foreign to him quite yet. and it's of course also wrapped up in a lot of self-worth issues, because how can anyone love him when he really doesn't love himself (which i think is also the same for ed. help them. HELP THEM)
you just...can't catch a fish unless the fish wants to be caught.
#OFMD#OFMD Season 2#OFMD S2 Spoilers#Stede Bonnet#Gentlebeard#Blackbonnet#Edward Teach#Revenge Rambles#morning lol MORNING#THIS IS A LOOOONG ONE#and maybe a little disjointed please excuse#but like lol man#MAN#I AM //LOOKING//#these two really have so SO much to work through huh#continuing to light the candles for a season 3 manifestation as we speak because goodness gracious
537 notes
·
View notes
Text
okayyy things i loved about ofmd s2 today's edition is!! FRENCHIE. what a guy. first off, joel fry, i'm free on thursdays. second, love that he gets promoted to first mate, tries to decline, & IMMEDIATELY disobeys his mad new boss to try and help izzy. he reaches out to izzy a lot tbh and of course frenchie and jim together are the litmus test for how we're meant to feel about izzy.
but frenchie is affectionate with izzy! holds izzy's hand in e1 while fang hugs him, leans against his leg in e3 while they're in zheng's jail, goes back for him in e8 when ed is carrying him forward. i think he grows up a bit esp in the first few episodes & helps his crew at the end (go frenchie!), setting him up to the captaincy at the end.
now that i look back over the series with an eye on frenchie i think they do lay a groundwork for his captaincy - not only does he become ed's first mate but he also has a functioning coping mechanism (a lot has been made of the compartmentalization as frenchie not handling shit but compartmentalization is a legit mechanism and i think once the crew is all back together frenchie gets his shit together pretty fast so u know just bc we don't see frenchie having appropriate outlets doesn't mean he doesn't have any) that would allow frenchie to take a step back and make decisions without necessarily reacting from fear. this is what enables him to fend for izzy!! he can put aside the fear of ed and ask himself, what is the right thing to do? take care of the crew.
other things that slid past me in the first few watches but which i think were more significant than i realized:
in ep 3, when the revenge and the red flag meet, the crew looks to frenchie to answer stede's questions about ed.
auntie talks frenchie (authority) and fang (soft, cultural connection - this is a deft bit of manipulation that totally works btw) aboard the revenge.
frenchie delivers the verdict against ed exiling him from the ship in ep 4 - it can't come from stede, because stede is compromised where ed is concerned, and so instead frenchie is their spokesperson.
we get one final clue as to frenchie's authority and respect among the crew in the post-ep scene of ep 8, where frenchie slips out of the jail - yeah, it's partially because he's thin enough to fit through the bars, but other folks who could fit refuse. he gets the courage up and does it, and it works! he frees the crew!
so you know, i guess i didn't instantly clock frenchie as captain in the final shots of the revenge, but it also didn't ping me as weird that he was giving orders. he's grown a lot over this series. notably, oluwande doesn't take on this sort of active role this series - his arc is a little different with zheng and jim now, his priorities are changing, and he doesn't want to captain the revenge, he wants to follow zheng. just because olu would have been the obvious choice in s1e10 doesn't mean things can't change! olu didn't want to be captain then, he doesn't want to be captain now. that's okay!! the crew have found another leader amongst themselves!!
i'm really excited to see what kind of funky cool badass jacket-wearing captain he'll make in s3!!!
go frenchie!!
359 notes
·
View notes
Text
I think some of the surprise there is for Izzy’s season 2 behavior is that a lot of the the fandom (even some Izzy fans) decided to base Izzy’s characterization entirely off of episode 9 and 10 (where he was honestly also probably having a bit a of a breakdown) when he’s at his most lowest and ignoring anything before that.
So while everyone’s here, (welcome new friends!) I’ll address something’s people have been surprised by, or have said is a new development.
1. “Talking it through”….Izzy is a very open character—Wait, here me out.
He is unintentionally very expressive. If you look at his expression it flits through emotions. He’s a pretty bad liar. His feelings are very on display, and he has a lot of them.
In terms of talking, he literally chases Ed around the ship trying to start a conversation about the plan. He explains exactly why he’s upset in episode 4. He’s also mean about it because he’s angry and he’s mean when he’s angry.
(Well I’d argue he’s anxious and he’s angry when he’s anxious and he’s mean when he’s angry)
This is one phrase we never see him disagree with in the first season, but I would argue he doesn’t fully endorse it.
Specifically “as a crew.” He doesn’t like showing vulnerability….in front of people. Intimate conversations are usually private. He’s the least posturing when he’s doing 1 on 1 conversations, for an infrequently used example, look at him ranting to Spanish Jackie like a friend on the phone before the navy people come in—and then he shifts. He will talk to people about feelings—in private.
2.Speaking of episode 4—Izzy’s care for the crew.
Izzy didn’t see the Revenge Crew as his crew up until his being named captain (neither did Ed, the co-captain conversation doesn’t occur until after Izzy’s been banished). He does express care for the QA crew having been lost in his resignation rant.
They are “the crew of the Revenge.” He’s not perfect though, he does risk Ivan and Fang in the navy deal, but given the fact he’s never done this before I assume most of this previous crew behavior is more in line with the first example than the second. He’s not nice, but he at least cares about about them staying alive.
3. Izzy apologizing/taking accountability.
I think the main thing here is people taking Izzy at his most pissed 100% at his word.
In episode 4 we see Izzy do his resignation rant—and he regrets it by the end. He takes back what he said and apologizes for it. Just because Izzy says something when pissed doesn’t mean those are his day to day feelings.
In episode 6 Izzy says Ed will rue this day—and then makes sure specifically to get him out of the way so he isn’t harmed. He expresses concern over Stede doing something to Ed’s brain, not anger at him.
Izzy isn’t incapable of reflection, his pattern is he gets angry says something, reflects when calmer and then either regrets or changes his mind.
So he’s like weeks of (relatively) calmer time to reflect and realize he played a part, Izzy is incredibly impulsive when mad but our impulses aren’t always our regular logical feelings.
(Also why I don’t like when people completely take his Ep 10 rant as his whole entire world view, he’s pissed and scared and saying hurtful things on purpose, that’s not the summation of him.)
411 notes
·
View notes
Text
I'll throw away my faith, babe, just to keep you safe
Don't you know you're everything I have?
guardian angel izzy AU!
this was originally my second piece for the reverse bang, but things with that author didn't work out, so i'm gonna try to do it on my own, but i wanted to post the art.
more on this AU:
-izzy is stede's guardian angel who falls in love with him
-a Big Incident happens when stede is younger that makes izzy truly fear for his life
-he finds out ed and stede are meant to be together and ed will help keep stede alive
-can't directly interfere, so he leaves heaven and joins ed's crew to try and eventually direct ed towards stede
-izzy does catch feelings for ed but he doesn't even realize it until after ed and stede meet, he's been too focused on his goal
-assumes he'll lose them both to each other, but he's accepted this (he is also wrong)
-stizzy-centric, ed/stede, eventual steddyhands
389 notes
·
View notes
Text
This scene is so good in so many ways, but I want to talk about how it's the first time, in Season 2, that we see Ed desiring Stede and expressing that desire to him.
Through the first few episodes, we see a lot of how Stede wants Ed—we know he's having sex dreams that keep the crew awake—but most of what we see from Ed’s perspective are romantic fantasies about marriage and commitment, and despair at having lost the man he loves.
This makes sense to their characterizations—Ed is spiraling. He believes Stede has left him, perhaps never loved him. There are other things going on with the shame he's been made to feel about his own more tender emotions, his "unlovability," and how he's unable to express his grief openly to others. We also know that Ed is the more sexually experienced of the two, but that his sexuality has always been filtered through violence and pain. Ed's relationship to sex, like Stede's, is complicated by the culture that surrounds him and by the desires that he's been told are shameful.
Stede has only just fully awakened to his sexuality. He's realized that he's in love with Ed and that Ed is in love with him. His fantasies are about conquering the foe and getting Ed back; he's very much trying to put himself into the romantic hero role. He's scared that Ed won't want him anymore, but he seems very confident in his desires now.
We see the beginnings of Ed's own desires being expressed in the "captain's voice" moment, when he's obviously aroused by Stede taking a dominant stance. It's a shift from the "teenagers in love" fantasies and games of Season 1 and how they relate in "Fun and Games," with Ed beginning to both acknowledge and show that he desires Stede sexually and is safe to do so. Stede's oblivious at this point, but he's not by the time we get to the second moonlight scene.
After telling his fish story, Ed pauses to look Stede up and down: "I like that shirt."
Stede is actually a bit embarrassed, just as Ed is when Stede later takes his hand. He doesn't know how to react. When has Stede ever been told that he’s attractive? That someone else wants him physically? He's had other men tell him he’s weak and soft, and Mary was never attracted to him. But Ed is saying that openly—that he likes the way Stede looks. He finds him attractive.
Ed ties this to who Stede is as a person—he wants to hear more of the cursed suit story, and he's disappointed when Stede doesn't continue. Again, as with his physical attractions, Stede has often been mocked (including by Ed) for talking too much and telling boring stories. In effect, this is both an apology and a compliment: Ed wants to hear him talk.
Finally, Ed brings this back to the moment that had deep meaning for them both. He looks at Stede's body again and repeats the "you wear fine things well line." The exchanges that come before that give it further resonance—not just that it meant something to Ed, but that he knows what it meant to Stede, then and now. Stede gave him something then that made him feel cared for and desired, and Ed is doing the same for him.
Their relationship is not at all shallow or only based in physical attraction, but by the physical attraction is there. It’s real. There’s a carnality for them both that is very present, and it’s a part of their love for each other.
The way Ed talks about Stede is more subtle than the way Stede talks about Ed. Ed doesn’t write love letters, but he does look Stede up and down and go “you’re beautiful. You’re interesting. I love hearing you talk. I love looking at you.”
This acts as both reassurance and a movement forward in their relationship as it matures and becomes more real. Ed might not be ready to make out or have sex yet, but there's a pretty clear emphasis on yet. He tells Stede that sometimes it's better to be patient and wait—he's not rejecting Stede at all, but asking for them to move slower.
Stede's relationship to sex and desire has always been distanced, but now it's being brought to bear on the reality of his relationship with Ed. Ed's knowledge of sex has been confined to games connected to violence and pain. Both of them are now finding their way towards each other with the understanding that their relationship is indeed romantic, it is passionate, it is sexual, and it's not connected either to shame or to violence.
They want each other.
#ofmd#our flag means death#ed teach#edward teach#stede bonnet#gentlebeard#gif#ofmd meta#long post#also just any excuse to use that last gif#ofmd season 2#you wear fine things well
221 notes
·
View notes
Text
Was there ever any doubt that Our Flag Means Death Season 2 wouldn't end in thrilling fashion after taking all of us on a rollercoaster of emotions? Probably not, but show creator David Jenkins and writer John Mahone, who teamed up on the script for the finale episode, seemed distinctly driven to squeeze as many tears out of us watching as possible. With the dynamic between Stede (Rhys Darby) and Ed (Taika Waititi) seemingly fractured as of the season's penultimate installment, it was unclear how — or if — the two men might eventually reconcile, but a new threat to the Republic of Pirates, alongside Ed's realization that maybe he isn't meant to be a fisherman after all, sends the two back into each other's arms, literally.
While some characters are afforded something resembling a happy ending, with Stede and Ed deciding to try their hand at being innkeepers as they watch the Revenge sail off into the sunset under Frenchie's (Joel Fry) command, not every single crew member emerges from the finale battle unscathed, chief among them Ed's first mate and formerly ruthless right-hand Izzy Hands (Con O'Neill), whose parting words to Ed may be the very thing that the former Blackbeard needs to hear in order to fully come to terms with accepting the man inside him all along.
Ahead of the Season 2 finale premiering on Max, Collider had the opportunity to reconnect with Jenkins to discuss some of the episode's biggest moments. Over the course of the interview, which you can read below, Jenkins explains why Izzy's speech is both a eulogy for the character and a statement about the show itself, how the Season 2 premiere and finale bookend each other with those beach scenes, and why he wanted to use that Nina Simone needle drop in particular. He also discusses why the season concludes with a wedding at sea, what the finale sets up for Season 3, and more.
COLLIDER: I feel like my first question, in a completely non-serious way, is: how dare you, and my immediate follow-up is: what gives you the right?
DAVID JENKINS: I'm sorry, I'm sorry. Also, I am God to these creatures! But it was hard. It was a hard decision.
The episode kicks off with a somewhat more lighthearted moment, which is Ed realizing he's not cut out for the fishing life after all. On the heels of Stede and Ed’s big fight in the episode prior, why did it feel important to have Ed humorously have the revelation of, “This isn't what I really want after all?”
JENKINS: Well, I like the idea that Season 1 is about Stede’s midlife crisis, and Season 2 is about Ed's midlife crisis. I like that he had a little prima donna moment where he thought he could go and be a simple man, and then it's revealed that he really isn't a simple man; he’s a complicated, fussy, moody guy. No, he's not gonna be able to catch fish for a living. For him to be told that, “At your heart, you're a pirate. You have to go back and do it,” he doesn't want that to be true, but it was true.
Speaking of characters that have a revelation about themselves, Izzy's speech about piracy, about belonging to something and finding family, feels like the thesis statement of this show. Was that the intention behind it?
JENKINS: When I wrote that, I wanted to give Izzy a proper eulogy for himself. He gives a eulogy for himself, but it felt true writing it. Yeah, this is how he sees piracy, and also that's not how he would have viewed piracy in the first season. He would have viewed it as, “I'm here to dominate you, so you work for the boss.” By the end of his journey in the second season, he sees that they built him a unicorn leg, he learned to whittle, and he mentored Stede. He's learned that, actually, a pirate crew works differently than what he thought and that they are all in it together, and they do this for each other. So it felt right for Izzy’s arc, and it is kind of an overall statement about the show.
It's interesting that you call it a eulogy, because, by the time we get to the scene where we know Izzy's not going to make it, it feels like he's using his last moments for Ed more than himself. He has those final words to Ed of, “They love you for who you are. Just be Ed.” Is that the kind of the thing that Ed needs to hear in the moment — even as he's losing, arguably, someone he's known even longer than Stede and is just as close to on an emotional level?
JENKINS: Well, I like that Izzy gives that to him, and then Izzy also apologizes to him because he says that he fed his darkness and that they were both Blackbeard together — that Blackbeard wasn't just Ed, that they did it together. In a way, it's very much for Ed, that speech. The “we were Blackbeard” is claiming that he is also Blackbeard, that Blackbeard is not just Ed’s creation, and I like that for him, too, because he's worked so hard for that — and then just to say, “You can give it up.” There can never be a Blackbeard again as far as Izzy’s concerned because he's dying, and they did that together.
I wanted to ask you about the Stede/Ed reunion. We get Ed finding Stede's love letter that was written all the way at the beginning, and then also the beach fight/reunion. It's definitely a callback to the dream, but was that always the way that you wanted to bookend the season? Here's the dream and the fantasy, and then this is the real moment that we get to have?
JENKINS: It was nice. I knew that I wanted to have the Republic of Pirates at the beginning and end up with the Republic of Pirates. I think the reunion of it was a nice surprise, but it felt right. And finding the letter in a bottle — if you have a letter in a bottle, it's thrown out somewhere, it has to pop up somewhere, you have to see one of them at some point. But yeah, there's a circular nature to it, and that's why I thought it would be good to use Nina Simone at the beginning and at the end as a callback. This dream in this way did come true, and they made it come true.
When I talked to you at the beginning of the season, you mentioned the Nina Simone needle drop, but couldn't say anything about the significance of it at the time. I talked to [music supervisor] Maggie [Phillips], as well, about the needle drops throughout Season 2, and she said you always had a very clear vision for what song you wanted there. A lot of people know the original, but why did you pick Nina's cover? It strikes a different tone; there's a hopefulness to it in a lot of ways.
JENKINS: Yeah, it's wistful. There's a lovely part that sounds like church bells, which is great for the wedding part of it, and then it's just moving. I love her interpretation of it. It’s wistful, positive, and it felt like the end of the show to me. There's a size to it that, up against these images, I just was like, "Yeah, this would be really good. I want this to be in the show."
I did want to ask you about the wedding because on the heels of Izzy's death, it's bittersweet, but also, it's a sign this crew has become a family, and they can still find happy moments and reasons to celebrate. We’ve seen Black Pete and Lucius reconnect, but also reconcile and navigate through Lucius's problems and have their own, almost parallel trajectory journey as a couple alongside Stede and Ed in a way. Was that something that you always wanted to close the season on, the two of them getting hitched?
JENKINS: Yeah. We knew we wanted a matelotage in the season, which is the real term they had for marrying crew members. And yeah, they've always been in relief to Stede and Ed, and they're a little bit ahead of Stede and Ed in how much they can talk about things. So to have a bunch of family things in the season, like a funeral and a wedding, and have the parents kind of watch the kids sail away, felt right, and all of those things seem to work well together and build on each other.
Speaking of Ed and Stede watching everybody sail off, that was an outcome that was somewhat surprising, I think because where they are, you think maybe they're going to end up sailing off with everybody else.” But no, instead, it's just this sweet, lovely note of them getting to play house for a little while. What inspired that turn for them?
JENKINS: I think that they've come to the point in the relationship where they say, “Yeah, we're gonna give this a try,” and that's where the story really gets interesting. That will-they-or-won't-they is interesting to a point, but the real meat of it is always like, “Can they make the relationship, and can they do better than Anne and Mary?” That's the question that we all ask ourselves when we end up in a serious relationship is: can we make this work, and can we get through the hard times? Then they're both very damaged, and it's gonna be a challenge for them, and that's where the story gets interesting.
I'm not sure you can really tease much for a Season 3, but we talked before about how you have your vision for where you want to take this, and based on what we see at the end of Season 2, the implication is that we're going to have Stede and Ed off together, but is the plan to also continue with the other characters as well in their own places?
JENKINS: Yeah. Frenchie’s in charge of the Revenge, and I think Frenchie's Revenge would be an interesting place to work and an interesting ship to be raided by. Then I think that the Revenge means a lot to Stede, and it would be very hard for him to give it up, and he hasn't had a great track record of that. So I think the odds of them all finding each other again are quite high.
All episodes of Our Flag Means Death Season 2 are available to stream on Max.
#our flag means death season 2#ofmd s2#ofmd s2 spoilers#spoiler#our flag means death#ofmd#david jenkins#interview#collider article
215 notes
·
View notes
Text
Single layers (and no shoes) represent Ed's emotional vulnerability/openness and self reflection.
It's a common symbolism device to either have characters put on tons of layers when they are feeling vulnerable (Dean Winchester I'm looking at you) or go down to single layer when they are opening up. Ed's clothing is no exception.
Season One
The first time we see Ed in single layers is when he switches clothes with Stede. While during this whole episode, Ed is opening up, he makes altering life decisions while in Stede's outfit. First, the whole scene in the crow's nest where he takes seriously Stede's proposal to continue learning about each other's lives, and second when he lies to Izzy about planning to kill Stede.
I think the choice of black and white, the classic good and bad trope, can be read into as well. Stede is in the black leathers of Blackbeard with lighter color jewelry around his neck, showing the heaviness of the Blackbeard role and crew, while Ed is wearing a white shirt with a black cravat, showing Stede's way of piracy giving him hope while having a bit of Blackbeard's heaviness still there.
In 1x7, This is Happening, Ed goes down to one layer — the t-shirt.) Ed drops his jacket and goes down to a single layer right before Lucius rips into him about Stede's feelings for him and he stays down in these layers as they eat the snake.
Ed's emotions are bare, at the forefront. He is not only realizing Stede's feelings for him, but also letting his feelings come out.
And his shirt is purple — symbolizing Ed's love for Stede. (Sidenote: I love that blue is Stede's color and red is Ed's and they combine for a beautiful purple throughout the show.)
Both Ed and Stede are in single layers the first time they kiss. Ed confesses his love (what makes Ed happy is you) while they sit next to each other on the beach. Both of them are vulnerable, open, especially Ed. They are both terrified, figuring themselves and each other out.
Ed continues to be in single layers as he sits on the dock waiting for Stede. The color theme of purple is once again used to represent Ed's emotional state.
The infamous breakup robe. While Ed has gone back to the Revenge, trying to be just Ed, back to the crew that allowed him to be himself (all but one person that is), he stays in the breakup robe, sans shirt, most of the time.
Until he has to put the mask and persona of Blackbeard back on, he is open, and emotional in front of Lucius and then the crew.
He is also shoeless during most of these scenes. While Ed being shoeless is more prevalent in season two, I think it ties into a deeper level of self reflection.
Season Two
Ed is down to only a black shirt and pants in the grav(e)y basket.
This time the t-shirt is black — symbolizing Ed's dark headspace. But once again, it's all about his emotions and Ed really feeling them. He is self-reflecting, looking into himself and realizing what he wants in life, what he thinks of himself, and finally deciding that ultimately, he wants to live.
There is the moment in Purgatory where Ed makes a shoe and puts it on, symbolizing one foot in the grave. But by the time Ed climbs to the cliff edge, he is back down to no shoes. This symbolizes two things: 1) he is no longer one foot in the grave (foreshadowing) 2) that he is about to do more self reflecting.
The combination of one-layer and no shoes is when Ed is most open emotionally. He now realizes his own feelings about himself, and when he hits the water, he decides to fight to live. Yes, mer!Stede is part of it, his love for Stede cannot be hidden, it is out in the open, the shining beacon of light and hope.
I've talked about it before but the editing of the MerStede scene is amazing. The last shot in the water as Ed sinks down is Ed in all black, surrounded by dark waters, his feet the most prominent in the shot. This cuts immediately to Stede's feet wading into the holds water, joining Ed in both worlds.
In all of 2x5, Ed is in the rice sack (and I'd be remiss not to mention the cat collar and bell.) He starts out wearing sandals: during the talks with the crew, Stede, the door, and Lucius. While Ed is trying to make up for everything, he is not fully committed emotionally to everything.
Not until two things happen: Lucius pushes him overboard into the water — the symbolism of water as rebirth, understanding, growth is very loud this season — and in the process knocks his shoes off. While it is a comedic beat and parallel to Lucius's shoes coming off when he pushes him overboard it has a deeper meaning.
Ed fully lets himself feel and tap into his emotions — sit with himself if you will — once he talks with Fang. He learns that something he did in the past that he thought was fun was actually hurtful to the other person. He genuinely apologizes for that (the opposite of the corporate apology from earlier.)
He then continues that openness and vulnerability with Stede on the deck. Telling Stede exactly what he needs — to take it slow — and knowing that Stede won't do the exact opposite (what happened constantly last season with a certain character cause they thought it was "best") but he knows Stede will listen to and respect him. This moment shows how Ed is not only legit apologizing and realizing his actions, but letting himself be open and vulnerable again.
The last scene I want to point out is the moment before and morning after they sleep together.
The last shot we see of them that night, Ed sits on the bed, his hair down, his jacket off — down to one layer — as he looks lovingly to Stede. We can read many emotions on his face as the two of them are surrounded by all of the colors that we know to represent the couple — yellow, red, and purple.
In a parallel to the night before, the next morning Stede is shirtless but covered from the waist down, while Ed is covered. He is wearing Stede's robe, wrapped in one layer of comfort. The outer layer is blue — both Stede's color and the color of the ocean (there's that rebirth and change symbolism again) — with purple inner lining.
Both of these moments contain physical, mental, and emotional vulnerability for Ed. Ed has never been shy about explaining himself, but he is now starting to understand himself and process these emotions.
When Ed is in single layers and no shoes, it is when he is at his most vulnerable, gets to feel and express his emotions the most.
When he's Ed.
I may have missed some moments but these are the ones that stuck out to me the most. I also didn't dive into Stede here, but that could be a whole other essay.
#ofmd#our flag means death#ofmd edward teach#ofmd meta#blackbeard#emotional vulnerability#meta analysis
93 notes
·
View notes
Text
stede does not want to sit with his feelings and distress, he wants to feel something else, anything else, which is why he grabs ed and pulls him in. he's killed a man and it's flashed him back to his father and the blood on his face and the knowledge that a man's work is killing and he's a man now isn't he, become a man now to his father's own definition, he was tortured, ed was tortured, he killed a man, he is near to weeping when he grasps for ed, a drowning man seeking something to change his mood.
ed, reading this distress on his face and wanting to comfort him, realizes what he can do to help comfort stede - they can have intimacy. and it's not like he doesn't want intimacy with stede, in general. he does - he loves stede and is attracted to him and wants to reaffirm his well being as well. he nods, he kisses back, he grasps for stede just as tightly. he still has hesitations and doubts, however.
when we cut back to them, we see that ed has lost only his jacket, while stede has lost of shirt and is taking charge, closing the curtain to give them still more privacy. over stede's shoulder, we see the complex expression on ed's face, not wholly enthusiastic, but certainly not despairing or disinterested.
the sex is good, as a physical act, but it's not lovemaking. they have a good time. but in the morning, ed is already regretting it, already knowing it was the wrong choice. he fucks up making breakfast, he tries to broach conversation - but they are in entirely different spaces. this is where ed starts to realize what jackie makes him certain of in her bar: that they do not want the same things.
after all, ed is saying, let's try to avoid near death situations - and stede is saying, with an amused little dismissal, not likely in our line of work. they are at cross-purposes, they are in different head spaces. ed is still living in the discomfort of the night before, the storm on the horizon he fretted over before ned low arrived.
stede, on the other hand, has pushed it all back - has reframed it as part of their line of work, maybe sees all of last night as a bit of an adventure because look! he rescued his crew, his ed, defeated the villain who ruined everything, got to say a cool thing, and then had sexy. good sex!
ed didn't have second thoughts after they got to jackie'z. talking to jackie just made them undeniable.
#ofmd#our flag means death#ofmd s2 spoilers#gentlebeard#stede bonnet#edward teach#will the sex scene and aftermath ever leave my mind i dont know i dont think so
232 notes
·
View notes
Text
On some level, I think there's no way Stede didn't realize he was in love with Ed during s1. What really cements it for me is how he talks to Lucius in s1e8 - when Lucius asks "do we think this is more of a spat or a rupture with Blackbeard?" Stede says "I think it's done" and doesn't look surprised at all when Lucius refers to it as a "breakup." On some level, he knows what they feel for each other.
Of course, it's complicated by Stede never really having friends before Ed, either. The whole first season is just Ed having the most romantic moments of his life paired with Stede thinking "this must be what friendship is like."
Stede's understanding of his relationships in s1 is so nuanced, because this is a guy who has never felt loved at all before. He's having a community for the first time, and his first best friend is also his first real lover.
It's natural that he had to ask Mary what it's like to be in love, but I also think it makes sense that he got it as easily as he did. From the second he fully realized what he felt for Ed was love? He was all in. Fully embracing his newfound romantic hero status, referring to Ed as his "newfound love" literally the morning after that conversation.
And what I love so much about that is he never doubts that Ed loves him back. Does he worry that Ed might be mad at him (justifiably) or worry that Ed might be better off without him? Sure. But look at his lovely letter - "I know we're not through! A love like ours can't disappear in an instant!" They're in love, and once Stede fully realizes that, he never questions it.
246 notes
·
View notes
Text
god. the botched first time together is such a good way to play it. like im personally in hell and praying for a swift death of course, but i feel like.
the entire point of the show is not getting things right the first time. it's about trying again and again and realizing that it's never too late to find yourself, learn more about yourself, grow and change and discover things that are important to you. we've been talking about this all week with the differences between the season 1 "you wear fine things well" scene and this one, where the first time everything is picture perfect but doesn't go how they want, while the second one is real, grounded, imperfect, but honest. their first kiss being, again, when they were in totally different places, and not able to really connect in the way they needed to, even if it was grounded on the romantic notion of running away together (and maybe even BECAUSE the whole premise of that first kiss was so romantic--that's a lot of pressure!)
i think we're going to get something similar with them sleeping together. like, this first time was passionate, intense, romantic, etc. but notice, we don't see a genuine smile from ed the whole time. he's swept up in the moment, he wants stede, i dont think it's an issue of consent, but he KNOWS that this isn't right. that they're STILL in different emotional places and probably shouldn't be doing this here, now.
there's so much emphasis placed on firsts, just generally, in life. your first kiss, your first love, your first time having sex...getting it not just right, but perfect, ideal, the first time is so fucking important in western culture and the very premise of this show refuses to give that impulse to perfection validity. this is a show about two middle aged men who have had loves, marriages, lives, careers, families, whole histories before they met each other. two men who have, to various degrees, settled with the "first" things that came along to them in life because not to do so was a sign of failure. and all it got them was unhappiness and decimated senses of self worth
i actually really like that their first time together is the same way. i think it's setting us up for a second time that blows the doors off the first, and a lifetime of even better as they listen and learn and understand each other better. nothing ever ever has to be perfect the first time, but that doesn't mean it isn't worth it to try again and again til you get it right!!! and they each know that the other person is worth it! worth fighting for and trying again for! i think they both just need to learn that they themselves are worth it too
#ofmd 2#our flag means death#our flag means death meta#i didnt mean for this to be a whole ass thing i just couldnt stop thinking about......the parallels.....the themes........#m
181 notes
·
View notes
Text
I think I've figured out what bothers me about Izzy's death.
First of all, it serves no obvious narrative purpose, Ed and Stede stay behind to start an inn instead of getting revenge on the princeling, which makes it feel like Izzy died "for nothing".
Second, it's played, from when Izzy's shot all the way until he stumbles onto the ship, in the same manner in which the loss of his leg was treated, and we know he recovered from that one so we expected him to recover from this. There's no foreshadowing that this time might be different, no tricks that could have made us think it's more serious than previous wounds, and so it comes as an unexpected blow. I know that that's probably the point of it, of death being "unexpected" and "always striking when you least expect it", but you know what? Miss me with that bullshit. After the way Game of Thrones and Rowling have mocked fans who dared expect things like continuity and proper foreshadowing in storytelling, I'm done watching stories where the writers go against what they've foreshadowed just for the shock value. And I know that OFMD has been extremely good at storytelling so far, which is why this has disappointed me so much.
For that matter, speaking of storytelling, on this show, people have been repeatedly stabbed through the chest and strangled within an inch of their lives and shot through the leg and had their heads literally bashed in, and survived all that, and now, all of a sudden, now the show adheres to actual physics instead of operating on Vibes?
And then there's the fact that when you kill a character, you lose any potential for future character arcs and development, and Izzy still had so much potential! And now we've lost it, and for what? Again, it doesn't exactly drive Ed and Stede to do anything differently, they're still going to run an inn the way they would have if Izzy had lived.
All of that is to say that it feels like a betrayal from the show and its particular brand of storytelling to have killed Izzy in the manner that they did.
If they wanted the inn arc to go ahead, they could have had Izzy and Ed realize that they can be apart so that Izzy can keep being the pirate he wants to keep being and so Ed can retire, not... this.
#ofmd#our flag means death#ofmd s2#ofmd spoilers#ofmd s2 spoilers#izzy hands#edward teach#ofmd season 2#edizzy#ofmd meta#storytelling#character arcs#character development
175 notes
·
View notes
Text
I have been trying to write this on and off for a while. I figure the second anniversary of the show is as fine an occasion as any to shove it out into the world. It is not everything I want to say about it, but I think the important bits are there.
It is a human impulse to be seen. To be told, through art, you are not alone. It is universal, but of special importance to people who are not well-represented in media (i.e. everybody who isn’t cis, white, able-bodied, skinny, and conventionally attractive).
This show speaks to me as a queer person who figured things out later than most of my peers. (Not quite as late as Ed and Stede but not terribly far off either.) It’s not super common to see queer media address this, and I didn’t realize how much I needed that reassurance until I got it. That it’s okay to find these things any time in your life. To be told “A queer is never late, they’re always fashionably on-time.”
They’re not my first canon queer ship. But they are the first ones where I knew it was true from the get-go. Multiple people assured me this was the case. And yet, I still didn’t believe it until I saw it with my own two eyes. This experience is not unusual for fans around my age.
After I finished up season one, I laid in bed and cried. It’s not something I thought would affect me so much, but it feels like a weight I’d carried so long I didn’t realize it wasn’t supposed to be part of me is gone.
One of the reasons people unfamiliar with the fandom seem to think it’s absolutely crazy (which some of it is, to be fair, but every fandom has that) is the way fans of the show get extremely super intense about it. It took me a few weeks to realize this is a trauma response. I’m not even sure “trauma” is the right word. It doesn’t interfere with my day to day function, but it lasted for years. Decades. So it was definitely something that fucked me up. And in the way you can only start to see something as you’re moving past it, I’ve spent a lot of time trying to get my head around this. (I don’t know if I have anything to say about it yet. Maybe I need more time to sit with it.)
I know this sounds contrary, but I’m really glad David Jenkins does not come from fandom. Sometimes it’s good to know where a line is, and others it’s better to not know there’s a line at all. And this is, sad to say, remarkable to somebody who has had to deal with this for so long. With so many writers and showrunners aware of the line, and getting right up next to it, but never crossing it.
Imagine doing a show with a queer romance and not understanding why this was received with such emotion and fervor, because it’s just two people in love right? What blissful ignorance that this needed to be explained to him! And then he listened to people’s experiences with queerbaiting, and went “Oh my god you thought I was going to do WHAT?” And then you go “Huh. That is really fucked up.”
The problem with being told something enough, even though you know it’s wrong, is you start to believe it regardless. All the excuses and hedging. It’s so very difficult to do they tell us, when we hear from queer creators how they had fight tooth and nail to make it as gay as it already was.
And then comes Jenks, just yeeting it out there: majority queer and (not and/or. and) POC cast, an openly non-binary person playing an openly non-binary character. The ability to not have to make one queer (and/or) POC character speak for everybody, so you can inject a tiny bit of nuance into the conversation. The way you can tell more kinds of stories, like the one where the smol angry internalized homophobe comes into his own with the support of a queer community, even though he was a giant fucking asshole to them before.
So many people were like “You can just DO that? It’s really that easy?” And wasn’t that a fucking Situation, to have that curtain pulled aside. What next? Majority POC casts with stories about POC written by POC? Absolute madness. (Please please watch The Brothers Sun on Netflix. It’s so fucking good.)
And people will scoff and say “Of course a cishet(?) white man would be able to get this pushed through.” But do they usually? The thing I don’t think people understand about allies is they use their privilege to wedge the door open. You still have to do the work to get through, but at least you have a place to start. And it really fucking matters.
The press keeps trying to tell me The Completely Made-Up Adventures of Dick Turpin is the OFMD substitute we need while we float in the gravy basket. I’m sure it’s a perfectly fine show, but I don’t know who has watched OFMD and decided the itch we needed scratched was anachronistic historical comedy.
I want stories written by people that reflect their lived experiences, with actors and crew committed to bringing that to life. And I would like streamers and studios to commit to giving them a chance, and marketing them properly so people know they exist.
You can keep people satisficed with scraps for only so long. At some point, somebody is going to give them a whole seven course dinner and people will wonder why they’ve been putting up with starving this entire time.
132 notes
·
View notes
Text
Rewatching OFMD (as one does, obviously) and I realized why Ed identifies so quickly with Frenchie, and it's not just at the party.
At the very beginning of the episode when he's hanging out with Stede, after trying to feel fancy and feeling like he'll never really get to (ie, why he was remembering his mother telling him that fine things just aren't for people like them), Frenchie walks in.
And when Frenchie walks in, he's wearing one of the fancy Frenchmen's suits, and he says," What do you think? A couple of the suits from the fancy ship didn’t have blood on them and weren’t burned up, so I nabbed ‘em."
He saw a black man walk in, and just decide to put on finery. He didn't listen to the people who would've told him that he didn't get to have it, he didn't listen to the people who would've told him that stealing posh clothes was a waste. He instead saw Frenchie step into the room, doing what he wanted and taking some finery for himself, and ask the two of them what they thought of his outfit like it was just the most casual thing. Even though he wasn't even apart of Stede's aristocratic lessons, he just chose to without fear of judgement.
Then he continues," And I found this. It’s an invitation to some kind of fancy party for hoity-toity people."
He's asking them if they want to do anything with this knowledge.
If they wanted to attend, for no reason really.
Ed got to see, for the first time in his whole life, someone like him give themselves a taste of the fine life, just because they wanted to try it, for a bit of fun. And he offered a ticket for Ed to try a bit of it himself, without any care to the whole world that told him that he didn't deserve it.
And then afterwards, Frenchie was there for him when he ran out of the dinner party, asking if he was okay, understanding the sort of thing he was feeling in a different way than Stede could, and in that finale playing a song with him so he can let his feelings out.
All that was important, too. But I think it was that first second, when he walked in the door clothed in fine fabrics with a smile on his face, that Ed really identified and attached to Frenchie.
More OFMD
#I be thinking thoughts when I watch this goddamn show#and then i cry my silly little tears#Bc it's that moment when Frenchie walks in thet Ed isn't totally alone in what he wants#He isn't the only pirate/POC who wants to experience the finer things#Frenchie walks in#With Confidence#Having Fun#Smiling#And he gets warmly offered the choice to go to the party#Even though Stede already wants to throw it away#So he takes a leap and asks why not go and see what it's about anyway#And they don't end up having that great of an evening#But he got to just decide to try it anyway#And I think that's really cool#Our Flag Means Death#Our Flag Means Death Spoilers#ofmd#ofmd spoilers#hbo#Edward Teach#Blackbeard#Frenchie#Frenchie OFMD#Stede Bonnet#Gentleman Pirate#Character Analysis#Our Flag Means Death Analysis#Our Flag Means Death Meta
2K notes
·
View notes
Text
I want to talk about Ed's "I loved you, best I could" and Lucius's "maybe the time he spent with you is the best it's ever going to get for him."
We see how clearly Ed fears he's unlovable, but there's another facet that is just as important to how he responds and the way in which he tries to push people, including Stede, away: the fear that he's unable to love someone else in a way that doesn't hurt them.
From what we know of Ed's past, we see that he's not had many real, nontoxic friendships—"pirates don't have friends"—and though he considers Calico Jack and Annie and Mary friends of a certain type, the damage they do each other as a matter of course means that he's never been safe with them. Izzy may be one of the first people in Ed's adult life to even try to say that he loves him—and even that is qualified: "I...have love for you." That love is tainted and toxic, by piracy itself, and by the abuse that Izzy has tried to claim as love. None of the people in Ed's pirate life prior to the Revenge have been able to unequivocally say that they love him, and I think we can infer that he's not been able to say that he loves them. The closest he manages what he says to Izzy, after Izzy is supposedly dead: "I loved you, best I could."
And it's this line that indicates, more than anything, that Ed may believe at this point (his lowest point, where he is already dedicated to killing himself) that he's actually incapable of loving someone properly. He has indeed experienced real friendship and love, not just with Stede but with the crew. It seems clear that he thinks he's done something, or been something, to make Stede leave him, and he's trying very hard to make the crew hate and fear him enough to kill him. His other friends that we've met—Jack and Izzy—are dead (or he thinks they are). He's truly isolated, and it seems he believes that that isolation is entirely because of who he is, not just being unlovable, but being a "bad person" unable to love someone else.
We see this at work already in Season 1, in Ed's inability to do anything to stop Izzy from harming Stede. Stede is related to Ed's mother, the other person in Ed's life whom he loved without toxicity. Ed's murder of his father was to protect his mother and himself, but it ultimately (it's implied) leads to him running away to become a pirate. Having had a person who loved him, he fled to avoid his violence poisoning her further. The duel between Stede and Izzy repeats the process, but Ed is unable, here, to stop the abusive father from harming the person Ed truly loves and who has shown him genuine love. Ed's love for Stede brings Stede into danger and nearly gets him killed.
The second time, Ed brings Calico Jack onto Stede's ship. Ed's reason for leaving the Revenge with Jack is his fear that Stede will eventually see him for what he is, and reject him: "This is who I am, Stede. Can you see me now? You were always going to realize what I am." This comes after Jack has killed Karl and harmed other people in Stede's crew. The undercurrent is that Ed himself has brought violence on the people that he loves, purely by his association with Jack. Again, Ed's love for others is not just a weakness in the eyes of Jack and other pirates, but a danger to the very people he wants to protect.
Which is why Stede's rejection of Lucius's statement—that the time Ed has already spent with Stede is the best it will ever be for him—and his continued hope and expression of love for Ed is so important, not just to Stede's characterization, but to Ed's. Because it isn't just that Stede loves Ed, but Stede's conviction that Ed loves Stede. Stede firmly believes that Ed is capable of love, that the love they experienced wasn't a whim or something that could easily be discarded ("a love like ours doesn't vanish in an instant"), and that Stede himself is not going to accept the idea that Ed's love for him in Season 1 is the best it's going to get. He knows that Ed is capable of love, and that Ed's love is not poisonous or dangerous.
Season 2 isn't just about Ed learning that he's loved, but also about him learning that he is indeed capable of love. He tries to help heal the damage that he has done, not just as Kraken, but as Blackbeard. He tries to give the crew joy, what there is within his power, and to express his love for them through turning "poison into positivity." He learns to love Stede better by becoming a better man himself. Most of all, though, he begins to understand that he is not poisonous but has been poisoned, and he has to let the poison bleed out.
I have more to say about how this works in Season 2, but that's enough for now.
Side note: I do think this is another narrative reason why Izzy has to die. He is one of the last connections to the poisonous past, a major player in Ed's inability to recognize his own capacity for love, and a stumbling block to Ed being able to both accept Stede and the crew's love, and to understanding that his love is not the cause of violence.
#ofmd#our flag means death#edward teach#ed teach#stede bonnet#ofmd meta#ofmd season 1#ofmd season 2#izzy hands#calico jack#revenge crew#the crew of the revenge#ofmd s2#gif
121 notes
·
View notes
Text
What feels most insulting about being told that Izzys death made sense or was an appropriate end to his arc is the fact that it essentially disregards every reason we are upset about how his character was portrayed and sums it up to us just being upset that our favorite character died.
Because it's not that. I mean yeah, we are upset he died, but specifically it's not only how he died, but how the show handled it. Izzy was not just some lovesick puppy pining for Ed, and he was not some hard ass asshole forcing Ed to do the things he did. He was a survivor. A survivor of Ed's abuse, of betrayal, of love that morphed into a desperate attachment to a man who gave him so little when Izzy was the very thing keeping his world still spinning.
Izzy was important to people because of this, and so much more. He represented healing, self acceptance, growth, love. To see a character who was beaten down and thrown away for so long get to see a glimpse of what it was like to actually be his own person, to be cared about and see family in someone who didn't hurt him, only for him to be killed by something that every other character in the show never would have been killed from. Every other character time and time again got to survive what would have logically killed them, and yet Izzy dies from being shot in a scene you only see for a few seconds. Because it's clear to me that the whole time, he was always meant to die. And that's the problem.
The way Izzy's place is Ed's life was written almost paints him as being at fault for his abuse. He tells Ed he "fed his darkness" as if that puts him at fault for Ed literally physically abusing and mutilating him. He is treated as nothing more than a plot device to further Ed's path to happiness. A survivor of abuse dies so his abuser can move forward and heal. Izzy sits rotting in the dirt under the very home Ed gives Stede the love Izzy so desperately wanted.
I also think boiling Izzy's character down to him having an unrequited love for Edward brushes over the reason Ed is so important to him. Izzy forged his entire self around Blackbeard. He was nothing without him. He loved him and saw him as family and Edward didn't give him the time of day. He sacrificed so much of himself so Blackbeard could thrive, and what did he get in return? When Izzy realized he saw the crew as family, that was a very big moment for his character. He finally realizes that he is loved. And then at his funeral, we get all these reactions to his death from the crew that are just so out of character. The whole season was about how the crew was becoming accepting and loving of izzy and literally protecting him and then when he dies they just, what go off and seemingly forget about him?
Izzy deserved better. And we aren't mad because he died, we are mad because such an important piece of representation for so many people was so blatantly thrown away and disrespected.
#ofmd#our flag means death#ofmd s2#ofmd season 2#ofmd spoilers#izzy hands#con o'neill#edward teach#blackbeard#taika waititi#my posts#izzy deserved better
124 notes
·
View notes
Last Seen Blogs
