This isn't the face of someone who is sad or even unsure of what he wants. This is Ed being vulvenerable. His face is open and loving. This is the man who's had a lot of sex in his life but none of it had meant anything and now he gets to have sex that means EVERYTHING. This is the face of a man in love coming undone.

And also. This isn't the man turned on by violence deciding to fuck Ed on a meaningless whim. His eye are glistening from tears and there's so much going on but his eyes are filled with unbearable amont of LOVE. Yes he just killed a man, and there's probably adrenaline rushing through his veins, but this moment has been long time coming. And it isn't motivated by violence, it's motivated on Stede holding onto what's real and good in his life, and that's Ed. He doesn't know who he is, a gentleman or a pirate, the only thing he knows is that he loves Ed. Wants Ed. Needs Ed.

And I want to add that it's not uncommon at all that death and violence act as complex motivators for sex. Funeral sex is a concept - people wanting to celebrate being alive when confronted with their own mortality. Baby boomers originate from people historically fucking like rabbits after ww2. So yeah, I think the scene was realistic, consensual, and amazingly nuanced. I could not have hoped for a better first time for these two.

Let's talk about the genius of music in OFMD once again, today in s2e1:

Strawberry Letter 23 begins as Ed appears as "the Devil" on board the wedding vessel. We know the scene well. His crew slays the wedding party in a seemingly heartless fashion, followed by a short montage of previous violent raids.

But let's back up to what comes before this scene:

We see Stede on the beach throwing a letter in a bottle out to sea, all while we hear Stede narrating this letter aloud. It's very clearly a love letter, and Stede says he's sent quite a few letters before this one.

This scene immediately moves into the shot of Blackbeard's new flag with the broken heart, which clearly communicates a message of heartbreak.

Followed by Ed's new tattoo, also very clearly communicating a message (a letter in its own right).

We see the exchange return to Stede, where he kisses the damn bottle as he throws it out to the ocean.

Then we move to the wedding boat, where a priest is reading aloud part of the wedding ceremony. That's when Blackbeard's crew jumps on with an OBJECTION.

As Ed says, "Demon? I'm the fuckin' devil" - Strawberry Letter 23 begins playing.

It's interesting, because in the full song, the lyrics that should indicate the name of the song are Strawberry Letter 22 - NOT 23. So I went on ye ole Wikipedia to see what's up with that:

It's about a couple exchanging love letters.

Ed's wedding massacre is his letter number 23, in response to Stede's letter.

The lyrics are so spot on. David Jenkins, how do you do it?!

“Hello my love, I heard a kiss from you.

Ed is thinking back to the first kiss he and Stede shared on the beach - and this is coupled with the kiss Stede gave the message in the bottle before he threw it. This lyric plays as Ed picks up the Stede cake topper.

Red magic satin playing near, too.

Ed is thinking back to the fine things fabric he carries for so long, the fabric Stede so tenderly folded and placed in Ed's pocket. This lyric plays as a different red magic satin - blood - sprays violently as people are killed.

All through the morning rain I gaze, the sun doesn’t shine. / Rainbows and waterfalls run through my mind.”

This is breakup Ed at his peak. Sadness, depression, tears flowing. But also the moments where Ed allows himself to enjoy softness and fine things. We see Ed licking icing from his knife in a moment of peace amid the chaos around him.

Ed's letter number 23 is such a stark contrast to Stede's letter number 22. It's heartbreaking and oh so brilliant.

I remain indebted to David Jenkins. The gift of this show is tremendous!!!

listen, I know in the context of sailors that a swallow tattoo represents having travelled 5,000 nautical miles… but… currently losing my last remaining sanity

Just a small thing I noticed while being totally normal about the gay pirates:

I've watched The Kiss™ way too many times a normal number of times and my favorite moment is the series of microexpressions Rhys cycles through while Stede is reacting to "what makes Ed happy is...you" because it's just so lovely and masterfully done. While trying to find a good gif of just that moment (no luck so far!) I noticed something that happens while Ed is pulling Stede in.

Stede, darling honey light of my life, clueless useless "oblivious" gay that he is, tilts his head a bit and leans into the kiss too. Before it's even started. On some level he registers that This Is Happening in time to react in a positive way, even before their lips have touched.

Our boy is a creature of instinct, and when he acts on his emotional instincts without thinking too much he knocks so much shit out of the park. Instinct is part of why "you wear fine things well" hits as hard as it does. Instinct is how he can woo Ed as easily as he does. Instinct is how they were able connect so deeply so quickly, because his instinct is to be open and non-judgemental to this beautiful man waiting beside his sickbed and asking about fine fabrics.

Stede's thoughts are still too clouded by his trauma and self-loathing to be useful for him, and he can end up thinking too much about what he "should" do or what other people do. Thinking is part of the reason he's so quick to believe Chauncey in the woods. Thinking means succumbing to beliefs about his perceived worthlessness, which leads to his biggest mistakes. Thinking tells him to adjust what he says about Blackbeard in that tavern of townies, when his instinct was to say how "absolutely lovely" Ed is.

Obviously man cannot live by instinct alone, like he definitely should have thought for a minute about making a deal with Geraldo to fence the hostage. Stede needs to learn to balance the two and when to listen to either/both of them. But I was just so excited to see him leaning in the way he does because it underlines a feeling I've had for a minute, which is that Stede's instincts are those of someone crushing and then falling in love, and that never wavers.

He lacks the context and vocabulary to identify what's going on without outside intervention, but he also deeply gets it in a way that's extremely queer and that I hope starts showing up more in the fanon. I do a little happy dance every time I see this in people's fics and I just need so many more of them! Give me more eager Stede who is Ready To Go once he's given the right context for his feelings about Ed!

Listen, I know we're all talking about the beautiful editing in this scene right now. However, and that might be just a guess, I think Ed is killing someone here.

First off, look at the background. They aren't fighting anymore. This isn't an action packed raid scene where everybody is fighting against one another amidst the chaos of bloodshed. It's quiet, normal even. The fighting is over, and everyone is either checking their newly acquired loot or looking at Ed, who seems to be at the center of ship. Now see where the gun is pointed - it's down,

almost as if he is shooting someone who's kneeling.

That's not a warning shot and neither is it a fight, that's an execution. Ed is killing again (by his definition of killing I mean)

And I DEFINITELY am not implying that he has become super violent and angry or something like that (which I think is a very stupid, racist take and not in line with his previous characterization at all, but that's a whole other post), tbh I think it's exactly the opposite. He isn't angry at all, that's what's worrying me. There is a stone cold dead calm in him. I think he has given up.

That is, by letting go of one of his core principles (not killing), and therefore becoming the Kraken - he is personafying himself as his father's killer, trying to become the monster other people and himself believe him to be. I mean, LOOK AT HIS CLOTHES!!

He is wearing nine guns and is very much looking like a vampire clown. He's dressing up as a caricature of himself. He is doing all of that because - deep down - he thinks that's why Stede left him. Because when he finally laid his soul bare in front of him, Stede rejected him (so that surely must mean that he saw something he did not like in there). To Ed, Stede finally "sees him now" as the monster he really is. A monster who isn't deserving of fine things, or luxuries such as not killing. So when he becomes the Kraken, after Izzy does That Whole Thing, he gives up trying to fight for them.

Thing is, the Kraken is not really killing other people, at least narratively speaking (sorry Lucius). Killing is a tool he is using to let go of the part of him that longs for Stede, love and all the fine things that he can't have - and the part of him that is just so, so hurt by not having them. The Kraken isn't killing others, it's killing Ed.

So it's no wonder that we see him kill at a wedding of all places. It's the embodyiment of everything he has ever wanted and lost so far. Extravagant dresses, good food, fancy stuff and, most of all - love.

“Ed and Stede made a bad decision because they were just too horny for each other to stop themselves”

That wasn’t it at all, though. Their impromptu sex wasn’t a drunken, sloppy, “oops we started kissing and now I’m going to rip your clothes off” decision

It was desperation of a different kind. I think we’ll get fun horny scenes in the future. I want to give this scene the weight it deserves by not reducing it to “their erections couldn’t say no”

Stede’s pain couldn’t say no. Ed’s desire to comfort Stede drove him to say yes.

It was a bad decision, made even more heartbreaking by the fact that their motivations can’t be written off as acting like two horny teenage boys. That decision was made out of decades of trauma for them both.

To the people who say that Ed never harmed the Kraken Crew:

I am genuinely so confused by this take. First of all: Ed is shown to be violent even if that's not directed at the Kraken Crew specifically. He threw Lucius overboard and thinks he killed him in cold blood and he tortures Izzy by mutilating him. Even IF he never physically harms Jim, Frenchie, Fang, or Ivan directly, he is still behaving violently. He is killing people and taking out his depression on both Izzy and the innocent people (ish, they're still naval officers) that they are raiding.

Even if Izzy (and Lucius, remember) are the only direct victims of his physical abuse... they are still victims of that abuse? No matter what Izzy has done, be it threaten him, verbally lashing out at him, or even abuse of his own if you interpret it that way justifies how Ed physically takes him apart and makes him EAT parts of himself. That is beyond abuse. That is both physical and mental literal torture

And remember, Lucius was entirely innocent. He was actively trying to HELP Ed and that did not stop Ed from behaving violently towards him.

If you say since we see no signs of Ed abusing the Kraken Crew, I will remind you that the way Ed led the Kraken Crew got Ivan killed. Ivan DIED due to decisions made during Ed's time as captain of The Revenge, likely due to the constant raids making them exhausted and weakening their ability to fight.

We don't know enough about Ivan's death for me to really say that for certain, so it's speculation. But if Ivan died during a raid, the responsibility still falls on Ed's shoulders. He is their captain, it is his job to protect and defend his crew and we are explicitly told that he did not bat an eye when Ivan went down. We even see Ed kill a member of his own crew during his suicide attempt. A crew member falls overboard and we see Fang reach for them. This is directly caused by Ed sailing into that storm.

He points a gun at his crewmates and they have NO IDEA if he's going to shoot him. They're clearly afraid that he might. Fang starts crying and they all tense up. Frenchie expects Ed to kill him when he finds out that he's been hiding Izzy. They are afraid of their captain, they believe he does not care about their lives and that he could kill them at any moment.

This is abuse. I genuinely do not care if it is physical towards anyone but Izzy or not, it is abuse plain and simple. Ed behaves in an abusive manner towards his crew. That abuse actively puts their lives in danger. Constantly forcing them to go on raid after raid after raid for no reward (because he makes them dump the treasure that they believe they are earning for themselves, as Frenchie flat out asks Izzy if they're receiving "their cut") and exhausting them in the process makes them more likely to be killed on the field. Fighting while exhausted and demoralized is fucking difficult!

And before anyone says that's just life aboard a pirate ship, isn't Ed supposed to be better? Isn't he supposed to be better than Hornigold? Even Ed remembers having good times on Hornigold's ship with Jack. And the Kraken Crew appear constantly exhausted and terrified, carving out their own moments of joy just like Ed had to while under Hornigold

I have seen posts claiming that Izzy fans have a disconnect between interpretation of a character and their actual actions, but the lengths I have seen (certain, not all) Ed fans go to to completely absolve Ed of his cruelest actions absolutely baffles me. Like... Ed made Fang kill his dog and that's BEFORE he became the Kraken.

Ed is a dark character. He does twisted shit. Is that not INTERESTING to you? Does it not fascinate you that a man perfectly capable of torturing his crew and driving them harder and harder and harder until some of them die fueled by his own desire to make himself irredeemable STILL at his core is a man who wants nothing more than to be loved? Do you not find it somewhat beautiful and that this man with so much blood on his hands is still told "someone will love you. You are not a monster, but a person despite your cruelty"? Do you not think the story of a man so completely consumed by all he has done realizing that he can not erase the damage of what he did isn't a good tale to tell? Do you think there is a fundamental difference between the man who tells Stede not to kill and the man who has killed for himself?

I feel like stripping him of his horror takes away so much of who he is. So much of what makes him interesting. He CHOOSES to leave Stede's crew on an island to die of exposure or starvation. He CHOOSES to basically kidnap Frenchie and Jim. He CHOOSES to hurt those closest to him in horrible ways

And he chooses to come back from that. Chooses to try to do better. To learn. To grow. To love.

I have issues with season two, but if we had more time to watch Ed come back from this, to see him make amends with the crew he so horribly damaged, I would have thought this was the best arc ever. Redemption stories are my favorite because it shows that everyone is capable of both good and evil. Ed is capable of both too. I really wish people would see his growth for what it is: a man so entrenched in violence with a nonlinear recovery that hurts people and still keeps trying anyway. Rather than someone who never hurts anyone at all

Something something during Ed and Stede's first three kisses, they weren't on the same page emotionally

Their first kiss on the beach, Stede was overwhelmed when Ed kissed him. They're whim-prone, and so he said yes to Ed's plans until he was left alone to think about it and started doubting the whole thing. He went from saying "yeah" to saying "I think so", and was not confident at all when Ed told him the plan that night. And then Chauncey appeared and just added to Stede's preexisting doubts and caused him to run away.

Their second kiss, Ed gets overwhelmed when Stede goes "holy shit this is the best thing I've ever felt in my entire touch-starved life please give me more NOW" and pulls away to ask if they can slow down. Stede immediately looks like a kicked puppy until Ed explains that they're both the fish and both need to want to get caught. They end in a good place, but the beginning was a little rocky.

The third kiss, they're both in entirely different headspaces. Stede just murdered someone, the first time he's ever done it intentionally in an attempt to be more of a "proper pirate". Ed believes that the man he loves may have just changed for the worse forever, and they both need some kind of comfort. They both watched the man they love get tortured, they were both afraid of having to watch the other die. They needed reassurance but for totally different reasons.

The final two times we see them kiss, they're finally on the same page. Stede has chosen Ed over piracy, Ed has chosen Stede over fishing. They forgive each other, they love each other, and they kiss and it's beautiful and tender and perfect.

This is kinda reflected in the way each kiss is shot, now that I think about it.

The first kiss is filmed in what are called "over the shoulder" style shots, and the kiss gets obscured for quite a bit because of it and looks awkward because of the intense angle.

The second kiss is filmed first from very far away and then in similar over the shoulder shots as the first one, and the whole scene is very dark which makes it all the harder to see.

Then the third kiss is also far away and the lighting is beautiful but very dim and at a decent angle but there's still something awkward about it.

The final two kisses though? Perfect close up, perfect profile shot, brightly lit and clear. There's no more awkwardness, no more strange angles, no more dim lights and dark shadows. Love, out in the open for each other to see.

I find this line very interesting because Ed isn't the only person to be abandoned when Stede returned to his family. He left behind his entire crew as well.

For Stede, piracy is an escape from an unhappy life and marriage, but so many others (eg. Chauncey, Nigel, Izzy) saw him as some rich asshole looking to play pirates for a while. Then, when things get a little too real, he runs back to the safety of his old home and life.

Now us as the viewers know that isn't really the case. Stede believes he has ruined his family and Blackbeard and is doing what he thinks is the right thing to fix whats happened. But no-one else knows this.

So I can help but think that Ed is projecting a little bit here. He wasn't the only one to trust Stede and feel important to him, the whole crew did as well. They were all left behind. They were all Stede's playthings.

So, I think when they do all reunite, Ed isn't going to be the only one upset and not the only one to deserve an apology from Stede. He owes his crew an explanation as well.

(Of course Ed needs to make amends for his actions at the end of the season as well. The crew of The Revenge are unfortunately caught in the crosshairs of Ed and Stede's relationship issues and deserve a lot better!)

hey -- have we considered that maybe Ed reserved a scrap of his red silk for the heart on his Blackbeard flag?

-- like his heart was cut out and he wants to scream it to the world

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

Ed, Killing, and the Kraken in Our Flag Means Death S1 and S2

This meta contains a whole heckuva a lot of spoilers for Our Flag Means Death seasons 1 and 2. Thanks to @petrichorca who gave it a read through and left some helpful comments!

When we first get to know Ed in s1e4, the episode concludes with him telling his first mate, Izzy Hands, about his plans to murder Stede Bonnet and steal his identity so Ed can retire from piracy. Ed and Izzy discuss the plan in a casual manner, like this act isn't shocking or deviant from previous conversations and schemes Ed and Izzy have had before. This is consistent with how other characters, especially Black Pete, have described Blackbeard in previous episodes (‘when Blackbeard kills man, woman, or child…’). While Black Pete is (probably) lying, Buttons was with him until the flip. 

As the song ‘The Empty Boat’ by Caetano Veloso plays, Izzy tells Ed, 'You've still got it' and Ed says, 'I know,' turning away to face the empty deck. Only the audience witnesses his true facial expression - the Blackbeard mask falling, a kind of dead-eyed exhaustion (echoed by the lyrics of the song) taking its place. 

In s1e5, we see Ed threaten violence against the French captain, but he doesn't actually hurt the man himself. We also see him act as if he's about to go kill the French partygoers before Stede steps in and 'handles it'. At this point I think we the audience would, if asked, have said that Ed seems to have a casual attitude towards killing that you would expect from 'the legendary Blackbeard'. He's scary ('next one goes through your fucking eyeball') and almost cartoonishly violent ('skin him. And use the snail fork'). So we the audience maybe make some assumptions about where the show stands on violent killing - not only that Blackbeard is familiar with it, but that it's a commonplace act for him.

Then we come to a pivotal moment. In s1e6, Izzy pushes back on Ed for not killing Stede, there’s the conversation about doggy heaven, and Ed promises Izzy that he’ll be the one to do the killing. We see Ed hyping himself up (‘You’re a killer bro. So kill.’) and then holding his knife while standing next to Stede behind the curtain in the captain’s cabin. They’re interrupted by Lucius cutting off his finger. Ed doesn’t go through with it; the moment passes as Stede exits the curtain to announce the entrance of the Kraken. 

At this point, I as an audience member fully believed that Ed couldn’t kill Stede because of his feelings for him. I wasn’t yet sure what those feelings were, but I knew that Ed had a deep affection for Stede, and for a moment I believed that was all that was holding him back. Then, of course, we see Ed have a PTSD/panic attack trigger from the Kraken fuckery that sends him into Stede’s bathtub, hiding underneath Stede’s robe, where he and Stede have what I believe is the most intimate moment of the entire first season (a reading supported by s2e3). Ed tells Stede, ‘The Kraken didn’t kill my dad. I did.’ We are shown the flashbacks to the way Ed’s father abused him and his mother, and the Kraken story he told on deck earlier is shown again with the figure of the beast in the water replaced by himself, as a young teen, on the dock. 

Then Ed tells Stede, ‘If I’m being honest, I haven’t killed another man since.’ Stede tries to comfort him by reminding him how much he loves a good maim, but Ed is still preoccupied with how the fact that he killed his abusive father as a child means that he’s not a good person, and that this is why he doesn’t have any friends, aka, isn’t loveable. Stede tells him, ‘I’m your friend,’ in essence, To me, you are loveable, and Ed reacts by saying, ‘No,’ and banging his head against the tub.

The next important point happens in s1e8, when Jack invites himself to breakfast and regales Stede (very deliberately, as he’s trying to push Stede and Ed apart) with the tale of Ed setting a ship alight and killing many people. (Also note - the show’s first mention of Hornigold! ‘He treated us like dogs! Worse than dogs!’ and ‘Ground us down into nothing!’) While Jack emphasises the horror and brutality of what Ed did, Ed’s demeanour completely changes - ‘No, Stede doesn’t want to hear about that.’ Jack obviously doesn’t listen to Ed; Stede’s face passes from horrified listening to Jack to squinting at Ed like, ‘Is this - true?’ Ed looks thoroughly guilty as the story continues and Stede asks him, clearly doing his best to preserve Ed’s secret in front of Jack, ‘I thought you’d, uh, given up the killing?’ Ed surges forward in his seat and, not making eye contact with Stede, says, ‘Yeah, well, technically the fire killed those guys. Not me.’ The camera then cuts to Jack looking at Stede with a bit of an incredulous expression as if he’s both gauging Stede’s reaction to the entire thing and thinking, ‘Wow BB’s in deep here if he’s making up some weird story about not being the one who lit that fire.’  

I don’t think the show intends for us to believe that Ed was consciously lying to Stede in the bathtub scene in s1e6. Instead, we see the complex way that Ed - who is shown to be both brilliant and possessed of an internal monologue that just cannot shut up - has constructed mental barriers to protect himself from the trauma of killing while still achieving the highest possible status in a very violent profession and existing in a world marred by colonial violence perpetrated specifically against people like him. 

S1e9 shows Ed continuing to posture to everyone but Stede as Blackbeard, seasoned killer (for example, telling Chauncey that he barely remembers killing Nigel because he’s ‘a real “life is cheap” kinda guy’). At the Academy and briefly after, in the beginning of s1e10, Ed seems set to have given up killing and violence for real, but Izzy’s threats in the cabin in s1e10 send Ed reeling back to the Kraken persona he assumed when he killed his dad. The season concludes with him pushing Lucius off the ship and Krakening up to sail, rob, and raise hell forever - but the final shot shows Ed crying alone in his cabin, his Kraken makeup streaking down his face. It’s heartbreaking, but it’s one of my favourite scenes from a character perspective. Imagine if the season had ended with Ed fully transformed into the Kraken, rather than clearly miserable and heartbroken under his mask? 

Season 2 begins with Ed trying to set a record for most consecutive raids, working his crew to death under brutal and traumatic conditions. His list of crimes on his wanted poster certainly suggests a lot of violence and killing, yet the show is careful to show us Ed himself only seeming to kill one person - firing a gun into a man’s back during a raid - and if you look closely, you’ll see that the man was already dying with a dagger through his body. It feels vital to me that the only direct ‘killing’ action we see Ed taking is shooting a man who we presume he can justify as having been already on his way to death. 

In s2e1 and s2e2, Ed can’t kill Izzy, though he does try desperately to get Frenchie to do it for him. He can’t even kill himself, trying to get Izzy to do it instead. When he thinks Izzy has committed suicide with the gun he gave him, he says, ‘I loved you, best I could,’ as if any love Ed could give would by its nature not be good enough. 

Ed wakes in s2e3 in the care of his old captain, Hornigold; of course, he’s really in the gravy basket and Hornigold is serving as a Jacob Marley-esque psychopomp. They key to Ed realising that he’s really [Buttons voice] ‘down in the old gravy basket’ is the conversation that concludes his attempts to be Jeff the Innkeeper. Hornigold tells Ed that he’s not good with people - after all, he did strangle his father. Ed reacts first with disbelief then cold fury, saying he never told anyone that; Hornigold reminds him that he told one person and Ed flashes back to telling Stede in the bathtub in s1e6; then Hornigold reminds him that the one person he told left him, and we see Ed crying under his Kraken makeup at the end of s1e10. Later, when Ed (finally, even Calico Jack would have had it sooner) realises that Hornigold represents himself, he says that he’s unloveable. Here’s the crux of it - he believes that he is fundamentally unloveable because he killed his father, because he is the Kraken, the monstrous beast capable of lethal violence. That’s why Stede left, his brain is telling him even as he’s dying. 

Then Stede actually proves him wrong by returning, saving him from death, and telling him that he ‘love[s] everything about [him]’ in rapid succession. Whether or not Ed fully accepts this information, we do see him very quickly, yes, melt back into Stede’s arms. Which brings us to s2e6, and Stede’s killing of Ned Low. 

Quick digression into killing and Stede: Stede accidentally kills a man in s1e1, is haunted by his ghost in s1e2. He’s so haunted by dead Nigel that he spends a lot of s1e2 asking first Oluwande and Jim for advice on being a ‘mur-der-er’, and then asking Black Pete how his former employer, Blackbeard (!!!) handled killing. (How Pete says, ‘When Blackbeard kills man, woman, or child-’ lives in my head at all times, Matt Maher with the line deliveries of all time.) Finally in s1e2, during his court-mandated therapy with the tribal elder, Stede admits that he doesn’t feel bad about killing Nigel - he was a horrible person even when he was a child! Stede's guilt is coming from somewhere else. We see this again in s1e9, when Stede says it is time for him to face the consequences for what he’s done - it might seem like he means for killing Nigel, since that’s why he’s about to face the firing squad, but we know that Stede’s guilt is about abandoning his family (the people he’s hurt!). Similarly, when Stede kills Ned in s2e6, he seems to get over it very quickly. Ned is clearly a bad guy, and although the act of killing him was traumatic for Stede (much like the act of killing Nigel), Stede presumably reconciles it by knowing that he was protecting Ed and his crew (and avenging Calypso’s birthday). Stede as a character is shown to have a tremendous amount of natural resilience. We later see him immolate a guy and dispatch a number of British soldiers without hesitation. Stede is also one of the two main protagonists of the show, and his attitude towards killing seems to reflect the attitude of the show itself - killing colonisers and torturers to protect your loved ones is ok, actually. 

(Side note but I found this idea about how zero tolerance policies actually hurt victims very informative on the topic of why it's ok that Stede killed his childhood bully; I got that link from this very interesting post where several people are in conversation about how Ed is not Izzy's abuser.)

Back to Ed in s2e6. He asks Stede not to kill Ned; when Stede does anyway, Ed is visibly saddened and ignores Izzy telling him to give Stede a moment; instead he goes immediately to check in on Stede in his cabin. He knocks on the door and in that soft voice that he only ever uses with Stede, he starts to say, ‘Hey. You okay? Look, I was a wreck after my first kill as well.’ Then he pauses, before rambling, ‘I mean, well, it was my dad, so there's that,’ which feels like a little moment of self-reflection. Like. Yeah. Ed. Baby. You might be super fucked up about the act of killing because the first guy you killed was your dad, when you were a literal child! Also, Ed has never been to (as far as we know) court-mandated tribal elder therapy, so of course his decision to kill his father fucked Ed up for decades! Also as a very clever friend pointed out, we don’t know anything about what the consequences of that were for Ed - how did his mother react, is that why he ran away to sea, etc.

There's another important thing here that the audience knows, but that Ed has never told Stede (or, we have to assume, anyone) which is that the catalyst for Ed becoming the Kraken to kill his father was abuse. The audience is shown through his panic-attack-induced flashback that Ed's father physically and verbally abused his mother and presumably him too. All Ed has ever said to Stede or anyone about it, as far as we know, was his joke to the crew during scary story hour that his dad was a dick. Stede can probably infer roughly why Ed killed his dad, but he doesn't know the details, and he loves everything about Ed anyway, and now Ed knows that Stede does too. 

So Ed and Stede have sex, and as many metas have pointed out (like this one!), it's so meaningful that Ed feels safe enough to give up his Blackbeard/Kraken identity the very next morning. He attempts to get Stede to see that it might be nice to not be pirates anymore due to the high chance of death but Stede manages to completely misread it and laughs it off. (To be fair to Stede, they're both horrible at communicating and Ed is not saying what he wants in any direct manner.) Ed proceeds to have his big beautiful brain start to spiral out of control as Jackie points out how popular Stede is becoming as a pirate; Ed panics, tells Stede he doesn’t even know who he is, and leaves to become a fisherman before he can get left (again!). 

As Ed rows away from his failed career as a fisherman in s2e8, his boss Pop-Pop (who he has managed to recreate a fucked up father-son dynamic with that like so many things in his show is played for laughs but has pretty dark undertones) yells after him, 'If you were ever good at anything, go and do that, you bum.' Ed rows back into the port of the Republic of Pirates and sees the destruction Prince Ricky has wrought upon the pirate community. Ed's first thought is, Stede, and then he imagines Stede calling for help before straight up murdering two British soldiers. He remembers Pop-Pop's words and says, 'Have it your way,' before diving into the sea, retrieving his leather, putting it on underwater, and emerging from the waves fully dressed. It's fantastically hot and the exact level of drama I expect from this man. The Kraken musical cue is playing as it happens. 

We now see Ed murdering British soldiers in the coolest ways possible, demonstrating his skill at fighting in hand to hand combat. One way to read him taking Pop-Pop's advice is that this is what he's good at - killing and violence. 

But you know what Ed’s even better at? Protecting the people he loves. His mother, himself, and Stede. Each time Ed becomes the Kraken, he fulfils that. He protects his mother from his father, himself from Izzy after being warned that ‘[Edward] better watch his fucking step’, and Stede from the invading colonisers who want to destroy their freedom. But something has changed the third time he does it - this time, he can tell Stede that he loves him and he doesn't mean it as a tainted thing, but something that he knows Stede will treasure. He's both loveable and capable of loving. He always has been, of course, but now he knows it. The Kraken, the part of him that is capable of killing, was always a defence mechanism for Ed, but the third time he understands it and himself enough to know that it doesn’t make him a monster. 

I've been trying to tease apart why I've gone so terminally feral for this show in particular, and I think a big part of it is because it captures the feeling of falling in love so accurately that I feel like I'M falling in love. Butterflies in my stomach, nauseous when I think about it, can't STOP thinking about it love.

As much as we all love a classic rom-com/love story flick, they have wreaked havoc on our expectations of romance. The purpose of those films or shows are to play out our most grandiose fantasies of love and relationships, a level of drama we could never actually attain, as a form of escapism. There are no manic pixie dream girls whose sole personality is a brand of quirky that fits your interests and saves you from your disillusionment in life. In reality, pursuing someone so intensely without ever giving up or taking no for an answer until they finally win their love interest over has become a trope so pervasive that its bled into the insidious romantic imagination of Nice GuysTM world wide. In the real world, you probably will never have that spinny camera kiss in the pouring rain after you've beaten the odds and live happily ever after, and you might feel like nothing you can experience will ever live up to that feeling. Not to mention they're all heteronormative as fuck.

In OFMD the friends to lovers journey is tentative and slow. There's no moment where one of them takes their glasses off and they suddenly see the other in a whole new light. There's no one sided whining and pining, where there's no real interest in friendship and they only stick around hoping to someday get in the other's pants. They deeply care and fret about not ruining their friendship, about not making the other uncomfortable or pressured. Most of my personal long term relationships started out as friendships, and it was a delicate drawn out testing of the waters before it naturally evolved. And this is particularly common in queer relationships where the lines between platonic and romantic love are often blurred because there are no models of courtship to look to for guidance.

I've seen people talk about how their kiss was too awkward, but that's how real first kisses are. Confessing your feelings is mortifying and nerve wracking, and hearing it makes you blush and stammer. You miss their lips and knock your heads, you don't know where to put your hands. You're nervous. It's not perfect but it's sweet.

And hats off to Taika for absolutely nailing true heartbreak. It feels like your world is ending and your life has come crashing down like they show in the movies but it also makes you feel small and soft and scared. It's the squeak in your voice when someone asks you how you are and you can feel yourself trying not to cry but you can't stop it. It's feeling so emotionally exhausted that you can't even bring your self to be angry, you'd just rather curl up into a ball and die. It's thinking you're moving on until something small reminds you of them and you ugly cry until snot is running down your face and you can't catch your breath. It's hiding under your covers and writing shit poetry in your notes app.

OFMD isn't "I wish I could experience this love story." OFMD is "I have experienced this love story." Falling in love can be the most huge, overwhelming, transcendental part of the human experience. It doesn't need exaggeration. It's the little things, it's like Mary says. It's them understanding your idiosyncrasies and finding them charming. It's exposing each other to new things and new ideas. It's laughing a lot. It's passing the time well.

It's mundane and it's amazing. It's easy, it's like breathing. This show has made me fall in love with the idea of falling in love all over again.

What if the bottle Stede sent doesn’t reach Ed first. What if it reaches Izzy.

Theres a fan theory that Izzy can read that’s been around since season 1 aired, so what if he gets the letter first. What if he reads it and he realises if Ed saw Stede he would kill him before he thinks. He would try and hurt Stede before he immediately regrets it and self destructs even more. Izzy can’t deal with Ed self destructing, Izzy wants Ed to stop, he realises it was a mistake for him to push the Kraken.

So he finds Stede, he helps train him. Just enough so that he can survive long enough for Ed to see reason, to realise that he’s trying to hurt/kill Stede and stop. Just enough for *something* to happen, to calm Ed down.

Izzy just wants Ed back because wanting the Kraken was a mistake.

Ok, I’ve been through the sobbing and incoherent rage portion of the evening and I’m now into “connecting two dots” territory. Bear with me, I am Sad.

Massive spoilers ahead!

So much of the finale made no sense to me. Izzy’s death being such a fucking throwaway, the complete 180 on Stede and Ed and their relationship dilemma. I’ve seen people say Stede didn’t really love piracy he just liked belonging but I disagree, I think Stede genuinely loves the ship and his crew. He’s a huge nerd about it! So I was deeply, deeply baffled by the Inn thing, especially since Ed’s foray inti fishing also failed so badly, and ESPECIALLY because I actually thought this season would end in a temporary mutual breakup. “We’re going to different places at different speeds” to “inn ownership!” Was a bit of a shock, to say the least.

And I was RAGINGLY pissed about Izzy being buried on land. He’s a sailor down to his bones, I thought the very fucking least they could do would be a full sea burial. And I thought using his leg and kerchief as grave markers was disrespectful and tacky.

And then I started actually thinking. Why WOULD you bury Izzy on land, something he would vehemently hate, and then choose to stay there right next to the grave miles from any potential inn customers? Why would you leave his most symbolic, precious items out to be damaged by the elements, unless you really wanted them to be easily found? And who fucking finds them? Buttons, who is apparently an actual honest to god sea witch. I thought the whole crew were handling his death freakishly (offensively) well, but I actually don’t think any of them believe he’s really gone. I think Ed and Stede are mostly there to wait for an angry, angry man to climb out of a shallow grave, calling them raging cunts for burying him on land.

And I think it’s really interesting that when discussing curses, Izzy says that if the crew believe in a curse enough, it’s effectively true. That even if you don’t believe in magic, other people can believe in it for you and have the same effect.

Why Gentlebeard are endgame

A lot of people said that Ed and Stede need to grow apart for a while because they want different things but I don’t think I agree.

Stede doesn’t want to kill people and go steal treasures form ships, that is not why he wanted to become a pirate: he wants to be excited about his life, he wants to belong, he wants love. He just doesn’t see that he has that already. Ed also wants love, he’s been a shadow of himself for years and he finally feels seen by someone, someone who makes him want to desire a normal life, someone that made him see what he was actually doing to himself. They don’t want different things, they just don’t truly get what they have done for each other, that is why their fight in episode 7 makes sense, that is why Stede leaving in season 1 made sense.

They gave each other love, closure and freedom, they are just deeply insecure people, with years of trauma to resolve, but even though their issues come from different places they are united in their pain. I think that is why the last episode is called Merman, because in the end they are gonna realise that they both pulled each other form a life that they hated and they both want a life together, despite their differences.

You don’t know the first thing about piracy, it’s not about glory, it’s about belonging to something

In episode 6 Stede kills a man in cold blood, he becomes a pirate, he becomes a man (I think that’s also what the sex means). He takes control over his life, he doesn’t want to be the softy who constantly has to be saved, who gets lucky, who does things by accident. He wants to feel powerful, he feels this change, because now that Ed is back he wants to be what he needs and he thinks that in order to do that he has to be like him. Ed gets called a softy and that makes Stede angry and in a way yes, he defends him because he loves him but also because he hates that part of himself. Let’s not forget that one of the things that made him snap in season 1 was the whole “you bringed the world’s greatest pirate to ruin” thing. He thinks he is ruining Ed. And now that Stede has killed someone in cold blood, Ed thinks he is ruining Stede, that his influene is poisoning him.

The dream sequence in the first episode of season 2 is funny ok, it’s meant as a joke, but it’s not really. A million people have already pointed this out but their two dreams/hallucinations are a beautiful, poetic and surreal way of representing their relationship and its issues. Stede thinks he needs to become someone else in order to deserve Ed: he has to be manly, grow a beard, he has to fight, he has to kill someone but that’s not what Ed wants. He sees him as a merman, as a sparkly beautiful figure, far from the usual immagery of manly in a way, who brings him out of the sea, out of his poison, out of his prison. Ed hates himself, he hates Blackbeard, he hates his life, his life was not only poisonous but it bored him to death. Stede pulled him out, made him feel like he belonged with him, made him feel like Edward for the first time in a while. That is what Stede doesn’t understand because he has always felt unworthy, both of love and of what he truly wants. He doesn’t see that Ed loves him for him, the true him, and he wants to prevent him from becoming a mask like him.

Their fights have always had the same foundation: they think they are undeserving of each other. They are gonna realise this is dumb and actually start working on their issues...together.