[ID: self portrait of the artist casually browsing a bookshelf, text nearby reading ‘me going about my day’. In the second panel a large metal weight that days “what if Lucius is legit dead” falls onto their head, causing them to drop the book and bite their tongue. In the last panel the artist is crouched on all fours, bleeding, crying, and depressed. /End ID]
One of the many reasons I’m confident Lucius is fine after ep 10 is that Lucius is, in many ways, the audience insert.
In the opening episode, Stede is narrating to Lucius as a means of exposition to the audience. Lucius also reacts to Stede (and, later, Ed) in the way the audience is likely to in that moment in the story.
Stede is wandering a lawless port in pure white clothing? Lucius is cringing and certain they are about to get their asses kicked.
Ed has left Stede for his shitty ex? Lucius is the one who is ready to scold Ed over what he’s missing.
Ed is moping in a blanket fort? Lucius is worried about him. It would have been easy in that moment to have Lucius be similar to how he is in ep 8, dropping Ed’s stuff off on the beach. Instead Lucius, like the viewer, can see just how much Stede meant to Ed and is trying to comfort him.
Of course, the two best examples of this are “This is happening” and his last moments in ep 10.
In the moments before “This is happening,” a lot of shots of Ed and Stede could plausibly be from the perspective of someone on the ground across from them. You know, where Lucius is sitting. We keep cutting back to his reaction which, for a lot of us, was a similar expression to how we looked watching it (it’s also kind of funny that Lucius is then the one to confirm for the viewer that this–meaning an actual romance–is happening. It’s signalling to the viewers who clocked what was going on that yeah, they were right).
And at the end of ep 10, Lucius learns about Ed’s return to being “the kraken” at more or less the exact same moment the audience does. With about the same reaction.
OK I’ve babbled about this in a few tags already BUT u know we all love episode 7 it’s great it’s awesome this is happening BUT something that struck me from the first time I watched it was how…weird Ed was acting. He was grumpy, dismissive toward stede, resistant to doing fun activities, just wanting to wallow, talking for the first time about LEAVING the revenge. It was weird!! He seemed a little off!!
(gif via @joeal-kaysani ty)
So what happened between e6 and e7 that could have made him start to doubt his place on the revenge? That would make him feel conflicted and despondent? That would make him want to distance himself from stede when all he’s been wanting is to get closer??
Listen, in season 2 of Our Flag Means Death I want Lucius’ ghost (KEEP READING) to be tormenting Blackbeard the same way Nigel’s ghost was tormenting Stede, EXCEPT I want it all to turn out to be a Fuckery Lucius was pulling off to survive— revealed at the time the OG crew reaches the Revenge.
I want Lucius to be living in the walls in all of Stede’s secret passages (Ed only saw one) and covering himself in seaweed, make up and water to seem dead, maybe by the end of it several of the crew are helping him pull it off by acting like they can’t see or hear him as he takes notes and teases Blackbeard around them (Fang, obviously, Frenchie and Jim, and maybe even Ivan).
Bonus points if we see a ridiculous sequence of how Lucius managed to cling to the ship.
Blackbeard finally hissing out he’s being tortured by The Boy’s ghost at some point makes Izzy annoyed as fuck that he’s going soft, after a while he thinks BB has finally lost it- we get a lovely romantic reunion between Black Pete and a seemingly dead Lucius, which we all deserve- BP 100% thinks Lucius is an actual ghost at first (and Buttons remains suspicious for the rest of the season) THE END.
I’m bringing this back now that the show has officially been renewed!
