Thinking about Stede and how he’s concerned about his crew being potentially traumatized by violence and how encouraging and supportive he is of their creative endeavors and how he stood up for Ed against a room full of passive aggressive bullies and how he stood up for Buttons and Karl (RIP) against Jack being a violent bully and how he sat there with Ed as he was having a breakdown in that tub and reassured him that he was a good person and that Stede was his friend, and thinking about that one post that says something like you grow up to be the hero that wasn’t there to save you, and I’m just having a moment here, okay.
god i knew it was about love but it’s literally like. the thing that the crew needs to have on hand at all times to stay healthy. the thing that stede forgets to take into account and constantly avoids acknowledging the importance of. the thing that he previously used for only frivolous reasons. the thing that he ignores to take ed treasure hunting, to find something that will make him stay, but then it’s the thing that he finds. that he wouldn’t have even found without encouragement from ed and lucius. and then ed does stay. the loss of which turned jim into the untrustworthy person they are now. the thing which jim turns away before leaving at the pressure of their nana. but also the thing that stede gave ed a variation of the morning after they first met, and what started the wheels turning in ed’s head to stay with stede in the first place. the one thing stede took with him to the naval academy, the thing that kept him connected to ed while he was home, the thing he left half of behind when he left home, because this time he was leaving on good terms. the thing that stede will ultimately give to e-
i fucking forgot about ed being the one to wash off the orange and tell stede that’s what he’s found. because stede needed ed to verbalize what was happening before he understood
New LGBT Uquiz just dropped! Which Gay Fashion Stereotype are you? None of the questions are about your sexuality or gender identity btw, it’s all about your ~vibes~
that post was right i wouldn’t have a sense of humor without spongebob. its still some of the goddamn funniest shit i’ve ever seen. spongebob almost dying because he’s too polite to ask for a glass of water at sandy’s house. mr. krabs and spongebob killing the health inspector. smittywerbenjagermenjensen. “I was born with glass bones and paper skin. every morning I break my legs. and every afternoon I break my arms.” the perfume department on the flying dutchman’s boat. that time spongebob cleared his mind to be a fine dining waiter and forgot his own name because that’s how customer service just BE. the ugly barnacle that was so ugly everyone DIED. the END. the one where squidward buys a pie but it’s actually a bomb. and the MUSICAL numbers like??? the fun song. the christmas song. tony award winning song “this grill is not a grill”. the entire band geeks episode like…this is all from the top of my head!!!!! just from the top of my head!!! there’s so much more!!! thank god for stephen and all the laughs i’ve had because of him.
Wait, wait, I don’t go here, but you’re telling me Killing Eve is based on a series of novels that ended with the main characters in lesbians ever after, and the show specifically chose to ignore that helpfully provided conclusion to deliberately bury the gays??
Oh my God, y’all, I am so, so sorry. I only knew your fucked-up little gals from gifsets, but I was really rooting for them.
Actually, watching folks continue to insist that any queer relationship that isn’t explicitly and overtly romantic or sexual in media is “cowardly” is not only exhausting, but genuinely fucking infuriating.
First, queer coding is not the same as queerbaiting, and queer coding absolutely had and still has its place in all types of art, second, it’s restricting to the types of characters and stories that queer artists can create, especially queer creators who are not out, professionally or at all, and third, your conceptualization of what is queer enough is exclusionary. End of story.
Still thinking about how they swap clothes immediately when they meet. They both are intrigued by each other’s costume first, before the man. Both of them see the beauty in each other’s life—Stede sees the freedom in Ed’s, Ed the softness in Stede’s—but neither of them realize how much pain hides underneath; how much of yourself you give up to stay a gentleman, or a pirate. They just look at each other and think, “He’s the opposite of me. He’s what I want to be.”
But then they meet each other’s people, Ed at the party, Stede when Jack shows up, and start to understand it’s just another trap, to be a gentleman or a pirate. The beauty isn’t in that, it’s in their love. Someone pointed out how they’re both at their most stripped-down when they kiss; no frills, no knives, just barefoot on a beach. They both saw a version of themselves that was at peace.
But that wasn’t a real-world peace. There wasn’t anything tangible there to support that joy. They imagined just running away. Neither of them had really reckoned with who they’d been; they only knew they wanted to escape. They wanted to start over, but they’d have taken their pain with them. It couldn’t have worked.
It wasn’t until Stede went back and reckoned with who he’d been that he could find it in him to go on—not to run away, but to keep building the life he’d began, with people who loved him, with softness and freedom both. To go back to his ship. He found the courage to do that because Mary set him free to.
Ed tried to do the same—to return to the ship, to keep on with what they’d started; but Izzy wouldn’t see it. Izzy wouldn’t release him, and he couldn’t find the courage to do it himself. He couldn’t imagine himself without Izzy’s respect. He couldn’t see it alone. So Ed went back to the fantasy of the pirate, destroyed what they’d built and abandoned it; while Stede is finally ready to make a life with it, if only Ed will meet him there.
I don’t actually think it took Stede so long to know he loved Ed because he hadn’t had a crush before. I think (though this is one of those things that could be read either way, and is great either way) he’s wildly aware of his crush. Possibly from step one, certainly by the time he spends the night obsessing out the window at Ed and Calico Jack (who’s confirmed at last that Ed definitely swings that way). He says “It’s over,” and he knows what that means. The problem isn’t that he doesn’t know he’s in it, the problem is he doesn’t know he’s allowed to believe it’s love.
Ed comes from a very queer, very uninhibited culture (and this is historical) where pirates enter mateloge with each other and (as Jack says) “anything goes.” Stede comes from the mainland, where queer men are prosecuted and destroyed, where he’s been tortured and shunned for his softness from childhood, and where people like him don’t get to choose love, anyway. His dad made that clear from the beginning.
He might know his queerness is attractive to Ed, but does he realize it’s something sacred to him? Something that could be loved, and committed to? And does he know that out on the water he’s not just free to kiss Ed, but to choose him forever?
He thinks it’s shameful, disreputable and life-ruining, for his family and for Ed, so he goes home. He thinks everyone there will be relieved he’s back in his proper place, back in the real world; but nobody is. The men envy him his moment of freedom, and Mary doesn’t need his stability or his decency. Mary’s found something better. Mary’s choice would have been considered shameful and unstable in her time, too—unwed, unblessed by her parents, freely entered—but she’s not ashamed; she’s glad. She’s free. And she has the temerity to say it’s love. That’s all Stede needs to see. Ed let him know they could live together, but I think Mary’s joy helped him see they could call it love too.
Did I spend all Saturday binge watching Our Flag Means Death? Yes. Did I immediately have the urge to do a fanart? Yes. Do I have a big crush on Taika Waititi now? And that’s another yes.
The thing about the “you wear fine things well” scene is like. Let’s take this from Ed’s perspective.
You’re the meanest sonofabitch on the seven seas. Everybody knows your name. You reputation alone can win the day before you even fire a shot.
And you are fuckin bored.
So bored that the instant you get wind of some weirdo who appears to not be even a little impressed by you, you run to meet him. And by god, the first thing he says to you and your lustrous black beard is: “Do you work for Blackbeard?”
It immediately rotates your worldview. “Never thought of it like that before. Yeah, I suppose I do.”
But then he tells you about retirement. And you think, yeah. Yeah, actually, that sounds great. How do I do that?
Well, a fuckery of course! A good one, too. Something worthy of Blackbeard, with a tiger or something. But the important part is that there’s a corpse—the corpse of a man you made sure is similar enough to you in height and build to wear your clothes.
So now you’ve got a plan. You’re great at plans! And all you have to do is learn how to be a fancy ponce so you can go live the fancy ponce retirement of your dreams. Easy as that. How hard can it be to learn how to use silverware?
But it all goes wrong, doesn’t it? Catastrophically wrong. You struggle with the basics because you panic, and when’s the last time you panicked? Then you’re laughed out of a room by people who would wet themselves if they knew who you really are, and it occurs to you, suddenly, miserably, that if you go through with this, if you choose this life, you will never have that crutch again, because Blackbeard will be dead.
Worst of all, though, is the blooming doubt that this is what you want. This glittering world is meant to be your scrap of silk writ large. You’re not sure if it is, any more. You’re not sure if a world like that exists.
Now what?
Well.Now, along comes this silly man. You wrote him off as naïve because why else would he ever want to be a part of your world? Why would he claim he wanted to be “like Blackbeard” when he has his secret passages and model ships and summer linens? But you’ve seen what he’s running away from, now. You’ve seen he’s as much a master of that world as you are of yours. And you feel understood. You feel like an equal.
So when he tells you in the moonlight that you belong with that piece of silk, and it belongs with you, you believe, suddenly, that there’s a place in the middle, between your worlds, where you’re still yourself but you wear silk and eat marmalade and talk to handsome men in the moonlight. And Stede fits there, too.
