Remember when the character Edward Teach also known as Blackbeard played by acclaimed actor/writer/director/producer Taika Waititi and the character Stede Bonnet also known as The Gentleman Pirate played by comedic actor Rhys Darby kissed on the lips do you guys remember that
So I went fully insane on this one. Backgrounds aren’t really my strong suit and I think I ended up drawing this one like……..4…5 times? I also hand painted all the patterns cause as I mentioned before - I’m fully insane for these pirates.
Ed has this annoyingly relatable tendency to swing SO overly hard in whichever direction he’s nudged. They’re captured and they could apparently very easily simply walk away on foot from the Academy with no consequences but Ed won’t even entertain it he’s just full on “there is no escape :) :) i’m a professional folder now :)” Then he kisses Stede ONCE and in practically the same breath he’s asking him to assume new identities and run away to CHINA. Not go back to the ship together, not even start a new life in like, Canada. Has to pick the most extreme far off destination he can think of. He doesn’t even take a beat to plan further, he immediately runs off the beach to get started and wants to leave TONIGHT. Poor guy sets himself up for failure at the docks because now he’s not just lost Stede, he’s lost this entire new life he’s constructed all in his head because he’s got so far ahead of himself.
He does it in his break up too like he puts on Stede’s robe for comfort and all of a sudden he needs to channel this exaggerated version of the parts of Stede’s personality that he loves or wishes he could have. Then the MOMENT Izzy tells him he wants Blackbeard back Ed just fully kills a man, severs toes, and rebrands himself to be the most evil version of himself yet. And by doing these things he just breaks his own heart over and over again because he’s constantly mourning these false identities and fantasies that he builds up in his head and has to abandon.
All or nothing thinking makes you feel like such a failure because nothing in life is all or nothing, including the ability to stop thinking about things as all or nothing, so it’s hard to even begin to start approaching things with caution or moderation because if you fuck up even once well then that’s it, I’m a lost cause I won’t even try to regulate myself any more and i’ll just make giving up & getting my hopes unrealistically up my full time job. We make (deserved) jokes about Edward “Guess I’ll Die” Teach but that’s exactly what this kind of behaviour is: I’m bored with my life so maybe I’ll just DIE ABOUT IT like jesus dude maybe there’s something in between “trying dying” and trying to become a completely new and different person either by literally assuming a new identity or metaphorically through intrinsically weaving his sense of self in with Stede’s companionship.
I struggle with this so much like i make the most wild impulsive dramatic life decisions sometimes because they feel like the easy solutions to big problems, and measured responses are boring, and boredom is intolerable.
Stede has the exact same problem I just think he’s at a different stage of learning how to break this pattern. He seems much more willing to bounce his ideas and impulses off of other people which can give you a lot of valuable outside perspective. He still makes dramatic unilateral decisions like running away to become a pirate and then running back home, but by the end of the latter I think he’s realized that there’s always a third option. I guess the lesson when you find yourself between a rock and a hard place of 2 extreme options is to remember (ironically) that there IS always an escape.
Remember when the character Edward Teach also known as Blackbeard played by acclaimed actor/writer/director/producer Taika Waititi and the character Stede Bonnet also known as The Gentleman Pirate played by comedic actor Rhys Darby kissed on the lips do you guys remember that
