#uuuggghhhh
thinking about romcom break-up beats. thinking about romcom Let’s Go Get Our Damn Men Back beats. thinking about heath ledger’s marching band can’t take my eyes off of you, a big public declaration mid-film, versus buying her the guitar at the end of the film - an expression of yeah, i see you. thinking about mark darcy telling bridget jones that he likes her just as she is, buying her a fresh diary for a new start. thinking about julia roberts being just a girl standing in front of a boy, and hugh grant chasing julia roberts across london, standing up in front of a crowd to ask her forgiveness, to ask her to stay. thinking about julia roberts discovering how she likes her eggs and admitting she’s been trying to be the person everyone wants her to be, asking richard gere to love her as the person she is, turning in her running shoes.
thinking about how these beats go, so often, as can you see me now? and fumbling for the answer.thinking about stede failing to see ed beyond the shaved beard and the folded socks, failing to see his choices as being freely made, and about ed failing to see stede’s hesitations. thinking about it’s rotten work / not if it’s you. thinking about miscommunications. thinking about fear of becoming our past. thinking about his name is ed not just as a confession but also a realization - the reconciliation of all of his various pieces and parts and how love does not tear him apart but rather takes him as a whole, unifies all these personas into one man and the same he’s always been: ed, watching over stede, reaching out to shake his hand the first time.
thinking about these dramatic theatre kids and their fuckeries. thinking about the 1717 pirate equivalent of holding a boom box over your head. thinking about the 171 pirate equivalent of riding a horse into their wedding to stop them making a mistake. of chasing them through the airport. of meeting them at sunrise, through the fog, to try one last time. thinking about listing everything you know and love about them, and saying, when you realize you want to spend the rest of your life with somebody, you want the rest of your life to start as soon as possible.
i’m thinking about stede chasing ed across the sea, trying to get his damn man back. stede, putting on fuckeries, using his theatrical chops, trying to make a declaration, trying to catch ed’s attention, trying to get him to forgive him. i’m thinking about ed turning away from all this, from everything that wants too much from him, from everything that looks like it might appeal to blackbeard, to the kraken, to calico jack. i’m thinking about stede trying and failing.
and then i’m thinking about stede, learning more and more about ed as a person. about ed, as a whole. thinking about stede adjusting his approach.
about stede being able, finally, to quietly say, i see you now. and i’m still here.
what i’m saying is, i want to see stede do the marching band bullshit and turning around and realizing ed’s already left. i want stede with a boombox over his head and ed closing the window on him. i want stede to try and fail and then for stede to realize it’s not about the declaration itself, it’s about seeing ed for who he is and learning how best to love him for him, not for the performance of him or the persona of him. just him.
he wants to be just ed.
stede has to learn how to love him that way.
