#s1e06

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Literally episode 6

And I mean literally

[ourflagmeansgayrights]

wait fuck ok i’m back to being sad about it now

like the thing is that ed doesn’t really hang out with anyone but stede in season one, not really. and whenever he is talking to other ppl on the crew, stede is right there. the only exception to this is in episode 8 when jack brings the party energy and everyone is getting drunk and rowdy together specifically as part of jack’s efforts to exclude stede.

and as a fandom we always make jokes and theorize about what the relationship between ed and stede must look like from the outside, if they were all placing bets for when they’d finally hook up or if they had zero belief in stede’s ability to pull THEE blackbeard

but now i’m thinking about the crew’s perception of Ed Himself. of the crew’s perceptions of The Legendary Blackbeard and how that must’ve changed over the course of the first season. because when they first meet him they’re all impressed and starstruck bc yeah, duh, this is Pirate Beyoncé we’re talking about. they’re also in varying degrees “worried he’s gonna kill them.”

but they quickly see that the real pirate beyonce isn’t all leather and murder and head made of smoke. blackbeard swaps clothes with their cringefail (derogatory) boss for fun. he dresses up and goes to a fancy party just because he wants to—he’s not even trying to get anything out of it, doesn’t have an angle the way frenchie does, he genuinely just wants to go to a very un-Blackbeardy party and have fun. he tells them scary stories. he shows them some of his trade blackbeard secrets. he hypes them all up after their first fuckery (and i will never get over how cute that is exchange is, “scared the pants off me” and “i thought blackbeard didn’t feel fear” and “and i didn’t, until tonight” and the crew’s genuine excitement and pride). he goes on a treasure hunt with their cringefail (affectionate, now) boss and lets him dig in the ground to get it out of his system. they learn that ed isn’t just a scary pirate, he also can be silly and goof off and enjoy things that aren’t exactly compatible’s with the Blackbeard Brand

and beyond just not adhering 24/7 to the Brand, they learn that ed—that blackbeard—is human. is fallible. they see his first plan to escape the spanish fail, and they get to participate in the backup plan that he and stede come up with. frenchie sees ed get hurt at the fancy party in a way that he completely understands. lucius realizes that ed is just as into his cringefail boss as his cringefail boss is into ed, and over the course of giving ed a shovel talk he maybe learns that The Legendary Blackbeard might actually be nervous about a boy liking him back.

and none of this—NONE of this—makes the crew lose any respect for him. even pete never has a moment where his perception of his idol is shattered, where he’s disappointed that blackbeard isn’t all nine guns and zero mercy all the time. instead, pete expands his idea of what The Ideal Pirate (the ideal MAN) looks like.

i think by the time jack rolls around, ed is no longer on that Pirate Beyoncé pedestal to them. he’s still on a pedestal, a bit, but instead of seeing ed as this untouchable badass legend, they see him as like. the coolest guy on the ship. still a badass, still somebody they all respect and admire, but someone they can hang out with. someone they really want to hang out with. they want to impress ed because they want him to like them, they want to be his friend. and yeah, it’s played as a “your father and i are getting a divorce but we still love you very much” joke, but they really are so sad when ed leaves with jack.

and ed showing up with no beard and no stede, ed hiding in his cabin for. a day? multiple days? ed singing a song about his feelings. ed saying he no longer wants to go by blackbeard.

the crew is confused, but they’re on board. they don’t laugh at him for his (bad) singing, they don’t think less of him now that he’s sans iconic beard. ed, to them, is still The Coolest Guy On The Ship, and they want to be his friend. they’re excited to be his friend.

they want to put on a talent show.

and ed, right after getting stabbed in the back by jack and izzy, and then stede, and then izzy again—ed, who was so affected by the jeers of the rich fuckers at that fancy party, who grew up in a culture that doesn’t allow for friendship, a culture of everyone in various stages of fucking each other over—can’t see that. he’s got fresh heartbreak and fresh betrayal that are compounding on years of trauma and he hears them all chanting his name and he can’t trust this crew. he couldn’t trust his first mate, and he couldn’t trust his old shipmate, and he couldn’t trust stede. he cannot, cannot risk vulnerability with the crew. not again.

(and like, cmon, who is ed even kidding? he’s not made for things like softness and friendship and genuine camaraderie. trying to be anything other than blackbeard is like a wolf trying to fit in a sheep’s clothing, but the clothing is too small and everyone can see right through him and they’re all laughing and laughing and he’s the only one who can’t see what a joke he is. ed’s not an idiot, he knows there’s no way the crew is up their chanting his name and asking for another song because they like him. they just want the great clown pagliacci to come out and make them laugh.

so sure, ed’ll give them a show. they think ed’s funny? well he’s about to be fucking hilarious.)

EDIT: those of y’all seeing this in the ofmd tags are missing the additions where it gets even sadder

[impracticalgifs]

[atomiccollectionanchorme]

Star Wars: Skeleton Crew

Star Wars: Skeleton Crew - Season 1 Episode 6 "Zero Friends Again"; poster by Chelsea Lowe

[gravity-falls-daily]

Date: June 12th, 2024

Episode S1E06: Dipper Vs Manliness

("Oh, I'm sorry. I was looking for the mailman.") Oh what? Are you saying I'm not a "male man?" Is that what you're trying to say? I'm not male? I'm not a man? Is that-is that what you're getting at?

Asks and submissions are now open for S1E06! Please send us any thoughts, memories, insights and memes you have about this episode, or tag us in posts and fanworks, and we'll be sure to reblog.

Gravity Falls is available to watch on Disney+ here. Not sure where else to look? Check out our spreadsheet for more information!

Have fun!

[someguywriting]

famed police lieutenant Columbo vs silly string

[krdc]

preview — episode 6 📷

[badly-explained-merlin-plots]

A Remedy to Cure All Ills - What if telemarketers had magic

[languageroom]

My antenna perked up watching The Newsreader, when Anna Torv's character mentioned her cousin Astrid Männik. It was more than just an Easter egg about the actress' Estonian heritage - Helen talks to her cousin during the Chornobyl disaster on the phone and mentions Astrid's brother in Estonia, which all likely makes Helen's character the child of a WWII refugee to Australia.

[atomiccollectionanchorme]

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine - Season 1 Episode 6 "Captive Pursuit"

Can you talk to men in a non-sexually charged way for a single second

[premium-unleaded]

They made... they made posters

[impracticalgifs]

[atomiccollectionanchorme]

Try again Joe

It's not the best way to use SM-33.

[gravity-falls-daily]

Date: June 14th, 2025

S1E06: Dipper vs. Manliness

Look, come on guys, I'm plenty masculine. You see this chest hair?

Asks and submissions are now open for S1E06! Please send us any thoughts, memories, insights and memes you have about this episode, or tag us in posts and fanworks, and we’ll be sure to reblog.

Gravity Falls is available to watch on Disney+ here. Not sure where else to look? Check out our spreadsheet for more information!

Have fun!

[krdc]

episode six

[ourflagmeansgayrights]

not to undermine the emotional significance of the title on probably dozens of blackhands spotify playlists but tbh. imo. if i may.

to me, izzy’s “you told me that above all else is loyalty to my captain” reads exactly like how fang saying “you told me that the love of a pet makes a man weak” in e6 reads. which is that Blackbeard is ed’s worksona, a front he puts on to portray himself as a badass legendary masculine caricature, so sometimes ed says some random shit that sounds kinda ominous and edgy just to keep up appearances.

like in e6, ed barely even remembers saying that shit about loving a pet. the reason he gives for not letting fang keep the dog is that pets make the ship dirty. but disliking mess is not cool/badass/manly enough for The Legendary Blackbeard, so what he said to fang at the time was some bullshit about how having pets is for pussies or whatever. and you know that what he said is bullshit bc he barely remembers saying it. the dialogue and the acting in that scene all imply that the whole “the love of a pet makes a man weak” thing was literally just ed talking out of his ass.

so like. to ME it seems really likely that ed telling izzy “above all else is loyalty to your captain” was ed finding a way to say “a big part of your job is not betraying me” but in a way that sounded cool. and he wasn’t invested in it sounding cool bc izzy’s promotion was a particularly important moment to ed, he wanted it to sound cool for the same reason he needed his “no pets allowed” policy to sound cool. the facade of The Legendary Blackbeard wasn’t just for ed’s enemies, ed needed his crew to believe in it, too.

in the very first episode, buttons tells us that traditionally, pirate captains maintain the respect and obedience of their crew by successfully portraying themselves as tough, badass, manly. ed’s done this by building his reputation as a genius sailor and bloodthirsty killer, and for years he’s most likely had to interact with his crew in a way that supports that reputation.

tl;dr “above all else is loyalty to your captain” was most likely ed making up some manly-sounding bullshit to keep up appearances in the same way that “the love of a pet makes a man weak” was clearly just him talking out of his ass