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Yeah, I very much read Stede as demi and canon seems to bear that out. His love for Ed starts as friendship and it also remains friendship in addition to attraction and desire and romantic love. They understand each other at a very deep and fundamental level. At no point does Stede come off as the kind of man who would get his heart broken and then go off to find rebound sex with anyone.

I’d argue that Stede finds pleasure in sex with Ed because it’s with someone he has very deep and intense feelings for.

AND ANOTHER THING. Say Ed did ACTUALLY leave and never come back (which he wouldn’t, because that’s his guy). First, Stede would be wildly depressed for months. Second, when he did reach a point where he could talk to someone about it, he would not open up to the guy whose name he struggles to remember and who sold them out to the English. He’d talk to Lucius. He’d talk to Olu. He’d talk to EVERYONE. It would be everyone’s problem. He’d have group therapy sessions.

The only plausible scenario where Izzy works his way into being Stede’s confidant is the whole grooming thing that has been discussed and that is indeed something that could happen, but even then it takes a major fucking leap for that to turn into a sexual/romantic relationship, given who STEDE is. More likely he would get further isolated and we all know what happens when Izzy tries to isolate and manipulates people.

Anyway, now I’ve grossed myself out.

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It’s ultimately what one indeed expect from a queer coded villain in a different show. But the whole point with this one is that almost everyone is explicitly queer!

AND ANOTHER THING. Say Ed did ACTUALLY leave and never come back (which he wouldn’t, because that’s his guy). First, Stede would be wildly depressed for months. Second, when he did reach a point where he could talk to someone about it, he would not open up to the guy whose name he struggles to remember and who sold them out to the English. He’d talk to Lucius. He’d talk to Olu. He’d talk to EVERYONE. It would be everyone’s problem. He’d have group therapy sessions.

The only plausible scenario where Izzy works his way into being Stede’s confidant is the whole grooming thing that has been discussed and that is indeed something that could happen, but even then it takes a major fucking leap for that to turn into a sexual/romantic relationship, given who STEDE is. More likely he would get further isolated and we all know what happens when Izzy tries to isolate and manipulates people.

Anyway, now I’ve grossed myself out.

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It’s just not a plausible scenario (though again, I can see Izzy trying to groom Stede, but you really have to work hard to get that to be sexual, and then you’re basically crafting a narrative where Stede gets entrapped by your abusive fave).

Also that other British naval officer (whose name is escaping me right now). He’d be very into Stede.

AND ANOTHER THING. Say Ed did ACTUALLY leave and never come back (which he wouldn’t, because that’s his guy). First, Stede would be wildly depressed for months. Second, when he did reach a point where he could talk to someone about it, he would not open up to the guy whose name he struggles to remember and who sold them out to the English. He’d talk to Lucius. He’d talk to Olu. He’d talk to EVERYONE. It would be everyone’s problem. He’d have group therapy sessions.

The only plausible scenario where Izzy works his way into being Stede’s confidant is the whole grooming thing that has been discussed and that is indeed something that could happen, but even then it takes a major fucking leap for that to turn into a sexual/romantic relationship, given who STEDE is. More likely he would get further isolated and we all know what happens when Izzy tries to isolate and manipulates people.

Anyway, now I’ve grossed myself out.

[celluloidbroomcloset]

♥️ love train! send this to all the blogs you love! don’t forget to spread the love! ♥️ (no pressure) - Abby <3

Awwwwwwwwwww. Thank you!

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Can we note that the little plant they commandeer from the boat at the start of the pilot is fucking thriving by the time it's used as evidence in "Act of Grace"? Like, Stede or the crew or all of them have been watering and tending to that little thing for months.

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Will admit, Izzy pairings are really only interesting to me as a form of whump fic - Izzy himself being the terrible situation such fic is focused on recovery from.

I admit that I have issues with whump generally (my problem, not anyone else's), but with this particular show it makes me incredibly uncomfortable, given how much the show deals with violence and abuse. This seems to be particularly directed at Stede, that he needs to be made to suffer, and...TBH, if your thing is to take a character who struggles with masculinity and have him physically or otherwise abused by a character who hates him for his gender presentation, and make that somehow a sexual dynamic, I have a fucking problem with that.

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*sigh* Whole damn show is about how they don’t have to be any persona or put on any performance for the other to love them. Stede loves Ed, all the things that make him Ed, including the things that Ed himself fears. Ed loves Stede, with his confidence and his insecurities and his frilly things and without his frilly things.

So much is about performance - performing masculinity, performing status, performing your own personality to fit in with everyone else. And it all ends with neither of them needing those performances to be loved.

Kinda the definition of unconditional love.

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Thing is, Stizzy and Steddyhands and even EdIzzy often come down to an attempt to reward Izzy with the attention and love/sex from the central couple that some fans think is his by right, and it almost always disregards the canon characters. Ed leaves Stede, so of course Stede fucks Izzy? Ed and Stede are together, but they need Izzy there for some reason? It just has to come from a fundamental misunderstanding of the canon, if not a deliberate imposition of the deeply problematic tropes that the entire show is working against - sex/love as a reward or prize, DESERVING the love or body of another person because you did the right thing with your love or loyalty or because you grew, etc. That’s part of rape culture.

And honestly, I do think this is related to some of the rhetoric around Izzy’s death - the language of him not DESERVING to die. None of this is about deserving. The crew don’t help Izzy because he deserves it; they do it because he needs help.

Stede doesn’t go through specific motions with Ed as his reward at the end. Ed doesn’t change himself so that Stede will love him. They don’t obtain or possess each other. They love each other.

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AND ANOTHER THING. Say Ed did ACTUALLY leave and never come back (which he wouldn’t, because that’s his guy). First, Stede would be wildly depressed for months. Second, when he did reach a point where he could talk to someone about it, he would not open up to the guy whose name he struggles to remember and who sold them out to the English. He’d talk to Lucius. He’d talk to Olu. He’d talk to EVERYONE. It would be everyone’s problem. He’d have group therapy sessions.

The only plausible scenario where Izzy works his way into being Stede’s confidant is the whole grooming thing that has been discussed and that is indeed something that could happen, but even then it takes a major fucking leap for that to turn into a sexual/romantic relationship, given who STEDE is. More likely he would get further isolated and we all know what happens when Izzy tries to isolate and manipulates people.

Anyway, now I’ve grossed myself out.

[celluloidbroomcloset]

I’m beginning to think that this is just an extension of a conversation they had in bed during breakfast and both of their minds have just moved beyond a space where they can be comprehensible to anyone else.

So, that cat conversation.. really puts Stede saying "ten human years" into perspective doesn't it?

He must also be three cats inside a human suit 👀

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It’s such a well balanced conversation. It shows that Stede is not deluded. He’s not pretending that everything is fine, or that it’s all his fault or none of his fault. He understands Ed in a way that no one else would even believe he understands Ed, and he understands himself.

I think we need to again appreciate how Stede Bonnet took Ed telling him “don’t say you love me” and both respected that AND somehow managed to say something even more romantic and perfectly attuned to what Ed needed to hear.

Like…dude has mad game by being so heart-meltingly sincere. Ed never stood a chance.

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OUR FLAG MEANS DEATH Season 1, Episode 7 “This Is Happening”

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@kityana - this is a good point and also reminded me that Izzy says “No!” when Ed shouts “Act of Grace!”

I think that can be read a few different ways, but it is this unequivocal statement that Ed does not, in fact, consider Stede a pet nor can he just discard him. His only concern is to save Stede’s life, to the point that he’ll surrender to the English (rather than being forced to surrender), and he’s just said that in front of everyone.

It’s a further fall of Blackbeard, in Izzy’s eyes, because Blackbeard should not care about Stede’s life and here he’s saying that he does, in public and in front of the English. Ed’s destroying the mystique of Blackbeard bit by bit.

And this further aligns Izzy with the view that Chauncey takes, that Stede has ruined Blackbeard.

So, yeah, a good bit of Izzy’s resentment of Ed is that Izzy “saved” Ed from the English (by purchasing him) and Ed decided that he’d rather save Stede’s life. Izzy crafted this narrative in which he sold them out, then moved in to rescue Ed and make him beholden to “Captain Hands” and Ed rejected it entirely.

And Izzy brings it up in the cabin scene: “I should have let the English kill you.” Never mind that Izzy himself was the one who brought the English in; he still would style himself as Ed’s white savior, the sole thing standing between Ed and death. His LIFE belonged Izzy, and he was insufficiently grateful for what Izzy so graciously bestowed on him. He would rather give himself to save Stede.

Ohhhhh, the layers.

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Yes, if we cannot agree on basic elements that the show establishes, like Izzy abusing Ed (something that is developed over the course of two seasons and that ends with izzy confessing to it right before he dies), then there’s no conversation. The whole thing is being approached from such wildly different premises that it might as well be two completely different stories. And a lot of people have discussed now why this line of thinking has greater resonance in this story than simply “just a ship.”

I've been encountering more Stizzy out there lately, and whatever, ships aren't moral indicators, don't like don't read, etc. And so I do not read!

But, like. What do Stizzy folks do with Ed?

Stede adores Ed and would never so much as consider someone else, especially not someone he has a mostly antagonistic relationship with. In-show-Izzy is so tied up with Ed that I don't even know what you'd do with him in an Ed-free environment. Do Stizzy writers kill Ed off? Make up whole new universes where Ed never existed (and in that case, why don't Stede and Izzy just hate each other forever without Ed to bring them together)?

I don't like any Izzy ships because I think everyone else on the show deserves better, but this is really the only one that makes absolutely no sense to me, not even as an enemies-to-lovers situation.

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I just think of how much Stede has grown. He was so scared in “Act of Grace.” He’s so uncertain about who he is and what he feels. And then when he talks to Ed on the sofa, it’s with this clarity and maturity and total lack of fear or uncertainty. He knows he’s in love, that he has been for months, that this man is all he ever wanted. He’s not afraid of anything. He just has to finally tell Ed what he feels, like he failed to before. And it’s so simple and so lovely.