#because it's something we absolutely think stede would say out loud

[sonnetforbonnet]

So at the end of S2E3 when Stede is trying to bring Ed back to life, he's saying "come back to me" and all that stuff. But when he says "I'll never leave you again" and "You're safe" that's clearly in a different voice, right? There's nothing frantic about it, meaning it's a voice over? So it's not something Stede was actually saying to Ed but rather something Ed imagined Stede was saying? I'm not crazy here, right? Have people already talked about this and I just missed all the discourse?

[blacksilkcravat]

I felt like tacking this on to this post would derail the original conversation a bit, so I decided to make a separate post to discuss this.

This bit:

When you've grown up with the idea (either reinforced violently or just reinforced by the fact that it's what everyone does) that there is only one possible path for you, it can be hard to imagine a different one.

and this bit:

And that sense of "ohhhhhh. I'm gay! thank fuck, that explains SO MUCH" is something I have not really ever seen in media before or after OFMD and that's one of the reasons it's so so special to me.

This right here - knowing conceptually that queer people exist, and even knowing queer people personally, but not thinking it's an option for you until suddenly it is - is something I've seen in myself and a lot of GenX and older Millenials. We were raised in a time when being gay was a taboo thing, when it made you a social pariah, when it could get you beaten or killed if you were even suspected of being gay, much like we are seeing with trans people today. (I'm not saying that queer people aren't still persecuted on some level, but we have come A LONG WAY since the 80s, trust me.) Bisexuality wasn't taken seriously, and nonbinary/genderqueer/genderfluid wasn't even an option back then. And I always felt like I wasn't succeeding at being a girl, or a woman. It felt like a costume I was wearing. I was more comfortable dressing more masc, but I didn't understand why. I knew I didn't want to be a trans man, but I didn't know what other option I had.

Part of my nonbinary egg cracking was absolutely because of Jim, and Vico's representation of a nonbinary actor playing a nonbinary character, but another big part was Stede's journey. The journey of a middle-aged person, forced into a lifetime of comphet, not even really knowing that anything else was an option for them, coming to the realization that they ARE queer, and casting off a lifetime of repression to finally live authentically without apology or regret. That was me, coming out as nonbinary at the age of 45, barely a couple weeks after watching all of season 1 in late March 2022.

That is why watching OFMD was such a watershed moment in my life. I'd been unhappy for a while and couldn't figure out why. I'd been talking to nonbinary friends and even sort-of trying on the identity with certain friends, but it didn't hit me full force until after I watched OFMD, and then (after a week long identity crisis) I knew, with perfect clarity, that I am nonbinary and that I wanted to get top surgery. Just admitting that out loud to my spouse was so healing. We still had a lot to talk about, but a huge weight lifted off of me, and I felt lighter than I had in years. That is the gift that OFMD gave me and I will always be grateful.

[amuseoffyre]

Since I did my wee heart's content flail about Stede's autistic coding, of course I can't leave Ed out. I am absolutely 100% on board with ADHD Ed. (Natch, here be spoilers for the whole series)

That man may be a brilliant tactician but the fact that Izzy has to chase him around a ship, telling him to stop getting distracted by clouds and model ships and shiny things immediately sang out to me. "Focus, Ed", Izzy tells him. "Yeah, but I'm bored," Ed replies, bored by the monotony of the same old over-and-over-and-over again.

To Stede, piracy is a life of excitement and adventure. To Ed, it's become routine and humdrum. "I don't even need to be there" he says. There's nothing that sparks his interest, keeps his focus, or makes him want to stick around but he can't see any other choice because he's Blackbeard. That's who he is and has to be. "Do you ever feel like you're just treading water, waiting to drown?" he says, trapped by his role, his name, his position and his own perception that it's all he can be in a repeating and tedious loop that is making him miserable.

And then you see him on Stede's ship, getting to try new things, have his world view shaken up, experience different kinds of behaviour and he blossoms. He's sparking with Stede, their two variations of neurodiversity fitting together just right, both of them getting to have the support and validation they need from a peer and the stimulation and interaction they have lacked.

Honestly, Ed looking at Stede and going "you're a fucking lunatic and I like it" feels like the dynamic I have with so many of my neurodiverse friends :D

I love that both of them have the same outside-the-box thinking when it comes to feral planning, but Ed - when he needs to - can look at a dozen random things that no one else would notice and go "huh" and work out a plan based entirely on that.

Ed looks at the shape of clouds and can calculate to the *minute* when things will happen - when it's something he's good at and gets excited by (which has the double-header of exasperating Izzy), he loves it. He looks around Stede's room and sees a way to construct an improvised lighthouse on a ship. And he's so proud of himself when it all works out.

Of course, it doesn't all go well. He gets so caught up in giddy excitement by the new things that he impulsively decides he wants to go to a posh party. And of course, gets entirely overstimulated, starts behaving in ways that are seen as too loud, too strange, too rude, egged on by his hosts and doesn't realise until he becomes the butt of the joke. My emotions when he goes running to Stede saying "I want to go home now" because it hits him so hard becoming the focal point of mockery. Lil sprinkle of rejection-sensitivity for you, my good pirate.  

Plus there's the clash when he and Stede do the treasure hunt. Stede, from his perspective and belief of what pirates enjoy, is trying to keep Ed stimulated and happy enough to stay. Ed, from his perspective, is being forced to do something embarrassing and cringy, leading to him losing his temper and getting angry. It takes Lucius explaining the miscommunication of what Stede is trying to do to make Ed realise this wasn't what he thought it was and immediately tries to make things better for Stede.

Add the fact he can't sit still, he's constantly swinging, climbing and bouncing on things. There's a frenetic energy to him, big physical reactions, big motions, and the only time we see those slow down - even stop - are at the end of the season. Ed was on the verge of becoming a Captain like Stede for the crew. He was so close to it. Sad, but slowly processing things (talking it through, as a crew), until Izzy yelled at him about all the things he fears he is and that make him bad (ie. the very things Izzy loves about him because Izzy is a leeeeeetle bit murdery).

At first, it's not so obvious, because he's still very visibly grieving but when he's holding that little bit of silk, remembering when Stede treated him like he was good enough, and then Stede Just Left Him? Was it because he wasn’t fine? Was it because fine things are what Stede really wants? The moment he lets go of that silk, when he puts on the the Blackbeard mask again, he's still and grim and it's a performance. A very taut, controlled performance that only falls apart when no one can see.

Izzy has been trying to get him to mask his behaviour the whole season and finally, finally he gets what he wants. He wants Blackbeard in command and focussed and as he was. But that isn't Ed. That's never who Ed was. And Ed, who is already not good at dealing with rejection, is in pieces hiding under a costume.