#episode 10

[ruubesz-draws]

Wwwweeeeeee~

Ion dude probably regretting his life choices

That one scene from the Monarch series ep. 10

(Inspired by this gif:)

[biceratops7]

Guys… guys.

As hilarious as all the “how oblivious ARE you?” jokes about Stede are, I think we’re missing the big picture. This isn’t about obliviousness, it’s about trauma.

Stede isn’t ignorant of the fact he’s in love with Ed. he’s been abused his whole life for his queerness and is having trouble conceptualizing that he’s allowed to be.

Notice how Stede immediately has the instinct to walk back his comment of Ed being “lovely”? This is the same man who didn’t even pick up that his very obviously mutinous crew was planning a mutiny, that shit was learned behavior. He’s speaking as a little boy who was tied to a boat and stoned for picking flowers, and as someone who was told mere days ago a man falling in love with him was “defiling a beautiful thing.”

Homophobia/ heteronormativity is alive and well in this world and Stede, being forced to live in the conservative circles he does, would’ve absolutely been painfully aware of it. The fact that he feels the need to ask a woman what it’s like to be in love with a man speaks volumes after he’s already been happily kissed by one and has roleplayed being married to him when lonely. He’s not just casually making conversation then has a eureka moment when he happens to notice the description applies to him and Ed too, he asked specifically to compare them.

It’s him testing the waters and thinking that maybe “they” were wrong. Maybe he’s not broken or pathetic, maybe he never deserved to be treated as such. Maybe he didn’t “seduce” Edward, or “ruin” him, or “defile” him. And maybe his feelings for Ed are just as loving and romantic as Mary’s feelings are for her boyfriend.

It’s such a beautiful moment when he slowly smiles, let’s out that little breath like a sigh of relief, and tells his wife of an arranged marriage with nothing less than wonder in his voice that what he’s found at sea is in fact love. Fuck, it gets me every time.

There’s an absolutely gorgeous through line of queer liberation in Stede’s half of episode 10 after this scene. How he refers to Ed as his “newfound love”, confidently says they’ll “all be great”. He smears the blood on his face himself, breaks his own flowers, all to reach someone who sees him as perfect and beloved exactly as he is. What a fitting ending to his days of crying himself to sleep because he cannot be what everyone’s failed to beat him into.

[389]

Berserk E10

[heytherecentaurs]

It would have been so much better if Fabian just vomited. As far as terrible body things that could happen to you at school puking is better than shitting yourself.

[seekers-who-are-lovers]

“You carry on, Lieutenant.”

Bringing a tied and naked Isami in the room of his departed “boyfriend” veers toward romantic, erotic and melancholic. I feel for Isami. I feel for him.

[misselesava]

LOVE QUINN | YOU (2018 - 2024)

[deathnotewiki]

April 7, 2004:

Light Yagami and L play a game of tennis.

Soichiro Yagami collapses due to stress.

April 7, 2005: Aiber (real name: Thierry Morello) is killed by the power of the Death Note.

(text in official English release) Light: So far, neither of us has brought up the Kira case. It would be weird to talk about it when we don't even know each other. As if we'd really "get to know each other" by playing tennis. This is just a pretext for us to say "now we're friends."

[icy-watch]

Oh, he promised her. No wonder he's so protective of everyone.

[kumapillow]

Tiny cutie babus 🥰🥰

[drawnbinary]

I am actually so normal about Brassius having Hassel's jackets in his closet next to an appletun sculpture.

[feral-sylki]

Okay but Loki and Sylvie working together against X-5 like they were in a horror movie was so chilling. Deliciously chilling, mind you: seeing them working together, two halves of a whole, working in tandem, with Loki waiting for him in the dark, his voice, the taunt; the angler fish’s bright light, the distraction. Sylvie pouncing, her fingers like claws. The green light. I love it when they play with genre like that and I love it when the protagonists get to be scary

[handkinkbis]

[biceratops7]

*Wakes up in a cold sweat*

Ed and Stede give eachother exactly what they need. It’s the way Ed looks at Stede and the way Stede says Ed’s name. They share these rituals together in a way neither dreamed possible.

There is a running visual motif of Stede being looked at. In these moments we’re placed (literally, talking about the camera here) in his point of view, where we can feel how… confronting it all is for him. His father glaring down at him with dissatisfaction that’s long since boiled into anger. His wife staring at him in an awkward silence like the frustration of being lost in emotional translation isn’t even worth a comment anymore. Nigel’s mocking gaze, Izzy’s calculated focus, It’s all to make you feel how unflinchingly exposed he is… but not vulnerable. He doesn’t get that because in order to be so you need to be understood. Stede lives with all eyes on him, but is not seen.

Then there’s Edward, who essentially has the same crushing issue but with a different presentation. His motif is his name, and what the other characters choose to call him is indicative of if they know him, or just know of him. Blackbeard is what he answers to most, but it’s not something he identifies with in the present, at best he has a very complicated relationship with the person that name represents. The greatest sailor who ever lived, the devil pYrate, a persona he perfected that has flown to the tallest mountains dragging Ed behind him. The only characters that call him Ed/ Edward unprompted or unironically are Stede, and interestingly… Izzy. We’ll come back to that later.

Now here comes Ed, sauntering out of the hell fire and into Stede’s life like the patron Saint of leather daddies. And here we see that same familiar pov shot, and boy does Ed fucking LOOK at him. The last sight Stede sees before he conks the fuck out is this beautiful man who’s heard so much about him at his… well, Stede-iest, and is gazing at him like the loveliest thing in the world right now would be to know him even more. Ed’s heart eyes are no joke, they’re famous for a reason. Each time he looks at Stede, it is giving, it is wanting, it is a deliberate act of love.

Of course in the same sense Stede fills the hole in Ed’s life as well (not that one shut up), the desire not to be revered, but beloved, known. To just be… Edward.

Stede used to have no noteworthy opinion on the matter of Blackbeard, enthralled by the legends as anyone else… until he met him, saw this kind and excitable man who loved all the things everyone else found silly. And suddenly now it’s none of his business. Stede doesn’t push, gets offended when information is revealed to him without Ed’s consent. He treasures all the ways he can get to know Ed, and holds space for whenever he can’t. He still admires Blackbeard sure, but only because he’s one of many facets that create someone far more interesting: Edward. From Stede, Ed’s real name is spoken with love, playfulness, simple familiarity, returning the warmth of the way Ed looks at him like another fine thing he deserves. Even when he’s not actually around to hear it, the natural thought process in Stede remains.

I think it adds nuance and depth to each relationship that this is presented in foil with Izzy, because Izzy uses Ed’s real name as a commodity. It has value only as a threshold of hierarchy for Blackbeard’s inner circle, which as the previously sole member, Izzy is preoccupied with keeping exclusive. He’s possessive of a concept, and the more he learns just how different “Ed” is from it, the more the simple notion of Ed becomes ridiculous. Though both call him “Edward”, it’s only Stede that does so as an unconscious demonstration that he accepts Ed’s autonomy of personhood and is adoring of whomever that is.

The last time we hear Izzy say “Edward”, it’s mocking. To him the name now only represents the pitiful death of a greater ideal “Ed” decidedly is not. The last time Stede says it, it’s when he’s confessing to Mary that he loves him. One instance treats Ed’s name as a mask of his true self, and an inferior one at that, and the other is quite literally revealing.

The image he holds when he tells Mary he’s in love is Edward looking up at him smiling, breaking bread, completely un-pedestaled and joyful to be so. And Stede knows understanding now, being wanted, vulnerability, comfort. He calls those all Ed.

[oponions]

Me whenever I see a Megami Device.

[blmpff]

oh yeah, he's been lost in my- .... eyes

oh hi grandma! 🤐

funny you should ask! and for my next trick, I shall materialize a human being person out of thin air!

tada~~🌟

+bonus: LIVE YAI REACTION

#saveYai

[seekers-who-are-lovers]

Episodes 10 & 11: a comparison

On Episode 10, in the Bad Future where Isami and Bravern died, we were reminded that Bravern’s last memory was that the “Japanese curry was really god.”

On Episode 11, after he mentioned that his vision started to change after the fatal attack from Ira, the last image on his mind was their group photo with Isami as the focus.

I am hurling myself on the floor. Pulling my hair too. This series.