#like!! edward!! my boy!!

[king-wens-king]

ok so i thought about it more and heres what i think about season 2.

Act I - episodes 1-3

Act II - episodes 4-7

Act III - episode 8 (maybe even 7)

I personally think that acts I and II were GOLD. For its purposes, they handled Ed's kraken arc excellently, and the healing period that ed and stede got to have. The first three episodes really take its time focusing on the characters, especially ed's arc which is such a good call. They still contain the powerful drama that exists in the first season with the run from me kraken sequence, the gravy basket, the mermaid reunion, ed and stede making up, la vie en rose. To me, everything in act I is appropriatelly paced and impactfully dramatic.

I think act III is where it all falls over. Looking at it now, what they were doing was following the three act structure traditionally with the first two acts, but having to smush the entirety of act III in episode 8. Instead of adjusting all the acts to be contained within all eight episodes, they stuck with keeping the first two intact, and having the finale episode do all the heavylifting. Which is why I have so much mixed feelings over the season as a whole, when really those first two weeks were insanely entertaining and I had full trust they'd get the story down.

The third week only got me down because of episode 7. Episode 6 was entertaining and really highlighted stede and ed's drama really well! then my feelings were :((( when episode 7 came around knowing that next week would be the finale. Act I really felt like a whole season somehow, and act II was a comfort and was necessary to give us a headsup of what was going on with ed and stede. Those two acts? Really well paced! It also felt familiar to the structure season one followed. I wouldve liked if the writers hadnt left the finale to do all the heavylifting, because honestly thats what diluted my feelings of season 2, when really the rest of it was incredible. It really feels like they stuck with the structure of their two acts and stunted down episode 8, instead of just adjusting the plot line to also accomodate for the third act. Although I think the best choice shouldve had been to adjust the plot events, I cant really complain too much when episodes 1-4 were incredibly tight and dramatic. Run from me! the mermaid scene! the entirety of episode 4! Suffice to say, they did the best they could on a slashed budget and episode count, delivered an excellent two acts but faltered on the last. I didnt mention the wacky sidelining of jim and olu's storylines (seriously wtf was that) in favor of izzy. Because really, max fucked the team over so hard. Had they been given those 10 episodes, the season's conclusion wouldve had a better impact on me the same way the intro did. But I am glad with what we got, as it was the story continuation of the story they wanted to tell.

[bizarrelittlemew]

when they fight their way towards each other on the black sand beaches of Aotearoa what then

[blakbonnet]

it's his lil excited nose scrunch from the lighthouse fuckery 🥹

[gentlebeard]

If I could hold you for a minute, Darling, I’d go through it again

For @edsbacktattoo & @stedesearring 💕 Show: Our Flag Means Death - Season 1 & 2 Music: Francesca by Hozier YouTube

[stbot]

I've been thinking lately... maybe I should stop worrying so much about why I feel something and just feel it.

[xray-vex]

hey remember when the OFMD s2 teaser video dropped and there were people who were somehow CONVINCED that Stede was referring to Izzy when he said "I don't care what any of you say, he's actually a good guy" and not, y'know, Ed, whom they were literally just talking about in this scene?

like what the hell was that about

[luck-of-the-drawings]

"I think this is the most inhuman; and human, that I've ever felt.." MUCH CAN HAPPEN IN A YEAR. IN FIVE YEARS. A DECADE. imagine how much can happen in a century. just ONE (1). How will you grow? what phases do you find? even in 5 years, you will find patterns.

[caesarinsalata]

Ed's face before fully processing that someone complimented him

[sluckythewizard]

THEY could give me the surgurey i need (inspired alot by evojellys designs for em. GREAT STUFF)

[jackshomoeroticthoughts]

what if part-time soulmate, full-time problem, huh? what about it?

[finzphoenix]

They are plotting for Gotham's demise! >:3

The obligatory close-ups ^^

[suffersinfandom]

So there’s a lot of debate over who’s responsible for Ed’s turn to the Kraken (or, as I like to call it, “the Krakening”), and I think that’s partly because no one person can be blamed. Ed is a deeply hurt and traumatized individual thanks to his life pre-canon, and that hurt can be attributed to a lot of things -- his father, Hornigold, the society he grew up in, the culture of piracy, toxic masculinity.

But there are three key events that we actually see happen between the dock and Ed pushing Lucius overboard, and these three events in combination are the lead-up to the Krakening:

Event one: Stede running away. Stede doesn’t show up at the dock and Ed, convinced that he’s unlovable and of course Stede wouldn’t come for him, accepts abandonment and heartbreak.

Event two: Izzy. “I should’ve let the English kill you.” “This, whatever it is that you’ve become, is a fate worse than death.” “This! This is Blackbeard, not some namby pamby in a silk gown pining for his boyfriend!” “I serve Blackbeard, not Edward. Edward better watch his fucking step.”

Event three: the crew’s chanting. After Izzy leaves, Ed faintly hears the crew laughing and asking for another song. This is the last time we see Ed before he pushes Lucius overboard.

Okay.

After Stede panics and runs and Ed returns to the Revenge alone, he cries and eats marmalade in a blanket fort. He’s heartbroken and sad, not smearing on the eyeliner and hitting the rhino horn. Lucius gets through to Ed with “maybe life just begins again,” Ed sings his little song in front of the crew, and then he starts cleaning up. 

I’ve seen this scene in S1 compared to the scene in S2 where Ed is tidying his cabin up on the day he’s decided to die. While we should absolutely read these scenes as parallels, I think it’s a mistake to say that they’re the same thing -- that is, scenes of Ed cleaning his depression mess, cheered up by what he thinks is his impending death. 

In fact, I think that the S2 scene is sadder when we have these two contrasting Eds. Ed in S1 is newly hopeful. He’s still sad, but he has a community that cares about him and the hope that he can be different. He doesn’t have to be the dread pirate Blackbeard; he can just be Ed in the space that Stede created, even if Stede himself is gone. Ed doesn’t have the same dark energy in S1 that he has in S2 after he has firmly rejected hope for change and anything beyond Blackbeard. S1 is life beginning again; S2 is life coming to an end. 

See above: S1 Ed (bright-eyed, a little manic, open, hopeful that life can begin again)

See below: S2 Ed (dull-eyed, very manic, vaguely menacing, only hope is death)

So event one -- Stede leaving -- isn’t responsible for the Krakening. We can’t know what might have happened if Izzy had, say, been tossed overboard in a mutiny, but it wouldn’t have been the season two we got. In my opinion, every indication points to Ed recovering in the company of the crew. 

Next we have the confrontation with Izzy. This, I think, is the real turn. 

Izzy is cruel here. He hates Ed being soft so much that he tells Ed he’d be better off dead. His wording is an implication that Ed is alive at Izzy’s pleasure (“I should have let the English kill you”) as well as a warning that Izzy’s loyalty to Blackbeard does not extend to Edward. 

I don’t think that Ed interprets Izzy as a direct threat, but Izzy is -- as always -- acting as a manifestation of toxic masculinity. This scene is the world saying that Ed can’t be soft and gentle if he wants to survive. He can’t mourn lost love. He doesn’t have the luxury of healing in a community.

Ed, still raw and sad, is being reminded that he’s not allowed to be just Ed. Just Ed has been told his entire life that he’s not meant for fine things, and whenever he reaches for a fine thing -- friendship, love, community -- he’s told that pirates don’t have friends, he’s unlovable, and he’d better watch his fucking step. Just Ed wasn’t enough for Stede, so how can he be enough for anyone else? For the crew? For Izzy and everyone else in a world that seems to want Blackbeard?

After event two, Ed is on the precipice. He’s unbalanced and uncertain. He isn’t sure that life can begin again after all. And then he hears the crew.

Offscreen and far away, the crew asks “Eddie” for another song. We know that there’s no maliciousness in that because the crew likes the Ed they’ve seen, but Ed is vulnerable. He doesn’t hear friends; he’s not used to having friends. He’s used to Jack and Izzy, who both betrayed him. He’s used to the people on the party boat who pretended to like him and then turned on him. If Ed isn’t valuable, lovable, or even worth liking, then why would the crew genuinely want him to come back? They must be mocking him. 

Lucius gave Ed hope that he could have fine things. Izzy yanked that hope away and, in this moment of doubt, Ed can only hear further confirmation that he was wrong to want better than the violence of Blackbeard.

It’s not a coincidence that the first things Ed purges are his red silk and Lucius. The silk is now a warning against reaching for fine things, and Lucius is the one who encouraged him to be soft and vulnerable in front of the crew -- something that he thinks the crew rejected. Ed moves to protect himself by abandoning all hope for things that he has been told aren’t for people like him.

In conclusion: a lot of things contributed to the Krakening and the main villain here, as it often is in this show, is toxic masculinity and patriarchy.

[froot-batty]

I have the firm belief that any good design of the riddler looks good with this outfit

yours is no exception eddie would wear this 100%

he paused his game to be here

[rossothelioma]

st sebastian

[thisbluespirit]

Films watched (1990s): THE WINSLOW BOY (1999); dir. & screenplay David Mamet (adapted from the play by Terence Rattigan). Starring Nigel Hawthorne, Jeremy Northam, Rebecca Pidgeon & Gemma Jones.

"No, not justice. Right. Easy to do justice. Very hard to do right."

[iersei]

Hi, Could you draw Edward Hyde from The Glass Scientists? Pretty please? Please?

[VOTE GLENN CLOSE IN THE GRAND CHAMPIONSHIP -> GET A SKETCH REQUEST]

what a silly little guy <3 (there seems to be something deeply wrong with him)