Felt Like Drawing Them

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.

Yeah yeah yeah

They

theres a lot of different theories about how the imaging chamber works.. but the idea that its just a really large room with a normal floor is so funny to me cause that means if hes not careful, al can just… walk smack into a wall that sam cant see……..

(personally i think it just has an omni directional treadmill for a floor but.. thats not as funny)

Sketched some friends of mine today!

happy pride

also just in case anyone did miss this added context that i genuinely can't miss is like. the thing about izzy's betrayal, because i see a LOT of people say that izzy was just selling stede out is that as far as the British were concerned they were selling ed to izzy.

they were selling him. they were providing him to izzy as payment for services rendered to the crown. the show establishes from episode 1 that the british navy considers non-white people to be savages and slaves. episode 5 establishes that the french share this belief, with the french captain calling ed a donkey, which is an old slur for pacific islanders.

its to izzy's credit that i DONT think he gathered that this was what was occurring - he genuinely seems to think that he was "saving" ed from a fate worse than death (being happy and """emasculated""" with stede), but the way the british talk about ed - how they are remanding him to the custody of "captain" hands - demoting him while promoting izzy, the white man given "custody" over him with the expectation that izzy will keep him under control -

as far as the british are concerned, izzy has just bought the man they're selling, in exchange for the man they want dead. which is also why they're willing to turn him over. slavery is alive and well in the 1700s, and they're selling a man of color to a white man's "custody". he's friend to the crown, so he can name his price, and his price was ed.

but not ed's freedom - ed is not captain teach, captain blackbeard, he's entrusted to the custody of captain hands.

izzy doesn't seem to get it. ed absolutely does. this is the kind of shit he's dealt with his whole life.

Rest well, ma'am

Stede Bonnet gives off high school English teacher vibes and honestly I’m here for it.

Exploration

oh also quantum leap.