― Rebecca Stead, The List Of Things That Will Not Change

But at the end of the day and despite her best intentions, there was one truth even she was unable to see. That at some point, progress cannot begin… and suffering will not end… until someone has the courage to go out into the woods and drown the damned cat.

-Black Sails, XXXV

it's probably not a generalization to say that we all want to be forgiven. there's something that all of us has done in our lives that we ache for forgiveness for, that we regret, that wakes us in the middle of the night as we think, god if i could just do that again, i'd make better choices this time -

i know this place. i think most of us know this place. so i *understand* why stede ran, when he got all his traumas hit, and he felt like a fraud and a failure, and monster, i get it.

but my god does it also make me want to wring his little neck. it's the way that self-hatred makes you *selfish*. the way it makes you render others petty and small in your mind. the way it lets you discount them, dismiss them, disown them.

because when stede makes the choice (and let's be clear, he very much did make a choice, he *decided* to go back to Barbados and his wife and his family) to leave ed waiting for him on that dock, he does it entirely consumed with himself, and his fears, his doubts, his trauma, his utter self-hatred, and it makes him selfish, because that's what self-hatred does. it makes people selfish and in a way, even arrogant. stede doesn't think about what ed told him, what ed shared, how ed feels - that ed is glad to be figuring himself out, that ed is happy with stede, that ed doesn't want to be blackbeard.

what stede thinks is "i ruined him". he dismisses ed's ability to know himself, to think for himself, to make decisions for himself. because stede is so consumed with his own self-hatred, his own conviction that he ruins everything that he completely runs roughshod over other people's feelings in the process of living in that hatred. he decides that he knows better than ed how ed feels. he decides that he knows better than ed what ed needs.

after all, stede hates himself, stede is useless, stede is pathetic, so ed can't really MEAN any of that, right? ed must be humoring him, or he must be tricked, or something. he can't possibly impact the people around him. they won't hurt in his absence. ed won't be hurt for being abandoned, the crew won't be sad for being ditched with izzy. he's just stede.

and in the meanwhile, there's that family, the family stede abandoned but thought would somehow exist in a stasis, in a pause, available for him to come back to - it's clear he thought mary, alma, and louis would still be as he remembered them, that it was like, in his mind, he could put a pause on the relationship and come back if needed to, without change, without growth, without *anger*...

and now that he's learned his lesson about that, i'm really, really hoping that the stede we see in season 2, the stede who's grown and seen how he impacts the people around him, is a stede prepared for how absolutely fucking pissed the love of his life is about to be.

My new neighbors watching me hang my laundry on the line

LESTAT + even more tumblr tags (part 1) Interview with the Vampire (2022)

Hannibal simultaneously acting affronted by being accused of his own crimes while also needing to hear every sordid detail of how it went down so he can tee-hee later and revel in duper's delight.

Thinking about Stede, and how I've always thought of him as a character who deals a lot with self-loathing, and now I'm not so sure, because if Stede really hated himself, like if that were a core part of his character/personality, we wouldn't have this show.

Because throwing your entire life away for a shot at happiness isn't self-loathing behavior. There's another post going around about Stede thinking about himself as a child when Nigel says "and you cried all the time and liked to pick flowers" and Stede just looks a bit rueful and says "yeah, little bit." You can tell Stede loves that little boy, and really, what is buying a pirate ship and filling it with fancy clothes and chandeliers and odd characters if not trying to give that kid a life where he might have had a chance to fit in, a life he might have liked?

So Stede hates his life, not himself. He loves pageantry but not the people who would shun you for using the wrong spoon. He loves fine fabric, and knows anyone can appreciate them if given the opportunity. He knows there's a life for him out there, if he can just find the right people in the right place at the right time.

...but then, at the academy, while he is the midst of self-recrimination and guilt, finally having realized that he might have caused his family some real problems by leaving without a word in the night, and knowing that Blackbeard would still be the fiercest pirate in the Caribbean if he had never met Stede (debatable, since Ed was looking for an out anyway), Chauncey takes him into the woods, tells him that Stede Bonnet is not human, that he is a plague, that he defiles beautiful things.

And after 40-odd years of thinking 'I know I don't fit here, but that doesn't mean i can't fit somewhere,' Stede says, "I think you're right. In fact, I completely agree." Stede is the problem. He is wrong and the world is right. He could fit in if he weren't deficient. He could do all the things he is supposed to do if he weren't broken.

So he goes back to the life he hated, because it's what he deserves.

Zero drama. All chill. Sippin on sunshine and good vibes.

I, too, would do absolutely anything for that "look" and that "... Please 🥺"

Your love is my turning page

Where only the sweetest words remain

Every kiss is a cursive line

Every touch is a redefining phrase