Frenchie Is Definitely My Favorite “minor Character.” I’d Be So Curious To Learn More About Him,

How does Taika Waititi (and honestly every single person who works on more than one film project, like, ever) have time for all that?? I have to read one (1) book within the span of a month and absolutely lose it

The Beowulf movie is so bad, but you have to give the animators credit for the insane amount of creativity when censoring Beowulf’s dick

Ugh I can’t wait. Usually with second seasons or sequels or whatnot I get so scared they’ll ruin it, but I just find it hard to believe they will. Everyone who works on this show is so talented, and honestly I’m confident that whatever direction they choose to take in season 2, it’ll be the right one

My wishes for a possible season two are so utterly varied!!

I want them to reunite with gusto within the first three episodes, yet I also want a tantalizingly slow escalation of near-misses and stolen glances! I want Stede tracking Edward down with unbounded love, singing sonnets the whole way; but I also want Stede tracking Edward down with anguish, spurred by love but with a burning desire for answers- perhaps even retribution. I want that journey to ground Stede- bringing him down to earth and forcing him to start from scratch. But then again, I also want that journey to spur his unabashed flights of fancy- exacerbating all that makes Stede Bonnet so utterly bonkers.

I want Edward to sail as far away from Stede Bonnet as he can geographically muster, forever pushing forward until the physical distance matches the metaphorical one that Stede initiated. But I also want Edward tracking Stede down, thinking that he's with the navy, thinking that he returned to his family, thinking 101 different thoughts that have him ceaselessly searching for the man that fucked him over. I need him to hear of Bonnet's death on the mainland- I want him to believe it, to genuinely think that the man's dead; but equally I need him to clue in on the fuckery, to uncover the story of Badminton #2 and piece together the bizarre puzzle from that fateful night. I need him to hear of Captain Thomas and his bizarre domination of the Carribean; I want Ed to brush it to the side, a mockery of Bonnet's name. Yet I want him to realize, to recognize who exactly this Captain Thomas and his peculiar pirating style is.

When they do reunite, I want Stede to alternatively mirror season one, with him coming in to save an Edward who's gotten into a frightful altercation with the British; subsequently spending days sitting at his bedside as wounds tentatively begin to heal. Yet I also crave for their reconvening to be utterly novel- something that forces the two to work together before they even get the chance to speak. When they lock eyes for the first time in months, I want Ed's world to crumble at the sight of Stede Bonnet, his knees thunking the floor and eyes welling with unkept emotion. Yet there's an undeniable appeal that comes from an on-deck duel, emotions funnelled into a physical altercation. I want Stede to respond with emotional maturity, facilitated by lessons from his arduous journey at sea! Yet I yearn for the clueless, tone-skewed Stede Bonnet who goes about reconciliation in an entirely convoluted manner. I want Izzy to support the reunification, having realized that the Kraken was not the monster that he had called for, realizing that people are multi-faceted and healing is paramount. But I also yearn for him to be a little shit- desperate and repressed- protective of the image of Blackbeard and disallowing Stede's return to their lives.

I want the healing to take mere days, routine returning with the softness of the rolling waves outside. Yet perhaps even more so than that, I need this to be a months-long process of Stede proving that he's here- he's not going, he doesn't want to, he accepts Edward as a whole, never for individual parts. I want Stede to wipe the paint from Ed's face, gentle and soothing with every stroke. But I can't dissuade the idea of Edward doing it himself, sitting in front of a basin, scrubbing at the sensitive skin until he recognizes the face before him; until he believes that healing is attainable.

Dalrymple… as in……. Thundergun of Witchfinder-Colonel Ye-Shall-Not-Eat-Any-Living-Thing-With-The-Blood-Neither-Shall-Ye-Use-Enchantment-Nor-Observe-Times Dalrymple???

Knowing that taika based viago on his mum makes it so much funnier

You know you’re in Texas when the restrooms of the banquet hall connect to the rodeo next door

ok crew, i want to talk about myth and meaning making

(and originally petrified oranges but since i've already spent 2 hours of my life going red strings and thumbtacks about how that may actually be a possibility lets change course from steering to port and head starboard instead)

first, when i say myth i'm talking the foundation stories of social groups. religions have foundation myths, but so do governments, nations, companies etc.

"this is who we are, and why we do things the way we do."

and history is a myth too, albeit one reinforced by governments and scholars. and it usually focuses on people with the resources, power and affluence to order it to be recorded. which gets echoed in how Lucius was ordered to record everything,, except for, you know, mutiny and normal mundane things that have no bearing on Stede and his exploits (there really should have been some inventory done to check the orange supply at some point, like inventory and ship's logs are actually pretty well recorded if the cargo breakdowns in Black Flags Blue Waters 2018 are anything to go by).

but between massive english illiteracy until very very recently, and the bias of what gets preserved and copied down or thrown out, it's easy to see how the great man of history model was so easy to perpetuate. we don't really have examples from anyone BUT the "great men" of history, at least not easily accessible or widely distributed. (museums are trying with the massive document uploads, but this is also what makes Anne Lister's diary such a treasure for queer history).

if you've never heard of Jane Elliott's blue eyes/brown eyes experience i highly recommend looking it up. in essence, school children's ability to do timed math flash cards is directly linked to whether their teacher and classmates are telling them they are superior or inferior humans based only on the color of their eyes. (their self esteem also took a massive hit but the flashcards were actually trackable). basically, authority figure and peers say ur bad at ____ enough, u can't perform at ____, even if you're actually pretty good at it.

and this applies to friend groups too!

are you a mom friend because you are naturally that category? or because someone has labeled you that and you fill that role for them?

now! party time!

the amount of self-policing and pageantry and snobbery rolling off these rich people. who decided dining required a week of personal tutoring so you don't get laughed out of the room? brutal. i'm with Ed here, these social customs make no sense and are designed to mark out who is wealthy, idle, and in-the-know from everyone else. as if to say 'you will never be one of us you can't even eat properly'.

it further underscores the flashback to Ed's mom giving the 'people like us don't get nice things' speech. she's parroting what's been drilled into her until she believes it. now it's her reality and her child's too. but something in Ed wants to wonder...

hold that thought a moment.

there's some awesome meta floating around about how Ed is a genre chameleon, or how his personality changes to fit the people around him. and if you listen, everyone wants to tell him who he is. what it means to be blackbeard. how blackbeard behaves. especially Izzy and CJ. they seem to think they have the difinitive take on who he really is.

and none of these versions have room for nice things as anything beyond something to horde or trade. a prize, but not one u can enjoy. they are constructing overlapping cages of identity for him, when humans are more of a constellation of traits influenced by emotions and circumstances. a galaxy among galaxies, all feedback loops and multidirectional gravities. to stop changing is death.

then there's Stede. "you wear fine things well," said so gently and without scorn or sarcasm. is there another option? when you have told yourself that you're a monster, been told you're brilliant when you're feeling at your worst,,, no wonder it takes his breath away. maybe. just maybe. to be worthy of something fine.

stay with Stede a moment. because he says something late in the series that bears unpacking. "it's a stupid idea. I only have stupid ideas"

who told him that?

was it his dad? badminton? did he decide it himself after the 300th time someone gave him a weird look when they couldn't follow his logic? when did he lock himself away into "i only have stupid ideas"?

because Ed never thought so.

just like Stede never thought Ed should be deprived of fine things.

and Stede has never really had friends to tell him who he is to them. he's had parents, wife, responsibilities. expectations. He has run away from those expectations to try to be the version of himself he wants to be. Stede never figured out how to ask what other people actually want or if their interests can be made to align. Ed may be the first person to visibly and consistently enjoy his company. no wonder he's willing to overlook a little half-attempted murder.

maybe. just maybe. to be worthy of warmth without the weight of impossible expectations.

to find a little understanding. to just pass the time well.

i think ofmd might be a queer myth we've been needing. because it asks what happens when we let the myth blind us to the people in front of us. but even more so what happens when we let their myths blind us to ourselves, our possibilities.

it says:

if you cannot bear the weight of roles assigned by outsiders, there is a place for you. if you cannot live up to ridiculous customs, there is a place for you. if you long for a little comfort, a little adventure, a small section of deck to lay your head when the sea turns rough, there is a place for you. come take a turn at the wheel, at the rigging. there is work to do and all talents are needed. and later i will tell you how a little wooden puppet became a real boy, how a boy became a pirate, how a pirate became a myth, and how a myth was only human after all.

Hear me out

okay but the thing is we don’t talk about the moonlight scene ENOUGH. like yes, it’s obviously one of the most romantic scenes of the show but the L A Y E R S

first you have the red silk. stede’s never seen it before so he has no idea how much meaning it holds to ed, but he treats it so fucking gently and with such reverence that ed is quite visibly stunned. like that is ed’s heart!!! and he just hands it over!! and stede, without fucking KNOWING, takes it from ed’s hands, smooths it out, and tells him it’s LOVELY

and ed’s FACE when stede hands it back. he’s in AWE of him, this gentleman who treats him like a person and not some disembodied evil or mythological monster. idk how the fuck taika is able to put so much emotion in his eyes, but jesus cHRIST

AND THEN ED STEPS FORWARD AND LEANS IN TOWARDS STEDE. HE WANTS TO KISS HIM RIGHT THERE BUT DOESN’T. HE SETTLES FOR A PAT ON THE SHOULDER BECAUSE HE JUST WANTS TO FUCKING TOUCH HIM

and then they part ways but both look back, and ed carefully traces his fingers over the red silk, now carefully folded and tucked into his breast pocket on full display, not crumpled and hidden deep on his person

there’s so much in this scene and it’s only a minute and a half long. THAT is how you set up a romance. istfg this show is a literary masterpiece. if this shit doesn’t make you fucking feral than get the fuck out of my sight

Starbucks gave me the wrong panini ):