celluloidbroomcloset

[celluloidbroomcloset]

I do think that it comes from this place of trauma and also an inability to process that a piece of media (especially mainstream media) could actually do something right. We (queer people, women, BIPOC, etc. etc.) have been so used to digging through media to find subtext or good representation for so long, even if it's barely there, that when we see something that does it right, we don't trust it. There must be something wrong with it—not just wrong, problematic. It must be a dodge, a con job. They must be fooling us. So we convince ourselves that they are, and that's how we get these twisted, confused arguments about heteronormativity in a show that's all about super fucking gay pirates. And this gets even weirder when people who haven't bothered to watch the show in the first place decide that it's wrong and bad.

It just can't be true that there's a mainstream TV show that does what OFMD does. The fans must be deluded. And at base, I think that there's this fear that if it is true, then that's something that media and culture was capable of all along and things don't have to be like this and never did.

I feel like we don’t really acknowledge the absolutely unhinged levels of moral superiority people hold over fans of ofmd. Like I’m not gonna get into specifics but it’s so completely bonkers to me that people will see enjoyment of MUCH more problematic media and skip along their merry way… But then when a show with a diversity of skin tones, sexuality, gender, ability, AND writers gets popular, suddenly you’ll have people practically telling you to get a red hot poker up the ass if you dare to still like it when it’s not the most virtuous bastion of media to every exist.

Yadada yada yada that Sarah Z video asking why we hold diverse media to a much higher moral standard than we do anything else

[celluloidbroomcloset]

Ed took one look at Stede that morning and went "I...have to...leave..."

#ofmd #our flag means death #stede bonnet #edward teach #most comfortable in his body stede looks all season

[celluloidbroomcloset]

OK, but ignoring the whole weird Stizzy thing for a minute, let’s discuss that little arc with the training montage.

Because of course we see Izzy failing utterly at training Stede, and we see confirmation that Stede is not good at that kind of physical action: we see him unable to throw a punch, unable to hit a target, unable to swing on a rope. There’s no buildup cuts where he gets gradually better at it (as there usually is in training montages) and we never see anything that implies that Izzy helped him get better (not least because there’s no point later on where we SEE him being better). But we do hear Stede say that “his body takes over” when he gets into the midst of action, and he points out that he did indeed defeat Izzy in a duel.

Later, we see Stede defend himself—he punches the guy who attacks him from the wardrobe before Izzy can even get his sword out. He turns and fires the gun in the air before any of the more experienced pirates can move to defend him. He does, in fact, respond quickly and effectively in the heat of battle. Which he has always done—he draws a knife on Izzy the first time they meet. Doug grabs his shoulder and he moves to defend himself.

At no point do we see that Stede’s technical skills have particularly improved—he tries the same moves with Zheng that he did in the first duel with Izzy and he loses to her. He gets his sword stuck in a guy’s stomach. But what we do see, and have seen, consistently through both seasons, is Stede’s ability to survive. He’s not predictable, he’s not technically skilled, and he NEVER learns those skills with any degree of proficiency. But he is very adept at survival. He uses his unpredictability to his advantage and he makes it out alive. Not only that, his intuition and inventiveness help OTHER people to survive.

Stede didn’t win the duel with Izzy on a technicality; he won according to the rules while at the same time ignoring all the rules of dueling (he doesn’t know them!). He doesn’t survive in spite of his lack of technical skills; he survives because of that. And there’s no such thing as surviving on a technicality—you’re either alive or you’re dead, and Stede’s alive.

Which is exactly what Ed says to him when they first meet: “Most of the pirates I know? They’re dead. So you’re doing a lot better than them.”

#OFMD #our flag means death #stede bonnet #Izzy hands #ofmd meta #gif

[celluloidbroomcloset]

Stede and Archie had quite a different dynamic in another universe...

#ofmd #our flag means death #stede bonnet #ofmd archie #rhys darby #madeleine sami #gif

[celluloidbroomcloset]

I just really love that Ed returns to the Revenge and starts re-evaluating his own behavior, not just in terms of what he did as the Kraken, but what he did as Blackbeard. But unlike with Jack, where he dissociates or denies or tries to laugh it off as “just pirate stuff,” he actually listens and apologizes. The scene with Fang is so important because it’s not shaming—it’s Ed actually listening and learning both to apologize and not to see himself as monstrous because of it. It’s who he was but not who he has to be.

Meanwhile, Stede is once more discovering that he’s not good at being a pirate the way Izzy is a pirate, or a captain the way Ed was a captain. But he’s very very good at being a pirate his way.

And that’s the point, isn’t it? Ed was a great pirate captain and it made him hate himself and almost killed him. Izzy is a good old school pirate and he’s an abuser who gets his leg shot off. All the great pirates are dead. Stede has survived. He’s created a family on his ship that love him and trust him and that he listens to. He’s made life better for them, including Ed and Izzy.

And at the end of the episode, both Ed and Stede have grown more. They’ve come to understand themselves more, just not in the way they expected. It brings them closer to each other, as they both start accepting themselves. They’re learning how to love themselves and in doing so, to love each other better.

#OFMD #our flag means death #stede bonnet #edward teach #ofmd meta

[celluloidbroomcloset]

Captain’s voice scene remains an all-timer. Love how they can get back together, Stede can be 100% aware that Ed loves him and he loves Ed, as well 100% aware of his sexuality amid his many many gay sex dreams, and the precious baby is STILL completely oblivious to the effect he has.

Ed is sitting there discovering three new kinks in two minutes and getting hard just from Stede’s tone of voice, and Stede remains a human :D emoji.

#ofmd #our flag means death #stede bonnet #edward teach #gentlebeard #gif

[celluloidbroomcloset]

Sorry, I will stop harping on this, but I legitimately saw someone trying to argue that the dynamic between Stede and Izzy in Season 2 is the same as the dynamic between Stede and Ed in Season 1 and…bro, just admit that you decided you wanted to give Ed’s boyfriend to your abusive blorbo for some fucking reason. Like, come the fuck on. Stede doesn’t learn shit from Izzy. That’s the fucking point.

It’s a problematic dynamic for so many reasons. Lotta people have explained why this is. Stop making shit up. Or, I dunno, actually watch the fucking show.

#ofmd #our flag means death #stede bonnet #izzy hands #edward teach

[celluloidbroomcloset]

Yeah, I very much read Stede as demi and canon seems to bear that out. His love for Ed starts as friendship and it also remains friendship in addition to attraction and desire and romantic love. They understand each other at a very deep and fundamental level. At no point does Stede come off as the kind of man who would get his heart broken and then go off to find rebound sex with anyone.

I’d argue that Stede finds pleasure in sex with Ed because it’s with someone he has very deep and intense feelings for.

AND ANOTHER THING. Say Ed did ACTUALLY leave and never come back (which he wouldn’t, because that’s his guy). First, Stede would be wildly depressed for months. Second, when he did reach a point where he could talk to someone about it, he would not open up to the guy whose name he struggles to remember and who sold them out to the English. He’d talk to Lucius. He’d talk to Olu. He’d talk to EVERYONE. It would be everyone’s problem. He’d have group therapy sessions.

The only plausible scenario where Izzy works his way into being Stede’s confidant is the whole grooming thing that has been discussed and that is indeed something that could happen, but even then it takes a major fucking leap for that to turn into a sexual/romantic relationship, given who STEDE is. More likely he would get further isolated and we all know what happens when Izzy tries to isolate and manipulates people.

Anyway, now I’ve grossed myself out.

[celluloidbroomcloset]

It’s ultimately what one indeed expect from a queer coded villain in a different show. But the whole point with this one is that almost everyone is explicitly queer!

AND ANOTHER THING. Say Ed did ACTUALLY leave and never come back (which he wouldn’t, because that’s his guy). First, Stede would be wildly depressed for months. Second, when he did reach a point where he could talk to someone about it, he would not open up to the guy whose name he struggles to remember and who sold them out to the English. He’d talk to Lucius. He’d talk to Olu. He’d talk to EVERYONE. It would be everyone’s problem. He’d have group therapy sessions.

The only plausible scenario where Izzy works his way into being Stede’s confidant is the whole grooming thing that has been discussed and that is indeed something that could happen, but even then it takes a major fucking leap for that to turn into a sexual/romantic relationship, given who STEDE is. More likely he would get further isolated and we all know what happens when Izzy tries to isolate and manipulates people.

Anyway, now I’ve grossed myself out.

[celluloidbroomcloset]

It’s just not a plausible scenario (though again, I can see Izzy trying to groom Stede, but you really have to work hard to get that to be sexual, and then you’re basically crafting a narrative where Stede gets entrapped by your abusive fave).

Also that other British naval officer (whose name is escaping me right now). He’d be very into Stede.

AND ANOTHER THING. Say Ed did ACTUALLY leave and never come back (which he wouldn’t, because that’s his guy). First, Stede would be wildly depressed for months. Second, when he did reach a point where he could talk to someone about it, he would not open up to the guy whose name he struggles to remember and who sold them out to the English. He’d talk to Lucius. He’d talk to Olu. He’d talk to EVERYONE. It would be everyone’s problem. He’d have group therapy sessions.

The only plausible scenario where Izzy works his way into being Stede’s confidant is the whole grooming thing that has been discussed and that is indeed something that could happen, but even then it takes a major fucking leap for that to turn into a sexual/romantic relationship, given who STEDE is. More likely he would get further isolated and we all know what happens when Izzy tries to isolate and manipulates people.

Anyway, now I’ve grossed myself out.

[celluloidbroomcloset]

♥️ love train! send this to all the blogs you love! don’t forget to spread the love! ♥️ (no pressure) - Abby <3

Awwwwwwwwwww. Thank you!

#reply #i've had a few of these and i never know how to handle them except to go aw shucks

[celluloidbroomcloset]

Can we note that the little plant they commandeer from the boat at the start of the pilot is fucking thriving by the time it's used as evidence in "Act of Grace"? Like, Stede or the crew or all of them have been watering and tending to that little thing for months.

#ofmd #our flag means death

[celluloidbroomcloset]

Will admit, Izzy pairings are really only interesting to me as a form of whump fic - Izzy himself being the terrible situation such fic is focused on recovery from.

I admit that I have issues with whump generally (my problem, not anyone else's), but with this particular show it makes me incredibly uncomfortable, given how much the show deals with violence and abuse. This seems to be particularly directed at Stede, that he needs to be made to suffer, and...TBH, if your thing is to take a character who struggles with masculinity and have him physically or otherwise abused by a character who hates him for his gender presentation, and make that somehow a sexual dynamic, I have a fucking problem with that.

#ofmd #our flag means death #reply

[celluloidbroomcloset]

*sigh* Whole damn show is about how they don’t have to be any persona or put on any performance for the other to love them. Stede loves Ed, all the things that make him Ed, including the things that Ed himself fears. Ed loves Stede, with his confidence and his insecurities and his frilly things and without his frilly things.

So much is about performance - performing masculinity, performing status, performing your own personality to fit in with everyone else. And it all ends with neither of them needing those performances to be loved.

Kinda the definition of unconditional love.

#ofmd meta #ofmd #our flag means death #stede bonnet #edward teach #gif

[celluloidbroomcloset]

Thing is, Stizzy and Steddyhands and even EdIzzy often come down to an attempt to reward Izzy with the attention and love/sex from the central couple that some fans think is his by right, and it almost always disregards the canon characters. Ed leaves Stede, so of course Stede fucks Izzy? Ed and Stede are together, but they need Izzy there for some reason? It just has to come from a fundamental misunderstanding of the canon, if not a deliberate imposition of the deeply problematic tropes that the entire show is working against - sex/love as a reward or prize, DESERVING the love or body of another person because you did the right thing with your love or loyalty or because you grew, etc. That’s part of rape culture.

And honestly, I do think this is related to some of the rhetoric around Izzy’s death - the language of him not DESERVING to die. None of this is about deserving. The crew don’t help Izzy because he deserves it; they do it because he needs help.

Stede doesn’t go through specific motions with Ed as his reward at the end. Ed doesn’t change himself so that Stede will love him. They don’t obtain or possess each other. They love each other.

#ofmd #our flag means death #stede bonnet #edward teach #Izzy hands #ofmd meta

[celluloidbroomcloset]

AND ANOTHER THING. Say Ed did ACTUALLY leave and never come back (which he wouldn’t, because that’s his guy). First, Stede would be wildly depressed for months. Second, when he did reach a point where he could talk to someone about it, he would not open up to the guy whose name he struggles to remember and who sold them out to the English. He’d talk to Lucius. He’d talk to Olu. He’d talk to EVERYONE. It would be everyone’s problem. He’d have group therapy sessions.

The only plausible scenario where Izzy works his way into being Stede’s confidant is the whole grooming thing that has been discussed and that is indeed something that could happen, but even then it takes a major fucking leap for that to turn into a sexual/romantic relationship, given who STEDE is. More likely he would get further isolated and we all know what happens when Izzy tries to isolate and manipulates people.

Anyway, now I’ve grossed myself out.

#ofmd #our flag means death #fandom critical #no more of this

[celluloidbroomcloset]

I’m beginning to think that this is just an extension of a conversation they had in bed during breakfast and both of their minds have just moved beyond a space where they can be comprehensible to anyone else.

So, that cat conversation.. really puts Stede saying "ten human years" into perspective doesn't it?

He must also be three cats inside a human suit 👀