Controversial opinion (?): the Kraken Era wasn’t all that dark.
There’s a whole lot of meta and fic out there that portray early season two Ed as a bloodthirsty, hyperviolent monster, and when that portrayal is challenged, the rebuttal is usually along the lines of, “I’m just doing what canon did. Did you even watch the show?”
I did watch the show, and honestly? I expected Ed to be so much worse than he was! When I see people say they didn’t think Ed did enough to redeem himself or that he went past the point of no return, I just… don’t understand.
I already went into this in my way-too-long meta about Ed and abuse, but I do think it bears repeating (in a shorter post) because it seems like Ed’s actions -- more than the actions of any other character -- are scrutinized and discussed outside of the context of, y’know… a comedy about pirates. There’s tons of casual violence in Our Flag Means Death. Sometimes the violence is even funny!
So what does Ed actually do?
As far as I can remember (I’ve only seen season two a few of times, so correct me if I’ve missed something!), we see Ed directly harm someone twice in the first two episodes: first on the wedding boat, and then when he shoots Izzy in the leg. Kind of unimpressive numbers, yeah? Tbh, I'd expect more out of a heartbroken Blackbeard.
The first instance involves Ed shooting a man during a raid. That man has a sword through his chest before Ed fires, leading me to believe that Ed’s still following his season one pattern of keeping himself a step removed from murder (technically, the sword killed that guy). We also don’t see the murder happen; the man tumbles offscreen before Ed shoots. This makes the action less brutal. If the writers wanted us to be appalled by Ed’s violence, we would’ve gotten a graphic kill (or several).
And the second instance is Izzy. Ed shoots Izzy in the leg after he suggests that the shitty atmosphere is because of Ed’s feelings for Stede. Hot take, maybe, but I don’t think that was entirely out of line -- definitely not for a pirate captain whose first mate is acting out! Ed’s feelings for Stede are not the only problem; a significant chunk of the problem is Izzy. Izzy called in the navy and led to their capture and, more importantly, Izzy bullied Ed back into the Blackbeard persona. This is what Izzy said he wanted.
We’re also told that Ed has taken more of Izzy’s toes between seasons. This isn’t cool -- bosses definitely shouldn’t be asking for their employees’ toes -- but there is a precedent for it: in season one, Ed told Stede that he used to feed people their toes for a laugh (yuck). For a laugh. This, to me, implies that it’s not a huge deal. It’s certainly not completely unexpected pirate behavior, and it seems more lenient than, like, a keelhauling or a whipping. I think both of those things would've felt way more gruesome and dark.
As far as violent actions go, that’s not a lot. Like, numerically.
Things get darker in S2E2 when Ed becomes increasingly desperate for someone, anyone, to send him to doggy heaven. He’s unhinged and working his way up to a murder-suicide before he’s stopped, but he doesn’t lay a hand on anyone. He orders Archie and Jim to fight to the death. He ignores anonymous crewmembers as they’re swept overboard in the storm. This is bad! It’s self-destructive and selfish! But violent? Monstrous? I don’t really think so.
In my opinion, the worst thing Ed does is force his crew to do violence for him -- not because it’s violence (again, they’re pirates), but because the violence hurts them. THIS is what traumatizes them! Their trauma flashbacks are scenes of them hurting others, not of Ed hurting them directly. Ed didn’t physically torture his crew (with the exception of Izzy, and that’s complicated). His crime was driving them to do one violent raid after another, killing and plundering without any joy or theatrics. Ed feels trapped in the role of Blackbeard -- the role that he’s been desperate to escape -- and, in his heartbreak, he opts to trap his crew with him.
Yeah, Ed is messed up in the first two episodes of season two. I don’t blame the crew for almost killing him; it’s what needed to be done. I think that Jim, Archie, Frenchie, and Fang had every right to want Ed gone after Stede’s return.
But I don’t think that Ed was a super violent monster who tortured his crew and murdered his way through his breakup. He engages in very little onscreen violence, and the person that most of his violence is focused on -- Izzy -- is the same person who told him to be violent. I think that anyone who says that Ed’s actions in the first part of season two are extremely dark is either looking at them out of context, misremembering what actually happened and just recalling the dark tone, or working with some kind of motive.
In conclusion: Ed is a man who, at his very darkest, was still operating pretty firmly within the bounds of "stuff pirates do" (but not stuff Ed has historically done, presumably).
Also look at him. Thank you.
GIF by unearthlydust
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Hey.
OFMD fans? Thank you.
Thank you for making art and writing fic. Thank you for typing out meta and analyzing overlooked details and arguing about interpretation and intention. Thank you for making gifs and recoloring stills. Thank you for cosplaying. Thank you for collecting news, memes, and behind-the-scenes from other platforms and bringing them to Tumblr. Thank you for sharing your favorite fanworks so the rest of us can see them.
Thank you for being good to others. Thank you for donating to fundraisers and mutual aid. Thank you for uplifting other voices and creating a safe space ship where even timid people who have never participated in an intense fandom before feel welcome.
Thank you to the folks who are kind to the people who disagree with them. Thank you to people who are truly willing to talk it through, who block instead of engaging negatively, and who ignore opinions that make them mad.
Thank you to everyone who likes and comments and reblogs. Thank you to the lurkers and the cheerleaders. Thank you to creators who are still afraid to share their creations but create anyway.
I love Our Flag Means Death and I love this fandom. I love you, and I hope you'll stick around. No matter how much or little you participate, you're part of the crew; whether we've spoken or not, you're my friend.
Thank you.
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Always an experience watching the leftism leave FNAF fans when someone mentions that Scott Cawthon financially backed fascist politicians.
The switch from posting hardline leftist tweets about boycotts and signal boosts and critical takedowns of politicians and celebrities to ‘ohhh, well. everyone makes mistakes. who can blame him, listen he. he donated money to gay charities too. that makes it ok! a millionaire in his forties is allowed to have political beliefs. does it even matter? just let it go!’ is whiplash inducing. The antivaxxer celebrities have got to go, but this one horror dev who quietly handed wads of cash to antivax lawmakers? He’s chill, he can stay.
The charity thing is so funny too because suddenly utilitarian positive-negative point counting is the way to go. Maybe an abacus would help calculate the net good of donating to the Trevor Project minus donating thousands of dollars to Mitch McConnell and Donald Trump. -10 points if I push a kid in a lake but +11 points if I help an old lady across the street, so I’m chill. You can’t judge me. Hey, maybe. Just don’t push a kid in the lake period. How fucking low is the bar when we’re excusing maxing out the possible dollar amount of donations to Mitch fucking McConnell. That should be like. Default you’re a bad person.
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happy new year Ego!!! Just wanted to let you know that I absolutely adore your twst fanart and the tags are just an absolute pleasure to read! You are my greatest inspiration for my personal twst art and I just wanted to thank you for your wonderful masterpieces <333 if possible, may I ask what are some of your headcanons for the diasomnia family? If not for diasomnia then any other characters are fine as well!
thank you, and happy new year! 💚💜💚 that is amazing to hear; it's always a little bewildering but super flattering that other people like my silly little doodles so much!
I don't think I really have any really solid headcanons and also canon keeps validating me left and right (FLUFFY DOMESTIC DIAFAM IS REAL). mostly just kind of...impressions and general thoughts, if that makes sense! lately though I've been kind of obsessed with thinking about Lilia's hair, and specifically when/why he ended up cutting it. (l-look, we're bouncing around the timeline and I gotta make decisions about these things when I draw, it's relevant) (I mean I would probably be weirdly fixated on this anyway, but.)
I think I've settled on the idea that he kept it long until he went to NRC, partly because 1) I like drawing The Ponytail, and 2) I think he thought of NRC as a chance to reinvent himself a bit! he gets to go and be a wacky carefree teenager for a few years and have fun! (officially he's there to keep an eye on Son #1, but how much trouble could he get into, really.) so he gave himself a Cool Teen Haircut to go with his fresh new Cool Teen Persona!
also maybe he had some reflection on his hair's troubled past with three kids...
...and had to weigh his vanity versus the fact that he was going off to be around hundreds of kids on a daily basis, and. the choice suddenly seemed obvious.
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