OFMD

🏴‍☠️ "I know the chances of finding you are slim, but so were the chances of us finding each other in the first place."

[edsbacktattoo]

ed doesn’t want to hold stede back. stede doesn’t want to disappoint ed. but the thing about them is that they fell in love for being exactly who they are, not what the world believes them to be. they’re trying to protect each other without knowing exactly how. and me? i’m feeling like mincemeat about it thank you for asking

[irlplasticlamb]

the sun and the moon.

prints available here

[saltpepperbeard]

they really don't think they're enough for each other, huh. they really don't think they're enough.

stede thinks he has to "toughen up." stede thinks he has to be gruff and mean. stede thinks he has to win respect in order to subsequently win love.

ed thinks he has to perform. ed thinks he has to constantly put his persona on. ed thinks he always has to be this larger-than-life legend.

they both think they have to be so much for each other.

when, in reality, all they need to be is themselves. the simplest, sweetest, silliest, most genuine versions of themselves.

[blueberrybeard]

I feel like Steddie, Wolfstar, and BlackBonnett all are ships in the same fonts. In other words, rugged brunette with big brown eyes x insecure protective golden retriever

[saltpepperbeard]

“Our Blackbeard is a legend, a lover, a fighter, a tactical genius, a poetic soul, and quite possibly insane.”

[fleethall-deactivated20251104]

trying to ink all the LEATHER before work like

[fleethall-deactivated20251104]

you know it's your blood that i bleed

[fleethall-deactivated20251104]

this has been in my folder for 800 years but we're finally on the shading

[corttheartist]

obsessed with ed’s hair up.

our flag means death s2 slaps btw.

go watch it.

[ibenology]

I just keep adding to this and it’s slowly going from a meme to something I might have to talk to my therapist about

[balerians-deactivated20251001]

new niche just dropped

edit: there’s a pattern of something something wanting to protect their partners from what they know to be horrible

[akans-dead-at-sea]

🧡💜

[mermaidstede]

Nathan breaking after getting slapped in the face by a sammy.

[jvmesdoesart]

epic hair swoosh.

these new bts pic's are everything.

[leithianxx]

Black Cravats & Albatross

You may have noticed that Ed wears Stede's black necktie/cravat from the episode 4 clothing swap throughout the rest of the series, even after he becomes the Kraken. He threw away everything of Stede's, he even threw away the silk his own mother gave him. He shed all material things with any residue of sentimentality on him, except for the cravat. Why? This has been interpreted in a lot of different ways, some have said it's like a noose he wears carries around his neck, foreshadowing the death of Edward for the Kraken. Others have called it a collar, representing the chokehold that Stede has on him. Personally, I think it's an albatross.

Quick spark notes time for anyone who didn't have to read this in high school: The Rime of the Ancient Mariner is a late 18th century epic poem by Samuel Taylor Cooleridge. It's thought to signal a shift towards modern literature, similar to the artworks referenced in Mary's paintings which I did a deep dive into here. The significance of transitional periods and 1717 generally being a time of extreme political, philosophical and artistic change is something I might explore in another post.

Anyways, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner tells the story of a sailor returned from sea. He was part of a crew trapped in the ice flows of Antarctica, when an albatross (a giant seabird with a 10ft wingspan) appears in the sky. The bird leads the ship to safer waters and is hailed as a good omen. But the sailor shoots it out of the sky, bringing a curse and misfortune to the crew. As punishment, they make the sailor wear the dead albatross around his neck so that he must carry the heavy burden of his sins. After a time, Death appears to claim the lives of his crew mates, while a ghostly woman named Life-in-Death claims the sailor, who gives him "a fate worse than death." Time passes, and the sailor observes slimy sea creatures swimming around in the water. He begins to appreciate their beauty, which lifts the curse. He's returned home, and is commanded to wander the earth to tell others his tale.

There is strong evidence that this poem was on the minds of the OFMD writers. A seabird is killed in the show, and for this crime Calico Jack is ostracized and cursed to die. But more to my point, the albatross has become a common metaphor in popular culture for a heavy burden that one must carry. Ed found something to lead him out of the life his was trapped in, and he thinks he's shot it out of the sky by showing his true self and scaring it away. He wears this cravat, a gift from Stede, something that once belonged to him, as a burden of guilt for the crimes he's done that caused Stede to reject him, as penance for becoming the monster he thinks he truly is, and as a reminder to never let someone close to him again.

The poem is also famous for the popular quote, "Water water everywhere, but not a drop to drink." When Ed returns to the ship, despite his heart break, he is surrounded by support and love. The crew literally surround him and listen to him sing about his feelings, they cheer him on for more. Lucius offers him the possibility of life after death. But Izzy tells him that for this he's suffered "a fate worse than death," just like the ghost who damns the sailor. Water, like love, is everywhere, but Ed won't accept any of it. Not now. He will need to realize on his own that there is beauty in heartbreak and learning to love again. Maybe then he can lift the curse, and return home to himself.

[avelera]

So it's kind of subtle, but in OFMD 1.10 when Stede first comes home and changes out of his prison gear it's into a blue coat reminiscent of the color he wore in the family portrait. Like in the portrait too, his family is wearing warm colors shading towards yellow/beige, a clear sign he does not fit in with them.

Interestingly, on the second day when Stede confronts Mary about Doug, and in all scenes after that until he departs Barbados, he's switched to a green jacket. Given how costumes are used in the show to signal character beats, I don't think it's a stretch to say this is deliberate and after thinking about it I think I know what the change signals.

When Stede first comes home and is wearing blue, he's totally out of step with his family, and worse, he's not even trying to see things from their perspective. He's very much the outsider and honestly the most aloof and reprehensible (falling into old patriarchal habits of the husband/father) that we see him in the whole series.

When Stede switches to green, I'd argue it's because he's making at least a cursory effort to fit in again. He's at least engaging with those around him and listening when Mary tells him she's not changing her life just because he came back. Indeed, in the shot where he plans the fuckery and his children help with the costume, his children are both wearing vests reminiscent of his looks, with subtle patterns to their clothes reminiscent of Mary's costume. He still doesn't fit in in Barbados, and never will, but the green signals he was at least listening and meeting his family halfway before making his peace with them.

[celluloidbroomcloset]

I've been thinking about this exchange between Izzy and Ed in "Discomfort in a Married State":

"For years I've followed your every whim, I've managed your increasingly erratic moods, I've massaged this crew when they were worried about your judgment—"

"Mm, sounds stressful, Izzy."

"It is."

Izzy has assigned himself the role of "managing" Blackbeard, but it's quite obvious, both in Ed's response and in the way he says it, that Ed has never wanted or expected him to. And he continues to try to manage Ed, even when Ed clearly tells him not to.

Both Ed and Stede have that word "whim" thrown at them by people who don't really understand them - Izzy and Mary - and both at first resist the word (Stede even says "I object to the word whim"), then internalize it. It seems what are being called whims by outsiders are actually expressions of deep desires that neither Ed nor Stede have the verbal or emotional language to describe.

It's not a whim that has Stede running off to a be a pirate - it's all the frustration and loneliness and repression - and it's not a whim to go back to Mary - it's a result of guilt and self-loathing. It's not a whim that has Ed following the Revenge to meet Stede - it's wanting to find someone who might be a kindred spirit. But neither of them can openly articulate those feelings, either to the people who are calling them whims or fully to themselves. Stede goes further than Ed does because so many of his desires are located in his repressed homosexuality, and once he's able to articulate that - with Mary's help - he understands his feelings. He still believes that he's "whim-prone" in other ways, but not when it comes to Ed.

Ed is especially leery about his own desires, which have been managed by other people for so long, and about Stede's. His idea to "run off to China" is a whim in a certain sense, but it's expressing a desire to leave behind their old identities and form something new together. His desire to "take it slow" is about his own healing independent of Stede, but it's also built on a fear that Stede is going to disappear again. After they have sex, Ed again falls into the fear that it was a whim, but it's not his whim - it's Stede's. He's scared that what meant so much to him doesn't mean as much to Stede, or not enough for Stede to be able to let go of piracy and fame. He's worried that piracy wasn't a whim, but he was.

Both of them have been managed most of their lives, in different ways and by people and structures that they never wanted to manage them in the first place. It was all about keeping them in settled, socially acceptable places where they can't escape, and casting doubt on the legitimacy of their desires. (I don't think Izzy, and certainly not Mary, consciously think of it in these terms, and Mary especially has had to subsume her own needs as much as Stede has.)

In the scene with Izzy, Ed's evidently pushing back at the management, and he probably has been for a while. But this is likely the first time where his desires are getting more articulated, after his conversation with Stede, and are the same moment when Izzy starts trying to exert even more control over him.

His finding the letter is a mirror to Stede's conversation with Mary - the realization of who he is and who the man he loves is, and that the feelings he's experienced not just for but from Stede are not whims but bone-deep love.