Icon from a picrew by grgikau. Call me Tir or Julian. 37. He/They. Queer. Twitter: @tirlaeyn. ao3: tirlaeyn. 18+ Only. Star Trek. The X-Files. Sandman. IwtV. OMFD. Definitionless in this Strict Atmosphere.
Wait. Hold on a second. Something just occurred to me. They ran out of oranges, but Stede still had his stash of marmalade! Which is made. From oranges!
Obv they still needed actual oranges, but I feel like Stede could have given the Swede some in a pinch.
Okay, kudos to the gifmaker for highlighting Swede’s and Lucius’s reactions.
And I’m really glad we got the reactions from those two of the abuse & bullying Stede got. Why?
Because Swede, Lucius, and Stede are all from different class backgrounds, but there is shared horror and revulsion at what was done.
Let me pull back a little.
Stede as we all know is from a wealthy family. How wealthy? We don’t know, but wealthy enough to build a custom boat, pay his crew a SALARY, and have a FUCKTON of silk & clothes. He can even afford to put some of those clothes to arts and crafts. Sure, some of it is solely for the joke, its a romcom, but given the writers use a SCRAP of silk to show incomprehensible wealth, that Stede has a bunch? No joke.
Lucius is PROBABLY not from a nearly as wealthy family. That said, he has no issues figuring out some of the finer outfits, and most importantly? He can write. Back in 1700s-ish Europe, writing was mainly for merchants and upper class. (Jews as well due to cultural stuff but that hasn’t really been dived into. Yet. Who knows what future seasons bring!)
Not only can Lucius write, but the show actually makes a point that he’s the only one in the crew who CAN. The next closest is Frenchie who TRIES for Stede, but is still learning so mainly sticks to pictures.
I’d argue Lucius is probably from a merchant family due to his ability to write on the fly, his ease at carrying a huge book while inspecting things, and how easily he can talk to folks of MULTIPLE backgrounds (important for sales).
And Swede? Well sadly we don’t know much about him but given his lack of writing knowledge, his confusion regarding upper class things, and gangly appearance, he’s likely from a lower class background. (Not gonna fault him for not knowing oranges prevent scurvy. He’s from Sweden! Oranges don’t grow up there! Closest fruit in vitamin c content he’d know of are lingonberries!)
Now back to the giffed scene which is not long after the mutiny discussion. Swede and Lucius may not GET Stede’s fascination with fine silks, or what fork to use or some of his other rich background quirks. He may not be a great pirate captain and still doesn’t understand some of the harsh realities of having no money.
But they are HORRIFIED by this bullying. It disgusts them. Maybe it mimics their own experiences. And despite class differences, despite the difficulties in communication that happen, they can all agree: that level is cruelty is NOT okay.
Stede tells the crew: "We'll talk it through as a crew" and he gets them to be emotionally open and honest with him and with each other, but he can't bring himself to do the same. He gets Ed to open up to him in a sobbing meltdown but he's a closed book.
I think the first (and possibly only) time in the show that Stede ever actually talks about his own feelings is on the beach: "You make Stede happy."
and since i have a couple minutes i want to talk about stede and trauma responses.
because stede’s got a lot going on, re: the reasons he makes some pretty poor choices throughout the run of the show; he’s got a touch of narratively ironic main character syndrome, he’s preeeeeeetty fucking non-neurotypically coded, his wealth and material comfort have kept him from noticing the larger state of the world, the hilarious snippy retorts parts of him are hilarious and snippy, etc.
but on top of that: we’ve met his fucking dad. i don’t really want to speculate past what canon showed us, but i’d say he absolutely qualifies as emotionally abusive, and we know he sent stede off to sad alone little rich boy school at some point.
we get zero indication stede has experienced even the barest attempts at emotional support until mary offers them, at which point he’s like ‘what is this… telling people deeply personal things about you that you speak of??? and then people don’t take those things and laugh at you??? they want to help you??? seems sus, i would rather go read a book and/or run away to sea like a small child lugging his backpack of fruit snacks down to the park. also when i tried to tell you about horses with kind eyes you didn’t understand what i was trying to do there and i felt slighted, so thanks to my upbringing i have taken that miscommunication and hung onto it and even if i don’t know it, it’s playing into why i won’t take you up on your very kind and well-communicated offer to alleviate my pain. i am A LOT. it’s sad, it’s realistic, but oh man. it’s hard dealing with me and it’s hard BEING me. tell you the truth, i don’t like it much either. or myself! weird, that.’
this man makes me want to CRY.
anyway: stede grew up with a father who looked him in the face and said: you suck. you deserve no kindness, which is handy because i will never show it to you! and if you don’t get used to that level of cruelty in the place that should feel safest from the person the world says is taking care of you, you are not gonna make it out of this shit alive.
stede made it the fuck out. he cut himself into pieces and shoved himself into boxes and learned to shut his fucking mouth and not expect kindness, so when people offer it to him he doesn’t trust it.
hell. i’m not even sure he knows what kindness is, before he takes his fruit snacks and his backpack and runs away to the sea.
I love all of this, but I do have a slight amendment to make.
Stede tries to talk about his feelings one (1) time prior to the beach. It’s the very first time he and Ed properly meet, in Stede’s quarters. Ed is lying back on the couch, Stede is propped poorly on a table or something. Ed says, “You ever feel trapped? Like you’re just treading water? Waiting to drown?”
And Stede starts to answer, real and honest when he says, “Yes. I have… I very much have felt that way–”
And Ed fucking interrupts.
It’s not even a little interruption, either! Like a request for a clarification or a surprised “no, you?” or anything even vaguely demonstrative of giving an actual living fuck about Stede’s answer! Ed plows straight into Stede’s small, aching truth with a ramble about his own feelings, going so far as to say that Stede “has it all sussed out,” making it clear to the audience and crystal fucking clear to Stede that no, actually, Ed asked him a question but it wasn’t one Stede was meant to answer because Ed thinks he already knows everything he needs to know about this rich weirdo’s emotional landscape.
No one wants to hear what Stede really feels. Even this kind man, this peak pirate, this one person who wants to praise Stede for all the things he’s been tortured for before– even he doesn’t want to hear how close Stede was to giving up and letting the water in.
And so, probably, that means it’s not something meant for Stede. Here’s proof again. The final evidence that establishes the fact: no one wants that kind of thing from Stede. And he’s fine with that. He’s okay. He’s had a lifetime of learning it, and he should just be grateful that Ed had kindly ignored his faux pas, is still willing to be friends even in the face of Stede’s sullying the conversation with his ill-bred, intrusive, filthy fucking feelings.
He’ll just have to remember not to do it again. Which isn’t a problem, really. It’s tiring, to try over and over again – and it’d be easier, better, if he stopped. Stick with what might be safely said in social circumstances; listen and support others as a gentleman ought, but remember too that a gentleman doesn’t burden others.
Keep kicking your legs, Stede Bonnet, and wonder how everyone else manages to walk on water rather than drown in it.
oooh, i had forgotten about that! i agree with this, actually with one …not so much disagreement, as added perspective:
ed’s delighted by stede being a weirdo. he’s incredibly intimidated by stede being rich.
he definitely talks over stede there, but in the same way stede is like: fucking… look at you. you’re so cool and tough and strong and a legit pirate, how could you have pain? and comes in with an image of ed he got from a book ed comes in with a bunch of his own baggage about wealth.
he was taught directly and indirectly that people like stede have made it: they won at Being People. god quite literally loves them the most, god gives them nice things because of that, and stede is worthy of those things in a way ed can’t quite accept he could be, too.
so when he talks over stede, he’s thinking: this man? this peak of Being Loved By God And The World (who is shaking up piracy! who thwarted izzy! who is just… mad and amazing and very attractive even while looking like a half-drowned golden retriever) how could he possibly feel like i do. look at everything he’s got! having Things is how you make it in life, because once you have Things and god loves you most, by god happiness is apparently supposed to come along with.
and since this is their first meeting and stede has been conditioned to read that unintentional rejection of his (very important) attempt to connect as a hard and forever no, he goes: well shit. lesson learned, i must now shut the fuck up or he won’t like me anymore.
the heartbreaking thing here (and the mark of the very good writing in terms of setting up natural conflict via characters being deeply, relatably human) is that if that had happened later? say… in that scene on the deck? there’s almost no chance ed would have talked over him, if i had to make a guess.
they both came in with these images of each other on a pedestal for very, very different reasons, and because of the very specific ways they are each a little bit broken the end of the season is almost inevitable, one way or another.
i could talk for hours about everything i love about this show, but honestly i can’t stop thinking about the way ED is in love with STEDE?? like let me explain what i can’t get over, it’s the way that stede is the softer, more feminine, ‘weaker’, more stereotypically queer coded one and it would’ve been so EASY for them to make it stede who had an obvious crush on ed. like play it up that he’s a fool in love and everyone sees it except ed but they wrote it the opposite way!!! ed meets stede and it’s love at first sight!! this scary, masculine pirate captain falls so hard and so fast for stede fucking bonnet and stede has no clue!!!!! ed knows he has a crush the whole show and he just embraces it!!!!!! fuck i just love this show so much and i love that ed loves stede it’s literally the best possible thing they could’ve written
another thing about the ofmd kiss scene!! when stede asks “what makes ed happy?” he is genuinely asking. so many different characters or even just a different actor would have played that line flirtatiously, but rhys darby doesn’t. every time i watch the scene i expect him to lean in a little or do something that indicates he’s sort of joking, but he doesn’t, because he’s not. we find out later that at this point he’s not aware of the fact that he’s in love, and consequently probably doesn’t know that ed is too. so he’s not fishing for anything or hoping for the answer that ed ultimately gives, he just genuinely wants to know what makes ed happy, and the implication there is that he wants to know how HE can make ed happy. and the answer is that he already is, and it catches him so off guard that it makes the scene 100 times more romantic that it would have if he was TRYING to be romantic
