bookshelfdreams:

A brief conversation I had with @mikimeiko on their lovely meta about the motive of loss and abandonment made me think about miscommunication some more, and how horrible Calico Jack was to Stede.

When Stede meets Calico Jack for the first time this is what he says to him:

Who’s the big gal?

Off to a terrible start, and it only goes downhill from there.

As others have pointed out, this is a very mean thing to say in general and absolutely unacceptable to say to a queer man in particular, and Ed knows that. He’s trying to do damage control

He’s fucking joking. You’re not a girl.

but he’s laughing along with Jack - or maybe trying to laugh it off? He immediately gets physical with Jack as well, and it looks to me like the sort of thing you might do, when someone you like just has said something that makes you intensely uncomfortable but you really don’t want it to be a big deal. He’s performing closeness with Jack: Look, I like this guy he wouldn’t say something like that he doesn’t mean it. While at the same time he literally jumps on him almost as if that would distract from the really hurtful thing Jack has just said.

But. Look at Stede’s face while Ed does this.

He knows guys like Jack. All his life guys like this have shamed him for being “weak” and effeminate. And he knows the kind of guy who would laugh along with that for whatever reason - to protect his own image, to not cause a conflict. He’s already tired of this interaction. Look at this sad little nod after Ed says “You’re not a girl.” (sorry for bad quality, this is not art, just to illustrate my point)

God this is. Painful. I feel this expression in my soul.

And he’s still trying to play nice with Jack! He’s offering his hand, he’s welcoming him. He’s even ignoring Jack’s sarcastic little “Lovely”, as they shake hands. Because Jack’s a friend of Ed’s and he’s used to putting up with a little bit of bullying. But the disappointment here is palpable. And so is the resignation. Because Ed may not be a bully, but (from Stede’s perspective) he doesn’t defend Stede from abuse either, and part of Stede expected this to happen eventually. I’m not even sure he thinks about it as betrayal per say - it’s one of the things that just happen. Bullying is inevitable and people are only friendly with him as long as no one can see.

But! From Ed’s perspective, this isn’t what’s happening at all! I’m not saying he doesn’t have baggage, but he probably didn’t grow up with this specific kind of constant ostracizing. To him, it’s all just friendly banter. He doesn’t notice how hurt Stede is because, well, Stede is very good at not letting it on when something really hits him. To Ed, he’s just averted a crisis, introduced his old best friend to his new best friend, and now they’re all gonna go have breakfast together :D

It gets even worse later on, when Stede asks Jack about his ship. If you’ve ever been bullied tell me if this sounds familiar: You were just trying to defend yourself, but the bully suddenly starts a crying performance, and now you’re the mean one. Meanwhile, all the bully’s friends flock to them and comfort them because you really hurt their feelings, how dare you! I don’t even think I need to talk about this further.

And then. It all culminates in the beach scene. After being literally peed on, Steve has finally had enough. He’s an adult; he doesn’t have to put up with this shit. He’s still avoiding confrontation though, he simply extracts himself from the situation.

But Ed, who was just having a fun day at the beach, doesn’t understand why Stede is suddenly leaving. Ed wants Stede to be there and share in the fun! More importantly, he wants to show this part of himself to Stede. He wants this to be a bonding experience, and he’s really excited about it. So he tries to convince him to stay.

I might just head back to the ship.

But Ed (contrary to Stede tbh) is actually good at communication, and he wants to know what tf is going on, so he asks again.

And I think it’s actually a testament to how close Stede’s gotten to him that he actually tries to communicate his feelings for once.

What he says: “I’m not finding any of this a blast actually! I don’t like to drink ‘til I puke, or get pelted with coconuts. Or making a turtle fight a crab? That’s just mean!” Now it’s not that he finds any of these actions distasteful in particular. These are all just stand-ins for what Stede is actually angry about. Which is that Jack is hurting him in a way he’s been hurt all his life, but he’s not saying that. Because the first rule of the bullied kid is, you do not let the abuser (or their allies) know when they got to you. And in this moment, to him, Ed is an ally of Jack’s.

Ed doesn’t have all the context though. He doesn’t know this about Stede’s past, he doesn’t know how sensitive of a subject this is for Stede. Fuck, he doesn’t even know about all the interactions Stede had with Jack. Look at his expressions, as Stede goes on his little rant:

Why would you say this I thought we were friends :(

In this moment, Stede is triggering all of Ed’s insecurities. To him, Stede just described a fun afternoon. He feels judged, like Stede is shaming him for his lack of sophistication.

Then Stede delivers the killing blow: “Honestly Ed? I don’t like who you are around this guy.” And he means: I thought I could trust you, I thought you wouldn’t find this kind of behaviour acceptable.

What Ed hears is: You aren’t good enough for me. I have seen a less refined side of you and I don’t like it.

Which is why he says “But this is who I am.” He’s a pirate, and he’ll never be an aristocrat, and if Stede doesn’t like it, well, Ed also thought Stede was one of the good ones :’(

Just. A masterclass in miscommunication.

hermywolf:

so apparently walking the plank wasn’t that common amongst pirates during the age of piracy, it was just popuralized by the book ‘treasure island’. there are very few pirates who were known for doing it. take a wild guess on who was known as one of those feral weirdos. yeah you guessed it its stede. fucking insane little homosexual

avelera:

This is an anti-creampuff-ification of Stede Bonnet account. Yes, he is nice but Stede is also insane. He clearly has the eyes of a madman. The most fearsome pirate that ever lived is his soulmate and he regularly impresses this guy with how unhinged he can be. He reads bedtime stories to bloodthirsty pirates, among whom is one who openly talks about his cannibalistic inclinations. Another of his crew was raised by a murderous nun to be god’s perfect killing machine. This is Stede’s found family and he is perfectly aware of these facts about them. Stede ran himself through on Izzy Hand’s sword to win a duel and he smirked as he manipulated a bunch of poncy nobles into setting their own ship on fire. He felt completely at home in Spanish Jackie’s bar until they actively attacked him to get him to leave and he screamed FUCK at the top of his lungs while trying to find the right inspiration to scare the shit out of a bunch of Dutch merchants then SUCCEEDED at scaring the everloving shit out of Blackbeard accidentally in the process. His only notes on Blackbeard’s crew going on a murder spree to demonstrate how to capture a ship was to appreciate their gusto and the efficiency of not missing the chance to rip the gold teeth out of a dead man’s mouth.

And yes, this is the same man who thought making a turtle fight a crab was mean, because he has standards. Very, very unhinged standards. He is a walking contradiction of genteel upbringing and an unabashed craving for a violent life of crime, like a duck raised by chickens discovering the water. All in all, I find this very sexy of him and in the privacy of my brain I will be fighting to the death anyone who tries to morph him into a sweet inoffensive cinnamon bun who is too good for this world, too pure.

distinguishedstudentfishalien:

Something I really enjoy about Stede (and Rhys acting ofc) is how brave he is.

His entire life he was told he was weak, pathetic, a coward, and even though he believed those voices, he just isn’t.

Yes, it was pretty brave to leave to become a pirate. But it was also extremely brave to go back and fix it. He is not afraid of confrontation, and I love that about him.

We see that from the first episode. The interaction with Wee John, when he holds his weapon menacingly, clearly trying to intimidate him with it and Stede doesn’t back down, instead he just asks him to rephrase the criticism. King.

EVERY SINGLE interaction he has with Izzy. My man just doesn’t take anyone’s shit. He is always surrounded by fearsome pirates but he still makes himself heard. When he tells Calico Jack to get off his ship? Stares him down while wearing his fancy pijamas? This man is not afraid of being himself and I respect that so much.

But we do see him scared. Of what? Of killing and being killed, and I’m sorry, but that does not a coward make. He just has common sense.

And even tho Ed is the one who presents more traditionally manly and “is not scared of anything”, he is afraid of confrontation, he is afraid of being judged. He doesn’t speak up for himself, he doesn’t confront Izzy, he gives up easily. The only times he acts against expectations is for Stede (ep 8, 9) which is just another example of how good they are for each other.

Rhys could have played him like “he is just a bumbling, cowardly idiot” but he didn’t, he gave him depth, and I’ll be forever grateful for that, because Stede is my absolute favorite.

the-moon-loves-the-sea:

Izzy’s voiceover suggesting he suspects Ed has no intention of killing Stede Bonnet, followed immediately by Ed teaching Stede dueling, makes me wonder. At first it looks like good fun, and then oddly intimate masochism, and then suddenly he pulls a real gun on Stede and says “Thus is the life! Act, or die!” (And, of course, teaches him how to be run through safely.)

Is he only (violently, Izzy and Jack-style) flirting with him? Is he mainly making good on his general promise to teach him how to be a proper pirate? Or is he very aware that he promised Izzy Stede would die, that Israel Hands is going to hold him to it one way or the other, and that Stede cannot hesitate to run a man through to live—or be run through safely if it comes down to it? I can’t help but think he’s trying to set up what comes next.

He doesn’t seem to resist Izzy’s order (and it’s an order) to kill him, but part of him had to know he couldn’t in the end—or that if it came down to it he’d want Stede to beat him. And he didn’t seem to believe Stede will survive the duel with Izzy, but I don’t think it’s for lack of hoping. I think even then he knew he did not have control of Israel Hands, and he’d better equip Stede to survive him than pretend he can make him stand down for the sake of Ed’s love.

lestatsstims:

lestatsstims:

would anyone be interested in a post of all the in-canon references to stede’s body image issues?

Alright then, here we go. I know some of these might be a bit of a reach, but they’re just what I saw and felt from the dialogue and way the scenes were shot.

It seems that people making comments on Stede’s body is the background noise to his life. He experiences it way more than any other character, which is strange because he is a pretty straight-sized dude, and the fact that characters who are visibly fat and much larger than Stede don’t experience this suggests there is more to it than lazy fatphobic writing. I think that the way he holds and presents himself, very much peacocking with his clothes, hair and possessions, demonstrates that he is not confident about his appearance, and inadvertently advertises it to others that it is an emotional weakness of his, which they then use when they want to hurt or humiliate him.

Even if Stede is not reflecting on his own body, other characters bring it up for him. For example, when Buttons is telling him about the planned mutiny, he uses the phrase “soft-bellied” to demonstrate weakness of will, and actually looks Stede’s body up and down as he says it. I know that calling a pirate “soft-bellied” refers to his personality, not his body, and has the same sort of meaning as “yellow-bellied” or “lily-livered”, but the fact that Buttons does look at Stede’s body when he says it suggests he is using it literally as well as figuratively.

The significance of a character’s gaze is also relevant in this shot, where Stede is unsuccessfully trying to engage in the conversation about the horses with Mary and their children.

She keeps clear eye contact with Stede when she says “pig”, even though she is speaking to Alma and isn’t trying to include Stede in the conversation. I am not saying that Mary is calling Stede a pig here, but as Stede is the character who we see the early narrative through, we see how he perceives the world around him, and here he feels that she is calling him a pig. He could understand her to be referring to his body and appearance, or that she is calling him pig-headed, stubborn in his will to go to sea and his refusal/inability to behave how she thinks he should as a husband. It feels relevant to Stede that this eye contact is made, and removes his power in the conversation by taking him back to his childhood experience of bullying, even if that wasn’t Mary’s intention.

Other men, mainly the British navy and the children he grew up with, bully Stede by mocking his body and his effeminacy, which go hand-in-hand: these men see physical softness as effeminate, and effeminacy as weakness.

It’s unclear whether this officer truly believed Stede was a woman, but seeing as Nigel Badminton was able to identify him as Stede, a man, immediately, it is likely that this is a cruel joke mocking how Stede presents himself.

This exchange is fascinating. Nigel is, of course, a bully and an abuser. Bullies identify weaknesses in their victims and exploit them. I seriously doubt that Nigel genuinely misremembers Stede as being a fat child. I think he knows that Stede was a small, slim child, and, observing that Stede is now an average, kinda-soft-around-the-edges adult, he’s carrying out a bizarre sort of gaslighting where he’s saying, “no, I remember better than you and you were always fat” to trigger insecurity in Stede. And it works: the fact that Stede says “I thought I was slender” as opposed to a self-certain “I was slender” or “I wasn’t fat” shows that he is doubting his own memory of his body, like how body dysmorphia makes someone unsure of what their body really looks like.

And Stede has clearly internalised this bullying, in the same the way he has absorbed the ideas that he is pathetic, weak, and cowardly. When he is plagued by Nigel’s “ghost”, i.e. his own self-doubt, the fixation on being called fat is there.

He does try to fight these thoughts, arguing back that he isn’t fat, but the Nigel voice continues and it is clear from Stede’s body language, facial expression and vocal outburst of “enough!” that it upsets him. In his therapy session with the Tribe Elder, the Elder confirms that the ghost is entirely Stede himself.

This does in most part of course refer to his guilt at leaving his family, but the fact remains that in the scene on the beach, Stede repeatedly calls himself fat as a means to hurt himself.

My next piece of evidence ties body image issues to food issues. 

It is quite clearly Stede’s fault that 50 oranges were used to make a cake. Stede gave an order as Captain and Roach followed it. Generally, Stede is very good at taking accountability, for example saying “I deserve that” when Jim calls him the worst pirate captain in history, apologising when he gets cross with the crew during the rehearsal for the fuckery, and saying he deserves the firing squad for having done the wrong things and hurt people. But in this instance he is unable to take the blame and sticks with blaming Roach. I think the idea of being called greedy or excessive when it comes to food is something Stede is afraid of as it would draw attention to his perceived flaws in his body.

When Calico Jack meets Stede, the first things he comments on (bullies about)  are Stede’s size and his effeminacy.

Even Ed, who is clearly deep in his feelings for Stede at this point and presumably finds Stede physically attractive, laughs along and feels no need to reassure Stede that he’s not “big”, even though he does reassure him that he’s not a girl. Stede’s face in the last screengrab there says it all. He is hurt but he is so used to this sort of bullying that he just tries to shrug it off and doesn’t stand up for himself, allowing Jack and Ed to continue their behaviour.

When Ed leaves The Revenge and Stede watches him through the telescope, Stede immediately brings Ed’s “choosing” of Jack over him down to physical appearance, not to personality, Jack and Ed’s complicated history, or anything else. He asks for reassurance but Oluwande, being hungover and sleep-deprived, gives a very non-committal answer. Now that Stede knows that Jack and Ed have been sexual with one another, he not only compares himself to Jack in terms of how “cool” or how fun to be around he is, but also in how sexually attractive his body is to Ed.

I don’t have any sort of natural conclusion to this post. Of course I have no way of knowing if any of these things were deliberate, but I feel that at least some of them certainly were. Our Flag Means Death is a well-written, complex show with excellent symbolism, and I don’t believe that this show would point random fatphobia at its main, straight-size character with no deeper meaning.

In conclusion,

and Stede deserves to be confident in his body and his abilities, and I hope you found this interesting to read!