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I might just be delusional, or it might just be because my whole feed is currently filled with Granada Sherlock Holmes gifs (My beloved) but I need Charles to at least have seen a decent amounted them, because they were getting released while he was alive, thought they were pretty nifty and never thought more about them until a dead boy reads detective novels to him as he dies.

At some point they probably ran out of things to do, and because Charles is the helpful sort, and scared shitless that Edwin might just decide to leave, he looks at his mate in his brown tweet, remembers a certain detective and his inseparable companion and one day he just kinda blurts out the suggestion that they could be detectives.

„Dead boy detectives?“ Edwin will ask incredulously, and Charles will point at him and yell „sounds rad mate!“ like it was Edwins idea to begin with. Edwin will go along because let‘s be honest, he probably harboured a secret wish to be a detective since he was old enough to pick up a detective novel. They pool their shared knowledge of mystery tropes together and off they pop. Along the way they pick up a cricket bat, a spell book ( and much later a psychic) but thats how the second most codependent detective duo comes together.

Luke Skywalker + TV Tropes

A TV trope is a common or expected use of characters, situations, settings, and time periods across a specific genre of television. Tropes are similar to clichés, but on a larger scale, and can be used to help guide the audience through a story in a familiar wa

Notes: All of these TV Tropes can be found on the TV Tropes website, below we will find some (not all) tropes that refer to Luke Skywalker.

Child of Forbidden Love: He and his sister were the result of Anakin's and Padmé's union since Anakin and Padmé were in a Secret Relationship due to Republic- era Jedi being forbidden to marry.

All-Loving Hero: Luke is very compassionate and caring towards others; he immediately wants to rescue Leia from the Empire upon learning she's on the Death Star with them and will drop everything to help his friends in need. He even believes that Darth Vader, the right-hand man to Emperor, can be redeemed, even though Obi-Wan, Yoda, and Vader himself has denied this. And he's proved right. He is more than willing to sacrifice himself to save the galaxy and manages to indirectly defeat the Emperor himself with The Power of Love.

Ancestral Weapon: His father's lightsaber. After losing it in his duel with Vader on Bespin, he builds his own and makes a point of telling this to Vader to show that he won't let his heritage define who he is.

The Apprentice: During Luke's Jedi training, he was first taught by Obi-Wan Kenobi before the former's murder by Vader and then received his final teachings by Yoda.

Badass Adorable: A sweet-tempered and kind-hearted boy who sincerely cares about everyone in a dark and uncaring universe and is an unstoppable sentinel of justice against the forces of cruelty and darkness.

Blue Is Heroic: He uses a blue-bladed lightsaber originally owned by his father when he starts his journey to become a Jedi and Rebel hero until he loses it at the end of The Empire Strikes Back.

Character Development: Over the original trilogy, he goes from a naïve Farm Boy who can be somewhat whiny and impulsive to an experienced and composed Jedi Knight who tells the Emperor to shove it and brings his father back to the good side.

Darker and Edgier: Luke's Character Development in Return of the Jedi. Luke's entrance sees him Force-choking two guards to get them out of his way, just to emphasize how much he has changed since his first appearance in the saga.

Dark Is Not Evil: Luke wears black throughout Return of the Jedi (as opposed to brighter colors) to represent his turmoil and struggle over a possible Face–Heel Turn. When he overcomes the Emperor's temptations and causes the destruction of the Sith, his black coat falls open to reveal it had a white lining, meaning that he was always wearing white the whole time. It's mentioned in some making-of specials that the outfit is very similar to what Luke wore in A New Hope, but the all-black color scheme makes it more "Jedi-like".

The Dreaded: Though Luke is not fully trained as a Jedi, Emperor Palpatine fears that he will become this to the Sith and for good reason. This example contains a TRIVIA entry. It should be moved to the TRIVIA tab.Word of God states that Luke Skywalker's Force potential is the same as his father if he had not been horribly injured on Mustafar. Such fear is quickly replaced by opportunity when both Sith Lords realize the implication.

Darth Sidious: He could destroy us. Darth Vader: He's just a boy. Obi-Wan could no longer help him. Darth Sidious: The Force is strong with him. The son of Skywalker must not become a Jedi. Darth Vader: If he could be turned, he would become a powerful ally. Darth Sidious: …Yes. He would be a great… asset. Can it be done? Darth Vader: He will join us or die, Master.

In The Mandalorian second season finale, as soon as Moff Gideon sees Luke on his light cruiser security feed mowing down his Dark Troopers, his attitude quickly shifts from smug to terrified to the point where he considers shooting himself before Luke arrives on the Bridge.

Emerald Power: He Took a Level in Badass between The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi, and during that time, he constructs a new lightsaber for himself with a green blade.

Face Death with Dignity: Throughout the last stage of the Battle of Endor, Luke goes out of the way to say that he'll die along with everyone else on the Death Star II, and has calmly accepted the fact. He ends up dropping the "dignity" part of this when he refuses to kill his father and is subsequently tortured by the Emperor, as he begs for Darth Vader to save his life. It works, and it allows Anakin to Face Death with Dignity. In the end, Luke lives after all.

Genius Bruiser: Luke is very intelligent and can use the Force to amplify his strength. A great example is the rescue of Princess Leia from the Death Star in A New Hope, where Luke CARRIES the entire group in one scene. By "Return of the Jedi", he can even outmuscle Darth Vader's cybernetic enhancements.

The Gift: Luke's connection to the Force is equal to his father. Without proper training and only a few tips from Obi-Wan, he was able to let the force guide his hand when blowing up the Death Star. Later, he was able to (with effort) force pull his lightsaber from ice while trapped in a cave on Hoth. By his mid twenties, Luke's Force abilities far exceed a typical Jedi Master.

Good Counterpart: To Darth Vader.

Good Is Not Soft: Especially in Return of the Jedi. For a film that showed the heroes as more Incorruptible Pure Pureness, some viewers were surprised to see Luke using powers generally associated with the Sith like the Force-choke. In this instance, it was used to demonstrate he was sliding towards The Dark Side.

Heroic Lineage: Luke's father, Anakin, was a Jedi before him. Luke later followed in his father's footsteps and became a Jedi himself. His mother was also seen as a hero on her homeworld of Naboo and a champion of peace and democracy in the old Republic.

Historical Villain Upgrade: In the eyes of Imperial sympathizers in the New Republic and the First Order itself, he’s seen as the man who turned Darth Vader from the Empire’s Number 1 guy into the one who murdered Palpatine in cold blood, while helping the Rebel Alliance found the illegitimate and illegal New Republic and trying to revive the Jedi, a group of people Palpatine himself worked so hard to destroy.

Hope Bringer: Both he and Leia's birth at the end of Revenge of the Sith represent the new hope in the shambles of the Republic that the new Empire was built upon for Yoda, Obi-Wan, and the small militant senators, like Bail Organa, who would form the Rebel Alliance.

While the title of A New Hope can also represent the Rebellion as a means of bringing the Empire's tyranny to an end, and even to Leia to a lesser extent, it most obviously applies to Luke himself. Luke ends up embodying Anakin's subconscious desire to be redeemed, and he himself expresses strong hopes of turning Anakin back to the light side, which he ultimately accomplishes. Coincidentally, his new lightsaber in Return of the Jedi emits a green blade, this being the first green-bladed lightsaber ever seen before the production of the Prequel Trilogy and its spinoffs (although actually the green color used for this new lightsaber was chosen in real life for different reasons, and not specifically to represent this theme of hope).

The Idealist: Has an idealistic view of the galaxy, and of his father.

Kung-Fu Jesus: Since he's a Messianic Archetype who's also a Jedi.

Messianic Archetype: Although his father is The Chosen One, Luke's character has the closest resemblance to Christ. He gains a group of devoted individuals ( Han, Leia, Chewie, C-3P0, and R2-D2), gallivants about spreading good, and ends up performing miracles like blowing up the Death Star. At the end of the sixth movie, he refuses the temptation of the Dark Side, then is zapped by the Emperor's lightning (his "death" scene). This act of selflessness would restore faith and bring forth a new golden age for his people.

In media, the Messianic Archetype is a character whose role in the story (but not necessarily personality) echoes that of Christ. They are portrayed as a savior, whether the thing they are saving is a person, a lot of people or the whole of humanity. They endure a sizable sacrifice as the means of bringing that salvation about for others, a fate they do not deserve up to and including death or a Fate Worse than Death. Other elements may be mixed and matched as required but the Messianic Archetype will include one or more of the following:

The Chosen One True Companions who follow him Betrayal by one of those followers Persecution by nonbelievers Crucified Hero Shot (or other parallels to the Passion Play) Figurative or literal resurrection A Second Coming Literally having the initials 'J.C.' The Redeemer Dressing like Jesus

Last of His Kind: He is said to be the last Jedi Knight to be alive (after Yoda's death) and serves as the foundation for a new Jedi Order. Yoda: Luke, when gone am I… the last of the Jedi will you be. Pass on what you have learned.

Living Legend: The guy blew up the Death Star on his first official day of joining the Rebellion. Top that.

The Ace: By "Return of the Jedi", Luke is definitely this. It's to be expected from The Chosen One's heir.

Military Mage: Commander Skywalker's nascent Force reflexes make him a natural Ace Pilot and are directly responsible for the destruction of the first Death Star in the Battle of Yavin. The power of having a Force-user on the field is demonstrated again in the Battle of Hoth, where he is able to take down a powerful AT-AT walker on foot using only a lightsaber and a thermal detonator.

Mirror Character: His father, Anakin. Both grew up on the same desolate desert planet before being taken away to train as Jedi Knights under Obi-Wan Kenobi. Both are tempted by the Dark Side to protect their loved ones, but Luke's horror at the realization he is becoming like this father, down to their mechanical right hands, narrowly saves him from falling as Anakin did. Luke's faith in his father manages to save Anakin as well.

One-Man Army: An incredibly powerful soldier and Jedi. If one Imperial account is to be trusted, Luke once brought down an airborne Star Destroyer by jumping from the surface of Jakku and slashing it with the Force. He cuts down Jabba’s numerous goons like butter in Return Of The Jedi without breaking a sweat.

Superior Successor: To Anakin as Vader. This example contains a TRIVIA entry. It should be moved to the TRIVIA tab.Word of God says Luke inherited Anakin's full potential, hence why Palpatine sought after him as a disciple, since Vader was plagued with immense wounds and inner conflict at that point. By Return of The Jedi, he may very well be stronger than his father (though it's unclear, as Vader is very obviously holding back out of love), but he certainly grew beyond him by The Mandalorian.

Turn Out Like His Father: The efforts to keep Luke from being like his father (who, This example contains a YMMV entry. It should be moved to the YMMV tab.as we all know, went evil) occupy three separate characters: Owennote , Obi-Wan Kenobi, and Yoda. In Return of the Jedi, Luke realizes that he's dangerously close to invoking this trope after he cuts off Vader's cybernetic right hand and looks down at his own cybernetic right hand. This prompts him to deactivate and discard his lightsaber so that he won't be tempted any further.

Twin Telepathy: With Leia to an extent, beginning in The Empire Strikes Back. She hears him calling out to her through the Force and is able to locate him in Cloud City. In Return of the Jedi, she is able to sense that Luke wasn't on the Death Star when it blew up.

The Unchosen One: In a sense, compared to his father. Anakin was revealed as the Chosen One from age 9 and experienced firsthand both the positives and negatives of the Jedi Order. Darth Sidious (Palpatine) targeted Anakin for exactly this reason, amplifying the negatives and downplaying the positives until the Jedi's own Chosen One became the Sith's greatest weapon. Luke, on the other hand, experienced the exact opposite and became a hero because of it. Seeing Luke tortured led Vader to Heel–Face Turn and kill the Emperor, helping bring peace to the galaxy. Thus, fulfilling the prophecy of the "one who will bring balance to the Force", all thanks to Luke.

Unskilled, but Strong: After his Jedi training with Yoda, Luke is this, gaining abilities and strength in only a few months what takes most Jedi years. By the time he leaves for Bespin, he is connected to the Force, can feel it unconsciously, and manipulate it freely. That said, he had yet to learn fine control and had no real experience using the force in a combat situation. Likewise, even in Jedi, his lightsaber technique is a lot more raw and straightforward than that of the old Jedi, as he was a mostly self-taught duelist that didn't have the benefits of thousands of years of Jedi knowledge or an abundance of trainers or sparring partners.

Unstoppable Rage: During his final duel in Return of the Jedi…until he realizes he's following in his father's footsteps and calms himself.

Warrior Prince: He's Leia's biological brother, and, thus, son of Queen Padmé Amidala of Naboo.

World's Strongest Man: Word of God explains that Luke inherited Anakin's full potential in the Force, which exceeds all Jedi and Sith in history. With Obi-Wan, Yoda, Anakin, and Palpatine having died, Luke may very well be this at the end of Return of the Jedi.

Word of God: A statement regarding some ambiguous or undefined aspect of a work, the Word of God comes from someone considered to be the ultimate authority, such as the creator, director or producer. Such edicts can even go against events as were broadcast, due to someone making a mistake.

Notes: This comes to the end of this thread - a large portion of the TV Tropes were not included as this would be a long and drawn out post but all of the tropes can be found at the link below - there are for those interested TV Tropes on Legends!Luke Skywalker and Sequels!Luke Skywalker

https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Characters/StarWarsLukeSkywalker

sorry if i ever accidentally reblog ai btw, i’m just gullible and can’t always tell. you can kindly let me know if you catch any that i’ve mistaken as genuine. we don’t support art theft in this house

Guys… guys.

As hilarious as all the “how oblivious ARE you?” jokes about Stede are, I think we’re missing the big picture. This isn’t about obliviousness, it’s about trauma.

Stede isn’t ignorant of the fact he’s in love with Ed. he’s been abused his whole life for his queerness and is having trouble conceptualizing that he’s allowed to be.

Notice how Stede immediately has the instinct to walk back his comment of Ed being “lovely”? This is the same man who didn’t even pick up that his very obviously mutinous crew was planning a mutiny, that shit was learned behavior. He’s speaking as a little boy who was tied to a boat and stoned for picking flowers, and as someone who was told mere days ago a man falling in love with him was “defiling a beautiful thing.”

Homophobia/ heteronormativity is alive and well in this world and Stede, being forced to live in the conservative circles he does, would’ve absolutely been painfully aware of it. The fact that he feels the need to ask a woman what it’s like to be in love with a man speaks volumes after he’s already been happily kissed by one and has roleplayed being married to him when lonely. He’s not just casually making conversation then has a eureka moment when he happens to notice the description applies to him and Ed too, he asked specifically to compare them.

It’s him testing the waters and thinking that maybe “they” were wrong. Maybe he’s not broken or pathetic, maybe he never deserved to be treated as such. Maybe he didn’t “seduce” Edward, or “ruin” him, or “defile” him. And maybe his feelings for Ed are just as loving and romantic as Mary’s feelings are for her boyfriend.

It’s such a beautiful moment when he slowly smiles, let’s out that little breath like a sigh of relief, and tells his wife of an arranged marriage with nothing less than wonder in his voice that what he’s found at sea is in fact love. Fuck, it gets me every time.

There’s an absolutely gorgeous through line of queer liberation in Stede’s half of episode 10 after this scene. How he refers to Ed as his “newfound love”, confidently says they’ll “all be great”. He smears the blood on his face himself, breaks his own flowers, all to reach someone who sees him as perfect and beloved exactly as he is. What a fitting ending to his days of crying himself to sleep because he cannot be what everyone’s failed to beat him into.

The Massive Aggression of Calico Jack

I’ve been trying for a while to put my finger on exactly what it is about Calico Jack that makes me want to crawl out of my skin and smother him to death with my own abandoned ecdysis.

I mean, I normally love me a spurned admirer/cock-blocking ex. Romantic comedies have their beats, and there’s obviously no serious danger the love interest will end up with anyone other than their intended, so I may as well sit back and enjoy the machinations. After all, the course of true love never did run smooth, and these bitches are here to rough some shit up for sure. I also love Will Arnett. Hands down favorite recurring character on 30 Rock. The second best Batman after TAS (fight me). I can even cheerfully bear his Reese’s commercials if I must bear commercials at all.

Real-life Calico Jack? One of my v. favorite pirates. He wore floral-printed cotton from India as a fuck you to the British tax man. He had an affair with Anne Bonny and offered to purchase her divorce when her husband found out. The two ran away together into piracy when Bonny’s husband refused to quit her and had her whipped for her infidelity. Mary Read was part of Jack and Anne’s crew, and possibly their lover. We love a hopeless romantic, possibly polyamorous king. 

So what is it about OFMD Calico Jack that makes him so acutely punchable?

I’ve rewatched the episode several times (oh my v. dears, I really hope this write-up is worth it. I am SO BRAVE to subject myself to this), and I think I’ve finally got it. It’s not just that he’s a loud, vulgar, hectoring, drunken jackass of a bird-murderer. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I have as little patience for his brand of mindless destruction and violence-for-violence-sake as Stede does, but that’s not all.  It’s that he’s also a master of passive aggression.

Jack does the little whisper-y “Sorry! Sorry!” when Stede wants to know what’s with all the cannon fire, but immediately starts grinning like an unrepentant varlet as soon as he drops his hands.

And then accepts Stede’s introductory handshake with clear derision.

When Stede says he wasn’t expecting guests and there’s only two settings at brekkie, Jack doesn’t wait for Stede to sort things out, and he’s already lowering himself into Stede’s chair by the time Stede invites him to take his spot. He then purposefully keeps steering the conversation to topics that exclude Stede from participating, and cuts Stede short when he tries to reign the conversation back.

He insinuates Stede is less of a pirate for being “store bought”

He refuses to get Stede’s name right, even when corrected. Twice.

And is just SO insincere when calling him back.

And, just, the whole pissing contest scene.

But so what? We’ve had other passive aggressive assholes on the show; Badminton with his cracks about Stede’s tiny dick ship, the French captain’s slurs, Gabriel simpering about Jeff the Accountant’s dining manners. I’m not shedding any tears for their respective fates, but none of them made me want to crawl through the screen and sew all their face holes shut. Because Jack isn’t just passive-aggressive (and aggressive-aggressive), he might just be the most savvy reader-of-rooms we see on the show, and purposefully and systematically leverages his passive aggression to manipulate the actions of those around him for the purpose of making Ed and Stede betray their better selves and make them do the work of driving a wedge between themselves.   That was a lot in one sentence.  Let me break it down.

Jack uses passive aggression to achieve one of four goals: to nettle, to undermine, (seemingly paradoxically) to reinforce connections, or to coerce. And, if he can manage to achieve different goals for more than one target with the same attack? So much the better. And he’s frankly just astonishingly good at doing so. Like, I’d admire him for it if it didn’t also make me want to make him swallow all of his own teeth.

The basic gameplan goes thusly (this is not a strictly chronological list, a lot of these tactics take place concurrently and recurrently): Stede is the primary target, so Jack nettles him with passive aggressive comments, which puts him on the back foot and undermines his self-confidence. He reinforces his relationship with Ed in ways that excludes Stede and undermines Stede’s relationship with Ed and Ed’s relationship with Stede. Jack uses coercive tactics with Ed and the crew, which undermines Stede’s relationships with them, isolating and othering Stede, which further tanks his mood, which leads him to self-isolate. When Stede eventually lashes out at Ed for falling for Jack’s bullshit, Ed has no idea what’s got Stede so out-of-sorts; Jack has so carefully lead Ed to making the choices that have alienated Stede that they seem like they were Ed’s ideas in the first place. And if Ed has made the choices to do these things, then they are clearly just a reflection of who he is, which, if Stede is lashing out against them, then Stede is rejecting him. Wedge set and match.

So let’s look at the specifics.

Jack’s interactions with Ed are like a masterclass in neurolinguistic programming for evil. First, he plys Ed with booze from the very start. Just look at the bottle in this shot from right after they blow up the dresser drawer.

That bottle or rum is over half gone, and the sky in the background is the peachy-pink of sunrise. This isn’t the bottle Jack had with him in his dinghy; that one he drained and then threw in the air and tried to shoot before coming aboard the Revenge. Which means that they’ve consumed over half the bottle between just the two of them in a very short amount of time.   Alcohol, of course, is a social lubricant - the physical warmth it produces mimicking the “warm, fuzzy” feeling of true comradery, and, more importantly, decoupling the decision-making process from inhibition (that is to say, Ed isn’t necessarily doing anything he absolutely wouldn’t otherwise do, but he might otherwise think twice).

But it’s more insidious than just having a few drinks with an old friend. Jack specifically gamifies the consumption of alcohol to reinforce the coupling of the feeling of inebriation with the comradery engendered by teamwork and excitement of success in order to encourage Ed to drink more than he necessarily otherwise would. Ed confirms to Stede during his apology that the idea to use the drawers of the armoire for target practice came from Jack, and we saw that a bullseye meant that Jack had to take a drink, but Ed didn’t. Presumably, there would have been some consequence for a “miss”, and it seems likely that it would be Ed has to take a drink and not Jack. In this way, Jack is able to exert a measure of control over how much Ed is drinking (by missing on purpose) while making it look like the responsibility lies with Ed and his skill as a thrower. This pattern of sneakily controlling Ed’s actions while making it seem like Ed is the one who made or is responsible for the decision will pop up again and again during their interactions.

After the apologies for waking Stede, Jack steps into the space where Ed is gesticulating to make himself readily available to be touched, reenforcing the bond between them, but letting Ed be the one to instigate the touching.

At brekkie, he pours rum into Ed’s teacup without asking or being asked while Ed’s attention is diverted by getting food.

Jack’s collaring of the conversation does not just function as a means of making Stede feel excluded, he’s also refreshing and reinforcing the bonds he and Ed forged under adversity. Talking over Stede also demonstrates that what he has to say is more important than anything Stede might contribute.

Note that just before Jack cut him off, Stede had referred to Ed as Blackbeard (“Blackbeard and I met on a ship”). This may be innocently explained away; if you meet a person from a facet of a close friend’s life with which you do not intersect, you might refer to said friend by their given name instead of a nickname that the other person might not know, for the sake of common frame of reference. But this is the opposite of that - referring to a friend by a nickname instead of the given name that you both presumably know. That suggests to me that the seed of the Ed/Blackbeard dichotomy has already been planted in Stede’s mind by the morning’s shenanigans. And when Jack invites Stede back into participating in the conversation by talking about something he knows Stede would find upsetting (the wanton cruelty of Ed purposefully trapping people to be burned alive, couched in what sounds like sincere admiration for his friend’s piratical prowess), Jack has picked up on that distinction and is leaning into it HARD. He WANTS Stede to see Ed as a collection of behaviors he finds palatable, and Blackbeard as a collection of behaviors he finds repulsive, and then coerce Ed into performing those “Blackbeard behaviors” in order to coerce Stede to drive the wedge by rejecting him. Fucking diabolical.

When Jack is calling Stede a “big girl,” or “store-bought,” or purposefully getting his name wrong, he’s not just throwing barbs that play on Stede’s insecurities (and with such harrowing precision, too; calling on the effeminacy for which he was tormented as a child, his body image issues that we’ve also seen him struggle with under the tender mercies of Badminton - both brain-ghost and original flavor - and the authenticity of his claim to piracy, which we’ve seen him confess that he fears he’s ill-qualified to claim to Jim, Oluande, and Ed. I mean,triple bullseye for this fucking guy). He’s also using these public declarations to undermine Stede’s authority in front of his crew, and establish himself as the real authority on things like piracy and masculinity. He further reinforces this idea by withholding the story of how he saved Ed’s life under the guise of false modesty; people never want something more than when they’re told they can’t have it. And what they’re being told they can’t have is the story of how Jack was so amazing that he even managed to save the life of the coolest, most legendary pirate they know. This withholding primes the crew to think even more highly of Jack and hang on his every word.

This puts Jack into a position where he can pressure the crew into things that sound fun at first blush (like diving off the yardarm or having a snowball fight, but with coconuts), but end up hurting more than anything. Of course, within this dynamic, no one wants to admit they aren’t having a good time, or don’t want to do it; to do so would be tantamount to admitting you are less of a man or not a real pirate. So when Stede refuses to participate, or admits his discomfort or disgust with the proceedings, he’s doing Jack’s work for him, and further alienating himself, and solidifying the roles Jack had put into place where Jack is the fun, cool guy, and Stede is the killjoy that no one should listen to.

Stede unwittingly plays right into Jack’s design when he tries to stand up for himself and wrest 

back a modicum of respect before things get too far out of hand. He’s well-versed in the world of passive aggression, and sees what Jack is doing. He also knows that you can’t call it out because passive aggression comes with a built in cover of plausible deniability gaslighting. So instead, he tries to push back with a little passive aggression of his own, suggesting that a real pirate has a ship and a crew. Sadly, Stede is not nearly so adroit at wielding passive aggression as Jack is. Jack uses the story (and we know that Izzy sent him, so I wouldn’t be surprised if the whole mutiny thing is just a story; I could even easily read that slight hesitation after Stede asks his question as Jack deciding on what would be the most effective cover story, instead of hesitancy to admit to something shameful) of his crew’s mutiny to casually re-sow the idea of mutiny on the Revenge. It’s played for comedy when the crew starts talking about how they almost mutinied on Stede and probably will again, but you can’t tell me this hasn’t been a major concern for Stede ever since the first episode. So Jack’s not only got the crew trying to buoy his spirits by assuring him that his crew mutinying on his doesn’t mean he’s a bad person; it’s just something that happens! He’s also got them low-key committing to a future mutiny WITHIN EARSHOT OF STEDE.

Additionally, while Stede is well-steeped in the ways of passive aggression, his crew and Ed are not. They are not particularly sophisticated at identifying passive aggression on its own merits as opposed to the reaction it provokes, which can make it look like they don’t care when it’s being leveraged against Stede, undermining his ability to trust they will look out for him. Stede stoically putting up with Jack’s jibes makes them even more difficult to identify as hurtful. Jack’s (fake) emotional reaction to Stede’s sally might make him look momentarily weak, but allows Ed and the crew to unequivocally identify who is in the wrong and react accordingly. By positioning himself as a victim, he villainizes Stede, further undermining Stede’s authority, and placing him in a position where he owes Jack recompense. Thus, Jack is able to manipulate Stede into the trap of Dead Man’s Cove and make it look like it was Stede’s own idea. I mean, the Xanatos Speed Chess of it all.

What’s heartbreaking to me is how Jack’s wedge-driving and othering of Stede is working so well that at this point we start to hear it from other sources. As they approach the island and Stede suggests going for a swim or taking a nature walk, Ed is the one who tells him, “I think with this crowd, I think they want something a little more…” Not Jack would want something more exciting, this crowd. Jack’s exclusionary rhetoric out of Ed’s mouth.

Which is exactly the time Jack decides to up the ante.

I want to take a minute to look at the immediate lead up to yardies, because I think it’s an excellent illustration of how Jack looks like a lumbering boor, but his actions are actually so carefully considered and nuanced. He runs up from behind Stede and Ed and throws his arms around them shouting “Yardies!” literally insinuating himself between them, which interrupts anything that was going on between them, puts them off balance, and focuses the attention on him. Then, when he says “Who’s up for yardies?” he makes eye-contact with Ed - the implicit social expectation being “You, Ed, are up for yardies.” When he turns to Stede, it is to literally laugh in his face. I mean, the absolute cheek.

Until this point, the crew of the Revenge have been passive participants in Jack’s hooliganry. They watched him perform whippies, and got whipped at without encouraging him to do so. They listened to his and Ed’s stories. But now Jack is cashing in on his established expertise of what real pirates do to coerce the crew into taking part in a dangerous stunt. It’s more of the “Blackbeard behavior” dichotomy he started sowing in Stede’s mind at brekkie, but now he’s extending it beyond Ed to the whole crew. He wants Stede to feel like he’s all alone in a sea of idiocy, but he wants him to come to the conclusion on his own by making it seem like Ed and the crew are doing things of which he would disapprove of their own accord.

Once we get to the island, we see the activities take a turn from the careless Jackass-ery of whippies and yardies to the abject cruelty of turtle vs. crab. There’s no saying that Jack organized the fight, but we do see the crew handing him various trinkets to be used in gambling on a winner, which certainly suggests he was the central figure in how the game was established. We also see that, though he has been presenting himself as a drunkard, there’s no bottle in his hand or around him in the sand. There is, however, one in Ed’s hand, who is directly to his side. I can easily see him handing it off so he could handle the gambling stakes, the real intention being to keep Ed readily supplied with booze.

And then we have the pissing contest. Jack’s got Stede literally and metaphorically isolated, and now it’s time to really drive it all home. Every moment of their interaction is designed to drive Stede to distraction; the amount of derision he lays on the phrase “Your good, close buddy,” the insinuation that he and Ed are just alike, and then being as rude and crass as possible. And because he’s read the room - the intimate breakfast for two, Ed’s little touches and the way Stede smiles at them, the way they keep going off together for little chats - of course Jack’s just got to twist the knife and allude to his and Ed’s former sexual history. So now that he’s got Stede primed, it’s time to name the fear: “Maybe you don’t know him at all.”

At this point, Stede is left to wonder: does he? Blackbeard’s reputation preceded him, after all. And he’s been acting so differently since the appearance of one of his oldest friends. It’s not the violence qua violence, per se; Stede is by turns delighted and impressed by the violence he’s seen Ed and his crew employ in the heat of battle in the pursuit of piracy. It’s the cruel and senseless violence that Stede objects to, and that’s exactly the brand that Jack has been peddling, and which Ed has gone along with so enthusiastically. And it’s not JUST the violence; Ed apologizes for Jack when he recognizes Jack has crossed a line in a typically agro way (destroying Stede’s belongings, and insulting Stede to his face), but it never occurs to Stede that his insistence on persevering with quietly aggrieved dignity in the face of Jack’s slights would make it nigh impossible for Ed to identify that Jack has crossed all sorts of other lines, and Stede is hurting because of it. For Stede, it must be frustrating and mystifying why Ed keeps letting his friend get away with his passive aggressive bullshit. Doesn’t he care? 

Is it any wonder that one more failure to notice how Jack has riled him, and one more act of coconut-flavored Jackass-ary is enough to break the dam, and for Stede to spill all that built-up hurt on Ed?  Is it any wonder that Ed is bewildered at where all this is coming from? I’ve talked before about Ed’s tendency to fawn on people, and how, as an emotional chameleon, he would have difficulty identifying when the motivation for his actions is self-directed or externally dictated. Jack has further confounded this distinction by manipulating scenarios to make it seem like participation in all the Jackass-ary he has instigated was voluntary instead of coerced. When Stede says “I don’t like who you are around  this guy” what he means is “I don’t like how this guy is able to manipulate you into acting on your very worst impulses”, but what Ed hears is “I don’t like you”. For who is he, if not the collection of behaviors he chooses to exhibit? And were those choices not entirely his to make? With the rift clearly established, if in its infancy, of course Jack is going to do everything he can to foster its growth. So again, he interrupts Stede, again implicitly signaling that Ed should pay attention to what he says and not Stede. By lobbing the coconut at Ed at that moment, he forestalls any possible clearing of the air between Ed and Stede, and causes Ed to literally turn his back on Stede, in the way Ed feels Stede has emotionally turned his back on him just moments earlier. Jack reinforces this idea of turning his back on Stede again moments later when he says “Don’t go!” and immediately turns Ed around by the shoulders.

I know that I’ve been laying it on a bit thick and prolly sound like the written embodiment of the red string conspiracy meme, but I’m about to get a whole lot worse, and I’m going to ask you to stick with me, oh my v. dears. I think Jack killed Karl on purpose.

I know, I know. It was an accident! He was flailing drunkenly! But was he?

Have we seen him take so much as a single drink since the cannon fire at the beginning of the episode? Even though he’d been drinking earlier, did he not have devastating precision and accuracy when he first demonstrated Whippies - shattering every glass, snapping the cards from the Swede’s fingers, and ball-tapping Ed without permanently maiming him or even splitting the leather of his pants? In fact, while nearly every other crew member on the deck has a bottle in hand, just like on the beach, Jack does not.

Jack knows he has to get Ed off the ship before the British show up, but he can’t just say “Let’s ditch these losers” and expect Ed to agree, especially since he’s spent most of the day roping the crew into his schemes. The most effective way to get Ed to follow is if Jack is rejected for just being himself and doing what he does, just like Ed feels he was earlier by Stede. I think the original plan was to goad Olu into seriously hurting the Swede, the fallout of which would be recriminations that Jack made them do it, and Jack getting aggrieved that he was just trying to show this ungrateful lot how to have a good time, skulking off and leading Ed to follow him and reassure him that he’s really a good guy - how could he have known it would turn out like that? But when Buttons calls a halt to the proceedings and it looks like everyone is going to pack it in, Jack has to think fast. If HE maims a crew mate, that would be a bridge too far, painting him as the bad guy. But Karl? He’s just a bird. And if Jack can get a little revenge on the weird bird guy who made him change his plan, so much the better.

Of course the whole ship turns on him, and then here’s Stede to order him off, explicitly rejecting him the way he metaphorically rejected Ed. But when even that isn’t enough to get Ed to follow him, Jack pulls out one last, desperate manipulation - the debt of life.

Jack’s tragic flaw is that he can’t turn it off. Once he and Ed are alone, he turns his passive aggressive assault on Ed, pressuring him into drinking the morning away by sarcastically saying he didn’t know he had an audience with the pope when Ed expresses disinterest, and, ultimately, giving up the game when he mentions with casual derision how he’d heard of Ed shaking up with Stede, and then deriding Ed for his failure to spot Jack’s machinations.

Too bad Jack didn’t know that the punishment for passive-aggressive fuckery on this show is death…

Stede and the Thanatos Drive *

I wrote this reply off the cuff and thought I was done with it:

On the Queen Anne's Revenge

On the Queen Anne's Revenge

OK - like, Stede's complete lack of response to Ed's confession about having meant to kill him has been ON MY MIND for a while now. Like, ye

but it turns out I have more to say. Because, yes, Stede kind of has a death wish. It’s not the Thanatos Drive as proposed by Freud, exactly (mostly because freudian bullshit is bullshit), whereby the instinct toward and desire for death are the subconscious motivation driving destructive and aggressive behavior. In Stede’s case, it’s more of a crushing dearth of self-esteem and nearly complete lack of ability to set appropriate boundaries borne from a lifetime of relentless verbal, emotional, and physical abuse at the hands of his parents and peers that sees him passively accepting of further abuse and disrespect, even to the point of death. Stede assumes that people wanting him dead is just the default mode for all humanity upon making his acquaintance. And because he has been shown and told all his life just how worthless he is, and how wrong about everything he values, he assumes they’re right, actually, and he is utterly undeserving of respect, and death is more or less what he deserves.

In the pilot, Stede lets Badminton humiliate him in front of his friends and in private without much more pushback than the suggestion that he had thought of himself as a slender child rather than “a porker”. When things go down, and Olu asks Stede if he wants to live, his reply is “That’s a tough question”, and when Olu asks again, his answer is “I think so! Probably!” Which is… not much better. He doesn’t even flinch or try to argue when Olu tells him “Everyone up there wants you dead”, and Lucius confirms, “It’s true.” He may have been “caring, supportive, and responsive to their needs” and provided the crew with luxury amenities and financial stability, but it comes as no surprise to him all that wasn’t enough to override the innate deficiencies of his character that lead people to wanting him to die.

When the Spanish captain stabs him in episode 3, Stede’s not angry or indignant. He just asks:

They have, after all, just barely been introduced to one another. The stabbing isn’t a surprise, merely how quickly after first acquaintance it took place. Then, to add insult to injury, just as he bleeding from a gut wound and about to be hanged, Jim remonstrates him for being “the worst fuckin’ pirate captain in history.” His reply?

Because of course those are going to be his final words. It’s been the mantra on an endless fucking loop in his head his whole life through.

In episode 9, when the English sentence him to death by firing squad for the death of Nigel Badminton, he denies Ed’s earnest insistence that they’ll find a way out of it.

This seems, at first glance, like a backslide in his character development. Did we not see him coming to terms with his part in Nigel’s death, even admitting he didn’t actually feel all that bad that Nigel is dead? Why would he think he deserves death for having killed Nigel? But Nigel is incidental. He deserves this the way he deserved Jim’s condemnation of his captaining skills. He deserves this because death is all he really deserves, isn’t it?

He’s not even mad at Mary when she tries to murder him in his sleep. He’s much more upset by the means by which she attempted to accomplish her goal.

But for all of this, there’s a great big asterisk to Stede’s passive resignation to being treated like absolute shit. And that asterisk is named Izzy Hands.

Their first encounter goes off well enough, given the circumstances. Stede is, after all, trying to steal the hostages that he lost when he himself was captured by the native villagers. Izzy is defending his purchased hostages, and as far as we and Stede can see, Izzy is calm and responsive to Stede’s sallies instead of the cursing, feral chihuahua we will all come to know and love. Even when he shreds Stede’s shirt with his saber and says “This is how you die,” it’s not so much a threat as a warning; an acknowledgement of his superior prowess with the blade and Stede’s foolishness if he insists on persevering in his intended theft. Izzy remains calm and receptive even when the distraction works and Stede gets the upper hand, agreeing to Stede’s terms of splitting the hostages, and letting them go even though he and Fang, and even poor Ivan with his broken nose, could probably have overtaken and made light work of them quite easily. All in all, as agreeable an introduction as one might hope for when one person is robbing another. (and also Izzy was almost certainly ACHINGLY turned on by having another man best him and hold him at knife point and WILL die mad about it, actually, because he will be DAMNED if he will even admit that is his kink, thankyouverymuch. Oh no. Have I talked myself into a new ship? Behold! A tiny, filthy garbage scow hoves into my fandom harbor and docks in the shadow of the battleship Blackbonnet).

So what’s astonishing to me is that, every time after this initial encounter, Stede is notably aggro toward Izzy. He greets Izzy in Jackie’s pub with an aggrieved sigh and a derisive “You again!” He then proceeds to get Izzy’s name wrong, and when corrected, doubles the fuck down on his dismissiveness, accuse Izzy of stealing (though that was clearly what he was doing TO Izzy at their last encounter, and Izzy agreed to Stede’s terms without reserve), and insult him by saying his boss “has terrible taste in flunkies”. I mean to say, really?!?! All this from the same man who, mere minutes later is resigned to Jackie cutting off his nose because he accidentally knocked over the nose jar, even though he was in the process of picking noses off the dirt floor with his bare hands WHILE WEARING HEAD-TO-TOE WHITE, and would certainly have gotten her any new receptacle her heart could possibly desire.

And through the whole exchange, Izzy is fairly pleasant - or at least as pleasant as a deeply unpleasant little gremlin of a man (affectionate) gets. He insults the bar, sure, but Stede himself uses profanity, so it’s not like he’s some wilting lily who would get bent out of shape over someone else cursing in his vicinity. The only time Izzy gets the least bit out-of-line with Stede is when he gets in his face and growls the correct pronunciation of his name, and he immediately reigns himself back in even while Stede continues to escalate the situation. The viewers know that Izzy has been shit-talking behind Stede’s back (“Pirates, my ass” was said under his breath while Stede and his crew ran away giggling like schoolkids & “Stupid fucking Stede Bonnet” was said on a whole other ship in the privacy of the captain’s quarters), but Stede would have no way of knowing, and therefore no reason to be treating Izzy with such outright contempt and disrespect.

The next time Stede sees Izzy, after he has (mostly) recovered from his gut wound in episode 4, he greets him with another sneer.

Izzy is rough and abrupt with Stede this time, but, frankly, can you blame him? It is literally zero hour if they’re going to defend themselves and/or run from the Spaniards, and this bitch has given him nothing but sass. And THEN, Stede calls him out as an asshole TO HIS BOSS.

They don’t interact directly again until episode 6, at which point there’s a curious shift in their dynamic. Izzy yells at and insults Stede (“His name is Blackbeard, dog!”), at which point, Stede backs down and fucks off witha huffy little passive-aggressive remark about “trouble in paradise”. Later, when Stede is floating the idea of performing a fuckery for the Dutch merchant vessel, Izzy comes in with a back-handed compliment, “As much as I hate to admit it, Captain Bonnet’s theatrical instincts are finely honed. He’s more than up to the challenge.” Stede replies with the most warmth and cordiality we have ever seen him offer Izzy - even going so far as to suggest he may have misjudged him. It’s like Stede can only afford Izzy any respect when Izzy DISrespects him. You know, like all right-thinking people SHOULD.

We see a shift back to the old dynamic when Izzy makes the mistake of admiring Stede’s library and complimenting the construction of the captain’s quarters, even in a back-handed sort of way. Stede feels no compunction about venting his frustrations about his stymied hopes for the fuckery on an ameliorating Izzy. But Izzy has built his career on managing Ed’s mercurial moods, and is well versed in how to turn the tides once more. He calls Stede a “little shit” and tells him Ed adores him, but in a frankly insulting way: “Why, I’ll never know, but… he does.” (le sigh)  And now Stede is properly primed. A disapproving god is in His heaven, and all is right with the world. Of COURSE Stede will abide Izzy’s wishes and recommit himself to the fuckery! I mean, just look at “The Soul’s Awakening” of this poor sucker’s face.

So is it any wonder that he agrees to the post-fuckery duel, even knowing how skilled Izzy is? Even with Stede’s whole Dunning-Kruger effect approach to all aspects of piracy, surely he can’t think he has a real chance, right? Izzy comes in with more invective and ire than we’ve ever before seen him direct at Stede, and kicks Stede’s Thanatos drive into overdrive. This is how he dies, after all, right? But then he doesn’t. He holds his own more or less. It turns kind of playful (to him, at least). And finally, he can sass Izzy about draws and how his mast is so very big and hard  - much bigger and harder than Izzy’s pathetic little broken blade.

And I’m just stuck wondering why Izzy is the only person for whom Stede will not lay down and die. It’s not the defference. There are plenty of people who are polite to Stede, and he doesn’t go all aggro on them. As much as it would amuse me, it isn’t even a “get your hands off my man” reaction, because some of Stede’s worst unprovoked sniping comes before Stede has even met Ed or knows in what way Izzy is connected with him. Also, we see Stede take all manner of shit from Calico Jack without ever pushing back (until he hurts a member of Stede’s crew. Insult him all you like, but screw with his crew at your own peril!), even when Jack figuratively (and then literally) marks his territory by referencing his former intimacy with Ed.

If I had to guess, I would say that it’s a matter of like repelling like. Izzy may not have the same deficiencies as Stede, or even to the same level, but Stede knows another self-hating repressed closet-case when he sees one. And he knows that, because the whole world has shown him so, that kind is not worthy of respect.

OFMD Meta Index

Here are (almost) all the ofmd metas that appeared on my dash, catagorised by character/episode/theme, for anyone interested. (I wanted to post it here but turns out, there's far too many links for tumblr).

Just a few notes before starting:

1/ i haven't had time to read all of them yet, so some might be in the wrong category. i'll correct that as i wade through them this summer

2/ i still have +50 metas saved in my draft that i have to add here, but if there's a meta you've read/written that isn't here, feel free to tag me/send me the link so that i'll add it

3/ if there's a meta of yours that you'd like me to remove, feel free to tell me as well.

Last update : 10.06.22

Rewatching OFMD (as one does, obviously) and I realized why Ed identifies so quickly with Frenchie, and it's not just at the party.

At the very beginning of the episode when he's hanging out with Stede, after trying to feel fancy and feeling like he'll never really get to (ie, why he was remembering his mother telling him that fine things just aren't for people like them), Frenchie walks in.

And when Frenchie walks in, he's wearing one of the fancy Frenchmen's suits, and he says," What do you think? A couple of the suits from the fancy ship didn’t have blood on them and weren’t burned up, so I nabbed ‘em."

He saw a black man walk in, and just decide to put on finery. He didn't listen to the people who would've told him that he didn't get to have it, he didn't listen to the people who would've told him that stealing posh clothes was a waste. He instead saw Frenchie step into the room, doing what he wanted and taking some finery for himself, and ask the two of them what they thought of his outfit like it was just the most casual thing. Even though he wasn't even apart of Stede's aristocratic lessons, he just chose to without fear of judgement.

Then he continues," And I found this. It’s an invitation to some kind of fancy party for hoity-toity people."

He's asking them if they want to do anything with this knowledge.

If they wanted to attend, for no reason really.

Ed got to see, for the first time in his whole life, someone like him give themselves a taste of the fine life, just because they wanted to try it, for a bit of fun. And he offered a ticket for Ed to try a bit of it himself, without any care to the whole world that told him that he didn't deserve it.

And then afterwards, Frenchie was there for him when he ran out of the dinner party, asking if he was okay, understanding the sort of thing he was feeling in a different way than Stede could, and in that finale playing a song with him so he can let his feelings out.

All that was important, too. But I think it was that first second, when he walked in the door clothed in fine fabrics with a smile on his face, that Ed really identified and attached to Frenchie.

More OFMD

no one ever loved stede before ed, really and fully and deeply and in a my life won't ever be the same without you kind of way and thats not a knock on alma and louis, but they're kids, they adapt, and stede was kind of absent as a dad.

but stede grew up so unloved, so uncared for, so brutally shut down on every social level, that even when he irks me and irritates me and i demand that he do the work of self-improvement i understand that he is coming from such a lonely, hurt place. stede's spent his whole life sans the kind of love that comes from acceptance and understanding and being wanted not in spite of yourself but because of yourself, and it's why he finds it so easy to take himself out of people's lives - because he is convinced, deep down, that he is so inherently wrong and unwanted and ruinous that surely he can't be missed.

alma being furious with him was probably a shock, because he never imagined anyone would miss him. mary and louis' reactions were what he expected but they still cut to the quick.

ed's reaction? stede isn't going to be anything close to ready. no one's ever loved him enough to be destroyed by his absence.

Okay. [cracks knuckles] Let's do this.

"never beat him at anything"

Already this isn't secretly describing Guillermo. Guillermo beating him in a fight earned him a marriage proposal. He starts this list after he's bested in a fight specifically, which is meant to invoke that confrontation - and remember the fight was "what [he's] been waiting for." So we are not looking for Guillermo in this list, or if we are, we have to be selective to do it.

"humble"

I mean, Guillermo CAN be humble, or can at least humble himself. He didn't walk around with a secret enormous ego all those years. But he loves being flattered and given positions of power, he knows his worth and likes it being vocally appreciated. (Y'know who isn't humble basically ever? Nandor.)

"an excellent listener" I think he is, actually. You'd have to be, to be any good at his job.He once very clearly complained that Nandor wasn't listening, because Nandor wasn't. Listening was, at one point, not a Nandor strong suit. "not petty"

They both can be this, for sure. Guillermo moreso. Usually when he's jealous. "or slovenly Neither of them. Slovenly dude is being walked towards the djinn execution room over this line, though. "or vain" Another thing that is VERY Nandor and can sometimes be Guillermo, but not appearance-wise. 'Slovenly' and 'vain' are contrasts, too. Because Nandor is trying to describe perfection.

"or manipulative" THIS is Guillermo, but it's a recent trait and it's kind of from necessity. At this point Nandor's leading four different people down the hallway that presumably correspond to these traits, all to the djinn coin room. "never asked [him] to shave off [his] beard" Only a madman would do such a thing. But clearly at this point we're not looking for 'these are all things Guillermo has done,' either. Background dialogue: 'This guy I don't trust.' (In what? But Nandor clearly trusts Guillermo.) 'This one never learned to read.' (A little unfair but sure, wants education, good conversation..) 'I like her but she's so much smarter than me.' (Again two contrasting things, and a hilarious side-eye from Guillermo at this line that also looks a little worried. Because Nandor's clearly all over the place, or because he's gonna have to look hard to not find anyone smarter than him? You decide!)

"warm, and wanted to be with [him]"

This is Nandor's insecurity again, it's about his own desirability to the person. Contrasting images in the montage: a woman literally shivering in the pool next to him, because he has no body heat, and a guy (one of the Dalals) who clearly is not into him and vice versa.

"kind"

I do think this describes Guillermo, for more please see [gestures to wall of Guillermo apologist meta]

"a good haggler"

When the hell would Nandor have seen this in action during his living years, when he led a country/army? Guillermo seems pretty decent at this though. Something to watch out for in the actual Night Market.

"never borrowed [his] boots without asking [him]"

Nandor, honey, do you even want to get married? (No. No he doesn't. Not this way, anyhow.)

"merciful"

Applies to Guillermo. Applies IMO to modern Nandor who seems to value it. Does not apply to Nandor The Relentless Who Is Pillaging Everyone You Included. Also not sure when he would have had an opportunity to see this in action.

"horny"

Give Guillermo a few rounds with a British starter boyfriend, Nandor, I think he'll get there.

"had a sense of spontaneity and fun"

Applies to both of them, I think.

Okay, so this isn't all describing Guillermo or his opposite. Some of it is describing the opposite of Nandor, some of it is countering anything that might challenge or inconvenience him. But this person isn't anybody, like it's not even a made-up version of a person. They almost certainly didn't exist.

The episode hands it to us, actually. The one thing he remembers is that his love had long dark hair. (He could've just ruled out anyone who didn't without summoning them, but nope.) At the end, when fucking with Marwa's hair, he says he always imagined his wife would have blonde hair. Then he immediately changes his mind, ultimately taking it back to how she started while not being fully pleased with it, saying nothing is too good for his 'perfect wife'. Because he's gone from a supposed memory of true love to a fantasy of perfection, and he can't land on what 'perfection' means to start with.

Nandor didn't want to get married until five seconds after he asked Guillermo to be his best man, and he didn't want it to be this mysterious past love until he realized he could resurrect old romances. What he really wants is to cover up loneliness with a new endorphin high as soon as possible, because Guillermo is so close to walking out that door the minute these made-up tasks run out, Nandor can feel it. And this is how Nandor deals with feelings.

Whippies corresponds so nicely with run me through when you think about it. Here you have two instances in which Ed asks another man (notably, someone he is/was sexually interested in) to hurt him, and gets two entirely different responses. Jack is careless, impulsive, and wholly unconcerned about consequences; Stede is hesitant, cautious, and terribly worried about causing harm. And Ed’s responses to them - his real and unfunny pain with Jack vs. the petite mort expression when he‘s in Stede‘s arms - illustrate just how badly he yearns for someone who’ll make love to him instead of just treating him as another dalliance. All those scars on the left side of his body are like grotesque little kisses, the ghosts of all the men who had ‘stabbed’ him before Stede, who had hurt him in that tender bit of flesh where he tells himself there wasn’t anything important anyway. Because when you get down to it, Ed’s entire understanding of love revolves around pain; around plates smashed against the wall and his mother’s slapped face; around becoming a monster so that his father could never hurt her like that again; so that Ed couldn’t ever be hurt like that, either. That’s what the Kraken is, really: the darkness that grows inside us in the absence of love.

Oh, Nandor. Time to try and rattle your head around again so I can figure out that weird little brain of yours.

There are so many things to say about 4.04, and I feel like over the next week I will end up saying them, but what I keep coming back to is the very weird way that Nandor thinks of Guillermo here. Or rather… doesn’t think of Guillermo.

1. He does not think of Guillermo as a normal familiar. He just takes it for granted that Guillermo could kill any familiar there (and probably all of the vampires, too), and doesn’t seem worried at all that Guillermo might possibly lose or get hurt. He listens to Guillermo’s plans and worries (particularly when he has to fight the vampire champion) and he acquiesces to Guillermo’s initial refusal in front of other vampires until he gets all het up over the perceived insult towards him and Guillermo. Like he straight-up allowed his familiar to tell him no in front of other vampires! That’s crazy!

(Side note: He used almost identical phrasing here as he did when Guillermo killed Carol, saying that he wasn’t worried about Guillermo! He just didn’t want Guillermo’s murder to reflect badly on him! Here he’s not upset that they’re insulting Guillermo! He just thinks it’ll reflect badly on him! Yeah, okay, you can tell me you’re not being protective and reactionary all you want. I didn’t believe you then and I don’t believe you now.)

2. He does not think of Guillermo as a normal and mortal human. Now, this one has come up a few times in the past, most blatantly in the super slumber ep. It’s like his brain slides away from acknowledging Guillermo’s mortality. He knows Guillermo is a human. He knows humans die. But he will not think about Guillermo’s ability to die. He never once even considered that Guillermo might lose a fight and that Nandor might lose him. It’s just a non-starter in his mind… until he pushes Guillermo off that balcony and he doesn’t immediately get up. You can see it, that creeping knowledge, that slow realization, the mounting anxiety as he realizes – holy shit. I may have killed my friend. Guillermo can die.

3. He does not think of Guillermo as a normal vampire slayer. He even says it himself – he forgets that about him sometimes. He’s weirdly proud of Guillermo’s fighting abilities and he’s more than aware that Guillermo uses them to kill vampires. But it’s hard for him to conceptualize Guillermo as a vampire killer. Because, you know, Guillermo is… Guillermo. His familiar. His comrade. His soldier. His best friend. Guillermo would never hurt him, and vampire slayers would. Up until this episode, I’m not sure Nandor had ever fully accepted that Guillermo could hurt him. But he knows it now.

And that’s what I’m leading up to here. Nandor has all of these things that he refuses to think about with Guillermo, but those illusions have just been jarred severely, if not broken entirely. He’s assigned Guillermo this very nebulous role in his mind that he still calls familiar, but he obviously doesn’t actually think of him as a familiar anymore. Like… we almost never see Guillermo even doing familiar shit anymore. Nandor never even considered telling Guillermo to identify himself as his human familiar, despite human familiars obviously being welcome in the Night Market. He made up some weird lie about an orc instead. Weird move, Nandor!

So then Nandor gets into this familiar fight club and tries to push Guillermo into the most familiar-y role of all, though I’m not sure he’s consciously thinking of it like that. I keep joking about it, but it’s true. This man is trying to order him around like a goddamn pokemon! He’s trying to assert a vampire’s right to rule over his own familiar’s body, life, and death. And Guillermo takes that from him in a brutal and very public way. Nandor can no longer ignore that Guillermo is absolutely not subservient to him anymore. Guillermo is no longer a true familiar.

He also was forced to confront his weird illusions about Guillermo’s mortality. He went into this as weird as he always is about Guillermo’s perceived immortality (which he has neglected to give him, might I add, whole other essay there) and just… refused to even think about the possibility that Guillermo could die or even get seriously injured here. He really does seem to think of Guillermo as invulnerable… because he has to. His brain will not let him think about the possibility of Guillermo dying. 

Until Guillermo didn’t get up. Like wow, you could really start to see dark and potent reality starting to leak into that silly little brain of his. And like… for a second, there was real fear there. Nandor was no longer able to ignore Guillermo’s potential mortality, either. Guillermo can die.

Finally, Nandor had to confront the fact that Guillermo is a literal vampire killer, and he could kill Nandor if he so chose. Nandor seemed to be laboring under the delusion that he let Guillermo win last time, and Guillermo put that one the fuck to bed, didn’t he? Guillermo just proved spectacularly and without doubt that his tiny body is made for killing vampires – Nandor included. Nandor can no longer ignore that Guillermo can – but, and this is key, won’t – kill him. Guillermo is a slayer.

Up until this point, Nandor has been clinging to the last vestiges of normalcy that they had between them. He was holding onto their old roles, refusing to acknowledge that it was a bit like grabbing onto the shed skin of a snake. That shit is brittle as hell, Nandor, and hell if it didn’t just break! I think it was sort of those broken illusions that had him so beaten down at the end of the fight. Yes, he felt embarrassed to be beaten by a “familiar”. But I think he was also upset to lose the illusions he’d been clinging to. The very foundation of his life has been rocked.

And sure, they managed to push past it for the sake of getting out of there. But Guillermo’s got to be mad at him, and Nandor’s got to be trying to figure out how to build those illusions back up. (He’s so fucking good at rebuilding mental walls.) I suspect he’ll just try not to think about it like he’s been trying not to think about it for years. But things are coming to a head, I think, and I don’t know how much longer he’ll be able to ignore it.

And, for that matter, I think he won’t be able to ignore what a bad fucking idea this wedding clearly is, either. All of Nandor’s carefully-built illusions are starting to crumble before him, and we all know how Nandor gets when he doesn’t know what to do with himself…

This is long as hell so I’ll cut myself off here but like! It’s so fascinating to see the world that Nandor has carefully constructed in his mind! The world he intends to live in! It’s so crazy to see him forcibly pulled into reality! Because Nandor is one of the worst characters at acknowledging reality that I’ve seen in a long, long time! And I don’t think he’s gonna have a good time with it!

*puts Nandor’s head down* okay I’m done

I said I’d do this and here I go

Nandor and Guillermo’s relationship through slumber.

Now, Nandor and Guillermo have always had a fairly interesting dynamic when it comes to sleeping. All vampires are forced to rely on their familiars to protect them during the day, which I think must be a subject of some wariness when they first get a new one, but I think for most vampires that mostly means “I trust you not to open my coffin while I’m asleep, and I trust that you won’t because I am giving you enough incentive not to.”

It’s always been different with Nandor and Guillermo. He doesn’t just trust Guillermo to not kill him while he’s asleep. He trusts him to care for him and actively protect him. He gets petulant when Guillermo isn’t there to hold his hand when he wakes up. He asked Guillermo to sit outside his coffin so he’d feel safe enough to go to sleep. Guillermo is the first thing he calls for whenever something is happening outside of his coffin and he doesn’t know what it is.

Guillermo makes Nandor feel safe. And this was before he even figured out the slayer thing, or that Guillermo could actually do anything to protect him! Even when he thought that Guillermo was completely useless in a fight, he still felt safer with him outside of his coffin.

Guillermo, on the other hand, does not allow Nandor to watch him sleep. This is largely professionalism and knowing that (early seasons) Nandor would bitch at him for sleeping on the job, but Guillermo also seems to have some issues here. By his own admission, he barely sleeps. We see him depend on stimulants such as 5-hour energy and coffee beans a lot. He seems to have this overwhelming sense of responsibility that won’t allow him to sleep nearly as much as he should, whether it’s because he needs to do chores, protect them from vampiric assassins, or babysit Colin Robinson. He gets pretty agitated due to lack of sleep sometimes and seems a little resentful when he doesn’t get to sleep, but no one’s actually making him do this. As far as I can tell, no one actually tells him what to do during the daylight hours – and at least half the year, that means he actually has more time to himself than he does with the vampires.

But he still chooses not to sleep.

I think it’s a control thing with Guillermo. I think he takes on all these insane responsibilities even on top of the things he’s actually ordered to do. He has this pathological need to feel useful and he feels like if anything bad happens it will ultimately be his fault. He has these overwhelming protective and nurturing instincts, and I do think that’s part of why Nandor trusts him to take care of him. But it’s also why Guillermo always manages to burn himself out. When he loses his temper and/or leaves, it’s often paired with periods where he’s taking on too much and refusing to sleep. (And I do think it’s telling that when he was working for Celeste, a master for whom he felt no real protective instincts, he was shown lounging around and relaxing in bed.)

So that brings us to 4.06, which had two really interesting scenes re: sleep. I mean obviously, there’s this backdrop of both of them being completely fucking sleep deprived for the entire episode and that heightening both of their already sky-high emotional states. But I’m thinking about two specific moments.

The first is when Nandor’s thinking back to wasted wishes and his wish that the Djinn use magic to close his coffin. He doesn’t want the Djinn to close it himself. Even the Djinn seems to realize this. When he offers a manual rather than magical solution, it’s not him getting up and closing it, an objectively simpler solution. No, it’s getting up and fetching Guillermo to close the coffin. He seems to understand instinctively that Guillermo is the person whose job it is to do this, whom Nandor trusts to do this, who is supposed to do this.

But Nandor shoots that down, saying with Guillermo it’ll be “a whole thing”. And it will! The Djinn totally acknowledges this! With Guillermo, it’s a whole bedtime ritual. It’s handholding and soft conversations and whispered promises of protection. It’s clothes-changing and hair-brushing and a sense of protection, care, and intimacy that seems to overwhelm Nandor at times. And when he just wants to fucking sleep and is too emotionally exhausted to deal with all the things that Guillermo makes him feel, he just wants his coffin to be closed. He doesn’t want anyone to close it. He doesn’t wish for the Djinn to close his coffin. He wishes that it’s closed.

(And I think that also confirms that Guillermo is still doing these morning/evening rituals if even the Djinn knows about them and their role in Nandor’s psyche.)

I think that the Djinn knows it’s going to be a whole thing – and he also understands that it’s a whole thing that is important to them both. That’s why he offers to get Guillermo in the first place. But I think he also understands that it’s a thing that can be kind of overwhelming for Nandor at times, which is why he just uses his magic to close the coffin, acknowledging that Nandor is right. With Guillermo, it’s never just closing the damn lid. And the Djinn doesn’t want to take Guillermo’s place – he does not close the lid himself – but he does allow Nandor the freedom from having any presence there at all. That’s what that wish really was. The freedom from feeling anything too intimate.

And then, god, then we have Guillermo finally falling asleep in a building full of vampires. He didn’t even do that in the episode when Colin Robinson was draining all of them. He stayed awake even for that. But he’s finally been pushed too far. It was a week that both physically and emotionally exhausted him, and for reasons he doesn’t seem to want to interrogate too closely. I don’t think this was a matter of trust; even if he trusts Nandor implicitly and Nadja and Laszlo… sort of… he doesn’t know most of the other vampires in the building. I think he was just completely spent and could not physically stay awake any longer.

And Nandor protected him. Sure, it wasn’t vampiric assassins, just two little dumbasses with a Sharpie, but Nandor finally got the chance to do for Guillermo what Guillermo has always done for him. Chase off the baddies. Touch him tenderly. Speak to him softly. Tuck him in. Protect him from embarrassment. Make him feel safe enough to go back to sleep.

It’s so fucking striking how tender Nandor is in this scene, especially compared to the frankly vile way he treats his actual wife in the episode. I’m not sure we’ve ever seen Nandor look half that tender. It was almost uncomfortably intimate to watch, like we as an audience were intruding. But Nandor seemed happy to do it, happy that he was finally getting this chance to care for Guillermo in his sleep, too. Happy to see Guillermo finally getting the rest he so desperately needed. Happy that Guillermo would go back to sleep under his hands. Happy to protect him. Happy to be able to show care.

There’s been such a role reversal between them over the years, and I think it’s been emphasized a lot in s4. Guillermo fighting for Nandor, Guillermo defeating him, Nandor caring for Guillermo after he gets hurt, Nandor comforting and defending Guillermo when he’s angry, Nandor serving him during the family interview… and now this. Nandor finally caring for and protecting Guillermo’s slumber. The tenderness that Guillermo has always reserved solely for Nandor finally coming back to him through softly crooned words.

Oh… Oh, my heart…

(And ofc, Nadja sing-shouting THE HOUSE MATE as Nandor patted Guillermo had me like “oh my god… they were house mates…”)

always a heartbreaking shot for me :(

and,friendly girl swag? will your explanation ever grace the empty empty halls of my mind 😔 -guillermoguywife

YES IT WILL, SIR GUYWIFE! the day has come at last

okay so first off (and relating to your other ask, which tumblr didn’t let me see until NOW) !! vampires and fiddler on the roof are both VERY jewish. fiddler on the roof is obvious, as its literally about a family in a shtetl in 1905 with the most yiddish names you can imagine, but vampires. oh man oh boy. i fuckin love the jewish connection to vampires

vampires as a story concept have existed for ages all over the world (vrykolakas in greece, moroi in romania, sasabonsam in south ghana, cihuateto in aztec mythology, jiangshi in china, etc etc) but our modern day western understanding of vampires has. a really weird amount of ties to antisemitism, Especially in bram stoker’s dracula novel. like, for one, blood libels—the accusation against jews of needing human blood (especially of christian children) for the preparation of passover matzoh—had already been around for centuries at this point, so the reach between that and vampirism really wasn’t that far, all things considered. “things” being were that antisemitism and antisemitic fearmongering was extremely prevalent in the late 19th century.

anyway. in terms of bram stoker’s dracula specifically. the book opens with the diary entries of an englishman, staying in count draculas mansion in romania while he helps the count buy a house in england. an old woman warns him against travelling during the night of st george’s day, as all evil things will be at their full power. dracula warns him against wandering around the castle at night, but due to the englishmans unfortunate englishness, he does it anyway and narrowly avoids being killed by three vampire ladies because dracula rescues him and distracts the vampire ladies with a bag with a small child trapped inside. the englishman narrowly avoids getting killed by the three vampire ladies a second time and dracula packs his dirt for a ship to england, where he stalks and feeds on a woman. prof van helsing diagnoses her with acute blood loss and puts garlic around her room and on a necklace, only for them to get removed by the womans mother, both of whom die from fright after seeing a wolf shortly after. after the womans burial reports are given of children being stalked at night by a beautiful lady, who van helsing determines as the woman. they track her down and kill her, the englishman and his wife join the hunting group, and go after dracula, eventually killing him in back in romania.

(side note. surely someone has talked about how in the dracula novel, vampires can be freed of their curse by someone killing their sire, and how dracula was killed by van helsing on his ancestral soil……. surely someone has pieced that together with nandor and guillermo’s supposed-to-be roadtrip……. with nandor’s rampant self hatred and adoration for human things and guillermo’s van helsing instincts and possibly dwindling wish to become a vampire himself…..)

now for historical context: in the decade or so before dracula was published there was a huge influx of immigrant eastern european jews to england after pogroms in their hometowns. st george’s day marks the death of st george, circa 303 AD, after beint tortured and executed in palestine (majority jewish population, but under roman control/occupation) for refusing to give up christianity. in romanian myth vampires’ power dwindles as the nights become shorter, so on st george’s eve they gather and feast on as much evil power as they can get. we’ve already touched on the blood libel and the christian children thing. dracula is eastern european, wealthy, and has a lack of allegiance towards any country, all very stereotypical jewish immigrant things. his nose gets mentioned often, and shapeshifts into people you would see in jojo rabbits “yoohoo jew”. (coincidentally as part of that book, when jojo is writing down elsa’s made-up ways to recognize a jew, she tells him that they sleep upside down like bats). jews in victorian literature were often described as parasites, and there was a fear that jews would spread bloodborne illnesses— in russian folklore, vampires were created by a bloodborne infection that requires its victims to feed on blood. garlic is a natural antibiotic, and is used to cover up the smell of blood to block insects like mosquitos from locating it. not to mention how dracula’s place in london is described as having “smelled old jerusalem in it”. jewish holidays also begin at sundown, where christian holidays always start when you wake up, possibly contributing to how vampires are creatures of the night and were said to hate christian symbols.

HISTORY CLASS OVER. I MAY HAVE RAMBLED TOO FAR.

“but how does this relate to wwdits and fiddler on the roof, dear friendlygirlswag?” you ask. well.

fiddler on the roof is about a family in a russian shetl, marriages aranged by a matchmaker, and moving away from home for good, lest they get killed.

do you see where i am going with this.

tzeitel is arranged to marry a widower older than her dad, when she really wants to marry her childhood friend motel, who was too afraid to break tradition.

hodel mocks perchik’s modern interpretation of a torah story. perchik mocks her in term for clinging to the old rules of tradition, and dances with her in spite of it being prohibited.

chava gets bullied and intimidated by some goys. one of them protects her, and they form a secret relationship since marrying a goy is prohibited.

sleeping with a van helsing is well against vampiric law. nandor’s been cursed to think about guillermo every time he uses his dick. nandor was in an on and off relationship with a werewolf, vampires hereditary enemy, for Decades. and yet nandor still clings to the past so much, because he’s so afraid of what will happen if he Truly breaks tradition. the djinn is playing matchmaker, and somehow for both sides.

act 1 ends on tzeitel and motels wedding day, where perchik breaks another tradition in public to dance with hodel. the celebration ends abruptly when the russians swing by for a quick pogrom and destroy all of the poor family’s gifts.

the second to last song in act 1 is called “sunrise, sunset” and man. it’s from the parent’s perspective, watching their kids on their wedding day, and then from perchik and hodel, hoping that someday they can get married too. and i am just thinking about nandor and marwa and their shitty ass relationship and guillermo and freddie and s4e10 sunrise, sunset “baby colin reaches that awkward age.”

i am so scared

Hmm, any one notice this?

So a while ago I wrote a meta about how Stede isn’t actually oblivious to his feelings towards Ed, but I was really thinking about it at work today and honestly… Ed kind of is.

I know the running joke of Stede effortlessly being the most objectively romantic human on planet earth by sheer accident is hilarious. But did you ever notice that when Stede is actually trying to be loving on purpose, Ed Doesn’t Get it?

We can assume Stede started the ritual of them eating breakfast together cause it’s his quarters, and the intimacy of that clearly went right over Ed’s head cause he let Jack invade it without a second thought. Like Ed, honey, did the implications of a man wanting to eat breakfast with you and only you every single day seriously never register to you??

Stede plans a whole day together “treasure hunting” when he wants Ed to stay. The whole “you wear fine things well” business was pure oblivion on Stede’s part, this is him flirting. And he’s trying so hilariously hard to make this ridiculous idea work, but Ed still doesn’t get the gist. Luckily Lucius I-need-a-fucking-raise- Spriggs is here to save the day and clue Ed in to what at least this particular situation means.

…Which makes the gears clearly turning in Ed’s head during this moment absolutely precious and hilarious. Now he knows what’s going on. He sees that Stede’s excited to spend time with him in particular just like Saint Augustine, I mean a bunch more people will be also there this time, but still! And I’m sorry but the brief look of pure “Ed Exe has stopped working” when apparently the first thing Stede could think of was swimming is criminally underrated.

And look at that fond little smile it turns into, Ed knows full well that man has some cute little swim costume squirreled away somewhere ready to go after pulling an entire safari outfit out of his ass last episode 😂

Ok ok enough teasing Ed, back to the point.

We know Ed’s love language is physical touch. Stede’s is less talked about but I firmly believe his is quality time. Just like Ed is touch starved, Stede is shown to desperately want someone to spend time with. But that’s not just the way he receives love, it’s how he gives love too.

His way of saying I love you is to say “That’s me.” He’s the one who breaks the lock on his own bathroom door. He’ll be the one to show up at Ed’s restaurant and look at all the little Knick knacks in his gift shop on a slow day. Stede wants to be the one who’s there, who makes sure Ed doesn’t have to cry by himself, or feel silly about something he loves and put a lot of work into. He doesn’t ever want someone so deeply precious to him feeling as unwanted and isolated as he did back in Barabados.

And Ed ends up missing so many of these intentional gestures. Which isn’t a BAD thing, I just love all the little intricacies of two people with completely different love languages somehow making it work anyway. I think that’s part of why the bathtub scene felt so profoundly intimate, because their love languages work seamlessly together and they end up emotionally on the same page.

I’m going to sleep on this, but the more I think on it, the more it seems like the inhumanity is the point. Nandor simply wasn’t capable of understanding his actions as wrong without Guillermo’s reaction as a high-water mark because Nandor isn’t human and he hasn’t been for a long, long, long time. And even when he was human, he was a human who killed a lot of people and engaged in wanton cruelty because that’s what he was raised to as a warrior king.

That’s never been a secret, in fact it’s one of their favorite hobbyhorse jokes, from “I’m pillaging you along with everyone else,” to burning Nadja’s village, to disemboweling a lot of people for a tapestry. But because it’s always treated as a joke and Nandor has a pathetic charm and seems mostly non-violent in his old age, we got too comfortable with the seven centuries old killing machine. The thoughtless cruelty to Guillermo and the absolute lack of care for Marwa are the point. As the meme goes, we like him evil, actually. We think the atrocities are funny. Etc, etc. Until another character we love is caught in the crosshairs. I think we’re supposed to be uncomfortable with this episode because it’s a reminder that Nandor Is A Bad Guy Actually. In any other story, he’s the villain. They all are.

It’s still a comedy, but this show likes throwing curveballs, and this episode definitely wrong-footed us after S3’s pathetic vampire depression Nandor and so many great Nandermo scenes this season. And let’s not forget the tonal shift between 3x9 and 3x10. Anything can happen next episode. And for two years to come!

So yeah, I think we are supposed to be repulsed by Nandor’s behavior this episode. Toward Guillermo tonight, and toward Marwa all season. BUT, I also think it’s important that Nandor actually does recognize in the end that his actions were wrong, admit it, and make (poor) attempts to fix it. I don’t think we’ve ever heard him admit to being in the wrong before. If the djinn is meant to teach people lessons, Nandor must be one of his most frustrating cases, because the man is too stupid to learn until the only person he actually cares about gets hurt. Maybe that’s why the three extra wishes, because the djinn has to stick around until Nandor learns his lesson, and so far they’ve just slid off the smooth obsidian of his brain like a car on glare ice.

NO NO OKAY. even if they’re not following the canon of the film...... in the original dracula novel killing a sire frees their descendants from vampirism. killing a vampire kills all of the vampires they turned...... by making them HUMAN.

idk what my point is with that tbf. other than that s4e10 was titled after a song from fiddler on the roof, a musical entirely about straying away from tradition in a world that doesn’t support it anymore, and ended with the vampires back exactly where they started in s1-- colin robinson's return to his old bastard self, nandor constantly reaching for escapism, laszlo and nadja both feeling kind of Lost --this show has consistently shined upon how vampirism is a Curse first and foremost, and it feels. idk. what’s the Point of the show ending with that problem never being properly addressed? yk?? and getting rid of vampirism as a whole feels like a cop out, yes, but. idk. i just think its a Path They Could Take yk

no you don’t get it this is revolutionary. guillermo has been tied to nandor for so long because he wanted nandor to be the one to change him. he’s been his familiar and his bodyguard and taken care of him with everything he has. but nandor refused to change him because he thinks guillermo would leave after, that that’s all guillermo has stayed for. so guillermo is now reasserting his autonomy and his desires above nandor’s insecurities, and if derek does change him and guillermo returns to the house (which he implied he’d do by saying “nothing ever changes in this house unless i change it) then that will confirm to nandor that guillermo wants to be there. even if derek doesn’t change him, this is a huge moment for guillermo because he’s recognizing that he doesn’t need nandor to get what he wants.

the tragic irony of guillermo always being the one to oppose nandor's relationships with other people, UNTIL it's a relationship nandor doesn't actually want. the tragic irony of nandor always being able to rely on guillermo to save him from himself and his mistakes even when he himself doesn't realise it's a mistake or believes he doesn't want guillermo's help, UNTIL he literally wants guillermo to do exactly that and all guillermo is doing is wholeheartedly supporting what he KNOWS is a huge mistake. the tragic irony of nandor wanting someone to ruin his wedding so desperately, whilst guillermo is literally driving himself insane trying to make it perfect for him. the tragic irony of guillermo thinking he's done right by both of them by moving on and letting nandor be happy with someone else and not being jealous anymore, when really what nandor actually needs right now is that old jealous, conniving guillermo who will try to sabotage nandor's relationship for his own good. the tragic irony of nandor finally giving up on running away from his feelings and turning around, only to find that guillermo has stopped chasing him.

just realising now that we see Stede alone in a dinghy twice. as a kid when he’s getting bullied, and as an adult when he frees himself from his old life and goes back to his new-found love and family. i’m fine.