Queerly Autistic

I'm thinking again about how in the dream version of Ed and Stede's big beach reunion, at the start of the season, they run into each other's arms and fall over together.

But then, in the real version, at the end of the season, they run into each other's arm and hold each other up.

I've been turning over the 'boyfriends' deleted scene in my head all day, rotating it gently in my hands to get a good look at it from all angles, trying to figure out why it hit me in such an emotional place, and I realised it's because it's so...young?

It just perfectly captures that wonder and surprise and joyfulness of being in love for the first time, and realising that you can suddenly use words like 'boyfriend' and they mean something tangible to you - testing out the language and definitions of your relationship for the first time and being absolutely giddy with it all.

And the fact that it's two middle aged men, who have both been on their own specifically queer journeys, gives it a whole other layer of meaning and importance.

As queer people, so many of us were denied the opportunity to have these experiences when we were kids; standing on the sidelines and watching our peers go through all these rites of passage, whilst never quite able to reach out and touch it ourselves. And I think many of us live in perpetual fear that because we didn't to get to have this as kids, then we've missed out, and we will never get the chance to have those experiences in the same way.

But it isn't too late.

My mum came out as gay at 50, and I watched her go through the same thing when she met her first ever girlfriend (who is now her wife): the absolute excited youthful joy of being in love and getting to do all the things she never got a chance to do when she was younger. As a twenty year old, I was a bit annoyed and embarrassed by my mum suddenly turning into a lovesick teenager, but looking back on it now as a thirty-something, it actually makes me well up slightly thinking about how absolutely beautiful it was.

And that's why the 'boyfriend' moment puts me in such an emotional headspace. Because what this silly show did was cup my face gently in its hands and say 'it's never too late to have this'.

I'm so, so glad that we have so much representation for younger queers these days; that young queers get to see themselves represented on screen, having all these experiences that every young person deserves to have. But it's so much rarer for us to see older queers represented in this way, too. Older queers getting to have this is so important, and watching these two men in their 40s experience this, being allowed to revel in the giddy joy of first love - omg we're boyfriends! - like the happy lovesick teenagers they thought they'd forever lost the chance to be, it's just everything to me.

Hearing the words 'my boyfriend' out of Stede Bonnet's mouth has shifted something in my brain chemistry.

The thing with Stede getting any sort of piratey makeover is that Ed would absolutely fall over himself with how attractive he finds it, but he wouldn't be falling over himself because it's piratey - he'd be falling over himself because it's Stede.

Yeah, he'd lose his shit over the low-cut top and the earring - of course he would, he's a human being - but he loses his shit just as much over Stede in the frilly shirts and fancy swishy coats and powdery wigs and sleep masks and nightcap and also the teeny tiny little reading glasses.

And he'd make damned sure Stede knows that Ed found him just as sexy before the makeover as he does after it.

Stede sees that Ed's automatic reaction to upsetting situations is to hide under a blanket - that that's where he goes to try and feel safe when he's feeling vulnerable - and slowly but surely begins to amass a collection of different blankets in their bedroom. Different sizes, different weights, different colours, different thicknesses, different fabrics, different textures - all folded neatly under their bed, to make sure Ed has exactly what he needs to feel safe on any given day and in response to any given situation/emotion.

He also notes that Ed likes the pressure of being cuddled whilst wrapped in the blanket, that that makes him feel especially safe and secure, but it becomes tricky on those days when Ed just wants to be left alone (especially if the upset in question is some sort of argument between them). So, Stede writes to Wee John, and they put their heads together to find a solution, and that's how they invent ye olde weighted blanket.

Here's the thing: Stede didn't enjoy or get a thrill out of killing Ned. He was fundamentally upset and traumatised by it. Not only did he have immediate flashbacks to traumatic moments in his childhood, but he then fled the crew to go and sit in his room and cry. When Ed knocked on the door, he was sitting on his own in a dark room, looking completely crushed.

But the key thing, and potentially the reason why he was able to move on from that moment (and why he was able to get - briefly - swept up in the infamy of it all rather than remaining upset and traumatised), is that he wasn't left alone to sit and marinate in these feelings. Because Ed came to find him. Ed's formative trauma - the trauma that has shaped and moulded his entire life, rising up in his darkest moments and making him feel like an unloveable monster - is an act of violence he committed in both self-defence and defence of someone he loved. Exactly like Stede did with Ned. He's the embodiment of what happens if that sort of trauma is allowed to fester. And he didn't let that happen to Stede.

Ed refused to let him be alone with this, instead appearing at his door to offer comfort and understanding and support, and, most crucially, love (particularly important considering Ned's taunting that Ed wouldn't be interested in Stede anymore if he went through with this). That soft little 'you okay?' is everything, because it's exactly the softness, the love without judgement, that Ed didn't get in the aftermath of killing his dad.

There's a reason why, despite Stede initially grabbing Ed and doing a bit of ye olde wall slamming, that very quickly fizzled into something much softer, with Stede practically collapsing into Ed and Ed circling his arms around Stede comfortingly and protectively. It's two people coming together around a trauma they both now share, seeking comfort and love and support in one another.

And yeah, the next day, for a moment, Stede got caught up in the infamy and attention he was getting for killing Ned, but that's fundamentally not who he is. This is who he is. And this isn't Stede getting turned on by violence or enjoying being a bloodthirsty pirate or embodying toxic masculinity. It's the opposite of that.

This is a man deeply traumatised by an act of violence he has committed, being loved and supported and held through it by another man who is deeply traumatised by a similar act of violence he committed, and loving and supporting and holding him right back because neither of them need to suffer alone anymore.

I don't think I'll ever be emotionally over the beautiful queer journey represented by these two kisses.

Firstly, we have Stede, a repressed gay man who has probably never even entertained the idea of loving a man, being kissed by a man for the first time and (although enjoying it) clearly being a little bit stunned and nervously keeping his hands down because he has no idea what to do with them.

And then we have Stede a few months later, the very next time he gets a chance to kiss that same man, having gone on such a journey of self-discovery that he's absolutely figured out who he is, and what he wants, and this time he's ready to grab what he wants with those same hands (literally).

Stede Bonnet is the character of all time and I could cry for thirty million years over his gorgeous arc of queer discovery, queer love, and queer joy.

We need to save OFMD because no other show has managed to embody my very specific queer aesthetic, which is 'ardently declaring my undying gay love with a kiss whilst splattered in the blood of the english soldiers I just cut down with a sword'.

One thing that I absolutely love is that Ed is not, for one single second, jealous of Stede's newfound fame. It would have been so easy for the writers to use that as the point of tension between them, to have Ed struggle with Stede suddenly being famous and people being more interested in him than Blackbeard, but there's not a single iota of it to be found. That sort of jealousy is just not a thing that exists in the equation of their relationship.

Look at him here. Although he initially assumes that the group of admirers is looking for him, when they say that they're actually interested in Stede, Ed isn't put out by it at all. His first reaction is to look on with interest, then to genuinely smile/laugh as he watches these people fawn over Stede, and then finally to sincerely congratulate him in this adoring proud voice. This is a man who is so fucking chuffed for his boyfriend.

Even in the bar later on, he's gleefully and enthusiastically giving Stede all these tips that he's learned over the years, helping and supporting him in ways that he no doubt wishes someone would have done for him when he was in the first throes of pirate infamy. He's not upset that Stede is over there with admirers rather than hanging out with him - he's giving his advice, essentially going 'HAVE AT 'EM TIGER', and then watching him go with big proud doe-eyes. If anything, he's thrilled that everyone else has joined him in seeing how spectacular his boyfriend is.

And when the conflict does come, it's not jealousy that fuels it. Instead, it's all about Ed panicking that they're at different places in life, with Stede succeeding at piracy just at the point where Ed himself is truly done with it. In fact, I think it's even arguable that a part of it is that Ed doesn't want to have to ask Stede to give all this up for him (even though we all know Stede happily would). There's not a single whisper of Ed actually begrudging Stede any of this.

It would have been such low-hanging narrative fruit to have jealousy play a part here, and I sort of expected it because so many shows would do it, just because it's easy drama. But not the OFMD writers. They took one look at it and went 'nope, not in this relationship', and I want to kiss them all lovingly on the forehead for it. Yes, in many ways they are both very immature, and they don't know how to be in an adult relationship, but in this? This is something mature and grown up that they just inherently do without thinking. This is a relationship where they love each other, and support each other, and genuinely delight in each other's achievements. They love each other completely and utterly, with no space for petty interpersonal jealousy in that love. And that's why, in spite of all the messiness and issues that they are going to have to overcome, they are strong enough to make it through.

Sometimes I think about the really intense and layered symbolism behind Ed cutting his beard off. About how it was the visualisation of him leaving Blackbeard behind, of him cutting away that part of himself for Stede. About how Stede reacted so strongly to it because of that, and how the sense that he had 'ruined' Ed, a driving force of him running away, was sparked in that moment of seeing Ed without his beard. How the entire 'I'm sorry if my horrible naked chin disgusts you so much' thing is rooted in the idea that Stede left him because he didn't want Ed, he wanted Blackbeard - the belief that Ed is unlovable, and so when Blackbeard was stripped away, Stede didn't want him anymore, and he left. How it's also symbolic of the toxic masculinity that Ed has had to wear like armour in order to survive - how he manages to escape it, briefly, clean shaven and wearing a robe and eating marmalade and singing, before literally painting it back on and trying to regress back into Blackbeard, to smother his softness and his pain behind it. About how him finally settling down at the end, with Stede, with the much shorter beard, is symbolic of him finding some sort of peace with those two sides of himself. And then, after all that, I think about how the main reason for all this was probably because Taika couldn't kiss Rhys without the big fake beard falling off.