Sam Reid Being A Lestat Apologist Is Something That Can Be So Personal, He's Just Like Us 😌😌

But at the end of the day and despite her best intentions, there was one truth even she was unable to see. That at some point, progress cannot begin… and suffering will not end… until someone has the courage to go out into the woods and drown the damned cat.

-Black Sails, XXXV

I always gotta give Mason credit for being the *only* thing in Hannibal that actively grosses me out and disturbs me.

the older i get, the more i need time & personal space to be as boring as possible

yet another thing that ofmd does so well is how awkward and nervous all the dialogue is during all the romantic confession scenes we get from our three canon relationships. like it's so fucking relatable. watching those scenes makes me think of the (admittedly very few) times in my life when i have made these kinds of halting, nervous confessions. i can feel how the adrenaline is making their hearts pound and their hands sweat and their faces flush with heat. trying to sound casual while there's a heavy lump the size of a dodgeball trying to claw its way from your chest to your mouth.

Black Pete starts off stammering, "So... uh, listen." He veers too close to genuine, revealing too much when he says, "I-I thought I was gonna... lose you," and when Lucius responds jokingly, he tries to backtrack a bit, play it cool. "Exactly! And uh, and... uh—death, yknow..." He shrugs, tries for nonchalance and doesn't quite make it. "I'm used to death. But, um..." And Pete's barely been able to hold Lucius's gaze this whole time, his eyes constantly flickering somewhere to Lucius's left, but here he closes them, steels himself. "But not, um..." A beat. When he says, "your death," he opens his eyes again, looks right at Lucius, and the surprised little smile on Lucius's face is almost too much.

Olu's been listening to Jim's tragic backstory, hurting for them and understanding them on a deeper level than he ever has before. When Jim says that their nana is their only family, Olu's face goes on a journey, here: his eyebrows furrow in concern, then twitch upwards as he thinks about how lonely that must be. He hunches in on himself, shoulders to his ears and hands in his pockets, and he rocks himself to the side as he gathers his nerves. "Well, look..." he begins, moving half a step closer, "if you wanted–" his eyes land on Jim's for only a moment, then he's looking above them, around them. "I could be family," he says, shrugging and spreading his hands, like he's showing Jim what he has to offer: himself, just himself, and his desire to be someone Jim can lean on. "I just..." There's no ending to that sentence, he didn't know where he was going when he started it, so he trails off as Jim glances away, then looks at him from under the rim of their hat, considering.

(And Jim is so lucky—but also, it's what they deserve—that they get not one, but two confessions from Olu. When they come back, when they ask him why he gave their room away, Olu's demeanor goes from "happy to see his friend alive and well" to "nervous boy asking their crush to prom" in an instant. "I, um..." His hands bounce at his sides, his eyes flicker all over the room. When he finally meets Jim's gaze, his hands are still moving nervously. "I-I missed you.")

And Ed. Ed. He enters the scene by walking over and sitting so close to Stede, close enough that they could be touching. He sits in Stede's space like he belongs there (and he does; Stede doesn't move away, doesn't react like Ed's proximity is unexpected or unwanted). He looks at Stede and smiles at him as he offers reassurances, but once he looks away he doesn't look back for several minutes. As he dismisses Stede's self-deprecation and answers Stede's questions he alternates between fiddling with the sand in front of him and gazing out at the sea. There's nervousness there, things going unsaid that have been ready to jump from Ed's tongue at any moment. And Stede gives him that moment when he asks what makes Ed happy.

But despite how desperate Ed is to tell him, there's still hesitation. He meanders his way towards giving Stede his answer, starting with, "These past... few weeks?" as if this isn't something he's given much thought to. "Have been... th'most fun I've had in ages. Years." His voice is soft, his face scrunching casually as he speaks. He still doesn't look at Stede, because the nerves climbing up his throat right now would choke him into silence if he did. So he stares at some fixed point in the distance, maybe a specific rock or blade of grass, as he says, "Maybe ever," with a surprised twist in his expression.

And as he moves into the next part, into the important part, those nerves in his throat climb higher. "So," he says, firmly, but that's the last thing he manages to say with any force. As his nerves go higher, so does his voice, but the volume becomes softer.

"So–uh... I reckon. What makes Ed happy..."

He feels Stede's eyes on his face, and that nervous fidgeting is gone, replaced instead by a stillness that his heart doesn't emulate.

"Is..."

Ed's been run through many times. He's been held at gunpoint, had rope tied around his neck, been stranded for days without food. He's watched the life drain from his father's body as a result of his own violence.

But for some reason, this is possibly the most nervous Ed has ever felt, the hardest his heart has ever pounded. The only moment that competes is when he watched four men in red coats point their rifles at Stede's trembling body.

"You."

OUGHUHUFHUGHUGH..... i know EXACTLY how they feel and it makes all these scenes hit so much harder. and SO MUCH OF IT is how fucking good the acting. if you just read these lines as flat dialogue, taking out all those pauses and stammers that the characters are trying to hard to hide, so much of the flavor is lost:

"Death, y'know, I'm used to death. But not your death"

"Well, look: if you wanted, I could be family."

"These past few months have been the most fun I've had in ages, weeks, maybe ever. So, I reckon what makes Ed happy is you."

like these are cute lines, but they're also awkward ways to stumble around just outright saying "I Care About You" and it's so real and incredibly relatable. i know EXACTLY how it feels to nervously try and tell someone you like like them and ofmd does it so so well

(bonus tag game: if u reblog this and ur comfortable w it, PLEASE tell me about an awkward confession you have given or received, i love shit like this. i will, of course, add my own story in the tags of the original post)

there needs to be more fic that plays with how ed is a stone cold genius and good at everything and that's part of why he's so fucking bored.

his response to stede saying he could open a restaurant says it all.

"probably could. maybe i will. i can do anything."

and he can!!!

when stede's like OH COME ON at ed demurring and then suddenly playing the piano! bcs oh ofc he can also play piano! (he has a harpsichord AND a lute AND an accordion in his room on the queen anne! consider: ed lowkey a musical prodigy)

when izzy gets frustrated in the art of fuckery and exclaims that ed just knows everything about everything in the whole fucking world! he thinks ed's a know-it-all because ed's so damn effortlessly good at everything! (his smug look at izzy when he's about to explain the fog and whatnot in 1x04!)

he asks stede how to "win this interaction" at the french party because that's what ed does. all he does is WIN WIN WIN. and that in turn is part of why it's so devastating to him when he's mocked. not just the trauma he's carrying around about class and self-worth, but also because it's probably the first time ed has failed at anything in a very long time!

a lot of au fic especially focuses in hard on the fact that ed admires and longs for stede's ability to express himself through things like fashion and to luxuriate and pamper himself and has felt barred from this by class distinctions and performing a particular kind of masculinity. but in the course of it, they entirely lose that ed is legendarily famous, wildly successful, and extremely rich!

while stede obviously holds various structural privileges over ed, in the immediate world that they inhabit ed is the one with the power and the clout and his interest in stede is what's considered a weird foible, ed taking a pet, etc.

stede has own way of doing things and money. ed has notoriety, skill, respect AND his own way of doing things and money.

he's bored and depressed BECAUSE he has it all and has done it all. if you strip that away then the entire point of his character flies right by.

i fucking love kermits nephew. like look at him

peak character design. he’s just a little baby

"It's never too late to become unhealthily obsessed with a niche television show that went off the air years ago."

(I searched high & low for the author of this original comic format and could only find reposts. I can only hope I made them proud. If you know who they are, let me know so I can credit them.)

Ed / Stede + parallels [1/?] | [1.09] + [1.10]