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I was thinking about OFMD (I know, a shock really) and how a lot of Edward’s self-image is built on lies
A big chunk of the fandom took his, “I don’t kill anyone!” as gospel truth, and others took it as a sort of “well, not PERSONALLY”, but I don’t think it’s true at all. I think he lies to himself, over and over and over and over, because if he doesn’t he has to face the fact he killed his own father (an abusive father who contextually deserved to die? Almost certainly. But what does it say about a person that as a child he strangled his father on a dock?), that he became a terrifying pirate who scares people simply by flashing his beard and leather after his first kill was to protect someone.
But, more than that, I was thinking about what David Jenkins said about Stede being the first person Ed’s ever fallen in love with. I was thinking about how Stede tells Mary he’s found that - being in love - in Ed, but how Ed never says it about Stede. He shows it (time and again he shows it, and he shows it during his grieving process when he thinks Stede has left him forever) but he doesn’t say it. He attributes the pain to a ‘fictional character’, he cries and doesn’t hide from his feelings but not even to Lucius does he attribute them directly to: Stede broke my heart. I was in love with him and he left me.
And then I think about what Calico Jack said: “Blackie and I have had our dalliances”. I think about how he minimized all of that to just 'life at sea’, and I think about how Ed has probably lied to himself for years. He’s not gay, hell he might even have been with women at port, who knows, it’s just that Jack and whoever else are there. There’s no women on pirate ships, and a guy has needs, right? So what does it hurt? It’s not like he loves any of them.
And then Stede shows up and blows that very carefully constructed false self-image right out of the water because Ed loves him. They didn’t - as much as I’d enjoy reading “pining while fucking” fics of these two - instantly fall into bed the second they met, so clearly it isn’t just scratching an itch. Stede is bad at keeping things quiet so clearly he hasn’t been scratching any itches with Wee John or Lucius or Frenchie. Ed just… loves him. Ed loves him like he’s meant to love a wife. And he hasn’t even touched him, not until that beach moment.
Anyway I’m not sure where I’m going with this, just that I think a lot of Ed’s characterization is the lies he tells himself and others vs the truths he lets Stede in on, and aside from the obvious broken heart he’s suffering, he’s also suffering from the loss of that. Izzy wants Blackbeard, the crew want Stede (in his eyes, I think. In actuality they seem to genuinely adore Edward for who he is). Ed was slowly working out how to just 'be Edward’, and figure out who that person is (someone who falls in love with a man, someone who likes to sing, who enjoys fine things, who wants to run away to China and be someone new) and without Stede there to let in, he had to go back to being Blackbeard, to being the carefully curated, safe lie.
Except it doesn’t feel safe anymore, because he’s admitted too many truths.