ANONYMOUS:

The timeline of this show is bonkers and I'mma use this ask as a jumping-off point for that after I address the Izzy and Stede bits.

I agree that Stede must seem deeply manipulative and also the whole thing is just terrible from Izzy’s pov!! This poor dude. Everything went topsy-turvy in a month and a half.

Now, as for the timeline:

We don’t see any markers of time in 1x01 or 1x02 from what I can tell, but 1x02 seems to be pretty close after 1x01 considering in 1x01 they take hostages and by 1x03 the hostages are getting ‘ripe’ but they’re not by 1x02, so I can assume that to mean 1x02 is pretty soon after 1x01, and 1x03 has a bit of time before it? But not a lot. Maybe a week.

1x03 has no markers of time either but it falls within a day or so of 1x04, because 1x04 follows directly after, with Stede recovering from his injuries, and Lucius counting down the literal hours until they get horribly murdered by the Spanish.

Now, 1x04 is stated to be September 1st (of a leap year, which. lmao. okay) by Izzy, which Lucius vouches for (never noticed that before), and Lucius says, “The full moon’s tomorrow.”

They do their lighthouse thing, the sun rises (making it September 2nd) and then the episode ends.

Next episode is the party boat episode. 1x05 they’ve clearly had time to do several things:

• Stede has fully recovered and is no longer holding his guts in when he moves around. He does have a cravat covering his neck early on, so I can’t ascertain if his neck is still bruised from the noose, but the fact he’s walking and talking utterly normally and is no longer pallid and not visibly in pain tells me his gut wound is mostly healed.
• Obviously in the OFMD universe, things are quicker to heal from, and the liver is on the other side of the body, so I guess this is a mirror universe badumtsh, but a cursory google says it will take 8-9 months to recover from being stabbed in the gut. Which, we know isn’t how long this is, but it’s definitely more than 24hrs.
• Besides, unless they somehow go from sitting on the mast eating marmalade to finding a ship and raiding it in less than an hour, and find time to negotiate Ed’s teaching of Stede and his crew how to be good pirates (and convince Izzy to participate in that), it’s definitely another day and Ed telling Izzy, “I need you here,” is September 2nd, but “Note the gusto, Lucius!” is not.
• Plus, the voiceover says that Stede has been– Oh! I found it. “It’s been an extraordinary few days of training with Blackbeard’s crew.” Which means they spent a few days training, but doesn’t mean the negotiations of how that will go, setting it up, finding a ship to raid, and Stede recovering didn’t take time before that. It’s just the training that’s been a few days.
• Plus, Stede has been teaching Ed about dining and the pageantry of it all, and Ed has already learned enough to parrot “Pageantry!” back at him, which says they’ve been doing it for a little while.

Then they get the invitation to the party boat, which is an invite to some “stuffy, swanky formal affair tonight”.

When Blackbonnet has their “You wear fine things well” moment, this is the framing.

Which is god damn gorgeous and romantic and I love it!

However, that is a full moon, which implies it’s been about 27 days since 1x04 and is now October 2nd, ish.

Also, hilariously, the actual full moon was around September 21st in 1717 according to this calendar, but also 1717 was not a leap year, and Oluwande wears crocs, so it’s not really all that surprising.

Onwards! 1x06 is the fuckery episode, which, unrelated to the moon, opens with this gorgeous establishing shot:

Honestly stunning. 10/10 production team. Keep doing exactly what you’re doing please.

There’s no moon to be seen when they’re sparring on the deck, so no temporal markers, but we do have Izzy’s voiceover where he says, “We’ve been almost a fortnight aboard The Revenge.”

…time is a mess.

So not only did Stede recover fully from his wounds and teach Edward and start to learn from Edward and the whole party boat nonsense happen rapidly, but it all happened in, what, thirteen days?

…no.

I’m honestly going to interpret this as Izzy losing track of time because he’s stressed, anxious and upsetti spaghetti about Stede Bonnet existing and that’s just how I’m dealing with this headache.

But also, Stede gut-stabs Edward here, and then Edward is fine not long later as though he was never stabbed at all and SHOW PLEASE MY HEAD. Logically this should have a break between the two points, or maybe Ed just has a really high pain tolerance and Roach is just that good a surgeon at sewing him up, but my honest interpretation when I first watched it was there was a break between the sexy gut stabbing and the following storytime and fuckery.

No moon when Ed does his theatre kid thing, and then at least a day or two passes while they plan the fuckery, because of Lucius’s finger getting infected. I do not think that infection sets in within 8 hours? Correct me if I’m wrong, I’m no doctor.

Plus, it goes day-night-day-night a couple of times. So, a couple of days pass in this episode, I think.

And then, during the fuckery they pull with the fake kraken–

Do my eyes deceive me or is that another fucking full moon?

Okay, we’re on at least two months now. It’s November 2nd, ish.

I can’t get a good shot because it dips in and out of the scene so many times but do you see the bitch in the top left corner during the dual?

do you see it anakin

yeah that’s the full moon, so it’s November 1-3rd.

1x07, Izzy is gone because the universe has gone topsy fucking turvy and he needs out of this mess of moons and this is the treasure hunt episode. No real temporal signifiers in this episode that I remember, though oranges are in season. I don’t… actually know where St Augustine is? When I google it, I get Florida? Which, I suppose it could be? It’s on the beach in Florida and there’s a large hispanic population in Florida so I assume it is?

Anyway, I asked Google about oranges in Florida:

Florida oranges are plentiful from October through June, although the largest quantities are available from December through May. Fresh Florida grapefruit is shipped from September through June, with the height of the harvest occurring in February.

You know what? I will take it. This doesn’t make my brain hurt. Thank you for this one.

Jim leaves to go do vengeancey shit.

1x08 is Calico Jack, who shows up on the day Buttons is 'preparing for tomorrow’s moonbathing’.

I can only assume he was naked and moonbathing with Karl while Ed and Stede nearly kissed, and also naked and moonbathing with Karl while Izzy was having his life ruined by a cherry wood mast.

(Also, Stede was stabbed again and would need time to surely recover)

Finally, a moon that isn’t full!

Well, one that isn’t full at least.

Buttons teases Karl for being late and explicitly says he started the moonbathing without him but the full moon comes tomorrow.

It’s now the first days of December.

Which is the night Jack shows up. Next morning he’s blowing shit up with Ed and doing whippies and stuff, then they sail to Blind Man’s Cove and somehow they just. appear there. it takes them no time at all to get there, though one would assume it would take at least a few days. I suppose they have a TARDIS hidden away.

New headcanon: The Revenge is a TARDIS. Stede is the Doctor.

Furthermore: only one day passes for Jim’s subplot.

Truly and hilariously ridiculous. I love this show but my head hurts.

They play around on the beach, then Jack kills Karl and Ed fucks off under the December full moon and the next day they’re captured by the English.

They get shipped off to Privateer Academy, leaving Izzy in charge, and they spend a grand total of one night at privateering academy before everything falls apart. Meanwhile, Izzy is captain for what I imagine to be approximately 36 hours before they try to toss him overboard for trying to get them to actually sail the ship.

Also, Ed says this:

And I– Ed, I know ADHD causes a weirdness with time, but honey there have been many, several full moons. MANY FULL MOONS.

(ed and izzy can just be otp: i think a week is a month and no one can tell me different)

I feel like this is a full moon and at this point I think the show is fucking with me. It isn’t shown while Edward is in his dinghy though, so I am choosing to ignore it.

Somehow Stede manages to get from the Privateering Academy back to Barbados, and Ed from the academy back to the Revenge, in the time it takes them to poorly bind Izzy to toss him overboard.

Then, in 1x10, an anon said Ed moped for three days? I’m not sure where three days came from, and I don’t have time to pick through every dialogue scene in 1x10, so I’m taking anon’s word for it.

Meanwhile Mary has, since Stede left, built an entire life, painted dozens if not hundreds of pieces, gotten herself a new partner who her children call 'father’, and Louis has completely forgotten Stede ever existed.

…in 5 weeks.

Nooooooooo.

And also, Jim is back.

Jim was gone a grand total of, if we’re following the dialogue-rendered timeline, about 48 hours, and somehow made it back on board the Revenge while Izzy was captain, without anyone noticing and all the way from St Augustine and later the Pirate Republic.

I have so many questions.

And then in what seems to be about 3-4 days, Stede makes things right with his wife and Ed goes totally off the deep end!

That better not be moon glow.

We don’t see any more temporal signifiers and I’m taking that as a blessing because if I see one more full moon I’m going to scream.

So, my take: it’s either been 3-4 months since the show started and 3-ish months since Ed came aboard (five, if we allow for the gut stabbings but we aren’t going to do that, so three)

or it’s been about three weeks and pirates have romantic full moons every other day.

Take your pick!

#HEY IT'S A LEAP YEAR! #OFMD #OFMD META #OUR FLAG MEANS DEATH #EDWARD TEACH #STEDE BONNET #THIS IS THE FUNNIEST META I HAVE EVER WRITTEN #GOD DAMN FULL FUCKING MOONS #I HOPE SEASON 2 OPENS ON A FULL MOON #AND I HOPE EVERYONE SAYS AND IT'S STILL 1717 #I HOPE WE FLASH FORWARD AND STEDE AND ED ARE LIKE 70 AND IT'S STILL 1717 #I HOPE TIME NEVER GETS FIXED #NO ONE CALL THE DOCTOR #ASK #ANONYMOUS

BONUS:

God, nonnie, this is so funny. Stede Bonnet was historically born in 1688, and honestly that makes it funnier, because there are so many anachronisms in the show, but someone on that production crew went onto Wikipedia when they were making that gravestone and was like, “Stede Bonnet, born 29th July 1688! Nailed it!” and did not stop to think maybe that too should be an anachronism and adjusted since Rhys Darby is 48, and we love them for it truly, because it is just so daft.

Also, the real Edward Teach was somewhere between 35-40 when he died in 1718, which means Ed is like 35, which is also objectively hilarious.

I agree fully with the father-wife pipeline and the ages of his kids too! It makes perfect sense. And, honestly, that makes it even funnier.

Funnier still is that Rhys is 48, Stede is 29 and Nathan Foad is also 29, so the guy that plays Lucius how old Stede is meant to be and I love that so much. I hope that in a later season it’s revealed, ala Spanish Jackie in reverse, that Lucius is actually 48 (exactly 48, or 49 if Rhys is 49 by then) and has a wife and like two kids out there because he bearded a while and his wife who he’s now just great friends with and didn’t just abandon like Stede did Mary (Lucius’s wife is also gay and has a cute little wife of her own) is played by Rhys’s wife if she acts. I need it.

But yeah, I’ve decided OFMD exists within a pocket universe.