Sentence:  They flew the Jolly Roger to signal their reputation for mayhem but, in fact, the pirates didn't actually want a fight, because fighting is costly and dangerous and might result in economic loss. ... Of course, to maintain a reputation that you are a <WSD>badass</WSD>, you actually have to occasionally be a <WSD>badass</WSD>, so pirates intermittently engaged in violence, reports of which they happily provided to newspaper editors, who duly published them in gory and exaggerated detail. 
Meaning of the word marked with <WSD> tags:  A belligerent or mean person; a person with an unpleasantly extreme appearance, attitudes, or behavior.