ofmd-archive

[ofmd-archive]

okay okay but can we talk about Izzy’s quote about how piracy is about “belonging to something” is overlayed over those clips of Wee John in drag and Jim and Olu being together like…. It’s literally about being queer. it’s so fucking queer. piracy as a parallel to queer community. it’s literally about finding your safe place where you can be yourself and meeting all these people who are just like you and BELONGING. Fucking belonging!!!!! that’s what the whole fucking show is about!!!! it’s about people who can’t fit in anywhere else but they fit with these people!!!!!!

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i’m gonna share a little story, my close ofmd friends know about this but i think it’s due time that i tell it because i’m tired. so tired of the racism this fandom has exhibited towards me and others

back in late march, around a week before episodes 9+10 aired, i joined a server called “our flag means brainrot”. you might’ve heard of it as it is the biggest ofmd server on discord and still remains so to this day with approximately 2100-ish members. everything was fine and dandy for a couple weeks, i even made several friends– and then the mod team asked for new mods as the server was growing at a break neck speed and it was getting harder and harder for them to wrangle. naturally, i applied as i had experience running discord servers and i figured it would be best if they had a poc on the team that also lived in asia (the mods and admins were all white save for one other mod who was also asian). i did things that mods do and let people have fun and hosted a couple game nights and movie nights. as the days went by however, the number of izzy apologists (not enjoyers, apologists) started to grow, and of course, the racism started running rampant

increasing amounts of fic where ed was described as being “twice stede’s (or triple izzy’s) size” or would engage in rough behavior with stede and that “stede (izzy) was often terrified of him” was starting to gain traction on ao3, several fans (poc and white) were expressing their concerns about the way ed was being written and how unbelievably racist it all is yet those fics still get disturbing amounts of clicks and kudos. our indigenous main character was being written as a savage brute when canon has vehemently dispelled that trope, but racists would come to these fics defense with “it’s just fiction” or “well canon has them being wholesome so we can do whatever in fic! it’s not canon anyway!”. most of these defenders were indeed, izzy stans. i expressed this to the mod team and asked that we need to step in to give warnings to these fans as they are being racist. i was told that people are allowed to write what they want, and if people don’t like it they simply don’t have to read it

i had also asked the mod team to make a PSA about whitewashing/greywashing ed in art, and that as mods we should notify artists to fix the art they post if ed is too pale or grey. they ignored me and claimed it can’t be helped that artists have their own art style

that was only the first few incidents where the white mod team allowed racism to slide, and told me, a poc, that i should make racists feel welcome and let them have a safe space

Keep reading

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I have an idea.

Seeing the discourse that has been going around the OFMD fandom recently (which, sadly, was started off as a racist accusation against a mini fic that I wrote), I see the need for us as a community to rethink the way we support POCs in the fandom and beyond.

I mean, tweeting is easy. But it can be harmful as it gives us a false sense of contribution. You know, “I have tweeted so I have done something about it.” I have been guilty for this, honestly.

So, here’s my proposal. If you’re an Izzy Canyon resident, next time you see any accusations against members of our little community, instead of responding and creating an endless cycle of discourse, I’d encourage you to donate or share about any projects that are supporting POCs in real life.

While these projects may not be perfect, I see them as making concrete steps in improving the lives of POCs. Way more concrete than any of the discourses that we have ever had.

I would like to recommend you to check out, promote, and support the works of the following organisations:

Kopernik Indonesia

Poverty eradication initiatives in rural Indonesia

It’s Raining Raincoats

Support for migrant workers in Singapore

Why Indonesia and Singapore? Well, simply because these two places are near and dear to my heart, and I want to make a difference in the most vulnerable communities in these countries. Feel free to contribute to other places that feel more relevant to you.

But, yeah. Consider this the cards I placed on the table.

We can emerge stronger as a community.

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I am not playing the “you're racist if you say Ed is abusive" game with y’all 😒

This shit is not new or helpful to POC in the fandom. I wrote about it earlier this year (too little, too late), so I've built this post up from that.

I encourage folks to read this analysis and call to action by uselessheretic from back in JANUARY since it addresses key aspects of the harassment campaign that was par of the course for the fandom in 2022. This discourse plays into that harassment.

Listen, for all of its widely-held progressive values, the ofmd fandom is still a hobby space filled with mostly white, first world, LGBTQ+ ppl. Most ofmd fans fashion themselves leftists and generally agree that structural racism exists and is a problem. Overall, there's worse fandoms to be in.

That said, this particular wave of hand-wringing about fans calling Ed abusive is not at all about the ways indigenous people are stereotyped in media.

The most telling giveaway is the timing: fans expressing frustration towards Ed following the sneak peek that shows Fang, Archie, Jim, and Frenchie all but having an intervention for Izzy because they think he is "in an unhealthy relationship with Blackbeard" since Ed "cut two more of his toes...[which] seems pretty toxic to me."

I am not emotionally prepared to deconstruct the dark humor of holding a spontaneous intervention for your asshole white assistant manager who's on his last fucking wit because your brown and beautiful rockstar boss is too high to function and keeps cutting the guy's toes off. You either get the joke or you don't.

For the purpose of this post, all I care to extract from it is what it tells us about who is exercising the most control over the ship. Despite his physical absence, Ed’s ghost is all over this beautifully crafted scene. The tone of their wardrobe is dictated by Ed’s. They are carrying out Ed’s orders. Frenchie and Jim’s exclusive presence as former members of Stede’s crew was decided by Ed. Izzy’s authority as first mate is sanctioned by Ed. And it is Ed’s fitness to lead that Frenchie, Fang, Jim,and Archie are questioning ultimately.

I’m not particularly worried about Ed’s integrity as a charismatic lead being hurt by a storyline that paints him as someone who abuses power--the flow and exchange of power is a running theme for ofmd. Stede and Izzy themselves abuse their power in season 1 for their vanity. What I am worried about is this cute cultural feature of the wider ofmd fandom:

the chronic unwillingness to grapple with interpersonal power dynamics amongst peers, not only in the show, but in the fandom itself. 

So here we are again, ofmd fandom, working ourselves up into a moral outrage so that you, in your leftist white glory, can publicly police yourself because apparently you only know how to experience People of Color in fiction through these two lenses:

white guilt (am I racist for thinking this? are people around me racist for thinking this?) and

the white imagination (stories about characters of color are valuable because they inform my politics)

This push against reading Ed as abusive is not about calling out the problematics of depicting an indigenous man as mentally ill, violent, lonely, and rageful, it is about trying to sound self-righteous to mask anxiety about accidentally doing a racism on the indigenous, brown lead. 

This is even more obvious now with the season 2 premiere days away and audiences being primed to question whether the severity of Izzy's punishment was appropriate.

Now, here's the hard-to-swallow pill the ofmd fandom's been avoiding cuz we don't wanna point out the inevitable problems of representation within canon:

We are being served a storyline where a complex protagonist (who happens to be a brown, queer, indigenous man in a position of power) harms people who are close to him and we are meant to recognize this as a problem that he must come to terms with. I don't like it either, but I'd rather have this than no Ed story at all.

Other people have written far more intelligently about this than I could, but it bears repeating: what's happening here is fans projecting their own insecurities about racism and power onto a white character ("izzy exotifies ed!" "he wants to control ed!" "izzy is an incompetent pirate actually!") while at the same time applying a shiny veneer of respectability and perfect rationality to a nonwhite character ("ed had every right to hurt izzy!" "maiming is fair game as retribution for racism, it's in-world rules!" "ed can't be abusive because he's been abused!") in order to mask white leftist fandom's discomfort about a morally ambiguous brown protagonist.

Anyway, take a breath.

Ed is a character whose impact in "the real world" does indeed go beyond how he makes us feel. Taika Waititi's Edward Teach represents a watershed moment in indigenous representation—not only for his position as protagonist, not even for his queerness, but because of his depth, charisma, complexity, and connection to a community that cares about him. These things have been rarely afforded to the very few indigenous leads in the global film canon--no matter how his story is handled in season 2 and 3, Ed's impact has already been cemented.

Okay I'm done, here's some actionable advice to wash this all down with.

If your goal is to foster a welcoming environment for fans of color and elevate engagement with characters of color, then immediately remove shaming people's headcanons from your toolbox and read this article. Take stock of who is in your fandom social circle and take stock of what you do in order to at least see more fanworks featuring characters of color.

If your goal is to promote or participate in productive race-conscious conversations with other fans, get real about your relationship with power, your positionality in life (and in fandom) and the channels through which you want to have these conversations. Some questions to start with: Can you describe your relationship with your race? What is your experience talking about race in mixed-race spaces? What avenues do you use to participate in fandom? How do you participate? Where do you have influence? How do you manage unwanted feelings that spark from disagreements about racism?

If your goal is to interact in fandom with integrity, get explicit about your values. Engage in dialogue, treat others with the respect you want. Be curious and ask questions. Avoid becoming someone's useful idiot and learn to think critically.

Finally, if your goal is to enjoy your blorbos without having to think about the problematics of representation for QTBIPOC (Queer, Trans, Black, Indigenous, People of Color), then save us all the grief and just join a different fandom.

Good luck!

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oh white people already champing at the bit to say "i knew he was too good to be true" or "i could always tell" or WHATEVER prescient empath vibe you had when taika waititi eventually fucks up, believe me when i say the take is ice cold, keep it to yourself

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reaction to david jenkins explanation that ‘yes the real stede bonnet was a slave owner but this is not really a story about the historical figure so we don’t deal w it’ sure is in stark contrast to reaction to LMM’s….everything, huh

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Hey I've just read a tweet saying "blackbonnet" as a ship name is making black people uncomfortable - so I am going to change the tags on my previous posts (using the mass edit tool it's going to take seconds but I can't do that on my phone so I'll get to it later today), and I'll tag gentlebeard from now on.

I am saying it to encourage y'all to do the same, let's not making anyone feel unwelcome in this beautiful fandom ok 😊 (especially when this show is so prominently about racism so please let's not be stupid here)

(also I saw another tweet explaining the term "blackie" should not be used in fics as it's a slur, I thought I'd spread this message too while I'm at it ^^ )

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So guys, how about that lack of season two of ofmd. Really strange how the episodes haven't released huh?/s Gee i sure hope they don't completely flip the scrip and commit hate-crimes and genocide. That is so unthinkable considering their love from the first season. No problematic history at all./s

That would certainly build up a lot of bad blood for the queer fans of the show, especially the ones who are poc./srs

Oh well, i guess we'll find out whenever it releases but maybe it won't and us fans will have to write season 2 ourselves./hj It'd sure be a shame if it ended up like the eragon, percy jackson or atla movie where all the fans pretend it didn't exist and ignore anything from the writers and directors trying to defend their shitty thinking and lack of accountability/s

On a completely unrelated note/s, if anyone wants to create a big project with animatics/acting/art/fanfic/zines or more where we make season 2 of a certain (completely unrelated/s) series how it should have been done, then hit me up and let's chat/srs /gen (cautiously)/pos

ctx 1 ctx 2 ctx 3

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what i would really love for omfd s2 is for stede to get back on board the ship and start giving directions and for the crew to awkwardly be like. ok so, it wasn't like, officially a mutiny because you were gone anyway, but actually we voted and oluwande is captain now.

and then oluwande just is captain. "sorry man, you know, it wasn't what i would've voted for."

"well. you could abdicate."

"i could, yeah, but. you're kind of still in love with the guy who marooned us here, so you know. no offense, i'm not gonna do that."

"that's. unfortunately, really very insightful of you. at your command, captain."

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what happened to this energy/gen

i LOVE how ofmd consistently shuts down racism with violence. like when that officer calls frenchie a slave and jim IMMEDIATELY throws a knife through his hand (and of course its implied at least a couple of the english die in the ensuing battle). when the spanish guy calls ed a donkey and is immediately skinned with a fork. when the french aristocrat is racist to olu and frenchie (and of course has slaves on the ship) and gets burned alive. when the english officer calls roach a slur and instantly gets slapped. thats what its all about

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Great just end it with fucking genocide, make that seem fine to write. Totally not like living poc have trauma surrounding that. Fuck you to every fucking writer who saw a show that finally had a poc queer cast and decide "you know what this needs? the blood of asian women" and then to fucking gloat that brits will never be fucking slaves as if- you know what if you don't know history and about the trans atlantic slavery and the issues we currently have with human trafficking at this point and you're a fucking adult, that's on you and fuck you if you don't give a shit about this

once again to every single fucking person who greenlit this or heard this idea and went "yes, good."

fuck you

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oh also mentally prepare for me to be fine when the next episode releases, being a system with adhd leads to a lot of emotions

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my heart genuinely goes out to every black woman and woman adjacent black person who's hurt by episode 7 like i was by zheng being screwed over*. white dude dumly outsmarting zheng is hurting me because she's the sole character that looks remotely like me. Seeing spanish jackie's bar exploded and that it implies she was foolish enough to accept a fucking grandfather clock from someone she cut the nose off of can't be the best feeling.

Idc if the next episode "fixes" things. The statement has been made and the betrayal has been commited. Things can be mended but it sucks cus for once i let my guard down. I god forbid felt safe. I guess that teaches me a lesson.

"But that was just it - hate was exactly the right word. Hate is a force of attraction. Hate is just love with its back turned." -Terry pratchett

That is where i'm left with this show at this current time. No i will not be taking constructive criticism from white people on this. Only voicing this so that anyone reading and is currently feeling isolated, doesn't feel alone. Cus i don't think many people will point this out.

And i swear to fucking god if any of you white saviour fucks try to twist my pain here into justifying sending hate to the writers or actors then you will get the most biting letter i am able to compose from me. Don't you fucking dare take my pain and try to use it just to get your hateful rocks off.

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Since @bizarrelittlemew requested it, the preview for the next two episodes!

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crying apparently Zheng Yi Sao was born almost 60 years after Stede and Edward died irl lmao David Jenkins said fuck historical timelines get a bad bitch Chinese woman in here

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izzy 'right in front of my salad' hands thought ed and stede were fucking on the deck in s1 during the stabbing scene. cut to s2, he's probably delirious from the bloodloss, and opens his eyes to see jim and archie are making out in front of his bed. bro can't catch a break lmaoo and it's so funny

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the fact that Lucius and Pete reuniting with a full-on tackle hug and Pete complimenting Lucius's new beard is a literal parallel of Stede's fantasy of reuniting with Ed. and then Stede is so adament on making sure Lucius doesn't push Pete away not just because he doesn't want Lucius to make the same mistake he did but also because they give him hope that it's possible. they literally recreated a scene out of Stede's wildest fantasies at a time where Stede believes that Ed has moved on from him and that their love is impossible do you get it