#Ofmd post-canon

[perpendicularpotatoes]

7—Innkeepers After [Fic] [Complete]

The second illustration for the last chapter of The Marks Left On My Skin.

As you can see in the progress pics after the jump, I was originally gonna give them a simpler bed for the inn. But then I was looking at 18th century beds and realized that what's a canopy bed other than a pillow fort? So obviously Edward deserves to get one of those.

[teeny-tiny-revenge]

Underdicussed aspect of Ed and Stede's future life in their "Inn": within a couple months they are going to be incomprehensible to anyone else. Mr Zangy and Mr Tangy have speedrun the development of a new dialect. It's still sort of English, but it's riddled with made up words like zangy and tangy, with technically normal words that have been given a completely new meaning because one of them said it in accident once, then it became A Bit for a couple days, and then it just became normal to use this word in the new context and they forgot it didn't always mean this. Some words have gone from being nouns to being adverbs and verbs. They are about to invent their own grammar. They talk to each other all day about all sorts of things because they love being together and they love talking to each other, and with every day their language moves further away from being actually intelligible to anyone else. When the crew comes to visit, they'll find a pair of retired pirates/not-yet innkeepers who use completely nonsense words for common household items and who talk to each other in gibberish.

[667-darkavenue]

“Who are you?”

They stand between Blackbeard and Izzy, flanked like Christ with a sinner on each side. Detailed profiles on Blackbeard and his right hand exist for anyone to read. The young blood that materialized between them is a mystery.

Izzy answers for them. “This is God’s divine revenge.”

† † † † † † † † † † † †

read my jim-centric s2 fic on ao3 and follow the artist (@toboldlymuppet)

it's complete! things i speculated would happen include: jim teaching ed how to draw a beard, izzy taking jim under his wing against their will, jackie elevating jim into a local saint worshiped for killing corrupt priests, oluwande being a better gentleman pirate than stede ever was, and MORE

[anthonycrowley]

i think this will get me tarred and feathered if i don’t word this properly but i do genuinely think that fandoms with canon relationships - gay or straight - as the most popular pairing kind of suck a little. like as a rule. not the media itself, that usually is very good. and especially in the case of actual lgbt rep i would rather that over well written fanfic every day of the week. but. man. something really is lost when you no longer have to have a downward spiral of madness with your friends for 2-4 weeks before you go ‘fuck it they’re in love i’ll do it myself’ and instead you’re all shaking hands going good game good game. a kinder world, truly. but none of you are going to write a 150k word fanfic set in an alternate apocalypse universe that showed up in a single episode out of 200 just to prove your blorbos truly Are in love.

[merricatblckwood]

At this point I trust the crew of ofmd with my life and i know season 2 is gonna be good but I have one fear and I'm not joking, I am terrified of them making stede more masculine because he becomes more badass and confident. I know it's something a lot of fans actually wish, the bearded muscular stede, but imagining it could happen makes me profoundly sad. I absolutely love frilly shirts cute nightgowns little shoes with bows stede. I love the fact that he loves clothes and he's kind of feminine, and I love the fact that he can still be badass. He was wearing a frilly nightgown and pink robe at his hottest, most badass moment when he told jack to get off of his ship. It's probably kind of stupid to be worried like this for something that may seem so insignificant, but I love Stede the way he looks in S1, and I'm obsessed with clothes and fashion and one of the many reasons why I've hyperfixated for so long on this show is the costumes, and especially stede's costumes. Anyway that's it I needed to get it out of my brain bye

[blakbonnet]

idk how to explain it but stede wears an apron while vacuuming

[wardensantoineandevka]

in seriousness, I don't really care about the poll, but I AM a bit appalled and cannot believe that people are seriously saying "ofmd having canonical queer leads IS historical" and "ofmd changed history" like do some of you actually watch other stuff at all or... because like there's a lot more stuff out there with like gay people and romances in it than some of you are pretending so you can claim historical significance. like even if you just looked at recent stuff.

if anyone wants to cast the stone of "problematic", like, ye without sin and all that

[lavenderprose]

man I know that Stede looked good in the second season with the open shirt and the leather pants but man. i need you guys to understand that whenever I picture Stede he's got lace or silk somewhere on him. spiritually he will always be my little guy with bows on his shoes.

[hecksee]

im learning i have an intense fondness for historical gays. modern gays are good, but theres just Something about historical queers that hit my brain. bonus points if they're from the 17th-19th century.

[perpendicularpotatoes]

7—Innkeepers [Fic] [Complete]

Just uploaded the last chapter of The Marks Left On My Skin. It's set in June 1718 at the not yet opened inn.

The work in progress pic from this summer after the jump is not that extreme this time but I did make some clear improvements regarding hair and hands.

[chocolatepot]

The trouble with discussing the s2 reunion expectations vs reality that I rarely see anyone mention is that nobody(?) predicted it would happen with Ed completely powerless, knocked out of his position by a mutiny that essentially killed him, so there's still a huge variable to take into consideration when talking about people "getting it wrong".

Like, yes, we can discuss it from a Doylist perspective - Jenkins chose to have it happen that way, rather than having Ed and Stede meet again when Ed was capable of saying anything to him, and what does it mean that the fandom largely didn't consider that as a potential dramatic scenario.

But conversely, the fact that he did choose to do that means that we still have no idea how it would have gone in the circumstances involved in most reunion fics - if Stede made it back to Ed before he'd successfully committed suicide by crew. Given his choice to push Stede away through most of Fun and Games, I think people who wrote him as hostile weren't far off, actually! But there's no way of knowing how hostile he might have been, or if he'd have completely snapped out of it.

(TBH I also think it's a bad idea to assume that scenarios people write fic about = their expectations for canon, but that's a different matter.)

[epersonae]

five fic friday

I haven't done this in ages, and honestly I meant to last Friday but [waves vaguely at idk whatever]; I have quite the backlog of things I like that I want to share, so! looks like this week is a batch of post-s2 fic:

Fortunate (T, 3797) by @jellybeanium124 - oh man. the first of a pair of "Stede's having a time post-canon" fics, and this one I had to read on two separate occasions because I was having a time the first time and just kinda froze. hahahaha stede's doing great everything's fine nope no issues at all (lying). it's very good.

gonna build you up, gonna help you believe (T, 7936) by @saltpepperbeard - the second on that theme: I think I've read this one like four times. the way that a social interaction kicks open all of Stede's anxieties, mannnnnnnnnn.

Caution: Spider on Board (T, 2756) by @yergink - I love the way this kind of silly story about Ed and spiders becomes a really thoughtful meditation on danger and fear and identity.

I hope that someone gets my... (T, 1545) - a lovely little piece about remembering why you love someone and getting through boring little stresses, featuring one of Stede's letters.

The Inn By The Sea (M, 21k) - A truly fantastic plotty innkeepers era fic, the story is compelling, the narrative voices (both Ed and Jeffery Fettering!) are incredibly vivid, the dialogue is sharp as hell. THIS IS SO GOOD AND I NEED EVERYONE TO READ IT IMMEDIATELY. I'm genuinely angry, not at anyone, but just that the vibes were apparently such that the author felt they needed to stop posting. Apparently the rest of the story will be available as a Google Doc? I believe I remember who the author is on here, but out of respect for the anonymizing that happened after I started reading, I'm not going to link them. In any case, I am legit obsessed and I need y'all to join me in my obsession.

[o-wild-west-wind]

tumblr algorithm stop feeding me takes that this show is just a silly goofy comedy that shouldn’t include death or that Izzy is the token disabled elder queer on the show where an actual disabled elder queer is literally the romantic lead or that Lucius and Pete being called “mateys” is diluting their gayness because it’s not “husbands” or that it’s sexist that Zheng lost her fleet and later prioritized her love for a man or that Ed is Izzy’s abuser because we conveniently forgot all of season 1 or that trauma is never followed through with because sometimes actions are used instead of words or that Ed learned nothing because the inn was apparently a whim as if he hasn’t been obsessing over retirement from day 1 I swear did we even watch the same show?? I literally feel like I’m in backwards land?

I have a really novel concept for y’all complaining about character’s arcs not being fully resolved or healed and that’s called there is supposed to be another season of this show

I also have another really novel concept as to why every single character did not have a one on one trauma apology session and so much time was spent on Ed and Stede and that is because this is literally the Ed and Stede show and also sometimes parallels are meant to be inferred and extrapolated because that is what efficient storytelling does instead of spoonfeeding you

And my most novel concept of all as to why some beloved characters had less screen time is because Max is a massive jerk and cut the budget

Y’all this wasn’t personal and maybe this show was never about Izzy maybe the show called our flag means death is actually about death maybe sad does not equal homophobic letdown maybe the brown gay character introduced as the love interest from day 1 gets to outlive the angry white guy that had a redemption arc after actively bullying and trying to break up every gay couple for a season I don’t know what to tell you just can you please let non-white people have this arc for once without assuming it’s an attack on you I’m BEGGING y’all

[hugesigh]

gonna be honest guys, i can’t get with the “izzy is abusive” read. I’m a Ed girly fr he’s my beautiful baby boy but that interpretation feels rly flat compared to the relationship in the show, at least to me. Like in canon we watch two dudes take turns being dogshit to each other until they learn to be their own people and find lives outside of that dynamic and it’s always read more as “unhealthy relationship with a staggering amount of codependency” then straight up abusive from either side. At least that’s the interpretation i prefer bc i find it far more interesting to explore and think about then labeling one side as the bad guy and the other side as the victim. It feels way more complicated then that.

[plantsjustwannahavefun]

I am once again begging Ed stans to understand that it's possible to love Ed and believe he deserves love AND also admit that he mistreated and tormented the crew during the Kraken era. Not only is this possible, this is the position the show wants you to have. You think Izzy deserved everything he got? Fine, whatever, forget about him for a minute. There's a whole crew in there you're supposed to empathise with and feel sympathy for, too. The six of them that Ed actively tried to kill or left for dead, for starters. Pay attention to the crew's experiences and reactions. They're shown to be traumatised, grieving, clinging to disassociation (Frenchie) and nihilism (Archie) as coping mechanisms and suffering from PTSD flashbacks. And, since this type of fans constantly go on about how it's racist to think Ed did anything wrong... what about the fact that a lot of the crew are PoC too? What then?

If you've watched the first 3 episodes of S2 and there was only one person on that ship you felt sorry for, then you're not a fan of OFMD, you're just a fan of Ed in isolation. And if the only way you can love Ed is by denying that he ever did anything wrong, then you're completely missing the point of the show. OFMD never said that people only deserve to be loved if they're morally perfect and flawless. The show doesn't subscribe to the dichotomy of Good vs Bad. Good people can do bad things. They can hurt the ones they love. Even if they didn't mean to, even if they themselves were suffering at the time, it doesn't mean they don't need to take responsibility for their actions or avoid the consequences. Stede didn't mean to hurt Mary and his kids when he left, but he still did. He had legitimate reasons for leaving, he didn't just do it for the lolz, but it was still wrong and Mary was right to be angry at him. And Stede needed to face up to this - not just for their sake but his too. Even though it turned out their lives were better off without him, reconciling with Mary was still crucial for his character development.

It was the same for Ed, it just didn't get handled quite as well due to lack of screentime, but the idea was the same. When Ed realises he'd been cruel to Fang and apologises, he isn't sinking into self-hatred and despair. Quite the contrary, this is a moment of growth for him. Because the fact is, just because you as a human being are inherently worthy of love doesn't mean you can go around hurting everyone and expecting them to put up with you. That's just not how it works. You don't need to be perfect, but you do need to listen to people when they tell you that you hurt them and apologise genuinely and try to be better. The show is very sympathetic to Ed but it does NOT excuse his actions. The crew aren't portrayed as villains or antagonists for being scared and angry at Ed for what he did to them. Even Stede was on their side with this one. If even Stede is able to see things from the crew's POV and have sympathy for them, then you should too. Stede doesn't love Ed because he sees Ed as a pure uwu angel. He loves Ed... because he just does. He loves being around him. They really click together. They have so much in common. That doesn't mean he approves of literally everything Ed has ever done. It just means he loves Ed despite that.

[ourflagmeansgayrights]

i'm not usually in fandoms for things that have like, live-action actors playing the characters (idk why i just tend to get into books, cartoons, webcomics, podcasts, etc). but the few times i've been somewhat invested in a live-action media for fandom reasons (mcu, teen wolf, pacific rim, star wars) i've seen fans waxing poetic about a character's/actor's eyes. and i've literally never understood the hype, i've just been like "yeah idk theyre eyes? i dont get what's so special about them tho"

what im saying is that not only are Taika Watiti's eyes the first time i've understood the hype but ofmd is also the first time i've actually noticed an actor's eyes before seeing fandom being obsessed with them. that's the power of taika's Massive Fucking Peepers i guess