#anyways i love ofmd. it's unique and just so fucking fun!

[crownspeaksblog]

How the hell does ofmd manage to give me everything i love about tv shows, in one show?!!

It's funny, silly, stupid but somehow at the same time it's serious, deep and well thought out!

Characters change and develop in prominent ways, characters have arcs, what they go through affects them, things aren't stagnant. (1x01 stede is a coward who's trying to hide from the English, 2x08 stede throws himself over 2 soldiers, he's brave despite the fact he's out numbered. 1x04 ed wants to quit piracy but doesn't know how, 2x08 ed quits piracy a second time with stede even when the first time doesn't work out)

It's a beautiful romance, a queer romance between two people who have insane chemistry, a love story that has ups and downs, but in the end they're right there for eachother because what they have is True Love!

The show is shot so beautifully, it doesn't look boring, so many shows I've watched (although entertaining) are shot in the most boring/basic ways possible, ofmd has so many gorgeous still shots, a couple of fun one shots! (The bar fight one shot in 2x07 deserves more attention! Mer!stede and ed looking at eachother while floating in the water is genuinely one of the most beautiful shots I've ever seen!)

The outfits characters wear changes with their arcs and it makes sense story wise and the outfits are just so fun looking, it's interesting and different and so, so not basic. (Stede going from aristocratic silly little outfits to pirate shirts with deep neck openings and leather pants!! Hot! Also can't wait to see eds s3 outfit.)

The song choice is fun, the lyrics, beautifully add another layer to the story (I'm still not over the "I've loved him since he was born" lyric!)

The women in this show, although few and not main characters, they're interesting, different and not basic "normal" women, so many shows and movies I've watched, the men get to be weird, kooky and interesting while the women are just painfully normal, but in ofmd, the few women we got are either insane, wild, weird, violent or just not fucking "normal"! (the most "normal" woman we have is probably mary who was gonna stab her husband with a skewer through the earhole!! Also the addition of archie, former snake cult member is just amazing!)

The action we get every once in a while is just so fun! I love a fight scene and for the most part, they look good, it looks well done (again the bar fight and ed killing motherfuckers left, right and center in 2x08 is just so goddamn fun to watch!)

I know so many other shows have most of these things, but the fact ofmd has all of these things, that i just fucking love in one show is amazing, it's appreciated and on top of all of this, the show just makes me happy whether I'm watching it or watching people's reactions to it or even just thinking about it! I love this show even with the criticisms i might have, i love it!

[sesamie]

Hey, hope you're good.

I just saw your post about ofmd. I used to love it too, but I hated the fans and I don't fuck w zionists so I'm out of that fandom now.

But one thing I didn't know was that the fans were racist. Do you mind me asking what they said/did that was regarded as racist? Or just something you can vaguely remember?

I'm just curious is all. I was never overly involved with the fanbase, so I never saw anything like that.

hi!! been trying to think for a while on how to answer this. i was under a lot of fire from ofmd fans for a little while so i decided to wait to answer it anyways. i want to disclaim that i'm a pretty white-passing ojibwe kid, meaning i'm native american; all my commentary on the anti-indigenous (and other) racism i saw in the ofmd fandom is not from a maori perspective, rather just a colonized indigenous one in general. there's also the topic of the historical characters portrayed in the show being slaveowners and this being entirely glossed over in the show - which i can't really effectively speak on, other than to say it's disgusting. there is a lot of good writing on media like hamilton and ofmd that just almost completely erase slavery, but i'm not really equipped to write about it.

anyways!!! most of my issues with other people in the ofmd fandom came from their treatment of the character ed teach. now i used to like taika waititi before all this nonsense cause he was an indigenous filmmaker and i'm indigenous and want to be a filmmaker and i thought it was neat that he did what he did. i was super excited to see a Very Popular Show have an indigenous lead whose character was actually indigenous not just ambiguously brown!! and so when i came to the ofmd fandom i sort of expected other people to feel the same - not the case, to say the least. i saw no shortage of white fans writing fic about stede "civilizing" ed (the actual word that most people used) and people writing essays on how ed is abusive and izzy hands was uniquely his innocent (white) victim, and giving white characters this level of grace that ed was not afforded. and i think (couldn't tell you whether this is still accurate as i haven't seen s2 and i never will) a theme of his character was meant to be moral complexity, only white fans can't handle a morally complex character of color, especially not an indigenous one with complex relationships to white characters that they liked better. all the meta i read about ed teach that was written by anyone who wasn't indigenous just completely ignored his indigeneity like it had nothing to do with his character's written place in the world, like any oppression or disrespect ed received was as a result of being poor, or being a pirate, or being (no joke) uniquely aggressive and prone to violence (thus deserving it).

this is just a surface level of the way people talked and wrote about ed teach - racism all over. then, if i or any other fan who was a poc tried to speak up about it, there'd be outcry of puritanism and not letting people have fun and being too sensitive and immature for a fandom space. (although, there's something almost poetically hilarious about me, a 17 yr old, being told i'm too immature, by the same 30 some year olds who are now putting all their money towards their slaveownder rpf show instead of a real cause, let's not get into that, though!) i've not been in a lot of fandoms in my life, i kind of prefer to just enjoy things by myself and tell my close friends about it, but i can confidently say that ofmd was the most racist fandom i've ever been in, and the most hostile to fans of color. (and i was a homestuck fan!!!!) for a show that tries to pride itself on diversity, and a (largely white) fanbase who thinks that Consuming the Diversity Show makes them a Morally Good Person, the way i and plenty of others were treated by holier-than-thou white ofmd fans is just appalling. it's the worst fandom i've ever ever been in, bar none!!! and i think going forward if i like something i'm probably just going to stick to myself about it, honestly.