#except for go or ofmd i guess

[like-sands-of-time]

2024 goal. I could be mad about canon, or I could immediately cast it out of my brain and read canon divergent / fix it fics instead.

[todayisafridaynight]

I dunno what other streaming service would work better. The sea is dry and the crops are barren. But we really might get wind of a director this year and then they’ll say what streaming service it’ll play on. If we think about it really hard we can manifest it uhh likes to reblog and charges to cast that’s how that works right?

Maybe it’ll be even bigger than Good Omens. Oh my god what if live action RGG joined the ranks of the other big shows queer people love like Our Flag Means Death and all that? H e l p

stop stop stop youre saying a bunch of words i dont know and i dont know want to know

[nicnacsnonsense]

I see someone has never had a lie spiral way the fuck out of control on them before.

maybe i've talked about this before but I still literally don't understand the idea that ed was never serious about murdering stede, like we literally saw him do this? y'all think this is him just feeling peer pressured to go through with a lie that got away from him because it's awkward?

falling in love with the mark is a known romance trope!!! it doesn't work if they were never the mark in the first place!!

[piratecaptainscaptainpirates]

Worst thing about OFMD is it raised my standards and now I can't go back.

The first thing I noticed was how much more critical I am of the songs used in other movies and TV, because OFMD is exceptional with its needle drops, picking songs so carefully it's like they're written into the script. And now almost every other time I turn on something else I'm just like "oh. okay. guess that matches the vibe fine."

But I'll be damned if it's not practically everything. Like, oh, I thought you were going for a genuine moment but you're just making a joke about two male characters being vulnerable with each other, like that's something we should all point and laugh at? Oh, the sole Black character is just the comic relief/angry Black man/sassy Black woman? Oh, you expect your audience is stupid so most of your dialogue is just characters telling us what's happening? Oh, none of your shots and transitions are done with any creativity? Oh, the costuming and set details don't have any neat meanings for us to see that become more easily noticable on rewatch to enhance the rewatch value of your show? Oh, your characters all say exactly what they mean all the time because you're scared of realistic miscommunication? Oh, we're ruining this genuine moment with a joke or a "that was weird" before it gets too earnest?

This show is just so good, guys. It's a good show. It's kinda ruining me for a lot of other TV because I just expect a level of good that can be hard to find.

[ourflagmeansgayrights]

so part of me wants to blame this entirely on wbd, right? bloys said he was cool with the show getting shopped around, so assuming he was telling the truth (not that im abt to start blindly trusting anything a CEO says lol), that means it’s not an hbo problem. and we already know wbd has an awful track record with refusing to sell their properties—altho unlike coyote v acme, s3 of ofmd isn’t a completed work and therefore there isn’t the same tax writeoff incentive to bury the thing. i just can’t see any reason to hold on to ofmd except for worrying about image, bc it would be embarrassing if they let this show go with such a devoted fanbase and recognizable celebrities and it went somewhere else and did really well (which it would undoubtedly do really well, we’ve long since proven that). it feels kinda tinfoil hat of me to making assumptions abt what’s going on in wbd behind the scenes, but i also feel like there are hints that i’m onto something w my suspicions: suddenly cracking down on fan merch on etsy doesn’t seem like something a studio looking to sell their property would bother with, and we know someone was paying to track the viewing stats on ofmd’s bbc airing, which isn’t finished yet, so i’d expect whoever is monitoring that to not make a decision abt buying ofmd until the s2 finale dropped.

but also i think part of me just wants there to be a clear villain in the situation. it’s kinda comforting to have a face to blame, a clear target to shake my fist at. but the truth is that the entire streaming industry is in the shitter. streaming is not pulling in the kind of profit that investors were promised, and we’re seeing the bubble that was propped up w investor money finally start to pop. studios aren’t leaving much room in their budgets for acquiring new properties, and they’re whittling down what they already have. especially w the strikes last year, they’re all penny pinching like hell. and that’s much a much harder thing to rage against than just one studio or one CEO being shitty. that’s disheartening in a way that’s much bigger and more frightening than if there was just one guy to blame.

my guess is that the truth of the situation is probably somewhere in the middle. wbd is following the same shitty pattern they’ve been following since the merger, and it’s just a hard time for anyone trying to get their story picked up by any studio. ofmd is just one of many shows that are unlucky enough to exist at this very unstable time for the tv/streaming industry.

when i think abt it that way, tho, i’m struck by how lucky we are that ofmd even got to exist at all. if the wbd merger had happened a year earlier, or if djenks and tw tried to pitch this show a year later, there’s no way this show would’ve been made. s1 was given the runtime and the creative freedom needed to tell the story the way the showrunners wanted to, and the final product benefited from it so much that it became a huge hit from sheer gay word of mouth. and for all the imperfections with s2—the shorter episode order, the hard 30 minute per episode limit, the last-minute script changes, the finale a butchered mess of the intended creative vision—the team behind ofmd managed to tell a beautiful story despite the uphill battle they undoubtedly were up against. they ended the season with the main characters in a happy place. ed and stede are together, and our last shot of ed isn’t of him sobbing uncontrollably (like i rlly can’t stress enough how much i would have never been able to acknowledge the existence of this show again if s1 was all we got)

like. y’all. we were this close to a world where ofmd never got to exist. for me, at least, the pain of an undue cancellation is worth getting to have this story at all. so rather than taking my comfort in the form of righteous anger at david zaslav or at wbd or at the entire streaming industry as a whole, i’m trying to focus on how lucky i am to get to have the show in the first place.

bc really, even as i’m reeling in grief to know this is the end of the road for ofmd, a part of me still can’t quite wrap my head around that this show is real. a queer romcom about middle-aged men, a rejection of washboard abs and facetuned beauty standards, a masterful deconstruction and criticism of toxic masculinity, well-written female characters who get to shine despite being in a show that is primarily about manhood and masculinity, diverse characters whose stories never center around oppression and bigotry, a casually nonbinary character, violent revenge fantasies against oppressors that are cathartic but at the same time are not what brings the characters healing and joy, a queer found family, a strong theme of anti colonialism throughout the entire show. a diverse writers room that got to use their perspectives and experiences to inform the story. the fact that above all else, this show is about the love story between ed and stede, which means the character arcs, the thoughts, the feelings, the motivations, the backstories, and everything else that make up the characters of ed and stede are given the most focus and the most care.

bc there rlly aren’t a lot of shows where a character like stede—a flamboyant and overtly gay middle-aged man who abandoned his family to live his life authentically—gets to be the main character of a romcom, gets to be the hero who the show is rooting for.

and god, there definitely aren’t a lot of shows where a character like ed—a queer indigenous man who is famous, successful, hyper-competent, who feels trapped by rigid standards of toxic hypermasculinity, who yearns for softness and gentleness and genuine interpersonal connection and vulnerability, whose mental health struggles and suicidal intentions are given such a huge degree of attention and delicate care in their depiction, who messes up and hurts people when he’s in pain but who the show is still endlessly sympathetic towards—gets to exist at all, much less as the romantic lead and the second protagonist of the show.

so fuck the studios, fuck capitalism, fuck everything that brought the show to an end before the story was told all the way through. because the forces that are keeping s3 from being made are the same forces that would’ve seen the entire show canceled before it even began. s3 is canceled, and s2 suffered from studio meddling, but we still won. we got to have this show. we got to have these characters. there’s been so much working against this show from the very beginning but here we are, two years later, lives changed bc despite all odds, ofmd exists. they can’t take that away from us. they can’t make us stop talking abt or stop caring abt this show. i’m gonna be a fan of this show til the day i die, and the studios hate that. they hate that we care about things that don’t fit into their business strategy, they hate that not everyone will blindly consume endless IP reboots and spin-offs and cheap reality tv.

anyway i dont rlly have a neat way to end this post. sorta just rambling abt my feelings. idk, i know this sucks but im not rlly feeling like wallowing in it. i think my gratitude for the show is outweighing my grief and anger, at least for right now. most important thing tho is im not going anywhere. and my love for this show is certainly not fucking going anywhere.

[ourflagmeansdemise]

Just saw a physically disabled OFMD fan making a post claiming that Izzy Hands's death wasn't at all ableist, and that everyone claiming that it is must be able bodied and I want to be fucking sick. They said not to argue with them in the comments or reblogs, so I won't.. I'll make my own goddamn post. Let's talk about it. We were shown a man losing his limb. Attempting to end his life in the aftermath of that loss. Surviving. Even if he never asked for it. Spiraling into depression and alcoholism and self loathing. LITERALLY CRAWLING ON THE GROUND. Before he's given new purpose- A new leg, a new place in the world! We see him learning how to accept and live with his disability, and for a short blissful time we had representation of how life can go on! Of how we can recover against the odds! Of how life is worth living even if our bodies fail us! We get to see the whole crew working together to show Izzy that he was still worth loving, worth helping without making him feel weak or useless, worth making their figurehead! The spirit of the ship!! Something meant to protect them! Guess what! I watched all of that as a physically disabled OFMD fan, myself! I saw that, and I felt so strongly about it- Because before the finale, this season had given me one of the most powerful representations of disability I had ever seen and it resonated so strongly with me, as someone who struggles with my own sense of self worth due to the limitations of my own body.. I watched every time Fang or another member of the crew physically held Izzy up or supported him in some way. I watched him wear his queerness openly and sing his heart out to the crew that love him.. I watched him get just a taste of the life he could have lived, as someone valued by his community, even despite everything he'd lost.. And I watched him die. It was cheap, and it was rushed. Pointless. They killed him, and no one said anything at his grave. Except that he was a fucking nightmare. They buried Izzy, a lifelong sailor, in their yard like a dog instead of giving him a burial at sea... And they REMOVED HIS PROSTHETIC LEG FROM HIS CORPSE, to use as a headstone. Stripping him of his dignity. Of his role as the figurehead. Of the love that he was given by his crew.. Everything that stupid fucking horse leg represented was taken from him. Watching that finale left me gutted. For days all I could do was cry. Everything that they gave, and subsequently stole from Izzy Hands, they gave and stole from me as a disabled person- And I CANNOT be the only physically disabled OFMD fan to have been devastated by this loss. In fact, I KNOW I'm not, because I watched this season alongside my partner who is also disabled, and I held his hand in mine so tightly throughout the last episode that it hurt by the end of it. Then we cried ourselves to sleep, after. Now I get to read posts on tumblr.com saying that Izzy Hands's death was not ableist, and if I think it was that I'm some able bodied idiot using disabled people as an excuse to be mad about a character's death.

[summerlinenss]

out of curiosity, if Max doesn’t release its metrics, then what metrics are you actually using to make these statements about the show’s popularity? what does “it’s currently in the 99.7th percentile of the comedy genre, meaning it’s in higher demand than 99.7% of all comedy series in the u.s.” even mean? How are you measuring what’s “in demand” - by who? Where? It’s bold to claim that this show was wildly popular (despite the fact that I never hear about it outside of tumblr, tho that’s a personal anecdote) but cancelled just for being queer, so I would be really interested to know where you’re getting all these numbers from. Thanks!

hey anon! first of all i am so sorry for the delayed response. i started typing something up and then i got distracted with something else and totally forgot about this in my drafts.

sure, i have no problem citing sources. i probably should’ve linked some in my original post, that’s absolutely fair.

this ended up way longer than i planned so bear with me, but a quick overview of what i’ll be going over:

1) what are the stats/where did they come from?

2) how is the show so popular?

3) was it really cancelled for being queer?

(also just a disclaimer that this will contain spoilers for the show)

1) first, the numbers

you’re right that hbo doesn’t release metrics to the public. in fact, ceo casey bloys tried to justify the cancellation to the hollywood reporter by saying “the numbers weren’t there,” despite refusing to say what exactly those numbers were or where they came from.

however, there are websites dedicated to researching/analyzing the data of different media. one of those is parrot analytics, who focus on industry insights like audience demand, competitive analysis, and content valuations. they’re trusted as a reliable source by forbes, the new york times, reuters, the wall street journal, and more.

this is what we can learn from them about our flag means death from a basic google search (note that all of this data is relevant to the last 30 days as of january 26 2024):

audience demand for our flag means death is now 33.6x greater than the average tv series in the united states. as explained in the “about demand distribution” section, this means it’s one of only 0.2% of all u.s. shows to fall in the “exceptional” performance range compared to the “average” demand benchmark of 64.1%.

the change in demand for ofmd in the u.s. has increased by 7.5% compared to the average tv series.

ofmd now actually ranks at the 99.8th percentile in the comedy genre in the u.s. i’m not a math person, but in basic terms, this is like a scale of measuring and comparing performances to create an average score. essentially, ofmd is performing at the very top of all comedy series in the u.s.

ofmd has 100% home market travelability. as it says above, the market of origin is always 100%, so in fairness i included the graph of international markets for comparison. some of these aren't super high, however (as explained by parrot analytics themselves) one of the key issues with the international market is accessibility to content, which has been an ongoing struggle for international fans. many people (i guess fittingly) have resorted to pirating ofmd because they don’t have access to max or affiliate streaming services in their country.

there are more stats i could have and wanted to go more in-depth into but it would make this even longer than it already is, so i’ll just leave some links you can check out if you’re interested and move on:

• comparison of ofmd's success to shows like ted lasso, euphoria, and peacemaker

• ofmd's placement as #1 most in-demand breakout series in the u.s. for 8 weeks

• ofmd's impressive 94% critics score and 95% audience score on rotten tomatoes

• how ofmd evolved from sleeper hit to a flagship series at max

• a list of ofmd's past and present award nominations/wins

• praise and recognition from news/entertainment sites: the atlantic (2022); the new york times (2023); tv guide (2023); vulture (2023); forbes (2023); the los angeles times (2022); vanity fair (2023)

2) so why haven’t you (or others) really heard of the show outside of tumblr despite all this success? likely because max did a terrible job marketing it.

ofmd first aired on hbo max (pre-merger before it was “max”) in march 2022. the entire season aired over one month, every thursday at 12am pst. season 2 followed a similar release schedule in october 2023.

season 1’s marketing was almost non-existent, pretty much relying on taika waititi’s name being attached. there was one teaser and one full-length trailer, as well as a few clips on youtube of taika and rhys darby answering pirate-themed trivia, all painting the show as a “silly pirate workplace/buddy comedy.” but hbo max didn’t put any real effort in because they didn’t care. david zaslav and the other higher-ups had no faith in the show and expected it to fail.

most people weren’t aware it was actually a romance due to the poor marketing, and although there were many romantically charged scenes between them, many were still wary to believe it wasn’t queerbaiting until ed & stede confessed their feelings and kissed.

showrunner david jenkins has said in interviews that he had no idea how deeply queerbaiting had hurt audiences and impacted their ability to trust what’s on screen without feeling like they’re being ridiculed, despite the fact that he was calling it a love story the whole time. it wasn’t until people realized they weren’t being queerbaited and that it was a funny, sincere show with a compelling plot that word-of-mouth began to spread. by the time the season 1 finale aired, there was a decent-sized fandom that continued to grow as it received more praise.

it was a fight to even get the show renewed for season 2, and david jenkins and the cast have majorly credited that renewal to the unexpected and massive fan response to the show, which basically forced hbo’s hand.

max didn’t bother trying to properly promote the series until season 2, when they begrudgingly accepted that it was one of their most profitable and successful shows. ofmd had huge billboards in times square, downtown los angeles, and on the side of hbo headquarters. they started accurately marketing the show as not just a workplace comedy at sea, but a heartfelt romcom. max began selling long-demanded merch (which became best sellers) and spent money on an FYC campaign.

i will emphasize, whether they liked it or not, they knew ofmd was their new moneymaker (especially with the recent end of succession, which was obviously a cash cow for hbo).

photo credit: @/bookishtheo

3) now if it was that successful, was it really cancelled just for being queer?

i mean, i can’t say that definitively. no one can. there are several potential factors at play that we may never know, and there have been a lot of rumours and speculation (many of which i don’t feel comfortable discussing in case they aren’t true) since the cancellation.

but do i believe the fact that it’s a queer romcom was one of those factors, especially since max has a history of cancelling and scrapping its most diverse projects? absolutely.

first and foremost, i can’t stress enough that this isn’t just a show with a few characters thrown in for token representation. ofmd is built on a diverse, intersectional cast and narratives, including:

• lgbtq+ representation: 5 main couples are explicitly queer (including mlm, wlw, nblm, and nblw relationships). multiple characters are implied to be poly, and there’s a polycule forming in season 2 that was hinted to be developed more in season 3. beyond relationships, it’s confirmed that (similarly to the way wwdits depicts all vampires as being pansexual) all of the pirates are somewhere on the queer spectrum.

• bipoc representation: the majority of the main cast are people of colour. this includes david fane, joel fry, leslie jones, samson kayo, vico ortiz, anapela polataivao, madeleine sami, samba schutte, ruibo qian, and taika waititi, as well as many guest actors (like rachel house, simone kessell, and maaka pohatu) and extras.

• disability representation: multiple characters have physical disabilities, most notably amputated/prosthetic limbs and visual impairment. a lot (actually most) of the characters also deal with mental health issues, particularly coping with severe trauma and suicidal ideation/behaviour.

• the show has been praised for addressing difficult and serious themes like toxic masculinity, colonialism, and self-discovery, all while still managing to be a witty comedy and not come across as “preachy.”

• the diversity also extends off-screen, with a team of directors, writers, and additional crew comprised of numerous bipoc, women, queer people, and trans/non-binary people.

my point isn’t just the quantity of representation, but the quality. they take great care and respect into every marginalized group depicted on-screen. the actors would often be consulted about their characters’ costumes, hair, tattoos, and the kind of language they use. it’s not a world where discrimination magically doesn’t exist, they just have zero tolerance for it. if a character does something homophobic or racist, you can guarantee they’ll quickly (and often violently) be punished.

so okay, sure, it’s got great representation. what does that have to do max cancelling it?

because they’ve been interfering with production from the start.

i already mentioned the marketing issues so i won’t get into that. it was also revealed in interviews with david jenkins after season 2 that hbo cut their budget by 40%, which is why they had to do everything they could to save money. this included letting go of some of the original cast (and even still having episodes where some of them don’t appear at all) and moving the entire production to AoNZ. the budget cuts also meant two less episodes, so they had to rush to fit an entire season’s worth of plot into eight half-hour long episodes.

but one of the biggest frustrations is hbo’s (alleged) censorship of the show. samba schutte revealed that the entire plot of episode 2x06 was completely different in the original script. before it was rewritten as “calypso’s birthday,” the episode took place during lucius & pete’s wedding and focused on the crew getting sick of the sexual tension between ed & stede and trying to get them to hook up (this aligned with lucius & pete getting engaged and ed & stede deciding to take things slow in the previous episode).

vico ortiz and writer jes tom have also commented that many scenes between jim, oluwande, and archie establishing them as a polycule were cut, including one of the three of them emerging from a bedroom in their underwear. jes has mentioned other elements of season 2 that had to be cut out or rewritten, like the implication of other poly dynamics between the crew and more sexually explicit scenarios and jokes.

considering that ofmd is an extremely sex-positive show that isn’t afraid to be raunchy or taboo, it’s clear that either higher-ups at hbo forced them to cut these things out or they had no choice but to cut them out due to tight budget/time restraints.

in addition to this, a recent article citing an “anonymous insider” has alleged that hbo was uncomfortable with and was unsure how to market the “shock violence” in the show (the same network that aired game of thrones), which david jenkins outright called out as being bullshit. ofmd is rated TV-MA and the posters and trailers all show the audience that it contains violent content. there is literally nothing more graphic in ofmd than any other pirate show — it’s probably a lot tamer than most of them, actually.

violence on the show is most frequently used in a comedic context, in the sense that it’s not meant to be seen as scary or taken seriously. the few instances of serious graphic imagery on the show are meant to invoke a mood shift, like ed’s transformation into the kraken or ned low’s murder. it should also be noted that some of the most graphic deaths are reserved for bigots, like ed snapping the neck of a colonizer who was ridiculing stede’s love letter.

it’s also most often used in a sexual context — not sexual violence, but violence as a sexual metaphor. more specifically the act of stabbing as a metaphor for penetration, as seen with both ed & stede and anne & mary. bearing all this in mind, it seems like the real issue here isn’t executives struggling to market explicit violence to a mainstream audience, but rather explicit gay content.

as much as we joke and affectionately call it the “gay pirate show,” ofmd has always been nothing more than an opportunity for rainbow capitalism for hbo (e.g. the fact that they waited three months to announce season 2 just so they could do it on the first day of pride month). like other cancelled queer media, ofmd was a way for hbo executives to show how “inclusive” and “accepting” they are when it was convenient (aka profitable) for them, but they never actually respected the show or us as a community.

it’s impossible to be certain of what the exact reasoning for cancellation was, especially when they won’t give us a clear answer themselves. and maybe it had nothing to do with ofmd being a queer romcom at all. maybe that’s all a horrible coincidence. but for hbo/max to axe a critically acclaimed and beautifully inclusive show that’s successful by every metric, with an extremely devoted fanbase, especially after casey bloys just had the nerve to ask “gay twitter” to hype up the gilded age? it doesn’t exactly put them in the best light regardless.

in summary, i’ll leave you with this editorial, which details how the campaign to save ofmd isn’t just about one show, but a fight to save the future of all queer art.

[batsarebetterthanpeople]

ok what do you think every character in ofmd's highest dnd stat is?

Oooh ok let's get going. Ed and Stede are both very long and the others are rather short.

Ed- ok so I think Ed is definitely maxed out in both intelligence and wisdom. I think he's actually got a surprisingly low charisma. He just has expertise in intimidation and proficiency in deception and maybe persuasion. But more likely his player is looking at that persuasion skill and asking can I make an intimidation check instead.

Now if I was playing a d&d game and the assignment was play Ed in d&d I would give him a high charisma because I would stat him out as a lurker of the deep warlock BUT I think in canon where they're all rogues and fighters his charisma is ass.

Stede- Stede's difficult to stat out. I think most of his stats are probably pretty bad but he has the lucky feat. And some other means of making sure he roles well. He's not dexterous, I'm not sure on his strength, his constitution seems middling, his charisma is hard to pin down because everyone initially hates him (implies low) but he frequently wins people over with the power of friendship (implies high) but I'm leaning towards low on charisma because the winning people over is through persistent whimsy rather than true people skills. They become begrudgingly fond of him because he's impossible to get rid of rather than because he's charming is what I'm saying. He's a good problem solved he thinks on his feet and he's got a good insight which makes me think high wis but also every survival check he makes fails in comical ways so maybe this is another situation of his proficiencies tricking me into thinking he's got a higher wis than he does. The one thing he does have going for him is that he's pretty book smart so I have to go with int by process of elimination, but again, maybe strength, that's kinda the dark horse stat for him he doesn't show it but he doesn't fail any strength rolls either. He knocked a guy out with a punch tho so maybe strength. But his defining trait is problem solving so maybe wis? Idk. Not Con Cha or Dex tho those ones are definitely negative modifiers. If I had to guess middling wis, middling but slightly higher int, most of his proficiencies are in int and Wis skills, medium to high strength but he never uses it.

Jim- Dex. I will not elaborate.

Olu- I generally see Olu as the Jack of all trades build. He's a well rounded individual. None of his stats are all that exceptional but he's good to have around because he's got no negative numbers, and can do it all if push comes to shove.

Lucius- Charisma. He's an artist and his most used non-technical skill is being good with people.

Zheng- Charisma. I feel like this doesn't need any explanation.

Archie- fighting your way out of a snake takes grit, not being digested, and quite a few successful checks to not pass out while holding your breath. Constitution.

Frenchie- Frenchie is very cerebral, but not very book smart. That being said artificers are intelligence casters so I'm going with INT.

Pete- strength or con. He's a silly little guy but his mental stats aren't great and he's not giving me dex vibes either. Human fighter build.

Fang- Strength. See him breaking a guy over his leg and him holding onto the side of the ship with the goat in hand for an hour at least so Ned Low wouldn't find them.

Roach- survival and medicine are both Wis skills and historically my DMs have made players role wisdom for cooking checks.

Wee John- Strength but Charisma is definitely second.

Buttons- Druids are Wis casters.

Swede- drank poison. Lived. Con.

Ivan- he wields an Axe which is a strength weapon so probably strength.

Spanish Jackie- Charisma or Dex, but she displays more charisma.

Calico Jack- Charisma definitely.

Anne- Charisma is the one we see her use but I'm gonna go out on a limb and say her Dex is better.

Mary R.- Strength on the Ivan principle. Definitely not charisma

Mary B.- Commoner stat block with proficiency in painters tools

Izzy- Strength. But much like Stede this is a process of elimination. His Constitution is the worst Constitution we see in OFMD (Izzy the spewer), his Charisma is ass (see everything about him) his wisdom is so bad he can't succeed on an insight check to save his fucking life (and his life has depended on it) intelligence is not so good, Dex is good given how often he lurks in the corner unseen and appears places and the thing he does to Stede's shirt in 1.02 but the beginning of the duel with Stede is the most clear instance of a character using a versatile weapon with their strength stat I've ever seen so I think his strength is probably equal to or better than his dex. Also all the things we see him teaching Stede in 2.05 are strength and dex skills so I think that's where his skill set is.

Damn this crew is not a dexy bunch. Jim said "I'm playing an assassin rogue that throws knives" and everyone else said "alright let me not step on your toes then"

[epersonae]

I wrote this originally as a reblog of something else, but after letting it sit in drafts for a while realized it needed to be its own thing. (but do go read that post, it was what got me thinking in this specific direction) I have not edited it much, other than to remove some intro about the kind of shitty day(s) I was having in my non-online life that were part of why I wrote something and then sat on it.

I have been thinking about

Don't like, don't read

(I saw this with rainbow text, and I asked how the fuck to do that, and frankly I don't have that level of patience, so just imagine it rainbow I guess)

And..........

Sure? We're all just here to have a good time or whatever, and Just Like Stuff, and it's exhausting being a hater (but also [stares at people I know who I've seen say all that and who are also ABSOLUTELY haters in private])

But I want something more nuanced than that. I mean that as both:

a writer of things I know other people have taken issue with (including, I remembered today, something that I heard secondhand about, in addition to the vagueblogging I've mentioned in an earlier post about my older fic)

and a reader/art appreciator who has some issues with things I've tried to read and art I've seen.

I don't what it is or how it works or how to get from here to there. I don't even really know how to do this with people I'm close to! (with the exception of having been a thoroughly obnoxious beta constantly saying "make me believe this could even happen", or pointing out conflicts with canon or whatever) I tend to silently nope out and then change my opinion of the person without ever telling them, because yeah, I'm horrifically conflict averse.

Which is why this might sit in my drafts for a long time.

And then, outside of friendships, and Difficult Conversations or whatever

I don't like pile-ons. I don't like a couple of people trying to articulate what bugs them about a piece of writing, and maybe being awkward or clumsy about it, and immediately getting drowned out by "you're being mean to my friends". (and I say that as someone who has had friends' writing receive this sort of critique! Multiple friends!) Maybe the immediate answer is, yes, the back button, but it has to be possible to dissect what's bothering you about a piece of writing (or a trope, or a ship) without it being negativity or an attack.

Here, I'll go first, because these are two things in OFMD fic that bug me endlessly, that writers I like have written, and I think they exhibit a subversion of the source material that is counter to the actual themes of the show.

Note: since I wrote all of this, I have written a little bit about my sort of complicated feelings about a fic that imho is an original novel in a trenchcoat, a sort of fic lacroix despite being very good. these examples are in the same vein as that.

Inevitable fucking disclaimer: I don't think people are wrong or bad for doing these things, I'm not going to try to make anybody stop, I practice don't like don't read (and I have some exceptions that I've enjoyed despite it being something I don't like generally)

Enemies to lovers: the whole point of Ed and Stede is that they click perfectly and immediately. They like each other! From the very first minute it's friendship and mutual admiration and delight and attraction. Enemies to lovers is a cliche that belongs to a different story entirely. I wish people would think more before jumping to that trope. (I've had an AU in my head for months that I absolutely cannot write until I solve this problem from the AU's source material) It's an interesting question to me, actually, why it seems to be so easy to write characters who don't like each other and then somehow fall in love, when the source material shows them liking each other SO MUCH right away.

Younger than middle aged: again, the whole point is that they are changing their lives, that their midlife crises brings them to the point where they can find love. I think it's a djenks Themes and Motifs thing, to have a story about getting to this point in your life and really looking at it and going "am I where I need to be?" Also it's incredibly unique and special to me after the last few years of my own rolling midlife crisis. (petty thought that I have sometimes: it is a failure of imagination about or knowledge of actual middle-aged people) Tbh, this goes double for age difference, I will nope out of that even faster than both of them being young.

And I think there's something about being able to not like something and still not be a dick about it, to know enough about what you do like to look at something and say "this doesn't work for me and here's why", to engage thoughtfully and critically (and yeah occasionally in public) while still having respect for the other person.

I am thinking also of @emi--rose and @frommybookbook and music, and their efforts to find kpop and Taylor Swift, respectively, that I might enjoy, because I don't like most of either, and I think this thing we've been doing is helping all three of us understand more about what we all do and don't like.

[pausing to think]

It occurs to me, also, that I spent a lot of time griping while editing for the benefit of all the broken hearts, about having to go back and do a lot of set up/rewriting to make some of what happens in that read plausibly. And I was soooooo bitchy about it and also that critique was all correct and it made the story stronger even aside from making it more "canonical", whatever the fuck that means in that particular setting.

And that was in the particular creative intimacy setting of working with a beta, which is different, admittedly, from random critique on the open internet.

But then I spent a while, back in the day, immersed in the TAZ questions of "is Lucretia a lesbian?" and "can Magnus ever love again?" and I wrote my rarepair (and associated polycule shipping) very much from my id, and a certain amount of "you can't tell me that didn't happen" that was based on overidentification and personal experience, but there were definitely people who were pretty publicly "ew" about it, and I had to think through my position, and both decide what felt true about and also decide to write from my weird heart, but not blindly.

Idk, I've written all of this and I'm just landing on

I think introspection is nice.

I think it's good to do, I think it's worth thinking about what you like and don't like, and maybe where that comes from, and not in a puriteen way but with sincerity and curiosity. I would like to support and encourage that spirit of artistic introspection.

[multifandom-nerds-blog]

Spoilers ofmd S2 ep 8

AAAAAAAHHHHHHH

When your cat is looking at you weird cause you're crying in front of your laptop. (She literally came on my lap and started purring to calm me down.)

First of all. Ed is a fucking mood. Avoiding work to just daydream the whole day. But also. How tf did he manage to put on his soaking wet leathers?! That was icking me so much. They were lying down there for like, at least two days or some shit.

Also. It makes no sense how Auntie survived, except for being a badass. But that's good enough reason I guess. Also why did they use Lucius clothes from all people to open the bars? Like, is he the only one wearing undergarments or what?

Roach and Jackie are a duo which I need more of now. It's not a want, it's a need. (Roach putting his smoke into the soup, and Jackie apparently poison training all her husbands. They could be such bffs.)

Stede, Zheng and Ed were waisting so much fucking time. Like. GUYS. half the episode is over already.

WHEN THAT MF SHOT HIS GUN AND IZZY DIDN'T MAKE A SOUND. Like. No one fucking noticed until they were running to the ship and Ed was carrying him (Frenchie immedieately ran to them TT). His talk whith nose guy though. Yes Izzy. Slay. You tell him. (TO PROTECT THE CREW. AAAAHHHHH)

Fucking Izzy apologizing to Ed and Ed saying that he should be the one to apologize. I'm wheeping. I'm dying. My cat is doubting me.

The WEDDING. no words. just beautiful. (Also. Does that make Roach the captain now, since he finished the vowing process? I would go for it.)

THEY STAYED BEHIND TO MAKE AN INN. ON THE ISLAND WHERE THEY BURIED IZZY. THEY MADE THE CROSS OUT OF HIS UNICORN LEG. THEY PUT HIS RING AND CRAVAT ON IT.

And then we end the episode with Frenchie being a noodle. perfection.

Also. also. This makes Fang the only remaining member from the og blackbeard crew. (Unless pete really was once in the crew)

GIMME MY FIX IT FICS RIGHT NOW.

[sherlockig]

So I had a dream the other night that I was an extra in OFMD season 3 and honestly I'm manifesting lol

Some things I remember:

- I was an extra in Ned Lowes old crew, so they were back in as characters

- There were some christian missionaries and members of a leper colony at one point (dreams idk- though not like OFMD has ever been historicallt accurate)

- There was a fairy and some models of Stede in the props dept that showed him as stood next to and the size of a daisy- I'm guessing an ep featuring a trip on rhino horn 😂

- Obvs there was a gentlebeard/blackbonnet wedding. I didn't see what Ed was wearing but Stede was wearing the frilly turquoise coat from season 1

- One scene featured the Swede and Black Pete going around other pirate crews (including Ned Lowes ex crew) and people at Spanish Jackie's handing out hand written invites to the wedding only there was a section at the bottom where it said "we can accommodate X many guests at our Inn for after" except the number had been repeatedly crossed out and made smaller as they clearly realised they were just not going to fix the place up anytime soon 😂

This all sounds amazing and i want to be living in your brain thank you very much

[izzyspussy]

(tis Bougie on anon!! hi!!)

M, N, T, U and W for the fanfic ask!

What’s the weirdest AU scenario you’ve ever come up with? Did it turn into a story?

I'm not usually an AU guy so I don't really have a lot to pick from here. I guess I'll go with the Legally Blonde AU I thought of for OFMD, where Ed is a combination of Elle and Callahan and Izzy is a combination of Emmett and Vivian and Stede is... also Callahan and he and Ed get into a Callahan4Callahan relationship after Ed quits his own well-established successful law firm and his 20 year engagement with Izzy to go to fashion school where Stede is a professor. (If you didn't see me post about this when I thought about it, it was accompanied by Ed saying the line "It's a perfectly respectable place, Daddy," and Izzy responding "Don't call me that" because it was immediately after the infamous father figure comment ahowljsfk.)

Any fic ideas brewing that you’d care to share?

None that I'm not already working on or have posted about! At the moment, anyway. Still working on finishing Plan to Entangle, take away the glass, The Burden Easy, a few straggling whumptober fills from last year's prompt set, and the siren eggpreg series is gonna have like hjwojhgks 7+ fics because I've lost control. But that's all! Only that!

Any fanfic tropes you can’t stand?

Sickfic. It's just always the exact same wish fulfillment the same way slapped on to any old character regardless of if that specific scenario would actually be wish fulfillment for them or if it's a fucking nightmare and/or they just wouldn't need it or have that particular reaction to being temporarily mildly ill. I mean I hate trends that are just this - fanfic authors doing their wish fulfillment thing (which is fine on its own!) and pasting it over characters that already have their own personalities, and in my opinion it's usually characters that specifically have contrary personalities to the setup, not to mention I also find that characters that these fantasies would actually fit are not so uncommon that you have to pick ones that it doesn't to do it with. And I myself have a personality and fantasies that tend to be contrary to the Usual, and identify with the characters that are changed to fit them for the reason that it doesn't fit them as they are. Which is not at all even remotely unique to sickfic, and I'm sure there are exceptions, but in my opinion/experience sickfic is the most egregious example and if I've ever seen a sickfic that didn't do this I can't think of it. Obviously I'm not saying it's, like, morally wrong to do this or that people Aren't Allowed (?? I truly don't know why people react as if that's what is meant when someone says they aren't into something but I guess the disclaimer is necessary idk) or whatever, but I do find it heinously annoying.

Is there a pairing you would like to write, but haven’t tried yet?

Izzy/Buttons is imminent.

What is your favorite pairing to write? Favorite pairing to read?

It cycles, as I'm sure it does for most. At the current moment it's Ed/Izzy. Probably. Who can say.

Fanfic Writer Asks

[occasionaloverboy]

20 Questions for Fic Writers

Thank you for the tag @sparklyslug 🖤

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

4

2. What’s your total AO3 word count?

222,566 (lol at that fic to word count ratio)

3. What fandoms do you write for?

Almost entirely Stranger Things, though I have worked on some OFMD and Shadow and Bone (tv) stuff that never saw the light of day.

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

I only have the 4 but by order of kudos most to least : we know where we're going any other way cabin fever swing for the fences

5. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

I do! It sometimes takes me a little while, but I love comments so so much - they mean a whole lot and always completely make my day

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

None of mine have angsty endings, but I guess it would have to be we know where we're going based purely on the drama contained in the last chapter

7. What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

Definitely any other way, but swing for the fences will be up there too when it's finished

8. Do you get hate on fics?

It's never happened! Srsly thank fuck too cause I'd cry lol

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

You bet - it doesn't really fall into a specific type I guess, probably tends towards the romantic and soft? I try to make it realistic, with little things going wrong and laughter etc.

10. Do you write crossovers? What’s the craziest one you’ve written?

I've never written a crossover but I wouldn't be opposed - I think they're neat

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

I hope not!

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

I have not

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

No but one of my best friends is my editor and she helps me so much with these fics it is insane, I seriously don't think any of them would have ever been fully finished much less posted if not for her

14. What’s your all time favorite ship?

I mean it's probably gotta be Steddie based purely on my own ridiculous behaviour about them. They're just so fun to shake around. But I've also always really loved Sherlock Holmes and John Watson in all their lovely forms (except for that one time 😒 but we won't talk about that)

15. What’s a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

The Izzy/OC I started ages ago - rip

16. What are your writing strengths?

I feel pretty comfortable with dialogue and describing physicality in general - love zooming in on little moments and making them a big deal for no reason

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

I am bad at big picture stuff; whether that be sticking to a planned length or just not adding a ton of extra little scenes that pop into my head as I'm writing. I think I have a tendency to muddy up my plot lines.

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic?

Gonna just repeat what @sparklyslug said here: I have no thoughts in particular. If it works in the fic and you've made sure your translation is right if you're not fluent in that language, hell yeah.

19. First fandom you wrote for?

Sherlock Holmes (arthur conan doyle version babyyyy)

20. Favorite fic you’ve written?

Oh man I really don't know, I love them all in different ways! Probably just cause they're the most recent I'll say that I'm really happy with how cabin fever turned out but I think my fav might be swing for the fences cause it is just so so fun to write.

No-pressure tags: @teddywesworl @postmodernau @dreamwatch @r-o-s-e-f-i-r-e @carbonbased000 @geddyqueer

[schattenhonig]

Warning, spoilers for S2 ahead!

I have a feeling that in ofmd we have an unreliable narrator that is just making things up as they go, and that season 2 had to go like this, had to end like this, because all the time there were no real consequences for the crew. It feels like a story told in a pub after one too many, and I love it!

Deserted and never served that ten year sentence in the British Navy? Guess the British were still celebrating the take down of Blackbeard, so no one noticed.

Buttons never turned up again? Guess he turned into a bird.

Various crew members got injured, stabbed and the like, but the wounds never had any consequences except for when they had to (more on that in a moment).

People just turn up in the middle of the ocean. In a dinghy with no fresh water or rations, not even a sammy.

On a related note: having a huge party on a ship in the middle of the ocean, sending out invitations to people like SiR GoDfReY ThOrNrOsE (yes, thee Sir Godfrey ThOrNrOsE) and expecting people to find said ship? How?!

No one uses any nautical equipment, let alone maps or methods of navigation. It's like the compass was never invented and the stars are not for navigation but to reflect in the lovestruck eyes of some idiots (affectionate).

Time doesn't matter. Like at all. Characters that were historically not even born? Oh, but they are needed for the plot to work! Figures of speech and songs that were invented hundreds of years later? Shut up, things get lost in translation all the time!

And now for the ending of season 2...

MAJOR SPOILER ahead:

As far as I remember Izzy is the first crew member to actually die on-screen.

Season 1 was very dream-like, almost too perfect, while season 2 focused on the relationship between Ed and Stede becoming more real, less fairy tale like. What if season 3 has all the unfinished business coming at them, and Izzy's death is like that infamous moment in Disney's Mulan where they find the destroyed village and there's no more singing...

I feel like this is literally the moment where our sweet pirate fairy tale turns dark and consequences start to matter.

Also, please feel free to add, I haven't actually seen the new episodes, I'm in non-pirate-y waters 😅 this is just what I figured from the many GIFs, comments and analyses.

[shippingforecasting]

Some parallels between OFMD and Good Omens and where they might take us…

We’ve already seen how Ed reacted when Stead rejected him, have we any reason to assume that Crowley will react in the same way? Looking at the parallels between Crowley and Aziraphael and Ed and Stead it is easy to assume that they can tell us something about what might happen next. Will Crowley go full Kraken? Or perhaps, in his case, full serpent? Or can we expect something else?

Crowley and Ed are the Yin to Aziraphael and Stead’s Yang, that doesn’t mean that these individuals will react in exactly the same way, but if they do, what could happen next for Crowley and Aziraphael?

Stead/Aziraphael goes back 'home' out of duty and once they have shifted the guilt about leaving their family/heaven they recognise what they have found with Ed/Crowley and attempt to return to them.

Ed/Crowley start off in despair about being rejected until a colleague/another demon(?) snaps them out of it and they goes full kraken/serpent.

Could this be how Crowley responds to Aziraphael’s return to heaven? Would it be out of character for him to become the demon that he tells Aziraphael he is? I rewatched the first two episodes of series 1 yesterday and did not like how Crowley dealt with his plants (bullying them and putting the fear of Crowley into them after he found that one had a spot). I’m sorry to say he is most definitely capable of cruelty, just as Ed is.

Unpacking that plant scene could send me off on a tangent. Why did Crowley have this need to bully his plants to such an extent to make them perfect? How do we interpret his fixation on perfection? How does this influence his relationship with Aziraphael? Whatever you want to think, this is evidence that there is a dark side to Crowley’s character.

But we know that neither Ed or Crowley are wholly bad. Blackbeard was all for show and so is Crowley’s demon persona (unless you are a plant, I guess - does the spotty plant make a come back?).

We see that even in his new state Ed is still devastated about the break up, so it’s all for show, a way to cover the despair. Unfortunately, it’s completely possible that we could see the same behaviour in Crowley.

Except that they are both too drawn to their soul mate and their desire for love will overcome, or something.

[vintage-bentley]

Omg! A radfem Good Omens fan! Finally a sane person in this fandom LMAO it feels a bit lonely to be honest. I have a few things to say (it's a bit long, sorry):

First, thank you for answering to that comment in your askbox so clearly! It's so funny reading "queer" people being shocked that we watch Good Omens. Like, we're gay AF and the show is gay AF. Plus, if radfems didn't watch shows/movies with the same worldview as them, they wouldn't watch anything at all.

I absolutely agree on the blind adoration for the actors. I mean, those guys are fifty and are clearly jumping on the "woke" train (don't really like the word "woke", but you get me) to get a positive image. But at the end of the day, they're just fifty year old men and I'm sure they have done or supported nasty shit too, like basically any man in the world. Thank you for mentionning Sheen's partner being so young and thank you to the radfem who explained David Tenant had a friend actor doing creepy things on set and he used to joke about it. Those two news are absolutely the least shocking news ever. I can't stand the way most girls and women easily fall the feminist, woke nice guy persona and get their hopes up only to learn that yeah, those people are still men. They are no exceptions.

Plus, I also think that the writer of the show is glorified to no end. I mean, he's a good writer, but it's too much LMAO. I agree with the bit about changing God to a woman being void of any meaning and I would like to add that God wasn't a woman in the book, the writer changed it for the show (likely to appear more feminist to the viewers).

Lastly, I wanted to ask you questions:

Did you notice that the most popular fics on ao3 for the Aziracrow ship contain at least one of the two characters having a vulva? If yes, what do you think of it? (Personally, it was shocking to me. I had just finished the show, went to ao3, started reading a fic and... omg skslsks It's so prevalent, too... Thank god we can filters tags nowadays.)

2. What do you think of people who use she/her pronouns for Azi and/or Crowley on twitter? (Again, it was shocking to me given there was nothing indicating that in the show. They're creatures in the bodies of men, and are seen are men by anyone. It makes absolutely no sense to me, and it feels forced AF.

(All in all, I think the fandom thinks the show is more woke than it actually is, because no one who isn't following the writer on tumblr would think "oh yes, those characters are definitely going by she/her and have vulvas". People are allowed to write what they want on ao3 and on twitter, I just think it's insane how prevalent it is in the fandom. But well, I suppose most people in the fandom are Gen Z...)

I'm stopping there. Thank you for reading all of this!

I’m so sorry it took me so long to respond to this! 💕 but thank you for sending this!!

I see that sort of shock from “queers” often regarding shows with canonical gender identity having characters. I remember there being a post about OFMD that said “how are terfs watching this when there’s a nonbinary character?”, as if we combust on the spot if a character has a gender identity 😂

This attitude of “how can you watch something you don’t entirely agree with” says quite a lot about the “queer community” and their cult mentality. They can’t seem to wrap their minds around the idea of watching something and being critical of certain parts…because they seem to only want to watch or read things that perfectly align with their views (or that they can interpret to perfectly align with their views, as they’ve done with GO). Just look at how they act about reading/watching “terf” perspectives. “Don’t even look at terf blogs! It’s dangerous and they’re bad, just trust me!”.

They’re so used to this idea that everything they look at must be in agreement with their views, that I guess they just assume everyone else feels the same way.

And yeah, if radfems (I consider myself just adjacent, but I’m using the term broadly here) wanted to follow that line of thinking, we’d be shit out of luck. Misogyny is everywhere, seeping into the writing of every female character. And because radical feminism is so vast in the topics it covers, it would be hard to find something that agrees with every single position.

I hate the blind adoration for the actors and for Neil. Yeah, the actors are fun personalities to follow and watch in interviews, yeah Neil says some funny stuff on tumblr sometimes. But ultimately they’re all men, they’re all celebrities, and those two things rarely go well together without some sort of issue.

People treat Neil in particular like some kind of god because he validates their gender headcanons, and somehow can’t see that he’s just trying to string them along for clout. And I’m pretty sure there was something about writing a female child character in a really creepy way (snow glass apples?), but nobody cares because oooo he said trans rights!!

God was definitely made into a woman in the show for easy feminist points. And it’s disappointing because it would be so interesting to actually do something with that concept. The easiest thing to do would be swap the roles of Eve and Adam. But he couldn’t even be bothered to do that.

As for your questions…

1. Yeah, I’ve noticed and it drives me crazy. To me it reeks of homophobia. It seems as though these writers are taking the first opportunity they can to make a gay couple straight, and to assert their belief that heterosexual intercourse is superior to homosexual intercourse.

2. The she/her pronoun usage has gotten especially bad after season 2, and I think it’s really annoying lol. It seems like a way to cope with the fact that Aziraphale and Crowley were pretty clearly men the whole time, with Aziraphale even referring to Crowley as a man in the 40’s scene.

Again it reeks of homophobia to me because people seem so, so eager to take this gay couple and make them seem straight. Just let them be men in love.

It also reeks of sexism because often the she/her pronouns go to Crowley when he isn’t like, the pinnacle of masculinity. All it takes is for him to have longer hair than usual and suddenly everyone’s going “omg she’s so pretty!!!” It feels very performative (come on. Nobody actually thinks Crowley is a pretty lady. It reminds me of the people who comment on ugly TIM selfies like “omg slay queen!! You’re so beautiful!!” Because they know it’s expected of them to validate male feelings). And it’s concerning that people can’t seem to accept that having long hair doesn’t mean Crowley’s a woman.

The fandom absolutely thinks the show is more “woke” for lack of better term, than it is. They’ve built up a bunch of headcanons in their minds, and because Neil has okayed the headcanons, they’ve deluded themselves into believing it’s canon. But the truth is that there’s no explicit mention of angels and demons being nonbinary. The “sexless” line in the book is vague enough that it seems to be interpreted differently depending on who you talk to, yet the fandom has decided it means celestials don’t have genitalia (yet somehow have every other sex characteristic?).

The average viewer is not going to watch this show and go “ohhh, I see, they’re both nonbinary and this is a super queer show!”. They’re going to watch it and see two men in love. Which is amazing! It’s upsetting to me that the fandom has decided that two men in love isn’t enough. Unfortunately I think what’s happened is that it’s a bunch of straight women who got bored of fetishising gay men, and have now moved on to romanticising this idea of being as Queer and Different and Quirky as possible.