#jim and archie all the way

[cliopadra]

“Izzy’s regret is never allowing himself to fall in love” well good thing he’s alive and well and can be gently pushed into an All Deck on Hands situation to fix that, huh?

(Just got out of an *incredibly* dull seminar, so have a set of Izzy doodles I made to entertain myself )

[cobra-creampuff]

can we also talk about how fang's last straw was the imminent threat of ed hurting izzy again

[amnestyliketaz]

not to get sappy and i’m sure someone has said this before but i love how being queer is literally just part of ofmd. like there is literally no problem with any of it they’re all just going though everything while also happening to be queer and just. its so lovely to see that in. not only is the queerness not an issue, it’s not even seen as different. people are just queer and that’s normal and ok and great and just. god i love this show so much

(a bit of spoilers in tags)

[nutelloona]

btw is anyone else also in love with the fact that Jim, Oluwande and Archie naturally evolved into a throuple no announcement no questions asked no big deal????

[izzy-b-hands]

I. I think I have a decent finished draft for the first day of the upcoming Our Flag fan event with those drag based prompts that's coming up later in the month but. Oh. I made myself sad for Izzy in the process 🥺

[cocaptainsinlove]

The way Ed's crew continued to care for each other despite their hostile environment. Jim telling the story of Pinocchio to Fang. Frenchie and Fang comforting Izzy. Izzy (of all people!) calling out the toxicity and suggesting they talk it through. Frenchie choosing not to kill Izzy even though it put his life at risk. Jim and Archie amputating Izzy's leg. Jim refusing to kill Archie. That's Stede's influence! He said it doesn't have to be like this!

[jellybeanium124]

while we're on the topic the woman representation in our flag is peak throughout. does the cast have way more men than women? yes. but every woman character in this show is a banger. nonstop peak women in this show.

spanish jackie. what can I say about jackie that hasn't already been said. how can I describe her badassery and awesomeness into english. she steals every scene she's in. every detail we have about her life is amazing. leslie jones is perfect in the role. woman of all time for real.

mary bonnet. everyone knows how cool it is that mary isn't a nasty bitch but is a sympathetic character and only an antagonist on the most technical terms, who eventually comes to support stede after they talk it out and stede starts supporting her. I love how some of her story is told through how she dresses before and after stede leaves to be a pirate. I love that she gets to follow her passions. I love that she gets to be angry and annoyed and always correct about it.

evelyn higgins. murder is ok. what else can I add??

anne bonney and mary read. they're toxic!! they stab each other! they're insane! I love crazy lesbians ahhh!!!!

archie. archie my beloved. archie's the dumb goofball rep women need. she's here to have a good time and that's it. no doubt in my mind she said to jim "so. wanna see my boobs?" archie's amazing and her pits are unshaved TO ME.

zheng. ohhhhhhh zheng. zheng gets to be clever and calculating and a silly schoolgirl with a crush. I love how multifaceted they make her in so little time. she's an overly controlling leader and she awkwardly flirts. she has auntie issues. she loses everything and gets stuck with stede bonnet and still keeps her cool. I love zheng so much.

WOMENNNNNNNN!!!!!!

[confusedraven1]

my favorite thing so far about season 2 is how, no matter what, the crew of the revenge actively chooses their found family, over and over again

• swede loves and is married to jackie, but double crosses her anyway because of his love and “life debt” for his family

• stede leaves ricky at jackie’z, despite ricky being inexperienced, because he’s fucking around and they all need to leave. stede’s not gonna risk his family just because ricky wants some sort of recognition for something he barely helped with

• oluwande leaves zheng yi sao because he’ll be damned if he leaves jim, who he’s reiterated that they’re family for him

• frenchie and jim disobeys ed’s orders and save izzy’s life because, as jim says, “he’s THEIR dick.” archie follows along cause she knows it’s fucked up and wants to stay by jim’s side

• izzy has chosen ed over and over again, and would’ve continued to if ed had accepted the help he desperately needed, but ed isolates himself and pushes izzy to the point where he HAS to choose the rest of the crew instead

• roach, wee john, and pete all get jobs on the red flag that play to their strengths and they enjoy IMMENSELY, but they go back to the revenge cause there’s no world where they wouldn’t. buttons had the opportunity to probably get more sea witch info and tools from auntie, but he also wouldn’t ever choose that over the crew

• lucius is PISSED at stede, and has a ton of ptsd to work through. i imagine he probably felt somewhat safe finally on the red flag. but after talking things through with stede and pete, i know that it was a no brainer for him as well. he’d never give pete up again after that kind of separation

• even though stede is loving the experience of seeing zheng yi sao doing what she does best and the (seemingly) warm and comforting environment on the red flag, he chooses to rescue the crew, even izzy, and take back their ship. because he knows they would choose him (and did during the act of grace, minus izzy). he’s bringing their family back together despite everything else

• i would say that the crew still with ed DID choose him, constantly. any other crew would’ve mutinied WAY before they did, but they love ed and hoped things would get better despite his behavior saying otherwise. the only times they didn’t choose him was out of self-preservation

• ed became a self-fulfilling prophecy and isolated himself. i would argue that he’s the one exception here. he actively chooses to disregard his family because of his self-loathing and deluded himself into thinking they wouldn’t choose him. BUT, in the end, he finally does because stede cast him that line. he chose to live for himself, of course, but i like to think that that decision was also to come back to the one person that truly felt like family for him

i am so fucking excited to see all of the other ways they’re going to choose each other, yet also keep each other accountable for the things they do. because they’re family

[dragonmuse]

Keep It In The Box : An Essay on OFMD Season 2 and the Failure to Heal

(here in is my season two reaction. It contains many many spoilers. It's also about 3k words long so you know what you're getting into.)

“See, I have a system for dealing with all the terrible things I've seen. There's a box in my mind, and I put the things in the box..” -Frenchie, Season 2 of Our Flag Means Death

…..and then he never opens it. Chekov’s locked box has no key in season two.

On first watch, it seemed clear to me that Frenchie’s declaration was a narrative plant. Clearly the whole season would be about that box of pain and trauma being opened, sorted through and at least the beginning of healing. The show had developed a reputation after season one of being kind and focused on queer narratives of healing from childhood. Ed and Stede’s parallels in their childhood traumas were frequently on display through season one and were repeated in flashback throughout season two. Jim’s season one arc about becoming someone who doesn’t think just of revenge and can now forge meaningful connections was profound, beautiful and often funny. Izzy is an antagonist because he doesn’t want Ed to move on or stop acting like the trauma-response version of himself. The antagonist wants to stop healing. The point is to grow, to change, to learn how to love. It’s one of the things that made season one work for me at the time, despite reservations about pacing and tone.

So naturally season two should follow suit. It’s a kind show! About healing and falling in love!

For the first several episodes, the remaining crew on the Revenge go through a gauntlet of trauma, forced to do and receive violence at Ed’s whims as he careens from self-destructive behavior to self-destructive behavior. This is the wounding setup. It was dark, but it seemed like it would have a payoff and at first it did.

Perhaps one of the most beautiful moments of the season comes in one of the small respites in those early episodes as Jim recounts Pinnochio to Fang to soothe him through his grief. That was the show that I expected. The kindness of that moment struck me very deeply. It gave me some understanding of Archie too, who seems to fall for Jim right at that moment.

That scene is the show season one promised. Season two led with packing Frenchie’s box full to bursting. Here is the fight to the death between lovers, there is a first mate who is mutilated and rotting in the very walls (the rot of the Revenge itself), and there is the storm of Ed’s rage and pain that threatens to consume all of them.

So surely these remaining episodes would concentrate on finding the humor in healing from those moments. That is the setup. Frenchie has a box. The box must eventually open.

Except time and again, all the characters who suffered are told that the only way to deal with what they’ve been through is to stick it in the box and never open it again.

Pete tells Lucius that he’s unable to move on and needs to let it go. Izzy has a story about a shark. Ed’s apology to the crew which doesn’t even contain the words ‘I’m sorry’ is just…accepted. I kept waiting and waiting for a meaningful apology to the people Ed had hurt the worst with his actions, but it seems all we get is Fang saying ‘eh, no problem, I got to hit you back so I feel better’.

The playful theme of ‘pirates are just violent sometimes’ from season one becomes a grinding horror machine in season two when every atrocity visited on someone is forgiven because the narrative needs it to be. Ed and Stede spend more time making amends with each other over the bloodless night on the beach than either of them spend trying to repent for their actions towards anyone else.

And let’s talk about Ed. Arguably this season pivots on his narrative, on his path to healing and growth. A path that starts at a very low point. His moment in the gravy basket, deciding he wants to live because there are still things to live for is so great! So one might assume that what would follow would be him pursuing those things, making amends, making connections. He and Stede have a wonderful moment, talking about being whim prone and how they’ll work to avoid that, build a relationship by going slower.

Yet, at no point do either of them stop following whims. They never heal or learn from what’s happened to them. They both keep running from thing to thing, particularly Ed. It’s a whim to sleep with Stede, it’s a whim to run off to fish, and the finale gives us just more of their whims. Ed drops fishing as fast as he picked it up. He finds those leathers in the ocean, murdering the symbolism of leaving them behind. Even the inn is a whim, one of those things Ed decided he’d be good at without evidence. And Stede joins him in that without a single on screen conversation about it ahead of the moment.

Ed needs to heal himself and to do that he needs to confront what he’s done and do the work to heal the wound. Instead, he doesn’t meaningfully apologize to anyone, besides Stede and Fang. Despite Izzy’s dying words (we’ll get to that), not only do we never see the crew caring about Ed, working to make him family in the same way they do with Fang and even Izzy, he also doesn’t choose to stay with them. So what is the point? Where is the healing? Or does even Ed, beloved main character, have to live with it all stuffed in a box?

He ends the season in the leathers he threw away, in a relationship that’s barely stabilized, going to live in a house which we are told by the narrative (in that they are very very clearly paralleling Anne and Mary with Ed and Stede or why do we even get that whole Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? episode) will only end in them setting fire to each other to stay warm.

But Vee, I hear you cry, it’s a ROM-COM. This is all meant to be ha-ha funny and you are taking it so seriously!

Cool beans. Then why the hell isn’t it funny? Healing is often filled with comedy because people deal with pain with humor. You can heal and laugh at the same time. The finale especially is almost entirely devoid of laughs, almost entirely devoid of joy until the last minute for that matter. The episode that should show off with a flourish how far everyone’s come, mostly serves to show that no one has grown.

Okay that’s Ed. I want to talk about Lucius next. Our former audience surrogate (that’s taken away in season two when he doesn’t get enough screen time to perform that role and no one takes his place) really goes through the wringer. He experiences many many terrible things, including sexual assault (which is made into a grimace-laugh line that doesn’t take away from it’s seriousness because oh hey, that can be done as it turns out). He’s nervous, he’s smoking, it’s clear he’s suffering.

There’s a beautiful moment where Pete tells him ‘hey, I was also in pain. I grieved’ and that’s great. It’s good that Pete sets a boundary about Lucius not obsessing over the past to the point of occluding their future.

We even get our comedic moment where Lucius pushes Ed off the boat (still not apology, but I’d lost hope for that by then) and that doesn’t help enough. So Izzy comes in with a shark and the advice that you just have to move on.

Just…you know. Play pretend. Forget.

Shove it in a box. Ed didn’t take my leg, a shark did. Ed didn’t kill you, a shark did. Live with the person that tried to murder you because it’s your fault you dangled your leg over the side of a boat. That is the show’s message. I thought on first watch, that surely this would also come back up and be explained that you can’t live that way, that that is no way to heal. That it would become clear that this was no way through. You cannot make everything into sharks.

Lucius can move forward and still carry pain. He can still want a meaningful apology and still want to talk to his lover about what he’s dealing with while moving forward toward a brighter future.

And what of the flirtatious promise of relationships and connections being the way to heal? Look to Oluwande and Jim, whose heartfelt romance from season one was relegated to the bins of history in favor of a narrative that made him a brother Jim once had sex with. They could have had Archie AND Oluwande, who in turn could also have Zheng, but that never seems to be an option. With a single short conversation, they are broken up with, despite a brief tease at the birthday that they still ‘dance’ together, it never actually manifests. Jim and Archie never talk about what they went through. It’s swept under the rug as fast as knives are lowered.

Lucius also no longer flirts with other people, the solution to his pain is to propose and get married (but not too married, lest we forget that they’re two men, they don’t even get to be husbands or even the more respectful mates, no. They’re mateys.) This season proposes that the only happy endings are monogamous ones, where no one talks about anything painful that went before.

To ensure that message, beyond assuring the success of Oluwande and Zheng’s relationship, Jim and Archie almost entirely disappear from the narrative. Sorry you guys were given layers of trauma and no growth and not even much to do this season, we need to make sure that everyone remembers Oluwande is the break in Zheng’s day so when he says that to her five minutes later we know exactly what he’s referencing. No time for Archie to learn what an apology is or for Jim to get one line in with Oluwande that isn’t affirming their newfound broship. Must do more flashbacks to things we just did two episodes ago!

The show even dangles the conversation of the Revenge being a safe space. Why would any of them ever feel safe when the man who tortured them is allowed to walk among them and they are expected to forgive and forget? What’s safe about that? The ship is never made safe for any of them, but that’s never addressed.

And Zheng! Amazing, hysterically funny Zheng! She loses her ships, her entire way of life, the kingdom she built for herself and then…she doesn’t even get to captain the Revenge. We don’t know what becomes of her fleet, of her plans, her ambitions. Don’t worry about it, she has a romantic partner and isn’t that what every lady wants in the end?

(But Vee, I hear you cry again, there will be a season three! Maybe it will be All About Zheng! To which I say: then why did they present us with the most series finale feeling episode ever? If there’s more, I have no idea where it’s going. BUT VEE: BUTTONS AS SEAGULL ON THE GR- Fine. It’s time.)

Let’s talk about Izzy Hands.

Izzy manages more healing than anyone else this season. He reaches his lowest point, suicidal in the bowels of a ship that’s become a prison (very much in contrast to Ed’s suicidal low). The person he loves most in the world has shredded him physically and emotionally (and if you’re in the camp that thinks Izzy deserves the abuse that Ed gave to him, I would really like you to sit quietly with yourself and ask why you think there is ever anything anyone can do to deserve that treatment). He’s low, he shoots Ed to protect everyone, and then seems to plan to drink himself to death, mourning his losses.

And then another beautiful moment! The crew move past their own pain to help him. They work together for the first time and it’s to give Izzy mobility back. He treasures it. He cries over it. He uses that kindness extended to him to reach a new understanding of Stede and help him succeed, doing the work to make real amends. He sings in drag, he’s vulnerable and beautiful, celebrating the side of himself that he must’ve loathed in the first season. He’s an elder queer man, coming into himself.

He never gets an apology though. (‘Sorry about your leg’ without eye contact is not an apology. There is no responsibility taking, no acknowledgement of the weeks of torture that came with it.) Izzy also never really has an honest conversation with anyone about what it means that the man he loves punished him so severely for the crime of trying to protect the crew (yes, lest we forget, Izzy lost his leg because he was trying to keep Ed from re-traumatizing the crew and himself).

Izzy does all this work, but even he’s not allowed to take it out of the box. It’s a shark, not Ed. Ed is just ‘complicated’ (the language of abuse here is so upsetting and I think not even intentional).

And then he dies. His last act? To apologize to the man who tortured him and shot at him. To have done all this work, to take on all the blame. And then die.

In a rom com.

This show ends in a profoundly unfunny moment of telling the audience: this is the one character that did the work, that made amends, that tried his hardest to accept the parts of himself that he had a hard time embracing and formerly embittered him. He’s fully accepted his queerness and turned it into beautiful music. He’s disabled, and he worked hard to accept that. The man he loves will never love him back, so he worked hard to make Stede able to meet Ed on an even playing field. The Giving Tree gave up its limbs and its trunk, and it’s not even allowed to be a stump to sit on.

Kill the queer elder, who has managed to figure out how to live and in his own way how to heal. Kill him before he manages to teach anyone else how to meaningfully move forward (he almost gets it with Lucius, almost, but it’s meant to be rule of three, you know. Cigarette..shark…and then…and then fuck it, Lucius doesn’t even get to say a word at his funeral).

The message of this season again and again is that there is no healing, just moving forward. Like a shark. Like a bird that never lands.

That is not a kind show.

Season two is not a kind season.

It splinters people up and jams them back together without purpose or reason. It tells everyone who experiences pain that they should shove it in a box and not deal with it. No one who really needs one gets an apology of any sincerity. No one puts in the work to gain forgiveness. (Ed wearing a onesie is not The Work. Ed fixing a door is not The Work. Ed broke people that the show wants us to care about. Ed never does the work of making those amends. He fires off a Notes app apology at best. After all, it’s what he told himself via Hornigold in the gravy basket: you move on or you blow your brains out! Good thing he took his own advice and therefore had to change nothing to get his just rewards.

I would’ve taken just fifteen minutes of Ed trying to actually make amends. It could’ve been hilarious! Imagine awkward Ed trying to dance around what he’s doing with Jim and the two of them having a knife throwing competition about it. Or him and Frenchie attempting to make music together, writing a song about the raids they went on! It’s not just the crew robbed of their healing because of this, it’s Ed himself. He never meaningfully changes or makes amends. How is he any different at the end of the finale then he is standing on the edge of that cliff with Hornigold? He hasn’t moved on, he hasn’t healed. He tried one thing (fishing) that doesn’t fucking work and then he runs right back.

No one leaves this season better than they went into it. They’ve lost an elder queer, they’ve lost their joyous and queer polyamory, they’ve lost a chance for meaningful reconciliation with Ed and Ed lost any chance of looking like he gave shit if they did. Stede grows enough to accept the crew’s beliefs as important and then leaves them behind without a care.

Izzy gets a beautiful speech about piracy being larger than yourself. Ed and Stede, within twenty minutes of that speech, leave piracy. They are incapable of giving themselves to something bigger, apparently. They haven’t learned to be a part of a community. They haven’t healed from their childhood trauma or their fresher wounds. They are still just following their own whims.

Zheng’s life work is in tatters, but it’s fine, she has love. Oluwande and Jim aren’t together, but it's fine because they both have dedicated monogamous partners. Lucius was deeply scarred by what happened, never recovers much of his first season personality, but hey he got-well it’s not married exactly- but you know good enough!

Frenchie, who has a box forever locked in his head, is captain. Because the key to success is to lock it all in a box and never open it. What a message. What a show. Conceal, don’t feel. Smile because it’s a happy ending. Don’t mourn the dead, don’t try to tell people what happened to you (they will literally run away or cry too hard to listen and really you’re just bumming them out), and any meaningful change you make is only rewarded with death.

Frenchie is now a pirate captain with a box in his head full of trauma that’s never been opened, leading a crew with more wounds than scars. Wonder how that could turn out? Wonder how many years before he might want to retire and then happen to run across a gentleman pirate. As if no one learned anything at all.

[portraitofadyke]

I think Our Flag Means Death is a very unique show in a way that they don't care to cater to mainstream media. And yes, by mainstream media I mean the general straight people.

I think it's very important that we have feel-good shows like Heartstopper. A few years back, a tv show about two queer boys in high school would be unthinkable. But its plot generally revolves around explaining queerness. Sure, it's nice. It's definitely the show I would watch with my family if I were a teenager and wanted to come out again (I had to watch glee with my mom to do that. not optimal). It's the show where teenagers find love and themselves, but sexuality is constantly discussed, explained, sanitized. It's the show straight people will watch. And that's good. We do need shows like that.

But Our Flag Means Death doesn't even bother trying. It's a show about mostly middle aged people, most of them not white, most of them queer in one way or the other. It's really a game of spot the hetero, like someone said. And the characters are not sublte about it. They have sex for fun, something most characters don't have in tv shows, definitely not queer characters. They make dick jokes. They are not all conventionally attractive and they know it, and the writing doesn't care. They are all people before they are queer representation.

Stede's storyline in s1 is in a part about discovering himself and his sexuality, but it's not obnoxiously repeated. Instead, it's played in a natural way. Stede's storyline is ALL about finding himself, yet it's not just about that. Just like Ed's storyline, it's about toxic masculinity and allowing himself to have fine things and self-hatred and finding his place in a world, something most of us can relate to. Hell, none of us were even sure the main characters were going to kiss and end up together, we were all so sure it's a queerbait. But this show doesn't bait its audience. It's not afraid of weirdness. It embraces it instead. There is a nonbinary character. No, they are not a mermaid. Call them jim. That's it. Yes, Lucius and Pete got engaged. Everyone there knows what mateolage is, congrats. Olu and Jim never break up and then Archie shows up, then Zheng, and we all know. We all know.

Two men nearing fifty have a deep, romantic moment where one of them appears as a mermaid, and it's treated as the profound scene it is without ridiculing it. This would never fly in a 'mainstream' media. It would have to be downplayed. Here, it saves Ed's life.

The show tells you racists suck, but it doesn't tell you in a condescending, finger-waving way catered to the white people. Instead, it sets your ship aflame and burns you alive, runs a knife through your hand, puts poison in your drink and kills you.

This is a show for adults, for queer people of all kinds, and it does not give a fuck if anyone else gets it. It's so rare to find a tv show that caters to us, yet alone a tv show that's genuinely good and caring and so well loved.

This is a show that basically straightbaited its audience in the first season, that's how much they don't care.

Idk, I just feel that it will take ages for another show like OFMD to exist in a world full of MCU and media that tries so hard to be liked by everyone it loses its personality and charm. Rant over

[goayda]

About Izzy and Jim, there is this moment I love in ep 2x02 when Archie asks Jim 'what's your interest on this guy, he seems like a bit of a dick' and Jim says 'He is'...

I love this moment so much because that's all I wanted for Izzy in the new season (certainly not the mutilation part!), first a hug (and I got that wish in ep 2x01 thanks to Fang) and then this: the crew caring about him, even if it was a little.

And the thing that means so much to me in this scene is the fact that Jim admits that yes, Izzy is a dick (he isn't nice, he has done many wrong things), but Jim shows him kindness anyway, they care about him despite being far from perfect (so so far from perfect, my little angry man) and consider him part of the crew now.

What I love is the fact that you can watch this and say, you know? You don't have to be perfect to be loved, you can make mistakes, but that doesn't turn you into an ugly irredeemable thing. You can still change and people can still see you and show you kindness and be there to support you so you can find the way to be a better version of yourself.

Kindness is so underrated, when it's truly such a powerful thing.

[musical-orgsm]

honestly, I'm still stuck in this scene...

I only noticed this after re-watching the season for the millionth time but I cant stop thinking about it:

I mean, look at Olu's, Jim's, Lucius's and Archie's reactions when Izzy starts singing in french... the way they all immediately look at Frenchie and smile at him... the way Archie goes "awwww"...

I also made a gif to see their faces a lil better!

ouizzy real!

[piratecaptainscaptainpirates]

Alright while we're on the topic. A huge pet peeve of mine is when Ed's arc in s2 is described as a "redemption arc" because I think that MASSIVELY misses the point.

Ed did not need a redemption arc. That implies that he'd need to learn that his behavior was wrong. The huge misread in this take is that Ed is perfectly aware how shitty his behavior is, and that's the point. Ed knows that his actions during the kraken spiral are wrong, and he's doing them explicitly as a form of self-harm because he believes he's only capable of that kind of behavior; that there is something fundamentally broken in him that means this kind of behavior is innate to him and defines him.

Also - it's such a cruel take, I think. Ed isn't a badly-behaving child who needs to learn he's been bad. He was a deeply traumatized man in the middle of an intense suicidal ideation spiral that culminated in a suicide attempt that Ed has framed as needing to be put down, like the wild dog Izzy says he is. I'm not saying that this is an excuse; the crew are justified in being fucking pissed with Ed, but you just can't judge it in the same way as if he'd been acting like that for fun. OFMD dares to offer up the apparently scorching hot take that people who hurt others during an active suicide attempt still deserve compassion, healing, and community.

There's a reason why the crew forgive Ed so quickly. There's a reason that the Kraken crew, who are not blind, watched Ed sail the ship directly into a storm minutes after they can probably only assume, having only heard the noises, that he's shot Izzy, and they're still debating if he's getting better unti the mutiny. There's a reason Jim takes so fucking long to do anything, even with Ed stalling and stalling. There's a reason why we're shown the crew's guilt - they're right to be angry with Ed, of course, but Ed is also someone who they care about who was hurting so, so badly, and they weren't able to get through to him and help him. It's complicated and nuanced and there's a reason that Jim gives Ed a hard time to his face during his YouTuber apology but then is immediately saying afterwards they're fine and they thought his apology was pretty good.

Within the context of OFMD, up until the mutiny, Ed's behavior is "a bit much." Archie's there specifically to show us that, and of course Ed never lays a hand on any crew member (Izzy, who admitted on his deathbed that he's been emotionally abusing Ed knowingly for years, is an outlier adn should not be counted). And the crew all know that Ed's just...not like that normally. Throughout s1, Ed's shown to be supportive, easy and genuine with praise, genuinely caring about the crew's safety...the crew never even mention mutiny until Ed forces their hand because they know what he's like when he's okay, and they know he's not okay.

Ed didn't need redemption. He needed support to heal and to get to see himself for who he is outside of the caricature he felt forced into.

[ourflagmeansgayrights]

also i feel like miss “i’ve dated my fair share of guys on wanted posters” isn’t actually the type to get easily flustered by like, her boyfriend’s partner and her boyfriend’s partner’s girlfriend openly hitting on her. this woman held her crush at sword point to flirt with him and i think historically this strategy works out really well for her, olu’s the first who didn’t immediately pick up on what she was putting down. but i think she blushes and stammers and doesn’t know how to handle it when her boyfriend or her boyfriend’s partner or her boyfriend’s partner’s girlfriend do something thoughtful for her like save an extra slice of a cake that roach made when she’s having a bad day or going out of their way to nab all sorts of fancy perfumes during raids bc they know she’s rlly into fragrances or even just little things like complimenting her or asking her how she’s doing. as the garlic soup polycule gradually completes the square and all four of them end up dating each other it’s not jim calling her pirate queen in that low voice or archie openly calling her hot that makes her feel shy and fluttery it’s archie and jim and olu being like “hey girl what are your hobbies and interests, we want to get to know you and participate in activities with you that make you happy”

[poison-ives777]

⚠️Ofmd S2 spoilers ahead⚠️

I’m just gonna say it:

Season 2 was painfully rushed. I didn’t wanna admit that fault, but it REALLY damaged the quality of the show. Part of what made S1 so great was watching the slow and steady character development and story arcs. We developed attachments to the characters because we saw them go through everything leading up to the end.

This entire season has had abrupt changes in character development (especially with Izzy. I love that they made him more human, but he went from masochistically devoted to Edward to terrified of Edward all within the span of a time jump we didn’t even see.)

Ed and Stede’s relationship shifts way too abruptly. And I know them taking it fast is part of their arc, but it still felt like they were just trying to move from arc to arc within the span of one episode each.

I also hate how none of the sideplots really tie into the story on a deeper level. (They have amazing parallels to S1, but aren’t great plot-wise.) Not to mention they almost completely abandoning the relationship they built between Olu and Jim. (I love the polyamory aspect, don’t get me wrong. And I love that they don’t blatantly explain the polyamory / tokenize it. But, the way Jim was willing to just give away Olu to Zheng in episode seven, even if they and Archie couldn’t go with him, made me upset. Not to mention that at times, it feels more like they’re trying to write off Jim and Olu as fwb, but that may just be me. And the two of them didn’t get a lot of screen time in general compared to season 1.)

The parallels to season 1 and overall symbolism were amazing, and I do still like this season overall. But it really is heartbreaking how Max sacrificed the show’s quality all for the sake of profit. I know David could have done much better with more resources.

The main reason this upsets me so much is because not only does it hurt on a personal level (damaging the quality of my comfort media), but it’s also the perfect representation of how streaming is KILLING the quality of TV. S1 was a masterpiece. The whole show is a masterpiece. But TV productions can only work with so much. And streaming services aren’t willing to accommodate to the demands necessary to make real art.

Thank you for coming to my TED talk. Be gay, do piracy 🏴‍☠️🍊🧜‍♂️(for legal reasons, don’t actually do piracy)

[acceleratedmuseo]

Can't believe I'm still stuck in the first 3 episodes but like what we can still find ouizzy crumbs???

The way Frenchie first glanced at Izzy and then Blackbeard when they came out

While Jim was clearly chatting with Archie and Fang directly reacted at BB

Like. Was secretly checking if Izzy was okay after he talked to BB alone

I'm so sick

Bonus with the way Blackbeard looked at Frenchie.

Just imagine... all at the same moment... Izzy looking at Blackbeard & Frenchie checking Izzy & Blackbeard noticing whom Frenchie was looking at???

and then the whole Frenchie shaking his head towards Izzy scene??? And then Frenchie was immediately appointed first mate to kill Izzy???

Yeah I'm absolutely normal