#like jim/olu/archie/zheng is a canon polycule

[carmillas-girlfriend]

[Source for this wonderful picture of our favorite fisherman here.]

Calling in two experts for this one: @thefandomeffect-noah and whoever is behind @ask-uncle-fang

And also me, I'll share my expert Fang opinion in the tags as well.

[forpiratereasons]

reminder. you can do anything you want in fic and you don't need to explain changes you make. is izzy alive in your post-s2 canon fic? onward, you don't need to tell me how he got outta the grave unless it's relevant (i.e., is he still healing from being shot?). it's like how the crew got off that island. doesn't matter!

give me a line that sets up what i need to know for YOUR fic in YOUR setting - izzy's alive, jim/olu/archie are bringing zheng into the polycule, prince ricky died in ep 8, frenchie and zheng are co-captains, WHATEVER - and head onto the story. don't get bogged down. it's fine.

[batsarebetterthanpeople]

I saw some people talking shit about the interview with the writer where they said the whole crew was a polycule on the basis that they did not confirm a polycule beyond a reasonable doubt. When you say shit like that I want to remind you that Jes Tom is in the writers room, and not in filming or editing. They might not get the memo on changes made later in the process and they are involved in pitching and executing ideas, they know what the characters would do better than anyone except maybe David Jenkins because they decide what the characters do.

So if a writer is saying "we want there to be an all encompassing polycule" and an actor (Vico Ortiz) is saying "we filmed a scene where three characters implied to be in a relationship were quickly putting on their clothes after having sex" but we the audience didn't get to see either of those things than maybe it's not the fault of the writer's room that we didnt get it but some other force

Like... Perhaps... The studio not wanting to show it on their network and telling the editors to take that shit out.

Basically, the point: it gets rather annoying when people knit picking looking for a reason to be a hater after Izzys death call the lack of explicit polyamory a betrayal or worse yet say that the writer is on something and dragging us along when the writer in question is literally one of us (nonbinary) and we're so clearly on the same side. The writers like us and they like the show and they want to give us the polycule and, as with most shows, it's the capitalist's fault we didn't get that. Please direct your rage in the appropriate direction. I will be treating Jim/Olu/Archie/Zheng as well as Fang/Lucius/Pete like it's canon and I will be tweeting the foursome art at the nearest HBO max exec so they get the picture. I encourage everyone to do the same.

[thebasementgirl]

"Things I'd like to see in s3" part 5

The polycule being canon. I know it's implied in s2, but I want it to be official in s3. Somehow I want it to be confirmed that olu x jim x archie x zheng are in a polyamorous relationship

[tamilhobbit]

Speaking as an Izzy hater - I found his character racist, homophobic and despicable in S1, did not see any appeal at all, and then copped a lot of shit from racist Izzy stans on Twitter (I used to enjoy fic that gave him a good arc, but those fandom experiences led me to start avoiding basically anything to do with him). Maybe the demographics are different on Tumblr, but Twitter was overwhelmingly pro-Izzy in a way that didn't acknowledge any of the bad he'd done and was hostile to anyone who disliked him.

I also thought his 'character growth' in S2 was too rushed. Him showing up in drag and singing felt more like Fandom Izzy. Canon Izzy had made a very very big leap there that, to me, didn't feel earned or justified. But I'll freely admit that my poor fandom experiences have soured me against him.

Otherwise, I agree with most of these points. I'm very much a Gentlebeard shipper and I still did not like the portrayal of their relationship this season. I have many of the same criticisms you expressed.

And it's gross that the 'talk it through as a crew' show refused to deal with everyone's PTSD, and even gave Lucius SA-related PTSD and played it off as a joke. Pete was horrifically cruel to him about it. That is one of my biggest issues with S2.

I think the writers suffered from being too involved with the fandom, to be honest. And it affected their own vision of their characters.

I've already said that to me, someone who is not an Izzy stan, the Izzy we got in S2 was much more like the Izzy I saw in fanfics and fandom than the Izzy we met in S1. Yes, Izzy could plausibly have become that person, but it takes a lot of work and growth that I feel they skipped over.

There was also just way too much going on. They crammed too much in and didn't have the time to treat any of it with the detail and respect it deserved. Given the show had to be cut down to 8 seasons, the writers desperately needed to be ruthless in cutting and editing. They needed to take out anything that didn't serve the plot or character growth, so they could focus on the important things.

They didn't.

Anne and Mary, for example. They don't actually add anything concrete to the storyline beyond being a backdrop for Stede and Ed! They serve as symbolism and foreshadowing, sure, but... of what? If we take them as foreshadowing of Stede and Ed, all it tells us is that this idyllic retirement that they end the show on won't actually be a happy ending for them. That they won't be happy with it. Which is a weird choice. Or do they serve as narrative foils of Stede and Ed, as a dark mirror? The narrative isn't very clear about that, to be honest.

The feeling I got was that that they were fanservice. Fans were clamouring for Anne Bonny and Mary Reed, so they gave us pirate lesbians, regardless of whether it was useful. The writers should have cut them and focused more on the plot, or made them relevant to the plot. They didn't.

Fans wanted Zheng Yi Sao, so we got her. Even though the plot ended up making her look a little foolish and incompetent by the end, in contrast to the first half.

Fans wanted Izzy to embrace his queerness, so we got that, even though it seemed like a rather abrupt shift.

Fans wanted more women and POC, so we got Archie. Who just shows up and isn't very well fleshed-out tbh, and ends up breaking up Jim and Olu. (Are they poly? It's only ever hinted at. And then Olu leaves for Zheng Yi Sao anyway. If they then become a polycule, it is entirely up to the fans.)

Fans wanted Stede to become competent and famous as a pirate, so we got that. Fans wanted Gentlebeard sex, so we got that. Fans discussed a soft shore retirement for Gentlebeard with Oluwande captaining the crew, so we got that.

This was some Monkey's Paw bullshit. We got a everything that we'd mused about on Twitter and Tumblr. It just wasn't executed well.

And yeah, even though I dislike Izzy, I do think his death was stupid. And in my opinion, a cop-out. It was like Shadow Weaver in She-Ra - you don't need character growth or redemption if you sacrifice yourself instead! With the double whammy that both Ed and Izzy have been toxic and awful to each other, and this narrative choice basically wriggles out of having to deal with that in any meaningful way.

Question: I enjoyed s1 OF OFMD, but for various reasons I never actually got around to watching s2 (pick up most of the plot from tumblr tho). What exactly went wrong in s2 that got so many people upset?

Oh, boy. Very long rant incoming.

So, for context, S2 had a significantly smaller budget, which necessitated moving the filming location to union-unfriendly New Zealand, reducing the number of actors/number of appearances of established actors, and cutting down the number of episodes from 10 to 8. In a show where each episode is only about half an hour long, that last one alone was enough to seriously hamper any character development or plot. I am very comfortable putting the vast majority of the blame on HBO because of these financial decisions.

The short version is that Jenkins et. al. needed to address and build on the problems left hanging in S1 while also getting the characters to the end of their character trajectories in case there was no S3 while also leaving room for additional episodes in case there was a S3, in a grand total of four hours, and failed.

The long version is that there were a bunch of what I'd consider small problems in isolation that came together and exploded in the S2 finale.

The reduced cast necessitated breaking up the crew (ex: having Swede marry Jackie and stay on land with her, so they don't need to pay Nat Faxon for all eight episodes) and not spending as much time on their relationships as S1 did.

The reduced time meant that the entire season was rushed (in contrast to S1, which takes place over at least several weeks if not months, most of S2 takes place in roughly five days), leading both to a lot of telling rather than showing (because they don't have time to show you), including vital character and relationship development.

This includes:

Having the Kraken half of the crew beat Ed to death after months of being abused by him – abuse that is clearly shown to have given them PTSD and a well-justified fear and hatred of him – only for them to be okay with him two in-universe days later;

On that note, having Stede dismiss the crew's concerns about Ed because he loves him and also we only have three more episodes left to fit in everything so we need to get over it really fast, even though Stede is supposed to be well-meaning and caring (even if he's not good at it all the time);

Resolving the issue of Stede abandoning Ed in one day, then having them "go slowly" in their relationship for two days and then have some spur-of-the-moment sex, and then the next afternoon have them break up over their diverging career aspirations, and then the day after that resolve that problem and retire on land while the rest of the crew sails off into the sunset;

Stede becoming a fantastic pirate captain over the course of one day, becoming wildly popular in the piracy world two days later, and then deciding the day after that to never be a captain again because he is retiring with Ed;

Having Ed and Stede decide to retire together as what is implied to be the end point of their relationship arc, when none of Stede's issues from S1, like his poor self-esteem, have been so much as mentioned by anyone, implying that he's either magically gotten over them or they don't matter all that much, actually, even though they were the catalyst for basically everything he did in S1;

Ed having two separate character crises – "I am an unlovable person" and "I want to do something with my life other than piracy" – not spending a lot of time on either one, having moments that clearly indicate he is still working on both problems and they have not been resolved, and then apparently having them both be resolved in the final episode despite nothing occurring to actually make that happen, and in regards to the latter, despite the story actively undermining it by repeatedly showing he can't do anything other than piracy;

Related to the above, Ed ending the series as allegedly being loved by the crew as a family (thus solving Crisis #1) despite this never actually being shown, demonstrated, or even fucking alluded to onscreen. If anything, it shows the exact opposite.

This last point is especially galling to me because of what is probably the most divisive issue in the fandom right now: killing off Izzy Hands after giving him seven episodes of character development.

The show begins with the Kraken crew clearly trying to use the skills they learned as part of Stede's crew to cope with their incredibly shitty situation and care for each other, which includes Izzy. Izzy, on his end, tries to protect the crew and speak up for them, which results in him being repeatedly hurt (both implicitly, as Ed at one point says "that's another toe" in response to Izzy advocating for the crew and we later see he's missing more than one toe already, and explicitly, as Ed shoots him in the fucking leg in front of the crew when he stands up for them).

This camaraderie is shown again and again and again. Frenchie, Jim, and Archie take care of Izzy while his leg is infected, at risk to their own lives. Izzy's misery over losing his leg is what unites the PTSD-ridden Kraken crew and the well-meaning-but-ignorant-of-PTSD marooned crew, who are initially at odds, to make him a new prosthetic leg. Izzy gives Lucius advice about forgiving Ed. Izzy is introduced to drag and opens up enough to sing at a crew party, and the whole crew is having fun together while Ed and Stede are in their cabin having sex for the first time. Izzy gives Stede pirate captain lessons and bonds with him when Ed leaves him. Izzy provokes the season's villain into focusing on him and then gives a big speech about how piracy is about belonging to something, giving the rest of the crew time to try to escape.

Recall that Season 1 had some pretty well-established universe rules, one of which was that it runs on Muppet physics/magical realism. People can jump off yardarms, hit the side on the way down, and be perfectly fine. People can get stabbed in the liver and it's totally okay because it's probably not that important, and even can stay pinned to a mast all night that way with only mild discomfort. Buttons can talk to birds and see long distances without a spyglass and put hexes on people. Good people can be hurt (Stede is stabbed repeatedly), bad people can die (the Badmintons, Geraldo), but no one we care about is ever killed.

This is repeated in Season 2: Ed is beaten into a coma with a cannonball and wakes up like Sleeping Beauty after a spirit journey, with no injuries to his face or body. Buttons turns into a seagull after spending an episode doing a magic ritual and is never seen again (because they couldn't keep paying Ewen Bremner due to the budget cuts). Jackie microdoses her husbands with poison to build up their immunity, so that she can later pull a Dread Pirate Westley and poison the British with shared drinks.

So: in the finale, the villain of the season is taken hostage by the pirates (for reasons? unclear how that fits in the plan), happens to have a gun on him (no one checked??), shoots Izzy on the right side and then leaves with no repercussions. The entire crew stands around silently doing nothing while Ed cries over Izzy and tells him that he's his only family.

And Izzy fucking Hands, the guy who just spent eight episodes bonding with and protecting everyone, uses his last words to reassure Ed that him becoming Blackbeard/the Kraken was Izzy's fault and that the crew is Ed's family and they all love him. No one else says anything to Izzy or tries to comfort him or help him in any way.

I repeat: in a show predicated on the idea that bullies and bigots die stupid deaths while queer people and POC are basically magic, a show that was praised for being kind to queer people by not making them worry about their faves suffering or dying, a show founded on the strength of the relationships between the characters, the guy who went through a season-long arc of learning to embrace his pirate found family and his own queerness is shot for stupid reasons on the side we're told isn't important and dies while everyone just stands there. His last words are about the whole crew loving Ed when the only person that the whole crew has loved all season is him.

Anyway, never mind all that, let's cut to Lucius and Pete getting married and Stede and Ed retiring!

Complicating all this is that people who liked Izzy (or even said anything insufficiently mean about Izzy) were harassed for months in between seasons with insults, slurs, and actual fucking death threats. Izzy's growth was kind of a vindication for liking him: it meant that, despite all the harassment, we were right to like him and care about him as a character. Even people who didn't like him initially started to like him during Season 2.

And then he dies, and now there's a bunch of people saying that Izzy fans are big whiny babies who can't handle fictional death, and actually his death was so meaningful and beautiful and the only logical end to his arc, and it can't be bad writing because people die in real life all the time, and also he admitted he fed Ed's darkness so actually he was a terrible person all along anyway and they were right to hate him (and his fans)!

So, yeah, there are a lot of reasons why it's so hated, and I'm probably only addressing the problems of the pro-Izzy people (from what I can tell, BlackBonnet shippers who don't like Izzy think Ed and Stede's relationship is fine and dandy, but I'm sure that there are other criticisms they have that I have not addressed). I'm not even addressing the issues with Jim and Oluwande's relationship this season (and whooo boy are there issues).

It wasn't a universally bad season. There were episodes I really loved and still do. But the finale was a train wreck, and because it was a train wreck, a lot of people are looking back at what happened before the wreck and realizing that, oh, the train lost its brakes and steering because of the budget cuts and the engineers kept throwing fuel in the engine to make it go faster, and huh, now that I think of it, that part earlier in the trip was really wobbly but I didn't pay much attention to it at the time because I was sure the engineers had everything covered.

[batsarebetterthanpeople]

I'm bi, and Ed and stede are not at all bi. There is no ounce of attraction towards women between them. If they wanted those characters attracted to women, they wouldn't hesitate to show it. Ed's only had relationships with men in canon (I think they would've made Anne/Mary an ex if they wanted to make that clear) and Stede, it could not be more obvious why his marriage to Mary didn't work on any level. I have no clue what those folks were thinking. It would be funny if it wasn't frustrating.

Like truely we need to demand more from bisexual rep. Like to me it doesn't count unless they either say they're bisexual or they express attraction to more than one gender. OFMD doesn't do the first one on principle but Oluwande, Archie (I'm counting her because there was a cut scene with a Jim/Archie/Olu three way according to Vico), Jim, Anne and Spanish Jackie all express attraction to more than one gender. It's not a hard bar to meet. I'm not saying you can't have headcannons about Ed or Mary but claiming that as rep is like... Should we not demand characters that you can't pretend aren't bisexual? Should we not demand our rep be explicit?

The exclusion of Oluwande from that list felt disrespectful on multiple accounts. Like first of all, way to erase him, second of all they included Jackie and Archie who have both been into Jim and then had a man/men that they were into (I'm counting Oluwande for Archie yet again) but they didn't count Olu who was into Jim and a woman(Zheng). Which maybe I'm a mad tranny who is too sensitive to this sort of thing but it feels like, if you're doing it that way, that you might be misgendering Jim a little bit there.

I'm on board with you on Ed and Stede are not bi. Bi!Ed is a headcannon where I'm like "I don't see it but whatever" because while I do think if they wanted to make him bisexual they had opportunities they didn't take, they didn't do what they did with Stede re: a whole marriage that failed because of how gay he was and then threw a woman who he absolutely would be into if he swung that way at him and had him not just reject her but be befuddled and distressed by the very concept of being intimate with her.

And it's like, this guy(Stede) is a fictional character, so no, we haven't ruled out all women because that would be boring and a waist of time, but they are telling you he's gay as firmly as they are telling you that Jim is nonbinary. His season 1 arc is tied up in not being into women and they have more proof in season 2. Like this show is giving you the L the B the G and the T pretty explicitly but no, Mary Read, Ed and Stede are bi, Oluwande is straight, Jim's a woman, everyone is either straight or vaguely bisexual and everyone's cis and there's not a plethora of varied sexual experience on that show just the two. Sure fine whatever. Fuck me I guess.

And they sure don't do this with straight characters. I didn't see them insisting that Mary Bonnet, the other half of the fail marriage, was bisexual, frankly they didn't even argue that Zheng was bi even though she joined the polycule at the end. They just take it for granted.

And it's not that big of a deal, they're just wrong about my show in a way that's vaguely problematic as it relates to Jim and fundamentally incomprehensible as it relates to Stede's marriage and as a gay person who's not gold star I'm a little peeved at their use of the term "gay washing" to refer to a gay character having a relationship with someone of the opposite sex before coming out of the closet, but ultimately there are bigger problems it's just like. Wow, how dumb.