#meta irony

[incorrectly-quoting-mxtx]

The lack of shipping wars in the Scum Villian fandom is really fucking funny because we all ship different people with the main character Shen Qingqiu, and instead of fighting about it, we collectively decided that he deserves to have a harem consisting of every single guy in the book.

[fruity---boi]

Girls want bees for autism. As a non-girl, I can certainly speak on this matter

[randomness-is-my-order]

it’s the way jiang cheng could not accept yanli and wei wuxian’s sacrifices, the way he could not fathom their selflessness because each of their actions were viewed by him through a very self-centric lens–in that, how does wei wuxian taking a stand for the remaining wens affect him, affect jiang cheng? how does yanli giving up her life for wei wuxian affect him, affect jiang cheng? it’s always about him, his feelings, his anger, his grief, his sense of abandonment. the problem here is that yeah, he loved his sister and yes, he did care for wei wuxian but what are these words worth when he could not allow them to make their own choices and respect those choices? what does it mean that he’d rather try to slash wen ning’s corpse and throw the wens under the bus because he doesn’t want wei wuxian to remain in the burial mounds and see what comes after? what does it mean that jiang cheng could not digest yanli’s sacrifice and never bothered to tell jin ling about the truth of his mother’s death, letting her son continue to hate the man she gave up her life for, out of love at that?

jiang cheng never respected what was most important to wei wuxian and clung to his idea of what he thought would be best for wei wuxian. thing is, if wei wuxian had backed out, had left the wens, in some impossible hypothetical universe––he would never be able to live with himself again. saving and supporting the wens was extremely important to wei wuxian. similarly, if yanli ever got a do-over, she would still save wei wuxian and give up her life because that is what she believed in, that is what her love for him compelled her to do. and in both instances, jiang cheng could not let go of his own reactionary emotions to their decisions to respect what these decisions represented.

he spit on both their sacrifices: let the lies about yanli’s death breed hatred for wei wuxian and led the siege to the burial mounds to kill the very people wei wuxian risked his life to protect. and for both these instances, the fandom has spoken ad nauseam about how it’s understandable for jiang cheng to feel abandoned, that he is always “left behind”. but did he ever have the courage to truly stick by them? stick by them, even in memory, even in their ideals, even in their last living and dying wishes?

[oathkeeper-of-tarth]

I have all the time in the world. How about you?

There is a theme to Aylin's threats and vows of vengeance that I've noticed and that I want to share.

Do what you will. I cannot prevent you. But you know as well as I, I will come for you. One day.

That one, for example, is for Balthazar, while she is imprisoned.

I cannot prevent you. But I can advise you. Be careful to whom you yoke your fate. One day, when he is severed from me, Ketheric will die. I will not. And when I am freed, I will remember whose recompense to claim.

Did you expect me to beg? To cry? To plead? For what. I accept my fate - for now. But the life of a divine is longer than you can fathom, Sharran. And this cold chapter will close, one day.

And those are for you, when you've yet to harm her, when she's still only warning you off. But then, if you choose to try to kill her, like so many before you:

Was it everything you hoped for? Was it sweet, Sharran, to murder a paladin of Selûne - her daughter - her sword? Congratulations - your mistress Shar will write your name on her hand. And I? I will come for you. When the time is right.

The next bit depends on your character's gender:

When your sons are grown and your beard is long and wiry; when you cannot hold your nightly water and your nose grows as long as your weary, weary days… When your daughters are grown and your chin sprouts whiskers dark - when your teeth are yellow as corn and your sleep grows short and your days are long and weary, so weary… When your children are grown and your eyes are weak; when your nose grows as long as your weary, weary days…

Ultimately, your fate will be the same:

That is when this immortal will visit you, Sharran. That is when I will show you what it is to be afraid.

All these long-term promises of one day, coupled with inevitability.

I find it so striking that most of Aylin's threats include her flaunting and flexing her immortality (as well as her flawless, long memory) over whoever has wronged her.

Present your weapon, soldier. Plunge it into the Nightsong. I cannot stop you. But know this: I never forget a face. HAH! Are you afraid, Sharran? Do you rattle and jump at the realisation that an immortal has your face emblazoned in her mind forevermore?

Everything is but a passing inconvenience to her, she claims, even a century of imprisonment and torment. Outlasting, outliving - that is simply what she does and what she chooses to intimidate with. Promising to wait until you are old and decrepit, until after you've experienced all the vagaries of age that she never will, leaving her sword hanging over your head throughout the entire miserable lifespan that she has permitted you to have.

Then, if you wrong her in a very heinous way, there's the extreme one of outliving not only you, but killing and extinguishing your entire bloodline in order to obliterate every trace of you from existence:

WHEN I AM FREE, I WILL DESTROY YOU! I WILL MURDER YOU, AND YOUR CHILDREN, AND THEIR CHILDREN BESIDE! I will rip this world apart, plank and beam, until every iota of your being is scalded by my light. This is my promise. This is my vow.

Over and over, Aylin builds her oaths of vengeance on the foundations of an utter, even proud, certainty that she will see her foe end, one way or another, due to her nature and the simple fact of her own endlessness. This is the well she keeps coming back to.

And I find all of this, this consistent insistence on it, so striking and ironic, because one of her other main emotional threads is being thoroughly enraptured by and devoted to and just so completely in love with a mortal. One who will age and die and pass into memory just like all the targets of her rage - if I think of Isobel when I re-read all of that dialogue up there, it seems to cut both ways so deeply. But then there's the extra element that every single one of these is spoken when she either knows or is (incorrectly) convinced that Isobel is dead. Isobel, who didn't get to grow old, and who is both an anchor to humanity and a very painful reminder of the truth of Aylin's situation being twofold.

Aylin will outlast what she hates, yes, but she will outlast what she loves as well.

[stlptr]

[nenoname]

A tidbit about Stan's handwriting in the Book of Bill

(I added random color coded underlines for ease of comparing letters but idk if it helps)

The moment I first saw Stan's letter, I realised that Lost-Pages!Ford had been using Stan's handwriting to specifically quote Bill

And in fact, its the same font Ford himself uses for his alt CAPITAL LETTERS FOR EMPHASIS font.

(Even if you're skeptical of the lost journal pages, I think it's safe to assume that the Pines family letters to the reader are as reliable as it gets and we have the second Ford letter using that font)

So after seeing this, I went "my god! Ford was writing in Stan's handwriting all this time!"

...or so I thought until I skimmed through my copy of Journal 3 and it turns out Ford used this more ominous font instead.

So. Okay. Then I assumed they simply switched it after creating Stan's handwriting for the new book. The old font was probably retconned and is unused-- but that's also wrong! It's right here in the first Ford letter!

Interestingly enough, this is how Bill's words were quoted in Journal 3 and the font's eeriness is pretty suitable.

--But giant tangent aside, I feel like its significant that Stan's handwriting is used this way when it's pretty distinct!!!

Stan's round handwriting tonally makes sense for early Lost Journal entries when Bill is tricking Ford, but it's almost jarring once we get to the betrayal section.

Bonus: Also here's 3 different capital letter fonts in one pic cos yeesh Ford keeps switching it up, what a drama queen, and yes the new book adds even more

Interestingly, BoB changes Ford's signature from cursive

to this

with the latter reminding me of

[glitter-stained]

Look, I'll say it: Zurr isn't a magical demon that took over Bruce's body, it's a vilifying, demonizing take on induced DID. I can't keep seeing people fight to defend Bruce's honour in Gotham War by saying "it wasn't actually him so it's not his fault", reject the Lazarus Pit Madness headcanon because "Jason and he alone did his crimes and he has no excuse", and then we're talking about how Bruce's or Dick's trauma is what made him a hero, one post later on my board it's "the lazarus pit madness headcanon is unnecessary because Jason's behaviour is completely explainable and logical if you just take in account that he has cptsd" (or bpd depending on the post) and then that fanfic I had to stop reading because a character literally was screaming at Jason "so what you died get over yourself but you weren't magically controlled by the pit so you have zero excuse and justification for being angry" and then a post about "wow why is Batman punching down on all these mentally ill people", and then in the replies "are you dumb it's because those crazies are bombing orphanages..."

I'm still thinking about that moment in "dumpster slasher" where Batman is like "the killer is still free while poor Elmore [a homeless guy with substance use disorder and major neurocognitive disorder] is being shipped off to Arkham... This doesn't sit right" yeah buddy I'm sure if you ponder that for a while, the reason why the fact the only mental health facility in your city is also a prison for dangerous criminals with no apparent mental illness doesn't sit right with you will appear to you eventually.

Maybe it's time to confront the fact that the difference between a hero and villain in dc is often whether their mental illness is demonized, glorified or minimized. Or the fact that attenuated circumstances and responsibility exists on a gradient and there is such thing as "altered responsibility due to mental illness" in a trial. Maybe it's not "oh it was this evil Zurr/Batman entity, not Bruce/Batman, so there is no responsibility to be taken and anyone condemning those actions as abuse is talking in bad faith" maybe it's "this is a terrible representation of something that exists and should be treated respectfully" and "I don't have to accept this terribly harmful rethoric and fucked up depiction into my conception of my fav's characterization in such a dislocated, often incoherent canon if I don't want to."

And also maybe it's "if we accept this event/depiction as canon it doesn't mean that we have to either bash the character completely or erase his mental illness into something vaguer/mystical that would somehow absolve him of his place in this situation".

And maybe it's "what does accountability for your harmful actions looks like when your judgement was heavily impaired by mental illness, and what judgement can be placed upon you and who decides where people are placed on that continuum of responsibility and how do we acknowledge and go forward into repairing things when severe harm/abuse was done under impaired judgement and also how do you reconcile all of this with your sense of self, (especially in conditions like bpd/cptsd and especially did where the sense of self is already so altered/complicated) with what your values are, what you want to be, what you are capable of doing and what you thought about yourself before the bad thing happened." I don't know any simple, correct, good answer, especially not a one size fits all. All I know is: the desire to be a good person, and be able to distinctively separate people between bad and good, is profoundly human and, at times when lines of responsibility get blurry, profoundly unhelpful. Most people who are going to hurt you aren't mentally ill. Most people who do terrible things aren't mentally ill, and sometimes people are mentally ill and hurt people and the two have nothing to do with eachother. But it is also a reality that sometimes judgement is impaired and behaviour is altered due to mental illness, and then you need to figure out where to go from there. Acknowledging this while also fighting stigmatisation is a complicated business. It's messy. Mental illness often is. I'm weary of any rethoric that pretends it's simple.

[nyancrimew]

tungles great, but the lack of reading comprehension and general awareness can be comical

i misread this as "turtles" and like, yea if u think about it it's pretty fucked up how turtles can't read, stupiod fucking creature

[greenqueenhightower]

Sometimes I just love the irony in HOTD:

True legitimate heir Rhaenys is bypassed for a male heir to the throne and her grandfather Jaehaerys goes along with it, only for Viserys to succeed him two years later and reverse the order and name Rhaenyra his heir despite desperately wanting a son and even though she is a woman (like Rhaenys was), and who as it might turn out, might actually be a bastard, who then goes on to have three bastards of her own with Harwin, and since Laenor does not die and simply vanishes when she is still married to him, that automatically makes her children with Daemon bastards as well.

Do you see the point? With every generation, the Targaryen claim to the Iron Throne is weakening instead of getting stronger.

They literally went from having two legitimate heirs to the Iron Throne to choose from, to completely destroying their entire line. The weak choices a generation made created a domino effect that affected the generations after it.

Oh yeah. Of course the only thing that could tear down the house of the dragon was itself, it just had to be.

[storybookstr4nge]

its 2018. fall out boy released mania, Brendon urie released pray for the wicked, and twenty one pilots released trench. supernatural is on season 14 without any signs of destiel. Voltron season 8 just came out and decimated both klance and its fanbase. the third trials of Apollo came out and made everybody miserable. dan and Phil are on tour, and the final Phil is not on fire came out. Tumblr is never going to be the same.

[mollysunder]

If the first season was about Jayce getting pulled every which way by his allegiances to those closest to him, then next season will be about Viktor doubling down on his isolation and refusing to listen to outside opinions. Viktor's already on the path for that. Viktor would have never gotten as far as he did in a society that's as hostile to Zaunites and the disabled as Piltover is if he didn't refuse to listen to the opinion of others. It's largely been in his best interest to disregard avoidable rules and social conventions because they otherwise barred him from not just advancing in society but participating in it in general.

But now this defense mechanism will only serve to further push him from others as he crosses morelines. Sure Viktor will be able to do some good with the hexcore and even gain followers, but a cult isn't a reliable source of criticism, it's an echo chamber to reinforce your beliefs. Viktor's true resolution will be allowing someone, maybe more than one, to tell him to pull back and he actually listens.

Tldr: Mr. "If you want to change the world, don't ask for permission", needs to learn life is a team project and nothings wrong with a little peer review.

[opheliasam]

among the grating cesspool that is spn youtube clips comment sections… found some peers.. academics.. people who get it if u will

[ladyluscinia]

What Exactly Did David Jenkins Say?

Look, I'm still staunchly of the opinion that Word of God statements and creator interviews are overvalued in fandom, especially when they get pulled out mostly as gotchas without then continuing to analyze whether or not the show canon is successful at getting across that same message. Death of the Author is good, actually, and we should remember that. But they are worth looking at in the context of evaluating intent vs execution, and for future speculation - just, like, please with less of the whole mile high pedestal idolizing and backlash cycles.

But if overvalued "Word of God" is annoying, then overvalued "supposed creator statements that have gone through three rounds of telephone and any given blogger has only heard about a quarter of them, which they'll use confidently anyway" is worse. So, since I'd already looked up interviews for various reasons...

Here is a fairly comprehensive list of interviews David Jenkins has given and statements he's made during them, presented without commentary (save curating which statements get highlighted). All provided with links. I definitely missed some, so if you have any that you want to add, please do - though if you could trim off any commentary and save it for tags / your own post with a link that would be cool.

Also, again, just because he said it doesn't make it incontrovertible canon that only a blind person wouldn't understand. Some of these even arguably contradict each other. The creator's intent doesn't always translate to what the show is doing, nor do you even have to think it was a good idea.

(Listed in chronological order from oldest to newest - post contains spoilers below the cut)

Pre-S1

Gizmodo - Feb 22, 2022 - with Cheryl Eddy (io9) - Link

Why this story - Really, it was the enigma of Stede that drew him in. "I think actual pirate stuff is fine, but it's not necessarily my cup of tea. And I think Taika [Waititi] felt similarly. But hearing about this guy and reading about him and seeing that, you know, he left his family, then he met Blackbeard, they hit it off, and we don't know any of the details in between. So filling those blanks in, and having a very human story, and then being able to do it with the pirate genre, that was like, 'Oh, this would be cool.'"

Post 1x01 - 1x03

Polygon - March 5, 2022 - with Tasha Robinson - Link

David Jenkins, Taika Waititi, and Rhys Darby interview

About Stede running off to sea - "Stede thought he could outrun his baggage, and you can't outrun your baggage."

About S1 - "I don't think there was enough improv on set! We had an insane schedule, with a huge amount of plot. We were budgeted and designed as a one-hour show, but with a half-hour production schedule, which means we really had to chase these episodes to get them shot. And then there are certain emotional beats that we really needed. So trying to find places to find the fun was hard."

Mashable - Mar 5, 2022 - with Belen Edwards - Link

About the show concept - "It was Jenkins' wife who first told him about Stede's adventures; she thought it would make a good TV show."

On casting Rhys Darby - "Stede did a terrible thing to his family. If you cast it wrong, he's a very hard character to get behind," Jenkins said. "Very quickly, the only person I thought of for this was Rhys [Darby]. He has this childlike quality that's endearing."

About the story - "Seeing them discover a need for each other that neither anticipated and charting how that relationship goes is the meat of the story." + "If you're on this ship, you're running from something, and you're running to something that you can't be on land"

Mentions of matelotage - "In fact, one of Jenkins's favorite pirate facts that he learned while working on Our Flag Means Death was the term matelotage, which was a civil union between same-sex pirates. "The more you look at it," he explained, "the more you write to the fact that this is a queer-positive world.""

Discussing piracy careers - "Something else that astounded Jenkins about pirates was "just how fast it all moved — their lives were quite short," he said. "Your career [in piracy] wasn't very long.""

Post 1x09 - 1x10

Decider - Mar 24, 2022 - with Kayla Cobb - Link

David Jenkins, Taika Waititi, and Rhys Darby interview

Pitch for the show - "That was in the pitch," series creator David Jenkins told Decider. "That was the reason, to make them fall in love with each other."

About the romance - "The main thing to me was to side-step coming out," Jenkins continued. "I just want a romance. I want a Titanic romance between these two people. We don't have to do the coming out story and then the non-binary story for Jim [Vico Ortiz]."

About S2 and the show - "The show is the relationship," Jenkins said. "So, we end in a place where there is this breakup. What happens after a breakup between these two people who, one’s realized he's in love and the other one is hurt in a way that he's never been hurt before? What does that do to each of them in an action, pirate world with them trying to find each other again? So again, I really love those rom-com beats."

Collider - Mar 24, 2022 - with Carly Lane - Link

On making it a romcom - "It's the only reason to make the show. If you didn't do that, it would just be weird. I mean, you're using the rom-com beats. You're using these like they're together. And it's funny because so we're so habituated to be like bromance, bromance, bromance, and it's such a simple move to put them together."

Discusses focusing on romance - "I guess I really... I get kind of bored. How much pirate can you do? They're going to rob stuff. They're going to steal ships. There's only so many pirate stories you can do. So if you're going to do a workplace story, I mean, you're essentially having this... You'd have this same amount of relationships in Grey's Anatomy in the ER. So it's standard. It's the most standard. We're making a soap opera on a pirate ship, and to use those soap opera beats... I like it, and I like the flavor in a comedy when you have something that's played genuinely up against very ridiculous things."

Discusses history and kissing scene

Discusses importance of going home to Mary - "Yeah, that was the problem for me in the story. I knew that I wanted to have the end where he goes home, because you need to give Mary her day in court. I just wanted to know from Mary's perspective what happened and then to see that, yeah, they're friends."

Is Lucius dead? - "You got to wait."

EW.com - Mar 25, 2022 - with Devan Coggan - Link

David Jenkins, Taika Waititi, and Rhys Darby interview

Pitch for the show - "To me, [Stede and Blackbeard's relationship] is the reason to make the show," Jenkins explains. "When Taika and I were first talking about it, he was like, 'Oh yeah, that's the show.' I first started reading about Stede and how he befriended Blackbeard and we don't know why. Very quickly, it was like, 'Oh, it's a romance.'"

Polygon - Mar 25, 2022 - with Tasha Robinson - Link

Discusses 3-season intent - "I think three seasons is good. I think we could do it in three."

Discusses acts within S1 - "To me, when you see him get stabbed, and the blood runs through his fingers, it’s like 'Oh, no, the clown got stabbed! And not comedy-stabbed, he got stabbed stabbed!' That to me is cool. And then having Blackbeard find him as the end of what would be the first act of our story felt good to me."

Discusses kiss scene filming and the national moment around gay rights

What to focus on a rewatch - "I think Con O'Neill does such a great job. He's such a complex character, and it's such a tortured relationship. And that's a love story too, between him and Blackbeard. It's a very dysfunctional story, but it's fun to watch. Watch that maybe, on a rewatch, looking where their relationship ultimately goes."

TV Insider - Mar 25, 2022 - with Meaghan Darwish - Link

Discusses show pitch - "When I was pitching [the show] to people, I'd be like, 'Okay, so it's about Stede and Blackbeard, and then they hit it off and then they fall in love.' And then people are like, 'Okay, cool,' Jenkins shares. "And then they really fall in love, and become intimately involved."

Discusses historical inspiration

Discusses S2 direction - "But when [Stede] goes to find [Blackbeard], he's gone and his crew's been abandoned. And so watching them try to negotiate that, that's a good rom-com beat," he adds.

The Verge - Apr 15, 2022 - with Charles Pulliam-Moore - Link

Discusses being surprised by queerbaiting legacy - "...part of me knew that, yes, Stede and Ed's romance was going to be real. But one part of me felt like, 'We're going to do this story, and they're going to kiss, and maybe that's not even going to be that big a deal. Maybe it'll just be a blip.'"

Discusses writing romance - "I'd never written a romance before this one, but I think with Ed and Stede, the question's always 'what's the need for each other?'"

Discusses falling in love and Stede's accidental seduction - "It made sense to have that love be almost like a teenage version of falling in love — one with all these intense and conflicting feelings. They're middle-aged, but Stede's young. Ed's young. Emotionally, they're like 16, and they've both got a lot to learn."

Discusses Con O'Neill as Izzy - "He plays an exhausted quality that's really lovely because this character could just be generically evil, and the way Con plays, it is like, he's credible. I believe that he can do some damage if he wanted to. My favorite thing I've seen about the show is somebody saying that Con's playing the only human with a bunch of Muppets. It does feel like that a bit where he's like Charles Grodin in The Great Muppet Caper."

On Izzy being in love with Blackbeard - "I think Izzy's deeply in love with Blackbeard, and it's a very dysfunctional kind of love, and he's like the jilted spouse who's losing his man to fucking Stede Bonnet, and he can't believe this is happening."

Discusses masculinity and piracy as an escape from that

Discusses diversity and trauma based stories - "And the consensus in that very diverse room was that we wanted to show that isn't just wallowing in trauma. We don't have to do a coming out scene or focusing on the trauma of it — not to say that those stories aren’t valid."

Gizmodo - Jun 20, 2022 - with Linda Codega (io9) - Link

Musing on fandom response to the show - "I'm wondering if the fact that because the queerness of this show isn't gaslighting the audience, and isn't a function of wanting to do something, but not being able to produce the results because of network standards. I think we just happened to be in this lucky spot where the show is actually queer… and I do think that people are responding to that."

Comparing fanfiction to writing - "And Con O'Neill's audition was one of those things I would go back to. I would watch that and be like… Oh, right, that's the show. And in a way, you're writing fanfiction for a certain actor and character because you want them to do something, and you're like–" at this point, it must be said, Jenkins let out a maniacal little giggle. He’s just as thrilled to show off Con O'Neill's ability to seem both deeply exhausted and menacing as the rest of the fandom. "And you [as the writer] you're like… And then Izzy does this now."

EW.com - Dec 13, 2022 - with Devan Coggan - Link

Discusses The Chain sequence - "I had initially wanted that end sequence to be like the FBI raid in a mob movie, where the feds come in, and they've got boxes of stuff, and everyone's running, and someone makes a dash for it," Jenkins explains. "So, it's like a mob movie or FBI raid story, and then it's also a story of Stede's lover coming back."

Pre-S2

Collider - Oct 2, 2023 - with Carly Lane - Link

Discusses fan reaction to S1 - "I thought that they'd kiss, and people would be like, 'Oh, cool, cool!' I kind of thought people would know a little bit more [about] where we were going, but then in hindsight, no, people have been hurt and burned on so many other shows and then made to feel silly."

Discusses starting S2 dark - "One of these characters is very, very damaged and has never made himself vulnerable in this way before, and I don't think [he] would react very well to having his heart broken in this way. I don't think it would be cute, and I don't think it would be funny. I think it would be scary as hell to watch a very damaged guy that we've established in Ed, who killed his dad and thinks he's not capable of being loved, deal with rejection and see that Stede really hurt him."

Discusses adding more female characters

Discusses S2 needle drops including "This Woman's Work"

Discusses 3-season arc

Post 2x01 - 2x03

Mashable - Oct 5, 2023 - with Belen Edwards - Link

Discusses fandom response to S1

About the canon gay relationship - "To watch the explosion of enthusiasm around [the kiss] was disorienting, almost," Jenkins said. "I thought people would react to it, but I didn't think the reaction would be that big. And then it was moving, because I didn't realize that this audience felt so unserved in general, as far as storylines go."

Insider - Oct 5, 2023 - with Ayomikun Adekaiyero - Link

Tease on leaning into the Stede / Ed / Izzy love triangle - "I think Izzy, in a certain way, got the worst deal in the first season," the showrunner tells Insider. "He gets jilted and then he still is in spurned spouse territory at the beginning of the second season."

Discusses Izzy's arc - "What is that relationship about? And I think by the end of the season it kind of becomes a little unexpected of who they are to each other and what they mean to each other," he teases

Discusses addition of Zheng - "He likens Zheng's way of pirating to a successful tech startup, compared with the garage sale vibe Stede had going on the Revenge."

Discusses introducing Hornigold - "I thought Hornigold was the most obvious because he was the person who made Blackbeard what he is. And Blackbeard has a father complex, so it's natural that he's going to bring his former captain back," the show creator said. "It's a struggle with him because he and dad figures don't historically do well."

Discusses importance of the mermaid scene

Inverse - Oct 5, 2023 - with Hoai-Tran Bui - Link

Reveals he didn't commit to the romance until shooting 1x06 - "Jenkins always intended his pirate comedy to end with a romance, but he'd envisioned it as an unrequited love. "It was going to be about Stede learning what love is, and Ed making himself vulnerable and getting burned," Jenkins says of his original pitch. But Darby and Waititi's choices in the scene, which they played without diffusing the tenderness with a joke, made him wonder if they could take the show in a new direction."

Discusses mermaid Stede idea from S1 - "We talked about Stede as a mermaid very early on in the writers' room," Jenkins says. "At some point, yeah, I want to see Rhys Darby as a merman." + "They wanted us to come up with a Season 2 pitch during Season 1. And that was one of the ideas we hit on, and I can't quite remember how we got there, but it was us asking, what is a pirate world? Are there mermaids? Is there magic in this show? With pirate stuff, I don’t know that I want there to be magic, but there was a way where it was something really beautiful about a mer-person, and I like the idea that their coming together would have a mythic size to it."

Discusses historical divergence

Discusses matelotage and pirates as weird outsiders

TV Guide - Oct 5, 2023 - with Allison Piccuro - Link

About the shipping culture - "It's the meat of the show, so it's great to have people bought into the central romance. If it were a bromance that we were trying to make look like a romance, that would suck."

Discusses playlists he makes

Discusses opening dream sequence - "I just like that it started with something badass. Stede, Blackbeard, and Izzy are on an arc together. Whether they're in stories together or not, their ultimate arc is together. I think, by the end of this season, the last episode, that first scene will be gratifying. I won't say why, but their fates are tied together."

Discusses Kraken arc - "But I think the thing that's good about this show is that it can go to really sweet comedy land, but I want there to be, like, if someone loses a body part, for instance, they lose a body part. To do justice to the fact that this guy is a killer and a monster, and dealing with heartache that he doesn't know how to deal with, I think you really need to go there."

Discusses Izzy in S2 - "I mean, he's jilted. He had a partnership with Blackbeard, and he knows he can't live up to this person that Blackbeard fell in love with... Who is that guy? What are his hobbies? What does it look like when he's not totally subsumed with his boss's love affair with somebody, and heartbroken?"

On S2 reunion - "The second season is them being a little bit more mature... It's the thing where you're in your 20s or 30s and you're like, "Well, should we move in together?" They have to make up some time because neither of them have been in a functional relationship before."

About genre of pirate stories - "...is a show about multiple relationships. That's what I want to see when I see this show. I don't want to see a bunch of pirate things that I've seen in other things, I'll just go watch another thing if I want to see that. That's not really my thing. I like the genre, but it's a very hard genre to budge. I want to see relationships in a pirate world."

Discusses the A Star is Born aspect of seeking fame / retiring

Mashable - Oct 7, 2023 - with Belen Edwards - Link

About the mermaid scene - "You need something expressive for when they come back together," Jenkins said. "Their reunion moment has to feel big and mythical. This is not a world where mermaids actually exist, but their love for each other has that size that you can get [a mermaid] in there somewhere."

About Kate Bush - "I love Kate Bush, and I love that song, and I know Taika loves that song," Jenkins explained of the choice. "So I wanted to find a place for that song somewhere in the second season."

Polygon - Oct 9, 2023 - with Tasha Robinson & more - Link

Compares S2 and "Golden Age of Piracy" stuff to Westerns, lists 5 he was thinking of - "Every Western that’s good is that story," Jenkins says. "'This way of life we made is coming to an end. It can't last. It's a blip in time. We created this thing because we need it to exist. We're outlaws, and we need a culture that suits us, but it's running out of time.'"

Gizmodo - Oct 9, 2023 - with Linda Codega (io9) - Link

Short tease on leaning into the love triangle

About Stede, Edward, and Izzy - "I think the three of them are on an arc together that's pretty inseparable," Jenkins said in an interview with io9. "And to watch Izzy try to process what's happened [in season one]… to watch him kind of grow and figure out what's his own story, if he can separate himself from this kind of toxic relationship, is interesting to me and I think gives him a lot of room for growth."

Post 2x04 - 2x05

IndieWire - Oct 12, 2023 - with Sarah Shachat - Link

Discusses directing and show creation

"The limitations of the show also naturally push it back towards moments with the ensemble and plot problems that it would frankly be irresponsible to tackle if you had a giant budget and a fully working ship-of-the-line to sail and then blow to bits. "That's the fun of the show to us, I think. If you open this up and you're like, unlimited budget, that would be terrible because I think you can get seduced," Jenkins said. "[It could be like,] 'Oh man, it's all leading up to a climatic battle on the sea.' And those things are great. But that’s not this show.""

"The nice thing about that, though, is you get to be the lo-fi show that’s like, 'Hey, we’re making The Muppets.'"

PopSugar - Oct 12, 2023 - with Victoria Edel - Link

About S2 Stede - "I like the idea that he learns and grows and he doesn't just stay a bumbling captain. He might be ridiculous, but he is getting better at it."

Discusses genre challenges - "How do you have a show that's a romance show but it's also a workplace show and they're criminals?"

Discusses Edward's redemption - "But Blackbeard still has to come back and apologize and be part of the community again, and give his little press conference. It was fun for us to look at that in the context of piracy, where they all do terrible things to each other. But even by their standards, what Blackbeard did was a bit much."

Discusses Izzy in S2 - "When Izzy shoots Blackbeard and they all mutiny on him, that's Izzy breaking up with Blackbeard. And they're both having their own journey in the wake of it, and Izzy's having his own redemption arc. He's trying to figure out, "Who am I if I'm not Blackbeard's first mate? Who am I outside of this relationship?"" + "If Stede's Spongebob, he's Squidward. I don't know what that makes Blackbeard. But there's a real pathos to Squidward."

Discusses trauma-based narratives - "As a diverse room in terms of sexuality, socio-economic background, and race, we thought, "Wouldn't it be nice to have a non-trauma-based story for these characters who don't get that historically?""

Variety - Oct 13, 2023 - with Hunter Ingram - Link

Discusses three act structure and making Stede work for a relationship - "The way I like to look at a season is in threes. The end of the first act is when they find each other, and this is the beginning of the second act. They've found each other, but they are pissed. Stede thought it was going to be [Kate Bush's] “This Woman's Work,” but, in reality, it is this headbutt –– literally."

Discusses the central romance - "It was always part of the pitch... that is the reason to make the show. The pirate genre is fun, but I wasn’t dying to make a pirate show. Taika wasn’t dying to make a pirate show. But the thing that was interesting to me was that Stede finds love, and he finds it with Blackbeard."

Discusses 2x04 plot - "This episode is based on a very, very thumbnail sketch of "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?." Anne and Mary are Martha and George, and they are Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton."

Discusses adding historical pirates

Discusses Buttons exit - "I just love the idea of him turning into a bird: I love the idea of Buttons somehow being the one character that is able to figure that out."

Discusses Izzy and the crew's trauma plot - "We liked the idea that there is something about trauma and getting past that trauma, even on a pirate ship. They have been through two very different ways of living and they have to get used to each other again. But it's also a family that was separated, and becoming one family again is painful."

Discusses bringing characters back - "We could bring Calico Jack back, who, if you remember, was hit by a cannonball last season. Anyone who is that fun to play with and wants to keep playing, you always find a way to bring them back."

Polygon - Oct 14, 2023 - with Tasha Robinson - Link

Discusses 3-season arc and how keeping them apart with some plot device was never in the cards - "at the end of the first season, they're 14-year-olds, emotionally. In this season, it's more like they’re in their late 20s."

Discussing New Zealand production and ensemble cast writing - "It's pretty organic, because as we're going through and tracking everybody's journey for the season, we're watching the thing that holds us together — what stage of Stede and Blackbeard's relationship are we in? Because the overarching arc is, are these guys going to learn how to settle into a relationship?"

"The second season is more overtly about romance, and more a relationship story."

Energizing aspect of fan reaction

S3 is about "love is work"

Gizmodo - Oct 16, 2023 - with Linda Codega (io9) - Link

About the story - "I want to see them become a functional couple or fail to become a functional couple," Jenkins said. "Those are the most interesting parts of the show."

Discusses fandom engagement - "...ultimately the writers are also "the fans in the room." He goes on to say that, "We're fans of the world. We're writing fanfic about our own characters, our own worlds… It's paid fanfic, but it's fanfic." He gives another example: "If you're writing a season of Succession, you're writing fanfic Succession. You're just getting paid to do it. We, as writers–" it's clear that he's not just talking about the writers in the writers room, "become fans of the world and we all have things we want to see these characters do. What we do is not that different."

Discusses the A Star is Born aspect of seeking fame / retiring

Discusses Zheng Yi Sao

Villains of the series - There are a lot of new villains this season, but, Jenkins says, ultimately, "the antagonist on this show is normalcy… These pirates have a way of life that they're not finding in normal life. They've found a way to live and support each other and be there for each other. And that's always threatened by these larger, tyrannical forces that want to shut them down."

Post 2x06 - 2x07

Mashable - Oct 19, 2023 - with Belen Edwards - Link

Discussing drag performance in 2x06

"It is nice to see with Izzy's arc, where he finally breaks through whatever he's been doing to himself. He lets himself have that moment, which I just love. It resonates for Izzy, and I think it resonates for Con. Just personally, it made me feel good to see how it turned out."

Consequence - Oct 19, 2023 - with Liz Shannon Miller - Link

Discusses intent for romance - "...telling a love story in a serialized medium like television has its perils, largely because it's tough to know how much you can draw out any unresolved tension. "I think we take it episode by episode and we try to not piss people off in taking too long and doing double beats and triple beats," Jenkins says. "You can only do Will They or Won’t They for so long. Then you have to deepen it.""

Discusses pirate setting - "The emphasis on relationships also fits into the show's high-seas setting, which Jenkins finds similar to post-apocalyptic narratives. "It is a little bit like you're doing Mad Max, except there's relationships," he says. "Stuff's shitty, so you gotta try to find some joy. Of course, people are going to have a need for each other in these extreme circumstances, and I like the idea of these characters finding some level of a healthy relationship in these extreme circumstances.""

Discusses Jim x Archie

Discusses 3-season arc

Polygon - Oct 21, 2023 - with Tasha Robinson - Link

Discussing gender and power dynamics in Jackie x Swede / Zheng x Oluwande / Blackbeard x Stede + A Star is Born aspect

Jim not being jealous of Oluwande - "I think that relationship was always seen in the room as a friend relationship that got romantic."

About adding a villain - "I think a lot of the internal forces in Our Flag are the villains." + "I think this is a story about the age of piracy coming to an end. This way of life is coming to an end. And every Western that's good is that story: This way of life we made is coming to an end, and it can't last. […] I think every story about outlaws is about trying to preserve a way of life against normative forces that are kind of fascistic."

Historical accuracy - "The balance of the show is 90% ignoring history, and then 10%, bring it in, whenever we're like, Ah, gotta move the story forward! Remember, the English are out there, and they're really bad!"

Post 2x08

AV Club - Oct 26, 2023 - with Saloni Gajjar - Link

Killing Izzy was always the plan - "We wanted to show the depth of that character. Izzy is one of my favorites. He's like middle management who is in a sort of love triangle [in season one]."

Discusses how they really wanted the happy ending for S2 - "I think with season one's end, it was a gamble to leave it the way it was. Everybody stomached through it. Now if it turned out they didn't want us to make more, I just didn't want to have another story where the same-sex love story ends in tragedy, unrequited love, or if one or both of them are being punished."

Discusses S2 progressing the 3-season romance - "They’re a couple who is like in their late twenties right now as opposed to being teens at the end of season one." + "It was an interesting tension of, which one gives up their dream? A lot of times in relationships questions can come up, like who is going to give up on their dream to take care of the kids? Obviously, no one wants to, but someone ends up giving up more than they want to at some point. What's wonderful about a mature romance, and what I'd want to see more of in season three, is Ed and Stede making these tough decisions." + progressing past the getting together point

Discusses parallels, Republic of Pirates, and Zheng Yi Sao

Short bit about fan response

Collider - Oct 26, 2023 - with Carly Lane - Link

Discusses Ed leaving fishing - "I like that he had a little prima donna moment where he thought he could go and be a simple man, and then it's revealed that he really isn't a simple man; he's a complicated, fussy, moody guy. No, he's not gonna be able to catch fish for a living. For him to be told that, "At your heart, you're a pirate. You have to go back and do it," he doesn't want that to be true, but it was true."

Discusses Izzy's speech to Ricky - "I wanted to give Izzy a proper eulogy for himself. He gives a eulogy for himself, but it felt true writing it."

Discusses Izzy's death scene - "In a way, it's very much for Ed, that speech. The "we were Blackbeard" is claiming that he is also Blackbeard, that Blackbeard is not just Ed’s creation, and I like that for him, too, because he's worked so hard for that — and then just to say, "You can give it up." There can never be a Blackbeard again as far as Izzy's concerned because he's dying, and they did that together."

Discusses Republic of Pirates / music parallels from premier to finale

Discusses finale wedding - "We knew we wanted a matelotage in the season, which is the real term they had for marrying crew members. And yeah, they've always been in relief to Stede and Ed, and they're a little bit ahead of Stede and Ed in how much they can talk about things. So to have a bunch of family things in the season, like a funeral and a wedding, and have the parents kind of watch the kids sail away, felt right, and all of those things seem to work well together and build on each other."

Discusses retirement ending - "That will-they-or-won't-they is interesting to a point, but the real meat of it is always like, "Can they make the relationship, and can they do better than Anne and Mary?""

"Frenchie's in charge of the Revenge" + teases Stede struggling to give it up

EW.com - Oct 26, 2023 - with Devan Coggan - Link

Discusses Izzy's death and telling Con - "It feels like the logical end of Izzy's arc. It's heartbreaking to me because he's my favorite." + "I told him in the middle of shooting because I didn't want him to find out at the table read, obviously. I also didn't want it to leak. He was lovely about it."

Discusses Izzy's final arc - "You know, I didn't expect him to become kind of a father figure to Ed. I think we hit on that while we were breaking the [final] episode. He's in such a weird position: He's like a jilted lover, and then he's a middle manager who has to work for a terrible boss. He gets thrown away, and then he comes back. He really develops, and he becomes a part of this family. I think the biggest surprise was the extent that he was a mentor to Ed. They were both Blackbeard. They both made Blackbeard happen."

Discusses the happy ending intent - "With this season starting so dark, I kind of wanted to reward them for the work that they've done and the character growth that they've had. I wanted to leave them in a place where they're really going to try and make this work. I don't think it's going to be easy for them, necessarily. They're both still immature."

Discusses the wedding - "We knew we wanted a matelotage in the second season, and pretty quickly we landed on Lucius and Black Pete. It seems like they were ready for that. We made up a ceremony and everything, where they call each other mateys, and it was just fun to make our own version of a pirate wedding ceremony."

Discusses potential S3 and Frenchie's Revenge - "But it felt like a good place to end the second season. It felt like a contrast to the first season. If it turns out we don't make any more, I'm comfortable with that being a resting place."

Variety - Oct 26, 2023 - with Hunter Ingram - Link

S3 endpoint - "I love things in threes," he says. "That first act, second act, third act structure is so satisfying when it is done well, and you don't overstay your welcome. I think this world of the show is a big world, and if the third season is successful, we could go on in a different way. But I think for the story of Stede and Ed, that is a three-season story."

Discusses the draw of a "Golden Age" and it's ending

Talks about father figure Izzy and wanting a real sense of loss - "There is a nice parallel to have Ed treat him so badly at the beginning of the season and then come all the way around to where Izzy is this sort of father figure he doesn’t want to lose — because Ed usually kills his father figures."

Gizmodo - Oct 26, 2023 - with Linda Codega (io9) - Link

Teasing future Izzy - "Jenkins looked slightly sad himself, saying that "Ghosts exist in this world." I told him not to make promises he couldn't keep."

"Jenkins said that he doesn't see Izzy as a pure antagonist in season one because on some level… Izzy was right in his hesitations about Stede."

Discussing Con O'Neill & Rhys Darby acting

Jenkins confirms the season was always 8 episodes due to budget cuts

About S2 finale vs S3 - "The first season ends on such a downer, so it made sense to end the second season in a kinder spot." + "I think there's plenty of story left for season three, but I think that it was important to end this as if it was the end of the show, and on upbeat note and avoid the kind of "kill your gays" trope. I don't want to see Stede and Ed punished for giving it a go. I want to see them really say, 'yeah, we’re going to we're going to try to have a relationship'."

Teases S3 revenge against Ricky and going to the Americas

Vanity Fair - Oct 26, 2023 - with Sarah Catherall - Link

About the ending - "It's bittersweet. There's death and there's the rebirth of Stede and Blackbeard's relationship; there's a funeral, there's a wedding, and the idea that this family is going to keep fighting even as they lose members. And then it's about belonging to something." + "A lot of times, with this narrative of characters, same-sex relationships end on a dour, downbeat note, where one of them dies and it's unrequited or it's unrealized; something horrible happens and they're punished in a way. So it was important to leave it open and a lot more show to go, but also leave it in a place where it's happy."

Discusses Izzy as a mentor / father figure - "We felt like Izzy's story had reached its conclusion, where we put him through enough. And then there was the realization that he is kind of a mentor to Blackbeard and that he is kind of a father figure to Blackbeard." + "And it's also a pirate show, so he's got to die."

Discusses filming challenges - "It's a big show; it's basically a one-hour show that we're doing on a half-hour budget."

Discusses adding Zheng Yi Sao

Is the show a queer romance? - "For this show, it's important to me just to write a really bold-bodied romantic show that happens to be between two characters of the same sex. I think that the story beats don't matter, because if you've been in love and you've been hurt and you met someone you love—hopefully we all know what those feelings are."

Blackbeard's arc in S2 - "...the second season is about Blackbeard's midlife crisis. And then when they both have their midlife crises, they can open a B&B together." + "I don't think Stede and Blackbeard are ready to be married. They're emotionally saying: 'Let's give this a go.'"

Discusses historical piracy as "counterculture" that's been straightwashed and whitewashed

Did he feel responsibility to the fan community? - "As opposed to responsibility, it feels more like relief—that people feel seen and they feel good about it and they liked what we did. And so it feels like, Okay, somebody's out there and wants the show. The makeup of the writers room looks a lot like the makeup of the fan base. So as long as we're true to our stories in the writers room, I think we just feel excited that there's somebody waiting on the other end to enjoy it."

Paste Magazine - Oct 26, 2023 - with Tara Bennett - Link

Discusses whether fandom expectations felt weighty - "I think particularly for this season, that "bury your gays" thing… I didn't want to end on a downbeat for Ed and Stede. We did that in the first season. I like that there's a lot of different flavors. It's even a little melancholy because the Republic of Pirates got blown up. But there's still more good things."

Discusses production and plotting - "I wanted to start at the Republic of Pirates this season and end at the Republic of Pirates. And I knew I wanted the Republic of Pirates to be destroyed, ultimately. Within that, we are making a one-hour show on a half hour budget, on a half hour schedule."

Discusses planning the ending - "In terms of ending this season, it all felt right just in talking through it when we were in the room. It felt pretty intuitive. When you get to the third act of the story, things kind of settle in. There's gonna be a funeral. We always knew we wanted a wedding at the end of the second season. And I knew that I wanted Stede and Ed to start an inn together. So once you have those beats, it's kind of locked in."

Discusses Izzy's arc - "It's kind of a strange arc in that I knew we were going to put him through all these things, and I knew he would ultimately die. But I think him becoming a father figure to Ed in the last episode didn't really dawn on us until we were breaking the last episode. Asking what would this man say to Ed at the end because they've been together through everything? He went from a troubled and downtrodden employee to a jilted lover to a discarded employee, to someone that is just trying to find his footing again—no pun intended—to actually becoming this guy's parental figure on some level. And he's one person who kind of raised Ed right, because Blackbeard usually kills his parental figures. So, it felt right and it felt like that's how the mentor dies. The mentor in a story usually dies in the second act and then our hero has to go on and try to do it without them. It felt like the right journey for Izzy and a gratifying one for Con."

On leaving open for S3 - "I don't think it was a very hard thing to do. I think it was more that I felt a responsibility to leave Ed and Stede in a good place, at least for now. It's not gonna go well. They're not going to run a business well. Ed's too much of a talker. Stede can't focus. It's gonna be challenging."

Vulture - Oct 28, 2023 - with Sophie Brookover - Link

Discussing Izzy as a "father figure" and his S2 send-off being a priority

Meaning of piracy - "...what our pirates stand for is a life of belonging to something larger than they are in the face of a crushing, slightly fascist normalcy."

Re: Con O'Neill & Izzy's death - "I had to tell him about halfway through the season"

Third season about the work of a relationship between still damaged main characters

Discusses middles as about change and transitions, and wanting characters to change instead of reset, have them experience permanent consequences

About the final scene - "...Ed and Stede as the parents kind of watching the kids take the ship. Frenchie's the captain now..."

Objective of the crew - "...have had terrible things happen to them at the hands of colonial forces, so they want some payback. Party, plunder, and payback — the three P's."

Metro Weekly - Nov 1, 2023 - with Randy Shulman - Link

Discusses historical premise of S1 and easing into the romance

Discusses S2 genre - "In the second season, it was great because we know it's a romance and we can lead with that. It's a workplace show essentially. I wanted it to be more in the vein of early episodes of Grey's Anatomy or something where there are all these relationships on those shows. That's what you’re following — relationships and friendships that are taking place in a hospital, procedural. That's Grey's Anatomy. This is less procedural for the pirate stuff — and you need the pirate stuff."

Discusses not being into pirates - "But I'm like you. I'm not a big pirate person. In general, it's a big creaky genre that's hard to budge" + "Pirates of the Caribbean, those movies are great. That's not necessarily what I hunger to see, but in that genre, it's great. You're not going to beat that, especially on something that's lower budget. We've seen a lot of this stuff, so it's fun to take it then and don't do any of that stuff."

Discusses adapting historical piracy - "You don't want to see them punch down. You don't want to see them do terrible things to people who don't deserve it, which is not what they really did. So, in the show's world, I think piracy is like a stand-in for something. I think it's a stand-in for being an iconoclast and an outsider and queer in some ways and just different." + "Yeah, I mean, the British are there to be Stormtroopers, or Nazis in an Indiana Jones movie. I mean, they're in there to die essentially."

Discusses diversity staffing

Discusses performative masculinity

Discusses Izzy's death, happy endings, and openness to S3

[jesse-cosay]

Does anyone else think about how Tulip was avoiding look at her hand and subsequently her number.

And only got over that fear because of Lake.

And Lake was constantly look at their hand and their lack of number?

[prettyboykatsuki]

ill never really hate on facebook / wine mom type humor cause sometimes that grown lady posting minion memes are the only to keep in touch with reality. she replies to all of your texts with the 🤣😂 combo and she’ll just sit and talk shit with you about whatever

[kaxtwenty]

I love how Qimir aka Darth Teeth was all like “I just want freedom to use my powers how I wish, the Jedi are the big meanies here,” when anyone who’s paid even slight attention to how Sith work knows that he just wants to use his powers to commit genocide and enslave people.

That’s it.

Qimir believes he’s oppressed because the Jedi won’t allow him to murder and enslave people as he pleases. Because he, like every Sith, is a fascist.