#no hate for OFMD or the fandom :)

[hell0mega]

it's incredible that tumblr fandom went from DESPERATELY trying to see ANY sort of queer love in the shows we liked, to having shows—high budget, well-made, interesting, mainstream shows staring known actors—that are ABOUT queer love. explicitly, without argument. and just ten years later.

i saw (and reblogged) a post about how GO, ofmd, and wwdits are the new superwholock and i havent stopped thinking about it. cuz i was there, i was in the trenches back in the day. i was there when the writers and actors made fun of us for seeing on screen chemistry and perfect stories to set up romances. they all humored us then shat on us and saw us as a joke. a bunch of weirdo faggy teens that don't think two men can just be friends.

and now look at us. we're seeing the on screen chemistry and it's REAL. it's ON PURPOSE. these ARE romantic stories about queer people. we're not projecting or have wishful thinking... it's TRUE!! it was written and directed and edited and acted that way in earnest. i will take NO SHIT regarding these shows and people's love for them.

and do you know WHY these shows are being made now? these well thought out, feels-real, non-pandering queer stories? it's BECAUSE OF WHAT WE DID ten+ years ago. a lot of queer media never got the green light to be made because execs don't think there's enough of an audience. that more people will dislike the gays than like them. and we've shown them that that's unequivocally untrue. the outcry we had for all those years, the reviews we left, the statements we made, the backlash, it gave show runners ammunition to say "hey. people will watch this. they will like it. let us make it."

[thence-we-came-forth]

Posting my second gift for this year's @fandomtrumpshate this time for @at-delphi!

I gotta say I loved working on this since Izzy is a character I held close to my heart (and drawing Jim and Wee John is always a bonus, too)

Anyway, enjoy!

[bookshelfdreams]

fr if "this is no longer the queer joy show" for you, idk what to tell you. maybe next time try engaging with the actual story instead of the version of it you made up in your head

[snake-snack-stede]

the reason I keep coming back to this fandom is the love. I love y’all and I love the gay pirates and I love the cast and crew. I love this space we’ve created. it’s worth it to keep coming back.

[toboldlymuppet]

no need for seduction when you've always had me

[babymapleleaf]

Little Stede definitely strikes me as a "why can't the world just be good" type of kid, but in the way that sometimes concerns the bigs around him. Sometimes he's like "why do people have to fight? Why can't we all just be nice to each other :(" which is perfectly normal and every kid thinks that. But other times he's like "I don't think food should cost any money so I'm just going to take it" and Ed has to practically keep him on a leash to stop him from following through

[unicorndeathrace]

Once again Con O'Neil went on a stage and said how much he loves the writers and director of OFMD, how much he loves filming his death scene and how he understood that Izzy needed to die and once again the Canyon are tying themselves up in knots about it and completely disregarding his words. No, he is not being forced to say these things for fear of blacklisting. Babes, this is the guy who posts FUCK THR TORIES on a daily basis in comic sans on Instagram. Do you really think he would give a shit about blacklisting? Be for fucking real. At some point you just have to accept that the guy who played your blorbo DOESN'T THINK LIKE YOU. And thank fuck for that actually.

[ladyluscinia]

It will never stop amazing me (in a morbid fascination way) that every once in a while the shambling corpse of the ofmd fandom makes some noise and it's always - always - more warriors of the same faux-purity culture ship war that drove the whole fandom to eat itself alive and implode over the course of a single hiatus. How are they still doing this? They hate this character and any ship involving him so much they have made tags uninhabitable, harassed out every "problematic" fan they could and basically killed the fandom in the process, and now apparently a few of them are experimenting with active homophobia against his queer actor for being a "bad" queer (liking the character he played). They're running a toxic thoughtcrime surveillance state on an abandoned ghost town. And still innovating new ways to be more toxic about it!

It's absolutely bonkers 🙃

[plantsjustwannahavefun]

I keep seeing so many people here getting angry that this season is "vilifying Ed", and it's depressingly fascinating to see how others can watch the same show and somehow see something completely different. Is it simply the lack of media literacy? Is it the inability to appreciate and enjoy complex, nuanced, morally grey characters without willfully blocking out anything even slightly unpalatable about them to the point where the character they think they love isn't really that character anymore?

Because, uh... Season 1 already "vilified" Ed plenty. Except "vilify" is the wrong word, of course. It wasn't in any way malicious or mean-spirited, quite the contrary, it was often played as comedic (until the end of episode 10 when it was anything but) - Ed was always meant to be a sympathetic character, he's a protagonist after all, and the show's portrayal of him is very compassionate. It merely refused to sugarcoat or shy away from his darker side. He's literally history's most famous pirate, you don't become one by being nice and treating everyone gently. He ambushed and strangled his own father to death when he was like 9 years old (100% deserved and justifiable ofc, but it still bears saying it out loud like this just to comprehend how unhinged this actually was). He loves torturing and maiming people for fun, and sometimes even animals (that scene with forcing a turtle to fight a crab). He didn't give a fuck about his crew members dying to satisfy his whim to meet Stede. He entirely failed in his role as a captain in ep 4. He effectively played a double agent with Izzy and Stede for a while before changing his mind. He attempted to murder Lucius. And while you could try to argue his punishment of Izzy was at least to some degree deserved, not only cutting Izzy's toe off but forcing him to eat went beyond punishment, it was sadistic torture.

So, yeah, please just read all that and take it in. And then remember once again that Ed is also a traumatised, lonely, depressed, sensitive, creative, curious, deeply passionate person yearning for true love and for something different in life... just like Stede. He loves music and can play the piano. He wrote a very vulnerable song and sand his heart out. He likes his tea with seven sugars. He enjoys fashion and dressing up. He has such a limitless sense of wonder for the world. He went on a trek with Stede just to make him happy, even though he hated nature and was in a shit mood that day. He wants to host a talent show. He wants to become free. He's clever and funny and fascinating. I love Ed.

Yes, it's possible to reconcile those two sides of him and accept both sides as the "real" Ed. You have to reconcile the two sides if you want to enjoy him as a character, because if you don't, you're going to either detest him to the core (which would make enjoying the show practically impossible since he's sort of a main character...), or you'll only be able to enjoy a diminished, crippled, cardboard cutout version of his character, which would be such a pity and a massive disservice to the creators of this show who worked hard to create interesting, multidimensional characters.

Not to mention you'd be missing one of the core messages of the show - the idea that people still deserve love and can be loved even if they're imperfect, or not necessarily good people. Because love is a human condition. It's not a sole dominion of "good" people. "Bad" people can fall in love too - even if, just like them, that love isn't exactly "nice" or "pure", and neither are the relationships that stem from it. They can be messy and exasperating. But "bad" people can also grow and change because of it. That's what OFMD is ultimately about - growth and change, learning to accept yourself but also become better. That can't happen if the character is already 100% perfect the way they are.Ed is far from that. So is Izzy. They can both become better, and they both still deserve compassion and understanding, because that's the environment people need to become better.

So, if you're mad that at the start of S2 the crew are sympathetic to Izzy's suffering and want to help him instead of kicking him when he's down, and what Ed did to him is being acknowledged as cruel and wrong... congratulations, you have completely missed what OFMD is all about.

[portraitofadyke]

The ‘Izzy is a victim of abuse and Ed is an abuser’ crowd seems to omit the fact that Izzy sabotaged every shot at happiness Ed ever had and literally SOLD ED’S BEST FRIEND/CRUSH TO THE NAVY TO CERTAIN DEATH

Not only is Izzy just again and again proven to be yet another yt man emotionally abusing and controlling Ed, constantly brings him down and threatens his life until he’s suicidal and becomes the manic Blackbeard Izzy clearly so adores, I would shoot Izzy’s leg off too if he sold my boo to the English just bc I wasn’t paying attention to him

Saying Izzy is just a victim of abuse is very reductive of his character and honestly he would probably spit in your face if he heard you

[sketchy-scribs-n-doods]

steddyhands has me so ruined for any individual izzy ship bc every time i try reading long stizzy fic where ed disappears i inevitably go 'but where's ed? :('

and whenever i read long edizzy fic where stede never pops up i'm inevitably going 'but where stede?? :('

and even when i read ouizzy or sprizzy or fang/ivan/izzy fics etc where izzy is happy while stede and ed are doing their own thing, i'm always a little sad in the back of my mind like 'ed and stede... they don't know?? they don't know the love of izzy?? no kissing first mate??? :((('

(don't get me started on how difficult straight up stede/ed fics are to dig through sometimes, i love the ship to death truly i do, she's the main girlie, but forget crying over where izzy is in their dynamic, i gotta go Entire Work and CTRL+F search izzy's name throughout the fic just to make sure his character isn't getting massacred disney villain style before i get invested in a 50k+ fic at 2am)

my ideal world is one where stede/ed/izzy have sorted their shit out, izzy and frenchie are music boyfriends, izzy shacks up with lucius and pete sometimes for some kissing bitching and gossiping sessions, and izzy and fang have cuddle sessions on the regular

all this ofc alongside archie/jim/olu/zheng's whole thing, whatever frenchie and wee john have going on, lucius' thing with fang, and jackie's continuing recruitment of new husbands to join the swede

in my heart polycrew is real and thriving, we could have had it all dammit

[piratecaptainscaptainpirates]

It's genuinely bizarre to me that the "Ed is destined to become abusive" take is still so popular, even given that Ed's violence in the show is ALWAYS spelled out for us as reactive violence, and I've been wondering what circumstances it would take for Ed to actually be violent towards Stede (not even abusive, because that's not ever going to happen, just violent)

In the show, Ed physically hurts Stede once, with a headbutt in deeply extenuating circumstances. Ed's just come out of a near-death experience, does not know why Stede is there, Stede's all up in his personal space, and Ed cannot speak to communicate (he does TRY, too, before anything else). It's honestly even debateable if Ed meant to headbutt him or if he just sat up too fast; I'm counting the headbutt as intentional because Stede does, later, and I don't think Stede would throw it back at Ed unless he was sure Ed meant to do it.

I think the most likely circumstance under which Ed would ever hurt Stede would be purely unintentional. I could see Ed having an awful nightmare and hitting Stede without being aware of his actions as Stede was trying to wake him up. This would no doubt reinforce the idea of Ed's inehrent monstrosity that he's starting to get past; I could see him refusing to let himself sleep near Stede out of fear afterwards.

And that's all I can think of. When he physically cannot speak and needs a way to communicate "you need to back the fuck up," and if it's by accident. I can't even imagine Ed ever hurting Stede even in self-defense; he's got a strong history of letting people walk all over him, and even when "Ed's got a plan that hinges around needing to kill Stede" was a major plot point, Ed couldn't do it. It's just not happening.

[larphis]

Sometimes I think “God, I am just like Ed” and then I start putting him on a pedestal and make big paragraphs to say that he never did anything wrong in his life and how he’s actually just a very soft person that is hurting deep inside and needs a forehead kiss and then I look in the mirror and realize that I am in fact Stede Bonnet.

[milkymarco7]

Gift for @chocolatepot for this year's FTH. It's genderbent Blackbeard, inspired by one of her fics :]

[dimplyowl]

Hi if you’ve followed me after some negative first mate-related meta I’ve posted you should definitely talk to me. I would like more fandom friends please! Please say hi because I’m too ✨anxiety✨ to reach out

[sixxxer]

the 0fmd news LMFAO