#ofmd is a classic romance and that is the end of it.

[quarterblindsocialworker]

Keeping this on my blog for posterity because I need it. Also fuck but that is properly gorgeous.

Potential 06x02 spoiler? Slightly suggestive content too

I know this season has ✨issues✨ but I still had a great time.

Had to get the Gentlebeard wormies out of my system before getting back to work 😭 I'm so soft

(Ed gets the twink treatment, sorry I don't make the rules)

[dwarf-vader-of-middle-earth]

Honestly the part in the end of S1 for Our Flag Means Death, that scene where Stede and Mary are in bed together and she asks him, "What's her name?" And Stede says, "Ed. His name is Ed."

I think that resonates with me SO hard as a gay man because sexuality is such an exploratory thing for every queer person in that heterosexuality is so enforced in modern society, it's been the predominant default for literal ages, and so we often feel as though we're forced to be heteronormative ourselves.

But then you start to see someone. Maybe that someone knows you, maybe not, maybe you never will know each other and you simply see that person through pictures and media and stories like Stede did Ed (in the beginning, at least). But you question yourself. You start to wonder, and you begin feeling things that... you're supposed to feel in a heterosexual romance. So why do you experience such a draw, a profound attachment, to a person that WOULDN'T be heterosexual?

And I just think how OFMD showed Stede who tried to repair his relationship with Mary, he tried so SO hard to feel something, ANYTHING for her after coming back home, and he just... couldn't. He lay in bed with her and told her, in a position and place of such classic intimacy and therein vulnerability, that he had feelings for someone, and that someone was a MAN. It was Ed. Whom he loves.

This just strikes me so hard because coming out in and of itself is terrifying, it's life-altering, it's liberating, it's beautiful, it's profound. It's intimate in its own way because you allow yourself to be vulnerable to the person you're telling, in a way that physical intimacy could never rival.

And OFMD showed Stede and Mary in the most typical and classical place where physically-intimate acts occur, where vulnerability is always shown most in media, and yet Stede opens up not physically but emotionally and verbally. And he does the most vulnerable thing, expressing his coming out, while in the most vulnerable place.

Yeah. I think about this a lot. I think about how poetic it is, and how profound it is, and just... damn. Yeah.

[olderthannetfic]

https://olderthannetfic.tumblr.com/post/739381076510785536/so-it-seems-our-flag-means-death-has-not-been#notes

I liked OFMD and I'm sad it's not getting renewed, but I agree that the fandom was especially toxic, even by the standards of currently popular slash-heavy fandoms. I wanted to read fic after s1 ended the way it did, and I read a little bit, but along with it having all the tropes that I can't stand in a lot of what is currently big with the MSF crowd (and that I'd been happy to have a reprieve from in my current main M/M fandom), the toxicity of the online fandom discourse made me quickly realize it was one that I was going to discuss among my current-friends-from-other-fandoms who also watched it, and my sister who watches it, and pretty much ignore the rest of the Internet. It was such a perfect storm of everything awful, from people who are overly invested in it to an unhealthy degree (I think I realized I wasn't gonna be active in the larger fandom around a month or so before the s2 renewal announcement, when I saw earnest PSA tweets telling people to "stop threatening suicide in HBO's replies if they don't renew OFMD"), to bombarding and parasocial obsessions with the creators and actors, to all the classic "anti" and purity police crap that plagues anything that gets popular on here.

The fandom it reminds me the most of, honestly, is Yuri on Ice fandom at its peak in early-mid 2017. Again, a show I love, but a fandom I absolutely do not miss. In some ways they are kind of similar shows: ones with canon M/M romances where they were not billed as that, and they were hinted from early on but people didn't trust it due to years of dealing with queerbaiting, where that sort of thing slowly crept up on people and then became the defining feature of how it was discussed everywhere. I wonder if there's a particular level of insanity that that type of thing breeds in its fans - or maybe, more broadly, "canon M/M with a large female fanbase." Like, you don't see this kind of thing in canon M/M stuff that's mostly watched by queer men rather than women, but there are shades of the insanity I also remember from Glee fandom (I was more active on the F/F side of things there, which had its own unhinged drama, but the Klaine vs. anti-Klaine stuff was so explosive that it was hard not to notice it if you were anywhere in that fandom, like a mushroom cloud in the distance). But YOI and OFMD do seem very... singular in the particular kind of obsession that they generate.

And I really wish people would shape the fuck up, because if they're going to act like this over and over again, that's just going to de-incentivize showrunners to make shows like this for that audience.

Driving Con O'Neill off Twitter was one of the worst parts of it, too. There was something so refreshingly earnest about how much he embraced the fandom, even the weirdest parts - saying with regard to NSFW fanart that "art is art" and retweeting stuff like his character in a crop-top that said "babygirl." It was so nice to see an actor who didn't usually have that kind of following embrace it wholeheartedly rather than steering clear. ....And then people had to be awful and creepy and obsessive and he left Twitter. I bet he's going to be a lot more skeptical of dealing with fans in the future!

--

It's not just the canon m/m aspect: it's the wholesomeness.

Yes, yes, they're all evil pirates, I agree, but watching S1 did give me the feeling of something that was supposed to be very progressive and light-hearted in particular ways. I don't think that's bad, but it does tend to attract some very over-sensitive fans with some very rigid expectations.

It's sadly par for the course that one of the random side character actors is the fun one and people are jackasses and desperately want the leads they ship to be the fandomy ones and/or just start creeping on any actor they can get a reaction from.

[our-flag-means-love]

by popular demand (aka the 63 people who voted "yes" in my poll (six months ago oops) for whether or not i should do this)

here's why ofmd is a romcom, beat by beat

so for the purposes of this analysis, the ten stages outlined in this article are what i'm using for reference.

(and for the sake of everyone's dashes, i've added a cut because This Got Long. like, genuinely, 1.6k and 24 images. you've been warned.)

1. Unfulfilled Desire: something important is missing from the love interests' lives.

before the love interests meet, both of their lives are lacking in some way, often in a way they hardly realize. and this unfulfilled desire doesn't have to be romantic love in and of itself, and quite often it's not. and the things missing from ed and stede's lives are not romantic love. not at first.

what stede's missing is skill and structure. to put it bluntly, he has no idea what the fuck he's doing as a pirate, and without the guidance of someone more experienced, he'd likely get himself and his whole crew killed soon.

meanwhile, what ed's missing is interest. he's just about as bored with his life as anyone can be. every day is the same, and he needs something new—a new environment, a new challenge—to bring the spark back into his life.

2. Meet-Cute: the love interests meet, and at first, their personalities clash.

now, granted... in most meet-cutes, one of the protagonists isn't like three-quarters dead and nearly unconscious. but, as we know, ofmd is not like most shows.

but when we fast forward a bit to their real proper first meeting, we can quickly start to see how their personalities differ. in many meet-cutes, the love interests start off on bad terms, but in ofmd it's more of a contrast than a real clash, as stede and ed take a liking to each other right away.

in their very first conversation, stede is self-conscious and fretting, while ed is relaxed as can be. and as they talk, ed is in awe of stede's eccentricities, and stede is in awe of ed's powerful reputation.

and nothing exemplifies their contrast better than what they spend the rest of the episode doing—literally switching clothes and switching roles, getting a taste of what it would be like to be each other.

3. Happy Together: the love interests spend time together and grow to enjoy each other's company.

the classic honeymoon phase—not necessarily denoting romance yet, just a bond that continues to grow stronger the more time they spend together.

one of their first, biggest bonding events, just a few days after they met, is of course the fancy french party. while the night ends in disaster, the two end up much closer after the experiences they shared.

however, i think by far the best example of this stage is the montage at the beginning of episode 6, narrated by none other than my favorite (derogatory) terrible little rat man, izzy hands, who will become relevant soon. in romcoms, this stage is often shown through montages, so it only makes sense that that would be a great demonstration of it here as well.

4. Obstacles Arise: the love interests' original lives and obligations catch back up with them.

it's no longer possible to avoid the hard truths their happiness let them ignore. while both ed and stede go through this, i think stede goes through it differently and at different, non-linear times, so i'll talk about him first.

the pre-edward life that stede has been forcing to the back of his mind is, quite obviously, his wife and children back on land. and he's done a very effective job of ignoring it while he's been around ed.

he was fretting about it before—like in episode 2 with nigel's guilt ghost—but it doesn't seem to fully hit him again until he learns in episode 9 that he'd been declared dead. (in my opinion, the dreams/flashbacks in episode 4 feel less about stede's guilt, specifically, than these other instances do. but even if they are, that's still before he properly met ed.) so he does go through this stage, but it happens in slightly different ways and at different times.

ed, on the other hand, has a very specific and concrete obligation that catches up with him: a promise he made two weeks ago.

this is where izzy comes in. just as mary is the personified symbol of stede's old life, izzy is the equivalent for ed. whether ed initially intended to follow through on the plan or only said it to placate izzy is up for debate (and my personal take is that it's somewhere in between, but that's a story for another time), but izzy is going to hold him to it regardless.

and when ed can't bring himself to do it, because of both his growing feelings for stede and his trauma around killing people himself, izzy is determined to carry out the act for him.

5. The Journey: the love interests face and overcome the obstacles together.

what better way to overcome adversity than by getting thumbtacked to a mast by the same Very Angy Little Guy who's the source of the adversity in the first place? with izzy banished, the biggest obstacle to ed and stede's love is out of the way (for now).

stede still hasn't overcome his big obstacle, of course, but as i said, that happens very non-linearly with regard to the romcom structure.

the two also overcome other minor obstacles, like their bickering during the treasure hunt adventure. the key is that they face what's in their path and settle into a new normal with each other.

6. New Obstacles: despite solutions seeming effective, more hardships arise.

the next big issue thrown into ed and stede's relationship has a name, and its name is calico jack rackham, my favorite (affectionate) dumpster fire of a man. which makes sense—after all, his sole purpose in meeting up with them was to separate them before the english navy arrived. and he does a damn effective job of it.

and even once he's gone, they're still faced with chauncey badminton, stede's near-execution, and his and ed's eventual surrender to the english. they may have escaped chauncey's wrath (for now), but they bought it at the cost of their freedom.

and on top of all of that, now they finally confess their feelings for each other and make plans to run away together, and the choice—really, stede's choice—of whether or not to go through with running off to china looms in the distance. speaking of which…

7. The Choice: the love interests have to decide if the relationship can work.

a turning point is reached, and a decision has to be made. can they go through with it? are they really the best thing for each other?

the choice stede makes here is helped along in no small part by chauncey badminton, whose encounter just solidifies the beliefs stede already held—that he abandoned his family, and that ed is better off without him.

so stede makes the choice to run.

he goes home to his family, and ed is left to return to the ship alone.

8. Crisis: the love interests—now apart—ruminate and face the consequences of their choice.

the winter of their discontent. stede has made his choice, they've separated, and they're both worse off for it.

ed is depressed, retreating to his blanket fort and writing sad songs while eating marmalade.

and meanwhile, stede is back with mary and the kids, but learns that they'd all moved on and were much happier without him around. so he's left trying to force himself back into a space where he no longer fits, and all the while he misses ed more than anything.

and of course, ed takes it one step further by going full emo kraken mode. he's so distraught about stede leaving that he too forces himself back into the shell of what people expect of him—of what he was supposed to be before he even met stede—despite not fitting there anymore.

it's obvious that without each other, they're both in pretty rough shape.

9. Epiphany: one or both of the love interests conclude that they belong together and rush to reunite.

think of this stage as the person running through the airport to reach their love interest before the flight leaves.

in ofmd, it's clear who has the epiphany, because we watch it happen in real time. stede sits down with mary and asks her how it feels to be in love, and while she describes it, all he can think of is his time with ed. he finally realizes that what he's been feeling all along is love.

once he knows this, he knows he has to leave his family again, so he can reunite with ed. he and mary stage their fuckery, and stede rows off in a dinghy bound for wherever ed is, because he knows that as long as he's with ed, he'll be happy and everything will be okay.

10. Resolution: the love interests are reunited. desires are fulfilled, and all is well.

sooo… stay tuned for october 5th, i suppose?

[quarterblindsocialworker]

I love those romance novel covers. I used to pick them by the raunchiest cover and was almost never disappointed. They were all hetero romance, and almost always of that bodice ripper genre, but it's the done thing for "girls" in repressed households who only have access to the public libraries.

Say you'll see me again

Even if it's just in your wildest dreams

Inspired by a truly wild 80s romance novel cover that I just had to turn into Ed's most romantic daydream of Stede

[blysse-and-blunder]

in lieu of a halloween party

~ 10pm, sunday, oct 29, 2023

if i listen really closely i can hear the quiet snoozy breathing of the sweet black cat who now lives in my room! oh, now she is purring.

(contains minor mention of the study of death/dead bodies, but also cat pictures, classical music, and minor spoilers for the end of the most recent season of star trek: strange new worlds)

reading more victoria goddard (blackcurrant fool is somehow *even* *more* for medievalist academics, they visit fantasy university and then the main character saves the day through the power of his dissertation research for crying out loud), some assorted libby holds from jenny odell and amitav ghosh, some kj charles inspired by the medieval mlm romance i finished a few weeks ago (which was great but i was so taken with the idea of posting a whole historical assessment that i scared myself out of talking about it, so maybe next time).

but the book that's been the biggest presence in my life lately has been the audio book version of mary roach's stiff: the curious lives of human cadavers, which i picked up because it had a little Moment back when it came out and i remember thinking that an approachable, sympathetic look at this kind of medical history would be fascinating. and it is! it is just as full of interesting information and humorous, humanizing turns of phrase as you'd like! roach doesn't hesitate to ask, like, intense questions of the people she interviews, nor does she ignore or downplay various gruesome topics, but the audiobook narrator has a hint of a southern accent and gets the mix of tones of voice (from ironic to earnest and back) really nicely. and also, sometimes i'm glad i'm listening to it as an audio book so i don't have to consciously continue turning pages, it'll keep playing even if i stop listening or need to disengage, because there's no shortage of actually quite challenging material. not for the faint of heart, but also, i can't regret reading it.

watching the new season of ghosts from the bbc! the second season of ofmd of course, both because it was fun and because i had to out of self-defense; uhhhh what else this month has been so long and also so fast! the musical episode of strange new worlds which was GREAT. how good were some of those songs!! like on their own, i would listen to nyota and christine and la'an's songs-- reminded me of the mix CD a friend made me for a birthday one year that mixed, like, barenaked ladies with some songs from the buffy musical episode. then the finale of this season which (minor spoilers here) i found actually so compelling, like, i've been mildly ehh about a lot of the gorn stuff (not la'an, but the concept of the gorn always feels very old-school scifi and the more serious they try to play it, the worse that effect usually) but then the monster design and movement when they finally appear on screen? excellent.

though to be entirely honest, the thing i've come back to and watched/listened to most consistently has been the new series of dimension 20, burrow's end. i managed to tune in as a campaign was starting, and actually more or less keep up! huge for me. the bear in ep 2 was all-to-close to some of the body horror i'd just been reading about with stiff, so this month has been 'so you'd like to get better about dealing with body horror?' for me in a way. unintentionally. i think i am appreciating this series more than i would have if i hadn't read and enjoyed watership down a few years back, but the added edge of, like, for-real magic from the d&d elements makes it even more fun. i love the new (to me) players, i love seeing the old ones in their new roles, i love that while the conceit seems to be 'humans are like eldritch horrors to woodland creatures' on the surface, there's also clearly something (or things?) else going on.

listening checking in on my spotify daylist lately to see what moods i've been assigned (soul-crushing once, which was wild to see as a genre, but goblincore also so. whatever i guess!) paper writing lockdown included more autoheart, more yws gwynedd, and like a 24-hour lockdown on @lessthansix's 'deferring panic' playlist, from which i share the following track as a thank-you:

playing tuned into dnd as a virtual player tonight so that i could stay home and supervise the NEW BABY aka this little (large) black dumpling of a cat who i cannot quite believe is my very own. playing such classics as 'ribbon on a string' and 'this is a ball that makes food come out when you play with it, ooooooh' and 'i hope my eyes feel normal again after i stop putting my face directly on you so much and i have not somehow developed an allergy to cat dander in the six weeks since we last had a cat come visit'. playing the classic game, 'so you think you can be responsible for another life form! and are you willing to risk an increase in your experience for loss in order to gain an increase in your experience of love?' (also while we're here: why is naming the hardest part of any endeavor. naming wifi networks, naming pokemon, and now this, a real live creature! who i want to treat with love and also humor, while showing wit and personality at the same time. hell.)

making fixed up a sweater my housemate was going to get rid of. i am not, habitually, a fibercrafter (though not for want of opportunity or, even, interest sometimes), but this made me want to find other easy and quick things to do with yarn.

before: big fuck off hole between the cowl and neck line

after: used some yarn of a similar weight /softness that i already had, so it doesn't match but it's not like you see it. hidden little necklace of pearls.

working on writing a paper for my first ever 30-min conference presentation, which is also going to be the first time i submit a paper ahead of time for someone (a professor i do not usually work with, but whose work and career and writing i admire) to read and give real comments on. this is fine. i am simultaneously trying to use this as an opportunity to squish an entire chapter's worth of notes and observations and ideas into a single presentation, and trying to not do that. but i want her take on all of it! i also...do need to write all of it. but getting a chance to slow down and take a bit of extra time with it was also very welcome. gave a guest lecture this week on a subject only vaguely related to my own work, which required a lot of extra reading (not even to know what to say, but just to be confident that i wasn't missing anything massive), and also did organize my department's halloween party, so. it's been a busy last ten days, and i'm excited to wrap some of this up.

bonus: cat pictures! thank you for reading this far, i think we will be going with luna? her grace, lunette st. cat, first marquise of dumplingdom. something.

[londonspirit]

Our Flag Means Death is special. From creating a surrealist version of the Golden Age of Piracy, to centering a later-in-life coming-out story, to including people or many races, gender identities, abilities, and cool freaking hairstyles, to moving production for season two from LA to New Zealand in order to highlight the beauty of the land, Lord of the Rings-Style, and build a majority Kiwi crew. It’s makes our pop cultural heart swell to see a production being so intentional with its decisions.

But nowhere is that intentionality more apparent than in OFMD’s music. More than just fun, jokey needledrops, each song in Season One acts as a counterpoint to the action, adding emotion and depth to what becomes a surprising queer love story. A lot of the credit for the show’s unique tone can go to Music Supervisor Maggie Phillips and her team. Leah Schnelbach recently got to speak with Maggie about baroque pop, “The Beautiful Ones”, making “the non-obvious choice”, and—the long-awaited SEASON TWO.

Season two debuts on Max in the U.S. on October 5, and Neon on October 6 and is coming soon to Sky Open in New Zealand.

(This interview has been lightly edited for clarity.)

How do you start? Do you get the script and let you mind wander, or do you pick a period and do a deep dive on songs from a period?

Maggie Phillips: It depends on the project. For [OFMD] I got the scripts—at least the first four or five—so I had enough to have a sense of the love story, and the themes. I made thematic playlists. Sometimes I do character driven playlists. But across the board it starts with scripts and playlists. Then I send the playlist to the director or showrunner and we start a back and forth. And this one, same, except that I’d worked with David Jenkins before on People of Earth, so I knew his taste already, and it’s very similar to mine, which is very melodic, we both like baroque pop, we both like a lot of classical elements in our music and in our pop.

And he’s very encouraging of me to—I realized when we worked on People of Earth—he pushed me to go weird. Some people have me rein it back, but he pushed me to go even further. So, I just start a general playlist, thematically driven, mostly romantic. We wanted to play up the romance in the first season, so a lot of romantic music and songs, pop songs about unrequited love, pining, heartbreak, heart-loss, it’s been a long time since I started these – longing, leaving behind a part of your life and moving on to another part, transition…and then another part was just like, ocean life! And the sea! I made a lot of playlists and sent them over to David, and what actually happens—sometimes we’ll pull from the general playlist. I work closely with the editors on specific scenes and send over specific playlists for each scene that we were listening for. I’d make playlists of 500 songs, and then listen to that for each moment—mostly end credits in Season One—and then send playlists over for spots. But that’s how it starts, and that’s the fun part.

That’s about twenty-five percent of my job. The rest is clearing songs and tracking rights and dealing with budgets, and blah blah blah. (laughs)

One of my favorites is Moondog. How did Moondog… happen?

MP: That’s a song that I’ve had, I love that song. His music is very avant garde, there’s only a handful of his songs that I thought could be synch-able. Even that one, I had saved on a playlist years ago, and hadn’t pitched it to anyone. It hadn’t worked in any moment, this I did not put on the general playlist, i tried specifically for the end of the pilot, and I almost didn’t send it because I thought, there’s no way they’ll go for this. And luckily the editor, the editor is sometimes the middleman, they’ll try out the stuff and show it to David. They’re in the rooms with David more than I am. So like sometimes I’ll send my stuff out to editors and not know which one they’re going to show. I’ll send them 15-20 songs, and they’ll show the director or showrunner three to five choices. But Hilda [Rasula], the editor of the pilot was very collaborative and communicative, and she responded and said which ones she liked and would try, and I knew this was one of them, so I was excited. There was a handful of songs that I loved for that pilot, but this one was one of my top favorites, and she said she was going to show it, but I still didn’t think this was going to be the one they’d pick.

Sometimes I’ll get an email saying we’re putting on [one of the choices], but I didn’t get it for this one, so I got to watch the pilot like an audience member not knowing which song they selected—I immediately knew it from the first note, and was like, “Oh they went with Moondog!” And then I got to watch and see how it works.

It worked beautifully.

MP: That was a really hard spot to nail, and that song is perfect because it’s melancholy and wistful, but there’s also hope. It hits both notes, and he just left his—you have to gloss over that so you can still love Stede, but he left his fuckin’ family. He’s having this intense mid-life crisis and he does what some people dream of, which is starting over, but most people don’t do, you know? I think we hit both notes with that song. And we wanted to hit the humanity on all those characters, we see Jim, we see a few characters in that montage. And the humanity of all of them being in the boat at sea all alone…

Heading out!

MP: Yeah! For the adventure of their lifetimes! (laughs)

It was perfect, I thought. I know from other interviews with you that you had a 300-song playlist for season one, were you able to use any for this season?

MP: For season two? Yes. I definitely we still… we still haven’t scratched the tip of the iceberg like there’s so many songs I have for this show… and there’s only so many songs in the show. There are fifteen in season one and even fewer in season two, and we only have eight episodes to work with. We use one in Episode 1: “Strawberry Letter 23”, the Shuggie Otis. We used one in the trailer, “The Beautiful Ones” by Prince…

That was uhhh pretty great!

MP: That was one of the first songs—I think the first song that David and I spoke about for the show?

Oh! Like, before season one started?

MP: Yeah, even before we spoke about “The Chain”—I can’t remember if “Beautiful Ones” came from David or me? But we talked about Prince and we both bonded on the fact that we loved that song specifically. That literally was the first song I had in my head for the whole show. I think in season one the estate was off-limits because it was soon after his passing, but then by season two his music was licensable again. I’ve been doing this for almost 18 years, and it’s the first time [I’ve licensed his music]. And he’s one of my top ten artists of all time.

When we posted the trailer, I’m pretty sure the tweet I wrote was just screaming about “Beautiful Ones”, I was so excited.

MP: My Instagram post I did like a purple heart, I made my own Prince purple heart background, and put the trailer on top of a ton of purple hearts, and I put a crown on top of one of them. Just the teenage glee of ohmygod, we got a Prince song!

Were there any songs that were absolute no, whether because they were overused, or they just didn’t fit?

MP: There’s one from season one and one from season two, and the one from season one is “Perfect Day”, for the reason you just said. I think it’s been overused, that was one I didn’t pitch, but I kept trying to beat it—it’s an amazing song. There’s a reason it’s been used a bazillion times, cause it’s a perfect song, right? I tried so hard to beat it, and I think I did, to be honest, but there’s an inherent familiarity and comfort when you hear a song you know, and I think that helps that scene. And David was just in love with it, and I understand why, and I’m sure it was very satisfying for the audience.

The one from season two—it’s a Kate Bush. I had advised against it, but, this one I don’t think we could beat it. I had used it myself, “This Woman’s Work”, in Handmaid’s Tale. It wasn’t a song I pitched. I pitched “Running Up that Hill”—which then was in Stranger Things—I pitched that for an end of an episode in Handmaid’s Tale, and the showrunner didn’t want to use that one, but it made him remember “This Woman’s Work”, and he put it into a very controversial scene, for fans of The Handmaid’s Tale—some people hate it, and some people loved it. So, I of course read all the backlash online about using song, and people have strong opinions about it. [OFMD] was right after the Stranger Things TikTok phenomenon, and I thought “We’re gonna look like we’re copycats”, but David was like… “I don’t care.” (laughs) he said, “People have a short attention span when it comes to music and TV”, and he’s right. And it was a Taika [Waititi, OFMD’s Blackbeard/executive producer/sometimes director) song, Taika really wanted that song, he’d wanted to use that song for many years. Then I saw it cut into the episode, and I think they transformed the song. They re-contextualized it and made it their own, even so the lyrics have different meaning than I’ve ever heard listening to it previously. They clearly had a vision, and it gave me chills to watch it.

I’m excited to see how it’s used in this context.

MP: And that’s what I love about my job, you put song and image together and they both change, and in this instance it was really powerful. But I mean, I always, unless it’s a show that doesn’t care about overusing, I always tell David if I have a reaction or an opinion, and one of the things I’ll react to is if a song’s been overused, or feels uninspired—but this one felt inspired once it was cut in.

I feel like this show is so off-kilter, and it’s always surprising. So the other one that I absolutely love was the use of the Beach Boys for the Blackbeard reveal. How did you jump to that? To me that’s their meet-cute, but it’s not actually cute.

MP: No, it’s demonic/angelic, weird vocals…I had tried to use that song in a different tv show, and we got denied actually, because it was a violent scene, so I had that song on a bunch of playlists. I love that song. I think that was one that was on my general playlist. And when I’m trying out music what I do for these scenes is I’ll do a brainstorm playlist where I’ll throw on a whole bunch of songs without knowing what’s going to work and without thinking about it, just like “That’s worth trying, that’s worth trying”—I call it my kitchen sink approach—I try not to overthink what I throw onto that playlist and then I just play those songs against picture, because you never know what’s gonna click, and that’s where you get the non-obvious choices, or like, the counterpoint choices, because you don’t know until you put them together how they’re going to play off each other. And so that was one that when I tested I was like, “Oh fuck, this is beautiful.” Then I sent it to the editor, and fingers crossed that they’ll have the same reaction. I try not to color…like I don’t say in my emails which ones are my favorite, because I want them to have an unbiased reaction. But that one worked, and everyone fell in love with it.

That one, well, they’re all my favorite, but that one might be my favorite favorite. It’s such a good contrast! Stede’s almost dead, Blackbeard’s covered in gore, and then there’s these angelic voices.

MP: Right? They’re saving each other. The relationship is that they’re each others’ saviors, right? I feel like that moment, that song sort of captures that.

But without being too sappy, it’s not a song I ever hear anywhere, so it’s startling. Bigger question: I know for The Dropout you did mid-‘00s indie, because it’s a period piece, horrifyingly, that’s becoming a period piece.

MP: I know right? That made me feel old, those were songs that felt like just the other day?

Yeah (laughter) but for this, obviously it’s the Golden Age of Piracy, but it’s also kind of a surrealist fantasy did you have in mind an era, like “Oh I’m going to use a lot of ‘60s pop to create a thematic contrast”? Or more hodge-podge?

MP: It was more hodgepodge-y, and then David and I both like baroque pop, we both love a harpsichord, and that style’s heyday was ‘60s and ‘70s, and that’s where my sensibility—I love music from that time period. There’s psychedelic rock, and there’s just so much cool stuff that happened back then. It has a timeless classic feel, and then there’s yacht rock happening.

I’m a sucker for yacht rock.

MP: I am too! And it fits the whole fantastical/dude/extreme-mid-life crisis. I hate to call it Dad Music, but there’s an element of that. And not that I think this is a male-driven show, but there is a lot of male energy, and it’s these two dudes’ love story, mostly. But the whole fantasy of escaping your normal existence and going off to live as a pirate has that whole dude-dad-driven energy. So that music works. But I think it if I look at my playlist, it was maybe half ‘60s-‘70s, and half more modern stuff, and that’s just the stuff that was working. For me, the way I listen for music is very emotional and gutteral it’s not as much thinking and making it logical and setting rules, it’s more just what feels right, and the we just kind of ran with it. With The Dropout we wanted a hard timestamp. I was given rules from the outset, and with Dropout, I loved working on it, but it was one of the easier shows I’ve worked on because we had those clear delineations. This song needs to be from these couple years, and it needs to have been a radio hit, there’s only so many songs you can choose from, but when you’re doing a show like Our Flag and there’s no rules at all…

Did you set any boundaries for yourself?

MP: The only boundaries I set was… stuff I hadn’t heard before. I wanted to honor the off-beat weird tone. This is something I’ve never seen before. There’s almost no comparable show. I wanted to honor that with music that was new and different.

The only show that feels similar to me is People of Earth.

MP: I loved that show so much. Not enough people watched that show.

It was so clearly ahead of its time.

MP: There’s been enough TV shows that are weird, people have… it lives in some sort of niche. But when People of Earth came out there hadn’t been enough of those kinds of shows.

Did you come into season two with a different approach at all, or was it more of a flow from Season One?

MP: The only thing that was different is that we get to dive into more of the characters, and we wanted to flesh them out a little bit. We picked a lane that was successful, and we want to stay in it. There’s so much I haven’t done yet [from the first playlist] I hope we get a third season.

Do you have a moment from a movie or TV show that is the perfect music cue for you?

MP: I like really understated music supervisions, like Succession or Roma—it’s such a beautiful movie, very understated, and there’s no score actually. The sound design is so beautiful. You don’t need music, they played up all the soundscape to score it. And there are songs, but they’re very diegetic, just like, on the radio, very elegant and quiet. I like a reserved, economical hand. Or if they make me laugh with their musical choices, like a bold unexpected choice that makes me giggle.

[vintage-bentley]

final thoughts words opinions etc before the release in a few hours (so i have something to read before i go cold turkey on social media bc i wont be able to watch for at least 2 weeks and cannot ruin this for myself) GO:

Ahh good luck with going cold turkey! I’m sorry you have to wait 😭💕

I’m excited. At first I was really worried that this would be a classic case of the sequel being a shitty cash grab that shouldn’t exist…but from the clips we’ve seen, it looks good. So I trust that I’ll love it just as much as the first season, if not more because apparently it focuses even more on A/C.

As far as the elephant in the room goes…I really want to believe we aren’t being baited. The “leak” was directly from an Amazon pride promo, it feels weird for it to be included if it wasn’t actually romance. And the marketing is being so heavy-handed on the idea of romance, it would honestly be the stupidest corporate decision ever to do that if it was just bait. There’s also the Sheen “best buddies” comment which gives me a lot of hope, because it’s such an unusual way to put it that it feels like it’s an inside joke. And the recent reviews seem to be implying there’s romance. So, I’ve got my hopes up. As always, I’m staying cautiously optimistic, but on a scale from 0 (cautiously) to 10 (optimistic), I’m a 9.

I’m SUPER excited about there being lesbians. I’m worried about the fact that they’re written by a straight man…and I’m really hoping they’re treated normally and not either over or under sexualised. But I’m optimistic about this too, just because I love Nina so much from what we’ve seen of her. She seems well written and well acted, so I can only assume the same will go for Maggie, and hope that the same goes for their relationship.

Aside from ineffable husbands and The Lesbians (I’ve seen retro wives suggested as a ship name which is adorable), I think the thing I’m looking forward to most is more historical scenes. Season 1 episode 3’s opening is my favourite part of the series and I’ve watched it so many times, I just love seeing all the different costumes and seeing the husband’s relationship develop over time. I’m excited to see more of that. Especially the 40’s scene. I’m most excited about one particular historical scene that people talked about after the screening, I won’t say more than that, if you know you know, if you don’t you’ve probably purposefully avoided that information and I applaud your restraint lol.

Now, if the show ends up not being bait, I won’t hate Neil as much as I’ve grown to, but I still won’t love him. Because I think the way he’s handled concerns about baiting is incredibly insensitive and out of touch. He seems to think that this is the same as teasing a long awaited straight couple, so he can be as secretive and coy as he wants. This line of thinking completely ignores the fact that gaybaiting is a real problem, that viewers have been burned by before and don’t want to be burned by again. As great as it would be if gay couples could be anticipated and teased the same way straight couples are…we just aren’t there yet. We’re still at a point where LGB fans aren’t at ease watching a romance build up between two men or women, because we know there’s a chance it won’t go anywhere. Like I’ve said before, knowing that OFMD was a romance before going into it made the viewing experience much more pleasant for me than it would’ve been going in without that knowledge. Because knowing it was a romance allowed me to enjoy it as such…while not knowing would’ve had me going “I’m crazy, I’m just seeing what I want to see, that won’t happen” the whole time (and it sounds like that was the experience for many people who saw it before hearing about it from others!). That’s something OSA people don’t experience when seeing themselves on screen. So if there’s a whole crowd of LGB viewers basically begging you to save us that frustration and doubt, “wait and see if you’re being baited” isn’t exactly the best attitude to have. Especially when you’re on tumblr, and could easily put a yes or no answer under a read more prefaced with many spoiler warnings. Again, unfortunately, we just aren’t at the point yet where anticipating a gay ship is the same as anticipating a straight ship.

It just feels like Neil doesn’t have any compassion for his LGB viewers who don’t want to be baited yet again, which is really annoying considering he seems to think of himself as an amazing ally.

So, if it ends up being bait, obviously I’ll be angry. If it doesn’t end up being bait, I’ll be happy but also annoyed at how Neil made us feel crazy for even hoping for this outcome.

I think that pretty much sums up what’s going on in my head right now! 😄

[quarterblindsocialworker]

I love how tender and caring Stede is. Consent is so important to him that even in the throes of confusion, passion, and desperation to feel loved, Stede won't act without Ed's consent. I often feel like Stede's reasons for the end of 0206 was that he feared he was losing himself, and the only thing he knows damn well about himself that doesn't revolve around his image is his love for Ed. He wanted reassurance that the love he has for Ed and the love he is certain Ed feels for him is unchanged in spite of his seemingly uncharacteristic murder of Ned Lowe. Stede isn't willing to lose himself, and he isn't willing to lose Ed over this either. He's so desperate to know that the actions he's taken haven't changed who he is. He's also so desperate to ensure that he isn't hurting Ed again that he won't move forward without Ed's enthusiastic consent. God this fucking show.

Thinking about how Stede mainly touches Ed's elbow or cups the back of the head — never his face. How Ed reacts poorly to people touching his face, especially without consent. (Face touching has been used as a form of aggression and control on him in the past.) Stede touches where he knows Ed feels safe and comfortable.

The two times we see Stede touch Ed's face he asks first - the snake scene and Ed leans into it - and the bathtub scene where Stede touches Ed's shoulder and Ed is the one to lean in and touch his face to the back of Stede's hand.

[violence-as-a-love-language]

I posted 4,378 times in 2022

That's 3,198 more posts than 2021!

96 posts created (2%)

4,282 posts reblogged (98%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@commandrogyne

@eggyleg

@crack--attack

@skullscramblies

@vesper-thejester

I tagged 3,777 of my posts in 2022

Only 14% of my posts had no tags

#wwdits - 986 posts

#our flag means death - 693 posts

#nandermo - 394 posts

#blackstede - 328 posts

#ofmd spoilers - 315 posts

#guillermo de la cruz - 300 posts

#q - 274 posts

#nandor the relentless - 255 posts

#blackbeard - 210 posts

#good omens - 206 posts

Longest Tag: 126 characters

#and he gets so many followers who keep commenting on how cute and sad it is that he's trying to hard to get his ex's attention

My Top Posts in 2022:

#5

Gotta say, i'm getting real tired of seeing Oluwande drawn skinny in every fan art I see of him

41 notes - Posted March 24, 2022

#4

[I.D. A picture of the book Spitfire by Maya Kern sitting on a desk /end I.D.]

Thank you @mayakern for writing a book so beefy, it should last me through most of my top surgery recovery lol. I just got it yesterday and I'm excited to dive in once I get some sleep.

64 notes - Posted May 18, 2022

#3

Rewatching Dimension Jump and wow, its so fascinating to see Ace's arrival for two reasons now.

1) While Ace is more successful and lusted after, he's still not very secure in his sexuality. He keeps playing up how macho he is and making references to not 'being a sissy.' He's still a repressed version of Rimmer and thats so fascinating to me, since you'd think he would have gotten more secure in his sexuality considering.

2) Rimmer immediately starts insinuating Ace is queer in multiple (obviously degrading) ways because he feels threatened by him. But considering Ace is, well, him, it makes the situation all the more telling. And Kryten confronts him on this, but doesn't get to finish pointing this out to him, which I think is such a shame.

As a bonus, its even more funny to me that Ace immediately becomes best friends with Lister. Like, I want a fic where Lister tries to get with Ace to make Rimmer jealous, only to find Ace is just as repressed as Rimmer.

102 notes - Posted February 26, 2022

#2

Ace and Rimmer are both so similar. Yeah, Rimmer is extremely bitter and insecure, but Ace is just as insecure. He just swung the other direction to complete selflessness.

He has no concept of care for his own well being. Hell, Lister mentions he's fuckin up for 36 hours with a broken arm (which he still hasn't taken care of), fresh off of Cats surgery, and he's teaching Kryten to play the piano.

This man wants so terribly to be liked and loved he will never put his own happiness first. Everyone else comes first. Yeah, he may be a 'hero,' but at what cost?

120 notes - Posted February 26, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

Okay I'm gonna make this it's own post cause it's important.

Good Omens, WWDITS, and OFMD are all queer rep. But I really do think the main reason why ofmd feels the most 'real' for some people is it scratches a particular itch a lot of people on Tumblr have been trying to get for years.

Good Omens has two characters who appear to be men. Both characters spend thousands of years pining after each other and falling in love, but it's not 'explicitly states' not is there a kiss. There is rep for nonbinary folks, AroAce folks, but it's not 'gay.' The rep is purely 'queer.'

What We Do in the Shadows has a romance between two men. Both, while confirmed to be gay/bi, have not kissed or hugged or been 'romantic' on screen. They've been intimate and have had arcs to show care, jealously, and whatnot but nothing very romantic. At least, not from a classic standpoint. The creators are pushing a 'will they/won't they' arc. This is normal in many TV shows, but for many queers who are used to queerbaiting, the expectation is to be let down. Even if all the signs point to 'they will' it still hits that traumatic 'queerbaiting' tone for many.

Our Flag Means Death has a romance between not only two men, but a side romance between two men that has a kiss scene. The two main leads are romantic towards each other. But not only that, the creator has made it explicitly clear this is a romance. He has pushed again and again that this will happen, it's just a slow burn. There is explicit 'gay' rep on screen and promised future 'gay' rep.

The reason ofmd resonates is because of what other posts have pointed out. Supernatural, Merlin, Sherlock; over and over two men have been shipped together with such fervor, it feels like a betrayal when it's ignored. Or teased and then ignored. We don't want to be traumatized again.

But also, they all represent one type of rep. Romantic, gay rep of two cishet men finding love. Even though in the case of Destiel, Cas is rarely viewed as anything but a cis man (even though that's very not true). The expectation that those previous failures are being redeemed by this one show can make the queer rep in other shows seem less desirable.

Good Omens, WWDITS, and OFMD are three different types of queer rep, but ofmd has a specific trauma reaction being healed tied to it. And it's okay to recognize that, but also, it needs to be recognized that does not take the queerness away from other shows.

None of these shows are queerbaiting. Acknowledge your trauma and enjoy them all for what they are, not what you want them to be.

3,016 notes - Posted March 23, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

[leithianxx]

I've been trying to tease apart why I've gone so terminally feral for this show in particular, and I think a big part of it is because it captures the feeling of falling in love so accurately that I feel like I'M falling in love. Butterflies in my stomach, nauseous when I think about it, can't STOP thinking about it love.

As much as we all love a classic rom-com/love story flick, they have wreaked havoc on our expectations of romance. The purpose of those films or shows are to play out our most grandiose fantasies of love and relationships, a level of drama we could never actually attain, as a form of escapism. There are no manic pixie dream girls whose sole personality is a brand of quirky that fits your interests and saves you from your disillusionment in life. In reality, pursuing someone so intensely without ever giving up or taking no for an answer until they finally win their love interest over has become a trope so pervasive that its bled into the insidious romantic imagination of Nice GuysTM world wide. In the real world, you probably will never have that spinny camera kiss in the pouring rain after you've beaten the odds and live happily ever after, and you might feel like nothing you can experience will ever live up to that feeling. Not to mention they're all heteronormative as fuck.

In OFMD the friends to lovers journey is tentative and slow. There's no moment where one of them takes their glasses off and they suddenly see the other in a whole new light. There's no one sided whining and pining, where there's no real interest in friendship and they only stick around hoping to someday get in the other's pants. They deeply care and fret about not ruining their friendship, about not making the other uncomfortable or pressured. Most of my personal long term relationships started out as friendships, and it was a delicate drawn out testing of the waters before it naturally evolved. And this is particularly common in queer relationships where the lines between platonic and romantic love are often blurred because there are no models of courtship to look to for guidance.

I've seen people talk about how their kiss was too awkward, but that's how real first kisses are. Confessing your feelings is mortifying and nerve wracking, and hearing it makes you blush and stammer. You miss their lips and knock your heads, you don't know where to put your hands. You're nervous. It's not perfect but it's sweet.

And hats off to Taika for absolutely nailing true heartbreak. It feels like your world is ending and your life has come crashing down like they show in the movies but it also makes you feel small and soft and scared. It's the squeak in your voice when someone asks you how you are and you can feel yourself trying not to cry but you can't stop it. It's feeling so emotionally exhausted that you can't even bring your self to be angry, you'd just rather curl up into a ball and die. It's thinking you're moving on until something small reminds you of them and you ugly cry until snot is running down your face and you can't catch your breath. It's hiding under your covers and writing shit poetry in your notes app.

OFMD isn't "I wish I could experience this love story." OFMD is "I have experienced this love story." Falling in love can be the most huge, overwhelming, transcendental part of the human experience. It doesn't need exaggeration. It's the little things, it's like Mary says. It's them understanding your idiosyncrasies and finding them charming. It's exposing each other to new things and new ideas. It's laughing a lot. It's passing the time well.

It's mundane and it's amazing. It's easy, it's like breathing. This show has made me fall in love with the idea of falling in love all over again.

[youshouldseemeinadeerstalker]

Humour

Stealing Romance by @skrifores Jealous Ed. It's so fun and playful! Nothing too dark. Has everything you’d want in a fic: humour, feelings and a little smut Words: 12k  |  Rated E

Need for Stede by  @blakbonnet A classical reunion fic. Every interaction with the crew of the Revenge is hilarious and them getting together at the end is so emotional and heartwarming. Words: 26k  |  Rated E

The Gentleman Pirate's Guide to Seduction by vintagelilacs Courtship is an intricate process. Stede tries to figure out how to seduce Ed. This one is just pure humour, really funny! Words: 4k  |  Rated M

Message in a Marmalade Jar by stitchy  (@stitchyarts) Post season 1 fix-it. The Revenge crew sends messages in a bottle to Stede to make them find the Revenge. Words: 11k  |  Rated T    

somewhere to begin by ShowMeAHero (@andillwriteyouatragedy) Bed-sharing, cuddling, vulnerability and humour. It’s very sweet. Words: 5k  |  Rated G

Softé feelings

What Wound Did Ever Heal But By Degrees? by poading 5+1 fic! Five times Ed kisses Stede and one time Stede kisses Ed. And it’s with an ace spec/demisexual Stede Bonnet my beloved. Words: 15k  |  Rated M

This Beach by Jimsnose (alivamae) @jimsnose It’s so emotional! Really touched me. What if Stede came to the dock, what if... Words: 3k  |  Rated M

Series

kissing is what lovers do (and we're not lovers) by afterism (@onlylostphysics) Missing scenes throughout season 1. What if they were friends with benefits this whole time but still didn't kiss until episode 9, because they are shit at talking about their feelings. Works: 6  |  Words: 43k  |  Rated E

Ace of Hearts by tardigrape  ( @thetardigrape) Ace Stede Bonnet my beloved. Relationship negotiations. Stumbling along. Trying to talk about something they both dont have words for. It’s so sweet and they always find to each other. This series means so much to me. Works: 5  |  Words: 27k  |  Rated E

[other OFMD fic recs: 2, 1]

[quarterblindsocialworker]

STAGED, but make it Taika and Rhys making out with their pillows to careless whisper.

the funniest possible thing the cast could do rn is make a season 3 completely themselves.

I'm talking filmed on an iPhone or over a giant zoom call

Props made of cardboard

Costumes made up of white tshirts scribbled over with sharpie

They'd probably have to change the names of characters for legal reasons "Steve, Edmund, Lucian, Black Tim, Spanish Jessie"

And then the entire fandom accepts whatever happens in this chaos as 1000% cannon

[thatonequeeraunt]

"Because of this dearth of knowledge among the non-romcom loving segment of the population, I have noticed a curious thing. With the rise of OFMD’s popularity, friends of mine who have never thought of themselves as romance or romcom fans are experiencing their first example of the genre on the deck of The Revenge. A queer example at that! And they are blown away! They are feeling emotions and connecting to characters like never before, and they are exceptionally worried about the cliffhanger ending of the season finale. I find this very charming since, as any seasoned romcom fan knows, you’ve GOT to go through “the divorce arc” before getting your HEA (happily ever after, for the uninitiated). These are the classic romcom beats that I love seeing in novels and (vanishingly fewer by the year, it seems) movies and TV shows."

This really gives me so much hope for the future of film and tv. Just a feel good show where the angst isn't coming from bigotry, but relationship up and downs. Definitely didn't even think I would see a show like this come out within 5 years.

[cha0ticr0b0tic]

Guys I think I have it

OK OK strap in I think I’ve figured it out (what’s “it?” You’ll see)

David Jenkins has said he took inspiration from Butch & Sundance for OFMD, specifically the relationship between Ed and Stede – only this time they can actually kiss, homoerotic subtext becomes text, plain and simple. What could’ve remained a buddy show in the same vein as the buddy movies of the late 60s became a full-on love story – it’s not bromance, it’s straight-up romance. David Jenkins is doing what the directors in the 60s/70s couldn’t.

Stede and Ed are a happier version of the buddy movie – because in those older films, the buddies could never stay together, their stories always end up becoming tragedies. And yes, at the end of OFMD, Ed is in a dark place and Stede has a lot to figure out, but because this is a love story, we know that somehow, they’ll find their way back to each other, make amends, and continue to grow their relationship. This will take time but it will happen. 

The dark mirror of Stede and Ed is Ed and Izzy. I’d argue that there was probably a buddy-movie dynamic there, once upon a time, what with all the intricate rituals and love that does not dare speak. But, it remained in that 60s/70s mindset. It could only ever be a buddy movie as opposed to a love story where the love is allowed to speak its name. The main difference I see in Ed and Izzy’s relationship, compared to older buddy movies, is the presence of violence. And OK, Butch & Sundance were bank robbers (because cool anti-establishment anti-heroes were all the rage during the Vietnam era, gee I wonder why), and as outlaws they knew their way around weaponry, but they never hurt each other. They were ride or die for each other. Ed and Izzy on the other hand? We know Izzy’s ride or die for Ed, but the language that they speak around each other is often one of violence, which ties into the intricate rituals and all that.

So, hear me out: Ed and Izzy’s relationship is the dark mirror to the classic buddy movie. That’s Fight Club. 

Fight Club, in a lot of ways, is a buddy movie. We have two outcast/outsider male protagonists who have opposite personalities who come together and develop a strong bond DRIPPING in homoerotic subtext. The movie begins with Tyler’s gun in the Narrator’s mouth, for Christ’s sake. Marla Singer is the woman who keeps the movie from getting too gay. The movie ends with the Narrator and Marla holding hands – the status quo is not entirely restored, but maybe the Narrator can get his life together without his boyfriend in the way. 

Fight Club is a buddy movie where the love language between the buddies is kicking the shit out of each other. Is that not Ed and Izzy? Fight Club is a buddy movie made 30 years after Butch & Sundance – it’s a cynical, disaffected buddy movie for cynical, disaffected 90s young adults. Is that edginess not peak Ed and Izzy, with all their black leather and Hot Topic accessories? 

With that in mind, seeing Ed go from Fight Club to something approaching Butch & Sundance, and then going beyond that to full-on gay romance? EXCELLENT development. 

[fresne999]

Noodling about the Next Thing

I've begun to work on my next OFMD story.

Actually, I'll probably bounce between writing two completely unrelated stories, because I suspect one will inspire the other. 

The first one comes from a fair amount of meta in the OFMD tag correlating characters with modern corporate culture, which has a certain amount of huh, "Pirates don't produce anything. They don't make things. They're pirates," but I love a good fusion. 

But corporate AU made me think of "Pretty Woman," which is a pretty classic fandom trope. Enough is never enough. Corporate raiders. Venture capital world. I suppose by extension all the other 80s movies focusing on greed and consumption.

Making Ed the corporate raider weary of all that allows for some fun space to flip the nice things discussion. That Ed would be perfectly familiar with nice things (if still probably from a very poor initial background). He's (as Ed tells us in OFMD) become very wealthy from his raiding. What he lacks is time to enjoy these nice things and the permission to stop accumulating. Enough is enough. 

Where it breaks down is Stede's arc doesn't really work as a prostitute with a long history of being attracted to losers/abusers. There is a character I could see that working for, but it does mean moving the romance from Corporate Raider/Prostitute, to Corporate Raider/Raidee with side commentary from a character in the Pretty Woman role. 

Also, I can imagine a lot of careers for modern Stede, but running off to become an exciting venture capitalist isn't really one of them. 

I suspect this is going to be one I'm going to merge in various meta as I see it. Exploring toxic masculinity, harmful gender roles and stereotypes, narratives about work itself (including sex work, not "working"/the nuclear family), the corporate narratives about "qualified" personnel that result in most C level positions being cis, white men, who have similar MBAs, and therefore miss what a more diverse community can bring.  

Also, Ed and Stede will share a bubble bath. 

Also, I'll probably be hammering on for what will feel like forever.

The other story will be a Lucius backstory tale a la the Frenchie story, and in the same continuity. It'll have elements that I already included in "On This Ship We Share (Our Bedding)", but play up Lucius as pickpocket. 

It's funny how often I read meta that goes on about Lucius as upper class, when he's a pickpocket good enough to steal a knife from Spanish Jacquie. There are plenty of reasons that Lucius could know how to read and not be upper class. Literacy was much higher in the 1700s than it would have been centuries earlier because of increasingly cheap paper (made from recycled rags), printing presses, and a push by Protestants for people to learn how to read so they could read the Bible and the Book of Common Prayer. People also started reading adventures, crime dramas and romances, etc. I mean sure, many of the characters OFMD can't read, but it wasn't just an upper class/clerical thing by that point. 

Mind there I'll have to do some thinking about how Lucius ends up with the well honed emotional tools that we see him with. He's confident enough to face Izzy down during Izzy's power play, but not confident enough to go, "Look, of all the people on the ship I have a very specific job and scrubbing barnacles isn't it, find someone else to do it." Mind you, it took me probably 20 years working (and dealing with all sorts of guilt about being a "team player") to establish some boundaries. But then again, I never thought, "I've decided to act like I'm cute" either, which is pretty awesome.