#ofmd positivity

[suffersinfandom]

I went down a bit of a rabbit hole earlier today and stumbled across some of the most misguided, mean-spirited, and downright cruel OFMD takes I've ever read. Instead of sharing them and making everyone else miserable, I just want to say:

OFMD and time spent in the fandom have genuinely made my life better.

The characters of Stede and Ed (who are not -- and I can't emphasize this enough -- their real-world counterparts) have helped me come to terms with and accept parts of myself that I previously hated.

OFMD is earnest and sweet and silly. It's full of love and fun, and it's almost impossible to watch it and not feel a little better.

The show's diversity is incredible and unlike anything I've been able to find elsewhere. Even shows that have similar amounts of onscreen diversity fall short behind the scenes and in the writers room.

OFMD's cast and crew are absolutely lovely. Being treated kindly (and even actively embraced!) by the folks who made the show has been a pleasant surprise.

OFMD's fandom has been so, so much kinder than any others I've been in. I'm constantly seeing people uplift and encourage each other, and the fandom has collectively raised at least $50K for charities. How cool is that?

This fandom's art (all forms of art) is incredible. I've never been so spoiled for choice when it comes to well-written fic to read or beautiful artwork to look at.

Ed and Stede are characters of all time. Top tier. Flawed, sympathetic, gentle, bitchy, sweet, unhinged, profoundly in need of therapy and medication. (I'm not saying bupropion would fix Ed or sertraline would help Stede, but I don't think they'd hurt.)

OFMD's supporting cast is unparalleled. Frenchie, Roach, and Fang are my best friends even though I know next to nothing about them. I forget that Mary "the Widow" Bonnet and Spanish Jackie have, like, ten total minutes of screen time each because they're both fully developed people in my head. Zheng Yi Sao and her extended polycule are everything to me and I need their spinoff on my television immediately.

The fandom's not perfect and sometimes I want to pull out my hair when I read meta I disagree with, but the truly bad actors are a minuscule minority. Most fans are kind, supportive, and extremely funny and talented.

I love it here. I don't plan on leaving. Even if OFMD takes a backseat to a new obsession in the future, it will always be a part of me. I'll always come back (I'll never leave).

[ladyjudica]

[Image ID: A screenshot of Ed Teach from Our Flag Means Death. He is calling out "You wrote me a lovely letter!" but "letter" has been replaced so it reads "You wrote me a lovely season of television!" /end ID]

@ David Jenkins and the entire writing team.

[lemon-tart-221]

Just want to thank Good Omens and Our Flag Means Death for providing middle aged representation. The majority of the actors are over 40 and portray characters who are fierce, vulnerable, silly, passionate, complex, and sexy as hell. In a Hollywood world that worships youthful bodies and faces and thinks 25 is old, thank you for featuring a more mature cast. It’s refreshing.

[myiliterallyhavenolifegoals]

i'm unwell!!! because in stede's eyes, ned low was right!! ned says "he [ed] only likes you because of your bumbling amateur status" and calls stede blackbeard's "pet" just like izzy did in series 1

so stede steps up as a captain, kills the man who harmed his crew, and suddenly, for once in stede's life, he isn't a joke! the gentleman pirate is taken seriously and welcomed into the pirate community!

and what happens less than 24 hours later? ed calls their night together a mistake, AND LEAVES.

yes, obviously the situation is more nuanced, and these old men are once again struggling to communicate, but i 100% understand why stede went a bit of the rails at the end of episode 7. stede's been so focused on trying to help ed, that he's completely ignored his own ongoing identity crisis and trauma, and after the incident at the academy in series 1, this meltdown was long overdue.

[themostdeviousbastardinnyc]

Really really hope buttons the seagull delivers mail between the inn and the revenge <3 ed and stede annoy the hell out of the crew with overly long domestic letters like that one extended family member who will NOT take you off their christmas newsletter list

[seraph-novak]

Our Flag Means Death | 2.06 "Calypso's Birthday"

[celesmaxwell]

SEE NEW POST FOR UPDATE!

CHECK OUT WHAT HAPPENED OVERNIGHT.

In about 20 hours, OFMD nearly doubled engagement and shot up 154 spots in popularity! It was the #4 show on Max yesterday, now it is at #1.

KEEP STREAMING. KEEP INTERACTING. KEEP REVIEWING, EMAILING, WRITING LETTERS! We can do it, crewmates! 🫡🏴‍☠️

And please - KEEP IT POSITIVE!

http://www.renewasacrew.com for more on how to help!

@renewasacrew

Source: https://televisionstats.com/s/our-flag-means-death

[cosmothealien358]

[hansoeii]

touch

[suffersinfandom]

Hey.

OFMD fans? Thank you.

Thank you for making art and writing fic. Thank you for typing out meta and analyzing overlooked details and arguing about interpretation and intention. Thank you for making gifs and recoloring stills. Thank you for cosplaying. Thank you for collecting news, memes, and behind-the-scenes from other platforms and bringing them to Tumblr. Thank you for sharing your favorite fanworks so the rest of us can see them.

Thank you for being good to others. Thank you for donating to fundraisers and mutual aid. Thank you for uplifting other voices and creating a safe space ship where even timid people who have never participated in an intense fandom before feel welcome.

Thank you to the folks who are kind to the people who disagree with them. Thank you to people who are truly willing to talk it through, who block instead of engaging negatively, and who ignore opinions that make them mad.

Thank you to everyone who likes and comments and reblogs. Thank you to the lurkers and the cheerleaders. Thank you to creators who are still afraid to share their creations but create anyway.

I love Our Flag Means Death and I love this fandom. I love you, and I hope you'll stick around. No matter how much or little you participate, you're part of the crew; whether we've spoken or not, you're my friend.

Thank you.

[piratecaptainscaptainpirates]

Especially after rewatching all of season 2, I feel more confident than ever in saying that this is just a damn good show. I'm genuinely done with wasting my time being critical about OFMD when it feels like it was made with so much love and care and even though they were working with a slashed budget they gave us the best show they could. I don't ask any other media I consume to be perfect so I'd hope I can extend a little grace to my favorite show.

At the end of the day, my single biggest complaint with season 2 is that there wasn't enough of it; I wish we'd got more and longer episodes and got to spend more time with our side characters. That's a hell of a nice complaint to have, really, that the worst thing I can say about this show is that I want more.

[pomegranate-pancake]

Sometimes I look in the mirror and feel bad about the way I look. But then I think, “if my life was a story posted on ao3 by an OFMD fan they would wax poetic about the roundness of my cheeks and the softness of my jaw and the imperfections on my skin. And there would be someone else in the story who loved me for them.” And that thought alone makes me feel a bit more lovable.

[saltpepperbeard]

y’all. what if

what if we get a dream sequence where ed is longing for what could have happened, what should have happened. like, we see the same few beats of him on the dock, calling out for stede and looking increasingly concerned. but then the brush behind him rustles, and stede actually stumbles out into view.

and ed’s face breaks out into the most relieved, beautiful smile, and there’s this very dreamy sequence of them breathing each other’s names and running to each other. they of course hug each other tightly, maybe even kiss, before ed murmurs something like, “was worried for a second. thought i’d lost you.”

only for stede to go “oh, no. you’ll never ever lose me.”

...and then ed wakes up in the gutted darkness of the captain’s quarters. alone.

[crimson-and-clover-1717]

‘You Wear Fine Things Well’ is so important. I should imagine Ed has had a lot of sexual attention over the years during his time in piracy. Maybe the Blackbeard persona has kept intimacy at arms length, but sexual objectification exists; only that very evening has Ed been depersonalised and subjected to exoticism by the French Aristos. Stede’s interaction with Ed here is something else entirely.

Stede does not define Ed as exotic. He doesn’t objectify him by his outward appearance. He speaks directly to his personhood with a genuine compliment, stating that Ed has the sophistication, inner character, and bearing to carry off ‘fine things’.

Ed might feel seduced, but Stede is not trying to seduce. There is no motive behind the action and comment other than sincere kindness. And in that moment, Ed is transformed, forever.

As a person of mixed-heritage, this scene was life-changing for me.

[toboldlymuppet]

i think there's something so mean about how, when S1 ended and GB broke up, izzy AND his fans were called abusers (among other, horrifying things), i closed all my anon asks and twitter/ig dms because of it. i came into the fandom when the season just ended, "this feels like coming home" i said, and got a death threat a few days later. "i just want izzy to be happy", and a dm saying "you don't belong here" arrived. i got dragged in a doxxing scare, someone i know did get doxxed. now S2 has ended and what we feel is a disservice to his character, on the road to recovery and healing after the horrors of episode 1-3 and a suicide survivor dealing with disability, he gets killed off unceremoniously because 'he has no more role in the narrative'? just when he found a family and belonging he could've sailed with? he could've been written out without dying, getting his own happy ending. instead, he got killed by a stray bullet, on an avoidable 'suicide mission' (had someone else taken his place). and with us being upset, suddenly we have no right to grieve and be sad about this? suddenly we have people laughing at us and downplaying how heartbroken we are? we saw him happy and at home, we just wanted to end the show with that, him alive and experiencing the world with family. i related to him so much, of course it hurts. a lot of izzy fans started the S3 renewal campaign because we wanted to think everyone would get their happy endings. it's so sad to think about the show now. it's been more than a year and i still love this character and the community he's brought me. he's gotten me through tough times and given me hope. let us have this, let us be sad and upset and speak our criticisms, for kindness sake, for the kindness the show used to promise us. the same way people whose ships get broken up on cliffhangers and tragic ends are upset, let us have this too. this is a public message, but you have nothing good to say, if you're here to downplay the hurt, if you're here to laugh, please just scroll on by or block.

[temporal-discounting]

Whenever I stop and think about it, I am just so completely bowled over by the places that the writers took us to in s2.

I mean, in those first 3 eps of s2, this silly little 30 minute pirate comedy produced some of the most beautiful and harrowing moments of television that I have ever seen.

I'm just in awe, and I sometimes have to remind myself that, yeah. They really went there, those maniacs.

God, I love our show.