#ofmd rant

[the-names-kam]

okay i’m sorry to beat a dead horse but i’m angry about this again. i genuinely cannot believe that we did not get an OUNCE of izzy backstory beyond “oh he and ed have known each for a REALLY long time” (and even then there’s inconsistencies in the amount of time implied). like. not one single flashback to his childhood, or to him and ed when they were younger

now, only three characters in the show actually get backstory flashbacks: ed, stede, and jim. why ed and stede get flashbacks is obvious, but jim is interesting because they only really get flashbacks because their backstory in season one affects the show’s plot. after that, they kind of just get pushed to the side

but izzy is an extremely important character from day one, and he becomes even more crucial to the plot in season two. and i think part of the reason why a lot of people still hate his character is because we never get an explanation for WHY he acts the way he does. we can infer, but without anything concrete it’s very easy to just dismiss it as him being an asshole

i really think a flashback to how his and ed’s relationship used to be was very needed, and an explanation for how everything went downhill and why the two of them turned out the way they did. we can gather that they were very close, and their relationship deteriorated due to ed getting bored of being blackbeard, but there’s so many little nuances to their relationship that are never really explained

not to mention that, in my opinion, izzy has more unexplained character details than any other character in the show. roach’s character design has a lot of details, but as far as i’m aware all of them have been explained, just not in-show. and of course wee john has all his tattoos, but those are just kristian nairn’s actual tattoos, so i don’t think they really count as character details

but we never get any kind of explanation (whether in-show or not) for izzy’s “x” tattoo, or the spade on his hand, or why he only wears one leather glove, or the RING ON HIS TIE, or the fucking LASH SCARS ON HIS BACK. those last two especially drive me fucking insane to think about

because with the ring, some people think that con o’neill requested to have it for his mother, but he actually only asked them to change the gem to an emerald. the ring was always going to be there. but, again, why? it’s so strange to me to have a pirate, and especially one who (at least in season one) totes being a pirate as this big, scary, masculine career, wear a dainty little ring around his neck with absolutely no explanation as to why

and with the lash scars, that is SO MUCH makeup and special effects work just for them to a.) never be addressed, even though stede could clearly see them; and b.) be barely even visible to the viewer because of the dim light and the lack of a clear shot of them

and idk if you guys have seen that BTS picture of the scars, but uh. there are a LOT of them. and again, where the fuck did they come from? i use them as fuel for my headcanon that izzy was in the navy, but is that what we’re meant to assume? is that what’s being implied here? or is it that he served on hornigold’s crew with ed and jack, even though that’s also never mentioned? did ed give them to him? we know he canonically enjoys pain (thanks for that at least, guys), at least to a certain extent, so is it meant to be implied that he had that done to him as a kink thing? is it supposed to be a joke and that’s why it’s never addressed?

i truly don’t know. i can talk myself in circles about this for hours, but at the end of the day the only good answers i can think of for why izzy didn’t get a backstory are budget and bad writing. and no, it really isn’t that serious, and i’ll move on eventually, but it’s still just extremely disappointing to me. okay, rant over

[flowerboy-fiorello]

Hi I know that I dont post but I have an OFMD rant...

theres a lot of (younger) ofmd fans that are getting angry at the creators of the show because they "buried their gays" (in regards to Izzy Hands.) we all have a right to be sad and angry at his death! i love his character so much and im so upset but lets not use the term bury your gays for this show yeah?

Hes not the only (presumably) queer character, hes one of many. There are Plenty of gays, an abundance even, left. These younger fans did not grow up with queerbaiting like the older fans did (think supernatural, sherlock, animes like yuri on ice, killing eve, good omens even) and i dont think they understand the concept of bury your gays because now we're getting more shows that have explicitly queer characters whos characters don't center around their sexuality! (Wonderful) Usually bury your gays is a trope specifically used in shows that queerbait their characters and then MAYBE they come out and then they almost immediately die- or theyre out from the beginning and either they kill them off after season or they "leave" (a good obvious example is supernatural)

Anyway moral of the story i am sad that Izzy died he was my favorite character in the series but metaphorically speaking it made a lot of sense that the person most attached to Blackbeard died when Eddie finally started to live. Love you all ofmd fans ♥️

[themaninyourcomputer]

CAN WE TALK ABOUT IZZY MOTHERFUCKING HANDS??? YOU GUYS?? Season three ripped my heart out. I'm absolutely devestated. I was talking with @vampireteaspoon about this-Izzy isn't being redeemed in the Zuko sense of the word. The people around him are just fundamentally broken, damaged people, and the events of season one/leading into season two highlight their flaws. It's not necessarily that Izzy is getting better, it's that the other characters are...well, being fucking awful to eachother.

The plot is bringing out the worst in everyone, which levels the playing field, and allows us to see the humanity in Izzy. We sympathize with him, not because he's a good person, but because he-like Ed-is a flawed individual. However, we recognize that he is a complex person. It's very Bojack Horseman.

Like, we're rooting for Ed, but his actions are so vile. We SEE the Kraken. And while we understand that his actions come from a place of hurt ("I'm not a good person, Stede"), there are moments, specifically in episode 2, where we DESPISE him.

Same goes for Stede. Stede is frustratingly ignorant. He's self absorbed to the point of being borderline narcissistic. He is not considerate of other people's feelings. This is evident in the way he brushes off Lucius, and-more importantly-in his abandonment of Ed. And he is still COMPLETELY ignorant of all the pain he caused Ed. Ed grieved him. He fucking grieved him. He actually mourned Stede. He lashed out at the people around him. This mf tried to kill himself, and Stede doesn't seem to grasp the severity of his actions.

This show is grabbing the audience by the shoulders, violently shaking us, and screaming, "Maybe there are no villians, maybe no one is 'evil,' maybe hurt people hurt people, maybe morality isn't black and white."

Basically, the OFMD characters all suck, and god, I just want them to be happy.

[thecoolestcowboy]

i was recently rewatching ofmd s1 (for the 3rd God-forsaken time.) and i was wondering “wait why does Stede look so… sick? after the kiss?” and now i’m realizing just how scared Stede was, even though he loved Ed and wanted to do anything in his power to make him happy 😭 Stede thought that he would eventually disappoint Ed so he decided to leave without telling him to ‘spare’ both of them the pain

i absolutely love how djenkins doesn’t portray only perfect queer relationships in the show and demonstrates the realistic ups and downs that happen in most relationships

[katebishopofearth]

this is such a small thing to gripe over but it really annoys me how in s2 stede only has like 3 shirts (that’s not the problem we all know it’s because of the budget cuts) but he never mixes them up. he wears them in a specific order and never goes back to the old ones, which really irks me because:

a) man has to do his laundry sometime now he’s just wearing the same sweaty thing day after day

b) mixing them up would give the sense that time is passing – something that i think would help with the season’s skewed pacing

c) he’s wearing to the lupete wedding the same shirt he wore when he killed low and also fought the british – that thing has got to be bloodstained and grimy

d) the lupete wedding is the perfect chance to bring back the red shirt that symbolises love and new beginnings

[undeaddirtboy]

am i allowed to be a little ungrateful right now because that was certainly three episodes worth of plot condensed into 30 minutes.

i love the characters i love the cast i love the story and that's why i'm upset. it's a fucking shame they weren't given the time to tell the story with as much love and care as possible. the lack of tenderness and time in s2 was clear compared to s1. it's not their fault and they did their best with the time given, but you could feel that things were rushed. the character arcs were not given the time they needed to the point that some of them felt genuinely out of character and as the season progressed that was more noticeable- it just culminated in the finale. idk!!! so much fucking happened in 30 minutes, i was barely able to keep up. i feel like i need to rewatch it immediately so that i can process it.

spoiler warning

there was NOT time for izzy’s death. i’m not mad that it happened, i’m sad that it wasn’t given more attention. it was abrupt and fast and there wasn’t time for any mourning. it just jumped straight into the wedding. ed seemed remarkably unaffected a few scenes later. his death should have been in s3 (if at all because come on- repressed queer disabled character finally learns that love is for him and then he is killed off? yeah his arc was good but needed more time. it all needed more time.)

and come on.

stede would never just stay behind while his crew and the revenge leave.

that was what he longed for, for so long. even if it’s with ed, it just feels so fucking out of character for him. i suppose it could be setting up the conflict for s3- like ed is finally at peace, finally away from piracy, but stede regrets leaving the life he dreamed of behind, and struggles living this new one so similar to what he had with mary?? he’s whim-prone and didn’t fully think it through?

i think i’m just going to repeat myself if i continue. i love this show and this story so fucking much, it has literally helped to heal me and help me feel things and enjoy art again. i hate to be so negative about it right now. i’m just really disappointed in this episode. here’s to hoping for s3, because if it ended like that i think a lot of us would be left disappointed.

[wow-its-me]

Nobody :

Me : and they’ll decide to retire and give up pirating and find a small quiet island to move off too, with a small village, a lighthouse, an an old abandoned building that they’ll renovate into a Inn/restaurant, and they’ll have rooms and jobs for all of the crew, like roach can cook, Frenchie and Wee John can perform, and eventually while they’re working on fixing it up Stede will purpose, and it’ll mirror Ed asking him to run off together, but this time Stede’s asking to stay, and Stede will feel awkward or like his plan went wrong, but Ed will be so happy and say yes, and they’ll be engaged for a while because there’s no point in rushing when they have all the time in the world, and when the Inns finished they’ll have a ceremony, and their guests will be the first ones to stay, Mary and Doug and the Kids will attend, it’s awkward between Mary and Ed at first, but then they joke about both feeling bad about almost killing Stede, and Ed realizes it was silly of him to be jealous of Mary in the first place, it was just his own insecurities talking, Stede is so happy to see his kids, who also missed him, Ed is nervous to meet them but they think he’s really cool, Mary and Stede figure something out so they can visit more often, Jim and Olu and Archie have to babysit at some point and it’s cute and silly because their all very caring but have never been around kids, Mary paints them something as a wedding gift, Alma kept her half of the orange and carries it with her, Izzy is Ed’s best man, Olu or Lucious is Stede’s, Frenchie or Lucious officiate, Bird Buttons, Anne Bonnie, Mary Reed, Swede, Spanish Jackie, and Zheng all attend, so does Calico Jack (even though everyone thought he was dead) they have a nice party and everyone lives happily ever after and-

[avelera]

Man, there’s all these little beats in OFMD S2 1-3 where people keep EXPECTING Stede to be upset or horrified about Ed’s actions and then he’s just. Not. In a way that reminded me of how a lot of fanon kept softening Stede into someone who doesn’t swear and is horrified at Ed for setting those ships on fire when imo to my eyes he was horrified for Ed because Ed was still so clearly distressed about it.

- Zheng Yi Sao asks Stede how he’s doing now that he knows Ed did horrible things to his crew and there’s this beat and Stede just pivots to, oh yeah, sometimes Ed is troubled. Like it didn’t occur to him to be upset on the crew’s behalf he’s worried about Ed.

- Izzy keeps trying to spare Stede’s feelings and cover up Ed’s spiral, but Stede clocked what was going on with Ed immediately and wasn’t the least bit intimidated or bothered. The knives brought the room together. Of course Ed’s trying to burn the world down or die trying. Duh. And I genuinely don’t think the STUFF in the Revenge mattered even a fraction to Stede as much as the signs of Ed’s breakdown broke his heart. It’s just STUFF, who cares.

- Lucius had to SPECIFICALLY call out Stede for not being surprised or bothered by what happened to him. What Ed did. Stede has to almost consciously remind himself to express polite concern. He just doesn’t actually care, instinctively or automatically, about what happened to Lucius. Part of it is he blames himself more than Ed. Part of it is he just doesn’t care, Ed is the priority.

They’re little blink and you’ll miss it pauses in some cases. Micro-expressions. The absence of a reaction. But honestly, I will scream it to the end of time, Stede is not some nonviolent creampuff scared or upset by Ed’s evil ways. He wants to join Ed in the atrocities. The man ran away to become a pirate. He asked if Lucius was taking notes during a murderous raid.

Stede’s at least a little on some kind of whackadoodle pirate comedy neurodivergence spectrum to the point where he actually really actually struggles to empathize with people, even people he cares about!, if their feelings conflict with his hyperfixation (piracy) and the love of his life (Ed Teach). He’s always, ALWAYS going to pick Ed over Lucius or Izzy or his crew or even his own feelings, if the option is there. He will literally throw himself overboard to get to Ed’s side. No pause. No consideration of anyone else or even his own safety.

Stede sometimes seems to have to consciously remind himself things like, oh yeah, the crew, I need to see to them. Not because he’s heartless or doesn’t care, but because it takes a bit of conscious effort for him to see beyond the laser-focused spotlight of what and who he does care most about, he has to remind himself of social niceties and other people’s feelings (just see him running away in the first place!) when he gets an idea in his head. It’s as if he had to train himself to consciously care about some things other people care about and as a neurodivergent person myself, that felt very familiar in a comedically writ large sort of way. I’d even argue that’s where all his aristocratic social niceties come from. They were his guidebook for how to do things “right” in a world that otherwise made no sense to him outside his hyperfixations. He practiced being a person through the aristocratic training because it was all so foreign to him from the start, including caring, actually caring, about the needs of others. Not because he’s consciously evil or consciously a jerk. The instinct just isn’t there unless he practices at it until it becomes reflex to ask how others are doing, because on his own his brain just doesn’t really notice or care.

I just… hope the fandom notes and has as much FUN as I do noticing all the little moments where even people inside the story of OFMD expect Stede to act in a normal way and instead he remains unhinged, laser-focused on Ed.

Stede’s not just an Ed apologist, he truly doesn’t blame Ed for any of it. He blames only himself. He doesn’t always voice this but he really really only cares about anyone else including the crew as a DISTANT second and he has to consciously REMIND himself to do so. He is able to rally to take action, to care about their physical needs like safety during the rescue, but he still struggles, deeply struggles, to remember to show empathy in a non-performative way for anyone except his special person, Ed.

Stede’s not a creampuff, not a nice guy, not some emotionally or morally perfect angel. He has to consciously practice caring about literally anything else but what he wants to do and his special person. And to me that’s a thousand times more interesting than shoving him in a box labeled “the blond, pacifist do-gooder good guy” in their relationship.

[queerly-autistic]

I keep seeing posts on social media thanking the OFMD cast and crew for their work and not mentioning Taika, and it's driving me to distraction because Taika is absolutely fundamental to the existence of this show.

There's a huge chance the show wouldn't have been picked up at all if Taika hadn't attached his name to it. And he didn't just attach his name and walk away - he played a key role in developing the show. David has said that he was looking at the history with Taika and they both went 'omg Stede and Blackbeard were fucking' and decided to centre the show around that. Taika pushed for Rhys to play Stede. Taika saw Nathan's comedy on instagram and went 'yep that's Lucius'. Taika was desperate to play Ed, and fought to play him. Taika has spoken about how much he loves playing Ed, how it made him fall in love with acting again, to the point where he wears some of Ed's jewellery and has gotten some of Ed's tattoos actually inked on him. He poured everything he has as an actor into Ed (some of the stuff he had to perform, particularly at the beginning of S2, is difficult) and the show simply wouldn't work without it. Taika directed the pilot. He loved the show enough to juggle filming S1 with post-production on Thor: Love and Thunder. When the show's budget was slashed by 40%, and could no longer afford to film in LA, Taika would have been key to moving production to New Zealand - and if that hadn't happened, S2 wouldn't have happened. When a director went off sick with Covid during S2, Taika jumped in to direct half an episode and then didn't take a director's credit on it.

You do not have to like Taika. You do not have to agree with everything he does/says. But what we are not going to do is erase the absolutely key fundamental role that Taika has played in OFMD. This show simply would not exist, probably not in any form, but certainly not in the form we see and love, if not for Taika's continuing and multi-level contribution.

[blakbonnet]

while you're misusing bury your gays, Ed is getting woken up by Stede kissing him lovingly and looking into his eyes and telling him he's the most lovable person in the world on the planet in the entire universe, and Ed is making him blush first thing in the morning, and they're badly running an inn together and pda'ing all over the falling columns of their shaky shack, and overcharging customers for salmonella stricken fish, and they're deliriously happy, by the fucking way

[demonsandpieohmy]

Coping with eps 1-3

[your-local-vampire]

you know what? i know all of tumblr is obsessed with ed (and I get it, the trauma and wet cat energy is captivating) but I am a stede girlie. i too harbor unmanageable amounts of guilt day after day for shit that doesn't matter anymore. i too am constantly trying to compensate for my lack of experience in a skill i love and i hate myself for it. i embarrass myself constantly. i dont know how to maintain loving relationships. i've been bullied more times than i can count for liking unconventional methods of presentation, or not knowing the inside knowledge and nuance of something, or most frequently just not being cool or tough or masculine enough. I am cringey. I am queer. I am insecure, scared, stupid, but I live on despite it anyways and i think that's such an important message to teach other queers, especially camp queers.

[here-there-everyfuckenwhere]

Ed being all “I’m not just gonna melt back into your arms as soon as you come back” in ep4 then literally kissing Stede in the moonlight in ep5. King of willpower.

[ebenelephant]

it's been ages now but i'm kind of really fucking mad still. ofmd s2 fucked the characters so hard imo – and that's not just izzy, even though i do love him and yeah his death was shitty. what the fuck do you mean stede is being more selfish than ever at his crew's expense? what the fuck do you mean everyone's being shitty and dismissive over lucius's trauma? what the fuck do you mean ed doesn't live and learn and grow? what the fuck do you mean all the polyamory's gone? and you introduce these badass female characters only to kind of treat them like shit? fuck man. and it's a bummer because this was such a major fandom for me for a couple years. i have an ongoing fic that i'd plotted out all the way to the sequel epilogue and i've been stuck a third of the way through since may last year because i just haven't got a heart for the show anymore. the only thing that's stopping me from dropping the fic is the fact that a handful of people actually give a shit about it. that, and the fact that i give a shit about it still; that i have my ending and it means so much to me, and the sheer fucking spite that i will do better by these characters.

[mewtnaishi]

WHY?!

What is it with writers thinking it's a good idea to take a traumatised and obviously suicidal character and KILL them off?!

This character has been through so much shit and pain. They have managed to find joy in the people around them and have had SOME happy moments.

But they still have so much unresolved trauma. And they still carry so much pain inside.

And instead of giving them a well deserved happy ending that could bring some hope to the audience watching who might relate to said character… they thinks it's a good idea to KILL THE CHARACTER OFF?!

ARE YOU F-ING KIDDING ME?! WHY?!

[plantsjustwannahavefun]

I used to think that the reason I wasn't satisfied with Izzy's death was because I was too attached to his perspective as a character and couldn't focus on the big picture of the season and the main Gentlebeard relationship enough. I mean, I was still convinced that his death and the way it was carried out was a shit writing decision, but everyone else outside the Izzy Canyon circles seemed fine with it, so I was starting to think that maybe they were right.

So I looked back on the rest of the season and rewatched the finale... And realised something that I'd been trying to ignore because it was too painful to admit. A huge part of why Izzy's death hit so hard (in a bad way, not that delicious masochistic pain of having a beloved character die a good, narratively satisfying death) was because throughout this season he was the only character who actually had a satisfying arc and development. Practically no one else did. I didn't actually care for Gentlebeard this season, not the way I cared in S1. From episode 1 to 8 and a half, Izzy's arc was crafted with more care, kindness, subtlety and narrative weight than the main Gentlebeard arc which, in comparison, felt like a string of choppy beads badly tied together in an approximate shape of an arc, but collapsed as soon as you looked at it too closely.

Yes, we all know this season suffered for being 2 episodes too short, but I don't think that's all there is to it. This is starting to feel like GoT season 8 all over again. Would it have been better if it wasn't so rushed? Maybe. Or maybe it would have been even worse because this season just didn't seem to know what to do with itself or the characters. The themes and symbolism are all over the place and completely inconsistent. Ed and Stede's characters are practically back at the same place they left in S1. All they did was bounce off the walls back and forth with no real growth. As soon as they took a step towards fixing their relationship or growing as people, they either tool three steps back or it just got dropped. Stede letting fame get to his head? Interesting and realistic development. And how was it resolved? It wasn't. Stede and Ed being whim prone? I'm glad they brought it up. And then they just fell for another whim and it was presented as a satisfying ending.

Ed went from the Kraken, to taking the first steps towards being Ed, then suddenly all the way to being Ed by way of a Night of Magical Healing Sex that he he didn't actually want to happen because he wasn't ready. And then all of a sudden he pivoted to abandoning Stede and piracy and becoming a fisherman... for 5 min. And then back to Blackbeard again because two fishermen were mean to him for 5 minutes. And then abandoning it again to open an inn. How was any of this even remotely coherent or satisfying? They didn't even have a single conversation about any of it. Ed had more proper closure and communication with Izzy during his dying scene than with Stede and the rest of the crew put together. Izzy's arc got sacrificed to do the heavy lifting for Ed's arc and became nothing more than a shortcut to speed run his character growth. Except it didn't even lead anywhere. "Ed, they're your family, they love you" no they don't, he didn't even have a single positive conversation with any of them except Fang. Of course this could have been the point, and Ed could have seen Izzy's death, his own discovery of found family and his dying words as a pretext to repair his relationship with the crew. But he just left them and stayed with Stede instead.

Sure, you could say this was only the second act of the story, and S3 will resolve everything. But the second act is still meant to move the story and the characters forward in some way. Yes, of course if we get S3, I imagine Stede and Ed's life as innkeepers won't exactly be idyllic. But the problem is that the conflicts they'd have will only be a rehash and repeat of the same conflicts they've already have, or were supposed to have, this season. Multiple times, even. We already know that Ed is simply unable to live with himself no matter what life he chooses. The title of S1 was literally "wherever you go, there you are". We already know Stede's love isn't enough to fix him. We already know their goals in life are completely opposite. Maybe they could have shown Stede realising, after his humiliating in S7, that piracy wasn't all it was cracked up to be or he isn't suited for it, and that's why he chose to leave it behind and open an inn, but that's not the explanation we were given. It was just another whim. They literally didn't learn anything this season. They had two baby conversations in E4 and E5 and didn't take anything from it, just kept doing the complete opposite of anything. "We're both prone to whims, let's take things slow" became "let's take things extremely fast by moving in together permanently and becoming entrepreneurs". They never talked about the actual, deepseated, longstanding trauma issues they needed to resolve before they could even begin to have a proper relationship. They literally got a heavy-handed glimpse in what their life would become if they just stuck together without addressing their own personal issues, and chose to do that very thing. It that's what S3 is going to address, then why were Anne and Mary part of this season instead of the next one?

I remember everyone saying they wanted Ed and Stede to reunite as quickly as possible in S2, and I get why. They have great chemistry together. The season is about them. But for it to work, spending more time apart is exactly what they needed. They needed to learn how to live with themselves and others, first. Romantic love alone can't fix you as a person. You have to fix yourself first. Community can help (as with Izzy's case), but you still have to put in the work. In retrospect, I'm glad that Izzy didn't get a love interest this season - because he wasn't ready yet, and had to learn how to have normal relationships and friendships with other people before attempting an intimate romantic relationship, lest he ended up falling head first unit another toxic mutually dependent relationship. That's what Stede and Ed should have tried too. Instead the show just ended up using Izzy's death as a quick surgical fix, robbing Ed of his agency and having to do the hard work repairing himself and his relationships with other people. There's a sad irony in getting exactly one character's arc just this, and then using it as a sacrificial lamb to patch over the main character's arc.