#so not surprised ofmd is the majority of my activity

[castalianspring]

I posted 439 times in 2022

That's 338 more posts than 2021!

17 posts created (4%)

422 posts reblogged (96%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@ophidiae

@gritkitty

@athena4lynn

@destinaf

@mad-dyspunktional

I tagged 435 of my posts in 2022

Only 1% of my posts had no tags

#our flag means death - 89 posts

#ofmd - 34 posts

#life in fandom - 34 posts

#yes - 34 posts

#brb dying - 25 posts

#bbc ghosts - 22 posts

#fan art - 20 posts

#accurate - 17 posts

#roswell new mexico - 13 posts

#lol - 12 posts

Longest Tag: 89 characters

#they obviously don't know about the time knitters got the olympics committee to apologize

My Top Posts in 2022:

#5

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113 notes - Posted April 23, 2022

#4

I think Mark may be trying to kill Larry at this point. Someone check on him.

137 notes - Posted January 27, 2022

#3

Part Two of some ramblings on costume design in Our Flag Means Death...

Lucius with his jaunty little scarf and his jacket that looks like someone cut up an old blanket, tassels and all. His other shirt also looks like a blanket - so much upholstery fabric was used in this show for costumes. He makes those grubby culottes work somehow.

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229 notes - Posted April 7, 2022

#2

Some thoughts on the costuming in Our Flag Means Death, because I'm fascinated by it. This is obviously a show without a huge budget, and while that puts limitations on what we see on screen, effort has most certainly been made to clad the characters in costumes that tell us something about them.

I mean, just look at Stede in the first outfit we see him wearing. Silks and lace, bows and trim and those shoes. It's all delightful. He wears so much color, in combinations that we don't usually get to see men wearing in period productions.

I will say, it's not nice lace. It looks like the sort of machine made trim you get from any craft store, but we know what they're going for. Those rosettes on the shoulders are ridiculous, but so is Stede here.

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253 notes - Posted April 7, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

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397 notes - Posted March 27, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

[douwatahima]

idk i'm feeling kinda riled up today and i want to talk about why the fight for ofmd is so important to me.

so listen. i've been in fandoms for a loooooong time. i remember when the sheer idea of a show (that wasn't something like, say, queer as folk) having any sort of lgbt representation was a major rarity. the idea of a random character suddenly coming out in your favourite sci fi/fantasy/action show? no way in hell. and those of us in fandom kinda came to accept that. we were queering the hell out of everything we came across, don't get me wrong, but it was because the idea of a series suddenly having a character textually be queer was just…not a thing that happened most of the time.

then came the age of queerbaiting. as someone who was in the supernatural fandom from very early on, i remember how those first few seasons of the ~great destiel saga~ felt to watch. they actively hinted at and joked about their relationship! they acknowledged the elephant in the room! surely they wouldn't do that unless it meant something!!! but then of course came the years and years of the cast and crew sneering at the people who had the audacity to…listen to the words that came out of the character's mouths and have thoughts about them. and yeah, eventually (like a decade later) cas told dean he loved him, but even now the people who worked on the show seem reluctant to say that that was a romantic moment. and that's just one example that i'm more intimately familiar with! there are so many others! just straight up gaslighting queer fans so they can keep making money off of us with no intention of actually giving us what we want; all while acting like they were doing us a favour by doing anything at all.

and it sucked! it clearly sucked! but the more time went on the less surprising it became. because at the end of the day it came down to what it always comes down to; money. there's this idea (not just in media) that there are certain people who are the "default". people whose experiences are universal and easy to understand. white people. straight people. cis people. when it comes to media, stories about these people are seen as something anyone can watch and understand. but when you try to tell stories about people who fall outside of these categories? well, now you're making niche content that only people who fall into that niche will be able to identify with.

and look, i know i'm preaching to the choir here. this is tumblr. we all know there's a lot of racism, sexism, homophobia, and transphobia in the world. my point is that the narrative around queerbaiting from an industry standpoint seemed to be "yeah, we want the ad revenue from all of these lgbt people watching our shows, but if we commit to actually making any of our characters queer we're going to isolate our straight audience and lose most of our viewers". and there was never any concrete way to disprove that. so yeah. we would occasionally be blessed by a ~very special show~ that actually depicted queerness (usually about younger people coming out, or about the tragedies that can and have faced people in our community), but the idea of branching out beyond that seemed like a no go.

and then along came our flag means death. a show about pirates that also talked about toxic masculinity and had characters who were casually queer in every different variety and also featured people with different body types who came from different cultures and who were all treated with kindness and grace. a show that didn't necessarily market itself specifically as ~a queer show~ (which, was probably in part due to trying to bury the lead which sucks, but the point still stands) but rather a fun show anyone could watch. that wasn't specifically about coming out or tragedy but was more so about joy, and community, and love. and here's the thing. here's the wild as fuck thing that happened. this show? it didn't lose all of its viewers when those last two episodes of season 1 aired and it confirmed without a shadow of a doubt that ed and stede were in love. the opposite happened. this show fucking soared into the stratosphere.

i remember the first time i saw those parrot analytics charts showing that ofmd was the most in demand new series; out performing marvel even. i was so overcome i legit broke down in tears. because it turns out all of those times i had been told to sit back and accept the scraps i was given because that was all my community was profitable enough to get, those people were wrong. we could've had this the whole time! WE COULD'VE HAD THIS THE WHOLE TIME!!! and as the weeks progressed and ofmd remained at the top of every chart, as the show continued to succeed, i felt such an immense amount of joy! those people were wrong! we can just have this and it'll do well!!!

and yeah, apparently that wasn't enough to convince the powers that be. they spent forever deciding whether to renew it and when they finally did the budget was cut nearly in half and the people at max decided they needed to oversee the show a lot more. all of this sucks. but the thing is they made season 2 and they fucking did it again! the show got even better critics scores than last time! the show was doing numbers better than season 3 of succession! the merch, only released in october, became some of the best selling merch of 2023 on the max shop! by max's own admission season 2 was one of the biggest hits of the year for them!!! like, what more is there? the show is a success!!!

so yeah. i'm not going to accept the fucking stupid excuses max gives as to why they cancelled it. saying that it didn't have the numbers (it did), or that they didn't know how to market violence (they do), or that it didn't have awards buzz (it has literally been nominated for awards and there's still active fyc ads the company itself made) just doesn't cut it. there was no reason to cancel it other than the idea that diverse media "doesn't sell". and max, by airing this show you have shown me that that fucking isn't true. it's never been true. so i'm going to keep fighting for this one until someone picks it up or until i'm old and grey because it isn't just about ofmd. it's about the belief that our stories, the stories of people who aren't "the default" are worth telling. by every metric they are worth telling. and that is something that i know is worth fighting for.