#taika is literally so fucking pretty

[sad-yehaw]

me screaming is an understatement

[nuka]

You know what? I think it's fucking lovely that the OFMD fandom is collectively coming to support Taika after all the shit he got for the letter. If you don’t like him, that’s fine, I’m not saying everyone does or should, but the general vibe in the fandom this week has been so much better regarding Taika. And I’m glad Samba did a shoutout for him. I’ve seen so many people say, “actually, overall Taika’s a good guy and he’s allowed to make mistakes and it was a letter so just block me if you disagree”. People are going to get shit for saying that, but they’re saying it anyway, and I admire that.

I’ve always enjoyed Taika’s work, I saw his short film Two Cars, One Night back when I was a teenager and I immediately thought there was something unique about his style. Something about how he tells meaningful stories through humor has always appealed to me. Not to get all parasocial here, but I do get the vibe from his work and his past interviews that I’ve gone through some of the same shit as he has early on in life, so that might be why I relate to him and the messages in his work so much, and why I can kinda see where he’s coming from. I think he’s a brilliant filmmaker. And he’s truly put so much effort into his character in Our Flag Means Death, and the show wouldn’t be the same without his contribution to it. Anyway, that’s just my opinion on his work.

I’ve come to the conclusion that he’s not acting from a place of malice with the letter, and he often tends to say things in interviews without explaining himself that well, which leads to people making their own assumptions about what he’s saying. These days you have to overexplain yourself when you say anything just to make sure you’re not accidentally offending anyone, because people will read some hidden meaning into anything you don’t say. There are actually evil people in the world, and Taika’s not one of them. He’s also not in a place of political power, so his political stance has about the same power as my hairdresser’s political stance.

Taika’s put a lot of work into giving visibility and a voice to indigenous groups through filmmaking. Many people are willing to throw all that away for one letter. I’m not. If you disagree, then that’s your opinion. Personally I think he’s a pretty decent guy, a complex human being just like the rest of us, and he’s done a lot of good. Do I think he could’ve done some things differently regarding this situation or some situations in the past? Sure! He’s not perfect. No one is.

But I also completely understand why he’s not much on social media anymore, because he’ll get attacked for literally anything he says or does. Why bother trying to appease anyone online, when the majority of people are going to be dicks about it anyway. He probably has better things to do with his time in the real world.

So yeah.

[sarucane]

Allow me to preface with: I love where OFMD ends up. Every time I see something that makes me fear for a renewal (Taika noooo), I remember that everyone was was okay where it ended, and dammit the ends justified the means

But:

Fuuuuck it's overstuffed, objectively. And my measurement of overstuffiness is: Big Musical Moments.

OFMD has these amazing sequences where the music and the action and the story all blend together in this glorious literal symphony. A normal episode has 1-2 of these sequences, and they're fucking glorious and eternal.

The finale of S2? The finale of S2 has FOUR Big Musical Moments! Five if you count Ed coming out of the water!

It's too many, it just is. There's missing links between character moments, missing plot details--it's a mess.

But I fucking love it and I'm so, so glad they rushed, because a TV season ender is a balance between the story as a whole and the investment of its watchers. Jenkins and co. decided that the investment of the watchers--and the wholeness of its charaters--was more important than the mechanics of story. And if that make you feel cheated, that's fair and that stinks. But fuck, so many stories are about the endless continuance of the characters and the ego of the creators--it's pretty damn amazing to feel like the fans (*cough* of the main arc *cough*) are valued and the creators are less important than getting to a place where it's ok to end.

The last line of this show might be "fuck that's strong!" "maybe we just air it out a bit..."

And that's actually okay. And it is, somehow, beautiful.

But goddamnit, JUST FIVE MORE MINUTES and that episode would have been PERFECT...

[batsarebetterthanpeople]

Takia & Rhys are platonic friends, so i'd rather not watch a sex scene BUT scattered clothes/waist-up naked bed cuddling/jumping each other when the Passion Grows Too Great/overheard moans etc. would all be excellent. Also maybe a scene right after they have sex, where Ed's snoring & then it pans over to Stede whose expression is just 🤩🤩 like when Arnold Schwarzenegger loses his virginity in Twins.

Not to be like, a sex worker on main, but this is such a weird take to me.

Like first of reason it's a weird take is, I've done a fake sex scene in a filming situation before (it was for a friend's art school project as a teenager and it lasted exactly 10 seconds so it was like not serious or comparable) and trust me acting in a sex scene is not very much like having sex. And unlike what I did there's gonna be a whole intimacy coordinator and set choreographer and all that shit on set which is gonna make it even less like having sex. Like from what I gather through the grape vine if there's a blackbonnet sex scene is season 2 like what I described what happened was they took the worlds stiffest weirdest blanket that was specifically frozen into one position, and then there were like 5 people sitting just of screen in those directors chairs pausing it every few minutes to make sure everything that's happening is above board, and they're wearing jeans under that blanket, and Rosie Darby and Rita Ora are also off screen in a chair just to make sure it doesn't get to narsty (i've heard of actors spouses sitting in on sex scenes before Idk if that's standard practice but it's a thing I've heard of). So a sex scene is not sex let's just start there. You're on a set with a bunch of fucking cameras, nobody is touching anybody else's junk, they will literally make fake prosthetic junk for them to touch before they let the actors touch each other, and nobody is actually even naked. Like even in episode 8, the least sexual nudity ever, Buttons the character may have been butt fucking naked but Ewen Bremner had one of those skin color tape on g strings that makes you look like a ken doll down there.

The second reason it's a weird take for me is, as someone who has done sex work before... truly getting paid to fuck a platonic friend sounds like a dream scenario. Like that sounds like the most normal scenario I can think of. Like you would already care pretty deeply about each other's comfort level, you would be able to get passed the awkward "so uh, hi I'm ___ I guess we're having sex now" thing because that's your buddy you know them. You can meme with each other to diffuse the tension. Absolute best case scenario. Like that's not what's happening here because like I said they're super not having sex, but I were watching a porno the actors being platonic friends IRL would not ruin it for me because that sounds like literally so much chiller than fucking a stranger for money to me.' I prefer a John I've seen before personally. (not that those two types of sex work are the same)

The third reason this is weird to me is because... we've like, seen them kiss, presumably we want them to kiss again. But that is where the acting is real. Does them being platonic friends ruin the kiss for you too? Because they actually kissed each other. Unlike a sex scene that would not be fake.

The final reason is, like I said, we're not watching Rhys and Taika have sex because they didn't have sex (for this). But we are watching Ed and Stede have sex. Ed and Stede are not platonic friends, so the people you're watching have sex (Ed and Stede) are very much attracted to each other.

TL;DR: Any sex scene they would do on OFMD is all smoke and mirrors. Even if they literally showed us a dick going into an ass (which they're super not gonna do) that is prosthetics, ass molds and cgi. So Rhys and Taika being platonic friends who aren't attracted to each other irl should be of no object. If you would prefer to see a scene like you described rather than a full blown sex scene that's fine, but Taika and Rhys being Just Friends is quite possibly the most nonsensical reason to not want to see it. It's fine to feel weird about seeing sex on tv like that's ok you don't have to come up with some reason.

[widowsliver]

okay so, not music related (if u twist it, it can be tho) but. you mentioned media and that so, top 5 films? my fav question to ask anyone as a (almost) film student

Finally found the time to answer this as I’m on a 3 hour train ride (willing myself to not make a 1975 reference right now) so here ya go!! thank you for your patience :)

1. Knives Out (Dir. Rian Johnson)

my favourite genre of typically everything will always be a good classic murder mystery (I am a massive agatha christie fan), I love anything that really makes you think and look out for stuff whilst you’re watching it and gets your heart pumping, so this is why this will always be my favourite film because of how masterfully it was developed. everything down to the angles chosen by rian to literally everything in the film (I’ve watched the videos where he breaks down scenes on YouTube so many times) is just perfect and makes so much sense — something that gets lost sometimes (in my opinion) in mysteries. although the sequel isn’t on my top 5 list, I genuinely think it was one of the strongest second instalments to any franchise and I throughly enjoyed it.

2. Red Eye (Dir. Wes Craven)

similar reason to knives out, I love the thrill of the film because of the confined space, which initially would make the audience think there wouldn’t be much you could use and get stuck, but I don’t think this was an issue in the film at all. my mate initially chucked this on without telling us anything about the film (besides cillian murphy being in it, which was enough to convince me) so imagine the surprise on my face when I realised this wasn’t a cute corny romcom. the ending fight sequence in the house was also fucking amazing and quickly shot to my top 5 list immediately after watching it. I also fancy the duck out of rachel mcadams so this was a bisexual dream.

3. Moulin Rouge! (Dir. Baz Luhrmann)

I just love love. I love love love love. the best love story to ever be told in such a extravagant way with an hilarious cast. this is also my favourite stage musical of all time and the way they adapted it was brilliant. really does pull the story together amazingly and teaches the audience a lot through it’s hard hitting ending — I cry every time, and despite my love for satine I don’t think I’d love this film as much if it didn’t end the way that it does.

4. JoJo Rabbit (Dir. Taika Waititi)

this is also another film that made me bawl so much when I saw it in the cinema, the way that it made me feel emotionally pulled on my heartstrings like no other film I had seen before, especially with the masterful shot of rosie’s shoes. that’s what got me (and I’m pretty sure what got everyone). to be on my top 5 list, a film either has to emotionally destroy me which makes me experience emotions I never thought I had, or blow my mind. as you can see every film on this list at least meets one of those factors.

5. Now You See Me (Dir. Louis Leterrier)

finally, the awesome film that is now you see me. I admittedly am quite obsessed with jessie eisenburg in this film (unashamed) and I feel bad for my friends who saw me whilst I was at my peak obsession with this film. but all the characters / cast compliment each other really well, and either I’m just insanely easily impressed (all of my friends will definitely agree with me on this) or the ending was just mind blowing. maybe a mixture of both? either way, I also think this film has one of the greatest scores of all time. truly is a masterpiece in every sense of the word!

I will mention the most recent film I watched in the cinema was Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning Pt. 1 and I was absolutely blown away by it. some excellent directing and choice of shots, costumes etc. as a media student genuinely did feel that everything (down to the last detail) was carefully thought of. also so excited for barbenhiemer I will be watching them both on the same date as a double bill — it’s the law.

[niobiumao3]

Found a little bit more energy to talk about why the cancer plot in Thor: Love and Thunder is just so insufferably bad.

So setting aside weird inaccuracies (infusion sitting literally right next to some random person? lol no, sterility and infections are a thing; why is a woman Natalie Portman's size in a huge, widebore MRI do you know how hard it is to get one of those as a fat person who actually needs it; why does she still have hair; where is her port), the part where she's working on her OWN cancer while making jokes about Stages is just awful writing and intensely insensitive.

You know who works on their own cancer? No one who wants to live. I work with cancer researchers and when they have cancer guess what--someone else does the leg work. Colleagues, possibly, but not them. Sure they can understand the ins and outs better than a layman but they don't do their own pathology.

And Jane isn't even a biologist or a doctor, she's an astrophysicist. Sorry guys but she's not Shuri, she doesn't know fuck all about how to do this shit. There are professional technicians and oncologists who do these things for a REASON. They specialize in it. And the MCU has a biologist/doctor, fucking Helen Cho. Why is it not her that Jane consults with? Erik isn't an oncologist either. And why is the lab Jane wants to get back to not an astrophysics lab in Atacama or something, you know where her own damned work might be??? No she's randomly checking blood samples under a microscope.

This also makes no sense in light of the staging 'joke' with Darcy. Are you going to tell me someone who doesn't know staging is going to work on their own cancer?! Worse, they could have written this joke with proper gallows humor and completely missed the mark. (Eg. "You're stage 4, Jane." "Stage Four A, Darcy, *A*." "Okay that's still distant metastasis soooooo..." " Yeah but it's not as distant as 4B." Darcy, offering a donut: "If yoooouuu say so.")

It's grotesque to see something as serious, life-destroying, and terrifyingly common as cancer dealt with so frivolously. I fucking hate it and I'm disappointed in Taika for putting this kind of garbage out there about goddamned cancer. I don't care how funny your movie is meant to be, this was awful.

And to add insult to injury, the only reason she has cancer is so she can be Thor. That's it; she wouldn't be seeking out Mjolnor otherwise. Later they walk this back by showing her mom dying of it as well, but why was that not brought up initially?? Oh also, it's a retcon! Her mom is ALIVE in Thor 2. Now she's dead since childhood, I guess. Or something.

Also bringing up her mom is clearly meant to signal breast cancer, except no one wants to say that because how can she be Thor's love interest if she's had a radical double mastectomy? Guess we need to allude to it rather than owning up to the narrative we chose.

There are things I liked. Waititi continues to handle Thor's powers in a way I prefer; I also loved the notion that Mjolnir being broken wasn't actually relevant to its power. Why was that not the actual narrative thrust? This is something a person with terminal cancer can relate to--the idea that when you're irreparably damaged you want to still do what you can while you can. Plenty of terminal patients opt to stop treating so they can live what they've got left. (This is one of my favorite lines from Endgame, Rhodey, who walks only with the aid of technology, to Nebula: We work with what we've got. God, very real and relateable.) That would have worked as a central thrust; instead it's relegated to the final like 20m of the film and tossed in on the side.

Just, overall it's a badly written movie. It just is, and the fact that it involves things pretty close to home for me and which I would love to see more about makes it hurt that much more.

So. Fuck this movie. It sucks, don't watch it.

[ourflagmeansgayrights]

like considering the way people were speculating that taika was personally responsible for firing guz khan from ofmd, a story with very little evidence that honestly reads like an antisemetic conspiracy theory, it’s weird to me that the screenshot on the right being the one passed around twitter and people jumping to the conclusion that he’s talking about that letter he signed when what he was talking about right before that was jojo rabbit and holocaust denial/misinformation and continuing conversations about the holocaust.

yeah taika has a history of saying/doing some pretty uninformed and tone-deaf stuff at times and this is one of them, but i’m not gonna get all worked up over a Jewish Māori man being frustrated that people who dont know anything abt what Māori people are facing are combing through his instagram likes and going in twitter to demand expert statements from him on social issues he is not completely informed about. taika is literally just a guy who makes movies and the way people hold him to this higher standard of moral purity is so fucking transparent

why do we have to do “taika waititi is a bad person” discourse every other week

[candied-cae]

One of my favorite things about watching Ed and Stede fall in love, is how clearly we see the consequences of their lives effecting how they are able to perceive their own feelings.

Where Ed was shown bad examples of love, Stede was shown nothing at all. When Ed was shown freedom, Stede was still trapped. But when Ed found himself caged, Stede found his way out. And all those things shaped how they realized they were in love.

On one hand, we have Ed.

His first exposure to "love" is his mother's abuse at the hands of his father, that at a young age he felt he carried the responsibility to end. It paints it bad: Even if there was once love there, it withered and died until it became violent, or perhaps there was never love and it was just the thing adults did because that's the world we live in, you get married and hate each other because what else are you going to do to pass the time?

So he runs off, becomes a pirate at a young age, rebelling against society and its expectations, and its rules, and its nuclear families. Fuck them all, Edward Teach doesn't need any of it. And in his new life, he finds power and control over what happens to him for probably the first time. He's good at piracy, he has tense companionships, earns respect, and it's fun. It's new and different from the mainland life.

And then he get's used to it, and suddenly it's just another trap again. It's not the same game as the land fairing people of the world, a different charade, yet still one he has to play just because the world says so. Maybe he didn't get married, but he's got this nickname and reputation and now he had to fill its role. All these expectations he tried to avoid, but he just created new ones. And it's probably somewhere in here, that even if he had let himself believe he could love and be loved, that he lost it again. Such a thing surely wasn't real, people just lie and pretend they loved each other because that's just what you do.

But then he finds Stede. This crazy, weird, fantastic guy who just isn't doing it like anyone else. He is doing what he wants just because he wants and there's no one's stopping him. And it's beautiful and refreshing to see that freedom, after all his years had made him jaded. And at first it was just fun, really exciting and wild and thrilling and joyful, but it was just fun. Something to fill that void of boredom.

Then he really falls. When Stede tucks that silk into his pocket and tells him he wears fine things well. When he really sees everything that Stede is and it's amazing. He's so undoubtably his own person, unwilling to bend to the ways the world wants him to be. He is in open rebellion to society in every way, and in every move he makes he heals a little bit of Edward's broken heart. He gingerly holds it in his hands and assures him that he is worthy of sweetness and finery. And when Ed loves Stede, it's entirely its own feeling. So different from his parents, his crew, his companions. It's just something new to the world that it's never seen before, and it's all his. It's so powerful and beautiful, and he's willing to die or give up any other freedom he has for it. That love meant too much to lose. So when he kisses him, it's his unabashed, unafraid, leap of faith into love's embrace.

And on the other side, there is Stede.

His father's love to him did not exist. All their interactions were cold and dripping with hate. His father hated him. Hated his softness and his hope and all that made Stede himself. And he had no one else to turn to. In school, with the other boys his age, he was hated exactly the same. Tormented and abused in the name of asserting superiority over him. Ripping him to bits for daring to love flowers.

He never had family love, he never had friendly love, and when the topic of romance was finally brought up, he was told he got none of that either. His entire life was a series of business transactions the rich would move around as they organized themselves in their hierarchy. And so he did his job in it. He was "baby Bonnet" so other boys could be better that him, and he was "Mr. Bonnet" so he and Mary could combine their families wealth.

Then he ran away. When he could no longer stand all these different roles he served for everyone but himself, he ran away. And he was only on the waters for less than a year. That was not enough time for him to even begin to understand love. He tried his best, he did have such a large heart despite his life. He showered his crew with respect and gentle understanding, giving to them all the love he held, wanting not just his dreams of piracy, but companionship for the first time in his life. Of course it was strained, he had a lot to learn before they could really bond.

So when he meets Ed, he's almost entirely entranced by his first friend. Someone who is actively enjoying every single thing about him. Every ridiculous character quirk, all his strange priorities, the way he caries himself, his humor - all of it is beloved by Ed. For the first time in all his life, he has someone who actually likes his personality. He was falling in love, but he had no idea that wasn't just how friendship felt. The prospect of companionship was something so foreign to him. All of his love was genuine, just vastly underestimated by himself who couldn't place the name of all the feelings he now carried.

Even when Ed kisses him, he knows he likes Ed, he knows Ed is his favorite person in the whole world, he knows he liked the kiss. But he still wasn't sure how serious it was. Still couldn't be sure it wasn't just a best friendship. It was only when Mary walked him through it would he admit to himself that it was real. It was actually love.

What all those kids did to him, what his father told him before he met Mary, all the times he has felt like an outsider to his own heart: none of it mattered. Despite all of it telling him that he would never get love, he went out and found it. And now that he knows it, he's going to fight like hell to get back to Ed so he can enjoy it.

More OMFD

[angelicmemo]

Our Flag Means Death is a wonderful and fun show about pirates having adventures and is only possible BECAUSE of the historical context. It’s the dynamic of the pirate legend and the aristocratic bumbling fool found in history with the real Stede and Ed that MAKE the show

did you expect David and Taika to get the idea and just be like yes let’s make this, this sounds so fun….

Oh we can’t use the real guy cause, like pretty much everyone in the 1700s, he sucked????

Let’s use my oc instead! His name is Steve Nonnet but he’s known on the sea as the Dandy Swashbuckler!

People would notice, people would obviously be like umm wtf is up with that? It’s so much better to already have the basis of literally hundreds of years of legend backing up your a story.

Do you think the show would be nearly as effective if everything was the exact same but Stede wasn’t Stede and Blackbeard wasn’t Blackbeard? The reason Ed’s character arc works is BECAUSE we already know Blackbeard and then we see him and he turns all our expectations on our heads. Replacing him with another random pirate wouldn’t have the same effect, neither would switching out Stede when a simple google search can reveal that there was someone with the exact same basis as him already existing and interacting with Blackbeard.

You can’t praise the historical inaccuracy of a show (Olu’s Crocs, Jim’s Binder, Timeline errors with when things are invented etc) and then go back and slander it for not following the lives of these characters exactly how they happened- racism, abuse and slavery included.

The show is a lighthearted comedy based loosely on the dynamic of two pirates who died 300 years ago. Not everything has to be about Trauma. Just let people enjoy things it’s seriously not that hard.

[batsarebetterthanpeople]

Ok I do want to talk about lighting actually. Lighting is so important for skin tone I'm not even joking. Like I saw a disagreement the other day where a piece of art of ed was drawn a bit on the lighter side and I didn't think it was out of his skin tone range by any means, perhaps the background would suggest that there was less light in the picture than the skin tone would suggest. But basically the artist was having a disagreement with a rather polite anon about skin tone and I was like, this is 1000% a lighting issue. I'm gonna drop some examples of lighting.

Ok here we have three pictures of the same fucking guy right. His skin pigmentation is the same, he's not tanner in any of these images. And yet.... When I go to color pick

All of these colors are Taika Waititi's skin tone. One of them is fucking purple. So obviously not all colors that we can pick are created equal. Now if I were incredibly fucking lazy and didn't care how racist I was being and I wanted to draw Izzy and Fang, but I didn't want to bother with two separate skin colors, and so I just made em both white and then someone called me out on it I could do something like this

And then say, They're both standing on the deck. I picked from the most highlighted portions of their faces. But you'll notice that fangs got a bright whitish light shining on him from one side. where as Izzy is in pretty neutral , muted lighting

Now if you actually gave a fuck, which why are you even making art if you don't give a fuck tbh, You would do something more like this.

Now sometimes it is an honest mistake. Drawing Fang and Izzy the same skin tone never is, because I fell like your "i've fucked up" alarm bells should go off long before you post it to the internet. But I'm a Stede/Ed/Jack/Izzy enjoyer and pictures of those 4 actors in the same room don't exist, so I have to either guestimate skin tone or go searching for pictures that are roughly in the same lighting. And Even in a picture like this if you pick from literally the darkest spot on Izzy's face his contour will be much darker than Fangs because his face touching Fang's shoulder is creating a much darker shadow than any shadow that exists on Fangs face. That said, this is what separates us from the AI. We have critical thinking skills and we can, assuming we're not colorblind, look at hues and tones and values and evaluate whether they're correct or whether this particular photograph isn't really working and we need to go find another one.

That said one of the most common lighting mistakes I see, and I understand completely why it happens, is using a picture of a actor in studio lighting, which brightens the apparent color of their skin significantly, drawn against a background that would suggest that the character isn't in that sort of lighting. The reason this happens is because if you google an actor the first pics that show up are all professionally shot in studio lighting. I would take a screen cap from a show over that 90% of the time.

All of this is tangential to the issue I didn't mean to derail I just feel like it's useful for artists to have this info so they don't mess up in problematic ways, and it's useful for non artists to have this info so that they can recognize when an artist is being disingenuous.

was just casually scrolling twt and came across p recent art of Fang/Izzy/Lucius/Pete and Fang was literally the same color as Izzy 🥴

[faggotwalkwithme]

this is a jemaine clement appreciation blog

[vampyre-lesbian]

some of my favorite little moments from our flag means death, in no particular order

when the guys are trying to convince Jim’s Nana they’re Catholic, so they start making the sign of the cross, but Frenchie just kind of waves his hand around aimlessly

“maybe they understand ecclesiastical latin!” and Taika’s little face journey immediately following that line

i literally cried laughing when Ed was losing his shit and throwing the snake around. a bug landed on me recently and I had pretty much the exact same reaction tbh

“cats are terrifying because they’re witches and got knives in their feet” “cats are very evil because they steal children’s breath”

Blackbeard's Bar and Grill and Other Delicacies and Delights and Fishing Equipment™

"I'm sorry, I didn't realize I had an audience with the fucking pope"

the super dramatic divorce arc that only lasted a total of five minutes before Ed decided to come back.

when Jim did that classic cat thing and knocked over a cup while making direct eye contact with Olu

Lucius's Pinocchio voice

Frenchie and Olu inventing the pyramid scheme in 1717

Izzy moaning "ooooh, Daddy." like what the fuck was up with that.

"I would love to be stabbed by Jim" honestly same

"Lucius... we spend every day together. Treasure is the real treasure!"

please feel free to add on to this!

[funnefatale]

wanted to make a post ranting about how much tlat fucked over val but it's so bad that it isn't worth the brain power it would take to write an essay so here's a list of bullshit. tlat spoilers obviously

this movie just unnecessarily made val into a slutty bisexual who has commitment issues? like, why was she like "an orgy sounds great" while thorjane (the straights) were like ew

the way they reduced her to the token black friend who is there purely to support the white mains??? like that was the vibe I got from the trailer but this was somehow worse??? she got virtually nothing???

why are the asgardians respecting thor more than val when she's their king and the one whose been taking care of them while thor's been fucking around having his fifteenth midlife crisis???

tessa said that there was a version of the script where her whole storyline was just about finding a queen and she had to step in because it was dehumanizing and the focus on val needed to be about her being a person who happened to be queer... but where was this person? we got some grrl power king status scenes and a couple of blink and you'll miss them lines about the valkyrior and that's it

how did we not get a single flashback about the valkyrior even though we know an extra was cast a valkyrie

she got nerf'd and kicked out of the final battle and was absent for like most of the last 30 minutes

some kids got more of a hero moment in the final battle than val did

pretty sure she actually had more screen time in ragnarok than in tlat

she had literally no character development or plot. she is literally just a body there to fight

no fr there's this whole ass scene where she's basically a body for korg?? it was very strange and didn't serve a purpose but she had to do it while because I guess thorjane are too important to do it

thor says that zeus was his childhood hero when it was previously val, and like yeah you can have more than one hero but come on

we are three movies deep, why doesn't val have a first name??? tessa implied she would get a name and then she just didn't????

val doesn't get to talk about her beloved herself - it's just korg babbling at her about her commitment issues and mentions an ex girlfriend

val lowkey compares jane to her sisters but their entire friendship is basically offscreen

there's this bit where korg says thor doesn't discriminate who he loves and it cuts to a montage of thor with a bunch of white women and idk that feels like an attack on the idea of a black woman being his love interest

also this isn't about val but thor's characterization was just so fucking awful this entire movie like holy shit who the fuck was that man baby because that was not the person at the end of ragnarok or even iw/endgame. like, what the fuck did taika do to my man??? but that may need to be its own post

in conclusion this movie sucks ass. is it queerbaiting? no, val is explicitly queer (and korg but who cares about that pile of rocks), but it's not a good movie and just a horrible movie for val in particular. if you're a qpoc or a woc who was excited to see val finally get her moment in the sun then don't even bother

[purplehalnw]

What makes me really angry about the Loki show is that its not even his show. Its really just about the TVA and the multiverse and Marvel needed to get people to watch it somehow so they just slapped Loki's name on it.

They took a beloved character that many people could relate to and said "nope lol he's just the fucking villain, all of his trauma isn't valid, he's the only one who needs to change" and completely changed his personality and dumbed him down. And then of course they used him being queer as a way to earn brownie points even though if you see the show at a first glance its not even noticeable and if you do look further into it you'll realize its actually misrepresentation. It makes me so fucking angry and sad to see one of my favorite characters being treated like this.

And what's kind of funny and depressing is Marvel is using the TVA to basically say "We should stop forcing people into these boxes of what we think they should be and just let them be who they really are" when that's what they're doing with Loki. Literally forcing this new personality on him and claiming its "character development" because they'd rather bait people for views and money than actually have good and consistent writing.

And also fuck Taika Waititi since he pretty much started this whole Loki character assassination project with Thor Ragnarok.

[knowlesian]

quick thoughts: the way frenchie constantly comes back to sort of... Thematic Code Switching? i don’t quite know what to call it and i’m still working out my thoughts on it overall, but either way it’s deeply fucking cool.

i have been asking myself “why did ed keep frenchie? jim is a solid duh. they’re jim. literally anyone would keep jim for so very many reasons. and getting rid of lucius first is a horrible stew created by all the reasons lucius is precious and essentially Ship Therapist, so that scans... but why frenchie? i guess he’s kind of the second most useful one there, but there HAS TO BE A SOLID REASON I CAN PINPOINT, this teams exists solely to be so careful in their narrative that i never think about anything else again”. i was coming up real vague on it until i watched e4 again to talk about the closet, and the lightbulb came: it’s the code switching.

the most obvious/real world example comes at the dinner party turned conflagration, with “i’ve been in service” and the way the show contrasts olu’s discomfort at briefly inhabiting this deeply, deeply white world with frenchie’s ability to turn everything he learned bowing to the whims of rich fucking assholes in order to rob them blind (and then he DISTRIBUTED THE WEALTH AFTER???) i want to kill everyone involved with this (devoted for the rest of my life.)

but i think the more important scene might be in e4, when everybody is fangirling over ed. the whole muppet analogy serves to stand in as a way to talk about a lot of ways to end up ground under the proverbial bootheel of dominant culture as well as a literal logical framework. (...illogical? what is time, what is space, the ocean travel in ofmd does not know, people arrive when they need to arrive because it’ll be COOLEST so we invite you to fuck yourself if you care about figuring out any actual sense of scale on this, beloved monster/lighthouses, and just enjoy) ANYWAY. much like gonzo’s limbs when they put him on the rack and he likes it, the muppet framework can be bent and stretched into new forms pretty easily.

while everybody else is losing their minds because Leather Daddy Taika is here to show them his belly, frenchie wants to know if they're all about to bite it before he nerds out. he might be a muppet, but he’s moved between canons himself. he’s aware there are worlds out there where when somebody stabs you, there’s no cutesy “joke’s on you, i cleverly twisted to the side!” bullshit to save you. jim is ...jim, and thus a slam dunk, but i think the reason frenchie stays is because before he went ahead and nailed his shirt to the ship, he asked if they were all about to die.

damn, this show is good.

eta because this post is incomplete without @tothetrashwhereibelong​’s more refined take.

ID: Screenshot of tags that read, “frenchie is possibly the smartest out of all of them; definitely the most cunning; but also i feel the need to point out it was olu who distributed the wealth not frenchie; because i think it really speaks of olu’s character as someone who’s fundamentally looking for community before he’s looking for himself; while I think frenchie (esp because he knows how dark the world theyre living in actually is; better than olu does) would put himself first; which is not to say that frenchie is selfish because hes not; like for starters he let olu decide what to do with the money; but i think community is at the core of olu’s character in a way that it isnt for frenchie’s; ofmd; meta; frenchie; frenchie meta”. End ID

[do-angels-dream-of-starry-seas]

I heard your special interest is “the gay pirate show” and I am DYING to know more can you please infodump

*vibrating at the speed of sound* yeah I like this show a normal amount

But okokokokook thank you for giving me permission to talk about

Our Flag Means Death

So let's start like, in the beginning so you get context:

It's a romcom

That's very loosely based on a real life pirate

Named Stede Bonnet, an aristocrat who left his fancy life and family to become a pirate

He was different than the other pirates, wanting to be called The Gentleman Pirate and did things like pay his crew a salary

He also supposedly was the guy who invented walking the plank

That's just a little fun fact :)

His career only lasted barely over a year

But the most well known thing about him and his piracy is his stint with Blackbeard

Yeah that guy

Basically he got gravely injured, Blackbeard swooped in to save the day and he relented his crew to him while he recovered

They sailed together for a little bit until Blackbeard left him and marooned his crew

Stede tried to find him, but they sadly never met each other again

So 200 years later, this guy named David Jenkins who made one funny show that was canceled read the Wikipedia article his wife linked him and said "oh that was gay" and thus

The show was born!!!!

So you got Stede, played by Rhys Darby, the guy who was the background funny man in all your shit like Voltron and the new Jumanji movies

And Blackbeard is played by Taika Waititi, the guy who directed the new Thor movies and appears in all his movies in some way

AND OTHER REAL LIFE PIRATES APPEAR IN THE SHOW TOO, LIKE

Isreal Hands, who is called Izzy Hands, played by Con O'Neill

And Calico Jack, played by Will Arnett in one episode

So the plot of the show iiiiiis.....

Stede is sad

His childhood sucked, his dad sucked and he was put in an arranged marriage with a stranger

He finally decides to take the leap and commission a ship and planned to hire a crew and leave with his fam

But fam said "we are a wife and children Stede plus wife hates the ocean"

So he leaves them, and even though he's happier now, he still feel guilty for leaving in the middle of the night with just a letter about where he went

He tries to do piracy differently!

He encourages his crew to express their feelings in a healthy manner

And they even do arts and crafts at one point

Buuuuut he's a guy who has no idea what the fuck he's doing

And almost dies until Blackbeard swoops in to save the day

Who is actually Edward Teach the fucking adhd king

Who's pretty bored with his life of plundering and not even having to properly fight people anymore cause they just surrender when they see the flag

So he meets this fancy man who shows off his library and fireplace on a wooden vessel and a secret closet full of clothes

And is like "sign me the fuck up"

So yeah, that's the show's plot.

But if you might've saw in the very beginning, I said this is a romcom

It's a romcom

Between the leads

Thus: Gay Pirate Show

So but like, to give more context on how revolutionary this show is

It's not just between the leads:

There are two other queer romances in the show that get emotional depth and importance

And they said in interviews that all the crewmates are supposed to be queer!!!

So my fucking ship, my fucking babies, are interracial middle-aged guys who have a slow burn romance

And the other pairs are

1. two guys

(one initially portraying himself as a manly man pirate, the other a flamboyant guy who becomes a great therapist and friend to the main leads)

And 2. A fat black man and a Hispanic nonbinary assassin

No I'm not fucking kidding, they show this pirate who seems to have "plot twist! This dude is actually disguised as a lady!" But instead it's "plot twist! Their gender is knives!"

So the show is not just gay as an afterthought:

It's baked into the show's core

Yet it's not a source of angst and is shown to be liberating

They literally named one of the episodes This Is Happening to tell you This Is Happening Between The Leads

So yeah, this show is FUCKING AMAZING, especially after

So much queerbaiting

And all the romantic moments are made

To be romantic, not just in a "haha bros acting gay!!!"

Even the creator of the show admitted he didn't know what queerbaiting was when he made it

He just hired a diverse writing staff and made the show cause he wanted to make it and saw it as gay

So obviously this is fantastic, and definitely enough to get people to watch it if you wanna watch it at this point.

But it is very important for me to add this ain't the only thing great about this show.

So let me give some honorable mentions on how this show is the best thing ever and deserved all the Emmy awards screw the Emmys:

It's not just a comedy all the way through - There is some drama and hard-hitting moments that are given seriousness

They don't give a fuck about logic and historical accuracy, Izzy is supposed to be 17 at this point and time and he's played by a 50 year old man

They acknowledge racism and homophobia as a thing in this world

And the racists and homophobes get their comeuppance, usually by bodily injury or death

So. Much. Symbolism. With the clothes and the colors and specific items which makes me go insane cause it shows they took their time with this story

It wouldn't be surprising if it's hard to get into the show initially, but I find it's sort of a cool trick as you think the show is like "oh The Office but with pirates" before it hits you with the gay

Also the shows funny. It's a comedy, so you hope it would be funny, but it is really funny.

The show gives the cast a lot of room to improvise, so if you thought this one moment was really funny, it was probably improvised

A diverse cast in terms of skin colors and body types and accents

Also none of them are marvel studio body types

There's a sick black lady with a wooden hand in a couple of episodes and she's awesome

The leads played by Rhys and Taika are irl friends for over a decade, so the slow burn is believable despite being really fast

There's a funny moment where a guy named Izzy tries to be homophobic but it's just really awkward for him

The show plays with flashbacks brilliantly to show the inner minds of characters, so it's not some sort of afterthought

The women in the show, despite not being a lot of them, are given three-dimensions and shown to be friends

This includes Stede's wife, who gets a POV of her life and you feel sympathetic for her and root for her even

(which is also not afraid to show their lead man be an ass)

Seriously, the main ship has some of the best moments in the entire show

I won't spoil any of it, but when you see them, you will scream

And my personal favorite part...

The portrayal of trauma in the show

It's not a little thing - it's a major driving force for both Stede and Ed

In fact, it's basically the main plot of the show for Stede

And its very realistic how they show characters going through trauma

And its not all portrayed the same way either

This trauma is intrinsically tied to masculinity a lot of the time

And the entire show really is not only about breaking free from your role in society -

- but also about what being A Man is

Which works considering the judgement of gay love in society

... OK I think that's it for now

And if yoooou wanna know more about The Gay Pirate Show

It's on HBO Max

(And plenty of sites like this one here)

And is going to start filming s2 in a couple days!!!!

My blog of course has plenty of posts about the show

But my personal favorite ones are @snake-snack-stede @wearfinethingsalltoowell @knowlesian @vitruvianwatson @the-orange-in-red-silk @batsarebetterthanpeople @biceratops7 @twocarsonenight @prettybard

And plenty of others I'm sure I'm forgetting XD

But if you look at their blogs, you'll find others and go down a rabbit hole of shitposts, metas, art, etc etc etc that deserve lots of love