#the gentlebeardies are at it again

[frooogscream]

So David making the show gayer and listening to his collaborators... is a bad thing. Even if you weren't twisting his words, you're not making the point you think you are.

I did never say anything like that, what I sad is that the show was never supposed to be so queer in the beginning and that pretty much all of the queer details about the characters came from the queer actors. My conclusion was not “David Jenkins bad because he didn’t want to make a queer show”, my conclusion was “it is beautiful that these queer people poured their hearts into it and created something with a lot of meaning for other queer people”.

Yes I also used phrases like “we were never even supposed to have what we got” and “This show was NEVER supposed to give us beautiful things and treat it’s queer characters with “kindness”! It was NEVER supposed to be for queer people!”, implying that I personally felt like s2 made some choices that I, with my personal experience as a queer person was disappointed in (such as cutting all the poly scenes and killing of the older queer characters right after giving him a coming out arc, in doing so removing an actor who is very vocally supportive of trans people which I, as a trans person appreciate and used the opportunity on convention panels to talk about queer rights and removing the only of the three most central characters in s2 actually played by a queer person, etc.).

But that was just a tiny and implied undertone in an overwhelmingly positive post, in which I praise the cast of the show. And for the record, I DO think that it is great that DJ made these adjustments, I work in theater and occasionally in film and know that it is also not uncommon or bad to make changes as the project evolves and actors flesh out the roles more. I simply pointed out that he is not the one who originally had the ideas to make it this queer and that he originally didn’t plan to let the main queer love story end with a happy ending. Firstly this is not a bad thing, there are a lot of shows out there that aren’t queer, no body is “required” to make queer shows. Secondly where the hell am I twisting his words, he LITERALLY said all of the things I listed as changes towards a more queer show himself and you can find all the interviews linked in the source I gave in my post! Again the over all tone of my post was “oh my god, look what crazy info I stumbled upon and isn’t it fucking fantastic that these gorgeous queers have turned this regular show into something that means so much to us”. And that you manage to take that positive post and read something sooooo negative into it, just because someone dares to say that maybe David isn’t this amazing queer rights activist that some fans make him out to be and didn’t plan on making a revolutionary queer show, is honestly baffling to me.

I am also not “trying to make any point”, this is my personal block with barely 30 followers where I described my personal feelings towards factually true information and my personal feelings are:

I fucking love Vico, I fucking love Con, I fucking love Kristian (also Nathan and every queer person who worked on this behind the scenes) but I’m not gonna kiss David Jenkins feet for something that wasn’t even his idea, I don’t “owe” a cis straight guy who dosnt understand half of why the things his queer cast came up with are so important, gratitude. I gladly and freely extend a big fucking chunk of gratitude to queer actors who put their heart and soul into their queer roles way more then they are required to. Hope this helps.

[piratecaptainscaptainpirates]

A little while ago, I saw a take about why season 2 of OFMD was "bad" that I just haven't been able to stop thinking about, because it hinged entirely around hating the ending because "they killed off the only well-developed character."

This has haunted me, because I have been completely unable to understand how you can watch the show and come away with that criticism. I've talked before about how everything about Izzy reads more coherently when you understand that he's just really not an important character in the grand scheme of things (he's important to Ed's overall story, but in terms of the narrative itself he's not a major player). He's there to be a voice for toxic masculinity, pull Ed back into this lifestyle that's killing him, and then start getting better as proof that Stede's way of doing masculinity is best. And because he is the very definition of a side character, I struggle to think how you even get the idea that he's somehow better developed than our leads or even other side characters, because even Lucius has more of a backstory than Izzy does and once Izzy ceases to become that mouthpiece for toxic masculinity, his personality kinda becomes just bland, swear-y abrasiveness (which is honestly fine, I think, he doesn't really need to be more than that because he is, again, relatively unimportant).

Izzy is played with conviction and depth. This is because Con O'Neill is a good actor who presumably puts a lot of thought into his performance - this is true for most actors on the show. Very talented bunch. But while Izzy is interesting, he's often interesting in terms of what he can tell us about mostly Ed but other characters as well (the crew save him as proof that Stede has influenced them and then help him mostly as a team-bonding exercise, for example). And Izzy has very few traits that aren't shared by other characters. Pete had a very similar arc about unlearning toxic masculinity in s1. All we know about Izzy is that he's a good swordsman, he's honestly a very shit sailor, he was power-hungry but then chilled out a bit, and he likes to say "fuck" and "twat" a lot. He fulfills his narrative purpose but I'm not sure I would call him a very well-developed character, much less the only well-developed character in the entire show.

I have tried so hard to give this interpretation the benefit of the doubt, but I genuinely think the only way you could think this is if your sole exposure to the show is through the way we know a not-insignificant portion of canyon folks watched it, which is through fan compilations of only the scenes with Izzy in them.

And I'm not really sure where that leaves us. There's a small but not insignificant portion of this fandom who engage with the show purely through the lens of one side character - and not even just a side character, but one who very frequently and unsubtly gets the events that actually happen very wrong to suit himself, especially where Ed is concerned. And now we have a situation where "gentlebeardies" (read: fans of the show as written) will sometimes be unable to talk about the actual text of the show because there's an insistence that this be treated as a valid interpretation and not just a reading-against-the-text exercise, and I'm not sure where that leaves us.

[jaskierx]

since, unbelievably, we’re doing the whole ‘the GeNtLeBeArDiEs are the real racists’ thing again:

nobody is saying ed cannot be an abuser bc he’s a man of colour

nobody is saying that the reason they see ed as not being an abuser is bc he’s a man of colour

nobody is saying that it’s racist to talk about the possibility of ed being abusive

nobody is saying that people of colour cannot commit abuse

nobody is saying that people who have been abused by people of colour are lying

nobody is saying that people who make abuse allegations against people of colour are inherently racist

what people ARE saying is

1. ed is not an abuser; and

2. it is racist to claim that a man of colour is an abuser when you would not make the same claims about a white character who had done the same things; and

3. if ed is an abuser, the show itself is racist for portraying its indigenous male lead as uniquely aggressive and violent compared to white characters on the show

i hope this post finds you well, any questions please let me know, kindest regards, lyse

[arenee1999]

I thought I had found something special in OFMD and its fandom.

There have been characters through the years that I've identified with in a fairly superficial way. Studious, likes to read, awkward, lonely, bullied -- and my list of favorite characters paints a rather revealing portrait. But then I found Our Flag Means Death and I found myself identifying with multiple characters in a deep, visceral way that I have never had before. And I found a fandom full of people that felt the same way.

Then the darker side of the fandom began making itself known. Close minded, racist, homophobic, puritanical twats. The canyon that despises Ed and Stede, the gentlebeardies that despise Izzy. All of the people treating Rhys, Taika and Con like dogshit and treating your fellow fans even worse.

And yet, through that many of us still managed to love the show, the characters, the cast and crew and each other.

Then, right when literally everyone was expecting a renewal announcement we were told it was cancelled. Many of us fell into depression. We rallied as best we could to fight for our show. But we were still left reeling.

That same day one of my only friends (and the only one I could talk to about anything)  stopped talking to me. But I pushed that to the side and spent all my energy on the fandom, on Xitter, posting and talking and making as much noise as possible with everyone else.

Then March came around we got that announcement. Despite our efforts and a large portion of the industry on our side, we weren't going to see anything come of our efforts. At least not for the foreseeable future. Long term has yet to be decided, but short term there's no hope. Many of us that had been holding our depression at bay with frantic activity, crashed, hard. Some of us were still able to find solace in the fandom. Our love of the show hasn't diminished after all. So we reinvest in what made us love the show from the start and we let it heal us once again as best it can.

I'm one of the ones that crashed. And I was left with no one to talk to. I held myself together for awhile but eventually began to spiral. Tried pushing away everything because if I don't feel anything it won't hurt as much. I had made rather startling progress on extricating my last couple hyperfixations. And I was rapidly becoming dangerously, severely depressed. Then a month and a half ago I find out why my friend suddenly stopped talking to me. Apparently I talked about OFMD too much and he just couldn't handle it. I was simultaneously too much and not enough. And as I was suddenly and violently smacked in the face with a wave of despair, I dug around to figure out what pulled me out of the last few bouts of heavy depression I suffered. Because fuck knows, I was in desperate need of something. Turns out the last two times it was Taika (both directly and indirectly with Thor Ragnarok and OFMD) and before that it was HP fanfiction (for 10 years HP fic kept me mostly stable and functioning). Which explains entirely why my depression kept getting worse by leaps and bounds as I was in the process of purging all of that from myself as much as possible. So I took a good hard look around and decided my mental health was more important than protecting someone else's feelings. I immediately quit trying to unravel my core psyche and personality and was just starting to reach something resembling functional.

And now the fandom has once again erupted into puritanical, homophobic bigotry and hatred. And I'm finding myself shutting down. The joy I was just starting to find again in this fandom is gone. I see nothing but ash and dust. Even the clips of Ed and Stede's first kiss, that usually bring an immediate swell of joy, leaves me feeling nothing but numb.

If you are that full of hatred for an aspect of the show, be it a character, a pairing, a plot point, a cast or crew member, keep it to your fucking selves. Create closed groups, communities, discords etc. with the rest of the hate filled "fans" and spew your garbage where those of us that are here for what we love can't fucking see it. We do not need to be splashed with the muck from your cesspit.

Better yet, listen to DJenks -

[little-bloodied-angel]

Because Lucius WAS a great friend. Exasperated or no, he was. He got all up in the Dread Pyrate Blackbeard's face for him not once but twice, the second time when he was with Rackham.

And they'd have to examine WHY Lucius isn't his friend anymore. Why he went from annoyed at his antics and exasperated that he was going to get them killed (him, specifically, more than once).

And the simple answer is that Stede has never been a good friend, and then That™ happened.

(Also, even before this mess, Stede was never a good friend, and if you write Lusrael you tend to have to include the damage done to Izzy by his ex husband and the mistress, so. Gentlebeardies just want Lucius to be the cheerleader friend character, not a person lmao)

Just think it's funny how gentlebeardies love to emphasize that lucius is such a great friend to stede, while sprizzy stans know how much he hates that fucking guy

[izzyliker]

this like genuinely pissed me off earlier but why is the gentlebeardie side of this webbed site still platforming people who repeatedly make it their mission to “school” and “humble” black fans who are engaging in such overwhelmingly good faith over and over again like i feel like almost all the most vitriolic mean spirited shit with the sole purpose of Dunking On Someone in this fandom is aimed specifically at black or indigenous fans who are trying to redirect conversations to like Remembering That Real People Exist in such blatant ways that i’m not sure how it can even be a coincidence anymore. batsarebetterthanpeople and ourflagmeansgayrights and the rest of you weasely little bitches acting like you care so much about Characters Of Color while gleefully acting like actual real black people who are spending way more time than you’ll ever deserve providing you with actual resources to learn more about REAL COMMUNITIES AND PEOPLE are just engaging in identity politics when they get upset that your stupid fandom drama is actually hurtful in a real life way i’m approaching swiftly with a fucking hammer.

[naranjapetrificada]

i’ve seen the izzy anti archive post abt how they’re not even excited for s2 anymore bc the “gentlebeardies” have ruined the show for them. like i don’t want to tell anyone how to enjoy their fandom experience but they are very clearly just making themselves miserable by focusing on the part of the fandom that makes them upset and for their own sake i hope they take a break from the fandom and learn to re-love the show again. so to answer ur question, no i don’t think that person is ok sjsgjshf

Right! Life is so short (something this show and many of its fics have made me think deeply about and shed actual tears over) and it's a shame to spend so much time on something that presumably makes them unhappy? Although maybe it doesn't, it's entirely baffling to me so I can only guess.

As for "gentlebeardies" I've seen someone else ask this before but like, did people miss all the interviews where DJ and the cast talk about that relationship being literally the reason the show exists? We've all shipped non-canonically (in fact I would guess the overwhelming majority of queer ships in any fandom are non-canonical) but there's that and there's like, the level of resentment that makes you say "gentlebeardies" are ruining a show for you. That resentment is a little more understandable in other fandoms when there's been queerbaiting because of course you would resent a heteronormative canon there, but the canon relationship here is also queer. It just seems like such an outsized reaction.

Anyway I hope they maybe step away from it all if they need to. I've definitely been in situations before where being super deep in a fandom has taken the shine off the source material, which is always a bummer. In those moments it's always helped me to either step back completely or at the very least, take a break from fandom stuff to reengage with the source material that I liked in the first place. Never let fandom ruin something you love!

[milkovichy]

hi again i guess 🥺 i think i'm gonna use @gentlebeardy more if you wanna follow that one

[honeysweethol]

This has been making the rounds again, so it seems like a good time to remind peeps that I have prints available here!! Come get ur stabby pirates 💖

They're going to go stab someone 💕

[piratecaptainscaptainpirates]

might be wrong but i think part of the whole damsel in distress accusation is that the canyon are trying to say that “gentlebeardies” are woobifying/mischaracterizing ed by portraying him as liking soft things and not enjoying violence. which of course says a lot about how they see ed in the actual show.

basically the canyon is going “no u” when told that they don’t understand izzy as a character

I think that's definitely a part of it! And it's kinda weird because, like

Ed in the show: I wish I was able to indulge in soft things more often. and violence is triggering for me btw

Some people, somehow: if you write Ed as anything other than hyper-violent you're woobifying him

I think part of it comes down to taking Izzy at face value when he talks about Ed. We're shown over and over again that Izzy is wrong, but Izzy says Ed is violent, half-insane, erratic, compares him to a wild dog, denies his feelings and humanity, and obviously we're supposed to trust the yt guy, right?

[milkovichy]

I am once again asking you guys to follow me @ @gentlebeardy for OFMD content because I am giffing there and I'm like Tinkerbell.

[milkovichy]

I am once again asking you gay pirates fans to follow my ofmd sideblog @gentlebeardy

[jellybeanium124]

#hot take amongst my gentlebeardie audience but the show lowkey says a similar thing abt izzy’s s1 actions#they punish him with the torment nexus and then have him do a bunch of stuff that directly contrasts#with every shitty thing he did in s1 to show us that he’s changed now#ofmd is less interesting in stuff like reparations and making it up to the ppl you’ve hurt#and more abt just. don’t do that shit again. change your ways.#and also “it’s hard to move forward if you focus too much on how a changed person hurt you before they changed”#which is true. even if it kind of sucks to hear#anyway it’s a bit weak how they do this Izzy’s A Changed Man tour throughout the season without rlly showing us the actual change#they just showed us the punishment. but that’s bc it would’ve taken up too much time and he’s not important enough for that <3#anyway yeah the show sort of tells us to just accept that everyone’s fine with izzy now and he’s part of the crew so we gotta move on#u don’t have to agree with the show ofc but that seems to be what the narrative is trying to indicate#like we have to accept that he’s good now so that its believable when he makes his big deathbed apology at the end#anyway this got rlly off topic. good post op

@ourflagmeansgayrights YOU'RE RIGHT AND YOU SHOULD SAY IT!!!!! every time I watch the show I am slapped in the face with the fact that izzy is neither as evil or as good as either side of the fandom says he is. he's not really evil at all. he's a dick, and he did do some fucked up shit, but like... he's not evil and he is capable of change. like that's kind of the point in s2. even if I have gripes with his arc, the point is izzy changed.

y'know the show goes out of its way to explicitly show that jim and frenchie are cool with ed again in 2x06, by having them casually be the ones to bring up calypso's birthday in front of both stede and ed. they're smart people, they know ed knows about calypso's birthday, and yet they ask stede if he can throw a party in front of ed. if they were really worried ed was a violent angry bastard wouldn't they ask stede into the other room? no, they know he's chill, so they know he's gonna let stede say "yes" and not ruin all their plans. because he put the time in on probation, and I think I can reasonably guess that a vote was held to reinstate ed as co-captain, which passed.

like, they were there for his little handykitten phase. they watched him hammer and sew and clean while being genial if a bit awkward. they saw him relax now that all the weight is off his shoulders. fang was probably delightedly telling the crew about how ed seems like himself again. like, everyone moves on from the kraken era. ed, izzy, and lucius have the most explicit "moving on" beats on screen, but frenchie, jim, and fang are all happy and having a good time again by 2x06. I think there are ways to talk about their lasting trauma without making ed into an evil villain. frenchie's the easiest one here- he never really unpacked the little box in his head thing. I think there's totally a fic that could be written about frenchie opening the box and processing his trauma and having a bit of whump and angst that could be really good and cathartic! but at some point you gotta recognize that the show told us to move the fuck on.

[frooogscream]

David Jenkins said Ed x Stede were not supposed to have a real love story!

So not only where all the beautiful queer details not part of the original idea (Izzy being a jittered spouse instead of just evil lil henchman-because of how Con envisioned him, Jim being NB- added after casting Vico, Wee John doing drag- because of Kristian, etc.).

And even the main gay couple, the only queer thing remaining, was never supposed to end in a happy love story. 

This show was NEVER supposed to give us beautiful things and treat it’s queer characters with “kindness”! It was NEVER supposed to be for queer people!

Every thing I loved about ofmd was because of the queer actors involved in this show (+apparently a little thanks to Taika and Rhys seeing more of the beautiful potential this has as an actual love story then David ever did).

In some way this almost makes it beautiful again, like we were never even supposed to have what we got, just another mid queer baity comedy, but then all these amazing people poured their fucking heart into it and changed it in a way that actually made it mean something to us!

link to the interview compilation post+link to original interview: https://www.tumblr.com/ladyluscinia/733134895182970880/what-exactly-did-david-jenkins-say?source=share

[blow-me-a-kis]

Looking over the responses to the worksheet again and I'm honestly quite pleased how Izzy haters disclose how unreasonable their aims are. The "I want Izzy fans to get their own fandom" arguments that were repeated over and over as solutions are preposterous, but deeply revealing. Thats not at all an actionable resolution for our differences. The fandom doesn't belong to any group of fans, its a community and a collaborative effort, and those arguments have real entitled NIMBY, no-kink-at-pride energy.

Izzy fans getting their own fandom is like? We already have. The Canyon was born out of a need for a safe haven from harassment. We already have our own discords and communities elsewhere. Many of Izzy haters go out of their way to interact with us and then claim we're oppressing them because we block them, or give reasonable responses or mock their clownish rancid, inflammatory takes they create and tag under Izzy's name with the explicit purpose of reaching out to Izzy fans who are just minding our damn business.

Their exclusionary attitude towards Izzy and his fans contribute to conditions in fandom that make it unsafe for even Gentlebeardie folks to interact with Izzy, because Izzy haters project their extremist views onto their peers and then pester and dogpile them when they step out of line. Their cop-like tendencies have lowkey created a bit if a surveillance state on main pairing end of fandom. In that same way, Izzy fans fear making content of Ed/Stede, because it invites weirdos who have this incredibly territorial attitude towards Ed and Stede and just see that someone is an Izzy fan and believe they don't have the right(???) to enjoy the main pairing.

Also?? is Vico gunna leave the main fandom? Are the writers? Is David Jenkins gunna depart from Gentlebeardie side of fandom and join the Izzy fandom we create because he suggested fans explore Ed and Izzy's love story that he put in the show on purpose? Please. (Altho imho if they did exclusively interact with The Canyon they would have a much safer, relaxed, and fun experience among the fans, because Izzy stans are chill af, and among us have pretty much zero parasocial fucking losers who bully ppl's wives or pick thru every social media post the cast/crew ever made to determine if they're Problematique, or who will monitor and dogpile them over every public misstep).

The harassment of Izzy fans visibly picks up following any positive engagement by the cast/crew with Izzy/Con, or their positive mentions of Ed/Izzy. Izzy haters who get activated at the mere mention of ppl enjoying Izzy are destined for misery because they struggle to accept that Izzy is apart of the ofmd experience and so are his fans. Instead of regulating their feelings around Izzy, and learning to respect the various interpretations of Izzy and his complex relationships to the other characters, they hold their pessimistic interpretation of canon far too preciously, and expect others to accept it as fact and to tip toe around the minefield of triggers that creates in them.

I know it can feel "both-sides"-esque, and sort of toxic posi to reach across the aisle as it were, but like I said in my reply, it's just getting started. A really important part to me about these conversation is to permit these folks to tell us their side and be honest about their entitlement, and their exclusionary, hierarchal, disposability-centered politic.

They claim their "activism" is to better the conditions in fandom for BIPOC, but these talks expose their methods are incredibly patronizing and generalize BIPOC as a single infallible God-like entity, who is so well behaved as to only care about Gentlebeard, and not a highly varied, multifaceted community of regular folks (some of whom love Izzy very much), which is high key dehumanizing and racist, and demonstrably results in racist harm towards BIPOC. Whiteness, white fragility, and racism is very much at the core of the issues in this fandom, because Izzy hater's sense of worth, their egos, is tied to their shallow "activism", and ultimately that's what they're trying to protect and they project their failure to care for BIPOC onto Izzy and his fans.

Anyone can talk a mess of social justice word salad to defend the results of their actions, but you can't fake liberationist, community-centered values or praxis that you haven't actually learned or internalized, and these talks expose the unpacked conservative biases Izzy haters operate on. We can't change people, they are the only ones who get to decide when they're done, but I trust fans with a good head on their shoulders to see what is happening.

I’m glad that people are having serious conversations about racism in the OFMD fandom, but I kinda feel that the conversation went from Izzy fans experiencing racist, sexist, transphobic, etc. harassment for liking Izzy to the more general issue of racism in the OFMD fandom.

Obviously that is a conversation that’s important and needs to happen, but the end result was that…well…the same anti-Izzy fans who were denying that the harassment was a big deal got to voice their concerns about their own experiences while the fact that Izzy fans specifically were being harassed got brushed under the rug.

[frooogscream]

David Jenkins said Ed x Stede were not supposed to have a real love story!

So not only where all the beautiful queer details not part of the original idea (Izzy being a jittered spouse instead of just evil lil henchman-because of how Con envisioned him, Jim being NB- added after casting Vico, Wee John doing drag- because of Kristian, etc.).

And even the main gay couple, the only queer thing remaining, was never supposed to end in a happy love story. 

This show was NEVER supposed to give us beautiful things and treat it’s queer characters with “kindness”! It was NEVER supposed to be for queer people!

Every thing I loved about ofmd was because of the queer actors involved in this show (+apparently a little thanks to Taika and Rhys seeing more of the beautiful potential this has as an actual love story then David ever did).

In some way this almost makes it beautiful again, like we were never even supposed to have what we got, just another mid queer baity comedy, but then all these amazing people poured their fucking heart into it and changed it in a way that actually made it mean something to us!

link to the interview compilation post+link to original interview: https://www.tumblr.com/ladyluscinia/733134895182970880/what-exactly-did-david-jenkins-say?source=share