# happy one year to the historical pirate rom-com!

OUR FLAG MEANS DEATH SEASON ONE created by david jenkins | march 3-24, 2022

okay i know the Discourse™️ has been going on for way too long at this point, but

i think some people outside of the OFMD fandom don’t actually get why we’re particularly annoying about this show

OFMD is not the first queer show to ever exist. if anything, it's a late entry in decades of queer media. over a year and a half since the first few episodes aired, everyone knows that OFMD is queer. that doesn't make it particularly special

but back in March? this is the trailer that dropped in February of 2022, 2 weeks before the premier. if you're used to seeing queer chemistry in shows that aren't intended to be queer, you might see the hints between Ed and Stede here. but to most people? it's just a silly little pirate comedy. just guys being dudes. the trailer doesn't even hint at the other 2 canonical queer relationships in the show -- the closest it gets suggesting romance is the music and the pink in the poster

so when people watched this show in March 2022, they went into it expecting subtext and nothing else. to them, it was like watching Sherlock or Supernatural or Merlin in the 2010s. if you were in any of those fandoms -- especially Sherlock and Supernatural -- you know what it was like; constant jokes at our expense, being mocked for creating explicit fanwork, made fun of by the creators and within the show itself. if we saw queer subtext, that was our problem. this was a time when you pretended NOT to be in fandom, for fear of ridicule. we kept our fanwork to ourselves, we DID NOT share it with the cast, and we accepted that our favourite ships would probably never be canon. maybe one day, if we were lucky, we'd have a show where the subtext wasn't mockery as much as deliberate foreshadowing -- but that had to be YEARS away

right?

OFMD was never billed as a queer show, not in the beginning. there was no LGBTQ+ tag on (HBO) Max, it wasn't on anyone's list of upcoming queer shows in 2022, it flew under the radar through most of its first season. this was a show about pirates, and sure, some of them were queer. but not the LEADS. if you think they're romantically involved, that's must be fandom brain poisoning

except the 9th episode aired, and they kissed. and the show said "you're not crazy for thinking they have chemistry because they really do. it's been a romance this whole time". and in the 10th episode, Stede realizes that he's in love

(not mandating you watch this clip if you don't care for the show, but there's something that feels particularly earth shattering about no one saying the word gay but knowing that Stede's realizing he is, that it's completely unambiguous and explicit in a way that only straight romances are usually allowed to be)

this is why people freaked out about this show. no one knew. even the creator, David Jenkins, was surprised when WE were surprised that it was gay for real -- he set out to write a love story, using all the tried and true beats of a rom com. he'd never even heard of the term queerbaiting. he looked at historical Blackbeard and Stede Bonnet and thought "oh, there's something here" and just...wrote that, with very little fanfare, like it was inevitable. like it was obvious. of course Jim and Pam end up together. of course Buttercup and Westley end up together. what kind of disappointing ending would it be if You've Got Mail ended with the main characters just going their separate ways?

so of course Ed and Stede are in love

look, i get it. we're annoying and won't shut the fuck up about this show that seems mediocre at best. i watched the whole thing back in march, thought "huh, that was cool" and was sure that i'd forget about it in a few days

an hour after looking at fanart on twitter, i was lost in the fucking sauce

there's just so much to unpack from a mere 10 episodes. it covers racism, toxic masculinity, gender expression, sexuality, trauma and abuse. and i don't think we should overlook the fact that the non-white characters in this show get to be fully human in a way i haven't seen in my favourite shows in recent memory

additionally, most OFMD are 25 or older. we're not people who've been spoiled by queer rep, who don't get how hard it used to be, how you'd have to grovel for scraps, how shipping and fanfiction was a way to find queer rep where we thought there never would be. we've been here. we're annoying about this show because for a lot of us, it's the first time we've been treated like our queerness isn't an anomaly that needs to be relegated to its own section, that needs to be praised for the bare minimum of acknowledging that we exist. it's not pulling punches to avoid scaring away a straight audience. it just is.

OFMD for me is like when i watched Black Panther for the first time and realized that this is what white people felt all the time. have there been other black superhero movies? of course! does Disney fucking suck? BOY does it. but that was the first time i got to sit in a movie theater and watch a mainstream film that looked at Africa and said "look at how beautiful you are, exactly as you are"

and idk. i think that's really cool

One of the reasons OFMD resonates so much, I think, is because it’s a fantasy. So many contemporary queer shows and films are based in reality (both modern and historical), and so have to deal with the various realities of existing while queer in those times (and very often wind up ignoring nuance in favor of drama). OFMD offers a recognizable fantasy world full of pirates that crafts its own reality and its own rules. It offers queerness a space in which to exist that isn’t tied down to historical fact or contemporary rules, and so allows for an exploration of any number of themes within that setting.

And the world it builds is coherent. It establishes rules within the first three episodes that it adheres to, and it doesn’t suddenly break them to inorganically move the plot forward or introduce complications. We know what to expect, though we sometime forget that because so much lies within genre expectations that conflict with what we’ve ingrained as part of a queer narrative. The two male leads have a meet cute and people don’t realize it’s a meet cute because that doesn’t usually happen 1) in a fantasy setting like this, and 2) in a queer context. It is clearly romantic and uses romance tropes without undercutting them or declaring them cringe, and shocks in part because it goes to places that viewers don't expect queer narratives are allowed to go.

So queerness exists within and drives a fantasy narrative, and occupies the rom-com subgenre, and shapes the lives of the characters, without it being the sole reason for the characters to exist. Instead of either being forced to exist purely in historical or contemporary reality, queerness gets to exist in a fantasy setting where romantic comedy genre rules are used, but queer tropes are subverted. It’s opening a world of fantasy adventure that had been closed to queer and BIPOC characters and viewers.

I don’t mean to argue that this is the first and only queer fantasy, and literature in particular gives a much wider scope to queer fantasy narratives. But it is an important point in why this show resonates, because the blend of what it accomplishes is unusual in film and TV. It's funny without being parodic, serious without being grimdark, and earnestly romantic. It basically says that these elements can indeed belong to the queer community.

Hi! I’m sorry if this is dumb but I’m not understanding why the Ed hate is racist? From what I’ve seen it has nothing to do with his race, just his actions? What is racist about it? I’m asking this very genuinely because I want to understand and learn more from this so please don’t take this as being annoying or patronizing or something!

ok so not all Ed hate falls under the racism catagory some people just have genuinely bad taste. The thing that is racist is insisting that he's an abuser. I've explained several times why he's not abusive, as have many many others. But, here's the quick recap: Izzy was abusing him, Ed has a history of lashing out towards his abusers with physical violence and Izzy established that he had been doing this sort of thing to Ed for years so you know, he's going the way of Ed's father and nobody would argue that Ed was abusing his father. Ed wasn't abusive towards the crew. Like he did some shitty things while suicidal. He hurt his friends I'm not saying he didn't. However: 1. This show is full of very very over the top violence and no one is getting up Button's ass about Lucius's finger. 2. It would be an incredibly strange move for a rom com to make one of it's leads a domestic abuser, It's not such a weird move to give a character in a rom com a suicidal arc where they push all their friends away. The first choice would yeild a completely unwatchable show the second is what happened in ofmd. 3. David Jenkins himself has talked about this and he said "What Blackbeard did was by the standards of the pirate world a bit much" I don't know if I even agree with this considering everything we've heard about Hornigold but I certainly agree with the sentiment that Ed did some shitty things but nothing that was significantly more horrific than other characters in the show who nobody treats the way they treat Ed.

So with all of that in mind: Why is it racist to call him an abuser. Like sure, all of this adds up to the abuse truthers being wrong and stupid but what does it have to do with Ed's skin color? This ties into the history that the Maori people share with a lot of indigenous groups who were colonized by europeans. I would encourage you to do more research on your own but I'll point you in the generally right direction. Indigenous men are portrayed as hyper violent in order to justify their subjugation (see head hunters stereotypes or how often people assume indigenous cultures were doing human sacrifice). A lot of the Ed hate exaggerates how violent he is in comparison to other characters. Indigenous men are portrayed as dirty and barbaric and in need of being civilized by a benevolent white savior. A lot of fic and meta positions either Stede or Izzy as needing to save Ed from himself, or as needing to babysit him or teach him to read or bathe, ect. That's why people are so up in arms about the soap eating joke.

And finally the abuse thing. Positioning indigenous men as abusers has been used historically as a shoddy justification for family separation. This stereotype pairs incredibly well with the violent stereotype. So IF Ed was abusing poor defenseless little white Izzy it would actually be a racist decision for the writers to make. Like there's a way to portray characters of color doing abuse, because being nonwhite doesn't make you incapable of doing shitty things, but that would not be it. Thankfully that is catagorically not what's happening, we've been told that the Kraken is an abuse responce, Izzy provokes the Kraken, we've seen Izzy be paralelled with Ed's two other abusers (Hornigold and Ed's dad), we've been shown Izzy controlling the flow of information between Ed and his crew, we've been showing Izzy manipulating Ed, we've been shown him lying to turn the crew against Ed, we've been shown Izzy attempting to murder someone Ed cares about specifically because Ed cares about them, we've seen Izzy threaten Ed's life for acting wrong, we've heard Izzy confess to doing all of that shit FOR YEARS on his death bed (a time which it would completely undercut the emotional impact of the scene if he was lying). So like... people ignoring all of that shit in order to portray Ed as shooting off his leg for no fucking reason and say he's the abuser is very... "You forgot the racism don't worry we'll add it back in for you" and continuing to insist on that and be shitty to people who won't cop to your dumbass shit is actively making the fandom a more racist space.

Idk why these OFMD fans can’t let it go; they do know their precious blorbos get k!lled in end, right? Historically speaking that is?

oh they do know! these fuckers left FLOWERS on a slaver's grave IRL because of the fucking show.

the article is EXTREMELY generous to those fans but here's the relevant part:

best thing to come of this show is the woe its cancellation caused.

Here’s a reflective essay about Izzy I did for my college English class. I hate talking about myself and my teacher gave my the freedom to write about any character from any show I wanted. It took me 2 hours to write this(it’s only the first draft so warning of possible grammatical errors)

Our Flag Means Death is a show about pirates and goes more in-depth about the opposite reasons one would’ve become a pirate. A character that shows this well is a character named Izzy Hands. Izzy (Israel) Hands is based on a real pirate from the 17th century though the show took liberties to age him up since if it was historically accurate, he would’ve only been 16 when the show is taking place. He also has the name as the greatest swordsman in history at the time, at least in the show. Throughout the two seasons, he goes through many changes that lead to people's understanding of what it means to be a pirate, that it’s not only about killing and money but also finding a family that is there for you no matter what; that won’t give up on you. A family that will always have you back no matter how much they tease you, how much you’ve gone through, a family that won’t give up. This is shown through his being on the main character's ship with his crew of ‘horrible’ pirates.

In the first season, he is portrayed as your typical first mate, loyal to a fault, and very serious. This leads to him being the comedic relief in a roundabout way since he’s the only entirely serious and questionably straight character in essentially a rom-com about gay pirates. Along with his serious demeanor he gets saddled with the short jokes that come with his height, the actor that plays him in the show is 5’7” at most while all the other men in the show are 5’9” or taller with only one person shorter than him the non-binary character who is 5’6”. He is the first mate of the infamous Blackbeard and takes the title very seriously, he runs a tight ship and likes to keep things in order. Due to his devotion to pirating his personality is not unlike an army sergeant, he’s very strict and blunt, but in his eyes, it’s for the good of the ship. During his time as first mate, while they took over the main character-Stead Bonnets’ ship, the revenge, he wanted to keep his captain on track; to the point where he challenged Stead to a duel. In the duel he lost on a technicality, getting his sword stuck in a beam and unable to pull it out, causing him to be banished from the ship. This banishment led him to work with the British to deliver the Bonnet to the royal navy with the promise Blackbeard would be returned to him.

At the beginning of the second season of the show, Blackbeard is back as captain, but without the support of Stead Bonnet he is more ruthless and violent than ever; even with his crew. Izzy ends up taking the worst of his abuse but still staying loyal to him through it. Blackbeard cuts off his toes if he does something he doesn’t like and he still works through the pain and suffering, this leads to a breaking point with him while he’s carrying out orders to the crew. He ends up breaking down and crying in front of them and for a character that is as strict kept and (I need a word for asshole) it is a large turning point. He finally realizes that even with how much of an almost tyrant he has been the crew is there for him and he must be there for them to. This leads to an argument between him and Blackbeard about bonnet which ends with him getting shot in the leg and was supposed to be killed. Instead of killing him though the crew saves his life but must sacrifice his leg. During this whole ordeal he realizes that love and blind loyalty can have horrible outcomes but at the same time love, with the right people, can lead to protection. This time ends with a mutiny against Blackbeard where even with all that he’s done to him Izzy keeps his body onboard instead of throwing him overboard, showing that in a toxic way he still loves him and is loyal to him.

The second half of season two starts with the whole crew a mess, but Izzy the most messed up out of all of them. He was brutalized at the hands of Blackbeard and as a result his leg was cut off when he would’ve rather died. This led him into a spiral of drinking and onscreen self-loathing, which ended in him cutting the legs off the horse mounted on the ship then breaking his makeshift leg out of what looks like a table or chair leg. After this the crew all come together, when before there was fighting among the ones who were traumatized by Blackbeard and the ones who were kicked off the ship before that, to create a leg out of the horses leg for him and painted it gold with a note that read “for the new unicorn(Our flag means death season 2 ep 4).” This leads to a large change in his personality which leads him to be a bigger part of the crew. This finishes off during a party where Izzy comes out on deck with drag makeup on and singing “La Vie en Rose” for the crew which was a large leap in trust from him previously having none with the crew because if he did this with Blackbeard’s old crew he most likely would’ve been laughed at and humiliated, but this crew loved it and welcomed him.

In the end, as all people who wish to get better, he dies. But he dies surrounded by people that not only fear him but respect him and love him, a crew that he’s gone through hell with and it brought them closer. Where in the beginning of the show he didn’t want to die but in the end he was ready because even though he didn’t think he needed it, he had a family that loved him; a family he chose. Throughout the two seasons he had gone through many changes, from the cold and stern second hand of Blackbeard to the still stern but also caring and broken but rebuilt second hand of Stead Bonnet. He had the most change in the show not only physically but emotionally, if he did not go through that torture, he would not have seen that the crew really did care for him; that the crew would always stand with him no matter what. That is what being a pirate was also about, not only pillaging and getting gold; the outcasts of society finding family within their crews, finding people who wants them when no one else did.

Avast ye, Monkey D. Luffy! Our Flag Means Death creator David Jenkins has arrrr-rated words for you and the rest of the One Piece-hunting crew that's headlining Netflix's blockbuster live-action version of the long-running Japanese manga and anime series. "We got there first," Jenkins boasts to Yahoo Entertainment about his own fan-favorite pirate series, now entering its second season on Max. "One Piece is jumping on our bandwagon!"

Before you One Piecers send Jenkins some poisoned Devil Fruit, be aware that he's only joking. "There's room for plenty of pirate shows," the writer says with a smile. "It's funny — I was never into pirate stuff before this series. I was like, 'Only 8-year-olds like pirates!' But now I love it when I see people dressed up as characters from our show. It makes me so happy that it makes people feel cool."

It helps, of course, that Jenkins can lay claim to having two of the coolest contemporary comic minds aboard Our Flag Means Death. Thor: Ragnarok mastermind Taika Waititi is both an executive producer and star of the series, playing legendary 18th century plunderer Edward Teach, aka Blackbeard, while Flight of the Conchords scene-stealer Rhys Darby portrays another famed seafarer Stede Bonnet, aka the Gentleman Pirate. In real life, the duo terrorized the Caribbean for roughly a year until Bonnet met the Grim Reaper at the end of a noose in 1718.

But nothing so grim happens in Our Flag Means Death. Instead, Jenkins's series offers a fractured fairy-tale version of a pirate's life that makes room for plenty of romance... especially between Stede and Edward. It's no accident that the series has become colloquially known as "the gay pirate show" among its passionate fanbase since its March 2022 premiere. That's an identity that Jenkins is proud to embrace.

"To me, it's just a pirate show, but if you want to call it the 'gay pirate show' or 'the pirate rom-com,' I love it," he says. "Whatever you call it, as long as you're celebrating it and it makes you feel seen, then it's such an honor."

As Blackbeard and the Gentleman Pirate set sail to continue their love story in Season 2, we asked Jenkins three questions about overseeing one of the streaming era's most viral hits.

1. Rhys Darby and Taika Waititi aren't gay in real life — did you have any concerns about casting them in the series amid the ongoing debate over straight actors playing gay characters?

It's definitely something we talked about going into the show. I'm not gay, either, but one of the things we discussed was: "What does the writers' room look like?" And "Are we listening to them?" So I have to credit our writer's room, because they are so diverse and they serve us wonderfully.

The Stead and Blackbeard relationship has always been the core of why I wanted to make the show. Historically, it's clear that these guys seem like they were together [as a couple], but the descriptions of it [at the time] made it seem like they were just hanging out. In making the series, we're able to zero in on those little micro-moments of "they're growing closer!" And the chemistry between Taika and Rhys is is really lovely. They've known each for 20 years now, so that chemistry is very real. When you see them playing a scene together, it's excites all of us and it makes us realize, "I want to see these two people fall in love."

Also, we don't know what spectrum of queerness Stead and Blackbeard fall on as characters. Do they see themselves as gay? Does it matter? You'd have to ask Rhys and Taika how they're playing it. But I think one of the values of the show is that it's less about their individual queer identity and more about their love for each other. I think we can tell these stories, because we all know what it feels like to want someone and be wanted back, and allow ourselves to be vulnerable and scared of being rejected. As long as that's at the core of the show, that's what's gratifying.

2. You've said that you have a three-season arc in mind. Do you think you'll get to tell it?

That's way above my pay grade. If Max feels like they'd like us to hang around and would be kind enough to grace us with a third season, that'd be fantastic. And if not, I think we leave Season 2 in a place that people will be happy with. Nobody owes us a third season — the fact that we go to make two of these is a joy. I mean, we got to make two seasons of a weird pirate show where we put on costumes on played on these sets!

But it was clear to me that this story could only be three seasons, and I was shocked that Taika wanted to do it, because I know he's so busy. What was important for me was to present a very emotionally young couple in the first season and what happens to them, followed by a more mature couple in Season 2 who are learning to ask: "Are we a thing? What do we want to be?"

And then the third season would be about what happens when the couple is a little bit older and maybe they try to run a business together. How does that go? How do they keep the relationship together? Seeing stuff like that in a fantasy setting between these two characters would be great, because there's a lot of naturalistic stories you can do in this comedy world. I want to see them hang onto each other as they movie into a different phase of their lives.

3. Our Flag Means Death has one of the most dedicated fanbases around and they're also extremely online. Do you and the writers ever worry that you're giving them what they want a little too much?

Well, we're all fans of the show in the writers' room, too, so there's not much of a difference. It's funny when people call things "fanfic" because it's all just "fic"! If you're sitting there writing pages, it's fic. So it doesn't feel like we're looking at things online and going, "What will the fans like?" We know what we like in the room and if there's a development we can hit on that we're excited about, we all kind of sit up. We like the world that we're building.

In the course of making the show, I've met fans individually and I think the overwhelming thing I've come away with is that when somebody tells you that they now have the language for themselves that they otherwise never would have had, it's such a great feeling. Or they say that they can watch the show with their parents and enjoy it. That's a credit to our non-binary writers and performers that are able to put that on camera in a way that made somebody feel safe. I almost don't know how to respond to it. I mean, the only response is, "Thank you." But there's no greater compliment than that.

Suddenly terrified I'm writing Izzy and Wee John all wrong. Well, not Izzy so much. But Wee John. And I'm siting here going, "It's the ahistorical historical pirate rom com show. You ain't gotta dig through clips for every tiny bit of backstory. It's about the fuckery. It's about the fuckery."

It's about people being NICE (Wee John) and people wanting LOVE (Izzy). And I just feel a bit rusty is all.

It's been a long time since I had the urge to write in general, let alone with great devotion to an idea that is clearly gonna take some time. Last time, I had to walk away from it because it was an unhealthy coping mechanism for a shitty situation. That shitty situation is long over, and it's a great sign that I'm so excited.

But also rusty.

You'll be forever in my heart And I know that no one else will do, oh-yeah So before I let you go I want to say, "I love you"

the more i think about Our Flag Means Death the more it feels like a fever dream

[deranged inhale] If we want to make accurate predictions about future plotlines, we need to be looking to history’s greatest Rom-Coms because David Jenkins can’t drive home enough that this is the genre we’re steeped in. Someone mentioned Grease right as I was listening to a podcast about real life Stede Bonnet (episode 616 of This American Life, which incidentally you should all listen to because I had no idea just how closely this show really does follow the historical record of these two and I’m now convinced they really were boyfriends IRL) and my mind went galaxy brain with parallels.  

In Grease Danny is a bad boy greaser who runs in a greaser gang, and he meets Sandy who’s a transfer student from a whole different word (aka Australia lol). By the end of the movie after a bunch of hitches in their relationship, Sandy decides to totally re-do her whole look to match him and shows up all bad ass in leather and they confess their mutual love for each other. 

Now, in real life, Stede really did spent a year with Blackbeard until they were separated (through betrayal) and Blackbeard maroons Stede’s crew. But Stede rescues them and spends the last year of his life chasing Blackbeard down, and during this time he’s said to finally become a REAL pirate, he learns to be cruel and ruthless. 

So what I’m saying is, even though Stede has apparently achieved self-actualization at the time we leave off, I think next season we might see Stede triggered by Ed’s attempted murder of his crew and become a bit of the kraken himself, and this journey might play into how they find one another again. This could be their friends to lovers to enemies to lovers journey. Ed spent this season becoming more like Stede, and in the end Stede thought that ruined him. But next season maybe the same will happen as Stede becomes more like Blackbeard, and Ed will be horrified to see that he’s turned him into a monster, too. 

Are you watching Taika Waititi’s “Flag Means Death”? Starts as a silly little pirate show with a nod to “Blackadder”, and then turns into a queer pirate rom-com between the two pirate captains. I like the bits I’ve peeked at so far….

I feel like I've seen most of it just from the way it populated my dash :D It's currently on my dash blacklist purely because it's tough to wade through it for other content otherwise.

From what I've seen I don't think I'd enjoy it, I'll be honest. Glad it's there and it looks great, well done Taika Waititi, but I run really hot and cold on his work -- nothing to do with him, more personal taste. Some things just aren't my bag even if they are generally a narrative I support existing. But I’m so glad everyone’s found some good new media to enjoy!

Actually...come to think of it, the Four Royal Advisors reading I did made some kind of prediction about new fandoms. Here we go: 

The big new hit fandom of the year will be a dark gothic fantasy or historical drama of some kind, not a movie, possibly a video game; may involve werewolves or anthropomorphic animals. Potentially a reboot or new season of something.

Sadly no werewolf pirates (I’m assuming) and Waititi tends to make dramedys rather than straight dramas, so I’m not sure I can call this a win. “Gothic fantasy or historical drama” is a pretty safe fuckin’ bet when it comes to hot new fandoms, but let’s call it not a lose. 

Please ramble about our flag means death (im hoping I got the name right) bc i am genuinely interested in watching it bc of you!!

OKAY OKAY OKAY SO!!!

It's a historical pirate story right, about the story of Stede Bonnet, the Gentleman Pirate and his time out at sea after he left behind his life as a wealthy aristocrat because he felt unhappy and unfulfilled. He has a whole crew upon the ship "The Revenge" that he had specifically made for him and they're out there doing their thing trying to be pirates.

The problem is! Stede kinda sucks at being a pirate! He's very timid, easily afraid at the sight of blood, and he's way too nice to actually be the kind of assertive leader you need to be to captain a pirate ship.

However!! At one point, he gets caught by the English while out at sea, and instead of trying to fight them with his crew, he decides to invite the captain of their ship onto the Revenge for a dinner, and it turns out the captain is someone he knew from his childhood who frankly was a dick to him all the time. He takes his bullshit for awhile with a good enough facade, but through a series of events, Stede decides to try and man up and goes in to attack the captain jsut enough to knock him out, but the captain had his sworn drawn and whoops!! He got stabbed right thru the eye and now hes dead, and Stede is to blame.

He freaks out about it, but as it happens, this will later become a turning point for him, and one he can't back down from.

He presents the dead captain to the rest of his crew, and they proceed to take care of the rest of the English on board the Revenge, taking two of them as hostages and sending the dead captains corpse back to his own ship as a warning sign.

That in itself is basically just a part of what happens in the first episode of the show. It 's an incredible opening premise, moreso than I can describe in words, but this is the basic gist of it.

Thats not all there is to the show tho!!

Along with being about Stede's journey to become a pirate captain and his own growth, the show presents the wonderful narritive of the lives of Stede's crew (named Oluwande, Jim, Buttons, Lucius, Black Pete, Frenchie, Wee John, Roach, and The Swede) and their own interpersonal relationships with each other aboard the ship.

I cannot undersell how fucking queer this entire crew is. Its not subtext, its canon text, there's multiple gay characters and ones who fuck with gender and it's amazing in all its in your face glory.

Now you might be asking "Well Kief this sounds great, but I've seen the gifsets of Stede with the other hot pirate, what's the deal there?"

Not to spoil too much, but that would be Edward "Blackbeard" Teach, who upon hearing about Stede's run in with the English took an interest in the Gentleman Pirate and his crew, and decided to go see what was up with them.

I will not spoil what happens with them, you have to see it for yourself.

But that's it! Thats basically Our Flag Means Death. As the creator David Jenkins has said, it's "a historical pirate rom-com," and that is indeed exactly what's in the show. I promise you will not be queerbaited at all with this show, it wears its gayness and gender fuckery loudly and proudly on its sleeve and waves those flags high for Everyone to see. It's a wonderful show that's not just doing representation for bonus points, its a character driven story with queerness baked into its narritive and that's why I ended up loving it so much.