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averyhollow · 9 months

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That Man’s Amazing Journey: How That Man Can Win While Still Being The Worst

Y’all notice how Stede Bonnet (*mimes spitting on the ground in disgust at the very mention of his name*) and Pennywise have never been seen in the same place at the same time? Something to think about.

Be Forewarned

This deals with a line reportedly in the OFMD S2 trailer.

If you don’t do criticism/disdain/negative opinions towards or about characters, please let the above (totally accurate, I’m just saying) observation, the fact I refer to Stede as That Man, and my blog being sponsored by Humanity Against Stede Bonnet, set the tone for what’s to follow.

I haven’t actually seen the trailer

and have no intention of watching it, but by no means does my general disinterest mean I’m over my specific hatred of That Man and Gentlebeard. Finding out That Man refers to Ed (could be someone else I guess, but I choose to believe it’s Ed) as “shipmate” instead of “co-captain” means I can dream That Man is not calling himself a captain anymore or being indulged by his put-upon crew.

Intro

It is my belief That Man must be removed from captaincy - never again to ascend to said position - for his own good (which I don’t care about), the good of all around him, and the sake of basic piratical decency. That man saying he and Ed are shipmates instead of claiming to be co-captains is a sign of growth and self-reflection on his part, as it signifies he’s accepted that he’s no longer the captain, never should have been, and that he needs to apply some elbow grease and see himself as a pirate and not a patriarch.

His Own Good

Dude’s captaincy was bought and even if OFMD portrays (so far) the pirates in the show’s universe as less than egalitarian, democratic, and inclined towards talking things through as a crew; it still has created a world where captaincy is earned. He can’t truly claim to respect Ed, Ed’s world, and Ed’s accomplishments, if he continues running around calling himself a pirate captain.

That Man expecting to be welcomed back as captain, let alone actually being allowed to resume captaincy, would be a continuation of him having bought his captaincy in the first place. He should be happy to accept that the position was taken from him and apologize for having ever held it by use of economic coercion. That Man is accustomed to living by exploitation of others. Time for him to put some sweat on his brow and give working to meet his base material needs a go.

He embarked on a life of piracy where he intended to menace the poor and downtrodden for fun because exploiting them in the conventional way wasn’t enough for him, and then left every cent of his unearned wealth to his equally vampiric family. The least he can do is acknowledge that he was an utter fool and proper ass to appoint himself captain, and that he can never be with Ed if he’s holding onto any of the trappings of privilege and power he left behind.

The Good Of All Around Him

The crew doesn’t need him or to cater to his whims. That Man was only running the ship because he was running them checks, and he not only can’t do that but didn’t take enough money to give them one last bonus. They’ve selected a captain in the proper way of pirates - something That Man doesn’t know a damn thing about - and they selected him for damn good reasons.

That Man rolled in knowing nothing about piracy and decided he was going to set about “fixing” the culture based on his own assumptions of its problems. The crew deserves better and have chosen better.

And the fishers. What of the fishers? Do they not deserve to fish in peace? Do they not deserve to have one of the few pieces of ornamentation they have safe from a man who would steal it from them at gunpoint, even though that man could afford a thousand such plants and pots should he want? They were probably fishing to supplement their meager diet because they barely make ends meet due to the exploitation of That Man. They’re probably literally on the verge of starvation now because they’re too traumatized to go back out fishing.

Let the fishers fish and let That Man have several fucking seats, but only after he’s done with a day’s work. Matter of fact, make him make his own damn seat. He can use the wood from the broken sitz bath he had the crew sharing while he had a whole ass porcelain monstrosity for his own use.

The Sake Of Piratical Decency

There’s no universe (I’ve checked), where That Man can change for the better (and his better will still be The Worst) and end the show as a pirate captain. With the exception of perhaps a 20 year time jump where he leads a crew of pirates new to both piracy and sailing in general.

But That Man earning captaincy over any of the crew as it stands? Nope. That Man earning a captaincy of another crew without work and experience? Nope. And should That Man do the bare minimum of learning about piracy and sailing, he should then realize the true extent of his ignorance and hubris, and never again dare to put himself forward as a captain. At least not anytime soon.

The Show Must Go On

I accept that the show is a romcom and therefore certain things must happen and that it has no real world-building or sense beyond what happens to get Ed and That Man together, and what happens to get Ed and That Man to a place where they can be whole enough in themselves to be wholly together.

As such, certain inherently fucked up things about That Man (that the show didn’t have to do, but chose to and chose to quite flippantly and clumsily imo, but that’s neither here nor there) must be handwaved and ignored, but I don’t think the ridiculousness of him buying a captaincy is one of those things.

Co-captains might be fun to say (for some people) as a cute ship name and reminder of when Ed and That Man first acknowledged their affinity for each other and desire to share a life and future in any form; but the version of That Man who first proposed co-captaincy is not the version that I think can ever truly be family with the crew, or a partner to Ed.

#fuck hinges #to hell with chill #rails? why would I wanna be on the rails? who do I look like? one of Snidely Whiplash’s victims?#stede critical #OP only uses Stede critical as tag b/c they get impression the addition of critical to a character name is what people use to filter out #negative opinions of their blorbos or whatever.#But make no mistake - critical isn’t the half of it.#OP genuinely hates Stede Bonnet #and the show’s handling of him.#That said I really do think he has some interesting directions his growth as a person can go.#And Rhys Darby is a genuis for having made a character with that clusterfuck of a personality and background tolerable.#No doubt Rhys’s every acting choice is going to be downright inspired in how it conveys That Man’s journey and growth.#ofmd spoilers #ofmd speculation #ofmd s2 spoilers #stupid fucking stede bonnet #ofmd critical

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tillychmo · 6 months

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OFMD: Budget Cuts, Ed's relationship to the Crew and the importance of context clues.

Right, let's get the nerd-outs on this blog started!

Kicking off with Our Flag Means Death (obvious spoilers for both series ahead) and a wee talk about budget cuts, Ed's relationship with the crew, and the importance of context clues:

We now know that OFMD had a massive 40% budget cut between series 1 and 2 – considering this, it's important to realise that budget cuts can have a hand in basically anything the fandom has complained about this series. It doesn’t mean that it is to blame for all the things (nor that all of the fandom's complaints are warranted for that matter), but it definitely can be an active factor.

One of the things I've seen a fair amount of people complain about is the fact that the audience didn't see Ed apologise to every single crewmember on the Revenge after his return, and this specifically is what I would like to talk about in this post, because I believe that the budget cuts (and having only 8 episodes instead of 10) are undeniably to 'blame' for the less than explicit 'Ed apology-tour'.

Having that much less money between series 1 and 2 means that you have to go out of your way to cut corners and make big decisions really fast – when that happens, you’re bound to have oversights (this includes pacing issues, cut scenes, choosing to give focus on one character’s arc over another (this especially is important here), etc.).

The writers clearly made the choice that finishing Izzy’s arc was their number one priority this series – most likely because after a 40% budget cut they feared that they wouldn’t get a third series – which means that all of the time that series 1 spent on Ed and Stede, was now suddenly shifted to Izzy, despite the fact that the Gentlebeard-love story is the heart of the show. So instead of giving us all the healing and growing scenes between Ed and everyone else, we got 'context clue' scenes. Just like we did with Izzy in series one – the big difference being that s1-Izzy’s context clues were meant to make us dislike him for plotting against Gentlebeard, and s2-Ed's context clues were meant to show us that Ed actually wanted to and tried to change for the better. Now, is it an oversight to think that a positive character-change can be picked up by the entire audience only by way of context clue-scenes? Yes. Clearly. We are (as people) generally much faster to see and believe the negatives, than we are to see and believe the positives. This is part of why so many people feel like Ed’s redemption should have been spelled out for us – that they should have actively shown us that he made amends to everyone.

But they gave us the scenes with Fang/Kevin, the ones with Lucius, and the one with Izzy as context clues for the crew coming to terms with the things that happened. The scene with Archie, Olu, and Jim where they’re drowning their brooms is another context clue – sure, Archie is saying “that’s just how it is”, but she’s in no way unhappy about it. She’s just ‘happy go lucky’ “move on, mate”. Jim even says “I think for that was pretty solid, for him”. Both Roach and Frenchie agree. Pete is just happy that Ed's wearing the cat collar.

They are pirates – their take on these things are different from how we would react in the real world. And Lucius in that scene is an example of how we (the real-world people/the audience) are reacting when watching that scene “the bar is on the floor” – BUT look at how everyone else in that episode reacts to Lucius ‘not just moving on’. Everyone else – even Izzy, who up until this point has been the only human in a crew of muppets – thinks he should just let it go and move on. It’s literally spelled out in the conversation they have in that scene in 205: Lucius: “And you? Are you happy with this?” Izzy: “With what? Pirating? Well, this is a pirate ship and I’m a pirate, so yeah. I’m good with it. You still mad he pushed you off the ship, Twatty?” – Izzy is telling us here that ‘stuff like this is just what happens on pirate ships’ and in the shark-scene his parting words to Lucius (who is representing the audience) is literally “Not moving on is worse”.

We are absolutely meant to take all of these as context clues for the crew moving on. And even more so during the party scene in 206, where Ed is not 'only being tolerated because of Stede' – he actively encourages Stede to let the crew have fun, which results in Archie's "This guy's devout as fuuuuck".

Now, would the series have benefitted from those extra scenes that would have helped further along the narrative of the crew moving on and coming to terms with Ed? Absolutely. But again – budget cuts. And there’s an important thing that seems to be forgotten in a lot of these discussions – which is that they crew did love Ed in series 1.

Ed became part of their family – which is obviously why it hurt that much more (especially for Lucius, who was the only Revenge-crew member to get really close with Ed) when he lashed out and hurt them. But that doesn’t mean that they stopped loving him. You can absolutely love someone you don’t like or even hate. The two are not mutually exclusive. That’s why dysfunctional families are so toxic and hard to get out of. Because if you didn’t love them, then you would have absolutely no problem in leaving their toxic arses behind. And THAT is what our favourite crew is – family. And Ed is the family member who went through a (TW!) depressive suicidal psychosis and hurt everything and everyone on his way. Is it going to take time to rebuild the trust in Ed that they had in series 1? I think so, yes. And I think there’s a possibility that that could come into play in series 3, though I think it's just as probable that we are meant to read it as a closed chapter. But the crew's love for Ed? Nah, that never went away. It got buried in a heap of sh~t and trauma – but that doesn’t mean that the crew doesn’t love Ed, when he is simply being Ed ❤️

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arsenicflame · 9 months

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hi i'm really interested in space lesbians! where are they, who are they? how can i see them? (shows, games, books?) also what are you most excited about in s2 of ofmd?

OH BOY OH BOY OH BOY

soooooo my space lesbian enthusiasm refers to 3 separate medias!! (it used to say gay space vikings bc that was an even more specific niche buuuut im way more into tihylttw these days s o) one day i am going to make a fuckin venn diagram of my girls because they all have so many similarities. (loki/sigyn and angela/sera are basically the same characters change my mind.)

this is about to get real long bc im unhinged about them <3 10/10 would talk about them all day if the communities were there

our first space lesbians are loki + sigyn from the bifrost incident! TBI is an album by the band the mechanisms which you can find wherever you listen to music (youtube here) its a norse mythology inspired rock/steampunk-esque album and it is SO GOOD- it takes place on a train in SPACE in the format of an incident investigation. its a story so you have to listen to the tracks in order :)

next up! this is how you lose the time war- our lesbians in this are called red + blue because we have deconstructed this trope to its most basic format at this point :') its a short book, and you may be familiar with it as it went viral from a trigun fan tweet a few months back. (my url (and sewing blog url) are actually references to a quote from this book!) you can get it wherever you get books and id recc the audiobook if youre into that i am also in possession of the pdf if you wantto try before you buy.

tihylttw is a story told through the exchange of letters between two agents on opposite sides of a war- it usually gets described as enemies to lovers but id personally use rivals as i think it describes them better. the book is known for being incredibly poetic and sometimes pretentious in its writing and i just think its the most beautiful thing ever. lesbians do it better

honestly theres nothing i could say for tihylttw better than it could say for itself, i just adore the universe theyve built and i want to KNOW MORE. i love you and i love you and i want to find out what that means together

saving the best for last is my girls angela + sera. the most of all time. nobody compares to them for me. they consume me

angela + sera are from marvel comics and you can find my complete reading list here, but if im talking about them positively, im usually talking about one of the titular Angela comics, and more often than not queen of hel.

honestly i love the angela comics so much that im making myself speechless trying to figure out where to start. Angela falls into the asgard side of marvel comics, though she is a lot more fluid in her affiliations, her whole thing being that she deals in deals- nothing for nothing everything has its price. she is at times described as emotionless and is generally quite a stoic character, especially around strangers. the major exception to this is her wife, sera. seras one of marvels few canon trans characters and i think she is just so wonderfully written. shes witty and cheeky and doesnt take shit from anyone, even when it gets her into trouble- and oh boy does sera find herself in some predicaments! the angela comics are often just as poetic as tihylttw for me, theyll drop an 'as long as you are with me, i am not afraid' and ill need to go smother myself in a pillow for a sec. in QOH they adopt a daughter who is Also a lesbian, shes an alternate version of leah of hel and i ALSO adore her.

im desperately trying to avoid plot points but god. the main arc is 21 issues of smooching Shakespearean space angels what more could you want?

(through sera & angela we get a lot of heven lore and honestly that could be its whole own thing for me im SO fascinated.)

my girls are currently in comic hell, i am praying they will get something good soon 🙏🙏

and what am i most excited about for season 2? can i just say izzy? can i just say anne + mary? dude im so ready for some lesbians you have no idea actually you probably have a very good idea if you made it this far down. im incredibly excited to be seeing izzy get a favourable arc this season, im really hoping to see him develop relationships with everyone else, see him grapple with feelings around ed (actually im really hoping he chooses not to forgive ed. for growth) im excited to see whats gonna go down with his leg, im excited to see wtf is going on w ed + stede because i have no idea what the continuity is at the moment, im just excited!!!!!! i honestly dont think theres anything im not excited about everything looks so good so far

#category 10 nyx autism moment #i wrote way more for the others than TBI but its not bc i like it less theres just. a lot less lore?#honestly we dont know much about loki/sigyn outside the incident on the train #and talking about that is just. tellin u the story #the angela section just turned into stream of consciousness im sorry i was tryin to avoid just. esplaining the plots ghfnjfnj #if u read angela and u like it please talk to me g o d i am full of thoughts about them #i was trying to be restrained here but but but #god sera sera i love her shes no damsel in distress shes in control of her own destiny!!!#angelas conviction on things!!! itd be easier to argue with a mountain!!!!#i want to know EVERYTHING i want to scream about everything god #[explodes]#i need to lie down now actually im insane about them #if the angela fandom was half as big as ofmd i would probably never consume a new piece of media again #instead i mentally debate myself as to whether the lines about the scent of battle/blood in her eyes are supposed to be read as a #trans women are real women commentary or a rebuttal of hevens misandrist tendencies (i like both)#(its fun to try and read into this i love sera i love how they handled her being trans i love heven lore i love the anchorites #[explodes harder]#ok stopping. to reiterate. category 10 nyx autism moment #nyxtalks #ask #i am so. so sorry

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blakbonnet · 1 year

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🍓!!

Omg all this time I thought I followed you cause I see you on my dash 😭😭😭 and like I physically visit your blog every once in while???! But turns out I didn't wtf! I've done it now lMAO I'm so sorry (I'm very dumb you'll get used to this actually)

You radiate such a positive energy and I love that you're in the ofmd fandom ❤️ your happiness is so infectious and I can't wait to freak out over s2 with you!!

Take a song I think you'll love!

#asks #ask games

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piratecaptainscaptainpirates · 4 months

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I am often really very frustrated that there's this sense in some OFMD fandom spaces that you need to justify liking season 2. Which is bizarre, because season 2 is, like, good. It's good TV.

Like, yeah, nothing is beyond criticism. I have my nitpicks. But the more I watch s2 the happier I am with it, especially knowing now that they had a fucking 40% budget cut and it still managed to be as good as it was. They never lost sight of what was important and Ed and Stede's relationship is very satisfying. It's emotional, it's sweet - this show has so much heart.

And I think part of the issue with how harsh people can be with season 2, ironically, is that it didn't end on a cliffhanger, so people just assume that's how the story was meant to end, when we KNOW it wasn't. We've known from the start they wanted three seasons. They were very kind to end season 2 in a happy place, but there's so much story left. Stede still needs to internalize that he's allowed to be soft and his friends and boyfriend love him for his softness, not in spite of it. Ed needs to internalize that he was never an irredeemable monster and he's always been loved. Their arcs feel incomplete because they're literally not complete.

Despite that, season 2 was good enough that if it really is all we ever get, I won't be happy, but I'll be satisfied. They wrote us a lovely season of television and they did it despite great odds and a massive cut. They gave us so much to love and you can feel the care in every second of this show.

This is an OFMD s2 positivity blog and my account is a safe space ship! 🧜🏼‍♂️

#ofmd #our flag means death

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