that’s just my face

I keep thinking about how they've both been starved for touch and affection their whole lives and how deeply the sex affected them both, and how they had similar and opposite reactions to it at the same time. because stede takes to new things like a fish to water, he's in a place where he's decided what he wants and when gets a taste of ed he immediately wants a whole five course meal, he's all in full steam ahead. meanwhile ed is a lot more skittish about accepting the things he wants, is afraid they're gonna be gone the next second and steps back from getting too much of a good thing so he doesn't have to miss it later (it really didn't help that stede left the way he did, but I think this would have been a problem for him anyway even if that hadn't happened.)

and it obviously meant so much to both of them, even if they didn't manage to communicate it at the time, because the next morning they were both pretty much ready to settle down for good. for stede it cemented their relationship and his commitment to ed and to their shared life, and for ed it was an overwhelming amount of intimacy and affection in the middle of an already overwhelming time, to the point where he decided to throw blackbeard overboard the next morning and ask however indirectly for a quieter life of domesticity with stede.

and even when ed panicked a few hours later, even with all the drama and the trauma and miscommunication, it took them like only another 24 hours to end up settling down to build a home together after all

Get yourself a man who can multitask

this is frankly indecent (dedicated to @sherlockig and @aha-my-villainous-thoughts)

Okay, so – a few thoughts on Izzy’s death. I’m sure other people have also laid this out, but I haven’t stumbled across it yet, so this is partially for me to get my thoughts organized. For the record, I love Izzy – he fascinated me (in a horrified sort of way) in season 1, and then he grew on me significantly in season 2. What a weird little guy. But also – I’m fine with them killing him off, and also with how they did it, because I think it makes sense for the story. But I know that a lot of people are super upset about his death, and also about the way he died. So, a few semi-coherent thoughts on that: 

Screeching my way back onto tumblr to yell about the fact that Ed is clearly devastated by Izzy's death but he chooses queer joy and peace with the man he loves over running off to sea for vengeance and that's an im-fucking-portant sign of his healing and recovery.

When Zheng offers him revenge, he sort of half-heartedly agrees with 'yeah I suppose I wanna kill that guy', and that half-heartedness comes from the fact that he's not feeling it. He's feeling SAD, he's feeling GRIEF, but rather than quashing them under the boot of anger and violence, he's letting himself sit in those emotions and FEEL them, properly.

ED IS SAD AND HE'S SITTING WITH HIS SADNESS AND ALLOWING HIMSELF TO BE SAD AND THEN HE CHOOSES LOVE AND AN ATTEMPT AT SOME SORT OF PEACE RATHER THAN BLOODSHED AND VENGEANCE I DON'T THINK YOU UNDERSTAND HOW IMPORTANT THAT IS.

There are so many little physicalities in the reunion scene that overwhelms my soul.

It’s not just the kisses. I mean, it’s mostly the kisses let’s be real, but it’s the glances, the soul seeking, the hand placements, etc etc…

I’ve been replaying this scene over and over, probably an innumerable amount and each time, I’m filled with those little butterflies in the pit of my stomach. 🥹 it’s akin to kicking my feet and giggling.

I wanted to show zoomed in clips of each of their perspective because Rhys and Taika have incredible ways of storytelling through their physicality.

Rhys is a fantastic actor. Unbelievably emotive. Outrageously funny. But he’s also wonderfully honest during moments of tenderness. There’s so much that can be said of his perspective looking at Taika. It’s the way he allows Stede to keep his eyes open right before locking lips with Ed. It’s the way he grants permission to Stede to study Ed’s face in admiration while he’s talking. Rhys hits the mark on every beat of that scene.

The generated heavy breathing having just run on the beach. The gentle swaying in Ed’s arms after riding that high. The nuzzling into Ed’s hand pressed against Stede’s face. It’s all there. And it’s intuitive and beautiful.

For Taika, he shows us what Ed could be like without the presence of any piracy and general swashbuckling. His character development in this season was astoundingly emotional for me and I think it’s because Taika allowed himself to “live truthfully under imaginary circumstances.”

Click the link to read about Meisner technique and how it informs authentic acting.

Taika is also intuitive with his roles. He brings a certain level of familiarity and that’s evident in Ed. Not the whole ‘feared pirate legend’ bit, but the bit where Ed is a man that fell in love.

Now I don’t know about you all, whether some of you that read this have had acting experience, but for someone who does, it is quite an undertaking to act a scene like this. The vulnerability can only be achieved if your partner meets you halfway. Meisner believed acting is doing, right? There’s no talking when it comes to acting. Acting is action.

These scenes are incredibly difficult for not only the logistics/planning of the kiss, but the before and after said kiss. That one kiss needs to be built into a storyline, and if you aren’t able to bounce off that stimuli to your acting partner, it falls flat and appears clunky and irregularly timed.

But Taika and Rhys went above and beyond to present something that’s honest, tender, and not at all uncomfortable, out of place or inauthentic. It was as real a kiss as could be in a gay pirate show lol!

Taika inhabits the reality of Ed’s world by resting his right hand against Stede’s neck. His physicality is compelling. The furrowed brows. The hands grasping Stede’s face. The hand resting against Stede’s chest, almost as a way to fully feel present. Or maybe it’s a way to hold onto Stede after the delirium inducing kiss.

But my favorite part of this entire scene?

“I love you. I love you.”

Ed pulls away mid kiss to let Stede know he loves him. As if Stede didn’t already know, though I’m sure grateful for the spoken affirmation nevertheless. It’s the fact that Taika made a choice to say ‘I love you’ in an abrupt way. To the audience, it could be interpreted as his inner monologue springing forth to be heard. As if he’d been saying ‘iloveyouiloveyouiloveyou’ while his lips were desperately clinging to his lover’s.

He says it twice. The first time it’s quick and in an attempt to make Stede understand. The second time he’s willed it into existence. Taika also makes a choice to say the second ‘I love you’ while maintaining eye contact.

It’s the kiss we all wish we truly could experience.

It’s a kiss of acceptance.

Unconditional love.

It’s a kiss that says everything they’re unable to say.

It’s everything. This reunion was everything.

Thinking about how much Ed and Stede still have to learn about each other. The show makes it clear they get each other, they understand each other better than anyone else does. But these boys have so much healing to do still, even now that they both know they're all in.

I still don't think Stede really fully grasps just how low Ed was, how he was so utterly convinced he was unloveable that he was ready to die. Ed is so used to accepting the worst other people have to offer him, it's going to feel weird when he gets nothing but softness and understanding and unconditional love from Stede! I wouldn't be surprised if he struggles with it - something about how the anger and shouting and violence he's used to were at least predictable, and now he feels out of his element.

And Ed doesn't know just how deep Stede's self-worth issues lay, that Stede is used to other people never valuing him. Stede often comes across as so confident (he's got "fake-it-till-you-make-it" down to an art), it's easy to forget he's used to putting himself down and was so ready to believe everything Chauncey told him back in s1e9. Stede's going to really have to work at confronting these deep-seated beliefs he has about himself, especially now he's got a boyfriend who treasures his every word.

And I'm thinking about Stede telling Ed about the cursed suit: "it's a long story" (and I don't want to bore you, because I bore everyone, so I'll skip to the end), and Ed all but pouting when he says "that wasn't a long story at all" (you couldn't bore me, I want to hear everything you have to say). They'll be alright.

I think the funniest take I've seen on the iz/co/urse is that eliminating one part of the """love triangle""" makes the relationship """cis het"""

not joking btw

not including their user for obvious reasons but MAN. boosting character development and the relationship of the main couple being a BAD thing sure is a take.

[ID: OFMD is a great example where you can have a show that has many queer tropes, is advertises with main love triangle only for them to kill off one part of that triangle so it stills in cis het normative relationship of 2 instead of a throuple because there was no other good reason to kill off that character other than boost the character development and relationship of the main couple

and that honestly is such a fucking disgusting piece of writing / END ID]

“is advertises with main love triangle” im so sorry but i don’t see izzy anywhere on this billboard??

[ID: A photo of a billboard in Times Square advertising season 2 of Our Flag Means Death. The advertisement shows Ed and Stede laying on their backs on opposite ends of the billboard. /END ID]

also. can i just point out how wild it is to describe the show ending with the main characters in a monogamous homosexual relationship is apparently “a fucking disgusting piece of writing”

As we all know, queer rep only counts if it belongs to a mean cis white man with heavy queer coding, no actual depiction of a relationship, and read into subtext.

Clearly.

OFMD never advertised the main couple as a love triangle. They never even hinted at that. It was never in any advertisement or any official release. It's a fan made concept: david jenkins made his pinned tweet ❤️ gentlebeard ❤️ for months for a reason.

Anyone made about a love triangle not ending in a love triangle not ending in a throuple queerbaited themselves.

This show HAS NEVER been about a queer love triangle, by the creators NOR THE CAST.

Just making up fairy-tales and getting mad when people point out the lack of truth to any such claims.

a cis het normative relationship of two queer men who have each been alienated at various points for their soft/unmasculine expressions of self... ok.....

watching people talk about [big upsetting ofmd spoiler] and um. i think we must begin to really examine what we feel entitled to in terms of queer characters. a gay ex-villain dying tragically in a show of 95% queer characters is not a homophobic slight against you just because you had it in your head that if a show’s queer rep is somewhat wholesome it isn’t allowed to upset you or make you uncomfortable.

people are getting way too comfortable in their mindset of “how [show] treats their queer characters is how they’re treating me” and “this character was queer and died and i didn’t like it so i deserved better” it’s getting really annoying i must confess😬

furthermore (because i genuinely saw this complaint) not everything that happens to a character is punishment or reward based on the writers’ morals either! no, killing a character fresh off their redemption arc is not the show saying “if you’ve done wrong, even if you’ve atoned, you don’t get a happy ending.” sometimes things can be narratively satisfying and make thematic sense even if it brings you emotional unrest. sometimes characters die when they shouldn’t and it’s supposed to make you SAD.

its not just twine is the thing, he saw an aesthetic need for a little something there so he picked a little something at random just for an accent. in the absence of little vases with little flowers in them he’s probably going to furnish future breakfast trays with stuff that has no purpose but looks nice like heart-shaped orange peel scraps and pieces from their chess set that they never use anymore because ed started to feel bad about winning within a dozen moves every time

'they killed off a protagonist' no they didn't

'they killed off one of the only characters in the show that's played by a queer actor' not really

'well they killed off the only character in the show that's played by an actor that's vocal about queer rights' 1. no 2. please don't say shit like this when vico ortiz is right there 3. no again

'they fridged him' nope

'they only killed him for ed's development' also nope

'they caved to anti pressure' lmao

'they buried their gays' 1. [hot fuzz voice] just the one gay actually 2. that's not what that means

'this is ableist' it's not

'this is homophobic' it's not that either

'they killed a character played by a queer elder' if con is a queer elder then so is kristian

'it was bury your disableds' ignoring the multiple other characters with disabilities is not the take you think it is

the way people cannot take any negative thing happening in tv shows these days is genuinely frightening and incredibly tiring. sometimes characters die. sometimes bad things happen for the story to move along. unwillingness to deal with anything upsetting in the realm of FICTION (and by upsetting i don't even mean difficult themes but just basic storytelling stuff like a character dying) is how you get incredibly watered-down cookie cutter media that doesn't make you feel anything. "ooooh but escapism" you cannot avoid everything bad forever. and if a character death is something that will send you spiralling that is something with your mental health and not with the piece of media being made. from the bottom of my heart: grow up

Okay, this is 1600 words of (positive!) meta regarding the OFMD finale. Included is character analysis and a treatise on why a certain trope people keep throwing around does not apply here.

This is of course just my take, and I'm sure people will disagree, but I needed to get this out. Apologies if it comes off disjointed, I've had like no sleep.

Spoilers within, obviously. You have been warned. Heed the tags. I didn't tag any characters because I consider it a spoiler, but you know who this is about.

Ok so now that I have a David Jenkins interview calling Izzy daddy to wave in people's faces when they come at me for this, I can talk about the staging (said with perverted glee).

So these two scenes are both a domestic spat and they're both staged interestingly similarily. So the scene is set up with the same basic blocking. We've got a mean guy yelling and throwing things on one end. We've got the person he's yelling at on the other, in the middle we have a window and a bed. And the window is slightly closer to Ed/Mom. But it's mirrored so that Ed stands on the left and Izzy stands on the right, closer to the bookshelf. In both of these scenes we get Izzy/Dad yelling, Ed/Mom responding in a small voice, and then Izzy/Dad throwing something, and then advancing in a similar sort of stomping aggressive manner, and then ending the altercation by heading for the door. Like the staging is weirdly similar. the one space where Ed and Izzy diverge from Ed's parents in their blocking, is when Ed chokes him. And at that moment is actually reminiscent of A DIFFERENT SCENE with Ed's dad, due to the presence of the light house.

That big light in the background, knowing this show, is almost certainly a lighthouse. Which means, both of these moments are of daddy being choked by the kraken in front of a conspicuously placed lighthouse.

Conclusion: Is Ed mommy? Is Ed baby? Is Ed a monstrously oversized cephalopod? it is unclear, perhaps he's a bit of all three, but what is clear is that Izzy is definitely daddy.

I confess, my initial numb anger at the whole Izzy thing was one part hearing him finally, finally say the shit that was so obviously true about his relationship to Ed, but only after well over a year of trying to stand in place against an endless tide of ass-backwards fandom woobification, and another part the dull realization that this motherfucker was going to overwhelm all other topics of discussion again. I like Izzy just fine as a TV character, but as a fannish experience he is fucking exhausting.

This wasn't any great insight on my part, but I said at the start of the season: if you think Izzy is the true hero of OFMD, you don't actually like the show. And sure enough, Izzy died and we were treated to a vomitous tsunami of bile, because without Izzy, all the stans have left of the show are things they hate. (Aka everything that wasn't Izzy.) So I'm just...waiting for it to pass, so maybe we can just talk about this show like nerds together.

Because there was a lot about the death scene that was good! It was that OFMD density at work again - look at "Sit with me, Eddie." You have a callback to Fang's advice to Ed to learn to sit with himself. You have the opposite of Izzy's old attitude if "we need the plan now Ed now now now when are you killing that twat Ed now now now." And it recalls Izzy's shark, too, the idea that if you don't keep moving you die. Izzy was dying, so he could finally ask Ed to be still with him.

And finally, there's the use of "Eddie," which only seems to be used by people who knew Ed when he was younger, with the exception of the crew asking for a second song at the end of last season. "Eddie" was not necessarily a good time in Ed's life, but maybe it was before he and Izzy became completely dysfunctional - when they could still maybe pass for friends. Or maybe it was something Izzy refused to call him because it was too juvenile for the Great Blackbeard. Whatever it is, it's redolent of the past and of true affection. All that in just a few words.

I completely get why people were repelled by Ed calling Izzy his only family, but, uh. I actually one hundred percent buy it. Izzy was Ed's constant companion for years, and the person he was closest to. Did Izzy actually know him? Nope. Did they actually have a loving friendship? Also no! But it's as close as Ed got to family since killing his dad - the wire mother version of love. When Jack betrayed him and Stede left him...well, Izzy also betrayed him, but he stuck around after. So yeah, Ed thought Izzy was his only family, and that's incredibly sad.

Do I want to flick people in the ear when they say the crew hates Ed and only ever loved Izzy? Yes, of course, because it's hilariously wrong. They were plotting mutiny against Stede in the early going and took 30 seconds to mutiny against Izzy, but had to be driven to the brink of doom to do it against Ed. And no, it's not just because Ed was scarier - you think Jim would be held back that long by intimidation? It's because they hadn't grown to love Stede and Izzy at those points, and Ed was another story.

There should have been more verbal reconciliation in "Calypso's Birthday," but to argue, for example, that Archie cheerfully gave Ed a drink at the party while hating his guts is just disingenuous. She had absolutely no issues saying what she thought of Ed.

But that's a classic Izzy stan issue - this assumption that love is in limited supply, and getting it is a zero sum game, so if someone else has it then Izzy doesn't. And since that's unacceptable, clearly no one else can be loved in Izzy's presence or else. What a weird, weird way to watch this program. But it makes sense that with Izzy buried, to them there's no love left in the show at all.