fallinhyperfixation

[fallinhyperfixation]

Our Flag Means Death 2.06 "Calypso's Birthday"

[fallinhyperfixation]

Holy shit. Everything I hear about the scrapped original draft of episode 6 sounds EXACTLY like what I had in mind for the “missing” episode that should have gone between 5 and 6, if we’d gotten a 10 episode season. “Taking it slow” leading to a crazy build up of sexual tension so out of hand the crew has to get involved??? But then it ultimately culminates not in them having sex (yet) but with a dance—something sweet and romantic that affirms their choice to move at their own pace?? Those beats would have been spot on exactly what the story needed after episode 5…but if you’re only getting 8 episodes, Ed & Stede need to get to that central conflict over piracy faster, and Ned Low is a perfect catalyst for that. It’s the right storytelling choice to have made within those limitations, but…ugh.

I love ep6 as it is, but the more I learn about this season’s production, the more I can’t help but mourn what we could’ve had with an extra episode or two.

[fallinhyperfixation]

Source (Season 2 - November 14th 2023)

sambaschutte: Introducing “Behind The Flag”, a new short bts series I created to celebrate the making of “Our Flag Means Death” season 2🏴‍☠️ Beware of spoilers☠️ Tag or mention when sharing.

[fallinhyperfixation]

unpopular opinion but i really liked the flashback frame of "the crew" during izzys 2.08 monologue.

it's a callback to the crew as they were—but also, as they've always been. laughing and eating together, being a family. we see them do that a lot this season, in fact.

right before the flashback, izzy says: "it's about letting go of ego for something larger." and then we see not when they rescued izzy, not when they made him the new unicorn, not calypso's birthday. but a view of stede's revenge, and him in his fancy clothes, and blackbeard absolutely besotted and ivan and fang assimilated to stede's gentle piracy. you almost cant find izzy in the frame, but he's there. he's in the back, watching like a mop in a swiffer commercial, unable to let go of that precious ego.

it's a quick flashback, blink and you miss it before we're back on a close up of con's face. but that particular scene juxtaposed with the version of izzy giving this speech is DELICIOUS. this izzy who we have seen come full circle. who calls stede his captain, who plays and sings with the crew, who can laugh with ed, who whittles a little wooden shark.

this is the muppetification of izzy hands, complete. he is no longer living by traditional piracy — he's in stede bonnet's sandbox, and in stede bonnet's sandbox, the underdog always wins.

[fallinhyperfixation]

Drag Izzy bts pics🎉

[fallinhyperfixation]

I find it really funny that so many people thought Izzy was homophobic, but really he was just the Fun Police.

[fallinhyperfixation]

What "bury your gays" actually is: Writers who want to edge the audience with a queer relationship but are too cowardly to commit and now they have an awkward situation where they have to either canonize their queerbaiting or kill them off and guess what they chose

What "bury your gays" isn't: The main queer couple of your show starting an inn together, after the other queer couple has a wedding, with the poly queers being cute and happy and poly as they sail into the sunset, after having a funeral for the 1 queer character who had the most satisfying and touching character arc of accepting his own queerness and telling the Straightriarchy to fuck off and die

[fallinhyperfixation]

The fuchsia and teal 💘

[fallinhyperfixation]

Imagine having a celebrity crush that makes you question your sexuality while you are trapped in a loveless hetero marriage and finally end up meeting him in the most random way possible only for him to fall head over heels for you and become your boyfriend. No one is doing it like stede bonnet

[fallinhyperfixation]

Our Flag Means Death "The Curse of the Seafaring Life"

[fallinhyperfixation]

I've been thinkin' on it, and I think the biggest reason people are still insisting that Ed is just awful and abusive and whatever (aside from the racism of it all) is because the writers of OFMD fundamentally assume that viewers will like him and be on his side.

And, like, that is one hell of a reasonable assumption. Before s2 we spent a lot of time getting to know Ed; we see he's very sweet and smart and can be silly, and his self-esteem isn't great and he already has a lot of self-destructive tendencies and struggles with believing he can have nice things. These are all things we see in s2 and none of them should come as a surprise. We've gotten to know Ed and in s2 the writers assume we will be able to grant him even the barest ounce of sympathy.

"But he's being super violent and hurting the crew!" Ed's behavior at the beginning of s2 is best described as "a bit over the top" in the context of the show, and before he pulls out all the stops trying to get the crew to mutiny on him in his suicide attempt, he never actually hurts anyone except for Izzy (Izzy's the guy who threatened him and caused all this, or he'd still be crying in his blanket fort at the start of the season. OFMD has ALWAYS had a "talk shit get hit" philosophy and Izzy should not be the sole exception).

"But he never had to face any consequences for his actions!" I think almost getting beaten to death and then having to spend an entire episode convincing yourself you deserve to live is a pretty big consequence, actually.

"But he never apologized!" The group apology in s2e5 was obviously a joke (Stede clearly wrote it anyway and made Ed memorize it, look how Stede mouths along and Ed fumbles his lines), and it's pretty clear that Ed's conversation with Fang is meant to represent what he's doing with everyone. He's trying. He thinks up a way to try to give Lucius closure, even though it doesn't work, and when Fang mentions something Ed did that hurt him, Ed immediately and genuinely apologizes. It is not a wild jump to assume Ed's doing that with other characters and the show just assumes we're smart enough to figure that out from context considering how the crew are good with Ed again in s2e6.

"What if he hurts Stede/is abusive to Stede?" Multiple characters ask Stede something to this effect, Stede says "that's really stupid, of course he won't," and Stede is right. Question easily answered.

We're shown that Ed's response to being hurt and upset is not immediately violence. His first response is to go and hide and make himself feel safe - tub, blanket fort, hiding under the blanket and Anne and Mary's. Violence is Ed's response to feeling threatened. There's a difference. We're shown this over and over and over again, and frankly the only reason I think some people miss it is because they don't care to think about what's making Ed feel threatened in the first place.

It's just so clear that some people watching this show care so little about Ed and only care about what he can offer in a scene with other characters. Ed did not enjoy anything that happened at the beginning of the season - the last time we see him in s1 he's sobbing his poor eyes out and that's implied to have been consistent through s2e2. He's suicidal and having a miserable time and yes, he's hurting people who care about him, but it's not just for funsies, it's because he's trying to get himself killed. It's wild to me that some people can turn on the Ed and Stede show, see Ed pull himself out of such a terrible place by the end of the season and commit to a life with his boyfriend, and think that the show is setting up Ed to be abusive or imply he hasn't gone through any character growth and just coasted through the season.

[fallinhyperfixation]

[fallinhyperfixation]

stede saying "i'm afraid to see you. i'm afraid that your life is better without me" when ed is literally ending his life because he's lost the hope stede brought into his existence...stede being the light in ed's darkness...stede begging him to live and showing ed he matters and he is loved and someone out there believes in him and wants him around...i'll be here cryin all day lads

[fallinhyperfixation]

being seen when you hate yourself

I love that this show centers how hard it is to really believe that someone sees you and still loves you, when you know that you are a monster.

How it's easier to believe that you're fooling them, that they must only see an inaccurate picture of you, because otherwise how could this good gentle person actually love the whole monstrous you? How could this brave wild person love you when you're actually selfish and weak?

So you lose yourself to the joy of exploring good in yourself, while also feeling terrified that you're a fake, that you will not be able to keep up the act, that you will hurt them.

I love that both of them really see each other, and really love each other, and they both fear that they're not enough for each other.

Stede imagines himself bearded and merciless when he dreams about Ed.

Ed makes himself the monster, worse than the one he was before he knew Stede, to prove to himself and everyone else how wrong Stede is about him.

It's not enough to be loved - you have to also believe that the person who loves you really sees all of you.

You have to understand that love and clarity and truth can coexist - that someone can know you AND love you.

I cannot wait to see them learn this ..... or not.

[fallinhyperfixation]

Izzy telling Stede "I know you think you understand him," and Stede immediately describing Ed's emotional state perfectly accurately with "He was either going to watch the world burn or die trying, so which was it?" is everything to me, by the way.

Like, Izzy still doesn't get it. He's clinging to this idea that he's the only person who knows Ed, because he's seen the darkest parts of Ed and thinks that is who Ed is. He thinks that Stede is an idiot who only loves a projection of Ed, the sweet and open version of him that showed up around Stede on the Revenge in season 1. He doesn't understand that Stede might know about the dark shit and care about Ed anyways, because he doesn't really understand that love is more than just putting up with someone's bullshit.

But Stede KNOWS Ed. He's seen Ed crying in a bathtub about killing his dad, order a man skinned for an insult, and cheerfully fold socks after it seemed like everything important had been taken from him. Unlike Izzy, he can see through the facade to the whole human person underneath - not a myth, not a monster, just a man. He clocks everything Ed is doing as a cry for help, and all he wants is a chance to offer that help.

(also - this is the second time this season that Izzy makes the claim about being the only person who knows Ed, and I bet a big part of his arc this season is going to be learning that maybe he didn't know Ed at all. [And maybe if Ed can be loved wholeheartedly, despite all the horrors of his past, Izzy can be loved too?? chew on that you tiny weirdo])

[fallinhyperfixation]

that post abt hugh jackman on women's vs men's magazines but it's what stede thinks ed wants vs what ed actually want i made a comment on this post yesterday and haven't been able to get it out of my head since so yall have to suffer with me

[fallinhyperfixation]

it also caught me so off guard in episode 1 in particular that the crew clearly knew how much izzy was doing to protect them from ed?? no one's saying it out loud because it won't help but the hug, and the whole scene surrounding it, says they've all quietly been paying attention and worrying about him behind his back and it was a culmination of weeks and months of living like they were while knowing that izzy was bending over backwards to absorb as much of ed's rage and heartbreak and anger as possible in order to shield the rest of them??? help??