#I AM FEELING THE KIND OF FEELS I LAST FELT AFTER WATCHING OFMD

[pipariperho]

DID THAT SEASON OF GOOD OMENS ACTUALLY JUST HAPPEN OR WAS THAT JUST MY IMAGINATION?!?!!!!!

Luckily I have an entire weekend to rewatch it just to make sure

[epersonae]

Do you think you could fall in love again?

On the one hand, this is a wildly personal question, anon, and from the reaction of my knitting group, it would be totally appropriate for me to just abandon this in the depths of my unanswered asks.

On the other hand, if it is possible to know one thing about me as a person, just from my blog, it’s that I was deeply madly in love, and that that person died. And also: you have in fact activated my trap card.

Because I thought about this, almost as soon as they died, and not in a way where I was ready to fall in love immediately, but I think I said to @faintvox maybe the next day: can you be polyamorous with a ghost?

Because when I got divorced from my first spouse, I thought I wouldn’t find love for a long time. I expected to be single for years, because I had so much trauma from that, because I had loved him and it had broken me, because I thought it would be too hard to start over after more than 20 years with someone else.

And when I told Ryn that, after we started dating, they laughed at me. “There is no way you were going to be single for five years,” they said, which how long I said I’d expected. (For the record: I left my ex in August 2018; Ryn and I started dating in October 2019.)

Because Ryn and I were in a polyamorous relationship when we started out, and we were just trying to figure out how we wanted to do that again, more deliberately, and instead cancer-wedding-death. Our wedding vows deliberately included that space in our lives, in a way where it also was about our friendships, and was also something that would not be totally obvious to a couple of my older relatives.

Because I realized, after they died, that we together had written me a way through it — the fic we wrote together, one of the central characters is a widower, and the guy who created him always said “Magnus never loves again,” and we said “Fuck that,” and we said (altho this is I think @nekosd43's formulation originally), “Magnus is made for love,” and we shipped him in stories set before his marriage and we shipped him in stories set after. And Magnus’s grief and love for Julia is woven through the love that we gave him in the stories we wrote with him and Taako and him and Lucretia, and the love and the grief are both important. (JFC I WROTE A PIECE ABOUT LUCRETIA ASKING HIM ABOUT A TATTOO HE GOT FOR JULIA.)

Because among many other things, for the benefit of all the broken hearts is in part about what it means to have love that isn’t The Love, what it means to find love in the aftermath of tragedy, to find love in places you didn’t expect.

Because people in my family live a really fucking long time, and the idea of living another 30, 40, 50 years without romantic love, without being in love, is kind of horrifying to me. (No offense to my aromantic pals, but could not be me.) Especially given that I am already of a mindset that it is possible to have romantic love for more than one person at a time — to say that I couldn’t have it again at all is just not realistic for who I am.

No one is ever going to have the exact place that Ryn did and does. No one will ever be them, no other relationship will be the one that we had from when they first messaged me in 2017 until I lay next to their corpse in a hospital bed in 2021. Even in death they are literally my safe space.

And yet.

So the scene in OFMD 1x10, where Stede asks Mary what love feels like. I have always associated that with Ryn, and with my own little montage, because that is what our love felt like. (There are so many things about s1 Ed and Stede that are ridiculously us.) If we’d been married a year later, I bet some of that would have been in our wedding ceremony.

And yet.

I haven’t posted about it on Tumblr, but there is a somebody, and I am quite in love with them, and one time last summer I was watching Our Flag Means Death, as you do. And I got to that scene, and my mind was doing the montage overlay thing with moments of Ryn…and also moments with this other person. And I knew that I loved them, that I was in love with them, but to have that connection happen? I burst into tears.

Because I had known intellectually, but I felt it in a different way, deeply and truly, the simultaneousness of that love, the way it overlaps, and neither makes the other less, and there was love, and there is love, and whatever happens next there will be love.

[go-bonkers-go-foolish]

okay for real i have thoughts on the ofmd finale, and they're mostly positive, but i've seen a LOT of takes that are just. not using critical thinking at all. so i wanna outline my stuff here. spoilers under the cut

okay. so, first things first, a round of applause and a bouquet of flowers to con o'neill. brilliant, BRILLIANT work from him in both seasons - no exaggeration, maybe one of the best performances i've ever seen. he put his heart and soul into that role, and i cannot commend him enough. i was moved to tears multiple times this season, and he did wonderfully.

second, i know it's hard to hear, but izzy was ready to die. did he HAVE to die? no, of course not. was it fair that he died? no, death is never fair. but was he, as a character and in terms of the narrative, ready to die? yes. and before we go any further, i am saying this in explicit terms: i love izzy. i've loved him since day one. i've never been one of those people who was rooting for a bad ending for him. and this ending isn't a bad one.

izzy was exhausted. he was ready to resign last season. he was put through the fucking wringer this season. in season one, he explicitly says that the only way out of piracy is death. is that necessarily true? no, but for HIM it is. izzy's whole life was the sea. his whole life was piracy. everything he knew and loved belonged to that life. a life of piracy, constantly surrounded by violence and constantly in danger, isn't a place you can really thrive, but for him to leave it all behind would be torture for him. can you honestly imagine him retiring the way ed and stede did? i can't. i really don't think he'd want to retire. he wouldn't be happy. this post sums it up the best - it just makes sense, both narratively and in terms of symbolism.

and if the only way out for him was death, well, FUCK, then it's only fitting that he got the kindest death imaginable.

imagine if he'd died the minute he was shot and the crew had to leave him behind and we never saw him again. that would have been cheap, empty, and an unfair ending. imagine if his suicide attempt earlier this season had been successful, if he had died alone in the dark from a gunshot to his head. can you IMAGINE how hollow and bitter and cruel that would have been?

but look at him. izzy crawled his way back from the brink of death, he watched the person he loved most become a monster, he did the bravest thing and saved his crew over the person he'd been loyal to for decades, he literally dragged himself to a better life than the one he had before, and then, episode six. la vie en rose.

he was beautiful. he was radiant. he was joyful and surrounded by joy. most importantly, he was loved. i've rewatched that scene half a dozen times and i am not ashamed to admit that i've cried at nearly every watch.

that kind of queer joy and character redemption is not something i have ever seen before, and con performed it perfectly. he was there, surrounded by the crew, literally held up by a physical manifestation of their love for him. that is the apex of a character arc if i've ever seen one. that was his moment.

and for a time, he was happy. did it feel short because the pacing was incredibly rushed this season? oh, absolutely. but that's not the fault of anyone but hbo and their corporate bullshit. they had to jam-pack a dozen character arcs into eight half-hour episodes and do justice to all of them, so of course it felt rushed. but that moment, la vie en rose, and all the times after, that was a character done justice.

and then, he died. but did he die alone, or unloved, or unhappy, or before his time? no.

izzy hands died surrounded by the people who loved him, in the arms of the person he loved most in the world. he died forgiving and being forgiven. he died having experienced pure joy for the first time in a very, very long while. he died accepted and he died belonging to a family, with a leg made by his crew holding him up until the end. he said he was ready, he knew it was his time. he was a fighter, but he died letting himself rest, having fought and having lived beautifully.

it's like he said to ricky. he's gone, but he endures, because he was GOOD. he knew he was good. and for a man that was so thoroughly broken and beaten down at the beginning of his arc, that's a beautiful thing.

we watched him physically drag himself away from everyone who loved him, repeating "you are born alone and you die alone", and then we saw him die surrounded by their love. we saw them prove him wrong.

izzy died knowing he was good, and he died knowing he was loved.

death was not his redemption arc. he was redeemed from the moment he walked out into that rainstorm and saved his crew's lives by standing up to ed. this whole season was his post-redemption life, and he got to experience beauty and joy before he died in the way he wanted to - like a pirate - in the kindest way he possibly could have experienced.

we watched him go from the antagonist to the heart and soul of the crew, and saying it was all for nothing because he died is so blatantly missing the point. (and, just saying, no shade, but the venn diagram of people mad about this and people saying the good omens season 2 finale was bad is a circle. sometimes bad things have to happen in the narrative because it's right. a character you like doing something bad or dying is not bad writing.)

so, izzy, rest in peace. rest surrounded by love. rest knowing you were good.

and con o'neill, rest knowing that you did an amazing character justice, knowing that you blew everyone's minds, and knowing that you kicked ass in every single way possible.

and third, the phrase "rancid syphilitic cunt" is going to enter my vocabulary forever and no one will stop me.

[long-suffering-little-spoon]

I JUST REALIZED THAT YOU WATCHED THE OFMD FINALE

H-

How are you feeling 🥲🥲🥲

Pahaha not swimmingly, I'll just say. First I have been doing a bit of the ol' menstruating which means everything is immediately more extreme lol. I've been very conflicted and I'm still not 100% sure how I feel about *THE THING* especially, but this is where I stand right here right now at like 11PM lmao

Under the cut cos this ended up being exponentially longer than I thought it could ever be sorry

Overall I've loved season 2!! It has been so much fun to interact with the community and convert everyone to the Izzy hands cult engage with the fandom week by week. We've had some incredibly beautiful high moments and some lovely refreshing queer joy. I adore the new characters and the developments of our existing ones. I know my negative thoughts here are much more substantial than my positives but this doesn't mean I didn't like it!! I just don't feel the need to describe the positives because I feel like they're pretty obvious and universally recognised, agreed upon and beloved, y'know? (if you want a purely positive thoughts autistic happy flappy hands rant™, i can oblige dw)

Izzy's death is not the only reason I have mixed feelings on the finale. Obviously the episode cuts were a result of HBO'S meddling and isn't the fault of the crew, but the pacing still felt off and everything that happened just kinda washed over me like white noise (haha will wo-). The loose ends were tied up in wholesome ways and if we don't get a season 3 this would be a mostly decent way to end our characters' journeys, if a bit rushed. But then...

Izzy's death. A lot of people feel very very betrayed and hurt by Izzy being killed off, some people don't feel the comfort they used to from this show because of it and no longer want to engage. I don't wanna discount these people's views, more power to them; I cannot stop them from feeling what they feel and doing what they choose. I haven't given up hope on this show but Izzy's death just felt pretty unsatisfying to me?? Putting my bias towards him aside, I get the "killing off mentor at end of second act" trope but I just feel and wish way more could've been done with Izzy. I wanted to see more of him being happy and secure in himself and his found family and his queerness and his disability!! But now I don't get that and it very much stings. I think I could've come to terms more with his death if there had been more time to dwell on it all and get to see the individual characters mourn, but again episode cuts, thanks HBO!! /s. And I know they had the funeral but it still feels like we didn't really get a chance to mourn or treat Izzy's death with the weight it warranted. And I am far too tired especially right now to engage in "is this/is this not bury your gays/disabled character" but I will say I've seen pretty compelling arguments on both sides. As an able-bodied disabled person I don't feel it's fully my place to dictate, but I am upset Izzy was killed right after some big moments in his healing process and being a disabled person and in general just enjoying his life.

Personally I'm not giving up on the show as a whole because the finale left a sour taste in my mouth. I still very much like this show and I'm willing to stick around for a potential season 3 and on future rewatches I'll be able to see the stuff I loved separate from the stuff I didn't. But since looking back now, the latter is most recent, it kind of casts an unpleasant shadow on a very enjoyable season of television.

RIP Izzy Hands you deserved better sweetie, you would've loved Drag Race. And also shoutout to Con O'Neill for a fucking phenomenal performance last season, but especially this one. Izzy was absolutely iconic and a fan favourite for a very good reason, even if imo the writers did him dirty. He was hilarious and a petty little bitch man but then deeply broken and compelling and a genuinely beautiful character with a beautiful journey despite an unfortunate and unjust end?? He slayed.

Wow this was a lot!! Sorry if you were expecting silly goofiness lmfao I got very analysi-ish and a bit melancholic. Thank you so much for the ask JJ, it was a good opportunity to try and express all my thoughts and squish them into something cohesive for both you and me. (And thanks to my friend who I was discussing this with earlier; they helped me get a new perspective by sharing some of his thoughts. Dude, if you're reading this you know who you are, thanks a bunch!!!!)

[manicpixxiedreambitch]

Queer Heartbreak in Film and How I Reacted to it.

Starting off strong we have Good Omens. This scene I watched play out in semi-silent horror. The sad desperation in Crowleys face. Aziraphale not quite knowing what to do with his hands. The feeling of betrayal that the audience gets. Aziraphale looks at Crowley almost as if he had been betrayed after the kiss, which is odd because it is clear that Aziraphale loved Crowley. Meanwhile, Crowley seems betrayed when Aziraphale says “I forgive you”, as though he had much of anything to apologize for.

Next up is Bright Young Things. Now, I have mentioned before I know nothing about this movie, but I have seen this scene and I know enough context. This scene sits with me constantly. I think of it every time I cry, because it is in those moments I feel as though I know exactly the feeling that Michael Sheen was portraying in this. Its the crying where you are thinking “What did I expect? I should’ve known that it wouldn’t work out.”

Glee, Episode 22.

I’ve seen this scene twice in my life. The first time I saw it, I was young. I still thought I was straight. I was whooping, clapping, cheering.

The second time I saw it was last year. The video came up on my recommended. And there was no cheering this time. No whooping, no clapping. I just sat there in silence. The second time watching it hurt a whole lot more than the first. Probably because it was a year after I had finally come to terms with the fact that I am bisexual.

OFMD

This one actually left me nonverbal for an entire night. The ending made me have my jaw stuck on the floor for a full twenty minutes. My eyes were wide as saucers and I felt almost like crying. It didn’t help that I started watching the show shortly after a similar situation happened with me and a girl I liked. We had been talking/flirting with each other for a couple of months and she even said flat out that she loved me. I felt the same about her, but I was new to dating women (honestly I was new to dating in general) and we decided to take it slow and not put any labels on anything yet while we got to know each other more. A month later she had to move away, and after a few weeks of texting back and forth, she ghosted me cold turkey. A couple months later she texted me and said she was sorry for ghosting me and that she just wasn’t interested in a relationship anymore and she wanted to protect me from her. It sucked because I was really into her. I never really expected her to stay, or for it to last, but I kind of hoped it would. So this particular Queer heartbreak smacked me across the face.

The Seven Husbands Of Evelyn Hugo

This one HURT. It’s the repressed actions, the pining, the repeated heartbreak. The feeling of hope that everything is going to be perfect only for it all to come crashing down again and again. The bittersweet feeling of entering a relationship knowing it’s not going to have a perfect happy ending. The feeling of regret knowing that they could have had more time together if they had just….

It made me want to cry SO BAD.

(Also Evelyn’s fury when she was asked if she was coming out as a lesbian after explicitly describing that she had been in love with men AND women. I related SO DEEPLY to that.)

[iris-writesx]

loves me like i’m brand new | gentlebeard

read it here, or read it on ao3 <3

soooo i know i posted one fic on this account and disappeared, but one of my dearest friends encouraged me to watch ofmd with them a couple of weeks ago, and i am obsessed. i’ve watched the show like three times since then and have been grabbing at any fics i can get a hold of, and couldn’t stop thinking about some of my own. so that what i’m going to be doing :) this is my first fic i’ve written for ofmd (and the first fic in a while) so it’s probably not great, please be kind <33

i feel like it doesn’t need to be said, but just in case, i don’t actually know the canonical history of ed’s tattoos it’s all my interpretation

the title is from “call it what you want” by taylor swift x

2k words — fluffy and domestic, post-canon. recreational drug use and chronic pain is mentioned.

༶•┈┈୨♡୧┈┈•༶

From their little inn on the shore, the sound of the waves against the beach was a constant and grounding sound. Of course, that sound had been a constant for as long as Ed could remember — he had spent more time at sea than he had on land, the sea was always there. Even tucked away in his little bunk on Hornigold’s ship, in whatever bedrooms he claimed as his own on his many raids, or, more recently, in the confinements of the Captain’s quarters on The Revenge, the sea could always be heard.

Of course, from their little shack on land, the sound of the water was much more distant. It was nicer, in Ed’s opinion. It couldn’t be heard unless he focused on it, unless he sat and listened.

It helped when he was grounding himself… or whatever the fuck Stede called it when he needed to calm down.

The wind was gentle so the waves lapping against the shore were gentle and kind, just a soft noise that drifted in and out of his focus. As soft as the gentle candlelit glow of their bedroom, or the gentle strokes of Stede’s calloused fingers as they moved up and down his arm. As gentle as he felt, with the haziness that was building in his mind.

The smell wasn’t quite so gentle. Ed only smoked tobacco on the regular, so he hadn’t quite come accustomed to Stede’s preferred smoking habit. But they had been at their inn for coming up a fortnite now, and on their last adventure into town Stede had bought some. After years at sea, just like Ed, he knew that Stede sometimes got achey. Like Ed’s fucked up leg, his partner also suffered from pains, and Stede insisted it helped. And Ed’s fucked up leg wasn’t going to get any better, so he had agreed to try it with Stede.

They had waited until they could just spend the evening doing nothing. The living room was all painted after a day’s work, and whilst furniture still needed to be bought, and walls needed to be fixed, it was slowly but surely becoming a home. Stede wanted to get the crew over for a visit as soon as possible, and whilst Ed wasn’t quite so eager to disturb the peace, he admittedly did miss the group. With Izzy as the new Captain of The Revenge, he knew they were in the safest possible hands.

But he did miss the unlikely found family.

“Ed, darling,” with his eyes closed, he felt the warmth of Stede’s hand against his chin and tilted his head backwards without any further insistence. Stede’s thumb pressed to his chin and urged his jaw to slacken, lips parting, and soon enough he felt the warmth of Stede’s breath as he pushed the smoke from his mouth, which was pulled right into Ed’s lungs on his inhale. After practicing all evening, he knew to hold it, before Ed exhaled the smoke for a second time. “There we go.”

Ed could smoke tobacco until the sun went down, but weed? He had tried earlier, after Stede had meticulously rolled them, but he had almost hacked up a lung in the process, to which he had been urged to stop. And to be honest, he preferred this option — the closeness between them, the warmth of his breath, Stede’s hands gentle on his face to guide him where he was needed. At first, when Stede had first suggested shotgunning the smoke instead, they had gotten a little carried away and made out until they were both hot and out of breath. But after a few shared joints, they had both fallen lax and mellow. Ed was splayed out across Stede’s lap, his head against his boyfriend’s thigh, whilst Stede was propped up against the wall beside their bed.

His hair had long been pulled from the braid it had been held in all day, which allowed for Stede’s fingers to drag through the grey strands until his eyes closed and the haze of his mind grew even hazier. If left long enough he could’ve easily fallen asleep there in his lap, high and satisfied.

Stede’s fingers were on his arm again. But as he focused on the touch, they weren’t mindlessly stroking. It seemed like he was tracing patterns into his skin, and it was only when Ed opened his eyes and looked down, he realised that his tattoos were being traced. His eyes flickered upwards, and Stede looked so concentrated. It was almost entertaining.

“Like ‘em?” It was a silly question. Ed often caught him staring, especially at his tattoos. Some of them had been inked into his skin for so long that he often forgot that they weren’t supposed to be there, thought that they weren’t anything special. But Stede? Fuck, Stede looked at him like he was God, and he looked at his tattoos like they were biblical scriptures. He didn’t think he could ever get used to how Stede looked at him, how he made him feel. He hadn’t felt loved in so many years that it felt new, it felt overwhelming, but it certainly felt good.

“They’re beautiful,” Stede’s voice was soft, his eyes flickering up to meet Ed’s for just a moment before they were back on his arm. He continued to trace the tattoos, before his finger halted, and Ed watched his eyebrows scrunch. “Is that a game of hangman?”

Ed also looked down, saw the little game marked into his upper arm, and scoffed a breath of a laugh. “Yeah, we didn’t have any more paper. Said Jack could play on my arm instead,” he didn’t miss the way Stede’s relaxed nature stiffened just a little at the mention of Calico Jack, and wordlessly he lifted his arm to squeeze his thigh, thankfully feeling him melt again. “Got a lot of little doodles n’shit on there, mate. Half of ‘em don’t matter.”

Stede really seemed to focus, then. He shuffled upwards against the wall so he could lean down and get a closer look, and Ed could only watch his expression in the fondness he held only for Stede. His limbs were relaxed and loose, and he let Stede lift his arm up to see the tattoos closer without any resistance. His arm was turned from all angles, his touch remaining as gentle as it always was.

“You have a lot of stars.” Stede noted, spoke it as if he were talking to himself, the words soft and mumbled. His fingers traced over all of the little stars along Ed’s arm, his touch so light it was like he was feeling something fragile. And Ed supposed if he were to be fragile in front of anyone, it would be Stede.

“Stars are cool,” He shrugged, looking down at his own arm for a brief moment before his gaze returned to Stede. His gaze always returned to Stede. “Got a lot of them because I thought they were cool, actually. Look at that shit,” he pointed to the mermaid etched into his upper arm, just below his shoulder. “Mermaids are cool as fuck, Fang swore he saw one once.”

“Did he?” Stede looked so invested, just from his little unimportant story. He never failed to leave Ed surprised. Stede, the Captain who would read stories to his crew every single night so they slept well, was entertained by Ed’s stupid little story about his stupid little tattoos. How nobody had fallen for him before was beyond him.

Lucky for him, of course, but still beyond him.

“No clue. Still, sick tattoo, though.”

Stede nodded, smiled, before he leaned down a little further so he could press a kiss to Ed’s mouth. Just a light press, nothing like they had been doing earlier, but it was a kiss from Stede Fucking Bonnet. Ed could’ve lept up with joy. If he didn’t feel so languid, anyways.

“Ready for more, love?” Stede nodded towards the joint between his fingers once he had leaned away, and Ed nodded almost eagerly. Of course, he was probably more excited for the action of shotgunning rather than the high he’d feel from it. Anything to be close to him.

The joint was lifted to Stede’s lips, and he watched as the end started to glow red as he took in a drag, before his hand was on his jaw, tilting his head upwards so he could brush their lips, pushing the smoke from his mouth and into Ed’s. As he started to lean away, though, Ed lifted a hand to hold the back of his neck to keep him there, and kissed him a little more properly than before, exhaling as he kissed his bottom lip, feeling him melt into him.

Stede pulled away sooner than Ed would’ve liked, though he was leaning at an awkward angle. The hand that returned to his arm was enough to keep Ed satisfied, though, so he just let his eyes fall shut as he relaxed back into Stede’s lap.

“How’s your knee feeling now, love?”

Another reason that they had decided to smoke that evening was because after a long days work, Ed’s knee definitely felt a little worse for wear. He had been up and down the ladder painting, and whilst it wasn’t being used to run around during a raid or swim or fight, it had still been overused, and it still hurt. They had been at the inn for such a short period of time, but he had gotten used to relaxing. His knee had definitely grown accustomed to doing fuck all.

It had been hurting so badly after dinner that, as much as he wanted to help Stede clean up, he had to just sit and try to ignore the throbbing pain that shot up his leg. Stede had then urged him into their bedroom, where after changing into their nightshirts, he had rolled them their evening treat.

“Feels fine, yeah,” he had forgotten it was even supposed to be hurting. The languid state his body was flowing in was drifting him away from focusing on anything but Stede, really. Ed lifted his leg, experimentally bending it at the knee. He could feel the movement, could feel the pain there, but it was almost muffled. Dulled by his haziness. He lowered his leg back down, and tilted his head to kiss Stede’s wrist. “Forgot it was hurting. This shit is great.”

Stede chuckled, and his hand moved from Ed’s hair to his cheek. Ed nuzzled into the warmth, and felt the thumb pressed underneath his eye, stroking softly. He could’ve started drooling. “You just like getting to kiss me.” Stede accused jestly, and Ed laughed.

“The high sure is a bonus, mate.”

Ed kissed Stede’s wrist once more, before he relaxed his head against his thigh once again, sighing out deeply. He enjoyed this new life they had — the domesticity, the quiet, the company. Getting to fall asleep tangled up with Stede every night without worry of a raid or a storm was soothing. They could just… exist. Together.

Ed had felt like something was missing for so long, and for so long he had been wrong. He wasn’t missing more adventure as Blackbeard, or his solitude, or money. He had been missing his purpose — Stede. His purpose had never been Blackbeard, or being Captain — the latter was more Izzy’s purpose, who had proved that over his time as Ed’s First Mate time and time again. And now Ed was happy to think of his friend out there leading The Revenge.

But no, Ed belonged with Stede. He deserved this little life that they were starting to and would build for themselves.

He was finally truly happy.

“Why’d you get the spider?” Stede lightly stroked the back of his hand, and as Ed dove into the story behind that particular tattoo, he came to the realisation that he had never felt so at home in his life.

༶•┈┈୨♡୧┈┈•༶

comments would mean the world <3 requests are open!

[freakadr0id]

OFMD and My Experience With Queerbait and Fandoms

I don’t think I can emphasize just how cathartic Our Flag Means Death is for me and my relationship with queer media and fandom space in general. It has made me grow optimistic for the state of queer television, and reminded me why fandom spaces are so important for the queer community online.

BTW this is a VERY long (seriously it’s too fucking long), kind of trauma dumpy post. If that’s not your jam, just skip over this. I don’t often do this sort of word vomity personal post, but OFMD has been stuck in my brain for a solid week and I have a lot of feelings when it comes to this show. There will be TL;DR at the end, but if you end up reading it, I have a feeling quite a few people will relate to my experience. I’ve bolded the elements that I think are most important in this mess of a thought dump.

Just like so many queer people, I have been burned again and again by shows, books and movies who have hinted at the promise of representation yet continuously end up disappointed. The presence of fanfiction and fandoms were a solace for me for many years, as I explored the subtext and queer themes that many shows have to offer, even if the representation wasn’t really there. However, one show ruined all this for me, and I began to resent most television shows and their fandoms, excluding animation (I’ll get to that in a bit).

Let me take you back in time to late 2018. I’ve just discovered this show called The Magicians (you might have heard about it) and I have fallen hard into the fandom. More so than I’ve ever done before. Not only am I consuming all I can surrounding the show and the books, but it’s also the most active I’ve ever been in a fandom (it was the first fandom Discord I ever joined). I talked to people in the fandom, felt like I was truly a part of the community, and even started setting up a rewatch of the show when it went on hiatus between seasons 4 and 5.

Then The Magicians season 4 came out, and it all came crashing down. They had killed their bisexual main character in the worst way possible, and every bit of queer rep the show had built up was all but destroyed. So many people struggled after that finale, heartbroken and upset at how they handled Quentin’s death. My mental health was in a terrible state at the time, so seeing Quentin, a character I so strongly related to, die the way he did was devastating to me. The fandom was shattered, and this little community I deeply loved became a source of pain to me. I never saw season 5 (I only read synopses) or watched the show ever again. Not even fanfiction could help me through this and I left the fandom entirely. I abandoned the rewatch project I helped set up, and I stopped talking to the people I met through it. Although I think it was best for my mental health at the time, this is something I still regret.

The Magicians was the final straw when it came to queerbait. It left more than a bad taste in my mouth - I lost interest in live action shows almost entirely, since most of my experience with queerbait came from that medium. There have only been two live action shows I’ve really watched since The Magicians: Hannibal and Good Omens, two shows that I knew going in were accepted by the queer community for their representation. The rest have been animated shows, which have been pushing the boundaries of queer rep in television over the last decade.

Fandoms were still a place I dreaded, since so many of them are full of antis, ship discourse, and bad takes (the animation community has some fucking AWFUL takes on shows and the industry). There were a few I continued to follow, but they were for things that have long since ended. Ongoing fandoms are strictly off limits.

I’ve learned an important lesson from The Magicians: most queer ships are never going to happen. I see so many fandoms hype up certain ships, swearing it’s going to be endgame (TJLC style, although not quite to that degree), yet I know most of them will end up only upset and disappointed. Why bother with an ongoing fandom, if I knew that any potential ship in the show wasn’t going to happen.

When I saw OFMD trending on Tumblr two weeks ago and I saw all the excitement surrounding it, I decided to give it a chance, and I loved it. To be fair, the first three episodes were rough for me (I get secondhand embarrassment really easily), but by episode eight, I saw what this show was doing. This was the show I had been waiting for – that we all were waiting for. I still had my doubts when it came to Stede/Ed, even with everything David and the cast were saying, but I finally had hope.

A kiss between Ed and Stede was something I simultaneously knew would happen, but never thought would exist. When we got the kiss in episode 9, I was overwhelmed with excitement, surprise, and most importantly, relief. For once we weren’t being lied to and the subtext became text. This isn’t some final episode conclusion that ensures straight people and homophobes continue watching the show throughout, but a first season promise that more is to come. The feelings we had upon seeing the kiss is something we should have been experiencing this whole time. It has been a long-fought battle to get to this point, and hoo boy does it feel good.

You would think that the excellent queer rep that this show provides would make me more resentful of the shows that failed in doing so, but I’m not. If anything, I’m more at peace with how those shows made me feel. For a long time, I hated what those shows did, since those shows were our chance to see finally ourselves on mainstream tv (let’s face it, Hannibal is a niche show). Time and time again we were denied that chance. Now, we have this show. We finally have a queer show that appeals to a wide range of people, straights included. I can accept my disappointment in shows like The Magicians now that there is better queer content to enjoy. It is just another broken steppingstone on the path it has taken to get here.

I’ve never been in a fandom this early on, and it has been a joy to see it grow. People are celebrating the show and the community surrounding it has been incredibly supportive of each other. I joined a OFMD Discord, the first one since The Magicians, and the people I have talked to on there have been absolutely wonderful. Of course, there has been a bit of discourse in the fandom (I think the kiss was excellent and the awkwardness of it was entirely in line with Ed and Stede’s character arc), but overall, I have seen nothing but amazing, talented people sharing their love for this show in their art and writing. I have people I can enjoy the show with, even if I don’t irl, and I am reminded why I enjoyed fandom spaces to begin with.

Has my faith in television and fandoms been totally restored? No, and it likely never will. We will get queerbaited by other shows in the future, and fandoms will always be a somewhat problematic culture. However, I believe that this show will set an example for queer media, setting a standard for what it can look like in the future and how creator honesty and fan expectations can improve in fandom spaces.

TL;DR: The Magicians ruined everything I loved about live action television and fandoms as a whole. I hated the constant queerbait and toxic fan culture that surrounded many of these shows and removed myself from them as a result. OFMD and its excellent queer rep (and lack of queerbait) has improved my outlook on live action television and fandom cultures, and helped me accept the pain I felt from past shows that failed in executing, or straight up lied about their queer rep.

[themirokai]

I'm sorry you're having a bad day, hope it gets better the rest of the week! My dog likes to steal things, last year he stole a tomato seedling, pot and all, and ran around the backyard carrying it. The plant survived though! For silly things, I play in an adult beginner hockey league. Everyone is terrible, like little kids learning to skate, but we're all adults falling over and having a blast. Are you enjoying OFMD? I started a slow rewatch of Arcane because your posts made me miss it!

Thank you so much for this!! My day has gotten better, mostly because @once-in-a-blue-moon-rising was kind in her final read of my new Arcane Jayvik fic and I got to post it tonight instead of thinking about other stuff!

Your dog sounds fabulous and that is one hearty plant! My dog has recently been caught with her front paws on the kitchen counter which has begged the question of whether she was always doing that and was stealthier or if she has just started. She has pleaded the fifth.

Beginner hockey league sounds great!

I AM enjoying OFMD! I’m very curious about how I would have felt about it if I’d watched while it was airing instead of after I had seen 1,001 GIFs of The Kiss. I also feel kind of similar to the way I feel about Good Omens in that I really love it, I ship all the ships, but there is just So Much fandom content that I’m not particularly interested in engaging with it in that way. I’m happy to see it on my dash (and seriously it’s coming from people in EVERY fandom I’m in) but I don’t see putting much of it on my blog.

Hooray for an Arcane rewatch!! I am very pleased to have inspired it! Would love to hear about things you notice or like this time around!

Thanks again for the note, it really made me smile!