#i have never actually watched OFMD

[thistransient]

So my classmates and I went to an izakaya for our departing teacher's birthday. One girl had picked it because it had great reviews, but the service was a bit slow and they were out of so many things we tried to order that eventually they comped us a surprise flight of tequila shots in tiny mason jars.

After we were all a bit tipsy they proceeded to announce if everyone gave them a five star rating right here and now we'd get free dessert. Ah. 原來如此. Of course our morals were thrown to the alcohol-tinged wind as we unanimously desired deep-fried sweets.

Our middle-aged Japanese businesslady classmate was clearly in her element. At one point, as she was getting into the discussion of everyone's sexuality and dating habits, she ventured that she wanted to ask me a personal question. Oh god, I thought, she's gonna ask me if I'm trans. You can ask but I may not answer, I told her.

Her: 你是一還是零? (Are you a top or a bottom?)

Me, completely taken aback and also relieved it wasn't the other question:

She also got extremely huggy and I was glad I was on the other side of the table. I learned our teacher had been scared of me in the beginning because I was "too serious" and had been very proactive in the coup last semester. I actually liked this teacher all along! (This comes in a long line of people misinterpreting both my facial expressions and fashion choices, so at this point I may have to chalk it up to an ASD thing.) Japanese classmate sneakily paid for everything and then wanted to find another venue to continue the drinking, but we outvoted her in favour of not being hungover for class tomorrow, and went home. I took the bus (even though the MRT is faster) because I really like looking out the window at the lights on the way from Xinyi to Shilin. It's getting Christmassy, I feel like a moth to the fairy-light flame, even though it seems like mainly Christian churches that have extravagant displays. A good time though, a good time.

[idascurrentobsession]

So I finished 1670 like 10 minutes ago…

[crownspeaksblog]

How the hell does ofmd manage to give me everything i love about tv shows, in one show?!!

It's funny, silly, stupid but somehow at the same time it's serious, deep and well thought out!

Characters change and develop in prominent ways, characters have arcs, what they go through affects them, things aren't stagnant. (1x01 stede is a coward who's trying to hide from the English, 2x08 stede throws himself over 2 soldiers, he's brave despite the fact he's out numbered. 1x04 ed wants to quit piracy but doesn't know how, 2x08 ed quits piracy a second time with stede even when the first time doesn't work out)

It's a beautiful romance, a queer romance between two people who have insane chemistry, a love story that has ups and downs, but in the end they're right there for eachother because what they have is True Love!

The show is shot so beautifully, it doesn't look boring, so many shows I've watched (although entertaining) are shot in the most boring/basic ways possible, ofmd has so many gorgeous still shots, a couple of fun one shots! (The bar fight one shot in 2x07 deserves more attention! Mer!stede and ed looking at eachother while floating in the water is genuinely one of the most beautiful shots I've ever seen!)

The outfits characters wear changes with their arcs and it makes sense story wise and the outfits are just so fun looking, it's interesting and different and so, so not basic. (Stede going from aristocratic silly little outfits to pirate shirts with deep neck openings and leather pants!! Hot! Also can't wait to see eds s3 outfit.)

The song choice is fun, the lyrics, beautifully add another layer to the story (I'm still not over the "I've loved him since he was born" lyric!)

The women in this show, although few and not main characters, they're interesting, different and not basic "normal" women, so many shows and movies I've watched, the men get to be weird, kooky and interesting while the women are just painfully normal, but in ofmd, the few women we got are either insane, wild, weird, violent or just not fucking "normal"! (the most "normal" woman we have is probably mary who was gonna stab her husband with a skewer through the earhole!! Also the addition of archie, former snake cult member is just amazing!)

The action we get every once in a while is just so fun! I love a fight scene and for the most part, they look good, it looks well done (again the bar fight and ed killing motherfuckers left, right and center in 2x08 is just so goddamn fun to watch!)

I know so many other shows have most of these things, but the fact ofmd has all of these things, that i just fucking love in one show is amazing, it's appreciated and on top of all of this, the show just makes me happy whether I'm watching it or watching people's reactions to it or even just thinking about it! I love this show even with the criticisms i might have, i love it!

[lavender-phannie]

Dan and phil I need you to come back now cause they just cancelled ofmd and I need something to keep me sane through exam season god PLEASE

[theofficialpresidentoftheusa]

I still continue to see criticism of season 2 of OFMD and I just. Find it so funny honestly. Like I get some of it, maybe, kinda. But for the most part I’m like ????? Nah don’t agree. Skill issue. I find it even funnier when people complain about the pacing being too fast because I honestly always felt the first season was too slow with its pacing. So season 2 was actually kinda perfect to me! I’m not the type to complain about what we were given and wish it was different though. I eat up every morsel they allow us to have, and to have jammed in so much content had me in paradise tbh. It is what it is, you know? I accept it all as just what we’ve got. And maybe that’s me just first and foremost loving the show as what it is- Ed and Stede’s story. Everything else is just a cherry on top for me. I’m here to have fun and if it can do that for me, I’m all good. And going into it with that mindset, guess what? I had a GREAT time. I sat down and rewatched the show in one day in its entirety two days after the finale with a friend who had never seen it. They loved it! I loved it, again! Id watch it again already!!! I parry criticisms of the show with great ease- who cares, it was fun, I loved it. That’s what mattered to me! Must suck to feel otherwise! :3 I’m kicking my feet n giggling over this little found family and my favorite boys in love. Teehee. Best show ever.

[asgardian--angels]

you know it's bad when tumblr's being the more mature social media site when it comes to rancid takes on izzy's death

[blog--witch]

Okay!!!!!!!!! I watched GO2!!!!!!!!! I’m once again feeling insane

[coolauntlilith]

I had a really good discussion over actual reasons for different pov on OFMD...

And now we're back to stupid fucking takes. Please watch The Crown or something if you want a serious show. Please watch 90s Charmed if you want girl boss women.

I really enjoyed messy women characters. I like Ann and Mary. I liked that Archie is in the crew and she's a himbo. I like women who are not always socially correct, who are messy, who can't fucking cook lol, who are silly in whatever way.

Please pick a different show. Go away.

[zevranunderstander]

remember that one post thats like "yeah there are gay characters in disco elysium. but if you want to play the game just because there are gay characters in it, this is not the game for you" and thats exactly how i feel about black sails

[izzy-b-hands]

My uncle is spouting anti vax shit while playing bloody knuckles with ppl who do not want to play, my cousins are playing tiktoks with transphobic jokes like. are they trying to speed run making this miserable, MORE miserable somehow

edibles pls kick in before i either get sick fully, or lose my little restraint and tell them all to fuck off and call myself a cab and leave

but then mum would follow me and scream at me for that so there's no escape 🙃 even home isn't fully safe 🙃 yaaaaayyyyy*

*wherein yay means jfc fucking kill me

[devotedlystrangewizard]

i have such strong memories related to black sails like. it was my mom's birthday. during a weekend. think 2018/2019. we went away for the weekend to this. place. idk what its called in english but yk rent a tiny house for like a few days. whatever. i can remember what it looked like. i sat on that couch watching black sails. my sister and i had to share a room and i managed to break the bed (not permanently) i had to sleep on & because even after fixing it i didnt trust it, i slept on the floor. it was on that floor that i watched s2 of black sails. it was on that floor that i saw that fucking scene that fundamentally changed me as a person. because. listen. black sails was one of the first shows id watched with a queer story. with not one but two major plot threads revolving around queer people's relationships. i remember sitting in the car in the dark as the rest of my family was ordering fries for us and i remember my mom going "hey look gay couple!" in a restaurant. it doesnt feel real. that entire weekend is a fever dream. i thought i was just watching a pirate show. the pirates were gay. the pirates were fucking gay bro. i cried over that show. i wept at the end of it. i had to play boardgames for my mom's birthday and pretend like i wasnt going insane because the pirates were gay and i was just. ough. i was 14 or 15 and i was barely out and i was new to being queer in any capacity and it was such an experience.

[weathertheraine]

Pirate AU!! Thank you @stringofturtles for watching OFMD S1 with me and re-igniting my Pirate Emotions so I had the motivation to finish this. The first sketches have been sitting in my files for months so please forgive the fact that they look different skdfjh.

More fleshed out AU details under the cut !! :D

- The kids are a little older than canon - the third years in their early 20s - but the story still starts with the second and third years as an established crew who then pick up the first years and the coaches.

- Daichi as a Captain is of course very much like he is in canon. He works very hard to take care of his crew and takes on a huge responsibility for providing for them (as well as making sure they don’t die in idiotic ways). Suga is First Mate so it’s his job to make sure DAICHI is okay and not worrying himself to death. He also has a good handle on morale/the emotional state of the crew.

- Asahi is the first line of offence when dealing with other ships. He doesn’t like actually hurting people, but he’s good at breaking ranks and barrelling through defences to get hold of whatever Karasuno needs. He was ‘off the team’ and out of commission for a little while after he lost his hand (not seeing combat while he was in recovery, and needing to build up his courage again). Noya played a huge part in helping him back onto his feet, and has been kind of protective ever since.

- Noya’s job is to make sure the ship isn’t boarded, so he very rarely leaves it.

- Ennoshita and Kiyoko work together as navigators and managing the little money the crew has. Ennoshita is the only crew member in the beginning who can kind-of read (Kiyoko can only read a little), and they work a lot with maps and planning out journeys.

- Tanaka is great at intimidating opponents. His eyepatch is totally for show - he thinks it makes him look cooler and scarier. His parrot doesn’t often co-operate with him.

- Narita and Kinoshita take care of maintenance and supplies and making sure there isn’t gunpowder anywhere there shouldn’t be, as well as things like fraying rigging and rotting boards/canons secure and the like. Of course, things like that are everyone’s responsibility, but these two consider is theirs particularly. It’s thankless work but the boat would definitely have burned down by now if not for them.

- Enter the first years!

- Kageyama is a prodigy swordsman with a huge reputation as a lethal pirate, although most people who spread those rumours don’t realise he’s as young as he is. He was marooned by his previous crew for being a controlling Captain (who should never have been captain in the first place, having only his fighting talent as the real reason).

- Hinata recently ran away from home to “become a pirate” without much of an idea what that actually entailed, and ran into Kageyama without knowing his reputation. All he knew was that this guy was incredible fighter, and he demanded that he teach him to fight! He now won’t leave him alone.

- Tsukishima ran away as a very young child in an attempt to find Akiteru, whose sailing ship was attacked and lost at sea. He fell in with pirates along with Yamaguchi (who was picked up after surviving a shipwreck), and the pair ended up sticking together as they bounced from ship to ship, ready to run whenever it seemed like tensions were getting high. They (read: tsukki) are going to need to break this habit, if they’re going to be a real part of this new crew.

- Tsukishima and Yamaguchi can’t sleep if they’re not in the same hammock. Embarrassing. The reason Yamaguchi was so tiny as a little kid is that he didn’t get enough food. Tsukishima still tries to sneak him extra (and gets in trouble with Daichi).

- Tadashi ends up as a sharpshooter, one of the few kids who’s confident using a pistol

- Hinata and Kageyama spar together all the time. It’s GOING to end in a make-out the first time Hinata successfully beats him.

- Neither of them have noticed that Tanaka’s eyepatch switches sides.

- Yachi is picked up when the crew stop in a bar in her town. She’s a better-off girl, about to be talked into an politically advantageous marriage, and desperately wants to get out of her situation. “Running away with pirates” was admittedly pretty drastic, but anything sounds like a good idea when Hinata suggests it so sincerely!!

- Ukai is a washed up older pirate, without a crew. Takeda is a very unlucky literature teacher who just happened to be on a sea voyage. They both ended up taken as hostages by the same (meaner) pirate crew, who were then stolen by the Karasuno kids. Although, it’s kind of unclear at this point whether they’re actually prisoners… They’re being treated very nicely (especially Sensei) and are in danger of getting attached…

[scarrletmoon]

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

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

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

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

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

right?

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

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

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

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

so of course Ed and Stede are in love

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

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

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

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

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

and idk. i think that's really cool

[piratecaptainscaptainpirates]

It really, really sucks that so many online OFMD spaces are echo chambers of negativity to the point of people feeling like they have to add disclaimers for liking the show or liking the ending. I figure it's well past time to get some season 2 positivity going around again!

We got to see Ed and Stede fight to each other across a beach! I remember cautioning myself after the teaser like "maybe they won't actually be fighting to get to each other...although that would be cool..." and then they were!

Seriously, s2 gave us what we wanted and more. We were well fed. Beautiful kisses! Touching moments!

Stede Bonnet, romantic hero. Right out the gate. Kissing the bottles with his letters in them before he tossed them out to sea remains one of the most romantic things I've ever seen.

"I love everything about you! Just being near you! It's nice, feels good."

Ed in his lil kitty outfit :3

Every word out of Zheng's mouth, honestly. She's just fantastic!

Auntie describing Ed as having "hair of silver," perfectly poetically to immediately enter everyone's lexicon when talking about his hair

The cake toppers! Holy shit I still can't believe they did that. Ed painted a bride cake topper to look like himself, with a heartaching degree of tenderness. It's one of the most haunting things I've ever seen.

Ed and Stede got to end the show feeling safe and happy, and they're getting to start their new lives together. It was never supposed to end there, but it's such a kind ending. It's not an ending, not really, it's their new beginning.

Season 2 is great. We're lucky this show ever got made, and season 1 was phenomenal, but faced with extreme budget and time cuts in season 2, they delivered a damn excellent story. Everyone involved in this show should be proud, and I'm just glad every day that I'm lucky enough to have been here to watch it and be in this space with you all!

[alexwilltellyouthings]

Ok I have so many thoughts about painland ending up canon or not and I. Just.

Listen I AGREE that their bond goes beyond being romantic or not. It's obvious, it's beautiful, I love it and I love them and their friendship and I truly do think it is important that media has this kind of relationship portrayed.

But.

But.

I would be lying if I said I wouldn't be disappointed if it doesn't turn romantic. It involves a lot of things.

1: I want Edwin to have that. He'll still be happy without it, yes, but god can't he have that? He's been through so much. He had a speedrun through his sexuality issues and confessed in hell. Like wtf. Can't he have that???

2. Bisexual Charles would actually be so important to me. And yeah he can be bi and not in love with Edwin but come on lol. The thing is, there's not many bi men in media. Even less bi men figuring out their bisexuality. Even less bi men figuring out their sexuality when they were raised in the 80s and knowing their best friend is in love. Do you see how many layers exist here? How amazing his story could be? Charles has so much we still don't know about him. And yes, I would like that one of those things could be something I relate to. Besides trauma. Call me selfish. And like he's so bisexual coded it would be offensive for him to be straight I'm sorry.

3. They exist in other universes. Let them be platonic there. Let them be romantic this one time.

4. I know falling in love with a straight person is a very common story and I don't think it's wrong for it to happen in a show, but honestly, it's not what I sign up for when I'm watching queer stuff. Think Our Flag Means Death. It probably changed my brain chemistry because anything less than that gets really hard to swallow. I know, we all have queerbaiting trauma, and I know this wouldn't be the case, and it never claimed to be something as queer as OFMD. But I got so attached that... Well, I wouldn't stop watching if this happens, but it wouldn't sit well with me. It's a bitter feeling, you know?

5. They didn't have anything be explicit, but come on, they did set us up. Charles got jealous at Monty, and only Monty, for that matter. I wouldn't say his thing with the Cat King is necessarily jealousy, more like protectiveness, but that can be disputable. And both George and Jayden said more than once that Charles' response to the confession let things open. So I mean if that door wasn't closed, then please don't close it now! The road until things happen can be long, dramatic, tortuous, whatever, there's many ways to tell a love story. But if I'm sitting for it, then I don't want to get shot in the face later on (unless it's for plot reasons which ok).

6. Have I mentioned that bisexual Charles

Anyway I feel kinda bad for wishing so much they get romantic because I see and agree with the whole platonic discourse. But yeah those are all the reasons why I can't stop myself. Have a good day everyone

[heyimboredtalktome]

suffice it to say i can never watch ofmd again without feeling like im going to throw up lol

here's the fucking letter

nothing about a ceasefire, nothing about the 5000 palestinians killed, almost 50% of whom are children, the carpet bombing, nothing about the 150,000 palestinians killed since 2008 out of which 30,000 were children, nothing about the surveillance, apartheid, dispossesion, racism, rape, murder and ethnic cleansing that the palestinians have been subjected to for decades by their beloved genocidal regime israel, also the FUCKING LIE ABOUT THE BEHEADED BABIES that even biden himself admitted that he hadn't actually seen which pretty much assures you that it's a lie because if there was such a thing you can be assured that it would be plastered 24/7 on cnn bbc because obviously war crimes committed by the hamas are somehow much more illegal than the war crimes committed by israel because the palestinians are inherently "HUMAN ANIMALS" and must be dealth with as such. they're basically saying "thank for giving israel full freedom to commit genocide and war crimes ❤️"