#if you don't like the ed and stede show then don't watch the ed and stede show

[xray-vex]

THE SHOW IS THE RELATIONSHIP, s2 edition

THE SHOW IS THE RELATIONSHIP

THE SHOW IS THE RELATIONSHIP

THE SHOW IS THE RELATIONSHIP

THE SHOW IS THE RELATIONSHIP

THE SHOW IS THE RELATIONSHIP

THE SHOW IS THE RELATIONSHIP

THE SHOW IS THE RELATIONSHIP

THE SHOW IS THE RELATIONSHIP

THE SHOW IS THE RELATIONSHIP

THE SHOW IS THE RELATIONSHIP

THE SHOW IS THE RELATIONSHIP

THE SHOW IS THE RELATIONSHIP

THE SHOW IS THE RELATIONSHIP

THE SHOW IS THE RELATIONSHIP

[The Show is the Relationship, Part 1]

[areyoudoingthis]

I am SO grateful that ed and stede exist as characters exactly as they are. I'm so grateful for these two men who are traumatized and messed up and struggle to even like themselves, who are terrible at communicating, who make enough mistakes between the two of them to fill an entire ocean. I am so grateful to watch them struggle and be seen and be loved and reach out for the things they want and are maybe starting to believe that they deserve. I'm so grateful that the show lets them fall in love and get together exactly as they are, that it doesn't say they need to wait until they've become some unattainably perfect version of themselves before they have permission to have that. i am so grateful for ofmd

[here-there-everyfuckenwhere]

you ever just see a take so bad you consider deleting Tumblr..?

[laceratedlamiaceae]

I feel like I'm engaging with OFMD in a completely different way from the majority of the fandom. The whole appeal of Ed and Stede to me is that they're both horrible people who nonetheless still deserve love and manage to find it in each other. I think that's a really sweet and comforting message, that even if you're as awful as either of them are there's still hope for you. I see a lot of people acting like they don't completely suck and I get so confused at what they even see in those two if it isn't two self-centered, mean-spirited, pathetic, insane idiots who happen to be fucked up in ways that make them perfect for each other.

[furylad]

tbh I've got into the habit that if I really hate a character in a piece of media to the extent I can't separate my negative hcs of them from the actual canon the writers presented.....I remove myself from that media, because clearly I am too emotionally invested and possibly subconcsciously triggered by something, and a whole-ass fandom of a character or a show shouldn't have to suffer my negativity

I advise folk who still have hate-boners for Izzy to do this 🤷‍♂️

[saltpepperbeard]

Be a Lighthouse - Fight For OFMD Season 3

Hi everyone. The news of our cancellation is both incredibly devastating, and quite shocking considering the trajectory of the show and its fanbase. Everything looked like it was lining up in a positive fashion...only for the rug to get yanked out from under us.

I cried. I went numb. I stared at the wall for a while.

But then, something sparked. Like Ed who was resolved to his fate in S1Ep4 only to rocket back upwards, I was struck with a realization: we need to be a lighthouse!

Fanbases have campaigned before, and have gotten results. Sense8 was able to get a two hour finale to properly wrap everything up. Lucifer was able to get picked up by Netflix after being cancelled by Fox. Brooklyn 99 was able to get picked up by NBC after being cancelled by Fox. And many more examples.

Be it a proper renewal, a finale wrap that entails Ed and Stede's wedding, or the attention from another network, I say we fight that good fight. So, here are some ways we can be heard; if you think of any additional points, please feel free to add them!

If you don't cancel your Max Subscription, continue watching the show and leaving feedback on Max's online feedback form. I had a kneejerk reaction when cancellation was announced and pulled the plug...only to sit back and reconsider. I want them to still get my metrics. I want them to still see the show means something to me. And whether that's through words or statistics, I feel like that's something.

2. Follow @renewasacrew and keep up with their resources/campaigns. They're very active and passionate, and have already come up with different ways to fight for our show.

3. Sign the petition to give us just that little bit more of a chance to have our voices heard.

4. Stay active on social media, and stay positive. Continue sharing how much this show means to us. Continue creating. Continue loving. Use hashtags like-

#RenewAsACrew

#SaveOFMD

#RenewOFMD

#BeALighthouse

#OFMDSeason3

or anything equivalent on any and all OFMD-related posts. Keep the buzz about it going on social media. Comment on posts, keep spreading the word, and get the light burning.

5. Renewasacrew has given us another outlet; an official HBO email address. Write an email detailing your personal experience with this show, and how significant a third season would be.

6. Tweet/email other platforms to pique their interest. Be it Amazon Prime, Hulu, Netflix, or whoever else, let's see if we can't catch someone else's attention. A romcom with iconic LGBT representation seems pretty enticing if you ask me!

This show means the world to me. Y'all mean the world to me. So let's show them why. Let's show them why, and get the proper ending we, the cast and crew, and the characters all deserve.

[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

[queerly-autistic]

One of my favourite things about S2 was that we got to see so much in terms of Ed's relationships with women, and it just made me love him even more (if that's humanly possible). We didn't see him interact with many women at all in S1 (I think it was only the posh ladies at the fancy party which was...yeah, not a good experience), so S2 actually giving us a glimpse into his friendships with all these (very different) kickass women was so, so special.

I love that, as messy and fucked up as they all are, and even with the 'well we're pirates, we're not normal and we will fuck with each other' threat that hangs over everything, Ed's relationship with Mary and Anne is still so affectionate, and they both thrown their arms around him the moment they see him. Even though Ed is incredibly tactile, I don't think we've actually ever seen him be hugged like this, and it's just so lovely to watch him be embraced and clearly feel very safe being embraced by these women (and I can't with the way he clings to them, as well). I also love that this is a wlw/mlm friendship; yeah it falls apart later and turns into delicious gay-on-gay violence (and I wouldn't alter a note of it), but I love seeing this sort of affection between queer women and queer men, there's not nearly enough of it.

Don't even get me started on the BFF handshake he has with Anne - I want all the history there, give me six spin-off films about their adventures please.

And then we finally get a glimpse of his relationship with Jackie, which is similarly just lovely, but in a different way? You get the sense that they could sit there for hours, talking shit about the world, all whilst casually ripping the shit out of each other (but affectionately). You also know full well these two have talked extensively about men and know pretty much everything about each other's sex lives - we didn't see it, but I'm absolutely certain that Ed went into full gushing details about sleeping with Stede, just like Jackie did when she talked about The Swede fucking like a jackhammer (historical accuracy ftw).

And, again, whilst they're still pirates, and it's messy, the entire thing feels incredibly...safe, particularly from Ed's perspective? He feels more comfortable around Jackie than he is around most other characters (apart from Stede), just like he was with Anne and Mary.

And then, just to hammer the point home even further that Ed has, generally, fantastic relationships with women, and connects with them, and feels relaxed and safe with them, you have Ed and Zheng becoming instant BFFs literally minutes after meeting each other. Ed goes 'ooh, very cool woman kicking ass and killing people, she shall be my best friend, immediately', and Zheng is automatically incredibly relaxed and open with him, too (suggesting she feels as safe and comfortable with him as he does with her).

All I want in life is to see Ed and Zheng get silly-drunk with each other (and this is why we urgently need a S3).

And none of Ed's relationships with these women are a fetishistic 'I love women because they're fabulous' thing, or an overly patronising paternalistic 'I love the women and I must protect them' thing - all the relationships he has with women are very equal, very comfortable, fully believable, just fantastic friendships to watch play out. I feel like, given everything we see on screen, Ed generally feels a lot more comfortable and safe and open with the women he knows than the men he knows (Stede is the only other person he is this physically affectionate and comfortable with). Which is probably very understandable? Yes, the women he's friends with are all violent pirates too (that's part of the joy of it - none of them are lovely demure morally pure women, they're all violent pirates), but Ed has a lot of experience with specifically overtly abusive men - right back to watching his dad abuse his mum. And that's a distinction that matters: the show treats the violence of normal piracy and the violence of abuse very, very differently. Ed is not used to being treated softly or affectionately by men, as we saw in his shocked reaction to Stede holding his hand. I don't think it's any wonder that he gravitates more towards friendships with women (or that the men he feels the most open and safe with, such as Stede, Fang, even Frenchie, are very pointedly the opposite of the abusive men he has experience with). I just love love love that being friends with women is such a core part of Ed's character, and that we got to see all of these fantastic relationships in the show.

[portraitofadyke]

I think Our Flag Means Death is a very unique show in a way that they don't care to cater to mainstream media. And yes, by mainstream media I mean the general straight people.

I think it's very important that we have feel-good shows like Heartstopper. A few years back, a tv show about two queer boys in high school would be unthinkable. But its plot generally revolves around explaining queerness. Sure, it's nice. It's definitely the show I would watch with my family if I were a teenager and wanted to come out again (I had to watch glee with my mom to do that. not optimal). It's the show where teenagers find love and themselves, but sexuality is constantly discussed, explained, sanitized. It's the show straight people will watch. And that's good. We do need shows like that.

But Our Flag Means Death doesn't even bother trying. It's a show about mostly middle aged people, most of them not white, most of them queer in one way or the other. It's really a game of spot the hetero, like someone said. And the characters are not sublte about it. They have sex for fun, something most characters don't have in tv shows, definitely not queer characters. They make dick jokes. They are not all conventionally attractive and they know it, and the writing doesn't care. They are all people before they are queer representation.

Stede's storyline in s1 is in a part about discovering himself and his sexuality, but it's not obnoxiously repeated. Instead, it's played in a natural way. Stede's storyline is ALL about finding himself, yet it's not just about that. Just like Ed's storyline, it's about toxic masculinity and allowing himself to have fine things and self-hatred and finding his place in a world, something most of us can relate to. Hell, none of us were even sure the main characters were going to kiss and end up together, we were all so sure it's a queerbait. But this show doesn't bait its audience. It's not afraid of weirdness. It embraces it instead. There is a nonbinary character. No, they are not a mermaid. Call them jim. That's it. Yes, Lucius and Pete got engaged. Everyone there knows what mateolage is, congrats. Olu and Jim never break up and then Archie shows up, then Zheng, and we all know. We all know.

Two men nearing fifty have a deep, romantic moment where one of them appears as a mermaid, and it's treated as the profound scene it is without ridiculing it. This would never fly in a 'mainstream' media. It would have to be downplayed. Here, it saves Ed's life.

The show tells you racists suck, but it doesn't tell you in a condescending, finger-waving way catered to the white people. Instead, it sets your ship aflame and burns you alive, runs a knife through your hand, puts poison in your drink and kills you.

This is a show for adults, for queer people of all kinds, and it does not give a fuck if anyone else gets it. It's so rare to find a tv show that caters to us, yet alone a tv show that's genuinely good and caring and so well loved.

This is a show that basically straightbaited its audience in the first season, that's how much they don't care.

Idk, I just feel that it will take ages for another show like OFMD to exist in a world full of MCU and media that tries so hard to be liked by everyone it loses its personality and charm. Rant over

[piratecaptainscaptainpirates]

Need more positivity on my dash, so I wanna talk a bit more about how fucking amazing OFMD's writing for its characters of color is!

Now, I'm a professional historian (phd student 😔🤘🏾) and I read and watch a lot of historical fiction because I love it, right? And I have literally never seen a piece of historical fiction that is so respectful to its characters of color.

Usually, in works of historical fiction that actually bother to include characters of color, they fall into two big camps. The most common one is trauma porn, where poc only exist so White characters can save them, feel sorry about them, or so White audiences can pat themselves on the back for feeling sorry about them. Also popular are works that include characters of color but don't bother thinking about how race impacts their experiences in historical settings (shows like Bridgerton come to mind; they want to include poc but handwave racism). And in general I prefer the latter but it still takes me out of the story.

But OFMD hits just this amazing balance. There are many characters of color, and the racism of the world they live in impacts their experiences and perspectives in realistic ways. Ed remembering how his mom told him that fine things weren't meant for people like him has me by the fucking throat, it's so tied up in race and class and it's the root of so many of Ed's self-image issues into adulthood. But the real kicker for me - poc always get the last laugh in OFMD. Yes, the racism in this show is often very realistic, but this isn't a realistic show at its core and it is so, so comforting to know a character who starts acting like a racist dickhead is a dead man walking.

It's so carefully written, and for me it's such a huge comfort: race in OFMD is never hand-waved away, and it's thought-provoking and realistic and relatable. But the show always feels so safe because we know racism in the show is never excused. They tell us in the pilot that if you start being a racist asshole, someone's gonna stab you. Even Stede, our main character - when he makes a racist assumption in the second episode of the show, the narrative encourages us to call him out for it and has a character directly call him a fuckin' racist! He's held accountable and he fucking grows, because unlearning racist biases is important and he doesn't get a pass because he's the main character!

It's not just that OFMD has a lot of characters of color. It's not just that one of our main romantic leads is an indigenous Jewish man. It's not just that characters of color are consistently depicted as smart, clean, competent, and respected. It's that the show respects them enough to think about how racism realistically shapes the world of OFMD, while at the same time providing viewers with a wonderful fantasy of racists getting what they deserve. In the genre of historical fiction, it stands out because it completely avoids the trauma porn and hand-wavey angles, and I can't articulate strongly enough how much I appreciate that.

[fuckyeahisawthat]

So, this is shot in a mirror, right? Specifically, this mirror--

--although they might have cheated the angle to get the kiss shot.

It goes by super fast, but you can see a bit of the gold frame, out of focus on the right edge of the screen:

Cool trick! But why?

I think there's a few things this shot achieves.

One, it creates the sense that something is just slightly off. Even if we don't clock that this is a mirror shot (it took me a bunch of watches to figure out that was what was going on) your brain is going to register the flipped image as slightly not what you expected. The screen direction of their movement is wrong--in the shot where Stede pulls Ed into the room, they're moving from screen right to screen left, so we expect them to continue that motion, but because we're seeing it in a mirror they're now moving screen left to screen right. All this adds up to make the moment seem slightly off-kilter. It's a bit of visual foreshadowing: while this is a passionate, intimate moment that they both want, Stede and Ed are not on the same page, and that becomes an issue in the next episode.

Two, a visual trick like this often has the effect of calling attention to our position as the audience. It can create a slightly voyeuristic effect that reminds us that we are outside viewers, looking in on the narrative the characters are experiencing.

I think this shot has much the same effect:

It's an unexpected framing choice that makes us feel like we are catching a glimpse of something not set up for the audience to see, lit only incidentally by the fireworks, and it ends with Stede literally drawing the curtain between the characters and the audience.

There's another notable place where a mirror shot is used in the show, and it's here:

I don't think this is a coincidence (and not just because both episodes were directed by Fernando Frias). This is a very intimate scene between Ed and Stede--maybe more intimate than their actual kiss later in the season. And while it's mostly shot in a fairly conventional manner, this shot almost makes it feel like we're spying on them while they have a very vulnerable conversation.

There are TONS of parallels between 1.06 and 2.06, which I may make a separate post about, but this one is a particularly striking visual callback. In both cases, the effect is to make us feel like we are peeking in on a private moment between the characters that is not set up for our consumption.

[ccacoo]

You know what strikes me about the fandom post s1 and post s2?

Post s1, people were celebrating the representation we got. For once, the feeling was that we didn't need to read between the lines, that we didn't need to invent elaborate theories. It was all right there, explicitly, shown and verbalized on screen.

Now, post s2, it's back to "in ep.7 Archie said that they share a room! That must mean they're poly!" and to "maybe Izzy isn't really dead! what if it's all a dream Stede is having?" and to "I'm sure they WANTED to put xyz in the show but they just couldn't, due to budget cuts!" or "I'm sure this scene was filmed, but it's missing because HBO cut it!"

To me, it now feels exactly like all the shows before, the shows whose mistakes we claimed ofmd had vowed not to repeat.

I don't care if something can be interpreted as poly, or as gay, or as interesting if you squint. I am done squinting. I am done accepting crumbs, I will no longer crouch to collect them.

The show I watched did not contain a portrayal of poly relationships. It did not contain a heartfelt statement about trauma, abuse, healing. It did not hold Ed accountable. It did not give Izzy Hands a "kind" ending. It did not contain a genuine conversation between Stede and Ed past episode 4.

Those things are simply not in the show and I don't care about what Jenkins says in interviews any more than I care that Rowling made Dumbledore "gay" retroactively. If it's not in the text itself, I don't care.

[teeny-tiny-revenge]

Came across this in a fic again and I have to vent for a moment here: Ed's hair isn't unclean or not taken care of. Ever. Even at his lowest, in the first two episodes of season two, his hair is light and blows with the wind, it's got perfect waves, there is zero grime in it. Impossible Birds Ed hair has clearly been fairly recently washed, combed out and conditioned. Ed canonically loves soap, and you don't get that hair without owning a comb or brush and frequently working oil into it. He's at sea! The air is salty! It'll dry out your hair, but Ed's hair doesn't ever look dried out. The day he decides to commit suicide he puts his hair up into a lovely bun, with whispy stands framing his face. I have no idea what some people are watching, because Ed taking meticulous care (and most likely also putting pride and love) into his hair is clear, on-screen canon.

Like, if you want to write about how he was neglecting himself in his depression Kraken era? There's plenty there for you on screen as well! He sobs all night, probably sleeps on the floor if he sleeps at all. He doesn't wear his knee brace. He drinks and does drugs (and admits to that being poison to Frenchie!). He's pushing everyone away, he's pushing himself hard into a role that made him passively suicidal even before the breakup depression. He doesn't watch his back during raids At All. There's so much self harm there to address. If you want to, it would probably be plausible to add him not bothering to properly care for any wounds he might obtain during a raid. But he clearly doesn't neglect bathing and hair care. They're probably the only elements of self-care he actually still does during this dark time!

Even rock bottom Ed doesn't neglect his hair. And that says things about him! It's also something I'd love to see actually addressed in fic (will probably write it myself one of these days...): Taking good care of his hair, putting on jewelry, doing his makeup, these are things that seem to bring Ed joy or relief in his darkest moments. Where's my fic about these quiet moments of self-care being a straw he clutches to when everything else is terrible?

I love a good bathing together/doing each other's hair fic. It's intimate and loving! And Stede and Ed are prime material to write a mutual caretaking and bonding over it couple! Ed canonically loves soap and taking care of his hair! And Stede brought an entire fucking bathtub on a ship, the wonderful madman. S1 Stede's hair is always carefully curled, and we know that's not its natural state (it's wavy but not in this manner) from seeing him in S2, away from his certainly plentiful bath and grooming equipment. Stede probably has an hour of daily hair routine! We know he has nice smelling, probably expensive soaps. Where's the fic where they share in this?

There's so much potential! They can show each other their favourite care products! Sometimes they'll work on each other and sometimes not at all! Ed's rich hair oils will make Stede's hair all sticky and weird! Ed will think it's hilarious and adorable, he'll try to ruffle his hair and make it stick up worse and Stede will pout! 🥺 He'll look like this, just with weird spiky hair! One ill-advised day they try putting Stede's curlers in Ed's hair and then they almost can't get them back out because Ed's hair is so long and has lots of natural wave and it'll cling to the curlers and it's awful (they laugh about it afterwards, once Ed has very carefully brushed his hair out again and it no longer pulls at his scalp).

Makeup was a thing done by men and women at the time, especially for aristocrats (as seen in Episode 5), so Stede will know his way around hoity toity makeup, meaning rouges and whites (contained lots of lead, yuck!). Meanwhile Ed does pirate costume makeup for Blackbeard endeavours, that's a whole different thing. And both of these are makeups they don't actually enjoy doing (Stede avoids heavy makeup for the party, and Ed's Kraken makeup is part of his whole Everything Is Awful And I'm Making Myself Feel That look). But we see Ed do nice makeup that seems to be him! On his supposed to be final day on Earth, he cleans away all the Kraken coal, he cleans up his cabin, he gets rid of drugs, booze, Izzy (everything that was harming him), he does up his hair really nice and in a style that's very much Not Blackbeard, and he puts on a gorgeous bit of eyeliner that really brings out his eyes. And now that they're safe and happy together, when Ed decides he wants to look pretty today, not only can Stede lose his marbles over the look, Ed can also show him how to make his own eyes pop like that. They can stand in front of their mirror together, giggling and trying not to poke anyone in the eye.

Like. This is a fancy bathroom items for fancy bathroom items couple. They will bond over their love of bubble baths and nice smelling soaps and soft oils for hair and skin! They will learn each other's routines and how to do them just right for them. Let Stede learn that Ed loves his baths scalding hot (Stede has to wait a while for it to cool before he joins him in the tub because he'll get all pink and lightheaded). Let Ed learn how to put in Stede's curlers for him if Stede wants his hair to look extra fluffy the next day. Let Ed learn to massage Stede's back and Stede learn to massage Ed's knee. There's so much potential for loving caretaking with this ship. The trope doesn't at all require Ed to not know or not want to take care of his hair and hygiene. Fuck's sake.

[bemusedlybespectacled]

Question: I enjoyed s1 OF OFMD, but for various reasons I never actually got around to watching s2 (pick up most of the plot from tumblr tho). What exactly went wrong in s2 that got so many people upset?

Oh, boy. Very long rant incoming.

So, for context, S2 had a significantly smaller budget, which necessitated moving the filming location to union-unfriendly New Zealand, reducing the number of actors/number of appearances of established actors, and cutting down the number of episodes from 10 to 8. In a show where each episode is only about half an hour long, that last one alone was enough to seriously hamper any character development or plot. I am very comfortable putting the vast majority of the blame on HBO because of these financial decisions.

The short version is that Jenkins et. al. needed to address and build on the problems left hanging in S1 while also getting the characters to the end of their character trajectories in case there was no S3 while also leaving room for additional episodes in case there was a S3, in a grand total of four hours, and failed.

The long version is that there were a bunch of what I'd consider small problems in isolation that came together and exploded in the S2 finale.

The reduced cast necessitated breaking up the crew (ex: having Swede marry Jackie and stay on land with her, so they don't need to pay Nat Faxon for all eight episodes) and not spending as much time on their relationships as S1 did.

The reduced time meant that the entire season was rushed (in contrast to S1, which takes place over at least several weeks if not months, most of S2 takes place in roughly five days), leading both to a lot of telling rather than showing (because they don't have time to show you), including vital character and relationship development.

This includes:

Having the Kraken half of the crew beat Ed to death after months of being abused by him – abuse that is clearly shown to have given them PTSD and a well-justified fear and hatred of him – only for them to be okay with him two in-universe days later;

On that note, having Stede dismiss the crew's concerns about Ed because he loves him and also we only have three more episodes left to fit in everything so we need to get over it really fast, even though Stede is supposed to be well-meaning and caring (even if he's not good at it all the time);

Resolving the issue of Stede abandoning Ed in one day, then having them "go slowly" in their relationship for two days and then have some spur-of-the-moment sex, and then the next afternoon have them break up over their diverging career aspirations, and then the day after that resolve that problem and retire on land while the rest of the crew sails off into the sunset;

Stede becoming a fantastic pirate captain over the course of one day, becoming wildly popular in the piracy world two days later, and then deciding the day after that to never be a captain again because he is retiring with Ed;

Having Ed and Stede decide to retire together as what is implied to be the end point of their relationship arc, when none of Stede's issues from S1, like his poor self-esteem, have been so much as mentioned by anyone, implying that he's either magically gotten over them or they don't matter all that much, actually, even though they were the catalyst for basically everything he did in S1;

Ed having two separate character crises – "I am an unlovable person" and "I want to do something with my life other than piracy" – not spending a lot of time on either one, having moments that clearly indicate he is still working on both problems and they have not been resolved, and then apparently having them both be resolved in the final episode despite nothing occurring to actually make that happen, and in regards to the latter, despite the story actively undermining it by repeatedly showing he can't do anything other than piracy;

Related to the above, Ed ending the series as allegedly being loved by the crew as a family (thus solving Crisis #1) despite this never actually being shown, demonstrated, or even fucking alluded to onscreen. If anything, it shows the exact opposite.

This last point is especially galling to me because of what is probably the most divisive issue in the fandom right now: killing off Izzy Hands after giving him seven episodes of character development.

The show begins with the Kraken crew clearly trying to use the skills they learned as part of Stede's crew to cope with their incredibly shitty situation and care for each other, which includes Izzy. Izzy, on his end, tries to protect the crew and speak up for them, which results in him being repeatedly hurt (both implicitly, as Ed at one point says "that's another toe" in response to Izzy advocating for the crew and we later see he's missing more than one toe already, and explicitly, as Ed shoots him in the fucking leg in front of the crew when he stands up for them).

This camaraderie is shown again and again and again. Frenchie, Jim, and Archie take care of Izzy while his leg is infected, at risk to their own lives. Izzy's misery over losing his leg is what unites the PTSD-ridden Kraken crew and the well-meaning-but-ignorant-of-PTSD marooned crew, who are initially at odds, to make him a new prosthetic leg. Izzy gives Lucius advice about forgiving Ed. Izzy is introduced to drag and opens up enough to sing at a crew party, and the whole crew is having fun together while Ed and Stede are in their cabin having sex for the first time. Izzy gives Stede pirate captain lessons and bonds with him when Ed leaves him. Izzy provokes the season's villain into focusing on him and then gives a big speech about how piracy is about belonging to something, giving the rest of the crew time to try to escape.

Recall that Season 1 had some pretty well-established universe rules, one of which was that it runs on Muppet physics/magical realism. People can jump off yardarms, hit the side on the way down, and be perfectly fine. People can get stabbed in the liver and it's totally okay because it's probably not that important, and even can stay pinned to a mast all night that way with only mild discomfort. Buttons can talk to birds and see long distances without a spyglass and put hexes on people. Good people can be hurt (Stede is stabbed repeatedly), bad people can die (the Badmintons, Geraldo), but no one we care about is ever killed.

This is repeated in Season 2: Ed is beaten into a coma with a cannonball and wakes up like Sleeping Beauty after a spirit journey, with no injuries to his face or body. Buttons turns into a seagull after spending an episode doing a magic ritual and is never seen again (because they couldn't keep paying Ewen Bremner due to the budget cuts). Jackie microdoses her husbands with poison to build up their immunity, so that she can later pull a Dread Pirate Westley and poison the British with shared drinks.

So: in the finale, the villain of the season is taken hostage by the pirates (for reasons? unclear how that fits in the plan), happens to have a gun on him (no one checked??), shoots Izzy on the right side and then leaves with no repercussions. The entire crew stands around silently doing nothing while Ed cries over Izzy and tells him that he's his only family.

And Izzy fucking Hands, the guy who just spent eight episodes bonding with and protecting everyone, uses his last words to reassure Ed that him becoming Blackbeard/the Kraken was Izzy's fault and that the crew is Ed's family and they all love him. No one else says anything to Izzy or tries to comfort him or help him in any way.

I repeat: in a show predicated on the idea that bullies and bigots die stupid deaths while queer people and POC are basically magic, a show that was praised for being kind to queer people by not making them worry about their faves suffering or dying, a show founded on the strength of the relationships between the characters, the guy who went through a season-long arc of learning to embrace his pirate found family and his own queerness is shot for stupid reasons on the side we're told isn't important and dies while everyone just stands there. His last words are about the whole crew loving Ed when the only person that the whole crew has loved all season is him.

Anyway, never mind all that, let's cut to Lucius and Pete getting married and Stede and Ed retiring!

Complicating all this is that people who liked Izzy (or even said anything insufficiently mean about Izzy) were harassed for months in between seasons with insults, slurs, and actual fucking death threats. Izzy's growth was kind of a vindication for liking him: it meant that, despite all the harassment, we were right to like him and care about him as a character. Even people who didn't like him initially started to like him during Season 2.

And then he dies, and now there's a bunch of people saying that Izzy fans are big whiny babies who can't handle fictional death, and actually his death was so meaningful and beautiful and the only logical end to his arc, and it can't be bad writing because people die in real life all the time, and also he admitted he fed Ed's darkness so actually he was a terrible person all along anyway and they were right to hate him (and his fans)!

So, yeah, there are a lot of reasons why it's so hated, and I'm probably only addressing the problems of the pro-Izzy people (from what I can tell, BlackBonnet shippers who don't like Izzy think Ed and Stede's relationship is fine and dandy, but I'm sure that there are other criticisms they have that I have not addressed). I'm not even addressing the issues with Jim and Oluwande's relationship this season (and whooo boy are there issues).

It wasn't a universally bad season. There were episodes I really loved and still do. But the finale was a train wreck, and because it was a train wreck, a lot of people are looking back at what happened before the wreck and realizing that, oh, the train lost its brakes and steering because of the budget cuts and the engineers kept throwing fuel in the engine to make it go faster, and huh, now that I think of it, that part earlier in the trip was really wobbly but I didn't pay much attention to it at the time because I was sure the engineers had everything covered.

[bougiebutchbinch]

I do appreciate 'softer' interpretations of canon where everything is happy and nothing hurts. I think these headcanons and rewrites of characters have a huge and important place within fandom. This is not to say anything against people who prefer this sort of content.

But.

When I love a fucked-up character, I love the whole character, warts and all.

So.... a massive grateful shout out to the writers and creators who acknowledge that Ed was abused by his father, but don't shy away from the fact that Ed struggles to care for his crew. Thanks to the writers who acknowledge that he made terrible abusive choices towards his crew that there would realistically be consequences of, but this doesn't mean he's beyond changing - he can still choose to do better and can confront his own actions & his fear of becoming his father. He is worthy of love and support throughout this journey (though this absolutely shouldn't be expected to come from his victims).

Thanks to the writers who acknowledge that Stede survived his father's abuse and some truly atrocious childhood bullying - but also remember that he is a cis white ablebodied man born to extreme privilege, who needs to be reminded on occasion that piracy is not a game and that his crew are the lives he is gambling with when his plans veer even more dangerous than normal. That he started off as a class tourist, and is still very much learning what life is like outside of his circle of the landed gentry, even if he's throwing himself into piracy with adorable enthusiasm.

And thanks to the writers who portray Izzy as a victim of Ed's abuse, as he is in canon, and who also continue to depict him in all his twisted, messy, bitter glory: a man inured to violence, who warped himself to fit a crueller world of piracy than the one we see in the show, who enabled many of Ed's darker choices in S1 and pre-canon (although... he didn't make him do shit. 'I fed your darkness' =/= 'I made you abuse your crew, myself included', holy crap). Who is still learning to accept the kindness of others without biting every outstretched hand. Who was an imperfect man and is an imperfect survivor, but is a survivor nevertheless.

In short: Gimme all your flawed 'unloveable' characters, and watch me love them anyway.

[batsarebetterthanpeople]

why do so many people keep calling ed izzy's abuser? I thought it was kind of funny how wrong they were at first because I love being right but at this point I feel like, if you really believe that why do you even like this show? where the main love interest is a violently abusive indigenous man? that sounds boring as shit. what would possess the writers of the show for them to make such an awful decision?

but then I think, if this many people believe it does that mean I'm the one who's wrong? or is it that the creators fumbled that storyline when they should have been clearer about it? or maybe it's just that most people on here have had their reading comprehension scorched away by Sherlock Holmes conspiracy theories and Steven Universe discourse. I can't tell. sometimes I think the internet may have been a mistake.

No they're wrong here's what's going on. People all read this shitty fic called Hell or High Water where Ed was everything the Izzy stans say he was and then instead of realizing that Ed is sad everyone regressed into thinking that the Kraken Era TM was going to be incredibly violent, like serial killing blond men because they look like Stede levels of violence. Even if you didn't read HoHW you saw art or read fic from people who had engaged with this fic and succumbed to it's premise. So there's been this background radiation of misunderstanding what the Kraken is on the fandom for several months. So inevitably when Ed did some mild violence and then attempted suicide by threatening murder until the crew took matters into their own hands, which is not abuse or torture by any stretch, btw, it's a murder-suicide at worst (I say at worst because I consider it fuckery-suicide I don't think Ed was trying to kill people I think he was trying to force them into a situation where they thought it was kill or be killed so that they would choose to kill him, but that is my interpretation and you are free to think it's a botched murder-suicide I have no problem with that), which, murder is something the show has never condemned and if it did it would be horribly inconsistent. So anyway, Ed's whole Kraken Era was categorized in the show by him being sad and doing so many drugs and begging someone please god anyone to kill him and trying to break Ned Low's record out of the evil boredom, but because it had a murder-suicide element to it and Izzy's toes were getting removed and he waved a gun around at everyone once (in a way that felt to me like he was trying and failing to work up the nerve to blow his own brains out but I digress) people who liked HoHW and were mad that people had called it out were like "see hes being violent HoHW author vindicated" as if anything Ed did rose to the level of that fic

And you want to know how I know this read is bullshit? Because when I watch the show with people who don't read fic or interact with the fandom and then I gauge their reactions without showing my hand they all implicitly understand that Ed is reacting to Izzy in a way appropriate to how pirate captains react to threats from subordinates. The spectrum of reactions has been from "hey isn't it weird how Ed was the Kraken because his dad was abusive and now he's the kraken because of Izzy? Maybe there's something there but idk" to "I don't think you can apply the logic of domestic abuse to a pirate captain and first mate but also Izzy had it coming" to "I cannot feel bad for Izzy after last season, I'm sorry." To "lmao Izcel" and I've showed this show to roughly everyone I know. The only thing I can conclude from the fact that people who don't engage with OFMD fic almost unilaterally thinking that Izzy is in the wrong and then coming online to see people thinking the opposite is that Izzy as victim and Ed as abuser is pure fanon, like how Stede is a cinnamon roll who talks like Azeriphael.

But anyway yeah you're completely right about the fact that this would be a bad show if they decided to make Ed into a domestic abuser. I don't want to watch a rom com about a domestic abuser falling in love and I don't want a show that decided to make it's indigenous lead abusive when the stereotype of indigenous men as abusers is still to this day used as an excuse to separate indigenous children from their families and put them with white Christians in order to erase their culture. Good thing OFMD didn't make Ed abusive, so I still like the show.