#maybe this isn't actually the fan favorite pairing but I saw that the actor who plays the male half was trending and all the posts under

[musical-chick-13]

VERY torn between finding the new show’s fan-favorite pairing being one where both parties know they are biologically related from the beginning and have a toxic idea of love incredibly funny given my own history with Jaime and Cersei, and being indescribably annoyed because apparently this is okay when it’s the most popular house with the most popular characters, but me and a few friends finding a different dynamic in that vein interesting makes us the devil incarnate.

[piratecaptainscaptainpirates]

To the person who sent me an ask worrying about this article from Consequence TV maybe being the start of OFMD being cancelled, I accidentally deleted it so I'm responding here!

Tl;dr: absent any other information, I'm not worried about it. When I first saw it, it was paired with a headline that said somehting along the the lines of "Taika Waititi hints he won't be returning for OFMD season 3," which seems to have changed and just isn't actually said anywhere in the article itself.

The first part of the article is immediately a bit scary:

When Consequence asks writer/director/actor Taika Waititi if he’s feeling optimistic about a third season of Our Flag Means Death, his initial response is this: “Have you seen the end?”

While this looks scary, I encourage you to stop, breathe for a moment, read that again: crucially, that's not really an answer to the fucking question, and it's presented without context or even any indication that was TW's full answer. It's such a vague opener and without any follow-up it's practically meaningless.

The next parts of the article that a lot of people are concerned about are these paragraphs:

Max has yet to announce plans for a third season but Our Flag Means Death has become a fan favorite for its loving portrayal of its core relationship between Ed and Stede. For Waititi, though, the Season 2 finale “feels like a natural end to their story. Just because I feel like, you know, they’ve been through so much and then wind up in that nice place at a happy ending.” Waititi calls Our Flag Means Death “a really special show,” adding that “I love the show so much and maybe it can survive without Rhys and I. Maybe, I don’t know. I do I think the character of Blackbeard is something I’m really proud of.” Waititi says, though, that “I don’t want it to feel like Rambo III suddenly, you know, when you’re like, ‘Oh man, they have to leave their idyllic life again.'”

When I first read that headline, I was obviously like what the fuck, but when I clicked the link I immediately dismissed this whole article. I'm a person naturally given to anxiety and over-thinking - I'm not saying that to dismiss anyone who is worried about that, I'm saying that to emphasize just how contextless and clickbait-y this article is.

It's important to remember two things: OFMD is a mainstream property that is still generating a lot of traffic due to speculation on whether it's going to be renewed, and Taika Waititi, as a person, attracts a lot of divisive media attention that is often very clickbait-y in nature. He's also the biggest name attached to OFMD.

If we look at this article, all of TW's lines are presented to us out of context. We are not given the questions he was asked or told anything about when this interview took place (other than after the finale, obviously).

A breakdown of what TW says with possible, more likely context:

"The s2 finale felt like a natural, happy ending for Stede and Ed." This is true, and we also know this was intentional in case the show doesn't get renewed. This is not new information.

"Maybe the show can survive without Rhys and I." This is what people are (understandably) worried about, but this is both not a firm statement of "I don't want to come back for s3" and completely devoid of context. A possible explanation is that DJenks has mentioned possible spin-offs; TW could be here referring to spin-offs that don't involve him or Rhys Darby. As an executive producer, there is literally no way TW doesn't know at lesat the broad outline of DJenks' plan for s3.

"I don't want it to feel like they're leaving their idyllic life again." TW doesn't want Ed and Stede's story to be beaten to death, he wants it to have a satisfying, happy ending. Again, this should not be surprising information, it's just presented in a way that makes it seem like he definitely thinks s2 should be the end of Ed and Stede when that is not what he says.

This article is completely devoid of context, and because of that I consider all TW's statements in here to be essentially meaningless because we don't know any of the questions he was asked. I believe the most logical context for these quotations were him talking about the finale and how it was satisfying in case they didn't get s3, speculating about possible spin-offs, and then talking about how he doesn't want the story to be one of those TV shows that go on too long.

A bit of additional context: Consequence is, primarily, a music review and news site. They have a TV segment, where this article is housed, but music is their main focus and they are not a website where you expect to find actual breaking TV news, let alone from big names like TW. Larger film and TV publications we've seen covering the recent release of Next Goal Wins, in comparison, universely refer to the OFMD s2 as "successful" and refer to a "likely" third season - for publications actually focused on TV, the predominant view seems to be that OFMD is successful and a 3rd season seems very likely.

This article is very clickbait-y and tells us absolutely nothing. It absolutely does not say that TW is uninterested in returning for s3 (in fact, it says the opposite, he repeats again how much he loves the show) or that OFMD will be cancelled.

We're okay. Even if we do get news that OFMD hasn't been greenlit for s3, I promise it's not going to break on Consequence TV of all places.

[cheesybadgers]

Shipper Tag Game

Thank you for the tag @thesilversun ❤️

1. What ship were you completely obsessed with when you were a teenager, but now you don't care about anymore? I'm trying to think back to what I was even into as a teen...I read and wrote bandfic around my early to mid teens, but I'm not naming the bands 😂 Beyond that, there was Buffy/Angel from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Sam/Gene from Life on Mars, Fraser/Ray K from Due South, Sirius/Lupin from Harry Potter. The only one of those I couldn't care less about anymore is the last one...the rest just make me feel nostalgic.

2. Which ship would you consider your first one? I can't even remember?? Probably something like Leia/Han in Star Wars, but I wouldn't have known to call it 'shipping' back then.

3. Your first fanfic was about which couple? It was a reader insert bandfic but I really don't want to talk about that lol.

4. Do you remember the first couple you saw fanart of? No clue at all.

5. Have you ever gotten into ship discourse? No. I avoid stuff I'm not into and don't get why everyone else can't just do the same.

6. Did you use to have any NOTP or have one currently? I used to be less open to multi-shipping involving the same characters when I was younger. Now, depending on characters/circumstances, I'm much more inclined to say throw them all in together and analyse the results lol.

Having said that, I hated what Sense8 did by inserting Dani into Lito's and Hernando's relationship. They could have done poly rep in literally any other way than how they did it, but what actually happened was just weird and creepy.

7. Who were the couple in the last fanfic you read? Carmen/Richie from The Bear. I wasn't even really into it when I first watched the show, but after re-watching with my husband, I needed to scratch an itch I didn't even know I had.

8. Currently, do you have any OTPs? I never used to really think I did, but now, after spending the past 3 years writing a longfic for Javier/Horacio from Narcos, they're always going to hold a very special and unique place in my heart ❤️

9. Is there any couple that, to this day, you are extremely mad about not getting together? Not that I can think of, because in my mind, shipping is largely an entirely different thing to canon. It bears no relevance to the events of canon a lot of the time and fan fic means you can do whatever you want anyway. More often than not, my favourite ships tend to be non-canon, so I treat the two things separately in my brain.

10. Is there any ship you used to dislike but now you think they are kind of interesting? Not dislike, no. More likely never really considered before until a lightbulb switches on in my brain (maybe during a re-watch or if something happens in a new episode) and suddenly, I'm interested.

11. Do you have any ship that, in the past, would've been considered normal but now you would be cancelled over? Don't think I'm important enough to be 'cancelled' lol, but I find shipping in general in fandom has become kind of vanilla and bland. People get really hung up on what is and isn't canon and miss the nuance of messy, complicated relationships and dynamics between characters. They stay away from a lot of rarer pairings and stick closely to the fandom-approved or actor-approved 'purer' ships. A lot of people say they want queer stories and characters, but when they're presented with actual queer sex and desire, the pearl clutching begins. I know this isn't true of all fandoms, but it's a pattern I've noticed over the last few years.

12. What is your favorite crack ship? Lalo/Howard from Better Call Saul.

13. What is the couple you read the most fanfics about? Probably McKirk from AOS Star Trek. I haven't read any for years, but there was a period about 10/11 years ago where I couldn't get enough of them. Stucky from the MCU is probably a close second...and most of that came in the form of fix-it fics after Endgame 😂

14. What do most of your ships usually have in common? Always carrying unresolved trauma, they're usually criminals, often violent/have killed people, always morally grey and they have a shared history with each other that goes back further than canon shows us.

15. What you absolutely hate in a ship? I can't stand love triangles where one party has to pick between two others when the obvious answer is either a) both or b) neither. Not a fan of big age gap relationships (unless they're non-humans and are hundreds/thousands of years old). Or when character A gives up everything for character B, but character B doesn't have to make an equivalent sacrifice (they need to be burning down the world for each other tbh, otherwise what's the point?). Or when the ship is presented as 'forbidden love' but there aren't actually any major obstacles in their way and it's mostly a lot of unnecessary melodrama. Love at first sight doesn't do anything for me either. Lust/obsession? Hell yeah. But I need more slowburn/history before the L word is thrown around.

No pressure tagging: @mariamariquinha, @thoroughlymodernminutia, @ejunkiet, @evilbunnyking and anyone else who wants to answer these!

[malexfan10]

I absolutely love Tyler Blackburn

New article today

He is such a gem ❤

So genuine. Deserves all the love and support!

You can tell how much Alex means to him.

Please don't destroy this amazing character or this wonderful ship Carina!

It's a long read but well worth it

https://www.playboy.com/read/down-to-earth

❤

Down to Earth With Tyler Blackburn

The star of the CW's 'Roswell' reboot isn't a poster child of anything but his own path

Written by Ryan Gajewski

Photography by Graham Dunn

Published onJune 11, 2019

I’ve never met Tyler Blackburn before—except that I have. Maybe it would be more accurate to say I’ve met versions of Tyler Blackburn. I’ve spent time with the actor on multiple occasions while covering his TV series Pretty Little Liars, the soapy teen-centered murder mystery that regularly generated more than a million tweets throughout its seven-season run. Just two weeks ago I reconnected with him in a lush meadow of flowering mustard outside Angeles National Forest, the site of his PLAYBOY photo shoot. But the Tyler Blackburn I’m meeting today at his home in the Atwater Village neighborhood of Los Angeles is in many ways an entirely different man.

When he greets me at the front door, Blackburn is relaxed, barefoot and still wearing what appears to be bed head. His disposition is unmistakably freer—lighter—than it’s been during our previous encounters. Perhaps I shouldn’t be surprised by this. Six days earlier the 32-year-old actor came out publicly as bisexual in an online interview with The Advocate. The announcement is clearly at the forefront of his mind as we sit down at his dining room table.

Almost immediately he starts to gush about the positive, and at times overwhelming, feedback he has received over the past few days. Within minutes he’s in tears. He tries to lighten the mood with a self-effacing quip, but now I’m in tears too. Then he tells me he can’t remember my question.

I haven’t even asked one yet, I reply.

“It just makes me feel, Wow, the world’s a little bit safer than I thought it was,” Blackburn says.

The most affecting response he’s received thus far has been from his father, whom Blackburn didn’t meet until he was five years old. Although he avoids offering any more details about that early chapter, he says, “Feeling like I’m a little bit different always made me wonder if he likes me, approves of me, loves me. He called, and it was just every single thing you would want to hear from your dad: ‘That was a bold move. I’m so proud of you.’ It was wild.” 

Blackburn can’t pinpoint the exact moment he knew he was bisexual but says he was curious from the age of 16. It wasn’t until two years ago, though, that he decided to approach his publicity team about coming out publicly. At that point, Pretty Little Liarshad wrapped, and the actor was without a job. So Blackburn and his team agreed they needed to hold off on making an announcement until his career was stable again. The lack of resolution weighed on him.

“A year ago I was in a very bad place,” he says, adding that he has struggled with depression and anxiety. “I didn’t know what my career was going to be or where it was going. My personal life—my relationship with myself—was in a really bad place.”

His casting on the CW’s Roswell, New Mexico, adapted from the same Melinda Metz book series as the WB’s 1999 cult favorite Roswell, seems to have come at the right time. Blackburn portrays Alex, a gay Army veteran whose relationship with Michael, a bisexual alien, has attracted legions of “Malex” devotees since the show’s January debut. Roswell, New Mexico has already been renewed for a second season—a feat for any series in this era of streaming, let alone one involving gay exophilia.

Playing a character whose queerness has been so widely embraced by fans no doubt nudged Blackburn closer to revealing his truth for the first time since becoming an actor 15 years ago. (As he told The Advocate, “I’m so tired of caring so much. I just want to…feel okay with experiencing love and experiencing self-love.”) Still, he was somewhat reluctant. His hesitation was rooted in the fact that he wouldn’t be able to control what came next: the social pressures that often come with being one of the first—in his case, one of the first openly bisexual male actors to lead a prime-time television series.

“If you stand for this thing, and you say it publicly, there’s suddenly the expectation of ‘Now your job is this,’ ” he says. “Even if someone’s like, ‘Now you’re going to go be the spokesperson’—well, no. If I don’t want to, I don’t want to. And that doesn’t mean I’m a half-assed queer.”

Full disclosure: I previously wrote for a Pretty Little Liars fan site. In 2012 I published a listicle that ranked the show’s hottest male characters. Blackburn cracks up when I tell him this and wants to know whether he bested Ian Harding, his former co-star. After I inform him that his character (hacker with a heart of gold Caleb Rivers) finished second behind Harding’s (Ezra Fitz, a student-dating teacher) I promise to organize a recount. The always-modest Blackburn concedes that Harding is the rightful winner. (If anyone ever compiles a BuzzFeed article titled “Most Embarrassing Moments for Former Bloggers,” I’ll be offended if I’m not in the mix.)

Blackburn makes it clear that he has not always been comfortable with his status as a teen heartthrob. Knowing he was queer made it “hard to embrace it and enjoy it.” Growing up, he was bullied for being perceived as effeminate and was frequently subjected to slurs and homophobic jokes. He describes himself as a late bloomer who took longer than usual to shed his baby fat. He didn’t have many friends, nor did he date much in high school. 

A lifelong fan of musical theater and the performing arts, Blackburn signed with a Hollywood management company at the age of 17. His team at the time warned him that projecting femininity would hinder his success. An especially painful moment came after he’d auditioned for a role as a soldier and the producers wrote back that Blackburn had seemed “a little gay.” 

“Those two managers were so twisted in their advice to me,” Blackburn says. “They just said, ‘We don’t care if you are, but no one can know. You can’t walk into these rooms and seem gay. It’s not gonna work.’ I remember the shame, because I’ve been dealing with the feeling that I’m not a normal boy for my entire life.”

After landing a recurring role on Days of Our Lives in 2010, Blackburn scored his big break when he appeared midway through the first season of Pretty Little Liars. “I was in Tyler’s first scene, so I got to be one of the first to work with him,” Shay Mitchell, who starred opposite Blackburn, tells PLAYBOY. “Right away, I knew he was special. Since the day I met him, Tyler always struck me as very authentic and very true to himself.” 

Fans instantly adored his on-screen love affair with Hanna Marin, played by Ashley Benson. The pair became known as “Haleb,” and Blackburn went on to win three Teen Choice Awards—surfboard trophies that solidify one’s status as a teen idol—in categories including Choice TV: Chemistry.

According to Blackburn, during the show’s seven years on the air, he and Benson bonded over their mutual distaste for the tabloid stardom that comes with headlining a TV phenomenon lapped up by teens. Today he fondly reflects on their on-camera chemistry. “It felt good,” he says. “It felt real.”

Of course, rumors swirled that the pair’s romance was actually quite real. “We never officially dated,” he tells me. “In navigating our relationship—as co-workers but also as friends—sometimes the lines blurred a little. We had periods when we felt more for each other, but ultimately we’re good buds. For the most part, those rumors made us laugh. But then sometimes we’d be like, ‘Did someone see us hugging the other night?’ She was a huge part of a huge change in my life, so I’ll always hold her dear.” 

Blackburn also shares a unique connection with Mitchell outside their friendship. Similar to what Blackburn is now experiencing with Roswell, Mitchell was embraced by the LGBTQ community for playing a lesbian character, Emily Fields, whose same-sex romances on Pretty Little Liars were among the first on ABC Family (the former name of the Freeform network).

Over the years, Blackburn had come out to select members of the Pretty Little Liars cast and crew, including creator I. Marlene King. But as the show approached its swan song, he started to recognize how hiding a part of himself was negatively affecting his life. He entered his first serious relationship with a man while filming the show’s final season. Not knowing how to tell co-workers—or whether to, say, invite his boyfriend to an afterparty—caused him to “go into a little bit of a shell” on the set.

“My boyfriend was hanging out with me at a Pretty Little Liars convention, and some of the fans were like, ‘Are you Tyler’s brother?’ ” Blackburn says. “He was very patient, but then afterward he was like, ‘That kind of hurt me.’ It was a big part of why we didn’t work out, just because he was at a different place than I was. Unfortunately, we don’t really talk anymore, but if he reads this, I hope he knows that he helped me so much in so many ways.” At that, Blackburn tearfully excuses himself and takes a private moment to regain his composure. 

“I never remember a time when I didn’t enjoy being with him,” says Harding, Blackburn’s former co-star. He says he saw the actor “start to become the person he is now when we worked together” but believes Blackburn needed to first come to terms with the idea that he could become “the face” of bisexuality. “Tyler’s discovering a way to bring real meaning with his presence in the world,” Harding says, “as an actor and as a whole human.”

Once the teenage Blackburn realized he was attracted to guys, he began “experimenting” with men while taking care not to become too emotionally attached. “I just didn’t feel I had the inner strength or the certainty that it was okay,” he says. It wasn’t until a decade later, at the age of 26, that he began to “actively embrace my bisexuality and start dating men, or at least open myself up to the idea.” He says he’s been in love with two women and had great relationships with both, but he “just knew that wasn’t the whole story.”

He was able to enjoy being single in his 20s in part because he wasn’t confident enough in his identity to commit to any one person in a relationship. “I had to really be patient with myself—and more so with men,” he says. “Certain things are much easier with women, just anatomically, and there’s a freedom in that.” He came out of that period with an appreciation for romance and intimacy. Sex without an emotional component, he discovered, didn’t have much appeal.

“As I got older, I realized good sex is when you really have something between the two of you,” says Blackburn, who’s now dating an “amazing” guy. “It’s not just a body. The more I’ve realized that, the more able I am to be settled in my sexuality. I’m freer in my sexuality now. I’m very sexual; it’s a beautiful aspect of life.”

Blackburn has, however, felt resistance from the LGBTQ community, particularly when bisexual women have questioned his orientation. “Once I decided to date men, I was like, Please just let me be gay and be okay with that, because it would be a lot fucking easier. At times, bisexuality feels like a big gray zone,” he says. (For example, Blackburn knows his sexuality may complicate how he becomes a father.) “I’ve had to check myself and say, I know how I felt when I was in love with women and when I slept with women. That was true and real. Don’t discredit that, because you’re feeding into what other people think about bisexuality.”

He clearly isn't the first rising star who's had to deal with outside opinions of how to handle his Hollywood coming-out. I spoke to Brianna Hildebrand just before the release of 2018's smash hit Deadpool 2, and she explained that she had previously met with publicists who had offered to keep her sexuality under wraps, even though the actress herself had never suggested this. Meanwhile, ahead of the launch of last fall's Fantastic Beasts sequel, Ezra Miller told methat he's "been in audition situations where sexuality was totally being leveraged."

Fortunately for Blackburn, his recent experiences with colleagues have largely been supportive ones. He came out to Roswell, New Mexico showrunner Carina Adly Mackenzie when he first arrived in N.M. to shoot the pilot but after he had earned the role of Alex, which for him was the ideal sequence. "I think he takes the responsibility of being queer in the public eye very seriously, and waiting to come out was just about waiting until he was ready to share a private matter—not about being dishonest to his fans," Mackenzie tells PLAYBOY. "I have always known how important Alex is to Tyler, and I know that Tyler trusts me to do right by him, ultimately, and that’s really special."

Blackburn finds it funny that he’s known for young-skewing TV shows; the question is, What might define him next? He’s grateful for his career, but he grew up wanting to make edgy dramas like the young Leonardo DiCaprio. He also cites an admiration for Miller, the queer actor who plays the Flash. “I most definitely want to be a fucking superhero one day,” Blackburn says a bit wistfully. 

His path to cape wearing does look more tenable. The day before his Advocateinterview was posted, he booked a lead role in a fact-based disaster-survival film opposite Josh Duhamel. Blackburn jokes that his movie career was previously nonexistent, though his résumé features such thoughtful indie fare as 2017’s vignette-driven Hello Again. There, he plays a love interest to T.R. Knight, who tells PLAYBOY that Blackburn “embraces the challenge to stretch and not choose the easy path.” 

For now, Blackburn’s path appears to be just where he needs it to be. “I may never want to be a spokesperson in a huge way, but honestly, being truthful and authentic sets a great example,” he says. “To continue on a path of fulfillment and happiness is going to make people feel like they too can have that and it doesn’t need to be some spectacle.” As it turns out, he may already be a superhero.