#swedes are so silly I love us

[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.

[fahbee]

I re-watched s2 and knowing how it ends, I liked it A LOT more the second time around.

Not to say I disliked it the first time, not at all. But the first time, I wasn’t sure if they were going to acknowledge Izzy’s part in Ed’s depression and death wish. That made me unsure if I could enjoy Izzy’s rehabilitation that the writers clearly took great pains to make as poignant and empathetic as possible.

Now, though? I’m free to enjoy watching that hateful little fucker from season 1 get what he wished for, and then some. Hit rock bottom. Then realize that hey, maybe that Stede guy wasn’t so bad after all.

Having Izzy come to understand why Ed fell in love with Stede, and admit to himself that Stede has always seen the true heart of Ed… well I can get behind that. Even if I still think Izzy was a bit too overly familiar making a sex joke on their morning after, as a viewer I get that it was mainly meant to be funny, not creeperish.

In the end, Izzy realizes that he was wrong and he changes his behavior accordingly, and no one holds a grudge, and he’s given the grace of a fresh start. So is Ed. So is Stede. I can get behind this, too.

All that to say - upon second viewing and further reflection, I kinda loved it. There was so much pathos. Ed in those first three episodes especially. Give Taika an award for that.

And the musical choices! The costumes. The sets and locations. That one shot of the Revenge cresting that enormous wave during the storm. Zheng and her iconic delivery (“Girl, how are you?”). The Swede’s glow up. Buttons turned into a goddam bird!

Ed and Stede’s… everything!! The mermaid vision as a perfect, sweet, silly, lovely way to cut the overwhelming tension of “Come back to me.” Those fucking wedding toppers. The cat bell. The red suit. The kisses!!! So many!!! “You wear fine things well” and “I love you” and “I know that”. Ed’s “Red Flags” updo. And my god!! Stede looking like this!!!

There was a lot to love about Our Flag Means Death Season 2, and I loved a whole lot of it. I can’t wait to see what they have in store for us in Season 3.

[leeloo-googling-war]

I can't believe I haven't seen anyone talking about the fact that the Swede has been wearing a fucking little modern day screen-printed graphic tee (that I think says Spanish Jackie's on it like it's a 50s style ad for a diner or some shit but sold in the 00s at Claires at the mall) cut into a crop top under his jacket post-glow up. I fucking love the costume design in this show, I love how it's historical-ish but also if there's something funny and modern they want to use they just use it because it's funny and it fits the vibe, it doesn't need to be historically accurate this is fanfiction, this is us playing with our dolls and making them kiss and be silly, this is queer joy and shamelessness and I am going to explode I love this show so much

[he110sweet13]

Created by myself an @msmhari this morning. Neither of us have time to flesh out this fic right now, but wanted to share the dopamine.

Casting the OFMD Pride and Prejudice AU. (spoilers I guess? The book is 200 years old, if I spoil it, then I spoil it)

Starting with the major pairings:

Mr. Bingley and Jane- hopelessly in love, of course, Stede and Ed.

Mr. Darcy and Lizzy- Darcy is smart, competent, but generally perceived as an asshole. I give you, Mr. Izzy Hands. But as we all know, Izzy is the fandom bicycle. So who is our clever, cheeky, and a little bit mouthy Lizzy Bennet? Lucius it is.

Lydia and Mr Wickham- This one’s a bit cheeky, but it’s my tumblr and I do what I want. And I fully blame @msmhari for Wickham. Lydia is Archie. Don’t worry- we’ll get back to her. She’ll be just fine. Wickham is Ricky. He dies of natural causes. Murder is a natural cause right?

Now let’s round out our families. First, the Bennet Sisters: Kitty and Mary will be played by Frenchie and Wee John. They share a room.

Lady Catherine is Auntie. Terrifying and knows it. Unless you’re Lizzy.

If Lucius is Lizzy, where’s Pete? Pete is Mr. Collins. I’m sorry Black Pete fans, please don’t come for us.

Spanish Jackie and the Swede are the Gardiners. They love love and just want to see everybody happy. Bonus points if they don’t have to clean up after their family of muppets anymore.

Jim and Olu are Mr. Bingley’s (Stede) “Siblings”. Archie runs off with them. See? She’s fine. No one gives a fuck about Ricky/Wickham. Olu is married to Zheng. #garlicsoup

Fang is Darcy’s cousin Fitzwilliam. A sweet gentleman who softens Lizzy (Lucius) towards Darcy (Izzy)

Mary is the woman that Mr. Bingley (Stede) was rumoured to be courting when he fucked off to London for a bit. Meanwhile Jane (Ed) is moping to Lizzy in her pillow fort.

Not entirely sure what to do with Buttons, but hey, that’s nothing new.

There are two very important characters left. Mr and Mrs Bennet. And personally, my favorite of our little fan cast.

Mr Bennet is the leader of this little mess. He created it. Brought it into the world. This is his circus and these are his monkeys. Thus I give you, the Daddy of our little crew, David Jenkins.

So who is the counterpoint to our producer and creator? The organizer who steers the ship? Mrs Bennet loves pairing up her daughters, and clowns just as hard as any of the fans. Silly and a bit chaotic, and really just wants to see Jane get all Mooney over her husband?

Javid Denkins, aka David Jenkins in a bonnet.

You’re welcome.

[ccacoo]

Am I the only one who is really feeling "meh" about season 2?

I hope this doesn't come across as ungrateful and by no means do I want to take away from anyone's enjoyment of the show. But with everyone celebrating the hell out of s2 I just feel like I'm going insane and I would love to hear from some other people for whom it didn't really land?

I think overall it just feels messily written to me, like the writers didn't have enough time to really develop a clear vision. I'm going to list some points that really stuck out to me and I'd be interested to hear whether it was like that for anyone else. If you love season 2, simply move on, be happy, this post is for the reluctant haters.

no cohesive story arch: This was done very well in s1. s1 is about Stede and Ed, two very different people who each have what the other lacks and wants, teaching each other how to be that. I'd argue it's also about Ed and Izzy drifting apart and the conflict that arises from that, and the conflict (and humour!) that arises from Stede consistently being at odds with his environment (his prior life, the crew). Season 2 has no clear arch like this. It's all over the place.

squandering characters' potential: Izzy. I know people are going batshit for Izzy singing and exploring his queer side, and I don't *hate* it, but as everything else, it feels too rushed to me to be satisfying. This was the guy who roped Ed back into his Blackbeard persona, who said "I serve Blackbeard, not some nampy-pampy in a silk dressing gown pining for his boyfriend." We are shown nothing in between this and him crying in front of the crew because Ed is just too toxic. For me, this transformation would have needed at least 1 season of buildup and could have been intensely funny, especially if Stede and Izzy had to spent a serious amount of time working together. Contrast is what makes the fun. Who else is there? Buttons! Holy hell! The stories they could have spun from that character, the mystery, the suspense. And then they just turned him into a bird and he flew away??? And then there's Lucius, who's so incredibly pale compared to s1. I thought a PTSD Lucius was an interesting development, but his "recovery" was also way too rushed to feel satisfying. In s1 we had side characters get entire stories of their own, like Jim's whole revenge plot. We met Jim's Nana, we got a developing romance between Jim and Olu, we had Jim and Jackie dance around each other continuously. Give me that with other characters! Give us some background on Lucius' past as a pickpocket. Where did he learn to read and write? Is there someone from his past that he has a bone to pick with? Is there someone he would like to reunite or make amends with? I feel like this should have been his season as a side character, the way s1 was Jim's. Instead, background characters firmly stay in the background. The Swede gets parked (or narratively killed off) at Jackie's. Buttons flies off. Frenchie, Roach, Wee John remain sidelined and stagnant. Jim and Olu are incomprehensible to me. Are they still a couple? Are they not? Who can tell.

The humour: This is also what irks me. If contrast makes the fun, why make everything and everyone sort of the same now? Stede is now just as badass as everyone else, Izzy is now just as queer and wholesome as everyone else, everyone is throwing around weird mental health language, Roach's go-to relaxation isn't torture anymore but clay face masks. As a result, stuff just isn't as funny to me anymore.

The tone: Oh, the tone :( I don't get the tone. Instead of the light-hearted and heartfelt silliness of s1 we now have actual torture, sawed off bloody legs, a serial killer like from Hannibal, toxic lesbians who poison and stab each other, ... this is looking like it wants to become a pirate show that is traditionally a culture of abuse and my thought is: why? And also: What if it weren't like that?

No cohesive villain: In s1, the main villain's motive is established with the murder of Nigel Badminton and the tension is kept up throughout the show by having little clips detailing Chauncey's quest of revenge – season 2 fails to do this. There is no main villain, unless you count nose guy. His introduction in ep 1 is messy, rushed and sort of forced in there, opposite to the Badmintons, who are given ample time and are really being horrible to Stede (complete with back story and everything). They are interesting because they personify some of the reasons why Stede was unhappy in his previous life - people bullied him for his softness. This ties in nicely with Stede's arch of learning to stand up for himself, to accept his softness and turn it into his brand of "gentleman pirate". Compare this to the nose guy who is "like Stede" in the way of being upper class. Could be interesting, but this is all we know about him. Stede and him barely interact. Maybe they wanted to set him up as a fan turned hater like Mr. Incredible and Syndrome? In that case I would have needed Stede to really be shitty to nose guy, which he wasn't. Moreover, by the time nose guy pops up again, I'd already forgotten all about him. The tension was simply not developed.

Forgetting to set up plot points properly: Two things. Firstly, how often does it happen that something they want to bring up in the episode only gets introduced in that same episode? When Jim says Olu has been pining for Zheng for weeks I was like: Ok? This is the first time I've heard of this. Secondly, whenever they bring something up, the also resolve it in the very same episode. Guys! Why do you need to introduce this stupid torture pirate as this ridiculous uber villain if you're gonna kill him off in the same episode? If the whole point was just to get Stede famous, why not bring back Calico Jack, someone we all *already* hate, who doesn't need to physically torture anyone in order for us to feel satisfied when he gets his ass kicked?

Mixed messages: Is this a show about how traumatic experiences have consequences? As illustrated by Lucius or the fact that everyone uses mental health language now, and is getting triggered by Blackbeard? But then why does everyone go right back to partying after having been tortured? Why does Stede want to have sex after just having murdered a man? Does almost getting murdered or murdering have consequences or not?

Bonus – What I liked: Ed in the nether realm – this was done well, it was funny, it was heartfelt, it was profound. I felt like I was watching s1. Stede and Ed interactions – when they didn't just callback to scenes we've already seen in s1 (*cough* moonlight *cough*), the dynamic was entertaining, enjoyable and endearing.

Feel free to add stuff, that you thought sucked or that was done well!

I really hope they give the writers more time to write s3! Cause, at least for David, it's clear that he can be brilliant, or s1 wouldn't be as great as it is. But it is. I haven't entirely lost hope yet.

[ripplestitchskein]

I personally loved Season 2, it was a bit rushed but I think it suffered less for the budget cuts and limited episodes than like any other show I’ve watched tbh. The unfortunate state of modern television is they don’t have time to let character’s breathe and let the plot develop gradually, especially with a cast the size of OFMD.

Each character had a little bit this season.

Frenchie really came into his own and became my fav, he was kind of the glue that held the two disparate crews together in my opinion in really subtle ways. Like just amazing job on Frenchie.

Olu really leaned into his soft boy persona and charmed and softened not only Jim last season but Zheng this season. He was instrumental in repairing her relationship with Auntie and though I would have liked more of that for it to really pay off, like us seeing more Auntie being hard and overbearing and it’s affect on Zheng and then the reconciliation I think broad strokes it was good. I was sad at the beginning that his relationship with Jim was more queer platonic but I think they handled it super well and their bond was just as strong and important.

Jim was amazing this season, really embracing that softness and dealing with their trauma even though again I would have liked to see more. Their interactions with Zheng and Auntie were limited but critical and I don’t think the Jim of season 1 would have been able to do that if they hadn’t of grown through these past 2 seasons.

Roach didn’t have as much as the rest of the crew imo but he was definitely a bit more human and less weird feral butcher. His little spa day with Wee John was super cute.

Wee John was probably my fav this season in terms of all the little details about his growth. The knitting, the drag, the sweaters. Just chef’s kiss.

I loved the soft focus on Lucius and Pete’s relationship. How it weaved in with Lucius’s trauma and how steady Pete was throughout.

Buttons got what he wanted imo. I was disappointed he didn’t have a more central role this season but if they get a third I think he’ll be critical. But even if they don’t I’m glad he was happy.

The Swede was just so cute and I love that he was the tie to Spanish Jackie and we saw more of her and a softer her because of him.

And Izzy, omg Izzy, the complete turnaround for his character, Con’s amazing performance throughout. Truly the breakout character of the season. So much to unpack with Izzy but I wasn’t upset with his ending, it felt right to me? I know many are, and I personally don’t think it’s the end for him anyway, but even if it is, looking at him from S1 to now as a whole I felt pretty good about it even though I sobbed my eyes out. I expected him to die early on so that he got to merge with the crew and repair his relationship with Bonnet and at the end find a peace with Ed was great. Would I have liked something bigger and more impactful. Always but that was a lot to fit in and I feel like they did their best with it.

Ed and Stede’s journey was straight outta fanfic. Just hit all the notes for me, again I would have liked more but what they did was satisfying and realistic and I didn’t feel like they were missing anything as far as navigating their relationship went. I would have liked to see their conversation when they decided to start the Inn, maybe some more apologies all around, but the way it was done was fine. I think too much groveling would have made it different kind of show. A central part of this genre is that the trauma and sadness is kind of brushed by and touched on lightly but not a central point you wallow in because it is ultimately a comedy show that is more silly than serious.

I love that they ended on a note we the audience could be satisfied by but still left doors open for a 3rd season. I am always terrified in sophomore seasons of cliffhangers and unresolved nonsense that we never get solved so to end it there was perfect for me.

[bluecheese17]

"Min pappa, Willy" (𝒘. 𝒏𝒚𝒍𝒂𝒏𝒅𝒆𝒓)

dad!william and dad!auston

*i used google translate for some of this, so if its inaccurate that's my bad just message me or lmk what i got wrong*

a/n: sorry for the lack of content, I've been busy :( But i want to write a jamie drysdale fic, any thoughts?

anyways, HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO MY FAV SWEDE:))))

"Have you ever seen so much uh...stuff come out of something so small?" willy said to Auston who listened intently on the other end of the line while a child's shouts can be heard in the background. "Daddy hurry up I want to go to the park...now" said a tiny demanding voice. "Uh I gotta go uh we're going to the park and as for your uh situation there...tons of wipes and prayers good luck" Auston stated before hanging up. William sighed as he noticed a small chunk of something roll out of the baby's diaper causing him to spring into daddy mode "oh shit". After using almost the entire container of wipes he had an epiphany and picked of his phone. Auston answered the phone with a chuckle, "dude just wipe and toss and powder then close" Auston Teased. "Shut up that's not why I'm calling so I just had an idea why don't I meet you guys and we can work together...your better with the tiny ones anyway and I prefer to run around its a win win situation for the both of us" he said waiting for a response. "Be there in ten" Auston replied. "Why did I tell her that I was fine...your mom is an angel sötnos " Willy said planting a gentle kiss on his baby's forehead. Ten minutes later he was sitting on the front porch diaper bag and baby in hand as Auston pulled up in the wives delicate SUV. He chuckled opening the back door to load up the stroller and baby blue designer diaper bag. "Whoa baby goes in the seat dude" Auston said motioning to the baby still strapped to his chest in the carrier with his tiny legs hanging out on each side. "Oh right...thanks" he said then opened the back door to strap his baby in. "Hey little dude" he gushed to Auston Jr sitting in the other seat. "Nice ride" Silly said with a chuckle as he got into the passenger seat. Auston scoffed, "I don't know why she insisted on taking my 67 impala for their spa day this...doesn't even have my presets or any of my music at all" he said with a pout. "No kidding I succeeded in the diaper changing but when I tried feeding him he tossed the entire little cuppy thing of food at me then started licking the rest of it off his little fingers...he would not let me dress him it was like an organized sport trying to dress him up" Willy said as he laughed. "I do not miss those days" Auston laughed then got a punch to the shoulder. "I want ice cream...mama gets me ice cream when we go to the park" Auston Jr shouted from the back seat. "Sure buddy how about later when we're all done playing I wouldn't want the bees chasing you around...cool" he said looking through the rear view mirror at the cutest little pout ever. "I want coco play coco" he said. Auston sighed then turned on the radio to an already loaded disc that began singing nursery rhymes and as Mini Matthews began singing along the baby fell fast asleep. "Awesome" Willy said giving Auston a thumbs up.

______________________________________________________________

feel free to request anything loves<333

(daddy daycare vibes lol)

i'm gonna try to upload as much as i can!!:)

taglist

@julieluvsme

[coffee-at-annies]

6+43 you pick the pairing.

6+43: Bookshop AU+Dance of Romance

This is very hard for me because I fully believe most hockey players cannot read. There is reason the Sidney Crosby School for Hockey Players Who Can’t Read Good is a thing that I believe with my whole heart that exists. You said dealers choice on the pairing so I hope you’re ready for an entire au and many, many pairings. Remember, you asked for this.

Anyway small independent bookshop owners Sid and Geno. They’re gay and married and semi-successful and it’s cute.

Kris is the bitchy barista who barged into their store one day and bullied them into adding a cafe and then took over running it.

He’s got some sort of situationship going with his longtime regular, Tristan, who has never picked up a book in all the time he’s been coming there. He is there every day for his caffeine fix and to do suduko or something else juuuuust close enough to be book adjacent but isn’t reading. I’m not sure there’s enough thoughts in Mouse Boy’s head to read a whole book. At least that’s what he wants us to think and I’m gonna give it to him.

Jake and Bryan (Rusty) are two kids Sid hired from the local college that basically never left after graduating and are still here.

Flower runs the bakery down the street and makes sure Sid has pastries for Kris to sell. He has tried and failed to lure Kris away to do coffee for the bakery. (Flower also used to work at the bookstore but left to go pursue his dream of the bakery and they love and support him but Kris isn’t leaving).

Marcus and Ricky are two Swedish dads that come in for kids storytime and let their kids play around.

They’ve started bringing new Swede-in-town Erik and his daughter with them.

Chad doesn’t work for the bookstore but will occasionally stop by kid in tow for Sid’s storytime.

Ryan Graves just got hired to run the late night shift so they can be open later. (Yes this is a graveyard shift pun)

Magnus is the delivery man who drops off and helps unload book shipments.

(This is a very crowded small bookstore)

Ned is there regularly for book club with EK, Reilly (who is new in town) and Jason (Zucker) (an old regular), along with old not quite married couple Carl and Patric (Hags&Horny).

(All people I believe can read, unlike Jarry)

Jared and Brandon are around somewhere. Probably. (Look I love them).

Zach and Conor and Teddy used to work in the store while in college but unlike Jake and Bryan they left after graduation. Some of them are still around town but some of them have moved away.

The only people I’m missing are 4th line and I’m sorry idc where cookie and neets are tbh and BJC is around. Probably. Maybe he’s a regular, maybe he works the register, idk idc.

That leaves, basically everyone you just said “hey you forgot X” aka Lars Eller and the kids/wbs. If you were wondering why I didn’t mention them, that’s because this fic is about them. Well actually it’s about DOC and POJ because my brain decided that’s the pairing. Don’t ask me why. Big Z is right there with the rest of his harem but no we’re doing PO and Drew (probably because of that silly tortilla video). Anyway all the boys are college students at the local college. Drew is in a study group with Radim, Valterri, Jansen, Vinnie, Sam (Poulin), and Ty (Smith). They’re all taking Professor Eller’s class and they meet up once or twice a week in the bookstore to drink coffee and go over the homework.

Where is PO you ask? Well he’s behind the counter working under Kris as the backup barista. Don’t worry, this romance isn’t going to be customer/barista. No, no. The reason they started meeting here is because Drew works at the bookstore. He’s been there for about a semester (and the summer) but hasn’t really spent much time in the cafe part. It’s not until Big Z talks Drew into running study sessions in the cafe that they start noticing each other.

See PO took Professor Eller’s class last year, so one day, after watching the boys struggle for with the homework for way too long, he pops out from behind the counter and sits down and helps them out. He’s welcome at the study sessions and sometimes when he’s not on shift he’ll bring his school work and while they’re majoring in different things it’s nice to bounce ideas off them.

If you want to know what they’re majoring in, actual real life DOC majored in sociology while playing for Dartmouth. PO has not been to college but he did tell Taylor that if he wasn’t gonna be an athlete he wanted to be a vet or a psychologist so I’m going with he wants to be a Vet Tech and is majoring in whatever is the veterinary sciences equivalent of premed is.

Anyway they hang out at work more and more. This goes on for like a month and then Geno comes up with a big idea for a fall event. They’re doing a Halloween party. Jake and Bryan and Drew and PO have to help decorate the store and on the day of it’s filled with college students, kids, and regulars. Drew is trying desperately to avoid getting his cheek pinched by the old ladies from the knitting circle again. PO is safe because he’s behind the cafe counter serving drinks. PO has fake vampire fangs as his costume. Drew showed up in a not-couples costume with Big Z. If you wanna know what everyone else wore, please see this photo. Except I’m pretty sure Kris is either a prey mantis or the letits are out whichever option makes you, dear reader, feel more insane.

Eventually Sid and Geno shooo all their employees to go mingle and have fun. Drew and PO end up in the makeshift dance floor, music blaring, and after a couple jokes and a some negging from their friends, PO gives Drew a half twirl or something and they laugh it off before the song is even over.

It’s not until later when they’re cleaning up, all alone, music still going in the background, that they start joking about it and one thing leads to another and they actually dance. PO gives drew the full twirl. They bust a move. They slow dance a bit. They’ve never been this close. They’ve only casually touched and now they’re pressed up against each other. They’ve been hanging out at the bookstore outside of study group and Ohohoho what’s this? A feelings realization. Except wait. They’re both idiot college students. So they both awkwardly disengage to go do their job and part ways.

In the following days things are so completely awkward between them at work that Kris throws PO out of the cafe and won’t let him back until he can look Drew in the eye. Drew meanwhile cancels study session because he doesn’t know how to be normal around PO. Don’t worry they can’t continue like that for long. You see there’s a big test coming up and Z ropes PO into helping Drew out cause it’s like 40% of their final grade and Drew has been failing the at-home practice tests something terrible.

They end up staying way later than the rest of the study group going over this exam. Its way late at night, only Ryan is there to lock up behind them, and PO has just spent 4 hours explaining the test back to front - forgetting his awkwardness in the face of his determination to make sure Drew doesn’t fail. Drew definitely stares at PO explaining for a little too long, decides fuck it and goes in for a kiss. These are idiot college boys so instead they bump noses or headbutt each other or something. Poor boys. Can’t even do a surprise kiss correctly. Drew apologizes and then they do have the confession conversation and then the actual kiss. And more kisses. After that, more studying.

The end.

[stromer]

how do you want the draft to go??

overwhelming response (two people in total) to my previous post :p so here are my dope takes that i wish the NHL would take seriously regarding the 2023 draft:

i do not take actual draft order into consideration for like any of these... because ch*cago ruined my life and draft order attempted to ruin idgaf war hero jeichel's life SO!!

bedard to the ducks

i think it's pretty obvious this was the spot i wanted bedsy to land. the whole OC boy experience was something i was rooting so hard for. he needed to discover the healing powers of a double double animal style clowning on zegras. like i've said before, his horror filled eyes would only get worse with one trip on the I5.. and i think it would've made him an even better hockey player somehow 🧪

he REALLY needed to be a canuck. common fact. but those freaks fucked around and found out horrifically. at least they played meaningful hockey when it was supposed to be MEANINGLESS. thank you very much to those orcas. you just lost connor bedard cuz anti-tank kuzmenko had bananas to eat. and quinn. that freak

2. leo carlsson to the sharks

in a perfect world, leo carlsson will never know the saw trap under construction that is Ohio. and the fact that he even knows where it is on the map is already too much for me to bear. if my lovely sharks had actually committed to a really good tank... i would’ve bought a jersey. i will use the power of my delusion to ensure this DOES happen actually. that's a guarantee cuz don't i deserve to be happy?? give me another swede MIKE!!! you keep taking ekky away from me, u capital L Loser so give me another one

in another universe i think leo to philly would be fucking bonkers level big brain 🧠 i only say this cuz i think he needs to hangout with joel farabee IMMEDIATELY. i found leo's tiktok and he's on there being so fucking silly goofy lipsyncing to GUNNA??? hooping to Lil baby??? even hit the griddy?? new era of orange and maybe leo should be there

3. adam fantilli to the HABS

this choice was mainly inspired by this comment adam left on cole's instagram and it got me THINKING. known jhughes fan boy adam fantilli has been going to work getting in with the NTDP boys and i think this is a solid choice somehow. can't really elaborate more on this, just a feeling i'm feeling.

again, in a world where jackets didn't commit to the bit of being so completely morbid awful nasty gross, adam going there so he wasn't too far away from his other half luca would've been good with me. the umichification of OHIO.. c'mon 〽️

and of course the reality of the great chances he's a future duck hasn't been lost on me. i think he's going to be a great addition to the canadian heist that will force zegras into more team canada jerseys.

plus he hit a matthews celly once. and i think that means he goes somewhere where it would be eaten up

4. will smith to buffalo

with a name like will smith he's got to go somewhere that i KNOW bitches will serenade him with the fresh prince of bel air theme song (like he assumedly has been all his life) and what better place to do this than the sabres. a team for silly goofy guys is where i think will smith and his NTDP taught silliness could thrive. also the athletic clowned on him for not being able to skate like jhughes despite being the n.1 center in the NTDP this year. whiteboy hockey looks can haunt you apparently .but my son you will go to a place where it doesn't matter because the vibes are too strong. cuz i said so

however, streets are saying he might be coming to the sharks. no surprise considering will is a future boston college student athlete and mike grier starts acting up anytime someone with BOSTON connections is in his sights. like a rabid dog with no self control. so, maybe bordy will be in contact with smith soon via insta DM?? and maybe i wouldn't be mad about it

anyway... all of these boys are haunted regardless of where they get drafted because they got invited to vegas to watch stanley cup final game 2.. and we all know that was a monstrosity so. Permanently scarred pre draft, here's how i would've saved them.

THE END!

[the-acid-pear]

Rewatch liveblog. On a single post. Because we already did this once. Ok?

I forgot how silly this show was I also forgot how Buttons sounded somehow. Also why is Swede hanging up there come down baby

I feel like I dislike Stede more than I originally did

Buttons king I cannot catch a word you're saying ❤️

How much did I change in a year?

Buttons I fucking Adore you so much holy shit

God his silly ahh wig on the dinner table, obsessed

Also Swede standing up still holding the tea cup confused... Autism icon. To me.

Wait was that Buttons help god am I still unable to tell my babygirls apart after all this time???? 😭

Based Jim.

This IS the pilot but I love how much attention Swede got around this time and ASLO how tough he was

BUTTONS CRINGEFAIL MOMENT ❤️

Hungry bitch ily

Swede was even excited about torturing hostages amaizing

HE'S GETTING BEATEN BY WEE JOHN these men are incredible

Mirá como se agrandó el ladope

BUTTONS YOU'RE AN AUTISM ICON TO ME TOO.

I forgot Jim uses male pronouns in Spanish even before formerly coming out that's really cool

Wait how does Buttons know about Nessie? 😭

I actually adore Black Pete

I'mlisinin

Wouldn't it be hilarious if this show actually had a downer ending w everyone dead?

Lucius is so me

Oh this episode is so boring

I heard there's a bloke who for one quid more plays w your balls or whatever the post said

"well, not terribly successful ones" that's so fucking funny still

I should get attached to Jackie fast too she's soon to be my gf in law

Not too hard q how hot she is

He growled ❤️

Oh Izzy is so.

Jackie making me legs go cold !

I forgot Jim kissed Lucius

Jim doesn't even look feminine idk why they're instantly like ah she's a woman! Like they look like some bloke idk. Like imagine Lucius shaved his sideburns and they were like LUCIUS IS A WOMAN?? like it's the same to me.

Rip Stede btw idc lol

Never really cared about Ed appearing but let's just roll w it.

I'll finish this show tomorrow for sure

[adickaboutspoons]

I used to be dancing with the madmen, now I'm just a dick about spoons

Masterlist of my contributions to fandom, both from this handle, and when I was @dancing-with-the-madmen.

Relationships Stede/Ed: The Art of Buggery

Speedrunning U-Haul Pirates

Stede: Stede and the Thanatos Drive*

cPTSD trauma responses in Ed and Stede

But Why Piracy?

Touchy-touchy

Talk it Through as a Crew (not for me, though, just for you)

Stede’s racism (“yes and”-ing in a tag novel)

Ed:

Spooky Scary Speculation (what if Ed thinks the reason Stede didn’t join him at the dock is because Stede is dead)

Scraps of Evidence, or the Maps that Lead to You

Fire Marshal Ed

When the Worksona Gets Co-Opted (“yes and”-ing in a tag novel)

Guilt and Struggling with Worthlessness (a “yes-and” reply)

Team Never A Plan (a “no but” reply)

Ed Knows about Mary (a “no but” reply)

Jim:

We Live in a State of Nature

Why The Kraken Kept Jim and Frenchie (and not anyone else): (a “yes and” reply)

Mary:

Mary is not without fault (and that’s a good thing) (“yes and”-ing in a tag novel)

S01ep06:

The Lamentable Tragedie of Hands-let

Why Are Fang and Ivan Backing up Izzy During the Doggy Heaven Scene?

S01ep8:

The Massive Aggression of Calico Jack

S01ep10:

The Significance of Ned

Set design: Ship-shaped, Part 1 - What We Know

Ship-shaped, Part 2 - Best Guesses

Ship-shaped Part 3 - Rampant Speculation and Vile Calumny

Ship-shaped Part 4 - A Proportional Response

Ship-shaped Part 5 - The Not-So-Secret Stairs

Ship-shaped: Part I Give Up

Ship-shaped: Part It’s Just A Tardis, Ya’ll

Ok, so I’m a dick about spoons

Gay Love on the Horizon

Costuming:

I Guess That’s Why They Call it the Blues (a response to and expansion upon weirdgirlcore’s meta on the use of blue in Stede’s wardrobe)

Orange (the conclusion to I Guess That’s Why They Call it the Blues. Brevity? I don’t know her)

Steal Ed’s Party Look: A Step-by-Step Hair Styling Tutorial with Pics 

Playlists:

Swedes to the Swede: an all Swedish artists homage to our favorite nameless character

Izzy the trash goblin homophobic closet case (affectionate)

Wanna Do Something Weird? (an Ed/Stede falling-in-love playlist)

Ed & Stede's Big Dumb Sad Breakup Playlist

Fan-vids: I’ve Got a Crush On You - a Hornberry/Stede fanvid

Being A Pirate - a little silliness (and a lot of dick jokes)

The World if Full of Bastards - Ed gets to have an angry punk girl phase

Off With His Shirt

Oh My God I Think I Like You

Season 2 speculation Bingo:

self-sabotage through over-specificity

Fic:

Dearly Beloved (a comedy of errors based on this exchange)

Something Weird (a silly little ficlet in which Ed makes a proposition & Stede makes an assumption.)

Stede Sonnets (I have a problem. It’s everyone’s problem now. Based on this exchange)

Beautiful and Useless (Missing scene; wound care after the Stab Me scene)

Your Achilles (Ed’s perspective on the events of Beautiful and Useless. Longer and hornier)

Hook Head Man Tale (short one-shot resulting from an ofmd-daily challenge)

Put Your Kraken Arms Around Me (inspired by @wearfinethingsalltoowell: Imagine Stede not knowing bed-sharing etiquette and so he rolls over to the side to give Ed space, and then Ed is just like “nope. I’m getting a hug Stede no escape”)

[tasteofdeathao3]

How do the less child oriented people react to AB Izzy? Like Lucius I can imagine being more freaked out by the baby being near him than the fact hat he used to know that baby as an adult

yeah actually I think there would be sort of a divide regarding AB izzy like - no one hates him, at least not anymore, but there are definitely some people who like children and some people who just don't click with them.

I definitely imagine Lucius as one of those people who just doesn't get babies, he thinks they're plenty cute from afar but if he sees your newborn baby he will insult it. I think everyone is at least a little bit miffed about how someone on their crew is now an actual infant but Lucius is far more concerned that there's a baby that could at any moment vomit all over him or defecate so much that it's literally dripping out of his clothes and onto other people. I think when Izzy's a bit older he can appreciate him more, but otherwise he takes a backseat in all matters concerning Izzy.

I think Jim would do surprisingly well with AB izzy, perhaps not at the infancy stage, but they would certainly enjoy a toddler Izzy, who's cheeky and naughty and likes to blabber on about things he thinks are important and loves the person who can throw knives and darts and can always find him in hide and seek. They're like a cool aunt? uncle? cousin? that Izzy's infatuated with once he learns that people aside from Ed and Stede actually exist

I definitely think the Swede would be really disgruntled by the baby by the sheer amount of disruption he can cause all on his own. He doesn't really mind Izzy himself but he will get very upset after Izzy's been crying for a while, and will accidentally blurt out something incredibly rude about Izzy (because he's so silly and has no braincells) without even realising until he's getting looks from everyone on the crew.

Pete definitely brags about aallll his experience with children, about how amazing he is at calming down crying babies and overall just sort of vibes with kids, and then all of a sudden Ed and Stede are asking if he can watch Izzy for the day/night and he has a mini panic attack because he cannot care for a child and has no idea what to do when Izzy won't stop crying. He also almost makes himself sick when Izzy needs to be changed and needs to lie down for the rest of the day afterwards.

Old really isn't the biggest fan of babies, mostly because he'll probably drop it at some point and just doesn't want to get involved with all that, but he steps up when he's needed to and will do what other crew members won't because ultimately he knows Izzy is only a baby and feels kind of shitty for not helping out when he can't help himself.

Buttons stays away from the baby. he's not afraid, he doesn't (outwardly) believe that Izzy is under some demonic curse, he just doesn't really have much to do with infants of any sort and doesn't wish to involve himself.

[izzy-b-hands]

ok fuck it im typing a general bit abt the new fic ideas i had. partially bc im excited to share but also so i don't forget them (work tends to wipe my brain and I've already lost some ideas i really loved to that lmao)

Below the cut to save ppls dashes and bc nsfw

1. Glory fic V 2, canon period and exclusively for the crew. Izzy's frustrated he can't relax despite everything (in this case we're post s2 so including surviving what he did there) being slightly better/more chill even if they're on the run from like. Every fucking navy lmao. Ed cracks a joke abt how they used to pop into the back of Jackie's and get off with strangers there, but Jackie's is no more and he'll know who's fucking him bc it's just. all of them on the ship.

Unless.

Ed winds up setting it up with a glory hole in some random room (ball room, rec room, idk I'll figure that out lol), and the strict instructions to everyone to come by as/if they want to fuck Izzy silly, without him knowing who on the crew is on the other side (at least at first.) example scene: Cut to a fucked out, cockdrunk, subspacey Izzy with Ed's thumb in his mouth, sucking on it like his life depends on it, while the Swede fucks him thru the glory hole while Jackie pegs him

2. Similar scenario for this one, but no glory hole. Instead:

Izzy is splayed out, comfy, horny, finally letting himself be absolutely pampered, stationed in the bed in the captain's quarters. Throughout the day, everyone can come and play if they want, but there are a couple rules they've added to spice it up.

a. if they have a cock, they're only allowed to jerk off over him until they reach the point of cumming. Then, and ONLY THEN can they push themselves inside of him as they cum. They can touch and let him touch, but no actual fucking until the finale lol.

b. if they have a strap, anal only specifically to tease Izzy by leaving his pussy open for fingers/tongue/other toys (i absolutely hc that he and Pete are just. constantly whittling and perfecting their own handmade toys for the crew lol)

[kindofwriter]

Literally impossible to pick a favourite OFMD character because, like, Lucius is the definition of blorbo from your shows; he’s so cute and flirty and smart and helpful, and ships the main ship just as hard as the audience, and he carries himself like he’s cute, and he tries so darn hard to help everyone with their issues.

But then there’s Frenchie, with his little tunes and his left-field superstitions, and his brilliant tactical mind for schemes, who’s willing to fuck up a bunch of rich people because they offended a man he’d just met, and who gave all his riches away to help others escape a life of servitude.

And Jim, who’s badass and soft, and just the most delightful nb rep, and whose favourite colour is teal because of Oluwande’s earring, and who goes back to their old home despite it feeling haunted just because their shipmate asked nicely.

And Roach, who sleeps with his onions, and figured he may as well be the ship’s doctor because meat is meat, right? Who accidentally let the prisoners he was totally down to murder escape just because they asked, and who threw himself off the ship’s mast in the spirit of frat boy camaraderie.

And Oluwande, who is just the world’s most adorable character, who sees the good in everyone around him and they see it in him in turn, who likes when captain does the voices, who values Jim’s safety even more than they do themself, and gives his room away when they leave, and who’s voted the new captain despite not wanting the role.

And Black Pete, who secretly whittles, and tells silly little tales about a man he saw probably one time that absolutely no one believes, who, upon meeting said man, didn’t seem to mind in the slightest that he wasn’t everything he’d imagined, and who’s so head over heels in love with Lucius it’s adorable.

And Wee John, who wants to design his room with Frenchie, and was willing to dress up as a cat for him, and who wants to get stabbed by Jim, and who, upon meeting the dread pirate Blackbeard for the first time, just stared him down, unflinching.

And Buttons, the man, the myth, the legend himself, with his some-are-teeth, and his relationship with Karl and Olivia, and his moonlight basking, and his use of actual Scots, and his own brand of superstition, and his belief that he can hex people and talk to seagulls.

And the Swede, with his beautiful singing voice, and his just along for the ride attitude, and the way his crew mates seem willing to do anything for him, and his bandanna in the colours of the Swedish flag.

And that’s without even mentioning Stede, fancy soft-boy who just wants everyone to be happy, even if he doesn’t always know the best way of going about it. Who pays his crew a wage. Who has secret passages on his ship. Who played pirates with his children and they loved it. Who fell in love with the concept of a fearsome pirate, and then with his soft, silly best friend. Who burned a ship of people alive for being cruel. Who gave up everything to make both his old and new families happy.

And Ed, literally tumblr’s manic pixie dream girl. Tactical, strong, and intimidating, but also warm, loving, lost. Terrified of a world that is terrified of him. Tragic backstory and a hopeless romantic. A massive pushover who’s convinced himself this is the life he wanted. Likes things that are sweet and soft, both literally and metaphorically. Oh, and hot. He’s hot.

But still!!! There’s more!!! If you like little freaks who are confused about their own emotions and motives then Izzy is right there! Badass on duty and big softie in their downtime? Fang and Ivan! Mary, taking control of her own life. Mary’s cool and quirky friends. Spanish Jackie, with her 20 18 husbands and her knife-hand. Nana, teaching Jim how to be an assassin.

They are all so good and I adore them all.

[johannestevans]

Our Flag Means Death S01 E01: Close Textual Analysis

Examining OFMD E1: Pilot in close detail and liveblogging/analysing the text. 

A still from Our Flag Means Death E1 via IMDb. 

I’ve done these before, but just to set some expectations:

This is going to be a rewatch liveblog going through E1 and closely reading and responding to the text, bit by bit, in chronological order.

It’s going to be pretty casual in tone, I will be swearing and making sex jokes and blah blah blah, this is close reading for fun and isn’t academic in tone, but it’s still close reading and commentary on the text with some analysis here and there. For fun.

I’m gay, gay, homosexual, gay, and I’m not editing out the bits where I get distracted by being horny for the benefit of your entertainment and also my own lack of shame. You’re welcome. 

I have seen the whole series, I will be making constant reference to other stuff later in the text, so there will be spoilers for later in the series. 

I’ve been meaning to do one of these for a while and I’m planning to go through more of the episodes if not at all of them, but I was definitely inspired by some of the YouTube compilations of background details in the first few episodes, such as by YouTube user swashbuckling sweethearts and YouTube user Rindecision.

Roach and Izzy are my favourite characters in the show so in case you haven’t seen it, Samba Schutte did a really cool interview with JUST ADD COLOR the last day so check that out as well. 

This analysis of E1 is a little over 14k.

1717. The Golden Age of Piracy. 

Wealthy landowner Stede Bonnet set out to find adventure and renown on the high seas.

Things did not go as planned…

Rindecision pointed out in one of their YouTube compilations that they use the same font and justification for the introductory panel as they do to introduce Black Sails which I really appreciate — I know Taika Waititi’s favourite romance movie is Master and Commander, and I love stuff like the homages to Black Sails in this show as well because like… queer sailors, man, it all comes together. 

Anyway, I love and adore Frenchie and I adore his lute and I love his silly little lyrics and his accent. It’s like a West Country thing, I’m guessing Bristol? It’s Joel Fry’s own accent, and I’ve been looking up to see but I can’t see him talking about it anywhere, but I love it. 

One of the things I really love about the show consistently is how people mostly have their own accents (the real characters, not the Spanish/British/French cannon fodder), and especially like, seeing the variety in English accents between Oluwande, Frenchie, Izzy, and Lucius, especially. 

I never noticed until rewatching just how much Oluwande and Pete really get on each other’s nerves, and especially how Oluwande, who’s honestly quite an understanding and easygoing guy, is constantly the first one to tell Pete to shut the fuck up when he’s being a prick, and I love that for him.

They’re all playing cards and Pete’s fidgeting and like:

ROACH: It’s your bet.

PETE: I know it’s my bet.

OLUWANDE: Then bet. Why are you always taking long?

PETE: Fuck this! I’m out.

And he slams his cards down, and like… So I know that there’s the crew as family and that there is a vague sense of like, sibling/bickering family member dynamics between the crew later on, but the thing about the first episode is that you can see a lot of characters do not necessarily like each other or learn to get on with each other as they do later on?

Which, to be fair, is because they have nothing to ally against and all they have to do is have a go at each other, even without Pete’s constant temper tantrums.

I love that they appear to be betting seashells with each other as they gamble, especially because Wee John’s doing rope stuff in the background, Oluwande apparently walked away from the table to do his own rope stuff, the Swede is shuffling cannonballs around, and Jim is just… brooding. As they do. 

I love how all the lads go hey! when Pete shuffles up the cards on the table because it’s such an asshole thing to do, but one thing I really love about Samba Schutte’s approach to Roach is how expressive he is with his body — he does so much acting with his hands and arms and he does so many like… plaintive gestures and stuff, and it kills me. 

Oluwande rolling his eyes at Pete gives me so much love and strength. 

So Buttons is calling out over the ship, “On your feet for your captain!” which I think is interesting — I do kind of get the impression that of the people on the Revenge, Buttons is the one with the most formal experience? Or the most formal proclivities anyway. 

Love that Pete is already on his feet, as is the Swede, Roach, Frenchie, Jim, and Lucius reluctantly get up, and Wee John stays sat down because fuck authority — and so does Oluwande, because he’s the real authority.

Frenchie’s so much shyer in the first few episodes than he is later on and like, I really appreciate his meek defence of Stede saying maybe he’s just a sort of slow pirate, but ditto like, how quiet and sweet his voice is when he goes, “Um, bottle it up?” in response to Bonnet’s talk it through prompting — I really wonder about it because like…

So obviously later on we see Frenchie so much more confident and excited before obviously becoming withdrawn and quiet post-marooning in the final episode, and I think it’d be easy to think that with Frenchie’s conman abilities that the shyness is an act, but I don’t think that’s the case? Like, he can be a good conman, but in episode 1 he’s very much learning who he is on the ship and who he can relax and play with, and I like that by default he’s quite shy even though he’s also a very cheerful and optimistic guy. 

Stede goes, “No, Frenchie, that’s the worst thing you could do!” and he goes, “No? Oh, oh, sorry…” and he backs down and he looks so nervous and like… 

I really hope an interviewer goes through all the cast and their personal backstories for the characters at some point because I know Frenchie mentions being in service and I’m so curious about like, how much of his uncertainty and meekness in conversation comes from uncertainty around, you know, white people — or at the least, rich white people like Stede. 

I like how tired Wee John is of the whole situation, especially when he goes, “We talk about it?” and then looks annoyed at Jim and the Swede — he’s not present much in the passive aggression episode later but I will undoubtedly have thoughts to express on like, Irish approaches to English imperialist ideals around “politeness” and whatever, but also like… compliance with forced politeness to get it over with as soon as possible versus resisting out of awkwardness and then drawing it out. 

When Stede screams “places everybody” and just sort of toddles about awkwardly without any idea what he’s doing it’s. Funny. He’s such an awkward mess of a man. Made of spaghetti. 

I have to wonder if Swede is meant to be in the position of master gunner because it’s him that hauls cannonballs around and awkwardly drops one down on the poor auld fellas and it’s like… Why is it him? Like, “why?” is a good question to ask about this entire crew and ship but. Seriously, why? He can’t lift one cannonball.

WEE JOHN, disapprovingly: They’re just a couple of old geezers… 

My subtitles say that the person coaching Stede over the side to awkwardly clamber down with the ladder is Buttons, but it’s not — it’s Oluwande. I love that it’s the Swede and Roach trying unsuccessfully to hold the ladder still at the top and everyone else just watches with disgust. 

I’m crying I didn’t realise that when Stede pulled his hat off his head and bade the fishermen farewell they did the same thing and said, “Take care of the plant!” These poor fucking old guys.

STEDE (about the plant): Really fills the space, doesn’t it?

LUCIUS: … Yeah. (wide-eyed, staring at Stede like, “is he fucking serious?” but of course he’s serious, because it’s Stede.) It’s fine. (little widening of the eyes/eyeroll to himself and half-shrug as he stares down at the journal to save himself from the awkwardness). 

STEDE: Now, where was I?

LUCIUS: Um… being a pirate captain…

I’m just very curious about Lucius’ position and how he found his way onto the Revenge and into Stede’s employ because literally at no point does he look comfortable or certain of where he is and what he’s doing in the first few episodes — we know he’s a pickpocket and that he can read and write, but also pushes reading and writing as quite impressive? And I think Nathan Foad has mentioned somewhere about him doing some work as a molly and like…

He’s just in a tenuous position in general and I can see how it’d be (relatively) safe under a man like Stede who’s an obvious fruit and also an idiot, but like… he’s at sea? Surrounded by violent men who may or may not hate mollies like him? Like I just die over how it seems to be that the people other than Stede that Lucius talks most with, and who he’s most comfortable with, are actually Pete and Oluwande, who obviously hate each other but like… are the other two queer men on the ship. 

Stede’s got Problems (autism and anxiety same hat lmao) but what I find so funny is that Lucius is so fucking unprepared for them — Stede comes down, sweeps his coat aside with a flourish, sits, is sitting for less than a second, walks across the room, opens the curtains, leans against the wall for two seconds, then just starts walking out of the office, and Lucius is watching him like, “wait, wait, where are you — “ and then is awkwardly chasing after him with his book and quill and it’s so funny. This poor fucking man. 

The language Stede’s using with Lucius is really interesting too — when Stede’s talking about how he pays the crew a salary, he’s saying to Lucius, “For example, if your average pirate doesn’t steal, he doesn’t eat. That’s a lot of mental pressure.” And Lucius is genuinely interested, or at the very least, concentrated — he’s making notes as he follows Stede, but he’s also making eye contact with him and matching his expressions. “So… I pay my crew a salary — same wage every week, no matter what.”

What’s curious to me about this set-up is that Lucius is being treated like an outside observer or an interviewer. The journal is not being paid for or organised by an outside party or authority, and it’s not like Lucius is doing this of his own accord — this is a vanity project, Lucius is Stede’s scribe, and Stede is paying him for this, but Stede talks to him as if it’s Lucius asking him questions rather than Stede directing his own journal.

It’s not that he sees Lucius as a peer, because he calls Lucius “boy” and gives him orders and instructions, but what he is doing is thinking constantly of the eventual intention for his journal to be read by others, his own peers, perhaps the boys who used to bully him at school, men he knows in Barbados. Lucius is therefore serving as an extension of them while Stede is talking, and like… It’s no wonder Lucius isn’t fucking used to that, because while he can read and write, I do not get the impression he’s ever served as a clerk, or that he’s educated enough to get a position like that in a real office rather than with someone who’s not Stede.

Lucius is under a lot of stress here because it’s a weird position to be in — a lot of personal assistant jobs are strangely intimate and have a weird sense of boundaries because you’re expected to act as an extension of another person’s will, but Lucius isn’t just a PA, he’s Stede’s fucking diarist, and he just has to write down all of Stede’s thoughts while Stede (to Lucius, possibly seemingly at random) swaps between talking to Lucius politely, like the two of them are having a measured and even conversation (when Lucius is acting as a scribe and an extension of Stede’s own peer group) and like his servant (the rest of the time). 

I’m not saying Lucius can’t have had experience with that, especially because if he has worked in mollyhouses, sex work often has a similar vibe when you’re testing someone out and seeing who they want you to be to them/act like you are to them, but this specific scenario is almost undoubtedly a new one to him, and a weird feeling to juggle.

I would also point out that Stede says, “I pay my crew a salary…” — the use of the personal pronoun here excludes Lucius. Now, is Stede talking to Lucius, bearing in mind he makes eye contact with him that Lucius returns and engages with as if he’s an interviewer, or is he talking entirely to his imaginary readers? Because it sounds like, from Lucius’ perspective, that Lucius doesn’t count as a member of the crew, that he’s separate from the crew. 

Which, yeah, that could track, in that Lucius is a secretary and is separate from the crew proper, much as on many ships now, ship’s sailors and maintenance crew separate from those responsible for domestic tasks and customer service, but also like… Lucius is very much on board with the mutiny and puts himself between Pete and Oluwande, on their side, and obviously considers himself a part thereof. 

Unionise, I guess, is what I’m saying. 

I do find it telling that Stede says the crew “came around” to the idea and then starts telling Lucius all about amenities that the crew do not necessarily seem massively into though, because like… Stede’s whole thing is having great ideas and not discussing their execution or the appeal of them with the crew. 

STATE OF THE ART EN SUITE where Pete’s having a shit and Roach is stuffed into a tiny little tub that his legs and his arms both stick out of having a bath — but we know that Stede has a literal massive full-sized tub elsewhere? Classic Stede.

Swede’s polishing cannonballs because… It’s the Swede — I do find it interesting that Stede feels the need to go around calling everything the rec center or jam room or whatever when like, it’s literally just the interior of the ship, but it is cute that everyone’s playing music together even if it’s because Stede’s doing a TV interview-style supercut three hundred years before TV was invented. 

STEDE: And, of course, a full library! The crew is free to borrow books whenever. So far, you’re the only one to take me up on it. 

LUCIUS: Well, I’m the only crew member who can read. 

STEDE: That’s not… Is that true? Ough. 

Stede’s face in this scene is so interesting because the harpsichord is doing this background smug thing as Stede haughtily walks away, and he genuinely acts as if it’s distasteful and unthinkable that the crew can’t read, but like… It is not sympathetic or compassionate about them.

He acts as if the crew have all actively made a choice not to be able to read, and as if it’s something they should be looked down on for, and it’s interesting seeing Lucius’ face as the camera goes back to him because Lucius is like… annoyed.

Not massively! He’s not going to kick up a fuss. 

But he’s furrowing his brow and curling his lip a bit and he’s looking at Stede so intently, and what I love about the Lucius we see in the early episodes versus later on is the way we constantly see him exhibiting and exercising significant restraint in telling Stede what’s up because like… his position is tenuous. None of the crew know what Stede is really like yet, and they definitely don’t trust him or think of him as a particularly reliable employer. 

I REFUSE TO BE ATTRACTED TO RHYS DARBY BUT READING GLASSES A BIT HOT, ACTUALLY.

I love how the crew are lined up and all just look so disgusted and annoyed with Stede, even before Stede effectively opens up his notes and critique session by praising himself and saying how “inspiring” his own opening speech was. 

PETE: Stealing a plant is hardly swashbuckling.

ROACH: (laughs)

WEE JOHN: A fecking disgrace is what it is.

I love Roach and Wee John, I don’t think I’ve observed their friendship closely enough but they do team up a LOT, and I’m like… good. Let them tell Stede he’s a prick. 

I love what comes after though because it’s about the reframing of power dynamics and stuff where like… Stede is such a hypocrite and is obviously rich and white and clueless about literally everything, and that’s the core driver in his tensions with much of the crew in the initial few episodes, but the places where I find myself having the most genuine affection for Stede are where he opens himself up to criticism. He doesn’t do it every time, he’s got his own sensitivities about it, but I really appreciate it when it’s obviously something that’s uncomfortable by definition, and the thing is like — 

Because everyone on the crew is so used to brute force as a response to insults, every time Stede does it, or praises them unexpectedly, they’re really caught off guard and engage with it. 

STEDE: What was that? Who said that? Wee John, was that you?

Stede has such primary school teacher vibes, and I do actually love that he says “what?” and “who?” before he directly addresses John, and also asks if it was him even though they’re standing 6 feet away from each other and they both know damn well it was him — it’s Stede’s politeness going, where just outright retorting to John would be overly direct and therefore rude, but it’s also quite a non-threatening way of approaching the conflict in a way that establishes surprise and disapproval that someone would say something unkind before directly addressing the unkindness, just like teachers do with kids.

WEE JOHN, raising his shoulders and his head: And what if it were? (starts raising up a weapon)

LUCIUS: (silently looks at Stede with his lips pressed together, willing Stede to make eye contact with him so he can tell him to back down)

STEDE, flustered: Well, I’d… 

LUCIUS: (literally rocking slightly on his feet)

STEDE: I’d simply ask you to, uh, reframe that criticism… as a suggestion.

I have the show on pause here and I’m fascinated by Wee John’s chance, I want to cup Kristian Nairn’s face between my palms and tell him that I adore him unconditionally, it’s like…

Stede says those words and Wee John is just immediately emotionally — and physically — disarmed. He puts his blunt instrument down by his sides, his arms come down, his shoulders come back, he raises his head and leans back the slightest bit on his heels, his jaw is agape, his eyes are slightly wide, his eyebrows are raised. He’s aghast at this. It doesn’t compute.

Wee John, a few minutes ago, wouldn’t get to his feet just because he was told to do so, but he was also the one who looked vaguely irritated with the crew when no one else gave Stede the obvious right answer to his question — and now, Stede is responding to Wee John’s offer of a fight with like…

Tell me what you’d like to do better.

Tell me how to change.

Tell me, your captain, how best to please you.

STEDE: What’s one thing you’d change around here, if you could?

WEE JOHN: Well, we don’t even have a flag, for one. 

EVERYONE: (murmurings of agreement)

STEDE: Oh. 

WEE JOHN: Any pirate worth a damn has a flag. 

So firstly I’m guessing this scene was cut shortly for time — I really wish that in the cut between Stede asking what he’d change and the camera returning to John that we were able to see John’s transition between his shock and surprise at being asked his opinion to him actually gearing himself up to give that opinion, because he goes from very open body language to a much more businesslike, closed-off stance. I know that OFMD is sitcom and they don’t like, have the time to go through all the organic motions of character work unless it’s for the bigger emotional beats, but I’m just hungry for this kind of character acting and every single member of the cast is so good at it, but in this scene obviously like, especially Nairn.

Anyway, all the crew agree, and you can see Stede listening and taking it really seriously, Rhys Darby does the dad approval thing where he presses his lips together and raises his eyebrows and gives one big nod of the head, which I really like, because it’s like…

The crew are so just weirded out by it, but I love what it says about Stede’s management style as you see the crew go on and like each other.

Waht I really dislike about some people’s readings or surface-level takes from the show is this idea that Stede is somehow like, “civilising” the crew, and that’s not it. His way is not more “civilised”, which you can tell by the way that Stede upholds so much racist shit — what Stede is introducing is not present in “polite” society.

What Stede is introducing is not what he grew up with, or what he’s used to, or what rich people do in general.

What Stede is instead instituting is a management policy where management are open to criticism and, as much as he’s capable of in his tone-deaf way, a working environment that genuinely fosters open communication — and especially rewatching this episode now and thinking about how much conflict everyone has with each other and how much they all get on each other’s nerves versus later, like… This approach works and does have a positive effect, even just in them all being more confident speaking with each other and Stede, not just with criticism, but with positive feedback as well.

Fuck me though, Lucius’ background anxiety is incredible, Nathan Foad really did put his whole fucking heart into this role and I’m a little distracted by his chest hair on the still I paused on right now but like… When Stede and Lucius are putting out the silks, Lucius keeps glancing at Stede and the rest of the crew, and fuck, the anxiety that’s coming off him in waves, like…

So Stede’s putting out the silks and even before Pete starts off on his “that’s women’s work” posturing, Roach and Frenchie look baffled and a little bit annoyed with it. The whole crew are a bit like “what the fuck, mate?” 

And Stede isn’t experiencing any tension because he’s austistic and under several warm, comfortable blankets of denial at all times, but Lucius? 

Also like, watch Pete deliver that line by the way. When he says “That’s women’s work,” he’s looking someone up and down, but the way that Lucius rolls his eyes immediately after, it definitely comes off as Pete doing that at Lucius rather than Stede. 

Lucius a gay man who’s obviously gay on a ship full of, presumably, heterosexual pirates, many of whom have violent inclinations, and Lucius is not used to violence in the first instance, but in the second, like — 

Lucius refers to himself as a crew member and sees himself as a crew member, but there’s very much that awareness that he’s often separated from the rest of the crew and in many ways acts as an extension of Stede, and do the crew see him that way or see him as one of them? Especially when Stede talks to Lucius the way he does and Lucius is afforded special treatment? Even if everyone mutinied and didn’t directly go for Lucius, how well would he do in that situation?

The background acting choices are just… so much. 

OKAY PRIMARY SCHOOL TEACHER STEDE AGAIN LIKE…

STEDE: How many of you sew? Be honest…

ROACH: (slowly raising his hand) Sewed my shoulder up once… after I’d been stabbed. (pulls back his shirt)

EVERYONE: (groans)

STEDE: Oh! Did you hear that, guys? Roach sewed his own arm up!

I love Schutte’s delivery of these lines because like, again, none of these men are used to being asked their opinions or to share, let alone with the whole crew as a collective with no ranks, but Roach comes off as so like… uncertain? He genuinely is shy, he’s treading carefully and trying to figure out exactly how to approach this situation.

Everyone’s responding with a bit of horror because it’s a nasty injury, Lucius is stood there next to Stede with his eyes fixed to Roach as if Roach is about to be the new star of his nightmares and Lucius is already dreading it…

And how does Stede respond? With praise. He gestures to Roach and goes “sewed his own arm up!” in a very demonstrative way, then follows it up with, “Sounds to me like sewing can be pretty tough!”

(And Roach gives a serious little nod.)

How do you get your crew on board with an activity? Praise the person that opts into the activity, hold up their behaviour as a model and praiseworthy, and then pinpoint the insecurity others are feeling about the activity, (in this case, loss of masculinity) and demonstrate that it’s not a concern. 

That’s how you model good behaviour and it kills me that Stede does that so fucking well, especially when his desire to communicate this way is borne out of his own childhood where he consistently got the opposite. 

Love that Wee John immediately wraps himself in a nice fabric and that everyone gets to work, but also I love that what Stede models consistently is like… Praise. He does encourage everyone to express themselves, but then goes, “Oh, that’s very good!” and engages with everybody one on one, asks what they’re doing and makes sure he gets it and understands.

Also him going, “Don’t you look holy!” and Wee John going, “Oh, thank you.” I adore him. 

“A lot of the guys are sweethearts, deep down… (Roach tries to steal something from the Swede, the Swede grabs him, the two of them commence to beat the shit out of each other. Oluwande confiscates the scissors from Roach before he can use them as Stede breaks them up.) … they’re just dealing with a fair amount of trauma.”

I find it really interesting that Stede says this and knows this, but he also did that massive bitchy thing about the crew not being able to read — there’s a few layers to that I think in that like…

So the conversation about the crew not being able to read was one on one between him and Lucius and was an actual conversation, whereas what Stede is saying to Lucius as his diarist is a performance that’s intended to make him look as palatable and like… especially kind and charitable as possible?

But also, to go back to the primary school teacher vibe, like, there’s no way not to think of Stede’s school teacher-esque approach, his parochial, condescending attitude, and also the like, thing about piracy which to him is like, an adventure, but amounts to this weird trauma tourism? Oluwande and Jim sit down and discuss this with him a bit later, I think in this episode, but like — 

The way he goes “fair amount of trauma” feels so charged with racial and class implications too with the way the voice over is applied to him splitting up the fight, because if Stede is a primary school teacher, he’s the very rich and comfortable teacher who’s just gone to volunteer at an underfunded school in a “diverse” area, and he’s incapable of being normal about it. 

It’s not that he’s wrong about any of the crew being traumatised, it’s the fact that he scoffs at the crew not being able to read and talks about them being traumatised with the exact same huffy, superior tone — they’re traumatised and can’t read, unlike their betters (him). 

Like! David Jenkins mentioned in an interview about the value of a legitimately diverse writers’ room and I just want to quote this bit:

[Charles Pulliam-Moore]: The show about the slave-owning pirate should probably have some people of color in the writers’ room.

[David Jenkins]: Right, and it’s not checking off a diversity list with a golf pencil but really being honest with yourself and asking, “Do I have the perspectives and terms of race, gender, sexuality to create a shared sociological imagination?” It’s fucked up because you write a show and a lot of the plaudits go to you, the showrunner, and it’s like you’re using all of these brains. You know, you have this horsepower of all of these writers like this. The season is the function of all of these brains coming together and creating one sociological imagination.

And when it comes to stuff like this, specifically where you see all these levels of awareness and implication layered on top of each other, on top of the fact that you’ve got a cast of incredibly talented character actors who are putting in a lot of work and effort internally but then with each other, like… 

It just feels so real, and that’s so evocative — and it makes it so much more real then when you have these moments of cluelessness, especially like, thoughtless cruelty or callousness, from Stede or the other characters, and it’s part of the broader tapestry of the character proper.

And what’s really refreshing about OFMD too is like… The way that it depicts race, the way it depicts class, gender, sexuality, neurodivergence, disability, basically anything you can think of, is that they’re all a constant and continuous part of the characters and the world, they’re intrinsic to them.

No one is being Black or queer or disabled to try to teach the audience about something, or to represent a nebulous category that’s supposedly meant to satisfy all manner of “diverse” people at once, as a monolith, and similarly, when characters are being racist or homophobic or just generally dicks to one another, it’s not to hold the audience’s hand and teach them a valuable lesson, or stroke their ego and say, “it’s okay, champ, I know you would have done the right thing, not like this racist guy!”

Instead you see stuff like this where like, there’s a lot more overt racism and classism from Stede later in this episode, but here the schoolteacher attitude giving a voiceover interview to a presumed privileged audience, all condescending over his “underprivileged” employees, that’s a thing I’ve heard and seen again and again and again in fiction and in actual documentaries and stuff— and is also parodied in Abbott Elementary with Chris Perfetti’s character, Jacob — and it feels real, because it is real, and it’s stupid, and it’s funny and quite horrid.

There’s just so many TV shows where the characters are written in such a way where it’s like… When you look away or turn the screen off, they’ll stop being Like That because no one’s watching — it’s not just that the characters themselves don’t feel organic or real or richly considered, it’s that any bigotries or structural oppressions they face only apply when writers and directors feel that it will make an interesting story beat, rather than those aspects being intrinsic to the character.

The fact that the whole team has put such consideration into what struggles to portray and what ones to leave offscreen, and how they want to present everything, takes away that uncomfortable feeling and just leaves us with much realer, more complex characters. 

STEDE: (to Roach, doing the stern dad finger point) So, first of all, you should have asked… (to Swede), And second of all, what could you do with your large bit of fabric? 

THE SWEDE: Talk about it?

STEDE: No, shared. You could have shared it. 

THE SWEDE: Oh.

They don’t know the right answer. They have no idea what the fuck kind of game Stede is playing, so whenever Stede asks a question they all assume it’s a bizarre trap, and when he asks more questions, they respond with a rote answer from one of his previous questions, because this isn’t how anyone runs a pirate crew, and I do love that. 

I also think it’s so sweet how the Swede holds the whole swathe of fabric to his chest like it’s a teddy bear or something. 

PETE: Well, guess it’s time…

OLUWANDE: For what?

Pete: To kill Captain.

Obsessed with how Oluwande’s response to Pete shoving his knife through the table is literally to put his hands down and roll his eyes and look away like, “Oh my God, this shit, what the fuck — “ He’s so done. He’s so fucking tired of Pete being Pete.

I do love that Pete apologises to Frenchie for ruining his fabric when Frenchie goes, “Come on, mate,” like, Pete is capable of… some manners.

STEDE, looking dramatically over the ship: If I can help this crew grow, as people, then I’ve succeeded as a pirate captain. 

Like…

I’ll be asking this question a lot as the series goes on, but you do wonder like… Why piracy? Or more specifically like, who is Stede doing piracy for? His stupid fucking diary is so important to him and like, everything he does is for this imaginary audience of people who actually think he’s impressive instead of thinking he’s a bellend, and it’s an interesting parallel, I think, to Ed who does exist in the midst of this heavily constructed personal mythos and feels very trapped by it, especially because Stede is posh and is hiring a diarist and is also white, and his control over his own narrative is very different and can presumably be more directly targeted to a broader audience? I’ll probably ruminate on that parallel further as we go on. 

I love that it’s Buttons who immediately goes to Stede and says mutiny’s on the cards, and Lucius is like “aw fuck,” because they’re getting snitched on, but God, the way that Stede laughs before he goes, Oh, really?

Like, yeah, really, my guy. You are not great at this. 

“Stop writing!” is so interesting because like…

Of course he doesn’t want the people reading his totally authentic and cool pirate diary to know he’s getting mutinied against seconds after he was saying how impressive and charitable he is. 

LUCIUS: Sorry, I’m confused. You said to record everything, warts and all, so that’s what I’m doing!

STEDE: (snatching out a page) Well, not this!

I like the idea of this scene contrating with what we later see on the French vessel and the specific things that Stede considers to be lying or deception or fuckery, versus the things he just considers to be polite or proper — there’s so much deception inherent to his position in society as a matter of course, and what’s fun about seeing him alongside Lucius, and then the rest of the crew, are the things that he considers to be the norm that he ends up having to express outloud and put explicitly into words…

And as soon as he does so, his own hypocrisy or sheer lack of consideration is put into such stark relief.

Lucius is so offended, too, when Stede tells him to go for a walk, being summarily dismissed like that, and why shouldn’t he be offended? 

He obviously knew that Stede didn’t want him to write it down, and it’s fun to see that bit of resistance and rebellion there, especially because he immediately sweeps off and snitches to everyone else that they’re found out. 

Wee John sounds so tired and annoyed when he says that Pete’s never sailed with Black Pete, and especially the way Oluwande keeps rolling his eyes and Roach laughs, I have to wonder just how constantly Pete brings up his fake Blackbeard stories. 

FRENCHIE: Can you pass the black thread, pretty please? (rubs his hands together, grinning) Cheers, me dears.

I love and adore him. Desperately I do. Everything this man does is so unspeakably endearing to me. 

ROACH: What is that, a cat? The flag’s supposed to be scary.

FRENCHIE: Yeah, cats are terrifying. Everyone knows that.

I love Frenchie’s little sailmaker’s palm that he’s using to sew with — I don’t think everyone’s wearing them, but it’s a nice little detail that some of the crew are using them for flag and sail repair to help them push their needles through, even if their sewing on the flag and stuff looks clumsy. 

Oluwande’s face through Frenchie’s delivery here is such a journey, the way he furrows his brow and raises his head like, eh? 

FRENCHIE: ’Cause they’re witches. And they’ve got knives in their feet.

He just says it with so much certainty and I’m just like… I am constantly thinking about the fact that Frenchie is a really adept conman and social manipulator who’s so full of gentleness and affection for others, is generally full of energy and likes to have a laugh, and also, he believes in the most specific and bizarre aspects of folklore or conspiracy. What a man.

WEE JOHN, on the subject of mutiny: If we can light him on fire, I’m in.

As if Stede Bonnet wasn’t already flaming, John. 

It’s noteworthy to me that Lucius immediately goes to the crew and advises them that Buttons told Stede about the mutiny, and goes, “I’m still in, by the way,” immediately. Lucius is the one that spends the most time with Stede and gets most irritated by him, but also displays the most anxiety with a lot of the crew, especially in moments of potential violence? And I’m just so fascinated by that juxtaposition and what he thinks of like… What he’d be on the ship without Stede there, you know?

He’s got a bad back and isn’t adept at most of the ship’s labour, so. 

When Stede and Buttons come out of that weird front passage at the prow of the ship, I do wonder if that’s one of Stede’s various secret passages or what, because Buttons does look curiously about before he peeks over to see if the crew are paying attention.

Anyway, no one is steering the ship at this point, which is a constant in this show, but it is a funny aspect of the muppet ‘verse. 

STEDE: I can’t believe it! Why?

BUTTONS: I wouldn’t take it personal. It’s just that they don’t like you, or the way that you do things.

STEDE: Hmm. I’m supportive, caring. Responsive to their needs…

Thinking about Mary’s POV, and how Stede in her perspective does nothing of value, takes up space in the house, expects Mary to attend to his every whim, do various domestic work for him, takes up the entire bed and doesn’t notice that Mary’s uncomfortable, et cetera.

There’s something to be said about feigned helplessness and weaponised incompetence that some people use within their relationships to avoid their fair share of labour, especially when it’s people who realise early on that they don’t have to contribute for whatever reason (for example, in regards to gendered labour), and then coast on that — but what I find interesting in cisgender men like Stede is that like…

It’s not enough that he never actually listens when people communicate with him, because it’s part of his identity and his own opinion of himself that of course he listens. The fact that he only listens when people say the things he’s coached or pressured them to say is irrelevant to him, because ultimately, all of his kindness, his approach to his duties, and now his management style, is about his own ego and how he appears to his imaginary audience. 

He is all for communication, so long as that communication ends with the result he imagined in the beginning, and because of this he can never compromise or even listen to outside perspectives, because Stede is writing a social script for himself and he expects everyone to say the lines he imagined for them even before they start speaking. 

BUTTONS: See, that may be what’s contributing to the poor overall impression. 

STEDE: What is the overall impression? 

BUTTONS: That you’re weak… soft-bellied, yellow.

STEDE: I see.

BUTTONS: Craven, ill-equipped to lead men. 

STEDE: Understood! … Thank you. 

I really want to keep track of how much Buttons begins to list things when someone starts speaking to him because it’s such a funny and specific tendency — I know it’s a standard improv technique, but Ewen Bremner just does it so well as Buttons and it goes in so well with his like, gruff, slightly overly-procedural characterisation.

Buttons here is being so blunt and so honest with Stede in large part because he feels it’s his duty as first mate, and what really stands out to me is that Stede is asking for him to be honest about what people’s impressons are, but like...

Stede has such an unrealistic idea of himself, yes, but also so much of his identity is based in self-deception and denial? And I never know with Stede how much he’s being honest when he’s trying to act confident, what his self-esteem is like at any one moment.

He’s so certain he’s a loving father, even though he abandoned the family to fuck about at sea; he’s so certain he’s a great husband even though he makes Mary’s life a living Hell with his constant self-obsession; he’s so sure he can just do whatever he likes, and the world will open up to him.

He’s got protagonist syndrome out the wazoo, but simultaneously he despises himself and takes every criticism to heart — it’s not quite on a level with Ed’s own Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria when we see him later, but it’s all about those layers of identity. 

STEDE: What I’m hearing is they could do with more structure. Perhaps, a firmer hand?

BUTTONS: Or an iron fist. Give ’em something to really stick their teeth into, make them earn their keep. Know what I’m saying?

STEDE: I get it. Toughen up. 

Rhys Darby really can stick his lower lip out so far, which I am noticing in this particular profile shot more than I have ever realised before. He really puffs himself up here, and I have to wonder if he’s thinking about his father and what he was taught by him, if he’s thinking about bullies at school, who exactly he’s thinking of and considering emulating. 

The way everyone laughs and hisses at the idea of Pete being captain of the vessel while Pete is completely certain of his ability is interesting — Stede and Pete really are paralleled so much in this episode, I think, in terms of being out of touch as the cis white guys that cannot read the room and have unrealistically high opinions of themselves. 

Everyone loves Jim, and… me too. 

PETE: No offence, I know you’re… mates. 

Love that Pete puts emphasis on the word mates when he’s talking about Jim to Oluwande. Love that implication. 

It’s great too that Jim is just sharpening their dagger on a strop this whole time and isn’t even trying to sew. What a champ. 

Buttons doesn’t appear to need to use the spyglass to look at the approaching vessel, which is interesting — eagle-eyed? Gull-eyed? Whatever.

Oluwande’s skills at de-escalating conflict are so fascinating to me — obviously he has a vested interest in keeping Bonnet in command so that the ship can remain sufficiently stable as a hiding place for himself and Jim, but he’s so subtle about it, firstly in shrugging off Pete’s criticism of Jim and Roach’s suggestion that Jim be the captain by saying that Jim isn’t interested in politics (while Jim keeps their head bowed and doesn’t engage meaningfully in the conversation at all, letting Oluwande take on all of it, which is fascinating to me); secondly, by shrugging and saying that he has no beef with Bonnet and immediately pointing out the story-telling as, “That’s one nice thing about him.”

It’s such a curious thing to lead with, the niceness of Stede Bonnet, because, yes, of course he’s nice, and yet it’s his niceness that the rest of the crew have such a problem with. 

The way they all bully Lucius to do the voice when Lucius knows he can’t do the voice is so funny, but if you look at everyone nagging him to do it, Oluwande isn’t actually joining in — he’s successfully redirected attention on him and Jim as members or not of the mutiny elsewhere, and everyone is just distracted by Lucius Spriggs’ shitty voice acting to keep at them. 

STEDE, with his hands on his hips, the fruitiest he’s been so far: Well here’s the deal, buckos!

He’s such an idiot. I want to keep him in a jar. 

Roach interrupts Stede here after asking if it’s really a big ship this time, and goes, “I’m not asking you, I’m asking him,” and gestures to Buttons, and it’s so funny because it’s like… They just can’t and don’t rely on Stede because they know he’s disconnected from reality, and it cracks me up.

Wee John’s pyromania rears its head again, and then…

The Swede is sharpening blades in a way that seems neither efficient nor safe; Jim is throwing knives; Black Pete is cleaning his guns while looking directly into their barrels; Frenchie is singing about how they’re all about to die. 

Stede’s trauma around blood and violence is so funny to me because of course you’re frightened of blood, you absolute fop, I can’t wait to see you drenched in it in S2, my darling disgusting man.

He really does reach out to Buttons in quite a vulnerable way though, and Buttons is a bit esoteric in his answer, but he doesn’t comment on Stede’s anxiety — I do find it funny that with his iron teeth he comments, “Getting too old for hand-to-hand violence.”

Like, are you? As in, are you getting too old to go hand to hand, but teeth to throat, that’s just fine? Fascinating. Tell me more. 

I think it’s tumeric that Wee John’s smearing on his face, or some sort of yellow powder, anyway? Which… I don’t even know what that’s about.

Anyway, trauma flashback for Stede, woo hoo!

The blood spatter on Rhys Darby’s wee son is so well-shot, and I actually really love the way they show his wince away from his da with the camera at young!Stede’s level, with his father cut off at the neck — it emphasises his smallness and his vulnerability as a child and how intimidating he finds his father, but it also really puts across the impersonal nature of their relationship and the lack of intimacy in it.

He can be close to his father’s butchery, and is being forced to be so, but not to the man himself. 

OFMD is obviously so concerned with varieties of masculinity and the toxicity inherent in so many of them, but his father really does pivot from saying, “This is what a man’s work looks like,” to then lecturing young!Stede broadly about class, but in such a way that’s quite disconnected from reality, or at least, his own reality or place in it?

BONNET SNR: One day, all this will be yours. Not ’cause you deserve it or ’cause you’ve earned it, Lord knows you haven’t done that. Because you lucked into it. What do you suppose that makes you?

STEDE: Fortunate?

BONNET SNR: (laughs) Fortunate?

STEDE: (smiling, but begins to fade)

BONNET SNR: Oh, no. (while smiling) A weak-hearted, soft-handed, lily-livered little rich boy. That’s all you’ll ever be, Stede Bonnet!

Like, my guy, that’s your son. You made him this way, but also like — You’re rich? Also? The way Bonnet Snr leans physically down into his space is obviously designed to make him feel as small and talked down to as possible, but it’s like…

If Stede is indeed weak-hearted, soft-hearted, and lily-livered, there is something to be said for the nurture as well as the nature here — why are you only showing him animal butchery at like, ten years old? Why are you surprised that you, a rich man, have raised a rich son? What is not clicking here?

Anyway, love Stede’s insecurity and dramatic muttering to himself while wrapped in his dressing gown. 

“I find the feel of silk very invigorating.”

Literally, what is Stede talking about at any time?

The fact that Oluwande comes down to check in at Buttons’ behest with Jim as his shadow and immediately puts that aside to ask if Stede’s okay when he’s visibly not okay is so precious to me, but he does immediately offer to go, and like — 

It’s such a weird position that Oluwande and Jim are put in because like, is anyone ever prepared for their manager’s weird mental health issues when they start being unloaded on them? 

STEDE: I was just gonna say, uh, it’s actually been a minute since I’ve, uh, done the old hand-to-hand. 

Oluwande looks around with such curiosity and interest as he crosses the threshold into Stede’s cabin — it’s such a huge and luxurious space, and it’s so evident that apart from Lucius, most of the crew do not regularly (if at all) see the inside of it despite Stede’s assurances that they can dip into the library at any time.

Oluwande and Jim’s dynamic in the beginning is so brilliant to me, because Jim does come into the space with Wande and instead of keeping their head bowed as they have with the rest of the crew, they do actually make eye contact and engage more with Stede — I suppose that of the people on board, Stede is the least likely to potentially see through their disguise and recognise them, particularly as he presumably hired them. 

Jim lets Oluwande take care of most things, but here Oluwande immediately defers to Jim on matters of combat, but like… Fuck me. They already know that Stede’s a soft touch, but the way that Stede is like, “uhhh, refresher?” as if he’s ever fought in his life, and like — 

OLUWANDE: Listen, Captain, you know, if I may…

STEDE: You may! Come on. (pats the couch either side of him) Have a seat. Please.

Obsessed with the look that Oluwande share with this exchange, Oluwande and Jim’s both, complete uncertainty and bafflement at this situation because it’s just so fucking awkward and they are so uncomfortable. 

OLUWANDE: Look, Captain… You know, pirating is not for everyone. 

JIM: (hunkered forward, brim of the hat pulled down, looking bodily away from both of them, shaking their head)

STEDE: Oh, no, yeah. 

OLUWANDE: It’s a really dangerous lifestyle. 

JIM: (nodding their head)

STEDE: (looking to Jim, then Oluwande) Yeah, some of us thrive on danger, don’t we? 

OLUWANDE: (having regrets for a moment as he stares into the middle distance) Yeah…. Yeah, but look. Me and Jim, we don’t do this because we like it. We do it because… we don’t have any other choice. 

STEDE: Oh, I hear that.

OLUWANDE: (visible disbelief)

STEDE: I mean, here we are just the whole band of us. Killing and… having to kill. I mean that’s… having to, having to kill…

He’s just here having this whole mental breakdown over a job he spent a great deal of money on throwing himself into with no experience or awareness of what it was like or what it entailed, and here Oluwande is really showing him a kindness by trying to gently point out to him the way he’s blinkered by his privileged upbringing?

He’s pointing out, as nicely as he can (and as nicely as he very much is forced to by the disparity between his and Stede’s positions) that what Stede is doing is like, you know, trauma tourism that he’s not even emotionally prepared for. 

And Stede is completely and utterly oblivious, buried simultaneously in his own manufactured narrative and his childhood trauma. 

And… fuck.

STEDE: I’m not a pirate. I’m an idiot. Oh, God. Oh, no… 

And fuck, but those deep breaths he takes, the way he almost sobs, and the way Oluwande looks at him and puts his hand on his chest, staring at this man with genuine concern because like — 

Yes, Stede is an idiot, and yes, he’s an arse, but also this is quite an unwell man in front of him and Oluwande feels some sympathy for him, but there is no fucking time for that when the cannon shot comes across.

Stede’s surprise and affront at how big the ship is cracks me up, especially because she’s so heavily crewed, but — 

BUTTONS: Have you been crying?

STEDE, in too deep: What? No… No. 

Anyway, so… The English vessel is interesting. I love that there’s a fella with a tiny spyglass, and then the talking guy with a medium spyglass, and then Rory Kinnear as Nigel Badminton, with a big spyglass.

Something about his penis, I don’t know. 

I really like that Badminton says “eye” and some other fella puts a folded handkerchief over his eye instead of just closing it himself, that’s so unnecessary, ditto his horrible rich sherry voice as he’s talking. 

ENGLISH CUNT, coming up in the tender: I say, does one of you happen to be Stede Bonnet?

STEDE: (looks helplessly at Jim and Oluwande)

JIM: (gestures for him to get up)

OLUWANDE: What are you waiting for? Get up!

Stede cowering on the floor in his dressing gown is me when my washing machine beeps and lets me know it’s time to unload it. 

Stede being met with a bully from school is so wild, especially becaue the crew are all advising him not to do this in hushed voices, and Stede ignores them because like… I don’t know, he’s admittedly in a pretty poor mental state, but also even outside of that his decision-making capacities are never good.

Anyway, there’s literally no reason at this point for Stede to pretend all the Black and brown crew members are his slaves and/or servants, and that the white ones are his buds. He like, does not have to do that at all. That is a choice he makes because he wants to impress a guy that bullied him at school and it’s like…

Bro. 

I do like that while everyone’s scrambling to dress themselves from Stede’s back-up closet, Wee John is playing the fucking harpsichord, he’s white but he’s also Irish, and decides he has no place in this absolute fucking debaucle. 

Shirtless background Roach for the second time this episode. More shirtless Roach in S2. Please. Thanks. 

The way that Badminton says, “Tell me about your colourful crew.” while he’s looking Roach up and down in that skeevy way he has, and then the camera shows Frenchie’s concern and the way he’s measuring the situation so carefully says such a lot about Frenchie’s like, laser focus on tension in pretty much any situation — Stede’s obviously blinkered, but it’s like… Frenchie knows how this works, and we know from his admission on the French ship that he has experience here, but this must be such a fucking stressful situation for him, Roach, and the others, when like — 

They’re already thinking of mutinying because Stede is straight-up just too soft, but what Stede’s done here is put them in a physically dangerous position, inviting fucking English soldiers aboard and then having the crew pose as servants when they literally could have hidden below decks and been safer for it, made themselves scarce; he could have just said they were free men and members of his crew, or that they were passengers or friends of friends — anything other than this, putting them in full view of the Brits, degrading them, but most crucially putting them physically in harm’s way. 

Pete’s got his gun trained on them under the table, but it’s interesting seeing the way that the Brits look to the white pirates and feel that something’s off, the pirates just smile awkwardly in response. 

ENGLISH CUNT: [The tea] has clearly been made by savages…

OLUWANDE: (closes his eyes, disgusted, rolling his eyes)

FRENCHIE: (looks hurt and extremely vulnerable on the other side of the table)

Thinking about the way Frenchie asks, so gently, “What did they do to you, man?” to Ed in the French episode.

Like, Frenchie, what did they do to you? Every time Frenchie does anything I want to wrap him in a blanket and dote on him forever, but here especially like… There’s so much pain here, and you don’t know how recently he was in service, if this is a recent escape, or if it’s dredging up past memories — and it’s such an important parallel, that cut of Frenchie’s face journey for only a moment before it goes to Stede, where for Stede we actually get a flashback and an internal story. 

Frenchie’s eyes are flitting here and there, his lips are pressed together, his eyes have a shine to them like he wants to fucking cry, and the thing about every expression between the Black characters here is that like… They can make whatever faces at all, and the white characters (Stede and the white pirates included) won’t even fucking notice. 

I just… Like, the thing is, this part of the story is still broadly Stede’s POV, and the focus is on his current mental breakdown, but because Joel Fry is just such a good and emotive actor like, you have these bare seconds of shot between Oluwande and Frenchie forced into this position and the depth of fucking feeling here is unspeakable. 

I really do hope in S2 we get flashbacks for the rest of the crew and their backstories more as well as more of Ed’s, but, yeah, fuck.

BADMINTON: We were rowdy school chums. (chuckles) Always playing pranks on one another.

STEDE: (facial expression that clearly communicates he does not remember it that way)

BADMINTON: Hmm? Do you remember the day with the rowboat? 

STEDE: The rowboat? 

BADMINTON: Oh, come on now. 

STEDE: No, I can’t.

BADMINTON: The rowboat. (laughs) It was hysterical!

STEDE: (looking down as the flashback begins)

There’s something so claustrophobic about the long-table separation and the cut between Stede’s face and Badminton’s — something about the candles lit between them along the table and the close frame really does just narrow down the room to just the two of them, and it really does make Stede feel and appear so fucking trapped in the whole scenario, even though it’s a trap partially of his own making. 

That’s something that comes through again and again with this show, I think, how attempting to match yourself to rules of politeness or etiquette that you don’t actually believe in just ends up causing you damage because you’re allowing yourself to be hemmed in by the established oppressive ruleset, and it would show not only more integrity but less vulnerability to refuse to play by those rules at all. 

I love that we see poor young Stede literally just picking fucking flowers before he’s chased by the others, runs into a tree, and then the way his hands are tied to the rowboat’s oars (which will be relevant later on in the episode, actually) as they all throw fucking rocks at him, he’s got a fucking tricorn hat on, and like…

As Stede comes out of this flashback, with the implication as Badminton chuckles that he’s just related this story out loud, we then cut to the white crew members’ reactions…

The Swede, laughing awkwardly while looking entirely pained by what he’s just heard, stopping laughing at soon as Badminton ceases to make eye contact with him and looking sadly at his tea and into the middle distance. 

And then, too, when Stede tries to sort of stand up for himself and Badminton goes, oh, and the horse, do you remember when we made you French kiss the horse? And the British crew are laughing, but like — 

Lucius looks disgusted and upset, is pressing his lips together, but to a visibly gay man he almost certainly received similar bullying that was sexually charged or forced elements of perversion, exactly like, for example, making a boy get too close to a horse’s mouth.

Like, the dislike of Stede in his youth and the decision for him to be the subject of bullying was very much one based in Stede’s effeminacy, but that itself is based in homophobia.

One thing I like about this scene and that I’m grateful for, but that also lends a real additional layer to it is like — 

So we see Frenchie, Roach, and Oluwande��s expressions of pain, disgust, discomfort, fear, uncertainty in this scene, and what we don’t see is flashbacks for them — and none of the white crew are noticing, because at the moment they’re sympathising with Stede who was bullied as a child, sure…

But I really appreciate and am grateful for the fact that as well as not showing Buttons and Pete’s responses to Stede being bullied — the Swede is obviously bullied a lot on the ship now, and Lucius has likely had his own experiences being bullied, whereas Buttons and Pete perhaps not — it doesn’t show us Frenchie and Oluwande sympathising with Stede. Not because they don’t feel compassion for him, I’m not saying they don’t or that they’re likely unaffected by this, but like…

Especially because they are currently literally undergoing a traumatising and unsafe situation because of Stede, ignored by the rest of the white crew and the British interlopers, I’m glad that the camera doesn’t spend time trying to show us them feeling for Stede and his trauma as a child, showing Frenchie and Oluwande like, distracted from what’s currently happening to them to feel sad for Stede. 

In another show, I think that would have been the case? That the Black characters put aside their own literal current suffering to be sad for the white guy’s previous suffering, even though he’s put them in their current predicament?

And I’m just glad that it’s not here. 

I like the contrast of Stede’s flat tone asking if Badminton would like a tour when at the beginning of the episode he enthusiastically led Lucius on a tour, with Lucius’ gaze representing one of Stede’s peers. It’s such a nice little book-end of contrasts between the intro and the beginning of the end of the episode. 

When Badminton comments on the impracticality of the library and all the books falling out, it’s so interesting because like, yes, Stede’s rooms are hugely impractical — in large part because it’s such a huge space with so much loose furniture, which means there’s so much more space for things to slide and shake to when there’s a storm or rough seas. Badminton remembers most about Stede his impracticality and his lack of common sense, and those go hand in hand, I think, with Stede’s gullibility and the ways in which they could presumably trick or manipulate him on top of just, brute force him into X or Y. 

Badminton’s just so confident in his cruelty here, in his utter domination over Stede and his right to speak to him this way, and Stede, hemmed in by his own sense of politeness and propriety, barely says a word to put him off — not just not directly disagreeing or whatever, but he doesn’t even imply that Badminton’s being rude or impolite and put the onus on Badminton to safeguard his reputation, you know?

Stede’s just not deft in these matters, and it’s fucking sad. 

I like the parallel we see of Mary and the children at one end of the dinner table and Stede at the other, the isolation it communicates for Stede, but then the recreation of that close-framed shot up and down the table, of Mary looking coolly at Stede and then looking back to Alma, and cutting to Stede, again with the candlelight taking up some of the shot. It’s such a cool little motif, and so communicative.

It hasn’t come up so much in this episode so far, but I know that Stede does have some body issues that come up later in this ep and the series, and the way that Mary goes, “And which is your favourite pig?” and says the word with that specific emphasis, like… That idea of Stede being lazy, fat, unpleasant, boorish…

I know that the point of this scene in Stede’s sense of rejection and isolation from Mary in the context of the episode, but when you recontextualise it knowing how frustrated Mary is in her own life with Stede’s laziness and how much of her life he takes up, plus the fact that she can’t directly refuse him or say anything about his lack of contribution?

So much depth here. 

I love the music here and the way that Stede stands up for himself just a little bit — “I mean… It’s true.”

And the way we see Badminton raise his head, abruptly become so much more serious before he starts to laugh harder than ever before, and Stede laughs, and he knows he’s being treated so fucking cruelly, he knows it’s the same as what he’s sufered at school, he narrows his eyes, it’s so goddamn tense — 

And then we cut to the Brits and the pirates. 

And fuck me, I love Foad’s performance in the background as Pete is sipping at his drink and doing his big dick bullshit act, because Lucius looks like he wants the sea to swallow him fucking whole, chin against his breast, so small in his seat; the Swede not making eye contact, also freaking out a bit. 

Frenchie in the background, on the other hand, actually looks a bit hype that the Brits are going to offer real commentary on their flags. 

As they go to the next flag Lucius looks like he’s either about to cry or throw up or possibly both, he’s so fucking freaked out, and I’m pretty sure it’s because he knows that the Swede and Pete are going to bicker and potentially blow their cover — Frenchie goes from enjoying a bit of change to grimacing and looking more concerned, and I’m pretty sure he’s realising the same thing too.

Lucius is doing fucking breathing exercises, Frenchie is awkwardly trying to laugh alongside the Brits, and like — 

God.

Anyway, why the fuck does Stede think his little whale paperweight is the ideal to knock the fella out? Oluwande did say like, a blunt, heavy object, but it’s such a small little thing, I know it does the job, but is it just that he wants it to be easily concealed?

BADMINTON: But you were so fat… and soft, and weak. 

STEDE: I thought I was slender. 

BADMINTON: No, no, no, no. No, I recall you were a plumper. 

I’ve seen a few people’s consideration of this scene and the way that the fatphobia is leveraged against Stede when like we saw Stede, and yeah, he was a pretty slim boy — one of the things about fatness leveraged as an insult is that it’s associated so much with a lack of manliness because of this idea that to be fat is to somehow be lazy or less active, but one note I would also point out is the way that fatness goes hand in hand with this idea of softness and weakness — curves, plumpness, like a woman as opposed to a man, the idea that a man should be square and hard, and a woman round and soft, you know?

Stede’s being lied to here and Badminton’s laughing in a way that’s meant to make Stede really doubt himself and his own view of his body, his childhood, but again it’s a jab at his effiminacy, even before Badminton starts talking about Stede’s tears or his enjoying to pick flowers. 

STEDE: (in a whisper) A little bit.

He was soft, yeah, a little bit soft — he did like to pick flowers, a little bit.

He knows that about himself.

And here he is, on a ship where he’s trying to embrace that that’s nothing to be ashamed of, that there was nothing wrong with him, and fuck, like… He’s just being backed into the corner by this ghost of his own past. 

The Brits laughing over Frenchie’s flag makes me sob, because he breaks in with his, “Actually, everyone knows cats are very evil because they steal children’s breath,” and he knows it’s a huge risk and I don’t know if he forgets himself because he was already insecure about his flag or if he just couldn’t handle it, but fuck, the way he flinches and draws back so fucking much, like.

Ugh.

ENGLISH CUNT: Enough interruptions, slave! Your captain may suffer uppity behaviour, but not me! 

And Frenchie’s expression is so fucking serious, is so somber — 

And it’s Jim that breaks.

It’s been pointed out by quite a few people that it’s notable that Jim is the one that breaks and snaps at the Brits when Jim is a person of colour, but they’re the most light-skinned, but like… I’m still glad they did. The dagger through the hand is so good, and so deserved, and Frenchie points and he laughs, and good! Make that man laugh! He deserves it! He deserves a nice time and to see this cunt get skewered in front of him!

Poor Lucius has since fainted and fallen back into his chair, and then, boom, the fight begins.

I think it’s Oluwande that pours a kettle of hot tea into the one Brit’s lap; Buttons holds a razor to another Brit’s throat; Wee John literally breaks down the door and comes in and it’s so hot Kristian Nairn please slide into my DMs just like that; Pete screams “Fuck it!”, Lucius comes to and screams — 

And we cut back to Badminton and Stede listening to the chaos. 

I really love how this show does flashbacks, they’re so well-cut — in Stede’s stuff but also in Ed’s later on, they feel so real and so accurate to how it feels when you’re really processing a traumatic memory in the moment.

The squish when Badminton lands on his sword cracks me up every time. 

I’m gonna be pausing several times in this next sequence to really appreciate the chaos, so like, firstly, we cut to:

Oluwande has his hand around a Brit’s throat, and is threatening to smash his face in, I think with a teapot

Pete is on the other side of the table, holding his little gun at the same fella’s head, and isn’t it nice that Oluwande and Pete are bonding together? 

Frenchie is standing up on the bench wearing a tricorn hat and brandishing his cat flag

Buttons is quaffing wine in the background

The Swede has wrapped another of the Brits in a net and Wee John is helping him

Lucius is hiding almost under the table

And when Stede calls, “Excuse me, you guys? I need a hand with something…” I’m obsessed with how Pete tells everyone to shush and they all go quiet, and it’s Lucius and Oluwande who extricate themselves from the chaos and go to help him out. 

STEDE: I used the stun move.

LUCIUS, sitting in a chair and looking in the other direction because he’s freaked out by the dead body of Nigel Badminton with a sword through his eye: Yeah, no, he looks pretty stunned.

I don’t think I’ve mentioned this specifically so far, but OFMD episode to episode does these fucking great like, dramatic shots where they really make use of the whole shot and like — 

So here, we see Lucius to the right in the foreground, looking horribly stricken and as pale as the hideous suit he’s wearing; Oluwande is stage-left and staring down at Badminton’s body in the middleground; in the centre-background we see Stede in the exact same vulnerable position as Lucius is, knees together, shoulders hunched, barely able to look directly at the body.

It just creates so much fucking depth and and is such a good use of the space and I love it.

Anyway, Oluwande’s face is killing me in this scene. He’s just like, oh, well. He sure did that. 

Even as Stede goes on blabbering about how it was just an accident and he’s leaning forward, Lucius is doing the exact same thing silently in the foreground, and it’s such a clever parallel between the two of them, I really like it. 

OLUWANDE: Hey, hey, hey, this is happening. Okay? Do you want to live? 

Allow me a moment’s distraction with just how attractive Samson Kayo looks in this scene. He looks so good in purple. 

Okay.

STEDE: That’s a tough question. 

OLUWANDE, grabbing him: I said, “Do you want to live?”

STEDE: I think so! … Probably!

OLUWANDE: Well, pull yourself together then! Yeah, because everyone up there wants you dead.

LUCIUS: It’s true.

Lucius Spriggs. My dear and delicious and potentially dead boy. 

Whose side are you on?

(The most important side: his own.)

But God, I love it when Oluwande girlbosses and manipulates and he’s very much notgoing to let Stede fuck this up for him and Jim when Stede’s ship is the safest place for them — I just love how sensibly he orders Stede through not saying that killing Badminton was an accident and Stede is already just destroyed with guilt and not feeling great about it. 

Oluwande’s forearms…

The way the fucking crew looks at Stede after he drops Badminton’s body cracks me up — Buttons is looking at Stede so fascinatedly, Lucius is serious, Jim is unreadable, Frenchie is enjoying himself and loves this violence and good, give my man everything he desires, the Swede is like :o, Roach is having a grand old time, and Pete looks genuinely impressed. 

I love how John says “Respect!” He’s so good. And how Frenchie gags the English cunt from earlier. 

So with the English cunt they do put back on the boat, right — obviously tying his hands to the oars is a parallel to Stede’s own childhood trauma, but what I really like is the three little coconut Brits they put in the back of the tender — you can see Frenchie’s first cat flag making up the chest of one of them, now stained with blood, so I suppose that’s why it goes from Frenchie’s cat licking blood of its paw to Frenchie’s cat on its four paws. 

Roach looks so cute when he wears his chef’s hat and it pushes his hair out at the sides, there’s so much shape there — Pete is so fucking upset about the fact that Stede’s actually done something fucking cool for once, and it cracks me up. Pete and Stede are both just blagging their way through this and it’s so sad for Pete when Stede wins a point. 

PETE: Making us dress up like a bunch of fancy boys?

Um, Pete? Not everyone got dressed up like fancy boys?

There’s another really good shot here that uses the depth of the lens so well -Pete in the foreground, Roach with his arm around Pete and his hand on the Swede’s back, Wee John in the back with the focus on him. 

I don’t think I ever noticed how much Wee John is an authority in the first episode and how much he drives a lot of stuff forward — he keeps quiet a lot, but it’s not because of a lack of strong opinion or consideration. 

There’s this balance here that Stede has to manage between the “nice” things about him that he wants to prioritise and a certain bloodthirstiness, and especially because this specific moment is borne out of deception, it does make you consider the Blackbeard mythos and the weight it puts on Ed’s shoulders, what must have or could have gone on in its construction, you know?

LUCIUS: He’s a terrible captain. 

OLUWANDE: We’re not exactly the best crew though, are we?

Fuck, I love how close they are together in this scene and like… I said before about how much I appreciate the way that Lucius puts himself close to Pete and, separately, Oluwande (and Jim) here because they’re the other queer guys, but here is such a valuable and important moment like… They’re both so close together, and it really is a moment of shared vulnerability because they’re both carrying Stede’s deception, and it is a strategic choice.

Oluwande’s right that they’re not the best crew or a particularly good crew — they’re small and chaotic and ridiculous and a lot of them don’t know what they’re doing; Oluwande wants to make sure he and Jim have a safe place there, whereas Lucius like — 

I wish I knew exactly what he wanted, or what he envisions for himself, because his broader ambitions are kind of an enigma to me. Much to chew on as the episodes go on. 

OLUWANDE: Besides, as long as he’s around, we’re gonna be paid, fed, and we don’t even have to work too hard. 

LUCIUS: (looks at Oluwande, then back at Stede)

OLUWANDE: He’ll be dead soon. We might as well enjoy it while it lasts. 

LUCIUS DOES A SNEAKY LITTLE GLANCE DOWN AT HIS MOUTH BEFORE OLUWANDE LOOKS BACK AT HIM, I SEE YOU, I SEE YOU. 

There’s so much Lucius/Izzy stuff and the obvious Lucius/Pete and Lucius/Fang, but Lucius wants so badly to participate just a little bit in Oluwande and Jim’s dynamic and I for one think we should let the boy be as slutty as he pleases.

Oluwande is so practical and I really think it’s interesting that like… So he obviously has a lot going on trying to ensure he and Jim are in a secure position, but them two and Lucius are the youngest of the crew by like a decade, and it’s great to me that Oluwande is so keenly practical but not because he particularly likes Stede or whatever, like… He’s looking out for himself and Jim, and now he’s sharing his thought process with Lucius and Lucius is engaging with him, and although Lucius is obviously shaken in this scene, I think it’s probably the most comfortable and open in terms of communication he’s been with anybody throughout the episode so far. 

OLUWANDE: Would you rather be captained by that?

And it cuts to Frenchie taunting the Brits, and it’s like… 

That thing of Stede being “one of the good ones” but it’s not even that he’s like, self-aware? It’s that he’s vaguely trying with no idea what he’s doing, he’s going to die over it, but in the meantime, they can get safety and security?

It’s so important to me that Oluwande and Jim are the like, secondary narrators and MCs aside from Stede and Ed because like, it’s just the contrast you need between Stede’s condescension and self-assurance versus like, the facts of the matter, and the crew with their own agency. None of them is with Stede because they’re grateful for Stede’s charity or civilising influence or some other racist bullshit — they’re there because they need the work, they’re being practical, and putting up with Stede Bonnet is safer than putting up with any fucker else. 

LUCIUS: (grimace, slight grunt)

OLUWANDE: Exactly.

Fucking slow pan onto Stede looking out over the ship, sweaty, shaking, crying a little bit, and like…

Here we see the table set up differently — Stede’s place setting and his chair are much closer, they’re not at the end of the table as before, he’s closer to Alma, and all the family are laughing together. 

They’re wearing the same outfits as they were in the other flashback — was it the same night? Was it a different night? Which of those set-ups were more typical of Bonnet family life? Which had the most impact? Which does Stede remember most often?

Stede’s traumatised and his POV comes with so much bias but also is so unreliable, we don’t know exactly what the truth is or how much it stretches, and that kills me, like… Playing High on a Rocky Ledge here while Stede thinks back to Mary and the kids, what are we thinking here? That he regrets leaving them? That he misses Mary?

Because like, I keep going, “Who is Stede writing this diary for? Who is he trying to impress, and get the attention of?” And here’s a verse from High on a Rocky Ledge:

Then spoke a spirit, “If you would win your Lady Love There’s only one way: fall to your death from high above You will begin to grow in snow beside the one You have waited for to be mated with”

(x)

Is that it?

If he risks his life as a pirate, is that what it takes for him to earn all his riches? To prove himself as a real man? Make him no longer lily-livered and soft-handed and weak-hearted? And therefore be worthy of his family, and his wife, by falling to his death?

And no. 

Because Stede doesn’t say, oh, I want to be worthy of her or them. Stede says to himself, “My family’s here now. At sea.”

And like, my guy, that is not what your crew signed up for. They did not sign up for you to be their da, even if they do enjoy that you read them bedtime stories. They did not sign up to be your substitute for your children that didn’t want to play pirates enough for your liking. 

But it’s such an interesting contrast, this song that’s ultimately about a man throwing himself into death and destruction to be with the woman he loves, and Stede is doing that to get the fuck away from her. 

The expectations of hetero society will do that to a man.

I love the choice of Pinocchio as his storybook — I think it’s interesting that Stede reads to the crew from children’s tales (from the future, at that), but obviously Pinocchio is all about someone achieving a level of reality and authenticity that was considered unachievable for him, and that’s so big for both Stede and Ed, I think, in the course of the show, but also for a lot of the crew, what they want from life, goals considered achievable and unachievable, the varities of the self they display to each other, etc.

I really love that Pete’s in a hammock on one side and Frenchie’s on the other and Frenchie’s wearing a little mask over his eyes. Sensitive man. Needs good darkness to sleep by. 

It’s just so — 

Domestic. 

Wee John crying as Lucius looks at him like “um, okay,” all the crew lying on the floor…

And fuck, but the Jim reveal is so good. Jim’s been so much in the background for the entire episode and always there but never like, looked at so closely, and here we see them shake out their hair, remove their nose, lean back, relax without all the fake beard and hat and ephemera. They just look so fucking tired. 

Oluwande’s great knocking on the door — I really like how easily he swaps between telling them to have dinner in English then telling them to eat in Spanish when he knocks on the door, and like, Oluwande just drops food and goes and lets them eat before he zips and I have… feelings about it. 

Roach and the Swede lying close together when they were trying to kill each other earlier is so sweet; I love how Lucius huddles under his blankets and smiles to himself as Stede does the puppet voice better than he could, and obviously we see the first introduction of Karl, who’s standing on Buttons’ head as Button lies back in his own hammock below the British hostages. 

STEDE: Lights out!

WEE JOHN: Can we have just one more?

STEDE: I know you love it, but you’ve got a big day tomorrow, okay? Night night!

Oh, he’s dad. 

And just like he abandoned his real children, he abandons his new fake adult children on his next mental breakdown. 💖 There’s lots of dads who walk out in their families but there’s not many who can do it consecutively like Stede Bonnet can.

Anyway, I love the slow pan up all the crew’s flags because he just can’t pick one, exactly the same energy as the proud dad who just has to put everyone’s drawings on the fridge, and Frenchie’s new cat flag at the top!

Episode directed by Taika Waititi because of course it was. 

I’m really hype to do more close focused readings of the rest of the episodes because like, fuck, there’s so much depth to this show, it’s so fucking well-crafted and I just lose my fucking mind over it. I wish all television was like, even a fraction of how good this show is. 

Thanks for reading! Tune in next time, I guess? 

[natjennie]

I am so enamored by the way we get introduced to the crew and their names. like its so casual and they all have such great pirate names. frenchie. black pete. roach. wee john. lucius. buttons. oluwande. jim. the swede. eventually ivan and fang. they're such an eclectic group and they all have so much personality instantaneously. as soon as we meet them we're part of this big family of silly lads, yknow. and theyre all different races and nationalities and cultures but it doesnt feel like a gimmick. they're not just giving us representation to check off a list, all the crew members are interesting and funny and cool and sweet and creative and kind and loving and loyal. theyre all totally fleshed out characters even though, some of them, we see very little of. idk, so much of ofmd is masterful in a million different ways, but right now I'm just really in love with the crew.