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sitzfleischh · 7 months

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The first batch of episodes of ofmd S2 begin with Stede's fantasy of his and Ed's reunion, and end with Ed's fantasy of their reunion.

They're both overdramatic, extremely silly, completely sincere, and self-aware without being ironic/cynical. It's camp!! (or more precisely, camping, because it's deliberate).

I'm working on a longer post about camp and comedy in ofmd that I will probably wait to finish until I've seen the whole season but in the meantime: About That Mermaid Scene.

The thing to remember about this scene is that it's fucking hilarious. Something being funny in ofmd doesn't mean it's insincere (often the opposite!) but we shouldn't lose ourselves in its romance and forget that ultimately it-- just like Stede's Competent Beardy Pirate Fantasy-- is also a comedic sendup of the distorted ways they are thinking about each other at this point in the series.

If you've seen the trailer you know what's coming next-- the head bonk, followed by an "awkward exes" dynamic. Of course it wouldn't be much of a show if everything was resolved between these two at the end of episode 3. But I think these two fantasies are key to understanding where we're going. Stede's fantasy is about seeing himself as a traditionally masculine and hyper-competent pirate, "saving" Ed from Izzy, and being forgiven with no hard feelings. Ed's fantasy is about being wanted, being rescued, & brought to safety, by a beautiful untouchable creature that is completely different from him.

Their respective distorted views of each other are what drove them apart at the end of the first season. Ed thinks Stede is too much of a fine thing for him to deserve. Stede thinks he's not enough of a real pirate to do anything but "ruin" Ed.

The rest of the season, then, has to be about both of them failing to achieve those fantasies. They've both hurt each other and caused a lot of harm. They're both not traditionally masculine. They're both imperfect. They're both human. They both deserve to love and be loved.

We will get to the romantic moments, like the ones in season 1, where the comedy -- even the camp comedy -- falls away. But until then I look forward to more laughing as they both figuratively bonk their heads against the reality they are refusing to see.

#ofmd #ofmd meta #ofmd s2 spoilers #our flag means death #not me posting this at 11pm when nobody's gonna see it #i am THINKING THOUGHTS!!!!!!!#looking forward to watching the boys fail and learn and etc #sitzfleischh.meta

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crustose · 6 months

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The Beach Boys' Pet Sounds, reordered to fit Steddyhands timeline

Pet Sounds is about Stede, Ed, and Izzy. and here's the proof. Listen on Spotify

Wouldn't It Be Nice

Ed/Izzy, Hornigold era. Encapsulates the joy of finding each other, while yearning for better times. Hoping that one day they’ll have it, if they just hold on for a little while longer.

Wouldn't it be nice if we could wake up In the morning when the day is new? After having spent the day together Hold each other close the whole night through But happy times together we've been spending I wish that every kiss was never-ending Oh, wouldn't it be nice?

You know it seems the more we talk about it It only makes it worse to live without it

Discussing mutiny, building Blackbeard, together. Longing for the kind of life that isn’t ruled by Hornigold any longer.

I Just Wasn't Made for These Times

Ed “It’s all so fuckin’ boring’ Teach

Every time I get the inspiration To go change things around No one wants to help me look for places Where new things might be found Where can I turn when my fair weather friends cop out? What's it all about?

I Know There's an Answer

Co-Captains? Co-Captains.

I know so many people who think they can do it alone They isolate their heads and stay in their safety zones

Now how can I come on And tell them the way that they live could be better? [Traditionally, piracy is a culture of abuse, floggings, keelhaulings. And my thought is, "Why?” And also, what if it wasn't like that?]

Here Today

Izzy, warning Ed against Stede.

It starts with just a little glance now Right away you're thinkin' 'bout romance now You know you ought to take it slower But you just can't wait to get to know her A brand new love affair is such a beautiful thing But if you're not careful think about the pain it can bring

It makes you feel so bad It makes your heart feel sad It makes your days go wrong It makes your nights so long

Izzy, warning Stede against Ed

Right now you think that she's perfection This time is really an exception Well, you know I hate to be a downer But I'm the guy she left before you found her Well, I'm not saying you won't have a good love with her But I keep on remembering things like they were

That's Not Me

Stede leaves, thinking he’s doing the right thing for everyone. Once he reckons with that, he can return with the confidence that he loves Ed, and that the Revenge is home.

I had to prove that I could make it alone now But that's not me I wanted to show how independent I'd grown now But that's not me I could try to be big in the eyes of the world What matters to me is what I could be to just one girl [Ed Teach btw]

I'm a little bit scared 'cause I haven't been home in a long time [Stede talking to Ed’s wanted poster] You needed my love and I know that I left at the wrong time

I'm Waiting for the Day

Stede/Ed/Izzy, at various points. They were there for each other, bridging those times when various iterations of the three of them were broken up.

I kissed your lips and when your face looked sad It made me think about him and that you still loved him so [S2 Stede to Ed and Izzy, separately] You didn't think, no, that I could sit around and watch him take yo You didn't think that I could sit back and let you go

Izzy, S1, hoping that the duel would get Ed back.

Don't Talk (Put Your Head on My Shoulder)

Ed/Izzy. Those first moments of reconciliation, when it’s just the two of them. They can’t really talk about it, not yet, but they can sit together, shoulder to shoulder [well, shoulder to upper arm more like], hands gently clasped, and just be.

I can hear so much in your sighs And I can see so much in your eyes There are words we both could say Come close, close your eyes and be still Don't talk, take my hand and let me hear your heart beat

Sloop John B

Stede/Izzy, that night that Ed left. Stede’s excitement at being respected as a real pirate, giving way to his anxiety over Ed. Izzy helps him through it.

Around Nassau town we did roam Drinkin' all night Got into a fight Well, I feel so broke up I wanna go home Call for the captain ashore, let me go home

You Still Believe in Me

Ed/Izzy. Ed’s wonder and gratitude that Izzy, against all odds, stays.

Every time we break up, you bring back your love to me And after all I've done to you, how can it be You still believe in me

God Only Knows

Steddyhands. No explanation needed.

If you should ever leave me Well, life would still go on, believe me The world could show nothing to me So what good would living do me?

#I am praying people at this coffee shop didn't watch me spend an hour switching btwn google docs and genius lyrics making this #izzy hands #ofmd #steddyhands #edizzy #stizzy

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weiner-enjoyer · 7 months

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ofmd s2 literary analysis, mostly so i dont die of gay disease. obviously, spoilers for our flag means death season 2

okay so im going to start with the gravy basket because.???? there has to be some kind of metaphor im missing. but regardless, most of it was pretty up front. ed hates himself, he chooses to live, he changes. but theres some smaller details i find important. for one, he’s under the immediate impression that he hates hornighost, but hornighost feeds him and takes care of him anyway. he helps him. if hornighost is ed, then we can assume that ed is taking this time to take care of himself - with or without anyone else’s help. was he doing a great job at it? not at all. but he displays this self help when he establishes his boundaries with stede. not to mention, death is a huge main theme in this series. obviously he didn’t die, but he had a choice to. he was faced with “fix your problems, or die.” and he chose to fix them; he chose change, but change of his own accord, not death’s. he has control.

i also want to talk about ed saying “you’re not a fucking mermaid”. which seems really obvious, and it is. but the whole mermaid vision was to show that stede is here, whether he likes it or not. and whether he likes it or not, he takes that help. and it helps him. but he’s just started this whole self help journey, and he doesn’t want to accept he’s not strong enough to do it himself. so he’s telling stede to back tf off. and also obviously their divorce or wtv

okay so the bunny. ed is confiding in this random ass bunny. the bunny stays put, but it is also quite visibly shaking. ed has control now, but he isn’t ready to deal with the feedback he would get from a person. humans are unpredictable, and they aren’t always good at receiving emotions. ed also doesn’t want to use feedback to get better, because he’s so convinced he’s always right (or he chooses to think that to avoid how he absolutely knows he’s wrong.) and so theres this bunny. and then the bunny fucking dies, and then he eats that bunny. which is crazy, but he immediately talks to stede after eating it. he lost a safe zone, and then he got out of his safe zone and fixed a problem; the main reason he chose to live

and then theres the lesbians (i forgot their names, im so sorry). love those guys, my favorite plot device so far. this one is pretty obvious as well. but they’re just so immature. like. oh my god. and it’s fun at first. at first, both stede and ed love them, but both of them realize how unstable it is. they’re not even afraid to become that, because they know they’re better than that. but. there’s a but. the lesbian’s way of life was easy. if you don’t have to deal with the problems, you can live and die childish, probably from gangrene after your girlfriend stabbed you. and stede and ed immediate relate themselves to the lesbians, and then they completely defy that relation by doing the mature thing. i kinda forgot to say this, but the lesbians are a symbol of ed’s past life too. they act like how ed acts when he meets his old pirate friends; immature and reckless. when ed leaves that scene, he leaves that part of him behind.

okay so then we have the robes. im almost done, i promise. the robes are fancy. the robes are rich. the robes are cursed. they protect stede in every way except that everyone around him fears the robe. the robes are super cash money. unfortunately, stede no longer likes being cash cash money bags, so he gets rid of the suit. most of it. because he really does wear fine things well. but the robes are a past life for stede, and he willingly gets rid of them. he’s not even that mad about it. the same can be said for the lesbians; when stede leaves the robes, he leaves that part of him behind. he does it for his shipmates, but it helps him too

okay okay okay now izzy. so it’s less an analysis and more of a question. of course, izzy has been suffering a lot. like a lot. and he deserves that. wholeheartedly. he was doing relatively well with the suffering too, at first, and then he decided “fuck all that. im going to get drunk off my ass and pretend that ed didnt almost kill me, because i’m too immature.” this behavior is not healthy and im almost positive he’ll eventually come back to hating ed and try to kill him. but even with all of this, how is he going to do as a captain? we now have two other former captains on board, albeit fairly weak captains, but they pose a threat to izzy’s power. and probably his emotional state. is he going to govern the ship like before, or is he going to be emotional like he was in the beginning? he had to have learned that it could get him betrayed, but he seems intelligent in the robe situation

i hope this makes sense

#ofmd #nobody is going to read this shit #ofmd s2 #our flag means death #edward teach #stede bonnet #blackbeard #izzy hands

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avelera · 2 years

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Enter the Pirate Hunters: My Predictions for the Plot of OFMD S2

(I've discussed in another post (here) that I think the emotional plot of a good chunk of S2 will be the Redemption of Blackbeard. This post is more about what I think the action plot structure of S2 will look like.)

So I think the OFMD fandom can't help but be wrong about a lot of what's going to go down in S2 because most (not all) people are extrapolating from the available data and imagining the new season's drama without knowing what new elements are going to be introduced, like new characters and especially new antagonists.

For example, I've been saying for a bit that I don't think Ed and Stede having a big dramatic fight is going to take up the whole season, I just don't think that's in-character for how they've interacted up to this point (in a very caring way for each other and with very little drama up to the point where Stede vanished because he was kidnapped at gunpoint). I think they might fight for The Drama but I also think it's more likely that if they're kept apart by any sort of conflict it's more likely to be because some antagonist keeps them apart (for ex., Izzy lying about who Captain Thomas is or otherwise deliberately steering the Revenge away from Stede if he spots him before Ed does) OR, it's going to be because of other external villains we have't seen yet.

At the very least, even if these external villains aren't what keep Stede and Ed from each other, they're likely going to make up a chunk of the plot in S2 and I hope people are ready for that and the fact that all of S2 isn't going to be 10 episodes of Ed adn Stede making up and getting back together, there's going to be other pirate adventure stuff going on, just based on the structure of S1. Characters like Calico Jack, Spanish Jackie, and the Badmintons are going to have a lot of screen time too, and drive a lot of the plot that isn't just Ed and Stede (or Izzy or Olu and Jim's) relationship.

My predictions for S2 aren't that filled in yet, because we don't know for certain yet who the villains are, but structurally they look like this:.

Episodes 1-3

Mirroring S1 (again, extrapolating from available data so this also could be totally wrong if they don't build from the same structure) - we spend 3 episodes seeing how hapless Ed is without Stede, in a striking reversal. We're introduced to just how evil Blackbeard was but we're seeing it through the lens of an Ed who is trying to recapture being Blackbeard after tasting the happiness of being himself with someone like Stede. He might be better at it in some ways (ie, more vicious, with his "no direct killing" rule abandoned as part of no longer running from the "Kraken" part of his past) but in other ways he might be worse because he really doesn't want to be doing this, he's emotionally shattered, and because we need to not just emotionally give up on this guy if he's too loathsome. We need to see glimmers of the Ed we knew.

Meanwhile, Lucius is IMO on the Revenge. To get a bit more granular with the predictions, I think Ed is having a psychological breakdown, not unlike Stede did after killing Nigel. I think Ed will be hallucinating a spiteful, drowned ghost of Lucius telling him how awful he is, to the point where at the end of episode 1, Ed doesn't even notice the real Lucius standing in the galley stealing some food (or something like that) because he's too in his head about the ghost version.

Lucius's not-actually-dead return is the comedy beat (and welcome surprise for the audience) that relieves us from the darkness of Ed's new normal, as Lucius is stunned that Ed looks right at him and keeps walking. From that point on, we have Lucius sneaking around inside the walls as our audience surrogate who is able to give us the objective narration of what's really happening on board the Revenge, like whatever Izzy is really planning, how Jim and Frenchie are doing, and things like the fact that Ed is crying himself to sleep every night.

I'm not sure if we'll see Stede in these first episodes in a similar manner to the fact we didn't see Ed until ep 3 of S1. Of course, Stede is our protagonist so that could be completely wrong. We might see glimpses of him or we might even get a Stede-dominant episode as he finds a new ship with the crew or does some other post-time-skip stuff.

(Oh, and at some point in here I expect we'll meet Ed's original crew on the Queen Anne's Revenge and find out what they've been up to.)

More importantly, like the British in S1, I think we're going to see the S2 villain in these first few episodes and have the non-romance plot of the season introduced. Possibilities include:

Anne Bonny and Mary Read and their lesbian crew hunting down our protagonists to look for Calico Jack - for the record, I think they're more likely to be a one-off episode antagonist (or ally) and not the overarching plot because my theory is:

Pirate Hunters - Stede and Ed skipped out on the Act of Grace. I think that will be ignored when convenient, like when Stede went home, but I think it's a great dangling thread of consequences to bring back. They are wanted by the law if they return to piracy (technically, only if they attack English ships, but I'm not sure how historical OFMD is going to bother to be). Which brings me to my real predictions for potential villains in S2:

Benjamin Hornigold (dream-cast as Vincent D'Onofrio of MCU Kingpin fame in my mind, who expressed interest in being on the show) who historically was Blackbeard's "mentor" and went on to become a pirate hunter after his crew mutinied on him. (He historically hunted Charles Vane who could be brought in as an ally to our protagonists on the run from Hornigold.)

Woodes Rogers - the historical pirate hunter who is credited with ending the Golden Age of Piracy

Lieutenant Robert Maynard - the man who historically killed Blackbeard (to be clear I'm 1000% convinced Stede and Ed's historical deaths will actually be fuckeries so they can run away together at the end of the show).

Episode 4 - 8

If the show continues to mirror the structure of S1, this will be the "Ed and Stede get back together" episodes. I honestly think their fighting will not dominate the entire season, I think they'll be reunited by Episode 4 and then rebuilding or growing their relationship up until the finale.

This is when you'll probably get one-off episode antagonists like the French party folks or Calico Jack and where I think we'll meet more women characters and specifically where I'd expect to see an Anne Bonny/Mary Read introduction.

Remember, this show is technically a romantic comedy so I also expect to just see some silly hijinks-style plotlines in here somewhere.

Episodes 9-10: The Finale

Whatever villains have been pursuing Our Heroes catch up to them in the finale. In S1 it was the British with the help of episodic antagonists like Spanish Jackie and Izzy.

IMO, it will be pirate hunters catching up with them, or any of the above-mentioned likely antagonists like Rogers, Maynard, or Hornigold. S3 will be set up, perhaps with a cliffhanger, teasing that Stede and Ed are very much in danger now and heading towards a climactic battle / Stede being captured and hung for his return to piracy (as happened historically and which again, I believe he will escape in the show).

S3 will, in my opinion, focus on the historical ends of Blackbeard and Stede Bonnet and be the most epic in tone as befitting a climax of a 3 part story.

#our flag means death #ofmd meta #ofmd s2 predictions

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eternallymalec · 5 years

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One thing I will never support and isn’t pleased about is Sizzy. I know you like them but I don’t. It is unhealthy, and rushed. They had Isabelle sacrifice her sobriety for Simon. Don’t get me started on Simon and the writing for him this season. It makes no sense when Simon has an alcoholic mother. Maia was treated so poorly for no reason and Simon x Maia was shoved aside when they actually received the development. Sizzy was just unnecessary then left in the AU!episode from season 1.

I understand what you mean and as a sizzy shipper i actually agree to a certain degree.

s1!sizzy was (in my opinion) fucking adorable, but then the writers just kinda…forgot they existed through s2. They had one or two scenes one on one in the whole season and that’s by far not enough to build up a supposed endgame ship.

The 3b scenes were objectively speaking really cute (imo) but they had no foundation. Simon and Izzy were barely friends at this point so even to me it didn’t have the same impact it would’ve had if they had been steadily growing closer from s1 onwards.

I also agree about the addiction part. I think the writers completely forgot about Simons Mum and the way they handled Izzys addiction was messy from the beginning, so what else is new >_>

I think if the show hadn’t been cancelled they would’ve made sizzy canon in s4, which would’ve been better than s3 by all means and that they wouldn’t have let them kiss in s3 if it weren’t for the extra episodes due to the show being cancelled is something I honestly appreciate, because I can still tell myself that they would’ve done more/better with them next season, but now we’ll never know anyway.

But I agree with Maia. The way not just the breakup with Simon but her whole storyarch with j/ordan and the pack was handled poorly and she deserved better.

I think one problem the writers have is them treating Simon the way the “pretty girl” was treated in older tv-shows. You know, the one who can’t stay single for longer than one episode. (for example, riverdale has the same problem with archie lmao)

In s1 he jumped from crushing on clary to crushing on izzy to sleeping with Maureen to crushing on clary again. Then he went on a date with Maia, dated Clary, dated Maia again and now Izzy. It was just too much, when did he ever get over one of the girls he was with? It doesn’t make any sense. The longest time he was single was between Maia and Izzy but even that wasn’t really long.

And that answer got a lot longer than I planned :’D

#ask #sh spoilers #addiction tw #simon lewis #julia rambles

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