#ofmd 2x03

[strawlessandbraless]

Thinking about Frenchie holding Izzy’s hand as the crew talk sense into him about his toxic relationship with Blackbeard. How Frenchie knew he needed all the comfort he could get, even though he was being held by Fang. Even though Frenchie has all his trauma locked up in a box in his brain.

Thinking about Frenchie saving and hiding Izzy at great risk to himself. About Jim and Archie helping Izzy after getting shot by Blackbeard. About Frenchie using Izzy’s thigh as a pillow when they’re in prison awaiting death. They’re a crew. A family. They love each other.

#ofmd s2 #ofmd season 2 #ofmd #ofmd spoilers #ofmd s2 spoilers #rhys darby #ofmd season two #taika waititi #ofmd 2 spoilers #blackbeard #our flag means death #ed teach #izzy hands #Izzy #frenchie #stede bonnet #ofmd 2x02 #ofmd 2x03 #ouizzy #ofmd jim #ofmd season 2 spoilers #jim ofmd #jim jimenez #ofmd fang #fang ofmd #ofmd frenchie #frenchie ofmd #frenchizzy

[knifeturtlelives]

“Wow, massaged to death by mermaids really hits different after gravy basket mer!Stede,” I thought to myself during the Astroglide watch party

^absolutely deranged combination of words that now makes perfect sense to our flag means death fans

#ofmd #our flag means death #ofmd 1x04 #ofmd 2x03 #renew as a crew #save ofmd #lube as a crew #astroglide

[crownspeaksblog]

"He went mad, he tortured the crew, he took my fucking leg, cause i dared to mention your fucking name!"

Goddamn! This line! This line scratches a part of my brain in way that makes me sorta wish we had gotten a full season of angst (I'm glad we didn't though, i wouldn't be able to handle it) but my GOD it's just so good!

Con O'Neills acting and delivery in this scene is just amazing! The way he says "he took my fucking leg, cause i dared to mention your fucking name!" Like the words are seething out of him, he slams the bottle in his hand on the desk, like he can't fucking believe it, can't believe that ed, the man he's probably known from DECADES, would just shoot him, so easily, just for daring to utter fucking stede bonnets, fucking NAME out of his mouth!!

And it's not just cons delivery, it's the ed and stede angst of it all! It's the way ed is caught of guard with izzys audacity to even say "talk it through" the way stede used to say it. It's the way ed wouldn't accept hearing izzy say stedes name or mention eds feelings for stede, let alone infront of the crew. It's the look on eds face and the way he nodes his head like this is what you get, the second he shots izzy!

But yeah, that line is the epitome of brain scratching for me! Go listen to it again. I'm not giving this line the justice it deserves, go listen to it again!! It's glorious!

#This fucking lines makes me want to read like 100 fics of angsty angry ed.. but i can't handle it. it's too much pain to read it! #kudos to con o'neill!! he deserves all the fucking flowers for this whole season and especially this fucking line!!!! #ofmd #ofmd s2 #our flag means death #ofmd spoilers #blackbonnet #izzy hands #con o'neill #ofmd 2x03 #👑

[brigdh]

Ed and the mortifying ordeal of being known

Ed does not like revealing his feelings. He is incredibly consistent about lying,

hiding

displacing,

distracting, or just outright denying what he's feeling instead of actually talking about it. This is a consistent pattern of behavior with him. There are a few exceptions – most significantly, I think, the bathtub scene where he confesses to Stede about killing his father – but they are a) rare, and b) occur under unusual circumstances, such as a PTSD flashback. In general Ed goes to great lengths to prevent people from recognizing the truth about him.

I don't really blame Ed for this habit, to be clear. He went through an abusive childhood, and though we don't see a lot of the exact dynamics in baby Ed's house, it's very common for abused children to become hyper vigilant of both their own and others' emotions. It's an attempt to exert some, any control they can over the situation, as though they can prevent setting off the abuser if they just always say and do the right thing.

Ed escaped into piracy, but in terms of talking about his feelings, I don't think it was much of an escape. Piracy in OFMD seems to be a place where the idea of having friends (though not the reality – I'd argue Ed might not use the word 'friend', but has had close relationships) is to be scoffed at. "We're all just in various stages of fucking each other over!" says Calico Jack, and being open about your emotions, plans, hopes, etc would just make it all the easier to be betrayed. On the other hand, lying, obfuscating, or just telling everyone about Plan A and then instead pulling off Plan B makes you look like a double-crossing genius who outthought everyone around you. So I'm not surprised that's Ed's learned to be manipulative and uncommunicative. I don't think he's ever been in a situation where emotional openness wouldn't be a disadvantage.

Regardless of why he does this, it's very clear that it's a pattern of behavior for him. This is one reason why I don't think Sad Robe Ed back in Episode 10 was healing – healing requires addressing and dealing with your feelings, and Ed was very much not doing that. I've already written a whole post going through that episode and laying out how Ed never once mentions Stede, or love, or heartbreak, or anything related to what he's going through, so I'm not going to do it again here. In brief, Ed's putting on a performance of sadness for the crew, but it's a generic, vague sort of sadness, without any connection to his personal, specific pain.

Who finally brings up Stede in Ep 10? It's sure not Ed. Izzy:

Which brings us to Season Two. How is Ed doing now?

He's once again making a performance of his pain, and once again keeping it vague, not letting any of his true, personal hurts be revealed.

These:

Are performances of his pain and sadness, but just like before, they're generic, unspecific. This is "Mad Devil Pyrate Blackbeard", not heartbroken, human Ed. Who is it that brings up the private reality of what's causing this toxic atmosphere? Once again, not Ed. It's Izzy, just like before. And this time he gets shot immediately for saying Stede's name, and Ed doesn't even look at him.

In all three episodes, Ed mentions Stede directly only once, and very pointedly, it's when he's alone:

I'm glad Ed has decided that he wants to live, but that's the beginning of a journey, not the end. What I really want to see in the next couple of episodes is Ed finally, for once, opening up. He doesn't want to be vulnerable, but the lack of emotional intimacy that constantly lying and performing has gotten him is, quite literally, killing him.

Ed can't get over his own, very real pain until he's willing to admit that it exists. I want to see him acknowledge where he hurts. He needs friends. He needs love. He can't get those without being honest.

I hope he does. I hope the show will have him do this work instead of skipping him ahead immediately to the happy ending, no behavioral change required. I think they will. It's kind of their motto, after all: talk it through as a crew.

Now if the co-captains would just follow their own advice...

#I could work on articulating this more but I really want to post it before the new episodes tomorrow #our flag means death #ofmd meta #edward teach #blackbeard #ofmd 2x02 #ofmd 2x03 #ofmd 2x01 #ofmd s2 spoilers #ofmd s2 speculation

[khruschevshoe]

OFMD Critique: Mermen, the Gravy Basket, and Cognitive Dissonance

Warning: this is going to be a bit rambly.

So, I can't stop thinking about the end of "The Innkeeper." (OFMD 2x3, if you need the reminder.) About how I have completely different reactions to the final scene of the episode depending on who's POV/plot I'm considering it a part of.

As part of the Stede/Ed plot, and as part of Ed's personal character arc, it's masterful. The cinematography, the swelling music (and music choice, god is "This Woman's Work" a fantastic pick), the acting, the lighting, everything about it is so well done. It's a story about a man who has hit the absolute bottom of a depressive episode because he believes that love is only meant to hurt, that no love can exist without it dying, and who is pulled from the absolute Darkest Night of the Soul by the man who loves him- in the form of a merman. (I'm not going to harp on the symbolism and the perfection of choosing a mermaid, a rainbow, beautiful, queer-as-hell mermaid, as Stede's form here because others have done it so much better than I ever could.)

This final scene is PERFECT for the Stede/Ed plotline. I will give it all the props in the world for its gorgeous portrayal of the healing, divinely-coded power of queer love.

But from the crew's POV? From the end of a plot that was literally about a man spiralling and taking everyone down with him? From the POV of people who were just forced to shoot themselves, to fight to the death, to amputate limbs, who finally got to stand up to their monster after months of fear, of sobbing when Blackbeard couldn't see, of living on a knife's edge because if they put one toe out of line they'll get shot in the leg or pushed off the ship or worse?

I'm not looking at a man's rebirth; I'm looking at a villain's resurrection.

All I can feel is dread on behalf of a crew that literally just admitted to having been "living second to second" for months now. A crew that was ready to die at Zheng Yi Sao's behest because that's what they had been expecting from the man they just had to kill to survive a storm.

I can't ever fully immerse myself in the scene as I did the first time around, because I know how the crew's subplot is going to go. I know that they are going to vote Ed off the ship, finally gaining some agency, and then Stede is going let Ed back on the ship within a day with a slap on the wrist. Ed is going to give an "influencer apology" and that'll be that, because as Archie says, "they just kinda get away with these things." The crew will get no more agency in their own trauma recovery or their reactions to Blackbeard beyond Lucius' (very questionably handled) trauma recovery arc. This season is going to end with a character dying from a random gunshot wound to the side after Ed survived a CANNONBALL TO THE HEAD. (A character who, by the way, Ed put a gun in the hand of and told him to shoot himself. A man who, by the way, Ed shot in the leg, permanently disabling him. A man who, by the way, dies by apologizing to Ed for Ed tormenting him and the rest of the crew for months on end and driving them to the point that they would kill him.)

I try so hard to remain in the emotions I felt watching the merman scene the first time around, the hope I had for the Ed/Stede storyline, the hope I had for all of these characters. What I thought I was looking at was a sign of hope for all of them, the idea that they could all heal from their trauma, that everyone could experience some version of this love (whether romantic, platonic, or otherwise) for themselves.

But instead, the only other character to get a song died by the end of the season without ever getting a chance at a Gravy Basket of their own. And thus, I cannot ever feel what every possible Cinematic Cue in his scene is trying to get me to feel, because it will always, always be tainted by knowing that every one of those beautiful choices have been denied to Izzy, Jim, Archie, and Frenchie when it comes to their recovery arcs strangled before they could ever be completed.

#izzy hands #ed teach critical #ofmd critical #the innkeeper #ofmd season 2 #meta #please forgive me for the rambling nature #ofmd 2x3 #ofmd 2x03 #archie ofmd #lucius spriggs #not tagging this ed bc i don't want to upset the fans #jim jimenez #frenchie ofmd

[starlightmesss]

thinking about "go on, bonnet. give me your worst" every day

#ofmd #ofmd spoilers #ofmd s2 #our flag means death #stede bonnet #izzy hands #ofmd 2x03

[kajaono]

Thinking about how Izzy risked everything to save Stedes crew and to bring them back safe, and Stede treats him like absolut shit because he still sees him as the shit man who tried to separate him and Ed. And Izzy just… takes it.

#Stede bonnet #Izzy hands #ofmd #ofmd season 2 #ofmd spoilers #ofmd 2x03

[mutantmiro]

Heartbreaker 💔

#love to see women in anguish over what they want but think they can’t have #zheng yi sao #oluwande ofmd #zheng x oluwande #ofmd season 2 #omfd s2 #our flag means death #our flag means fanart #pirate queen #omfd #ofmd 2x03 #my art

[ladyluscinia]

Hi there! I just read your meta about how Izzy knows the real Edward and not just Blackbeard, and that got me thinking… why does Ed tell Stede he doesn’t have any friends? I’d initially chalked this up to Izzy only wanting to be friends with Blackbeard, but if Izzy knows and is loyal to the real Ed, why doesn’t Ed consider him a friend?

Hi! You just stumbled on one of my favorite things to talk about that now I get to add S2 context to, so thank you!

Ok... Edward & his total denial of friendship. There's the big reason - which is completely divorced from the reality of any of his relationships - and then there's the smaller, related reason that I'm not even sure Edward is fully aware of.

Reason #1 (the big one) why Edward says he doesn't have any friends is because he's having a depressive breakdown in a bathtub when he says it.

It all comes back to the fact Edward hates himself, which was fairly clear in S1 and now made explicit in S2. Specifically in 2x03. Which, in a season full of excellently timed flashbacks and echoed scenes from S1, still contains the single example that made me leap from my seat in pure vindication.

When Edward tackles his conjured Hornigold to kill him, before he realizes he's in the gravy basket, we great a great line...

"It all boils down to this. You're afraid you're unlovable."

...followed by a set a flashbacks that feel chosen specifically for me 😌

Edward killing his dad, with the voiceover "I'm not a good person Stede..." cut to Izzy's destroyed laugh right before Edward left the room in 2x02, and then cut back to the bathtub from 1x06 to finish "...That's why I don't have any friends." Stede affirms he is Edward's friend and then it ends on the crew's mutiny from 2x02 and the absolute darkest point of Edward's depressive spirals so far.

That is literally an explicit connection I couldn't have dreamed of in the S1 hiatus.

Because, like... Edward's whole thing is that he's been on the edge of drowning under this lifelong struggle against depression since we met him. He does fundamentally believe in his darkest moments that he is monstrous and poisonous and no one could ever love him, but it's not a logical belief. He's not making an assessment of his relationships as he sees them, he's voicing his self-loathing and depression.

And the parallel between "I don't have any friends" and "I'm unlovable" is soooo crunchy because we know for a fact the second statement is just depression talking. Not even just Stede! Edward spends the first two episodes actively resisting evidence to the contrary in his spiral because it hurts too much - Izzy blatantly confessing his love didn't break through, it just got him shot for trying.

To go back to the bathtub in 1x06, Stede's affirmation there wasn't any more effective than Izzy's confession in S2. It gets Edward to get up out of the bathtub and pull himself back together, but the very next episode opens with Edward getting antsy and trying to leave before Stede can reject him. In 1x08 he's still half-waiting for Stede to notice there's something wrong with him.

Edward always has a little dark voice in the back of his mind saying that Calico Jack isn't his friend, and Izzy isn't his friend, and Stede isn't his friend... but it's Edward's voice. One he'll have to fight against forever, one that will sound really persuasive in his darkest moments (like when he's in a bathtub admitting its source out loud for the first time in his life), but also one that is lying.

So... that's the big reason.

Now, Reason #2 is a bit more nuanced - Edward is really repressed.

This is pretty much entirely the fault of Reason #1, but it is technically a different thing. Because Edward hates himself and has a flawed perspective of all his relationships, he instinctively holds himself back from them to some degree.

This kinda gets into the whole Izzy vs Stede thing, because Edward has a very small collection of interests and desires that he shoved into a small box as things he didn't deserve well before becoming a pirate (due to both mommy and daddy trauma), and then he never brought those things up with anyone close to him. Until he met Stede, who was basically the walking embodiment of several of those interests/desires and a person who Edward uniquely did not have a script or baseline for interacting with, so he ended up doing the reverse and diving into exploring all that as the core of this one singular relationship.

Which has left him very unbalanced.

Like, he's not wholly engaging in the relationship due to fear of rejection either way. There's nothing intrinsically healthier about letting Izzy know all his ugliest bits or Stede know all his most hidden emotional vulnerabilities. And the fear of rejection in both cases is based in his depression / conviction he's unlovable, not evidence that Izzy would react poorly or whatever.

But if he was capable of evaluating his relationships objectively, he might have felt a little like even Izzy who knew him so well wasn't as close of friend as he truly desired, simply because he puts away that box of things around him. Only... Izzy doesn't make him do that. That box was probably put away before Izzy even met him.

And like... Edward can feel his feelings about Izzy not knowing the super important emotional things he wants him to know, but it's still on Edward for not even trying to tell him.

(This got longer than I meant it to, lol. Anyway here's my hiatus post where I'm nice to Calico Jack on this topic too.)

#our flag means death #ofmd s2 #ofmd s2 spoilers #blackbeard ofmd #izzy hands ofmd #ofmd meta #ask #stede bonnet ofmd #ofmd 1x06 #ofmd 2x03 #parallels #hornigold ofmd #ladyluscinia

[bellarke-is-my-death-wave]

OUR FLAG MEANS DEATH | 2x03 The Innkeeper

I love this scene so much. I, too, can relate to being really good at my job and am able to dismantle the egos of misogynistic men with a few carefully chosen barbs, but am equally unable to seduce anyone I like without terrifying them.

#she's so badass #but also awkward #and so relatable #zheng yi sao #ofmd zheng yi sao #ofmd oluwande #zheng x oluwande #ofmd #ofmd season 2 #ofmdedit #ofmd edit #ofmd gif #ofmd meme #ofmd 2x03 #ofmd the innkeeper #ofmd olu #ofmd season 2 spoilers #our flag means death

[belanekra]

Somebody write me a post 2x03 au where Ed wakes up and due to the blunt force trauma to the head, has amnesia and doesn't remember anything past like 5 years ago so he doesn't recognize anyone but Izzy and he's the Ed from before stuff started going bad between them. How do Stede & crew react? How does Izzy?

#our flag means death #ofmd #edward teach #israel hands #izzy hands #stede bonnet #ofmd season 2 #ofmd 2x03

[crownspeaksblog]

I don't know if this is just me but I was kinda caught of guard when ed was talking about intercourse and orgasms..

because (unless I'm forgetting something) i genuinely can't remember ed or stede displaying sexual desire/attraction, unlike other couples in the show.. and i didn't realize that in season 1 but now i just kinda find it little weird that ed and stede have not acknowledged sex on their own..

I get focusing solely on building their friendship and romantic relationship slowly throughout season 1 but it's just i was so taken back when ed started talking about sex that i was like "oh yeah!! Sex!! Of course! Of course ed fucks!!"

and i hope that we get more of it, more of ed and stede (on their own and hopefully towards eachother at some point) displaying sexual desires! Because i need repressed stede bonnet who's probably only been with mary to want and to have good sex with ed!!

#the only mention of sex regarding them was calcio jack asking if they're buggering! but still it wasn't coming from them! #i don't know if other people felt this way and it's weird that i reacted that way because I've read fics where they were going at it!!! #but yes i want sex and i want it to be funny!! #ofmd #ofmd 2x03 #ofmd s2 #ofmd spoilers #blackbonnet #stede bonnet #edward teach #👑 #our flag means death

[mchristelle]

#our flag means death #ofmd #Archie #Stede Bonnet #Jim Jimenez #ofmd 2x03

[starlightmesss]

"piss off, Izzy. I don't wanna hear from you" SENDS ME. first thing he tells him. beautiful

#ofmd #ofmd spoilers #ofmd s2 #our flag means death #ofmd 2x03 #stede bonnet #izzy hands

[kajaono]

One thing I love so much about the merman scene - apart from using real water and not CGI - is that they used a "real"/practical tail and no CGI either.

Because thats my biggest pet peeve with The Little Mermaid 2023, the tails looks horrible, especially of the sisters, but also Ariel looks... meh

Not even the bra is real. You know how amazing the bras could have looked with some good body paint? Like Mystique... *cough* back to the actual topic

Mermaid tails look unreal anyway... because mermaids do not exist. So the biggest challenge is to create a tail that looks a) convincing and b) pretty.

The point is: Animate a dragon, no matter how shitty it looks, its convincing, because a dragon is supposed to look unreal. It doesn't exist. We do not know how a dragon looks. But mermaids...? they have basically fish tails, and we know how fishs look. An this picture above looks nothing like a fish. It just looks unreal. And that ruins the illusion

This is why it is so much better to use a tail costume, inspired by an actual fish. To keep the illsuion real

All the details that went into the tail:

this is how you get such a realistic tail movement:

gif by: @juliewlters

Because it is a real tail in real water. And thats honestly the dedication i expect when you write a mermaid story... and not just horrible CGI

#ofmd #the little mermaid #ofmd spoilers #mermaid #ofmd season 2 #ofmd 2x03

[themaninyourcomputer]

CAN WE TALK ABOUT IZZY MOTHERFUCKING HANDS??? YOU GUYS?? Season three ripped my heart out. I'm absolutely devestated. I was talking with @vampireteaspoon about this-Izzy isn't being redeemed in the Zuko sense of the word. The people around him are just fundamentally broken, damaged people, and the events of season one/leading into season two highlight their flaws. It's not necessarily that Izzy is getting better, it's that the other characters are...well, being fucking awful to eachother.

The plot is bringing out the worst in everyone, which levels the playing field, and allows us to see the humanity in Izzy. We sympathize with him, not because he's a good person, but because he-like Ed-is a flawed individual. However, we recognize that he is a complex person. It's very Bojack Horseman.

Like, we're rooting for Ed, but his actions are so vile. We SEE the Kraken. And while we understand that his actions come from a place of hurt ("I'm not a good person, Stede"), there are moments, specifically in episode 2, where we DESPISE him.

Same goes for Stede. Stede is frustratingly ignorant. He's self absorbed to the point of being borderline narcissistic. He is not considerate of other people's feelings. This is evident in the way he brushes off Lucius, and-more importantly-in his abandonment of Ed. And he is still COMPLETELY ignorant of all the pain he caused Ed. Ed grieved him. He fucking grieved him. He actually mourned Stede. He lashed out at the people around him. This mf tried to kill himself, and Stede doesn't seem to grasp the severity of his actions.

This show is grabbing the audience by the shoulders, violently shaking us, and screaming, "Maybe there are no villians, maybe no one is 'evil,' maybe hurt people hurt people, maybe morality isn't black and white."

Basically, the OFMD characters all suck, and god, I just want them to be happy.

#girl how are you #This is irrelevant but I HAVE LOVE FOR YOU ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME ARGHHHH #posting this shit on main #ofmd season 2 #ofmd #ofmd spoilers #izzy hands #blackbeard #edward teach #stede bonnet #ofmd lucius #lucius spriggs #ofmd blackbeard #our flag means death #ofmd edward teach #ed teach #ofmd rant #ofmd 2 #ofmd 2x03 #also they really did shoot that scene in the avatar tank...a little silly