Doug Jones
izzy's playlists!
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Game Changer & Make Some Noise
🩵 avery cochrane 🩵
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EXPECTATIONS
noise dept.
Jules of Nature
❣ Chile in a Photography ❣
Not today Justin
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almost home
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Sade Olutola
Interview Vampire Daily
TMBGareOK. The Official They Might Be Giants tumblr
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@lusciousspriggs
pretentious moment incoming but why is everyone's idea of fashion so fucking boring these days. why the fuck did my manager just ask me "what's with the scarf". "what's with the scarf" fuck man do I need a reason to wear a faggy little scarf now? you could just say "nice scarf man". what's with your attitude
I’m sorry if ur tired of talking about ofmd feel free to ignore this its just ur blog is one of the few places I see anyone talking abt how bad this is. I just needed to share that it really fucking bothers me that some ofmd fans will pay money towards a billboard and then point at other charitable fundraisers within the fandom saying ‘look we did that too’. Even though they are surely not organized or donated to by the same factions of people. How can u co-opt on the goodwork of others just because u share a fandom space is really the cherry on top of this nonsense to me
You were right to come here. This is a safe space for haters.
And YEAH they’re hellbent on seeing their show as activism or genocide as some kind of fandom gotcha. It’s way too late for these old ass people everything is fandom they can’t get their heads out of their asses to see anything outside of that when the reality is nobody gives a fuck about their show they’re just very unlikable, smug, sheltered, adult children!!
GLOBAL STRIKE FOR GAZA BEGINS TODAY!!!
To participate:
During the 21st - 28th of January...
Do not shop/online shop
Skip school/work if you are able to
Be present & active on social media and uplift Palestinian voices
Draw, write, sing, create art for Palestine
Repost & boost Palestine related content on social media
Educate yourself about the issue
We have been asked to strike during these days by the lovely & hardworking journalist Bisan from Gaza. Let's all try our best for a people being tested with the harshest conditions imaginable. The occupation must be held accountable.
We're in this together!!
hi friends
as we boycott in support of palestine, here is a little reminder of the companies that specifically supported israel in their crimes against palestine (taken from the al jazeera website)
do as much as you are able to during the boycott, but if you need essentials or need to go to work to support yourself, that is okay! anything helps and boycotting these companies specifically is great because of their direct role in the violence against people in gaza
free palestine
I'm sorry if you're tired of thinking about ofmd and that whole mess but goddamn... it's incredibly painful to see so many people trying to set up fundraisers to get their families out of gaza and the sudan and desperately trying to get their loved ones to safety, I've seen so many and everyday I check to see how much progress they've made, most of them still haven't hit their goal. It hurts to see people rally around a tv show and raise all this money for a billboard, and it's very frustrating to see how people have reacted to this criticism. Like bro tv shows get canceled sometimes there's more important stuff going on
Someone else said it better but to see a fundraiser for tv show renewal advertisements raise $20,000 in less than a day while it takes days/weeks/months/years/never for fundraisers for actual causes that help real people in need reach a goal of less is absolutely dystopian and shameful
Organisations currently providing food, water, and/or medicine to Ghazza:
Taawon Association (in partnership with the Bank of Palestine) are distributing hot meals in Ghazza.
The World Food Programme (WFP) is getting food parcels into Ghazza, though I can't find them sharing a more specific location anywhere. Donate here.
The Palestinian Children's Relief Fund (PCRF) is providing medicine, food, and water. Their website specifically mentions food relief in north, central, and south Ghazza, and water delivered to north and south Ghazza.
Direct aid to people in Ghazza:
Help Christians in Ghazza get visas to leave
Help Hala Abu Ramadan's family of six leave Ghazza (organized by Mohammed Samhouri, vouched for by @psychoticgerard)
Help Shayma and her family of 16 leave Ghazza (organised by Fardowsa. You may remember a link to a paypal going around to help Shayma; however, paypal has frozen those funds)
Help Shaymaa's family of 13 leave Ghazza (organised by Shaymaa herself, who is in Canada)
Help Sanaa and her family of 5 leave Ghazza and establish themselves in Belgium (organised by Eyad M, vouched for by Motaz Azaiza)
Help sisters Duaa and Deena leave Ghazza and get medical treatment in Cairo (organised by Shereen Alhayek, @.littlestpersimmon's friend's acquaintance)
Help Ahmed (@90-ghost) and his family leave Ghazza via ko-fi, paypal, or gofundme (@unionfish is offering stickers and prints in exchange for donations)
Help a family of Ghazzan refugees in Egypt get medical care and relocate
Buy an e-sim for use in Ghazza
Organisations in Sudan:
Sudan Solidarity emergency fund
HomeTax Sudan helps internally displaced people in Sudan with food, medication, shelter, and travel
Sudan Relief Fund is supplying medications and medical supplies
One Million Sustainable Pads is supplying menstrual products
FAH (Financial Assistance to Sudanese Hospitals) is providing funds and supplies to Sudanese hospitals and displaced Sudanese families in Egypt
The Citizens' Call for Emergency Evacuations Committee evacuates South Sudanese people from Sudan
Direct aid to people in Sudan:
Help Mohamed Farah's family leave Sudan (posted by @Kandakat_alhaqq on twitter)
Help a Sudanese family get visas (@Kandakat_alhaqq's family)
Help an internally displaced Sudanese family get food, shelter, and medicine
Help @.niqabisinparis's displaced family afford basic necessities
STOP IT❗️❗️❗️
Question: I enjoyed s1 OF OFMD, but for various reasons I never actually got around to watching s2 (pick up most of the plot from tumblr tho). What exactly went wrong in s2 that got so many people upset?
Oh, boy. Very long rant incoming.
So, for context, S2 had a significantly smaller budget, which necessitated moving the filming location to union-unfriendly New Zealand, reducing the number of actors/number of appearances of established actors, and cutting down the number of episodes from 10 to 8. In a show where each episode is only about half an hour long, that last one alone was enough to seriously hamper any character development or plot. I am very comfortable putting the vast majority of the blame on HBO because of these financial decisions.
The short version is that Jenkins et. al. needed to address and build on the problems left hanging in S1 while also getting the characters to the end of their character trajectories in case there was no S3 while also leaving room for additional episodes in case there was a S3, in a grand total of four hours, and failed.
The long version is that there were a bunch of what I'd consider small problems in isolation that came together and exploded in the S2 finale.
The reduced cast necessitated breaking up the crew (ex: having Swede marry Jackie and stay on land with her, so they don't need to pay Nat Faxon for all eight episodes) and not spending as much time on their relationships as S1 did.
The reduced time meant that the entire season was rushed (in contrast to S1, which takes place over at least several weeks if not months, most of S2 takes place in roughly five days), leading both to a lot of telling rather than showing (because they don't have time to show you), including vital character and relationship development.
This includes:
Having the Kraken half of the crew beat Ed to death after months of being abused by him – abuse that is clearly shown to have given them PTSD and a well-justified fear and hatred of him – only for them to be okay with him two in-universe days later;
On that note, having Stede dismiss the crew's concerns about Ed because he loves him and also we only have three more episodes left to fit in everything so we need to get over it really fast, even though Stede is supposed to be well-meaning and caring (even if he's not good at it all the time);
Resolving the issue of Stede abandoning Ed in one day, then having them "go slowly" in their relationship for two days and then have some spur-of-the-moment sex, and then the next afternoon have them break up over their diverging career aspirations, and then the day after that resolve that problem and retire on land while the rest of the crew sails off into the sunset;
Stede becoming a fantastic pirate captain over the course of one day, becoming wildly popular in the piracy world two days later, and then deciding the day after that to never be a captain again because he is retiring with Ed;
Having Ed and Stede decide to retire together as what is implied to be the end point of their relationship arc, when none of Stede's issues from S1, like his poor self-esteem, have been so much as mentioned by anyone, implying that he's either magically gotten over them or they don't matter all that much, actually, even though they were the catalyst for basically everything he did in S1;
Ed having two separate character crises – "I am an unlovable person" and "I want to do something with my life other than piracy" – not spending a lot of time on either one, having moments that clearly indicate he is still working on both problems and they have not been resolved, and then apparently having them both be resolved in the final episode despite nothing occurring to actually make that happen, and in regards to the latter, despite the story actively undermining it by repeatedly showing he can't do anything other than piracy;
Related to the above, Ed ending the series as allegedly being loved by the crew as a family (thus solving Crisis #1) despite this never actually being shown, demonstrated, or even fucking alluded to onscreen. If anything, it shows the exact opposite.
This last point is especially galling to me because of what is probably the most divisive issue in the fandom right now: killing off Izzy Hands after giving him seven episodes of character development.
The show begins with the Kraken crew clearly trying to use the skills they learned as part of Stede's crew to cope with their incredibly shitty situation and care for each other, which includes Izzy. Izzy, on his end, tries to protect the crew and speak up for them, which results in him being repeatedly hurt (both implicitly, as Ed at one point says "that's another toe" in response to Izzy advocating for the crew and we later see he's missing more than one toe already, and explicitly, as Ed shoots him in the fucking leg in front of the crew when he stands up for them).
This camaraderie is shown again and again and again. Frenchie, Jim, and Archie take care of Izzy while his leg is infected, at risk to their own lives. Izzy's misery over losing his leg is what unites the PTSD-ridden Kraken crew and the well-meaning-but-ignorant-of-PTSD marooned crew, who are initially at odds, to make him a new prosthetic leg. Izzy gives Lucius advice about forgiving Ed. Izzy is introduced to drag and opens up enough to sing at a crew party, and the whole crew is having fun together while Ed and Stede are in their cabin having sex for the first time. Izzy gives Stede pirate captain lessons and bonds with him when Ed leaves him. Izzy provokes the season's villain into focusing on him and then gives a big speech about how piracy is about belonging to something, giving the rest of the crew time to try to escape.
Recall that Season 1 had some pretty well-established universe rules, one of which was that it runs on Muppet physics/magical realism. People can jump off yardarms, hit the side on the way down, and be perfectly fine. People can get stabbed in the liver and it's totally okay because it's probably not that important, and even can stay pinned to a mast all night that way with only mild discomfort. Buttons can talk to birds and see long distances without a spyglass and put hexes on people. Good people can be hurt (Stede is stabbed repeatedly), bad people can die (the Badmintons, Geraldo), but no one we care about is ever killed.
This is repeated in Season 2: Ed is beaten into a coma with a cannonball and wakes up like Sleeping Beauty after a spirit journey, with no injuries to his face or body. Buttons turns into a seagull after spending an episode doing a magic ritual and is never seen again (because they couldn't keep paying Ewen Bremner due to the budget cuts). Jackie microdoses her husbands with poison to build up their immunity, so that she can later pull a Dread Pirate Westley and poison the British with shared drinks.
So: in the finale, the villain of the season is taken hostage by the pirates (for reasons? unclear how that fits in the plan), happens to have a gun on him (no one checked??), shoots Izzy on the right side and then leaves with no repercussions. The entire crew stands around silently doing nothing while Ed cries over Izzy and tells him that he's his only family.
And Izzy fucking Hands, the guy who just spent eight episodes bonding with and protecting everyone, uses his last words to reassure Ed that him becoming Blackbeard/the Kraken was Izzy's fault and that the crew is Ed's family and they all love him. No one else says anything to Izzy or tries to comfort him or help him in any way.
I repeat: in a show predicated on the idea that bullies and bigots die stupid deaths while queer people and POC are basically magic, a show that was praised for being kind to queer people by not making them worry about their faves suffering or dying, a show founded on the strength of the relationships between the characters, the guy who went through a season-long arc of learning to embrace his pirate found family and his own queerness is shot for stupid reasons on the side we're told isn't important and dies while everyone just stands there. His last words are about the whole crew loving Ed when the only person that the whole crew has loved all season is him.
Anyway, never mind all that, let's cut to Lucius and Pete getting married and Stede and Ed retiring!
Complicating all this is that people who liked Izzy (or even said anything insufficiently mean about Izzy) were harassed for months in between seasons with insults, slurs, and actual fucking death threats. Izzy's growth was kind of a vindication for liking him: it meant that, despite all the harassment, we were right to like him and care about him as a character. Even people who didn't like him initially started to like him during Season 2.
And then he dies, and now there's a bunch of people saying that Izzy fans are big whiny babies who can't handle fictional death, and actually his death was so meaningful and beautiful and the only logical end to his arc, and it can't be bad writing because people die in real life all the time, and also he admitted he fed Ed's darkness so actually he was a terrible person all along anyway and they were right to hate him (and his fans)!
So, yeah, there are a lot of reasons why it's so hated, and I'm probably only addressing the problems of the pro-Izzy people (from what I can tell, BlackBonnet shippers who don't like Izzy think Ed and Stede's relationship is fine and dandy, but I'm sure that there are other criticisms they have that I have not addressed). I'm not even addressing the issues with Jim and Oluwande's relationship this season (and whooo boy are there issues).
It wasn't a universally bad season. There were episodes I really loved and still do. But the finale was a train wreck, and because it was a train wreck, a lot of people are looking back at what happened before the wreck and realizing that, oh, the train lost its brakes and steering because of the budget cuts and the engineers kept throwing fuel in the engine to make it go faster, and huh, now that I think of it, that part earlier in the trip was really wobbly but I didn't pay much attention to it at the time because I was sure the engineers had everything covered.
Honestly? Not surprised at all about OFMD's cancellation, because if they didn't strongly expect to get cancelled, the finale makes absolutely no sense, particularly in regards to Stede and Ed's relationship and character development. The whole season was rushed, and the finale was especially rushed, because they knew that might be their last chance to wrap up loose ends.
And if they had gotten a third season, they'd have to have either a) negated it so it wasn't a happy ending (thus negating the implication in 2x8 that they have resolved all of their serious relationship and personal issues), or b) gone beyond it, built on it, but then had a SECOND, happier ending? somehow? even though it's pretty clear that retiring together is supposed to be the end goal?
Like, we got the season we got because Jenkins et. al. suspected that they wouldn't have any more time to develop the characters or get to the end goal they'd envisioned. We kind of already got season 3, or like, the speedrun version of it.
Alienating a decent chunk of your fanbase with what I consider a betrayal to the show's core message/established rules and a slap in the face to everyone who praised it for promoting kindness and queer happiness is probably not great for your longevity as a show, either.
nathan is just like me frfr
Lucius and Pete reunited 💗
They are just so damn cute together
💋 lupete & kisses 💋
(so far)
I love that it was the entire crew that married Lucius and Pete. It was a really touching way of emphasizing how much they're all a family, and how they all played an important role in the story of the Revenge
One thing I love about Frenchie is how he very obviously likes some of the high life stuff, particularly fashion, but he's not at all interested in taking it for himself over picking his own community. And how he's very well aware that the high crust is nothing if not the violent, ugly colonizers that they are
Think about it. Frenchie obviously cares about fashion; although his clothes are tattered all the way to hell, there is clearly an attempt to make something nice. Everyone else is just wearing practical clothes; Frenchie is the only one with an accessory (the scarf). He's also the only one save for Roach who wears something colorful (the scarf is bright yellow, the jacket is blue; and considering that dye was very expensive at the time, he would have had to go out of his way to get that. It might be even why they're so tattered; those might be the only colorful clothes he owns, and the fact that he keeps wearing them proves how attached to them he is). The scarf is styled in a loose way, but also slightly resembling a cravat
It's far from a high fashion look; it's obvious that Frenchie can't afford it, both in the economic sense (his clothes are the most tattered ones by far) and the lifestyle sense (he's a manual laborer, he can't be wearing high fashion clothes, or anything that is too impractical really). Nevertheless, the fact that he cares enough to try despite it being so inaccessible to him says a lot about just how much it means to him
His appreciation for fancy clothes is very much confirmed when they raid the fancy ship and Frenchie immediately goes to check their wardrobe, gets himself a very nice and fancy outfit, and then walks into Stede's library with the biggest grin we've seen on him so far, says, "good evening, my fine sirs" and gives a little bow as he holds a party invitation
And the thing is, he wants to go, because if he didn't, he wouldn't have given it directly to Stede, the single person in the ship who's likely to say yes (and the fact that he doesn't is character development, too). He could've thrown it out and Stede would literally never know. And even if he did know, the show makes it very clear that the crew doesn't respect Stede enough to do stuff they don't want to do, especially in the first half. Frenchie himself proceeds to run a whole con behind Stede's back that same episode, so I think it's safe to say that he doesn't give Stede the invitation out of a sense of duty to his captain. And even if he did, Stede never invited him and most of the crew didn't go, so it's obvious that it was his own choice to attend
With all of that in mind, I think it becomes clear that Frenchie likes the fashion, the pleasantness, the fine aspects of the high life that he has never had access to. And he enjoys the fantasy of getting to live it, even if for a day
And it'd be so easy for him to then become the person who turns on his peers in order to get his shot at fitting in the high life. It could even be good commentary about colorism and assimilationism, seeing as Frenchie is the lightest-skinned Black man on the ship, and historically lighter-skinned Black people had been the ones who were allowed to "serve" within the white spaces and the house. I won't get into this in depth because I'm not qualified to, but many people have talked about this before, and this dynamic would obviously be important if they went for this kind of narrative
Besides, there is a lot of commentary that can be done about oppressed in-fighting. Particularly when it comes to people who are allowed some degree of closeness to the power ranks and then turn against the people who are not, in order to get approval and feel like they belong with those in power. This is a subject that OFMD actually touches a lot on, especially through Stede
(I won't get into details cuz I have a bigger meta on this planned, but think Stede in episode 1 making all the Black men on his ship pretend to be servants and go through awful amounts of racism in order to impress his childhood bully that he hates. Why does he care about impressing that guy? Because Stede is still attached to his privilege and power, and as such, he's willing to throw others under the bus so he can still hold on to it)
(Mandatory "don't get me wrong, I like Stede" comment. I think that his arc is about letting go of precisely this in order to fully embrace the poor, queer poc as his people instead of the gentry. And that is exactly what makes him interesting to me! But this commentary about the intersection of privilege and oppression, and how it can make people turn on other oppressed people, is absolutely being made)
Back to Frenchie, it'd make sense if he was the kind of character who has issues with the fact that he does not have access to things that he values, and who just wants a shot at feeling like he's fancy and could get the finer things that he's been denied. And who, as a result, turns against his peers. And I don't even think that it'd be a bad thing to show. But OFMD does us one better: it makes Frenchie (and Olu and Roach) unabashedly supportive of his darker-skinned Black peers, and perfectly aware of the ugliness of the upper crust; and not only unwilling to participate in it, but actually disinterested in doing so, because fancy clothes aren't worth it. ["not only unwilling to participate in it, but actually disinterested, because fancy clothes aren't worth it" in italics]
This is even shown in the very same scene where Frenchie shows up with his fancy clothes; although he is enjoying the fantasy of being a fine, respected, well-dressed man, he also refers to the party as "for hoity-toity people". The derision he feels is clear, and although there is a way to interpret this as simply Frenchie pointing out that that's not him, his behavior at the party confirms that he does not actually want to be a part of "this lot" in their ugliness
Because when him and Olu (the darkest-skinned man on the show, and I don't think that's a coincidence) go to the party, Frenchie is the one who's in control of the situation from beginning to end. Olu is a bad liar (doesn't know what to answer when asked who he is), clearly unfamiliar with the workings of the upper crust (shocked by racist comments, which is really not something any Black man of his skin tone who's been around gentry for one second would be surprised by), and anxious about the whole situation (when called out by Abshir, immediately reveals their whole scam and offers to leave, going as far as saying "we can swim"). Frenchie, on the other hand, is calm, collected, knows how to lie, and is familiar with how the upper crust works. The show makes it very clear that he can play them like a fiddle, and it's not even a challenge to him
So Frenchie is in control of the lie, and it would have been so easy for him to throw Olu under the bus and make himself the center of attention so he could get to be the "fine sir" he clearly thinks would be nice to be for a moment. Instead, he makes Olu the prince and himself his viceroy; it is Olu who gets to have his hand kissed (and how beautiful it is to see those racist white people, who paint their faces even whiter, kissing a dark skinned Black man's hand), and, when things get overwhelming for Olu, he steps in and takes control of the situation. This last part is shown during the racist comment situation - Olu is shocked and Frenchie steps in, saying "what a lovely thing to say" and giving Olu a pointed look to indicate to him that this is the safe way to play it (and Olu trusts him immediately). It is also shown in the way the whole con is made and how Frenchie even brings it up, doing all the talking and making it so Olu has to make minimal effort. This is also survival, of course; if Olu fucks it up, Frenchie is toast too. And while I believe that Frenchie is more practical than Olu is (especially because I think that Olu is, to some extent, kinda naive, or at least new enough to the Western world that he doesn't quite get how important certain things are for survival), that's all the more reason why Frenchie could have made himself the Prince and drawn all the attention. The fact that he didn't is proof of his unwillingness to throw Olu under the bus, and the bond between them as two Black men among rich white people
So Olu is the center of attention, he's the prince, he's the one who gets all these racist whites begging him to take their money (which I can only imagine was a very amazing sight for Frenchie, especially considering his grin as he watched how the party ended). And then, at the end, he lets Olu decide what to do with the money that, by any reasonable account, Frenchie earned
When they are leaving, he asks Olu "so, what did you do with our earnings?". He obviously let him decide whatever he wanted. It was mostly Frenchie's hard work, and it would be perfectly reasonable for him to decide, or at least for it to be a joint decision, but he leaves it to Olu. And then the most beautiful part of all, of course: Olu gives it to Abshir and the other servants so they can leave. They both give up their hard-earned fancy goods and money for someone who they deem needs it more, someone who they see as equals and part of their community as Black men. And it's beautiful and one of my favorite Olu moments that helped him be solidified as my favorite OFMD character, because I'm just a sucker for selfless people who value community above all else. But everything about the selflessness and sense of community that Olu shows then is first shown in Frenchie
I've said before that the Black (and overall poc) solidarity is one of my favorite things in this show, and it just really gains particularly wonderful undertones in Frenchie's whole behavior throughout this episode. Because as much as he might like nice clothes and the fantasy of being fancy, he loves his people way more, and he knows where he would be accepted and where he wouldn't. It's beautiful to see and such a great thing about his character and the overall way this show handles racial issues, privilege, and belonging
TLDR: Frenchie is shown to like fancy stuff, but he still chooses to uplift Olu instead of himself and give the fancy things away to Abshir. And that shows a lot of solidarity between the Black men on OFMD
#shades of jim and olu even with frenchie taking olu's spot as translator and guide and ride or die backup (via knowlesian)
Your tags actually made me realize that they lowkey go full circle because the first (and maybe most obvious) moment of POC solidarity we get in the show is Jim throwing the knife at the British soldier's hand because he had been racist to Frenchie; then we have Olu being so supportive of Jim throughout the whole series, and then Frenchie supporting Olu in this episode. It's really so nice how they wrote this dynamic with this whole web of mutually dependant people who are all there for each other. No one's taking a bigger toll than the other and they're all there for each other in their own way. This is real solidarity
