Also. Max loves to take shows off in order to cut costs. Torrent that shit right now. If you don't know how to do that @dickfuckk has some great links where you can download the show, and make yourself a box set. Learn how to burn a DVD, get a cheap dvd player, draw fan art in sharpie lovingly on each disc. Don't let anyone take this show from you. They can rip it from your cold dead hands.
BIRDS OF SPAIN: European Bee-eater. Thrush-sized colorful bird. It migrates, so it can be seen in Europe during the summer, when it nests in sandy walls. Insectivore, catches bugs while flying.
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I've decided to start a series of study-drawings with the birds you can see in Spain. I just like birds a lot. The information about the birds comes from SEO's (Spanish Society of Ornithology) website. Also, I'm alive.
Stede and Ed really suck this season. Looking back, lots of their scenes were extremely cinematic and/or quotable: the dream sequence at the start, the mermaid scene, the thing about breathing the same air, the kiss under the moonlight, them banging with fireworks going off outside, Ed reading Stede's letter, the kiss and love confession during the fight with the English, and finally them standing together in the dilapidated house that is supposedly going to become their inn.
It felt heavily like style over substance. Meanwhile they spent the entire season flip flopping between being together, breaking up, taking things slow, taking things fast. It led to a severe case of arrested development for both of them, because at the end of the season neither of them really changed, they never talked through their issues which could help progress their relationship in a meaningful way.
I mean hell, Stede is worse this season than he was before. In the past he was self-centred and a bit of a dick, sure, but at the end of the day he did seem to care about his crew. And there he is, being the one to suggest that Ed go back to the ship and the crew, one half of which he marooned, and the other he spent weeks or months traumatizing. And on the same day that the very crew unanimously decided to kick Ed off the ship. Like??
Ed, similarly, seemed so... Confused is probably the best word to describe him this season. And I don't even mean the character himself, but the way he was written. We have established looong ago that he doesn't want to be a pirate anymore, yet after he abandons his leathers, he immediately retrieves them within like one day. And sure, he did it to protect Stede. But then he kinda... Did a complete 180° and suddenly wants to actually go back to piracy? Then he's supposed to rejoin the crew of the Revenge only to then stay on land with Stede with the intention to run an inn?
He seems all over the place, and not in a way that feels interesting or entertaining anymore. I mean hell, the first three episodes of the season were amazing, and he was definitely one of the highlights of them. He was incredibly intense in everything he did, hurting, heartbreaking, wanting to go down and willing to take the entire world with him. Those three episodes were probably my favourite bit of television that I've ever seen.
But then... Stede showed up.
And in the end Ed got reduced to this hollow character that doesn't seem to know what he wants at all, and it feels like it's going to bite him in the ass very soon, and hard. He didn't do any of the heavy lifting of development he could've or should've gone through. Izzy did. And then he bled out in Ed's arms.
What worries me is that DJenkins said in interviews before that ideally the show is supposed to end after three seasons, and (if we get season 3 at all, that is) if that is the case, if Ed and Stede are supposed to get a happy ending together that is meant to feel earned and gratifying, they won't have nearly enough time for it. I mean, they hardly talk about the things that matter, that are important to talk about if you want to have a serious relationship with another person. And sure, they might both feel this intense pull towards one another, but that isn't nearly enough to make it work between them. For one, love sometimes simply isn't enough. And I hope that they realize it in time.
Anyway making Izzy an allegory for "the old era of piracy" and then choosing to kill him off to make way for the "new era of piracy," while also coding him to represent older queer culture is misguided writing at best, and outright cruel at worst.
I genuinely don't think DJenks realized what he was doing -- From reading his interviews, I think he just absorbed these tropes through society at large and then took them for granted. But FUCK man. If you're gonna target a queer audience, maybe reflect on the message your work is sending.
If you say that Izzy's death was a beautiful conclusion to his arc, that it was kind. You just. You don't fucking get it.
You don't get to say shit like that if you're able-bodied, and then ignore those of us who are disabled, and who liked Izzy, and are now angry and saddened by his death.
Do you think it was, I don't know... A humane way of ending things?
Well. If that's the case then, first of all, I don't want you anywhere near me. Second of all, I want you to sit with yourself and think, but like really think, about why you think it's more humane to kill off a physically disabled queer character rather than, I don't know, let him live out the rest of his life happily, getting more and more accustomed to his disability, overcoming his trauma and enjoying his life to the fullest.
Queerness and disability rarely intersect in media, unlike real life. For a few episodes, Izzy's arc gave so many of us hope. It was a beautiful, dazzling story of a man who's been through unimaginable horrors, who was only just starting to overcome his trauma, finding love, acceptance and community.
Do you know how rare it is to witness a story like that? To see yourself in a character, in a way that you've never felt seen by media before?
Now, can you imagine how much of a slap in the face it was when he died? And a death that, I might add, wasn't necessary for anyone's development, was anticlimactic, cruel, and, perhaps the most importantly, came way too early?
So, you don't get to tell us that we're overreacting after Izzy was killed off. You don't get to do that, because you just don't get it. We're hurting, and for a good reason. Because it's vile, and because if we don't speak up against it, nobody else will do it for us. You can sit in your own little corner, telling yourself that the season finale was good and satisfying, and that you're happy with the way it ended if it's indeed the series finale.
Meanwhile I'll stay here, thinking about how a beloved, queer, disabled character on a beloved queer show was put down with a gun like a horse with a broken leg.
"But Lucius is physically disabled and he survived, so it's fine to kill Izzy -"
As most of you know, I am physically disabled. Have to use a lot of very visible mobility aids, get stared at in the street, have kids asking uncomfortable questions, etc.
If you are also physically disabled and cannot see that there is a WORLD of difference between Lucius losing his finger and Izzy having a hugely traumatic, majorly life-changing disability thrust upon him, becoming suicidal, using alcohol to cope, crawling along the floor, hating himself and feeling useless and worthless, thinking he's a burden to the people he cared about because of his physical inability to protect them...
Then getting built up again by that same crew, given a beautiful prosthetic that they made for him, accepted and loved, and learning to accept and love himself specifically as a queer disabled man....
THEN SAYING EXPLICITLY THAT HE WANTS TO DIE, AFTER ALL OF THAT BEAUTIFUL GROWTH
If you cannot see how that might be JUST A LITTLE upsetting to other disabled cripplepunk folks....
I honestly do not know what to say to you.
His arc was about self-acceptance and self-love as a disabled queer man. To have him declare that he wanted to die after coming to terms with his disability and queerness is, in fact, going to upset a lot of disabled queer people.
If you are not physically disabled, feel free to reblog but don't say a word unless it's in support.
[Edited to remove the parts about Ed being canonically disabled, as someone kindly pointed out to me that they were incorrect. I hadn't realised that his knee brace was just fanon! The creators shouldn't get credit for creating a 'disabled' main character if the disability is only really acknowledged by fans.]
Another round of thoughts on the "Izzy died like a queer-coded character from a pre-gay-lib era" theme:
Every time I check into the Izzy tag or the main OFMD tag, I see people talking about how they liked/weren't shocked by the finale because it always kinda seemed like Izzy was going to die:
The reason it seems that way is because Izzy is the kind of gay character that has, historically, gotten buried.
He's the queer-coded sidekick that has to die to make way for the straight romance, and the queer-coded villain that has to be vanquished to make room for the happy ending (which includes a straight romance).
This time, he died to make way for a gay romance. Diversity win!!! I guess????
And it isn't that anyone thinks--well, probably someone somewhere does think it, but it isn't that I think that DJenks did this because he secretly loves homophobic tropes.
I think--I mean, he's pretty much said, in the interviews--that he did it because he just kinda felt like Izzy had to die to complete his arc. And he's also said he didn't intend to write a homophobic show, what I conclude from that is that he didn't fucking notice that the reason he, IDK, just kinda always felt like Izzy had to die was because of this trope.
That's why, as of the actual filming of the fucking episode, he convinced himself he was doing the "mentor dies" trope, even though he'd never done anything to establish that kind of relationship between the two characters. Because he didn't fucking know why it just kinda seemed right for Izzy to die.
And that, my friends, means that this show is just not as smart as we built it up in our minds to be.
I wasn't even expecting it to be the show where That Character finally gets a happy ending of his own. But I was--because it is a fucking sitcom--expecting it to be one where he ended up somewhere we could imagine a happy ending for him, rather than leaving him bleeding out on the fucking pavement.
Anyway making Izzy an allegory for "the old era of piracy" and then choosing to kill him off to make way for the "new era of piracy," while also coding him to represent older queer culture is misguided writing at best, and outright cruel at worst.
I genuinely don't think DJenks realized what he was doing -- From reading his interviews, I think he just absorbed these tropes through society at large and then took them for granted. But FUCK man. If you're gonna target a queer audience, maybe reflect on the message your work is sending.
I think we've all seen Casey Bloys' comments on an OFMD S3:
“What’s a little bit different in a linear world than here is… how a show performs over a longer period of time than three weeks or something,” Bloys stated. “So we’re figuring out how it’s doing, what it’s looking like.”
My reaction:
Really, HBO? HBO, after running one of the worst, most spoilery, most front loaded marketing campaigns I have ever seen, wants to talk about the long term?
The question that was driving everyone feral for an S2 was, will Stede and Ed find each other again? HBO/MAX put their first face-to-face meeting in the trailer. Why watch the show when the marketing will just toss a greatest hits reel out to the public before the episode even releases?
The showstopping set piece of 2x3 (MerStede rescuing Ed) was spoiled in their "marketing" since they released the concept art for MerStede days before the episode aired in a BTS video.
Let's look at the finale:
The beach kisses and the inn were spoiled in BTS videos released days before the episode was released after putting a week between 2x7 and 2x8 releases. Yeah, yeah, they didn't show the kisses exactly, but what else would that pose be for? It really enforced that 2x7 and 2x8 should have been released together, but HBO/MAX choose to create a cliffhanger while immediately posting the resolution in their marketing
Ed thinking Stede was dead was spoiled by the episode promo
Ed and Stede running toward one another on the beach was spoiled by the trailer. (It didn't show them in frame together, but it was obviously the same location and the direction they were going in matched.)
Ed reading one of Stede's letters was spoiled by marketing a few days before the finale release for no discernable reason
Izzy's climatic speech to Ricky (and that he was saying it to Ricky!) was spoiled in the trailer. It could have been a good hype VO, and they didn't need to spoil whom Izzy was talking to
The crew in the British garb and taking out soldiers was in the trailer. This plot begins nine minutes before the credits start.
The Revenge Crew working with Spanish Jackie and Zheng at some point was well spoiled beforehand in their BTS promo material. Zheng saying they should team up is three minutes before the credits start.
(Has anyone seen this amount of BTS material of episodes, including the season climax, released before an episode releases instead of after? Just holding this BTS material until after seems like a no-brainer to extending a show's interest after the finale is released.)
The reason the pacing felt super "off" on your first watch is because HBO/MAX already released a bulleted run through of the episode beforehand, and you were mentally ticking it off as you went instead of watching it organically. Watching it a second time really improves the flow of the episode.
This is a show whose popularity was raised created entirely through word-of-mouth excitement. The greediness of these streaming companies is why we couldn't have the actors doing promo, but then they took away the show's next most powerful tool, the word-of-mouth discussion, by releasing large swathes of the climax of the season before it aired, and the social media hype and discussion was front loaded to before release instead of after.
S3 was set up to show Ed and Stede as a solid couple and to show the pirate community against the British, and the season climax of these two points was released by HBO/MAX before the episode, and it was excitedly discussed then. Now, a week after release, we're stuck in some horrible gravy basket of discussing the part of the last five-ten minutes that HBO/MAX didn't outright spoil (though they tried their hardest with the grave promo stills and Ed's bloody hand in the promo!): Izzy's death. No one is having fun!
There is a lot of story setup for an S3 but DJenks and company had to set up a season that could double as a series finale in a pinch, so we also lost the "What happens next??" fervor because HBO/MAX wouldn't greenlight two seasons at once of their biggest new IP of 2022. The bizarre marketing strategy didn't lend itself to a long term success, and it's up to the fans once again to do HBO/MAX's job for them.
One of the paradoxes of the modern internet is that I genuinely understand sites need to get revenue somewhere, and while I don't love ads I'm actually okay seeing relatively unintrusive ads on a free site, hearing words from sponsors, etc.
But the modern internet is so full of modal popups and video ads on autoplay and trackers that using it without an adblocker is basically impossible, so everything gets blocked.
Right? Developers had three very, very simple rules that they needed to follow as part of the unspoken agreement between us and them that let them generate revenue from us looking at content:
Don't let ads hinder or outweigh the actual purpose people have for coming to your page/site (be that through extreme obtrusiveness or through slowing their browser to a crawl)
Vet your ads and don't bombard people with nsfw content
Vet your ads and don't give people fucking malware
And that was fine! It worked! But sometime in the past ~decade 90%* of sites decided that was too hard, and that they'd really just like to make money off of the plebs without any sort of accountability packaged in, and so the average web user had to start protecting themselves with countermeasures that up until then had been relegated to small and relatively unobtrusive circles of privacy enthusiasts. The users didn't start this war.
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