Our Flag Means Death: Thread 2. Still utterly brilliant and we are still obsessed!

[TriceratopsRocks]

Ahoy there mateys! Hop aboard our ‘safe space ship’ thread 2, where we can continue to wax lyrical about our favourite show.

If you haven’t yet seen Our Flag Means Death, what are you waiting for? Do go watch it (on BBC iPlayer) and then come back here and join us.

You may have heard that this is a comedy about pirates and think that's not for you. But it’s actually about self-discovery, healing and found-family with a love story at its heart. It does begin as a sort of pirate workplace comedy, but in episode 4 the tone changes and that’s where the main story really starts. The joint leads are both damaged by abusive backgrounds and think they want what the other has. The show is about their healing and their respective journeys. It’s tender, romantic, funny, emotionally intelligent and utterly refreshing. It subverts genre expectations. There is comedy, absurdity and a good amount of heartbreak and despair - sometimes in the same scene! The acting is outstanding (Taika Waititi and Rhys Darby especially). But the writing, music, costumes, sets, the sheer attention to detail – for a show with only 18 half-hour episodes it is still keeping us talking, a full thread and many re-watches later. Can you tell how much I love it?

If you think this might appeal, do watch it, then come back and talk to us. It would be lovely if more were to join our crew. But be aware it's a show that needs time. The 2nd lead doesn’t arrive until the end of episode 3 and that’s when the main story starts. You need to give it at least 4 episodes. It then took me several more to fully appreciate what I was watching but then I was hooked - and had to immediately watch it all over again. If you like Good Omens, What We Do in the Shadows, Ghosts or even Bridgerton, this might be the show for you.

(I’ve kept this spoiler free, but if you scroll down you will no doubt find many, so beware!)

Thread 1: https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/telly_addicts/5008593-our-flag-means-death-its-utterly-brilliant-and-i-am-obsessed?reply=135294204

I think that this is maybe Ed's most relaxed and genuine smile of all - finally feeling safe (ironically give the mid-battle context) and secure in how he feels. I love the smile at the end of 2.4 too, but we know then that he still has so far to go.

@MrsJellybee@TriceratopsRocks

Is the fanfic Which-Must-Not-Be-Named Celestial Bodies? If so, I think I must be missing something - I just don't feel emotionally involved enough to feel the sadness. Partly the length, but also I think maybe I'm not good at getting past the being part of different universes rather than a material world, whether that's canon or AU. Not very imaginative of me and my loss I know! Whereas the end of Thus Have I Had Thee (another @BeBraveLittlePenguin recc) had me in bits - actually not just the end, as the inevitable ending is flagged up right at the start.

Just imagine the lessons you could teach on this show! I have considered briefly looking at film and media studies lecturing jobs just so I can conduct seminars on the show.🤣

Is the fanfic Which-Must-Not-Be-Named Celestial Bodies? It didn’t leave me upset as such. It just felt nihilistic. I quite like the concept of them being the Alpha and Omega of the universe, but that isn’t satisfying on an emotional level. I think that’s why I didn’t fully like it. But I do keep circling back to it - much to @TriceratopsRocks chagrin 😉- so it must’ve affected me on some level. I keep trying to find the positive spin.

Oh, totally. Ed was coming back to find Stede anyway, but it’s finding one of the messages in a bottle which allows Ed to run to Stede with such a full heart. Knowing Stede really was writing every day to him whilst they were apart and that Ed’s love was requited, (Stede was just behind the curve) is what elicits that gorgeous smile from Ed.

I have a question: at what point did our boys write their names on each other in permanent ink?

I have considered briefly looking at film and media studies lecturing jobs just so I can conduct seminars on the show.🤣
Now, @MrsJellybee , that would certainly win you the grand prize for dedication to this hyper-fixation of ours!

Is the fanfic Which-Must-Not-Be-Named Celestial Bodies?
Indeed it is. But you have to remember - I cry at The Tolling Bells, which feels like a mere 100 years of pining! In Celestial Bodies, they're almost at the end of the universe, but it's a slow death; there are still millenia left. Eons. Everything else is dead around them. And they know it. They are making do as best they can, but they are moving further and further apart. Their time is running out and they know it. But they still have to wait for a whole universe to die and (hopefully) be reborn. And they know it. I find it desperately sad.

On a lighter note, I am loving all the music discussion. Those interviews with Maggie Phillips are wonderful, and it's a long time since I saw them so thank you for posting. I watched 1.9 this afternoon and it was interesting that she didn't want Perfect Day in there, but couldn't beat it. It chokes me up now every single time I hear it. When it gets to this line:

"Just a perfect day,
you make me forget myself.
I thought I was someone else
someone good".

Waaaaaaahhhhhh! Ed! 😭😭😭

And then Stede walks into his old house to face Mary:

"You're going to reap, just what you sow"

Foreshadowing the despair of S2

Sorry. I did say lighter note didn't I? 😆

So, that lighter note. I watched 1.9 today. It's one of my favourite episodes. SO lets just have a happy Stede and a happy Ed. And perhaps not think about what's about to happen just a little later in that episode...!

‘What makes Ed happy is…you’

Is that literal, "We wrote our names on each other in permanent ink" or is it a bit of poetic metaphor? I'd taken it be in the line of Mary I having Calais engraved on her heart...

That’s my question really. I like the idea of them having matching tattoos, but I can’t honestly see Stede getting one. Although my favourite head-cannon of a literal interpretation is their getting pissed on the brandy after ‘co-captains’ and Ed doing them then. And Stede fainting.

I thought it was metaphor, but I think everything is metaphor.

Oh, to use the Calais line:

’When I am dead and opened, you shall find ‘Stede’ lying in my heart’ 😮‍💨

I guess another interpretation is the signing of’ The Act of Grace’. They signed their names literally and metaphorically there with permanent ink. That was ‘forever’. At least Ed thought they did…

*headcanon

I wrote head-cannon somewhere once as a joke because they’re pirates and now predictive text keeps running with it 🤣

I think if Stede can get gut-stabbed twice he'd be able to get a tattoo. Although his aesthetic criteria might be more than Ed could manage!

I can think of at least two fics where the tattoo question is discussed (he only actually gets one) but nothing difficult like handwriting.

Have you read Labyrinth Skin, the stories in tattoos fic? If not, do. It's utterly wonderful.

I always figured the "permanent ink" was metaphorical. But I can actually see Stede getting a tattoo one day (although possibly only because I've read it in several fics now, where it felt like it was done right).

@BeBraveLittlePenguin I've somehow read the entirety of the 'divers' series in less than 24 hours. How did that happen? And what is sleep? I adore that version of them. I daren't look to see how many words that was! And having finished I now want to go back to the start again to watch them get together all over again 🤣

Ok I just looked. It's >217k words. Oops 🫣

I have read it, thanks to your previous recommendation. So original and moving. I think I cried on the plane.

Work Experience still my top read for humour and quality of writing. Genuinely one of the funniest things I've read. Very close to the tone of the show.

Mine too. It’s outstanding writing.

Sorry, I don’t know how to link to Spotify so have linked to the Tumblr post that took me there. Rhys on the Talking Strange Paranormal show. It’s mostly Cryptid chat. But if you listen from 37.40, he talks for three minutes about OFMD. And he says a lot in those three minutes. I’m going to have to go and hide in my bathroom for a bit and cry…

https://www.tumblr.com/saltpepperbeard/753360990519934976?source=share

Link to transcript if you can’t listen right now. But do listen to the above. The tone.

https://www.tumblr.com/adoptourcrew/753367449722830848/talking-strange-paranormal-show-with-aaron-sagers?source=share

This show really came at a good time for me. I had a difficult year for all sorts of reasons - much to be thankful for but it's been hard. And there was something about watching a show in which people my age basically just are nice to each other and also manage to be funny and romantic that really hit the spot for me. I'm so sad that they won't get to do a third series. It would have been lovely to see it finished properly.

Thank you for that link, @MrsJellybee , it's a lovely little segment and it's good to hear him talk about it again. I remember seeing a video of Rhys when the show was first cancelled and he was clearly devastated about it. I actually went through a load of his Instagram videos yesterday looking for it, but couldn't find it. I didn't go through everything yet though. And I don't even know if it was his Instagram - it could have been a Cameo or something else? Does anyone else know the video I mean? It was just him talking straight to camera, not long after he had heard the news.

I think many of us here are coming from similar backgrounds and perspectives. I just feel sorry for all involved. They deserved one more season. They deserved to finish the story.

Just surfacing to say I’ve been absolutely immersed in the Olympic divers fic and something funny has happened to my brain!

@TriceratopsRocks was it this one?

https://kityana.tumblr.com/post/741578833794318336