Our Flag Means Death: Thread 3. It's still utterly brilliant. We are still obsessed.

[TriceratopsRocks]

Ahoy again mateys! Set sail aboard thread 3 where we still wax lyrical about our favourite show, its cast, its music, fan edits, fan fiction and more 😁(there may also be just a little obsessing over our fabulous leads - pictures extremely welcome)!

If you haven’t yet seen Our Flag Means Death, what are you waiting for? Go watch it (on BBC iPlayer), then come back here and join us. But be warned, some of you may find yourself as hooked as we are 🎣.

You may have heard that this is a comedy about pirates and think it's not for you. But it’s actually a show about self-discovery, healing and found-family with a love story at its heart. The joint leads are both damaged by abusive backgrounds and 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, two full threads and many re-watches later.

If you think this might appeal, do watch it and come back and talk to us. It would be lovely if more were to join our crew. But it's a show that needs time. The 2nd lead arrives in episode 3, so you need to give it at least 4 episodes as that’s when the tone changes and the main story starts. It still took me several more episodes to fully appreciate what I was watching, but by 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
Thread 2 : https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/telly_addicts/5076581-our-flag-means-death-thread-2-still-utterly-brilliant-and-we-are-still-obsessed?reply=136060611

Not a fan fic idea but was thinking about those sensory baby books titled "that's not my...", my kids had a mermaid one whose tail was too rough (sandpaper), crinkly etc.

Apologies for bringing Izzy back in (I'm not any type of Izzy shipper I promise) but I was thinking of a Blackbeard version.

"That's not my Blackbeard" his dressing gown is too silky/namby-pamby, his chin is too smooth, his clothes are too poor, climaxing with the final leather clad, fully fluffy bearded Kraken resplendent with severed toe 😆 "That's my Blackbeard"!

I'm reading the Tour de France one now, which is also fantastic. The fan fics make the lack of a 3rd series less painful.

In one of the interviews I watched (I'm ashamed to say I can't remember whether it was Rhys or Taika), when asked about S3 they said that the fan fic writers had basically done S3 already via all the post-canon fics. That the rest of Ed and Stede's story was now all 'out there' in the fan community. It was only a quick comment but it was complimentary towards the fans and fics writers.

That's a hilarious idea, I love it 🤣 But there would need to be several versions. I'd like the Stede version - a 'That's not my Ed'. Thinking about it, though, that's actually a bit tricky seeing as the show tries to have Ed reconcile the various aspects of his character and Stede loves all of them. The book from his viewpoint would have to have all the Eds 😁. And every page would start "That's my Ed! His...is so..." And they would all be right! 🤣

Ed is all the Things…

Ooh ooh! That's a perfect place for this fan edit again! (I don't remember which thread it's already on, but it's been a while).

@TriceratopsRocks Stede would fit beautifully into the existing That's Not My Mermaid version.

A sensory Merstede, all glittery and gorgeous that you can run your hands over, that's how you end that book. 😆

We definitely had the mermaid version when DD was little. I doubt we still do, but she does hang on to stuff so you never know! We need to have a sort through her stuff so this is extra incentive for me - see if we can find it 😁.

‘That’s not my Izzy. His toes are too many’

Within each ‘Ed’, there are also little sub-Ed(its)

I'm so impressed you went on that sort of holiday at all, @Phineyj ! Hope you have a great time and that you find some other piratey goodies on your shopping and wandering day today 😀

I have never worked out how to insert gifs I have created myself into this thread. Well, I have, and that's to have a paid giffy account where you sumit your gifs to be approved to appear in google searches. But I seem to remember that was a bit pricey so I haven't done it. I haven't found any other way though.

@TriceratopsRocks I don’t think you can, sadly. Shame. Ed was doing something rather pleasing with his tongue and I wanted to share the joy.

@Phineyj Canyoning! I don’t blame you for ducking that! I was horrified at just having to ride a bike today at DD’s insistence. I hurt.

Oh we did mountainbiking and paddleboarding on the first day.

I would say I'm too old for this but I wouldn't have enjoyed it 20 years ago either 😂.

Still, everyone else enjoyed it and I have had hours and hours to stare at the sea 😀.

Oh, I think I would have liked to have seen that.

Well we'll just have to use our imaginations, won't we?!

archiveofourown.org/works/54890743 I've been enjoying this, by the way. It's unfinished (I know we're not all fans of that) but being regularly updated. Lots of action.

Lizzie, you have inspired me to stop reading new fics, and to go back and read Throat GOAT again instead for the 3rd or 4th time. I also love the bits you mentioned, especially Ed talking about his crush on stage 😁

@CarterBeatsTheDevil the Karaoke Sex Chicken fic was well worth breaking your fast for!

@lizziesaurusx Throat Goat is a fab bit of writing (excepting the title). The charades is just inspired. I'm on my phone so can't easily quote but Stede's assessment of Ed afterwards (something like 'he was widely read, imaginative and a dirty, dirty cheat') is so insightful.

The Ed in that is quite an intellectual in his own way and that was one of the (many) things I liked about it.

Right?!

The Ed in that is quite an intellectual in his own way and that was one of the (many) things I liked about it.

@Phineyj I also prefer my Ed's to be intelligent and ideally successful. After all, canon Ed was absolutely the best at what he did so there is no reason why a fictional Ed shouldn't also excel in his chosen career, despite a frequent and understandable lack of opportunities in his background. I don't really care what job fic Ed does, be that artist, bartender, academic, mechanic, whatever - as long as he is extremely good at it and does it with flair! And I want my Ed's and Stede's to be balanced in terms of what they offer each other.

There is oftern something a bit off with the AUs where a wealthy Stede 'rescues' a down on his luck Ed. I think I've only read one fic where the imbalance was the other way round - the Clerkenwell one. In that, Stede had given everything to Mary and lost his job. He was in shared housing, trying to survive in modern London with absolutely nothing. Meanwhile Ed was a wealthy crime lord. It was different reading the dynamic that way around.

I've just checked back - it's Restructuring by ElapsedSpiral (who wrote Work Experience with Shearwater).

I watched Point Break this evening (the 1991 film) and had a lot of fun in my head replacing "Bodhi" with "Ed" and "Johnny" with "Stede".

Someone must have written that fanfic by now. I'm going to go and look.

And of course I was right. But I really would have said that Stede was much more likely (a) not to be very good at surfing, (b) to join the FBI, and (c) jump out of a plane without a parachute.