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

Well sussed!

Currently binge watching this show...halfway through season 2.
I didnt even know I needed a show about gay pirates until now!!LOL😆

Seriously brilliant though, enjoying it!

Thanks for the recommendations of fan-fiction I might find more palateable.

I don't know when I changed. When I was younger I loved the raunchy stuff but now I just find myself embarrassed by it.

To be honest, the smut in Sapphires has become very repetitive and ever so slightly creepy. Besides, Shearwater might have updated by the time winter comes around!

Devising an OFMD drinking game. Bingo phrases/triggers so far:

"surprisingly muscled forearms"
"messy half-bun"
Stede washes Ed's hair
Stede massages Ed's duff knee

Am sure there will be more

Welcome @henlake7 I don’t think any of us knew gay pirates were thing missing from our life 🏴‍☠️

Welcome from me too, @henlake7 🙋 I also didn't know it was missing. I also don't know how I fitted anything else in, now the gay pirates have taken over! 😂 Do come back and chat some more, but be careful of spoilers until you've finished it.

Repetitive and slightly creepy is right. I'd have been slipping Ed a card for the equivalent of Women's Aid! It did put me off what had been an enjoyable story (although I can't even remember now which one it was!).

Stede will speak Latin. Ed will swoon.

Quoting lines verbatim from the show? Although maybe each segment of dialogue only counts once, because otherwise we'd be completely sozzled after at least 50% of all fics.

@MrsJellybee I know what you mean. Sometimes I think I’ve appropriated something that shouldn’t really belong to me. But then, the show belongs to anyone who loves it, I guess.

I do feel like Ed and Stede very much belong to us as middle aged fans who might be at a similar stage in our lives and facing similar questions about our place in the world, even if piracy isn’t a realistic option these days. But I think that the concept of feeling part of a fandom, reading fanfic, going to conventions etc seems like more of a younger person thing to do. Maybe it’s easier to fit in with fewer responsibilities, or maybe it’s because younger generations have grown up with the idea of being be part of a fandom community as a completely normal thing, whereas that was all a bit harder work in the pre-internet days? Or maybe I'm completely wrong about the demographics. I just don't know anyone my age who goes to fandom conventions, reads fanfics etc - or perhaps I do but they just don't talk about it.

@TriceratopsRocks I do think that fans of this show are likely to be a friendly bunch, simply because of the nature of the show.

I agree that fans would be likely to be friendly, but I wouldn’t go on my own. I’d love to go to something if there was a Mumsnet gang though – safety in numbers! In the meantime, congratulations on the tshirt recognition, and the thrill of a real life conversation about our beloved pirates.

@Isthisjustnormal I’m very new to the fandom too (mid-April) and only read my first fanfic about a month ago, but I haven’t looked back. I’d like to add Throat GOAT to the list of suggestions you might like. Terrible title, wonderful story, gorgeously romantic, slight angst, low key smut, not to mention quite a bit of lifestyle porn. It made several of us cry mostly happy tears and there’s another (Old Bae Season) by the same author which is lovely too, though not quite up there with Throat GOAT.

https://archiveofourown.org/works/51735184/chapters/130790689

Stede gives Ed a tie or cravat!
AU Stede gives AU Ed some interiors advice!

Either Stede or Ed "hums" (NB this can only count once or we'll all die)

Ed shakes his head fondly at something charmingly ridiculous Stede has said/done/worn, and falls in love with him even more.

Ed’s dodgy knee is a key consideration whenever it’s business time.

@CarlaH I have another for you, originally recommended by @BeBraveLittlePenguin. It's lovely, sweet and teen rated. I really enjoyed it. They are both vampires, and the Badmintons are vampire hunters.

archiveofourown.org/works/45526339/chapters/114554296

Nice crossover there with Flight of the Conchords 🤣

Why thank you 😊

You think that one's bad, try or don't try E Belong Awake by the same author. We were absolutely feral for it at the beginning, she was updating weekly and the first 19 or 20 chapters were just wonderful. By the end, good Lord, I was virtually yelling at the screen, just let the poor man sleep! No one needs 12 orgasms in a night, this is insane 😀

V pleased to see the love for the firebreak guys. Lovely and moving and absolutely no smut, it can be done!

Ah thank you for that. It was on my 'marked for later' list. Looking at the tags I would have given it a go. Firebreak guys were lovely, and I thoroughly enjoyed reading vampires today. No smut there either :)

I've just really enjoyed the campsite one. I think what I want out of these stories is slow burn, massive flirting, bit of snogging, maybe the one sex scene and then end. I really don't need 37 chapters of edging and creepy BDSM (especially not initiated by Stede, come ON, he would NEVER)

I'm probably still going to give it a go but it's good to know that I can safely bow out early without missing anything

Ed takes refuge under a blanket, leading to a beautiful emotional conversation in which Stede uses his special soft voice (and definitely not his mean voice)

Tiptoeing into chapter 1, only briefly distracted by a strong but short-lived desire to explore the hair-washing tag (romantic hair-washing just makes me think of Boyle in Brooklyn 99)