Our Flag Means Death - Thread 4: Roll up, roll up! Come join us for more pirate obsession!

[TriceratopsRocks]

Ahoy again mateys! Can you believe we are now aboard thread 4? Stick around for chat about this brilliant show, its cast, its music, fan edits, fan fiction and more than 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 and join us 😀

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, three 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 be aware that it's a show that needs time. It’s structured like a theatre production, with a prologue and 3 acts. The 2nd lead arrives (briefly) in episode 3. Episode 4 is the start of Act 1, where the tone changes and the main story begins. You need to give it at least 4 episodes, and from there it just gets better and better. 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. And again. And again! If you like Good Omens, What We Do in the Shadows, Ghosts or even Bridgerton, this might well 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
Thread 3: https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/telly_addicts/5101662-our-flag-means-death-thread-3-its-still-utterly-brilliant-we-are-still-obsessed?reply=137315706

@MrsJellybee Oh! Thanks for explaining. Also: ugh.

I've been using AO3 for years and yet that was very useful, @TriceratopsRocks!

Nearly finished my binge watch of Time Bandits and will post my thoughts later when I've seen the finale. For the moment though, while Taika is quite yummy in a tie-dye dressing gown, it's not a very Supreme Being look to my mind. I enjoyed giant shirtless Poseidon). However, the vibe is quite "Good Omens" at times, so I figure the tie-dye was to take the look of the costumes away from the Heaven scenes in the latter.

@Phineyj to me the tie-dye looks like blue sky with clouds. The idea god lives in the sky. I thought it was to sync him with a cumulus backdrop.

No reason

Oh, there's every reason forehead kiss

I want to bite his neck. Is that wrong?

If it's wrong, I don't want to be right

I’m not always into the multimedia fics, but I really enjoyed this one by foxtails. It’s a meta response to the cancellation news, but not over the top. Musician Ed’s favourite show gets cancelled after two seasons and he’s livid! He posts on social media and the show’s favourite actor Stede responds. Long-distance fluff and smut ensues in record time.

Endure and Survive

I just spent about an hour transferring my Chrome bookmarks to AO3, thus sparing my family evidence of my gay pirate proclivities in the event of my unforeseen demise. @TriceratopsRocks can I tag my bookmarks privately or do any tags I use get added to the work for everyone to see?

NB I find "marked for later" very useful

Unless you tag your bookmarks as private, anyone clicking on your username will be able to see them. I don't worry about that at all though, as my username has no resemblance to anything else I use. Although I think I left Does the Body Good as private... 🤣 I should really change that!

It's true - we cannot deprive the world of that classic!

Bonus side effect is that I have found a big chunk of stuff I hadn't read, now easy to find.

And the sequel! Which I like just as much 😁Glad you've found more fics to enjoy too. I've only had an account for 5 months but I couldn't be without it now. One day I intend to start looking at fics in other fandoms, but for now all I can read about is Ed and Stede.

I've dipped a toe in Good Omens waters (it's a very similar sort of thing, isn't it?) but there's certainly plenty of OFMD to be getting on with!

Good Omens is definitely on my 'eventual' list, but my first one after OFMD would have to be Buffy. My latest Buffy rewatch ground to a halt months ago though. I kept it going for a long time while I tried to pretend to myself and my family that I wasn't completely insane, and that I was still capable of enjoying other shows that weren't Our Flag. I mentioned it to DH again tonight but he ignored me {sulks}. He is, however, finally watching Good Omens and enjoying it. So once we've finished I shall be sure to tell him how Our Flag is better! 😁Maybe one day he'll watch it with me.

I was very tempted by Buffy (Anthony Stewart Head in the 90s is highly, highly relevant to my interests) but I wasn't sure how that would play out for me now given their ages. I remember someone directing me to what turned out to be a Giles/Willow slash site and I'm not sure I've recovered yet...

Ooh, I wonder if there's Alias fanfic on there. (Of course there is.)

Going to resurrect my fanfic drunken bingo and add an "Only one bed" square

Hah, definitely! I've read quite a few of those.

I never actually made my own bingo board. Was that on thread 3?

It was when either you or @MrsJellybee made the paper fortune teller 😍

I love Only One Bed. I would say my favourite tropes are probably "Stede hoodwinked into thinking sex is healthy living", "Only One Bed" and "Nonsensical Fake Relationship Farce". I also like meet-cutes involving narrowboats, clinical settings and life drawing 😀

I can safely say I agree with all of those! Can I add 'oblivious Stede' and 'friends to lovers'? I also very happy with the tags 'best friend Mary Bonnet' and 'wingman Alma Bonnet'.

More seriously, I do prefer them to be on an equal footing and both of them making use of their intelligence and creativity.

Yesterday was the first anniversary of the season 2 teaser trailer drop. #ourflagmeansdeath was trending at number 3 all day yesterday on Twitter/X.

The show is currently at x18.8 expected viewership numbers on the BBC. Up more than 11% on last month.

Then David tweeted this. They had the numbers.

They did, didn't they? What a waste!

Although I'd always rather programme makers quit while they're ahead than make 4th or 5th seasons that are less good.

But a 3rd was needed!

@Phineyj I’m definitely a less is more person, but as you say we needed season 3. The story was unfinished. David said three seasons. We need three seasons.

Apparently, they did Ted Lasso’s arc beautifully in three seasons, and now have commissioned a fourth! Even fans of the show are baffled. They need to give that season to us! C’mon, Apple. You clearly have money to burn.