Our Flag Means Death - Thread 5: Ahoy! Surrender! You have no chance of escape!

[TriceratopsRocks]

Hi all!! Roll up for thread 5 and join our chat about our favourite show, its cast, its music, fan edits, fan fiction and more than a little obsessing over our fabulous leads - pictures extremely welcome! It’s utterly brilliant, and some of us are still in the grips of obsession many months after the last episode aired (the last for now, that is… We live in hope🙏)

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. 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. It’s structured like a theatre production with a prologue and 3 acts. The 2nd lead arrives (briefly) in episode 3, and in episode 4 (the start of Act 1) the tone changes and the main story begins. You need to give it at least that long. It gets better and better and 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
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
Thread 4:
https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/telly_addicts/5136377-our-flag-means-death-thread-4-roll-up-roll-up-come-join-us-for-more-pirate-obsession?reply=139560831

BDSM is definitely not my bag! Shame as it was quite educational about knitting 😂

Haha yes 😂 Are there any other knitting/wool shop fics? I feel like there must be, but I can't think of one atm. I'm not sure how to search for one either. If anyone knows any among the multitude of florists, tattoo shops, cafes and bar/restaurants, please let me know!

I did get my crochet out earlier today (for the first time in a few years 😮) and ended up unravelling and starting again about 8 times! I am so very, very out of practice. My excuse is that it's difficult (fluffy) wool, so I can't actually see the stitches properly. It was enjoyable though, so I will keep going.

Diving boy Stede crochets whilst he's waiting for his go. It's funny, I'm doing a lot of knitting at the moment - I was a crocheter primarily until this year but I am really enjoying picking up a different skill. Someone needs to write a fic about this immediately!

@CarterBeatsTheDevil that is very fully covered in Claire Gregory's Olympic diving fic? Stede even has a whole suitcase of different yarn?!

Just dropping by to offer this short fic. Based on the recent news story of the guy who got caught in quicksand on a beach, and it turned his ‘friend’ into a girlfriend.

archiveofourown.org/works/64820323?view_adult=true

Well @TriceratopsRocks I had read those ficlets so I re-read them and the whole of the rest of it 😂 and it certainly cured me of Seaglass. The Reno Cure is so life-affirming! The author is currently writing a v exciting 80s based heist which I will post a link to here once she's completed it (it will be completed I'm sure as it's up to the last but one instalment).

Oh yes I have that WIP in my 'marked for later'. Have you read it? I am eagerly awaiting it's completion so I can start it. I have to admit, though, that I've read a few WIPs lately (I know, I know! 😁) and have enjoyed them. I very much liked sexy lawyer roommate (forget the actual title) where they meet at a rental flat viewing and pretend they're a couple. All my favourite tropes in that one! Up to 7/12 chapters. Oh - Sexy Lawyer Roommate is the actual title 😂. It's like the Ronseal woodstain of titles - does exactly what it says on the tin.

Thank you kindly, @MrsJellybee . I shall look forward to that one later 😁

Edited to add - I haven't actually seen the news story so the story will be a surprise!

Ooh - another vote for that one. I think the last chapter may be out this week. She’s generally been two weeks between episodes, and the last one was exactly a week ago. It’s on a cliffhanger, but it is excellent!

Thank you that was fun! 😁

Sexy Lawyer Roommate is a lot of fun, isn't it? But I sometimes think these fics get Stede slightly wrong (I still enjoy them). He's obviously romantically inexperienced but I don't think he's romantically inept, at least not canon Stede. If anything I'd say he's massively whim prone, as he acknowledges, and that leads both to real emotional openness from him to whatever he's feeling, and to real hurt to those he loves when he makes and acts on snap decisions. We don't see him agonise or question over his feelings for Ed at all, or deny them, even though he panics about what he's done to Mary and the children.

I know what you mean. Canon Stede moves straight from seemingly oblivious to all in romantic hero. After the conversation with Mary he knows that he is completely in love with Ed, and that Ed is in love with him. There is never any doubt in his mind. But yes, a lot of the fic writers have them not admitting their feelings for each other. Which does tie into canon Ed, but you are right in that we don't actually see that happen with canon Stede. I still totally enjoy those fics though!

Just thinking some more, after re-reading two 'completely oblivious Stede' fics. Canon Stede isn't actually as oblivious as it first seems - the telescope scene shows that. He's bitchy jealous of Jack, and worried about who has the better hair. Why, if he isn't already wondering about his relationship with Ed? At this point I have him as more confused than anything - he's never felt desire until Ed and doesn't really understand his feelings until that chat with Mary. So the fic writers who have him knowingly in love with Ed, but suppressing it, have tweaked the character a little. Can't remember atm if this fits with sexy lawyer roommate or not (I'd need to re-read) but it definitely happens in plenty of other fics.

So, I have this theory that because Stede is the ultimate aesthete, and has never had a friend before, he thinks what he is experiencing with Ed initially is friendship. That friendships are all that wonderful. And it is friendship, because they are each other’s person even if it never turns romantic (though I think Ed is romantically interested faster). They are friends, and Stede is the first to acknowledge that with words. Many folks read Stede as demisexual i.e. he feels sexual attraction only after emotional attraction, so it takes time. But I think even when he has tipped over into sexual attraction, definitely by episode 8, he doesn’t have the frame of reference or the language to know what’s happening. It’s only through Mary he is able to understand it. And I absolutely agree that once it clicks, once ‘His name is Ed’ is spoken, it’s game over. Stede is one hundred percent gonna have that man, no suppression, no stopping him.

Yes, I see that. Might have to go back and rewatch just to make sure I understand all angles

There's always a good reason for a re-watch! 😁

As for friendship, absolutely yes @MrsJellybee . Their friendship is genuine and so important to both of them. Even if, as you say, it never turned to anything more. It's something both of them desperately need. Their interactions from 1.4 to 1.7 show the depth of that friendship (and I blame that vibe for my total obliviousness to the fact that I was watching a love story unfold the first time I watched it). They are friends first.

But those episodes also show Ed's feelings for Stede fast developing into more than friendship. He's fascinated by Stede before they've even met, but there's tenderness from the start and his expressions! The rowing boat, YWFTW and the aborted attempt at moving forward (for a kiss?). Maybe even that tender look the morning after the lighthouse fuckery in 1.4? Teaching Stede sword fighting definitely looked like flirting, and the fondness in the way he looks at Stede in 1.7 and 1.8 is undeniable. Ed totally nailed that adoring gaze! But I still think Stede's responses in those episodes remained those of a 'best friend' - oblivious Stede in all his wonderful glory! Best buddies 4 eva😁 I just don't see Ed's adoring gazes being returned by Stede until later in 1.8. Was Ed going off with Jack the catalyst? I think it probably was. But Stede still doesn't understand his feelings. And yes, you are right that he doesn't have the language or the experience to recognise what is happening until that conversation with Mary. I do like the reading of him as demi and think it really fits.

Anyway. This is a perfect excuse for some Season 1 Ed gazes...😁

Edited to add - hopefully the images will turn up shortly!

I agree that Jack dropping that he and Ed had been sexually involved was the catalyst for the mindset change in Stede.

Stede moved from Hero Worship, to friendship and then to the possibility that they could be lovers during Season 1 but had a very stereotypical view of who Blackbeard was right up to their enrolment in the wayward pirate academy.

Suddenly he was not Blackbeard, the swaggering leather clad hero worshipped by his crew and living up to his legend. This was the first time he met No-beard Ed looking up at him pure as an angel while folding socks. Of course it was jarring and of course Stede believed he had broken Blackbeard, destroyed his hero.

It was Stede’s worship of the Blackbeard image that made him blind to what was happening between them. The first YWFTW demonstrates that he didn’t think Blackbeard would ever lean in to kiss him and he remembers the scene differently when we’re shown Stede’s own memory of this interaction. He tries to impress Blackbeard with his treasure hunt because he feels he needs to keep it exciting to keep him around. Stede buys the image of Blackbeard and so doesn’t truly meet vulnerable Ed till the kiss on the beach, and then blames himself for destroying what he worships and tries to fix what he can by taking himself back where he feels he belongs.

See, this isn't quite how I see it. I think Stede understands Ed almost immediately, right from that very first scene in Stede's cabin. Yes Stede hero-worshipped Blackbeard before he met him, but that opening scene with the two of them establishes that Ed isn't Blackbeard and Stede sees that right away. They connect over it - that 'waiting to drown' feeling that they both have from having to live as something they aren't. Ed's response to the caricature confirms it. It's showing Stede that who he thought of as Blackbeard isn't the man who is sat in front of him. Then the clothes swap initiates the idea of them expressing aspects of their characters that they have hidden beneath the personas they've put on all their lives. Ed loves that he can be himself around Stede, and Stede shows many times how he understands Ed - eg 1.5 with the captured French captain, 1.6 with Ed's breakdown and the bathtub... Of course Ed is also Blackbeard, but Stede understands that BB is just one part of his character, a persona, and one that Stede sees little of in their time on the Revenge.

Nevertheless, Blackbeard's reputation and what he achieved is real, and this is part of the reason no-beard and Chauncey's comments get to Stede so much. I very much think that Stede's low self esteem and genuine belief that he ruins everything distorts how he sees Ed in 1.10. No-beard is when the penny drops with Stede just how much Ed has changed from the Ed who rescued him back in 1.3. And yes, Stede previously idolised 1.3 Ed so this difference is a shock.

But Stede has had people telling him all his life that he spoils everything, and he still believes that this is true. So it's his own sense of inadequacy that tells him he has ruined Ed. Despite Ed having told Stede that he doesn't want to be BB any more, I don't think Stede fully believes it yet. No-beard is just too different from 1.3 Ed and the Ed that Stede knew on the Revenge and Stede can't cope with that. The patterns of a lifetime are ingrained - he still feels inadequate, and crucially, he doesn't yet understand his and Ed's feelings for each other. This means he simply cannot see that Ed genuinely wants to throw away Blackbeard and make a new life with Stede as 'just' Ed. Hence the panic/fleeing. He needed that conversation with Mary to understand both his feelings for Ed, and that the feelings are mutual. After that, the inadequacy is banished (at least as far as Ed is concerned) and there's no stopping him!

I can't contribute to the fabulous Ed/Stede discussion, but I come bearing a fabulous, recently completed piece of fic. The characterisation is great but the massive bonus is the historical time period and lots of interesting aeronautical stuff.

Enjoy! But put aside some time. It's novel length.

archiveofourown.org/works/58320121/chapters/148527211

Oh I'm half way through that one, @Needlenardlenoo . I'm really enjoying it so far - just hit the first (only?) angsty bit. Had to stop reading sometime in the early hours and haven't picked it back up yet today. If you like historical fics, I've read a couple of good wild west ones if you're interested? Or 1970s astronauts? Let me know and I'll have a root around my history. And if you have any other recommendations, please do let me know.

Yes please @TriceratopsRocks and anything that @Needlenardlenoo has too!

Oh is this now finished? I have read most of it. Thanks for the heads up.

Just returning to the debate… the attack by Chauncey is a homophobic / femmephobic attack. That’s ‘the monster’, ‘the plague’ that Stede is. And he has damaged heteronormative society in three ways: he has killed a hegemonic masculine man, failed at patriarchy by abandoning his position as head of a heteronormative family, and has infected ‘Blackbeard’ with his femme behaviour, symbolised in the loss of the beard. And Stede agrees that this ‘thing’ that is wrong with him goes back to childhood when he picked flowers, was viewed as weak, soft (Nigel) and lily-livered (Dad). And a huge part of running home is to save Ed from him, and to desperately try to rewind time and be the head of a heteronormative family he believes he should be.

And of course he can’t. The ‘His name is Ed’ declaration is bigger than knowing he loves Ed. It’s naming what is ‘wrong’ with him… which is nothing other than that he is a femme gay man who cannot fit into the norms of hegemonic masculinity and patriarchy. It’s that acceptance of self first which means he can find Ed and love him as he deserves. And also return to the community of the Revenge understanding now why he felt the need instinctively to create that queer space to start with.

Aaaagh! I wrote a whole post and it disappeared 😭. But thank you @MrsJellybee , I always miss something! And you are absolutely right, of course. It's such a central message of the show that toxic masculinity and heteronormativity = bad. Stede has been told all his life that he's been doing everything wrong. He was being a boy 'wrong' and he is being a man 'wrong'. It's the reason he was bullied in the first place, the whole thing behind his feelings of inadequacy, and why Chauncey's words had such an effect. And trying to fit into that society was killing him, which is why he so desperately needed to escape it in the first place. But the other message of the show is that it's never too late to be true to yourself. And Stede's lightbulb moment, when he realises that he loves Ed, and Ed loves him - yes, it was also the push that gave him the confidence to embrace who he is; to be the man that Ed fell in love with and to go out and fight for him and his new family. Heteronormativity be damned 😁

Oh how I love Stede Bonnet! And this whole show ❤️❤️❤️. Now I really need some pictures of post lightbulb Stede going out and grabbing his best life...

Too many pictures I want to post! And I just want to gaze at them for a while now 🫠