Ok, by popular Twitter demand here is my extremely nerdy write up on breathing and breathwork in Our Flag Means Death, specifically looking at Ed and Stede’s “Your Wear Fine Things Well” scene. I’m a professional theater person and coming at this from a live performance lens, and this is film/TV acting, so take some of this with a grain of salt, but most of our best actors come from a theater background (I know Taika studied theater in college ). So fuck in, let’s dive in and overanalyze the hell of out something.
Like I’m not sure I ever want to watch another show after watching our flag means death
I don’t think I can take the poor stereotypes about queer relationships, or the queerbating, or just the general focus on queer people as only side characters with minimal screen time & no real importance to the plot. Or honestly only seeing queer relationships as sexual.
I love that Stede & Ed - Jim & Olu - Pete & Lucius - are friends. They just want to spend all their time with their partners, just being silly and being close to each other.
I’m realizing now how different OFMD is from every other show about queer people - even ones that have been good - now looking back after having this level of representation - they seem one dimensional.
ed banging on stede’s door in the middle of the night to talk about random stuff and stede answers in a panic, forgetting he’s wearing his nice sheer nightgowns… :^))))
role reversal au featuring Ed who, in all possible universes, is in love with stede’s specific brand of lunacy ❤️ (get a print of this here!)
so the au goes like this: stede has his midlife crisis much earlier and starts a legacy as the Gentleman Pirate with his ragtag crew. They end up building a name for themselves, and surround themselves with a lot of baffling mystique. One day he loots a merchant ship with one Edward Teach on board who adopted a life on the sea after having to make a hasty escape from a port one fateful night. Edward takes one look at this frantic fumbling mess of a pirate captain and falls HARD. And…well. you can probably fill in the blanks after that.
