Andraste

(Two fic posts in one day? Yeah, I've been busy lately.)

Take Down the Moon (39825 words) by Andraste
Chapters: 10/10
Fandom: Our Flag Means Death (TV)
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Blackbeard | Edward Teach/Stede Bonnet/Israel Hands, Minor or Background Relationship(s)
Characters: Israel Hands, Stede Bonnet, Blackbeard | Edward Teach, Original Characters
Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Israel Hands Lives, Israel Hands-centric, Flashbacks, Fluff and Angst, Happy Ending, Pining, Slow Burn, Oral Sex, Masturbation, Rimming, Anal Sex, Threesome - M/M/M, No Beta We Die Like ... Uh You Know What Never Mind, Original Male Goat

Summary: Two months ago, Izzy Hands failed at dying several times in a row. His crew sailed away without him, and now he's stuck in a shack with the man he (still, somehow) loves and his new boyfriend. Can he survive the awkwardness of this situation, the travails of getting Jeff's Bar and Grill started in the hospitality business, and repeated visits from the latest challengers for the title of worst pirates in the Caribbean*?

*For certain definitions of 'worst'.

I was trying to think how to open this post but I think anything I can say beyond 'wow the OFMD finale did not work for me' is too spoilery.

( Nevertheless 'Our Flag Means Death' finale spoilers lurk herein. Also spoilers for a bunch of other canons, I guess, but if I say which ones or detail the nature of said spoilers I will spoil this week's OFMD. )

... but maybe you would like to! Perhaps you have also noticed fandom screaming about the new gay pirate romantic comedy in town and are curious? (That was me all of, uh, five days ago.) In case you have not: Our Flag Means Death is a gay romantic comedy on HBO/whatever streaming service you have that shows HBO shows in your country/the very thematically appropriate high seas of the internet. It is about about pirates who sometimes have the names of real historical people and sometimes resemble them extremely vaguely in other ways! It is very good and sweet and funny. But like most things, it is not for everybody. To find out if it is for you, there are some questions you should ask yourself:

Do you like pirates? Do you not hate sitcoms? Are you prepared to suspend some disbelief? (Not about the pirates being gay - that's among the most historically accurate thing here! - but about all sorts of other stuff, like the ocean being the size of a small lake and gut wounds healing in a day.) Do you like being in a fandom that everyone is currently yelling about so that you can always find somewhere to yell with them? And how are you with season-ending cliffhangers on shows that haven't technically been renewed yet ...?

One might think that 'do you like romantic comedies?' is also a relevant question, but I usually don't like them, and found that this show managed to avoid my fundamental problem with the genre, i.e. not enough of them are about middle-aged weirdos falling in love while the British navy tries to kill them. (Well, that and a lot of the het ones are full of assumptions about gender that I find tedious and irritating, and I'm not really interested enough to seek out the ones that aren't.)

Anyway, perhaps you like some or all of these things:

- a delightful and diverse supporting cast, including a non-binary pirate who enjoys knives, the surprise inventor of the first pyramid scheme and the world's saltiest cabin boy. And a seagull.

- Leslie Jones guest starring as a fearsome pirate queen with twenty nineteen husbands.

- more than one gay romance per show.

- Rhys Darby in a parade of the most beautiful eighteenth-century men's fashion I have ever seen on screen, stockings very much included. (Important note: if you don't know if you like this or not, there are many gifsets on the internet.)

- Taika Waititi in leather pants and a truly impressive array of tattoos. (There may be even more gifsets of this.)

- middle-aged weirdos running away from home.

- middle-aged weirdos falling in love with people who are just as weird as they are.

- heart-warming stories about people finding their place in the world and making connections and also the British navy is trying to kill them.

- sword fights!

... in which case you should at least think about it. I thought it took a couple of episodes to pick up steam, but given that I finished watching all ten episodes inside of two and a half days this was not a long-term problem.