#Izzy has to take care of that

[mossiestpiglet]

I can’t stop thinking about how Ed needed Izzy to die first before he tried to kill himself. No one else actually mattered to him at all; Frenchie, Jim, Fang, it’s debatable if he even knows Archie’s name- they’re just accessories to his own death. But Izzy’s death mattered enough that he had to intimidate Frenchie into revealing Izzy’s location just so that Ed could go and leave Izzy with a gun knowing exactly what he would do when left alone with it. He needed Izzy to die first because he knew Izzy would try to stop him. He needed Izzy to die first because he needed everyone who loved him to be gone. He needed Izzy to die first because no matter how much he could hurt Izzy, could walk him right up to the very edge of death, Ed could never be the one to actually kill Izzy himself. If Ed was going to take them all down at the end of the day, Izzy had to already be dead by his own hand because Ed couldn’t do it. Not to Izzy.

#I’m having many thoughts and feelings over how much izzy matters to ed #Stede and Izzy are basically the only two people in the world that ed cares about #and ed can’t leave this world without Izzy #but he’s also incapable it seems if directly killing izzy or himself #he’s got to do both in very indirect ways #can’t kill izzy. has to get Izzy to do it for him. #can’t shoot himself. has to take down the whole ship and let the ocean kill him. #ofmd s2e2 #ofmd s2 #ofmd season 2 #izzy hands #edward teach #ecdysing #tw suicide #tw suicide attempt

[arsenicflame]

something something everything izzy has always done has been for ed, its just that now we get to see him act in ways that are actually in eds best interests, rather than izzy trying to keep him safe whatever the costs

#i just!!!! #im not saying what he did in s1 was right but i am saying it was all for ed it was always for ed #to his own detriment sometimes!!!! do you think a notorious pirate would be making deals with the navy if he wasnt desperate???? #i want to see izzy learn who he loves!!!! to see him realise that ed is hurt and hurting + not in a good place and he isnt better like this! #that in trying to keep ed safe he has doomed him to recklessness and a lack of care for his life! #that a better way is to find stede; to bring him back to help ed #and to /train/ stede! to make him better at being a pirate!!!!!!! #so ed can be happy with stede but stede can protect himself! protect them! not be a risk to eds life because hes playing pirates without #understanding the consequences!!!!! #i want izzy to work with stede BECAUSE he loves ed!!!! #AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA #nyxtalks #ofmd #ofmd s2 spoilers #izzy hands #israel hands #still taking damage btw

[laniidae-passerine]

I think some of you guys hate Izzy more than you ever liked Ed and no amount of “he’s my special babygirllll 💞 she’s just a sparkle princess you can’t hold her accountable for anything 🥰✨” posts are gonna be able to hide that

#like yeah nice try using the brown dude as a shield for your hate campaign or whatever but it isn’t working lol #I’m sure they kinda like Ed. but they sure don’t like Ed as much as they like hating on Izzy #who Ed loves btw. let’s just circle back there sometime they love each other. eat dirt maybe #I adore Ed and I love how nuanced and messy his breakdown was #how his actions aren’t motivated by being Evil but at the same time his actions are his own #and they’re undeniably fucked up to the nth degree and he has to own them #because it’s kinda relatable tbh!! I’ve never been that horrid but I’m a person and I’ve fucked up before #and even if I was struggling deeply at the time because of other’s behaviours towards me it was me who did those things #and I had to own them. and grow from it #and my queerness and brownness and trauma didn’t make me exempt from growing and being responsible #which also meant I’m not exempt from personhood and growing and bettering myself and loving myself and all the good that comes with humanity #Ed did fucked up horrible things to the crew and Izzy. and if you can’t acknowledge them for what they are and how awful they are #then you can’t really acknowledge Ed as a character and person beyond the limited ideal you made of him in your head. what he did was wrong #and that’s not alright. but it’s okay. because we know he’s gonna have to grow. that’s the bit people who really care are looking forward to #I’m tagging this #the izcourse #because I kinda feel like it’s overlapping with really shitty Ed takes and meta

[wistfulcynic]

holy fuck i just encountered a stizzy shipper the wild. The ‘for you’ stream betrayed me badly. Beloved hellsite please be aware that stizzy is emphatically not ‘for me’. i feel like i just found a really gross bug or a chimaera or something. i want both to study it and run screaming away

#no tags because i don’t want the chimaera bugs to find me #but seriously holy fuck #i cannot believe people are actually serious with that ship #unreal #of course it’s still all about izzy #and stede taking care of him and becoming a badass pirate(?) for him(???) #oh and apparently izzy has a competence kink lololol #no wonder he’s wound so tight he can never have a wank #too much of a loser to turn his own self on

[blackhannetandco]

My one controversial take is that Izzy and housewifery is like Stede and piracy. It's a fantasy of his where he has a very specific vision so he ends up being pretty bad at it, with some exceptions for brilliance, but if he puts in enough work and actual commitment he could become decent and even competent.

#izzy hands #this is a lie i have other controversial takes but this one has been on my mind lately #to be clear i love all the content where izzy is extremely good at being a housewife who all the other wives are intimidated by #but imo its also very likely that he'd start out being a mess. #only knows how to make basic meals. cant bake for shit. kills his garden both by accident and then on purpose in a rage. #he DOES clean very well because he goes over every inch of the house but he gets so into it he forgets how time consuming it can be #he shines on laundry day but he doesnt care that not all detergents are created equal and he doesnt think anyone else should either #my posts

[indestructiblelittlefuckers]

(the more I work with certain people, the more I understand s1 Izzy. imagine having to manage a new set of people with minimum skills or experience. and a boss that just does what he wants whenever he wants, making wrong decisions and not listening to you.)

#sofia speaks (ooc) #a guy just quit with zero notice #literally like he just sent an email half an hour before he was supposed to come in and said ''unfortunately I can't work at... anymore'' #and we are a very small business #there is no one to cover his shift #ANYWAY #it's not even my job to take care of these things but SOMEONE has to #I'm feeling s1 izzy stress guys

[batsarebetterthanpeople]

Full image on twitter

This is a toe scene joke

#blackhands #ofmd #izzy hands #edward teach ofmd #edward teach #our flag means death #blackbeard ofmd #blackbeard #sorry that ed has no body hair except for the stuff under the heart #he looks too busy with hair and tattoos #and also they do shave taika to draw on the tats so it is tv accurate #I know doyleistically its to put on the tattoos but the watsonian conclusion is that Ed Teach is a twink and he waxes #and I'm cool with that #I took a break to take a shower but this is basically the only thing I've been doing since I posted about breaking my rule #it's not a real rule I just don't care about this ship lmao #image description in alt

[dumbkiwi]

i like following some izzy critical blogs just to keep a healthy mindset about the guy but i am so uninterested in blackbonnet's future and ramping up to s2 that's all theyre talking about T_T

#theyre the ones with decent izzy critical takes #sel speaks #helps keep me in check #but like oh my god we all know cute blackbonnet is endgame #i could not care less about it #like i read pina coladas and i still really like the romance in the show #but there's nothing all that interesting to explore or speculate abt!! #ppl just want stede to turn ed into uwu softboy #now throw izzy into the mix and you can actually get 'unhand me or bleed' stede #AND THAT's INTERESTING #also you can uhh actually talk about the whole 'ED HAS A WHOLE EPISODE WHERE HE TALKS ABT HOW HE IS BOTH SOFT AND VIOLENT' #'AND IS SCARED THAT PPL WILL ONLY LOVE ONE SIDE OF HIM BUT NOT BOTH' THING #ed endgame is NOT HE BECOMES STEDE

[ulgapodatkowa]

I have so many thoughts but I at least want to address the "for the new unicorn" note. because first of all it's so incredibly gratifying for izzy to finally be accepted into a community. it was shown before that the crew cares for him in some way but it was the first time he really saw that. that he isn't useless and alone, that he still has a place on the ship. even more so the crew WANTS HIM to be on the ship. and also that they want him to embrace his disability which doesn't make them think any less of him.

but also the choice of words. because inherently it rings queer, unicorn as a symbol of queerness. and even if it may have a negative sound when you use it differently here it is extremely positive. izzy is not only accepted to the crew, he's also accepted to the queer community, to the family. the unicorn on the revenge was also the one that was leading the ship, so one can argue that they want him to take that role in their dynamic.

and you can see that he does so immediately. he puts himself together and starts helping the crew. he's still bitchy but no longer violent and cruel. he helps stede and lucius immensely because that is what he does now. he's part of the family. twat.

#ofmd #also don't talk to me about the shark or the cigarette scenes. i need 3-5 business days to recover #our flag means death #izzy hands #once again feral bc of con o'neill's acting choices #ofmd s2 spoilers #ofmd spoilers #ofmd meta

[avelera]

Man, there’s all these little beats in OFMD S2 1-3 where people keep EXPECTING Stede to be upset or horrified about Ed’s actions and then he’s just. Not. In a way that reminded me of how a lot of fanon kept softening Stede into someone who doesn’t swear and is horrified at Ed for setting those ships on fire when imo to my eyes he was horrified for Ed because Ed was still so clearly distressed about it.

- Zheng Yi Sao asks Stede how he’s doing now that he knows Ed did horrible things to his crew and there’s this beat and Stede just pivots to, oh yeah, sometimes Ed is troubled. Like it didn’t occur to him to be upset on the crew’s behalf he’s worried about Ed.

- Izzy keeps trying to spare Stede’s feelings and cover up Ed’s spiral, but Stede clocked what was going on with Ed immediately and wasn’t the least bit intimidated or bothered. The knives brought the room together. Of course Ed’s trying to burn the world down or die trying. Duh. And I genuinely don’t think the STUFF in the Revenge mattered even a fraction to Stede as much as the signs of Ed’s breakdown broke his heart. It’s just STUFF, who cares.

- Lucius had to SPECIFICALLY call out Stede for not being surprised or bothered by what happened to him. What Ed did. Stede has to almost consciously remind himself to express polite concern. He just doesn’t actually care, instinctively or automatically, about what happened to Lucius. Part of it is he blames himself more than Ed. Part of it is he just doesn’t care, Ed is the priority.

They’re little blink and you’ll miss it pauses in some cases. Micro-expressions. The absence of a reaction. But honestly, I will scream it to the end of time, Stede is not some nonviolent creampuff scared or upset by Ed’s evil ways. He wants to join Ed in the atrocities. The man ran away to become a pirate. He asked if Lucius was taking notes during a murderous raid.

Stede’s at least a little on some kind of whackadoodle pirate comedy neurodivergence spectrum to the point where he actually really actually struggles to empathize with people, even people he cares about!, if their feelings conflict with his hyperfixation (piracy) and the love of his life (Ed Teach). He’s always, ALWAYS going to pick Ed over Lucius or Izzy or his crew or even his own feelings, if the option is there. He will literally throw himself overboard to get to Ed’s side. No pause. No consideration of anyone else or even his own safety.

Stede sometimes seems to have to consciously remind himself things like, oh yeah, the crew, I need to see to them. Not because he’s heartless or doesn’t care, but because it takes a bit of conscious effort for him to see beyond the laser-focused spotlight of what and who he does care most about, he has to remind himself of social niceties and other people’s feelings (just see him running away in the first place!) when he gets an idea in his head. It’s as if he had to train himself to consciously care about some things other people care about and as a neurodivergent person myself, that felt very familiar in a comedically writ large sort of way. I’d even argue that’s where all his aristocratic social niceties come from. They were his guidebook for how to do things “right” in a world that otherwise made no sense to him outside his hyperfixations. He practiced being a person through the aristocratic training because it was all so foreign to him from the start, including caring, actually caring, about the needs of others. Not because he’s consciously evil or consciously a jerk. The instinct just isn’t there unless he practices at it until it becomes reflex to ask how others are doing, because on his own his brain just doesn’t really notice or care.

I just… hope the fandom notes and has as much FUN as I do noticing all the little moments where even people inside the story of OFMD expect Stede to act in a normal way and instead he remains unhinged, laser-focused on Ed.

Stede’s not just an Ed apologist, he truly doesn’t blame Ed for any of it. He blames only himself. He doesn’t always voice this but he really really only cares about anyone else including the crew as a DISTANT second and he has to consciously REMIND himself to do so. He is able to rally to take action, to care about their physical needs like safety during the rescue, but he still struggles, deeply struggles, to remember to show empathy in a non-performative way for anyone except his special person, Ed.

Stede’s not a creampuff, not a nice guy, not some emotionally or morally perfect angel. He has to consciously practice caring about literally anything else but what he wants to do and his special person. And to me that’s a thousand times more interesting than shoving him in a box labeled “the blond, pacifist do-gooder good guy” in their relationship.

#this rant requires gifs I don’t have but trust me those odd little beats are there #bless Rhys Darby for making Stede so very neurodivergent coded because it SHOWS #ofmd #ofmd spoilers #our flag means death #ofmd s2 spoilers #ofmd meta #sometimes fandom flanderization makes characters so DULL compared to canon

[smudgeandfrank]

How to Take Care of Your First-Mate Who Has No Self-Care Skills 101. 🧜‍♂️🦄

(You cannot tell me that Izzy put an extra pillow under his own leg during the cursed suit try-on scene. I won't believe you. I've had this headcannon since the day S2E5 aired, so I had to draw it into reality! 🧜‍♂️🦄)

#our flag means death #ofmd #stede bonnet #izzy hands #ofmd fanart #i needed ofmd fluff lol

[mxmollusca]

 A critique I've heard of season two is that we’ve lost a lot of our symbolic objects, archetypes, and motifs. Season one gave us the lighthouse, the kraken, the red silk and the unicorn, the seagull, the auxiliary closet, Gnossienne no. 5, Pinocchio…

And then I think back to Samba sharing a quote from writer Alex Sherman during the ECCC panel:

“Season one is Stede going from a puppet to a real boy, and season two is Stede becomes a man.”

And that’s it, isn’t it? The transformation from object to subject, from something that has things done to it versus someone with agency. We see that transformation throughout season two. Almost every significant object is discarded, every symbol realized in flesh. 

The process starts at the end of season one with the throwing away of all of Stede’s things. So much has been written about Stede’s potential response to that act, and so many folks (myself included) held on to the idea that perhaps Ed kept a little bit, maybe the auxiliary closet. Stede literally no longer cares about those things. He originally brought all the things he loved with him to sea because he didn’t have significant personal relationships. That’s why we hear Gnossienne no. 5 as he goes through the empty cabin pulling out all of the knives. The discordant love motif shows how his priorities have changed, how his love has transformed.

The red silk is gone as well, but instead we have Stede, real and in the flesh wearing the exact same color, clutched in Ed’s hand in the moonlight.

The kraken, a giant monster capable of rending a ship in two? Ed becomes that, literally, disassembling the Revenge to sail her into a storm and destroy her. 

The lighthouse? A warning, Ned Low in his silver suit, a beacon in the dark warning Stede of what he will become if he continues on his course.

The unicorn, the destroyed masthead, literally becomes Izzy, a man taken apart and rebuilt piece by piece out of the parts of Stede Bonnet to become a beloved and respected member of the crew, and perhaps one of the strongest examples of self-actualization so far.

The attempts at reversing the process are demonstrated to be ineffective. The catalyst is when Buttons becomes a seagull, which shows Ed that the process of change is possible—that someone can become something or someone else. And he tries, he throws away his leathers, dons Button’s old jacket, tries to become an archetype. Stede tries to become a “real pirate”, despite the warning from Low. Even in Ed’s vision of Stede as a merman, Stede is being reduced to the role of symbol—a mythical being rather than a very real, very flawed man. They are both still trying to be the object when they need to be the subject. They need to take action, to realize themselves. And it’s a gruesome process. Jim’s version of Pinocchio is about the horrific transmogrification from wood into flesh and the horrors that need to be faced in order to make that transition.

We, the audience, are experiencing discomfort in this process. We are being held right up against the lighthouse lamp, and it burns. This is the emotional equivalent of body horror. It feels like all of our beloved belongings are being thrown overboard, but I promise they aren’t.

They are becoming.

#ofmd #ofmd s2 #ofmd meta #our flag means death

[incorrectbatfam]

Something happens and now the batkids'partner needs to babysit Damian Wayne - idk maybe Ras is in town, or the babybat is injured, whatever the motive - how Wally, Roy and Kon/Bernard take care of the situation? (This can be made separately or all of them together, this will be your choice)

(I said Kon or Bernard because this can be your choice too, but also both if you want, Tim Drake has two hands anyway)

Also I love your blog 💖💖💖💖💖

Roy: Soup's up! Where's Damian?

Wally: Um... about that.

Roy: What's it this time, assassins?

Wally: Not exactly. Long story short, he wanted to see dinosaurs so I took him to the Jurassic period but I sorta dropped him on our way back.

Roy: You WHAT?!?

Kon: Hey guys, what's going on?

Roy: Wally lost Damian in the timestream.

Bernard: That's a new one.

Kon: Do you remember where you dropped him?

Wally: Somewhere between the Cretaceous Period and Mesopotamia.

Izzy: You do realize that's a long time, right?

Roy: Who are you and when did you get here?

Izzy: Isabela Ortiz. I've been here the past ten minutes.

Everyone: ...

Izzy: I'm Duke's girlfriend, and unlike most of you I'm canon.

Roy: Whatever, can you help us?

Izzy: Nope, I just left my charger. See ya!

Kon: We're dead.

Bernard, sighing: I'll get the kiddie pool and Lazarus hose.

[meanwhile]

Damian, petting a wooly mammoth: I shall name you Father for your size. Except you're not as hairy.

#roy harper #wally west #conner kent #bernard dowd #izzy ortiz #damian wayne #dick grayson #jason todd #tim drake #batman #teen titans #red hood and the outlaws #young justice #we are robin #birdflash #jayroy #timberkon #duke x izzy #batfamily #batfam #batboys #batbros #batkids #batsiblings #batman family #incorrect batfamily quotes #incorrect quotes #incorrect dc quotes #dc comics #headcanon

[feriowind]

made a hellsing au because... i love hellsing au's....

Integra Stede, Alucard Ed, and Walter Izzy.....

Only roughly based on the plot of Hellsing, Izzy is only a bit older than Stede and was assigned to him when they were young by Stede's family/Hellsing organization specifically to keep an eye Stede to make sure he didn't try anything funny and get in the way of their plans.

Stede is fake figurehead of the family and when not being used, he is essentially shoved to the side and left to his own devices, which is mostly just esoteric research into cryptids and mythical creatures.

Izzy didn't care for Stede at first, viewing the assignment as an annoying job, but after spending time with him as his butler/bodyguard, he finds him to be far kinder and wonderful than expected. Stede treats Izzy like a friend instead of a tool, and Izzy only grows to care for Stede more and more over time.

Stede doesn't stumble upon Ed until he's in his late 20s or early 30s. He's had many years to settle in his ways that the sudden introduction of being the master of a legendary vampire is not something he takes to very gracefully. Ed doesn't mind though, he enjoys how strange but human Stede is.

Ed has lived a very long time, and though he doesn't regret his life as a vampire, he cannot help but long for his lost humanity. He tempts Stede with offers of being turned but Stede turns him down, his reasoning being that there are too many human comforts he would just hate to lose. The answer is hysterical to Ed and makes him immediately like Stede.

#me getting into steddyhands after s2 because i was so annoyed with how izzy was treated lmfao #but i only like a very small rare flavor of the pairing rip #stede bonnet #edward teach #izzy hands #our flag means death #art #hellsing

[laceratedlamiaceae]

Something I really love about the new clip is the way Izzy's boundaries are respected.

Fang tries to give him a reassuring touch, but when Izzy says "unhand me" he does, immediately and without question.

Then, when Izzy completely falters, he goes back in for a hug:

but he does it slowly, giving Izzy plenty of time to tell him to fuck off.

And when Izzy stays silent, he goes in tighter but makes sure to ask that it isn't too tight for him.

I've complained a lot about the lack of regard for consent when it comes to Izzy in this fandom, and more generally I've noticed a lack of recognition that he has a right to have his boundaries and bodily autonomy respected, so I'm glad the show is taking care to depict that.

#our flag means death #ofmd #izzy hands #fang ofmd #ofmd season 2 #ofmd season 2 spoilers #ofmd s2 #ofmd s2 spoilers

[piratecaptainscaptainpirates]

Okay, so, there's one thing that I'm kind of tired of beating around the bush with white fans about, and it's this: if you pretend to "ignore" race in OFMD, you will miss a lot of what the story is trying to tell you.

Now, I do not truly believe that race is something you can ignore in a story. I just don't think it's possible, and when you try, what you wind up with is something like the conservative worldview of "not seeing color." Trying to ignore race will make you sound racist and ignore important racialized themes.

You can't understand Stede's need for character growth at the beginning of the show if you just focus on how he's "cringe" instead. When Stede makes his crew members of color serve them at dinner when the English board, this is gross, and their faces tell us exactly how they feel about it. Stede unlearning his biases here isn't subtle (guy who called him and Pete "fucking racists" I love you forever), and learning to take all of his crew members seriously as fully actualized people, moving away from the sort of Kindergarten-teacher behavior at the start to truly valuing them as people and taking their input and suggestions, it's an important aspect. Stede asking Abshir for intel at the party isn't just funny, it's also proof he's learned to see value in people in positions like Abshir's.

You can't understand the motivations behind Ed's actions, especially the violent ones, if you ignore the racist overtones. Ed is not a randomly violent person - he gets angry at a captain for calling him a "rich donkey," and if you think it's unreasonable for a brown man to want to get revenge on a white man for calling him that? Then fuck I'm glad you can't see the conversations I have with my other black friends, man. Ed's anger and frustration at the party aren't just because he fucked up with some spoons, lol, you can't get it unless you realize he's the only brown guest in that room. Yeah, he's ignoring Stede's advice, but he's immediately under a pressure Stede never has been. Ed's wanted posters in s2, too, rely on heavily caricaturizing Jewish features to make him look grotesque and monstruous. We're supposed to be horrified by that aspect.

And, yeah, when we ignore the racist tones to Izzy's behavior, I think that's undermining an important aspect of who he is as an antagonistic character. Him buying Ed from the English should feel like a gross violation, because it is. When he sits in front of the crew eating and making Fang and Ivan serve him, I think it's a pretty obvious parallel to how the crew members of color were similarly insulted in the pilot. It's impossible to ignore race in the way he dehumanizes Ed and tries to force him back into a caricature of behavior he hates and is horrified by - when he calls Ed a "wild dog" in s2, if that doesn't cause a visceral reaction of disgust in you, I dunno what to tell you. This doesn't mean that Izzy is irredeemable - just as Stede wasn't - but it does mean that racist biases are things Izzy had to unlearn.

OFMD so often takes so much care with how its characters of color are depicted. We get thoughtful, relatable moments (those French boat people getting humiliated and setting their boat on fire after they'd tried to touch Ed's beard is so satisfying, guys) and excellent, supportive friendships between men of color. The characters of color on OFMD are clean, smart, respected, and it's wonderful. And just because these things aren't always relatable to you specifically doesn't mean they're not important parts of the story.

#ofmd #our flag means death