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iamadequate1 · 4 months

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Black Pete vs Izzy (Pt 1)

I've long thought that Izzy and Black Pete are analogous like Prince Ricky and Stede. They have surface level similarities, but there is an undercurrent that sends their characters in wildly different directions. The mood has struck me to do a painstaking comparison of the two!

Starting disclaimer: Mind the "Izzy Critical" tag for realsy. I was not charmed by Izzy in S2, and I firmly view him as an antagonist all the way through. I also love Black Pete, though, and forgive all his sins.

This is going to be long and messy, but it is mine. I used to have it in one large post, but now I'm going to break this up into at least three separate posts. I have about 12 points, and it's gonna be a surprise how this develops. Let's begin!

#1: Pete and Izzy are both introduced as expressing displeasure in Stede's style of piracy

Everyone who isn't Ed seems to think poorly of Stede's pirate skills when they first meet him, but Pete and Izzy seem to be unique in that their character introductions in the series is them being most vocal about it.

Pete introduces the "real pirate" view of Stede before Stede's onscreen introduction. He gives us the first conversation of the series, and it is not flattering!

Pete: Fuck this! I'm out. Crew: Hey! Oluwande: What're you doin'? Pete: I didn't sign up to play cards. Weeks we've been out here with nothing to show for it. I should have... 20 kills by now, at least.

First of all, "nothing to show for it", and the screen is focused on Lucius. Petey, you gain a hubby from this, but you just don't know it yet!

Anyway, Pete's introducing right away that Stede is not up to real pirate captain standards when viewed by outsiders. After their first (and truly epic) raid, Pete is the first one to clearly criticize Stede:

Stede: Here it is: the spoils of battle! Woo-hoo. Congratulations on today's raid. I do have some notes, though. Uh, opening speech went well. Very inspiring. Uh, oh yes, I guess the big note is more energy! We're swashbuckling, we're looting. Let's have fun with it. Pete: Stealing a plant is hardly swashbuckling.

Like Pete, Izzy's very first scene in the series, he's not at all impressed with the Eccentric Pirate Bonnet and his savage, insane, vengeful pirate horde.

Izzy (also talking to historical Israel Hands): What kind of fuckin' idiot runs his ship aground? And this lot managed to take English officers hostage.

As a bonus, Izzy's disdain for Stede extends to Stede's entire crew! Upon meeting the entire crew in 1x4, we get Izzy's assessment to Ed:

Ed: Let's get to it. What've we got here? Izzy: Well, the ship sustained some damage in the crossfire, and the crew's completely useless, bottom of the barrel.

When Izzy is forced to partake in the teaching raid at the beginning of the next episode, he says:

Izzy: Crew of Revenge, you are not to engage. You are simply here to observe how real pirates function in the real world. Pete: Uh, we are also real pirates in the real world, so.

Yes, Petey, stand up for yourself! He was the "real pirate" in the pilot, but as the first season moved into its second act, the show starts to demonstrate more of how The Revenge is an anomaly in the pirate world even with the character who is the "real pirate" at the start. (Also, weird that we don't see Izzy on the raid that directly follows! How were they supposed to learn??)

#2: Pete and Izzy start as anti-soft

They both start the series with tinges (to very different degrees) of toxic masculinity: a push to being "manly" and dominant, minimizing emotional vulnerability, derision of the feminine or "weak." Nigel is the beginning example of this in the series as he calls Stede weak and mocks him picking flowers. On the crew side of the cast, Pete and Izzy are the ones who display these traits the strongest.

In the first episode, Pete is the most disdainful of Stede's super sweet flag activity, using misogynistic language.

Stede: Now, each of you will create a flag. And we'll vote for the best one, and that will be the official flag for The Revenge. Pete: I'm not fuckin' sewing. That's women's work. Stede: Oh, Black Pete, come on now. You know that's not true.

After their encounter with the British in the same episode, he makes disparaging remarks about a soft approach when attempting to fool the officers:

Roach: It's always the quiet ones. Frenchie: I thought that was fairly badass. Swede: You got to admit, he pulled it off. Pete: Pulled what off? Making us dress up like a bunch of fancy boys?

He doesn't make any comments as aggressively anti-femme after the pilot, but as we move along, we see him in a tender scene at the end of 1x6 when he gives Lucius the wooden finger and confesses that this feelings are deeper than a quick hookup:

Pete: So, uh, listen, I, I thought I was going to lose you. Lucius: Oh, yeah. Well, you nearly did 'cause I had a really bad infection, so. Pete: Exactly. And, uh, and, death, you know, I'm used to death, but, um, but not, um, your death. Uh, so anyway, I, uh, made this for you. It looks like a thumb, but it's a finger. I whittled it. It's, it's dumb. You don't have to wear it. Kiss: *happens, awwww* Lucius: I love it, and I didn't know you whittled. Pete: There's a lot you don't know about me... actually, that's kind of it.

At this point, we had seen Stede and Ed open up about some of their insecurities (see: Ed's bathtub confession just before this, or Stede talking to the therapist in 1x2), but this is the first scene we get a character confessing their feelings about someone to that someone in series. It's scary, it's vulnerable, and even though it's couched in violent language, it's very soft. It's also the round about confession phrasing similar to what we have with Oluwande to Jim in 1x7 or Ed to Stede in 1x9. Pete in the pilot would not have believably played this scene.

Pete progresses through the season, but in the last episode of the first season, instead of shaming him, Pete claps and makes (awkward) supportive comments to Ed's breakup song and even willingly dresses up as a "fancy boy" in the resulting talent show.

He's trying! Going into Season 2, he doesn't have a reaction at all to a woman (Zheng) calling him soft, and he just rolls with it.

Izzy, on the other hand, keeps his gendered insults throughout S1. In 1x4, we get "I'm not dying. Not for that ponce and not for you." In the next episode, we walks in on Lucius and Pete having a hookup with Wee John in the room taking a nap. He lashes out at all of them, but...

Izzy: You're all getting specific duties. Lucius: No thanks, Iggy. I only take orders from my Captain. Izzy: My name is Mr. Hands, First Mate Hands, or God as far as you're concerned, and I've got just the job for you... bitch.

Sure, it's funny in a pathetic way (the tagged on ineffective "bitch" is a big lol for me), but he ignores the disrespect Pete and Wee John give him and targets the most feminine one in the room and tosses in a "bitch" for good measure. In the end, Izzy tries to shame Lucius for being a "seductress," and it backfires as Lucius easily makes a fool of him. Izzy used the gendered insults ("bitch", "seductress", whatever that Oh Daddy thing was) as a power move, and it failed.

The next episode, he's calling Stede Ed's "pet" since they're developing a healthy friendship, and he makes sure to bring up Ed's past words re: pets that Ed is now "weak," what is a horrible, horrible thing.

This derision against the soft/weak/femme culminates in the S1 finale with Izzy's threats against Ed.

Izzy: I'm going to speak plainly. Ed: Wonderful. You know we share our thoughts on this ship. Izzy: I should've let the English kill you. This, whatever it is that you've become, is a fate worse than death. Ed: Well, I am still Blackbeard, so. Izzy: No. This, this is Blackbeard. Not some namby-pamby in a silk gown pining for his boyfriend.

(This show is awesome. The Blackbeard caricature from 1x4 has no face, but the one in 1x10 has a face and a lighthouse beside him.) Anyway, Ed is showing human emotions at having lost love, so Ed is ruined in Izzy's eyes. As mentioned above, Pete at this time was supportive of Ed (to the extent he can give), but his character mirror buddy is doing the opposite.

The beginning of this outburst feeds into the theme that will keep coming up with how deceptive and self serving Izzy is: the English were there because Izzy called them on Ed and his boyfriend. Izzy was already in the process of punishing Ed for being "weak" and having a "pet," and he thought Ed should have been punished far more harshly because he didn't immediately behave how Izzy wanted him to. The ship and crew weren't in danger from Ed and Stede sailing the seas happily, but they were in danger from Izzy. "Let the English," like he was a protector instead of the one that led them to The Revenge in the first place.

In this mocking, Izzy also continues with the derisive language. "Namby-pamby" by itself isn't a crime, but it is the same loaded language that Izzy used throughout the season, and "pining for his boyfriend" is said in a cruel mockery of the deep heartbreak Ed was going through. Ed was mourning the loss of an entire life he wanted, not the loss of a silly puppet he could scamper through meadows with when the mood struck. Izzy minimized these deep emotions so he could keep his control.

Izzy and Pete both began the season as angry against the softness, the weakness, that Stede was bringing into their worlds, but Pete dropped it much more quickly, while Izzy doubled down to the extreme. Pete got the soft affection confession, while Izzy angrily lashed out at someone having soft affection at all.

I should add as the last Pete and Izzy parallel that Izzy did also have his "fancy boy" moment in 2x6, but it felt more like a farewell for Con O'Neill than something that was organic or meaningful around Izzy. It's a parallel nontheless!

This is continued in Part 2!

Preview: They both wanted Stede dead at certain points! They both have a thing for the Legend of Blackbeard! They both are terrible pirates! Tune in next time. Same bat time, same bath channel!

Series: Part 1, Part 2, Buttons tangent, Part 3, S2 Izzy reaction GIF

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batsarebetterthanpeople · 6 months

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why do so many people keep calling ed izzy's abuser? I thought it was kind of funny how wrong they were at first because I love being right but at this point I feel like, if you really believe that why do you even like this show? where the main love interest is a violently abusive indigenous man? that sounds boring as shit. what would possess the writers of the show for them to make such an awful decision?

but then I think, if this many people believe it does that mean I'm the one who's wrong? or is it that the creators fumbled that storyline when they should have been clearer about it? or maybe it's just that most people on here have had their reading comprehension scorched away by Sherlock Holmes conspiracy theories and Steven Universe discourse. I can't tell. sometimes I think the internet may have been a mistake.

No they're wrong here's what's going on. People all read this shitty fic called Hell or High Water where Ed was everything the Izzy stans say he was and then instead of realizing that Ed is sad everyone regressed into thinking that the Kraken Era TM was going to be incredibly violent, like serial killing blond men because they look like Stede levels of violence. Even if you didn't read HoHW you saw art or read fic from people who had engaged with this fic and succumbed to it's premise. So there's been this background radiation of misunderstanding what the Kraken is on the fandom for several months. So inevitably when Ed did some mild violence and then attempted suicide by threatening murder until the crew took matters into their own hands, which is not abuse or torture by any stretch, btw, it's a murder-suicide at worst (I say at worst because I consider it fuckery-suicide I don't think Ed was trying to kill people I think he was trying to force them into a situation where they thought it was kill or be killed so that they would choose to kill him, but that is my interpretation and you are free to think it's a botched murder-suicide I have no problem with that), which, murder is something the show has never condemned and if it did it would be horribly inconsistent. So anyway, Ed's whole Kraken Era was categorized in the show by him being sad and doing so many drugs and begging someone please god anyone to kill him and trying to break Ned Low's record out of the evil boredom, but because it had a murder-suicide element to it and Izzy's toes were getting removed and he waved a gun around at everyone once (in a way that felt to me like he was trying and failing to work up the nerve to blow his own brains out but I digress) people who liked HoHW and were mad that people had called it out were like "see hes being violent HoHW author vindicated" as if anything Ed did rose to the level of that fic

And you want to know how I know this read is bullshit? Because when I watch the show with people who don't read fic or interact with the fandom and then I gauge their reactions without showing my hand they all implicitly understand that Ed is reacting to Izzy in a way appropriate to how pirate captains react to threats from subordinates. The spectrum of reactions has been from "hey isn't it weird how Ed was the Kraken because his dad was abusive and now he's the kraken because of Izzy? Maybe there's something there but idk" to "I don't think you can apply the logic of domestic abuse to a pirate captain and first mate but also Izzy had it coming" to "I cannot feel bad for Izzy after last season, I'm sorry." To "lmao Izcel" and I've showed this show to roughly everyone I know. The only thing I can conclude from the fact that people who don't engage with OFMD fic almost unilaterally thinking that Izzy is in the wrong and then coming online to see people thinking the opposite is that Izzy as victim and Ed as abuser is pure fanon, like how Stede is a cinnamon roll who talks like Azeriphael.

But anyway yeah you're completely right about the fact that this would be a bad show if they decided to make Ed into a domestic abuser. I don't want to watch a rom com about a domestic abuser falling in love and I don't want a show that decided to make it's indigenous lead abusive when the stereotype of indigenous men as abusers is still to this day used as an excuse to separate indigenous children from their families and put them with white Christians in order to erase their culture. Good thing OFMD didn't make Ed abusive, so I still like the show.

#ofmd #our flag means death

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thegoldenhoof · 5 months

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After reading multiple metas on all sides, I think the biggest problem with OFMD, specially Season 2 is that it is almost entirely built on tell don't show. Worse sometimes it is hint, don't tell or show. This is not great writing in itself but it is made worse when the POV characters are all shown to have a rather unstable relationship with reality and memory.

Stede is self-centered enough to just not acknowledge or even notice things around him that don't actively interact with his focus which is mostly just Ed. He is self-centered to the point of being delusional about other people and reality of circumstances. Season 2 sees him doing better and his rescue of the crew is his highest point. But we see this even through Season 2 in his interactions with Lucius and during Ed's apology his interactions with Zheng Yi Sao.. Basically anyone not Ed.

Ed is shown to have a negotiable understanding of truth - seen with his Ed/Blackbears/Kraken split, his "I didn't kill them, the fire killed them" dissociation with his own actions, his rewriting of the context of his own memories (Knife parade) or just straight up forgetting shit (Talent show). And yes all of these are trauma responses but that does not dismiss the fact that his perception is far from objective.

Izzy is straight up shown to be lying in his first interaction with Ed regarding Stede. He is aware of his surroundings better than Stede and Ed but he is also supremely blind to himself and his interpersonal relationships. Where Stede is delusional about the world he can be interpreted as delusional about himself.

We as the audience ofcourse can put context to their words from their actions and this worked ok in season 1 (not always but mostly and that becomes important later) But Season 2 leans much more heavily on tell without show. (Yes yes budget cuts...but that doesn't change the final product).

Where season 1 added some flavour of back story with tell dont show, Season 2 expects dialogue to do all the heavy lifting (none more than Izzy's death speech) without this dialogue being backed up by action. Worse (or better) this dialogue isn't exposition which makes the scene better but which also means more often then not it is merely hinting at a meaning.

So we have half explained dialogues, sometimes with dubious context, used as a substitute for action given to us by characters with established unreliable perspectives. The heavy lifting of understanding the meaning of these dialogues, their significance and weigtt, has then been shifted to the audience interpretation. This interpretation is of course done per individual interest and bias. This is not bad in itself but remember this has been happening since season 1. Which means the new interpretations are being built on older interpretations. Those little flavour back story hints have now become the lens through which the entire season 2 is meant to be understood.

We are all watching a different show in a sense and that us not a failure of the audience. It is, rather, an accidental byproduct (and a failure) of the show's design because of the combination of all the above factors which was (made worse by the budget cuts leaving less time/space for action)

The show then unfortunately comes down to whose POV are you accepting (and certain fans have turned this into an exercise of moralizing self righteousness.) and to what extant.

A true understanding, imo, can only be by accepting that none of their perspectives are absolutely true and trying to center the objective narrative between all of them in a way that best fits all their perspectives AND accounts for all their blind spots, rather than lift any one POV as the absolute uncritical truth. (And fans on all sides have been guilty of this)

(P.S. I think this may also have worked positively towards making this show so huge is season one because it left enough ambiguity for us all to project on it multiple complex and sometimes contradicting interpretations creating an Illusion of much greater complexity that was more in our collective heads than in the actual show.)

#ofmd #ofmd critical #our flag means death #stede bonnet #ed teach #Izzy hands #ofmd meta #narrative techniques #yes there are some pro Izzy interpretations i don't agree with either #because they are definitely guilty of this #a lot of very early Izzy meta before the annoying harrasment was actually much more balanced #but here we are.#but 'Ed ha never done anything wrong in his life and saying he did makes you racist' brand of fans are definitely the worst offenders.

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izzysillyhandsy · 5 months

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I sometimes wonder if the Izzy hate would have reached those dizzying heights if S1 had ended on episode 9.

Izzy would still have done almost all the bad things: making Ed unhappy, duelling Stede and wanting him gone, the deal with the English, his past with Ed/Blackbeard - except for hurting and threatening Ed after the breakup.

And even though all of this can be seen from different angles, it is possible to interpret it from the most damning perspective - and that should be enough to hate him, right?

But Ed wouldn't have turned into the Kraken, he wouldn't have killed Lucius, marooned half of the crew and cut off Izzy's toe.

And I am almost 100% sure that most of the Izzy hate comes from seeing Ed's drastic change in episode 10. Without it, sure, some people might have found Izzy unsympathetic or just unimportant, or a little shit. But that level of hate?

I guess what I'm saying is that a lot of the Izzy hate comes from "what Izzy made Ed do" and not from "what Izzy did to Ed".

Also, it is a way of dealing with the shock/cognitive dissonance of seeing a very beloved character turn "evil" after 9 episodes of being a gentle and misunderstood guy who is a pirate, yes, but who's fundamentally non-violent and good. How can you reconcile this with Ed suddenly killing a beloved (and completely innocent) character? And the extreme violence of the toe-cutting? (And yes, I know Ed burned people alive before, pirate-typical violence etc. But we didn't know these people and we didn't see them in close-up.)

But to blame Izzy for everything and to make him this evil part of Blackbeard - completely separate of "true Ed" of course - lets Ed still be the same gentle soul that loves a fine fabric, fell in love with Stede in the sweetest way and, although traumatized by his childhood, is at his core an innocent person that can be saved by removing the rotten influence of Izzy Hands - without confronting the self-hatred, self-centeredness, mistrust of others and tendency to violence that might be a part of "true Ed" as well.

And of course, if a group of fans started liking Izzy and maybe even defended/found understanding for his actions to a degree - where would that leave Ed? Is it really justifiable to fly into a murderous rage because your heart was broken (by a man you've known for a few weeks), because you're deeply unhappy and you've outgrown your pirate persona?

If Ed wasn't mentally abused by Izzy for decades, if it wasn't Izzy alone that drove Stede away, if Izzy hadn't duelled Stede out of the evilness of his heart, if Ed didn't desperately want to leave but Izzy forced him to stay in their toxic relationship, if it wasn't just Izzy and his hurtful words that drove Ed to become the Kraken...

...then maybe Ed wouldn't be an innocent babygirl anymore, and it would be much more difficult to see Ed/Stede as this perfect, unproblematic and sunshine-y couple.

It seems to me that seeing Izzy as "The Worst" and casting him in the role of the villain behind every bad thing Ed ever did is a quick and painless way to make Ed loveable without actually putting the work in (and the show actually avoided that up unto the death scene - one example is Izzy leaving in S1E4 and Ed manipulating him to stay; there are countless others).

I sometimes have the feeling that the hate for Izzy grows exponentially with more and more of Ed's darker side coming through in the show. And I don't get it - maybe because I am drawn to darker, fucked up characters and relationships. Give Ed his agency back and let him be cruel! Let Ed and Izzy have their mutually destructive, weird but intense dynamic!

Let Ed be a fascinating, loveable character with a (very) dark side - exactly like his partner for decades, Izzy - and you'll actually get a better character, and an additional fascinating relationship - as well as a more interesting story.

#ofmd #izzy hands #short version: rotten leg must come off #if it was that easy!#Ed and Stede are endgame we all know that #Izzy never stood a chance why do you hate him so?#maybe because it is easier to hate Izzy than Ed?#they're both fucked up and that's why I love them

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uselessheretic · 1 year

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I don't believe the issue people have with the idea of Izzy being Ed's abuser is because fans are unwilling to view Ed as a victim of abuse or Izzy as capable of being an abuser. I feel like it's a more simple answer of "people don't agree with that interpretation because there isn't enough to substantiate it."

With Izzy and Ed, it's important to understand the difference between conflict and abuse. (I'd highly recommend "Conflict is Not Abuse" by Sarah Schulman!) A lot of the time in highly volatile relationships, we're quick to assign abuse to them and to figure out which person is the perpetrator and who's the victim, but often times they're just conflicted. This is why you'll often hear Izzy stans describing their relationship as mutually toxic, not mutually abusive (which isn't real)

The simplest definition is determining whether the relationship is based in Power Struggle or Power Over. Abuse isn't based off of individual actions, but an exertion of power. Both Izzy and Ed commit acts as part of a power struggle towards each other, with Izzy's antagonism of Stede and utilization of the navy, and Ed's manipulation and physical violence of punching, choking, and mutilating. (Yes, physical violence is an expression of power!) There's a back and forth here with both having moments of forcing the other to stay, and neither of them being the picture of a healthy relationship. With them, there's also the added element of Izzy's privilege as a white man versus Ed's position as Izzy's boss which are both significant power imbalances that factor into each other's toxicity.

The important part is that Ed's feeling negatively towards Izzy doesn't equate to being an abuser. Izzy vaguely threatens Ed ("Edward better watch his fucking step") but this is also within a context where Ed just choked him. Izzy had called the navy before, yeah, but that option isn't available for him anymore, and Ed still has an advantage of being the only thing keeping the crew from throwing Izzy overboard with an anchor anklet. Arguably, Ed holds more power over Izzy in this specific instance. Rationally, there isn't an immediate threat here, but Ed still responds as if there is.

Ignoring all that, the main part of this is that Ed's Kraken response is indicative of the other person being an abuser. "If someone reminds Ed of his past abuse that much then it must mean that they're in the wrong!" But that's not how that works. Take this passage from Conflict is Not Abuse as an example:

This is also not how Trauma™️ responses functions. Ed, incontestably I hope, has some form of PTSD/c-PTSD. The very defining aspect of PTSD is that a person experiences a traumatic event that they continue to not recover from impacting their day to day life. Often people going through traumatic events will struggle for a bit before getting better, but not everyone does that. When the symptoms continue or even grow worse, that's when we identify PTSD.

PTSD reactions aren't rational. Especially when it comes to c-PTSD, the ability to gauge and respond to threats is damaged. You become easily triggered by things, often seemingly unrelated to an outsider, that reminds you of those traumatic experiences and throws you into survival mode. People with PTSD and who have suffered from abuse are not able to rely on gut instinct alone. That meter has been damaged where the threat alarm is going off at a hair trigger, leaving the survivor of trauma the options of avoiding those triggers completely (nearly impossible) or learning to suppress that. This can also leave survivors of abuse especially prone to revictimization. When every action someone takes looks like a red flag, you learn to tune out that alarm bell, including the times when it's not an overreaction.

If we assume that Ed reacting with the Kraken is indicative of the other person being an abuser, then that'd mean we'd have to assume that Stede's crew was a threat. Ed killed his dad and Ed killed Lucius, so naturally, Lucius must have been abusing Ed. You can extend it as far as Stede as well, since David Jenkins described Stede's rejection as "deranging" Ed, and Ed while acting as the Kraken is tossing out Stede's shit and marooning his playthings. But we know that Lucius only had the best of intentions for Ed, and we know that the crew is too incompetent to hurt Ed.

So what the fuck is going on with Ed?

Simple answer is that Ed feels threatened. Ed's scared. He doesn't feel safe. When chronically traumatized people feel unsafe, they react in defense, including in ways that are maladaptive to themselves, and harmful to others. One way to conceptualize it is through the Internal Family Systems (I wrote an analysis through this lens once!) Within IFS, you have two basic categories of Protectors and Exiles. Exiles are the part of us who hold the pain and shame of our trauma, usually from childhood. Protectors are the parts of us who develop strategies, usually maladaptive, to protect us from that pain. I'm severely simplifying, but I've found this site to be helpful with breaking down the core concepts.

We can think of the Kraken as taking on the role of a Firefighter. The "break glass in case of emergency" protector who comes out when we're in "danger."

Firefighters will do whatever they need to when it comes to stopping the danger, even pushing us into far more fraught situations. This can include things such as binge drinking, self-harm, serial cheating, and other actions we wouldn't rationally view as safe, but things like drinking can numb the pain, self-harm creates feelings of control, and cheating brings reassurance that you are wanted. They're quick fixes with a disregard for consequences in the moment, but they're actions done to "protect" you from danger.

But like I said, trauma can really skew your sense of danger.

Just because someone triggers your PTSD and brings out your greatest threat response, doesn't mean the threat is validated. In the same way flinching when your partner casually reaches out to touch you doesn't mean they're at risk of beating you.

Ed's response to Izzy could be an overreaction to Izzy's vague verbal threat, or it could be a solution to quelling Ed's fear of abandonment, or something else entirely. It could be reminding Ed of his father, but it doesn't mean that Izzy is an abuser. Especially within a context where we've never seen Izzy pose a physical threat to Ed, where the closest we got is him summoning the navy on his white boyfriend, and ensuring that Ed was not harmed in the interaction. Ed's use of physical violence against Izzy isn't proof of Izzy's abuse, no more than it would be for Ed throwing Lucius overboard.

Something Sarah Schulman goes into detail about with the necessity of drawing a difference between conflict and abuse is misidentification of abuse stemming from supremacy vs from trauma. With supremacy, you can't just trust your gut feelings because that ends up with things like white women having moc murdered. Traumatized responses are ones where past victimization interferes with our ability to differentiate between abuse and conflict. These can often overlap with clear borders, but there are differences, of course.

The reason people don't view this dynamic as abusive isn't from an unwillingness to see Ed as a victim, but from knowing that he has been victimized in the past. The level of trauma he sustained as a child severely fucks with someone's head. Not metaphorically either, it literally causes brain damage and has been linked to an increase in likelihood of developing autoimmune diseases. Like, trauma can be so bad that your body just starts eating itself it's fucking wild the amount of damage it can do to a person.

Recognizing that Ed’s actions can be wrong, but still extending empathy towards his place as a survivor of abuse, is an act of compassion towards him.

#i liked my reply for this so im just gonna put it as a separate post #izzy hands #ofmd meta #edward teach #blackhands

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suffersinfandom · 5 months

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Am I an Izzy anti?

Like, what is an Izzy anti? Is it someone who doesn't like Izzy-the-character? Is it someone who dislikes Izzy fans on principle? Is it someone who absolutely hates Izzy and attacks anyone who likes him?

I don't care for Izzy-the-character, but I don't hate people who like him. I love the OFMD fandom. I do! My tumblr dash is full of awesome stuff from smart, funny, talented people, and even the folks with takes I disagree with seem to be pretty cool. I've even been reading Izzy-centric meta every now and then in an attempt to understand where the fans I don't agree with are coming from. I still disagree with them about certain things, but that's totally fine! Disagreement is absolutely normal within fandoms, and I think I'd have a nice time talking to most Izzy fans irl.

But sometimes I read a post that drives me absolutely bonkers and makes me think well, maybe I'm an anti after all.

That's mostly okay! I don't think that Ed "made terrible abusive choices towards his crew" or that they're his victims, but I can admit that I have a kneejerk negative reaction to most mentions of abuse in OFMD meta. I think that Ed's harmful actions are often overstated and examined outside of the context of the show, but whatever. We can agree to disagree when OP's still willing to admit that Ed's still worthy of love.

I hate that, thanks! Meet me in the Denny's parking lot, OP -- I just want to have a talk about abuse and empathy.

(That's a joke. By no means should anyone meet me anywhere.)

I think that anyone who makes either Ed or Izzy the victim in their relationship -- anyone who buys into the dichotomies of abuser and abused, innocent and victim -- misses out on what makes their whole Thing interesting. (That said, I think Izzy's behavior falls more into the definition of abuse, which is characterized by an attempt to exert control over someone else. Like, I'd rather not call either of them an abuser, but if we must...) They're both messed up guys, and it takes two to make a properly toxic relationship.

But then some people will say yes, I love these fucked up little guys, and then they'll absolve one of them of any real wrongdoing.

Ed "struggles to care for his crew." He makes "terrible abusive choices," he has "victims." "He can still choose to do better" and "confront his own actions" (implying that Ed didn't choose to do better or confront his actions in canon). That's pretty damning. That's a character who victimizes the people around him and, as of the end of season two, hasn't improved.

What makes Izzy a fucked up character that OP still chooses to love? Izzy is "twisted, messy, bitter." He's used to violence and he has changed himself to fit into the violent world of piracy. He "enabled" Ed's darkness, except he actually didn't. He has a hard time accepting kindness and he's imperfect. That's... not very fucked up at all. All of Izzy's flaws are situational here; he's only "twisted, messy, bitter" because of the environment he's trapped in, and he takes the blame for darkness he didn't really stoke. At worst, he's an imperfect survivor of abuse.

I just don't like it, y'know? I don't like this trick where people say yes, both of these characters are fucked up, but only one of the characters is actually culpable. The flaws of the favored character aren't really their fault.

Look: as a thoroughly Stede-coded human with Depressed Bitch Syndrome, I adore Ed and I'm absolutely biased in his favor, but he is flawed. He has oodles of unresolved trauma, mental health issues, and he isn't all that emotionally mature. He can be extremely self-centered and dismissive of other peoples' feelings; his conviction that he's unlovable makes him quick to give up on Stede and quick to think the worst of the crew in S1E10 (in the wake of the confrontation with Izzy, Ed interprets their calls for another song as mockery). Ed has a tenuous sense of self and becomes whoever he thinks present company wants him to be, even if that person is a jerk (the fancy party) or a jackass (Calico Jack) or a monster (the Kraken). He hangs on to Izzy because Izzy might be a dick, but he's a certainty. And yeah, he loves a good maim. He's a pirate captain.

And you know what? I adore him. He's complicated and sweet and brilliant and I think he's The Character of All Time.

And Izzy... Izzy is a joyless middle-manager with an inflated sense of self-importance. He thinks he's the backbone of the whole operation, the down-to-earth guy holding Blackbeard together. He thinks he loves Ed, but he doesn't even see Ed until the end of season one, and he sure as hell doesn't like Ed until the end of season two. He tries to murder Stede multiple times because he's convinced it's what's good for Blackbeard, even after he realizes Ed has feelings for Stede. Izzy doesn't want change. He resists it at every turn, even after he's down a leg and can't live for his job. He tried to keep Ed trapped in the role of Blackbeard because Izzy's purpose and identity was tied up in that fiction. He only realizes he doesn't want the violence of Blackbeard when he's fired; prior to that, he's fine with going along with the Kraken, even at the cost of his toes.

That's all weird as hell! That's interesting! If I was isolated from OFMD fandom, I probably would've become an Izzy Jar Guy after season two wrapped up! But all of my interest in Izzy jumps ship when I see some of his fans (not all -- my sibling's an Izzy fan and they remain cool) soften him and absolve him of all real guilt.

Does that make me an anti, or just a petty Ed stan? Like, I generally feel like my take on Izzy is firmly rooted in canon, but the more time I spend in fandom, the less certain I am.

#ofmd #fandom critical #kinda?#look i don't know what i'm typing about #i just saw a thing and needed to type #i'll try to say something smart next time #izzy critical #technically?#i don't feel like i'm being critical!#the more i read the more baffled i am #me typing things

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bullagit · 2 years

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my friend you are so refined. nice to see posts appreciating stede every once in awhile lol love to clown on the dude but i also feel like the fandom has pushed me into full apologist mode too. like yes he’s wack he has problems but i am also so bored of reading the same takes over and over about why he needs to castigate himself for absolution or be responsible for the actions of other adult human beings lol. ik this is kinda spicy lol but just wanted to let u know ur appreciated

its always rad to know you're not alone in these takes!! i dont consider it spicy at all i think it's completely valid tbh. this got way longer than i planned hold on if u want the tldr its that you are right

anyway at this point im gonna stop even doing the like, "i know stede [xyz about flaw or mistake he made]" preface when i type up meta, unless i'm posting specifically about his flaws or mistakes. 🤷

especially if what i'm writing is about ways stede has been legit wronged, or how parts of fandom only seem to invoke historical accuracy/paying attention to very specific minutiae when it's done in a way that makes stede come across as way more self-aware and self-important than he is in any canon capacity lol. i get tired of meta and interpretations where everything bad that happens in stede's relationships is solely on him, and reconciling is solely on him, and maintaining is solely on him!

these characters are all flawed human beings who bring their baggage to relationships. all of them. and those relationships are two-way streets, from the issues to the repairs. and it's unfair to see it whittled down to like... thoughtful fleshed-out considerations of ed and mary and their circumstances/points of view and how that contributes to their actions, occasionally to the point where even THEIR missteps are suddenly recontextualized to be technically stede's fault. while stede gets surface-level bad faith takes that ignore the context of his actions and the history he has that contributes to his issues. they've all done things that were hurtful, they've all done things they need to work through.

like. just because mary says stede left his family on a whim doesn't mean that's literally what he did! we know full well it wasn't some idle whim he had. the thing is, demonstrably, she and stede do not really know or understand each other. to HER understanding, it was a whim. to stede it was fumbling for hold of a lifeline after a lifetime of slowly drowning. and it doesn't make it less of a terrible thing that he left his family without a word in the night. and it doesn't make it less of a terrible thing that she literally tried to murder him without a word in the night. in the same way that just because they were able to come to an understanding at the very end of the season, it doesn't mean that they could have magically had a satisfying life together If Stede Had Only Been More Open Sooner.

and just because stede did something that broke ed's heart doesn't mean it's stede's fault that ed, a 40+ year old man, attempted the murder of people he knows stede cares about. in the same way that while izzy pushed ed’s buttons and was generally fucking awful to ed in the aftermath, it was ultimately still a choice that ed made to maroon the crew and literally throw lucius overboard!

(and like, i think there's a lot to be said about the fact that if stede had straight-up been intercepted more permanently in some way, if he'd not shown up bc he was hurt/killed/captured/etc, ed's assumptions-- the fact that he at no point seemed to consider that something could have gone wrong with their little plan-- and ultimate awful reactions would have played out the same way. i think there's a lot to be said about the fact that he historically seems to have trouble picking up on stede's issues; being so in love with the whole forest that he tends not to pick up on the state of the individual trees that form it, etc.

but god that's a whole thing i don't even have energy for that rn)

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wewalkadifferentpath · 6 years

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Do you think Izzy would have done something to hurt Rosa? I mean Simon as clearly panicking since Raphael kind of threatened his family. Didn't Izzy (&indirectly Simon) just want to show Raphael that they could get to his family too? I don't think Raphael would have let Izzy come near him if he thought those two were going to kill Rosa? I may be interpreting this completely wrong though. :O

Oh wow! My first anon fandom question lol, neat. Do I think Izzy would have actually hurt Rosa? No, almost definitely not. Do I still think it was appropriate to even remotely imply a threat to her (a particularly vulnerable elderly woman, too, for the record) when it was information that Raphael shared with her in confidence under the influence of an addiction she half-forced him into?Not even a little. Saying “didn’t they just want to show Raphael that they could get to his family too” is one of those things that, first of all, I don’t condone anyways (escalating a situation by making it MORE awful for everyone involved including unlucky bystanders? nah) but also doesn’t make sense for me in this scenario. Simon started the issue because of Camille, and WAS threatening Raphael’s family already. So if you’re looking for a retribution thing, that’s what Raphael was already doing- evening the score with Simon. Which was still wrong, for the record, though I don’t think he would have hurt Simon’s family either.There’s also an ENTIRELY different power dynamic and narrative going on there. Simon and Raphael had their own back and forth, but Izzy came out of nowhere to involve herself in the situation. She was also someone who had already slaughtered, with Alec, a large number of people in Raphael’s clan, and helped fuck him over with the Camille thing. She’s been shown to have a record of some thoughtlessness when it comes to Downworlder lives and needs, which seems to come with the Shadowhunter territory though she’s framed as being “different” than the rest, so that’s a bit of BS. Izzy was also in a position of trust at the moment- I could even forgive Simon for making the threat, but Izzy? They were supposed to be bonded and meant to trust and understand each other and all that, apparently. So where’s the evidence of that? She took someone who, like I said, she’d already FORCIBLY hooked on her blood, got deep personal secrets from him, then used her significant social capital (she has an entire Insitute of Shadowhunters behind her, Raphael’s clan has been largely falling apart) to waltz her way to threatening someone in his life. AND revealed Rosa’s significance and location to Simon, someone who at this point, she doesn’t even know that well. And then didn’t apologize. So no, I don’t think she would have hurt Rosa, but I’m still mad about it. And to be clear, I don’t really blame Izzy exactly; I personally don’t like her right now, but I don’t condemn anyone who does or anything and I recognize her good qualities. I think it was just poor writing. She has made some bad choices, but that whole relationship between the two of them and all of that nonsense was just an uncharacteristic mess.

#yikes that was long lol #sorry friend!#thank you for asking though #this was cool #please feel free to follow up anon or not if you wanna chat more about it #for my followers I'll tag it #amy does discourse #sh discourse #negativity #raphael santiago #isabelle lightwood #anti-rizzy #simon lewis #asks #anons

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antthonystark · 7 years

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yeah i think people don't really realize when it comes to alec that choosing to be immortal is like a REALLY REALLY big decision it's not just whatever

i mean, i’m sure people interpret things differently so i don’t want to say that they haven’t thought about it enough or whatever, but idk man the massive and enormous difference between mortality and immortality is so significant that, as i’ve said before, really makes it hard for me to even really fathom this issue on a character level - like there are very significant burdens to immortality as, like, every single piece of fiction with immortal characters can attest to lol

like again because immortality doesn’t exist in our world it can be difficult to really think about which is why i dont like to bc i get too caught up in it lol. i think a lot of people think of immortality as just an extended distance between point A (birth) and point B (death) but immortality isn’t just a longer lifespan, it’s point A without any point B and therefore no possible linear progression from the start to the anticipated destination so it really Changes the entire game of, like, living and aging lol it becomes agelessness, in a sense. we’re obviously all mortal so we don’t always realize, i think, how very very very very much our lives are framed by their own finite-ness and the implicit understanding that we are in, essentially, a linear progression to the point B that represents death BUT that’s entirely irrelevant to immortality as it relates to alec that was just a huge tangent lol

to preface: none of this is me saying that malec should have a tragic mortal/immortal ending, or that i don’t think alec could or should choose to be immortal at some point down the line (he could! he should!), but just factors that i think should be considered when the immortality problem is solved in the show so please just please be calm

but back to alec, i think the loss of loved ones who aren’t magnus isn’t something people think about in its complete implication - like i see a lot of people treat alec’s love for his family as an obligation he deserves to be freed from. and don’t get me wrong, one of my favourite juxtapositions Ever in life and fiction is the contrast between alec’s love-from-duty for his family and alec’s love-equals-freedom for magnus so there is a significant and not-incidental sense of obligation there compared to with magnus that is one of my favourite things about the malec relationship, but i don’t think that undercuts the immense love that alec feels for people like izzy and jace and max, for one thing, and the utter devastation that having to experience their deaths would bring.

but that’s pretty intuitive, but i don’t think people always take into consideration the fact that the lightwood line isn’t going to end there. i presume (hope) that clary and jace would have kids, and maybe izzy and simon if simon gets de-vamped as in the books. so having to watch those children grow up and loving them as family, they have children, then they die, and watch their children, and their children’s children, your entire lineage, everything that ever connected you to someone else, everyone who was even ever alive when you were young, every memory and keepsake you had of these people you loved with all your being, just fade into oblivion…………as im sure magnus can attest to, that would be frickin harrowing. so it’s not just “yeah izzy and jace will die and it’ll suck but he’ll get over the grief after like a hundred years or something and plus he gets to be with magnus forever” like the burden of immortality isn’t one to be taken lightly tbh like im sure there will be a million happy wonderful things to look forward to with immortal husbands magnus and alec but there are two sides to every coin that i’m sure would need to be taken into consideration by alec as well as by the writers who would need to bring this organically into his character arc - like the benefits should clearly outweigh the costs in the way that it should be depicted on the show imo

also, im sure this isn’t one that alec would be like, focused on over the idea of all his other loved ones dying before his eyes, or the thought of having to lose or be lost by magnus aka the eventual love of his life, which i think would be the two main (and warring) impulses behind the choice of being immortal (assuming that that’s even a ready choice, but really this whole thing is stipulated on that assumption) - but i would be interested to know what the implications might be on his career and work as a shadowhunter, being like the only immortal shadowhunter ever, or at least one of few. i feel like it would be affected in some way, but i dont really have any thoughts that merit discussing, just a random point that might be interesting to think about lol

so yeah. immortality is like. Significant lol. so, you know what i mean, i really really really really dont want it to be just “oh magnus i want to be with you forever let me sip this immortality potion!” after, like, a two-episode arc. like i know and have faith in the show that they would never do it that stupidly and callously, but i’m talking like a season-long arc at the very least lol like i need this shit to be handled with a Lot of care and attention to character of alec before it happens, if it happens at all in the actual canon, is all i’m saying and all i ever usually say lol like i have 100% faith that the malec relationship will easily become something that can justify something this huge, because it is already a beautiful relationship even as it is in its fairly early stages, but i need it to be done so properly you know what i mean because the implications on both the character and the relationship would be So Damn Huge that it shouldn’t be taken lightly but i mean who knows SH could be cancelled after like season 4 and then where will we be lol so this entire discussion could just be for nothing

#my thoughts #immortality discourse #it's just such a meaty topic i wonder why it gets so simplified #i love the idea of immortal husbands like yes please but #it's so fun to think about everything that it entails and implies no #that just me #malec #alec lightwood #anonymous #letterbox #text post

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notcrypticbutcoy · 7 years

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It is obvious from your writing that Magnus is your favourite and it's sad because while all writers have a favourite character, they don't let it affect their writing by being so biased.

So I currently have two new messages in my inbox. One, this. The other, a politely posed question about Simon’s sexuality and its interpretation in canon vs fandom. I wonder which is going to get the more productive response? 🤔 But anyway, two parts to this answer.

(This turned out to be a much more productive response than I anticipated, c’est la vie!)

1) To clear some apparent misconceptions, because I’ve had people complaining about Izzy being my favourite character, Magnus being my favourite character, JACE (?!) being my favourite character, you get the picture: yes, Magnus is my favourite character in the sense of, you know, HIS CHARACTER. He’s incredibly complex and well-rounded and so much fun to explore. Then why are (probably significantly) more than half of my fics written from Alec’s POV? Because he’s my favourite character in my ability to relate to him, to understand where he’s coming from, to see myself in him. That’s a very intimate thing, and it’s one of the things that makes me watch TV and read books. Relating to characters.

FWW is, by and large, ABOUT ALEC. Yes, about Alec and Magnus, obviously, but it follows his storyline, it’s mostly written from his perspective, and most major events centre around him. Him + another character, sometimes, yes, but he’s usually the common factor.

And in this fic - which is not written in the canon universe - Alec has spent most of his life being taught that Downworlders are disgusting and deserve everything they get from the Clave. A lot of the first twenty+/- chapters is him coming to the realisation that this is not the case, largely through his relationship with Magnus but also other Downworlders - Luke, Raphael, Maia, Simon, etc.

At some point, everybody in the world is exposed to something that makes them reconsider their beliefs. It’s just life. That’s what this story is about, from many sides. Alec reconsiders his beliefs about Downworlders. Magnus his opinions about (particularly the younger generation of) Shadowhunters - although not so much the Clave. Isabelle her opinions about the Clave’s officials. Simon about his place in it all.

None of these characters are perfect. All of them make mistakes. All of them say things that are supposed to make the reader go “…? Really? Was that necessary? Was that fair? Was that the best course of action?” Even *gasp* Magnus. Magnus’ own arc in this story is still in its earlier stages. He’s got plenty more mistakes to make and arguments to have and angst to go through before he’s done. As has everyone else.

I’m a little bewildered as to why a brief musing in which Alec reflects on how his prejudice against Downworlders affected his judgement of Simon in the past has stirred up this “OHMYGOD YOU HATE ALEC” thing. It boggles me. Especially as the follow-up scene stresses that Alec dealt with the situation well, and wasn’t blind-sided by prejudices, because, you know, we’re 29 chapters in, he couldn’t still be behaving as he was in chapter 1!

2) These kinds of messages are not productive. You know that. I know that. The mere fact that they’re on anon clues everyone into this. So, rather than rant at me for your own gratification, here’s a suggestion: BE CONSTRUCTIVE. IT MIGHT GET YOU SOMEWHERE.

For example: Hi Lu, I’m x chapters into y fic, and I’m still reading it because I like z. However, I noticed v scene/line, and I was wondering if you could explain why you wrote it, because I thought w. I’d like to hear your thoughts, because it squicked me/seemed out of place/seemed out of character/didn’t make sense etc.

I’m much more likely to respond to that in a helpful manner! I don’t know whether I give off the impression that I’m totally close-minded or I think my opinions are fact or think my word is gospel – I don’t! I’m not! I will ALWAYS listen to people’s opinions, when they are constructive, polite, and a genuine concern/enquiry, rather than a rant or a hate anon or some kind of guilt tripping. My opinions quite regularly do not line up with the mainstream, especially on here, and so I just keep them to myself, because I’m here to write and enjoy these characters. And I always approach constructive criticism with an open mind, because that’s how writers improve!

And hey, you might change my mind! Someone left me a comment pointing something out in chapter 29 that was off, and I’m over to fix it in a moment, because they’re totally right and their comment wasn’t rude, it wasn’t cruel, it was just a “Hey, xyz threw me, what’s up there? I thought ____. Anyway, the rest of the chapter…”

See the difference? See how one just makes me want to not post and delete the whole bloody thing, and one benefits everyone reading, you, and also me as a writer?

Constructive criticism is a GOOD THING. Hate messages are not.

So, my offer to you: turn your “you only love magnus and you hate alec and your story is shit” message around, and have a conversation with me. (It’d be nice and increase my respect for you if you did it off anon (I won’t publish it if you don’t want me to) but I won’t absolutely hold you to that.) Be polite, be respectful, and rather than making assumptions about ME, explain what it is that’s bothered you so much, and why you care! There must be something making you read the story to this point, unless you’re a total masochist and read things you hate for the Edward Cullen vibes, and there’s clearly something that’s made you feel the need to rant at me. Tell me! Nicely! I’ll explain, I’ll probably also see your side of the argument, and we can either agree to disagree, or if it’s a little thing I might make a change, or if it’s a bigger thing I might consider it as I go forward writing the story.

Isn’t that a better solution? Doesn’t that benefit everyone involved? You get answers, I get some food for thought, and polite open discussion about these things (hopefully) leads to a better story.

That’s my offer. You’re more than welcome to take it. That’s all I have to say here.

#anon #lu talks #discourse

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