#ed teach critical

[khruschevshoe]

The problem with the handling of Ed's season 2 arc on ofmd is that it sets up the cycle of abuse so well. Demonstrates the way it destroys both Ed and his victims in the first two episodes so well. Shows the ways the trauma can keep destroying people and their relationships in episodes 2-4 (Lucius, Izzy, Jim, etc.). And then just...shames Lucius for trying to open up and shames him for being traumatized and makes fun of him for trying to talk about what happened to him. Makes Izzy apologize to his abuser for one comment he made what is implied to be months ago after the man he is apologizing to CUT OFF HIS TOES AND SHOT HIM IN THE LEG. Doesn't allow Jim (or for that matter, Archie) to be righteously pissed off for longer than episode 4. And then has the audacity to say that Ed making a "Youtuber apology" and using the loot that he blackmailed/threatened/forced the crew to steal in the first place to buy them party decorations somehow...makes up for everything he did?

Like, am I missing a part of this arc? Am I missing the part where he reconciled with literally ANYONE but Fang? Am I missing the part where Stede apologized to Lucius for telling him to stop talking when he was telling him about the severe trauma he went through? (Or even, as much as I love him and their relationship, Pete apologizing to Lucius for dismissing his trauma and wanting to move on before Lucius was ready because listening to Lucius' sa/abuse story was uncomfortable?) Am I missing the part where Archie and Jim found a reason to forgive Ed (and don't tell me that the Izzy-the-unicorn helped them forgive Ed- that was about the crew coming together to help IZZY to recover and had jacksquat to do with Ed)?

The set up was brilliant. Episodes 1-3 killed me. Episode 2 was my favorite episode of the show (bar the bit where Stede ran away when Lucius was unloading his trauma, and even THAT could have worked if he apologized later and allowed Lucius to talk). But the lack of payoff makes me feel sick. Because I understand this show is a comedy, but you don't introduce themes like that and give them that kind of ending.

#ed teach critical #ofmd critical #jim jimenez #ofmd archie #lucius spriggs #ofmd season 2 spoilers #izzy hands #tw abuse #tw sa mention #writing #ofmd season 2 #meta #analysis

[bougiebutchbitch]

This fandom continues to be the absolute worst.

Just because a character is canonically a kinky masochist does not mean they 'want' to be abused.

Masochism =/= deserving abuse.

Even if Izzy got off on The Toe Thing (which I certainly believe he did in the first incident!) it was in no way consensual. It happened while he was sleeping.

I hate to break it to you, but people can orgasm while being raped or assaulted. Physical bodily response is NOT the same as consent, and I really hoped we were at a stage in 2023 where that was common knowledge. Apparently not.

As a one-off in Season 1, Ed's mutilation of Izzy was immensely fucked up, but still not a pattern. In Season 2 it became........ blatantly acknowledged on-screen as repeated physical abuse from a guy in a position of power over his subordinate? That Izzy did not enjoy in the slightest, but couldn't escape? That made him break down crying in Fang's arms while Frenchie held his hand? Like...??? How do you see that and interpret those scenes as proof that Izzy 'wanted it'?

Sometimes I'm reminded forcefully of how uneducated people are about kink, abuse, victim blaming, and consent in general. If you think people who enjoy pain in the bedroom are inviting abuse and 'deserve what they get', then frankly, I think your ignorant, kinkshaming, puritanical bullshit shouldn't be welcome in this fandom. It's genuinely harmful.

#ofmd #ofmd fandom critical #our flag means death #izzy hands #ed teach #izzy critical #ed teach critical #the izcourse #putting it there so the offenders might see it lol #wtf is wrong with these people. seriously. yikes. #victim blaming

[autisticwriterblog]

Izzy, Ed and abuse

okay, so I’ve seen a few people talking about Izzy and Ed, and it genuinely disturbs me that I’ve seen people deny that Izzy is a victim of abuse. By most definitions, physical abuse is categorised as causing physical harm to another person’s body with intent to hurt them. Some things, like punching Izzy for selling Stede out, or choking him for saying hateful stuff when Ed was at his lowest, whilst not acceptable in the real world, are perfectly normal reactions for a pirate to have toward a member of his crew, so I’m not talking about things like that.

But the toe scene and the early parts of season 2 are clearly abusive, and only by sheer character bias (framing Ed as someone who could never do anything wrong) can you look at the way Ed treats Izzy and not consider Izzy a victim. Izzy and Ed have had a mutually toxic relationship for a long time, judging by their interactions, but I personally only see abusive behaviour starting with the toe scene. And the abusive one is Ed. Which shouldn’t be a controversial thing to say, considering what we see on screen, and yet…

Even at the end of season one, we saw Ed cut Izzy’s toe off and force him to eat it, and it is confirmed in season 2 that he took two more toes. He is even about to take a fourth toe when Izzy reports that the crew refused to throw their treasure overboard, and Izzy doesn’t argue, much unlike in season 1, when he often bitched at Ed for his decisions. Now, Izzy just takes the punishment.

Things between them come to a head when Ed shoots Izzy in the leg, leading to infection, and the amputation of his leg. He even puts a gun in Izzy’s hand, directly leading to Izzy’s suicide attempt. And in the end, all Izzy gets is a mumbled apology and that's that.

I know many people don’t like Izzy, but do they not sympathise with him? I’ll be first to admit that I don’t like Ed and Stede (I used to, but season 2 made me dislike them more and more for reasons too complicated to go into now), but I feel bad for them when bad things happen to them. I got bullied as a child, so I sympathise with Stede in the flashbacks to his childhood, and I was horrified when I learned what Ed's father was like. I don't particularly like either of them, but I feel bad for them when they're suffering. Which is why I found it so strange and appalling that people who dislike Izzy seemed to find it funny when Izzy was crawling along the floor, or died a painful death.

Even ignoring Ed's treatment of Izzy, the way he treats the crew is abusive too. He overworks them, pushing them into three months of consecutive raids (assuming they did one raid a day), leaving them all so stressed that Fang seems to always be crying. He forces Jim and Archie to fight to the death for no reason other than he said so. He expects Frenchie to kill Izzy, and it is clear how terrified Frenchie is the entire time he lies to Ed. The whole crew walk on eggshells around Ed because they don't know when he'll explode again. Basically, even if Izzy isn't being mentioned (and he should for the record, because he got the worst treatment - and he didn't deserve it, despite that some people seem to think being mutilated is a fair punishment for yelling at Ed), Ed was still abusive towards the crew. During that time period, Ed is incredibly unstable. He wants the world to burn and doesn't care who gets hurt along with him. Which is why the crew still show signs of trauma after Stede returns. Because they are traumatised by Ed's behaviour.

I know that Ed is a victim of abuse, and I have seen people bring this up when his abusive behaviour is mentioned. The thing is, it's perfectly possible for a victim to become an abuser themself, because they're a human being and are capable of doing bad things. Yes, survivors don't have to become abusive (see: my mum, who was smacked as a child but never raised a hand to her own children, because she didn't turn out like her parents), but it can happen. And that is what happened with Ed. There is even a direct parallel between Ed's dad throwing a plate against the wall, scaring Ed's mother, and the scene where Ed throws a chair against the wall, making Stede visibly flinched. If you want someone to be annoyed with about this comparison, don't pick the fans who are just noticing something in canon - blame the show for writing Ed doing the same thing his abusive father did.

In conclusion, Izzy fans aren't just making things up. We're pointing out things that canon showed onscreen and how Ed's behaviour toward Izzy is abusive. I wanted to like Ed this season, but the way the show wrote him made it impossible for me to tolerate him, because he treated everyone badly and they were expected to just move on. I understand that Ed is a romantic lead, but perhaps it wasn't a good idea to make your romantic lead act so abusive toward his subordinates and then never show any real consequences of that.

#ofmd #ofmd s2 spoilers #izzy hands #the izcourse #ofmd critical #abuse tw #child abuse mention #discourse #fandom wank #ed teach critical #(although it's more about the show's writing than his character)

[bougiebutchbinch]

Look, the long and short of it is -

In what universe does 'defending yourself from emotional abuse!!' look like repeatedly mutilating a guy who is not fighting back in any way, for the sin of speaking up to protect other people from you; encouraging him to commit suicide; and forcing a group of people who have literally never done you any harm to live in constant fear while you psychologically, emotionally and physically torture them until they fulfill your suicidal fantasies?

Oh, that's right. No universe.

#The izcourse #Izzy Hands #Ofmd Izzy #the edcourse #ofmd fandom critical #ed teach critical #our flag means death #Ofmd #Just. Do you people hear yourselves. #Abuse tw

[primordialervoid]

Seriously though, what's with the abuse apologism in this show? If they didn't have the time to give Ed a proper redemption & reconciliation arc OR if his violence was meant to be mild and insignificant as it targeted people supposedly desentisized to this sort of treatment...WHY make a plot point of the crew struggling to cope with their trauma? More importantly, why introduce realistic consequences of said trauma and turn them into a joke? Why make these characters seem foolish for not instantly forgiving the guy who gave them symptoms of PTSD?

(Izzy's "I'm in denial about what this man has done to me and you should be too" presented as a positive moment of him teaching Lucius his wisdom. YIKES)

It's not even about Ed's actions, but the way the narrative did everything to sweep them under the rug as fast as possible... which. Wasn't subtle at all. It made Ed's arc in season 2 obnoxious at best

#Yknow that thing with how many people enjoy fucked up themes in fiction only as long as the work doesn't try to present them #as anything different from what they are? #Cause it starts to feel off otherwise #I believe this is what made some people who were previously Ed fans resent him/his characterisation in s2 #Anyways #ofmd critical #ed teach critical #ofmd s2 rant

[aletterinthenameofsanity]

fix-it fic for me is literally just either "holy shit canon really glorified this guy's horrible behavior so I've gotta give their love interest/friends a better ending" (i.e. glee, ofmd, etc.) or it's "i can feel the author's unintentional prejudices/hang-ups/etc. digging their fingernails all over the writing of this character that had so much potential so I've gotta wrest them away and fix some shit" (i.e. doctor who, avengers, once upon a time, the magicians, supernatural, narnia, etc.)

#glee #blaine anderson critical #ofmd #ed teach critical #doctor who #rory williams my beloved #also eleventh doctor #you are my beloved declawed of all the sexist jokes/comments you make in the show bc that's what Steven Moffat thought was funny at the tim #avengers #once upon a time #swanqueen #listen regina x emma are my roman empire and i will never be over them #the magicians #queliot #will never ever get over queliot's ending. they were MY November 5th/Destiel finale #chronicles of narnia #the problem of susan #somehow my most popular fic of all time is my narnia rewrite? #anyway that's something #fix-it fic #fanfic #ao3

[who-the-fuck-knows-blog]

“izzy said he’d rather let ed die than be [soft] ed. soft ed who didn’t cut people’s toes off 🥺. soft ed who didnt want to hurt anyone 🥺. soft ed who loved stede 🥺. and ed shoots him bc izzy still is blaming ed’s love for why the atmosphere is poisoned 🥺🥺’

are you ever just fucking exhausted.

fuck it lets add it back why not

#ofmd s2 #izzy hands #ed teach #ed teach critical #edward teach critical #izcourse

[thegoldenhoof]

This was perhaps the first meta I wrote in the fandom when the show had just come out and building on the Black Sails dialogue between Silver and Flint where Silver points out how Flint's name doesn't belong to him alone. It is a jointly held asset for to build which the crew has spilt blood and which they have a stake in. And how that applied to Ed's desire to first quit being Blackbeard, then run away and then stop being pirates and become a travelling troupe of entertainers or what ever fancy catches his eye next.

While the actual realities of the social structures obviously varied pirate crews did not as a rule sail together for love or loyalty. They risked their life for their share and shares varied as per responsibility.

So we have Blackbeard attacking a pirate ship and loosing men and risking more men which he brushes off as commonplace for the pirate life and this would be entirely true except for a small problem. There is no prize taken from the Revenge so there is no share to be recieved by the pirates who fought. Those men die just because Ed wanted to meet Stede.

Their gain, it could be argued here was just being on Blackbeard's crew which would have come with its share of respect and reputation. In which case the Blackbeard name, his reputation must be considered as part of the crew's share.

Edward's disregard for the crew's lives is not that he is risking their lives, which in fairness he acknowledges and is his right as their captain, but that he is willing to risk them for his personal interests with no reward in return. That on a lot of ships would have been reason enough to mutiny.

This becomes worse in season 2 in the Kraken era but it is not exactly unprecedented. Edward commands the crew to dump the treasure, give up their shares that they risked their lives for because *he* wants to break a record.

His use of the guilt room money is suspect to but lets extend the benefit of doubt and assume that all that was just his share of the money,hopefully after compensating his crew for their share he made them throw away. Do we get any hint of this? No. But since we don't see anything against this either.. Let's assume so. (But if so Frenchie, Fang Archie and Izzy should have been filthy rich in their own right.)

It is canon that Ed has acted like the existence of the crew is for his own personal benefit even before the Kraken era. But they stay because presumably his name alone brings them safety and power. Even wealth considering Ed's comment about ships just surrendering to his flag. The Blackbeard name in itself is then part of the prize for which they are willing to risk their lives.

So when it comes to Ed wanting to end Blackbeard the question comes as to how much does he actually own Blackbeard and what exactly does he owe the crew in the currency of Blackbeard's name. It is, after all, a jointly held asset.

The show's solution to this is of course handwave away the QAR crew because if they are not real people but mere props in Edward's story he doesn't owe them anything...

But if you take a step back from the Edward centric world and wonder.....

#Ed Teach critical #not really but better safe #Queen Anne Revenge #Kraken revenge crew #as much as the idea that Ed needed anyone else's contribution to build the Blackbeard name was shot down as racist just after season 1 #I think it is fair to say that season to solidifies it from the loses taken by the crew in the Kraken era #to Izzy's statement that he needed Blackbeard because it was “them” him and Ed. #izzy hands

[sixstepsaway]

so here's the thing

i've seen a bunch of people say on twitter and stuff how... ed's behavior is very abusive and his anger is dangerous and he isn't romantic lead material because of it

and i get where they're coming from

but to me the main issue isn't putting ed in the position of a romantic lead, but not crafting the narrative around his characterization so that it allows for a spicy romantic pirates-in-love narrative instead of...whatever this is.

i'm going to try and explain this. idk if i'll do well but i'll try

the way she show presents stede is as an innocent baby who isn't really equipped for pirate life. he goes into a fugue/disassociative state whenever there's any real violence, apparently, and needs protecting by other characters when things get too rough - for example when ed is telling ned lowe not to take the poker to stede.

that's fine! it's honestly adorable to see a masc character being so soft around the edges and being protected by other characters this way.

(i'm not going to touch on stede's... eh... not great characterization this season rn)

then there's izzy, who is shown as a bit violent, a bit rough around the edges. he's more likely to draw a sword or throw a punch or hit someone with a chair or take a punch like a champ. violence is just part of life for him and that's okay, it just Is, from small things like smacking stede on the ass to bigger things like being wall slammed, it's not all that big or bad for violence to happen around and with him, he tends to give as good as he gets (there's some nuance here but i'm talking the macro themes not the micro of what izzy does vs is done to him)

and finally there's ed

ed is presented as violent (stabbing knives at guys, telling fang to use the snail fork etc) and used to a life of violence, and then in season 2 he's presented as really violent, his anger coming out in dangerous and terrifying ways

and frankly, i'd be super into it if he and izzy were the main ship and that twisted dynamic from the first two episodes of s2 was explored and fleshed out into something deeper

friends to enemies to lovers who fight and fuck. angry pirates who lay hands on each other, who break the whole ship with each other in the heat of passion.

except instead, s2 gives us... abuse. it gives us izzy cringing and lowering his head and trying to protect the kids crew from ed's angry outbursts.

so when stede comes back and he's still soft around the edges and ed headbutts him and it's deliberate, it's... not a great look, and the vibes are a bit skewed

if stede fought back, if when ed struck out at him he struck back, if they fought rather than it being one-sided, if it was friends to enemies to lovers and not presented as healthy, but maybe they can work their way there, who knows, maybe even more like anne bonnie and mary read because hey, they were doing something very similar?

except they were both into it. they were both enjoying the fighting and the fucking and the burning down the house.

stede's not enjoying it.

i cannot describe how much i hate this sequence just because of the way stede flinches

anne and mary don't!! mary jumps at the unexpected bang but she doesnt flinch, she doesn't cover her face like she thinks the vase will be coming for her not the wall and anne? looks so into it

and the thing is that in real life, no, you don't want to date someone who throws shit around, or headbutts you

but in fiction when it's two fucked up people doing this shit together like anne and mary?

that can be fun.

but instead what we've been given is stede flinching and apologizing to ed and then all of ed's...what, semi-redemption???? is done away from the other collection of people he abused, and then he spends some time on a fishing boat wearing a dog collar and everything is fine because he's good now and won't be doing anything bad ever again

and it's just... poor writing. the vibes are rancid.

i spent a really big chunk of time between s1 and s2 defending ed. i kept saying how what he did to izzy by making him eat his toe wasn't abuse, it was a one-off and abuse isn't a one-off thing it's a pattern, and then s2 made it a pattern.

explicitly. explicitly a pattern.

not just one toe but three.

jim saying "you're in an unhealthy relationship with blackbeard"

and all ed offered izzy was a "sorry about your leg" which might've been fine if izzy survived and they could work on this more, but instead that's all the apology and closure izzy will ever get

ed threw a chair and a vase and made stede flinch in fear and stede was right to do that. what part of any of this implies this will never happen again? that stede won't press the wrong button at some point and be on the receiving end? none of it

and if we'd been presented with a s2 stede bonnet who could handle himself and stand up for himself and fight back, then maybe i could imagine that turning into a weird sexy fucked up anne/mary like thing and maybe that could be why they put that episode in, but instead it feels like that episode was going, "look, see, ed's violence is fine because these two are fine with it with each other"

but stede isn't

ed and izzy or ed and stede in an unhealthy battle of a relationship could be such a fun, interesting and downright sexy thing to watch unfold on tv, and could honestly end somewhere far more down the chill end of the spectrum, but that's not what we've been given here

i cannot argue that ed isn't an abuser anymore, and not just of izzy but of the whole crew. he terrified frenchie.

it's not good writing to try and lean into the idea that ed and the pirates are violent and live a life of violence, so it's okay that ed's been violent, while simultaneously presenting his violence as traumatic and abusive, and then less than three episodes later saying oh it's fine now, he's just a little meow meow who can do no wrong, see?

especially considering they had him murdering people at the end of the season. and sure, you can say the english are just cannon fodder and they dont 'count', but they did before. ed explicitly did not kill before, and that included the english, or the spanish, or anyone else. so either they count or they don't, but flipping him on a dime makes no sense.

ALSO

having ed be the son of an abusive man who threw plates at his mother and made her cringe and then having ed kill his father to protect his mother and then a season later having ed become the kind of man who throws chairs and vases and makes his love interest cringe is, again, not bloody optimal

i want to say again i dont CARE about tv always presenting healthy relationships or tv always giving us aspirational goals. i want messy fucked up dynamics and terrible people making terrible choices, and still, to this day, i fucking love ed teach. i would honestly love to have seen them continue with ed's darkness and bring stede into it and see where they went with that, to have stede kill ned lowe and not just bury his feelings in ed but get off on it, enjoy the violence, and see where that led, but no

and so instead all we end up with is a protagonist who is being set up for a lifetime of abuse from an intimate partner, and a romantic lead who abuses his love interests (and yes. izzy is a love interest, he is set up like one and positioned like one and treated like one), frightens his love interests with his violence, is erratic and most of all inconsistently written. he was so sorry about scaring fang as though he hadn't been deliberately terrifying the whole crew for fuck knows how long? what?!

the whole fandom has spent so long saying, "no no, i know stede bonnet irl was a slave owner, but ofmd is using the names and not any real piracy, it's more disney piracy, you know? so that kind of stuff doesnt exist!" and then they flipped around and went "blackbeard is blackbeard and so he is evil and does all these horrible things" and i dont know how to rationalize the two sides of that because it feels so out of place

i'm getting rambly, this isnt a particularly well constructed thought process, i just feel like we were robbed both of a toxic, violent relationship that could be fun to see explored on tv and a soft and sweet love story between two middle aged men exploring their first loves in one fell swoop and there's no way for s3 to bring either of those things back because they got utterly torpedoed by making ed a horrible person

ugh

#ofmd critical #i hate that i'm using this tag now :c #edward teach #ed teach #ofmd s2 #ofmd season 2 #our flag means death #ofmd spoilers #ofmd meta #i guess #izzy hands #stede bonnet

[ourflagmeansgayrights]

appalled but also not surprised at the amount of people who think ed is textually izzy’s domestic abuser and their problem with this is that in the season two izzy dies and apologizes to ed in his final moments. but they apparently are fine with the entire premise of the show being a relationship between a white man and an indigenous man and the indigenous man is written to have had a violent and abusive father and who then continues the “cycle of abuse” with his first mate/subtextual wife. i can’t imagine watching and supporting this show while thinking that the entire foundation of ed’s character was reinforcing such shitty racist stereotypes abt poc.

if we wanna talk about ed and being an abusive boss to his crew that’s one thing. but when it comes to izzy, from 1x10 to 2x02 we are not seeing an old, routine pattern of behavior from ed where he uses violence to control izzy. we’re seeing izzy’s attempts to push ed back into being blackbeard (we’re seeing izzy’s attempts to control ed) backfire on him, we’re seeing izzy feeding this poison and then getting the poison turned back on him. and it has been sooooo incredibly predictable to watch a huge chunk of this fandom reframe the intended reading of this show to victimize the white side character and demonize the indigenous protagonist.

#ofmd #our flag means death #izzy critical #izzy hands #dizzy izzy #edward teach #ed teach #edward teach born on a beach #ofmd season 2 #ofmd s2 #ofmd 2 #ofmd s2 spoilers #ofmd fandom crit #if this post is in the izcourse tag no it isnt u just don’t know how to use tumblr #txt #mine #og #link #david jenkins #article

[actualfrog]

Doodles of a vague modern AU

#Ed owns a restaurant cause duh and Jim works for him and they both occassionalky go to metal concerts together #Stede is like…either a lawyer or a fashion magazine editor doing good critics on the side bc also duh meet cute #Lucius is Stede’s personal assistant and Izzy…exists ahshhs idk what to do with him yet but he uses a cane without any toe eating involved #bc I said so #anyways Hi 🧍 #ofmd #our flag means death #Izzy hands #Stede bonnet #jim jimenez #lucius #Blackbeard #Edward teach

[khruschevshoe]

OFMD Critique: Finales, Writing Backwards, and the Importance of Building Relationships

Continuing on the rambling meta bc it turns out there are a couple of people that responded well to my initial thoughts...

Am I the only one that felt like the OFMD Season 2 finale suffered from the exact same problem as the Game of Thrones or the How I Met Your Mother Season finales? Well, not exactly the same, but lemme explain.

The treatment of Izzy Hands in Season 2 of OFMD feels like when they sat down to write this season, they wrote his death scene first (for whatever reasons that might be, though likely for the sake of Ed's arc- we're not going to address my feelings on THAT rn), THEN backfilled his arc for the rest of the season based on that, but then didn't rewrite his death scene to address the stuff that organically happened when writing the rest of the season.

Like, for example, I've seen plenty of people point out that the deathbed apology from Izzy to Ed doesn't really work (I fed your darkness) both in regards to the sheer imbalance of damage shown onscreen between Ed and Izzy, but also doesn't work as a "putting Blackbeard behind us" scene when Izzy figuratively (and literally, if you count him as part of the group with the cannonball) killed his half of Blackbeard in the storm scene in 2x2, with whatever parts lingering in him killed with the unicorn scene in 2x4. After this point, his arc and his focus has very, very little to do with Blackbeard or hell, Ed in general besides the couple of comments made to Ed and Stede that cement that Izzy is happy that Ed moved on and found someone that makes him happy.

Izzy's arc has left Blackbeard behind already. He has already hit the emotional beat that the finale wants to retread.

And then the other part of his deathbed comments to Ed- "the crew loves you, Ed"- makes no sense from the Ed side of things. The show built up an arc for Izzy that would make people care when he died, but that arc was literally about the crew literally putting aside their differences/fear/distrust of each other to help, support, and accept Izzy as their figurehead, their protector, their friend, their recovery, their family, their (insert positive symbolism/metaphor for all of the VARIOUS implied flirtations here).

What did they have with Ed? Other than his moments with Stede and Fang, what relationships were built up before Izzy's death? Calypso's birthday included no scenes of the crew interacting with Ed other than the short Archie/Ed/Stede convo at the beginning. We get none of him talking to them when prepping for the party. He spends 2x7 and 2x8 with Stede, only having scenes with Stede, never building anything with the crew.

THE LAST SUBSTANTIAL INTERACTION ED HAS WITH THE CREW BEFORE IZZY DIES IS THE "INFLUENCER APOLOGY" IN 2X5 (other than with Fang in the boat). Holy shit, I didn't even realize that until I got to this point in the meta. I had realized that something felt wrong/off about the "the crew loves you line," but I thought that it was because 2x1-2x3 cast such a long shadow on the rest of the season that it was impossible to escape. No, there were cracks in the back half of the season as well.

All of which is to say: if you have to kill Izzy (which you really, really don't, btw, it makes little sense in a show where pretty much every character has survived a near death experience with nary a scratch, but for the sake of hypothetical), there is a way you can pull it off: you have the crew at Izzy's side as he dies instead of Ed. You have their relationship with Izzy at the forefront, because their relationship is the one that matters at this point in the narrative. You have Izzy die trying to save one of them, not by random gunshot.

And then after Izzy dies, you finally give the crew their agency back. You let Izzy's death be the last straw in THEIR arcs. You let them tell Ed that they cannot allow him to stay on the ship after everything. You let them tell him that they are putting their foot down, and he can go retire if he wants, but they will not let him destroy this crew anymore.

(Or, you know, you can have all of that with a death SCARE instead of an actual death, and allow Izzy to sail off into the sunset as a first mate instead of as a dead body. Because that would suit the tone of the show and the story better.)

But I have the feeling that point B (Izzy dying/his death scene) was the thing that was decided on first, and so the budget crunch/other factors may have led the writers into making the same mistake as so many before them have: writing point A out organically, and then failing to change Point B when it no longer fit the story they had written.

#izzy hands #ofmd critical #2x08 mermen #ofmd 2x08 #ed teach critical #meta #fix it #kind of #analysis #i know I'm rambling #calypsos birthday #we really ahould have taken the “red flags” episode title more seriously #ofmd meta

[bougiebutchbitch]

every time I see a take that flattens Ed's character into this boring perfect angel who can do no wrong and has 0 agency because literally every choice he makes is determined by the actions of white men, I add another sentence to my stories where he's a sympathetic, complex and multifaceted trauma victim - but also an abuser who made terrible mistakes of his own volition, who seriously hurt people he cares about and left them traumatised, who feels crushed beneath the terrifying hypermasculine persona he built for himself (which he is still figuring out how to escape/incorporate into his new self/define himself around). A desperate, affection-starved, suicidal man who struggles hugely with his mental health, who deserves a loving support system (just not from his victims unless they want to be a part of it), who can grow and change and do better, who can work on himself and explore himself and find love and happiness.

but y'know, maybe I'm the one who 'hates his character' lmaoooo

#ed teach #blackbeard #ofmd #our flag means death #ed teach critical #<<tagging that JUST for the folks who hate any interpretation of his character that DOESN'T lack agency lmao #the edcourse #:) #I WANTED A PROPER CHARACTER-LED REDEMPTION ARC FOR ED AND I WILL WRITE IT MYSELF IF I HAVE TO #some of you so obviously want a story about a dude who has Never Done Any Wrong Ever and I'm sorry but. you're in the wrong fandom lol. #me taking certain gentlebeard stans by the hand: so you agree that izzy did bad shit in S1 and therefore he had a redemption arc? yes? #and that this made people on the whole enjoy his character even more? #now perhaps you can understand why some ed fans are so annoyed that ed did bad shit in S2 and DIDN'T get a redemption arc?

[veryintricaterituals]

This blog is about to become an Edward Teach apology blog. This is your warning and you've been warned. I am about to partake in justifying, condoning, defending, excusing and rationalizing in ways you've never even imagined before. He's going to kill people, act deranged and commit atrocities and I'm just going to sit in my living room like:

#you dont understand hes heartbroken #he deserves a little murder #its literally going to be me and stede against the world #he deserves to be a little unhinged and i will defend him with my life #and i wont take any criticism #i am but a humble stede!coded ed! girl #and i am going to be insufferable #you've been warned #ofmd #ofmd season 2 #ofmd s2 #blackbeard #blackbonnet #edward teach #ed teach #our flag means death

[bougiebutchbinch]

"But Lucius is physically disabled and he survived, so it's fine to kill Izzy -"

As most of you know, I am physically disabled. Have to use a lot of very visible mobility aids, get stared at in the street, have kids asking uncomfortable questions, etc.

If you are also physically disabled and cannot see that there is a WORLD of difference between Lucius losing his finger and Izzy having a hugely traumatic, majorly life-changing disability thrust upon him, becoming suicidal, using alcohol to cope, crawling along the floor, hating himself and feeling useless and worthless, thinking he's a burden to the people he cared about because of his physical inability to protect them...

Then getting built up again by that same crew, given a beautiful prosthetic that they made for him, accepted and loved, and learning to accept and love himself specifically as a queer disabled man....

THEN SAYING EXPLICITLY THAT HE WANTS TO DIE, AFTER ALL OF THAT BEAUTIFUL GROWTH

If you cannot see how that might be JUST A LITTLE upsetting to other disabled cripplepunk folks....

I honestly do not know what to say to you.

His arc was about self-acceptance and self-love as a disabled queer man. To have him declare that he wanted to die after coming to terms with his disability and queerness is, in fact, going to upset a lot of disabled queer people.

If you are not physically disabled, feel free to reblog but don't say a word unless it's in support.

[Edited to remove the parts about Ed being canonically disabled, as someone kindly pointed out to me that they were incorrect. I hadn't realised that his knee brace was just fanon! The creators shouldn't get credit for creating a 'disabled' main character if the disability is only really acknowledged by fans.]

#izzy hands #ofmd #our flag means death #ed teach #blackbeard #lucius spriggs #the izcourse #ofmd critical #this attitude is pissing me off #israel hands #there is a world of difference between different sorts of disabled rep. izzy's was a very specific self-love and acceptance story. #to go from wanting to die after a hugely traumatic disabling life event... to....... wanting to die after finding acceptance and happiness #that is gonna be upsetting to disabled people. can you see why? :/ #ofmd spoilers #ofmd s2 spoilers

[queerfandomtrifecta]

Izzy Hands and Mary Bonnet have so many parallels between them that it’s wild. Emotionally distant husband (Izzy is wife-coded AF so it’s fair to make this comparison with Ed) who they’ve been with for a long time. Their husbands are very unhappy with their life. They’re both having to tell their husbands to pay attention to them, do what they’re supposed to, stop being so whim-prone. Izzy is the one tending to the crew, reminding Ed about their welfare, and Ed seems too distracted to really care. Mary is the one taking care of the kids and has to ask Stede multiple times to play with them, and he seems far too distracted to care (though he does briefly). Neither Izzy nor Mary are happy either, but they’re still trying to make it work beyond what their husbands are. And eventually, Izzy and Mary’s husbands leave them for something ‘better’ unexpectedly, and in a way that’s a betrayal to Izzy and Mary. When Stede panics after Chauncey kidnaps him in s1, he goes back to Mary and tries to pick up where he left off but it’s clear he’s not wanted by Mary. When Stede doesn’t show up on the beach, Ed goes back to Izzy and tries to pick up where he left off, but it’s clear this gentle version of Ed isn’t who Izzy wants him to be. When they finally have distance between themselves and their husbands, they both find themselves and are finally happy toward their end of the time on the show. Mary has her painting and her found family of widows and Doug. Izzy does drag and sings and whittles and has his found family of the crew. They both support their former husbands’ new love at the end of their arcs.

Izzy and Mary’s husbands fell in love with each other, but only one of these characters got to be happy at the end of their very parallel arcs in a way where it felt complete to end their time on the show.

Idk. It’s something.

#imagine if they killed of Mary #and then said it was because that’s what had to happen for Stede to be free and happy #that’s insane but it’s what they did with Izzy #ofmd s2 spoilers #ofmd #ofmd meta #izzy deserved better #izzy hands #Ed teach #stede bonnet #mary bonnet #david jenkins #ofmd critique #ofmd critical #also I doubt Izzy is really dead but for the purposes of examining the existing narrative arc we’re assuming he is here