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fahbee · 6 months

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"their entire dynamic was izzy trying to make ed happy" "izzy was always just trying to make ed happy" "everything izzy did was for ed's happiness"

LMAO WHEN??

I've seen variations of the above repeated over and over again by izzy stans and what i want to know is - when??? when did izzy "try to make ed happy" in season 1??? Because there's example after example after example of Izzy acting against Ed's explictly stated wishes and desires, in other words, acting in ways that izzy knows will not make Ed happy.

Ed wanted to meet the guy traveling with a brigade of imbeciles who nevertheless managed to best izzy at swordplay. Meeting the Gentleman Pirate was Ed's explicitly stated wish. In fact he tasked Izzy with the invite because it was important to Ed and he didn't want someone less competent to fuck it up. If Izzy was just trying to make Ed happy, then why did izzy lie to ed about telling stede that 'blackbeard' desired stede's company? How was this deliberate attempt to poison Ed against Stede meant to make Ed happy?

Once they're on the Revenge, Ed tries to get Izzy to play along with identifying the cloud shapes as frankfurters. Izzy is completely humorless about it. "It's like pulling teeth with you, man." Ed is visibly delighted by Stede's ragtag crew. Ed is fascinated by Stede's trinkets, by the model of the ship. He shows it off to Izzy! Ed is plainly showing interest and joy at Stede's crew and possessions. Izzy shuts him down. Yes, Izzy is worried about the Spanish catching up to them. But if Izzy really was "all about" making Ed happy, why doesn't he play along, even a little, with something that is clearly making Ed happy in this moment??

Izzy admits in the s1e6 opening voiceover that Ed appears to be "seduced" by Stede. We see the montage of Ed and Stede talking and Ed is having a great time! He's smiling, he's laughing! As Ivan (or Fang?) says, "this is the most open and available i've ever seen him. look at him, he's telling ghost stories!" Ed is HAPPY. Yet Izzy hates this. He refuses to engage with the crew. He pushes Ed to kill Stede even though Ed is clearly reluctant to do it, even though Izzy himself knows that Ed feels fondness ("seduced by") for Stede. How can this possibly interpreted as Izzy "just trying to make Ed happy"???

When Izzy challenges Stede to a duel, Ed flat out says "We're not doing this, Iz!" and Izzy couldn't care less. "No. You're not doing this. So I must." Must? Must??? Why "must" you, Izzy?? Why MUST Izzy duel Stede in an attempt to either kill him or banish him from the ship - the end result being to separate him from Ed - if Izzy's driving motivation is ensuring Ed's happiness? Taking away the person who has made Ed smile and laugh, who has improved Ed's mood and behavior so noticeably that Ivan comments on it?? How will this "make Ed happy"???

And then when Izzy is himself banished from the ship instead, he tells Ed "You will rue the day and you will rue it hard." If Izzy just wants to make Ed happy, wouldn't a better response be for Izzy to say "sorry, boss, i didn't realize how much this fop meant to you." Even if he's still banished from the ship, he didn't have to depart in anger. If he really cared about Ed's happiness, he would have been fine leaving Ed with the person who he knows has been making Ed happy lately. Instead he goes and teams up with the British in order to KILL Stede. Because that will make Ed happy??? That makes no sense!!!

Of course Izzy doesn't do any of this for Ed's """happiness."""

At BEST, he knows this will make Ed unhappy but he assumes Ed will get over it eventually and things will go back to how they used to be. At WORST, he does this out of anger, spite, and jealousy, and he doesn't give a single shit about how he knows killing Stede will make Ed unhappy.

So where did this belief that Izzy was only trying to make Ed happy come from? Why do people repeat it as if it were established fact? As if it were the obvious interpretation of Izzy's behavior in season 1?

Because to me, it looks like fanon run amok. It looks like a blatant headcannon rewrite of the show. It looks like a complete lack of visual and auditory comprehension and the inability to follow a story at the most basic level.

#ofmd #ofmd meta #edward teach #blackbeard #izzy hands #izzy critical #the izcourse

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bougiebutchbitch · 4 months

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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

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iamadequate1 · 4 months

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Best present Jenkins gave us is we no longer have the threat of a first mate Izzy performing the matelotage ceremony of his captains, Ed and Stede, complete with "twat" and middle fingers and other cringe and painfully unfunny things to pander to his fans.

Most painful wound Jenkins inflicted on us is we won't have first mate Buttons performing the matelotage ceremony of his captains, Ed and Stede, in all his weird glory. All the devoted things he said about the sea, I have no doubt he would've made the most unexpectedly romantic speech in the ceremony. Maybe us mere mortals are too unprepared for such beauty, and we never deserved it in the first place.

Guess the show will just have to repeat everyone performing the ceremony? Love LuPete, but I think Ed/Stede need their own different spin when Ed wifes (gn) that man so hard.

#our flag means death #ofmd #gentlebeard #blackbonnet #ofmd meta #izzy critical #matelotage #i miss buttons #ofmd s3 confirmation now plz

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wistfulcynic · 6 months

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a non-izzy-centric reading of the events of season two

i didn't really want to get into this because it's so, so tiresome and i'd rather talk about the things i loved about this season. Poison, positivity, etc. But.

reading this post about people doubting their own judgement due to the overwhelming noise from Izzy stans along with a rewatch of season two from start to finish made me realise that i too had been influenced by a year and a half of being intensely frustrated by people insisting so loudly that OFMD was in fact the Izzy Hands Show. My initial issues with S2 mostly stemmed from overcompensating for that by resenting any development of Izzy on the screen because i did not want it to feed those people. Which meant that i also was centring Izzy in a way that he should not be centred! i was letting their noise lead me to read him as far more important than he actually is.

So i looked back at several points from the season that had me feeling uncomfortable and which, from a cursory browse through the Izzy tag i've concluded his stans see as a contradiction or a betrayal or something and re-evaluated them from the perspective of Izzy not being a main fucking character.

point one: "He's our dick."

When Archie (a newcomer and therefore a fairly effective audience stand-in for anyone not balls deep in fandom bullshit) asks Jim why they're going to so much trouble for Izzy, who she has immediately clocked as "kind of a dick", Jim gives this response. Which, if you think Izzy is important, may read as an expression of reluctant fondness. But then, Jim continues: "There was a time when life meant something on this ship. When we lived for each other, not just to survive." These lines are punctuated by a flashback to the famous Revenge crew found-family Renaissance-painting moment. Jim is nostalgic for the "good old days" of the Revenge under Stede's people-positive management style. It is out of respect for that (seemingly) lost way of life that they take the trouble for Izzy, not for Izzy himself. They'd have done the same for anyone, because they desperately want life to matter again. Izzy, as the person whose gamy leg is a direct result of his threatening Ed and bringing the kraken era down on all of them, is simply the one whose life happens to be on the line.

(honestly, i love this from Jim, who was one of Stede's boldest detractors in season one and still the crew member most likely to call him out on his bullshit. That's your "reluctant fondness" moment right there.)

point two: the new unicorn

apparently Izzy stans see the gift of the unicorn leg prosthetic as a symbol of deep love and respect from the crew to Izzy. Which is an absolutely wild reading when you look at what led up to it.

There's tension on the ship. Divisions. Lucius is chain-smoking and jump-scared by his own shadow. Jim, Archie, Frenchie, and Fang are overcome by guilt over their mutiny and frantically scrubbing nonexistent blood from the deck in what is a fantastically darkly funny Lady Macbeth moment for them. Izzy is sloppy drunk and yelling nonsensical abuse at the unicorn masthead. Roach, Pete, Oluwande, and Wee John make a well-intentioned but ill-conceived attempt to bring everyone back together (i say "everyone" but Izzy, significantly, is not included) which leads to them all being at each other's throats in the sort of mutually-assured-destruction configuration that starts world wars. It's a great scene. Izzy is not a part of it.

until he interrupts them, throws the unicorn legs at them and in his drunken clumsiness breaks his prosthetic. He then pointedly refuses their offers of assistance and drags himself away along the floor by his arms.

my friends. This is peak pathos. The crew do not respect Izzy in this moment, they feel sorry for him. They realise that he's worse off than any of the rest of them and that knowledge brings them back together. Making the unicorn prosthetic is barely about Izzy at all. It's about the crew coming together, repairing the rifts in their found family and as a bonus helping out their grumpy second cousin who doesn't really want to be there but has nowhere else to go. It's also a very generous offer of a new place on the ship--as the new unicorn--and a fresh start. Because that's what life on the Revenge is. For everyone.

point three: la vie en rose

much has been made of Izzy putting on drag makeup and singing at the Calypso birthday party, and fair enough. That's a big character development point for him. i don't hate it, though i wish there'd been more build-up to it, a longer conversation between Izzy and Wee John at least (insert obligatory "fuck Max" here) but regardless, if we accept Izzy's amputated leg as cutting off his old self and replacing it with the unicorn then we can arrive at a place where he's able to participate in a drag performance without too much cognitive gymnastics.

i've written before about the curious choice to have Izzy sing La Vie En Rose in French (after he initially sang it in English) at the very moment when Ed and Stede are having sex for the first time. On first watch i felt viscerally troubled by it, it felt like a validation of the obsessive psychosexual reading of Izzy's feelings for Ed. Looking at the season as a whole, it feels more like a (cringy, creepy, waaaay over the line) attempt on his part to signal approval for Ed and Stede's relationship. Especially when taken in conjunction with his (super creepy, like wtf who greenlit this) interruption of their breakfast in bed the next morning to make a ham-fisted innuendo. Weird but okay i guess, it's not like Izzy and social niceties have ever gone hand in hand.

many people point to the drag scene as the crew embracing Izzy and welcoming him as one of them. Again, i don't disagree. But, also again, this is not specific to Izzy. This is just what they do. They also embraced Archie with her snake-cult stories, they re-embraced Ed (who yes, they do love, refutations of arguments that they don't love Ed are a whole other essay though) and later they embrace Zheng and Auntie and also Jackie who once stole their savings jar and threatened to cut off their noses. That's what they do! They embrace people! That's what the show is about!

point four: the death scene

i have to be honest, i still hate this. i don't hate that Izzy died, i hate that he died in Ed's arms with Ed calling him his only family. That still feels unearned to me, and alas was probably another victim of the shortened season. But even with this extremely kind and forgiving death scene, the stans are not satisfied! They feel that the entire crew should have been gathered round, assuring Izzy of their profound love for him. There should have been weeping at the funeral, wailing and gnashing of teeth, rending of garments etc. It's what he deserves as such a beloved member of the crew!

except he wasn't beloved. He was accepted, yes. Welcomed, even. But acceptance is a far cry from love. Cheering as someone sings a song at a party does not mean you feel ready to weep at their deathbed or proclaim your undying affection for them.

yet even so, the crew are visibly distraught at his death scene. There are tears in many eyes! But effusive declarations of feeling from any one of them other than Ed would have felt (to anyone not convinced Izzy is the main character) completely wrong and very weird. You can headcanon what you like to fill the gaps in canon but on screen we have seen very few meaningful interactions between Izzy and any of the existing crew aside from Fang and Lucius and to a lesser extent Wee John. Izzy's primary relationship with another character is with Ed and so, as much as i still don't like it, Ed is the only one who has any real reason to be at Izzy's side as he dies.

as for the brevity of the funeral and the fact that they went straight from it to Pete and Lucius's wedding instead of having, idk, a prolonged wake at which everyone speaks at length about how important Izzy was to them, i mean. Obviously that wasn't going to happen. More than enough screen time had already been given to a side character who spent most of it either being miserable himself or making others so. It was time for the rest of them to find some moments of joy. As Izzy himself said, not moving on is worse.

in conclusion, i'd like to address the people saying that Izzy should have lived so he could continue his arc of self-discovery and sure, that would have been great--on the Izzy Hands Show. But OFMD is about Ed and Stede and Izzy had served his purpose in their story. i feel certain there will be copious fanfics to soothe anyone who feels Izzy was shortchanged.

on the show, though, he was treated in a very logical and foreseeable way as the antagonist who was able to see the light at the end but not necessarily to thrive in such a well-lit environment. Literature (by which i mean also films and tv) abounds with examples of this sort of character. They see the error of their ways but they are too stuck in them, shaped by them, to exist comfortably in any other way. They help bring about change to benefit others and not for themselves, that is the bittersweet beauty of their endings.

Izzy let Ed go. He embraced the softer parts of himself. He died surrounded by people who may not have loved him but at least accepted him as one of their own and felt genuine sorrow about his passing. That is a satisfying narrative end for a reformed antagonist! If you truly feel that he was shortchanged by it then you have forgotten what show you're watching and what sort of character he was.

Izzy Hands: not the main character, still an interesting one, absolute nightmare, what a guy.

#our flag means death #ofmd meta #ofmd season two #izzy critical #the izcourse #izzy hands meta #sorry not sorry to people who are going to hate this post but writing it has been therapeutic for me #i'm tired of hating a character on a show i love so much so i shall go back to thinking of him as the nasty rat man and focusing on faves #saira has Thoughts

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batsarebetterthanpeople · 6 months

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Here's my thing not to always be complaining about bad interpretations BUT I genuinely do not understand how anyone at all can see the scene that established the Kraken where Ed is subjected to abuse by his father and then kills him, and then see a character attempt to force Ed to kill the first person hes ever gotten close to, attempt to kill the first person Ed has ever gotten close to, call law enforcement to come in and kill the first person Ed has ever gotten close to, and then when he succeeds in driving that person away and Ed tries to open up to even more people tell him he's better off dead and threaten his life. And then see Ed choke that character with a lighthouse painting positioned in the background just like how he choked his dad with a lighthouse in the background and declare himself the kraken like he did when he was talking about his abusive fathers death and not read all that information as leading back to Izzy abusing him. Like season 1 actually sends a very clear message if you're not into incel apologia.

And yes I have seen season 2, season 2 did three things in regards to this arc. The first thing it did was call the relationship toxic and unhealthy which affirms this reading, the second thing season 2 did was clarify that Izzy's intentions in doing all this were in fact to have Ed all to himself out of a psychosexual obsession rather than out of a hunger for power or even as a hate crime or whatever, so those are Izzy's two "this only looks like abuse but actually is about something else" alibis down, which reaffirms this reading, and the third thing it did was have Izzy take it all back and decide he's actually better now which, the redemption arc doesn't contradict any of that. And no I'm not ignoring Ed's violence against Izzy, he did all of that violence fully after four times trying to isolate Ed violently from other people and I think it's acceptable to kill your abuser, so Ed's violence doesn't factor into my read aside from how it relates to how he handled his first abuser, his father, and how he handled his second abuser, Hornigold, in the dream scape.

So basically last time I made this meta I said "guys I think Izzy might be abusing Ed, but Idk he could just be power hungry as fucked up little henchmen often are." But now that I have season 2 I'm rewriting it and saying that I know that Izzy is one of Ed's abusers, so thank you season 2 for clarifying this for me. He changed his mind and, well all I have to say about that is that I hope Ed feels safer now that he has changed his mind, but I still don't much care for him.

If you comment on this to argue with me without adding a 🦜emoji I'll assume you haven't read the whole thing before getting mad at me and delete your reply.

#izzy hands #izzy critical #ofmd #our flag means death #ed teach

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electric016 · 6 months

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Idk, I mean the crew already tried to give Izzy a burial at sea in season 1, and he didn't seem to want it, so 🤷‍♀️

#ofmd #ofmd s2 #izzy critical #<-not really but i don't want people trying to avoid all negativity/discourse to see it #this is a joke

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happyfeetfuryroad · 6 months

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Speaking of abuse and complicated feelings, there's actually one detail in that scene that hit a bit close to home for me

Edward saying "I should be apologizing" after Izzy finally, finally gives him that long overdue recognition that yes, he did bring out the worst in him, and yes, he did do that for selfish reasons and it did cause Ed harm and Izzy does regret that

There's something about Edward, who doesn't owe Izzy anything let alone an apology, crying and telling him that he's the only family he has and that he should be the one to apologize, because that's how it is with abuse victims sometimes. Sometimes your relationship to your abuser (especially if it's a family member who has been through traumatic experiences with you) is complicated and you end up unable to accept an apology from them without feeling the need to "balance it out" with an apology of your own to make it "fair" (because you've spent all your life being told that how you feel and what bothers you isn't important - but how you make your abuser feel is)

Idk it's a small detail and it bothered me but, like, in a way that felt sadly realistic

#izzy critical #ofmd #ofmd s2 #ofmd spoilers #ofmd s2 spoilers #turns out the reason i was never an izzy stan is because he reminds me of my mom lmao

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ourflagmeansgayrights · 11 months

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i think the biggest difference between black pete’s approach and izzy’s approach to glorifying blackbeard and having weird hangups about masculinity is that when ed does non-blackbeardy things like wearing a floral robe and singing about his feelings, izzy’s like “WHAT??? how could BLACKBEARD not be an edgy badass man pirate all the time?? this destroys my image of him and makes me lose all respect for him as a person” whereas pete is like “oh if blackbeard can do that and still be a cool badass man pirate, that must mean these things are cool and badass and don’t make anyone less of a man pirate!”

#ofmd #our flag means death #ofmd meta #izzy hands #dizzy izzy #black pete #ofmd black pete #izzy critical #txt #meta #mine #og

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piratecaptainscaptainpirates · 1 month

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Okay, I wanna talk about the popular Izzy canyon claim that Ed gets inappropriately painted as a "damsel in distress" by people who are fans of Ed and Stede and their relationship.

Does Ed truly get made out to be a damsel in distress in fanon? Eh, if he does, I don't see it. There's lots of sweet sweet hurt/comfort fics in this fandom, and especially after s2 a lot of them do focus on Ed getting the comfort, but most of them are just about Ed getting to feel supported and loved in his relationship. No one says that Ed needs protecting, he's a very competent character, but he likes being protected. Like, when Stede gets revenge for him in s1e5, Ed's shocked that Stede went out of his way like that for him and you can just see him falling in love.

And...that's where my sticking point here is. It reminds me of how White feminists often don't get that stories about a princess being rescued from a tower or whatever may be demeaning or infantilizing for a White princess, but if she's Black? That's a whole different story. Even if Ed was being made into a damsel in distress - when was the last time you saw a brown gay man fill that role? It's different because we're not used to being valued enough to be worthy of that protection and defense.

There's a point where stories about Ed being helpless or clueless are just racist and even too close to White savior stories (fics about Stede or Izzy teaching Ed to read come to mind). But fics about Stede just being there for Ed, supporting him emotionally, and helping him with his problems? That's just...being a good partner. And I do think it's kind of telling that there's such an idea in certain spaces that Ed can't be shown as needing support without him being a "damsel in distress," because men of color so often can't be shown as vulnerable or needing help without White fans getting uncomfortable.

#ofmd #our flag means death #izzy critical #it's not but i mention the canyon so like. tagging just to be safe!

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