#love thinking about this dynamic for steddyhands tbh | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

paleode-ology · 7 months

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as always I’m thinking about the Stede/Izzy/Ed dynamic and trying to figure out how they can still win. I started going through this in the notes of a post and realized I just wanted to talk about it lmao so here we are

I’m Okay. So here’s the thing. I am so pro steddyhands. Like frankly it’s a dynamic that I love and want to see more of and like. As more mentally healthy individuals I think they would be soooo unstoppable like actually peak romance and chaos. BUT they are. Not. Mentally healthy individuals like they are all so incredibly fucked up. And that is maybe a post for another time. Anyway so I have two ideas about the ideal plotlines for these three, which I call the realistic plotline, and the one that won’t happen but would be sooooooo gay plotline.

This post ended up being kind of long bc I talk a lot lmao so here’s a cut.

Even though I want in my heart a steddyhands endgame, Jenkins has said that the third season would (if greenlit) be the last, and that’s just not enough time to work out a well-written and satisfying romantic end for the three of them. Also, I just honestly don’t think steddyhands was ever in the cards for this show; it would just be way too messy idk. Realistically, I think we can definitely get an Izzy and Ed reconciliation, and we’re DEFINITELY getting stizzy bonding this season, so at the very least they’ll all be friendly going into the third. But this season is obviously about Stede and Ed learning to trust each other again and get to know each other better before they go back into romance. They have shit to work out and they’re clearly gonna be starting to do that in the next few eps.

I thinkkk the plan is for them to heal this season and actually figure out their feelings for each other bc let’s be so real, they were so fucking repressed in season one and had just BARELY realized they were in love before things went to shit. The third season will probably just be them becoming proper husbands and co-captaining and like fighting the British yippee. Cannot wait.

As for Izzy. Oh my god Izzy. Okay. So he’s sticking around for now. He’s been the only one looking out for his crew this whole time (and honestly I think he and Stede might bond over that. Stede kind of gives very few fucks about his crew but he values their lives and doesn’t WANT to leave them behind. Tbh breaking them out while also dealing with Ed’s death was just so insane of him and like. He’s gonna be such a good captain.) and anyway, we know he’s going to be teaching Stede pirate things. Not to mention that everyone loves Con so Izzy’s undoubtedly going to be hanging with the crew and keeping them organized while Stede and Ed fuck off on their bonding excursions.

My running theory for Izzy in season three is that he’s going to be captaining the Adventure. (For those who don’t know, the real life Blackbeard had the real Israel Hands captain that ship for a hot minute.) Izzy’s wanted to captain a ship for a long time, and I mean, he’s the Revenge’s captain in all but name at this point. So once he’s sure Ed and Stede and the crew aren’t going to set the Revenge on fire and accidentally kill themselves, he’ll go off to captain the Adventure and have his own healing journey during the third season. Hell get to figure out what it’s like to be out from under the shadow of Blackbeard, and like honestly it’ll be way less stressful and he’ll have a good time. Season three can cut between his adventures and the Revenges adventures, and the overarching plot will have all of them reunite in the latter third of the season (deus ex machina Izzy PLEASE). They’ll work together, have a final reconciliation where they all end on good terms, and either Izzy will go his own way as his own pirate captain, or he’ll decide that he’s grown and healed but he still likes working with New Ed and he stays on with the Revenge or they form a fleet with the Revenge and the Adventure and maybe another ship that shows up at some point in the third (I just feel like a fleet of two ships sounds stupid sorry). Maybe they’ll give Izzy a boyfriend in season three also. Like maybe it’s just me but I feel like getting laid would fix him.

I’m really, really excited for Stede and Izzy to get closer this season. Their little enemies to romantic rivals to still romantic rivals but they have bigger things to worry about to besties is just so real. And I think that them being closer is going to just bring this new balance and dynamic that we haven’t seen before.

So that’s the realistic plotline. Everyone ends up happy, we have pirate husbands, and no one dies except for the British. Onto my insane pipedream plotline also known as the outline for the fic I will probably never write.

Basically, it starts off quite similar to the above prediction for the rest of the show. The only caveat is, the show extends past three seasons. I don’t know that Jenkins will keep writing after the third, even if the response is huge, just because he seems really dedicated to telling the story properly, and unless he decides now that he wants to keep it going, a fourth or more season would mess up the pacing of the show, especially since the season three finale is supposed to the The Show Finale. But for the sake of this fic outline, let’s pretend we get as many seasons as we want.

I still think Izzy should captain the Adventure. Like I really firmly believe that his and Ed’s relationship cannot fully heal unless they part ways for a bit, and as an Izzy diehard I just want him to have fun without worrying about Ed 24/7. I want it to be light, though. Like mostly just him working out his shit with Ed and what he wants from his life going forward.

Meanwhile, Ed and Stede get to have their honeymoon phase on the Revenge. They’ll have a mostly functioning crew for once, and I also like the idea of them escaping the law or fucking up nobles. Like just really have a fuck the rich moment. Once again, it’s light. BUT I also want them to acknowledge that they miss Izzy. Like Ed will tell stories about the years he worked with Hornigold and how he fell in love with pirating and probably compare this new beginning with him and Stede to when he set out on his own captaining journey and as he reminisces and starts to get over the trauma he never really dealt with, he’ll realize just how much Izzy was always there for him, and he’ll regret how he treated him when Izzy was the person closest to him for so long. Also, generally seems to be leaning away from being a full pirate rn. Like he’s definitely starting to realize that there’s more that he wants out of life, which he’s going to have to balance with pirating being the more that STEDE wanted out of his life.

Meanwhile, Stede will have his pirating tricks that Izzy taught him, and while Ed has his own style and certainly lots of pirating experience, he’s already taught Stede a lot, and, quite frankly, he’s a terrible teacher. Like. We saw how the sword fighting lessons went. Izzy is going to be more effective, and I think he and Stede are going to have a lot of fun once Izzy realizes that Stede actually respects his advice and genuinely wants to improve. Like that’s going to be really good for them. But then Izzy leaves, and Stede’s left with not very many people to go to with advice or ideas. People that will critique him (mostly) fairly. Once again, Ed loves Stede, but he mostly just wants Stede to be happy, and he’s good just being on the sidelines watching his husband slay the pirate life. So Stede misses Izzy too.

So does the crew. Ed tends to view himself as quite separate from the crew, and while that’s subject to change, I don’t think he actually knows how to be a good captain? Like. Izzy has been doing his job for him for forever. Meanwhile, Stede cares about the crew’s well-being, but he really isn’t that close with any of them. He very much sees himself as their leader, and lets them do whatever the fuck they want as long as the ship isn’t sinking and they all get to do some good old fashioned raiding.

Izzy, on the other hand, spent a long time in the space between captain and crew. While he sees himself as part of the crew, he has a huge responsibility that inherently comes with being first mate and is further burdened by the weight of dealing with post-breakup Ed. He earns the respect of the crew when they see how much he takes on for them. “He’s our dick.” While Ed’s prestige intimidates crews into following him, and Stede initially bought a crew, Izzy earned the respect of his crew, and he proved to them that he cared about their lives and their well-being. So yeah, going back to the Ed/Stede co-captaining chaos means that the crew is going to miss Izzy.

Note here that I think the Adventure would already have a crew. I don’t know under what circumstance they’d need a new captain, but let’s imagine that that’s what’s happening here. I want Izzy to be fully out on his own, without any of the crew he’d had before. Our season one crew stays with the husbands. In my mind, Izzy meets a guy from the Adventure, they become besties, and then that guy invites Izzy to come be their captain bc the old one like died or whatever. New guy is Izzy’s first mate, and helps him work through some of the Issues.

And Izzy LOVES being captain. He likes the responsibility, he likes looking out for his crew, and he enjoys looting and fucking over other pirates and colonizers and it’s just a whole vibe for him. He’ll earn the respect of this crew as well. He prioritizes their lives over his own, and they genuinely enjoy working for him.

Here’s the thing, though. Being captain is lonely. He has his own quarters, which are pretty fucking sparse. He has a new crew, and while making his own name is good for his ego, no one on his new ship knows him the way his old crewmates did. And let’s be honest, while his crew enjoys working for him, he runs a tight ship. He’s abrasive. He’s brutally honest. He can be cruel. He’s fucking insane with a sword. Let’s not forget that this is a man who, unlike Ed and Stede (for now) very willingly murders. Izzy can be SCARY when he’s not running himself ragged trying to please and take care of and save the man he loved without getting the rest of his crew killed.

So. He’s not really bonding with the crew. They aren’t friends. They’re just a team of pirates who trust their very scary leader. He’s close with his first mate, at least, since that’s the buddy who brought him onto the Adventure. For the most part, the isolation isn’t bad. He’s allowed to reflect and grow and become more confident in himself. He realizes he’s his own person and not just Blackbeard’s guard dog.

Still, he finds that there are things he misses about the Revenge, so when Ed and Stede find themselves in a tight spot (with the British? I do think it would be so fucking funny if we had ANOTHER Badminton), Izzy doesn’t hesitate to come to their rescue. He saves the day, gets to talk a bit with the husbands, and they decide that while being separate was good, maybe traveling together is something they can do again. The Adventure joins the Revenge, and we end season three.

THEN in season four we get to see the three of them together again. Their time apart has helped ease tensions, but there’s still work to be done before we enter poly territory. So Ed and Stede are fully in a relationship, with Izzy on the outskirts. Izzy’s gotten over his blind devotion to Ed and has grown closer to Stede, and it’s comfortable, but sometimes still a bit weird.

Izzy’s (and by extension, Ed’s) past is coming back to haunt him in this season. People he thought he’d left behind show up, enemies he’s made are coming back for revenge, and he can’t deal with it all on his own. Ed and Stede have to help him through it, and they have his back the way he had theirs at the end of season three. Ed begins to realize that he didn’t know Izzy as well as he thought he had back when they were shipmates, and so they get to talk and properly discuss what went wrong between them (namely Ed’s dismissive attitude towards Izzy and Izzy’s inability to accept Ed as anything other than the Dread Pirate Blackbeard).

Stede and Izzy get to be Violent together while Ed stays behind and organizes the auxiliary wardrobe, and now that Stede has improved on his swordsmanship even more, they get to have a lot of fun. Bonding via murder, my beloved. They learn how to work as a team, which would just be SUCH a dynamic like gentlemen pirate plus rabid chihuahua? Nothing better.

Eventually, I think the Adventure would make its departure. Izzy’s first mate would become captain, and they’d part amicably. Izzy stays with the Revenge. With Ed and Stede. The three of them take meals together. Izzy is a co-captain in all but name, preferring to remain first mate as long as he gets a say in what they do and where they go. He loves working more with the crew again, and they’re more responsive to him than they’ve ever been.

And slowly but surely, they all realize their complicated feelings for one another. Secretly and without telling each other, obviously. Ed and Stede are both confused with themselves because they’re HAPPY they have and love each other, but they also both value their time with Izzy so, so much, and of course they can’t say anything to the other because then Ed will think Stede doesn’t want him anymore, or vice versa, and that’s not what’s happening.

Izzy is just so fucking confused bc he can tell that how he felt about Blackbeard hasn’t gone away, exactly, but something’s different. And when he and Stede are fighting together or preparing the next ambush or discussing plans for their next stop, it’s so fun. Fighting with Stede is like breathing in a way that fighting with Ed never was. So. What the fuck? But it doesn’t matter how he feels anyway because Ed and Stede are together and why would either of them ever want to replace the other with Israel (Basilica) Hands?

So while they’re each having an existential fucking crisis, the entire crew knows what’s going on, or they at least have realized that there’s something weird happening with Izzy and the captains, but it’s not bad the way it had been before. So there’s betting pools going on who’s fucking who and whether or not Ed and Stede will leave the other for Izzy or if they’ll all just end up being together.

And just as things are reaching a breaking point between the three of them (Izzy retreats from them both, snapping at them and refusing to open up the way he had been previously and yelling at the crew more than usual, Ed stops talking to anyone at all, preferring instead to do target practice with Jim, and Stede is throwing himself into one raid or project after another, staying up through the night until he can’t stay awake any longer), our main conflict comes into play. We’ve been dealing with someone from Izzy’s past all season, and things finally come to a head. Tables are turned, and now Ed and Stede have to work together to save Izzy from whatever the fuck is happening. During this time, they realize that Izzy is equally important to the both of them and vital for the co-captain dynamic and they’re like. Fuck. Now we REALLY have to save Izzy.

And god, Izzy’s been saving their asses this entire time, hasn’t he? He’s always been there, and now they need to be there for him.

So uhhhh they rescue him and everyone kisses yippee that’s the ens of season four. Season five gets to be the True Poly Season, where they get to fuck around and be the baddest bitches of all time and it’s beautiful.

And that’s my rough outline for. What the show could be? A fic I want to write but probably won’t? Uhhhh yeah 👍

#ofmd #our flag means death #steddyhands #Izzy hands #ed teach #Blackbeard #Stede bonnet #gentlebeard #edizzy #stizzy #this is so long I’m gonna have to run it through a word counter bc I’m quite curious #but uh yeah #can you tell Izzy’s become my favorite character bc OUGH

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