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three--rings · 6 months

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Okay so I know we're in this big anti-sex cultural moment.

And I know my own personal standards on this issue are way out there. I am a sex first relationship later person. It's just how I roll. So I'm biased.

But I have to say, everyone talks like it's definitely for sure that it was a bad idea for Ed and Stede to have sex when they did.

And honestly, like, I'm not even arguing with that. It was a very understandable time for them to have sex. There should have been some more talking either before or AFTER about how they were both feeling. But it wasn't ideal perhaps.

Still I want to be clear: I don't think them having sex is the fucking problem here.

Ed is overwhelmed and unsure of where he fits right now. He's been through a lot of trauma recently (and caused a lot of course.) So it's understandable why he'd feel unprepared to add sex with Stede on top of it all.

However, they both do very much want to have sex with each other. And when two people are in love and really attracted to each other and really want to have sex, even if they have other reasons why they are holding back from it...well, eventually they're going to have sex. Sooner or later, but probably sooner.

Time in this show is very difficult to gauge, especially this season. So some time has passed between the moonlight scene and the beginning of ep 6. Ed had his leathers back, he's not wearing the bell, things have changed and progressed. It's not the next day. Probably.

We don't get to know how much time it's been or what has been said in between. Ed seems basically in the same place mentally. If not a worse one. Progress is not being made.

It's easy to criticize Stede for initiating a rather aggressive pounce on Ed in the wake of his trauma. But he's clearly not thinking. That's his issue, separate from the question of whether Ed is ready, so I'm not going to get into it. But he does pause, and he looks to Ed for permission, which Ed gives before enthusiastically and passionately joining in.

They both just went through a scary time. They both are seeking comfort in each other. It means sooner comes rather than later in the inevitable 'they're GOING to fuck' race. I know that sentence is a trashfire but let's move on.

Ed is happy in the morning. He's a little nervous, with the breakfast, but he feels good about dumping his leathers. He's come to a decision. Even after he starts to get nervous after Stede talks about their career, he's mostly fine when they go eat. Relaxed, happy about what happened.

And then all the fame stuff starts and he's fine at first. He talks to Jackie and is fine about it until Jackie is like yeah but you have a problem with your man. He talks to Izzy.

Now he's REALLY done a 180. He doesn't see his desired life and Stede's desired life matching up. Stede apparently doesn't understand Ed and where he's at if he thinks they're going to be pirates together now.

This is the problem. This is what upsets Ed. he spirals for hours. He's running scenarios and coming to negative conclusions. He's not valuable or loveable if he's not Blackbeard. Stede doesn't want him if he doesn't fit into that life. He needs to move on. He is panicked and freaking out.

Then he talks to Stede, after already making the decision to leave and go fishing. Like, let's be clear, he doesn't decide that during their fight. He's decided and signed on. He's just saying goodbye.

It's only then that he brings up the sex. He does throw blame at Stede for it a bit, which I think is mostly fair. But he also isn't accounting for Stede's state of mind at the time. They were both off tilt. But he digs into that, and to me, I think he's using the sex as an excuse.

He didn't have a problem with the sex itself. He was happy in the morning and after. Smiling, smug, cute, loved up, having heart to hearts about mermaids and letters.

It was all the life/identity stuff that crashed in that shifted him. But he doesn't know how to talk about that. He doesn't know how to explain it or be vulnerable about his worst fears and self-worth issues.

So he goes on offense and says hey, actually, this is your fault. He picks the issue he has words for, the only one they've actually talked at all about.

Stede is NOT wrong when he identifies Ed as panicking and wanting to run. Stede is recognizing the behavior from himself.

Just like it's not about Ed wanting to fish, it's not about them going too fast. It's about them not communicating about their deepest needs and desires and fears.

They can have sex or not have sex, if they're not communicating it won't work. They could continue fucking like rabbits and have long talks in between sessions and get really really far. Or do what they've been doing which is NOT having sex and also not communicating which can go on forever and they won't get closer to happy.

I feel like fandom has latched on to this one thing as The Problem, because it's all Ed SAID was a problem. But we have lots of evidence otherwise.

I mean, even the conversation...Ed says it's too fast, Stede is like...okay well we can do whatever. He doesn't get defensive even though he's hurt. But that's not good enough, because that's not actually the problem. But at that point Ed really starts running away.

And they start getting more heated, both being sloppy at expressing themselves. (Stede is unfortunately pretty freaking drunk.)

I think they are both very avoidant personalities when it comes to this kind of thing, this kind of deeply personal conflict. Their anxieties keep them from being honest. And so the sex combined with Stede's killing of a man, and newfound fame, that all became a crisis that forced them to confront these issues. I think ultimately probably for the best, instead of not addressing them.

#ofmd #ofmd s2 #ofmd s2 spoilers #ofmd meta #my meta #I still have barely slept since the episodes dropped #I don't even know if this makes any sense #will I put it in drafts? nah #here have brain vomit

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bromelads · 7 months

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“Who hurt Ed more? Stede or Izzy?” is just not an interesting question to me cuz it veers too much into the realm of Stede and Izzy’s intent when I’m mostly invested in Ed’s internal world. Shit I would rather talk about:

Why did Ed make a spectacle of his emotional pain in front of the crew of the Revenge after self-isolating so severely that he called on Lucius to help him capture the artistic fruits of his pain?

Is it fair on the crew of the Revenge for Ed to have called on them to witness his sad song? Did Ed actually have the inkling of a business plan in place to pull a profit to pay the crew from their non-piracy ventures?

How deep does Ed’s self-loathing run that a literal boatload of people joyfully chanting his name was NOT enough to pull him out of the slow downward spiral he was going through?

#edward teach #ofmd meta #ofmd #our flag means death #my fave Ed convos happen when we go beyond the lens of Stede and Izzy’s feelings for him

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dragon-kazansky · 6 months

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Spirit of the sea

Izzy Hands x Reader (GN)

You were a member of Blackbeard's crew long ago. Then you became a ghost story. Izzy Hands only sees you in his dreams these days, until he sees you for real when investigating Stede Bonnet. This sets him on a rollercoaster of emotions between you and what his captain is doing.

{Masterlist}

{Previous Chapter} - {Next Chapter}

Warnings: Swearing. Izzy likes to swear. Buttons is naked. Also I'm pretty sure Izzy makes heart eyes at you without me actually typing out heart eyes.

Chapter Eight - Captain Hands

♡♡♡

The English came aboard the ship and promptly captured every pirate onboard. They cornered some of the crew and tied them up. A naked Buttons runs past you at one point, everything hanging out. You try to blink the image away.

One of the sailors grabs you from behind and takes your hands behind your back. You're then pushed down to the deck, face against the wood.

Edward and Stede are next to each other, looking at one another.

One by one everyone is taking in for questioning. It's only here you learn that this was about the murder of Badminton. You had totally forgotten about that guy.

This was his twin brother.

You're taken back outside with the rest of the crew and left to sit there. It's only then that you realise who else is here. Someone you thought you wouldnt see again.

"Izzy," you whisper, looking at him.

He's looking right at you.

It feels like all the air has been sucked out if your lungs. You've forgotten how to breathe. You don't even realise a tear has formed until it trails down your cheek. It splashes on the deck below, silent and unnoticed by anyone. Anyone except Izzy.

You turn your eyes away from.

Apparently Stede confessed to killing Nigel Badminton. His punishment was death by firing squad. At least it would be quick, you supposed.

Izzy was watching mostly you as Stede and Blackbeard were being given their sentences. He has missed you.

"In the name of His Majesty King George, this tribunal shall come to order. Edward Teach, or Black Beard."

"It's just Blackbeard. Like, just run it together as one word. 'Blackbeard'. Don't have to put a gap in there." Ed spirals on.

"You face death for general crimes of Piracy against the Crown."

"Yeah." Edward agrees.

"But a friend of the Crown has prevailed upon me to remand you to his custody. You shall be released to Captain Hands in exchange for his service to the King."

You turn slowly to see Izzy give Ed a little wave. Oh, now you get it. Izzy had made a deal with these bastards for Edward's protection.

While the crew of the Revenge boo Izzy, you try and find a way to control your breathing.

"Stede Bonnet. For the wanton murder of Nigel Badminton... your sentence is death by firing squad."

"We'll find a way out of this, OK?" Ed says to him.

"Ed, no. I deserve this. At some point in a man's life, he has to face the music." Stede speaks calmly.

Except, when he's up there with his blindfold on, he's screaming about much he doesn't want to die.

You had been cut free and permitted to stand with Blackbeard. One of Izzy's other demands was that you were safe.

You watch Stede with a sad expression.

"Edward... I know you're upset, but it was the only..." Izzy tried to explain himself, but Ed turns and punches Izzy hard. Izzy falls to the deck harshly. At any other time you would help him up, but not today.

The crew applaud what they just saw.

"Oh... that's fair." Izzy grunts as he stands up and brushes his hair back again. "Remember, though. You said when you made me first mate, 'Above all else is loyalty to your Captain.'"

"Rifles at the ready!" Chauncey orders.

"You're my captain, and I was never gonna stand by and let you destroy yourself for that... twat. And this, this is a humane way of ending it."

"Aim!"

"It's quick. It's clean. Edward you KNOW that." Izzy is basically pleading with him.

"Act of Grace!" Blackbeard calls out.

"No... No."

"Act of Grace!" Edward stands in front of Stede. Izzy looks defeated. "Act of Grace!"

The crew shout for Stede to say it too. "Say it! Act of Grace!"

"What he said!" Stede calls out.

Edward removes the blindfold from Stede.

"Fuck me," Chauncey mutters.

Edward explains the Act of Grace to Stede.

"So, you want to go to war for the King?" Chauncey asks them.

"We'd rather eat our own faces, but, yes." Edward replies to him.

"Two acts of Grace, please." Stede pleads.

"Ah. I'm afraid the offer doesn't extend to you, Bonnet. After, the King was only referring to real pirates. He turns to Edward, "He's from my world, not yours."

"Raise your rifles!"

"June 3rd. An excellent day!" Lucius stands up with Stede's diary in his hands, reading from it. "Raided a commercial vessel after overwhelming the hardy crew. We claimed a prize of lush vegetation in conquest." Lucius turns around to show a drawing of the plant.

Oluwande holds the plant up. "And here's the vegetation in question."

"They'll never forget the Eccentric Pirate Bonnet and his savage, insane, vengeful pirate horde." Lucius closes the book. "See? He's a pirate. a real, proper pirate."

"That man is a fearsome pirate if e'er I seen one." Buttons joins in.

The rest of the crew begin to agree. Stede looks proudly at them.

"Well, rule-of-law-wise, I'd say that settle it." One of the Navy officers says.

"A plant and a drawing?" Chauncey asks. "Settles nothing."

"It's enough for us. Blackbeard renounces piracy to serve the Crown? We'll be dining with Ol' King George himself."

"Why?" Chauncey asks the crew. "Why do you all show such loyalty to this... this... nothing?"

"I'd attribute quite a lot of it to a people-positive management style," Stede says.

Chauncey draws his sword. "Shut up!"

"Stand down, Admiral." He is warned. "Or will be forced to use measures."

"Measures? Against me?! He's the criminal!" Chauncey says, waving his sword about at Stede. "He's the murderer!"

"All right! Calm down, Mr Wavy Blade." Says Stede. "Chauncey! Sometimes, when we get a bit angry, do you know what we like to do? We talk it through."

"As a crew!" The others join in.

You smile from where you stand. Izzy notices.

"Oh, I know. I know what's happened. Yeah, we've somehow drifted south of the equator, and ended up in Backwardsland!"

Chauncey is promptly restrained.

You laugh softly. Izzy can't seem to keep his eyes off of you.

♡♡♡

Edward and Stede are taken into the captain's quarter to sign the contract for the Act of Grace. Izzy is in there with them.

You're sat on deck looking out at the sea.

It isn't long until the Navy retreat, taking Stede and Edward with them. You watch them go. Edward looks at you before leaving the ship.

That's how you know Izzy is standing behind you. You refuse to look at him.

Stede and Edward have gone.

Izzy opens his mouth to speak, but you're already pushing past him to walk away. He calls your name but you don't stop. He sighs as he watches you go.

♡♡♡

While Izzy sets things his way on the Revenge, by getting the crew in order and showing his leadership, you sulk down in his old cabin.

Since he's captain now, he won't want this old room back. You curl up on his bed and hide your face in the crook of your arms. It has been a long day.

You're not sure how much time has passed, but eventually your solitude is interrupted.

"Thought I might find you here."

You don't look up. You don't move an inch.

"You not gonna look at me?"

You remain still.

You hear Izzy sigh and he walks across the small cabin toward the desk. You hear him put something down, the item hiding gently against the wood. You can tell from the light rustling sound that he stands there for a moment before leaving again.

You look up once you're sure he's gone. Your eyes are drawn to the desk. Sitting there, just as you remembered it, was the wooden sparrow you whittled for Izzy.

Another tear escapes your eye.

♡♡♡

Izzy works the crew hard, all while not lifting a finger for himself. He throws round orders and makes sure every man onboard does his job. He states he's tough, but he's also fair

The crew still hate him.

They don't hate you, however.

Lucius finds you sulking away. He was sent to grab something for Izzy, but he decided today least check in on you.

"Dizzy Izzy confining you?" He asks, half joking.

You look up at him and sigh through your nose.

"What's he doing?" You ask.

"Ordering is around."

"Course he is."

Lucius frowns as he looks at you. "Thought you might be glad he was back, despite literally everything else."

"Would be had he not sold us out to the Navy and pushed Ed enough to go serve the King."

"He sucks, for the record."

"Yeah. He's a dick."

Lucius and you share a smile. The moment is only broken by the yell of "SPRIGGS." Lucius bolts out of the cabin to reach Izzy before he gets mad.

You return to sulking.

♡♡♡

As evening draws in and the crew go about their business, you come up to deck for some air. You hold the wooden sparrow in your hand as you rest against the railing of the ship. The breeze is a bit chilly tonight, but you don't mind it much.

You've become aware of when he's nearby. It's like you have a sixth sense for Izzy Hands.

"You'll catch a chill up here."

You do nothing but hum quietly in response, turning the sparrow around in your hand carefully.

"At least talk to me."

You keep twirling the sparrow.

Izzy shifts his weight to one leg as he stares at you. You can't see the pleading look in his eyes, at how desperate he is get you to look at him.

"I did this for us, you know. Edward was never supposed to do what he did. He wasn't even supposed to be on the ship... Jack was meant to take you and Edward with him."

"You sent Calico fucking Jack to get us?" You ask, hissing the question out. You still refuse to look at him.

Happy that you're at least talking to him, Izzy goes on.

"I wanted you safe. Safe with me. We could have had Blackbeard back. We could have been a crew again. No more Bonnet. No more ghosts. Just us and the sea."

You inhale sharply. Izzy realises in that moment that you're upset. He wants so desperately to reach out and hold you.

"Safe? No one is ever safe, Izzy."

You drop the sparrow and it falls down into the waves below. You grip the railing of the ship, knuckles turning white as you lean against it.

"I should have stayed dead. Maybe none of this would have happened," you say softly.

"Don't say that. Don't ever fucking say that." Izzy takes a step forward.

"You left me, Izzy!" You turn sharply and glare at him. "You bastard! You left me behind over some stupid fucking duel and then sold us out!"

You lunge forward and smack Izzy across the chest. He tries to block your attacks, but not with much effort. Izzy wants you to let your anger out on him.

"You bastard! You fucking idiot! Why? Why do any of it? Why did you leave me?" You cry out.

"What choice did I have?" He asks, still blocking your attacks.

"You could have stayed! We could worked something out! Anything. We could have done anything! At least we would have done it together."

"I offered you to come with me," he says softly.

"No!" You yell. You stop hitting him and glare at him. "We belong out at sea. That's our home. We made a promise once, do you remember? A promise to stick together and explore the world. Well, fuck that promise I guess!"

He says your name softly.

"No, Izzy. You betrayed me twice. You left me and then sold us out. How can I ever forgive you?"

He falls silent as he looks at you.

You push past him and walk away again. Izzy is left standing there, looking at the sea.

♡♡♡

Izzy wasn't ready to give up on you. Not now. Not ever.

He waited an hour or so before coming down to the cabin. His old cabin. It warmed his heart to discover you had taken it as your own. He knew you missed him just as much as he missed you.

"Leave me alone," you mumble.

"No."

You sigh as you sit up on the bed. "What do you want from me? Want me to scrub the deck? Shine your boots? Worship you?"

Izzy frowns. "No. None of that."

"Then what?"

"I want... I want us to talk it through."

You look at him silently, and then start to chuckle softly. "Talk it through? Now you want to talk it through. What? Like a crew?"

"Like friends."

"Oh, so we're still friends are we?" You scoff.

"Never stopped, at least on my end."

"Well it did on mine."

Izzy stands there staring at you. His eyes are soft and there is something about this posture that feels wrong. Not in a sense that he would do something to you, but like something that doesn't belong there. He's standing wrong.

"What is it, Izzy?"

"I fucking missed you, ya know."

"Did you?" You ask flatly.

"Yeah, I did."

You take a deep breath and calm your mind. You let most of your anger put on him up on deck, so the least you can do is be civil. Your choices were limited.

"I'm sorry about the sparrow. I, uh, I appreciate that you took it with you."

Izzy almost smiles. "Couldn't leave it behind."

"I'll have to make you a new one."

"Only if you forgive me."

"Maybe not then," you sigh.

"Do you hate me?" He asks.

There's a few moments of silence that pass that make him believe that the answer is probably yes. You have every reason to, he supposes. He left. Then Edward, for a moment.

You have every right to be upset.

"No."

Izzy finds his whole body relaxing from that word alone. Relief floods his heart and his lips actually do curl into a gentle smile for once.

"Good. Pretty sure the crew do, but I can live with that. I can't live with you hating me, though."

You meets his eyes and suddenly feel lighter. You never thought a simple gaze could take away so much heartache and pain.

"Pretty sure they're planning a mutiny. They tried once with Stede."

"Fuck."

"You are a bit of a dick, though, Izzy."

He looks at you with a faux sense of betrayal in his eyes. You chuckle softly, but know that the crew would most likely throw him off the ship.

"I'll see what I can do."

Izzy smiles gratefully before leaving. He has said his peace and for now that's enough. He bids you goodnight as he goes.

"Goodnight, Izzy."

♡♡♡

Yeah, the next morning the crew planned a mutiny. Izzy was promptly tied up.

"You said you'd see what you could do." Izzy looks at you, fire beginning to burn in his eyes. He kind of felt betrayed.

"Yeah, I tried. I talked to them for hours. They are adamant on throwing you off this ship." You tell him, looking at him firmly.

"You're just going to let them?"

You keep your eyes on him. "Yeah."

"If this is about leaving you-"

"Izzy, no, no. It's not like that." You raise your hands. Izzy furrows his brows. There's rope around your wrists.

"What?" He asks softly.

"I said, if they wanted to throw you overboard, they would have to throw me too. Or I'd kill them all in their sleep."

Izzy states at you.

You give a smile

"You...? You told them to banish you too?"

"Yeah. Either you stay, or we both go together."

Izzy is at a loss for words.

The crew come over and picked him up. He pleads with them to change their minds. He will listen and make changes. He will do what they wanted him to.

He wanted to stay on this ship with you. You shouldn't banish yourself for him. He had no idea you would go so far.

Did this mean you had forgiven him?

He looks at you, head bent as far back as it could go to look at you. You stand there and smile at him. God, why are you smiling? You can't be this happy to be mutinied with him.

"One!" The crew start to count.

"No! No! No!" Izzy pleads.

"Two!"

Izzy looks back at you again.

"Three!" "Hold it!" Pete stops them.

Everyone turns to find Blackbeard unexpectedly climbing onboard the ship. You stare at him confused.

"Izzy... I'll take tea in my room." Ed says, walking past everyone.

Everyone just stares.

Izzy is put down.

"What happened to his beard?" Roach asks.

You turn back around to Izzy and bring his attention to you as you work on undoing his restaints. He stares at you as you do so. You look at him and then back at his hands. Once his hands are free he reaches out and gently holds yours.

"You were really gonna do it?" He asks.

"Yeah," you say softly. "I was gonna do it."

Izzy really wanted to kiss you.

"Why?"

"For the same reason Edward protected Stede."

Izzy looks confused.

"Forget it."

All Izzy Hands can do is look at you. He untied your wrists and Olu sees to it both of your feet are intied too.

Izzy's heart was racing.

He wondered, did you mean what he thought you meant?

♡♡♡

@grippleback-galaxy - @askmarinaandothers - @godlikegallagher - @for-fuck-sake-im-alive - @whiskeyswriting - @lxsm2 - @bloody-bunni666 - @the-chocoholic-writer - @bugbugboy - @callmemana -

#izzy hands x reader #spirit of the sea #ofmd #our flag means death #dragon writes

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lilyrizzy · 10 months

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something silly & self indulgent, set in the verse of 'in that iron ground.'

cw: parental death mention

“Daniel?” His mum says, her voice airy with the echo of laughter. “What a nice surprise.”

There’s no trace of concern in her voice, though it’s 4 AM in Rotterdam right now, something she must know. Or at least have known once upon a time. Too early for a casual catch-up.

It’s strange to be faced with the different ways his dad’s death affected them all. His mum can be fearless answering the phone, but Daniel’s palms still sweat whenever he sees his light up with the notification that her or Michelle is calling. Stranger still, maybe, that this is still something he thinks about whenever he speaks to his family on the phone.

“Sorry, you sound busy,” he apologises, but even as he says it, staring out at the inky black night, he hears the noise of background chatter recede. His mum’s muffled voice as she makes her excuses to step outside of whatever room she’s in, all the way across the world.

“No, no, Tim and I just have some friends over for our breakfast club, but I’m never too busy for you,” she says easily enough, back to talking to him now. “Is everything okay?”

“Yeah Mama,” he promises, nodding though she can’t see him, “everything is- It’s good. Just wanted to hear your voice.”

There’s a pause, where he thinks she might call him out on the strangeness of the hour, but then-

“Not too long till Christmas now, darling.”

They fall into the easy routine of catching each other up, their familiar dance perfected through more years spent living apart than together now. It’s mostly her speaking to start with, like she knows he needs it to ease himself in. He hears all about Isaac’s new job, and Izzy’s new baby. Stuff he already knows from Michelle, mostly, that he can just hum along to. The last thing is how the cold is finally ebbing from the earth long enough for her to think she can plant some new bulbs soon in her garden.

“And what’s new with you?” She prompts, enough of a tone in her voice for Daniel to know that if he could see her, he’d be getting that pointed look right about now.

Come on young man, tell your mama.

Time’s up.

“We dropped Milly at uni earlier,” he admits after a moment but then doesn’t say anything else, letting it settle between them.

“Oh,” his mum says, something knowing in her voice, and if Daniel stays as an attuned parent to Emilia, despite the new distance between them, he’ll be happy. “How did Max take it?”

That makes Daniel smile at least, looking over his shoulder towards their bedroom, though he knows he won’t be able to see the shape of Max under their duvet through the blinds covering the balcony’s glass door.

His mum hums sympathetically.

“Well, he only pretended not to cry for half of the car journey back,” Daniel says with a laugh, though at the time he’d ached watching Max try and fail to stop his bottom lip trembling as they pulled away from the University of Amsterdam’s welcome fair. “Then he gave in and asked me to pull the car over to give him a cuddle.”

“He did tell me he was nervous for her go,” she says, and nervous is the understatement of the fucking century, but her words make a thick kind of love fill his chest. The same feeling he gets when Max says, “Remind me to call your mum tomorrow, I haven’t spoken to her for a little while.” When he walks in on the two of them exchanging new recipes over Facetime.

“Yeah, she’s our baby,“ Daniel says simply, laughing just to ease the words from his throat, “he isn’t taking it so well, but- But you know Max.”

He can say that because she does.

“Poor Max,” she says with a sigh. “And how is my baby taking it?”

Daniel breathes out the breath he’s been holding in since they dropped Emilia off at her accommodation. Max pressing one hundred quick kisses to her head, making her promise to call them tomorrow to tell them all about her ‘lovely new friends’, while she tried desperately to back them out of the door so they couldn’t cramp her style any worse. Since Max touched his knee and looked at him with wet eyes in the car ride home and said, “This of course is for the best,” like he hadn’t also been right there with Daniel, agonizing over her moving a two-hour car journey away.

Nothing really, when you compare it to two planes and twenty-four hours of travel.

“I’m okay,” he says because it’s mostly true. “I just- Fuck, mum, I don’t know how you and Dad did it. Packed me up and let me move to Europe, two years younger than Milly is now.”

His mum hadn’t even cried in the airport, he remembers. She’d just kissed his cheek very hard, his dad hovering behind telling her she’d make Daniel miss his flight, then hugging Daniel afterwards for just as hard, just as long.

“Ah, well,” she says, words half gentle laughter. “This is the hard part. Welcome back to the era of sleepless nights, except this time they aren’t in the next room, needing you.”

He has to close his eyes against the harsh truth of it. The pain he put his parents through, the pain he feels now, it’s all born from too much love.

“Yeah but Milly always needs me,” he insists, laughing wetly, trying and failing to cover the way he is the one crying now. “Who else is going to teach her how to bag all the hot Dutch boys?”

His mum snorts, and for a moment the ache in his chest is soothed by giggles they dissolve into together. “Don’t let Max hear you say that.”

They lapse into a comfortable silence again once the laughter has trailed off, but Daniel still hasn’t said the thing that made him pick up the phone and call. He promised himself standing at his father’s graveside that he wouldn’t let important things so unspoken between them again, but it doesn’t make it easy.

“Thank you,” he eventually croaks, his throat aching with the words. “Mum, thank you for- For letting me go. I wish I could say the same to Dad, I- My daughter is off to study law two hours up the road and I’m a mess, and- And you guys let me move two continents away just to give my dream a try.”

His dream that never came true, not all the way at least, but that Daniel still wouldn’t trade the life he has now for.

“Oh, sweetheart.” His mum’s voice is gentle, and he wishes so badly she was here to give him a hug. “I just did what you are doing now, for Milly. It’s all a part of it. Sophie would tell you the same.”

She probably has already, to Max at least.

“Yeah,” Daniel says, wiping at his eyes and sniffing a little. “I just- I’m going to miss her, I think.”

For the last nineteen years, the bedroom opposite his and Max’s has been five different colours, has seen four different ‘best friends,’ and had posters of athletes, pop stars, Max’s maps and most recently Ruth Bader Ginsburg on the wall, but- But it’s always had his baby girl inside, sleeping in the bed every night.

“Of course, you’ll miss her. You’re a good dad, Daniel.” His mum says it like a promise, her voice cracking down the middle too. “I tell your dad all the time when I go to visit him. How proud of you he would be, my darling.”

#thank you lin for making me think about how daniel would feel so fraught letting his baby leave home #comparing it to how his parents let him go to race #in that iron ground #max/daniel #fic #one day i'll stop beating this au like a dead horse i promise lol #today is not that day!!!#also sorry to spam everyones dash so much today #really trying to avoid my thesis lol

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sixstepsaway · 3 months

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i've had some thoughts bouncing around for a while about ofmd s2, and in light of the news, i'm going to brain dump some of them. if you don't feel like listening to me complain about HBO and would rather just go cry about OFMD not getting season 3, that's chill, go ahead, no hard feelings

so.

season 1 was absolutely the definition of lightning in a bottle. it had great acting, great writing, gorgeous set and costume design, it was great, and not only that but it was unabashedly queer

jim had a whole episode dedicated to "actually i'm not a woman i'm just jim" and then everyone - even the bad guys, even the antagonists, even their nun nana, everyone - referred to them as they/them after that, no questions asked

the main character went through an arc that was basically figuring out his sexuality and going "oh shit, i love a man" on a show that was not directly advertised as "OUR QUEER MEANS DEATH" like a, y'know, Queer Show would be

and stede and ed's romance felt like it was important. It felt like the pirates of it all was mostly incidental, background, filler, just fun to pad out the situation and give them things to be challenged by (the badmintons!) while also being fun on its own. it's the kind of show where if you pulled all the characters out and slapped them into a whole other situation like space agents or time travellers or everyone lives together in a loft runs a bakery... it'd still work. sure, the badmintons would be less murderous and run a competing bakery or something, but it'd still work, because the focus was on the characters, and on the romance between stede and ed

the first three episodes of season 3 felt that way too. the love between stede and ed was paramount and if you swapped to a mafia au or a bakery au it'd still work (with some gentle adjustments for ed's Behavior™ to be fair)

but.

season 1, they kept saying it was a rom com, and it felt like one. it was just a rom com that was set at sea! how fun!

now, rom coms have tropes. they have genre-specific things that you kind of expect from, well, a rom com. you expect mess. you expect things like ed fucking off with jack because he doesn't feel good enough

(i've recently been rewatching new girl and although some of the humor makes me cringe, it's still a great show, and one of the main things about it is that everyone is messy. no matter how much schmitt loves cece, he's going to make mistakes. no matter how obviously nick and jess are going to end up together and belong together, they're going to sleep with the wrong people, make mistakes, break up etc. it's as much a rom com as ofmd.

one of the things that makes new girl so good and makes me love the main couples so much is how hard they work to be together, how they fight adversity and the mess of their own flaws and toxicity and still get together because they love each other most, in the end)

i remember in s1 thinking how if stede had been a woman, jack would have been too, and ed would've had at least one romantic/sexual scene with jack when he ran away with him

but i also remember thinking, "yeah, but the show hadn't explicitly done the his name is ed reveal and the kiss on the beach yet, and the reveal hits so hard, it makes sense not to do that earlier", and tbh i stand by that

which brings me to s2, after the first three eps, where they tried to go back to rom com and it just felt... forced.

rom coms usually have adversity. they have other characters that directly and truly threaten the main pairing by being interesting to those characters! no matter how you feel about izzy, he was framed as a love interest or as an ex that was still complicated, but the show very much tiptoed around that

does "i have love for you" and "i loved you best i could" make sense for the characters? yeah.

do i feel like if ed was a woman, she and izzy would've had a messy rebound relationship for stede to have to contend with, for the two of them to come out the other side of wanting each other from? yeah.

ofmd s1 felt unabashedly queer. s2 felt like they didn't want to be too gay.

they put olu with a Woman™, they put jim with a woman almost like it was less queer and more acceptable this way than queering olu, they completely waved off olu and jim's relationship and dropped any concept of polyamory because that would've made it even queerer, not less queer

(i'm using queer here as a definition more of breaking boundaries and being outside of the norm to the extent it makes cishets deeply uncomfortable and the queer in question aren't conforming to society's standards. and this reading of s2 (and s1) is entirely subjective, it's just what's been bubbling here for me)

pete and lucius went from "we don't own each other" to marriage, with no footnotes of what marriage meant to them specifically, whether they were, in fact, conforming with the 'norm' of marriage (exclusivity, labels, definitions etc) or whether they were still chill about these things or whether this now meant no more penis drawings

the queerest episode was probably the party episode (which was so good), but even that was especially queer because some cast members fought to make it so (con wanting izzy's drag to be beautiful not funny has HAUNTED ME, because that means it was originally supposed to be played for laughs!!) not because it was that way naturally

the fact i read somewhere that the party and the drag was originally lupete's wedding makes so much more sense to me because yeah, they WOULD have a wedding like that, but instead they got a lame final episode wedding because it would have been way too queer to do it at calypso's birthday with drag and queer joy everywhere

it also would have been more realistic to the lucius and pete we got in season 1.

there were a lot of things in season 2 that felt... weird. we've talked about it. we have all talked about it.

the final episode, even outside of the thing i hated most, was just horribly written imo. there's big sweeping gestures and no kind of real emotional pay off for the main relationships (lupete included), and everything got tied with a neat little bow at the end

i remember when we were told s2 was 8 episodes and how much the budget had been chopped thinking, "ha, we're so not getting a season 3"

i remember when i realized how weirdly rewritten most of season 2 had been thinking, "yeah, there's not going to be a season 3"

i remember when bitching about ed's arc being totally truncated and handwaved thinking, "mm, we're not getting a season 3"

and i remember when the Revenge sailed off into the sunset with everyone but ed and stede on board thinking, "oh yeah, we're done."

just enough was left open that a season 3 could happen.

just enough was left open that if a miracle happened, there'd be something to do with season 3.

but i genuinely, 100%, hand on my heart, think djenks knew he wasn't getting a season 3

and don't get me wrong, i'm not absolving him of the poor writing choices he made in season 2, but i am saying it makes a lot more sense if you think of it from the perspective of corporate meddling and having everything taken away while he was actively trying to make season 2

we already know HBO cut the budget a ridiculous amount so they just had to make everything work with what they had. we already know HBO cut the episode number.

season 2 plays out like they prepped a good chunk of it, ready for 10 episodes, and then HBO cut the budget and cut the episodes

and so things had to be changed and chopped about. ed's arc got lots of screen time and focus for three episodes (before the cuts) and then things got quicker, and fast

characters were cut for time and for budget reasons.

and then i think towards the end of production and the end of writing, djenks learned the odds of season 3 were minimal at best, and he panicked

i think the original plan was probably for ed's arc to go for the majority of season 2. maybe a middle piece where he and stede tried but it still wasn't Right (last night was a mistake) because ed had so much to work on and so much to heal

i genuinely wonder if the finale was completely rewritten at the last minute because to me it makes way, way more sense from a narrative standpoint for things to have been more staggered out. let's consider ten episodes instead of 8:

episodes 1-5: same as they were when aired, including the gravy basket giving us set-up for what ed's dealing with internally, giving us something to latch onto and prepare for his redemption. NO KISS AT THE END OF EPISODE 5. episode 6: ed is still wearing the bell. he's sort of done his amends with lucius, but now he needs to do amends with the rest of the ship. stede is still learning his piratey ways, so there's hijinks in the background. jim and archie and olu try to decide what their relationship is after the garlic and all, and debate room arrangements. lucius and pete announce their engagement. stede and ed nearly kiss. episode 7: more ed redemption arc. he's still working at things, he's shying away from violence because violence is what took him down this dark path to begin with. maybe we get some discussion of his father. stede, blind to ed's flaws, insists he's nothing like his father! ed tries to make amends with izzy but somehow this is the hardest of all because he hurt him the most of all. izzy gets chance to apologize for what he now sees as his part in pushing ed down into the darkness (trying to drag blackbeard back) and izzy's apology makes ed feel worse somehow and gives him some absolution when he finally figures out how to return his own. ed kisses stede but says he wants to take it slow. episode 8: wedding episode!! calypso's birthday!! ed uses his loot to bankroll lupete's wedding. stede reacts with violence to ned and we know from everything before that ed is actively trying to distance himself from the violence of piracy because, yeah, of course he is. is it a good idea? nope. does it make sense to his character for him to still be putting a good chunk of the blame on piracy for his actions, rather than accepting the parts of his whole and learning how to regulate those parts healthily? yes. anyway, stede reacts to his own violence by clutching for ed, ed feels after like his boundaries were pushed. same as show. episode 9: ed is having a meltdown. he and izzy have started to heal, so izzy watching him stare at fishing boats and just chatting to him like nothing happened actually makes a lick of sense. lupete are on their honeymoon at jackie's. olu gets to hook back up with zheng and archie and jim want to go along because they're not super happy on the ship still because although ed is doing better, the past of what he does still hangs over everyone. olu, zheng, jim and archie do not discuss the poly of it all properly, and it's hilarious and a mess, and gives us something to look forward to handling in season 3. ed freaks out about stede being violent when he's the one thing he felt like wasn't violent (and thus safe for him to be with), and about taking it not at all slow, breaks things off and runs away. izzy gets stede to come back to the ship. stede gets into a fight with zheng, the bombs go off, whatever (not a fan of this for her sake but if it has to happen, it can happen) episode 10: ed is off fishing but it's not going well and he's pissing pop-pop off all the time because he's not good at fishing. stede and co are handling the ricky of it all. the episode is mostly the same at the start, but instead of ed immediately going "omg, i gotta save bae" he doesn't find out about the attack until right at the end of the episode. stede and co make it back to the revenge and escape safely, and when ed retrieves his leathers and returns he thinks they're dead! he threatens/tortures/whatever some english and they say no, stede escaped! they all escaped! the season ends with ed, all decked out in his leathers, with his sword, now in the position stede was last season: staring out over the water, planning to find the man he loves.

this sets season 3 up for ed to be on his own for a little while, for him to handle and figure out how to channel his violence into something 'good' (wanting to find his love, wanting to protect his crew etc).

maybe season 3 flashes back to baby!ed again and the fact his first act of violence against his father wasn't motivated by anger or spite, it was motivated by wanting to protect someone he loved: his mum.

then season 3 they find each other again, and maybe they meet in the moonlight for the parallel to hit even better, they finally get back together properly, for good, with maybe some comedic issues along the way, and ed finds his place in the world to be less "blackbeard, the terror of the seas" and more "ed protects those he loves."

i honestly think this is probably how the show was originally meant to go, or at least something close.

i think midway through season 2, djenks heard it was over and he (rightfully) panicked and threw together a finale that tied up as many loose ends as he could because he knew.

and i dont think there's anything that could've been done about it. i think it was dead in the water (no pun intended) the moment all the MAX/HBO/whatever reshuffles happened, I think it was too queer and I genuinely think executive meddling made a lot of the more queer elements go away, possibly right down to trying to wipe away the exes/love interests of it all with that whole father figure thing

and, again, i'm not absolving djenks of some of his more baffling writing decisions. he's a grown man and he makes his own choices. but i am saying i think it explains a LOT about why the finale we got is what we got, and i'm not sorry stede and ed ended the show together rather than apart or with their lives hanging in the balance or something

anyway these are just a bunch of thoughts i've been having, tied together by the cancellation.

#ofmd #our flag means death

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total-drama-brainrot · 3 months

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that one real-total-drama-takes post about team cirrrrh all being misogynistic got to me because they're not even wrong, they're all different flavours of misogynistic and that includes izzy.

tyler & owen are period-typical misogynistic teenage boys; they're not intentional or malicious with it, they're just a product of the societal ideals + norms of the 2000s, but that doesn't change the fact that they hold a lot of harmful ideals. they congratulate duncan on "bagging two hot chicks", not because they don't understand that cheating is wrong, but because that was just the widely accepted mindset of the late 2000s- and this is applicable to a lot of their behaviour in all 3 gen1 seasons. tyler is less obvious about this mindset, but owen himself showcases this a few times over the seasons. remember the bet he made with cody in season 1?

alejandro beefs up the chivalry aspect of his persona to manipulate everyone but women especially, and often times expresses that he sees the girls he flirts with as less than people and moreso obstacles or prizes. it's only later on in the season where he begins to see heather alone as somewhat equal to him and she's the only girl he doesn't brush off as easy to control, but even then it often seems like he's indulging her instead of treating her like a serious threat. this is even more evident in their song "this is how we will end it", where he showcases all of the women he manipulated as puppets on strings- mere objects for him to play with- whilst the men he manipulated aren't mentioned at all (implying he saw them as more than toys to be controlled).

duncan.

noah, as far as i'm aware, isn't outright misogynistic so much as just an asshole to everyone. Unless you count his treatment of izzy in wt as proof of his misogyny, which is fair because most of his interactions with her and eva both involve him insulting them in some way (all of the different ways he's called izzy a nutcase, mocking the "iron woman" for her weakness against justin). he's got the vibes of "you're gay because you like men, I'M gay because i hate women" which is mostly because he doesn't seem to like men either, but he at least tolerates them, whilst he barely even interacts with any of the girls. Now that I think about it, I don't think Noah ever has a positive interaction with a girl in the whole show (unless you count trying to hug bridgette?)

and izzy has such strong "i'm not like other girls" internalized misogyny. she's a miniboss in the manic pixie dream girl rpg- and i mean it when i say manic- and she intentionally plays up the more masculine or disgusting aspects of herself to appeal to owen in particular. just like noah, i don't think she's ever had an objectively positive interaction with another girl on the show, but at least she does interact with them. sometimes it feels like izzy is so disconnected from her femininity- as if the writers only remember she's even a girl when they're writing about her relationship with owen- and this isn't a 'bad' thing but it does disconnect her from almost every other girl on the show. it's super weird, especially for a show that (usually) showcases femininity as something strong and empowering, especially since it almost penalises eva for not being feminine in the slightest yet only ever rewards izzy for doing the same.

#kinda drafty in here (posts from the drafts)#only a semi-serious post btw. it's not nearly that deep and yet here we are. /lh #total drama #team chris is really really really really hot #cw misogyny #ophe rambling #character analysis #⬅ i guess???

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suffersinfandom · 4 months

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A Summary of The OFMD Meta (Part IV)

This is part four of an incomplete summary of A Meta-Discussion Of The Subtext by meratrishoslee (Mera) on AO3 (linked to, as the author requests). I’m trying to stay impartial and present the content fairly and with context. Like, I started reading this 140K beast after I saw a wild screencap and thought, "Surely there's context that makes this make sense," so I do want to provide at least that much.

This part includes interviews and a response to one of the “concern trolls that couldn't quite manage to wipe the foamy froth from their mouths long enough to keep it from dripping on their keyboards.”

No more chapter numbers because they keep being reordered.

Other posts Part I Part II Part III

Chapter The Vanity Fair Article - A Wondrous Fuckery

Here’s the article that chapter is about.

Mera suspects that the interview happened via text, giving David Jenkins time to sort out what he was going to say. They note that they’re “going on vibes and subtext, which is really more [their] wheelhouse.” You’re welcome to disagree with them.

“First off, I was trained in the House of Moftiss/BBC Sherlock fandom, where we just assumed that every word the showrunners spoke in an interview or on social media was a shameless distortion at best, and an outright lie at worst -- so that's where my mind goes first. [...] Having said that... so much of the Vanity Fair interview is an actual gift. You do have to cherrypick somewhat... but again, DJenks just released an episode with a major character death. He can't go back and reverse himself and suggest on any textual level that the death was less than permanent.”

VF mentions the happy endings in the finale, and Jenkins says, same-sex relationships end on a dour, downbeat note, where one of them dies and it’s unrequited or it’s unrealized; something horrible happens and they’re punished in a way.

“That's not a happy ending -- and that's exactly what you apparently fucking did with a central character. Gosh, how weird of you to bring it up here. So why? Is it... is it something you left open for a third season? That the horrible death of an unrequited love isn't what it appears?”

Jenkins says that Izzy is kind of a mentor to Blackbeard and that he is kind of a father figure. Mera says that “this is the closest he gets to queerbaiting us” because Izzy is definitely not Ed’s father figure.

“Notice we are still given the subtext here: mostly dead is slightly alive, and "kind of a father figure" feels like a limp gesture in the direction of explanation. The rest of it... if you feel insulted on Con's behalf, that Izzy Hands was reduced to an old dog being put down at the vet's office here ("beautiful arc", "does a lot of things", "it's time", "full meal" -- god, a day at the dog park and a last fucking supper with cheeseburgers and pie and all the human food he never got to have otherwise she says sarcastically) -- YOU ARE SUPPOSED TO.”

Jenkins keeps mentioning “magic, love, turning, losing, changing, rebirth, resurrection, present tense about Izzy Hands, ghosts/life after death, or anything of those flavors.” He is “legitimizing repetition” in order “to prime your mind to see the subtext. You can only look for something if you know what it looks like: he is giving you the key to the season.”

Jenkins reminds us that “he was not a straight white guy alone in that writers room, and he's telling you the story worked for everyone in that room of all queerness/genders.”

“And then he brings our head back around and goes ‘hey, look at Izzy again. It's almost like he's the key to everything. Hey, look at me using present tense on a character that's supposed to be dead and gone which would be past tense. God I love Con O'Neill, and I need you to hear that in every single interview I ever give EVER. His character IS a joy to write.’”

Mera mentions all of the “subtextual queer references and coding” put into Izzy. “You don't create a Queer Avatar by fucking accident. And these professionals certainly did not.”

Mera encourages their readers to read the Q&A that wraps the article “with the mindset that we will have an S3 where a queer self-sacrificing man rises from the dead in a damn near explicit Christ metaphor and our Izzy Hands is safe and whole and loved.”

“The Vanity Fair interview, as far as I'm concerned, is not some painful/cruel gloat. It is a subtextual love letter back to the fans, published just in time to be ready to soothe our hurting hearts -- if we know how to parse it.”

Chapter "Who Do Ya Trust If You Can't Trust God?"

“I'm finding myself tired at being the point of the spear. No one prepared me for how exhausting it is to be among the first to realize a massive truth.”

This chapter is about coping with fandom and contains some solid advice: “The block button is our friend. The unfollow button is our friend. The mute option is our friend. If someone's relentless negativity hurts your feelings or drags you down, mute/unfollow/block them as needed.”

But then:

“I choose to believe my daily-growing mountain of evidence that Izzy Hands is alive and that the writers intend that he be hollered home from the gravy basket.

“Furthermore? If I can be painfully real for a minute? I am amazed at the trust the writers have given us.

“Because we the Unseen Crew have been put into the position of Izzy's future lover -- to be to Izzy what Stede was to Ed. We are called on for our audience participation now, to hold his hand and beg his return -- not for a minute, an hour, or a day... but potentially for the next several months, over a year or more, until we get Season 3.

“I do tend to have this fatal flaw of wanting to uphold others' trust in me, and to be loyal to those who show loyalty in return.”

Mera reminds us that her word is not canon. She isn’t affiliated with the show and is just trying to provide hope and positivity.

“Even though I often will get tired... I am determined to stay positive. When I can't say something nice, I close the window or the app and say nothing at all. You will find me on my social media being as unrelentingly kind as I know how to be.”

Next: interviews and what we can take from them. “Interviews have exactly two purposes: pocket money for the subject of said interview, and promotion for the show. I was trained to never fully trust what is said in interviews.” Engagement and getting people clicking is more important than imparting useful and truthful information, and nothing engages people like anger.

That’s how we get the early “interviews that are half touching and half enraging, with seriously tone-deaf seeming self-conflicting statements from the writers/showrunners [...]. We can trust that if the interviews are live/verbal, they'll be more irritating rather than less. The showrunners would much rather say too little or say something wrong than give away something too big or too true accidentally, and in the pressure of the moment they will fall back on phrases they've memorized as safe to use.”

Don’t trust that interviews are telling you the truth (but they might be saying something truth-adjacent).

Mera has doubts about Jenkins telling O’Neill about Izzy’s death mid-season. She doesn’t think that Jenkins is that stupid. “It's not too far a stretch to think that this "mid-season" conversation occurred in the middle of filming the first season, and all DJenks is prevaricating about is the timing thereof.”

Jenkins realized mid season one that Con is an amazing actor, so he takes him out for dinner and says, “Next season I want to kill Izzy 3 times. The first time will be Stede's dream sequence, and the next two will be actual Passion Plays, because we're setting Izzy up to be Jesus and Westley from The Princess Bride and Han Solo from Star Wars.”

“And Con takes up the challenge of being coded as an OVERT Queer Messiah (with an additional layer of subtextual HIV/AIDS)... because of course he does. Of course he fucking does. If he can pull it off -- and if anyone can, it's him -- it's the role of a fucking lifetime. It's a role for history books and media studies for the next fifty or one hundred years.

“Doesn't that sound a bit more likely? Doesn't that sound a bit more real?”

Mera predicts that interviews and articles will start publishing ideas about Izzy still being alive, and talking about how weird and off the end of season two was. Everyone involved with the show, after all, will “know we inspect every frame and every pixel of every BTS and teaser they release,” so they’ll feed us enough to keep us guessing at the truth.

“Here is my promise to you: if/when I'm wrong about any of this, I will edit this chapter only to admit I was wrong and when and how. I will not remove my evidence. I am comfortable being wrong. If I was never wrong, I would never have tried and failed and learned from my failures!”

Chapter Until You Come Full Circle

This chapter is about interviews. “We’ve had, just in the last week, two very sweet and classy interviews with Con (which I did predict, although that was about as safe as saying the sun would rise in the east this morning) – and one that seemed… less so, with Taika.��

First interview with Con.

Con says to trust David Jenkins, which immediately makes Mera think of Proverbs 3:5-6: Trust in the Lord with all your heart, And lean not on your own understanding; In all your ways acknowledge Him, And He shall direct your paths. “Now. Am I delulu, as the kids are calling it these days, suggesting that Con might intentionally be throwing some religious vibes at us?”

Con is also “earnest and intense” in his praise of OFMD’s writing. This is a good sign; that means he thinks the show is written well, and that’s further evidence that Izzy will be back.

Second interview with Con.

Con “seems to me to be very reluctant to outright lie, which is awesome for a meta writer and squares with my experience of him. Lying is easy in the moment and difficult in the future – a person has to remember what lies they’ve told in order to remain sufficiently consistent in their stories. It takes more skill to tell just enough of the truth that it's both vague in the moment but pays off later.” This makes interviews with him extra valuable.

A short analysis of one of his quotes: “Everything Izzy is in Season 2 was there in Season 1, only understated and repressed. According to the actor who played him: he didn’t change who he was. Izzy just got safe enough to let what was inside him out to where others could see it too.”

One of Con’s quotes backs up Mera’s Sacred Heart meta, namely the part about Izzy trying to serve the crew that loves him.

Now a Taika interview.

This interview bolsters Mera’s idea of Ed as Judas.

From the article: When Consequence asks writer/director/actor Taika Waititi if he’s feeling optimistic about a third season of Our Flag Means Death, his initial response is this: “Have you seen the end?”

“I think we can safely assume that Taika’s not asking the interviewer if he’s literally seen the last episode of Season 2. This feels to me like the blunt, sardonic, dry humor Taika’s evinced (and occasionally gotten into trouble over) during other interviews, aimed at the word ‘optimistic.’ ‘Have you seen the end? How optimistic did you think it was?’”

It’s not an optimistic ending. The interview mentions the inn’s renovations, but we don’t see anyone doing any renovating. Ed and Stede don’t even have food as the Revenge sails away.

From the article: For Waititi, though, the Season 2 finale “feels like a natural end to their story. Just because I feel like, you know, they’ve been through so much and then wind up in that nice place at a happy ending.”

What nice place? What happy ending?

From the article: Waititi says, though, that “I don’t want it to feel like Rambo III suddenly, you know, when you’re like, ‘Oh man, they have to leave their idyllic life again.'”

“Okay, everything else was fucky as fuck… but that feels wrong enough to be a lighthouse.” So Mera went and watched Rambo III, which is more relevant than she expected.

Rambo’s “idyllic” life isn’t that great. “We don’t see an emotional, human connection. We see a white guy who’s on tolerance in a place he doesn’t really belong, separated by a language he doesn’t fluently speak. We see a man tormenting himself with boredom and isolation.”

“When you look at John Rambo through most of this movie, you see a pretty good correlation to Edward at the start of the last episode of OFMD S2: on tolerance in a place that’s not truly his home, trying to fit a life and do a job he’s not suited to… and he gives it up without another thought because a man he cares about is in danger.” A hint to season three?

Chapter My Ridiculous Obsession With Love

In this chapter, Mera addresses one of her “haters.”

For anyone who forgot the thesis of this meta: “The overarching hypothesis I'm building in this meta-discussion is that Izzy's death was more serious because HIV/AIDS and queer grief is serious. He had to go into the grave and take the full journey of the passion play to be able to leave it behind him, and to re-emerge as someone that can touch, kiss, and love again.”

Commenter: “None of that makes this a definitive interpretation, or one that the creative team can reasonably be held responsible for.”

Mera: “... yes? Okay, sure? (Dear non-haters: just picture that John Travolta confusion gif again, because if I threw it in here every time I rammed up against an example of begging the question in this comment, there'd be like 30 of them and we'd all get tired of them.)”

Commenter: “The crew hold back because Ed is the person Izzy dedicated his life to and has not yet fully reconciled with- they're giving him space to sort things with Ed so he can go in peace. Etc etc.”

Mera: “I see a rapid parade of images and sounds. "He's a dick, but he's our dick." Jim snarling "He was your friend" up into their captain's face, even though they know for a fact that could get them killed. The crew make the unicorn's leg for him together but they leave it at his door because they know he can't (yet) let himself accept it if anyone's watching: what an incredibly emotionally intelligent maneuver. The easy way that we see Jim and Lucius and Frenchie and Fang interact with Izzy in later eps-- all touching him or letting him lean on him, just never skin to skin. The way that we see Izzy go into Wee John's arms and stay held there for a while as he commits the incredibly vulnerable act of singing for them. The way that Izzy lays his hand on Stede's knee while they're talking at Jackie's bar, and there's no real animosity from them on either side then.

“So I'll give you this one, 100%. I can't say that you're wrong or prove it in any way. Your reading is absolutely as valid as mine, no more and no less.”

Commenter: “Isn't it heavily implied that people touch him with bare hands while dealing with his leg? And if he is coded as having AIDS and being untouchable, why would the crew be so willing to dive in and get covered in his blood when they treat his leg, especially when they're also scraped up at the time?”

Mera: “I haven't had a chance to write up this meta yet, but in a nutshell: we see Jim and Archie amputate his leg (with their hands pressed together in visual union atop it). They're covered in blood and this is one of the least realistic depictions of a survivable amputation attempt in media ever, frankly... and yet Izzy lives through it! [...]

“Notably we do NOT see Fang cleaning up. I need to go back and verify, but I'm like 99% sure.

“Why? Is Fang lazy or unhelpful? No, I'd say two reasons. One, he's paralyzed with grief (and the men in this show are so emotional, as Auntie rightfully notes). But two, certain classifications of men were more susceptible to Izzy's subtextual disease. [...]

“I think it's a direct subtextual sign post to the part that lesbians/wlw/AFAB people had to play in the care of queer men dying of AIDS. [...] Jim won't catch Izzy's subtextual HIV/AIDS, ever. Jim's hands heal and comfort, with both Izzy and Auntie -- repetition (usually) legitimizes, as I've said elsewhere.”

Commenter: “...while I know I have no control over this... it's alarming to see other commenters accepting this elaborate interpretation as if it's definitive.”

Mera: “Ooooh, I'd pay a dollar to find out how many comments you leave on fix-it fics. Are they also dwelling in their delusions of a world where a fictional character in a show overcomes a fictional death in the same show? Is it a sign of mental illness to indulge in word count or WORSE -- for them to irresponsibly leave those insane words just out there online where other people can also continue their madness by READING THEM?!?! The absolute horror. We writers should be ashamed, etc etc.

“There's every possibility all the words I'm spilling over this are worth just as much as you paid for them: exactly nothing.

“So thank goodness we have you and others like you, willing to do the purely altruistic and entirely virtuous work of... leaving comments to tell us you didn't agree? I guess? Honestly I don't have a full lock on what your goal was here, if something other than trying to make people feel bad but fortunately not being very skilled at it.”

Commenter: “I wish you and every other fan nothing but the best, and for that reason, I find this hard to watch.”

Mera: “My sibling in Shiva: the 'back' button and the 'x' to close the window are available in every single web browser I have ever used in the history of the internet, ever. But I appreciate your martyrdom in staying here and nobly suffering so hard in an attempt to save me and my readers from ourselves!”

Commenter: “It seems like you are setting yourself and others up for even more rage and heartbreak than there would otherwise need to be.”

Mera: “I want to point out that I've tried to be very careful in not speculating about Season 3; I think it's reasonable for any fan to assume all characters living at the end of S2x08 will return in S3 unless real life status of the actors, scheduling, or budgetary considerations prevent that.

“I want to point out that all I have are the first two seasons, and I am telling you that Izzy Hands, inside the last second of S2x08, is "mostly dead but slightly alive" -- and he's in the house, being the cause of the smell that Edward doesn't want to recognize (as he is at least twice before shown refusing to recognize what he's done as Blackbeard after the fact) but does actually recognize all the same.”

Mera admits that there are two options: “Either I'm correctly parsing the absolute bounty of subtext available in every aspect of the show, or I'm not.”

“On the day that we get that confirmation, I will feel one of two things: either the delicious vindication that I was right -- or amazement that they could build such a wondrous sky castle of subtext, whether consciously or subconsciously, and fail to complete it satisfactorily.”

“I've been wrong before and will freely and cheerfully admit it [...]. That's also why I put in my first meta post that I had been a TJLC'er -- and why I've left it in there, actually. It's correct and it's honest. Straight off I admitted I was wrong about Something Big.

“See, it's [...] ‘hater bait,’ and it's already caught several. Lots of concern trolls that couldn't quite manage to wipe the foamy froth from their mouths long enough to keep it from dripping on their keyboards, because all of them had mentioned it... until you.”

“I've cackled my way through all of the writing of this post, even as I've tried to be very kind in reply -- you should have seen some of the shots I chose not to take due to their cruelty (even though they were fucking hilarious) -- so thank you for a most diverting morning. I even got more meta and more word count out of this, so it wasn't actually a waste of productive time!”

Commenter: “I urge you to reconsider this approach that you're taking.”

Mera: “Here's where I'm gonna get all the way real again. Because I'm not talking to [...] that poor dear any more. I'm talking to the ones who are here with me in the stinking dark of the Pit of Despair, holding onto Izzy's naked right hand with no glove between us any more or hopefully ever again, hollering him back home out of the gravy basket.”

“If one sound had been added, everyone would know what the author knows. “We have the house. We have the grave -- with Izzy's collar on it like the dog collars on the dog graves in Pet Sematary -- where whatever comes back often comes back wrong. We've got the concept of a bad smell. We've got Stede reacting to something awful with a scream [the one thing Mera’s adding in this scenario].

“DONE.

“Now the fandom is convinced that Izzy is alive, just as most of us were convinced in the last 18 months that Lucius was still alive.”

“This is part of what convinced me in the first seconds after the episode was over that Izzy wasn't dead. If I could both change the story and prove it to everyone else with just one small addition... then he's not dead.”

After Lucius was pushed overboard in season one, “I just trusted that this soft and sweet little show wouldn't actually permanently kill one of its gays. [...] And I still trust that it didn't actually permanently forever and truly kill the most gay-coded of its gays.”

#ofmd #izzy critical #not really but it's for that crowd tbh #“you don't create a queer avatar by fucking accident”#i want to type unkind things #keep not reading that meta it's way too long #and not even that fun to read #i promise i brought all the fun parts over

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starofhisheart · 6 months

Text

MAJOR SPOILERS FOR OFMD S2 EP6-7 under the cut

Ok, that was A LOT. I have so many feelings but no coherence so i'm gonna do this bullet point form but def not in order, just in order of me remembering wtf happened lol

-IZZY AND WEE JOHN IN DRAG!!!!! Wee John looked STUNNING with that Divine-esque appearance and Izzy had that transmasc drag king kind of thing going on (iykyk) that made me love him even more

-Izzy singing LA VI EN ROSE took me tf out!!! i'm glad he got to finish it after the *ahem* distractions bc Con's voice is so beautiful I could listen to it forever. We better get it in the album!!! Also someone posted the lyrics translated and i cannot get over the lyrics:

"It's him for me,/And me for him, for life/He told me, he swore to me, for life"

-But not only was he singing the second half had fucking gentlebeard doing the dirty in the next room asdfghjkl which.....was hot, ngl. The passion was electrifying. I'm sorta glad we didnt rlly see it with everything that happened after bc it all kinda left a bad taste in my mouth.

Also Stede Bonnet canonically gets turned on by violence confirmed

Or trauma. Whatever.

-What else happened in ep 6 cause all i can think of is drag and singing and sex-

-oh yeah there was that shortlived sexually-charged torturer who i distinctly recall him being in another scene in the promo so unless that got the cut perhaps he's not dead...?

-Lupete missing all the action cause they were doing the nasty all night lmao so real

-Jim best wingman (gender neutral)

-Stede...Stedey boy, can I call u that? Now i'm gonna say this nicely, but WHAT THE FUCK DUDE? Stede in his white guy w undue confidence era fr. Zheng Yi Sao was so right for what she did truly

-But in all seriousness i feel like this whole thing in ep 7 was such a parallel to s1 but also a very necessary bit of conflict in their journey together that was bound to happen. THey want different things and neither is wrong or right for that. Stede did react poorly tho but like he just had sex w the love of his life, his first man, and Ed the very next day is like "aight i'm out". I'd be pissed too. After killing someone which we know is a big trigger for him historically.

But Ed also had a valid reaction. He's wanted to retire for a while and stede knows this but it hasn't seemed to have sunk in quite yet. He fears that Stede only sees Blackbeard and...its fair of him to have that impression tbh. These are two messy, traumatized dudes who have never had a real relationship and there's gonna be bumps. I hope we get s3 so we can better explore that like Djenks wants.

-Ok back to the fun stuff:

-Izzy barging in on GB and the docking joke. love his cringefail ass.

-IZZY IS HAPPY FOR ED EVEN IF ITS NOT WITH HIM

#growth

-the edizzy apology which was so typical of them. i expected it but bc i'd been building it up in my head all week w twitter pals it felt a bit anticlimactic but thats not the shows fault. it was very much in character and if they're satisfied so am i. i always have fic for more

-stizzy commiserating over losing ed pls thats all i've ever wanted!!!!!

izzy: "when i told him i loved him he-"

stede, like he's heard this story before: "shot u yes"

and the look they gave each other after!!!!! stizzy nation how we feelin?!

-izzy being like "stede no" when he was on his macho bullshit w zheng yi sao (also motivated by trauma bc he just lost ed, he cant lose MORE family!!!). i just like how protective iz seems of stede now.

-izzy''s "you're good for him" CRYING THROWING UP ETCETERA

-ed catching 1 fish and deciding thats his life now. adhd realness fr

-the swede whew is it hot in here or is that just jackie's effect on her husbands?

-jackie and ed actin like old friends. swede highkey shading ed adfghjkl

-anyway im sure there's more but i need to rewatch. there r things i wont go into bc its possible spoilers for the finale (tho its mostly just speculation some is based on bts not everyone may have seen). i am looking forward to and terrified for the show to end next week thats all i'll say

#ofmd #our flag means death #ofmd spoilers #ofmd s2 #ofmd s2 spoilers

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brokenolivejar · 3 months

Text

★introduction for realsies★

Main op goes by Emerald or Dimitri no pref

Non binary trans masc (they/xe prns okay with he/him)

On the aroace spectrum sapphic

I have ADHD and DID and 70 other diseases

I'm also physically disabled and I use a cane or forearm crutches!

What I do here is just reblog things I find funny or my interests

And I draw!! I'm an artist's and yes my comms are open! Here's the link!

Main fandoms you'll see from me are

★ Ocs or OC stories ect

★ Lego monkie kid

★ one piece

★ dorohedoro

★ madoka magica

★ pokemon

★ digimon

★ monster hunter

★ Danganronpa

★ black butler

★ pirates or anything history/anthropology related things

★ homestuck

★ mlp

★ wings of fire

★ hunter x hunter

★ ddlc

And more and other niche interests

I also have other blogs such such as the animalized ddlc ask blogs @monisayoyuri

My comic series krc @kamisreigningchampions

And a couple other daily merge accounts mostly for homestuck

Other socials are

Instagram - brokenolivejars and gardentoreador and gempirates for specifically my alters art

Tiktok - brokenolivejar

Twitter/X - brokenolivejar

Bluesky - brokenolivejar

Discord - won't give that one out bc yeah maybe I'll give some discord servers that are public if u ask nicely

I'll also be focusing pretty bad on some AU's

Church of Sacrilege (CoS) - merged au with blondeaxolotl/axolotlblondie - fandoms are black butler, Danganronpa (but really it's just my ocs), lmk, ddlc - au is set in 476 AD aka the right before slash during renaissance era or right after the fall of the roman empire based off the religious trauma and church abuse back then

Era of piracy(pirate au) - basically just a 16-17th century pirate au for Danganronpa a project I plan to turn into a zine and I'm pretty much vanishing from the dr fandom at this point. but may turn it later on to lmk and ocs

MLP au - just an au where I MLPify fandoms I enjoy and make it darker

Beastars au - same with the MLP au

Kamis reigning champions (krc au) - basically same with the previous 2 but with my OC series which is based off of futile era japan in a weird way

Animalized au - basically the other previous 3 but I turn them all into anthropomorphic animals or feral/quadrupedal animals (that's not just cats and dogs)

Planet V for all (PVA) - not really an au more of like the universe where I steal dr characters and make them my ocs

⚠️⚠️Fair warnings for my blog⚠️⚠️

- I swear :(

- blood and occasional nudity (NOT porn yucky)

- I touch weird topics such as trauma with like SA or religious trauma

- idk that's it for now

About my system under the cut!

My system is called the gem/geo pirates or the brokenolivejar

I know people have those keep records oh their system websites and what not I unfortunately don't apologies! But most of my alters sigh their posts with - [insert their name] and their associated emoji]

But they also do art now and then! Though I'm the host and I front the most

Here's the list!

Emerald - 🐐

Kiro - 🌺

Elliot - 🦅

Octavia - ☔️

Syo/toko - ✂️

Betty - 🗿

Karma - 🦴

Himiko/Sylvie - ✨

Tenko/eshe - 💣

Beam - 🦈

Angie - 🐚

Gonta/Alois - 🪲

Kiibo - ⚡️

Kirumi/anfisa - 🕸️

Luffy - 🍖

Robin - 🪷

Zoro - ⚔️

Yamato - 🐉

Vivi - 💙

Ryoma/drago - 🎾

Izzy - 🐞

Ken - 🐝

Akihiro - 💵

Grell - 🪚

Mikan - 🩹

Chihiro/guo - 🕹️

Jataro - 🪝

Shizuku - 🦷

Rei - 👾

Taro - 🐊

Cavendish - 🥄

Ebisu - 💀

Lefty - 🐻

Kaito - 🪐

Shiver - 🪭

Frye - 🦑

Pearl - 🫧

Ussop - 🥽

Jimbe - 🐋

Yuuri - 🔪

Pidge/Katie - 🌿

Tony chopper - 🦌

Kobeni - 💦

Zelt - 🍎

Brook - 🎸

Chinder - 🦠

Sayo sayo - 🎀

Nikaido - 🥟

Shin - 💔

Redson - 🔥

Sandy - ☮️

Macaque - 🙈

Will update when needed!!

#intro #about me #just a post #not and art post #art comms open #comms #comms info #danganronpa v3 #danganronpa #danganronpa killing harmony #danganronpa au #system #system stuff #lego monkie kid #i am not well #emerald rambles

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knowlesian · 2 years

Text

having hit two notes (izzy’s and stede’s, twice over) in this fucked up three part finale harmony: it seems only fair to close it out and finally get to do the one that hits me in the face and says ‘you are going to cry about this until the day you die. now say thank you’.

ed’s turn at the pain wheel.

so: it’s been a tough week for him. a real fuckin’ tough week. ed offered more than his heart to stede— he offered himself. he told stede the truth, again and again. he gave things up. he was willing to fold socks and lick the king’s boots; he was ready to run away to china and kill the men they used to be, to be new people together.

these were things he was ready to give up, and he very much wanted that life together: but the way they were about to obtain it would have ruined it for them both in the end.

i’d like to think, down in the part of ed’s soul that understands it is fucking imperative he keep an eye on all the exits in dangerous situations and had to build up an immunity to this sort of thing, he knows poison fruit from a poison tree when he sees it. that’s why he turns melancholy, not angry; he lost the thing he wanted most, but that life wouldn’t have lasted.

half-truths you build out of half-lies start to taste sour, once you get down to the rind. ed of all people knows that.

so he’s sad. he’s ready to listen to taylor swift alone in his blanket fort and cry, until lucius introduces him to the healthier version of what ed proposed to stede on the beach: what if, every single time we take a breath, the version of us that lived before that breath is gone?

what if that isn’t just dying? what if it’s... finding our way into this newest, complicated self, and living again?

and, in ways that break my heart, in ways olu and jim would understand and in some ways, their reunion echoes: ed hears every fucking word. they understand each other; lucius cries for his pain, and ed glimpses a pathway out.

twigs and all.

he sings his sad little breakup ballad on the deck this time, in full view of the family he’s trying to guide in stede’s absence; it’s so real it kind of makes me cringe, but in the way where i want to shield him from view because i too have been trained that when you are open like that they hurt you.

watching ed sing his song makes me feel the way i feel when i can’t deal with my shit enough that i lose it and cry in public, and i mean that as a compliment. you’re not supposed to do that outside your bedroom or the shower in a pinch. we can only get that open where people can’t see us, my training says.

my heart is happy for ed, my instincts say: look out, baby, they are going to hurt you.

which is why i both hate and entirely understand what one mister izzy big ol’ motherfucking duffel bag of shit hands does next.

he looks at edward, the man he’s built his self-image and career around, considers losing it all in one go, and thinks: look out, baby, they are going to hurt you.

(is the you in that sentence izzy, or is it ed?

yes.)

and then. ohhhh, and then.

izzy decides, why the fuck not. one more hold his beer moment for the road. and then this dumb motherfucker goes nuke-ya-ler, dubya style.

ed has no idea it’s coming. izzy was clearly not thrilled by his performance: but hey, he’s perfectly aware izzy spends a lot of time being not exactly thrilled with shit ed does. still. ed saved him from from meeting the devil at the bottom of the deep blue sea for a reason.

for better, but mostly for worse: izzy’s been there. izzy has been his sad, violent version of loyal, and when you do the emotional math as edward shows he is capable of, again and again he knows: in izzy’s mind, he licked the king’s boots for ed. can’t you see? i did it for you, edward. i did it for us, and if you want me to stay with you by fucking god you’re going to have to stay down here with me, fucking silent and fucking violent until we fucking die, hand in unlovable hand, is the desperate sad ballad izzy’s singing here. and edward can’t be edward but only in private with izzy if he’s edward in public, too.

fear, turned outward through anger and devastating words and made a weapon. jealousy, trauma, pain, all melted and formed into a shield that grows into a wall and becomes a weapon all its own: what do we mean, when we say violence?

because what comes next sure feels like violence to me.

ed’s trying to clean up: he’s talking to izzy like they’re still the unit they were before stede rolled up, but in a way that incorporates the more authentic man he’s trying to feel his way into being.

this is what fucks me up most on a long list of things that fuck me up about these two, if i’m honest. izzy makes me think in ways that are uncomfortable and very valuable about certain parts of myself i am less fond of; and as a fictional exercise in ‘why are we all so grubby and weird and why do we ruin our own lives sometimes????’ case studies, he is Peak. for a million reasons, he makes me sad.

but what ed shows here is a flickering attempt to build himself up into the sort of hearthfire olu gives jim. (and why i think olu and jim and ed and izzy carry a lot of sad/dark mirror narrative beats together.)

come with me, iz, the subtext here says. can’t believe we were living like this.

if i can save you i can save me, if i can save me i can save you: we don’t have to do this, you know that right? stede didn’t want me; stede left. he didn’t want to be new people with me.

i’m so fucking sick of just surviving. i want to have space to be new people, ed keeps begging everyone around him. lucius heard what he meant, and gave him the words for it. now he’s offering to share with izzy the kindest, most beautiful gift ed’s ever been given; even more beautiful than stede’s finery, or his unsure confession of happiness and desire, because ed thinks it was a lie.

all that happened, and ed still has the courage— the generosity, the need to not be alone, the fear and the altruism all wrapped up in one very beautiful and very complicated man— to clean up the evidence of his grief bender and say to izzy, a lot of shit has gone down lately, but why not. let’s do this whole new people thing together.

he’s sad; he’s healing. he’s still off-kilter.

and here comes the push.

I should have let the English kill you. This... whatever it is that you’ve become... is a fate worse than death.

the way ed’s face falls as he hears the man he’s lived alongside for years say he wishes ed wasn’t alive; he draws in this little breath and it’s almost like he can’t quite process izzy’s actually said the horrific thing he just heard. it stabs me in the heart, every single time.

because here's the thing; there are a million killers. there are a million sailors and a million first mates and a million cranky lil boat guys who want to serve under a legend.

i’m sure a lot of them would have been the kind of yes-men who would have also hated stede, and hated this change; they would have dealt with it and shut the fuck up, or left, or done a million things but do izzy’s sad and gross version of fighting like hell to keep his subtextual man.

i think it’s that sad and gross fight that spells out the answer to the obvious: so why keep him? question.

because they saw something in each other. and because emotionally, ed got something he needed from izzy; and emotionally, izzy got something he needed from ed. people will do horrible, painful things to get what they need, if they think that’s their only way of getting it.

for years they did those kind of things to themselves, and to each other.

ed kept izzy around for all this time, his purse dog-slash-middle manager from hell sidekick, and now he would like to keep him around in this new world. for better; again, mostly for worse, they kept each other safe at the same time they kept each other in pain.

and izzy just said: i wish you were dead. i wish i hadn’t done it. my years of loyalty and my recent betrayals, the ones you understand i considered both unsavory duties to my captain and sacrifices made for the man my captain becomes, but if and only if he is alone with me; i will take all of it back if you keep trying to be new fuckin people, edward, izzy is telling him. if you won’t stagnate here with me, be my monster and my subtext boyfriend, you can go ahead and just die. these are your options if you want to keep me in your life.

(and what kind of life could you have, without me in it?)

ed thinks stede could only want him when he’s a gentleman like stede is a gentleman— like he was a gentleman, before he entered and exited the underworld of his original flavor toxic masculinity, entirely unknown to ed— and now he knows: unless izzy ever figures his shit out, he will only want ed when he’s a monster.

and then, quiet part horrifyingly loud: izzy says what whatever he is now? this beautiful complicated man with his soft underbelly and heart on display at once, finally, who is taking such extreme emotional risks despite very recent disappointment? who is braver right now, breathing deep in the face of izzy’s fury, trying to keep it together and stay open, than he has ever been in his entire life?

(because make no mistake: ed has had to be very, very brave, for his entire life.)

better ed be dead than be... this. “whatever it is”, the writers choose to have izzy say, and throw in vague tones of dehumanization via ‘it’ as well as the way they have izzy refer to ed in terms that imply he holds dominion over ed’s life and death. (which sets up their later use of ‘boyfriend’ even better.)

not i wish they had; not they should have. i should have let them.

these writers are precise and very, very mean.

so ed pulls back, trying to salvage some of his power and assert who he is while dealing with that fucking... load of soul-crushing pain, all without losing sight of the path lucius revealed to him.

Well... I am still Blackbeard, so...

No! This... this is Blackbeard.

they give this moment time to breathe in a way that kills me. izzy shoves the cartoon in ed’s face; ed stares at it. stares at the monster the world wants him to be; the monster izzy says is all he could ever be.

and i think maybe, deep down in his heart, ed thinks: the monster that stede might have actually wanted, more than the failed attempt at pretending ed could be a gentleman. izzy wants the monster, the world wants the monster. stede left, after seeing the monster’s a man, too; maybe that’s why.

maybe this is all they will ever want. all anyone will ever want.

the man he was falling in love with, and thought might be around forever left him; the man who has proved he will stick around forever, even when ed tells him not to, has just said he wishes ed would die if he won’t be what izzy wants. he’s found izzy’s limit, after years and years of spiraling into greater depths of toxic pirate bullshit together.

the limit: ed. being a full fucking person. ed, doing things he wants to do instead of things other people want him to do, because they want him to do it.

‘what have they done to your face’; ‘i should have let the english kill you’.

‘this is blackbeard.’ ‘a bloodthirsty killer, born of the devil.’

even in the dialogue, even when they don’t know they’re doing it, even when he doesn’t know they're doing it: people keeping this shit to ed. he is so, so tired of people doing this shit to him.

which leads neatly into:

Not some namby-pamby in a silk gown, pining for his boyfriend.

in the same way stede can’t know why ‘from the devil’ would cut so deep, i doubt izzy knows why what he’s just said is such a specific cut. the general surge: yeah, he knows. he’s trying to provoke ed; you provoke people by being provocative.

but silk. a silk gown, this sad and mean and in desperate need of therapy and like... so, so many more punches to the nose in this moment man said.

izzy thinks he is communicating, in so many words: edward. you're being weak. shape the fuck up and get with it again. it’s like a very smart sock once said: this is how the world works. those who do not hurt others get hurt by others, and i have chosen my motherfucking side of the knife here. have you forgotten how this dance goes?

ed is taking all that in, and on top of it seeing a red silk handkerchief and a mother who loved him as well as she could, but only in the ways she’d been taught; and she had been taught in so many ways that to yearn for more than your lot is to set yourself up for heartbreak. you reach: you fall.

and when you fall, it will be because god wanted you punished for the sin of thinking you could ever deserve more. whenever you hurt, whenever you suffer, whenever you have no family or food or shelter, not even an emotional place you can feel safe and call home: that’s where god finds his home, ed’s mother was taught. that’s where god finds his joy. your joy comes at the end of a life of silent, willing service to those god loves best.

god is not there, not when you are joyful; not when you are not serving them.

they own everything; why shouldn’t they own god, too? how kind they are, to share these scraps with us and teach us to call them the road to glory.

these are the things ed’s mother was taught; these are the things she taught him.

what do we mean when we say violence? the generational trauma forced christianity wrought centuries ago is still hurting us today. still keeping us trapped in these horrible, binary cycles.

one above; one below. how can god we own love us more, if he doesn’t love you less? that’s the secret at the heart of why the world needed ed’s mother to hold her child close, and try to convince him not to look violence in the face and call it what it fucking is.

and so ed explodes. hand around izzy’s throat, calling izzy the dog izzy implied ed might as well be, by saying he should have essentially allowed the english to put him down; and worse, izzy enjoys it. ‘there he is’, izzy says. breathless: worshipful. touch tender as his words weren't, one hand coming up to cup ed’s cheek; this is how we love, izzy thinks. i hurt you until you hurt me back, and once we slice each other to ribbons we can use the wounds as an excuse to touch each other gently and say it’s because we have to, not because we want to.

we could never want to. if we wanted to, what would that say about us?

this is not ed’s world; this is not ed’s love. not his tenderness. he’s used violence as a tool and been horrified by it. he’s been scarred by it in more ways than one. then he’s enjoyed it, sometimes, or at least acknowledged its helpful byproducts in his life.

it’s never his instinct. in one of the ways he makes up a narrative pair with olu, ed’s about community.

ed will hurt people; still, ed doesn’t want to hurt people. it’s a fine line, but like ed’s own distinction in canon it’s an important one.

so he shoves izzy away, disgusted with everything going on right now. his life is hell; lucius promised him it could be better. that ed could be different. stede lied; maybe his playthings do nothing but lie, too. stede took a while to reveal himself, didn’t he? that felt so good at first, didn’t it? he thought he was safe then. thought he finally wasn’t alone.

and now here he is: alone again, anyway.

alone with izzy! who is fucking elated. this man is nearly crying with joy, he is staring at ed’s mouth, he is like... way, way, way too fucking horny on main. this is it: he can taste forgiveness resting heavy on the back of his tongue, even now. ed needs a little more pushing before he’ll do it right and let izzy breathe easy, but that’s fine. the end’s in sight, gory gory what a hell of a way to die. just a little bit more now, and they can forget it all happened and go back to the way it all was before. hell, it can be even better! because it can be even sadder, now, and a whole lot worse.

so izzy pushes ed again. blackbeard’s his captain, it’s blackbeard he serves. edward, on the other hand? edward better prove he’s worthy of being a man again when they’re alone, or izzy is going to keep this shit up until he does.

izzy thinks they’re connecting; izzy thinks this is how they keep each other safe. this is how they love each other.

ed looks at a man who loves him, but doesn’t see him. izzy’s love is conditional as god’s ever was; if ed wants to keep it, there are going to be rules he has to follow and boundaries he has to stay inside.

there has to be one above, and one below.

suddenly, the things ed thought he might have been wrong about start to settle back in.

when izzy leaves it there and stomp stomp stomps off in his little booties, unaware he is enjoying his last day on earth still in possession of all his toes, this battle is still only sort of won. because ed might have pulled it back here! maybe! if by the magic of things happen when we want them to, fuck you, ofmd definition of time, stede arrived then and confessed everything, maybe that would help. maybe lucius could have walked in; maybe ed could have had five fucking minutes alone to deal with izzy’s shit and not get immediately thrown into yet another reminder of his trauma.

instead of any of that, the crew calls for a song with a new, even more affectionate nickname. eddie, they call him, and ed does some emotional time travel as he’s thrown back to the party in e5. they pretended to like him, too; they said he could be funny without being a joke, if he was with them.

they were lying; stede fucked them up for him, but stede’s gone now and might have been lying, too.

is this the latest lie? are they making fun of him? is he a fucking joke again?

izzy just told him he’s better off dead if he keeps trying to be authentic; izzy has done the opposite of laugh at him. and izzy, for all his many... many flaws, has never entirely flat-out lied to ed. gone behind his back! obfuscated and left out key details in service of his own agenda! but izzy just looked him in the face and said the meanest fucking thing you can say— their shit’s aaaaaalllll out there now. so in a way: izzy has been honest and now he’s safe, for some very narrow and horrifying values of both words.

ed understands what izzy wants from him. what does the crew want?

moving through the world on his own, ed has learned he has two options: he can be an unthreatening joke, or he can be a monster.

ed also knows that when he doesn’t pick fast enough, the people around him will pick for him.

izzy just said it right out loud. he wants the monster, and being the monster kept ed safe at the same time it hurt him. he knows he can survive that pain.

what does the crew want? they want eddie to sing them another song. and they might want it because they’re laughing at ed’s stupid song and his stupid pain and his stupid reaching for better. how could ed ever know? how could he trust them?

that’s the problem. there’s no litmus test for love, and izzy has offered concrete evidence for his sad version of the word. the crew asks ed to take it on faith he’s not the butt of their joke.

the crew calls for him, inviting him to join them topside again and enjoy the stupid, silly, joyful things they can do and be together. this is what hurts the most: we as an audience know they love him more than they ever have, in this moment. they see ed: all they want to do is have some fun, with ed. none of their laughter would hurt. they love him: he could make jokes with them and not be a joke to them.

but stede left ed, and izzy has made it clear he’s out for good if ed doesn’t straighten up and fly right p-d-fucking-q; and you can’t know for sure people are lying when they say they love you, not until it’s too late.

illuminated by the window, ed makes his choice.

all right, then. monster it is.

monsters don’t need hearts; monsters don’t wear fine things well. and so: overboard goes the red silk, floating off into the stede-less moonlight.

(i want to do something else longer about ed and lucius so i will just paste this in the gap now: the way lucius is confident in his ability to call ed by his name and speak to him like an equal, and the almost deadened look on ed’s face as he allows lucius to twist in the wind, letting the gift lucius gave him die to an down to ember until the mood shifts and ed shoves him over the side all do a lot of painful things to my heart. ouch.

also: lucius is alive, his shoe goes flying and does a ZOOM WHOOSH thing, there’s a whole sound!!!!! he clung to the rope or the side and he is now in the walls eating paper. the end.)

which brings me to: one gun, one knife, and gloves that keep a barrier between ed and everything he touches.

we don’t see ed’s face in full, not once in this scene; we see the whole of the cartoon, but only fragments of the man. his body; his weapons. his cheek, as he draws back on the beard that made him safe. we see his eyes reflected in an implement of violence and of penetration, as ed tells himself: i am the kraken.

not blackbeard, a mantle that in some ways allowed ed to try and bridge the gap between ed the man and ed the monster, but the kraken.

this is how he heartbreakingly survives everything going to shit at once, naming himself all monster and no man. stede didn’t see enough worth sticking around for in the man; the world keeps demanding the monster.

and izzy. sad, cruel, suffering izzy: izzy wants the monster.

and now, ed’s going to give them all what they want.

let’s see if they choke on it.

that’s right. let’s do this: the Weird Vore is nigh.

this scene is very jesus-flavored. there are jesus sprinkles atop this horrifying sundae of pain and a crunchy jesus shell coating. this shit is like... thirty one flavors of super gross in the most catholic and subtextually gay way possible.

so obviously, i fucking love it.

izzy is posed on the bed in a way everyone dragged to mass and forced to stare at a bleeding, ripped white dude in an equally white loincloth would find familiar. (izzy’s is black, which is a neat inversion as well as a hilarious nod to the white hat/black hat cowboy movie politics that in some ways helped build our cinematic language on these things.)

his feet are bare, his legs are bare, his chest is bare. he’s almost naked; he’s vulnerable. open.

in polar opposition ed is armored up and closed off. he touches izzy: izzy does not touch him. his hands are going to stay clean under their leather, no matter what he does next.

and what he does next is use some big fuckin’ scissors and make himself a diy first communion starter kit. he’s got body and oh boy does he have blood, and izzy ever so kindly holds his mouth wide fucking open while he screams, a parishioner waiting for the host.

he’s held edward up as his god. now, after all izzy’s years of service and suffering, edward’s going to be his priest, too. and why not? this is what izzy wanted, wasn’t it?

unfortunately: yeah. stede got what he wanted and was properly horrified to see the rot at the bottom of it all. izzy, on the other hand? after years of waiting at edward’s elbow and watching him cut off other men’s toes, loom up over them and force them to swallow, izzy has played himself some very, very stupid games.

and worst of all— he is so, so very happy that he is at long last going to receive his very stupid prize.

ed always knows what to say to put izzy off when he won’t quit it and give ed a little breathing room. the trick is telling him what he wants to hear in that moment. i’m not interested in stede, oh no. i’m going to kill him, and then i’m going to prove i don’t care that everybody talks shit about you literally shitting your pants last time you babysat alone. i need you, i hate you, i want you to go, i wish that you’d stay.

he also knows words aren’t going to cut it, not this time. if he wants izzy to back off enough to let him breathe, he’s going to need to give him more. izzy wants the monster; ed will be nothing but the kraken.

so who takes izzy’s toe? who makes sure ed doesn’t have to be the kind of alone that doesn’t come complete with a crowded room to be alone in, the monster or the man?

the answer is once again just yes, because on this show it’s almost always both/and, not either/or.

half-truths, half-lies. it’s like arguing about the existence of ghosts or god, determining where the exact ratio sits, like trying to find a way to measure and quantify love so you one hundred percent absolutely no doubts know it’s the kind that won’t crumble and leave you in more pain than before you had anything to lose at all.

ed is edward is blackbeard is the kraken is ed, on and on into forever.

we are a choir, a mob, a whole fucking world, even when we are all alone. we contain multitudes; i draw a breath, you draw a breath, and the people we were crumble to dust and then linger in the corners, haunting us with their presence and the ways we can’t ever go back to who we were before, not really. no matter how hard we try.

we die and become new people a million times, every day, until we don’t.

so who exactly is it that rests his hand on izzy’s chest, right over his heart? who clamps the other over his mouth, as gentle as izzy’s notions of love are not? and who feeds those notions to a man who only wants ed when he’s not the entirety of ed, making sure he chews them up good so they don’t get stuck in his throat? who subtextually fucks izzy through the mattress, and who hates himself the whole time because none of this was what he wanted?

all of them, all at once, because it’s all ed or none of it is. like the ghosts of the people we were, the gods we own or love we can be sure isn’t a lie— either it’s all real because you can’t prove it’s not, or it’s all bullshit because you can’t prove it’s not.

we want things to be simple. we want there to be An Answer, so we don’t have to exist in uncomfortable, ambiguous spaces.

fortunately, ofmd is pretty fucking comfortable in those spaces.

#our flag means death #ofmd spoilers #this is so long i have no idea how it happened it's like. 5k for five minutes of screentime #this is what i have been training for i guess #THESE WRITERS FUCKIN SUCK I WILL FIGHT THEM THEY ARE MEAN #like what the fuck how DARE THEY #ugh ed makes my heart hurt i just want him to have some room to breathe and figure his shit out #SOMEONE LET ED HAVE A NAP AND A BREAK 2KFOREVER #if you made it through all this: sup #you are my Real Ones #my ofmd meta #this fucking show is like. yeah. i have a lot to say

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izzy-enjoyer · 2 years

Text

Izzy hands NSFW alphabet (gnc reader)

18+ please!!!

inspired by @run-me-through-but-not-like-that ‘s sfw alphabet, definitely go follow them for some excellent izzy content!

A = Aftercare (what they’re like after sex)

izzy is so soft and gentle with you after sex, he is such a puppydog - he would do anything for you. Water? you got it. A bath? he’s infiltrating the captains bathroom just to get you clean and comfy. Just a cuddle? say no more

B = Body part (their favorite body part of theirs and also their partner’s)

on him, he’s not so sure. he’s not unhappy with his body, he just never thought about what is particularly appealing about it. on you he’s especially partial to your thighs, and loves to leave little hickies on there too. if you have boobs he’ll be delighted to squish and rest upon them, if not he still loves your chest area, because it feels intimate to him.

C = Cum (anything to do with cum, basically)

my boy,,, he cums a lot. look, he’s been so touch starved for years, and he finds himself too prideful to jerk off too often. so when he’s with you and really let’s loose there’s a lot going on. it tastes slightly salty, but not unpleasant

D = Dirty secret (pretty self explanatory, a dirty secret of theirs)

he loves to get pegged/get fucked in the ass. it’s happened with Ed a couple of times (not going to mention how toxic their relationship was, he’s way better off with you), and while at first he felt ashamed and emasculated, he very quickly found himself enjoying it a lot.

E = Experience (how experienced are they? do they know what they’re doing?)

he’s had his fair share of sexual shenanigans when he was younger, but most of it was in his past. he certainly knows what he’s doing, but he’s a little rusty at first.

F = Favorite position (this goes without saying)

anything where he can see your face and hold your hand. he’s a romantic at heart ok, he just loves you so much and can’t help but want to see all your expressions. he also does this to see if he’s “doing a good job”, he’s very adamant about pleasing you properly

G = Goofy (are they more serious in the moment? are they humorous? etc.)

he’s not goofy at all lol. the only time you MAY see this man goofy is when you both bitch together about your irritations and make fun of people you don’t like. but in bed? never. he’s either too busy pleasing you, or being completely lost in cloud 9 pathetically trying not to cum immediately

H = Hair (how well groomed are they? does the carpet match the drapes? etc.)

pirates don’t really take the time to shave down there, no one really did at that time. if you asked him too he might find it strange but would certainly do it if that’s what you wanted. on you he doesn’t mind at all, he’s not scared to go properly down on you regardless, nose buried deep in your pubes. he’s no coward after all

I = Intimacy (how are they during the moment? the romantic aspect)

he tries his best to be intimate, but it’s very hard for him to let go completely at first. the first time you got him in sub-space he was on the verge of crying the whole time, just so happy to have someone he can be unashamedly open with. so after that it’s always very intimate, like i said he likes holding your hand and being as physically close to you as possible.

J = Jack off (masturbation headcanon)

like i mentioned he doesn’t pleasure himself very often, if at all. only when he’s more desperate than usual. he thinks he’s above it, thinking it’s a thing for people with less willpower than him. once he starts pining for you though, he gives in a bit more frequently - he just can’t help himself when it’s you on his mind

K = Kink (one or more of their kinks)

anal (on him), humiliation (on him), praise (both), corruption kink (on you, if you’re not a pirate), being submissive. hair pulling (on him) !!

L = Location (favorite places to do the do)

mostly his chambers, but if you tease him in a public place he won’t hesitate to beg you to jack him off right then and there.

M = Motivation (what turns them on, gets them going)

pretty much everything. this man is so touch starved and attention starved in general, that any positive attention gets him going. he’s ready whenever, as long as its ok with you and you’re not uncomfortable (consent king <3)

N = No (something they wouldn’t do, turn offs)

not a lot tbh, but he doesn’t love degrading you in fear that you’ll think he’s serious and leave him. i think he doesn’t love inflicting pain on you in any way unless you explicitly ask for it

O = Oral (preference in giving or receiving, skill, etc.)

this man was born to please, he loves sucking you off or eating you out, seemingly desperate to give you every ounce of pleasure he has to offer. he’s also been known to cum while going down on you, unable to resist your praise and pulling his hair

P = Pace (are they fast and rough? slow and sensual? etc.)

really depends. he loves it when you are fast and rough with him, but in the rare moments he tops he likes taking it slow, and really savor the moment with you

Q = Quickie (their opinions on quickies, how often, etc.)

prefers to be able to take his time with the act, but again, if you tease him in public you might just have to sneak away for a quickie

R = Risk (are they game to experiment? do they take risks? etc.)

he’s willing to experiment with you, but not super willing to take many risks. he might die on the spot if you ever got walked in on in the moment, so he prefers the safety of privacy

S = Stamina (how many rounds can they go for? how long do they last?)

when he tops he can last pretty long, but when you dominate him he’s a goner. he can go for many rounds though, so the night is still long :))

T = Toys (do they own toys? do they use them? on a partner or themselves?)

wouldn’t mind toys being used on him, it kind of adds to his humiliation kink, but he prefers using his fingers or mouth on you as opposed to toys.

U = Unfair (how much they like to tease)

if you catch him in a rare confident mood sexually, he might tease you. he also teases a bit during foreplay, but that’s mostly brattiness as he expects you to take over at any moment. mostly though, he’s too impatient and wants the pleasure just as bad as you

V = Volume (how loud they are, what sounds they make, etc.)

gets pretty loud, the rest of the crew definitely knows what you’re up to. makes the most beautiful pathetic little moans, and grunts when he tries to hold back the embarrassing sounds

W = Wild card (a random headcanon for the character)

Izzy expects himself at first to be controlling and dominant, but the second you just look at him or god forbid - smile at him, he just melts. he would do anything for you, so eager to please. he’s had some bad experiences with this before (namely with blackbeard), so you’ll have to guide him into the ropes of a healthy relationship. he’s forever grateful when you do though. ((i have so many izzy thoughts UGH))

X = X-ray (let’s see what’s going on under those clothes)

pretty average length, but thicker than usual. he knows how to use it if you let him, and especially loves when you take it to the hilt, cock warming him until he can’t stand it anymore

Y = Yearning (how high is their sex drive?)

he’s not crazy horny all the time, but he definitely yearns for you. he yearns for you in every way imaginable, and while his sex drive isn’t the absolute highest it doesn’t take him very long to get into the mood

Z = Zzz (how quickly they fall asleep afterwards)

not really. he’s so in awe of you, after you sleep with him he’s like a lost puppy and just wants to be as close to you as possible. he stares at you with so much love in his eyes, even after you’ve fallen asleep. loves watching you sleep actually, it’s one of the main reasons he doesn’t fall asleep immediately

#izzy hands #israel hands #izzy hands x reader #our flag means death #ofmd #ofmd x reader #nsft

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katyspersonal · 8 months

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Ogay now your turn, who was your blorbo(s) before???

Damn... This is a harder question than it seems, because it is... hard to remember? My brain got SO rotted with Soulsborne world that I legit am forgetting how things used to be before that? It doesn't help that my feelings about the character and how much I talk about them / do for them do not always match! As a result, I have three types of blorbos:

1) The 'real' blorbo: The one that evokes the most feelings and I actively fantasize about being with, one that sparks yearning and attraction and consumes the most of my thoughts, but I won't do enough with

2) The 'productive' blorbo: The one which I practically breathe life in and create entire story and world for when canon didn't provide much and/or this character is unpopular. They often become crucial part of my online identity, or JUST my identity o_o'

3) The 'fanmade' blorbo: It is either an AU version of the character, an interpretation so unfitting and far from canon vibe that it almost works as an OC, or JUST an OC. I actually love/hate this one, because this is the asshole that will always make me stray from working on canon!! They will make me focus so much on them that depending on the nature of the character, I will forget the canon vibe in my love for this version or will forsaken general source material to join an AU/RP where this character is. Let me focus on canon-palatable creativity and stop wasting my time, dipshits!!

So, to give you the idea, in Bloodborne, type one would be, of course, Micolash, Edgar and Maria (but mostly Micolash)! Type two would be Rom and Izzy. And since recently my Laurence is between 1 and 2 because he is really S E X Y but also I have to create everything for him xD. Type three would be... uh...

My previous "fandom" was UTDR, but that stay was a little short-lasting, since Deltarune is work in progress and Undertale did not have the same grip on me. In there, my type one blorbo were Rouxls Kaard and Mettaton! You can tell I love the flamboyant sexy man with fake depth, fair level of depravity but not evilness, and intelligence of a brick dshhfdsdds My art never felt good enough to capture Mettaton's confident energy, however, I'd like to show this fanart of Rouxls:

Type two blorbo were Mad MewMew, Catti, and Diamond King! The latter two were sort of underdeveloped in canon at the time, and for MewMew I actually had a bunch of things, and even RPed as her for some time! Developing Diamond King was quite fun, though he was dangerously close to type 3 because of AU stuff where HE was the bad guy and not Spade King (and Catti was the 'monster' of the prophesy). Besides, we did give him a wife who is not getting used in canon but exists in the cards deck that WAS used for the 'cards'.

(EDIT: I made these sprites and I forgot that I made them and not Val o_o" Because it's been a few years ago + I am scatter-brained. Oh jeez)

And type three happened when I delved into helping to work on an AU for Deltarune, a project a passionate person started in hunger for completion of Deltarune, following after Chapter 1 and ignoring everything. Basically, attempt to finish the game that had AMAZING story and characters! I lended many designs, ideas and characters for it, improving it very significantly. I no longer work on that project and gave all rights to my designs and creative solutions to the developer, but it was FUN. And like I said, distracted me from the canon-palatable creativity. And helped me to finally come to terms with the fact that I am way better at nurturing, supporting, editing and improving someone else's projects than creating my own. It was a long time coming realisation considering how half of my drawings for any fandom used to be fanart of other people's ideas and OCs or fanart for our RP plots. Not something that can happen in this fandom because... you know. But yeah, I've always been the guy that would draw a pile of everyone's OCs/interpretations in the community, or help someone with no coherent design idea to GET that design down!

...ak-hem, where was I? Right, blorbos. So, the 'fanmade' blorbos were, of course, our version of Diamond Queen and... this BITCH:

This is Ace of Hearts! And Insight joke is actually something I just made up, since I made this guy before I knew anything about Bloodborne! It aged like fucking milk, hahahahaha!! To give you the idea of what I had to do to design the Aces, here are the cards by Kanotynes that Toby was using:

These are the face cards ( x )! If you saw Deltarune's chapter one, you can see how and which designs were used, and which changed.

And this is the only image of all cards I can reliably find ( x ). You can see that number cards were de-personalised and are just various things. So what I did was combining the face card look and find a way to "fuck it up", since Aces learned A LOT of 'Chaos' and not only part of it like Jevil (and now Spamton)! Here are the rest of them:

You can tell, even in healthy forms, they'd still be a bit... 'strange' compared with face cards. Ace of Clubs in healthy form would have only one head and one horn, and his 99 Insight Chaos version has 11 heads each with one peace of their body or face... And Ace of Diamonds would be a snake with 'umbrella' skin, which is nothing like other Diamond suits!

I was the one to insist that we have Aces in the project, conceptualised them, designed them, wrote them lore etc. And Ace of Hearts was my favourite, and also the scariest one. (of course I like the most creepy one -_-) It was also the first situation where I got obsessed with my OWN non-canon stuff... although, technically, they are no longer mine, since I passed the designs and right to write and use to the owner completely. Maybe it is to the better, as I moved closer towards enjoying my own content more!

(Idle sprites I've made back then!)

___________

Thank you for listening and giving me nostalgia, lol xD

#ask replies #utdr #deltarune #yooooooooooo that was nostalgic #i really don't feel like returning to that project ESPECIALLY after chapter 2 jossed too many things #the only thing that could convince me to go back to it is if Toby cancels the REAL deltarune #because again: i need to focus on canon-palatable creativity more #i no longer want to do community-oriented creativity because everything always falls apart because of dumb discord drama or something #especially RP communities #every single time some asshole makes a community Discord and before you know it everyone became everyone's enemies #so the best people leave/deactivate and shits that started it thrive before they get cancelled for something stupid #like nuh uh no longer investing in groups that just wreck themselves sooner or later #trust no one. not even the no one (c)#doodles #gifs #diamond king #ace of hearts #diamond queen #deltarune ocs

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elapsed-spiral · 6 months

Text

So, here we are, the end of the road season two. Mostly just for my own benefit, I thought I'd put my initial thoughts under a cut.

The good

Overall, I think S2 is way better than S1. It's a more confident, polished show that understands its own tone.

S2 is so much funnier than S1.

I seriously did not expect them to dig that deep with Ed and Stede's characterisation, especially the MH issues. It's impressive how they balanced very believable, heart wrenching depictions of trauma with laugh out loud jokes.

The Ed/Stede of it all was really well done. The chemistry is still off the charts, the ups and downs are classic romcom, the failures to communicate never feel contrived.

The settings and costumes and music are all so good/better than S1, imo.

Captain Frenchie!!!

The not so good

I think people have tried to blame too much stuff on the reduction in episode count but I think it's fair to say the pacing suffered, especially from episode six onward.

I found the Olu/Zheng storyline pointless and unbelievable. I think they could have given Zheng beef with Stede and the Revenge crew without it, and it's baffling to me that they threw away Olu and Jim's character development in S1 for it. Olu felt dumbed down and uninteresting by comparison to S1, which is a shame.

I think they really struggled to know what to do with Lucius, AKA previously one of the funniest characters who is now traumatised and not so funny. When there was humour it largely made light of Lucius' trauma which feels off for a show that otherwise takes trauma seriously.

I do not get Izzy's character arc and feel like a lot of that was cut for time. It felt like they really wanted him to fill the funny confidante void left by Lucius. There were just too many leaps in his development and growth for me to buy how drastic a transformation he underwent. And now, post-finale, I do and don't get his death. His dying words were heartfelt but hackneyed.

Not enough close up shots of faces during kisses and emotional scenes, which would be fine if they'd lit the damn show, but they didn't, so I often couldn't see a thing.

Overall, the biggest issue seemed to be that they speed ran the remaining plot, presumably out of a desire to ensure people got a satisfying-ish resolution if they don't get renewed. That's a kind ambition but I fear it hasn't worked.

That feels like a lot of negatives but honestly, I don't really see them that way because they got the important stuff right, AKA Ed and Stede's relationship. I've constantly been surprised by where S2 has gone and I'm so impressed by the quality overall. Here's hoping for S3.

#ofmd s2 spoilers #ofmd

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dragonmuse · 1 year

Note

Hiii I was curious, what else does Izzy (from the Leda House verse) discover/rediscover that he likes or enjoys doing?

(oooh great one! This made me think of Pickle helping Izzy rediscover how to play, so here are four times that someone re-introduced Izzy to something he enjoys)

Play Pretend

Izzy knocked louder than usual. There was shrieking coming from inside, probably enough to drown out the sound otherwise. A stampede of feet came to the door and then it flew open. Pickle, wrapped in purple blanket ran away from him and then Read scooped her up with a roar.

“Uncle Izzy, help!” Pickle screeched in delight. “The dragon has me!”

“And I’m going to gobble her all up!” Read agreed with a wink to him.

“We should get going if we’re going to get to the movie in time.”

Pickle went limp and gave him a baleful look, “But I can’t go to the movie if a dragon is going to gobble me up, I can’t watch it if my eyes are in her belly.”

“Yeah,” Read tossed Pickle a little until the girl giggled. “Everyone knows it takes a brave knight to save the princess and get her to the theater before trailers start.”

“Yeah!” Pickle insisted.

Izzy took another step into the apartment. The door closed behind him. Pickle and Read looked at him expectantly.

He reached for his hip and mimed pulling out a long sword, settling into a form he’d memorized from movies when he was little older than his niece.

“Then you’d better start running, dragon,” he growled.

“Never!”

There wasn’t a lot of room to manufacture a chase around Read’s apartment, but they managed quite a heated duel before Izzy was able to recapture Pickle, sling her laughing over his shoulder and head for the door.

“We’ll meet again on the field of battle, sir knight!” Read laughed.

“Well met, lady dragon, well met.”

Hide and Go Seek

“Okay, costume change!” Bonnet sing-songed and Izzy dropped his camera to his chest with a grateful sigh.

The summer festival poster photoshoot was becoming an annual tradition that Izzy could really do without. He was already charging Bonnet five times his usual rate and was considering upping it to ten next year. His headache had a headache.

“I’m taking a break,” he announced to the open air, deciding he didn’t give a shit if anyone else knew he was leaving.

“Charlie!” Stede called out. “Where are the props?”

The boy had been helping out, but he was no Alma and seemed annoyed about the whole thing. He’d barely even acknowledged Izzy when he’d said hello, so he’d left him to his sulk.

Izzy headed for the bar, intent on a glass of water.

“You seen the boy?” Eddy got in his way.

“I’ve been looking at you for the past hour,” Izzy sighed. “Why? He run off?”

“I doubt he left,” Eddy frowned. “He’s good at disappearing though.”

“Maybe leave him be,” Izzy went around her towards the bar.

The kid’s name got called a few more times and then they must’ve decided on their own to leave Charlie to his own devices. Izzy went behind the bar and got a glass of water for himself. Lucius wasn’t even here today, off somewhere else in the city arranging other details. The place didn’t feel right without him. Not to Izzy at least, no one else seemed bothered. He drank his water slowly, eyes panning over the room.

He could make out an odd shadow. Finishing off his water, he grabbed a bag of pretzels and strode across the room, keeping to the shadows of the far wall. Costume changes took a fair few minutes. He had time.

The cleaning closet that Lucius had once gleefully colonized then abandoned in favor of the staff bathroom had reverted to it’s natural state in the last few years. When Izzy opened the door, there was mostly mops, brooms, a big garbage can and some other necessities. Including, one sulky teenager with his phone tucked in among the long poles. Kid was practically a broom himself these days.

“If you shut the door and give me those, you can stay,” Charlie told him without looking up from the screen.

Izzy dropped the pretzels into Charlie’s lap, pulled the door closed and jammed himself down across from him. It was a generously sized cleaning closet and Izzy’s legs weren’t particularly long. They both fit in without a squeeze.

“What the fuck is biting your ass?”

“Everything,” Charlie muttered, tearing open the bag. “Nothing.”

“Uh huh.”

“I just don’t want to push props around or get everyone’s stuff that they forgot out of storage then put it back or prep for the bar or stack wigs or prep a glitter cannon and I’ve done all that and more this afternoon already. Dad said this would only be two hours and then we’d go out for dinner, but it’s been four and no one is stopping.”

“Can’t you head home?”

“I’d have to tell Dad and she’ll be upset and talk about being a team player and then Eddy will weigh in and everyone else has something to say...” Charlie shook his head. “I don’t want that. I don’t even really mind helping, I’m just kind of done and be left alone.”

“I’ll be out of your hair in a few minutes,” Izzy sighed.

“You’re okay,” Charlie said around a mouthful of pretzel. Izzy did not puff up over that. It was nothing to be proud of. But....well.

“I’ll give you a twenty if you go pick me up a coffee when we start up again. You can go to place a few blocks away. Lines are usually pretty long. Get something for yourself while you’re there. I’ll tell your Dad.”

“Really?” Charlie sat up.

“Really. I could use it.”

So Izzy pried himself off the floor after a few recuperative minutes, handed Charlie cash and headed back to the stage.

“Saw Charlie,” he said, like it barely mattered to him when he saw Leda. “Sent him out to get me a coffee.”

“He’s not your errand boy!” Leda snapped.

“No? Seems like he’s everyone else’s today, figured I got a turn too.”

“He’s not a servant, he’s just pulling his weight.”

“So he’s pulling it at the coffee shop, who cares? I told him he could keep the change, he’s getting fucking compensated, you doing that?”

Leda spat something, picked up her wig and flounced off. Izzy went back to fiddling with his camera. The idiot had to come back eventually, she was in the next set of pictures. Pete, how had been very quietly doing something to the curtain while all that was going on, slid in beside him, dress ruffling.

“Think you could send me out for coffee?” she whispered.

“I’m considering sending you out for Luc. Is that what Lena is like when he’s not around?”

“Yep.”

“How is it worse?”

“I mean...always worse when he’s not here.”

Izzy could only miserably agree.

Tag

“What the hell is this?” Izzy grumbled as Jim did some stretches.

“Just let them show you,” Read urged. “It’s really cool.”

The setup was bizarre, wooden blocks of varying heights, sidewise trampolines and a mural of the city skyline painted on the walls. Jim had ducked in after they walked away from a job, insisting they come to burn off energy. Read had willingly followed and since that was him well overruled, Izzy came after.

“You’ve come here?”

“Sure,” Read said easily. “Jim showed me a few things. I’m not really built for it, but it’s neat.”

A timer went off, a buzz that jolted through him and then Jim was off too. He had watched Jim operate for years. He wasn’t surprised with the jumps, the climbing, the easy way they move over obstacles. Yet, seeing it all flowing together without the interruption of people or cars was an impressive display. They finished the course in under a minute and turned back toward them with a grin of triumph.

“What’d you think, boss?”

He tilted his head, “Good shit. My turn?”

Jim’s eyebrows flew up and then they ran back across, coming to bounce a little in front of him, “Willing to risk your brittle bones, old man?”

“The rest of the afternoon off says I can tap you before you make it to the other side.” He wasn’t going to say he could beat them. This wasn’t his place and they were fucking fast.

“You’re on. Read plays judge?”

“Sure thing,” Read laughed. “I’ll just stay safely out of the way.”

When the buzzer went off, Jim was out like a shot. There was no worry about burning out here, the course was too short. Which was an advantage for Izzy too. He had taken the precious seconds to scope a path. He wasn’t going to be jumping and skittering around like a mouse. Instead, he took straightshots, weaving through the equipment. When Jim tackled a particularly high wall, he considered his options and then leapt. He wasn’t going to outclimb them, but he didn’t have to. He just had to get close enough to tug off their left sneaker.

“Hey!” Jim protested as he jumped down, sneaker in hand and held it out to Read to see.

“See you two in the morning,” he tucked the shoe under his arm.

“Wait!” Read called after him. “You drove us here!”

Izzy kept walking. He stayed near the fall pads and wasn’t particularly surprised when he crashed right into one. Jim was heavy when they wanted to be.

“Boss, you suck,” they informed him, stealing back their sneaker.

“Still the boss.” He considered his options, then moved quick, bucking upwards and using their weight against them to send Jim crashing down to the mat beside him. “Enjoy your data entry.”

“Nooo,” they groaned. “Best of three?”

“Nope,” he surged back to his feet. “Nice gym though. Thanks for the tour.”

Jim flipped him off and he laughed all the way back to the car.

Dancing

Luicus counted under his breath. It was probably a bad habit if they were meant to be mastering this, but Izzy didn’t really give a shit. He was no dance instructor and they were just standing in their bedroom in the clear patch between the bed and the window. They didn’t even have the overhead light on, just the warm glow of a single lamp.

They moved their feet in time with Lucius’ nearly silent numbers. There was music pouring from Izzy’s phone on the end table, a crooner’s voice preserved beyond the grave. He sang about love and the stars and the moon.

The moment was so fragile that Izzy wanted to hold his breath. It would be so easy to make this something they laughed at, or something that was too silly to maintain. Luicus was leading, despite Izzy knowing the steps better. Neither of them had stepped on a toe yet. There was space between their bodies. They were linked only by their hands, palm to palm then Izzy’s resting against Lucius’ shoulder and Lucius’ on Izzy’s waist.

Together they traversed in tight circles.

Lucius’ numbers gave way to words, the slightest thread of song as he caught the chorus and mouthed along to it.

There was no one here to see. No one here to notice how Izzy leaned forward and closed the gap not with an embrace, but resting his cheek on Lucius’ other shoulder. They went on swaying as the song faded and the next began. Like the dancers on a music box they swirled around and around, content in each other’s arms.

#leda house and the kraken verse #ficlet #goblin king and the pup #izzy hands #mary read #in a pickle #charlie bonnet #lucius black

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