#Izzy on a love journey….

[rocketrouquine]

I’m going feral. Nay, I ascended.

[petricorah]

ngl i did not expect izzy hands to be my favorite character in season 2, but here we are. [id in alt]

[gydima]

Izzy questioning his life and choices.

Do I really have to do this? Sigh. "I suppose they look like sausages."

[arsenicflame]

so. anyone else think this moment was gonna lead to rebound sex? just me???

[fluidfox123]

The most beautiful thing from this season so far in my opinion is Ed and Izzy's relationship

It's fucked up, they love each other in all the wrong ways, they're abusive, they're toxic, they ruin each other, they drive the other to death, suicide, to break everything they touch when they're with one another

At some point it may have been the opposite, but even then they weren't meant to be and they've fallen into hell and cannot save the other no matter how hard they try they cannot please the other

Their love is horrible, but it is still love, and while everyone else talks about how love saves (Ed and Stede), is joy (Pete and Lucius), changes (Fang and Jim), is forever shifting and "undeserved" (Jim and Izzy), and takes on so many forms (Jim, Archie, Olu, and Susan)

Everyone should know love is hell, it kills, it harms, it's ruthless and painful and diseased, and it just is one of the most powerful weapons of destruction in the world, Ed and Izzy show that side of love so perfectly it makes me go insane

Love is so many things and it's shown in every corner of this show

[bestial4ngel]

No thoughts… only edizzy la cage aux folles au

[finn-tellectual]

Look, feel free to fill my ask box with the clown emoji if this ends up happening but I genuinely believe that Izzy is NOT going to die in this next episode. Any other show, maybe, but Our Flag Means Death? I really don't think so.

[from-izzy]

if i stay up for just a little bit longer—just one more minute; as they always say—will i find the answers that i've been looking for?

if i stay up for just a little bit longer—just one more crying session—will my mind be clearer tomorrow when i wake up?

if i stay up for just a little bit longer—maybe doing something more productive to distract myself from my thoughts—will i be able to genuinely smile tomorrow?

i'm (only) nineteen years old—not born in the 1990s—why am i carrying all this?

do i have to carry this too?

[idk-i-just-really-like-tsc]

season 6 episode 4 is actually so beautiful for izzie and so crucial to her eventual future as an oncologist. shes fighting for this cancer patient because he has nearly impossible odds but so did she once. she understood the patients struggle because shes BEEN THROUGH IT. shes alive because people fought for her and now she does the same thing for her patients as an oncologist!!!

[teeny-tiny-revenge]

Izzy arc this, garlic soup arc that, we don't talk enough about my man Buttons, who in just four episodes of S2 completed his journey from insane guy on a leash to magical transmogrification into his dream form. In both seasons he perfectly straddles the line between genuinely competent and helpful first mate and vaguely haunting enigma. Here is a first mate who can do it all: spot enemy ships at a huge distance with his naked eye, and chew through the enemy lines with his fake teeth set. He can hex the guy who double crossed you, he knows about the gravy basket, he gives genuinely helpful advice to both Stede and Ed, and he does it all as a sort of side job, because he is actually pretty busy with his quest to achieve his final form. To love means to change, and he's got the perfect bowl for it. Truly the most character. Nobody does it like him.

[triflesandparsnips]

Izzy wanted to be punished by someone. Izzy is used to being punished by someone.

(Izzy has had several toes now to imprint on the idea that being punished is a way to help the person punishing him Deal with shit. Even if that person hates Izzy, Izzy can be useful that way. Izzy is desperate to be Useful.)

(Izzy tried to be Useful by telling Stede that Ed was dropped off on an island rather than dead in the hold-- words he thought Stede needed to hear to have a reason to escape, and to keep his faith in the crew so that he'd take them with him. Izzy tried to be Useful to Stede in a way that Stede would respond to, while also still stuck in the idea that maybe, like Ed, Stede's all-consuming focus would be the Other Captain instead of the well-being of the crew and, well, his own dang life.)

(...it's easier to frame the fantasy of not having killed your previous captain as a way to be Useful to the new one instead of, say, as a way to avoid your own culpability and feelings.)

(And then when the truth is revealed, and that way of being Useful fizzled out, Izzy goes back to toe-filled fundamentals: Punishing Izzy is a way to release the pressure. If all else fails, Izzy can be Useful as a way to harm someone other than themselves.)

(...because it's easier to frame that punishment as letting someone else take what they need--even when it's violent and short-lived-- instead of, say, dealing with the fact that you have so little skill in dealing with the repercussions of your own actions that you've outsourced your self-harm to others.)

Meanwhile, though? In the real, non-Izzy-logic world? Stede here has no fucking interest in whatever the shit Izzy is trying with this. Oh, so you killed your beloved captain, Izzy? You gave everything you had, you gave up your flesh and you tried to give up your life, and it still wasn't Useful enough, so you finally broke down and helped a mutiny? And it's so fucking awful to contemplate that you weren't Useful enough for the one captain that he died, and you're so shit at following his last implicit orders that you can't even kill yourself without fucking it up, so you'll try committing suicide through Stede instead, "do your worst" so Izzy doesn't have to, so he can be Useful, so he can be punished, so he can have some kind of connection again to someone without having to think about, think about--

Yeah. That. Okay.

Stede just leaves.

Stede doesn't need Izzy for any of that. Stede doesn't want Izzy for any of that.

And that, oh yeah-- that is Stede punishing Izzy for sure. The right way. Not in the way that Izzy can call it a service (by being Useful), not in the way that he can call it a penance (for the betrayal of these captains)...

But in the way where Izzy can't get his need for punishment by giving someone else the whip.

You want to be Useful, Izzy Hands? Start with a fucking mirror and leave Stede out of it. Whatever you fuckin' do, do it because you're finally ready to be Useful to yourself.

izzy told stede to “do his worst,” probably expecting to get his usual bitchiness or an angry tirade…

but then izzy realized that stede’s silence cuts worse and is more damning than any of his snark and insults

[lunar-system]

Stede Bonnet: The Sun.

Adapted from the traditional Rider-Waite-Smith tarot, Stede as the Sun rides through the tides, draped in gold and fine fabrics, radiating his own light. As the Sun he is open to the world like a child, full of optimism and about to make it everyone's problem.

Longer exploration of this card's symbolism under the cut.

My other tarot posts can be found here: Ed as the Star, Izzy as the Moon, Ed&Stede together, all three together.

The Sun: Happiness, clarity, moving forward towards a new life.

Rachel Pollack writes: The Sun brings clarity, simplicity. This is the moment when a new world, a new life, begins to take shape.

Whether it is him having left his marital home for the first or the second time, Stede as the Sun is ready. A new world has opened up, and he heads forward with no hesitation.

The Sun tells us to act boldly, with clarity and purpose, but also trust. Not the confidence of a warrior, but the openness of a child.

The qualities of the Sun make Stede shine as a captain. A clear and unique vision, a childlike trust, and purpose burning bright drives him and his crew forward no matter what.

The original Rider-Waite-Smith card shows a child riding a horse in a garden, signifying joy and freedom. In Stede's card the garden has transformed into an ocean, but it still remains like a playground to those who see it with childlike wonder.

Stede also has a lot of common with the Fool, the first card of the deck:

The Fool is alone, with nothing left but what you can carry in a bag on a stick. But the Fool is also freedom – freedom from rules, freedom from possessions, freedom from the narrow beliefs of what is important, even your own beliefs about yourself.

Freed from the shackles of society Stede is as free as the Fool, left with nothing but the clothes on his back and a heart full of love. He rides into the unknown with no bridle, with no means to guide himself, and yet he beliefs he will find his way. With the Sun in his heart he knows he can create the life he always wanted.

The Fool takes a risk, and in the Sun he is rewarded.

***

Sources

Image source: Pamela Colman Smith, 1909, republished as Tarot of A. E. Waite, 2016, AGM-Urania, Germany

Text source: Rachel Pollack, A Journey of 78 Steps, 2011, as cited in the booklet for instruction and guidance of Tarot of A. E. Waite, 2016, AGM-Urania, Germany

[bookshelfdreams]

That is certainly - a statement.

What about Jim, who both metaphorically and literally discovers a path for themself beyond what they were raised to be? What about Pete, who learns to overcome his toxic masculinity, his posturing and self-importance? What about Ed, whose entire story is about deconstructing the performance that is expected of him?

What about, oh, idk, our main fucking character Stede Bonnet, whose arc starts with him literally breaking out from the hetero marriage he was forced into despite never fitting in? Who tries (and initially fails) to build a community where he can be himself? Whose entire story is about discovering his own queerness! He starts out not even able to put a finger on WHY his marriage made him feel so suffocated, and then journeys through s1 until he reaches the emotional climax - "His name is Ed"!

Contrast that with Izzy, who has to be dragged into a supportive community kicking and screaming. Who rejects care and compassion, even at his worst, who has to be forced to accept help. He receives the leg and calls the crew a homophobic slur for it, ffs. Only after that, only when people refuse to let him push them away, is he able to poke his nose into something approaching positive human connections. And that's a powerful narrative, sure, in it's own way; but it's hardly the Ultimate Queer Experience, and it's definitely not the "only queer arc".

And Izzy never lets go of the old ways. He never abandons the Blackbeard-era pirate lifestyle for something more positive, not fully. And that's okay, because ultimately, his arc isn't even about himself.

It's about Ed.

Ed keeps repeating toxic relationship patterns, and Izzy is a part of that. He's linked (on purpose, and I wish it had been done more explicitly) to Ed's father; because Izzy represents the poison that was instilled in Ed from a young age, and that has become so entrenched in his system that he can't imagine a life without it. He keeps Izzy around despite being hurt by him because Izzy is predictable, and in that, is safe, even though he hurts Ed; at least it's a hurt Ed is familiar with and can rely on.

When Izzy slowly changes it's to show that Ed is growing beyond the little voice in his head telling him to reject softness, that he can never be loved, that We're just not these kinds of people. If Izzy can evolve from someone spitting boyfriend at Ed like it's a slur to someone congratulating him on getting laid by that same person, Ed can overcome his inner demons telling him the same thing.

That's the point of Izzy's arc. And this is why he has to die, because Ed can never be truly free as long as Izzy is around. So Izzy goes, quietly, peacefully, and releases Ed of the poison; apologizes to him, tells him I was so wrong, and I am so sorry, because that's what Ed needs to hear to move forward.

And that's such a kind, positive way to end the story of Izzy Hands.

[girlbossblackbeard]

THOUGHTS AND LAYERS

i spent literally an hour analyzing this trailer at 0.5 speed. this post is long af and these thoughts are in no particular order and are poorly organized:

-there's a big storm (which I think was already confirmed), and ed gets swept overboard by a bucket on a rope:

he then crawls up out of the water onto the beach

then goes into the forest, creates a hut, has a journey of healing and self-discovery, meets hornigold (or his ghost??)

and kills him thus killing the part of himself that he hated the most (his violence) as a parallel to stede finally getting rid of nigel's ghost by accepting and believing in himself

-in the stede/ed split screen, the stede shot is from the first ep of s2 right after stede finds the marooned crew at the end of ep 10 in s1 (you can tell bc his hair and clothes are still clean, there's no gay bandana around his neck, and that's his lil dinghy buttons is rowing)

-they go to shore and wind up at the merchants shop where "susan" overhears they're tracking down blackbeard

and she invites stede's crew onto her ship, cue the outfit change in the BTS photos:

-the way stede makes that little swishy turn in the red coat -

makes me think this may be first time he's been in fine clothes since his "death" and i hope we get a moment of him reflecting on how he gave up everything for ed only to have him hate him :( but then obviously realizing that ed is worth it and he'd do it all again in a heartbeat if it meant getting a chance at spending the rest of his life with him

-izzy and stede team up, and izzy is clearly training either himself or stede on the revenge (?)

soooooo many questions: what caused him to leave ed and join stede's crew? is he fighting with ed and is training to take him out or is he just done having his love be unrequited so he leaves and just so happens to stumble into stede? is izzy thinking that if he can't cut out the longing he has for ed he has to kill him instead so the pain will go away? what, pray tell, the fuck is going on in here on this day

-wee john in the mermaid costume (and olu in a bunny or donkey costume?):

a fuckery? or just a weird acid trip? OR IS IT THE TALENT SHOW THEY NEVER GOT TO HAVE??

-ed really does force everyone on his crew to wear war paint

-all the tally marks scratched into the walls - is that the number of days since stede bonnet broke ed's heart?

-ed in the forest in PEARL NECKLACE HELLOW????????

-the tear in ed's eye as he moves the cake toppers closer together which he also painted to make the lady look more like him he literlaly is in love wiht stede so bad wht the FUCJ

-ed's crew is murdering SO MANY PEOPLE at the wedding wtf (pic not included bc scary)

-delusional moment but i hope anne bonny on stede's lap is looking at calico jack off screen

-stede and ed are running towards each other on the black sand beach (thank you @sluterastede for pointing this out to me wtf!!!!!!)

which evolves my theory that ed in the forest goes through his healing journey and realizes he wants to openly love stede again but then the navy attack and stede just so happens to have found ed at the same time and they're fighting to get to each other and taking out everyone in their way (what if that was okracoke lmao)

-the swede and spanish jackie hooking up in the trailer

makes me think the bts shot of ed and jackie is them looking at stede and the swede, and ed being SO in love with stede obvi but jackie is watching the swede do some weirdly hot shit so she's gotta have him (what if they got married and he became her umpteenth husband in a drunken vegas-like shotgun wedding where she wakes up the next day to realize what has happened lmao)

-also this pic is DEF from the reunited/make up era bc ed's half-up hair, no makeup, soft eyes, and buttons' clothing. i am weeping

-stede in pain - is it an injury or a tattoo? or torture as @sluterastede posits?? he looks down at his lower body before screaming so maybe he knows what's about to happen to him??

-ed in the forest wearing the pearl necklace (see above), ed saying "fuck you stede bonnet" wearing the pearl necklace (see below)

does he pick it up at the wedding??? (theory credit to @sluterastede!!!! can u tell we watched the trailer together 400 times) i can't tell if he's wearing it in the one wide shot of him in that scene:

but regardless of when he acquires it, does he take it bc he remembers stede said he wears fine things well???? and he starts to believe he may deserve them??

-side note about a LACK of something: ed isn't wearing the cravat at all in the trailer near as i can tell, and he's not wearing the pearl necklace when throwing knives at the wall (at least from what I can see, which is not much) which leads me to believe that scene is in the earlier part of the season

-lastly, the most important song lyrics from the trailer (the beautiful ones by prince):

and that's my dissertation on the ofmd season 2 teaser trailer thank you

[sky-fire-forever]

Gods, imagine if all of this is so Ed can win Izzy back. They're going on this adventure so that Izzy CAN stay with Ed without Ed hating himself

But during this adventure, it becomes more and more apparent that staying with Ed isn't good for Izzy. It isn't good for either of them

So at the very end, Izzy and Ed are watching the crew sail off and Izzy stares at them with a heavy heart, but is fully prepared to stay with Ed forever

But Ed says. "Go."

And Izzy looks at him, confused. This was all so they could be together, wasn't it?

But Ed says "This isn't the coat you gave me. You're not mine. Go to after them.'

And like the end of a cheesy movie, Izzy follows after the crew while Ed watches

I continue to rotate selkie!Izzy

Following on from a tiny Hot Potato I tossed back and forth with the wonderful @carrymelikeimcute...

Ed destroyed Izzy's coat during the Kraken era.

He regretted it So Fucking Much as soon as he started wanting to live rather than... trying to push Izzy and the others to kill him by abusing them as much as humanely possible.

But he still fucking destroyed it.

Izzy isn't going to leave him over this (even if Ed simultaneously thinks he should, for Izzy's sake; and can't bear to let him go). But there's this awful sadness when he looks at the sea now, and it makes Ed's stomach knot all the way up into his throat.

Buttons has the perfect solution. If Ed goes on a quest to find the real Goddess Calypso, she'll be able to give Izzy a new coat! So the Revenge crew sail away on a new mission, bound for Tia Dalma's grotto........

I just want semi-broken-up (but trying to fix things, but should absolutely go their separate ways) Edizzy having one last adventure together 🥺 I think I'd prefer it to end with them saying goodbye for good, with Ed waving to a happy chubkins seal who swims off into the bright horizon after the Revenge and her crew! Because they were Izzy's family, goddammit, and he deserved to stay with them.

[clairegregoryau]

Through the Looking Glass

From fairytale in Season 1 to stark reality in Season 2 of Our Flag Means Death- meta ported across from this Twitter thread by popular demand!

This thread contains spoilers for the entirety of OFMD Season 2

First OFMD S1 rewatch since S2, and holy shit, if you haven't done that yet... do that. A thing that it made instantly clear: they told us *all along* where this was going, but there was a reason we didn't see it. Because we were living in Stede's world then. Now it's Ed's.

I know that a lot of us have felt that the tone shift at the end of S2 was... jarring, compared to what's come before. This felt like a show that wouldn't go there. One where being run through was a temporary hiccup. We've travelled all the way from this to this.

But we haven't jumped there without a journey in between. And from the minute we started hearing about Blackbeard, the show never tried to hide what Ed's world and his specific life was like. Not once. In fact they told us over and over and over.

But Season 1 told us a lot of those things through song and story and fuckery. It blended reality with fiction.

Stede met the Blackbeard he knew through books and tall tales, and the real man was even more wonderful than he'd imagined.

We, along with Stede, were comfortable thinking that all those other tales were exaggerations and misrepresentations, and a lot of them very likely were.

The Ed Stede got to know was a person who was capable of whimsy and silliness and loved soft things and doing something weird. Yep, he was also capable of violence and rage, but when he was with Stede, he didn't feel it so much.

This was a vacation from that life.

To Stede he was absolutely lovely... oh, and also a bloodthirsty killer. And Stede loved (and loves) everything about him, and both of those things can be true. This is a perfect example of a spot where (in watching Season 1 without the benefit of hindsight) I assumed that everyone else in that pub was wrong, and Stede was simply trying to protect Ed's fearsome reputation by agreeing on the bloodthirsty bits. And I think from Stede's perspective that was largely true. I think that's how they wanted us to see Ed, through his eyes. Now, after watching both seasons, I think it wasn't the whole picture.

They told us, we heard it, we saw glimpses of it. But we (and Ed) were in Stede's run-away-to-sea fairytale the whole time. It wasn't until Stede left that we saw the reality- the Ed we knew had been, to a degree, a fictional character all along. I always saw this scene as Ed putting a bit of distance between himself and reality; it always felt like the Blackbeard of Stede's storybooks was the fictional one. But now it feels like the softer Ed that Stede knew was much the same- neither of them the whole story of who Ed was and is.

The one person who refused to live in Stede's fairytale was Izzy. I've seen people say it before, but he always gave off that vibe of the only human in the Muppets movie, or the guy who was in Black Sails while everyone else was in Pirates of the Caribbean. He saw the real risks clearly.

And in that light, the end of S1 has shifted an inch to the left for me, and I'm seeing it at a slightly different angle.

Izzy ripped away the healing Ed was doing, but in some respects he did it by tearing away the fairytale we'd all been living in, shoving Ed back into the Blackbeard story.

And that's where we pick up again in Season 2.

The fairytale reference came back in S2 in two notable places, those being Jim carrying that legacy forward in the darkest times, and in Izzy invoking the wooden boy against Ricky's efforts. Stede's made himself into a real boy. Ricky, nope.

Now that I've watched both seasons together, the tone shift doesn't feel so jarring at all, actually.

It feels like sliding through the looking glass, out of Stede's world, and into Ed's- a world that existed all along; we were just seeing it, la vie en rose, through Stede's eyes.

At the beginning of S2, Stede's gone, and we're seeing it unfiltered through Ed's reality.

But Stede wasn't lying when he said he loved everything about Ed. He made a promise to come back and find him- he went down into Ed's darkest place and reminded him that no matter how bad things got, there WAS someone waiting for him, ready to love him.

The contrast between S1's fantasy and S2's reality (excluding mermaids and actual bird guys and cursed coats) is stark, but it really is that.

We have the same settings, the same people, and very different ideas and outcomes at different times.

But it was always there.

Things do come back to a state of (precarious) balance once they're all together. Apologies are made, whether they're spoken out loud or through actions. Things go right, things go wrong. Healing happens. Izzy continues to have the steadiest, most real through-line in the story as he tracks toward redemption, finds acceptance, and to an extent finds himself.

Once again, I hate that they went here with the ending and I wish they hadn't. But it got a fraction easier for me looking at it not as a continuation of Stede's fairytale, but of the grounded-in-pirate-reality arc Izzy was always on, even while we lived in Stede's world.

Where does that leave us? We're not going back to the fairytale, but we're not going to be living in Black Sails for S3, either. We've hit a fusion point where S1 ended with each of them going to separate, miserable homes, but S2 ended with them in the same place, ready and willing to make a go of it.

Season 3 is going to give us their world, together.

I LOVED the moments in this season where the deep emotions were in balance with the silliness I've always adored about this show. Eps4-6 were wonderful like that. Clearly we're not done with drama, either, but like Ed and Stede, I think we'll find a middle ground.

Anyway in conclusion, a rewatch of S1 after S2 somehow made me love the first season even more, which felt impossible? It's now gained /even more/ layers of depth than it had before. No matter how you feel about S2 I think it's worth that rewatch.

Adding one more bit of clarity for myself: I think we got a bit (intentionally) seduced in S1 by the idea that the Ed of the storybooks, the Vampire Viking Clown with the nine guns, was a version of him that others saw, when Stede saw the REAL person who 'worked' for Blackbeard.

In hindsight I think it's clear the Ed Stede go to know was also not the complete version of himself- the reality is, there's a whole spectrum between the two, and they've landed in the middle of it now. Ed intentionally leaned into the unlovable Kraken image to protect himself.

It very much didn't work, just like being just... Edward hadn't worked to protect himself, either. This season has been very much about pulling those two extremes together and finding all the parts that make up Ed overall (another thread on that here on Twitter, which I'll also shift across to Tumblr soon!)

And I think one of my favourite things in S2 has been seeing the way Stede SEES that- he knows what Ed's done, everyone's told him, but he still loves Ed. sees his trauma and how it affects him, and believes he's a good man regardless. He IS lovable; he's not forever broken.

And together, they can heal.