#Izzy you goddamn mess what a character what a journey

[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