#JUST FUCK LUCIUS IZZY

[winterstaryu]

WHERE IS. THE RELEASE DATE. WHERE IS THE FUCKING RELEASE DATE?????

[ourflagmeansgayrights]

incomplete list of excellent canon ofmd scenes/elements to incorporate into your normal-ass modern au fanfic, in no particular order:

ed and stede swapping clothes for no reason within 10 minutes of meeting each other

buttons talking to seagulls

ed quitting his job to be a fisherman and sucking so bad at fishing

calico jack engaging in horrific urinal etiquette as a power move

calico jack peeing on stede as a power move

izzy calling the cops on stede

izzy fully trying to kill stede and thinking ed will just get over this and move on

jim keeping lucius locked in a box for at least a full entire day

jim having the same exact edgy protagonist backstory with the nuns and the revenge quest and everything

ed giving weapons and a bag of cash to some random children

stede lighting a guy on fire and laughing

stede lighting a party on fire and laughing

stede accidentally killing a badminton and not really caring

stede picking up severed human body parts with his bare hands

stede straight-up abandoning his wife and kids in the middle of the night with no warning

stede crashing garlic soup’s first date and starting a fight with zheng

stede losing in a fight with zheng very publicly and very embarrassingly

[hellsquills]

Someone mentioned in a post some time ago how it's likely that Izzy might call Stede "captain" out of spite for Ed

BUT NOW I can't stop thinking about Lucius, the oldest sibling one betrayed by both of his captains, being the first one to call Izzy "captain" in front of everyone

(Also considering how much OFMD likes parallels, this would be a good one:)

Gif by @lamberts

[arsenicflame]

i think the reason izzy can be so blasé about his relationship with ed is not because hes taken to blaming a shark instead, but because hes actually already done a lot of the processing in the previous episode.

hes mourned his leg, hes had his drunk crying rants. hes gone through the five stages of grief. and then? the crew reaches out to him, offers him their support. they make him a new leg, they nominate him their new figurehead. when he stands there on the prow of the ship, leg on, letter in hand, thats his acceptance, thats his moving on.

[something-about-sunflowers]

Begging, literally begging, people to stop tagging characters when they aren't relevant to the post. If the post is about Ed and Stede and it doesn't mention Izzy or Lucius then you should not be tagging Izzy or Lucius. Stop spamming the tags for a wider reach. It's literally against TOS.

[sunnibits]

aaaa I just wanna hear izzy laugh so bad!! I want someone to crack him up and miraculously get a genuine smile out of him for the first time in like two decades. I want him to overhear some funny bit from the crew’s shared stories that actually makes him huff a little snort, only for him to immediately try to hide it. I want to hear that gravelly, deep rusty chuckle of his goddamnit!!! I want everyone to hear it and immediately whip their heads up in wide eyed shock. (is that… izzy?? laughing???? I didn’t even know he could DO that). (something in ed’s chest creaks a little to hear it again. it’s been so long since he’s heard that sound). I will not rest until my boy gets a tiny shred of happiness and that’s final!!!!

[aucoba]

It's the fact that every messed up thing that happened before is actually addressed now that everyone's back in the ship. The story feels so freacking compelling to me because the characters remember what they've been through. Never do they just "move on" no, they work their asses off before they remind everyone how they got hurt before going on. There's no traumatic experience that's just shove off to come back later in a petty way : it's immediately put out in the open and dealt with. And yet it's not dragged on and on for ever. The healthiness of those pirates gets me

[idiolex]

any time lucius accidentally thinks something even halfway nice abt izzy he has to immediately insult him like 10 times in a row in his head to make up for it send post

[just-an-enby-lemon]

There's refusing to believe your fave died because he is your fave and there is refusing to believe your fave died because your other fave "died" in season one and he is fine now.

[polyamoryprincess]

I know people are upset about Izzy being killed (I am too) but the truth is I don’t think it was bad writing or even them diminishing Izzy’s character, I actually think everything about the last episode has to do with production and I think Izzy lovers will feel a little better about it if they see it like that (it helped for me).

Basically, if you look at it like this, I think 2 important things came into play. Budget and how the showrunners assumed this would play out. Which is to say that they probably assume HBO will either renew them for season 3 and cut their budget again or they’re going to be cancelled.

Both are very likely, so assuming they had this in mind, removing Con, who I’d guess is the 3rd highest paycheck after Taika and Rhys was probably their best budgeting move, especially if they’re thinking of having an all out war in the final season that they probably want to be a visual spectacle, so each season feels like it’s getting consistently larger in scope.

On the other hand, if they do get cancelled (which they probably will because the HBO CEO is a weird little conservative goon), they left the ending in a way that could be considered an ENDING while still being prepped for a 3rd season. So in the time they had left (which was 2 episodes less than their first season) they gave Izzy an entire completed character arc.

I 100% understand the sadness and anger, especially after all the shit he went through during the beginning of the season, I felt gut punched when I learned he died and was bitter as hell through my whole first viewing of the season even though I’d had more than a month to process it. But after having thought it through, I genuinely don’t think it’s simply them treating Izzy as just an extension of Ed’s character growth and I sure as shit don’t think it’s because they wanted to conform to Izzy haters.

I think if they had all of the resources and episodes they wanted, had a guaranteed season 3, I think we would have gotten the character growth we got with better pacing and he probably would have at minimum made it to season 3 (I also think he would have had a love interest, but that’s just what I wanted for him tbh).

I think they did the best they could with what they had, allocated a lot of budget and screen time towards his character despite having less of those 2 things than the first season, and at least let Izzy have a completed story and arc, even if the ending was deeply disappointing.

[lilyvu1234]

I didn't expect them to make up so fast but well... next step is make out I guess

[theindiscreetbookworm]

Chapters: 2/3 Fandom: Our Flag Means Death (TV) Rating: Mature Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings Relationships: Israel Hands/Lucius Spriggs, Past Blackbeard | Edward Teach/Israel Hands - Relationship Characters: Israel Hands, Lucius Spriggs, Blackbeard | Edward Teach, Jim Jimenez, Frenchie (Our Flag Means Death), Fang (Our Flag Means Death), Ivan (Our Flag Means Death) Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Selkies, Selkie Israel Hands, Lucius Spriggs Lives, but we definitely start with him drowning, Lucius Spriggs Lives in the Walls of the Revenge, Canon Related, Post-Season/Series 01, Edward Teach is the bad guy, (kind of), (sorry), Bittersweet Ending Summary:

“What are you?” Selkie. The word sounds like a bell’s chime in his head, and Lucius knows. He’s heard the stories, the legends of seal women from the north that folks told back home. He’d never taken them for truth, not once—not even when Jenkins came back to town from the sea with a dark-eyed new wife in tow and the whispers had swirled throughout the autumn of the reticent new bride and how she lingered at the edge of town some nights, staring back towards the coast. Slowly, Lucius’s mind catches up and he processes what the selkie first said. “There’s a selkie on the ship?”

~~~

The only reason Lucius survives when Edward throws him off the Revenge is the selkies who pull him back to the surface of the water and give him time to breathe. They bring him back to the ship with one piece of information: one of ours is on board. Living in the passageways hidden in the walls, Lucius has to find out who it is; who's been a creature of legend hiding in plain site the whole time and, more importantly, what they have to do with his survival.

[something-about-sunflowers]

Thinking about Izzy with hanahaki, coughing up flowers over Ed for like 25-30 years. Yeah it sucks but its not gonna kill him. Obviously keeps it a secret (From Ed at least, Fang and Ivan caught on but they don’t wanna get involved in All That so they keep it to themselves and help Izzy out when he gets bad spells. None of them mention it but Izzy is grateful, which makes it all the worse when they start palling around with the Revenge crew over Izzy :’Tc).

(Uh, readmore cause I didn’t expect this to get. Like. Huge. lmao)

Then Stede Fucking Bonnet comes along and things get worse as he watches Ed fall for Stede, even if he doesn’t really understand. Still, he manages. Gotta push through, Ed would expect nothing less.

And when Stede leaves and the Kraken happens Izzy goes through a good bit of hell. Ed is barely out the room after the toe incident before Izzy is hacking up so many flowers he thinks he might actually die this time. He doesn’t, though. Cleans himself up, puts his shaky legs to work. (And then Lucius finds out, doesn’t really matter who pulled him back on board, Izzy knows about it because none of them are subtle. He keeps the secret because. He’s really not sure. But Lucius is in the walls and he hears Izzy having a fit and now he knows. He wants to ask. Tries to, even, Izzy shuts him down and he’s not even angry when he does it. Just. Defeated. Lucius silently adds another thing to his ‘Things I’m Gonna Bitch At Blackbeard For Once He’s Not Crazy Anymore’ list.)

When Stede comes back its. Better. For a while. There’s a lot of hurt all around but everyone is alive and they’re (mostly) talking it through as a crew. Ed makes his apologies to the crew, even to Izzy. Stede makes his apologies as well. Izzy accepts that This Is His Life Now. Since Stede seems to actually want to learn now that he can’t just throw money at all his problems Izzy offers to actually teach him (instead of ‘teaching’ him like Ed does). He shows him the ropes (literally), gets him passable with a sword, keeps Ed focused when he’s teaching him navigation (not Izzy’s strong suit, he can manage if he needs to but Ed’s always been better at it). They actually find themselves getting along.

Izzy starts joining the crew during ‘story time’ (sometimes its stories, sometimes its other group activities, easier to just give it the one label). One night, after Stede finishes the story and everyone is heading to bed, he watches Stede and Ed head to their cabin. Sometimes they’ll ask him along for a night cap, not always though, and its. Fine. But. He watches them head off without him. The way they hold each other as they go, smiling, only eyes for each other.

He barely makes it to his room before he’s coughing up the most flowers he’s done since Ed fed him his toe. He, frustratedly, sets to work cleaning them up but. He actually stops to look at them. He stares. And stares and stares.

Two distinct types of flowers littler his floor. He tries to deny it but he understands immediately the implications. Fuck.

Still, Izzy is nothing if not the worlds most repressed trooper. He sticks it out. Or. Tries to. Its hard because Stede and Ed keep asking after him and seeking him out and talking and touching him and. Its just camaraderie he knows but. It makes him want. And he knows he can’t have that. He wouldn’t have a damn botanical garden in his chest if he could. Its starting to take its toll on him though. He can tell its getting bad because Stede and Ed are starting to worry about him. They don’t say it in so many words but he can see it in their eyes. Ed is more hesitant to go on raids, makes up some excuse about his knee playing up more than usual, but Izzy knows it because he can see how his hands shake even when at rest and he’s thinking about him slipping up in a fight. Stede’s plying him with herbal teas and feeding him several small meals throughout the day, he’s noticed Izzy can’t stomach much anymore, how he’s getting weaker by the day because of it.

He leaves after Lucius catches him having another fit. A bad one. He says he’s going to get the captains but Izzy begs him not to. ‘Not yet,’ he lies, ‘I’ll tell them myself but. Just. Give me some time.’ Lucius begrudgingly agrees, gives him two days. ‘And if you haven’t told them by then I’m going to do it myself and you can thank me later.’ Izzy leaves that night.

He shouldn’t be surprised, when he finds Calico Jack in some seedy bar at the nearest port he can reach, though he is. ‘Thought you were dead.’ He finds himself relieved he’s not, its nice to have a familiar face around if he’s gonna die here. (He knows he’s dying. Not immediately, he’s got more fight in him than that, but. Its coming on the horizon and he knows it. Like he knows a storm eventually follows a red dawn.)

Jack eyes him, calculating, never as drunk as he pretends to be. Izzy doesn’t know what he sees but he breaks into his usual grin and says, ‘Nah, still got - what is it - four? Four lives left. Take more than some crazy bird’s cursed cannon ball to take down Calico Jack, babydoll.’ If it were anybody else, Izzy would be bristling at the nickname, but he’s long since resigned himself to being called things like that from Jack. Jack loses his easy grin though and adds ‘You look a bit like death fuckin warmed over though, fuck happened to you?’ There’s genuine care in his tone and it reminds Izzy so much of Ed and Stede and, thank fuck Jack seems to notice because Izzy’s slapping a hand over his mouth and Jack is taking his arm and they barely make it to the shitty little room Jack’s occupying before the petals start spilling out. Jack holds him through the fit, its nice. Izzy almost regrets when its over because Jack sets him down on the bed and steps back, fixes him with a look he’s too exhausted to decipher. ‘Fuck.’ He says, eventually. ‘Think we’re gonna need a drink for this.’ The alcohol burns his tender throat but he knows Jack is gonna get him to talk anyway and its easier with the rum so he drinks. And he talks.

Jack doesn’t call him an idiot but its strongly implied. Izzy doesn’t know what he expects him to do, its not as if he chose this. He doesn’t call him an idiot though, instead he. Takes care of him? Its odd, he knows Jack isn’t as callous and heartless as he pretends to be, knows he’s actually got pretty good bedside manners in fact (There’d been a time before all the legend and everything after when they were all sailing together, they’d lost their medic during a raid and Jack stepped up. He was no doctor but he knew enough to keep everyone from dying til they go someone new. He also had a child and Izzy knew, for all that he was regularly absent from their life, he wasn’t an absent father. He knew how to care for people.), but it surprises him nonetheless to have it turned towards him. Like it matters to him that Izzy is as comfortable as he can be, given the circumstances.

Izzy manages to be up and around most days but they’re growing fewer. Lacking much better to do (he’s never been good at sitting idle) he follows Jack around when he can manage to get out of bed. On days where he can’t Jack still goes out, Izzy wonders why, he mostly just drinks and fucks around, its hardly as if he can’t do that here with Izzy. He supposes he must not make for very good company, sorry state he’s in. Still.

He’s more than a bit annoyed that it takes him hacking up even more flowers after Jack leaves one morning, with a ‘Be back sometime this evening Babydoll, I got something for you,’ to realize. ‘Fuck’s sake,’ he rasps, staring down at the mound of three distinct types of petals. He’s so tired. He’ll clean it up later, promises himself he’ll be up before Jack gets back to clean them up.

He dreams of warm hands, fond smiles, soft touches, and tender voices and wakes coughing up more and more flowers. He can’t breathe. Tears sting his eyes, from the pain in his throat and his lungs, at the thought of being alone at the end like this. He spares a brief thought towards how Jack will react, coming back this evening to find him gone. Wonders how Stede would react. Edward. Still more flowers.

The door bursts open and Izzy doesn’t have the air or the energy to startle. Jack. Jack is there and he looks panicked. And there’s Stede behind him. And Edward. Somehow Izzy finds the air to let out a hysterical little laugh, it comes out more of a gasp. Must have died already, he thinks, how else could they all be here, as though his thoughts summoned them.

‘Izzy!’ He’s not sure which of them is calling him, his vision is starting to go spotty and his ears are ringing. Maybe none of them, maybe its a trick of his desperate, dying mind. There’s hands on him, warm and soft and. Instinct tells him to fight, he can’t see who’s touching him, he knows he needs to fight but. He’s so tired. He can’t see but he feels his eyes slip shut.

‘Izzy, I love you.’

Nothing.

[naranjapetrificada]

not me thinking about how Stede thinks he ruined Ed when even if they never saw each other again after episode 10, their connection showed Ed what love could feel like and marked a watershed in how he'll think about the possibilities of life going forward

[youmagnificentbeast]

also who do we ship izzy with????

[smokedanced]

@survivoirs said: ❛  i’m sorry, i can’t do this. i’m going to give them what they want.  ❜ - my Lucius to Izzy

🌙  *  ―   𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐂𝐀𝐏𝐓𝐈𝐕𝐄 𝐀𝐔𝐃𝐈𝐄𝐍𝐂𝐄    /    ACCEPTING ↷

Izzy’s breaths come laboured and shallow. Hunched, yet stubbornly sitting up against the wall of their cell, his head is reeling so hard it takes him a moment to process what Lucius is saying.

❝ Fuck  ⸺  no, you’re not, ❞    he growls, more alert now, sounding more aggressive than he means to. It’s difficult to control his tone when he’s scared; he instantly berates himself over it internally, tries to force the anger out of his tone, yet the urgency still sounds as such.    ❝ I can take it. I’m not betraying Edward, and I’m not letting you make me do that by your hand. You talk, it’s on me, so keep your mouth shut. You understand? ❞

It’s bewildering, that Lucius would talk for... Izzy’s sake? They haven’t touched the boy. It’s Izzy they drag out several times every day, Blackbeard’s First Mate. Lucius being there, to them, has been just collateral damage, so far. And if it’s up to him, it will fucking stay that way. The boy isn’t getting touched on his watch; he will rip their throats out with his bare hands if they try. Lucius wouldn’t... They’re creative, with their methods. Today, they’d half drowned Izzy.

But it doesn’t, as much as he feels protective over the younger man, make sense to Izzy that those feelings would be... reciprocated. Just because they fuck, doesn’t mean Lucius cares about him. The very thought is pathetic; Izzy doesn’t expect to be the subject of anyone’s care. Doesn’t mean he won’t protect Lucius.

❝ That’s not how it works, ❞    he says, calmer, but still gruff, staring the younger man down.    ❝ You talk and they kill us both, us keepin’ shut up is the only reason we’re still alive. I’ve escaped worse situations. It’s gonna be fine. ❞