#Nathaniel Edwards

[evntualities]

[soapbubbles511]

WHY IS ED WEARING BUTTONS' SHIRT?!!??! WHAT IS HAPPENING!!??!

[edscuntyeyeshadow]

buttons and ed

[stitchologist]

An encouraging love letter all the fanfic writers and artists-

Don't stop.

I don't care if Canon has gone off the rails or given us lore that directly contradicts your ideas. I want to read it. I want to see it. I want to know where you'd take these characters. I want to know what inspired you to create in the first place and I want to go on that journey with you. I want you to finish.

I want you to make it better. I want you to make it worse. Make it silly and heartbreaking and amazing. Make it everyday life and what ifs and 5&1s.

I'll be there with kudos and likes and ❤️❤️❤️ comments since this is the most articulate I've been in months.

Keep going. You loved an idea so much you've spent who knows how many hours writing and editing and drawing and posting.

I see you. Don't stop.

❤️❤️❤️

[magniloquent-raven]

that second batch of episodes tho 👌👌

✨here be memes✨

[our-flag-means-love]

i just need to talk some more about one of my favorite sequences of events in the entire season.

stede says he'll be right back and runs off into the woods, directly paralleling him leaving ed alone at the dock in s1e9.

buttons says "to love the sea as she must be loved requires change."

ed says "people don't change, buttons. not into birds or otherwise."

buttons seemingly successfully transforms into a bird and flies off.

within seconds, stede returns, tells ed he couldn't find his way back to the ship, and asks ed to come with him, in direct contrast to s1e9.

it's such a simple sequence, but such a perfect one. people do change. both into birds and otherwise.

[kori-senpai]

I have never played smash bros in my life

(Edit: I did a part two ayeee ✨ you guys are persuasive (affectionate))

[favouritefi]

ofmd chibi commissions

[lukelemon-art]

There’s this PetShop!AU by ALandslideOfOpossums on twitter where Ed is a cat and Stede is a goldfish. My friend was devastated that they can’t be together, so…

Enter Buttons the Sea Witch! 🌊✨

[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

[evntualities]

nathaniel edwards

[starlithumanity]

I'm having a fascinating time rewatching Our Flag Means Death with the knowledge that Ed sees Izzy as a "safe" mentor/family figure ("safe" because Izzy is Ed's subordinate aboard the ship, which creates a more balanced power dynamic) upon whom Ed projects his many unresolved daddy issues. That stated interpretation from David Jenkins does work, even in season one!

Most of the fandom conceptualized season one Izzy as a power-hungry subordinate to Ed and a "co-parent" to the crew (paralleled with the Stede/Mary marriage) who has an understated masochist lust for the Blackbeard legend. All of that is true too, because Ed and Izzy's relationship is incredibly complex and fucked-up. I know from personal experience that this kind of layered toxic relationship is completely possible, though it might seem contradictory on the surface.

In season one, Ed considering Izzy as a mentor/family explains more why Ed let his first mate be so insulting to and controlling of him and still kept wanting Izzy to stay beside him. It adds more meaning to how Ed veers super hard into the violent Blackbeard role after feeling cornered and threatened by Izzy at the end of the season. (This also has further weight for those of us with family members who have disapproved quite loudly of our queer relationships.)

There is a strong parallel that I noticed previously between young Ed's reaction to his father abusing his mother and season one Ed's reaction to Izzy dueling Stede. Stede is linked to Ed's mother through the red silk and through the fact that Stede and Ed's mother--and Lucius--are the only people we see treating Ed with compassion/softness in season one. It thus makes sense for Izzy to be mirroring Ed's father.

Then there's another parallel in how Ed responded to Izzy mentioning Stede in a mocking way ("pining for his boyfriend") by choking Izzy, like how Ed had once responded to his father threatening his mother by strangling his father. In this moment, Izzy touched Ed's face with an intimate kind of familiarity and said, "There he is." Ed clearly found this unnerving, which some people read as sexually harassment, but it makes just as much sense for it to be his daddy issues getting triggered.

(GIF Sources: captain-flint and divineandmajesticinone)

I think part of why this dynamic was unclear in season one is because the writers wanted us to see that, even though Izzy is a mentor figure who taught Ed certain skills, Ed is a grown man who is fully competent on his own. He had likely started building the Blackbeard legend by the time Izzy met him, he has a clever mind that's constantly coming up with new plans, and when Izzy himself was left as captain, Izzy proved to not have the necessary charisma and compassion to lead the crew. Ed is the star power; Izzy is the manager, so to speak.

However, Izzy overestimates his importance and often talks about himself like he's a martyr to the Blackbeard legend, working so hard to keep both Ed and the crew in line. He claims that he's been "clean[ing] up [Ed's] messes... my whole life," which feels like a very parental complaint to me.

Ed fuels this martyr complex some in season two by physically harming Izzy, but notably, Ed doesn't threaten this kind of harm to the rest of the crew (though he isn't very careful with them either) until he's in the suicidal spiral of driving the ship into a storm. Before that, Ed threatens Izzy specifically, both because Izzy threatened him and Stede in season one and because Ed's trying, in his own fucked-up way, to prove to Izzy that he's following Izzy's guidance and "being Blackbeard." The toe-cutting also has some metaphorical weight: Izzy demanded that Ed "cut off" the gentler pieces of himself to be Blackbeard, so Ed starts cutting off literal pieces of Izzy in return. When it becomes clear that this isn't satisfying Izzy either, that's when Ed really goes off the deep end. ("I loved you the best I could," but I never could be enough to fit your expectations.)

(GIF Source: livelovecaliforniadreams)

Meanwhile, we see Izzy starting to question things specifically in response to Ed saying that Izzy could be replaced as first mate. Izzy thought his place, as a mentor/family and self-professed "martyr", was more secure than that, and it challenges his whole identity.

Throughout season two, the mentor/family dynamic is further emphasized via the parallel between Izzy/Ed/Stede and Auntie/Zheng Yi Sao/Oluwande. Others have discussed this more, but there's so much meaning in the similar ways these characters carry themselves, in the tension of Auntie disapproving of Zheng Yi Sao's feelings for "soft" Oluwande, and in the way Oluwande finally teaches Auntie to soften herself some for Zheng Yi Sao.

(GIF Source: bizarrelittlemew)

Additionally, in episode five of season two, we see Stede turning to Izzy for mentorship, proclaiming that Ed himself had recommended Izzy as someone who "made him into the captain he is today." People have questioned that as being a false manipulation from Stede, but I think there's a good chance that it was true! (Ed probably said this to Stede sometime during season one, when the two of them got to know each other so well.) "Taught him everything he knows" is definitely a flattering exaggeration, but hey.

(GIF Source: ofmdaily)

Throughout this and other episodes, we see Izzy continuing to take on a mentor-like role with Stede and the crew (and eventually Ed) as he tries to recenter himself after the darkness of the first three episodes. It's clear that Izzy is most comfortable playing the gruff and politically incorrect old fighter who offers guidance, but now he's letting himself branch out more and connect to the crew in new gentler ways. He even metaphorically "gives his blessing" to Ed and Stede's first time having sex by providing the musical accompaniment, which is the perfect amount of weird for this show, haha.

(GIF Source: izzyfag)

Izzy's transformative arc in season two also involves a steady pattern of reversals, corrected new versions of his treatment of Ed in season one, as Izzy start coming to terms with the harm he did to Ed. Other people have discussed this in more detail, but I think the pace of this change is realistic to what you would see in such a situation. Ed's responses to this, too, are consistent with him seeing Izzy as a mentor/family.

(GIF Source: edwards-teach)

I should further note that Izzy and Benjamin Hornigold (another abusive father figure from Ed's past) are two characters mirrored by the fact that they call Ed "Eddie" in season two. I can imagine that being the nickname Ed used when he was younger, before growing out of it. Izzy seems to start feeling the echo of that memory of younger Ed when Ed comes to him scared, asking for Izzy to "fix [his] mess" by shooting Ed like Ed "dreamed" about.

(GIF Source: blairpfaff)

Right before Izzy's death, there's a scene where Ed is triggered super hard in his daddy issues by the fisherman "Pop-Pop." I think the writers wanted to remind us of the parental trauma Ed has been through before giving us some catharsis through Izzy's deathbed confession and apology. In that moment, Izzy takes full accountability for what he did, while Ed cries and says, "You're my only family." Izzy redirects him in a final bit of mentorly guidance, telling Ed that the crew is there to be his family if Ed will let himself be loved, truly, in the way Ed has often rejected and distanced himself from being loved.

(GIF Source: izzyfag)

Now, I do think Izzy's death was the right choice for this show. I like that DJenkins went with the classic mentor death trope, and he did a similar thing with Buttons, the other old-timer first mate! I agree likewise with those who have discussed Izzy's loss as being a necessary step for the narrative to move forward both from Ed's darker self/parental trauma and from the older age of piracy that Izzy represents. Izzy was always meant to be a dark reflection of and a narrative support/conflict for Ed, and this is the natural culmination of that. His complicated legacy will continue to be something Ed has to reckon with, however, although Ed is trying to compartmentalize that right now.

I very much hope to see, in season three (🤞🏻), how Ed continues to process his past, especially now that he's trying for a domestic life that will likely lead into marriage. Marriage, from what I've seen, often acts as a staging ground for whatever parental trauma you had growing up, because you look to your parental figures as an example of how to do "adult" things. This is going to be a huge conflict for both Ed and Stede, who has his own personal negative marriage experience. I suspect Izzy will continue to represent this problem in some form or another.

(GIF Sources: kiwistede and yenvengerberg)

[captain-flint]

Jump, man!

[yantarnii]

heart-eyes Ed and… well…..

[magniloquent-raven]

this is how i cope with waiting on s2

✨here be memes✨

[starbramble]

Our Flag Means Death Studies.