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naranjapetrificada · 1 year ago

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The first thing I should ever have said about Izzy and the last thing I intend to say until at least October 26th.

[Although I am not Her strongest soldier, so who knows if I will stick the landing.]

So to start with, I was a "late" arrival to the show. I knew it existed of course, but I only occasionally saw things that reminded me it existed. The first time I saw a mention of "grumpy/sunshine" it was with a picture of Ed and Stede, so I guess on some level I knew there was shipping going on, but that was literally all I knew. I didn't even know it involved Blackbeard lol.

Which is all to say that I first approached and watched season 1 removed from basically anything anyone had to say about it. I think what actually got me to watch it wasn't anything anyone had to say either, it was from youtube recommendations? Like I think I had watched a couple Taika interviews or something and ofmd stuff started showing up? So after catching a few clips and intentionally spoiling the kiss for myself (life is too short to be queerbaited) I watched it in April/May 2023, and was Changed by it the way so many other people were. It grabbed me so hard I started looking for fics, and when fic grabbed me even harder I became a regular tumblr user for the first time ever in June 2023.

What I didn't do, before the second half of 2023, was care particularly much about Izzy Hands.

I remember describing him as psychologically fascinating to the first IRL friend I talked to about the show, and joking that he just needed a good dom. As much as his decision to call in the navy was a threat to Stede's and Ed's lives, I saw his actions as part of a thing needed for the story, and while I knew he was one of the season's villains there wasn't really any heat behind that assessment.

For me he was there to set things in motion, and to serve the narrative in certain ways, to be a foil, more storytelling tool than man. That doesn't mean I didn't think Con did an excellent job adding layers to him, he absolutely made Izzy take up space and feel more present and textured than he otherwise might have. But when I began to zoom out and consider things on meta level, Izzy existed to do a certain thing or occupy a certain place in relation to the narrative and other characters more than anything else. And that was fine.

Then I started reading meta here, and found myself surrounded by passionate conversations about Izzy from many directions occurring with an intensity that I couldn't wrap my brain around. I saw people tying themselves into knots to justify and excuse the behavior of a textual antagonist, and I was baffled and because I still saw Izzy for what his role in the narrative was, it literally made no sense to see his behavior explained away. In the framework I brought to the fandom when I first arrived, trying to explain away Izzy's behavior would be like looking at a forest fire and trying to explain away processes like combustion and oxidation. Or if you'll allow me to borrow another extended, nature-based metaphor from a fic in an entirely different fandom:

Again, because from where my head was at, it didn't make sense to look at Izzy's morality as a zero sum game because in this metaphor, he was functionally just a brackish body of water. I'm not saying the morality is brackish, I'm saying the morality was literally not the point because like an estuary, an antagonist "must exist" because antagonists exist for specific reasons directly related to storytelling goals.

So there was no real heat behind my feelings about him or his actions, beyond the natural emotional reactions we have to characters and their behaviors before we zoom out. I was of course upset with his treatment of Lucius, which was targeted compared to other members of the crew. I was annoyed with the way he talked to and about Ed. I laughed when his plans had the equal and opposite results of what he intended, which you could argue happened with every single plan he made for the entirety of season 1. And yes, especially as a Black person living in the US, I felt the fear and betrayal that comes from seeing someone call the cops (which given the show and its writers, it does not feel like a stretch to describe calling the navy that). I wondered if there was any coming back from a choice like that, which is a big overriding question for the series as a whole.

I'm not here to debate any of the points in the previous paragraph. I know how I feel and you feel how you feel and there's already been so much said about the morality of it all by people who have explained themselves well, so let them convince you or not. Instead I've been trying to talk about the two sides of my experience before and after getting into the fandom with Izzy.

Before: Izzy Hands, Narratively Useful Antagonist Portrayed Compellingly And Effectively by Con O'Neill.

After: Izzy Hands, Unfortunate Avatar Of The Sadly Common Tendency For Certain Fans To Hyperfocus On A White Antagonist Or Secondary Character When There Already Exists A Protagonist They're A Foil Of (And Also It Looks Bad TO Do That When The Protagonist Is Someone With A Marginalized Identity).

I'm not here to argue the merits of those assessments either, because that's not the point. The point is the vast gulf between them and how the latter does such an incredible disservice to the Izzy we were given and that so many people claim to love. The latter comes from a place where morality is the focus, which I'm sorry y'all, feels like it originates with people who refuse to countenance Izzy's role in the story as well as his characterization.

Viewers who were willing to see Izzy as an antagonist, who don't view the word "antagonist" as a value judgement in and of itself, who don't think that finding an antagonist charismatic or compelling means anything about their own morality, those people can look at the show we were given and take it for what it was made to be. I'm not saying that it's only the Izzy stans (not enjoyers, not jar people) who start fights or that people who understand that Izzy is an antagonist don't also have deep morality related feelings about him and his actions in the first season. What I am saying is that sanding off Izzy's rough edges and trying to make him into something he isn't poisons even the possibility of having a discussion about him because people enter the conversation with two completely different understandings of reality. If you cannot accept the job that season 1 Izzy was given to do to move the story along, well you might as well have watched a completely different show for how much that fanon Izzy has anything to do with the canon one.

This show deserves better than that. The writers deserve better than that. Con O'Neill deserves better than that. Israel Basilica Hands deserves better than that. We all do.

#I know some of y'all are allergic to calling season 1 Izzy a villain or even an antagonist much less a villain #but given how self aware this production is about tropes it's weird to pretend that's not literally his function #at least in season one #maybe there are changes to that on the horizon #but we won't have the complete picture until Oct. 26 so maybe chill if people have an antipathy toward him #especially because at least a third of that antipathy is rooted in how criticizing him AT ALL acts like a summoning ritual #and I have to wonder about the acrimony levels if people felt like they could offer critical opinions easily #anyway rip my notifications probably #ofmd #our flag means death spoilers #ofmd spoilers #ofmd speculation #ofmd meta #fandom meta #fandom fuckery #character meta #let izzy be izzy #izzy hands #izzy critical #the izcourse #and now to filter literally every Izzy tag until November so I can enjoy the season in peace #that's as close as I'll make it to the halcyon days of my season 1 watch #ofmd s2 #ofmd season 2 #ofmd season 2 spoilers #ofmd s2 spoilers #ofmd s2 speculation #ps I won't be responding to replies because look at the title of this post

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astarab1aze · 8 months ago

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➥ The Devilliers

so, something i mention but don't really dig into is the time between loux going into the fostercare system leading up to the full and complete commitment to his life as a criminal - and how important his foster family actually was to him when he was separated from his sisters.

to start, we'll list off his foster family members:

silvère devilliers ; grandfather (deceased)

letha devilliers ; grandmother (deceased)

jackie devilliers ; mother

beau devilliers ; father

fleur lalonde ; aunt

antonetta lalonde ; cousin

absalon lalonde ; cousin

most of the family lived in the town known as monroe, sister to altus but furthest from belle's hollow,

of all his foster family, he was closest to letha and silvère, who really had guardianship over him in the first place. old black folks who resolved themselves to care for wayward boys like loux. they were retired, genuinely good people, and they gave him the best love and care he could've ever asked for when he needed it the most. they were both very patient with him, despite how much trouble he got himself into, despite how much he caused, how many days of school he missed, how bad his grades got, the number of times they caught him smoking or high, and especially in spite of what jackie and beau had to say about him. in a sense, they understood perfectly where loux's heart was and had always been, and were the only people in his life to have ever figured it out; sometimes, a spade is just a spade, no matter what it's made of. rather, they accepted that there would be no controlling him, which wasn't their goal in the first place - merely to love a boy who could not love himself.

it sounds a bit like they were enablers, but i assure you, they most certainly were not ; much of loux's childhood and adolescence was very touch and go, thanks to dual puberties and his decision to go full-bore into the underground, but they never just let him get away with anything ( getting into the specifics of what they tried to do on a day-to-day would make this already long post even longer ), though some of their ( relative ) inaction had a hand to play.

anyway; he was lucky to have been placed into their care, as there simply weren't any shifter homes on the docket ( it's effectively legally considered attempted murder to try to place a shapeshifter in a vampire or were- household ; shifters are a favorite source of nutrition for vampires and weres are notoriously territorial even with each other ; all of this often means that shifters end up falling through the cracks anyway ). it was by the skin of his teeth letha & silvère devilliers applied when they had, and while they might not have been the same particular base breed he was ( both of the skunk variety ), they most definitely treated him as one of their very own. he was loved by letha and silvère, as if he were related to them by blood, the both of them endlessly impressed by how advanced his magic was at so young an age, his resourcefulness, his capability, his intelligence, how quick-witted he was - they adored him. they took pity on him and took him home, gave him a place to comfortably rest his head, a home to return to when he was tired and afraid, a place to be a child while he still had the chance.

but loux was always decisive and devious; in more ways than one, he'd already made a certain choice that would alter his life irreparably, and such was the choice to covet power. he cried for a day, when his parents died, and it would more or less be the last time before he set his childish plans in motion. all he needed was a place to sleep, and someone to pet his hair until his achy, feverish shifter body finally shut down. he never expected to love the devilliers, too. he never factored in how much they'd end up meaning to him, thinking of them when he'd make his worst decisions, wander into the underground in search of...something that would start him properly down the path. the fastest way to reach his goal wasn't school but experience and a willingness to do everything it took, including selling his soul for just a chance to bring his parents back. and he killed himself every day for it.

in his early teen years, when he first really dipped his toes into the underground proper, witnessing death and untold misery, he was hit with blasts of ice in a run-in with deadeye and his crew, whose thugs dumped his unconcious body at the edge of the mirewood, the expansive swamp between monroe and belle's hollow. he was found by mauszan clerics, but in all the uncertainty and all the commotion, silvère fell ill; hysterical with worry that loux, a boy he and letha had been trying so hard to adopt while he threw his life away so he'd have something to come back to when all his fighting was done - suffered a heart attack that ultimately killed him in the days following. loux was in a grave condition of his own, barely clinging to life as ice burned its way through his body, afflicting him with enfeebling ice-sickness, lost in a coma, which did absolutely nothing to help matters within the family. all distraught and beside themselves, the devilliers began to fall apart, and nearly all of them blamed loux for it in some fashion or another - the way they treated him changed, how they talked about him changed, but the only person who didn't blame him, who put it on 'the way of things', who perhaps babied him a smidge because she was terrified he'd die too, was letha.

misplaced though it was.

when he woke from his coma, it was jackie and beau who broke the news of silv's heart attack and subsequent passing - they made no effort to hide their personal feelings toward him, going so far as to fight with him the same day he was released from the bloodweaver's. at the time, he was disoriented and confused, so it didn't quite set in that maybe, perhaps he'd been the catalyst after all - silv wouldn't have had his heart attack if loux could keep himself out of trouble for five godsdamned minutes. but in the aftermath, he started to drift away from the family, from everyone but letha, silv's death acting as a tipping point for him. he couldn't deal with the truth, not properly, and ultimately rejected it, stepping further and further into the underground - committing more of himself to learning more and becoming worse. doubling down led him down a much darker path, then, and the troubles with deadeye began in full.

loux was a scrapper & drug mule for deadeye's competition, when he first dipped his toes into the underground following silv's death, meaning he fought and committed crimes for rival gangs, small-time or not.

because of loux's renewed and dogged persistence, deadeye felt the need to send a particular message - you and everyone you love will die if you continue to work against me. this did nothing but stoke an already high-burning flame within him, tweaking achy nerves and urging him to make foolish decisions, like stealing from deadeye. it wasn't enough to have loux beaten to the brink of death the first or second time, he had to make his message clear and unavoidable. so, he put a tail on loux and had his every waking moment stalked and recorded - who his family was ( meaning the devilliers; lucienne and leonie were unknowns and carefully kept secret ), who his friends were, what he ate for breakfast, when letha would do her shopping, etc. all to blindside loux and make the message ring loud and clear. and one day, when loux had left the underground and was making his way home, deadeye dispatched a handful of his goons and had letha murdered in her home - but loux was quick in his return and found them hovering over letha's body, having just ripped her to pieces. he set them on fire one by one, instinct kicking in and guiding his actions, and exposed those flames to high-oxygen, causing them to pop like balloons and explode like grenades, painting letha's home with the guts and gore of the people who killed her.

letha's death is what drove home the fact that loux is, in fact, at fault for everything that letha and silv had suffered, from economic frustration to their deaths, but he was in far too deep to ever find a way out of the hole he'd dug himself. it is his fault they're dead, the only two people in the world who loved him for him, unconditionally and without reproach. he may as well have killed them with his own two hands. it would've been easier on them, less violent, a subtle poison in their morning coffee, slipping away in their afternoon naps-- it would've been easier and better if it'd just been him; and when the sorciers came, he lied. everyone lied. jackie, beau, and antonetta all lied to keep him from being taken to the triangulary ( where he would've been stripped of his magic, tortured and experimented on until he died, then magically super-glued to a flesh-warden's body ). but they lied so he would feel worse, so the guilt would weigh on his conscience forever, and they would each and all turn their back on him from then on.

the guilt ate him alive and though he didn't try as hard as he should've, he was now left with no option but to put the final nail in the coffin and let it all go. he could never live a normal life, he had to accept the consequences of his choices and actions, and that meant taking the final step and becoming who he is now. ruthless, unforgiving, distrusting, murderous, careful, scheming, just bastard enough to outwit the likes of deadeye ( who, while understated, he loathes immensely ). he became deadeye's biggest competition, cutting into his most lucrative profits, stealing from him, killing swaths of his goons just for happening to cross his path, sending oh so many messages of his own. in just under two years, he became such a problem for deadeye that he paid off a group of weres to kill him while he was staying at the packhouse. obviously, they didn't succeed, but there were enough of them that he was caught by surprise again and overpowered - they came very close to killing him, but just his will to live alone proved enough to save himself ( his flame really helped ).

at the time of silv's death, he was 13. at the time of letha's, he was 16. at the time of his departure from the family et al, he was 17. when deadeye tried to have him killed, he was 19.

ultimately, he spent nine years with the devilliers, and was both directly and indirectly responsible for everything that happened to them. he was and is the problem, every bit as much as he is a victim, and everything he does is a not-so-veiled attempt to protect himself and others from him. he cannot shake the guilt he feels, but he's grown so used to it, it slowly burns away at him, everpresent but nameless, now. it has all irreparably damaged how he sees and interacts with other people, how he sees relationships of any and all kinds be they romantic, professional, friendly, etc. he refuses to form attachments if he can avoid it ( however untrue that seems to be at present ). he lies, hides, denies, omits information, ghosts, shrouding himself in a happy-go-lucky sort of disingenuousness to prevent himself from being known, understood, loved, from ever feeling all that pain again. if he doesn't care, it's easier. if he has no attachments, he won't miss anyone and no one will miss him. no mourning, no grief, no pain, no nothing. it's better this way. it's fine this way. he has shit to do anyway. a family to save, a star to find. fuck everything else.

needless to say, the devilliers meant a lot to him, even if he doesn't necessarily have the words to express why and what he felt, or realize just how much they influenced some of his choices. he was always going to be a criminal, taking shortcuts and resolving himself to delusional undertakings because the ends justify the means, and he's already made up his mind - but he took everything he learned from the devilliers and applied all of it to how he lives his live in tandem.

individual relationships with listed foster family members, in order of importance and closeness;

⸻letha... retired nurse; she is the one he misses and loves the most, genuinely so. she spent the most time with him, got to know him inside and out, figured out what made him tick and how badly he just wanted to be loved. she couldn't make him see it, but she would love him no matter who he chose to be, and she would protect, nurture, care for, and discipline him when he needed it most. they were two peas in pod, singing songs and telling stories, practicing magic and shifting when things got especially bad. he was her boy just as she was his gran, and he respected her, listened to her best, feared her disappointment, her rejection of him. he wanted her to be proud of him, and she was, she was... she taught him how to sew, how to cook, how to brew potions, what to do when he needed to discharge magic, how to speak creole and sunjatti, and so much more; were it not for her, he wouldn't be half as resourceful as he is now.

⸻silvère... retired sorcier; they had a tense relationship, but loux didn't love him any less. they had a sort of...understanding. silv knew early on loux was gonna cause a world of trouble, and came around to the same realization letha had - that all they could do for a boy like him was love him, whatever form that had to take. he gave him tough love, a stiff upper lip, stoicism, courage, flights as herons above the mire, dances with water moccasins in the swamps, death rolls with alligators-- in a few ways, silv taught loux how to be a man, and how to be a shifter, how to appreciate both aspects of himself and to never let anyone break his spirit ( just put it to better use! ). he played a pretty big role in loux's education as well, often pushing him to learn new things, to master them, to do and be the best he possibly can - he had the decency to help with difficult subjects, shapeshifting, birds & bees, etcs.

⸻fleur... runs a clothing store in altus; auntie fleur, ant fannie, fluflu, fluff queen, vanity in bright colors and deceptive sass. he liked her spirit, her individuality, her unwillingness to tolerate bullshit. very shrewd business woman, and on days it was her turn to deal with the family's biggest problem child, she'd let him sit in and watch her work her magic. he picked up on a lot of her energy, her exuberance and persistence, charisma and body language, committing a bit of it to memory. he learned how to bookkeep from her and she was a hardass about it. if he was gonna hang around, he was gonna get put to work. good thing, too, idle hands and all. he liked her a lot. their relationship was like any aunt-nephew relationship otherwise, something, well, normal about it.

⸻absalon... kind of a douche, studying douche physics at douche college - but loux never had any particularly strong feelings for or against him. they were bros at times and enemies at others. they were never close, even when they played together as kids. they shared remarkably few interests. any conversation beyond blahblah small talk was something loux found horrifically drab. much as he liked certain sports, talking about them was just boring. talking about anything with absalon was boring, and he had a slight ' i'm better than you cos i don't cause problems ' air about him. not a bad guy, just.... blah.

⸻antonetta... he wouldn't have pissed on her if she were on fire. next. they had a very intense aversion to one another that oscillated between cold shoulders, silent treatments, screaming matches, and outright fistfights. part of the reason they butt heads so much is because of how similar they are - both big personalities with a penchant for causing big trouble, both lashing out like wildlings in an effort to be seen, heard, and understood, being too selfish and starved for attention to give each other a few minutes in the spotlight. antonetta felt like she had to compete for letha and silv's affections, so she took it out on loux, and loux ain't a fucking rat so he never tattled ( her losing out on some minutes of fame was just a bonus to adhering to his wayward principles ).

⸻beau... he didn't hate beau at first, but the more time he spent around him and jackie, the more convinced he was that there would never be a positive bond between them. he ignored him, for the most part, but they'd always end up in verbal fistfights over some sideways comment. blah. indifferent if a little annoyed towards him. beau was a blowhard, had his head shoved up his ass and a sense of humor that dragged. just wasn't a fun person to be around.

⸻jackie... he misses the fight - the screaming matches, nearly coming to blows from how intense their fighting would get, throwing fire and lightning at each other - but not her specifically. at all ( maybe the teeniest of hints, but still just for the fight ). they didn't have a good relationship. in fact, jackie hated him and with good reason, sure, but she was constantly calling for sorciers, evoking death, blaming him for every little thing that went wrong, demanding letha & silv give him back to the state. he would sell her ass to sanguinach himself for half a potato.

#➥ Loux.#death /#illness /#consequences of existing as a criminal -> bringing it home /#/ issa doozie #/ just really long #/ also i didn't feel like getting too into certain details especially pertaining to realism #/ this is fantasy bullshit land and also this is just a big summary of it all. not supposed to be 1-1 with real life #/ anyway you can see through this whole thing that loux is just as much The problem as he is a sufferer #/ and both does and does not possess the self-awareness to shape up and be a decent person (positive character growth)#/ at least not *really*. until he's in his 30s #/ why doesn't loux want to bring back letha and silv? he does. but they wouldn't want him to #/ i'm just gonna post it as is cos it's too long and i'm starting to repeat myself i think

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