#but like izzy is the only one in the show who actually acts like a real person

[laceratedlamiaceae]

This may be my most controversial ofmd opinion but I truly do not get it when people call Izzy a freak or deranged or insane or any of that. like idk what it says about me but I think he's literally the only person in the show who behaves normally. I thought the whole joke was that he's just a regular guy surrounded by complete lunatics

[biceratops7]

Bro I haven’t seen The Takes first hand but I am NOT looking forward to them

'they killed off a protagonist' no they didn't

'they killed off one of the only characters in the show that's played by a queer actor' not really

'well they killed off the only character in the show that's played by an actor that's vocal about queer rights' 1. no 2. please don't say shit like this when vico ortiz is right there 3. no again

'they fridged him' nope

'they only killed him for ed's development' also nope

'they caved to anti pressure' lmao

'they buried their gays' 1. [hot fuzz voice] just the one gay actually 2. that's not what that means

'this is ableist' it's not

'this is homophobic' it's not that either

[dimplyowl]

You know, why do people put Izzy on the same level as Ed and Stede as characters. Like, for so many people it’s like Ed, Stede, Izzy, those are the Big Three characters in ofmd. But. This is just objectively incorrect. Ed and Stede are the main characters. They’re the ones whose head we get in the most, they’re the ones that have private moments, they’re the ones the show frames as the characters we’re supposed to care about. Like sure we get a bit of Izzy reflection in 1x6, at the beginning of the show, but it’s not actually about…him. Even Izzy’s private reflections are about Ed and Stede, and they’re there to function as motivation for Izzy to act as the antagonist and create conflict.

We get backstory for Ed and Stede. We get nothing from Izzy. He’s not even a particularly complicated character. He isn’t conflicted, his struggles are self-imposed and comical, he’s literally just there to cause conflict within the story.

The story that’s about Ed and Stede. Our two main characters.

But you know, even if there were a third main character, it wouldn’t be Izzy. It would be Jim, at least as far as s1 is concerned. Jim is the only other character who gets a backstory. They’re the only other character who gets really private moments where the focus is them and their feelings and their experience and not meant to serve the Ed and Stede romance narrative. They have their own shit going on. They have their own concerns and problems that have literally nothing to do with Ed and Stede.

Stede and Ed are the A plot. Jim, not Izzy, is the B plot.

If anything the focus should be Ed, Stede, and Jim.

[piratecaptainscaptainpirates]

Another common way in which I think criticism of OFMD can fall apart is when people don't take the show at its word about what genres it's trying to inhabit.

This was one of the most annoying aspects of the few negative pre-release OFMD reviews, for me. Like I said, the vast majority let us know that we were in for a wonderful treat, but there were a few that complained that it took forever for "plot" to happen, and this is just such a bizarre criticism for me because I find it so hard to believe that someone who professionally reviews media could have so much trouble figuring out what the "plot" of a show is supposed to be.

But then this criticism just kept popping up, and it still makes me roll my eyes. Post-s2, in some Izzy fan circles there's been an argument that Izzy is a more important character than he actually is because "the plot only happens when he's around." And where these analyses fall short, I think, is that they fail to consider that OFMD has always been a character-driven show, not an action-driven one.

There's a difference between the main plot of a show and things that happen in that show. OFMD is a romantic comedy, it exists to tell us a story of Ed and Stede's romance. It plays with the romcom format, and a lot of the humor in the show comes from juxtaposing this with piracy as a backdrop. But piracy is not what OFMD is about; it's about a romance that happens to take place within piracy as a setting. Complaining that there's not enough action in OFMD is like watching Black Sails and getting mad about its overly-serious tone - that's a feature, not a bug.

If you expect OFMD to look like an action-driven story, there's really not a lot that happens, and you'll be disappointed by how seemingly jerky and slowly the "plot" moves. But it's actually a character-driven story, and if you watch for the main characters and the development of their stories, it's a very smooth ride. Bigger background elements, like Chauncey and the Act of Grace and Ricky's attack on the Republic of Pirates, are not meant to be a focus, they're meant to force Ed and Stede into situations that will reveal more about their characters and move their arcs along.

And I can't help but wonder if this criticism of OFMD is so common because people just don't expect a queer romcom to actually be a queer romcom. We're so used to stories where even queer main characters' romance has to take a backseat or only be hinted at. OFMD stands out because the romance actually is the point, and some people, I think, for whatever reason, just can't believe that.

[weirdgenetic-fuckup]

Could you do one where the whole band is in the studio and reader is so desperate that she rides axl in front of everyone. Preferably the original line up in the current era please I love you❤🌷

A/n: I may have gone a little crazy with this but that's ok because who doesn't love the whole pretty boy band <3

Warnings: Smut, gang bang, riding, fingering(f receiving), hand jobs, breeding kink, if you think I missed anything please let me know otherwise enjoy :3

Guns N’ Roses was finally back from tour and you couldn’t have been happier to get to be with Axl again. You called everyday while he was away, with the calls often ending in phone sex, but it wasn’t enough.

You knew from the get go with him that you wouldn’t be able to be with him as much as you might have liked to be, it was just part of being with someone in a band. Didn’t mean you didn’t miss him, in more ways than one.

You’d spent the first few days together, as per usual, but one morning you woke up to find him getting ready to leave.

“Hey, babe, where’re you going?” You asked as you walked into the bathroom where he was.

“Going to the studio today.” He answered through a mouthful of toothpaste. You glanced at his reflection in the mirror then back to him.

“Why? You guys just got back from tour.” He spat into the sink and rinsed his mouth.

“Yeah, where I had a lot of time to think of new songs.” He explained. He planted a kiss on your forehead before heading out of the bathroom and to the walk-in closet. “We’re going to a studio to work on the instrumentals of some of them for our next album.” You watched as he sorted through clothes.

“What about me?” You asked, looking up at him with a small pout.

“What about you?” He asked with a chuckle.

“You expect me to just sit here all day?”

“Don’t you do that a lot anyway?” You glared at him, arms crossed over your chest and he gave you a kiss instead of apologising. “It’s only a few hours and then I’ll be home again.” You scoffed. He started changing in front of you, you watched him shamelessly.

“I’m coming with you.” You stated and started picking out your own outfit.

“No you’re not.” He looked at you with a confused expression. “What would you even do?” You shrugged.

“Nothing.” You said as you found an outfit for yourself. “But I want to be with you, so I’m coming.” He stared at you for a moment before deciding that he’s not going to be able to change your mind.

“Fine, be ready in ten minutes or I’m leaving without you.

You finished getting ready, it took longer than ten minutes but you knew he wouldn’t leave without you, and of course he didn’t. He was still waiting in the kitchen on his phone, completely having lost sense of time.

Upon entering the studio you were met with familiar faces all around. Slash was looking down at his Les Paul, Izzy was watching him and strumming along a rhythm to it. Steven and Duff were talking about dogs. At least you assumed so since they were showing each other pictures of dogs.

They all greeted you and Axl when you came in. Axl guided you to the couch and sat next to you, throwing an arm around you and holding you close to his side.

They were all talking about one thing or another, the tour, home life, stuff like that before actually diving into what they came there for which was the next album.

You were bored out of your mind. No one cared when you went on your phone, you didn’t really have much reason to be there anyway other than them asking your opinion on some things, which lyric fit better, whether or not they should add more solos. You enjoyed helping when you could but you were so fucking bored you were losing your mind.

You started reading about Axl, finding smutty fics about him to pass the time. It did help, to a point. After a few minutes of reading all you wanted was to act it out.

You knew he had his phone in his pocket so you texted him, saying how needy you were. He felt his phone vibrate in his pocket and looked at it, glancing back at you before responding. He told you to go deal with it in the bathroom. You huffed and stayed seated on the couch.

As they kept talking you decided ‘fuck it’ and started pushing the joint in your thumb against your clit through your thin, summer shorts. It wasn’t much but it was some form of friction, friction you were craving.

You kept your eyes on your phone for the most part but when you heard Slash’s low chuckle you had to look up. His glasses covered his eyes so you couldn’t see exactly where he was looking but you could tell he was looking at you, watching you touch yourself. His hand covered his mouth but he was smiling, you could see it in his cheeks. That much was a motivator to keep going.

You spread your legs and reached your hand into your shorts, continuing to touch yourself but this time with a viewer. Slash kept watching, smiling, chuckling to himself.

“What the fuck is wrong with you, Slash?” Axl finally asked. His tone wasn’t angry, even though you couldn’t see his face you could hear the way the corners of his mouth were pulled into a smile.

The guitarist shook his head and gestured to you. You quickly closed your legs and hid what you had been doing so when Axl turned to look at you there was nothing to see. Sure enough he asked Slash what you’d been doing.

“Go deal with your girlfriend.” He mumbled, aiming his gaze to the ground. Axl turned around again and took a closer look at you. Your cheeks were flushed, sweat was starting to collect at your hairline and your breathing was heavy.

“Are you fucking kidding me?” He came over to you, getting your pants and panties off. You started squirming and reaching for your clothes, not expecting him to undress you in front of his band. “I told you to stay home but no you just had come along, now look at you.” He gestured to your now half-naked body. You still tried to cover yourself but he wouldn’t let you, holding your legs apart as his bandmates gathered around behind him to gawk at your glistening folds.

Axl slapped your thigh. “Get up.” You did as he asked, though still wanting to cover yourself. Axl got his half-hard dick out of his pants and sat down behind you before pulling you down on him, slipping into you with ease given how hot you made yourself prior.

He got your legs onto the couch so you were straddling him, backwards cowgirl style. He wanted you to do all the work, since this was what you wanted in the first place. He also wanted this position so that his friends could see everything, from your pretty little cunt to the faces you made when you came.

“Go on, give us a show.” Duff said, already palming himself through his jeans. Axl patted the space beside him for Duff to come sit. He did and pulled out his hard member for you to jerk. You let out a soft whine and reached for him, starting to bounce yourself on Axl’s cock while stroking Duff’s.

Steven came over as well, standing to the side of you so as to not abstract Slash and Izzy’s view of you. He dropped his own pants and waited expectantly for you to let him in on the fun. You glanced back to Axl. “Can’t keep him waiting.” He said with a grin. You looked back to Steven and started pumping his shaft as well.

You thought this was a lot but you knew it wasn’t the end of it either. Izzy and Slash were both standing farther back working themselves. It seemed that you watching them acted as confirmation and they came over.

They didn’t make you take them into your mouth like you thought they would, much to your delight. Instead, they started jerking themselves off in your face and all you could do was wait for them to cum on you.

Your body was getting tired, arms wanted to fall to your sides and your legs began to shake under you as you kept bouncing on Axl. Seeing this the ginger started fucking up into you, making it a little easier.

Of course he knew your body better than anyone and knew exactly which spots to hit to make your eyes roll back. You had five men around you, all with their dicks out for you. It made everything feel better, especially when Duff reached over to rub your clit.

He has long, talented fingers that quickened everything you were feeling. “Fuck! ‘M-’m gonna cum, gonna cum!” You whined, hands clenching and unclenching around Duff and Steven’s cocks which seemed to get Steven over the edge, white liquid spurting onto your lap.

You looked down at it with stars in your eyes. It was then that you realised how badly you wanted all of them to cum on you. You kept jerking Steven off, his voice getting higher now. You could feel Axl twitching inside of you so you looked back at him.

“Please cum inside, want it so bad, please.” You whined. Axl had always wanted kids so you learned early on in your relationship that he had a breeding kink and asking him to cum inside your tight cunt was a sure fire way to make him cum.

Sure enough he grabbed your hips and held you down on him while his cum filled you up. That feeling alone almost made you cum but what really did it was Slash toying with your nipple.

You hadn’t been looking at him so his warm hand was already a surprise but the way he fondled you made your eyes roll back into your head. Your body shook and the couch under you, along with Axl’s lap, was now drenched.

You heard Duff groaning beside you and looked over just in time to catch his dick leaking, thick liquid coating your hand. His hand didn’t stop working on your clit, rubbing it, pinching and flicking. Seeing what made you moan the loudest and sweetest.

Izzy turned your head and thick ropes spurted onto your face. You stared up at him, lips parted as his seed slipped into your mouth. You were in such a trance for a moment you almost missed the feeling of Slash cumming on your chest.

More than once you’d caught him staring at your chest, really anyone’s chest. You smiled up at him and moved up and down Axl a few more times so he could watch your tits bounce while he came.

You were all breathing heavy, panting on one another as you came down from your highs.

“Get up.” Axl said with a heavy breath, patting your thigh. You got up and then started questioning what he wanted, your mind still in a haze. Sweat and jizz mixed together on your body and dripped down.

“Why..?” You asked out of breath and legs shaking beneath you.

“You wanted to get fucked so bad,” the ginger started, “why not give everyone a turn?” You stared up at him with wide eyes as you felt Slash’s big, warm hands wrap around your waist.

[avelera]

I saw a really cute post the other day imagining scenes where Ed protects Stede. It was sweet and funny and heartfelt and for some reason landed all wrong with me.

Then I figured out why: I don’t think Ed has ever protected Stede. It’s actually kind of a big plot point in the show. Even when he should have. But when Stede protects Ed is when Ed fell in love.

It’s a bit of a nuance and I’m too tired to quite remember all the ways I’m probably wrong but… Ed often rescues Stede. But he doesn’t protect him. He doesn’t prevent him or try to prevent him from doing things that would harm him.

I think that was another reason the post nagged at me. Because the funny examples were around Stede’s failures at piracy. But Ed, unlike everyone on the show, including the viewers!, doesn’t see Stede as a failure. It’s almost weird how much he doesn’t. It’s endearing too. It’s why the romance works.

Ed thinks Stede is unorthodox. New to the game. A bit rough around the edges. But all those skills come with time and practice. Ed is bored of skilled, practiced pirates. He wants flare. He wants daring. He wants a person who does it their own way. The rest will come. But you can’t teach creativity. Ed doesn’t give a shit about a perfectly skilled pirate, that’s boring as fuck. He wants to see a creative one.

To go back to protectiveness… Ed doesn’t protect Stede because he doesn’t see Stede as incompetent. He doesn’t prevent Stede from doing things before the fact. But sometimes after the fact like on the Spanish ship or against the English, he’ll come in after Stede fucked up and chooses to join him in facing the danger and consequences.

In comedy terms, Ed is very “yes, and…!” with Stede. Whereas protectiveness implies a certain amount of ending the bit before Ed can see the crazy places it’s going.

By contrast, Stede is protective of Ed and when he’s protective, Ed melts. Stede tries to prevent Ed from being hurt by the nobles and corrects his errors and very publicly destroys them on Ed’s behalf. Ed fell or fell harder in love right there. But Ed never tried to prevent Stede’s run in with the Spanish.

Ed’s a bit selfish, a bit blind to how to take care of others. Part of it’s the life he led. It’s part of why he’s so fascinated by Stede and his brand of piracy. He doesn’t want to stop the craziness before it begins. He really only steps in if death itself, something that might end Strede’s craziness, gets close but even then. He doesn’t protect Stede against Izzy. He lets those consequences play out. He can’t bear to look but he doesn’t stop it.

I think there’s more nuance and a lot of scenes I’m sure I’m forgetting where Ed is more protective but my overall sense is that this is actually an interesting nuance between them. Stede acted out of protectiveness when he left Ed on that beach. Ed didn’t go looking for Stede. He didn’t and doesn’t try to protect him. Unlike everyone else, Ed always assumes Stede’s choices are deliberate and competently made.

[plantsjustwannahavefun]

"Izzy Canyon dwellers just want to turn him into an innocent victim who did nothing wrong!"

Actually my problem is that, in hindsight, Izzy didn't do enough wrong to justify the common interpretation of his relationship with Ed. In my book, the first time in the series he legitimately crossed over to villainous antagonist territory - someone you actually loved to hate for it even if you understood his reasons - was when he set the British Navy on the Revenge. That way he not only betrayed his integrity as a pirate by consorting with the common enemy of all pirates, but risked Ed's life too - cause, like, come on, that "plan" to send CJ to convince Ed to leave Stede was so far-fetched it barely counts as a plan. I don't buy Izzy ever looking at CJ and going "yep that seems like a smart, responsible, trustworthy man I could rely on for a delicate mind games operation like this". It was an act of sheer desperation on Izzy's part, but he still chose to do it. IMO this was actually worse than what he said to Ed in S1 finale. Although of course that was very nasty, too.

But the thing is, we don't actually have any info on what their relationship used to be like before S1. We were only ever shown, not told - and both times from Izzy's perspective: the first time in S01E04 during his resignation rant, which was very heartfelt and I'm sure a lot of it was true, but it's still one-sided, and the second time during his deathbed speech, which was, again, one-sided and this time biased in another direction - instead of airing his pent-up grievanced Izzy was putting most of the blame on himself.

Other than this, the entirety of Ed and Izzy's pre-S1 relationship gets extrapolated from one single episode, S01E04. The narrative itself seems to want us to see it as a microcosm of their usual long-standing dynamic, at least on the surface. We see Ed being depressed and suicidal, trying to open up to Izzy about it, and Izzy shutting him down and making him act like Blackbeard again. Since it's already clear that Ed and Stede are the main characters, we're primed to see Ed as the victim here and Izzy being an annoying, insensitive nag.

Except the context of those interactions changes everything. The context being that they are literally about to be attacked by the Spanish - something Ed knowingly brought on them with his decisive power as captain - and Ed is deliberately withholding crucial information from his own first mate and the rest of the crew, making them all think they're going to die and he isn't doing anything about it. Izzy wasn't just being a boring buzzkill not being excited for Ed when he showed him that ship model. He was actively panicking and trying to do his job asking Ed for orders so they don't all get slaughtered.

So, yeah, those are some very exceptional circumstances that don't say anything about their typical day to day interactions go when they're not in immediate mortal peril due to lack of communication. Was this the first time Ed ever told him about not wanting to be Blackbeard anymore? Izzy didn't seem very surprised, so probably not, but we don't know, and if Ed had confided in him before, we don't know how Izzy reacted - but I'd like to point out that this time he didn't ridicule Ed in any way, he simply pointed out that they were about to die if Ed didn't do anything. Does Izzy usually indulge Ed in the stuff he finds fun when they're not about to be killed? Again, we don't know, but Izzy's playfulness during that first confrontation with Stede in S01E02, and his whittling and jokes in S2 showed that he wasn't always as grouchy and joyless as he's made out to be. We actually saw him smile when Ed got excited about Buttons, too. Pretty sure if Izzy always shut him down about things like that, Ed would have stopped trying to share it with him long ago.

And, finally, there's one piece of this puzzle that doesn't seem to fit in with the rest at all. The show both told us and implied that Izzy couldn't let Blackbeard go because his own identity was too tied up in it, and because he idolised the glory of violent pirate lifestyle. But if that's the case, then why did he have no problem with Ed wanting to retire? Izzy literally gave him an enthusiastic thumbs up on the whole "kill Stede and steal his identity so he could live the rest of his life as a rich aristocrat" plan. If Izzy only admired Ed as a pirate, and was so hell-bent on keeping the Blackbeard persona alive, why was he ok with Ed retiring? How does this square up with the idea that Izzy had been keeping Ed chained to piracy?

I'd honestly hoped we would get some flashbacks of the two of them in S2, and then S3 before that hope died too, because there's still so much we're missing.

[sixstepsaway]

I do not think that Ed is supposed to be abusive? i'm pretty sure we are meant to understand that he's acting this way because he's scared and threatened? The headbutting was rude but one isolated incident of headbutting in an extreme situation (waking up from a coma caused by a suicide attempt! his brain was all fucked up!) does not equal abuse. Where are you getting all this? Also I thought we were supposed to tag things with "[character] critical" around here.

Anon, I want you to understand that I say this as someone who has always loved Ed, and as someone who is approaching your message with the belief you are being completely genuine: Ed not being deliberately penned as abusive is almost the entire problem.

We literally see this cycle happening on screen in the first two episodes. After an outburst of violence where he destroys some innocent sod's wedding (2), he asks after the crew and checks they had enough cake (3), and says they're welcome to rhino horn, he's snappy but there's no violence (4) and things seem fine, up until when Izzy comes in later and says the crew don't want to part with their treasure. Ed starts to get angry (1) and Izzy desperately tries to convey that they love him and want him to be okay, and that he's just concerned for him and the crew, but he misspeaks, he says something Ed doesn't like, so Ed storms upstairs and starts pointing guns at people (2) until Izzy deliberately triggers him into shooting him not the rest of the crew.

Ed tells them to handle Izzy, goes to bed. When Frenchie encounters him the next day, he's bright, he's cheerful, it's like nothing ever happened (3) except that Frenchie knows it did. Frenchie is terrified because he knows what's coming, but Ed is calm (4) and things are just fine, because Frenchie is agreeing with him and telling him what he wants to hear. Ed catches him later and starts getting cold and angry, scaring him (1). Frenchie knows what's coming, and he's terrified.

Luckily for Frenchie, Ed takes his anger out on Izzy again (2) by taking a gun down there, but arguably you can say he takes it out on all of them by trying to sink the ship.

If Ed was just being a scary motherfucker, that would be one thing, but the show was very deliberately showing the power imbalance. If Ed had wanted to kill Frenchie right then and there, who would have stopped him? Who could have?

The show wrote and showed a cycle of abuse and that is okay, what isn't great is that they then went "¯\_(ツ)_/¯ meh!" and pretended like that cycle never happened or would only apply to Izzy, the latter of which is visibly and patently not true anyway because it gets applied to the whole crew multiple times.

I would have no issue with this, or with where the show took Ed, if the show actually took the time to get him there, but all they really did was teleport him from point A (abusing everyone around him) to point J (already redeemed, done the work, much better now) in the time it took him to catch a bloody fish

And the point of the headbutt is him saying, "I wanted it to hurt!" is fine in isolation but not super great when held up against the cycle I've just been talking about, or against Stede flinching from his violence.

And as for "edward teach critical" or whatever, I saw ofmd critical so I used that, I did not know the other tag existed. I haven't been on Tumblr much and the culture changes. Plus, I was criticizing OFMD as a whole, not just Ed, who I feel was treated horribly in s2.

[bakasara]

Trying to parse my thoughts on Izzy's death and why I had a different reaction to it than I thought I would. To summarize: I thought I wouldn't like it, but also that they wouldn't do it; the opposite happened– they did it but I'm ok with it.

I'm also feeling like talking through some mourning for an amazing character, so follow along if that's you, too 😌

(I should probably clarify the following thoughts are coming from someone who deeply enjoyed this season.)

I first wondered what would be of Izzy around the end of season 1. I expected him to have a heel-face turn – which I object to calling a redemption arc and I'll get into why, because the distinction ties into his death imo. A lot of antagonistic characters' changes of heart end directly in death, but I thought they'd subvert that trope. And they... did, actually, despite Izzy dying. Not an option I had imagined.

What the show avoided is the logic, the set of tropes attached to the deaths of this kind of character. These deaths usually come as a consequence of the character's changed ethics or "redemption". My being against that scenario came from the diverging natures of traditional redemption arcs and OFMD's rhetoric.

A traditional redemption arc functions by a kind of catholic logic, if you will: the villain can become one of the good guys by balancing out his "sins"/bad deeds with enough good deeds to tip a moral scale. This often involves a purifying suffering, which acts as an agent to expiate one's faults. To the viewer, this suffering can serve to activate our empathy and make the character more sympathetic. It can also legitimize his quest: our trust in the character's good intentions comes from seeing that the character is ready to make sacrifices to become better and he isn't deterred by the hardships of doing the right thing.

The death occurring at the end of a traditional redemption arc acts as the ultimate sacrifice and/or purification. A number of ideas might be at play behind it, depending on each story: only in death can the soul become fully pure, or a final sacrifice is "needed" to demonstrate the change once and for all, or change was only possible up to a point after which there is no viable/acceptable future – the character deserves moral points for changing, but not so many that he also deserves a full life, or past crimes make him more expendable, etc.

But these are all ideas that aren't evoked in any of the crew's journey in OFMD. For starters, the show isn't interested in "catholic" redemption; its focus is on reintegration/rehabilitation into the community. Rather than appealing to the more traditional (in Western media) and more christian principle of "purification of the soul through mortification of the body", it plays with notions of restorative justice.

We see it especially this season with Ed and Izzy. Ed's arc is a whole little lab for it. We have the community being made to decide whether he can stay or should leave; catbell!Ed is made to apologize to the people affected – which he initially does abysmally, with what fandom has dubbed his "CEO's/YouTube apology". Later, he's given the opportunity to have a more honest and genuine conversation with Fang where he learns about how he hurt him. He's made to repair some of the material damage his behavior caused. Some members feel repaid by the idea that they did to him the same he did to them (Fang) while others don't (Lucius), and the show touches on what this means for each/legitimizes both feelings. Arguably, Ed using his treasure to throw Calypso's birthday party – a much needed refrain and moment of social (re-)connection within the community – is an additional form of reparation. While Stede's belief in Ed has a clear role in helping Ed change for the better, Izzy's s2 journey focuses even more intensely on the role of social support within an individual's constructive (re-)integration into their community. The show is condensed by choice of format, but the beats are all there.

With that kind of rhetoric set up, I'd never be able to accept Izzy dying in a way that feels like a punishment for his past crimes, nor in a way that should "confirm" his positive change/"purify" him for good. And he doesn't! By the time he dies, we know full well he's deeply changed, it's already established to completion. How it happens has nothing to do with proving himself – he's randomly shot in battle. It's never questioned that the time he got to live surrounded by affection mattered. The speech he gives Ed is only possible because he's changed, accessing a completely different perspective on piracy/life than before, like we see when he talks to Ricky earlier. The reason the whole crew is paying respect and crying is because he became "the new unicorn", a treasured member with a defined role. But his death itself is the show going back to the initial symbolism of Izzy as ultimate pirate. The narrative function of his death is underscoring that the age of piracy has come to an end. It's nothing to do with his change. It's posited as the "natural conclusion" (again, by symbolic function) of a character that represented piracy through-and-through, not the "natural conclusion" of a process of becoming better.

And for me, that difference changes everything. I can see and accept the logic behind it, even as I mourn Izzy as a character. It makes the grief feel like a catharsis I experience within the context of the story I'm watching, rather than a grief I feel from a show "betraying" me.

It's also a difference that completely changes how Izzy's death relates to his queerness. Izzy's change is intertwined with being able to express queer affection openly. Becoming "a unicorn" is this extremely queer imagery already – a magical rainbow creature. His role becomes akin to a mother to the crew (the mother hen!Izzy many headcanoned last season, tapping into his potential), a position that isn't extraneous to older queens, including our honored real-life mean-old-queer men. Last season he threatened another queer man for showing too much delicacy, effeminacy, vulnerability. Now, his change is a process that culminates in him singing a tender love song among the crew in drag. He's given the privilege of playing the soundtrack to our protagonists making love for the first time, which ties him symbolically to the event in a way it does no other crew member. Suffice it to say that insinuating his process of change should end in death would have been disastrous, as far as I'm concerned. Antithetical to the show's supporting ideology.

But that's not how it went. Grief occupies a big role in the queer community, but it's so rare that we get to experience it cathartically. In real life, we often have to contend with the ways queerphobia causes us trauma or even shortens our lives, or the lives of our friends. In fictional narratives, a lot of characters that get to express queerness unabashedly still die for the transgression. They're still usually the only queer character with relevant screen time or at all, at best one of two that formed a tragic couple.

We almost never have the opportunity to just mourn some motherfucker who died because they meant something else as well that was central to their character. To mourn and know we're mourning someone who wasn't ever punished for being queer-as-in-fuck-you and going all out. To mourn and not feel like it's another message of queer doom, because for once the character is surrounded by an entire crew of other queer characters that go on to live and be happy. To know the story is saying something about life, not about being queer. To know this kind of crafting was deliberate, too, because the creator has talked about working to avoid those tropes. I struggle to remember another time I had the opportunity to grieve for a queer character like they're a human being, without the implication that it's queerness itself that's a death sentence.

And honestly? It feels good. It feels like a form of catharsis I do not dislike. That I'm maybe kinda glad for. OFMD is and stays a magical world. Beyond that, in a show full of queers, one of them dies after getting some extraordinarily meaningful happiness, and it's peaceful, and I get to just be sad for the fucker without the gutting of being reminded that if you're gay, better not shoot too high. It feels like a completely different emotion that no other show, for now, would give me, but OFMD. To me, it's yet another thing it's pulled off.

As it's been known to do.

[brigdh]

Okay. My thoughts on the Our Flag Means Death finale. Obviously I'm not very happy with the ending, though I'm also not as upset as some people are. I would say I'm discontent. Unsatisfied. Too aware of how it could have been improved, and a bit bitter that we didn't get a better version, but I also don't hate what we did get.

I know a lot of meta has attributed the problems to a shorter season, and absolutely I would have loved to get 10 episodes instead. I would have loved 22 episodes! Why don't we do that anymore? But I don't think the 8 episode length was the ultimate problem. A) The showrunner and writers knew they had only 8 episodes, so they needed to choose a story that fit into that length, but even more importantly, B) my problem is not that they had too much story for too little time, but actually that they had plenty of time and chose to fill it with too little story.

As I've sat with it over the last few days and thought more about the season's arc, it feels to me like we got eight episodes of filler. Filler episodes can be great! Filler episodes can have some of the funniest lines, the greatest scenes, the most intriguing ideas. But filler episodes do not progress character arcs or major themes, and that's exactly the problem this season had.

The only characters who got arcs this season are Izzy, and to a lesser and more rushed extent, Lucius. Which sure is a choice.

Ed and Stede and their relationship did not meaningfully change from S1. (Okay, yes, they had sex, they said I Love You – but these are external changes, not internal. They don't represent character growth. Stede realized he loved Ed and was telling everyone back in 1x10. Ed clearly would have slept with him in S1 if they'd had a little more time.) Ed and Stede in 2x08 are not different from who they are in 2x01. If Ed had asked Stede to be innkeepers in 2x01, does anyone think Stede wouldn't have immediately agreed? One of the big moments in 2x08 is Ed reading a letter that Stede wrote in 2x01! Stede's exact words from the very beginning of the season! What better way to underline that none of the subsequent seven episodes had important growth or changes?

Another one of 2x08's big shippy moments is Ed and Stede running to each other across a beach – deliberately paralleling the dream Stede had in 2x01. What are we supposed to take from this parallel? My original thought was that we're supposed to see how different the real version is from the dream, but there's honestly not many differences. Neither one has a beard, now? The dream mocked how Stede knew they needed to have a conversation about their relationship that he wanted to avoid, but they don't have a conversation in the "real" version either. They exchange about two sentences (which includes Ed's I Love You, yes, which is a big deal but still isn't a conversation) and then they charge right back into the fight, without discussing anything like Ed abruptly dumping Stede to go be a fisherman, Stede killing Ned Low when Ed asked him not to, their differences of opinion on being pirates, if having sex was a mistake or if that's only a thing Ed said because he was panicking, etc etc. They have just as many issues to address as they did in the dream, but just like the dream they act like everything is magically okay without talking about it!

So I think we're meant to take the beach-run parallels as "here's what Stede's been wanting, and after waiting for so long he finally gets it". Which is fine, a very sweet take-away for a finale. But it underlines what I'm saying is the problem of the season: Stede has just been waiting for eight episodes for his dream to come true. Not changing. Not growing. Not doing anything to bring the dream about, other than trying to get himself and Ed into the same physical location. Just... waiting.

This is an extra surprising development, because the show was really good at giving Ed and Stede character arcs in S1! Ed and Stede in 1x10 are significantly different than they were in their first introductions. Also, just to preempt some criticism, by 'progressing' I do not mean 'wrap up literally every loose end and make a firm final ending' – S1's finale is an excellent example of both moving the characters forward and leaving a ton of room for future stories. I wasn't expecting for 2x08 to show us a Stede and Ed who were perfectly on the same page and would never again have a problem. I was expecting them to be somewhat different than they were in 2x01, and I just don't see that.

Instead of arcs, we got little pieces of single-episode growth here and there that never added up to an overall whole. The season brought up a ton of potential arcs for Ed – violence, piracy, guilt, suicide, daddy issues, self-loathing, apologies, redemption, his tendency to idealize escaping into a different life – but didn't do anything with any of these options. Stede had nothing resembling a season arc at all.

Stede works to improve as a captain! Stede kills someone and has regrets! Stede confronts Ed's dark side! <- All potential arcs, but none of which lasted for more than an episode or had consequences. We don't even know what the ending means for Stede: does he want to be an innkeeper because he failed as a pirate in 2x07? Because piracy was always just a displaced search for love, and now that he has love, he doesn't need piracy? What does the crew of the Revenge leaving mean to him? Stede's understanding of their new arrangement literally happens off-screen and we're left to fumble at guesses for its significance to him as an individual.

Ed and Stede's last big conversation in the season is their break-up fight in 2x07, which is a shocking way to send off your main couple in a rom-com. Yes, there's the I Love You on the beach (again: two sentences) and the brief 'let's try to be innkeepers' conversation at the very end, but that's it for them in 2x08, except for their inclusion in some brief large group conversations about their fighting skills and the plan for escaping the British. How can you end your rom-com with the main couple exchanging only a paragraph's worth of dialogue in the finale? None of the stuff was brought up in the fishing fight in 2x07 is ever addressed at all!

Again, I don't think this is solely a matter of time crunch. Instead of using the eight episodes to progress the two main characters, we got a bunch of filler episodes that used the time in amusing side tangents instead of forward progress. I don't think that's the inevitable result of having to work with eight episodes.

Look, I can come up with a better Ed/Stede relationship arc without needing more episodes, and despite only thinking about this for a couple days and not having an entire writing room to work with:

(Note: this only addresses the Ed/Stede relationship. It doesn't fix Stede completely lacking an independent character arc and Ed having about ten thousand of them, none of which went anywhere.)

In 2x05 to 2x07, I would make Ed's motivations in their relationship very clearly that he's pushing Stede away so he doesn't get hurt again. Basically play up Ed's comment about "I was all in" in 2x04, and make him determined not to get 'all in' this time around. This aligns the "let's take it slow" conversation in 2x05, the "sex was a mistake" in 2x06, and Ed running away to be a fisherman in 2x07 into a single arc. He wants Stede, but he's afraid of what that wanting will do to him. He's trying to find a way to have a relationship without making himself vulnerable. He keeps pushing off commitment and openness.

Then, in 2x08, I'd make it more explicit that Ed thinks/fears Stede is dead when he sees the pirate ships burning. I think it's subtext in the episode as-is, but give him a line or two to make it really clear. Ed and Stede still see each other on the beach, have their dramatic run to each other, and Ed says, "I love you". Now this moment is Ed acknowledging his love, exactly what he's been avoiding for the last three episodes.

Near the end of the episode, Ed and Stede have a conversation where Ed says something like, "I didn't want to get hurt again, I was afraid of the risk of falling in love and you leaving again, but thinking you were dead made me realize that never loving you would be worse" (but better written, ha, this is a tumblr post that's already too long). (Also possibly you could tie in Izzy's death here to underline both Ed and Stede not wanting to lose another person they care about, if we must have that plot point for some reason.) We actually get to see Ed asking Stede to come be innkeepers with him, paralleling asking him to run away to China (and paralleling NOT asking Stede to a fisherman), Stede voices some of his worries (paralleling him keeping them inside in 1x09, but also giving him a chance to explain what piracy and love mean to him and why he'd give up one for the other), but ultimately they agree that they at least want to try.

This both puts them into a much clearer place for a happy ending, has clear growth from S1 and the beginning of this season, but also leaves open a ton of room for S3, because welp, it turns out trying to have a relationship entails all sorts of problems! Especially with these two. It also would make me feel like they'd at least addressed some of the issues between them.

Right now I feel like S3 will have to spend at least the first few episodes running through exactly the same "don't talk – break up – get back together dramatically" arc that Stede and Ed have already done twice but have never discussed and never learned from. I liked it, but I don't need to see it yet again. That will – ironically – feel like yet more wasted time, more episodes that are just churning through beats without moving the characters forward. I wanted them to have new, different fights in S3, but now I don't even feel like they've made enough progress to have a fresh set of problems.

[used-to-love-her-06]

"And You Did It At My Birthday Dinner!"

author’s note: this one was actually so fun to brainstorm to write the sex scene for omfg?? not to take away from my other requests obviously but this one just hit a little different y’know? also i wrote this in one sitting i was so fucking excited lmao, i hope y’all enjoy!!! (and yes if you know what the title is referencing you know lol)

summary: running into izzy unexpectedly, then running late to a dinner with your friends.

contains: degradation, smut, angst, unprotected sex, piv, ex!izzy x f!reader, f!pov, smoking, drug mentions, slapping, spitting, kissing, semi-public sex, oral (m!recieving), throatpie, mean!izzy, dumbification if you squint, some aftercare

story under the cut! MDNI. word count: 1,527

It was my first night out in the city. Two of my college friends, Lisa and Kathleen, moved to Chicago after graduation and got an apartment together, and this year was the first year I could afford to fly out of Indiana to see them for Lisa’s birthday. She’d constantly been talking about this band from LA called Guns N’ Roses and wanted front row seats at their next gig, it was only natural that I sent Kathleen some money for us all to get tickets for Lisa’s special day. Unfortunately, the show was the day after her birthday, but that didn’t mean we weren’t going to celebrate tonight either. We had reservations at a restaurant that was a few blocks away from my hotel (they offered to let me stay at their place, but I couldn’t accept the offer without paying them and they refused my money to stay there), and I just walked out of the lobby, on my way to the restaurant. The sky was painted with shades of pink, purple, orange, and yellow as the sun began to set and the night was being born, the sounds of cars passing by and the city lights were a contrast to what I was used to back home, but it was growing on me.

After walking two blocks, a large alleyway caught my eye. I shouldn’t, but it would cut through the next two blocks and I’d be right there at the restaurant! I did walk through it despite my instincts telling me to run and go the normal path. I was too excited to see my friends for the first time in years. I walked a bit further into the alleyway and saw the figure of a man who appeared to be smoking. I clutched my purse closer to my chest and had my keys ready in my hand to use as makeshift brass knuckles in case I was attacked. I walked closer, finally able to see his face…Izzy?! What the hell was he doing here? He was supposed to be in LA and never returning to the midwest. In my fit of rage, I completely forgot about my plans with Lisa and Kathleen, and now that he was finally in front of me again, I was going to give him a piece of my mind.

“What in the actual hell are you doing here?! Did you seriously just dump me to come here and do who the fuck knows what?!” I screamed, glaring up at him. He remained expressionless as he took the next drag of his cigarette.

“Are you tryna buy something from me? Who are you?” He knew damn well who I was.

“Izzy, it’s me. Y/n.” His eyes glazed over as he eventually figured me out, still mostly expressionless.

“Either you buy a joint or fuck off.” That was when I slapped him. It wasn’t hard enough to leave a mark, but enough to show him just how much anger I’ve been holding in for the past few years. I hadn’t even realized I wasn’t completely over him until I saw him in that alleyway. I spent most of my time trying to study my feelings away I didn’t even notice I still loved him. “This is what you have to say to me after all these years?! Not ‘How have you been?’, ‘Haven’t seen you in a while?’, or ‘Are you holding up okay?’ To think I even let you into my life is sickening. I fucking loved you with every fiber of my being and the only thing I got in return was you running off with Bill to fucking LA and acting like we were absolutely nothing when we finally see each other after so long! I understood you leaving, I understood us breaking up, but to be treated like this when I’ve done nothing but love you pisses me off!!”

I couldn’t even explain my next move as I grabbed him by the shirt collar and kissed him. Just like it did the last time, he tasted like cigarettes and alcohol, but I didn’t care anymore. I needed him to at least remember what we had. My tongue slipped inside his mouth, and to my surprise, he reciprocated. Our tongues danced together once more as I wrapped my arms around him and squeezed. His body still fit perfectly in my arms as we kissed for another few seconds. He pulled away with a string of saliva connecting us together, and he licked it up, a glimmer in his eyes that somehow never failed to have me swoon.

“It really is you…” He smirked before kissing me again. Tears were streaming down my face as I got the Izzy I knew personally to come back.

“I missed you, you asshole…” I cried once he broke the brief kiss. “And I’m sorry I slapped you…”

“I could tell. And it’s alright, you kinda have every right to be mad at me. I kinda did ditch you and in a high state of trance forgot who you were.” I looked into his eyes again and noticed how red they were. He definitely was high. “Is it okay if we do a little more…?” My hands trailed from his waist to his ass, and one hand was on his chest. “I had no idea how much I missed you…” “Fuck yeah…” I could see the hard-on that was forming in his jeans, and floods of memories of him fucking me flashed right in front of me. “Can we do it just like old times?” My crying had stopped at this point, and I smiled up at him timidly.

It really was like we hadn’t broken up. His cock slid right into me and I was the wettest I’d been since he left, my juices were smeared all over my thighs. Izzy had one hand wrapped around my waist to stabilize me, and another pushing my face into the wall. “Holy shit you’re tight.” He grunted as he continued to slam into my pussy. “I bet you haven’t fucked anyone else since I left, hm?”

“HaaAhh!! Yeah…just youuu….MHHhhh…!!” Having his cock rubbing up against my g-spot and his balls slapping my clit felt infinitely better than the dildo I had at home. I came as he drove his dick deeper into me, soaking him in the process.

“You really are a fucking slut for me.” He pulled my head back by my hair and spit right on my face. “I bet you’ve been rubbing that pathetic cunt for me every night hoping I’d come back to you. Or maybe when you were in some fucking lecture instead of listening, you’d just put a pencil in your mouth and suck on it like you would my dick. I knew you were too stupid for a chemistry degree anyway.” His words were only turning me on further, driving me over the edge again. Sure, I was fairly smart and had a master’s, but with every stroke of his cock inside me, my brain went silent and the only thing I cared about now was pleasing him, even if, and especially if, I was only going to get degraded for it.

“You actually liked me calling you dumb? Jesus fucking christ you’re hopeless. Spending all that time and money to try to prove you’re worth more than being used by a fucking stoner when we both know that’s all you’re good for.” My head was spinning as I came for the final time that night, and Izzy shoved me right down on my knees.

“Suck.” I took as much of his cock in my mouth as I could before he thrust his hips. I looked up at him as I gagged, no longer used to taking anything down my throat, and he only moaned and groaned louder. “You better fucking swallow.” He grunted as he thrust a few more times before I felt his seed coat my throat. Once he took his cock out of my mouth, I swallowed and caught my breath. He was catching his breath too, looking down at me and smiling.

“I hope you know that I don’t actually think you’re dumb.” We were now adjusting our clothes and I stood back up.” “I figured you were either just angry about something or it was all just an act. I was literally in the top 10 of our graduating class.” I laughed before I hugged him again. “Will I ever see you again?” I looked up at him, my eyes pleading. “I do have a show tomorrow night with my band, are you coming?” “I might be, actually. What’s the name of your band?” I asked curiously. “Guns N’ Roses. We just released an album not too long ago.” My face turned bright red as I nodded. “My friends and I were going to celebrate one of our birthdays there…we even have front row seats….” “Then I better see you backstage. Your friends can come along too, I guess. I know the other guys’ll appreciate it.”

And that was when I realized I was soooo late to Lisa’s birthday dinner.

[yourpersonaljaskier]

Hello hello! I watched Whitepine and now I'm insane! I also watched a theory video! I'm very insane and I need to ramble as to what I think is going on

Theory will be under read more, spoilers ahead

First things first:

Who is mrs. Hemlocke, and how long has she been dead?

So, some things to establish the estimated time period:

- steam locomotives and steam engines are around (meaning it's past the year 1712)

- The colour black may be associated with the mourning period (early roman period til the 20th century, now very well known because of Queen Victoria, who mourned her husband for 4 decades til the the early 1900's and wore black daily)

These bring us to a rather specific time frame between 1712 and before the 20th century

Black doesn't seem to be a very 'fashionable' colour, as the theory video I watched relied quite heavily on the idea that the Hemlocke family is in mourning. While the idea in of itself isn't a bad idea, I heavily disagree with this notion for 3 simple reasons:

1. The family isn't in ACTUAL mourning! They wear black clothes, yes, but there's no other indication they're in active mourning. They wear colours not permitted by the mourning rules created by Queen Victoria (assuming they're in England due to the name Whitepine and the general outlay of architecture), which was from 1861 til 1901 iirc, which is a HIGHLY likely time period they were in. Zam participates in hunting, the household isn't in mourning (the women aren't wearing any amount of mourning regalia, ie, veils, jewelry, full black attire, similar with the men), the HEAD BUTLER doesn't tell Ivory about the passing of the hear mistress (which MEANS the mourning period is long over and the topic is dead at this rate, Ivory doesn't need to be a genius to figure out why the mistress is never mentioned), Izzy permits Ivory to be the piano, so on and so forth

2. Serapter doesn't know why the piano room was empty. Her death was before his time, and he seems plenty adult to me.

3. There were no search parties (if she had disappeared), there were no funeral arrangements, no active mention of her or her recent passing, and black clothes are not an indication of a mourning period.

These, to me, are clear signs that the family, at least the children, have long moved on.

Now, how long has mrs. Hemlocke been dead?

Well.

Let's look at the Hemlocke children. So far, we only know that Pyro is the oldest, with the others having to clear indication of when they were born. But, to me, the Hemlocke children all seem to be of a similar age. There are no tutors or extra teachers for the women to learn etiquette, Zam goes hunting and invites Pyro with him, they seem to go out semi regularly as known bacherlors (as none of the children are married), and seem to have a close bond with how they interact with one another

None of the children seem teenage-d to me, but we'll see as the show progresses

In my mind, mrs. Hemlocke died when the youngest was a few months old. It makes the most sense with how the family and household act around her death and items. The piano was moved but is still taken care of. It's tuned with no obvious dust, out of sight and out of mind but with instructions to keep it in good shape

Izzy easily absolves the previous order to not let anyone touch the piano, meaning it's been long enough where she finds it doesn't matter if someone plays it, and as Clown mildly implies, it seems that the order was given by Zombie, as he advises Ivory to not make too much noise

Obviously, as mrs. Hemlocke was the mistress of the estate, all the older staff would have been relatively fond of her and followed whatever wish Zombie made about her items, but as Serapter doesn't even seem to know as to what some of the rooms are for (like the piano room), and that he 'forgot [the piano] was down there,' quite heavily implies her death was wayyyy before his time

To compress: Mrs. Hemlocke died perhaps decades ago, to a point where none of the household is in mourning and have seemingly moved on, with new servants being unaware of the affects her passing had on the family (ex. Serapter)

Who killed Mistycat, and why do people think it's the forest?

I personally think the forest has got absolutely nothing to do with Mistycat's death, and that there's a different perpetrator at hand with no supernatural element. I'll explain after this segment as to why the forest is such a focal point to Ivory, but for now:

The forest is an ominous 'character' and looming figure during the whole episode. Multiple shots include Ivory spacing out and simply staring at the woods in some sort of trauma reaction

The forest is ominous, dense and is eerie due to the atmosphere

Forests are easy ground to get lost in and die

Supernatural activity can easily be tied with a supernatural forest

Misty's death is sudden and seems out of nowhere after a bit of a long shot with the woods

From Misty's injuries, it seems like the attack was quite violent, but it's not above that she fell down the stairs after being attacked. The injuries on the back of her head could suggest a blunt force blow, while the rest of her injuries were amassed from her tumbling down the stairs, which would draw someone to check out what happened, and of course, then the freak out

Do I have an idea as to who it could be? No. Fuck no lol, I'm not a psychic, I just don't think it's supernatural for now. There's absolutely zero reason as to why a supernatural entity would be killing the household now and not then

Why is the forest such a big deal, and Ivory's behaviour

Now. Hear me out on this: Ivory is from a cult like environment, where a settlement was in a similar forest, quite like the surrounding area of Whitepine

Her behaviour, past being autistic, is very submissive, with a fear of authority, the fear of disobeying orders to such an extent that she asks a fellow coworker permission to go outside, and a general reclusive behaviour that I associate with a want to conform and not cause issues for the ones in power

Obviously, all of these can be attributed to Ivory's implied autism, but I think it makes more sense with Ivory's behaviour towards the woods and other people

She seems afraid of talking, saying anything outside of what is asked of her, and even then, she struggles greatly and panics about being in trouble to a near panic attack level. Her dissociation with the sight of forests seems trauma related, along with the buzzing noise she gets after people rush to see why someone screamed

She seems afraid but in an abstract sense. She stares for seemingly hours after being dismissed her first day, just staring at the woods that caused her to zone out first thing

It's not normal behaviour. Even from a neurodivergent standpoint in my opinion. Her anxiety seems to come from an outside place, and Minutetech not knowing anything about her, past where he found her and what she did on the train ride gives me the impression she ran away from her cult, and now associates forests with them, causing her to have bad reactions when on edge or stressed

And that was it! Thank you for the read, hope you enjoyed my unhinged thoughts!!

[tizzyizzy]

Izzy's Feelings Matter Too

As a fandom, I find that Ed's feelings are often front and center. How hurt he was when Stede apparently abandoned him. Whether he was healing or not healing in s1e10. How hurtful or triggering or frightening Izzy's threat to him was, and to what extent it motivated Ed to destroy himself and everyone around him.

But what about how Ed's behaviors hurt others' feelings? Like Izzy's? Especially in s1e9 and s1e10?

From season 2 episodes and promos, we now know:

Ed and Izzy loved each other.

Ed and Izzy have been together most of their lives, and they know one another like no one else does.

Izzy taught Ed everything he knows.

Keeping that in mind, let's look back at the Act of Grace scene.

This isn't just Ed sacrificing his old way of life for a new love. Ed is severing his longest lasting, intimate relationship with Izzy for a future with Stede.

So for Izzy, this is his closest, most beloved friend ending their relationship to be with someone new. Someone Izzy said would ruin him.

Then Stede disappears, and Ed comes crawling back.

The man Izzy loved most left him for another man, and after Ed's heart broke, Ed walked back into Izzy's life like he belonged there.

Ed needed time to heal from the heartbreak? Well, I'm sure Izzy would have appreciated a bit of time to himself. Maybe a show of appreciation or apology. Literally any attempt at all to make up for the fact that Ed had picked someone over him (who ran off).

Instead, while Ed is crying in his blanket fort, it's Izzy who has to handle the crew. A crew he is clearly struggling to manage.

Then, without warning, Ed radically changes his leadership approach, if he's even consciously making a decision about how to lead at all. He proposes that they stop being pirates.

Remember, we are now aware that Izzy has known Ed ages. Izzy has been Ed's first mate for a long, long time. Izzy's career and livelihood are deeply intertwined with Ed's.

People tend to forget that Ed is not an independent agent. Izzy Misunderstanders like to paint Izzy as controlling, but Izzy is the one being ordered by a superior. When Ed decides that, actually, the crew is going to become a travelling ship-based variety act, who do you think Ed expects to help organize these plans? Who is going to have to implement these orders? Who is going to be dealing with the consequences when it turns out this may not a practical idea?

And sure, we can say that Ed is free to choose his path, and Izzy is free to leave. But I think most of us would agree that this would require a serious, likely emotional conversation where they both talk about their expectations and needs. Remember how long these two have been working together.

But Ed doesn't think he needs that, because he assumes that Izzy will come around and do what he wants, because until recently that's what Izzy has done.

So, yeah, Izzy said some hurtful shit to Ed, shit that struck a chord. But Ed isn't, and wasn't, the only one hurting in that scene. Izzy's closet friend left him, came back expecting to resume their own partnership without apology, and turned Izzy's entire career and way of life upside-down without warning.

[piratecaptainscaptainpirates]

I will never understand where the fanon idea that Ed has "anger issues" came from (yeah I know it's the racism just play with me in this space for a moment).

Because before I got into the fandom and started reading fanon takes, one of the things I loved so much about OFMD is how careful the show is to show Ed as someone who explicitly does not get angry very easily. It would've been so easy to paint this brown man in a hyper-violent profession as a hyper-violent person, but by virtue of his hangups around violence, Ed is one of the least violent characters in the show. We're shown early on that violence in this world is normalized and not treated the same as in the real world (we're expected to love Roach, a guy who is bummed about not getting to torture hostages), and we're told Ed enjoys a good maim, but all his violence that we actually see is so performative. He doesn't enjoy it the way other pirates do.

And every time Ed gets angry, we're beaten over the head with how hard you have to push him to make him mad. He will give people so many chances before he gets angry. Like the racist boat captain - he says "what's that supposed to mean" when the captain started being racist and gross, and only got mad once it was clear he was doubling down. In s1e10 he tries to de-escalate after Izzy starts being aggro, and that's after Izzy says he should've let the English kill Ed.

And literally every time Ed does behave violently, not only does it never exceed what is expected in pirate terms (and we're usually told this explicitly, like when Ed mentions cutting toes off as a part of pirate culture he doesn't like the episode before he does that), it is always very calculated and performative. When Ed reacts with violence, it's almost never a passionate thing, it's very cool and thought-through. He is very obviously a man who does not typically react with violence when he's angry.

It just baffles me. Every time I see takes or read fics that talk about Ed's "anger issues," or act like Ed's somehow destined to become abusive towards Stede, it's like...did we watch the same show?

[izzysillyhandsy]

It is finally time for me to try writing about The Scene.

There's so much happening and changing within seconds. I feel that the whole history of Edward and Izzy is played out here, for (from their point of view) the last time.

We start off with Ed waking Izzy up, taking out his pistol (to Izzy's confusion) and then handing it to Izzy.

They are close, Ed is calm and fully in the moment. It is such an intimate moment, the way Ed tilts his head down in line with the pistol, never breaking eye contact.

And Izzy, who at first was trying to fend Ed off, now looks at him like this:

What is actually going on here? It seems like a return to something they've done before, like a memory of a tender moment. Of course, this is right after Ed tells Iz about the dream. Maybe it's just the closeness, or the fact that this must be the first moment in forever where Izzy is the sole focus of Ed.

But I feel that there is a story there, something in their past that makes Izzy - what is it - happy? Nostalgic? Regretful? I don't see turned on here, it's much softer than that.

"Good for you." (slightly sneering) "It was good for me." (completely sincere)

You don't need me to tell you this has more than one meaning.

Ed touches Izzy's hand as he stands up, "It was just what the doctor ordered."

The first half ends - these were the good times. Spending time together with weapons aimed at each other :). I think this was when both were young and relatively innocent, when life was exciting and the two of them were best friends, possibly even closer than that.

But now the second half starts.

"Anyway, it wasn't even like that."

Also has a double meaning.

"No, in my dream - I was standing. Just like this."

Ed turns his back to Izzy, making this an execution instead of an act of intimacy.

Izzy first raises the pistol, laughs brokenly and desperately. It feels like this was also a situation they'd both been in before. The laugh sounds like "No, we're not doing this. Once was enough."

I think a similar scene happened when they were young, and the next bit strengthens this theory for me.

Izzy puts his hand over half his face, his voice changes and he calls Ed "Eddie" for the first and only time in the show:

"Oh, you're scared, Eddie? To sc- to scared to do it yourself?"

Hornigold also calls Ed "Eddie", and I think Izzy is kind of channeling Hornigold here. Maybe, back on Hornigold's ship, Ed was ordered to execute someone and couldn't. And maybe Izzy had to do it for him. Maybe Izzy had to do lots of traumatizing things for Ed. Maybe the person executed was someone Izzy and/or Ed cared about. And maybe Ed started to resent Izzy for it. The way Ed is spreading his arms out, the way it seems almost staged - it's like Ed is saying "kill me like you killed him".

OR maybe this is how Izzy pep-talked Ed into becoming Blackbeard, which would be much darker (and harder for me as an Izzy apologist). But Izzy telling Stede that Ed's complete breakdown is like 50% his fault may point to events in the past where Izzy thought he had to push Ed into the Kraken-zone to secure their and their crew's survival. Maybe he did this often, especially at the beginning of their Blackbeard fuckery.

What is remarkable though is that Izzy hides his face with his hand, then forces out the words, almost choking on them. This clearly has importance and history - nothing so far in the whole show was forced out so violently - so I am heavily leaning towards a traumatic experience for Ed and Izzy both. It definitely crashes Izzy down from his nostalgia-high real quick.

Now Izzy's voice changes back to his own, but he speaks really fast and without inflection, trying to get everything over with:

"Go on clean up your own fucking mess I'm not doing it I've been doing it all my fucking life."

(without thanks I might add)

"Fuck off."

Izzy's finally, finally had enough.

Ed acknowledges, resignedly, and leaves. I think he expected it to go this way.

Izzy shoots himself. I think Ed also expected this.

Ed says he loved him best he could. It's over. He goes to his own death.

This scene is only a few minutes long, but as I said in the beginning, I think they're reliving their whole relationship here, first the good times (which are quickly devalued - "But it wasn't even like that") and the bad times (I did this for you, but for nothing - "Fuck off").

As Ed says to Frenchie, he's had closure with Izzy. He's shown him what it was like for him. Izzy's also had closure with Ed. From now on, Ed has to carry the weight of his decisions himself.

Both die.

(and then both indestructible fuckers come back)

[avelera]

I feel like one unexpected side-effect in the (slight) uptick of queer ships becoming canon (seriously guys it's so slight if you look at the actual numbers) is learning how often slash fandom doesn't actually want the baggage that comes with their ship becoming canon.

I mean, of course they want it. The fandom wants the confirmation that they're not delusional, that they're not mocked, that the sparks they sensed between two possibly-queer characters is real.

But the side-effect of a ship becoming canon with anything more than a kiss to mark the end of the story is that it might become canon not in the way you wanted.

So long as the characters are in the will-they-won't-they, you can imagine what their first time would be like. You can imagine how they act in a relationship together. You can imagine the tone of the relationship.

You can imagine it in ways that are incredibly personal and meaningful to you.

But the minute a ship becomes canon at a point where the story still needs to progress, you're going to get divergence from the way you imagined it going.

They're going to bicker about things you never imagined would be a point of contention between them in the story, that it might have even been meaningful for you that they had never fought over previously, possibly because the story just didn't have the time for them to fight over that beforehand. Or perhaps this writer leans more into interpersonal conflict as a plot point, where you preferred the couple facing an external threat. There's as many ways to imagine the tone of a relatinship as there are people in the world.

They're going to have a different first-something than you imagined. First kiss, first date, first time sleeping together. For it to be canonical it has to be committed to the page which means it has to be set. Maybe you thought it would be awkward where it was smooth, or smooth where it should be awkward. Maybe you though the kiss would be a bigger deal to them than the sex or vice versa. Maybe canonically they flub the romance of that first time for the sake of comedy. Now that's canon too. You can ignore it with fic, obviously that's what fandom is about, but now it's AU, not "what-if?".

There might be interruptions to the love story, breakups, fights, separations, that aren't the end of the relationship but do mark an action beat that is necessary to keep the story moving and interesting. Unless the last canonical beat is them riding into the sunset together, it's inevitable and usually marks the end of a story because domestic fluff where nothing happens isn't actually a genre that can be sustained in original fiction without a plot.

Look, as queer ships become canon, this is going to be inevitable. OFMD S2 was the most egregious example I've seen recently of everyone who had engaged with the fandom having a different version of how they wanted Stede and Ed to behave once they were together. I couldn't help but laugh when I saw that the fandom fervency shifted from the canonical established queer ship (after it had the audacity to move beyond the establishing kiss and then the will-they-won't-they phase of reuniting), to the potential of a character who was never even canonically established as queer (Izzy) because everything about his story still lived in the potential land that fandom thrives in. And I don't entirely mean that as a criticism, just as a bitter irony!

Fandoms don't necessarily want a ship confirmed, they think they do, but that potential which was so enshrined and infuriatingly drawn out with regards to queer ships for so long and that's only just barely breaking just a little from when it was outright forbidden to show queer characters getting together (and it still is in most of the world if you go by population, and heavily discouraged by the mainstream powers that be in most places even where it's not banned, the limitations on international markets you get from having canonical queer characters even as side characters still makes it prohibitive for big budget flicks, since it means cutting themselves off from those markets in terms of recouping costs.)....

ANYWAY the point I'm making is that a few queer ships becoming canon has led to a perhaps predictable but depressing amount of outrage when 1) a popular queer ship doesn't become canon, but that's been building for a while now, but also 2) when the popular ship becoming canon doesn't become canon in the way the fandom wanted. Which was also inevitable but goddamn as a veteran of fandom for over two decades now, I can remember not that long ago when your queer ship becoming canon just not in the way you hoped would have been a damn nice problem to have!