#ed DOES care about izzy he's just. really self centered?

[something-about-sunflowers]

More modern au CJ (and people related to him) headcanons cause I should be asleep rn but I’m not:

This is a lot of rambling so under a read-more it goes lmao

Pretty much all of this is stuff I've been rotating in my head for a potential fic involving post EdIzzy, present Izzy/Hornigold (yes, be worried for Izzy lmao), and CJIzzy endgame lmao so some of this I'm gonna skim over cause I don't want to spoil it if I do manage to write any of that lol.

Meets Ed in high school. About 2 years older than him, same grade tho cause CJ got held back and one of them has a fucky birthday putting them above/below the average age for their grade (Ed younger probably?).

Didn't go for college but does follow Ed when he goes cause Ed doesn't want to live in a dorm and they could afford a shitty studio if they room together. They fuckin.

Ed meets Izzy in school and introduces them, Jack falls ass over teakettle, man hears wedding bells when Izzy walks thru the door. He can read a room tho and sees the way Izzy looks at Ed like he hung the moon so he doesn't interfere. They all fuck tho. He 'moves on' when they start actually dating, still fuck tho.

He meets Anne and they hit it off, she knows Jack's gone for Izzy but they like each other well enough. He finds out he knocked her up the same day Izzy tells him he wants to ask Ed to marry him. He has a breakdown, goes on a bender, doesn't really come down from it. Anne dumps him and they go no-contact.

Ed gets bored of college and drops out, buys a shitty run down bar and opens up The Queen Anne. Moves out of his and Jack's place into the apartment above the bar with Izzy. Jack keeps the studio but he's at theirs most often anyway. 'Hires' Jack and Izzy and a few friends from college (Fang, Ivan comes a little later). Izzy drops out too so he can 'help' run the bar.

Its obv a gay bar and its very much not the (late) 10s-20s so they get a good bit of trouble from homophobes. Jack picks a fight with a particularly unhinged one (who threatened Izzy). They leave but they follow him home and try and burn his apartment down. His neighbor calls 911 and he's saved (by the hot firefighter I mentioned in my prev CJ headcanon post lol) but he's got some really gnarly burns. He moves in with Ed and Izzy since his place is fucked and he needs help while he recovers anyway. Izzy does most of the 'help', tho Ed is good at 'distract from pain'.

Anne comes back in the picture when she hears about the fire (she kept in contact with Izzy, who told her). They don't get back together, she's dating Mary/Mark (depending on the day) now, but she DOES care and she figures their kid should be able to know their dad. When Jack is recovered enough he moves out of Ed and Izzy's place cause 'an apartment above a bar isn't really a place you can bring your kid, Jack'.

During his recovery his drinking problem gets worse and he develops a drug problem too (pain killers for the burns). He manages 'functional' for the most part for a couple of years but one day he's supposed to be watching Cal at Anne's place and he's way too drunk/high and Cal gets seriously hurt. Mary/Mark comes home just in time to avoid tragedy but Jack is horrified at himself and Anne gives him an ultimatum.

Mary/Mark (a social worker of some sort) helps him find a rehab and he gets better. He gets a new job (can't stay at the bar if he's trying to get sober) as a mechanic (cause that is also a really good job for him). About a year later he runs into the firefighter who saved him and surprises himself by asking if they can help him join up. They do and he does.

He keeps in touch with Ed and Izzy, kinda, mostly thru social media and Christmas cards (and he ALWAYS calls Izzy for his birthday) but they're not really up to date with each other. He knows they're currently 'off-again' cause Izzy is no longer 'in a relationship' on facebook, and he hears thru the grapevine that Ed's not at The Queen anymore. He doesn't realize that Izzy followed him til he gets a call for a fire at The Revenge and Izzy's the only one on shift (at like, 7am, waaaay past close). This is where THEY start in the fic in my head tho so no more beyond this for them lol.

(Re: Jack and Anne's kid: Calico 'Cal'/'Callie' Bonny. They're 5 when they meet Jack. They're about 7-8 when they have their near death experience. At 11 they come out as non binary (like Mary/Mark). They're 13 when the fic takes place. Jack is in their life but is not their caregiver (tho Anne and Mary/Mark give him weekends sometimes and he watches them when they need it).)

(Re: Ed and Izzy: Izzy brings up the idea of marriage to Ed. Ed is cagey about it. They CAN legally marry cause Izzy is legally still 'female' no cis!Izzy jumpscares here but Ed says he wants to wait til its legal 'as like, solidarity man'. Izzy can't tell Ed 'no' and reasons its at least coming from a good place.

They're never really in a good place in their relationship, Jack doesn't notice cause he's a barely functional alcoholic while they're all living together. Things continue to deteriorate between them. Marriage Equality Act passes and when Izzy brings up getting married again Ed says 'I mean, we're practically married already Iz, don't need a piece of paper to tell me you're mine, yeah?' They wind up being pretty off-again-on-again.

Few years later Ed meets Stede (while him and Izzy are ON-again). Ed hands over The Queen to one of the boys and brings himself and Izzy (and Fang and Ivan) over to Stede's bar The Revenge. He's fucking Stede behind Izzy's back for the better part of a year before Izzy confronts him (he knew, he was just in denial). Ed dumps Izzy. Within the year Ed is engaged to Stede.

The aftermath of all that finds Izzy at Hornigold's bar, where Ed and Jack used to work when Ed was in college but Izzy did not (so he doesn’t really know Ben like they do), drunk and being chatted up by Ben aaaand that's about where the fic starts in my head lmao.)

[bemusedlybespectacled]

y'all. y'all. I cracked the fucking code and I am so fucking mad about it because it's a fix that solves every major problem with the finale:

have ed get shot (injured, not killed) in defense of izzy.

seriously, hear me out, this solves LITERALLY EVERY PROBLEM:

"Ed never gave Izzy a real apology!" "Izzy would never accept one!" okay, then don't have Ed apologize to Izzy verbally. have him apologize by taking a bullet for him. have Izzy cuss out Ed for doing something so stupid while cradling him in his arms.

"Ed never gave the crew a real apology!" okay, then have him get shot defending Izzy as both a subtle callback to Izzy shooting Ed in defense of the crew in "red flags" and as proof that he's changed.

"it makes no sense for Izzy to say the whole crew loves Ed when that hasn't been shown at all!" okay, then show it. any lingering hatred the crew has gets wiped out when they see that Ed really does care about Izzy (keeping in mind that him not treating Izzy well was a major unifying thing for them), and they all work to help him: getting the bullet out, holding his hand, telling him he's going to be okay. Ed's accepted back into the family because of his deeds, not his words, and we get a nice call back to the scene where the crew makes Izzy's leg.

"Izzy's death was all about Ed and Ed's arc and that's fucked up" okay, so have there be a REASON that Ed is the center of attention (the reason being that he's been shot and the entire crew needs to care for him) and make it actually part of Ed's arc (acting selflessly in defense of them when he's been pretty self-centered and not really accepting responsibility this entire time).

"it makes no sense for Ed to retire to an inn on land when we just established that he's bad at things that aren't piracy!" okay, then don't have him retire voluntarily. he needs to recover from his bullet wound on land, and so the crew needs to reluctantly leave him behind.

"it makes no sense for Stede to retire to an inn when his entire arc has been him finding a family in the crew and getting the respect he never had!" okay, so make it a really difficult decision for him – staying on land with Ed, the love of his life, or staying with the crew and being a big bad pirate – and ultimately choose Ed. have Ed even try to talk him into staying with the crew, because he loves piracy so much! but given another choice to leave Ed (one that Ed would be aware of and understand), he stays this time.

"Izzy's death is inconsistent with the rest of the series where the good guys survive absurd levels of violence and the bad guys die hilarious karmic deaths" okay, so don't have him OR Ed die. have Ed get shot, have him be seriously injured, maybe even fake us out by having him get shot on the right side (which is of course the side with the important bits!), and then have him live.

"Izzy dies right when he was starting to enjoy life and find his own family/community outside of Ed!" exactly. so don't kill him. shoot Ed. and then have Ed retire on land.

[canonizzyhours]

The thing that really upsets me about the canyon is - look, they're always claiming their opponents are committing the sin of Character Hate, right? Character Hate is supposedly always bad faith and always wrong. But the only takes on Izzy that they'll accept as not qualifying as "hate" are ones that require incredibly bad faith uncharitable interpretations of other characters.

Season 1 left a lot of stuff about Izzy open to interpretation. But one thing was clear: what Izzy said to Ed in the "namby-pamby" scene was not just cruel in the usual way it's cruel to tell someone who's heartbroken to just man up because he'd be better off dead than acting like this (which would be bad enough honestly), it was the absolute most hurtful thing Ed Teach specifically could hear at that moment because it was stabbing him directly in the core trauma he'd carried for his entire life. Ed's absolute worst fear in the whole world is that the violence he's capable of, as exemplified by having killed his dad, proves he is a monster instead of an actual human person capable of love or friendship. So Izzy tells him he's just embarrassing himself trying to reach out to others, says his real self is a violent monster, then goads him till he does something violent and says see, this is the real you. That's insanely targeted. If you sat down and tried to think of the single most most incredibly harmful and triggering thing you could say or do to Ed you couldn't have done any better.

So that means the viewer has two options for how to interpret Izzy:

1) Izzy does not really know Ed very well at all when you get down to it, despite how long they've worked together. He doesn't get what Ed's trauma is all about or how it affects him and the fact that what he said is Ed's absolute deepest fear is just a coincidence. So he truly does not understand just how hurtful he's being and would never have said that stuff if he'd known.

or

2) Izzy does understand Ed pretty accurately and therefore he is being incredibly viciously cruel on purpose by deliberately reinforcing his most painful and unhealthy beliefs about himself, knowing how it's going to affect him.

Those are the only two possibilities! You could have an Izzy whose relationship with Ed was close enough to deeply understand him, or you could have an Izzy who actually cared about Ed and didn't want to hurt him. But you could not have both. The closer you assumed Ed and Izzy were, and the more actual trust and intimacy and understanding you thought existed between them, then the crueler you had to assume Izzy was being.

But the canyon didn't want to accept that! They want to insist that Ed and Izzy had a really close relationship involving trust and intimacy and understanding AND that Izzy cares deeply about Ed's well-being and only ever wants to act in his best interests. So they found a third option, which was to just throw out Ed's entire character arc.

If you refused to believe Ed's arc was what it very obviously was, then you could deny that Izzy was actually being all that hurtful. You just deny that Ed's arc is about fearing the exact things Izzy told him were true about himself. Instead they said...well, a lot of them just didn't seem to really care that they didn't have a clear sense of what Ed's arc was at all, but those who did seem to care about Ed settled on: Ed's problem is that he actually DOES have something deeply wrong with him that makes him uncontrollably violent and he's simply trying to run away from that, which is unhealthy, so Izzy is looking out for him by trying to force him to confront these hard truths, which he needs to do before he can grow. But unfortunately Ed completely overreacted to Izzy's harsh truth-telling.

Now I mean think about the narrative this implies. This means OFMD is a romcom centered around the idea that the indigenous lead's deep seated belief that he's an uncontrollably violent monster is ACTUALLY TRUE and the white man who tells him so is just trying to help him. That would be a narrative that was (a) incredibly mean-spirited, (b) intensely racist, and (c) made no sense at all as a love story centered on this character. Which is how you should be able to tell it's an absurd read! And it's supposed to be the people who say "no, Ed's arc is what it looks like, which means Izzy either isn't especially close to him or is emotionally abusing him on purpose" who are spreading character hate.

This is why we're always pointing out that you have to understand Ed is a lead character and Izzy is a supporting one. I know the canyon thinks that's some sort of pedantry but it matters here, because if an interpretation you like because of what it does for a supporting character's arc comes at the cost of making the lead character's arc totally nonsensical, that's a pretty basic way you can tell it's reading against the text!

So now we're post season 2. And season 2 not only unsurprisingly followed up on the character arc Ed actually did have in season 1, but it managed to go with the canyon worst case scenario of repeatedly reinforcing that Izzy really does not understand Ed very well in many ways AND ALSO AT THE SAME TIME specifying in his final scene that Izzy DID understand JUST enough to realize the whole time that he was being terrible to Ed and did it anyway on purpose for years. Super embarrassing for those guys. I guess the massive tantrums they threw about season 2 aren't really a surprise.

#406.

[izzyspussy]

Happy new year Jack! I'm extremely glad that we became friends and I hope we can continue to be insane and also the most galaxy brained fuckers on this site in 2023.

Question: any spare ed/stede/jack/izzy thoughts? ~ cris

UWU!!!!!!!! I am glad we became friends also and I'm looking forward to season 2 in part specifically so that you and I can Make Posts.

My main thought about this is "God I wish that Jack was me",

[slight undertones of abuse. i GUESS.]

Hot take but among these four, Jack is the only one who isn't certifiably nuts. He's just drunk and an asshole and has some feelings he's pretending he doesn't, but other than that he's completely sane. However. Being a drunk asshole with buried feelings, he absolutely relishes in the other three's various insanities.

He doesn't really get jealous. He occasionally gets ornery and behaves in a "if I can't have it no one can" manner, but that only applies when he in fact does not have it. On the other hand he thinks it's extremely funny when the other three do get jealous, and so he often orchestrates scenarios that will send them into possessive conniptions.

He especially likes making Ed jealous, because Ed is the most volatile, and also because usually getting Ed jealous results in Izzy having some problems lmfaooooo. If ever there were sister wives that actually acted like siblings, it's Jack and Izzy. Jack is constantly getting Izzy in trouble on purpose and playing the equivalent of "I'm not touching youuuuu" in every context possible. Having Jack in the relationship results in an exponential increase of Ed shouting, "I DON'T CARE WHO STARTED IT." (It was Jack. Jack started it.)

Jack also has a lot of fun making Stede jealous, because Stede is unpredictable - or at least unpredictable to Jack, so far. Also it's totally thrilling to get Stede to be possessive over Ed specifically, because Stede is the only one who can get Ed "in trouble" the way Ed gets Izzy. (Jack can make Ed feel bad, and he can top him to high fucking heaven, but it's not the same.)

Of course, Jack also loves to make Izzy jealous just because he loves to see Izzy get upset aksjflkasfkks. He particularly likes to make Izzy jealous over him, because Izzy hates that he gives a shit about Jack. It's also really fun because since once Ed has literally any emotional vulnerability in a situation whatsoever he's extremely easy to manipulate, and Stede is so self-centered and oblivious, neither of them almost ever realize that Jack instigated whatever. But (not often, but sometimes) Izzy does, and he always tries to get Jack back. But first of all, as I said Jack doesn't really get jealous. And secondly, Izzy comically sucks at it lmfao. (And more often than not, Izzy's attempts to make Jack jealous will actually end up making Ed or Stede jealous, so basically he did Jack's work for him alskfjh RIP.)

On the extraordinarily rare occasion that Izzy (or Ed, though Jack can't get this way with Stede because Stede's aura of prissiness is impregnable) does manage to make Jack jealous, Jack gets even more unhinged than Ed. Full on NOT safe, NOT sane, BARELY consensual type shit. After Ed comes back from being the kraken, making Jack jealous is the only way Izzy can get scared sexually/domestically anymore because actual healthy play doesn't do it for him. (In a modern AU, he'd be the type of guy who is bored by horror movies and finds rollercoasters pleasant enough, but one of those you pay a guy to fake kidnap somebody things would be a great anniversary gift for him laskfks.) Anyway so half of the flogging scars on Izzy's back are from working in service and/or the Navy, and the other half are from Jack. (To be clear, Ed has whipped him before, but he never left any scars. Not that way, anyway.)

Dovetailing away from jealousy a little bit, the only one of the three of them that can manipulate Jack is Stede. Jack is always fully aware Stede is manipulating him when Stede does it, and Stede knows Jack knows, but Stede has so much pent up rage he'd never consider taking out on Ed and is scared of overdoing it with Izzy, and he's so good at that Massive Aggression, and Jack is so into a) power and b) an immoral bastard that he lets it work anyway. And also sometimes he just wants to see what Stede is going to do. And I think it's fair to say Jack canonically does not have much of a self preservation instinct, or at least not one that outweighs his bullshit. So if the only way to find out what the worst thing Stede will do is to suffer it himself, Jack will gladly take it.

Dovetailing back into jealousy, one such time Stede did this was like. Ed, Stede, and Izzy all have permanent marks on each other from each of the others. Jack only has permanent marks from Ed, from back before Ed and Izzy even met, and it's only a few stupid little not particularly significant tattoos and one (1) bite mark that scarred. (And maybe those burns are technically Ed's fault, but Ed doesn't want credit for them in such a bad way that even Jack won't attribute them to him out loud, though he does often think of them that way and likes it.)

So anyway Stede is like well Jack you have to let Izzy and I hurt you real bad some way that will last forever or you aren't really a part of this relationship. And Jack is like you fucking rat bastard that's so obvious. And Stede is like I know and you're going to do it anyway, or you aren't really a part of this relationship. All steel-eyed and snooty and shit. And Jack is like well damn when you put it that way.

So Stede either cuts Jack up a little bit or brands him, and then Izzy is expected to do the same and he's thrilled with this but also the entire time his heart is pounding and he's like Is This Allowed. Is This Allowed. Is This Allowed. Honestly, harkening back to the last ask I answered from you, Izzy probably cuts Jack even if Stede branded him, and it completely goes to his head and he loses all capability of higher thought and just starts drinking Jack's blood like a freak, and Jack laughs at him but lets him do it, and Stede pets Izzy's hair and gives Jack a smug look over his head that is also a threat(/promise).

Anyway. This got away from me a little bit. I may be horny.

[avelera]

It’s worth noting that:

1) Stede is not in the wrong here for not speaking up. Nor is it his or any other person living with someone with ADHD’s responsibility to be cheerful about getting steamrolled in conversation or ignored. And you’re allowed to be annoyed or even angry about it, especially if one deals with it a lot (sorry baby! @ my partner lol)

2) I don’t think it’s coming from a place of malice on Ed’s part or even deliberate disrespect, which I wouldn’t put past Ed when talking to Izzy or someone else he didn’t take seriously. But in the moment about “waiting to drown” it really felt to me like Ed was deep in his own thoughts, making a rather big confession (to a near-stranger lmao) and it was a big enough admission to get out there that he was in his own head a bit and not really listening to Stede.

3) Technically, Ed doesn’t canonically have ADHD and that’s worth remembering. Though, he is presented as “gifted” and “brilliant” which is often code for the same behavior.

4) That said, I wouldn’t put it past Ed to actually be self-centered (and deliberate about it) as a character trait, there’s plenty of signs of that not related to listening to Stede. And I think there is compelling meta out there that Ed gets excited about the exciting parts of Stede, the things that make Stede happy like trying to be a pirate, and the things Stede is good at. But Ed struggles or shuts down or ignores Stede when things get heavy or serious. He’s still having fun with Stede and seems avoidant about any downer stuff out of Stede and doesn’t go looking for it really. Granted, Stede doesn’t really reach out much either on that front, Ed just info dumps about his internal conflicts at him and Stede listens and shows concern. Ed could afford to return the favor but I’m not sure he realizes he’s doing it, I’m not sure he’s had a partner he cares about enough before to train himself in those little social cues (as I had to as someone with ADHD who also likes to respect the privacy of others, it can make me come across as oblivious or uncaring when I don’t also inquire about how they’re doing in return). Though I’m sure if I did a proper comb-through of Ed and Stede’s interactions I’d get a more complete picture and I’m forgetting a ton here….

Anyway! Part of me hopes that Stede will get better at focusing Ed when he has something important to say next season. Part of me hopes Ed makes the effort to listen when it’s important. I think there’s behavior there on the page that is less than optimal (if very realistic ) for a couple but I also am not convinced it’s something Ed does on purpose, speaking as someone who also has a very loud buzzy brain.

On the one hand, I see insightful meta that points out how Stede always listens to Ed’s confessions and internal conflict but Ed doesn’t do the same for Stede.

Ed didn’t listen when Stede said he also felt like he was drowning, Ed just bulldozed right through to his own point, and when Stede was worrying about if Mary declared him dead as an act of spite, Ed just ignored him, and maybe if he had listened he’d have understood some of the internal conflict Stede was facing before he ran off. Maybe, Ed needs to learn to listen to Stede too, and that’s a flaw he’ll have to overcome in S2…

… and on the other hand, as someone with ADHD who also gets selective hearing and a weird attention span whenever I’m in my own thoughts, a lot like Ed in those moments, I’m just like

… maybe Ed needs to improve on those things but uh, maybe it’s just how his brain works and Stede could just, y’know, gently draw his attention to the fact Ed didn’t hear him just then. Just as a courtesy. (Please, I swear we’re not trying to be rude!)