#edcourse

[who-the-fuck-knows-blog]

[looking nervously out of the corner of my eyes at this fandom] y’all know you can be mentally ill and have disorders and trauma and still be responsible for your actions and those actions can be toxic or abusive, right?

[electric-friend]

saying ed was wrong for some of his actions of violence genuinely bares no reflection on izzy’s innocence or lack thereof. firstly, more people than izzy were involved in these incidents, and secondly, the writing clearly implies that ed was doing things for which he was not justified. he feels, understandably, guilt. i don’t even think izzy is innocent but i don’t beleive he deserved what he got. additionally it’s also unnecessary to tie ed’s accountability for the hurt he’s caused to any moral judgement on his person as a whole, like the idea of calling him definitively good or bad, or irredeemable, because neither he nor izzy are meant to be read as irredeemable, as the narrative suggests.

but because i’m frustrated and sick of seeing it happen, let me just repeat myself.

ed having been wrong for some of his actions genuinely bares no inherent implication of izzy’s innocence or lack thereof.

people often seem to read meta about ed’s accountability for the hurt he’s caused others as being about izzy, and it can be, but because people hate izzy and hate the idea of izzy being liked, they often equate the idea of ed’s guilt with the idea of izzy’s innocence, and the two are actually unrelated. someone can have done bad things and still not deserve bad things in return, and that applies to both ed and izzy in different ways.

[something-about-sunflowers]

Right. So. I really need people to get okay with people disliking or even hating Ed. Like. As soon as possible.

I have always maintained that people are allowed to feel however they want about Izzy but they need to show the fans the bare minimum of respect by keeping it out of the tags and off their posts and out of their askboxes, as well as not moralizing over the fact that we like the character that they hate.

I feel the same about Ed.

I say this as someone who does still love Ed and is happy to see where this season takes him when he gets his chance for growth past his destructive spiral. (Note: I did not say 'self' destructive, because while he is hurting himself, he is also hurting others and that should be acknowledged.)

Think of what it tells survivors of DV/IPV when they see you say things like 'I can't believe people are vilifying Ed over what he's doing to Izzy'. You don't even have to be a survivor to find discomfort with a character who is doing those things. Regardless of how the season in full treats his behavior, what we've been presented with so far has very obviously been compared to a DV/IPV situation. The crew staged an intervention and held sympathy when Izzy cried. Even someone who doesn't like Izzy might find it difficult to still love - or even like - Ed at this association.

All this aside. It literally doesn't matter why someone hates Ed. As long as they have the common decency to not put outright hate in the character tag or on other people's posts or askboxes and not moralize over people who do still like/love the character it's fine. Which I have not seen really anyone doing anyway. At least not with any frequency with which to warrant the amount of 'give fans of Ed some grace' or 'you shouldn't hate Ed he's literally so sad and has never done anything wrong' type posts I've seen since the s2e1 clip came out.

It really is frustrating that Izzy-antis have used all the right phrases in this type of discourse without actually holding to any sort of principle of common decency, because really: Someone hating your favorite character does not affect you. Pointing out the things they did wrong is not hate (though it should, ideally, still be tagged as '[character] critical' or some such similar term). Having a reason for reprehensible behavior does not excuse said behavior.

We do not need to close ranks around Ed the way the Canyon tends to with Izzy because there is no wide-scale attack on his character or the people who still like/love him. Yes, have some grace to his fans but let's not create an environment where people feel like they're not allowed to criticize the character at all, even untagged on their own accounts.

[sky-fire-forever]

Are people unaware that crisism can be fun for people? That it can make people happy?

Like, if people are coming onto your posts and complaining about things you've said on YOUR posts, then of course you have every right to complain. But being upset that people are being critical just... in general is so odd to me

I am fairly critical of a LOT of media I really enjoy. If asked, I can probably point out at least a dozen flaws in my all time FAVORITE pieces of media. Not because I go looking for flaws with a fine comb, but because my brain just is highly analytical. It picks up on things I don't like

But flaws don't make anything unenjoyable for me? At all? Everything is flawed. Sometimes I don't like things that other people love and that's perfectly okay!! It doesn't mean I'm not allowed to talk about things I don't like

Sharing opinions is fun for me. I enjoy it. I'm not angry or filled with hatred when I dislike things. I can be disappointed or frustrated, sure. But sometimes it's nice to feel those things? The same way people like feeling scared or sad. Media causes emotions to come out and that's okay. And finding people who agree with me about things I dislike helps me feel less alone. I feel kinship with those people the same way I feel kinship with people who like the same things I like

It's just very odd to me when I see people complaining that people are being critical of something they enjoy, saying that critical fans should just leave the fandom if they don't like certain aspects of the thing. But people can be critical of stuff while still enjoying it. They can hate certain parts while enjoying other parts. Some of the best fanfics I've ever read were written to spite the canon. Disliking the way something is done can encourage so much beautiful creations from other people!

I dunno. This idea that if you have any problem with anything, you should keep quiet or you're not a real fan is genuinely baffling to me. Yeah, tag critical posts appropriately, but if you don't want to see those posts, block them

We're all just enjoying ourselves the way we want to

[jkseducationconsultant]

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[k-mund]

I didn't see this post (it's probably from someone I blocked) but yeah no shit Izzy would reject the idea of being an abuse victim, that's because he's trying very very hard to protect his mental image of Ed. I think that's the reason we see him struggling so much with why Ed shot him: was it because he mentions Stede's name (2x03)? because he wasn't doing his job (2x04)? because he told Ed he loves him (2x07)? if only he could convince himself it was a shark (2x05), then he wouldn't have to examine Ed's motivation and how he can blame himself for it...

What is the point of these scenes otherwise?

I've been there. Lots and lots of victims had been there. When you love someone, and you need to make sense of what happened/what's happening, and you're so desperate to not blame them that you would twist reality to make the abuse your fault.

If you're watching season 2 and you don't come to the conclusion that you have to be critical of Izzy's POV, you're... not really watching.

---

On the subject of "tough victims", a short essay by Jade (Stephanie Bell) : I’m a Female Wrestler and a Victim of Domestic Abuse (there's a little bit of description of abuse in it)

Not to beat a dead horse but

if I see one more take to the tune of 'saying that Izzy was abused is a disservice to his character because he would spit in your face and reject the idea that he was abused' (:staring at a certain post made 6 days ago by a certain someone:)

I am going to go apeshit.

People who are nasty and mean can be abuse victims.

People who are proud can be abuse victims.

People who REJECT THE CONCEPT OF BEING ABUSE VICTIMS can still be survivors and have still suffered very real abuse.

Denying that Izzy was abused because 'he's tough' is just so fucking disturbing, and really shows what you think about abuse victims IRL. Please take a good long hard look at yourself and ask yourself WHY you think that is a good stance.

Ditto for everyone who liked that post. Maybe think about how it reads to people who've actually been through abusive relationships.

This fandom truly has thee most rancid takes sometimes, and I think a lot of it comes from an unwillingness to critically engage with why you think certain characters 'deserve' what they get.

[who-the-fuck-knows-blog]

holy christ. this fandom is fucking exhausting about mental health and mental illness and abuse. i dont want to directly engage with people saying this stuff because i am pretty sure they wont change their minds or really listen to me, but Ed can be mentally ill and abusive/toxic (<-those aren’t necessarily interchangable but I’m going to be using both in this case).

Ed’s actions can be a result of his trauma, he can hate that he does it, it can be within his own justification a result of previous threats or negativity from others, and they can still be not okay or justified.

The majority of people who have been abusive in my life have been struggling with something. Mental illness, addiction, trauma, all of the above. Trauma and trauma reactions can lead to further abusive behavior.

When you have personality disorders or mental health issues that come with extreme cognitive distortions (everyone has cognitive distortions, but mental illnesses and trauma tend to lead to more extreme examples or more cognitive distortions than you would have otherwise), it can lead to you continuing with dangerous/manipulative behavior in a more unaware manner. Many are aware it is manipulative, though. and I suppose that’s where the distinction can be made between whether or not this is a toxic or abusive relationship. One comes with more of an intent to control, the other is more about mutually lashing out/having disproportionate emotional reactions to situations.

This post, to me, isn’t about determining whether Ed was Abusive or Toxic, but moreso about conversations around abusive behavior. The way it has been described, Ed’s behavior towards Izzy in S2 has been deliberately controlling and manipulative, as Ed has been towards the entire crew in that season. Does it matter if he’s doing it because he is spiralling and wants to push everyone to their breaking point to kill himself vs just to be a dick? Yes, to a degree. It means he likely just needs help and is capable of changing. On the other hand, no. The behavior is terrible and not justifiable, and having mental illnesses that caused it doesn’t make it suddenly not his responsibility.

I guess I’m more annoyed at the overjustification and removing Ed from his own autonomy and responsibility for his behavior than anything. There can be reasons behind why someone does something, and those reasons can be very sympathetic and understandable and make a lot of sense, it just gets to a point where people seem to be using that to excuse the behavior and remove Ed’s agency in the harm he himself has caused deliberately (even if the intention wasn’t to make people miserable but to kill himself, the goal and method through which he did it was to cause emotional and physical damage and torture to ensure this would happen, with little to no care for the wellbeing of the others.)

If people are upset about Ed’s behavior and lack of actual personal accountability for what he’s done, that’s fine. The same way that it’s fine for people to be upset about the emotional harm Izzy has done to Ed.

I know a lot of posts are not super nuanced when it comes to Ed and abusive behavior, I’m not gonna say hes iredeemable, and in fact he’s already ahead of other people who display this behavior in that he realizes he needs to change and puts in an effort to do so. He’s still sympathetic to most folks, and I personally still love him.

I also acknowledge I, like everyone else, am not immune to personal biases and lack of insight and emotional reasoning. Many folks have been having trauma reactions based on the events in the show or have had their trauma triggered or have fallen back on (understandably) emotional responses that are due to trauma. Some people have been applying their personal experiences with people that behave similarly to characters on the show to their analysis and impressions of the characters. I’m not gonna say that’s morally good or bad. It just exists and is unavoidable when you have a ton of people with trauma discussing things. But it can skew perceptions, as trauma does. so it’s just something to be aware of, because it doesn’t feel like you’re being skewed it feels either like you’re being attacked or you are more aware of/closer to/have a better understanding of the emotions and responses of the characters you are projecting onto.

I dunno. maybe I’m full of shit! Who knows! I just wanted to ramble more about this stuff bc it’s very upsetting to me (<-could be a trauma response I am not adequately handling or aware of or acknowledging) to see the way ppl have been defensive of Ed via “he’s not doing it because he wants to do it/live like this, he’s traumatized, he’s mentally ill, and Izzy pushed him into it” because those can be explanations of his actions but not justifications of his actions.

[gydima]

I feel like it's a small but VERY vocal minority of Ed fans who have willfully blinded themselves to Ed's culpability in the crew's suffering. The people I'm talking about are the ones who dug in so deep on the anti-Izzy front after S1 that I feel like they ended up backed into a corner where Izzy HAD to be the one to blame.

Here's my theory, and I don't know if it will make sense, but I believe most of the friction within this fandom springs from the human propensity to be contrary. Sure, there would have been plenty of disagreements without it, but it pushed the vitriol to absurd heights.

Like, I will fully admit that I doubled down on loving Izzy when certain Izzy antis stopped blaming him for everything he DID do (perfectly fine), and started blaming him for things he didn't do (annoying). Obviously there was plenty to blame Izzy for because he WAS an antagonist in S1. But some of the most vocal Izzy antis tended to assign blame from someone else onto Izzy or reach REALLY HARD to interpret him as an actual villain rather than antagonist.

But I think they did that because THEY, like we Izzy fans, loved Ed (and/or Stede) so much. I'm sure they felt more and more contrary because they were annoyed to see Izzy had more fans than they thought he "deserved." (Possibly the most divisive word in all of OFMD meta.)

So each time these certain Ed/Stede/Gentlebeard fans saw Izzy fans offering opinions (whether genuine or tongue-in-cheek) that didn't jibe with their more Ed-friendly or Stede-friendly interpretations, they pushed back a little harder. Then we pushed back. Then they pushed back. And so on and so forth, until we ended up with people mulishly sharing the absolute worst bad-faith takes I've ever seen.

And it sucks that the resulting conflict (and anon hate) spawned the so-called Izzy Canyon in the equal but opposite corner. I mean, I can't even pretend I haven't blocked multiple people here on tumblr because everything I saw from them led me to believe that they would never give an inch. They had dug so deeply into their own trench that they would never for a second consider Izzy fans might sometimes be right.

And here's where I think the contrariness REALLY fucked us. Do you think some of the most vocal anti-Izzy folks would have changed their tune a bit after the first few episodes of S2 if only it weren't for those trenches and that contrariness? If it weren't for the smugness they'd expect from Izzy fans if they admitted Ed wronged not just Izzy, but the rest of the crew? Did they remain in their trench more for self-protection than the actual belief that Ed had nothing to apologize for?

Because I wonder.

(To be very clear, I believe most OFMD fans are reasonable people. I don't love sweeping generalizations about "Izzy stans" or "Ed stans," etc. These are not huge sectors of the fandom I'm talking about; but the little clusters of vocal people who bring out the worst in each other.)

I am once again begging Ed stans to understand that it's possible to love Ed and believe he deserves love AND also admit that he mistreated and tormented the crew during the Kraken era. Not only is this possible, this is the position the show wants you to have. You think Izzy deserved everything he got? Fine, whatever, forget about him for a minute. There's a whole crew in there you're supposed to empathise with and feel sympathy for, too. The six of them that Ed actively tried to kill or left for dead, for starters. Pay attention to the crew's experiences and reactions. They're shown to be traumatised, grieving, clinging to disassociation (Frenchie) and nihilism (Archie) as coping mechanisms and suffering from PTSD flashbacks. And, since this type of fans constantly go on about how it's racist to think Ed did anything wrong... what about the fact that a lot of the crew are PoC too? What then?

If you've watched the first 3 episodes of S2 and there was only one person on that ship you felt sorry for, then you're not a fan of OFMD, you're just a fan of Ed in isolation. And if the only way you can love Ed is by denying that he ever did anything wrong, then you're completely missing the point of the show. OFMD never said that people only deserve to be loved if they're morally perfect and flawless. The show doesn't subscribe to the dichotomy of Good vs Bad. Good people can do bad things. They can hurt the ones they love. Even if they didn't mean to, even if they themselves were suffering at the time, it doesn't mean they don't need to take responsibility for their actions or avoid the consequences. Stede didn't mean to hurt Mary and his kids when he left, but he still did. He had legitimate reasons for leaving, he didn't just do it for the lolz, but it was still wrong and Mary was right to be angry at him. And Stede needed to face up to this - not just for their sake but his too. Even though it turned out their lives were better off without him, reconciling with Mary was still crucial for his character development.

It was the same for Ed, it just didn't get handled quite as well due to lack of screentime, but the idea was the same. When Ed realises he'd been cruel to Fang and apologises, he isn't sinking into self-hatred and despair. Quite the contrary, this is a moment of growth for him. Because the fact is, just because you as a human being are inherently worthy of love doesn't mean you can go around hurting everyone and expecting them to put up with you. That's just not how it works. You don't need to be perfect, but you do need to listen to people when they tell you that you hurt them and apologise genuinely and try to be better. The show is very sympathetic to Ed but it does NOT excuse his actions. The crew aren't portrayed as villains or antagonists for being scared and angry at Ed for what he did to them. Even Stede was on their side with this one. If even Stede is able to see things from the crew's POV and have sympathy for them, then you should too. Stede doesn't love Ed because he sees Ed as a pure uwu angel. He loves Ed... because he just does. He loves being around him. They really click together. They have so much in common. That doesn't mean he approves of literally everything Ed has ever done. It just means he loves Ed despite that.

[electric-friend]

i would respect someone’s different opinion on ofmd2 if that opinion wasn’t mainly “people who disagree with me are inherently wrong and evil”, you know what i mean, guys? like ok, so you thought season two was good and izzy’s death made sense. that’s cool? i’d still be your friend like idc, we can disagree. but like… if you think people who thought ed’s narrative didn’t get resolved or who interpreted it in a different way than you did are *worse people* because of their opinions and that they’re wrong and bad and you’re the one who is right and good… i just can’t stand that.

[electric-friend]

let me tell you. people need to get the misconception that “victim” and “perpetrator” are mutually exclusive roles and a character or person can only be one or the other in their lifetime out of their head. it’s like they don’t even know they’re pressing this outlook onto situations, either. but they are.

[electric-friend]

it’s not like i’m going around saying nobody’s allowed to like ed or write fic of ed or anything, you guys probably know i like ed and write fic of him and stuff.

believe me, i’m very aware ed’s a fictional character. when i’m talking about ed’s accountability i’m mainly talking about canonical writing flaws that set up a very significant tone of seriousness and deep intensity with ed’s actions and then drop that tone and imply offscreen healing and forgiveness in a way that doesn’t match with the tonal setup of the themes that were introduced at all. and how that feels like it takes away from ed as a character and the story as a whole and is detrimental to the intended-as-happy ending and incongruous with izzy’s death.

it’s not about condemning the fictional character necessarily, as all of these characters are flawed and complex, it’s fully about distress at the writing flaws that do these characters injustice.

[electric-friend]

so obviously given that i like gentlebeard content but i make loud canyon and izcourse and edcourse posts, i'm blocked by a lot of blogs that make posts that ultimately get reblogged to my dash anyway.

the funniest thing about it is the fact i can clearly see that these blogs are up and running but when someone blocks you tumblr just tries to gaslight you.

"this blog does not exist! oops, nothing's here! uh oh, that blog's gone!"

meanwhile the blog does exist i'm just blocked. and tumblr is like nooooo this blog isn't reeeeallll trust me.

it kinda does my head in a little because it would be nice if tumblr did make it look like the blog was deleted but i can clearly see it's not and tumblr insisting over and over that the blog doesn't fucking exist is kinda creepy like it makes me feel insane and i don't like it at all

then again that's kinda funny. like all the non-canyoners are teaming up with this webbed site to gaslight me