#hes seducing stede

[buumbaby]

something catch your eye captain?

[bizarrelittlemew]

Stede's morning tea look 😏

Bonus:

[unhingedpirates]

Stede in black? OK, slut.

Let's pretend you're not trying to bring back the day you first talked* and changed clothes with him because you're a gay lunatic.

[fist-amidst-the-hands]

having stripper izzy thoughts... he has a pair of regulars who like to book a room and request him for a private show. the leather daddy looking one (ed, he's learned) always settles back against booth first, one leg extended to rest on the bench and the other bent at the knee, foot planted firmly on the floor. the colorful polished one (stede) follows and sits in his lap, getting the perfect view of izzy while his boyfriend (at least izzy assumes ed's his boyfriend at this point, they've made this a bit of a habit) gets the perfect view of him

it's not that unusual for izzy to perform for a couple, though more often he's requested for groups (friends, coworkers, strangers, sometimes he can't tell). mostly he prefers it that way - all the more satisfying when he can make everyone in the room feel like they have a personal connection with him. that's the name of the game right, to make them want and feel wanted?

but this couple... they're different in a way that pulls at izzy's gut and makes him ache. stede watches izzy with devotion and izzy's learned what makes him bite his lip, what makes his eyes flutter, and how to get his head to tilt just so. his gaze is intoxicating, full of open adoration izzy wants to drown in

while stede watches izzy, ed mostly watches stede. sometimes he's leaned in close to stede's ear, whispering words izzy can never quite make out. what he can make out are stede's reactions, expressions unrestrained and on full display for both of them. sometimes ed leans back against the wall, one hand or the other resting on stede's thigh or hip or lower back. one time izzy notices them hold hands, fingers laced together, and it makes something else in him ache. other times ed actually does watch izzy, with his chin resting on stede's shoulder and something deep, something hungry in his eyes consuming as much of him as they can

if stede's gaze is the thing he wants to drown in ed's is the thing he wants to pull him under

[toytulini]

i will say, all the ppl saying flint would wear stede like a coat etc are ignoring the fact that ofmd stede is like. his type. imo.

[dracothelizard]

Okay I have been chewing on this one and this is gonna get long and a bit disjointed.

Yes, S1 as Stede's POV and his image of piracy while S2 is Ed's POV and his image of piracy definitely fits. Ed is also deliberately presenting himself as less violent around Stede - look at how he tries to keep Jack from talking about Ed's past violence. We even get the same 'three episodes apart and then they reunite with the one coming in to save the other's life' parallel where Ed and Stede basically swap places.

In S1, Ed is actively pursuing Stede, who wants to live his pirate fantasy, and Stede is haunted by a tramatic figure from his past, and Ed saves Stede from dying. In S2, Stede is actively pursing Ed, who wants to live his pirate reality (or is it?), and Ed is haunted by a traumatic figure from his past, and Stede saves Ed from dying.

But there're more fairy tales/fantasy tropes running through the season, beyond Pinocchio and mermaids and bird transformation and cursed coats.

In Stede's side of episodes 1-3, we have an arranged marriage. We have a prince in disguise. We have a treasure that is not what it seems. We have an ally in disguise.

in Ed's side of episodes 1-3, we have Ed's grimdark pirate fantasy, which I don't think we should consider pirate reality.

Fang has been a crew member under Blackbeard for years and years. He can be our barometer for whether this is normal for Ed. It isn't.

We have an Ed who isn't dressing like he used to. We have an Ed who is dressing like the public's image of Blackbeard. He is dressing like the fairy tale/fantasy version of Blackbeard, where Blackbeard is the monster and the villain to be defeated by the brave hero.

So, this? This is not pirate reality. This is grimdark pirate fantasy.

Ah, the Hero's Journey, our beloved!

So, as per the Hero's Journey, once you leave home/your familiar situation and go on an adventure (in the broadest sense of the word), you return to your familiar situation transformed.

In S1, we can see the difference between Stede's old life and how he doesn't fit in in Bridgetown anymore.

In S2, we see that Ed, after his time with Stede, also cannot go back to his old pirate life anymore. He's been transformed.

And the same goes for Stede's crew.

Jim has gone from being a stoic revenge-focused person to choosing life. Choosing to care. Choosing kindness. And obviously that is not just Stede's influence, but also Jim's chat with Jackie and Oluwande offering to be their family, and I presume the way the crew accepted them.

Lucius has, unfortunately for him, experienced his transformation through grimdark pirate fantasy, but also cannot go back to his previous situation of being the snarky gay bestie. He's in a better place by the end of s2, but he is a changed man, and that requires chats with Izzy, Pete, Stede, and getting to shove Ed overboard.

In S1, we already felt Ed's presence in episodes 1 through 3. Pete tells stories about him, Stede mentions him in episode 3 when he discusses nicknames.

In S2, we feel Stede's presence in episodes 1 through 3 on the Revenge by the kindness that the crew shows each other. Jim tells Fang the story of Pinocchio. They choose to protect Izzy from Blackbeard and save him from death. The crew's trip in S1 has transformed them. (...And Archie is going along with that because Archie is Archie, but from her backstory it's clear she's not really used to Stede's kind of captaincy)

Izzy, meanwhile, has been rejecting change all along. He's still rejecting it at the start of s2 when he's in denial and insisting everyone goes along with Blackbeard's orders, even if they're nonsensical, because that's his familiar situation. That's normal.

Izzy's transformation to accepting change isn't kickstarted by an interaction with Stede, which is what kickstarts change in the rest of the crew and Ed. It is kickstarted by interaction with the crew.

They make him the unicorn leg, and from then on, Izzy embraces the pirate fantasy a lot more, where he's supportive to Lucius in his own way, has time to whittle a shark, and sings a song and expresses himself creatively.

So, we have three big commitments to transformation and change happening in episode 4! We have Buttons turning into a bird. We have Izzy embracing change and being the unicorn, and we have Ed deciding that he can change and doesn't have to be the monstrous villain.

And we also have a lot of fairy tale/fantasy/story tropes throughout s2, as mentioned in the initial post, but with a grimdark turn:

Buttons transforms into a bird (with the grimdark turn where Roach clearly assumes Ed killed him)

True love brings Ed back from the brink of death (with the grimdark turn that Ed was killed because he was the fairy tale's monstrous villain that he cast himself as)

The cursed coat (with the grimdark turn that the previous boat's crew has been pretty gruesomely murdered, but then, that's not even that grimdark for a fairy tale let's be real)

There is festive party (with the grimdark turn that it ends with torture and a close-range, personal death rather than the more distanced deaths from s1)

But the initial resolution to that torture party is, once again, kindness. The resolution to the cursed coat is to be kind to the crew and dump the coat elsewhere.

Season two is already an attempt at fusing the pirate fantasy from S1 with a more realistic take, however, S2 is not necessarily presenting pirate reality. Mixing in fairy tale influences has led to a pirate grimdark fantasy. The characters haven't figured out yet how to find the right balance.

And that is one reason why I find killing off Izzy like they did A Choice. Is it a consequence of Ed bringing a pirate grimdark fantasy with him? Izzy has barely completed his 'depart from familiar situation, undergo change, return transformed' arc. He was still undergoing the change and figuring out how to balance that change with his new familiar situation, and he and Ed had barely begun figuring out their new relationship to each other.

You take the character who has spent the longest time resisting change and the fairy tale influence, and when he finally accepts that change, he is killed.

(Also, as someone who has read a shitton of fantasy novels, the idea of looking at the Mentor Dies trope and deciding to play it straight is also A Choice)

Through the Looking Glass

From fairytale in Season 1 to stark reality in Season 2 of Our Flag Means Death- meta ported across from this Twitter thread by popular demand!

This thread contains spoilers for the entirety of OFMD Season 2

First OFMD S1 rewatch since S2, and holy shit, if you haven't done that yet... do that. A thing that it made instantly clear: they told us *all along* where this was going, but there was a reason we didn't see it. Because we were living in Stede's world then. Now it's Ed's.

I know that a lot of us have felt that the tone shift at the end of S2 was... jarring, compared to what's come before. This felt like a show that wouldn't go there. One where being run through was a temporary hiccup. We've travelled all the way from this to this.

But we haven't jumped there without a journey in between. And from the minute we started hearing about Blackbeard, the show never tried to hide what Ed's world and his specific life was like. Not once. In fact they told us over and over and over.

But Season 1 told us a lot of those things through song and story and fuckery. It blended reality with fiction.

Stede met the Blackbeard he knew through books and tall tales, and the real man was even more wonderful than he'd imagined.

We, along with Stede, were comfortable thinking that all those other tales were exaggerations and misrepresentations, and a lot of them very likely were.

The Ed Stede got to know was a person who was capable of whimsy and silliness and loved soft things and doing something weird. Yep, he was also capable of violence and rage, but when he was with Stede, he didn't feel it so much.

This was a vacation from that life.

To Stede he was absolutely lovely... oh, and also a bloodthirsty killer. And Stede loved (and loves) everything about him, and both of those things can be true. This is a perfect example of a spot where (in watching Season 1 without the benefit of hindsight) I assumed that everyone else in that pub was wrong, and Stede was simply trying to protect Ed's fearsome reputation by agreeing on the bloodthirsty bits. And I think from Stede's perspective that was largely true. I think that's how they wanted us to see Ed, through his eyes. Now, after watching both seasons, I think it wasn't the whole picture.

They told us, we heard it, we saw glimpses of it. But we (and Ed) were in Stede's run-away-to-sea fairytale the whole time. It wasn't until Stede left that we saw the reality- the Ed we knew had been, to a degree, a fictional character all along. I always saw this scene as Ed putting a bit of distance between himself and reality; it always felt like the Blackbeard of Stede's storybooks was the fictional one. But now it feels like the softer Ed that Stede knew was much the same- neither of them the whole story of who Ed was and is.

The one person who refused to live in Stede's fairytale was Izzy. I've seen people say it before, but he always gave off that vibe of the only human in the Muppets movie, or the guy who was in Black Sails while everyone else was in Pirates of the Caribbean. He saw the real risks clearly.

And in that light, the end of S1 has shifted an inch to the left for me, and I'm seeing it at a slightly different angle.

Izzy ripped away the healing Ed was doing, but in some respects he did it by tearing away the fairytale we'd all been living in, shoving Ed back into the Blackbeard story.

And that's where we pick up again in Season 2.

The fairytale reference came back in S2 in two notable places, those being Jim carrying that legacy forward in the darkest times, and in Izzy invoking the wooden boy against Ricky's efforts. Stede's made himself into a real boy. Ricky, nope.

Now that I've watched both seasons together, the tone shift doesn't feel so jarring at all, actually.

It feels like sliding through the looking glass, out of Stede's world, and into Ed's- a world that existed all along; we were just seeing it, la vie en rose, through Stede's eyes.

At the beginning of S2, Stede's gone, and we're seeing it unfiltered through Ed's reality.

But Stede wasn't lying when he said he loved everything about Ed. He made a promise to come back and find him- he went down into Ed's darkest place and reminded him that no matter how bad things got, there WAS someone waiting for him, ready to love him.

The contrast between S1's fantasy and S2's reality (excluding mermaids and actual bird guys and cursed coats) is stark, but it really is that.

We have the same settings, the same people, and very different ideas and outcomes at different times.

But it was always there.

Things do come back to a state of (precarious) balance once they're all together. Apologies are made, whether they're spoken out loud or through actions. Things go right, things go wrong. Healing happens. Izzy continues to have the steadiest, most real through-line in the story as he tracks toward redemption, finds acceptance, and to an extent finds himself.

Once again, I hate that they went here with the ending and I wish they hadn't. But it got a fraction easier for me looking at it not as a continuation of Stede's fairytale, but of the grounded-in-pirate-reality arc Izzy was always on, even while we lived in Stede's world.

Where does that leave us? We're not going back to the fairytale, but we're not going to be living in Black Sails for S3, either. We've hit a fusion point where S1 ended with each of them going to separate, miserable homes, but S2 ended with them in the same place, ready and willing to make a go of it.

Season 3 is going to give us their world, together.

I LOVED the moments in this season where the deep emotions were in balance with the silliness I've always adored about this show. Eps4-6 were wonderful like that. Clearly we're not done with drama, either, but like Ed and Stede, I think we'll find a middle ground.

Anyway in conclusion, a rewatch of S1 after S2 somehow made me love the first season even more, which felt impossible? It's now gained /even more/ layers of depth than it had before. No matter how you feel about S2 I think it's worth that rewatch.

Adding one more bit of clarity for myself: I think we got a bit (intentionally) seduced in S1 by the idea that the Ed of the storybooks, the Vampire Viking Clown with the nine guns, was a version of him that others saw, when Stede saw the REAL person who 'worked' for Blackbeard.

In hindsight I think it's clear the Ed Stede go to know was also not the complete version of himself- the reality is, there's a whole spectrum between the two, and they've landed in the middle of it now. Ed intentionally leaned into the unlovable Kraken image to protect himself.

It very much didn't work, just like being just... Edward hadn't worked to protect himself, either. This season has been very much about pulling those two extremes together and finding all the parts that make up Ed overall (another thread on that here on Twitter, which I'll also shift across to Tumblr soon!)

And I think one of my favourite things in S2 has been seeing the way Stede SEES that- he knows what Ed's done, everyone's told him, but he still loves Ed. sees his trauma and how it affects him, and believes he's a good man regardless. He IS lovable; he's not forever broken.

And together, they can heal.

[totallyboatless]

Guys do you remember how we were like “if stede seduced ed on accident in season one imagine what he’s going to be like in season two when he’s trying”

And we got LOVE LETTERS IN BOTTLES

And “COME BACK TO ME”

And “I LOVE EVERYTHING ABOUT YOU”

And KISSING IN THE MOONLIGHT

And SHOVING AGAINST A WALL

And “I LONG FOR YOU”

Like are you fucking kidding me?! Bask in it! It actually happened!!! Stede Bonnet, dashing romantic lead! He’s an idiot but he knows how to seduce his unhinged boyfriend!

[beansprean]

Gettin this out before tomorrows eps - still thinking about that wall slam

(continued on Patreon hehehehe)

ID: 1a. Close up on Stede in his new red shirt, holding a quill in his right hand. He looks up from his work with a furrowed brow as there is a loud crash and clattering of scattered objects offscreen. Stede asks, "Ed? What are you doing?" 1b. Reverse shot, full body of Ed, dressed down in his black undershirt, leather trousers, and boots, posed awkwardly against a standing wardrobe. He is leaning back against it, legs too far out and shaking with the effort from his core, one arm splayed against the surface and one arm above his head. On the floor next to him, an ornate golden candelabra has fallen over, holders snapped off and candles rolling away. Ed looks over at Stede, embarrassed, and replies, "Uhh...seducing you? That wasn't expensive, was it?" 1c. Close up on Stede again, smiling at Ed with hooded eyes, quill feather trailing thoughtfully over his cheek. "Oh?" he purrs. 1d. Repeat. Stede startles, realizing the implications, and moves to stand from his seat, flustered, repeating, "Oh!!"

2a. Shot from behind Ed, the wardrobe close up in the foreground and Stede's desk beyond, the cubby bed in the wall between them with curtains half closed. Stede rounds the desk and hurries toward Ed, one hand held out as if to stop him from taking off, shouting "I'm seduced! I'm seduced!" In the foreground, Ed heaves himself off of the wardrobe, leaning forward slightly with one hand braced on the door and the other on his lower back. He says, "Oh, good. Ow." 2b. Shot of them both in profile, knees-up, as Stede reaches Ed, arms held out hesitantly as if waiting for permission to grip his waist. Stede asks, red-cheeked and concerned, "So you...are we ready for this?" Ed grins at him, replying, "I said slow, not glacial, babe." He braces both hands on his back and leans his upper body backwards with a loud 'crack!' Stede mumbles, "Alright?" Ed assures him, "Never better." 2c. Repeat. Ed leans back again against the wardrobe, more confidently this time, back arched, right hand braced above him and left hand at his hip, curling a single finger in a 'come hither' motion. He grins up at Stede through his eyelashes and teases, "Hop aboard, Captain." Stede immediately straightens up, eyes going wide and face burning red.

3a. Zoom in, waist up. A blur of motion as Stede rushes forward, gripping Ed by the front of his shirt with both fists and pushing him backwards past the wardrobe to slam into the adjacent wall. Ed reacts with wide-eyed surprise, cheeks flushed, stomach exposed, one hand flying up toward Stede's shoulder. 3b. Repeat. Stede crowds Ed against the wall to mash a passionate kiss against his mouth, fists gripping his shirt tightly beneath their chins. Ed immediately melts into it, eyes closing, right arm looping around Stede's neck and left hand pressed to the side of his throat. 3c. Zoom out slightly as they break the kiss, Stede moving his head back only enough to make eye contact, their noses still overlapping. Stede, looking a bit bashful, asks, "Too much?" Ed smiles giddily at him, flushed and pleased, right arm winding tighter and left hand moving to cup Stede's cheek. Ed replies, "No, no, not at all, mate. I'm into it." 3d. Repeat. Satisfied with the consent given, Stede pushes forward again to kiss at Ed's neck, hands releasing their death grip on his shirt to start moving underneath it, cupping Ed's pecs. Ed lets his head fall back against the wall and throws both of his arms around Stede's neck to keep him close, one leg hiking up against his hip. Ed giggles, still wearing the same silly, satisfied grin, and quips, "Not so much of a gentleman in the sheets, eh?" /end ID

[ohmyglobwhatthefrickamievendoing]

Seeing how people reacted to izzy at Jackie's, how people even twice his size were deferential and even a little scared of him it makes so much more sense why he was so pressed after meeting stede for the first time

Imagine being this big of a deal and meeting some newbie who not only outplays you but also has the audacity to bitch right back at you without missing a beat

Equivalent of being an Olympic level cyclist and then getting beaten by some idiot on a tricycle

and immediately after the idiot breaks into your house and seduces your wife

[amefuyuu]

Also since it took me a while to get my notes sorted out here are the small changes/things I noted reading the scripts for the first ten episodes of ‘Our flag means death’:

-stede keeps calling lucius ‘marcus’

-roach was named ‘salty’

-frenchie speaks french

-izzy is described as cat-like

-the tribe leader breaks up izzy and Stede, makes them introduce themselves

-izzy, fang and ivan help get the ship unstuck

-blackbeard’s room is described as ‘looking like it were decorated by david lee roth where he a pirate in 1717’

-frenchie also gets named frankie???

-jim steals’s spanish jackie’s hand

-the crew put up a flag saying ‘we love ed’ and cheer for him after he returns to the revenge without Stede (wanted to add, it’s not immediately after he returns but after a little bit of Ed sulking)

-the ghosts of badminton 1 and 2 still haunt Stede

-buttons keeps calling izzy, fang, and ivan ghosts

-jim spits their bread on frenchie in the mermaid scene

-ivan says he has always felt hemmed in by expectations of gender

-Ivan had a lot more appearances/lines :(

-the crew hosts a support group (sans, ed, Stede, izzy, lucius, buttons) to talk about gender???

-most scripts are 37-38 pages long

-lucius replies to izzy “your world, handsie. Were just living in it” during the pantry scene

-the revenge has a ‘chore wheel’ which dictates who does chores around the ship

-lucius sketches ivan not fang, fang is cleaning the barnacles

-izzy is called ‘izzy the barfer’ not izzy the spewer

-izzy ‘notes the chemistry’ between Stede and ed

-the ‘fucking on deck’ overhearding scene isnt here

-izzy and ed do laundry together and talk about killing Stede

-fang shuts the door on izzy’s face

-ivan wants to ‘seduce sailors and kill the dutch’

-izzy is the one who suggests the fuckery end with the kraken to cause ed to breakdown (?)

-ed hides under a table not in a bathtub

-wee john has a twin ‘big john’

-izzy calls Stede a boob

-stede and ed’s feet touch instead of a kiss in ep 9

-stede leaves a note for ed instead of not showing up entirely for the escape, it says ‘Dearest Edward: I can't. I'm sorry. Yours always, Stede’

[crimson-and-clover-1717]

‘You Wear Fine Things Well’ is so important. I should imagine Ed has had a lot of sexual attention over the years during his time in piracy. Maybe the Blackbeard persona has kept intimacy at arms length, but sexual objectification exists; only that very evening has Ed been depersonalised and subjected to exoticism by the French Aristos. Stede’s interaction with Ed here is something else entirely.

Stede does not define Ed as exotic. He doesn’t objectify him by his outward appearance. He speaks directly to his personhood with a genuine compliment, stating that Ed has the sophistication, inner character, and bearing to carry off ‘fine things’.

Ed might feel seduced, but Stede is not trying to seduce. There is no motive behind the action and comment other than sincere kindness. And in that moment, Ed is transformed, forever.

As a person of mixed-heritage, this scene was life-changing for me.

[gentlebeardsbarngrill]

He does fucking deserve to be happy. Every inch of my being wants that.

Too often, OFMD metas have to focus on proving Ed's in pain or suffering so we can actually talk about his feelings. There's a startling sympathy gap in this fandom when it comes to him, but it makes me sad sometimes that I see more of Ed hurting than I do of him thriving, especially since this is a show so much about queer joy. So, fuck it, happy Ed Teach appreciation post!

When he's having a good time, he's so bouncy!

The best thing we got out of s2 was seeing him smile without the beard, because so often his smiles are so sweet and shy!

Look at the absolutely lovesick way he looks at Stede when Stede can't even see him. Like five minutes after he'd been so mad at him.

At the end of the season, Ed's come so far! He's getting to actually plan out a future for himself, with his boyfriend by his side.

Look at their smiles when he tells Stede he loves him! He's so happy and relieved!

I love how he ends this season compared to how he felt at the start. He looks so calm and happy and peaceful as he and Stede talk about their new place - they both know they're talking about them. They're fixer-uppers, the pair of them. But the bones are good. Their relationship has a strong foundation.

Ed had a rough time at the start of this season! It was so heartbreaking! But he's in a much better place by the end. He's made so much progress towards unlearning some of the awful things he's been told and believed about himself, and he's looking forward to building a life together with the man he loves. He's happy and he fucking deserves it.

[jellybeanium124]

just... thinking about when Izzy said "boyfriend" in ep 10, he was being homophobic, but also he just like. fully meant it. Like he genuinely thought they were fucking on deck in episode 5. He doesn't even wanna know what they were doing in the privacy of the captain's cabin. He straight up references them as an item bc they've been dating for like a month to him. He probably thinks they've been saying "I love you" to each other all gooey and mushy whenever he's out of earshot. I doubt the show will take the time to give Izzy the correct information, but imagine how funny that would be for him to learn that they kissed closed-lipped ONCE and that's it. On the other hand maybe he would feel a little vindicated. Stede is such a loser of a pirate he couldn't even properly seduce Ed.

[ourflagmeansgayrights]

obsessed with stede “unwitting seducer” bonnet introducing himself to annie as “stede bonnet, lover of beauty” he is so fucking stupid

[deducemyheart]

Izzy: If I didn't know better, I'd say he's somehow become seduced by this ... imbecile.

Meanwhile Stede and Ed:

[tizzyizzy]

Seen some talk around the interwebs about how Izzy is a totally different, or his arc happened too fast, whatever. He is my argument to the contrary.

There are three major factors driving the change in Izzy's behavior.

Default Pirate Culture → Gentleman Pirate Culture

Izzy spent his entire pirate career before Stede acting like, well, a pirate. There wasn't room for softness. Being tough was expected. Blackbeard's crew's culture in particular discouraged weakness to such an extent crew were expected to kill their pets before joining.

In S1, Izzy's relationship to the crews and captains was ambiguous. Was he training the Revenge crew to be proper pirates? Was he in charge when the captains weren't on board? Was Ed planning on killing Stede and everyone aboard, or not? So it's unsurprising Izzy held himself away from Stede's crew instead of becoming part of it, and tried without success to make the Revenge crew follow his lead.

In S2, Izzy ends up in Stede's crew, and Izzy isn't in a place emotionally or socially to try to push to change the culture of the ship. He's outnumbered. Izzy has to adapt. At the very least, all of the expectations he has been living up to his entire pirating career are gone.

Taking Care of Ed → No More Ed

Izzy said he'd been cleaning up Ed's messes his whole life. Scenes from S1 and S2 suggest that is the case. In S1, Izzy is dealing with Ed making strange choices on his search for meaning, which requires him to manage restless crew members and deal with the risky spots Ed puts them all in. Once Stede arrives on the scene, Ed is contradictory and non-communitive, leaving Izzy to wonder if the plan to kill Stede and the promised captaincy were bullshit (they were).

And because Izzy has no emotional intelligence, he thinks that Stede is seducing Ed into losing everything, and he desperately tries to pry the pair ppart.

I mean, we all know what happened in the early S2 episodes. Emotional, off-the-rails Ed trying to himself and everyone else while Izzy desperately tried to protect Ed and the crew, until he was forced to give up on Ed.

After breaking up with Ed via bullet, though, Ed is officially Not Izzy's Problem. Ed isn't a threat to the crew. Stede is incompetent, but was clever and brave enough to escape Zheng's ship and rescue them. Izzy is free to have a drunken breakdown. After, well, he gets to do whatever he wants.

What does Izzy want? Well, he's finding out.

No Trust → Trust

The major reason pirates put on such a tough facade is to protect themselves. Being tough keeps enemies from messing with you. It keeps your crew too afraid to mutiny. It's easy to recognize that Ed puts on a persona of Blackbeard, but Izzy put on a persona too. A weak link can be targeted and broken.

Just look at the scene where Izzy finally breaks down and is comforted by the crew. Izzy doesn't make the choice to be emotionally vulnerable. He is behaving the same way he always with crew who question his orders. He yells, he curses, he commands. It is only the level of his emotional distress and the crew's acknowledgement of it that make him incapable of hiding his pain.

I think it's safe to say that has been hiding grief, frustration, confusion, sadness, etc. behind the "Get back to work!" facade for years. It only crumbled under extreme pressure.

But when Izzy breaks, and is at his most pathetic and vulnerable, the crew have his back. Under Blackbeard, they comfort him, hide him away, and treat his injuries at the risk of the captain's wrath. Under Stede, when he's at his most pathetic, the crew make him a new leg and accept him into the crew without judgement.

There's almost nothing Izzy could do in front of the crew now that would make him look more weak than he was when he was crawling across the floor drunk and repeating "You're born alone, you die alone" over and over. He hit rock bottom and there was a pillow there to catch him.

So, Izzy is in the "talk it through" culture of Stede's Revenge. He is free from obsessing about Ed as a man and as a captain. He is surrounded by people who saw him at his worst and showed him compassion.

Izzy's worst behaviors in S1 were motivated by fear. Fear of the new, fear Ed was losing it, fear of what would happen if he showed weakness. In a "safe space", where he has nothing to worry about? Of course Izzy calms way down. This is the Izzy that swaggered up to Stede on the island and at Spanish Jackie's in S1. Dry, sarcastic, sassy. Some flair for the dramatic with the swordplay.

It is because Izzy feels so safe that he can put on that makeup and perform. Wee John is doing it, and Wee John wouldn't let him do anything embarrassing. He's clearly got confidence in his ability to sing.

He's still Izzy. He says fuck constantly. He's kind of a dick. He offers good advice. He's a dramatic, whether he's cutting his name into someone's shirt or singing in French from a balcony. He's just an Izzy that can be whatever he wants without fear.