#his own racist queer phobic abusive sell out actions

[some-anonymity-preferred]

I still have a little hope

Episode 6 is for big emotional confessions.

Stede hasn't told Ed about Badminton yet.

Ed and Izzy haven't spoken yet.

Ed threw a knife past Izzy's head in the trailer. We haven't seen that yet.

Neither Ed nor Izzy was in a place to have a fruitful conversation with the other at the start of ep 4. Their conditions improved by the end of ep 5. (big thanks to @forpiratereasons for this post.)

Fang and Ed having a heart to heart was every damn thing to me.

The crew took it upon themselves to advance their healing by doing arts and crafts for Izzy. Maybe the fact that he's literally falling apart at the seams earns their pity, maybe they don't want another Ed situation, maybe both. Regardless, that arc is for the crew. And none of the crew know what Izzy did (though Lucius seemed to suspect something). Even Stede--who still doesn't know--extended an olive branch.

Eps 4 and 5 were all about individual healing and repairing relationships, and how those two works interact. Those works are in progress and unfinished.

Even as he began accepting the crew's overtures in eps 4-5, Izzy still carried this edge of unease. Maybe just because Izzy is emotionally constipated, and he for sure is; but maybe, maybe because he knows deep down how unearned these gifts are.

The reckoning that must come between Ed and Izzy has not happened yet.

Ojalá que venga.

[some-anonymity-preferred]

I so, so hope that you're right. You make sense. And I hope that you're right.

ok so here's the thing about izzy imo. narratively speaking, izzy's adoption into the crew in eps four and five is more about the crew than it is about izzy.

the crew is at each other's throats, suspicious, angry, ready to snap. conflicted. they only come together and work through their trauma by coming together and doing a craft project to help someone who clearly needs some help. it's not that izzy especially earned their acceptance or their adoption or their forgiveness. it's that the crew chose all these things regardless. that's healing for the crew. they saw someone hurting, who needed help, and they helped him. offered community. offered stability. they could still do that together.

even stede does this imo. the whole "training montage" thing, when you really look at is, is like, pretty limited? izzy tries to teach stede two things and stede is not at all shown to improve at either. i would eat my shoe if ed actually said izzy taught him everything he knows. frankly i'd eat my shoe if ed had actually said anything to or about izzy since izzy shot him. but izzy is only happy (...in his own way) when he feels needed, or useful. stede knows that he and izzy aren't in a place to have a conversation that would end in a helpful place. instead stede lets izzy feel needed and useful, puts him in a position where he can prove to himself that he's still worth something.

why?? why bother?

because they recognize that izzy's suffering. because they recognize izzy devolving into his own kraken era. because they've learned something about people in crisis through ed's experiences, and they're trying to do something to help. because they're the kind of people who help. because they're embracing stede's culture of kindness. because it heals something in them to do it.

sometimes, and i don't mean all the time, god knows, but sometimes. life will give you people who need to be forgiven even though they haven't earned it, maybe even when they aren't sorry, because you need to do that for your own self. sometimes you need to do it to heal, or for closure, or to cut off the last thing tying you to an ordeal. sometimes you need to do it to prove there's still something inside you that's capable of it. that you are still capable of goodness or kindness or even just fucking. moving on. this isn't true for every case, not for every person or every truth, but sometimes. and izzy is that sometime.

notably, this does not extend, thus far, to ed. ed and izzy have not spoken since izzy shot him. i guess i would be surprised if ed and izzy didn't eventually have A Conversation About Alla That, but at the start of ep 4, neither ed nor izzy were in a position to have that conversation. ed needs to do his healing with stede. izzy needs to learn how to exist as a separate and distinct entity from ed and from blackbeard. izzy could never have gotten there without being shown that he can be that by the crew; his arc is not, for lack of a better term, self-powered. they show him how it can be and he allows himself to be brought into change. then ed and izzy can heal what they need to heal. to stop hurting each other.

the narrative is just setting the two of them up to get there.

[some-anonymity-preferred]

real talk

Coffee in bed this morning, brought to me by my Stede-coded partner. ☕️👩🏽💖👱🏻‍♂️☕️

Sitting here catching up on y'all's posts, and at the same time fielding texts from my sister.

She took her very white friend to the ER in Austin this morning with presumed gallbladder issues. Staff did intake on the friend without asking for ID or proof of insurance.

Now she's waiting for the friend, and she's watched two Mexican (Texas speak for brown; they could be from Texas, Mexico, Central America) patients come in and be asked for multiple forms of ID, their SSN, and so on, before anyone will even look at them. They sent one of them away and he came back 20 minutes later with ID. 20 minutes.

And I start remembering last night, and the little queer gaming con I went to in support of my partner and his young teen.

While we were registering, an attendee came up to me and said I looked like someone they knew, and what was my name?

I answered with my government name (I'd considered using my stage name on my badge, shoulda done that), and they recoiled. Looked me over for a beat and said, "So you're Israeli?!?!"

(Whoa, my person, that's several long leaps to a wrong conclusion, though I support what I guess is your anti-Zionism.)

Taken aback just long enough to keep my sigh and eyeroll internal, I corrected, "No, my name is Mexican."

And they recoiled again, "You're from Mexico."

"I... yeah. Sure."

I didn't manage to keep the sigh internal that time. No matter. They'd already turned away to my white companions to invite them to play board games with them.

(I saw one other person of color, likely Native, at the con. Two of us out of maybe 40 people in the room. We're in a large city in the Upper Midwest, but this all could have happened anywhere in the US.)

Anyway. These are the things on my mind as I drink my Princess Coffee and read all your comments on @tfemteach's post about Izzy's missing apology, and I just want to say that I love each and every one of you who has also been feeling ill and ill-served about it. Whatever your reasons. I see you and love you.

@scarrletmoon @daria-meoi @naranjapetrificada @jaskierx @cursedgaysuit @tfemteach of course, and many others. 💖

[some-anonymity-preferred]

another reason

Without an acknowledgement of what (who, ie Izzy) pushed Ed into his self-destructive spiral, Stede is still free to imagine it was a direct result of his leaving Ed on the dock.

That's a falsehood that Stede's self-esteem issues and his complex about ruining Ed shouldn't have to bear. And their relationship shouldn't have to bear it, either.

I'm not as invested in Stede telling Ed the immediate cause of him leaving Ed at the dock.* Even so, not knowing about Badminton leaves Ed free to imagine Stede only loves the Blackbeard mask and is repulsed by Ed.

That's another falsehood that should not be left in place to support Ed's feelings of being trapped in the role and of his own unlovability. And their relationship should not have to bear that falsehood, either.

And if the relationship is the show...

It's standing (failing to stand, really) on two rotten legs, if you will. And you know what has to happen to rotten legs...

*Took a moment to sort out why. First, the minor reason: Stede addressed it, very obliquely, in S2e4. "I panicked." It's not a full explanation, but it's not bad for Captain Stede Talk-It-Through Bonnet, I guess.

Second, and much more importantly: Stede running away after Badminton kidnapped and berated him is nowhere near as nauseating to me as Izzy threatening Ed's life if he doesn't stop pining for his boyfriend and climb back into the suffocating, violent, hypermasculine, racialized, Blackbeard box where Izzy wants him. No idea why...

Third, corollary: Stede's reaction to Ed's bare face, his consternation at Ed calmly folding socks, his continued pirate worship, his leaning into his vision of perfectly socially acceptable masculinity--they are in some ways far softer, subtler versions of Izzy's nastiness. But! We watch Stede grow. Sometimes he learns the wrong lessons, sometimes he backslides, somehow he never seems quite to keep up with Ed's trajectory and they are constantly on different pages (boys, use your damn words already!). But learn and grow and change he does. I love that about him! The show shows his work, and still seems to take it seriously. And the show gives him sympathetic motivations. Izzy? Doesn't show his work, we're supposed to just accept his change, and his motivations have only ever been The Worst. There's this weird feeling that Izzy is both a more minor character than he was in Season 1 while simultaneously chewing up way more precious Season 2 screen time. Again, Izzy is Special.

[some-anonymity-preferred]

@naranjapetrificada frames Izzy's season 2 arc with the crew in terms of rehabilitation vs atonement. That framing just now helped something else come clear.

I disagree with people who say that Izzy pushed Ed into a suicidal spiral, and Ed shot Izzy's leg off while he was in that spiral, so they're even.*

There's neither rehabilitation nor atonement there.

Izzy fucked around and found out. Izzy reaped and Izzy sowed.

Ed gets nothing from that, except for more guilt and more confirmation that he is a monster. Ed gets neither the balm of rehabilitating an undeserving Izzy that the crew later gets, nor the atonement that Ed offers to Fang, to Izzy(!), even to Lucius.

At best Ed enacted retributive justice on Izzy. And we see how well that works when Lucius takes Ed up on his offer to shove him overboard, don't we? It may be a band-aid, but it's not a cure.

* To say nothing of Ed's S2e6 verbal apology to Izzy for the leg, which knocks things out of balance again, doesn't it. If you believed there was balance before, which I don't.

[some-anonymity-preferred]

OFMD S2e4 and S2e5

Here I lay out why I hold some hope that Izzy is still going to have to face what he did to Ed. And that I understand, narratively, why that reckoning is yet to come. But do I ever need it to happen, because watching Izzy's redemption among the people who don't know about the namby-pamby scene really soured my enjoyment of episodes 4 and 5.

And there was so much to enjoy!

"And his brain is maybe couscous." Roach, I love you.

"You're no fucking mermaid."

The Whitesnake. Oh summer afternoons at my hometown roller rink...

Chaos gremlin lesbians.

Ed rejecting Stede's overtures while very much wanting them. His little smiles.

I love everything about you. Breathing the same air.

Mary Read: Breathing the same air *snort*

Ed in a pet play collar and bell asking Stede to practice his Captain voice on him.

Garlic-clad polycule in a bed.

Wee John's knitting needles.

The entire curse/peanut allergy thing.

Stede loving his swishy red cursed suit.

Stede's meltdown in his swishy red cursed suit.

Stede's warning shot.

Nathan Foad cracking up laughing when the sandwich hit him in the face.

The flying shoes.

The flag.

The fish.

Syphillis!

A safe spaceship.

Ed's non-apology.

So did Buttons really turn into a bird, or did you kill him? ... Still sticking to that one I see.

Roach acknowledging Frenchie's beautiful body.

Lucius' new trousers.

His little dance after he shoves Ed overboard.

Pete talking sense to Lucius.

The crew using principles they learned with Stede to start their own healing.

The unicorn leg.

Fang and Ed working it out together.

Stede finally expressing beings about Ed planning to murder him.

The mutual accusations of seeing the other as a whim.

I was all in, mate. I panicked.

Blanket fort 2.0

The kiss. The hands.

All of Stede and Ed's interactions.

Con O'Neill. Seriously. I fucking love him, and his performance.

I just want to watch it all again without feeling like I'm sucking on a lemon.

[some-anonymity-preferred]

in further defense of Ed Teach, baby girl

One of the arguments I see against the Izzy woobifiers is that Ed is a main character and the narrative asks us to sympathize with him. whereas Izzy is a secondary character and does not receive the same narrative weight.

This argument is true and valid.

The argument I don't see yet is that Stede is also a main character and the narrative also asks us to sympathize with him--above our sympathy with secondary characters like Frenchie, Jim, and Fang, however much we may love them.

Frenchie and Jim have new trauma bonds with Izzy. Fang has that and a long-standing, if unhealthy, relationship with him. We see these things and they are fair (even if they feel unearned and narratively short-changed right now).

Stede shows up, refuses to give Izzy the time of day, and stays emotionally three steps ahead of him. The narrative is also asking us to sympathize with that, and you know what? It makes my heart sing. Because it also makes sense.

And it resonates with me in a way that the crew's new bonds with Izzy do not.

I saw what Izzy did to Ed in S1e10, and what we see onscreen in season 2 so far implies that Stede can guess, or at least will not be surprised by it. I did not see Izzy earning redemption from the crew, no matter that they did. OFMD pays a lot of attention to relative narrative weights. I hope that's what's happening here.

I hope we get to see these worldviews collide and the entire crew (co-captains included) come out stronger for talking it through.

[some-anonymity-preferred]

Everything you just said!

I have a little hope left. Thoughts here: https://www.tumblr.com/some-anonymity-preferred/731082841332613120/i-still-have-a-little-hope?source=share

But right now I feel like I watched episodes 4 and 5, which should have been very enjoyable, while sucking on a goddamn lemon.

sorry i've thought about it more and i know this is boring and will get screenshotted on twitter by people wanting to gloat about how 'iZzY aNtIs aRe SeEtHiNg' and there's still 3 eps left and yada yada but the way that izzy's wrongs have been completely glossed over while ed's have been condemned is making me feel like there's been a u turn and the show is not just handwaving what izzy did in e10 but is actually suggesting he was justified in acting like that

specifically, the scene with izzy and lucius where izzy talks about the shark and moving on - it really felt like the show is now placing ed throwing lucius overboard on an equal level as ed causing izzy to lose his leg, and as if they didn't really know what level of severity they wanted to treat these incidents as. because previously, it felt like they were saying that ed's harm to izzy was separate to ed's harm to the rest of the crew (in the sense that it's more severe, but more justified, and also unique to ed and izzy because of whatever psychosexual thing izzy has going on there). and this made sense with last week's episodes bc stede's crew are shown to be view getting marooned as if it wasn't such a big deal, and lucius's anger was directed more towards stede than towards ed

but this week it feels much more like the narrative's main takeaway from ed's response to izzy's threats in e10 and ed's subsequent depression and suicide attempt is 'ed harmed the crew and he shouldn't have done that and now he needs to earn everybody's forgiveness'. and that's it. nothing further

there's been no real acknowledgement of izzy's role in causing that, or izzy's role in the crew being caught by the navy in s1e8, or any of the other shit that izzy did to the crew in s1, and from what we've seen so far i doubt there will be. he's had an off screen redemption arc and the crew love him now and that would feel way less bad if:

ed's actions weren't under such scrutiny

there wasn't such a dramatic difference between s1 izzy and s2 izzy and their respective roles in the story

there weren't racist undertones in terms of how izzy faces absolutely no consequences for threatening ed bc he wants him to fulfil a stereotyped role, or for comparing ed to a 'wild dog' who needs to be put down, but ed does face consequences for responding to these

like. izzy got mutinied immediately after selling the crew out to the british. and in terms of fights it's currently 2-0 to stede. part of stede's ultimate fantasy reunion dream included stabbing izzy to death. stede appeared to be fully tired of izzy's bullshit last week bc he'd just tried to kill the guy stede loves. so why the fuck is he going to izzy for training? why is he looking to izzy for advice and approval about being a good captain? why is he trying to bond with him about ed? why are we now being told that ed owes his success as blackbeard to izzy?

and this isn't even a liking izzy vs hating izzy issue - i never hated izzy in the first place, his canon characterisation in s1 was really good, i thought he was a shitty little man but he was the antagonist so that means they did a good job. but even if i loved izzy and i was really pleased that he'd been accepted into the crew etc i'd be scratching my head about why it's just happened with no narrative explanation

yes it's the queer joy show. yes it's the 'everyone can change and get better and reflect on how they've hurt people' show. so how come ed's the only one who's having to work for it? how come izzy's entire redemption arc has been told and not shown?

and the rest of the show is so fucking good which is why it's so disappointing and why it'll really fucking hurt if we get like. s8 game of thrones levels of bad ending

[some-anonymity-preferred]

This, still this, always this.

Just watched eps 6 & 7, and season 2 is still landing wrong with me, because of this. I want to enjoy what I'm seeing, and every time Izzy appears onscreen I want to shake him.

So I’m loving season two. Like, a lot. I told my housemate who didn’t, for some reason, stay up until 2:01 in the morning to watch episodes four and five as they dropped that they were the best damn television I’ve ever enjoyed, and I stand by that! But there’s something bothering me, and I know I’m not alone in this:

Izzy’s been accepted into the Revenge crew and Ed hasn’t, and that doesn’t feel fair. (I’m not talking about whether or not it’s right, okay? That’s a whole different ramble. This is about feelings!)

OFMD emphasizes the importance of community—of finding people who will accept you for who you are, of belonging to something. Season one focused on Stede creating something kinder than your traditional macho, hyper-violent pirate community on the Revenge, as well as on Ed realizing that he wants in on that. 

(And Ed does try to get in on that! After he thinks Stede has abandoned him—and after he gets the initial breakup moping out of the way—he turns to the crew. He likes being Ed; he wants to learn how to be Ed even without Stede in the picture, and he thinks that Ed could have a place in the community that Stede left behind. No, that community isn’t a fix for all of his issues; he’s still troubled. He’s not better, but he wants to get better. Izzy’s confrontation—you’re better off dead than like this, you’d better watch your fucking step—is the spark that ignites the powder keg that is Ed’s unresolved trauma. In the wake of this, the crew chanting and calling for “Eddie” to give them another song sounds like mockery. It sounds like hostility, and Ed only knows how to respond to hostility with violence. That violence destroys the community that could have supported Ed as he healed.)

In season two, Izzy is straight up bullied into the community that Stede brought about. He doesn’t want to be there. He doesn’t deserve to be there, but this isn’t about what Izzy deserves: it’s about how the crew thinks people should be treated.  It’s about showing love to people who have messed up even if they aren’t sorry and tell you to fuck off. And I think that’s lovely! Izzy’s fun when he’s a playful asshole and not actively harmful like he was in season one. Rehabilitating that angry chihuahua into something that won’t bite anyone’s hand off is very sweet.

But wow, it hurts to see Ed banished from the community that took Izzy in.

And to be fair, I don’t blame the crew. They had very different relationships to Izzy and Ed in season one: Izzy was an asshole who bossed them around, and Ed was someone they accepted as a friend. In season two, Ed is the monster who terrorized them and Izzy is just another victim. I get it! 

And, like… I don’t hate Izzy. If I hadn’t watched season one, I’d probably even like season two Izzy. He’s pathetic and wet and hilarious. But I remember the way Izzy lied to Ed, insulted him, undermined him, betrayed Stede, bought Ed, and ultimately threatened Ed right back into the only defense he knows. No, Izzy isn’t solely responsible for the Kraken’s reign of terror—Ed is troubled, he has a fuckton of issues and trauma to work through—but Izzy bears some blame! And honestly? Even with all of that, I’m tempted to be okay with season two Izzy. He is at least aware of his role in the disaster that was the Kraken era, and subtly took accountability for it. That’s very cool, but it still doesn’t feel great, you know?

It doesn’t feel great because Izzy did absolutely nothing to get where he is. He didn’t become some kind of benevolent protector of the crew between seasons one and two; he didn’t try to become a part of this community that he scoffed at in the first season. He was rehabilitated, not redeemed.

It doesn’t feel great because Ed still isn’t welcome and he’s trying. Yeah, okay that silly not-quite-an-apology speech that Stede absolutely made up for him wasn’t all that great, but it was more of an attempt than Izzy’s made! And Ed has made himself intensely vulnerable in meeting the terms of his probation. He has agreed to get rid of his armor and his ability to move undetected. He’s trying to physically repair the ship that he damaged. He’s welcoming retributive justice, which is kind of fucked up (and, as Lucius found out, not always that helpful), but it’s the best he has.

(I think it’s important that the only instance of anyone actually apologizing with words—outside of Stede to Ed when he thought Ed was dead—is when Ed is fishing with Fang. Pirates don’t really apologize with words, they make things even by getting revenge. It’s violence for violence. Something about how Ed’s apologizing for an emotional wrong here, something about a budding friendship between Ed and Fang, something something.)

What am I getting at? I don’t fucking know. I don’t blame the crew for domesticating Izzy against his will while turning away from Ed based on what they saw and went through. I’m just sad for Ed. I want him to have the love and support of a community that accepts him as he wants to be, not as who he thinks he has to be to keep from drowning. 

A teeny little addition, because I totally neglected to say this: I'm not at all worried about whether or not all of this will be wrapped up by the end of the season. We've still got three episodes to go! This is just a thing that's been gnawing away at my brain.

Anyway, here’s some neat meta that’s written way better than whatever the hell this is:

How Izzy’s whole thing isn’t really about Izzy by forpiratereasons

No, really, it's not about Izzy by asneakyfox

Delicious meta about Izzy’s “redemption” arc by asneakyfox

[some-anonymity-preferred]

Hear hear.

S1 was very emotionally comforting for ppl w angry trauma feelings bc it was like "oh that guy said something racist? Remove his skin" and I love that.

But if you're an "izzy reminds me of my abuser" angry trauma person then S2 so far (at least for me) is anxiety inducing.

[some-anonymity-preferred]

It doesn't help that I just finished watching Reservation Dogs (another Waititi production) and the finale has a line that just gut-punched me: "What do you think they came for when they tried to get rid of us? Our community. You break that, and you break the individual."

It's a pithy, gutting summation of genocide and alienation.

All the way through S2e3 OFMD seemed to understand the same principle. Maybe even through S2e5, even as the show explored different ways that a community holds together and reintegrates members who have harmed it. Even if the difference in the community's treatment of Ed and of Izzy felt unfair to me, and maybe weighted with fanservice to a racist quadrant of the fandom.

I could go with it because the community didn't know the entirety of Ed and Izzy's individual motives and actions. And the narrative seemed to be setting Ed and Izzy up for communication. And there was still time for that.

Then S2e6 and S2e7 failed to deliver. Worse than that, actually. Demanded even more work from Ed (a verbal apology to Izzy) and still none from Izzy.

And I'm really just devastated. I shouted. I cried. I feel gaslit and betrayed.

So I’m loving season two. Like, a lot. I told my housemate who didn’t, for some reason, stay up until 2:01 in the morning to watch episodes four and five as they dropped that they were the best damn television I’ve ever enjoyed, and I stand by that! But there’s something bothering me, and I know I’m not alone in this:

Izzy’s been accepted into the Revenge crew and Ed hasn’t, and that doesn’t feel fair. (I’m not talking about whether or not it’s right, okay? That’s a whole different ramble. This is about feelings!)

OFMD emphasizes the importance of community—of finding people who will accept you for who you are, of belonging to something. Season one focused on Stede creating something kinder than your traditional macho, hyper-violent pirate community on the Revenge, as well as on Ed realizing that he wants in on that. 

(And Ed does try to get in on that! After he thinks Stede has abandoned him—and after he gets the initial breakup moping out of the way—he turns to the crew. He likes being Ed; he wants to learn how to be Ed even without Stede in the picture, and he thinks that Ed could have a place in the community that Stede left behind. No, that community isn’t a fix for all of his issues; he’s still troubled. He’s not better, but he wants to get better. Izzy’s confrontation—you’re better off dead than like this, you’d better watch your fucking step—is the spark that ignites the powder keg that is Ed’s unresolved trauma. In the wake of this, the crew chanting and calling for “Eddie” to give them another song sounds like mockery. It sounds like hostility, and Ed only knows how to respond to hostility with violence. That violence destroys the community that could have supported Ed as he healed.)

In season two, Izzy is straight up bullied into the community that Stede brought about. He doesn’t want to be there. He doesn’t deserve to be there, but this isn’t about what Izzy deserves: it’s about how the crew thinks people should be treated.  It’s about showing love to people who have messed up even if they aren’t sorry and tell you to fuck off. And I think that’s lovely! Izzy’s fun when he’s a playful asshole and not actively harmful like he was in season one. Rehabilitating that angry chihuahua into something that won’t bite anyone’s hand off is very sweet.

But wow, it hurts to see Ed banished from the community that took Izzy in.

And to be fair, I don’t blame the crew. They had very different relationships to Izzy and Ed in season one: Izzy was an asshole who bossed them around, and Ed was someone they accepted as a friend. In season two, Ed is the monster who terrorized them and Izzy is just another victim. I get it! 

And, like… I don’t hate Izzy. If I hadn’t watched season one, I’d probably even like season two Izzy. He’s pathetic and wet and hilarious. But I remember the way Izzy lied to Ed, insulted him, undermined him, betrayed Stede, bought Ed, and ultimately threatened Ed right back into the only defense he knows. No, Izzy isn’t solely responsible for the Kraken’s reign of terror—Ed is troubled, he has a fuckton of issues and trauma to work through—but Izzy bears some blame! And honestly? Even with all of that, I’m tempted to be okay with season two Izzy. He is at least aware of his role in the disaster that was the Kraken era, and subtly took accountability for it. That’s very cool, but it still doesn’t feel great, you know?

It doesn’t feel great because Izzy did absolutely nothing to get where he is. He didn’t become some kind of benevolent protector of the crew between seasons one and two; he didn’t try to become a part of this community that he scoffed at in the first season. He was rehabilitated, not redeemed.

It doesn’t feel great because Ed still isn’t welcome and he’s trying. Yeah, okay that silly not-quite-an-apology speech that Stede absolutely made up for him wasn’t all that great, but it was more of an attempt than Izzy’s made! And Ed has made himself intensely vulnerable in meeting the terms of his probation. He has agreed to get rid of his armor and his ability to move undetected. He’s trying to physically repair the ship that he damaged. He’s welcoming retributive justice, which is kind of fucked up (and, as Lucius found out, not always that helpful), but it’s the best he has.

(I think it’s important that the only instance of anyone actually apologizing with words—outside of Stede to Ed when he thought Ed was dead—is when Ed is fishing with Fang. Pirates don’t really apologize with words, they make things even by getting revenge. It’s violence for violence. Something about how Ed’s apologizing for an emotional wrong here, something about a budding friendship between Ed and Fang, something something.)

What am I getting at? I don’t fucking know. I don’t blame the crew for domesticating Izzy against his will while turning away from Ed based on what they saw and went through. I’m just sad for Ed. I want him to have the love and support of a community that accepts him as he wants to be, not as who he thinks he has to be to keep from drowning. 

A teeny little addition, because I totally neglected to say this: I'm not at all worried about whether or not all of this will be wrapped up by the end of the season. We've still got three episodes to go! This is just a thing that's been gnawing away at my brain.

Anyway, here’s some neat meta that’s written way better than whatever the hell this is:

How Izzy’s whole thing isn’t really about Izzy by forpiratereasons

No, really, it's not about Izzy by asneakyfox

Delicious meta about Izzy’s “redemption” arc by asneakyfox