#izzy is a hopeless romantic enraged by unrequited love

[starks-anthony]

Vanity Fair First Look at Our Flag Means Death Season 2

[bemusedlybespectacled]

Thoughts on Steddyhands because I’m at full Pepe Silvia levels of conspiracy thinking right now:

I’m more willing to believe in Steddyhands becoming canon than I think I ever have been before because of the comments both Rhys and Con made at various cons PLUS the teaser

HEAR ME OUT

This is a cast with IMO an unusually high awareness of fan theories/shipping (that goes double for Con “my instagram is just fanart” O’Neill), so Stizzy/Steddyhands has to be something they’re aware of.

Moreover, while cons are less edited/monitored than a magazine article or something, there is still usually a certain amount of prep that goes into them. And while Con is willing to spread shipping chaos, I don’t get the sense that Rhys is.

So for both Con AND Rhys to make Stizzy-bait comments (“he looked good at the end of my sword”/“hunky”) HAS to have had, obviously not scripting, but forethought attached to it. Like, Rhys could have very easily said “Stede only has eyes for Ed” or similar and it would be perfectly fine. That he DIDN’T makes me SUSPICIOUS, especially in light of the teaser.

Then comes the Vanity Fair first look, which IS going to be edited in a way that a con isn’t. And let’s look at what it says:

Izzy “goes on a remarkable journey” this season, says O’Neill. “He understands what love is and whom he’s in love with.’’

By the end of season one many fans speculated that Izzy was driven by something at the intersection of love and obsession. This season, according to O’Neill, Izzy gets even deeper into that dynamic. “Physically it’s been quite demanding, and also emotionally it’s been quite demanding to be playing a man enraged by unrequited love, who’s basically a hopeless romantic, and to be able to play all that and also remember that this is fundamentally a comedy.’’

“What I love about this show is it does allow itself to swing between the two,” O’Neill says. “We’re almost operatic in our darkness at times, and then we swing back to the sweetness of the simplicity of the love of our two guys. It’s been challenging just to get the tone right.”

“We’ve gone further this season than we did last season with those tones,” he continues. “So sometimes it’s quite interesting to remind yourself that you have to take your foot out of the tragedy—literally, your foot—and put it back into the comedy.”

on set there’s been “a lot more spontaneity and script revisions based on what’s happening day-to-day,” says Douaihy. “The cast are so comfortable with one another and their characters, that they move through it naturally.’’

In the trailer, we see:

Stede getting in a fight with someone not Izzy, then getting excited and telling Izzy he threw a punch (which to me only makes sense if Izzy taught him to do it)

Stede just hanging out while Izzy practices swordplay shirtless COME ON

Now, let’s play some matchup.

Both Rhys and Con have an awareness of their characters that lets them just get spontaneous while still in character

Both Rhys and Con have, while speaking from what their characters would say/think, said they both thought the other was hot

Con does not specify “whom [Izzy’s] in love with” even though Vanity Fair literally makes a comment about Izzy’s love for Ed, so it’s not like he’s hiding anything important by not specifying Ed if he means Ed

Izzy’s a “hopeless romantic” “enraged by unrequited love” this season

SO, connecting the dots (I’M CONNECTING THEM), here’s my prediction:

Izzy is going to find Stede and try to get him to Ed. This is the “journey” Con is referencing.

During this time he’s going to be training Stede in stuff like throwing a punch. I think this is actually the emotional journey, not simply him hanging out on Ed’s ship and realizing he loves Ed: he leaves Ed and finds Stede and emotionally grows while spending time with him. (I think this also means Izzy is going to spend more time with Stede, plot-wise, than with Ed, because he’s not going to grow there)

“I just need to find the love of his life and it’ll fix him” is a very hopeless romantic thing to think JSYK

Izzy is standing on one foot in the candles scene, which to me means that “taking your literal foot out of the tragedy and into the comedy” is referencing his toe and sword fighting while disabled… which Stede is present for. So Stede has to know what Ed did to Izzy and almost certainly is going to have feelings about it.

All of that is great fodder for improv while in character.

I can think of nothing more emotionally swinging, more romantic, more enraging, and more funny than Izzy training his rival to be a pirate in pursuit of Ed’s love and then falling for Stede himself in the process, knowing that if they get together he has neither of them.

I will note that this doesn’t mean Steddyhands has to be endgame in a canonical sense (even though I want it with all my soul). I do think that Steddyhands will be referenced/built on in an emotional sense, even if it’s only through Stede and Izzy’s bitch4bitch interactions. I WANT TO BELIEVE.

[devotioncrater]

nah because like. i will break down if we get Mr Israel "Hopeless-Romantic-Enraged-By-Unrequited-Love" Hands taking Stede Fucking Bonnet under his wing to train him on how to be a fearsome pirate.

here's the thing: izzy is a fiercely protective person over ed. his loyalty blurs into obsession, and now we have validation from con o'neill that izzy is aware of whom he is in love with. his love is best described as the japanese breakfast lyric: "all of my devotion turns violent."

izzy fucking hates stede. not just because stede is some (former) aristocratic wannabe who doesn't know jackshit about pirating, but more-so because for some an inexplicable reason ed loves stede. ed chooses stede above izzy time & time again in season one. of fucking course izzy becomes enraged.

wouldn't you? if you've been deeply in love with someone for years? even if it was a dysfunctional love at best, it was still love in a violent environment — but fuck! now your lover turns it unrequited because here comes someone shiny & new. the exact opposite of who you are. and you can't even fully blame the man you're devoted to for casting you aside — there were cracks in the partnership already anyways — but you sure as shit can lash out at his new lover for nailing the coffin shut. for stealing him away for good.

add on top of this romantic complexity the fact that your ex-lover is mentally not doing so hot, is bored and wants to die, now wouldn't you look at stede fucking bonnet like he's a dangerous fixation? like he's a threat to the life you've helped your ex-lover build? like he could get your beloved killed?

so yeah. izzy fucking hates stede not just out of jealousy, but out of concern for ed's wellbeing. however, i think izzy's concern for ed outweighs his hatred of stede. i think ed goes into a violent self-destructive downward spiral in season two so severe it gets to the point that izzy will do anything to get him to stop. if that means training stede to become a fearsome pirate, then fine. he'll fucking do it. he'll swallow his pride like he swallowed his toe. he'll help stede win ed back.

because for izzy to help stede means that he's conceding to the duel for ed's heart. he has to accept that his love is unrequited, will remain unrequited, and that letting ed go is what's best for everyone. because all of izzy's devotion turns violent — it directly caused ed to spiral after stede left.

izzy helping stede is inviting stede into his world and showing him the ropes on First Mateism so no one gets killed.

[hang-on-lil-tomato]

“He understands what love is and whom he’s in love with. Physically it’s been quite demanding, and also emotionally it’s been quite demanding to be playing a man enraged by unrequited love, who’s basically a hopeless romantic, and to be able to play all that and also remember that this is fundamentally a comedy.”— Con O’Neill

[edwardbabygirlteach]

Some thoughts on Izzy and why I’m sad people hate him so much without any consideration to his character history and the theme of the show.

Like don’t get me wrong, I understand the Izzy we have seen so far is…rough to say the least.

But here's the thing. We know that in season 2 we're going to get a lot of good character development from him, and I'm very excited about this.

“Izzy goes on a remarkable journey this season” says O'Neill. "He understands what love is and whom he's in love with."

“it's been quite demanding to be playing a man enraged by unrequited love, who's basically a hopeless romantic,"

Izzy is clearly struggling with some internalized issues. Internalized homophobia probably being one of them.

He's struggling with the fact he's devoted everything he has every day to Blackbeard. He doesn't understand why Ed is suddenly this open and emotionally available person for Stede, he doesn't know why stede gets that side of Ed and he never has.

Even Ivan points it out when he says “This is the most open and available I've ever seen him"

Im not saying Izzy's actions so far in the show are to be ignored or excused by any means but I think Izzy is dealing with emotions he was never taught how to deal with, how to recognize or even made to feel like he was allowed to feel them. I think we can kind of assume Izzy was raised to be a"man's man" and not to be "soft”

Even David Jenkins has said himself “a lot of what were taught about being a man is wrong"

What we're going to be seeing in season 2 is Izzy realizing this. Just as we've seen Ed and Stede processing through something similar in season 1 though maybe not as extreme. They were both raised by shit fathers who made it a point to tell them that being soft or gentle is a bad thing. That enjoying the gentler things in life is Un masculine. Like Stede's love for picking flowers, Or Ed's love for fine fabrics.

This is clearly something that real people struggle with in the real world everyday. What it means to be a Man, to be masculine.

I guess all in all what I'm trying to say is that yeah Izzy has been a shitty person for the most part so far, but he's dealing with a lot and trying to process through it. Like a lot of real people do on a day to day basis.

This show is about breaking the mold. It's about grabbing toxic masculinity and ripping it apart and throwing it in the trash.

It's sad to me so many people are quick to just toss Izzy aside like a one dimensional character who doesn't have his own trauma and pain. I think we’ve all made mistakes in life, things we wish we had known better than to do or say but just didn’t know any better of at the time. We should all be allowed to grow and learn and become better versions of ourselves.

Anyways, Thanks for coming to my izzy hands character development Ted Talk. I can’t say when I first watched the show that I thought I’d ever be an izzy fan but the more I dig into his character and the more I see fandom interpretations of him the more he grows on me.

[queerfables]

Oh wow it sounds like they're going hard on Izzy's storyline this season.

Spoilery excerpt under the read more.

Izzy “goes on a remarkable journey” this season, says O’Neill. “He understands what love is and whom he’s in love with.’’ [...] By the end of season one many fans speculated that Izzy was driven by something at the intersection of love and obsession. This season, according to O’Neill, Izzy gets even deeper into that dynamic. “Physically it’s been quite demanding, and also emotionally it’s been quite demanding to be playing a man enraged by unrequited love, who’s basically a hopeless romantic, and to be able to play all that and also remember that this is fundamentally a comedy.’’

I was never that invested in Izzy's character but if they're gonna actually explore his dynamic with Ed as an unrequited romance that might change. I'm fascinated by this description of him as a hopeless romantic who's enraged by unrequited love. And obviously the pieces were all there already, but I'm psyched to see how they approach it if they're bringing this out of subtext and into the text.

Also, Con is weirdly careful not to name anyone, given how open he's otherwise being about Izzy's story. It makes me wonder if they're gonna throw a curve ball and have him realising he's in love with Stede or something - but I do hope it's more straightforward than that, because honestly? Izzy Hands and Stede Bonnet as rivals in love over the infamous Blackbeard is deeply funny, and Izzy losing so incredibly badly makes it both heartbreaking and hilarious.

[alex51324]

Izzy “goes on a remarkable journey” this season, says O’Neill. “He understands what love is and whom he’s in love with.’’ On a series featuring a variety of joyful queer relationships—not just Stede and Blackbeard, but Black Pete and Lucius (Nathan Foad), Jim and Oluwande, and Spanish Jackie and her many husbands—Izzy’s unyieldingly straitlaced devotion makes him an odd man out. By the end of season one many fans speculated that Izzy was driven by something at the intersection of love and obsession. This season, according to O’Neill, Izzy gets even deeper into that dynamic. “Physically it’s been quite demanding, and also emotionally it’s been quite demanding to be playing a man enraged by unrequited love, who’s basically a hopeless romantic, and to be able to play all that and also remember that this is fundamentally a comedy.’’

IM SCREAMING.

Happy sneak peeking sluts 👀

[goofygooberton]

Firstly this season looks like it’s gonna have more women in it! Yay!!!!

So hyped for Anne Bonny

Also

“There’s a whole other pirate ship in addition to The Revenge”

Ooh? This is gonna be so cool, im very intrigued

First of all, six to eight looks? Insane. Love it. Can’t wait. Last season the max was what? 3? 4 maybe?

Altho i do enjoy how recognizable everyone is.

But also mermaid tail!??? Holy shut what’s gonna happen here Im exitedd

“Although our Wee John has started to become quite the seamstress, so he’s knitting this season”

Omg I love that for him

“Izzy “goes on a remarkable journey” this season, says O’Neill. “He understands what love is and whom he’s in love with.’”

👀🫢 I’m gonna explode

“Physically it’s been quite demanding, and also emotionally it’s been quite demanding to be playing a man enraged by unrequited love, who’s basically a hopeless romantic, and to be able to play all that and also remember that this is fundamentally a comedy.’’

Izzy hands hopeless romantic I am SCREAMING

this fucking show I swear to god I NEED it to come out

“We’ve gone further this season than we did last season with those tones,” [Con O'Neill] continues. “So sometimes it’s quite interesting to remind yourself that you have to take your foot out of the tragedy—literally, your foot—and put it back into the comedy.”

The foot! Izzy's tragic foot! Looking forward to finding out how they comedy that horror