#maybe because it is easier to hate Izzy than Ed?

[izzysillyhandsy]

I sometimes wonder if the Izzy hate would have reached those dizzying heights if S1 had ended on episode 9.

Izzy would still have done almost all the bad things: making Ed unhappy, duelling Stede and wanting him gone, the deal with the English, his past with Ed/Blackbeard - except for hurting and threatening Ed after the breakup.

And even though all of this can be seen from different angles, it is possible to interpret it from the most damning perspective - and that should be enough to hate him, right?

But Ed wouldn't have turned into the Kraken, he wouldn't have killed Lucius, marooned half of the crew and cut off Izzy's toe.

And I am almost 100% sure that most of the Izzy hate comes from seeing Ed's drastic change in episode 10. Without it, sure, some people might have found Izzy unsympathetic or just unimportant, or a little shit. But that level of hate?

I guess what I'm saying is that a lot of the Izzy hate comes from "what Izzy made Ed do" and not from "what Izzy did to Ed".

Also, it is a way of dealing with the shock/cognitive dissonance of seeing a very beloved character turn "evil" after 9 episodes of being a gentle and misunderstood guy who is a pirate, yes, but who's fundamentally non-violent and good. How can you reconcile this with Ed suddenly killing a beloved (and completely innocent) character? And the extreme violence of the toe-cutting? (And yes, I know Ed burned people alive before, pirate-typical violence etc. But we didn't know these people and we didn't see them in close-up.)

But to blame Izzy for everything and to make him this evil part of Blackbeard - completely separate of "true Ed" of course - lets Ed still be the same gentle soul that loves a fine fabric, fell in love with Stede in the sweetest way and, although traumatized by his childhood, is at his core an innocent person that can be saved by removing the rotten influence of Izzy Hands - without confronting the self-hatred, self-centeredness, mistrust of others and tendency to violence that might be a part of "true Ed" as well.

And of course, if a group of fans started liking Izzy and maybe even defended/found understanding for his actions to a degree - where would that leave Ed? Is it really justifiable to fly into a murderous rage because your heart was broken (by a man you've known for a few weeks), because you're deeply unhappy and you've outgrown your pirate persona?

If Ed wasn't mentally abused by Izzy for decades, if it wasn't Izzy alone that drove Stede away, if Izzy hadn't duelled Stede out of the evilness of his heart, if Ed didn't desperately want to leave but Izzy forced him to stay in their toxic relationship, if it wasn't just Izzy and his hurtful words that drove Ed to become the Kraken...

...then maybe Ed wouldn't be an innocent babygirl anymore, and it would be much more difficult to see Ed/Stede as this perfect, unproblematic and sunshine-y couple.

It seems to me that seeing Izzy as "The Worst" and casting him in the role of the villain behind every bad thing Ed ever did is a quick and painless way to make Ed loveable without actually putting the work in (and the show actually avoided that up unto the death scene - one example is Izzy leaving in S1E4 and Ed manipulating him to stay; there are countless others).

I sometimes have the feeling that the hate for Izzy grows exponentially with more and more of Ed's darker side coming through in the show. And I don't get it - maybe because I am drawn to darker, fucked up characters and relationships. Give Ed his agency back and let him be cruel! Let Ed and Izzy have their mutually destructive, weird but intense dynamic!

Let Ed be a fascinating, loveable character with a (very) dark side - exactly like his partner for decades, Izzy - and you'll actually get a better character, and an additional fascinating relationship - as well as a more interesting story.

[stizzysupremacy]

post-canon Stizzy concept: Izzy showing up at the inn like a year later (maybe he never got gut-shot . I like the idea that he faked his death). Ed is gone, having gotten bored enough to have himself another little menty b and has fucked off to follow a new whim, some new life path that Stede had no interest in walking. (so they broke up. Again.) Stede is now running more of a boarding house instead of an inn because of course those two losers chose a rundown shack in a sparsely populated area that does not have enough people passing through to sustain an inn. Stede’s kinda quietly surviving, doing an okay job of it, and convincing himself that it’s the right place for him because obviously his grand adventures at sea didn’t work out for him so it’s time to stop dreaming big. A monotonous existence isn’t so bad, really… is it? At least he isn’t leaving dead bodies in his wake anymore. (Yeah… he is doing Not Good)

Izzy has to convince Stede that he’s not useless. That he’s actually, sigh, a pretty good Captain by certain standards. Imagine Izzy trying to walk the line between his own stoic reticence, and actually saying nice encouraging things to the man that he hasn’t hated in a long time but is still so used to insulting. Izzy wasn’t even good at hyping up Ed who he legitimately adored admired. But fucks sake, he can’t let Stede just spiral into hopelessness, bury himself alive on land when Izzy knows that Stede has a sailor’s soul (even if he knows piss-all about proper sailing).

So Izzy stays at the boarding house. Maybe it’s fully booked because it’s tiny and can’t possibly have more than like a couple rooms, so Izzy has to stay with Stede. (#onlyonebed) In classic Stede fashion Stede does not ever talk out his problems and actively avoids the subject when Izzy tries to… so Izzy has to move slowly to gain Stede’s trust and bring the man out of himself. He helps out around the place (quietly doing the chores Ed used to bitch loudly about), supports Stede in his interactions with other people, even is actually polite to the other guests when Stede asks him not to scare anyone off. (Izzy wishes he had thought of that. If he had just scared ppl off immediately it would be easier to convince Stede to leave an empty ‘inn’). They spend many an evening in each other’s company, and obviously they talk. Bonner isn’t going to shut up entirely, even if he won’t talk about what matters. They get to know each other really well actually. Stede never felt a need to impress Izzy the way he was desperate to impress the famous Blackbeard. and Izzy isn’t like Ed, he doesn’t mold his personality to the people he is with, so he doesn’t share Ed’s insecurity about being liked or disliked for his real self. So there’s really no reason for either of them to hold back or hide anything. Neither of them could have guessed how easy it was, how comfortable they were able to be with each other. How well they mesh when they don’t have the task of managing Ed or the pressures of surviving a sea-faring life to get between them.

Also this mildly-depressed-Stede has let his beard and hair grow out and that really does something for Izzy.

[exuberantocean]

I want to talk about responsibility in Our Flag Means Death. And I want to talk about it specifically after watching Stede blame himself for Ed's actions and I want to talk about it after watching a number of people in fandom blaming Izzy for Ed's actions.

Because they were Ed's actions. Ed absolutely did those things. No one forced him to attempt to kill Lucius. No one forced him to strand half the crew or torture Izzy or drive the boat into that storm. These are things Ed did of his own free will.

I hope, I really hope that people understand that ultimately the one responsible for Ed's actions is, well, Ed. Because he was the one to do them. Was his mental health good at the time? Ha, God no. But while that certainly makes it easier to understand his actions, it doesn't excuse them and it doesn't make them right. They are still his actions, his responsibility.

Did Stede's failure to show up at the end of season 1 cause Ed's mental state? Look, it was crushing (for both of them in different ways really). But look, Ed could have assumed something happened to Stede (which really, something did happen to Stede) rather than leap to the conclusion that Stede rejected him. And even given that, most people who break up with or are rejected by a loved one don't do *vague handwave at the first 3 episodes of season 2* ...all that.

There's nothing wrong with Ed feeling rejected and sad. There's a hell of a lot wrong with his actions.

Did Izzy's words and actions cause Ed's mental state? Well, obviously they didn't help. If I recall correctly, Izzy's made some sort of comment to Stede about ruining Blackbeard which surely contibuted to Stede's mental state and his actions at the end of s1 but, you know, Stede's a grown man and his actions are his own. Similarly, Izzy's taunts to Ed at the end of s1 come from a place where Izzy had a specific idea of how Ed was that was, well, perhaps not as wrong as some fans would like to think, but certainly incomplete, lacking, perhaps even misunderstood.

Perhaps misunderstood works best. Izzy knows the confidence that Blackbeard has always seemed to hold, the command, the compacity for violence, but he lacks the understanding of who Ed is. It's understandable that Izzy would want that back (I mean, I hate to break it to you, but they're pirates, the violence thing is part of all that). But, you know, I don't think Izzy's ever been a character motivated by just a desire to fuck things up. He's no Iago. Izzy clearly loves Blackbeard and that's perhaps his greatest flaw. He loves Blackbeard so much, but doesn't understand Ed at all.* ** Regardless of Izzy's motivations, he does play a significant role in escalating the situation. He words contribute to both Stede and Ed's turmoil. I'm not saying he has zero accountability here.

But.

Ed always had a choice one what to do, how to react. His actions remain his own. He could have ignored him, or tried to get over Stede or had Izzy tossed off the ship or any number of things. Instead, Ed chose to do what he did.

More importantly, by denying or ignoring Ed's own capability for his own actions, I feel like it overlooks what I see as the most powerful potential storyline in the show (obviously, I have no clue if they'll actually go this way, but I hope they do).

Ed, the man who feels unlovable has done horrible things. And, just maybe, he can still be loved. (Oh let's face it, we know he will be - he is already by Stede.) I don't even mean just by Stede (I mean, let's face it, Stede's likely to continue blaming himself for this), but by the crew he so badly treated. It will be interesting to see how things move forward. Regardless, I can't wait to see what happens next.

Who hasn't done horrible things? I mean, hopefully not at Ed levels of horrible. But God, what a lesson to be learned, to be loved even after your worst. One of the reason I think we humans are so compelled to create and follow stories is that we learn so well through them. How many of us out there feel unlovable, unloved, as deeply as Ed? How many of us are drowning in our misery, pulled down by weight of our own trauma, or our wrongdoings or perceived wrongdoings?

And how many of us are just as wrong as Ed was? Not because we aren't capable of bad-because new alert-we all are, but because we aren't defined by that and because we aren't destined to be defined by our darkest moments. And because humanity is even more defined by it's compacity to love and forgive than it is for our compacity to hurt and destroy.

Because I want to watch both that boat and it's co-captain rebuilt together.

*This is, perhaps, why Ed could never love Izzy. Because all Izzy saw was Blackbeard and Ed needed someone to love Ed - someone he could be Ed with and that be okay. Perhaps things will shift between Ed and Izzy after this...I mean, things must shift between the two after this, but perhaps Izzy will finally start seeing Ed? Who knows.

I also think Izzy's work at protecting the crew and his attempt to fix the situation (woefully too late) is worth something).

[carrymelikeimcute]

Do you think Ed told Izzy to maroon the crew in s1e10?

I've been thinking about this for enough time that I've gone back and re-watched the end of the episode and we never see what orders he gives Izzy about the crew.

Here's what we do know - Ed pushed Lucius off the ship and tells Izzy that Lucius is dead. He had no reason to lie to Izzy about this, so I am assuming that he considered Lucius to be dead. He also threatens Jim/Frenchie to get them to stay on the crew. Conclusion I'm drawing? Ed didn't care if Stede's crew died or not. Point of fact, Ed didn't even care that they lost crew on the Queen Anne, crew he'd probably known longer.

I'm done some meta on Izzy before, about how his use of violence is usually practical. He doesn't do the elaborate torturing that Ed alludes to/orders in the show (see: the fork in 'the best revenge...'). Killing is part of his job, but it's not the only way to get things done and we see him avoid violence when it suits him - handing over one of the hostages, avoiding a bar brawl in s2 etc.

HOWEVER. That leads me to believe that it was Izzy who decided to maroon the crew. I think Ed wanted them 'gone' and left it up to Izzy to make that happen, and Izzy chose to leave them behind instead of killing them outright.

I am not saying this because he's my special baby girl, or to give him credit for 'mercy' or 'secretly being good'. Because he 100% left them there to DIE. It was just easier/more convenient to maroon them and lie to them, than to try and overpower them with the few loyal men he had.

I'm only bringing this up, because I still occasionally see posts saying that Izzy should apologise for what he did to the crew, usually from the same people who think Izzy still owes Ed an apology (and maybe his other leg) for being verbally mean to him that one time.

But it makes no sense to me to hate Izzy for marooning the crew without also keeping that level of hate for Ed because he ordered their deaths AND probably wouldn't have cared if Izzy decided to execute them on the ship.

There wouldn't be a crew to apologise to if Izzy had, for whatever reason, decided not to kill the crew. Because ED would have ordered someone else to do it, or killed them himself. It wasn't Izzy's idea.

[nebulousgaythoughts]

CW: discussion of suicidal ideation

OK but can we talk about how ofmd portrayed SI and mental health in season two??

I feel like it's so important to show how suicidal people can appear happy/energetic/ okay on the outside and still be going through absolute hell on the inside. In the first three episodes of season two, Ed was shown to be reckless, impulsive, erratic. He joked around ( like when izzy said the crew felt that the atmosphere was poisonous ), mocking people. He only expressed his sadness/depression when he was alone (when he was crying on the floor). And while a lot of this was shown to show how "crazy" Ed is, and to be humorous about it, it's also foreshadowing his ultimate plan. The signs were all there--he was just masking them.

And the crews reaction to all of this is very important. They make it very clear that things are not okay, and that Ed is the reason why. And even though Ed's attempt is more passive than what is usually portrayed, it is still an attempt. I saw this post talking about how it's so important that in Ed's purgatory, he had to be pushed off the cliff, instead of jumping himself. I think this is the same for him sailing the crew into the storm--he was pushing himself further and further towards the edge, waiting for the sea, or someone, to take him.

Passive SI is still needs to be taken seriously, and is not "less" suicidal than active SI, but I just think this was such a good choice for adding depth to Ed's character. His internal conflict between wanting to live and wanting to die. Not because he actually wants to, but because he thinks he deserves it. And because he thinks it's easier than living.

But it's not. It's hard, and ugly, and painful, and scary, and when Ed is in the water, he struggles to get the ropes off. He struggles to swim to the surface. And when he hears Stedes voice, he knows that he has to live. He has to get back to Stede, even if he hates his guts, because if someone is waiting for him, if someone wants him, needs him, loves him, than maybe Ed can too.

Maybe life won't get any easier, maybe he won't instantly forgive Stede, or himself, but maybe he can someday.

[godasfarasyoureconcerned]

this is super long and maybe mostly rambly and idk who will read it but i hope it finds the right audience, or no audience at all haha

izzy haters will say he calls ed slurs and is a racist cop-lover and that he never does anything for ed and then shit on izzy fans for reading between the lines with his character. i don’t get how izzy crit folks will say “ed doesn’t need izzy” or “literally everything izzy does is useless and makes things worse” or “izzy is homophobic and racist and classist. end of story” and then get mad when fans say “izzy is justified sometimes” and “ed loves izzy in some way or else he wouldn’t still be around” like the hypocrisy of getting mad at people for making positive assumptions and generalizations about him while you make negative assumptions and generalizations about him is interesting

there’s a few reasons i completely understand why it’s easier to hate on izzy than anyone else. izzy is the antagonist. hes actively working against all the main characters. but he’s not a villain. he’s driven by selfish motives and his lack of compassion in general makes him difficult to like. i get it. he’s a dick and he’s done some extremely fucked up shit. he’s manipulative and a liar and thinks so highly of himself it’s laughable. but like

i saw someone say “there’s not a single scene where izzy does something good for ed” and like.. that’s not true.. i know izzy goes out of his way to do things that are counteractive to ed’s goals with stede, but when he doesn’t feel the need to counter what ed is doing (whether you think his desire to separate ed and stede is defensible or not is irrelevant here) he does try to do things for ed. of course ed and stede have more scenes together like for as much as izzy fans love him he doesn’t have many lines. and i’m trying not to count anything izzy only says he does (“for years i’ve followed your every whim” and “managed your increasingly erratic moods” and “massaged the crew when they questioned your judgement” etc) since i know he can be an unreliable narrator but like. he’s up giving ed space for his bum knee when they’re about to go on a raid with stede’s crew. he attempts to get ed down from his harness after his performance and stops when ed is questioning his methods and unappreciative of the effort (“the fuck are you doing with your head between my legs” “you think you know everything about everything in the whole fucking world— it’s j— hdhfd”). he offers to kill stede, he literally thinks he’s doing ed a favor. he’s wrong, of course, but that doesn’t mean he’s doing nothing. idk if it’s worth mentioning the deleted scene wherein izzy puts the little purple bow ties in ed’s beard because it didn’t make the cut for time so i’m not sure if it should be counted but c’mon. the writers clearly intended to make izzy the guy who does things for his captain

some folks love to hate on izzy’s abusive behavior but handwave ed’s. “izzy hits people” “izzy shouts at people” “we’ve never seen ed do anything so abusive” like.. we didn’t see it because something (depression, stede) has been stopping him. we pick up on some so-unsubtle-they’re-hard-to-miss hints that blackbeard is abusive before we ever see him in the breakup robe as the revival of the kraken. it’s not stede leaving that creates the kraken. it’s not izzy telling him to stop pining. we as an audience are meant to understand that that’s how he was before he met stede and before he fell out of comfort with the kraken persona. we’re meant to understand he hasn’t been that way since before the narrative. at the end of s1 he has reverted back to his kraken ways, and everyone can see that, both the audience and the people aboard the ship. fang is a dick like we haven’t seen him since his first appearance, izzy even tells them all “blackbeard is himself again” (and some people don’t believes a single word from his mouth but i honestly don’t think he’s smart or socially savvy enough to plan out every interaction to be a lie, nor do i think he’s a compulsive liar) like ed’s been the kraken before, that’s what we’re meant to understand

stede says that piracy is rife with abuse and also that blackbeard is one of the most fearsome pirates ever (i doubt he’d be a fearsome pirate, which are canonically generally abusive, without being such himself), the crew is very aware that he is likely to kill them when they first board (they literally ask if he’s gonna let them live), izzy says making them work before executing them is “the uzhe” to ed so they’re frankly right to think that he might kill them, even fang who is on his crew gets nervous as hell when he thinks blackbeard is about to walk in on him naked with lucius, when in reality ed’s on a party boat pulling his gun out to use against folks who laughed at him. ed also made fang kill his dog, which we don’t see but all of them in the room know what he’s talking about and it’s not a surprise to any of them, it’s just the norm. we see him ask fang to skin that frenchman for calling him a donkey, which is both a disgusting thing to want to happen to somebody, and a disgusting thing to force someone else to do for you because you can’t be bothered. ed even tells stede “love a good maim” like c’mon now don’t tell me he’s never been abusive. of course calico jack brings news of worse behavior, like burning down entire ships, and of a history of being abused by hornigold, which goes to further normalize the idea that ed grew up in an abusive environment and has learned that’s how the world works. and ed admits even more when he himself says that cutting off some bloke’s toe and making him eat it is laughable for him (stede is horrified and ed sounds regretful, that doesn’t mean it didn’t happen both in the past and in the future narrative)

i get you can say “hes had a rough past” and “he’s better with stede around stede makes him a happier healthier person” and “he wants to be better” and “abuse is normalized for him” and “he’s growing it’ll take some time but he’s a good boy who regrets his past choices” and i agree with all of that. what i then don’t get is how so many people lack the same charitability towards izzy. why is it that ed grew up in that environment but the idea that izzy, who has been at ed’s side for years, has not had to deal with some of the same stuff? or i suppose they get mad at izzy fans for assuming that level of generosity towards izzy without as much context to make him deserve it. like we get some backstory for ed, we see that he was in fact abused, we see that it drives him to dark places. we see ed cry about who he is and we see him say he wants to be better. but i don’t get why people assume izzy wouldn’t want the same thing for himself. like why would ed want happiness and peace with the person he loves, but to assume that about izzy is somehow delusional? as if bad people don’t also want peace and happiness? as if you haven’t been watching the same show as i have, the one that says that everyone is worthy of love and respect no matter their mistakes? as if he is undeserving of it because we don’t have context to justify his actions. i understand it’s easy to leave his backstory blank in your mind because we don’t get any of it in canon, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t there. that doesn’t mean his motives are entirely unjustified and irredeemable, just because we don’t have any backstory for him. i know that makes it hard to connect with him as a character and makes him more one-dimensional. i know that makes it easy to see whatever you want in his backstory, including nothing but homophobia and racism. but if you’re gonna be critical at fans for reading into his actions, you shouldn’t then read into his actions. and if you’re going to be mad at fans for saying that his behavior is not founded in hate and evil, you should then not do the same thing for ed and all of his vile behavior. sorry for not thinking he’s Just a Villain, but i don’t believe he’s driven by evil, nor do i think his actions are much if any less justifiable than ed’s

TW WARNING F SLUR IN TEXT (if it makes you feel better i’m queer as fuck quoting somebody else who i also have to assume is queer as fuck because they’re in the fandom):

seen someone say ‘izzy called the man he ‘loves’ a slur so it’s not real love and how could he actually have any respect for ed at all to treat him like that’ like literally using the f slur in their post (for dramatic effect, granted) but like. if you think all slurs and derogatory words are the same you’re being a silly goose! and if you think “namby pamby in a silk gown pining for his boyfriend” carries the same weight and is borne of the same vitriol as “limp wristed faggot bitch baby” like i’m sorry but i think you are now reading between the lines a little too. i know there’s a lot to be said about izzy’s fucked up views on strength and manliness and shit but there’s a difference between ‘stop bitching about your boyfriend’ and ‘stop being attracted to men, it’s making you a bitch’ like they’re similar in delivery but the meanings aren’t the same. he’s definitely got some hurdles to get over with his ideas of masculinity but his message isn’t “you’re a loser for being attracted to men” or “you’re a loser for being left by a man” his message is “you’re a loser for being weak and sad about the man who left you” i really don’t think he cares that ed likes guys in general. if he did, why would he send calico jack? he knows their history. he sent jack because he knows that jack and ed have had dalliances and that jack will be just as attractive to ed this time as he was previously. he was baiting ed with the relationship he knows already exists. whether you think it’s homophobic of him to capitalize on their relationship is up to you, but it doesn’t read to me as “i hate that he’s attracted to men” it reads more like “i hate that he’s attracted to stede, i’d rather he be attracted to jack until i can get back into his graces and he can be blackbeard again” and i think it would be just as bad to do if ed were straight and heartbroken over a woman. i would call it manipulative and dickish, two things i’ve already acknowledged izzy is. i would also say that i’m sure he prefers the kind of relationship ed and jack have vs ed and stede because it’s rougher and less emotional. that ties into his toxic masculinity, of course, because hes averse to softness and emotional intuition. not sure that it’s fair to say that makes him homophobic, unless you think queerness is synonymous with softness and emotional intuition, which i don’t think it is. they’re related, as is femininity and masculinity, but to say “he’s homophobic” is as much reading between the lines as is saying “he feels unsafe on a ship so suddenly Not Focused on survival” (which is to say, it is reading between the lines, and it has some valid foundation but some valid criticism as well). to say “he called ed a slur” or (literally, and again it was for dramatic effect but if you’re going to do character analysis don’t throw in your own dialogue for dramatic effect) “a limp-wristed faggot” is just plain not true, and i might as well say that spanish jackie was being transphobic when she said “bonifacia.. the bitch who stole my joy” (also not true, though could be supported if i stretch really far)

and like. what’re you gonna do if we ever get literally any izzy backstory? like we get flashbacks to stede and ed and jim’s childhoods. those are the three mainest protagonists. the backstory is put in their to contextualize the character and help us understand them better. we don’t have anything for the main antagonist yet, so it’s harder to connect, but we’ve got tidbits about other crew members (lucius used to be a pickpocket and knows how to read and write, frenchie used to be a slave, even wee john used to sew with his mom) and we know nothing about izzy, and very little about his motivations besides “edward” rn the most izzy lore we have is that he’s the best swordsman in the world, he’s worked for blackbeard for years, and in fact his thoughts seem to be consumed by blackbeard. so my question is: what’ll happen if they ever give him any backstory? if we find out that he too had a rough childhood? if we find out what drives his actions? will there be any amendment of the izzy hate? any “oh i see yes he went through xyz, now i see why he’s Like That”? the same way we got with ed and stede? starting off, it’s hard to root for stede because he’s such a buffoon, but he’s got such a good heart and he’s been through such a complicated and sympathetic story that you can’t help but like him. so if we ever learn anything clarifying about izzy, will the hate be retroactively undone? like a “he sucks in s1 but wait until s2 then he becomes a character worth enjoying”? or maybe like a “he wasn’t justified before i knew his reasoning but now he’s still unjustified but i understand him better at least and can see why he chose to do the things he did even if i disagree with them” the same way you can do for stede and ed? or is he just forever irredeemable by his nature? because if you think that i again think you haven’t gotten one of the main lessons from this show. everyone deserves love, even the most vile pirates. the idea that izzy would be immune to this theme makes no earthly sense. like what?? blackbeard is defensible and redeemable but blackbeards right hand man isn’t?? as if the writers would ever deign to make such a flat, uncomplicated antagonist after creating such a fun cast of other characters

more on that point, i’m reminded very much of zuko from atla. he served as the main antagonist for much of the early show, and were not supposed to like him as a character until we learn some backstory. “oh he’s damaged from his dad” “oh he’s trying to redeem himself” “oh he’s desperate for respect from his family and nation” it gets easier to sympathize when we learn what made him that way, and when we see the ways in which he’s similar to our main character. the redemption only comes after he does a bunch of self-reflection when he gets what he thinks he wanted. he thought he wanted a place in his fathers fire nation, that was his drive for much of the series, and what drove him to antagonism. it’s not until he gets what he wants that he realizes it’s not how he envisioned it and he’s still unhappy, at which point he realizes his real goal should’ve been in line with the main characters from the start. it’s probably wishful thinking to dream of such a wholesome redemption for izzy, but it’s less wishful to think that they might do any sort of redemption. if you think the writers of the gay pirate show are lazy enough to create a one-dimensional antagonist with no depth or anything deeper driving his actions, you’re silly for that. izzy’s in the perfect position for the writers to create a good redemption, he’s in the exact position where zuko was (having “achieved” his goal to the naked eye, got the thing hes been pushing for) and the idea that they wouldn’t take the opportunity to further drive home main themes of the artwork for the sake of maintaining a layer of superficiality to the main antagonist of the first season is silly.

you’re allowed to hate him. the crew of the revenge hates him. you’re allowed to criticize his actions (i in fact encourage it!) you’ll notice that when ed’s actions are criticized by stede, he changes them. you’ll also notice that when izzy’s actions are criticized by ed, he changes them. this can be seen when hes being very rough with the crew, and ed says to not brutalize their guests, at which point izzy spends much of the rest of the scene only sneering at them and quietly seething. can be seen when he’s planning on leaving, and ed gets him to change his mind with the prospect of becoming captain. he even changes his actions bitterly when ed’s just displayed a little fuckery for the crew and izzy tries to get him down from the harness. even there, quickly and spitefully, izzy changes his actions, and leaves him hanging there as he storms off. but he didn’t continue whatever the fuck he was doing with his head between ed’s legs. for ed, stede has the most pull on his actions. for izzy, ed had the most pull. i truly don’t believe that he would have dueled stede if ed had been more involved. ed said “we’re not doing this” and izzy said “you’re not so i must” but i really think if ed had said after that “no i’m serious you’re not doing this either, i have another way to sort it out let’s talk about it (like you’ve been approaching me to do)” instead of turning his head away as izzy’s weapon pierced stede to the mast that things would’ve gone about much differently. like i don’t think izzy would disobey the command, he quite clearly obeys orders even when he doesn’t want to. think it would’ve been a blowout between he and ed since that’s where the contention lies

hypothesizing aside, criticism of stede’s actions as a captain clearly changes his behavior. the people he loves literally instruct him how to improve his behavior and become a stronger leader and pirate. stede does the same for ed, literally instructs him how to be softer and less prone to violence. it’s interesting to me that, just like both of these situations, there are also moments where we see ed giving izzy a lesson, or izzy one to ed. they don’t have literal lessons, but they have conversations where they criticize each others actions and get a change in behavior. even from the start, we can see ed talking izzy into doing things he’s not inclined to do (“oh edward can’t i just send the boys?” “no he’s a gentleman and we want to make a good first impression”). i don’t understand how these small interactions can be overlooked. like?? when stede changes ed’s behavior, that’s because he loves him. when ed changes stede’s behavior, that’s because he loves him. when izzy changes ed’s behavior, that’s because he’s a manipulative piece of shit who only has hate in his heart. when ed changes izzy’s behavior, that’s because it’s his job as captain and he’s standing up for himself, and also because you’re reading between the lines to blorbify a homophobic colonizer (despite stede being the one raised in wealth and literally born in barbados and who is shown capitulating to western standards of race in the very first episode, and despite stede being so unsure of himself and too much of a Baby (affectionate) to acknowledge his own (lack of) attraction to his wife despite obviously having sex with her. but when calico jack says “anything goes at sea” and izzy obviously agrees enough to send him over, that’s irredeemable bigotry and how dare you enjoy this character’s existence?!!) it just seems like.. idk a double standard? hypocrisy? idk what’s the exact right word for it but it’s just very Bruh

the audience should recognize izzy has done bad stuff. anyone saying he hasn’t done fucked up shit is lying to themselves. but stede has done fucked up shit too, and so has ed (and so has our b plot main jim). i dont get why there’s so little charity towards izzy. i get we don’t have backstory. i get hes a dick. i also don’t think that the writers of the show would make a character as one dimensional and VillainousTM as izzy haters think he is. it’s honestly like.. idk almost offensive as a writer like if it were me and i made such good characters like ed and stede and jim and lucius and olu and frenchie fuck i love all of them but like one of them has to be an antagonist for the sake of plot because an external threat isn’t as threatening if it’s not tied into an internal one as well, and then the audience looked at the antagonist and went “he’s the antagonist. he’s a bad character” like i think my feelings would be actually a little hurt. like i put care into characters, the protagonists and even the deuteragonists like i put care and effort into all of them except the antagonist?? why would you assume that?? what like i just phone it in for antagonists? they’re the bad guy so they have to be badly written characters too?? just because the audience (or heck maybe even me as the writer) don’t have backstory for the character yet, doesn’t mean the character doesn’t have a backstory. a good character has depth and a past. why would writers as good as what we’ve got just.. not put the same care into an antagonist like izzy? particularly in a show about love and growth. a main theme of the show full of gorgeous characters is “everyone deserves love” and you think this doesn’t apply to one of the show’s creator’s favorites? i don’t get it

okay think this is long enough but yeah. rambly defense of izzy as a character brought to you by a zuko stan and someone whose favorite sesame street characters were allegedly bert (not bert and ernie together just bert) and oscar the grouch, so take this all how you will

[izzy-b-hands]

Get your bittersweet, severely horny, and NSFW cjizzy here, with references to both ed/jack and jack/izzy being on again, off again in nature. Trans Izzy bc im love trans Izzy.

---

He can never just ask Izzy.

He can with anyone else. Even Ed! Hell, the two of them occasionally communicated wanting to fuck entirely via casual dick grabs (at their own and each other's.)

But Izzy breaks his brain, and he shouldn't like it and he doesn't like it, but he does.

"Hey," Jack slides up by Izzy along the back wall of the bar. "How goes it?"

Izzy glares at him. "What in the fuck sort of question is that?"

He panics. "I missed you."

Izzy's gaze softens a hint. "It's been awhile. Ed was enjoying his time-"

"I heard about how much he enjoyed his time away from his usual shores," Jack grins. "Is that story about him doing a shot off someone's-"

Izzy blushes bright red, and his eyes dart to the floor.

"No," Jack chuckles. "Off of your...Izzy!"

He slaps Izzy's arm. "You still got it; the stick up your ass can be temporarily removed!"

"Thank you for announcing it to everyone," Izzy says wryly. "Anything else I can help you with, or are you just here to catch up?"

It dawns on Jack that Izzy is On The Job right now, and he peeks out around the crowd.

Ed, sitting at a table with an older man, sharing his pipe.

He watches them lazily hand the long pipe back and forth, one of the man's hands hidden in the shadows under the table. However, it only takes one glance at Ed's face to know exactly where that hand is.

"Does he know where you are in here?" Jack asks.

"He does. We've got the usual signal if he wants out in a hurry," Izzy sighs. "You should see the tattoos that man has. I know that's what Ed likes on him, and I can't blame him. Intricate and everywhere, Jack, all interconnected and flowing, and-"

He pushes Izzy against the wall and shoves a leg between his thighs. He doesn't know if Ed is watching, but he hopes he is. Normally jealousy isn't his thing, but Ed's always been different for him.

That, and this is easier than doing what he had envisioned before:

Taking Izzy aside and out of the bar, admitting he wants something slow and soft and he really hates admitting that even though he knows there's no shame in it, but Izzy he doesn't trust anyone else for it except for Ed and Ed doesn't seem likely to say yes-

To wait to kiss him until his words trip over one another and he's nearly out of breath, gasping and begging Izzy to take him to any inn near him, he'll pay for it and anything else Izzy wants (even though he knows Izzy will never take him up on that extra offer.)

He can't say they'd actually make it to said room, because even thinking about it (and more than once jacking off to it) leaves him panting and needy and struggling not to come like it's his first make out session.

"Hang on, we can go somewhere else for this," Izzy says softly. "I've got to find Fang or Ivan or...god what was the name of the new one to replace...oh fuck, I don't remember their names anymore. They die so quickly now."

Jack drops his head into Izzy's shoulder and grinds as best he can against him. He'll have to play this off as being drunk to the other pirates here, even though he's stone cold sober. It's like Izzy heard his thoughts.

"Just go with me over to Ed," Jack says as he forces himself to lift his head. "And tell him something's come up."

"He'll be well aware of 'what's come up' if we walk over there together," Izzy says. "Have you lost your mind?"

"Maybe," Jack whimpers. "Can we fuckin' go already?"

He hangs back while Izzy goes to Ed's table and spins some tale about a scuffle going on outside that needs extra hands to break up (at least that's what Izzy said he'd tell Ed.) His heart is pounding out of his chest, and he can feel everyone's eyes scanning then stopping squarely on his now impossible to hide hard on.

This, he thinks, is what emotions get you. Trying not to come in your pants in a bar, waiting for your on again off again frenemy with benefits to finish lying to his boss/your on again off again friend with benefits. No wonder so many songs about love end in heartbreak.

"We'll sneak out the kitchen," Izzy takes Jack's hand and leads him into the back hall of the bar. "Ed's fine here with his new friend, and Fang is actually on a date himself the next table over, so they're just having a group date now."

"In other words they're deciding which of their two rooms all four of them are going back to later?"

Izzy nods.

"Where were you thinking for us?" Jack asks, resisting the urge to squeeze Izzy's hand as they reach the back door of the bar.

"Behind here, some alley, or we can get a room," Izzy shrugs, and loosens his hand in Jack's grip.

Jack doesn't let go.

Izzy sighs and tries to turn back around to him. "Oh god, Jack..."

"I don't like it anymore than you do!" Jack hisses as he drops Izzy's hand. He doesn't mean it. "Do you know what I did the first month y'all were late getting back around here? I cried! Thinking about Ed, but mostly-"

His words freeze in his throat.

There's confusion on Izzy's face, but it's quickly replaced by...

Fuck. Tears.

There's an apology on his tongue when Izzy pulls him in for a kiss and wraps it in his tongue instead.

"Room?" Jack asks hesitantly when they finally come up for air.

"Room."

--

"Has anyone ever told you your tits are gorgeous?"

"Yeah," Izzy smirks as he tosses his underwear to join Jack's on the floor. "You, many times."

"Well, let me remind you anyway," Jack says and palms Izzy's tits as Izzy straddles his lap. "Fuck, I missed you."

Izzy's eyes flutter shut. "Say that again."

"I missed you," Jack sits up and holds Izzy in his lap, arms around him and head bent to kiss his collarbone. "I hated every second of it. Thinking about you, or Ed, or both of you, fuck-"

One of Izzy's hands rests at the back of his neck, occasionally grasping at the hair there, and there's the sting of nails being dug into skin at the mention of them both.

"But so often it came back to you, and no one does that to me," Jack continues. "Other than Ed, but that works out for all of us, really."

Izzy grinds down on him hard, then takes Jack's face in his hands. "I...There's something I want to say so badly, but I think this might be over quickly if I do."

"It's gonna be over quick anyway," Jack admits. He's been able to feel his heartbeat in his cock since their kiss in the bar. "But I'm up to chill in here together until we're ready to go again. And maybe once more after that."

"How young do you think we are?" Izzy jokes. "But I think that works. We have the room for the night anyway."

He thinks of anything but how it feels as Izzy lifts up enough then immediately sinks down on his cock. Wet enough for him to slip in without anything else, at least for now, and just as it had been when they'd first fucked as twenty-one things both trying to make Ed jealous.

"You gonna let me in on the secret of what you were burning to say?" Jack asks as he holds Izzy's hips, helping him grind and ride.

Izzy smiles and kisses him, entirely too sweetly for a man that knows how to nearly gut someone with as few as three strokes of his sword.

"Come in me."

He can admit that there are times he's a better follower than a leader, and this is one of them as he shudders and obeys.

"Good to stay in for a minute?" Izzy asks as he gently rocks on Jack's cock.

"I'll stay in as long as I can," Jack pants. "We can just keep fucking then. Plus I really don't want to be anywhere else right now."

Izzy moans and whimpers and clenches around his cock, and he sees stars.

"You aren't allowed to go away for that long ever again," Jack sighs. "I can't go that long without you. I know it's sappy as fuck and I ha-"

"Do you hate it?" Izzy asks, pressing soft kisses all over his face.

"Do you?"

Izzy pauses. "Fucker."

"I certainly am, and I intend to continue to be."

He tries to flip them over without slipping out of Izzy, and celebrates it by burying himself balls deep as soon as Izzy's settled on the bed.

"They said the room would be available for another few nights," Izzy murmurs against his neck, legs wrapped around Jack's waist. "If we find we need more time to make up for the last few months."

"Soon as I can bear to be out of you," Jack replies. "Then I'll go down to the desk and pay to extend it. And if that isn't enough, then I'm coming with y'all for a bit. Ed can deal with hearing us fuck."

"Fuck," Izzy whispers. "Jack-"

"I know, I know, give me another moment or two."

He's just hard enough again to start thrusting, and he can't focus on anything other than that and leaving hickeys all over every inch of Izzy's skin.

He wonders what Izzy would think if he just came with, if Ed does want to be away for a longer time again.

But that's one emotion too much for one night.

[triflesandparsnips]

Izzy wanted to be punished by someone. Izzy is used to being punished by someone.

(Izzy has had several toes now to imprint on the idea that being punished is a way to help the person punishing him Deal with shit. Even if that person hates Izzy, Izzy can be useful that way. Izzy is desperate to be Useful.)

(Izzy tried to be Useful by telling Stede that Ed was dropped off on an island rather than dead in the hold-- words he thought Stede needed to hear to have a reason to escape, and to keep his faith in the crew so that he'd take them with him. Izzy tried to be Useful to Stede in a way that Stede would respond to, while also still stuck in the idea that maybe, like Ed, Stede's all-consuming focus would be the Other Captain instead of the well-being of the crew and, well, his own dang life.)

(...it's easier to frame the fantasy of not having killed your previous captain as a way to be Useful to the new one instead of, say, as a way to avoid your own culpability and feelings.)

(And then when the truth is revealed, and that way of being Useful fizzled out, Izzy goes back to toe-filled fundamentals: Punishing Izzy is a way to release the pressure. If all else fails, Izzy can be Useful as a way to harm someone other than themselves.)

(...because it's easier to frame that punishment as letting someone else take what they need--even when it's violent and short-lived-- instead of, say, dealing with the fact that you have so little skill in dealing with the repercussions of your own actions that you've outsourced your self-harm to others.)

Meanwhile, though? In the real, non-Izzy-logic world? Stede here has no fucking interest in whatever the shit Izzy is trying with this. Oh, so you killed your beloved captain, Izzy? You gave everything you had, you gave up your flesh and you tried to give up your life, and it still wasn't Useful enough, so you finally broke down and helped a mutiny? And it's so fucking awful to contemplate that you weren't Useful enough for the one captain that he died, and you're so shit at following his last implicit orders that you can't even kill yourself without fucking it up, so you'll try committing suicide through Stede instead, "do your worst" so Izzy doesn't have to, so he can be Useful, so he can be punished, so he can have some kind of connection again to someone without having to think about, think about--

Yeah. That. Okay.

Stede just leaves.

Stede doesn't need Izzy for any of that. Stede doesn't want Izzy for any of that.

And that, oh yeah-- that is Stede punishing Izzy for sure. The right way. Not in the way that Izzy can call it a service (by being Useful), not in the way that he can call it a penance (for the betrayal of these captains)...

But in the way where Izzy can't get his need for punishment by giving someone else the whip.

You want to be Useful, Izzy Hands? Start with a fucking mirror and leave Stede out of it. Whatever you fuckin' do, do it because you're finally ready to be Useful to yourself.

izzy told stede to “do his worst,” probably expecting to get his usual bitchiness or an angry tirade…

but then izzy realized that stede’s silence cuts worse and is more damning than any of his snark and insults

[iamnot-theboynextdoor]

ofmd hanahaki au in which hanahaki has nothing to do with soulmates, but manifests when someone feels unloved, or unlovable

so stede as a little boy loves to pick flowers. he gets bullied for it, but doesn't stop. there's always little blooms in his buttonholes and daisy chains in his pockets and tiny bouquets everywhere. the servants are constantly throwing them out, his father is always telling him off for it, but he doesn't stop.

it's the best way he can think of to hide all the ones he coughs up. he mixes them in with wildflowers, makes a habit of leaving petals everywhere; while he is admonished for it, he isn't suspected of having the disease.

it would seem ungrateful if anyone found out, wouldn't it? they'd only see a spoiled little rich boy, so selfish and greedy that he's histronically inflicted a curse upon himself even though he has everything.

his father yells at him for being soft and the other boys tie him up and throw rocks at him and he lies awake at night and chokes up so many flowers he nearly suffocates.

his marriage to mary does not make anything better. sometimes, he wonders if she coughs up flowers too.

the illness is still there on the revenge, but it's less frequent. there are no wildflowers for stede to conceal his own among, but he can just sprinkle them overboard, or hide bags of dried petals around his room - he can tell anyone who asks that they're one of his perfumed luxuries.

and then he meets ed, and he doesn't even notice at first that the flowers have stopped. when he does, he chalks it up to making a friend for the first time. (which *is* a completely viable cure in this universe.)

ed suffers from it, too, but he's gone to great lengths to conceal his - blackbeard's reputation is at stake. not even izzy knows. izzy used to have it (secretly), but very unhealthily forced it to stop by being extremely repressed. ed's gets less *violent* after he meets stede, but it still happens - it does take on more of a "pining" variety rather than the deep, angry depression he had.

and then stede doesn't show up to the dock and ed's comes back with a *vengeance*, he's throwing up vines and thorns and he's hoping it'll suffocate him this time.

stede's returns too, back home, the same as it was before - until he has that conversation with mary and is filled with hope.

when he rescues his crew, he stops hiding it. he couldn't hide it if he wanted, anyway, there's no privacy in their tiny new ship. but it doesn't matter, because most of the crew are also afflicted (were they affected the whole time?) and it's sad, but it's a shared sadness, and talking about it (as a crew!) makes it easier for all of them to deal with.

so stede makes it back the the revenge, maybe fancying himself a bit of a romantic hero, and is confronted with ed in full kraken mode. and ed *tries* to be all "fuck you I hate you i'm going to murder you" but it turns into somewhat of a comedy of errors as he's trying to swing his sword at stede, who is running away as yakety sax blasts, and ed's also full-on throwing up flowers, and everyone's tripping over them, and it's ridiculous.

they end up in a pile of petals and they are both crying and ed is half-heartedly still pathetically fumbling with a dagger. stede gently takes it out of his hands. there's more crying. more flowers, from both of them. it's a hot mess. stede's trying to stop ed from choking by kissing him on the forehead and then apologising because he knows ed hates him now, and ed doesn't hate him, and now they're hugging, and the curse is retreating, and izzy is DISGUSTED.

things get better. they talk it through (just them two). they clean things up. they start healing.

there are days when the sadness still hits one of them, and the flowers return, but the other is always there to reassure them.

[rowenablade]

INTJs and Management, or Why Izzy Hands Was Always Doomed to Fail as a Captain

Warning: Meta shitposting ahead. Please have your tongue lodged firmly in your cheek before engaging.

So one of the more “legitimate” criticisms I’ve seen of Izzy is that he’s clearly, canonically, a bad leader. Anytime he’s given any sort of managerial control, he either:

Lords it over everyone as obnoxiously as possible

Tries to impose order while keeping his employees entirely in the dark about what’s actually going on

Panics and throws up

Clearly, the explanation here is that Izzy isn’t nearly as competent a pirate as he likes to think he is, and he’s just somehow managed to manipulate Ed into thinking he’s indispensable. Right?

Let’s go Business School on this.

The Myers-Briggs Personality Test was made up by some smart business people (probably, I can’t be fucked to Google it right now) to divide people into specific personality types and, in doing so, make it easier to build teams, manage people and spot potential areas of conflict. It’s basically astrology for MBAs. (My business school professors would probably not approve of me explaining it this way, but they don’t follow me on Tumblr, thank the good Lord in Heaven above.)

Side note- I have mixed feelings about Myers-Briggs. I think it can be useful as a framing device when you’re trying to figure out why someone might think or react differently than you. I like it as a theoretical exercise. I would never work somewhere that wanted me to take it as a prerequisite for being hired, any more than I would answer a classified ad that said something like “No Scorpios.”

So back to Izzy. I know, deep in my boniest of bones, that Izzy is an INTJ personality type like me. How do I know this? I just do. Go with me on this. Google it, read the description and tell me I’m wrong. I’ll wait.

INTJs are people who fall on the Introverted, Intuitive, Thinking and Judging ends of the four spectrums the MBTI uses. Known as “The Architect” or “The Mastermind”, this personality type tends to manifest in sidekicks, tragic villains, and that guy in your office who you’re pretty sure the department would collapse without but who you know absolutely nothing personal about.

They’re usually competent, often annoyingly so, but they tend to view things like social niceties, networking and team-building as a waste of time. So you don’t usually see them in leadership positions unless they’ve clawed their way up through the ranks and outlasted everyone else, and if they lose a position to a charismatic rival that they consider less intelligent or hardworking than them, rest assured they are NOT happy about it.

(These are also the guys who just write “Happy Birthday.” on your birthday card with no personal message or smiley face or even an exclamation point. It’s not that they hate you personally. They just don’t understand why we have to do this every year. Doesn’t everyone just immediately throw these cards away? They do.)

Anyway, because of their competence and the rigid standards they tend to impose upon themselves, INTJs can and do end up in positions of power. However, I would argue that not everyone views attaining these positions in the same light. INTJs don’t accept these positions because they want to manage people. They do it because they want the ability to hold everyone to the same standards they hold themselves to.

When an INTJ is promoted to be the boss, they don’t think see a fun, interesting interpersonal challenge (like Stede) or an opportunity to act with total creative control (like Ed). They see a chance to finally make sure that everyone is doing exactly what they’re supposed to, to make this machine run as efficiently as possible, and maybe be able to actually sleep at night without worrying what mess they’re going to have to clean up in the morning.

Essentially, Izzy’s dream crew (and mine, and I would argue a lot of INTJs) is an army of clones of himself that know everything he knows and require no communication. Just a ship full of Izzy’s quietly toiling away at their assigned tasks, asking no unnecessary questions and never causing any drama because you bottle that feelings shit up where it belongs.

(Now’s as good a time as any to mention the time I worked somewhere for six months and didn’t tell them I was getting married until two days before the wedding, when someone asked if I had weekend plans. Hi, @stanningjay!)

This dream is unattainable, and I, as someone who has been to both business school and therapy, know this. Izzy, unfortunately, has been to neither of these things, and is therefore completely unable to manage his expectations of what being in charge will actually be like.

Am I saying this excuses his shitty behavior toward the crew? Absolutely not. I’m just saying I get it. When I’m put I charge, I have to constantly fight my instinct to look over people’s shoulders and correct their mistakes, roll my eyes when someone asks a question I already answered, or schedule all birthday parties to take place on the same day so we can get it all over with at once and get back to work. And I do resist these impulses! That’s the beauty of taking some time to reflect on yourself and also not being in weird, doomed love with your immediate superior. Everyone has different circumstances they’re dealing with.

Honestly, I think Izzy’s cringetastic “Izzy’s Revenge” performance was him trying to do things he’s seen more charismatic leaders do, and failing horribly because he doesn’t understand the context. Humor, irony, theatricality- all things he’s seen used to great effect. Ed does cringe shit all the time (remember that little rope swing?) and people love it. Stede’s constantly lording his wealth and status over his crew, with his massive cabin and fancy breakfasts for two, and they’re apparently willing to face down the British Navy for him. All Izzy has to do is the same kind of things. Hell, he can do them even harder, skip all that tedious rapport-building and establish himself as a leader as efficiently as possible! Needs more salt! Hey, why isn’t this working? Okay, fuck this, everyone shut up and get back to work!

Izzy’s never going to be a good captain unless he can understand why the things good captains do work for them. And until he gives up on that beautiful dream of a clone army who he never has to explain anything to.

Can INTJs be good managers? Of course! The MBTI is not meant to be used to figure out who has aptitude for which job. It’s a tool to help you realize your own biases, habits and blind spots, and be mindful of them when you’re making managerial decisions.

Can Izzy ever be a good captain? Hard to say. Unlike most managers, Izzy doesn’t have the luxury of clocking out at the end of the day, or of finding personal fulfillment outside his job. He’s got his livelihood, identity, emotional connections and sense of actual, physical safety all wrapped up in a big spaghetti ball of unspoken assumptions, and it would take a huge amount of work to untangle all that. Work that, let’s face it, would be a pretty thankless job for whoever took it on.

It would probably have to be a team effort. Maybe Ed and Stede could invite him over for a drink and *gunshots*

[winterstaryu]

UGH okay, I need to talk about episode 4, 10, Izzy, the English and Spanish Navy, "Edward better watch his fucking step", the toe thing, all of it.

I'm on mobile, I have no idea if read more's need to be added manually still, it's been a long time, I'm sorry, this will be long.

Something that's bugged me is how little context we have for Ed and Izzy's relationship. In episode 4, Izzy tells us they've been working together for years, or at least he's been first mate for years. That he has -or felt that he has- managed Ed's "increasingly erratic moods" and it's heavily implied that before Stede came along, Izzy was the only person allowed to call him Edward.

But what we're /shown/ is very different. Their lack of communication in the 4th episode is infuriating and they're both at fault.

The entire episode, Izzy is scared because the Spanish Navy is going to come after them for killing their men, and he's begging Ed to focus so they can come up with a plan and get away with their lives. But from the top of the episode Ed already knows they're going to be fine because of the clouds, he has a plan, and after attempting to point the clouds out to Izzy, he's already moved on.

But this isn't communication, or at least, effective communication, because Izzy doesn't understand him, and continues to think the absolute worst, and his worries end up being justified, because Ed's plan almost fails, he gets the date mixed up, an error which they could have done something about if he had just talked to Izzy like he'd been asking the whole time.

But Izzy's at fault too. Ed spends the episode trying to tell him how tired he is, how bored, he comes to Izzy for support and Izzy blanks. Because of fear or because he honestly can't understand what Ed's going through, idk. Both? Either way, he doesn't try to understand, he listens, perhaps, and personally I thinks it's clear that he cares, but I think he could have trusted that Ed /wasn't/ worried about the Spanish, and maybe taking the time to talk to Ed about how he was feeling before worrying about the plan could have made things easier too.

I'm not going to talk about too much about Izzy selling them out, but what I will say is this: I believe he thought Ed would be nowhere near the revenge when the Navy arrived. But that doesn't justify anything. He sold them out, he's a fucking snitch, and he knew there was more than a chance Calico Jack wouldn't get him out of there.

So, Episode 10. I don't think people talk nearly enough about the fact that Ed deserted, which puts Izzy back in nearly the same position he was in during episode 4. Except he has no idea how Ed got out or how bad the damage is, the English are almost certainly on their backs /and they have their last known position/, his captain isn't just unfocused, he's having some sort of crisis, and he doesn't have a lazy crew, he has a crew that actively hate him. So Izzy steps into the role he has assigned himself and he "manages Edward", he tells him that he should have let him die, that he doesn't serve Edward -which is the biggest fucking lie- and he outright threatens him. And he gets exactly the reaction he wants, and I think he regrets it immediately. I can't tell you how many times I've rewatched that scene and Izzy looks fucking heartbroken, it doesn't change a single thing he does, but man, it hurts.

The toe thing is of course an almost immediate retaliation to this. I see people arguing that Izzy enjoyed this, and I've seen people vilify Ed for doing it, and I honestly can't get behind either argument. I think Izzy looks terrified in this scene.

Ed is still Blackbeard, he is violent and dangerous and /responsible for his own actions/, but he isn't a villain. He feels betrayed, by Stede and by Izzy, and he's hurting and he cuts Izzy's toe off because he knows Izzy won't retaliate, he knows it'll keep him in line.

So what is my point??? I don't know! Episode 4 and episode 10 mirror each other and that's really fascinating? Your characters can and should have compelling and logical reasons for the bad things they do but that doesn't make them Not Bad Things? Izzy is an unreliable narrator and just because he Sees himself as Edward's keeper doesn't mean that he is or that he's any good at it? Edward is a sweet bean but like, he still enjoys a good maim and did become a notorious pirate somehow? Izzy's a bastard rat man and I love him because I love bastard rat men? Little horrible guys? Awful villainous dudes? I hope he gets a redemption arc but alternatively I really hope he gets a really cool death!! Or a really pathetic one, he deserves it, the stupid little dude.

[indestructiblelittlefuckers]

Izzy certainly couldn't comprehend why Bonnet didn't hate him. Did he hate anyone at all? Did that go with his whole Gentleman Pirate persona? ❝Do ya now?❞ Izzy couldn't help but scoff. It was a small thing that Bonnet and Ed had in common, they often thought they knew everything about everything. Fascinating at first, fucking frustrating later. Although now Izzy was much more intrigued with Stede fucking Bonnet than he thought he'd ever be. Not that he would ever admit that. Or he could even explain why. Perhaps because in the end, despite some similarities, Stede and Ed had been so different and maybe Izzy wanted just to see someone different.

❝What is it that you understand?❞ he asked him, turning so he could face him properly. Now that they were no longer talking about him and Ed, it was much easier.

Stede frowned, watching some sea birds circle in the distance. Of course it was complicated. Edward, as an entire person, was complicated and it stood to reason that every one of his relationships would be, too. Their relationship could best be described as "complicated" and they had far less history than Ed and Izzy. It was complicated by a head-butt that was intended to hurt. It was complicated by the easy way that they talked to one another and could get lost in laughter just as easily as conversation.

Life was infuriatingly complicated. Izzy's dodging around the question and his unconvincing 'it's over' only added to all of those complications.

Stede let out a puff of breath before he answered, "I've had some time to think about all of this. You and I. I don't hate you, Izzy. Well. I might resent you a little for the whole... selling me out to the English thing. But I think I understand it, some."

[modosphere]

Silent Night

Christmas Eve Styles Family Home Malibu, California 2023

“They look so adorable, don’t they?” Rose smiled, appearing next to me. I nodded, turning back to Ed, Dany and Hughie as they stared, unblinking, at the newest range of Power Rangers storm through a skyscraper. It was extremely gushy of me, I knew, but seeing Dany clutch his red Power Ranger in awe made me feel happy. “Looks are so deceiving…” Rose added, making me laugh. She  had that right - especially since Ari had been born, I’d learnt that despite all of the innocent looks, brother and sister were anything but.

Maybe if it didn’t remind me of myself and Adam so much, I wouldn’t have minded as much as I should.

I followed Rose into the kitchen after looking at the boys one more time, the three of them practically falling off the sofa, they were watching the TV so raptly. 

Christmas with Rose had officially become tradition. Everyone put it down to Rose’s food and amazing hosting skills, but I knew better, even if I didn’t say it - it was understood between Rose, Harry and I that even though Rose had never gotten her memories back, hosting Christmas was something she was comfortable with; like the constancy of it was therapy for her or something. 

Five years. Five years since the accident and it still felt too close, too raw. It still hurt, knowing Rose couldn’t remember such a huge part of her - our - lives - and having to watch her hope deteriorate. No matter how many times the doctors had warned her that her memories returning was becoming less and less likely, she’d never given up, saying her brain would magically heal itself like one of those medical miracles she always saw on TV. She’d just kept… Waiting. Yes, okay, she’d still lived her life while she did wait, but she hadn’t been living properly - she hadn’t been living her life as Rose Avery. 

Just a few months into her job with with the London Met, she’d given it up - and not because of her pregnancy with Ed, but because she’d claimed she couldn’t be “taken seriously” when the paparazzi were constantly snapping pictures of her and Harry together. Of course, I’d known that was a lie. Rose Avery, or what little had been left of her, was who had sent in the application for the London Met job; but Rose didn’t know that person anymore. So by the time Ed was born, the only version of herself she knew was Rose Styles.

Of course, that didn’t mean my best friend wasn’t in there any more. It just meant she… She wasn’t exactly the same best friend I’d always had. I’d always dodged the question when she’d asked, but the old Rose wouldn't have been able to adapt to being a 1D wife as quickly as this Rose had; she’d charmed the fans, embraced the limelight, where the old Rose would have been too insecure to make it last. It had been a good change.

But she was more stubborn than before. So it had hurt more and more to watch her diligently wait for a brain miracle that wasn’t about to happen.

It was silly to think about now, but… Well, nobody else had bothered to keep hope for Rose’s memories as more and more time had gone on. Why should they? Rose losing her memories somehow made everything… Easier. Liam and Harry’s underlying issues stopped existing when Rose couldn’t notice them and feel insecure about them anymore and Eddie had… Extracted himself from the situation by then. The stupid boy had given up too, and now that Rose only remembered Ryan as a friend, he’d considered hanging around as pointless.

I’d tried to maintain hope, really. But deep down, I’d lost it before Rose had. How could I? Just because I’d not believed in happily-ever-afters only to have one handed to me at the last minute, it didn’t mean I expected that to happen all the time. Too much time had passed for Rose to suddenly just… Remember. And honestly, the entire time, it felt like the Rose who I’d known before the accident was in there somewhere deep down, wishing she wouldn’t fully remember. Her life was simpler this way.

But Rose wasn’t stupid - after two years, she finally accepted that her memories were gone.

It hadn’t been pretty.

I’d felt so… Obsolete. Even if she couldn’t remember it, how many times had Rose been there for me? Pulled me through, made me smile when I’d thought I couldn’t anymore? But when Rose finally accepted that she’d lost access to an entire part of her life, I… I was useless.

What kind of a friend did that make me?

The only word I had to describe how she’d been when the doctors had told her there was nothing more they could do, is depressed. She stopped going out as much, she struggled to find things to do at home. She just… Lost interest, until one day she and Harry had gotten into a ridiculous argument in front of a two-year old Darcy.

It had been insane. Rose and Harry didn’t argue; they sniped and sighed and moaned at each other, but they didn’t argue, not properly - certainly not the way Aman and I did when we kicked off, in a flash of fireworks and shouting. But Rose had gone totally insane - shouting, screaming, throwing things. Once she’d calmed down - and that took a week, a whole week of ranting coffee sessions and threats of divorce -, I’d managed to get her to agree to getting some time away. It had actually been Harry’s idea, but… Harry had been public enemy number one at the time.

She’d spent two weeks away, two terrifying weeks where I didn’t know where my best friend was or if she was okay. Even though Harry had promised he’d be able to handle things by himself, Ed had stayed with us for a while. We’d been home in London and Harry and Rose hadn’t bought their California place yet - so Ed and Darcy stayed with us during the day and Harry took baby Darcy between recording the new album of the time. 

That said, it was no secret that Harry being alive this long after being given responsibility of his own breathing was nothing short of a miracle - so I’d made sure he and Darcy had spent plenty of time with us, too. If Rose needed time away to get her shit together, then fine, but I’d at least make sure her husband didn’t lose himself and his baby girl to baby wolves during the time she was away.

Rose had come back completely refreshed, and had acted as if nothing had happened. As cruel as it sounded, seeing her finally so content with herself had made me relieved. In an odd way, the accident had set her free in a way she never would have been if she hadn’t lost her memory - and now that the gap in her mind was here to stay, what was the purpose of wishing it wasn’t? Yes, I wished Rose remembered all of our jokes and all of the milestones we’d had when she’d first arrived in London, but I still had her here, with me - we were still together. So my selfishness, for once, just had to shut up and deal.

So even though it was a really dumb thing to reminisce about so much later… I still felt so proud of Rose. She looked so elegant in the sleeveless, olive-green dress she’d taken at least a month to choose. Elegant and content. 

We’d gotten through it all.

There was a party in full swing, with tinsel wrapped around the banisters and scented candles lit in every room. Rose had hired catering staff to keep serving guests snacks and fancy flutes of champagne, even though she had cooked one of the most amazing meals I’d ever witnessed for dinner. The guests were mainly industry friends of Rose and Harry, some of them people I knew from way back when, but all of the familiar faces were here too - Niall was here with Alanna, Hughie and Izzy, who was sporting her ridiculously tiny pregnant stomach at seven months; Liam and Kara were here with the twins, who were called that even though they weren’t; Ryan was kicking around somewhere, chatting up some models. Rose’s family hadn’t been in touch since the accident, but she had a new family now - us. And we weren’t going anywhere.

The only couples that were missing were Louis and Vivienne and, of course, my beloved ex-husband and ex-childhood best friend. Lou and Vivienne were spending Christmas in Mexico as part of their honeymoon… Yep, honeymoon. The two idiots had finally stopped playing with one another and had decided to get married in a tiny ceremony in the middle of nowhere, with just their family as witnesses and baby Scarlett as a bridesmaid. Although we’d all teased them about being cut out, we weren’t angry - honestly, so long as Vivienne was finally committing, I was more than happy. She’d taken long enough. That girl’s commitment issues were legendary and God only knew how Louis had been not-so-subtly trying to tie Vivienne down for years now.

As for Zayn… Well, I didn’t miss him in any way. He’d finally gotten one child ahead of me - Layla had given birth in England to their newest son, Syed.

It was pathetic, really, how Zayn felt the need to get Layla to pop out another baby the moment he found out I was pregnant. Mikael, his eldest, had been announced as on the way less than three months after I’d announced I was pregnant with Dany. It was sad, really. No, actually, not sad - downright pathetic. It also turned out that Rianna, their only girl, had been cooking in Layla’s stomach when Zayn had tried to make my and Aman’s baby his through raping me.

God, I hated him. It hit me in waves, the space between them always making me think I was over it, but… The mere mention of him made me want to tear him to pieces. He’d seen Ari, my baby Ari, as some sort of sick substitute for his pitfalls as a husband when we’d been married. Who did that? Who tried to hijack the innocence of a brand new baby, to try and use in their own sick agenda?

Oh, right. The creep I’d once made the mistake of marrying.

It really was a godsend that I’d met Aman. If I’d hadn’t, I would have always just assumed I had really shitty taste in men.

I did worry about Layla, every now and then - though reason, as well as everyone I knew, told me I shouldn’t. I didn’t care if it sounded egotistical; every fibre of my being told me that Zayn had married one of my friends, someone who had been at my wedding the first time around, out of pure spite. Did he treat her right? From what I’d heard and seen he did, but I knew better than anyone what a two-faced prat Zayn really was.

That said, Layla and I weren’t built the same. Zayn couldn’t just get up and leave Layla whenever he wanted - she’d take him for everything he had if he dared. In a sick way, they kind of deserved one another.

Anyway - it was because Zayn and Layla were still in England that Aman and I were celebrating Christmas with Rose for the first time in at least two years. It was nice, to be back again. Therapeutic, almost - it felt like nothing had changed even though everything had, and for the better.

“Where are Darcy and Zarina?” Rose asked, nudging me and snapping me out of my nostalgia. She handed me a pack of extra long candles and motioned with her head to the candles on the table. It was pathetic. I was a mother of two, but was still too scared to use normal-length candles.

“The playroom, the last I saw, with Alanna and Izzy.” I told her, trying to shake off the overwhelming sense of oldness that I felt whenever I saw Alanna. Alanna was five years old now - five, huge years old. It felt like only five minutes had passed since we’d all been waiting outside Isolde’s hospital room, listening to her scream as she gave birth. How had five years changed everything so much? Putting aside the motherhood, I even had a new husband; and after two kids, I didn’t even think of him as new anymore. 

Hell, on paper, I was even a respectable businesswoman. That had never been a… Thing, five years ago; but then, five years ago, I hadn’t had shares in Conde Nast, or had been developing the media branch of the Zafar Inc. I’d barely learnt what an eyelash curler was back then - and now, I could apply mascara in a moving vehicle, with my son playing Power Rangers next to me.

“You really need to explain why you’re dressed like a tramp to me.” Rose sighed, eyeing me. Um, rude. “Like, seriously, what is even going on over there?”

“Hasn’t anyone ever told you it’s not hospitable to insult your guests?”

“I wasn’t hosting the party where that was said.” Rose grinned cheekily, making me laugh. “So. Explanation?”

I looked down at myself. I hadn’t thought my outfit wasn’t presentable! Less on the fitted side that baggy, yes, but still appropriately festive. My jumper was oversized with a strip of black lace running down each sleeve, but my jeans were skinny and my heels weren’t ugly. I was just… Covered.

“How do you know I haven’t just gotten really fat?” I retorted. “I could actually be crying on the inside right now, because of your comment. I could be really offended. Ever think of that?”

“Nice try!” Rose snorted. “You enjoy being some kind of yoga dominatrix way too much in bed with that sexy husband of yours to ever really let yourself go.”

There was no point pretending she was wrong, so I let her see my smug smile. Hey. I had talents in the bedroom now.

That had definitely changed in the past five years.

“You really need to tell me what’s going on with you.” Rose continued, swatting my hands away from picking some strawberries from reindeer’s nose. Oh, yes. Rose had made a reindeer cake. “I know there’s something and I will keep you hostage until you tell me.”

“As flattering as your obsessive behaviour is,” I said in my snootiest voice. “My bank balance and ability to strike the fear of God in anyone who questions me, means that I could do something about it.” I grinned as I took one of the strawberries, ignoring Rose’s narrowed eyes. “You’re just a pop-star’s wife. If this were an episode of Gossip Girl, which our lives clearly are nowadays, I am definitely Lily van der Woodsen enough to win a rich-people’s smackdown.”

“I’m going to let that one go, just because I know it comes from your jealous place.” Rose told me, flicking me with the napkin she’d been holding. I laughed, dodging it. “You’re just mad that the world knows how hot I look in a swimsuit, after last month’s shoot. And I know something is up. I’ll get it out of you.”

“Good luck with that.” I grinned, stealing another strawberry and laughing as Rose looked like she was about to tackle me. “And who cares if you look better in a swimsuit - I’m a yoga dominatrix in bed according to you, remember?!”

Of course, Rose just laughed.

It didn’t take long for the rest of Rose’s guests to slowly disappear. Everyone wanted to look glamorous and rested for Christmas Day and after an hour or so, it was just us - the original group, but the extended edition.

We ended up sitting on the patio - or “porch”, as the new English-to-American dictionary in my head informed me - overlooking the sea, the wall-sized window of the lounge allowing us to watch as the children slept. Despite Niall’s initial worries that Hughie wouldn’t get along with Ed and Dany thanks to how close they were, the three of them were sprawled across one another on the sofa, asleep.

Dany’s arm was hanging off the sofa’s arm-rest, his fingers loosely linked with Ari’s hand through the bars of the cot Harry had brought down for Darcy and Ari to share.

Pathetic as it was, it made me feel… Happy, knowing how close Danyal and Zarina were. Everyone, including Aman, kept telling me that it didn’t mean it would last into adulthood, but… Well, how could it not? It had been some kind of miracle, having Danyal at all - and then having Zarina so healthy, especially considering the challenges she’d been put through before even being born. Dany had never become jealous of the attention Ari had gotten when she was born; if anything, even though he was barely older than he, he doted on her.

Even now, after being (fairly) happily married for four years - and having actually loved him for more than that, unlike the first time -, I was still waiting for the other shoe to drop. My children adored one another, my husband and I didn’t hate each other and then there was the news I had to tell Rose…

I hadn’t expected this. I hadn’t expected this all to happen so quickly but now that it had, I didn’t regret it; which was strange, because before now, I’d been a barrel-full of regrets whenever things were moving too fast.

Apparently, my incessant need to be a control freak was subsiding. Ever so slightly.

I was - for lack of a better term - maturing. Supposedly. It was hard to believe when it was just Aman and I arguing over what channel to watch once Dany and Ari were in bed, but seeing my friends around me… We’d all matured.

Like Niall and Isolde. They were sitting beside Aman and I, Niall sitting on the floor with Isolde’s sock-clad legs resting over his shoulder. Although Izzy was just as fierce as ever, finally being with Niall meant she’d mellowed slightly - but only slightly. They balanced one another out, now. Isolde wasn’t as bitter about being thrust into the limelight, because she’d finally realised it wouldn’t affect Niall’s duties as a father. Even Aman had been ecstatic when they’d finally announced they were getting married - just after Isolde had found out she was pregnant with Hughie, at an intimate, fairy-tale like ceremony in Ireland with Alanna as a flower girl. We’d been invited - Niall had insisted there’d be no trouble with Zayn there - but it… It hadn’t felt right. As much of an amazing pair of friends Niall and Isolde had been to me, I couldn’t ruin the balance. Zayn had been there first.

Plus, you know, Aman still wanted to stick his head on a spike and attach it to the back of one of the cars.

What with Vivienne and Louis finally tying the lot - the boys truly were like dominos, once one got married and had children, the others followed -, Liam and Kara were the only ones who hadn’t gotten married. That wasn’t exactly surprising - even when Kara had found out she was pregnant with Charlie, she’d wondered if it was the right choice. Considering she was all too ready to give the rest of us much needed uncomfortable advice when necessary, it was nice to be able to pay her back a little - they hadn’t even been living with one another until Kara was at least four months pregnant, which was when Liam - and everyone else - put their foot down.

Still - seeing them snuggling together on the seat opposite made me smile. Liam had made some really sucky choices in his life, including forcing Kara into rehab and then forcing himself into her life, but by an amazing bout of luck it had worked out; even better, Kara wasn’t afraid to call Liam out on his crap. Of which there was plenty.

Harry and Rose didn’t count in my proud reminiscing. Harry and I had finally managed to get back on track after his… Behaviour following Rose’s accident and in a weird way, it had made us closer. It also made me tell him regularly that he was a giant loser who I’d happily rip apart if he ever hurt Rose, but I knew I didn’t have to say it. I’d seen Harry and Rose happen. And even though I still wasn’t sure if Harry had been the best choice out of him and Eddie, he had turned out to be the right one - he was here, with her and I knew better than anyone how Rose needed that.

“Thank you again, for inviting us to dinner tomorrow, Rose.” Liam sighed as he stretched. “I’m really looking forward to it. When you still hadn’t invited us at the beginning of the month, I was getting a bit worried.”

I snorted loudly at Kara’s mortified expression.

“I am so sorry about his atrocious manners.” Kara muttered, nudging Liam hard in the ribs. “I think what he means, Rose, is thank you for your wonderful hospitality.”

“Hospitality.” Rose smiled… Except that was not a happy smile. Oh, no, how much wine had she had? “You’d know all about that, too-”

“How about more cake?” I said loudly, ignoring Aman raise his eyebrows at my sudden enthusiasm. It wasn’t enough to stop everyone from noticing what Rose had said, but I was hoping it would lessen the impact. I started picking up some of the empty bottles and dishes on the table, mouthing Kara a sorry when I was opposite her. “Rose? You know I can’t be trusted in your kitchen alone. Come on, up you get.”

I glared at Harry as Rose silently strutted into the kitchen, looking annoyed. What the Hell was that? Had Rose not wanted Kara at the party? I understood Harry putting his foot down and saying she had to be - there was no way Liam could come and not Kara - but Rose was volatile. She didn’t like being forced to do things nowadays, even if she knew they were right.

One of the accident’s little side effects.

Rose was already sipping on a fresh glass of wine when I found her in the kitchen. Some of the cleaning team were already here, packing up dirty dishes from earlier in the night.

“What,” I said slowly. “Was that just now?”

“You didn’t let me finish.” Rose shrugged. “So it’s not like I said the whole of what I was going to say.”

“Everyone understood where you were going with it.” I sighed, handing the pile of dishes to one of the cleaners. I did not clean. Some things never changed. “I mean, a crack about-” I stepped closer and lowered my voice. Liam had worked hard to make Kara’s past disappear. “- her past career? Not cool, Rose.”

“What’s not cool is everyone, including you, acting like she’s one of us!” Rose protested, setting her wine glass down angrily. “Sure, Isolde is our friend and you’ve known Vivienne for a long time, but she’s practically a random stranger, sitting in my house - for what?”

“Rose.” Where had this come from? It was no secret that Rose wasn’t exactly warm with Kara, but she’d never been outright nasty, either. “We’ve known Kara for a long time-”

“Since when is how long you’ve known someone a good measurement?” Rose snapped. “You knew Zayn for less than a year when you guys shacked up. What difference does time make?”

… What?

I didn’t say anything for a few seconds - not just because I was stunned at the guerrilla tactics, but because something was wrong with what Rose had just said. Something that was setting off alarm bells.

No. No, I was imagining things - Rose was just angry and lashing out and so I was making excuses for her. I was being stupid.

Except…

I pushed it to the back of my mind, seeing how Rose’s eyes had widened at what she’d just said.

“I’m going to go back into the other room, before you say more stuff we both regret.” I said quietly. “And unless you want to drive your guests away before lunch tomorrow, I’d suggest you calm down before you go back in there, because nobody else is a fan of the bomb you just dropped.” I didn’t have to say the rest - that Rose was lucky Vivienne wasn’t there, because Vivienne would have lost it, or that Harry was aghast at her behaviour -, and so I left the kitchen, leaving Rose in there.

Something feels wrong! She shouldn’t - no. I wasn’t doing this. I wasn’t doubting her.

Rose came back out onto the deck a few minutes later, all smiles and apologising about her outburst - she claimed it was a stress-related event thanks to problems with the turkey. She even apologised to Kara; she “explained” how she meant Kara had been to so many parties and things, Rose had been expressing how flattered she was - but that, after I’d explained how it had come across, she was sorry if she’d been misunderstood.

It was a lame excuse. A ridiculously lame excuse. But everyone, including Kara, pretended to accept it because that made things less uncomfortable.

Rose and I didn’t talk for the rest of the night.

. . .

Christmas morning was like something out of Miracle on 54th Street. 

Harry and Rose had bought presents for Danyal and Zarina and left them under the tree, and of course we’d bought gifts for everyone before arriving. We’d stayed over - like we’d planned to, despite Aman being disgruntled at the thought of relying on anyone, regardless of how well he and Harry got along -, but the weird feeling at the back of my head was still there. Like I was deliberately missing something, like I was ignoring something huge.

I carried on ignoring it.

“Those PJs are hideous. Explain.” Rose laughed, handing me a mug of fresh coffee. Aman looked at me, confused, as I subtly put it beside me and it wasn’t hard to read his mind; she doesn’t know? 

“Hey, I dressed for comfort.” I protested, rather put out that nobody else loved my pyjamas - Aman’s Harvard sweatshirt and a pair of my comfiest grey joggers. “And are you sure there’s nothing I can do to help for later? Please say yes. Otherwise I’m stuck babysitting these two idiots.”

Aman and Harry snickered as they high-fived over my head.

“She’s just jealous of our love.” Harry told Aman happily.

“Unless you tell me what you’re hiding from me, it’s your punishment.” She shrugged evilly. I smiled - I wasn’t over what she’d said yesterday -, though promising myself I’d tell her tonight. I had to. One bitchy comment didn’t make her any less… Rose. “And anyway, I’ve told the others too, that everyone has to starve until it’s time to eat. Christmas dinner has come out fabulous.”

We all stopped as Dany and Ed started to wave their arms excitedly at their newest present - ones, I realised instantly, Harry and Aman had chosen for them. Matching water pistols, in loud colours. The boys were already making shooting noises and the toy wasn’t even out of its packaging yet.

Darcy and Ari watched them from where they sat in their fathers’ laps, snuggling close under the same blanket. 

I smiled as Danyal tripped over Ed’s legs, to squirt Ari in the face with water. Ari hated water in her face - she screamed blue murder whenever I washed her hair. Considering I was the most hated person on the planet when I washed her face, her outraged giggle in response to the water pistol was almost offensive.

Almost.

Darcy, on the other hand, ripped the pistol out of Ed’s hands and attacked his face with it.

Ah, the girls. 

Ari giggled loudly at Ed’s outraged face, watching carefully as Dany yanked Ed’s T-shirt to his face and told him “wipe it”. So mature, just at three.

“What’re you thinking?” Aman asked me quietly, unnoticed as Rose and Harry discussed something between themselves over our heads. 

“Nothing.” I smiled, attacking Ari’s cheek with kisses and laughing loudly as she pulled my face down and attempted to do the same thing back. It wasn’t quite perfect, but it was definitely good enough for me - her skin was always so soft, but her strength always surprised me. “I’m just… I’m just glad that we have such a big family.”

. . .

The rest of the day passed in a lazy, festive blur.

I, as tradition dictated, was amazed at the seamlessness of Rose’s efficiency. There was officially no room for my kitchen ineptitude and even though that meant I spent the day becoming increasingly freaked out at how Rose and I had given birth to boys who were essentially younger, more mischievous versions of their fathers, I did feel kind of guilty that I wasn’t useful at all.

Not guilty enough to actually help bark out orders at the catering staff, like Rose was, but enough to prove I had a conscience.

I was in charge, with Harry, of getting the children ready - that was an experience. Harry had lovingly tied Darcy’s long brown hair into a little bun and had spent the entire time grinning at her, as she stepped into her sparkly red dress.

Ari, on the other hand, had kicked and screamed at the prospect of wearing anything remotely feminine. She hated dresses. I was sure she partially thought she was a boy like her brother - Dany was in black trousers and a white shirt and Ed was even wearing a little tie -, but Aman put it down to Ari “being confident in her femininity”. 

All that meant to me, was that Ari only ended up wearing the Dolce & Gabbana printed dress Harry had bought her for Christmas because Darcy pointed out that hers was still more sparkly and Harry promised Ari she could wear one of Ed’s hats with the dress.

Ari currently was obsessed with hats. She wore her father’s Yankees cap to bed.

Surely Dany should have been the more difficult one? But no. Dany was laid-back when it came to clothes and getting dressed. His only demands were Batman underwear and vests that weren’t itchy - he had sensitive skin -, but other than that… He didn’t care what he was wearing. But my little girl? No. No, the only dress she’d ever willingly bought in the two years she’d spent on this planet, was a dress that was covered in comic strips.

Was I meant to be proud or embarrassed at how much she was like me?

Harry did Ari’s hair too, which was a miracle in itself. He managed to brush it through and pull it into a neat pony tail - complete with a red rose clip on the side. If I’d have tried that, Zarina probably would have bitten me.

“You know Rose is going to have something to say about that outfit?” Harry grinned, seeing what I was wearing when I finally got dressed.

I was wearing a beige cashmere jumper that did not at all cling, the same black skinny jeans from the day before and a pair of beige loafers, a long, thick black cardigan thrown on top.

“This isn’t trampy!” I protested, allowing Harry to stand behind me and latch my necklace for me. “It’s elegant! And I’m wearing jewellery, so it’s still festive, too.”

“This is to do with what you’re hiding, isn’t it?” Harry asked - and I laughed because really, when was Harry ever that observant? “Your hair looks nice.”

I’d left it out and done nothing to it, including brushing, but just told him thanks.

Everything was lovely. Louis and Vivienne briefly Skyped from Mexico to wish everyone a merry Christmas and Zayn text the others. Isolde’s cravings for cinnamon were quenched with Rose’s special “mulled apple juice”.

Everything was lovely, right up until when it wasn’t.

“Are you sure you don't need a hand with the burning pud?” Kara asked Rose, as we all waited around for dessert. “Trust me, I can handle a blowtorch. Occupational hazard.” She joked.

She wasn’t being malicious, or goading Rose. Kara was just… Like that. She hit things over the head and dealt with them, she joked her way out of awkward situations. We’d spent enough time talking for me to know that Kara found it difficult to not just punch someone as means of effective communication. This was her, trying.

But it backfired. Spectacularly.

Everyone laughed, except Rose. Even Aman had snorted into his glass and he made a conceited effort to not acknowledge Kara’s past, most likely because his affinity with prostitutes (that sounded so wrong) wasn’t something he planned on making public knowledge.

“Occupational hazard?” Rose repeated, looking… Furious. The alarm bells in my head got louder. “Considering you’re so proud of your career, why don’t you just come out and say the rest of the men here would make good clients? That’s what you’re thinking, right? I mean, when you talk about occupational hazards, you fail to mention the genital herpes or whatever else you’ve got, do you?” Rose laughed once, darkly. I… We were all too shocked to move. “Then again, I suppose pretending being a slut is an actual profession helps you to pretend you’re not really just some washed-up crack whore.”

Everyone stopped. Everyone, except me - because at the crack whore part, I had to shut my eyes and pretend I wasn’t seeing the smug expression on Rose’s face, right before she calmly walked out.

What - what - had possessed Rose to just… To… Lash out like that? What had she been thinking?!

I wasn’t the only one thinking it.

“Is that some kind of fucking joke?” Liam said angrily, staring around the table. I looked at Harry, but he was staring after Rose, his expression horrified. “Does someone want to tell me what’s going on?”

“She’s probably just stressing out over dinner.” Kara said quietly - and that somehow made everything worse, that she, out of everyone, was the one jumping to Rose’s defence. “I should have kept my mouth shut, really. I knew she was upset yesterday and I pushed the dark humour-”

“This isn’t your fault!” Liam snapped - before looking at me. “She’s your best friend! Want to tell us what’s going on, or what?”

“Hey, it’s not Soph’s fault!” Kara told him, looking annoyed. Oh, great. Not only was Rose calling people crack-whores under her own roof, but apparently now I was inadvertently causing a domestic. “I’m Soph’s friend and she’s never-”

“We thought Rose was your friend too, but she’s turned out to be a grade-A bitch-”

“Alright!” Harry shouted loudly. “That’s my wife you’re talking about, mate, do you want to calm down?”

And just like that, everyone was arguing.

This was insane. Insane. Rose didn’t - Rose didn’t like confrontation! She may have developed more of a spine since the accident, but she didn’t like causing trouble and she certainly did not enjoy her parties being given a bad reputation. This made no sense. This made no sense, how had I missed her freaking out like this?!

You didn’t. You knew something was wrong, but you ignored it.

This was my fault.

“Everyone, just calm down-” Niall was saying patiently, but it wasn’t working. “Look, why don’t we let Harry talk to Rose, while we cool off in here and see what’s happening next-”

“I think I should go.” Kara said firmly. “That’s what should happen next. I was the one who started it, I don’t want to ruin what’s otherwise been a lovely Christmas-”

“We’re not going until she apologises!” Liam spluttered, now in full mouthing-off mode. Wonderful. Just wonderful. “Soph, are you going to sort this out or what?”

“That has to be the second or third time you’ve said that.” Aman said quietly, looking up at Liam with an annoyed expression. I poked his leg under the table. No. No. Now was not the time for his overprotectiveness to rise up; particularly when, ever since the… Incident when I was pregnant with Ari, he’d had a much lower tolerance for any of One Direction. “Has it ever occurred to you that it’s not Soph who’s responsible for Rose’s actions?”

“Well then, do you want to tell me who is?!” Liam was still shouting, but he seemed a bit… Calmer, at seeing Aman’s expression. That wasn’t necessarily a good thing. The effect of Aman’s silent but scary temper was not something I needed to worry about right now.

Aman pretended to think, pointedly ignoring my incessant poking. Rude.

“Rose, maybe?”

“Liam, will you please just shut up and calm down?” Kara groaned loudly, shoving him away from where he was towering over the table. What was going on with Rose? What was so bad, that she couldn’t just tell someone? Me? “Manny, Soph, I’m sorry, none of this is your fault - none of this is anyone’s fault! Rose has the right to not want an ex-hooker in her home and honestly, if you guys think I haven’t heard stuff like this before, you’re underestimating how good I was at my job.”

“How are you still cracking jokes right now?” I was trying not to smile. How could Rose not like Kara? This was exactly why everyone else did! Kara was covering for Rose’s almost unforgivable blunder, as if it were the most natural thing in the world. “Please don’t leave. Let me talk to Rose and find out what’s really going on.” I squeezed Kara’s hand. She’d been such a good friend to me, for ever since I’d known her…

And just like that, I was angry. How could Rose do this? How dare she? She’d never been jealous or possessive before and if this truly was about me accepting Kara as a friend like she’d said, then she was insane. Kara had been there for me since the beginning. She hadn’t expected me to hate her because of my faith or whatever else; damn it, she’d been there for me on my wedding day when Rose hadn’t! On the day of my reception, Kara had kept me calm in a way nobody else could have - not even Rose, who had been too busy playing house.

That’s unfair. You forgave her back then, you can’t take it back now.

Yeah - not unless I’d never forgiven her in the first place.

How much did Rose think she could get away with? After the accident, I’d kept justifying her erratic behaviour as her way of coping after the accident, but how could I keep saying it was okay? This was not okay!

“Kara, sweetheart, I’m so sorry about what Rose said. You know we don’t see you like that, you’re just as much family as anyone else here is.” Harry sighed, glancing at me with false smile; play along. “Probably more than this one, since she’s so posh these days.”

“Whatever.” Kara muttered, shooting me a grin. “These peasants just don’t know how to deal with upper classes, huh, Soph?”

I grinned, feeling sick. What the Hell had Rose been playing at, lashing out at Kara like that?

“I’m just going to go and check on Rose, see what’s really going on.” I told everyone as I got up, squeezing Aman’s shoulder on my way. He understood what that meant - keep it together here. Sometimes, this whole soulmate thing wasn’t such a giant inconvenience. “And Liam - just pour yourself another drink and calm down, alright?”

“Yeah.” Liam muttered, letting Niall firmly push him back into his chair. Thankfully, he shot Aman an apologetic look. “Sorry, everyone.”

“You can’t be perfect all the time.” Aman joked, now apparently silently communicating with Niall.

“Yeah.” Niall added. “Makes the rest of us look bad.”

That was the last thing I heard before going into the kitchen - and finding Rose calmly looking out of the window, drinking a glass of wine.

I shut the door behind me.

“What the fuck,” I asked slowly. “Was that? Where did that even come from?!”

“I’m sick of her acting like being a whore is such an accomplishment.” Rose shrugged. She could pretend to be calm all she wanted - I knew her too well. I could see she was still livid. What kind of a best friend would I be if I didn’t? “I would have thought you would have backed me up and understood that, but apparently not.” I stared, speechless, as Rose looked at me disapprovingly. “I heard you out there, with Manny and Harry, covering for me. I don’t need you three to cover for me.”

“When you drop crap like that, you do.” I laughed, though not at all because I found this funny. “You invited her here, Rose! And even if you didn’t really want to, since when were you so… It’s the holiday season. You love the holiday season.”

“Oh, of course I do!” Rose suddenly shouted, making me jump as she finally turned to face me. “Of course I love the festive season! I hold Christmas every year and play happy families and you know what? You’re right, I do love that part. But what I don’t love is everyone pretending everything is just dandy! Everyone is pretending what she is doesn’t matter, that how she met Liam doesn’t matter, but when I was deciding between guys - and not giving them hand-jobs in alleyways during it all -, I was the bad guy! Somehow, when Liam was being a shitty boyfriend, I was still the whore - and she is, and what, she gets nothing?”

We didn’t say anything for a few minutes. Rose was breathing heavily and staring at me with wide eyes, like she’d said something wrong - but she hadn’t - except she had, because something felt wrong, that feeling at the back of my mind was back -

Oh, Soph, you idiot.

“… You remember.” I whispered, feeling my heart begin to thrum in my throat. I tried to swallow down the feeling - to calm down. “You… You remember.”

Yesterday. Yesterday, when she’d mentioned Zayn - it had seemed wrong because it was wrong. That was before the accident. Rose didn’t remember anything between leaving Australia and the night of the accident, when Harry had told her they were together, when he’d lied; but I’d… I’d thought it was fine. I’d thought what she’d said about Zayn was fine, because I was so used to Rose’s voice talking about my first marriage that I’d forgotten she wasn’t the same Rose anymore. 

“No.” Rose muttered… But her voice was shaking. Oh, my God, she remembers. “No, no, I don’t-”

“Yes, you do!” I argued. It made sense now. It made sense! I’d gotten so used to lying to Rose about her past, because I’d had to, that hearing the truth after so long had been like… Like taking a break and only a small part of my brain had noticed. “Yes, you do! Rose, this is - this is huge! How long have you remembered?” Why was this being hidden? This was amazing news! We’d all thought it would never happen, this was great… Except it wasn’t, it wasn’t, because Rose looked… Guilty. Or at least like she was trying to hide that she felt guilty. “Oh my God, Rose, how long have you remembered?” I asked again, but this time, differently. I wasn’t excited this time.

“You don’t get to judge me.” Rose finally muttered, stabbing her finger in my direction. “You… You don’t get to judge me!”

“How long, Rose?!”

“I didn't go away because I had some kind of depressed break down, okay!” Rose suddenly shouted. Oh my God. Oh my God, she’d remembered and I hadn’t even noticed. “I know you love to think of me as this depressed loser who you need to constantly save, but-”

“What? Are you insane?”

“- I remembered! I was playing with Darcy and she was crying because Harry wasn’t around, like always-”

“She’s a child, Rose!” I snapped, seeing where this was going. Rose had been so excited to have a girl, so excited - because she saw her as a substitute, as the universe’s way of compensating her for a mother and sister that didn’t care. I’d warned her, I’d told her she couldn’t think about it like that - Darcy was a person! If we hadn’t learnt that everyone was a real person that we couldn’t just know inside out, what the Hell had we learnt after all of this time? “You do understand the concept of a child, don’t you? She’s innocent!”

“She made me remember!” Rose suddenly screamed, making me jump back. “Do you not get that? That little bitch-”

“Rose!”

“- she made me remember! And you know what? I was better off forgetting!” Rose hissed. I’d… I wanted to believe it was the drink, that all of the wine had gotten to her head, but I knew that wasn’t true. This was years’ worth of venom bubbling to the surface, venom I thought she’d trusted me enough to share in the beginning. But she hadn’t. She’d lied.

Like she was lying now.

“Two years. Two years.” I said, finally realising the maths. When she’d went away. When we’d all thought she’d lost hope, when I’d thought she was mourning. 

This was huge. Huge. And I had so many questions. Did she remember everything? Had it come all at once, or was she still piecing things together? Why had she hid it, when had she decided to? 

How could she have?

“Does Harry know?” I demanded. Harry. Harry. Oh, God. He’d… He thought he’d cheated her somehow, cheated himself into having a happiness he didn’t deserve. After Eddie had died - or gone away to -, he’d taken that all on himself, blaming Rose’s rejection of Eddie on himself. He’d been struggling with that ever since, he still was - but Rose knew? “He - he’s taken on your guilt about Eddie! He blames himself!”

“And there it is.” Rose muttered cruelly, staring at me up and down. “Perfect little Soph, upset because she’s losing control of micro-managing my life.”

No. No. I knew exactly what she was talking about and she did not get to say that to me.

“I did what I had to, as your friend.” I told her seriously. No. No. There was absolutely no way in Hell that she was putting that on me, acting as if I did what I did for kicks. “I did what I did because the doctors told me you were at risk and because I had to deal with damage control, when Harry and Ryan and everyone else panicked-”

“Like that’s the only control you have over my life!” Rose snorted. “What about my marriage, hmm? What about the fact that ever since before Harry and I got together, you’ve always been in the middle, you’re always acting mediator when nobody even wants you there?”

I couldn’t help it. As much as I told myself I’d changed, that I was more mature and mellow, that was a load of crap. I was not taking anyone’s crap ever again - I’d made that promise to myself a long time ago.

And Rose did not get a pass card just because she was feeling sassy.

“Well according to you, I’ve always been there - so it’s not hard to imagine your marriage falling apart without me being there to pick up the pieces of your dramas!” I snapped back instantly, not even having to think about it.

I didn’t want to do this. I didn’t want to have this conversation, this argument, with Rose. There were too many things for us to be bitter about.

But it felt really good to just say it. 

“This is exactly what I mean.” Rose laughed - and it wasn’t scary to hear anymore, it was pissing me off. “Perfect little Soph, with her perfect little life, looking down on everyone else. You act like such an angel-”

“No need to act like an angel, when we know I’m a queen.” It was meant to be a joke - to calm things down, because logic told me we needed to - but it came out more serious than I intended. Not that, at this point, I cared as much as I could have. “Just because you are too wrapped up in pretending to be someone else, doesn’t mean everyone else is as screwed up!”

“I’m not pretending!” Rose gasped. Seriously? Seriously? “I am being the person I am, the person I was meant to be - before everyone screwed me over and took advantage of me trying to be everyone’s friend!”

“Such a victim, all of the time!” I yelled. “Do you ever realise how self-involved you are? How pathetic it is? Your problems revolve around which boy to choose - and you act like you’re hard done by, when you’re the one who put yourself in that situation!” I groaned. This was ridiculous. This was just insanely ridiculous and not because of this conversation. “You can’t run from your feelings, Rose! You can’t pretend to not feel guilty! You - you-” I had to take a second, to calm myself down. I had to say this. I had to say this properly, for his sake. “- you’ve been lying, for two years about having no memory. Eddie wasn’t dead then. He was ill, but not dead and he deserved to at least know you chose to stay with Harry! You made him give up!”

“Don’t you dare-” My mouth fell open as Rose shoved me angrily. She was not serious. “Blame me for his death. That’s on you. You were so eager to focus on my problems and make yourself look like the golden girl in comparison, that you didn’t know how to be a good friend.”

In fairness, the moment Rose had touched me, I’d began to have an out-of-body experience. I wasn’t in control anymore - not the so-called mature, mellow Soph who balanced out the power-hungry rage monster that had been inside me since God knows when. I wasn’t in control anymore.

I couldn’t take responsibility for what I did next.

Without even thinking about it, I was standing to my full height, glaring up at Rose with a hatred I’d never expected to feel towards her. I was fuming. She hadn’t just lied to me - this wasn’t, despite what she wanted to think, about my bruised ego. She’d lied to everyone - to everyone, to all of the people who’d weaved their lives into the giant lie that had come from us trying to protect her.

How dare she?

“I’m not scared of you.” Rose told me quietly, glaring down at me.

I stepped closer.

“Maybe you should be.” I muttered. “You are not the person I thought you were. My friend isn’t here anymore.”

Rose shrugged. It didn’t even bother her. It didn’t even bother her.

“Whether you think I’m a sucky person or not is your problem, but you owe it to me to keep your mouth shut.” Rose told me, making me gawp at her. Really? I owed her something? She was a lying, conniving bitch who had been manipulating us all for the past two years - and that was a long time to maintain a lie this huge - and I owed her something?

It wasn’t just the anger. I didn’t honestly believe I was just angry. I was hurt, too - betrayed. She’d never told me. She’d never told me about her memories coming back, or even how she felt about me interfering in her life. She hadn’t trusted me enough to tell me the truth when I’d only ever bore my soul to her and that betrayal hurt me so much right now, I wanted to lash out and hurt her - because it was easier to deal with whatever nasty things I’d said, rather than accept that I didn’t think I’d ever be able to trust her again.

“You’re lying. To your friends - forget that, to your husband.” I shook my head. “Harry’s my friend, too. I’m not going to lie to him out of a sick sense of loyalty.”

“Yes, you are!” Rose shouted again, pulling me by the arm before I could leave. I swatted her off. I could hear voices outside the door - clearly, they’d heard shouting and Harry was worried. Hearing the voices too, Rose began to hiss. “Yes, you are. I kept your secret when you were pregnant and you didn’t want Zayn to know, at the risk of my relationship with Harry. I didn’t tell anyone you fell in love with Aman when you were still married to someone else, I have kept your secrets for years when I could have screwed you over the entire time - so you owe me.”

Just like that, something… Left. Something flew right out of me, something that suddenly made it so much easier for me to no longer care.

It’s like flipping a light switch. Just like before.

“So you’re not asking me as a friend.” I nodded, finally understanding. “You’re blackmailing me, as a person. As someone in your way.”

Rose shrugged, her arms folded over her chest.

Wow. Wow, I really hadn’t seen this coming.

“Fine. I’ll cover for you. If I’m asked, I won’t lie, but I’ll cover for you.” I promised, feeling… nothing. Empty. Rose wasn’t my best friend any more - and if I was being honest, she hadn’t been for a long time.

“Good.” Rose said primly, making me roll my eyes as I went to turn away. “And get out of my life, while you’re at it.”

I thought about that for a grand total of, ooh, a second?

“No.” I laughed. “No way in Hell. Just because you’re too weak to admit today, or even tomorrow or the day after that, you need me. You called your three year old girl a bitch today, Rose.” I shook my head. God. God, how had she gotten so twisted? And coming from me, that was saying something. “Just because you’ve forgotten to be a good friend, doesn’t mean I have. I’m not going anywhere.”

“Harry is my husband and Darcy is my daughter!”

“Darcy may be your daughter, but Harry was my friend long before you decided to mess him around!” I snapped. “I’m already lying to him for you, that’s all you’re getting from me.”

Harry had just stepped in, when Rose said it.

“God, I hate you, Soph.”

Only Harry saw how I closed my eyes. In defeat. Because I knew, better than anyone, exactly what she was like - and when she meant it.

I had been so wrong about us.

“What the Hell happened?” Harry asked, looking between us with wide eyes.

“It was my fault. Rose was angry about me not telling her what was going on.” I forced a smile, tried not to notice the lie - lie number one, the beginning of the end of our friendship; and no, that wasn’t just dramatics. Unless Rose told Harry that she had her memories back, our friendship was just going to keep breaking down; and it didn’t look like she was going to be telling the truth anytime soon. “She doesn’t approve of the news.”

“What news?” Harry looked more confused than ever.

I turned to Rose, hoping that, even if she wasn’t the person I knew any more, the next bit stung.

“That I’m pregnant again.” I said, the news sounding… Boring now. Who even cared? “I wanted to tell my best friend, but apparently it didn't quite work that way.”

Rose barely flinched.

“Like I just told her,” Rose said to Harry coolly, staring down her nose at me. Wow, she really wanted to stop doing that before I backhanded her. “She should stop popping them out so quickly. Someone might think she was doing it for the wrong reasons - you know how people have babies just to trap their husbands.”

Ouch. That one hurt.

Was this what I was in for? Jabs about my past from her, constant reminders I was keeping the secret of a clear sociopath?

“Sorry, Harry.” I forced a smile, told myself to play along. I wasn’t going to freak out in front of her. I wasn’t going to give her the satisfaction. “I think I should go.”

“But-” Harry stopped as he hugged me tightly. “Ignore her, Soph, this is great news. You don’t have to go-”

“Trust me, Harry.” I smiled genuinely this time. He deserved more than this - from me and Rose. “I do.”

It was just then that we heard Darcy calling for her mum.

“For God’s sake, Harry, go and deal with her.” Rose snapped, rubbing her temples.

“I’ll go.” I said, before either one of them could say anything. God. God, I wanted to hit her. I wanted to hit her, but I wanted to shake her at the same time and beg her to be the person I’d always thought she was. “And… Listen, I was thinking - send Darcy over for a sleepover sometime soon. Ari and Darcy don’t see one another enough.”

Darcy shouldn’t have to deal with a mother like that.

Maybe Rose was right. Maybe I was an interfering bitch who couldn’t keep her nose to herself - but that was exactly what had gotten Rose happily married to the guy of her dreams. I’d kept my end of the bargain, I’d become the journalist and introduced her to One Direction. Apparently, that was all she’d wanted.

But I’d helped her get her ending. So whether she liked it or not, I was going to make sure Darcy had a chance at that, at least. I knew Rose and her family, I could see the signs - Rose was turning into her mother.

As I hugged Harry goodbye at the doorway, ignoring Kara’s worried expression, I promised to keep an eye on Darcy. For my friend’s sake.

The one I didn’t have any more. 

[antthonystark]

Could you talk a little bit about how Matt's acting and how good it is? You're always spreading positivity and I always like seeing it around

This ask is like 25 days old, andI’m really sorry, but I really neededto make sure I had the time to sit down and write for a whole goddamn afternoonabout this because, as one might have ascertained from my url, sidebar image,icon, description, and content of my posts, I kinda like Matt Daddario, sorta, maybe. So yeah, I have a lot tosay about this so brace yourself!!!

(Also, just so I don’t have tokeep repeating it throughout the whole “””essay”””, the purpose of this post is notto say that Matt is better than the rest of the cast or to say that he’s moreworthy of praise than everyone else (they’re all amazing), but this lovely anonasked specifically about Matt, so that’s what..that’s what I’m talking about.)

The thing about Matt is that he’sso beautiful to look at that people sometimesthink that that’s all there is to him, and I’m the first to agree that he isindeed beautiful to look at but he’s such a goddamn good Alec that I’d justlike to take some time to draw attention to that fact too. Unlike somecharacters like Simon or Clary, Matt (similarly to Harry as well) has to sortof undergo a more complete persona shift as Alec – his mannerisms, demeanour,way of speaking and interacting all change quite a bit. It’s more subtle than,for example, the Harry-to-Magnus transformation, but it’s there. Obviously I’mnot saying it’s more Acting™ than for example Kat or Alberto (actually Albertoin my opinion delivers the best and most consistent performance out ofeverybody in the cast, and Kat of course is excellent as well), but it’s one of the things that makes his portrayalinteresting to me, because, to me, so many more things become deliberate when there’s a more significant shift from one’s own personality and demeanour.

I want to talk about every singleAlec scene in this post but, honestly, we’d be here for days, so I’m justgoing to break things down in a way that’s hopefully a bit more brief. (spoiler alert: it’s not brief….it’s not…brief at all)

Emotions & Expressions: The Alec Challenge™

I’ve talked about this before,but I think Matt has a unique challenge in playing Alec just because of thenature of Alec as a character and how he emotes. Even other characters who areemotionally guarded are not quite as outof touch with their emotions as a character like Alec is. What I mean froman acting perspective (disclaimer: I know nothing about acting in aprofessional context lol) is that Alec, rather than just being guarded bynature – like Magnus or Jace – feels things very deeply, and then activelysuppresses showing those emotions(this was true for the majority of S1 and parts of S2), meaning that Alec oftenhas an affect that’s quite stoic and flat which he forces himself to have, butwe also have to see that strugglebetween “having deep feelings –> can’t allow self to show feelings –> unfeeling appearance” in order for the performance to be dimensional and notone-note, and this is the Alec Challenge™. And I think in this – honestly –Matt excels beautifully. It’s probably my favourite aspect of his portrayal ofAlec, because it’s subtle but it’s damngood.  Because in the moments thatAlec is allowed to be vulnerable, hisexpressions speak such volumes, and moreover, they still show that conflict.

Example 1: The freakin’ goldmine for this thing that I’m talkingabout has to be that scene between Jace and Alec in 1x05, when Alec still hadfeelings for Jace and they were talking about what happened in 1x04 with thememory demon. My heart fucking breaks forAlec here and Matt does damn beautifully. When Jace tells him that he loveshim, you can almost see him stopbreathing, his heart stop beating, for a split second, as he misconstrues whatJace says – and then after Jace elaborates, just look at his reaction – with nowords at all, you’re now fully attuned to the sort of tragic circumstances ofAlec and his deep infatuation with Jace, and its inability to be reciprocated(as it’s juxtaposed with that brief hopefulness, thatdid-he-just-say-what-I-think-he-said a moment before). He nods a little bit,like ‘of course that’s what he meant, don’t be stupid’ and it’s just so very good. No words, and the relationship between Alec and Jace is made somuch more complex and added so much more depth, just in these few moments alone.(Also shoutout to Dom for being amazing wrt Alec/Jace scenes and really forbeing phenomenal in general as well. I know I disclaim-ed this before but Ican’t help it I love them all so much.)

And then, after, when Alec says,“I thought you would think that….” and Jace says “what?” and Alec can’t evenbring himself to say anything or  toelaborate, because he can’t, becausethat would give him up, so he just swallows it down - or tries to - but just look at his expression. I don’t even havewords. Just loooooooooooook.

Example 2: Still in the timeframe where Alec has feelings for Jace(sorry if you don’t like this storyline lol, I know a lot of people don’t, butMatt did such amazing work in it that I can’t ignore it in this post! – plus S1gifs are so much easier to make on the fly lol).  The beautiful 1x07 Clace kiss, made all themore beautiful for Alec’s reaction to it. Like, here you can see exactly what I’m talking about. Yousee the way he looks away immediately, you can see he’s upset (and maybe I’m reading into it too much lol but youcan also sort of tell maybe that he’s not upset with either of them, really, but more so with himself), andthen you can see exactly how he kind of re-calibrates himself (like, you can’t show this emotion), and thenschools his expression into one that’s casual and aloof and walks away. Iremember watching this like 50,000 times when this ep first came out because itwas so good and my heart just brokefor Alec a million times.

Example 3: The other goldmine for this thing that I’m describing,this conflict in feeling vs. showing emotion, is the first Malec scene in 1x12(they’re all freakin’ amazing, I couldn’t even do the wedding scene because it kills me inside and I’d be heredoing a frame-by-frame analysis for 10 days straight). But like…I mean, do Ireally need to describe it? In the “you’re confusing me” part, you can just seeso much, the confusion, apprehension, almost fear in his eyes. I really canjust let the gifs do the talking here, but damn. There’s a reason this is oneof my favourite scenes in the whole series, and these two gifs encompass awhole lot of it. So. Much. Emotion. Good job, Matt. (Also, again, shoutout toHarry for being the perfect Magnus inthis scene and always, and because Malec scenes are so much more than Matt andHarry individually but also how they play off of each other so damn well.)

Example 4: I love thismoment so much from 2x02, after he snaps at Izzy for not knowing how he’sfeeling. You can see the hugeness of his love for Jace (sorry this is turninginto a Jace+Alec appreciation post lol, but the reason why that relationship isso compelling to me is largelybecause of Matt and Dom’s amazing performances thereof), as well as his ownapprehension and almost fear the enormity of his feelings – where Alec hastried so hard to be in control of his emotions, but with Jace missing he’s beenvolatile has not been able to exert that control, and it’s difficult for him todeal with.  Also, I want to give anhonourable mention to the opening Alec scene of 2x01, because it’s anotherperfect – perfect – illustration andbeautiful performance by Matthew of this unique Alec conflict of not being in control of his emotions,and that volatility and just how poorly Alec is in touch with himself and howto handle the enormity of these feelings is perfectly captured.

Example 5: I fucking hate giffing this scene, so I’m mentioning itin brief, but the scene on the rooftop in 2x05 is another really good exampleof the quintessentially Alec conflict of not wanting to show anyone how much he’shurting. And Matt is phenomenal in that scene tbh.

Example 6: Okay just one more real quick is 1x03, “She’s got a thing,” about Izzy, and then Izzyreplies teasingly/knowingly (about Alec being gay or Alec’s thing for Jace,it’s unclear, but one of the two), “We’ve all got our things.” The way Alec’s smile fades, a moment of insecurity, and heturns away aloof once again. Obviously, it’s a bit of sisterly teasing, and soit’s still a light moment for sure (you can still see a bit of a smile on hisface), but it’s just a subtle and nice thing okay I just like it

Another something that I reallylike, jumping back to Season 1, is this scene with Magnus in 1x09, very shortafter he has proposed to Lydia. Unlike in 1x08 and 1x06, where he has beenextremely and unprecedently open and comfortable and just generally, like,mellow around Magnus, here you immediately see his walls slam up, but you canalso see and feel the conflict thatirradiates from him, the idea that he wants to talk to Magnus but he’s not lettinghimself, and the self-consciousness of being around him in public as well,after the proposal, after he’s definitively Not Allowed himself this (I’m gonnatalk more about this in the next section too, just you wait lol):

But then, also, you see acontinuance of this kind of behaviour towards Magnus throughout the nextepisode in which they interact largely (before that scene in 1x12 that Imentioned earlier) – the “furrowed brow” as Magnus called it in 1x06, where yousee him kind of force himself to be distant with Magnus, emotionally keepingthose walls up which you can see in his expression in the following scenes aswell. A far cry again from mellow, smiley 1x06 Alec – he wants it, but hedoesn’t allow himself to have it anymore. Even when he’s smiling (“so you getit”) in 1x11, you can still see that he is more distanced, reserved compared tohow he interacted w/ Magnus in earlier episodes:

So what ALL of this does isinstead of Alec being that one-note, super-stoic character that we see in filmand television from time to time, he gets somuch depth out of these few moments of mini-expressions alone, kudos toMatt, in these moments where Alec gets to be somewhat vulnerable. You get tosee how much he feels, how conflictedhe is in such moments, and so when you have Jace saying something like “[Alecis] sensitive” in 2x08, you fucking believe it.

The reason I didn’t include theiconic™ 2x10 I love you scene is that it’s more of a 100% vulnerable Alecrather than conflicted – as Alec is learning to be more and more open with hisemotions, especially around Magnus. But I wanted to mention it to give yet more kudos to Matt for me being ableto see that development in Alec interms of the way that he emotes – there’s a distinct difference in this scenecompared to the Malec scene in 1x12 that I cited up there, for example, as Alecgrows into a more emotionally open and available person, that you can see inthe way that Alec/Matt emotes. As early as 2x05, in the scene on Magnus’s fireescape, you can see kind of a “middle” Alec, where he sort of tries to go “I’mfine” (which is another such a GOOD example of what I’m talking about) and thenstarts to blurt out how he’s actually feeling towards Magnus and is once againmore openly vulnerable. So, like. Nice.

I guess I want to say here thatMatt isn’t just goo\d at depicting the conflict between emotions, but justlike, emoting in general? He’s extremely believable in Alec’s most vulnerablemoments, and, honestly, that’s why I livefor them. Like, I could list a million scenes – the fight with Jace in1x09, the fight with demon!Izzy in 2x04, the malec scenes in 1x06 and 2x01, thedamn fucking scene at the end of 2x03, and I could go on. I guess, the thingis, this is a pretty lowbrow show, and in fantasy/YA shows you often see kindof tropey, two-dimensional characters where actors can kinda just phone it in,but in this you have these nuanced and thoughtful performances that justelevate the whole thing past what it is to make the characters so complex anddimensional – and this really goes for the whole cast, not just Matt, but alsoMatt included. (Also not just in vulnerable Alec moments, but in the raremoments where he gets to do comedic moments, he’s also amazing and justperfectly on point. Seventeen thousand,anyone? Or whenever he drinks alcohol. As a non-alcohol-drinker, let me tellyou, that is the exact face we makewhen drinking liquor and it’s fucking great. Like in 2x06, when he does thedouble-flinch after drinking the martini? Most actors who show it just grimaceonce, but there is indeed two very dramatic flinches, that’s just accurate. A+nice one matthew.)

Voice and Dialogue Delivery

So bouncing right off of theprevious section, I want to start talking about one of my favourite things inthis cruel world, Matthew Daddario’s voice. Other than his cute accent and thedumb way he says the word “something” and the way that it always risesdramatically in pitch when he’s excited or offended (I could go on), I love love love love how voice is involvedin how he emotes.

Now, you might be thinking,Mavra, come on, this is just basic acting, it doesn’t make him exceptional.Well, I don’t care. I just like it,and let me tell you why. Because ofthe above-mentioned and crucial characteristic of Alec – the inability to emoteusing facial expressions at 100% due to Alec’s suppression of his own emotions.But oh my God the voice – that little strain or hitch or crack in Alec’s voicethat comes every so often, I shit you not, nothing in this whole goddamn beautifulshow has made me more goddamn emotional than that. Because you see that part ofAlec that he can’t control – you get to feel the sheer scope of how much he’s feeling and how little he’sletting himself show it, just through that little hitch in his voice. You can’tgif voices, so it’s hard for me to illustrate, but ugh. I just. I love it somuch.

Examples: 2x05, “I let a demon in, Magnus” – you canhear it here; 1x12, “You just don’t get it…I could lose my family, my career,everything”; 2x05, “I couldn’t save you from Valentine…” and actually just thewhole scene on the rooftop is filled with instances of it; 2x01, the openingscene is just SO DAMN GOOD in every way and you can hear some of it there; whenhe’s talking to Lydia after Magnus walks into the wedding in 1x12 and he’stelling her he can’t go through with it, it’s a little bit present; and I can’tthink of any more off the top of my head, but like you feel me, right?

Also, like I said, I wanted tocome back to this scene from 1x09:

So obviously you can’t hear himin that gif, but I LOVE the way he delivered those lines. Like, he starts offhard and loud, “It’s okay.” Again, asI was talking about the scene, it’s like Alec isn’t allowing himself to haveany moments with Magnus anymore because he chose to marry Lydia. But Magnuspersists, oblivious to this fact, and it kind of melts Alec for a bit? When hesays the next line, “Magnus, I’m good, all right? I gotta…” it’s just a tinybit softer and less strident than the “it’s okay.”  Idk man, I just love it.

Also, like, he’s good atbreathing? This is utterly ridiculous-sounding, but it’s true, okay, the way Alec’s breathing was coming up short in 1x12after Magnus walks in was literally palpable and was giving me breathing problems through thegoddamn computer screen. Also in 2x10, when you can hear him literally 2minutes away from a panic attack, and that’s just so visceral and good. Butanyway, weird aside about breathing over.

And I was talking aboutexpressions a lot, but I just love the way that Matt – generally – deliverslines as well. Maybe it’s because I love his voice, but I just love it. One ofmy favourite things, because #relatable, is the way Alec isn’t so great with articulatinghimself verbally. And it’s utterly unlikeMatt himself, who has such a measured and often deliberate way of talking, atleast publicly (he barely ever trips over his words at all, if you’ll notice,instead just pausing at length sometimes), but Alec’s stutters and stammers areso well-delivered and believably rendered, I think (like, I’d like to hearkenback to the “you’re confusing me” scene from 1x12) and it’s just…Nice™, Iguess. I like it.

I don’t really know what else Ican say about his line delivery other than the fact that it’s just good, generally, it’s believable andjust, yeah. Some of my favourites of his lines actually are with Izzy (also,shoutout to Emeraude here, because Matt and Emeraude play against each other so so so so good, I love their dynamic so much and they really bring out thebest in each other), especially when he’s sort of teasing Izzy. He just has the lightly teasing, sardonicribbing thing down perfectly in his tone, and it’s so Alec. My favourite is probably the extremely sarcastic “Great job, Izzy!” from 1x03 (and really,that whole conversation). Also, the “turning over a new leaf?” in 1x07. Andthis is more Emeraude appreciation, but the whole Jessica Hawkblue exchange in2x07 was a-dor-able and theirplatonic chemistry on screen is on point.But I digress. Matt says things good, is the point of this paragraph, I think.We’re three thousand words in, I don’t know what I’m doing anymore. To add onto the Alec/Izzy thing, another one I liked a lot was the biting “is that whatyou’re calling it now?” about Izzy’s connections to the Seelies in 1x06,because it was in almost that sameteasing tone, but it has such a bitter twist to it, and it was just so good.

ALSO: A line delivery (as well asexpression and just everything) I like A Lot is from that same scene in1x06 was “I knew Clary Fray would come back to bite me in the ass.” You canfeel the anger, frustration, resignation, but his voice is quiet, his anger and sense of always coming up short and being unfairly treated, asalways, below the surface (bubbling up slightly more in the “Screw the rules,screw all of this” at the end of the scene) – but there’s that bitter twist ofa smirk and I’m not making  any sense Ijust love this moment so much bye

Final thing: THE WAY HIS VOICEGETS LOW AND DEEP AND SOFT™ SOMETIMES. THIS KILLS THE MAN. Just because sooften Alec’s voice is quite loud and somewhat uninflected, outside of hisvulnerable moments (or moments like the above-mentioned ones with Izzy), likeyou’re running into a brick wall – which is probably exactly what Alec intendswith that inflection (that Matt captures so well, I’m sorry at this point I’musing Alec and Matt interchangeably lol). But then you get moments like 1x12’s“No, you’re not sick” or 2x06’s “I hear that relationships, they take effort”or 2x07’s “In good ways I hope.” Honestly it’s 2AM, this paragraph is just anappreciation of Matt’s deep/soft voice. I love. But like, it’s good acting too.A+ showing vulnerability and softness. Nice job matthew.

Okay, one more quick one that Ilove so much for some weird reason I can’t explain – in 1x05, when they’retrying to track Clary, and it’s not working. Jace says, “Alec, concentrate”,and Alec says nothing. It still doesn’t work, and Jace says, “Alec!” in areally sharp voice, and Alec says “I’m doingit.” That last line – fuck, man, it’s like quiet but not soft and it just killsme with the weight of the insecurity and apology in Alec’s voice. It’s one ofmy weird ones, I can’t explain it but I like it so much I had to mention it.

BASICALLY. I like the way Mattsays his lines. I think his inflections and dialogue deliveries are usually sovery believable, but more than that, they addsuch an important dimension to his performance, especially for a character whophysically or outwardly forces himself not to show emotion.

Body Language

I don’t have much to say on thisexcept there’s a couple of details that I really like in terms of bodylanguage, the first one being this little nervous hand tic that Alec has.Again, Alec is in general a somewhat high-strung and withdrawn/reserved person,so I like these little, nuanced, effective reminders of the fact that he hascertain anxieties (e.g. here, talking to Magnus on the date and I’m pretty sure that’s what his hand wouldbe doing when he’s telling Magnus he loves him):

It basically is just a nice andminor way to give the performance that bit more dimension. 

Otherwise, a lot of this hasalready been said previously. I really like how Alec often stands in a very soldier-like “at ease” stance, with his feetplanted wide and his hands clasped behind his back, if he’s not doing anythingelse. It’s just really nice shorthand for not only his militaristic upbringing,but his adherence to it over the other young Shadowhunters that we see.

I also like Alec’straining/punching bag scenes (for So Many reasons but no time to get into itall now) because I think it’s basically apparent at this point that Alec trainswhen he’s trying to process emotions that he doesn’t know how to process orcontrol. To that end, the scenes in 1x08 and 2x02 are very interesting to me,because unlike what one might expect of a character blowing off steam, he’sstill very regular/disciplined in how he attacks the bag – there’s no loss ofcontrol, which makes so much sense, because this is Alec’s conduit into gaining back control after the loss ofcontrol he tends to feel when his emotions get too complex for his emotionallystunted self to suppress – finding out his parents were in the Circle and hiswhole life has been a lie, almost getting Jace back and then losing him again.1x09 is different, you can see a certain anger and loss of control there(although it’s brief), and I think this is because 1x09 is a differentmotivation – this is an example of self-harm, I think, rather than an attemptto gain lost control – this is after his altercation with Magnus, pushing him away,after he proposed to Lydia. Alec is not exactly immune to self-loathing, and I’msure these events are not helping that (especially given Izzy’s “you’re hurtingyourself”). So I think that distinction is important and I really like all of thesescenes in terms of their body language.

The last specific thing I want to mention is eye contact. For somereason, idk if this is just me (I have some issues with eye contact lol), Ifeel this is a bit of a salient behavioural thing with Alec. Like, you’ll oftensee him avoiding eye contact in certain situations, especially when he’s vulnerable.1x09, after the fight with Jace; 1x05, while Jace is trying to talk to him andhe feels uncomfortable around Jace after the memory demon occurrence; his “I’mfine” to Jace earlier in 1x09; looking away from Jace throughout most of hisspeech in 1x12 about Magnus at the bachelor party; his “I’m fine” to Magnus in2x05; frequently looking away from Magnus in 2x06 esp. during the “somethingwrong with me” speech. BUT, more interestingly, whenever he wants to destroy someonein true Alec Lightwood fashion, there’s always a prolonged and deliberate momentof eye contact. I first noticed it in 1x08, when Alec is delivering the autopsyresults to Lydia, and he hands them to Maryse while literally staring Lydiadown, not breaking eye contact until after he gave it to her. Same in 1x09after his fight with Jace – he’s looking away from him until he deliberatelyand definitively chooses against Jace, and that’s when he looks at Jace, whenhe says “no”. Also in 2x09, when he especially claps Aldertree on the shoulder,looks him in the eye, smirks, and then leaves (damn son). I really like this contrast, because it’s another subtlehint at these conflicting parts of Alec – his insecurity vs. his ultimate strength.Idk how intentional it is on the part of Matt, but I noticed it and it’s like, myfavourite thing.

The Sum of Its Parts

So in the above, I sort of teasedapart separate elements just to kind of look at them in depth and in a differentway, but ultimately the whole is more than the sum of its parts. All three ofthese things, and many more nuances and details, are integrated together andare used in different ways in different scenes to communicate different things and aspects of character and motivation and emotion.All together, it creates such a damn beautiful portrait of this character, AlecLightwood, that’s nuanced and dimensional and honestly perfectly rendered. Evenwhen he’s in the backgrounds of scenes, even when he only has a couple of linesin scenes, every single thing is usually just so good that it adds so muchrichness to the character and makes it such a compelling performance to watch. (And also, like, so realistic and three-dimensional while borrowing very little from Matt himself - or rather what we know of Matt - in terms of mannerisms and such? at least, I think so) 

 Again, a lot of people like to ascribe a lot of Alec’s popularity to Matt’sphysical attractiveness – and I’m going to be honest, I do not doubt that that figures into why a lot of people like Alec, itcertainly did for me at least initially – but I also think that Matt delivers areally good performance that brings both nuance and depth to the struggles andconflicts of this character, which makes Alec such a compelling, relatable, andrealistic character.

Ultimately, I also think a lot ofwhat I showed here and what Matt does evidences something that is ultimately socrucial (and this comes through in Matt’s interviews, or at least, when someoneactually asks him a question about Alec independent of his relationships, whichlol is not too often) – his understanding of his character is so, so, so on point. And honestly at least 35% of why I’mnot going to breathe easy until June 5th is just because I cannothonestly wait to see more of all ofthis.

and that’s….yeah. that’s what i have to say… about…that….

[smokedanced]

isrighthand.​

Something’s wrong, Izzy thinks, and isn’t that a fucking laugh? As if anything has been right for whatever amount of fucking time. It’s all fucked, but he’s watching Edward carefully, and the look on his face and the sound of his voice. He’s been here long enough to know when there are things happening that he can’t see, things crumbling inside him that don’t make it past the facade.

He stays where he is. Keeps his mouth shut. He’s been Edward’s anchor for years, immovable, unbreakable - that’s why Edward keeps him around. If Edward is losing his fucking mind right now, then he won’t. Simple as that.

And to his credit, he tries.

Edward’s word’s don’t make sense at first. You think I’m Blackbeard - He is Blackbeard. Except Edward is talking like he isn’t. Maybe Izzy doesn’t quite understand that part, even if he wants to.

It’s not until Edward gets to best friend that Israel feels the waters begin to rise, tumultuous waves that get higher and high with each beat, fast enough that he knows he can’t escape them, fast enough that panic is bubbling up within him. Best friend. Kill Edward. I miss you.

Anger is not a weapon but a shield. Maybe it cuts, but Israel uses it for defense. He can feel the phantom sensation of a pommel in his hand, asking, begging, him to pick it up and use it, to cut down the threads of emotion that want to break his skin and swallow him whole.

Israel flexes his fingers, too caught up in his thoughts to realize that he looks, of all things, quite lost.

“ I - ”   His gaze falls down to the ground. Unfamiliar territory. He fucking hates unfamiliar territory. He feels like he’s drowning, now - everything around him could be his death, from the man in front of him to each word he lets loose from his lips. Maybe, at this point, it’s just time to … let go.

“ I’m sorry. ”   He doesn’t know the last time he’s said those words.    " Fuck. “

Face tilted forward abruptly to pinch at his brow for a moment before he lets his hand slip away. He could shy away from meeting his captain’s eye. Doesn’t.

” I’m sorry, Edward. I didn’t mean to make you feel … don’t fucking kill yourself. “   It sounds angry, scolding, because it’s easier than sounding scared.   ” And I’m sorry for what I said before, about - you bein’ better off dead. I didn’t fuckin’ mean it, you know that. I lose my head when I’m angry … shit. “   He doesn’t know how to do these fucking apologies. Maybe that was fine. He wouldn’t know where to start correcting, anyway. He’s a mess. There’s a wardrobe behind him - he sags back against it, crossing his arms, and is silent for a few moments, brow furrowed, sorting out his thoughts.

” I’m not going to pretend I understand exactly what you’re trying to say here. About being Blackbeard and all that. But whatever you want, mate … you’ve got it. We’ll figure it out. “   His undying loyalty, handed over again, in a subtle sort of way. Whatever we need to do, he vows, I’ll get it done. It’s what he’s always done. For his - best friend. Fucking best friend?

His boot - the one with five toes in it - shifts forward to knock against Edward’s own. His best friend is crying. He hates it.

” Stop … fucking crying, “   Izzy scolds, uncomfortable, kicking Edward’s boot more incessantly, like poking a feral animal with a stick to try and get it off the porch.   ” Keep talking. Explain this shit. “

Ed doesn’t realise he’s holding his breath until Izzy goes I’m sorry, and a deep exhale is released from his lungs, his body almost slumping from its tension.  Izzy’s not leaving.  At least not right this moment, not telling Edward he’s pathetic, wrong, not walking away from him. And it’s such a relief he  cries harder,  soundlessly, just what feels like the fucking sea pouring out of his eyes.

Izzy looks... really fucking lost. Insecure, almost. Making Ed want to reach out, pull him close, fucking cling onto the man, tangled together. But he doesn’t, because they... they do need to talk. Never been good at that. Talking, genuinely.

God, he feels vulnerable.

❝ Didn’t mean it like, ❞    Ed interrupts at don’t fucking kill yourself, even though he’s sure Izzy understands,    ❝ like that. ❞    He just needs to say that. He feels like he needs to suffocate Edward until only Blackbeard is left. Doesn’t want Izzy thinking he in any way was being literal about it. Though truth be told, he didn’t much care if he lived or died when he was... well, Blackbeard, recently. ‘Course that never really even was Blackbeard, either, just... No, he’d rather not go back there.

And he knows. Knows Izzy says things he doesn’t mean when he’s that angry. He doesn’t need a detailed apology. But... it has been hard, to know what Izzy really does mean and what’s just his anger speaking. He knows now Izzy never truly wanted him dead, but back then... several things were said that just stung a little too much. I work for Blackbeard. Edward better watch his fucking step.

Ed’s nose starts to get stuffy as Izzy talks on. Izzy’s basically telling him he’s not going to leave, and Ed could fucking kiss the man for that alone.  He, desperately, just needs to not be abandoned.

❝ Sorry, mate, ‘s just, ❞    he sniffs at Izzy telling him to stop crying,    ❝ comin’ out. I’m. OK, just... ❞    But the thing is, it doesn’t feel unkind, the way Izzy says it, the way he kicks at Ed’s boot. It feels like care. Like Izzy wants him to stop crying because he wants him to stop hurting. Ed sniffs hard and wipes at his face with rough hands.

He nudges Izzy’s boot with his own... and starts crying again.

❝ I’m sorry, ❞    he says, now having to look away from Izzy in shame.    ❝ Your toe. I never... properly said...  I’m sorry.  That was  ⸺  that was really fucked up, Iz, I shouldn’t have... That wasn’t good captaining. ❞    Discipline of one’s crew is one thing, but Izzy’s not just crew, and never has been. Even if he were, you don’t do shit like that to your own crew.    ❝ That was really fucking bad, I... That I hurt you like that, it... Never. I’ll never do anything like that again, I swear. Don’t care how angry I get, I can’t just... I’m sorry. ❞