#nasty rat man

[screamingiminlovewithyou]

I feel so bad that taylor has to come to Ron desantis land…I’m so sorry sweetie

[alyakthedorklord]

How Ghosts/Danny sees the League of Assassins/Ra’s al Ghul

I have seen a lack of world building regarding the LoA in all those dp x dc “Jason caught a ghost disease when he got dropped in Grandaddy Ra’s glowing green gamer-girl bathwater of eternal youth” fics and that is a goddamn shame bc… how does Danny see them?

Okay so the Lazarus Pits are weird messed up ectoplasm, fanon has decided, yada yada. Be it waste water seeping through to their reality, trapped ectoplasm stagnated and warped into something wrong, corrupted toxic waste, basically sewers of the Infinite Realms that throw off the balance of souls (pit rage) and reality (cheating death.)

But if the Lazarus Pits are Sewers, then does this… does this mean…

Does this mean the League of Assassins are New York Sewer Rats?

BC LIKE- prolonged exposure to the Weird Ectoplasm has slightly mutated their souls and made them stronger/more violent. They’ve adapted into an entirely different BREED and staked their claim and Danny COULD, logically, beat one in a fight easily if he really wanted to.

But like… would you want to? It’s a SEWER RAT they stinks and definitely carrying all kinds of diseases and they’re scurrying all over the place with thier tiny little maladapted cores what the FUCK. It fears no god. What do you even win, the sewer? They can keep that. Now you’re just an idiot that got jumped by a rat. Go get a shower. And maybe a rabies shot. Eugh.

[cloned-eyes]

I hate this man and I wish him the worst.....But you all so my friend so fuck it, I support you

Dr. Hemlock is hot, idc

He's absolutely vile, a delightful villain, gives me the creeps and all, yeah, but he's also an attractive little rat man and I want him

[tinynerdycthulu]

im not a shen jiu apologist, im a yue qingyuan kinnie. i wont defend him to his haters because i know he'd hate me more than them if i tried to paint him as a good person. when shen jiu throws teacups at my head and i dont ask why but look very very sadly at the ground like a kicked puppy and let the boiling hot tea drip down.

[wistfulcynic]

a non-izzy-centric reading of the events of season two

i didn't really want to get into this because it's so, so tiresome and i'd rather talk about the things i loved about this season. Poison, positivity, etc. But.

reading this post about people doubting their own judgement due to the overwhelming noise from Izzy stans along with a rewatch of season two from start to finish made me realise that i too had been influenced by a year and a half of being intensely frustrated by people insisting so loudly that OFMD was in fact the Izzy Hands Show. My initial issues with S2 mostly stemmed from overcompensating for that by resenting any development of Izzy on the screen because i did not want it to feed those people. Which meant that i also was centring Izzy in a way that he should not be centred! i was letting their noise lead me to read him as far more important than he actually is.

So i looked back at several points from the season that had me feeling uncomfortable and which, from a cursory browse through the Izzy tag i've concluded his stans see as a contradiction or a betrayal or something and re-evaluated them from the perspective of Izzy not being a main fucking character.

point one: "He's our dick."

When Archie (a newcomer and therefore a fairly effective audience stand-in for anyone not balls deep in fandom bullshit) asks Jim why they're going to so much trouble for Izzy, who she has immediately clocked as "kind of a dick", Jim gives this response. Which, if you think Izzy is important, may read as an expression of reluctant fondness. But then, Jim continues: "There was a time when life meant something on this ship. When we lived for each other, not just to survive." These lines are punctuated by a flashback to the famous Revenge crew found-family Renaissance-painting moment. Jim is nostalgic for the "good old days" of the Revenge under Stede's people-positive management style. It is out of respect for that (seemingly) lost way of life that they take the trouble for Izzy, not for Izzy himself. They'd have done the same for anyone, because they desperately want life to matter again. Izzy, as the person whose gamy leg is a direct result of his threatening Ed and bringing the kraken era down on all of them, is simply the one whose life happens to be on the line.

(honestly, i love this from Jim, who was one of Stede's boldest detractors in season one and still the crew member most likely to call him out on his bullshit. That's your "reluctant fondness" moment right there.)

point two: the new unicorn

apparently Izzy stans see the gift of the unicorn leg prosthetic as a symbol of deep love and respect from the crew to Izzy. Which is an absolutely wild reading when you look at what led up to it.

There's tension on the ship. Divisions. Lucius is chain-smoking and jump-scared by his own shadow. Jim, Archie, Frenchie, and Fang are overcome by guilt over their mutiny and frantically scrubbing nonexistent blood from the deck in what is a fantastically darkly funny Lady Macbeth moment for them. Izzy is sloppy drunk and yelling nonsensical abuse at the unicorn masthead. Roach, Pete, Oluwande, and Wee John make a well-intentioned but ill-conceived attempt to bring everyone back together (i say "everyone" but Izzy, significantly, is not included) which leads to them all being at each other's throats in the sort of mutually-assured-destruction configuration that starts world wars. It's a great scene. Izzy is not a part of it.

until he interrupts them, throws the unicorn legs at them and in his drunken clumsiness breaks his prosthetic. He then pointedly refuses their offers of assistance and drags himself away along the floor by his arms.

my friends. This is peak pathos. The crew do not respect Izzy in this moment, they feel sorry for him. They realise that he's worse off than any of the rest of them and that knowledge brings them back together. Making the unicorn prosthetic is barely about Izzy at all. It's about the crew coming together, repairing the rifts in their found family and as a bonus helping out their grumpy second cousin who doesn't really want to be there but has nowhere else to go. It's also a very generous offer of a new place on the ship--as the new unicorn--and a fresh start. Because that's what life on the Revenge is. For everyone.

point three: la vie en rose

much has been made of Izzy putting on drag makeup and singing at the Calypso birthday party, and fair enough. That's a big character development point for him. i don't hate it, though i wish there'd been more build-up to it, a longer conversation between Izzy and Wee John at least (insert obligatory "fuck Max" here) but regardless, if we accept Izzy's amputated leg as cutting off his old self and replacing it with the unicorn then we can arrive at a place where he's able to participate in a drag performance without too much cognitive gymnastics.

i've written before about the curious choice to have Izzy sing La Vie En Rose in French (after he initially sang it in English) at the very moment when Ed and Stede are having sex for the first time. On first watch i felt viscerally troubled by it, it felt like a validation of the obsessive psychosexual reading of Izzy's feelings for Ed. Looking at the season as a whole, it feels more like a (cringy, creepy, waaaay over the line) attempt on his part to signal approval for Ed and Stede's relationship. Especially when taken in conjunction with his (super creepy, like wtf who greenlit this) interruption of their breakfast in bed the next morning to make a ham-fisted innuendo. Weird but okay i guess, it's not like Izzy and social niceties have ever gone hand in hand.

many people point to the drag scene as the crew embracing Izzy and welcoming him as one of them. Again, i don't disagree. But, also again, this is not specific to Izzy. This is just what they do. They also embraced Archie with her snake-cult stories, they re-embraced Ed (who yes, they do love, refutations of arguments that they don't love Ed are a whole other essay though) and later they embrace Zheng and Auntie and also Jackie who once stole their savings jar and threatened to cut off their noses. That's what they do! They embrace people! That's what the show is about!

point four: the death scene

i have to be honest, i still hate this. i don't hate that Izzy died, i hate that he died in Ed's arms with Ed calling him his only family. That still feels unearned to me, and alas was probably another victim of the shortened season. But even with this extremely kind and forgiving death scene, the stans are not satisfied! They feel that the entire crew should have been gathered round, assuring Izzy of their profound love for him. There should have been weeping at the funeral, wailing and gnashing of teeth, rending of garments etc. It's what he deserves as such a beloved member of the crew!

except he wasn't beloved. He was accepted, yes. Welcomed, even. But acceptance is a far cry from love. Cheering as someone sings a song at a party does not mean you feel ready to weep at their deathbed or proclaim your undying affection for them.

yet even so, the crew are visibly distraught at his death scene. There are tears in many eyes! But effusive declarations of feeling from any one of them other than Ed would have felt (to anyone not convinced Izzy is the main character) completely wrong and very weird. You can headcanon what you like to fill the gaps in canon but on screen we have seen very few meaningful interactions between Izzy and any of the existing crew aside from Fang and Lucius and to a lesser extent Wee John. Izzy's primary relationship with another character is with Ed and so, as much as i still don't like it, Ed is the only one who has any real reason to be at Izzy's side as he dies.

as for the brevity of the funeral and the fact that they went straight from it to Pete and Lucius's wedding instead of having, idk, a prolonged wake at which everyone speaks at length about how important Izzy was to them, i mean. Obviously that wasn't going to happen. More than enough screen time had already been given to a side character who spent most of it either being miserable himself or making others so. It was time for the rest of them to find some moments of joy. As Izzy himself said, not moving on is worse.

in conclusion, i'd like to address the people saying that Izzy should have lived so he could continue his arc of self-discovery and sure, that would have been great--on the Izzy Hands Show. But OFMD is about Ed and Stede and Izzy had served his purpose in their story. i feel certain there will be copious fanfics to soothe anyone who feels Izzy was shortchanged.

on the show, though, he was treated in a very logical and foreseeable way as the antagonist who was able to see the light at the end but not necessarily to thrive in such a well-lit environment. Literature (by which i mean also films and tv) abounds with examples of this sort of character. They see the error of their ways but they are too stuck in them, shaped by them, to exist comfortably in any other way. They help bring about change to benefit others and not for themselves, that is the bittersweet beauty of their endings.

Izzy let Ed go. He embraced the softer parts of himself. He died surrounded by people who may not have loved him but at least accepted him as one of their own and felt genuine sorrow about his passing. That is a satisfying narrative end for a reformed antagonist! If you truly feel that he was shortchanged by it then you have forgotten what show you're watching and what sort of character he was.

Izzy Hands: not the main character, still an interesting one, absolute nightmare, what a guy.

[n3v3r-l3ft]

Are you serious? Are putting on the same level Izzy's words (as toxic as they are) to the physical violence of Ed cutting off his toes?? I love Ed, but we can't justify every bad action of him, he's not an innocent baby!

I'm actually so serious, Anon.

Are you?

Are you seriously going to sit here and tell a 2Spirit Native that calling the English Navy (the cops) on Ed (a queer brown man) and his boyfriend isn't physical violence? Those aren't words. Those are actions.

Aside from that, he's been manipulating, belittling and abusing Ed the entire first season. Abuse is abuse; it being non-physical at first doesn't diminish that it was abuse. Emotional and mental abuse is just as much abuse.

Izzy undermines Ed constantly. When he doesn't like a choice Ed makes (for himself) he goes behind Ed's back and sends his ex boyfriend to literally manipulate him into leaving Stede. He calls him derogatory terms in regards to his queerness and straight up tells him he should have let the English kill him. If that doesn't read as a vague death-threat idk what does.

And he said that to Ed in one of his most vulnerable moments, while healing from heartache, after Ed literally saved him from the crew's mutiny.

I'd also like to add that Ed warned him. After that first toe we saw in s1, he told Izzy "threaten me again, ever, and I'll feed you the rest"

🤷‍♂️

This isn't to say I don't think Izzy deserves a support group, but I don't think he's entitled to one (or my sympathy) when the toxic environment is something he's curated since day one.

Ed isn't abusive, he's reacting to abuse.

Again:

[viivie]

yeaaah so unfortunately i am NOT immune to the silly tragic morally questionable vampire elf man.

[bacchuschucklefuck]

this whole thing being abt rage is also really interesting. I feel like it comes up so much in fiction as a motive because it's the one emotion that's unifyingly restless while everything else can be petrifying, and just personally nothing hits like impotent rage for me, esp. with teen characters, esp. with characters whose rage is stoked by Someone Else to further that Someone Else's cause. like you'll have done all that in a bout of passion and when you're done you look around you and nothing has changed. those sentiments don't get quelled by being satisfied. righteousness withdrawal is a horrible thing to intentionally drag someone into, least of all just some kids.

[sae-mian]

i'm so heart-eyes for him, your honour-

[idiolex]

any time lucius accidentally thinks something even halfway nice abt izzy he has to immediately insult him like 10 times in a row in his head to make up for it send post

[sinecosinewheel]

how many estus flasks have been flusked total in the world

[rat-nasty]

Something something transmasc

Something something blooming

Something something growth

[sebille]

I was just about to complain about there not being enough Zenos content this expansions but now he's here! yay!

[naurava]

I just realised THEY FUCKING DROPPED TEASER for THAT EPISODE at the SAME DAY we have got this shit in manga leaks???? EXCUSE ME, HOW DARE YOU, Gege what the actual fuck??? Sir?????

[halliserres]

me talking about gortash is just

[blodeuweddschild]

Noooo Stede get back to your boyfriend quick he’s morphing into a raccoon