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Izzy's behavior during OFMD 1x4 was exactly what he should have done as First Mate. Meanwhile, Edward's behavior was a failure of leadership.

The creative parts of leadership are 100% within Edward's role as Captain. He has the vision, he formulates the plans, he makes the decisions.

Meanwhile, as First Mate, Izzy's role is to execute those plans: cleaning up the details, taking any heat from the crew, et cetera.

What happened in the episode? Well...

Throughout the episode, Izzy asks Edward what the plan is to deal with the Spanish—a mortal threat against their lives.

When Edward's ultimate answer is that he's tired of the the same thing over and over, Izzy says that without a plan they're going to die, and Edward's response is, "Let's try that."

Izzy does the very fucking reasonable thing, as First Mate, of trying to get a plan together so they won't die. This is outside the purview of his normal role, but sometimes the plan offered to you by leadership is 'nothing' and you have to cobble together whatever the fuck you can.

Edward eventually reveals that he had a plan all along, but because of his refusal to communicate that plan with anyone, a critical error is left uncaught—one that Izzy catches the moment he has the opportunity.

Ultimately, Izzy's concerns are proven right, when Blackbeard's refusal to communicate nearly gets them all killed.

Failing to understand the very real frustration of Izzy Hands in this situation honestly seems like a lack of life experience—particularly functioning on teams with a lot of creative vision and low attention to detail.

Attention to detail isn't fun. It's boring, time consuming and often a slog. However, it's clear that Edward and Izzy made a good pair because Edward had the creativity to come up with outlandish, off the wall, genius ideas that made him an incredible captain—and Izzy could play the exact role of first mate, cleaning up the details, being the asshole that got the crew to work, and ultimately executing the plan put forward by the person with the vision.

(This is also why Izzy is so bad at taking on direct leadership—the skillsets overlap, but ultimately being Captain requires skills he doesn't have, and skills that are contradictory to being an effective First Mate.)

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some of you need to realize that your faves would be having unsafe bdsm sex because they don’t actually know what bdsm sex is, they just want to fuck and also kill each other. you must understand this.

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Random Screenshots from Izzy into Me with Con O'Neill 😳

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"I know what happened. Edward left you."

CON O'NEILL as Izzy Hands & RHYS DARBY as Stede Bonnet in OUR FLAG MEANS DEATH (2022— ) Episode 2.07

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i procrastinated on this for months and it didn't even take that long to finish lol things got very bad at work this year and i just didn't have the energy but i'm really happy with how it turned out!

(edit: thank you so much to everyone enjoying this piece! i'm so happy there are more people thinking about his prosthetic leg.)

some of my favourite details and long self-indulgent ramble below the cut.

as much as i love the unicorn leg in the show i really wish they gave izzy an actual post-amputation swordfight scene, which probably would imply a more practical prosthesis because honestly that candle scene looks very painful and pretty difficult to adapt in combat. so basically i wanted him to have a prosthesis that could work.

for the poses i mostly just took basic right-handed cavalry sabre movements that would need lots of force and/or mobility from the left leg (actually all of them do otherwise he'd lose stability which is a big no but well i did not consider the basic steps or special ones such as the palestra because they're not very clear to draw. i included a flèche though because i just really, really want to see him do flèches (no more modern competition rules aha!!); i doubt he'd like it since it's very risky but it would be so fucking awesome. imagine him just darting full-speed at the opponent and passing through them sliding the sabre right between their ribs. the sabre isn't a pointy weapon especially since his is quite curved which makes precise piercing trickier (it would be a lot easier with a rapier or an épée; i like to imagine that stede prefers the rapier and makes every opponent who believes rapiers aren't fit for combat reconsider it) but hell that would just look amazing. although looking at it again i probably drew it more like a pass forward …). now thinking about it i should have included a salute because he'd absolutely do that and make everyone do it in unison at the start of training sessions and it's just a cool series of gestures (i haven't gone through the historical documents yet but the salute our historic fencing club do consists of two appels (striking the ground with the forward foot which in izzy's case is the right foot), then raising the sword to the sky, then pulling the guard of the sword near the jaw with the tip pointing upwards, then pointing the sword down forward, usually a bit to the exterior for single-handed swords, and i think that's the french navy's salute if i remember correctly). also i feel like the dagger doesn't really look right ever since i saw the daggers and little swords at the exhibition about knights in nantes … anyway.

the prosthesis is loosely based on those 16th-century moveable leg prostheses by ambroise paré (on a side note, he made hand prostheses too and i think it's a good reference for spanish jackie's hand), douglas bly's above-knee prosthesis in the 19th century and modern running prosthetic legs (for the need of explosive force typically in lunges) as well as historic fencing and buhurt (full-armour medieval combat) gears. although i'm horrible at physics and have forgotten what little ergonomics i learned at university so it probably won't work in reality lol.

the text is in french simply because i learned fencing in french and didn't want to make mistakes in the vocabulary. the small words from left to right top to bottom are: motion (movement?), knee (front), knee (back), ankle & foot, locked, flèche (as in fencing; the word itself means “arrow”), unlocked (middle french spelling because i like it), lunge, en garde position in tierce (i somehow can't find any fixed way to say this in english; it's just the basic stance with the third hand position). the text on the left is probably quite awkward honestly but i can't not put it there because it's fun lol it reads “leg and foot prosthesis designed for first mate hands, by doctor roach with the assistance of frenchie, realised (built? made? constructed? manufactured?) by black pete and wee john feeney and the entirety of the crew of the revenge under co-captains stede bonnet and edward teach, illustrated by lucius spriggs”. so yes any mistake in there is theirs and not mine lmao (no). the font is very loosely based on my memory of jean jannon's regular and italic typefaces. i adore his italics; it's the prettiest, most delicate italics i've ever seen.

i still have other drawing ideas for ofmd but i'm also into a lot of other things now … i'll probably get to them a few months later.

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No no actually it's hilarious that Izzy went from "my captain (Ed) and his shitty live-in bf (Stede)" to "my captain (Stede) and his shitty live-in bf (Ed)"

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Can’t believe it’s been a whole year since the crew secretly saved Izzy and sailed off with him into the sunset! What a lovely ending that was!

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Saw the meme and had to do the thing

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Shark and pomegranate WIP

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just remembered the Izzy shirtless scene exists I need to go lie down for a while

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''I could fill oceans with what I feel for you''

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Hehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehheheheehehehehehehheheheeheheheheheheh

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A furious, vengeful "who did this to you”. A grief-stricken realization of "i did this to you."

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''I could fill oceans with what I feel for you''