#author is not an izzy hands apologist

[jellybeanium124]

now izzy did verbally and psychologically abuse ed for years on end, forcing him to play his violent persona until he became passively suicidal, and then verbally attacked him again while he was already down causing him to be actively suicidal, but ed did communicate with him poorly and responded in the way izzy wanted when izzy told him to be blackbeard again or else, so who's really the worse one here??

[doushitemacaron]

Unpopular Opinion: Izzy doesn't take shit from Ed

Izzy is frequently depicted in fanon to be kind of subservient or willing to put up with anything from Ed, which I think is really inaccurate to how he's portrayed in the show. Izzy is actually always shown to have really strong lines for what he will and won't take from Edward and from everyone else the whole time. People just get confused because the toe thing makes them think that he'll accept anything from Edward, but it's very untrue. That particular thing just doesn't cross one of Izzy's lines. Violence in Ed is something Izzy is deliberately trying to cultivate; therefore, it's not something he objects to even when it's directed at him. In contrast, he stands up to Ed multiple times when he disagrees, and is even willing to quit at one point, mostly when he thinks Ed is putting himself or the crew in danger, which is honestly not that unreasonable if he's trying to run a pirate ship and keep them all alive (including Ed.)

[wolf-in-a-trenchcoat]

I'm bored, so have a (possibly) triggering first chapter look-see of my Ouizzy fic "A Dance With The Devil" that I'm gonna post. I plan to rewrite it to be more canon-accurate but also throw in a little personal spice since I love writing angst.

Also! For those of you who happen to read it anyways, I'd absolutely LOVE some feedback. (That includes the negative feedback. I don't get better unless it's given, and I strive to better my writing). Alright, let me put the trigger warning so we can be prepared!

TW/CW: implied/explicitly expressed abuse, canon typical violence, panic attack, mild aggression, and mentioned amputation and consumption of a toe.

⚠️Reader's discretion is advised.⚠️

Chap 1: Izzy's Torment.

Edward was in a horrid mood again.

Well, Blackbeard.

As typical, Izzy tried keeping things running as smoothly as possible, only speaking when spoken to and snapping orders at the crew if any were caught slacking. He spent the majority of his day limping around the deck, weight leaned on his cane. His foot fucking hurt, and the bandages around it chafed and caused the somewhat healing wound to open and bleed.

Izzy bites back a curse. Literally just a week ago when Blackbeard returned from being willingly captured by the English, Izzy had been force-fed his toe. He remembered that night with very little fondness despite the relieving excitement that coursed through him seeing that dark, malicious glare from Blackbeard. He swallowed thickly, once again reliving having to consume a piece of himself. How fucking poetic.

Leaning against the railing of the Revenge, Izzy stared out into the expanse of water surrounding the ship. The sun was hanging high in the sky, beating down on the deck in exhausting heat. He pulls away, sighing roughly and turned heel towards the lower decks to check in on the crew, to make sure they weren't slacking. They had a tight schedule, and Izzy made sure of it so they would stay busy.

As he descended, he could hear soft murmurs and hurried conversations before they went completely silent. Izzy's stony glare cast over the crew as they stand awkwardly in a circle, eyes directed at the ground as if in submission. Maybe it was genuine submission- that's all Izzy had disciplined into them in his fourteen hour power-trip when Edward was gone.

"What's with all of this... nonsense? Having a little chat with each other? Talking feelings?" Izzy rasps in lilting sarcasm, leaning on his cane with a scowl. No one responds, all except Jim. Their eyes remained trained on the ground, something unusual and out of character to their normally intense glare.

"We need an intervention." Their voice was slow but sure, and then the intense stare strays to Izzy. There was a small shock that ran through him, so subtle he wasn't sure it even happened. He nods his head upwards, chin slightly higher in curiosity.

“An intervention, ay? Ed wouldn't be too fond of that.” Izzy points out, tapping his cane against the floorboards to emphasize it. He sauntered forward, his scowl turning softer. “It's suicide to try and talk him out of this.”

“Still- it'd be better. For all of us.” Frenchie piped in, nervously looking anywhere that wasn't the shorter-statured man. Izzy had noticed the bard was very iffy about eye contact, fluctuating between a hard stare and no eye contact at all. The first-mate didn't know what to make of it, and instead decided it wasn't worth his time- knowing Stede Bonnet's crew, they'd have Izzy soft-side up and forcefully coddled like he was part of their crew. Part of them.

“Get back to work. Fuckin’ useless twats.” Izzy snarled, turning away. A deeper part of him knew that Jim was right- hell, even Frenchie! Of all people, excluding Jim, Frenchie actually had a point- one stating that sitting idly by would only make things worse. Izzy would never admit it, even in his dying breath that he agreed with Stede fucking Bonnet's maniac of a bard. Shame worms its way up Izzy's spine, settling in the center of his chest like a weight in his ribcage.

He… wanted to mutiny against Blackbeard. The one thing Izzy swore his life to uphold the name of, and here he was regretting his choices. A sickening feeling sits ominously idle in his gut, like a viper waiting to strike… waiting until Izzy is distracted. The first-mate swallowed back the rising pain in his throat, stalking off to the top deck and not even waiting to see if the crew listened.

He found himself below deck in his cabin. He was pacing the cramped room, hands tangled in his graying hair, trying to calm the raging storm of emotions in his mind. Izzy was never one for emotions, always keeping them bottled up until they all came out in spiteful insults and barked orders. Right now was not one of those times.

In a swift attempt of releasing his pent up self-destructive loathing, he grabbed a stool and threw it against the wall, the wood exploding into splintering shrapnel as it made impact. Izzy let out a strained shout, heaving in breaths as his attempt of control became vain. He had never let the thought of mutiny cross his mind.

“Fuck. Fuck!” Izzy growls, sitting roughly on his rickety cot and burying his face in his hands. He was sure his death was imminent if Blackbeard heard any whisper or word of possible opposition. The crew would die alongside Izzy if they didn't cower to the Kraken's absolutely mental demands and pressuring emotional manipulation.

Izzy Hands wanted to turncoat on Blackbeard, the man- no, the myth- he helped create. To break the promise he had made so long ago that it became the very air he breathed to upkeep. All for just a little taste of comfort in a trying time that won't last. He was stupid for letting himself be so… invested in the damn crew. How they felt, how they saw him, how they fucking bitched and moaned about how horrible Blackbeard treated them and yet, Izzy understood. How, he'd never know and even if he did, he'd never tell.

Of all people, Israel Hands understood their pain. Of all things, he could empathize with their distaste and wariness of Blackbeard's volatile behavior. The only grace Izzy gave the crew was being the one who took the brunt of all of the Kraken's anger and physical violence. And he wanted it. He deserved it.

A strangled sob left him, his heart hammering in his chest as his throat felt like it was closing. The walls felt like they were closing, his vision tunneling into the abysmal darkness of his own mind, eating away at whatever control he had garnered before it all went black. Silent. His body ached, his chest tightened and he couldn't breathe. He blindly grabs at his shirt, the collar, ripping at his clothes just for some air. Another noise left him as his struggles proved fruitless and he felt suffocated in the weight of this newfound desire to flee. To run from his past, his choices, his actions.

And as if it were as sudden as it set in, he calmed. His breathing was still yet heavy and sharp, sweat soaking his brow and clothes. He was shaking, hands gripping the front of his leather vest like his life was on the line. And it was. If he even told Ed about any of this, he'd lose another toe- no, his entire foot, maybe his life. He inhaled sharply, shakily. He had to set this right.

Whatever it was he needed to do, he'd do it. He stiffly removed his hands from his shirt, gingerly flexing his fingers to get feeling back into them. Smoothing back his disheveled hair and wiping his forehead with his sleeve, he took in a steadier breath. He'd steel himself, force back all of this panic and anguish and become Izzy Hands again. Cold, stoic, and damn near emotionless. Calculated- not some emotional disaster who couldn't even fathom not being dependent on his captain.

[activevirtues]

Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: Our Flag Means Death (TV) Rating: Explicit Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Israel Hands/Lucius Spriggs, Minor or Background Relationship(s), Off-Camera Relationships, Black Pete/Lucius Spriggs, Blackbeard | Edward Teach/Stede Bonnet Characters: Israel Hands, Lucius Spriggs Additional Tags: Undernegotiated Kink, Enemies to Lovers, Hate Sex, Dom Lucius Spriggs, Sub Israel Hands, Alternate Universe - Magic, magical lube, Have you ever been sketched?, Dirty Talk, Israel Hands Has a Degradation Kink, Face-Fucking, Breathplay, Edging, Daddy Kink, Spanking, Stop Getting Romance In Izzy's Fucking, Torture Via Kindness, Subspace, Aftercare, Seriously The Kinkiest Thing I've Ever Written, I Don't Even Know, But This One Is Tentacle-Free So That's Something? Series: Part 2 of Sea Demons & Ghost Ships Summary:

This Being a Treatise moste Carefully Researched & Authored by Master Lucius J. Spriggs on the Care & Keeping of Your Pet Lobster. This Author offers his Sincere and Tender expression of Gratitude to Izzy Hands for his Collaboration on this work, and expects it will be moste Informative and Useful to all Readers.

[kaelleid]

Writing fic for the sole purpose of making fun of Izzy, and then having to figure out how to tag it in a way that demonstrates I am not making fun of Izzy out of malice but because he is my silly little baby bird

[ofmd-renewed-yet]

Had to take my like away when I saw the author is an Izzy Hands apologist.

Izzy Hands apologists are abuse apologists and need to stop being allowed to interview the people involved with the show. Every article they put out ends up being all about Izzy and Con, they constantly bring him up, to the detriment of other characters and cast members.

And they downplay the villainy of Izzy. It's disgusting. Izzy Hands stans can get fucked with something hard and sandpapery.

lmao my guy you sent this to the wrong blog i love israel hands and ill say it with my whole chest.

he’s so pathetic and he tries SO hard and has so much emotion but thinks the only one he’s allowed to show is anger. when he thinks ed and stede are fucking his reaction is to say ‘oh my god’ with tears in his eyes. “villiany”?? literally the worst thing he did in the entire show was sell out ed and even that backfired. he was captain for like a day before his crew mutinied. he can’t even be homophobic correctly ‘oOoOhHhh dAddYyy’ like. what do you want me to say. he’s one of the best characters in the whole show and con o’neil retweets bdsm izzy fanart with nice comments. stay mad about it.

[sidewalk-scrawls]

Man nothing makes me pass by a fic faster than seeing the "Author is not an Izzy Hands apologist tag." I do appreciate writers who tag it though -- we can be like ships passing in the night.

Meanwhile, I can continue to complain that there isn't a good way to filter by fics that are Izzy-sympathetic (I don't really like the framing of the "Author is an Izzy Hands apologist" tag personally, it doesn't really match what I look for or write and ALSO it doesn't have widespread use anyway.) Now "Author is an Izzy Hands enjoyer"... That would be a tag I vibe with

[laceratedlamiaceae]

At this point I'm afraid to read anything with Izzy in it because of the way he is treated in a lot of fics. I need a tagging option for telling me if the author loves him or hates him because I've found some amazing fics that were immediately ruined when he came in and suddenly it's cool to not give him basic human rights. I dont get it.

Yeah, I've seen the "Author is an Israel Hands apologist" tag but I don't love the "Izzy apologist" term. I've seen some suggestions for "Izzy enjoyer" or "Izzy appreciator" but it doesn't seem like they've really caught on. I usually just check to see if the description and/or tags seem sympathetic to him and disregard it otherwise. I'm sure I've missed out on a few good fics that way but it's better than getting disproportionately mad at someone else's interpretation of him.

On the other side, I've seen a few fics use "Antagonist Israel Hands" (which doesn't actually say much; he's an antagonist in the show itself and I still love him, but it does kind of imply that he's just used as a villain) and I know there's one with the ship tag "Izzy Hands/Me Making Him A Decent Fucking Person" which is a convenient warning for me to stay far away from it. There's also "Author is not an Israel Hands apologist" but that one isn't super common.

In general I just assume any Ed/Stede fic that's tagged for Izzy is going to treat him like the embodiment of all evil, which isn't that much of an issue for me since I'm not into fics with them but I can imagine how annoying that would be for anyone looking for a good blackbonnet fics. Maybe someone could set up a reclist for fics for Izzy enjoyers?

[griseldagimpel]

Izzy Hands fans: looking at the responses to this post, would those who read fan fiction benefit if those of us who write fan fiction started using something like a "pro-Izzy Hands" tag on AO3 fics that are sympathetic to Izzy?

The goal would be to give readers an easy way to find fics that appeal to them. With AO3's tag wrangling, we wouldn't have to be perfectly aligned in our tag usage (think "pro-Izzy Hands" vs "pro-Izzy" vs "pro-Israel Hands") as long as the practice was wide spread enough. What do y'all think?

Update: Per discussion in the comments, I have learned that there is an Author is an Israel Hands Apologist tag in use, and I am considering using Author is an Israel Hands Fan.

[our-flag-means-death-ao3feed]

so little left

by dinoromance89

Izzy is struggling to support Ed after Stede leaves him. Things get sad, as they do.

Words: 601, Chapters: 1/1, Language: English

Fandoms: Our Flag Means Death (TV)

Rating: Teen And Up Audiences

Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply

Categories: Gen

Characters: Blackbeard | Edward Teach, Israel Hands

Relationships: Blackbeard | Edward Teach & Israel Hands

Additional Tags: Missing Scene, Episode: s01e10 Wherever You Go There You Are, Post-Break Up, Pre-Kraken, the breakup robe era, Suicidal Thoughts, Depression, Blackbeard | Edward Teach Has Abandonment Issues, Blackbeard | Edward Teach Needs a Hug, instead he gets Izzy, Israel Hands is Bad at Feelings, Author is an Israel Hands Apologist, Hurt No Comfort, Ficlet, short and sad, Angst and Feels

source https://archiveofourown.org/works/40275984

[internerdionality]

I just finalized (well, probably) the tags for my novel-length fic that I'll be starting to post next week and thought y'all'd enjoy: Enemies-to-lovers, slow burn, Dubious consent, Canon-typical violence, homophobia, toxic masculinity, ableism, misogyny, (all both externalized and internalized), Mental illness, self-hatred, suicide attempt, Seriously y’all Izzy’s head is a dark place so caveat lector, but it gets better, hurt/comfort, the whole fic isn’t as dark as all that made it sound but it has its moments, Exploring the Power of Nautical Metaphors in Lieu of Therapy, Sub Izzy Hands, Pain Slut Izzy Hands, (I mean obviously), Unsafe BDSM, Undernegotiated kink, Not Safe Sane and Consensual, Dom Lucius Spriggs, Topping from the Bottom, Also Topping from the Top, No Character Bashing, Angst with a happy ending, FYI the BlackHands is all UST and violence, all the smut is Spriggy, no reunion scene, (it’ll come in the sequel tho), NOT tagging GentleBeard since Stede doesn’t show up until the epilogue, but they’re 100% in love, angst with a happy ending, open-ended ending, secondary nonbinary character, secondary genderfluid character, author is not an Izzy Hands apologist, Izzy knows what he did, but I am kinda obsessed with our little goblin man, and so is everyone else in this fic

[jellybeanium124]

not to reference hamilton (sorry) but izzy's love for ed has always been more of a "oceans rise, empires fall, we have seen each other through it all, and when push comes to shove, I will send a fully armed battalion to remind you of my love" thing, because he did that he very much did that, he literally sent a fully armed navy battalion to remind ed of what he thinks their relationship should be, that happened in canon. izzy is king george coded there I said it.

[im-just-so-so]

You're not dumb for shippin Ed/Izzy. You're a toxic, abuse apologist piece of fucking shit. You're scum growing on forgotten food in the back of the refrigerator. You're a fucking fetishist who thinks that pairing an abuser with his victims is FINE.

You're a fucking asshole cunt and I hope you get stabbed in the important bits.

AHDJDHAHAGAJHSHSD

The best fucking part of it all is that I personally don’t actually ship (or read) Ed/Izzy, especially not when relating to canon. I don’t even like canon!Izzy 🤷‍♀️ and any kind of Steddy Hands fic that has that dynamic in it? I’m out. Not my thing.

The fact that you’re getting all riled up over fictional characters (because let’s not forget that even though they are based on/inspired by real people, they are still, in fact, fictional) and making it personal? That’s a fucking problem, mate. The fact you don’t even dare to do so while showing your name tells me plenty.

Just because I don’t ship Ed/Izzy doesn’t mean I’m gonna get on my high horse and tell people they can’t enjoy it and that they should die (seriously what the fuck is wrong with you? You do realize that’s toxic and abusive behavior right there, right? And if it’s just words and you don’t actually mean them… see where I’m going with this?) because guess fucking what? It’s not up to me to decide why people enjoy it and why it would be wrong! I just don’t read the shit I’m not interested in and leave it at that, because this is fiction, and fiction will always have shit in it that wouldn’t fly in the real world, and if someone can’t separate the two, or realize that, that’s on them, not the author or the people enjoying it.

So…

And I wish you a lovely rest of your day. May you find some peace to love the things you love instead.

Happy renewal day! 🎉

[general-sleepy]

Izzy Hands is an abusive racist. No reason he has for doing what he's done justifies his actions or the way he treats people. There is nothing understandable or tragic about a man who choses verbal and physical assault first and threatens murder to keep control over a bipoc man whose sanity he deliberately maligns and whose authority he undermines. Whom he betrayed. You are an abuse apologist.

I didn't justify anything that Izzy does. I'm sorry if my language was unclear and gave that impression. What I meant is that you can trace his mental processes (there's a lot of interesting analysis that brings in the role of class in his character and behavior) and that his actions raise compelling questions about the aspects of his backstory that haven't been explored. He isn't a cackling, "tying maidens to railroad tracks" villain is the point. The show, which emphasizes the capacity for redemption and moral evolution and maturation, has set up a path for the character to be redeemed. On the use of the word tragic, even the absolute worst characters can be tragic; that shouldn't be interpreted as meaning "they did nothing wrong." I mean, Charly aggressively bullies someone to the point that they attempt suicide and then says that she's glad they're dead. I'm not defending that when I say that her story is tragic, you can grasp why she acts the way she does, and I want for her to grow as a person.

I'm not an abuse apologist. That's not a reasonable presumption from my engaging in the lightest bit of exploration of the complexities of a character in a dramedy founded in moral complexity. It's a groundless ad hominem. I'm really not one to engage in fanwank, (I'm too old) but I'll assume that you're speaking in good faith, so I'll respond likewise.

[sunriseverse]

people who put “author is an izzy hands apologist” in their tags fascinate me. are you his pro bono lawyer or something.

[jellybeanium124]

there are two things in the ofmd universe that have an x on them of any importance. the act of grace and izzy. we know ed is literate, and it's implied that he signed the act of grace with an x as a reference to indigenous people signing away their land and their freedom to colonizers.

now, we don't know how or why izzy got his x tattoo, so this is purely speculative and barely counts as meta, but if you subscribe to the headcanon that ed gave it to him, thinking about it compared to the other thing ed signed with an x really changes things, doesn't it? izzy fed blackbeard's darkness for years, even when ed had grown past it, because izzy wanted to hold on, and he held ed down and via social pressure and verbal abuse took away ed's freedom to be himself.

the act of grace and izzy himself were both designed to take away ed's freedom, dictate what kind of man he should be, what he should do, and how he should dress/present.

"do you really want to lick the king's boots?" I don't know izzy. did he want to lick yours?