#i'm just so tired of seeing fics where it's framed as ed “cheating” on izzy with stede because ed does not see this guy romantically

[piratecaptainscaptainpirates]

I think I'll always be a little surprised that it's such a common headcanon that Ed and Izzy have had a romantic/sexual relationship in the past, or that Ed ever viewed Izzy as a potential romantic interest. For me, the way that Izzy manages to have this nearly parasocial relationship with someone he talks to every day and thinks of Ed in a sexual way, along with how Ed likely sees Izzy as a parallel to other cruel older men in his life, is what makes their relationship so fucking fascinating in the first place.

Izzy's attraction to Ed is just so clearly unreciprocated! I don't think Ed realized Izzy was attracted to him until s1e10, when Izzy strokes his face and looks down at his lips while threatening him, and he looks deeply uncomfortable and upset. When Izzy confesses his "love" in s2e1, saying "I have love for you," like it's a disease, like it's something shameful he possesses, Ed basically bluescreens. If someone responds to a love confession by saying "oh come onnnnn" I just don't think they feel the same way, man, sorry.

And I love how Izzy is paralleled to Ed's abusive father in the first season, in a similar way to how Hornigold shows how fucked up Ed's relationships with older men are in season 2. They all hurt people Ed cares about, and when Ed retaliates against controlling behavior, they frame his reaction as revealing an integral capacity for violence that's somehow unique to Ed, proof something is wrong with him. Ed's relationships with older men consistently re-traumatize him.

"I loved you, best I could," is such a juicy line, and I think it really shows Ed's headspace at that moment - he's just tried to get Izzy to kill him, basically saying "you told me I had to be Blackbeard or I was dead, and I can't do it, so you need to finish the job," and Izzy just mocked him for being too scared to kill himself directly. Ed was never, ever going to be able to meet Izzy's expectations for him.

The most interesting thing about Ed and Izzy's relationship is how they see each other so wildly differently, I think. Izzy sees Blackbeard as the ideal of piracy to the extent that he doesn't see Ed as a three-dimensional person, and Ed's projecting his daddy issues onto this mean White guy. They, fundamentally, do not understand each other. It's so fucked up and I love it so much.