#instead of living with how insulting ed for being weak and vulnerable could mean a OR b and the choice not to use a slur is part of that)

[ladyluscinia]

Why do some people say Izzy is homophobic? Flippant jokes I get, but there are people claiming this seriously. Yes, he's often very mean towards characters who just so happen to be homosexuals... But what in the world would make anyone conclude he's not a perfectly equal-opportunity mean person?!? Same with the racism accusations. Probably preaching to the choir here... And I personally don't even like Izzy (as a person; as a character he's brilliant), but it still gets annoying.

I mean... if the question is whether or not Izzy Hands can plausibly be interpreted as homophobic, then I think the answer is unambiguously yes.

I don't think it was avoidable with the story they are trying to tell. Homophobia is pretty deeply entangled with expressions of masculinity and how people see gay relationships. Izzy's literal purpose as an antagonist is to be so against the BlackBonnet relationship that he was willing to try and get Stede killed over it. And thematically, to do anything interesting with stuff like embracing self-expression or arguing that open honesty and vulnerability are good for people, someone has to fill the role of objector. In a televised medium especially - where you aren't sitting in Izzy's POV and you definitely can't read his mind - there is going to be a level of interpretation to his motivations and what, exactly, he's finding objectionable, and some people will come to the conclusion that he's a homophobe. 🤷‍♀️

It's a side effect of trying to say something not completely shallow in your writing - you will run up against grey areas and you can't make the audience unanimously stay in the intended track. Multiple plausible interpretations will exist. A character who objects to other masculine characters expressing emotional vulnerability will plausibly be read as homophobic.

It's our job as we watch the show to look at all the plausible interpretations and decide which is the strongest, just like it's the writers' job to make sure their intended interpretation is the one the most audience members settle on. Complete consensus is impossible, so I'm not, like, surprised that some people are sticking to their guns on that one, but I'm still pretty confident Izzy being homophobic will end up the weaker interpretation.

I actually think Izzy being more or less doomed to being plausibly homophobic is what makes the writing for him so good. Because a much easier option, or a weaker writing team, would have gone in on it. Yet another story about homophobes making gays' lives unhappy, only this time the twist is we make the homophobes a punchline. It's way harder and more interesting to pull off an antagonist that hates a gay relationship but is only plausibly homophobic, and there's a perfectly valid and even encouraged read of the show where he's not. That's actually cool (and why I'll be pretty disappointed if it turns out he is just Mr. Internalized Homophobia).

🤔 My more controversial opinion, though, is probably that I think once you get to a certain level of theorizing unconscious / unintended homophobia in fiction then it functionally doesn't exist. That's pretty much what I'm trying to say here. In real life there is some value to recognizing that everyone has some unconscious biases they're probably acting on without realizing, but in a story... if the character / their actions won't be acknowledged or treated as homophobic, or they won't make the leap to homophobia at any point in unpacking or addressing their flaws, and you aren't trying to say anything about the author's personal biases or blindspots coming through? If a tree falls in a fictional universe but nobody writes about it, does it make a sound? Did it even fall?

[sethnakht]

étude #5 (luke + vader)

insp. by this post.

Those robes weren’t meant for running, Luke thought as three of them stumbled past, red and shining and clearly not used to moving.

He waited, two, three, half-expecting another one - for symmetry, he supposed. None of this actually made sense, the guards in red visors and robes, the actual lava, the palace that looked like a cross between a sorcerer’s tower and a prison. None of it was anything he’d ever imagine wanting.

The sound of stumble-running had become fainter.

Luke closed his eyes, and suddenly trusted himself - he was jogging past the corner, towards his reflection in gleaming steel.

No guards, as far as he could see. But what about behind the door? - he closed his eyes and bit his lip and decided that no, his first assessment stood.

Only one person waited there.

Father, he tried again.

The lack of acknowledgement was hard to process. It was like, Luke thought, his father was asleep.

Yeah right. Darth Vader caught unawares - sleeping? That would never happen.

This plan was going to get him killed. Luke sucked in a breath and tasted sulphur.

Then he was in the room, eyes opening to complete and utter darkness. Not even the sound of -

The lights sprang on, making him jump. Great, he thought as acid lapped past his throat. Definitely going to die today.

It only took his eyes a few blink-cycles to adjust to the lighting. Not as bright as he’d initially feared. Already the room was retreating away into shadow. What few reflective surfaces he could make out quivered in the green light of a steadily blinking machine.

Next to the machine was a bed. Luke winced at it, expecting - he wasn’t sure what. The respirator, playing in his head right now - broken inhale, mechanical release, but that was in his head and not here.

I guess he is asleep, Luke thought, and found himself moving closer to the bed. There was a blanket, he realized, glittering hard in the light like it had been poured from the lava outside, then cracked into shards and piled into a burial mound.

A blanket with a distinct absence of limb-like structures underneath.

Luke sucked in a breath, but either his father was truly asleep or didn’t care if he was seen this way, listless and laid out like a patient in a medcenter. The more Luke allowed himself to think the possibility, the more he was reminded of such a place.

It even smelled of bacta.

Sometimes, when not even bacta could really help -

Luke made a decision. He’d shoot one good look at his father, take away from that what he could, and then leave.

Looking had been a mistake, Luke realized in the same moment he recognized a feeling from Bespin.

(monster - run - )

And yet he couldn’t look away. Scars had eaten into his father’s face, sunken mouths like Sarlaacs, rotten pits of black flesh. Surrounding them was skin so colorless it seemed to have no other purpose than to announce the strain of staying alive. A black respirator had been fitted over the nose and mouth, and there was a pipe coming out the bottom that looked like a severed spine.

A sound, out of place. Luke glanced to the door, then waved a hand at the locking mechanism.

Still, he felt nervous grappling for his comlink. “Artoo,” he hissed. “What’s going on out there?”

Luke couldn’t actually understand most of what Artoo was saying, but the melody was comforting.

“Sounds like you’ve got everything under control,” he said, and felt himself smile at the trilling response. “Yes, I’ll be right there.”

When he turned back for a last look, his father’s eyes had opened.

Little cracks, but the Force was suddenly alive in a way Luke hadn’t realized it wasn’t before. Shadows leapt from corners like dragons from their nests.

Around the bed, they gathered and gathered until Luke thought he could almost see claws and eyes.

“Father,” Luke said with all the dread he felt.

He couldn’t look. “Please, I know this was immensely stupid and you weren’t expecting me and you’re probably really mad but I had to come, I had to see …” Luke no longer knew what he was saying, only that he was afraid to say it even to the dark. “I had no idea. I’m sorry.”

The room was so still, and his senses so desperate for feedback, Luke finally heard the respirator. Quieter than his (constantly crinkling) outer flight suit (idiot - should have taken it off), he’d missed it over the hum of its operating machine. The inhale sounded like a shifting dune.

Pressing his eyes more tightly shut, he realized he couldn’t take it anymore and opened them.

What he saw was quite bizarre.

Instead of lashing out, instead of summoning a saber and dismembering him, instead of setting dragons upon him - the monster laid in bed and watched him and breathed. Breathed and smiled with nothing but the folded corners of his eyes, lashes fluttering closer and closer to sleep.

Luke felt his insides twist. How - how someone so ugly could still feel - feel -

His hand was hovering over the bed before he realized he couldn’t bring himself to touch that.

“Father,” he said, uncomfortable with his own disgust.

Flutter, and then a sound from the respirator, something more than sand and metal. But not yet human.

Luke wondered if he should probe or just let it go.

“It’s alright,” he said, drawing on experience with Artoo to keep his voice light. “We can talk some other time.”

He really should go, he thought, and yet there was movement under the hideous blanket, almost like his father was trying to a roll a shoulder, and that made it hard to look away, because - Luke knew that feeling of missing a limb and expecting it anyway -

“I like haa- having you in my dreams,” said the respirator.

This was shock, hitting Luke in the stomach like a first punch. This was shock, stealing the breath from his longs, and not because of the oddly phrased confession or the vulnerability it implied.

This was -

the cadence of a stranger

- his father’s voice.

“This isn’t a dream,” Luke said.

Instantly he hated the sound of his own confusion. This wasn’t the time to fall apart! Artoo was waiting for him, and - he was no longer that starstruck boy, looking to the desert sky for answers. “Father, I’m here because I wanted to talk to you —”

Vader’s eyes twitched and were suddenly wide with color, a bloody blue like milk from a sick cow.

As Luke’s thoughts derailed, he found himself the object of scrutiny. That calm gaze made something under his skin itch. It felt … a little mad, more than a little precarious.

“You should take a sss - a schower.”

“What?” Luke heard himself say.

Troubling as he found Vader’s reactions - his lack of them - Luke couldn’t help but feel more insulted by his words.

“Smell like a swamp.”

That was him, sputtering, because -

Because he hadn’t been this offended since he’d first met Han. “Well, excuse me for not meeting your …”

He’d trailed off in alarm.

The respirator was making a horrible grunting sound, like physical overexertion combining with the static hiss of malfunction. Worse, Vader was lifting his chin like a Bantha smelling danger from dozens of clicks away, eyes growing wider and shinier with increasing desperation.

Luke looked at those animal eyes and thought: I’m not up for this.

Only to suddenly remember Dagobah.

“Hey,” he said with a gentleness modeled from Leia, “I’m right here.” And he leaned forward just close enough that the respirator might pick up engine grease and cockpit leather and the sweat gathering in the armpits of unwashed flight suit.

“See?” he heard himself say. “No swamp.”

“Smell-ed,” Vader said, his absent tone telling Luke he’d already moved past the thought.

A thought about Bespin, apparently.

“Right,” Luke said, straightening back and away. “Well, I guess you’ll be glad to hear that I don’t live in a swamp any longer.”

The words echoed hollow.

Flexing his new hand in its glove, he glanced at the door and resolved to leave.

He would get no answers here. Looking back to his father, he saw eyes that were darting back and forth like a droid beyond repair. There was no way human eyes could possibly register anything at that speed.

Some kind of sedative, Luke thought. That would explain it.

Everyone needed medical attention from time to time. There was nothing he could do about it, and nothing his father could give him, not today.

Not like this.

“I hate this place.”

Milky eyes rolled back into his skull as though Vader wanted nothing more than to never again see his surroundings, becoming more yellow and grey as they turned.

Luke felt his forehead wrinkle. “Yeah, me too,” he said, and heard his own relief.

Well, at least they could agree about something. He was speaking before he could stop himself. “Gives me the creeps, if I’m being honest.”

“Mustafar …”

Suddenly Vader’s forehead rumpled, the white ridges that once must have carried eyebrows springing out at Luke like swords crossing.

Finally, Luke thought, and was surprised by his own eagerness. But then again, why not? His father was finally coming to his senses. Maybe this hadn’t been a total waste after —

“I killed you,” said Vader.

He spoke with force, with a thick and stilted and horribly familiar desert accent. Yellow glazed his eyes, suddenly focused on Luke’s. “I have no compunctions about ending you again.”

Luke thought about the blaster at his hip.

“I can sense your fear,” said Vader with a cruel smile in his voice.

Then the respirator echoed the grunt-hiss from earlier. Focus still on his blaster, it was with detached absorption that Luke saw it. A vein - twitching, insistent, single-minded in its awfulness - emerging on the plane of a hideously bald forehead.

“It has always made you weak.”

Meaning set in only fuzzily, etched in the form of a bulging vein. Then the picture before him began to evoke pity.

And with pity came clarity.

This was his father, struggling to free himself from the heavy blanket and obviously not realizing he could sit up and let it fall - confused, disoriented, flapping for arms that weren’t there …

“You never killed me,” Luke said, shock and pity together evening his voice into something almost compassionate. “I don’t think you even knew I was alive until recently.”

“No!” shouted the monster.

Run, said the feeling from Bespin.

Help him, said the longing, as yet uncrushed part of him, captivated by a bulging vein.

“Many times,” seethed his father, “have you survived, and each time, I have killed you.”

He made it sound very convincing. For the first time, Luke noticed the hypos and stims in metal cases next to the breathing machine, the examining table with monstrously sized restraints, the unbreakable chain between the bed and the wall.

It was all rattling.

Even the blanket seemed no longer a blanket but a straitjacket, fixing his father in place despite - because of injuries and violence.

“Don’t think you can run!” Vader shouted with all the rawness of a man made impotent. “My hatred for you is stronger than you can imagine, Skywalker.”

(not a bedroom a psychiatric ward)

“Father,” he managed beyond the hysterical thought. The door was so so close, mere steps behind him -

Except that the monster had gone still at the word, losing its interest in overthrowing the blanket. Wide eyes roamed the room, warily searching.

Compassion felt almost like surrender. I can help him, Luke thought in the rush of it.

He reached out, ready to this time to touch.

(stupid stupid)

Vader had flinched, and Luke dropping his hand like it was on fire seemed only to worsen matters. It took no time for his father to go from vulnerable to volatile, for his color to purple with outrage.

Like slavering dogs awaiting a signal, the shadows responded. They rippled in black, vicious with anticipation.

“You have no father,” said the monster with teeth. “I would know. Obi-Wan … would have been wiser to cut off your head!”

Obi-Wan?

Somehow Luke had ended up looking to Vader’s eyes for answers. But they were near-blank to him, bright and brimming only with loathing.

“You’re sick!” he heard himself say, hand on the hilt of his blaster.

A flash of irritation, then Vader’s expression settled into something lofty. If he knew he was limbless in a medbay bed and restrained like the insane, he didn’t seem to think it mattered.

“Indeed,” he said in a voice strengthened by malice. “But if it is too late for me, then it is far too late for you.”

This was clearly a threat, a reason to finally get out of this loony asylum - and yet something about the words caught in Luke’s mind like fabric distorted in a snag, like Aunt Beru’s thin blouses when he hadn’t been careful. It was like - there was something here he should be able to figure out.

He took in a breath.

Trusted a whim. “I think you’ve confused me with someone else,” he said, and closed his eyes to Vader’s simmering expression of dismissal.

Remembering the effect one word could have, he decided to try it again. “Father, it’s Luke. I’m your son.”

When he opened his eyes, he saw that Vader’s forehead was a storm of confusion.

As he watched, his father’s eyes grew blue-red, translucent and runny. “My son …”

His voice was soft.

“Yes,” said Luke, and remembered to lift his hand from his blaster.

He tried to smile, but it only came out pained in his voice. “I came to see you.”

Vader was blinking too rapidly to see anything, but Luke took a brave step forward anyway.

It felt strange not to extend a hand, but the risks of triggering some new episode seemed too high. His hands ended up as fists at his sides. “Father, I’m right here.”

A shake of that bald head, and then Vader was looking to Luke with emotions too contradictory to define. Terror, perhaps, filtered through overwhelming disdain.

“Where is my son?” he asked, demanding but also subdued. “Is he safe?”

The incredulity Luke felt was quickly becoming anger.

“I’m right here!” he shouted, all the pent-up frustration about his abandonment, his dismemberment, his disillusionment breaking into his voice. “Here, you dimwit!”

And not even the surge of guilt was enough to stop his next words. “You know what? This is pointless.”

Artoo must be worried sick. Pressing the scowl on his face into something resigned, avoiding his father’s widened eyes, Luke turned from the bed and fished for his comlink.

“Don’t go.”

“Come in, Artoo,” said Luke, and if that pang was a sense of betrayal, he wasn’t going to feel bad about it. “Yeah, yeah, I’m ready. Just make sure none of those guards catch sight of me on my way.”

He wasn’t going to look back. Shoulders straightened, he made for the door.

“Don’t go,” Vader said with plaintive desperation.

Bitterness felt warm in his center. “You won’t remember this anyway,” Luke heard himself mutter.

“Come back!”

He almost did.