#preaching (defined)

[akkivee]

kuukou encourages and believes in jyushi’s strength while firmly believing that he’s a weak person. if kuukou is having a bit of a rough time forgiving himself for past mistakes while telling hitoya that he needs to move on from his past weighing him down in harmonious cooperation, then i hope with every fibre of my being that this is going to be something jyushi and hitoya are actively saving kuukou from (from himself lol)

[airanke]

Every day I sit here or lie in bed thinking about how much purity culture destroyed me.

[officialyourdailyinspiration]

"What is preaching? Logic on fire! Preaching is theology coming through a man who is on fire. A true understanding and experience of the Truth must lead to this. I say again that a man who can speak about these things dispassionately has no right whatsoever to be in a pulpit; and should never be allowed to enter one." Martyn Lloyd-Jones

[second-string-loser]

let’s get two things clear:

1. ej is not taking a gap year so that he can stay with gina. he’s taking a gap year because after his one and only college plan fell through, he realized he didn’t know what he wanted to do with his life and needs time to sort it out.

2. ej “fighting to stay in salt lake” is also not just because of gina. in season two ej realized that his entire life path was being decided for him by his father, him not wanting to go to st. louis is about him trying to break free of this and decide his own life for once.

[beeapocalypse]

aware of my habit of making triads of ocs that are typically two paired together (either romantic or not) and a third chewing at their nails watching from the outside but THIS trio is meant to sort of parallel morri+friends so it is okay

[lady-a-stuff]

I was raised a catholic, my family and relatives are catholic and with this background Bev Keane it's the scariest thing out there. A woman of faith, too much faith. She believes that because she goes to church she is a good person and that she hasn't sinned and deserves the love of god, while people who don't go to church or have committed some sin (according to her) don't deserve and it bothers her that Father Paul and God loves all those renegades and sinners, and yet she still believes she is good. She is the woman who will judge you and turn the back and say you should be afraid of going to hell while not having this fear cause she is good.

But worse than that is that she's a woman with knowledge in her religion and she uses this knowledge to manipulate the reality and people. She's able to quote the bible, but only the parts that interest her and she distorts the text and its meaning to fit in her believe, and the reason she can manipulate everyone is that she's the only one with that knowledge of the bible. We have Monseigneur Pruitt/Father Paul who technically should have know too, but honestly we can't blame the man for get carried away he's literally a vampire. But anyway all the others faithfuls don't know, so when Wade and Sturge see Father Paul besides a dead Joe Collie they are afraid, they don't wanna to simply dump his body, it is Bev who, using the bible, convinces them. Simply like that.

So what is really scary is that we have a lot of religious people who don't know a shit about their religion so are easily manipulate by someone who knows.

[bredforloyalty]

"a rewatch is due" and why the fuck am i putting ideas like that in my own head now of all times

[xoxo-ren-xoxo]

just wish someone would be brave enough to tell me if im a non-man or non-woman. go on.

[ma-douce-souffrance]

want need have to kick insta se aaye hue fuckers ki asses because dude what why kyu stop fucking using this place as insta stop posting your fucking faces here no copy pasting wp/insta humor ain't cool you're not funny why the fuck are you having conversations in reblogs why the hell are you here go away please

[rastronomicals]

12:26 AM EDT May 17, 2024:

The Desert Sessions - "Man's Ruin Preach" From the album Volume I Volume II (February 24, 1998)

Last song scrobbled from iTunes at Last.fm

Original Volume I EP was subtitled Instrumental Driving Music for Felons

File under: Music that cannot be defined

[valentone]

they're literally just looking up dylan mulvaney so they can hate on trans women? like b so for real rn ur so obsessed and hateful... u understand u will forever b held to ur new standards and when u no longer fit the new standards u will no longer b considered a real woman

[writingwithcolor]

How can non-Jewish writers include Jewish characters in supernatural stories without erasing their religion in the process?

Anonymous asked:

I have a short story planned revolving around the supernatural with a Jewish character named Danielle (who uses they/them pronouns). Danielle will be one of a trio who will be solving the mystery of two brides' deaths on the day of their wedding. My concern with this is the possibility of accidentally invalidating Danielle's religion by focusing on a secular view of the afterlife. At the same time, I don't want to assume that Jewish people can't exist in paranormal stories, nor do I want to use cultural elements that don't belong to me. So, how do I make sure that Danielle is included in the plot without erasing their Jewishness?

Okay so to start with I think we need to ask a question about the premise: what is a secular afterlife? I’m not asking this to nitpick or be petty, but to offer you expanded ways of thinking through this issue and maybe others as well.

A Secular Afterlife

What is a secular afterlife? To begin with, I get what you mean. The idea of an afterlife we see in pop culture entities like ghost media owes more to a mixture of 19th-century spiritualist tropes drawn from titillating gothic novels than to anything preached from the pulpit of an organized house of worship. Yet those tropes--the ominous knocking noises from beyond, the spectral presences on daguerrotype prints, the sudden chill and the eerie glow, all of those rely on the idea of there being something beyond this life, some continuation of the spirit when the body has ceased to breathe. For that, you need to discount the ideas that the consciousness has moved on to another physical body and is currently living elsewhere, and that it was never separate from the body and has now ceased to exist. Can we say that this is secular?

More so: Gothic literature, as the name suggests, draws heavily on Catholic imagery, even when it avoids explicit references to Catholicism. Aside from the architectural imagery, Catholic religious symbols permeate the genre, as well as the larger horror and supernatural media genres that grew from it: Dracula flinches from a crucifix, priests expel demons from human bodies, Marley’s Ghost haunts Ebenezer Scrooge in chains. The concepts of heaven and hell, and nonhuman beings who dwell in those places, are critical to making the narratives work. 

The basis also draws from a biblical story, that of the Witch of Endor. The main tropes of Victorian spiritualism are present: Saul never sees the ghost of Samuel, only the Witch of Endor is able to see “A divine being rising” from wherever he rises from, and her vague description, “I see an old man rising, wearing a robe,” evokes the cold readings of charlatan mediums into the present (Indeed, some rabbinic sources commenting on this assert that this is exactly what was going on).

While neither of these views of its origin define the genre as the sole property of Catholicism--or of Judaism for that matter--it would be hard exactly to categorize them as secular.

A Jewish Perspective on ghosts

However, it’s not the case that ghost media is incompatible with Jewishness, assuming that it doesn’t commit to a view of heaven and hell duality that specifically embraces a Christian spiritual framework. 

Jewish theology is noncommittal on the subject of the afterlife. The idea of a division between body and soul in the first place is found in ancient Egypt, for instance, earlier than the earliest Jewish texts. In Jewish text it’s present in narratives like the creation story, in which God crafts a human body out of earth and then breathes life into it once it’s complete. It also appears in our liturgy: the blessings prescribed to be recited at the beginning of the day juxtapose Elohai Neshama, a blessing for the soul, with Asher Yatzar, expressing gratitude for the body, recited by many after successfully using the bathroom. 

Yet it’s not clear that this life-force is something separate than the body that lives beyond it, until the apparition of the Witch of Endor. The words we use to describe it, whatever it is, evoke the process of breathing rather than that of eternal life: either ruach (spirit, or wind) or neshama (soul, or breath): neither is a commitment to the idea that it does--or that it doesn’t--go somewhere else when the body returns to the earth. 

Jewish folklore, however, leans into the idea of ghosts and other spiritual beings inhabiting the earthly plane (and others). Perhaps most famous is the 1937 movie The Dybbuk, in which a young scholar engaging in kabbalistic practices calls upon dark forces to unite him and his fated love, only to find himself possessing her body as a dybbuk. It appears that he is about to be successfully exorcized, but ultimately when his soul leaves her body, hers does as well. 

More relevantly to your story, a Jewish folktale inspired the movie The Corpse Bride. In the folktale version, a newly-engaged man jokingly recites the legal formula he will soon recite at his wedding, and places his ring on the finger of a nearby corpse--a reference to a time when antisemitic violence is said to have gotten worse not only at Jewish and Christian holidays as it does still to this day, but around Jewish weddings as well. The murdered bride stands up, a corpse reanimated complete with consciousness, and demands that the bridegroom honor his legal obligation. 

In the movie, the bride gives up her demand willingly: her claim on him is emotional rather than legal, and she finally accepts that he has an emotional connection with another person, that he doesn’t love her. In the folk tale, the dead woman takes him to court to decide whether their marriage is legal, since he spoke the legal words to her in front of witnesses as is required, and the court rules that the dead do not have the right to make legal demands on the living. In this version, the moral of the story is that a legal formula is an obligation; that when he jokingly bound himself to the corpse, he not only disrespected the dead but also the legal framework that structures society, and by so doing risked being obligated to keep his side of a contract he never intended to enact. 

This speaks to the ways that a Jewish outlook can differ from a Christian-influenced “secular” one. Christian-influenced cultural ideas can often focus around feeling the right thing, while Jewish stories will often center on doing the right thing. Does the Corpse Bride leave because she realizes she is not the one he loves? Because she--or he--learned a valuable lesson? Or because she loses her court case? It’s not that the boy’s emotions are irrelevant to the story--the tension, the suspense, the horror of the story takes place primarily within the boy’s emotional landscape--but emotions on their own are not a solution. The question “should he marry her” can be answered emotionally, but “has he married her” can only be answered by a legal expert, and once it has been the deceased bride may not have changed her emotional attachment to him, but she no longer has legal standing to pursue her claim. 

Centering legal rectitude over emotional catharsis isn’t a requirement for having Jewish characters in your story, but it’s worth thinking about what is and isn’t universal, what is and isn’t actually all that secular. 

Meanwhile, back at the topic:

Where does any of this place Danielle?

Well, unless you’re positing a universe in which Christian or other deities or cosmologies are confirmed to exist (See Jewish characters in a universe with author-created fictional pantheons for more on that topic), there’s no reason why they shouldn’t be perfectly fine interacting with whatever the setting you’re building throws at them. 

My wishlist for this character and setting runs more to the general things to consider when writing fantasy settings with Jewish characters: 

Don’t confirm or imply that Jesus is a divine being. That means no supernatural items like splinters of the cross, grails, nails, veils, etc. There’s nothing particularly powerful or empowering about this one guy who lived and died like so many others.

Don’t show God’s body and especially not God’s face, or confirm that any other gods or deities exist, whether that’s Jesus, Aphrodite, or Anubis, or someone you made up for the context. 

Don’t put Danielle in a position where they’re going to play into an antisemitic trope like child murder, blood drinking, world domination, or financial greed. If you have to, name it and let Danielle express discomfort with or distaste for those actions both because Jewish values explicitly oppose all of those things but also because Danielle as a Jewish character would be painfully aware of these stereotypes as present and historical excuses for antisemitic violence. 

Do consider what Danielle’s personal practice might look like. What does Danielle do on Shabbat? What do they eat or refrain from eating? What are their memories of Jewish holidays and how is their current holiday observance different than their childhood? I know I say “Jewishness is diverse” on every ask, but it is, and these questions--which also underscore how very much Judaism is rooted in one’s actions during this life--will help you develop how Judaism actually functions to inform Danielle’s character, even if you don’t spell out the answers to each of these questions in text. 

Do let Danielle find joy, comfort, and identity in their Jewishness not just in contrast with Christianity but simply because it’s part of the wholeness of their character. I know the primary representation of Jewishness is a snappy one-liner in a Christmas episode followed by the Jewish character joining in the Christmas spirit, blue edition, but make room for Jewishness to inform how Danielle approaches the events of your story, or why they decide to get or stay involved.  

-Meir

Hi it’s Shira with some Jewish ghost story recs written from inside–

When The Angels Left the Old Country by Sacha Lamb (deliriously good queer YA Jewish paranormal, mainstream enough that it’s got a good chance of being at your local library and won all kinds of awards)

The Dyke and the Dybbuk by Ellen Galford (sorry for the slur, warning for a paragraph of biphobia in the book but it’s an older book. I read this right before my divorce so my memories are super fuzzy but it’s about this modern day lesbian who gets possessed by the ghost of a different lesbian from hundreds of years earlier in Jewish history.) Nine of Swords Reversed by Xan West z’L of blessed memory - another queer Jewish paranormal.

The general plot is that two partners are struggling with how to be honest with each other about the effect disability is having on them. It’s got a very warm and fuzzy cozy vibe but kink culture is central to the worldbuilding so if that isn’t your vibe I didn’t want you to go in unaware.

The Dybbuk in Love by Sonya Taaffe. I don’t remember the details but I remember loving it, it’s m/f and romance between possessor and possessed.

I wrote a really short one called A Man of Taste where a gentile vampire woman and a Jewish ghost/dybbuk get together.

~S

[officialyourdailyinspiration]

Expository preaching is the communication of a biblical concept, derived from and transmitted through a historical, grammatical, and literary study of the passage in its context, which the Holy Spirit first applies to the personality and experience of the preacher, then through the preacher, applies to the hearers.

Haddon Robinson

[cosycafune]

ENGRAVED VIRGIN!

usually, king sukuna treats you with dearest respect, but after you plotted against him, a barely restrained thread of his snaps. who are you to recklessly defy him, especially after he’s given you everything? therefore, he has to teach your virgin self a lesson.

synopsis of acts: breasts slapping, wounding, creampie, virginity loss, degrading, size different, sadism, clit slapping, humiliation, getting caught, breeding kink, threats of pregnancy, mouth being stuffed with panties, light bondage, crying, sensitivity, rough sex, bleeding after sex, and angst. not proofread.

— ⋆𐙚₊˚⊹ ᡣ𐭩 —

“Repeat what you said, brat,” Lord Sukuna orders with an impenetrable amount of revulsion.

“‘K-Kuna! I didn’t mean it—”

Smack.

Incapable of stopping your lulling head, tears brim within your glassy eyes at Sukuna spanking your tingly breasts. Even while the thickness of his angry cock kisses your clit, Lord Sukuna casts his insatiable crimson eyes upon your weeping frame.

If you had sealed your lips, while he planned the death of a so-called traitor, you wouldn’t have discovered yourself so degraded. Degraded, tied, loosely gagged with your balled up underwear, littered with scratch marks and welled up pain within your aching limbs.

Everything within you was terrified, unsure of whether you were going to be able to handle Sukuna’s fullness. After all, you had never bedded a man before — simply remaining oblivious until Lord Sukuna captured you within this given moment.

“You brought this on yourself, you ungrateful girl,” Sukuna lowly spits out, applying an ample slap upon your cunt. Your cunt before your nimble body recoils, your eyes jittering whilst your throbbing worsens.

“N-No!” Whining with insubordination, you carefully writhe around — attempting to push your supple thighs together.

“You’d think I’d let you and your pure self go? I want to ruin you,” Enthralled, Sukuna’s cunning eyes twist with his impatient, reckless and womanising preaching.

“Y-You’ll break me, Ryo,” Muttering for dear life, you observe Lord Sukuna’s lustful yet pensive gaze.

“You’re not a mere weakling, my cock will not break you,” Cockily, Sukuna informs you.

Gasping, your body’s decency collapses the moment Sukuna’s swiftly pushes his needy cock tip against your barely visible cunt. The unfathomable tension completely ripped at your resolve, especially as just Sukuna’s tip left you feeling incredibly nauseous — plunged with the unfamiliar sensation.

Sukuna’s bound to mark you, reform you and restructure you. You knew this the moment you were swayed into serving beneath him, by another legendary jujutsu sorcerer — and you reluctantly agreed. Inevitably, drawn by complex fate, you ponder on the concept of being sexually dominated by a man who’s defined as a murderer.

“I-It hurts!” Wailing, your breaths shorten as Lord Sukuna burrows himself painfully further within you. Within you as your eyes swell with tears, your soppy cunt incapable of handling his log of a cock.

His cock is monstrous, inhumane and far from tedious.

“You’ll take it!” Lord Sukuna’s sharp fingers burrow within your nimble thighs, subconsciously drawing blood as you writhe around, “How dare you be ungrateful, after everything I did for you.”

“Ryo—”

“This is the least you could do for me, letting me engrave you,” Sukuna unleashes his cunning proposal, his sculpted hips forcing more of his monstrous cock in your overwhelmed cunt.

“N-Never had cock before, Ryo,” Sobbing, completely light-headed and vaginally moulded, your pleading eyes greet the stoic dominance within his reigning own.

“You have now, so you can learn to handle the pain,” In disbelief, your lips widen as your moan of aching rips through the distorted ambience.

“H-How can you be so heartless?” Hiccuping with worded grief, subtle softness overtakes Lord Sukuna — pushing him into pinning a squirming you down.

“Did you not tell my maid that you wanted to leave?” Sukuna questions with ample grunts, experimentally bucking his carved hips within you.

Pulverised, you’re left breathless — your lung capacity dimmed at Sukuna’s extreme deepness within you. Everything within you feared this extent of his consensual cruelty, particularly with his threatening stomach bulge fitted so closely besides your ready-to-be-breed womb.

“Because you’re cruel!” Loathing Lord Sukuna’s lack of empathy and selflessness, you spew your words as Sukuna gifts you a gentle kiss.

Your first kiss, and a kiss that contrasts his harsh demeanour and being.

“You knew that, but you still stayed,” Attentive, Sukuna counters your point. Counters your point while he silently questions if you’re ready to move, only to take notice of your obsolete yes.

“Look at you now—” Cock-stuffed, your mind blanks the moment Sukuna performs his inhuman thrusts. Thrusts that kiss upon your brutalised walls, leaving you to choke out moans with a cursing Lord Sukuna.

“H-Hurts s-so good! Ah! Yes!” Reciting mewls of incomprehensible pleasure, your eyes roll back harder at Sukuna smacking his hips against the base of your overwhelmed cunt.

“If I ruin you like this, you’re going to always come back to me,” Sukuna hums through his lewd whimpers and groans, yearning for you to hear his passively whimper.

“It isn’t care if you want to ruin me for you,” Yelling in pain, you struggle to breathe with Sukuna further burrowing the pattern of his nails into your roughened up hips.

“I’ll impregnate you, just so your ex-virgin self can have something more worthy than your stupid escape plan,” Sukuna plants himself into exclaiming, roughly slapping your clammed nipple — in hopes of crushing your inexperienced self.

“You’re not making it out of these bondage ropes,” Angrily speaking, Sukuna shoves your underwear further into your mouth — gleefully slapping your ample, jiggly boobs.

“Mhm! Ah!” Moaning against your will, exhaustion tints you as Lord Sukuna wraps his hands around your throat — pounding into your adjusting cunt with an inhumane nature.

“I don’t care if you’re a good jujutsu sorcerer, you’re never leaving this place,” Harshening his thrusts, Sukuna maniacally glances down at your disheartened eyes.

“Whatever I want, I get it,” Sukuna motions to you, glancing down at your soppy cunt creaming against his thick cock.

Just the way the fatness of it made you look puny imposed happiness over him. In this moment, he rules you with his massive cock — it’s largeness barely contained in your cunt. But even so, Sukuna looking down at your cunt, watching you take him in so good made him know that you’re engraved by him.

“Dwfm!” Unplugging your succulent lips, Sukuna grants you the will to speak, “D-Did I just—”

“You came even though you know you can’t do anything before me, therefore I have to cum in you and teach you a lesson,” Sukuna grunts out with an animalistic nature, pounding into you as if his reign upon his kingdom is reliant on your warm, pulsating cunt being submissive by letting him fill your womb with his royal seed.

“S-So fast!” At your scarcely phrased pleasure and cries of virgin discomfort, your fingers itch for Sukuna to at least come to a somewhat stop. However, your gentle fingers are weakened by his extremely powerful thrusts that consistently form a dangerous bulge in your toned stomach.

“You won’t be a soldier anymore, I’ll use you till the point I get you so pregnant and swole, you’ll be too busy caring for our young kin to ever leave.” Warm and conflicted at Sukuna’s truthful plan, you feel him eradicate your cunt and structure it so it obeyed him in the way your mouth wouldn’t.

“S-So…selfish!” Turned on by your tears of sadness, betrayal, Sukuna’s sadistic persona displays itself. Sukuna continues to demolish your Mac and cheese imitating cunt, listening to the extremely loud squelching that your male colleagues could hear.

“All your stupid colleagues are out there, listening to their grand knight getting fucked by the merciless king that they all complain about!” Sukuna chuckles at embarrassment consumes a breathless, squelching and a freely mewling you.

“This pussy’s to die for!” Bellowing, Sukuna heightens your mortification. Overwhelmed with pleasure, moaning and grunting with unrelenting noise, with you, Sukuna slams thick cock against your cunt, his pace so superhuman pieces of the bed begin to cave in.

“Yes! Yes! Ah! Mhm! Hot!” Pleading through mindless moans, your breathing and lightheadedness exceed you with Sukuna thrusting to the point his thick, heavy balls beat against the bottom of your soppy cunt.

“I’m going to cum all inside of you and call the grand knights in here to see how you’re engraved,” Sukuna excitingly says, pressing on your neck while he burrows his deepest — a faint, dirty moan flees your parted lips.

“Ryo’, mhm! Ahhh!” Clouded, your bratty voice completely floods the room — contorting the duality of your usual self.

“I’m going to mould you into what I want,” Pussy-whipped, Sukuna’s groggy statement is contrasted by his energetic cock straining before filling your unused womb with the thick portion of his cum.

The king’s load.

“N-No,” Unwilling to serve as nothing but Sukuna’s cock reliever, you gasp with him pulling out of you. Pulling out of you before an accidental load of his lands upon your rising abdomen, in between your perky breasts and face.

“Defiled, you’re better,” Sukuna speaks in a stern voice, using a small fraction of his cursed technique to open the door — revealing a singular knight of your own.

“N-No way!” The knight mutters and faints, leaving you to shift your head to the side with the embarrassment Lord Sukuna’s putting you through.

You were known as a virgin, so being taken by someone so evil struck something within them.

“You’re bleeding, but it’s better that I got to you first instead of another man,” Sukuna retorts, basking in the chaos of you hyperventilating at the blood that entwines with his cum trickling out of your cunt.

“I’m sore, and it hurts,” Unable to move, feeling your lower region throbbing and weirdly swollen, Sukuna’s eyes simply darken at the whiny innocence of you.

“That’s your punishment, so say fairwell to your grand knight position soon,” Degrading you, Sukuna chuckles — gleeful with the intimate art he had structured.

“I’ll end everything before I have your child out of spite, Ryomen Sukuna,” Spitting it out, you roll your eyes at the lack of empathy he holds towards you once being a virgin at just nineteen.

More by more, Lord Sukuna knew he was going to break you and engrave you with nothing more than him and his cum.

Engraved.

do not copy, translate or repost my work on any other platform. everything here is written by me, so all rights are reserved. cosycafune, 2024.

[nenelonomh]

the magic of figuring out your 'why'

why should you find your why?

what gets you out of bed? why do you study? what is really pushing you to push yourself? finding your purpose in life can help you learn more about yourself and more about where you want to go in life. i don't know about you, but getting all 'a' grades would not be worth it if i only got the grades for the sake of it. i get 'a' grades so that i set myself up well for my future and give myself the best chances.

your purpose shapes your legacy and leaves a lasting impact on the world. it defines you and what you stand for.

understanding your purpose promotes healthiness and positive well-being. people with purpose also tend to practice healthier habits such as regular exercise, balanced nutrition and less sedentary behaviours.

how do you find your why?

identify who you want to be (your goals). reflect on the things that matter to you. a prompt to uncover this is to imagine what you would do with your life if you had nothing stopping you. alternitavely, you can visualise what you would change about the world/how you would contribute to the world without any restrictions.

listen to feedback. pay attention to what others say about your strengths, talents, and impact. sometimes external perspectives reveal aspects of your purpose. be careful not to let yourself be influenced into a purpose that will not truly fulfil you.

what do you do once you've figured out your why?

remember that your why is not ridgid! as you grow and change, your purpose will grow and change with you.

once you understand your why, it is important to begin moving forward,, closer towards your higher self and purpose. to do this, set realistic goals that align with your purpose. address your fears and work to overcome them, since fears can and will hold you back.

something that i will always preach to achieve any goals is building a community. whether it's online (like this blog), you and one friend or a whole organised group, surrounding yourself with a positive culture that reinforces where you want to be will motivate you and assist you in succeeding.

❤️

i hope this post helps anyone who may feel lost. lots of love! joanne.

(images are from pinterest)

[piratecaptainscaptainpirates]

The worst thing about all the Izzy discourse, I think, is that the writers clearly never put that much thought into him even a little bit.

And when you start approaching everything Izzy does in the story through the lens of "this is guy is not, in the grand scheme of things, an Important Character," it just makes everything about him so much more coherent.

OFMD is not a simple show and there are layers to pretty much everything that happens, but Izzy's s1 behavior very neatly and easily boils down to "this guy is here to preach toxic masculinity at us." In s2 the writers very reasonably assumed that the audience would not like Izzy, so they chose not to call back to the awful shit Izzy did in s1 because they assumed the audience already knows and we're not on his side about that stuff. Trying to make Izzy sympathetic by having him start off the season already having made the realization that he has Fucked Up allows all of his scenes to be in service of showing that anyone can unlearn toxic masculinity and grow. Izzy is important to Ed's character as the voice driving him to keep adopting the Blackbeard persona, and when he apologizes to Ed on his deathbed for abusing him for years, we're not supposed to find that a surprise. Izzy's character in s2, when stripped of the toxic masculinity that once defined him, does kinda distill him down to this bland abrasiveness, but that's honestly okay because he never really had that many distinct character traits to begin with.

Izzy doesn't have a concrete backstory because he doesn't need one. His relationship with Ed is complex, I'm not saying it's not, but that's very clearly meant to tell us more about Ed and his relationship to masculinity and father figures in his life than it ever was about Izzy himself. His relationship with Stede is defined by Izzy going "this is the way things are done" and Stede replying with "uh no thanks lol" to show that Stede's kind of masculinity is the one we should be rooting for.

And when we start doing Izzy-centric analysis of the show, I think its messages and themes become much less coherent, because he's just Not That Important. You're always having to twist things around to kiiiiiinda make them fit. And don't get me wrong, it can be very fun to read against a text as a thought experiment or writing excerise, but we do run into problems here when there is such persistent insistence that that's the way the story is meant to be read.