#why would you do that ed and stede are great just the way they are

[areyoudoingthis]

i love when modern aus keep ed and stede in character because they look 100 times more batshit crazy outside of the context of piracy

[piratecaptainscaptainpirates]

I guess I get why people are conflicted about it in the context of Ed and Stede's argument in ep 7, but I think it's genuinely impossible to read their sex scene in ep 6 as anything other than completely romantic.

There are two conflicting ideas going on here -

Ed and Stede had sex at a very emotional moment, when they were both coming down from the trauma of watching each other get tortured and Stede making his first intentional kill despite Ed warning him not to, and it would have been healthier for them to wait and just talk instead.

The sex itself was entirely consensual, they both enjoyed it a lot and had a good time in the moment, and it was romantic even though it was too fast (in the same sense Ed kissing Stede in s1e9 was too fast).

And it's perfectly possible for both of those ideas to exist at the same time.

We get plenty of hints that them having sex isn't the best idea. Stede is obviously deeply conflicted when Ed comes to check on him, and Ed still wearing his shirt when Stede closes the curtains tells us that he's not quite as ready as Stede, who already has his shirt off.

BUT those little hints do not detract from the romance of the moment! Not at all!

Stede clearly and obviously waits for Ed to nod his consent, and Ed deepens their kiss. The entire bed when Stede closes the curtains is lit up purple, the color we know from s1 symbolizes Ed's love for Stede. There are literally fireworks. It's all set to La Vie en Rose, and I get not everyone speaks French (I don't blame you, it's a godawful language) but the specific lines in this scene are, in my opinion, the most devastatingly romantic in the whole song: "in life, it's him for me, me for him. He swore that to me for life."

And the morning after, they're both clearly feeling great. Ed makes Stede breakfast while cheerfully humming, feels like opening up and telling him about the mermaid thing. They go on a cute little date, Ed seems genuinely happy Stede is getting famous (he's the one who suggests going to Spanish Jackie'z!).

It's only at Spanish Jackie'z, watching Stede having a great time with his fans and Jackie asking him if Stede knows about Ed's "wanting to be a regular guy" thing, that Ed starts panicking. He thinks that Stede will choose this over him and thinks he has to leave before Stede has a chance to leave him. Him saying that having sex was a "mistake" was said in the heat of the moment, and he clearly means that he wishes they'd just waited a bit longer. He's terrified his influence is "ruining" Stede in the same way Stede was in s1e9.

Like any other part of human relationships, sometimes sex can be consensual and fun and still not be at the right time. That's not a bad thing, it's just people being people and people are messy. I genuinely don't think Ed even really regrets having sex in the slightest; I think it was just an easy thing to latch on to as an example of how things were suddenly moving way too fast while he was panicking.

[fahbee]

"their entire dynamic was izzy trying to make ed happy" "izzy was always just trying to make ed happy" "everything izzy did was for ed's happiness"

LMAO WHEN??

I've seen variations of the above repeated over and over again by izzy stans and what i want to know is - when??? when did izzy "try to make ed happy" in season 1??? Because there's example after example after example of Izzy acting against Ed's explictly stated wishes and desires, in other words, acting in ways that izzy knows will not make Ed happy.

Ed wanted to meet the guy traveling with a brigade of imbeciles who nevertheless managed to best izzy at swordplay. Meeting the Gentleman Pirate was Ed's explicitly stated wish. In fact he tasked Izzy with the invite because it was important to Ed and he didn't want someone less competent to fuck it up. If Izzy was just trying to make Ed happy, then why did izzy lie to ed about telling stede that 'blackbeard' desired stede's company? How was this deliberate attempt to poison Ed against Stede meant to make Ed happy?

Once they're on the Revenge, Ed tries to get Izzy to play along with identifying the cloud shapes as frankfurters. Izzy is completely humorless about it. "It's like pulling teeth with you, man." Ed is visibly delighted by Stede's ragtag crew. Ed is fascinated by Stede's trinkets, by the model of the ship. He shows it off to Izzy! Ed is plainly showing interest and joy at Stede's crew and possessions. Izzy shuts him down. Yes, Izzy is worried about the Spanish catching up to them. But if Izzy really was "all about" making Ed happy, why doesn't he play along, even a little, with something that is clearly making Ed happy in this moment??

Izzy admits in the s1e6 opening voiceover that Ed appears to be "seduced" by Stede. We see the montage of Ed and Stede talking and Ed is having a great time! He's smiling, he's laughing! As Ivan (or Fang?) says, "this is the most open and available i've ever seen him. look at him, he's telling ghost stories!" Ed is HAPPY. Yet Izzy hates this. He refuses to engage with the crew. He pushes Ed to kill Stede even though Ed is clearly reluctant to do it, even though Izzy himself knows that Ed feels fondness ("seduced by") for Stede. How can this possibly interpreted as Izzy "just trying to make Ed happy"???

When Izzy challenges Stede to a duel, Ed flat out says "We're not doing this, Iz!" and Izzy couldn't care less. "No. You're not doing this. So I must." Must? Must??? Why "must" you, Izzy?? Why MUST Izzy duel Stede in an attempt to either kill him or banish him from the ship - the end result being to separate him from Ed - if Izzy's driving motivation is ensuring Ed's happiness? Taking away the person who has made Ed smile and laugh, who has improved Ed's mood and behavior so noticeably that Ivan comments on it?? How will this "make Ed happy"???

And then when Izzy is himself banished from the ship instead, he tells Ed "You will rue the day and you will rue it hard." If Izzy just wants to make Ed happy, wouldn't a better response be for Izzy to say "sorry, boss, i didn't realize how much this fop meant to you." Even if he's still banished from the ship, he didn't have to depart in anger. If he really cared about Ed's happiness, he would have been fine leaving Ed with the person who he knows has been making Ed happy lately. Instead he goes and teams up with the British in order to KILL Stede. Because that will make Ed happy??? That makes no sense!!!

Of course Izzy doesn't do any of this for Ed's """happiness."""

At BEST, he knows this will make Ed unhappy but he assumes Ed will get over it eventually and things will go back to how they used to be. At WORST, he does this out of anger, spite, and jealousy, and he doesn't give a single shit about how he knows killing Stede will make Ed unhappy.

So where did this belief that Izzy was only trying to make Ed happy come from? Why do people repeat it as if it were established fact? As if it were the obvious interpretation of Izzy's behavior in season 1?

Because to me, it looks like fanon run amok. It looks like a blatant headcannon rewrite of the show. It looks like a complete lack of visual and auditory comprehension and the inability to follow a story at the most basic level.

[brigdh]

Okay. My thoughts on the Our Flag Means Death finale. Obviously I'm not very happy with the ending, though I'm also not as upset as some people are. I would say I'm discontent. Unsatisfied. Too aware of how it could have been improved, and a bit bitter that we didn't get a better version, but I also don't hate what we did get.

I know a lot of meta has attributed the problems to a shorter season, and absolutely I would have loved to get 10 episodes instead. I would have loved 22 episodes! Why don't we do that anymore? But I don't think the 8 episode length was the ultimate problem. A) The showrunner and writers knew they had only 8 episodes, so they needed to choose a story that fit into that length, but even more importantly, B) my problem is not that they had too much story for too little time, but actually that they had plenty of time and chose to fill it with too little story.

As I've sat with it over the last few days and thought more about the season's arc, it feels to me like we got eight episodes of filler. Filler episodes can be great! Filler episodes can have some of the funniest lines, the greatest scenes, the most intriguing ideas. But filler episodes do not progress character arcs or major themes, and that's exactly the problem this season had.

The only characters who got arcs this season are Izzy, and to a lesser and more rushed extent, Lucius. Which sure is a choice.

Ed and Stede and their relationship did not meaningfully change from S1. (Okay, yes, they had sex, they said I Love You – but these are external changes, not internal. They don't represent character growth. Stede realized he loved Ed and was telling everyone back in 1x10. Ed clearly would have slept with him in S1 if they'd had a little more time.) Ed and Stede in 2x08 are not different from who they are in 2x01. If Ed had asked Stede to be innkeepers in 2x01, does anyone think Stede wouldn't have immediately agreed? One of the big moments in 2x08 is Ed reading a letter that Stede wrote in 2x01! Stede's exact words from the very beginning of the season! What better way to underline that none of the subsequent seven episodes had important growth or changes?

Another one of 2x08's big shippy moments is Ed and Stede running to each other across a beach – deliberately paralleling the dream Stede had in 2x01. What are we supposed to take from this parallel? My original thought was that we're supposed to see how different the real version is from the dream, but there's honestly not many differences. Neither one has a beard, now? The dream mocked how Stede knew they needed to have a conversation about their relationship that he wanted to avoid, but they don't have a conversation in the "real" version either. They exchange about two sentences (which includes Ed's I Love You, yes, which is a big deal but still isn't a conversation) and then they charge right back into the fight, without discussing anything like Ed abruptly dumping Stede to go be a fisherman, Stede killing Ned Low when Ed asked him not to, their differences of opinion on being pirates, if having sex was a mistake or if that's only a thing Ed said because he was panicking, etc etc. They have just as many issues to address as they did in the dream, but just like the dream they act like everything is magically okay without talking about it!

So I think we're meant to take the beach-run parallels as "here's what Stede's been wanting, and after waiting for so long he finally gets it". Which is fine, a very sweet take-away for a finale. But it underlines what I'm saying is the problem of the season: Stede has just been waiting for eight episodes for his dream to come true. Not changing. Not growing. Not doing anything to bring the dream about, other than trying to get himself and Ed into the same physical location. Just... waiting.

This is an extra surprising development, because the show was really good at giving Ed and Stede character arcs in S1! Ed and Stede in 1x10 are significantly different than they were in their first introductions. Also, just to preempt some criticism, by 'progressing' I do not mean 'wrap up literally every loose end and make a firm final ending' – S1's finale is an excellent example of both moving the characters forward and leaving a ton of room for future stories. I wasn't expecting for 2x08 to show us a Stede and Ed who were perfectly on the same page and would never again have a problem. I was expecting them to be somewhat different than they were in 2x01, and I just don't see that.

Instead of arcs, we got little pieces of single-episode growth here and there that never added up to an overall whole. The season brought up a ton of potential arcs for Ed – violence, piracy, guilt, suicide, daddy issues, self-loathing, apologies, redemption, his tendency to idealize escaping into a different life – but didn't do anything with any of these options. Stede had nothing resembling a season arc at all.

Stede works to improve as a captain! Stede kills someone and has regrets! Stede confronts Ed's dark side! <- All potential arcs, but none of which lasted for more than an episode or had consequences. We don't even know what the ending means for Stede: does he want to be an innkeeper because he failed as a pirate in 2x07? Because piracy was always just a displaced search for love, and now that he has love, he doesn't need piracy? What does the crew of the Revenge leaving mean to him? Stede's understanding of their new arrangement literally happens off-screen and we're left to fumble at guesses for its significance to him as an individual.

Ed and Stede's last big conversation in the season is their break-up fight in 2x07, which is a shocking way to send off your main couple in a rom-com. Yes, there's the I Love You on the beach (again: two sentences) and the brief 'let's try to be innkeepers' conversation at the very end, but that's it for them in 2x08, except for their inclusion in some brief large group conversations about their fighting skills and the plan for escaping the British. How can you end your rom-com with the main couple exchanging only a paragraph's worth of dialogue in the finale? None of the stuff was brought up in the fishing fight in 2x07 is ever addressed at all!

Again, I don't think this is solely a matter of time crunch. Instead of using the eight episodes to progress the two main characters, we got a bunch of filler episodes that used the time in amusing side tangents instead of forward progress. I don't think that's the inevitable result of having to work with eight episodes.

Look, I can come up with a better Ed/Stede relationship arc without needing more episodes, and despite only thinking about this for a couple days and not having an entire writing room to work with:

(Note: this only addresses the Ed/Stede relationship. It doesn't fix Stede completely lacking an independent character arc and Ed having about ten thousand of them, none of which went anywhere.)

In 2x05 to 2x07, I would make Ed's motivations in their relationship very clearly that he's pushing Stede away so he doesn't get hurt again. Basically play up Ed's comment about "I was all in" in 2x04, and make him determined not to get 'all in' this time around. This aligns the "let's take it slow" conversation in 2x05, the "sex was a mistake" in 2x06, and Ed running away to be a fisherman in 2x07 into a single arc. He wants Stede, but he's afraid of what that wanting will do to him. He's trying to find a way to have a relationship without making himself vulnerable. He keeps pushing off commitment and openness.

Then, in 2x08, I'd make it more explicit that Ed thinks/fears Stede is dead when he sees the pirate ships burning. I think it's subtext in the episode as-is, but give him a line or two to make it really clear. Ed and Stede still see each other on the beach, have their dramatic run to each other, and Ed says, "I love you". Now this moment is Ed acknowledging his love, exactly what he's been avoiding for the last three episodes.

Near the end of the episode, Ed and Stede have a conversation where Ed says something like, "I didn't want to get hurt again, I was afraid of the risk of falling in love and you leaving again, but thinking you were dead made me realize that never loving you would be worse" (but better written, ha, this is a tumblr post that's already too long). (Also possibly you could tie in Izzy's death here to underline both Ed and Stede not wanting to lose another person they care about, if we must have that plot point for some reason.) We actually get to see Ed asking Stede to come be innkeepers with him, paralleling asking him to run away to China (and paralleling NOT asking Stede to a fisherman), Stede voices some of his worries (paralleling him keeping them inside in 1x09, but also giving him a chance to explain what piracy and love mean to him and why he'd give up one for the other), but ultimately they agree that they at least want to try.

This both puts them into a much clearer place for a happy ending, has clear growth from S1 and the beginning of this season, but also leaves open a ton of room for S3, because welp, it turns out trying to have a relationship entails all sorts of problems! Especially with these two. It also would make me feel like they'd at least addressed some of the issues between them.

Right now I feel like S3 will have to spend at least the first few episodes running through exactly the same "don't talk – break up – get back together dramatically" arc that Stede and Ed have already done twice but have never discussed and never learned from. I liked it, but I don't need to see it yet again. That will – ironically – feel like yet more wasted time, more episodes that are just churning through beats without moving the characters forward. I wanted them to have new, different fights in S3, but now I don't even feel like they've made enough progress to have a fresh set of problems.

[xoxoemynn]

Okay, coming back to this post initiated from @jellybeanium124 now that I've had some time to wake up and rewatch the scene in question of Stede walking in on the crew devouring the seagull raw.

Like I said in my original "something something" response, there is some folklore that seagulls possess the souls of deceased sailors, and the screeches they make are the sailor's mournful wails. Therefore, it was considered bad luck to harm seagulls in any way, because it would be doing injury to the soul of a sailor.

Related, there is of course The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, where the mariner kills the albatross, bringing about great calamity to the crew. The mariner is then forced by the crew to wear the albatross around his neck as a sign of his guilt while they go through hell on the high seas.

I do believe the world of OFMD follows these superstitions. We see it with Karl and Olivia being able to speak with Buttons, and we see what happens to Calico Jack when he kills Karl. Yes, that was with some hexly influence from Buttons, but point stands: killing birds is Bad.

Something I keep stirring in my "is this intentional or is this DJenks handwaving to move the story along" pot is that the crew apparently didn't check if Ed was breathing. They dealt the blow, then laid his body out and did their best to forget about him.

Until Stede shows up.

I believe this scene is meant to show that the crew is literally chewing on their guilt. They just killed the greatest sailor they knew. He was their friend. This isn't what they wanted to happen, but they felt they had no choice.

And perhaps that's why they didn't check to see if he was breathing. Because they didn't want to look too closely. They didn't want to confront the horror of what happened that night. They just made sure they were out of danger, then closed the door and attempted to move on without dwelling on it. As Frenchie would say, they took the terrible things they saw, put them in a box in their minds, lock the box, and don't open it again.

But then Stede arrives, and they know they're going to have to open the box.

They don't say anything. They just keep chewing on their guilt, as if saying "yeah, we did what we had to do. Who are you to judge?"

But eventually it's all going to come out.

[carrymelikeimcute]

The izcourse continues...

When did people stop saying 'in my opinion'? because lord above would that simple phrase have stopped me getting so mad this morning.

I have no interest in reblogging the posts and starting drama, but some izzy takes I've seen this morning have made me want to chew through rawhide, and here's my opinion on why these 'factual statements' are wrong.

Izzy fans shouldn't be upset by his death because he's not a main character, he is a plot device to further the story of the main characters.

I'm a professional writer btw and to me a 'plot device' character is the barista who's in one scene. To me, if a named character with backstory and complicated interpersonal history with one or more main characters is just 'a plot device' - that's a waste of a character and shitty writing. I don't think ofmd is shittily written so this annoys me on two levels - disrespecting the show, and the character. Because in my view if Izzy is 'just a plot device' that's someone insulting the show.

2. Izzy was an antagonist and antagonists can only ever be redeemed and then die, or become a villain.

Not even true of ofmd and certainly not of media in general, yet stated as fact with nothing to back it up. This is NOT an opinion btw - you only have to look at Zheng and Jackie to know it's not true within the context of the show.

Jackie dobs Stede in to the British just as much as Izzy does, and she threatens them with vengeance again over the indigo - does she die? Does she become a villain? No, she's a guest at the lupete wedding for fuck sake.

Zheng insults Ed and attempts to kill Stede, two things Izzy was vilified for, gosh it was so sad when she died in the finale wasn't it? Oh no wait, she became their ally and sailed away on The Revenge!

'Have to die or become villains' is just...incomprehensible to me. The only way I can see it working in someone's head is if they think character like Jackie and Zheng did nothing wrong, when Izzy was evil, for doing the same things - albeit for more personally passionate reasons.

3. Izzy telling Ed that the ship's atmosphere was poison because of 'his feelings for Stede' was Izzy 'blaming Ed's actions on love again, just like he did in s1.e10 because Izzy is just one-note evil and only ever has that one thing to say.

To me, s1 Izzy is absolutely thrilled to have managed to bait Ed to anger, to have brought this out of him. He thinks he knows what he's just unleashed, but as we soon discover, he has no idea - because Ed had never cut off one of his extremities before. He poked the bear, but the bear was actually a fucking kraken.

s2 Izzy, in my opinion, looking at his expression above, is sad, resigned, he is saying Stede's name (which it's already established even obliquely mentioning him is a BAD IDEA with the whole 'talk it through' thing, after which Izzy sounds panicked) but he is specifically trying to make Ed see that he is not himself - that what he is doing to the crew is toxic.

Just because he's essentially saying 'This isn't you' in both scenes, doesn't mean the tone or the meaning of those scenes is the same. One scene ends with Izzy gleeful, victorious. One ends with him screaming on the deck, bleeding out.

I am happy for people to have these opinions, and for me to vehemently disagree with them, but they ARE opinions. And Izzy 'fans' or you know, people who see the show differently to you, are not stupid, racist, immature or whatever else you want to call us.

We just have a different opinion. If you're going to share your opinion, great! But it's still just your opinion.

[nonpracticinghumanbeing]

So Izzy said a thing.

The thing seems to be a part of a redemption arc and makes him sound like a human rather than a monster.

The Canyon went wild with joy and jubilation. The haters are doing everything they can to rationalize the thing in a way that would fit their point of view. One of these things makes me feel like a part of a wonderful, welcoming, and very queer community. The other makes me perplexed, annoyed, and sad at the same time - in a way that feels very personal.

OFMD is an explicitly and unapologetically queer show. And not just that, it shows a variety of non-normative behaviors (Jackie’s polyamory, Geraldo’s humiliation kink, Lucius and Pete’s penchant for “having an audience” to say nothing of Izzy’s masochistic tendencies) in a completely non-judgmental way, making the viewer feel like all ways of performing one’s sexuality are valid.

Izzy wants to be a part of this world. For all his anger and manipulations, and (yes, let’s call him out for the sake of fairness) his abusive behaviors, he desperately wants to be a part of the world where he is free to love who he loves, in whatever way he is capable of doing so. No matter how much the haters don’t want to acknowledge it, this is ultimately a story about love. Both Con and Daddy Jenkins admitted Izzy is in love with Edward and the fact that the antis are willing to contradict not only the actor (who, may I remind you, was instrumental in shaping Izzy’s character) but also the showrunner is very symptomatic of the larger issue of how queer people have been treated in society.

No one in their right mind chose to become a pirate unless they had no other option. Piracy was fraught with constant danger and meant being an outsider everywhere. The only place one could be more or less safe was between people in the same lifestyle. In OFMD that is represented by the Republic of Pirates, where not being a pirate would get one in trouble. Sure, there is some violence but it comes with the territory and - much more importantly - it’s never motivated by someone being a pirate.

Izzy claims to hate the Republic - and for someone as repressed as him it makes sense. There are people being a different kind of a pirate than Izzy would like there - drunk, rowdy, and undisciplined. He clearly takes great pride in his work and has built his whole identity around being Blackbeard’s first mate. Seeing people be pirates while taking their responsibilities lightly doesn’t fit his worldview because he’s been taught that all of his energy should be spent protecting whatever freedom the pirates managed to carve out for themselves.

Someone once wrote that despite what the popular meme says, Izzy isn’t a real pirate dropped into The Muppet Treasure Island, but rather a hard boiled queer-coded character from a 50s noir movie dropped into today’s Pride. He’s had to keep vigilant against any threat for so long he hasn’t noticed that there was a way to be a pirate/queer and still enjoy one’s life. That one can like frilly robes and be a somewhat competent sea captain. That it is possible to pine for one’s boyfriend and keep one’s crew safe. That being soft doesn’t necessarily mean being weak.

He’s willing to do whatever it takes and sacrifice whatever has to be sacrificed (Stede’s life, Edward’s happiness, his own status of the loyal first mate) to keep his little pirate/queer world safe. It’s this conviction that puts him in the way of Ed and Stede’s relationship and makes him an antagonist. But - and it’s something the haters seem to be incapable of grasping - an antagonist doesn’t have to equal a villain.

Why does Izzy react so violently to Stede, exactly? Why is he willing to go against his captain's wishes in challenging Stede to a duel? Why does he sell Stede out, making a deal with the enemy in the process? Because Stede is a stranger infiltrating Izzy’s safe space. The English are a huge threat, sure, but they are easily identifiable from a distance. Stede seems to Izzy to be something far more dangerous - an outsider worming his way into the heart of Izzy’s world, where he can do truly irreparable damage. The English are cops who chase gay boys around the park. Stede has the potential of being an undercover cop sent into a queer bar in the 1930s to get the dirt on the patrons so they can be blackmailed and arrested.

Of course, he may not be that, but it’s a risk Izzy can’t allow himself to take. With his vision of what it means to be a pirate/queer he's sure he sees through Stede’s ruse. Now, I’m not trying to excuse abusive behavior, as some of Izzy’s choices were hurtful to everyone around him. But as a queer person I do have sympathy for someone (grossly) overreacting in defense of their safe space. Constant vigilance is an inherent part of the queer experience, especially for those living in conservative countries or remembering the times before the Pride.

Like, for example, Con does. Con, who - yes, I will repeat this because it’s super important here - played a huge part in shaping Izzy’s character. Con, who despite having a decades-long career where he often clearly gravitated towards queer characters, only got comfortable enough THIS YEAR (and thanks to this show and this fandom) to publicly come out. Con, who - as a friend wonderfully phrased it - is queer as in start a riot, not as in love wins.

And Izzy is the same. He is a start a riot pirate/queer in a show full of love wins pirates/queers. His way of being what he is is so totally different from everyone around him that it makes him an antagonist. (Sure, there are other start a riot queers in the show - Jim literally kills a man who wronged them and Lucius is very outspoken about his opinions in a way that makes him somewhat radical, but neither of them is as extreme in their ways as Izzy is and neither goes against the main characters’ romance thus becoming an antagonist.) But. The thing is, when you are a part of a minority, when you are being prosecuted and targeted for who you are, you need safe spaces. And those safe spaces need protection, because every freedom can be taken away if wrong people come to power. No doubt the queer movement would look much more tame and palatable to the bigots if we were all the love wins queers. But we desperately need the start a riot queers if we are to survive.

So yeah, you can say Izzy said what he said because he needs a structure and clear hierarchy in his life. He absolutely does. Some of it comes from his submissive and masochistic tendencies, sure (I wrote a lot about that, including a piece for the Above All Else zine). Some of it may come from neurodivergence (some people read Izzy as autistic, I’m not going to discuss this because as a neurotypical person I have nothing of value to say about it). But it also ABSOFUCKINGLUTELY comes from the desperate need to protect his safe space from outsiders.

And there is one more thing the haters conveniently forget about: OFMD is also a show about growth. It’s about Stede turning from a wooden puppet into a real boy and then into a man. It’s about Edward learning there is a life beyond the legend of Blackbeard and peeling off at least some of the leather. And judging from the trailer, it’s about Izzy learning you can be a start a riot pirate while being accepting of the love wins pirates in your life. 

The more I think about it, the more likely I find it that Stede’s “I don’t care what anybody says, he’s actually a good guy” line from the teaser refers to Izzy. But even if it doesn’t, I am 100% sure the haters will be proven wrong. This show never relied on stereotypes and cliches. In fact, it actively does everything to break them (from Jim’s sacred quest for revenge ending up with them befriending Jackie to the only names that get mispronounced being those of white characters) while killing off the real enemies of the pirate/queer crew (Badmintons, Jack, Geraldo) and giving all its characters place to grow.

So, maybe one day we will all learn to love Izzy? 

[avelera]

Mostly buried this in the tags of my next OFMD meta reblog down from this post but…. I don’t think Ed is going to apologize for his Kraken era and I don’t think the narrative is going to demand that he does.

I saw a couple posts expressing eagerness for Ed’s inevitable “apology tour” after he wakes up and I just fundamentally don’t think that’s going to happen. I could easily be wrong. But at most I think we might get a few mumbled, shamefaced apologies. If you expect him to grovel before Lucius and the crew, imo, that’s just not going to happen and here’s why:

- the narrative morality of OFMD has NEVER been encouraging its characters to become “good” people. The story is about finding love and acceptance during a midlife crisis. It’s about following your bliss. The highest moral demand it makes of its characters is to be true to themselves, not to become Good People. It’s a pirate comedy. It doesn’t care about murder. It cares about being true to yourself and your desire to be a pirate. Everything goes well when people follow their bliss. It falls apart when narrative defining main characters like Stede or Ed do what they think they should do instead of what makes them happy.

- Emotional pain has always been more important, more impactful, than physical pain in the show. Ed’s bad behavior (to put it lightly) was an expression of his emotional pain. Simply put, the narrative isn’t going to ask him to apologize for his emotional pain.

- Stede, the main driver of the narrative, DOES apologize because his actions led to Ed’s emotional pain (in his mind) and again, narrative pain is weighted more than physical pain in this show. Also, life is cheap, if you’re not a main character. This is still a pirate story. Murder is not treated as a sin.

- Ed is proud. Taika is proud. Both rightfully so one would argue, they’ve accomplished a great deal. Ed’s got a bit of Taika in that, actually more than a bit. It’s clear Taika puts a lot of himself into Ed. My gut tells me that Ed/Taika is just not going to grovel an apology. That’s just not his style. Mumbled self-conscious apologies because he feels he should is one thing. But deep sincere apology tours? Not gonna happen. He won’t abase himself like that (Ed OR Taika)

- The person he arguably hurt most directly, Izzy, hurt Ed IMMENSELY at the end of S1. Arguably more than Lucius, the majority of whose pain came from what happened after he was pushed overboard. But Izzy Ed personally tortured, and he did it because Izzy threatened to murder Ed if Ed didn’t climb back into the suffocating closet of Izzy’s expectations for him. Ed is not going to apologize to Izzy. Izzy got exactly what he deserved in physical pain after the emotional pain he dealt Ed, narratively speaking.

- I’m not talking real world morals, to be clear. Or even what the various Izzy or Ed fans THINK the other deserves, where the fans think the fault truly lies and who owes what to whom.

- What I’m saying is, in the OFMD world where emotional pain matters more than physical maiming, the narrative isn’t going to ASK Ed to apologize to Izzy for maiming him after what Izzy did at the end of S1 and Izzy getting his comeuppance for it. And that’s because they hurt each other equally, emotionally. They’re even now. Izzy lashed out and emotionally destroyed Ed during a vulnerable moment. Ed took his leg. They’re done. The way forward is for them to separate and get their toxicity out of each others life or find a new way forward with new understanding of each other as they become entirely new people after their respective ordeals. But as far as the pain they’ve dealt each other, there’s no debt. They’ve both hurt each other beyond the point of apology being anything but a false display.

Again, I could be totally wrong. Joke’s on me if ep. 4 opens with Ed on his knees crying and apologizing to everyone he hurt. But I just cannot picture that happening. And I don’t think OFMD is the kind of story that will demand it.

[internerdionality]

And just to be clear, it wasn't just Izzy's death or the way it happened that I found incredibly disappointing about that finale. For that matter, while there were some great moments, the entire season felt rushed and incomplete, with a lot of decisions that just baffled me.

The Olu/Zheng/Jim/Archie polycule got no resolution whatsoever and just felt crappily done. It felt like Jim and Olu transitioned from romantic to platonic between seasons and then got shoved at new love interests, instead of actually grappling with the interesting poly dynamics, jealousy, NRE, insecurity, etc., that they could have engaged with. And to be clear I LOVED every moment of Olu/Zheng and Jim/Archie! But it felt like the show didn't believe you can have meaningful romantic relationships with multiple people at the same time, so they had to make it as if Jim and Olu's romantic sexual encounter at the end of last season didn't mean anything and that the two of them are perfectly happy being chosen siblings. This after Oluwande is explicitly described as in love with Jim in the first season! WTF?

It also felt like they just abandoned Lucius and Pete being poly in favor of having a cutesy wedding? Like don’t get me wrong, yay for weddings, but honestly it felt very mononormative and forced instead of queer and affirming. Even if Lucius had like, kissed Fang on the lips right after, or if they'd had more affection shown between the whole crew during the wedding, that would have been something. It just felt off.

Zheng felt like a wasted character by the end. Her just letting Ricky know where all her ships were was unbelievable for how competent and badass they made her out to be, and literally her only impact on the plot was serving as a vehicle to drive Stede from place to place. Also just killing off her entire crew other than Auntie? Hundreds of mostly Asian women? Yeah, that's not a good look.

Why did they feel the need to destroy the Republic of Pirates, for that matter? What actual plot or emotional growth did it create? At the end of Episode 7, I expected Stede to have to grapple with how he's managed to not just bring down Blackbeard but the *entire Republic of Pirates* and *the Pirate Queen of China* to add to his whole "I ruin beautiful things" trauma and instead he just doesn't seem to care at all. Like how did he get from all of his trauma and grief about being inadequate in the first season—the actual trauma that led him to leave Ed in the first place—to "oh, it's not so bad being a failure once you get used to it"?!?! Throughout the season I kept thinking that he was repressing and it would come back up to bite him in the ass but no, apparently he just fixed that issue offscreen? What the hell?

And it was the same with Ed! After all that build up in the first season about how Ed doesn’t like to kill people directly—and maintaining that through the first two episodes, even, which was hard! We never see him directly kill anyone! The guy he shot had already been run through!—he’s literally joking while surrounded by corpses he killed and the show barely addressed the trauma that the character we knew would have experienced. Just a completely dropped note. What happened to Ed's self-hatred that they spent an entire dream sequence episode establishing?

Ed and Stede’s actual conflicts and problems just basically disappeared at the end, with a “oh I actually do love you, babe” glossing over Ed’s very legit reasons for leaving and then Stede (apparently?!?) being convinced to give up piracy without a second of screen time spent discussing it. If felt like they were actually setting them up to just be the toxic lesbians from episode four, how is that a satisfying finale? I honestly would have rather had them end the season apart again, but this time knowing they love each other and they have to do some work to get back to each other. Like, Stede sailing into the sunset after kissing Ed and promising to come back and Ed going "i trust that you will, thank you for giving me the space I need to heal"—that would have been a satisfying place to leave them.

And then Izzy's death... don't get me fucking started on what a complete waste of screen time and acting that was. Wow.

[rowenablade]

A word about Izzy’s grave.

I’ve seen a lot of people upset that Izzy wasn’t buried at sea, or that he wasn’t buried with his leg and ring, and I want to offer an alternative explanation in case it can bring some comfort. Maybe I’m just deluding myself, but I can’t function if I feel nothing but pain about this, so here I am trying to turn…well, you know.

First, the choice to bury Izzy on land. For that, I want to talk about the swallow tattoo.

In a traditional nautical context, a swallow tattoo has a few meanings. The one that I think this whole fandom knows by now is that it represents 5000 nautical miles sailed. Totally makes sense for Izzy to have this tattoo- it’s practical, it allows him to subtly brag about his skills, and the fact that it’s on one of the few pieces of skin he generally shows bears that out. Izzy has sailed at least 5000 nautical miles, and he wants anyone he meets to know that.

But there’s a couple other meanings too.

A swallow is migratory. It travels great distances, and returns to the place it makes its nest. By getting a swallow tattoo, a sailor is essentially praying that they, too, will be like a swallow. That they will travel far across the sea, but ultimately return safely home.

And failing that, if a sailor drowns, the swallow will fly their soul up to heaven.

You notice the theme in both these prayers? That they don’t end with the swallow in the ocean.

All birds, even sea birds, need a solid place to make their nests. The type of bird that never touches ground, that’s born in the air and never once touches the land? That’s not a type of bird that can actually exist, captain.

I go back and forth on whether I think Izzy, sentimental bastard that he is, knew about or considered these meanings when he got that swallow tattoo. But however you consider it, the swallow represents the sailor’s journey. And a successful sailor’s journey doesn’t end with the sailor at the bottom of the ocean. It ends with them at home.

Izzy is buried at Ed and Stede’s nest, because his sailor’s journey is over. He was a sailor, but he’s not anymore. He’s retired.

Second, the grave itself. I’ve seen people upset that they took off Izzy’s effects rather than bury him with them. Now, I’m sure my own perceptions color this. I’m fairly unsentimental when it comes to the actual, physical handling of the dead. I don’t believe the dead care what is done with their bodies. Obviously you’re going to feel differently based on your own experience and culture, and I respect that.

But here’s what I think the crew were thinking.

You notice something about the grave? No headstone. And honestly, why would there be? Most pirates can’t read. You put a traditional headstone on that grave, and nine out of ten people who have reason to care about the person buried there won’t know what it says. But an unmarked grave doesn’t feel right, nor does an anonymous cross. I challenge anyone who’s upset about the way Izzy was buried to tell me that an unmarked grave would have made them feel one whit better.

Pirates recognize Izzy. They know who he is. The sword, the ring, the wooden leg- this is how you write “Here lies Israel Hands,” in a language every pirate can understand.

Look. I don’t by any means think the show handled this death perfectly. And for those of you who are enraged to the point of hating the show now, I don’t expect this to make you feel better. But I suspect a burial at sea, or an unadorned cross, wouldn’t have made it any better either.

This is how I try to feel better. Because I can’t just be heartbroken. I can’t do it. And honestly the part of this that hurts the most is watching people who shared in my joy of this show say they hate it now. I’m sure I’m giving the writers and showrunners too much credit- I think the death looked and felt the way it did because they were pressed for time and took the quickest routes they could. But I need to be something other than angry about it, so here’s how I try to do that. I hope it helps someone else.

[batsarebetterthanpeople]

Ok so apparently there's a new Ed is abusive argument cropping up that's like taking us arguing that Ed's not a domestic abuser in a vacuum and arguing "but he abused his crew" as if that was the take that people were arguing with but I do actually want to address that take because it's also straight up not true either.

Like we have been repeatedly told you what business as usual for a pirate ship looks like, and it's not what Ed is doing. Stede opens the show with floggings and keelhaulings mentioned as standard practice. His crew doesn't take him seriously at least partially because he doesn't do those things. In 1.08 we get the first mention of captain Hornigold as having stabbed and beaten down Jack and Ed and having treated them worse than dogs. Episode 9 we get captain Izzy and what's the first thing he does? Threatened to withhold food for a whole week. Then we meet Hornigold who reveals that a punishment on his ship was a crab clawing through your stomach and that a standard threat was skinning a person and feeding it back to them.

And what does Ed do? Cuts off his abuser's toes. Shoots him in the leg for having the most gaslighting audacity I've ever seen. But aside from Izzy, in regards to whom I have cell block tango cued up for Ed, what did he actually do?

The first time someone expresses discontent is after the wedding raid which I think is probably towards the end of the 89 raids given that Izzy has his breakdown immediately after Ed throws them a cake party, in fact I would guess that it's raid number 88, they do raid 89 in between Izzy getting shot and Ed telling Frenchie they're never going back to land, and then Ed decides to kill himself that night. So anyway, raid 88, they've been doing this for 3 months, and Jim says "Is it just me or was the wedding thing a bit over the line?" to which Archie responds "IDK I've never really been to a wedding before so I have nothing to compare it to." as if she's just happy to be there, and then Fang says "I've never seen Blackbeard like this before," Which establishes that what we're going through right now, the 88 soon to be 89 raids are atypical of Ed's behavior, and then follows it up with "He didn't bat an eye when Ivan got killed" which establishes both why Ivan isn't around and why Fang is so sad, but also might establish that Ed would be upset with crewmembers dying, which is consistent with episode 4 when he yells at Stede that the crew dying is going to be his fault to show him what it's like being Blackbeard.

Then we have the scene where the crew defy Ed. Ed orders them to dump the treasure overboard, because it's fucking treasure. What's Ed's response? To take another one of Izzy's toes so that he looks like he cares about enforcing rules on his ship while not punishing the people actually going against him but instead punishing the guy who low key ruined his life. Then Izzy does his "you can cut off my toes but I need to know that this is a sexual thing for you too" bit and Ed doesn't take the bait until he says a Stedeism. And then he goes out to threaten everyone with a gun, which, you know. Not great but he ends it like this so

you know. something to consider.

and then he doesn't really do anything to the crew until the murder-suicide.

so his list of crimes currently is:

not really giving a fuck about Ivan dying where Fang can see it

Dismembering his abuser where people who don't have the full context can see it (not a crime just a based action that has side effects for the people who have to see it)

waving a gun around in a way that makes you wonder if he's about to shoot himself in the head

trying so so so so so so hard to get people to kill him because he's addicted to outsourcing the big job

Demanding the crew dump treasure overboard (standard practice if Zheng Yi Sao is to be believed)

Overworking the crew a little bit.

When we measure this against the stick of every non Stede pirate captain we've seen so far I think what these crimes amount to is hurting your friends in the process of hurting yourself. And that using the term abuse which calls to mind a very specific phenomenon is one of two things: Melodramatic moralizing (which is the internet's fav thing to do so you know what sure) or demonizing the brown guy in the midst of a mental health crisis.

I honestly think that outside of the murder suicide the only reason anyone had a problem with any of it was because Stede showed them what piracy could be like, that's the whole narrative point right. Stede's doing things differently, in a way that doesn't hurt everyone involved, and nobody wants to go back to the old way, because they're healing from that and Ed stopped healing because Someone told him that if he didn't there would be a fucking problem(wonder who it could have been). Like he's not even flogging anyone be serious.

[blakbonnet]

Artist of the Week!

So last weekend, I announced that I'd like to feature an artist every weekend for both new fandom joinees who might not have seen some of this art and older fans who like the nostalgia. This week's artist is Ash @aha-my-villainous-thoughts 💖 who also, wonderful that they are, agreed to answer a few questions for me!

Which App Do You Use To Draw When I’m at my big set up I use Clip Studio Paint, I love it so much. It’s very straight forward to dip straight in, has all of the bells and whistles you need from an elite drawing program, and the community elements where you can see assets and brushes is a lot of fun - although I still to this day have no idea how to earn coins to buy assets?! I use a XPPen Artist 15.6 Pro Graphics Tablet to draw into the program, although my best tip with graphics tablets is to get a screen protector, mine got covered in marks before I noticed. Recently I also got an iPad 10.9 to use as a digital sketchbook I can carry around, and while I am enjoying Procreate, I think CSP is a better art program overall.

Fave Brushes? On iPad I stick to the technical pen, studio pen and the soft airbrush, along with the textures and the light pen. I don’t think Procreate has great ‘painting’ brushes, whereas on CSP I would marry the Gouache brushes, I love how they blend and texture as you work.

Your favourite piece you’ve drawn? I’m a super self indulgent artist, I try to draw the kind of stuff I like to look at, so it’s a lot of colour, a lot of fabric and details. My fave piece for detail is the one I did for the OFMD RBB last year - Crescente Devotione, there’s a blushing sentient stool in it! For colour I’m in love with this sleepy time Ed in a lil negligee and a Holly Golightly eyemask, he's my lock screen because I'm trash.

Who harder to draw: Ed or Stede? Oh for sure Stede. I love Rhys Darby, but the man has like no lips. I stand by this meltdown.

One essential tip for beginner artists? Comparison is the thief of joy, don’t measure yourself against others - particularly when you’re finding your groove. Be self indulgent af. Also get a screen protector for whatever digital screen you draw on, and BACK. THINGS. UP. Whether in an online account, or on an external harddrive - or both?! BACK THAT SHIT UP.

Why OFMD? I’ve been in a few fandoms in the past, always as a pretty passive enjoyer, little fanart here or there, little fanfic sprinkled around, but there’s just something about the way this fandom feels? It feels like a group of friends who’ve got their own lives and their goals, but they still exist in each other's orbit, it’s like this feeling of returning home to somewhere you’re always welcome. There’s so many good moments in the show for both comedy and some gut wrenching pathos. Sign up for the hot guy in leather and get got by this beautiful delicate little love story. It’s something about queer joy of thriving, not just surviving. Something about finding love and romance no matter your age or what’s past before. Something about found family, and unlikely friendships, and community and silliness. I was already a goner when Taika put on the wig, but then when he teared up in a blanket fort while trying not to die? Excuse me sir, I did not need feelings that powerful. It was literally waking me up at night thinking about his last shot weeping in the nook - like are you kidding me?! I’m supposed to finish watching and be normal after that??

[piratecaptainscaptainpirates]

I can't believe that I'm still seeing fics where Ed has to have Stede teach him how to take care of his hair. Even if you don't see the obvious racism in implying that a brown man needs a White man to teach him how to do basic hair care, it just goes against what we know of Ed as a character.

Ed has a lot of hair and it always looks great, even when he's in a bad mental place. It's obvious that hair care is a priority for him, and he keeps doing it well even when he's in the darkest mental states we see him, telling us that it probably makes him feel good. The fic I read this morning even had Stede ask how Ed keeps his hair looking so good, skipping over the obvious "he knows how to take care of his own hair" and going straight to Ed's hair just looking good as a matter of luck, I guess.

I'm not saying that Stede doesn't like hair care; he probably has a two-hour hair care routine himself. But Ed does not need to take hygiene advice from Mr. "I pick up nose jar noses with my bare hands" over here.

First, there's no way Ed doesn't know about such basic hair care things as "conditioner" and "a comb" (a real thing I read in that same fic this morning). Second, even if he needed help, what would Stede know about how to take care of Ed's hair texture? It's very different from his own and needs different products and care, if Stede tried to help without Ed teaching him how, he'd probably fuck it up!

Hair care can be so sweet and intimate, but so many fics in that tag are just full of condescending, racist bullshit. Give me more fics where Ed teaches Stede how to do his hair as a sign of trust and intimacy, or if you must, at least have Stede introducing Ed to self-care products there's a reasonable explanation for why he wouldn't be familiar with (like fancy rich-people bath salts or something). Don't imply that Ed doesn't know how to brush his own hair, you don't get to have that much beautiful, soft-looking hair without knowing how to take care of it.

[plantsjustwannahavefun]

As someone who has kind of convinced themselves Izzy is gonna die at the end of S2, could you share your reasons why you think he won't? I'm sure a lot of us who think he's doomed could use some ideas as to otherwise. And who do you think is being buried in that grave scene in the Behind the scenes video? I'd love to hear your thoughts!!!

Hey, first of all, this is the first ask I’ve ever got, so thanks ☺️

Okay, so, there’s been so many posts recently with much more elaborate and better-argued takes than mine, and I can’t really take credit for anything I’m going to say here because none of these thoughts are original, really… but anyway.

I was surprised how quickly and strongly people seemed to have latched onto the “Izzy’s gonna die” train based on, as far as I'm concerned, nothing more than a couple of vague BTS bits and a general sense of foreboding caused by previous experience with stories like these.

First of all, the BTS pictures and videos. Namely the bit where Izzy seems to be lying down and the one with the grave. It’s a massive stretch at best. I think Izzy’s likely to get injured at some point, but this could literally be anything, we can’t even see what’s going on. This could be a fuckery. At one point Ed is holding out his hand stained with blood, but we don’t even know whose blood it is. Same for the grave. Izzy isn’t the only crew member missing from the ring of people standing around it. We know there’s going to be a big battle in E08, so it's not surprising someone would die, but there’s simply no proof and not at all likely it would be Izzy.

Also, think about it. Izzy’s a sailor. Sailors typically get burried at sea. The only other place I could imagine him wanting to be buried at is next to his family in England, but that might just not be feasible, so he’d most likely get burried at sea. The way I see it, he’d much rather rest on the ocean floor than some random beach in the Republic of Pirates, a place he claimed to hate in S01.

Another thing: the creators of the show know how rabid this fanbase is. They knew we were going to painstakingly pick apart and overanalyse every single frame of every morsel of promotional content we could get our hands on. So far they’ve gone to great lengths to avoid major spoilers. They even changed Ed’s line in the trailer where he said “and, more importantly, no more Izzy” (replaced it with “no more Stede”) in order not to reveal the plotline of Ed shooting Izzy, even though that line was pretty vague and could have been up to interpretation. So how likely is it that they would reveal a major character’s death in several frames of BTS material? Just not very likely at all, I’d say.

Then I’ve seen a few people argue that the writers want to get rid of Con because doing the CGI for the unicorn leg is too expensive and inconvenient. I’m calling bullshit on that one too. Admittedly, I don’t know much about CGI, but Con literally just has to wear a green sock over his boot or something like that, and it’s not that hard to frame it in a way that makes his leg less visible. So far we’ve had a lot of shots with him just sitting there, or where he was filmed from the waist up. I imagine it wasn’t easy for Con to mimic moving like he was missing a leg, but he nailed it perfectly, and he seemed to have an easier time walking around in episodes 6 and 7 compared to ep 5, so he won’t have to keep up the severe limping to the same extent. At this point Izzy is the third major character after Stede an Ed. There’s no way they’d get rid of him just because of a minor cinematographic inconvenience like that.

And then there’s the fact that nobody actually dies in this show except for the villains. David Jenkins took the “bury your gays” trope and turned it into “make your gays unkillable”. This is literally the show that gave us recreational gut stabbing. There’s only a couple of exceptions, but they were all very minor characters or, well, a bird… I really liked Ivan, but he was easily the least important character out of all the crew members, and probably the only reason his death was offscreen was because the actor quit after S01. There’s no indication that Con wants to quit, it’s obvious he’s having the time of his life with this role, so it’s very unlikely he would sacrifice it for some other project.

What OFMD does love, on the other hand, is characters appearing to die, only to end up surviving against all odds. That’s, like, its signature trait by now. None of us really believed Lucius was going to die, even though logically it was extremely unlikely he wouldn't just drown immediately. They didn’t even bother to explain it properly, that’s how little this show cares for realism. And we love that about it. Izzy himself has already had not one, not two, but THREE instances like that: the dream sequence scene, getting shot in the leg, then surviving his suicide attempt. If he happened to actually die for real now, that would just be bad storytelling.

Speaking of storytelling… That’s really the main reason I don’t believe Izzy’s going to die. I know a lot of people are hung up on the whole “his narrative arc is complete and he has served his purpose as a character” thing, and in any other show that might be true, but not this one. OFMD isn’t just a show, it’s a love letter to the queer community. Izzy is now a representation of a queer person discovering himself and being accepted into the found family. He figuratively embodies the spirit of the Revenge. The physical unicorn figurine was destroyed, but the crew managed to use something “broken” and give it a new life. If the show did this only to kill Izzy off right afterwards, that would feel like a slap in the face. It wouldn't complete his character arc, it would undo it. It would be way worse than another show killing off some character that simply happened to be gay. It would feel like killing a character off specifically because they finally found some happiness in being gay, right after reaching the peak of their personal development as a queer character. It would feel deliberately mean rather than merely thoughtless.

And it would make the very first scene of S2 kind of meaningless, too. That dream sequence specifically showed us what was not going to happen. Izzy wasn’t going to stand between Stede and Ed anymore. Izzy and Stede weren’t going to be enemies anymore. Ed wasn’t going to melt into Stede’s arms and immediately forget all that’s happened. And Izzy isn’t going to die. Simple as that.

[brigdh]

I was thinking more about how Stede doesn't really have an arc this season (see my previous criticism here), and I've decided that what I would have loved to see was Stede actively attempting to court Ed.

Now, we did get a little of this in the first few episodes: Stede's letters in 2x01 are great, I love his attempting to track Ed down via a crime-map in 2x02, and of course the "I'll never leave you. I'll never leave again" speech at the end of 2x03 is fantastic. But once Stede and Ed are both in the same location and conscious, there's really nothing. Stede just hangs around, waiting for Ed to figure himself out, or take the lead, or something, I don't know, but Stede's certainly doesn't take any action to progress their relationship himself. He's such a static character in the second half of S2.

But! Imagine instead the arc where Stede is actively trying to romance Ed! I don't need him to be good at it; it's probably a better character arc if he isn't, in fact. Maybe he comes on way too strong at first and this is why Ed asks him to slow down, until Ed can figure out what he's doing about his own guilt/violence/identity/daddy issues (maybe Ed can actually figure out something about his guilt/violence/identity/daddy issues). Maybe Stede's entire conception of romance comes from poetry and novels and it hits a hard skid when he tries it out in reality. Maybe there are cultural clashes between how pirates approach one another and how the landed upper class does it. The exact way Stede fails doesn't really matter, because the point is that Stede is trying something, and fucking it up, and trying again, and growing as he does so, learning more about what the relationship between him and Ed needs and who they are as people.

This also could have been a really interesting arc for Stede internally. Throw in a couple of flashbacks to Stede courting Mary, to make a parallel between how he acted then and how he's acting now with Ed. If it's beyond the budget to fly Claudia O'Doherty to New Zealand or she's busy or something, give Stede a random other lady or two he approached as a young man – ones who obviously refused to accept his hand. Excellent! Now there's even more weight to him getting it right this time with Ed, when he's never managed to get someone to like him before! Or give young Stede an intense friendship with another young man that went wrong, and back then he didn't understand, but now he can look back and be like, 'oh I guess that wasn't as platonic as I thought'. (Personally, this would be my favorite option, but I know Jenkins & co said they didn't want to write a coming-out story, so maybe they'd have been less interested in this one. Fine, but I want it! 🥳 ) I think you could do this without taking up a lot of screentime – I doubt all the scenes we got of Ed's childhood add up to five minutes in total, but we got plenty of information from those three glimpses.

It would also make sense for Stede to discuss the issue with the crew, which gives the show a chance to flesh out their role a little more, another thing the season could have used. If he asks Lucius, what Lucius responds and how he reacts could help to develop the Lucius/Pete relationship. Similarly, if Stede turned to Olu or Jim, we could have heard more about Jim/Archie or Olu/Zheng or any combination of the four. Or any of the crew! What kind of relationship advice does Frenchie give? Roach? This also could have intersected with Ed's redemption arc nicely: which are the crew are willing to put aside their anger at Ed to help Stede (and them doing so would give more credence to Izzy's speech about them being family and loving Ed at the end)? Who isn't willing, and tries to deliberately sabotage their relationship for revenge, and how do Stede and/or Ed react to that?

Overall, I think such an arc could have fit the show's themes of masculinity and toxicity really well. There's so much about dating and pick-up lines and romance that reflects on gender – there are expectations of who should be aggressive vs receptive, flowery vs crude, prudish vs too fast, gifts as a sign of love vs gifts as obligation... it's endless. Obviously the season wouldn't have time to explore all these angles, but I list them as a sign of how many directions they could have taken this topic in. Ultimately it all comes down to: Who does Stede want to be as a partner? And who does Ed want him to be? And that would be so strong as a direction to go in, even if we didn't get final answers to the questions! At least they would be asking them.

But instead we got a vision of a mermaid and never explored who Stede is in reality. :(

[mysteriouslybluepirate]

OFMD S2 EP 4-5: Izzy Hands (from a S1 Izzy fan)

I'll admit. I teared up at the Izzy shit in ep 1-3. Not a full-blown cry. But close. I was stressed, and tired, and hurt more than anything. I only cried in my car driving home. It hit, but it was more prolonged.

Do you know what got me crying? Izzy opened that letter, revealing 'For The New Unicorn'. He looks up and smiles. I went from 0-100 dry eyes to crying in seconds. I had to rewatch it because HELL.

The entire episode, hell, debatably from (S1ep4) we see Izzy go through it. Socially isolated and losing his identity. Leading up to S2ep4. Drunk and sad and heartbroken. He tries his best to stay afloat without a lifejacket as his self crumbles around him. He doesn't care anymore. He thinks his life is over. He lashes out because there's no one there to help him.

BUT THEN THE LEG. He cried and I cried during both scenes.

BECAUSE HE IS CARED ABOUT AND HE CAN HEAL!

GOD, and the way that leads into EPISODE 5. Izzy slicked his hair back and regaining some of his own personal identity. Izzy genuinely bantering with Stede, and gently helping him to be a better Captain. The way he desperately asks Stede if Ed said anything else nice about him? Showing that. Yeah, he's not all the way there yet, but he's working on it. The training scene where Izzy just looks on in fascinated horror at Stede's skills? THE LITTE OKAY HANDSIGNAL AT THE END WHEN STEDE USED HIS GRUFF VOICE? He smiles, and jokes, and TRIES. Izzy is pissed, obviously, but he's getting there.

He is kind and caring, all WHILE STILL BEING A PRICK? Him being a total nerd during the curse monologue? Izzy mutters 'rude' and pointedly crosses his legs as Stede ruins the vibe. I laughed harder at Izzy sitting at that desk than I did at most of the jokes in the show. THAT'S MY FUCKING BASTARD!! I'm so happy I saw a character and have been rewarded by showing, yes. He is kind, and trying, but he needs to learn to let himself become new.

I fucking love him. I can tell from the teaser that Izzy is just going to grow closer with the crew (and with himself) and I can't wait. (Even if it means his imminent capture, whoops).

I do think they'll do something with Izzy/Lucius, at least a single happy (Izzy no longer holding himself back from wanting) consensual kiss or genuine discussion about life(post-wedding) to show their growth as characters because I had to pause with the cig and shark interaction. Jesus Christ. I didn't really ship it before, but they are so snarky and it's great.

I'm a bit sad as Izzy's current arc likely means he might not get the big 'fuck you' moment of anger to Ed that Lucius got. Mainly because Con would make me cry, but If Izzy is genuinely just shoving this shit down, ignoring the years that Ed ignored his existence, then...idk.

They purposefully gave Izzy and Ed no scenes and thank god we get a TINY break. Because Ed will try to patch things up, and I don't think it works like that with Izzy. He needs proof that Ed is trying. Add to that Ed ACTUALLY saying sorry to him, and not expecting Izzy to immediately accept it(my theory as to why Lucius pointed it out: Ed will ACTUALLY say sorry to Izzy and mean it. This will heal something for Izzy, and hell). I can't wait for Ed to come back and see him. See him for who he is, a silly prick who is loyal to a fault, who is loved.

This is likely the happiest two episodes we'll get, and fuck, I loved them both SO MUCH. After a rewatch I'll write about the crew. Ed/Stede is actually working for me as we watch them both learn, and Fuck, Lucius/Pete...my darlings.

NOW FOR THE TEASER:

THE IDEA OF SEEING CON IN DRAG AGAIN MAKES ME SO HAPPY! Especially what it means for Izzy. Izzy lets his hair down and has fun with Wee John as he explores what actually makes him happy. Hell, him opening up to being a bit of a masochist as a joke while tied up is...actually my favorite thing (while obvious, given his propensity to put Ed before him in all matters, Izzy casually mentioning 'I like to be roughed a bit up' in front of the crew is the type of openness about himself that I crave). Izzy "cocksuckers" Hands letting himself joke about SEX-GAY SEX(probably)- Kill me now.

(To clarify: I don't think he or Ed ever got off to the abuse, hell, we see Ed flinch away when Anne/Mary do it. That's not the face of someone who knows what that's like as the Sadist).

I just love the way Izzy has so obviously relaxed into a person that he'd never let exist. Hell. I hope Izzy gets to rub this happier version of himself RIGHT in Edward's sad face. I need a 'he was never like this with me' moment of Ed watching Izzy SMILE to parallel Izzy's jealousy in S1.

Con obviously loves this character, you can see it in the performance. He fills the role perfectly, from his ups to his downs. Con smiles and hell, that's not Con, that's Izzy fucking Hands. Striding along proudly pretending his world isn't changing, because it is, and he is healing and I LOVE IT.

I am so proud of our growing Izzy loving community. For some, we've been through a lot of shit. Probably in life, and hell, maybe even in this fandom. Even if you haven't been harassed, you loved Izzy, you saw yourself in him, and I hope you felt the show giving us a big fucking hug.

We grow, we recover, and hell. We get a happy fucking ending (with a few yet-to-be-seen bumps in the road).