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some-anonymity-preferred · 7 months

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I still have a little hope

Episode 6 is for big emotional confessions.

Stede hasn't told Ed about Badminton yet.

Ed and Izzy haven't spoken yet.

Ed threw a knife past Izzy's head in the trailer. We haven't seen that yet.

Neither Ed nor Izzy was in a place to have a fruitful conversation with the other at the start of ep 4. Their conditions improved by the end of ep 5. (big thanks to @forpiratereasons for this post.)

Fang and Ed having a heart to heart was every damn thing to me.

The crew took it upon themselves to advance their healing by doing arts and crafts for Izzy. Maybe the fact that he's literally falling apart at the seams earns their pity, maybe they don't want another Ed situation, maybe both. Regardless, that arc is for the crew. And none of the crew know what Izzy did (though Lucius seemed to suspect something). Even Stede--who still doesn't know--extended an olive branch.

Eps 4 and 5 were all about individual healing and repairing relationships, and how those two works interact. Those works are in progress and unfinished.

Even as he began accepting the crew's overtures in eps 4-5, Izzy still carried this edge of unease. Maybe just because Izzy is emotionally constipated, and he for sure is; but maybe, maybe because he knows deep down how unearned these gifts are.

The reckoning that must come between Ed and Izzy has not happened yet.

Ojalá que venga.

#ofmd #ofmd season 2 #izzy critical #ofmd meta #izzy x the consequences of his own actions #his own racist queer phobic abusive sell out actions #this redemption arc is a fucking trust fall for me #and i am struggling #izzy hands

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some-anonymity-preferred · 7 months

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real talk

Coffee in bed this morning, brought to me by my Stede-coded partner. ☕️👩🏽💖👱🏻‍♂️☕️

Sitting here catching up on y'all's posts, and at the same time fielding texts from my sister.

She took her very white friend to the ER in Austin this morning with presumed gallbladder issues. Staff did intake on the friend without asking for ID or proof of insurance.

Now she's waiting for the friend, and she's watched two Mexican (Texas speak for brown; they could be from Texas, Mexico, Central America) patients come in and be asked for multiple forms of ID, their SSN, and so on, before anyone will even look at them. They sent one of them away and he came back 20 minutes later with ID. 20 minutes.

And I start remembering last night, and the little queer gaming con I went to in support of my partner and his young teen.

While we were registering, an attendee came up to me and said I looked like someone they knew, and what was my name?

I answered with my government name (I'd considered using my stage name on my badge, shoulda done that), and they recoiled. Looked me over for a beat and said, "So you're Israeli?!?!"

(Whoa, my person, that's several long leaps to a wrong conclusion, though I support what I guess is your anti-Zionism.)

Taken aback just long enough to keep my sigh and eyeroll internal, I corrected, "No, my name is Mexican."

And they recoiled again, "You're from Mexico."

"I... yeah. Sure."

I didn't manage to keep the sigh internal that time. No matter. They'd already turned away to my white companions to invite them to play board games with them.

(I saw one other person of color, likely Native, at the con. Two of us out of maybe 40 people in the room. We're in a large city in the Upper Midwest, but this all could have happened anywhere in the US.)

Anyway. These are the things on my mind as I drink my Princess Coffee and read all your comments on @tfemteach's post about Izzy's missing apology, and I just want to say that I love each and every one of you who has also been feeling ill and ill-served about it. Whatever your reasons. I see you and love you.

@scarrletmoon @daria-meoi @naranjapetrificada @jaskierx @cursedgaysuit @tfemteach of course, and many others. 💖

#ofmd #ofmd season 2 #real life #cw racism #cw microaggressions #cw racism in healthcare #izzy critical #being a fandom is suffering #izzy x the consequences of his own actions #his own racist queer phobic abusive sell out actions #this redemption arc is a fucking trust fall for me #apparently into a pit of despair #fandom racism #la vida es dolor

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some-anonymity-preferred · 7 months

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another reason

Without an acknowledgement of what (who, ie Izzy) pushed Ed into his self-destructive spiral, Stede is still free to imagine it was a direct result of his leaving Ed on the dock.

That's a falsehood that Stede's self-esteem issues and his complex about ruining Ed shouldn't have to bear. And their relationship shouldn't have to bear it, either.

I'm not as invested in Stede telling Ed the immediate cause of him leaving Ed at the dock.* Even so, not knowing about Badminton leaves Ed free to imagine Stede only loves the Blackbeard mask and is repulsed by Ed.

That's another falsehood that should not be left in place to support Ed's feelings of being trapped in the role and of his own unlovability. And their relationship should not have to bear that falsehood, either.

And if the relationship is the show...

It's standing (failing to stand, really) on two rotten legs, if you will. And you know what has to happen to rotten legs...

*Took a moment to sort out why. First, the minor reason: Stede addressed it, very obliquely, in S2e4. "I panicked." It's not a full explanation, but it's not bad for Captain Stede Talk-It-Through Bonnet, I guess.

Second, and much more importantly: Stede running away after Badminton kidnapped and berated him is nowhere near as nauseating to me as Izzy threatening Ed's life if he doesn't stop pining for his boyfriend and climb back into the suffocating, violent, hypermasculine, racialized, Blackbeard box where Izzy wants him. No idea why...

Third, corollary: Stede's reaction to Ed's bare face, his consternation at Ed calmly folding socks, his continued pirate worship, his leaning into his vision of perfectly socially acceptable masculinity--they are in some ways far softer, subtler versions of Izzy's nastiness. But! We watch Stede grow. Sometimes he learns the wrong lessons, sometimes he backslides, somehow he never seems quite to keep up with Ed's trajectory and they are constantly on different pages (boys, use your damn words already!). But learn and grow and change he does. I love that about him! The show shows his work, and still seems to take it seriously. And the show gives him sympathetic motivations. Izzy? Doesn't show his work, we're supposed to just accept his change, and his motivations have only ever been The Worst. There's this weird feeling that Izzy is both a more minor character than he was in Season 1 while simultaneously chewing up way more precious Season 2 screen time. Again, Izzy is Special.

#ofmd #ofmd season 2 #stede bonnet #edward teach #gentlebeard #izzy hands #izzy critical #ofmd meta #my meta #this redemption arc is a fucking trust fall for me #apparently into a pit of despair #izzy x the consequences of his own actions #his own racist queer phobic abusive sell out actions #the relationship is the show #David Jenkins said so #a rotten leg has to come off #the new frikkin unicorn said so #being a fandom is suffering #fandom racism

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some-anonymity-preferred · 7 months

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@naranjapetrificada frames Izzy's season 2 arc with the crew in terms of rehabilitation vs atonement. That framing just now helped something else come clear.

I disagree with people who say that Izzy pushed Ed into a suicidal spiral, and Ed shot Izzy's leg off while he was in that spiral, so they're even.*

There's neither rehabilitation nor atonement there.

Izzy fucked around and found out. Izzy reaped and Izzy sowed.

Ed gets nothing from that, except for more guilt and more confirmation that he is a monster. Ed gets neither the balm of rehabilitating an undeserving Izzy that the crew later gets, nor the atonement that Ed offers to Fang, to Izzy(!), even to Lucius.

At best Ed enacted retributive justice on Izzy. And we see how well that works when Lucius takes Ed up on his offer to shove him overboard, don't we? It may be a band-aid, but it's not a cure.

* To say nothing of Ed's S2e6 verbal apology to Izzy for the leg, which knocks things out of balance again, doesn't it. If you believed there was balance before, which I don't.

#ofmd #ofmd season 2 #ofmd s2e5 #ofmd s2e6 #edward teach #izzy hands #lucius spriggs #fang #ofmd meta #my meta #izzy hands fucked around and found out #izzy x the consequences of his own actions #his own racist queer phobic abusive sell out actions #this redemption arc is a fucking trust fall for me #apparently into a pit of despair #being a fandom is suffering #izzy critical #not actually critical #but ya know

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some-anonymity-preferred · 7 months

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OFMD S2e4 and S2e5

Here I lay out why I hold some hope that Izzy is still going to have to face what he did to Ed. And that I understand, narratively, why that reckoning is yet to come. But do I ever need it to happen, because watching Izzy's redemption among the people who don't know about the namby-pamby scene really soured my enjoyment of episodes 4 and 5.

And there was so much to enjoy!

"And his brain is maybe couscous." Roach, I love you.

"You're no fucking mermaid."

The Whitesnake. Oh summer afternoons at my hometown roller rink...

Chaos gremlin lesbians.

Ed rejecting Stede's overtures while very much wanting them. His little smiles.

I love everything about you. Breathing the same air.

Mary Read: Breathing the same air *snort*

Ed in a pet play collar and bell asking Stede to practice his Captain voice on him.

Garlic-clad polycule in a bed.

Wee John's knitting needles.

The entire curse/peanut allergy thing.

Stede loving his swishy red cursed suit.

Stede's meltdown in his swishy red cursed suit.

Stede's warning shot.

Nathan Foad cracking up laughing when the sandwich hit him in the face.

The flying shoes.

The flag.

The fish.

Syphillis!

A safe spaceship.

Ed's non-apology.

So did Buttons really turn into a bird, or did you kill him? ... Still sticking to that one I see.

Roach acknowledging Frenchie's beautiful body.

Lucius' new trousers.

His little dance after he shoves Ed overboard.

Pete talking sense to Lucius.

The crew using principles they learned with Stede to start their own healing.

The unicorn leg.

Fang and Ed working it out together.

Stede finally expressing beings about Ed planning to murder him.

The mutual accusations of seeing the other as a whim.

I was all in, mate. I panicked.

Blanket fort 2.0

The kiss. The hands.

All of Stede and Ed's interactions.

Con O'Neill. Seriously. I fucking love him, and his performance.

I just want to watch it all again without feeling like I'm sucking on a lemon.

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some-anonymity-preferred · 7 months

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in further defense of Ed Teach, baby girl

One of the arguments I see against the Izzy woobifiers is that Ed is a main character and the narrative asks us to sympathize with him. whereas Izzy is a secondary character and does not receive the same narrative weight.

This argument is true and valid.

The argument I don't see yet is that Stede is also a main character and the narrative also asks us to sympathize with him--above our sympathy with secondary characters like Frenchie, Jim, and Fang, however much we may love them.

Frenchie and Jim have new trauma bonds with Izzy. Fang has that and a long-standing, if unhealthy, relationship with him. We see these things and they are fair (even if they feel unearned and narratively short-changed right now).

Stede shows up, refuses to give Izzy the time of day, and stays emotionally three steps ahead of him. The narrative is also asking us to sympathize with that, and you know what? It makes my heart sing. Because it also makes sense.

And it resonates with me in a way that the crew's new bonds with Izzy do not.

I saw what Izzy did to Ed in S1e10, and what we see onscreen in season 2 so far implies that Stede can guess, or at least will not be surprised by it. I did not see Izzy earning redemption from the crew, no matter that they did. OFMD pays a lot of attention to relative narrative weights. I hope that's what's happening here.

I hope we get to see these worldviews collide and the entire crew (co-captains included) come out stronger for talking it through.

#ofmd #ofmd season 2 #edward teach #ofmd meta #stede bonnet #izzy hands #izzy critical #not really critical #but ya know #izzy x the consequences of his own actions #his own racist queer phobic abusive sell out actions #this redemption arc is a fucking trust fall for me #being a fandom is suffering #my meta

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