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something-about-sunflowers · 1 year

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Do people forget that the Revenge like. Isn’t a normal pirate ship? Like. Its commented on by several people? Including the crew of the Revenge itself?

‘Izzy just doesn’t realize that he’s the only one with hangups about Ed Having Feelings/pirates showing emotion in general’ is an abysmal take lmfao.

Ed is the one who insisted that ‘the love of a pet makes a man weak’. Fang says ‘this is the most open we’ve ever seen [Ed]’. Frenchie suggests bottling up emotions. The whole crew is confused by ‘talk it through’ when its first suggested. ‘La vida es dolor’. ‘What kinda pirates are these?’ ‘What kind of pirate has a friend? We’re all just in varying stages of fucking each other over’.

Like.

The world outside of the Revenge is not a kind one. It is dangerous to show your belly on literally any other ship. Izzy is (presumably, given its Con’s age) 55/56. Ed says ‘Most of the pirates I know? They’re dead’. You don’t get to be 56 as a pirate if you’re not actively protecting yourself. Including emotionally.

Do you really think that the legend of Blackbeard would be feared near as much if people knew he was a big weepy softie? Regardless of how much he is or isn’t actually that, if he’s showing emotion that isn’t anger that’s how he’s perceived.

#the dork is being a dork #izzy hands #edward teach #the villainization of izzy hands #the woobification of edward teach #im pretty sure the post that inspired this little rant is an older one?#but GOD is it just such a bad take #i had to say something lmfao #literally why do you think stede is unique and novel to ed?#its not the finery‚ he's 'got more riches than you can shake a stick at' if he wanted finery he could HAVE it without stede #its the attitude #its the revenge being a safe space #like do we think ed 'killed' lucius for no reason?#lucius is the only one bar izzy who saw ed at his lowest #and ed cannot trust him not to talk #AND lucius is the one who encouraged him to let down his walls with stede #like #GOD #im so tired of the shit takes

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diet-bathwater · 5 months

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me when my favorite fictional grown man has to answer for actual literal murder and warcrimes

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thesmallworldofsamizayn · 2 years

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I think izzy hands enjoyers and Edward teach enjoyers could both benefit from admitting that they wanna woobify just cause that's what your sad heart wants to do with its favourite character and there isn't much more to it than that. People trying to back up their vilification of one/woobification of the other with facts and logic and getting upset about the other side totally misunderstanding these characters, and then getting angry that this is actually also reflective of wider issues of ableism/homophobia/racism/abuse apologism etc? Youre all missing the point my friends!! The only "logic" behind wanting to justify most of your favourite characters actions and make them out to be the sad little victim is that they are your favourite character.

For me, I accepted a long time ago that I don't choose my favourite in some sort of internal contest judging who the Best Character In Real Terms is, no its literally out of my hands, my brain will just start obsessing over one of them more than the others, and I just have to go with it. Izzy invaded my brain before i even started watching, literally from seeing a couple of gifsets and getting the familiar "oh no" feeling. So yeah, I'm woobifying izzy hands right now. Is it cause I actually think, gun to my head, he's the "real" victim, and Edward is The Abuser? Not at all, its a purely emotional response and mostly related to maximising my angst potential with this character. If Edward was my main man it would be the same process just applied to him. There's no moral stakes to this its just fanfiction about fictional characters, and whoever you woobify is not a matter of doing the media right or wrong, its just a matter of personal taste.

If you want to get into it both Ed and izzy are awful people. I'll admit izzy is more awful if only for lacking some of ed's charming features. but that doesn't matter to your monkey brain that's latched onto one or the other like a barnacle! Tl;Dr just let your heart want what it wants and woobify, you don't need a good reason

#izzy hands #edward teach #ofmd #this is directed in equal parts to fans of both #btw fans who will say they dont woobify their faves and they do in fact base their characterisation on logic #excellent you keep doing you! this is mostly directed at the long discourse posts on Why Izzy/Ed Is The Abuser #also that one anon who we all know and love who cannot bear even the slightest hint of izzy woobification #dennis girls from iasip fandom got this. they woobified him of 'The Implication' fame and did they angst over that? no! and they were right

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ladyluscinia · 11 months

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Welcome to my OFMD Masterpost. I've been having a great time writing meta about this show and the (frankly concerning at times) fandom around this show. Here's a couple of my highlights:

My First Major Analysis of Edward Teach (April 2022) - If you read any singular post of mine to understand where I'm coming from, pick this one

Izzy Hands, Manipulation, and Why the Navy Plot Rules (September 2023)

Fic Statistics Analysis and Looking at a Different Angle + Updated Stats Pre-S2

Stede Bonnet in 1x02

1x04 Good Cop / Bad Cop is so Compelling

Comparing Drawings of Blackbeard

Sometimes I write meta for Calico Jack, and I fell into a JackHands manifesto because it's hilarious

My elaborate Anne Bonny dreams

More (shorter) Analyzing the Navy Plot (also defending it somewhat)

Summarizing my takes on 1x09 and 1x10

I spent a few days discussing woobification and Edward Teach, and speculating on fandom response

This fandom is weird and pretty toxic btw

Oh, and here's my Izzy Hands Playlists. For fun!

Ships:

#blackhands, #steddyhands, #blackbonnet

Characters:

#izzy hands ofmd, #blackbeard ofmd, #stede bonnet ofmd, #calico jack ofmd, #fang ofmd, #ivan ofmd, #spanish jackie ofmd, #mary bonnet ofmd, Post with tags for the whole Revenge crew

Topics of Interest:

#ofmd meta, #give me anne bonny, #ofmd harassment (unfortunately), #genre fuckery, #sea god izzy, #breakup boat, #ofmd daemon au

#our flag means death #masterpost #ladyluscinia

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orange-locust · 2 years

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hmmm. i am having thoughts as a neurodivergent person about "adhd" edward teach........ and like the adhd/autism "dichotomy".... and neurodivergence discourse more broadly

many thoughts but one of them is the anti-woobification of adhd?

adhd makes you messy and weird and not in a cute way, adhd makes it very hard to hold your own life together or stick to principles, it can be very dark and alienating and dissociative. a not-infrequent adhd sensation is wanting to rip all my skin off and set shit on fire. i dont know.

i got way more to say on this but i dont know if it hangs together. i'll come back for this

#ofmd

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something-about-sunflowers · 2 years

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Re that bizzare ask about Ed being the victim because he had to commit violence against Izzy. Loved your response. I definitely think people forget all the power Ed for some reason. maybe it's a power imbalance they are not used to idk. But Izzy is Ed's employee. But I digress, I was shocked when they said Ed had to commit this act of violence. Ed didn't have to do shit. He did not have to hurt Izzy, he chose to. No one (least of all Izzy) was forcing him to maim Izzy.

Thanks! Honestly, I'd say its not that people forget about the power imbalance and Ed's power over Izzy, or they're not used to it, so much as they like, pretend that its not actually like that? I'm sure it doesn't necessarily come from a place of malice, some people prefer a certain dynamic with their ships and if canon contradicts that there's really no inherent issue in using the dynamic anyway in transformative works like fan fiction. The problem comes when 1. They try and force everyone else to conform to their preferences, even insisting that it's canon. And 2. They attack and/or defame people for enjoying a different dynamic or preferring the actual canon.

(Though I'd also argue that there's a 3rd issue in that they take agency away from the characters when they insist on the 'uwu Ed's really just baby and he was happy and sweet and totally a morally upstanding person with no nuance and Izzy's a mean ol' abuser forcing him to be a mean scary dom when he only wants to cuddle and not fuck, never ever ever ever fuck how dare you even think that with Stede uwu' but that's a whole other can of worms that I'd rather not open lmao.)

Anyway, they prefer the dynamic where Ed isn't actually Blackbeard (And where Stede isn't also more than a bit of a maniac who likes the Blackbeard side of Ed) because it works better for their fluff and for their angst. That's fine. Really, it is. But to insist that everyone has to prefer or enjoy this, honestly, kind of flat take and anyone who doesn't is some kind of horrid monster, I think we can all agree (At least those of us who have more than two brain cells to rub together), is ridiculous.

And, honestly, there's quite a lot of 'other woman'-ing going on with Izzy and how he's treated by certain fans? The amount of times I've seen people go on at length about how proud they are of the fandom for not treating Mary like shit because she 'got in the way of their ship', as it happens in other fandoms where there's a female character that's either canonically or assumed to be the main love interest while the fandom ships the male character with his best friend or something similar, is kind of ridiculous when you consider that Mary was never actually Stede's love interest and the fact that they turn around and treat Izzy like that instead. Because, whether or not he is a potential love interest for Ed, Ed is a potential love interest for Izzy and that would get in the way of their ship.

I say this as someone who ships Ed/Stede, by the way. I also say this as someone who ships Ed/Izzy, Stede/Izzy, and Ed/Stede/Izzy. I enjoy a plethora of dynamics and I don't see the point in pushing my preferences on other people. Hell, I also ship Izzy/Jack. I know that's not everyone's cup of tea and that's fine. I know how to sit in my own little corner of the fandom and enjoy it with like-minded people.

But some people just can't live with the possibility of their otp not being together, even in someone else's fan fiction, so they have to make up reasons for it to be some type of moral issue. And they do that by making Izzy out to be much more of a villain than he is or even really has the potential to be in canon. So. 'Izzy forced Ed to maim him. And to kill Lucius. And to maroon the crew. And to kidnap Jim and Frenchie. Etc.'

#the dork is being a dork #the dork answers #ofmd #our flag means death #izzy hands #edward teach #the woobification of edward teach #the villainization of izzy hands #its a real problem in this fandom #and its getting to be ridiculous

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ladyluscinia · 2 years

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Still rotating the woobification of Edward Teach a bit in my mind.

Putting this under a cut because I'm not actually trying to vague anybody specific, including OP of that post I responded to, but I do think this is very common in this fandom and liable to feel targeted toward a lot of people (especially as a wall of text).

Like, fundamentally, what happened on screen in 1x10 is Edward was hurting emotionally and he decided to try and murder 7 people about it and maim an 8th.

We can extensively break down what comprised "hurting emotionally," what other factors were in play, if edward shows signs of multiple personas or cptsd or mental illness, how vulnerable he was feeling, etc etc and some of the analysis can be really awesome, but he still tried to murder 7 people about it. If your conclusion starts trending toward how tragic it is for Edward that he did that, and how other people need to hurt him less as the way to "fix" it, then I think you are putting on major blinders toward Edward's culpability here... which is woobification.

The Izzy thing too. We can debate the severity of Izzy's actions and how affected Edward was by them, but they can be pretty damn severe and still objectively not warrant mutilation as punitive justice (or the really gross excuse of "he wanted it"). Because that's pretty universally a Bad Thing To Do. It was an outsized and extremely fucked up response, and if the writers were kinda fucked up and wanted you to excuse it anyway and think Edward was still a mostly good guy, then I don't see why they would pair it with trying to murder 7 other people. (Or not just make Izzy textually a lot worse. That's the kind of shit you put in text, not subtext.)

Edward is a very sympathetic protagonist, and he's in a very forgiving show where this is clearly not meant to be a Moral Event Horizon of any kind. He does have a lot of canon trauma and mental issues that make fans want to sympathize with and identify with him, but if focusing on how he chose to become the Kraken and hurt people seems too dismissive and insulting toward his emotional state and trauma, it's possible the issue is over-identification on their end, not the accusations of woobification on mine.

Now I'm thinking of someone who pointed out - and I cannot remember who or in what context for the life of me - they pointed out that if this is a reaction that is on the table for Edward, especially after he waits for several hours and puts thought into the decision, then Stede was in legit mortal danger if this was not blowing up before he got back. Whatever unaddressed baggage Edward is carrying around that leads to this level of violence doesn't just go away. It's a landmine, and someone was going to trip it eventually.

That, I think, is a major reason I'm so unconvinced by the idea Edward was on a track to healing at any point. Maybe, if Izzy had said nothing and his talent show had gone off without a hitch, he might have delayed the explosion, but any issues that lead to trying to murder 7 people after a few hours are going to crop up again. And soon. Stede was going to fuck up or get into a fight with him (or hell, just return from his abandonment and say the wrong thing in greeting) and someone was going to get really fucking hurt, and it wasn't going to be Edward.

The setup for S2 is also the setup for Edward's character arc, and for that to even be an arc Edward must be in need of character development. If he's already the guy that he'll be at the end of the show, and all this is just the result of outside harm that needs to be soothed away by his true love, then I reiterate from my previous post - that's Boring As Fuck. If you haven't identified a character flaw (or likely set of flaws) that is causing the Kraken turn and is in need of resolution, then maybe you ought to look for some. (And, no, "being traumatized" is not a responsible flaw. We don't treat trying to murder 7 people as a reasonable part of the slow process of healing.)

(I'm sighing dramatically a lot as I type this, if you want to retroactively add that to your mental read.)

I suppose, in conclusion, there's not much anyone can do about this trend, other than hope S2 is explicit about Edward's mindset in a way that steers people into more flaw-based analysis. And getting a canon resolution will let fans uninterested in rooting for morally dubious characters just jump to that point in canon and pretend none of the prior stuff happened (a slight improvement to pretending Edward isn't morally dubious right now because they like him).

But until then, there's going to keep being posts made openly about how Izzy is really the one responsible for Lucius being shoved overboard and the crew being marooned. And for every one of those, there will be dozens about how Edward was ready to heal and retire and the whole situation can be resolved with nothing but a love declaration from Stede, which makes Edward hurt less and therefore fixes everything.

And I'm going to keep being annoyed by them, I guess.

#our flag means death #anyway i have a very interesting anon on the subject to go think about answering #but the overwhelming dominance of 'people need to hurt edward less' as a total solution is making meta and predictions suck #blackbeard ofmd #fandom culture #woobification #ladyluscinia

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