Izzy Hands Ofmd - Tumblr Posts

Did some sketches of some OFMD characters from memory- currently a little miffed that Ed's the only one who looks concerningly different compared to how I pictured him in my head. Also did these at like, 3 am?? So bear with me please-

Stede over here looking like Raphael in Baldur's Gate 3 -sobbing-

I like how this reads- a lot. I feel like if Izzy and Ed had "talked it through", things might have been very different. But, based off of snippets and vaguely insinuated backstories, it makes me wonder if Izzy had been brought up ignored. Watching his interactions with Ed during the first season reminds me of myself when I try to talk about serious subjects and people just brush me off for "fun" or "different" things. "You just know everything about anything". I get irritated, snippy even. Izzy tries to keep his cool, but he also tries to herd Ed away from the "fun" and "different" things because it's not serious- and these distractions in their world are very life-threatening.

As much as I've understood from the lack of backstory, Ed's straying from his persona towards Stede and his little quirks could be seen as a threat to Izzy and Ed's relationship- more than just what we see with Blackbeard- and as well as their actual lives.

For all we know, Izzy is only this way because Ed was the one person who did listen to his consulting. (Calico Jack, on the other hand, maybe not so much, in my opinion.) And to see someone he had spent his entire adulthood and basically devoted himself to just up and find a new "plaything" can be detrimental to someone who had only one thing to hold onto. Even if they were romantic or platonic, Izzy could very well be jealous and scared that the one thing he had was leaving him, especially with the responsibility of keeping Blackbeard's name.

They're both traumatized and couldn't balance it out with their own personalities. It may have worked in their prime, however, I feel like Izzy really put it in perspective with his talk about retirement with Stede. Izzy only sees his own demise in his future- Ed saw repeating scenarios, longing for change. Being a pirate was a serious commitment he had, much like upholding Blackbeard. For Ed, I feel like the whole Blackbeard thing was another one of his whims. He only stuck to it because Izzy made him- it was the one thing he was able to keep him focused on.

I don't know, maybe I'm just rambling incoherently at 5 in the morning about something random. But, still. Miscommunication was most definitely an issue that caused plenty a problem for their already rotting relationship.

Hope you don't mind my reply- I tried to keep it as coherent as possible in my sleep deprived delirium.

“You worship the sun, but you keep feeding the dark.”

Thoughts on Ed, Izzy and Miscommunication.

“Drowning in the Sound” by Amanda Palmer is not on my list of go-to Blackhands songs, but that line above sums up Izzy so well for me, and a comment on my most recent fic update got me thinking about one of the more controversial lines from the finale.

“I fed your darkness.”

First things first: I'm not a canyonite, but I do unapologetically love Izzy as a character and do not buy into the narrative that he was an abusive manipulator and Ed was a helpless victim. If that makes you decide that I'm a dumbass, feel free to scroll on past. You're not gonna like the rest of this post.

We good? Okay.

So I know a lot of people hated that line and that scene in general, for a lot of reasons I won't get into here, but I wasn't one of them. While I don't agree with the Izzy=Abusive Manipulator takes, I also don't agree with the interpretation that Izzy was 100% the victim and Ed was a monstrous abuser. To me, their relationship was always a complicated, messy arrangement between two deeply flawed people, with far too many unspoken assumptions at its core. And one of the things that made it so fascinating for me was Izzy's ability to harm Ed when he thought he was helping him.

Look. I fully believe that at one point in time, these two loved each other. By the time we meet them in canon, the foundation of their relationship has rotted, but they are both self-actualized enough to leave a situation if it truly never made them happy.

That doesn't mean I think they were ever explicitly a romantic couple, or ever physically intimate (I actually think that never happened in canon.) But they loved each other once, and tried to show each other that love, and they are both so. Fucking. Bad at it. Or at least, they're bad at understanding how the other interprets the ways they say "I love you."

Take Ed. Yes, he uses a lot of physical touch, but I think Ed's truest way of expressing affection is inviting someone else to play with him. That's why he falls so hard for Stede- he's the playmate Ed never had, the one person who's always ready to give him a "Yes, and." And we see this in his interactions with Izzy in s1e4- calling Izzy to check out things he thinks are cool, trying to get him talking about the shape of the clouds. He's inviting Izzy to play with him, and it's going completely over Izzy's head, because Izzy doesn't want to play! He's at work! Now's not the time, Edward! But that's the thing- they're Blackbeard and Izzy Hands. They're never not at work. And that's what causes Ed's despair and Izzy's frustration to build, because they don't know how to interact with each other outside the context of their jobs.

So what looks like love, to Izzy?

My guess? Bonnie & Clyde. Natural Born Killers. Thelma & Louise. Us against the world, baby. Life is cruel and short, and ends violently, but at least we've got each other. We don't get info about Izzy's background, but his interactions with Ed vs. everyone else, and especially his possessiveness of Edward behind the Blackbeard persona, suggests a man for whom personal relationships are Serious Business. It's not about fun. It's about survival.

I think to Izzy, being someone's only safe person to be around, being the only two people in the world who understand each other, being constantly under threat and prepared to kill to protect one another, is heart-stoppingly romantic.

But it's not romantic for Ed at all. It's terrifying.

Ed's worried he's unlovable. He's worried he's a monster deep down. It's not going to make him feel safe, to be told that there's only one person in the world who really gets him. It's going to feel terribly isolating, and on top of that, it feels so serious. Ed doesn't want a relationship rooted in violence- he grew up around that, and it destroyed his family.

And Izzy has no idea.

He doesn't know about any of Ed's baggage with his father, or the self-esteem issues that make him worry he's unlovable. He doesn't know how alone it makes Ed feel to be told there's no one like him, even in the context of a compliment ("the most brilliant sailor I had ever met") or how triggering it would be to watch one person he loves hurt another (how could Ed not have been thinking of his parents during the duel scene?)

I think a lot of people assume that when Izzy says "I fed your darkness," he's referring to the "namby pamby in a silk gown" scene. But that was Izzy in a state of near-panic, desperate to say something that would get Ed to take him seriously, and I don't think that's what their relationship normally looked like.

I think Izzy fed Ed's darkness "for years" by telling him, through words or actions, that there was only ever the two of them, that they couldn't trust anybody else, that one of them would die defending the other.

"I fed your darkness" was Izzy realizing that to Ed, that didn't sound like, "I love you." It sounded like, "Without me, you're completely alone." And being alone is the thing that frightens Ed the most.

NEW ANIMATIC IS FINALLY OUT!! I mostly made this on a whim because I am of the correct opinion that Izzy Hands and Pearl from Steven Universe are the same character in different fonts, but uh...that might have not been the best excuse to make an animatic because you can tell I kind of got sick of it by the end and I couldn’t be assed to color it in but I never have to look at it again so!

Thumbnail with no text:

Hehe sneek peak of what I’m working on