Hi all! Here is any information you might want to know such as links to other social media and a list of works. All works are also available on ao3. If any links don't work, please check out my ao3 instead. Fics there are organized into the same series they are here.
Links:
My Linktree
Note: Chapter fics have a special tag that goes with each one so you can find them that way if you don't want to click through here.
This fanfiction is tagged with the assumption that you have watched the show Our Flag Means Death and are okay with the canon content. All fics are tagged for triggers beyond what is shown in the original show. For example, I will not be tagging fics for swearing and alcohol use because the original show has plenty of it.
Golden Age of Piracy Series:
These are stand-alone fics that take place in the OFMD canon universe.
Temet Nosce (#ellie tn):
Summary: A Stede Bonnet character study/reunion fic that explores the frequent references in the show to Stede being someone less than human. Stream of consciousness writing with a surrealist bent. 7 chapters, 14k words, complete.
Content Warnings: The same kind/level of language and violence as seen on the show, no more or less.
The Man who has Never Felt Anything (#ellie mwnfa):
Summary: Stream of consciousness Stede POV of being stabbed in episode 3 and episode 4. Created for #Whumptober2022 and #ofmdskeletoncrew. 4 chapters, 2.5k words.
Content Warnings: The same kind/level of language and violence as seen on the show, no more or less.
The Man who Forgot (#ellie mwf):
Summary: Ed POV Stream of Consciousness about forgetting to get Stede down from the mast, and the aftermath. A close to a portrayal about thinking with ADHD as I can get.
Content Warnings: The same kind/level of language and violence as seen on the show, no more or less.
The Full Experience:
Summary: Based on a post byĀ @snake-snack-stede,ā Black Pete learns what Blackbeard did to Lucius and does not react as expected.
Content Warnings: The same kind/level of language and violence as seen on the show, no more or less.
To Wit: Macarena!:
Summary: Crack one-shot. Ed teaches Stede the Macarena. Things go exactly as planned. 1.6k words.
Content Warnings: The same kind/level of language and violence as seen on the show, no more or less.
Modern AU Series:
These are my stand-alone fics that take place in a Modern AU.
Apologetics:
Summary: Based on the pina coladas SMAU by @faeeebaeee. Takes place in 1987 after Stede chose Mary. Stede POV. 1k words.
Content Warnings: None
The Art of (Smashing) Crockery (#ellie aosc):
Summary: Modern AU where Ed owns a rage room and Stede has a lot to rage about. 30 chapters, 58k words, complete.
Content Warnings: Homophobia/Bullying/Slurs (from Badmintons/Stede's father), Depression, Suicidal Ideation, Alcohol Abuse, Hospitalisation, Mental Illness
Slowvember 2022:
Black Pandather: WaPandas Forever: PandasĀ (The Art of Smashing Crockery)
Voicemail Fail: Lazy River (Doubt Thou the Stars)
Stede's Friends Make Better Floral Choices Challenge: FlowersĀ (a little louder)
Room People: Lazy SundayĀ (The Vacation)
Pick your Own Fruit (As long as it's Stede): Pick Your Own Fruit (Mismatched)
the tastiest of nuts: Farmerās Market (The Camera Loves You, Baby)
If the Kraken aint happy, aint Nobodyās HappyĀ - Beach Day (The Legend of Blackbeard)
Emergency Contact: Sickfic/Nursing a Boo-Boo (like ghosts to trouble heaven)
Let Me Solo Him!
An adaptation of the Scott Pilgrim comics. Stede returns to the Revenge and discovers that he must defeat each of Ed's pirate ex-boyfriends in order to be with him forever. 6 parts.
Full Series List
Volume 1: Stede Bonnet's Precious Little Life
Volume 2: Stede Bonnet vs the World
Volume 3: Stede Bonnet & the Infinite Sadness
Volume 4: Stede Bonnet Gets it Together
Volume 5: Stede Bonnet vs the Universe
Volume 6: Stede Bonnet's Finest Hour
Tag: ellie lmsh
Our Flag Means Stupid Bad Sex:
This series of ficlets take kinks from prompt lists and makes them as unsexy/stupid as possible.
Our Flag Means Stupid Bad Sex - Thread with list of all chapters, kinks, and pairings.
Tag: #ellie stupid bad sex
OFMD Poetry:
I like to experiment with poetry. Here are all of my poems:
The Lovers, the Dreamers, and Swede for the OFMD Big Bang 2023
Title: The Lovers, the Dreamers, and Swede
Author: PhantomEllie
Artist: @natashampa
Beta reader: evilgiraff
Characters: The Swede, Stede Bonnet, Edward Teach
Relationship(s): The Swede/Spanish Jackie, The Swede/Roach, The Swede/Geraldo, The Swede/Calico Jack Rackham/Bigfoot/Ned the Jungle Cat, Stede Bonnet/Edward Teach
Rating: Explicit
Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Comedy, Fluff, Ensemble Cast, Magical Realism, Witchcraft, Consensual Sex (but not safe or sane)
Warnings: Minor Character Death (Season 1 Canonical Only), Recreational Drug Use (Cannabis), Kinks: Figging, Knifeplay, Monsterfucking, Metaphysical Sex, Xenophilia, Biting, Ritual Sex, Sex Magic
Summary: Swede Jensen is a California stoner and deadbeat who hitches a ride with an eccentric rich weirdo to the Sequoia Twilight Witchcamp, a camp of outcasts dedicated to practicing witchcraft in the most eclectic ways possible. Along the way, Swede comes to terms with personal tragedy while observing the weird and wacky hijinks of his new friends who are all dealing with a horrible truth: that they are characters in a story, and their words and actions are at the whim of the narrator who is telling it. Will they escape the confines of their fictional world, or learn to love Big Narrator?
Blackbeard | Edward Teach/Stede Bonnet (Our Flag Means Death) vs LĆ”n ZhĆ n | LĆ”n WĆ ngjÄ«/WĆØi YÄ«ng | WĆØi WĆŗxiĆ n (MĆ³dĆ o ZĒshÄ« - MĆ²xiÄng TĆ³ngxiĆ¹)
Blackbeard/Stede
Lan Wangji/Wei Wuxian
Voting ended onOct 7, 2023
This poll is a celebration of fandom history; we're aware that there are certain issues with many of the listed pairings and sources, but they are a part of that history. Please do not take this as an endorsement, and refrain from harassment.
Blackbeard | Edward Teach/Stede Bonnet (Our Flag Means Death) vs Iwaizumi Hajime/Oikawa Tooru (Haikyuu!!)
Blackbeard/Stede
Iwaizumi/Oikawa
Voting ended onOct 5, 2023
This poll is a celebration of fandom history; we're aware that there are certain issues with many of the listed pairings and sources, but they are a part of that history. Please do not take this as an endorsement, and refrain from harassment.
The Emerald Cravat (and Other Tales to Haunt You) for the OFMD Reverse Bang 2023
My baby is complete! Here she is! This is a collection of four short stories based off of those from the children's scary story book "In a Dark, Dark Room" by Alvin Schwartz. Because these four stories are so completely different from one another, I split them into four works so that you can mind the tags. They are completely separate, and you do not need to read one to read another. Below the link I'll give brief information about each one so you can decide if it's something you're interested in. Not all of them are scary! The first two are pure horror, the third one is more melancholy mixed with funny, and the last one is just pure fun for my Canyon friends.
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the
Organization for Transformative Works
Story One: The Emerald Cravat (based off of The Green Ribbon) - This story features Stede Bonnet, angst, cryptids, a curse and some gore/body horror. It's a retelling of Stede's life as well as the first season of the show with Stede under a terrible curse. This one is pure horror/angst. 6k words.
Story Two: The Puppet (based off of The Pirate) - This story features Edward, angst, a haunting, and is IMO as the writer both the scariest and best of the lot. 3.7k words.
Story Three: La Noche que LloviĆ³Ā Sangre (based off of The Night it Rained) - This story features Jim and their backstory, a (literal) ghost from their past, as well as interjections/monologues from various characters involved in their story. Not scary, but does involve the ghost of a child and all that entails, so please mind the tags if child death isn't your favorite. 4k words.
Story Four: Winner Teeth: The Rap Opera (based off of The Teeth) - This work of genius features Izzy Hands and a whole lot of sick bars. Izzy has to defend the Revenge from Stede's onboarding crew. Why does he have to do it in verse? Because. Not scary at all, just silly and different. It does have canon-typical violence in it FYI, but isn't graphic. 2.1k words.
My artist for this RBB unfortunately went MIA during the process, and I am therefore unable to share the (frankly gorgeous) art that they produced for it. I therefore decided to create my own art for all four works, even though my own skill is lacking. I did use real-life photographs of objects and screenshots from the show as references (and to trace from in a couple of instances) in order to do this for full disclosure. I did not make the art for these fics as a way to show off my talent or skill, but more to just contribute to the vibe and give a visual reference for a couple of things. The first of the works contains a guest piece of art by @thequeenhasnolife which is just so special to me.
The Emerald Cravat (and other tales to haunt you) for the OFMD Reverse Big Bang 2023
Hi all! I was lucky to have been given the opportunity to write two RBBs this year. This one is a 4-part series of short stories based off of the children's scary story book "In a Dark, Dark Room" by Alvin Schwartz. The first story up is "The Emerald Cravat" featuring our man Stede Bonnet.
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the
Organization for Transformative Works
The Lost Children of Ikatera for the OFMD Reverse Big Bang!
I am so excited to share this fic with you all! I have so much to say about it which won't fit in my Ao3 post, so I will be writing it all here and reblogging for subsequent chapter posts. But first, the link:
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the
Organization for Transformative Works
This post covers general information on this fic as well as chapters 1 & 2. I will reblog it with further posts covering the different chapters.
What you need to know is that this is a Victorian AU based on the novels of Jules Verne, H. G. Wells, and other similar authors of that era. The author of this novel is Jonathan āCalcut Jackā Rackham, and is told entirely from his perspective. He is a highly unreliable narrator due to his tendency to focus on his own selfish needs and desires rather than to truly pay attention to what is going on around him. However, I hope that I succeeded in making him a bit nuanced and interesting throughout this work.
I would like to give the biggest thank you and credit to TheQueenHasNoLife (on Twitter), who is the artist for this RBB as well as the one who came up with the, frankly, brilliant prompt idea for this fic. Every single idea and suggestion they had made this work twice as interesting and complex as it had been before. I have always admired them since I first stumbled across their own fanfiction last October, and am beyond honored to have helped to bring their vision to light here. I hope there will be future collaborations in store for us!
I would also like to credit the following users: @Ghost_Deb_ on Twitter and DeathStranded who were my beta readers for this fic and gave incredible feedback and insight on how it read, @Tiny_Book_Worm on Twitter who was kind enough to answer my questions on the transmasc experience while writing for Izzy, as well as Mod Jay (mortenavida) who answered endless stupid questions from me throughout this process and helped to determined Jackās fate in the final chapter with their deep knowledge of Floridian lore.
Despite strenuous efforts I was unable to obtain a beta or a sensitivity reader for the sections of the fic that deal with Maori language and culture, for which I apologize. If I have gotten anything wrong on this subject, feel free to DM me on Twitter or Tumblr, and I will make the changes necessary. I am open to criticism and safe to DM on this matter.
Last note on the art in this fic: In addition to the absolutely stunning and detailed art by TheQueenHasNoLife, I have peppered this work with several authentic drawings/documents from the 1800s. I have credited my source for each under the image.
On the Narrator/"Calicut Jack":
This fic is told in the form of an adventure novel written in the style of Jules Verne and H. G. Wells. Only this time, its author is Jonathan "Calicut Jack" Rackham. This is the bit that interested me the most about this prompt. If you've read these kinds of novels before from this time period, you've probably noticed that the narrators are all assholes. They are sexist, racist, and disgusted by everyone who isn't 100% exactly like they are (and also enamored/obsessed with/totally gay for men who are 100% exactly like they are).
I wanted to write this novel from Jack's perspective in the most loquacious, verbose manner humanly possible to give him the illusion of respectability while showing through his actions that he's actually a total trash bag. He's an incredibly unreliable narrator. There are massive plotlines and character arcs going on throughout this story that he barely touches on or mentions because he doesn't notice them. He is completely self-absorbed and has absolutely no capacity for emotional depth.
That being said, that doesn't mean I intend for him to be 100% villainous and evil. He's pathetic and sad, while not quite sympathetic. What you need to know about Jack is he fears change more than anything. He is still the same drunken fratboy he was 15-20 years ago, he hasn't changed at all, and he's terrified that his friends and the people he knows will grow up and move on without him. He doesn't understand that this is his fear because he has no self-awareness. The fear is just there. And he will jump through whatever mental hoops he has to to convince himself that everyone would be happier if they were like him: stagnant and unmoving.
I wrote this chapter with "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea" open in another tab in order to mimic the beginning of both stories and let me tell you, this chapter has NOTHING on that wordy overdescriptive mess. I toned down the descriptions and asides a bit later on in the fic.
Nigelās ship is called the Disraeli because Benjamin Disraeli was an imperialist asshole and you know theyād be all over that.
Source for Jackās Cloak Tent and other Stupid Victorian Inventions
Tawhiri a Utu - This means (roughly) āTawhiriās Revenge,ā although the word āUtuā is more similar to balance/making whole than revenge. Tawhiri is a Maori wind deity.
Edwardās nickname āMan-eaterā was given to him by Jack, who was impressed by his skills with his tongue when it comes to, well, eating out men. Like the show versionās nickname of āBlackie,ā this nickname is intended to be a rather uncomfortable one due to the racist views Western colonizers have had towards the practices of Indigenous cultures (despite the fact that white Europeans themselves engaged in cannibalism through the early 20th century, believing that certain human body parts could cure diseases, though they would never admit to cannibalism because their āmedicineā came in neatly-labeled bottles). Jack, however, lacks the emotional intelligence to determine if Edward is happy with this nickname. Perhaps he will find out.
I spent way too much time researching stupid crap like available ports in 1872 and authentic sailing routes/passenger ships. Like, 2 or 3 whole days just for that, and honestly it was so useless and a waste of time.
I can't allow any more children to be in this fic because I used up every single Victorian-era word for them in this one.
The language Ed speaks with the kid at the end of the chapter is not intended to be Maori, but Rarotongan (because that is the island where they landed). I used the internet's lone Rarotongan dictionary and my decade-old linguistics degree for this and future sections. As far as I can tell there are no Rarotongan betas in existence, sorry about that!
Chapter 2 Notes:
Aquatic Tripod Image Source
I wanted to draw a diagram of the system that holds the Oceanid captive, but I'm not that talented. I tried to think of as many plot holes with it as possible, but my betas thought of a couple I didn't, such as how the weight of hauling an Oceanid in and out of the ocean would probably cause the ship to tilt or even capsize. Whoops! Honestly, it's a really stupid contraption, but Nigel Badminton designed it, what do you want? He's an idiot.
I didn't include a translation for the language spoken between Ed and the Oceanid (which was again Rarotongan) because Jack doesn't know what the words mean and isn't going to bother to find out. However, I've provided them here (again, I did my very best to construct these phrases in a language I don't speak, I hope I got it right). I did not use a translating service for any of these, just studied the crap out of grammar and different examples of sentences and tried to figure it out.
Prompt: "Soulmates - they have each other's first words somewhere on their body, but the words kind of... really suck"
I made this for a mini-challenge for the OFMD Reverse Big Bang, where writers are supposed to draw art for the prompt and artists are supposed to write. I can't draw for crap, this was kinda my first attempt at people. I think it's pretty cute though.
Prompt: "Soulmates - they have each other's first words somewhere on their body, but the words kind of... really suck"
I made this for a mini-challenge for the OFMD Reverse Big Bang, where writers are supposed to draw art for the prompt and artists are supposed to write. I can't draw for crap, this was kinda my first attempt at people. I think it's pretty cute though.
Ed stans are concerning. Like what is it that makes you look at a character that tells Stede:
āMaimingās different. Love a good maim.ā
And goā¦.
āHmmm yes slay king you have never done anything wrong ever and I will bully people online about it.ā
Deadset you are allowed to like him. Heās played by an awesome actor and heās funny (cause holy shit itās a comedy show chill). But to create a version of him in your head that doesnāt exist and then defend that version with your whole chest and slander every other character to try to manipulate that narrative and bully others when they donāt agree?
Thatās telling on yourself.
We are all here in the fandom to have fun.
The minute you start picking fights online with people, no one is having fun. Stop it.
Stede stans are concerning. Like what is it that makes you look at a character that tells Ed:
"Well well, look who's eating seaweed."
And go....
"Hmmm yes slay king you have never done anything wrong ever and I will bully people online about it."
Deadset you are allowed to like him. He's played by an awesome actor and he's funny (cause holy shit it's a comedy show chill). But to create a version of him in your head that doesn't exist and then defend that version with your whole chest and slander every other character to try to manipulate that narrative and bully others when they don't agree?
That's telling on yourself.
We are all here in the fandom to have fun.
The minute you start picking fights online with people, no one is having fun. Stop it.
every so often i see a fanfic where Stede mentions the plantation or owning slaves or something along those lines and i hope that all of those authors know that like. a slave-owner is not a person capable of loving or respecting people of color. someone who has owned human beings, especially as part of the transatlantic slave trade, where the justification is based upon race and the inherent inhumanity of Africans and the non-white, is not a person who can love or respect people of color. if you are writing Stede as a person who, for most of his adult life, owned slaves and operated a plantation, he is inherently going to be a person incapable of fully recognizing or respecting Ed, let alone the Black men on his crew like Roach, Oluwande, and Frenchie.
it just doesn't work like that. you cannot participate in the evil that is the slave trade for so long, and benefit from it, and then turn around and treat with respect and compassion people of the same race as the ones you currently have enslaved back on your estate that you abandoned.
its fucking wild that anyone could think otherwise. the show does not say that Stede Bonnet is a slave owner, and in fact David Jenkins specifically references that he's not writing that guy anymore than he's writing the Blackbeard who raped and organized the gang rape of captive women. obviously I can't control anyone, but please think for five seconds on if it would make sense that Stede could be the kind of person who owns slaves and a plantation and then turns around and respects and loves the humanity of people of color and cares about ruining Ed. please think about what sense it would make for him to take the products of slave labor and eagerly share them with Roach, Oluwande, and Frenchie, and that none of these Black men would have a concern in the world about it, these Black men who literally kill British officers for calling them slaves and using racial insults.
i hope you donāt mind me adding to this but iāve been seeing this topic come up again, specifically by people who dislike the convos about how izzy relates to colonization.
and like, itās absolutely worth criticizing how ofmd handwaves the source of stedeās wealth. the show establishes that slavery exists and that stede owns land. itās weird that in ofmd, apparently āwealthy landowner in 1717 barbadosā means ārich :) donāt worry about how :)ā
but to bring up that criticism only to defend a different white guy??? not only to make the argument that stede owns or used to own slavesāwhich the show deliberately avoids saying for all the reasons you saidābut to use that just to argue that this makes your favorite white male character better than this other white male character???
idk. itās very gross, imo. and i donāt see how ofmdās imperfect handling of the source of stedeās wealth invalidates convos abt how an antagonist relates to the theme of anti-colonization.
Pretty much every time I've seen someone post angrily about Stede being a slave owner or former slave owner it has been in defense of Izzy, which has never made sense to me. Like there was a post where an Izzy fan was just railing calling Stede the greatest piece of shit ever, a horrible abusive owner of slaves... but also you should overlook literally every single thing Izzy says or does because... ?????? Like, I'm an Izzy neutral person, he's an antagonist and he does the job well, but it is absolutely insane to handwave away the actual terrible things Izzy did and then get mad at something Stede MIGHT have done, maybe, in your imagination. And both characters can be pieces of shit, it's not either/or. If you want to get mad at Stede for his potential slave-owning past, you should be doing that on behalf of Ed and the other BIPOC on the ship. Not on behalf of... Izzy Hands.
Also, if you are so enraged at Stede and hate him so much, why are you even watching this show? He doesn't have to be your favorite character but he is the focus of every episode and it seems kind of miserable to watch a show where you hate the main character that much.
Okay so somebody posted this absolutely insane fic called Stede Got Captured, and I just recorded a podfic of it. If you don't want to listen, I beg you to read the original, it is absolutely unintentionally hilarious. One of my top fanfic reading experiences, ever. This person has posted over 50 fanfics and there isn't a single punctuation mark in any of them, ever.
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the
Organization for Transformative Works
No offense, but I don't get the Izzy x Lucius fan stuff. Like I'm sorry, Izzy is a dick and like Lucius has a wonderful supportive boyfriend. Like look at Black Pete, he sees the world of Lucius Spriggs.
Edit: to those reminding me they're polyamorous, yes you're right. But like, I'd understand if they dated Fang as well. But not Izzy. Izzy would be the only one taking, he wouldn't give to the relationship. Fang would, Fangs a beautiful person.
Every time I think of sprizzy I think of the fan that was like Lucius is cute. He deserves to be with somebody who is this attractive as he is, and Iām like OK cool we get it. Youāre ableist and fatphobic .
I sort of get Sprizzy from Lucius's perspective because IMO he sees Izzy as a challenge, sort of like a dragon he has to slay. It isn't that Lucius thinks he has a great personality or wants to be in a romance with him, but just sees his assholery and is like, if I can tame that shit I can do anything.
From Izzy's perspective I can see it because dude is just desperate to get laid. But if it goes any further than sex then the author really has to sell it IMO.
Honestly, people ship Izzy with a lot of different crew members and it's a hard sell for me for them as well. Frenchie, Roach, Swede. It doesn't make sense for me. None of the people on the crew right now make sense for Izzy for a romance. In every fic I've ever read that pairs Izzy up with a crew member, one or both of them has to be wildly out of character to make it work.
I think this is falseā mostly because in season one all of the voice overs (stede and jim) correspond to them writing in their journals, and so when izzy has a voice over I assumed he was writing too?
mary has a voice over but we donāt see her writing in a journal. and i mean, technically everything stede said in his voice over was being written down by lucius, so the fact that stede had a voiceover doesnāt actually confirm that stede is literate.
izzyās (and maryās) narration has vexed me for a while bc thereās no on-screen confirmation of WHY heās saying any of this. but i wouldnāt consider his voiceover proof that he can read and write
Iām pulling this concept directly from @laceratedlamiaceae and their very good chart which I feel like is pretty accurate to the Izzy discourse arena. I wanted to try mapping something similar but with the idea of if Izzy is a sympathetic character or not, and look at some of the discourse that comes from those areas (which lines up about the same with OP)
The reason I picked sympathy as a scale is because I feel like that where a lot of the root of Izcourse lives. Not whether Izzy is a good person or not, but whether Izzy is someone you wanna root for. Mostly because I know thereās Izzy apologists, but what does that actually mean? Because personally, Iāve rarely, if ever, seen people who are a fan of his say that all of Izzyās actions are justified and that Izzy is making good choices. What I think is more common is āI can understand why he made these choices and I donāt think they come from a malicious place.ā
This will be a bit repetitive but here's how I'm defining the groups which seem to be the main camps.
A: "I like Izzy, but he's not supposed to be a sympathetic character." This usually comes coupled with "If you like Izzy you should acknowledge that he's racist and homophobic." I would say that in general, a lot of these fans donāt get along with group B (more traditional Izzy likers) although they will follow both Izzy likers (for Izzy content) and Izzy haters (so they can stay up to date with critiques of him.) Honestly, I feel like they gotta be having a miserable time.
B: āI like Izzy and heās a sympathetic character.ā The Izzy likers. It doesnāt mean that they think he makes good decisions, but they do empathize with his choices. Theyāre more likely to view Ed and Izzy as both complacent in a toxic relationship where they do like Ed, but think heās done some shit. I would say that most of them that go āIzzy did nothing wrongā are mostly joking. Theyāre also like super horny.
C: Normal people.
D: āI hate Izzy and the viewer is supposed to hate him too.ā Izzy haters. Where a lot of arguments about Izzy being a homophobe and racist come from. Theyāre fine with people liking Izzy, but only if theyāre in group A. All of Izzyās actions are meant to be viewed as bad and unsympathetic. You are a bad person if you empathize with Izzy because youāre supposed to be empathizing with the other characters instead.
And then I feel like thereās two kinda outlier groups
Z: People who say they like Izzy, but also find him extremely unsympathetic. Their content about liking Izzy is always negative, making fun of him, and casting him as hated by the entire crew in all fancontent. Itās a weird group because the content is weirdly similar to Izzy likers stuff, but has a difference where thereās no desire for Izzy to develop into a better person, they want Izzy to be out of the show as fast as possible, and all their content is about punishing Izzy more than anything.
Q: People who find Izzy motives sympathetic and enjoy his character well enough, but he isnāt actually their favorite character. However, they have ended up spending an absurd amount of time arguing about him and his motives because of this. Gets along pretty good with group B and has a high conversion rate to Izzy likers. Noticed that this group tends to not be as enthusiastic about steddyhands content. Theyāre very much a āI wanna study Izzy like a bugā though in a similar manner to group B.
Hell yeah charts! š¤ Fandom is so dang amorphous and difficult to map out, so itās especially hard to tell between interpersonal conflict and cultural problems. Charts like these help to visualize these things!
Iād like to propose adding a category for the bottom right quadrant, because I think thereās a good chance that thereās ppl who fall into it.
X: āI get where Izzyās coming from and I hate his guts.ā People who feel that they understand Izzy and his motivations very well and have strong negative visceral responses to positive content about him. Maybe because theyāve known people *like* Izzy irl or they see parts of themselves they dislike reflected in Izzy or something else. Regardless of the reason, they think that the best outcome for Izzy is that he disappear from the show.
I donāt know how that alignment would reflect in behavior, but my guess is that thereās a correlation between falling on the X quadrant and regularly proposing the idea that anyone who disagrees with āIzzy is an agent of oppressionā is refusing to do deep self-reflection of their own biases and actions.
Just thoughts tho. Itād be cool to run a fandom-wide study with a framework like this in mind.
I'm probably somewhere between C and Z. I think he is pretty unsympathetic now, as he stands having been in season 1 of the show. I think a lot of people project a lot of things onto him as a character, and assume a lot of motivations behind his actions that aren't really there or explicitly stated (which is fine, as long as you don't act like it's canon and your interpretation is somehow the right one). For me, if you look at the shit he does in season 1, it's bad. He spends pretty much every scene verbally or physically abusing someone else. It's not great. And while I can imagine a complicated backstory to make it make sense, I'm not going to do that because I prefer to see where the actual show goes with it. So, he's just not likable to me, and he's not very sympathetic. But I don't hate him. I appreciate the role he plays in the story which is necessary for the advancement of the plot. He's fine.
I DO know that Izzy probably has some kind of redemption in his future, and he's here for the duration of the show. Con O'Neill is too amazing to just get rid of that character, and he has the potential to play an important and great role in future seasons. I have a feeling that at the end of season 2 I will find him a lot more likable. I trust David Jenkins and the writers to do interesting and good things with his character, even if I don't think they've done those things yet. I want to see some actual backstory for him that gives light to his behavior, rather than just speculation that people make up to force him to be sympathetic, you know? And I want to see some growth for his character. I think it will happen. But until then, this is pretty much where I am in the neutral zone.
I do think that people saying that Izzy is racist or whatever are entitled to those interpretations, just as people are who have a headcanon backstory for him that is more sympathetic. Those are just interpretations of how the character is and has been presented. I think saying that it's CANON that Izzy is these things is incorrect. I think saying that it is obvious that Izzy is a racist and everyone should believe that about him by default is also incorrect.
I also see a lot of people acting like Izzy is the ultimate victim in the story and is victimized by Ed and everyone else, to which I say, uh. Well, you're open to your interpretation, I guess, but MY interpretation is that Izzy is a victim mostly to himself. Whenever I feel sympathy for him in the show, it's when he's suffering as the result of his own actions and how he treats others and views the world. Aside from the toe, all of Izzy's problems are coming from his own mind. He doesn't view himself as his own person, he only views himself in relation to others (mostly Ed). That's why I usually avoid reading romance with Izzy, because authors often try to heal his problems with the magic of sex or someone finding him hot. Izzy's problem isn't that he isn't loved (you don't think Fang would shower Izzy with love and affection if he could?), it's that he doesn't love himself or know who he is. He needs to forge an identity for himself that is completely apart from others before he can really shine in a relationship.
Anyway, sorry, there's all my opinions on Izzy. I hope I like him one day.
