ok so y’all may remember me floating around stucky and ace tumblr doing little bits and pieces in like 2016 (I know you do cos you’re still reblogging my stuff)
anyway, I’m trying tumblr again now for the first time since 2018 and a lot has changed since!
so hi again, my name is now Frog, my pronouns are now they/them, I’m 28, disabled, aromantic, asexual, and drawing lots of people without pants on.
my twitter is here, redbubble here and fandom-based instagram here.
I’m working on moving my twitter to here but I’ll be crossposting in the meantime, expect WIPs and finished pieces and quite likely long hiatuses with no warning thanks to my broken body
Hey, so, that thing I was writing? Well, S2 broke me, but more specifically, it broke Ed, and just pretty much turned him into one of my awful exes.
I couldn't write my Steddyhands after that - not with the arc I was doing - but I so loved the bits I had already written.
So I took a section and polished it up as a standalone, and it's here.
Come Unbound Here
Summary: Ed and Izzy have been together forever, in an open marriage, with a strict communication boundary. After a night out and some sudden revelations, Ed struggles to keep the guilt at bay.
Tags: Israel Hands/Blackbeard | Edward Teach, Background Stede Bonnet/Blackbeard | Edward Teach, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Trans Israel Hands, Trans Male Character, Canon Disabled Character, Amputee Israel Hands, Israel Hands Gets Therapy, Soft Dom Israel Hands, Service Top Israel Hands, Bratty Blackbeard | Edward Teach, Trans Blackbeard | Edward Teach, Nonbinary Character, Transfeminine Blackbeard | Edward Teach, Blackbeard | Edward Teach Needs Therapy, Rope Bondage, Shibari, Daddy Kink, Safeword Use, Panic Attacks, Feminisation, Gender Play, Coming Out, Gender Realisations, Aftercare, Polyamory Negotiations, Cheating, Open/Ambiguous Ending, Author Is Trans, 30-year-long hyper-masculine denial phase over at last but at what cost?
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the
Organization for Transformative Works
I can’t explain it but I am 100% sure Izzy comes to Jim’s room to talk to them and by that I mean they just sit there across each other with heavy eye contact for about 2-3 solid hours without saying a single word and then he gets up with “right, thank you” and leaves. Oluwande just sitting there trying to figure out what the fuck just happened.
unfortunately social media puts the activist meeting, the bitching session, the public outreach, the group therapy session, the silly blow off some steam gossiping about people private chat, and the group d&d session all in the same place, and so people mistake, for example, an outpouring of legitimate grief and rage as somehow a public-facing political statement, or a carefully edited and tactical political statement as a reflection of a person's most deeply held private feelings, etc
Seeing a few "those MEDIA ILLITERATE CHILDREN still INSIST that the finale was BURY YOUR GAYS" floating around.
I'm happy to break down my reasoning:
David Jenkin's post-finale interviews all make clear that Izzy's death was decided upon - even if only by David himself - at a very early stage.
Having established that Izzy would die, the writing team then chose to give him an explicitly queer narrative arc of self-discovery and joy, one they knew was going to end in a painful death.
They gave no other characters that strikingly queer arc of self-acceptance and expression - just the one they'd already decided to bury by the end. There were other queer characters, in queer relationships, but they didn't get queer arcs. (A character arc is the transformation or inner journey of a character over the course of a story. Being queer is not itself an arc; for example, Lucius's arc was about overcoming trauma. A character can be queer without a queer arc.)
The only character who did get a queer arc also got a grave.
You should be concerned by this choice from a writing team, especially if you are queer.
You should not be belittling the people who are voicing their concern.
As a side note, I was born in the 1980s. I grew up in the UK under Section 28. For what it's worth, I also have a first in English Literature. I've been suffering terrible media representation of gay people my whole life, and when I see it in a show which made a point of encouraging gay fans to feel safe and seen and respected, I'm going to point at it and scream very loudly.
ok i swear i’m not trying to start a fight but i have two questions:
even if we’re only considering character arcs about an inner journey of self-acceptance a “queer arc” and not any of the several queer romances in the show, isn’t the whole show?? stede bonnet’s queer arc???
is there a storyline jenkins et al could have written for izzy that still ended in his death without it being “bury your gays”?
No worries, friend. Your questions are cool and I'm happy to try and answer.
(Under the cut for length)
(1) Honestly, I don't have a full enough understanding of the shape of Stede's arc now we're post season 2. I don't know if I can put my finger on how he's changed as a person. He has a boyfriend, but I can't personally point to consistent growth in any particular area, queer or otherwise. It's hard to answer because we now have a Schrödinger's season 3 until further notice - Stede both has and hasn't finished his character arc.
Maybe someone in the reblogs will have some better insights here.
(I'll stress that "I do not have a boyfriend" -> "I have a boyfriend" isn't a character arc in itself. We'd be looking for something like, "I do not have a boyfriend because I fear society's treatment of men like me" -> "now that I no longer let that fear rule my life, I allow myself to have a boyfriend")
(2) Absolutely. Maybe something along these lines:
Adjust Izzy's two lines about loving Edward, making them more fatherly if that was indeed the goal. "I'm concerned about you, Eddie" - "when I told him that I cared about him"
Lose Ed's remark about Izzy the morning after ("He's jealous")
Instead of having Izzy sing a romantic song in drag at Calypso's birthday, have him in a corner somewhere, whittling maybe, vibes of a straight dad feeling a bit out of place at Pride. There, supportive, but not a central part of it.
Remove the paired mirror scenes - "who even are you?" and the later one with Wee John, where the answer is seemingly supplied (someone who longs to wear drag and sing)
The crew giving Izzy a new identity ('the new unicorn') resonated with a lot of queer fans - finding and embracing yourself through community is often a part of the queer experience. Unicorns aren't exactly the butchest of creatures. That image of Izzy moved to tears by the gesture - keeping the note inside his glove, standing proudly at the prow of the ship - is so powerful. (And part of why it kills me that the image we were eventually left with is a grave.) He was so alive, so changed, so glad to be a unicorn. The Izzy in season one would have gutted someone for suggesting that. They could have stripped the queer themes out here with a peg leg and a note saying some variant of "Pull yourself together" - "We need you" - "You were Blackbeard, too" - so many options.
Lastly, no whittled shark for Lucius. Or at least show that everyone was gifted a whittled something. Gets rid of the parallel with Pete whittling a gift for Lucius. (Not a major point, but why not. Let's leave no doubt.)
Cutting these scenes would have left time for much better establishment that Izzy served as Ed's mentor. Even a single conversation between Ed and Stede where Ed recounts some old times with Izzy would have achieved this. We hear it reported secondhand that Izzy taught Ed everything he knows - but honestly, I thought that Stede was making it up, flattering Izzy into agreeing to train him. Hearing it directly from Ed would have made a huge difference.
The idea that Ed and Izzy created Blackbeard together, and that Izzy has to die before Ed can be free of Blackbeard... it could work. But it was massively undermined by showing Izzy striving to also leave Blackbeard behind. From what we were shown, he was actually fighting a whole lot harder than Ed was. Leaving just a glimpse or two of impatience or callousness in him, or maybe a hint that he will always consider Ed to be Blackbeard, would have paved the way for a necessary-seeming death. A quick slip of the tongue in a moment of stress, calling Ed 'Blackbeard' again. It would have helped.
Those are just some thoughts. Other folks might have more to add. Thank you for asking, @ourflagmeansgayrights - I'm sorry I can't give you a better answer about Stede. Further study on my part is needed.
Last thing - I also want to stress, I very much want to avoid fights as well. I'll argue against ideas but I'll shy away from arguing with people. There's enough of that happening elsewhere. It's not productive and it's not cool. Anyone new who arrives hoping for fisticuffs will just go silently onto the blocklist.
so this entire interview from david jenkins is pretty baffling to me tbh, but this was really the moment that made me stop and question what he was smoking, because even amongst the people who liked the finale, I don't think I've seen anyone describe it as kind.
Yeah, the season 1 finale is angsty, but I certainly didn't come away feeling down. People loved the angst! We all spent a year metaphorically eating drywall! It's dramatic, there's conflict, there's the prospective joy of getting to watch characters heal! Knowing that you can only go up from rock bottom!
On the other hand season 2 feels final, and I get wanting to wrap everything up just in case there's no renewal. Genuinely walking that line is one of the hardest parts of tv writing. But a character death like izzy's feels like one of the biggest downers you could possibly end on.
His death happens too late for it to be a rallying moment for the rest of the crew, it doesn't really change anything, and by the end everyone else's stories are so wrapped up it doesn't even leave me wondering how his death is going to impact the other characters in s3, because their journey's also feel over. There's no promise of a pay off down the road, so people just get left with whatever emotion they're feeling in the moment. Which when the last shot is the fresh grave of a fan favourite character, all a lot of people are going to feel is sad.
being a marxist is so boring like there’s no mystery left. you’ll investigate a concerning issue affecting our society and you’re like ‘well it’s probably because the capitalists are underpaying and overworking their workers’ and then 9 times out of 10 the answer is the capitalists are underpaying and overworking their workers
Our Flag Means Classics continues! This has been in the works since MAY 2022 - season 2 provided the last little bit of flavour needed to get me to finish it up.
Original by Harry Willson Watrous, suggested by khlara on the bird app way back when, tysm!
18.5*21" digital oils
Rebelle 5 and Photoshop
god knows how many hours
