Archive of Our Own

LMAAAAAAAAAAAAAAO it’s true!!!! And Buttons absolutely told him about the mutiny because he didn’t want them to mutiny on him.

It’s also funny to compare the proposed mutiny in 1x01 (in which they don’t really do it and they let Stede fuck around some more and they’re like ehhh but he reads to us!!!) against how fucking swiftly they mutiny against Izzy in 1x09 lmao. They got so used to Stede’s people-positive management style and him reading them books at night and paying them fair wages and not actually putting them in a lot of real danger (the Spanish thing was, as I’ve said before, technically Jim’s fault, and the English thing was because of Izzy directing them at the ship (and the crew were fine anyway)) and letting them do craft projects and sailing all their flags and defending their pets and generally adoring them and all of that, that when Izzy was a real pirate captain (and he was! He wasn’t actually being cruel, aside from one no rations for you at Wee John who talked back to his captain) they couldn’t hack it and they wanted to yeet him into the ocean.

It’s so funny.

Oh, definitely. I’m pretty sure that the context of the duel confirms that Izzy has been, well, Ed’s hands?

To me, 1x06 reads like this from Izzy’s point of view:

• Ed has decided he wants to kill Stede. He’s set his mind on killing Stede, saying that Stede was Blackbeard (now deceased) and becoming Stede Bonnet, wealthy landowner, thus escaping his life as Blackbeard and getting to go elsewhere and be less miserable/depressed.
• He will probably come back at some point when he realizes being a wealthy landowner blows, but this is what he wants right now and it’s a direct plan.
• He’s put the plan off for a really long time, so Izzy feels the need to start managing him like he usually does (I’m not joking when I say Izzy is his bullet journal lmao) which is why he tells him it’s time to deal with Stede.
• Edward doesn’t like killing directly though, so Izzy offers to step in.
• Ed doesn’t want that, so he says he’ll take care of it himself.
• Surprising, but Izzy accepts that maybe this one feels personal? Or maybe he wants to actually be the one that sets himself free to go become Stede Bonnet? Who knows?
• Ed proceeds to absolutely not kill Stede and in fact seem even closer to him. Of course, because Ed doesn’t like to kill.
• Izzy knows his place is to be Ed’s hands when it comes to killing, and so he steps forth and challenges Stede to a duel he knows he will win.

Ed deciding to yeet his Blackbeard armor right around when the English are getting serious isn’t something I thought of before this, but I had thought of the fact he was yeeting his Blackbeard armor after signing away 10 years of his life to the British and then serving a massive one night at Privateering Academy before running away back to the sea, which they are surely going to be mad about.

I think Stede even says in 1x09 that the British will be all over them if they run away? I’m positive that’s why he tells Ed they can’t run away, and then Ed says about China as a counter?

The British are going to be looking to make an example of him!!!

nonnie i love every time you come into my ask, do you know that? i look forward to your messages, i really do.

imma break this one down to make it easier for my brain (that’s why i tend to do inlaid quotes so much):

So, Izzy pulls Fang’s beard, right? And then, off camera Fang says, “I hate it when he does that. It really hurts.” Then! Ivan says, and I quote, “You should say somethin’ about it.” And Fang says, “Ah, what’s the point.” Oh. My. God. This line was not an accident. It has SO MANY IMPLICATIONS.

Before we get to what you read from it, I want to say what I read from it, which is that Ivan thinks Fang can say something about it. Maybe they’re all so used to Izzy and Ed talking past each other that Fang takes it for granted that no one will listen, but Ivan truly, with his whole chest, thinks Fang can say, “I really hate it when you pull my beard like that, it really hurts,” and Izzy will not punish him or yell at him, he’ll just be like, “Oh shit yeah sorry,” and stop.

This also folds in with something I said earlier which is that in 1x05 when Izzy spends the whole episode trying in vain to make Lucius (a member of the ship’s crew) do his job (as a member of the ship’s crew) instead of fucking around with Pete or drawing, Fang isn’t scared of Izzy in the slightest. “Let him look,” is one comment. Another is that Izzy comes in and goes, “What the fuck?” and metes out absolutely no punishment on Fang. None. Fang actively refuted his orders, scooped Lucius from the side of the boat, took off his clothes in the captain’s cabin and occupied Lucius doing non-work things, and Izzy is just, “What the fuck?” not, “Take Fang out back and whip him,” or something. There’s no punishment!!! None!!!!!! Fang receives no discipline for openly disregarding Izzy’s word. Which tells me that Izzy is not as strong a hand as he pretends to be (and that he doesn’t actually treat his crew with cruelty, he just wants them to do their damn jobs, which isn’t unreasonable, especially considering Lucius is actually receiving a wage for his work LMAO).

(This also ties in with my headcanon that Wee John has a back injury much like the actor who plays him, and that’s why he was allowed to sit.)

It’s one of those lines, I swear, that is meant to indicate so many things about the theme and characters. Fang DOES NOT TELL IZZY HE HURT HIM. He ASSUMES it doesn’t matter. That Izzy wouldn’t care. This tells us so much about the entire culture of Blackbeard’s crew. Izzy is an asshole to the crew, but did anyone tell him that? Or did they just assume they’d better get in line because Izzy wouldn’t care? Does Izzy want to yell at people, or does he think they won’t do their jobs or respect him at all if he isn’t aggressive?

My read on this is that it’s Ed who’s sort of started the culture of, “No one will care.” See: Fang had to put his own dog down. See: Emotions are weakness. See: Pets befoul the ship. See: Love is weakness. Ed started all of that, Izzy repeated it as is his job as first mate. At some point he’s shown Ivan that he’s different, but Fang hasn’t seen that, so he doesn’t know, but what he does know is that Izzy isn’t as bad as he pretends to be, which is why he’s so concerned about his foot in 1x10 🥺

Does the crew know that it probably really hurts Izzy’s feelings that they have that mean nickname for him?

That he hates it? Yes. That it’s more than just an irritation? No.

Ed probably has no idea that Izzy is in love with him, or that the root of Izzy’s anger and nagging is fear: of getting killed, of being left behind, of being unprepared for the dangers that lurk ahead. All he can do is yell. And if Izzy has been massaging the crew when they lose faith in Ed’s judgement, that’s just more proof Ed isn’t communicating with them.

Izzy has been propping Ed up this whole time, including with the crew. It’s stated repeatedly as canon in the show (Izzy saying he did it and Ed not refuting that fact, Ed saying he needs Izzy there etc), and honestly the fact Ed nearly pushes Stede away in 1x07 and actively leaves because of one small spat in 1x08 is also a small bit of proof of that, though I can’t put into words why. Hoping you understand what I mean tbh.

Ed never tells Izzy what he’s feeling at all, at least not in a serious way that Izzy can understand. Ep4 is just one massive communication breakdown between Ed and Izzy.

The closest you get to Ed actually communicating with Izzy is the scene with the model ship. He’s saying how cool it is and Izzy is not getting it because Izzy is very preoccupied with the life and death situation Ed has gotten them into, and Ed starts whining about how bored he is and how everything is repetitive, and then when Izzy points out that no matter how Ed is feeling in that way, if Ed doesn’t continue that repetitive cycle right now, they’re all going to die. And then it spirals into Ed genuinely thinking death might be better than the boredom and I doubt Izzy really gets that, so he writes it off as senseless.

The FIRST, the very FIRST time we see Stede with the crew of the Revenge, it’s “Talk it Through as a Crew”. And the first thing we see on the Queen Anne is, “Say something? Ah, what’s the point.” I’ve done it. I’ve solved OFMD.

nonny. nonny. nonny. nonny of my heart. i’ve been staring at this fucking message since you sent it nonny and i havent gotten any less feral over my brain suddenly opening up and the skies parting and all i can see is izzy/fang. nonny. i had to sit here for this long before i could come up with a reply to the rest, nonny.

Okay, the rest:

I think maybe something that we’re not really adding to our thoughts is that we’ve actually only really seen Izzy as attempting-to-be-first-mate of the Revenge? Not of Ed’s ship?

So, as a brief rundown of the Revenge from what we’ve been shown so far: they are a crew who were scooped up from god knows where, on a ship that’s pristine because it was literally built all of a month ago, the crew are being paid wages rather than having to work for their dinner, no one ever actually seems to do ship things except maybe Buttons who seems to have a clue what he’s doing but I don’t think I’ve seen him actually work either, and no matter how much some may argue they’re real pirates, they all hide behind the ship in 1x01 when the English show up, just like Stede.

Furthermore, the ship’s surgeon is actually the cook (and although he’s sewed up his shoulder in the past and makes a bangin’ orange cake and goes in to amputate Lucius’ finger, we don’t know that he’s actually qualified to be the surgeon), Stede had no idea Jim was “really a woman” (I mean, they’re not, but you get my drift for the early episodes), and in 1x02 they forgot to steer the ship, which is why they ran aground.

So when Izzy comes around in 1x05 and is trying to do his job, which is basically to oversee and wrangle the crew into doing their jobs, what he finds is that there are two functional crew members (Ivan and Fang, who they brought along from their ship), and a bunch of folks that… don’t do their jobs.

Literally in 1x05 you have Frenchie who went off and put on nice clothes he found from their raid (which is not working, though he did look dapper), Stede and Ed very distracted by the invitation, Lucius and Stede swinging their legs watching Ivan do all the work of going through the bodies for loot, Fang who is–

Wait, hold on. What is Fang doing?

I mean the general, main answer is “attending Ed”, which makes sense because they’re on someone else’s ship and it makes perfect sense to have Fang nearby while Ed and Stede are distracted, just in case something bad happens.

But what is he actively doing in this scene? Is he knitting? Sewing? What? What? WHAT IS HE DOING WITH HIS HANDS? You literally only see him in this shot and I am losing my mind because I want to know what he’s doing???? fuck!

Anyway, Fang is off skinning a guy for Ed after this, Lucius and Pete are fucking in the storeroom amongst the food while Wee John takes a nap, Frenchie and Oluwande go over to the ship with Ed and Stede, and when you get wide shots you can see literally no one is working on that ship.

Izzy is losing his shit and yelling at Lucius because every time he turns his head, no one is doing anything. It’s a ship! It needs a crew because the crew keep it moving and functioning and clean.

Like, I understand if cleaning barnacles isn’t Lucius’ job, but someone has to do it?

So Izzy is presented with a ship whose crew is just, not doing their jobs, and all we really get to see is Izzy yelling at them and trying his darndest to actually get them to work, while they’re just like ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ meh it practically sails itself.

What we don’t see is how Ed’s ship runs. We don’t see how his crew work, we don’t see whether Izzy has to yell at everyone on that ship or if all he has to do is hand out a chore roster and everyone does their jobs.

If everyone is doing their jobs and pulling their weight, it’s likely that they’re treated with the respect they’ve earned and deserve as working and functioning members of the crew, and that their needs are also seen to, and who would be in charge of seeing to their needs?

Izzy.

Extra points: in the books scene, Ivan calls Izzy by his first name, Fang calls him ‘boss’, but the tone he uses makes it sound less like a mandatory title like when Izzy tells Lucius he expects sir or first mate hands or god or whatever, and more like he’s showing him respect in return, the respect he’s earned from that crew.

I get the sense that while Izzy might be on everyone’s ass about work, he isn’t generally the type to push people to work harder if they’re already doing their job. (I also think this suggests Izzy is afraid of Ed now in a way he wasn’t before. They need to move fast, or who knows what Ed might do?) No one’s had to deal with forced autocannibalism from Izzy on that crew.

This, too. There’s “expects the crew to do their jobs” and there’s “is unreasonable about it”, and there’s no actual demonstration that Izzy is ever unreasonable about it. He just wants them to do their jobs and pull their weight!

I’ve thought for a while that Ivan and Fang seem like Izzy’s right hands the way he’s Ed’s, but it seems much healthier, although it’s mimicking shades of what could be, if he allows it to degenerate through his own mental illness as Ed did with theirs :(