Izzy Basilica Hands

A list of my (very much Izzy-related) meta from the most recent to the oldest:

After the Finale:

Prince Ricky and Izzy Hands (WHY did noone notice the gun?)

Izzy is punished for every transgression (and dies of a combination of the worst traits of the people he loves/aligns himself with)

Izzy isn't the main character (but he makes the main couple more interesting)

Why do some people hate Izzy so much? (or: it's so much easier to hate Izzy than Ed)

The cruelty of the murder/suicide scene (finally closeness - but at what cost?)

Izzy didn't die of the gunshot alone (Ed's and Stede's suicide missions combined cost Izzy his life)

Poor Izzy aged 10 years in 6 months (he finally looked like a father figure, at least)

Izzy's "death threat" towards Edward (as if Ed would ever believe Izzy could kill him)

The difference between Izzy's and Ed's anger (Inwards vs. outwards)

Ed is an "us" person (Ed and his attachments to "the one" person)

Re: the deathbed conversation (a very confused post where I fail to make sense of it all)

A cool death - Ed's theatrical, performative suicide (Ed and Iz and their rituals, and when Ed went too far)

Death and change in OFMD (maybe it doesn't have to be a death?)

Izzy as Calypso, Ed as Odysseus :) (OFMD and Greek mythology - there are parallels, I swear)

How I learned to stop being angry and love the Death Scene (for now) (the death scene is either well-written or tragic, but never kind)

Thoughts about the finale, and my utter confusion about Izzy Hands (posted 2 days after the finale, expect sadness and confusion about Izzy's purpose in the narrative)

It's only suicide if we die... and Izzy's second suicide was planned to set Ed free (a very weird theory, posted 1 day after the finale - proceed with caution)

What I wanted most from Ep 6-8 - and a very hurt reblog after the finale :( (Ed and Izzy were done dirty)

Between Ep 7 and the Finale:

The meaning of the skeleton mermaid flag and Stizzy's Revenge theory Part 1 as well as Stizzy's Revenge theory Part 2 (my favourite theory ever!!! Should be canon imo)

Ed and Izzy: Cleaning up the mess (too much trauma, too little time - or: Ed needs Izzy to be whole)

Izzy is NOT ok (the "I'm feeling GReAT!!" phase of breakups) (a reaction to people posting "happy Izzy gifs" where he actually looks like he's barely holding it together)

Izzy's Gravy Basket (Ed and Stede had their visions/dreams - Izzy needs that too!)

Ed-and-Izzy-related stuff that stood out for me in episodes 6 and 7 (lovely little moments between those 2)

May I present Izzy's Fuck-I'm-going-to-die-for-this-twat sequence (not meta but kinda prescient)

Between Ep 6 and Ep 7

The Man with a Hook for his Head (it's Izzy - he gets his own symbolic bedtime story)

My predictions for the S2 finale (also, 100% wish fulfillment) (some of that didn't age well)

Too many thoughts about episodes 4 and 5 and "Moving On" (a very emotional post about Izzy and Ed and my fears for their trajectory)

Between Ep 3 and Ep 4

My immediate thoughts about the murder/suicide scene (there's soooo much going on!)

Izzy has love for Ed. Ed has love for Izzy. (it's an unhealthy love but it IS love)

"Can't believe I was living like this" - "I feel like a million bucks actually" (Ed wasn't feeling better at the end of Ep10)

Before S2:

What do you want most for Izzy Hands in S2? (we got so much!!)

What I like about Izzy is that he is so sincere. (my most controversial post for some reason - it's so tame idk? But that was the atmosphere before S2 I guess)

Who's watching the Conclave chimney livestream

Gripping stuff

(almost booked a flight to Rome. Almost. It's only an hour from where I live)

After falling in love with Pentiment I had to visit my closest monastery - Heiligenkreuz in Lower Austria.

Heiligenkreuz means "Holy Cross" (they have a relic of the holy cross there) and it's a Cistercian monastery founded in 1133.

(Sorry for the low quality phone video - the portrait mode was on purpose though, it fit the high ceilings better.)

Because of the cold weather I was completely alone in there - such an extraordinary place! I just had to take this video :).

You can see the 4-sided cloister (each side has the same length, and they stand for the 4 elements or earth), the courtyard in the middle symbolizes heaven/paradise and there is no obvious door there - heaven can be seen by the monks but not (easily) accessed. The door is located behind the fountain and is narrow and small.

The beautiful fountain stands in a little chapel with magnificent stained-glass windows. This fountain was the only water source in the abbey - for cooking, cleaning and washing. It's special look is achieved by calcification and the growth of moss on the lead bowls (I talked to a monk about the lead and the freezing temperatures and he was like "well, they didn't live long back then").

Like in Kiersau abbey, only the scriptorium and the workshop was heated. But the dormitorium was right above the workshop, so they got a little bit of warmth from below.

This is the workshop/skriptorium. The area was divided by wooden walls.

One side of the cloister.

2 dancing skeletons in the crypt - whenever a monk dies, the candles are lit at his wake and the shadows make it look like the skeletons are really moving... It's supposed to show that the monks laugh at death - knowing he can't really hurt them.

Anyway, I thought maybe one or two of you might enjoy this! And if you're ever in Austria...

Love this flash of genuine connection between the 2 ❤ - unfortunately that's more Assad and Jacob than Armand and Louis 😅.

Spotted in Hastings, Sussex 🏴‍☠️

THEM.THAT.DIES.ARE.THE.LUCKY.ONES

Both of them hiding their love behind this fearsome myth they created

Izzy hiding his past so well, he doesn't even notice he's in love with Ed in the present

Ed hiding his soft, vulnerable side so well he loses all sense of who he is and what he wants

And when Stede comes along and shatters that protective but suffocating shell - both Ed and Izzy die from the shock of it

Tattoo with a name and cut marks? Emerald ring related to a love Izzy didn't allow himself to express or experience fully? BACKSTORY IN S3????

All I ever wanted was more backstory dammit!

Did Izzy give up this love for Ed/Blackbeard? Why the cut marks? Did he think he had to cut this person completely out of his life? Did Izzy see no possible world in which he could have what Ed and Stede have?

God, this makes everything 100 times worse. "Done something to my bosses' brain" alright - he knew exactly how that felt, didn't he.

Who was this past love? Was it Ed's former first mate? The one Izzy presumably had to kill, just to be extra dramatic (probably not, but with this show you never know)?

Was Ed somehow involved in this? Did the no pets policy already apply? I know I love the drama (why else would I be an EdIzzy girl), but wouldn't it be ironic if Ed was the reason Izzy thought he wasn't supposed to fall in love - and then Stede comes along...

And I thought I'd lost interest in this show... just a tiny little crumb of Izzy backstory and I'm pulled right back in 😄.

... is actually the General History of the Pyrates engraving of himself, Stede Bonnet.

Blackbeard is of course the actual Blackbeard from the same book.

All those loose threads I expected (or hoped) they'd pick up in S3... this is fucking depressing.

This little book is from approximately 1990, with real photos and everything! I was about 12 back then and my sister 7.

My sister's bed is the pirate ship here, with an all-female crew. Teresa in the blue dress is captain, and Peggy in the green skirt is 1st mate.

"The following photos are from the play PIRATES!" "Anne on the way to Teresa's pirate ship. Let the adventure begin!"

As far as I remember, Anne was from a workhouse and really poor. This was her last chance.

"Everyday life on the pirate ship."

Look at the detail! Tara's the scribe, there's cooking, cleaning, treasure, provisions and a large comfy bed in the background. I've always loved the pan because it looks so used and realistic. Teresa's blue dress was specifically bought because it looks so piratey. The rest of the crew is dressed according to their status/back story.

"Hostile pirates under the command of Captain Jim enter Teresa's ship! Peggy comes down from the crows nest and knocks Tom to the ground with her feet. Tara falls to the floor screaming."

I think we didn't really like Tara. And Peggy is a perfect 1st mate, strangling the attacker with her skirt.

"Jim threatens Teresa with a club but Anne rescues her with the pan. And Jeany counters Ken's attack with a casual Judo grip."

Finally, it's Anne's moment to shine! And Jeany was always effortlessly cool.

"Teresa's crew has won. Slowly, the girls are starting to make friends with the hostages." "Here we see a romance under the moonlight. Ken and Jeany ❤!"

Yeah, of course there has to be romance in the end 😅. You might have noticed that male crew members have no shirts. It's the pirate way.

"Teresa and Jim have also fallen in love. But the next excitement is already waiting! Thanks to a treasure map, men and women have to search for the treasure together... and they finally find it in the form of gold and jewels!!! THE END"

What's going on in that last picture? Where are the men? We'll never know. Love the little spotlight on the map though!

I really hope this was interesting for someone, to me it feels like a historic document - almost 35 years old!

My sister and I were so thrilled to find this again... and I remembered how long it took us to get everything just right for the photos - our pirates kept falling over. And then the 1 week wait for developing...

That's what I'm here for. That's what drew me in. From the start, I felt for Izzy - it's so obvious Ed is his whole life. For decades, that's how it probably went - Izzy focusing on Ed 100%, yearning, being there for Ed in his way and trying to be content with the scraps he got. And then this rich boy comes along and suddely Ed is the one with the longing gaze - for someone else.

In S2 I almost let myself believe that maybe, maybe...

...we could complete this triangle?

Yesterday I was rewatching the finale with my first-time-OFMD friend, and she was absolutely baffled by Ricky shooting Izzy with his own gun.

In her words: "Nobody took it off him, that's not realistic! That's impossible, totally impossible, I can't buy that, you don't just forget a gun on a prisoner?!?!?!?"

And on my first watch I thought the same thing (as we all did), and then forgot about it a bit, but now I want to speculate. Because WHY did that happen?

The easiest explanation is, of course: Ricky needed a gun and it doesn't really matter where it came from. The writers didn't think it was important and neither should we.

But I'd like to expect a bit more from this show - I remember that I was taken out of my immersion quite a bit by this obvious "mistake". Ricky is a hostage who was just about to kill every single pirate we know - and nobody notices he's armed? And he's led through the enemy lines by Izzy with only a small knife to his back?

If Ricky still has his gun, that means that they took his sword but noone thought of searching him properly (and to really rub it in, Ricky is shown cleaning his gun in an earlier scene). The gun also seems very accessible later, so it probably wasn't even hidden well.

So why didn't the writers have Ricky take Izzy's (or Black Pete's) gun? I know Izzy almost never carries a gun (which is interesting in itself), but they were all in Navy uniforms anyway. Why not take the weapons too? Or have Ricky stab Izzy with a hidden knife (in a way that the other characters won't notice, like with the gunshot, presumably)?

Or was the whole thing actually deliberate? In a "it doesn't really matter if you take it at face value, but if you look closer there might be another explanation" kinda way?

(that was a really long introduction to what I'm actually here for, I'm sorry)

Who actually searched Ricky and took his sword? Was it the same person who stayed next to Ricky during the cool dressing up montage? Who led Ricky through the woods?

(Hint: it's the guy who's always in the background when these 2 are kissing)

Of course we have no proof that Izzy searched Ricky, but I think it is very probable.

Izzy had just been talking to Ricky. He'd been sitting next to Ricky when he was knocked out.

Izzy had just deeply insulted and provoked Ricky and made himself the spokesperson of piracy - "It's about letting go of ego for something larger." - "Kill me. Kill us all. Our spirit will last throughout your entire fuckin' empire." - thereby almost goading Ricky into killing him.

And then Stede presents his nebulous plan we never actually hear, and Izzy (why Izzy?) is put in the most dangerous position, right at the frontlines leading the hostage. Did he volunteer for that?

And are we really expected to believe that Izzy wouldn't double-check that Ricky was unarmed?

I really don't like where this is leading, by the way. Because the explanation that makes most sense from a Watsonian perspective is that Izzy either didn't mind or actively wanted to be killed/wounded.

The show went out of its way to portray Izzy as older, wiser and more resigned in the last 2 episodes - he looked like he'd aged 10 years in a few days, he moved around slower and seemed to be in more pain (and groaning when sitting down, etc.). Also, he seemed to have made peace with everything and everyone, and he seemed... tired.

(I know he's just been shot here, but he just looks exhausted)

I think there might be a possibility that Izzy let Ricky keep his gun because he did want to go. Stede's "It's only suicide if we die!" sounds almost to fitting in this context. Izzy might have thought that the one conversation Ed needed, the one where Izzy could set Ed free, could only happen on his deathbed (as I said elswhere, Iz and Ed are closest in life-and-death situations).

Or (and this is what I choose to believe until S3 comes around), Izzy took Ricky's pistol while he was unconcious, took the bullet out and faked his death to set Ed and himself free. He very pointedly doesn't want Ed to see his wound, after all (Ed: "It's not even that bad!"). If it's only about the deathbed absolution, and removing himself (and the spectre of Blackbeard) from the situation, Izzy doesn't actually have to die, does he?

This also fits with the song played over the end sequence, panning to Izzy's grave:

And don't speak too soon For the wheel's still in spin And there's no tellin' who that will be namin' For the loser now Will be later to win For the times they are a-changin'

Yeah. A bit too conspiracy-theory-like maybe. But it was the first assumption my friend made - 5 seconds after the scene: "The gun can't have been there by accident, that's just stupid. Oh no. Did Izzy arrange that? Did he really want to die for Ed?" and I thought - you know what? That was my first thought as well. I just immediately dismissed it for being too dramatic.

So, either Izzy is the most reckless, stupid and negligent pirate ever (which he obviously isn't, quite the opposite) - or he trusted the person who (badly) searched Ricky (oooh, new conspiracy theory - it was Ed! Sorry.) - or there was something else at play.

OR