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o-wild-west-wind · 7 months

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A Biracial Reading of OFMD, ft. Iggy’s Revenge Izcourse

a.k.a. I typed out a sentence that turned into an accidental essay of meta, whoops!

Y’all…I love this fandom to pieces, but I don’t think some of you realize why not all of us love Izzy/may be critiquing him. And major disclaimer—I am in NO WAY telling anyone to stop enjoying him as a character. This is NOT an anti-Izzy post (I will go into more detail on why I in fact encourage you to keep doing so later, and to the people who are sending unsolicited hate mail to Izzy fans & haters alike: please don’t!)—I’m just tired of seeing vitriolic hate against the people writing about him as an antagonist, or critiquing his actions based on canon, or post after post of “why don’t people love Izzy like I do!!” and then aggression when people explain their honest opinions. Look: we all have our skrungly little bad guys. I get it!! I’ve got my own collection!! I too have become a consumer and enjoyer of the Izzy fanon!!! PLEASE don’t take this as an attack—I just want to provide some personal, potentially fresh context from at least one (obviously non-exhaustive) perspective for those who want to know why Izzy isn’t universally adored, and also to make a plea for a safer fandom space where we can talk about our perspectives on these fictional characters without escalating to unnecessary vitriol, especially as s2 be upon ye (bc holy shit fandom is supposed to be fun, we’re having fun and that’s an order 😤)

(Oh, and I know I’m potentially stirring the pot with this post, but this should go without saying: don’t send each other death threats. What the fuck. Nobody do this?!)

So now that the legalize is out of the way: I want to share that the reason I initially imprinted on this show—and on Ed specifically—was because I’d never seen an explicitly biracial character treated with such complexity, nuance, and grace. While our ethnic makeups are vastly different, I too am half-white & half-brown—which means we’re absolutely nothing culturally alike, but our worlds view and treat us as pretty much the same regardless. And like Ed, my dad resents my mom and my racial makeup, and is prone to what I like to call “white violence.” Not going to overshare on the internet, but let’s just say that all this compounded makes Ed feel highly relatable to me (although for legal purposes I promise I have not krakened my dad 🙃).

When I first watched the show (and honestly also until my 3rd or 4th rewatch), Izzy IMMEDIATELY made me think of my dad. He also immediately made me think of Ed’s dad. Their mannerisms, word choices, and tones of voice; the obsessive need for control; the default of violence; the gradual dehumanization until an ultimate kraken-ifying breaking point—it all read to me like an intentional parallel. A shadow of white violence following Ed around that he hasn’t been able to shake, and mirroring to him the things he fears the most, including the things he fears within himself and feels forced to become (he is half-white after all, and this is a whole other post, but tl;dr there can be a lot of baggage that comes with being half-white/half-poc in regards to grappling with your toxic relationship to that white side of yourself, and especially if your white parent was racist and/or violent). And you can claim a different reading of all of this if you want (I genuinely mean that, like I’m in favor of meta & I think it’s great to analyze these things) BUT. that does not change the fact that I felt what I felt as a result of what was portrayed on screen and combined with my lived experience. Because fictional characters are just that—fictional—and are vessels by which you can process the world; we will always bring our personal lived experiences to anything we consume, and that’s okay—that can be the point, even. Art imitates life imitates art. Interpretation is the name of the game!

(more under the cut)

So when I watch this show, it’s a helpful tool for me to process my own feelings of being victimized by the white violence that’s followed me around my whole life, as well as the ways in which I’ve rebelled against it/tried to make peace with a non-toxic version of whiteness (in parallel to the more overt theme of masculinity, which is—ding ding—inexplicably tied to whiteness and western colonialism) via chaos, love, hurt, and sometimes giving up and giving in—and in this process, Izzy is a safe target. And you know why that is? Because he’s FICTIONAL. I can feel rage towards him because he’s NOT REAL. I can better understand and process the pain I’ve felt and rarely seen societally acknowledged by watching it paralleled on screen via actors and writers who have likely also grappled with similar feelings (I mean, I genuinely have made more progress with my personal biracial trauma via this show vs. years of therapy), and if I want to assume the worst of Izzy based on my interpretation of canon to help me through this? That’s fine! Because I can’t hurt his feelings and he can’t hurt mine!! Because he’s not real!!!

And here’s why I still support the Izzy-enjoyment: I am sure that many of the people who love Izzy and defend him to the ends of the earth probably feel a similar way that I do about Ed. It’s why we get all riled up and protective of these characters, why we might take attacks on them as attacks on ourselves; recognition of the self in the form of the other, and all that. Izzy is a vessel by which to safely work through the dark feelings and the pain you’ve bottled up—and he’s a safe way to do that because he’s FICTIONAL. And that’s a beautiful thing imo!! That’s truly the beauty of art—it is what we make of it, and what we make of it helps make ourselves better. It’s good to be open to interpretation.

HOWEVER: that does not give you permission to discount my relationship to this show (as I will not discount yours), and more importantly: that does NOT give you permission to reject the notion that canonically in s1, Izzy is literally and thematically (emphasis on thematically) an antagonist who is purposefully written to cause harm that can be interpreted as a hate crime, especially to those with lived experience of homophobia/racism/ableism/bullying/etc.—and you cannot harass people about this when conversing about theories of canon. If someone sees Izzy’s dialogue as cutting, degrading, and even triggering, that’s extremely fair of them to do so—clearly Ed was written to feel it that way! Con himself has paralleled Izzy with Judas! And can interpret it all differently? Sure! But you CANNOT assume that everyone else will, and then get upset when people don’t. I can’t believe I need to spell this out about an angry white guy in a show about toxic masculinity, but if someone does not like Izzy, it is likely due to a personal history of harassment (or worse) that he is reminiscent of; by making a point to defend him to someone—even if you are well-intentioned—you are very much putting salt in a wound.

I want to take this opportunity to further emphasize some tenets of fandom in general:

you can like characters who do horrible things without needing to jump hoops to argue their morals as pure 👏

conversely, you can critique their actions and still like them (encouraged, even) 👏

you can like characters who do horrible things simply because they’re cool and hot and interesting—don’t worry, we know it’s not the same as liking people like them irl 👏

your liking a villain archetype says nothing about your own moral virtue 👏

you can like horrible characters and see reasons for why they are the way they are/view them as tragic/note sympathetic dimensions of their personality/root for them to have redemption arcs while acknowledging that said redemption arc may not have happened in canon yet and that these are implicit, not explicit, readings of canon 👏

and you can also reimagine canon and change their contexts in fan works so that they ARE morally virtuous 👏 but PLEASE just be mindful and accountable when you do this in a context where not everyone will see a character the same way as you, and where multiple of people of marginalized identities have spoken out about the harm not doing so can cause. Just be honest, sincere, and kind, listen and learn, and don’t harass people for understandably needing space from a character that symbolizes something different to them than it does to you.

Also: blocking tags or people just because they have character opinions different than yours is totally okay and does not mean anything other than “I am curating my online space to have a better time,” it’s NOT personal

And most importantly: FANDOM IS FOR FUN! This isn’t our day job! We come to fandom to decompress. Don’t ruin people’s safe spaces!!!

Like I said, I’ve grown to enjoy Izzy over time thanks to fandom and fanon, and I think it’s fantastic that fandom can have such diversity in the way it interprets canon. I can’t wait for his probable redemption arc (it will likely be a healing thing to witness for many of us) and I’m truly glad that we can all have different relationships to the same characters. But please—when some of us need Izzy to be a punching bag, just let him be a punching bag. No, it’s not homophobic and DEFINTELY not misogynistic to view him as an obstacle in Ed and Stede’s relationship (baffled by the amount of times I’ve seen this take—it’s a funny joke but if you actually think Izzy is treated the way female characters related to other mlm ships have been treated, the point is very much going whoosh). You don’t have to engage; it’s not personal. It’s not about YOUR relationship with him—it’s about MINE. Please let me feel and even discuss rage towards him when I think about episode 10. Please let me throw as many sandwiches at his head as I need to. Because I PROMISE, it won’t hurt him—because he, and none of these characters, are real; and yet we, the fans, very much are.

#woof #did I add enough disclaimers?#this was longer than intended so if you read all the way through I’m giving you a kiss #I wasn’t going to engage but I keep seeing vitriol in the tag when all I want to do is decompress and I just…#I just came here to see gay ppl kiss sir this is a Wendy’s #fandom should be a safe space and I hate getting an ick from tumblr when it’s what I’m trying to use to escape the bad shit #life is hard enough lmao #anyway #please be kind to each other #I could go into the whole other topic of what the trauma of Covid did to our virtual affect and interpersonal skills but #alas that’s a thesis within itself #and on that note I have my actual thesis to work on so i won’t be closely monitoring this post just needed to get this all off my chest #and for what it’s worth I’ve been trying to avoid s2 spoilers so I haven’t seen the Izzy clip yet but that’s honestly irrelevant to this #bc this is in relation to s1 and I hope we can all just have a good time again this season #ofmd #our flag means death #the izcourse #ofmd meta #trauma #racism

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no1ryomafan · 5 months

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The subject of the getter manga spin offs came to my mind randomly today talking to some of my friends and I’ve been thinking about how IIRC the only major spin off manga to not be translated is High, aka the Mahjong one with a all girl team. The only other ones to follow are a manga made for the PS game and the “try to remember” manga that arma’s first 3 ep director made, but those are in a weird territory of spin off classification, at least compared to the others, but I also chalk up their lack of translations being their hard to find, especially because try to remember was considered lost media. (Until my friends randomly found it lol) But I’ve been wondering to myself something regarding that: While High simply could’ve never been translated because finding the proper scans could be hard, I feel another factor people gloss over it compared to the other spin offs is because there’s a absence of the OG getter team.

Because even though I talked about how Go team been not adapted properly in animes and the toei go show was likely overlooked because of that-to manga readers-I also note it is the only Getter show to NOT be fully subbed even though getting the footage doesn’t seem to be a issue. All the other getter manga spin offs feature the OG team in some capacity, most of them are their own tellings of getter so we get adaptations of the team. The only example I can think of that didn’t do this was Hien, but that had Hayato in it. Meanwhile High is a new getter team completely so people seem to turn an eye to it, even though the girl pilot is- very much clearly “Ryoma but gender bent” lol. (And I do know a handful of people who like her but not a TON)

I don’t wanna make bad assumptions about the fandom because it’s just more so how it goes, the first line of protagonist’s will ALWAYS be the most popular with there only ever being a few exceptions to this, but it is kinda a shame Getter falls victim of most of the fandom either liking Ryoma and/or Hayato the most-mainly Ryoma but I met plenty Hayato fans and y’all are insane /pos-and don’t really bother to bat a eye to the other characters which I just feel leads to these things getting neglected. And I’m- guilty of this but I’m trying to talk about the others more.

#meg text #getter robo #I will say I only haven’t read the spin offs next to “my ass struggles to read” for a particular reason #that being I’m always scared to go down the nichest pipeline of a multi media fandom because I’ve been there before and it fucking sucks #Not in the content sucks more so “oh wow this is good- wait five people know this”#(this is a certified mega man starforce fan moment)#Granted given how I’m- obsessed with this series and already know they exist I may read them eventually (once I like reading again maybe)#Though for toei go case I know a lot of other things factor like peeps just shitting on toei in general because it’s more light hearted #which how dare getter not just be edgy! /s #it’s not like only Armageddon was really the brutal one since the others had humorous moments in between #oh wait arma the most popular one that’s why rip #will say I do have hope High might spark interest eventually because it was in the now dead SRW gacha and devo got into mainline #so now they have a excuse to bring High into something but who knows when that’ll be (and if devo actually does bring forth the spin offs)#that said if the spin offs join DONT USE DARKNESS (I hate to be that guy but- why)#of all the iffy shit in getter that whole fucking thing is probably the worst because it can’t be excused by “oh it’s old”#it’s more recent and the writer just sucks ass with subject matter #if I ever read it to fully see how bad it is you have to pay me but keep that shit OUT of SRW #that or like- add it but take away the gross shit (but preferably pretend it doesn’t exist)

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