Okay but that whole genre of steddyhands fics that were like "edizzy used to hook up on the reg in the early days but they pulled every wrong bdsm move in the book and when Ed tried to be softer or give aftercare Izzy spat at him like a feral cat and ran off (even though he really wanted that gentleness), and that's what made Ed pull away" no longer ring true at all for me
(they didn't quite line up with my character interpretation before either, but pre s2 I figured that was all just personal taste without canon backing)
Izzy would absolutely take anything Ed gave him, even if he'd never dare ask for softness aloud
Ed never even realized that Another Way was possible until he met Stede, and even after Izzy had come to represent everything Ed hated about the roughest parts of himself and piracy (even when that wasn't true).
You see in order to think Izzy deserved affection or even a thought outside of Ed's immediate whims and desires, he'd have to see Izzy as a person and an equal. Which he never has.
(I think a lot about a post I saw back when the season started airing, along the lines of "Ed would never treat Stede like this." No, he wouldn't.)
and oh god, I need Stede to come in and see this broken to fuck dynamic constructed over decades for everything it is. for someone to finally offer a love that doesn't hurt. I need these three assholes to figure out how to stop digging in the knife.