#at least I certainly can't-

[salstray]

OKAY i wasn’t going to share thsi but you can thank Cap up above there for putting some pressure on me and getting me to share this.

I don’t have a lot for Kitten, but she’s a 141 OC/self insert cause I’m cringe but I’m free~

---

    “Ghost… Soap… this is Kitten,” I wheezed, one hand pressed to my radio, the other trying to keep the blood from leaking out of my multiple stab wounds. “I’m hit… third floor of the school building… got stabbed…” 

    I took a shaking breath, my head falling back against the window behind me. Most of it was shattered, thanks to the elbow I’d accidentally put through it when my attacker had lunged at me. He was dead now. Laying across the room, a shiney new hole spilling his own warm blood onto the dusty tiles. 

    He’d gotten me fucking good though. Three quick plunges of the blade before I’d managed to lift my leg and kick him in the chest. Just far enough to shoot him, then slump against the wall, weakly calling for the others… who had yet to respond.

    “This is Kitten, does anyone copy?” I asked, trying my best not to cringe at my stupid fucking call sign. It had haunted me since basic training. Tiny yet feisty, they’d all said, giggling at my burning rage when it had been revealed to me. 

    Bastards.

    “Guys?” I called, both my hands starting to shake at the answering silence. “Guys… c’mon… jokes over, I need some help over here…” 

    Nothing.

    Fuck, had they finally snapped? I knew I was annoying, but I’d figured it was part of my charm! The teasing, the jokes, the little jabs. Sure, I’d hide their hats and stuff sometimes, but I’d always get a playful roll of the eyes and a chuckle afterwards. At least from most of them… maybe I did lay it on a little thick with Soap and Ghost, though…

    That shouldn’t be enough to just… leave me for dead though, right? 

    I tried again, the action of pressing down the button to broadcast my voice noticeably harder. My other hand pushed against my gut. The blood was turning cold against my fingers. 

    “Promise I’ll… stop… hiding your stuff… if you… don’t let me… die…,” I muttered. God, when did breathing get so difficult? Was my radio dead or something? The knife hadn’t gotten anywhere near the wires that connected everything together, so why the fuck weren’t they answering? “...please?” I added pathetically. 

    Were they dead? Fuck, I hoped not. I may act like a fucking gremlin, but that was just my way of showing I cared. Did they just not see that? 

    Were they really… gonna just leave me? 

    I let my hand drop from the button. My head leaned back against the window and I tilted it as far as I could, staring up through the broken glass to see that it perfectly framed the full moon. The face of it looked down at me impassively, her eyes cold and distant, her cheeks framed by a nest of stars.

    “...you just… gonna leave me… too?” I mumbled, huffing out a pained laugh as I blinked sluggishly. “...guess… that’s it then… end of the… of the line, huh?” My eyes fluttered shut and it took every ounce of effort I could muster to open them again. The hand that was pushing against my belly fell limply into my lap as the warmth slid from my body. A new stain on the floor. Another skeleton in the closet…

    “...oh well…” 

    My eyes closed again. I let out a deep breath.

    When they opened, things were bright. Aggressively so.

    Feeling slowly slipped back into my limbs and I realized I was no longer on that dingy floor in that crumbling building. I was on my back. In a hospital bed. Hooked into fuck knows how many machines. 

    Loud ass lights buzzed above me, glaring down at me harshly. I blinked a few times, groaning as the pain hit me again. 

    Right, I was stabbed and left for dead… hope those other fuckers are okay, even though they didn’t fucking answer me.

    It started as anger, but the feeling very quickly faded into something worse. Something colder and deeper. I sighed heavily, rolling my head to the side, finding windows to my right where there was a door to my left. 

    The moon was low on the horizon and I could tell I was a few floors up by the way it sat above the trees and was somehow still eye level with me. It wasn’t full anymore. Now it was only half facing the earth, meaning I’d been out for a few days, at the very least. With another sigh and some sluggish fumbling, I found the button to call in the nurse and the chaos began. 

    More days passed. I was asked a shit ton of questions. Given some meds. Put through some tests. It was after I’d tried to walk for the first time that I got my first visitor. God ol’ Field Dad Himself.

    “Captain,” I said softly, turning to look at him as he stepped through the door. He was dressed for a formal dinner, tactical vest, bucket hat, and dusty boots as usual. And he smiled at me as he slipped inside and shut the door behind him. 

    “Rose.” Silently I thanked both God and Jesus that he didn’t use my field name. “How’re you feeling?” 

    “Like a retired pin cushion.” He allowed me a pity chuckle. I was grateful for it. None of the nurses seemed to like my jokes and the doctor was all business. 

    “Not surprised. Ghost said he found you in quite the state.” 

    I was quiet for a moment. 

    “Ghost found me?” 

    Price grunted. “Your radio was busted. He and Soap could hear you, but said you couldn’t hear them.” All his humor evaporated. “You thought they were going to leave you.” 

    Fuck.

    Immediately, I opened my mouth to speak. To say… something. To either defend myself, correct him, defend the guys-

    …but I had nothing. So I just pressed my lips together and looked away, trying not to make it too obvious that I was blinking back tears. If Price caught on, he didn’t comment about it. 

    “Why?”

    I glanced over to him, brow furrowing.

    “Why what?”

    “Why’d you think they’d leave you?” 

    “...I… I don’t know…” I looked away from him again, turning to glance out the window at the slowly setting sun. “It was just… just an old mindset… rearing its ugly head again…”

    “Should I line you up for a psych eval, then?”

    I scoffed, grinning slightly. “Fucking… maybe…” My head turned back to him and I blatantly looked him up and down. He hadn’t even bothered to shed his gear before he came to find me, meaning he was either about to ship out on a mission or he had just gotten back from one. Knowing Price, he wouldn't have waited when he found out I was awake. “The others just get back too?”

    “Yup. Made them go cool off, though.” Fuck, where they mad at me? “Wanted to talk to you myself first.” 

    “...are they mad?”

    “Hurt. Not mad… Soap is, anyway… can’t say the same for Simon.” 

    “Hell…,” I grumbled, making him smile down at me. 

    “Rest up, Rose,” he muttered, reaching forward to pat my leg. “They’ll be in soon.” 

    I had more anxiety over that than over a man coming at me with a knife.

    Sure enough, about an hour later, Soap sauntered into the room. Looking fresh, dressed in a simple t-shirt and jeans. He didn’t say anything at first. Just came up to the foot of my bed and stood there, arms crossed, eyes sharp. 

    I didn’t like it. 

    He wasn’t supposed to be the serious one.

    “Hey Soapy,” I said carefully. 

    He cracked, a smile tugging at his lips as he sighed and shook his head. 

    “Gonna blame it on the blood loss, Kitten?” He asked. I’d let him get away with the call sign for now.

    “I was actually gonna surprise you guys and just go with ‘take the blame’, but I feel that idea is more on brand.” Soap chuckled, letting his arms fall to his sides as he looked down at me. 

    “Doin’ okay, then?”

    “As okay as I can be with three extra holes… doctors won’t even let me out to have a fun friday night with them either.” He shook his head again, clearly fighting back a full on laugh as he reached up to run a hand across his mohawk… so I took a deep breath and spoke again. “Listen… I’m sorry… really, I… I don’t know why I thought…

    “Kitten.” I resisted the urge to glare at him. “Don’t worry about it. Honestly, it probably was blood loss. That and not being able to hear us… calling out and thinking you were being ignored…” All the humor was gone from our conversation. He was looking at me like he had been before, his smile nowhere to be found. “I don’t like it… but I don’t blame you.” 

    “You should,” I said flatly. He blinked. His brow furrowed. “It was a dick move to immediately jump to that conclusion. Sure, I could blame it on the stab wounds, the blood loss, but in the end, that was on me and I shouldn’t have figured you and Ghost wouldn’t do that. You’re good teammates. I should have guessed it was the radio first and you being sick of my shit second.” 

    That got a bit of a smile out of him again, but it was fleeting. Only there for a moment. And, once the moment passed, the silence after my statement was shattered by a different voice. A deeper, angrier voice.

    “Damn right, you should have.” 

    I was surprised I didn’t break my neck with the speed I used to look at him. Ghost was standing in the doorway, nothing more than a dark shadow, his face tucked safely behind his mask and a hood pulled up over his head.

    He was glaring at me, which wasn’t any sort of shock to me or Soap. 

    We shared a look and, to my horror, Soap drifted over towards the door. He put a hand on Ghost’s shoulder, patting it a few times, before he stepped out of the room and Ghost stepped in. He closed the door behind him and I laid in bed, fingers woven together on my chest, knuckles white as I stared up at him.

    He stepped closer. Up to the side of my bed where he loomed over me. 

    I just watched him. Terrified of the immediate future. 

    “You really thought we’d leave you to die, Kitten?” If it was any other day, I’d have snapped at him. Instead I stayed quiet. Apparently that was the wrong move. “Answer me.” 

    “I… a-at the time, I-” 

    “Yes or no. Nothing else.” 

    “...yes.” 

    His eyes narrowed. I didn’t like the fucking answer either, but I wasn’t about to lie to him! In that moment, when I was cold and alone, bleeding like a stuck pig, yes I thought they were just gonna leave me there. My slow, bloodless brain thought that they’d had enough and that I wasn’t important enough to come back for. Hell, I had to take twenty minutes every single fucking morning to convince myself that Price hadn’t made a mistake by bringing me onto the fucking task force!

    Not that Ghost knew any of this. Not that any of them knew that. I kept my anxieties to my fucking self. That wasn’t anyone’s problem but my own. 

   “You really think so little of us?”

    I blinked, my eyes widening. “What!? No, I-” 

    “Then why the fuck did you think we’d just ignore you?” 

    Hell’s fucking bells-

    “That wasn’t against you or Soap, it was against me.” He didn’t react. “It wasn’t that I thought you two would just leave me willy nilly! It was the fact that I figured you’d gotten so tired of me and all my bullshit that you’d finally realized that it would be better for everyone if I was just fucking dead!” 

    A few seconds of silence. 

    He shook his head. “You need a bloody psych eval,” he grumbled, suddenly turning on his heel and slamming the door as he left the room.

    “Yeah, you’re not the first to say that,” I muttered, falling back onto the thin pillow behind me. 

Do you guys have cod ocs ? Be it art or writing or whatever im so curious i wanna see some oc lore

Drop them if you feel like sharing plz 👇👇

[navree]

Incorrect, the fact that Biden has dropped out and a candidate with history of supporting medicare for all and being more receptive to a ceasefire in the I/P conflict has made me go from "I cannot morally support the Democratic nominee" to "I am voting for the Democratic nominee despite the fact she isn't perfect in every respect." I'm really happy this played out. The Dems for the most part abandoned the old Obama platform and it feels like its possible an actual progressive agenda could come to pass in my lifetime.

Kamala 2024!

If you weren't going to vote Democratic in this election before Biden dropped out you're a dorkass loser who does not care about any of the issues you're yammering about here and also a fundamentally bad person, and I hope you get run over by a bus.

But you got one thing right in all of this gibberish, Kamala 2024.

[cuddlytogas]

there was some Twitter madness recently where someone left a comment on someone's art to the effect of, "Ed shouldn't wear a dress, he's a man!" which I do disagree with on principle, but unfortunately, it brought out one of my least favourite trends in the fandom

so, naturally, I had to write a twitter essay about it. and I already largely argued this in a post here, but the thread is clearer and better structured, so I thought I'd cross-post for those not on the Hellsite (derogatory). edited for formatting/structure's sake, since I no longer have to keep to tweet lengths, and incorporating a couple of points other people brought up in the replies

so

I want to point out that the wedding cake toppers in OFMD s2 aren't evidence that Ed wants to wear dresses. Gender is fake, men can wear skirts, play with these dolls how you like, but it's not canon, and that scene especially Doesn't Mean That.

People cite it often: 'He put himself in a dress by painting the bride as himself! It's what he wants!' But that fundamentally misunderstands the scene, and the series' framing of weddings as a whole. I'd argue that Ed paints the figure not from desire, but from self-hatred; it's not what he wants, but what he thinks he should, and has failed to, be.

(Yes, I am slightly biased by my rampant anti-marriage opinions, but bear with me here, because it is relevant to the interpretation of the scene, and season two as a whole.)

The show is not subtle. It keeps telling us that the institution of marriage is a prison that suffocates everyone involved. Ed's parents' cycle of abuse is passed to their son in both the violence he witnesses then enacts on his father, and the self-repression his mother teaches, despite her good intentions ("It's not up to us, is it? It's up to God. ... We're just not those kind of people. We never will be."). Stede and Mary are both oppressed by their arranged marriage, with 1x04 blunty titled Discomfort in a Married State. The Barbados widows revel in their freedom ("We're alive. They're dead. Now is your time").

But even without this context, the particular wedding crashed in 2x01 is COMICALLY evil. The scene is introduced with this speech from the priest:

"The natural condition of humanity is base and vile. It is the obligation of people of standing ... to elevate the common human rabble through the sacred transaction of matrimony."

It's upper class, all-white, and religiously sanctioned. "Vile natural conditions" include queerness, sexual freedom, and family structures outside the cisheteropatriarchal capitalist unit. "The obligation of people of standing" invokes ideas like the white man's burden, innate class hierarchy, religious missions, and conversion therapy. Matrimony is presented as both "sacred" (endorsed by the ruling religious body), and a "transaction" (business performed to transfer property and people-as-property, regardless of their desires), a tool of the oppressive society that pirates escape and destroy. That is where the figurines come from.

When Ed, in a drunk, depressive spiral, paints himself onto the bride, he's not yearning for a pretty dress. He's sort of yearning for a wedding, but that's not framed as positive. What he's doing is projecting himself into an 'ideal' image of marriage because he believes that: a) that's what Stede (and everyone) wants; b) he can never live up to that ideal because he's unlovable and broken (brown, queer, lower-class, violent, abused, etc); c) that's why Stede left. He tries to make himself fit into the social ideal by painting himself onto the closest match - long-haired, partner to Stede/groom, but a demure, white woman, a frozen, porcelain miniature - because, if he could just shrink himself down and squeeze into that box, maybe Stede would love him and he'd live happily ever after. But he can't. So he won't.

The fantasy fails: Ed is morose, turns away from the figurines, then tips them into the sea, a lost cause. He knows he won't ever fulfil that bride's role, but he sees that as a failure in himself, not the role. It's not just that "Stede left, so Ed will never have a dream wedding and might as well die." Stede left when Ed was honest and vulnerable, "proving" what his trauma and depression tell him: there's one image of love (of personhood), and he'll never live up to it because he's fundamentally deficient. So he might as well die.

This hit me from my very first viewing. The scene is devastating, because Ed is wrong, and we know it! He doesn't need to change or reduce himself to fit an image and be accepted (as, eg, Izzy demanded). Stede knows and loves him exactly as he is; it's the main thread and theme of season two!

(@/everyonegetcake suggested that Ed's yearning in these scenes includes his broader desire for the vulnerability and safety Stede offered, literalised through unattainable "fine" things like the status of gentleman in s1, or the figurine's blue dress. I'd argue, though, that these scenes don't incorporate this beyond a general knowledge of Ed's character. Ed is always pining for both literal and emotional softness, but the significance of the figurines specifically, to both Ed and the audience, is poisoned by their origin and context: there is no positive fantasy in the bride figure, only Ed's perceived deficiency.

Further, assuming that a desire for vulnerability necessarily corresponds with an explicit desire for femininity, dresses, etc, kind of contradicts the major themes of the show. OFMD asserts that there is nothing wrong with men assuming femininity (through drag, self-care, nurturing, emotional vulnerability, etc), but also that many of these traits are, in fact, genderless, and should be available to men without affecting their perceived or actual masculinity. It thematically invokes the potential for cross-gender expression in Ed's desires, especially through the transgender echoes in his relieved disposal, then comfortable reincorporation, of the Blackbeard leathers/identity. It's a rich, valuable area of analysis and exploration. But it remains a suggestion, not a canon or on-screen trait.)

Importantly, the groom figure doesn't fit Stede, either. Not just in dress: it's stiff and formal, and marriage nearly killed him. He's shabbier now, yes, but also shedding his privilege and property, embracing his queerness, and trying to take responsibility for his community. In a s1 flashback, Stede hesitantly says, "I thought that, when I did marry, it could be for love," but he would never find love in marriage. Not just because he's gay, but because marriage in OFMD is an oppressive, transactional institution that precludes love altogether. All formal marriages in OFMD are loveless.

So, he becomes a pirate, where they reject society altogether and have matelotages instead. Lucius and Pete's "mateys" ceremony is shot and framed not like a wedding, but as an honest, personal bond, willingly conducted in community (in a circle; no presiding authority, procession, or transaction).

That is how Stede and Ed can find love, companionship, and happiness: by rejecting those figurines and their oppressive exchange of property, overseen by a church that enables colonialism and abuse. Ed is loved, and deserves happiness, as he is, no paint or projection required.

ALL OF THIS IS TO SAY: draw Ed in dresses! Write him getting gender euphoria in skirts! Write trans/nb Ed, draw men being feminine! Gender is fake, the show invites exploration, that's what 'transformative works' means! But please, stop citing the cake toppers as evidence it's canon. Stop citing a scene where a depressed Māori man gets drunk and projects himself onto a rich, white, silent bride because he thinks he's innately unlovable and only people like her can find happiness, shortly before deciding to kill himself, as canon evidence it's what he wants.

(Also, please don't come in here with "lmao we're just having fun," I know, I get it. Unfortunately, I'm an academiapilled researchmaxxer, and some of youse need to remember that the word "canon" has meaning. NOW GO HAVE FUN PUTTING THAT MAN IN A PRETTY DRESS!! 💖💖)

[zebratimw]

2021

[austin-friars]

It just occurred to me that we've not had an in depth portrayal of Henry VIII and Jane Seymour since the Tudors. Or just, Jane Seymour in general. So I am really curious to see how Mirror and the Light/Wolf Hall is going to handle them.

We get to know about her family, we'll learn about Elizabeth Seymour as well, and how important she is.

[clowndensation]

there’s a question to be asked i think about to what extent “getting out” can be conflated with “being saved” in this show, and what freedom actually means to any of these characters.

like you can argue that shiv saved ken by voting against him on gojo, but what if your intent behind saving someone is to inflict a worse punishment than if you’d just left them trapped? can a child weaned on poison survive on milk, or are you just sentencing them to a death by inches, starved of the only thing they know? and if you save someone specifically because you know that being saved is the worst thing that can happen to them, is that kindness or cruelty? at what point does a good thing become a malicious act?

and you can say that roman is finally free, but what exactly is he free from? the company? his father? does unlocking a cage mean saving a dog, or are you allowing him out on the street knowing there’s a kill shelter nearby? if the driving anxiety behind roman is that he’s an idiot and a failure—that he’ll never amount to anything, and trying will only lead to pain—and he’s finally cut loose once all of those anxieties have crystallized into cold hard fact in his mind, what has he actually escaped from? if the cage is in your mind, is it even possible for somebody else to unlock it?

the fundamental truth of a tragedy is that even being saved can be a death sentence, if the characters are incapable of escaping the thing doing them the most harm (themselves and their childhoods)

[lunarharp]

"Found out" set in kind of a made-up chapter where the girls are in trouble, or something.

[sysig]

Let him dad her!! (Patreon)

[wonder-worker]

"It is too easy to dismiss [Leonor of Navarre] as an overambitious schemer who would do anything to obtain a crown, shedding the blood of her own siblings and her subjects in order to attain the throne. However, a deeper investigation of her long lieutenancy and ephemeral reign shows a woman who fought tenaciously to preserve her place but also worked tirelessly to administer a realm which was crippled by internal conflict and the center of the political schemes of France, Aragon, and Castile. She tried to broker peace, fight off those who opposed her, repair the wounds caused by conflict, protect the sovereignty of the realm, and keep the wheels of governance turning. Leonor was not always successful in achieving all of these aims but given the background of conflict and the lack of cooperation she received from all of her family members, bar her loyal husband, it is a huge achievement that she survived to wear the crown at all. Many writers have argued that Leonor deserved the troubled lieutenancy, personal tragedies, an ephemeral reign, and a blackened reputation, basing their assumption that she committed a crime that cannot be [conclusively] proven. However, a more fitting description of her would be that of a resolute ruler who successfully overcame a multitude of challenges in order to survive in a difficult political landscape and gain a hard-fought throne.”

-Elena Woodacre, "Leonor of Navarre: The Price of Ambition", Queenship, Gender and Reputation in the Medieval and Early Modern West, 1060-1600 (Edited by Zita Eva Rohr and Lisa Benz)

[wildstar25]

What physical part(s) of Arsay does her partners find the most attractive! Is it the same for all partners or does it differ between them?

(also optional bonus ask of what part(s) of/about Arsay generally do they love the most, physical or not!)

Meanwhile, if you were to ask the same of Arsay:

[weptsorrow]

( what’s your villain origin story? )

the vengeful lover

once, your heart was full of love, but betrayal poisoned it. you gave everything, only to be discarded. now, you use your charm to lure others into your web of destruction. abandoned at the altar, your loved one ran away from you. why? why? why did they do that? if i can't have you, no one can.

[drinkingdeadpeopletea]

and while i'm hieronymousposting. i was totally assuming that he and saskia and sherman and tzila were all going to get thrown into a Situation together immediately post-reunion but since hieronymous made it to this dinner apparently that didn't happen. but i'm also relatively sure that if tzila had learned hieronymous was her father we would have seen that scene, which i guess means that he just. kept up the "friendly shipping captain harry" act and exited the room to go to this dinner. which makes me feel CRAZY,

[cultivating-wildflowers]

.

[antirepurp]

ultimately it's probably for the best that jojo doesn't really explore the effect something like the internet would have on stand user communities and people's knowledge and understanding of stands because that's an entire can of worms in its own right. however i am a little freak and the social aspects of stand users never ceases to intrigue me. like prior to the internet being as universal as it is now i can see stands being something that the average person isn't aware of and that information being kept to small and typically more local communities that all have slightly varying understandings of what stands are and different terminology for them as well. but that would inevitably change/evolve after worldwide communication becomes more available and easier, and i would just. love to see what an online community of stands users would be like. how they would discuss things and on what sort of platforms they would keep those conversations to. would an average person brush them off as just another group of oddball internet users along the lines of conspiracy theorists or the like? would a brand-new stand user be able to find information about their new permanent condition easily or would they have to know specific keywords to even find the communities they're seeking? imagine the batshit insane discourse that stirs up after some average people misunderstand the stand thing as something equivalent to wizard roleplaying and start pretending to be stand users. or would that even happen. certainly there are terminally online stand users too who would let that shit get to their heads bad

thank god i have an original the project im invested in that has similar concepts that i can explore as much as i want because i don't think jojo is geared up to tackle this stuff at all without compromising its identity

[tarantula-hawk-wasp]

the four separate people putting my blorbo as 'jesus christ' in the tags and independently collectively getting my ass.. wig.. gagged... etc.

[seventh-district]

again and again i find myself lamenting that audio roleplay isn't taken more seriously by some people. like yeah, they often have a romantic element, and by nature they usually directly involve/address the listener- and i totally get that those things aren't to everyone's taste. no art or entertainment is universally appealing, and that's okay! but.. it still makes me a lil sad that the "cringe" reputation of asmr/audio rp precedes it. there's a whole lot of talent and creativity being poured into these audios by so many people that i feel goes unrecognized and/or disrespected simply due to the medium that the stories are being told through.