#the old country of cuba

[omgitsacuban]

Cuban Social vol VI nr. 5 (mayo 1921)

[the-everqueen]

i read crit theory for fun, i write rabbit-hole analyses of miniscule moments in performance, i care about my first-years so much--and i'm starting to think that maybe academia does not love me back. maybe there's nothing i could give it that would be Enough. maybe the academy would rather i ground myself to dust than give me one (1) thing. maybe i should start looking at non-ac jobs.

[icyboots]

"Standing up for what was right and true was something everybody had in them, no matter their size or shape or age or anything else. It was just a matter of whether they also had the courage to go with it."

Preacher's Frenzy by William W. Johnstone

[mesetacadre]

this might be a silly question, but. ive recently learned more about the devastating effects of sanctions on countries like cuba, dprk, or venezuela, and how much unnecessary suffering they cause among the population, especially when it comes to food or medicine shortages. but then bds also calls for sanctions against israel, and im wondering, is there any meaningful difference between that and the sanctions already imposed by the US on other countries? i feel a bit hypocritical when i argue against sanctions while at the same time supporting bds, i feel like they are very different situations with different outcomes but i lack the understanding to really grasp how they are different, if that makes any sense

Sanctions are the systematic blockade of all or certain sectors of trade under military or economic threat by the sanctioner (mostly just the USA in recent history) to any potential agents who might try to ignore the sanction. These sanctions typically include things like medical supplies, food if the country is dependent on imports (like most countries who get sanctioned), electricity, fuel, both light and heavy industry, agricultural products and machines, the global financial system, and other such key sectors. These sanctions, overwhelmingly, only serve to impoverish the country, create undue suffering and political strife. This political strife/instability is usually the main goal of sanctions, to destabilize the target government. However, this political instability more often than not does not result in a magical restoration of "democracy" or "human rights", it usually leads the country down a path of further isolationism and political violence that only worsens its general situation. It also makes it much easier for factions like ISIS to gain popularity and support, since people are desperate. Sanctions are inhumane measures which only makes a country suffer for no good reason. The sanctioners know this, they don't care, and I'd wager that suffering is often the actual point of these sanctions. What has the 60 year old blockade achieved in Cuba? It has only caused pointless poverty, and the stated goal of the sanctions, which is to ultimately remove the communist government, has failed, is failing, and Cuba is managing to make due with what they have.

BDS call for sanctions mostly in regards to military equipment and related products/services, for NATO to stop aiding the genocide, or the banning of Israel from international events such as the olympics. No Israeli will ever go hungry because they no longer get European-made ordinance or because they don't get to participate in Eurovision. This is what BDS says in their Sanctions and governments campaign (which is behind two menus, this is also not the main focus of BDS, by far):

The BDS movement calls for sanctions against Israel, similar to the sanctions that were imposed against apartheid South Africa. These sanctions could include a military embargo, an end to economic links and the cutting of diplomatic ties. In the meantime, the BDS movement is calling for states to take steps to meet their legal obligations not to be complicit in the commission of particular Israeli crimes and not to provide recognition, aid or assistance that help Israel maintain its regime of settler colonialism, apartheid.. This includes, for example, the obligation for states to immediately end to all trade that sustains illegal Israeli settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territory and the suspension of free trade agreements and other bilateral agreements with Israel.

Notice the greater emphasis on military and diplomatic ties, and how economic/trade sanctions are only called for when it «sustains illegal Israeli settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territory». Sure, this will (if it is ever adopted by Israel's significant trade partners) cause some suffering for the poor illegal settlers who had just moved into their shiny new apartment blocks built atop acres of land that sustained the surrounding Palestinian villages. The mere existence of these settlements cause more suffering than any sanction could ever cause.

Calling for these sanctions against Israel, which again, don't even come from comparable agents, are both less harmful towards the total population of Israel, and occur in a completely different context. I'm not going to pretend I care about the wellbeing of settlers whose houses didn't even exist 10 years ago. If these sanctions ever do occur in a significant enough scale (dubious), and those settlers don't want to find themselves in a food desert because Carrefour closed all their stores in the west bank, they shouldn't have moved into land stolen from a people facing genocide in the first place. We're also wagering hypothetical and non-global suffering against the now more than 100,000 dead Palestinians in Gaza in the past year, not even counting those who died ever since the first Nakba.

Like BDS points out, these types of grassroots and targeted boycotts/sanctions worked in South Africa, and the white South Africans didn't even suffer that much. Wager these short-lived and targeted sanctions against these other half-century long sanctions sustained by the US' strongarm policy that have prevented basically anything from getting into Cuba or the DPRK.

While those two things are both called sanctions, they have radically different objectives, methods, range, timescale, and character. I can't reiterate this enough, the North Korean collective farmer and the Israeli settler in the west bank have nothing in common when it comes to their position. Only one of them is complicit in genocide through their own actions, only one of them has any degree of blame, and only one of their governments is actually doing anything that warrants any kind of international action. And again, the BDS strategy focuses much more on military sanctions. Let's also be practical for a second, and acknowledge that the US is never going to withdraw their support for Israel, and especially will never sanction Israel. Israel is simply never going to face the same kind of sanctions that Venezuela or Cuba are facing, nor with the same severity, nor with the same restrictions on products essential for life.

[elbiotipo]

Common historical misconceptions:

Suits and ties were not used by everyone: they were mostly used by people of high status on formal occassions.

Daft Punk represent some of the earliest androids registered outside fiction, they were not two humans in suits (this is still disputed)

Similarily, Miku Hatsune was an "anime" character at first, the first sentient personalities of Miku date from 2026.

The "Old City" of Niork in Usamerica was actually built in the 2230s around the JFK Spaceport, the ruins of old Niork are in the Manhattan Swamplands.

Similarily, the Statue of Liberty and the Empire State Building are later reconstructions. The original Statue of Liberty did not have the shield with the emblem of the Joint Chiefs.

The Joint Chiefs did not refer to an alliance of "chiefs" in charge of Usamerican "states", but rather to the pre-socialist military dictatorship.

Bioengineering allowing for animal features is only registered from the late 21th century onwards. Findings previous to that are understood to be caricatures.

"Anime" art was made for general entertaiment, thus the stylization: it did not reflect a lack of knowledge of anatomy. The 'animation renaissance' of the 22th century is heavily disputed.

Open surgery was not 'primitive' or 'painful': it was a complex procedure with anaesthesia and other processes to avoid suffering of the patient. Widespread internal biotechnology arrived only on the 22th century.

The First Space Race did not end because of 'incuriosity' or 'astrophobia'. While political factors were important, technological developements such as Single-Stage-to-Orbit spaceships came only by the late 21th century.

While it is true that live meat was commonly consumed in the industrial era, it was not hunted or butchered at home by individuals such as Gauchos, but rather produced by ranching. Widespread artificial meat arrived only in the 22th century.

The current Socialist Interstellar is not a direct continuation of the original Socialist International, there were several interludes on which did not exist as such, particularily the Neoliberal Interlude of 1991 to 2089. The oldest continously socialist country is Cuba, now part of the URSAL.

There is no evidence that Batman existed. His introduction to the superhero genre as a 'powerless' hero was fictional, and not based on a real person, despite several claims.

However, Espaiderman is identified to be a real person: Pedro Parques, who lived in Baries, Argentina during the late 21th century, but he did exist as a Usamerican character previously.

[hazeltongzhi]

Hi Hazel, I really like your takes and would like to know if you have an opinion on why have many socialist leaders tended to be homophobic? not that capitalists have ever been any better of course, I'm just asking because... I tend to expect better from communism and have often become very disappointed when I read what Castro or Mao for example had to say about gay people. Of course, when this is weaponized by liberals who conveniently forget to mention, say, Reagan's vision of gay men, it's pretty clearly just anti communist propaganda. But I'm still curious what made them specifically think gay men were unfit to be revolutionaries???? what was that all about (I'm working my way through reading communist theory but so far I haven't read any convincing arguments tbh!)

A large part of it is from the superstructure of their time and environment. Doesn't mean they were correct or good when they say or held homophobic/transphobic positions but its the explanation. A tangential but related example is Engels's writing in "The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State", which, although contains some very important ideas on how the family unit was invented and supports the capitalist mode of production, has some frankly very racist statements in it. As communists, we have to critically analyze the past; the people, the ideas, and practice to identify and understand theory and practice that is both correct and works and discard that which is incorrect and doesn't work.

Luckily, bigoted beliefs are social conditions that can be unlearned. Indeed, as history marched forward, communists became more radical and accepting of LGBT people and historically, communist countries have been more lenient towards or actively supportive (like the GDR) of LGBT people than their western counterparts especially considering the worldviews at the time. Your very example of Fidel Castro, who lived to the ripe old age of 90 and passed away in 2016, not only renounced his previous positions on LGBT people but actively sought to undo the damage he had done, both apologizing and paying reparations to those harmed by his policies. Cuba today is one of, if not the leading country in LGBT rights in the world next to Vietnam.

[odinsblog]

“That’s my history. Strange thing, that I and my family would do it again,” he said.

Safad, which is the city that my father lived there for hundreds of years, with his father and grandfather and great grandfather and so on, when a ship came from Poland with refugees, Jewish refugees from Poland and Germany, whatever, and they went to several countries first went to America, and they went to Cuba and they won't let them off.

So they came to Haifa.

And funny enough, Haifa is a port that my great grandfather built, and they had a banner on the side of their boat saying, “We lost our homes in Germany and our hope can you, don't let us lose our hope here in your country.”

And they took them, they took two families each. Took two families and others did, and brought them to our house, to my father's house, and they lived with us for two and a half years.

And when I was, when my mother was pregnant with me, my mother went to Nazareth to her parents house.

She had me and I was nine days old when she came back to Safad to take me inside our home, and we were locked out. The fact I came back home and they won't even let us in into our home.

When my mother begged them to get a shershef or something to put around me, they wouldn't let her.

So she moved on down to the refugee camp in Syria somewhere.

—Mohamed Hadid

[rebellion-of-the-oppressed]

We're trying to help others in need, spread information, and boost fundraisers!

Please consider checking this drive out, it has information about Venezuela, charity, artists that need commissions and so much more!

This docs made by @beforeliteracytherewasdeez

Also, please do check the following fundraisers!: Feel free to add / send us more fundraisers to add!

IMPORTANT: Every single fundraiser in this blog is tagged either #fundraisers or #fundraiser . This post gets rebloggued everytime it changes, please consider sharing and reblogging, too! We appreciate the likes, but the reblogs it's what will give the post more visibility and help the fundraisers get more attention!!! Also, if you find a fundraiser we haven't rebloggued, please tag us!!

MASTERPOST OF FUNDRAISERS

For these countries: 🇵🇸🇻🇪🇨🇺🇾🇪🇳🇮🇨🇩🇸🇩🇭🇹🇪🇹. Subjected to changes (ex. If we find/rb more fundraisers, we'll add them).

I haven't organized this one, but it has a various links. Shared by @serica-e

Palestine 🇵🇸

URGENT: help @yousra1-gaza Yusra' ask

Multiple links

Ways to help Palestinians

Help Samira!

The original ask was delated but this one has useful links.

Osama Basil

A list of asks

eSims

Needa's campaign

Juliet's ask | post

Imithital's ask

Hamdi Ayyad's ask

Hazem Mohammed

Salam's ask | Post

Docs of people vetted by @gazagfmboost

Docs of people vetted by @nabulsi and @el-shab-hussein

Donations for @90-ghost

Salah's family.

Sonic says freedom!

Juliet's ask

@pkmnbutch-inactive 's list of Palestinians' campaigns

Basel Ayyad's ask

Mahmoud's ask

Mohammed Ayyad's ask to @epickiya722

Hossam Al-Ser'a ask to @bobadila

Mahed's ask

Ali's ask

Asks/tags shared by @pteropods

Baraa Al-Shorafa's ask

Nadine's ask

Hadeel's ask

Nada's ask

@yasermohammad 's ask and donations

Ibrahim Mahed's ask

List of fundraisers by @tododeku-or-bust

Help Noor | ask

Khaled's Family's Ask

Help the family of a Children's Books Illustrator flee!

List of fundraisers shared by: @illamda-spaminations

Venezuela 🇻🇪

This raffle ends on September 10th, 2024!! By @silvervarian

Ways to help venezuelans

More ways to help venezuelans

Help @Lunes 's grandma, Dorka!

@pumpariah 's Commissions to Help Parents Flee!

The original ask was delated but this one has useful links.

Multiple links

Victor & Eldy

Valproic acid, national shipping

Vikoon's commissions shared by @systhemes

More venezuelan commissions

@transform-artion 's Commissions

Help a Venezuelan Family Flee! Shared by @yuissamidare

Cuba 🇨🇺

URGENT: Ester Asprón, a 2 years old.

Pocket's commissions!

Yemen🇾🇪

Multiple links

Nicaragua 🇳🇮

The only Nicaragua's links I've found in this hellsite

Democratic Republic of Congo 🇨🇩, Sudan 🇸🇩, Haiti 🇭🇹, Ethiopia 🇪🇹

Note: Campaigns for these countries oftentimes are together. We may, in a future, give a section for any and all of these countries, but for now they are together.

Fundraisers shared by @serica-e

Eman Abdelrahman's campaign

List of fundraisers shared by @marigoldcanaries

Help the Haitian Refugees in Ohio shared by @maeamian | A new Support Center @resolutedoubt

[useless-catalanfacts]

Frequently Asked Questions

This post answers the following questions:

Who are the Catalans? Where are you?

Which are the Catalan Countries? (each Catalan country)

Where can I learn the Catalan language? (free online resources and where to find classes)

What social media accounts can I follow that post in Catalan?

If your question isn't answered here, you're more than welcome to send me an ask!

1. Who are the Catalans? Where are they?

Catalan people are a cultural group who come from the area known as the Catalan Countries. We speak the Catalan language (a language that descends from Latin) and have a distinct culture (cuisine, traditions, holidays, dances, music, literature, etc) and history since the Middle Ages.

Our nation is the Catalan Countries, located in the coast of the Mediterranean sea, in South-Western Europe.

As a result of past wars and invasions, most of the Catalan Countries are under Spanish rule and a part of it is under French rule (+1 city in Italy). In fact, Spain and France have harshly persecuted, illegalized and tried to exterminate the Catalan language and culture for a long time, well into the 20th century. But Catalan people have survived the ethnocide and we still exist, even though we continue to face discrimination and there are some settings where it's still not legal to speak Catalan (for example, public schools in the French-controlled part, or European Union ambits, among some others).

There is also Catalan diaspora around the world.

We are not a closed culture, we are very open to foreigners learning our language and culture, and the Catalan diaspora often organizes celebrations for our holidays or groups to do traditional activities (most famously the castellers, aka human towers) that everyone can join.

2. Which are the Catalan Countries?

We say the Catalan Countries in plural because it's made of different areas for historical reasons. The Catalan Countries are all the areas where Catalan is the native language, which have historically been part of a whole, and which share a common culture (with local variants, of course). Here they are:

From North to South:

Northern Catalonia. Capital city: Perpinyà. It's under French administration (part of the region Occitanie in the new French regions system, used to be Languedoc-Roussillon in the old one).

Andorra. Capital city: Andorra la Vella. It's an independent microstate.

Catalonia. Capital city: Barcelona. It's under Spanish administration (it's the Catalonia region in the Spanish regions system).

Eastern Strip, also called Aragon Strip. It's under Spanish administration (it's part of the region of Aragon in the Spanish regions system).

Balearic Islands, including Mallorca, Menorca, Eivissa (in English also known as Ibiza) and Formentera. Capital city: Palma. Under Spanish administration (Balearics region in the Spanish regions system).

Valencian Country. Capital city: València. Under Spanish administration (called Valencian Community in the Spanish regions system).

El Carxe. Tiny rural area. Under Spanish administration (part of the Region of Murcia in the Spanish regions system).

L'Alguer. One city in the island of Sardinia. Under Italian administration (part of the region of Sardinia in the Italian regions system).

3. Where can I learn the Catalan language?

We are thrilled that you want to learn our language. Catalan people love it when others learn our language. Here I'll link you to classes and free online resources.

If you want face-to-face classes outside of the Catalan Countries, you can check this website to find if there's a university that offers Catalan classes near you. There are 101 around Europe, 25 in North America and Cuba, 5 in Asia, and 4 in South America. Students from these courses can also participate in language stays and internships in the Catalan Countries.

If you're already in the Catalan Countries, you will easily find courses for foreigners which the government offers for free or for a cheap price (depending on the level and each person's economic situation). Check out your local CPNL (Consorci per la Normalització Lingüística).

If you want to learn independently on the internet, there are two resources I recommend the most, both are available online for free.

One is the book "Life in Catalonia. Learn Catalan from..." that you can find in various languages. Here I add the link to the official government page where you can legally download the PDFs for free, you only have to scroll down and click under where it says "text complet". You can find the book Learn Catalan from English, from Spanish, from Arabic, from Tamazight, from French, from Hindi, from Urdu, from Punjabi, from Romanian, from Russian, and from Chinese.

The other resource I recommend the most is the online course Parla.cat. It has different levels for beginners or advanced learners. You have to create an account (it asks for an official document number, don't worry about it, it's not a sketchy site, it's because it's an official course paid by the government of Catalonia and if you immigrated to Catalonia having taken this course would officially count as a language course and can give you some benefits). You can either use it for free (all the learning material is available in the free version) or you can use the paying version. In the paid version, you will get assigned a language teacher from Catalonia who can help you and correct you.

There are many more resources. You can find more free resources in this post, this post, or in this link.

Here you have some recommendations to start practising. And remember that you can watch Catalonia's public TV streaming service 3Cat for free from anywhere in the world!

4. I want to follow social media accounts that post in Catalan. Can you tell me some?

Of course! According to the WWW Consortium, Catalan is the 35th most used language on the Internet, out of the more than 7,000 languages in the world.

Here's some lists with recommendations by topic:

Anime and manga

Cooking

Travel accounts

Videogames

Fashion and lifestyle

More lists will be coming soon

If your question wasn't answered, you can send me a question clicking here. 🙂 You can also browse this blog by topics here.

[placeinthemiddleofnowhere]

Princess

Pairing: Simon "Ghost" Riley x Female!Reader

Warnings: Angst, Smut (18+), spanking, fingering, PinV, choking, brat taming, slight bit of name calling (slightly dubious to have sex with someone after rescuing them from a kidnapping but we'll ignore that)

Summary: Reader is the daughter of a prolific genral who's been kidnapped while she was trying to party it up with her friends. Ghost and Soap are recruited to rescue her, and soon find out that reader's attitude might be more of a challenge than the gang they're trying to rescue her from.

(No use of y/n)

A/N: I can't get Ghost out of my head and tbh I kinda feel like he'd be so good at dealing with your bratty nonsense if he had to.

- 👑-

You were sure you were going to die. 

Not because your family didn’t have the money, not because there weren’t enough resources  to save you, or even because of your own natural pessimistic tendencies. No. You were sure you were going to die because your father had made it abundantly clear long ago that you didn’t matter to him. 

You weren’t a man. You couldn't carry his title on and you’d grown up learning that that was mostly all he cared for. His legacy. It was one of the few things that cold man spoke of fondly, always lighting up at the mention of your brothers but never you. And as a result you’d grown up living for even the smallest chance at spiting him for it. You partied and drank and slept around with boys that made even your friends curl their lips at you sometimes. 

So, you were pretty sure that once your kidnappers realised that, that could only mean one thing. One of those big guns they were carrying was going to end up pointed right in your face then…bang. 

It was enough to leave you disoriented, you weren't taking in much. Not that there was much to take note of. Your eyes were shoddily covered over with a scrap of harsh, scratchy cloth and you could only see little slivers of things here and there. Your hands were duct taped to the arms of an office chair and your mouth was similarly covered so as to prevent anymore screams and curses.

You watched sets of boots as they echoed around the frigid room, and saw gun barrels and machetes, men roving across a scuffed up concrete floor. You didn’t catch anything that made you want to see more. Especially when you heard the taunts they slung at you in their thick accents.

“Don’t worry precious, I’m sure a spoiled little rich girl like you will get a good ransom, you’ll be home soon.”

“Bet you’re used to guys with big guns like this, daddy’s men must love you.”

“She’s a cute little thing, we should have some fun with her before we send her back.”

“I’ve heard she likes to have lots of fun, bet we’d slip right into her, fucking american girls.”

If the blindfold came off then that would only mean one thing. They were going to make good on the salacious threats they were now casually slinging your way. The fantasies they were now trading back and forth as they returned to speaking their own language. That was a small mercy at least. Not having to hear about how the last few moments of your life would go. 

You could feel your body shaking like an addict in withdrawal and your poor heart was leaping around in your chest like a caught frog. It didn’t help that you were riling yourself up either, imagining what the newspapers would say. Flashing up in your mind like something out of an old batman episode with a blaring brass section accompanying them.

 Daughter of a notable general killed in shock kidnapping

Holiday in Cancun turned nightmare as General’s daughter taken in the night

You couldn't even be sure if you were still in Mexico. For all you knew you were in all those other countries that you’d been too busy crafting a reputation to learn about in school. What were they again? Guatemala, Cuba? You were sure those were somewhere close by. Funny the things the mind distracts itself with when you’re stuck tightly in a chair surrounded by leering wolves. 

If only you hadn’t been drawn in by that tattooed man with the big arms. If only you’d been a good girl and enjoyed your holiday and stuck close to your friends instead of going out on the hunt for attention from bad men covered in tattoos and cologne that smelt like bad decisions. You could practically hear your father’s growly voice echoing through your mind. 

Stupid little girl. 

He’d been saying that for as long as you had memories of him. He’d be satisfied now, you lamented. You’d proved him right in the end, he’d always said your lifestyle would catch up with you and you’d be wishing that you’d just behaved for once sooner or later.  

At the very least, you figured, you wouldn’t have to hear him say I told you so. 

- 👑-

You weren't sure how much time had passed. It could’ve been a few minutes, or it could’ve been hours, but as your breathing grew more ragged behind the tape you knew you were experiencing the last few precious moments you had left. 

The men were sounding more and more pissed off as they rattled off curses to each other, filling the room with sharp hisses. They weren’t getting the results they wanted. They’d even removed the tape at some point and had you screaming out for a video, but apparently that wasn’t getting them anywhere either. They got tired with your cries and slapped an even thicker strip back in place.

You were starting to cry, feeling the stiff cloth go damp against your skin and irritating it further. It was so thick and itchy over your eyes, you wanted nothing more than to pull it off. You needed to see, needed to breathe. You were panicking. You needed out, you needed air, you needed to feel safe again. 

What the fuck? What the fuck? What the fuck?

You were chanting it in your mind, it rang through your head like a death toll. It seemed like those would be your last thoughts. You’d die panicking and snotty and covered in dried salty tears that mixed into a sludge with your thick mascara.

What the fuck? What the fuck? What the-

Thiew.

Crack.

Thud.

Every muscle in your body froze as you heard an alien sound zip through the room. Then suddenly everything erupted.

The men’s shouts turned into screams and barked orders and suddenly you were being wheeled around in your chair in the dark like a shopping cart. You were whizzed past men that were running and crouching into your limited vision, aiming their guns and returning fire as more bullets wailed into the room. And finally you found yourself slamming into a corner somewhere, banging your knees against a rough drywall. 

You screamed behind your gag and listened out as more men hit the ground and the guns grew into a cacophony of bangs. Death’s orchestra played for a solid few minutes, ringing in your ears and distorting the sound of your thrumming heartbeat as it crawled up through your throat and into your head.

You were sure you were going to die. 

The battle raged on for a few moments more until suddenly the men’s shouts silenced and the bullets grew sparse. All you could hear was the echoes of gunfire and shrill ringing from your unprotected ears. 

What was that?

You swore you could hear voices coming toward you.

“It’s alright, lass.”

You jumped as you felt someone touch your shoulder and cursed behind the tape in your mouth as the unidentified man tried to soothe you. It wasn’t until he pulled your blindfold down and you were greeted with his bruised face and ruffled mohawk that you calmed down, focusing your gaze on his icy pale eyes. He wasn’t one of the men who took you.

“I’m gonna take this tape off, ye good wi’ that?”

You frowned at the man, unsure if he was speaking english. You weren’t used to that accent, what was that accent? Scottish? Irish? 

You only had a few seconds to look up at him blankly before he gave up on getting a response and ripped the tape from your mouth, drawing out a scream with it.

“You motherfucker!” you shrieked, feeling a layer of skin peel from your face.

“Easy! It’s ok! What's the sayin’ agian? Best to rip it off like a band-aid, yeah?” he chuckled.

“Not when it’s fucking duct tape over my face, you- you stupid- oh, oh no, my god, oh my god look out!”

You screamed as you caught a giant man emerging through the shadows and through the doorway into the dingy room you’d been wheeled into. A skull mask obscured his face and a massive gun was braced in his hands, he looked as if he could take on an entire army by himself. He was fuck off sized and ready to kill. 

Your rescuer whipped around and raised his gun at your shout, body bracing and ready to defend you. Though, as he faced the hulking behemoth behind him he relaxed and lowered his gun again, cursing you through gritted teeth. Though, he turned back around to you with a smirk.

“He might be a scary lookin’ bastard, but that ones on our side,” he explained, slinging his gun behind him and getting to work on the tape on your wrists. “Sit tight and I’ll get you out of this in a sec, ok?”

“Is she hurt?” the masked man asked, flicking his dark gaze over your slumped body.

“Nah, doesn’t look like it,” the first man replied.

“She is scarred for life actually,” you huffed out, clutching your one freed arm to your chest. “What the fuck happened? Who the fuck are you two?”

“Settle down, princess. For now we need to get you out of here and back to your father, quickly and quietly, yeah?”

His accent was different from the other man’s, though to you it was just as difficult to make out through that thick gravely timbre. That one was definitely english, you thought, it sounded like ones from TV shows you’d watched when you were younger. It made you wonder what the hell the two brits were doing rescuing you when your dad was an American general. 

Did he find them on Craigslist or something?

Typical of him to find a couple of brutish thugs to come fetch you rather than calling on one of the teams that he worked with, you thought sourly. 

Though, as both your arms were free and you stepped onto wobbly feet you grew to appreciate his choice in rescuers more as they both towered above you. Even if they weren’t American they clearly knew their way around a fight.

“We’re gonna need you to follow us and do exactly as we say, ok? There’s still a few men lurkin’ about and if you want to get back to your family in one piece, we’ll need to avoid them,” the first man said, putting his hand on your tensed shoulder.

“You haven’t even gotten them all?” you hissed, escaping from his hold and backing against the cracking wall behind you.

The room was unfinished, crumbling from bullet holes and exposure to bad weather from the open windows. It looked like something straight out of a movie set, Soderbergh eat your heart out.

“We’ve gotten most of them,” the Scottish/Irish man shrugged, reaching around to secure his gun in his arms once again. “Some probably ran off durin’ the fight, but we can’t assume they aren’t hiding somewhere waitin’ for us.”

“Just be a good girl and do as you’re told, ok princess?” the other man growled, turning away from you and walking back out of the room. 

Your mouth dropped open and just as you were about to fire off another retort, it died in your mouth when you heard a shot ring out from the hallway. 

“All good, LT?” the first man called out, ushering you behind him. 

“Solid, Soap,” the other man replied.

Soap?

That’s just great, you thought, you were stuck with a man named soap and his big ape of a friend wearing a spirit halloween special across his face. You could practically feel your chances of survival drop through the ground and into hell. You could feel the hot flames licking at your feet already, biting at your toes. Or perhaps that was the fact you’d been stuck in heels for an inappropriate length of time. Who knew?

“Alright, lets get movin’. Remember to stay close and stay quiet. We don’t know where these guys are hiding,” Soap reminded you. “Stick to my back and we won't let anythin’ happen to you, alright?”

You were out of sass for the time being. You could only nod your reply as you followed his orders, too afraid of him leaving you behind as he started advancing out of the room.

You might have felt annoyed at the fact they were treating you like a stupid little girl, but you were too wrapped up in the adrenaline of the situation to object anymore. You’d heard the gunfire, could still hear the echoes of it pelting through your ears. You knew you couldn't afford not to listen to the two incredibly patronising soldiers before you. 

“Try to keep your eyes up, lass,” Soap whispered, gazing back at you briefly before heading through the doorway. 

“Why do I have t- oh fuck!”

You could’ve thrown up as your eyes connected with the bloody corpses that littered the hallway like flies on a roll of catcher paper. There were so many of them. You could feel the bile fighting its way up your gullet as you stopped against the wall and closed your hazy eyes. Bodies. Actual dead bodies. 

You’d never seen one before. Yet here you were surrounded by them, queen bee of a dead hive. It was too much. Staying up felt like fighting gravity and you were reduced to a pile on the floor in no time, huddled on a relatively blood free patch and stuck still against the rough chalky grey wall to your side.

“Ghost, we’ve got a problem,” Soap muttered, staring down at you with a worried look. 

There were a few seconds of blessed silence where you closed your eyes and everything was ok for a second. You weren’t in a shithole crack den building in god knows where and instead you were back at the hotel, getting ready to go to bed with your girlfriends. Yes. You were going to put on pyjamas and take some painkillers and peace the fuck out till noon the day after.

“Fuckin hell.”

The growl brought you out of your daydream and soon you were looking up at the cold crocodilian eyes of the now named Ghost. Had he expected you to do better in the hallway of a thousand corpses? 

“Alright, princess, up you get.”

You whimpered and expected him to offer you his hand to get you to your feet again, but you were taken by surprise when he leaned over you and enveloped you in his huge arms. You weren’t sure what the hell he was doing at first, but all became clear as you were hoisted over his shoulder and sprawling down his back like a chef’s tea towel. 

“What the hell, dude! Put me down,” you growled out, thumping your fists against his thick layer of tactical gear. 

“Quiet down, sweetheart. It’s not like you’re much use in those heels anyway,” he growled out, tugging on one of your silvery strappy shoes for emphasis. 

“You can’t just pick me up like a sack of fucking potatoes!” you protested, continuing to feebly fail to fight your way out of his grasp.

“Apparently I fuckin’ can,” he chuckled, rumbling in that horrible patronising voice of his. “Now…Settle. Down.”

And with that he started moving again, taking you past the tour of bodies that you’d folded at moments before, stepping through them like you might do through a botanical garden. The men were poked full of bullet holes and some even had knives jutting out of their skulls, but it didn’t seem to phase your rescuers. They were in their element. You were decidedly not. 

You felt like you were going to be sick and wondered briefly what the terrifying man would say if you were to throw up on him. Would he drop you as revenge? You quivered in his arms as he moved through the halls, following his partner faithfully in the shadows, only seeing by the light of the moon in some sections of the house. 

Not soon enough, after being thoroughly traumatised for two lifetimes, you emerged out of the house you were in. Only hearing two more men be taken out before you were free to breathe fresh air again. You cleared out the disgusting smell of coppery blood and gulped in huge breathfuls of clear night air.

Air. Moonlight. Stars. You were in a barren front garden in the middle of nowhere. You could see out for miles toward that inky black sky on the horizon. 

It wasn’t like something out of a nightmare anymore, this was real. And it was a new kind of scary. It was night and it was cold and your shivering renewed again as the giant placed you back down on your feet and let you stand on your own. 

Why was it so fucking cold? 

“You see anyone else?” Ghost asked his partner, sticking faithfully by your side.

“Negative. Think we’re good to move out, LT,” Soap said, giving his surroundings one last careful scan.

“Thank fuckin’ god. Might even get back to the safehouse before mornin’ at this rate.”

Safehouse?

What?

“Um, what do you mean safehouse?” you prodded, feeling the cold start sinking into your clattering teeth.

“It’s a house that’s safe,” ghost ‘helpfully’ provided. 

“I fucking know that,” you said through gritted teeth, “what I mean is, why the fuck are we going to a safehouse? I need to go home. I need to get to an airport or something or like- like you should be calling me a helicopter or something! Why would we go to some safehouse and stay here any longer?”

“Your dad ordered us to take you there once we had you secured,” Soap said, staring over at you with a calculating gaze. “Now are you going to come get in the car yourself or does Ghost need to pick you up again?”

Fuck you.

You didn’t give either of them the satisfaction of answering. 

- 👑-

“He’s doing this to punish me isn’t he? It’s fucking typical you know! Only he would pull this shit, only my dad would find out I got kidnapped and send in two fucking random Englishmen and not even want to get me home-“

“Whoa! Watch it!” Soap shouted, interrupting you mid rant. “You can call me a lot of things, but don’t fuckin’ call me English, sweetheart.”

“English, Scottish, Irish- whatever the fuck you are! Point is he should be here! He shouldn’t be letting me stew in some random safe house with you two…two- two strangers,” you whined, throwing your arms up in the air. “For all he knows you could both be serial rapists!” 

“We’re two strangers that just saved your life, princess,” Ghost grumbled from the front seat. “And if your dad is punishing you, then I think I’m beginning to see why.”

Your mouth dropped like a lead weight and you stared daggers into the mirror, catching Ghost’s cold eyes in the reflection. He was still wearing the mask.

You were driving on country road that stretched almost  limitlessly into the horizon but for some reason he was still in disguise. Not that you cared to see his face! No, if anything, you hoped you’d be out of their company much sooner rather than later for him to reveal himself. Though, that wasn’t going to happen it seemed, so you resolved to make that everyone’s problem. Share the burden of being abandoned to Mexico. 

“In case you haven’t realised; I’m not exactly accustomed to dead bodies and I’ve just come from the midnight showing of night of the living fucking dead here! I should be getting wheeled into a therapists office right now, not getting bundled up into another strange house, spending the night with Micheal Myers and groundskeeper fucking Willie,” you growled out, penetrating your gaze into Ghosts very soul, hoping he’d feel a shred of pity for you. 

However, you weren’t doing a very good job of that. Instead of knocking sense into the big brute you only made him narrow his eyes at you. And to add even further insult, Soap choked back a laugh. Though, he composed himself quickly after casting a glance at the leuitenant and focused his eyes back on the road. 

“You’ve got a funny way of sayin’ thank you, princess.”

And that was the last thing he said to you before ignoring you completely. No matter how much you moaned and groused and demanded to be taken back home, neither of the men would answer your cries. Typical men! 

They left you to marinade in your own self pity - in a dish that was endlessly deep. Afterall, how could your father not appreciate how stressful your ordeal was? Sure, you both had your differences, but you’d have thought that even he would put his malice for you aside on account of an actual real life kidnapping! 

After a few more miles of barren road you found yourselves coming to a small village, and started to slowly roll toward a modest concrete house on the outskirts.

It was two floors high and painted a sandy cream colour, with a small sheltered space to park the car and protect it from the elements. It seemed as if it might just fit you and Soap through its tiny door, the ceilings didn’t look that high. And it was the thought of Ghost being stuck in its old wooden frame that made you finally crack a small smile for the first time since you’d been taken. 

“Any complaints about the exterior before we step in, sweetheart, or would you like to save your scathing words for when you’re inside?” Soap teased as he opened the car door for you. 

“Very funny,” you huffed, smile disappearing you made sure to knock into the door as you stepped out. “Maybe you can go make fun of some terrorist victims next.”

Soap raised his brows, but didn’t bother to dignify you with a reply. He closed the door behind you instead and walked up to house and unlocked it for you, ushering you inside. Not that there was much to walk into. 

There was some basic furniture, a ratty old couch, a table and chairs, a kitchen that hardly seemed stocked and an old orange cloth rug that looked like it had seen better days. The place smelt like old newspapers for some reason, and all in all, it didn’t inspire much hope in you for the rest of the house. And just as you caught yourself thinking that, you knew you’d already proved Soap right. You had many, many, many complaints. 

“Well, I drove. So I bagsy first shower,” Soap announced, trailing off toward the creaky wooden stairs at the end of the hall. “Try not to cause world war three while I’m gone.”

You balked as you felt Ghost brush past you, successfully getting through the door. Who had Soap directed that last order at? Jeuss. You were the kidnapping victim and somehow you didn’t qualify for washing up first? What was this?

Chivalry was truly dead. Though, it wasn’t like they’d rode up in white horses when they’d come to get you, no they emerged through a cloud of bullets and snatched you out of the house like a drug bust they could trade in for on the sly. 

“And what am I supposed to do now, hm?” You said, turning to the man now shedding his gear like a second skin onto the couch. 

He didn’t give you a response though, instead he just finished off pulling the various packs and armaments off of himself until he was left standing in his uniform and mask. He looked a few pounds lighter, but he was still massive compared to you. The equipment didn’t bulk him out quite as much as you’d suspected. 

“Is there a phone I can use?” You finally asked, exasperated with the silence. 

“No.”

He grunted as he took a seat on the couch and rolled up his sleeves, exposing his thick tattooed forearms. You couldn’t help but feel that that was some kind of threat. Though, your suspicions were eased as he shuffled around and crossed his arms around his head, lying down and closing his eyes. 

“So, what? We’re just waiting to see when my dad magically shows up?” You needled.

“You asked If there was a phone that you could use,” he reminded, glancing over at you with slitted eyes. “Why don’t you go get some rest princess, there’s rooms upstairs that you can whine in in peace.”

What!

You clenched your fists at your sides and growled out in frustration. How was it that you were stuck with one of the most insensitive men in the world right after you got kidnapped? In fact it felt like you were being held hostage all over again.

Well you weren’t going to sit there and take it this time!

Before you could think about how bad an idea it was, you marched straight over to the sofa and started digging through Ghosts things. You crouched and moved aside all the smaller pouches and sharp pointy things trying to find anything that might resemble a phone. Though you didn’t get much of an opportunity to look, you were swiftly dragged up to your feet by the masked man and knocked away from his stash. 

“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” He barked, not sparing a single decibel from piercing your already abused ears. 

“I need to use a phone! I need to call someone!” You screamed back. “I need to tell people I’m alright. My friends must be worried sick and you’re treating me worse than a prisoner! E-Even prisoners get their phone calls!”

You tried desperately to fight against his hold, and screeched and hit against him like a banshee. However the man was solid, his hands were digging into your skin like a bear trap. And even as you tried to scratch at him, it didn’t deter him any. He just held you against him, making you smell the sweat off of him, the bullets, the smoke, you breathed him in as he pinned your hands flush to your body and screamed out as it became too much.

“In case you’ve forgotten, princess, we’re hiding out in a safe house right now because you’ve just been bloody kidnapped! You can’t call anyone because we need to keep the line clear and wait for word from back home. This isn’t fucking vacation, sweetheart, this is a fucking mission,” Ghost roared. 

You froze at his words. Your body felt like it had been hit by lightning and all of a sudden you could feel the storm in you shifting. All of the adrenaline was draining from you and just like that, you went from fighting like a rabid dog to blubbering like a baby. You broke down in his arms and felt the tears flowing freely back down your cheeks and fell back against him defeated. 

“Oh Jesus,” Ghost muttered to himself. 

Of course you hadn’t forgotten you’d been kidnapped. You were just dealing with it all in the only way you could. it just so happened, that when you fell back on instinct to get you through hard times it would result in you being, well as your dad put it, a massive pain in the ass. You were sure that Ghost would say the same. 

You didn’t even try to compose yourself, you were too upset to think. 

So, as Ghost came to that conclusion too, he decided to take matters into his own hands and picked you up again. Though, instead of putting you over his shoulder this time, he held you tightly against his chest and carried you off into one of the side rooms further into the house. 

The floor protested with every step the big man took and even over your shaky sobs, you could hear the wood below groaning like a zombie. He checked in the first door, and then the second on the wall to the right, coming to a stop when he found what he was looking for. Through blurry eyes you could see that you were in a small bathroom. A messily tiled room that contained an old wooden cabinet, a sink and a toilet. 

Ghost sat you down on the closed toilet seat and pulled some tissue from the roll, pressing it into your limp hands. You looked down at it like it was alien for a second, not sure what to do until you met Ghosts unwavering gaze. You needed to dry your eyes and get control of yourself. 

“Let’s get you cleaned up, princess,” he sighed, turning and reaching into the cabinet. 

You gulped down a fat sob that had been threatening to come and sniffled softly instead. As much as you begrudged him, you knew Ghost’s logic was sound. You needed to get a hold of yourself and stop crying in front of him. He was hardly the sympathetic audience for it.

In fact it almost made you laugh when he turned back again and his skull mask caught the light. The hard plastic only served to remind you that he wasn’t going to sit and rub your back and make you feel better about it all. It was like he said, this was a mission for him, and his only concern was getting you out of Mexico alive. 

“There you go, deep breaths,” he said in a hushed voice, putting his hand on your shoulder for a second. 

The warm contact was comforting for a fleeting moment, his hand was gentle yet firm on you before he took it away. He’d fetched a cloth from the cabinet and stepped over to the sink, running it under the water and stepping back to your side. You’d expected him to hand it to you just like he had done with the toilet paper, but instead he took you by surprise and crouched at your level, stepping down from his massive height. 

He smoothed the cloth over your cheeks and down your tear tracks, softly clearing up your sensitive skin. When he’d brought the cloth away and refolded it, you’d half expected it to be a muddied black from your makeup but there were only traces of grey. You’d cried most of your makeup off already. Then, after a few more goes at letting him clear up your face you almost jumped out of your skin when a piercing ring sounded out from the living room.

“Stay here,” the soldier softly ordered, handing you the stained cloth. 

Ghost ducked out of the room, and you lamely held the cloth in your hand, listening out to what he was doing. He silenced the ring, presumably answering the phone he’d secreted away, and for a second all there was was fuzzy silence and the low ringing that hadn’t left your ears. 

“Mhmm,” Ghost grunted, his rumble cutting clear through your tinnitus. “Yeah we’re clear I reckon. Didn’t pass anyone on the way in…no one awake, no curtains twitching…your daughter is-…mhmm…yeah…ok. Well just so you know, your daughter is…fine by the way.”

The gruff man said the last part quietly, and it was that that clued you into the fact your dad probably hung up before he could catch it. He didn’t care how you were, only cared that you hadn’t been killed by a foreign gang. That probably wouldn’t have done his image any favours, you thought to yourself. What man wasn’t able to protect his family? A high ranking general at that. All that mattered was that you were safe and he didn’t have a PR crisis on his hands. How you were doing was none of his concern.

You gulped thickly when Ghost reentered the room and did your best to put on a brave face. He didn’t say anything. He flicked his eyes over your grave expression and took the cloth back from your hands, wetting it under the tap again and handing it back to you. 

“Those must be killing you,” he murmured, gesturing to your feet. 

You startled when he spoke again, not used to having a conversation with someone who’s lips were hidden behind a skull facade. It was quite unnerving when his rasp broke through the cloth.

Eventually though you nodded, looking down at your feet and finally acknowledging all the blisters that had formed where the straps had dug into you. The shoes had been new, you’d been excited to wear them when you put them on earlier. Now, they were just another regret among many. 

“Let’s get them off, hm?”

You nodded again, caught by surprise by the tender way that he was dealing with you out of nowhere. Perhaps out of pity after speaking to the General. You had no way of knowing if he was sympathetic to that type of thing. He was a soldier afterall. They dealt with much worse than emotional neglect and were often oblivious to the cold way your dad treated you. At least in your previous experience of them...

Ghost got to his knees and softly took one of your feet in his hands, turning it slowly this way and that a couple times, until he caught sight of the tiny buckle. He dealt with it like he was diffusing a bomb. 

He carefully took the end of the strap in one hand and lifted the buckle with the other, gently letting the catch come loose. Then he slid the shoe from your foot and repeated the process with your other. You had to do a double take. Was this really the same man that had all but snapped at you like a vicious dog earlier? 

“Thanks,” you whispered, still uselessly holding the cloth in your hands. “Did the General say when we could leave?”

Ghost frowned as you addressed your dad by his title, but quickly fixed his eyes into that familiar cold stare. He thought to himself for a moment before he answered you. He was probably scared you’d kick off again, you realised. 

“He said he wouldn’t get here till evenin’ at least. Said he’d be bringing a chopper though.”

“Ok.”

You didn’t have anything else to say. You’d run out of words, and steam and any kind of fight and all the things that had kept you going before. 

You were going to be stuck with the two strangers until almost the next day. There was nothing you could do about it, no one you could complain to, no one that cared. You might as well just accept it. 

- 👑-

You’d ended up taking Ghost’s advice afterall. You’d finished cleaning up in the bathroom yourself and painfully trudged upstairs with your swollen feet, searching out the first bedroom you could find along the gloom of the lonely hallway. The lightbulb flickered and danced as you’d made your selection, chasing you into the room as it mimicked the gunfire you’d seen flashes of not hours ago. 

It didn’t take long for you to fall asleep, not like you thought it would. 

You’d been convinced you’d be left sitting like a character in a movie. Painfully watching the walls in the cold silence and mourning the life you could have had if only you came from a loving home. However, as much as you loved dramatics, you weren’t fit to live up to the hurting girl stereotype.

You realised that when you woke up again and the sun was shining through your room like a big bright fuck you. You thought you were getting a moment's peace? Think again. You were going to be awake for the rest of your internment at the safehouse. 

You sighed and scanned the room with your eyes, taking note of the peeling paint and sparse bits of furniture, confirming what you already knew. This room was just as shitty as all the rest. It wasn’t like there was any reason to maintain safehouses beyond being structurally sound and stocked with essentials, but it would’ve been nice to provide some comfort. At the very least they could’ve made it smell better, less musty, less like a place people came to rot.

“You’re awake.”

You yelped when you heard the voice break through the calm and looked over to the door, spotting the looming spectre that stood in your entryway. Ghost. Had he been watching over you the whole time you slept? You didn’t know whether to feel creeped out or grateful for the fact he was so concerned about your safety. 

“I am,” you finally said.

“Good. I thought I’d bring you something to eat.”

Perhaps he hadn’t been watching over you after all. Maybe it had been Ghost’s footsteps that had woken you up. It wasn’t a stretch of the imagination, he sounded worse than a herd of cows when he creaked across the floors.

You sat up when he walked into the room and caught a glance at the bowl in his hands. Something to eat was a good description of what he’d brought you. It looked like he’d heated some spaghettios. Not exactly the most appetising thing that you could think of, but given you hadn’t eaten since the morning before, you realised that beggars couldn’t be choosers.

Not that you were often, if ever, a beggar. It was easier for your family to give you unlimited access to money and shut you up than it was for them to spend any time in your presence arguing that you should work for it. 

“Thanks,” you murmured, taking the bowl off of Ghost after staring at it for a few seconds. 

There was a spoon already shoved into the bowl, and when you picked it up, you found yourself wincing at the burning metal. Ouch. Ghost couldn’t have warned you they were hot? You glared up at him, but he was already retreating back out of the room, seemingly content that you had everything you needed.

But you didn’t feel like you had everything you needed at all.

You felt pathetic admitting it, but you didn’t want to be alone. Your ears were still ringing even hours after the firefight had ended and there was nothing to do in that bland room all alone. And now to top it all off it felt much too hot and sweaty. You felt like you might go mad. You softened your features again and called out to Ghost, praying against all odds that he’d indulge you. 

“C-can you stay?”

Ghost paused and turned his head, his skeletal mask caught the golden glow of the sun. It didn't look right. He looked out of place in the sunlight. Though, you knew better than to voice that thought, he wasn’t going to stay if you insulted him again. 

“If you really want me to,” he finally replied, tilting his head at you.

You nodded and watched as he looked around and found no alternative but to sit on the end of the double bed, and sighed as he plonked himself down. The bed rippled with his weight, and you almost let the bowl spill out of your hands, but thankfully caught it before it could drop.

That wouldn’t have been good, you thought. You’d already set yourself on eating it all when it had cooled. You couldn’t go without food any longer or your stomach would be gurgling like an alien. How embarassing.

“Did you manage to get some rest too?” you asked awkwardly, testing the spoon in your hands again.

“Some,” he answered, casting his eyes over you. “Soap traded places pretty quick.”

“What an asshole,” you snorted, lifting a spoonful of pasta to your lips and blowing on it.

“That arshole saved your life, princess,” Ghost reminded you, voice regaining its husky edge. “Show some respect.”

“I didn’t-I mean…I just figured you could’ve probably used the rest, I was just joking…Sorry,” you muttered, resigning yourself to eating instead of talking.

Ghost watched intently as you ate every last spoonful, but you ignored him, finding yourself greedily taking on more and more as you recognised your own hunger. You forgot about Ghost’s scolding for the moment as you felt your hunger pangs rattling from deep within you. Though, you felt a little better after finishing the bowl. You were going to eat so much when you got back home, you thought to yourself. 

You set the bowl down on the floor and looked back at your rescuer, staring awkwardly at him for a few moments. The silence was making your skin crawl. Why wasn’t he saying anything? 

“Do you ever take off that mask?” you blurted, feeling your cheeks heat up as you said it.

Ghosts eyes took on a glint as you’d said it and if you weren’t mistaken it felt like he was…smiling? You bit your lip and looked away from him, focusing instead on a particularly chipped patch of paint on the wall to his left side.

“Why? Do you want me to take it off?” he asked, amusement lacing his tone.

“I just- I don’t get why you still have it on. The bad guys don’t know we’re here, right?”

“Maybe I’m just shy,” he teased, leaning back on the bed, his forearms rippling as they supported his weight. 

You snorted at his answer, folding your arms across yourself. Suddenly you were all too aware of the fact that he was staring at you bare faced, messy haired and still in yesterday’s tiny dress. There was no way that he was shy, and it seemed unlikely that he was ugly under there. He walked and talked like a confident man, like a man that had never questioned himself. How exciting.

“Has Soap ever seen your face?” you asked, picking at the loose threads on the blanket you laid under. 

“Why the sudden fascination?” he grumbled. “I thought I was a big scary serial rapist or somethin’?”

You winced as he threw your words from earlier back to you, it felt like you’d been burned with acid. You realised how stupid you sounded now. He’d held onto that. 

“I didn’t say that you were one, I said that you could be one,” you corrected, sighing at your own stupidity. “I didn’t know who you both were, in fact I still don’t. I guess- I guess I just got freaked out, is all. Do other people not react a little crazy when you go on rescue missions?”

“Other people tend to be more gracious, at the very least,” he snorted.

You winced again.

You really were a princess sometimes. As much as the nickname had been annoying you all night, the soldier wasn’t wrong to call you it. They’d been good enough to put themselves in harms way and carry you through a sea of threats only for you to turn around and return fire, calling them names. 

You put your head in your hands and groaned. You always slung your arrows at the wrong people. Always got prickly with people that tried to help. And they’d helped you more than anyone ever had.

“Thank you for saving me. I know it's a little late, but all the same…thanks for getting me out of there alive,” you murmured, catching a glance at his widened eyes. “And for- um, dealing with me earlier. That was nice of you cleaning me up like that.”

Ghost took a second to recover from you actually thanking him, his eyes staying open and shocked before returning to their usual shadowy state. They looked almost black even even in the sunlight. Though, you supposed it didn’t help they were hidden behind cloth and plastic. 

“You’re welcome, darlin’” he rumbled.

Your heart skipped a beat.

“Darling?” you grinned, preening at the warmth in his tone. “Am I growing on you?”

“Like black mould,” he groused, “Can’t get rid of your questions, can I?”

“You did not just compare me to mould,” you growled, forgetting yourself - and who you were facing up against - and shooting toward him with a pillow in hand.

Ghost, cast his eyes from you to the pillow and turned, catching you before you could do anything stupid with it and held you against the wide expanse of his chest again. You were held solidly against him, packed in tight and before you could do anything else, you were disarmed and your pillow was plucked right out of your hands and thrown back to the head of the bed.

“What’d you think you were gonna do with that then, ay?” he growled, his mouth dangerously close to grazing your ear. 

His breath was warm on your neck and it raised a trail of goosebumps across your flesh. You shivered in his arms, feeling his words send a shock through your body, and felt yourself go limp in his bulging arms. Why was he suddenly so much more enticing when he had you pinned down like this?

“Ay?” he asked again, releasing a low chuckle. “You think you can attack me, princess? Think you can do a bit of damage with those little arms?”

“I think I could do a lot of damage if you let me,” you breathed, scraping your lip under your teeth. 

The lieutenant paused and held you very still for a moment, his arms stiffening over your body like he’d moulded to you. Oh no. Had he not liked that, you wondered. Had you just embarrassed yourself again?

“Are you flirting with me?” he asked, voice not losing his amusement.

Oh good. So he wasn’t disgusted with you.

“Maybe…depends on if you liked it or not.”

“And if I liked it?”

“Then, yes, I was.”

You both sat in silence for a second, you stayed trapped in his arms, holding stock still while he mulled over what you’d said. What now? You didn’t have to wonder very long, he released you and turned your body so that you faced him again, balancing precariously on your hands and knees, capturing your face in his hands so that you were forced to look at him. 

“You should be careful who you flirt with, princess. It’s like you said earlier, I’m a stranger in a mask, you have no idea who I am…No idea what I’m capable of,” he trailed, letting your own mind take over the implication he was getting at.

Not that you got the point that he was trying to make. If anything the whole thing was suddenly hotter to you. A rough fuck with the giant soldier that just rescued you from a gang of kidnappers and could pin you down like you were nothing? Hadn’t he sensed your issues from a mile off? Maybe he had, maybe that was why he said what he said. 

“Maybe I wanna find out,” you whispered.

You shot forward and kissed where you supposed his lips must be and, luckily, guessed correctly. You could feel him tense up in surprise before yanking you off of him and pinning you under him, holding your body down against the bed with his sculpted body, his legs caging yours in and his hands holding your wrists like manacles. 

“Give me one reason you want to, other than spiting your father,” he purred, eyes glowing with amusement and curiosity.

So he did know your game.

“You have a sexy voice,” you tried, fluttering your lashes in a way that you hoped would work on him. 

“Fuckin’ americans,” he grunted, laughing lowly to himself. “I want somethin’ better than that.”

“Didn’t think you’d be the type to go fishing for compliments,” you snarked.

With that little comment , you were rolled over quicker than you could comprehend and before you could turn to see what he was doing he slapped you on the ass. It was solid, no nonsense. Enough to sting even though he’d done it through the fabric of your little dress. He wouldn't have to do much to expose you and make it hurt more. He’d just have to flip up the fabric. 

“Answer my question,” he growled, still holding one of your hands captive.

“Because I want you to teach me a lesson…because you’re the first person in a long time that’s had me minding my manners,” you sighed, using your free hand to give your body leverage enough to rut against the soldier's bulging crotch.

“Fuck me,” Ghost grunted, voice losing its sharpness as you rutted against him. 

“That worked?” you grinned, half shocked that it clearly convinced him. 

“You could have any cunt from England, princess, and plenty of em’ would sound like me. You think that they could make you beg like I can?” he questioned.

You were tempted to give him a sassy reply, but already knowing you too well, he hit you with a couple more spanks, this time on your bare ass and finally slipped your skirt up so that he could admire the flesh he was abusing. You gasped as he ran his hands over your cheeks and whimpered when he ran a finger over your slit. You practically feel his eyes glowing like laser sights as he connected with your glistening flesh and paused so that he could dip his finger into you and confirm his suspicions.

“Please,” you whined, praying that he’d start moving it, praying for friction.

“Looks like I’ve got my answer,” he chuckled, removing his soaked finger and slapping your ass noncommittally. “Please what, hm?”

“Please,” you cried out, feeling awfully empty as he’d withdrawn. “Please, I want your fingers. Want you to finger me please.”

“Aw, so cute when you’re all needy, princess. Alright. If you ask me nicely, I’ll give you what you want.”

“I did ask nicely!” you whimpered, feeling your body burning with desire for him.

It felt like he was all you could think of now. The kidnappers and the whole resentment thing you had going for your family was a distant memory and all that remained was Ghost. All that remained was burning lust and a need to have him inside of you, possessing you wholly and taking you for his own.

“You’re such a little brat, princess. I just told you that you could have what you wanted and you just had to go spoil it for yourself,” Ghost said, his voice forging into a chilling point. “Looks like you need to be taught better manners.”

You groaned at his words, but you didn’t get much of a chance to work out what they meant. Instead, his hand rained down hard on your already stinging flesh and he spanked you like it was his next mission. You cried out as the smacks began to burn more and more and wriggled in his grasp, fruitlessly struggling against him and fighting his expert hands to no avail. 

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry!” you chanted, giving him what you thought he wanted.

“Sorry, what?” he asked, accentuating each word with a slap. 

They were softer than the ones he’d been giving before at least. Like caresses against your screaming skin, fiery with his rough treatment.

“Sorry…for not asking nicely,” you said quietly, hoping to god he’d just give you what you wanted.

“Sorry, sir,” he grunted, running his hands over your hot skin.

“Sorry, sir,” you repeated quickly, sighing as his gentle touch soothed your prickling burns.

“That’s better.”

You hummed as his nails scratched down your cheeks and settled into the bed, feeling like the stiff blankets were transformed into egyptian cotton as your head grew fuzzy. His hands really were quite skilled, especially since he was so easily able to have you howling one second and then had you curling up like a cat the next.

“You wanna do this for the rest of the day or you wanna try asking for what you wanted again?” Ghost asked, his voice softening as he watched you relax.

“Mmm, would rather have your fingers inside me please, sir,” you moaned, smiling contentedly to yourself.

“That’s better…good girl.”

Your masked soldier grabbed your hips in his hands, making you feel tiny as he yanked you up like you were nothing. Yanked you into a half kneeling position as you kept your head pasted onto the bed, not having the strength to bring it up. Then finally, just as you were about to start begging again, spat on his hand and pierced his finger back inside you. 

You groaned at the intrusion and whined as he slowly pumped it in and out, getting you all worked up and turning you into a moaning mess. You were burning for more, your belly tightening as he worked his digit in and out and circled your clit with his other hand like it was an art. You whined and writhed and clutched at the sheets, crying out as he added another finger and increased his pace. You could feel the rumble that caught in his throat reverberate through your chest. ‘

“So pretty. Your cunt’s so wet and you’re clenching on me so hard. What would happen if I shoved my cock in there? Would you cum right away, princess?” he purred.

You whined out at that and felt your need light up anew, could feel it vibrate around your skull and through your gums. Yes. Stick your cock in me. That’s all you wanted, you wanted the big man on top of you, pinning you down and boxing you in like an animal, fucking into you like you were his own personal fleshlight. Fuck. 

“Ohmygod, please fuck me, Ghost!” you cried out, “Please, oh my god please, sir! Please fuck me.”

Ghost chuckled and slowed his pace, bringing his fingers to a near stop. It was like hell, the tingles dampening throughout your body, your high being torn from you. You growled out and tried to claw your way up, tried to face him and see the stupid glint that would no doubt be in his eyes, but before you could he shoved you back down and tapped your ass again.

“We don’t have condoms here, princess. It’s not exactly standard protocol,” he teased. “Doesn’t seem like such a good idea.”

“I don’t care! I’m on birth control and I get checked out by the doctor every month,” you whined, fighting against any argument he could make against giving you his cock. 

“Well…I suppose that changes things,” he grunted.

Thank fucking god! You were sure you were going to d-

“Fuck!”

Your strangled cry pierced the room as he replaced his fingers and thrusted into you, shattering you inch by inch with his massive cock. It seemed endless, it was torturous in all the right ways, the burn that licked through your body like a forest fire. He was huge, not that you doubted that of course.

“That what you wanted, hm? That feel good, princess?” Ghost said, coming to a stop as he filled you completely. “Tell me, how does that feel? I wanna know if anyone else has been able to make you as fuckin’ speechless as this.”

You whined out, scratching at the bed underneath you like a trapped animal and breathed in thickly, wondering if your lungs would ever recover from the events of the last few hours. Wondering how to answer Ghost. How did it feel? Did anyone else compare to him? What stupid fucking questions. 

Nothing compared.

“It feels so fucking good, feels like you’re gonna split me in half,” you gasped, rocking yourself against him. “Need you to move, need to feel you ruin me!”

“Oh yeah? You need me to move? What a slutty girl telling me such filthy things,” he growled, reaching around and grabbing your neck, not quite enough to choke but enough to let you know he was in control. “Tell me, slutty girl, who’s in charge?”

“You, sir!”

“Who gets to wreck this pussy?” he asked, slowly begining to fuck you, rocking himself slowly in and out of you at an agonising pace. 

“You, sir!”

“Are you my little whore?” He asked again, building up speed a little, catching you in all the right places and turning your head to mush.

“Yes sir,” you cried out, feeling yourself coming closer and closer to the edge.

“Good fuckin’ girl, princess.”

You screamed as he upped his pace out of no where and fucked you like it was his job. Your eyes lost focus and your teeth gnashed together and suddenly it was a fight to stay upright as he pounded in and out of you and held your neck tightly in his firm grasp. It wasn’t like anyone you’d been with before, this was a new level of fucking you’d never experienced.

“Fuck!” you cried out again. “Gonna- gonna cum.”

“Yeah? Good, cum for me. Clench on my cock, little slut.”

You moaned out and gripped the sheets underneath you tighter, feeling your whole body shaking as his cock forced you off balnce. Just a few more thrusts and-

It felt like bliss, it felt like a high from a drug you’d just taken for the first time. You came with a muffled scream as Ghost clamped his hand over your mouth and gasped wordlessly as he continued to fuck you. In and out, in and out, it was about all your mind could process as your body zipped and sparked like it had been hit by a thunderstorm.

He kept going like that, absolutely relentless, skewering you and turning you to mush below him, making you feel like dirt at his knees. You were nothing, you weren't any kind of princess, you were just his toy. And you fucking loved it. You loved that he could make you feel like that, but still make you feel so fucking precious as he continued to caress your skin and growl affirmations every now and then.

So fucking pretty.

Mine, princess, you’re mine. 

Feel so fucking good, you’re so fucking good.

You cried out as he put his hand around your throat again and put on some pressure, making you struggle a little to pull in air, but not by much. It felt exquisite. The tremors of your last orgasm were still bolting through you and now another one was building. You felt so good, felt so impossibly warm as you struggled beneath him. Fuck, you never wanted this to end. But you knew you could hardly take much more.

“You gonna cum for me again? Gonna give me another one before I finish? C’mon, I know you have another one in you, princess.”

You whined and felt your thighs shaking like they were going to collapse and suddenly his fingers closed tighter round the sides of your throat. You gasped loudly a couple times, trying to pant out that you were close, but the sound couldn’t quite form in your mouth. Then, in no time at all it was hitting you again, that high, that euphoria. Another orgasm. 

“Fuck!” Ghost growled out. 

You clenching around him had sent him over the edge and all too soon, you were both collapsing into the sheets like falling scaffolding. You clattered down against him and he pulled you close. He bucked his hips a couple times as he finished inside you, grunting a little with the increased sensitivity he felt as you shifted against him. It was divine.

You were both wrecked.

Neither of you said a word as you laid there, both keeping your eyes closed and your mouths open as you panted into the arid empty air. There was nothing to say. You just had to soak in the moment and retreat into each other's bodies, accepting the burning, unbearable heat you were both giving off and enveloping each other in it.

Fuck.

“Is that a better way of saying thank you, sir?” you finally moaned, grinning to yourself as you proved yourself right.

That was one way to teach you some respect alright.

[am-i-the-asshole-official]

Aita for lieing about my country of origin?

🇨🇦🥶 <- so I know it's me!

This is kinda stupid but a friend said it will start a bad habit of lieing, I'm taking advantage of the fact that because I'm white passing I don't get offensive immigrant questions and I just shouldn't have so let's see.

About a year ago I (24nb metis aka white and first nations canadian. Also native American but it's blurry. Its important later.) and my partner (24f white) went to walmart for groceries. I love the cold, have been raised in the cold temps of the Midwest my whole life and I have a autoimmune disorder which makes me much warmer than everyone else so despite it being 32° outside, I was in shorts and a t-shirt. My partner thinks I'm crazy and I have a bad habit of freezing her out but we compromise.

Obviously wearing a T-shirt and shorts when it's snowing outside gets some attention and this elderly white couple playfully asked how I wasn't frozen solid as some sweet small talk but I'm socially anxious and just blurted out that I was from Canada and this was nothing. They just laughed in surprise and nodded and went on. That was a lie and my partner playfully chided me for it. No, I'm not a Canadian immigrant and I was born in America but as you can see, my family has deep ties to Canada and my grandmother is a Canadian immigrant. Should I of lied? No but it was harmless, I panicked and I didnt want to explain a disorder or get too deep into conversation with strangers so I just said it and moved on. No harm done.

Flash forward to today where I, my partner and a mutual friend (23 ftm, white but reconnecting to his distant Cuban and carribean heritage. He identifies as "spicy white".) were talking in a group call about our families histories. One side of my friends family immigrated to America about 4+5 generations back from Cuba with the other from Scotland and Ireland and my partners family history is blurry but she knows they came from Scotland and Germany. My partner playfully brought up my lie from a year ago and the whole tone shifted. My friend got mad at me and brought up how his great great grandmother struggled in America because she wasn't white passing, she immigrated from a non-white country and people treated her horribly. I tried to bring up that both my grandmothers were natives and my immigrant grandmother also struggled with racism due to being first nations but he kept interrupting me saying that because I'm white passing and I picked Canada as a place I fake-immigrated from, I'm taking advantage of the fact that white old couple would treat me better than Mexican immigrants or middle Eastern immigrants.

Eventually the call ended and we side stepped the topic but tension is still present and I don't know how to feel now. Obviously I respect immigrants and i have a high amount of immigrant people in my family, not just Canadian/first nations but married in from Poland and Mexico. I know I shouldn't of lied but I feel like my friend is just being a bit chronically online right now and acting like I don't respect any immigrants. Ever since he started reconnecting, he's gotten more and more trigger happy with racist jokes, calling people racist for no reason and just all around... off. I totally get generational trauma and the pain of discovering your history around colonization and genocide but its getting weird. My partner says she didn't see the harm in my little, no pun intended, white lie but doesn't wanna be involved because she's white and this issue has some racist undertones. I don't know if this is just a symptom of his discovery surrounding himself and being in some very overly sensitive groups or I was truely being insensitive to even being passively racist towards other POC.

So, was I the asshole for lieing to some strangers that I'm from Canada just to not have to get too deep into why I wanna wear shorts in the snow like a weirdo?

What are these acronyms?

[boatmediatourney]

🚢Boat Song Lineup & Links🚢

*links are on the boat emojis. most of the artists listed are specific to the linked versions, and many are folk songs with no single or known author. all the links are youtube links.*

🚢 32 Down on the Robert MacKenzie (Due South), Paul Gross

🚢 A Pirate Looks at 40, Jimmy Buffett

🚢 A Sailboat in the Moonlight, Billie Holliday

🚢 The Ballad of Gilligan's Isle (theme song)

🚢 The Ballad of Harbo and Samuelson, Shanghaied on the Willamette

🚢 The Bonnie Ship the Diamond, The Corries

🚢 Bluenose, Stan Rogers

🚢 Boat on the River, Styx

🚢 Canadee-i-o, Nic Jones

🚢 Come Sail Away, Styx

🚢 Day-O (Banana Boat Song), Harry Belafonte

🚢 Friggin in the Riggin, The Sex Pistols

🚢 Ghosts of Cape Horn, Gordon Lightfoot

🚢 Go to Sea No More, The Dubliners

🚢 The Good Ship Kangaroo, Planxty

🚢 Hard on the Beach Oar, Johnny Collins

🚢 Haul Away Joe, The Eskies

🚢 Highwayman, The Highwaymen

🚢 I'm on a Boat, The Lonely Island

🚢 I'm Shipping up to Boston, The Dropkick Murphys

🚢 James Craig, The Maritime Crew

🚢 The Last Bristolian Pirate, The Longest Johns

🚢 Leave Her, Johnny, Leave Her, Coda

🚢 The Leaving of Liverpool, The Dubliners

🚢 The Little Boat, The Wiggles

🚢 Lord Franklin, Pentangle

🚢 Lowlands Away, The Corries

🚢 Lukey, Great Big Sea

🚢 The Mariner's Revenge, The Decemberists

🚢 Marie Christine, Gordon Lightfoot

🚢 The Mary Ellen Carter, Stan Rogers

🚢 Mingulay Boat Song, The Corries

🚢 Mr. Andrews' Vision ("Titanic: A New Musical"), Maury Yeston

🚢 The Mistress, Dramtreeo

🚢 My Sails Are Set (One Piece live action)

🚢 Orinoco Flow, Enya

🚢 Overture/Prologue/The Launching ("Titanic: A New Musical"), Maury Yeston

🚢 The Pacific, Dave Malloy

🚢 The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything (Veggie Tales)

🚢 Proud Mary, Ike and Tina Turner

🚢 Race to be King, Seth Lakeman

🚢 Rolling Down to Old Maui, Stan Rogers

🚢 Roll the Old Chariot (sea shanty)

🚢 Round the Cape, The Longest Johns

🚢 Row, Row, Row your Boat (nursery rhyme)

🚢 Running Down to Cuba, Colm McGuinness

🚢 Sailing, Christopher Cross

🚢 Sailor's Farewell (sea shanty)

🚢 Santiana, The Longest Johns

🚢 Santiano, Hugues Aufray

🚢 Saturday, Jonathan Eng and Stephanie Hladowski

🚢 Save the Whales!, Country Joe McDonald

🚢 Ship in a Bottle, Fin Argus

🚢 Ship of Fools, The Grateful Dead

🚢 Song for the Bowdoin, Larry Kaplan

🚢 Song of the Volga Boatmen, Soviet Army Chorus & Band

🚢 Son of a Son of a Sailor, Jimmy Buffett

🚢 South Australia, Johnny Collins

🚢 Tow Rope Girls, Daniel Kelly

🚢 The Wellerman (sea shanty), Nathan Evans

🚢 The Wild Cape Horn, Friends Of The Shipyard and Fisherman's Fayre

🚢 The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald, Gordon Lightfoot

🚢 Warlike Seamen, Jerry Bryant and Starboard Mess

[theblissfulstars]

The Hoodoo That You Do

Hoodoo first and foremost is a closed practice.

Within a western audience, the concept of a closed practice can be rather challenging for many, as it runs entirely contrary to the notions we are brought up believing surrounding religion in the West.

Socio-culturally, religion in the West has evolved under the mantle of Christendom. This evangelizing religion characterized by its soteriology(savior ideology) , ease of access, and proselytizing habits is open to all, radically so. All you need is to accept Christ as your personal Lord and Savior, and live righteously according to the Bible to secure eternal salvation. In many respects, Christianity uniquely conquers the mystery religions of old, characterized by their distinctive intimacy with the divine, secrecy and ritual, and subverts it, by making it universally open to all and actively telling you about it.

This line of thinking regarding "closed practices" can also be difficult with many western minds that have had extensive influence from movements such as the “New Age” movement, which seeks to bring together unrelated material spiritual identities under one umbrella.

Many people in the “New Age” movement have been largely influenced by the writings of the Theosophical society, which were some of the first writings on Dharmic religions available to a broad audience in accessible languages in western countries. This means that many of these individuals ideologically do not believe in the idea of culture since they eschew the cover of self, many believe we reincarnate across familial lines, species and even galaxies, fall prey to solipsism and claim that they themselves are the only real thing that exists, therefore everything is open to them, or purport an intrinsic universal connection through the Jungian collective consciousness that makes all things open to them. Having a unique gnosis dependent on your religious affiliation is normal and expected, using it to harm others is not.

Similarly, Christianity undermines the concept of ethnic religions and cultural religions which are predicated upon being born into them, or having immediate access into certain respective belief systems for validity in practicing them. Finding Divinity in the Christian tradition has nothing to do with where you were born, who you are or how you were brought up, but rather, is entirely up to ideology, practice, and a consistent theme of universalism.

However, as stated prior, due to ethnic and cultural religions being experiential, they are much more tied to a way of life, being, and a contextual identity in order to operate within the cosmological framework. This can be ancestral; do you descend from the founders of the tradition, are you connected by blood in some significant way in recent history? Land-based, i.e venerating a particular river, mountain, cave etc. And lastly, communal, do you speak the liturgical language of the religion, do you eat the same foods, do you understand the offerings? Many ADRs fall into the aforementioned pattern above. Many Hougans and Manbos will tell you that there are Lwa(Intercessory divinities in Vodou/Voodoo) that can only be summoned on Ayiti, making it a uniquely land based practice, and while in Santería, Boromú, an Orisha associated with the desert,and dryness, all but disappeared in lush and tropical Cuba. Most, if not all religions do start as ethno-religions, and many of them still have vestiges of these ideas present within them, and despite the open and universal evangelism of Christianity, even its spiritual practices fall into some of the land specific beliefs and functions mentioned previously.

It is in this contextualization of land, self and identity, that we begin to understand Hoodoo as not merely a “folk magic” practice, but a Magico-Religious tradition uniquely conjoined with the cosmological spiritual experience of Soulaani people in the United States. Hoodoo, like many American ADRs, is plantation religion, and as with the mentioned ADRs above, Vodou and Santería respectively,is syncretist in nature and a highly Africanized interpretation of the Christian faith which was violently enforced upon the enslaved.

Hoodoo historically is a belief system that was foundationally built as a form of resistance to European oppression, violence and abuse. With an emphasis on ancestor veneration, figures such as Nat Turner, Harriet Tubman and Frederick Douglass are heralded as elevated community ancestors, whilst figures such as High John The Conqueror, a mythic African king who could outfox any Slaver or false master, is deigned a powerful, worthy, and venerable Spirit.

The cosmology of Hoodoo, while being deeply Christian, is Animistic in nature and boasts a large host of Land and Place spirits with whole identities and person-hoods. Some of these spirits are “Elevated Ancestors” similar to the saints of Orthodox and Catholic traditions, while some of them are entirely natural in origin such as Simbii or Samunga.

Hoodoo, similarly to the American south from which it originates, exists equally in a Protestant and Catholic context, and also incorporates Native American wisdom and land knowledge into its Theological foundation because of Indigenous admixtures in Black populations, and vice versa, as can be seen by the Florida Seminole tribe with it's high afro-indigenous population to this day and many more.

With its context, it is no wonder that people feel that Hoodoo is an open practice, by its very origin, it is an act of black labor, meaning, it's meant to be exploited. All black labor, be it intellectual, physical, emotional or in this case, spiritual, is an open and free resource that can be cheerfully parasitized from by a broader audience, without acknowledging its history, origins or foundations. This unfortunate reality extends even beyond the Black American experience and universally unites the Black diaspora in imperialist or colonial states worldwide. When researching the origins of certain foods, dances, customs and ideas, it will be difficult to find the genuine full hearted acknowledgement of the enslaved and their contribution to broader knowledge and culture, this is the case in Latin America as well in both material and spiritual culture.

The colonial state chooses what is “Everyones” or rather, “American” and what is “Black” at any given time, and can choose to revoke and review these designations at will. A particularly clear example is Jazz music.

What once started as the herald of reefer madness, debaucherous devil music and depravity, has become the backdrop of urban luxury, sophistication and wealth. This is of course after the domestication of jazz at the hands of predominantly white musicians, who made it more palatable to the broader audience and it's popularization among the rich and famous.

Another example is soul food. What many consider to be “southern cuisine” is uniquely Soulaani in origin, however, due to the overall positive reception, accessibility and good reputation of soul food it became subsumed into the greater American identity not as a black invention, but an American one.

Similarly, Hoodoo received much of the same treatment in the late 80s- 90s. Instead of the lowbrow superstitions of slaves, Hoodoo was rebranded as a distinctly American “hodgepodge” practice, meant to appeal to aesthetics surrounding pastoralism,the rustic rough and ready, and a peculiar edginess, ethnic enough to bite but close enough to home not to leave a scar, after all, Hoodoo was never African according to Ross, and Hoodoo “Authorities” such as Yronwood “The earliest usage of the word “hoodoo” is connected with Irish and Scottish sailors, not African slaves, and may be a phonetic pronunciation of the Gaelic Uath Dubh (pronounced hooh dooh) which means evil entity or spiky ghost. In the mid 19th century, cursed, abandoned “ghost ships'' were called hoodoo ships or were said to have been hoodooed.”(2021,Ross).

The ability for the colonial machine of the U.S to change and claim things from being one thing, and subsume it into a greater American identity without any of its former history, or identity, is one of the things that makes colonial nations so distinctly villainous in the continued exploitation of marginalized identities. Such as Britain's National dish being Chicken Tikka Masala without even acknowledging the incredibly dark history of the East India Company and its dark impact on the whole of the Indian subcontinent. This consumption of identity is the reason why the black American appears to be “without culture”, and why Black Americans themselves can occasionally feel bereft of a unique identity. Often noted by others across the Black diaspora, Black Americans are often the butt end of everyone's jokes from the Caribbean, Latin America and Africa itself. This “stateless” identity sometimes displayed by Black Americans is by design by the colonial state, and a symptom of religious displacement and spiritual abuse at the hands of said colonial powers.

This powerful and calculated form of psychological warfare and its effects can be seen in the likes of Hebrew Israelites who claim to be the original Jewish diaspora, Kemetics who claim to be the original Egyptians and those who claim to be the original Native Americans. This speaks to a desperate longing to belong to something that goes back centuries, that is ancient, and worthy and powerful, none of them wanting to claim the legacy of slavery and its ramifications. With many Black Americans struggling to accept the lived history of chattel slavery, who will proudly embrace this “plantation religion”?

With these contributing factors, Hoodoo can come across as being either a failed attempt at reconnection conceived in the minds of desperate African Americans, a made up ahistoricism (as is often asserted in the case of Voodoo in Louisiana) or a genuinely all American folk practice open to all with no authority, order, or true history.

In fact, referencing a broader global view of African Americans, their customs, practices and identity,a global audience inverts the name into American Africans. A culture and identity that is a product of the eurocentricity and whiteness around it. America appears to be the land of “The Whites” and a “Second Europe” in public perception. However, many of these narratives come from individuals who have either; A. Never set foot in America or B. Decided that they would base all their perceptions off of an experience they had on a trip they took to Greeley Colorado in 2009, and movies. Neither of these are accurate as the American identity is not homogenous.

Hoodoo, while originating in the American South, is a land-based spiritual practice. Subsequently, it has evolved tremendously as it made its way Westward and North among the black diaspora itself. All spiritual practices, particularly land based practices, are beholden to regionalism. Regionalism is the antithesis of homogeneity. It is reflexive to categorize the gamut of all things with “American” origins as one homogenous mass, but this is both intellectually and materially disingenuous. All ADRs are regionalist, and this alone creates a dramatic difference in said practices.

Take for instance the various emanations of Palo, with four major denominations, Monte, Kimbisa, Briyumba and Mayombe. These four distinct Theological traditions evolved separately, largely in part because of geographical differences and different leadership. These seemingly subtle differences evolved overtime into hallmarks of an identity in how each sect handles spirits, the spirits they venerate, language(s) used, and major beliefs pertaining to cosmology and world structure. Notice however that all of these originated on the Island of Cuba. Cuba is roughly 750 miles long and 60 miles wide, driving from Denver Colorado to Billings Montana is 693 miles and takes around 10 hours to drive, while it typically takes only one hour to drive around 60 miles. The variety of spiritual beliefs in one tradition in a stretch of 750 miles is profound, and this isn't even taking into account the other traditions on the island, so why would we expect it to be different in the United States?

Which leads me to the question, what is the Hoodoo you do? Do you know its region, its history, its spirits? Just as there isn't a generic “Palo” tradition, or a Generic Vodou/Vudú/Voodoo, which also boast a robust number of lineages, most notably Tcha Tcha and Asogwé, there is not a “generic” Hoodoo, and the question becomes less about whether or not it's closed(it is), and more about it's cultural relevancy. The Hoodoo of a third generation New Yorker is going to look wildly different from the Hoodoo we see from a third Generation Californian, and let's add a caveat, the Hoodoo you see from a third generation Californian in the Bay area is going to be different from the Hoodoo from a Los Angeles Hoodoo, because of admixture, geography, and exogenous and endemic cultures in the region. In that same vein of inquiry, do you draw your lineage from the Baptist tradition of Churches, AME, Catholic, African American Spiritual tradition? All of these differences make for a different practice, and different structure.

Among the variations and differences in the Hoodoo tradition of the U.S also comes differing and various cultural attitudes to Hoodoo itself. In the broad Americas(the Caribbean and LATAM Included) the practice of banning and criminalizing Black and Indigenous spiritual practices was incredibly common and could be as dire as even leading to an individuals death “After emancipation, many countries in the Western Hemisphere passed new legislation attempting to suppress the religious practices of the formerly enslaved under the guise of “civilizing” their populations. Countries like Brazil, Jamaica, Cuba, and Haiti enacted laws that prohibited persons from engaging in “superstitious” rituals, fortunetelling, vagrancy, and similar practices. In the United States, African American herbalists and sages (whom the media described as “voodoo doctors”) were also arrested for providing medico-religious and divination services. However, once again, the U.S. government deployed generally applicable laws to suppress these practices; they did not craft new legislation to target the “superstitions” of the formerly enslaved. These individuals were charged with contravening laws against obtaining money by false pretenses, mail fraud, practicing medicine without a license, and related offenses.”(Boaz, 2017). Because of this, black America did their best to disassociate with “superstitions” and “barbaric” customs to avoid further discrimination and being targeted. If you went up to a black elder and asked them what “Hoodoo” was, they'd probably slap you in the gums and call down Holy Ghost fire upon you and yours. It wasn't until 1996 that the American Indian religious freedom act was codified into law after years of indigenous communities enduring the same discrimination as Black ones for alternative spiritual customs and traditions could finally safely practice their own religious and spiritual customs without fear, and these attitudes still linger in both communities respectively.

With all that being said, the question remains. Why must it be Hoodoo that you do? Were you adopted into a family that lovingly shared it with you from the time you were young to now? Did you break bread with these people, do you fight for their liberation with every breath? Do you really think being black in a “past life” grants you access to the trauma you most likely care very little about in this present one?

Magico-religious folk customs are a dime a dozen, many, open! Some closed. Hoodoo however, is contingent upon the social memory of slavery, oppression and a fight for justice. When putting the spirits to work, do you do so with a spectral whip in your hand, and the entitlement to Black bodies and Souls of those who came before you? The joy of learning and spiritual specificity is that you can find a practice you resonate with out of the multitudes that litter the masses of the American continent that may be socio-culturally relevant to you. Such as Italian stregheria which is prominent in some parts of upper Appalachia and New York, Ozark and Appalachian granny magic, Cajun Traiteur, Spanish American Brujería of the Southwest (as in SPAIN),Pennsylvania Dutch Braucherei, there are even Cunning folk practices associated with the Mormon church and Utah. Some of these despite being of European American Origin, are also closed because they are experiential.These are all uniquely American in nature, this is excluding places outside of the U.S who also have a multitude of open mystical practices, such as Ancient Egyptian Heka, or Hellenic Göetia, none of them with the baggage of Indigenous and Black trauma as an aesthetic.

Ultimately, everyone will do what they want and that's just a fact of life, I however hope this helps you stop and think of the damage you do to your Black and Brown siblings whose ancestors died for the right to pray to a God that looked like them when you insist on the right to access to BIPOC labor spiritually,mentally and physically.

[gerec]

found family cherik fics?

There are a lot a lot of found family fics so I'm just giving you a tiny selection, Anon. Definitely go to Ao3 and look for stories with the 'families of choice' tag for tons more!

The O(l)dd Couple by winterhill 

Futurefic, fixit, fluff. In public, Erik and Charles are immensely powerful and charismatic world leaders. In private, they're a pair of stubborn old men.

this is only now (where do we go from here) by thebodyeclectic (series)

From this prompt on the 1stclass_kink meme: Modern AU, where an older Alex (in his mid twenties?) somehow figures out/recieves the news that, no, his younger brother didn't die in the crash like he'd been told, and then sets out to find him. The catch is, Scott's been adopted and adores his 'dad', who is incidentally the adorkable Hank McCoy.

and now you will not be alone any more by pocky_slash

Erik gives driving, sewing, and cooking lessons, soothes nightmares, bolsters self-esteem, and still can't figure out why Charles keeps smiling at him like that.

nothing quite like family by lavenderlotion

He cared for all his students, of course, but there was nothing quite like family.

Love Runs Out by ikeracity 

Hammer Bay, one of the most mutant-friendly apartment buildings in all of Manhattan and affectionately nicknamed the Hub by its residents, is home to an eclectic mix of families, broke college students, scientists, artists, and high school dropouts. Charles Xavier, new arrival to apartment 3K, catches the attention of everyone on the third floor but he only has eyes for one: cranky author Erik Lehnsherr who lives directly across the hall in 3B.

Jail Break by blarfkey (first of a series)

It's totally normal in Suburban America for the dad to pick up his rebellious teenager from jail, right? Even when it's the Pentagon instead of the local police station, and your dad is a Mutant Supremacist Assassin and America's Most Wanted who didn't post bail so much as murdered all the guards?

Whatever. Peter will take what he can get at this point, even if it means the most painfully awkward road trip in the history of the universe.

Generation X by SOABA (first of a series)

The third of December, nineteen sixty-two. The day that Charles Xavier’s world was completely and irrevocably turned on its head.

“I’ve run the tests multiple times, Professor,” Hank said, fiddling with his lab coat, “The results are conclusive. You’re pregnant.”

No Yesterdays On the Road by pocky_slash (first of a series)

It's been two months since Cuba and things are settling down for Charles, Erik, and the beginnings of their mutant school. Right up until Charles disappears, that is. Faced with the possibility that a bitter Emma Frost has kidnapped Charles, Erik is forced to team up with Moira to hunt down the remainder of the Hellfire Club. From there, they hope to locate Frost and retrieve Charles, without killing each other along the way.

(Or: Erik and Moira Drive Across the Country and Talk About Their Feelings.)

Majesty At My Doorstep by emperors_girl (first of a series)

Alex is not the kind of kid who lives in houses with white picket fences. Alex is the kind of kid who’s had seven placements in five years. He was never, ever going to be able to stay.

[comicsansstein]

As I’ve mentioned before, I’m old enough to have been born not in Poland, but in People’s Republic of Poland. I’m not old enough to remember it personally, but some of its creations persisted long after the country’s demise.

One of those was compound chocolate, known locally as “chocolate-like product” (wyrób czekoladopodobny). Because you see, dear reader, actual chocolate was not available to the thriving citizens living under, as it was called back then, real socialism. Citrus fruits (and yes, bananas) appeared about twice a year, resulting in queues and store runs as people were trying to get some before they’re gone again.

But even products that didn’t rely on being imported from Cuba were having supply issues, like for example toilet paper. Now, a question I admittedly never asked myself is “who would willingly defend this” because I thought that no such person exists contemporarily. But I guess we all learned a lesson this week.

[genderkoolaid]

This article talks a lot about men & height dysphoria, and the general culture around short men being mocked or otherwise viewed as lesser than taller men. It focuses entirely on cis men but obviously its very relevant to trans men.

In popular culture, Alex added, short men can wind up being a punchline for jokes. “Body shaming is wrong, but there’s like a little asterisk of like, ‘unless you’re short,’” he said. “It seems like almost the one unchangeable trait that is just accepted as a societal punching bag.” Even references to “short kings” — a term used in modern dating for men of short stature who are confident and attractive but might otherwise be overlooked due to their height — seem mocking and backhanded, Alex said. Dr. David Frederick, an associate professor of psychology at Chapman University in Southern California, studies body image satisfaction. In a 2006 study, he found that whereas just 26% of shorter men were satisfied with their height, 87% of tall men were happy with their height. “When it’s such an intense, persistent feeling that it impacts your daily functioning in daily life, it becomes an issue,” he said. A study published last year examined the relationship between height and dating preferences among heterosexual people in the U.S., Canada, Cuba, and Norway. The results suggested that men preferred shorter women and women preferred taller men relative to both their own heights and the averages in their countries. Some research also suggests there are economic benefits to being tall. A 6-foot person was predicted to earn $166,000 more than a 5'5" person over a 30-year career, a 2004 study found. Writer Malcolm Gladwell polled half the companies on the Fortune 500 list about the height of their CEOs in 2005 and found that 58% were taller than 6 feet, even though just 14% of American men are that tall. A combination of factors likely explains the CEO trend, Frederick said: Taller stature is sometimes associated with dominance, but it's also indicative that someone grew up with "more resources and wealth." [...] But Alex added that he is wary of recommending the surgery to others, since that would imply that shorter men should change. Instead, he said, the societal pressures to be taller are the problem. “No one should feel the need to do this,” he said.