is the history of humanity marked by cycles, our collective birth and destruction meeting at the semi-permeable orifices of the ouroboros? some, primarily in western thought, view the path of humanity as something more akin to a comet rocketing ever upwards, its dazzling tail a signal of linear, even exponential progress-- though minor setbacks exist, zooming out on the graph smooths these wrinkles, leaving only a parabolic ascent toward heavenly, cosmic perfection. and yet, even a comet may plunge back downward into the infinite abyss. how foolish to think we would never be pulled in by some gravitational body, what hubris to think there is nothing with a force more powerful than our own. are we plummeting that way? have we yet achieved terminal velocity? or have we already landed in the abyss years ago? (you’re all listening to taylor swift again)

On the Popular Phenomenon of Edward Bellamy and "Looking Backward"

I know — you were hoping this post would would be about THIS guy — — Martin Laurello, the man who could turn his head backwards, but there’s no need to be disappointed. You can still read all about him here, but then come on back please! Edward Bellamy (1850-1898) looked backwards too, but from the FUTURE. Which actually means he was looking FORWARD when he wrote his famous 1888 novel Looking…

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Reading Edward Bellamy's Looking Backward in class and I would pay money for someone to rewrite this entire novel with West landing in actual 2000 America.

“Is a man satisfied, merely because he is perfumed himself, to mingle with a malodorous crowd?” ― Edward Bellamy, Looking Backward

Edward Bellamy

Absolutely cackling at the “best OFMD ship (voter fraud encouraged)” poll results.

I swear the entire thread is gold.

Good job evil!Stede and evil!Ed!

OP including an edit for basically every single placing is also great.

I hadn’t known this was a thing people shipped but it makes sense.

I did actually vote for this one, for all the good my single normal, non-bot vote did here!

So here’s the thing

All Ed’s partners basically hate each other

Izzy hates Jack, Jack despises Izzy, and Sam can’t stand them both

So Ed is kinda used to it

And if Izzy and Jack can endure each other presence for Ed’s liking he sees no reason why can’t Stede

Stede has different opinion

Ps the solution is group sex

I love One Piece

And I love real pirates, so I made this blog to share facts about the real pirates who inspired some of the characters.

Gol D. Roger - Henry Every and Olivier Levasseur

Alvida - Awilda

Calico Yorki - Calico Jack Rackham

Zeff - "Red Legs" Greaves

Blackbeard and Whitebeard - Edward Teach Actually Whitebeard is closer to Benjamin Hornigold than Edward Teach

Roronoa Zoro - François L'olonnais

Jewelry Bonney - Anne Bonney

Lafitte - Jean Lafitte

Eustass Kidd - William Kidd

Captain Morgan - Henry Morgan

Basil Hawkins - Basil Ringrose and John Hawkins

Urouge - Oruç Reis

X Drake - Sir Francis Drake

Bellamy - Samuel Bellamy

The Crown 👑 Season 6 Premiere @ Regency Theatre LA

listen. do i know that a gunslinging pirate would realistically be very impractical because most pistols of the era took at least 20 seconds to reload??? yes. am i still obsessed with the idea of a gunslinging pirate and determined to incorporate one into my ofmd prequel??? absolutely. physics be damned, they can just carry A Lot of Guns

Through a series of events I created an ofmd Enchanted AU with gentlebeard and bellhands as the endgame lol

Shoutout to @akwardmarthy for leading me to this idea

Season 2 is right around the corner but here’s an au

Picking up from the end of season 1, Stede and the part of his crew that was marooned are sailing around trying to catch up with the revenge, but are ill-supplied to be doing so both due to the small size of the boat on the open ocean and that Stede didn’t seem to have much in ways of supplied with him when he left Barbados. I don’t think the marooned crew would consider Stede as their captain at this time (given that he abandoned them to the kraken!Ed). Stede would probably be avoidant in talking about where he’s been (in the “rules for thee but not for me” way he operates) other than he’s back to stay, has no money, and only what little experience he’s had in his brief time sailing as skills. They wouldn’t abandon Stede though, seeing him as maybe the only person who could fix this mess. Stede and his bunch get picked up by another ship who, turns out, is also looking for the Revenge. This ship is either operated or in the command of Bellamy (though he’s using a different name these days because he’s supposed to be dead). When Stede introduces himself, he’s somewhat met with “a pirate captain without a ship and that wasn’t mutinied upon?” questioning (some amusement there on Bellamy’s behalf), and Olu or all of the marooned people explains to their understanding what happened on the Revenge while Stede was gone to the best of their ability. The tale of the Revenge’s crew’s current state was left in just drives them both to want to find it even more. (A good chunk of this story is tracking down information to find the Revenge, which fortunately, Bellamy still has information sources in spades. Sometimes things just happen on the sea. Maybe they run into Jack again?). Bellamy may or may not be a less than open about who he’s chasing after on the Revenge (haven’t decided, or maybe it’s something that eventually comes out but isn’t said directly at first? Bellamy would have little reason to give up his many-year alias/charade to Stede and also strikes me as the kind of man to hold his cards close until he wants to play them). Stede gets to know more about Ed as a person from someone who knew him years ago without Ed there to curate ( Much like Jack and Ed, they act like no time has passed next they meet. I think they would have had a kind of rivalry but also an underlying respect for one another. or at least some base kind of comeradery) and also about pirating when money isn’t your background. Just to complicate things, because Stede and Ed have escaped the royal navy, pirate hunters have been sent after the Revenge (Hornigold maybe?). This is discovered at one of the ports they stop at for information. Time is ticking for them to find the Revenge. Stede no longer has the family inheritance money to lean on, and from the change in lifestyle he’s had to take to compensate, he develops a kind of understanding if not respect for Izzy’s steadfastness in duty of running the ship. ------------- Meanwhile back on the Revenge.... Things keep getting worse somehow. Izzy knows he Fucked Up (see walking on thin ice with Ed), but keeps telling himself Blackbeard is back and this is what he (Izzy) wanted. It’s what’s best for Ed. Izzy tells himself this, but even he knows it’s all gone wrong. He can’t face that reality because Izzy only finds the value of himself in serving Blackbeard. This wasn’t always true. It’s not something he’s ready to confront yet. Izzy is also managing (not well) the missing pinky toe whose stump is healing about as well as Lucius’ finger did. His swordsmanship has also suffered due to the lack of balance from its loss. He must hide all this to the best of his ability to keep up appearances, but of course things will go horribly wrong. Ed notices none of this of course; too wrapped up in his own grief and trying to be the Kraken for the one last reliable person (Izzy) he’s scared will leave him if he isn’t being exactly what Izzy expects him to be. After all, Stede disappeared on him without a word, Jack helped Izzy sell Stede (though ed probably interpreted it as selling both ed and stede) out to the British. Ed and Izzy haven’t been talking outside of strictly first mate-captain business talk. And even then, sometimes it’s Izzy (nervously but with a front to show the crew otherwise) managing without Ed. Lucius is living in the walls at this point and sees and hears much from people when they think they are alone. Ed’s fragile state and crying. Izzy’s struggles with his foot and brief forlorn expressions when he’s alone. Maybe there’s times when he’d grip the ring, saying nothing but mind going mile a minute to something Lucius wouldn’t know at this point. He could probably pick up that it’s a thought of someone missed. Lucius can’t keep a secret for long so he’d start conversing secretly with some of the crew. Jim perhaps? The two of them have a precident of secrets kept a  la season 1. Those that were part of the Revenge both don’t see a way out of this and start trying to plan for a means of a way out of this. Would there have been more crew transferred from the Queen Anne’s Revenge to the Revenge to fill out the crew with competent pirates? Maybe. Eventually though Izzy can’t ignore that this isn’t anything like the usual moodswings of  Blackbeard he’s accustomed to managing. Things aren’t changing and he’s already been dragged too deep underwater by the kraken to surface from the situation. Might as well continue to try and keep the rest of the crew afloat and working as they should be. ---------- (A maybe possibility of an event but not sure how it fits in characterization wise?) Lucius eventually reveals himself to Izzy (under funny accidental circumstances probably). Perhaps when things have gotten Really Bad for Izzy’s foot and he’s bed bound with fever and infection? Would Izzy admit to Lucius he didn’t think an infection would be the thing to do him in? Probably not, but maybe in such a situation he would? (I didn’t think through this scene too much, but maybe some more direct hints that there was someone else (Sam) for Izzy a lifetime ago? But since Izzy never really dealt with the loss other than just shove it down, he doesn’t really want to talk about it? This would provide an opportunity for those that were left from the Revenge crew to gain a kind of respect and the briefest of peaks beneath the demanding middle manager demeanor Izzy has. HOWEVER, this seemingly conflicts with two of the truths Izzy upholds for himself: Loyalty to his captain above all else, and, pirates all just in the process of screwing eachother over) ------------ Back with not the Revenge... Bellamy, Stede, and the rest of the marooned crew eventually catch up to the  Revenge with barely enough time before the pirate hunters arrive. If Stede hadn’t but it together by now just who Bellamy was looking for, it would be outright said who specifically is being sought after. (Stede probably wouldn’t put it together that the man he calls Iggy has the name Israel or may be referred to by the nickname Baz) Stede could say it’s him and he’s returned, but Ed wouldn’t believe him. By now, Stede looks quite different a man. No matter what Stede says, It takes a proper pirate boarding and takeover to get Ed to listen. Maybe Stede getting stabbed by Ed (just like he was taught) to get Ed to listen. The revenge crew on both sides wouldn’t want to fight their friends/companions. The jig is seemingly up on romcom logic where everyone is going to be okay. Maybe Ed boils over and Stede sees the Blackbeard the books he has tell of? Does Ed kill someone in his kraken rage or just think he killed someone in order for him to snap out of it enough to allow that emotional vulnerability to show again? (It would have to be him directly doing it, not throwing someone into the sea, or fire, or anything like that. As with when Jack was talking about Ed burning people alive in ep 8, Ed considered it the fire doing the killing, not himself.) There is of course a dramatic and emotional reunion of all the couples. Them all dealing with what happened in their own ways. Izzy of course is beyond words. Not knowing how to emotionally deal with 1) Sam being alive. Sam being here. 2) Stede Bonnet is back. 3)Pirate hunters (Hornigold?) on the horizon coming right for them. That third point would cut everyone’s emotional reunions short, but also be the only one of the three that Izzy has any inkling of how to deal with after years of shoving his own emotions down and never dealing with them. The fight to even get on the Revenge having caused enough fatigue that a fuckery has to be used to get away. Stede gets to showcase what he’s learned as a practical, broke, pirate (and that probably not enough if he creates the fuckery without assistance from others). There’s a grand kind of confrontation between Hornigold and the two captains who were once under his command. Stede gains a deeper understanding of the man that in many ways shaped Ed (and Izzy and Sam and Jack and maybe other figures that could have been encountered while looking for the Revenge such as Anne Bonny and Mary Reed). And then finally, the crew can start to unpack and sort out the situation. It’s a long process. The world, under normal logic, wouldn’t wait for them to sort such things out. Maybe romcom time makes a comeback and they can sort through at least a good chunk of it. Ed, for his part, does a lot of growth or at least tries to. In the end, Izzy ends up leaving with Sam for retirement. Ed tells him to go, be happy. Releases him from service (much to Izzy’s conflicted feelings on it). Izzy insists that no that’s a big mistake. Ed insists that’s what would make Ed happy (even if that too is a lie in some capacity?): to see Izzy finally have that same happiness with Sam that Ed’s now found with Stede. -------------- As for what happened between Izzy and Sam all those years ago... Years ago, Sam was sweet on Izzy when they were both serving under Hornigold. It was a whirlwind romance. Sam promised Izzy fine things and retirement together- something so rare for those in their line of work. It seemed like the stuff of fairytales, but something made Izzy give Sam a chance to make it a reality. I haven’t decided what the reason they weren’t sailing together. Izzy and Sam would have been on different ships under Hornigold’s command. Sam with his own ship and Izzy under Ed’s command. Maybe Izzy’s sense of loyalty to his captain was there (as instilled by Hornigold in all his men), but at the time, he wasn’t giving both of his hands to his job. One for the ship and one for his own interests. Maybe Ed was jealous and didn’t want to “share” Izzy with a someone else and he pressed the loyalty to the captain aspect? Maybe there was some other fuckery a la Ed afoot? Maybe Izzy, being torn between duty and love, said he’d go with Sam once Sam got the money needed for that retirement? That seems to conflict with the intensity of which Izzy holds loyalty though. Hmm.... In any case, after splitting off from Hornigold and some time passing, Sam ended up reported dead along with almost all of his crew in the sinking of the Whydah. (The timeline with Hornigold’s involvement and if he’s still alive even seems to be pretty loose at this point as far as OFMD canon goes in comparison to history. Therefore the timeline between Bellamy being elected captain of what once was Hornigold’s fleet, his independent ventures, and the sinking of the Whydah can be played with fast and loose.) Ever since then, Sam’s been working under another name to regain those funds, find Izzy, and give his love the retirement he promised. News of what happened to the Whydah and Sam eventually made its way to Ed and Izzy. Izzy never really processed the grief. Just bottled it up and dedicated his whole self to his captain. Both hands to the ship. (“The only retirement we get is... death”)

Call for help

Greetings all. I am but a weary traveler in search of a fic I can not remember either name or author. I am in need of great help.

This author wrote reader inserts. I believe one was for The 100 so I will tag them. The definitely wrote a whole Twilight reader insert series that they completed. And the crème de la crème.

Friends when I last really came onto tumblr like a ravenous heathen, this amazing author was writing a beautiful Percy Jackson reader insert. Series long type.

Also! If it helps, this author also created like these cool extras for both the Twilight fic and was doing preorders months ago for the Percy Jackson fic. Like stickers, enamel pins, stuff like that.

Friends please. I beg of you. Help me. I’ve been searching for like an hour already. I’m in emotional distress over not being able to find this.

obsessed with the idea of sam bellamy joining The Revenge for some travel or something or whatever and izzy thinks nothing of it it’s fine it’s whatever. and then one day, it’s just-

“Have a fling with me.”

“What?”

“Two weeks. You and me, Izzy.”

“Two weeks of what?”

“Kissing, cuddling, gift-giving, sleeping together, fuck, I don’t know. Whatever you want in a relationship.”

“What the fuck?”

and you know what. why not. why shouldn’t izzy make this impulsive bad decision that they’re both aware may end terrible. join a relationship with a set self destruction date. pretend for two weeks. because, as Sam puts it, “it’s fucking fun, Izzy. You don’t have to, you can opt out at any time, whatever. Just give it a chance.”

(spoiler alert: this gets complicated quick for izzy “all or nothing” hands)

(and for optional extra bonus flavour: we can steddyhands-ify endgame this because i am predicable. something to do with [ed, about to lose his shit]“he’s mine.” [sam, only here for a good time and to start drama]“i know.”)

fun fact: most of the information we know about classic pirates (blackbeard, anne bonny, mary read, calico jack) is from one book. and it’s more hilarious the more you know.

A General History of the Robberies and Murders of the Most Notorious Pyrates (or A General History of Pyrates) by Captain Charles Johnson

firstly: captain charles johnson is not a person nor a captain. it’s a pen name. and we have no clue who he actually was. he probably chose “captain” to give himself a sense of credibility he did not have. (could possibly have been daniel defoe or nathaniel mist and you can actually find modern copies printed under both their names)

secondly: he made a lot of it up. he gathered whatever information was available and just made up the rest and anything he thought would make it cooler. that’s not even to mention the second volume where he made up several entire people. this dude was just making stuff up and it’s now the earliest history we have of these people and we’ve accepted it as fact.

thirdly: it was initially published in 1724. (golden age of piracy was 1650s-1830s, dude was writing about the present) several of the pirates he writes about were still alive. and the rest were very recently dead. (henry every is an outlier) he was literally making up facts about people who were very much alive likely while he was writing it.

so this mysterious random dude made up stories about pirates who were still running around killing people and it’s now accepted as pirate cannon. amazing