to fear death is a choice. @deathisachoice - Tumblr Blog

sold my soul, broke my bones, tell me, what did I get? did my time, toed the line, ain’t seen anything yet make it hurt, I’ll eat the dirt, I just don’t care anymore SHOW ME THE PROMISELAND

[ indie . private . highly selective . klaus hargreeves ]

#self promo #it me!!!!#⚶ kate is sailing without a compass : ooc

HIATUS NOTICE ( 10.21.2019 )

Hey y’all! Sorry it’s been a hot while since I’ve been on.

Thing is, I don’t have much muse for Vane at the moment, and even if I did, I have next to no time to write.

I’m not putting Vane to bed forever, but I am putting him on hiatus until I can get things sorted. Hopefully that will help me get my muse back for him.

Lots of love! See y’all soon!

Kate

#⚶ kate is sailing without a compass : ooc #⚶ tie the poem to a chair with rope : psa #in true kate fashion. i come back just to post a hiatus notice.#fingerguns my way out of the room.

That’s it. That’s the show.

independent . selective . black sails rp miranda hamilton | john silver | jack rackham | charles vane

[ shit posting brought to you by: alice, demi, charlie, & kate ]

#⚶ fragments I have shored against my ruins : promos #the shittiest of promos #if y'all want in on the garbage party lmk #riP to that time when i thought i had the energy to make more of these for demi's multi and charlie's flint OTL

deathisachoice

✭ death 8)

i only reblogged this bc i was accosted to write these things out and not shout them in the middle of our living room | @pelagaios

major spoilers for black sails season 3 ahead

this episode ( and the episodes prior that set it up ) is quite honestly the greatest character death i’ve ever seen. it is also the character death that utterly wrecks me the most. As early as episode 3, we’re introduced to the possibility that Charles Vane will die by way of the pardon that Eleanor helps Rogers craft.

The moment the pardon is issued, Vane knows that his life is no longer his own. Sure, he still has freedom over the choices he makes, but once the price is placed on his head, he knows that his life is tied to the fate of the island. To really understand the gravity of this, remember that Vane was a slave ( about which he makes this important speech: “I was once a slave. I know too well the pain of the yoke on my shoulders and of the freedom of having cast it off. So I’m resolved, I will be no slave again. And as I am free, I hereby claim the same for Nassau. She is free today, and so long as I draw breath, she shall remain free.” ). Even after he gained his freedom, Vane had always been indebted to someone–by way of trade agreements, mentor relationships, obligations as captain–and thus not entirely free. To most, these smaller types of slavery ( for lack of a better term ) are insignificant, but for Vane, the very idea that he owes any part of himself to anyone is unbearable.

This is why Vane ultimately chooses Flint over Teach. Flint plays the right hand in swaying Vane to his side when he asks “Who are you?” because it gives Vane the agency to evaluate his options and choose accordingly. In this case, siding with Teach means that Vane will forever be in Teach’s shadow–will forever be indebted to him–while choosing Flint allows Vane, for once, the chance to determine his own future, however brief that may be ( because, recall, Vane knows there is a price on his head and he knows the power his death holds in determining the course of the war ). Vane will always choose freedom because it is the one thing he has worked so hard to get and yet always come up just short of achieving.

So okay–Vane is “free” but we’re only half-way through the season and we’ve an utterly devastating death scene to build. Vane’s capture is yet another overture to the complexity of Vane’s character. First, understand that Charles Vane engineers exactly the right plot to ensure Jack Rackham’s rescue. There are any number of things Vane could have done with the information he uncovered, but the fact that he uses it to mount a nearly fool-proof rescue for a man he so often underestimates should tell you just how much Jack means to Vane ( I’m reminded here, too, of the exchange he has with Featherstone where Vane makes it perfectly clear that Jack’s life is worth more to him than the entirety of New Providence Island ). Getting back to Jack’s rescue, a lot of the emphasis in this scene is placed on Jack and Anne ( as it should be ) but Vane’s subtle contributions once again underline the gravity of the sacrifice he chooses to make and the motive behind it. Vane responds to Flint almost petulantly when he’s pushed about leaving Jack behind in chains–Flint may have come for the chest, but Vane came for Jack.

Vane and Jack’s relationship is a rocky one and half the time one is left to wonder whether or not Vane really values Jack as much as Jack values him. Vane is not, by nature, a terribly soft personality. He isn’t prone to displays of affection ( and even when he is, they are subtle and very cerebral–see the way Vane studies Eleanor’s hand ), but he does feel deeply–which I will get into more in a moment. When Vane shouts at Anne and Jack to “GO,” he is perfectly aware that he is trading his own freedom for theirs. And it is a choice and a sacrifice that he makes willingly. So–to break this down, Vane values his freedom above anything else. So, willingly ( although he doesn’t go without a fight because this is Charles Vane ) submitting to capture flies in the face of everything he believes and presents a greater fear for Vane than facing death in battle. He makes this sacrifice–this ultimate sacrifice of the one thing he holds so dear–not because he wants to secure the gold ( Flint is long gone by this point ) but because he cannot and will not see Jack die. Earlier in this season, Jack asks Anne why he cares so much about Vane and we see the the weight of Jack’s doubt about his place in Vane’s life–the resolution of that plays out in the rescue. Vane effectively chooses to die so that Jack might live and any doubts about Jack’s importance to Vane are swiftly put to bed.

Once captured, Vane is placed in chains and moved to a cell. In something that’s just a bit too reminiscent of the ghosts in A Christmas Carol, Vane is visited by the one other person ( aside from Jack ) that he would willingly die for. Now–okay, Eleanor and Vane have been on-the-outs far more frequently than they have been cooperative with one another in the past three seasons. With that said, Vane still loves ( and always will love ) Eleanor. Whether or not that is reciprocated in this scene is debatable and I’ll leave that to people who have spent more time thinking about Eleanor’s characterization than I have. Though he doesn’t always show his love in the best way ( perhaps killing Richard wasn’t the smoothest way to impress his ex ), he is completely and utterly in love with her. We see this in his body language, in his dialogue, in his reserved nature–something, I strongly believe is a result of giving himself so completely to Eleanor and then losing her ( recall “you will turn on absolutely anyone” ). In that cell, Vane is a prisoner once again–and, to be entirely clear, he is a prisoner to Eleanor. Herein lies one of the most heartbreaking parts of this death sequence. Vane has been a prisoner to Eleanor from the start. Teach reminds us that it was Vane’s devotion to Eleanor that drove him to forsake the only man that had ever cared for him. It’s never been a physically apparent imprisonment, but if we consider how much he loves her ( and how much he hates that he loves her ) we see that he understands he is a prisoner. When Max approaches Vane and asks if he wants to know how to stop loving Eleanor and he says no he admits, more or less, that he doesn’t want to be free of her.

Parse that together for a second. Vane, who wants freedom above all else, does not want to be free of the agonizing love he has for Eleanor because that love is the closest he’s ever been to feeling alive–even if it’s no longer reciprocated. Eleanor bloodies her knuckles on him, insults him, calls him an animal, and he would still die for her. And fuck, there it is. Charles Vane would die for two people–Jack Rackham and Eleanor Guthrie–and he does. The cruel irony about this, though, is that Eleanor is the one that de jure kills him. The last thing he sees as he hangs from the noose is the face of the woman he would die for and the face of the woman that killed him.

But, backing up, because I’m getting ahead of myself–Vane’s death isn’t just about Eleanor. I’ve talked a lot about Vane’s desire for freedom and when I re-watched the death scene with Kat ( who commissioned this long ass meta ), Kat asked why Vane chose death over Billy’s rescue attempt. Vane chooses death because it is, in itself, a kind of freedom. It is the last form of rebellion there is left against the men and women that are hell bent on seeing him in chains. As he says so brilliantly, “to fear death is a choice.” In that moment, Vane effectively wins his execution. If we were to tally the benefits and consequences of Vane’s death, the numbers would come out in favor of the pirates. Even Eleanor knows this–it’s why seeing Vane hang doesn’t feel as satisfying as she wanted it to. Vane welcomes his death, he understands that he is the spark that will ignite Flint’s victory. After his speech, which is, ever in Vane’s style, short and sweet, Vane pulls the most badass move: calmly turning around and saying, “get on with it, motherfucker,” after which he hastens his drop by walking off the cart himself. I don’t know about you, but there isn’t a hint of regret or uncertainty in Vane’s actions. The choice he makes–the way he tackles death with the same force he wrought on his enemies–conveys strength and, above all, freedom.

#gentle reminder that i cry every time i think about this #⚶ kate is sailing without a compass : ooc #show me a better death arc. i'll wait.

deathisachoice

& season one.

Charles Vane in season 1 is not a good man. He’s not even an okay man. To be clear—I don’t condone or want to excuse what he did. I simply want to talk about why he behaves the way he does and what, ultimately, that means for his character.

I believe quite strongly in the idea that there is no such thing as a “good guy” or a “bad guy.” To this end, Charles Vane is neither a “good guy” or a “bad guy,” he’s a man who handled a difficult situation badly and made decisions that, in some cases, reflect who he is as a man and, in others, don’t.

At the start of season 1, Vane and his crew have hit a rough patch—following Vane’s falling out with Eleanor, the Ranger crew has taken fewer prizes and is, at this point, getting desperate for income and good fortune. We see a similar desperation in Flint’s crew—and, while we’re on the topic of Flint, even though he’s often shown as the “good guy” in season 1, he is as guilty of bad decisions in the name of desperation as Vane ( lying about and killing Singleton is not the responsible way to handle the situation at hand ). However, Vane is a very different style of captain from Flint and, as a man, is more prone to vice because of where he came from. Though we don’t learn about this until later in the season, Vane was a child laborer under Albinus—to be clear, this is simply a more polite way of saying he was a slave—so he lacks the kind of educated self-control that Flint learned prior to turning pirate and this really shows.

Captain is a rank not just of power for Vane but of freedom. It is an invitation to have a hand in his own fate for one of the first times in his life. When we pick up with him in season 1, he is slowly losing control over what happens to he and his crew—the rough patch his crew is as much a product of Eleanor’s break with Van as it is an economic decision that Eleanor makes based on Vane’s lapse in control over his crew. When Eleanor and Vane split, it’s fairly easy to infer that crew of the Ranger suddenly suffered without Eleanor’s preference for their trade—which in turn alienated the crew from their captain whom they now blame for their drastic shift in fortune. Given this tension, the crew would be slow to obey a captain they blame for their loss in profit. Similarly, Vane, who is prone to vice when he hits a rough patch, would lack the motivation to reassert his authority over his crew. The effect is a sort of “perfect storm” that we pick up with in season 1.

Stated simply, a series of circumstances over which Vane has little control are compounding on him—dissolving, in effect, the little control Vane did have over his own fate. Given what we know about Vane’s past, such a state of vulnerability and lack of control does not sit easily with him. Instead, it causes a crisis—and in crisis, man generally reverts back to base instinct to survive. In this case, Vane reverts back to the brutality and savagery that was required of him to survive under Albinus—and, unfortunately, this spells a number of despicable outcomes for the inhabitants of Nassau. Again, I want to stress that nothing I’m writing here should be taken as an attempt to defend or excuse Vane.

Vane reacts like a scared beast when he’s backed against a wall—he will lash out violently and without remorse or concern for who he hurts. Vane’s actions towards Max when he and she are negotiating Silver’s trade are evidence of a man that is just barely hanging onto civility. Once Jack loses the pearls and loses Silver to Flint during the botched handoff, Vane has lost the very last thread of control he had over his crew, his future, and his situation. He is backed against a wall with no options remaining. So, he lashes out—he attacks anything and everything around him just to feel for half a second, like he is in control of something. Because of this, Vane allows Max to be abused.

To be clear here—what happens is not Vane’s original intent ( the crew makes this decision on their own, Vane’s original plan was to send Max away quietly ) and Vane was not aware of what was going on until Jack interrupts his moment with Eleanor to, presumably, ask him to control the crew. We can’t know that it was Jack’s intent or Vane’s intent to stop the crew ( we can infer, but there’s no dialogue to confirm ). When Vane does emerge from the tent, he doesn’t do anything to stop his crew and herein lies the nature of Vane’s weakness. He is still reeling and still struggling to gain a foothold again where he feels confident and in control of his fate—he’s just had to tuck his tail between his legs and yield to Flint’s will which sits badly with him. He doesn’t step in to help Max because he wants to hurt Eleanor as much as he feels he’s been hurt. He makes the wrong decision and he becomes complicit in a disgusting and indefensible act. Had the scene not played out as it did—where Eleanor steps in to defend Max—I believe that Vane would have remained silent. Given how desperate he is—he has just squandered his crew’s savings, lost a lead on an unparalleled prize, and sold himself ( more or less ) to Flint—he would have allowed the abuse to continue because he is as low as one can possibly be. And, in this moment, I hate the sort of man that Charles Vane is, that he would condone r.ape simply to settle a score. But, this is the sort of man that is born from the desperation of a life spent as a slave, this is the sort of man born from a barbaric beginning and animalistic fight to be free. This is, unfortunately, the very fundamental savagery of man pushed to the very edge with no means to stop himself from condoning and promoting the worst kind of abuse imaginable. He is not a good man.

It’s important to understand that Vane’s behavior in season 1 is not indicative of his character at every point in the show or in his life—only that it is indicative of a Charles Vane that feels he is without option and thus reverts to an earlier kind of savagery. Vane remains, throughout the show, a man who is capable of inhuman horrors and abuses. He never loses his capability to return to where he was in season 1, he simply gains a better grasp over his more base instincts and learns to curb his rage and violence. Consider the points in the show where Vane resorts to extreme violence—when he is desperate to regain his position with Eleanor for trade and his efforts to overthrow Flint backfire, he kills Mosiah; when he feels he is about to lose control of his crew because of Eleanor’s refusal to show him preference, he kidnaps Max and allows his crew to abuse her; and when he feels powerless to explain the loss of Abigail to his crew ( he says to Eleanor that it is his death sentence ), he kills Richard Guthrie. These are all examples of Vane’s inability to move past his base instinct and reason his way towards a better end. Vane continues to struggle with his violent side, and it is the introduction of people like Jack and Anne and, yes, even Flint into his life that help him curb this part of himself to some small degree. The Charles Vane that comes to redeem himself in later episodes is one that has people around to remind him what is and is not too far.

#throws this back on the dash.#if im rebooting might as well toss this out again #⚶ kate is sailing without a compass : ooc #tldr: vane is a complex character and if you're drawing generalized assumptions about him based on isolated decisions #then you need to find the unfollow button pretty damn fast.

nolegacies

Be brave little ριяαтє boy. Be brave. They may ̷͇̿C̷̷͇͇̿̿ ̷̷͇͇̿̿R̷̷͇͇̿̿ ̷̷͇͇̿̿U̷̷͇͇̿̿ ̷̷͇͇̿̿S̷̷͇͇̿̿ ̷͇̿H your mighty armor, And ̸R̸̸ ̸̸E̸̸ ̸̸N̸̸ ̸D your flesh from bone. But be brave my little ριяαтє boy. Be Ɓ Ʀ ƛ Ɣ Є.

#⚶ fragments I have shored against my ruins : promos #YESSSSSSSSSS

jackrxckham

“I feel compelled to state out loud…

LIFE IS SIMPLY TOO FUCKING SHORT!!!”

Verses | Rules | Mun *follows from captaindashingrapscallion

promo credit

#⚶ fragments I have shored against my ruins : promos #LOUD SCREECHING

spaceportfloozy

“you shouldn’t like that character because they’re a terrible person”

look my guy i pulled this character right out of the dumpster fair and square and i’m keeping him

#⚶ kate is sailing without a compass : ooc #charles is garbage. this is not new.#this does explain why he needs a bath tho

mia ‌:

mia glances up at the sound of her father’s voice and sees the note dangling from his fingers. popping up, she walks over and takes it from him with a serious nod.

“You’re right, I should add a warning…” seconds later, she’s scribbling a couple extra words so it now reads, ‘don’t fuck the goat, lads. Or else.’ proudly, she presents it to her father. “That should work now. Gotta protect, Louis.”

Captain Charles Vane of the Fancy is a feared man, a man that inspires dread in the hearts of those that dare to cross him. His name carries with it a feeling of impending doom. All across the ocean, grown men are reduced to quivering, begging fools by Vane’s hand.

And so, to say that Charles Vane fears only one soul in the whole world is to say a great deal. Not even he dares to question or test the small fingers that plucks the note from his own weathered and scarred hand.

He is completely silent as the small girl amends her memorandum. So too, is the crew who stand, slack-jawed in terror.

Louis. Ah, yes, his daughter’s newly declared pet---the ship goat that Jack insisted on bringing along ( that Jack had also encouraged Mia to adopt as her own ).

So as not to undermine Mia’s authority, Vane stares down his crew ( really, these things should be self explanatory but it seems that they aren’t ).

“ Anyone in violation of this new article, ” he’s dangerously close to infringing on the sanctity of the crew’s democratically determined articles, but that’s an issue for the Quarter Master to sort later and Jack will handle it just fine he wagers, “ will find themselves at the mercy of Mistress Mia. ”

With the crew dismissed, he turns again to Mia---this time with his own authority firmly in place.

“ Where has Louis gone? He’s not in the hold. ”

#loyxltyloyxlty #v ;; ☸ the world will rearrange us : divorced

mxmcria

———————————————-Long John Silver.

adored by demi been around the block too long i am koala tea.

#⚶ fragments I have shored against my ruins : promos #O N B R A N D #BABE

🎶 (just fuck me up)

lyrics meme | accepting

He sways a bit---the alcohol drags him this way, then that---almost like a wave, ebbing and flowing on hot sand.

It’s not that he’s talking to her in particular. It’s more that she’s the nearest to him when he decides to speak.

“ Yeah, I'm out here all night so if you want to start a fight, ” he’s visibly pointing at her now. “ We can get loaded on the things that I can't change. ”

And, fuck, he really wants to get loaded.

[ “It Was A Sin” - The Revivalists ]

#since the ask formatting is ass now i can't tag ur kid.#this is for gag arm which is bindlestars i think ???#bindlestars #invelleity #✗ in answer to their treble interjections : answered

🎶

lyrics meme | accepting

Charles presses a finger into Billy’s chest. His voice is low---sneering. He’s all but pressed Billy against the mast.

“ Chained to a lie, we're the same you and I. ”

[ “Cold Love” - Rainbow Kitten Surprise ]

#ok but this song is such a fucking good charles song #nolegacies #✗ in answer to their treble interjections : answered

The notice was penned neatly on a scrap of paper and attached to the door with a bent nail.

‘ don’t fuck the goat, lads. ’

Charles stares at it for a solid minute---blinking just to be sure that he’s not misread the memorandum. No, he realizes, he has not misread it. Unceremoniously, he plucks the notice from the door and turns to face the crew.