#South Sea Bubble

[arlesposting]

Hey everybody! I'm back with some more fanart of @extracreditsblog and their designs for historical figures! This time I drew Walpole, very self explanatory! He's leaning on a little economic bubble of his own, it seems. Who's fault was it? Always his. Enjoy! :D

[insidecroydon]

Bourne again: how Carshalton Park is providing an overflow

Flowing with wildlife: what for years was a mostly dry, grassy trench in Carshalton Park has now become a haven for wildlife Where does all that rainwater go from one of the wettest years on record? Well, in the catchment area of the River Wandle, as ANDREW FORD, left, has discovered, it has been taking up quite a bit of Carshalton Park After the exceptional heavy rainfalls of the last year or…

[adaines-furious-feast]

Did Mother Goose save Shoeburg?

So, so far the only things that Tim has written in the book that have stayed were the rhymes, the notes to scheherazade (which I don't know if they were confirmed as staying) and the word "shoe".

We know just writing parts of the rhyme can have a big impact with the Cow and the Dish. So what if writing "shoe" from the nursery rhyme partially saved Shoeburg from the Dark Times. Seems very powerful but then the book is powerful.

Also, interesting but I googled the rhyme and found this nugget on Wikipedia

"Albert Jack has proposed a political origin for the rhyme. George II was nicknamed the "old woman" because it was widely believed that Queen Caroline was the real power behind the throne. according to this explanation, the children are the Members of Parliament that George was unable to control, the whip refers to the political office of that name [...] and the bed is the House of Commons which MPs were required to attend daily. The phrase "gave them some broth without any bread" may refer to George's parsimony in the wake of the South sea bubble."

That last bit is super interesting to me. South Sea Bubble was a weird financial event where the entire economy of Britain almost broke because people were borrowing to buy shares in a company that was actually worthless except everyone thought it was great (very simplified) (if you're interested Extra Credits has a good series on it). So everything looked rosey but it was all held together with duct tape.

Also, the biggest winner out of all this was Robert Walpole, sometimes referred to as the first prime minister who became very powerful because of the bubble bursting.

Anyway, a lot to read into one interpretation of a nursery rhyme but they've given us so little about Shoeburg other than "its thriving but the people in charge suck and it's a boil"

[dwagom]

as speculative bubbles inflate they create haves (those who'd gotten in early) and have-nots (who'd gotten in late or not at all), and the more they grow the wider and deeper that rift gets. the BoJ at least had the guts to pop the RE/land bubble in the 1990s to protect japanese society which was creaking under the weight of elevated RE prices. the first takeaway is that if an administration has a large speculative bubble form on their watch, then it's either cornered, incompetent, cowardly, or corrupt (and let's face it, the japanese government should've acted sooner); the second is that the 1980s bubble economy and the lost decades that followed are in fact the same economic post-plaza accords situation differing only in the presence of an asset bubble, which i assume was allowed to inflate to hide the catastrophic implications of Plaza from the electorate for as much time as it was possible to buy with mountains of bezzle; the third is that a crisis of this sort can be resolved most fairly by inflating wages, but that requires a ruling class willing to let go of a significant fraction of its political power, not because political power translates into purchasing power (it inherently does, even if it's perceived to be immoral when it happens), but because purchasing power translates into political power, which is to say that economic crises are lists of contradicting demands toward preserving the extant configuration of power relations ("status quo") at costs rising because of those contradictions. should the attempt to steer the situation between emergent dysfunction and the enforcement of novel inequality that it arises from fail (in the sense that it can not impose or at least confabulate promises of durable equilibria of governance), a more serious feedback loop begins to form. of note is that both the mississippi and the south sea bubbles were artificially inflated by the french and the british governments to deal with complete economic shitshows by means of bezzle serving as a psychological tool

[peacockstalemusicalstorytelling]

Filming the music video for our new single "The Ballad of Sir Robert Walpole"

[kc22invesmentsblog]

The South Sea Bubble (1720): Lessons from a Historic Financial Fiasco

Written by Delvin In the annals of financial history, the South Sea Bubble of 1720 stands as a stark reminder of the perils of irrational exuberance and speculative frenzy. Driven by investor mania, the South Sea Company, a British trading company, witnessed its stock price soar to unprecedented heights before plummeting dramatically. This blog post delves into the story of the South Sea Bubble,…

[rostam-z]

In the background the mighty Mt. #Nuolja in the #moonlight, #NorthernSami #Njullá, is a mountain at #Torneträsk in #Kiruna municipality, west of #Abisko in northwestern Lapland. Nuolja is partly within #AbiskoNationalPark. The highest point is 1169 meters above sea level, while the nearby mountain peak #Slåttatjåkka measures 1191 meters. Photo taken from the #AbiskoDelta, after a windy storm and that´s why the ice bubbles are visible. Polished by the wind. Nuolja, is also a #fieldresearch site that stretches across Mt.Njulla. With the mountain to the east, the village of Abisko to the south, and bordering Lake Torneträsk, this is a varied-habitat field site. Mountain birch forests are one of the main appeals of this research site. #ClimateChange: From 1920 to 2020, the tree line was raised by 230 meters due to the warmer climate. @swedishlapland #SwedishLapland @bjorkliden_fjallby @abisko.adventure @abiskomountainlodge @abiskonet @outbackabisko @stfabisko @lightsoverlapland #VisitSweden #VisitLapland #Lappland #Laponia #SwedishLandscape #Landscape #SlowPhotography #landscapephotography #raw_sweden #raw_nordic #naturephotography #mountainscape #mountains #SlowPhotography #Sami #AbovePolarCircle #subarctic @natgeoyourshot #natgeoyourshot

[mostlysignssomeportents]

How finfluencers destroyed the housing and lives of thousands of people

For the rest of May, my bestselling solarpunk utopian novel THE LOST CAUSE (2023) is available as a $2.99, DRM-free ebook!

The crash of 2008 imparted many lessons to those of us who were only dimly aware of finance, especially the problems of complexity as a way of disguising fraud and recklessness. That was really the first lesson of 2008: "financial engineering" is mostly a way of obscuring crime behind a screen of technical jargon.

This is a vital principle to keep in mind, because obscenely well-resourced "financial engineers" are on a tireless, perennial search for opportunities to disguise fraud as innovation. As Riley Quinn says, "Any time you hear 'fintech,' substitute 'unlicensed bank'":

https://pluralistic.net/2023/05/01/usury/#tech-exceptionalism

But there's another important lesson to learn from the 2008 disaster, a lesson that's as old as the South Seas Bubble: "leverage" (that is, debt) is a force multiplier for fraud. Easy credit for financial speculation turns local scams into regional crime waves; it turns regional crime into national crises; it turns national crises into destabilizing global meltdowns.

When financial speculators have easy access to credit, they "lever up" their wagers. A speculator buys your house and uses it for collateral for a loan to buy another house, then they make a bet using that house as collateral and buy a third house, and so on. This is an obviously terrible practice and lenders who extend credit on this basis end up riddling the real economy with rot – a single default in the chain can ripple up and down it and take down a whole neighborhood, town or city. Any time you see this behavior in debt markets, you should batten your hatches for the coming collapse. Unsurprisingly, this is very common in crypto speculation, where it's obscured behind the bland, unpronounceable euphemism of "re-hypothecation":

https://www.coindesk.com/consensus-magazine/2023/05/10/rehypothecation-may-be-common-in-traditional-finance-but-it-will-never-work-with-bitcoin/

Loose credit markets often originate with central banks. The dogma that holds that the only role the government has to play in tuning the economy is in setting interest rates at the Fed means the answer to a cooling economy is cranking down the prime rate, meaning that everyone earns less money on their savings and are therefore incentivized to go and risk their retirement playing at Wall Street's casino.

The "zero interest rate policy" shows what happens when this tactic is carried out for long enough. When the economy is built upon mountains of low-interest debt, when every business, every stick of physical plant, every car and every home is leveraged to the brim and cross-collateralized with one another, central bankers have to keep interest rates low. Raising them, even a little, could trigger waves of defaults and blow up the whole economy.

Holding interest rates at zero – or even flipping them to negative, so that your savings lose value every day you refuse to flush them into the finance casino – results in still more reckless betting, and that results in even more risk, which makes it even harder to put interest rates back up again.

This is a morally and economically complicated phenomenon. On the one hand, when the government provides risk-free bonds to investors (that is, when the Fed rate is over 0%), they're providing "universal basic income for people with money." If you have money, you can park it in T-Bills (Treasury bonds) and the US government will give you more money:

https://realprogressives.org/mmp-blog-34-responses/

On the other hand, while T-Bills exist and are foundational to the borrowing picture for speculators, ZIRP creates free debt for people with money – it allows for ever-greater, ever-deadlier forms of leverage, with ever-worsening consequences for turning off the tap. As 2008 forcibly reminded us, the vast mountains of complex derivatives and other forms of exotic debt only seems like an abstraction. In reality, these exotic financial instruments are directly tethered to real things in the real economy, and when the faery gold disappears, it takes down your home, your job, your community center, your schools, and your whole country's access to cancer medication:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/jun/08/greek-drug-shortage-worsens

Being a billionaire automatically lowers your IQ by 30 points, as you are insulated from the consequences of your follies, lapses, prejudices and superstitions. As @pixelpusher220@dmv.community says, Elon Musk is what Howard Hughes would have turned into if he hadn't been a recluse:

https://mamot.fr/@pixelpusher220@dmv.community/112457199729198644

The same goes for financiers during periods of loose credit. Loose Fed money created an "everything bubble" that saw the prices of every asset explode, from housing to stocks, from wine to baseball cards. When every bet pays off, you win the game by betting on everything:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Everything_bubble

That meant that the ZIRPocene was an era in which ever-stupider people were given ever-larger sums of money to gamble with. This was the golden age of the "finfluencer" – a Tiktok dolt with a surefire way for you to get rich by making reckless bets that endanger the livelihoods, homes and wellbeing of your neighbors.

Finfluencers are dolts, but they're also dangerous. Writing for The American Prospect, the always-amazing Maureen Tkacik describes how a small clutch of passive-income-brainworm gurus created a financial weapon of mass destruction, buying swathes of apartment buildings and then destroying them, ruining the lives of their tenants, and their investors:

https://prospect.org/infrastructure/housing/2024-05-22-hell-underwater-landlord/

Tcacik's main characters are Matt Picheny, Brent Ritchie and Koteswar “Jay” Gajavelli, who ran a scheme to flip apartment buildings, primarily in Houston, America's fastest growing metro, which also boasts some of America's weakest protections for tenants. These finance bros worked through Gajavelli's company Applesway Investment Group, which levered up his investors' money with massive loans from Arbor Realty Trust, who also originated loans to many other speculators and flippers.

For investors, the scheme was a classic heads-I-win/tails-you-lose: Gajavelli paid himself a percentage of the price of every building he bought, a percentage of monthly rental income, and a percentage of the resale price. This is typical of the "syndicating" sector, which raised $111 billion on this basis:

https://www.wsj.com/articles/a-housing-bust-comes-for-thousands-of-small-time-investors-3934beb3

Gajavelli and co bought up whole swathes of Houston and other cities, apartment blocks both modest and luxurious, including buildings that had already been looted by previous speculators. As interest rates crept up and the payments for the adjustable-rate loans supporting these investments exploded, Gajavell's Applesway and its subsidiary LLCs started to stiff their suppliers. Garbage collection dwindled, then ceased. Water outages became common – first weekly, then daily. Community rooms and pools shuttered. Lawns grew to waist-high gardens of weeds, fouled with mounds of fossil dogshit. Crime ran rampant, including murders. Buildings filled with rats and bedbugs. Ceilings caved in. Toilets backed up. Hallways filled with raw sewage:

https://pluralistic.net/timberridge

Meanwhile, the value of these buildings was plummeting, and not just because of their terrible condition – the whole market was cooling off, in part thanks to those same interest-rate hikes. Because the loans were daisy-chained, problems with a single building threatened every building in the portfolio – and there were problems with a lot more than one building.

This ruination wasn't limited to Gajavelli's holdings. Arbor lent to multiple finfluencer grifters, providing the leverage for every Tiktok dolt to ruin a neighborhood of their choosing. Arbor's founder, the "flamboyant" Ivan Kaufman, is associated with a long list of bizarre pop-culture and financial freak incidents. These have somehow eclipsed his scandals, involving – you guessed it – buying up apartment buildings and turning them into dangerous slums. Two of his buildings in Hyattsville, MD accumulated 2,162 violations in less than three years.

Arbor graduated from owning slums to creating them, lending out money to grifters via a "crowdfunding" platform that rooked retail investors into the scam, taking advantage of Obama-era deregulation of "qualified investor" restrictions to sucker unsophisticated savers into handing over money that was funneled to dolts like Gajavelli. Arbor ran the loosest book in town, originating mortgages that wouldn't pass the (relatively lax) criteria of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. This created an ever-enlarging pool of apartments run by dolts, without the benefit of federal insurance. As one short-seller's report on Arbor put it, they were the origin of an epidemic of "Slumlord Millionaires":

https://viceroyresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/Arbor-Slumlord-Millionaires-Jan-8-2023.pdf

The private equity grift is hard to understand from the outside, because it appears that a bunch of sober-sided, responsible institutions lose out big when PE firms default on their loans. But the story of the Slumlord Millionaires shows how such a scam could be durable over such long timescales: remember that the "syndicating" sector pays itself giant amounts of money whether it wins or loses. The consider that they finance this with investor capital from "crowdfunding" platforms that rope in naive investors. The owners of these crowdfunding platforms are conduits for the money to make the loans to make the bets – but it's not their money. Quite the contrary: they get a fee on every loan they originate, and a share of the interest payments, but they're not on the hook for loans that default. Heads they win, tails we lose.

In other words, these crooks are intermediaries – they're platforms. When you're on the customer side of the platform, it's easy to think that your misery benefits the sellers on the platform's other side. For example, it's easy to believe that as your Facebook feed becomes enshittified with ads, that advertisers are the beneficiaries of this enshittification.

But the reason you're seeing so many ads in your feed is that Facebook is also ripping off advertisers: charging them more, spending less to police ad-fraud, being sloppier with ad-targeting. If you're not paying for the product, you're the product. But if you are paying for the product? You're still the product:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/01/04/how-to-truth/#adfraud

In the same way: the private equity slumlord who raises your rent, loads up on junk fees, and lets your building disintegrate into a crime-riddled, sewage-tainted, rat-infested literal pile of garbage is absolutely fucking you over. But they're also fucking over their investors. They didn't buy the building with their own money, so they're not on the hook when it's condemned or when there's a forced sale. They got a share of the initial sale price, they get a percentage of your rental payments, so any upside they miss out on from a successful sale is just a little extra they're not getting. If they squeeze you hard enough, they can probably make up the difference.

The fact that this criminal playbook has wormed its way into every corner of the housing market makes it especially urgent and visible. Housing – shelter – is a human right, and no person can thrive without a stable home. The conversion of housing, from human right to speculative asset, has been a catastrophe:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/06/06/the-rents-too-damned-high/

Of course, that's not the only "asset class" that has been enshittified by private equity looters. They love any kind of business that you must patronize. Capitalists hate capitalism, so they love a captive audience, which is why PE took over your local nursing home and murdered your gran:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/02/23/acceptable-losses/#disposable-olds

Homes are the last asset of the middle class, and the grifter class know it, so they're coming for your house. Willie Sutton robbed banks because "that's where the money is" and We Buy Ugly Houses defrauds your parents out of their family home because that's where their money is:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/05/11/ugly-houses-ugly-truth/#homevestor

The plague of housing speculation isn't a US-only phenomenon. We have allies in Spain who are fighting our Wall Street landlords:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/11/24/no-puedo-pagar-no-pagara/#fuckin-aardvarks

Also in Berlin:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/08/16/die-miete-ist-zu-hoch/#assets-v-human-rights

The fight for decent housing is the fight for a decent world. That's why unions have joined the fight for better, de-financialized housing. When a union member spends two hours commuting every day from a black-mold-filled apartment that costs 50% of their paycheck, they suffer just as surely as if their boss cut their wage:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/12/13/i-want-a-roof-over-my-head/#and-bread-on-the-table

The solutions to our housing crises aren't all that complicated – they just run counter to the interests of speculators and the ruling class. Rent control, which neoliberal economists have long dismissed as an impossible, inevitable disaster, actually works very well:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/05/16/mortgages-are-rent-control/#housing-is-a-human-right-not-an-asset

As does public housing:

https://jacobin.com/2023/10/red-vienna-public-affordable-housing-homelessness-matthew-yglesias

There are ways to have a decent home and a decent life without being burdened with debt, and without being a pawn in someone else's highly leveraged casino bet.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/05/22/koteswar-jay-gajavelli/#if-you-ever-go-to-houston

Image: Boy G/Google Maps (modified) https://pluralistic.net/timberridge

[cherrybombfangirlwrites]

Hey, remember how during Pride Month the writeblr community has posts circulating where queer authors are encouraged to promote their books with queer representation?

July is disability pride month, Disabled people are at risk of falling below the poverty line especially and i'd love to help those who are published get paid this month if i can, so...

Let's do the same thing but with Disability Pride Month!!!

Disabled Writers feel free to promote your stuff!

I'll start:

Hello, I'm Anna, I'm an Autistic and ADHD author! Here are my canonically disabled characters in books that will come out in like 50 years because I'm a slow writer:

(I noticed most of these are mental disabilities and disorders, probably because that's where most of my personal experience is, BUT i do have quite a few physical disabilities in there, and there's also quite a bit of intersectionality <333)

Prince Kaye (FSF series): Kaye has OCD! He's also mixed latino and bisexual <3 very sweet scrawny peacemaker prince born to a family of warlords <3

Captain Cassandra (FSF series): Cassandra is mute due to trading her voice and tail for human legs, and partially deaf due to an explosion on the seas during a battle. Due to losing her tail for human legs, she also experiences chronic pain in her feet (the original curse of every step feeling like walking on knives if you will). She's also plus sized, pansexual, and gets a pirate girlfriend

Erica (FSF series): Erica is an amputee pirate with a peg leg. She's also lesbian, polynesian, plus sized, and Cassandra's hopeless romantic pirate girlfriend.

Princess Hestia (FSF series): Hestia has an anxiety disorder! She's also plus sized, South Asian mixed (like her brother), and falls in love with a shy blonde bookworm trans boi named Elliot

Raven (FSF series): Raven is Autistic! He's a morally gray knight charged with being the personal bodyguard of a reckless princess. He's so Latino and bisexual <3

Princess Sapphire (FSF series): Sapphire has ADHD! She's the reckless adventure seeking and impulsive princess that Raven has to protect. She's also a redhead, and demisexual <3

Triveya (FSF series): Triveya is autistic and adhd! She's the resident wizard and magic expert in the cast of FSF, and is a little bit feral with a bubbly and nerdy personality

Kylee (TCIO series): Kylee is autistic and non speaking! She's a superhero with super speed and invisibility powers, and she's the youngest of the team while also being a mischievous and outgoing ball of sunshine

Bryson (TCIO series): Bryson is diabetic! I'm still developing his character so i haven't figured out which type he is yet (leaning towards type 2). He's the superhero team medic with healing powers (can't heal himself or emotional injuries with said powers), and he's also a black guy and the token straight of the team that's on thin ice

Chase (TCIO series): Chase has OCD, a bipolar mood disorder, and chronic depression and anxiety to go with it! He's the tech guy on the team of superheroes, and doesn't have any supernatural abilities, but he's really good with computers and tech. He's cynical and sarcastic (because of the ableism he's experienced in the past) but secretly does care, and he's also Romani American and Jewish!

Corie (Galaxy Des. series): Corie is a cyborg and has prosthetic limbs! She has a prosthetic eye, arm, and leg. The eye does come with a small interface and her arm does have a laser gun attachment. She built and repairs all of her robot parts herself, and is a highly feared and valuable assassin in the galactic underworld. She's also mixed brown and is AroAce!

NOVA (Galaxy Des. series): Nova is epileptic! She is an android who was scrapped due to malfunction, and became a smuggler who is good at her trade. Due to faulty wiring she's epileptic. She's a cynical and grumpy android who accidentally falls in love with a loveable human lesbian rogue. She's bisexual and has shiny chrome skin with cyan lighting in the cracks.

Pandora (Galaxy Des. series): Pandora is a part-time wheelchair user, autistic and adhd, and tourettic! He is a biologist that formerly did morally questionable work for the galactic government, and now does that same work in the criminal underworld and sells it to the highest bidder. She also uses he/she pronouns, is mixed brown, and pansexual!

Ethel (unnamed witchy wip): Ethel has one eye and PTSD! She's a witch in a world where magic has just been outlawed, and a witch hunting cult has been hired by the new king and queen to hunt down and eradicate witches. She's also AroAce and very underdeveloped because this is a backburner wip.

Thanks for reading! Links to my wips are in my pinned post! If you are a disabled writer and or have disabled characters, do share!

Happy Disability Pride Month!

[ladybegood]

Marilyn Monroe and Arthur Miller leaving a performance of South Sea Bubble starring Vivien Leigh, 1956

[inthedayswhenlandswerefew]

1968 [Chapter 11: Hephaestus, God Of Fire]

A/N: Only 1 chapter left!!! 🥰💜

Series Summary: Aemond is embroiled in a fierce battle to secure the Democratic Party nomination and defeat his archnemesis, Richard Nixon, in the presidential election. You are his wife of two years and wholeheartedly indoctrinated into the Targaryen political dynasty. But you have an archnemesis of your own: Aemond’s chronically delinquent brother Aegon.

Series Warnings: Language, sexual content (18+ readers only), violence, bodily injury, character deaths, New Jersey, age-gap relationships, drinking, smoking, drugs, pregnancy and childbirth, kids with weird Greek names, historical topics including war and discrimination, math.

Word Count: 5.4k

Let me know if you’d like to be tagged! 🥰

💜 All of my writing can be found HERE! 💜

Here is our final interlude. Do you have the patience?

President Lyndon Baines Johnson has halted all U.S. attacks on North Vietnam: no bombs from the air, no infantry on the ground, no artillery shells launched by destroyers cruising in the South China Sea. The election will determine what happens next. If Nixon wins, military operations will resume until the South Vietnamese are in a sufficiently advantageous position to defend themselves from the communists. If Aemond is the victor, troop withdrawals will begin shortly after he is inaugurated on January 20th.

Regardless, it will not be until almost a full year from now, in October of 1969, that it becomes illegal for employers to reserve positions for men; the common practice of refusing to hire women with preschool-aged children will not be outlawed until 1971. Unmarried people will not be guaranteed access to contraception until 1972. Abortion will not be legalized across all fifty states until 1973. Women will not have a right to their own bank accounts or credit cards until 1974. It will not be illegal to exclude women from juries until 1975. The first female Supreme Court justice, Sandra Day O’Connor, will be appointed in 1981. There will be no female president of the United States, not for at least half a century after our story ends.

Each night on CBS Evening News, Walter Cronkite recaps the latest poll numbers. Nixon appears to have a slight advantage, due in large part to pulling ahead in Florida, Illinois, Ohio, and his home state of California. Aemond has comfortable leads in Texas, Pennsylvania, New York, and New Jersey. George Wallace will likely sweep the Deep South: Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Arkansas. From their hovels, the racists rejoice. From her grave, Lurleen Wallace rests uneasily, scratching at the lid of her coffin with the bones of her fingers, entombed in dark oblivion like all the rest of the world’s discarded wives.

~~~~~~~~~~

You go for the door, but Aemond is faster; he catches you just as your hand is twisting the handle and the hinges creak. He throws you against the wall so hard the paintings rattle: replicas of Monets and Warhols, Almond Blossoms, The Birth of Venus. You fight, clawing at him, ripping off the eyepatch that Alys must have at last convinced him was no defeat to wear. The hollow, gore-colored abyss of his left eye socket beckons you to fall in and be burned: Hestia’s eternal hearth, the volcanic forge of Hephaestus. He’s fire all the way down, hunger and fury, bones charred black and brittle. You think of the uninhabitable furnace of Jupiter’s moon Io, lethal radiation, poisoned air, lava bubbling up like blood through a bullet wound.

“You can’t hit me,” you gasp. “You need me for photos—”

His knuckles are in your belly, crosshairs made of scar tissue. The air collapses out of your lungs; your vision dims like twilight, like an eclipse. You’re on the floor and trying to crawl away from him. Aemond’s fingers hook into the fabric of your robe; it matches the silk nightgown you wear beneath, a pale anemic pink, something soft and young and desireless, something eternally at others’ mercy, something to be guarded or gutted. He’s dragging you towards him.

He’s going to hit me again, he might even kill me.

“Stop, stop,” you plead, still struggling to breathe. “What if I’m pregnant?!”

You almost certainly can’t be, but Aemond doesn’t know that. Yet his lone eye glints like metal, like coins, no weak mortal compassion. “I would have no way of being sure it was mine.” And then he tries to cover your mouth as you scream for help. You bite at his fingers; your bare feet kick the wall. Your hair, long and loose and wild, flows around you like a bride’s veil.

Too late, Aemond realizes that the door is still open a crack from when you grabbed the handle. There are footsteps and a voice that crescendos as it approaches: “What on earth is going on in here…?” Fosco appears in the threshold, yellow tweed jacket, tight olive green trousers. He stares thunderstruck down at where you and Aemond are entangled on the floor.

You beg: “Fosco, help me.”

“No, no, no,” Fosco says, jolting from his paralysis and holding a hand out towards Aemond. “No, you cannot do this, whatever has happened, you cannot touch her like—”

“She’s not your wife,” Aemond says. She’s not your property. Fosco hesitates; his large dark eyes shifting between the two of you from behind his glasses.

“Aemond, brother, listen to—”

“Get out.” Aemond’s voice is low, searing, malignant.

“Fosco, please don’t leave me,” you whimper. You try to pry Aemond’s fingers off your robe; they dig in deeper, bruising the flesh underneath. “Don’t leave me, don’t let him hurt me.”

Abruptly, Fosco turns and sprints out of the room.

“No!” you shout after him before Aemond grabs your face, his hand like a claw, fingernails leaving half-moon indents in your cheeks, crushing pressure on your jaw.

“You’re trying to sabotage this campaign.”

“I didn’t see the reporters, I swear to God.”

He knocks the back of your skull against the wall so hard that you see momentary flashes like stars, that all the words vanish from your throat, that words cease to exist at all. “You’re a traitor. Do you know the penalty for treason? The U.S. Army would have you executed by firing squad. Zeus would chain you to a rock so your liver could be carved out.”

“You betrayed me first,” you hiss through clenched teeth, your head pounding hot and maroon.

“I have been working for this since before you were born. You can’t take it away from me. I won’t let you.”

“I did everything right and you still couldn’t love me.” You swing at Aemond and he catches your wounded hand, squeezes it, digs his thumb into the spot where the doctors stitched you closed. The pain is excruciating, incapacitating. You wail as scarlet flowers bloom through the white of your bandaged palm.

Now the door flies open again and Aegon collides with Aemond, sends him sprawling, crouches over you. He’s screaming something at Aemond, gripping your shoulder to keep you under him, his too-long hair hanging in his face, black turtleneck sweater, one of Daeron’s frayed army jackets thrown over it, ripped jeans, bare feet. Aemond grabs his brother by the lapel of his army jacket and draws back his fist. His golden wedding ring flashes in the grey November sunlight that streams in through the windows. Aegon doesn’t flinch. He’s taken knuckles to the face before; you remember cleaning blood off his skin under a streetlight in Biloxi, you remember not wanting to wash him away.

“Don’t you see what it will look like?!” Fosco is saying, trying to coax Aemond to relent. “If he is photographed with a busted face after that story comes out? If she has bruises or a black eye? By harming them you are confirming what your enemies have printed, and the voters will believe it is the truth.”

“They already know it’s true!” Aemond snatches the Wall Street Journal off the table and hurls it at Fosco. Then he paces back and forth through the room, glaring at where you are still crumpled on the floor, sobbing, cradling your bleeding hand to your chest. “It’s right there, three goddamn photographs, and that’s all it will take to bring down a lifetime of work!”

Fosco studies the pictures again, shaking his head, one hand covering his mouth. At last he offers weakly: “It could be worse, Aemond.”

“How could it be worse?!”

Aegon scrambles to Fosco to rip the newspaper out of his hands, then returns to you. He hasn’t seen the front-page story yet. He skims it frantically. “This? This is what you’re losing your mind over? It’s dark, it’s blurry, they can’t even see what’s going on!”

“I have one fucking eye and I can see it!”

“So come up with another explanation, this doesn’t prove anything.”

“If she costs me the election—”

“If you lose, it won’t be because of her!” Aegon roars back. “It will be because the Democrats have held the White House for eight years and the world has gone to hell on our watch, it will be because of Kennedy, and Johnson, and Vietnam and the riots and the hippies and the drugs and the assassinations, it will be because Nixon is promising law and order in a time when nobody is safe, it will be because you just weren’t good enough. But she has given more to your cause than anyone. You hit her and you’ll lose your other eye.”

“They were in conversation,” Fosco says, meaning the photos. The four of you know that’s not true; it is a lie for the rest of the world, it is hope for Aemond’s campaign. “On the beach. They were whispering, comforting each other. Because of Mimi. That is all.”

Aemond scoffs, his remaining eye fierce and wrathful as it lands on you again. Aegon grips your shoulder, still crouching over you, still shielding you. “You bitch. I should have left you at that party in Manhattan to be the dope-smoking whore you were when I found you.”

“I shouldn’t have helped save your life in Palm Beach.”

And Aemond blinks at you, not hurt but bewildered, like he doesn’t understand your words, like what you said is impossible. He doesn’t believe you saved him. He believes it was God’s will.

Otto storms into the hotel room and takes in the scene: you and Aegon on the floor, Aemond pacing furiously, Fosco attempting to mediate. “Nobody says anything,” Otto commands, deep booming voice, black suit like he’s going to a funeral. “The Wall Street Journal hates Aemond. Everyone knows that, they’re probably the only national publication that would run the story. Our newspapers are already pushing the counternarrative, that this was a shameful, deceitful, desperate attempt to discredit Aemond right before the election. Our supporters will insist upon an innocent explanation. Nixon’s will use the photos as evidence of our degeneracy, our amorality, us immigrants with our strange faith and our progressive politics. Everyone else in the country will be warring over this headline. We will say nothing. We will conduct business as usual. The best thing we can do now is go out there and keep our schedule as planned.” He looks meaningfully at Aemond. “And your wife must be at your side. Smiling, unscathed, devoted.”

“I lost my composure,” Aemond says to you, more collected now, businesslike. He is smoothing any wrinkles out of his suit jacket. “I was wrong to put my hands on you. I apologize for that. It was beneath me.”

You reply: “Very little is beneath you, I’ve learned.”

“You have been.” A trace of a grin, crooked and cruel. “Plenty of times. And you will be again.”

Aegon is watching is brother, seething but terrified, sheltering you with power that is only illusory, never real. It is a mirage that Aemond or Otto could punch through at any moment. It is glass that would shatter into crystalline dust.

“If I win, you will beg on your knees for forgiveness,” Aemond tells you. “You will beg in private, you will be perfection in public, and I will magnanimously overlook this indiscretion in which you were taken advantage of by my notoriously dissolute brother. There was no affair. There was a fleeting moment of weakness on your part and depravity on Aegon’s. We will put it in the past. I will be the president of the United States and you will be my first lady. You will spend every second of your existence in service of my career, my country, and my legacy. You will give me children. You will obey me entirely. And you and Aegon will never be in a room alone together for the rest of your lives.”

“You can’t keep me away from her,” Aegon says.

“I just did. I make the rules here, I am the heir to this empire. If you wanted that responsibility, you should have seized it. You squandered it, you cursed it. It’s mine now.”

A whisper: “Aemond, it’ll kill me.”

“Then have the dignity to die quietly. It will be the most useful thing you’ve ever done.”

“Aegon must be seen in public too,” Fosco says, trying to sound like he isn’t defending him. “If you appear to be punishing or excluding him, it will be used as evidence of his guilt.”

Aemond nods, then turns to his brother. “As soon as the election is called, whichever way it goes, I want you gone. I don’t care where you go. I don’t care what happens to you once you’re there. You will disappear. We will say it was your choice, and if you comply you can keep your children and receive a modest amount of severance pay to get you started. And as long as you abide by my terms, my wife will not be harmed.”

Aegon doesn’t reply. His large Atlantic-blue eyes glisten, his lips tremble, his hand is still on your shoulder. You think through the throbbing pain of your bleeding palm: Is this the last time he’ll ever touch me?

Otto grabs Aegon, wrenches him away from you, drags him yowling and clawing at the carpet through the doorway.

~~~~~~~~~~

Your hand is freshly bandaged, pristine white gauze that people in the crowd jostle to touch like the relic of a saint, to pray over, to kiss. Men tell you how brave you are to bear the pain without weeping. Women give you komboskini, stained not with their husband’s blood but with only the clean, colorless ether of hope, faith, reverence, love.

Fosco and Helaena have been dispatched to accompany the children on a tour of the Franklin Institute, one of the oldest centers of science education in the nation. Aemond is giving a speech in front of the Liberty Bell at Independence Hall. You and the others are arranged around him like a starving crescent moon. You are standing immediately on Aemond’s left side, Aegon placed at his right. He looks drunk, he looks drugged; you aren’t sure if anyone else can tell, but you can. His cheeks are flushed. His eyes are pools of murky, desolate indigo like the night sky between stars. A few attendees give the two of you curious glances, but no mention is made of the accusations in the Wall Street Journal. You get the sense that if someone took it upon themselves to ask a question on the subject, they would be jeered, reviled, banished like President Johnson, who is currently besieged in the White House by the ghosts of Vietnam.

When you look to Aemond, you see his scar, his prosthetic eye, fierce and stoic determination in the lines of his face. He is quoting the inscription on the bell: “Proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof…” The bronze metal has a crack in it like one of Zeus’s lightning bolts. The smile on your face is frozen, demure, humble. Aegon’s eyes accidentally catch on yours—a childlike vulnerability, a deep raw woundedness—and then swiftly dart away.

“America is the Land of Opportunity, but some have forgotten that,” Aemond says into the microphone, and vengeance creeps into his voice like a spider up a wall. “Unfortunately, for as long as new communities have arrived at our shores, vile and prejudiced lies have been used to demonize them. Greek immigrants have been crossing the Atlantic for over a century. In 1909, rioters violently expelled them from Omaha, Nebraska. In 1922, an anti-Greek initiative was launched by the Ku Klux Klan. In 1924, Congress drastically restricted my people’s entry in favor of migrants from Northwestern European nations like Britain and Germany. Greeks have been condemned as unintelligent, immoral, and unworthy of the glorious opportunities of this country. We have been barred from jobs and universities, we have been used as cannon fodder in the World Wars. Discrimination against any group is antithetical to the American Dream. I have given an eye for this nation, my wife has bled for it, my brother has—even in the midst of personal tragedy—uprooted his life and the lives of his children to fight alongside me for a better America, and I will not stand by silently as the Targaryen name is tarnished by bigoted falsehoods…”

Now you can no longer hear him over the thunder of the applause, and you remember all the other faces in all those other cities, their eyes illuminated as if by fire, as if by the sun. You imagine devotees of the Greek gods bowing low in temples of white marble and flickering torches, bringing offerings of gold and livestock, grain and blood, murmuring prayers, bargaining for miracles. Did the gods hear them? Do the gods love anyone but themselves?

Alicent and Criston are watching you and Aegon with the same eyes: large, dark, shimmering, a curious combination of horror and profound sympathy. You can feel yourself becoming a ghost, a legend, a myth. One day people will read about you in textbooks and academic journals, in plaques erected at Aemond’s alma mater, Columbia University, and your own, Manhattanville College; and they will know only the fabled version of you. Who you really were will fade into nothingness like Echo, like Icarus into the waves, like Eurydice when her lover Orpheus dared to glimpse back at her.

That night in your penthouse suite at the Ritz-Carlton, you get out of the bathtub—dewy with steam, donning your pink robe—and then go to your side of the king-sized bed and slide open the top drawer of the nightstand. The card Aegon gave you at Mount Sinai isn’t there. Your heartbeat quickens; your stomach lurches.

“What…?”

You get down on your knees to reach into the back of the drawer, to see if the card has snagged somewhere. You hear footsteps and whirl to see Aemond standing in the doorway between the bedroom and the living room. He is holding the card. The cartoon cow beams jubilantly at you. You recall what Aegon wrote inside after crossing out the manufacturer’s message: I thought this was blank…congrats on the new calf! As your eyes widen, Aemond rips the card down the middle.

“Don’t!” you scream, rushing for him. “Please don’t, it’s all I have from—!”

Aemond shoves you back and then, with a grin more like a wolf baring its teeth, tears through the remnants again and again until the card is nothing but shreds. He opens the sliding glass door that leads out onto the balcony and throws them into the cold night wind, where they scatter in a flurry like snowflakes, like bones turned to splinters by cluster bombs in the swamps of Vietnam.

The paper fragments spiral down thirty stories towards the zooming headlights on South Broad Street, and you think about following them. Then Aemond pulls you into his arms as frigid air blows through you and whispers: “You don’t need Aegon anymore. You just need me.”

~~~~~~~~~~

It’s Monday, November 4th, and you are walking alongside Ludwika on Broadway in Astoria, Queens, the part of New York City known as Greektown. She chats about the modelling jobs she did here before meeting Otto, her Louis Vuitton stilettos clicking on the sidewalk, her Camel cigarettes smudged with red Yardley lipstick. It is an act of kindness; she is trying to distract you. A few yards away, Fosco is telling Aegon about how he just won $500 by betting on the NASCAR Peach State 200, held at Jefco Speedway in Georgia. Aegon nods along, preoccupied, miserable. He has dark shadows around his eyes and is smoking one of his Lucky Strikes. He is wearing a green knit cap, windblown curls of his blonde hair escaping from underneath. You’re not supposed to stare at Aegon, but sometimes you can’t help it. You miss him. You’re worried about him.

The Targaryens have suites reserved at the Plaza Hotel in Manhattan, where the family will stay through Election Day to witness the results as they are tallied on the evening news. The children are there now, enjoying pizza from Little Italy with Helaena and the nannies. But you and the other adults are being photographed by flocks of journalists as you head for lunch at one of the oldest Greek diners in the United States, paying homage to Aemond’s ancestry. The candidate himself is locked in a fraught conversation with Otto and Criston: polls gaining here, polls slipping there, Nixon inching further ahead in Florida, the state you were supposed to help Aemond win.

“What should I order?” Ludwika asks you. “Not spinach pie, oh, horrible, worse than Hitler. Something else. Why can’t we go to a Polish restaurant for once? I will take you sometime. You will see. You will try a pierogi and never look back. We invented bagels, you know.”

“Beagles?” Fosco says. “What an accomplishment! They are so cute!”

“Bagels, stupido.”

“Do not bully me. I am suffering too. I should be back at the hotel eating a prosciutto pizza.”

As you pass an electronics shop with stacks of televisions in the windows, all turned to NBC news, the journalists begin to gasp and chatter excitedly amongst themselves. The flashbulbs strobe madly, shutters clicking and reporters shouting for Aemond to give them a comment. The youngest Targaryen brother has appeared on the screens, bruised and gaunt and missing teeth. He looks twenty years older than he is. His once-golden hair is turning white.

Otto sputters: “What…what the hell is that?!”

“Oh my God, Daeron!” Alicent howls, and then bursts into the shop so she can hear what her lost son is saying. The rest of you hurry after her, locking the front door behind you so the journalists can’t follow. Through the windows, they take photographs until Fosco and Ludwika lower the blinds.

Inside the maze of electronics, three adolescent employees gawk at the presidential candidate and his retinue. “Out,” Otto instructs them, and then, when they are too stunned to immediately vacate the premises: “I said, get out!” The teenagers scurry into the backroom and slam the door.

“Daeron,” Alicent moans in front of a Zenith color television. Tears flow torrentially from her huge, horrified eyes. Criston holds her, arms circling, his cheek pressed to hers, and you are reminded of how Aegon touched you in your hotel room in Houston, in his basement at Asteria, on the shores of the Atlantic Ocean.

Daeron is saying: “The United States has committed war crimes in Vietnam. I am ashamed of the actions my country has taken here. We have burned children with napalm, executed innocent civilians, and interfered in matters that we have no legitimate jurisdiction over…”

“He is reading from a script,” Fosco says. “You can see his eyes following the words.”

“Shh,” Otto snaps.

Daeron continues: “The only honorable course of action now is to immediately withdrawal all American soldiers from Vietnam…”

“I think this will help us, actually,” Otto says. “People will know he’s being forced to make propaganda for the communists, and they will have sympathy for him and the family. They’ll want to rescue him and all the other servicemen too. He’s obviously…under duress.”

Aegon drops to his knees and puts his palm against the screen over Daeron’s face, just like the shadows of your fingers once fell over Ari as he fought for his life in an incubator in Mount Sinai Hospital. “Do you see what they’re doing to him?” He turns to Aemond with tears in his eyes. “What you did to him? You left him there, you abandoned him, and now he’s being tortured.”

Alicent looks to Aemond, puzzled, petrified. “You tried to get him out, didn’t you?” Aemond doesn’t answer. Otto averts his gaze, counting the tiles on the floor.

“Dear lord,” Ludwika mutters, lighting a fresh Camel cigarette and puffing on it anxiously.

“Was it worth it?” Aegon demands. “Selling your soul?”

Aemond is steely, resolved. “It’s almost over.”

“You were all right.” Aegon stands, wiping his eyes with the sleeve of his green-striped sweater. “I don’t have what it takes to win the presidency. I couldn’t do something like this. Me, the perennial fuckup. Me, the godless degenerate.”

“Aegon,” Alicent whispers. “Please…please don’t…”

He turns to his mother, insurmountably sad. “Mom, I tried to stop him.” Alicent sobs and covers her face with both hands as Criston embraces her. She can’t even look at Aemond. She can’t believe what he’s become. Her long coppery hair flows like blood.

You reach for Aegon, your fingertips brushing his ruddy cheek, and immediately he folds into you, burying his face in the curve of your neck, breathing in your warmth as you inhale his smoke and rum and pain and terror. “Daeron will be home soon,” you say, not knowing if it’s true. Your bandaged hand aches; your throat burns.

“I should have gone instead. It should have been me.”

“No, Aegon. Your children need you, I need you. I wouldn’t have made it without you.”

Then Aemond yanks you away, his grip on your wrist like an anchor, like chains.

~~~~~~~~~~

“Dad, play us something,” Orion says; and it is the first time you can remember him calling Aegon that. Aegon smiles. He’s sitting on one of the couches in the penthouse suite you share with Aemond, the Gibson guitar he bought back in July lying across his lap as he strums it absentmindedly. The television is on and turned to CBS News. It’s just before midnight on Tuesday, November 5th, Election Day. The children are thrilled. It’s the one night they’re allowed to stay up as late as they’re physically able to. This allowance is not purely altruistic; Aemond wants them awake and ready for photographs as soon as the winner is announced.

“What should I play?”

“Frank Sinatra,” Fosco says. He is beside Aegon on the couch, smoking a cigar and flipping through the Sports section of the New York Times, which he’s not really reading.

“Marvin Gaye,” Ludwika suggests. They are both on your side of the room. Aemond, Otto, Sargent Shriver, and a number of campaign staffers are huddled around the television, transfixed by the ever-updating vote totals. Alicent and Criston are between your factions, murmuring back and forth to each other, flutes of golden champagne in their hands. Helaena is on the floor entertaining Violeta, Daphne, and Neaera with Crayolas and coloring books full of scenes from gardens. You recall how eerily calm Helaena had been the night Aemond was shot in Palm Beach, like she somehow already knew he’d survive. Now she is nervous, looking fretfully around the room, wringing her hands, filling outlines of butterflies with ten different shades of blue.

“The Beatles,” Orion tells Aegon, casting Fosco and Ludwika a judgmental teenage glance.

“Any particular song?”

“You can pick.”

Aegon sips at his rum, ice cubes clinking in the glass. He looks over to the coffee table, where you are embroiled in a game of Battleship with Cosmo. He’s getting better; he’s genuinely sunk your destroyer and submarine so far. Then Aegon’s eyes drop to his guitar strings and he plucks the opening notes of In My Life. His voice is soft and low, almost secretive.

“There are places I’ll remember

All my life, though some have changed

Some forever, not for better

Some have gone and some remain…”

Cosmo turns to watch his father. Orion, Spiro, Thaddeus, and Evangelos are gathered around Aegon’s feet, gazing up at him with admiration, with love.

“All these places had their moments

With lovers and friends, I still can recall

Some are dead and some are living

In my life, I’ve loved them all...”

Cheers erupt over by the television; Aemond has just won Michigan. But then tense, indistinct deliberations follow. Florida is still too close to call, a bad omen. You wonder where Alys is as she watches the results come in. There must be some part of her—however small, however smothered—that fears Aemond will win. If he captures the presidency, she could be separated from the man she loves for the better part of a decade. You drink your Pink Squirrel, wishing it was stronger. You think of sea sponge divers down in the depths and imagine what that first gulp of air tastes like when they resurface, when they shed their rubber suits and brass helmets and step back into sunlight, warmth, freedom like Persephone returning from the Underworld each spring.

“But of all these friends and lovers

There is no one compares with you

And these memories lose their meaning

When I think of love as something new…”

You wear a sapphire-colored gown that Aemond chose for you, strings of silver around your wrist and throat, diamond teardrops hanging from your ears. Your hair is up, your fingernails painted a tasteful opalescent shade, the aching of your bandaged hand dulled by booze and Vicodin.

“Though I know I’ll never lose affection

For people and things that went before

I know I’ll often stop and think about them

In my life, I love you more.”

More triumphant shouts and applause across the room by the television: Aemond has won Washington state. From his own suite at the St. Regis Hotel a few blocks south on 5th Avenue, Nixon’s people must be celebrating that he just secured Ohio’s 26 electoral votes. He needs 270 to be the next president of the United States.

Florida, you think. If Nixon can take Florida, I think he’ll win the whole thing.

As Aemond and Otto are distracted, as Fosco and Ludwika watch with pitying, knowing eyes, Aegon sets his guitar aside and walks by you with his rum in hand, taps your shoulder, disappears onto the balcony. You wait a few minutes—Cosmo wins Battleship and goes to color on the floor with Helaena—and then follow Aegon.

Outside the night sky is moonless, starless, thick with clouds. Rain is beginning to fall, soft hushed pattering. Far below taxis and limousines are still rushing and blowing their horns on West 59th Street. You can see the vast forested shadow of Central Park and streetlights like constellations. In apartments and office buildings, windows are illuminated as Americans sit numbing their fears with beer, wine, shots of liquor, smoldering hand-rolled joints.

Aegon is cross-legged at the ledge, one hand on the iron bars of the railing, staring out at the nightscape of Manhattan. His hair lashes in the cold November wind. His nose is pink, his eyes wet and faraway. He passes his Lucky Strike cigarette to you as you join him and says: “I don’t think Aemond can win without Florida.”

“No,” you agree, taking a drag.

Aegon snatches a rattling orange bottle from the pocket of his olive green army jacket, pops it open, and swallows three pills with a swig of straight rum, dark amber poison.

“Don’t do that,” you say, you plead.

“I need it, babe.”

“I want you to still be alive in ten years.”

Aegon smiles and reaches over to pat your cheek twice. “I think that ship might have sailed, little Io.” Can decades of self-destruction be undone, uninflicted, nullified like Heracles becoming immortal? Can the Underworld be escaped? “Come with me. No matter what happens tonight.”

“Aegon, I can’t.”

“I’m in love with you.”

“If I leave, he’ll hurt you. He’ll hurt me worse.”

“It’s not fair,” Aegon says, his voice breaking.

“Nothing is.”

There is an uproar inside the hotel room, screams that could be horror or triumph, realized dreams, breaking bones, bullets through flesh. You and Aegon are on your feet, hauling the balcony door open, stepping through the threshold into the rest of your lives.

Glasses are being toasted until champagne rains down onto the carpet. The telephone is ringing so Nixon can concede. On CBS News, Walter Cronkite is reporting that Aemond has won Florida and thereby accumulated 270 electoral votes. The blue text on the screen reads: Senator Targaryen will be the 37th president of the United States.

[scienceisdope]

A bubble snail is a type of marine gastropod that is between a sea slug (nudibranch) and a snail. They have fragile, small shells that often do not cover the snail’s entire body. These marine snails use their large heads, called headshields, to burrow through the sand.

This elusive sea snail is found throughout the Indo-West Pacific and Atlantic Oceans, including off the coast of the US, South Africa, Japan, Thailand, and in very rare cases, Australia.

Video credit (and permission by): @uw.animals

[kc22invesmentsblog]

Lessons from History: The South Sea Bubble of 1720

Written by Delvin Welcome to another insightful blog post! Today, we delve into a significant event in financial history, the South Sea Bubble of 1720. This cautionary tale takes us back to a time when the South Sea Company, a British trading company, witnessed a speculative frenzy that ultimately led to a catastrophic collapse. Join us as we explore the causes, consequences, and valuable…

[fandangotales]

500 Followers Event, figured I would do it right out the gate so I didn't forget lol. Also, be aware this is lengthy and I am so sorry for it.

How do you think the characters (Jean, Ningguang, and Sara) would react to a reader who listens to crime and history stories while playing, in particular crime cases such as Jack the Ripper, history stories such as the South Sea bubble and the Depression, and war stories such as the American Civil war or stories from the world wars?

How would Jean react to hearing about the devil of Whitechapel who paralyzed London and was never caught? What would she think of a world where monsters like Jack roam while her god is defenseless.

How would Ningguang react to the first financial crash in history...and the fact that so many people actually fell for it?

How would she feel knowing about just how often our world has financial crashes and just how many troublers it has with currency, and more importantly how would she feel knowing that such times could engulf the world while her God calls it home?

How would Sara react to the bloody and horrible nature of our conflicts, because while Inazuma's civil war may have been bad, I feel that it utterly pales in comparison to the sheer devastation and madness that was America staining itself red.

How would the ever loyal general feel knowing just how devastating and horrific the wars of our world can be, and just how plentiful they are? How would she feel knowing that her creator could be caught in one such conflict with none of them there to protect them?

I intend to do something like this where the Acolytes get tormented with gruesome facts and stories by a child reader who is a history buff and decides to tell them some of the tales about our world...and promptly gives all of them nightmares in the process lol.

I hope to get on the idea...sometime this or next year because I have a few other projects I am working on and I know just how badly I tend to procrastinate.

Anyways, I hope you enjoy this ask, if you don't want to do it that is okay. Here is hoping I did everything right in regards to the rules in regards to this ask, but regardless have a great day and stay safe.

If you do end up writing that, I’d love to be tagged so that I can read it. Also, please don’t worry about your ask being troublesome, I’m honored to be getting an ask from one of my favorite SAGAU writers! Keep up the good work on your writing, I always love reading your posts! <3

Honestly, considering the way Teyvat works in regards to safety, and wars… I think it’s fair to say that many, if not all of the people there would be shocked by what life is like on Earth.

For example, if you decided to go out on an adventure by yourself, the worst you’d have to worry about would be hilichurls, considering that you aren’t going anywhere particularly dangerous.

On Earth, that simply wouldn’t work because there are a lot of bad people, and bad things that could happen to you if you were simply out on a walk at night. Especially if you weren’t in the company of another person.

If Jean heard about people who’ve done horrible things like murdering multiple people for… “The fun of it?”.

I can imagine her being repulsed, and incredibly concerned for your safety.

You may be the literal God of Teyvat, but would that stop anyone from randomly deciding to murder you, “for the fun of it?”

You might hear this idle voice line more often than the others:

“I do hope the Knights of Favonius are all working hard…”

She wants to tell you to take precautions against those with hostile intentions, to make sure you aren’t out to late… if only the code didn’t restrict her from voicing her thoughts.

For now she’d have to settle with reminding you of how safe Mondstadt was. With the Knights of Favonius, you would be safe.

With her, you’d always be safe.

Just… please be careful, alright?

The first time Ningguang heard about how terribly this world deals with money, she’d probably laugh.

“Oh, how amusing.” She’d chuckle, before realizing that it was your reality, instead of just a poorly made joke.

The idea of multiple currencies seems especially stranger to her, since Teyvat only uses Mora. (Disregarding the use primogems, which is only for you.)

One day, however, as you were talking while playing Genshin, she heard you bring up something called “inflation”.

You then proceeded to complain about how food prices where getting ridiculously expensive, and how your “fridge” had literally no food in it.

Ningguang seemed to freeze, being brought back to her early days as a child.

She had been through similar struggles, but knowing that her God is going through financial issues?

That her God is suffering because of the undeserving world in which they reside?

Preposterous.

“There were over 60 million casualties from World War 2…”

The voice droned on, as another daily commission was completed.

Sara’s face blanched, taking in the numbers.

60 million.

That was well over the number of citizens living in the entirety of Inazuma.

“The war was notable for the Nazi-sponsored genocide of the Jewish people…”

Genocide of people?

Why?

Her hands shook around her bow, as you guided her to shoot a hilichurl, directly in the head.

Sara heard you sigh, as the monotone voice was silenced.

Your divine voice spoke over the background music of the game.

“Third war I’ve had to research this week, interesting, huh?”

This was… considered an everyday occurrence for you?

Another shot, the hilichurl faded to dust.

You lived in a world where wars like that frequently happened-

She steeled herself, finding resolve as she struggled to keep shooting the hilichurls.

Sara would find a way to bring you to Teyvat, where you wouldn’t be in any danger, ever again.

[ranticore]

pelagic spiral villages

It's not the prettiest diagram and might be hard to follow. First off, the spiral is a region in the south of the western continent of Siren

the spiral region is not limited to the actual physical structure of the land, where the characteristic ridges and valleys of Siren crumple up into a twisted shape, but also extends south as far as the icecaps, with the ridges continuing their spiral but underwater (on the map above, the visible spiral is only what extends above water)

It comprises all of the pale blue water in this map area, bordered by the darker deeper water and what is known as the Ice Wall in the south.

The most densely settled areas are within the tallest ridges at the middle of the spiral, as these ridges form physical walls and barriers which prevent many of the dangers of the open sea from entering villages without having to traverse what is quite frankly a labyrinth of narrow valleys beforehand. But at the edges of the spiral, nearer to the ice wall, lies the pelagic village of !uamaa. This is where Huarva comes from and what's pictured at the top.

it is populated by phocids and some selkies underwater and Ice Wall shortwings above water (they are similar to penguins). It consists of a huge three-tiered underwater hall with an air pocket trapped by a tethered tent-like cap made of transparent material derived from sipho scales. The bottom tier is stocked with oxygenating plants (i can only assume they are VERY productive). The middle tier is submerged and where the in habitants enter the hall (through the round openings pictured). Shelf-like beds attached to the sturdy woven walls provide platforms where a phocid can sit with their body submerged but their head out of the water, which is the most comfortable position for them as they do like to have water supporting their weight as much as possible.

The hall was built over a hot water vent in the seafloor. The vent water is directed up through a stone s-duct, which leaves a flat surface above the water which is constantly heated. This is used as a cooking stone; there is a pot of perpetual stew always bubbling here and every villager is expected to contribute something to it every day in return for being allowed to take as much stew as they like.

The other buildings are these balloon type structures which are anchored both to the sea floor and to the floating pontoons above. The balloons do not have oxygen generating plants, but must be manually raised and lowered to the surface to trap more air every day. The colour palette is overall a strongly contrasting black and white (fun fact, pelagic people are hypersensitive to the colour red out of the water, to the point where it might cause headaches)

What's life like in the village? Huarva is often asked this but he cannot truly answer, because he was never a villager. Living out here is extremely tough and demanding, and experience is valued above all else. The eldest and most experienced person in the village is called the All-Bearer and their word is law. The All-Bearer is a matchmaker among villagers, pairing those who are thought to work harmoniously together in arranged partnerships, similar to marriage. Huarva's parents were not arranged; in fact they were strictly forbidden from reproducing because they did not work harmoniously together. They fought and argued and struck sparks off one another, but were inseparable. The All-Bearer gave no blessing for them to have a child.

^the All-Bearer.

In these cases it's not uncommon for the pregnant parent to find a matched pair and attempt to convince them to claim the child. That way nobody is harmed. But it didn't work out in time, on this occasion, so the child - Huarva - was born and immediately outcast from the village as a potential troublemaker. A pretty rough start all things considered. Huarva was an outsider, not a villager. they could hang around the place, beg, speak to people, but never be granted the elders' wisdom lest it be misused by a child of intrinsically bad character. They basically grew up homeless and uneducated in their village.

And this is a major handicap because of how dangerous this region is. Children are sorted into same-age 'generations' which go through a strict and standardised education before being unleashed as leviathan hunters. A couple years of that, and (assuming they survive), that generation moves on to the next-most dangerous job, replaced by the generation below them. And so on and so forth until what remains is the oldest generation, who are finally granted a safe and comfortable life in return for sharing all the wisdom gathered over the years working different professions. Few will remain by then.

The culture is cold. Repressed. Quiet. Fighting is an exile-worthy offense and disagreements are stifled. The All-Bearer makes every final decision and you cannot question them because you do not have the requisite experience to contradict anything they say. If you must be upset, do it where nobody can see, and never openly express discontent.

Huarva survived to adulthood by choosing to stick around the shallows on top of the underwater ridges. They tried many times to earn the All-Bearer's favour enough to earn a place in the village to no avail. Until the All-Bearer finally had enough of them and sent them away on a fetch quest doomed to fail, because Huarva did not have the education to know how to spot the warning signs of a flow of aerated water. Finding themself trapped under it, they panicked, never having learned any methods to slow their heart and extend their usable breath, and almost drowned. Sheer luck saved them; a leviathan-sized giant sipho flying for the surface caught them between its scale plates. It didn't notice its new passenger and ended up dragging Huarva almost the entire way across the dark and to the spire before they got free.

[comphy-and-cozy]

the guy on the team - jt compher

Pairing: JT Compher x Reader (f) - A Dream Come True universe

Word Count: 4.2K

Author’s Note: rediscovered the three paragraphs of filth i wrote after seeing this dude play (and score) in his first ever home game as a detroit red wing, then went buck wild writing about it. that's all you really need to know. 🎶 karma is the guy on the wings coming straight home to me... 🎶

Warnings: Smut (18+ ONLY). Unprotected sex, oral sex (f + m receiving), fingering (f receiving), brief masturbation (f), very minor spanking, creampie, me being a huge fucking simp series masterlist

October 2024

The goal horn—restored from the glory days at Joe Louis Arena, reminiscent of legends and lore and well-decorated history—blares through the arena, the sound nearly swallowed by the roar of the crowd. Don’t Stop Believing plays over the speakers, the “born and raised in South Detroit” chant almost deafening as 19,000 of Hockeytown’s finest pay a proud homage to the city.

The energy is palpable, infectious, and your eyes fall to the sea of red jerseys at center ice, sticks raised in appreciation and celebration of their first win and first home game of the season. They’re smiling, a few of them clapping each other on the back or tapping padded knees with their stick, circling around as they soak in the joy and promises of a strong season.

The 37 on his back stands out proudly, the bright white stark against the rich red. He offered to get you a jersey, identical to the one he’s wearing right now, but you’d declined and opted for an old sweatshirt from 2002; wearing his name still felt a little too cheeky. Your eyes follow his movements, almost subconsciously, and your gaze slides to the winged wheel embroidered on his chest when he circles around.

There’s a burn in your cheeks as you shamelessly check him out, anonymous in the sea of fans who are starting to make their way out of the arena. No one there knows you from any other admirer, that you know what he looks like beneath his pads and his gear, underneath the delicious slate gray suit that the Red Wings’ socials posted. 

You’ve barely made it to your front door when the text buzzes your phone in your pocket. 

[JT:] You free tonight? [JT:] Feel like celebrating [You:] Why, did something happen?

You don’t have to see his face to know he’s smirking at your comment. The text bubble pops back up, and you do your best to summon the chill, cool girl and not squeal when you see the response.

[JT:] You want to come over later?

Despite the effort, you can’t help the smile that emerges on your face. His next text informs you that he’s out getting post-game drinks and dinner with his family who came to town to see his debut in Detroit. You’re not offended that you didn’t receive an invite—just excited to have received a text. The status of your relationship is still up in the air, floating somewhere between casually dating and something with benefits. Meeting his family is far from your bucket list. At this point, anyway.

Though your makeup was already done for the game, you decide to reset in the shower. You exfoliate, shave, and take your time moisturizing until you’re squeaky clean and your skin is smooth. Your pre-dick appointment ritual is practiced, having perfected it in the last six weeks that you’ve been involved with JT Compher. He doesn’t expect perfection, has told you on multiple occasions in so many words, but the routine makes you feel like you’re worth his time, his affection, his attention—that’s something you’ll deal with in therapy, though. 

After the body prep comes a quick blow dry, a light layer of fresh makeup (you learned your lesson with too much makeup after JT made sure that the entire sultry eye you’d worked so hard on ended up smeared all over the sheets), and then the undergarment selection. By no means do you have an expansive luxury lingerie collection, but you’ve found yourself glancing at the intimate wear section when you’re out, anticipating the reaction of a certain redhead as you run your fingers over the various pieces on display. 

Tonight does feel special, you admit, with plenty to celebrate: a debut, a win, and two points for JT. The lacy red bralette feels fitting, perfect for a little ‘wow’ factor without feeling like you’re trying too hard—and, of course, a nod to his (and your) team. Cheeky red panties finish your look, hidden by a pair of yoga pants and a cropped zip-up hoodie: the quintessential dick appointment outfit.

By the time you’re spritzing on your perfume, the come over text comes through. Slinging a small overnight bag over your shoulder with a few essentials, you lock up your apartment and head on your way. Nerves flutter in your chest the way they always do, anticipation building as you pull into the parking lot of his apartment complex.

JT hasn’t changed out of his pregame suit, the takeout box sitting on the counter an indicator he hasn’t been home for long. Your heart flutters at the realization that he must’ve texted you before he’d even left dinner, that he was thinking of you even while sitting and celebrating with his family. 

After closing the door behind you, he moves in to greet you with a kiss, and once his lips touch yours, it’s like the floodgates of desire have opened up and you lose all self control. Without warning, your hands tug at his neck to kiss him fervently, quickly pressing your body against his and sighing at the warmth. 

He groans, returning the kiss with equal ardor as his hands find their home on your hips. As you’re turning your attention to his belt, pulling your lips away from him for a moment, he murmurs, “Not that I’m not really, really appreciating this welcome home, but is there a reason for the extra enthusiasm?”

Clink. The belt’s hit the floor, and you waste no time getting your mouth back on his. Your hand slinks up his thigh, palming the half-hard appendage in his slacks eagerly. Involuntarily, you feel a needy throb between your thighs, the low thrum in his chest adding fuel to the fire.

“Really liked you in that jersey,” you purr. 

“Oh yeah?”

Your bottom lip slips between your teeth and you nod, glancing up at him. “Yeah.”

JT smirks, allowing his ego to inflate just a bit. He doesn’t say it, but you know it drives him wild how much of an impact he has on you. How little he has to work to have you desperate for him. “Anything else?”

“I really liked it when you scored,” you say, wistfully recalling the way it sounded hearing his name announced over the loudspeaker at Little Caesars Arena. “You should do that some more.”

“How much did you like it?” 

With just one sentence, he’s managed to increase the temperature in the room by at least 20 degrees; the words themselves are innocent, but the rumble behind them offers a filthy, sinful promise. His gaze is hot, predatory even, following the movement of your hand as you unzip your hoodie in response to his question. You don’t miss the way his breath hitches at the peek of red lace, Adam’s apple bobbing in his throat when you shrug off the fleece.

Tension is thick in the air as you stand before him, heart pulsing in your throat. With a blink, he seemingly regains his composure, though his eyes linger on your cleavage between the lace cups. “That much, huh?”

Another nod, shivering under the heated way he watches you sink to your knees in front of him. Breaking eye contact with him is difficult, but you’re met with an equally pleasing view of his firm length pressed against the rich material of his dress pants. 

Your hand works at the zipper of his slacks, the other slipping between the metal teeth to press your palm against him. He’s throbbing under your touch, growing more and more solid as your hand strokes him through his boxer briefs. 

Words aren’t necessary—or capable, for that matter—once you finally fish out his length and lap at the tip. The only thing exiting his mouth are strangled curses mingled with the sigh of your name, hand slipping into your hair when he slides further into the hot cavern of your mouth. He’s fully hard now, resting heavy on your tongue as you trace the vein that throbs on the underside of his shaft.

JT grunts, tilting his head down to watch the way his cock slides between your lips. Your hands hold yourself steady against his strong, muscular thighs—one of the more underrated parts of his body, in your opinion—as you bob your head back and forth, wetting every inch of him with your mouth. You wrap your fingers around the base, twisting and setting a cruel rhythm that earns a loud whine from his throat, followed quickly by a long, “Fuuuuuuuck.”

Nails scratch lightly at your scalp, like maybe he’s searching for purchase, his chest starting to heave a little more frantically the more you work him to a state of dizzy bliss. It’s the least you can do, you think, to congratulate him on his first ever home game in Detroit. And, maybe, there’s a little piece of you that wants to reward him, because you still haven’t quite thanked him thoroughly enough for selecting your city as his final destination in free agency. For coming home to you.

A wet, frothy mixture of spit and precum coats your chin when he finally tugs you back with a groan. His eyes are dark pools of umber, arousal seeping out of them as he drinks in the sight of you on your knees, lips shining with the lewd evidence of your worship.

“Bedroom,” he husks, helping you onto your feet and pressing his groin against the swell of your ass as he gently nudges you down the hall toward his room. 

Falling forward onto the mattress, you glance at him over your shoulder and catch him admiring the view before his fingers are digging into the hem of your pants and tugging down. The sharp intake of breath tells you he likes your choice of panties, left as a sneaky surprise for him to unwrap as his reward. “Oh, she really likes it when I score goals.”

A wiggle of your hips earns a slap to your ass. Soon enough, you’re flipped onto your back, feeling the weight of him settled between your legs and his mouth slotting over yours. His lips are sure, certain, plush against yours, lazily commandeering control. Kissing him never gets old, not even when his erection is bumping against your lace-shrouded pelvis, silently begging for entry. 

One of his hands runs over your neck, down your chest, palming your breast through the bralette. He toys with the scalloped hem, admiring the feel of it beneath his fingers. The low rumble of his hum vibrates against the spot on your jaw that he’s paused to mouth at while his hands explore, hot breath cascading down the sensitive skin of your neck. “Y’look so pretty, I almost don’t want to take it off.”

“You like me in red, too, hm?” 

“I like you in anything,” he muses, allowing his tongue to trail along the thin strap that rests on your collarbone. It’s a sweet comment that you don’t have time to dwell on when his attention moves to the swell of your breast, then flicks at your taut nipple through the lace. “But red definitely suits you.”

JT punctuates his statement with a gentle nibble, tracing the floral pattern with the tip of his tongue until the fabric is damp with his saliva and your back is arched off of his sheets. Your fingers are threaded through his hair, knees pressed into his sides when your hips start to roll against his thigh that’s slotted between your legs. 

“Can’t decide if I want to taste you or fuck you first,” he murmurs against your breast. A hand slinks down your body, eventually settling on the fabric between your thighs; a pleased hum leaves his throat, presumably at the moisture he finds there. The breath in your throat catches when he brings two fingers to his lips. “A taste can’t hurt, right?”

The sight of JT Compher gazing lustfully at you from between your legs is one you’ll never take for granted, nor is the feeling of his hot breath against the inside of your thighs. Even better than that is the sound of his groan when he tugs the lace panties down your legs, eyes never leaving the dripping heat in front of him.

His hand draws to the apex of your thighs, and you brace yourself to feel a finger slipping past your lips; instead, you only receive the ghost of his touch, drawing up the slick that’s dribbled out of you.

“J,” you whine, hips bucking impatiently. You’re not sure you’ll survive his teasing antics—not tonight.

“Jus’ wanna enjoy my treat,” he says, cheeky, popping the finger in his mouth with a groan. “I love when your pussy drools like this.”

Soft, pillowy lips press against your core, and you aren’t sure who moans louder: you, from the feeling of his mouth finally touching you where you need, or him, at the taste of you on his tongue. He sets to work, devouring your cunt with his usual practiced precision; long laves of his tongue paired perfectly with gentle sucking of your clit. It isn’t until he pauses for just a moment to wrap your legs around his head that you realize he’s grinding himself against the mattress.

“JT, let me—”

“No, baby,” he pants, barely parting his mouth from you, his voice muffled by your skin. “Y’taste way too fucking good.”

You’re in the process of wondering what you did to deserve a man who enjoys eating your pussy more than you do when his hand slips between your legs, joining his tongue to aid in his quest to bring you to climax. He alternates between dipping his finger into your heat and using it to circle your clit while his mouth continues its sinful magic. 

“Fuck,” you gasp, spine peeling off the mattress when he curls his finger, striking at the spongy spot inside of you. The pleasure is blinding, radiating from the place where he strokes diligently. “Don’t stop.”

For being a man, JT is good at following instructions, especially when it comes to making you come. It doesn’t take long for your legs to quiver and a loud moan to rip from your throat; he hums in encouragement, fingers pumping relentlessly until you’re spent, slumped back against his pillow. You’re pretty sure your bones have disappeared and your body is now just a floating, ethereal being. You know, status quo with him.

“One for the assist,” he murmurs, pressing a wet kiss to the inside of your thigh. His lips are glistening with your slick and his spit, coating the auburn whiskers of his beard, and you draw him up to taste it.

His contented hum that vibrates against your lips when you kiss him makes your heart warm, like he could kiss you all day and not get sick of it. The feeling is mutual, you think, savoring the way his mouth fits perfectly against yours along with the heady taste of you on his tongue. His hand moves to cup your jaw, thumb rubbing gently as he swallows your sighs and comedown whimpers eagerly.

“You gonna fuck me now?” you ask into his mouth, once you regain the ability to speak. Sometimes, he has a habit of kissing the thoughts straight out of your brain. You love it more each time.

JT’s smile curls up against your lips. “Greedy girl, aren’t you?”

The sense of satisfaction watching his smile falter when your hand reaches between your bodies to stroke his erection is unmatched. Anything to render him speechless, too; the guttural moan is just a bonus. “Been waiting for this since warmups, when I saw you skating around in the winged wheel.”

“That’s a long time,” he says smugly, sitting up with a grunt and urging you to follow. When you turn your back to him, he pushes you down onto your elbows playfully, then offers a slap on your ass. “Your poor, poor pussy. So deprived.”

Turning your head, you watch him discard the rest of his clothes before his fist wraps around his cock, dragging up and down a few times. It’s a struggle to resist the whimper that threatens to bubble up in your throat. He runs the tip through your folds, coating it in your slick with a tsk. “So pretty. Should I give her what she wants?”

Instead of giving in, begging him the way you know he wants you to, you lean forward, ensuring he has an even better view of everything you have to offer. Your hand slithers between your thighs, fingers flattening as they rub at your clit. You part your folds before allowing your finger to dip into your entrance. 

“Fuck, baby,” he groans, voice dripping with a mixture of desire and awe. You swear you can feel the heat from where his eyes are burning a hole in you, staring at the way you touch yourself. “You’re so fuckin’ hot.”

Preening under his praise, your marriage joins your middle finger, moaning loudly when the two plunge into your heat. The sound of your slick is audible, harmonizing with your soft sighs and his deep, ragged breathing behind you. You muse, “I’ve always wanted to fuck a Red Wing. Doesn’t really matter who. Just want to say I did, you know?”

JT’s dark chuckle behind you sends shivers down your spine. He probes the head of his dick—still positioned at your entrance, waiting patiently for its turn—against your fingers, teasing you before nudging your hand out of the way. It falls to the mattress, and you return to leaning on both elbows. “You know how much I like making your dreams come true.”

The huffed laughter that falls out of your mouth is quickly usurped by a gasp when he pushes his hips forward. Pausing halfway, he hums at the way you squeeze him tightly before he sheaths himself completely. It’s a feeling you’re not sure you’ll ever get used to; so perfect and satisfying and full. Just the touch of his skin to yours is enough to ignite a flame deeper than you’ve ever experienced with anyone else—the intimate feeling of him inside of you is nothing short of euphoric. 

You push yourself back onto him, body acting on its own and greedily taking what it wants. He makes a sound behind you, somewhere between a laugh and a grunt; whatever it is, it’s followed by a firm slap against your ass that has you moaning.

“That’s it, baby,” he murmurs, voice low and raspy. “Fuck yourself on it.”

As if to accentuate his point, his fingertips trail up your spine before his hand fists into the lace strings displayed on your back. Once his hold is firm, he uses the material to drag you back against him and set a rhythmic slapping of your ass against his hips. 

JT fucks you until you’re a babbling, sweating mess, only capable of incoherent whimpers and crying out a semblance of his name. He’s steady and consistent, confidence rolling off of him even despite the way his voice falters when he’s murmuring filth in your ear, using your bralette to tug you backwards against his chest.

“You gonna come for me, pretty girl?” he whispers, beard scratching deliciously against the curve of your jaw. You nod, desperate, even your thoughts echoing the rhythm of his length driving in and out of you.

Teeth sink into the meat of your shoulder at the same time the universe explodes. Eyes squeezed shut, legs clenched tight, the air wrenched from your lungs as your body goes rigid in his arms. He hums lowly, working you through it, soft praises whispered against your skin.

“One for the goal,” he says, cheeky. You don’t have the brainpower to even roll your eyes at his hubris. Given the way your legs are still shaking, you’d say he has a right to be cocky.

Strong arms help you back down to your stomach, and you’re thankful for the soft mattress beneath you, no longer needing to hold yourself up; you’re not sure your limbs have the strength to. JT’s hands gently pull your hips back, lifting them up slightly to slide a pillow beneath them before he’s diving in face first with a groan. “Fucking love the way your cunt tastes after it’s been fucked.”

His tongue laps at you, and you squirm under his attention. Grabbing at your ass with both hands, he kneads the globes and offers a hearty smack that earns a squeal from you. “JT!”

“Sorry, baby,” he says, but the nip on your ass tells you he isn’t. You feel him shift before he’s helping to flip you over onto your back, and the sight of him smiling down at you makes your heart flutter. “Can’t help it.”

Something you’ve learned over the last few weeks with JT is that he is a thorough, meticulous lover. He worships at your altar until he’s completely absolved and your thoughts are wiped clean, pulling prayers from your throat with easy, intentional thrusts. With your legs resting in the crook of his elbows, he drives into you, solid, steady, watching the union of your bodies with a hunger that might intimidate you if it wasn’t the same one consuming you entirely.

“Look so good like this,” he murmurs, eyes roving over your body, admiring each curve as if he sculpted them himself. His gaze holds the sway of your breasts, testing the way you respond to different pulses of his hips. “Y’take dick like a fuckin’ pro, sweetheart. You know that?”

You hope the question is rhetorical, for when you go to attempt an answer, all that comes out is a garbled whimper. The praise makes your skin hot, heightens the flutter in your belly, and when he tells you to touch yourself, you blink dumbly at him. It garners a smile on his pretty lips—so fucking handsome—perhaps pleased with the way he’s fucked you stupid on his cock.

“Won’t last much longer,” he purrs. He swallows thickly, and if your brain wasn’t complete mush, you’d be very satisfied that he’s losing control, too. “Make yourself come for me. Jus’ one more, baby, please.”

And when he asks so nicely, how can you disobey?

Your hand snakes its way between your legs, rubbing at your tender clit; the action enhances the delicious, soul-altering feeling of JT’s dick delivering pleasure and promise. His eyes are glued to your movements, but your eyes are watching him.

JT Compher has always been beautiful. Handsome. Exquisite, even. But the sight of him, eyes shut, lashes kissing the tops of his cheeks, mouth open as his head falls back in ecstasy? No words. Truly, indescribable. 

It’s enough that you try to stave off your own orgasm just to prolong your view—that is, until the force of it absorbs you and then shatters you, seizing every last cell and filling them with euphoria. When the fuzziness fades from your eyes, JT’s panting body is on top of you, planting kisses along your collarbone. “And finally, one for the win.”

A dreamy smile slides onto your face. Weakly, your arms wrap around him, grazing the skin on his back lightly. He feels good in your arms. Safe. Comfortable. Natural. 

“Can I take you to breakfast tomorrow?” 

There’s a pause as you try to process what he said, sure that he fucked you so good, your hearing’s gone out, too. He nudges your jaw with his nose.

“B–breakfast?” Your voice comes out way shakier than you intended. You feel the short exhale from his huffed laugh against your skin.

“Don’t want you to think you’re just a booty call,” he says, like it’s obvious, like he’s not still half-hard buried inside of you, his cum seeping out onto the wrinkled sheets beneath you.

“That’s what you’re thinking about right now?”

“Can’t think about anything else about you or I’ll get hard again,” he admits wryly. The confession strokes your ego, something he manages to do without even trying. As you debate if you should, in fact, rouse a round two, your pussy flutters weakly in protest—dick too good. Need break.

JT’s hands never leave your body as he helps you walk to the bathroom, laughing at the way you waddle to avoid spilling cum all over his floor. Once you’re cleaned up, you slip on the t-shirt you packed, joining him at the sink to brush your teeth. He bumps your hip affectionately with his, and the domesticity of it all contrasted with the filthy aura from 5 minutes prior is astonishing—in a good way.

Back in his room, he eyes the bag that you place on the floor. “You can keep some things here, you know. I cleared out a drawer.”

It’s a simple statement, but one that strikes you hard; symbolic and heavy in its meaning: a place carved out for you in his home. 

In his life. 

JT sees you standing, gaping at him, and closes the gap between you before he’s tilting your jaw upward to look at him. His lips hover over yours, the ghost of his touch lingering in a way that makes your heart stop.

His voice is low, almost a whisper, like he doesn’t want to burst the bubble surrounding you. “If I’m coming on too strong, let me know.”

“You aren’t,” you breathe, surprised that your voice even works. His lips curl into a smile against yours before he presses forward to kiss you. It’s slow, ardent, sweet. Dizzying.

“Let’s go to bed. You can fill the drawer tomorrow.”

Tag list: @somuchf4rstardust @tpwkstiles @smileysvech @senditcolton @robindrake13 @laurenairay