#magpie inflatables

[willgrahamsbecoming]

what is your opinion on the bunnings Christmas magpies

HKHKJSJKDHSD

KILL! !!!!!! ! ! DESTROY

[arodeku]

"Bumping slits." "Eat my pigeon." "Choke harder." "Three inches which way?" "It ends two inches from the hole." "It's a double-ender. You can either go in the top end or the bottom end." "Have you been empowered to get a tattoo by your slit??" "Oh I hate this little teasing edge bit-" "(singing) He cannot get it in. He's right by the entrance but he can't find it." "That has been inflated." "Sonic! Is that you? What did they do to him? My boy!!" "I'm in the water now. Blob." "This is what the inside of. Some of my mind looks like." "What happens if you get bopped by the hammer? Do you just become a flat ball?" "You die in real life." "Are you actually strocking my freaking pig?" "Oh that was almost full. Sex." "What?" "Well, y'know. That was almost straight sending it in." "Like sex??" "Like sexual,, feeling moment." "Yeah." "'Gender,' said The Magpie." "I GOT FUCKING SMACKED." "(Recites the entire magpie rhyme????)" "Just a slit between them." "Why do I hear canon fire?" "OH he's pissing." "Out of his hands?" "Yep that's how gingerbread people work; do you not know anything about anatomy." "I usually go for the head first." "You reckon I could get it between his legs?" "Yeah, right through the. slit." "Oooooh, nooooo. Get your goose out. (honk)" "You weren't high enough last time." "(awful australian accent) Killed it." "Choose your hole." "Yes. Into the man." "(excessive moaning)" "Backwards into that pink hole."

[tinylongwing]

top five birdiest locations you've been to?

Oooh good question! I don't have like, hard numbers on these so they're not super well ranked except for by vibes.

First is NE Queensland, Australia. I did a semester abroad there in undergrad and my god the sheer number of new birds all around! I saw so many absolute treasures! From birds of paradise like Victoria's Riflebird, to absolute icons like the Galah and the Southern Cassowary. 10/10 bird destination.

Second I'll put southern Nicaragua. All the diversity of Costa Rica, with birds like Scarlet Macaw, King Vulture, and Keel-billed Toucan. Hundreds of amazing species. Absolutely unforgettable. I'm so thankful that I've been able to work there on and off over the years. I've traveled most of the country but the southern portion has the highest bird diversity from what I've found.

Third, let's go the US Southeast. I think generally it's accepted that this has the highest bird diversity in the US. I've spent plenty of time in Arkansas, Louisiana, and Florida and seen so many excellent birds there! Florida in particular gets a special mention for endemic treasures like the Florida Scrub-Jay.

Fourth is just a smidge to the west over in Texas, particularly the portion along the whole Rio Grande. Highlights for me include Whooping Crane, Aplomado Falcon, and all three US kingfisher species! Plus Plain Chachalaca which is just hilariously noisy. Big fan.

For five... Man now it's hard to pick, I have several places sort of on par with each other. Hawaii is goofy because of all the introduced species, giving it a ridiculously inflated diversity on top of the absolutely amazing native species. South Korea was really fun, though I went in winter when diversity was relatively low, and still got to see fun birds like Azure-winged Magpie, Eurasian Goshawk, and Varied Tit without even leaving Seoul. And then of course like, California has a ton of species and some of the most incredible vagrants that just show up at random sometimes.

I think that's eight locations now so I'll just stop, haha.

[chickenwaffles17]

my two greatest creations

I figured I should properly provide information about Mint, as well as introduce this magpie character I've been desperate to create. As it says there, I'd like you all to meet my newest OC, Comet the Magpie!

Mint the Possum:

based off of a common ringtail possum

her favourite colour is blue

her favourite food is oranges, but she's also partial to pomegranates

genderqueer because self-insert 💜🤍💚

best friends with Rouge the Bat (wears a lot of heart motifs because of this)

they met each other while robbing a jewellery store, as they both wanted the same necklace

Rouge relinquished the necklace to Mint after discovering it was a zircon, and Mint wears the necklace whenever she can

she is skilled at dodging, is quite fast and can leap very high

she's loyal to her friends and will try everything she can to put them out of harm's way

somewhat hot-headed -anxious, awkward and self conscious, impulsive, friendly, sassy but sweet

slightly inflated ego

after fighting Shadow, she doesn't know how to feel about him

she thinks he's very cool, and extremely powerful, plus she's aware that he's Rouge's friend

but still kind of mixed about him

she likes looking at him though

she gets along well with Tails, Amy and Sonic

while her and Knuckles aren't as buddy-buddy, they're still on good terms

gets along with others and is determined to make herself as helpful and nice as possible

her fighting style is relatively undeveloped but it relies mostly on using the enemy's weapon against them as a way to make up for her lacking in strength

her choice of Extreme Gear is a bike

in an attempt to make her less of an Anti-Sue in the beginning I gave her the trait of having everyone be in love with her cause' why not

Comet the Magpie:

he's based off of both a common Australian magpie and a black-billed magpie, due to their beautiful blue plumage

childhood friends with Mint, they grew up together in the Mobius equivalent of Australia (which I have just learned is called Southern Island) and both have prominent Australian accents due to this

his favourite colour is green

he's very friendly and physically affectionate, loves to hug people

but he can be slightly aggressive and territorial sometimes (a la real magpies)

even so, just a chill guy in general

he probably would take up Extreme Gear if he had the chance but he's never heard of them, would use a board

he likes surfing because of Point Break

he can do a horrid David Bowie impression

he's fond of shiny things (a la real magpies)

do NOT let him or Mint near a karaoke machine due to this ⬇️

he sounds fine, just... unconventional

Mint is...

[dreadsprites]

hello, i’m magpie (or mags)!

i’m a 21 year old enby deeply in love with writing, vampires, and fictional masked men.

i produce dark content, so be warned! (although it will be tagged)

MINORS, ageless, and blank blogs will be blocked!

all of my writing will be size-neutral or plus sized, as i am plus sized and enjoy seeing my body loved and centered in fics for once.

things i will not write: incest, cheating, vore/inflation/any stomach fetish idk, bratting, underage, scat, beastiality, cannibalism/necrophilia, pregnancy in any form, cuck stuff, amputation, (sexual) bone breaking, DDLG/littlespace, (sexual) vomiting

banners by kodaswrld and willsgraphics!

[artemispanthar]

Here are some old creature designs for my Fallout story that I still like. These would be from 2012-2014.

The first one is a breed of mutant chickens (from the farm where Magpie grew up). They're like a cross between chickens and praying mantises. They have one eye and arms that are a cross between wings and mantis claws. The hens are smaller and their claws are usually hidden under feathers (but they're still sharp and they will use them!). The roosters are bigger, their combs are razor sharp and the wattle inflates when they crow. The babies are little puffballs that roll around and huddle in adorable little piles. The main resource from the chickens in their eggs, which they lay as a mass of dozens little eggs in goopy jelly. They're highly nutritious and thus very useful in the post-apocalypse, however they do not taste good. If you've ever crushed up pills in grape jelly, that's how I imagine it tastes, kind of a mix of super sweet and extremely acrid and bitter with an awful texture.

The second creature is like a cryptid version of the mutant chicken. They're about as big as a small horse and feed off the blood of other creatures with their tongues. They're intelligent and some can even speak. I made a version with feathers but I don't think I like it as much (but to be fair I never finished the feathers so it's a bit rough)

The last one is the Everything, which is a creature similar to The Thing or The Blob. It's a big mass of genetic material that seeks out and absorbs things and incorporates them into itself as a collective unconscious. The more it absorbs, the harder time it has keeping everything separate and will occasionally burst into a mass of body parts from it's components (as pictured here), which is very painful. When it speaks it's often a cacophony of various voices and animal sounds. It's a Big Bad in the story (which is decidedly un-Fallout-like but whatever lol), because I can't resist adding horror elements to stuff I write. The sketch is more reflective of what it looks like, with the colored version being a partially-finished painting of it. I remember spending ages on the painting even though it's nowhere near finished lol. I spent a lot of time studying bones and organs. I still quite like how the finished bits turned out.

[harrison-abbott]

A Small Start

When Pat woke up he felt pretty bad. He drank some of the water from his pint glass. It gave him momentary respite. Then he was lying there looking up at the ceiling. With yellow light beyond the curtains. Dehydration across his whole body. “How did I ever get to this point?” he said, quietly, to himself. Eventually he got up. His hair swished in his eyes. Had been doing that for weeks; badly needed a haircut. His face always seemed to look worse in the mirror in the mornings. But, maybe he shouldn’t be thinking about his appearance at all. He put his coat on and walked out into the street. With a brief wonder over the daylight that smarted the eyes. Pat wished that there were some things in life that he had done way differently when he was younger. He supposed that was the irony with older age: you were more mature, now, but you wished you’d been this way, back then. Hmm. Maybe he couldn’t call himself ‘mature’. It was when Pat was bathed in the sobering sunlight that he most felt like a nobody. He walked down to the supermarket. A pair of magpies flumed overhead in brilliant black n white and he saluted both of them. When he got to the supermarket carpark he remembered the story of the man who had been stabbed here. A few years back, there’d been a stabbing. And it was odd how, when it happened, he didn’t know about it until he saw it on the news: considering how close he lived to the building. Pat went inside the market. There was an odd mixture of workers in there with different nationalities. One of them was a very pretty woman who was hard to look at. Pat wondered whether he’d ever be with another woman in his life … Maybe not. Boo hoo. It wasn’t the most important thing. Pat figured that if he could work on survival, and keep his health in check, then he could think about other things such as those. He picked up some humous and a bag of tomatoes and a cucumber. The prices had gone up 10p since last time. Inflation. Hey: at least the city he lived in wasn’t being bombed to smithereens. … There were entire sections for the Easter weekend coming up; as in, a whole cacophony of chocolate eggs. Pat didn’t eat chocolate anymore, or eggs. Though when he was a kid he used to do the painting thing with them and roll them in the garden, the hard boiled eggs. It was odd how mass atheism in this country had turned into millions of overturn on chocolate products in bulky plastic boxes, sold by among the larger corporations in the world. Pat wondered what Jesus must think of it now, if indeed he was watching from Heaven. … Pat took his stuff to the checkout and scanned the items. There was an older chap there with a white fuzzy beard, who was always friendly and chatty with the customers. Even though it seemed like such a gruelling job, you never saw him in a grouchy mood; and Pat wished he could be like that, like him, most of the time. Pat went back home, up the long road. Maybe being a nobody was fairly normal. He was only 31. He hoped he could get to the age of 40 without dying. It’s just that it was getting harder to move as fast at this age and he really had no clue how his future would play out, and it often seemed that he could use his imagination well in certain ways, but not at all in others. He got back into the house. There was no other option than to deal with his issues. He went up into his room and reopened the book that he’d been reading last night. This was a small start.                                                                 

[creative-anchorage]

As a digital migrant rather than a native, I remember how amazing it felt to stumble my way around the internet in the 90s and early 00s, uncovering its unexpected nooks and crannies with astonishment and delight; it was an exciting and genuinely joyful time. Now I watch other people shout at each other, assailed by news of catastrophes and bombarded with adverts for horrible trousers and cryptocurrency for the further enrichment of billionaires. I scroll, jaded, trying to recapture that sense of wonder I used to feel. Thankfully, there are still off-the-beaten-path pockets of astonishment out there and I thought it might be nice to gather some of them together. So, here is a selection of online things I love, and that other people I asked love – old and new stuff that is fascinating, beautiful, edifying and, above all, fun. Maybe one or two of them might give you a bit of internet joy back, too.

Dogs in Elk

Do me a favour: Google “dogs in elk”. Perhaps one day this post on a long-defunct forum will vanish into the ether, or perhaps it’s sufficiently beloved to survive, but either way you need this hilarious shaggy (bloody) dog story in your life. It was written by Anne, whose dogs discovered an elk carcass, got inside it and refused to leave. Anne and I once exchanged emails, so I can assure you that she exists and that this really happened.

The Fish Doorbell

There is a dam in the Netherlands where migrating fish get stuck, since it rarely opens in spring. The solution: an underwater camera linked to a website where viewers can press a button when they spot fish. That notifies the lock operator, who can open it up and let the fish go on their way. Ooh, I have just seen two! Press the button!

@crescentshay

Shay Rose is an effervescent and endlessly inventive costume-maker who shares her projects on Instagram. Nothing is too bonkers for her: a “social distancing” dress that enveloped her in a 3.7 metre (12ft) circle of pink tulle, anime cosplay or a fancy-dress costume that turned her into a perfect lifesize version of one of those stocking-filler wiggly worms on a string.

Strange Flowers

In his Wordpress cabinet of human curiosities, the Australian academic James Conway writes potted biographies of daring, transgressive, dangerous-to-know eccentrics of the past 200 years. Choose at random and you are unlikely to be disappointed, but how about Violette Murat, the fin de siècle lesbian who kept a decommissioned submarine in which to smoke opium, or Marchesa Casati, who, naked beneath her fur coat, wore a necklace of live snakes and paraded a cheetah on a lead?

Radiooooo

Pick a country from the world map, pick a decade and Radiooooo plays you music from that time and place (refined to slow, fast or “weird”, if you want to be more specific). I am writing this to a soundtrack of 1960s Morocco and feeling more cosmopolitan than I have any right to: “Oh, you’re not familiar with Abdelwahab Agoumi? You should check him out.” More seriously, Radiooooo gives you that expansive feeling that the world is vast, various and infinitely creative. That’s nice.

Crime Pays, But Botany Doesn’t

This YouTube channel describes itself as “a low-brow, crass approach to plant ecology & evolution as muttered by a misanthropic Chicago Italian”. A gruff botanist called Tony tells you about esoteric plants, and it is exceptionally soothing.

Kottke

Sifting through the internet to provide a miscellany of interesting stuff is a real talent; Jason Kottke’s magpie eye has been reliably curating interesting stuff – short, long, funny, serious, totally out-there – since 1998. Recent highlights include the best visual illusions of the year competition, Japan’s decorated manhole covers and stunning photos of the Milky Way.

Weird Medieval Guys

Check out the titles of some of these��Substack posts by the historian Olivia Swarthout and tell me you don’t want to read more: “What does a biblically accurate angel look like?”; “No, the king doesn’t own all the swans in Britain”; “Do you have less free time than a medieval peasant?” Clickbait, but medieval (and highly informative).

Mimi Smartypants

The consistently hilarious Chicago-based medical publisher Mimi Smartypants has been blogging since the internet was just fields of billowing unspoilt html and her riffs on whatever amuses or outrages her – public transport encounters and the general absurdity of life – are endlessly delightful. Her newest entry describing the deficiencies of linen sheets made me laugh out loud (“Would you like to take a nap on Nan Pierce?”).

Sandwiches of History

An American man called Barry delves into old recipe books and then taste-tests the sandwiches he finds in them on YouTube. They are usually an affront to God and man (ironed bread and mushroom soup, condensed milk, flour, egg and vinegar) but Barry gives each one a fair go and a generous assessment. We should all be more Barry.

Closer to Van Eyck

This incredible site is dedicated to Jan van Eyck’s much-stolen Ghent Altarpiece, featuring the 15th-century Flemish master’s deeply weird Adoration of the Mystic Lamb. Zoom in on every brushstroke and piece of craquelure, check out the X-ray and infrared imaging, delve deep into the strange history and iconography and pretend you are one of the posh experts on Fake or Fortune … hours of fun.

My80stv

Whatever year you are nostalgic for, scratch the itch here with a compendium of TV clips that you can channel-hop through as if you were watching telly in, say, 1989. It is very US-centric, but it gives me the time-travel feeling I crave. Other decade versions are also available.

David Rumsey’s Map Collection

Cartography enthusiast David Rumsey has put his entire collection of more than 150,000 maps online, from 16th to 21st century, terrestrial, maritime and celestial. It is the perfect place to get lost (sorry).

Found in a Library Book

The Oakland public library uploads the things people leave behind in library books (usually as bookmarks) to its website: it is a gripping, often touching collection of photos, drawings, sugar packets, letters, shopping lists and more.

Marine Traffic

There are a mind-boggling number of ships in the world and on this site you can watch them going about their business. They are colour-coded by type (cargo vessels, tankers, fishing boats) and you can find out where they have come from and where they are going.

Laura Ramoso

There is a lot of so-so observational comedy on the internet but Laura Ramoso’s Instagram and TikTok imitations of her German mother and Italian father have the ring of extremely funny truth.

The National Grid Live

Hear me out: this site lets you see how much power is being generated from different sources – watch as solar rises on a sunny day – and how much Great Britain is importing and exporting. It is weirdly compelling.

Tradle

Guess a place based on its exports: you get six chances, narrowing it down, thanks to information on how far off each wrong guess was. Warning: they are not all countries despite the game description: 77.3% “processed crustaceans” and 0.4% compasses is Saint Pierre et Miquelon, one of France’s semi-autonomous “overseas collectivities”. Nerdy but entertaining.

Forvo

A guide to pronouncing anything, including proper nouns and names in any language, Forvo has the power to save you significant embarrassment.

Lightning Maps

Follow storms erupting in real time. Yellow dots represent lightning strikes, and a white expanding circle shows the thunder sound movement. This is good for impressing kids, says a friend, because, like an omniscient weather god, you can “predict” when thunder is about to erupt.

Useless Farm

Karen the murderous emu, Brad, a furious fluffball cockerel, and several dopey alpacas live on this Canadian smallholding absolutely failing to earn their keep, other than on TikTok and Instagram. This kind of stuff can swiftly become annoying or samey, but useless animal wrangler Amanda has funny bones, and pretty much everything she posts is entertaining.

Messy Nessy Chic

I have no idea how Vanessa Grall comes up with the cabinet of art, design, fashion and historical wonders that have filled her website for the past 12 years; I just know she has better taste than I ever will. Dip in for the likes of a guide to Swedish islands, intimate Victorian portraiture by a viscountess or 1920s matchboxes.

Ridella

For Wordle addicts hungry for more once-daily stimulation, this site offers a riddle – the kind of thing a troll would make you solve to cross a bridge – one line at a time.

@dusttodigital

This Instagram music account is a celebration of the human desire to make sound in all its lovely diversity, from virtuoso to amateur and everything in between. I especially love the posts that showcase videos people send in of music they have encountered across the world, in the streets, in classrooms, rehearsal halls, fields …

Global Wind and Wave Patterns

You don’t have to have a clue what is going on to enjoy this site that lets you watch mesmerising animations of wind, wave and current patterns wherever you like on the globe.

The Worst Cat

This is a single-joke site – the joke being criticising baby hippos for being moist, ugly, frequently straw-covered cats – and has not been updated for years, but returning to it, I still laughed, again and again. It might work for you, too.

My Noise

My Noise feels like a gift to a fractious world: your choice of hundreds of customisable soundscapes, based on your needs (focus, sleep, stress, “pet comfort” and many more). There is an incredible variety – everything from “calm office”, to “European primeval forest” – and you can play around and mix your own blend based on whatever elements work best for you. My husband has found “rice field” with extra cicadas provides real relief from his tinnitus.

The Marginalian

The site formerly known as Brainpickings is a compendium of philosophy, poetry, visual arts, literature and other mediations on the business of being alive, collated by the author Maria Popova. Recently, I enjoyed 19th-century naturalist Jean-Baptiste Vérany’s chromographs of octopuses and Magritte’s exhortation to celebrate “joy for the eyes and the mind”.

One Zoom

Pick an animal, plant, or other living organism and, via this site, explore visually how it fits into the tree of life. Mesmerising.

Listen to the Clouds

On this dreamily weird site you can listen to live air traffic control chatter from a variety of airports across the world, against a background of ambient sound.

Library of Congress

The US Library of Congress has digitised big chunks of its collection – incredible photographs and early daguerrotypes, baseball cards, cartoons, maps and historical documents. It is overwhelming, but brilliant for a lunchtime browse.

How Many People Are in Space Right Now?

This site does exactly what it says on the tin (with details of who they are and a link to their Wikipedia page).

GeoGuessr

This quiz gives you a picture of somewhere and you have to put it on a map accurately. For an additional layer of complexity, try TimeGuessr, which asks you to identify the correct year as well as place for a photograph. I have just narrowed down a pic of an Edinburgh festival street performer to within 163 metres, but my guess of 2013 was four years out. Curses! Play again.

Martin Critchlow

The TikTok adventures of a scaffolder from King’s Lynn and his tiny mouse, Mr Jingles (the successor to Mrs Jingles, sadly deceased of natural causes). Mr Jingles really likes prawn crackers; Mr Critchlow really likes tiny harvest mice, I guess. Wholesome.

Explore webcams

There are an overwhelming number of wonderful wildlife cams out there but, for a sure bet, head to the “featured” camera on the Explore homepage. I just got bald eagles feeding their chicks, which proved very unhelpful for finishing this article.

The Lucyverse

I am torn about including writer Lucy Sweet’s brilliant newsletter because I’m sure she will end up getting my job, but I can’t in all conscience leave it out. Sweet reviews stuff: herbal teas, B&Q, Soreen mini loaves, Christmas decorations she finds in Home Bargains. The magic is in her forensically accurate skewerings. A taster: “Ugh, the Toast catalogue … Like a Guardian article on the dangers of foraging.” If you sign up, the newsletter arrives every Monday morning precisely when you most need a laugh.

If the Moon Were Only 1 Pixel

Space is terrifying – my tiny medieval peasant mind can’t begin to comprehend its vastness. This site, which describes itself as “a tediously accurate scale model of the solar system” is such a good way to understand the vastness, through scrolling – something I am very good at – with manageable little nuggets of info along the way.

Mondo Mascots

Japan’s mascot culture is a repository of intense oddness, and the British writer and illustrator Chris Carlier gives an enthusiastic account of them on his site (in more detail than on his laconic and equally unmissable Twitter account @mondomascots). Discover, among others, an extinct river otter with a bowl of noodles as a hat that represents Susaki City, an “armless, dancing character based an ancient roof tile” or “Colon-chan, an intestine-haired lady who encourages colon cancer screenings”.

Post Secret

Post Secret predated Fesshole, the popular Twitter feed where people confess their sins anonymously and receive internet absolution or condemnation (more likely both). It is a combination of confessional and art project, since contributors send in their contributions on a postcard, sometimes elaborately decorated. “The day I leave this city I’m asking Tim for a kiss”; “Somebody else’s 23andMe DNA test destroyed my life”: each one is a baby-shoes-length short story.

Wikiloc

Wherever you are in the world, find a user-tested walk or cycle route. You can filter for distance, difficulty and for circular walks only. It has taken me to some spectacular spots (and trudging along a few A-roads, too, but that is mainly my incompetence).

Kingdom of Loathing

I don’t really understand what is going on in this long-running gentle, funny game full of stick people yet, but on my first try, I apparently gained “the patience of a tortoise” and a “liver popsicle”. Tell me more.

The Deep Sea

Scroll down, down, down this metre-by metre graphic of the sea and discover all the weird stuff that lives at various levels, with cool facts along the way. It is a good site for a “tag yourself” game with the creatures you encounter: I think I’m a headless chicken fish.

The Met’s Artist Project

Take a couple of minutes to watch a contemporary artist react to pieces in the Metropolitan Museum’s incredibly eclectic collection. Edmund de Waal reflects on why a 500-year-old Chinese jug was left white and Kehinde Wiley discusses class in John Singer Sargent’s portraiture. There are 120 entries in total.

@museumoflostmemories

There’s something really poignant about this Instagram account, which seeks to reunite photos found in junk shops and flea markets with their subjects (or subjects’ descendants): so many forgotten smiles and poses. The hit rate is low, but if you click “Returned!” you can enjoy some really satisfying success stories.

Antipodes Map

A simple site to answer that perennial question: where would you end up if you tunnelled right through the Earth and came out the other side?

Kids Favourite Jams By Their Dads’ Favourite Bands

On TikTok, songwriter Kevin Scott Rhoads spins a wheel to choose a band (Mumford & Sons, Bon Iver, The National) and a nursery rhyme and then produces pitch-perfect parodies. I particularly enjoyed Baby Shark in the style of Radiohead.

xkcd

I don’t understand all of Randall Munroe’s often science and tech-themed stick-figure web comic (Munroe is a physicist who worked for Nasa), but the bits I do get tend to be clever and very funny.

Things Magazine

This densely packed, very plainly formatted compendium of links to interesting things was created by a group of writers and historians with an interest in objects and what they tell us about the world. That doesn’t exactly narrow their remit and it can feel overwhelming, but there is so much delight and interest packed into every post. The newest one has links to a playlist of classic tracks from 1994, royal doppelgangers and a Museum of Failure. Just let your eye wander and alight on whatever link catches your attention, you won’t be disappointed.

Surprised Eel Historian

You may never have thought “I’d like to know more about the history of eels”, but that was a mistake, as this Twitter account full of fascinating eel facts demonstrates.

Owl in a Box

I had to include this, the OG of internet angry birds. There is not much to it: six photographs of a great horned owl found by the side of the road, absolutely furious to be rescued. The photos, in which only one giant yellow eye is visible, glaring balefully through the flap of a cardboard box, make all the years I have wasted on the internet worthwhile. Sort of.

[emmybeearts]

Day 25: Light

The Noticades of Atria seem to be the most popular. After all, they are one of the only bilaterally symmetrical, pseudo-vertebrate lifeforms we see from our experience with the rift. Ancient broadcasting programs imagined alien life as almost all near human, in reality the majority of life we've come across in the broader universe is mats of single celled bacteria closely followed by fractal-shaped animals that more closely resemble plants. Of the complex, mobile animals we’ve seen; we’ve come across far more sea-star, jellyfish, and siphonophore shaped animals than we have anything that looks comparable to a chordate. 

That said, Coleostaceans, or crab-bugs to most, are some of my favorite Atrian animals to discover and study. While they have converged on traits comparable to both insects and crustaceans, they couldn’t be any less related to either. All have 8 limbs with defined segments and joints and a tough, glassy exoskeleton. Each and every species of crab-bug evolved its own unique method of survival that make them the most diverse group of animals on Atria.

The windward side of the highland mountains contain but a small fraction of this diversity, and yet we’ve come across more unique species of crab-bug then anywhere else we’ve been thus far. They gathered around the small lakes and pools carved into the mountain shelves, and swarmed in the branches of the numerous pseudo-trees. It seems like every few minutes a new species with a new adaptation appeared to me. There simply wasn’t enough time to document them all. 

One such crab-bug that particularly intrigued me was a small red beetle whose secondary forelimbs appear to have evolved into an external gas bladder convergent with what we've seen on the multiple ray species. Its secondary hind legs were much longer and tucked up against its apron like the taut legs of a grasshopper. The most impressive part of this crab-bug, however, is the comparably large vent on the end of its abdomen. 

The abdomen itself was like a small laboratory of chemical reactions. Whenever the crab-bug got startled, various compounds within the animal's abdomen would mix creating a rapid exothermic reaction that produced a large amount of waste gas. This would inflate the gas bladder with hot air making it far more buoyant as it would kick off the ground and allow the rest of the gas to escape out its vent propelling it forward like a bullet.  

All of these adaptations to send it flying to escape danger on the ground did nothing to protect it from danger in the air, unfortunately. Just as the crab-bug jettisoned itself away from me, a bird-like animal swooped in to intercept it mid air. This was not the first crab-bug I was studying that it snatched away from me. It seems my presents disturbs the crab-bugs, forcing them from hiding, right into the awaiting jaws of this obnoxious noticlade. 

Its coloration is bright yellow and it's covered in reddish orange eye-spots from head to tail. Fleshy spines adorn the animal making it look like a radiating burst of light. It is taxonomically a fuse-limb species but it also has features comparable to a multitude of rays that we've come across. This species could be what remains of an ancient lineage; potentially from an ancestor of both clades of animal.  

Despite its heritage and, what some could describe as, beauty, this animal is nothing more than a thorn in my side. It essentially fills the same niche as a seagull mixed with the personality of a magpie. It's obnoxious and aggressive, swooping low to take whatever it wants with seemingly no further desire except to annoy me. Even when it was not diving in front of me or looking to grab something from over my shoulder, it served as a major distraction. Its blindingly bright colors and numerous eye spots seemed to act as more of a focal point than a disguise. 

I managed to collect a minute sample from as many species of crab-bug as I could in this area before being driven completely insane. Fortunately, I believe it stayed behind to continue its feast and finally chose to leave me alone. Never before on this mission have I been so close to forgoing a sample from an animal. But I know that, even if it vexes me, it's vital to the ecosystem. All life needs to be protected, no exceptions. 

[End Transcription]

[treesah]

Am I going to spend $1600 plus 10.25% sales tax on a new iPhone 14 Pro Max with 1TB of storage or am I going to organize and back up the 3,985 ultra high-definition photos and videos to my external hard drive and Dropbox to free up storage space on my current phone?

Considerations:

14 is an inauspicious number in Chinese numerology; I am Chinese and I have a very superstitious Chinese mother who has cautioned everyone in my family several times to not fall for any phone upgrade promos until the iPhone 15, although we should really wait until the iPhone 16

I have previously always kept my phones until they were literally unusable and I kind of like this as both a way to signal my moral superiority over people who upgrade, magpie-like, to the newest model every year AND a way to prevent lifestyle inflation and material wastefulness. My current phone definitely has at least another two or three years of use in it

$1600 is a lot of money to spend on anything that isn’t an emergency home repair

I have ADHD and the previous five attempts—totaling like 15 hours—to go through my photos and delete ones I didn’t want to keep only got me as far as November 2020

[slightlymagicalcatalog]

Objects 0400-0499

0400 TOOTHPICK OF DONENESS 0401 MICROSCRYER 0402 LORD BUNSYN'S BURNER 0403 SURVEYOR'S STRING 0404 MERCHANDISE NOT FOUND 0405 PRECISE BALANCING WEIGHT 0406 CURSED RAVEN FEATHER 0407 BLACKWING'S BAUBLE 0408 MAGPIE'S EYE 0409 FLAMBOYANT YO-YO

0410 NEST EGG 0411 SNAKE BITE KIT 0412 SNAKE IN A CAN 0413 CINDER BLOCK 0414 CALCIFER'S TONGUE 0415 LADY FRIZBY'S PIE TIN 0416 COOKIE CANDLE 0417 IRON IN THE FIRE 0418 B-A-L-L 0419 ADVENTURER'S DOG BED

0420 SMOKE RING 0421 BIG BERTHA 0422 BRAWL-PROOF MIRROR 0423 TAVERN TUNES MUSIC BOOK 0424 BREAKEA® BRAND FURNITURE 0425 SANITARY SPITTOON 0426 LUCKY DIE 0427 UNLUCKY RABBIT'S FOOT 0428 THREE-AND-A-HALF-LEAF CLOVER 0429 MYSTERIOUS BROKEN WAND

0430 UNLUCKY SHOT GLASS 0431 LUCKY LAUNDRY SOAP 0432 LUCKY PEBBLE 0433 STICKY TONGS 0434 BALAAM'S HORSESHOES 0435 FIRE DOGS 0436 CASTING IRON SKILLET 0437 SECRET SWINGING SCONCE 0438 WACKY WIG WAND 0439 SUNSPRITE 3000™

0440 SPEEDY SKATES OF SHARPNESS 0441 HEARTHRUG 0442 BLADES OF GLORY 0443 ICE AXE 0444 SLEIGH BELLS 0445 WREATH OF GOOD CHEER 0446 MISCHIEVOUS MISTLETOE 0447 LUCKY HORSE SHOE 0448 ALARMING BEAD CURTAIN 0449 FAIRY LIGHTS

0450 SACRIFICIAL GARLIC 0451 PEPPERMINT POPPERS 0452 FESTIVE JUMPER 0453 GINGERBREAD DWARF 0454 STICKY STAGE DAGGER 0455 SECURITY BLANKET 0456 CERULEAN SKY POWDER 0457 PRIZE STUFFED OWLBEAR 0458 GIANT INFLATABLE HAMMER 0459 BRILLIANT BUBBLE GUN

0460 PURIFIED TEA STRAINER 0461 BAKER'S TWINE 0462 ETHEREAL ROSE 0463 WINEGLASS OF GOOD CHEER 0464 CURIOUS COOKIE CUTTER 0465 RAINBOW SPRINKLE SHAKER 0466 LEMON T 0467 WOOSTERSHIRE SAUCE 0468 LIGHTNING IN A BOTTLE 0469 POCKET PARTY BALL

0470 FLASH LIGHT 0471 FLASHY DECAL 0472 FLASH PAN 0473 LIGHTNING ROD 0474 MISCHIEVOUS CHIPPED TEACUP 0475 GOLDEN TEA INFUSER 0476 COZY TEA COZY 0477 PRACTICAL TEASPOON 0478 SUGAR CUBE 0479 DUST OF FORGETFULNESS

0480 BEACON ASH 0481 LIGHTNING SOOT 0482 BLOOD ASH 0483 GRIME POWDER 0484 MYSTERIOUS SYLVAN ASH 0485 ROSY-FINGER RING 0486 CANDLE OF THE LONG NIGHT 0487 MORNINGSTAR SCROLL 0488 BEACON OF THE DAWN 0489 STICKY LANTERN HOOK

0490 WAND OF STREAMERS 0491 GROTESQUE CEILING FAN 0492 WAND OF COBWEBS 0493 WONKY FRAME 0494 BIRTHDAY BANNER 0495 WRENCHED WRENCH 0496 HAMMERED HAMMER 0497 CRACKED CAULDRON 0498 RISKY WHISK 0499 SPEARMINT GUM

[fire-in-the-goat]

A Trip to the Beach by Bingo

[elonex]

Misogyny in India and the "Gold Digger-Men" Problem

For the context of this discussion, I will be referring to all men who call women 'gold diggers' as the "gold digger men".

India is a country where sex selective abortions and infanticides are common practise. (These include practices like wrapping newborn female babies in wet cloth so that they catch fever and die.) As a result India currently has about 46 million girls "missing" from it's population. The preference for male children arise from the social norms whereby the bride's family is expected to pay a hefty amount of money and assets to the groom's family, known as the "dowry", and that it is the male child who carries on the family name and expands the family tree.

It is often these families that the gold digger men are born into. Coddled by their son-worshipping parents, gold digger men grow up with the notion that they are somehow more valuable than girls because of their penis. Extremely sexist and demeaning attitudes towards women coupled with an inflated sense of their own (often non existent) intelligence is a personality trait of these gold digger men.

Fast-forward to the present decade, the consequences of female infanticide are starting to show and there are not enough women for all these gold digger men to marry. Their families are coming to the sudden revelation that their sons cannot expand the family tree without a women to marry, who can then be made to bear children for him. Surprise!

But thanks to the country's emphasis on female education and slightly more favourable attitudes of parents of girl children, young women are faced with increasingly more opportunities compared to their mothers. They have jobs, can support themselves and are refusing to marry men who don't see them as an equal. Obviously, the gold digger men were the worst hit by this change. (Unmarried men who are past the marriable age are often looked down upon by the society for failing to fulfill their obligation of carrying forward the family name.)

Now these gold digger men are faced with the choice of either changing their sexist attitudes towards women or going single. They responded by spreading even more sexist attitudes about women like "No WoMaN wAnTs Me BeCaUsE I'm NoT sUpEr-RiCh AnD wOmEn ArR aLl GOLD DIGGERS!!!!". This is a deflection tactic for them to not examine their own regressive attitudes towards women and blame women, as if we are all frivolous magpies, for their own lack of character.

(Now of course, there are married gold digger men too, who were lucky enough to find an unfortunate women to marry them.)

These gold digger men often resort to even more violent and regressive means to cover up their own wounded and fragile egos. They folk to incel and mgtow forums, all the while making noises so that everyone knows that they gave up on women, while actually growing more and more discontent with themselves and the world in general. They continue bellowing their sorry little grievances into the outside world while fueling a culture of intense women hatred in India.

Needless to say, gold digger men continue to be a burden on their aging parents and the nation.

[rosszulorzott]

Good morning @ventraman @docileyieldingobedientlovingsoul @magpie-69 @triskeleaficionado @babygirl-1972 @mizminx-musings frens!

Due to the cost of living crisis and inflation and such we'll be enjoying a wee coffee in the wee hours.

But the biggest of Sunday hugs!

🎥 myminiaturelife_yt

[harrison-abbott]

You open your eyes and find that you’re still alive. Right-o. Up you get and you play a videogame made in the early 00s on the PlayStation 2. With the neon colours of the retro TV screen as a lead-in to opening the curtains to the day. The cold day; frosty streets. They say there will be sleet tomorrow and it’s certainly in the temperature zone for that. You finish the videogame and you pick up the book you were reading last night: Russian author: his first novel, about some affair he (presumably) had with a woman in his younger years. You hope that the other man – of whom he had the affair against – wasn’t too upset that the author went on to become famous and so on, whilst he was cheated on. You finish that book and tick that off the reading list for the year … and then you head outside to head down to the supermarket. Super chilly. You normally like the cold. But as you get older it can be harder to prepare against. You pass the houses with their puffing sides. Everybody worried about the gas bills going up, again. Many more people worried that Russian madmen might do something crazy (more than they already have). They were part of the whole inflation thing. Only meaning the war criminals, and not the whole Russian people. … Along the road, the magpies flurry overhead in silky black and white and you salute them. Then at the bottom of the road you see the droves of the high school kids walking by in black. It’s their half day today; and you’re glad for them: now that they’re out of that hell hole. This school is considered quite a ‘rough’ one. But when you look at the kids – the boys, even – they’re not squabbling or being rough with one another, only walking home. You move along to the supermarket and head in. Pick up some tomatoes and a tub of houmous, and look around for that pretty Polish lady that works here, hoping to see her. She’s not working today it seems. The security guard is. In his fluorescent garb. It must be the most boring job imaginable, standing around like that all day; the ‘work’ must drive the man nuts. You pay for your stuff and leave. Head back home. You’ve a plan to watch a movie with your friend today. So you call him up. He has a Russian [sorry to keep using this word / nationality] film that another friend recommended to him. So you look up a link and watch it. It’s about regular people living in Russia in the time period nearing the collapse of the Soviet Union. And the movie starts out quite playfully. Then a third of the way through it gets darker and from then on it progressively gets more fucked up … and by the end of it, you’re genuinely depressed. And what makes it worse is that there’s a message at the end saying that it was based on a true story. That actually happened! Jesus. … It was quite a short film. And you and your mate have nothing else to do for a few hours. So you suggest you watch another movie: preferably something totally different. Okay. He suggests this French comedy film. Which is about two men who discover a gigantic fly in the boot of their car. Cool – sounds like a change o’ scene. And after half an hour of that you’re cheered up again. Some goofy entertainment. And, along the way, you speak to your mate about cultural stuff. He’s one of the few mates that you have, and it’s a fair thing to simply ‘have a friend’ on the planet. … After the movie ends, you say bye for now. To your friend, and then move on to a next novel that you got yesterday. It’s set in early 1980s Berlin. And it’s about the tension between either side of the Wall. And, as you’re reading, you remember that time you went to Berlin, back in January 2019. You loved that city. And because it was such a long while back, you pine that the memories of it are fading. So you wish to go back one day. In the future. Especially when, reading the novel, the names of the districts come up, and you recall going there yourself. The nouns playing on your nostalgia. You read the book for a couple of hours and figure you’ll get a nap in. Hoping that you may wake up again in a few hours, also still alive.

[navigatrixnarrations]

Sometimes Always Part 4: Thieving Magpie

Warnings: canon-typical violence and profanity; teenage Vane being a little creep; sailing jargon

Catch up on Parts 1-3 here.

“Are you working tonight? Or prizefighting?” Margaret asks Vane by way of greeting as she lays two parcels on the table in front of him, one containing their breakfast and the other containing a fine pair of pistols, used but well-cared for.

“No.”

“I have a meeting with a smuggler boss. He used to be a privateer” -- she sneers as she says the word -- “and I’d appreciate it if you’d join me and watch my back. He intends to fuck me, in all senses of the word.” Margaret’s face is a mask of disgust. “He won’t succeed in any way, but he’s going to make his best effort. The pistols are for you.”

Had this been Nassau, where Charles Vane of the Ranger is famed and feared, he’d have made it known that he would take it personally if anyone was to bother her. If only Margaret had seen him there in his glory, though he realizes the impossibility of the wish: she left Nassau because he forced her to. What would have been, if he’d seen the truth of the situation with Eleanor, if he’d told Margaret how he felt about her, if he hadn’t driven her away? If she’d chosen him over Sully? But here they are, and the past can’t be changed, and Vane has to admit there’s a sort of poetic justice in his current situation, in being wanted and on the run, unable to use his own name and pretending to be Margaret’s hired muscle.

At the rough tavern beside the shipyard, Vane walks directly behind Margaret and stares down anyone who dares comment on her presence, letting the grip of one of the pistols barely peek out from beneath his coat. He takes an immediate dislike to Margaret’s contact, a Mr. Ballard, a ridiculous puffed-up peacock of a man with soft hands and a haughty air. Though she takes a seat across from Ballard, Vane opts to remain standing, so that he’s always in Ballard’s line of sight.

Even though she’s in a dress with her hair pinned up, what Vane has come to think of as her proper lady disguise, Margaret manages to look piratical with her deadpan expression and alert eyes and the lamplight glinting off the silver rings in her ears and brass buttons of her sea coat.

Ballard’s bloodshot eyes flicker from Maragaret to Vane and back. “I see the Adventure is registered to a M. Sullivan.”

Margaret’s face is mildly amused. “Correct. I’m Margaret Sullivan.”

“How did a woman --”

She cuts Ballard off. “With difficulty.”

“And why would you be seeking two long nines, Miss Sullivan?”

“Mrs. Not Miss.”

“Very well, then, why would you be seeking two long nines, Mrs. Sullivan?”

Margaret spreads her hands in a broad gesture. “It’s a dangerous life at sea, Mr. Ballard, full of smugglers and pirates and all manner of cutthroats. The Adventure needs to be able to defend herself.” Vane quickly hides his smirk by lighting a cigar using the candle on the table..

“Surely, Mrs. Sullivan, you know such cannons command a premium.”

Margaret frowns slightly at the rather inflated price Ballard names. She begins to rise from her chair. “I regret that we’ve wasted one another’s time, Mr. Ballard.”

“Just so you’re aware, I used to sail with William Kidd. You should always know who you’re doing business with, Mrs. Sullivan.” Smug bastard. Vane wants to punch the self-satisfied leer off his pompous face.

Margaret regards Ballard dispassionately. “In that case, I propose we race for this deal. Skiffs. Shipyard to Red Hook and back, through Buttermilk Channel both ways.”

“Mrs. Sullivan, I realize you’re fairly new to the area, so I must warn you that the currents in Buttermilk Channel are --”

“An opportunity to demonstrate skill,” she finishes for him, voice calm.

Vane turns his head so Ballard won’t see him barely suppress a seawolf’s smile. Margaret used to make extra spending money by racing skiffs in Nassau Harbour against newly-arrived sailors. Getting beaten by Margaret Teach was something of a rite of passage for would-be pirates.

“You’re challenging me to race your, ah,” Ballard’s eyes slide over to Vane, who blows a perfect smoke ring and otherwise keeps his face stoic, “associate?”

“No.” Margaret leans in slightly. “I’m challenging you to race me.”

“And what are your terms?”

“If you win, I’ll pay your asking price plus an additional ten guineas. If I win, you give me the two guns. For free.”

Vane sees the man’s greed and pride plain on his face; he’ll take pleasure in watching Ballard lose. They troop down the pier to a pair of skiffs. Margaret and Ballard each row to the middle of the river and raise their sails. One of Ballard’s men fires a powder charge from a pistol to mark the start, and they’re off. Vane can imagine the keen, hungry look on Margaret’s face, one he’s seen so many times when in pursuit of a prize. Crouched low with one hand on the lines and the other on the tiller, she heels the little skiff as hard as she can without capsizing it to pick up speed, maneuvering so that she’s on a beam reach with the sail halfway out. Ballard is far more cautious; he leans his skiff far less, and more than once he eases the sheets for a smoother ride.

Vane leans on the railing of the pier, watching and smoking as Margaret rounds the northern tip of Nutten Island into Buttermilk Channel and her sail goes out of sight. The winter constellations wheel overhead in a suddenly clear sky; the wind is shifting. Between the changeable gusts, the currents in this tidal strait, and the cold, he almost pities Ballard. He doesn’t trust the bastard not to try to pull some dirty trick out on the water, and he wishes he had a spyglass. It’s not long before Margaret is back in sight on the return, beating to windward in a series of quick tacks and trailed at some distance by Ballard whose tacks are not nearly so precise and whose sail he allows to luff too soon. Margaret has docked and is back on the pier by the time Ballard starts rowing back in. She heads directly to Vane, her eyes shining and the grimness temporarily gone from her face, and the knot in his chest eases, the weight in the pit of his stomach lessens. He takes his position at her back as Ballard walks up, winded from his exertions.

“Where did you learn to sail like that?”

“My father taught me.” Margaret’s gaze is direct, and Vane thinks the man finally shows enough sense to look abashed. “I trust that you’ll uphold your end of our bargain post-haste.”

“Just so you’re aware,” Vane growls over her shoulder, “her maiden name was Teach.” He watches recognition of the name -- and fear of it -- dawn in the man’s eyes. Good. “You should always know who you’re doing business with, Mr. Ballard.”

He wonders briefly if Margaret will be angry at him for intervening, but no. She looks back at him and grins triumphantly. Ballard all but stammers out orders to his men to move the guns to the Adventure immediately, then takes his leave.

Margaret and Vane stand side by side at the dry dock, watching Ballard’s men hoist the two cannons aboard.

“Bow chaser and stern chaser?” Vane asks. That’s what he would do with the new guns. For pirates and smugglers, it’s crucial to be able to slow down an enemy ship when the Adventure's small broadside can’t be brought to bear.

Margaret nods. “Just so.” After the race, she is almost lighthearted for the first time since they’ve been reunited, a spring back in her step and the strain around her eyes and mouth relaxed. “The old girl might not be in dry dock now if she’d had them when I was fetching you.”

“Or if you hadn’t fetched me.” He intends to sound jocular, but it comes out defensive.

She fixes him with a look that he can’t read. “Martyrs don’t have to answer for their deeds.” There is no venom in her voice. “And they are absolutely no fucking assistance at sailing.”

“We worked well together,” he offers, trying to ignore the sting of her words.

“We still do.” Is that a hint of wistfulness he detects? “Thank you for accompanying me tonight.”

“Always, Magpie.”

Margaret was surrounded by pirates from another crew, who were accusing her of stealing from them and shouting to “hold the bloody little bitch down.” She was fighting hard. Her shirt was torn, her cheek was gashed, and there was a wild terror in her eyes that he’d never seen there before, that he never wanted to see there again. She’d shot two of them and stabbed a third by the time Vane and Sully ran to her aid. Together, they dispatched three more. The remaining two, now that they were outnumbered, fled. He and Sully exchanged a dark look: we will make them pay for this. They walked her back to the Revenge camp, one on either side of her, then went on the hunt. They dragged the two who’d escaped back, and dropped their bloodied, barely-conscious bodies in the sand by the bonfire. Margaret hadn’t been nearly as grateful as they thought she’d have been. No, she was resentful about it. When asked what she wanted done with those last two attackers, she simply pulled a knife from her belt, slit their throats, then stalked off. Vane found her sitting a ways down the beach, elbows on her knees, blood-splattered, staring out to sea.

He sat beside her. “It bothers you that it bothers you. Them coming after you as they did. Needing help.”

She looked startled that he understood. “Yes.” She bit her lower lip, thinking, and finally said “Thank you for helping me tonight.”

“Always, Magpie.”

And then he was drawing her closer and her hands were tangling in his hair and his lips were on hers and he wasn’t sure whether it was her pulse he felt throbbing or his own. Strange that she should have begun to tremble then, once the danger had passed and she was safe in his arms.

Later, Sully told Vane that those shits weren’t entirely wrong about her, and Vane was going to fight him for insulting her, until Sully explained that their thieving Magpie had stolen them both and didn’t even seem to realize what she’d done.

Did she edge nearer? She edged nearer. He realizes that they’ve been looking into each other’s eyes without speaking for a long moment, and he’s about gathered the nerve to put his arms ‘round her when she shakes her head as if clearing it of whatever thoughts she’s having. She waves a hand at the Adventure.

“Our names will be on the manifest as Margaret and Charles Sullivan to get out of port.” At Vane’s raised brow she adds “As you pointed out, you can’t very well use your own name. I’m sure Sully would have found this hilarious.”

“Did you call him Sully while you were married to him?”

Margaret snorts.“Of course I did. He hated being called Michael.”

“Not as much as he hated being called Mick.”

The corners of Margaret’s lips turn up slightly as she reminisces. “That’s what I’d call him when I wanted to annoy him.” The way her face softens when she thinks of Sully, Vane thinks he’d been right to stand aside; no reason at all to think of the many times she gave him a similarly gentle smile.

“The only time I called him Mick, he called me Charlie-Boy and we ended up brawling. I don’t even remember who threw the first punch. You dumped a bucket of water on us and told us to stop being fucking idiots. You looked about to spit nails.”

Margaret tilts her head up and shrugs. “Fucking idiots or not, I didn’t want the two people I loved most to fight each other.”

The two people she loved most. Yes, there’s that gentle smile again.

They begin the walk back to Thieves’ Alley just as a snow squall blows in off the harbor.

“It’s pretty,” she sighs, “even if it delays us being able to get the hell out of here.” Repairs to the Adventure had come to a halt on account of the weather. She glances sidelong at him. “It’s crossed my mind that you might try to take my ship and leave without me.”

Vane winces. He can’t blame her for being gun-shy, but he feels gut-punched nonetheless. “I wouldn’t do that, Magpie. Not to you.” He would not willingly lose her a second time. Surely she knows that.

“I want to believe you.” Her voice is soft and a little sad, her eyes large and serious.

He steps in front of her, facing her, hands on her shoulders, and forces his own voice to be steady. “Betraying you was the worst mistake of my life. I give you my word that the only way I’ll fuck off without you is if you tell me to.”

She responds by resting a hand on his chest, close to his fast-beating heart. “I’m trying to believe you, Charles,” she says heavily into the small space between them. “I don’t know if I can, but I’m trying.”

“That’s more than fair.” Magpie, sweetheart, it all went so wrong, he wants to tell her. I want to mend this broken thing but I don’t know how. But the words are blockaded by the lump in his throat.

She turns her head slightly, and he follows her gaze. The Puritans on the third floor are watching out the window, pinch-faced and disapproving. Margaret gives them a jaunty wave, bringing forth a chuckle from Vane. Funny how she still has that ability, even when his heart feels like grapeshot and his stomach like ballast.

“I’m sure we’ll be waylaid with a speech about hellfire the next time either of us takes the stairs, but at least neither of us are going through life with mouths pursed like a cat’s arsehole,” he tells her. “Rooftop?”

They pick their way across the slippery roofs, past chimneys and over gables to their garrett, Margaret with her skirts hiked up, blithely ignoring the hand that Vane holds out to assist her. He opens the shutters and swings his way inside; she follows, this time taking Vane’s offered hand. She holds it a moment longer, perhaps, than necessary.

“The only invention worse than a dress,” she informs him as she yanks out the pins holding up her hair, “are stays. I don’t know how civilized women tolerate these things every day.”

He bites back the urge to offer to help her out of it and do some uncivilized things with her. Instead, he sets about building up the fire while she goes to change into trousers. He dares not even cast a glance at the shut door to her room; bad enough that she’d given him a wry half-grin at his widening eyes when she hiked up her skirts to scale a drainpipe.

He shouldn’t have been watching her. The gap between the boards in the bulkhead wall of her small cabin, where she moved when Teach decided she had become too much of a temptation to the men, was just wide enough for him to see through, and he told himself he was keeping watch so that none of the crew would see what he was seeing. She was bathing herself as best as she could on the ship, with a cloth and a basin of seawater, and he couldn’t pry his eyes away as she stretched a wiry arm overhead, the muscles of her back stretching and flexing, to wash her underarm. Life at sea is one of physical labor, and her body was sleekly muscled, feminine as a lioness. He longed to run his hands over the hard sinews and soft curves of her, the swell of her hips and the hollow of her waist. She turned to wash under her other arm, and the lantern light caught her sweet, round breasts. It was slightly chilly, and her nipples, dear god, her nipples, were hard. By this time, he’d been to the brothel numerous times with the men, who decided he was due. Yet somehow the effect she had on him was entirely different than anything he ever experienced there. She wasn’t performing; she wasn’t seducing.

He knew he shouldn’t have been watching her, but he wanted to delight her. He wanted to take those delicious peaks in his palms and his mouth then move lower, run his fingers and tongue across the bullet scars on her ribcage from where she saved his life, then lower still, through that cloud of curls at her cleft. He found himself wondering how she would taste, what noises she would make, what kind of touch would make her melt. He knew she was still a maiden, that nobody had ever touched her there... He inhaled sharply at the thought and she must have heard him because she tensed and grabbed a knife as she checked that the door was bolted. The image of her naked body coiling in preparation to fight seared itself into his memory, replayed countless times in the intervening years. He willed himself to be silent and after a moment she seemed to decide it was a false alarm. She pulled on a clean shirt and breeches then sat down on one hip, legs curled to the side, and unplaited her hair to comb it. He thought she looked like a mermaid luring sailors to their doom, and he’d have gladly drowned if she beckoned him. The next day while she was working abovedecks, he caulked the gap in the boards.

Tag list: @whenimaunicorn, @n3rdybird