#vote 4 ocean

[astralelaine]

Not the best composition but OCEAN. IM INLOVE WITH YOU.

[timeisacephalopod]

Part of being Canadian is how similar we are to the US, and honestly not a single person on earth I think could genuinely pin point the difference between Canadian and American culture but the average Canadian. Americans assume we're the same as them (we aren't), even a bunch of Canadians think we're Americans, especially around voting seasons, and about half our cultural identity is "we're Not American!" but there are some cultural differences and if we all spoke French equally we could have had a language distinction but nooooo. Despite not being America unfortunately such a fuck off massive country right below your teeny tiny ass country (population wise) does result in a cultural avalanche from said fuck off massive country. Especially when you share a language.

The war of 1812 will forever be funny to me though because Americans were like "hmm maybe Canadians would also like to tell the British to fuck off, we will invade to show them!" And Canada was like *burns down the white house* and we've been tentatively chill with each other ever since lmao (even when we probably like. Shouldn't be cool with America but like. We could not risk that implosion politically or otherwise it'd be suicide).

[clamsjams]

my favorite genre of tag on this post are the ones that are extremely in character:

pls consider reblogging for a larger sample size

[brilliant-soul]

I want someone to do those 'what do you associate w X place' polls for Canadian provinces

[thyme-in-a-bubble]

young ladies shouldn’t waltz with vampires

a/n: happy halloween!!! here's the fic you guys voted on and shaped a few weeks ago

polls for this fic: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5

summary: “so, here’s the thing,” his ocean eyes then flickered in the same manner Steve’s had, mystically bending your mind to his will, “you’re gonna come with us, be ours to play with for the night. You can go home when the sun comes up, but without remembering the time we shared…” 

warnings: vampire!bucky barnes x innocent!reader x vampire!steve rogers, smut, dark content, dubcon/noncon, historical au (1840s), mind control/vampire compulsion, blood, biting, age gap, ball, dancing, polyamory, threesome, first kiss, kissing, loss of virginity, somno, cockwarming, dirty talk, size kink, pain kink, pussyjob, overstimulation, penetrative sex, anal, double penetration, unprotected sex

word count: 3511

∼ gentle reminder that feedback, but especially reblogs are the way you support writers on here ∽

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“I have to admit, out of every rose here, you’re the most breathtaking.” 

Glancing up from the table before you, cluttered with crystal glasses brimming with refreshments, your eyes flickered to the man now standing beside you, his own piercing blue stare firmly directed at you and no one else in the buzzing ballroom. 

Your stunned lips parted slightly before the gentleman boldly spoke up again, “how come I’ve never seen you before?” 

Feeling your breath hitch, you managed to babble, “oh, it’s probably because this is my first time at a proper ball. I haven’t really previously been allowed to come stay at my family’s London estate and–, I’m sorry…” you swiftly stopped yourself, sensing the heat that had ridden in your cheeks, “I don’t know why I’m telling you all of this…”

“Well, lucky us that you got let out of your cage and the rest of us finally get to gaze upon your beauty,” he flashed you a dazzling smile before his eyes flickered to someone behind you, “if you’ll excuse me, I see someone I recognise, but would you perhaps grant me the pleasure of a dance a little later?” 

Averting your gaze, a smile tugged at your lips as you uttered, “you’d have to ask my brother.” 

“But I’m asking you,” he dipped down to catch your vision, “would you care to dance with me?” 

Blinking back at him, you couldn’t help but let out the truth.

“Y-yes.” 

As a smile swiftly tilted his lips, the gentleman then bowed slightly before you as he plucked up your gloved hand and pressed his lips to the back of it before disappearing into the merry crowd. 

Feeling slightly dizzy, you finally snatched up the drink you’d originally wandered to this corner of the chamber to fetch. 

Though as you granted yourself a small sip, fingers suddenly grasped your arm and yanked you deeper into a corner. 

“Sister!” you blinked up into your brother’s eyes as he’d evidently spotted you from across the ballroom and, judging by his tone, not approved of what he’d seen, “what in the world do you think you’re doing?”

Ripping your arm free, you furrowed your brows, “what are you talking about? I was just getting some punch.”

“No,” he hissed at a hushed volume, “why were you talking to him?”

A confused scoff then bubbled out past your lips, “I’ve talked to plenty of men at this party, with and without you at my side, so why is he any different?”

“Because, sister,” he leaned down a bit further, “he’s not a man. He’s one of them,” his eyes scanned your own before he spelled it out, “a vampire.” 

Though you’d never previously encountered one yourself, you still weren’t so naive to not be aware of the known influential status such creatures of the night had in the society you lived in. Them being in attendance at a fine ball was nothing compared to the other privileges they had achieved over the centuries. 

“Really?” you couldn’t help but glance back over your shoulder, though didn’t spot the bloodsucker again. 

“God,” your brother groaned quietly, “I know mother and papa have kept you rather sheltered compared to myself, but trust me, you have to stay away from them. They’re monsters, killing is in their nature,” with a hand on your cheek, he guided your gaze back to his, “promise me you won’t speak to one ever again.”

Blinking back at him, you then uttered sincerely, “I promise.”

“Good,” a visible weight then faded from his shoulders as he let go of you and straightened back up to his full height. 

As you stayed on the outskirts of the party, one of your fingers curved to trace the lines of the fine glass still clutched in your grasp. 

Soon your eyes flickered up from the liquid remaining in the goblet and landed on the other guests. Elegant crinoline gowns swooshed and swayed to the music emanating from the small string quartet in the corner, acting as a heartbeat for the lords and ladies of London as they danced the night away. 

“Well, as I live and breathe,” a voice then found not only your brother’s ears, but yours as well. 

Twisting slightly, you watched as a wide grin swiftly stretched your brother’s lips, “Thomas!” he spread his arms out for the redheaded man nearly within his reach. 

As they pulled each other into a tight hug, your brother’s friend chimed in his ear, “how you doing, old chap?” before withdrawing from the embrace, though still kept one palm fast on your sibling’s shoulder. 

“Not bad, not bad–, oh, Tommy,” your brother then suddenly glanced back at you, “this is my little sister,” gesturing betwixt you both, “sister, this is Thomas, we went to boarding school together.”

Extending a hand, you smiled politely, “it’s nice to meet you.”

“You too,” he shook your palm before casting his gaze back upon your chaperone, “would you mind if I stole your brother for a moment?”

“Uhm,” you glanced to your sibling before uttering, “no, of course not. Go, have fun, catch up.”

And before the pair slipped away, your brother leaned down to whisper in your ear, “be good till I get back,” to which you offered him a nod in return right before they both vanished from your sight and left you alone at the edge of the dance floor. 

Though as you slowly began to wander along the perimeter, your gaze once again affixed upon the sea of swaying pairs in the centre of the ballroom, your gentle stride then abruptly halted as a bulky figure shifted to pass you, though as the stranger attempted to, the two of you collided and the remainder of the drink in your hand splashed across his jacket.

You both froze as you slowly peeled your wide eyes up from the stain of your drink, that lightly dripped from his clothing, and instead flickered up to find the stare of the aristocrat you’d accidentally bumped into. 

“Oh god…” your heartbeat swiftly hammered in your ears, deafening out the elegant music that filled the chamber, “sir, I am so sorry, I-I wasn’t looking at where I was going and–”

“It’s alright,” he hastily put an end to your blubbering as he eyed the soaked patch, “it’ll dry,” he uttered, running a broad palm down over the wetness. Though as his gaze flickered back up to find yours, a slight smirk tugged at the corners of his lips as he then said, “well, spilling your drink on me, the least you can do is offer me your name so that I know who to warn about to the people who actually are precious about their attire.”

“Lady Y/n Y/l/n,” you averted your gaze as your knees bent in a gentle curtsy, “delighted to make your acquaintance, even under the circumstances–, again, I am so incredibly sorry…”

“You’re a lady but with such lack of grace? Well, now I understand why you aren’t on the floor dancing with someone,” he jested in a teasing tone. 

The heat that had already crept up in your cheeks fiercely worsened, “I am a great dancer, I’ll have you know!”

“Oh really?” a smile dazzled his features, “I think I’ll have to see that to believe it,” he spoke as the current song came to an end and he extended a hand out to you, “shall we?”

For a moment, you let your glance flicker about the chamber in search of your brother, though when you couldn’t spot him, you found your own palm thinking for itself and gliding into the man’s standing tall before you. 

Once he’d led you out onto the floor, the palm he slid across your waist, and used to guide you a smidge closer to his own frame, caused a shy gasp to slip past your lips long before your feet began to shift below your poofy plum coloured gown. 

“Well, I guess you weren’t lying after all,” you soon heard him note after you’d danced for a minute, your movements having been nothing short of perfection since the very first step. 

Blinking up at the blonde man holding onto you tight, you finally asked, “what is your name, sir?”

“Lord Steven Rogers,” the title rolled off his tongue as his own gaze kept yours captive, “at your service, my lady.”

“Are you from here? You don’t sound it,” you commented on his accent, “but are you?”

“That’s a good question,” a slight tilt found his head, “London is one of my favourite places and I have spent many of my years here, but it’s not where I’m from, no.”

“So, you’ve travelled a lot?” you asked as he spun you an arm’s length away from himself. 

“You could say that…” he smirked as he twirled you back into his hold, “are you?”

“Am I what?” you found yourself slightly dizzy, though not from the dancing. 

“From London?”

“Well, my family does have a place here, but I haven’t spent much of my time in the city. At least not yet, I’m hoping I can begin to now that I’m grown, though to be quite frank, I have no idea where to start.”

“I could be your guide,” his offer caught you off guard, “it might have been a few years since I last called this city my home, but I still know it like the back of my hand.”

Mouth shyly agape, you simply blinked back at him a second before uttering, “perhaps if my brother came along as a chaperone.”

“I thought you said you were grown,” the tone he used to deliver his teasing seeped directly into your bones and made you thankful of his firm grip on you as the pair of you continued to sway to the music, “a girl asks for permission and can’t be trusted on her own, but a woman however, takes exactly what she desires and doesn’t let anyone or anything stand in her way…” his smouldering stare then briefly dipped before you heard him murmur, “so, what are you? A little girl or a woman?”

“I–…” you blinked back at him, struggling to navigate the exhilaratingly foreign situation you found yourself in. However, before you could stammer any further, the song came to a close and the surrounding couples parted ways. 

Though before you could take even one step back, his hand kept you close a moment longer as he dipped down for his breath to tickle the shell of your ear. 

“Meet me in the garden,” he whispered, causing even more goosebumps to erupt across your skin, “then you can give me your answer...” 

The cool night air kissed your cheeks as your glance flickered away from the candlelit terrace you’d abandoned only moments prior in order to stand beside the bushy mouth of the dark hedge maze further down the expanse of the estate’s garden. Faint music still found your ears as it echoed out the open windows of the grand manor where the ball still boomed. 

Then suddenly, as you were lost in your thoughts of disbelief at what you were doing, just before you could talk yourself into returning to the party, you felt your hand be grabbed before your eyes fluttered up to find the lord you’d been awaiting, his arrival haven been so sudden that it nearly caused you to jump straight out of your skin. 

Without a single word, Steve began to drag you into the maze, far away from any prying eyes and where the darkness could swallow you both whole.

“Where are you taking me–,” you attempted to ask, though as the man then abruptly stopped, what he did next stunned you to your very core. 

Pulling you close, closer than you’d ever been to any man before, he then pressed his lips to your own, sufficiently shutting you up before you could elaborate your question any further. 

The kiss was abrupt, fevered and entirely your first, leaving you dazed and reeling to catch up to the reality, to the dream you were finally expecting.

When Steve finally felt you relax into him, his feet began to shuffle and shift you back till your spine was pressed up against the denseness of the hedge behind you. 

But just as a shy whimper from you vibrated against his tongue and your fingers drifted up to whisper around his silky necktie, the snapping of a twig suddenly found your ears and caused you to jump away from your dance partner. 

Casting your glance over Steve’s broad shoulder, you spotted as the dark-haired gentleman, that your brother had so fiercely warmed you about, slithered out from the embrace of the shadows. 

“Oh, don’t stop on my account,” the man smirked, folding his arms across his wide chest as he continued to stare. 

Eyes wide, you then began to stammer, “Steve,” lightly patting your partner’s arm as he hadn’t yet shifted to protect you with an air of understanding, “h-he’s a–” 

“A vampire?” the aristocratic creature raised an eyebrow, “how about you take another look at the lord that just had his tongue down your throat.” 

Your panicked glare then fluttered back to Steve in front of you, however, before you could manage to push him away, his hands flew up to either side of your face and he dipped down to stare into your eyes with an intense you’d never witnessed before, somehow locking you up in his gaze as he then compelled you, “don’t scream,” and under the moonlight, you swore you saw his pupils briefly dilate as his wish slithered into your soul, “stay calm.” 

Continuing to cup your cheeks, Steve then kissed you once again. Even though his previous words had turned you completely docile in his hold, the sensation of his lips as they soon pecked away from your own, on a determined journey down over your jaw, caused you to melt away that much further.

The neckline of your deep purple gown was so wide that it exposed not only your shoulders, but also crept down scandalously low on your chest. 

Your eyes fluttered shut once more as his kisses tickled in their path down your neck, the sensation shooting straight down between your thighs. However, as soon as Steve’s lips were devouring the tender spot where the base of your throat blossomed into your shoulder, a sharp pain suddenly caused your eyes to snap back open as the vampire had sunk his teeth into you. 

You winced slightly as blood began to trickle free, your gaze locked with the other man’s as he took a step forward and closed the gap. Standing directly behind Steve, his hand then raised up to stroke your hair.

“So, here’s the thing,” his ocean eyes then flickered in the same manner Steve’s had, mystically bending your mind to his will, “you’re gonna come with us, be ours to play with for the night. You can go home when the sun comes up, but without remembering the time we shared…” 

Though you’d barely gotten to sleep an hour, you began to stir as the vampire sprawled out in front of your slumbering form kissed down your neck and swiftly sank his fangs into your shoulder. 

Wincing awake and still weak from the blood the two lords had already drained you off, your hiss soon faded into a mumble, “Buck…”

Tilting his chin back a bit, Bucky lapped up the crimson that trickled down from the bite before he whispered, “shh, you can just stay asleep…” and you noticed his hardness straining against you below the covers, “it’s okay, I don’t mind…”

You couldn’t fathom how the vampire still wasn’t satiated after everything that had happened that night, things a lady such as yourself had never dared to even imagine possible. Even now, you were still slotted in between the two naked men under the canopy of a bed in the grand estate they’d taken you to, your virgin blood still staining the sheets, or the little of it that they hadn’t lapped up for themselves to savour. 

Though the restless one before you had stirred you for another taste, Steve was still sleeping like a rock. He was laying directly behind you, his burly chest still pressed up against your spine as earlier, when he’d impulsively tried to stretch out your ass, made the decision to do something about that impossible tightness and have that little hole warm his intimidating girth while he slumbered. It made it difficult, to say the least, for rest to come to you as the sensation of his fat cock plugging you up was nearly too much for you to bear. 

“Oh, what is it?” Bucky chuckled lowly at the wince you let out as he began to nudge his dick against your puffy pussy, “are you sore?” he asked in a mocking tone, grinning wider as you nodded hazily in response, “but you like it, don’t you?” he torturously tapped the weight of his length against the creamy mess between your thighs, the sensation causing both your holes to throb and clench, making Steve’s cock still embedded deep within you seem that much more enormous, “you like it when it hurts, when the sting of pain mixes with pleasure…” he then caught your eye and compelled you, “tell me that you like it.”

“I like it,” you hear the desperate word flow out your lungs, “please don’t stop, please keep hurting me, keep biting me, drink every drop of my blood, use me however you wish, it all feels so good–, ah!” the pleas he’d made you utter were then cut off by a rippling moan as his bulbous tip suddenly caught your entrance and greedily slid back into your warmth. 

The fierce rhythm Bucky swiftly found rocked you so roughly that the movements didn’t just split your poor pussy open as he bucked up into you, but it also caused your frame to shift back against Steve and sink you down that much further on his cock, letting his heavy sack nuzzle tightly against your slick skin. 

As your whimpers filled the room and mingled with Bucky’s own grunts of pleasure, you felt the girth in your ass twitch and rapidly grow painfully hard before the arm the slumbering bloodsucker had slumped around your waist tightened as he stirred with a low rumble directly in your ear. 

“Mmm… having a little midnight snack, are we?” Steve groggily hummed from behind you as he nuzzled his nose into your tousled hair, “you know she’ll pass out soon if we keep drinking like this.”

“You say that like it’s a bad thing,” Bucky then slid his palm down the length of your arm, plucking up your hand till his lips ghosted against it. However, just as you let yourself hope that he’d just plant a peck upon your palm, his teeth instead pierced the flesh, right below your thumb. Although, the vampire did show some restraint as he only offered you a little nip before ripping your hand away from his mouth and holding it out for his partner to grasp, “here, you look parched,” blood already began to pool like a little puddle in your palm from how it slowly oozes out of the wound. 

Accepting the delicacy, Steve first dragged his silky tongue over the bite, before he let his fangs sink into you with a deep groan, the taste of you only making him harder. As he began to drink from your palm, his hips greedily began to rock, making you tremble between the two lords of the night from the dizzying manner they both now fucked you. 

As your moans filled the night air, Bucky’s fingers found your face in a caress before he leaned in to snuff out your sounds and let you taste the tangy iron of yourself on his tongue. Soon, his kisses began to dance down over the column of your neck, till his face was buried in your heaving tits, leaving a blossoming trail of hickeys to mark his path as he moved down to capture your nipple between his lips.  

“I know we usually only keep our dinner till the morning comes,” Bucky muttered as he nipped at your boobs, only pausing to briefly glance over your shoulder at the man behind you, “but there’s something different about this one, don’t you agree, Steve?” 

“She’s fucking delicious…” you heard him purr in your ear, “maybe you could be more than just a quick bite to eat…” both of their cocks continued to rock in harmony, filling your holes up to more than the brim, “maybe you can be our girl…” 

Sucking in a shaky breath, you tilted your head to catch both of their eyes, “for how long?” 

Keeping his neck tilted, Bucky blinked up at you and uttered, “…forever,” before he buried his teeth into the soft peak of your tit.

© 2024 thyme-in-a-bubble 

[bestanimal]

Round 2 - Arthropoda - Pycnogonida

(Sources - 1, 2, 3, 4)

Pycnogonida is a class containing one order: Pantopoda, which means “all feet.” A fitting name for creatures that seem to be made entirely of legs. Commonly called “Sea Spiders”, they are not spiders, nor are they arachnids, but are actually a sister group to all other living arthropods.

Pycnogonids live in most oceans. Most are tiny, living in relatively shallow water, though some can grow to be quite large in antarctic and deep waters. Some pycnogonids are so small that each of their muscles consists of a single cell. They have a proboscis which they use to suck nutrients from soft bodied invertebrates such as cnidarians, sponges, polychaetes, and bryozoans. They can also insert their proboscis into anemones, though this rarely kills the anemone. The pycnogonid digestive tract extends into their legs. They are segmented, with the first body segment (the cephalon) consisting of the proboscis, the ocular tubercle with up to 4 simple eyes, a pair of chelifores, a pair of palps, a pair of ovigers, and the first pair of walking legs. Ovigers are used for cleaning themselves, courtship, and caring for eggs and young. Nymphonidae is the only family where both the chelifores and palps (sensory organs) remain functional. In others, these limbs are reduced or absent, instead relying on a well-developed and flexible proboscis equipped with sensory bristles. Pycnogonids are usually comprised of eight walking legs, but the family Pycnogonidae includes species with ten, and the families Colossendeidae and Nymphonidae include species with up to twelve legs! While most species have up to 4 eyes, some deep-sea species lack them entirely. Pycnogonids do not have a traditional respiratory system, instead absorbing oxygen through their legs and diffusing it throughout their body via hemolymph. Their small, long, thin hearts beat vigorously at 90 to 180 beats per minute, creating substantial blood pressure. Their nervous system consists of a brain which is connected to two ventral nerve cords, which in turn connect to specific nerves. Like other arthropods, they molt their exoskeleton as they grow.

Pycnogonid reproduction involves external fertilization after a brief courtship involving the male stroking the larger female with his ovigers and receiving the eggs if she is responsive. The couple must adjust their position until the genital pores on their legs are perfectly aligned. Only males will care for eggs and young, and in some species only the males will have ovigers while the females do not, as these limbs are used mainly for carrying and cleaning the eggs. Larvae consist only of a head with chelifores, palps and ovigers. Extra segments and legs emerge as it grows into an adult. There are at least four different types of larvae. The typical protonymphon larva is most common, is free living and gradually turns into an adult. The encysted larva spends its larval days as a parasite, finding a host in a colony of polyps, burrowing into one, turning into a cyst, and not leaving the host until it has become a juvenile. The atypical protonymphon larva lives on or within a temporary host such as a clam or polychaete worm, does not encyst or otherwise harm their host, and leaves them as an adult. Lastly, the attaching larva hatches as an embryo and immediately clings to the legs of its father, only leaving once it has two or three pairs of its own walking legs.

The pycnogonid’s cerebral appendages are unique, not found anywhere else among arthropods, except in fossils like Anomalocaris. This could mean that pycnogonids are the last surviving (highly modified) members of an ancient stem group of arthropods that lived in Cambrian oceans.

Propaganda under the cut:

They are good dads. All of them. Perfect fathers made of legs.

Their leg arrangement allows them to move forward, backward, and sideways without turning their body.

The genus Colossendeis (image 2) includes the largest pycnogonids, which live in the ocean depths. Some of them are even bioluminescent! The largest is Colossendeis colossea which can reach a leg span of 70 cm (28 in). However, their body length, including proboscis and abdomen, only reaches 7 cm (2.8 in).

About 20% of the known species of pycnogonids live in Antarctica. The cold never bothered them anyway.

One known species, Ascorhynchus corderoi, is hermaphroditic, having both ovaries and testes.

[inthedayswhenlandswerefew]

1968 [Chapter 4: Zeus, God Of Thunder]

A/N: Can you believe we're already 1/3 done with this series?? I sure can't! I hope you enjoy Chapter 4. I'm so excited to show you where we're headed. The times are indeed a-changin'... 😉

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: 7.3k

Tagging: @arcielee @huramuna @glasscandlegrenades @gemmagirlss1 @humanpurposes @mariahossain @marvelescvpe @darkenchantress @aemondssapphirebussy @haslysl @bearwithegg @beautifulsweetschaos @travelingmypassion @althea-tavalas @chucklefak @serving-targaryen-realness @chaoticallywriting @moonfllowerr @rafeism @burningcoffeetimetravel-fics @herfantasyworldd @mangosmootji @sunnysideaeggs @minttea07 @babyblue711

💜 All of my writing can be found HERE! 💜

You unzip the floral suitcase that Alicent gave the nurses to pack for you. Inside are the hundreds of greeting cards sent by people from the Atlantic to the Rockies; downstairs, Eudoxia is distributing a dozen bouquets of flowers throughout the house with appropriate grimness, and more arrive each hour. You lift cards out of the suitcase by the handful and lay them down on your bed. Every movement feels slow, every thought muddled, bare feet in cold wet sand that swallows you to your ankles. The windows are open, the sheer curtains billowing. The wind whips in off the ocean, smelling of brine and sun glare, life and death.

Aemond emerges from the bathroom in a gale of steam. He finishes adjusting his eyepatch and then dresses himself: white shorts, blue polo. Aemond wears a lot of blue. It is Greek, is it American, it is the Democratic Party, it is the color of the sky that was once believed to hold Olympus, it is everything he’s ever been or wanted to be. He’s humming The House Of The Rising Sun. It’s the first time you’ve truly been alone since the night before he caught his flight to Tacoma.

Beneath the greeting cards you find the books, cosmetics, and three new sundresses, none of which you ended up wearing home. Alicent bought you a plain black shift dress, matching gloves and flats, and opaque sunglasses to hide your face from the journalists who waited outside the hospital. And there is one last item to unpack. At the bottom of the suitcase is a clear plastic bag containing fabric, white dotted with bruises of common blue violets. At first you are confounded, and then you turn it over to see the dark, saturated stain of crimson. It’s the sundress you were wearing the day you were rushed to Mount Sinai to have Ari. The nurses hadn’t known if you wanted to keep it, burn it, bury it.

“Why didn’t you come back?”

Aemond’s brow furrows, like he’s surprised by the question. He goes to his writing desk and turns the chair around so it’s facing you. He sits, crosses one leg over the other, leans back and hides his hands in his pockets. His tone is gentle, but his gaze is hard. “By the time I heard that you’d had the baby, it was already over. You were out of surgery, he was in an incubator, and that was the immutable reality. I figured there was nothing I could do at that point to improve the outcome. And that’s true. Me flying back early wouldn’t have changed anything.”

“But you should have been there,” you insist, eyes wet, voice quivering. “You should have known him like I did.”

“Winning Washington was important.”

“Washington is a basket of votes, Ari was our child, he was real.”

“No one told me he was dying—”

“Because you didn’t pick up the fucking phone.”

Aemond is incredulous, like he couldn’t have heard you correctly. “It’s not like I was playing golf or drinking myself under some bar, I was campaigning 20 hours a day and it worked.”

“Nothing on earth could have kept me away from you when you got shot in Palm Beach.”

“So maybe it wasn’t just about Washington,” Aemond says, and his words aren’t gentle anymore. They are razored, dauntless, daring you to battle him. “It’s about the whole picture, it’s about the momentum. If I had underperformed in Washington, the dominoes would fall in Kentucky, and Utah, and Virginia, and then at the national convention in August, and then against Nixon in November. I don’t have the luxury of disappearing from the public eye to sit adoringly by your bedside when we both know there isn’t a single goddamn thing I can do to help.”

“It would have made you look like a better man.”

“But not a better president.”

And like a fracture being snapped back into place, you remember what Aegon said on that bloodstained night in Florida: You’re a vessel. You’re a cow. And one day he’ll be done with you. You stare down at the ruined dress entombed in plastic, still clutched in your hands. You don’t dare to let Aemond see your eyes. You’re afraid you won’t be able to disguise the betrayal glistening there. You ask, a whisper, a whimper: “Why aren’t you sad?” I thought you loved him. I thought you were always so worried about him.

“Of course I’m sad,” Aemond says, more kindly now, patiently, like he’s speaking to someone who can’t be expected to comprehend. “But it’s different for the mother.”

You can’t reply. If you do, something lethal will pour out, smoke and poison and arrows, something that shoots to kill. Ari was quietly interred at the Targaryen family mausoleum in Saint George Greek Orthodox Cemetery in Asbury Park. It had felt so wrong to leave his tiny casket there in a silent stone prison full of strangers.

Aemond is behind you now, trying to knead the tension out of your shoulders. And for the first time in two years, you wish he’d stop touching you. Your belly hurts, your head hurts, your heart hurts, you are a garden blooming with bruises and scars. “I know you aren’t in your right mind. Everything will be better soon. I promise.”

Tears gather on your eyelashes. “I miss him.”

“We’ll have others. Here, let me take that…” Aemond grabs the bag holding your ruined dress and it’s out of your reach before you can think to resist. “You should get ready for dinner.”

“Okay,” you reply numbly, now gazing down at your empty palms. Aemond leaves with his grisly parcel, and you never see it again. But once he’s gone you don’t shed your black mourning dress, blood-soaked pad, bandages, and shake loose your hair and step into the shower. Instead, you walk around the bed to pick up the mint green rotary phone on your nightstand. You speak to a series of operators before you reach the Harbour Rocks Hotel in Sydney. While you listen to the ringing through the intercontinental wire, you sit down on the bed. You’ve never felt low like this. You’ve never felt so unmoored from everything you had believed about your life.

A gruff, familiar voice answers. He’s just waking up, slurping on his morning coffee, dabbing his moustache with a napkin. “Hello?”

“Daddy, I don’t think I’m where I’m supposed to be.”

“What?” he asks, and immediately he is no longer groggy but desperately concerned. Your parents are away on a month-long tour of Australia and often incommunicado. By the time they received news of Ari’s death and called Mount Sinai in hysterics to speak with you, you had told them not to rush home. You were about to be released, and they would not make it in time for the funeral regardless. Aemond insisted on a swift, private ceremony, a detour on the drive back to Asteria, like it was something he couldn’t wait to put in his rearview mirror. “What are you talking about, sweetheart?”

“Aemond, he…” He’s not the man I thought he was. I don’t know him, I don’t trust him. “He’s not acting right, he’s not…he didn’t…Daddy, it’s like he doesn’t care. And I don’t want to be here anymore. Can I fly down to Tarpon Springs when you and Mama get back? Can I stay with you for a while? And then…and then…” You don’t even know what words you’re looking for. They don’t exist in your universe.

 “Listen, honey,” your father says with great tenderness. “Are you listening?”

“Yeah.” You’re trying to stifle your sobs so no one downstairs hears you.

“You’ve just been through something terrible. So terrible I can’t even imagine it. And of course you’re feeling out of sorts. But Aemond is your husband, he’s your protector and your ally, your best friend, your partner in life. He’s not the one responsible for what happened. You can’t misdirect your heartache at him.”

“But he’s…Daddy, there’s…there’s something wrong with him.”

“Oftentimes, it’s easier for women to talk about their emotions, both good and bad. But for men—especially men like Aemond who are so self-disciplined by nature—it can be like pulling teeth to express themselves. They don’t like to be vulnerable. They actually think they’re failing in their commitments to their wife if they let her see how much they’re struggling. Aemond is hurting just like you are. He might not show it in the way you expect, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t care. Of course he cares.”

How do you know, Daddy? Have you cut him open and studied his brain, his ropy nerves, the dark chambers of his heart? “I thought he saw me like you see Mama, I thought he included me in everything because he loved and respected me, but that’s not it. He just needs someone to help him get elected, that’s all Ari and I were to him, and I can’t…I just can’t…the thought of him touching me now…”

“Sweetheart, Aemond is a good man,” your father says. “He does love you. He does respect you. And he’s doing such incredible things for this country. I have friends in Florida who’ve been voting Republican since Hoover, but they’re crossing over for Aemond. They think he’s the one to clean up this mess. Vietnam, poverty, civil rights, the riots, the shootings, the hippies, the drugs, the Russians, the Chinese, someone has to pick up the pieces and create something that makes sense. Do you think Nixon or Humphrey would end the war by this time next year? Do you think either of them would compel the South to enforce voting rights or desegregation?”

“No,” you say, closing your eyes. But that doesn’t mean I can forget what I’ve learned about Aemond.

“Here, your mom wants to say something.” Your father vanishes; your mother’s voice comes piping across the copper submarine cables that span the length of the Pacific Ocean. You wonder—randomly, distractedly—if any of the wires connecting you to Sydney run through Arizona, the place Aegon told you he didn’t want to leave.

“Hello? Are you there?”

“I’m here, Mama.”

“Oh, honey,” she sighs, distraught, hearing the exhaustion and misery in your voice. “You’ve got the baby blues, and no baby to hold good and close to help them run their course. I’m so sorry. It’s just awful, so awful.”

You speak before you know what you’re going to say. “I don’t want to be married to Aemond anymore.”

“You’re confused, sweetheart. Your hormones are all over the place, you’re in pain, you’ve just had major surgery, and after this year with all the stress from the campaign and that horrific shooting in Palm Beach—”

“He’s not like Daddy.” Tears are flooding down your cheeks; your voice is hoarse. “I thought he was, but he’s not.”

“You cannot make a mistake like this,” your mother says, and she’s turned from silk to steel. “If you do something drastic now, you’ll wake up in a month or six months or a year and realize you’ve ruined not just your life, but the chance this country had at a better future. Don’t you realize what’s at stake here? Every marriage goes through tough times. Every husband needs to learn how to care for his wife, and every wife how to best support her husband. That’s natural, and you’ve only been married two years. Of course you and Aemond are still learning how to navigate life together. It only seems so much worse because of what’s happened to the baby.”

Is she right? Am I wrong? “I don’t know,” you say weakly.

“If you leave now, what happens?” your mother demands. “You abandon the campaign and Aemond’s support plummets. You are a divorcee, a sinner, a failure. You don’t get your son back. But you do lose everything you’ve helped build. Marriage isn’t an experiment, ‘oh let’s give it a try and if we hit any bumps we’ll call the whole thing off.’ No. It’s a covenant. Marriage is for life.”

Yes it is, in just about every faith, and certainly for the Greek Orthodox Church. You are suddenly consumed by mistrust for your own body, this flesh that failed your son and now is deceiving you with doubt so heavy—like cold iron or lead or platinum—it masquerades as truth. How could you imagine a life after Aemond? What waits for you in Tarpon Springs besides the promise of an eventual remarriage that is banal, powerless, bleak, exactly what you’ve always plotted so willfully to avoid?

“Do you understand me, honey?” your mother asks, and she’s soft and kind again. “I don’t mean to be strict with you. My heart breaks for you, and I love you. I’m not trying to upset you. I’m trying to protect you from yourself.”

“Yes.” There are people getting massacred in Vietnam right now; there are people who can’t afford roofs over their heads. Who am I to complain? Your tears have stopped; your breathing is now slow and measured. “Yes, Mama. I understand.”

After you’ve hung up, you stay where you are for a long time, your hands folded limply in your lap and gazing at the paintings hung on the pale blue walls: small replicas of The Birth of Venus, Romulus and Remus, Prometheus Bound, Perseus Rescuing Andromeda, Echo and Narcissus, Jupiter and Io. Then you get up to sift through the greeting cards you’ve piled on the bed, not really seeing them. Only one captures your attention. Only one jolts you out of the fog like a flash of lightning through dark churning clouds.

You take the card Aegon gave you back when you were still a mother and set it upright on your nightstand, consider it for a while, wander into the bathroom to scrub the despair from your skin and change into something less somber for dinner.

~~~~~~~~~~

You’re playing Battleship with Cosmo by the edge of the swimming pool while all the other children splash around, howling with laughter and diving for toys they throw to the bottom and then fetch with their teeth like golden retrievers, G.I. Joes and Barbies and Trolls and even a waterlogged Mr. Potato Head. The nannies are observing intently, poised to leap in if anyone should appear to be at risk of drowning. If Ari had lived, I wouldn’t have wanted nannies to raise him, you think. I would have wanted him to have a normal childhood. I would have wanted to know him.

“Your turn,” Cosmo says with a grin. He’s the one who looks the most like Aegon, or how you imagine Aegon must have looked before the pills and the booze and the long caged decades. His hair is so light a blonde it’s nearly white, his eyes huge and glimmering and mischievous. Battleship is a bit advanced for a five-year-old. Cosmo keeps guessing the same coordinates over and over, so you periodically lie and tell him he’s sunk one of your ships. When you launch a successful attack against his, he seems to think it’s fair game to relocate the vessel to a more advantageous location.

“D7.”

He picks up his aircraft carrier and repositions it. From the record player drifts California Dreamin’. “Nope! Nothing sank!”

“Wow. I’m so bad at this.”

Cosmo is snickering. “Yeah, you are. Really bad.”

“If I got drafted, the Army would be better off leaving me at home. I’d just be a nuisance.”

“What’s drafted?”

“Never mind. Your turn to guess.”

“J12!”

The grid only goes up to 10. Nonetheless, you slap your own forehead dramatically. “Oh no, not again! You sunk my battleship!”

“Yay!” Cosmo cheers, then turns to the Jacuzzi. It’s brand new, just installed last month. “Mom, did you see? I’m winning!”

You glance over at Mimi. She has passed out, her latest Gimlet drained and her head resting atop her crossed arms, propped on the rim of the Jacuzzi. “Uh, Cosmo, run inside and ask Doxie to make you a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, okay?”

“Okay.” He scampers off, toddling on reckless little legs.

With no shortage of difficulty, you manage to stand. Each day your abdominal muscles feel less like they’ve been shredded and then mended with threads of fire, but the pain is still bad, very bad, and there are spots of skin on your belly that are numb when you skim your fingertips across them. You will have a long vertical scar like Aemond’s, an irreparable reminder of the blood you’ve paid to the cause. And for all your anguish, this particular fact doesn’t torment you. It is proof that Ari existed, however briefly, however futilely.

You amble over to the Jacuzzi, your roomy lavender dress flowing in the wind, and shove one of Mimi’s shoulders. “Mimi, wake up. Get out of the water.”

She mumbles incoherently in response. You reach for her before remembering you can’t lift anything. You look around. Alicent and Helaena are on lounge chairs at the other end of the pool; Alicent is trying very hard to look interested while Helaena shows her about 100 different butterfly species pictured in a kaleidoscopically colorful book. Criston is off giving Ludwika a tour of the property, flanked by a flock of Alopekis hoping for treats. Ludwika is Otto’s wife of six months but only newly arrived, 30 years old, perpetually unimpressed, modelesque, golden blonde, if Barbie was from Poland. Aemond, Otto, and Viserys��his sparse threads of silver hair hanging like cobwebs around his gaunt face, grimacing and clutching the armrests of his wheelchair—are conspiring on the lawn between the main house and the pool. They haven’t noticed your predicament. Fosco is sauntering by wearing some of the tiniest swim shorts you’ve ever seen. He is the son of an Italian count, gangly and chatty and from what you’ve seen almost certainly addicted to gambling.

“Will you help me move Mimi, please?” you ask him. “I’m afraid she’s going to drown.”

“Of course, of course, no problem. Let me handle it. Do not hurt yourself.” He has her half-dragged out of the Jacuzzi before Mimi startles awake.

“What’s going on?” she slurs. “Put me down, I can walk.”

“I doubt it,” you say.

“You are alright?” Fosco asks Mimi as he steadies her on the cement, wet with pool water. She clutches at his forearms helplessly.

“I’m fine. Absolutely fine.”

“Mimi, go inside,” you say. “Eat a sandwich. Tell Cosmo you’re proud of him for winning Battleship.”

“Battleship? Well, that’s just ridiculous. He’s five. Five-year-olds can’t play Battleship.”

“And yet you will congratulate him regardless.”

She can feel your impatience, your judgement, sharp like wasp stings. Mimi retreats like a kicked dog to the main house, somehow summoning the will to remain mostly upright.

You look to Fosco. “Do you know where Aegon is?” You want to see him, but you also don’t; each time you’re in the same room now is a disorienting storm of familiarity, curiosity, painful reminders, annoyance, awkwardness, longingness to again feel as close to him—to anyone—as you did during those fleeting moments at Mount Sinai Hospital in Manhattan.

Fosco chuckles. “Where is he ever? Napping, sailing, drinking, on the phone with one of his lady friends. I could not say. I have not seen him recently.”

“Okay. Thanks anyway.” The music stops—the record needs to be flipped over—and now you can just barely hear what Aemond, Otto, and Viserys are discussing.

“And you criticized me for going too young,” Aemond says to Otto. “What’s your age difference with Ludwika? 40 years?”

“She’s good publicity. She defected from the Eastern Bloc in search of the American Dream.”

“Being married to you?” Aemond quips. “I think she found the American Nightmare.”

“Speaking of wives,” Otto continues. “I assume since yours had one surgery, that’s how all the future children will need to be born, is that right?”

Aemond nods, frowning. “Yeah. And the doctors said she shouldn’t have more than three. It weakens the uterus, I guess, all that slicing and suturing. Do it too many times and ruptures get more likely, and those can be fatal.”

“Very unfortunate,” Viserys rasps. “Children are our greatest legacy. I wanted at least ten, but your mother…well…after Daeron, it just never happened again.” And you know that this is just one of the ways in which Aemond had planned to win his father’s admiration: by contributing more new Targaryens to the dynasty than anyone else. Now that’s impossible.

Otto sighs wistfully. “To have a brand new baby to parade around in the fall…that would have been wonderful.” For the first time in two years, you can sense that you have disappointed him. Fosco is watching you, uneasy, ashamed, sorry without knowing what to do about it.

“Absolutely,” Aemond says, as if this is not the first time the thought has crossed his mind. “But it’s done now. There’s no sense in dwelling on what might have been. We must look forward. It’s feasible that…well…if we try again and get good news by October, we can announce in time for Election Day…”

You can’t listen anymore. Your belly aching, your bare feet hurrying through warm emerald grass, you traverse the lawn and disappear into Helaena’s garden, painstakingly tended and continuously expanded since she was a little girl. There are marigolds and daffodils, tulips and roses, azaleas, asters, butterfly bushes, chrysanthemums, lilies and lupines, sunflowers, violets, life blooming in a hundred different shades. There are tiny statues too, tucked away in random places, stone angels and untamed creatures, alligators and turtles and rabbits and cats, the only sort the Alopekis will tolerate. At the very center of the garden is a tall circle of hedges with only one opening, an arched doorway cut into the thick lush green. You’ve been here before, though only with Aemond. On a property shared with so many family members—and the occasional intrusive journalist—it’s a good place to escape prying eyes. You pass through the threshold with a hand resting absentmindedly on your belly, as if you’re still pregnant. You keep doing this. Each time you remember you’re at the end of something rather than the beginning, it carves you open all over again.

Around the inside perimeter of the circle are twelve sculptures positioned like numbers on a clock: eleven Olympians and Hades, confined to the Underworld. In the middle of the clearing is the largest stature of all, a wrathful Zeus hurling lightning bolts and surrounded by a gurgling fountain of glass-clear water. Under the shadow of Zeus, Aegon is sprawled on the ground and smoking a joint. “So you’re hiding from them too, huh?” He gives you a sly, welcome-to-the-club smirk, then offers you his joint. “Want a hit?”

You shake your head, not taking another step towards him. “I shouldn’t have done that.”

He is confused. “Done what?”

“Any of it.” I told him about my life before. I made the mistake of thinking I could go back.

Aegon still doesn’t seem to understand. “You’re scared I’m gonna snitch?”

You shrug, evasive. It’s not just the fact that he knows. It’s the sensation that you’ve unlatched something—an attic room, a jewelry box, a birdcage—and now you can’t get it locked again, and the door rattles with every footstep and storm wind, and you are no longer Aphrodite or Io but Pandora, a hunger growing in your stitched womb like a child.

“What? What’s wrong with you?” And that’s always how he says it, not what’s the matter or are you alright or what did I do or how can I fix it?

“I’m kind of…embarrassed, I guess.”

“Embarrassed,” Aegon echoes. “Because of me?”

“I feel like I said and did a lot of things that were out of character because I was emotionally compromised.”

“They were out of character for who you’ve been trying to convince everyone you are since you married Aemond, sure. But they weren’t out of character for you.”

He’s treading too close now, arrows piercing their mark, a tremor near the epicenter. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Au contraire, I have acquired many interesting revelations recently.”

“Where’d you learn French? From Mimi?”

His smile dies. “Boarding school.”

You don’t know how to reply. You don’t know how to be around Aegon without either hating him or letting him see parts of yourself that you’re trying to drown like Icarus in the waves. You glance yearningly towards the doorway cut into the hedges.

All at once, Aegon is furious. “You don’t want to talk to me? You want to go back to how it was before, you want to pretend Mount Sinai never happened? Fine. You got it. Wish fucking granted. Whatever you have to do.”

He turns away from you. You flee from him. But that night when Asteria is hushed and still—Aemond, Criston, and Otto are attending a fundraising dinner in Philadelphia, and you are temporarily excused from accompanying them as you recover—you creep down into the basement of the main house to apologize. Mimi sleeps in a bedroom on the second floor, but here Aegon can keep odd hours and drink and smoke to his heart’s content, and even entertain clandestine guests, girls who are beautiful and giggling and never invited twice.

Aegon isn’t here. He might be passed out somewhere, or at a party, or maybe even upstairs with Mimi, and something about this idea twists through your mending guts like a blade. In his absence, you take a quick look around his room, something you’ve never done before. You hadn’t had any interest; it wouldn’t even have occurred to you. There’s a large green futon, a matching shag carpet, a television, a bookshelf full of notebooks and paperbacks—Kurt Vonnegut, Harper Lee, Sylvia Plath, Truman Capote, Ken Kesey—and vinyl albums, a record player, and his two acoustic guitars. The first is unpainted maple wood covered with stickers. I’d rather be nowhere reads one; Burn pot not people proclaims another. The second guitar is the souvenir he bought in Manhattan, an aquamarine blue six-string.

There's something strange on his end table. Along with a dozen empty cups is a full ashtray, and there’s a folded piece of paper tucked underneath. You slide the paper out and open it. It’s the receipt you used to solve the long division problem in your hospital room.

Why would he keep this? you think, mystified. There are footsteps above your head, and you quickly return the receipt to where you found it and leave before your trespass can be discovered.

When you emerge from the basement, Fosco is waiting in the hallway and carrying a Tupperware container filled with something that resembles kourabiethes, Greek shortbread cookies. “I thought I saw you sneak down there. What were you looking for?”

You scramble for an explanation. “One of the dogs is missing. Alicent wanted me to check the basement.”

“Ah, yes, I see.” He passes you the Tupperware container. “These are for you. I hope they are not too bad. I baked them myself.”

“Are they…” You shake it. “Biscotti?”

“They are ossi dei morti,” Fosco says. “Bones of the dead. We make them to remember loved ones we have lost. They are hard, so you should dip them in coffee or tea before you try to eat them.”

You open the lid. Inside are long thin cookies coated with powdered sugar. You inhale almond flour, cloves, cinnamon. And you are so touched you cannot find your words.

“You know, there still places in Italy where mothers wear black for years to mourn their children.” This is not trivia; it is an acknowledgement. Your son is gone. There is no shame in the grief that is left behind. In another house, it would be expected, it would be required.

“Thank you, Fosco.”

He smiles warmly. “We are in this together, no? We are pieces of the same machine.”

Then he plods off towards the living room, sliding a rolled-up horse racing program out of the back pocket of his tight plaid pants.

~~~~~~~~~~

You’re in Louisville, Kentucky, where thunder quakes the eaves. An hour ago, Aegon was popping Valium and leisurely plucking at his pool water blue Gibson guitar, slumped against the wall, nipping at a flask filled with straight Bacardi. But he’s not anymore. Now he’s gathered around the small color television with you, Criston, Otto, Fosco, Helaena, and Ludwika. The news is just breaking. There was a civil rights protest at the University of Kentucky in Lexington one hour to the east. Someone threw a rock, or someone claims someone threw a rock, or someone threw something that was mistaken for a rock, and in any event the situation escalated from there and local police who were monitoring the demonstration opened fire on a crowd, killing five students and injuring another dozen.

Outside, word is spreading through the crowd of over 2,000 people that have gathered for Aemond’s planned speech at the historic Iroquois Amphitheater, a New Deal project finished in 1938. Rain is pouring, and the venue has no roof. Aemond is already 20 minutes late. The voices are becoming louder, more demanding, more wrathful. They’re shouting that Aemond is too afraid to face them now, that he’s trying to figure out what his statement will be, that he’s cowardly and calculating; and if President Lyndon Baines Johnson was here tonight instead of cursing his bad stars up in Washington D.C., he would certainly have something to say about the capriciousness of voters who love you, hate you, carry you higher, drag you down, all without ever knowing you.

In truth, Aemond is not stalling on purpose. He’s in the bathroom trying to get his prosthetic eye in. It’s been giving him hell all afternoon. He wears his eyepatch at home, but he’s never made a public appearance without his glass eye clean and perfect in his voided socket.

“He’s going to have to say something about it,” you tell the others as you watch the news coverage.

“Say what?” Otto snaps. “If he doesn’t treat those dead kids like martyrs he’s going to get booed off the stage. If he condemns the police he’s going to lose the suburbs. They’ll run to Humphrey now and Nixon in November.”

The weather report called for storms—which is why Alicent, Mimi, and the children are already back at the Seelbach Hotel for the night after a long day of shaking hands and smiling gamely—but no one expected it to get this bad. The room you’re huddled in is just off-stage, so you can see it all: the wind ripping signs and flags from people’s hands, drenched clothes, sopping hair, snarling faces, rain turning puddles to rivers. The stomping of boots is now as loud as the thunder. Rocks and bottles are being pitched at the stage.

“Is America always like this?” Ludwika asks, scandalized.

“No, not at all,” Otto says. “Goddamn animals…”

Aegon replies, not taking his eyes from the television: “You’d be mad too if cops were shooting your friends and the only graduation present you had to look forward to was getting disemboweled by guerillas in Vietnam.”

“I’ve had it with you and your Marxist bullshit! You want to liberate the dispossessed masses? Why don’t you start by donating your monthly drugs and rum budget to the—”

“We should cancel,” Fosco says. “Just call the whole thing off. Tell them Aemond is sick or something.”

“That’s the headline you want? ‘Senator Targaryen hides from grieving supporters who braved a thunderstorm to see him’?! Just give the White House to Nixon now!”

“I don’t think we can cancel,” Criston says softly. “I think if we tried to leave, they’d swarm the car.”

“It’s a riot,” Otto moans, rubbing his face with his hands. “This is what happens when you court voters like this, college kids and hippies, professional malcontents…”

“Aren’t there police outside?” Ludwika says anxiously.

“Yeah, a handful,” Criston tells her. “And if they try to do anything this will erupt and we can add to the body count in Lexington…”

You leave them and follow a hallway to the men’s bathroom; on the periphery of your vision, you can tell that Aegon is watching you go. You push the door open and find a row of stalls and three sinks, one of which Aemond is standing in front of as he stares into his reflection and attempts to shove the prosthetic eye into his empty, gore-red left socket. His suit is navy blue, his hair neatly slicked back, his shoes so polished they’re reflective like a mirror.

“Fuck,” he hisses, flinching. His right cheek is wet with tears of frustration and agony. It’s July 26th, and tomorrow are the final three state conventions in the Democratic primary. Humphrey is almost certain to take Utah; Virginia will go to Governor Mills Godwin, who is only running in his home state to control the delegates and will hand them over to whoever he feels is most worthy in August. But Aemond is the favorite to win here in Kentucky. Or at least, he was an hour ago.

“What can I do? What do you need?”

“You can’t do anything. It’s…it’s this goddamn nerve pain, it feels like I’m being fucking stabbed, I can’t get the muscles to relax enough…”

Like an apology, you say: “Aemond, the crowd is getting out of control.”

“So you came in here to rush me?”

“No, I’m here to help.”

“You’re not helping. You’re doing the exact opposite.”

“I think you should give this speech with your eyepatch on. It looks good, and you’ll be as comfortable as possible, and the crowd won’t have to wait any longer than they have already.”

“No.”

“Aemond, please—”

“No! FDR didn’t make speeches in his wheelchair and I’m not making mine without my eye in.”

“Do you want me to get you Aegon’s pills? Rum, weed?”

“You don’t think I’ve already taken something?” He tries to force his eye in again and strikes his fist against the sink when he can’t.

Then you ask gingerly: “Do you know what you’re going to say about the shooting?”

“Get out!” Aemond shouts. “You’re making it worse, just get the fuck out! Go!”

You bolt from the bathroom, hands trembling, throat burning. You don’t want to return to the television where the others are standing; you’re worried they’ll be able to tell how upset you are. You go to the edge of the stage, arms crossed protectively over your chest, and peek out into the crowd. Above their chants and jeers and howled threats, lightning splits the sky.

I don’ t think we’re going to be able to find our way out of this one. I think this is the end of the road.

“Hey,” Aegon says, tapping your shoulder. “Back up.”

“I’m fine here.”

“No you’re not.” He grabs your arm and tugs you farther backstage. Seconds later, an Absolut Vodka bottle explodes into crystalline shrapnel where you were standing. You yelp and Aegon gives you a little eyebrow raise. I told you, he means.

“Someone has to go out there,” Otto says, still lurking by the television. Fosco is comforting Helaena, who is quietly weeping; Ludwika is watching the news coverage in horror, surely reconsidering all her life choices. A sixth University of Kentucky student has been declared dead. “We can’t wait.”

“No we can’t,” Criston agrees. Then they both turn to you expectantly.

Your blood goes icy. Tonight was meant to be your first official appearance since the baby. Your hair is up, your dress a navy blue to match Aemond’s suit, gold chains around your wrist and throat, a gold chain of a belt. You thought you were ready. But it wasn’t supposed to be like this.

“Don’t you look at her,” Aegon says, sharp like a scalpel, like a bullet, like something that punctures arteries and lungs. “They’re throwing glass. You figure something else out, don’t even look at her.”

Otto relents, perhaps halfheartedly. “No, you’re right. I don’t know what I was thinking.”

Criston starts heading for the bathroom to get Aemond. Otto is watching the television again, his face vacuous as his ambitions are carried away by a flood of rain, wind, rage, blood. Aegon snatches his guitar from where he left it by the wall. He tosses the strap over his head, gives the strings a few experimental strums and retunes them, starts walking towards the stage.

“Aegon, what are you doing?” you ask, panicked.

“Someone has to distract the crowd.”

“No, stop, you can’t—”

“Hey,” Aegon says. And when you glance past him at the uproarious, storm-drenched frenzy, he turns your face back to his to make sure you’re listening. His hand is insistent but gentle, his voice steady. “Don’t go out there. Okay?”

“Okay,” you agree, startled.

He gives you one last small, parting smile, a flash of his teeth, a daring glint in his murky blue eyes. Then he’s out in the torrential rain, soaked to the skin in seconds. His frayed green Army jacket clings to him; his hair is ravaged by the wind. As he takes his place behind the microphone, a stone that someone has hurled skates by him and nicks the apple of his left cheek. You can see a trickle of blood snaking down his sunburned skin before the rain washes it away; you feel a desperate gnawing dread that someone will hurt him, not just here but anywhere, not just now but ever. The crowd is still seething, shouting, stomping their feet to join the inescapable growl of the thunder. Aegon’s pick flies over the guitar strings as he begins playing, raindrops cast from his fingers like spells. At first, you can barely hear him.

“Come gather ‘round, people, wherever you roam

And admit that the waters around you have grown

And accept it that soon you’ll be drenched to the bone

If your time to you is worth saving

And you better start swimmin’ or you’ll sink like a stone

For the times, they are a-changin’”

The audience is settling down now. Some of them are singing along. You can feel that Otto, Ludwika, Fosco, and Helaena are gathering around you, but you don’t grasp anything they’re saying. You can’t tear your eyes from Aegon. It’s like you’re seeing him for the first time, this radiant sunbeam of a man, a light in dark places, a constellation that whispers myths through the ink-spill indigo of the night sky. How could you ever have hated him? How could you ever have thought he was worthless?

“Come writers and critics who prophesize with your pen

And keep your eyes wide, the chance won’t come again

And don’t speak too soon, for the wheel’s still in spin

And there’s no tellin’ who that it’s naming

For the loser now will be later to win

For the times, they are a-changin’”

Aemond and Criston appear beside you at the edge of the stage; Aemond’s prosthetic eye has at last been successfully placed with no lingering evidence of a struggle. You expect him to apologize for what he said in the bathroom, but he doesn’t. Instead he says when he sees Aegon: “What the hell is he doing?”

“Saving your career,” you reply simply.

“Come senators, congressmen, please heed the call

Don’t stand in the doorway, don’t block up the hall

For he that gets hurt will be he who has stalled

The battle outside raging

Will soon shake your windows and rattle your walls

For the times, they are a-changin’”

Now Aegon peers pointedly off-stage to where Otto Hightower is gawking. Aegon beams, throws his head back to get his dripping hair out of his eyes, comes back to the mic.

“Come mothers and fathers throughout the land

And don’t criticize what you can’t understand

Your sons and your daughters are beyond your command

Your old road is rapidly aging

Please get out of the new one if you can’t lend your hand

For the times, they are a-changin’”

Everyone you can see in the crowd is singing and swaying. It’s not just a Bob Dylan song from 1964 but an anthem, a prayer, a rallying cry, a dire warning for the powers at be.

“The line, it is drawn, the curse, it is cast

The slow one now will later be fast

As the present now will later be past

The order is rapidly fading

And the first one now will later be last

For the times, they are a-changin’”

The audience is applauding and whistling. Aegon steals a glimpse of where you are standing backstage, checks that Aemond is still there with you and that he’s ready.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” Aegon broadcasts with a wicked grin. “I am now proud to present the next president of the United States of America, Senator Aemond Targaryen!”

And Aemond is crossing the stage, no trace of pain or self-consciousness or prey-animal fear, no mere mortal but someone chosen by the gods, and the rain is slowing to a drizzle, and the clouds are opening to let through rare pinprick aisles of daylight, and the riotous spectators are now his disciples, exorcised of any rage they’ve ever felt for the scarred senator from New Jersey. He and his family are not the enemy; they are the solution. They are revolutionaries who have bled for the cause. They bring with them the change that is required. Aegon steps back and the rest of you join him in a semi-circle like a crescent moon behind Aemond. When you walk out onto the stage, the cheers swell to screams.

Aegon takes off his guitar and then leans into you. “He’s lucky you aren’t 35,” Aegon whispers, soft lips that curl into a smile as they brush your ear. And he’s teasing you but he’s not mocking, he’s not mean. He’s so close you share the same atmosphere, the same gravity. “Maybe when he finishes up his second term you can start building your resume for your first.”

“I want your endorsement.”

“From the disgraced former mayor of Trenton? What an honor. You’ll have to fight for it.”

You ball up a fist and playfully bump your knuckles against his chin. He pretends to bite at you. And you laugh for the first time since a doctor and priest entered your hospital room 13 days ago. Aegon slings an arm around your shoulders, pulls you against him, soaks you in his rain.

“Today in Lexington, we lost six brave and brilliant souls,” Aemond says, his voice booming through the amphitheater. A hush ripples through the crowd as they listen, enraptured. “Their sacrifice was for the most noble of causes, but they should never have been forced to pay the ultimate price. They deserved long, full lives in a better America than the one we now call home. This tragedy is a symptom of the sickness that has infected this nation, a fatal failure to empathize with our fellow countrymen, a deafness to pleas for justice, a blindness to mercy. But the remedy is within all of us, for it is our own humanity. When we purge the diseases of war, prejudice, and ravenous greed, we will reclaim our best selves—our true selves—and our nation will at last be cured.”

The amphitheater is illuminated with not only strobing lightning but the flashbulbs of cameras. The journalists have arrived just in time.

[devatine]

who will sings "I wanna be yours"?

(1). "I wanna be your vacuum cleaner Breathing in your dust"

(2). "I wanna be your Ford Cortina I will never rust"

(3). "If you like your coffee hot Let me be your coffee pot"

(4). "You call the shots, babe I just wanna be yours"

(5). "Secrets I have held in my heart Are harder to hide than I thought Maybe I just wanna be yours"

(6). "Let me be your leccy meter And I'll never run out"

(7). "Let me be the portable heater That you'll get cold without"

(8). "I wanna be your setting lotion Hold your hair in deep devotion At least as deep as the Pacific Ocean Now I wanna be yours"

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

just say their name and number pretty simple

with the most votes wins and i make fanarts of them

if we had enough votes and numbers needed to be filled (still continue btw)

(edit: i change a bit hope im not confusing you guys)

[hotvintagepoll]

Propaganda

Glynis Johns (Mary Poppins, The Court Jester)—LISTEN, I'd let that woman's voice with all its gravely hoarseness (positive) wash over me all goddamn day, but if that's not enough she managed to play the straight woman to Danny Kaye's jester, all with her cleavage so plunging it might as well have been catapulted into the ocean right after Basil Rathbone

Eartha Kitt (Anna Lucasta, St. Louis Blues)—My friend and I have a saying: NOBODY is Eartha Kitt. A thousand have tried, and they've all come up empty and will continue to do so. Everyone knows her for something: from "Santa Baby" to Yzma in Emperor's New Groove to Catwoman to making Lady Bird Johnson cry for the Vietnam War. She was a master of comedy and sex, an extremely vocal activist, and she aged like fine wine... I honestly don't know what I can say about her that hasn't already been said, so I'll stick to linking all my propaganda. Like what else do you want from me. She was iconic at everything she ever did. Literally name another. How can anyone even think of her and not want to absolutely drown?

This is round 4 of the tournament. All other polls in this bracket can be found here. Please reblog with further support of your beloved hot sexy vintage woman.

[additional propaganda submitted under the cut.]

Glynis Johns:

She walks the line between sexy and cute. Her best role for me is in "The Court Jester as Maid Jean. She's fantastic as the soft but tough captain of the outlaw band and she looks stunning in every gown she wears throughout the film. And of course we can't forget her iconic turn as the suffragette mother, Mrs. Banks, in Mary Poppins! Also shoutout to her distinctive and beautiful voice, kind of smoky and husky. Extremely hot and set her apart from many of her peers."

"She was amazing in Mary Poppins (the Suffragette song is severely underrated) and apparently she was Welsh? National pride! And she advocated for arts funding in Wales, which is very cool. Also, she died recently (RIP) making her one of the last survivors of the Golden Age of Hollywood, according to Wikipedia. Also also, she just has a cheeky energy I like? And her eyes are beautiful!"

"She had this wonderful wit and charm to her no matter the role and the most distinctive, striking voice!"

"I mean, incredibly beautiful and talented, can do drama can do comedy. And she was a mermaid."

"Like Bette Davis she has eyes to die for. Unlike Bette Davis you felt comforted by them, even when she was batting her eyelashes at you. Would glady go to Downing Street with her and throw things at the Prime minister"

"Listen, listen. I was raised on Mary Poppins and "Votes for women! (step in time)" single-handedly taught me how to be a feminist. Also The Court Jester is one of my favourite movies of all time and she is UNBELIEVABLY gorgeous, charismatic, funny, and clever in it. She knocks several men out. Absolute icon."

"I love Glynis Johns. Most of the reason is The Court Jester where she's a sensible and capable foil to whatever what going on with Danny Kaye at the time. She was also the first star I based an OC on. An OC that I still have to this day! Anyway here have some YouTube links love u bye"

Mermaid clip:

Court Jester (sharing a bed trope):

Court Jester (seducing the king):

"VOTES FOR WOMEN! Well, votes for this woman. Please."

Eartha Kitt:

"A hot vintage woman who was not just known for her voice, beauty, poise, and presence, but also her unapologetic ways of speaking about how she was mistreated in the show business as a girl who grew up on cotton fields in South Carolina in the 1930s through the 1940s coming to Broadway first and then Hollywood."

"Have you watched her sing?? Have you seen her face?? Have you heard her talk?? How could you not fall instantly in love. She makes me incoherent with how hot she is."

"She can ACT she can SING she can speak FOUR LANGUAGES she is a GODDESS!!! Although she is (rightfully) remembered for her singing, TV appearances (Catwoman my beloved), and later film roles, her early appearances in film are no less impressive or noteworthy!! She’s an amazing actress with so much charisma in every role. She was also blacklisted from Hollywood for 10 years for criticizing the Johnson administration/Vietnam War, so. Iconic. Also Orson Welles apparently called her “the most exciting woman in the world.”

"She had such a stunning, remarkable appearance, like she could tear you to shreds with just a glance- but the most undeniable part of her hotness was her voice, and it makes sense that it's what most people nowadays know her for. Nothing encapsulates the sheer magnetism of her singing better than this clip of her and Nat King Cole in St. Louis Blues, she pops in at 2:49. Also I know it's post-1970 but her song that was cut from Emperor's New Groove is likely to make you feel Feelings."

Even with as racist as Hollywood was in the 1950s and 60s, Eartha Kitt STILL managed to have a thriving career. She also once had a threesome with Paul Newman and James Dean, and called out LBJ over the Vietnam War so hard that it made First Lady Johnson cry. Eartha Kitt was talented, sexy, and a total badass activist.

[ghostinthegallery]

Necron characters rated on how likely they would be to fall into an MLM/Pyramid Scheme

Szarekh- 9/10 Dude gets desperate whenever he has a strong enough goal. Clearly susceptible to persuasion and magical thinking. Not great at thinking through consequences.

Imotekh- 0/10 Immediately does the math and figures out the scam. Creates the 40k FTC to hunt down and destroy all MLMs out of pure spite

Trazyn- 7/10 but he inexplicably does incredibly well at it. Top seller. Gets his pink Cadillac within a week

Orikan- thinks he's immune which is why he's a 10/10 Will ride this sinking ship to the bottom of the ocean. His sanctum is soon filled with essential oils and leggings

Zahndrekh- 3/10 Seems like an easy mark so people try to recruit him constantly. He acts interested and he's so charming it takes ages after they leave for the MLMer to realize they've sold him nothing and at some point he registered them to vote?

Obyron- steely glare/10 He holds the voter registration forms

Anrakyr- 4/10 but if he does fall for one he will actually go on the record and agree to be interviewed for the take-down documentary

Phillias- undercover FTC agent/10

Szeras- 9/10 because he'll sell out and agree to become an "expert consultant" or whatever and say the shady health oils actually work

Oltyx- 2/10 Refuses to start at the bottom of any pyramid, he knows he was born to be at the top

Yenekh- 8/10 But he's just in it for the product discounts.

Zultanekh- 1/10 but pray to whatever God will listen that he never becomes a part of one because he will use his boisterous yet sensitive personality to drag the whole empire into the pyramid

Lysikor- Founded the MLM

[mystardustmelodyyy]

@remotewatch HQ’s Election Countdown Day 4: Staffer

POV: you’re the president and Jack makes the most of his time at the White House. 🫦

Jack is doing his best to stay professional, but this heat is near uncomfortable even laying out sunbathing with intermittent spritzes from your mister fan. You did insist he stand behind your chair in order to look down your top unobstructed (in less direct words), so you’re not exactly aiding his efforts to compose himself. He sounds like he’s about to pass out back there, the poor darling.

“Are you uncomfortable?” you ask apathetically, barely tilting your head towards him.

“It’s no trouble, ma’am.” But he’s basically panting, and you can see him beginning to sway in the distorted reflection of the greenhouse windows. With two fingers, you beckon him over to your right side. Jack is sweating bullets as he watches you sip your lemonade; the delicate clinking of mint ice cubes against the glass must sound tortuous right about now.

“Would you like some?” His adams apple bobs wantonly as he quashes such human desires.

“I don’t know if that would be appropriate.” As if you’ll dignify that with a proper response. With a click of your tongue and two quick pats to your armrest, he’s kneeling beside you before he even can realize that you’ve commanded him to sit like a pet. Condensation threatens to slip the drink from your hands as you present it to him. As soon as Jack moves toward your straw, you raise the glass and pour it, slowly, so it doesn’t splash onto you, over his head. His relief is far, far too palpable to care about preserving his dignity.

Jack’s eyes slide closed, and he sighs wistfully as the lemonade flows over him and soaks into his suit jacket, slicking his curls flat to his forehead. He goes rigid before tentatively relaxing when you thread your fingers into the icy strands and begin scratching his scalp.

The silky, dense handfuls of hair flowing through them conjure up images of long-limbed hunting dogs in your head.

“Most guys your age are already balding, did you know that?” There’s a sliver of hesitation in his response, as if he might break the spell.

“I’ve never given it much thought, ma’am.”

“Of course you haven’t. You’re so cute.” you murmur absentmindedly.

🍋🍋🍋🍋

In case you didn’t know, it is the queen of the written word herself, Miss @remotewatch ‘s birthday today! So not only is the link du jour to her favorite charity, I am also humbly requesting some voting plans/stories in her inbox- how it went or how you think it'll go! It’s crunch time, divas ✨ Let’s get out there!

[waterloggedsoliloquy]

mutual 1: sorry the update for my webcomic this week is a bit late! i really had to rush it so it prolly looks really sloppy lol [some of the most sophisticated comic art ive ever seen]

mutual 2: call me uterine lining the way astarions cervix got me bleeding profusely

mutual 3: do you think nanowrimo will give me a posthumous pity publishing deal if i mention it in my suicide note

mutual 4: okay fine i finally started revolutionary girl utena

mutual 5: does columbo know the service he did for butch lesbians. for all of us

mutual 6: wish you were here [blurry picture set of conifer woods in early autumn evening, taken as if frantically running down a winding trail]

mutual 4: im pretty hardy i dont need the trigger list but thanks for looking out for me guys

mutual 7: good morning lovelies another day the wizard tried to best me and another day i successfully locked him in the spare bathroom lol hope u like drinking shampoo fucker

mutual 8: here is a zip of every yuri manga scan i have and here is a backup in case i get dcma'd. the himejoshi lifestyle will never die

mutual 9: i wish i could go back in time to the shinzo abe assassination and ask to hold the doohickey

mutual 10: here's my essay on how wanting to be loved is the same as wanting to be eaten. three paragraphs in you'll find out that this is 100% tied to an obscure beauty and the beast manga i've been reading lately and how much i want to fuck the beast

mutual 4: oh thats why there was the trigger list.

mutual 11: YOU CAN'T LOCK ME IN THIS BATHROOM FOREVER

mutual 12: why do i have to defend my thesis to people i dont even respect. im not dickriding you just give me the degree

mutual 13: its just me and this scab ive picked into my scalp against the world

mutual 14: my little dragon got glazed and is ready to go into the kiln! everyone wish him good luck!

mutual 3: nvm i am a beautiful genius. perhaps the most beautiful genius of all

mutual 15: i think we should give david lynch rpgmaker and whatever happens happens

mutual 16: kpeyboaatrds brpokem gpuys

mutual 17: also heres my work in progress glossary of mixtec words! i still have a long way to go but i love being able to preserve my roots even in this small way

mutual 4: i just finished the black rose arc. question: what

mutual 18: i need emet-selch to be my wife

mutual 19: i need glados to be my husband

mutual 20: visited the ocean today!!! <3 beach pics!!! there is a darkness growing within me

mutual 21: the forms for my legal name change came in. pls vote in this poll of what my middle name should be: Dill Pickle (Dickle for short), Optimus Prime, Tumblr User Gorgonicteratologist, Smeve

mutual 22: just finished my 100th book of the year! this weeks read was the uses of enchantment by the psychologist bruno bettelheim,

mutual 23: reeses penis butter cups lol

mutual 4: i need to hunt akio for sport

mutual 24: oouugghhrgh. hot. dog.

mutual 25: your favorite character or fictional other would want you to brush your teeth and wash your face so you're well rested and wake up feeling refreshed! make them proud!

mutual 26: being a delivery driver isnt the worst job ive ever had but i do keep wondering what itd be like to drive off into the wild blue yonder one day and not come back

mutual 27: weird dog? [phone picture of critically endangered stork]

mutual 28: i think the two phone line polls in front of my house are having a lovers tryst. no way to prove it tho

mutual 4: WHAT

mutual 29: while you bitches are balduring your gates or finalling those fantasies im doing what a REAL gamer does. playing a b tier rpg that came out in 2004 for the 18th time

mutual 30: ^ real. hamtaro ham ham heartbreak is a masterpiece of interactive art. im not even going to call it a video game at this point

mutual 4: THAT'S HOW IT ENDS?! ANTHY?

mutual 31: can you help me pick which drawing looks better: 34% overlay or 36% soft light?

mutual 32: new video essay out. its called disability in video game narratives: final fantasy 14's most reliable fault. i churned the script out over an all-nighter and my mic crapped out halfway through but by god i did it

mutual 33: my new zine bundle is out! if you buy it you also get a discount on all my game jam games! i really cant wait for you to play them!

mutual 4: yall should watch revolutionary girl utena

[whos-hotter-jjba]

The Results are In: The Top 10 Hottest JoJo Characters

As chosen by you! (characters in places 5-10 ordered by the amount of votes they got in their last rounds)

Number 10: Hot Pants (Steel Ball Run)

Number 9: Caesar Zeppeli (Battle Tendency)

Number 8: Leone Abbacchio (Vento Aureo)

Number 7: Dio Brando (Phantom Blood, Stardust Crusaders, Stone Ocean)

Number 6: Ermes Costello (Stone Ocean)

Number 5: Joseph Joestar (Battle Tendency, Stardust Crusaders)

Number 4: Bruno Bucciarati (Vento Aureo)

Number 3: Kars (Battle Tendency)

Number 2: Gyro Zeppeli (Steel Ball Run)

And officially the Hottest JoJo Character:

Jolyne Cujoh (Stone Ocean)!

Congratulations to all the characters, and thank you for voting, everyone!! Hope you enjoyed this bracket as much as I did <3

[goddes-of-texposts]

Always remember that you have power, even when you think you don’t.

I cannot protest the genocides going on right now, not physically at least.

You know what I do instead? I boycott. McDonald’s, Apple, Starbucks, Disney… yeah you’re not seeing a single cent from me for the next 4 decades.

I inform, I share, I post on my instagram stories, I reblog.

I see mutuals of mine begin to repost and talk about Palestine, Congo, I have friends or acquaintances in my dms asking me “hey, what does this mean?”

My best friend was not aware of the happenings in Palestine until I started sharing posts on instagram. Wanna know how he reacted?

“Children dying? That’s fucking horrific!! What’s going on?” And I tell him, and he does his research.

Being more able bodied than I am, he goes to protests, he donates what he can, god, I love him.

My aunt used to believe “oh, the state of Israel deserves to exist.”

She didn’t know, after enough blown up buildings, after seeing the countless hospitals attacked, she now thinks: “I have a little baby daughter. If I were in Gaza right now, she would be dead.”

She donates and boycotts and shares.

My Grandmother lives with her, my grandmother was starting to lean conservative, because of my aunt relaying information, after hearing her favourite politician say “Hamas is committing genocide against Israel”, she was mortified and has now changed her vote to a representative condemning actual genocide.

Do you see how this spreads? Do you see your power? I may have influenced only 3 or 4 people directly, but a drop in an ocean still causes ripples.

[ourflagmeansgayrights]

possibilities for how ed gets his leathers back in the finale:

ed has a whole closet full of identical leather outfits that he sort of forgot about when he was having his symbolic funeral for blackbeard

izzy made a replica leather getup that sometimes he would take to a brothel or something when he was on shore leave and he would pay one of the prostitutes to wear it while they fucked him

actually it’s not out of the realm of possibility that there’s at least one prostitute in the republic of pirates who found their niche impersonating blackbeard in bed and they have a really authentic blackbeard outfit replica for that purpose

or just. anyone in the republic of pirates might just have blackbeard cosplay for entirely non-sexual reasons, too. there’s probably a blackbeard fanclub somewhere

one of the republic of pirates gift shops sells blackbeard cosplay and they were having a sale because all the blackbeard merch hasn’t been selling as well ever since the gentleman pirate became the new celebrity in town

black pete is the one with the blackbeard outfit replica. it gets equal use for dorky fanboy cosplay reasons and also for roleplaying blackbeard during sex

ed says something like “oh no i need my leathers but i threw them in the sea!” out loud and buttons just happens to be flying by and he squawks a request to his beloved (seagull subtitles part 2) who rises up like how they animated the ocean in moana and gives ed his leathers back

EDIT: oh my god i forgot ed can fish now

[bestanimal]

Round 2 - Chordata - Leptocardii

(Sources - 1, 2, 3, 4)

Our first chordates belong to the class Leptocardii, commonly called “Lancelets.” This is a small class consisting of one family, Branchiostomatidae, and 32 known species.

Lancelets are “fish-like”, filter-feeding, invertebrate chordates. Their body is translucent, without any limbs, and one poorly developed tail fin. They are not strong swimmers (see gif below). They have “gill-slits” that are for feeding only, not respiration. Their mouths consist of oral cirri: tentacle-like strands that act as sensory devices and filter water as it passes through the body. Most of their time is spent half-buried in the sand of the ocean floor, with their front end protruding, filtering plankton into their mouths and gill-slits. They have multiple light receptors which include Joseph cells, Hesse organs, a single anterior eye, and a lamellar body. Lancelets biofluoresce green inside their oral tentacles and near their eye spot. Some species also glow from the tail and gonads. These green fluorescent proteins may play a role in attracting plankton towards their mouth. Lancelets have a notochord but no skeleton, other than some cartilage stiffening their gill slits, mouth, and tail. They are relatively small, around 2.5 to 8 cm (1.0–3.1 inches) long.

All lancelet species seem to have males and females, though rare instances of hermaphroditism have been reported in two species. One species, Branchiostoma belcheri, was documented transforming from female to male. They reproduce via external fertilization, and only during their spawning season, which varies between species. Shortly after sunset, spawning lancelets will release eggs and sperm into the water column. Upon hatching, larvae are asymmetrical, with a mouth and anus on one side of their body and gill slits on the other. After metamorphosis, they become more symmetrical, though there are still some asymmetrical internal organs.

Lancelets may provide insight into the origin of vertebrates. They contain many similar organs to modern fish, albeit in primitive forms. Fossil chordates, such as Pikaia and Cathaymyrus from the Cambrian, and Palaeobranchiostoma from the Permian, have been suggested to be closely related to lancelets. However, modern lancelets probably did not appear until the Cretaceous or even Cenozoic and, despite their primitive form, are likely more derived than we first thought.

(bonk)

Propaganda under the cut:

Bioluminescence:

(source)

Idk they’re just really weird okay. These things are closer related to us than octopuses are and they’re just kinda… little grass blades made of flesh. They are if a chordate was a worm. They are invertebrates cosplaying as fish.