#shout out to the revolution

[representshinjuku]

Shout Out to the Revolution

(Bring it back to the street style)

[All]

This means war--some real beef

[Yotsutsuji] 

The warriors assemble, the fight begins--

Someone please stop this tragic fanfare

(Shout Out to the Revolution)

[Ichiro]

Shout Out to the Revolution

It’s the eve of revolution, we can’t stop

But I’ve got the skill to pivot at the drop of a pin

That’s right, who’s No.1? Ichiro, y’know

You amateur rappers get outta my way

Rebelling against the tyrants, our passage is open

I’m ready to deliver one helluva bashing (Boasting)

Make our living stalking these streets

You trash piss me off and I’ll beat you down with a verse

[Samatoki] 

Calamity’s coming for you (Worst Side)

This’s Samatoki-sama’s rock style

You can’t run from this Level 5 rhyme bullet

Rainin’ down, rainin’ down, rainin’ down now

When I push back my hair, you better get serious

Come at me, kid, it’s time for the shootout

You diss my friends, you’re gonna get beat

“Life is not fair.” That’s my creed

[Jakurai] 

The pendulum of chaos sways erratically

A severed graft, clogged with logic

Do away with contradictory slogans

Instead polish your words, your aesthetic senses

As if deciding your course with a coin toss

Seize your chance to aim for the throne

The enemy in the mirror clears the scales from your eyes

I am--but I know not what to think

[Ramuda]

A heart’s trap, making war with pleasure

Lollipops don’t show mercy

I control this line-up,

My human toy soldiers

Hooked on the thrill, how’s this destructive show?

Leaping up from the ruins,

Ramuda goes hop skip jump!

Let’s go! C’mon ladies!

I’m the cute and cruel revolution

(Shout Out to the Revolution)

[TDD]

We’ll destroy this dystopia

Through our disses we steal our gloria

We make our stand for ourselves alone

Insults fly from this Hypnosis Mic

Sticking with our aesthetics

We rewrite this entire chronicle

Our fates are linked; only one can survive

Raise the flag of revolution

Only the winners’ll live with honor and pride

The pure and the filthy, drink ‘em down and ignite

We dirty guys bring order to the chaos

Bring it back to the street style

[Ibuki]

You bastards brandishing your “justice”--

My crimson flames will burn you to ash

My spite’ll smother you, break all

I’m a def expert, a desperado

A real slayer crushes even the bystanders

You won’t get last words, I’ll thrash your soul

It’s my turn, GREN’s arrow’s gonna burn through you

Time to atone for your sins

[Seigen]

Watch out for my gun (Bang! Bang-Bang!)

Anything goes if you win (Ha! Ha-ha!)

It’s not in my style to get beat down

I shoot with no hesitation, I’m Dominator

You’re not just ‘cuz you’re righteous,

You’re just ‘cuz you’re strong

“Heroes” make me wanna puke (Boo!)

You goody-goody guys don’t know shit

Get in my way and you’re gonna get gone

[Jyobu]

What I crave is blood and gum syrup

Let me see the terror of war resound in your eyes

Tremble and shake, run for your life

What a disappointment--”Allow me to kill you now.”

Rampage with intent to kill in this battle

In the end it was knowledge that allowed humanity to evolve

The GENERAL makes his proposal

Relying on no one, I spread my sublime ideals

[Rindo]  

Everybody’s fooled by my persona

So simple, they bore me to tears

An inferior boot, a shoddy motto

Bonds? Playing ‘friends’? (My oh my…)

With a smirk I rule, strict and clever

I’ll remind you until you scream, I’m Sweeper-A

“This whole country will be mine.”

Burning bridges is what makes a revolution

[D4]

We’ll destroy this dystopia

Through our disses we steal our gloria

We make our stand for ourselves alone

Insults fly from this Hypnosis Mic

Sticking with our aesthetics

We rewrite this entire chronicle

Our fates are linked; only one can survive

Bring it back to the street style

[Yotsutsuji] 

The glimpse of the bright blue sky was brilliant

Amidst the chaos--I’d almost forgotten

I wanted to express that, so I scribbled it down

This verse traces my memories and touches on a taboo

The men who should’ve been bound by unbreakable bonds

Tear each other to pieces, lose themselves in the fog

The intrigue starts moving; bluster meets its grave--

I saw that sort of lucid dream upon the road to revolution

[TDD]

Now is the time to change

Fight on, no gain no pain

No one’s coming outta this unhurt; one way

This means war--some real beef

[D4]

Now is the time of rage

Run wild; only lonely

We can’t turn back, it’s too late

[All]

You wanna grovel in your grave? Rise to fame?

Bring it back to the street style

Dead Mics hit the pavement and scatter

But we’ve staked our pride on this battle

Stand on your own two feet and carve out the future

Wow oh oh…

[Yotsutsuji] Someone please stop this tragic fanfare

Wow oh oh…

[All] We don’t wanna part but it’s time for the finale

Shout Out to the Revolution

We’ll destroy this dystopia

Through our disses we steal our gloria

We make our stand for ourselves alone

Insults fly from this Hypnosis Mic

Sticking with our aesthetics

We rewrite this entire chronicle

Our fates are linked; only one can survive

Raise the flag of revolution

Only the winners’ll live with honor and pride

The pure and the filthy, drink ‘em down and ignite

We dirty guys bring order to the chaos

This means war--some real beef

Bring it back to the street style

Shout Out to the Revolution

#rule the stage #track 5 #the dirty dawg #D4 #shout out to the revolution #hypstagetl #koutranslates

[cactus-of-the-dead]

I bought a green boba plush that has an uwu face so I called him sasara

#hypnosis mic #rule the stage #shout out to the revolution #d4 #desperado 4 #seigen arima #rindo akune #jyobu jikuin #ibuki yagasaki #the dirty dawg #sasa #sasara nurude

[xxswagcorexx]

hell ya! please info dump about casino quartet that would be awesome

STARTS VIBRATING OKAY!! for those who dont know, casino quartet refers to the group/ship name of ash, branzy, clown, and red (also known as branzypierceswagdoons or the abcd's because. Ashswag Branzy Clown and red. Doons) . i am #)(%*@#()%*#(@% about them 4 reasons i will elaborate down the cut ^_^

reason one: oh my GOD the comedic potential of these fuckers is sooooo. not one ounce of communication or sanity between any of them god bless!!! they are all enablers of different things and all make each other worse!!!! they will kill each other over not doing the dishes!!! also the diff dynamics between all of them would be Insufferable like clown and branzy would just do So Much pda during the most inappropriate times while ash and red have to Put Up with it while beating the shit out of each other <3 cue clown and red coming back home and doing God Knows What (not talking about feelings straight up) (repressed emotions) (bullying) and ash and branzy get white girl wasted on whiteclaw of wine or whatever and ash bitches about red to branzy while branzy calls him babygirl (branzy is the only one that can call ash this) (once red overheard this and ash almost killed him) (he had to be held back by branzy and clown so he wouldn't kill him) (<- this one is sponsored by cherny)

ANYWAYS ash and clown r a funny bunch too. clown would Always attempt to get ash to do stupid shit and try to hit him with the big wet pathetic eyes and "but please?? for me.,.." and it only works 20% of the time when ash caves in (do not worry ash bullies clown back) (also literally based off of this) . both of them think they're the most normal ones . red and branzy r literally just vibing. imagine everyone else being insufferable/them being insufferable to others and they're like "omg hiiii bestie ^_^" and they chill and knit while drinking sweet tea together or whatever . they're awesome

REASON NUMBER 2: PUNCHES THE GROUND ok ok. they're like 0 canon content of them IN VIDEOS but u have to understand : the original team chaos had red in the group . and the only reason red left is bc they didn't tell him anything (also ash was asleep like 90% of the time L) but like. i think u Could do smth interesting with lingering feelings abt team chaos Esp considering ash Did go back to red and apologize for s3/team chaos and gave him favors .,.. that's if u wanna go Canon Compliant ofc but i think there Could be something that u could write abt clown and red being Farely loyal and strategic and ash and branzy being willing to betray and both being wildcards. i feel like u could do smth interesting with that (and also if you wanna go romantic) some polymary negotiations might b fun ti explore :thumbs_up: usually the Link between them is clown and red but i've also seen branzy and ash ^_^ either way they r rlly fun to think about either way!!!

i dont really like a reason number 3 so i will put this mangoball edit here . thank u for letting me indulge in my insanity

#mcyt #lifesteal smp #clownpierce #branzy #branzycraft #reddoons #ashswag #casino quartet #swagdoons #clownzy #branzypierce #mcytshipping #lsshipping #<- i guess #tw swearing #media.warning.swearing #tw caps #media.warning.caps #tw drinking #media.warning.drinking #i dont rlly ship them bc i Really like them as ambiguous/unlabeled/they don't event know what they are #but like: still. i love them so much i rotate them in my brain so much!!! #i Need more people to understand them #or like. be Aware of them #<- suffering as the only fics of them are by my friend (hi cherny if you're reading) and Me #anyways shout out to revolution cave they hear my mental illness first hand #anyways thank u for letting me indulge anon ^_^ just saying my dms r open at any time if u want to Talk about them #also to all of my followers: that invitation is 4 yall 2. or anyone really #they r a virus on my Brain #ask.core

[prongsmydeer]

Please watch Mr. Queen

#mr. queen #so-yong kim #bong-hwan jang #king cheoljong #cheolbong #it's got soooo many different angles to it. bodyswap. political intrigue. revolution. romance. that one weird cousin we don't talk about. #[so-yong voice] every family has one. mine has two in fact #shout-out to the new post format for finally letting me add alt text kjhgjhg #ayesha says things #korean television #episodecaps

[brokenhardies]

I said it once and I'll say it again. I do not like people painting Okumura's death as a "lol eat the rich" moment because Akechi didn't kill Okumura because he hates capitalism. He killed him because he was commanded to by another rich asshole.

No one benefited from Okumura's death besides Shido and the rest of the conspiracy.

like tbh okumura's death caused me to only hate shido (and to a lesser extent akechi) even more bc its designed to make the pt look bad, as well as take someone who shido believes is a threat out of the picture

its so frustrating when fans go 'um actually this is a good thing' when haru doesnt get closure for her father's actions and her whole arc is built around her being torn between forgiving him and being angry at him - like yeah eat the rich™️ or whatever but that isnt the fucking point

also after that boss fight i wouldve liked the satisfaction of changing his heart fuck you shido

#i also think the people who believe that are those who believe a glorious revolution will solve all their problems #shout out to the barely disguised tankie who followed me and reblogged a post like #'um actually the reign of terror wasnt that bad and youre just all being liberals for saying that' which ew

[midwinterrmemento]

so was no one going to tell me that vanitas and jonah clemence have the same va

#that makes SO much sense to me omg #I can’t believe I never realized #natsuki hanae 🫡 #ikemen revolution #ikerev #ikerev jonah #the case study of vanitas #vanitas no carte #shout out to the niche audience who cares about both of these characters

[vellz2]

Quackitys most recent karmaland stream was pretty intense but I'm gonna keep drawing Luzu as a babygirl for my own enjoyment as long as I can. It is a form of therapy.

#Karmaland #karmaland v #karmaland 5 #i'm gonna cry #These bitches don't know shit about basic communication and it escalated to a fucking revolution omfg #Shout out to alexby for being one of the few sane and mentally stable members after everything he went through #Ily alexby

[akkivee]

i think we should have nemu be an actual character for hypstage

#this is vee speaking #no more of that nemu illusion stuff we had samatoki weeping for in track 4 lol #an actual actress this time lol #like???? nemu is integral to the drama between mtc and fp and important in mtr’s story leading up to the 2nd drb #and even contributed to the bb dh drama tho unintentionally lol #BUT STILL #shout out to the revolution popped up on my playlist and it’s NEAT yotsutsuji gets his own credit #and i want that for nemu lol she deserves to be the first female on that stage production lol #c: nemu

[cyan0corax]

#dnd oc #paladin #original character #dnd art #oc #daedrym night #shout out to zweihander #really one of the most swords of all time #local paladin bringing fashion back #they don't look the part but i swear i'm about to start an anarchist revolution #it's fun :)

[letters-to-rosie]

when you accidentally contribute to your favorite arcane fic coming back from the dead???????

#WOW #this is so great #everyone go read The Revolution Will Not Be Televised if you'd somehow missed it #the author just left a comment on my fic too #and shouted it and me out in the new chapter's author's note #wowowowowowow #arcane #fanfiction

[charliecuntcicle]

#one of these things is very out of place #revolution is sooo interesting to me btw i think we should do it more #shout out to fellow great molasses flood enthusiasts #(one random person cheers)

[fans4wga]

"The studios thought they could handle a strike. They might end up sparking a revolution"

by Mary McNamara

"If you want to start a revolution, tell your workers you’d rather see them lose their homes than offer them fair wages. Then lecture them about how their “unrealistic” demands are “disruptive” to the industry, not to mention disturbing your revels at Versailles, er, Sun Valley.

Honestly, watching the studios turn one strike into two makes you wonder whether any of their executives have ever seen a movie or watched a television show. Scenes of rich overlords sipping Champagne and acting irritated while the crowd howls for bread rarely end well for the Champagne sippers.

This spring, it sometimes seemed like the Hollywood studios represented by the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers were actively itching for a writers’ strike. Speculations about why, exactly, ran the gamut: Perhaps it would save a little money in the short run and show the Writers Guild of America (perceived as cocky after its recent ability to force agents out of the packaging business) who’s boss.

More obviously, it might secure the least costly compromise on issues like residuals payments and transparency about viewership.

But the 20,000 members of the WGA are not the only people who, having had their lives and livelihoods upended by the streaming model, want fair pay and assurances about the use of artificial intelligence, among other sticking points. The 160,000 members of the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists share many of the writers’ concerns. And recent unforced errors by studio executives, named and anonymous, have suddenly transformed a fight the studios were spoiling for into a public relations war they cannot win.

Even as SAG-AFTRA representatives were seeing a majority of their demands rejected despite a nearly unanimous strike vote, a Deadline story quoted unnamed executives detailing a strategy to bleed striking writers until they come crawling back.

Days later, when an actors’ strike seemed imminent, Disney Chief Executive Bob Iger took time away from the Sun Valley Conference in Idaho not to offer compromise but to lecture. He told CNBC’s David Faber that the unions’ refusal to help out the studios by taking a lesser deal is “very disturbing to me.”

“There’s a level of expectation that they have that is just not realistic,” Iger said. “And they are adding to the set of the challenges that this business is already facing that is, quite frankly, very disruptive.”

If Iger thought his attempt to exec-splain the situation would make actors think twice about walking out, he was very much mistaken. Instead, he handed SAG-AFTRA President Fran Drescher the perfect opportunity for the kind of speech usually shouted atop the barricades.

“We are the victims here,” she said Thursday, marking the start of the actors’ strike. “We are being victimized by a very greedy entity. I am shocked by the way the people that we have been in business with are treating us. I cannot believe it, quite frankly: How far apart we are on so many things. How they plead poverty, that they’re losing money left and right, when giving hundreds of millions of dollars to their CEOs. It is disgusting. Shame on them. They stand on the wrong side of history at this very moment.”

Cue the cascading strings of “Les Mis,” bolstered by images of the most famous people on the planet walking out in solidarity: the cast of “Oppenheimer” leaving the film’s London premiere; the writers and cast of “The X-Files” reuniting on the picket line.

A few days later, Barry Diller, chairman and senior executive of IAC and Expedia Group and a former Hollywood studio chief, suggested that studio executives and top-earning actors take a 25% pay cut to bring a quick end to the strikes and help prevent “the collapse of the entire industry.”

When Diller is telling executives to take a pay cut to avoid destroying their industry, it is no longer a strike, or even two strikes. It is a last-ditch attempt to prevent le déluge.

Yes, during the 2007-08 writers’ strike, picketers yelled noncomplimentary things at executives as they entered their respective lots. (“What you earnin’, Chernin?” was popular at Fox, where Peter Chernin was chairman and chief executive.) But that was before social media made everything more immediate, incendiary and personal. (Even if they have never seen a movie or TV show, one would think that people heading up media companies would understand how media actually work.)

Even at the most heated moments of the last writers’ strike, executives like Chernin and Iger were seen as people who could be reasoned with — in part because most of the executives were running studios, not conglomerations, but mostly because the pay gap between executives and workers, in Hollywood and across the country, had not yet widened to the reprehensible chasm it has since.

Now, the massive eight- and nine-figure salaries of studio heads alongside photos of pitiably small residual checks are paraded across legacy and social media like historical illustrations of monarchs growing fat as their people starve. Proof that, no matter how loudly the studios claim otherwise, there is plenty of money to go around.

Topping that list is Warner Bros. Discovery Chief Executive Davd Zaslav. Having re-named HBO Max just Max and made cuts to the beloved Turner Classic Movies, among other unpopular moves, Zaslav has become a symbol of the cold-hearted, highly compensated executive that the writers and actors are railing against.

The ferocious criticism of individual executives’ salaries has placed Hollywood’s labor conflict at the center of the conversation about growing wealth disparities in the U.S., which stokes, if not causes, much of this country’s political divisions. It also strengthens the solidarity among the WGA and SAG-AFTRA and with other groups, from hotel workers to UPS employees, in the midst of disputes during what’s been called a “hot labor summer.”

Unfortunately, the heightened antagonism between studio executives and union members also appears to leave little room for the kind of one-on-one negotiation that helped end the 2007-08 writers’ strike. Iger’s provocative statement, and the backlash it provoked, would seem to eliminate him as a potential elder statesman who could work with both sides to help broker a deal.

Absent Diller and his “cut your damn salaries” plan, there are few Hollywood figures with the kind of experience, reputation and relationships to fill the vacuum.

At this point, the only real solution has been offered by actor Mark Ruffalo, who recently suggested that workers seize the means of production by getting back into the indie business, which is difficult to imagine and not much help for those working in television.

It’s the AMPTP that needs to heed Iger’s admonishment. At a time when the entertainment industry is going through so much disruption, two strikes is the last thing anyone needs, especially when the solution is so simple. If the studios don’t want a full-blown revolution on their hands, they’d be smart to give members of the WGA and SAG-AFTRA contracts they can live with."

#sag-aftra strike #sag strike #fans4wga #writers guild strike #actors guild strike #union solidarity #wga strong #i stand with the wga #wga strike #writers strike

[amuseoffyre]

Rewatching bits of S1 is a revelation for the stuff in S2.

In the ark sequence, we see Aziraphale standing by and watching the preparation for the Great Flood, clearly in some state of anxiety about it. When Crawley questions him about it and says “not the kids, you can’t kill kids”, Aziraphale straight-up tells him “you can’t judge the Almighty, Crawley.”

Fast-forward to 2500BC, the first time they see each other after the flood and, once again, the lives of children are on the line. This time, Aziraphale is immediately horrified when he finds out.

This time, he doesn’t just stand there and watch. He goes and actively puts himself between Crawley and the children. When Crawley turns up, Aziraphale is still wary of him and almost falls for him saying “I want to destroy the blameless children of blameless Job”. But the second he realises the goat-kids were saved, he knows Crawley still believes “you can’t kill kids”.

That’s why he’s so convinced that Crawley absolutely won’t kill Job’s children, even when Crawley miracles up a flaming inferno to engulf the house. “Are you sure, angel?” Crawley taunts him and Aziraphale - unafraid and absolutely certain that this demon will thwart Heaven’s will - says yes.

And when those very children are in danger of being killed off by Heaven directly, to fulfil God’s will for Job to lose all his old possessions, Aziraphale lies to protect them. He’s terrified after, afraid he’s destined to fall, but he did it anyway because he wanted to protect them, just as he gave away his weapon to protect Adam and Eve outside the garden.

And I feel like this is the big turning point for him. Giving his sword away wasn’t necessarily defying orders, but because of Crawley and the Job situation, Aziraphale makes the active choice to make a stand against Heaven’s plans. He’s terrified, but he does it, and then he keeps on doing it.

Every single action he takes against Heaven is in the name of protecting people: giving Adam & Eve the sword, shielding Job’s children, trying to teach the Antichrist to be good, swan-diving out of heaven to protect earth, hiding Gabriel to keep him safe, shouting at the Archangels and Demons like naughty children when they threaten to bring a war on and now, walking back into Heaven in the hopes of beginning a revolution for the whole system.

#good omens s2 #good omens season 2 #good omens meta #aziraphale #good omens spoilers #good omens

[wilwheaton]

As any professional interrogator can tell you, deep down inside, all of us humans are really just scared little kids. The more we’re broken down by the circumstances of life or government policy, the less secure we feel, the harder it is to get by in life, and the more scared we become. And, for many people, out of that fear comes the willingness — hell, the enthusiasm — to embrace “big daddy” in the form of a tough guy leader who promises to “restore” those who feel the fear back to their previous (or imagined future) positions of power, wealth, and authority. This becomes particularly easy for fascist leaders when their followers are convinced that the nation’s government has become hopelessly corrupt, a project rightwing fossil fuel billionaires, rightwing media, and Republican politicians have been promoting here in the US for decades. Ever since the Reagan Revolution, in their zeal to cut their own taxes and stop regulation of the fossil fuel and other polluting industries, they’ve been hammering the message that our government has been seized by “deep state socialists” bent on destroying our country. Republicans and the billionaires who own them have repeated this conspiracy theory so often for the last few decades that an entire religion, Qanon, as arisen around it. This belief, that much of what our government does is illegitimate or even malicious, makes it easy for low-information voters to bind themselves to a fascist “reform movement” that promises better times ahead. As fascist followers act out their violent threats against their leaders’ perceived enemies, they get an inner sense of strength and the feeling that they’ve joined a community: that diminishes their own fear for a short while. The more an “other” — political enemies; racial, religious, and gender minorities; women — are blamed for the ills of the nation, the more vigilante-style violence against them is justified and the more violent the future becomes. When the state pushes back against that violence, as America did after January 6th, the calls for increased violence become even louder. Trump is practically shouting “kill them!” with a bullhorn and even our court system is afraid to stop him by throwing him into jail as they would have any other common criminal who encouraged such violence against judges, juries, witnesses, court officials, and their families.

Will Trump's Violent Movement Conquer America?

[pholla-jm]

So Close, Yet So Far

IMAGINE: SO CLOSE, YET SO FAR ~ LUFFY X READER GENRE: FLUFF Mizpah- the deep emotional bond between people, especially those separated by distance. ********************

Luffy could have swore he saw something familiar. 

Something so familiar that it made his heartbeat increase and excitement fill his body. He would recognize that form anywhere. 

That’s why he didn’t hesitate to run after the familiar figure. Ignoring the calls from his nakama. Their shouts for him fell on deaf ears. 

“Ugh,” Nami groans while pinching the bridge of her nose, “I swear, those ears are just for decoration.” 

Luffy ran all around town, asking if they had seen this figure he saw earlier. He described this person with perfect precision, yet no one had seen them. It confused him, frustrated him even more. 

He could have sworn he saw you. The hope that filled him, just from the thought of seeing you, was too great. He wanted nothing more than to wrap his arms around you multiple times and take in your familiar scent that he grew to love. But you were too far away from him. 

Now that the feeling of hope was starting to fade away, another feeling replaced it. Longing filled his heart. It felt like you were just arms reach from him, but you weren’t. You were miles away, seas away even.

Luffy laughs to himself. It’s not possible that you were here. You were home, at Dawn island. 

“Luffy! What are you doing?” The ship’s cook shouts at him. Luffy was silent, not really hearing his question. Sanji was quick to notice this. “Luffy, is everything alright?” 

Luffy blinks a couple times, finally hearing Sanji’s voice. 

“Yeah. Just thought I saw someone.” “Oh, who?” 

Luffy grins widely, “don’t worry about it.” 

Luffy turns around and walks the other direction. 

Sanji doesn’t push it, but he thought it to be very for him to be acting this way. Maybe he was hungry? Yeah, that has to be it. 

Many, many hours later, the crew was heading back to the ship. Some were drunk and half awake. Some, taking care of each other. Luffy stayed silent the whole time. Something that the whole crew found weird, but decided not to bring it up. They didn’t want to jinx their luck. 

All Luffy wanted to do was head to his quarters and look at some of the things you gave him before leaving. 

“I was beginning to think that no one was going to return to the ship.” An unknown voice calls out once the crew is back on the ship- well mostly unknown. 

An unknown person leaned against the railing of the ship, flipping through pages of one of Robin’s books. 

While everyone either drew out a weapon, ready to fight if needed. However, Luffy’s reaction was opposite. His eyes widened, mouth forming into a huge smile. He could feel his heart start to beat faster like it used to. 

It was you. 

The same you he was looking for just hours ago. 

You looked different though. You hair styled differently, and you had a bit more muscle on you. But your voice sounded exactly the same. 

A deep inhale entered Luffy’s lungs as he couldn’t contain his excitement anymore. “(Y/N)!” He shouts happily and throws himself at you. 

“(y/n)?” The crew questions. Why would Luffy know this person? 

Laughter fell from your lips as you wrapped your arms around Luffy’s body. His arms wrapping around you multiple times. As much as he could, just enough to let you breathe, but enough to feel you as close as possible. 

“Luffy.” You breathe out with a happy smile on your face. It was surreal seeing him again. “I’m so happy that you’re here!” Luffy voices your thoughts as well. “Me too.” 

“OH!” Luffy says pulling away from you, “I want you to meet my crew!” He says, pulling you towards the confused crew members. 

“Who are you?” Nami questions. “This is (y/n), they’re from Dawn Island.” 

“Ooh, so is this another one of your siblings?” The blonde asks. 

Your face scrunches up at his words and Luffy laughs, “nah. They’re more special than that.” 

“Eh??!” The crew shouts at this revolution. 

“So wait… wait. What are you doing here then?” One of them asks. “Well, I got bored of waiting on the island so I went on an adventure of my own.” 

You turn to Luffy with a small pout on your face. You had told Luffy that you would wait for him when he first left the island. But you couldn’t wait any longer. You were itching to leave the island, have an adventure of your own. And then find Luffy on your own. 

“I hope you don’t mind, Luffy. I know I said I would wait.” 

Luffy’s grin doesn’t falter, “I don’t mind! You found your way back to me!” You laugh, “of course. I’ll always find you.” 

“Are you going to stay?” Nami asks. “If you don’t mind.” 

“Of course you’re staying!” Luffy says and relief floods you. You really didn’t want to leave Luffy again. And Luffy really didn’t want to leave you again.

You were finally here, with him. Within arms length.

#oneshot #one piece #one piece x reader #one piece x you #monkey d. luffy x reader #luffy x reader #luffy x you #luffy x y/n #op x reader

[inthedayswhenlandswerefew]

1968 [Chapter 1: Ares, God Of War]

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

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

Word Count: 5.7k

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Let’s begin with a definition.

Disaster is a noun derived from Ancient Greek: dus, a prefix meaning “bad,” and aster, or “star.” In the time when humans worshipped Zeus and Hera, Hephaestus and Aphrodite, it was believed that tragedies resulted from the inauspicious positioning of celestial bodies: a volcano erupts because of Jupiter, a returning comet brings with it a flood. There is a certain helplessness inherent in this mythology. There is predestined suffering that lies in wait until all the jewels of the sky have malignantly aligned.

Have you ever met someone who made you ache to change the stars?

~~~~~~~~~~

Gunshots explode through the lobby of the Breakers Hotel in Palm Beach, Florida; you feel the wind of the bullets as they clip by, fragmented metallic rage. Aemond is on the marble floor, blood pouring down his face, blood all over the white shirt beneath his navy blue suit jacket when you rip it open, tearing a button loose. He’s reaching for you through the jostling and the screams, leaving crimson handprints on your mint green dress. And you think: He just won the Florida primary. He’s not supposed to die. He’s supposed to be the president.

“What happened?” Aemond murmurs, his right eye dazed and only half-open; the left has vanished beneath a cloudburst of gore. Perhaps ten yards away, people have caught the assailant and pinned him against one of the vast Venetian windows until the police arrive. They’re roaring at him in red-faced fury, their closed fists strike his ribs and his cheekbones, their knuckles paint him scarlet and indigo.

“You’re alright, you’re alright.” You brace both palms over the maroon stain spreading rapidly across Aemond’s chest and press down as hard as you can. Your fingers are drenched in seconds, warm fading life. He’s bleeding to death. You shriek through the turmoil: “Criston?!”

“Is he okay?” Aemond asks faintly. He means the baby; you’re six months pregnant with his first child, his greatest treasure, his Atlantis, his Holy Grail. Aemond has already decided that it’s a boy. Sometimes you fear what will happen if he’s wrong.

“Yes, honey, the baby’s fine, don’t worry. Criston!”

Aegon is here instead, sweating out rum and ruin like he always is, hair too long, veins full of pills, colliding with you and pawing at his dying brother with untrustworthy hands. “Aemond?!”

You shove Aegon away, splattering him with blood. “Get back, he needs air!”

“Where’s he shot?! Let me see—”

“I told you to get back!”

“Goddammit, you don’t own him! He’s mine too!”

Criston has fought his way through the maelstrom and is dragging Aegon away by the collar of his frayed olive green army jacket, stolen from Daeron when he visited home after basic training, a uniform of embittered revolution worn by a man who’s never fought for anything. “Aegon, make sure someone’s called for an ambulance, then meet the paramedics at the door and help them find us.”

“But—”

“Go!” Criston roars, and Aegon scrambles to his feet and is lost within the crowd. You can hear Otto bellowing at journalists and hotel employees to make space for the fallen senator; there are flashes of cameras and prayers shouted aloud. Above your head are crystal chandeliers and a vaulted ceiling hand-painted by 75 Italian artists in the 1920s; swimming in your skull are visions of Jackie Kennedy in the pink suit filthy with her husband’s brains. It’s just before midnight on Tuesday, May 28th. Upstairs in their oceanfront Imperial Suites, nannies will be shaking awake the absent adults of the Targaryen dynasty, who retired with the children before Aemond made his victory speech in the hotel ballroom: Alicent, Helaena, Fosco, Mimi.

Criston’s hands—larger, stronger—replace yours over the gushing wound in Aemond’s chest. What did the bullet hit? His lung, his heart? He’s not speaking anymore, his right eye is closed. His bloodied hands rest open and empty on the floor. “Criston, he’s dying,” you sob.

“No he’s not. We’re not going to let him.”

“What’s the closest hospital?”

“Good Samaritan is just across the bridge on the mainland.” It’s Criston’s job to know these things, though he had been thinking of you when he plotted his meticulous notes in his day planner: in case you eat a bad cheeseburger, or trip on the stairs, or catch the flu and start burning up with fever. Aemond worries about the baby. Aegon has five children, Helaena has three, and Aemond will feel that he has been robbed of something if he does not swiftly procure a family of his own. He needs you on the campaign trail, but still, he worries.

Across the lobby, the police have arrived to arrest the aspiring assassin. He puts up a fight when they try to handcuff him and earns a nightstick to the gut, an elbow to the nose. He is choking on his own blood. Perhaps he is drowning in it. Good, you think.

“Don’t kill him!” Otto booms at the officers. “I want him alive for trial! I want him to ride the lighting up in Raiford, you keep that son of a bitch alive!”

“Aemond?” You thread your fingers through his soaked hair. What happened to his left eye? Is it somewhere underneath all that carnage, or is it gone? “Please wake up. Please stay with me. We need you. The baby and I need you.”

“He’s going to live,” Criston promises, both hands still clamped over the bullet wound to slow the hemorrhaging.

“Aemond, please…” How can he be the president with only one eye?

An old woman in a yellow striped skirt suit is lumbering close with a homemade prayer rope clenched in her fist. “A komboskini for the senator!” For his last rites. For his soul.

“He doesn’t need it!” Criston says. “He’s not dying! No one is dying tonight!”

Still, you take the komboskini from the lady, each of the 100 knots a prayer unspoken. She is a devotee of Aemond, and you must show her gratitude. “Efcharistó, aderfí. O Theós na se evlogeí.” They are some of the few Greek words you’ve mastered; you’ve used them often since Aemond announced that he was running for president. Thank you, sister. God bless you.

The paramedics arrive, splitting the crowd like a laceration, white uniforms and a stretcher to ferry Aemond away. People are wailing, cursing, swearing vengeance. Aegon has returned and is peering down at Aemond with those large, glassy, muddled eyes, afraid to ask. “Is he…is he still…?”

“He has a pulse,” Criston replies. He helps the paramedics drag Aemond onto the stretcher and strap him to it. Your husband’s shirt is now drenched in red like garnet, like cinnabar, like the poppies that commemorate the boys butchered in World War I, like the wasted blood being spilled in Vietnam, men reduced to memory. “Good Samaritan?” Criston confirms with the paramedics.

“Yes sir,” the most senior one agrees. And then to you, with great deference, with compassion that transcends what somebody can harbor for strangers: “Ma’am, there’s a place for you if you want it.”

“I do,” you say, tear-streaked face, hands bathed in blood. “Thank you. Thank you so much.”

The ambulance is idling outside the main entranceway of the hotel. Criston grasps your hand to steady you as you step up into the back, and you take a seat on the red leather bench beside the stretcher. The paramedics are placing IVs, holding an oxygen mask to Aemond’s face, muttering urgently into their radio, abbreviations and code words you can’t understand, a secret language of organic calamities. High above the stars are crystalline and radiant in a clear sky. In your own chest—unshredded by metal, unpierced by rage—your intact heart is pounding.

The lead paramedic turns to you again and says: “We can fit one more person.”

It’s your decision. You are the senator’s wife; you were supposed to be the next first lady of the United States. You look through the ambulance’s open doors. Aegon stares back expectantly, his hair falling in his face, his arms thrown wide, petulant, combative, useless, drunk. “Criston.”

“Bitch!” Aegon hisses at you as Criston climbs into the vehicle. The doors slam shut, the engine rumbles, the siren squeals as the ambulance races westbound on Breakers Row towards County Road, which connects with Flagler Memorial Bridge and the mainland.

Through the rear window you watch Aegon as he stands in the white-gold hotel luminescence, becoming smaller and smaller until he vanishes, and all you can see are streetlights, and all you can smell is blood.

~~~~~~~~~~

Every story needs its cast of characters. Here are the major players in the summer of 1968.

President Lyndon Baines Johnson is in the White House watching the clocks tick towards November 5th, when his successor will be ordained. He has chosen not to seek reelection. Since his ascension upon Kennedy’s assassination in 1963, Johnson’s domestic focus has been unprecedented civil rights legislation and his War On Poverty, yet what has infected the media like blood poisoning is the war in Vietnam. On the television are napalm bombs incinerating Vietnamese peasants, caskets draped with American flags, riots being beaten down by police, college students torching draft cards and chanting “Hey, hey, LBJ, how many kids did you kill today?” Now the president is sick in body, in spirit, in heart, and this is not a metaphor: he suffered a near-fatal cardiac arrest in 1955 and another shortly after John F. Kennedy was murdered in Dallas, Texas. He will die almost exactly four years after leaving office. Had he sought another term, he would have been unlikely to survive it. The public eye is something like a snake bite; it sinks its fangs in and you hope the venom burns clean before it can curse you with clots or hemorrhages or paralysis, before it can drown you in the dark waters of infamy.

In the void left by President Johnson’s surrender, four factions have emerged within the Democratic Party. The old guard—the same labor unions, congressmen, and local political machines who have steered the platform since the days of Franklin D. Roosvelt’s New Deal—has flocked to current Vice President Hubert Humphrey. Humphrey is competent yet uninspiring, a mid-fifties Midwesterner who flinches at the unpolished fury of antiwar protests and sedately lectures Black Power activists on the dangers of “reverse racism.” He is not a threat. He is a sheep in sheep’s clothing, and this is the time for wolves.

Senator Eugene McCarthy of Minnesota is unapologetically opposed to the Vietnam War, a moral crusader, a reluctant warrior, a man who wears his lack of taste for the presidency like a badge of honor. He feels compelled to run, but he does not crave it. He thinks this makes him a saint; but Joan of Arc was burned at the stake and Saint Lawrence was roasted alive. Like Halloween candy plunked into a child’s neon orange plastic pumpkin, McCarthy has collected his own coalition, college students and posh urbanites who believe themselves to be the future of the Democratic Party. In 2016, people will conjure McCarthy’s ghost when drawing comparisons to a controversial left-wing senator from Vermont named Bernie Sanders.

If McCarthy is the future and Humphrey is the past, then former governor of Alabama George Wallace is downright archaic. He is the candidate of choice for Southern white supremacists, averse to Republicans since Lincoln and still reverent of Depression-era New Deal programs that kept them from starving to death. Wallace is best known for his promise of “segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever,” and pledges to end the chaos that has besieged America through strict law and order. Provided he loses the Democratic primary, Wallace plans to run in the general election as an Independent, hoping to peel away enough support from the major party candidates to force the House of Representatives to declare the winner and then leverage his votes to negotiate an end to federal desegregation efforts in the South. His devoted wife Lurleen just died of uterine cancer, a diagnosis which Wallace kept hidden from her for years; doctors are in the habit of informing husbands of their wives’ ailments and giving them carte blanche control over the treatment plan, which unfortunately in Lurleen’s case was nothing. She was 41 years old.

In his short-lived castle of red corridors like the marrow rivers of bones, President Johnson hides from the hippies who jeer and spit; Humphrey frowns at them, McCarthy tries to appease them, Wallace says the only four-letter words they don’t know are “w-o-r-k” and “s-o-a-p.” But Aemond climbs down from podiums to meet them like old friends. He is young, only 36. He has a brother serving in the swamps of Vietnam. He is focused, determined, insatiable; he devours every scrap of news that is printed about him and writes his speeches by hand. As the self-admitted runt of the Targaryen family, Aemond knows what it is like to be underestimated. He wants a better America, and he wants to be the president, and he wants these things in equal, relentless measure, each fueling the other until these ambitions become inseparable. He has grown up hearing slurs against Greeks and consequently has no tolerance for discrimination, which he contends is antithetical to the American Dream. He attends civil rights marches in labyrinthian cities, antiwar protests on college campuses, union meetings in coal mining towns of West Virginia and Kentucky and Wyoming, music festivals crowded with long unwashed hair and braless women, fundraisers flush with the deep pockets of the Northeastern elite. Aemond’s coalition grows each day, bleeding away strength from his rivals like a Medieval surgeon. Their flesh turns cold and anemic, while Aemond’s heart pumps scalding torrents of blood.

If Aemond wins the Democratic primary at the convention in August, his opponent will almost certainly be the Republican frontrunner Richard Nixon of California. Nixon wants the White House just as badly, and he’s much smarter than he looks. He was Eisenhower’s vice president for eight years in the 1950s and lost to the ill-fated John F. Kennedy in 1960 by a whisker; some say he did not lose at all, but instead was cheated out of 100,000 votes by Kennedy’s mafia connections in Chicago. But with the Democrats divided and their incumbent president floundering, Nixon’s timing has never been better. He was once a poor boy with two dead brothers who earned a scholarship to Duke Law. Now he will become whoever he needs to be to win the presidency of the United States.

1968 is the year of wolves. The fangs are sharp, and the bellies ache with hunger.

~~~~~~~~~~

A local deli has opened early and sent sandwiches to Good Samaritan Medical Center for the family and friends of the senator from New Jersey: ham and Swiss, cucumber and cream cheese, tuna salad, egg salad, pimento cheese, BLTs, Cubans. The lobby is filling up with bouquets of flowers and handwritten notes. You pace and count the knots of the komboskini over and over again as you wait; Aemond has been in surgery for hours. The nurses periodically bring you Styrofoam cups of hot chocolate, scalding watered-down sweetness to distract you from the fact that some surgeon is currently rooting around inside your husband’s ribcage.

Alicent—a convert to the Greek Orthodox faith just as you are, though far more zealous, far more sincere if you dared to admit it—is pleading for God to save her son as she clasps her own prayer rope. Helaena is seated beside her, eerily calm. Helaena’s husband Fosco is wandering around boredly and inflicting small talk upon the nurses, ogling out the third-story windows, playing with his red Duncan yo-yo. Otto is making a series of calls using one of the phones at the nurses’ station. Criston is there too, leaning over the countertop and speaking with Otto in low conspiratorial whispers.

Aegon is sitting alone and glaring at you. He takes a rattling bottle of pills—prescriptions that doctors are too afraid not to write for him when he asks—out of a pocket on the front of his green army jacket, spotted like a leopard with your bloody handprints. He opens the amber-colored, cylindrical container and pours two, no, three tiny white tablets into his palm. He tosses them into his mouth and washes them down with a swallow of his own mediocre hot chocolate, still glaring. You ignore him.

“How could this have happened?” Mimi says again from where she’s slumped in her chair. Aegon’s wife has a Snow White sort of beauty, but with a perpetual ruddiness in her nose and cheeks from the gin she sips constantly. You suppose it would make anyone a drunk, being married to a man like that. Her maiden name was Marina Marceline Leroux, but everyone has always called her Mimi, even the press on the rare occasions when she makes an appearance. Her children—Orion, Spiro, Violeta, Thaddeus, and little Cosmo, only five years old—are all back at the Breakers Hotel with the nannies, the same as Helaena’s. Mimi blubbers to nobody in particular: “How…? Who…? Who would want to hurt Aemond…?”

Someone needs to sober her up. You fetch a BLT off the platter of sandwiches and offer it to her. “Here. Eat.”

“I’m not hungry. Who on earth could be hungry at a time like this? I’m absolutely nauseated, I’ll never want food again—”

“Mimi, eat the sandwich.”

“Fine, fine,” she slurs morosely, then takes an unenthusiastic bite. She listens to you, all the women do. They listen to you, and you listen to Aemond, and the circle is closed and complete.

Criston is walking over now. You turn to him, needing good news, bad news, any news. “It was a Wallace supporter,” Criston says. From his seat, Aegon is watching Criston with his slow drugged gaze, listening intently. “Some bell pepper farmer from up by Jacksonville.”

“He’s been taken to the local jail for holding?” you ask, and then add: “Alive?”

“Yeah, and he already has a record. Assault and battery. His brother-in-law is apparently a Grand Dragon in the Klan.”

“What the hell is a Grand Dragon?”

“Well, it’s higher than a Goblin, but not as illustrious as an Imperial Wizard, does that answer your question?”

“Perfectly.” You smile at Criston, a pained, wry smile. He returns it and places a palm over your belly. You are still wearing the mint green dress Aemond picked out for you this morning, before he won the Florida primary, before he was shot twice by the disciple of a political adversary and laid at death’s doorstep. You are still covered in your husband’s blood.

“You’re feeling alright?” Then Criston smirks, knowing how ridiculous he must sound. “You know. All things considered.”

“We’re both fine. The baby’s moving around, I can feel it.”

“You can feel him, you mean,” Criston teases, knowing Aemond’s preoccupation with his unborn son; but you can’t bring yourself to appreciate the joke.

Aegon says to you suddenly: “How the fuck did you let this happen?”

“What?” you answer, stunned.

Aegon stands and approaches, lurching, raging. “You always have to be right beside him, in the photographs, in the headlines, in the soundbites, but you let some psychopath run up and shoot him? Twice?!”

“I thought he just wanted to shake Aemond’s hand, or maybe get a quote for an article—”

“You didn’t notice the gun?!”

“Aegon, sit down,” Criston orders.

“It happened in seconds,” you say. “You think you would have done better? You and your Valium, and your Librium, and your Percodan? You think your reaction time would have been so superior to mine?”

“Please,” Alicent moans, mopping tears from her pink cheeks with a handkerchief. “Please, don’t fight, not now…”

“We are all friends here,” Fosco adds in his thick Italian accent, yo-yoing by a window.

“You want to be the first lady so bad but you can’t handle it!” Aegon shouts, his voice echoing through the lobby. “You’re not some prodigy, you don’t have all the answers, you’re just a girl who stitched yourself to Aemond and then you let him get shot, he’s being operated on right now, maybe he’s even dying, and you still act like you’re so fucking perfect—”

“You’re mad because you know that everybody here is thinking the same thing,” you tell Aegon, cold and cruel. “That if someone had to get killed tonight it should have been you.”

Aegon’s mouth drops open; he stares at you with that slippery, opaque, stoned woundedness, pathetic, infuriating, illogically childish. Everyone else pretends they haven’t heard you. Alicent sniffles into her handkerchief. Fosco begins humming I Want To Hold Your Hand. Mimi chews sluggishly on her BLT. From the nurses’ station, Otto says, holding the phone to his chest: “It’s George Wallace. He’s calling for Aemond’s wife.” Then he waits to see if you’ll agree to take it.

Of course you will. You have to. You are acting in your husband’s stead. You go to the nurses’ station and grab the handset when Otto passes it to you. “This is Mrs. Targaryen.”

“Ma’am, I just wanted to offer you my sincerest condolences.” He has a pronounced drawl, born and raised in what he has praised as the Great Anglo-Saxon Southland. You animal, you think. You braindead bigot. “I do hope the senator makes a hasty recovery. I sure would like to beat him at the ballot box, but I have no stomach for anarchy. An act like this is repugnant to me, as it should be to any red-blooded American.”

“It was one of yours, do you know that?” you say, dripping venom. “One of your hateful ghouls.”

“I have no such knowledge. But if the shooter does turn out to be a supporter of my campaign, I disavow him utterly. He deserves a nice long sit in Old Sparky and then to meet his maker.”

“You inspire men to commit violence, and then you renounce them when they spill blood. I’m still wearing my husband’s. It’s on my hands, it’s on my dress, and I will not absolve you of blame. You are a gardener of discord. You grow it like roses or wheat. You tend to it until it blooms.” Otto is studying you, bushy eyebrows raised. “If you’d truly like to repent, perhaps dropping out of the Democratic primary would be a good start. And then you could find something useful to do, like drowning yourself.”

From whatever office he’s currently lounging comfortably in, his shoes kicked up on the desk, Wallace chuckles. “Aemond is very fortunate to have as ardent a defender as you, my dear.”

“Yes, a devoted wife is such a treasure. It’s a shame you killed yours.”

“Ma’am, once again, I just wanted to express how terribly sorry I am for your family’s hardship. I would never wish for an incident like this—”

“Maybe you shouldn’t be emboldening white supremacists then!” You slam the phone as you hang up.

Otto looks at you. He says: “Did it go well?”

The heavy double doors leading to the operating theater swing open, and a surgeon steps through them, still drying his hands with a dark blue towel. He has changed his scrubs and washed his skin, but you notice a spot he missed: a fleck of half-dried blood up by his temple. That’s Aemond, you think. That’s a piece of him.

Everyone rushes to gather around the doctor, even Mimi; she lists like a ship taking on water as she walks, gnawing at all that remains of her BLT, just a sliver of white toast crust.

“The senator is alive,” the doctor says, and Alicent cries out in relief. Criston rests a palm on her shoulder. “But we could not save the eye.”

“He’s half-blind?” you ask. There’s never been a half-blind president. There’s never been a Greek one either. And the only reason this is stuck in your mind is because you know it will consume Aemond’s.

The doctor nods. “We had to remove it. The bullet that struck Senator Targaryen in the head, fortunately, was more of a graze. It ricocheted off his skull and didn’t cause any trauma to the brain, but his eye was…” He hesitates, trying to find a more polite word than shredded, macerated, pulverized. “Destroyed.”

“You stopped the bleeding?” Aegon says, astonished. “He’s okay? He’s really okay?”

“The second bullet pierced the thoracic cavity and was lodged less than an inch from his heart. He was very lucky. We repaired the damage to the best of our ability, and I am optimistic that the senator will make a full recovery. He’s resting comfortably now, but he should be awake soon.”

“Oh, thank God,” Alicent says, glistening dark eyes raised to heaven. The salient points gathered, Fosco wanders off again, his yo-yo dangling from its string.

Otto asks: “When can he resume campaigning?”

The doctor is caught off-guard; it takes him a moment to answer. “That will depend on the senator’s stamina as he regains his strength. If he chooses to stay in the race at all.”

Otto scoffs. “Of course he’ll stay in. This is what he lives for. You really can’t give me a ballpark figure?”

The doctor is determinately impassive. “I would estimate a month or two before he can withstand the rigors of the campaign trail again.”

“California is June 4th,” Otto recalls, counting off dates on his fingers. “Illinois is the 11th, New York is the 18th…”

“Look, there are people outside!” Fosco announces excitedly as he peers through one of the windows. “Hello! Hello everybody!”

“Fosco, you idiot, stop waving,” Otto snaps. “Go sit down.”

“But they are cheering.”

“Not for you.”

Fosco, somewhat deflated, grabs an egg salad sandwich off the platter and plops into a chair to eat it. He’s dressed in a green plaid sport coat and tight white trousers, very chic, very European. You’ve never been able to imagine Fosco and Helaena being passionately romantic with each other. They’re both a bit too doll-like for that, closer to Barbie and Ken than flesh and blood, blank stares and vague ambitions.

“Someone should talk to them,” Alicent says softly. She means the crowd that is forming in front of the hospital: journalists, cops, local politicians, mutilated veterans, college kids, farmers, fishermen, women and children, the future and the past. Everyone turns to look at you.

“I’ll do it,” you volunteer. You will, you must. Aemond could have chosen a hundred similarly suited women to be his wife, but he chose you, and when he did your vows became a blood oath.

Criston accompanies you downstairs to where the crowd has gathered just outside the front entrance of Good Samaritan Medical Center. The night air is warm and humid, the stars bright. You had thought of so many things to tell these people as you’d stood in the elevator as it descended, but now your mind is empty, fearful. There are photographers with blinding camera flashes and apostles waiting with famished eyes. From the depths of injustice and poverty and war, they have come to pay their respects to the man they believe is destined to save not just themselves but their world. What should I say? What would Aemond want me to say?

“I am very pleased to share with you all that Senator Targaryen is out of surgery and regaining his strength.”

There are cheers and applause and prayers; you are still clutching the komboskini that the old woman gave you in the lobby of the Breakers Hotel. You see more prayer ropes in this flock, and rosaries too, Bibles and dog tags, copies of The Autobiography of Malcolm X and Joanne Didion’s Slouching Towards Bethlehem.

“We would like to thank you for your heartfelt support. Aemond and I are so very grateful, and he is looking forward to being back on the campaign trail soon.”

More clapping and whistling, and then the crowd waits. You aren’t sure what they want to hear as you stand in the glow of the hospital luminance; your hands are trembling wildly, so you clasp them together as you hold the komboskini. Criston glances over at you, concerned. You settle on the truth.

“The man who tried to kill my husband tonight is a supporter of former Alabama governor George Wallace and an avowed white supremacist. Any ideology that advocates for violence and prejudice is a threat to our bodies, our nation, and our souls. We will not surrender to it, not even when our lives are in jeopardy. We will not concede that hope for a better world is lost. We will press ever onward with the knowledge that God is on our side, and that the future of this country is worth fighting for.”

You are bathed in flashbulb lightning; your ears ring with the thunder of the applause. You are shaking hands now, nodding, beaming, Criston following you like a shadow as you move through the congregation. You stop to listen to a middle-aged woman in a floral dress who wants to give you marriage advice: never get bossy, don’t become selfish, remember that you are his safe harbor in the storms of life. It is your job to gift her your momentary veneration. You have beauty, but she has wisdom; or at least, that is the bargain that has been struck, that is the presumption everyone agrees upon. She must have some advantage over you, otherwise the decades she has spent in service of her parents and husband and children have been wasted, she has carved away pieces of herself to feed hungry mouths until she vanished like the doomed nymph Echo. In return, she tries not to envy you too much, not to dismiss you as foolish or frivolous or lustful. Sometimes you think that women are filled with such vicious, relentless self-loathing that it feels good to direct it at someone else for a while, to pick apart another body, to tally up the deficits of her spirit.

“Aemond is so lucky to have you,” the woman says. You can barely hear her over the roar of the crowd.

And you smile as you dutifully reply: “I think it’s the other way around.”

~~~~~~~~~~

There is a television mounted on the wall in Aemond’s room. The news coverage, the volume turned way down low, oscillates between his own near-assassination and the stalled peace talks in Paris. Representatives of the United States and North Vietnam cannot agree, and so each day more body bags are flown home to return the bones of the nation’s sons and fathers to Missouri, Alabama, Idaho, Maine, Wisconsin, Maryland, Arizona, California, New Jersey, everywhere else. Someone has to end it. Aemond will end it.

“I dreamed I won Florida,” your husband mumbles, and that’s how you know he’s awake, here in a hospital bed and wearing IVs like strings of Christmas lights around a pine tree.

“You did,” you tell him, gently smoothing back his hair from his forehead. His left eye—where his left eye used to be—is bandaged; his words are soft and labored. “Humphrey was second. Wallace got third. But you won. And you’re going to be okay.”

“McCarthy?”

“It seems you’re devouring his coalition.”

Aemond’s lips slowly curl into a grin, triumphant. “It is God’s will.” And this is what he always says. It is God’s will that he survives, it is God’s will that he wins the presidency, it is God’s will that you give him sons.

“Yes,” you agree, lifting his right hand to kiss his knuckles. Then you press the komboskini you’re still carrying into his weak grasp. It means more to Aemond than it does to you. “Yes it is.”

Aemond sinks into unconsciousness again, morphine and dreams that blur with reality. There will be pain soon, and plenty of it, but he is free from that impending truth for now. You rise from your chair to tell the rest of the family that Aemond is beginning to wake up. Alicent and Criston will want to speak with him.

When you open the door, Aegon is standing there: an eavesdropper, a trespasser. He glares at you with his large wet ocean-blue eyes, hazy with pills, glinting with resentment. Reluctantly, you step aside to let him in. Aegon wobbles as he passes you and has to grab onto the doorframe to steady himself, scrabbling like a trapped animal.

“You’re a disaster,” you say, caustic like acid, biting, repulsed.

Aegon whirls and jabs his index finger against your chest, bloodstained mint green wool bouclé by Chanel. “You’re a vessel. You’re a cow. And one day he’ll be done with you.”

You feel something hitting you like a bullet, cracking ribs, piercing lungs, tearing muscles and ligaments. Your lips have parted, but you can’t fathom words. Aegon has said many things to you—bitter things, belittling things, things in mixed company, things when you’re alone—but never this. For the first time since you met him two years ago, he has won one of your sparring matches. He has the upper hand. He has wounded you.

Aegon can see this, certainly. But he doesn’t seem pleased with himself. He looks a little shellshocked, like he can’t quite believe he said the words, like maybe if given the chance again he wouldn’t take it. But the moment is over now, and you can’t get time back, it is a thread that unspools until every inch is gone, spent, tangled in a thousand webs.

Aegon staggers into the hospital room. You flee from it. Out in the lobby the phone at the nurses’ station is ringing again. They’ll all be calling now to give their requisite sympathies. Humphrey counsels prudence, McCarthy prays for peace, LBJ offers the empathy of someone who has felt the cold gaze of Death in his own doorway, Nixon praises Aemond’s resilience and quotes the ancient philosopher Seneca: “There is no easy way from the earth to the stars.”

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