#<- the yale days were wild

[aces-and-angels]

into the windverse as text posts: pairing edition

magnus x marcus

wind x martin

enid x joaquin

joaquin x martin

art cred: @oh-so-youre-a-nerd

[shakespeareanwannabe]

As You Wish, Chapter 12

Summary: When arriving at Camp Silver Star, Abby Floyd was anticipating a summer of adventure with an ocean separating her from the three people she loved most: her mom, her Uncle Bob and her Aunt Natasha. But after a run in with Charlie Seresin, an extremely familiar looking and irritating camper in a different cabin, her summer plans take a turn that neither girl ever could have expected.

Trigger Warnings: reader's children are described as being blond with green eyes because genetics are wild and Jake's genes are strong, reader is canonically Bob's sister (but biological relation is never discussed), reader goes by Buttercup and is tattooed, drinking, swearing, reference to an accident

32nd Street Naval Station, 12 years ago

The situation was almost eerily familiar. He stood in his crisp khaki uniform, in line with Bob, Natasha and Javy, just like he had that day almost a year ago. The differences were marked, however. Not only was Rooster in line with them, waiting to be tapped out, but his ring now lay on her finger and his babies were growing in her belly.

Three months. They had been gone for three damn months, and that had been three months too long in Jake’s book. Would he be able to feel the babies kicking now? How close were they to coming? Would they remember the sound of his voice? And how had his Buttercup done in his absence? She had been so worried that she wouldn’t be able to handle his deployment so soon, only two weeks married and five months pregnant with twins in a city she didn’t fully feel comfortable with yet.

Communication between the two had been spotty at best; reduced to a handful of phone calls and one lowly Facetime call. He had received three care packages from her though, filled with his favourite snacks, ultrasound photos, and a couple of raunchy photos that had kept him up half the night with the desire to touch her and hear her voice. He thanked god every day that their mission had wrapped up relatively quickly and the aircraft carrier had been able to dock sooner rather than later.

Bob was the first one pulled out of line, tapped out by his mother, who had come to stay with Buttercup for the last two weeks. Then Javy, his sister smiling over at Jake, who waved her off. He would be tapped out by his wife and only by his wife. Nat gave him a mocking salute as she strode off with Yale, and Rooster flashed him a playful middle finger as Mav tapped him on the shoulder.

Finally, finally, he spotted her, waddling slowly through the thinning crowd. She had grown since the last time he saw her, the skin of her belly stretched tight as their babies grew, but still she looked thinner than he thought she would, especially in her face. And she was moving so slowly, both hands resting under her bump as she navigated her way toward him. Jake’s heart raced as he took her in. She was beautiful, of course, but she looked so…tired. Sad.

A spark of joy raced across her face when she locked eyes with him, and he felt a weight lift off his shoulders as she smiled brightly at him and sped up as best she could.

“Hey hotshot,” she whispered, standing toe to toe with him. “Kiss me.”

All it took was her hand tapping his shoulder lightly before he wrapped her in his arms and kissed a sweet kiss to her lips, his hands journeying downward to help share the weight of her belly.

“As you wish, darlin’,” he whispered against her lips. “As you wish.”

Seresin Ranch, Clifton, Texas, Now

The drive back to the ranch had been…awkward, to say the least. Savannah, thankfully, had gone home with her parents, her mother claiming that she would be in touch in a few days, but Jake had never pictured being in his truck with his two daughters and his ex-wife, a rental car packed with their nearest and dearest trailing behind them.

Buttercup had been strangely quiet on the drive to the ranch, her sharp eyes taking in the scenery while her ears no doubt were honed in on the rapid conversation her daughters were having in the back seat. Not that Jake blamed her for her silence. They’d both been taken aback when faced with the blackmail their daughters had laid at their feet. The girls would tell them which girl legally belonged to which parent at the end of their seven-day trip to the ranch, during which they would go on the annual trail ride, swim in the pool, go to one of Javy’s football games, and probably have a backyard bash to celebrate all the birthdays and Christmases they had missed out on.

Jake couldn’t help but swallow down his nerves as he turned down the long driveway that led to the ranch house. The last time he and Buttercup had spent any extended amount of time together, it had ended with tears and a courtroom. He still woke up sometimes in the middle of the night, the sound of the judge’s gavel ringing in his ears and the sight of Buttercup’s gaunt and teary face flickering behind his eyelids. But the girls needed this, and, frankly, Jake thought he and Buttercup needed it too. Time to act like a family, co-parent without an ocean in the way, and, Jake reminded himself, time for both the girls to get to know their future stepmother and for Buttercup to feel secure in allowing another woman near her children.

“I missed it here,” he heard Charlie sigh, his eyes jumping to the rearview mirror to see if he could spot which twin had spoken, but both of their mouths were clamped shut, as though they knew he would try to suss out which one was legally his responsibility.

“It’s pretty…” Buttercup murmured beside him, taking in the fields and the trees that lined the driveway. “I thought you said your grandfather’s ranch was kind of run down?”

Jake felt a smile tug on his lips. She remembered. He’d only mentioned it once or twice, in conversations about how they could manage the holidays when they got married, but she remembered.

“Coyote, Rooster and I fixed it up,” he replied in a smooth voice, pulling his truck up to the side of the farmhouse. “Took a bit, but we got it done, and now it’s a pretty successful working ranch.”

“Tourists can come here too, mom,” one of the girls piped up. “There’s cabins for city people who want a dude ranch experience.”

“Or for people who just want to get away,” the other girl smiled as the truck was shut off.

Jake sighed and stepped out of the truck, watching the SUV full of their friends and family coast up the driveway behind him.

“Alright, Abby, you, Buttercup, your aunt and uncle are all staying in one of the empty dude cabins—”

“No, we’re not,” one of the twins (Charlie, maybe?) glared at him. “I already texted Claudia. She had Luke move the futon into the bedroom. We are staying together.” She linked arms with her twin and they nodded decisively at him.

“And mom isn’t staying in a dude cabin with Uncle Bob and Auntie Nat,” her sister added. “She’s staying in the guest bedroom. In the house. With us.”

“Girls, I don’t think—”

“Please?” they batted their eyes at them. “We just want to know what it feels like for all of us to wake up under the same roof. Like a family.” They pouted, their eyes shining.

Jake groaned as he crouched to meet their eyes, waving a warning finger between them. “This is emotional blackmail, and you both know it.”

They both shrugged. “And we’re okay with that.”

Jake couldn’t tell if he wanted to laugh or hit something. They were definitely his daughters. Only someone with his DNA could come up with a scheme like this. Only someone who grew up with Rooster and Coyote would even think of something like this. And he had no doubt that the two men had something to do with it as well.

“Are you okay with this?” he turned to Buttercup, a gentle look in his eye. She’d been quiet, too quiet, since they’d left the hotel. “If you’re not, we could always ground ‘em for manipulating their parents.”

She smiled weakly at him. “It’s fine. It’ll be fine. It’s only for one week anyway. If we can’t handle one week living under the same roof…” she trailed off with a sigh, and he could read her mind just as well as he always had been able to. They’d planned on living under the same roof for the rest of their lives. They’d planned on growing old together. If they couldn’t handle one week together, then it was just further proof of how badly they had failed their girls.

Before he could doubt himself, he reached out and squeezed her shoulder. “It’ll be okay,” he murmured. “I promise. No asshole-ish, condescending behaviour from me.”

She snorted, the tension between them breaking. “So, you’re saying that you won’t be yourself?”

He pressed a hand to his chest dramatically, gasping and groaning. “You wound me, Buttercup.”

The girls giggled, sharing a look between them before Natasha stomped between them, heading for the house like she owned the place. Jake turned and looked at the SUV in time to watch Javy striding towards his cabin, muttering under his breath and kicking at a weed that was in his way.

“Jesus, what happened there?” he muttered to Buttercup, who shook her head.

Rooster strolled toward them, his hands pressed deeply into his pockets as he shook his head, his usually tan skin pale.

“Rooster?”

He shook his head at them. “I’m surprised they didn’t kill each other, man.”

Buttercup bit her lip, concern spreading across her features as she turned to watch her friend walk into her ex-husband’s house. “What happened? Why are they at each other’s throats? I thought they—”

“Doesn’t matter,” Rooster griped at her, looking at Jake. “I’m goin’ to make dinner.”

Jake nodded before turning to grab the luggage out of the bed of his truck. “Girls, you know where your bedroom is. Buttercup…” he bowed with a flourish. “Right this way and I’ll show you to your room.” She raised a hand to take her luggage from him, but he turned before she could even think. “You know me better than that, Buttercup. C’mon now.” He turned to lead them inside. “Since Phoenix seems to think she can stroll into my home whenever she pleases, you can come with us and I’ll show you to your cabin later, Bob.”

“You do put out quite the spread, Rooster,” Buttercup complimented as she dug into her mushroom risotto. “Everything is delicious.”

Rooster’s grunt had Jake aiming a kick at him under the table. Rooster shot him a sharp look in response, but Phoenix cut off any retort he might have been able to muster.

“What the hell, man? Why couldn’t you cook like this before? You nearly burned down the old apartment trying to make toast one time.”

“Needed something to keep me busy during retirement. And these two idiots would’ve let Charlie and I starve to death if I didn’t step up.”

“Are you self-taught?” Bob questioned, cutting up his baked chicken breast.

He shook his head. “Culinary school. Luckily for me, Uncle Sam was willing to pay my tuition since I was sinking all my money into this place.”

“I thought it was the Seresin Ranch?” Buttercup looked at Jake, who shrugged.

“Been a family ranch for decades. But Rooster and Coyote are equal partners with me. Mostly silent partners, but it was Coyote’s idea to turn the south field into a tourist trap. Ever since, we’ve been doing comfortably for ourselves.”

Buttercup looked around the cozy but elegant dining area. “Looks like more than comfortable to me.”

“Well, you’d know, wouldn’t you, Buttercup?” Jake smiled at her over his wine glass. “New York Times bestseller list? And I heard that you’re not one of those hacks who buys a bunch of copies of your own book just to make that list.”

Buttercup blushed into her rosé. “I’ve done okay for myself.”

“Better than okay,” Phoenix piped up with a reproachful look at her friend. “They’re trying to get her to host a TED Talk about creative writing and literary themes.”

Javy whistled under his breath. “Damn, kid. That’s awesome. What’s holding you back from sayin’ yes?”

Buttercup shifted uncomfortably. “There’s a reason I write under a penname, I suppose. I don’t really want to bring attention to myself. Or to my family.”

Rooster huffed under his breath. “And here I was thinking that it was because you didn’t want Jake to find you when you disappeared.”

Everyone froze, Jake’s laser glare slicing through the frosty air towards his friend.

“I…I…” Buttercup felt her eyes well with tears and she gripped her wine glass so tightly she was afraid that the stem would snap in her hands.

Rooster stood with a screech of his chair against the hardwood. “I’m done,” he muttered. “Enjoy the rest of your dinner.”

Buttercup half rose out of her seat as though to follow him, but Jake’s gentle hand on her arm gave her pause. “Ignore him. He’s got his own crap to work out. It’s not your fault, darlin’.”

She sniffed but nodded. “I…I didn’t mean to disappear. I called you. A bunch of times. But you never answered.”

Jake nodded, the tension remaining thick, the girls watching them warily. “I tried to call you too. Finally got an answer once too. But it was some British guy yelling at me to stop calling him at 3 o’clock in the morning. Figured it was a new man in your life.”

Buttercup shook her head. “It wasn’t. I mean…I’ve been too busy to try to date. But I can see why you thought that. And why you’d stop calling. I guess maybe the court transcribed my number wrong?”

Jake shrugged. “Must be. Tried calling Bob and Phoenix too. But it would only ring once then send me to voicemail.”

Buttercup sighed and glared at her family. “You blocked him?”

Bob shrugged but Phoenix met her eyes. “Yeah, I did. I barely wanted to talk to him when I had to work with him. Why would I want to talk to him when I didn’t have to?”

Jake, Charlie and Abby flinched at the venom in her voice.

“Nat…” Bob murmured under his breath in warning, but it was Javy’s voice that caught her attention.

“Sure, Phoenix, keep blaming us for your problems,” he bit out, eyes on his food. “I guess being angry at the world is easier than being angry at yourself.”

Phoenix slammed her fork down on the table. “Are you saying that getting grounded was my own fault?”

Javy stood, looming over the table. “I would never say that. But we all tried to be there for you when you were forced into retirement. It ain’t our fault that you couldn’t handle it and pushed us all away. Now you’re all alone and you can’t blame anyone but yourself for that.”

Phoenix stood to retort, the hairs on her arms standing at attention, but another screech of a chair stole their attention.

“That is enough,” Buttercup hissed. “My children are present, and they have enough going on without you two having a petty argument. If you need to whine at each other, do it outside. Because they do not need to hear this. Be adults or get out.”

Phoenix blinked at her for a moment before throwing her napkin down and stalking out of the room. A second later the front door slammed shut and everyone flinched.

Javy’s head hung low as he leaned against the table. “I’m gonna go too. Night girlies.” He bent to press kisses to Charlie and Abby’s hair as he passed them and left the room after clapping Jake on the shoulder.

“I’m sorry,” Buttercup whispered to Jake, resettling into her seat. “But that’s not the kind of argument they should be having in front of our kids.”

The girls were indeed picking at their food, skin ashen.

“Don’t worry about it,” he promised, reaching out to squeeze her hand before picking up his fork again. “It’s not the first time Rooster or Javy have been tossed out of here for having a temper. I doubt it’ll be the last.”

Buttercup nodded, clearing her throat. “Girls, why don’t you tell me about this trail ride we’re going on tomorrow? You’re so insistent on going on it, but you haven’t really given me details.”

Charlie smiled brightly. “We leave way before the sun comes up and we get back the next night in time for Uncle Roo’s famous chili. We go all over the ranch, through the forest, up into the hills. Sometimes we see the cattle! And we camp out in tents and eat smores and hot dogs and Dad lets me stay up way late and tells me stories!”

Jake bit his lip to hide his smile. That was definitely his Charlie girl, but he wasn’t going to call her on it. Not when he wanted his girls to stay with him for as long as they could.

“I started the tradition when Charlie was just a baby,” he smiled. “We didn’t have a whole lot of ranch hands back then, so my granddad and I went out to round up the cattle with Rooster and Coyote. Charlie rode with me, strapped to my chest. She came with us every year until we had enough hands to do it on their own. That’s when we decided to move the trail ride to the last week of summer. As a kind of celebration before school starts again.”

Buttercup was smiling softly into her glass. “That sounds wonderful. I’m sure you’ll all have a wonderful time.”

Both girls made a sound of protest, and Jake chuckled. “Oh, c’mon now, Buttercup. You’re not gettin’ away from me that easily. You’re coming too.”

Buttercup bit her lip and looked pleadingly at him. “Jake, you know I can’t ride. And I’m an indoor human, not an outdoor one. I don’t do camping. I hate the outdoors, except for the beach. And I’m way too old to be sleeping on the ground.”

“You rode well when you took me out riding on the beach for my birthday,” he smiled. “And you came to the Daggers camp night, when we all slept out in Mav and Penny’s backyard. And you’re not old. You’re just as young and beautiful as you were the day I met you.”

Buttercup felt her cheeks blaze with heat. “Jake, please?”

The twins leaned forward and jutted their lower lips out. “Please mom?”

“For us?”

Buttercup shuttered her eyes. “No! Please, no more puppy dog eyes!”

Jake leaned in and gave her a similar, pleading look. “C’mon, Buttercup. You can’t say no to all three of us, can you?”

Buttercup groaned when she saw the look on his face. “You’re incorrigible, and their puppy dog face is clearly all your fault.”

The three of them cheered.

“You won’t regret this, I promise,” Jake murmured in her ear before sitting back in his chair and finishing his dinner.

Buttercup arose to the sound of a car door slamming, and thought, for a moment, that she was back in her flat in London. But the bed was unfamiliar and pale blue walls were not the lilac of her own bedroom. The distant sound of a horse whinnying brought back the flood of memories from the day before.

Jake. She was at Jake’s ranch, with her daughters. Both of them. Rooster was there too, and angry as all hell at her. Javy and Natasha were at each others’ throats. Bob was silently stewing out in a cabin somewhere on the property. It all felt like something she would write in one of her books, not live out in her real life.

With a sigh, she rolled out of bed and stretched. The girls had told her that they left for the trail ride before the sun even came up. Well, Charlie had told her, but she didn’t want to call her out and ruin the deal they had made. Jake had been right when he said that they all needed this. They needed to learn how to co-parent, and the girls deserved to spend more time with both them and each other. And part of that would be going on the trail ride as a family.

Slowly, Buttercup dressed in her oldest jeans and a cotton t-shirt, draping the flannel Jake had leant to her over her arm before hoisting the backpack Jake had helped her pack with camping essentials onto her shoulder.

Despite the arguments from the night before, Buttercup had enjoyed her first night on Seresin Ranch. Both her girls were clearly enamored with their father, and their father with them. Though she loved her family dynamic in London, she had to admit that their family meals were few and far between. Bob was flying more and more flights with overnight layovers, and Natasha would be out with friends more often than not. So, it would just be her and Abby around the dinner table. And she loved that, she really did, but she couldn’t help but feel that her daughter felt a little lonely in their small bubble.

Her girl wasn’t the biggest social butterfly (a trait she had undoubtedly inherited from her mother), though Buttercup knew that she had a few solid friends at school. Her girl got good grades, enjoyed her riding at the local arena, and loved spending time with her aunt and uncle when they were available. Still, Buttercup had always wanted to give her daughter a huge network of people she could rely on. Charlie clearly had that on the ranch, and Buttercup wanted to stick around long enough for at least some of those people to adopt Abby as their own as well.

Buttercup treaded softly over the hardwood floor and down the stairs, only stilling when she heard a sweet, feminine voice echoing off the walls.

“I told you, sugar. All is forgiven. I don’t blame you for not talkin’ about your other little girl. It must’ve been so painful for you to even think about her,” the voice simpered.

“I know it’s not ideal, Savannah,” Jake’s voice replied as Buttercup crept closer to the kitchen. “I’m sorry I lied to you. I wouldn’t blame you if you wanted to reconsider everything. You planned on becoming a stepmother to one child. Not two.”

Buttercup leaned against the wall next to the kitchen doorway. From her angle, she could see Jake standing in the kitchen, his strong hands resting on Savannah’s hips.

“Oh tush, sugar! It’ll be twice the fun with two little girls runnin’ around here. I’m sorry I fainted. I was just overwhelmed. But it’s not going to happen again. I promise.”

“Are you sure you don’t want to take some time to think about it?”

Buttercup watched as Savannah leaned in and planted a deep kiss on Jake’s lips. Her stomach roiled and Buttercup took a few steps away. She had no reason to feel nauseated at the sight of Jake kissing another girl. He was going to marry this woman. She would be the stepmother to her children. Sure, nobody but Jake seemed particularly keen on Savannah, but the same could be said about Buttercup herself, given Rooster’s reaction to her the night before. Whatever she was feeling, she would have to just get over it. That social network she wanted to build for her daughters would include Savannah, and it was Buttercup’s job as a mother to help build that bridge between them.

“Oh!” Buttercup looked up and found Savannah in the doorway, staring at her. “I’m so sorry, honey. I didn’t realize you were there.”

Buttercup forced a smile onto her face as she tamped down her nausea. “No, no. It’s my fault. Jetlag, you know? I was feeling a little dizzy and had to take a minute to breathe.”

Savannah smiled brightly at her. “Oh, that’s a darn shame. Jakey was tellin’ me that you’re an author?”

Buttercup blinked at the sudden change in topic but nodded. “That’s right.”

Savannah squealed. “That gives me the best idea ever! You should write my vows for me.”

Buttercup fought hard to keep the damper on her nausea as her stomach threatened to roll over. “I’m sorry?”

Savannah’s smile twitched, the sugary sweet smile changing to something predatory and feline for all of a second. “It’ll just sound so much better coming from a professional writer,” she simpered. “All those words of love and commitment, from me to Jakey,” she sighed. “It would be ten times better than whatever I could come up with.”

Buttercup bit the inside of her cheek hard enough to bleed as she smiled faintly at her. “I…will think about it.”

Savannah squealed again. “Ah, just think about how much it would mean to your girls. Havin’ their mother help welcome their new stepmama into their lives. It would be so sweet.”

Buttercup rolled her shoulders and nodded kindly. “Of course. I’ll think about it.” A sliver of an idea formed in Buttercup’s mind as she considered the saccharine woman in front of her. “You know what? While I think about it, why don’t you try to get to know your future stepdaughters more?”

Savannah blinked at her, the too-white smile on her face dimming as she stared at her. “How would you want me to do that?”

Jake stood in front of the four horses he had tacked up that morning. His own horse, Firewall, stood with the majority of the camping equipment stored behind his saddle. Lovebug had saddlebags full of food and water. The other two horses, a sweet chestnut gelding named Starburst and a black mare named Angel, would carry their other bags as well as Abby and Buttercup.

“C’mon you two punks!” he called as Charlie and Abby raced out of the house. “Let’s get a move on! We’re burning daylight!”

“Sorry dad,” Abby panted, moving towards Starburst. “Our bathroom is way too small for two people.”

“Where’s mom?” Charlie patted Lovebug as she stared toward the house.

Almost like she had been cued, Buttercup emerged from the house, dressed in a pair of yoga pants and a tank top.

“That what you’re ridin’ in, darlin’?” Jake called. “I don’t know if that’s the best getup for a trail ride.”

Buttercup shook her head, cradling a cup of coffee between her hands. “I talked to my editor this morning. I have a deadline coming up and owe her a hundred and fifty more pages.”

Jake felt his heart sink as the girls bemoaned the news.

“But mom—”

“—you promised!”

Buttercup smiled softly at them over her mug. “I know, my darlings, and I’m so sorry. But I figured you could use this time well anyway.”

“We already know dad, Mom,” Charlie griped.

“That’s not what I’m talking about, baby,” Buttercup grinned, an almost wicked look on her face. “I thought you could get to know your new stepmother on this trail ride. After all, she’ll be part of the family too.”

Jake’s heart sunk even lower as Savannah strode out of the house, looking like a model for a horse magazine, all dolled up in the latest riding gear.

Abby and Charlie stared at their mother with an unreadable look on their faces as Buttercup winked at them. “Enjoy!”

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[rjzimmerman]

Excerpt from this story from Yale Environment 360:

For nearly a decade, Nonhle Mbuthuma has traveled with a bodyguard. The founder of the Amadiba Crisis Committee — a local group formed to fight a proposed titanium mine along South Africa’s Wild Coast — Mbuthuma has long had the support of many in rural Pondoland’s Xolobeni community. But opponents have demonized her as an arch enemy of all economic development, and some have been encouraged to believe that if Mbuthuma “disappeared,” they would get rich.

Eight years ago, Mbuthuma’s activist colleague Sikhosiphi “Bazooka” Rhadebe, who opposed the mine, was shot dead outside his home by two men dressed as police officers. (Neither assailant has been caught.) Mbuthuma was also a target that day. Amadiba succeeded in halting construction of the mine, and Mbuthuma, 46, has continued working to protect this highly biodiverse region and the traditional culture of the Mpondo people.

This week, Mbuthuma, and her colleague Sinegugu Zukulu, won a Goldman Environmental Prize for their recent efforts to prevent Shell Oil from prospecting along the Wild Coast. As the activist headed to San Francisco to pick up her award, she spoke via Zoom with Yale Environment 360 about Pondoland, plans for its future development, and continuing threats to her life.

Yale Environment 360: Tell me about your struggle with Shell Oil.

Nonhle Mbuthuma: When we heard in late 2021 that Shell wanted to do seismic blasting off the coast, it was like someone put a bomb to our chest. These waters are precious, with rich ocean currents and reefs feeding whale calving grounds and fisheries. That water is part of us. We have cooperatives that do environmental fishing, using rods rather than nets that wipe out everything. But the ocean is also a sacred place. According to our traditions, our ancestors reside in the ocean. We have a right under our country’s constitution to practice our culture, and that requires protecting our waters. So we decided to fight in the courts.

The government had already given Shell permission to start seismic blasting. Shell is a big company with a lot of money, but we said that they are not bigger than our livelihoods and culture. We mobilized our communities to collect information to explain why the ocean is so important to us. We were backed by protests all over the country.

Even as the surveying began, the high court ruled in our favor. The judges said the permit to do the surveys had been granted unlawfully because the government had not considered the impact on our livelihoods and culture and because Shell did not consult the community, which is a requirement of our constitution. But Shell and the government have decided to appeal the judgment.

[dirtyriver]

What Researchers Learned From the World’s Oldest Cookbook

A set of four cuneiform clay tablets unearthed in what was once Mesopotamia contain the etched ingredient lists for dozens of aromatic stews, pies, and soups. Three of the tablets date back as far as 4,000 years.

Part of the problem with reproducing these ancient recipes is that the tablets are mostly ingredient lists, typically sans further instructions. Presumably, the person writing them assumed that the reader would have sufficient culinary know-how to parse the shorthand. For a modern-day scientist, filling in the blanks requires some serious guesswork.

A vegetarian stew—inexplicably titled on a tablet as “Unwinding”—and a braised lamb stew with beets both turned out surprisingly well. The latter recipe incorporates both sour beer and tallow, both of which were commonly used ingredients at the time. “There’s blanks to fill in about how you would prepare and cook these things,” Skelly says. “But the mutton stew stood out as one that seemed more interpretable or familiar.”

Babylonian Lamb Stew recipe under the cut

Adapted from the Yale Peabody Museum

Prep time: 30 minutes

Cook time: 90 minutes

Total time: 120 minutes

4 servings

Ingredients

1/2 cup of chopped leek

2 cloves of garlic

1 pound of diced leg of mutton or lamb

1/2 teaspoon salt, or to taste

1 small onion, diced

1 teaspoon of ground cumin

1 cup of Persian shallots or spring onions, finely chopped

1 pound of fresh red beets, peeled and diced

1 cup of chopped arugula

1/2 cup of chopped fresh cilantro

1 cup of beer

1/2 cup of water

2 teaspoons of dry coriander seed

1/2 cup of finely chopped cilantro

1/2 cup of finely chopped kurrat (Egyptian leek), ramps, or wild leek

Instructions

Crush chopped leek and garlic together in a mortar to form a coarse paste. Set aside.

Heat the fat in a Dutch oven wide enough for the diced lamb to sit in one layer. Season the lamb all over with salt and sear on high heat until all moisture evaporates.

Add in the onion and sauté until translucent, but not yet brown. Add the Persian shallots and cumin.

Fold in red beet, arugula, and cilantro. Continue sautéing over medium-high heat until the greens are wilted and the mixture emits a pleasant aroma.

Pour in the beer and the water. Give the pot a light stir and bring to a boil.

Reduce heat and add in the crushed leek and garlic.

Let the stew simmer for about an hour, or until the sauce thickens and the lamb is tender.

While the stew simmers, pound the coriander seeds, kurrat, and cilantro together into a mortar to make a flavorful paste.

Ladle the stew into plates and sprinkle it with the kurrat paste. The dish can be served with steamed bulgur or flatbread.

[theculturedmarxist]

Many US papers are giving front-page, above the fold treatment to university administrators going wild and calling in the cops on peaceful campus protests, first at Columbia, followed by Yale and NYU. Harvard, in a profile in courage, closed its campus to prevent a spectacle. Demonstrations are taking hold at other campuses, including MIT, Emerson, and Tufts.

This is an overly dynamic situation, so I am not sure it makes sense to engage in detailed coverage. However, some things seem noteworthy.

First, in typical US hothouse fashion, the press is treating protests as if they were a bigger deal than the ongoing genocide in Gaza. I am not the only one to notice this. From Parapraxis (hat tip  guurst; bear with the author’s leisurely set-up):

I am employed as a non-tenure-track professor in a university department dedicated to teaching and research about Jews, Judaism, and Jewishness. One day, I arrived at work to find security cameras installed in my department’s hallway. I read in an email that these cameras had been installed after an antisemitic poster was discovered affixed to a colleague’s office door. I was never shown this poster. Like the cameras, I learned of it only belatedly. Despite the fact that the poster apparently constituted so great a danger to the members of my department as to warrant increased security, nobody bothered to inform me about it. By the time I was aware that there was a threat in which I was ostensibly implicated, the decision had already been made—by whom, exactly, I don’t know—about which measures were necessary to protect me from it. My knowledge, consent, and perspective were irrelevant to the process… The prolepsis of the decision did more than protect me—if, indeed, it really did that. It interpellated my coworkers and myself as people in need of protection…. I was unwittingly transformed, literally overnight, into the type of person to whom something might happen. My employer has a campus—three, actually—meaning that it has a physical plant. I navigate one of these campuses as my workplace, but it almost never figures for me as “the campus.” In fact, the first time since beginning the job when I felt myself caught up in an affective relation, not to the particular institution where I work, but rather to “the campus” was when I looked up into that security camera and felt myself being “watched” by it. Only then did I think, a couple of months into my temporary contract, that I was not just at my workplace. Now I was on “the campus.” This incident with the poster and the camera occurred, of course, some weeks after the October 7 Hamas attacks on Israel and the onset of Israel’s retaliatory military campaign in Gaza. Against so horrific a backdrop, and relative to the intimidation and retaliation to which those who speak out against the war (including—indeed, especially—in the academy) have been subjected, my story sounds banal. And it is. In its very ordinariness, however, the anecdote is quite representative: first, of how decisions get made at contemporary institutions of higher education (generally speaking, without the input of those whom they impact); and second, of the logic of a peculiarly American phenomenon I call campus panic…. The months since October 7 have aggravated the most extreme campus panic I have witnessed. To judge by the American mass media, the campus is the most urgent scene of political struggle in the world. What is happening “on campus” often seems of greater concern than what is happening in Gaza, where every single university campus has been razed by the IDF. When all the Palestinian dead have been counted, it seems likely that these months will be recorded as having inflamed a campus panic no less intense than the one that accompanied the Vietnam War.

Second, many otherwise fine stories, like Columbia in crisis, again by the Columbia Journalism Review, and Columbia University protests and the lessons of “Gym Crow” by Judd at Popular Information, start off with the 1968 protests at Columbia as a point of departure. And again, consistent with the Parapraxis account and being old enough to remember the Vietnam War, I find the comparison to be overdone. Yes, there are some telling similarities, like the role of right-wing pressure in getting campus administrators to call out the cops, the device of dwelling on the earlier uprising seems to obscure more than it reveals. The Vietnam War, unlike Gaza, tore the US apart. Today’s campus students are, with only the comparatively small contingent of Palestinian students, acting to protest US support of slaughter in Gaza. In 1968, for many, the stake were more personal. The risk of young men having to serve was real.

Similarly, conservatives then supported the military and were typically proud of their or any family member’s service. Draft dodging and demonization of armed forces leaders was close to unconscionable. It took years of the major television networks and the two authoritative magazines, Time and Newsweek, showing what the war looked like, and intimating that the US was not succeeding, that shifted mass opinion.

And even the initial 1968 protests were more disruptive. The first wave at Columbia occupied some campus buildings, presumably disrputing operations. Today’s were encampments, as in outdoors. So they were more analogous to Occupy Wall Street, where the ongoing rebellion was an offense to authority even if it caused harm. But worse, the ones at Columbia and other schools now are by elites in training, and not presumed loser riff-raff.

So the aggressiveness of the crackdown looks like very insecure leadership. For instance, why escalate to calling in the NYPD immediately, as opposed to campus police, when the city’s cops reported everyone cooperated with the arrests?

This takes us to the third issues, that it isn’t just the students who oppose the stifling of protest, but also faculty. From the Popular Information article:

[President] Shafik’s actions were blasted in a statement issued on Friday by the Columbia and Barnard College chapters of the American Association of University Professors: Shafik also drew a rebuke from the Columbia student council. In a statement, the council said that “students possess the inherent right to engage in peaceful protest without fear of retribution or harm” and called for “the preservation of freedom of speech and expression among students.”

Popular Information also points out how the Biden Administration is, natch, whipping up fear about possible dangers to Jews while ignoring that Muslims have been on the receiving end. Recall that ex-IDF soldiers who attacked pro-Palestinian protestors at Columbia in January went unpunished. Again from Popular Information:

On Sunday, the White House released a statement in response to the protests at Columbia, denouncing “calls for violence and physical intimidation targeting Jewish students”: What incidents prompted this statement? A White House spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment. But some media outlets are interpreting it as a response to this video, in which two unidentified men promise more terrorist attacks against Israel. According to the individual who posted the video, the incident did not occur on Columbia’s campus. There is no evidence that Columbia students were involved. An NBC reporter, Antonia Hylton, who was on Columbia’s campus with protesters, reported no instances of “violence or aggression” among students.

Now we’ll turn to Rajiv Sethi, who as a professor at Barnard, has, for better or worse, a front row seat on the turmoil.

By Rajiv Sethi, professor of economics at Barnard College. Originally published at his website

My campus is in turmoil, and it’s hard to think or write about anything else. Dozens of students have been suspended, arrested, and barred from the premises. Others have been advised to leave for their own safety. Most entrances are closed altogether, and the few that remain open are guarded to prevent entry of non-affiliates. Calls for the resignation of leaders are coming from multiple quarters—some concerned about excessively punitive measures and others about inadequate enforcement and protection.

There are several reports on social media of harassment, intimidation, and the glorification of violence. Such reports often conflate what is happening outside the gates—involving people who may not be affiliates and who are on ground over which the university has no jurisdiction—with the protests on the South Lawn. Based on what I have seen personally, the latter protests have been peaceful, prayerful, and even joyful at times.1

I did see one sign directed at President Shafik that I felt was offensive and ill-advised. And there is one phrase—recently deemed anti-Semitic by an act of Congress—that has been repeated loudly and frequently within the gates. This post is about the meaning of that phrase, and about meanings and messages in general.

While on stage at a political convention in July 2015, Martin O’Malley said the following:

Black lives matter. White lives matter. All lives matter.

Taken literally, these words are entirely unobjectionable, even laudable. But O’Malley apologized for them within hours, saying: “That was a mistake on my part and I meant no disrespect.”

Why was the apology deemed necessary? O’Malley was running for the Democratic presidential nomination at the time, and to many of the voters he was courting, the words “all lives matter” had come to mean something else entirely—an expression of indifference to racial inequality at best, and perhaps even a racist dog whistle.

As phrases come to be endowed with new meanings, some people respond by carefully avoiding them, while others are motivated to adopt them with relish. This further entrenches the new meaning and reinforces the process of selective abandonment and adoption. Thus “Democrat Party” can come to be intended and perceived as an epithet, and the seemingly harmless chant “Let’s Go Brandon!” a vulgarity.

This process is decentralized and largely uncoordinated, and there is little that legislation can do to enforce the attachment of meanings to messages. Of course, this hasn’t prevented our elected officials from trying. On April 16, by a vote of 377-44, the House passed Resolution 883:

Expressing the sense of the House of Representatives that the slogan, “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” is antisemitic and its use must be condemned.

One day later, Columbia President Minouche Shafik was asked by Congresswoman Lisa McClain whether she agreed that such statements were indeed anti-Semitic. President Shafik answered as follows:

I hear them as such, some people don’t.

The problem with this response is that it suggests that listeners are free to assign meanings to expressions, regardless of the identities and intentions of speakers. But meanings are created jointly by speakers and listeners, and the same message can carry different meanings depending on what is known about the parties engaged in communication.

People have often appropriated and de-fanged racist, misogynistic, and homophopic insults aimed at the groups to which they belong. Even the most vile and vicious slur in the American language carries a different connotation when used by Randall Kennedy in conversation. The meanings of messages cannot be established independently of the indentities of those who use them. They cannot be established by listeners alone.

Thus the attempt by the House of Representatives to define the meaning of a phrase is likely to be futile. The meaning will evolve over time based on the process of selective avoidance and adoption. And this meaning is vigorously contested at present.

Consider, for instance, the Jerusalem Declaration on Anti-Semitism. This document states clearly that “denying the right of Jews in the State of Israel to exist and flourish, collectively and individually, as Jews, in accordance with the principle of equality” is anti-Semitic. However, it also proclaims:

It is not antisemitic to support arrangements that accord full equality to all inhabitants “between the river and the sea,” whether in two states, a binational state, unitary democratic state, federal state, or in whatever form.

President Shafik could have referenced the above in pushing back against the idea that meanings can be assigned by elected representatives or college administrators. I understand the pressure she was under, and it is difficult to give thoughtful responses under such circumstances. But it is important that moving forward, the use of this phrase alone not be used as a basis for disciplinary action.

One organization that I have come to admire over the past few years is the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), which has been admirably consistent in defending freedom of speech on and off campus. On this phrase in particular, FIRE’s position is the following:

If students at a peaceful protest chant anti-Israel slogans like “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” that speech, taken alone, is protected political expression. Even if some understand the phrase to call for the destruction of Israel, it is still—absent more—protected as political speech, advocating in general terms for violence elsewhere at an unspecified time against a broadly defined target… But context is determinative: Were the same statement to be directed at a specific Jewish student by a student or group moving threateningly towards him, during a protest that has turned violent and unstable, it may arguably constitute a true threat.

This is the right position to take and I hope that Barnard and Columbia will adopt it. The keynote by Killer Mike at the 2023 FIRE Gala explains in the clearest possible terms the value of this perspective, and it will join the Reith lecture by Chimamanda Adichie and the Stanford Memo by Jenny Martinez (along with the Kalven Report and the Chicago Principles) as a classic in the pantheon of free speech advocacy.

Among the people who have addressed the students on the South lawn are Madmood Mamdani and Norman Finkelstein; I caught the tail end of the latter’s speech but couldn’t hear much because amplification was limited and he tends to speak quite softly. I do hope that the students who invited him will read his latest book, which is as fierce a critique of identity politics as one is likely to find anywhere.

Norman Finkelstein addresses student protestors at Columbia on April 19th, 2024

I received a response to this post from Seth Weissman, whom I first met when he was a graduate student at Columbia many years ago. I remember Seth fondly, and have enormous respect for him. His message is posted (with permission) below:

Rajiv, as usual, a very thoughtful take. That said, you are missing something. I say this as someone who knows and respects you as fair-minded and as an Orthodox Jew who is: So what are you missing? I’m all for “from the river to the sea, Palestinians will be free.” That could mean in a binational state alongside Jews living freely, or in two states, one Palestinian (West Bank, Gaza, and the Arab sections of Jerusalem such as Abu Dis) and the other a Jewish home where Arab citizens are accorded full rights, which is the current (albeit imperfectly realized) concept of Israel. This is in accordance with the Jerusalem Declaration. But the chant, “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” explicitly and willfully denies Jewish self expression. In a context where some of the protestors (not all, and I am making no claim as to what percentage) have expressed solidarity with Hamas, it can be taken no other way. And while the majority of the protestors would denounce Hamas (I hope), they are standing shoulder to shoulder with those who empathize with Hamas. FYI, I have the scars from confronting nationalism and Islamophobia on the Jewish side. If I could pay the price for denouncing Jewish nationalists on my “side,” I can expect the protestors at Columbia and Barnard to do the same—criticize Israel without providing political support for terror and anti-Semitism.

1

After posting this I came across a credible report of significant harassment and intimidation within the Columbia gates. All classes at Barnard and Columbia are remote today, which I imagine is a prelude to clearing out of the encampment.

[pollyna]

notes more than anything else. (half mine and half @redhead-writes 🫶)

- Post mission de-aged Bradley, nobody knows about icemav even if they're married, and baby goose goes and calls Mav paps! and Ice dad! like 0.3 seconds a part in front of the whole fucking entire squadron;

- And maybe he de-ages to a moment when Carole was already starting to be sick, spend a lot of time in the hospital so Baby Goose was at home with Ice while Mav was in deployed and he finds himself on the carrier and Ice isn't anywhere to be seen and panics because papa papa where's dad why Dad isn't here? and everybody believes he's talking about Nick and Mav doesn't know what to do because is back is killing him but he doesn't want to let Bradley go;

- Mav literally has to pick him up because he's six and he wants to be hugged by his dad and he's wearing too big clothes and what are we playing at?

- Baby Goose is little but the carrier is full jets and be can't contain himself from pointing around and screaming "ARE THOSE PLANES? DID DAD FINALLY GET US ALLOWANCE TO FLY? DID YOU FINALLY CONVINCE HIM PAPA???" and, in the same sentence,"DID WE PAINT THE HELMET TOGETHER PAPA????"

- All in all, Bobby is the first one to get out of shock. He knows Maverick must be injured. So he talks with Bradley, introducing himself and how papa is a bit hurt, so Bob will be his own personal carrier for today. Promises that they will stay close to Maverick. Javy is next to get out of it and commands others getting food and juice, and maybe some kid clothes and tries to ask, very gently, which his Bradley's favourite food without making him noticing that they're taking Mav away;

- Natasha is inventing wild stories about dragons while he cuddles between Jake's arms, because he looks comfy, and everybody else's is there just looking out for him. Bob is the one with Maverick mostly because he seems to know if someone doesn't take the man to the infirmary, he won't go;

- there's then the small matter of Hondo calling Ice, who's in Washington D.C., and the moment his voice is on the other side of the phone Bradley doesn't hear anything else and starts crying because dad dad where are you papa is hurt please dad come to take us home. Ice is shocked. This sounds like their Baby Goose when he was little, and he can't think about Hondo pranking him on something that important. Especially when he doesn't know anything about Mav yet. So the man is on the first plane to his husband and son. It takes hours, and Bradley ends up sleeping with Mav and eats terrible pancakes cutted by little jets because Yale is that good with plastic knife and fork. And then he has this kid who's not taller than his knees that looks at him like he's his whole world and calls him dad and hugs him and oh oh god baby goose it's all okay, it's going to be okay;

- You look old dad. Were we separeted for so long?, baby goose asked, when they're both sitting by Mav. Papa looks old too, he has a lot funny lines over his face, but his voice is the same. Yours isn't what I remember it was! How could we be separated for so long? My stomach hurts so much when I think we dowhen I think we were apart! It's okay if you or papa can't take me up on your shoulder again, I still love you but please please I don't want to miss you anymore! Mav finds them like that, Bradley on Ice's lap, both of them crying softly and hugging each other. We're together now baby, everything's gonna be okay, papa and dad are here he murmurs kissing Ice's forehead and messing with Bradley's curls. We're going to fix this and when you'll be big again we're going to fix it all, I swear;

-It takes the aircraft five days to get back to coast and all the barracks are too small but the captain leaves the three of them his quarters and they sleep half on the floor and half of the bed, cuddling with baby goose and Mav feels like he's thirty again and nothing got wrong again. Ice kisses him a little harder and the whole world discovers them but it has so little relevance because, even if just for a little longer, they just want to enjoy what life gave them;

- Being ashore, with a kid between his arms and his husband's arm around his wrist, is probably one of the strangest sensation Mav ever felt. He dreamt of it for years, every time he was back from deployment and Ice had to wait him home because not even taking Bradley with him could justify their reaction. But now he has it all and they're going home;

- They fall asleep in front of the TV, dinner forgot on the table a couple of feels from them, baby Goose cuddling between Ice and Mav's chest. The next morning Bradley is back to being himself, and his first reaction is to run because that's Mav and Ice and he supposed to be resenting them but he can't move. Doesn't want to, at least for a little longer.

Loosely inspired by this fic.

[perfectprettypisces]

Polar Opposites • B.R.B • Part 1

Pairing: Bradley “Rooster” Bradshaw x OC

Synopsis: Coming up on his mid-thirties, Rooster feels like he should be married by now. But with every woman he dates, the simplest thing can turn him away. So when Phoenix’s picture-perfect cousin comes crashing back into her life as a runaway bride, he thinks it must be fate. 

Warnings: lowkey sleazy behavior, swearing

WC: 3.5k

a/n: ahh the first part to what is hopefully a new series! been wanting to write something involving both Rooster and Phoenix for a while so let me know what y'all think and if you want to be added to a taglist! (and to clarify, this is not a love triangle between Rooster, OC, & Phoenix)

Series Masterlist • Top Gun Masterlist

Next Part

“Are you reading a newspaper?”

Fanboy looks up at Hangman’s incredulous question and nods. “Yeah, what about it?”

“I’m sorry, I just didn’t know you were 80,” he remarks sarcastically, lining up to take his shot.

“Dude, you’d be surprised about the type of wild shit that’s in here,” Fanboy counters, flipping open the newspaper to one of the advertisements. “Look at this: ‘Stepdaughter of famous record producer, Charles Fritz, set to marry Jesse Stanton, heir to the Stanton fortune’. It says this guy’s set to be the next Bill Gates or something.”

“So? It’s rich kids marrying other rich kids, not that big of a deal,” Hangman shrugs.

“Says the guy with a trust fund and a ‘winter home’ in Aspen,” Bob scoffs.

“Don’t the Hayes’ have a house in the Hamptons too?” Payback adds in, raising a challenging eyebrow at his friend.

“Again, it’s not that big of a deal and their house is in Nantucket, not the Hamptons,” Hangman replies, causing the rest of them to let out chuckles of disbelief at his shamelessness.

“Yeah, because that makes it so much more relatable,” Rooster butts in from afar, earning himself a middle finger from Hangman before returning to his previous conversation.

It’d been a long day at the beach with multiple games of dogfight football and Penny had been gracious enough to open the doors to The Hard Deck a couple of hours early for Maverick and his squadron to wind down. 

Coyote and Fritz were aimlessly throwing darts at the dartboard while Payback and Hangman played against Bob and Fanboy in a casual game of pool. Rooster sat on top of the bar, locked in a conversation with Halo and Phoenix with Penny occasionally adding her two cents in. Yale, Harvard, and Omaha were long gone, opting to head back to the barracks to shower and take a well-deserved nap on their day off.

Rooster’s beginning to envy them the further he gets into his conversation with Phoenix and Halo.

“Like I was saying, that is the stupidest reason to ghost someone,” Phoenix scoffs, rolling her eyes when Rooster looks at her incredulously.

Phoenix had asked him about the woman he’d been seeing the past couple of weeks, forcing him to begrudgingly admit that he’d ghosted her just a couple of days prior. He wasn’t proud of it, but in his defense, he had a good reason.

Or so he thought.

“I think it’s perfectly reasonable, thank you very much,” Rooster defends.

“Ghosting a girl just because she thought Air Force pilots and Navy pilots were the same thing is not reasonable,” Halo chides.

“Yes, it is,” the rest of the guys chorus from their respective spots.

Rooster tips his bottle to all of them in thanks.

“Bradshaw, this is, like, the third girl in the past two months,” she says and Rooster can tell she’s trying her hardest to hold back a judgy tone. “For a man who wants to get married so badly, you sure are picky.”

Hangman comes up from behind Phoenix and tosses his arm around her shoulder. “Nothin’ wrong with bein’ a little picky, Phoenix,” he says before pointing his beer bottle at Rooster. “‘Specially when you got options like ol’ Rooster here.”

Rooster has to resist the urge to cringe at Hangman’s choice of words. Sure, he was trying to defend him in his own slightly twisted way, but it still didn’t make him feel any less…sleazy.

“You’re a sleaze,” Phoenix responds, nudging his arm off her shoulder.

“Need me to ring it?” Penny asks, gesturing to the bell while eying Hangman threateningly.

Phoenix smiles gratefully but shakes her head, turning back to Rooster. “All I’m trying to say is you’re never gonna find ‘the one’ if you keep dropping girls the second they do or say something weird,” she says. “What about Kristen? She’s cute and you even said you could see it going somewhere.”

He had said that. In retrospect, Kristen was a good choice for him. She was a nurse on a base, so she was incredibly understanding of his demanding and somewhat unpredictable job. She never pressed him when he would shut down at the mention of his parents and as douchebag-y as it sounded, it didn’t hurt that she was good in bed.

They had been on a handful of dates a few months prior and things were going well. He didn’t exactly have a good reason why he never asked her out again after.

Rooster just shrugs. “I don’t know, Nat,” he says truthfully.

“Y’know, Phoenix, if you’re such an expert on relationships maybe you should find Rooster a wife,” Hangman teases.

Before Rooster or Phoenix is able to come up with a retort, Maverick’s voice cuts them off.

“Uh, Phoenix? There’s a woman here looking for you.”

The confusion in Maverick’s tone has Rooster and everyone else’s interest peaked as they all turn to the entrance of The Hard Deck. Maverick beckons the stranger further into the bar and into everyone’s line of sight. Rooster can practically hear everyone’s jaw drop, his included.

This was probably the most stunning woman Rooster’s ever laid his eyes on and based on the expressions of everyone behind him, the sentiment was shared. Her hair was done up in a complicated-looking updo, the stray pieces coming free that would’ve looked messy on anyone else only helped frame her sharp features. Rooster could only assume she had makeup on from the way her eyes popped, though he’d never be able to tell without it due to how flawless her skin looked. The only flaws Rooster could make out were the slight mascara tracks beneath her eyes and the small pout that adorned her perfectly glossed lips.

The real kicker was her attire. She would’ve already stood out with her hair and makeup, but the wedding dress sealed the deal for sure. The silky white dress fit her like a dream and looked way outside of any of their price ranges, which made the dirt that laced the bottom of the gown seem infinitely more comical. The white heels she held in her left hand looked equally as expensive as the dress, but not nearly as expensive as the diamond that adorned her ring finger.

Everyone turned to look at Phoenix next as if she’d just magically poofed this woman out of thin air at Hangman’s request.

“Damn, you work fast,” Halo mumbles.

“Dude,” Rooster feels Fanboy nudge him as he walks up to the bar to get a closer look at the woman. He shoves the newspaper he’d been looking at in Rooster’s face and points to a column on the page. “That’s the girl in the wedding announcement.”

Rooster takes his eyes off the beautiful woman for a moment to see that in fact the woman in the photo was the same woman standing in front of them. The only difference was that the woman in the photo was smiling and standing next to an attractive-looking man, forming the stereotypical picture-perfect couple. The woman that stood before them looked anything but happy and was all alone. He skims the ad quickly until he realizes that the only thing missing from it is her name.

“TJ?” Phoenix exclaims, stepping out from behind the bar until she was in full view.

The stranger, who they could only assume is named TJ, sighs in relief and rushes toward Phoenix in a flurry of white, nearly tackling her to the floor with the force of her embrace.

Rooster has to bite back a laugh at the sight before him. Phoenix’s wide-eyed frame was clad only in a sports bra and nylon shorts, her arms squished against her torso as the distressed woman squeezed the life out of her. She couldn’t have looked less uncomfortable, a stark contrast to her counterpart who looked close to tears.

“Oh my God, Nat, thank God you’re here,” TJ sighs. She must’ve squeezed a little tighter due to the grunt that Phoenix lets out.

Phoenix brings her hand up and taps TJ on the arm as best as she can, trying to get her to loosen up. “T, kinda can’t breathe at the moment.”

“Sorry.” TJ pulls away apologetically but keeps Phoenix close, gripping her by her biceps. “You would not believe the morning I’ve had.”

Phoenix looks her up and down before her mouth settles in a wry smile. “I think I’ve got an idea,” she says, guiding her over to a bar stool and gesturing for her to sit. TJ’s already off on a tangent before either of them is fully settled in.

“I know we had a fight a couple of months ago about Jesse and you told me not to marry him, but I didn’t listen to you and uninvited you from the wedding because of it–”

“T–” Phoenix tries to interrupt, but TJ shows no signs of stopping.

“–which was really mean, so I’m really sorry about that by the way–”

“TJ.”

“–and I know we haven’t talked since, but I had no idea where else to go and then I remembered your dad saying you transferred down to North Island, so I took an Uber–”

“TJ!”

TJ’s mouth snaps shut and all her attention goes to Phoenix. “What?”

“Breathe.” Phoenix inhales through her nose and exhales through her mouth, gesturing for the woman to follow her movements. The two of them repeat the action until she’s breathing normally again.

“Need a drink, hun?” Penny asks, her maternal instincts on high alert as she places a comforting hand on the frazzled girl’s shoulder.

“Wine?” TJ asks, a hopeful glint in her eye.

Penny makes eye contact with Phoenix who is vehemently shaking her head. “How ‘bout I get you some water?” she offers with a kind smile.

TJ nods gratefully, albeit a little disappointed, and exhales a long breath. Rooster knows he shouldn’t think the little pout on her lips is cute, but he’d be lying if he said it wasn’t.

“Okay, how about you start from the beginning?” Phoenix offers calmly, side-eying the rest of the pilots who were now starting to become aware of the new presence.

TJ, seemingly unaware that it wasn’t just her and Natasha, slowly begins to recount the events leading up to her ending up at the bar. She explains how she’d been moments away from walking down the aisle when her step-father (who Rooster figured Phoenix wasn’t particularly fond of based on the way her entire body went rigid at the mention of his name) had made an off-handed, meant-to-be-funny comment about ‘signing her life away’, sending her into a full-blown freakout and frantically looking for the nearest exit.

She’d gone back to her dressing room under the guise of touching up her makeup and had slipped out one of the back doors of the church and into an Uber, convincing the driver to take her all the way from Los Angeles to North Island with the promise of a hefty tip. And while the guard at the gate wasn’t legally allowed to give out information on the whereabouts of specific officers, she also managed to convince him to offhandedly mention the name of the bar that aviators from North Island tended to frequent. In his words, that “may or may not include” the one she was looking for.

“And that’s how I ended up here,” TJ finishes as her shoulders drop in exhaustion, taking a large gulp of water Penny had given her in the midst of her storytelling.

By the time her story was done, a crowd had formed behind the two women, everyone from Rooster to Maverick hanging on to TJ’s every word. They all gawked at her, both mildly concerned at the amount she’d gone through to find Phoenix as well as thoroughly impressed by her powers of persuasion. In hindsight, her appearance as a beautiful yet frazzled bride had probably helped in that aspect.

Phoenix fumbles with her words for a second, opening and closing her mouth like a fish out of water before deciding on: “How did you know I’d be here?”

“I didn’t. I was fully committed to waiting here until you showed up or asking around until someone could tell me where I could find you,” TJ admits sheepishly. “I guess it was just luck that you happened to be here.”

Phoenix is about to respond when Hangman decides to ask the question on everyone else’s mind.

“Look, as much as I hate to break up this very sweet and very confusing reunion between you two lovely ladies right here, but what the hell is going on?”

TJ eyes Hangman with a curious look. “You must be Hangman,” she says. “Nat’s told me so much about you.”

“I am,” he says confidently. “And you are?”

She turns to Phoenix who was trying and failing to bite back a smile. “You were right.”

“Right about what?”

Phoenix makes the rounds of introducing everyone, stating their names and callsigns as TJ nods along before gesturing to the woman next to her. “Guys, this is Victoria Trace,” Phoenix introduces, ignoring Hangman altogether. “Also known as my cousin, TJ.”

Rooster has to stop his jaw from dropping. He’s known Phoenix for a long time, longer than he knew anyone else on the squad save for Maverick and he’d only heard brief mentions of this elusive cousin of hers. Doing a once over of her and then doing one of Phoenix, it was hard to tell they knew each other let alone were related to one another. It wasn’t that Phoenix was ugly; once upon a time, Rooster could’ve had a crush on her before their relationship took a turn for the platonic route, but nothing about these two women screamed family. 

“You’re related?!” Fanboy exclaims with a look of disbelief.

“Wait, right about what?” Hangman interjects.

“The hell you say it like that for?” Phoenix asks, shooting a glare his way and ignoring the latter’s comment.

“No, I didn’t mean it in a bad way, it’s just she’s all–” Fanboy makes an indignant noise gesturing to TJ with wild hands, “and you’re all–” he makes another indignant noise, trying and failing to emphasize his point.

The two women look at him with raised eyebrows, prompting him to finish whatever thought he was thinking. It’s the first semblance of similarity between the two, the challenging look on both of their faces scarily identical. Rooster figures it must be in the Trace blood, because he thought Phoenix’s look was intimidating before but doubling it just made it downright scary.

“What he means to say is that you guys just don’t look alike,” Rooster jumps in, saving Fanboy in the process. Besides the obvious difference in their attire, his statement was partially true: the dark hair and slight olive complexion were the only physical similarities Rooster could see between them.

TJ turns and her eyes make eye contact with Rooster’s. She seems stunned for a moment, her eyes raking up and down his figure slowly before settling back on Natasha. Rooster feels a hint of pride at the thought of Phoenix’s hot cousin checking him out like he’d been blatantly doing ever since she walked through the doors.

Phoenix gives the entire group a firm look and they take the hint, wandering off aimlessly, but still partially listening in on the conversation happening with one of their own.

She shakes her head, ignoring their not-so-subtle attempts at eavesdropping. “T, why’d you come all the way down here?” she speaks softly, concern evident in her tone.

TJ lets out a dejected chuckle, shaking her head. “Because I knew you’d be the only one to understand,” she sighs, eyes downcast with her pointer finger wiping away condensation drops on the glass of water in her hands. “My mom kept calling me on the entire ride here before she finally decided to text me and say if I didn’t come back immediately and go through with the wedding that she’d cut me off for good. That’s when I knew that I should’ve listened to you instead of pushing you away.”

She sighs before continuing, looking up at Phoenix with watery eyes. “Nat, you have every right to turn me away, but I really had nowhere else to go. God, I should’ve just listened to you from the start and none of this would’ve happened.”

That seems to pull at Phoenix’s heartstrings enough, her eyes softening and her hand coming up to rub up and down her cousin’s back. “T, no matter what: we’re family and I’d never turn you away. Not like this, not ever,” she says seriously, moving to wrap her arm around her shoulder. “You can stay with me until everything blows over and then we’ll figure out your next move.”

Rooster’s breath hitches at her statement. There was one thing that Phoenix seemed to not remember and it was definitely going to bite Rooster in the ass later.

TJ exhales gratefully and wraps her arms around Phoenix in another tight hug, but this time, Phoenix hugs her back. She chants the words ‘thank you’ over and over again until Phoenix is chuckling and pulling away.

“On one condition,” Phoenix says sternly, holding up her right index finger.

“Yes, yes, anything,” TJ agrees eagerly.

“You have to let me call someone to tell them you’re okay,” she says, her voice just as firm as before. “It doesn’t have to be your mom or George, but at least one of your bridesmaids or someone at the wedding. They’re probably worried sick right now.”

Her cousin looks hesitant to agree, but she nods her head only moments later. “Okay, fine,” she concedes, though it doesn’t seem she quite believes what Phoenix is saying. She chews on her bottom lip, a move that forces Rooster to turn away before he gets distracted. “You can tell your dad and Julian but that’s it.”

Phoenix doesn’t seem too surprised that her cousin would only want her dad and older brother to know about her whereabouts rather than her own parents as she agrees without hesitation. “Deal. Let’s go back to my place, I’ll let my dad and Julian know, you can get out of this–” she gestures wildly to TJ’s bridal ensemble with a grimace, “–and we’ll figure everything out.”

“Alright, good plan,” TJ nods, hopping out of the bar stool and placing the empty glass on the countertop behind her. “Thank you,” she nods at Penny before turning to address the rest of the group, “and it was really nice meeting you all. Hopefully the next time we meet I’ll be a little less…disheveled,” she jokes as she also motions down at her clearly out-of-place attire.

Everyone waves and mutters some sort of goodbye, completely failing at hiding the flabbergasted looks on their faces.

“Alright, I’ll see you guys la–oh shit, Rooster.” Phoenix presses a hand to her forehead as she remembers their agreement. “Shit, I forgot you were staying with me.”

Since Rooster’s apartment building was currently under renovation, Phoenix had graciously granted him rights to her guest bedroom since she was the only one with enough room to take him in. Rights that she seemed to have forgotten about until now.

Rooster waves her off. “I’ll take the couch, it’s fine,” he says, sparing a glance over TJ. Her eyes were once again wandering over his frame and he has to fight the urge to sit up a little taller.

“Are you sure?” It’s TJ who seems concerned this time. “I’m already putting Nat out and I’d hate to do the same to you.”

Her tone is so sweet, it’s almost sickening. He knows that if he asked her anything in that tone of voice again, he’d agree no matter what it was. Shit, this was not going to be good. Being in close proximity to the most beautiful woman he’s ever seen who also happened to be his best friend’s cousin seemed like a bad idea. Tack on the fact that she was literally about to marry another man a mere couple of hours before their first meeting and you get a recipe for disaster.

“Yeah, positive,” he nods, wondering if it was still too late to ask Hangman to stay with him. He pushes that idea down when he remembers why he didn’t ask in the first place.

“Okay, as long as you’re okay with it,” Phoenix says hesitantly, inching toward the door with TJ following behind her. “I’ll see you back at the house?”

Rooster nods again and bids his goodbyes. TJ offers him a small smile and a wave which he gladly returns. The door closes behind them and with a final flash of white, they’re both gone. Rooster lets out a breath he didn’t know he was holding, sweeping a stressed hand over his face. He turns to see the rest of the guys and along with Halo and Penny looking at him with unreadable expressions.

“What?” he asks, shrinking under their gazes.

Hangman lets out a low whistle. “Dude…you’re fucked.”

[a-christmas-carol-from-hr]

Where the Stone Flowers Grow

TW: discussion of miscarriage and child loss, mentions of disordered eating

-

March 10th, 2013

Tower Hamlets Cemetery Park was hardly somewhere anyone expected to see Ellen Scrooge, chromium queen. It was too green. Too alive. Ellen was well known as somebody who preferred the indoors to the outdoors. But that was only because much of the outdoors in London weren’t her kind of outdoors. She disliked most parks and gardens, it was true. But that was because they weren’t her kind of gardens.

Her kind of gardens were like the countryside she’d grown up in. Wild and green and untamed and green. Swarming with insects, swarming with plants. Swarming with the things her mother and sister had so loved. Swarming with life.

Tower Hamlets Cemetery Park was her kind of outdoors.

She had been coming here more and more since Marley’s stroke. On evenings when she needed to take in some air, she found herself without fail in the green embrace of Tower Hamlets. She’d visited her mother and sister’s graves more in the past three months than she had in her entire life. Today brought her to them again.

“I have to do some chores today.” Ellen had told Marley while dressing. “I need to go to the Cemetery. To bring my mother and Farah flowers.”

Marley had looked up when she said that. “Do you…want me to go with you?”

The thought made her uncomfortable. But rejecting him felt even worse. “Sure.” She had said, trying to hide her unease. “It’ll be good exercise.”

When they’d entered the cemetery, Marley’s eyes had gone wide with surprise. The man was about as inclined as Ellen was to nature walks, and he had evidently not believed such a place could exist in their drab East End. He looked at the encroaching moss and the sticky mud and the tombstones sinking into the ground.

“I can see why you like it here.” He said with all sincerity.

She left him to his wanderings (they were trying to give him more independence) while she headed towards the section of the cemetery where her mother was located. Yaling Scrooge was not buried here, of course. Her ashes, and that of her son with no name, were somewhere in her father’s clutches. But she and Farah had paid for a tombstone with Ellen’s first paycheck.

Yaling’s headstone carried her name in Chinese first, a subtle jab at Jasper Scrooge that he’d never seen. The English below listed her name and the years she had been born and died in. They hadn’t inscribed such things as ‘loving mother’ or ‘devoted wife’. They’d thought the Chinese letters more important. Mum had tried so hard to keep her culture close, even as Jasper had demanded it stripped away like a scab. Ellen would be cold in her grave before she let anyone forget her mother’s culture.

She placed the bouquet of flowers at her grave. It was entirely biodegradable. In a few weeks it would feed the bugs that thrived in the graveyard. Mum would have loved that.

“Happy Mother’s day, Mother.”

Farah’s grave was nearby. Newer than Yaling’s, a bowl of Yangzhou fried rice and a jar of green tea sat on the grave, pristine despite the wildness around it. Ellen couldn’t help but smile at the sight. She must have just missed Fred. He brought his mother an offering of her favorite food each year. And- yes. There. Tucked behind the jar was a tiny bowl of beer. Cheap beer. Farah’s favorite.

“You have a good son, Farah.” Ellen said, placing a second bouquet alongside Fred’s offerings. “Happy Mother’s day, Huangfeng.”

The little statues aren’t so far from the other graves, so she usually visits them last. Today, she would especially prefer to visit them last.

She moved further into the gloom of the cemetery, enjoying the quiet of the grave as she moved along. She saw the red of the fabric tied around the statues first, and as she drew closer she saw the tiny stone faces come into view. As she approached her fingernail buried in her hand.

Ellen stood in front of them, as still as stone herself. For a moment, all she could do was stare. And then she moved.

“Stupid thing.” She said quietly, brushing her hand over one of the heads protectively. Its little red cap had become torn by the English winter. “You’ve torn it already. What are you to do now?”

She glanced over at the other statue. “He hasn’t torn his.” She chided as she removed the red knit fabric from the second statue. Without it, it seemed frightfully bare.

Ellen tucked the torn woolen cap into her pocket, and without hesitate unfurled her own red scarf from her neck.

“You are lucky I wore this today,” She said, as if she hadn’t put it on for this reason. “There. Now you are neat again. As neat as a pin.”

Bundled up in the oversized scarf, the statue looked like a swaddled babe.

“Now you’re all better.” Ellen murmured, breath hitching.

It was only then that she was aware of a presence behind her.

Marley was standing nearby, leaning on his cane as he watched her. How long he’d been there, she didn’t know. His expression was unfathomable as she straightened up.

“What are you doing?” He asked.

“Chores.” She said, clearing her throat.

“You were talking to them. I saw you.” He said, glancing at the statues. “Those aren’t the graves. What are they?”

“Statues.”

“I can see that, woman.” He said.

“Well, then you don’t need to pry.” She snapped back, feeling vulnerable.

His expression turned to concern. “You’re- right. I’m sorry. I…was just…you’re right. I’m sorry. I can wait. Take all the time you need.”

“No, it’s- fine.” She said, looking at her hand as she brushed it down her coat. “I was finished.”

The gloom, that had once been so comforting, now seemed so very oppressive. It felt like she and Marley were the only ones in the world, isolated by the foliage. The only ones in the world. They, and a subject they’d never discussed.

She looked back at the statues. The wind had tugged at the scarf. Without thinking, she moved to fix it.

“Jizō.”” She said after a moment. Her voice was flat.

“What?” Marley asked, confused.

“Jizō. That’s what they are. They’re statues of Jizō. It’s part of a ritual. Mizuko kuyō.” She said as she adjusted the scarf.

“I’m not familiar.”

She tugged at the scarf. Why wouldn’t it lie straight? “It’s a ritual in Buddhism. Usually in Japan, but it’s spread to China as well. It’s a memorial statue.” If she goes farther, she cannot take it back. If she goes farther, things will not be the same. If she goes farther, it all could end.

But she can’t lie to him. Not in front of them.

“They’re memorials for lost children.”

She expected him to awkwardly nod. She expected him to say something and then make an excuse to go. She expected him to acknowledge this with as much emotion as he had before.

She didn’t expect his eyes to widen.

She didn’t expect the brief look of something to flicker over his face before he hid it.

She didn’t expect him to immediately look over at the second of the two statues.

“…Ah.” He said.

The only noise Ellen could hear was the whisper of the wind in the trees. She and Marley stood across from each other, close and far. The ghost of 2008 lingered between them.

She blinked first. She glanced at her phone before stiffly moving past him. “Fred wishes for me to double check something at Farah’s grave. I’ll be a moment.”

Marley nodded. He leaned heavily on his cane.

As she returned to Farah’s grave like the coward she was, she knew her sister was glaring at her from the other world. She put her hand on the top of the tombstone. The granite was grounding. Farah had been dead for two years when she was buried. Her partner had kept her ashes in the home for that long. But eventually he’d had them interred here, in the earth. Now Farah was in the trees and grass and plants around her. She’d have loved it.

Why is it so hard for you to talk about this? You’ve seen the man’s brain scans. You’ve held him down for a spinal tap. Why can’t you be open for once?

I can’t, she thought back as she looked at the grave. Not with this. Not again.

The wind seemed to snap at her skin. He’s not Bellamy, girl. But the cold breeze shifted again, becoming gentle as it played with her hair. It’s okay, Tu-Ying.

Farah had been dead two years before her partner had felt okay with letting her go. These things took time.

Maybe it was time for her, too, to try and let go.

She brushed her fingers over the tombstone with a sister’s care. “Why do you always have to be right?”

The leaves seemed to laugh at her.

The walk back seemed longer than the walk there. Maybe she was going slower, trying to avoid what seemed to grow ever closer. Maybe she was simply imagining it. But as she grew closer to the statues, she heard something. Something she did think she was imagining.

“...I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I didn’t know. I didn’t know this was here.”

A voice was speaking quietly, gently, oh so painfully gentle.

It was his voice.

Marley was standing by the second statue, hand on its stone head. His cane leaned up against the platform. His only support was the statue.

“I know you’re here now. I know now. I’ll come and visit. I’ll bring something next time too. Something red. Roses, maybe. Yes. I’ll bring roses. I’ll bring you roses. I’ll bring you roses, even in the winter. It’ll be a fuss, but I’ll do it anyway. I’ll bring you flowers, even in the winter.”

A twig crunched under her foot as she stepped forward. It was the only sound she could make. She was too stunned to speak.

He turned around, as surprised as she was to see somebody else.

They stared at each other. A cavern seemed between them. An ocean. A secret. The Thing they had never spoken of again. He put on the mask of cool composure in an instant. But his eyes were rimmed as red as the statue’s fabric.

He’s grieving. Dear god. He was grieving.

“I wanted it.” She admitted. The words seem to rip out her lungs with them.

He looked at her for a moment. A long moment. An eternity. Stars seemed to be conceived and die in that moment.

And then the mask fell. And he looked so very tired.

“I wanted it too.”

Ellen let go of a breath she’d been holding for the past five years.

Marley looked back at the statue. His hand still rested on its head. His thumb brushed over the tiny stone face, like he was wiping dirt from a child. “You can t-t-think I’m pa-pathetic if you want. I do.”

“You’re not pathetic.” Ellen said faintly. “Do you think I’m pathetic?” She framed it as if it was a rhetorical question, but it rang entirely sincere.

“No.” Marley replied immediately. “But t-that’s different.”

“Why?”

“You would have been an excellent mother.”

Marley could have stabbed her right then and here and it wouldn’t have hurt as much as that did. Her hand rested on her ribs, the force of his words enough to elicit a physical reaction. But he didn’t seem to notice. He kept looking at the statue.

“It probably is a bit pathetic. I’m n-not the fathering type. I’d probably have made things worse. But…still.”

“No.” She said, finding her footing again. “No.”

“No, what? That I’m not the fathering type? I know that.”

“No,” She repeated. “No, you…would have been an excellent father.”

He looked back at Ellen, disbelief evident in his eyes. When he smiled, it was perfectly straight. “Thank you.”

“I mean it.” She moved closer, hand rubbing at her rib. “I…” She began. “...I don’t know what to say.”

“I don’t know what to say e-either.” He admitted.

They stood in front of the stones, unable to do much else. As she stepped to his side, somehow their hands found each other.

It had begun to rain.

They stood there for God knows how long, wrapped in silence. When it was broken, it was broken by her.

“I’m sorry,” She began.

“For what?”

“Not knowing you were hurting. Fuck, not realizing you were hurting.”

“It wasn’t like I made it all that clear.”

“I should have noticed anyway. And I’m sorry.”

“...I’m sorry too,” He started. “I…should have tried more to reach you. I didn’t know what to say. What to do. I didn’t want to bother you, and you were so…as you were. I didn’t know how you felt, and I didn’t want to say anything wrong. I thought…” He trailed off.

“What?”

“No. Forget it.”

“What were you going to say?”

Marley hesitated. “...You seemed…closed off when you…told me. I didn’t know…how you felt. If you were…I didn’t want to bother you.”

If you were relieved.

Rain traced a line down her face. She ignored it. “...I was sad. I didn’t want it to end that way.” She said simply.

“I didn’t either.” He replied. They lapsed back into silence until he broke it.

“I waited for you.” It came out of Marley’s mouth in a tumble, a half-desperate confession.

“What?” She looked over at him, confused. His face had grown pale, his hand shaking. He had a distant look in his eyes.

“I waited. In the waiting room. For hours. Hours upon hours. They’d not let me back.” His accent slipped from English to Scottish seamlessly. “I sat there and then I’d try to argue with them and then I’d go back to sitting and then I made myself be sick, and for the first time it didn’t make me feel better.” He spoke quickly, as if he couldn’t hold it in another moment.

“I waited. For hours. And I had no idea what was going on. And then it was all over.”

Ellen breathed in. It felt like her lungs were coated in barbed wire, like each tube and line was made of venom. Her body felt like a warzone. Barren and void of life.

“Jacob,” She breathed. “I’m so sorry.”

“It wasn’t your fault. It wasn’t.”

“I know,” She replied. “But I’m sorry anyway.”

He tried to smile. There was rain dripping down his face. It was caught in the still growing buzz of his hair, running down the scar on his scalp.

“It’s funny. I can’t re-remember much of anything anymore. But I can remember every second of that day. Isn’t it funny?”

She moved closer, her other hand tilting his chin towards hers. “It’s funny.” She agreed.

She had a perfect memory. She never forgot anything.

Their foreheads met. Behind their skulls lurked a tangled mess of broken wires and twisted memories. But they were theirs.

“I love you.” He said quietly.

“I love you.” She repeated.

“I’m sorry.” He said.

“Me too.” She replied.

They stood like that for a few moments before breaking. It was strange, Ellen mused, how they had stopped being in physical contact so easily, but she had never felt closer to Marley than she did right now.

“We should get you out of the rain,” She said, something of her no-nonsense tone returning. As they leave, arm in arm, she speaks in a voice that is not quite casual.

“The apartment isn’t far from here. You should walk here when you feel up to it. It might be good for you.”

What she’s doing is transparent, even by Ellen Scrooge standards. If you miss them, you can visit. It’s okay. But Marley seems thankful for the invitation anyway. He smiles at her. It’s sad, but it’s crooked. And maybe that’s the best they can hope for.

-

Postscript

The next day she goes into work. Around lunch, a delivery was dropped off for her. She returns to her office to find a vase of flowers in wait.

“Somebody sent these for you, Ms. Scrooge.” The temporary assistant explains.

The bouquet is made up of lavender, and Arum lilies, and Forget-me-not, and rosemary, and red sage. A small card sits amid the blooms.

Happy Mother’s Day. -J

[princesscatherinemiddleton]

The Princess of Wales’ Year in Review: December

December 1st - The Prince and Princess of Wales began their day in Boston at Greentown Labs, the largest clean-tech incubator in North America. They then visited Roca, a charity focusing on high-risk young people considered at high risk for becoming the primary victims or drivers of violence. The couple undertook a surprise walkabout outside following the engagement. William and Catherine then visited East Boston’s waterfront (Piers Park) to attend an East Boston Climate Resiliency event. Afterwards, the Princess of Wales, in her role as Patron of the Royal Foundation of the Prince and Princess of Wales, held a telephone meeting with Professor Marc Brackett, from the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence December 2nd - For their final day in Boston, the Prince and Princess of Wales began their day with a reception at the Four Seasons Hotel. They then undertook solo engagements; Catherine travelled to the Harvard Center for the Developing Child, in her role as Patron of the Royal Foundation of the Prince and Princess of Wales, as part of her work in the Early Years. That evening, William and Catherine attended the Earthshot Prize Awards at MGM Music Hall, where the Princess presented the 'Revive Our Oceans' award. Finally, the couple attended a reception at Fenway Park December 5th - The Princess of Wales, Patron of the Royal Foundation of The Prince and Princess of Wales, held a meeting December 6th - Pictures of the Prince and Princess of Wales behind the scenes at the 2022 Earthshot Prize were released in People Magazine; the photos were taken by Chris Jackson. The Princess of Wales, Patron of the Royal Foundation of the Prince and Princess of Wales, held an Early Years Meeting. That evening, the Prince and Princess of Wales joined the King and Queen at an evening reception at Buckingham Palace for the Diplomatic Corps. Late in the evening, it was announced the Princess of Wales, amongst other female working royals from the British Royal Family, had written an article for Good Housekeeping, promoting her Patronage Family Action December 11th - A photo of the Princess of Wales - taken from the filming of a 'teaser' for her 'Together at Christmas' carol concert - was released December 13th - The official Christmas card of the Wales family was released by Kensington Palace December 14th - The Princess of Wales planted a wild cherry tree for The Queen's Green Canopy in the Dean's Yard of Westminster Abbey, in honour of Her Late Majesty Queen Elizabeth II. That evening, Kensington Palace released a video of the Princess of Wales decorating a christmas tree at Westminster Abbey to promote her 'Together at Christmas' carol concert December 15th - The Princess of Wales, in her role as Patron of the Royal Foundation of The Prince and Princess of Wales, hosted the 'Together at Christmas' Christmas Carol Service at Westminster Abbey. She was accompanied by the King and Queen, Prince of Wales, Prince George, and Princess Charlotte as well as other members of the royal family and members of the Middleton family December 21st - King Charles III announced the Princess of Wales as the new Colonel of the Irish Guards December 22nd - Kensington Palace released a video of the Princess of Wales' introduction to her 'Together at Christmas' concert December 24th - The 'Together at Christmas' Christmas Carol Service aired on TV. During the airing, surprise footage of the Princess of Wales meeting with three members of the public at Windsor Castle - Cat, Lionel, and Akbar - was shown. It is likely this was the meeting which took place on December 5th December 25th - The Prince and Princess of Wales, Prince George, Princess Charlotte and Prince Louis, along with the other extended members of the British Royal Family, attended the annual Christmas Day service at St Mary Magdalene Church in Sandringam

[anarkissm]

jake park’s canon backstory and tome are one of my favorites, because it implies that jake may be the only nonviolent character in the fog/lore/game that experiences psychosis and shows hints of a personality disorder.

in “Exile of the Kingdom,” jake talks with what clearly reads as auditory hallucinations. candidly speaking to the disembodied voices of family members and one former teacher, which is not a typical reaction if these voices had appeared suddenly or recently due to extreme hunger. auditory hallucinations are not a common symptom of starvation. more importantly, jake was not suffering from starvation during that time, or else he would not have had the strength to evade the wolves hunting him through the wilderness, or climb a tree while carrying the dead-weight carcass of a full-grown wild boar.

auditory hallucinations vary between cultures and belief systems. jake was raised to practice korean buddhism, and the meditations that he often did with his mother was beneficial for his mental health. as a result, jake’s “voices” were usually family members and friends who loved him. except for an overcritical high school teacher:

He doesn't remember when he started hearing the voices but at  some point out on his own in the mountains, he realized he was talking  to himself and that talking to himself helped him cope with the  loneliness.  

“Everyone hears voices inside their head, Jake, although most are too  distracted to listen or even acknowledge them, or, if they do  acknowledge them, they keep them private for fear of ridicule."

Most of  Jake’s voices are family members and old friends that make friendly talk  here and there, but as of late the voices poke and question everything  he does. And now for the last two days he was hearing a new voice. A  mocking voice that highlighted and criticized every mistake he made like  his dreaded high school English teacher that made him read garbage he  didn't connect with or gave him nicknames like ‘muddle brain’ for mixing up words, reading backwards and seeing things in the stories she  claimed weren't there. They were. She just lacked imagination and  perspective. It was her voice — teeth grinding on wool — that squelched  through his mind to undermine his dignity and confidence as a thinking  human being.  

under the scrutiny of his family and social circles, jake staunchly ignored these auditory hallucinations (easily dismissed as the wind, or echoing conversations from another room, or a wild imagination), trying desperately to be the perfect, calm, diligent son that his family wanted... up until he was completely removed from society and living in the mountains, alone. in the wilderness, there was no other human being to talk to. except himself. as a result, his auditory hallucinations became louder, more judgemental, harder to ignore.

arguing with the voices, he confesses, “I have an emptiness inside me that no money or thing can fill.”

this “emptiness” is vital to jake’s major choices and motivations leading up to him becoming a survivalist and living off the grid, including his obsession with his grandfather’s letters.

it’s likely that jake developed schizoid personality disorder and schizophrenic auditory hallucinations in his childhood and/or early adulthood, due to his experiences as the first born child to a wealthy korean-american family and the heir to a multi-million dollar business; exacerbated by jake’s pure isolation in the mountains, his preexisting neurodivergence (auADHD, dyslexia) coupled with the subsequent ableism he endured by adults, and the generational trauma of western imperialism that created a complicated relationship with his father:

Growing up the son of a wealthy CEO was always going to put pressure on Jake Park. When his brother graduated with honors from Yale, the pressure on Jake intensified. Jake just wasn't the academic type, but his father never really understood his refusal to embrace the expensive education he lavished upon him. [...] Jake's destiny was set even inside his mother's womb. Heir to wealth, noble manners and caretaker of the family reputation and legacy. During torture it's not pain that breaks a man, it's immense pressure. And Jake couldn't handle any more pressure. Instead he sought the opposite of fine dining and maids. He left the grid and ended up with a forest as his closest neighbor.

from a young age, jake was groomed for a life in business suits and corporate meetings. he had to act respectable, responsible, and never express displeasure or strong emotions, because it reflected badly on his family’s reputation. at first, jake did exactly what his parents wanted and expected from him. raised to understand his position in the park family with a heavy sense of responsibility: as the first-born child, as the eldest sibling, as the primary representative of his father’s legacy. for a long time, it did not seem like jake had other options. sam park had planned jake’s entire life for him. but that plan never considered jake, as a person. consequently, jake learned early into his teens that he could not trust his father to meet his emotional needs, or support jake’s personal aspirations and desires for himself.

he found some semblance of freedom during his early adulthood and college years, in which jake would have been considered hedonistic.

jake’s cosmetic “Life of the Party” is an extremely flashy tracksuit, specifically meant for an event that had a lot of dancing, and alcohol:

Drop in with the perfect outfit for a house party. Made with synthetic fabrics that spilled beer can’t stain. Light, bright and sure to get you noticed. [nylon tracksuit pants] Won't rip or wear, even through a whole night of doing the Butterfly.

jake’s cosmetic “All White Everything,” is basically his outfit for an exlcusive White-Tie Event that he was personally invited to, stressing jake’s reputation as a guest worth inviting:

while still living in the city, he was invited to a prestigious party with an obnoxious dress code.

he attended parties, got drunk, danced, traveled the world, dressed up in the latest styles and luxury brands for all the attention, as expected. trying to fill the “emptiness” inside him with whatever money could buy.

retreating into the wilderness was not jake’s first taste of reckless rebellion. but the choice to become a recluse was partially motivated by jake’s undiagnosed schzpd.

[liaromancewriter]

How did Spring Break looked like for your MC and Sienna during college/med school? Wild parties/vacation? Nice trip? Going back home? Staying behind to study? Anything in between? What about Ethan and Max?

Thanks for this ask, Nonny. I've gone overboard with my response (shocker, I know 😉)

Cassie:

In Freshman year of college, Cassie and her boyfriend Jackson, Max and their friends went to Cabo San Lucas in Mexico for spring break. One of their friend's parents had a vacation home there. It was a wild week full of partying and drinking, and definitely an experience for the ages.

The following three years were less wild as her studies and dance picked up:

Sophomore year: She went to South Carolina with her boyfriend Jackson -- a command performance (his words). It was his sister's wedding and there was a lot of family drama. So, not as much fun.

Junior year: She had her ballet spring recital right after, so spent the week in rehearsals. It was during this recital that she suffered a torn ACL, which meant the end of her ballet ambitions.

Senior year: She and Jackson went to a luxury resort in St. Lucia. They both wanted a break before finals and spent the week just relaxing by the beach, snorkeling, and having fun.

Medical school years:

Those years were intense and she wasn't into partying by then. She used whatever breaks were offered to relax and recharge at her parents' home. At the same time, she was often studying during spring break, whether it was for her USMLE exams or catching up on reading research (especially Ethan Ramsey's papers) that she had missed when busy with classes.

Cassie was single during medical school, dating on and off. So, when she was back home her mom would try to set her up with eligible men from their social circle. Cassie went along with it most of the time because she was often lonely, and knew her mom had good taste. She also caught up with her cousins and her high school/college friends in the area.

Max:

Much to his parents dismay, Max has always been a workaholic. Except for spring break in freshman year, he would rather pick up shifts at work than waste time going on spring break.

It's not that he doesn't like to party, but he knew he could do that anytime and often did during the year. Spring break is a busy time in the hotel and hospitality business and he wanted to gain as much experience as he possibly could.

His college girlfriend Eva was not happy, but knew him well enough to recognize that she couldn't change his mind. She often went somewhere with her friends, and Max joined her for a day or two if he could get away.

He had a plan for his career, and nothing was going to deter him. He can party hard when he wants to, but spring break and all its entails wasn't for him.

Ethan:

I can't see Ethan doing traditional spring break. At the same time, it reminds of that scene from Gilmore Girls where Rory and Paris decide to stay at Yale during Spring Break, but then end up driving down to Florida where they run into Madeline and Louise. lol

Ethan liked how quiet campus was during spring break. He got uninterrupted research time at the library and in the chemistry labs. He was working as a research assistant for one of his professors, and enjoyed working on projects. He visited Alan during that time, but didn't take any trips down south like his classmates.

I don't think Ethan was anti-social during college or that he didn't party. He definitely did. But, he was also focused on his studies and getting good grades to keep his scholarship. As such, he prioritized research and studies during his free time, and kept the partying to a minimum.

Sienna:

As Sienna had grown up in New Orleans, she found the cold winter in New Jersey unbearable during her freshman year. She was also homesick. So, that first year she went home during spring break and spent time with her family, especially her grandfather, and enjoyed the pleasant weather.

Her free time at Princeton was kind of mixed. She was making friends, meeting new people, going to parties. But, she also had a heavy course load, was volunteering and doing extra curricular activities to get her ready for medical school.

She had broken up with high school boyfriend, Aaron, halfway through freshman year in college (they just drifted apart). So, she threw herself into dating those first couple of year. She met Wayne at a party and after that they were together.

She was studying for her MCATs during spring break in junior year, and volunteered at an urgent care clinic in her senior year. She was just focused on medical school admissions those last two years.

Sienna found medical school challenging at the first, so she was always studying. Spring break was a chance to relax and rest. Wayne was still in New York, so she mostly spent her free time with him or with her friends, exploring the city.

Her last two years of med school were about rotations, sub-internships, clerkships, research projects, studying, etc., so she had limited free time. But, she had a good group of friends and they all kept each other entertained including day and weekend trips to Greenwich, CT, the Hamptons, etc.

Her sister and parents came to visit her in third year, so that was a fun spring break for her. Wayne had moved to Boston by then (much to her family's delight). Generally, spring break during medical school was always short and she barely had time to catch her breath before her studies began anew.

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

Character Asks: @annfg8 @bluebelle08 @cariantha @crazy-loca-blog @coffeeheartaddict2 @doriopenheart @lucy-268 @jerzwriter @lady-calypso @mrs-ramsey @queencarb @quixoticdreamer16 @rookiemartin @tessa-liam @trappedinfanfiction

[alias-milamber]

Three things:

The orangutan is a Discworld reference. In the second book the librarian of the Unseen University is turned into an orangutan in a wild magic surge, and decides immediately that anyone who attempts to turn him back - or call him a monkey - should have their head unscrewed in a distressingly literal fashion.

For a little while I worked for a server company company with datacentres (place where servers live) in London and Hemel Hempstead.

The London office was equipped with a with an argon fire suppression system similar to the Yale one. If someone pressed the fire alarm button you had sixty seconds to GTFO before the air in the room would be rapidly replaced by argon, in which fire doesn't burn, humans don't breathe, and servers (as well as books) are fine. There was a Very Specific Alarm for this, and it was very much On The Training, even for me who didn't work on the actual servers (I was developing monitoring and deployment systems).

Fourth Bonus thing: The Hemel Hempstead estate was based in the industrial estate outside the town, where land was very cheap. One of the reasons for this was that less than five years previously a nearby oil storage facility had a Very Bad Day. There was a Very Specific - and different - Alarm for any possible reoccurrence of that Very Bad Day, and the GTFO instructions were - while very similar and equally definite - a lot more complicated.

This is just The Magnus Institute.

[jcmarchi]

“Forever Chemicals” Promote Cancer Cell Migration - Technology Org

New Post has been published on https://thedigitalinsider.com/forever-chemicals-promote-cancer-cell-migration-technology-org/

“Forever Chemicals” Promote Cancer Cell Migration - Technology Org

In a new study by Yale School of Public Health researchers, two “forever chemicals” spurred cancer cells in the lab to migrate to new positions, indicating that the chemicals could contribute to cancer metastasis in living organisms.

Forever chemicals are found in our everyday objects and a large part of them eventually become pollutants. Image credit: Brian Yurasits via Unsplash, free license

The study addressed the group of industrial chemicals called per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS). The substances are known as “forever chemicals” because they don’t break down in the environment and can build up in the human body. All have the ability to shed water and resist penetration by oils. They are notorious for their ubiquity, their exceptional environmental stability, and their suspected toxic effects.

“PFAS make up a prevalent class of persistent organic pollutants of increasing public concern worldwide. They have been frequently detected in the environment, such as in drinking water, indoor dust, cleaning products, and coatings,” said co-first author Jie Zheng, a postdoctoral associate who was working in the lab of principal investigator Caroline Johnson, PhD, associate professor of epidemiology (environmental health sciences), at the time the research was conducted.

The chemicals show up in the blood of newborns, of people living in sub-Arctic Indigenous communities, in fish and mussels, even birds’ eggs. No level of PFAS in the body is considered safe, and they have been linked to a litany of health problems, including cancers. In November, the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) classified perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA), a common PFAS, as carcinogenic to humans and perfluorooctanesulfonic acid (PFOS), another common PFAS, as possibly carcinogenic to humans.

No studies have addressed the relationship between PFAS and colorectal carcinoma (CRC), Zheng explained. However, firefighters experience this type of cancer at higher rates than the general population and they are heavily exposed to PFAS at work. About 80% of CRC cases are thought to be related to environmental exposure of some kind.

But what the chemicals might be doing to initiate or spur on this type of cancer has been unclear.

The Johnson lab studies CRC with metabolomics, a tool that measures fluctuating levels of thousands of small molecules like amino acids, lipids, and proteins in a biological sample.

“We look at patterns that occur within an exposed group of people or a diseased group of people, then try to generate a hypothesis as to why somebody may develop a disease or have progression of disease,” Johnson said. “Metabolomics is one of the only tools where you can measure environmental exposures in the same sample as the biological effect.”

In this series of experiments, the authors studied how CRC cells react to being immersed in a PFAS solution for up to 7 days. They observed increased cell motility with exposure and found metabolic changes that were consistent with cancer metastasis.

Results agreed with current knowledge about CRC metabolism, spread, and prognosis, amounting to evidence that the chemicals can induce metastasis.

Cancer on the move

To investigate the metabolic profile of CRC cells after PFAS exposure, the study focused on PFOS and PFOA. Both have been used in firefighting foam and many other products.

The authors used two CRC cell types from a line called SW48. One type consisted of cells with an unmutated or “wild-type” KRAS gene; in the other, the KRAS gene carried a common mutation associated with an especially deadly type of colon tumor in women. The cells formed into tiny balls called spheroids.

The researchers found that bathing spheroids in the chemicals boosted the cells’ migration ability. They showed a tendency to spread and to penetrate membranes. In another experiment, researchers grew the cells as a flat, two-dimensional layer, then drew a scratch down the middle, separating half of the cells from the other half. When they added PFAS, the cell lines grew and migrated back together again.

“It doesn’t prove it’s metastasis, but they have increased motility, which is a feature of metastasis,” Johnson said.

Metabolomic analysis revealed the spheroids were producing a variety of fatty acids, amino acids, and signaling proteins in patterns previously linked to metastasis. Small-chain fatty acids, which can protect against tumors and inflammation, were downregulated.

A Western blot found telltale up- and down-regulation of specific signal proteins associated with metastasis during a process called the epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT).

For example, when exposed to either chemical at higher levels, both cell types expressed less E-cadherin, rendering them less adhesive—a key step in EMT-related metastasis. The results added to the team’s confidence that the cell was behaving in vitro like a metastatic cell in the body.

Some changes suggesting metastatic potential were more pronounced in the KRAS-mutated line. That could mean that cancers with this mutation may be especially prone to spread after exposure to these chemicals.

A look at the exposome

The research is part of an ongoing quest by scientists to better understand the exposome—that is, all environmental influences upon a person from conception until death, including biological, chemical, environmental, social, and so on. Because PFAS are so widespread, almost everyone is exposed.

This study used exposure levels similar to those detected in firefighters and others in frequent contact with PFAS, such as people living near landfills, airports, military bases, or wastewater treatment plants. In future studies, the Johnson lab aims to test exposures that are lower, more like those most people face every day. They also plan to look at PFAS levels and clinical outcomes in patients with colorectal cancer.

“Many in vitro studies can’t be translated into humans,” Johnson said, “but I think understanding first the mechanisms of how they can actually affect cancer cell growth is important.”

Source: Yale University

You can offer your link to a page which is relevant to the topic of this post.

[rjzimmerman]

Excerpt from this story from Yale Environment 360:

It was a monumental disaster. The dynamiting of the Kakhovka dam on Ukraine’s Dnieper River just before dawn on June 6 last year rapidly emptied Europe’s largest hydroelectric reservoir. Some 14 million acre-feet of water hurtled downstream for more than 100 miles to the sea. Around 80 villages were flooded, more than 100 people died, and more than 40 nature reserves were engulfed. In the Black Sea, the flood delivered a flush of industrial toxins, land mines, agricultural chemicals, sediment, and freshwater that killed fish and unleashed swarms of algae along the coast.

Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, called it the “largest man-made environmental disaster in Europe in decades” — since the meltdown at the country’s Chernobyl nuclear plant in 1986. Within days, his government pledged to rebuild the dam.

But now the ecological consequences of this war crime — widely presumed to be perpetrated by the dam’s Russian occupiers — are being seen in a different light. The bed of the former reservoir is rapidly rewilding, with extensive thickets of native willow trees growing. The country’s ecologists are calling for plans for a new dam to be dropped, in favor of nurturing the ecological renewal. And they argue that some of Ukraine’s short-term wartime environmental catastrophes — on rivers, in forests, and across the country’s precious steppe grasslands — can be turned into long-term ecological gains.

“War-wilding” can benefit a country still chained to Soviet-era infrastructure, they say. After the war ends — which Zelensky said during a visit to the U.S. in September could be “closer… than we think” — Ukraine could secure its inadvertent ecological gains and ensure that reconstruction puts the environment at its heart.

There is no doubt that the breaching of the Kakhovka dam 16 months ago was a catastrophe for people living downstream. Many ecosystems were badly damaged. The question now is whether and how nature will recover. At least in the 155-mile lengths of the drained reservoir, the prognosis is remarkably positive.

Ecologists initially warned that the sediments exposed on the reservoir’s bed would either turn to desert and unleash dust storms laced with toxic detritus, or else be invaded by alien species. Neither has happened, according to Anna Kuzemko, a botanist at the M.G. Kholodny Institute of Botany in Kyiv, who has made three field trips to the reservoir bed, during one of which she was shelled by Russian mortars. The river has resumed its flow down old channels. Sturgeon have made it upstream to old spawning grounds near the dam. Nourished by rich sediment, native willows have grown across the reservoir floor, with reed beds fringing water courses.

[bobmccullochny]

History

October 16, 1701 - Yale University was founded in Killingworth, Connecticut (as the Collegiate School of Connecticut). The school moved to New Haven in 1716. Two years later, the name was changed to Yale College to honor Elihu Yale, a philanthropist. In 1886, it became Yale University.

October 16, 1793 - Queen Marie Antoinette was beheaded during the Reign of Terror following the French Revolution. She was the wife of King Louis XVI and had become the symbol of the people's hatred for the old regime due to her extravagance and frivolity. According to legend, she responded, "Let them eat cake," when told poor people had no bread.

October 16, 1853 - The Crimean War began after the Turkish Ottoman Empire declared war on Russia, Britain, France and portions of Italy allied with the Turks against Russia. It became the first war observed up close by newspaper reporters and photographers. One of the battles was immortalized in Tennyson's poem, The Charge of the Light Brigade. Amid poor sanitary conditions, disease killed many wounded French and British troops. British nurse Florence Nightingale then pioneered modern-style sanitation methods, saving many lives.

October 16, 1859 - Fanatical abolitionist John Brown seized the Federal Arsenal at Harpers Ferry with about 20 followers. Three days later, Brown was captured and the insurrection was put down by U.S. Marines under the command of Col. Robert E. Lee. Brown was convicted by the Commonwealth of Virginia of treason, murder, and inciting slaves to rebellion, and was hanged on December 2, 1859.

October 16, 1916 - The first birth control clinic in America was opened in Brooklyn, New York, by Margaret Sanger, a nurse who worked among the poor on the Lower East Side of New York City.

October 16, 1946 - Ten former Nazi leaders were hanged by the Allies following their conviction for war crimes at Nuremberg, Germany.

October 16, 1964 - China detonated its first nuclear bomb at the Lop Nor test site in Sinkiang.

October 16, 1978 - Cardinal Karol Wojtyla of Poland was elected Pope. He was the first non-Italian Pope chosen in 456 years and took the name John Paul II.

October 16, 1995 - The Million Man March took place in Washington, D.C., under the direction of Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan, who delivered the main address to the gathering of African American males.

Birthday - American teacher and journalist Noah Webster (1758-1843) was born in West Hartford, Connecticut. His name became synonymous with "dictionary" after he compiled the first American dictionaries of the English language.

Birthday - Irish poet and playwright Oscar Wilde (1854-1900) was born in Dublin, Ireland. Best known for his comedies including; The Importance of Being Earnest. And his novel The Picture of Dorian Gray in which he wrote, "There is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about and that is not being talked about."

Birthday - David Ben-Gurion (1886-1973) was born in Plonsk, Poland. He was largely responsible for founding the modern state of Israel in 1948 and is revered as "Father of the Nation."

Birthday - American playwright Eugene O'Neill (1888-1953) was born in New York City. He wrote more than 35 plays and was the first American dramatist awarded a Nobel Prize for literature. He also received four Pulitzers. His dramas, which dealt realistically with psychological and social problems, included; Beyond the Horizon, The Iceman Cometh, The Emperor Jones and Long Day's Journey into Night.

Birthday - American jurist William O. Douglas (1898-1980) was born in Maine, Minnesota. He served as an associate justice on the Supreme Court for 36 years and was also a world traveler, conservationist, outdoorsman and author.

[riting]

Bad Stars True West by Amanda Horowitz

DJ Hills on Bad Stars True West

Two images have stuck, like pin art, in my memory.

The first is Jess Barbagallo as Cricket, knife in hand, toaster between his legs. Despite the chord, dangling, obviously unplugged, I still flinched when Jess dropped the knife into the toaster. A fear leftover from childhood. There was a time when I was sure a toaster would kill me.

The other image is of an open briefcase, wet pasta spilling out into a bathtub. Wild and so earned it felt inevitable, this moment comes after a verbal tennis match in which Arne Gjelten performs both mother and father, voice and body contorting to fit an idea of gender that is as slippery as it is ever-present.

Bad Stars True West is a game—like the ones I hope we all once played with friends—where a train track-rug bears very real possibilities for travel. This game-nature allows danger to lurk so innocently at the edges of the play.

We are all in danger. We are all having fun. Anything can happen. Every moment is a surprise.

Boundaries are fuzzy in Amanda’s world. Images and words bend around us, reshaping themselves, beat by beat, into familiar things made unfamiliar.

Outside the gallery, Hollywood, too, feels even less tethered to reality than before. I’m still in child’s play mode. Each person I pass on the street has a little cowboy inside them. There could be spaghetti in anyone’s briefcase.

DJ Hills is a writer for the page, stage, and screen. They are the author of Leaving Earth (Split Rock Press) and their play TRUNK BRIEF JOCK THONG was shortlisted for the Yale Drama Series.

Stacy Dawson Stearns on Bad Stars True West

Sam Shephard holds a wiggly warm spot in my dirt. In the 80’s, I was a young teen and already starting to feel out of place in the creative boxes available to me. The play Cowboy Mouth showed up. Shepard and his unique troping of the American West plus asphalt and addiction tripped my switch so I tried it on, acting out scenes and making costume designs for characters I didn’t understand. I was just a kid and had no idea what addiction and love do to each other, no idea about the thin line between obliteration and inspiration, no idea how hard it is to stay free when you cross the threshold from childhood to the big A. But I learned that Sam and Patti Smith were lovers who had written and acted that play out together, so maybe the line between fake and real was a dotted line. Is it a coincidence that Patti Smith made her public debut as a poet at St. Marks Church on the same day I was born? Funny that I would debut artistically there, too, 20 years later performing on the 2nd floor at the Ontological Hysterical Theater. Dotted lines on road maps worn thin from thumbing connect disconnected folk to one another. Ghosts of the living and dead love churches that act as theaters.

I moved to NYC 6 years after my first exposure to Shepard and saw a flyer wheatpasted to a mailbox for a production of Cowboy Mouth. The theater was a basement in the East Village. Ghosts love basements, too. The mythical Lobster Man character was played by a guy with no clothes on- very unlike the Lobster Man costume design I had drawn years before, but much more honest and economical. I couldn’t believe how weird and normal the play was and how easy and hard it all seemed at the same time and how it made sense without making sense. I figured that Shepard was my uncle and these folks were my cousins: children of an America made of narcotics, disfunction, TV, and asphalt. It felt good to sit without lies for a while.

30 +years later I’m in a small gallery space in Hollywood seeing a play by a playwright named Amanda Horowitz that spawned somehow from Shepard’s True West. Ghosts are ok with galleries. Sam wrote True West 9 years after Cowboy Mouth- but with Uncle Sam it’s all just one play, really. Different acts. I came because I wanted to see Jess Barbagallo, who is a rock star of an actor just like Malcovitch or Shepard himself but braver, more vulnerable, tougher, softer. Shepard no longer lives in flesh- he is a ghost grampa who passed out and left the car keys on the dresser next to his drumsticks. He is sitting with me on these metal bleachers a block away from the Boulevard of Broken Dreams, fading in and out of vision depending on the angle of my glasses. On the stage, wild ones with their hearts pushing through their shirts are taking his car on a joyride into new territory: a wormy place of what we do when fucked up romance and being sad about wasted people is no longer enough. They run off the road in a town called Almost Hope, population 3.

Bad Stars True West is a beautiful evolution of Shepard Country where surviving the death of relationships is worth trying. Where the threat of being run over by a train is no worse than the threat of not being run over by a train because worms survive and thrive. Where mother and father are an actor who has noodled himself into a Mobius strip: self-contained yet unwieldy, feral yet capable of being studied. Jess is not the only star in this trio; Arne Gjelten and Sophia Cleary end up rocking my world, too.

On the sidewalk after the show, Jess and I talk for a minute about the ways we all put out for our own art, and how great it is when projects feel necessary and fullfilling. Part of me feels like saying “feels like old times,” but I don’t want to. Nostalgia sits too close to atrophy for me, so I choose gratitude for this hijacking of Sam’s direction, saying in my mind: “Thank you for acknowledging that we are way beyond the era of hopelessness as a statement. Thank you for not being snarky and guarded. Thank you for discussing platonic love and heartbreak.” In his day, Shepard did not write to celebrate abuse and codependence per se, but at some point in the rotation his plays stopped being exposed wounds and started becoming reliquaries. I am not saying these plays have lost their prescience, I am saying we have a hard time being present*. Sometimes textual legacies need not be revivals. Enter Horowitz et al on the dusty horizon of Shepard Country. Having eaten the old plays like worms in a corpse, they split in two and regenerate their own heads. They fill a bathtub with spaghetti, they lay down on the tracks. Mom becomes an artist but maybe she always was and we didn’t notice. As still night falls on Almost Hope, USA, we don’t know where this is going, but we feel like we just might get there.

*Say a little prayer for Buried Child to erupt through the floor of the Supreme Court soon in a showdown of the undead! We can dream, can’t we?

Stacy Dawson Stearns (she/they) believes that artists support societal well-being by modeling and instigating collective creative practice. A Bessie Award-winning artist known for her work with Big Dance Theater, David Neumann, Hal Hartley, and Blacklips Performance Cult, Stacy has choreographed for pop icons Debbie Harry and Ann Magnuson, House of Jackie, and The Vampire Cowboys, and has performed and presented in 10 countries in venues ranging from NYC’s Lincoln Center to Tblisi’s Teatr Griboyedov. Stacy develops new media with Channel B4 and uses her curation and programming to serve communities and further social justice, representation, and accessibility initiatives as a CultureHub LA 2023 Fellow.

Bad Stars True West by Amanda Horowitz was presented at STARS Gallery in Los Angeles on July 13-16, 2023. It was performed by Jess Barbagallo, Sophia Cleary, Arne Gjelton, and Beaux Mendes as the "plein-air-painter." All photos by Jonathan Chacón.

Amanda Horowitz is an interdisciplinary artist working between performance and sculpture. She writes and directs theater projects with experimental and collaborative methods. Past performance projects include: The Plumbing Tree (co-written & directed with Bully Fae Collins, 2018-19), Suddenly, This Summer (2019) and Bad Water True West (2022). She is currently a 2022-2024 Playwright-in-Resident at Rutgers University.