#just going to stipulate once more for the masses

[fincalinde]

thoughts on Su Minshan??

I actually recently did a post on SMS, so feel free to stick another token in the slot machine that is my askbox if you want. But I suppose I can build on it a little. There's one thing I brought up in there that probably does deserve more attention, and that is ...

Why, oh why, does fandom assume that SMS is unmarried when it is literally impossible that he would be single and childless? Like, this blows my mind.

Things that are clearly established by canon:

1. The jianghu operates under a clan system rather than a genre-typical pure sect system. Bloodlines are crucially important and the leadership of clans is generally passed from father to son or another close male relative, though women do rarely also obtain positions of power.

2. This system was introduced a couple of centuries earlier by Wen Mao, but is now so embedded that XXC and SL's shared vision of a merit-based sect where bloodlines are irrelevant is considered a distant and idealistic dream.

3. XXC receives numerous invitations to join clans due to his stellar reputation, and turns them all down due to this principle. He could have taken an important role in these clans but would never have been able to inherit or lead. Despite his incredible reputation, during the period of time in which he is travelling the jianghu in his pre-eye gouging days, neither he nor SL take a single disciple. This strongly indicates that even someone of literally impeccable standing couldn't even begin to get an independent merit-based sect off the ground.

... but I am supposed to believe that SMS somehow achieved this? That he left the Lan and founded his own sect with a gang of disgruntled tone deaf pals and that's the end of it? Absolutely not. He founded the Moling Su (the name itself is a big clue) in the traditional manner. He probably did involve some of his own blood relatives from the off to bulk his numbers, but even so, he's clan leader and the first thing a nascent and highly vulnerable new clan needs is heirs. SMS is absolutely married and a father to multiple children. Those children are the literal future of his clan and its very existence depends on them.

Of course his wife and children aren't explicitly mentioned by the narrative, because he's a supporting character whose function in the narrative revolves around his loyalty to JGY and his grudges against [insert list here], and his home life is irrelevant. Su-furen is either at home in Moling holding the fort; or, less likely, she's amongst the cultivators he brings to the Burial Mounds and could even potentially be intending to meet up with JGY and his cohort of loyal disciples during the collective flight to Dongying. It's just a level of detail that isn't relevant, especially to our viewpoint character, WWX, who is notoriously not detail-orientated when it comes to this kind of thing.

[oatmealaddiction]

Personal rant time: Right now the United States is seeing a huge erosion in small childcare centers, particularly family run centers which are unable to contend with the lack of teachers and care providers, as well as enormous demands from government licensing. It's going to lead to an uptick in corporate centers because many states do not acknowledge preschool as an imperative. This is terrible for working class families, especially those who don't work during the day and who rely on family centers. Parents will either have to quit, or use under the table childcare that's not been properly vetted. This is again because of the belief that raising children is a mother's job, and a push back against women entering the workforce. The work is continuously undervalued, and there is no appreciation for people who work with young children. Early Childhood Education is across the board, one of the lowest paying degrees a person can get. This had lead to the staffing crisis, it's lead to centers being shut down, and parents waking up to find out they're going to have to quit their jobs because there's no centers near them with any room. And while this is what a lot of conservatives want, the problem is we've hit a point where families with two working parents is a necessity for most people. Mother's can't just quit and rely on their husbands income. It is not possible.

Inside centers too, the demands put on teachers (a largely female workforce) is really unreasonable. Our hours often go over what are agreed upon, we're often pressured to work sick, and you'd be shocked to hear how many teachers have wet themselves on the job because using the bathroom meant leaving children unattended and there was no one available to get them a break. We're also micromanaged to hell and back because nobody seems to understand we're professionals who were trained in child care. Everything we do falls under immense scrutiny, and there's not a lot of protection for us. A lot of teachers also feel pressured to stay in their jobs because leaving could mean the center shuts down due to lack of staff.

Strict regulations also make it awful on the children. I once had a teacher who worked with largely autistic children, children with down's syndrome, or children with cerebral palsy, and she said that when she started, licensing regulations essentially stipulated the children be strapped in a car seat in an empty room with no toys. She had to fight tooth and nail to get children blocks and outside time and a classroom pet, only to retire and have all of the materials she'd worked to get be removed the second she was gone. I work at a center right now that says any book with a tear in it should be considered unusable and it's making it difficult to find books to read for my class, let alone toys that meet all the strict regulations. Which in the case of family centers, being unable to meet all of these demands often means being closed and families losing their childcare. (It should be noted corporate day cares are not held to the same standards as small private day cares. I worked at a corporate center where children were being served expired food.) And the biggest victims in all of this are the children. Like, what does it say about us that childcare centers are closing in mass and children are being pushed out of the public sphere that much more? That we're so concerned about the safety of children we've taken away their books and toys and pushed them back into their homes. The ability to have safe childcare is going to be restricted to the upper class and even they are going to be fighting tooth and nail over what little resources are left. Meanwhile, working class families could be forced to use a dangerous under the table center or have to uproot their entire family to make ends meet. It is legitimately a crisis. Childcare is a necessity, it is something we cannot neglect. Support universal preschool, volunteer at small centers if you can, and advocate for regulation that protects workers and children vs. regulation that continues to restrict childcare.

[slippinmickeys]

The Mesas of Deuteronilus Mensae (23/?)

There was a small mirror in the tiny lav and she squinted at her reflection once, eyeing the bandaid she’d put over the small cut on her head. It seemed to cover it okay. Other than the sting of cut skin, she had no headache, nor concussion symptoms. Small favors.

“Mulder?” she called out, tilting her chin over her shoulder as if someone had called her name from the kitchen. There was no answer. Just a steady, soft hiss from the comm system.

She made her way to the front of the vehicle, peering out the listing windshield. Outside, the sun was actively setting, the Martian sky dusty and reddish-rose. Night was coming on fast, and Mulder was nowhere within the horizon of the rover’s windows.

“Mulder?” she called out again. The comm system was set to pick up voices from anywhere in the rover. “Have you found the problem? You’re going to need to come in.” She glanced at the temperature readout, which was dropping quickly. “It’s getting too cold out there for the suits, Mulder.”

There was no answer but that same steady hiss. She never should have suggested that they go outside to investigate whatever had happened to the rover. The vehicle’s systems seemed to be running just fine. The crash—whatever it was—had them stuck, but not dead in the water. What was ten more hours? Well, she heard herself say in her head, in space, ten more hours can kill you. Ten minutes. Ten seconds.

God, where the hell was he?

“Rover Two to Mulder, please come in,” she said officiously. Silence.

She made her way to the port holes in the sides of both sections of the rover and looked out, seeing nothing but the ever-darkening sky. With a low feeling of unease, she sat down in the driver’s seat and pulled up the rover’s computer tracking system. It was a simple ping-and-report framework, which noted the location of any nearby hardsuit with a light on a map of whatever area the rover was in. She activated it and the dot for Mulder hovered right outside the rover, but the light wasn’t blazing steadily, rather, it was fading in and out slowly, erratically.

Perhaps there was a problem with his hardsuit’s electrical system which was interfering with his comms and tracking. Maybe, Scully thought, stealing another look at the surface temperature readout which was still falling, the cold was messing with it. And if it was too cold for the simple systems of the suit to operate, it was definitely too cold for the suit’s heating system.

Mulder could either be out there happily going about his business, unaware that some of his suit’s systems weren’t working correctly, or he could be in serious trouble.

Scully swore. Protocol stipulated no one try to rescue another crew member if you might end up in the same predicament, and it certainly didn’t permit post-nightfall EVAs, but protocol was becoming more and more ambiguous the longer she was away from Earth. And Jesus, it was Mulder .

She quickly donned her hardsuit, briefly considered reporting to Base Base what had happened, and thought better of it. If for some reason she was ordered to stay on the rover and leave Mulder to his fate—whatever it was—she could be held accountable. Better to ask for forgiveness than permission.

The light in the airlock shone unusually bright against the dark port window that faced the Martian landscape, and it seemed to take forever to depressurize. Finally, the light switched to green and she reached up and turned on the dual LED flashlights that were housed on either side of her helmet. With that, she opened the door.

She could feel the cold through her suit almost immediately, a seeping mass that leaked in at her from the outside in, but she ignored it as best she could and stepped out onto the planet. The twin beams of the lights coalesced into a single fixed point several yards in front of her, making the red ground appear more of a light pink.

“Mulder?”

Turning her head slowly, as she would an arm were she holding out a flashlight, she panned the light incrementally around in a full 360 degree arc. No sign of Mulder. She began to make her way around the rover, moving about ten yards away from it so as to better illuminate more ground. Walking from the back of the rover and around its far side, she ranged widely around the long trailer that held the weather balloons, which sat silent and still on their pallets, covered in a light film of Martian dust.

She continued walking around the far side of the rover and around its listing front, poised for the lights to finally illuminate the white of Mulder’s suit—either standing there, not knowing she couldn’t communicate with him, or prone on the ground, in trouble. But the lights illuminated nothing. She found herself back in front of the airlock where she had started, and there was absolutely no trace of the other astronaut.

“Mulder?” she called out again. Her heart had started pounding. She could hear the tremor in her voice reverberate back to her in her helmet. It was almost suffocating.

There was a faint blip of sound from the comms speaker, nearly impossible to identify, but her first instinct was that it was his voice. Adrenaline dumped.

Where the hell was he?

She briefly considered that he had already started to succumb to hypothermia and had wandered away from the rover in a fog, but he hadn’t been gone nearly enough time for that to have happened. Had he walked away for some other reason? The land they stood on was flat and seemingly endless, a long expanse of Martian dune stretching out on all sides. There was no moonlight to go by—Phobos and Deimos weren’t in the right part of the sky, and didn’t reflect nearly the light of the Earth’s moon—but the stars were blazing and Mulder’s suit would have reflected enough for her to see, even if he were hundreds of yards away.

She took a slow, steadying breath. She needed to go about this logically. The old fashioned way. She would follow his footprints.

In addition to the color-coded stripes on the outside of their hardsuits used to individually identify each astronaut, the treads on their boots were equally distinctive. Each astronaut’s footprint was marked with a pattern of different shapes that could be used to identify whose tracks were whose. She moved her head until her light found the two sets of tracks that had emerged from the rover’s airlock. She saw her own, with a star-shaped pattern in between the lined treads, and then Mulder’s, which were studded with an even pattern of little diamonds. You didn’t need to be an Indian Guide to read the scene. Tilting her head up so that the light tracked them, she followed his bootprints, staying on the outside of them, away from the rover, so as not to muss or muddle them with her own.

The heating unit in her hardsuit was churning, and the life support function was slowly dropping, percentage point by percentage point, the heaters sucking up all available power.

“Come on, Mulder,” she whispered to herself.

Mulder had wasted no time after emerging from the airlock, and had walked directly to the starboard side of the rover toward the front, where the vehicle’s headlights were canted unnaturally.

Scully ran her lights over the front of the rover, curious about what had happened to them despite her concern and dismay over the whereabouts of Mulder. It was hard to discern at first, but as her light panned over the fender and first set of wheels, it became clearer what had happened. The rover had found a hole. But like a pothole filled with water, this one was filled with Martian dust. There was likely no way Mulder had known it was there–she only saw it in the subtle demarcation in the sharp light of her LED. The front wheel was sunk into the hole, but the dust in the hole had simply crept its way back up around the edge, like water seeking its own level. It looked like the tire had come to rest in a puddle. A puddle of silty Martian dust.

In the cone of her light, the dust in the ‘puddle’ had a different quality to it than the regolithic dirt surrounding it, a different tone and texture to the ground upon which she stood. The puddle itself was big, more of a pool really, nearly ten feet across, with the wheels of the rover stuck in the far edge of it.

She swung her head around looking at the scope of it, and that’s when she saw it: Mulder’s bootprint. It sat in the thick dirt only inches from the edge of the pool, and was pointed directly at it. And that’s when it dawned on her what must have happened. Mulder hadn’t seen the delineation of where solid ground met the crater of dust, and he’d stepped right into it. The hole, Scully realized, must be deep. Seven feet or more; deep enough that Mulder had stepped into it and fallen in completely. Sucked into the regolith of Mars like an explorer swallowed by quicksand.

“Mulder!” she shouted, and rushed to the edge of the cavity, diving to her knees, the articulated joints of her suit creaking under her. The cold was pressing in, but her blood zinged through her body like fire. She reached tentatively into the edge of the dust puddle, pressing her fingers at its surface to see how much resistance she met. None. None whatsoever. The dust itself was so fine and satiny that it was practically a liquid. If the depression was deep enough, she might never get him out of it. It could be ten feet deep. Twenty. A thousand. It was a phenomenon no human or Martian probe had ever before encountered. There was just no way of knowing.

And if the liquid dust was hindering his comms from working, it might also have worked its way into the other parts of his suit; shutting down systems, making it inoperable. Killing him. She had to get him out. Fast.

She tried to slow down and think. He couldn’t have gone far into it, he was likely right in front of her, where he’d fallen in. And even if the hole was dozens of feet deep, the gravity on Mars wasn’t as strong as it was on Earth—it wouldn’t have pulled him down as far or as fast. There was a chance he was suspended in the ‘liquid,’ like the Tyndall effect of flour suspended in water.

Tentatively, she reached forward and sunk her arm into the silty murk of the puddle until her arm was buried up to her elbow, then her armpit. Christ, the cold was even worse in the hole, and she could feel the tips of her fingers starting to go numb. She moved her arm around slowly at first, reaching in and feeling around for any resistance or solid mass, and then with a little more urgency. If her arm was this cold, Mulder must be freezing. She was swinging her arm madly now, desperately, thinking that she was going to have to jerry-rig something from one of the alloy pole-like tools that were attached to the side of the rover, when the tip of her finger encountered something just to the right of where Mulder’s bootprint perched on the side of the crater. She shimmied over and flailed again and this time her whole gloved hand hit the solid mass. Her hand bounced off of it—she swirled her arm around the dusty miasma again, trying to triangulate what she’d felt, and then she hit it again and closed her grasp desperately. It felt like an arm. She heaved.

Despite the added strength of her Earth-evolved skeletal and muscular systems, the effort it took to even get him moved even a few inches felt Herculean. Her muscles screamed at her, but she pulled until she got his arm a few more inches up and then she was able to move onto her knees and reach in with both hands, hefting him up with everything she had. It felt, at first, like pulling something out of a tar pit, and then after a second, something seemed to give (perhaps a part of his suit had caught on an underground feature below the surface and snagged there) and up he came, like a sailor hoisting a man overboard up from the sea.

The comm system squelched in her ear as it reconnected to his suit, and she heard him groan. So he was alive, then. A bit of a dead weight, his suit absolutely covered head-to-toe in fine peach-colored grit, but not completely prone. She stood and dragged him away from the lip of the dust pool.

“Mulder,” she grunted. “You need to get up.”

“I can’t,” he panted, but nevertheless managed to roll himself to his knees.

From there Scully fumbled and hauled him to his feet and they stumbled to the small airlock of the rover. She reached down and wiped the dust off the heads up display on his wrist. Power was down to .4%.

“Mulder, I’m going to put you in there first. I need you to clear out of the airlock once it pressurizes so I can come through right after you. Can you do that? Our suits are shutting down.” She glanced at her own wrist read-out. “Can you do that? Mulder?” Her right arm, which she’d used to reach down into the dust felt half-frozen, the tips of her fingers tingling.

He mumbled an affirmative and she shoved him into the airlock and slammed the button home. She watched through the porthole of the airlock door as the chamber pressurized and then the vacuuming system engaged, its powerful suction no match for the clinging dust stuck to Mulder’s suit. Finally she saw the light inside it go to clear and Mulder lurched forward and cleared the door. She hoisted herself in.

Never had an airlock seemed to take so long, and when it finally cleared, she burst through the small door and into the rover, stumbling over Mulder’s body where it lay on the floor, still in his dust-covered suit. She struggled out of her own hardsuit, shedding pieces everywhere, and when she had the top half of it off and free, she knelt down next to him and disengaged his helmet, pulling it off. When she rolled him to face her, he dragged his gaze to her face, his lips blue.

“Cold,” he said, his teeth chattering (which she took as a good sign). “I’m cold.”

“I’m going to get you out of there,” she said, and reached for the releases that locked his suit into place.

[symbioticsimplicity]

Part of being the fun parent is making sure you're a safe space for your kids to try "riskier" things.

Eddie is that parent.

When the kids are older and they want to try smoking weed, they go to him. Both because they know he's got the hookup and because they know he won't snitch on them to any of their actual parents.

Eddie, to their surprise agrees but with the stipulation of rules. Any and all snacks must be purchased and prepped before smoking starts, no one leaves the trailer once smoking starts, and anyone with breathing issues has an edible instead. (Eddie portions it out himself so no one eats too much and has a bad time.)

The kids all happily agree to those rules and soon The Party has their first smoking sesh.

Unsurprisingly they're all toasted before they've finished a whole bowl as a group, but that's fine.

Eddie settles in to watch over them, but also just to watch them because these kids are better than cable.

First, to his surprise El and Will handle their weed like champs. Hardly any coughing, and it takes El one hit more than the others. He was frankly surprised both of them were down to smoke in the first place but far be it for him to judge. El's eyes stay the clearest while Will looks like he's been staring into the sun for an hour. The two of them immediately start talking shit about Mike in their own little language they've derived since starting living together. Its hilarious because Mike clearly knows they're talking about him but between the cyphers and the giggling he can't make heads or tails of it and hes just high enough to be paranoid.

Lucas and Dustin want to build a fort, and they really do try, but Dustin can't stop laughing for two fucking seconds to hold the cushions still enough. Lucas keeps zoning out so its not like hes much more help really. Max tries to lend a hand but ends up just laying on top of the cushions with a blanket draped over her. Eddie eventually checks for signs of life, only to find her vibing, perfectly fine but musing over the finer points of how the universe works.

Erica took an edible and takes a little longer to catch up to the others. She's usually the most in control of herself of the group, and Eddie honestly expects her to stay relatively buttoned up. She does not. She and Dustin end up making dumb parody songs after the fort fails, and she spends her time slumped against her brother, probably being the most affectionate she's ever been with him. She smiles so much Eddie knows she's gonna have a jaw ache the next day.

Ultimately the Party end up piled together on Eddie's floor, a giggling mass of teenagers all babbling whatever comes to their minds in one of the most ridiculous and enthralling stream of consciousness chats Eddie has ever had the privilege to bare witness to. He's delighted by it, but more so at getting to see this group of stressed out, traumatized teens hes adopted goofing off like normal kids, safe in his home.

[whywishesarehorses]

A Mustang Crisis Looms in the West

With too many animals on public lands and too many on the public’s hands, the federal wild horse management program is short of money and palatable solutions.

By Dave Philipps       Published March 22, 2020

CHALLIS, Idaho — Dawn broke over the peaks of the Lost River Range, revealing a chase in the wide open valley below. Seven wild horses crashed through the sage, dark manes billowing in the golden light, pursued by a government contractor in a glossy helicopter that dodged left and right like a mechanical Border collie, driving the band forward into a hidden corral.

Within hours, the captured mustangs had been sorted, loaded onto trucks to be stamped with an identification number and sent to the Bureau of Land Management’s wild horse storage system. And the helicopter was back out hounding the hills for more.

All over the West, similar scenes have played out as the federal government fights to control the number of wild horses roaming public lands. Managers say they need to keep the herds down so they don’t destroy delicate native species habitat and threaten the livelihoods of ranchers.

But in recent years, the Bureau of Land Management has been losing that fight on two fronts: It hasn’t been able to round up nearly enough horses to limit the wild population. And it doesn’t know what to do with the ones it has managed to capture.

The roundup operation itself is strikingly efficient — a helicopter and a few workers in jean jackets can catch scores of mustangs in a day. The bureau rounded up 7,300 in 2019.

But once they are caught, they have to be fed and cared for. And the costs and frictions of having so many animals on the government’s hands — 49,000 at last count — have pushed the whole wild horse program toward collapse.

The rented pastures and feed lots where they are kept now devour more than two-thirds of the program’s budget, leaving little money for anything else, including looking for ways to get the bureau out of its current fix.

Low on cash, the bureau cut roundups drastically in recent years. But officials acknowledge that the move just made matters worse, by allowing the population on the range to grow rapidly. There are now about 100,000 wild horses and burros on public lands — more than at any time since the days of the Old West. The government reckons the land can sustain only about 27,000.

Bureau officials warn that the mustang herds are a looming catastrophe for the land, and there is no cheap or obvious solution. Capturing all the excess horses and caring for them in storage for the rest of their lives could cost up to $3 billion. Doing nothing may prove costly, too.

“If we don’t get this controlled, it’s just going to get worse,” said Alan Shepherd, the on-range branch chief for the wild horse program. Mustangs have already destroyed fragile desert springs in some places, and the birds, snakes and butterflies that depend on them, he said: “We are going to get to the point where the public lands are going to be almost unusable by anything.”

Mr. Shepherd started his career 30 years ago working on an emergency roundup on the Nellis Air Force Base missile test range in southern Nevada, where drought and overpopulation killed thousands of mustangs.

Now, near the end of his career, he worries that more herds are headed for a similar collapse.

Wild horse welfare groups argue that the crisis is largely invented. They say the government sets its population targets artificially low to justify mass removals that serve the interests of cattle ranchers and distract from other public land policies that are far more damaging.

“It’s a bait and switch,” said Suzanne Roy, director of the American Wild Horse Campaign, a group that has lobbied against roundups. “They say wild horses are an existential threat; meanwhile, they are loosening regulation on energy extraction. We do agree that roundups are creating a crisis in management, but the claims of overpopulation and horses starving are just not borne out by on-the-ground observations. Generally, the horses are doing pretty good.”

Crisis or no crisis, the number of horses on the range has risen into uncharted territory. Mr. Shepherd estimated that while 7,300 horses were captured in 2019, 17,000 foals were born. “We’re not even keeping at status quo,” he said.

In the early frontier days, wild horses in the West were too numerous to count. Explorers saw herds running on the Great Plains, likening the sight to the roll of waves in the ocean. On early maps, vast areas were labeled simply as “wild horse desert.” Later, as the region was settled, the herds were hunted down. Many were shipped east to pull city streetcars in places like Manhattan. Others were slaughtered for dog food and fertilizer. By the 1960s, only a few thousand mustangs were left.

Congress granted federal protection in 1971 to the remaining herds, which were nearly all on Bureau of Land Management land. With few predators and no hunters to cull them, the herds began to rebound, and land managers realized in the 1980s that they were quickly outgrowing the patchwork of public land allotted to them. That is when the helicopter roundups began.

At first, the program appeared sustainable. The bureau publicized an adoption program that found homes for captured horses, and the wild population stayed relatively constant. But news reports in the 1990s revealed that most of the “adopted” horses were actually going to slaughter, often while bureau employees profited. Regulations were tightened, and a backlog of unwanted horses began to build up on rented pastures in the Midwest.

Some conservative lawmakers from rural districts have pushed the bureau to euthanize excess horses or sell them for slaughter, but those steps remain widely unpopular and have not gained traction in Congress.

The bureau has told lawmakers repeatedly that it could create a sustainable program if Congress budgeted enough money to reduce the wild population to 27,000. Three times in the past 30 years, Congress has done so. Each time, though, the efforts were tripped up by dizzying costs and lawsuits from animal welfare groups.

Now the bureau is asking again. William Perry Pendley, its acting director, is a longtime conservative activist and lawyer who sued the bureau a number of times on behalf of ranchers before entering the administration. In an interview, he said he favors a proposal to remove more than 70,000 horses from the range over five years.

“Right now, it’s the ‘Sorcerer’s Apprentice,’” he said. “We’re carrying water and not getting anywhere.”

The bureau is in talks to open two huge feedlots to hold thousands of horses. But it is unclear if Congress is willing to spend billions to store unwanted horses, especially if an economic downturn drains public funds. Bureau staff say privately that they expect the population on the range to continue to grow toward disaster.

It wasn’t supposed to turn out this way. More than a decade ago, government auditors warned that the cost of storing captured horses would “overwhelm the program.” A 2013 report by the National Academy of Sciences urged the bureau to shift away from roundups and start using readily available and inexpensive fertility control drugs, which are typically administered by dart gun annually in the field.

Bureau leaders acknowledged the warnings and promised to embrace fertility control drugs, but their use actually declined in the years after the report. Less than 1 percent of the program’s current budget is spent on them.

Nearly all of the fertility control now happening on wild horse ranges is done by local volunteers, often retirees, who have learned to wield dart guns in the field.

That includes Andrea Macki, a visual artist who has been darting horses in the Challis herd for more than five years. She says the fertility control treatments have slowed reproduction rates by half, and could do more.

“It’s the obvious solution,” she said as she squinted through the dawn light to watch the helicopter rounding up horses she knew. “I wish the B.L.M. would invest in it, instead of all this.”

Bureau officials say that darting tens of thousands of horses in the field each year is not practical, and would take years to shrink the herds as much as a roundup can in a few days. Congress approved a $21 million increase in the wild horse program’s budget for this year, with the stipulation that the money would be released only when the bureau submitted a five-year plan that includes increases in both roundups and fertility control.

The bureau has also taken steps to dispose of captured horses, including deals that may be sending horses quietly to slaughter. It has ramped up sales of horses it deems unadoptable, charging $25 a head. In 2019 it sold 1,967 that way, often by the truckload in bulk sales; officials have refused to say who the buyers were.

Mr. Shepherd say the bureau tries to screen out slaughter buyers, but acknowledged that it does nothing to monitor the fate of horses after sale.

The bureau also created a program that offers $1,000 to anyone willing to adopt a horse.

Together, the sales and adoptions put about 7,000 horses into private hands last year, not enough even to keep pace with roundups, let alone draw down the number now warehoused.

On the edge of the wild horse range in Challis in central Idaho, Jackie Ingram, a rancher, has shared 168,700 acres of public land with the mustang herds for 46 years. Each spring her family drives hundreds of Black Angus cattle up a steep road through Spar Canyon to graze the high, windswept hills on Bureau of Land Management land.

In some years, she said, the wild horses left so little grass to eat that other wildlife disappeared, and her family had to cut back their cattle herd.

“We like the horses, but we also want to protect the land,” she said. “Every time they do a roundup, we’re happy. If the horses get to be too numerous, it affects the sage grouse, the elk, the antelope and us. All of us depend on the grass.”

[creativeashproductions]

When the Pain Ends // Charlie Gillespie

Summary: Breaking up with your boyfriend ends with your broken hand, a broken heart and a trip to Canada. Getting out of Oklahoma for comfort of your younger brother Owen brings you into contact with a sweet Canadian.

Warnings: Swearing, hospital, cheating boyfriend, angst and bit of fluff

Words: 3.1k

Requested: No.

A/N: Tidbit of info is that I am a university student. I had last week off and I’m six minutes into my History Zoom Lecture. Here’s a little fic.

TO BE TAGGED SEND AN INBOX PLEASE!

Masterlist

The scowl glued on your face as you waited in the ER for the results from the x-ray you had gotten back from minutes ago. A bag of ice on the swollen knuckles of your right hand still splattered in drops of blood. The same blood as the small drops on your shirt as well. If that didn’t put a scowl on your face, it was the next issue.

The reason for your visit to the ER was in bed next over complaining as a nurse checked his face. His eyes meeting yours in a blend of guilt, regret and fear almost. You couldn’t meet his eyes. You didn’t want to meet his eyes.

Let’s backtrack a little for a short history.

The summer after graduation, you had met a guy on the beach playing volleyball in need of another player. You joined, and then you fell for the guy just as he did for you. For the last three years, you were now twenty-one years old. Parker had been a really good guy. Until yesterday.

“Babe!” Parker sounded congested with the bandages held up his nose. He had been fighting the nurse to come to your side.

“Don’t call me that!” You hissed glaring at the tall boy with the auburn hair colour that had once been your favourite colour.

“C’mon it was a mistake-Ow!” Parker whined at the nurse applied more pressure as she cast a sympathetic glance at you. A small smile of thanks passed to the nurse who had maybe pressed a little no hard on Parker’s nose.

Your eyes rolled at the drama that was Parker when it came to injuries that had been his entire fault, to be frank. Your fist meeting his face? His fault for cheating. What did he expect? A congratulations? Screw that.

“Say anything else I swear I’ll hit the other ball.” You glared at the boy sending him to a fit, shaking fear of stupidity.

The beach was filled up with teens and adults with children on the nice weekend day out of the loud city. Originally you hadn’t been able to join Parker with your mutual friends, but something else had spurred you there. Instead of having the weekly movie night via FaceTime with your younger brother, you had other plans. A particular video sent by Parker’s best friend and his cousin too had brought you here. Livvy had grown close in the three-year relationship you had with her cousin.

Your fury filled gaze flickered around the beach and the grass in the large opening area of the waterfront. Finally, your eyes found Parker sitting with Livvy on the blanket on the grass with Steve. Livvy was the first to see with marching through the people spreading like a curtain from the angry girl.

“Hey, Parker!” You shouted at your boyfriend in a conversation with your other two friends. Parker’s smile grew just before it falters at your expression.

“Hey, Babe,” Parker spoke, climbing to his full five-foot-ten stature. Livvy’s smile pulled up in an amused smirk while Steve looked more confused.

“How was your weekend at your sick Granny’s house?” You came to a stop a foot away from him. Arms crossed just under your chest his thick eyebrows furrowed together.

“Uh…it was okay. She’s feeling better.” Parker nodded to himself tilting his head to the side, “It was-“

“I hope she better. Her treatment must have been incredible.” You replied, unfurling your arms to grab the phone from your back pocket.

Parker grew more confused, “What?”

“The doctor sure knew what he was doing. The prescription of ‘dicked down’ cured her illness and old age.” The whistle you made after your statement sounded, but you grew more satisfied with the circle of people behind you.

“Oh.” Steve choked, raising one fist to press against his mouth. By now Livvy had started recording on her phone.

Livvy and Parker may be cousins, but she loathed cheaters when it was the cause of her parents’ divorce. Parker’s lips parted as he paled. The click of the glass screen brought up a video of Parker and a brunette in a hot tub.

“Ba-“

“Fucking look at your actions.” You hissed stepping even closer, “Was it worth it? Jeopardizing a relationship with someone you share years of memories with? Years of love and trust? All for thirty seconds of fun? We both know you tend to…get too excited.”

“Oh shit,” Steve spoke, shifting his gaze between you and Parker like he was a bobblehead of Einstein. The very bobblehead that you had laughed giving Steve with his obsession over the legendary scientist.

“It just happened. I still love you. I just needed a- “Parker stumbled back bringing his hands to his face, “OW! You broke my nose!”

“Ouch.” You hissed shaking your aching hand coated in some blood that splattered your shirt from shaking the hand.

“What the hell! You bit…holy fuck!” Parker screamed as your foot came up between his spread legs, nailing his left nut. He collapsed onto the grass, struggling to hold his bleeding broke nose and his nuts.

“That’s what you get asshole.” You shouted, turning to Livvy, “Can you take me to the hospital?”

“Parker drove, I’ll drive you both there. Steve can keep you two from fighting.” Livvy spoke, ending the video to shove everything in the oversized beach bag.

Now it was hours later as per usual in most hospitals elongating the time you were forced to spend with your now ex-boyfriend. Livvy and Steve had gone home a while back. Parker continued trying to fix the unrepairable damage he had done.

“Y-“

“That’s it!” You exclaimed jumping down from the bed to storm over to Parker. You made a few steps before arms encircled your waist.

“Okay, Slugger.” The gritty voice of your father spoke tugging you as far away from your ex-boyfriend as possible, “As much I want to kill him, I think you broke his pretty-boy face enough.”

The anger drained from your body as you slumped against your dad anguish set in with a tsunami of hurt. Time melted as you broke in your father’s arm; missing the doctor giving information. Your hand was fitted with a cast, and next thing you were aware of it was in the car.

“You bruised hits nuts. Broke his nose.” Dad nonchalantly spoke, turning the steering wheel as he exited the hospital parking lot. He didn’t bother making small talk as he let you be quiet on the drive home.

You didn’t know what hurt more, the heartache or your broken hand stabilized in the brace. The clearing of a throat had your attention is drawn to the house you had grown up no doubt holding your upset mother.

“She’s not that mad.” Dad quietly spoke, handing your phone that had died during the time in the ER. You shot him a look at the inaccuracy of his statement because you both know she was angry.

“Her daughter just spent hours in a hospital with a dead phone. We both know she probably thought I was dead in a ditch.” You deadpanned as you both walked up to the door of the home in Norman, Oklahoma.

The door opened before you could reach for it, and a flurry of blonde hair attacked you in a hug. Your mother hugged then leaned away to scan your features. Catching the dried tear stains paired with the red-rimmed eyes.

“Sweetheart.” Dinah spoke, raising her hands to wipe the tears from your face only causing more to fall, “What’s wrong?”

“Parker cheated on me.” You mumbled melting into her arms in another round of tears, breaking your parents’ hearts.

Meanwhile in Vancouver, Canada

Owen loved his job and the people he had met, but he missed the weekly movie nights with his older sister. The Joyner siblings had gotten down pat a system of sync to have the same movie playing at the same time on FaceTime. Imagine his surprise when he got a text apologizing.

Virtual movie night postponed. It put him in a slump that greatly concerned his roommate at the decrease of excitement. Even the next day, he was sad like a kicked puppy.

“Bro? You good?” Charlie asked from his place in the kitchen, scanning his emails on his computer. Owen barely made his eyes, “Wasn’t movie night with your sister yesterday?”

Owen nodded, “Yeah she-“

As Owen had gone to explain his phone had dinged with a concerning message from his mother.

Mom: Have you heard from Y/N? She hasn’t come home.

Owen swiped out of the conversation to the most used one with you shared with him to send a mass of messages. All not even coming up as read by you. It was his stipulation that you had it one for his safe of mind.

“C’mon you little shit,” Owen grumbled, pressing your contact to call. It didn’t even ring, “Dead cell.”

Charlie’s full attention shifted to the younger guy sitting on their couch in the apartment they used during filming. As Owen started pacing, Charlie was over quick as a bunny to offer comfort to him. The boys had grown so close, with Jeremy too, that they knew how to help the other.

“Owen, you need to tell me what’s going on.” Charlie soothed the blonde with his eyes pleading with the teenager.

“My parents haven’t talked to my sister. She didn’t go home.” Owen admitted scratching at his chest when his chest tightened. The other immediately finding his pulse on his neck to ensure he still had a pulse.

“Oh shit.” Charlie retorted, tapping his foot on the hardwood floor trying to find the right words to help his friend.

For the next hour, the boys kept in contact with Owen’s family and checking your social media in shifts as they filmed. It was a slow day when Owen’s phone finally rang with his mother’s contact once more.

“Mom, did you find her?” Owen asked, picking at the skin on his lips pacing as he had all day. The level of anxiety had been perfect for the scene he had filmed as Alex.

“Yeah. Look, Owen, she needs to get out of Oklahoma. Do you have room for her?” Dinah asked her son periodically glancing in the living room at the lifeless young woman.

“Yeah. We have an extra room.” Owen supplied squeezing the phone in his grip, “How is she? What happened?”

“I’m letting her settle before I ask any questions, but her flight is in a bit. It was either you take her in, or we pay for a hotel room. Oh! I got this lego-“

“I have to get back to filming. I’ll call you tonight.” Owen told his mother as his thumb hit the record circle on his phone. Kenny waving him over to film a scene with Booboo that would be the last before heading home.

The over the counter pain pill went down with a swig of water in the airport waiting for Owen and his roommate. Owen had messaged you that he would pick you up on the way from the set in perfect timing.

“Y/N!” Owen cheered catching sight of your form hunched forward on the bench you had miraculously found empty. Your blank eyes seeing the blue of your younger brother.

Owen’s eyes widened in shock, “What the hell happened to your hand?”

Noncommittal, the girl walked by her brother with her luggage in the mission to get to the car. All you wanted was to burst into years under your blankets until the world turned again, when birds sang, and the word wasn’t painted in dull colours.

Just as it had during the ride from the hospital to the house, it was dead silent in the car with the barest sound of music. Owen and Charlie had been having a conversation with expressions with the tension in the backseat stifling.

“This is our place.” Charlie spoke, opening the apartment door with a flourish for the girl and her luggage. Your eyes scanned the modest apartment with minimal mess compared to the tornado devastation of Owen’s Oklahoma room.

“Okay.” You replied, watching as Owen rolled the luggage to the room you would use for the few weeks you would be here.

Once showered, dressed and settled, you retreated to the couch to watch a film with the two boys. Your mind fluttered between Beca’s blow out with her father and Jesse to the city of Norman. As if thinking of Parker manifested something your phone buzzed with notifications.

@/livvyjo: Go, girl! [video]

@/malia134: Parker goes down like the bitch he is!!!

@/notsteverogers: I got a front-row seat to the fight.

Those three comments on Livvy’s video had more support than hate plus the video itself was hilarious. It caught the entire confrontation from greeting the cheater to being pulled away to spend the ten minutes in the same car. The car you had hooked up in the backseat of in the years you dated him.

 “-The prescription of ‘dicked down’ cured her illness and old age.” The pure anger on your expression amused you.

“What are you watching?” Owen inquired from the couch he watched the movie from. It made up for the lack of a film last night.

“A girl punching her bag of shit ex-boyfriend. She almost ripped his face off in the hospital.” You softly replied with your thumb double-tapping Livvy’s post.

Charlie’s attention shifted from the pool mashup with the Barden Bellas to the pride evident in your tone. It was the first time he had heard you laugh during the few hours he had been in your presence.

“What movie?”

“Oh, you know Parker’s Dicked Down Adventures. Filmed free with an iPhone.” You spoke sliding down to sit flush to Charlie to show the video you refreshed.

Owen’s mouth opened, “He cheated on you? How stupid is he??”

“You have a mean right hook.” Charlie supplied replaying the video for the third time with a weird feeling in his gut. The confidence stirred a body warming heat in the Canadian actor unlike anything else he had felt before.

“Dad taught me.” You replied, slouching down in the plush couch with a tiny smiling, “The nurse heard what happened. She put excessive pressure for his actions. I overheard his diagnosis; nasty bruised testicle and a broken nose.”

Both boys winced at the description. Owen ditching Charlie’s side to sit beside you, leaving you in the middle of the boys.

“I almost attacked him before Dad dragged me out of the room.” You recounted snuggling into your younger brother’s side.

“Where are my keys?” Owen questioned his roommate, “We need them to drive to the airport. I need to kill the ass that hurt my sister.”

Your deft fingers grasped Owen’s wrist when he went to get up because, in all honesty, he probably would book a flight. He wouldn’t go through with the plan to physically hurt Parker, but Owen had a wicked tongue for insults.

You spent one month in Vancouver with your brother and his castmates from helping Maddie with her homework. Movie nights with Owen changed to include Charlie too. Shopping trips with Sav and Tori. Baking with Jadah. You became family with them.

All good things come to an end. You had settled back in Norman with brighter plans that didn’t involve relying on men. Movie nights still happened with the boys, but things got hectic. Virtual movie nights shifted to texting Charlie and calls.

“Hey dork.” Charlie spoke walking down the street in Vancouver to the restaurant he was meeting the cast at. His lips pulled back in a massive grin, hearing your voice.

“Hey Char!” You enthusiastically spoke, walking out of the building with more pep in your step at the voice of the man, “What’s up?”

“On my way for food with everyone. How are you feeling?” Charlie asked, rubbing his fingertips on the dark denim pants. The sound of your voice brightening up his day more than he thought possible.

“Ooh. I should let you go, huh?” You questioned shifting to hold the phone between your shoulder and chin. Fingers unlocked the new car you had bought with the money you had saved.

A nice change of money from selling the jewellery, clothes and other miscellaneous gifts Parker had given you. The necklace he gave you that once belonged to his grandmother had been given back to him. Other than that you had no interaction with the ass.

“I’d rather talk to you.” Charlie admitted biting his lip in concentration, “I have a question.”

“Okay. What’s your question?” You questioned as your phone connected to your car—Charlie’s voice coming through the car speakers.

“Filming is almost over. Do you have plans for New Years? I’d like you to see you again.”

His words set a flutter of butterflies moving in your stomach at his nervous confidence striking the new information. The change in your friendship had been felt on his side as well and while you usually would think one-month post cheating wasn’t long enough. Something about Charlie felt comfortable as if everything had been preparing to fall for him.

“I could fly-“

“I’d like to see where you grew up. Your favourite places and where you went to school. I want to know the little things that made you who you are.” Charlie spoke coming to a stop outside the restaurant, waiting for your answer.

Owen’s eyes pulled from his debate with Sacha and Jeremy to the nervous Canadian biting his lip outside the window. By the expression on his face, Owen couldn’t guess who he was talking about. It was the smile that had been appearing on Charlie’s face for the last two weeks you had been staying with them.

Charlie had fallen for Owen’s big sister, and he couldn’t think of anyone better. The bond between you and Charlie had been natural and magical to watch. It was kinda gross seeing his best friend and sister having heart eyes with each other. Yet, Owen had never liked Parker, but he loved the idea of having Charlie as a brother.

“Y-yeah. Of course, you can Char.” The flattering blush heated up your skin at the turn in the convo—a grin splitting on the two individuals with more than three thousand kilometres between them.

“Cool. I should join the cast. I’ll text you later.”

“Bye, Charlie.” You whispered to the boy looking out the window noticing something she had been oblivious to.

The world had regained the colour, the birds sang again, and the world turned once more. All because a boy helped her heal.

Tag List (PLEASE SEND AN INBOX TO BE ADDED! I CANNOT GUARANTEE YOU WILL BE ON THE LIST VIA POST COMMENTS!)

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[dwellordream]

“…War often necessitated the absence of men from their families and their homes. While we have already touched on the fact that women could exercise military leadership during such an absence, the importance of their domestic role in the context of the husbands’ or sons’ military activities is worth considering, even if the women themselves were not all directly involved in military activity. For, in their men-folk’s absence, women sometimes assumed full control over the governance of the household or estate, along with all the lands which came with it – a role which took on an added significance amongst marriages of the more powerful nobles of Western Europe whose landholdings often entailed extensive seigniorial rights.

Stephen of Blois, for instance, alluded to the power that his wife Adela had whilst he was absent on the First Crusade when he wrote that ‘I send [the wish] that you do well and dispose of your things superbly, and treat your sons and your men honorably, as befits you’. This statement reveals the lordly authority which Adela maintained as regent while Stephen was absent and which she was to retain after his early death in May 1102 – right up until she took the veil as a nun in 1120. The military authority she wielded as lord is demonstrated by the fact that she once sent a large number of knights to support her lord Louis VI (c.1081-1137) while he was fighting rebellious castellans north of Paris in 1101.

But Adela was not the only women whose regency resulted from the call to crusade: when Louis IX went on crusade he entrusted the governance of the French kingdom to his mother, Blanche of Castile, who had proven herself a reliable and effective ruler during his minority. Eleanor of Aquitaine (1122-1204), queen of France and later England, similarly acted as regent in England for her son Richard I while he went on crusade, and was involved in mediating ecclesiastical disputes in his absence as well as in matters of governance. Likewise, Clementia of Burgundy, wife of Robert II of Flanders, held his county while he was left on the First Crusade, much like Eremburge of Maine governed the county of Anjou during her husband’s absence on crusade in 1120.

In the Holy Land the wife of Joscelin the Younger, count of Edessa (d. 1159), governed the county ably after he had been taken prisoner in 1150 – ‘far beyond the strength of a woman’, according to William of Tyre. His remark hints at the way in which medieval women who did govern well were thought by their male contemporaries to have transcended the ‘weakness’ of their sex, much like other comments regarding militant women referred to their masculine qualities in order to explain their involvement. Regardless of how well they governed, though, the key point is that it was war that forced these women to assume governing roles at home in support of their husbands or sons.

Women were also sometimes entrusted with the administration and coordination of affairs in preparation for war. Thus in 1267 the earl of Pembroke wrote to his wife, who had command over the castle of Winchester, informing her that he had sent men to help her defend the castle from attack and instructing her that she had ‘power over them all...to ordain and arrange in all things according to that which you shall see to be best to do’. More striking is a letter sent by Edward III in 1335 to three women: Margaret, widow of Edmund, earl of Kent; Marie, wife of Aymer de Valence, earl of Pembroke; and Joan, wife of one Thomas Botetourt.

In this letter Edward, who was absent fighting in Scotland, commanded these women to gather trusted advisors together in London to ‘treat and ordain on the safe custody and secure defence of our realm and people, and on resisting and driving out the foreigners’ who Edward had heard were massing warships and men at sea. The women were then ordered to ‘arm and array your people...to repel powerfully and courageously the presumptuous boldness and malice of our same enemies...if those enemies invade’. Although we do not know the extent to which these women were successful in carrying out the king’s orders, Edward nevertheless showed remarkable faith in the capacity of these women to prepare for the defence of the realm in his absence – certainly no small task.

Another particularly important arena in which women could directly aid the military effort was through their efforts to help finance and raise money for wars within Western Europe and the Holy Land. Funding for military campaigns was raised in many different ways – taxation, general donations, mortgaging or selling property – and women formed an important part of this process, especially when it came to paying for costly crusades to the East. We have already seen how Pope Innocent III, at the turn of the thirteenth century, began to make greater allowances for women to accompany their husbands on crusade or take a crusade vow if they were able to take armed followers with them to the Holy Land, but what really freed up this process was the promulgation of Innocent III’s decretal Quia maior in April 1213 (which pronounced the Fifth Crusade).

Quia maior stipulated regular liturgical processions of men and women, during which the participants would hear sermons, receive some degree of remission of sins just for listening (according to an earlier letter of Innocent), and pray for God to deliver the Holy Land. Furthermore, it promoted greater financial participation by making it possible for women to finance male warriors to go in their place and also specified monthly Church collections to which men and women could contribute. Perhaps most importantly, Quia maior decreed that anyone of either sex who so chose could take a crusade vow and might redeem or commute it if necessary (in return for a monetary payment), thus widening the number of people who might contribute financially to the crusade movement.

Later papal policy expanded this practise by enforcing the payment of vow redemptions if crucesignati (the legal term used to signify someone who had taken a vow) did not leave on crusade. As far as women are concerned there seems to be not enough evidence to gauge how much they actually contributed to the overall amount of money collected from redemptions, or even how much was collected in the first place. Nevertheless, Innocent’s reforms certainly allowed women to take on a greater financial and spiritual role in supporting the crusades, even if their circumstances prevented them from going on crusade in person.

Vow redemptions were, however, only one means by which women could provide monetary assistance. Often more financially taxing were instances in which women were forced to sell their husbands’ property or mortgage dower lands, which left some destitute and others fighting in the courts for their property rights, as Christopher Tyerman has explored in the case of English women. At other times, women helped contribute funds collectively, especially in the case of poorer crusaders who had to rely more on donations from the whole family, in which case the selling and mortgaging of property was again the most common way of financing a family member for war.

Similarly, women who had control over a significant source of income could play a key role in helping finance men on crusade: Hodgson, for instance, cites the examples of Marie of Champagne and Blanche of Castile, both of whom acted as regents and sent money to their sons while they were crusading in the Holy Land, but has also noted other women whose large dower was a key financial source for crusade expeditions. Another more indirect means by which women could assist the continuing military struggle in the Holy Land came from the revenues of female convents associated with the recently founded military orders, of which part went towards financing the latter’s activities in the East (although these payments were not large and varied from one house to another depending on each convent’s financial means).

Finally, we cannot discount the role female taxpayers may have had in helping pay for war, although again it is very difficult to discern how much women contributed in this regard, since the head of the household (the eldest male) was the one who paid taxes and who thus appeared in tax records. The only women to appear were those active in an independent trade of their own or who were widowed and lived in a house in which no male heirs were also residing, though such women only seem to have made up a small proportion of taxpayers.

Thus, even if most or all tax revenue before the sixteenth century went towards financing war, as has been argued in the case of England, the percentage of the revenue that came directly from female taxpayers would have been much less than that of male taxpayers (though both sexes were adversely affected by the effects of high taxation in times of war). Considering all of the means by which women could contribute financially, therefore, it is reasonable to assume that Western European women were a substantial source of finances for military campaigns, especially for the crusades, although the precise extent to which this assistance actually contributed towards the success of these campaigns is hard to quantify.

Women’s enthusiasm for war and their recruitment efforts formed another facet of their home front involvement. This is one area where women may not have always acted in support of their men, and instead actively tried to discourage their men from leaving, hence the actions of such women are worth exploring as they could have influenced the number of men who went to war. The chances of women successfully preventing men’s involvement in warfare appear highest in the case of the crusades because, although wives’ emotional responses to their husbands’ departure could not prevent the latter from leaving, canon law stipulated both husband and wife required each other’s consent before leaving to go on crusade.

Thus women were, for a period, legally able to veto their husbands’ decision to participate. To what extent women were successful at doing so is not entirely clear – some of those who preached the crusade appear to have felt women were among the ones preventing the crusades from being successful, although after Pope Innocent III issued his decretal Ex multa in 1201, which removed the requirement for men to obtain their wives consent before leaving, they would have had little cause for further concern. These developments suggest that some women, at least up until 1201, were successful in stopping men from leaving, but it is hard to say for certain.

Emotional distress at the departure of loved ones on crusade may have played a role though: Odo of Deuil noted that there were tears on the part of women when the Second Crusade departed, as did Ambroise before the Third Crusade. Some years earlier Fulcher of Chartres elaborated at greater length on the sorrow before the First Crusade: ‘Oh what grief there was! What sighs, what weeping, what lamentation among friends when husband left his wife so dear to him, his children, his possessions however great...Then husband told wife the time he expected to return...He commended her to the Lord, kissed her lingeringly, and promised her as she wept that he would return.’

Departure scenes such as this one, it has been argued, were deliberately used by chroniclers to portray the crusades as a male affair in which women were not expected to participate. Certainly, such an account does reinforce conventional gender stereotypes: the emotionally controlled, pious husband, and the overwhelmed, irrational wife unable to maintain her composure. Nevertheless, it is not unreasonable to assume that some women would have been reluctant for their men to depart and upset if the latter eventually did, although we cannot know the extent of their influence on limiting the numbers of men on crusade.

At the same time, medieval women also seem to have encouraged and even recruited men for war. Thus the author of the Itinerarium Peregrinorum asserted that ‘Brides urged their husbands and mothers incited their sons to go, their only sorrow being that they were not able to set out with them because of the weakness of their sex’. Although gender stereotyping is again evident in the way women’s ‘weakness of sex’ is said to have prevented them from leaving, there are some actual examples of women who tried to persuade men to fight. Adela of Blois, for instance, is well-known for her efforts to persuade her husband Stephen to return to the Holy Land after he deserted and came home during the difficult siege of Antioch in 1098.

Similarly, Alice de Montfort was active in recruiting men, notably her brother (the Constable of France) during the Albigensian crusade, as was, supposedly, Eleanor of Aquitaine before the Second Crusade. Riley-Smith, too, has also discussed women, notably the Montlhéry sisters in the Île-de-France, whom he feels ‘transmitted an enthusiasm for crusading to the families into which they married’ and which can help ‘account for the concentrations of crusaders in certain kindred’ during the early crusades. Of course, whilst the genealogical preponderance of crusaders in certain families does not prove for certain that women necessarily had anything to do with recruiting or persuading men to fight, the examples given above do suggest that we should not discount their possible influence.

Lastly, it is also worth considering the role which urban women active in certain trades had in supplying various resources used in military affairs. For although most women were active in the textile and cloth-making industries during the Middle Ages, there were apparently some who worked sharpening tools and making scabbards for swords and knives, and others who even trained in arms manufacture (making chain mail and fletching strings to bows) – definitely a trade that would have thrived on war. Admittedly, the numbers of women engaged in such crafts were very few and their likely effect on military affairs slight. Accordingly, we should not make too much of their employment or we risk over-emphasising their contribution. All the same, they do at least serve to draw attention to other more indirect means by which women on the ‘home front’ may have supported the whole industry of war by supplying military goods and services.

- James Michael Illston, ‘An Entirely Masculine Activity’? Women and War in the High and Late Middle Ages Reconsidered

[grim-echoes]

What do you think the queens court symbolizes? And the fake out with the king?

I'm going to use this as an excuse to talk about the Mad Queen in general; shoving it all under a read more because I don't know if you particularly wanted a billion word long essay-analysis, but fuck you, I'm writing one. \m/

Just to make it clear right off the bat for anyone who's yet to realize; the Mad Queen is Helga. I've noticed a lot of people struggle to interpret what's being said both with the boss and with her court, and a lot of people jump to the conclusion that Jimmy is afraid of authority figures or that he watched Alice in Wonderland once and thought it was scary, but there's much more being said here that really hits at the core of Jimmy's current situation and how it's affected his relationship with his family.

There's very clear themes of order, disobedience, and punishment within the queen's court—right off the bat, you're presented by the caterpillar with a question that has no right answer ("What weighs more: a pound of feathers or a pound of dogs?"), and when you inevitably get it wrong he has the following to say:

"I'm afraid you're wrong. This world is decidedly a world of black and white. You're either wrong, or you're right. And in this case, I'm afraid that you are clearly not right. You're wrong, wrong wrong.

You see, a pound has lots of dogs, and they definitely weigh more than a pound each. Even the littlest Pomeranian weighs a few pounds, so, I hope you understand how wrong you are.

I'm afraid that right things get rewarded and wrong things get punished. That's the rule here. Well, one of them. But, probably the most important!

And, I'm afraid that you're wrong, Jimmy, very wrong and unnatural in this place, and you'll have to be punished before you can see the Queen!"

While fear and distrust of authority figures are present (though not overt) themes within the game (Chancellor Pulsating Mass, Principal Pulsating Mass, Mr. Grouse, etc.), that's not what's being illustrated here—as Alice in Wonderland is ultimately a story of a child unable to comprehend how the minds of adults work, so too is the tale of the Mad Queen ultimately representative of Jimmy's inability to comprehend the rules and routines his mother puts him to to treat his illness. He has to be a good boy and take his medicine because it'll make him better, but he doesn't feel better, and he can't say no because that's wrong—he won't get better that way. He can't go outside and play like he used to and he can't exert himself like he used to and he can't do so, so many things that he used to, and he doesn't understand why things changed and why his mom is so strict with him now, and when he doesn't follow her rules he's punished for being a disorderly little boy within an orderly court.

Dialogue from the caterpillar later in the area yields the following excerpt which delves deeper into this:

"The Queen can't rule a disorderly castle, you see. Everything must be orderly and safe, safe and orderly, you see. You'll find it much more satisfactory in time, you'll see."

Jimmy might not like it, but it's for his own good—all of the rules and all of the stipulations and all of the awful, awful medication he needs to take at exact, precise times; it all keeps him safe. When Jimmy "comes to find it much more satisfactory in time", he'll eventually realize that, despite everything, these rules are a necessity and they'll become a regular, transparent part of his life.

After you're dropped into the courtyard you find a rabbit's head on a pike, still able to talk. There's a "gurgle in [my] throat", and "the Queen decreed that bodies move too much, so this is all [I] am now". White rabbits are recurring characters throughout the castle, each subjected to the Queen's grueling punishments for disobeying her and each of them have something interesting to say: a gurgle in my throat. A chattering in my teeth. A thrumming in my ears. It's a smaller detail, one that can so easily be overlooked, but the white rabbits being no more than heads on pikes speaks to the way Jimmy's illness affects him: his head is foggy with splitting pain. He hears things he can't react to. He tries to speak, and his words are replaced with wet, formless gurgling. He's paralyzed from sleep and fatigue, and couldn't move even if he wanted to. He is, by every stretch of the imagination, a head without a body.

Moving on, the caterpillar reappears within a tree stump in the courtyard and questions how long it's been since Jimmy arrived; it's only been a few moments, allegedly. He apologizes for being greedy and impatient, and follows up with:

"Maybe it's all the waiting we must do here. Waiting, waiting, waiting. It's all we do."

An interesting thing to note about this particular area is that a melted clock hangs over the branch of the tree; this is in reference to the famous Salvador Dali painting The Persistence of Memory. One of the clearest-cut interpretations of the painting is the human fascination with time and its inherently arbitrary nature, and within the context of Jimmy time is a constant, ever-present force that hangs over him and his family's heads: there's not enough of it. There's too much of it. They wish time could go backwards. They wish they could fast forward to a happy ending. All they ever do is wait for something good to happen. Waiting, waiting, waiting. Time means nothing. Time means everything. The clock goes back. The clock ticks forward. It's a matter of life or death for Jimmy, and all anyone has is time, time, time. Never enough time, and yet all they do is wait.

How long has it been since Jimmy arrived here?

Onto the real meat of the question: the Mad Queen herself and the significance of the King in this equation. Choice dialogue from the Queen during your meeting with her reads as follows:

"Ah! There's a precious boy, indeed. This smell really takes me back...

Oh, but I can't be getting sentimental now. I've been here too long for that, and I have more important things to focus on. For instance: have you thought about your safety?

Your body is covered with the dust and mud of the countryside. When was the last time you bathed? The last time you slept in your own bed, in your own home, safe from the scary monsters of the world?

Oh, I'm afraid you haven't been safe at all. You'd be much safer here. Yes, that's what's for the best. It's settled. You'll stay here forever with me."

She asks if Jimmy is a good boy, and the only answers are yes; yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.

Of course, every single one is wrong.

"Oh, Jimmy, why does that word bounce around on your tongue so? Is it not because it's a lie? I can see your lies crawl from your mouth and snake across your body..."

A lot of the character dialogue in the Queen's castle talks about Jimmy being a "good boy", and while most of it is in relation to following and growing accustomed to his new routines, it also ties back in to Jimmy's recurring guilt over having stolen Jonathon in the past. He's a good boy, yes, but he's a bad boy because he lied. He's not a good boy at all.

"But, that's not all I see! I see the boy hiding beneath your skin, Jimmy. He's a good boy! He's just waiting to be released. That's it, then. It's settled. We'll just have to shuck that skin. Right. Off.

Then, we can keep the new, pure you safe and sound! You can spend your days happy and shivering with me!"

Now, with regards to the King, I'm not sure what's being referred to with the "fakeout"—other than the thought that you're being led to believe the Queen is the figure on the throne but it's actually her husband—but I do interpret him to represent the considerable presence Helga has in Jimmy's life compared to Andrew. If Central Hub's memories are anything to go by, it's Helga who takes the role of Jimmy's primary carer down to administering his medication and writing up schedules, while the general impression I've always gotten from Andrew is that he takes a backseat to parenting, for lack of a better description; not because he doesn't want to be involved with Jimmy, but because nurturing and emotional availability is ostensibly Helga's job and Andrew is evidently not as well-versed in either of these as his wife is—hence, why Jimmy may see him as just as under Helga's thumb as he himself is. In other words, he's a background character in Jimmy's everyday life compared to Helga.

When the fight concludes, you're granted access to the bedroom where you can find a painting of the Queen holding her child, an empty cradle, and a statue of a woman playing a violin. The Queen is virtually identical to Helga, yet it can't be her—after all, the Queen no longer has any children. And if you're curious about that, if you're not sure whether it refers to Jimmy or Buck, it's extremely loud and vulgar foreshadowing that Jimmy is terminally, incurably ill and there is nothing anyone can do to save him, no matter how hard Helga tries to keep him safe and close to her.

So, in short, the Alice in Wonderland setting is visual shorthand to communicate Jimmy's struggle to understand why his life become so strict and rigid; why all of his childish freedom was taken from him. He remembers a time, as do the residents of Legato, when his mother would let him do anything he wanted, when he could see and experience everything the world had to offer, when he was allowed to get hurt and wear himself down and spend his time how he wanted, doing the things he enjoyed. But now, things are different. His illness has stolen his childhood from him, and he wishes life wasn't as complicated and scary as it is now.

Other miscellaneous bits include:

The track that plays here (The Mad Queen's Marching Orders) being, as we say, "intentionally bad" to establish the tone of the area versus the rest of Legato and also inject a bit of irony into the fact that for a Queen so obsessed with orderly conduct, her rules are ultimately senseless and confusing to someone like Jimmy.

Her mechanic being to change suits—or "rules"—every so often, with debuffs such as: Unmotivated, Uninspired, Weakpoint, and Withering. At any time, she is also capable of using an attack that will either completely heal one party member, or instantly kill them.

As if the connection to Helga wasn't enough, the Mad Queen is fought in a rematch within Helga's wing of the Heart Prison.

[ghostofstudentspast]

Obligatory (part 1)

Series Masterlist

Draco x Pureblood!reader

Summary: When your parents arrange for your betrothal to a certain young Malfoy heir, how will you handle the strong dislike between the two of you?

Warnings: Swearing and lots of angstttt

“Daph it’s not fair!” you sat on the edge of your best friend’s bed after spilling every last detail from your lips. “I mean who in their right minds...” you muttered angrily.

“I know it’s not what you planned but at least you know now,” Daphne shrugged sympathetically and handed you a glass of water. Tear streaks were still prominently displayed on your rosy cheeks and your eyes flashed with anger.

“They didn’t even have the common decency to tell me Daph, that’s the worst part,” you sighed and accepted the water with a small snif.

“I’m sorry, Y/N,” you wrapped her arms around your shoulders and squeezed lightly as you sipped the water. “Draco is a handful but he’s not the worst, you could try and get to know him.”

“No,” shaking your head you wiped the tears from your cheeks, “I’m going to find a loophole.”

Your spine was rigid as you stood next to Draco outside his dining hall. Nose pointed in the air and clenching your jaw so hard you were positive he could hear you grit your teeth. The blond’s posture mirrored yours and a passerby could have mistaken you for a pair of statues if not for the rapid rise and fall of your chest.

“Ready?” Draco’s voice held no detectable emotions when he spoke to you. Your conversations away from the public were clipped and frosty.

Your hand slid across the smooth fabric of his suit and settled in the crook of his arm. With his free arm Draco pushed open the large door to the crowded room of high status purebloods. Your eyes glazed over as you forced a smile onto your lips, you seemed to float through the doors.

One had to admit there was something ethereal about the pair of you together. Draco’s fair skin and aristocratic features gave him a look of importance. He was classically handsome, you knew that, even if you weren’t attracted to him you could see it. Your more delicate features balanced the harsh lines of his. Just as his dark suit contrasted the light pink dress that your mother had chosen for you. Together you presented the perfectly poised pureblood children you were raised to be.

Your father caught your eye and nodded, stern expression stuck in place. You sometimes wondered if his smile was only reserved for your mother, since it was so rarely directed at you. Your eyes drifted to the Malfoys, standing at the other end of the room, a similar expression on Lucius’ face.

At least you had one thing in common; no matter what you did, nothing was ever good enough for your fathers.

Your footsteps clicked in sync as you strode around the hall making small talk with old family friends. It wasn’t unusual for your families to have dinner events like this. Old important families hovering around each other, a polite social dance. Little grey ladies bragging about their grandchildren in a snobby tone of voice.

It was important you and Draco made your rounds, just like Daphne and Theo would, even Pansy acted polite during these parties.

After polite chatter, dinner would be served of course. Plenty of food and drink to go around as you remember your table manners and to only speak when spoken to. Tonight, after bumping legs with Draco for the whole evening and shooting each other deathly looks, a soft ding rung through the room. Lucius Malfoy stood at the head of the table with a smug look on his face.

“My friends, I believe it is time to acknowledge something important tonight. The Dark Lord is back among us and I believe we must show our loyalty to him in every way we can. This is why Draco will be taking the Dark Mark tomorrow. When he turns seventeen next year he will be a man dedicated to our cause,” Malfoy senior’s voice rang through the silent room. You glanced at his son beside you who just for a moment looked afraid. Though when you blinked his mask seemed to be back in place. “Just as we hope his wife will be.”

You shifted in your seat, eyes zeroing in on your parents across the table. Your father stood.

“We’ve promised our daughter Y/N to the Malfoys, knowing she would be a good match for Draco. She will of course stand with him in this decision.”

Sand filled your mouth, or at least that’s how dry it felt. They hadn’t even warned you before announcing. Draco’s eyes flickered to you in confusion. So he hadn’t known.

You forced a smile onto your lips and focused on your breathing. In through the nose, out through your mouth. You stared at the wall behind your mother’s head and clenched your jaw, willing the smile to stay on your face. Not only were you now being publicly offered as some prize, you had official confirmation that your parents were on the side of a mass murderer. Tears threatened to spill down your cheeks once again but you blinked them back as your eyes finally met your mother’s. She looked truly apologetic, her eyes glistening as well. It did nothing to soften the stone that encompassed your heart.

“You knew,” you felt a hand on your upper arm as you made your excuses after dinner in the hopes of finding a moment alone.

“Yes,” you spun to face your father with a hard look on your face, “I knew you had promised me to the Malfoys.” you didn’t know where their true allegiance lay.

“Why didn’t you say anything?” his eyes were cold and calculating, the same colour as yours and yet they lacked the emotion yours held.

“I wanted to give you the opportunity to tell me yourself,” you grimaced, “clearly you didn’t feel the need.”

“Watch your tone,” he hissed and dragged you around the corner away from peering eyes, “it was none of your business.”

“None of my business?” your voice raised an octave and your fathers eyes darted around to make sure no one heard you, “it’s my life, that’s as much my business as it gets.”

“If you try anything-“

“It’s a magical contract, I’m pissed off not stupid, Father.” you spat out and your nostrils flared with rage. “I’m very much aware of what I can and cannot do, I read the contract several times.”

“Then you’re fully aware that you and Draco will uphold our values and support the family’s decisions.” He lowered his voice to a threatening growl. “You will carry on the family name, obey your husband and produce an heir.“

“I will follow my contractual obligations.” you said stiffly, “and I will require a copy of the stipulated conditions in order to do so. But until then I will do as I please.”

“You will not bring shame to this house Y/N. I will have your head if you do.” He released your arm and stepped back from you.

“Always a pleasure speaking to you father.” you inhaled through your nose shakily and turned on your heel, putting as much distance between the two of you as possible. A year was all you had. Less than 365 days to figure out some way out of this contract.

As much as you didn’t want to admit it, you were going to need help. There were two parties involved in this god forsaken arrangement and you were certain the second half was just as opposed to marriage as you were. You’d go back to Hogwarts in a few days and you would be able to track Malfoy down then.

Still, you couldn’t help but feel hopeless as you sank into the soft mattress of your childhood bedroom. You were nothing more than a doll to your parents. A pawn to push around as they saw fit. Even if you were able to get out of this predicament, you’d be crushed under the weight of your father’s wrath, that was for sure. Your hands gripped the silk sheets and you drew your legs to your chest, you’d never felt more alone.

Tag list: @xkonpinkx @detroitobsessed @follow-me-down-to-wonderland

[koreaunderground]

(2019/04/15) Fear of biological agent strikes Busan as US troops continue bio-surveillance project

[warisboring.com][1]

  [1]: <https://warisboring.com/fear-of-biological-agent-strikes-busan-as-us-troops-continue-bio-surveillance-project/>

# Fear of biological agent strikes Busan as US troops continue bio-surveillance project

Jo He-Rim

10-13 minutes

* * *

Jo He-Rim Asia News Network Busan, the second-largest city in South Korea, is once again living in terror of biological warfare experiments in the... ![Fear of biological agent strikes Busan as US troops continue bio-surveillance project][2]

  [2]: https://s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/warisboring.com/images/bio-warfare-640x300.jpg

Jo He-Rim Asia News Network

Busan, the second-largest city in South Korea, is once again living in terror of biological warfare experiments in the aftermath of renewed allegations that US troops stationed in South Korea are conducting such tests at the city’s seaport.

Every morning, dozens of residents and activists gather to block the entrance to the Pier 8 military storage centre for US Forces Korea in Busan’s Nam district, to stop the US soldiers from going to work.

At night they hold candlelight vigils, carrying signs that read, “Nam district residents are not test subjects for viruses” and “Abolish the biological weapons test lab.”

Busan Port’s Pier 8 is among the military facilities in South Korea and the US where the US operates a biosurveillance project, dubbed JUPITR ATD for “Joint United States Forces Korea Portal and Integrated Threat Recognition Advanced Technology Demonstration.”

While JUPITR’s stated aim is the development of early-warning detection capabilities to protect the USFK and South Korea from biological and chemical threats, it has been the subject of constant criticism since 2015.

In May 2015, the Pentagon confirmed that its laboratory in Utah had “inadvertently” sent live anthrax samples to one of its military bases in South Korea, rather than the inactivated samples that were meant to be delivered for the project.

The USFK has denied allegations that it is conducting biological tests using hazardous materials such as live agents or toxins, but the debate still rages on.

“Why don’t they (the United States) just conduct the tests inside their country? Why in S. Korea?” Kim Suk-heun, the leader of a regional civic task force calling for an end to the “biological weapons lab,” told The Korea Herald.

“We want the facility and the project to be withdrawn, altogether.”

Lack of trust deepens fear

The controversy over the biosurveillance project resurfaced in March when a local daily ran a report citing the US Department of Defense Fiscal Year 2019 Budget Estimates, under which more than $3.5 million was allocated for JUPITR at Pier 8 — showing that the project is still ongoing.

The budget estimates, which set aside funds for live agent tests, fanned public suspicion about the project.

“They say they only have detection devices (for biological agents) and that they do not run tests, but last year’s budget clearly shows that their program includes experiments using live agents,” Kim said.

The fear also spread to Pyeongtaek, Gyeonggi Province, where the USFK’s Camp Humphreys is located, prompting the city to request USFK’s clarification on the issue. The US military base also operates laboratory facilities and allocates part of its budget for the JUPITR ATD project.

On April 2, the USFK released a statement explaining that it has not conducted any experiments involving biological or chemical agents.

“It is a defense system to issue an early alert to the USFK and S. Korean government in case of chemical or biological threats,” said the USFK response, quoted by the ministry in Korean. “The ‘live agent testing’ stipulated in the budget estimate is only conducted in the United States and not in South Korea.”

The USFK also told The Korea Herald that the funding specified in the budget estimates for the JUPITR program had been realigned to other chemical and biological early-warning programs in the United States.

“Improvements and upgrades to the JUPITR program formally ended in 2018, but the passive defensive early warning capability remains,” the USFK said, www.asianewsnet.netadding that there are no firm decisions in place on any potential new programs in South Korea associated with the threats.

Defending against biological threats

The JUPITR ATD project was launched in April 2013 in support of US policies recognizing the importance of detection capabilities to guard against biological and chemical threats.

Led by the US Joint Program Executive Office for Chemical and Biological Defense and the US Army Research, Development and Engineering Command’s Edgewood Chemical Biological Center, the project was touted as the Pentagon’s flagship project for “how biosurveillance would manifest itself,” said Peter Emanuel, the leader of JUPITR ATD at the time in 2013, in a December 2014 interview with CBRNePortal.com.

The project consists of four parts: Early Warning, Biological Identification Capabilities Sets, Assessment of Environmental Detectors and a Biosurveillance Portal. Together, they are designed to form a comprehensive surveillance and reaction system to guard against biological and chemical threats.

The lack of any explanation about the project and what is happening in South Korea has amplified people’s fears.

North Korea stepped up its rhetoric against the US program via its news outlet in March, saying the United States was preparing for biochemical warfare to “control the entire Korean Peninsula” in a “barbaric manner.” It also stressed that the North does not possess any biological or chemical weapons.

The 2015 anthrax incident led to some changes. In the joint panel investigation conducted following the incident, the USFK admitted that it had carried out biological equipment testing and proficiency training after importing inactivated biological agent test samples from the US.

The investigation report revealed that the USFK had brought in and tested dead anthrax samples 15 times at Yongsan Garrison in central Seoul between 2009 and 2014. In 2015, 1 milliliter of inactive Yersinia pestis (bubonic plague) samples were delivered to the Osan Air Base for JUPITR — along with the live anthrax sample, rather than the intended inactivated anthrax sample.

Following the incident, the S. Korea-US Status of Forces Agreement was revised to mandate that the USFK file a report with the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention when importing any biological agent, including inactivated biological agents. The Defense Ministry said it recently confirmed with the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that no cases have been reported by US troops since the revision of the SOFA.

“USFK works very closely with the S. Korean government by reporting scheduled shipments of any JUPITR-related resources within the SOFA Disease Prevention and Control Subcommittee,” the USFK told The Korea Herald.

Limits of the military project

While the US Army has been promoting the project as a way to cut costs and time and provide better performance results by introducing new instrumentation to upgrade biothreat detection capabilities, not much has been revealed to the South Korean public.

“It is a military issue, and it is difficult to inform the public of every detail about the project,” an official who refused to be named due to the sensitivity of the matter said when asked to confirm details of the project.

According to Emanuel, who led the project in 2013, the JUPITR project involves determining the equipment and process for biosurveillance. He described it as an “aggressive” attempt that “nobody has ever attempted to do so in such kind of a scale before.”

Emanuel, currently senior research scientist for bioengineering at the US Army’s Edgewood Chemical Biological Center, also said the alliance with South Korea had led to the biosurveillance project being conducted in the country, adding that the USFK had requested the capabilities.

“The reality of the situation is that the senior leadership in the USFK asked for capabilities, and they made themselves available to test these forward-leaning ideas,” he said in the 2014 interview with CBRNePortal.com.

Currently, only Pier 8 in Busan and Camp Humphreys in Pyeongtaek are officially confirmed as operating the JUPTR program. But the Osan and Gunsan air bases also appear to have been venues for the project.

In 2016, the Edgewood Chemical Biological Center managing the JUPITR ATD “did a complete make-over of two existing Air Force labs and also set up an Army lab from scratch,” Brady Redmond, the laboratory project lead, was quoted as saying in an article posted by the US Army Combat Capabilities Development Command Chemical Biological Center on April 15, 2016.

According to the article, Edgewood “increased the sample throughput of three US military laboratories in South Korea from two to three samples of suspected biological warfare agent per day to dozens per day with a 24-hour turn-around time for results.”

Able Response, a joint exercise by South Korea and the US against biological threats, also appears to have supported the biosurveillance project, according to the US Defense Ministry’s budget estimates for fiscal years up to 2016. The joint exercise, which was conducted from 2011 to 2016, was replaced by a tabletop training session called “Adaptive Shield.”

The biological agent test scare is ongoing. There are more allegations that the experiments may have involved other infectious diseases.

“They are said to be dealing with deadly biological agent samples such as plague and anthrax — weapons of mass destruction. Even if they do not intend it, accidents can happen and that would just be horrendous,” Kim said.

In addressing the residents’ concerns, the Nam district governor and Busan City officials criticized the project, while lawmakers across the aisle have proposed bills to prevent biological agents from entering the country.

“(The proposed bills) are unlikely to be passed because of the SOFA regulations. So I am currently negotiating with the Defense Ministry and the Prime Minister’s Office to allow the residents to conduct on-site inspections,” said Rep. Park Jae-ho of the ruling Democratic Party of Korea, representing Nam district’s B division, told The Korea Herald.

While the Defense Ministry is reluctant to speak about the JUPITR ATD project, saying it is a US military project, it reiterated that US troops are not conducting any biological tests at military bases here.

“We are making efforts together with the USFK to find ways to raise people’s understanding of the biosurveillance operation,” a ministry spokeswoman said.

USFK officials also said they are reviewing ways to address misunderstandings among the general public.

[skzcre]

Cheeky

Lil somethin I threw together from a dream I had about Chan - 🤐 Anon

***

Chan reached out blindly, fumbling for his cell phone. His fingers finally finding it, he groaned, trying to find the appropriate button to make it stop blaring the stupid song Felix had programmed in as his ring tone. After a moment, he realized that he must have answered the call, because he heard Changbin’s voice through the beeps of his attempts to silence the device, instead of the ring tone.

Sighing, he lifted the cell phone to his ear, mumbling, “What?”

Changbin’s laugh met his ear, and Chan buried his face in the pillow, muffling his invectives. He was in the middle of a musical slump and in no mood to deal with people. As he was weighing the merits of attempting to smother himself in the pillow versus the odds of him being able to hurl his cell phone into the toilet from his bed, Changbin spoke.

“Do you do anything but hide in that hotel room?” his bandmate asked, his voice bright.

Chan glanced at the open door to the bathroom, and huffed out a sigh. He’d never make it. Giving in, he answered.

“What do you want?” he said, rolling to his back and tossing his free arm over his eyes.

“Good morning, sunshine,” Changbin snorted, “Or good evening, I should say. Get up. You are coming with us.”

“No, I’m not,” Chan replied immediately.

He had no desire to be immersed in the masses any more than he had to. Chan couldn’t pinpoint when it had begun, but more and more he became the workaholic hermit everyone jokingly called him. And he enjoyed it. No autographs to sign. No pictures to smile for. No having to run from the less sane fans. Why the hell would he want to go through all that when he had a comfortable little niche carved out for himself and his music?

“Yes you are, mate,” came a new voice from the doorway of his hotel room. 

Chan quickly sat up, dropping his cell phone. He fell back again almost instantly as he saw what his friends had done.

“Oi, how the fuck did you get in my room?” he sighed, shoving the phone off his bed and ignoring the laughter ringing from it once more.

With a puckish grin, Felix replied, “Easy. Changbin distracted you and I used the key card I lifted off you last night.”

Chan grimaced. He knew he hadn’t just lost his key. With a long suffering sigh, he closed his eyes. They were going to force him to leave his cozy isolation.

“Where are you wanting me to go?” he asked wearily. 

Hearing a zipper open, he lifted one eyelid to spy Felix rummaging through his suitcase for clothing. Turning a sly smile over his shoulder to Chan, he winked and tossed a pair of jeans and a shirt at him.

“You’ll see. Get dressed,” he said, dropping to sit in a chair.

Chan pursed his lips, considering the possibility of getting out of this little outing, and finding it impossible. Emitting a growl of annoyance, he stood and gathered the clothes, making his way to the bathroom. As he slammed the door behind him, he heard Felix laugh. This was going to be a pain in the ass, he could already tell.

***

The car stopped in front of a glittering building, and Chan immediately shook his head. 

“No way. You have to be joking,” he said, turning wide eyes to his friend.

Felix laughed, and replied, “Hey, this place is a legend. We can’t come to France and not take a peek.”

Chan’s eyes widened on Felix, doubting the sanity of his friend. If JYPE or the fans found out about this… 

“It’s a strip club,” he said slowly, as if explaining something very simple to someone very stupid.

Felix only rolled his eyes and hopped out of the car, shooting back, “Yes, the finest damn strip club in France. Now get your ass out and come on.”

Chan opened and closed his mouth a few times, trying to think of a proper response to this. Sure, they had snuck off to strip clubs before as trainees, but it had never been something Chan enjoyed, the reward certainly not worth the risk. There was a desperation in places like this that ruined any appeal it may have. And truthfully, Chan’d had enough of women offering themselves up to him. There was only one difference between the professionals and groupies. The professionals were more honest about what they wanted out of the deal. 

Felix opened Chan’s door with a flourish. Chan let his eyes fall shut on a groan, then stepped out. There was no way out of this, he supposed. They made their way to the front door, and were met by Changbin and Jisung, walking from their car. 

“How the hell did Minho get out of this little adventure?” Chan asked, eyes narrowing.

“He didn’t want to come,” replied Felix.

Chan snorted, and mumbled, “Neither did I.”

Changbin clapped him on the back, shoving him through the door behind Jisung and saying, “Yes, well, Minho isn’t a shut-in. Stop bitching and have fun for once.”

Chan muttered a few pointed remarks and allowed them to herd him inside. He would find some way to get them back for this.

***

Sitting at a table in a dark corner of the place, as far from the bar as he could get, Chan tore a paper napkin into tiny shreds. This may be the finest strip club in all of France, but it was still a seedy place filled with the scents of lust and money. Pressing his lips together, he glanced up at the girls scattered around the room. He found that none of them interested him in the least. The rest of his bandmates were happily cracking jokes and playfully tossing money at women.

They had given up on trying to make him join in on the ‘fun.’ He knew his company was less than enthralling of late, but he just didn’t really care anymore. Sighing, he slid further down in his chair, wishing he were back in his hotel room, happily making music. Scanning the room once more, he decided to slip out and get an uber. This place was just depressing him. Like he needed help with that.

He leaned forward to stand, but froze as his eyes found a woman across the room. She was draped across a brass bar, languidly gyrating her hips. She appeared to be either stoned out of her mind, or to have completely given up on life. He blinked, then leaned back in his seat. Cocking his head to the side, he studied her as she straightened a bit, turning around, her hips still moving. 

She wasn’t the type of woman who usually caught his eye. She was plain. She was average. She was not fat, but certainly not thin. Her hair was a boring shade. There was nothing exceptional about her at all. So why was he watching her so intently? Crossing his legs, he leaned back and set about discovering why his eyes were glued to some stripper.

She seemed to ignore the men around her, writhing to the music with a flat expression. Her back turned to him, and his eyes wandered down. It hit him then. The reason he was so entranced… was her ass. A small laugh of surprise burst from his lips. Well, that was new. He had never been much of an ass man. Sure, they could be sexy, but never had one made him really sit up and pay attention. But as he watched the woman’s hips bounce to the music, he thought maybe there was something to that particular body part.

Sucking in a deep breath, he snickered at himself. The last thing he thought he’d be doing tonight was sitting in a strip club, trying to pry his eyes from some disaffected, boring girl’s butt. She slid in his direction, and he followed her movements. Attempting to think this out logically, he dissected her swaying behind with as much cold calmness as he could muster when his cock was finally deciding to come back to life.

It wasn’t a large ass, nor particularly round. But the skin above her gartered stockings was calling to him, begging for his touch. And the way she moved her hips… well, she certainly knew what her selling point was. As she drifted closer, Felix returned to the table, falling into a seat, with a laugh.

“Man, you are really worrying me. The girls over there are actually pretty nice to talk to, and you sit over here sulking,” he said, shaking his head at Chan.

Chan only nodded, leaning to the side to get a clear view of the ass around his friend. Felix’s eyebrows shot up, and he turned to see what Chan was so intently looking at. A puckish grin lit his face as he spied the thing that held Chan’s attention. Before Chan could even realize what was going on, Felix raised a hand and called to the stripper. 

She turned her dull eyes in their direction, and danced her way to the table. Chan tried to work up some sort of denial, but all was pushed aside as the ass drew closer. She reached the table, turned around, and gave her hips a good roll. His cock, already taking notice, stood right up and saluted at that movement. Oh yes, he was going to have to thank Felix for this later.

Felix stood, laid some money on the table, and told the girl to give Chan a good time. Chan tried to look up in thanks to his friend, but the ass was slowly backing towards him, gyrating. Swallowing, he clenched his hands, doing his best not to reach out and touch. He wasn’t sure if the rules were the same everywhere, but the strip clubs he’d been in had always stipulated that the customer not touch. 

But oh, how he wanted to touch. She bent over the table, her ass fluidly moving to the music so very close to him. She glanced over her shoulder, her eyes heavily lidded, and watched him. He sucked his lower lip into his mouth, chewing at it, doing everything he could think of not to either reach out for her, or to stroke the very insistent erection he had gained. It seemed that his dick had been feeling a bit neglected as of late, and was determined to remind him of its importance.

A small attempt at a smile flitted over her lips, and she said in a heavy, languid voice, “It’s okay if you want to give it one touch. I won’t tell.”

He glanced up at her face, and licked his lips nervously. She was not so plain as he had thought from a distance. His eyes narrowed back in on her ass. He wanted to touch. But if he did, he would only be teasing himself even more than was already happening. His member was already beginning to ache. She softly laughed, a tactile sound, velvety. Chan growled at the sensation of her laugh washing over him as her cheeks moved enticingly only a foot from him.

Glancing up into her eyes for a moment, he shot his hand out, gripping her hip, and sending the other hand to deliver a slap across one of the globes that was driving him mad. She sucked in a breath, looking up. He thought at first that he had broken through her calm reserve, but realized that she was simply making sure no one had noticed. After a moment, she turned her head slowly once more to peer at him through a veil of lashes. 

He smirked, seeing the red mark on her ass, matching the flush creeping into her face. Leaning forward, he rested his elbow on his crossed knee, slowly cocking his head to the side to simply watch the show her ass was giving him. She straightened, moving to turn, and Chan glanced up at her warningly. 

“Get back across the table,” he said in a low, commanding voice.

She paused, then slowly leaned back down, working her hips harder. Chan let a soft growl slip out, and she wet her lips, her hands splaying across the table for purchase as her ass did an elaborate dance before him. Chan quickly glanced around then leaned in closer. 

“Lap dance,” he breathed, keeping his words to a minimum. 

She stiffened a moment, and he found that he liked the fact that he was unnerving her. She seemed to be so distanced from her job, and he discovered that he wanted to see if he could wake her from that haze she seemed to be in. She slowly arched her back, keeping her ass on display as she raised her shoulders from the table. 

Backing towards him, she twisted her waist, her entire body moving sinuously to the music. But he only had eyes for that one part of her. Just as his patience was about to snap, she straddled his chair, slowly lowering that captivating ass to his lap. Gyrating, she stroked it across his groin, and he jerked his hips up, involuntarily. He heard a soft laugh from her, and narrowed his eyes. 

He wasn’t going to let her turn the tables on him like that. Gritting his teeth, he rolled his hips up, holding back a groan as his throbbing erection slid across the junction of her thighs. She let a moan slip out, and the tease was worth it. The clothing containing his cock scraped across his sensitive skin, and he cursed softly. She pressed down on him harder, and he knew that this was going to end painfully, but he was going to get as much as he could of her lush ass.

Reaching up, he put his hands over her hips hesitating as he looked around to see if they were being watched. She didn’t even bother to look. With an inaudible murmur, she pressed his hands down to grip her hips. Chan hissed in a breath between his clenched teeth, and began to rock up against her. He couldn’t get the friction he needed through the thick, tight material, but she was soon trembling under his palms, that alluring ass of hers moving quicker against him. 

His eyes were still following the movement of the rounded cheeks in his lap, and he bit back a frustrated snarl. He was aching to find his release, but he just couldn’t, without pulling out his dick and stroking it right there. Even if that were allowed, he wouldn’t give her that much satisfaction. This had become a battle of sorts. Him trying to get a bigger and better reaction from her, and her trying to distract him back into a lusty fog. 

But he would win. He could feel the pain in his balls from being hard so long with so little pleasure, but he would not give in. He wanted to break this girl, to crack open the veneer she pulled between herself and her customers. He pressed up harder, tightening his grip on her hips, his strong fingers digging into her flesh. He pulled her against him, unable to withhold a grunt as her fantastic ass pressed into him harder. 

She whimpered, and he wanted to crow in victory. A shudder of climax passed over her body, her ass jerking against his crotch, and she hissed out a string of curse words, her hands flying out to grip the table, steadying herself. Chan panted, his triumph at making her orgasm dimmed by the insistence of his cock that he do the same as soon as possible. She weakly leaned forward, sliding from his lap to the chair next to him. Her hand trailed blindly across the table as she leaned back in the seat, her eyes closed. Finding the money Felix had left, she grasped it, and dragged it to her chest. 

Chan quickly stood, wincing at the motion. He peered down at her for a moment, her eyes still closed, her face unguardedly relaxed in her satisfaction. A smirk flitted across his lips, and he turned to gingerly walk towards the door. He had a serious case of blue balls, but it was worth it. He nodded to his friends as he passed them. Felix cocked an eyebrow at him questioningly, and Chan just gave a tiny shrug and a knowing smile. Felix turned to the table where the stripper still sat, then burst into laughter. 

Chan carefully made his way outside, hailing a cab to take him back to his hotel room. He told the driver to hurry. He needed to get to his comfortable bed and rub out the frustration that had built to a fever pitch in his groin. And he knew exactly what image would be playing through his head as he came.

[qqueenofhades]

Could you expand a bit on the "death of expertise"? It's something I think about A LOT as an artist, because there are so many problems with people who think it isn't a real job, and the severe undercutting of prices that happens because people think hobbyists and professionals are the same. At the same time, I also really want people to feel free to be able to make art if they want, with no gatekeeping or elitism, and I usually spin myself in circles mentally thinking about it. So.

I have been secretly hoping someone would ask this question, nonny. Bless you. I have a lot (a LOT) of thoughts on this topic, which I will try to keep somewhat concise and presented in a semi-organized fashion, but yes.

I can mostly speak about this in regard to academia, especially the bad, bad, BAD takes in my field (history) that have dominated the news in recent weeks and which constitute most of the recent posts on my blog. (I know, I know, Old Man Yells At Cloud when attempting to educate the internet on actual history, but I gotta do SOMETHING.) But this isn’t a new phenemenon, and is linked to the avalanche of “fake news” that we’ve all heard about and experienced in the last few years, especially in the run-up and then after the election of You Know Who, who has made fake news his personal brand (if not in the way he thinks). It also has to do with the way Americans persistently misunderstand the concept of free speech as “I should be able to say whatever I want and nobody can correct or criticize me,” which ties into the poisonous extreme-libertarian ethos of “I can do what I want with no regard for others and nobody can correct me,” which has seeped its way into the American mainstream and is basically the center of the modern Republican party. (Basically: all for me, all the time, and caring about others is a weak liberal pussy thing to do.)

This, however, is not just an issue of partisan politics, because the left is just as guilty, even if its efforts take a different shape. One of the reason I got so utterly exasperated with strident online leftists, especially around primary season and the hardcore breed of Bernie Bros, is just that they don’t do anything except shout loud and incorrect information on the internet (and then transmogrify that into a twisted ideology of moral purity which makes a sin out of actually voting for a flawed candidate, even if the alternative is Donald Goddamn Trump). I can’t count how many people from both sides of the right/left divide get their political information from like-minded people on social media, and never bother to experience or verify or venture outside their comforting bubbles that will only provide them with “facts” that they already know. Social media has done a lot of good things, sure, but it’s also made it unprecedently easy to just say whatever insane bullshit you want, have it go viral, and then have you treated as an authority on the topic or someone whose voice “has to be included” out of some absurd principle of both-siderism. This is also a tenet of the mainstream corporate media: “both sides” have to be included, to create the illusion of “objectivity,” and to keep the largest number of paying subscribers happy. (Yes, of course this has deep, deep roots in the collapse of late-stage capitalism.) Even if one side is absolutely batshit crazy, the rules of this distorted social contract stipulate that their proposals and their flaws have to be treated as equal with the others, and if you point out that they are batshit crazy, you have to qualify with some criticism of the other side.

This is where you get white people posting “Neo-Nazis and Black Lives Matter are the same!!!1” on facebook. They are a) often racist, let’s be real, and b) have been force-fed a constant narrative where Both Sides Are Equally Bad. Even if one is a historical system of violent oppression that has made a good go at total racial and ethnic genocide and rests on hatred, and the other is the response to not just that but the centuries of systemic and small-scale racism that has been built up every day, the white people of the world insist on treating them as morally equivalent (related to a superior notion that Violence is Always Bad, which.... uh... have you even seen constant and overwhelming state-sponsored violence the West dishes out? But it’s only bad when the other side does it. Especially if those people can be at all labeled “fanatics.”)

I have complained many, many times, and will probably complain many times more, about how hard it is to deconstruct people’s absolutely ingrained ideas of history and the past. History is a very fragile thing; it’s really only equivalent to the length of a human lifespan, and sometimes not even that. It’s what people want to remember and what is convenient for them to remember, which is why we still have some living Holocaust survivors and yet a growing movement of Holocaust denial, among other extremist conspiracy theories (9/11, Sandy Hook, chemtrails, flat-earthing, etc etc). There is likewise no organized effort to teach honest history in Western public schools, not least since the West likes its self-appointed role as guardians of freedom and liberty and democracy in the world and doesn’t really want anyone digging into all that messy slavery and genocide and imperialism and colonialism business. As a result, you have deliberately under- or un-educated citizens, who have had a couple of courses on American/British/etc history in grade school focusing on the greatest-hit reel, and all from an overwhelmingly triumphalist white perspective. You have to like history, from what you get out of it in public school, to want to go on to study it as a career, while knowing that there are few jobs available, universities are cutting or shuttering humanities departments, and you’ll never make much money. There is... not a whole lot of outside incentive there.

I’ve written before about how the humanities are always the first targeted, and the first defunded, and the first to be labeled as “worthless degrees,” because a) they are less valuable to late-stage capitalism and its emphasis on Material Production, and b) they often focus on teaching students the critical thinking skills that critique and challenge that dominant system. There’s a reason that there is a stereotype of artists as social revolutionaries: they have often taken a look around, gone, “Hey, what the hell is this?” and tried to do something about it, because the creative and free-thinking impulse helps to cultivate the tools necessary to question what has become received and dominant wisdom. Of course, that can then be taken too far into the “I’ll create my own reality and reject absolutely everything that doesn’t fit that narrative,” and we end up at something like the current death of expertise.

This year is particularly fertile for these kinds of misinformation efforts: a plague without a vaccine or a known cure, an election year in a turbulently polarized country, race unrest in a deeply racist country spreading to other racist countries around the world and the challenging of a particularly important system (white supremacy), etc etc. People are scared and defensive and reactive, and in that case, they’re especially less motivated to challenge or want to encounter information that scares them. They need their pre-set beliefs to comfort them or provide steadiness in a rocky and uncertain world, and (thanks once again to social media) it’s easy to launch blistering ad hominem attacks on people who disagree with you, who are categorized as a faceless evil mass and who you will never have to meet or negotiate with in real life. This is the environment in which all the world’s distinguished scientists, who have spent decades studying infectious diseases, have to fight for airtime and authority (and often lose) over random conspiracy theorists who make a YouTube video. The public has been trained to see them as “both the same” and then accept which side they like the best, regardless of actual factual or real-world qualifications. They just assume the maniac on YouTube is just as trustworthy as the scientists with PhDs from real universities.

Obviously, academia is racist, elitist, classist, sexist, on and on. Most human institutions are. But training people to see all academics as the enemy is not the answer. You’ve seen the Online Left (tm) also do this constantly, where they attack “the establishment” for never talking about anything, or academics for supposedly erasing and covering up all of non-white history, while apparently never bothering to open a book or familiarize themselves with a single piece of research that actual historians are working on. You may have noticed that historians have been leading the charge against the “don’t erase history!!!1″ defenders of racist monuments, and explaining in stinging detail exactly why this is neither preserving history or being truthful about it. Tumblr likes to confuse the mechanism that has created the history and the people who are studying and analyzing that history, and lump them together as one mass of Evil And Lying To You. Academics are here because we want to critically examine the world and tell you things about it that our nonsense system has required years and years of effort, thousands of dollars in tuition, and other gatekeeping barriers to learn. You can just ask one of us. We’re here, we usually love to talk, and we’re a lot cheaper. I think that’s pretty cool.

As a historian, I have been trained in a certain skill set: finding, reading, analyzing, using, and criticizing primary sources, ditto for secondary sources, academic form and style, technical skills like languages, paleography, presentation, familiarity with the professional mechanisms for reviewing and sharing work (journals, conferences, peer review, etc), and how to assemble this all into an extended piece of work and to use it in conversation with other historians. That means my expertise in history outweighs some rando who rolls up with an unsourced or misleading Twitter thread. If a professor has been handed a carefully crafted essay and then a piece of paper scribbled with crayon, she is not obliged to treat them as essentially the same or having the same critical weight, even if the essay has flaws. One has made an effort to follow the rules of the game, and the other is... well, I did read a few like that when teaching undergraduates. They did not get the same grade.

This also means that my expertise is not universal. I might know something about adjacent subjects that I’ve also studied, like political science or English or whatever, but someone who is a career academic with a degree directly in that field will know more than me. I should listen to them, even if I should retain my independent ability and critical thinking skillset. And I definitely should not be listened to over people whose field of expertise is in a completely different realm. Take the recent rocket launch, for example. I’m guessing that nobody thought some bum who walked in off the street to Kennedy Space Center should be listened to in preference of the actual scientists with degrees and experience at NASA and knowledge of math and orbital mechanics and whatever else you need to get a rocket into orbit. I definitely can’t speak on that and I wouldn’t do it anyway, so it’s frustrating to see it happen with history. Everybody “knows” things about history that inevitably turn out to be wildly wrong, and seem to assume that they can do the same kind of job or state their conclusions with just as much authority. (Nobody seems to listen to the scientists on global warming or coronavirus either, because their information is actively inconvenient for our entrenched way of life and people don’t want to change.) Once again, my point here is not to be a snobbish elitist looking down at The Little People, but to remark that if there’s someone in a field who has, you know, actually studied that subject and is speaking from that place of authority, maybe we can do better than “well, I saw a YouTube video and liked it better, so there.” (Americans hate authority and don’t trust smart people, which  is a related problem and goes back far beyond Trump, but there you are.)

As for art: it’s funny how people devalue it constantly until they need it to survive. Ask anyone how they spent their time in lockdown. Did they listen to music? Did they watch movies or TV? Did they read a book? Did they look at photography or pictures? Did they try to learn a skill, like drawing or writing or painting, and realize it was hard? Did they have a preference for the art that was better, more professionally produced, had more awareness of the rules of its craft, and therefore was more enjoyable to consume? If anyone wants to tell anyone that art is worthless, I invite you to challenge them on the spot to go without all of the above items during the (inevitable, at this rate) second coronavirus lockdown. No music. No films. No books. Not even a video or a meme or anything else that has been made for fun, for creativity, or anything outside the basic demands of Compensated Economic Production. It’s then that you’ll discover that, just as with the underpaid essential workers who suffered the most, we know these jobs need to get done. We just still don’t want to pay anyone fairly for doing them, due to our twisted late-capitalist idea of “value.”

Anyway, since this has gotten long enough and I should probably wrap up: as you say, the difference between “professional” and “hobbyist” has been almost completely erased, so that people think the opinion of one is as good as the other, or in your case, that the hobbyist should present their work for free or refuse to be seen as a professional entitled to fair compensation for their skill. That has larger and more insidious effects in a global marketplace of ideas that has been almost entirely reduced to who can say their opinion the loudest to the largest group of people. I don’t know how to solve this problem, but at least I can try to point it out and to avoid being part of it, and to recognize where I need to speak and where I need to shut up. My job, and that of every single white person in America right now, is to shut up and let black people (and Native people, and Latinx people, and Muslim people, and etc...) tell me what it’s really like to live here with that identity. I have obviously done a ton of research on the subject and consider myself reasonably educated, but here’s the thing: my expertise still doesn’t outweigh theirs, no matter what degrees they have or don’t have. I then am required to boost their ideas, views, experiences, and needs, rather than writing them over or erasing them, and to try to explain to people how the roots of these ideas interlock and interact where I can. That is -- hopefully -- putting my history expertise to use in a good way to support what they’re saying, rather than silence it. I try, at any rate, and I am constantly conscious of learning to do better.

I hope that was helpful for you. Thanks for letting me talk about it.

[rosesgonerogue]

Let the Sunshine In - Chapter One

AO3

Three Years Later

Awareness came in waves. There was a constant drumming that was enough to drive someone insane, as well as someone breathing heavily. It sounded wrong, and even worse, it felt wrong. For some reason it gave him the visceral urge--no, the need to hurt, to maim, to kill.

After the sound came the pain, the feeling of needles dancing across his skin, of circulation resuming in disused limbs. Soon after came the smell of sulfur, of something rotten. Finally a toxic green light filtered into his vision, the unnatural shade looking infinitely distasteful. 

What was this? Where was he? His mind felt broken, fractured--the information he needed was all there, somewhere, the pieces just didn’t fit together, and it pissed him off. 

He was in some kind of disgusting, green water, and outside the water a whole host of people waited. The pounding grew faster as his eyes flicked around. A part of him swore to find whoever was responsible for the drumming  and acquaint their face with a wall. 

“-odd, we simply want to--”

“Who the hell are you?” The extremely rusty voice surprised him. It was his. Something about that felt important. “What happened, where am I?” 

“You are Jason Todd,” a stern man said primly. “And I am R’as al Ghul, an acquaintance of your previous mentor. We are at the Lazarus Pits.” 

The pounding got louder and he--Jason--clenched his fists, ready to kill someone to make the heartbeat sto--

Heartbeat. It was his heartbeat. 

The heartbeat he shouldn’t have. 

A rush of memories assaulted his brain; a crowbar descending, unhinged laughter, an explosion, but most of all, pain. Pain and fear. 

This wasn't right. His hands sank into his hair, ready to pull it out as he stumbled backwards, unable to process everything. He was dead--or he should be. He wanted to still be dead. 

The man, Ra’s, advanced, speaking calmly and slowly, like Jason was a wild animal. “If you would follow me, we can--”

Jason rushed the man with a strangled cry, bludgeoning the man with his fists, elbows, feet, fighting however he could. He heard a few distinct snaps, but he didn’t stop until the man was a bloody mess at his feet. 

He still quivered with rage, his entire body feeling like it was about to explode. 

“You should have left me dead,” he growled before barrelling through the mass of people that moved to surround him. His feet carried him out of the cave he had been in and out into the night that waited. After being dead, apparently even starlight was a little bright for his eyes--if it had been daylight, he might have just gone blind right then. 

Something inside him dictated where his feet carried him. He felt a distinct pull to… something. It felt important, so Jason began trudging along. 

**************

“I think that’s the last box, sweetie,” Sabine said, following her husband in. 

“Thank you guys for helping so much, it really means a lot,” Marinette said with a smile to her parents. 

Tom set the box down carefully, eyes already filled with tears. “I can’t believe my little girl has a place of her own. It seems like just yesterday I was teaching her to make macarons for the first time.” 

“Oh, don’t you start crying, Tom, or I’ll start crying too,” Sabine said, swatting her husband with a sniff. 

In a few short weeks Marinette would be starting her studies at the best fashion program in all of Europe. Like many of her classmates, she was staying in Paris for at least the near future. She had originally planned on staying at her parents’ house for at least the first year of the program, but the perfect opportunity presented itself, and Marinette just couldn’t say no. 

Marinette’s beloved grandmother, Gina, had decided to bike around the world. This was pretty much how she spent her life anyway, but now her granddaughter was legally an adult, which meant she could grant said granddaughter some much needed freedom. 

Despite how little time Gina actually spent in Paris, she was the proud owner of an adorable little house. She had already willed the house over to her fairy, but now she could tell Marinette to move in under the pretense of having her house-sit. Gina paid for the utilities still, and her only stipulation was that Marinette had to keep a room clean and ready for her, should Gina show up unexpectedly. 

The thought of having her own house, free of charge, even, was mind-boggling, but at the same time it was everything Marinette hadn’t known she needed. There was the natural yearning all young adults had to try things on their own, but this solutions came with the ultimate safety net. Even more importantly, it came with the privacy that she desperately needed. 

While she waited for her program to begin, Marinette had spent the majority of her time at the bakery. It was fun, being with her parents and taking care of deliveries whenever Luka had a gig. It also made keeping a secret identity secret nearly impossible. This way Marinette was still close enough to help at the bakery when she needed to, but her parents weren’t constantly barging in at inopportune moments. 

As they set up, somehow her things fit in perfectly alongside Gina’s like it was meant to be. The last thing the family had to do was go grocery shopping so Marinette had something to eat  other than the copious amounts of pastries her parents had forced on her. 

When the deed was done, it was time for her parents to leave, even though none of them were really quite ready for that. 

“You’re not used to being alone,” Sabine fussed. “Are you sure you don’t want to spend just one more night at home?” 

“Or we could spend the night here with you,” Tom said hopefully. 

“No, I’ll be fine,” Marinette said with a smile. “I’ll be sad, but we’ve got to start somewhere, right?” 

Staring at his daughter, Tom couldn’t hold it in any longer-- he started crying. “Don’t forget to call us, sweetheart, and write too! We’ll be waiting to hear from you.” 

“Tom, she’s moving twelve blocks away. If she doesn’t have time to visit us, we can just pop in on her, right?” 

“Right,” Marinette confirmed, eyes completely dry. “I’ll make sure to visit often.”

Finally she was able to bid farewell to her parents, closing the door to her house behind them. She milled around looking for something to do, finally settling on turning the TV on for background noise and getting to work on her latest commision. 

Just as she was getting into the groove and making real progress, Marinette’s phone rang. She sighed, finishing the last little bit of handwork on that section before answering the video call. 

“My little Marinetta, how are you?” Gina asked. As far as Marinette could tell, her grandmother was somewhere tropical at the moment. Where exactly was anyone’s guess. 

“Good, Nona, just getting settled in!” 

“Are you just sitting around at home?” she asked suspiciously. 

“No, I’m working on a commission and--”

“I didn’t leave you the house to just sit around, my fairy. You need to be young and free, even if it’s only occasionally. This is your first place of your own, so go celebrate! Go out to dinner, go get ice cream, find a party to go to, I don’t care, just go do something!” Gina commanded. 

“Yes, Nona,” Marinette said, knowing it was useless to resist. 

“I’ll be waiting to see a picture of whatever you do,” Gina said firmly. 

“Yes, Nona.” 

Gina kept chatting for a while longer, but before she hung up, she reminded Marinette one more time that she needed to go celebrate somehow. Afterwards Marinette attempted to keep working on her commision, but it was fruitless knowing that her Nona expected her to go have fun. 

Even though they had just bought groceries, Marinette didn’t really feel like cooking after all the day’s activities, so she decided to walk over to one of her favorite cafes. It was a ways away, but she didn’t have much else to do with her time, so she decided to simply enjoy the weather. She ate a light dinner at one of the outside tables, made sure to send a picture of it to Nona, and once she was finished, she swung by one of the nearby farmer’s markets on impulse. Yes, she had the groceries she had gotten earlier, but no grocery store could beat fresh produce like this. 

The farmer’s market was closing soon, which meant that a good majority of the things that were high in demand were already sold out. There was one vendor that had one frozen chicken that she really didn’t want to take back home, so Marinette got a really good price on it.

It was nearing dusk as she made her way back to the house, but she couldn’t help but feel uneasy. There was something in the air that just felt wrong. It was kind of similar to the feeling she got from akumas, but also not. It was familiar, but twisted, corrupted inextricably. As she walked the feeling only got worse, and Marinette didn’t know if she should go find out what it was, or if she should just run away as fast as she could.

In the end, the urge to investigate won out. She was Ladybug, it was her responsibility to see to the safety of Paris as a whole. On edge from the unsettling feeling, Marinette moved through the streets discreetly and carefully. 

Her instincts took her to the opening of an alleyway in a fairly quiet part of town. The feeling of wrongness was pervasive as she edged forward. It took everything in her not to gasp at what she saw. 

A boy who looked about her age stood at the back of the alley was surrounded by three cloaked assailants. He could almost be mistaken for an akuma because he didn’t actually wear clothes, he was only covered by ragged bandages, almost like a mummy. The poor boy was gaunt, he looked like he was only a few steps away from death. He couldn’t be an akuma, because in all this time, Marinette had never seen one so feral. 

“I have to help him,” Marinette whispered, hand tightening on the handle of the bag her chicken was in. “Tikki, spo-”

“No Marinette!” Tikki hissed waving her arms frantically. “Don’t transform. We should leave, this is dangerous.” 

“What are you talking about, Tikki? That boy clearly needs help.” Marinette’s claim was only emphasized when one of the assailants drew a sword-- and actual sword being used by someone who was not akumatized. 

“If you transform he’ll hurt you! We really should leave,” Tikki said, trying to pull her away. “I’ll explain at home, but we need to leave.” 

Something about the boy was deeply unnerving to Marinette. His very existence felt wrong. But something about this made her think of Robin, who she hadn’t allowed herself to think about for quite some time now. 

“No,” she said with steel in her voice. “I’m not abandoning someone who is scared and alone.”

“Marinette, you’ll get hurt!” 

“Not if I’m lucky,” the girl said with a smile that held far too much venom. 

The boy was already faltering when Marinette entered the alleyway. His eyes latched onto her for the briefest of moments, but that only caused for one of the assailants to get even closer, knife grazing the boy’s arm. 

Years of being Ladybug had taught Marinette to move nearly silently, as well as where to hit to take down an opponent quickly. The first man was taken down by sheer luck--she somehow managed to hit the pressure point at the juncture of his neck despite being hooded. He fell down, immediately unconscious from her assault. The one who didn’t have a knife in hand glanced over, only to be met face first with a swinging frozen chicken. 

By the time the third man turned to see her, the chicken was already swinging to knock the knife out of the man’s hand, potentially breaking some fingers as it swung. Marinette had already cracked the man across the face before the knife had clattered to the ground, leaving only her and the boy conscious in the alleyway. 

He looked at her with crazed blue eyes, his pupils blown as he fixated on her. “You!” he snarled, leaping forward. “You had something to do with this!”

“No, I just wanted to help, let me--”

Before Marinette had to do anything in the way of restraining him, the strange boy staggered forward a few unsteady steps before collapsing right onto her. She hadn’t noticed the way that he towered over her before, but supporting his entire body weight helped her realize just how absurdly large this boy was. With that in mind, she should probably stop mentally referring to him as a boy. 

“Marinette, this is really dangerous. He could hurt you, he already tried to!” Tikki said, once again trying to pull her away. 

“Tikki, he needs my help,” Marinette said, stubbornly shouldering the boy. “I’ll keep myself safe, but I won’t leave him here!” 

“You promise you’ll do everything you can to keep yourself safe?” Tikki asked, eyes baring into Marinette’s soul. 

“I swear.” 

“Fine,” Tikki sighed, wilting a bit. “Go ahead and transform, it will be easier and faster to carry everything that way.”

*********************

Be warned, this is just going to be me ranting about Batman lore for far too long. 

Okay, so even in AUs like this that are clearly distanced from canon, I like to research and make it as close to canon as possible. For those of you that don’t know, doing research on anything related to Batman is a MESS. I’ve read “Death in the Family,” the original Batman issue where Jason dies, I’ve watched “Under the Red Hood,” just because I wanted to get a really good sense of Jason and what the whole alive again experience was like for him. I also looked into the Lazarus Pits for placement questions, and apparently there are little Lazarus pits all over the world, including in Switzerland. Switzerland is close enough to France that I just went with it. 

Now for the part that REALLY kills me. I recently also watched Son of Batman, and in it, Ra’s is killed, but apparently he was too dead for the Lazarus Pits to work. However, upon looking into Jason, it is revealed that he was brought back to life after being dead for a few YEARS. I’m not even going to go into the fact that Jason’s body was complete even though he died not by crowbar, but by an explosion. I’m not touching that. Additionally, Jason was still really short and pretty scrawny  from being malnourished when he died, and he somehow comes back as a beefy twenty-something year old. 

TLDR; the Batman canon is a mess, so when writing fanfiction I can do what I want and it’s still canon compliant.

Let me know what you guys think!

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