#obligatory boston mention

[jeanie-g]

you said to send you any two players with a pulse so I'm here to be annoying about my sharks babies willmack with song #71 ❤

BABY SHARKS!! we literally just yapped about them a few hours ago, but wow they are the cutest!!! I've read, uh, 0 willmack...but i DID do some research. so, hopefully it's good.

it's basically a full fic tbh. and same as before, yadda yadda my actual #72 is irrelevant, so here's 71+2.

[#73] Jackie and Wilson (Hozier)

Lord, it'd be great to find a place we could escape sometime / Me and my Isis growing black irises in the sunshine / Every version of me dead and buried in the yard outside / Sit back and watch the world go by

It's weird being back in Boston. From the moment they'd touched down at Logan, Will could feel it in his bones—this weird unrest. And sure, he was born in Lexington, grew up right outside the city, but it was different actually living in it. Getting his first taste of a professional career in hockey in a city made for it.

And now he's back, eight months since he packed up his dorm and went west. Since he left his family and his teammates to go follow his outrageous dream while they stayed behind.

Mack doesn't feel the dissonance like Will does. He was excited to come back to his old stomping ground. As they filed off the plane, he kept giving the other guys tips on restaurants and bars that don't card—all with this haughty air about him, like he lived here for longer than the nine months he did.

Will envies his nonchalance, wishes he could feel just as normal about all this. Because Boston treated him well, even if it was technically Newton. He loved his team and he liked his classes and he had a blast getting drunk and losing his shoes at frat parties on campus. He even liked the chilly falls and biting winters—often misses them when he's feeling strung out on the palm trees and unrelenting heat of San Jose.

But he can't help the queasiness that creeps in as they get closer and closer to TD Garden, because for the first time in his life, he'll step onto that ice in teal and white instead of maroon and gold.

Here's the thing: hockey players need to separate their lives in two. Before getting signed to the NHL, and after. They just need to, or all the stress of comparison will eat them alive. Guys can break records and win trophies in Juniors or at college, but the second they step foot on that league ice, none of it really means anything.

Commentators and journalists and fans expect there to be a difference in their playing—growing pains—but not much. Not if they're actually good. But it's scary how much of a difference there is. For Will, at least, it was terrifying. Still is, on bad nights when he can't catch a pass to save his life and the Sharks continue their deep dive down the division rankings.

Because you can't just make it to the NHL; you have to sustain yourself in it. You have to fight and claw to stay afloat before you find yourself on the fourth line and then the AHL affiliate, and then behind the bench coaching pee-wees at 32.

Mack, of course, doesn't feel any of this—at least, not like Will does. He got three points in his debut. He was sidelined with a hip injury for a month and bounced back like it was nothing. And yes, he goes on to the media to tout how "different and difficult it is here," and Will goes on to say that even if they don't score any points, "experience is progress," but he calls bullshit—on Mack and himself.

Whatever. He's getting sidetracked. He does that a lot—gets stuck in his own head, this endless rat race going round and round and round until someone—usually Mack or Tyler—snaps him out of it.

Anyways. He's back in Boston and everything's changed and nothing's changed at all.

He's fine.

***

The game is awful. There's no other word for it, really, no word so simple yet piercing that it encapsulates all that went wrong out there.

It's just awful.

Sloppy passes, incomplete plays, half-assed defense. The Bruins are a formidable team, but they aren't unbeatable. Some of the guys seemed like they'd already given up before the first face-off even took place.

Will tries his best to get shit going, but there came a point (probably 14 minutes into the third, when the score is 5-zip), where he has to admit defeat.

He listens to Warsofsky ream them out with half a mind, knowing exactly what he's going to say before he says it. When he looks up at Mack across the locker room, he has his head under a towel. He assumes this means he's just as miserable as Will is, but when they walk out of TD and board the bus back to their hotel, he's back to his jaunty self.

"Do you wanna watch Yellowjackets when we get back? It's finally on Netflix."

Will gives him what he hopes looks like an indignant stare. "No, I don't."

"New Girl?"

"No. I just wanna go to bed, Mack. Don't you?"

He plops down into his seat and Mack follows suit.

"Not really. I kinda wanna go out."

That makes Will twist his body until his right knee is practically in Mack's lap.

"Are you not embarrassed? I mean, how many BU fans came, you think, just to watch you? And that's the fucking game we play."

Will drops his gaze to the floor. Mack's silent for a moment, and Will thinks he's finally struck a chord. But then:

"More than you can say about BC."

Will turns his head and blinks at him. "Seriously?"

Mack just shrugs, and Will scoffs. He takes out his AirPods and pops them in, done with whatever this conversation is.

They don't talk until they enter their room, but Will's not mad at Mack. He just doesn't understand how he's not upset.

"You're pissed," Mack says, clairvoyant as ever, as he drops his bag onto his bed.

"Yeah, no shit, Sherlock." Will drops his own bag by the foot of his bed, already kicking off his shoes.

"Isn't it nice, though? Being back home?"

Will chortles meanly. "You lived here for nine months, Mack. That's hardly home."

"I meant for you."

That feels like a blow to the stomach. He sits on his bed and stares at the TV. His reflection looks back at him in the semi-reflection, shrouded in darkness.

It's part of why he signed with BC in the first place, to be closer to home. It all worked out so well, he thought—he was so lucky. He got to be close to his friends and family for a year, maybe longer, until he signed with the Sharks and shipped off to California.

But now, he's starting to wonder if it would've been better if he went to Michigan instead. Maybe if he ripped off that bandaid earlier—got used to being away—coming back wouldn't be so hard.

"I think I know where to go," Mack says suddenly.

Will closes his eyes. "For what?"

"To make you feel better."

Will chortles again, but doesn't say anything else. When he cracks an eye open, Mack's looking at him expectantly. He never did know how to leave well enough alone. It's not like Will particularly enjoys wallowing in self-pity, though, so he acquiesces. Mack hasn't ever steered him wrong, if he's being honest.

"Fine. Where?"

Mack smiles. "It's a surprise."

The 'surprise' ends up being the Common, Mack asking the driver ahead of time to stop at the entrance on the corner of Beacon and Charles. Once Will realizes the destination is outdoors, he starts to protest—it's fucking January in Massachusetts—but Mack just says to trust him.

It's nearly midnight when they get there, the streetlights guiding their steps as they exit the Uber. Mack takes extra care to tip the driver $5, 'cause he's good like that.

Mack's carrying a bag, but he won't tell Will what's in it. Will's not in the mood to argue, so he just follows him wordlessly, ambivalent to wherever he's leading him.

The Common's pretty at night. Snow dusts the ground and bushes, and the waxing moon casts light through the barren tree branches. The noisemakers of the surrounding city haven't completely gone to bed yet, but the area around them is pretty sparse. Muddy footprints going in every direction remind Will how populated this place usually is. He takes a deep breath, watching his exhale puff out in front of him.

They finally come to a stop at the edge of Frog Pond. It's completely frozen over, probably has been for days now considering the impressions and swirls in the ice from skates.

Will doesn't know exactly what Mack had planned—he half-predicted they were gonna 'talk it out' on the Good Will Hunting bench—but it still comes as a surprise when Mack sets down his bag, crouches, and takes out two pairs of skates.

Will laughs hollowly. "Macky, no."

"Macky, yes," he replies, standing and handing a pair to Will.

"We can't skate here in the middle of the night!"

Mack shrugs. "Why not?" His nose is turning red from the cold and Will has to suppress the urge to reach out and cup it with his hands.

"I..." Will crosses his arms. "Because I don't want to."

Mack laughs, seemingly having no regard for the sleeping animals, or whatever. "Never have I known you to not skate when an opportunity presents itself."

Will rolls his eyes. "Why do you even want to? Sixty minutes of making ourselves look like Bambis on ice wasn't enough?"

Mack tilts his head and gives him a look. "I think this ice is a bit different than the rink at TD."

Will opens his mouth to argue that, actually, all ice is the same because it's just frozen water—but something in Mack's expression makes him think better of it. His eyebrows are pushed up, his mouth twisted in that hopeful smirk that either leads to triumph or mischief. Mack's trying to cheer him up, in his own weird way, and Will's kind of being a dick about it.

Will sighs. "15 minutes. Any longer and I think we'd be at serious risk of hypothermia."

Mack smiles that big, toothy grin that emblazoned itself into Will's consciousness the first time he saw it, and every time after. There's some addicting chemical laced in it; there's gotta be.

They find a bench to sit on while they put up their skates. Will didn't even think about how Mack obtained them until he sees the Bauer label.

"Mack, did you swipe these?"

Mack, again, shrugs. "They have our names on them."

Will smiles. "Can't argue with that."

The first step onto the pond is like any other, but as he sets his other skate down and pushes off—as he gets into a stride—he can feel the difference immensely. It's rough, and snowy—difficult to maneuver at first. He catches his pick on a bump at one point and nearly wipes out, causing Mack to stop and laugh.

He didn't realize it's been so long since he skated on ice like this—not manicured and smoothed, but natural—real. It brings him back to when he was just learning how to skate as a kid, uncoordinated but doe-eyed, eager to learn.

Mack lets him be for a few minutes, content to stroll on his own, but eventually he skates up and taps Will on the shoulder. "Race you to the bridge?"

"Oh, you're on, bud."

Mack giggles gleefully as he sets off, Will rushing to catch up before he can even complain that they didn't count down.

Mack's faster than him—always has been, even though Will won't admit it—but the uneven terrain makes him wobble. Will's able to catch up to him and nearly sidle by, grabbing his arm to try and throw him off balance.

"Hey! Cheater!" Mack cries, but it doesn't sound as accusatory when it's punctuated by laughter.

Will laughs, too, his eyes crinkling with it, which is what he blames when his blade catches a crack, causing him to lose his footing. Before he knows it, he's spun around and falling backwards, taking Mack with him.

He lands on his tailbone, the force of it pushing an "Oof" out of him, with Mack sprawled out on top of him.

"Oh, shit," Mack says, scrambling to sit up. His eyes are saucers. "Are you okay?"

Will is slow to sit up, hand moving to rub his lower back. "Yeah," he says, wincing. "Not broken or anything. Just gonna be wicked sore tomorrow."

Mack must be really distressed because he doesn't even comment on Will's use of 'wicked' like he usually would. He just roams his eyes up and down Will's figure like he has X-ray vision and can discern any other bodily injuries.

Will reaches out and places his hand on Mack's arm. "Mack, I'm fine, really."

That doesn't do anything, to calm him. So, he—well, he does it without really thinking. He takes Mack's hand. That snaps Mack out of it, his eyes flicking back to Will's.

"We're hockey players. We literally fall on our asses for a living. I think I can deal with a sore tailbone for a few days."

That gets a chuckle out of Mack. He doesn't remove his hand from Will's, so Will doesn't move an inch.

"I'm sorry. I shouldn't have brought you out here to begin with. It was stupid."

Will shakes his head. "No, it wasn't stupid." He's not magically all better, but he finds himself feeling significantly lightened. "I was in my head. I needed a reminder—why we do this, I guess. It was good."

Mack smiles, no teeth this time, and Will thinks that maybe he likes this one better. It's more intimate—just for him.

"I wanted you to feel better," Mack says. "I know coming back was gonna be hard for you, and the game was...well, it was shit, so that didn't help things."

Will chuckles mirthlessly. Mack shrugs, continuing. "I guess I wanted to remind you that being back here isn't so bad."

"It's not bad. You're right. It's just..."

He looks off for an answer, and when he can't find one he comes back. Mack's eyes greet him, warm and understanding. And he gets it, Will knows. Underneath the accolades and the point streaks and the headlines, Mack knows exactly how Will is feeling. Perhaps, sometimes, he feels it more, that label of the 'No. 1 draft pick' weighing on him in a way Will can never know.

It's not about the game, not really, and Will only sort of admitted it to himself before now. It's about being back in the city he really made a name for himself in, before he lost that big-eyed, eager innocence he thinks is so foolish now. He wouldn't trade being in the NHL for the world; he's not that stupid. It just—it kind of sucks right now, and he thinks he's allowed that.

Mack smiles weakly, and he looks so young. Not like Will's that much older, but... it's crazy, how they're both just kids in the end. Kids destined for greatness.

"We should probably stand up now," Mack says. "My jeans are soggy as hell."

Will laughs and they let go of each other's hands to get up. When they do, though—Will spinning around to head back to their shoes—he nearly bumps into Mack's chest.

Mack laughs, and then Will laughs and makes to back up, but Mack gently grabs his arm. Will snaps his eyes up to his, and something in Mack's gaze pins him there. He's utterly incapable of moving, but he realizes he doesn't want to, not when Mack slowly leans in and connects their lips.

And, oh. Oh oh oh.

Mack's lips are cold, but his mouth is warm, Will parting his lips to get a better taste of it. Mack makes some sort of pleasured noise and allows it, taking hold of Will's cheeks and propping his chin up to kiss him deeper.

Will realizes, dizzyingly, that their noses are touching. He wonders if Mack's is still red.

Eventually, Mack pulls back and leans his forehead against Will's. "How's that for a homecoming, eh?"

Will laughs, his voice going high with it. Maybe the cold is getting to him; maybe it's the way Mack is still holding onto his cheeks, so gently.

"You fucking Canadian," Will huffs out, and Mack tips his head back to laugh.

That won't do, though. Will loops an arm around Mack's neck and pulls him back in, swallowing the sound and kissing that smile right off his handsome face.

He feels that unrest from earlier—when they touched down on the tarmac—finally fade away, replaced by something else entirely.

And maybe Boston isn't so bad, or the NHL for that matter. They can't be, not when they gave him Mack, like this, perfect in his arms.

Maybe everything worked out just right.

[nottodayjustin]

May 4th 2024 best hockey tweet(s) of the day

Unhinged Bruins win post, sorry Leafs friends I do love ya!

[clonerightsagenda]

So... The Silt Verses were good.

As I mentioned, I should have anticipated this. If a podcast gets decently popular and people gush over its quality and it doesn't even have a core ship for them to fixate on, it must actually be good. And it was. Luckily the obligatory horror podcast 'organs, lovingly described' bits only lasted the first few episodes, and then we moved into what the show was actually stellar at: character drama and social commentary.

I've lauded Greater Boston as one of the few allegedly anti-capitalist podcast that actually examines structures and society instead of just going haha evil company go brr, and The Silt Verses joins those ranks, looking at the issue from a macro (society) scale rather than micro (city). It was a very good - and unflinchingly, painfully honest - look at how capitalism is eating us alive, even citizens of the imperial core, how so many people feel helpless to resist, and how as much as we want to root for a band of scrappy rebels, most of the time they're helpless in the face of the international machinery, and their brief bursts of rebellion will get absorbed and redirected by the lumbering beast that's feeding on us all.

Both Greater Boston and TSV posit an alternative - Wonderland and the Grace. If society is irredeemably rotten, we must leave society. That's a great dream. And to their credit, both podcasts acknowledge that this takes effort. (Is it any surprise that both leftist podcasts with a more sophisticated awareness feature that most central of rebel technologies... the committee meeting.) However especially for situations like the Grace where there's not trade with an easily accessible outer world, it does make me wonder what place in this glorious future there is for disabled and chronically ill people who need the care and resources our industrialized world can provide. To TSV's credit, again, the tiny hope spot we get for The Grace is less 'we're going to build a glorious future for everyone' and more, we are taking one small step for resistance. We don't expect to get very far. But we're hoping the next people might get a bit further.

I saw TSV referred to as an aro podcast and they were right. Sister Carpenter, woman that she is, is canonically aro, but also there really aren't any major romances and all the key character relationships are platonic/familial/at least not traditionally romantic. (Nodding at that post about Hayward being married to Paige like nuns are married to Jesus. I guess that makes her widow of wounds story true in the end, huh? Watch out when you build a false mythology around yourself. It might come true.) It's the aro woman out of everyone who says 'however it started, it can end in love', but the podcast's version of love isn't a big triumphant kiss. It's laying your brother's corpse to rest. It's killing your enemy in a way that's kind and telling a lie to save people you've never met. It's dying alone but at peace because you get to watch the people you care about walk away to safety. (Side note: as much as I tried to take that bit with Hayward saying goodbye to Paige seriously, it kept reminding me of the end of The Good Place where Janet goes 'i hate to watch you walk through the door at the end of the universe, but I love to watch you go'.

Faulkner had a great character arc and I can't believe the show got me to root for Hayward of all people, but naturally I am mostly going to gush about the women. Val was a surprise third act hit for me. You know I love identity issues. She reminded me of Breq a little - they hollowed out a woman to fill her out with a weapon, and who is she now? Does it mean anything to get revenge for the corpse she's wearing? I will fix it, do you understand me? And she can't fix it, but she can in her dying moments make one tiny change to give one tiny group of people she's never met the shadow of a chance. Also the way her powers worked was interesting, terrifying, and conceptually appropriate.

I loved Paige too. We first see her as a relatively privileged person uncomfortable with her own complicity but not sure how to break out and then follow her as she tries to break out anyway. This podcast understands that resistance is hard! It's messy, it's exhausting, it changes you in ways you don't expect or want, and then you feel compelled to pretend you're fine even if you've burnt out because you led these people here, you're responsible for them, what else can you do? She should read Emergent Strategies, especially the section on charismatic leaders. Diversity win! This trans woman gets a nightmare magic god pregnancy.

Finally, Carpenter. If Val is Breq, Carpenter is Murderbot - snarky, exhausted, antisocial, perpetually annoyed, but going out of her way to try to save people anyway (and sometimes kill her way through a research station with an ax). Part of me wants her to make it to the Grace and then wherever Paige stops walking and lay both her and Hayward to rest. Part of me wants her to get her relief in the cairn maiden's arms because if anyone deserves some peace and relief away from the goddamn trawlerman, it's her. It's fitting that a servant of pliant water and patient death ends with a fate that's ambiguous. Maybe she's still trudging onward. Maybe she's buried in silt at the bottom of the river with her brother. Maybe she's something inbetween, the ghost Faulkner kept casting her as. Dead and not dead yet.

My one minor complaint was that I couldn't always follow the action by the soundscaping alone. The transcripts were very helpful for this so I frequently kept them open as I listened.

[liaromancewriter]

Bittersweet

Premise: A chance detour opens old wounds for Ethan and Cassie.

Book: Open Heart (post series) Pairing: Ethan Ramsey x F!MC (Cassie Valentine) Rating/Category: Teen. Angst Words: 700 TW: Mention of pregnancy loss

A/N: Submission for @choicesjunechallenge prompt Father's Day. I'm also using @choicesflashfics week 38, prompt 2 (in bold)

The maternity ward at Boston’s Edenbrook Hospital was a bright and airy space with colorful posters, balloons and gift baskets on hand for expectant mothers and fathers. There was a sense of hope in the air and bubbles of excitement in the voices permeating the hallways.

Ethan Ramsey ignored all that as he marched past the nurses' station toward the elevators. He hardly ever came to this floor. As a young resident, he’d completed the obligatory OBGYN rotation, but the field had never interested him.

The Diagnostics Team rarely dealt with cases involving pregnancy and infants. But as Chief of Medicine, he couldn’t avoid an entire department. So, he made a point to schedule department head meetings on various floors.

It provided for a change in scenery and the added advantage of keeping the medical staff on their toes, not knowing when the Chief might drop in. He smirked, thinking how much he enjoyed doing that.

An “under maintenance” sign was taped across the elevator doors. With a frustrated sigh, Ethan retraced his steps to the bank on the north end.

He was almost at his destination when his steps slowed at the sight of the nursery up ahead and the woman standing at the viewing glass.

Her back was to him, but Ethan would recognize Cassie Valentine anywhere. His heart skipped a beat as he walked on leaden feet toward her. Now he understood Cassie’s reluctance to attend today’s meeting.

It was almost eight months since she’d suffered a missed miscarriage. They’d come a long way from those early dark days, but he knew how hard it was for Cassie, especially once she learned Max and Sienna were expecting again.

She tried to be pleased for their sake, but he acknowledged that pretending to be happy was pretty damn exhausting.

Lost in thought, she stiffened when he gently placed his hand across her back, relaxing when she recognized his touch. His heart broke at the silent tears streaming down her face and the devastation in her eyes at the sight of the newborns on the other side of the glass.

Ethan turned her sideways, placed his hands tenderly on either side of her face and wiped her tears away with his thumbs. When the dam broke, he folded her in his arms, tucking her head under his chin, and held her tight as her body convulsed.

He had always thought a family—kids—were not in the cards for him. He’d been adamant for so long that he was content with a single life. But fate had other plans for him.

His old doubts resurfaced once he and Cassie decided to try getting pregnant. But they were tempered with hope and anticipation. And then, when it wasn’t meant to be, he locked those feelings away.

As Father’s Day dawned closer, Ethan couldn’t pretend he hadn’t imagined an altogether different present. It would’ve been his first. Instead, it would be just like any other day.

Tears pooled in his eyes at the thought, but he blinked them away.

His gaze fell on a bassinet and the baby boy yawning. His tiny rosebud mouth opened and closed, lips pursing as if searching. The chubby face scrunched briefly before he settled down.

Unable to bear it any longer, Ethan turned his back to the nursery and drew Cassie away from the source of their misery. He spied the sign for a supply closet and changed directions.

Breathing easily once the door closed behind them, he placed two fingers on Cassie’s chin and raised her face. Her cheeks were splotchy, the tip of her nose red, but she’d never looked more beautiful to him.

He angled his head, closing the distance between them to kiss her lips, the touch whisper soft, designed to offer solace. She leaned into his touch, interlacing their hands, her thumb stroking the wedding band on his left hand.

As they comforted each other, Ethan thought doctors knew how unexpected life could be. But there was something to be said for small miracles. He might not be a father, but he had love. That was more than he’d ever thought he’d have. And it was enough.

-----------

All Fics & Edits: @annfg8 @bluebelle08 @coffeeheartaddict2 @crazy-loca-blog @doriopenheart @genevievemd @headoverheelsforramsey @lucy-268 @jamespotterthefirst @jerzwriterr @lady-calypso @mainstreetreader @peonierose @potionsprefect @queencarb @quixoticdreamer16 @rookiemartin @socalwriterbee @takemyopenheart @tessa-liam @trappedinfanfiction

Submissions: @choicesficwriterscreations @openheartfanfics

Ethan & Cassie only: @cariantha @custaroonie @hopelessromantic1352 @mrs-ramsey

[omgkalyppso]

30, 47, 57(green) for music asks 💕

Thank you for the ask! (:

30. Songs you love to sing along to:

If I'm alone I'll sing along to anything.

You Know What They Do to Guys Like Us in Prison by My Chemical Romance.

Boston by The Dresden Dolls.

Summer Nights by SIAMES.

What Sarah Said by Death Cab for Cutie.

Soulmate by Lizzo.

Don't Judge Me by Janelle Monae.

and the obligatory bisexual Bohemian Rhapsody by Queen mention.

47. Is there an artist you used to dislike but learned to like because of a friend’s influence?

I didn't dislike either of them but I didn't choose to listen to either Marianas Trench or Nickleback until @recurringwriter reintroduced me to them.

57. [Send me a color and I’ll tell you the first song it reminded me of.]

Green: Persephone in the Garden.

A friend of mine has it on their Lorenz playlist. Gardens are green, or can be.

I, I gazed into your eyes The day you promised you could lie forever This way Your hand in mine and the stars singing our names And I waited impatient for something to come around Did you know what it meant? Did you know we were fading? How, how long How, how long Did we lie in the soil With our arms and legs tangled up Like the weeds and the branches of the trees That bound our souls and legs to the ground below How, how long How long How long Didn't mean to take you down Didn't mean to take you down I thought you'd wanna stay I thought we would be fine whatever came our way Didn't know my world was dark Didn't know my world was dark until you came And you wilted with the lack of sun

[captcas]

Worth Fighting For

WORTH FIGHTING FOR by capthamm

Killian "Hook" Jones is a dominate up and comer in the UFC while Emma "The Savior" Swan's career was cut short. When Hook's manager moves up and the office brings in UFC's youngest legend to keep him in check, will either of them be able to handle it?

read on ao3

[Chapter 1/?]

Tap gloves.

It’s not like he dreamed of being here.

Fake right hook.

Beating the shit out of someone is pretty much one of the only things that keeps Killian Jones numb.

Leg kick to left eye.

That and rum.

Elbow.

Does anyone really dream of beating the shit out of people for a living?

Left hook. Opponent stumbles.

Will Scarlett aside, he doesn’t think so.

Take down.

And maybe Jefferson… that bloke’s ring name is literally “Mad”.

Right. Left. Right. Left. Left.

He knows there’s good money in MMA, but when he got in a bar fight two—

Wrestle. Maneuver. Arm bar.

—years ago, he never thought it’d lead to this.

Tap tap tap.

Showtime.

Release a tad too late. Don’t help Graham up, let the trainers do it. Run to the side of the cage. Ramp up the fans. Arm raise.

“Hook, you just won by submission against The Huntsman. How does it feel to remain undefeated in our stacked featherweight division?”

Deep breath. Come on, Jones, put on your act for the camera.

“Issac, did you say stacked? Not gonna lie, mate, I’m not sure that term applies to me.” Well placed smirk.

Why are the lights so damn bright? He hears the crowd chanting his name, he supposes that’s because he’s on a homer card. Still unreal as ever.

“You’re probably right considering you absolutely dominated that entire match. You’re a latecomer to the sport but continue to make a name for yourself, even against much younger opponents. Is there a secret to all this fast success?”

Don’t cringe at the mention of your age; they think you want to be here.

“Aye, but if I told you on national television, it wouldn’t be a secret.” Wink at the camera. Smirk. “ Thanks for coming out, Boston!” The crowd cheers louder. “I may not have started here but I’ve called this city home for ten years now and I’ll be damned if I let you down.”

Hook! Hook! Hook! Hook!

“They love ya, Jones. Great match! Who do you wanna see next?”

“No one”, Killian thinks to himself. “ I want to get out of this bloody octagon and get some rum.” He turns to the exec table.

“I’ll take whoever you give me, Gold, no sweat. I’m going all the way to the championship, Issac. I’m in this to win it all.”

As if there’s another option.

Issac nods enthusiastically at him. Killian is apparently a better actor than he thought. “Great fight, Hook. Well, folks you heard it from the man himself. Killian “Hook” Jones wants the belt—“

Issac’s voice fades away. Killian does his obligatory selfie with his trainers, hugging Robin and heading out of the ring.

High five a fan. Selfie. Smirk at the brunette. Autograph. High five. Kiss the redhead’s knuckles. Fist bump.

Once in the locker room, he can finally breathe. Killian scrambles to shower and change, being sure to dodge Robin and August on his way out the door. He knows he’s supposed to stay for the other matches, but it’s been nine years today and he’s not in the fucking mood.

. . .

“But, Mooooom, it’s Fight Night!”

“Exactly why you’re off to bed. You’re way too young to be watching that live. I’ll show you highlights in the morning.” Emma has this conversation almost every Saturday night. She can’t blame the kid for liking UFC, he was technically conceived because of it, but nine is way too young and she’s not budging on this.

“But it’s a super good card!”

Emma rolls her eyes, “Copying what Uncle David says will get you negative points. Bed. Now. Go.”

Henry opens his mouth to argue again, but with one more look from Emma he thinks better and stomps off to bed. Emma laughs to herself knowing he’ll be out like a light in minutes, but she admires his stubbornness.

Emma finishes cleaning up the kitchen and then wanders in to check on Henry. Just as she suspected, he’s fast asleep with ESPN Magazine splayed across his lap. She shakes her head and smiles at him. Quietly, she moves the magazine, kisses him on the forehead, and shuts off the light, closing the door gently behind her.

Emma leaves Henry’s room to a knock at the door. As if on cue, David and Mary Margaret let themselves into her apartment with pizzas and a case of beer. After setting down the food, David walks up to Emma and kisses her on the temple. “Hey, sis! Henry asleep already?”

She scoffs at his lack of subtlety. “Yes, although it seems he had an accomplice in his attempts to stay awake for tonight.” Emma purses her lips knowingly as Mary Margaret slaps David’s shoulder.

“David! This show is too violent for adults let alone a nine year old .” David shrugs and turns to help his wife with the food.

As Emma gets the TV set up, Ruby shows up, barging in with a bottle of red wine and already talking a mile a minute. “Did you see the second match up?! These two are like the men of my dreams . God bless whoever decided Jones and Humbert should duke it out. I mean honestly, Ems, I may need you to turn up the air conditioning.”

Emma laughs at Ruby being… well Ruby. “Rubes, chill. I’m sure the network is fully aware of the ratings the two of them fighting will bring in.”

Mary Margaret speaks up a little too quickly, “Oh definitely! And both of them are so good, watching them fight sometimes makes me wish you still—“ She trails off at David’s hiss and Emma pretends she doesn’t notice.

“Alright, the first fight is about to start. Let’s do this.”

Despite being unable— maybe that’s not the right term— unwilling?— to fight anymore, Emma loves watching Fight Night.

Whenever she’s watching a fight she feels her body move on its own, mimicking their movements and mentally throwing punches and blocks of her own.

Emma Swan wasn’t good at much of anything, but she was a damn good fighter.

The first match is an overall bore. Going the entire 15 minutes and not even ending in a unanimous decision. Emma grabs another piece of pizza and the bowl of popcorn— thank god they let her keep the fighter rate for her gym membership— and settles in for the second fight.

Ruby is not wrong about these two.

Graham “The Huntsman” Humbert, vs. up and comer, Killian “Hook” Jones. She’s seen Graham around the circuit before, he’s somewhat of a regular face. Never doing much with his career but doing enough not to get kicked from the roster. Killian, she’s only seen fight a few times, but he trains at her gym, supposedly also based out of Boston, so she’s seen him there.

She scoffs to herself. He may have the looks, but he knows it. He approached her once, confidence seeping off of him like sweat:

“Emma ‘The Savior’ Swan.”

Emma whips around at the use of her ring name. Most people at this gym know who she is, but leave her alone to work out and go home. “Yes that’s me.” She looks up at him in hopes of serving him her best ‘get the fuck out of here’ stare, but stutters when she sees how absolutely stunning he is.

“Stunning, Emma? Really?” She thinks to herself, but then realizes there really isn’t another word for the blue of his eyes… or his British accent.

“Killian ‘Hook’ Jones.” He puts out his left hand, catching Emma off guard, most fighters being right handed. As if he could read her mind he continues, “You know, for my killer left hook.” He drops her hand with a wink.

A fucking wink. Who does this guy think he is?

“Clever.” Emma knows she’s being icy but she’s almost done with her workout and really doesn’t have time to put up with some cocky new guy.

“Aye, Gold thought so.” He smirks at her and she rolls her eyes, regretting the satisfaction it gives him immediately.

“I’m sure he did.”

“And why, ‘The Savior’, Swan? I’m not sure I know that back story.” Emma flinches at his bluntness.

“Wouldn’t you like to know?” She realizes she’s practically flirting before she can stop herself.

He catches her gaze, “Perhaps I would.”

She doesn’t expect such a sincere response.

Brick meet wall. Hello, darkness, my old friend or something like that.

“Huh,” she scoffs noncommittally, “Nice to meet you, Jones, but I’ve gotta get back to my work out.”

He nods, seeming a bit jilted at her lack of interest. She does her best to keep a straight face at that realization, happy to knock anyone that arrogant down a few pegs. “Aye, Swan, me as well. See you around, love.”

She takes a swig from her water bottle and almost chokes at his casual use of the pet name. “ Not your love.” He raises his hands in mock surrender and Emma carries on with her day.

Somehow the same man she was insanely annoyed by, has completely entranced her with his fighting style. It’s clean and polished, definitely trained but with this edge of a street fighter which almost seems almost instinctual.

Leg kick, elbow, left hook, take down, arm bar, submission.

Humbert didn’t have a chance.

Jones makes it look too easy.

Emma is snapped out of whatever spell she was under the moment he opens his mouth to do his interview with Issac, the same cocky asshat she spoke to in the gym now on her TV screen.

“Wait! I didn’t know he fought for Boston.” Ruby rounds on Emma. “Did you ever see him at the gym?!”

Emma shrugs, “A few times.” She refuses to tell M or Ruby about their conversation, both of them likely to twist it into some UFC enemies to lovers story that makes Emma want to barf. Lucky for Emma the next fight starts and with the sound of “Mad” Jefferson Hatter’s entrance music, and the entire room seems to forget all about Killian “Hook” Jones.

Continue on AO3

[potatocrab]

Ok, I am going to pick the obvious... Fallout 4 for the fandom meme? Please and thank you. ^-^

OBVIOUS, but still wonderful 💙 thank you

The first character i ever fell in love with:

Contrary to what I’m #about, I fell hard for Nick Valentine’s character. All about that Noir detective aesthetic, man. Woe was me when I found I couldn’t romance him, but I’ve always been a fan. :)

A character that I used to love/like, but now do not:

Not applicable. 🤷‍♀️

A ship that I used to love/like, but now do not:

I mean, I used to write for Danse/Sole but I don’t anymore. Doesn’t mean I’m not a fan of reading it for other people’s Sole, but I personally don’t pair my Sole (Mads) with the Tin Can man anymore. Personal preference, is all. 

my ultimate favorite character™:

I think after writing Noir AU, I’ve realized just how much I love Nick Valentine, HA. Even though I don’t ship him with my OC, he’s such a great character, and I really enjoy writing him. He’s also just a fun companion to have around in-game, and his dialogue is a hoot. 

prettiest character:

Curie, that French sweetheart. 

my most hated character:

Controversial answer, but Father/Shaun. This is most likely a consequence of Bethesda’s writing, but man, they really butchered the Institute’s quest-line and reunion with your own son. D: 

my OTP:

Obligatory Madelyn x Deacon. After that, I like the canon-ish relationships mentioned within the game, even if they are mildly tragic, or funny. Like how you can hook up Travis and Scarlett (cute) or how Nick still mourns Jenny (;_____;). 

my NOTP:

I’m not picky about pairings, but jfc I draw the line at anything that talks about Sole being in any kind of incestual relationship with their kid. 

favorite episode:

Episode = Quest. I love the first stretch of Railroad quests, I really do. There’s a reason why they show up in the Noir AU. :) Tradecraft, Boston After Dark, etc. 

saddest death:

I don’t let it happen in my play-through because I don’t follow that route, but Glory’s death in the Railroad route is just ;____; 

Hey, but also the spouse’s death is also kind of sad, you know. 

favorite season:

Season= DLC. I’m a big fan of Far Harbor. Traveling with Nick to solve a missing person’s case that’s more than meets the eye? SEA MONSTERS?! Hell yeah.

least favorite season:

Listen, I love robots, but man...Automatron wasn’t all that it cracked up to be, quest wise. I like that I can build robots, but that’s about it. 

Character that everyone else in the fandom loves, but I hate:

Weirdly enough, I don’t include Shaun in a lot of things. I don’t hate the kid, I just...don’t include the poor kid in stuff. Call it indifference. I don’t know what it is. 

My ‘you’re piece of trash, but you’re still a fave’ fave:

Hancock, right? He’s great. We love this guy. 

My ‘beautiful cinnamon roll who deserves better than this’ fave:

PRESTON, ALWAYS PRESTON

my ‘this ship is wrong, nasty, and makes me want to cleanse my soul, but i still love it’ ship:

I can’t think of anything off the top of my head for this. ?????

You know what, probably Nick and Hancock. So wrong, but it’s right. 

my ‘they’re kind of cute, and i lowkey ship them, but i’m not too invested’ ship:

Sometimes I see art of Nick and Ellie and I’m like 👀👀👀

Send me a fandom!

[hrodvitnon]

Extra-random thought: what if KOTM pulled a 'lol let's kill Cranston' & Ghidorah et Super 8 Guy instead of Graham? Think Madison & her mom coulda pulled off the Obligatory Hume Family Drama(C) with that incident driving their debate?

Oh, I think the Fam Dram would work just as well if Mad Dad bit it (or got bit as it were) rather than Graham. Drawing from Godzilla: Aftershock, it was shown that Emma and Graham were at least friends; Madison in the novelization is fond of Graham and considers her something of an aunt.

One of the things I like about the novelization is that Graham isn’t forgotten after her death. It weighs on Mark even near the endgame and Serizawa has a heartbreaking moment in her old room at Castle Bravo. It also added some bits of her character - she’s lighthearted and easy to get along with, effortlessly comforting, is mentioned as having grown close to Emma and Madison, and early on jokes that Mark can “yell at us more if it will make you feel any better.” She’s someone you want to be friends with.

That in mind, speaking from personal experience, beware the nice ones. One of my closest friends is the chillest, friendliest dude you’ll ever meet. He’s like a puppy. I’ve also seen him get nuclear angry. Yelling is alarming enough, but him getting so pissed off he starts laughing is goddamn scary.

Suffice to say if Graham survived Ghidorah’s awakening, Emma’s “I’m saving the world” speech is going to make her see red. She’s not going to sugarcoat her words whether it’s dropping the news of Mark’s death to countering Emma’s “how many lives are you gambling with” by pointing out how many mothers are going to lose their children like she lost Andrew. On top of the personal betrayal, reaming into Emma over just what the fuck did she tell Madison to coerce her into this mess. She’s going to show more concern for Maddie’s well-being than Emma does and arguably would seem more like Maddie’s mom than her actual mom.

Leading into Madison blowing up at Emma post-Rodan over indirectly causing Mark’s death. For example, “Do you think Andrew would have wanted this?! Do you know what he’d think if he knew you killed dad?!” only for Emma to wave it off like, “Oh, but your father’s a drunk and he left us and wanted to forget about Andrew, so what if he died?” and Maddie counters with “THEN WHAT THE FUCK WAS HE DOING THERE IF HE ABANDONED US?!”

Book!Emma even has the gall to assume with all certainty that Madison will eventually forgive her. For her contribution to the end of the fucking world. Book!Emma understands Godzilla didn’t intentionally kill Andrew and is just concerned with keeping things in balance, but she decides “Hey! I can maintain balance just like Godzilla! So I’m gonna help kill off mankind! It’s not global genocide, it’s saving the world! What could possibly go wrong?” She never considers the idea that Madison might not be so forgiving. 

And just… good fucking lord, I want to draw Viv in Titan Warzone Boston at the limit of her patience, having what can generously be called a spectacularly bad weekend, going to town on Emma like a punching bag screaming to know where Madison is and if she’s hurt and just flying into Auntie Honey Badger mode.

Imagine. Sally Hawkins looking like that, post-stress relief. Via breaking a bitch’s face.

[jeanie-g]

Jamie and Trevor "cold hands #50 :)

(im determined to keep that pairng alive lol)

me too!!! they are so insane and adorable - i love writing them.

here ya go ;)

[#50] - cold hands

They're only a few stops into their Duck Tour but Jamie already wishes he brought his gloves.

It's a bus tour, Trevor said when he booked the tickets on a whim after their win against the Bruins last night. It goes to city hall and they talk about Sam Adams and shit. It's fun. He perked up, eyes bright. Oh, and it swims!

Expecting a closed (and at least semi-heated) bus, Jamie thought he'd be fine leaving behind his wool gloves at the hotel. The bus is more like a trolley though, with big, plastic sheet "windows" being their only barrier from the elements.

After about 30 minutes of winding through the biting, winding streets of Boston, Jamie's hands are freezing. He's pretty sure they're going a bit numb, which is...concerning. The coat he grabbed only has one pocket over the stomach, and Jamie alternates slipping his left and right hand inside every few minutes, silently praying that he doesn't get frostbite and have to amputate or something. Would the NHL still let him play with four fingers on one hand?

It's during one of these changes when Trevor catches sight of them. "Jesus, Jimmy! Your hands!" he cries.

And just like that, Trevor sweeps them into his lap, sandwiching them with his own two, gloved hands. "They're ice cubes!"

Jamie feels himself blush, but he could blame the wind if pressed. "I'm fine."

He tries to pull his hands away but Trevor's grip is tight, and Jamie's only working with so much strength at present.

Trevor frantically rubs his hands over Jamie's to warm them up, the itchy cotton of his gloves scratching Jamie's cracking skin. He winces, but not after long, the feeling starts to come back in his palms and fingers. Soon, his skin is tingling with warmth from the friction, and Jamie feels a nice sense of relief. No amputation, then.

Jamie glances up at Trevor, who's got his tongue poking out in concentration, and Jamie really has to separate all this from the unbelievable fact that Trevor is holding both his hands—if for his own fragile sanity. Because he's just helping him out—doing what any normal friend would do. Nothing more.

"Better?" Trevor asks, and Jamie nods. He is.

Trevor chuckles, a little puff of condensation dancing in the air in front of him. "The Canadian forgets his gloves. Amateur shit."

Jamie rolls his eyes and pulls his hands away, however reluctantly, stuffing one back into his pocket.

The trolley's passing through Science Park now, and Jamie turns his attention to the large statue of a T-rex standing on the lawn outside the science museum. Besides the weather, the tour itself is quite nice. Jamie hasn't explored Boston the way he's wanted to—the way Trevor did during his stint at BU (though that exploration was, according to Trevor, mostly centered around the frat houses in the depths of Allston). It's a nice, if completely disorganized, city—not small but not big either. It's cool getting to ride around and listen to the history of different neighborhoods and landmarks.

Trevor seems to be having fun too, though he probably knows all the history stuff already (They taught us about the American Revolution, like, every year in school). He's enthralled in the spoken tour, though, eyes to the front of the trolley. Jamie takes the chance to look over at him, eyes roaming his profile.

It's really not fair how beautiful Trevor is, from the way his eyes crinkle when he smiles, to his high-set cheekbones and straight, Greek nose (that he's stupidly insecure about), down to his small, plush lips—ballerina pink with a just-there cupid's bow.

It isn't fair, really, because he has a beautiful personality, too. He's kind and thoughtful, determined and playful—smart and sarcastic and funny. He brings Jamie out of his shell but never crosses a line; he pushes him to be his best on the ice and off of it. Jamie wants to be with him every single day. If only he had the guts to actually tell him.

Jamie hasn't been paying attention to whatever the tour guide was saying, but maybe he should have, because the trolley starts driving down a ramp off the road, heading right for the river and—unless Jamie is losing his mind already—trolleys shouldn't be doing that.

His eyes grow. "Trev, what the fuck is happening?"

Jamie's too young to die, and he doesn't even wanna think about how humiliating it'd be to do so in a trolley themed like a duck full of noisy Bostonians and smelling of Dunkin' Donuts.

But Trevor just laughs. "I told you: it swims."

And before Jamie knows it, the trolley is tipping forward into the Charles River, there are some loud hydraulic noises, and people are whooping around him.

Without thinking, he grabs Trevor's hand where it rests on the seat between them. Trevor laughs again but, to his surprise, squeezes it. He rubs his thumb in circles on Jamie's, but he only has half a mind not in panic mode to recognize it.

The trolley finally uprights itself and...glides through the water? Jamie's still confused, but they're not sinking, so he counts that as a win. The whoops begin to die down and the tour guide is on the intercom again, and Trevor is still laughing.

"Dude, your face was priceless," he gets out between breaths.

Jamie blushes scarlet (again). This must be a common occurrence then—a swimming bus. If no one clocked him as a tourist before, he might as well be wearing a sign now that says, Don't mind me - I'm just a dumb Canadian.

"Shut up," Jamie says. "It just took me off guard."

"Have you never heard of FDR's amphibious car?"

Jamie quirks a brow. "Who's FDR?"

Trevor rolls his eyes, but his look remains fond. "Never mind."

Jamie turns and looks out at the wind-whipped water. Clouds of steam hover just above the crests and breaks of the boat(?)'s wake.

"It's about to get a hell of a lot colder," he muses miserably.

Trevor squeezes his hand again, and only then does Jamie realize they're still joined. He turns to face Trevor, blushing harder if possible, and Trevor smiles, eyes twinkling.

"Don't worry, Jim. I'll keep you warm."

Jamie can't help the smile that bubbles up at that. He also can't help the semi-intrusive thought that he should forget his gloves more often.

*

[greenbagjosh]

10th anniversary visit to New Hampshire and Vermont, Thursday 24 June 2010

Hi everyone,

Sorry not to have written for some time.  I have two stories for today.  The first one I will publish now, and the second one I will publish in about an hour or so.

Hi everyone Today is the tenth anniversary in which I started my road trip of New England.  I was planning also to go to Maine and New Brunswick, to visit family.  I had not been to New England since April 1993 when I went with both my parents and paternal grandparents to Boston and Newport, Rhode Island.  

For the time I would be in New England, I would make a sort of counterclockwise circle between Boston Logan, Concord NH, rural Vermont on I-91, eastern Connecticut, Cape Cod and back to Boston Logan, and then a round trip from Boston North Station / TD Center, to St. Martins NB via Bangor, Maine.  The entire journey took about thirteen days.

First I flew from DFW Airport on United Airlines to Charlotte, NC.  For lunch, I stopped by the Brookwood Farms Carolina Pit.  I remember in April 2005 when I first ate there, that they served a pulled pork sandwich with Carolina barbecue sauce, which is vinegar-based as opposed to tomato-based as is the case with Texas barbecue sauce.  I ordered a sandwich with a side of steak fries and a fried pickle.  At the time, the Chick Fil A that is currently next door, may have been located at a different part of the food court.  Both enjoy about an equal amount of patronage.

After I ate my sandwich, I boarded the connecting flight to Boston Logan.  It was a three hour flight.  I collected my rolling bag and boarded the shuttle bus to the pre-renovated rental car area.  Today it looks much different than it did in 2010, as it is multilevel.  At the car rental place, I was presented with a choice of three cars, one of which was a 2010 Volkswagen Jetta and another was a Prius.  I went with the Prius.  It had a battery for city driving and a gas engine for highway driving.  The speedometer was a digital number display, similar to the one I had in my 2007 Citroen C3 rental from when I visited Portugal.

Once I packed the Prius up, I headed south on I-90 after paying a toll of $2.50 (it may have been more), went under the Boston Main Channel on the Ted Williams Tunnel, changed to the I-93 which was also in tunnel until just north of North Station and Bunker Hill / Charlestown and then headed in spite of the poor traffic conditions, and with a thunderstorm with heavy rain, further north past Reading, Lawrence and Methuen, into Salem, New Hampshire.  I took a short break at the welcome center.  The New Hampshire state flag was flying.  That was the first time I had entered New Hampshire.  

One thing I do not recommend doing in New Hampshire, is to drive without a seat belt.  Although for those 18 years or older, it is not obligatory to wear a seat belt, I personally do not feel it is safe.  And the Prius would constantly complain that my seat belt was not on, so I decided to abandon driving without a seat belt as a result.  If you saw the video of me in Concord, the state capital, you would hear the fasten seat belt chime and know how annoying it is.

After obtaining some free maps and information from the Salem NH welcome center, I went to Londonderry, and in particular Harold Square pizzeria, 226 Rockingham Road, NH route 28, for a snack.  Driving on I-93, the exit signs did not in 2010, correspond necessarily to the distance from the state line to the Canadian border.  The drive from the welcome center to exit 5 took about fifteen minutes.  To Harold Square it took another five minutes.  The place had very good pizza.  I heard that Harold Square had closed down in the last ten years or so, and has since become a Gabi's Smoke Shack, serving barbecue like St. Louis pork ribs, brisket, chicken, catfish, tacos, many more, so I thought it should at least get a mention.  I think it was 6:30 PM when I left for Concord.  It was about a half half hour drive on I-93 even with the toll at Hooksett which was just $1.00 in 2010.  Notable was also the liquor store at a rest stop.  It's not just a liquor store, but it's one that is run by the New Hampshire state government.

In Concord, downtown is just west of I-93.  It's not a particularly large capital city.  The state capitol building is a modest size, maybe half the size of the State Houses in Austin, Texas, Hartford, Connecticut, Providence, Rhode Island, Boston, Massachusetts and Augusta, Maine.  I did not go to Montpelier VT that time, but Google Maps shows the Vermont State House as about the same size as that in Concord.  At the New Hampshire State House, there is a statue of Daniel Webster standing out front, as he was a politician who represented New Hampshire.  Nearby was the local office of then-US Senator Judd Gregg, R-NH.  It was on the second floor atop a medical supplies store.  Senator Gregg did not run for the US Senator office for New Hampshire that year, so he retired in January 2011 when his term ended.  I walked around downtown until about 8:30 PM when the street lights turned on.  It was then time to take I-89 west to Vermont.  It was an hour drive westward and in really nice countryside but it was getting too dark to really appreciate it.  New Hampshire is regarded as the Granite State, and there was plenty of granite to see.      

I arrived in White River Junction, and the hotel was in the northwest corner of I-91 and I-89, next to the VA medical center.  My original room had a running toilet and the staff found another similar room down the hall.  I went to bed and woke up the next morning to head south to New Haven, Connecticut.  As far as the Prius went, it used only one tenth of its tank.

That makes two states in the USA that I had not yet visited, off my list.  The 25th would include another state.  And Yale University.  Hope you will join me for that.

[utilitycaster]

theorphanmaker replied to your post “Accents of Exandria”

ah yes the plentiful langues of "eastern European" and "Russian" love those categories

I’m not sure if this was meant jokingly or sarcastically but it’s a good opportunity either way to talk a little bit about the challenges of describing and figuring out accents that I ran into here. They’re in part due to the limits to my knowledge and experience, in part due to the incredible diversity of accents in the real world even within the same language, region, or city, in part due to the limitations of even a talented voice actor, and in part due to the fact that Exandria doesn’t have a Britain, or Russia, or Europe so we’re using accents that exist in our world to describe accents in a completely different and fictional universe.

(obligatory disclaimer that I’m a hobbyist, not an accent actor nor a linguist, and if you have specific and actionable constructive advice I welcome it).

Before I start, those specific, verbatim categories of “eastern European” and “Russian” were picked in part because of the notes Matt tweeted out here. Also Russian is a language? So to address what might be going on here...

Eastern European isn’t a language - this is true. The words we use to describe accents are not always a perfect one-to-one match with languages. If you asked most people to tell you what accent Percy had, for example, they’d probably say “British”, which is true. British isn’t a language. Neither is Texan (Fjord’s put-upon accent).

Eastern Europe is indeed a tricky definition and the exact makeup of eastern Europe is itself a subject of debate but it’s also an accent actors would see on call sheets; people from that region of the world have different accents but on the whole there are some shared traits among said accents. I've seen a lot of discussion on where exactly Jester’s accent is from and honestly, I couldn’t tell you (nor could most people, because it is probably something of a compound accent that doesn’t match up exactly with any specific country or language) - but it sounds eastern European in its traits (the ‘ih’ sound when stressed becomes more of an ‘ee’ sound, her ‘r’ sounds tend to be fronted, the ‘a’ in Traveler sounds closer to an ‘eh’ sound, and so on). These are qualities her accent shares with Kree, who Matt noted had an eastern European accent, even though they don’t have identical accents. For the most part, everyone has a few individual accent quirks anyway (referred to as idiolect).

(sidebar - while I don’t think it’s a perfect match the accent I’ve heard that sounds closest to Jester’s is Romanian. Jester doesn’t have final obstruent devoicing - listen to how the ‘d’ in “Fjord” is pronounced as a ‘d’ when she says it, vs how Caleb says it almost as a ‘t’ - and neither does Romanian, but many languages spoken in that region do devoice final obstruents. I also think the coastal nature of Nicodranas evokes southeastern Europe - I remember someone drawing comparisons between Nicodranas and Dubrovnik (I don’t have enough familiarity with Croatian speakers; I did a quick search and some dialects have this feature and some don’t so if anyone reading this can speak to Jester’s accent being Croatian with some level of knowledge, let me know!)

Anyhow: using a regional descriptor of accents even when many different languages are spoken therein (eg: an Indian accent)- or using regional descriptors of accents even when they’re within the same country and people with that native accent speak the same native langage (eg: a Texas accent and a Boston accent) is pretty normal. People from the same geographic area can have different native accents based on socioeconomic/cultural factors: to use the TV show The Wire as an example, most of the characters are supposed to be natives of Baltimore, but the working class white accent is not the same as the African-American accent.

Another possible point here was that Russia is (at least partially) in Eastern Europe: this is also true. We can refer to accents very specifically (eg, “Percy has a Moderate Received Pronunciation English accent”) or very generally (eg, “Percy has a British accent”). If I had to speculate re: Matt’s notes, it might be that he wanted to clearly distinguish Kree’s accent (eastern European) from Oremid Hass’s accent (Russian). As mentioned above each language has some distinct features within the accent. Because Russian was specifically used as a descriptor I broke it out from the larger Eastern European accent group.

I’m not sure if an implied point here was that Russia is a language spoken across a huge country with a multitude of regional accents in which case this falls under the same case of, for example, Texan accents not being the same in every single part of Texas. Houston isn’t going to sound like El Paso.

Next: actors have limitations! We’ve seen this with Taliesin specifically trying to develop his Irish accent work. Sometimes it’s a learning process, but also sometimes people pick a collection of traits often seen in a broad accent category but that are unlikely to be seen within the same accent of an individual: for example, using non-Rhotic (not pronouncing all the ‘r’ sounds after vowels) pronunciation found in many London accents with the vowel sounds of a West Country British accent, which is Rhotic. It’s not a realistic accent you’d be likely to find in the real world, but it is a consistent speech pattern with internal logic. This is why a lot of dialogue coaches recommend that people listen to a single speaker and imitate them if they’re trying to get familiar with a specific accent. However, because this is Exandria, not Earth, if you mix and match your accent patterns and come up with something new, that’s okay! Jester’s accent might not fit an Earth category other than “kind of eastern European sounding” because again, Jester isn’t from the Ukraine or Romania or Belarus, she’s from Nicodranas.

Exandria is further complicated because in D&D, every player character is at least bilingual, many are multilingual, and while everyone’s speaking in Common most of the time it’s up to the player whether they learned Common or their racial/regional language first. Matt usually plays it so that most dwarves, for example, speak with a Scottish accent whether they’re in Trostenwald, Uthodurn, or Kraghammer - it’s at least heavily implied this is the dwarvish accent, rather than a regional accent (though if you were to think about it, in Uthodurn and Kraghammer, cities with large dwarvish populations, this might become part of the native regional accent). Jester’s accent might be because she’s from Nicodranas (or it’s the accent of wherever Marion’s from originally) but it could also be how they’re depicting infernal, and she spoke that as a first language but Zahra and Molly didn’t - or maybe Zahra lost her infernal accent later on in life, or who knows? I’m a fan of embracing the vagueness here since Exandrian accents will never be a one-to-one match with the real world, but at the same time I had a lot of fun looking for patterns among those accents as they’re a cool part of world-building and tropes.

[madpanda75]

“As Long As You Love Me” Part One

A song fic hosted by @thefanficfaerie for her Backstreets Back Challenge. I chose “As Long As You Love Me” and now that song is forever in my head. Two will be posted tomorrow. A HUGE shoutout to @sass-and-suspenders​ for being my support while I wrote this angsty novella and for giving me the brilliant idea in the first place! 😘 

Warning: Long fic (4000ish words)

Story takes place during “Undiscovered Country.” Yes, THAT episode...you know the one

Rafael sat in the back of the classroom, biting back a smirk as he watched you deliver your closing argument for a mock trial, wiping the floor with the prosecution team. As a favor to a friend, he was guest lecturing for a semester at Columbia University.

“Mr. Barba, the evidence presented by the prosecution is weak and circumstantial at best. Mr. Haines had done odd jobs and worked as a gardener for Mrs. Ellis which explains why his muddy footprints, and his blood from an injury sustained on the job were found at the crime scene. Furthermore, the coroner’s report stated that time of death was between 5pm and 7pm on the evening of May 20th. My client was four hours away at a family reunion in Boston and it was confirmed by multiple people that he was present the entire time. Does the prosecution really expect us to believe that Mr. Haines drove four hours back to Mrs. Ellis’ home, in rush hour traffic no less, murdered her in cold blood, buried her body, hid the weapon, cleaned himself up, then drove four hours back to Boston in time for s’mores around the campfire with his cousins?”

Even though he knew you already won, Rafael sat quietly, pursing his lips as he pretended to deliberate over your argument. After a moment he walked to the front of the class, a smile slowly spread across his face, “Congratulations, Ms. Y/L/N. I believe you just won your case.”

You beamed, bouncing up and down on the balls of your feet before looking over at the prosecution team, who were less than enthused. “Sorry,” you mumbled. “It was a good try.”

After your victory, Rafael dismissed everyone. It was the last day of class and students couldn’t get out fast enough, excited to celebrate after a long hard semester. You took your time, packing up your things, hoping to get a chance to speak with your guest professor.

Rafael was confident and sexy. You had never known anyone to discuss torts and mens rea with as much passion and fire as he did. He was mesmerizing, drawing you in like a moth to a flame.

Once the classroom was empty, you walked up to him, unable to conceal the blush forming on your cheeks. “Thanks for a great class, Mr. Barba. I really learned a lot under you.” You closed your eyes, shaking your head upon realizing your innuendo. “I mean not under you...but…ummm you were hard and I liked that. Well...not hard that way...not in the sense that I thought you had an erection...but..ummm..” You rambled on, digging yourself into a bigger hole, your pink tinged cheeks turning beet red. “And you want to be a lawyer? You can barely form a sentence,” you thought to yourself.

Rafael laughed, you had caught his eye since the first day of class. You were brilliant with razor sharp focus and not to mention beautiful. No other woman had ever made his heart skip a beat the way you did, not even Yelina.  “I know what you meant, Ms. Y/L/N. Congratulations on winning your case today. Ever think about becoming a prosecutor?”

“I thought about it, but I really want to pursue human rights. Working with NGOs or non-profits.”

“An admirable career,” he smiled at you, clenching his fist to keep from tucking a strand of hair behind your ear. “Whatever you pursue, I know you’ll be an amazing lawyer.”

“Thanks,” you softly said. Letting out a deep breath, you decided to be bold. “So even though I’m going into an entirely different field of the law. I’d love to know what the day to day life of being a lawyer is really like. Maybe if you’re free we could grab coffee or something and I can pick your brain.”

He quirked an eyebrow at you, a smirk firmly planted on his face, “Are you asking me out, Ms. Y/L/N?”

You bit your lip, your heart pounding in your chest, “Can I plead the fifth?”

He subtly looked you over before glancing down at his watch, “As of 5 minutes ago, I’m no longer your teacher so how about instead of coffee, we grab dinner?”

You shyly smiled, looking up at him from beneath your lashes, “I’m free now, if you are?”

“Well then let’s go,” he said, grabbing his briefcase and jacket, leading you out of the classroom.

***

You paced the living room floor, worrying your bottom lip as you dialed Rafael’s number. The sounds of the city that never sleeps could be heard from outside your apartment, but all you wanted to hear in that moment was your boyfriend’s voice on the other line. Instead you got his voicemail. You sighed in frustration, waiting for the obligatory beep to leave a message.

“Hey, mi amor, can you call me back when you get this. You were supposed to be home from the hospital 2 hours ago. I’m not trying to be a nag, I’m just worried about you.”

Hanging up the phone, you plopped down on the couch. Something was wrong. You could feel it deep in the pit of your stomach. Over the past few months, Rafael had been struggling with his cases, often coming home late at night with the weight of the world bearing down on his shoulders.

This recent case in particular hit the ADA hard. You remember him reluctantly telling you about the mother and father standing on opposite sides of the fence, each believing they knew the right choice to make for their dying child.

You knew Rafael was torn over prosecuting the case. It brought back memories of when he was in a similar situation, ultimately deciding not to end his own father’s suffering when he was put on life support. You felt helpless, watching the man you love being eaten away at by his job, tormented by the decisions he had to make. If he even could make those decisions sans bias sans judgement.

Lady Justice may be blind, but looking at that dying beautiful baby boy and his heartbroken parents, Rafael wanted nothing more than to rip the blindfold off. But as Jack McCoy said, they were not in the compassion business.

You were about to call him again when the sound of the apartment door opening stole your attention away from the phone. “Raf? Is that you?” You leapt off the couch and ran to the foyer. “Are you ok? I’ve been calling non-stop. Why didn’t you pick up your--”

You stopped dead in your tracks when you saw your boyfriend. His appearance shook you to the core. A mixture of sadness and fear etched in his face. His eyes slightly wild and glossy with tears. A shroud of darkness looming over him.

“Raf, what’s wrong?” You softly asked.

Rafael stared at the ground, studying the hardwood floor, shaking his head. “I did it,” he whispered.

“Did what?” Your mouth went dry as you took a cautious step towards him, like you would approach a wounded frightened animal. “Mi amor, what did you do?”

“I turned off the machine. I...ended his…suffering. I had to do it. I had --” he looked up at you, his eyes vacant for a second before a look of shock slowly spread across his face. “Dear God, what have I done? What have I done? What have I done?” In an instant, Rafael collapsed to his knees, his body wracked by sobs.

You ran to him, holding him close as he cried, clutching fistfuls of your shirt in his hands. Rafael, the man who was a lion in the courtroom, fierce and commanding, was falling apart in your arms. You rocked him back and forth like a child, running your hand through his hair, trying to soothe him as best you could.

Eventually, you both made it to the bedroom. Rafael laid his head on your chest, telling you everything that had happened. About how the judge needed to appoint a guardian ad litem, the prolonged pain Drew experienced every day of his life, the agony his mother felt, how he told her to leave the room, Bach’s cantatas, the orange roses, the peace after so much suffering, the silence afterwards.

Rafael was sensible, pragmatic, he knew what the law and the potential repercussions of his actions. You didn’t necessarily agree with what he did, but you understood why he did it. Tears ran down your cheeks as you listened, holding him even tighter, whispering that everything was going to be ok over and over again. It was the only thing you could do as the two of you cried together in the dark.

***

The next morning you slipped out of bed, not wanting to disturb Rafael. After a long and restless night, he had finally managed to fall asleep. Sipping on your coffee, you sat at the breakfast bar while typing an email when he came into the kitchen.

“Hi,” you softly smiled at him. “How are you feeling?”

He didn’t respond, choosing instead to pour himself a cup of coffee. You watched as he sipped from his Harvard Law mug while flipping through the New York Times. It was unsettling, the way he was acting as if nothing happened the night before.

“I told my boss I would be out today,” you said. “I thought we could talk, spend the day together. Maybe figure out what the next steps are.”

Rafael set the paper down, moving to rinse out his mug in the sink. “I can’t. I have a meeting at the D.A.’s office and then I’m going to meet that lawyer, Dworkin. He defended Byron Marks, the rapist Fin tracked down in Cuba. He’s repugnant, but I think he’ll be a good lawyer to represent me if they plan to indict.”

You stared at him, your mouth agape, hearing him talk about picking a defense attorney to represent him as casually as if he were debating whether to wear his polka dotted suspenders or striped ones. “Can I at least come with you? We can talk to Dworkin together.”

He shook his head, giving you a chaste peck on the cheek. “Thanks for the offer, but I should go on my own.” He walked down the hallway, calling over his shoulder, “I won’t be late.”

You sat there for a minute before walking into the bedroom, Rafael was already in the shower. You bit your lip, your hand hovering over the doorknob to the bathroom, wanting nothing more than to burst right in and demand he talk to you. With a sigh, you dropped your hand and walked to the closet to get dressed, unable to muster the courage. “Maybe he needs some time to process everything?” You thought as you picked out an outfit. “He’ll be fine. We’ll get through this together.”

***

It had been a rough month. Rafael had been placed on administrative leave by the D.A.’s office until the trial. If he wasn’t wandering around the apartment aimlessly, he would be out working with Dworkin on his case or meeting with Olivia, always keeping you at arm’s length. He had completely shut you out. Apart from the polite exchange of pleasantries and small talk, he would say nothing more to you about how he was feeling. Now with the trial only a week away, the tension was palpable, hanging heavy in the air.

Hoping to relieve some of that tension, you thought a night out would help your boyfriend let loose and forget about his troubles. Tonight the law firm you worked at was hosting its annual charity dinner. You and Rafael always attended, drinking and socializing. You were considered the “It” couple, the sharp tongued, handsome ADA and the gorgeous human rights lawyer.

Rafael aimlessly flipped through channels, waiting for you to get dressed. “Y/N, are you almost ready? We’re going to be late.”

“I’ll be right there,” you shouted from the bedroom.

He sighed and turned off the TV, hearing a rustling of paper beside him. Looking down, he spied a newspaper stuck between two couch cushions. He grabbed the paper only to see a picture of him standing on the courthouse steps surrounded by reporters, his face grim and solemn. Above the picture was a title that read, “ADA Murder Trial in One Week.” Rafael audibly swallowed as he skimmed the article. He took a deep breath, trying to calm his nerves and keep his hands from shaking even more than they already were.

You came upon the scene and froze, silently cursing yourself for not throwing away that damn newspaper. Nervously shifting from foot to foot, you cleared your throat to get his attention, “I’m ready.”

He looked back and gave you a tight smile, getting up to grab his coat. You gripped his arm, pulling him back to you. “Ya know, we don’t have to go tonight,” you said, adjusting his bow tie. “We could just cancel. Stay in, relax, get naked,” you purred, kissing his jaw. Although sex was the furthest thing from your mind, at least it would be some sort of connection with Rafael.

“No, it’s ok. We should go,” he turned towards the door, leaving you no choice but to follow him.

***

You sipped on your wine, making small talk with Gary, your paralegal, catching Rafael’s eye from across the room as he sat at your table, drinking his scotch. Throughout the evening, he tried to avoid talking or being around as many people as possible, afraid that someone would bring up the trial.

As the band began to play soft music, you were finally able to tear yourself away from Gary and make your way back to your boyfriend. “So tell me, what’s a girl gotta do to steal a dance with the sexiest man in the room?”

Rafael chuckled, tipping his glass, watching the amber liquid tilt and catch the light of the candles on the table. “Not sure. Why don’t you ask him?”

“Please, baby. Dance with me,” you pouted your lips, looking at him with big doe eyes as you batted your lashes.

For the first time in weeks, he smiled a real smile at you, his eyes happy and light. A warmth spread through your body when he smiled at you like that, shooting straight through your heart. “Sure,” he offered his hand to you. He couldn’t say no to you if he tried. Once on the dance floor, he gripped your waist, holding you close, your bodies swaying to the music.

You looked into his hypnotic green eyes, running your fingers through the hair at the nape of his neck, “Thanks for coming with me tonight. I couldn’t be here without you by my side,”

“Always, cariño,” he softly said. You blushed, the room fading away, leaving only you and him. No trial, no pain, no fear, just two people who loved each other.

“Y/N!” Gary called out to you. You softly groaned, unhappy that your perfect moment was interrupted.

Your paralegal walked over to you and Rafael, “Y/N, they need all the partners for pictures right now.”

“Ok, I’ll be right there,” you replied before looking at Rafael, “I’ll be one minute.”

“Take your time,” he said.

As Gary pulled you off the dance floor, you looked back at your boyfriend playfully rolling your eyes. He smiled and went back to the table, watching as the photographer snapped pictures of you and the older partners along with various members of charity organizations. You were the youngest member of your law firm to be made partner. He was so proud of your accomplishments. From the moment he met you, Rafael knew you were destined for great things.

“Hey! I know you!” said a voice by the bar. Rafael turned his head and saw one of your co-workers drunk, stumbling towards him. “You’re the guy who killed that baby!” The man slapped him on the back, “Damn! Let me get you a drink. Gotta live it up now. You may be put away for murder in a few weeks,” he laughed, finishing the last of his drink.

The ADA stiffened, nervously glancing around to make sure no one else was paying attention. “Excuse me, I have to go,” he abruptly got up from his chair, tugging at his bowtie which seemed to be too tight. He left the room in need of fresh air, looking back at you one last time before leaving.

***

The ride home was silent. After the pictures were taken and you had finally found Rafael, he asked if you could leave, practically pushing you out the door, not answering any of your questions. When you got back, he walked into the apartment, making a beeline for the scotch.

You gritted your teeth. Like pot that had been ignored and bubbled over, you had reached your boiling point. “Alright, enough!” You stomped over to him, snatching the scotch from his hand and downing it in one big swig. Rafael stared at you, completely stunned. You slammed the empty glass down, “I can’t stand this silence anymore, it’s driving me crazy. You’ve been walking around here like a zombie for weeks.” You pinched the bridge of your nose before reaching out and placing his hands in yours, “Rafi, por favor, mi amor. Talk to me, please.”

“Why are you still here?” He mumbled, stepping away from you.

“What?”

“I said, why are you still here,” he repeated a little louder.

“What do you mean, why am I here?! This is my home, Rafael. You are my home,” you placed your hand over his chest where his heart laid, beating against your palm.

He pushed your hand away, “Well I’ve got news for you, your home is broken. I can’t be your home anymore.”

You vehemently shook your head, cupping his face in your hands, “You are not broken. I know you don’t mean that. I love you. We love each other.”

He scoffed, “You love me? Are you going to love me when I go to jail and you have to visit me through 6 inches of plate glass,” he laughed but there was no humor behind it.

His words stung as if he doubted your love for him. As if he thought that you would abandon him during one of the hardest moments of his life. “Rafi...I--”

“Have you seen the papers!?” He interjected. “I’m a murderer, a monster. I know what they think when they see us. Here’s Y/N, youngest partner at her law firm and oh there’s her boyfriend, he went to trial for murdering a baby.”

“Is this about tonight? Did something happen?”

“It’s not just tonight!” He exclaimed causing you to flinch. “It’s every day! This trial, my actions, they will always be over your head. Is that how you want to live your life?”

“I don’t care about that! None of that matters to me! All that matters is you and me. You are NOT the man they say you are!” You shouted before winding your arms around him, although he didn’t hug you back. He stood there like a statue, knowing if he were to return your embrace, he would breakdown in your arms. You inhaled deeply, smelling his cologne mixed that familiar scent that was Rafael, your tears wetting his dress shirt. “I know you, not them and I’m telling you that I don’t care what happens or what you did. I will love you and be there for you no matter what.”

Unwrapping his arms from around you, he grabbed your hand, leading you to the door. “Get out,” he softly said.

You raised your eyebrows in surprise, “Excuse me?”

“You heard me. Get out,” he growled. “I’m not going to stand here and watch you ruin your life.” There was a silent stare down between you both, waiting for the other person to make the next move. “Get out!” He barked.

“No. I’m not going to do that, Rafael,” you whispered. “You need me, we need each other, that’s the only way we will survive this.”

“Get out,” he said in a dangerously low tone. You stood there, rooted to the spot, refusing to leave. “Fine, if you won’t leave, then I will,” he turned and left, slamming the door behind him so hard the walls vibrated.

***

Letting out a shaky breath you didn’t realize you had been holding in, you silently made your way back to the couch. You curled up in a ball and wept, waiting for Rafael to come home, waiting for him to come back to you.

You cried for hours after he left, eventually falling asleep on the couch. Only to be woken up by the loud ADA clumsily stumbling into your home. “Raf,” you croaked out, sitting up to turn on a lamp.

Rafael came into the room, a big cheesy smile planted on his face, his bowtie undone, hair askew. “There she is! The woman that just doesn’t quit. All my other failed relationships, they all left, but not you, because you are stubborn,” he pointed to you and giggled. “Almost as stubborn as me...almost.”

He tripped over his own feet, trying to get closer to you, nearly falling over on the coffee table in the process. “Have you been drinking?” You asked.

“Now I see why they give you the big bucks. You don’t miss a trick,” he said with a wink, his body swaying from side to side, the man was snarky even while intoxicated.

You got up and went over to him, gently trying to lead him to the bedroom. Although herding cats seemed like a much easier mission than putting a drunk Rafael to bed. “Come on, mi amor,” you took his hands and led him down the hall. “Let’s go to bed.”

He leaned over, placing his body weight, on you, pinning you up against the wall as he sloppily kissed down your neck, the sharp ethanol smell of whiskey on his breath stinging your nostrils, “Mmmm if I go to jail, maybe they’ll let us have conjugal visits. What do you think?” He slurred against the hollow of your throat. “Think the boss will let you off work early to fuck me in one of those teeny tiny trailers.”

He pulled back, his eyes going wide, “Ooo will you smuggle contraband in for me like good coffee and a law book that has a toothbrush turned into a shiv hidden in the pages.”

“Shhh, we’ll talk about that later,” you replied. Finally you both made it the bedroom. By the time you had stripped him of his clothes, you felt like you had just run a marathon. “I need to work out more,” you mumbled, wiping the sweat off your brow.

After placing a glass of water and two ibuprofen by his side of the bed, you laid down, Rafael immediately curling up against you.

“Y/N,” he choked out. “I’m scared.”

You rubbed soothing circles into his back. “I know. I’m scared too, but we’ll get through this together,” you whispered. “Just rest, baby.”

The next morning, you reached a hand out, still half asleep, expecting to find the warmth of your boyfriend’s body next to you. Instead you were greeted by cold rumpled sheets.

“Rafael?” You sleepily mumbled, sniffing the air in search of the coffee he usually made, only to find nothing. Getting out of bed, you padded down the hall, the apartment was still dark and eerily calm. Then you saw it, a slip of paper next to a framed picture of you and him smiling and laughing at happier times. As you read the short note, you could feel your heart drop down to your stomach.

I’m so sorry, mi amor. I’m doing this for your own good. You deserve someone better than me. I’ve already destroyed my life, my career. I can’t stand the thought of taking you down with me. I love you. -Raf

The letter slipped from your fingers, wafting down to land at your feet. You immediately grabbed your phone, calling Rafael’s number only to hear his voicemail on the other line.

@obfuscateyummy @southern-magnolia @eclecticminded @glimmerglittergirl @katmstanton @beltzboys2015-blog @letty-o @sonnysdoll @lyssa1385 @sweetsummertime99 @burningsorr0ws @gibbs274 @izzythefanfreak @riodallas @sweetcannolicarisi @babypink224221 @amirightcounsellor @livxrafa @delia26

[creepingsharia]

Thanksgiving on the Net: Roast Bull with Cranberry Sauce

Debunking revisionist history about Thanksgiving. Take the time to read it all, print it,  and share it with your children no matter what age they are.

EDITORS NOTE: Due to the length of this article it has been presented here in three (3) parts. You may access the other pages by clicking the links at the bottom of this page or from the 'Related Links' section in the right column of the page.

http://www.sail1620.org/discover_feature_thanksgiving_on_the_net_roast_bull_with_cranberry_sauce_part_1.shtml

Thanksgiving on the Net:  Roast Bull with Cranberry Sauce Part 1

by Jeremy D. Bangs

Jeremy Bangs (Ph.D., Leiden University), a Fellow of the Pilgrim Society, is Director of the Leiden American Pilgrim Museum, having previously been Visiting Curator of Manuscripts at Pilgrim Hall Museum, Chief Curator at Plimoth Plantation, and Curator of the Leiden Pilgrim Documents Center. Among his books are "Pilgrim Edward Winslow: New England's First International Diplomat" (2004); "Indian Deeds, Land Transactions in Plymouth Colony, 1620-1691" (2002); and "The Seventeenth-Century Town Records of Scituate, Massachusetts" (3 vols, 1997-1999-2001), all published by the New England Historic Genealogical Society. He has written many articles about the Pilgrims and Plymouth Colony, and is currently completing the manuscript of a book about the Pilgrims and Leiden. He was awarded the Distinguished Mayflower Scholarship Award by the Society of Mayflower Descendants in the Commonwealth of PA in 2001. Bangs is among a small, select number of historians of the Pilgrims (those who have no family relation to them whatsoever!). He has also published articles and books on Dutch history and art history of the 16th and 17th centuries.

Setting people straight about Thanksgiving myths has become as much a part of the annual holiday as turkey, cranberry sauce, and pumpkin pie. But should historians bother? Jane Kamensky, a professor of history at Brandeis, thinks not. She asks on the website "Common-Place" (in 2001) whether it's worth while "to plumb the bottom of it all - to determine, for example, [...] whether Plymouth's 'Pilgrims' were indeed the grave-robbing hypocrites that UAINE describes [i.e. United American Indians of New England]. [...] Was the 'first Thanksgiving' merely a pretext for bloodshed, enslavement, and displacement that would follow in later decades? Combing period documents and archaeological evidence, we might peel away some of the myths [...] But to do so would be to miss a fundamental point of these holidays. [...] in this new millenium, these sacred secular rites are once again pressed into service - this time by new nations, with new visions of the present, to be reached through new versions of the past. In place of one origins myth, the inventors of Indigenous Peoples' Day [intended to replace Columbus Day] and the National Day of Mourning [intended to replace Thanksgiving Day] invoke another. One in which all Europeans were villains and all Natives, victims. One in which indigenous peoples knew neither strife nor war until the treachery of Columbus and his cultural heirs taught them to hate and fear. To ask whether this is true is to ask the wrong question. It's true to its purposes. Every bit as true, that is, as the stories some Americans in 1792 and 1863 told about the events of 1492 and 1621. And that's all it needs to be. For these holidays say much less about who we really were in some specific Then, than about who we want to be in an ever changing Now."

"And that's all it needs to be"? I disagree. I think that anyone who wants to approach the question of Thanksgiving Day as a historian in the "ever changing Now" will need to ask "the wrong question" - what of all this is true?

Surveying more than two hundred websites that "correct" our assumptions about Thanksgiving, it's possible to sort them into groups and themes, especially since internet sites often parrot each other. Very few present anything like the myths that most claim to combat. Almost all of the corrections are themselves incorrect or banal, and otherwise not germane to the topic of what happened in 1621. With heavy self-importance they demonstrate quite unsurprisingly that what was once commonly taught in grade school lacked scope, subtlety, and minority insight. The political posturing is pathetic.

Commonly the first point scored is that lots of people gave thanks before the Pilgrims did it in 1621. Local boosters in Virginia, Florida, and Texas promote their own colonists, who (like many people getting off a boat) gave thanks for setting foot again on dry land. Several sites claim that Indians had six thanksgivings every year; at least one says that every day, every act, every thought was carried out with thanksgiving by pre-contact Indians. (My thanksgiving is bigger than your thanksgiving?) Among many examples:

* http://www.new-life.net/thanks01.htm

* http://www.oyate.org/resources/shortthanks.html

The Text

Many sites point out in a rankly naive sort of way that only one brief documentary account records Plymouth Colony's 1621 harvest festivities, the specific descriptive words of Edward Winslow, while additional information can be derived from the seasonal comments of William Bradford, who mentioned that the Pilgrims ate turkey among other things. See, for example, Pilgrim Hall Museum's website, which is consistently informative and of high scholarly quality:

Reporting on the colonists' first year, Winslow wrote that wheat and Indian corn had grown well; the barley crop was "indifferently good"; but pease were "not worth the gathering." Winslow continues: "Our harvest being gotten in, our Governor sent foure men on fowling; so that we might after a more speciall manner rejoyce together, after we had gathered the fruit of our labours. They foure in one day killed as much fowle as, with a little help besid, served the company almost a weeke. At which time amongst other Recreations, we exercised our Armes, many of the Indians coming amongst us, and amongst the rest their greatest King Massasoyt, with some nintie men, whom for three days we entertained and feasted. And they went out and killed five deere, which they brought to the plantation and bestowed on our Governour, and upon the Captaine and others. And although it be not alwayes so plentifull, as it was at this time, with us, yet by goodnesse of God, we are so farre from want, that we often wish you partakers of our plentie."[1]

Governor William Bradford, in Of Plymouth Plantation, reported that fishing had been good all summer, and, in the fall, "begane to come in store of foule, as winter approached [...] And besides water foule, ther was great store of wild Turkies, of which they tooke many, besids venison, etc."[2]

Archaeologist James Deetz made much of the fact that Winslow did not name the turkeys Bradford mentioned.

This startling revelation (that in this case one should ignore Bradford's general comments and suppose that Winslow was providing a complete menu listing) recurs in various websites, such as the 2002 article posted by the Christian Science Monitor.

More frequently repeated is Deetz's emphatic reminder that Winslow did not use the word "thanksgiving" - drawing the conclusion that therefore the 1621 event was not a thanksgiving but some sort of traditional English harvest festival he characterized as "secular."

I've discussed this oversimplification previously in an previous article.

Further, see "Re-bunking the Pilgrims" [subscribers]

On the one hand, whatever their folk customs may have been, harvest festivals in England with which the Pilgrims had been familiar were not "secular." (The Elizabethan and Jacobean-period Anglican Book of Common Prayer included an obligatory harvest thanksgiving prayer among the prayers whose use was increasingly enforced in the early seventeenth century.) On the other, Winslow's description includes biblical phrases referring to texts whose completion includes thanksgiving (particularly John 4:36 and Psalm 33). Winslow's contemporaries, unlike modern archaeologists, caught the meaning of the full texts to which he alluded. They knew their Bible.

But Deetz's assertion that there was no thanksgiving in 1621 is repeated in numerous websites. Often authors explain that what took place was so unlike later Puritan thanksgivings that it couldn't have been a true thanksgiving (usually citing, for the definition of what that would have been, William DeLoss Love, The Fast and Thanksgiving Days of New England (Boston, New York: Houghton and Mifflin, 1895), a book whose title alone seems to have inspired the common web article notion that in New England people fasted as an _expression of thanksgiving). For example, in "Top 10 Myths About Thanksgiving,' Rick Shenkman announces that Thanksgiving was not about religion.

Had it been, he says, "the Pilgrims never would have invited the Indians to join them. Besides, the Pilgrims would never have tolerated festivities at a true religious event. Indeed, what we think of as Thanksgiving was really a harvest festival. Actual 'Thanksgivings' were religious affairs; everybody spent the day praying. Incidentally, these Pilgrim Thanksgivings occurred at different times of the year, not just in November."

Responding to this in reverse order: (1) that Thanksgivings were not limited to November does not mean that the first one held by the colonists in Plymouth (which incidentally was presumably in September or early October) was not a thanksgiving. (2) The modern idea that in a religious thanksgiving "everyone spent the day praying" is inconsistent with the only description of the specific activities of a definitely identified thanksgiving day in early Plymouth Colony - the thanksgiving held in Scituate in 1636 when a religious service was followed by feasting. (See my book The Seventeenth-Century Town Records of Scituate, Massachusetts (Boston: NEHGS, 2001), vol. 3, p. 513.) (3) That "what we think of as Thanksgiving was really a harvest festival" (as if that meant it could not have been a thanksgiving) repeats Deetz's incorrect opinion that an English harvest festival was non-religious or even irreligious. (4) That the Pilgrims "would never have tolerated festivities at a true religious event" presumes a narrow definition of what a true religious event was before arriving through circular argument at a denial that what the Pilgrims did was such an event, because it differed from the axiomatic definition. (Ever been to a midwestern church picnic? Did tossing horseshoes and playing softball make it non-religious?) (5) As is repeatedly demonstrated by the writings of the Pilgrims' minister John Robinson, the Pilgrims attempted to pattern their religious activities according to biblical precedent. The precedent for a harvest festival was the Old Testament Feast of Tabernacles, Sukkoth (Deut. 16: 13-14). This harvest festival (as described in the 1560 Geneva translation of the Bible, used by the Pilgrims) was established to last "seuen daies, when thou hast gathered in thy corne, and thy wine. And thou shalt reioyce in thy feast, thou, and they sonne, and thy daughter, and thy servant, and thy maid, and the Levite and the stranger, and the fatherles, and the widow, that are within thy gates." The biblical injunction to include the "stranger" probably accounts for the Pilgrims' inviting their Native neighbors to rejoice with them, although Winslow does not explicitly say anything about invitation. Besides Sukkoth, the Pilgrims' experience of a Reformed Protestant thanksgiving every year in Leiden probably contributed to what they considered appropriate. Leiden's October 3 festivities commemorated the lifting of the Siege of Leiden in 1574, when half the town had died (an obvious parallel with the experience of the Pilgrims in the winter of 1620-21). Lasting ten days, the first Leiden event was a religious service of thanksgiving and prayer, followed by festivities that included meals, military exercises, games, and a free fair. To summarize, the common assumption that the Pilgrims' 1621 event should be judged against the forms taken by later Puritan thanksgivings - whether or not those are even correctly understood - overlooks the circumstance that the Pilgrims did not have those precedents when they attempted something new, intentionally based not on old English tradition but on biblical and Reformed example.

Shenkman has not invented these views. Attempts to be accurate frequently make the same assumptions. For example, the History Channel states that, "the colonists didn't even call the day Thanksgiving. To them, a thanksgiving was a religious holiday in which they would go to church and thank God for a specific event, such as the winning of a battle. On such a religious day, the types of recreational activities that the pilgrims and Wampanoag Indians participated in during the 1621 harvest feast - dancing, singing secular songs, playing games - wouldn't have been allowed. The feast was a secular celebration, so it never would have been considered a thanksgiving in the pilgrims minds."

The identical text is copied without credit on the webpage of the International Student & Scholar Programs of Emory University:

It's worth pointing out that Winslow says nothing about "dancing, singing secular songs, [or] playing games." Those might be intended among Winslow's general term "recreations," but to specify and cite them as proof that the Pilgrims' day was "a secular celebration" is over-reaching.

Thanking Whom?

Assuming the nature of the festival was non-religious, some sites proclaim that there was a thanksgiving, but that the Pilgrims were not thanking God. Instead they were thanking the Indians for the help that had contributed to the colonists� survival during the first year. For example, "Rumela Web" says, "The Pilgrims of Plymouth Rock held their Thanksgiving in 1621 as a three day 'thank you' celebration to the leaders of the Wampanoag Indian tribe and their families for teaching them the survival skills they needed to make it in the New World."

A site that provides Thanksgiving Day recipes and menus says, "The Pilgrims invited the Native Americans to a feast to thank them for all they had learned."

Another site [member account required] provides a psychological analysis: "Not only was this festival a way to thank the Wampanoag, but it also served to boost the morale of the remaining settlers."

Such redirection of the thanks is consistent with the modern assessment expressed in "The Truth about the First Thanksgiving," by James Loewen, "Settlement proceeded, not with God's help, but with the Indians'."

We think the Pilgrims should have thanked the Indians. Nonetheless, while most modern historians explain events without dependence on providential intervention, it is still inaccurate to bend the evidence to suggest that the Pilgrims' attitude was not predominantly providential, and did not result in thanks to God for help received from the Indians.

Bending evidence, plus inventing details found in no historical source, is not a monopoly of the secular interpretation. For example, Kathryn Capoccia's online Sunday School lesson, "American Thanksgiving Celebrations," displays an incredibly imaginative disregard for historical evidence:

"Two weeks before the celebration was to take place a proclamation was issued stating that a harvest festival was to be held, which would be preceded by a special religious service and would be open to both Separatist church members and nonmembers. Everyone was urged to publicly offer gratitude for God's provision. The invitation was also extended to chief Massasoit." [...] "In response to the invitation Massasoit appeared in camp with three braves. Two days later he was joined by ninety other braves who provided five deer, a flock of geese, fifteen swordfish and small sweet apples for the celebration. The ceremonies began on the last morning of the festival [sic] with a worship service led by Elder Brewster. Then ground sports, such as foot racing and wrestling were held, as well as knife throwing contests. The settlers demonstrated musket drilling and shot a cannon volley. Then the feasting began in mid-afternoon at the fort. Everyone was seated in the open at long tables. At the end of the meal the settlers toasted the Indians as friends. The adults exchanged gifts with each other: Massasoit was given a bolt of cloth by Bradford, the warriors received cooking pots and colored beads in strings. The Indians reciprocated with a beaver cloak for Bradford and several freshly killed deer that could be smoked and stored for winter. The Indians presented the children with lumps of candy made from sugar extracted from wild beet plants. When the ceremonies were completed Elder Brewster quoted the Bible as a benediction, 'I thank my God upon every remembrance of you'". This level of fabrication is rare. It recalls the oratory of a century ago, that inspired the balloon-pricking emotions of countless would-be debunkers.

Colored Clothes, No Buckled Hats! My Goodness!

Similarly disconnected from Winslow's version are the common corrections to misconceptions about Pilgrim costume. Numerous sites let us know that the Pilgrims did not always wear black, and some even assert excitedly that it is important that we know about this discovery.

Timothy Walch, writing for History News Services, says, "Finally, it's important to dispel one last Thanksgiving myth — that the Pilgrims dressed in black and white clothing, wore pointed hats and starched bonnets and favored buckles on their shoes. It's true that they dressed in black on Sundays; but on most days, including the first Thanksgiving, they dressed in white, beige, black, green and brown." Surprisingly, Walch talks about buckles on shoes, instead of the common cartoon iconography of buckles on hats (itself an anachronism derived from a brief fashion in the 1790's). While Walch's point about color in workday clothing is true, I'm not sure it can come as a surprise to very many people. Nowadays most illustrations show Pilgrims in multi-colored clothing, often using photographs of the colorful actors at Plimoth Plantation. Even children now in their thirties will have learned about the Pilgrims from pictures showing varie-colored clothing. It wasn't always that way (cheaper books once were restricted to monochrome illustrations), but none of the websites gives a good explanation of the origin of the stereotype - the error is paraded simply as yet another example of inherited ignorance.

Only one genuine portrait of a Pilgrim exists - that of Edward Winslow (now in Pilgrim Hall Museum). Painted in 1651 in London, where Winslow acted as a diplomat representing the interests of New England colonies before various government committees, it shows him dressed appropriately in the very expensive black formal wear that most Pilgrims could not afford. From his portrait, as well as from other 17th-century portraits (that tended to show rich people) history painters of the early 19th century derived some ideas of costume. But they did not restrict their research to portraits of the rich, they also looked at pictures of common people in Dutch genre paintings. In romantic visions of historical scenes, the 19th-century history painters showed Pilgrim leaders in black, but others in a variety of colors. None of the dozen or so history paintings on Pilgrim themes at Pilgrim Hall Museum (the foremost collection) shows the Pilgrims uniformly in black - most wear scarlet, russet, green, ochre, grey, blue, or brown.

However, 19th century Americans became familiar with the Pilgrims through black and white stereoptype engravings, not paintings. At the same time, black clothing had become cheaper to produce and was expected for Sunday-best attire, not just among the wealthy. It was easy to imagine that the Pilgrim leaders as seen in black-and-white engravings were dressed in a way that was nearly familiar.

And, yes, they did call themselves "Pilgrims."

Almost as frequent as remarks about the color of their clothes are the website assertions that these colonists did not call themselves "Pilgrims." James Loewen, in "The Truth About the First Thanksgiving," writes that "no one even called them 'Pilgrims' until the 1870s."

This sort of belief is derived from a common misconception that because the manuscript of William Bradford's journal "Of Plymouth Plantation" was lost from the late 18th until the mid 19th century, no one was familiar, until the rediscovery, with his famous phrase, "They knew they were Pilgrims." The discovery of that phrase is thought to have appealed strongly to the Victorian imagination and to have led to the term "Pilgrims" as a designation for the Plymouth colonists. Bradford, however, was not the first to apply the name in print to these colonists - that was Robert Cushman in 1622 (in the book now called Mourt's Relation). Bradford's own words were excerpted and published by Nathaniel Morton in New England's Memorial, first printed in 1669 (and reprinted in 1721, 1772, and twice in 1826). The term Pilgrim, never forgotten, was used repeatedly in the later 18th century and throughout the 19th century, at celebrations in Plymouth that attracted attention throughout New England if not farther. If Mr. Loewen thinks the word "Pilgrim" was not applied to these people before the 1870's, one wonders what he thinks the local worthies of Plymouth were doing when in 1820 they founded the Pilgrim Society.

The Plymouth colonists considered themselves and all other earnest Christians to be on an earthly pilgrimage to a heavenly goal. Most of them were serious about their faith and puzzled by the presence among them of a few who demonstratively were not. Referring to themselves in that context they used the New Testament image expressed in print by Robert Cushman in 1622: "But now we are all in all places strangers and pilgrims, travelers and sojourners [...]" The full Bible citation, which these people knew and recognized as a text that gave re-assuring self-identification, was this (Hebrews 11:13-16, Geneva translation, 1560):

"All these dyed in the faith, and receiued not the promises, but sawe them a farre of[f], and beleued them, and receiued them thankefully, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrimes on the earth. For they that say suche things, declare plainely that they seke a countrey. And if they had bene mindeful of that countrey, from whence they came out, they had leasure to haue returned. But now they desire a better, that is an heauenlie: wherefore God is not ashamed of them to be called their God: for he hathe prepared for them a citie."

The foregoing unifying phrase - strangers and pilgrims on the earth - is misunderstood as a dichotomy in George Willison's book Saints and Strangers (New York: Reynall & Hitchcock, 1945). Willison�s Hegelian analysis of Pilgrim history as a conflict between religious fanatics he calls "saints" and disinterested, economically motivated opponents to them, whom he identifies as "strangers," has become a rarely questioned presumed truth, never doubted on the internet. It is basic to Willison's dismissive interpretation of the Mayflower Compact as an instrument of minority control. For Willison, the dialectical tension was resolved by a happy synthesis that bore similarities to the democratic triumph of the American common man over tyranny at the end of World War II. Willison was speaking to people who saw themselves in his description of the Pilgrims, as people who "were valiantly engaged [...] in a desperate struggle for a better order of things, for a more generous measure of freedom for all men, for a higher and nobler conception of life based upon recognition of the intrinsic worth and dignity of the individual." Stirring words, they introduce Willison�s description of the process of conflict that was for him the meaning of being a Pilgrim.

For the Pilgrims themselves, in specific contexts other identifying terms were useful. In their application to move to Leiden, they said they were members of the Christian Reformed religion - thus indicating that they were the sort of people Leiden wanted as immigrants. Distinguishing themselves from Puritans who stayed in the Church of England, they called themselves Separatists. In New England, for legal purposes connected with rights to distribution of the common property and land, the colonists referred to anyone who had arrived before the 1627 division as "Old Comers" or "First Comers." Their general self-identification, however, was "pilgrims" in the New Testament sense. Their first use of the term in America is seen in the name given the first child born in the colony - Peregrine White. "Peregrine" comes from the Latin peregrinus meaning "pilgrim" or "stranger."

[1]Mourt's Relation, published in cooperation with Plimoth Plantation by Applewood Books, Bedford MA, Edited by Dwight B. Heath from the original text of 1622 and copyright 1963 by Dwight B. Heath, p. 82.

[2]Of Plymouth Plantation 1620-1647 by William Bradford. A new edition by Samuel Eliot Morison; First published Sept. 19, 1952; 21st printing Jan. 2001, p. 90.

Thanksgiving on the Net:  Roast Bull with Cranberry Sauce Part 2

The Fake Thanksgiving Proclamation of 1623

The invented secular harvest festival augmented by the redirection of thanks towards the Indians and the assertion that "Pilgrims" was a name not used by the colonists, has become widely accepted. What's to be done? Fake it! Instead of simply pointing out that this version of the past fails to account for the Pilgrims' habitual piety and is thoroughly inconsistent with the documentary evidence, someone has felt it necessary to invent a document that replaces the 1621 purported non-thanksgiving with a celebration that does include all the sentiments and specifications that Winslow's description lacks. Many websites whose authors would like to maintain an emphasis on the Pilgrims' religious attitudes to support their own, quite different convictions now tell a fake story instead.

The cute text, widely circulated on internet sites (or excerpted, for example), is: "William Bradford's Thanksgiving Proclamation (1623)

Inasmuch as the great Father has given us this year an abundant harvest of Indian corn, wheat, peas, beans, squashes, and garden vegetables, and has made the forests to abound with game and the sea with fish and clams, and inasmuch as he has protected us from the ravages of the savages, has spared us from pestilence and disease, has granted us freedom to worship God according to the dictates of our own conscience.

Now I, your magistrate, do proclaim that all ye Pilgrims, with your wives and ye little ones, do gather at ye meeting house, on ye hill, between the hours of 9 and 12 in the day time, on Thursday, November 29th, of the year of our Lord one thousand six hundred and twenty-three and the third year since ye Pilgrims landed on ye Pilgrim Rock, there to listen to ye pastor and render thanksgiving to ye Almighty God for all His blessings.

— William Bradford Ye Governor of Ye Colony"

["Ravages of the savages" indeed! Ye, ye, ye, ye!]

This is demonstrably spurious, as my friend Jim Baker pointed out in 1999. His remarks are repeated by various people - usually without credit to Baker - Dennis Rupert, for example.

The false proclamation does not appear in any 17th-century source - not in Bradford, not in Winslow, not in Morton's New England's Memorial, not anywhere. Internal evidence suggests it is a 20th-century fraud. No mention of Plymouth Rock exists before it was pointed out in the mid-18th century, and the term "great Father" (for God) is a 19th-century romantic quasi-Native term that Bradford never used in his acknowledged writings. There are further anachronisms. For example, in 1623 there was no pastor in Plymouth Colony. Pastor John Robinson was still in Leiden, so services were led by the deacon, Elder William Brewster. William Bradford never referred to himself as "your magistrate" in years when he was governor. Bradford dated documents "in the year of our Lord" - sometimes adding the year of the monarch's reign. He never referred to landing on Plymouth Rock (not even as "Pilgrim Rock") and certainly did not use it as a date-base. The Pilgrims did not imagine themselves as seeking "freedom to worship God according to the dictates of our own conscience." They wanted freedom to worship according to their interpretation of biblical commands, which they thought was exclusively correct - and correct externally to any dictates of their own consciences. Finally, it's amusing that the 29th of November 1623 (Old Style) was not a Thursday but a Saturday (according to the tables in H. Grotefend's Taschenbuch der Zeitrechnung des Deutschen Mittelalters und der Neuzeit (ed. Th. Ulrich, Hannover: Hahnsche Buchhandlung, 1960).

While it is often impossible to locate the ancient origin of such internet myths, this fraud is relatively recent. Samuel Eliot Morison was unaware of it when editing Bradford's Of Plymouth Plantation (New York: Knopf, 1952); Eugene Aubrey Stratton does not mention it in his Plymouth Colony, Its History & People, 1620-1691 (Salt Lake City: Ancestry Publishing, 1986). I have not discovered whether it appears anywhere before it made its way into William J. Federer's America's God and Country: An Encyclopedia of Quotations (Coppel, TX: Fame, 1994) and the source Federer gives - David Barton's The Myth of Separation (Aledo TX: Wallbuilder Press, 1991), p. 86. The text has been dropped from recent editions of Barton's book, but that doesn't put an end to repetition of the nonsense, especially on internet sites. A request to David Barton for information on this remains unanswered. On Barton's historical inventiveness, see:

Rob Boston, "Sects, Lies and Videotape: Who Is David Barton, And Why Is He Saying Such Awful Things About Separation of Church And State?" (Originally published in Church & State, 46, Nr. 4, April 1993, pp. 8-12).

Rob Boston, "David Barton's 'Christian Nation' Myth Factory Admits Its Products Have Been Defective." (Originally published in Church & State, 49, No. 7, July/August 1996, pp. 11-13).

Jim Allison, "An Index to Factual Information About David Barton And His Books".

Nicholas P. Miller, "Wallbuilders or Mythbuilders".

That people stressing the religious attitude of the Pilgrims use this invented 1623 "Thanksgiving Proclamation" is ironic. They might have been satisfied with the truth. The 1621 event did express the Pilgrims' religious attitude of thankfulness for God's providence and therefore should be adequate for their modern purposes. Moreover, in the summer of 1623 the Pilgrims held another special day of thanksgiving to God when they considered that their prayers for rain were answered, a drought ended, and their crops were saved. It wasn't in November and no stirring proclamation is preserved. Yet the "secular" interpretive ignorance that denies that the 1621 event was a thanksgiving had triumphed to the extent that someone from among the fundamentally disgruntled must have thought it clever to fight back. It is another question entirely, what the relation of the Pilgrims' religious attitude bears to modern understanding, that would make it urgent to use faked evidence to prove the Pilgrims were thanking God. Obviously the Pilgrims were religious - but what has this to do with anything other than an honest understanding of the past? Their religiosity scarcely provides support for any particular doctrinal viewpoint now; and no one is likely to become religious because it has been proven that the Pilgrims were.

Bartonis interest is to paint a picture of America as a particular sort of Christian nation since the beginning of its colonization. To make the Pilgrims even more religious than is indicated by their own words is dishonest. Removing the spurious quotation is a commendable step in the right direction. Considering that the Pilgrims interpreted their religion to mean that the Christian community bore responsibility to treat the Indians with respect and legal equality (see my book Indian Deeds, Land Transactions in Plymouth Colony, 1620-1699 (Boston: NEHGS, 2002)); noticing that the Pilgrims' laws proclaim that the community bore responsibility for the care of widows, orphans, the poor, and the infirm; and discovering that the Pilgrims' minister John Robinson argued in favor of cautious religious toleration and asserted that the church had no special authority over the magistrate, which he said was required to deal equitably with non-believers as well as believers, I'd be happy to see such Christian principles applied to modern America. Good luck to Mr. Barton and his colleagues in ensuring this happens!

The Libertarian's First Thanksgiving

Fred E. Foldvary has picked up the false 1623 date eagerly and given it a different twist. "The rains came and the harvest was saved. It is logical to surmise that the Pilgrims saw this as a sign that God blessed their new economic system, because Governor Bradford proclaimed November 29, 1623, as a Day of Thanksgiving." That's the opinion of Foldvary, Editor (1998) of The Progress Report and Lecturer in Economics, Santa Clara University.

So - the Pilgrims weren't thankful to God for a bounteous harvest as such, nor were they expressing gratitude to the Indians for help received. They were congratulating themselves on the discovery of the benefits of individualist capitalism!

The Ludwig von Mises Institute in 1999 published Richard J. Maybury's article "The Great Thanksgiving Hoax" (originally seen in The Free Market, November, 1985). Maybury (self-styled business and economic analyst) wants to correct our idealized view of the Pilgrims: "[T]he harvest of 1621 was not bountiful, nor were the colonists hardworking or tenacious. 1621 was a famine year and many of the colonists were lazy thieves." [...] "they refused to work in the fields. They preferred instead to steal food." [...] "The prevailing condition during those years was not the abundance the official story claims, it was famine and death. The first 'Thanksgiving' was not so much a celebration as it was the last meal of condemned men." Then it all changed: "in 1623 Bradford abolished socialism. He gave each household a parcel of land and told them they could keep what they produced, or trade it away as they saw fit. In other words, he replaced socialism with a free market, and that was the end of famines." [...] "Before these free markets were established, the colonists had nothing for which to be thankful." [...] "Thus the real reason for Thanksgiving, deleted from the official story, is: Socialism does not work; the one and only source of abundance is free markets, and we thank God we live in a country where we can have them." So there you have it - neither God's providence nor helpful Indians, just materialistic private profit.

The theme recurs in numerous imitative articles online. In 2004, Gary M. Galles, professor of economics at Pepperdine University, ended his praise of Pilgrim property with a political admonition: "Though we have incomparably more than they did, we can learn much from their 'way of thanksgiving.' But we should also remember that our material blessings are the fruits of America's system of private-property rights and the liberties they ensure, including the freedom to choose our employment and spend money as we see fit. Those rights are under constant assault today, from limits on people's ability to contract as they wish, especially in labor relationships, to abuses of government's eminent domain." Robert Sheridan, who teaches constitutional law at the San Francisco Law School, quotes the full text (from the San Francisco Chronicle) and expertly dissects Galles' underlying assumptions about modern society, in his own article "Thanksgiving Nonsense and Propaganda".

A slightly abbreviated version of Galles' remarks is published by the Ludwig von Mises Institute.

The Independent Institute's website has a similar article that was published for Thanksgiving in 2004 in the Charlotte Observer and in the San Diego Union-Tribune. "The economic incentives provided by private competitive markets where people are left free to make their own choices make bountiful feasts possible," says Benjamin Powell, professor of economics at San Jose State University. "That's the real lesson of Thanksgiving."

Elaborating on Maybury's view of Thanksgiving, Newsmax columnist Geoff Metcalf becomes even more definite: "[A]n economic system which grants the lazy and the shiftless some 'right' to prosper off the looted fruits of another man's labor, under the guise of enforced 'compassion,' will inevitably descend into envy, theft, squalor, and starvation. Though many would still incrementally impose on us some new variant of the 'noble socialist experiment,' this is still at heart a free country with a bedrock respect for the sanctity of private property - and a land bounteous precisely because it's free. It's for that we give thanks - the corn and beans and turkey serving as mere symbols of that true and underlying blessing - on the fourth Thursday of each November."

True history? Does it make any difference? As Kamensky says, "It's true to its purposes."

For the purposes of historical accuracy, nevertheless, I think it's worth mentioning that the Pilgrims' initial system of working the land by changing field assignments each year had nothing at all to do with socialism - it was the consequence of an early and unrestrained form of capitalism whereby the colony, its products, and the colonists' productive labor were absolutely and entirely mortgaged to the London investors, whose loans had to be paid off before any of the Pilgrim colonists could own free-hold property. The colony as a whole and its colonists were indentured. Their contract is now lost; probably it was among the missing first 338 pages of William Bradford's letter-book. The shift away from rotating field assignments did not result in private property, just a modification of the organization of the indentured labor. Private real property came for these colonists in 1627 when a small group among the colonists - the "Purchasers" - bought the debt and the responsibility to pay it off. A temporary monopoly on the fur trade was reserved to them as compensation for their higher personal responsibility and financial exposure.

A Cornucopia of Grievances

So if Thanksgiving was not about the discovery of private property's profitability, not about help offered to the colonists by the Wampanoag Indians, not about God's providence - what was it?

"The first day of thanksgiving took place in 1637 amidst the war against the Pequots. 700 men, women, and children of the Pequot tribe were gathered for their annual green corn dance on what is now Groton, Connecticut. Dutch and English mercenaries surrounded the camp and proceeded to shoot, stab, butcher and burn alive all 700 people. The next day the Massachusetts Bay Colony held a feast in celebration and the governor declared 'a day of thanksgiving.' In the ensuing madness of the Indian extermination, natives were scalped, burned, mutilated and sold into slavery, and a feast was held in celebration every time a successful massacre took place. The killing frenzy got so bad that even the Churches of Manhattan announced a day of 'thanksgiving' to celebrate victory over the 'heathen savages,' and many celebrated by kicking the severed heads of Pequot people through the streets like soccer balls." So says Tristam Ahtone, at 13Moon.com. There were preliminary events before this celebration of atrocity, according to Ahtone. Although the 1621 harvest festival in Plymouth was not in his opinion a thanksgiving, he informs us that "Two years later the English invited a number of tribes to a feast 'symbolizing eternal friendship.' The English offered food and drink, and two hundred Indians dropped dead from unknown poison." This echoes the words of James Loewen (quoted by Jackie Alan Giuliano in "Give Thanks - Un-Turkey Truths"): "The British offered a toast 'symbolizing eternal friendship,' whereupon the chief, his family, advisors, and two hundred followers dropped dead of poison." Loewen places this event in Virginia.

Ahtone's remarks connecting the "First Thanksgiving" with the Pequot War are frequently copied or excerpted, with slight variations. Sometimes it's not Massachusetts Bay responsible, but the Pilgrims. "The next day, the English governor William Bradford declared 'a day of Thanksgiving', thanking God that they had eliminated the Indians, opening Pequot land for white settlement." That proclamation was repeated each year for the next century." This was posted by "Ecuanduero" on the Discovery Channel.com, in 2003.

William Loren Katz, author of Black Indians, A Hidden Heritage, writes that, "In 1637 Governor Bradford, who saw his colonists locked in mortal combat with dangerous Native Americans, ordered his militia to conduct a night attack on the sleeping men women and children of a Pequot Indian village. To Bradford, a devout Christian, the massacre was imbued with religious meaning."

Clearly we should realize that these people were not nice, but just exactly how bad? "Not even Charles Manson and Jim Jones combined could compare with that murderous Doomsday cult — the Pilgrims," says a website article called "The Pilgrims, Children of the Devil: Puritan Doomsday Cult Plunders Paradise." The site calls itself the Common Sense Almanac, Progressive Pages (and claims to be a project of the Center for Media and Democracy).

The story forms the foundation for stirring generalizations. "It is a serious mistake to practice holidays based on a false history," one site admonishes us. "The young people find out on their own that they are involved in a lie, and it makes them rage with fury and contempt. [...]It should surprise no one that after raising children honoring the memory of the Pilgrim fathers, that they grow up to hate freedom as much as the Forefathers did. It should surprise no one that a society that worships the Pilgrims — who ruthlessly scalped the Indians (teaching them how to do it), who indiscriminately torched Indian villages, and murdered their women, children and elders in the precursors of total war, and holocaust — should produce children who grow up to join street gangs, and who seek the experience of murdering other human beings for kicks."

The story told by Ahtone, Katz, and others is derived from a report that surfaced in the 1980's. "According to William B. Newell, a Penobscot Indian and former chairman of the anthropology department at the University of Connecticut, the first official Thanksgiving Day commemorated the massacre of 700 Indian men, women and children during one of their religious ceremonies. [...]"

This version in First Nations News is from an article by Karen Gullo that first appeared in Vegetarian Times, 1982. Newell's material is quoted over and over. Newell, who is described in one site as having degrees from two universities [wow! Fancy that!], was convinced about the solidity of his research: ""My research is authentic because it is documentary," Newell said. "You can't get anything more accurate than that because it is first hand. It is not hearsay." http://www.s6k.com/real/thankstaking.htm

What's not authentic is the claim that William Newell was head of the anthropology department at the University of Connecticut, whose faculty cannot recall him at all. When the department was founded in 1971, Newell was 79 years old. See the letter by department chair Jocelyn Linnekin. And what is completely untrue is the idea that the Pilgrims of Plymouth Colony participated in the 1637 Pequot massacre. Although asked to send military assistance, the Plymouth court did not respond until two weeks after the slaughter had been carried out by a mixed force of soldiers from Connecticut, Massachusetts Bay, and the Narragansett tribe (no "Dutch and English mercenaries"). As Bradford himself reports, the Pilgrims were told their aid was too little, too late; they could stay home. (See my book,

Pilgrim Edward Winslow: New England's First International Diplomat (Boston: NEHGS, 2004), pp. 164-168.)

Is this important? Or is the lie "true to its purposes"?

Thanksgiving on the Net:  Roast Bull with Cranberry Sauce Part 3

The National Day of Mourning

The purposes can best be understood as fitting in with the description of the Pilgrims that animates the so-called National Day of Mourning sponsored by the United American Indians of New England. "The pilgrims (who did not even call themselves pilgrims)" [yes, that again] "did not come here seeking religious freedom; they already had that in Holland. They came here as part of a commercial venture. They introduced sexism, racism, anti-lesbian and gay bigotry, jails, and the class system to these shores. One of the very first things they did when they arrived on Cape Cod — before they even made it to Plymouth — was to rob Wampanoag graves at Corn Hill and steal as much of the Indians' winter provisions of corn and beans as they were able to carry. [...] The first official "Day of Thanksgiving" was proclaimed in 1637 by Governor Winthrop. He did so to celebrate the safe return of men from the Massachusetts Bay Colony, who had gone to Mystic Connecticut to participate in the massacre of over 700 Pequot women, children, and men."

This characterization of the Pilgrims was written in 2003 by UAINE leaders Mahtowin Munro and Mooanum James, whose father Frank James (Wamsutta) made the 1970 protest speech that started the Day of Mourning at Plymouth, Massachusetts. Wamsutta spoke out against decades of inequality in words historically vague and not entirely accurate. He clearly announced the continued presence of Wampanoag Indians to a society that he thought had too often treated them as bygone relics. But his measured anger at real injustice bore little of the demonizing divisiveness championed by UAINE in later years.

From the repetition of Mahtowin Munro's and Mooanum James' remarks in countless websites associated with Native American interests, it would appear that the Wampanoag tribes consider themselves best represented by the UAINE protests. The words of Russell Peters published by Pilgrim Hall Museum contradict this.

Russell Peters, A Wampanoag leader, died in 2002. Who was he? "Mr. Peters [M.A., Harvard] has been involved in Native American issues at a state, local and national level. He [was] the President of the Mashpee Wampanoag Indian Tribal Council, a member of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights from 1976 to 1984, a member of the Harvard Peabody Museum Native American Repatriation Committee, a member of the White House Conference on Federal Recognition in 1995 and 1996, a board member of the Massachusetts Foundation for the Humanities, a board member of the Pilgrim Society, and the author of Wampanoags of Mashpee (Nimrod Press), Clambake (Lerner Publications), and Regalia (Sundance Press)." Russell Peters expressed regret at the deterioration of the social potential of the Day of Mourning. "While the day of mourning has served to focus attention on past injustice to the Native American cause, it has, in recent years, been orchestrated by a group calling themselves the United American Indians of New England. This group has tenuous ties to any of the local tribes, and is composed primarily of non-Indians. To date, they have refused several invitations to meet with the Wampanoag Indian tribal councils in Mashpee or in Gay Head. Once again, we, as Wampanoags, find our voices and concerns cast aside in the activities surrounding the Thanksgiving holiday in Plymouth, this time, ironically, by a group purporting to represent our interests."

The 1970 event at which Wamsutta spoke was organized by the American Indian Movement, whose leader Russell Means wrote, in his autobiography Where White Men Fear to Tread (with Marvin J. Wolf, New York: St. Martin's Press, 1995), "Americans today believe that Thanksgiving celebrates a bountiful harvest, but that is not so. By 1970, the Wampanoag had turned up a copy of a Thanksgiving proclamation made by the governor to the colony. The text revealed the ugly truth: After a colonial militia had returned from murdering the men, women, and children of an Indian village, the governor proclaimed a holiday and feast to give thanks for the massacre. He also encouraged other colonies to do likewise - in other words, every autumn after the crops are in, go kill Indians and celebrate your murders with a feast. In November 1970, their descendants returned to Plymouth to publicize the true story of Thanksgiving and, along with about two hundred other Indians from around the country, to observe a national day of Indian mourning."

One of the odder results of the "Day of Mourning" is the appearance in a couple of Thanksgiving Day sermons of the unfounded claim that some Pilgrims considered having a day of mourning to commemorate those who had died the previous winter, but that instead they chose to thank God for their continued preservation. This colonization of the protest rhetoric can be seen at Presbyterian Warren [excerpted at] Trinity Sermons.

Genocide

That's a mild contrast to Mitchel Cohen's "Why I Hate Thanksgiving" (2003), now re-duplicated incessantly. "First, the genocide. Then the suppression of all discussion about it. What do Indian people find to be Thankful for in this America? What does anyone have to be Thankful for in the genocide of the Indians, that this 'holyday' commemorates? [...] all the things we have to be thankful for have nothing at all to do with the Pilgrims, nothing at all to do with Amerikan history, and everything to do with the alternative, anarcho-communist lives the Indian peoples led, before they were massacred by the colonists, in the name of privatization of property and the lust for gold and labor. Yes, I am an American. But I am an American in revolt. I am revolted by the holiday known as Thanksgiving. [...] I want to go back in time to when people lived communally, before the colonists' Christian god was brought to these shores to sanctify their terrorism, their slavery, their hatred of children, their oppression of women, their holocausts. But that is impossible. So all I look forward to [is] the utter destruction of the apparatus of death known as Amerika � not the people, not the beautiful land, but the machinery, the State, the capitalism, the Christianity and all that it stands for. I look forward to a future where I will have children with Amerika, and ... they will be the new Indians." See, for some sanity, Guenter Lewy's "Were American Indians the Victims of Genocide?"

Mr. Cohen is co-editor of "Green Politix," the national newspaper of the Greens/Greens Party USA. He's annoyed. (Who wouldn't be - loving nature and living in Brooklyn?) He's also a romantic with an ideal view of Natives living in a pristine environment, rather like the peaceful, ecologically wonderful place imagined by Plimoth Plantation's Anthony Pollard (known as Nanepashemet). "The Wampanoag way of life fostered a harmonious relationship between the People and their natural environment, both physical and spiritual. [...] fighting was just part of the search for harmony when conditions had become intolerable or justice was denied."

Lies My Teacher�s Telling Me Now

The annual clamor of the aggrieved finds significant expression in website materials aimed at providing school teachers with a balanced (meaning non-colonial) view of Thanksgiving. One of the most important and widely copied articles is an introduction to "Teaching About Thanksgiving" written by Chuck Larson of the Tacoma School District.

Originally issued in 1986 by the Superintendent of Public Instruction of the State of Washington, "Teaching About Thanksgiving" is no longer available from that State. It continues to be distributed by the Fourth World Documentation Project and the Center for World Indigenous Studies, among others. I hope it has been withdrawn by the state in response to the withering criticism it received from Caleb Johnson, whose Mayflower topics website presents much documentary material about the Pilgrims.

"The author of the 'Fourth World Documentation Project' lesson plan on Thanksgiving, published all over the internet as well as distributed in printed form, claims to have a strong background in history," writes Johnson. "But nearly every sentence of the entire lesson plan has a significant factual error, or is simply story-telling (making up stories and details to fit within a set framework of given historical facts)." Johnson's detailed, devastating line-by-line corrections attracted the attention of the New York Times. I have seen only one website for teachers that carries the Larson material and that also includes a reference to Johnson's work, and then only as if to provide an alternative to the nonsense they continue to present as the main material. But Johnson definitively destroyed the credibility of the lesson plan - why keep on providing it? Are the lies true to some purpose?

Mentioning that Johnson's work is worth looking at is, nonetheless, at least more generous than the ad hominem attack on Johnson that was mounted by Jamie McKenzie of the Bellingham, Washington, School District.

McKenzie complained in 1996 that Caleb Johnson did not list his own academic credentials that would suggest his website should be considered authoritative. Johnson had, after all, cast doubt on the value of Larson's "strong background in history." McKenzie, on the other hand, did not take the time to compare Johnson's careful quotations of source materials with the slipshod work of his academically qualified colleague down in Tacoma. (Although Johnson's essays are typically not footnoted, having only a source list at the end, Johnson has taken the trouble to re-publish the texts of many of the original documents on his site.) But McKenzie's major complaint in 1996 was that the internet in general did not provide much information about Thanksgiving, and that scholars with credentials were not creating the sites. There's certainly more now, and some of it is provided by professors. If one has doubts about the professor of anthropology William B. Newell, who's been forgotten by the University of Connecticut, there's the University of Colorado's Professor of Ethnic Studies, Ward Churchill, asking us, "what is it we're supposed to be so thankful for? Does anyone really expect us to give thanks for the fact that soon after the Pilgrim Fathers regained their strength, they set out to dispossess and exterminate the very Indians who had fed them that first winter? Are we to express our gratitude for the colonists' 1637 massacre of the Pequots at Mystic, Conn., or their rhetoric justifying the butchery by comparing Indians to 'rats and mice and swarms of lice'"?

And there's the late Professor James Deetz, who thought Thanksgiving only became associated with the Pilgrims around 1900, evidently disregarding the implications of Winslow Homer's famous Thanksgiving Day illustrations in Harper's Weekly, Nov. 27, 1858, Dec. 1, 1860, Nov. 29, 1862, and Dec. 3, 1864, as well as Thomas Nast's "Thanksgiving Day, 1863" (published as a double-page center illustration in Harper's Weekly, Dec. 5, 1863). Nast includes a vignette in the lower right corner labelled "country," whose main praying figure is recognizably derived from the representation of the Pilgrims' minister John Robinson in Robert Weir's painting "The Embarkation of the Pilgrims," completed in 1843 in the rotunda of the Capitol in Washington.

Despite its filiopietistic motivations, the huge desert of misinformation has left Caleb Johnson's work as one of a small number of oases of calm study, equalling the level of the so-called Plymouth Colony Archive Project established by James Deetz, Patricia Scott Deetz, and Christopher Fennell (which, however, despite valuable information about the colony, says nothing significant about Thanksgiving).

McKenzie also objects to Johnson�s "failing to mention some of the information which other sites provide about the Pilgrims taking the Native American corn and digging up and taking things from grave sites." In fact, Johnson publishes all the evidence there is about those issues. Because no evidence supports the inflated claims, McKenzie thinks that the Pilgrims have been "sanitized."

Unsanitized would be the word for Brenda Francis's version. She says that she "read on Binghamton University's website that the Pilgrims were starving and even went so far to dig up some remains of the Wampanoag people and eat them as a means to survival."

This directly contradicts William Bradford, who, after repeating the second-hand rumor that some Spanish colonists had been reduced to eating "dogs, toads, and dead men," proclaims that "From these extremities the Lord in his goodness kept these his people [the Pilgrims], and in their great wants preserved both their lives and healths; let his name have the praise." (Bradford's History "Of Plimoth Plantation" (Boston: Wright & Potter, 1901), p. 165: [subscribers].

The Binghamton site that is Brenda Francis' source has a student newspaper article (Nov. 21, 2003) by Rachel Kalina, who relays that the "Pilgrims were able to survive their first winter partially because of guidance by the natives and because they dug up the deceased Wampanoags to eat the corn offerings in the graves." That's not quite the same as necro-cannibalism.

Quoting from James Loewen's Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong. (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1995), p. 91, the teacher of a course in "Debunking and Dissent" - Colby Glass of Palo Alto College (TX), maintains that "...the Pilgrims continued to rob graves for years."

There are three points of interest here: first, Winslow's description of examining graves (our only source of information) does not support these assertions; second, the corn found by the Pilgrims was not found in graves; third, I'm unaware of any evidence so far found to indicate that corn was included in graves on Cape Cod at all. Let alone that the Pilgrims were cannibals!

In the book now called Mourt's Relation, Edward Winslow wrote that the Pilgrims, exploring, found a path that took them to "certain heaps of sand, one whereof was covered with old mats, and had a wooden thing like a mortar whelmed on the top of it, and an earthen pot laid in a little hole at the end thereof. We, musing what it might be, digged and found a bow, and, as we thought, arrows, but they were rotten. We supposed there were many other things, but because we deemed them graves, we put in the bow again and made it up as it was, and left the rest untouched, because we thought it would be odious unto them to ransack their sepulchres." Passing through several fields recently tended, they came upon a house, from which they removed a European ship's kettle. Next to the house was a heap of sand, which when excavated yielded two baskets filled with Indian corn. One contained thirty six ears, "some yellow, and some red, and others mixed with blue [...] The basket was round, and narrow at the top; it held about three or four bushels." Filling the kettle with loose corn, two of the Pilgrims suspended it on a stick and carried it away. The rest of the corn they re-buried. Two or three days later, they returned for the remaining corn, also finding and taking some beans and more corn, totaling around ten bushels. The following morning they found a much larger mound, covered with boards. It turned out to be the grave of a man with blond hair, whose shroud was a "sailor's canvas cassock" and who was wearing a "pair of cloth breeches." The body was accompanied by a "knife, a packneedle, and two or three iron things." Clearly this was the body of a European. An infant's body was buried together with this man. Reburying the bodies (as was customary in Europe), they continued to look for corn but found nothing else but graves, which, considering their desire not to "ransack their sepulchres," they presumably did not disturb once it was clear the mounds did not contain baskets of corn. Having learned to recognize graves, three days later the Pilgrims avoided disturbing a cemetery. They "found a burying place, one part whereof was encompassed with a large palisade, like a churchyard [...] Within it was full of graves [...] yet we digged none of them up, but only viewed them and went our way." Mourt's Relation (1622) has been republished numerous times. Caleb Johnson has made it available online at Mayflower History.com.

Winslow's words are our only evidence. Nothing impels us to doubt his information that the Pilgrims opened the grave of a European sailor and his child, reburying them after removing from the grave a few items that to a European would not have been considered grave offerings having any symbolic significance. The Pilgrims exhibited memorable sensitivity in refraining from disturbing Indian graves, once they learned to recognize them. They did not dig up graves in order to eat corn buried as grave offerings. There is no indication they removed corn from any graves. The corn was found in baskets whose shape when packed in earth would result in domed pit spaces. There is nothing to support the idea that corn was placed in graves as offerings, although small gifts of corn have been found in graves excavated by archaeologists working hundreds of miles away (the American southwest and Peru, for example).

The amount the Pilgrims found in storage baskets - two or three bushels in the first, and three or four in the second - is a large, bulky quantity. From 1986-1991, I was Chief Curator of Plimoth Plantation. The collections at that time included all the archaeological material from excavations of burial sites in the Plymouth Colony area carried out by Harry Hornblower II and James Deetz, and others with whom they worked. I carried out a detailed examination of the thousands of items in the collections, specifically looking for corn - in hopes of having it studied scientifically so we could replicate the exact type of corn growing in the area in the early 17th century. Although some floral remains had been saved from excavations that included burial sites, there was no corn, not a single kernel. Had it been the practice to bury bushels of corn as grave offerings, surely there would have been some in the materials carefully excavated from these ten Native burials. There was nothing. Neither was any discovery of corn recorded in the careful notebooks kept by Hornblower (there were no Deetz notebooks present, and no published reports). This absence is consistent with the absence of corn among grave goods from several Cape Cod Native burials, recently transferred to Native authorities for reburial, from the Robert S. Peabody Museum of Archaeology, Phillips Academy, Andover, Massachusetts.

Throughout the accounts of these discoveries of storage baskets of Indian corn, Winslow repeats the intention to try to meet the Indian owners and negotiate repayment for the corn that had been taken That was an intention to provide compensation for what the Pilgrims understood would be considered theft if no payment were made. (During the first year, Pilgrims stole corn; Indians stole abandoned tools.) Establishing that neither side would steal from the other was an important part of early negotiation between them. Attempts to locate the specific owner of the corn were ultimately successful and repayment was made (see Pilgrim Edward Winslow, p. 36).

In "Deconstructing the Myths of 'The First Thanksgiving,'" Judy Dow and Beverly Slapin contradict the documentary evidence. They base their comments largely on information provided to them by Margaret Bruchac, an "Abanaki scholar" working in collaboration with Plimoth Plantation's Wampanoag Indian Program. "There is no record that restitution was ever made for the stolen corn, and the Wampanoag did not soon forget the colonists� ransacking of Indian graves, including that of Massasoit's mother."

One may surmise that Bruchac was confused in making the reference to the grave of Massasoit's mother, which is undocumented. Probably what is meant is the removal later of two bearskin rugs from over the grave of the mother of Chickatabut, sachem of the Massachusetts (see my book Indian Deeds, p. 13). It is meretriciously clever, nonetheless, to turn Winslow's statement of respect for the Indians and their graves into a pronouncement about the Wampanoags' long memory of "the colonists' ransacking of Indian graves." The up-to-date construction of "memory" and "oral history" to fit the needs of current political concerns is blatant.

Dow and Slapin end their deconstruction with the remark that "As currently celebrated in this country, "Thanksgiving" is a bitter reminder of 500 years of betrayal returned for friendship."

Alternatively, Russell Peters said, "The time is long overdue for the Pilgrims and the Wampanoags to renew a meaningful dialogue about our past and look towards a more honest future."

Does it matter what of this is true? Was that the wrong question? Who do we want to be in the ever-changing Now? Intrepid demolishers of straw-man myths? Inventors of new myths to serve new political purposes? Historians?

[94monkeys]

My first thought when I opened this book over Christmas was “Wow, it’s so small!” Peter, you speak profusely every week on the radio, you couldn’t have oomphed this up a little? 

But very well. Sagal as you might know is an NPR host and an on-and-off runner who got serious about it (again) around age 40. The book runs down a series of episodes, not in chronological order, in Sagal’s running life: his experience guiding a blind runner at the 2013 Boston Marathon and being 100 yards away from the finish line, his first burst of fitness as a teenager and the body dysmorphia that ensued, his cross-training accident and “miracle run” two months later. 

For a fast guy, he really gets it about the inclusivity of running and the desire to share the wealth. There’s a very tender scene towards the back of the book where he realizes he’s been selling running as “the key to everything” to someone who may have no interest, only to find out that she’s been listening to him and she’s game to try it. He also does a lot of charity runs, including one here in Chicago where I had a beer with him (well, me and 100 other people). 

But what can I say, I still wanted a little more. I should've taken him at his “incomplete” word! (If you haven’t read Jen A. Miller’s Running: A Love Story here’s my obligatory plug for that.) 

Oh and: If you’re sensitive to this, he does mention his divorce a lot. I’m pretty sure it’s in every chapter. I say mention and not explain, because when he references it he does so to talk about the effects on his running and his life more broadly, not about the causes or specific aspects of the breakup. (I’m still curious about that part of it because I’m a trash monster, but there’s really nothing out there about it, and I’m sure that’s at the behest of his wife and daughter. And, fair. But I thought the book was building to that and--it doesn’t.) 

[sacramentonewsjournal]

Phil Mickelson believes PGA Tour is trending downward

Within the struggle that’s LIV Golf vs. the PGA Tour, Phil Mickelson believes he’s on the profitable facet. At this week’s Greg Norman-run showcase in Saudi Arabia, the person often called Lefty didn’t mince phrases when it got here to every league’s present and future standing within the recreation of golf. “I firmly consider that I’m on the profitable facet of how issues are going to evolve and form within the coming years for skilled golf,” Mickelson mentioned Thursday earlier than the 54-hole no-cut occasion will get underway Friday with a shotgun begin. “We play in opposition to lots of the perfect gamers on the earth on LIV and there are lots of the perfect gamers on the earth on the PGA Tour. And till among the — effectively till each side sit down and have a dialog and work one thing out, each side are going to proceed to vary and evolve.” LIV’s continued pursuit of evolution took one other step final week as they introduced a “strategic alliance” with the little-known MENA Tour in an effort to obtain Official World Golf Rating factors for its gamers. The OWGR denied LIV members factors for his or her occasions in Bangkok and Jeddah however has but to make clear if future occasions will yield completely different outcomes. Dustin Johnson, who has completed inside the highest eight in 5 of six LIV occasions together with a win on the Boston cease, has fallen to No. 24 on the earth. Cameron Smith, because of his win on the Open, stays at No. 2. Regardless of its lack of recognition from golf’s energy rankers, Mickelson believes LIV and the Tour are headed in reverse instructions. “I see LIV Golf trending upwards, I see the PGA Tour trending downwards and I really like the facet that I’m on. And I really like how I really feel. I really like how I’m reinvigorated and excited to play golf and compete. I really like the expertise. I really like the best way they deal with us.” Might or not it’s this newfound power Mickelson has found comes from the relieved stress of not having to compete for a spot above the minimize line — throughout his final full season on Tour, he had twice as many missed cuts as prime 40s — or perhaps it’s as a result of he can lastly let his calves breathe throughout event rounds. Who may know for certain? Phil Mickelson waits to tee off from the twelfth tee field throughout the first spherical of a LIV Golf event at Wealthy Harvest Farms. Obligatory Credit score: Jamie Sabau-USA TODAY Sports activities When requested if he’s shocked LIV has been capable of pull off what they’ve, Mickelson gave credit score to Saudi Arabia’s Public Funding Fund. “I’m not shocked, no. I consider within the ardour — look, the sport of golf could be very fortunate to have the PIF put money into the sport,” he mentioned. “The game of the sport of golf is being influxed with billions of {dollars} now. And the power to go world and make golf a really world sport is absolutely helpful for the sport.” In unrelated information, Brendan Steele completed his first spherical Thursday with a one-shot lead because the PGA Tour performs the Zozo Championship in Japan. Mickelson’s LIV resume has improved over the previous couple of occasions. After opening with 4 straight finishes exterior the highest 30 in 48-man fields, the 52-year-old grabbed eighth in Chicago and seventeenth in Bangkok. He’ll want one thing related this week in Jeddah as his Hello Flyers GC presently sits ninth out of 12 groups with the crew championship in Miami subsequent on the calendar. In pictures: Phil Mickelson by means of the years View 49 pictures Originally published at Sacramento News Journal

[aftgficlibrary]

Apocalypse

Updated December 31, 2018

hide your body (when the sunlight dies) by WaifsandStrays (E | Incomplete | 2/?)

The world's gone to hell and the dead are crawling out of their graves. The Foxes must find a way to stay alive and together if they're going to make it through this.

Part zombie AU, part Minyard twins character study, all pain!

This World Overrun By Monsters by Elfo98 (Not Rated | Incomplete | 1/?)

"The building kept shaking for hours on end, and soon the unbearable heat turned into freezing cold. Then, suddenly, everything stopped, even time. Or so it seemed to Nathaniel; there was no sound coming from the outside, nothing at all. Everything was covered in a deadly silence."

Or The Maze Runner AU no one needed.

Take a Racquet With You by cyclecrossing (T | Incomplete | 12/?)

Neil was free. For that short span of time, that precious golden almost-three years after Riko's death, Neil lead his life exactly how he wanted to. But Neil had never been lucky. He just didn't expect it all to end with a goddamn Zombie apocalypse.

In which Neil is done running, and he's going to let the whole world watch

/Major Character Death

The Fleet Foxes Detective Agency by transandrewminyard (nocturnalboys) (E | Incomplete | 6/?)

In a catastrophic post-1929 Boston, the stock market crash and violent, unpredictable weather have dissolved the young nation known as America. Replacing it, a new lawless world rises, the nation-state of Independence, run by elite families who have the cash and clout to keep their grip on the survivors of the Crash. Andrew Minyard and Renee Walker, private eyes and owners of the Fleet Foxes Detective Agency, are the law, solving crimes in exchange for making their livelihood. When Andrew meets Neil Josten, jazz singer and objectively handsome man, he feels himself falling- into the realm of a new mystery, one that he isn't entirely sure he's prepared to solve, and a case that could radically change Independence forever.

Open Hand or Closed Fist by lazarusthefirst (M | Incomplete | 3/5)

Technically it was all Neil’s fault. He was the organiser. But Jean blamed Kevin for getting him all riled up and enabling his crazy escape attempts. Not many ever managed to escape from the Moriyama Estate. But that didn’t stop them all from trying.

Raze by WhoopsOK  (E | 1,301 | 1/1)

Question: What would it take for the Minyards to get together? Answer: The whole world goes to hell and leaves the Minyards behind in the rubble.

(In light of my blog probably getting shut down, I’m archiving my comment fic.)

/Rape/Non-Con /Major Character Death 

Maybe it was the Zombies by ennui_ephemera (M | 45,441 | 17/17)

“Turn it off. I can’t watch this any longer,” Matt said. “We need to know what’s going on,” Andrew replied flatly. “Andrew, we know what’s going on – the fucking world is ending. I don’t want to see it anymore.” Matt grabbed the remote off the couch beside Neil and flicked the TV off. Andrew didn’t move to stop him.

Near the end of Neil’s last year at Palmetto, an outbreak of a disease, nicknamed the Brazilian Fever, throws the world into anarchy when the diseased bodies that started piling up acquired a hunger for flesh. With so much on the line, Neil and the rest of the Foxes decide Palmetto isn’t safe anymore. While decked out in orange and Exy sticks, there’s zombies, violence, enemies dead and alive, and the underlying need for survival.

/Graphic Depictions of Violence

The End of All Things by augustskies (G | 4,341 | 1/1)

" His world, the one he wouldn't have given up for anything, was a person. " In which the apocalpse is coming, but not in the way you might think.

/Major Character Death

give me shelter or show me heart by hondayota (Not Rated | 4,720 | 3/3)

Renee had always thought of hope as a feeling, something she scraped out of her insides when she had nothing else to hold onto, but over the past months, hope had ceased to be a feeling and had become synonymous with Allison Reynolds.

or

the renison zombie au no one asked for

or

renee and allison are hella gay even when there's zombies

We All Have Demons by girlskylark (T | Incomplete | 18/?)

Neil Josten, a novice witcher, is put to the test by investigating the disappearance of fellow witcher Allison Reynolds after her husband vanished several weeks ago. Rather than sending Neil off without protection, Matt gifts him a pair of arm bracers and sends him on his way. The last thing Neil expected was to wind up stuck with the demon whose soul is attached to Matt's gift.

The last thing Andrew wanted after his last shitshow of a "second chance" was to be stuck with an idiot witcher, but life was never that kind to him. After dabbling in black magic, unintentionally binding his soul to the bracers, and winding up in the hands of Drake Spear, he didn't expect anything better when Matt Boyd cut the bracers off Drake's cold dead hands and stashed Andrew away for a century. That century gave him plenty of time to contemplate life, and how little he cared to put up with anyone's bullshit. Especially Neil's.

/Graphic Depictions of Violence

do they smoke cigarettes in heaven by poetic_leopard (T | Incomplete | 3/?)

The outbreak of a mysterious virus has desecrated the world as we know it. Neil Josten is a fugitive on the run from a dark past. Until he somehow finds himself in the midst of a caustic group of survivors who call themselves the Foxes, and meets Andrew Minyard—their deadliest investment. Can Neil learn to trust and shake the bloody shadow of his past; with both The Butcher and Martial Law hot on his trail, not to mention a terrifyingly real zombie threat at large?

{TLDR: here's the obligatory zombie AU that i'm sure hasn't been done to death already. it's too late, y'all. i'm bringing this dead horse back to life. er, hopefully.}

blood is rare and sweet by aulesbian (M | 1,201 | 1/1)

Renee was quiet. She remembered when she arrived at Palmetto, body aching from exhaustion and fear. She remembered prowling the campus and surrounding area, searching for any of her team. Former team.

/Graphic Depictions Of Violence /Major Character Death

series: Zombie AU by IceBreeze (T | Complete | 3 Works)

A few oneshots based on my take on a foxhole court zombie apocalypse.

Sole Survivor by gladiatorgrl2703 (T | Incomplete | 15/?)

Andrew Minyard didn’t have a reason for surviving the wasteland until Kevin Day came looking for protection. And now Neil Josten is making appearances across the city. This mysterious newcomer, running from his past and towards the people who murdered his mother. He’s spent the last 200 years cryogenically frozen, and this new world—for all its ghouls, and monsters, and hardships—offers the first real freedom he’s ever known. As Neil searches for answers, he latches onto to both the possibility Kevin keeps dangling in front of him and the protection Andrew is offering. But neither of these is going to help him escape his past. And he’s running out of places to hide. --

Kevin was less cryptic. “Why do you have this?”

“None of your business,” Neil spat.

“Uh-uh-uh,” Andrew tutted, raising a knife to Neil’s throat. “Try again.”

“None of your fucking business,” Neil corrected, deciding that if he was going to die in the wasteland, a knife to the throat wasn’t a bad way to go.

Andrew smiled something manic, and blasted a fist into Neil’s injured side. “You’re a lot funnier when you’re writhing in pain,” he decided.

/Graphic Depictions Of Violence /Rape/Non-Con /Self-Harm 

The Road to Nowhere by emmerrr (M | 118, 526 | 30/30)

The population has been decimated by an epidemic, society has fallen, and no one is safe. But Neil has never been safe to begin with.

When the death of his mother finally leaves him with nothing left to lose, Neil inadvertently stumbles across a miss-match group of people living and working together despite the odds.

Sometimes it takes the apocalypse to find out where you truly belong; the hard part is holding onto it. And when so much of him is held together by lies, Neil might have to learn that you can never outrun your past indefinitely.

/Graphic Depictions Of Violence 

violent delights by manya (M | Incomplete | 1/?)

when faced with the decision to die by his father's knife or staring down a kaiju in the cockpit of a jaeger, Neil finds it's not much of a decision after all

/Graphic Depictions Of Violence

Lead me home by kenkatsuki (T | Incomplete | 2/?)

Overthrown cars. Old litter everywhere you looked. Abandonment clear in every rise and fall of the dead land. The dullness of brown and grey only interfered by green specks of nature.

Plants growing through fissures of broken cars.

Ivy raking over hollow and slumped buildings.

Weeds spreading through the cracks in the asphalt.

Nature that had begun reclaiming its ground after everything went to hell.

It would be beautiful, wouldn't it be so terribly cruel.

/Graphic Depictions Of Violence /Major Character Death

The Monsters Vs Zombies by sisteroftheagiel (G | 1,436 | 1/1)

Just a short story taking inspiration from the scene where Renee and Andrew discus their plans encase of Zombie apocalypse. And Neil wanting to fight and go back for Andrew. So here are the monsters, within an apocalypse. >.

Contingency Plans by defractum (nyargles) (T | 1,253 | 1/1)

The zombie apocalypse is starting. Good thing they've always had plans.

monster hospital by asukalangley (T | Incomplete | 3/?)

it's the end of the world; stupid decisions are definitely allowed.

it's a totally rushed zombie au what more do you want me to say

And Where The Journey May Lead You by Kali Cephirot (KaliCephirot) (T | 1,273 |1/1)

Zombie Apocalypse AU -- The one where the All For The Game books happen in a zombie-ridden area. Or, snippets of the longfic I Am Not Writing