Bass Reeves was so dedicated to the law, he even arrested his own son Bennie for the murder of his wife. Bennie was sentenced to life in prison. With over 3000 arrests, 14 kills, went his entire 32 year career in law enforcement without being shot once.
He was assigned to bring in the notorious female outlaw Belle Starr. Once she got wind who was after her she turned herself into the federal court.
Reeves was one of a few Marshalls who would venture into Indian territory *oklahoma*. After the age of 67 he retired in 1907. He enjoyed his short lived retirement as a police officer in Muskogee Oklahoma, his assigned beat had 0 crime reported until he died at the age of 71 of Bright’s disease.
He was one of the true gun slingers of the west.
I would expect nothing less from a man with such a magnificent mustache
my attention span is so bad i cant watch something without being on my phone at the same time i always have to have 2 layers of activity when did this happen why is capitalism stealing my soul away the spectacle has me firmly in its grip
Psychology time!
This isn’t having a short attention span (or well maybe thats part of it), but probably something called “Optimal Arousal.”(This is psychology, not anatomy, please keep your mind out of the gutter Xp)
Optimal Arousal goes like this: When effort is low, more stimulus is better. When effort is high, less stimulus is better.
I’ll elaborate. Whenever you do something easy (like maybe some homework as an example), unless something else is happening (like music or a show) you tend to get drawn away or doze off. In this homework scenario, the effort is low, so in order to keep at it and do well on working on it, you need a higher amount of stimulus, like a movie.
If something is hard, like for instance a test, you probably will try to avoid noise, going so far as to hush others so you can concentrate. The effort is high so you want less stimulus.
Keep this in mind. It can help you focus, and make life a lot easier. Dont feel bad for doing lots of different things while you are just chillin. Enjoy the knowledge!
Let’s talk about the times Robin survives Marian, when she is the fair memory who haunts him all his days, the wild eyes he learns to live without, the part of his heart he teaches to heal;
And the times Marian survives Robin, when she stands at the firelight’s edge and looks over these brave men, these few and merry men, and says with the even, carrying voice that she did not learn from Robin, this is not the end of us.
There are a hundred ways to fall in love and Marian and Robin have fallen into each of them. A shepherdess and a yeoman, a feisty noble daughter and an estranged noble son—she has fallen for his wit, his bravery, his chin; he for her skill, her beauty, her kindnesses. No matter how many arrows she loses or witticisms she drops at the audience’s feet, Marian will always be a lover.
Marian the shepherdess, with her loyal sheep dog and her loyal Robin, a Marian who understands being hungry, who understands patience and how to find a lost ewe, who knows the hills of Nottingham better than the sheriff or the outlaw and delights in outwitting them both.
Marian the archer, the way she held competition between her teeth til it begged for mercy; or the single daughter of a destitute house, who took up poaching in the king’s wood and knows the meaning of silence but somehow, despite it all, falls for a brash youth with a big mouth and a bigger heart.
A Marian who fights; or a Marian who sews and listens and whispers and smuggles out who and what Robin needs; a Marian who gets lost in the woods, who gets held up on the road or who gets suspicious in the market when rough men trade silver for bread and cloth; a Marian who is the heart of their cause and the head of their crimes.
They call her a lover so let’s call her a lover.
Let’s tell stories about the first time Marian falls asleep on hard ground beside the wheezy snores of Sherwood’s outlaws and feels safe, feels wanted, feels like she’s come home. They build something out in those woods with deer hides that are theirs only by right of aim and speed and skill, with the gold of fat rich men, and with the thanks of poor farmers whose children will eat decently five days a week instead of two.
Let’s talk about her love. Let’s talk about how she falls in love with this.
The runaway daughters, the girls hidden in boys’ clothing, in boys’ names, in boys’ bodies—Marian takes them aside when she can and whittles them bows to suit each of their strengths.
When a youth with skinned knees and tightly bound breasts weeps with rage when she can’t keep up with Robin’s combat practices, Marian tells her here’s how you fight when your center lives in your belly and not under your breastbone. Trust your legs, child. Trust your center. Yours is a different strength, not a lesser one.
Soon enough the girl is flipping boys over her hip while she stands with slightly bent knees, and Marian is making money hand over fist, betting against her opponents.
Let’s talk about how many ways there are to fall in love. Let’s talk about how the love of one man as a life’s calling is not a story I am interested in telling.
The outlaws were her children, her flock, her brothers and her right-hand men. They held each others’ secrets and each others’ lives in their callused palms and kept them safe.
Let’s talk about getting lost in the woods: Marian the shopkeeper’s daughter getting lost at fifteen, the first time she ran away from home, getting lost in the dark, the creep and tangle of it, and making it back long after moonrise by way of her aunt’s old nursery rhyme about how moss grows on the north side of trees. (At the next full moon she runs away to the woods again. She is not afraid, or, if she is, it doesn’t matter; she is in love).
Lost: Marian, dyemaker’s daughter, walking out to the woods with all the men who came before Robin, not for them but for the woods: the trees snarling overhead, the way they make her feel like life is more than this, that there is mystery, there is depth, and there is distance.
Let’s talk about how she loved Robin, yes, the quiet ways she traced his jawbone with shaking fingers, the hard way they both looked at each other across the fire and knew neither of them could long survive this. Let’s talk about how she loved. Let’s call it being lost.
Robin saw her first in a market, a smithy, a crossroads, and she was beautiful, but it wasn’t until she raised her chin that he loved her (til she smiled, til she shot, til she vanished—there are a hundred ways they fell in love).
Let’s talk about how she fell in love with herself.
Because she did: arrows and whispers, cold nights and good liars, Robin’s hand and the men who made Sherwood their own– she fell for it all. She fell for herself most of all.
Maybe your name is not Marian and my name is not Marian and sometimes hers is not either.
But we are all sometimes lost in the woods. We all sometimes find ourselves there, and open our eyes, open our lungs, fall in love.
dragons don’t ever really leave their princesses (and their princesses never really want them to go)
The first thing she remembers is the warmth of scales beneath her hand, a voice crooning a lullaby that she feels in her bones as much as she hears. The first thing her watery, stinging eyes behold are a loose circle of shining claws and the translucent dome of blue wings blocking out the rest of the overwhelming world. A shining blue nose, deep as sapphires, leans down and nudges her gently.
:Wake, little hatchling.: Warm, feminine, loving; it rings with will-not-be-harmed and safe-under-wings. She can’t make herself be afraid. A forked tongue gently touches her cheek and she smiles, giggles, puts a hand out to gently push it away.
There is something she ought to be worried about, but it runs from her thoughts when she tries to remember. The world has narrowed to the warm safety of the circle, the fires burning in bright yellow eyes. The dragon nudges her again before ever-so-delicately picking up a loaf of bread in her long white teeth and depositing it in her lap.
:Hatchling must eat. Lady-who-burns left food.: She obediently begins to eat, leaning back against blue scales and smiling brightly up at her guardian. There is only one word her limited memory can assign to this giant being, and as she finishes her bread and snuggles up to a warm claw before falling asleep again she whispers it-
“Mama.”
x-x-x-x-x
When she wakes again, it’s to a much smaller version of the blue snout- this time in red- peering into her face. She jumps back; he jumps back. She tilts her head; he tilts his head and snorts, confused.
A laughing rumble comes from the mother dragon curled around them both.
:Red-hatchling, meet Human-hatchling. She is one-of-us. Play nice, do not bite-claw-harm. She has no scale-coat.: Images as much as words, like before. The red hatchling snorts again and shakes himself, small wings thumping on the ground, before squawking in a rather undignified way and jumping up.
:Come play pounce-and-pin!: He dashes away, looking over his shoulder, and Mother nudges her towards him with another amused chuckle.
Tentatively at first but then with more confidence, she chases after the red hatchling to play a rough game of tackling and wrestling. The red plays fair and does not use his talons or teeth, as Mother warned, but he is larger and stronger than her and she ends up on the ground much more often than she manages to pin him. Nevertheless, the old castle hall is filled with the sounds of human and draconic laughter as the blue watches on with happiness shining in her eyes.
x-x-x-x-x
Time passes. Her memories slowly come back, of a place where “mother” means a tall blonde woman, her smiles always forced and distant and her voice always ready to scold. Where “brother” means cruel laughter and taunts made by a man who looms tall over her, solid boots ready to crush unwary little fingers.
She stops missing them after a few days.
Her time is filled with laughter as she and the red hatchling invent games for themselves through the castle’s abandoned halls and gone-to-seed courtyards. They gorge themselves on sweet berries from bushes long gone wild, they hunt for rabbits that Mother will cook for them, they mock-duel with her holding a stick and he pretending to flame her.
She teaches him to read, from what she remembers, curled side-by-side in the dusty library. He tells her the stories Mother has told him, how when he breathes his first fire he will earn his name and become a true dragon. And at night they sit by Mother’s side and listen to her sing as they fall asleep, safe under her wings and warmed by the fire inside her.
Sometimes other humans come to search the castle. She and Brother hide while Mother scornfully tosses them aside. One day Mother gently herds a terrified horse into one of the large inner courtyards, and once he has adjusted to his new neighbors she teaches herself to ride the rather placid gelding.
She teaches herself to sew, eventually, and makes herself clothes from the cloth brought each month by the strange woman who is the only other human Mother will tolerate. One day she begins to gather the scales Brother and Mother shed and sews them into tough cloth for armor; the interlocking patterns of blue and red entertain her for hours, and the extra protection gives Brother more leeway with his growing claws when they wrestle.
The first time she uses the scales to deflect her brother’s full-force blows successfully, Mother’s pride can be felt from across the room.
x-x-x-x-x
Brother earns the name :Heart-of-Burning-Star: when he breathes his first flame; she sings along with Mother to honor him, her heart bursting with pride.
Mother takes her flying, perched securely on her shoulders and Brother frolicking alongside, to see the mountains and the marshlands and the ocean and the forests. She teaches them how to tell hungry predators from those who are well-fed, how to sneak up on unsuspecting prey, how best to avoid the sword striking for their hearts. At night she tells them of magic, of the world’s mysteries, of how a dragon can change their shape if their need is great.
When at last she bids them farewell they let her go with sorrow but not despair; she has taught them well how to fend for themselves, and the girl will not be alone. Brother will never leave her while she has no wings of her own.
Before she leaves, she touches her nose to the girl’s forehead. :Adopted-child. You will not breathe flame, but you are grown, with a dragon’s heart; I name you Lover-of-Life. Honor and love and wind for your wings, my hatchling-now-grown.:
Their lives continue as they always have among the ruins of the castle; supplying for themselves, and needing no luxuries but the warmth of their sibling by their sides.
x-x-x-x-x
Though Brother fights valiantly when the men come again, he is smaller than Mother and not quite as wise; he is young, and proud, and easily drawn out of his defenses by their taunts. She screams as fireproofed ropes encircle his proud limbs and he is dragged to earth, easy prey for their blades.
One of the men catches hold of her as she tries to run to his side.
“Easy, easy fair maid!” She flinches from the sound of words spoken to ears, not to heart. How can they speak truly to one another when their words are so flat and depthless?
“We shall rescue you from this beast which holds you captive here. Only look away a moment and it shall trouble you no more.”
Rescue? Rescue? From what?!
She cannot form the words on her lips to make them understand, and none of them hear when she reaches for their hearts. She screams and cries, fighting with all the muscle she gained wrestling a young dragon, as they drag her away from her brother. It is still not enough to stop them. Her brother lies still on the ground with dirty men laughing over his helpless body. She cannot take the indignity to the noblest, best friend she has ever known, and fights all the fiercer.
Eventually they force some bitter drink down her resisting throat, and it makes her sight grow dark. She screams for Brother one last time as she drops down into unconsciousness, and she hears him call back with desperation,
:Will come find you! Sister-of-my-heart…:
He keens as the men drag her away, before the sound abruptly chokes to nothing. Her tears burn as they fall.
x-x-x-x-x
The world has changed to something she doesn’t understand.
She is surrounded by humans, women clucking at her in concerned tones, men speaking over her head as if she doesn’t exist, little children stopping to point and stare and whisper. The world is a mass of noises she only barely comprehends, missing the touch of heart on heart that made all emotions seem real.
They take away her scale armor; she later finds and rescues it from the dung of the stable midden, crying as she cleans each scale and remembers what she has lost. The too-soft fabrics tie her up and trip her. Her bed seems cold, no matter how many hot bricks they add, with no warm heartbeat beside her. They make her sit all day, surrounded by chattering women, and she fidgets with the need to roam, to stalk, to ride, to fly. She thinks with longing of her quiet castle and Brother’s uncomplicated love.
At night she creeps out the window- the chiseled stone is hatchling’s play to climb- to run through the gardens and smell air that isn’t perfumed to cover the human stink. Even that brings her little joy; the gardens are all carefully cultivated patches of life with sterility in between, and there are no rabbits to chase or berries to pick. All too soon, though, her guards come grumbling to seize her arms and drag her in, back to where even the cleanest dirt is not tolerated against her skin and her own scent is washed away under the gagging stink of dying flowers.
She wilts, day by day, her eyes losing their sparkle and her bright gold hair losing its shine. Food tastes like ash in her mouth, her sleep is fitful. Her not-mother pretends to fret over her when people are looking, her not-brother makes snide comments about her appearance. She barely hears them anymore. Mother would not recognize her now; there is no love of life in her heart.
She paces her chambers like a beast in a too-small cage, claws removed and fangs filed to nubs, and stares out the window with dull, lifeless eyes.
x-x-x-x-x
She is wakened from fitful sleep by a calloused hand pressing over her mouth. Only a moment’s panic crosses her mind before her heart begins to sing; she’d know that amber-eyed gaze anywhere!
:Sister-mine!: She throws her arms around her brother and weeps, silently, reaching out for the only being who feels real in this land of perfumed, empty words.
:Thought you were dead, saw you fall! Saw so much blood…: He shudders, and she feels scars across his back, only recently healed.
:Wing-torn, lost much blood, but not yet dead. Men grew bored, left. Was able to stop bleeding, heal. Searched for heart-sister, found you, could not reach you. Reached for magic to be human. Climbed wall.: He huffed and stroked her hair. :Humans not guard well from other humans.:
She lets out a broken, teary laugh and wipes her face with her sleeve. :Looking for me-escaping, not you-entering. Won’t be easy to leave.:
He grins, all teeth and dragon’s fire.
:Easy not fun.:
x-x-x-x-x
They sneak their way upwards, towards the castle walls. He can only hold this form until daylight, as young as he is, and it’s fast approaching dawn; the plan is for her to ride on his shoulders away from the castle as dawn takes back his human form.
They’re caught halfway up, by a knight sneaking back from a maid’s room; she takes him down with a swift slash of a stolen knife, but not before his yell alerts the castle.
The warriors bring them to bay on the parapets just as light crests the horizon; her brother is forced to leap from the walls as he loses human form and hovers just out of bow-shot, desperately calling her.
She cannot reach him…. But she refuses to be taken again.
Her eyes locked on her brother and her scale armor turning gold in the morning light, she leaps from the wall. She ignores the screams of the humans, listening instead to the despairing heart-call of her brother who cannot reach her in time.
Her mind flashes back to a lesson of Mother’s; “a dragon may change shape if their need is great.”
Mother had named her a dragon at heart.
Her roar splits the air as her armor grows, turning into golden scales the color of morning sun, and her wings cut the air like butter.
The golden dragon joins her brother in the sky, crying out her joy as they circle one another, and as the humans gape they turn to the mountains with their wings nearly touching as they fly.
From that day forth, the armor coat became her dragon-skin; when she wore it, she would be the golden dragon her heart knew her to be, and when she removed it (as she did only rarely) she would be the human woman she was born.
The armor’s scales all stayed golden, even after she removed it; all except two, that is. They rested directly over her heart, one a gorgeous sapphire-blue and the other a deep, fierce red; for no matter how much you change your shape, you keep your true family close to your heart.
Okay guys, I normally don’t go into politics but this is really really really really important. You might have heard of it, but the election of our next President is currently taking place in France, so I’ll write this quick words, in both English and French, in hope that a lot of you will read it.
This is me begging you to go vote on May 7th. I kept scrolling on twitter today and all I could see was hashtags terrifying me. #JamaisMacron (Never Macron) #SansMoiLe7Mai (Without me on May 7th)… On April 25th, we voted for 2 candidates. Despite our hopes, the two names that came out were Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen. You might not know them if you’re not french, but both those names held different stories. While, yes, Emmanuel Macron is a guy that can’t keep his mind straight, change his words every five seconds, is said to be too young to be President, have some « peculiar » and stupid ideas , he is nothing compared to Le Pen. She is the leader of the far right, the « Front National », and she is a fraud. a political leader behind a party you should be scarred of. Racist, antisemitic, homophobic, anti-immigration, anti-multiculturalism are some of the words that could be used to describe them.
Truth is, I don’t want either of them to become my President, but we have to put pride and hatred aside. We are French, guys, we are free, we are a nation, we are a beautiful madness, WE are France. Terrorists attacks can’t divide us. I know I’m scarred, I don’t feel safe, and I don’t trust our politicians, but never, NEVER, will I give up my freedom and my identity to elect someone like Marine Le Pen. No, she’s not Hitler, she’s not the devil, she’s just a woman, a human being, and we have the power to keep her from ruling our country. That won’t be done by sitting on your couch on May 7th, or by giving an empty envelope when you’ll go vote, or by putting the hashtag « Sans Moi le 7 Mai ». You have more than a right to vote, you have an obligation, toward yourself and toward your country. You might not like it, you might hate Macron even, but you have a voice, and we all know one voice can change everything. So go vote on May 7th, vote for Emmanuel Macron, not because you like him, or because you like his ideas, but because giving him your voice means blocking the way to a party that will destroy our country, our beliefs and most certainly our life. Please, please, please, don’t sit this one out. Go vote, because if you don’t, then you’ve made your choice, you chose the National Front and everything it stands for. It’s not voting for, but voting against. Who’d you rather have, a weird liberalist with no party and early alzheimer (and a very bad way with words), or a woman who’s going to destroy everything being french means ? It is not easy, but necessary. Choose life, guys, choose France.
With all my love, a very concerned french citizen. ——————————————————————————————————-
Salut tous le monde, je ne parle normalement jamais de politique, mais cette fois c’est vraiment, vraiment, vraiment, vraiment important.
Je vous supplie d’aller voter le 7 Mai. Toute la journée, je n’ai vue que des hashtags qui m’ont fait atrocement peur sur twitter; #JamaisMacron - #SansMoiLe7Mai … Le 25 Avril, on a voté pour 2 candidats. Malgré nos espoirs, les deux noms qui en sont ressortis sont ceux d’Emmanuel Macron et de Marine Le Pen. Vous ne les connaissez peut-être pas si vous n’êtes pas français, mais ce sont deux noms avec deux histoires bien différentes. Il est vrai qu’Emmanuel Macron est un homme qui n’a pas l’esprit clair, qui change de mots et d’avis toutes les cinq secondes, qui est dit trop jeune pour être Président, et qui a clairement quelques stupides idées très « particulières », mais il n’est rien comparé à Le Pen. Elle est le leader de l’extrême droite, le Front National, et c’est une arnaque à elle seule, un leader politique derrière un partie dont vous devriez avoir peur. Racisme, antisémitisme, homophobe, anti-immigration, anti-multiculturalisme sont quelques mots qui pourraient bien les décrire.
La vérité étant que je ne veux qu’aucun des deux ne devienne mon(ma) Président(e), mais nous devons mettre de côté notre fierté et notre haine. Nous sommes français, les gars ! Nous sommes libre, nous sommes une nation, nous représentons une magnifique folie, merde, NOUS sommes la France. Les attaques terroristes ne doivent pas nous diviser. Je sais que j’ai peur, que je ne me sens pas en sécurité, que je ne fais pas confiance à nos politiciens, mais jamais, JAMAIS, je ne renoncerais à ma liberté et mon identité pour élire quelqu’un comme Marine Le Pen. Non, elle n’est pas Hitler, elle n’est pas le diable, elle est simplement une femme, un être humain, et nous avons le pouvoir de l’empêcher de gouverner notre pays. Ca ne se fera pas en restant assis sur votre canapé le 7 Mai, ni en rendant une enveloppe vide lorsque vous irez voter, ni même en écrivant ce fameux hashtag « Sans Moi le 7 Mai ». Vous avez plus qu’un droit de voter, vous avez une obligation, envers vous-même et envers votre pays. Vous n’aimez peut-être pas ça, vous détestez peut-être même Macron, mais vous avez une voix, et nous savons tous qu’une seule voix peut faire toute la différence. Alors allez voter le 7 Mai, votez pour Emmanuel Macron, pas parce que vous l’appréciez lui, ou même ses idées, mais parce que lui donner votre voix veut dire bloquer la route à un partie qui pourrait détruire notre pays, nos croyances et probablement même nos vies. S’il vous plaît, à tous ce qui lisent ce mots et ont le pouvoir de bouger les choses, à tous les français, ne faites pas l’impasses sur ces élections. Allez voter, parce que ne pas le faire, c’est déjà faire un choix, le choix du Front National et de tous ce qu’il soutient. Rappelez vous que ce n’est pas voter pour, mais voter contre. Qui préférez-vous, un libéraliste étrange, sans partie avec un alzheimer précoce, ou une femme qui pourrait détruire tous ce qu’être français veut dire ? Ce n’est pas facile mais nécessaire. Choisissez la vie, les gars, choisissez la France.
Avec tout mon amour, une citoyenne française très inquiète.
Anyone who posted about the American election needs to reblog this.
France, don’t do the same thing we did in the USA. Don’t do it. Go vote for that young guy.
