I've had Lucy Wan floating in my head for a while.

[conuly]

It's not my favorite ballad - if I wanted to sing The Murdered Brother I would and often do. Floaters are a thing, sure, but I still think it's cheating to basically steal 90% of the verses from one song and tack on a different framing story.

But it does have one advantage over The Murdered Brother, and that's that the framing story makes sense. I can see how you might chop your sister up after you've knocked her up. I mean, I wouldn't do it, but I wouldn't do half the things people do in ballads. If I had no moral compass, though, then I might well look at murder as the solution to everyday social problems like an inconvenient pregnancy. Even in a ballad, though, killing your brother because he cut down a withy wand that might've been a tree is just strange.

(And their mother doesn't give a damn, it seems, no matter who killed whom and why. There's some seriously messed up family dynamics here. Sometimes you really have to wonder about the people who wrote these things.)

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

Silver Composition in Coins Confirms the Story of the Rise of Rome

How Edmond Halley Kicked Off the Golden Age of Eclipse Mapping

Probiotic Bacteria Could Protect Newborns From Deadly Infection

Nobody Knows What Lies Beneath New York City

Pretty sure I've seen this exact premise in, like, a thousand Harry Potter fics. Because how else are you gonna get Draco and Hermione to hook up?

Female Inmates In Federal Prisons Will Now Have More Access To Tampons & Pads

The next time somebody tells me that they or anybody else can't be a bigot because they have one $GROUP friend, I'm going to point them to this article about Eduard Bloch, who was personally exempted from anti-Semitic persecution by... Adolf Hitler. Yes, really. Yes, my jaw dropped too.

Solving a Murder Mystery With Ancestry Websites

Justice Department at odds with DEA on marijuana research, MS-13

Severe Housing Needs May Return to Foreclosure-Crisis Levels

This Is Why Taking Fish Medicine Is Truly a Bad Idea (This may be a sign that things in this country are really, really bad.)

They Got Hurt At Work — Then They Got Deported

White nationalists are flocking to genetic ancestry tests — but many don't like their results

Steve Bannon once said Breitbart was the platform for the alt-right. Its current editors disagree. Is the incendiary media company at the nerve center of Donald Trump’s America simply provocative — or dangerous?

Psychologists surveyed hundreds of alt-right supporters. The results are unsettling.

Trump Knows Exactly What He’s Doing

In Ukraine, a Malware Expert Who Could Blow the Whistle on Russian Hacking

Philippine police kill 32 in bloodiest night of Duterte’s war on drugs

Comments

[brokenallbroken]

Aw, the post title made me think you were going to write a Narnia/Star Wars crossover.

[conuly]

No, but now I wish somebody would.

[archangelbeth]

I have found...

http://archiveofourown.org/works/9908930

And a lot more that I need to see if they're any good. After I sample that one.
http://archiveofourown.org/works/search?utf8=✓&work_search%5Bquery%5D=narnia+star+wars

[conuly]

Wow, thanks!

[archangelbeth]

Welcome! I just had to go digging. ...er, that first one, though well-written, is NSFW. >_>

Not many of the others have actual crossovers. *sigh*

[dogstar]

I do love me some terrible Dramione fic.....

[conuly]

Or even good Dramione.

[amaebi]

"I mean, I wouldn't do it, but I wouldn't do half the things people do in ballads."

Words to live by.

[conuly]

Which brings me to point two: If you've got a pregnancy which will embarrass or inconvenience somebody else, maaaaaaaybe you should stop meeting with them alone until the situation is resolved. Haven't these folks ever heard of the buddy system?

[amaebi]

I now wonder whether Ballad Consultant is a viable career path?

[aurumcalendula]

I’m rather fond of Boiled in Lead’s variant on Lucy Wan (Son, Oh Son) where his mother's response to learning he’s killed his sister is ‘if [your father] doesn’t kill you, I surely will’.

[conuly]

See, that's a logical response to fratricide! (Or sororicide, even.)

[elenbarathi.livejournal.com]

Yeah, taking fish medicine is a bad idea, but it's way better than letting a raging infection go untreated when there's no money for a Real Doctor.

The points made in that article are only partly valid. It's true that antibiotics have no effect on viral illnesses, but if someone's got green slime dripping out of their wound, gums or sinuses, it's a good bet they've got a bacterial infection. In an ideal world, doctors would culture the germs to see what they really are, but in practice, they generally just prescribe Amoxicillin (or Erythromycin if one's allergic to Amoxicillin) and if that doesn't work, then they do a culture.