chibiveneficus

[chibiveneficus]

Pre-menstrual depression is always depicted as like "He He! I had a box of icecream bars and cried while watching the Titanic!" But in reality, it's more like, "I'm standing the edge of an abyss. There is nothing good inside of me, I'm filled with rage and desperation."

It's crazy that being told how to deal with that is never a part of anyone's menstrual sex education.

[chibiveneficus]

I know for a fact that my stepmother loves me.

I know it for a fact because the vaccine for the sleeping sickness came out when I was ten, and she cried. When she was a kid, parents would have Sleep Overs whenever someone caught it, in the hopes of spread it around - children were statistically more likely to be woken up by "True Love's Kiss" from a parent or family member, after all, whereas if you caught it when you were older, things got more complicated and if you were old, you might be the last one in your family left.

(There’s more to it than that, I know, I've tried reading the papers, but I barely passed biocurse with a C+, and don't even get me started on organic curses. Those two classes were enough to kill any hope I had of becoming a fairy godperson.)

So, when the vaccine against the sleeping sickness came out, my stepmother cried, and my father got me on the list right away; I wasn't high priority, after all; I was young, there wasn't an active outbreak in my school district, and I was otherwise healthy. But they put me on the backup list anyway, so if there was one, just one available, I could get it.

When the fairy godperson's office called, my dad was at work, but my stepmother bundled me up and drove there so fast I thought we were going to be pulled over. (Later, I found out that she'd gotten an automated ticket from one of the red light cameras, a fact that she hid from both me and my dad.) They called my dad, of course, and he left work, but he also gave the okay for my stepmother to be my medical proxy in case he was delayed.

Vaccines don't last forever, and it was decided that I would be given it without him there. At 100 minutes, my stepmother would try kissing my forehead, and if it didn't work, the office would set me up for the 100 hours it would take before my dad could try.

Magic can't be ignored, but it can be tricked.

It didn't matter. At 100 minutes post-vaccine, my stepmother kissed my forehead and I woke up.

So. I know she loves me.

My mom would have been there, if she could, but she died when I was five. She'd gotten Rapunzelean cancer in high school, but she'd beaten it! She was one of the successes!

...Until it came back.

I don't remember much about her, but I remember that she loved me. Even as the golden tumors grew from her bare scalp and sucked the life out of her, she would sing to me, and she wrote me a series of letters for me as I grew up, just in case.

My stepmother took me to her grave sometimes. My dad does too, but it's nice that my stepmother is willing, you know? I had a breakdown one year when I couldn't find my mom's favorite flowers to take to her burial site, and my stepmom drove me all over town until we found one store that had them in the right color. (My dad was at the fairy godperson's office to get some pre-wards before we went to the cemetery. I found out later that his father had caught a curse shortly after my grandmother passed away, specifically geriatric onset donkeyskin, and my father was paranoid of following in his footsteps.)

My dad and my stepmom shuffled their shifts, so that one of them was with me in the morning before school, and one of them was there after, and then both were home for dinner. When I told them I wanted to study to be a fairy godperson, they took me seriously, even though I had wanted to be a pilot and a vet, and and a lawyer and and and - they always supported me, and soon I was being gifted books on the history of magicomedicine and cursebreaking. Some of them gave me nightmares - siren's disease freaked me out for a long time; something about the tongue swelling so much you would suffocate, and the agonizing images of ancient "cures" where the victim had to get their tongue cut out so they could breathe. I don't even know why! There were much worse ones! But something about that was so visceral to me. For the next month, any time my feet hurt even a little was convinced I was coming down with siren's disease.

I worried my parent's so much that they took me to Fairy Elena, my PCFP, and asked if she would be willing to go over how siren's is treated now. She gave me a quick rundown on intubation, pain medication, and told me about Prince's Blood Donations.

It was the first time I learned that magic can be tricked; according to legend, siren's disease could be cured by killing someone's true love and smearing their blood over the patient's legs. At least, that was one line of thought; another line of thought argued that it had to be the blood of royalty. Some fairy godpersons and magicoresearchers got together in the '80s and decided to research it methodically, going through every known case of siren's disease & what worked and what didn't. It turned out royalty was the key, but then it became a question of ethics. I didn't care too much at the time, that was all boring, grown-up stuff, but finally one researcher decided to just make a blood bank company, call it Prince's and see if that worked.    

And it did.

Magic can be tricked, and my mind was blown.

I also asked my dad if we could put that book away for a little, because it was too scary. He agreed, and we put it on the top shelf, where all the scary books went. I reread it recently, and honestly? I don't remember what I was so afraid of.

Things started changing when I turned 16.

For one, my hair, which had always been brown, started darkening to black. For another, I stopped being able to tan. It was like a light switch went off; magic was determined to turn me into something, and I hated it. My PCFP really went to bat for me, getting insurance to cover the cost of cosmetic glamours and professional tanning sprays. She wanted me to tell my parents, but I didn't want to, not yet, and she was bound by her oath to protect my privacy.   

She was right. But... I wanted to ignore it. I wanted to pretend everything was fine.

I didn't want to lose another mom.

And it worked for a while; managed to get to my senior year of high school before the world broke.

Stepmothers don't have the best reputation.

It fucking sucks, and it's not fair, but enough stories have been told about them that magic took an interest, and began manifesting curses that warp stepmothers until they follow the story.

We thought we were safe. My stepmother didn't bring any children into the marriage, so she was safe from the ash-girl curse variant, and I was a tanned brunette, so we were safe from the snow-daughter variant.

And she loved me.

She hid it too, I think. Not intentionally, but some of the symptoms are paranoia and anxiety.

I've done a lot of research. I don't think I'll ever be able to be a fairy godperson, but that doesn't mean I had to stop caring. I swapped my focus to researching curses from the history and literature side of things. I still work with researchers, we just come from different angles now.

Anyway, no one realized anything was wrong until she was french braiding my hair and the next thing I knew, she had locked herself in the bathroom sobbing while EMTs took me to the hospital for overnight observation. I don't actually know what happened. She turned herself over to the cops as soon I was loaded onto the ambulance, and she was taken to a hospital herself. She was sedated at first, as she was so wound up that she was hurting herself, and the hospital couldn't scan her for curses. Once she came out of sedation, she immediately called my dad and offered a divorce, he could take everything, she would leave immediately.

But we'd gotten the results of the scans, and I was fine. As best that the fairy godperson's could tell, the magic was frustrated that we didn't want to go down the snow-daughter route, and had lashed out in an attempt to force it. That was apparently what knocked me unconscious; magic poisoned the comb my stepmother was using in my hair.

That didn't mean she didn't feel guilty - but so did I. If I had told them earlier, would things have changed? If I hadn't tried to hide the signs that magic was fucking with us?

They don't blame me, and I don't blame her.  

She loves me. I know she does. We still talk, as best as we can. She can only hear my voice for ten minutes before the curse starts taking over. We can email, though, as long as the orderlies can prescreen the email for any curse triggers. She also can't hear about me directly, but my dad will go and visit her, and tell me how she's doing. He refused to divorce her. His insurance still covers her hospital stay. He says he's married, and wears his ring.

When I applied to college, I wrote about all three of my parents, and how much they had all taught me.

How much they all loved me.

Someday, my stepmother will get her curse lifted, I have to believe that. I've joined a multidisciplinary group of researchers based in the EU. Some of us are looking at ways to trick magic, some of us are looking at ways to rewrite the stories of the wicked stepmothers, and create a new path for the magic to follow. One group of researchers is looking into ways of simulating the punishments that stepmothers receive at the end of tales to see if "punishing" stepmothers would break the curse. Actually going through the punishments would cause any ethical review board to remove someone's license, and there's no way I would want my stepmom to dance in red hot metal shoes.

But lately she's been getting hot stone foot massages before I call her; that's how we got to ten minutes before the curse took hold, and next week we're going to see if holding her feet in a hot bath lets us video call. Maybe someday we'll be able to see each other in person again. Maybe I'll be able to take her home where dad and I can cook dinner for her, and we can be a family again. My family has an apple pie recipe, and we never made it - I understand why, now, but maybe someday we can laugh at this and all make it together. To make your own apple pie, you'll need...

[chibiveneficus]

[chibiveneficus]

My two favorite medics who’ve probably never interacted!

[chibiveneficus]

so anyway i'm rewatching cybuster because I felt like becoming ill over Masaki again and also because my brain doesn't want to do anything else

(i'm spewing my thoughts on bluesky and then crossposting here because i live here)

one of the things I remember is that Ken is suppose to be the "main" character but he never felt like it. His younger sister felt more like the main character tbh. and Masaki. I love you Masaki

it's going to be exciting to see if I still think that on second watch

ladies!! there's so many ladies with major roles in this show, it's really nice

love how cybuster gets hit one (1) time and goes 'fuck this shit i'm out' and vwops away

lyune is so caught up in the fact that her dad was DC's founder that it makes her so incredibly stupid and reckless. her entire logical tree is 'it's ok if i do this because my dad made the place!' and i love it because of how frustrating it is!! girl, no!!!!

literal child logic to the fact that she'll be fired if Ken rats her out for breaking the robot that took ten years to develop as oppose to all of them being fired if he doesn't

ah yes, the environment cleanup crew will fight the mysterious creature and not the military because of the air hazard warning. perfect sense

cybuster just taking a calm stroll downtown while lyune shoots up the place

love how in the span of three days, Ken is not hired, hired, fired, un-fired

[chibiveneficus]

Some 2025 news that doesn’t suck because news always sucks these days:

Some articles found by @reasonsforhope

$300 million in federal funding for Indigenous-led conservation in the Northwest Territories arrives

Portugal introduces paid menstrual leave for endometriosis and adenomyosis

Healthy, sustainable climate 'is a human right', rules UN court

Indigenous Amazonians win landmark ruling against mercury pollution in Colombia

Saint Lucia High Court Decriminalizes Same-Sex Conduct

Ciara Becomes Citizen Of Benin Under New Law For Slave Trade Descendants

Tennessee to become first state in South to protect access to IVF, birth control

All major Las Vegas Strip casinos are now unionized in historic labor victory

Ghana passes Affirmative Action Bill after decades of advocacy

‘Long Overdue’ Lead Ammunition Ban Announced in the UK to Save Thousands of Birds

Yellowstone aspen showing signs of recovery following 1995 reintroduction of wolves to park

Chess Lover Introduces Game to Malawi’s Prisons, Schools and Street Kids

Dutch Cities Are Building These Tiny Staircases to Help Cats Exit Their Canals

Arab women in maritime finalize strategy to advance gender equality

Endangered ‘Blue Dragon’ of the Caymans Roars Back from the Brink as Population Climbs Above 1,000

A Tiny Gecko Species Once Thought Extinct Just Made a Comeback in the Galápagos

Iran’s Asiatic Cheetah Population Rises to 20, Says Department of Environment + Video

Wattled Crane no longer Critically Endangered in South Africa

Gov. Jared Polis signs bill protecting gender-affirming care coverage in Colorado

Judge Upholds Birthright Citizenship in Landmark Ruling Backed by Letitia James

Wisconsin bear with plastic jar on their head has been freed, is safe

Spain offers 17 weeks of paid parental leave to new parents

Thailand ranks first globally for gender equality in women's education

[chibiveneficus]

Spreading my Shadowmaru with claws agenda

[chibiveneficus]

i like it

[chibiveneficus]

190208

[chibiveneficus]

stinky guardian grrrr

[chibiveneficus]

I'm kinda shy but if youre persistent in getting to know me for 5-6 years I can be a good addition to your household

[chibiveneficus]

i think i love you (a redo of this) X

[chibiveneficus]

Miki: oh man do I love my friends, Rin you are now my new friend yippieeeee

Murderbot: why is this bot so trusting and cheesy and thinks its humans are it's friends, it almost like it wasn't abused and lied to and-

Murderbot:....

Murderbot:

[chibiveneficus]

Just Rung building a Gundam RX-78-2 HG 1/144 model kit.

[chibiveneficus]

shout out to toby fox for being one of the funniest people on earth

bonus:

[chibiveneficus]

research transport learns cognitive empathy, is really mad about it because now corporate espionage isn’t a game and it actually realizes how corporate oppression makes people feel :(

[chibiveneficus]

The new Murderbot Diaries short story!!