#I buy them blahaj's

[eribytevt]

I love blahaj <3

art by @erisaconitum (https://twitter.com/ErisAconitum)

[wavetapper]

I have a new bookcase now which means I finally have enough space to store all my plushies. and books I guess

[pjomakesyourkidsgay]

moving in | p. jackson

warnings: gn!reader, normal life au, soft!bf!percy

ଳ ‧₊˚ — you and percy decide to move in together in a small apartment after college

ଳ ‧₊˚ — living together was a huge decision you two took

ଳ ‧₊˚ — it was a little hard convincing sally but since you spend so much time at his house and vice versa, there wasn't much difference

ଳ ‧₊˚ — except for sally

ଳ ‧₊˚ — she gave the both of you a long sit-down talk on setting up mutual rules and other stuff

ଳ ‧₊˚ — but she was actually just stalling

ଳ ‧₊˚ — she trusts that you'll watch over percy for her and knows that her son will do the same for you

ଳ ‧₊˚ — moving out day was almost a cry-fest but we ignore that

ଳ ‧₊˚ — anyway sally and paul dip in sometimes to help in with decorating the place

ଳ ‧₊˚ — well. you and percy go ALL OUT and suddenly you're in ikea looking around at furniture and other household items

ଳ ‧₊˚ — you look away for literally 3 SECONDS and when you look back at your cart there are about 14 blahaj plushies swimming in it

ଳ ‧₊˚ — "percy we can't just buy the whole stock"

ଳ ‧₊˚ — "why not."

ଳ ‧₊˚ — "percy we came here for furniture"

ଳ ‧₊˚ — "but they're going to look so cute swimming around the place"

ଳ ‧₊˚ — he gives you sad wet puppy eyes

ଳ ‧₊˚ — he's so happy with the two you let him keep he holds on to them the whole trip around calling them your children

ଳ ‧₊˚ — he's so cute

ଳ ‧₊˚ — anyway you end up making your apartment sea themed

ଳ ‧₊˚ — because the ocean is pretty anyway

ଳ ‧₊˚ — as in your bed has blue covers and white pillows, there are sea shells (that he collects) on the shelves, and he literally goes out to get coral suncatchers

ଳ ‧₊˚ — percy also convinces you to get a fish

ଳ ‧₊˚ — you often find him talking to it 😭

ଳ ‧₊˚ — it doesnt die though so i guess that's a pro

[cumaeansibyl]

DEADLINE EXTENDED TO APRIL 20TH!!!

GIVEAWAY: SUPPORTING REFUGEE RESETTLEMENT IN THE NAME OF SPITE

A college football podcast I enjoy runs a charitable drive every year for New American Pathways, a Georgia refugee resettlement charity one of the hosts used to work for. Since all their listeners are sports fans, they came up with a fun gimmick:

Donate money in the name of your favorite team, to compete with other teams.

Naturally this gets a lot of action! People donate to show fans of their hated rivals that they're the BEST, they donate specific numbers to commemorate notable game scores or player jersey numbers, they talk so much shit, it's fun.

There are also some fictional schools that have developed into their own entities, and this is where my pitch comes in. Because in addition to silly things like Night Ham University and Make Spencer Eat Cheese, we have...

PROTECT TRANS KIDS UNIVERSITY

(art by Matt Souva)

Our beloved PTKU Blue Sharks came in FOURTH PLACE last year, raising $46,626 for refugee resettlement! The grand total was over a million dollars!

Now, of course, New American Pathways has had basically all its federal funding cut, and there's no prospect of its being restored any time soon. And it's more important than ever to show the world that we believe in protecting trans kids.

I know times are tough and apt to get tougher. Which is why I'm adding an incentive.

If you send me a donation receipt (personal info redacted) in the name of Protect Trans Kids University between now and Friday, April 18th at midnight EDT, I will enter you into a drawing for YOUR VERY OWN BLAHAJ THAT I WILL BUY AND SEND TO YOU.

Questions:

Is there an FAQ about what all this is? Yes, it is here.

Do I have to donate to PTKU? Yes, because I want them to beat Michigan this year. Of course you can donate to whatever you want, but I won't enter you into the drawing. I figure like 80% of you have zero sports interest so it should be fine.

What if IKEA US doesn't ship to my location? IKEA shipping is weird. If I can't figure out how to get a shark to you directly, I will send you the appropriate amount of money for you to buy one from an IKEA in your country. You will need to have Venmo, Paypal, or CashApp for this option.

What if I don't want to give you my address? Same thing, we'll work it out. Is there a minimum donation amount? I think the website minimum is a dollar. There is no minimum for the drawing.

When will the drawing take place? UPDATED: Sunday 4/21. The donation deadline has been extended to April 20th! I will keep everyone posted.

Where should I send the receipt? cumaeansibyl@gmail.com.

Any more questions, send me an ask.

GO FORTH AND DONATE Y'ALL

[the-blahaj]

should i steal from the rich and use the money to buy blahajs for every queer kid at my school

xx

as long as you arent outing them

[jacksfandomrandom]

🛹🎮🐈TransMasc Miya Chinen Headcanons!🐈🎮🛹

-Uses He/They pronouns but prefers masculine terms

-Takashi was the first person he told that he was a boy to.

-He came out to his parents when he was 9 years old. They didn't care about it that much since they didn't really care about him. They let him socially transition but was against letting him go on puberty blockers.

-speaking of his parents, they don't exactly try to be supportive. they accept it, but they don't go out of their way for things. They will casually use the wrong pronouns and get mad at Miya when he tries to correct them.

-Always had medium length hair and was very masculine presenting during his younger childhood

-Rarely uses binders and instead uses trans tape. He has a small chest so it works out pretty well for him.

-Does a lot of voice training since he can't go on T until he's 16

-has a blahaj

-He and Reki bond over transness

-he's very insecure about his height. He knows he's short and he doesn't like it.

-He hates it when reporters ask him about trans related issues during the skating interviews. He'll try to change the topic back to skateboarding but if it doesn't work then he just answers very vaguely.

-sometimes paints his nails black but normally keeps them plain.

-never leaves the house without the good ol' dysphoria hoodie™

-Cherry is his strict supportive dad basically. He times how long he binds, he makes sure he's either in a loose binder or tape while they skate, buys him pads and period stuff when he needs it, and will sass the fuck out of anyone who uses the wrong pronouns

-Joe is his chill dad. He shows Miya masculinizing exercises, gives him food that will heighten his testosterone levels, and just treats him like he's "one of the guys".

If you have any more that you'd like to know, send me an ask! I'll answer it right away and if i don't i'm probably at school

[kittehxx]

I-I-… I bought a Blåhaj thinking I could put it in the livingroom… but the trans horde came and now they’re bashing in my windows… I’ve hidden in the closet… but I hear them sniffing…

There's a lesson to be learned here...

Always buy enough blahaj to share

[that-goose]

I went to IKEA to buy a Blahaj but apparently that one person from the math problems bought ALL of them that morning. I’m so sad :(

[soupedepates]

Hanko belongs to @noa-de-cajou

Getting nice things - May 2025

"What ringtone do you want?"

Hanko looks at me like he doesn't understand what is going on

Exaggerating a bit his expression (to convey the message better I think)

"If we get separated

I want to know you are the one calling me

Or sending a text

It'll be easier to figure out where you are and to reunite after that"

Their mouth forms an "o"

I hand him my phone to let him choose

They don't take long before settling on a little jingling bell

"Perfect

Just ring me and I'm coming to find you"

It is a bit difficult to navigate with someone who can't speak

I mean

The twins were both early speakers

But Bogdan didn't talk until he was five

(It worried Fryderyk a lot

He didn't understand how I could be so unalarmed by the situation

I just said we should probably get him assessed for autism as this is genetic)

And my own experience as a nonverbal child goes back forty years ago

And those experiences are children-specific

You don't treat a young adult like a child

Even if Hanko could be my child

But I've got it

(Briefing Idalia was a bit more challenging because for the love of God she has trouble to get why someone couldn't be able to speak)

"So first thing first

You will choose bed sheets to your liking

At least two sets

Then

Secondly

Pillows

And thirdly

Bath clothes

Don't worry about covers

We have spares at home"

He blinks

"What?"

He texts me

"I don't think I can afford all of that."

"Don't worry about it

It's on me"

"But you don't have to."

"But I want to

You deserve nice things and I work enough to afford them for everyone under my roof"

They hesitate

They type something

Then erase

Then type again

Then erase again

Then send

"Thank you a lot."

"It is the bare minimum

Besides

I need to buy new kitchenware

Idalia dropped some plates last week

Oh

Before I forgot"

I point his noise-cancelling headset

"If you get overstimulated

Don't hesitate

IKEA is a sensory nightmare at times"

He seems...

Scared?

He behaves like a frightened animal

"And if you see something you want

Put it in the bag

Take it as a welcome gift"

***

Gosh I hate IKEA

It's such a confusing environment

Thanks heaven we are out of it by noon

"What do you want to eat?"

He hugs the Blahaj I bought after I noticed him eyeing it

"Let me reformulate

What is your favourite food?"

"Pierogi."

"I know a place

It's a Polish restaurant not far from the hospital

It's nice

Do you want to go there?"

They stare at me blankly

Almost like a fish

Before nodding

(I know this place because I used to bring my mother there after her stroke

You know how she is

Even in reeducation she couldn't stay at the hospital all day long)

"Great

Jump in the car"

***

He points what he wants on the menu

I order in Polish

(The food comes faster this way

The owner is Polish and the diaspora is quite tight-knit here

It feels like we all know one another

Well

Our meals with my mother must've been quite unforgettable because the waiter asks me how she is doing nowadays - finer than last time he saw her)

"Can I pry a little bit?"

"Go on"

"What happened with your mother?"

"Oh

She had a stroke four years ago

While I was divorcing

The timing was unfortunate

I moved closer to her apartment to help her

She was hospitalised for a bit and she left with after-effects

She is still hemiplegic

Half of her face is paralysed and her left arm hasn't recovered

But she can walk again now with a cane

And she is able to talk almost normally

You will likely meet her tonight or tomorrow

She is quite the character I must say"

"Can I see a picture?"

"Sure

But I don't have recent pictures of her

She doesn't let anyone take a picture of her since her stroke"

I search pictures for over four years ago

(I have the same phone for over 6 years now)

"Here

It was taken on Christmas 2019"

I didn't have as much grey hair on that picture

It's almost funny how time flies

It seems like a million years ago

"This is the woman with dyed hair and a colourful scarf

Here"

"She is beautiful. She doesn't look old."

"She always took pride in that

I took after my father unfortunately"

He has an unsure smile

Then points to other people in the picture

"Them?

They are my ex-in-laws

I am still in good terms with Nikodem but not so much with Rozalia

And this is my niece Zofia and her mother Adelajda

Adelajda is married to my ex-brother-in-law

Who is here

Behind him there are my ex-sisters-in-law"

"I didn't know you had a third child."

That's right

Bogdan is sitting on my lap in this picture

He was six

"Bogdan

My youngest

He lives with his father full-time

Speaking of the father

This is him holding my shoulders

His name is Fryderyk

We reconnected and now we're friends

And as you didn't mention the twins I guess Bazyli told you about them"

He nods

"You used to have a large family."

"I do

But I still have today

First with Idalia

And then

With Bazya

Bronya

Simowiet

Milosz

And whomever they bring along"

Hanko has a silent giggle before eating his pierogi like someone would steal from him

I look at that picture with a smile

Before eating my own meal

***

"You need more clothes

So since we are downtown we can buy some"

"Are you sure it won't be too expensive?"

"Don't worry about it

Money is not a problem "

He looks through the show-windows of one of the many shops downtown

"Let me know if you find something to your taste"

They nod

They're truly charming

A pleasure to be around

I stop in front of a shop indulging in middle-aged women fashion but everything looks a bit too uncomfortable

Idalia might think I should treat myself with a nice outfit from time to time but I am almost fifty and I am not getting any younger

This may be the generational gap

(I am from the Gen X after all

From the Gen X that comes from the Soviet bloc and has immigrated after the Fall of the Berlin Wall

A very peculiar part of the Gen X)

A jingling bell in my pocket cuts me out of my reverie

"I think I found a shop, but I've lost you. Here's my localisation."

***

"Is the tea to your liking? Don't be shy, dear, I've made some cookies for you, try them, I can assure they are delicious! What do you think?"

My mother has been in "grandma" mode as soon as she has seen Hanko

It's sweet to see that

Hanko seemed a bit confused at first but he lets my mother humour him now

"Youth nowadays are always on their phone..."

"As I told you mama

Hanko is selective mute

He needs his phone to communicate"

She sighs

As if I was making this up

I know my mother by heart

She wouldn't consider herself as disabled nor myself nor someone who hasn't a severe disability

And she has her pride

You can't tell her she is wrong on medical matter (even when she is)

A robotic voice rises

"The cookies are delicious and so is the tea."

It's a text-to-speech app I believe

My mother is suddenly so happy like on cue

"Oh I will make more of them, then! Zushka told you that I live upstairs? If you need anything, you can come to see me, it's not like I am often away!" she smiles

She pours him more tea and encourages him to eat more cookies

She will spoil Hanko

She is that kind of grandma

(She would've been that kind of mother if it weren't for Soviet Poland)

"When will Idalia be home? No, you know what, I don't need to know that, I will start to cook dinner now. Will Dmitry be there tonight too?"

"This isn't Idalia's week so no"

"That's too bad. Hanko, you would've loved the boy, he is such a sweet kid, and quite sharp for his age! And what about Bora and Agatyushka?"

"They may drop by during the weekend but you know how they are

They tend to come unannounced"

***

"So this is Baz's friend? Hanko, right?" Idalia says as she gets out of the shower in pyjamas

"Yes

He is selective mute and uses his phone to communicate"

"But he can talk, right?"

"Yes

But not with everyone"

"How come? I mean, look at his face, he must've been beaten like a dog before, you don't get out of that shit without being a little argumentative."

I sigh and shrug

"Anyways, what is his full name again?"

"Hanko Dolak

They are Polish too"

"Dolak, Dolak, Dolak... Wait a sec, That does ring a bell."

She paces around the kitchen

She hasn't touched her food yet and it's getting colder

"Dolak... Oh fuck yeah I know what bell it rings! Do you know if they have a big sister called Marian? I went to high school with a Marian Dolak. Tekla and that girl kinda bonded because they were the goth girls of our class, and they were listening to music together. Marian Dolak was nicknamed "Wednesday Addams", oh don't give me that look she did kinda look like her!"

"I don't know

I can ask him tomorrow if you want"

"That would be so fucking funny if they were Marian's sibling" she laughs "I should introduce myself, where can I find him?"

"He needs to rest now

It has been a long day

You'll meet him tomorrow"

"He is watching the Ghibli movies on the couch, right? I knew someone was watching TV. Well, I won't bother him, sure, but he can use a hot chocolate, can't he?"

I won't stop her I think

And I think also it's kind of sweet she is immediately preparing them a drink

I put her plate in the microwave as I know she will likely forget to eat until way later in the evening

It's good that Hanko gets kind attention and gestures of fondness already

Hanko deserves a lot of nice things

[wheeloffortune-design]

heyhey weirdly specific thing, can I post the art in your pinned post for Mrs. Victoria Buys a Brothel to the sapphic art community on the blahaj Lemmy? (Lemmy is a smaller social media platform with a number of more isolated 'instances,' Blahaj Lemmy being one of them.) I really think the folks over there would like it, and I would link back to your post and credit you :>

Sorry, but no, don't repost my Mrs. Victoria art.

[cristinaecho]

Getting ready for Pride this weekend and I've just received the COOLEST collection of stickers EVER!!!

@bacolotl is just great and I love these little sharks so much!!

Link to buy them here:

Go get them!!!! 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️

Happy Pride everyone🌈

[puppygirlgirldick]

i got a squishmallow to give to my niece for her birthday and holy fuck this thing is so soft i wanna buy like 30 of these and make a puppy bed out of them. it's softer than my blahaj i didn't even know that was scientifically possible

[talenlee]

A Year of Blahaj

You know I feel like I don’t talk about my work enough. Or rather that now as part of a sprawling internet presence that covers a bunch of different platforms and front ends, I don’t feel like I talk that much about the individual components of that very often. I rarely reflect on what I’ve done and how good a job I did doing it, whatever it was. Which is funny because when I’m looking for stuff to write about, it seems a pretty obvious thing to do, because I’m one of the topics I have complete control over and can’t get copyright struck over. After all, things I create, myself, are entirely and surely under my control and I don’t have to worry about things like copyright law for my own work, right?

Right?

Let’s talk about this blahaj sticker I drew.

This sticker, which you can buy at Redbubble, if you want, and if you see me at a convention you probably can buy one off me for a dollar, too. It’s a fun little sticker!

The original genesis for the Blahaj sticker was a joke I remembered making on twitter. I’m not linking the source material any more, but it was a joke I made, off-handedly, as with many one-off jokes I made on the regular. It was like many such jokes on twitter, where it was both made into an open space where anyone could see it, and also, made without much forethought. I threw it out there and off it went, and a thousand retweets and six thousands like later, I thought that it was a funny idea, and I should do something with it.

I doodled it in my notebook, then took a photo of that doodle. I sent the photo to my copy of GIMP, then used the vector pen tool to simplify the design, which is how I make most of my ‘drawing’ designs. When the drawing was done, I coloured a few versions and put it up on Redbubble for people to buy, imagining that it would be, like many of my other designs, something someone would say ‘oh I want that on a shirt’ and then never bought the shirt.

How’d that work out?

Well, one year later, here’s how it looks:

I sold 278 designs across the year. Of those, 199 of the designs sold are of Blahaj, and of those, 189 of the designs are the trans flag design of Blahaj. It’s not quite ⅔ of my sales, but pretty close. It would not be inappropriate to say that my Redbubble store sells Blahaj stickers. For perspective my next most popular designs are Cassowary and my Demon Core design, which each sold five products in a year.

This is pretty cool, I made a joke, people liked it, I drew a thing based on that joke, and people liked it, and people bought it.

Cool!

Right?

Right?

That’s it, right?

Well, no of course it’s not it, because my joke, made in a vacuum, was not made in a vacuum. Just in the same way that several hundred thousand people all made the joke ‘But Doctor, I am Dril,’ because we all love a good Pagliacci joke, I was not the first person to make a ‘friend of blahaj’ joke. Turns out somone else had, too, and that person was a trans woman with a much smaller following.

And it didn’t go viral when she did it.

I hadn’t seen it, I didn’t know about it, but the thing is, people she knew did see my tweet, and shared them and that result was getting to see, months later, some stranger – a boy, no less – being retweeted making the joke she did. She was, naturally, upset by this, and pretty reasonably, at first, thought that I had copied her.

There’s a science to how tweet virality works. Or rather, there’s a science to how tweet virality couldn’t work. If you have zero followers, your tweets won’t go viral, because the network of people around you are limited. This is a thing my classmates learned the awkward way. Back in the class, we were trying to make something digital as a product, like a podcast or a web gallery or something like that. What one group wanted to make was, as part of their marketing degree, a ‘viral tweet.’ They took a picture of one of our professors and shared it to their twitter account and then instructed the rest of the class to retweet it.

Now, this didn’t mean anything. This didn’t go anywhere, because that classroom was full of students who had exactly as many followers on twitter as were contained in that studio, minus the ones they thought were icky. This was not connecting to anyone or anything with a broad following, no way to escape the environment of the small community they had. I know that when I was sharing tweets, if I didn’t have a ‘big’ follower near me, or a chain of follows to a big follower, I wasn’t ever going to get my stuff in front of a large enough number of people.

Anyway, it’s just one of those things that twitter promises, numbers and values and the way our brains respond to them. Either way, it meant my goofy tweet, and the image associated with it, made someone feel shitty. And even if it wasn’t what actually happened, it’s still a pattern that so often happens: Someone monetising the work of trans people.

I wound up talking to her and buying her a pizza. Since falling off twitter, I don’t know what’s going on with her. I hope she’s doing okay.

But!

It did make me mindful that sure, while this is a joke I made and art I made and then art I converted into a saleable form, this is still a product that is ultimately about and for the trans community. And sometimes, the money it’s made has been useful for paying for things like food and rent, and that’s not a small matter, but sometimes it’s sold really well and I’ve had, functionally, just… well, money that I would normally spend on something like a board game or whatever.

In deference to the community that’s responsible for the joke, and that inspired the art, I gave a chunk of the Blahaj money to a queer-as-in-not-made-up-of-cis-gay-men anarchist co-op I trust. I didn’t give it to a charity with a big name, because I know those are often fraught with bad experiences for people and I didn’t want to give it to just some random ‘queer’ project because those so often are thoughtless outputs for people who can raise money. I wasn’t giving a lot so I wanted to maximise it.

Make no mistake, by the way: I was trying to buy away guilt that didn’t make sense. I know I haven’t done anything wrong, and I also think that artists getting paid for their art is good. It’s not even non-queer creators monetising queer work, because I’m a queer artist. There are a lot of justifications I could give for how I shouldn’t feel guilty.

But I do.

So, sometimes I spend this money on other people who I know have it harder than I do because of their access to things based on how their gender is valued in our society. I can’t say it’s an incredibly well reasoned moral framework and I don’t even know if it makes me feel better but I think it’s part of the story of this sticker I drew. How apparently, the ‘support’ this sticker offers, the art made for people who wanted it, is in my mind, is Just More Cis Bullshit.

Thanks for buying my sticker if you liked it.

Check it out on PRESS.exe to see it with images and links!

[esidolmail]

RYUSEITAI (流星隊)

Love you all

Power ranger vibes

Free from Midori's walls + Climax Grinding

Just Dance

Album Cover

New Daybreak

Flames interpretation

Phoenix Wonderland

Chiaki Morisawa

Halloween

Tokusatsu

Energy and Positivity

Trees Changing Color

Should I pull for your fs2

Coffee or Tea?

Please come home

Ryusei Rainbow

Book Recommendation

Rainbow RYUSEITAI

Brighten my Day

Kanata Shinkai

Puka Puka

Congrats on the new 4*

Soy Sauce

Accept

My Art

Odd - Five Eccentrics

Blahaj

Buy you a Blahaj

Mini shrines

Sad you're not a unit anymore - Five Eccentrics

You'd taste like salmon

You all need therapy - Five Eccentrics

What do you want for Christmas?

Depression relapsing

The boy and the heron

Cool Fish

Increase chances of coming home

Accept my offer

Duet with someone in ES

Fight the fishes (but Kanata is going to save them)

Midori would make a good fish (w/ Midori)

Mad about lookback card

Appreciation

Tetora Nagumo

Cooking Skills

Grow

We share a birthday!

Midori Takamine

Happiness

Special

Amazing

Mascot Fan

Hugs

Marriage?

Gacha Luck?

Favorite Choreography to perform

I am inside your walls

Stuck in your walls

Lean down?

Favorite RYUSEITAI Member

Album release

Do you like legos

Do you like legos part 2

Midori would make a good fish (w/ Kanata)

Trade Plushies

No FS2 Jail

Guess where I am

Guess where I am part 2

Shinobu Sengoku

Talented Ninja

Pinchable Cheeks

You're doing such a good job

Favorites Confusion

Super proud

Cutting hair + Oshi

Main Masterlist

[fishmech]

nah some of them are lighter blue op. i've had this one for like i guess a decade now?

but i think people forget that the initial tumblr/broader internet trend with blahajs was like in no way limited to trans people or even like vaguely lgbt people. it was a fad for a few years. you'd just have people getting the cheap ikea shark when they moved out for college or whatever, cuz most ikeas have you go through the kids' toy section after you finish the showroom floor loop, so they are at like a pretty good impulse buy point.

and then that whole super bowl shark thing happened and that shark costume kinda looks like a blahaj and that really spun up more interest in it again!

i think some of you may be color blind.

[katya-1917]

So, I've wanted a plush Paddington Bear ever since I knew Paddington was a thing. The issue is, while Paddington is popular all over the Anglosphere, they really do not sell any of the Paddington merch outside the UK itself.

I thought with a new Paddington movie already out in the UK and close imperial core, and coming to my region in a couple months, surely someone local is selling plush Paddingtons as movie merch. Right? So I tried to look online for anyone that would have them.

The only place I could find selling plush Paddingtons right now? An online shop based out of London, with international shop page and supposedly global shipping.

The thing is, I don't like to buy teddy bears anywhere but a brick and mortar shop in person anyway because I need to feel the fur texture to know if I'll enjoy the snuggles, and even if I would buy a teddy online, my rule there is never spend more money than you're willing to just write off as down the drain if the fur sucks for snuggles (i bought my Blahaj online, but she was an off brand and like twelve bucks), and that online shop selling Paddington stuff? They wanted HUNDREDS OF DOLLARS for one small teddy bear, NOT COUNTING THE EXPENSIVE OVERSEAS SHIPPING. The somewhat bigger, maybe hug sized, bear they sell? Even more insane. That bear is like twice my fucking groceries (one of my largest bills) for a month combined! Plus the shipping!

If I had that kind of money for a teddy bear, especially one I can't even test the fur texture of before buying it, I wouldn't be needing to buy more cheap teddy bears to cry into when sensory meltdowns hit but I can't afford sensory tools to address or prevent them.

I've never been more jealous of a two year old than when my older cousin came back from a trip to England with a bunch of Paddington stuff for his toddler son.

At this point all I can think of is to ask for one for my next birthday and let my mum sort out where to get one for a price that isn't absolutely stupid, I trust her to know my texture preferences and to be better able than me to tell from online product information pages if something's snuggly. And if it's not a good snuggle fabric, well, she's much better than me at successfully returning a defective product for a refund when the defect is sensory related.

Just because plushies of a cuddle shaped character you like exist and are being manufactured as we speak, doesn't mean they aren't extremely region locked, or made of pure unobtanium, and impossible to get or a gazillion dollars.