#i think i gave myself diabetes with this one

[mansbutchery]

Hello everyone!! I want to bring attention to these three gofundmes here as these people have reached out to me. Unfortunately, I can’t donate myself, but I can post these campaigns so somebody who can donate will. All of these families are still so far away from their campaigns goals. The bombing and shelling in Gaza have been getting worst and worst and due to the skyrocketing prices and lack of medical care, food, water, everything these people literally cannot afford to be sick or injured, please please PLEASE if you have the means to donate then please do. These people NEED you to survive and escape Gaza so they can finally hopefully live comfortably again. Please read their stories in their gofundmes and imagine if it was you or a loved one living through these conditions. Please donate and share this around if you can't donate, time is running thin for these families.

€5,165/€80,000 @ahedalshaer -Ahed Alshaer is a 22 year old in Gaza who was in her fourth year of studying dentistry at Al-Azher university. She urgently needs to raise money to evacuate her, her parents and her siblings out of Gaza and to continue her studies to become a dentist. Her parents are both in need of urgent care, as her father is diabetic and her mother has chest infections. -Verified by The Butterfly effect project, she’s #407.

£1,198/£25,000 @ashourmohammed -Maram Ashor and her husband have two wonderful children, Amir and Noor. While her, her husband and Amir were being displaced she gave birth to her youngest child Noor during the displacement and her poor baby hasn’t gotten the proper healthcare she needs like her vaccinations. -reblogged by 90-ghost here.

€32,140/€50,000 @amalashuor -Amal Ashour is a 26 year old student that was specializing in the French language and was working towards her master’s degree before the bombing came. She and her husband have a beautiful baby together named Maryam. Before the events of October 7 Maryam was only NINE MONTHS OLD. This poor baby has seen so much destruction and death at such a young age. -verified on this vetted list #175. I think you should also, read her pinned post where she talks about everything they’ve been through and how much money they’ve been spending to keep themselves alive.

[thelov3lybookworm]

Brownies

Summary: Baking brownies

•○●⛦●○•

Word Count: 707

Warnings: nothing just fluff ig. hope you dont get diabetes from this <3

A/n: IM BACKKK IM BACCKKKKK YAYAYAY. okay so. this is kinda based on my day cus i just made brownies for the first time ever (i sent a pic to my cousin sister and she was like no way in hell you made that cus it cant be that perfect on the first try... so proud of myself rn you dont get it)

ANYWAYS this is kind of dedicated to @mellowmusings cus she was being a sweetheart and she commented about wanting to get hugged by azzie and i was like hmm hol up let me just 🪄💫✨ and so here this is 🤭(i wrote this in like an hour yall this is tinyyy)

HAVE FUN YALL

ENJOYYYY🥳

°•°•°•○🌑○•°•°•°

Y/n wiped her hands, drying off the tiny droplets of water that still clung to her skin like a lifeline after having put away the brownie’s in the oven to bake. Just as she tossed the washcloth towelette back to its shelf, the front door clicked open, the soft sound of keys jingling reaching her ears.

She smiled to herself when her husband called out. "Y/n! I’m back!"

She waddled over to the hallway leading to the door, eyes instantly finding the soft hazel ones that she loved so much. He grinned at her, lifting the bag in his hand.

"Guess what I brought you."

Y/n’s eyes zeroed in on the bag, racking her brain, trying to remember if she had mentioned wanting something as she shuffled closer. "Chocolates?"

He shook his head, following her movements with his eyes.

"Hmm… pastries?"

He shook his head again, and Y/n gave up.

"I don’t know. What is it?"

"Remember you told me last night that you wanted to make brownies? I brought you all the ingredients."

His eyes twinkled as he said the words, a slight shake of excitement in his hands as he analyzed Y/n’s face for her reaction.

Y/n, on the other hand, was trying hard not to burst into laughter as she stepped closer to him. "Oh mother, Az! Thank you so much."

He giggled- giggled- as she took the bag from him, his cheeks tinted red.

Y/n had only just moved in with her husband a month ago, and their relationship had moved fairly quickly. Since the day he had fallen into the river, Y/n could not stop thinking about him, and had met up with him constantly. Before six months were over, Y/n had been married to him and moved in.

Azriel being anything but a spooky shadowsinger still shocked her sometimes.

Y/n only smiled in return to his happy little giggles and took his hand. "My love, why don’t you go take a shower and I’ll get the brownies ready?"

Azriel pouted, but nodded nonetheless as he glanced down at their joined hands.

Y/n watched him go, then hurried into the kitchen and began putting away the things he had brought, cutting packages and emptying them into their respective containers. She needed to be done before he came back down to make it seem like she hadn’t already made the brownies.

So panicked she was hiding everything, she did not hear the almost quiet footsteps approaching her.

"Sweetheart?"

She froze, turning her head slightly to smile awkwardly at Azriel, who stared at her with furrowed brows.

"Hey Azzie."

"What are you doing? I thought you were going to make brownies?"

"I uh… I am!"

"Then why are you putting the groceries away?"

Y/n leaned against the counter, feeling a small bead of sweat rolling down her back. "I- I am not. I’m just putting them in their containers before making he brownies-"

He chuckled, and Y/n’s eyes flew to his face, finding him smirking. "Y/n, you do realise I am the spymaster?"

Y/n swallowed, looking down at her feet like a child being chided.

He stepped closer, pinching her chin between his fingers. "Sweetheart, did you think I’d be upset over something so small?"

Y/n pouted up at him. "I didn’t want you to feel bad or anything."

"Sweetheart, the only thing I’m mad about is that you didn’t let me help you." He laughed, grabbing her shoulders and pulling her into his space. She let him, resting her head on his chest, fiddling with a buckle in her fingers reach as he wrapped his arm around her shoulder. The other one went around her waist, his palm big enough to span a considerable amount of it.

He squeezed her tight, and Y/n circled her own arms around his waist to attempt to be closer to him.

"Azzie-"

"Hush. I don’t want to hear it if it is an apology, which I can tell it is."

Y/n sighed, nuzzling her face into his neck.

"I love you."

He mumbled the words back into her ear, swaying lightly.

"So… when can I eat these infamous brownies?"

°•°•°•○🌑○•°•°•°

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@okaytrashpanda

[vastderp]

I Had A Baby Brother

My brother was found dead last tuesday in his apartment.

He died anywhere from Sunday to Monday, and his landlord got worried and checked up on him and found him on the floor with one hand over his face. There was an open jug of methanol nearby. My sister thinks he drank it, I pray he didn't. It was an ugly, fucked up death.

He was in declining health this past decade because he was a paraplegic and uncontrolled diabetic. There are systems in place to help with low income people in his condition, but they were barred from him as he was a convicted felon.

He went from learning to walk again in the physical therapy pool to drinking a gallon of vodka per day, growing more hostile and bitter as the pain got worse, until his body just gave out. He drove away his friends, he drove away his family, and then he hit the floor and never got up.

I was meant to view the body with my sister and her grown kids, but the funeral home couldn't tell us where his body had been sent, and stopped answering the phone on friday before memorial day weekend, and then we had to wait for someone to follow up on my sister's dozens of phone messages, which they finally did, to try and make their little profit.

My sister, who has been handling all of this along with my niece, selected a different funeral home for the cremation because the first one was disgraceful with my mother's death in 2007, and they're disgraceful all over again with my brother's now.

At one point today they finally established contact, and asked how my sister wanted to handle the arrangements for her "father". O how casual the not giving a fuck goes! Dude pressed to make a sale even after she told him how unhappy we were with their work.

All this to say that I have a car full of inherited possessions, unused medical gear, and the shitty fucked up remnants of my brother's shrine to Mom.

Good old Mom may have died almost 20 years ago, but her gentle, loving mission to smother her only son to death (and probably into eternity) is finally successful. Of all of us, I've often wondered who got it worst: The golden child, the scapegoat, or the parentalized invisible middle kid. Now that one of us has effectively committed suicide, I guess it's for the scapegoat and me to hash out who gets second place. My mother crippled him long before his car accident, in one long and winding but uninterrupted line of consequences from his birth to death. I consider it a murder-suicide. Which was which? They were both the killer, and both the victim. Enmeshment is a motherfucker.

I'm super bitter, really fucking sad, and incredibly proud of what's left of my family for how they're coming together now. (Except my dad, who is in another state, petting his dogs, because I don't think he can really deal with this shit).

So what's left? To go put some cologne on his corpse when they finally let us go view what's left of him. He always liked to smell nice and he probably doesn't right now.

They'll cremate him, and give us a ridiculously heavy cardboard box of ashes that we'll have to carry out, knowing it's all that's left of a lifetime of struggling and pain. Probably we're gonna mix his ashes with Mom's, and make that lifetime of enmeshment official.

I hope if they go to the same afterlife, he kicks her in the cooter. I hope she kicks him back. I hope they can see each other with eyes unclouded by trauma, and forgive each other for the choices they both made. I hope they forgive me for still being mad at them both for not being stronger. I hope I will forgive myself for a lifetime of resentment and blame. I sure got enough time for that.

Jason was funny, weird, secretly really smart but never made a point of it. He was stylish. He was a broken man who could have made better choices and didn't, who was happily fed poison until he couldn't live without it, who was basically his own whole ass Pink Floyd song. His violence sent me running into a better life. His death sent me trudging back into a damaged family with gaping holes like torn out teeth, into the arms of my sister, and we reconciled. There's just us two left now, and it's our job to make something beautiful come out of this jerry springer childhood we shared. We're doing our best.

Dozens of catheters still in the package. Leakproof bed padding in a plaid pattern. Gallons of creams, antacids, fiber supplements by the jar, pressure sore ointments, fungus treatment creams, lidocaine pads, antibiotics, antipsychotics, a hash pipe or two.

An entire apartment hoarded with moist towelettes, pressure garments, and cleaning supplies. An entire life choked with mental damages and crying relatives. I put on CeeLoo Green's "Robin Williams" and sobbed until my face felt burned. It helped.

All the usable/safe to give away medical equipment is being distributed to the other impoverished disabled people in his apartment complex, who will hopefully put it to good use. I got his old manual wheelchair because sometimes I can't walk. I'm terrified of becoming more like him, so back to phsycial therapy I go.

The rest?

The memories, the pity, the jug of methanol that I pray he never actually drank, the stain he left on his floor after a lifetime of compulsive tidiness, the shrine to the woman he killed who also killed him? All these things I will keep with me forever. I will honor him. He could have been so much more, for so much longer. He had a whole story I'll never know. He contained incredible kindness and generosity, and also a rage so deep it was fatal. He was only 41.

If you can spare a couple bucks for the gofundme my niece set up, it'd really help make the financial side of this horseshit a little more bearable while we do all the shit that comes with a death. Thank you for taking the time to read this post, for your sympathies, and for reading my fucked up family trauma dump. Rest assured there will be more.

Dear god, will there ever be more.

Send help. Send pizza. Send sad hip hop. Hail Atlantis. Hail Jai.

[giuliettagaltieri]

Sparkly Pink Skirt

Pairing: College student! Eren Jaeger x College student! reader

Synopsis: When you are head over heels for Eren since high school, he finds it difficult to take in when you start to avoid him.

Word Count: 2586 

You are a riddle Eren has long given up on solving.

He closes his eyes to refrain from rolling them when your hand untangles from his arm and shoots up into the air to answer a question, your charm bracelet jingling loudly. He knows that it would be so unnecessarily intricate, he might as well take a quick nap.

It has always been like that since he met you in high school.  Teachers were always so fond of you due to the efforts you gave in your academics.

Eren spreads his thighs to lean more on his chair. You are still talking. He drums a finger on his desk and glances at you. You don't even realize that you are driving everyone to snoozeville. Except your biology professor, of course. She seemed just as giddy as you.

Nerds.

With a deep breath, you then smoothed out your frilly pink skirt and sat back down beside Eren and wrapped your arm around his again as you giggle at nothing in particular. "Ren, I was just thinking. We should get milkshakes later."

Eren sighs. "Can't."

She's not his girl, he feels no obligation to indulge her.

Her smile drops before it returns once more. "What about tomorrow?"

"Shut up. She mentioned a quiz or something." Eren nodded to the professor.

It was a lame excuse to get you off him but you did not buy it for one second and even pouted at him. "No, the professor was just talking about thermoregulation. Were you not listening?"

Eren's eyes flitted to you before staring into the empty space of the white board once more, not having enough energy to deal with you at the moment.

At lunch, you always invite yourself to sit next to him.

His peers nod at you as you place your pink Sanrio lunchbox on the table.  Eren scrunches his nose at your strong strawberry perfume that you no doubt just sprayed on yourself before coming.

“Hey Jean, Armin, and Connie!”  You say with the brightest smile as you scooch closer to Eren, who was taking a chug at his energy drink, before you steal it away from him.

A moment of silence falls on your table but you don’t waver and instead you glare at him.

“I told you a million times!  These are harmful for-”

Eren clicks his tongue and your shoulders drop.

“Ren, I just don’t want you getting sick.  You drink like a hundred cans per day.”

He scoffs at your exaggeration.

You tap your chunky shoes, your expression falling.

“I’m sorry. Here.”  You pull out a tumbler from your bag.  “I made you cucumber lemonade this morning.”  Apologetically, you smile at the others on your table who were looking almost too busy with their forks and ketchup.  “I brought fruit sandwiches for all of us.”

Connie cheers while Jean and Armin thanks you like how a normal person would.  

Eren takes the strawberry one which you offered him.  His taste buds feel weird from all the flavors, having been used to artificial snacks that he often got from convenience stores.

“Does it taste good?”  You ask him eagerly, eyes all bright as your hands fiddle with your hair.

You already know that he finds it tolerable, Eren had it countless of times.  He doesn’t know why you bother asking him every time you feed him the food you make.

“It’s gonna give me diabetes.”  He comments.

“You ungrateful fu-”  

You cut off Jean’s accusation with a soft smile before you turn to Eren once more, already used to his quips.  Your smile widens when he takes another bite anyway.

“I mixed the cream myself.  I added less sugar, it’s not going to give you diabetes.”  You giggle as you grab a tissue and playfully smack Eren’s mouth with it and the tissue sticks to the whipped cream in the corner of his lips.

Jean coughs.  “You guys coming to the party later?”

Connie responds with a ‘yes’ without hesitation.

“Today’s Thursday.”  You point out.  But Connie just shrugs like a party on a weekday is totally fine, making you sigh.

“I don’t know, I have to study for midterms.  Are you going to come, Ren?”  You turn to him.

He shrugs. “There’s free booze.  Why not?”

You roll your eyes and look at Armin.  “Are you coming too, Armin?”

Armin smiles excitedly.  “Yes! Mikasa’s here to represent their school in an event.  She told us that she’ll be attending.”

Eren chuckles, making you look at him.  “It’s been quite a while, hasn’t it?”

The three of them were inseparable ever since you met them.  You tagged along most of the time but their friendship goes way back.  Mikasa, however, she had to study in her mother’s hometown for high school senior year and even now, in college.

You took a bite off your kiwi sandwich as you consider attending.

Eren knocks your thigh with his, making it jiggle softly.  “I’ll pick you up at seven.”

Well, you do have a lot of time to study before the exams, one party will not be that big of a deal.

You smile at Eren.  “Okay!”

Seven rolled around rather quickly and you find yourself seated in Eren’s dodge challenger.  He buckles you in as you are too busy pulling your thigh highs up.

You resist the urge to fan yourself despite the blasting ac.  

Eren just had to be so unfairly handsome, doesn’t he?

His black shirt was illegally stretched across his chest, his pecs shamefully bulging out, his arms immorally straining on the sleeves of his shirt.  His jeans too immorally taut against his muscular thighs. You look away, not wanting to objectify the person beside you any more than you already have.

Oh, but his man bun and piercings are just so sinfully attractive!

The party was already starting when you arrive, you can tell by the blasting music which you heard a block away.  The two floored house had its windows flashing in neon lights.  The outside was pretty empty, aside from the cars haphazardly parked by irresponsible teenagers.

You scurry next to Eren the moment you got out and you whine, trying to keep up with his long strides.  He opens the door and heads inside, leaving you to push the door yourself and you almost lose him in the crowd but you managed to grab a fistful of his shirt.  

He leads you inside and you struggled to avoid being pushed around by sweaty party animals.

Soon enough, you find yourself seated with the gang in the terrace.  You take the deepest breath, after trying to hold it while passing the crowd earlier.

“You okay?” Mikasa smiles and offers you a drink.

“Hey, Mika! Yes, I’m fine.”  You thank her for the drink, sniffing it to see if there’s alcohol in it and gulping it down when you see that it’s just plain juice.

Eren leans to give Mikasa a one arm hug and you see how flustered Mikasa has become despite how dim the terrace was.

Everybody was having fun, catching up and you enjoyed it too.  Only, you can’t help but feel a little out of place when they began talking about their youth.  The rest of the gang knew each other back in grade school, and you only joined when you were in high school.

Reiner and Bertholdt went downstairs to dance, so did Ymir and Historia.  Sasha raided the kitchen with Connie.  The rest stayed to chat and you just sat there with them, listening to them laugh as they recall their shenanigans.

You were feeling kind of hungry and you grab Eren’s sleeve to have him accompany you downstairs.  

“Ren, I’m hungry.”

He clicks his tongue.  “Go eat.”

“Come with me?”  

Eren’s eyebrows twitched as he spoke in a hushed voice.  “Can you stop being annoying just for tonight?  My plans don’t include babysitting you.”

You immediately let go of his sleeve, your hand fall to your thigh and you look away from him as you feel your nose sting, knowing that tears will come any moment now.

“Okay.” You whisper, head hanging low.

Eren resumes his conversation with Armin and Mikasa and in the brief moment you look up, you see him smiling at her.

You bite your lip the entire time, not wanting to cry in front of them.

Eren already thinks you’re annoying.

Of course, perhaps you do go a bit too far in showing your affection for him.

You wait for a couple of minutes more before you slip downstairs.

The party was still as alive as the moment you arrived.  Sasha and Connie were in the kitchen, trying to stuff their mouth with marshmallows.  You grab a pocky and head out without disturbing their intense competition.

You were knocked around more times than once but you did manage to get out of that suffocating house.  The night breeze bit your skin but you preferred it anyway.  It was unbelievably convenient when you see a beanbag in the porch and you collapse into it, bringing your heavy wedged shoes up to pull your knees to your chest, an attempt to make yourself more invisible.

The strawberry pocky was your only company and you wanted to smack your own head for not bringing any juice.

“The party a little too much for you?”

You gasp, startled.

Jean was leaning on the wall behind you, his arms crossed as he remained staring at the empty street.

“Uh yeah. Wanted to cool down a bit.  I’ll be back shortly.”  You say meekly.

He heaves a sigh and pushes himself off the wall.  “Wanna go drive around town?”

You look at your shoes and then to Jean.  

“Yeah, that does sound a lot better than just sitting here.”

He offers a hand and you take it.  His Range Rover comes to view and he opens the door for you.  Making you chuckle.

“What?” He smiles.

You shake your head.  “You’re so chivalrous, Jean.”

He grins. “Nah, it’s a bare minimum. ‘S not that big of a deal.”

Smiling, you say, “But I appreciate it.  Thank you.”

Jean drove you around and even got you a slushy in a store that was open 24/7.

But on the way back to the party, you asked him if he could drive you home instead, already exhausted.

You thank Jean after he drops you off in your dorm and doesn’t leave until you got inside.  You quickly sent him another quick thank you.

The moment you’re inside your dorm room, you peel off your clothes and took a quick shower.  You are about to go to bed when you hear a ping.

“Where are you?”  Eren texted.

“Dorm.”

“Who drove you home?”

“You should’ve told me you wanted to leave.”

“I didn’t wanna bother you.”  

“You can’t just leave without telling me.”

Perhaps you were a little too tired and emotionally exhausted after what happened in the party but your fingers punched letter by letter and hit ‘send’ before you can process what you just said.

“Yes, I can.  You’re not my boyfriend.”

But it was done.  You sent it. And he read it.

Three dots appeared on his end before it vanished.  You bite your lip when it appears again.  The cycle kept repeating and you just decided to go offline.  

You have no classes with him tomorrow, thankfully. You would not want to face him anytime soon.

To say that Eren was confused when he does not see you in his usual parking space was an understatement.  You must have woken up late.  He’s sure your attitude from last night was already gone.  You just slept though your alarm.

He nods at Connie and Armin when he gets to his first period.

“I didn’t see Y/N.”  Connie says, still looking at the door, half expecting to see you there, waving at them.

“Late perhaps.”  Eren mutters.

“I wonder about that.”  Jean quips as he seats himself next to Eren.

“What do you mean by that, Jean?”  Armin asks, concerned.

But Jean only smiles at them.  “Nothing.”

Eren did not appreciate being kept in the dark, it has been happening since last night and it’s starting to piss him off.

“You drove her home, didn’t you?”  Eren asks Jean, almost accusingly.

“What if I did?”  Jean gave a coy smile.

Eren clicks his tongue to dismiss Jean.

Armin glances at Eren but it was difficult to read him, when Eren’s eyes are as dead as always.  But in a millisecond, he thought he saw Eren’s brow twitch.

You were still nowhere to be found by lunch.

It started to bother them all when Eren looks like he’s just about to snap.  His leg was bouncing without pause and he kept clenching and unclenching his hand.

“Maybe she’s sick and didn’t come to school?” Connie suggests just to ease the tension for a moment.

Jean shakes his head and pops a fry on his mouth. “Saw her this morning on my way to second period.”  He glances at how uneasy Eren was and pretended to let the information slip. “Y/N said that she wanted to try that dessert café a few blocks away from the campus for lunch.”

Eren’s foot shifted but he remained seated.

“Armin, I need to review for basic cal.  Help me out a bit.”  Jean sighs as he stands to leave.

Armin quickly catches on and nods.  “Of course.”

Connie was about to protest but Eren’s sharp stare got him to stand as well.  “Right! I also need to study.”  Jean elbows him harder than intended.  “No one would believe that coming from you.”

He’s not stupid.  He knew what they were doing and he wanted to smack them for it but he doesn’t feel the need to stop them either.

The tray on your hand looks like what dreams are made of, you concluded.

A rainbow crepe, crème brûlée, lemon cake, tiramisu, oh you can’t wait to try more.  You sat down quickly and your hand hovered over them, not knowing which one you should try first.  Deciding on the tiramisu, you snatched the fork and took your first bite.

You cup your cheeks as you chew the tiramisu, eyes closing in pure happiness.  The mascarpone and coffee soaked lady fingers were so rich it ruined every dessert that you had.

“Enjoying yourself?”

It was cute how you squeaked in surprise.

Eren taps a finger on surface of the table.

“What are you doing here?”  You mumble, eyes now on your lap, fingers tracing the glitters on your rose-colored skirt.

“Am I not allowed to come here?”  The corner of his lips twitch to a smirk.

You look at him for a moment before you avoid eye contact again.  

Well, he certainly looks out of placed. Especially with his black attire and piercings, the kids from two tables behind him were stealing glances at you.

“I’m guessing you’re not here for the cakes served in sparkly pink plates.”

Eren flashes you an amused smile.  “No but I did come for the girl in sparkly pink skirt.”

Your eyes rounded, your face heating up.  You did have a feeling he was here to talk to you but it did not stop you from feeling all shy.

The next Thursday, your biology teacher hears the familiar click clack of your shoes and looks up with a smile.

But instead of seeing you clinging on Eren’s arm, he had it wrapped around your waist.

[garf-lover96]

Vesuvia Weekly; Nevivonian Cuddle Puddle (Rowan, Julian and Portia)

this is a short and sweet one, less than 1k words. i literally love my family so much❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️ i almost gave myself diabetes while thinking about the concept alone. anyway

———

I adjust the knitted blanket over my shoulders and scoot closer to the fireplace, reaching my hands out to warm my numb fingers. It really seems like I got too used to the vesuvian climate with how quickly I got unbearably cold and had to head back inside. I mean, there's only so many snowballs to the face I could take before keeling over. Those nevivonian kids can be really ruthless when the circumstances call for it... The circumstances being the first snowfall since we've arrived for the winter. My lack of endurance in comparison to others made me feel a little bad but at least the grandmas were nice to me about it.

That's why right now I'm relaxing and replenishing my body heat near the fire while Julian, Portia and the birds continue to be at war with the town's children.

Less than an hour of quiet passes in the house before I hear Julian's sneeze as soon as the door opens. I turn my head to see him taking his boots off and shrugging his soaked coat off "It's a real battlefield out there, Rowan! And it only got worse after you left... It was so much easier chucking snowballs at the whole army of those nippers when your spells kept me from freezing." he laments and trudges over to my side, sitting down on the patterned rug with a deep sigh, "I'm afraid I've been spoiled by the vesuvian climate..."

Well now I don't feel so bad about my cold intolerance anymore.

I help him take his gloves off and he puts them over the fireplace to dry. Then I hold up a corner of the blanket for him to cuddle up to me under it.

"You're really flushed, did you get hit in the face too?"

"More like tackled into a pile of snow. They stop at nothing, I tell you." upon saying that, he wraps his arms around my waist and his ice cold nose to the side of my neck.

I exhale in slight discomfort as I feel my body heat getting stolen "You really couldn't have eased me into that?"

"You're just so toasty, I couldn't help myself..." he mumbles and plants an apologetic kiss on my skin. I just snort and pull the blanket a little tighter around him, hoping to warm him up as quickly as possible. With nothing else to do, I feel myself begin to drift off to the sound of Julian's quiet breathing and the crackling fire.

...Then I hear the sound of the door opening again.

"Brrr, it's about time we caught a break, huh? Wouldn't want any of you to freeze your toes off!" Portia's voice is accompanied by the loud steps of the children scattering all across the elder's house. She catches sight of me and Julian near the fire and approaches with a slightly worn smile, "You got room for one more?"

"I think this blanket is huge for a reason... Come on." I pull her down to sit at my free side and she promptly clings onto me as well. Thankfully she isn't quite as cold as Julian was.

"Ooh, so cozy... I feel like I could just fall asleep here." she hums happily, resting her chin on my shoulder. I have to push some of her wild hair away so it doesn't get in my mouth.

"I think your brother already did. I can't see his face right now but he's really limp."

"Pff, I'm not surprised, he got his butt kicked back there..."

"So I've heard." I snicker to myself and shift a little to pet his messed up hair.

As time passes with me being trapped in a cozy Devorak sandwich, I notice more and more children going up to sit on the rug with us. Some of them occupy themselves with showering our feathery companions with affection while the others sneak under the blanket with us. Before I know it, I have a toddler in my lap, Portia two in hers and they're all clumsily braiding our hair, tangling it even more than when they found it in the process. The initial chatter really dies down after I feel that a few kids have fallen asleep against my back. And to think they were all so fierce during the snowball fight...

I begin zoning out a little after a while, thinking that surely I will finally nod off in the mostly asleep cuddle puddle I've found myself in. I close my eyes for a few minutes, feeling my consciousness slipping away from me.

...And right away I get jolted back awake with a small gasp. The children around me disperse rapidly but I manage to catch one of them by the sleeve.

"What's going on...?"

"The grandmas are making hot chocolate!" they exclaim and actually pull me up from my position before taking off to the kitchen.

My sweet tooth is going to love this... I take a step to follow the kids before I feel a pair of small hands grab my ankles.

"Oh I'm not letting you grab a cup first, I haven't had it in forever!" Portia asserts and smiles at me mischievously, trying to tug me back to the ground. I think I'm about to fall over when she suddenly lets go of me and I turn around to see that Julian has started tussling with her on the carpet.

"Go on now, I'll hold her off!" he beams at me and starts tickling his sister mercilessly, drawing out really loud shrieks and giggles from her.

"Not fair!" I hear Portia yell at him as I take the opportunity to flee to the kitchen.

I'll be the first out of us three to get a taste of the chocolate, but I'll grab two cups to bring back to them anyway. I really want to get back under that warm blanket as soon as possible.

[notexactlyrocketscience]

Love, Theoretically by Ali Hazelwood: a critically kind review from a femme acespec physicist <3

> scroll to the next section for my review on the physics academia content in this book!

First, a quick romance novel review!

spoiler: it wasn’t my favorite but I gave it a ⭐️⭐️⭐️.75 because being a writer has made me a generally more appreciative reader + I am so starved of woman in physics rep.

the good

It just felt good to read about a woman physicist, who are still incredibly underrepresented in fiction, especially as protagonists. (I’ll go off about that in a minute.)

The romance is so swoony with shoujo manga vibes, I haven’t read straight M/F adult romance novels in a while and I just loved the flutteriness of it.

A couple of chapters were so soft with excellent pillowtalk. There was something about the ambience of the snow, the hypnotic sadness of failure, the prescence of a comforting person.

I enjoyed identifying the relatable parts about physics academia. Hazelwood clearly did a lot of research, and I have to say I was pleasantly surprised. It definitely kept me reading!

the bad

The academia issues are so over-simplified it’s almost juvenile. For an adult novel, even one marketed as a romcom, I expect more nuance, more explanations, more explicit lingering in tight positions.

And then the romance tries to be complex (and has a lot of potential!) but not a lot of conflict really happens.

A fictional physics fued between theorists and experimentalists is a really fun (and actually not far off) concept, but I would have expected some things to be the other way around. (More on that later!)

Okay this is personal but the main couple both have terrible taste in movies. Twilight vs white male rage movies??? There is no lesser evil here

Elsie’s hardships aren’t put in a very serious light. Her diabetes and lack of access to health insurance is used as a plot device to engineer romantic momentum between the characters and/or comic relief.

Just overall, the book tried so hard to remain “light” that I think it fails to garner depth. Because adult lives really aren’t that light all the time, and a book can bring relaxation and joy whilst including real worldly negative experiences.

There were aroace and sapphic side characters, but I wanted so bad for Elsie to be demisexual. It's set up so perfectly only for it to be averted—As a demisexual person myself, Elsie’s feelings about attraction felt acutely familiar to me, and every other reader I've spoken to has agreed that the book took a dissapointing and unexpected turn. I understand Hazelwood may not feel equipped to write queer protagonists but if I were her editor, I would have flagged that and recommended she make it canon. It would have added so much more context and dimension to Elsie, and would’ve put hetero demisexuals on the map. </3

Following up on the above: The smut tries so hard to be meaningful but it ... really is icky, stereotypical, unrealistic allocishetero stuff. Think: the shy inexperienced girl vs the man who knows exactly how to advise her. The characters try to subvert the trope by calling it out, but it feels performative because all is forgotten in the next second. The PiV sex is weirdly conventionally idealistic considering the pairing’s size difference. I’m picky about smut but also forgiving when I do like the dynamic. I just didn’t here.

Following up once again: I was ready to ignore all the repetitive comments about how sexy Jack’s height and muscles were, because sure, I guess Elsie has a type. But the sex scenes solidified the redundancy of it all. I've read this same dynamic in countless smutty heteronormative M/F paperbacks. And I have also been made aware by every Hazelwood reader that all her books focus on this kind of physical build pairing. I just want more diversity, you know?

IDK, I just wanted more physics in here than complaining about teaching, glossed over toxic mentors, and using some quirky physics term in every other sentence. (More on that below!)

I just wanted ... more? It’s not an extremely short novel, but both the plot and the character development fell flat. The ups and downs were too fast and easy, and the placement felt off. I finished the book and wondered, “That’s it? That’s all that happened?” It just wasn’t fulfilling. The side characters aren't expanded upon, and don’t get enough pagetime. My other romance reads this year were Bellefleur's The Fiancee Farce and Mcquiston’s One Last Stop. In both of those novels, the drama was fleshed out with so much care and detail. In comparison, Love, Theoretically may mention similar social difficulties in passing, but failed to really, really show us.

Overall ... the novel was fun for being about physicists but I really don’t see myself picking up another Hazelwood book, especially considering this isn’t even a debut novel. The conventional white steminist vibe and the particular allocishetero M/F dynamic just isn’t my thing.

But perhaps a reader wanting more of a novel and its characters is a good problem to have. Never say never, I guess! I look forward to keeping tabs on what Hazelwood publishes in the future!

Now, onto the physics!

First, most physicists, as good scientists, understand that theory and experimentation are fundamentally linked. It’s true that we each are often biased towards our own methods of research, but it is quite a stretch to imagine full professors so blatantly feud against others solely because of theory vs experimentation. Regardless, I was happy to suspend my disbelief for the sake of the plot that was framed in a genre-specific, lighthearted, humorous way.

Secondly, both theory and experimentation have sources of funding that are motivated in different ways, and Hazelwood's decision to have the theorists struggle with funding cuts due to declining interest in pop culture/the general public is actually quite credible. Experimentation garners a lot more interest from the application and engineering end of society, parts that are easily fueled by capitalism.

However, I think experimentalists in general are far less likely to be mean to theorists than the reverse scenario. Dr Fatima Abdurrahman has a great video essay about that called on her YouTube channel called “Quantum Physics, Feminism, and Objective Reality: What Physicists Don’t Want You to Know About Quantum Mechanics.” Dr Fatima outlines how old white men in physics have maintained this image of unwavering scientific objectivity in the name of rigor, despite studying a field that fundamentally is barely fathomable for humans. In simpler terms: Men, even in theory, pretend to be better, smarter, and more valid as physicists despite being in an infamously iffy field. And I would have liked to see that represented. It was just really hard for me to buy narcissistic grad students mansplaining Elsie about her field, and Elsie’s righteous feminine rage, when the field in question is … physics theory? It just didn’t make sense to me, when all of my personal experiences point to the opposite.

But every cloud has a silver lining, and having a woman theorist in a physics field that’s less popsci-oriented is actually … really cool. And having her love interest be a man in experimentation … sort of subverts gender roles and conventional media expectations.

Let me explain. The reality is that when women are represented in STEM, media prefers to put them in biology, like a nurse to a doctor, a people-oriented nurturer, a mere sidekick to the real “objective” scientist—often a mathematician or an astrophysicist who is always a man. And when women are placed in physics, they are automatically assigned to observational astronomy, which is dismissed as passive and easy. (This is wildly untrue—though styles of research in astronomy has interestingly allowed a somewhat more diverse array of researchers in history. Even today, you’ll see a higher frequency of women and queer people in every astronomy department.)

I think my ideal version of this novel would be retaining Elsie in theory, while also making theorists the overall bad guys in the feud. I would love to have her talk about the unique sexism she faces as a theorist. I would kill for a scene in which Jack gets gobsmacked by how fucking good at math she really is, compared to him (instead of, like, only making fun of it like it’s easy). I would love to read about her getting a tour of his lab, and just more physics content. But maybe I’m the only one saying that, because I’m a physicist. Maybe Hazelwood simplified it all to keep the book appealing to the general masses.

Still, it all read more like a girlpower!!! chant rather than a real commitment to represent a woman in STEM. I savored every moment Elsie or George would go off about physics. I loved Elsie’s conversations with Olive, a different STEM academic. (Monica was more complicated and actually quite interesting, and I wish we could have seen more of her. Heck, I wish we had actually been given any tangible info about Jack’s mom, even.) But I genuinely felt these instances were rare. Elsie referred to being a physicist a lot (and frankly, her mind is more physics-y than any IRL physicist considering the sheer number of physics-inspired figures of speech she uses … but I excused that as silly comic relief, a quirk in Hazelwood’s writing style). But she didn’t tangibly do physics on page. It was disappointing, considering women characters in STEM is what Hazelwood is known for.

And there are physicists who love teaching—even physicists who solely want to teach. Physicists who do pedagogy research. I know the book was mainly trying to criticise the adjunctification and dismissal of physics higher education, and it’s actually quite accurate in representing that most physicists in academia would prefer not to teach. But the excecution also ends up erasing physicists who aren’t in academia just for research. And I say this especially because the validity of teaching physicists as physicists is dismissed in real life. It’s used as justification to further force all physics academics to try to juggle between both research and teaching, whether they want to or not.

Which leads us to bad mentors. I’ve had a bunch of those. As Olive pointed out in an excellent quote, “Academia is so hierarchical, you know? There are all these people who have power over you, who are supposed to guide you and help you become the best possible scientist, but . . . sometimes they don’t know what’s best. Sometimes they don’t care. Sometimes they have their own agenda. […] Sometimes they’re total shitbuckets who deserve to step on a pitchfork and die.” And the thing is, the novel really doesn’t show us any of that (perhaps other than in Monica). We don’t fully get to know what happened to Jack’s mom, or Olive. We are not shown what Dr L’s agenda really was. Their final confrontation was so quick, when in reality shitty mentors are often sticky and entwined with your work, hard to cut off and scarier to talk back to even after you’ve finally realized they’re toxic.

Which isn’t to say the novel is just inadequate about everything. It’s correct in how goofy physics faculty are, and how white man-dominated the field is, how students try to mansplain women profs, how theorists madly work on their computers (as an experimentalist, I could never understand), how publishing is finicky (to put it kindly), and how tenured faculty fail to understand the reality of the job market in academia today. There are certain parts (like the quote above!) where I felt incredibly seen as part of a minoritized identity group in STEM academia. It’s rare to have a book written from this PoV, and as a first I think this novel will always be special for me!

If you’re interested in reading about more fictional women physicists, I would highly recommend skimming through this list I made on GoodReads (and feel free to add more!).

And if you’d like to support memoirs and science communication books by IRL women physicists, then look to further than this other list I’ve also made. (We’re actually currently seeing a boom in these which is inanely exciting to me, so again, contributions are always welcome!)

[coco-bee]

DYNAMIC DUOS: RAGGEDY ANN & ANDY

Hey there! Coco typing... Welcome to my first addition to Dynamic Duos! Where I share my opinions and analyze fictional duos! (platonic, familial and etc) !! SPOILERS AHEAD !! Today's post is about RAGGEDY ANN & ANDY!! (from the 1977 movie)

So I have just watched the Raggedy Ann animated musical from 1977 recently and MY GOD as a film it's...interesting- IT WASN'T BAD THOUGH I ENJOYED MYSELF! I just expected a cute movie about a doll- then next thing I know a camel is hallucinating.. (you'll get it if you watched the movie) But the highlight for me with this movie is the sibling dynamic between Raggedy Ann and Andy! That's right people THEY'RE SIBLINGS! While I do get the confusion because of their interactions possibly seeming romantic but we gotta normalize siblings being nice to each other for once guys. So I want to point out how almost sickly sweet Andy is to his sister. He's always checking up on Ann and making sure she's ok. When Babette gets kidnapped Andy didn't give one fuck until Ann is worried not to mention he immediately comforts her when she's stressed.

He really does care for his sister's well being and just wants her to be ok. You can also tell he really loves Ann, take "No Girl's Toy" and compare it to "Rag Dolly" when it comes to Andy's vocals, in "No Girl's Toy" he's more sassy, witty and fast while in "Rag Dolly" he's much more soft spoken and slow with his vocals. Truly a sweet way of showing how much he loves her through singing. There's also the scenes in Looney Land (which I hardly see anyone talk abt btw). The second Lenard(?) makes a joke on Ann, Andy immediately stands up for her and tells him to back off and getting her to a much safer place away from these guys becomes his biggest priority. He's making sure NO ONE lays hands on his sister and makes a joke at her expense.

He's always so protective of her it's so sweet! DNCJENWD I'm bout to get diabetes But this isn't an "Andy caring for Ann" post- how are they like AS A DUO? Well Ann is just as great as Andy! She's always picking Andy up when he falls and just making sure he doesn't hurt himself. When a box is on top of Andy, Ann immediately asks everyone to help her get him out! I know she'd do that for anyone but it shows how much of a sweetheart she is. I also want to talk about this forest scene! Ann gave Andy a daisy during a time when he was not doing so well. That gesture really cheered Andy up and now he carries around that daisy for good luck! Ann's love language seems to just be simply showing how much she cares for people and how much she's willing to go far for him.

Even Ann is not aware with how her sweetness impacts people because when Andy's scared he remembers how there's his sister who loves him unconditionally and reminds him with little gifts and acts of service. These two really compliment each other! Andy protects Ann from harm while Ann gives Andy comfort through her own little gestures. Andy's willing to fight for her, Ann's willing to show him love. Not to mention she always keeps him in check when he speaks before he thinks. Like a soft spoken mother- someone has to keep Andy in check before he hurts someone's feelings In conclusion your honor- they're sibling goals <3

Thank you for reading! This is Coco typing and have a good day :D I'm open to suggestions!

[dearmrsawyer]

i posted the xmas cards at the start of the week so hopefully that means they reach everyone before xmas actually happens <3

only 3 weeks left til holidays, but all the classes are done at work so i will be able to use them to putt around with my own things and not do anything that requires me to actually use my brain, which no longer works lol. i had my performance review a few days ago and basically exposed myself for doing a bad job all year ! i told my supervisor i've spent a significant amount of this year fixing my own mistakes, which is true, but tbh it was the best i could do given everything. she knows i've had a hard year, although she doesn't know everything that's been going on, she always says i'm a very private person which i didn't really consider myself to be, but actually i think i am, i don't talk about my Stuff with people at work largely because i don't want to commit my time to it, and also when i do talk to people i always walk away wanting to crawl out of my own skin, like i always feel like however i expressed myself didn't accurately represent how i'm feeling, and so i've just given someone an impression that doesn't match how i really feel, and that makes me feel 600x worse. Anyways i said that it would be good if i had some back up in the library because as the only person there it can't function without me, and i would've taken more time off this year if i felt like i could. i was planning to say that when we had our next budget discussion but she gave me an opening so i'm glad i said it when i had the chance, because i may well have chickened out later on.

i really miss sawyer. i thought that when i made it to the other side of all the very difficult things that had happened in the last year, when i could return to something resembling normal and i had agency over my own time and space, that i would get to do that with her. she was part of what i was looking forward to. after everything these last twelve months, to have to cap it off with losing her, she was only just fourteen. i find it really hard to fall asleep without her, i don't turn out the lights until i can barely keep my eyes open, if i'm lying there in the dark i always start to cry. i mean i still do that a lot at other times, especially in the car for some reason, but its harder to come back from when its night. i hate being here without her to be honest.

a couple of weeks ago mum and i drove up to donate sawyer's leftover medication to the animal welfare league, i know insulin is sometimes one of those things that can have supply issues and when we called around they said they had a diabetic cat in their care and would be happy to take it. afterwards mum said that she thought there was a good chance we would come back home with a new cat, like if they had their adoptable pets on show in the foyer lol. they didn't but i don't want to get another cat anytime soon. no other cat will ever be exactly who she was, she was perfect in every way, the exact right measure of everything to me, i don't want to measure some other cat against her. i will get another cat sometime but i don't want to just redirect the love i have for sawyer onto some other cat. what i feel belongs to her.

I spend a lot of time looking through photos and videos of her, almost everyday. Sometimes it makes me feel unbearably upset but sometimes i feel like it calms me, like things are okay when i'm looking at her. i really love this video of her watching niall's livestream a couple of years ago. she was sitting next to me with her front half resting on my leg, which used to be her default position. she never really watched screens but she was mesmerised by him lol

[trickstarbrave]

“No one owes you, an autistic person, an explanation of why something is a social faux pas. If they say they don’t like it all you should do is shut up and accept it”

Okay have you considered I can’t turn my autism on and off and I don’t owe them to act allistically???

Like for context this was said to me bc I explained to other autistic ppl why pointing out things especially to strangers is considered rude. Like “you have diabetes neck, you probably have diabetes” is a statement an autistic child might make and to them it’s a neutral statement of fact akin to “oh wow it’s really cloudy it might rain soon”. But to other ppl it’s invasive and rude whether they know they have autism or not and regardless of if they’re right. And the explanation I gave was “it’s rude to point out things abt ppl that they can’t fix in 5 minutes bc it makes them feel self conscious and anxious”

Does someone owe some random w autism an explanation? No. Hence why I decided to look it up and research it myself. Social rules do not come naturally and intuitively to us. Just saying “don’t do x bc other ppl don’t like it” ISNT FUCKING HELPFUL. I don’t like ppl insisting on direct eye contact and I don’t like not being able to stim, but guess what? My boundaries are constantly violated bc our society has deemed my comfort as optional. Just not liking something is clearly not a good enough reason.

Having a reason helps autistic ppl understand the problem better and evaluate the next steps to take, especially if were low empathy (I’m not I usually have inappropriately high levels of empathy). Explaining that being out in public and having things abnormal or “wrong” about you pointed out you can’t fix immediately makes you feel anxious and like you shouldn’t be around other ppl at all even if you have stuff to do outside and thus ruins your day might help and autistic person go “ohhhh I see. You have things to do outside and I pointing this out might not be giving you a solution to a problem but just making it harder for you to complete basic tasks by producing anxiety. I will point stuff out in other people less, even if I think I might be correct”

Also like. Where the fuck did I say someone owes me an explanation to this problem??? I provided my own explanation so other autistic ppl don’t have to demand answers from an allistic or not get one bc they think the social rules are intuitive and don’t know how else to explain it. “Well regardless of the explanation you should—“ how about allistics stop demanding fucking eye contact w me when I’m trying to buy a fucking coffee or else that is supposedly a “clue” I am secretly a sociopathic serial killer who personally hates them or whatever the fuck their brains make up as an explanation for simply not wanting to make eye contact bc it makes me uncomfortable

[menlove]

completely unrelated to the content of that reblog but just reminded me. as a type 1 diabetic one thing I find really funny (though sometimes annoying, depends on the approach) is how ppl w out diabetes literally think sugar is going to kill me

like no I just have to give myself more insulin and it's really up to the individual diabetic what they want to use insulin on. like me for example? I don't mind using insulin on food bc I love food and hate a diabetic diet so much. there's limits to this ofc and I don't like sweets which makes it easier, but generally speaking I don't mind giving myself extra insulin so I can have pasta or smth. but drinks? fuck that. I hate wasting insulin on drinks. so I tend to stick to diet/sugar free stuff where drinks are involved where possible. other people might have the exact opposite tendency bc they like how real soda tastes but don't care about being able to eat pasta. or they might be fine w both! or neither!

but ultimately My Point Is. please don't make weird comments when you see a diabetic person eating/drinking something you personally think they shouldn't. if you know them super well and actually know how diabetes works & you KNOW they're neglecting to give themselves insulin/check their blood glucose THEN it's appropriate to give them a gentle reminder/ask if they gave insulin for that but otherwise........ many of us are adults capable of choosing what we put in our bodies and sugar/carbs don't actually kill us as long as we're giving an appropriate amount of insulin

(that said if you have a diabetic friend/relative requesting certain accommodations for food/drink do listen to them bc they're choosing the diet that works best for them & u shouldn't take this post as a pass to tell them otherwise)

[itsraining-honey]

its the second anniversary of my type 1 diabetes diagnosis.

i know i dont NEED to write these out, who wants to relive bad experiences, right? i like writing these because i can reflect back on the two years ago today when i was in the hospital and see how much i've grown from then.

this happened way before i've gained new friends and followers, many are in the dark of what happened. short story, i was sick and now have a life long condition.

its extremely serious. everyone hears diabetes and goes "its all that sugar". in some cases but not all. well, now i NEED all that sugar to live.

two years ago, the week of halloween, i was extremely sick. i didn't know why. i thought i had gotten COVID at first but i realized it wasn't really a respiratory problem so the next conclusion was the flu.

unbeknownst to myself, my mother, and brother, i was dying for a whole week. my pancreas failed, shut down and i was dying. my bathroom floor would have been where i died if i never went to the hospital. on november 1st, i was told what was happening to me. i was in DKA and needed to go to the ER immediately.

i had no idea what DKA was. for those who don’t know, it stands for diabetic ketoacidosis. i was mostly throwing up, trying to rest (which i hadn't for an entire week/ ended up hallucinating on halloween night after everyone went to bed which i find highly ironic lol), and drinking up as much water i could.

my stay in the hospital was filled with agony, lessened from the medications and insulin they gave me. at that point, i also found out i had air in my chest due to a hole in my esophagus from throwing up constantly and violently. it was scary.

at some point, i knew i was gonna die. i was scared at first. my mom had me shower and i couldn't even move. i couldn't get up. i was so shaky and light (again, ironic since im a fat girl). when i was in the shower, i sobbed and sobbed over the past. my relationship with my father, my friends and my family. i couldn't take it.

when we got to the hospital, i accepted i was gonna die. i was so sure of it. and then i didn't. i survived and i am continuing to survive. no matter how high my blood sugar will spike from eating or when i'm fixing a low, i think back to that week and think about how proud i am.

there are points i want to give up. throw the towel in and throw away my insulin, my CGMS, my pumps, all of it. i want to give up all the time. i want to stop taking insulin and just be normal, like i used to be. now having this condition, i don't want to be normal anymore. it took me a long time to accept my diabetes, it's apart of me now and i've learned it up and down, side to side and in reverse.

no one understands diabetes like someone with diabetes and even then, everyone else's diabetes is different. somedays are bad, somedays are good.

i'm happy to be alive. i'm happy to be online and still making art, listening to new albums, reading comics, making new friends on tumblr and twitter, seeing my oomfs talk about huntress or just their interests in general.

i am SO happy to be here and experience my life past 17. i'm 19 now and got to experience halloween and fall again for the second time without dying. so thats cool :D

thank you for reading and being here along with me on my journey, my friends💜

[simslegacy5083]

Today's (10/8/2024) Episode: Lunch With Gramps

“Ho, ho, ho, Happy Winterfest!” Gilbert said as they arrived. “Oh my, look at how big my little buddy is getting. “I hope you guys are ready to work for your supper! I bought all the fixin’s, but I always say the best meals are those you make together as a family.”

“Can I help?” Skye piped up, looking curiously around his grandfather’s cozy ranch home from his new, higher vantage point.

“Sure!” Gilbert replied, “There’s lots of potatoes that need a good scrubbing, and I’ve got a nifty slicer you can crank afterward to chop them up.”

“You three have fun.” Noemi told them “I’m going to bring Roach out back to the stables and get him ready to show off.”

Skye quickly got bored with washing and slicing potatoes with grandpa’s suspiciously new plastic gadget, but no-one complained when he switched to “documenting” the process with his camera and providing “expert advice” on spicing the dishes just right.

Out back Noemi was happily cleaning her four-legged friend’s hooves and brushing his coat to a glossy shine. “Are you ready for your first big competition?” she asked him. Roach whinnied, which Noemi took to mean he was just as excited as she was to compete in the local show!

The sound of the dinner bell called Noemi back in. “It looks amazing” she told them “Was it fun helping out Skye?” He smiled as she ruffled his hair.

“He did a great job” Gilbert replied, “and that hubby of yours isn’t too shabby either!”

“I think I’m beginning to understand what my dads saw in this whole cooking business” Luigi told them, “Though you’ll get to sample my true specialty with dessert. I’ve created a holiday mocktail I think you’re going to love. Now come on, grab a plate before it gets cold!”

Before dinner, Skye’s grandpa pulled him aside. “You have Winterfest gifts to open after we eat, but this is a little something just for your birthday.”

Skye’s eyes lit up as he opened the box to find a child’s violin resting inside. “Thanks grandpa! I’m going to practice really hard, and once I get good enough maybe I can record myself playing on Yoshi! Can you help me with that dad??”

“Sure” Luigi called over his shoulder “Music was never my thing, but your Grandpa Peachy liked guitar. Maybe you two can film a duet sometime!”

“Someone wants to follow in his daddy’s footsteps I think” Noemi whispered, chuckling as Skye and Gilbert came to join them at the table.

“Well, that was delicious, if I do say so myself” Luigi sighed with pleasure as he pushed his empty plate away and patted his distended stomach “I wish I could still celebrate the holidays with a Grand Breakfast like I used to, stupid diabetes, but this ham dinner is the next best thing!”

“So, Skye, are you ready to open some presents while we let this delicious food digest and make a little room for dessert?” his grandfather asked him.

Skye nodded but pulled his mom aside as they all headed into the living room. “My tummy hurts. Will grandpa be mad if I skip dessert?”

 “Of course not, sweetie” she replied, “but I’ll tell him you’re not hungry if you don’t want to.” Skye gave her a hug, nodding into her sweater.

During the gift exchange it was Luigi who pulled out his phone to capture some memories “Remember Skye” he told his boy “every photographer needs to spend some time in front of the camera as well as behind it, so they remain a part of the stories they’re recording. Say Freezer Bunny!”

After dessert everyone headed downtown to the exhibition center, where Shannon was waiting for them. “Are you ready to show off your new stallion?” Noemi’s mother asked. “It's been ages since I got to cheer you on, and I can’t wait to point you out to all my neighbors.”

With everyone saying their hellos no one was paying attention to little Skye, who was suddenly finding it very hard to breathe in the chill, dusty, air.

While Noemi and her parents went to give Roach one last check before heading into the center for the competition Skye tugged on his dad’s sleeve to get his attention. “What’s wrong champ?” Luigi asked with concern, seeing the tears standing in the corner of his boys' eyes.

“Its so cold out here! When we teleported in, I, I couldn’t breathe!” he sniffled “and now my chest hurts.”

Luigi bent down to wrap him in a hug “Can you breathe now?” Skye nodded “Well good. I promise its nice and warm inside the center; and I’ll tell you a little secret… I never liked cold weather either. That’s why we live on a tropical island. Let’s get out of this chilly air.”

“Hey honey!” he called out “Skye and I are freezing our tushies off! Let’s go! Last one inside is a rotten egg!”

“Congratulations mom!” Skye cried as they exited the center a few hours later. “You and Roach did good girl!” Gilbert agreed “A silver medal on your first event together.” He wrapped a companionable arm around Shannon. “It’s the kind of victory you always wrote stories about as a little girl.”

“Thanks” Noemi replied, standing up and patting her faithful steed on the head “I couldn’t have done it without this fine fellow. How about you, Skye, would you like to try riding Roach?” At her son’s panicked look, she tempered “… or maybe when you’re a bit older?”

Skye’s nodded solemnly. “Yeah, later. Roach is awfully big. For now, I’d rather just take pictures of you riding him for my simstagram account.”

Luigi walked up to the cozy family scene, waving goodbye to the fans that had distracted him. “It's been grand” he told his in-laws before turning towards Noemi “all right, are we ready to go see Scott and mom now?”

View The Full Story of My Not So Berry Challenge Here

[lanterns-and-daydreams]

Random post. Because I currently have no one to talk to. You can scroll. It's just me ranting about the most mundane things and talking to myself :)

Okay, now I dunno what to say. I'm not texting anyone cause I'm not gonna bother anyone in my DMs with this

MY FAVOURITE THING EVER IS SO MANY THINGS

That's so vague HAHAHAHA

I like cats SO much. OH MY GOD-

Like, if you do not like cats, I do not trust you.

Theres a cat near where I live, but she won't let me pet her babies :(

I used to call kittens 'cat babies'. I still do. It sounds cuter. But like, cats are so cute, if I get one, I'm gonna love it forever and give it lots of kisses and hugs and treats and everything it could ever want and a little cat bed and a tiny blanket and a scratchy thingy, idk what it's called, and dedicate most of my life to it and love it so so sosososososososoooooo much and they're so cute and lovable and huggable and kissable and if my future partner doesn't like cats I'm kicking them out cause I want a cat, and I'm gonna love it so much and show it off to everyone cause it's mine and I love it and I also reallllyyyyyyyy love flowers

Like, flowers are so cool. How could you NOT like flowers???? And i can name so many flowers and I told my best friend about soooooo many flowers like lotuses and sunflowers and peonies and lobelias and Cordelias and bleeding hearts and foxgloves and poppies and and and-

Anyway

OH MY GOD CAKEEEEEEEEE

I love cake SO much. Red velvet is my FAVOURITE. Maybe thats why i have memory issues. Oh oh! Did you know that if you consume too much sugar, it gives you memory issues

And diabetes

Reminds me of the time I used to sometimes eat sugar because why not? And ice. I liked chewing on ice. And I used to read so much as a baby. And zooooooooooom everywhere. I used to have a cycle and it was pink and white and so cute and I used to take it everywhere

Sometimes I feel like rapunzel. Cause ivory tower, yk? Like, my dad never let's me leave the house after 10 and says I'm not allowed to exit the apartment floor n stuff, and I used to make up little songs about leaving and seeing the world n stuff, I don't so that anymore though. I gave up on that dream. But I still wanna leave yk?

Anyway

SPIDERS

SPIDERS ARE SOSOSOSO CUTE. LIKE ONE TIME I SAW A SPIDER ON MY MED KIT (I CAN WRAP BANDAGES DID YA KNOW THAT???) AND I LOOKED IN ITS TINY EYES AND WE HAD A STARING CONTEST AND THEN IT JUMPED AWAY AND I SAID BYE BYE

And the one time I was sitting on a sofa and looked at the arm of the sofa and saw a tiny spider there and we maintained eye contact for like 4 seconds before it jumped off the arm and onto the floor and lay there unmoving and I laughed while crying. Reminded me of the time when I tried to climb a tree in muree that was on a mountain and nearly fell off both the tree and mountain.

MY FRIEND JUST TEXTED ME TEHEHEHEHEHE

Shes bullying me with uwus. I'm not gonna open her chat >:(

My best friend is actually sososososo cool and I love her sm. I've known her for 3 years and she can actually make me laugh genuinely. Props to her. That's hard to do. And shes sososososo pretty and bossy makes me giggle and I feel so happy, she reminds me of Sunflowers. I tell her so many stories like the time I ate something I shouldn't have and almost got lost in the woods at the dead of night behind the farmhouse we were visiting. And she's a doctor and she's sososososo cool

AND SHE KNOWS MY FAVOURITE SONG AND COLOR AND FOOD AND SHE LIKES MY DESSERT

You say you love me. You say I'm your friend. WHAT'S MY FAVOURITE SONG, YOU WEENIE.

Weenie

Hehe

I gave her a watch and she wore it. I almost cried

I saw a bird yesterday. My best friend hates crows. So I always chase them off for her.

I miss the humming birds near our house. They were pretty. I'm sleepy. And I'm also thinking. Well, not really. Thinking is wierd. Because when you start thinking you start thinking about everything. Like, how do we know the big bang happened when none of us were alive when it happened and how do we know an alternate reality doesn't exist, because maybe it exists, and maybe aliens exist too, because who are we to conclude that aliens don't exist? Because we are literally smaller than specks as compared to this entire universe and mermaids could exist too, because we've py explored 5% of the entirety of the oceans and yeye

You ever think about how 'crises' sounds like 'cry sis'? Because I do, because I cry. Now im thinking about Lobelias and how to murder my English teacher. I want to experiment on her. What will happen if I inject glitter into her veins? Or glue? Or glitter glue? Maybe give her tiny heart attacks by injecting small doses of air into her veins. Would that work?

Maybe i can cook up her remains and shit and give it to the other people I hate

Assign me a Taylor Swift song

I like The Prophecy from TTPD. I relate

Im so selfish it's funny

I like bows. Especially blood red ones. Did you know my favourite color is blood red?

This talk post is longer than most fics you've read hehehehe

I still don't know what a loubtine is. How do you spell it? Louboutine? Lobetine? WHAT IS IT

Louboutine.

Idk I give up.

Alina thinks I'm cute. I am so not. I am evil. Safa (my best friend) agrees with Alina (the music girl) and I have to defend myself everytime. I am not cute. I am evil. I ONCE STOLE BACK MY ERASER FROM A GIRL WHO STOLE MY PINK ERASER IS THAT NOT EVIL ENOUGH FOR YOU????

I STOLE A FLOWER TOO. AND CANDY. AND NOODLES FROM MY BROTHER.

Safa's younger sister once gave me a flower and a sketchbook. I drew stuff in it. I want to draw Edinburgh. Paint it, I mean. This post is very messy.

Cosmo Sheldrake by Come Along is stuck in my head rn

And chase altantic songs.

Idk the name of that one song that goes in a way I can't describe

I just noticed I wrote the cosmo Sheldrake song wrong

But im not gonna go back to fix it cause this is a messy post and I like it

I meant Come Along by Cosmo Sheldrake

Cool song.

Reminds me of the fae.

Now im thinking about Cassian. Why not? He's my blorbo. He's also my favourite. And his cousin Zinnia is sososososo pretty and theyre as close as siblings. I'm gonna draw them when I get an iPad (even tho I'm a Samsung girlie but I need procreate)

I just remembered my cult. It was called the Cat Cult. I was the leader. It was all just cats except me and one of my friends. We plotted to take over the world. I wonder how that fat orange cat is doing now

Fuck math, do meth.

Sometimes I wonder if there's someone out there who's gonna listen to me yap for hours on end and love it. A girl can only dream.

Ngl I'd rock an enemies to lovers trope. That or I'd completely flop. No in between. Cause I'd call him the weirdest names that he wouldn't even understand like 'frostingless cupcake' or 'dry ass oatmeal' or a weenie.

Weenie

Hehe

Did i say that before?

I have brown eyes.

I wanna be pretty so bad

Am i pretty? Kind of

Im not gonna call myself ugly. I'm not ugly >:(

Calling people darling or love is so fun

How are you darling?

I am good

I am a good babie

I gave chicken to a cat today

And saw a birb

And a tree

And a cloud

And i ate icecream

I am sleppy

Goodnight, ma belle

This is not even a rant

It's just me rambling

[nsk96]

Personal rant:

I'm getting real tired of my mom always talking down to me as if I'm a kid that doesn't know anything. I'm tired of her insulting my intelligence.

I talked back to her today and stood up for myself. I was washing some small tomatoes, the tiny ones, for my breakfast. I always wash fruits and veggies with soap (I usually use the dish soap). One dropped into the sink for like 3 seconds and I picked it up and was ready to wash it with soap again. My mom made a fuss saying to throw it away because "the sink isn't clean" despite me washing it with soap before consumption.

I told her we shouldn't be eating on the plates then. She asked why, and I said they touched the sink too and we only use the soap to wash them. She was like "they're not fruits though." I kept going and said we shouldn't be using forks. Then she was like "forks are fruits?" in a condescending way.

She was like "you're the pharmacist, you should know about bacteria" and I said that doesn't mean shit. Pharmacists pick your pills off the ground and still give them to you. Then she was like "well do you think that's right?" I said "no, that's my point."

I went on about how she doesn't believe me anyway, and she was like tell me when I didn't believe you. I reminded her of the time I got a small burn and she told me to put it in ice water and I told her no I need to run it under room temperature water first. Her response was "okay, keep believing in doctor medicine" in a condescending tone.

She was like "I was sharing my opinion, and you shared yours." The problem isn't that she shares her opinion, the problem is that she treats her opinion as fact or the law of the land, and has to make a big argument out of it if she gets any push-back. She literally can't handle being wrong and has to insult my intelligence if I don't do things her way. When you prove her wrong she just goes, "oh." Only a couple times have I heard her say, "you're right," but again, she would never admit that she was wrong.

Another example: in the morning times I'm a little congested and I cough up mucus. She makes a big deal out of it saying that I need to take the cough medicine she gave me a year ago (when I had covid) to stop coughing because it "sounds like it's in your lungs. It shouldn't be there. You need to take the medicine to dry it up". She's referring to a cough suppressant. I don't cough all day, it's seriously just when I have a little mucus which is at most 3 times a day (but usually just the morning). I tend to get it if I eat food I'm hypersensitive to like wheat, egg and cashews. I get a post-nasal drip because of my allergies (despite taking an allergy pill daily). I tell her that I can't take a cough suppressant if I need to cough up mucus.

But she she keeps bringing this topic up and I tell her that if I take a cough suppressant long term and cause myself to not be able to cough up mucus from my lungs, I run the risk of getting pneumonia. She still insists on me taking the cough suppressant saying it will help "decongest" me despite me telling her no. She's brought up the argument over 5 times already, me telling her the same thing every time that I need an expectorant and decongestant, and telling her that cough suppressants really just reduce the feeling to cough. But she's convinced it will help with congestion, and of course her response is "keep believing in doctor medicine", insulting my intelligence every time, as if I didn't spend 3 years in hell of pharmacy school to learn this stuff and apply it to make people's lives better. Next time she says this, I should probably say, "oh that's why you're taking so many medications for your blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, anxiety, and nerve pain, right?"

Honestly, it hurts that she doesn't believe me and would rather me risk getting pneumonia just because she wants me to do as she says.

Then after the whole tomato argument, she still kept going about how she shares her opinion and then "stops talking". I said "no, you don't (stop talking)." That triggered her so much she felt the need to compare me to my dad saying that's the line he uses. I asked what line, and she went on about how he wants her to just shut up. I told her "i never said that".

I told her that what I mean is that she just keeps repeating herself (she repeats herself 3-5 times in the same argument/lecture/talking down to me etc. and keeps bringing things up later on). She was like "i repeat myself because you don't listen. I talk and you don't say anything." Not my fucking fault that she raised me to silently obey her, and scared me into silence all throughout my childhood and teen years. I look at her when she talks, but look away when I'm busy doing something (I learned is okay from her because she does the same). It's funny she expects more when she never taught me that, nor gave me a chance to speak much in the past. And when I say she never taught me that, I mean that when I talk to her when she's busy, she doesn't answer me either. Sometimes when I talk to her she changes the conversation while I'm still talking (which I think could just be that she gets distracted easily like I do, but she'd never admit it). But it makes me feel like what I'm saying is never interesting enough.

I do the same quiet behavior when other people are talking to me. I look at them and either nod, but I don't really say anything unless I have something to add. It's only recently, now that a preceptor on rotation bluntly pointed out that I have a tendency to give him this blank stare, that I started forcing myself to at least go "m-hm" when people are telling me something. It's so bad, that sometimes I don't process what their saying because I'm too busying worrying about when to go "m-hm" and when to make or break eye contact.

Now she wants to call me rude and act like I'm mistreating her when I return her energy. She's done it so much to me, it's ingrained in my behavior now, and I didn't realize this until recently when I started paying more attention to my own behavior and feelings, and how she ignores me or at least fails to acknowledge what I'm saying. I spent most of my life feeling unheard, unseen, not believed, scared (of her especially), crying myself to sleep and comforting myself, and now it's biting her in the ass as I'm finally getting my voice.

She's probably getting scared now, thinking I won't take care of her when she's old and frail. Lucky for her though, I'm a person of my word. She sometimes rants about how the culture in the U.S. tells children that they don't need to take care of their parents (partially because she's still bitter about how my brother left)...while not understanding that:

1) you chose to have a child; they have no obligation to be your retirement plan. It's unfair to dump that responsibility on them for just existing. Btw, she didn't have to take care of her parents, despite wanting to, because they were in Trinidad being "cared for" by her brothers and sisters. So, she doesn't know the sacrifice it takes especially here in the U.S. for one single child to do it. I know, because I see and hear about people who go through it here. I don't blame those people who decide not to care for toxic parents. How your kids treat you when they're grown, is often a reflection of how you treated them as kids.

2) she seems to forget that this same U.S. "culture" tells parents to kick their kids out at 18, and iirc it was once allowed younger in some states. When you choose to become a parent, you choose to raise an adult to have opinions of their own and they will learn things that you probably don't know. You don't have to agree to everything they say, but at least respect their opinions and knowledge instead of talking down to them like they're stupid. You should not be raising them to be your personal caretaker and if you are, you shouldn't be a parent at all.

If she thinks I'm getting like my dad, then she probably shouldn't have forced me to live with him. But I'd say most of my "rude" behavior I learned from her.

One of the things that hurts the most is that I can't even talk to my brother about everything that's been going on. His view would likely be that I should just leave like he did, forgetting that when he left, he dropped out of college because he apparently couldn't balance a job with college (just like me) and his pay barely affording his rent that he wasn't eating. After all he went through when he left, no sympathy for what I've been having to deal with dealing with both our parents and school. Btw, it was our parents' he was running away from, and let's just say they got much worse towards me after he left. He himself even admitted that I got the most corporal punishment and saying "I'm surprised you didn't become a serial killer". When my mom told him what she and I are going through, his response was along the lines of "either put up with or leave" despite knowing I'm on rotations, and rotations are pretty much a full-time job (40 hours a week not including commute time, projects, assignments, and studying). My mom attributes it to brain damage from his motorcycle accident, but honestly, I think he was always like this; his lack of empathy is so much like our parents...like my dad. The only difference is he's always been colder.

The moral of the story I guess: You live what you learn

[jlilycorbie]

Didn't See Any of This Coming

Late at night on Thursday, October 19, I drove myself to the emergency room. I fully expected to be treated and released, and after I saw triage just barely after midnight, it looked like exactly what would happen.

Instead, my entire life changed.

I went in for an abscess in an embarrassing location, which shouldn't have stopped me from seeking treatment earlier, but absolutely did. I figured they'd open and drain it, put me on some IV antibiotics, then send me on my way with a prescription for oral antibiotics. And for a while, that looked like exactly what would happen.

At least, until someone came into the room to ask me, "Are you diabetic?"

"Not as far as I know," I said.

"Did you know your blood sugar is 330?"

I've known for a long time things weren't great with my health, but I didn't see that one coming. Honestly, I was hoping whatever was wrong would kill me, preferably painlessly and in my sleep, within the next five to ten years.

That was already my first trip to the ER as an adult. What followed were a lot more firsts.

First IV.

First person who has seen my butt as an adult (a number that unfortunately kept climbing).

First CT scan.

First minor surgery (lidocaine is weak, I felt almost all of it).

First admission to a hospital.

First time taking insulin.

First major surgery under general anesthesia.

First time receiving fentanyl (or any opioid). After all the hype on the news, I thought that should be good, and instead it did absolutely nothing. Found out afterward that my dad and grandfather both got morphine a few times after surgery or in the ER for injuries and it did nothing for either of them. Just my luck to come up with chronic pain and a resistance to opioids.

I've suspected for a while that I have an autoimmune disorder, though I don't know which one. And a collagen disorder, probably EDS, but not sure which one. I've heard all the nightmare stories about fighting for diagnosis, so it was a little unsettling to mention autoimmune disorders and have every single medical professional say, "Yeah, that sounds right." Or to do my stupid human tricks (bending fingers and moving my trachea only, I never got far) and have people immediately go, "Yup, that's a collagen disorder."

Also, surprise! I have a heart murmur.

Shout out to my liver and kidneys, apparently the only organs in my body quietly doing their jobs without any drama.

The following days were frustrating. Everyone was eager to explain what diabetes is to me, but not what I needed to do. People kept mentioning that I had a sliding scale for my insulin, but no one would tell me what that meant. A diabetes educator would be coming to my room to explain it to me, so they didn't need to tell me anything.

After surgery, I never saw the surgeon again. No followup of any kind. Also absolutely no pain management. Before surgery, someone would occasionally offer me Tylenol. Afterward, I didn't even get that. It's apparently acceptable to leave a patient in so much pain she doesn't sleep for more than 36 hours, and after the 24 hour mark, you can offer melatonin.

Honestly, I don't think Tylenol would have helped, but a few throat lozenges would have made a huge difference in my world.

No one ever really explained or showed me how to care for the open wound left after surgery. The wound is located somewhere that is very difficult for me to see or reach, especially both at once. One person told me, "Just take a corner of gauze and poke, poke, poke it into the hole, but not too far, because you don't want to make the wound worse." When a nurse pointed out the difficulty of seeing the location, wound care sent a hand mirror smaller than my palm.

The doctor gave discharge orders, but the nurse at the time didn't want to let me go because the diabetes educator still hadn't come. I didn't know exactly when to take my blood sugar or insulin or how much to take. Because no one would tell me. So the nurse talked me into staying an extra night.

The doctor and several nurses also said someone with the hospital's social services would come talk to me about handling the bill and about getting a primary care physician because after 12 years without one, I can't keep not going to a doctor.

Neither the diabetes educator nor anyone from social services ever came to my room. I finally got a frustrated nurse to explain the sliding scale for insulin to me and when I should take my blood sugar and when I should take insulin. The next nurse diligently avoided me at all times until she announced I was getting discharged, better get ready. I stayed an extra night for literally no reason, for help that never came.

A pharmacist called me to tell me the doctor had ordered a glucometer and some other supplies for me, but my insurance had a really high copay on them, and she wanted me to know that I could buy them way cheaper on my own if I'd like to do that. When she found out that no one had explained most things to me, she was outraged. She spent a long time on the phone with me, explaining everything that she could. Bless that woman. I've told everyone who would listen her name and that she was so helpful when I was desperate and alone.

I got discharged just like that. I didn't get any written aftercare instructions from my surgery. I still don't know if I'm caring appropriately for my wound. I have a followup scheduled for three weeks after my discharge. I have since reached out, and people will apologize, but no one will give me the information I need.

I left the hospital terrified and confused. I'm used to figuring things out on my own, but the repeated promises of help that never came almost broke me completely.

I got two different types of insulin in reusable pens. No one had shown me that type of pen or how to use them. I had to figure it out by myself after I was home.

After I got home, someone from social services did call me. I had an appointment for the next day with a diabetes educator...who heard about me for the very first time after I was discharged, when social services called him and he immediately arranged an appointment for me.

Also, no one ever told social services they needed to talk to me about anything. They arranged an appointment with a primary care physician. It was written in my discharge paperwork, but no one told me.

The diabetes educator was actually pretty helpful. Turns out I'd gotten about half the information I needed about when and how to take my insulin. Since he gave me a different sliding scale and more instructions, I've actually kept my blood sugar consistently under 150, and mostly between 110 and 135.

I did tell him that the last time I saw a doctor, he dismissed all of my concerns to pressure me to join his high intensity weight loss program. At the time, I weighed around 300 lbs. I figured before I could get real help, I needed to wait until I was old enough, thin enough, or sick enough for people to take me seriously, and in the 12 years since then, I've done my best to take care of myself. When I arrived in the ER, I weighed 208 lbs. I was the sickest and most miserable I've ever been.

He told me he expects me to lose at least 20 lbs by the next time I see him.

[sesshy380]

Here is the reminder that no one asked for that I have a crackfic series where my longfic characters argue with the author. Also, it's the source of the only 'Holiday' themed work I have on AO3. If you enjoy it, feel free to head on over to AO3 and smash that little red heart ❤️ (and maybe check out the other insanity of this series...)

Title: Talking with Myself...'Kiss Miss' Edition

Summary: ♪ Last Christmas, I gave you my heart. The very next day...I've got a jar of dir-rt! I've got a jar of dir-rt!

(I should note that the summaries to the whole series are pure nonsense)

(also I should note that the red crayon thing is a running gag)

[Yami Bakura sitting in random space, giddily coloring with his red crayon while humming the tune of ‘Jingle Bells’]

Author: Whatcha doin?

[Yami Bakura continues his scribbling without looking up]

Y.Bakura: Letting the fat man know what I want for this ‘Kiss Miss’ thing. I’m all for hot chicks, but I prefer a new knife…and maybe some more red crayons. Seriously, just order a warehouse full next time. I go through a lot.

[Author tries not to laugh]

Author: Noted. So…besides a new knife and crayons, anything else you want? Something maybe someone other than Santa Clause can get for you?

[Yami Bakura lifts his head up and give the Author a dead-pan stare]

Y.Bakura: Hate to break it to ya, but his name is ‘Satan Claws’. No wonder you can’t write anything good. You obviously have that thing where the words are jumbled up.

Author: You mean dyslexia?

Y.Bakura: I’m pretty sure that’s the name of the device you shout at to Google things.

Author: No, that’s Alexa.

Y.Bakura: I guess you can hire someone named Alexa to do that for you…but you gotta make money off your work first. Spoiler alert: You can’t make money with fanfiction. I’m tellin ya, my stuff is Pulitzer material. No copyrights or trademarks, so you can earn all the coin from the publications.

[Author nods her head while still attempting to keep a straight face]

Author: You know what, I’ll just throw some candy in a stocking. I don’t know anyone that would pass up free candy.

[Yami Bakura is visibly confused]

Y.Bakura: But if you are the one putting the candy in the socks…then does that mean there’s no Satan Claws? Who’s gonna make sure all those people die from beatings?

[Author’s turn to be visibly confused]

Author: What???

Y.Bakura: You know…all the people eat a bunch of candy from a sock and end up with the curse of ‘die from beatings’.

Author: You mean diabetes?

Y.Bakura: That’s what I just said. Oh. My. Gods. You’re deaf too?! CAN. YOU. HEAR. ME? I. ONLY. KNOW. ONE. SIGN.

[Yami Bakura proceeds to flip-off Author]

[A tear escapes from the corner of Author’s eye as she still attempts to not fall on the floor in laughter]

Author: Don’t worry. There’s still a ‘Satan Claws’. I was just going to throw some non-cursed candy in your stocking. I’ll leave the cursed stuff for the fat man. You’ll know which is his by all the glitter. And I think I’ll give you your gift early.

[Author hands a copy of the future chapters she’s been working on]

[Yami Bakura quickly glances through them, a smile slowly forming across his face]

Y.Bakura: Murder? I get the opportunity to kill someone?!?!

Author: You’re welcome.

[Yami Bakura jumps up and enthusiastically hugs the Author]

Y.Bakura: It’s a Kiss Miss miracle!

Author: Riiight…by the way, it’s pronounced Christmas.

Y.Bakura: Author, since you were so nice, I’ll ask Satan Claws to give you some writing talent. Maybe some hearing aids too, so you can hear things properly. Maybe that’s your problem? You hear everything wrong so you don’t know how it should be spelled, which in turn makes it so much harder for you to be a good writer.

[Author shakes her head in amusement and walks away]

[Yami Bakura sits back down and starts scribbling on a new sheet of paper]

Dear Satan Claws,

First off, I am a huge fan of your work. Can I ask a favor from one great killer to another? Can you bring Author one of those puppies for disabled people? I’m sure you can find one that can type. Don’t worry if it can’t spell, Author can’t spell either. Spell check does most of the work in that area. It just needs some talent when it comes to writing plots. I’ve tried to help, but Author is just too nice of a person and doesn’t want to steal credit from someone as amazing as me.

Sincerely,

Murder Fluff Thief King Bakura

P.S. I’m all for free candy, but I’m already bound to a cursed object. Can you bring me some non-cursed candy? Author said she would leave me some, but double would be better.