the-woke-mind-virus

[the-woke-mind-virus]

I have been pestered

parents are asleep # who will I pester now

[the-woke-mind-virus]

I know for a fact that my stepmother loves me.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

So. I know she loves me.

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

...Until it came back.

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

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

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

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

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

And it did.

Magic can be tricked, and my mind was blown.

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

Things started changing when I turned 16.

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

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

I didn't want to lose another mom.

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

Stepmothers don't have the best reputation.

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

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

And she loved me.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

How much they all loved me.

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

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

[the-woke-mind-virus]

I'm thinking about the delicate flavour of avocadoes

[the-woke-mind-virus]

Let's start cumberbatching other actors. I'll start: ASAP Beautiful

[the-woke-mind-virus]

Call Luigi

[the-woke-mind-virus]

ngl if a bi girl is talking about a hot guy and shes like “im so gay” you dont get to be like “but-” no buts. shes feeling queer about it.

[the-woke-mind-virus]

Hi Tumblr Newbies,

The inevitable new influx of people means a roundup of folks talking about "we don't have an algorithm here," "you NEED to reblog things," etc. and I would just like to offer some actually helpful advice.

One of tumblr's best assets is that it offers you multiple algorithmic feeds, including not having one at all. If you are on mobile, you will notice a "following" tab, followed by a "for you" tab, which is algorithmically generated. "Following" only includes posts from people you follow, in reverse chronological order. That's it. The vast majority of tumblr users prefer it this way, as we predate algorithms.

If you are new and looking to expand what you're finding quickly, you can browse under the algorithmic feed and tweak it once you've followed a few blogs and liked a few things - under "settings," you can choose to have posts related to your likes, or the likes of people you follow.

However - again, most users on this website do not use the algorithm. It's for that reason that reblogging posts is of such importance here. Liking a post is an appreciated sign of goodwill, but for the majority of users, it will not boost the post. Many of use use likes just as a save folder.

So if you genuinely like something you see on here, I encourage you to reblog it, because that is the only way the post will continue to spread around. Almost everyone started their blog with a theme they were loathe to ruin with an unrelated reblog, but by now most of us are just streams of consciousness showing each other things we find funny or interesting, and if you view your blog the same way you will have a much more enjoyable experience.

[the-woke-mind-virus]

Time loop fans: when the loop changes slightly!

time loop fans when the loop changes slightly

[the-woke-mind-virus]

How often do you reckon the queen changes her knickers? Is it only once a day, like the rest of us? Or has she got people to do that for her?

[the-woke-mind-virus]

This has got to be the most incomprehensible thing I’ve ever read this is a reply to a dumbass pick up artist twitter thread but it sounds like a riddle that you’d be given 3 chances to solve before getting thrown in the gallows

[the-woke-mind-virus]

soooo...

Suggesting acontent lable isn't like- reporting the post right? Because I've been suggesting a content lable to all the untagged nudety artworks that portrayed nudity in a way that made me uncomfortable- (but obviously not reporting them because they've done nothing wrong!) But then i saw a post/piece of art i was gonna suggest a content lable for that had acaption aloung the lines of 'don't nuke me for this post tumblr' and now I'm wondering if suggesting content lables has some negative impact on the users?? Or were they talking about reports? (Because i only ever report the porn bot/blogs!)

Is it okay for me to be suggesting content lables when i come across untagged nude artwork? Or is that harmful to the artist????

[the-woke-mind-virus]

I got my first cheeses. This is the first one I have tried: a squishy little French wheel of St Felicien Du Dauphine, which is fun to say and even more fun to sing to yourself like a Gregorian monk.

I love that it comes in a little octagonal plastic box, with air holes so it doesn't die in there. Maybe when I have eaten all the cheese, I'll keep a cricket in here or something.

It is from the Alps. It is French mountain Cheese.

The Cheese inside its plastic nest is very soft and squishy. You slice it and then you have to winkle it out very carefully so as not to misshape the Cheese.

It is runnier at the edges than in the middle. I can imagine some people finding this Cheese gross, but I have no issues with cheese textures and liked it a lot. As the packaging claimed, it is light and creamy, it doesn't have that mould astringency that brie can sometimes have - it's a lot like brie but like God-tier brie. I am excited about my future with this Cheese.

I have all the usual New Year's Resolutions(tm) but I keep seeing that post about fun resolutions and I think I'm gonna do a Cheese Journey

I'm gonna eat every Cheese in the big grocery store I shop at. I shop there pretty much every week so I'm gonna get myself a New Cheese each time

Today will be my first trip there. I will report back

[the-woke-mind-virus]

I got my first cheeses. This is the first one I have tried: a squishy little French wheel of St Felicien Du Dauphine, which is fun to say and even more fun to sing to yourself like a Gregorian monk.

I love that it comes in a little octagonal plastic box, with air holes so it doesn't die in there. Maybe when I have eaten all the cheese, I'll keep a cricket in here or something.

It is from the Alps. It is French mountain Cheese.

The Cheese inside its plastic nest is very soft and squishy. You slice it and then you have to winkle it out very carefully so as not to misshape the Cheese.

It is runnier at the edges than in the middle. I can imagine some people finding this Cheese gross, but I have no issues with cheese textures and liked it a lot. As the packaging claimed, it is light and creamy, it doesn't have that mould astringency that brie can sometimes have - it's a lot like brie but like God-tier brie. I am excited about my future with this Cheese.

I have all the usual New Year's Resolutions(tm) but I keep seeing that post about fun resolutions and I think I'm gonna do a Cheese Journey

I'm gonna eat every Cheese in the big grocery store I shop at. I shop there pretty much every week so I'm gonna get myself a New Cheese each time

Today will be my first trip there. I will report back

[the-woke-mind-virus]

I have all the usual New Year's Resolutions(tm) but I keep seeing that post about fun resolutions and I think I'm gonna do a Cheese Journey

I'm gonna eat every Cheese in the big grocery store I shop at. I shop there pretty much every week so I'm gonna get myself a New Cheese each time

Today will be my first trip there. I will report back

[the-woke-mind-virus]

*things such as video game systems are not included in this poll

**your own, not a family/shared computer

reblog for reach/bigger sample size!!

[the-woke-mind-virus]

this is how you get private militias though right? Like tell me Bezos couldn't afford a protection detail

[the-woke-mind-virus]

Watched this lying on my back with the phone above my face for the full experience

We have a bird playing on our skylight window.