ynde

[ynde]

Okay the WEIRDEST THING is going going down right now

So some guy in Michigan in the US has just found a letter in his grandmother’s house; it seems to be a pen pal letter from 1973ish, and it’s from a young Welsh girl. In it, she lists:

Her name, and the names of her brother (Gwynedd) and sister (Catrin)

Their ages

Where she lives in Wales (Denbigh)

Her hobbies, including horse riding and reading pony books.

So this American dude decides to take a photo, whack it on Twitter and ask the only Welsh person he knows if there’s any way to track this Welsh girl down, because you know, ALL WELSH PEOPLE KNOW EACH OTHER, OBVIOUSLY

Except

I am furious to report that it has worked

Welsh person he tags doesn’t know, but takes up the challenge. Someone reckons the Catrin might be a woman who translated a hymn book once, and checks the foreword to see that the dates and ages do seem to be about right. Someone else suddenly has a brainwave - wait, isn’t she the mother of Steff, the comedian?

My husband gets tagged, takes one look at this letter, and is like “That is 1000% my aunt.”

So now it’s 20 to midnight, Steff’s aunt has obviously not yet seen the excited message to put Twitter out of their misery, and my mother-in-law is currently on the phone gleefully telling us that when that letter was written her sister had never sat on a horse in her life before, and she’d lied to an American pen pal for clout before the internet even existed.

[ynde]

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...

[ynde]

Totally normal Life Series session, except “Martyn” sounds suspiciously like Philza. No one ever acknowledges this.

Happy birthday, Martyn <3

[ynde]

The idea of Evil X having a "real" name is fairly commonplace, everyone has their own take on what it might be, so allow me to submit:

They used to have a name. But Jeff stole it.

He took it, consumed it, along with their sense of self.

They no longer remember it, though others do. But when Xisuma calls them by it they fully reject it. Because it no longer sounds like theirs.

They are Evil Xisuma. That's all that is left.

[ynde]

So, um.

I may be starting to get a weeeee bit annoyed with people on the r/Hermitcraft subreddit.

Like, when I made the meme that is still getting an insane amount of notes (holy crap thank you so much I am super flattered), it was understandable that people didn't know what it was in reference to. I went, "ah, probably should have linked Cleo's vid!" and lived and learned, you know?

But Cleo's video has been out for a week. It's only twenty minutes long, and the moment when they and Grian meet up is five minutes into the video.

And like. Grian seems to really want people to see his friends' videos? Like when Gem's snail arrived, he deliberately left that plot thread dangling to be answered in Gem's video. The guy has made an eight hour video showing off the other Hermits' bases. I also highly suspect that one reason Grian is one of the last people to upload collab videos he's in is because his higher subscriber count means his video will automatically racket up to the top of the recommended page, and he wants his friends' videos to get a head start on him.

So the fact that there's this significant amount of Grian fans who won't even watch five minutes of someone else's video to get an answer that Grian left hanging is ... it's just super disappointing, ngl.

And just. Don't even get me started on that "continuity error" comment. I actually had a pretty long response to that on reddit. TL;DR: it's not a continuity error because there's perfect continuity as long as you watch Cleo's video.

Grian does not have to fill in the gaps, that's not his responsibility, nor should it be. The point of a series like Hermitcraft is that you get multiple perspectives. If you're upset that one perspective doesn't show everything, then you shouldn't be watching SMPs.

[ynde]

It's still so strange to me how apparently taboo it is to like a post on someone's Instagram from a month ago when there are posts still circulating on Tumblr from 1550 BCE

[ynde]

My submission for round 3 of mind meld for @mcyt-soulmate-sweepstakes

Title: stuck

Fandom: Hermitcraft

Prompt: sci-fi

Score: 935

timelapse under the cut (flash warning)

[ynde]

[ynde]

"gay or european" also goes for middle-aged women btw. that lady with short hair no makeup and sneakers isn't a lesbian she's just german

[ynde]

Ok this might be a bit of a weird question but I keep arguing with my mom and sis about this so I need y'all to answer this

[For context my mom and sis keep telling me I shower for too long but my showers are usually 45 minutes to an hour]

(edit: *your showers not you showers)

[ynde]

Kind of a banger idea from gem that Joe hills is equally, if more powerful then most of the players, so much so that they have to call in someone like docm77 to kill him

[ynde]

it’s barely a prompt im so sorry but i adore all your iterations of mumbo although I think beacon!skizz mumbo is maybe my favorite. Do you have ?? Any thoughts about any other versions of mumbo that could possibly exist? In an existing AU or wip or anything?

Least prompting prompt in the world i am so sorry

(TW here for An Unfortunate Hermit We Would Like To Forget mention)

On A Dark Desert Highway

When the old blue pickup truck slows down and pulls over just ahead of him on the half-frozen gravel Mumbo could cry. He drops his pack over the side into the back and then climbs into the cab. It smells like grease and dust and wood and it's warm. "Hey man," says the driver. "Hell of a road to be thumbing it on this late in the year. Let me turn the heat up."

Mumbo rubs his hands together and looks.

And looks.

And swallows hard as the extremely handsome blue-eyed man who has just picked him up out of the cold adjusts the heater and pulls away from the shoulder.

"T-thank you."

"No problem, man!" the EHBEM says, offering one huge, calloused hand. "I'm Skizz."

Mumbo takes the hand and shakes. "I'm Mumbo."

"Now THAT'S an accent!" Skizz says, but it isn't derisive like Mumbo has become used to during this disaster of a trip. It's delighted and warm. Skizz isn't making fun of him, Skizz is happy to hear him.

"I, ah, was-backpacking."

"Yeah that pack you dropped in the back shook the frame! She's held together with rust and a dream, my good girl," Skizz says with an affectionate pat on the dash. "She'll get you somewhere good, though. You have a destination?"

"I- no. Not really. I, um, had a row- an argument- with my traveling partner, and when he said to get out I got out."

Skizz frowns. "He threw you out? He from the same place you are?"

"Ah, further north, but."

"An' he knew you didn't know where to go and he threw you out?"

"It- was a mutual decision."

Skizz snorts. "Right. Lousy friend."

Mumbo should protest, he thinks, argue a little, but this man has just picked up a total stranger and besides he isn't wrong. Mumbo had known four days into this trip that coming with Iskall had been a bad idea.

"Okay. Diner first for some of Tango's coffee, you need it," Skizz declares. "You got a map in that big ol' bag? Anyone you can call?"

"Yes. My friend Grian- he knew I was hitchhiking."

"Okay. There's a payphone at Tango's, you can call an' let him know you're okay. Cell phones are junk out here, drives Impulse crazy."

"Oh. That- explains a fair bit."

"I know, right? I can get some tunes, at least." Skizz fiddles with the radio and cheers when they get a staticky station out of a nearby city playing songs Mumbo has never heard before- a little jazzy, a little funk, with some blues thrown in.

They get to talking- about Skizz's job (he works in an autobody shop) about the town they're headed to ("you might have passed through it already, or at least a dozen others like it, but it's home.") About, yes, their accents ("I'm sure you've had people say weird stuff before but I love the way you talk, dude.")

It's so easy to talk to Skizz. Mumbo finds himself relaxing incrementally as the drive goes on until, inevitably, "You wanna talk about it?"

"Pardon?"

"Whatever got you walking up the road. You wanna talk about it? It's okay if the answer's no," Skizz shrugs, eyes never the leaving the road as the last of the sunlight disappears behind the distant mountains, "but it helps."

"I- I thought I knew him. Only it turns out I didn't. Or I knew what he wanted me to know? It was stupid and he was cruel and I- oh I'm so angry!" Mumbo bursts. "All that time wasted building, and now it's all rubbish and ruined."

"Well it was," Skizz points out, "but it's not anymore."

"How would you know?"

"You kept on walking. You stuck to your guns. Mr. Mumbo you strike me as a conscientious and caring individual. Anyone who gets you mad enough to stomp through the desert in October is probably not a person worth knowing."

"That is..quite the extrapolation without much data to back it up," a stunned Mumbo says.

Skizz shrugs. "People person. Or am I wrong?"

Mumbo is quiet for a long time, watching the dust and the occasional shrub through the window. "No," he says at last. "No, I don't think you are."

"Well then. You've already started building again! It's gonna SUCK, no doubt, but you knew that already." Skizz grins at him. "When you hit rock bottom there's only one way to go, and it sure as heck ain't down."

"No, I suppose not."

The lights of the town come upon them quicker than Mumbo thought they might and Skizz pulls into the parking lot of a little diner- one of those chrome-all-over places that started as a dining car but has a whole massive addition out the back with lots of copper and dark wood.

"This is where we part ways, Mr. Mumbo," Skizz says. "You go in there an' Top'll find you- Tango. Tell 'em I sent you an' you need the full monty, he'll get it."

"I, ah- okay. I...thank you, Skizz."

Skizz smiles at him. It's such a warm smile. "No problem. You ever wind up on this piece of road again, just keep that thumb in prime position- I'll see you!"

Mumbo laughs, gets his pack out of the back, and waves as Skizz pulls out of the parking lot and further down the road, the sound of the scratchy radio station fading.

He turns, looks at the diner, sighs and heads up the stairs.

Inside is quiet for a weeknight, or maybe this is normal- he's not sure. Mumbo looks around curiously and a blonde man with a goatee waves at him from behind the counter before a bored-looking girl can seat him. "Hello, stranger! How can we help you?"

"Ah- are you, um, Tango?"

"I am!" the man says, moving out around the edge of the counter.

"Skizz sent me? He said I should tell you- the, uh, full monty." Mumbo laughs awkwardly. "I don't know what that means, but."

He catches sight of the blonde man's face. It has gone solemn and still.

"I'm sorry did I say something wrong?"

"No," Tango says, sounding a bit tight, but he smiles. "No, you didn't say anything wrong. I think I knew when you came in. Okay, full monty it is. That means you need a hot meal, a place to stay, and some people to look after you until you're ready to move on."

"I- I can't accept all that. I've got money there must be a place to stay around here."

"There is but Skizz brought you, so you're getting the best I can give."

"Oh. Well, he certainly sounded like you were friends. I appreciate it."

"You find a place to land, Mr..?"

"I'm Mumbo Jumbo."

"Mr. Jumbo. You drink coffee?"

"Please."

"Let's start with that."

Tango disappears behind the counter and Mumbo slides onto one of the green vinyl-covered seats, looking around at the napkin holders, the sugar shakers, the card holders-

His eyes snap back to the card holder.

He reaches out, delicately plucks it from where it rests between the salt and pepper shakers, and examines it, ice filling his stomach.

There is a picture of Skizz, grinning just like he had in the cab of truck, sitting in a booth in this same diner. Tango is with him, and another blonde man, and a third with dark hair and eyes and a serious face. Skizz has his arm around this man and is cheerfully flipping off the camera.

'In Memoriam', the card reads, 'Skizz Lehman, XXXX-XXXX. Giving Heaven Some Hell.'

Six years.

According to this grease-stained laminated card, Skizz Lehman, the extremely handsome blue eyed man in the old blue pickup truck, has been dead for six years.

A mug is put down a little too hard in front of Mumbo. He looks up at Tango, whose eyes are not dry.

"You're not the first." Tango says quietly. "Maybe the- sixth? Seventh? If someone really needs him, he finds 'em. And he never steered me wrong before. Future's bright, Mr. Jumbo. Let's have some coffee."

Mumbo looks at the mug, thinks of Skizz driving off into the dark desert.

"Yes," he hears himself say. "Let's."

[ynde]

My mom got phished in an EXTREMELY refined scam that pretty much anyone could fall for-- basically her account was already pre-hacked and they spoofed the bank's number exactly, called her pretending there was fraud, and read back legitimate and fake transactions and personal info so she wouldn't suspect they weren't the bank. Then discouraged her from logging in claiming the account was locked so they could investigate the fraud-- all so she wouldnt catch them making massive purchases using her stolen info.

We have the same boss and when she told him what happened he recommended she call the bank directly, so she did and they managed to catch it in time before $20k of transactions went through. Very scary

I guess the lesson here is never ever answer your phone, I love that fraud is so rampant an entire form of mass communication is now useless

ANYONE can fall for phishing scams- my mom is extremely smart and we discuss common scams that target her age demographic and she still fell for this. If it happened to me I may have fallen for it too. Always be careful!

[ynde]

I imagine that Joe hills looks at his work schedule and is like *long exhale* okay crafts with Cleo at 8:30… chase scene at 2… poem reflection at 4… my day is booked

[ynde]

april fools day is actually the most sensible day of the year because it's the only day on which people will read something on the internet and stop for a second to consider whether or not it's actually true

[ynde]

"Look at this video of a child disappointed at their expensive gift! Children are so spoiled these days!"

That's cool. So, why did their parents upload their small child being upset online? In a public video, shared to the entire video? Why did they even save the recording?

Like. The kid in that scenario could be saying the most entitled nonsense in the world, and if their parents post it online to be publicly shamed, I'd still support the kid 100%. Thinking your child's life is a toy to exploit freely for #content is "spoiled"; when faced with mommy vlogers, kids should be demanding three PS5s and a new Bugatti, and we should be applauding them for it