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part one / part two / part three

the probably-not-a-demon-dog-or-wolf barely even looks up at stiles when he gets home. the meat stiles left him is gone again, that’s good. that’s, yeah. demon dogs don’t eat, right? he’s just stiles’ new furry friend, that’s all. big oversized puppy. 

but there’s something wrong with how the dog is moving. it’s like he’s barely even able to. he keeps kind of, like, twisting toward his side with every half-step.

and once stiles drops down to look at him, he’s hissing in sympathy.

there’s something sharp embedded high in the dog’s left front leg. and it must hurt him really bad, he’s shaking.

it’s kind of amazing he ever managed to make it back here at all.

“what’d you get caught in, huh?” stiles says, and the dog tries to cringe away, and shudders. he’s never let stiles this close to him before.

“hey, it’s okay,” stiles says. “i swear, i’m gonna help you.”

and somehow, the dog lets stiles half-carry him to the car.

“where could he have even gotten into thorns like that?” stiles says, as deaton helps him bring the dog inside. “what even has thorns like that? it’s not like we have, like, local rose bushes.” 

and it doesn’t even look right to be that, it looks way too big. even just the part already sticking out of him.

“hey, it’s okay,” he says, despite all evidence to the contrary, and tries to… “is it okay if i like, try to soothe him a little bit? like, while you… and obviously just on the un-impaled side.” 

the dog’s, like, shuddering. stiles could swear there are tears in his eyes. 

he’s never seen a dog cry in his entire life. 

“hey,” he says. kind of shakily, his hand hovering over the unharmed half of his fur. “yeah? can i…” but then deaton starts, like, prying at the thorn, and the dog whines horribly, and if stiles doesn’t try and help make it better somehow he’s gonna lose his mind. 

“hey, hey, just…” he tries, but they’re way past what just words can help. “oh my god. are there like, pet painkillers?” 

more not answering, great! that’s so helpful.

but yeah, deaton’s busy. 

“you’re not hurt here, right?” he asks, and then… are all dogs’ fur this soft? you’d think it’d be like, wild. matted, even. it’s not like someone’s been out there grooming him, he doesn’t even have a collar. 

but it’s good to see him settle, a little bit, shudder a little less horribly now that stiles is stroking his fur. 

and, where has stiles been his whole life? when he clearly should’ve been in pet therapy. in like a minute of soothing at him, stiles has never felt better. watching him, like, breathe easier, even through what has to feel like torture to him. 

it’s kind of the warmest feeling in the world. 

at least until stiles looks up, and sees what deaton’s still working out of the dog’s side. 

it’s not a thorn. it’s, like, a whole branch. like a magician’s scarf trick, the nightmare version. where every one of the scarves comes out a little more bloody.

but it just keeps getting longer.

“i need you to be extremely honest with me about something,” deaton says, and stiles’ mouth goes dry. “do you know why someone would do something like this?”

“do i know why…” stiles says, and then there’s a fire in his throat. “you’re saying… someone did this to him?”

but of course, of course that’s what happened. there’s no way like four feet of roots and sticks and whole, now blood-soaked flowers got into him by accident. 

“why would someone,” stiles says, and then, “why would anyone, even, like, think… and where would they even get it?“

but that’s, you know what? that’s a clue. yeah. find out the plant type, you know, and then track down who has that kind of plant, and then… 

“i’ve never even, like, seen…” he says, and reaches for the edge of it, and deaton says, “you’ll want to be careful with that. wolfsbane can be highly poisonous.”

wolfsbane. like that’s even… stiles shakes his head.

“wolfsbane? that’s seriously, like, the real…”  

deaton just looks at him for a while. then he says, “yes, stiles, wolfsbane is very real. and despite what the name might imply, it can be just as harmful to humans.”

“so someone would’ve had to, like, wear gloves, to…” stiles says, but there isn’t a word for it. “to do that to him. they’d have to, like, put on gloves, and go get it, and… how’d they even get it in him in the first place? what, did they like, cut him open?”

horrifying. people are horrifying. humanity, in general. 

“is he gonna, like, bleed out before you even bandage it?” stiles says. like, with gunshots, or stab wounds. you’d think you’re helping, taking out the recent foreign object, well, surprise! now they’re gonna bleed to death. you should’ve left it in there. 

and it’s not like deaton can pack the wound while he’s still dragging half a freaking wolfsbane forest from under the dog’s fur. 

maybe it’s not even stiles’ soothing that’s making him go quiet. maybe he’s just, like, half-dead already. 

but he whines, then, like he can smell stiles’ sudden panic, or feel it through his hand somehow. stiles breathes in, and again, and again, and drops his head, just barely covering his eyes in time.

he doesn’t need to be adding salt to a still-growing wound. 

deaton touches stiles’ shoulder when it’s over, when he’s finally done. the bandages he’s put on take up about half the dog’s side. 

“what now?” stiles says. “oh! don’t throw that stuff away, that’s evidence. do you have like, a giant sterile bag?” 

yeah. the second stiles is sure the dog’s stable, that plant’s getting hand-delivered to his dad. animal cruelty? forget cruelty. this is, like, attempted murder. attempted murder of the sheriff’s son’s dog. 

yeah. enjoy getting life, asshole. enjoy the death penalty. 

“is he gonna be okay?” stiles says. “is there, like… can the wound get, like, infected?” 

“this breed tends to be pretty resilient,” deaton says, and stiles breathes out sharp. “you did the right thing bringing him here. he should be just fine.”

fine. like he didn’t just get a five foot poisonous tree pulled out of him. 

“he should be? or you’re, like, sure.” 

“stiles,” deaton says. like stiles is being ridiculous for worrying. five-plus feet of poisonous plant matter, which more than likely left some poison still inside him? oh, ‘tis but a scratch! 

“i may have had some doubts before this incident,” deaton says. “but after tonight? i wouldn’t be surprised if he makes an astounding recovery.”

and yeah, he will. stiles is gonna make sure of it.

and when he tracks down whoever filled a dog with wolfsbane, he’s gonna make them regret their entire life.

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Ever want to reread a fanfic but you can’t remember the title? Here’s a Google trick that will change your life

Let’s say you’re looking for a Destiel fic that involved a trip to Costco and you read it on AO3. First thing you type in the Goggle search bar is

site:http://archiveofourown.org/ 

the site: tells Google that you only want it to search the AO3 website

Next, enter your search terms

costco dean cas

when you hit search Google will give you a list of all the pages on AO3 that contain the words you entered. All you have to do is click through the results until you find the fic you’re thinking of

It’s that easy. Now go find that fanfic you’ve been pining for

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“You think every citizen should have access to free and accessible healthcare?”

Wrong!!!

I think that Asylum seekers and Migrant workers and The Undocumented and Everyone Else should get free healthcare too

I love immigration

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“Okay, I’ve gotta run.” Eddie says, looking a bit frazzled as he looks around. “Where are my—“

“Right here.” Buck interrupts, holding out the keys Eddie was searching for. “And relax, you have plenty of time.”

“Traffic, Buck, traffic.” Eddie snarks playfully, taking the keys. “Thank you.”

“No problem.”

“Chris, be good.” Eddie says to his son, the teenager playing a video game that neither Buck or Eddie had been able to figure out the gist of. “Don’t give Buck too many time outs.”

“Hey!”

“Will do.”

Eddie shoots Buck a quick smile as he walks over to the couch, leaning down to press a kiss to the top of his son’s head. “Love you.”

“You too. Have fun with Frank.”

“So much fun.” Eddie drawls, standing up straight, “I love tearing myself open and then stitching myself back together.”

“What matters is it’s working.” Buck offers with a happy chirp.

“Sure.” Eddie chuckles, closing the distance between them. His hand rests on Buck’s hip as he leans in and pecks Buck quickly on the mouth, “Be good. Back later.”

He doesn’t think anything of it as he turns and leaves the house, the door closing behind him.

It isn’t until he’s halfway to his truck that what happened hits Eddie.

He freezes. Heart racing in his chest. Mouth going dry.

The press of Buck’s mouth against his own lingers on his lips.

Because he just kissed Buck.

Eddie turns on his heel and slowly walks back towards the front door. He twists the handle and pushes the door open.

Buck is staring back at him, mouth agape, eyes wide.

“Did I just…” Eddie trails off.

“Yup.” Buck squeaks, cheeks flushing red.

“Right.” Eddie nods, heart racing so fast in his chest he’s terrified he’s going to have a heart attack. “Okay.”

“Okay?”

“I should…” Eddie doesn’t move. Doesn’t look away from Buck.

“You should.” Buck nods. He hasn’t looked away either. “Frank’ll be waiting.”

“Yeah. Frank. Right.” Eddie is moving forward though. His feet are carrying him towards Buck instead of away. He’s not getting into his truck to go to therapy. Eddie is getting closer to Buck, who’s frozen in…fear? Anticipation?

But it’s the hope in his eyes that have Eddie curling a hand around Buck’s neck, and tugging him close so that Eddie can kiss him again.

Buck sinks into it immediately, fingers clutching at Eddie’s hips.

“Dad.” Chris huffs with exasperation, making the two jump apart, “You’re actually going to be late now. You can kiss Buck later. He’ll still be here when you get back.”

“Yeah, he will.” Eddie mumbles, smiling at Buck.

“Yeah, I will.” Buck grins back, pecking Eddie once more. “Frank is also going to love this.”

Laughing, Eddie forces himself to step away, “Oh, definitely.”

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We used to dunk on people asking random users on here questions they could’ve googled but now that every single google search gives you an AI generated response it’s actually better for the environment to just ask a random tumblr user and see what they have to say.

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being so staunchly anti generative ai while everyone around you is "i used chatgpt" and "i asked grok" and google search is useless and every company is implementing ai and every single celeb is taking ai money and partnering with ai is like... it's so jarring. why can't you see the harm like i can? why are you so lazy? why are we making society this stupid? can we please stop? it's killing people does that not matter to you?

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I saw a sign at a nearby village advertising a "veillée", a storytelling evening, which sounded intriguing, so I went out of curiosity—it turned out to be an old lady who had arranged a circle of chairs in her garden and prepared drinks, and who wanted to tell folk tales and stories from her youth. Apparently she was telling someone at the market the other day that she missed the ritual of the "veillée" from pre-television days, when people would gather in the evening and tell stories, and the people she was talking to were like, well let's do a veillée! And then she put up the sign.

About 15 people came, and she sat down and started telling us stories—I loved the way she made everything sound like it had happened just yesterday and she was there, even tales she'd got from her grandmother, and the way she continually assumed we knew all the people she mentioned, and everyone spontaneously played along; she'd be like "And Martin, the bonesetter—you know Martin," (everyone nods—of course, Martin) "We never liked him much" and everyone nodded harder, our collective distaste for Martin now a shared cultural heritage of our tiny microcosm. She started with telling us the story of the communal bread oven in the village. The original oven was destroyed during the Revolution; people used to pay to use the local aristocrat's oven, but of course around 1789 both the aristocrat and his oven were disposed of in a glorious blaze of liberty, equality, and complete lack of foresight.

Then the villagers felt really daft for having destroyed a perfectly serviceable oven that they could have now started using for free. "But you know what things were like during the revolution." (Everyone nodded sagely—who among us hasn't demolished our one and only source of bread-baking equipment in a fit of revolutionary zeal?)

The village didn't have a bread oven for decades, people travelled to another village to make bread; and then in the 19th century the village council finally voted to build a new oven. It was a communal endeavour, everyone pitched in with some stones or tools or labour, and the oven was built—but it collapsed immediately after the construction was finished. Consternation. Not to be deterred, people re-built the oven, with even more effort and care—and the second one also collapsed.

People realised that something was amiss, and the village council convened. After a lot of serious discussion, during which no one so much as mentioned the possibility of a structural flaw, people reached the only logical conclusion: the drac had sabotaged their oven. Twice. (The drac, in these parts, is the son of the devil.) The logic here, I suppose, was that no one but the devil's own child would dare to stand between French people and their bread.

The next step was even more obvious: they passed around a hat to raise money, assuming the devil’s son was after a cash donation. But (and I'm skipping a few twists and turns of the story here) the son of the devil did not want money, he wanted half of every batch of bread, for as long as the village oven stood. Consternation.

People simply could not afford to give away half of their bread, and were about to abandon the idea of having their own oven altogether—but then Saint Peter came to the rescue. (In case you didn't know, Saint Peter happens to regularly visit this one tiny village in the French countryside to check that its inhabitants are doing okay and are not encountering oven issues.) Saint Peter reminded them of one precious piece of information they had overlooked: holy water burns the devil.

People re-built the oven, for the third time. The son of the devil returned, to destroy it and/or claim his half of the first batch—but on that day, the villagers had organised a grand communal spring cleaning, dousing every street and alley in the village with copious amounts of holy water. The poor drac simply could not access the oven; every possible path scorched his feet for reasons he couldn't quite explain. So he was standing there, smouldering gently and wondering what was going on, when some passing tramp seemed to take pity on him, pointed at his satchel and told him to turn himself into a rat and jump in there, and the tramp would carry him where he wished to go. The devil's son, probably a bit frazzled at this point, agreed without much thought, became a rat and jumped in the satchel, and of course that's the point when everyone in the village sprang from the shadows, wielding sticks, shovels, pans, and started beating the devil's son senseless. (Old lady, calmly: "You could hear his bones crack.") So the son of Satan slithered back to Hell and never returned to destroy the village oven again—and the spring cleaning tradition endured; the streets were washed with holy water once a year after that, both to commemorate this glorious day of civic resistance when the village absolutely bodied the devil's offspring and to maintain basic oven safety standards. (Old lady: "But we don't bother anymore… That's too bad.")

She told us five stories, most of them artfully blending actual local events or anecdotes from her youth with folk tale elements, it was so delightful. She thanked us for coming and said she'd love to do this again sometime. I went home reflecting that listening to an old lady happily tell stories of dubious historical veracity involving the Revolution, property damage, demonic mischief and baffling municipal decision-making is literally my ideal Saturday night activity.

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hey uh new type of ao3 spam comment just dropped. (I know it's spam because the fic they left this comment on . doesn't have chapters. lmfao). Report this kinda comment as spam and don't take it personally it is literally recycled bullshit

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I need Maddie to crash out on her parents. I can't believe she'd be mentally ok with having to be the mediator for her parents and Buck. Not that Buck is forcing her into that position but more like her parents are. Like they aren't keeping up with Buck and his life. MADDIE has to be the one to tell them.

So, she slowly stops. And when Buck and Eddie's wedding are coming up, Buck was the one to send out 'save the date!' Invitations and he especially made sure to send one to his parents.

But he doesnt get any replies back. He doesn't remind them and Maddie this time, doesn't reach out.

So of course the wedding comes and goes, Buck tentatively asks his sister to give him away since SHE was the one to raise him all those years. It feels right. Bobby is the one to officiate them and Marry them off.

After Buck and Eddie's first dance, Eddie chooses to dance with his Abuela, while Buck reaches out for Maddie, who tears up.

Of course when its Jees birthday, the Buckley parents come visit. Something in Buck shuts down.

Then, something in Maddie boils. It lights on fire, even.

It burns.

"What do you mean he married?" Her mother says.

Then, she snaps. Chim could tell and pulls Jee and Robbie away and ushers all the kids outside.

"What do you mean what do you mean?!" She throws back at her mom. "He sent you an invitation! At the same time as everyone else, probably even sooner!"

"Y-you can't expect us to remember everything!"

"Yet you remember to come every year for Jees birthday and Christmas every other year! You even saved and put my invitation to my wedding on your fridge!"

"Maddie that's enough-" her dad starts but one seething glare had the man jerk back in shock.

"No! I'm done with both of you! I'm just-"

"Honestly Maddie if you had just told us!" Her mom says.

"I always do! I ALWAYS HAVE TO TELL YOU. That's YOUR job. Your his parents too and you STILL act like you don't give a shit! I shouldn't have to constantly remind you to check up on what's going on with his life!"

"He doesn’t even call us either!"

"The phone works both ways, Mom! You can text him, or video chat him, or even just email him! Or even send him a letter! Something!"

"Maddie-" Buck starts, and his voice is timid and small and she hates that he gets this way because of them.

"No! No Buck I'm tired of it." Maddie turns her glare back at her mother. "I'm don't being your mediator. You don't get to chose who you want to show up more for. God even Athena's parents were there! Even Albert flew down from South Korea for the wedding!" She takes a moment to breathe. Her face is red with anger. "It was his big day, and you neither one of you were there to give him away or for his dance, but I had the honor of doing so." She sniffs. "You can leave now. Go home. I don't want either of you seeing Jee or Robbie. If you can't love Buck then you don't get to have them. You've had so many chances, Buck gave you so many chances. I understand you grieving over Daniel, but now it just sounds like an excuse."

"You can't just exclude us out of our grandchildren's lives!"

"But you can exclude Buck out of yours?" Maddie says.

Athena steps up when things finally die down. "I think both of you should leave."

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Should there be Mouse Dropout? 🐭

Watch the new episode now on Dropout

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cure of ra

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speaking of peeing the bed it's been long enough that i can tell this story publicly. in high school i went to a party at some house with no adults, as you sometimes would, and at the end of the night like 10 people all clonked out together in the same bed. fully clothed, one of those teenage moments where you're like wow heehee how rule-breaking, because sure a lot of our parents wouldn't like us sleeping in a bed with a bunch of other teenagers and no adult supervision blah blah. fond memories. anyway.

i'm an extremely light sleeper, so i barely slept, and sometime around 6 am, i woke up to a girl totally panicking, very quietly, because she peed the bed in her sleep. and listen. this wasn't a group of mean kids by any measure. but there's no level of kindness or understanding in the world that will make peeing the bed when you're 17, surrounded by people you only sort of know, a gentle blow.

so i sat up and she was like "oh my god" and I signaled at her to be absolutely silent and I said I'd be right back. And I crawled over everyone and out of the bed like a stupid cat.

and the thing is, by senior year i wasn't getting bullied much anymore. i was generally pretty well liked by my peers, but, if this makes sense, people still didn't always expect very much from me. i was still figuring out how to mask (autistic) and i still often said or did something that made everyone remember i'm weird and they'd just be like "well. that's story for you. i guess." and for the most part i'd become pretty secure in that.

so what i'm saying is i had nothing to lose and this girl had everything to lose.

so i went downstairs and i made tomato soup. and by "made" i mean i put a whole can of tomato soup in a too-small mug and microwaved it until it was lukewarm so as to be convincingly "made" but not so hot to burn someone.

and then i walked back upstairs, and no longer like a cat, i clumsily "attempted" to crawl back into bed, loudly lost my balance, and spilled tomato soup all over the girl and her lap and several other people's laps and heads and the mattress.

everyone woke up confused and anguished and i was like, "oh my god, I'm so sorry. I just got really hungry and it's all i could find."

and everyone immediately accepted with absolutely no further questions that I would go downstairs, make tomato soup at 6 am,and bring it back to bed. everyone just begrudgingly climbed onto the floor and went back to sleep while I put the bedding right into the laundry.

i don't even know this girl's name. i only remembered this story recently because i'm in my hometown for a few months and recently a high school acquaintance said, "hey. do you remember spilling soup on everyone after prom? why did you do that?" and for a moment i genuinely did not and i stared at them completely dumbfounded while the memory loaded and then i started laughing too hard to answer for 2 minutes.

the best part is i can tell this story, and even if it reaches the people who were there, none of them will know which one of them peed the bed. thanks to tomato soup.

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maddie, picking up buck’s call: hey, buck!

buck, without stuttering: loft. symptoms are heartbreak, sudden urges to bake mass amounts of bread, and a sense of overwhelming dread.

maddie: okay. i have dispatched a Chimney and one hyperactive toddler to your location. ETA is 20 minutes.

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Congratulations to all AO3 users! Important Milestone reached!

Bookmark database overran!

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A few years ago while trying to find ways to commit suicide as painlessly as possible, I came across a PDF of Dr. Paul Quinnett's The Forever Decision. Thinking it might go into actual methods of suicide (I read an article once that actually did that and was trying to find it again) I started to read it, and I think I only got about two pages in before I was crying too much to actually see the words.

I downloaded the PDF to my hard drive and I open it again whenever I'm feeling too suicidal to do much else, but not enough to start booking a ride to the hospital. And every time without fail I only go up to a few pages before backing off and choosing to live another day just because suicide suddenly seems even more unbearable than whatever the hell upset me in the first place.

All the book really does is [I'm pulling a summary from GoodReads here as, again, I've read no more than 5 pages] "discusses the social aspects of suicide, the right to die, anger, loneliness, depression, stress, hopelessness, drug and alcohol abuse, the consequences of a suicide attempt, and how to get help."

But it also starts with the author kindly asking the reader to complete the book before going through with anything, and for some reason I'm compelled to really just try to read it all before finalizing everything. Despite not yet completing it (hopefully never will) I think I can safely say it's saved my life at least a few times now.

It's intentionally legal to copy and redistribute this book to keep it as accessible as possible, and it's very easy to find, but here's a link for it anyways.