#Pancreatic Cancer Awareness

[letstalkabout-stuff]

MAKE NOVEMBER PURPLE/ BLUE!!

Now that October is over let’s make November purple! Let’s not forget that other cancers exist and it is still important to talk about survivors and those who lost the fight. It’s important to being awareness to ALL cancer. 💜💙

[haute-lifestyle-com]

This past Saturday, April 27, the Pancreatic Cancer Action Network (PanCAN) held its largest annual fundraiser, PanCAN PurpleStride®, the ultimate walk to end pancreatic cancer as the community came together to raise awareness and funding for this disease

[lilnasxvevo]

I MISS ALAN RICKMAN…guys we have GOT to do something about this pancreatic cancer stuff

[caterpillarcocoonbutterfly]

Cancer awareness months -

November

Honoring Caregivers

Lung Cancer ♥︎

Neuroendocrine Cancer

Pancreatic Cancer ♥︎

Stomach Cancer

[lustgarten22]

Pancreatic Cancer Awareness Month

Every year, the month of November dons a different color – purple – as it transforms into Pancreatic Cancer Awareness Month. This is a time of heightened reflection and action, as we unite to shed light on one of the most challenging adversaries in the realm of cancer.

Pancreatic cancer awareness goes beyond just wearing a ribbon; it's a rallying call to understand the gravity of this disease and the urgency to find solutions. In November, a sea of purple serves as a reminder that this cancer demands our attention.

The statistics are daunting, but they fuel our determination. As the somber truth reveals itself, we realize that this form of cancer often remains undetected until its later stages, limiting treatment options. Hence, November Cancer Awareness Month is dedicated to turning the tide. It's a time to learn, share stories, and support those affected by the disease.

Organizations like Lustgarten Foundation passionately lead the charge, channeling resources into research, early detection, and patient support. As the purple ribbons adorn our lapels, they symbolize our commitment to bring about change.

Let's not allow the enormity of the challenge to deter us. Instead, let's use this Pancreatic Cancer Awareness Month to inspire conversations, drive research, and foster a sense of solidarity. Together, we can improve outcomes, increase survival rates, and paint a brighter future for all those impacted by this disease.

[ohtobeleah]

Was It Over? // Jake Seresin

-> Chapter Six:: [Conflict & Chaos]

Summary: As panic consumes Jake after finding out about your current medical condition, Jake calls your mother to fill in the gaps. Nurse Lydia escapes being taken to her supervisor and Jake lets loose on his mother who tries to stop him from leaving.

Warnings: Sick!reader. Breast cancer diagnosis. Jake Seresin x F!reader. Angst, hospital & medical inaccuracies. SLOW BURN ROMANCE/ Inaccurate medical information. Relationship turmoil. Overbearing mothers.

Word Count: 4.4K

Author Note: Okay Sick!wifey maybe there is another guy. Or not, who knows. My guess is a platonic friendship that will ultimately end in heartbreak.

Series Masterlist | Main Masterlist

November 2nd 

“You look like you've just been told you’re dying?” It was a voice you didn't recognise that pulled you out of the bottomless pit of worry you'd fallen into as you sat on the edge of the raised garden bed just outside your doctor's office. “It's okay, you were probably just told that so it's alright to look like your whole world’s just been flipped on its head.” The man shrugged as he came to sit beside you with his hands in the pockets of his jeans. 

“Sorry, sorry–” You shook your head as you wiped your tears and dried your face, probably as patchy and puffy as ever. “Are you a doctor here?” 

“Me?” the man smiled as he pointed to his chest with a scoff. “Oh no, no I'm uh–I’m a patient I guess.” The man corrected you as he watched you try to fix yourself up. Before you knew it there was a tissue being held out of you to take. 

“Thanks.” You smiled softly with gratitude and accepted the tissue the man wouldn't be wanted back anytime soon. 

“No problem.” He nodded. “I saw you come out of Doctor Parsons' office, she's got a pretty rough gig don't you reckon?” 

“I'll say.” You agreed, Doctor Parsons probably wanted to go into her profession to help people, but nowadays all it seemed like was she was dishing out hard to swallow diagnoses. “You’re a patent of hers too?” 

“Unfortunately, Pancreatic– what about you?” The man asked as you tried to wrap your head around the idea of exchanging diagnosis with another human being. 

“I uh–I was just told I have breast cancer.” This complete stranger was the first person you told, before you mum, before your ex husband, before your kids or extended family. This stranger who was sitting next to you outside your local doctors office was the first person beside your doctor to know you had cancer, that your cells were dying–that you were, in fact, dying. 

“Oh yeah? What's the going rate for that one?” This all seemed too normal, too calm to be talking about. It wasn't the reaction you'd ever expected although you weren't really thinking about how people would react. “Sorry, I'm being too nosy.” The man beside you reached out and extended his hand towards you. “I’m Jensen, I don't mean to pry, it's just I don't see an awful lot of young people come into this particular doctors office and when I saw you rush out like your world had just been rocked I couldn't help but to follow you out here.” Jensen smiled as you shook his hand. “I'm also incredibly self aware of how creepy that sounds, so again, I'm sorry.” 

“No no–” You chuckled as you let go of Jensen's hand. “It's okay, it's just uh, fresh I guess, like ten minutes ago fresh.” You tried to explain the best you could. “Y/n, my names Y/n–” 

“Damn Y/n that's hot off the press–” Jesne pressed his lips together in a fine line, he understood what it was like to feel the crushing weight of the world on your chest. He was only in for a chat with doctor Parsons the day he met you. “Listen, in the hopes of not being too forward, can I give you my number?” He asked with a caution laced between his words, ready for rejection. “Not in a, I'd like to take you out sometime, although I wouldn't be opposed.” You had to stop yourself from looking as shocked as you were. Were you really being picked up out the front of a doctor's surgery? “But in more of an I understand what you’re going through kinda way and if you ever need an ear to vent to about the not so glamorous journey you're about to go on, I'd very much like to be that person for you, I always wished I had someone when I first started my battle.” 

“Uh, yeah–” You couldn't help but to smile through the dried tears on your face. “Sure, yeah that sounds really nice actually.” WHen you unlocked your phone the realisation that Jake, your ex husband, had been the last person you called dawned on you. He didn't know, he could never know. He wouldn't care enough to want to know. And yet here this stranger was, willing and ready to listen. “And for the record maybe when the dust settles I wouldn't be opposed to the idea either.” 

***~***~***~***~***~

“I vow to be your faithful partner in sickness, and in health.” Jake could hear your vow’s ringing out inside his mind as he raced around his childhood bedroom getting his stuff packed to leave. Your voice sounded as if you were standing right before him, plaguing his mind with haunting memories of promises he’d failed to keep. 

“I promise to love you unconditionally, to honor and respect you, and bring you solace in times of need.” Your voice was like a hauntingly beautiful memory reminding him of the vows you’d promised each other on your wedding day, right after his father had told him that happiness was essentially a hallmark card scam. Jake could hardly focus as he tried to compose himself enough to just think about what was going on for a second—but then his own voice echoed around in his mind, the voice of his former self who hadn’t yet ruined his marriage spoke up through the darkness of his fuzzy and fragile mind. 

“I take you for better or worse, in sickness and in health, in chaos and conflict, through heaven and hell.” Jake felt an anger so deep and overwhelming that he stood from his twin bed and walked a few quick paces across his room to where his closest door was. The animalistic growl that left his body when Jake slammed his fist into the wooden door woke his mother who was sleeping soundly a room or two down the hall. She hadn’t been woken so abruptly like that in years. Not since her children were young adolescence. 

With his busted hand and a pain in his chest he could only describe as emotional turmoil, Jake stumbled back over to his bed and picked up his discarded phone. He mulled over the decision for a few seconds before he went through his contacts to find probably the only woman who could give him more of the story. 

Your mother, Mary O’Riley. Or as Jake affectionately called her for the better half of your relationship, Maz. 

Jake's thumb lingered over her contact for a few seconds before he decided that yes, yes he needed more information. He needed someone to tell him this was all just some sick fucked up prank. He needed someone to tell him that you were in fact, alright, and that you weren’t lying in a hospital bed right now, without him there to hold your hand and tell you everything would be okay. 

He’d promised you in sickness and in health. 

Jake listened with anticipation and dread as the phone rang against his ear. It rang and rang and rang until finally at the very last second she could—your mother picked up the phone while she sat at your bedside. 

“Jacob—“ He heard her coo into the speaker. “You—“

“Tell me she’s not sick Maz.” Was all Jake said. It was stern and filled with heartbreak. “Please, tell me right now that she’s not in the hospital right now.” Your mother could tell Jake was holding back tears through gritted teeth as she turned her head over to the nurses station to see Lydia almost hyperventilating over her mistake. “Maz! FUCKING TELL ME MY WIFE DOESNT HAVE BREAST CANCER!” 

The sudden outburst made your mum jump nearly out of her seat as she pulled her phone slightly away from her ear, but it didn’t surprise her. Jake loved you so much, it was only natural he’d be in a state of shock finding out the way he had. 

“Jake, sweetheart, I need you to sit down for me.” Mary cooed softly with a sincere expression of empathy. “Please, just sit down and I’ll explain what’s going on.” 

***~***~***~***~***~

Lydia had never felt more stressed in her very short lived career. Once she had hung up the phone with who she now knew was probably your ex husband, Lydia's immediate plan was to come clean to your mum as she sat by your bedside. Luckily, your condition post op was pretty good all things considered and instead of taking up another room in the ICU, your surgeon said that it would be best for your recovery to be placed back in the room you would see out the next few weeks of chemotherapy in. There was no escaping the oncology ward, not even a stroke could save you as it seamned. 

“Miss O’Riley?” Lydia’s voice shook as she walked into your hospital room to see you sleeping in a drugged out haze of pain relief post op. You weren't expected to be awake for another few hours or so to allow your brain time to rest. “I need to speak with you for a moment, if you have a second.” All of this was going on around you without your knowledge. And quite frankly you wouldn't have wanted to know anyway– I mean, who really wants to be told that their nurse accidentally rang your husband and violated your privacy accidently? Certainly not you. 

“Is something wrong with my daughter?” Your mother asked as she held your hand, watching at the monitor told her you were stable, that your heart was beating and that you, despite the odds, would survive another day. 

“No, no, your daughter seemed to be responding well post surgery–” Lydia's voice still shook with nervousness for the reaction her actions would invoke. “It's just that I’ve uh–” Lydia was only young, she had so much left to give to the healthcare industry, one mistake couldn’t end her career before it had even started could it? “I accidentally called your daughter's husband, I automatically assumed he would be her emergency contact because he was listed as her husband and–” Lydia tried to get her explanation out as quickly as she possibly could before your mother had a chance to speak. “I'm so sorry, I told him about her current medical condition.” 

“Oh god.” Your mother groaned as she looked back to where you laid peacefully unaware that Jake now knew about your whereabouts and health status. “She didn't want him to know, at least not yet anyway.” Your mother explained as she sighed and ran her hands over her face. 

“I'm so sorry, I just assumed and before I knew he was asking what the hell I was even talking about and then I looked further down the page and saw that you were listed as her emergency contact.” Lydia was currently seeing her entire career flash before her eyes. All your mother had to do was request to speak to her supervisor, request that she report she violated HIPAA, but she didn't. Your mother simply nodded and accepted the fact a young girl who was only just starting out had made a mistake wasn't life threatening. 

“It's alright, just uh, he’s going to come, if I know that man he's going to be on the first flight here so as my daughters medically proxy, can you please adjust her visiting list and add Jake Seresin to the list.” Your mother knew Jake would be calling any minute now and that he knew there was no vacation away. Now that he knew what was going on. Mary fished her phone out of her handbag and sat it on your bedside table in anticipation. She was almost going to set a timer just to see how long it would take her son in law to call. 

“You–you aren't going to report me?” Lydia was at this point, in tears. She was so overwhelmed that she could barely see. Your mother felt sympathy for the young woman and really didn't want to be a part of whatever reprimanding could come of a simple mistake. So, she simply shook her head, looked back at her phone for a fleeting moment before she turned to look at you and finally back to Lydia who couldn't have been more thankful for the words that came out of your mothers mother. 

“No dear, no I'm not going to report you, mistakes happen–” Your mother pressed her lips together in a fine line as she reached up to touch your cheek with the pad of her thumb. “My daughter knows that all too well.” 

***~***~***~***~***~

“Please, just sit down and I’ll explain what’s going on.” Jake listened to what Maz had said and he did what he was told. He had always respected your mum and her natural born wisdom that Jake clung to through the time he had known her. “Are you sitting down?” 

“Yeah, yeah i'm sittin.’” 

“Jake–” Maz sighed heavily into the phone. “Back in november when Y/n called you about taking the kids for christmas she was sitting in her doctors office.” Jake didn't speak, he listened carefully to every word your mother spoke. His head was spinning as his heart raced. Tears streamed down his cheeks as the realisation set in. “She’d just been told she has a very aggressive form of breast cancer– stage three A, triple positive grade three invasive doctoral carcinoma.” 

“Wh-why didn't she just tell me?” Jake knew that the two of you had never been more divided in your marriage, but he always thought that if you were sick to this level, that you'd call and he’d come running. Come hell or high water Jake was going back to Rhode Island to be with you. 

“That's a question you’ll just have to ask her.” Your mother replied. “But she's not alone, I'm with her right now, she uh–had a stroke only about an hour after she’d been admitted to oncology, good thing we were already in the hospital when it happened or else it could have been a hell of a lot worse.” 

“Maz–” Jake croaked out. “I don't know what I'm supposed to do.” He cried softly into the phone, it broke your mothers heart. “Tell me what I'm supposed to do.” He wasn't asking if he should get a ticket on the next flight out, no. No Maz knew exactly what Jake was asking her and again, it wasn't a question she held the answers to. 

“You just have to show up for her.” Was all your mother was able to say. “I dont have the answers this time Sweetheart, I’m not sure how to fix what's broken between the two of you, but I wanna know how soon you can get here–” Your mother paused as she tried to hold back her own tears. “She's not in a good way, she needs her husband Jake, she needs you here.”

Jake remembered that phone call, the one where you initially asked him to take the kids for christmas. He should have asked more questions, should have pressed you a little harder for information. Maybe, just maybe if he did back then, you would have crumbled and told him the truth. 

“I'll be there as soon as I can Maz, consider me on the next available flight.” 

***~***~***~***~***~

in sickness and in health, in chaos and conflict. It was the only thing Jake could tell himself over and over again as he walked down the large staircase of his parents place. in sickness and in health, in chaos and conflict. Jake had one thing and only one thing on his mind, getting back to you. 

“Jacob?” Jake froze as he got to the bottom of the staircase, his mother stood at the top, dressing gown pulled snug against her as she folded her arms across her chest and frowned down at her grown adult son. “What’s going on? It’s almost four in the morning?” 

“I just got off the phone with Maz—“ Jake explained as he watched his mum walk down the stairs, her eyes tired from a restless sleep. Having a home full of children and grandchildren didn’t help. “Y/n’s really sick, she’s uh—“ Jake wasn’t sure he wanted his mother to know about your diagnosis before he’d truly had a chance to process it himself. So, he didn’t divulge. “In the hospital, I just need to get back.” 

“Get back?” Janeen frowned in displeasure at her son's decision to leave. “What do you mean get back, you only just got here.”

“My wife’s in the hospital Ma, I need to go and make sure she’s alright.” Jake didn’t think he’d have to spell it out, but he did. “I promised her in sickness and in health, unfortunately she’s taken a turn for the worse and she’s at the very least right now the mother of my children, so I need to go and be with her and figure out what’s going on.” 

“Y/n is a grown woman who can take care of herself.” Janeen reached up to touch Jake's cheek, however, before she could run the pad of her thumb across Jake's scruffed cheek, he pulled away in anger. “She decided that when she left you? Or don’t you remember what that woman put you through?” 

“Ma.” Jake clenched his jaw under the dim light of the main foyer. “I love you, I do, but you need to stop disrespecting her.”

“Disrespecting her?” Jake's mother scoffed as she watched him pick up his duffel bag and head towards the front door. “What about the disrespect she showed this family? The disrespect she showed you when she was unfaithful to her wedding vows and left you! She took your kids away from your Jacob and what? You’re running back to her the second she gets a runny nose?” Jake was holding his tongue between his teeth as his mother followed him out to the cars, he’d already called a taxi. “Honestly I never in a million years thought you’d settle for someone so—“

“MUM!” Jake snapped abruptly, he wasn’t proud of raising his voice with the woman who raised him, gave him life, but my god did she need to back off. “SHUT, THE HELL, UP!” Jake hissed as he saw headlights coming up the drive. “I’m leaving my children here until I figure out what’s going on but so help me god if I get back and your attitude hasn’t done a full three sixty about my wife, the love of my life, you will never see her, or our kids, or me, again!” 

Janeen remained silent as she watched the taxi Jake had called pull up to where they were standing. She watched with teary eyes as he threw his bag into the back seat and greeted the driver kindly. He was an older gentleman. Probably mid sixties. 

“I will call you when I know more but you have to stop degrading her, I’m the one who drove her away.” Jake had wanted to say this since the first comment his mother ever made about you way back in January just after he’d told her the two of you were separating. Jake took his mother in his arms, he towered over the smaller built woman with graying hair. He let his chin rest on the top of her head and didn’t hold back. 

“Just because you never had the courage to leave dad when he stopped loving you the way he should doesn’t mean you get to project your pity on my wife for doing what you always wished you should have.” Jake had never felt such a weight lifted off his chest and immediately knew that the chances of him being invited back for next years Seresin family Christmas was probably a long shot. “You should ask Jasmine about her new nanny.” Jake finished as he pulled away. “I heard she's a really good people pleasure.” 

***~***~***~***~***~

“Ordinary streets, Extraordinary stories.” Jake read over your shoulder as you jotted down some ideas for your latest project. “Huh, I like that, it's sorta catchy.” He smiled softly against your cheek before leaving a gentle kiss in his wake. His eyes lingered down to your book proposal for your publisher and continued reading as you sat at your desk, glued to your laptop like a woman on an impossible mission against time. “This collection of stories centers on the idea of ‘accidental death’ and the upheaval caused in the lives of those who lost a loved one in this way.” Jake read outloud over your shoulder in the dimly lit office. “I'm starting to think I should sleep with the lights on at night.” 

“One eye open will do.” You mumbled back as you re-read your last sentence and continued on typing like your husband wasn't trying to coax you away from your work. “I have a deadline to meet, so shoo fly, don't bother me.” You teased as Jake moved your hair to one side and began to kiss the juncture of your neck and shoulder. Seduction was usually his strong suit. 

It was no shock to Jake that almost immediately out of college you started writing non-stop about the things you were most passionate about. He thought you'd stick it out and become some wildly successful fiction novelist. Perhaps lean into your fascination with dystopian hierarchy, but no. You really came out of the left field when you picked up a publishing gig to write and publish not one, but three true crime biographies. The little bookshop on firth you worked at were so overjoyed for you when you’d told them the big news. 

“You are working yourself to the bone, Honey.” Jake replied softly as his hands trailed down your stomach to feel the small but swelling baby bump that was growing bigger by the day. 

“Says the guy still in his flight suit–” You fired right back without taking your eyes off the screen of your laptop. Your fingers worked fast to type the thoughts in your mind onto the screen before they were forgotten. If you let your mind wander too far away you'd lose your momentum. “Jake, I need to finish this chapter before bed.” 

“No, no, what you need Hon, is to close your laptop and follow me to where I've run you a bath for your surely aching muscles, swollen feet and to ward off that impending cold I know you're coming down with.” Jake caught the way your fingers froze across the keys of your laptop at his thoughtful words, you hadn’t even mentioned feeling under the weather yet. “I heard you sniffling while cooking dinner–thought I better be proactive and try help you sweat it out.” 

You felt the heat in your cheeks rising as a smile crept across your face. You looked down at the ring on your left ring finger and tried not to cry. You could have blamed it on the raging pregnancy hormones from the twin Seresin babies currently using your body as a host, but you knew it was just the overwhelming love you felt. 

“You ran me a bath?” It was something you didn't know you needed until Jake had mentioned it. 

“Not to toot my own horn or nothin but I lit your favorite candles too, even went as far as to put a few rose petals in the bubbles.” Jake watched as you spun around in your chair to face him with big teary eyes and an even bigger baby bump. “Gotta look after my girl, can't have the mother of my children feeling sick, now can I?” 

“I'm intrigued to see what kind of special treatment I'll receive if I'm ever really unwell if this is what I'm getting for a runny nose.” You teased as Jake helped you up off your work chair. His hand went straight to the small of your back to guide you out of the study down the hall towards the bathroom where he had everything set and sorted for you. 

“Hopefully we never get to the point where you're chronically ill.” Jake kissed your temple as he walked with you. “Never wanna see you sicker than a cold.” He explained as your eyes went wide with wonder and ore at the sight of your bathroom fully lit with candles. “But trust that I'll be right by your side, holding your hand through whatever may come.” 

“You really didn't have to do all this for me.” You sighed as Jake started to help you undress. You watched him with love filled eyes through the mirror as his hands roamed your body, stripping articles of clothing from your pregnant silhouette.  

“Nonsense, I'll always do things like this for you.” Jake shrugged it off like his actions were no big deal. To him at that moment they really weren't, he was just trying to help wherever he could. “But you should probably wake up now–” 

“What do you mean?” A slow steady beeping broke through your mind as your body began to feel numb.  “Jake—“ You frowned as the bathroom faded around you. “Jake?” You called out as you felt yourself feeling heavy and lethargic. “Jake—?” 

“Sweetheart can you hear me?” Your mother asked as your surgeon tried to assess your ability to open your eyes. The small light that was shining in your eyes did little to cure your confusion. 

“Jake?” You asked again as your eyes fluttered open, you groaned softly in annoyance to the light of the hospital room you woke up in. “Where’s Jake?” Everything was so blurry, so confusing, the last thing you remembered was getting ready for a bath, now you where here in a hospital room. 

“He’s not here Sweetheart, do you remember what happened?” When you didn’t answer your doctor interjected to jog your memory. 

“You had a minor stroke Mrs Seresin, lucky for you you were already on sight when it happened—do you remember why you’re here?” As you looked around at the Christmas lights that now decorated your hospital room and the small Christmas tree in the corner on the coffee table near the old recliner, you remembered. 

“Oh.” That’s right you thought to yourself, you were separated. Jake didn’t care, not anymore. He’d stopped running baths for you years ago. “Oh, yeah—I remember.” You whispered before a single tear ran down your face. 

“I remember everything.” 

***~***~***~***~***

Tags: @blindedbythelightt @starset21 @tayl0rhuynh @mamachasesmayhem @marvelogic @itsmytimetoodream @maverick-wingman @kodzukenmaaa @eternalsams @seitmai @nota-professional l @jessicab1991 91 @hardballoonlove @senawashere @lafrone @fanficfandomlove @withahappyrefrain @dizzybee03 @maisie-rebloging-blog @goldenseresinretriever @a-reader-and-a-writer @sunlightmurdock @shelbycillian @memoriesat30 @accioprocrastination @the-aspiring-fanfic-writer @athenabarnes @eternallyvenus

[livwritesstuff]

Hi, you once had a post about Steves Dad dying and Steve and his mom kind of reconnecting... how did that first meeting between her and the kids but also with Eddie go? And is it a stable relationship or kinda like it was with Steve, fizzling out and just popping in whenever?

I really love this AU, excited for more AO3 content tbh ♡♡♡

Happy Pride!

<3

so the thing about Steve’s mom is that she knew everything. Steve never stopped reaching out at any point between when his parents fully cut communication with him (1993) and when they finally contacted him again (when his dad was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in ‘09). Sure, Steve stopped calling after a while because they never picked up, but he wrote letters, he invited them to everything, he sent the kids’ school photos and holiday cards  – he sort of adopted the approach of “You aren’t in my life because you’re actively deciding not to be. I am leaving the door open; you are choosing to not step through it”.

Steve’s EQ is pretty high. He can see the nuance in the situation – the estrangement was mostly his dad’s doing, but he also knows that his mom chose to align with him instead of her son. She could have made a different choice.

Case in point – on one occasion, she actually did.

Back in ‘04, when Steve and Eddie had first moved into their house, Steve invited his parents to the housewarming party just like he invited them to everything even though he knew they wouldn’t show.

Lo and behold – his mom showed.

She met Eddie and Moe (three at the time) and Robbie (not quite one yet), and then she left and Steve didn’t hear from her again until five years later when she called to tell Steve about his father’s diagnosis.

After his father passed away, Steve worked with his mom to make sure she’s comfortable in the aftermath of everything. He helps her relocate closer to where he and his family live because by that point she's made it pretty clear that she wants to be in his life again.

As far as meeting Eddie and the girls – it goes fine. The thing about polite society is that it’s dripping in pleasantries. Steve’s mom is sweet as pie to Eddie, and she dotes on the kids, which, sure, Steve is happy about, but what he really wants is to have a conversation about the choices she'd made over the years and how they hurt him.

She’s not interested in that though, and while that’s the case, Steve keeps their relationship distant and surface-level, and he definitely keeps her at an arm’s reach from Eddie and the girls because he doesn’t want to allow his kids to start thinking that it’s fine for people to slot in and out of their lives whenever it’s convenient, and he doesn’t want Eddie to think he’d ever let slide the way she responded to finding out about their relationship.

(Even though Eddie forever maintains that, “Steve, the only thing your parents did to me was give me you. You’re the only one here they actually hurt” but, again, Steve is The Martyr of all time, so he has some trouble seeing that).

In the “hierarchy of grandmothers”, so to speak, Joyce 100% reigns supreme because she’s been around from the beginning and they’ve seen the maternal-like relationship she has with Steve their entire lives, which I think Steve’s mom definitely has an awareness of but, again, she can’t exactly bring it up without bringing up the way her actions caused the situation and without acknowledging that the reason Joyce and Steve have that kind of relationship is because of the choices she made.

[married-to-a-redhead]

Just a quick update: We have crossed $3,000 in donations but are still well short of our $10,000 goal. Please donate if you can and if you are not in a position to donate, please re-blog to raise awareness.

@texasred43 is resting comfortably after coming home from the hospital and two nights ago actually slept 12 hours in a row! If you know @texasred43, you know that is incredible as she is usually up all hours of the night. She said she can now drink liquids easily which was not the case before her recent hospital stay so there is some progress.

Please continue to keep her in your thoughts and prayers, I know it means a lot to her.

Update: Texasred43 has passed away, the GoFundMe has been frozen.

[dreadfulstar]

Commissions! Open!! Under the cut is context.

Please share this to help.

In April, my family and I were in a car accident where I was struck T-Bone driver’s side by an aggressive driver. I received long lasting injury as well as my passenger. We increased family financial debt attempting to recover. The new vehicle, a requirement for commute to work, was a slightly higher loan. The next week uncle then went in for heart failure and resulted in requiring a full valve replacement on all valves. My grandfather was diagnosed with cancer at the same time, then requiring surgery. My mother this month was rushed in for internal bleeding; she has intestinal damage. My mother, uncle, grandfather, and grandmother (final state emphysema and COPD, oxygen replacement unit in the home, bed bound) are all one living arrangement unit. They had to take out liens in order to survive. Property was placed in my name in an attempt to keep housing. This month I began vomiting blood and found out I had beginning necrotic pancreatitis that needs monitored. Medication costs, copays, rent, and car payments are a financial burden but previously possible as I split costs with my fiance (passenger in the wreck). He has been terminated at work as of today. I have a second job and work 70-80 hours a week. Due to this loss, we are unable to pay rent and other expenses. I am unable to receive medical treatment and may die. If I default any loan, my family loses their house as well as us. Without assistance, I am aware I may become critically ill or die, but I am still working as much as possible to cover expenses despite the complications. My second job (full time) notified me they are considering termination due to medical liability of my disabilities.

[masked-alien-lesbian]

Hiiii I'd LOVE to know more about verity and Aislinn 👁️👄👁️ any tidbits or fun facts or just why you decided to pair them specifically, I love them

Hi! 😁 Ah, Aislinn and my vampire OC Verity!

I just took my mc I use in LOA, hc them as nonbinary and imagined them as a vampire. I wondered how a vampire could navigate NYC and a law firm. I also imagined how Aislinn would react to finding out that they're a vampire. Asked @sazanes to do a commission of them and voila...the hc was born!

Despite the fact that Verity looks like a Blood bound vampire, I'm not 100% sure my version of this LOA and vampire Verity coexist with the BB universe. As much as I love Lily and Kamilah, I really didn't want to have to deal with the Vampire Clans and all their territories and strict rules with this AU so I just say this hc isn't part of the BB universe. (Also the reason why Verity can live in NYC which has an average of 234 days of some sunshine, is because they have a bracelet that gives them partial immunity to the sun. They're able to walk around in the sun without burning but it does make them weak and it isn't comfortable for them.)

Verity Wright's Past:

Verity is actually a very young vampire, a baby vamp, most older vampires would call them. They're less than 100 years old, in fact, Verity is in their early 70s, born in the 1950s. Aislinn teasingly calls them her "boomer," or "boomer baby."

Verity's birth mother was a young teen who gave birth to Verity and left them at a Chicago Illinois hospital. A kind nurse named Gena Wright adopts the baby Verity even though she's a vampire.

Verity grew up in a happy home and even went to law school. But in 1985, at age 31 they were beaten and left to die by gang members they were trying to bring to justice. Thankfully Gena found them and not wanting to let them go, she turned them.

Verity took becoming a vampire very well. They were aware of the existence of vampires so it wasn't much of shock to them. The hardest part for them was coming to terms with their blood lust and how that put them behind in their career. Gena and Verity moved to a rural area of Montana so Verity could isolate themselves and gradually gain control. Eventually they were able to coexist with humans and go back to law school, and become an associate. This is where Sadie McGraw finds them. (Kinda explains how the MC is so good at being a lawyer lol, Verity is older than Sadie)

Timeline of Aislinn x Verity:

The 2 date for over a year and half before moving in together and 3 years before Verity proposed to Aislinn.

They're the power couple lawyers of NYC, with a staggering amount of wins between the two of them.

Originally Aislinn decided to wait until she hit her 50s before being turned but when she is diagnosed at 46 with pancreatic cancer she asks to be turned. She learns how to control her blood lust very quickly for a fledgling vampire and the two reinvent their lives as lawyers and sometimes law professors throughout the centuries.

If you got anymore questions, please feel free to ask! I love getting asks about my headcanons. Hope you have a great day! 😁

[infinitelytheheartexpands]

on the cusp between childhood and adulthood, the sudden onset of grief when you weren’t in the room where it happened, and the impossible art of growing up in a very short time: or, why the princess of france from love’s labour’s lost means a lot to me personally

on the heels of reading as the princess of france with @socialshakespeare

heads up, the rest of this is going to get Very Long Very Quickly, so i’m putting it under a cut. tw for discussions of cancer, parental death, and grief.

so when @socialshakespeare announced that it would be doing love’s labour’s lost this month, in the box where you can put any additional notes about your casting preferences, i pretty much begged the admins to let me have a turn as the princess of france. y’know, i said, as a sort of twenty-first birthday present. and i was cast as the princess of france! thank you, socshakes! <3

but there was a very specific reason why i asked to play the princess of france.

and that reason is simply: she reminds me of me. more particularly, she reminds me of me from 2020, but me from 2020 was really the germination point of me today.

“savannah, everyone changed in 2020, 2020 was a fucking unbelievable year and it changed us all. it changed our whole world.” yeah. i’m well aware. but there’s a specific reason for me.

***

see, in early 2020, i was having a pretty decent time, actually. it was my senior year of high school, i had a great group of friends (much like the princess had her three ladies except my core friend group was bigger than that), things with my family weren’t great but i knew that come august i would be able to move out.

that first period of covid was awful and it changed so much and at times it felt like i was having a mental breakdown, but it wasn’t what ultimately ripped me apart that year.

you see, in 2018, about a month before my fifteenth birthday, my father was diagnosed with stage four pancreatic cancer. for a good long while, though, it seemed like he might beat the odds. treatments were working, he went to one of the best hospitals in the country to get good care, and we believed that he just might make it.

and then in the summer of 2020, things rapidly took a turn for the worse.

on july 20, 2020, we all got sat down and told that the treatments weren’t working anymore, and they had elected to put my father on hospice care. i sobbed all that night and into the next morning, but i had a cashier job that summer at walmart. i was an essential worker and i had to power through.

in love’s labour’s lost, everyone knows even before the princess arrives that her father is extremely sick. for heaven’s sake, it’s why the princess is there in the first place instead of the king. and yet the princess powers through. there’s deals to be made, familial honor to be defended, and there’s also that tiny matter of falling in love and playing with the joy and laughter that come with it. and the princess embraces it.

she is young, she is optimistic, she is a bit sheltered maybe yet so smart, she has devoted friends, she has seemingly all the time in the world because no one knows when the time runs out so might as well believe it never will, right?

my high school graduation came five days later, on july 25. a rare opportunity to see friends then and, at long last, after a two-month delay and twelve years of study before that, a chance to celebrate. relatives came in. we had cake and flowers. we took photos on the soccer field in 90-degree weather but it didn’t matter because we were together and we were so full of joy on that blue-sky day.

and after that, only nineteen days until leaving. i had been counting the days for months, excited for new possibilities, not understanding the impact. it would be easy, i thought. all that needed done were to pack my bags and suitcases and buy some last-minute things, say my goodbyes for now to my favorite people, enjoy every moment i could, and wait in a haze of delightful agony and optimism until the morning of august 13 came.

this went as planned for about three days.

july 29, 2020, started like any other day. i got my things together, had an argument with my stepmom about doing the dishes (you said i can’t do the dishes when it’s late and everyone’s asleep after i get off work, when do you expect me to do them), decided to start the dishwasher right before i left for work (if she was mad about it, then she could unload the dishwasher as needed and we could have this conversation when i got home, i reasoned) and went to walmart for my shift that day. i cut one of my fingers on a taco seasoning packet, watched some of the salzburg 2007 production of berlioz’s benvenuto cellini on my lunch break, and in general otherwise it was a pretty normal shift. and like all normal shifts, i took my sweet time getting out and getting home.

at about 5:15 i was dawdling and trying to find an excuse to not get in my car just yet when i got a call from my stepmom that basically went like this:

me: hi

stepmom: hey. are you coming home yet?

me: i will be there in a little bit.

stepmom: it’s been raining so you need to be careful getting home.

me: it hasn’t rained that much and i know how to drive in the rain.

stepmom: just be careful getting home. bye.

so i sighed and went “well i can’t put this off any longer”, and got in my car and put some more berlioz on and drove home, thinking about how she sounded upset over the phone and oh i was going to get a tongue-lashing for leaving the dishes in the dishwasher all day.

and just as i was pulling up, i noticed my older brother’s truck outside. huh, i thought, that’s weird. why is he here?

i pulled into the driveway and saw my stepmom sitting on the step outside the side door by herself. two thoughts about what this meant went into my head at about the same time:

option 1: uh oh my stepmom is big mad and she waited out here just so she could tell me off right when i got home

option 2: uh oh my brother and my stepmom got into a fight again for whatever reason and she just can’t deal with it right now

(both of these, for the record, were entirely plausible things that could have happened)

so i parked and got out and decided to not commit to either of these but just play this very strange situation as coolly as possible. i believe my exact words were “hey, what are you doing out here by your lonesome?”

and like monsieur marcade, she could only get out a handful of words, and it was left to me to fill in the meaning.

the meaning: savannah, your father is dead.

and, to quote a different shakespeare play, “i must be from thence.”

my father died and i wasn’t there.

***

this is the same fate to befall the princess of france: her political mission mixed with girls’ trip has taken her to navarre, to a world full of annoying yet beloved men and delightful games and amateur theatre filled with passion. and then she learns that her father all the way in paris has died, and she wasn’t there.

now we don’t know what the princess’ relationship with her father was like; this is not something that is discussed at all in the play. but i know what my relationship with my father was like. we didn’t always understand each other or agree on everything, but i loved him. and in a childhood where the concept of family was a loose one due to an over decade-long stretch of family drama, he was the one constant.

and then four days after my high school graduation, he was simply gone, never to return.

now some folks will probably go back to those days of late july and early august 2020 and see that i posted exactly nothing about all this. why? i just needed a space where i could forget, where i could live in denial for a little longer, where i could cling to something in my life that wasn’t about this unimaginable loss until i couldn’t anymore.

living in the late 1500s, with a whole country to newly run, no social media, and a permanent existence in the public eye, the princess does not have this sort of escape. she knows right away the awful truth. it is inevitable; she must leave this happy sojourn, this newfound love.

her first line after she realizes her father is dead shows that plainly: “boyet, prepare. i will away tonight.” and even as she plans to shut herself up in a mourning-house, it is at the same time that she will be learning first hand how to run her kingdom.

sixteen days after my father’s death, i left home to learn how to live on my own. and even before that, i got only five days of bereavement leave from work, and i went back to work the day after my father’s funeral. let alone the rest of the frantic preparations for leaving home and starting a brand new life alone—in the middle of a pandemic and now, with this grief weighing on me.

life and the world do not wait for grief.

and sixteen days is too fast to grow up.

you can’t just flip the switch from child to adult, especially when you’re grieving.

and when the world forces you to do so, it is truly awful.

there’s no closure to it. as another character mourns in the closing moments of the play, “our wooing doth not end like an old play.” well, neither did the princess’ relationship with her father.

to continue with the shakespeare allusions, as much as i love and am heartbroken by the deathbed reconciliation between king henry iv and prince hal in henry iv, part 2 (a scene i was lucky to get to read with socshakes last september and which still lives in my head rent free), sometimes it simply doesn’t work out that way and you’re still left to pick up the pieces and forever wonder what might have been in those final moments on top of it.

living without that—without those answers, without closure, without any sort of comfort, on top of everything else—is so, so hard.

it is widely accepted that the love’s labour’s won mentioned in the catalogues is, in fact, a lost sequel and not an alternate name for any number of surviving shakespeare comedies. and while i have never found love in the manner of any shakespeare comedy, i believe nonetheless that i am living the princess’ story—a young woman, always grieving, trying to learn about life and figure out how to live it in a hostile world, trying to balance all the things, trying to come to terms with closure that will never come to her.

love’s labour’s lost fills me with an ache by the end. a true heartache, a deep emotional pain like few other stories i have ever come across. when i first saw it, i praised it for being messy and real. i saw me in it. i saw my own grief. i saw what i could have been, the kind of person i was before that fateful and fatal summer, the realization that we must leave that self behind because they can no longer navigate this new world, the not wanting to let go, the not understanding why but knowing you have to anyway. to know you have to take the other road.

***

recently, for a local exhibit, a museum asked people in the area to send in writing about their regrets, something they wished had happened differently. mine was eventually one of the ones selected for inclusion. here it is.

in another lifetime, i am there when my father dies.

i am there, holding his hand, feeling the blood that connects us rush through him, hearing his breaths—however shallow.

skin on skin.

i’m able to tell him one last time that i love him, i will always love him. perhaps through all the pain that comes with a pancreatic cancer diagnosis, the sleep-like state he was in for most of the last two days, he will hear me and even respond.

my family can all grieve together, knowing we all saw it happen and we all got a strange sort of closure.

my relationship with him on this earth would not feel like a perpetually unfinished story, with an ending written when i wasn’t even there.

but it is this lifetime.

someone once said grief is just love with no place to go. i believe that. and, well, this is my life. i have to muddle through and believe, make closure out of thin air and time, let love go nowhere and everywhere.

***

so, life imitates art and vice versa. and thank you @socialshakespeare for letting me have this story that has come to mean so much to me in the few short months since i first came across it. <3

[justforbooks]

Daniel Ellsberg, a US government analyst who became one of the most famous whistleblowers in world politics when he leaked the Pentagon Papers, exposing US government knowledge of the futility of the Vietnam war, has died. He was 92. His death was confirmed by his family on Friday.

In March, Ellsberg announced that he had inoperable pancreatic cancer. Saying he had been given three to six months to live, he said he had chosen not to undergo chemotherapy and had been assured of hospice care.

“I am not in any physical pain,” he wrote, adding: “My cardiologist has given me license to abandon my salt-free diet of the last six years. This has improved my life dramatically: the pleasure of eating my favourite foods!”

On Friday, the family said Ellsberg “was not in pain” when he died. He spent his final months eating “hot chocolate, croissants, cake, poppy-seed bagels and lox” and enjoying “several viewings of his all-time favourite [movie], Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid”, the family statement added.

“In his final days, surrounded by so much love from so many people, Daniel joked, ‘If I had known dying would be like this, I would have done it sooner …’

“Thank you, everyone, for your outpouring of love, appreciation and well-wishes. It all warmed his heart at the end of his life.”

Tributes were swift and many.

Alan Rusbridger, the former editor-in-chief of the Guardian, said Ellsberg “was widely, and rightly, acclaimed as a great and significant figure. But not by Richard Nixon, who wanted him locked up. He’s why the national interest should never be confused with the interest of whoever’s in power.”

The Pulitzer-winning journalist Wesley Lowery wrote: “It was an honor knowing Daniel … I’ll remain inspired by his commitment to a mission bigger than himself.”

The writer and political commentator Molly Jong-Fast said: “One of the few really brave people on this earth has left it.”

The MSNBC host Mehdi Hasan said: “Huge loss for this country. An inspiring, brave, and patriotic American. Rest in power, Dan, rest in power.”

The Pentagon Papers covered US policy in Vietnam between 1945 and 1967 and showed that successive administrations were aware the US could not win.

By the end of the war in 1975, more than 58,000 Americans were dead and 304,000 were wounded. Nearly 250,000 South Vietnamese soldiers were killed, as were about 1 million North Vietnamese soldiers and Viet Cong guerillas and more than 2 million civilians in North and South Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia.

The Pentagon Papers caused a sensation in 1971, when they were published – first by the New York Times and then by the Washington Post and other papers – after the supreme court overruled the Nixon administration on whether publication threatened national security.

In 2017, the story was retold in The Post, an Oscar-nominated film directed by Steven Spielberg in which Ellsberg was played by the British actor Matthew Rhys.

Ellsberg served in the US Marine Corps in the 1950s but went to Vietnam in the mid-60s as a civilian analyst for the defense department, conducting a study of counter-insurgency tactics. When he leaked the Pentagon Papers, he was working for the Rand Corporation.

In 2021, a half-century after he blew the whistle, he told the Guardian: “By two years in Vietnam, I was reporting very strongly that there was no prospect of progress of any kind so the war should not be continued. And that came to be the majority view of the American people before the Pentagon Papers came out.

“By ’68 with the Tet offensive, by ’69, most Americans already thought it was immoral to continue but that had no effect on Nixon. He thought he was going to try to win it and they would be happy once he’d won it, however long it took.”

In 1973, Ellsberg was put on trial. Charges of espionage, conspiracy and stealing government property adding up to a possible 115-year sentence were dismissed due to gross governmental misconduct, including a break-in at the office of Ellsberg’s psychiatrist, part of the gathering scandal which led to Nixon’s resignation in 1974.

Born in Chicago on 7 April 1931, Ellsberg was educated at Harvard and Cambridge, completing his PhD after serving as a marine. He was married twice and had two sons and a daughter.

After the end of the Vietnam war he became by his own description “a lecturer, scholar, writer and activist on the dangers of the nuclear era, wrongful US interventions and the urgent need for patriotic whistleblowing”.

Ellsberg contributed to publications including the Guardian and published four books, among them an autobiography, Secrets: A Memoir of Vietnam and the Pentagon Papers, and most recently The Doomsday Machine: Confessions of a Nuclear War Planner.

In recent years, he publicly supported Chelsea Manning, the US soldier who leaked records of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan to WikiLeaks, Julian Assange, who published Manning’s leaks, and Edward Snowden, who leaked records concerning surveillance by the National Security Agency.

On Friday, the journalist Glenn Greenwald, one of the Guardian team which published the Snowden leaks in 2013, winning a Pulitzer prize, called Ellsberg “a true American hero” and “the most vocal defender” of Assange, Snowden, Manning and “others who followed in his brave footsteps”.

Steven Donziger, an attorney who represented Indigenous people in the Amazon rainforest against the oil giant Chevron, a case that led to his own house arrest, said: “Today the world lost a singularly brave voice who spoke truth about the US military machine in Vietnam and risked his life in the process. I drew deep inspiration from the courage of Daniel Ellsberg and was deeply honored to have his support.”

In 2018, in a joint Guardian interview with Snowden, Ellsberg paid tribute to those who refused to be drafted to fight in Vietnam.

“I would not have thought of doing what I did,” he said, “which I knew would risk prison for life, without the public example of young Americans going to prison to make a strong statement that the Vietnam war was wrong and they would not participate, even at the cost of their own freedom.

“Without them, there would have been no Pentagon Papers. Courage is contagious.”

Three years later, in an interview to mark 50 years since the publication of the Pentagon Papers, he said he “never regretted for a moment” his decision to leak.

His one regret, he said, was “that I didn’t release those documents much earlier when I think they would have been much more effective.

“I’ve often said to whistleblowers, ‘Don’t do what I did, don’t wait years till the bombs are falling and people have been dying.’”

Daily inspiration. Discover more photos at http://justforbooks.tumblr.com

[lustgarten22]

Raising Hope and Awareness: November's Fight Against Pancreatic Cancer

In the sea of health awareness months, pancreatic cancer awareness month stands out as the time to shine a spotlight on pancreatic cancer. It's a month dedicated to education, action, and solidarity in the battle against this relentless disease.

Pancreatic cancer awareness takes center stage in November, as individuals, communities, and organizations unite to combat one of the most challenging forms of cancer. The Lustgarten Foundation, a driving force behind this movement, works tirelessly to promote understanding, research, and early detection.

Why does November Cancer Awareness Month matter? Pancreatic cancer often goes undetected until it reaches advanced stages, making treatment difficult. This month is more than a campaign; it's a vital reminder for us to listen to our bodies, spread knowledge, and support ongoing research.

With the rallying efforts of scientists, survivors, and advocates, the fight against pancreatic cancer advances every November. It's a time to share stories, honor those affected, and strive for progress. Together, we can make a difference – by raising awareness and supporting organizations like Lustgarten, we contribute to the quest for effective treatments and, ultimately, a cure.

As the autumn leaves fall, they carry with them a message of resilience and determination. Let's paint November purple, the symbolic color of pancreatic cancer awareness, and stand together against this formidable foe.

[filenetaylor]

40 Years Old; Moved; Threats; Death of Dragoneer; About Filene, Me

[cw: Child Trafficking, Sex Crimes, Genocide, Nakba, Crimes against Humanity, War Crimes, Security, Panopticon, Child Abuse, Commercialized Control, Systemic Violence, Healthcare Violence, Systemic oppression, Death, Grief, Coercive Control, Stochastic Violence]

Bismillah, in the name of Allah'; If you're a minor, you need to ask an adult you trust to read this post instead.

Look no further than the death announcement of the person known as Dragoneer, and you'll find folk promptly celebrating due to one small scandal of virtue or another. None of this compares to the people Preyfar (aka Dragoneer) stood up to, folk who insulate and stop conversations about the Israeli Defense Force's Nakba continuing in Palestine, about the invasion and threats on Ukraine (Feb 4th) which threaten the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Plant to cause another Chernobyl Disaster as well as the people of Ukraine themselves. He fought those who will turn education about human and reproductive rights into sex crimes. People (like a former president) who have said "Jeffrey Epstein" is a good guy despite being at the center of an international child sex trafficking ring that coerced people in positions of power to becoming his assets and clients. And Dragoneer? He was a kind-hearted, jovial artist (to those who knew him) who was allowed to take over Alkora's FurAffinity project in 2007, as Alkora was already being targeted for scandal. Dragoneer worked internationally as a contractor prior to IMVU's purchase, and in the last ten years, he has fought to keep FurAffinity together despite his own impoverishment.

Dragoneer tried many ways to keep the site going. After FurAffinity was blocked from being paid by the major payment processors, after he changed the content permissions to be ethically and virtuously clean with regards to content and these payment authorizers' tightening rules, and after temporarily allowing IMVU to be in possession of the site's legal entity before Dragoneer purchased it anew, he was without health insurance in Virginia. Virginia, for those of you not aware, has regularly sued people on the USA-funded poverty healthcare option, Medicaid, under claims of bills that should not have been paid. Even though I was familiar with Dragoneer on a first-name basis as he was a long-term acquaintance and friend of mine, Twitter's purchase and gutting by Elon Musk left his reach and visibility erased. I had no idea Dragoneer, my friend, was suffering from a life threatening condition for months, and was repeatedly being failed and deferred by healthcare providers he saw. Of course he would be, when you know doctors also need to be paid by a healthcare system founded on austerity and punitive lawsuits against needy peoples. (This is compared to the President Donald administration getting paid to forcibly sterilize undocumented refugees and migrants. I don't have the link about my Medicaid claim right now.)

And so, Dragoneer died last night. I had found out at 4am, because my complex household needs means I was up at 1:30am. (You'd think merely 'being awake' can make praying the Salaat easier, but it doesn't even as a Queer, Trans, and 2022-recently Islamic Muslim.) I am so beside myself with grief, as I am aware my own father needs 24/7 healthcare and care work but can't afford it. He is the same age as the DoorDasher who humbly needed my help to provide our needed groceries (like toilet paper) that we 'financed' on the exploitative APR credit cards we need to get by. Even if my dad has pushed Stage IV Pancreatic Cancer back to its smallest this year, he still needs help to recover his memory. In my house, we are 24/7. So when followers show up with tags like "im_1nside_your_house", or when I am subject to a "Miscreant In the Middle" attack while at the laundromat, I am as ready as I can be on hours of sleep and gratitude from constant prayers.

He didn't need to die. My dad doesn't need to be nickle-and-dimed for healthcare. And people don't need to go broke paying for health insurance for themselves, their dogs, or the life of their land. If you're as angry about this farcical austerity--treating currency bills like they're invaluable and limited-edition collector's items only fit to be horded ala the Panama Papers--then I pray fellow furries like me and Dragoneer can still do something about it.

In his last tweets on TwXtter, you can still see Dragoneer fighting fascists. I'm no expert on fascism, so let me try to summarize it by the line: "Might makes right." This 'might' being people or organizations employing technology (ala "Djinn," "Egregores," or in this case, just corporate bodies and the 'thoughtforms' employees have) exploiting these massive systems of power to create a lie into reality by the fact their power enables it to happen. Why else can some of the most far-right Israelis feel like they're protecting their homeland, when it only exists in the dwindling darkness of ignorance a Hebrew-only state (no Yiddish allowed) birthed in children? This kind of dark enlightenment is still poisoning us today, even as it is one JD Vance advocates for.

And, today, someone from a popular UNDERTALE world record holder's Discord community found one of the other places I am also combating this international system of exploitation: VANtics. If you think I'm against lies being used to control children, which I am, look to your own television, or your YouTube Kids app. Therein, besides Elsagate and the USA's weak attempts to stop this via KOSA, you will find a surreal INTERNATIONAL normality. This normality has existed since before USAian Cigarette Marketing invented marketing: paid commercial advertisements.

VANtics is my hope to reveal that, not only do non-consentual airing of commercial publications exploit the children who might see them, they exploit the children cast within them. You can see Nickelodeon-network scandals regarding content that unnecessarily and unhealthily pushed child actors to pose for scenes that graphically held on their bodily features that were unnecessary to the plot. Am I using more words than a 14 year old might understand? No, as I was a very clever 14 year old who could not dispel the images, their realism, and the intimacy in their performances in these ads. Who could be OK participating like this in an ad for a large audience? Why would this piece of art be made to be aired when I would see it, to plausibly and intentionally shape my thoughts for a lifetime? It's called "Image Marketing" and executives are as aware of this as the Exxon executives were aware of the problems of climate change.

I had no idea this crossover would happen hours after Dragoneer's passing, and continue to expose the internet-wide exploration, presence, and communities I'm a part of. My act of boldly or humbly living my life as a visible trans* person since 2014 has required me to have faith in higher powers, all the way up to a single unifying Creator: as I've survived multiple attacks completely outside of this SansIsSleeping art project. These attacks aren't merely physical violence, but legal, social, economic, and bureaucratic. The fact I am here today is not just because of my faith in One transcendental Creator (Tahwid) keeping all of this order on Earth quietly operating despite chaos. It's because of people like my spouse. It's because of my children who lead and inspire me. It's because of the community members I've met who wonder why commodity fetishism is a normal and accepted marketing tactic for children. It's because of old friends who still continue to commune with me, and other friends who don't hesitate to help with money, or networking, or other aid. It's because of people like Mari who is also facing a similar healthcare and financial crisis like Dragoneer did. It's because of people like atax1a , aka Alex, who inspire me and teach me by xer own dictionary-like addressing of all the space xe hold. This is just like the Bo Burnham special "Inside," tackling this same topic (and the Outtakes which are great): my inside is outside now, and we're entering a world where "Everybody Knows." This even reminds me of the coercive/puppeteering blackmail-like control that I found suggested by lyrics within a music video composed by Toby Fox but I am soon courageous enough to finally witness. This is much like SnowGrave for me, which I had put off for months out of fear I would, again, be haunted ala the Genocide/Ecocidal ending of UNDERTALE. Does "No Mercy" even cut such a story of increasingly consolidated power choices?

I'm in my final days of work on the architecture of Slumberer Sentinels. I don't know if I will have a complete platform architecture drawn out before I begin, but this is another one of this era's "clarion call" attempts. Just like Tim Berners-Lee believes in a decentralized web rescuing us from this terrorism-technology panopticon, I believe a universal networked system state that Slumberer Sentinels can provide open-source would be an open book all of you can read and teach me from, as the next generation and current generation of experts.

Yes, I'm weird. But I understand consent enough now to refuse power being proof of consent. Perhaps might can create the lie of what is right, but informed/FRIES consent is mightier. Like my welcome new Vice Presidential candidate Tim Walz says: it's weird to have this power and say these wrong, revisionist things about living beings. It's beyond weird, it's wrong to claim ability to divine who at our scale deserves to die and live. That's not our job, we need enough of us fools and all living beings alive long enough to learn an unforgettable lesson. We are already living in a time of Genocide, of Nakba.

What are YOU doing?

You're reading this? Thank you. Preyfar, may Ar Rahman Ar Raheem, the Most Gracious and Most Merciful be pleased, and peace be upon you.

Filene "Natalie" Taylor B August 7th, 2024

(v1: got most of the links in there, not all of them, such as a talk Cory Doctorow referred to where "AI" is actually considered Organizations, and their growing authoritarian control is the problem. I think the talk is like, "How did we mess up this bad?" or something)

[xoxoemynn]

Alluded to this post yesterday. Just some releasing into the void/explanation for potential quietness, cw: talk of terminal illnesses

In December 2021 my Aunt B lost a nearly 10 year battle with Alzheimer's.

Right around that same time my Aunt M was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer.

My Aunt M is one of the kindest people I know. She's also aggressively positive and leans heavily on her faith, so it can be difficult to get an accurate update on how she's doing.

However, it became clear in the past two weeks she has taken a turn for the worse. It's not at the point where the end is imminent, but the optimism for having more years with her is greatly diminished. She won't beat the cancer; it's just a question of how much longer her body can hold out.

My dad wanted to visit her before she got worse, so he went to see her this past weekend. I was his chauffeur to/from the train station. He came back looking very shaken. I don't think he was expecting her to be as weak as she was.

Last night Aunt M was admitted to the hospital with an infection. We don't have much in the way of updates yet.

While he was gone, I was also going back and forth to my mom's. She has a number of physical ailments herself, including some daily care she can't tend to herself. It took a lot of coordination/trust for her to be able to be without my dad for a few days and for me to take care of her.

To top it off, Aunt B's widower, who was diagnosed with lung cancer back in 2003 and given a year to live but managed to keep on kicking, opted in the past week to stop chemo and enter palliative care.

Flip side, my 104 year old great aunt is still going strong and told my 76 year old dad he looks very young. She had TMNT on while my dad visited her.

All this is to say, it was a very heavy weekend. I was so busy for most of it that it didn't really hit me until Monday when things calmed down and now I've just walking around in a cloud of sadness. To be clear, I was never super close with my aunts/uncles, although, like I said, my Aunt M is just outrageously kind and her diagnosis was heartbreaking. But I especially feel horrible for my dad, who's probably losing both of his younger sisters in a span of a few years. I'm thinking a lot about my own parents' mortality and what that means and how we'll take care of them once one of them goes. I'm extremely aware there's not really much that can be done, other than to make sure everyone knows they're loved and provide as much comfort as we can. There just seems to be this cloud of illness and death and sadness hanging over my family. It's.......heavy.

I took a last minute PTO today to decompress a bit, and I do overall feel like more of a human. But if I'm quieter in the coming [insert duration of time here], that's why. The sadness just feels inescapable right now.

[remembertheplunge]

5/10/2023. Wednesday. 8:37pm

“With the switch of the ox’s tail everything can change (Zen Koan) eg; a diagnosis of pancreatic cancer..

Everything is unstable. Transitory.

I started reading one of Zoe’s journals this evening. I love the drawings Mostly they are of her. Self portraits. Labeled “martyr” or “hero”. In one entry, she said that pondering suicide (for her) is a hobby! Her journals, like mine, are a living thing Her essence will live on through her journals.

There is a sickening feeling to this experience (Zoe’s dying process) I asked Skyler at Zoe’s mid afternoon how he was doing with this? He said “Not good. At times I cry” I said  "I want to be somewhere else."But, we are there dealing with it.

 I want to be there. I have to be there.

Zoe seems to want to do this dying thing alone. Because of the pain. Maybe because she wants time to contemplate her life. And, to contemplate her dying experience. She’s beginning to lose her awareness of her situation Alex, a hospice worker, said that the strong survive longer. Perhaps the morphine, etc., will cause her to relax and let go into death.

I need to get her will done.  And call Mary, the hospice Chaplain. Zoe said if Mary comes, Zoe will consider suicide. 

As for me, there is no one to talk to—No book to read to help me through this. Just live every unpredictable twist and turn of this. No one can save me from it.

The huge silence from th family is background noise to this play.—

End o/f entry

Notes: May 10, 2024. One year later

May 10 may be the day last year that I saw Zoe sit out in her beloved garden for the last time. She set first further out in the garden. Then in a chair by the sliding glass door. She was saying good bye I think.

Mary, the Chaplain, never did visit. Which was a good thing. Zoe wanted to do her exit journey on her own. She was her own spiritual guide. She  had led a vey spiritual life. She had many ghost encounters throughou her life, including in the house where she would soon die. 

Zoe also had flirted with suicide for decades. More than once she gave me a time and day she would kill herself. But, the appointed time would come and go and she would say nothing else about it. I’m glad now that she didn’t kill herself. It would have denied me the privilege to be with her as she exited this existence.

Our extended family had cut us off almost completely between 2009 and 2012 around inheritance issues. The exceptions were cousins Debbie and Ruth Ann. The overall silence of the major part of the family echoed through and beyond Zoe’s dying experience.