#quality is lower than my life during pandemic

[aaiiiiiiiiiii]

sanrio's taking too long so my impatient ass has to make its own food

[sullustangin]

Spoiler Free SWTOR 7.5 comments

As it says on the tin.

Honestly, I am really liking the consistent content that Broadsword is putting out. Big patches are 4-6 months apart, little ones are pretty regular. Each patch -- whether it's a big 7.x or it's a 7.5.x -- has something that tries to address a player request/complaint. Since Broadsword took over, the amount of content might be more modest in terms of scale, but it seems like more care has been applied to it. Based upon the player survey and other quality of life improvements -- and even some hasty u-turns--, they are taking player feedback into account. I feel better about the game in Broadsword's hands than I did with Bioware.

Technically, I did not experience major problems with the patch. As reported in the patch notes, there is one cinematic where a key character's mouth does not move. That doesn't break the game, though you may want to wait to record the scene if you're into that. There's another point where you have to hit the right spot on the floor for your jetpack to disappear so you can pass through the next door, but that's an easy fix. Gearwise, I'm seeing reports of being at least in 332 greens, but as usual, player skill may vary.

Patch 7.5 starts the conclusion of the two storylines that have taken the mainstage of 7.0: the Holocron of Nul storyline and the Heta Kol storyline, which started back in 6.2 (pandemic patch). I feel like some of the "huh?" in the plot was baked in from where Bioware started it, so Broadsword is trying its best to finish the story they were given. Is it a busfire? Yes. Is it their fault? No, but they have to finish it.That said, this patch actually makes the player make choices, and you AGONIZE over them. It's not just personnel choices but also diplomatic ones. I haven't felt that way in a considerable amount of time. Yes, you do make choices in 7.0, but it's one person living or dying, be a jerk or don't be a jerk. Lower stakes. The stakes are higher here in 7.5 -- or at least it feels that way. That's an important part of game writing: even if the choice does not matter, there needs to be the illusion that it does -- a certain level of immersion. You do have cascading consequences of choices as well. I'm looking forward to playing this patch on my LS toon to do different choices, more so than I did previously. "Let's not be a jerk this time" is less than compelling than "Can I do it differently, this time?"

Overall, there is progress in the storyline -- this doesn't feel like a "busy work" patch or "here's a new daily area to keep you occupied". (To be clear, I loved the Port Nowhere and Ord Mantell content in 7.4 -- it was a giant love letter to smugglers -- but at the same time, it was a bit of filler, to be honest). The quests you need to do are necessary to gain the trust of a naturally fearful faction of sentients (no spoilers) -- it makes sense they aren't your besties for life right off the jump. You will yell at the screen at the end of the whole thing, because it does make sense and yet it's the worst option for your character, personally, and it's out of your hands. (And it is not out of character for the person who makes that decision...)

No new date night content -- maybe in 7.5.1. There is some romance content for those of us that romanced Lana and Theron.

If you are big into Mandos and have been impatiently waiting for Lane to give you a buzz, this is your time and your hour. If you enjoy training hunter pets in other games, your time has arrived.

There is also a new Spring Festival event on Dantooine. In truth, I find it sort of derivative of the Tillers' reputation you could earn in World of Warcraft during Mists of Pandaria. It isn't exactly the same (we don't have a cooking profession), but the general ideas apply, right down to the dailies involving having a beer and going fishing, as well as scouring the world for seeds. There's also animal rescue built in here as well, so it's a bit of everything for any hero who wants to retire or at least slow down.

But of course, something sinister is on the farm, and so I anticipate Scooby Doo Mystery Hour shall continue as the event carries on.

~~

Given that Broadsword "maintains" games such as Dark Age of Camelot, there has been the fear that they'll move SWTOR into retirement, but I don't think that will happen, as it's still a live intellectual property (Star Wars), they're making gobs of money off it due to Cartel Market, and there's still a player base. (And let's be real, Favereau and Filoni play it, and they do matter to Disney and EA.) I don't know when 8.0 will come out, so we may have another round of storylines in 7.0 -- sort of like how we had an extended 5.0 (Iokath and Traitor Arc) after Bioware was stripped down in 2017. That said, Onslaught was quite good after the KotXX shenanigans and dev changes had settled. I still hold the view that Bioware is a sinking ship, and EA moved the Goose that Lays the Golden Egg to Broadsword for safekeeping. I think we might get an 8.0 in 2025 or 2026, but how that will look or work -- no idea.

[echoweaver]

15 Questions from Mutuals

@oasislandingresident, @hazely-sims, @danjaley, @anamoon63, and @olomayasims tagged me in this meme. This is the first time I’ve been able to actually do it! Thanks. I feel loved. It feels good to be included.

​ Are you named after anyone? My great-grandmother, father’s father’s mother. She and my great-grandfather were immigrants from Hungary. I have have a picture of her holding me as an infant. I’m sorry I didn’t get to know her.

When was the last time you cried? I cry all the dang time. I find it more notable when I haven’t cried recently -- when putting our cats down, despite me being the one person in the family who was tracking their health in detail and really worrying about their quality of life. I’m also the one who made the call and coordinated the final vet visit. There’s stuff in there about my personality that I’m pondering.

I guess the last time I really cried it out was over gender politics, if you would believe it. My wife is trans. The horrible state of conservative oppression toward trans people right now is terrifying. OTOH, I think that enemy has led trans advocacy to be less nuanced rather than more. The complex landscape of gender, sex, and safety is often trivialized, and people get hurt. When I can’t jump on the bandwagon, I feel like a traitor to my wife. I wish there could be more thoughtfulness and compassion and nuance, but with the wave of vicious anti-trans laws and rhetoric, I appreciate why it doesn’t feel like there’s space for it.

Do you have kids? One bio-daughter, age 12. We wanted to have another and couldn’t. Then we tried to adopt from foster care, which ended up being a miserable 5-year rabbithole that led nowhere. OTOH, we have a found-daughter who entered our life through the side door as our girl’s babysitter when she was young. It’s an odd family, and we’re still figuring it out, but it’s ours.

Do you use sarcasm a lot? I think of myself as fairly snarky, but actually sarcasm not that much.

What sports do you play/have you played? I got into really physical stuff late-ish, close to 30. I got into weight-lifting and cardio rhythm games. No team stuff. Later, I took up figure skating when my kid was 4 and taking lessons. I love it. I think I could have been really good if I’d found it when I was younger, but I’m very YOLO about this stuff. If I’m going to be a figure skater in middle age, so be it. Convenient classes for adults were canceled during the pandemic, though, and I haven’t built up the momentum to return. I’m settling for a lower-hanging fruit at the moment and taking up Tai Chi.

What’s the first thing you notice about other people? I don’t know exactly what it is, but I get a sense of how easy it is to relax around someone.

Scary movies or happy endings? Those aren’t mutually exclusive. I like being scared, but not so much the jump-scare, blood-and-gore way. Definitely happy endings though. I’m only much into dark endings when my life is stress-free, and I don’t remember when that last happened.

Any special talents? I’m good at looking at a problem from all angles. I think this is objectively a good thing, but it’s also a pain in the butt because I can’t turn it off.

Where were you born? New Jersey, USA. Grew up in Indiana, just north of Indianapolis.

What are your hobbies? Dur. I knit, edit movies, mod video games, write fiction (sims and other), scuba dive, play board games, downhill ski, do amateur carpentry. I did some glassblowing in my 20s, and I’m finally getting a chance to take lessons! I do not specialize well. I also played the viola as a serious amateur. I bought a guitar and am going to try to learn to play so that I can sing and accompany myself.

Do you have any pets? One cat, down from 3 cats. Also one corn snake.

How tall are you? 5′4″ or 162 cm.

Fave subject in school? History, I think?

Dream job? I’m not sure all the stuff I’d want to do in a career can be digested down to 1 job. I’m pretty close to it at the moment, though. I write educational software on a small very family-like team at a university. Sometimes I fantasize about quitting and doing something with game modding that could somehow be profitable, but I’m sure if that were actually possible, I’d end up hating it because my hobby would then be my job.

Eye color? I have the exact eye color @zosa95 described in her reply to this meme.

It feels good to be tagged, but I still have this weirdo anxiety about tagging people. Plus this has mostly made the rounds. I’ll try @withlovefromayre, @declaration-of-dramas

[zozo-01]

wip wednesday (university edition)

So, @darlincollins, @konnorhasapen and my darlin' @gingerbreadmonsters tagged me for today. After asking Gingerina if I can post an assignment wip instead, because homegirl has notttt been writing, she said "lmao, do it," SO HERE WE ARE!!!! A lil ting from my econ assignment!!!

--

According to Dinner Party Economics, the Human Development Index (HDI) is defined to be a tool to help governments measure several quality of life aspects of a country. This includes life expectancy, education and income.[1] Canada’s current HDI Index was 0.937 in 2022, which is considered to be a good score.[2] However, a study done by Indigenous Service Canada found that across the board, Indigenous peoples score a lower HDI number compared to other Canadians. The most recent and lowest score belongs to Indigenous peoples who live on reserves, with a score 0.69.[3] This score is to be expected as reserve communities are faced with the water crisis the hardest. However, this score can be improved and lead to economic growth. A study done by Harvard University found that the economy is does better when the health of its citizens is at their best.[4] Improving the HDI score for Indigenous folk can drastically affect the Canadian economy in a beneficial way.

The labour force participation rate is the rate of the population who are currently employed by an organization.[1] Overall, the labour force participation rate of Indigenous peoples is lower than those who aren’t of Indigenous descent.[2] Ted Wannell and Sheila Currie did some preliminary research and found that there was a correlation between the infrastructure of water treatment systems and the employment of the Indigenous peoples in that communities.[1] While there is more research that needs to be done, this idea is not an unfounded one. Many Indigenous travel far distances to get fresh and drinkable water, as is the case with Ashley Sakanee.[2] The time spent getting water can be used to looking and working a job. Improving the water quality can increase the labour force participation rate of Indigenous peoples.

To put simply, the multiplier effect is the proportional amount of spending (or lack thereof) that an organization does that causes other organizations to spend as well. This can be beneficial to restart the economy during a recession period. Since one company is spending money, another company may also spend to keep up, giving the economy a boost.[1] The government is clearly willing to spend money into this cause, as stated by their federal budget.[2] The government money used in this solution will be given to manufacturing companies to the spending more to build water treatment facilities. This extra spending done by the government and these companies can kickstart the economy further to recover from the downturn brought by the pandemic. 

[angelica-urban-soci]

COVID-19 & Disparities

In class and through the readings, we learned that Black individuals were experiencing disproportionately higher rates of infection and mortality due to COVID-19. As I was learning about this, it immediately reminded me of another public health crisis. In my other class, we have been discussing the public health crisis HIV/AIDS. Similar to COVID-19, Black individuals were disproportionately affected by HIV/AIDS. Both times, economic disparities played a significant role in perpetuating these inequalities. In both cases, black communities faced economic hardships, making it harder to access essential resources, including healthcare. Poverty, unemployment, and lack of access to quality medical care all exacerbated the impact of both pandemics. Additionally, Black communities often live in densely populated neighborhoods with limited access to safe and sanitary housing (Anderson et al., 2021), This overcrowding made social distancing and self-isolation nearly impossible during COVID, much like the early years of HIV/AIDS when overcrowded housing conditions contributed to the spread of the virus. Moreover, access to quality healthcare remained a barrier in both pandemics. Black individuals faced challenges in accessing testing, treatment, and prevention measures. The similarities between the two epidemics make me reflect on the lessons we've learned, or perhaps failed to learn, from the past.

One interesting thing I have noticed in real-life was that Black individuals used to and still wear masks much more than Whites. I wonder if this is because Black people in America are more likely to live in multi-generational households in higher density areas, around people with worse health who have worse or no health insurance and with a healthcare system that will not help them the same way it would help a sick white person. Many Black individuals are surrounded by family members who have worse health outcomes, often due to inadequate healthcare access or lower healthcare quality. This may influence the decision to wear masks as a preventive measure to protect both themselves and their loved ones. With these, social and structural factors, may be that mask-wearing habits are not solely about personal choice but are deeply intertwined with systemic inequalities, which is something I have never thought about. Are there any studies about this yet?

[tuesday7econlive]

The Online Shopping Boom: Changing Demand and Supply Dynamics

There has been a significant shift in our shopping habits, particularly in the realm of online shopping versus traditional retail experiences in the age of the COVID-19 pandemic. As a connected individual, I have observed firsthand the ever-changing consumer behavior and the economic dynamics behind it.

The traditional brick-and-mortar shopping model has been challenged by the rise of e-commerce platforms, especially during epidemics, when security concerns prompted a shift to online shopping. This shift is driven by the economic principle of demand: as overhead costs are reduced, leading to lower online prices, demand increases. Consumers were attracted to the convenience and lower prices offered by online retailers, leading to a surge in demand for online shopping.

Demand elasticity also plays an important role in this shift. Online shopping tends to have more elastic demand than traditional retailing because consumers can easily compare prices and switch between sellers to find the best deal. This flexibility empowers consumers and puts pressure on online retailers to offer competitive prices and quality service.

On the supply side, the rise of e-commerce has democratized market access, allowing small businesses and independent sellers to reach a global audience with minimal upfront costs. This has encouraged entrepreneurship and created more competitive markets. However, concerns about market concentration and the dominance of technology giants have led to calls for regulatory action to ensure fair competition and innovation.

A recent Pew Research Center study, "E-Commerce and the Future of Retail," underscores the seriousness of this shift. The report found that e-commerce sales will grow 44 percent by 2020, accounting for a record 21 percent of total U.S. retail sales. The data underscores the transformative impact of online shopping on the retail landscape.

In my own community, the closing of brick-and-mortar stores and the growth of online platforms has been evident. Local businesses have adapted by embracing e-commerce to reach a broader audience and remain competitive. The dynamic interplay of supply and demand forces in the age of online shopping is vividly illustrated by this real-life example.

In summary, the rise of online shopping represents a fundamental shift in consumer behavior and market dynamics. We can navigate the opportunities and challenges of the digital revolution in retail by understanding the economic principles driving this change. Whether as consumers, entrepreneurs, or policymakers, adapting to the evolving landscape of e-commerce requires a nuanced understanding of supply and demand dynamics.

The price of online shopping is low and it is not convenient for people to shop offline during the cocid-19 period, so consumption will increase and therefore demand will increase. Demand shifts to the right to point B. As the number of buyers increases, manufacturers need to produce more products, thus supply increases and supply shifts to the right. The intersection point is from B to C. Offline shopping will rise in the early stages of the epidemic as people need to purchase large quantities of supplies. Demand shifts to the right at this point, and supply shifts to the right. During the worst period of the epidemic, people had less demand to buy products in shopping malls, and demand decreased and moved to the left. Supply changes slowly with demand.

Name: Yifei Sun

Student ID: 72789496

[041208]

The Online Shopping Boom: Changing Demand and Supply Dynamics

There has been a significant shift in our shopping habits, particularly in the realm of online shopping versus traditional retail experiences in the age of the COVID-19 pandemic. As a connected individual, I have observed firsthand the ever-changing consumer behavior and the economic dynamics behind it.The traditional brick-and-mortar shopping model has been challenged by the rise of e-commerce platforms, especially during epidemics, when security concerns prompted a shift to online shopping. This shift is driven by the economic principle of demand: as overhead costs are reduced, leading to lower online prices, demand increases. Consumers were attracted to the convenience and lower prices offered by online retailers, leading to a surge in demand for online shopping.Demand elasticity also plays an important role in this shift. Online shopping tends to have more elastic demand than traditional retailing because consumers can easily compare prices and switch between sellers to find the best deal. This flexibility empowers consumers and puts pressure on online retailers to offer competitive prices and quality service.On the supply side, the rise of e-commerce has democratized market access, allowing small businesses and independent sellers to reach a global audience with minimal upfront costs. This has encouraged entrepreneurship and created more competitive markets. However, concerns about market concentration and the dominance of technology giants have led to calls for regulatory action to ensure fair competition and innovation.A recent Pew Research Center study, "E-Commerce and the Future of Retail," underscores the seriousness of this shift. The report found that e-commerce sales will grow 44 percent by 2020, accounting for a record 21 percent of total U.S. retail sales. The data underscores the transformative impact of online shopping on the retail landscape.In my own community, the closing of brick-and-mortar stores and the growth of online platforms has been evident. Local businesses have adapted by embracing e-commerce to reach a broader audience and remain competitive. The dynamic interplay of supply and demand forces in the age of online shopping is vividly illustrated by this real-life example.In summary, the rise of online shopping represents a fundamental shift in consumer behavior and market dynamics. We can navigate the opportunities and challenges of the digital revolution in retail by understanding the economic principles driving this change. Whether as consumers, entrepreneurs, or policymakers, adapting to the evolving landscape of e-commerce requires a nuanced understanding of supply and demand dynamics.

The price of online shopping is low and it is not convenient for people to shop offline during the cocid-19 period, so consumption will increase and therefore demand will increase. Demand shifts to the right to point B. As the number of buyers increases, manufacturers need to produce more products, thus supply increases and supply shifts to the right. The intersection point is from B to C. Offline shopping will rise in the early stages of the epidemic as people need to purchase large quantities of supplies. Demand shifts to the right at this point, and supply shifts to the right. During the worst period of the epidemic, people had less demand to buy products in shopping malls, and demand decreased and moved to the left. Supply changes slowly with demand.

Name: Yifei Sun

Student ID: 72789496

[wednesday5econlive]

Opportunity Cost in Real-Life Decision-Making during COVID-19

Roman Bikbulatov 001083010 rbikbula@uci.edu Wednesday 5 pm

Introduction

In this article, I will discuss the concept of opportunity cost - one of the concepts studied in this course - and relate it to my real-life experiences where the concept has been used directly. To start with, it is worth briefly outlining the idea of opportunity cost: it is the profit from the best alternative to a decision that is given up for the profit of that decision. For example, the opportunity cost of an extra hour of sleep in the morning is an hour less awake in the daytime. People encounter the opportunity cost of different decisions hundreds, if not thousands, of times during the day, but in this paper, I explore interactions with this concept in the constraints of the COVID-19 pandemic period in the areas of employment and personal development.

Employment

University students often consider paid work to supplement their financial needs, leading them to search for job opportunities. However, the pandemic has suddenly hit the labour market - as a result, many part-time jobs and internships for students have been cancelled or postponed indefinitely. For instance, I have faced a similar situation, where several options for a professional internship were available, but due to the pandemic, the list was greatly reduced and the remaining options did not fit my wishes and plans, meaning fewer utilities (a conventional value used to measure the profitability of a particular option) than the cancelled options. This led to a dilemma about whether it was worth spending time for an internship in a not-very-promising company or improving knowledge of a programming language. In terms of cost-benefit analysis, it comes out that the cost of studying is estimated in the amount of knowledge per hour * hours spent studying and the cost of training is calculated as the amount of work experience per hour * the same number of hours. Of course, when I did these calculations some years ago, I would not have been able to take into account all the implicit costs of a particular decision, unobvious missed opportunities, e.g. useful professional acquaintances in an internship or an unexpected discovery made during the studies. However, considering just the explicit costs, I decided to postpone the poor internship options until a better time, thus choosing the option that, in my opinion, will maximize the benefits with limited time.

Personal development

Personal development is most often a concern for people at young and mature ages when they want to achieve as much as possible with limited time resources. It involves developing professional or personal qualities that can enhance one's life. Traditional options for personal development include internships, volunteer projects, travelling, offline courses, or professional counselling. As we all have already experienced, Covid-19 has the ability to reduce our desires and make us turn to less traditional solutions. In my example, I had to explore non-traditional activities where the profits were unknown to me or someone I knew. The available options for personal development were limited to online courses in subjects that are typically challenging to learn online, and online sessions with a psychotherapist, whose effect for some people is lower than from the personal presence of a specialist. In this situation, it was highly difficult to determine the opportunity costs for each option, as it was not known whether they would actually be effective in what was being offered. However, a decision did have to be made and it was concluded that personal preferences, as well as experience at the time of making the decision, were significant in the concept of opportunity cost. Some decisions may have clear costs, such as a monetary equivalent or conventional public opinion. However, many decisions are also made with incomplete information and are likely to be correct only at the time the decision is made.

Conclusion

In conclusion, the concept of opportunity cost can be used freely in the decisions of our lives, and it is likely that estimating opportunity cost is even the best decision-making strategy, based on my experience. It is important to note that sometimes in real life it is difficult to have a clear understanding of all parameters of the options available for a decision, but for a more complete picture, it is worth studying as much information on the topic as possible and formulating the values for each option as fully as necessary.

[doberbutts]

So I have gained, um, over 200 new followers in about 48 hours and that is a lot but I figured I'd get this out there.

I am a binary trans man that is pursuing medical transition and would much rather have been born cis. I am also potentially intersex after making a discovery a few years ago regarding my internal organs. A lot of my opinions will be informed by that.

I came out about 16 years ago and am rapidly approaching my 30s. This means I came out as a child well before Obama-era politics and internet made the US a significantly safer place to be if you are LGBT. It also means those mentoring me were informed by the Reagan-era politics and AIDS crisis that I narrowly managed to avoid being born into.

This is a dog blog. No, seriously, it's about my dogs. I train and compete and attend events with purebred dogs. My doberman recently died from cancer and I am still grieving him. My current group of dogs are all quite young. This blog actually usually talks about my adventures with my dogs and my training theory and my client dogs etc. So if that's not your deal, you'll be disappointed when I'm back to regularly scheduled programming.

I am mixed race (black/native/irish) and physically disabled so I talk not infrequently about racism and ableism as well. In fact most of my personal posts are regarding things that affect my own life, so it is quite a narrow demographic that they appeal to at times.

Do not harm, take no shit is my motto and has been for quite some time. I try to show kindness and compassion in all things. I am human and sometimes I fuck that up. I have a very low bullshit tolerance and an even lower hypocrisy tolerance and I'm quite liberal with my block policy. Some folks find that intimidating or complain that I am blunt and feel that is 'aggressive'. I prefer to say what I mean, double speak and false positivity/sugarcoating is like a foreign language to me so I'd rather get to the heart of the issue rather than dance around it.

I chose to take a lot of the time off of work during my furlough from the pandemic improving parts of my life. This has culminated into my current adventures trying to buy a house, an increase in the quality of the foods I cook and eat, nose to the grindstone learning Japanese and ASL, being more concious of the brands I purchase from, my journey I've been documenting with my hair, and doubling down on some dog training goals with my girls. Sometimes I talk about that too.

[newtonsheffield]

OH MY NEWTON MOLLY!!

I've just fallen asleep when I woke up like this

because I've seen your latest post of Anthony and Edwina being Kate's #1 fans before falling asleep and and I dreamt of Kate playing volleyball (never forgetting B&S company picnic of 2020) and Edwina and Anthony being Kate's personal cheerleaders with personal t-shirts and everything.

I know you do more for your fans than we have the right to ask, but we are sluts for your writing and we can't stop (WE ARE SLUTS FOR YOUR WRITING AND WE CAN'T STOP TITLE OF YOUR FANDOM SEX TAPE), but if you can and if you like it, I will love to hear your input about my dream (it could include the bridgerton babys and the whole family) and how I need to get out more and stop bothering you (fyi we are once again at lock down here so going out is not much of an option I am afraid. I LIVE THROGH YOUR WRITING!)

I really wish you have the most amazing week!!!!

Southern Hemisphere Bros 😎

Oh hello! My Southern Hemisphere Bro! 😎😎 You’re back!

I have a couple of things for you

Did you just use “Newton” instead of “God”?? Because if so: Genius! Perfect amazing! Thrilled to bits! Gonna start peppering it into my vocab from tomorrow!

You’re dreaming about Bridgerton and Sons??? I think that makes you my hero! I do sometimes dream about my writing but I’m stunned that I’ve wormed my way that deep into your subconscious. Truly amazed. Not complaining. Just very thankful

I’m sorry you’re stuck in lockdown. Australia has been so lucky during this pandemic so I really have no right to complain. My life is very normal, I can even go to pubs and cinemas 🤷🏻‍♀️

Here is a little bit of your vision.

“Kate I need you to do something for me, and I need you to not be mad about it?” Kate looked up in surprised to find her sister standing in the doorway of her office at...9:57am on a Tuesday morning. Lucy called out absentmindedly “Edwina’s here Kate.” Over her shoulder as Gregory spun a round on his chair next to her. Kate sighed “Thank you Lucy, I can see that.” Kate said dryly “Edwina the last time you asked me not to be mad about something you’d set me up on a blind date.” Edwina scoffed,

“You’re married now, and you have two children. I think it worked out, Kate.” Edwina said taking the seat across from her. Kate couldn’t keep the smirk off her face. “What do you need me to do?” Edwina’s eyes darted around the room a little, fiddling with the ends of her hair, her wedding rings glinting in the office lighting, a sure sign her sister was nervous. “So, the museum is having a fundraiser,” Edwina had started slowly, Kate felt confusion welling in her “And part of it is a volleyball-” Kate groaned

“Eddie, no.” Edwina looked indignant “You don’t even know what I’m going to say.” She said as Kate sighed “Matthew is in a charity volleyball tournament and you signed me up as his partner. Eddie, I’ve been your sister for 28 years, I know exactly what you’re like and my answer is no.” Kate said primly, turning back towards her computer, barely able to keep the smile off her face as her sister groaned.

“Katie, please!” Edwina begged,

“Eddie no, I haven’t played in ages, and I’ve had two children!” But Edwina wasn’t listening, her eyes had widened her lower lip pouting, ugh that face always made her crack.

“Please, Kate! Matthew could really use the help and think how good it would be for your boys to see a powerful woman achieve.” And damnit. That did it. Kate sighed,

“It was very low of you to use feminism.” Edwina’s face broke into a wide smile as she leapt from the seat already out the door as she called out

“You won’t regret it Kate!”

“I doubt that very much!” Kate called after her.

And that was how Kate found herself, in a charity volleyball match with her brother in law, who god bless him, had many fine qualities, but was a terrible volleyball player, trying her best not to lose her patience with him.

“Just stay on your side of the court Matthew! Please!” Kate said for what felt like the millionth time in the last 10 minutes. And his eyes widened as he adjusted his glasses, the glitter glue on the shirt Edwina had made him (That he had worn more than willingly when Edwina had given it to him an hour ago) sparkling in the morning light as Kate tried to tamp down the ridiculously competitiveness raging within her. For god’s sake, her opponent looked like he was pushing 65, Though Kate reasoned, his new hip may have been giving him some traction.

“That’s my Mummy!” A tiny little voice yelled out and Kate’s heart soared when she caught sight of her family. Anthony grinning proudly, his sunglasses slightly askew from Miles’ hands grabbing at them from his carrier. Edmund on his shoulders clapping happily. Edwina by his side looking ridiculously like she was in a print ad for home made tshirts. Their matching shirts sparkling in the morning sun Indiana Throws they proudly proclaimed, a little whip wrapped around the writing.

“It doesn’t even make sense.” Kate had said frowning “You don’t throw a volleyball.” Edwina had tutted from her place tucked under Matthew’s arm. “Kate will you relax? It’s supposed to be fun.” Edwina had said teasingly as she kissed Matthew’s cheek. Anthony had laughed, loudly. “Kate doesn’t know how to have fun playing volleyball. Sorry about her by the way, Matt.” He’d said grinning, leaning in to leave a kiss on Kate’s cheek. She’d scoffed swatting him away as Edmund had said “Mummy are you and uncle Matt gonna win?” “Obviously, right Matt?” Matt had looked... less than sure as he’d said “Right.”

And for the most part she’d kept herself in check. Biting her lip to stop herself from yelling at Matthew, at the referee, and she could feel Anthony’s eyes on her, his face smug as though he could tell the competitive monster in her was dying to burst out.

“Not up to your usual standards today Kate. Perhaps I should dig out our old bet shirt hey!” He called out irritating smirk on his face, even as Edmund clapped happily and Edwina called out

“You’re doing amazing Honey! You too Katie!”

“Would be even more amazing if you actually spiked the ball Kate!” Anthony called out again as the ball sailed towards her and she snapped. Leaping into the air, her hand connecting with the ball sending it flying back over the net, slamming into the ground with a satisfying Thunk!

“Holy Fuck!” Kate heard Matthew whisper behind her, the opposing team’s mouths falling open in shock as she yelled

“Geoff, the next time I see you step off the baseline when you serve, you’re losing a toe and Christina if you touch the net one more time I’ll scream! It's against the rules and you KNOW THAT!” And Kate really did feel slightly bad about yelling at her brother in laws ageing coworkers, but unable to stop herself as the competitive monster raged away “Matt get back on your side, JESUS!”

Her husband’s voice rang out happily, “There she is! There’s my wife!” And Kate couldn’t bite back the smirk.

They of course won the tournament, though Matthew had to apologise profusely for his sister in law’s behaviour. And Kate was asked not to return the next year.

[j0hnj4ej3n]

stuck with u

Domestic boyfriend!Mark x fem!reader in quarantine (name dropped Hyuck and Jeno too)

Word count: 6.9k 

Warning: mentions of covid-19/pandemic, very slight angst (i’m sorry i think every work of mine has angst)

Note: i really love the song by ariana grande and justin bieber so i got inspired to write this! i honestly don’t think it’s my best work but i still hope you would enjoy reading this, please take care and stay safe everyone! <3

Summary: As the covid-19 situation continued to spread across countries, cities started to go into lockdown. The normal life everyone got used to took a drastic turn as everyone was forced to be quarantined for 2 weeks until further notice. There were many things that changed for you and you had to adapt to the new life you were going to have for the next 2 weeks - or until it’s safe for everything to return to how it used to be again. The only thing that remained constant, however, was living under the same roof as your lovely boyfriend, Mark Lee.

It was a Friday night, Mark was in the shared bedroom of your tiny, cozy apartment. You know he was playing Justin Bieber on the guitar because you can hear the soft strumming and his mellow voice singing to ‘Intentions’ (again). You were in the living room watching the news when they started giving updates on the virus situation. It was getting more and more out of hand as the days went by and it seems like stricter measures had to be taken to contain the spread. “Mark, come out here for a sec,” you raised your voice slightly, you wanted him to be aware of the measures too, looking at how serious everything has suddenly gotten. You hear shuffling as he dragged his feet against the floor, walking out in quick steps. He instantly settled beside you on the sofa, while hugging onto a cushion and paying attention to the news on TV. 

The news announced that a notice for a 2 week quarantine has been set as a measure to try and contain the virus. Everyone was called to wear masks when leaving the house and to remember to be hygienic especially at a time like this. Citizens were only allowed to leave the house to run essential errands, such as getting groceries, getting some exercise and seeking medical help. Other than that, all are supposed to stay at home for the next 2 weeks (or more) until further notice. “Guess you’re stuck with me now babe.” Mark said as he slumped lower onto the sofa to lean his head on your shoulder. 

“What do you mean? When I agreed to be your girlfriend, I was already stuck.” You said teasingly. He shot up from his spot to look at you, with a slight pout on his face. He looked slightly offended although he knew you were just kidding which causes you to laugh at how cute he is. As payback, he pokes your sides and you jerk away from his reach as a soft yelp escapes your lips. After bickering about that back and forth for a while, you finally turned the TV off and the two of you retired to your shared bedroom to go to sleep.

Day 1

Saturdays were usually reserved for dates. Since the both of you have different majors and minors in university, it’s difficult to find free time to go on dates during the weekdays. Moreover, the two of you become really absorbed into your works and projects once you start working on them. So the most you two could do was have dinner together. It’s usually just take outs that either you or Mark bought while on the way home. So you always looked forward to Saturdays, because the two of you get to reward yourselves with a nice meal or just go outside to spend some quality time together without the pressures of work on your minds. 

But since the quarantine measures were implemented, you two had to stay at home today. Honestly, you were feeling pretty down about it because it was your turn to plan this week’s date but you couldn’t do it anymore because it required you to go outside. Still, you wanted to make today a little special, so you planned to get up earlier to prepare breakfast for Mark and yourself since you haven’t done so in awhile. 

When your alarm rang, you grabbed your phone that was on your nightstand as quickly as you could to dismiss it before it woke Mark up. You stretched over and eventually dismissed it since Mark still had an arm draped over your waist, limiting your movements. You turned back to face him, he was still soundly asleep and you never told him but he looks so endearing when he was asleep. So peaceful as his chest rose and fell, you were kept warm in his embrace every night. Your eyes traced his features, from his long lashes to the slightly opened mouth. 

You decided that you’ve stared at him like a creep for long enough, so you tried to gently get out of bed to wash up and finally start preparing breakfast. While trying to squirm out of Mark’s arm, he stirred in his sleep and groaned, “y/n, just five more minu-” he mumbled out as he snuggled into the crook of your neck. You exhaled, starting to get a little too warm for your liking with how you’re struggling to get out of bed without waking your boyfriend. 

As if the heavens read your mind, Mark suddenly turned and laid completely on his back, causing his grip on you to loosen. You took this chance to wiggle out of his embrace and went to wash up. 

After which, you walked out to your little kitchen while tying your hair into a messy bun. You made sure you took out all the ingredients you needed for the pancake batter and washed your hands before starting. 

About 20 minutes later, you were heating up your pan to start making the pancakes. You poured a ladle full of batter onto the butter coated pan and waited for the bottom side to cook before flipping it. The batter formed a perfect round shape on the pan and smelled so good, it had your tummy rumbling. You flipped the edges of the pancake with your spatula to check if it was properly cooked. Once you saw that it was golden brown, you held the handle of your pan tightly, lips pressed together in a line while you concentrated on attempting to flip this pancake. 

Just as you begin to tilt your wrist to flip the pancake, you heard Mark exclaim behind you, “PANCAKES!!” His loud exclamation shocked you so much that you jumped on your toes and dropped the pan back onto the stove. “Nooo, my pancake.”

The result of you getting scared was a very lopsided looking pancake on your pan. You tsked as you removed the ruined pancake and placed it into the bin near your sink. You heard Mark’s laughter from behind you when he spotted the ruined pancake being tossed away. You shot him a glare that caused him to lift his hands up in surrender. “I’m so sorry, the pancakes smelled so good I got excited.” 

“I was trying to make your breakfast look pretty,” you whined when he wrapped his arms around your waist and kissed the side of your head. “It’s alright, it’s the thought that counts. I’ll enjoy eating whatever you make anyways,” he said as he walked over to the water dispenser to pour himself a cup of warm water. 

Soon, breakfast was ready and you served it with blueberries and maple syrup. You placed his serving in front of him on the dining table and he flapped both his arms in the air before clapping his hands together, commenting on how delicious it looks. You smiled at his reaction as you sat facing him with your own plate in front of you. Mark closed his eyes for a mere few seconds as he said grace before he looked back up at you with doe eyes and muttered a soft, “thank you,” before you both began eating your pancakes. 

-

The rest of the days were spent on the sofa. The two of you lying lazily on it, limbs tangled together under thick blankets, watching reruns of whatever TV shows were on being shown. The two of you decided to just cook ramen for dinner and ate straight from the pot. You told Mark about how you had it all planned for your date today over dinner, how you planned to have a mini picnic at the park near your apartment. Thereafter, you two would play a game of horse (it’s a bball game; jh and mk played it during the 24hr relay cam) because you knew Mark really liked playing basketball and he hadn’t been able to play it in a while because of how busy he was with school. You knew it was just a simple date but you were actually looking forward to it, “It’s a pity…” you said before slurping the ramen in front of you. 

“It’s okay, spending time with you at home is fun too.” Mark simply replied as he gave your cheek a soft pinch. He assured you that you two could always do it when things got better. You figured it wasn’t something to dwell over and Mark was right, you two could always do it after the situation was under control. And you knew that no matter where you are and what you’re doing, as long as Mark was by your side, you’re more than satisfied.

Day 3

It was Monday, which means school. But because of quarantine, all lectures and classes are held online and initially, you thought it would be easier but you couldn’t be more wrong. Having to sit in front of your laptop, staring at the screen for hours and having to stay attentive was beyond exhausting. 

You were having your last lecture of the day in your study while Mark was attending his class in your shared bedroom. You can hear the strumming from the bedroom but you were on mute so it was fine. You can tell from the way he kept playing and replaying similar chords that he was starting on a new song. It was hard not to get distracted but you eventually shifted your attention back to your lecture. You eyed the digital clock, the big, red, numbers staring back at you. You still had one more hour to go, you prayed for time to go by faster. 

-

The lecture finally ended, the strumming from your room ended maybe half an hour ago. That meant that Mark’s lessons ended before yours and you expected to see his sprawled out on the sofa, scrolling through his phone. But when you dragged yourself out to the living room after a long ‘school’ day, you saw a picnic mat on the ground. “What’s all this?” you questioned as you took slow steps towards the mat on your living room floor. 

“You said you wanted to go for a picnic on Saturday, but since we can’t go outside. I thought we could at least have it at home! Tadah!” Mark walked from behind the kitchen counter, holding a plate of mini microwave pizza on each hand. He had the biggest smile on his face, and you couldn’t help but laugh at his little stunt. You took one pizza from him, and placed it on the mat. 

“Mark Lee, how can you be this cute?” you said once the two of you settled down beside each other on the mat. He looked down, rubbing the back of his neck, “L-let’s eat,” he stuttered out, avoiding your comment. You laughed at his reaction and pinched his cheek before you two started eating. 

You two talked about how school went, even though you were technically in the same house. You talked about your upcoming assignments and learned that Mark indeed had another song assignment. “I kinda have ideas for the melody but lyrics wise, I still have to think about it. I want to do good,” Mark said before he took a bite of the pizza crust you didn’t eat. 

You always admired Mark for being so passionate and driven. Majoring in music would have been something unacceptable in the eyes of your parents and even if you were to be interested in music as Mark was, you would have never dared to pursue it as a career path. But you see the way Mark creates and how his eyes sparkle when he talks about music and you know how important this all is to him. And no matter what, you would always support him. 

-

You were busy re-reading your book and highlighting important points you wanted to include in your assignment while Mark has his guitar on his lap, strumming and hunching over to record things down on his laptop. You were more or less down with prepping for your assignment when you turned to look at Mark, sitting at the corner of the bed. 

He lets out a deep sigh while rubbing his forehead, you’ve come to know that it’s something he does when he feels stressed. Knowing that he was getting frustrated with himself, you decided to get his mind off his work. You crawl across the bed to get to him, he leans back slightly knowing that you were there from how his side of the bed dipped a little more. You sat by him at the corner of the bed, leaving a peck on his shoulder that was exposed due to how loose his shirt is. “Mark, can you play something for me?” 

You’ve learnt that Mark grows suffocated when he can’t arrange the chord melody as he hears it in his head. And strangely enough, playing something he is familiar with on the guitar helps to sooth him and pulls him out of that silent suffocation he feels. “What do you want to listen to?” he asks as he turns to look at you. 

“Whatever comes to mind,” you replied as you hugged your legs to your chest, your body completely facing Mark now. He pulls the lid of his laptop down and puts it away before straightening up and adjusting the position of his guitar. 

When he started strumming, you instantly recognised the melody to be the song, ‘10,000 hours’. Mark played this song during your sixth monthsary, you could never forget that day because it was after six months that you were convinced that Mark Lee was indeed the love of your life. After your previous relationship, you never felt more afraid of falling in love again. That clearly changed when you met Mark, it was so easy to love and to be loved by him. 

“I'd spend ten thousand hours and ten thousand more

Oh, if that's what it takes to learn that sweet heart of yours

And I might never get there, but I'm gonna try

If it's ten thousand hours or the rest of my life

I'm gonna love you” 

You knew he meant those words when he sang it back then and he means it even now. He never gave up on breaking down the walls you’ve built around your heart and continues to shower you with love until now. When he was done, he turned to look at you only to find you already staring at him with glossy eyes. He gives you a warm smile as he puts his guitar back on the guitar stand by the bed. 

His frustration over being unable to arrange the chord melody gone, he joins you again in bed, pulling you under the covers with him. He wraps his arm around your shoulders and you snuggle closer to him. He pulls away to look at you, and he honestly can’t believe how lucky he is to have you here in his arms. “Why are you looking at me like that?” 

“Just thinking about how much I love you. And it’s a lot.” With your faces only inches apart, you can’t help but feel the need to kiss him. Yet, after being in a relationship with Mark for so long, you still feel flustered over the thought of kissing him. It’s not like you two have never kissed before, but whenever you two did, it feels like the first time. 

You were sure Mark’s thoughts mirrored yours, because his eyes flickered from your lips and up to your eyes again. The next thing you knew, Mark’s warm hand was cupping the side of your face and his soft lips were on yours. Your eyes fluttered close and you could feel your heart swell in your chest as you knotted your fist in his shirt, pulling him closer.  Mark was gentle and careful as he moved his lips against yours, his thumb caressed your cheek softly before he pulled away. 

Your eyes fluttered open, meeting Mark’s sparkly ones and he gave you another quick peck on your lips before leaning over you to turn off the lights. He pulls you into his chest and you snuggle close to him. “Goodnight y/n,” he mumbled into your hair, and you whispered it back before closing your eyes again and drifting off to sleep. The last thought you remember thinking was how safe you felt in his embrace.

Day 5

“I can’t do this anymore y/n. Oh my God,” Mark groaned in agony.

“Just a little more Mark, come on.” you replied through gritted teeth and all you heard in response was a grunt from beside you. “5, 4, 3, 2, 1. Done!” you counted down and shouted once the timer on your phone went off, signalling that the two of you could now relax from your planking positions.

Mark groaned as he laid sprawled out on your living room floor. His chest rising and falling with each deep breath he took. “No more baby, I think I’m going to die.”

It was Wednesday, which meant both of your first classes started only in the afternoon. Ever since quarantine began, it meant you couldn’t train with your teammates anymore but you were determined to not let your fitness level drop despite having to stay at home. So, you dragged Mark out of bed with you early this morning to workout together.

You wouldn’t say Mark was unfit, rather he just barely works out. His only form of exercise was balling with Jaehyun or playing badminton with you once in a while. If he was honest, he would rather have a lazy morning before class instead of doing burpees, sit ups or planks on his yoga mat. However, being the good boyfriend he is, he let you pull him out of bed to exercise with you.

You two just finished the second set and Mark already looks like he’s ready to go back to bed. “You ready to do the third set?”

“A third set? NO, no more. I’m going to shower,” Mark shot up from his spot on the floor, draping his hand towel over his head and walked towards the toilet. You laughed at his reaction and rolled up both your yoga mats before putting them back beside your shoe cabinet.

-

Night time came by quickly with the both of you attending zoom lectures and classes. Even though the two of you got the benefit of starting classes later on Wednesdays, this only meant that your Wednesdays contained the least amount of breaks. The two of you just whipped up some instant ramen and ate in your respective rooms while attending lectures.

You were blow drying your hair after your second shower of the day and Mark was still in the study, working on his new song. Once you were done with drying your hair, you went over to the study to keep Mark company. No special reason, you just want to always be around your special person. Especially since classes started today, you didn’t even get to be in the same room as him.

You knocked on the door and peeked between the slightly opened door. He was staring at his screen with his black-rimmed glasses perched on his nose, headphones resting against his neck. He turned to face you when he noticed you’ve walked in and swirled around in the chair so that he was completely facing you. He pushed his glasses that were previously sliding down his nose up and extended both his arms out as he leaned back into the chair with a slight pout on his face, silently asking for a hug.

You stood between his legs and pulled him into your embrace, he wrapped his arms around your waist and snuggled into the warmth of your shirt (technically his shirt), mumbling about how you smelled good. “How’s the song coming along?” you asked as you ran your fingers through his hair, knowing that he really liked it when you do that.

He released you from his embrace and swirled his chair back to face his screen when he sighed. You placed your arm across his shoulders as you moved to stand beside him and mirrored the action of staring at his screen. “It’s coming together I guess but… you know how Hyuck usually comes over and helps me with the recording of the vocal parts? Yea, but we can’t do that right now and I really want to get this done as soon as possible.”

He propped his chin on his hand and pursed his lips, forming a slight pout as he silently thought of how to move on from here. When suddenly, he turned his head to look at you with a smile on his face and a hopeful gleam in his eyes. “What? Why are you smiling at me like that?” you asked, almost chuckling at his child-like expression.

“Would you sing those parts for me? Please?” Mark said as he held both your hands, swaying them lightly and looking up at you like a little child asking for candy. You were not as musically inclined as Mark, not even close. You used to take piano lessons as a child but stopped after a while because you just weren’t interested in it. But you do sing, just casually, like when you’re in the shower and Mark definitely knows that. Plus, with him looking at you like that, could you say no?

Every time Mark was done with one of his works, you would be the first to hear it just because he loves your reactions to them. This time was no different, when Mark was finally done with producing it yesterday, he came stumbling into the room with his laptop in his hand and made you listen to it with him. You would always listen so attentively and point out parts you liked with that cute smile on his face that he loves so much. Sometimes Mark thinks that you praise him just because you’re being a supportive girlfriend but then he catches you listening to his music on soundcloud while you’re doing your work and his heart swells. So he was even more excited by the thought that you will be the one to sing the final piece of the song that he was going to submit.

Mark played the song for you to listen to it again, this time there was a backing track of his voice singing the lyrics and honestly, it sounds good the way it is and this song sounded like one of those songs you would play on repeat. But Mark, being the perfectionist he is, wasn't satisfied with his singing in it. “What makes you think I can do a better job than you?” you whined, already worried you’d cause him more stress than relief.

“Because you have a pretty voice, plus I’ve heard you sing in the shower before. You’re a much better singer than I am,” he replied as you clicked on different things on his screen and propped the microphone on his desk up to the level of your lips. “Alright, we’re all set. Let’s take it from the chorus,” he said as he turned to look at you excitedly.

-

After about 2 hours, you were finally done recording. Even though Mark told you to just sing casually and to not stress too much over it, you couldn’t help but want to do your best for Mark. He was so patient with you throughout when you would forget the tune or pace, or even when you stopped half way because you think you sounded bad. He would just smile and encourage you to try again. He would always laugh at how you scrunch your face up when you feel like you did badly before ruffling your hair or assure you that you sounded good.

“We’re good, you sound so good. Thanks baby,” he said as he gave you a quick peck on the cheek before staring at his screen again and clicking away at different things. You could tell he was trying to arrange the parts you just recorded so all the different parts would sound perfect, just the way he wants it to be. He was so focused at what he was doing, you were sure he almost forgot you were still in the room with him.

“It’s late, you’ll have more energy to arrange all this tomorrow. You need to rest, let’s go to sleep,” you said as you leaned your head on his shoulder. You felt his shoulders relax and the clicking sound from his mouse stopped all together. He turns his head slightly towards yours that was resting on his shoulder and kisses the top of your head before muttering a soft “okay”.

-

The next day he was done with the song after holding himself hostage in the study for almost the whole afternoon. You heard him re-recording his rap verses and then almost silence for the next few hours. So when he ran out to the living room where you were, all excited and bouncy, you shot up from your sprawled out position on the sofa to listen to the final version together.

You two were so excited throughout the song and you were grabbing onto his hand so tightly whenever you heard your own voice, it was so strange you wanted to cringe. But the song sounds so well put together and you were so proud of Mark for all the effort he put into it. “I love it, i love it!” you exclaimed after the song ended and his cheeks were slightly tinted pink, he couldn’t even stop himself from smiling at your comment. “I think it’s the best song I’ve ever made, seriously.”

“It wouldn’t have been completed without you,” he said as he put his laptop on the coffee table when you blurted out, “Just like how my life wouldn’t be complete without you.”

Mark literally froze in his position and your toes curled at how extremely cheesy that was. “Did you really just say that?” he finally spoke and you two turned to look at each other in the eye before you two burst out laughing. Surprisingly, Mark was the sweeter one in your relationship and you never say things like that out loud, ever. If anything, you would express these thoughts in letters you write to him or merely think them in your head. So hearing you say something like that was shocking and all you two could do was laugh.

When you two stopped laughing, you two decided that watching Lion King (again) would be a good way to kill time before your dinner arrives. While you were resting your head on his shoulder, engrossed in the movie playing on TV, Mark looks down at your interlocked hands that rests on his thigh and smiles at how perfectly your hand fits into his. He too thinks that his life wouldn’t be complete without you in it.

Day 7

“y/n, I-I think you should come look at this,” Mark calls out to you from the kitchen. You were on the sofa scrolling through your phone, waiting for the cookies you and Mark made together to be baked. When you looked over to Mark, he was standing right in front of the oven, staring at the cookies through the glass.

You peeked into the oven over Mark’s shoulder and gasped at the sight in front of you. “This doesn’t seem...right,” he muttered out as he stepped aside to let you get a closer look. What was supposed to be beautifully spread out cookies became a whole tray of one gigantic cookie that was about to push its way beyond the restrictions of the tray. “Oh no…” you said as you put on the blue kitchen mittens hanging next to the kitchen towel to pull out what was supposed to be a tray of cookies out.

You placed the tray on the counter to let it cool down before you pulled the mittens off your hands. You crossed your arms and sulked while looking at the sad looking tray of a cookie. “How did this even happen?” Mark asked when he came to stand beside you. You shrugged and blew out your cheeks, “Maybe we placed the ball of cookies too near each other.”

“I’m sorry, we were supposed to have cookies to last us all of next week,” you said. The only reply you received was the sound of Mark’s laughter. You frowned slightly wondering why he would laugh over your failure to bake cookies. “Okay but you have to be honest, this looks pretty funny. Instead of 15 big round cookies, we got 1 huge cookie. I’m pretty sure we can still eat this,” he said while taking a picture of the tray lying on your counter and chuckling to himself.

You joined him and took a picture to commemorate your first attempt at baking cookies. Now that you think about it, it’s actually pretty funny. It reminded you of that chicken bread meme and now you suddenly can’t keep your laughter in either. As you put your phone down, you realised that Mark broke off the corner of the now cooled cookie from the tray and was chewing on it.

You anticipated his reaction, “So? Is it edible?” you asked, ready to get him a cup of water just in case it was bad. He raised his eyebrows as his eyes widened, “It’s actually really yummy,” he said while laughing. “Here, try some,” he then broke off a small portion and extended his arm to feed it to you.

As you chewed on it, your face mirrored his initial reaction and you almost can’t believe how good it tastes which resulted in you letting out a muffled, “oh my god”. Mark’s nose scrunches up as he chuckles at your reaction. “Hands down, best cookie I’ve ever tasted.”

And sadly, the whole tray of a cookie didn’t last you two a week. Accompanied with milk, the cookie was gone by the time the day ended.

Day 10

“Go GO GO! Dude, what are you DOING?” you heard Mark shouting from the living room yet again. “I’m sorry guys, give me a second.” You told your group members for the second time in the span of 15 minutes.

You were having a group meeting for the project you needed to submit in a week. It was the last few strings to tie up and it was critical too, since things had to be changed due to the pandemic. Other than that, you’ve had a couple other assignments waiting to be completed. To say you were stressed was an understatement. And out of all the time he has during quarantine, he chooses now to play fifa with the boys?

“MARK! Can you keep it down please? I’m having an important call right now,” you raised your voice as you stomped towards the living room. Mark was sitting on the floor, right in front of the TV with his headsets on. And he definitely didn’t hear you, since he was still calling for Hyuck or Jeno to pass the ball over to him. So you walked over and took the controller out of his hands.

His head shot up to look at you immediately with a shocked look on his face, he pushed one side of his headsets to the side and looked at you, “Baby, what are you doing? We were ab-”

“I’m having a meeting right now, and I already told you to not be so loud. You’re making the situation more stressful than it has to be for me,” you said firmly as you shoved the controller back into his hand and stomped back into your study room to continue your meeting.

During your meeting, you heard silence beyond the door of your study and you could hear the jiggling of keys and the front door opening then closing. You frowned to yourself, thinking if you’ve been too harsh at Mark. But it wasn’t like Mark to just leave, plus, where could he have gone? Especially since everyone is still stuck in quarantine. “Earth to y/n? What’s your view on my suggestion?” You were snapped out of your thoughts by one of your group members, truthfully, you had no idea what suggestion she gave but you just gave a smile and gave a short, “I think it’s good,” as the meeting went on.

-

The meeting had ended maybe 20 minutes ago when you heard the front door open and closing again, signalling Mark’s return. In the past 20 minutes, you were busy completing one of your other assignments, and refusing to text Mark to check up on where he went. It’s not that you weren’t worried, you just felt guilty and thought he would want some time alone. If you were in his shoes, you would have felt really wronged too. You really didn’t know why you would end up being so harsh on him. It wasn’t even something to be that mad about, you guess the stress creeped up on you and you weren’t able to hold your frustration back.

So when you heard that front door close, you decided to go out of your study to talk about what happened. What you didn’t expect was Mark, carrying take out from your favourite sushi place while trying to lock the door with his free hand. When he turned around and saw you, he took his mask off and discarded it, “Oh, you’re done with your meeting already? I went to get dinner.”

Your guilt only increased, after venting your frustration out on him, he still went out to get your favourite food? “You went out to get me sushi?” you asked, while leaning on the counter as you just looked at him. 

“You seemed really stressed out these few days, so I just thought you would feel a little better after eating a good dinner. They only had pick-ups, so I had to go down to get it,” he explained while washing his hands at the basin, before setting up the dining table for the two of you. After he was done, he smiled proudly while waiting for you to sit down with him.

You take your seat in front of him at the dining table and admire the food he bought while waiting for him to finish his prayer. “Let’s dig in,” he said after he was done praying and gave you that cute little smile you’ve grown to love so much. You nodded as you started eating your dinner.

“Thank you for the food, my cravings are officially satisfied.” you said after the two of you finished dinner. He gave you a peck on the cheek before he cleared up the empty plastic boxes, his way of saying, “you’re welcome”. You still wanted to talk about what happened and of course to apologise too, for being so unreasonably harsh.

You two retired to your bedroom, your assignments long forgotten for today. He connected his phone to the bluetooth speakers you guys had in your room and played some songs from his playlist. You two were resting on the bed, when you decided to just clear up whatever happened today. Mark wasn’t the confrontational type, he would just quietly wait for the tension to go away. In most cases, he was never the one to start the arguments and he was slow to anger too.

So you could say you were always the more emotional one and would speak your mind when you feel like it. You didn’t want to just let this small matter go without talking and smoothing it out. “I’m sorry for taking my stress out on you, I didn’t mean to get so worked up about it.”

Mark turned to his side, his head leaning on the palm on his right hand, looking at you. “I’m sorry too, for interrupting your call. I could have chosen a better time to game… sorry.” He said as he reached out to hold your hand, his thumb caressing your knuckles.

“And I never want to argue with you. I only want you to be happy, you know that.” He continues, which explains why he rarely starts arguments. Even when you were the one in the wrong he would never fight back, instead, give you time before you’re ready to talk about things again. But he makes sure you never go to bed angry and would do little things to remind you how much he really loves and cares for you.

Instead of answering him with words, Intentions (acoustic ver.) was playing and knowing that he was practically addicted to this song, you pulled Mark out of bed to sway to the song with you. “What are you doing?” he asked as he chuckled, his arms moving to wrap around your waist, holding you close. You clasped your hands behind his neck and swayed to the music, “trying to be romantic,” you replied as you leaned your head on his shoulders. He continued to pull you closer if that was possible, and gave you a peck on the side of your head before singing along to the song and swaying to the melody with you in his arms.

It’s normal for couples to argue once in a while (though you won’t lie to yourself, usually you’re the one who starts all the arguments) but Mark is patient and kind. He never holds it against you and wants nothing but to love you again. Mark is the embodiment of love in your life and being held in his arms now, you felt like you couldn’t be happier than this.

Day 14

It was supposedly the last day of the 2 week quarantine and Mark was strumming away on his guitar, trying to learn the chords to ‘Stuck with U’. You’re lying down in bed, ordering lunch for the both of you. On today’s lunch menu, Chinese food! 

You remember one of your first real dates being at some Chinese restaurant near school and all you remember was laughing and having a good time with Mark. He even made you try sticky-rice tangsuyuk and from then on, whenever you two decide to eat chinese food, it would be the first thing you two would order. 

“What main dish are you getting Mark?” you asked well scrolling through the online menu. The strumming from beside you stopped and Mark tilted his head up with pursed lips, thinking hard over what to eat. “Today feels like a jjambbong day,” he replies after a short moment of silence and you hum as a reply. 

After ordering, you went on to read the news. You couldn’t help but worry about the pandemic situation everyday, something about the seriousness of it just makes you anxious. So for at least half an hour every day, you’re scrolling through news apps or watching the daily news on TV to keep yourself updated. 

You’re scrolling through the local news section when you come across the news about how the supposedly 2 week long quarantine that was supposed to end after today would have to be extended for another 2 weeks. You’re starting to tense up, thinking about how you had to continue lessons online (which you’ve grown to really despise) and your mind is close to going to overdrive from worrying about every little thing when you heard Mark starting to sing from beside you. 

“So lock the door and throw out the key

Can't fight this no more, it's just you and me

And there's nothin' I, nothin' I'd rather do

I'm stuck with you, stuck with you, stuck with you

So, go ahead and drive me insane

Baby, run your mouth, I still wouldn't change

All this lovin' you, hatin' you, wantin' you

I'm stuck with you, stuck with you, stuck with you” 

Suddenly, the worries that clouded your mind faded away and all you could think about was Mark. You leaned back against the headboard on your bed and relaxed your previously tensed shoulders. “So… we’re stuck indoors for another 2 weeks,” you huffed out, causing Mark to turn to face you while hugging his guitar. 

“Really?” He asked, his wide eyes staring at you. You nodded and put your phone down on your nightstand. You extended your arms out to Mark, silently asking to be cuddled. He puts his guitar back on it’s stand and tosses his phone on the bed. He flops himself on the soft mattress before wiggling his way over to you. You’re laughing at his child-like actions, while you embrace him with open arms as soon as he is close enough to you. “I guess it’s really just you and me for another two weeks then.” 

Towering over you, he leans his weight on his right elbow and uses his other hand to brush the hair out of your face. Mark looks at you like he's about to kiss you and he does. It was like time stopped when his lips met yours, his hand holding your face delicately as he deepened the kiss. Your hands moved to his shoulders then to the nape of his neck, tugging lightly at the ends of his hair. When he pulled away, you stared at him in a daze. He only smiles lovingly back at you, “I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

[amys-the-wise-1]

FOMO - or not to FOMO

Wise One speaking up, on accessibility, the inherent need to be First, and how CC can actually be of help

A Thread

TL;DR - Taking an extra 30 minutes of prep time will encourage many more people to tune in and grow the channel by turning on the CC tab or uploading your script to a Google Doc so we can read along or have something to hear.

OOC - Those who have been around long enough know that I am significantly hearing impaired. Without the bionics, my life is dim, auditory wise. (Add in a possible auditory processing issue and it's a double dose of problems hearing.)

So, for those in Chachin, I'm little d Deaf. This is why I rely on visual assistance, even if I do wear Cairhein constructed glasses. My glasses are an acceptable disability.

Yes, being anything other than 20/20 vision and needing corrective lenses is a disability. This is considered socially acceptable.

During this pandemic, it's been hell because I rely on lip-reading to assist me in understanding other people. Masks make it close to impossible for me to understand most people unless they A) enunciate and B) speak loudly. People who speak softly and low register bass voice are almost impossible for me to hear and constantly saying What? is rather rude (so I say, let me turn up my hearing aids so you don't have to yell for me to understand you)

My hearing loss is the upper and lower spectrums, and only have a small band in the middle.

Because of this, along with Content Creators keeping their voices moderate in volume for regular viewers/listeners, I can only hear with tools on my home browser AND with headphones on over my hearing aids. This means podcasts are mostly out.

I don't ask others to cater to my needs because when I have asked, it's been blown off or shrugged away. It's fine since I have no FOMO issues. I won't tune back in, simply as that. There's a ton of Fandom CC who I don't watch because they have their own niche they want - and a Wise One isn't it. Bloody wetlanders.

But the few that I do watch or listen to are because they either A) Turn on the auto-generated Closed Caption tab for their YT content or B) They speak loud enough that I don't have to blow my headphones out to hear them. (Those who have seen me comment or in live chat know. Y'all are terrific.)

If you can guess, that number is significantly limited on who I watch, subscribe to, and for two, financially contribute to. (Neither of these is in the fandom but other small time content creators.)

The kicker is this - my hearing loss didn't become noticeable until working in RL in an environment that was rife with noise pollution - which the company didn't bother to acknowledge, saying "No it doesn't" when they only checked during quiet times in the warehouse. This was less than 10 years ago. Hrmph. A near-constant 100dB noise level will damage even the best of hearing, long-term.

One accident can turn you from being able-bodied to... disabled. #FACT

So those content creators who are focused on being first with new information, hustling for new subscribers, getting eyes on their content that they don't bother to do anything beyond the bare minimum won't have me as a subscriber.

No skin off my teeth since I'm not the main demographic. But this is also why media, as a whole, becomes problematic - when the focus on being First over-rides being quality, being through, and being candid/honest/truthful/factual. Everyone wants to be first. So few care about being accurate, concise, and true.

FACT.

If your entire focus as a CC is that you have to be first, regardless of the rest, then that's on you, no one else. If you're like others that I do tune into who focus on all of the above, that will earn long-term subscribers who will help build the channel. First isn't always best. First usually loses the respect of the viewers when the other three aspects aren't adhered to.

So how can you work around this, where you adhere to the FACTS but also are inclusive with accessibility? Turning on the closed captioning tab for one. 60% accurate is better than zero for me. B) Signal boosting when there is closed captioning involved, so those of us who would like to watch, even if it's not live, can do so. C) if it's pre-recorded content, include a link to a Google Doc so we can at least read what you are reading off of for the viewers. (Thinking of one CC in particular who is reading their words on the screen while talking) D) Don't harass anyone who is trying their best to be inclusive, even if it's imperfect or falls short.

And to the gatekeepers who think they are "Protecting the Brand" you have? Hrmph. This sliver of ego is amusing.

Guess who is entrusted with that title? Harriet McDougal Rigney. It's only because of fair use and transformative works that you can even play in the sandbox and discuss it, much less anything beyond such.

[lemondzest]

Understanding Obesity (Part 2): Whose responsibility for obesity?

Now that we know obesity is a public health crisis requiring urgent action, we may wonder - what causes it? After all, effective solutions require tackling the root causes of the problem. This part therefore aims to shed light on five of the many contributing factors to obesity. 

1. Choices

Nothing much to elaborate here; choosing to eat more and moving less will result in weight gain. More calories in, less calories out - basic law of thermodynamics. Boring. However, many people are quick to go down the reductionist route by placing ALL the blame on the individual’s personal choices. If it’s just a matter of people needing to make the right choices, if it’s really that simple, we would have tackled obesity long ago. Blaming obesity solely on individual choices does not answer WHY we are increasingly eating more and moving less. Take a look at this timeline of adult obesity in the U.S below by the CDC, similarly reported in other countries across the globe. 

The rate of obesity has tripled worldwide since the late 1970s. If obesity is simply caused by a lack of personal responsibility, what happened in the late 1970s? Did everyone collectively lose their rationale - maybe everyone got together, decided to YOLO and go buffet in life? Definitely possible (cue the entrance of conspiracy theorists), but highly unlikely. Did some form of transcendent power strike the DNA of humans collectively that made us evolve into a bunch of lazier and much more ravenous creatures? Scientists have studied evolutionary changes during this period and concluded that nope, our gene pool has remained constant; any changes in the gene pool would take hundreds of years to produce an obvious effect across a global population anyway. This means that:

the global rise in obesity is not because of any significant genetic changes,

people did not willingly choose to eat more and move less, 

there are other external factors that mainly drives the obesity epidemic.

Consider a class of 10 pupils. When only one pupil gets very low grades in an exam and the other nine got full marks, the one pupil is considered mainly at fault. Perhaps they need to study more and work harder to get a good mark. But when six out of ten got very low grades, is it still the pupils’ fault? Would we then tell the children to study more, while everyone else (i.e the teacher, parents, education system) just remain in inertia, or goyang kaki? 

Similarly, when 63% of the people in Brunei are living with overweight and obesity -- is it still entirely their fault? 

2. Environment

(Please bear with me, I’m trying my best not to turn this section into a whole thesis).

The environment is one of the largest contributors of the rise in the obesity epidemic. This is based on rigorous academic evidence and decades of research. Essentially, the environment has generally promoted the increased consumption of unhealthier food through a rapid increase in its:

availability : since the 1970s, the food environment underwent a shift from predominantly fresh produce to a more ultra processed diet. Food are being processed to the point where they look nothing like what they originally look like, stuffing them with cheap ingredients such as sugar, salt, trans-fats and flavourings to enable mass production to be sold at cheap prices and for easy consumption. These products are called ultra processed food, and examples include soda, sausages, nuggets, sugary cereals, instant noodles, crisps, chocolates and so on.  Because of its poor nutritional profile, ultra processed food has confidently been associated with higher risks of obesity, heart disease, type 2 diabetes, cancer, depression, asthma, etc. And we, especially young people, are consuming more of this than ever. 

exposure : we're talking about the aggressive marketing strategies that has been employed especially by the fast food industry and beyond. I remember going back home from the airport after my 14-day COVID quarantine being bombarded by roughly 10 billboard ads, majority of which are advertising for fast food. As I went out and about for the next few months, I realised that we are exposed to food companies constantly fighting for our attention through their advertisements, whether in the form of billboard ads, physical outlets, leaflets, newspaper ads, TV ads, social media ads, social media influencers, event sponsorships, - the list just goes on! In fact, 46% of the annual advertising budget in the UK goes to soda, confectionery and snacks, while only 2.5% goes to fruits and vegetables. Imagine if it was the other way around.. One can only dream... The point is, we as humans are constantly being tempted with unhealthier food rather than healthier food, which in turn, drives up our purchase and consumption of unhealthier food products. I also particularly like this photo taken in the UK that just showcases the pedestal unhealthier food ads are being placed on, i.e. same level as public health ads. Oh, the irony! (Good news for Bruneians - a code of conduct on responsible food marketing has been implemented recently to shield our children from these ads! Just what we need, priority on children’s health > anything else.)

portion sizes : certain food such as pizza and soft drinks underwent a significant increase in portion sizes from the 1970s to 2000s. Just a few days ago I went to to a fast food outlet and noticed that, as usual, the default drink choice is soda, but the default size is now the large one as compared to the smaller one that I remember seeing 3 years ago before I left the country. I was also informed that some other outlets have been asking customers to upsize their drinks by default. Just how necessary is this? We may think this is not a problem because people supposedly eat according to their physiological needs and can simply stop when they’re full, and so they wouldn’t need to finish the whole portion. But research leading to the discovery of what is known as the portion size effect (PSE) has suggested otherwise; the more energy-dense food people are served, the more they tend to eat. 

The 21st century environment is also promoting physical inactivity and a sedentary lifestyle compared to the past centuries. Opportunities for physical activity especially in high-income countries have declined possibly due to the rapid urbanisation, rise in 9-5 jobs and more people relying on motorised transportation methods. Although research has shown that physical activity (PA) among adults done during free time have increased in the past ~30 years, a simultaneous decrease was found in physical activity done while working in the past ~50 years. Young people are also observed to be more physical inactive levels throughout the years, though locally... I like to think that our younger people are getting more physical-activity-conscious nowadays since applaudable efforts to widen opportunities for PA such as the launch of Bandarku Ceria and the opening of numerous hiking sites and gyms booming in 2019-2020. But this could just be my skewed perception looking at a small and specific demographic of the population - more formal research needs to be done.

So, we know that the environment is the main factor that drives up the obesity pandemic. But if we are all living in an environment which predisposes us to develop obesity, why don't we ALL have obesity? This tells us that there are other factors that makes an individual more likely to act on the environment's impulses - such as their socioeconomic status (income, education) and especially their genes.

3. Income

Research among developed countries such as the UK, Australia, Germany and Singapore has shown that people who are from lower income level are significantly associated with a higher risk of obesity. This graph below just shows how stark the inequality is between the most and least deprived areas of the UK. Note also how rapidly-widening the gap is over the years!

Why are poorer families in developed countries more likely to live with obesity? 

Food that are more nutritious are often less affordable than nutritious food. I particularly love this infographic showing how in order to meet the general recommendation of a healthy diet in the UK, the poorer families would have to spend 39% of their income on food alone, while this percentage steadily decreases as your income increases, to as low as 8% for the richer families. The same pattern is reflected in many other countries including the USA, Australia and

This inequality is not just seen within countries, but also across countries. One study across 18 countries identified that in order to meet the recommended guideline of 5 servings of fruits and vegetables per day, families in lower income countries would need to spend 52% of their income on them, those in middle income countries would need to spend 17% while those in higher income countries would need to spend a mere 2% of their income.

The price gap between healthier and unhealthier food can then affect people's purchasing behaviour, where families from lower income are forced to prioritise quantity of food over quality. For some of us, we are privileged enough to be able to choose food that are delicious, nutritious, and of different variety each time. But for some others, especially among families with poorer background battling food insecurity, they can only afford to eat in order to feel full and get through the day. Research has shown how poorer families always have to 1) balance out their choices of food with the utilisation of scarce resources, and 2) make judgment of food prices relative to other food prices. Combining this with the known fact discussed above that unhealthier food are FAR more aggressively marketed (almost 20 times more) than healthier food - we are left with a group of the population who are predisposed to choosing food that are mainly satiating, and less nutritious than the recommended guideline.

In fact, we know that even more factors than those discussed above can contribute to people from poorer families having an unhealthier diet. One of them is, on top of the price gap of groceries, we have the price gap of fast food. Parents who are busy and don't have much time to cook nutritious and homemade food often resort to fast food to sustain their family. Sure, we have a plethora of fast food options to choose from (and they just keep increasing - don't get me started). But what kind of fast food is both affordable and nutritious? Nasi katok costs $1 while a balanced meal costs $5 (minimum), and this disparity is seen all around the world.

Given all this, we still have the audacity to say that obesity is simply caused by a lack of willpower?

Gimme a break. It is clear that people who are not as financially privileged requires additional support in order to maintain a healthy weight. If not through finance, through education (further explained in Cause 4), or even better - both!

Side note: Despite the overwhelming evidence that having low income is associated with higher risk of obesity, there is also emerging evidence showing the possibility of the opposite (reverse causality); living with obesity is ALSO associated with having low income due to stigmatisation and discrimination. So basically... living with low income may cause people to live with obesity, and likewise living with obesity may cause people to live with low income. This syndemic is similar to the that of obesity and mental health issues discussed in Part 1.

4. Education

Health is not formally taught in most schools. Health starts at home. Because of this varying education level and awareness about health across the population, each family has very different approaches of ensuring how their family can grow up adopting healthy behaviours.

Generally, the likelihood of having obesity increases with decreasing level of education. This was observed in many countries including Taiwan, Saudi Arabia and Iran. The trend is similarly reported in OECD countries such as Australia, Canada, England and Korea as shown below.

This may be because more educated families tend to have healthier lifestyles and are more aware of what the causes and consequences are of obesity. If a family is lacking awareness and knowledge on certain aspects of health, such as in nutrition - eg: what the importance of consuming enough fibre is, what exactly constitutes a balanced diet, how to cook nutritious meals under time constraint etc - then their family will be less likely to adopt healthy (protective) behaviours.

Awareness on the causes and consequences of obesity indeed remain low within many communities. In one study, 76% of young people surveyed believe that "obesity has a genetic cause and that there is nothing much one can do to prevent obesity". Almost 30% of them also believe that even when substantial changes were made to one's lifestyle, obesity cannot be prevented. In the UK, around 3 in 4 people didn't know that obesity can cause cancer - the leading cause of death worldwide.

Not only are people unaware of the causes and consequences of obesity, many people even show a general lack of understanding of obesity itself. It was found that among 401 Malaysians surveyed, 92% of those with obesity underperceive their weight, thinking that their weight is at a normal range or lower than it actually is. This is particularly concerning, because any intervention efforts to reduce obesity rate within a community will just bounce back by the majority of the target group who think the messages are 'not for them because they don't have obesity' when they actually do.

All in all, if you come from an educated family background - good for you. If you have the opportunity to study more about health, or human/medical sciences - good for you. But what about those who do not have all these privileges?

Side note: There is also evidence showing how having lower education level is not just associated with higher level of obesity in a direct manner, but also indirectly where having a low education level may contribute to households having a lower income, and as discussed above in No.3 -> may result in a stacked effect on obesity. This is called the mediation effect and more explanation can be found here (pg 133).

5. Genetics

Over 200 genes influence our body shape and size. This include genes that affects how frequently we feel hungry, the rate that we burn calories, our metabolism rate, and many more! Some of these individual genes can increase our likelihood of becoming heavier while some other genes tend to make us lighter depending on whether it is 'switched on or off'. And this mix of 'on and offs' for EACH gene is always going to be different between individuals (polymorphism).

Because of our own 'mixed bag' of ~200 obesity-related genes interacting with each other, some people will find it much harder to resist that bar of Kinder Bueno sitting on the cashier till, while some others wouldn't even bat an eye. Some people naturally feels full after a bowl of rice, while some others would need three bowls. Some people can store a large amount of fats while some others can store only half of that amount before those fats (lipids) seep into other tissues instead such as muscles and potentially cause diseases (lipotoxicity).

Our genetic differences within the population explains why some people respond differently to the obesogenic environment we live in. It is not as simple as our genes determining whether we develop obesity or not. We simply can't be saying "Oh it's in my genes, got it from my parents~" to justify our lack of effort to address obesity. There's no single gene that makes people develop obesity. But rather, our mixed bag of genes determine our susceptibility to obesity. For people with many of those genes that makes it likely for them to gain weight easily 'switched on' -> they will be more susceptible to obesity because their own biology makes it much harder for them to fight back the temptations of the obesogenic environment.

Because this concept is so difficult to be understood by people who have always had a healthy weight all their life, privileged with not having the genes raising the likelihood of obesity 'switched on' -> they tend to blame obesity solely on the individual's personal choice. Because their own biology makes it easier for them to resist the temptations of the obesogenic environment.

As Joslin - an American doctor - described almost a century ago which pretty much summarises the role of genetics in obesity:

Genetics probably loads the gun, while lifestyle in our obesogenic environment pulls the trigger for the spreading of the obesity epidemic.

Does this mean that people who have genes that makes it more susceptible to develop obesity can simply blame their genes for their weight?

No! Not entirely. They can and should apply the same general concept of weight loss to counteract the risk of obesity, i.e. - eating balanced meals, doing plenty of physical activity (going back to the boring law of thermodynamics: more calories out than in = weight loss). However, it will be especially harder for these people to achieve it due to their obesity-encouraging genes. They have to put in more effort to lose 1kg than someone with less of the obesity-encouraging genes.

What this means for those with obesity: Your own genes and biology is one of the factors why your BMI is considered high at the moment and why it feels so difficult to lose weight. It is important for you to understand this, so that you don't beat yourself up too often! It is not entirely your fault. It will be hard, and in fact it will be harder than many people, but what matters is for you stay focused in putting in the work to get there!

What this means for those with healthy weight: It's about time for you to stop blaming everything on the individual's personal choice when you don't even know how difficult they have it and how much they have been trying to fight their own biology. Don't act like you know their struggles just to shame and stigmatise them because you don't and neither do I. Leave it to their close family and personal doctor to consult them.

What this means for policymakers: We have a duty in making sure that 1) the environment is as conducive as possible to live a healthy lifestyle to avoid 'triggering the gun', and 2) people are aware that genes play a big factor too (of around 40-70%) in determining someone's weight and its not just entirely down to the individual.

Side note: The genetic explanation above which acknowledges the role of hundreds of different genes in the development of obesity is applicable to the majority of people living with obesity (polygenic obesity). However, there are also the minority of people who develop obesity due to mutation in single genes (monogenic obesity / syndromic obesity) which warrants a separate and more technical explanation.

Bottom Line

To summarise the cause of obesity:

As mentioned in Cause 1, how we develop obesity is always down to the individual eating more and moving less. But as explained in Cause 2, 3, 4 & 5, the complex interaction between the environment, the individual's socioeconomic conditions, and their own biology explains why it is so difficult for some people to eat less and move more.

To summarise the cause of the obesity pandemic:

Personal choice explains why one individual may develop obesity, but the environment explains why more people across the whole world is developing obesity. Our socioeconomic conditions and especially our genetics then explains why not ALL people develop obesity as a response to the change in environment.

So what should I do with all these information?

That's entirely up to you and how much you understood! But the reason why I brought this topic up is because I'm personally sick and tired of hearing people living with obesity being blamed for their "poor choices in life", "lack of self-control", for "being gluttonous", "lazy", etc.

As I have hopefully explained, obesity is undoubtedly very complex and a result of so many factors. These five things I mentioned above? There's. So. Much. More.

Click here for a clearer view.

So the next time we blame it all on people with obesity - check your privileges. You're rich? You're naturally slim? You're educated? You don't have as much obesity-encouraging genes? Good for you. Perhaps that tends to make you feel entitled to say that people who are living with obesity just needs to make "better choices".

But understand that you have it easier in maintaining your healthy weight, while people with obesity most likely have it harder. The least you could do is really be sympathetic and understanding, acknowledge their struggles, and certainly avoid shaming and stigmatising them. Make it easier for them by providing healthier choices and support them physically and emotionally in their goals of achieving a healthy weight!

Aren't you just giving an excuse for people to live with obesity?

Disclaimer: My BMI sits quite well on the healthy range at 23 kg/m^2. I am nowhere close to having obesity, nor do I have any family members, partners or close friends living with obesity. I literally gain NOTHING to be making up an excuse for people to live with obesity. Quite on the contrary, I understand its dire consequences as I have outlined in Part 1, and I have even mentioned personal choice as one of the causes above. It's not about giving excuses, but simply an effort to give voice and justice to those who has been silenced.

I hope I have gotten my point across through this post and the previous one in my Obesity Series! Let's all be more-informed members of the society and support each other in achieving our health goals :)

*Note: For simplicity purposes, ‘unhealthier food’ in this post refers generally to food lower in nutritional profile, and food high in fat, sugar and salt (HFSS). In reality, we should understand that food does not exist in a binary manner.

Unlinked References:

Gene Eating by Giles Yeo (Book)

CMO Independent Report: Time to Solve Childhood Obesity by Professor Dame Sally Davies

[arcticdementor]

I love NYC. When I first moved to NYC it was a dream come true. Every corner was like a theater production happening right in front of me. So much personality, so many stories.

Every subculture I loved was in NYC. I could play chess all day and night. I could go to comedy clubs. I could start any type of business. I could meet people. I had family, friends, opportunities. No matter what happened to me, NYC was a net I could fall back on and bounce back up.

Now it's completely dead. "But NYC always always bounces back." No. Not this time. "But NYC is the center of the financial universe. Opportunities will flourish here again." Not this time.

"NYC has experienced worse". No it hasn't.

…

Three of the most important reasons to move to NYC:

- business opportunities

- culture

- food

…

Midtown Manhattan, the center of business in NYC, is empty. Even though people can go back to work, famous office buildings like the Time Life skyscraper is still 90% empty. Businesses realized that they don't need their employees at the office.

In fact, they realize they are even more productive without everyone back to the office. The Time Life building can handle 8,000 workers. Now it maybe has 500 workers back.

…

"What do you mean?" a friend of mine said to me when I told him 'Midtown should be called 'Ghost Town', "I'm in my office right now!"

"What are you doing there?"

"Packing up," he said and laughed, "I'm shutting it down." He works in the entertainment business.

Another friend of mine works at a major investment bank as a managing director. Before the pandemic he was at the office every day, sometimes working from 6am to 10pm.

Now he lives in Phoenix, Arizona. "As of June," he told me, "I had never even been to Phoenix." And then he moved there. He does all his meetings on Zoom.

I was talking to a book editor who has been out of the city since early March. "We've been all working fine. I'm not sure why we would need to go back to the office."

One friend of mine, Derek Halpern, was convinced he'd stay. He put up a Facebook post the other day saying he might be changing his mind.

…

People say, "NYC has been through worse" or "NYC has always come back."

No and no.

First, when has NYC been through worse?

Even in the 1970s, and through the 80s, when NYC was going bankrupt, and even when it was the crime capital of the US or close to it, it was still the capital of the business world (meaning: it was the primary place young people would go to build wealth and find opportunity), it was culturally on top of its game - home to artists, theater, media, advertising, publishing, and it was probably the food capital of the US.

…

In early March, many people (not me), left NYC when they felt it would provide safety from the virus and they no longer needed to go to work and all the restaurants were closed. People figured, "I'll get out for a month or two and then come back."

They are all still gone.

And then in June, during rioting and looting a second wave of NYC-ers (this time me) left. I have kids. Nothing was wrong with the protests but I was a little nervous when I saw videos of rioters after curfew trying to break into my building.

…

…

Summary: Businesses are remote and they aren't returning to the office. And it's a death spiral: the longer offices remain empty, the longer they will remain empty.

In 2005, a hedge fund manager was visiting my office and said, "In Manhattan you practically trip over opportunities in the street."

Now the streets are empty.

…

I co-own a comedy club, Standup NY, on 78th and Broadway. I'm very very proud of the club and grateful to my fellow owners Dani Zoldan and Gabe Waldman and our manager Jon Boreamayo. It's a great club. It's been around since 1986 and before that it was a theater.

One time, Henry Winkler stopped by to come on my podcast. He was the one who told me it had been a theater.

He said, "I grew up two doors down from here and used to perform in here as a kid. Then I went out to LA to be the Fonz and now I'm back here, full circle, to be on your podcast. This place has history." Things like that happen in NYC.

…

I love the club. Before the pandemic I would perform there throughout the week in addition to many other clubs around the city and in the past few months, clubs in: Chicago, Denver, San Jose, LA, Cincinnati, all over the Netherlands, and other places.

I miss it.

…

That said, we have no idea when we will open. Nobody has any idea. And the longer we close, the less chance we will ever reopen profitably.

Broadway is closed until at least the Spring. Lincoln Center is closed. All the museums are closed.

Forget about the tens of thousands of jobs lost in these cultural centers. Forget even about the millions of dollars of tourist and tourist-generated revenues lost by the closing of these centers.

There are thousands of performers, producers, artists, and the entire ecosystem of art, theater, production, curation, that surrounds these cultural centers. People who have worked all of their lives for the right to be able to perform even once on Broadway whose lives and careers have been put on hold.

I get it. There was a pandemic.

But the question now is: what happens next? And, given the uncertainty (since there is no known answer), and given the fact that people, cities, economies, loathe uncertainty, we simply don't know the answer and that's a bad thing for New York City.

…

My favorite restaurant is closed for good. Ok, let's go to my second favorite. Closed for good. Third favorite, closed for good.

I thought the PPP was supposed to help. No? What about emergency relief? No. Stimulus checks? Unemployment? No and no. Ok, my fourth favorite, or what about that place I always ordered delivery from? No and no.

Around Late May I took walks and saw that many places were boarded up. Ok, I thought, because the protesting was leading to looting and the restaurants were protecting themselves. They'll be ok.

Looking closer I'd see the signs. For Lease. For Rent. For whatever.

Before the pandemic, the average restaurant had only 16 days of cash on hand. Some had more (McDonalds), and some had less (the local mom-and-pop Greek diner).

Yelp estimates that 60% of restaurants around the United States have closed.

My guess is more than 60% will be closed in New York City but who knows.

Someone said to me, "Well, people will want to come in now and start their own restaurants! There is less competition."

I don't think you understand how restaurants work.

…

If the restaurants are no longer clustered, fewer people go out to eat (they are on the fence about where so they elect to stay home). Restaurants breed more restaurants.

And again, what happens to all the employees who work at these restaurants? They are gone. They left New York City. Where did they go? I know a lot of people who went to Maine, Vermont, Tennessee, upstate, Indiana, etc - back to live with their parents or live with friends or live cheaper. They are gone and gone for good.

And what person wakes up today and says, "I can't wait to set up a pizza place in the location where 100,000 other pizza places just closed down." People are going to wait awhile and see. They want to make sure the virus is gone, or there's a vaccine, or there's a profitable business model.

Or...even worse.

…

If building owners and landlords lose their prime tenants (the store fronts on the bottom floor, the offices on the middle floors, the well-to-do on the top floors, etc) then they go out of business.

And what happens when they go out of business?

Nothing actually. And that's the bad news.

People who would have rented or bought say, "Hmmm, everyone is saying NYC is heading back to the 1970s, so even though prices might be 50% lower than they were a year ago, I think I will wait a bit more. Better safe than sorry!"

And then with everyone waiting... prices go down. So people see prices go down and they say, "Good thing I waited. But what happens if I wait even more!" And they wait and then prices go down more.

This is called a deflationary spiral. People wait. Prices go down. Nobody really wins. Because the landlords or owners go broke. Less money gets spent on the city. Nobody moves in so there is no motion in the markets. And people already owning in the area and can afford to hang on, have to wait longer for a return of restaurants, services, etc that they were used to.

Well, will prices go down low enough everyone buys?

Answer: Maybe. Maybe not. Some people can afford to hang on but not afford to sell. So they wait. Other people will go bankrupt and there will be litigation, which creates other problems for real estate in the area. And the big borrowers and lenders may need a bailout of some sort or face mass bankruptcy. Who knows what will happen?

…

I lived three blocks from Ground Zero on 9/11. Downtown, where I lived, was destroyed, but it came roaring back within two years. Such sadness and hardship and then quickly that area became the most attractive area in New York.

And in 2008/2009, much suffering during the Great Recession, again much hardship, but things came roaring back.

But...this time it's different. You're never supposed to say that but this time it's true. If you believe this time is no different, that NYC is resilient, etc I hope you're right.

I don't benefit from saying any of this. I love NYC. I was born there. I've lived there forever. I STILL live there. I love everything about NYC. I want 2019 back.

But this time it's different.

One reason: bandwidth.

In 2008, average bandwidth speeds were 3 megabits per second. That's not enough for a Zoom meeting with reliable video quality. Now, it's over 20 megabits per second. That's more than enough for high quality video.

There's a before and after. BEFORE: no remote work. AFTER: everyone can remote work.

…

Everyone has spent the past five months adapting to a new lifestyle. Nobody wants to fly across the country for a two hour meeting when you can do it just as well on Zoom. I can go see "live comedy" on Zoom. I can take classes from the best teachers in the world for almost free online as opposed to paying $70,000 a year for a limited number of teachers who may or may not be good.

Everyone has choices now. You can live in the music capital of Nashville, you can live in the "next Silicon Valley" of Austin. You can live in your hometown in the middle of wherever. And you can be just as productive, make the same salary, have higher quality of life with a cheaper cost to live.

…

Wait for events and conferences and even meetings and maybe even office spaces to start happening in virtual realities once everyone is spread out from midtown Manhattan to all over the country.

The quality of restaurants will start to go up in all the second and then third tier cities as talent and skill flow to the places that can quickly make use of them.

Ditto for cultural events.

And then people will ask, "wait a second - I was paying over 16% in state and city taxes and these other states and cities have little to no taxes? And I don't have to deal with all the other headaches of NYC?"

Because there are headaches in NYC. Lots of them. It's just we sweep them under the table because so much else has been good there.

NYC has a $9 billion deficit. A billion more than the Mayor thought they were going to have. How does a city pay back its debts? The main way is aid from the state. But the state deficit just went bonkers. Then is taxes. But if 900,000 estimated jobs are lost in NYC and tens of thousands of businesses, then that means less taxes unless taxes are raised.

…

What reason will people have to go back to NYC? 

[lastsonlost]

BECAUSE THE CORONAVIRUS IS JUST HURTING FEMINIST AND ONLY FEMINISTS AND ABSOLUTELY NO ONE ELSE...

..........

Enough already. When people try to be cheerful about social distancing and working from home, noting that William Shakespeare and Isaac Newton did some of their best work while England was ravaged by the plague, there is an obvious response: Neither of them had child-care responsibilities.

Shakespeare spent most of his career in London, where the theaters were, while his family lived in Stratford-upon-Avon. During the plague of 1606, the playwright was lucky to be spared from the epidemic—his landlady died at the height of the outbreak—and his wife and two adult daughters stayed safely in the Warwickshire countryside. Newton, meanwhile, never married or had children. He saw out the Great Plague of 1665–6 on his family’s estate in the east of England, and spent most of his adult life as a fellow at Cambridge University, where his meals and housekeeping were provided by the college.

For those with caring responsibilities, an infectious-disease outbreak is unlikely to give them time to write King Lear or develop a theory of optics. A pandemic magnifies all existing inequalities (even as politicians insist this is not the time to talk about anything other than the immediate crisis). Working from home in a white-collar job is easier; employees with salaries and benefits will be better protected; self-isolation is less taxing in a spacious house than a cramped apartment. But one of the most striking effects of the coronavirus will be to send many couples back to the 1950s.

Across the world, women’s independence will be a silent victim of the pandemic.

Purely as a physical illness, the coronavirus appears to affect women less severely. But in the past few days, the conversation about the pandemic has broadened: We are not just living through a public-health crisis, but an economic one. As much of normal life is suspended for three months or more, job losses are inevitable. At the same time, school closures and household isolation are moving the work of caring for children from the paid economy—nurseries, schools, babysitters—to the unpaid one. The coronavirus smashes up the bargain that so many dual-earner couples have made in the developed world: We can both work, because someone else is looking after our children. Instead, couples will have to decide which one of them takes the hit.

Many stories of arrogance are related to this pandemic. Among the most exasperating is the West’s failure to learn from history: the Ebola crisis in three African countries in 2014; Zika in 2015–6; and recent outbreaks of SARS, swine flu, and bird flu. Academics who studied these episodes found that they had deep, long-lasting effects on gender equality. “Everybody’s income was affected by the Ebola outbreak in West Africa,” Julia Smith, a health-policy researcher at Simon Fraser University, told The New York Times this month, but “men’s income returned to what they had made pre-outbreak faster than women’s income.” The distorting effects of an epidemic can last for years, Clare Wenham, an assistant professor of global-health policy at the London School of Economics, told me. “We also saw declining rates of childhood vaccination [during Ebola].” Later, when these children contracted preventable diseases, their mothers had to take time off work.

At an individual level, the choices of many couples over the next few months will make perfect economic sense. What do pandemic patients need? Looking after. What do self-isolating older people need? Looking after. What do children kept home from school need? Looking after. All this looking after—this unpaid caring labor—will fall more heavily on women, because of the existing structure of the workforce. “It’s not just about social norms of women performing care roles; it’s also about practicalities,” Wenham added. “Who is paid less? Who has the flexibility?”

According to the British government’s figures, 40 percent of employed women work part-time, compared with only 13 percent of men. In heterosexual relationships, women are more likely to be the lower earners, meaning their jobs are considered a lower priority when disruptions come along. And this particular disruption could last months, rather than weeks. Some women’s lifetime earnings will never recover. With the schools closed, many fathers will undoubtedly step up, but that won’t be universal.

Despite the mass entry of women into the workforce during the 20th century, the phenomenon of the “second shift” still exists. Across the world, women—including those with jobs—do more housework and have less leisure time than their male partners. Even memes about panic-buying acknowledge that household tasks such as food shopping are primarily shouldered by women. “I’m not afraid of COVID-19 but what is scary, is the lack of common sense people have,” reads one of the most popular tweets about the coronavirus crisis. “I’m scared for people who actually need to go to the store & feed their fams but Susan and Karen stocked up for 30 years.” The joke only works because “Susan” and “Karen”—stand-in names for suburban moms—are understood to be responsible for household management, rather than, say, Mike and Steve.

Look around and you can see couples already making tough decisions on how to divide up this extra unpaid labor. When I called Wenham, she was self-isolating with two small children; she and her husband were alternating between two-hour shifts of child care and paid work. That is one solution; for others, the division will run along older lines. Dual-income couples might suddenly find themselves living like their grandparents, one homemaker and one breadwinner. “My spouse is a physician in the emergency dept, and is actively treating #coronavirus patients. We just made the difficult decision for him to isolate & move into our garage apartment for the foreseeable future as he continues to treat patients,” wrote the Emory University epidemiologist Rachel Patzer, who has a three-week-old baby and two young children. “As I attempt to home school my kids (alone) with a new baby who screams if she isn’t held, I am worried about the health of my spouse and my family.”

Single parents face even harder decisions: While schools are closed, how do they juggle earning and caring? No one should be nostalgic for the “1950s ideal” of Dad returning to a freshly baked dinner and freshly washed children, when so many families were excluded from it, even then. And in Britain today, a quarter of families are headed by a single parent, more than 90 percent of whom are women. Closed schools make their life even harder.

Other lessons from the Ebola epidemic were just as stark—and similar, if perhaps smaller, effects will be seen during this crisis in the developed world. School closures affected girls’ life chances, because many dropped out of education. (A rise in teenage-pregnancy rates exacerbated this trend.) Domestic and sexual violence rose. And more women died in childbirth because resources were diverted elsewhere. “There’s a distortion of health systems, everything goes towards the outbreak,” said Wenham, who traveled to west Africa as a researcher during the Ebola crisis. “Things that aren’t priorities get canceled. That can have an effect on maternal mortality, or access to contraception.” The United States already has appalling statistics in this area compared with other rich countries, and black women there are twice as likely to die in childbirth as white women.

For Wenham, the most striking statistic from Sierra Leone, one of the countries worst affected by Ebola, was that from 2013 to 2016, during the outbreak, more women died of obstetric complications than the infectious disease itself. But these deaths, like the unnoticed caring labor on which the modern economy runs, attract less attention than the immediate problems generated by an epidemic. These deaths are taken for granted. In her book Invisible Women, Caroline Criado Perez notes that 29 million papers were published in more than 15,000 peer-reviewed titles around the time of the Zika and Ebola epidemics, but less than 1 percent explored the gendered impact of the outbreaks. Wenham has found no gender analysis of the coronavirus outbreak so far; she and two co-authors have stepped into the gap to research the issue.

The evidence we do have from the Ebola and Zika outbreaks should inform the current response. In both rich and poor countries, campaigners expect domestic-violence rates to rise during lockdown periods. Stress, alcohol consumption, and financial difficulties are all considered triggers for violence in the home, and the quarantine measures being imposed around the world will increase all three. The British charity Women’s Aid said in a statement that it was “concerned that social distancing and self-isolation will be used as a tool of coercive and controlling behaviour by perpetrators, and will shut down routes to safety and support.”

Researchers, including those I spoke with, are frustrated that findings like this have not made it through to policy makers, who still adopt a gender-neutral approach to pandemics. They also worry that opportunities to collect high-quality data which will be useful for the future are being missed. For example, we have little information on how viruses similar to the coronavirus affect pregnant women—hence the conflicting advice during the current crisis—or, according to Susannah Hares, a senior policy fellow at the Center for Global Development, sufficient data to build a model for when schools should reopen.

We shouldn’t make that mistake again. Grim as it is to imagine now, further epidemics are inevitable, and the temptation to argue that gender is a side issue, a distraction from the real crisis, must be resisted. What we do now will affect the lives of millions of women and girls in future outbreaks.

The coronavirus crisis will be global and long-lasting, economic as well as medical. However, it also offers an opportunity. This could be the first outbreak where gender and sex differences are recorded, and taken into account by researchers and policy makers. For too long, politicians have assumed that child care and elderly care can be “soaked up” by private citizens—mostly women—effectively providing a huge subsidy to the paid economy. This pandemic should remind us of the true scale of that distortion.

Wenham supports emergency child-care provision, economic security for small-business owners, and a financial stimulus paid directly to families. But she isn’t hopeful, because her experience suggests that governments are too short-termist and reactive. “Everything that's happened has been predicted, right?” she told me. “As a collective academic group, we knew there would be an outbreak that came out of China, that shows you how globalization spreads disease, that’s going to paralyze financial systems, and there was no pot of money ready to go, no governance plan … We knew all this, and they didn't listen. So why would they listen to something about women?”

Remember this article the next time a politician brings up the draft again...

because I remember the last reaction.

[laurawritesandgames]

A Day Late, Sorry!

Title: Reefer Madness

Fandom: Beetlejuice (Musical)

Rating: PG-13

Pairing: Beetlejuice/Adam/Barbara, mention of Charles/Delia

Prompt: Parenting

Content Warning: Set during coronavirus pandemic, underage drug use

Summary: When Lydia is caught smoking pot, the Maitland-Deetz household has to come up with a punishment. But how do you discipline a teen during a pandemic? And will Beetlejuice even let the parents (and ghostly parental figures) punish his BFF? 

The door to the Maitland-Deetz home opened. Lydia came in, wearing her mask and gloves, with Beetlejuice hovering beside her.

Barbara stopped mixing cookie dough to say hello. “How did it go?” The Maitland-Deetz adults had agonized about letting Lydia go to a class picnic organized by Claire Brewster’s mother during a pandemic.

Claire’s mother had tried to make the picnic as safe as possible. She and a few other parents were chaperones, everyone was required to test negative for coronavirus before showing up, the picnic was outdoors, everyone was expected to wear a mask and socially distance, and Winter River High’s Grade 10 class was only 20 kids. Charles had gone with Lydia to a few Black Lives Matter protests, and those had had many more people than this picnic.

Lydia had been so bored of quarantine that she’d actually wanted to engage with her classmates, which had been the deciding factor.

“It went well.” Lydia threw her disposable mask and gloves into the trash bin by the door. “It was nice to see everyone.”

Beetlejuice’s smell of rotting flesh was worse than usual. Barbara winced, waving her hand in front of her face. “Can you turn it down, please?”

“Turn what down?” Beetlejuice said too innocently.

“Anyway,” Lydia said, walking up the stairs, “my introvert battery is drained. I need to recharge.”

Beetlejuice followed her. “And I need the hot goss!”

Barbara let the two friends have their time together, though she was a little disappointed she hadn’t gotten more out of Lydia. That’s teenagers, I guess. I’ll try again later.

As Lydia washed her hands, Delia’s voice sounded in the hallway upstairs. Lydia responded back. Barbara returned to the kitchen, and had just picked up the mixing bowl when Delia’s shocked “Lydia Lilith Deetz!” rang through the house.

Barbara teleported up to the second floor of the house to see Delia and Lydia glaring at each other in the hallway with Beetlejuice floating beside Lydia. Adam teleported up a moment later.

“Young lady,” Delia said, “I can’t believe you. Smoking weed? Really? I thought you were smarter than that.”

Weed? Barbara sniffed the air, but couldn’t smell anything beyond Beetlejuice’s stink.

“It’s faint, but it’s there,” Delia insisted. She patted her faintly bulging stomach. “I have smell sensitivity, thanks to the child. And I have certainly smelled enough weed in my day!”

Lydia opened her mouth, closed it, then shrugged. “So what? Weed’s legal in tons of countries except for most of this fascist dictatorship.”

“What?” Barbara blurted out as Adam gasped.

“Where pot is legal, it’s legal for adults over 25,” Delia said. “You’re 16! Your mind is still developing.”

“Because you never, ever did pot when you were my age, Delia.”

“And it’s hardly something I’m proud of! Years from now, do you want to be looking for your underwear after a night with a drummer from a Duran Duran cover band? This is how it starts!”

Lydia snorted while Beetlejuice said, “I mean, if the drummer’s hot, yeah, sign me up.” He paused. “Who am I kidding? The drummer doesn’t even need to be that hot.”

Adam frowned at Beetlejuice. “And you’re covering for Lydia. When did you find out about this?”

Beetlejuice glanced at Lydia, who shrugged and gestured him forward. “Lyds flagged me down when she got near the house.”

“And you helped her cover this up without a second thought.”

“’Course I did! Oh nooooo, a teen did some weed. Who cares?”

“You’re the adult in this situation—”

Beetlejuice floated backward, gasping and clutching his chest. “You take that back, sir! I am not!” He paused. “Well, not an adult like you mean it.” Anxious, he bobbed in front of Lydia. “I’m a cool adult. Right, kid?”

“Totally.” There was a faint sarcastic edge to her voice, but he didn’t appear to catch it.

“You all heard her say it!” Beetlejuice said proudly.

A terrible thought occurred to Barbara. “You didn’t share the joint, did you?”

Lydia looked hurt. “I’m not risking coronavirus to get high!” Reluctantly, she added, “We each had our own joint.”

“And who brought them?” Adam asked.

“A goat-footed man offered them to us for the price of signing our name in his book. He said he would visit us again on the dark of the moon to complete his dark pact.” She smirked. “I’m sure it’s nothing.”

“Lydia….” Delia said.

“Or maybe we found them on the ground and smoked them like the reckless teens that we are. I can’t remember.”

“Where is this attitude coming from?” Barbara asked. “This isn’t like you.”

Lydia glared at her, so angry that Barbara almost took a step back. “’Not like me’? We met four months ago! You don’t even know me. At least this one,” she jabbed a finger at Delia, “was supposed to be my life coach, so Daddy filled her in on the basics. Not that she ever bothered to get to know me, either.”

Beetlejuice laughed. “Aw, man, she burned you guys so good.”

“We’re going to talk with your father,” Delia said, “and come up with your punishment.”

Barbara was touched that she’d included Barbara and Adam.

Lydia laughed coldly. “Good luck getting Daddy to punish his little girl.” She strode confidently over to her room and closed the door.

“I’m gonna grab Lyds some chips,” Beetlejuice said. “She’s probably got the munchies!”

“You know,” Barbara said, “you could stay and—”

“Deuces, nerds!” He teleported away. A few moments later, his voice sounded in Lydia’s room along with the crinkling of a plastic bag.

Disappointing but not surprising. When Beetlejuice returned from the Netherworld, he’d made it clear he wasn’t interested in parenting Lydia or any Deetz children that came along.

As they walked downstairs to Charles’s office, Delia said, “My parents never punished me for anything in my life. They let me drink and smoke as long as I was in the basement, where they could keep an eye on me.”

“I went to some parties and stayed out past curfew in Grade 12,” Barbara said. “Mom and Dad grounded me. This one,” she nodded to Adam, “never saw a punishment in his life.”

“That’s not true, honey,” Adam said. “One time, I was doing math homework and I looked up my answers in the back of the textbook. I confessed an hour later and got extra chores for the rest of the week.” He looked thoughtful. “Grounding Lydia seems pretty redundant. Unless someone else holds another picnic, it probably won’t come up. The living are all stuck inside anyway.”

Delia sighed. “I know! And we can’t take away her phone. It’s her lifeline to the outside world! I don’t want to affect her mental health.” She bit her lower lip and stopped walking. “Perhaps we should let this go. She’s still healing from losing Emily. And no way am I going to be the evil stepmother! If Charles punishes her, she’ll probably blame me!” She glanced anxiously between Adam and Barbara.

“We won’t let her do that,” Barbara said. “We’ll be a united front.”

“Using marijuana recreationally is illegal,” Adam said. “I know not all of us agree with that law,” he nodded to Delia, “but it is the law, and she deliberately broke it. She could’ve been arrested! It’s our duty to show her there are consequences for her actions.”

“As soon as we figure out what those consequences are,” Barbara said. “You know, I read a parenting blog that said parents could ask their older teens to suggest their own punishments. Maybe she’ll come up with a good one.”

Delia rubbed her temples. The pregnancy was taking a lot out of her; she was tired and achey most of the time. “Well...let’s go see what Charles thinks.”

She knocked on the door to his office. After a few moments, Charles opened it. Seeing the looks on their faces, he frowned. “What did the demon do this time?”

“Surprisingly,” Barbara said, “he’s not the problem. It’s Lydia.”

*

Charles took charge immediately. After explaining his plan and getting everyone’s agreement, he asked to see Lydia in the living room.

Lydia came downstairs and Beetlejuice phased through the floor to hover by her side. While Beetlejuice slouched and scowled at everyone, Lydia looked totally confident. She didn’t blush or frown as she faced her entire family.

When Barbara had come home from Miranda’s party, she’d frozen and stammered when she’d seen her father in the living room. I wonder what Dad felt when I stayed out past curfew? Did he expect something like this? Was he grateful I wasn’t coming home drunk? I wish I’d asked him. She’d never know, now. It stung, but she had more important things to focus on.

Like whatever chaos Beetlejuice had in mind. He wasn’t going to take his best friend getting punished without a fight.

“Lydia,” Charles said, “Delia, Adam and Barbara told me what happened at the picnic. You smoked marijuana, breaking both a law and a house rule. I want to see a 5,000-word essay on my desk by the end of the week about the effects of marijuana on a young person’s development. This essay must be the same quality as one you’d do for school. Use the Chicago Manual of Style for reference and citations.”

Lydia chuckled. “You can’t be serious.”

“We’ll just plagiarize it anyway!” Beetlejuice said.

“I can Google an essay just as well as you can,” Charles said, unperturbed. “I’ll be sure to check that your work is your own.”

Her eyes narrowed. “It was just one joint, Daddy. It’s not a big deal. I’m not going to become the school drug dealer or anything—if we’re even going back to school in the fall.”

“Delia, the Maitlands and I disagree. We think it is a big deal. And since you live in our house, you have to follow our rules.”

Beetlejuice turned to Lydia. “Kid, I can get us out of this house anytime you want with a snap of my fingers.”

“And go where, Beej?” Lydia crossed her arms over her stomach. “I know you’re trying, but c’mon. It’s a global pandemic.”

Beetlejuice’s spiky hair deflated a little bit. “Oh, right.”

Charles took a step toward his daughter. More gently, he said, “Lydia, I’m not insensible that you’re facing more stress than anything I ever felt at your age. First, Emily died, then the pandemic happened, and now quarantine…. Not to mention the changes that have happened to our family.” Lydia’s gaze flicked to Delia’s stomach. “If you want to talk about what led you to make this decision, we’d all welcome that.”

Beetlejuice scoffed. “Why she did it? To be a badass!” He held out his fist for a fistbump. Lydia didn’t reciprocate, but watched her father thoughtfully instead. Good. Barbara began to relax. That means she’s listening.

“If you don’t want to talk to us,” Adam said, “we can increase your therapy sessions to two times a week.”

“I’m sick of journaling and breathing exercises!” Lydia snapped. “Nothing works! Even that stupid joint didn’t! I’ve been stuck inside for months because of a pandemic our country’s leaders are too chickenshit to deal with. I’m a privileged beneficiary of a racist, capitalist system that’s destroying the world. And I’ve literally seen what’s on the other side. Nothing gets better. This life is all we get, and it’s shit.”

She stepped closer to her father, her eyes never leaving his face. “And now, I have to do a stupid essay because I did something I thought would make it all bearable for one fucking minute!”

Her family had to do more for her. Lydia had taken antidepressants for months on the advice of her doctor—perhaps she needed her dose readjusted. If this therapist wasn’t helping, they’d find another. Adam and I could make an activity schedule to give her day some more structure, so it’s not just scrolling through social media. And Beetlejuice can probably think of lots of fun things to do—well, fun and slightly terrifying things, but Lydia loves that kind of stuff.

Charles reached out for a hug, but Lydia stepped back, hands out to push him away if he tried.

“Oh, Lydia, sweetheart, I know things are tough right now—” Barbara began.

“Mom wouldn’t do this to me!”

Charles recoiled slightly, his arms dropping.

Even Lydia seemed surprised that she’d said that, but she quickly added, “Mom wouldn’t have punished me for one joint. She would’ve understood me. She would’ve cared. And you know it.”

Charles raised his eyebrows. “Lydia, you’ve built Emily up in your mind as this creative, anarchic madwoman, and she certainly was. But do you seriously think she would be unconcerned if you started doing drugs? We had countless conversations about how to parent you, particularly in those final months when we knew…we knew she wouldn’t be around. This is the punishment we worked out together.”

“You’re lying.”

“I’m not. This is literally what she would have wanted me to do.”

Lydia stared at her father. Her chin began quivering as tears welled up in her eyes. Barbara almost teleported to her, but stopped. Is it my place? I’m just the ghost parent, not her real one….

At some point, Beetlejuice had floated over to her and Adam. He was watching Lydia and Charles intently, as if looking for something.

Lydia sniffled, swallowed, then said, “Fine, I’ll do your dumbass essay.”

“What? C’mon, kid!” Beetlejuice gestured to Charles. “Don’t give in to The Man!”

Lydia gave him a small smile. “Not everyone has the energy of an undead demon, Beej.” She tossed her hair. “Besides, Dad, all the research that’s out there says pot should be legalized for recreational use, anyway.”

“Not for 16-year-olds.”

“We’ll see.” She turned around and went upstairs.

“Bet you loved that, fascists,” Beetlejuice said to the parents and parental figures. But Beetlejuice usually got over things quickly as long as they didn’t directly involve him, so it wasn’t surprising when he slung his arms over Barbara and Adam’s shoulders and smirked. “Babs, Sexy, if you wanna make out to forget your guilt that you made Lydia hate you, you where know I be.”

Lydia stopped halfway up the stairs. “‘Hate you’? God, BJ, you’re so dramatic. I don’t hate them. They’re completely overreacting, but they’re just being parents. It’s their job.”

That threw him—he blinked at her a few moments, then shrugged. “So it wasn’t my best pickup line. Instead of criticizing my game, go…I dunno, cry about your dead mom some more.”

“Beetlejuice!”

At least Lydia didn’t appear hurt. She rolled her eyes and raised her middle finger at Beetlejuice before going upstairs.

Charles huffed. “I think the next thing we’re going to work on is crude language and gestures. I’ve been quite lax about that and someone—” he eyed Beetlejuice “—has been a bad influence.”

“We should also not joke about people’s traumas, Bug,” Adam said.

Beetlejuice grunted. To Barbara’s surprise, he didn’t say ‘She started it!’ He was legitimately thinking about something.

Delia sat down on the living room couch, sighing in exhaustion. “Well! We got through it. Huzzah, everyone!” She glanced at Beetlejuice. “Except you,” she said coolly.

“Things got pretty tense there,” Adam said. “It’s lucky I don’t have a body, or I might have had a small panic attack.”

“Most of the thanks goes to Charles,” Barbara said.

“I was happy to take the lead on this one. I have the most experience, after all. Unfortunately, this is hardly the first time I’ve had to discipline her. She’s not always the most attentive to her studies.”

“Really?” Adam asked. “But she’s so intelligent.”

“Which means she doesn’t always feel challenged, so she puts off her homework and assumes she can complete it the evening before it’s due.”

“Wow, I had no idea.” Barbara had pictured Lydia as a young woman much like Adam, eager to learn and devoted to school. Lydia is right. We don’t know each other that well.

“Do you think we should talk to her psychiatrist again?” Barbara asked.

Charles nodded. “I was thinking that, as well.”

Beetlejuice poofed away in the puff of smoke as the parenting talk continued. Remembering his unusual thoughtfulness, Barbara resolved to speak to him later.

*

Beetlejuice appeared as if summoned when, an hour later, Barbara pulled her chocolate chip cookies out of the oven.

“Ooo! They’re all goopy!” Beetlejuice snagged one, and didn’t seem to mind that it was hot.

“We got some news on where the weed came from,” Barbara said as he ate. “Claire’s mom called Charles during our meeting. Near the end of the picnic, five of the kids said they wanted to check out the empty school. Lydia was one of them. They disappeared from view for around 10 minutes. The chaperones figured they just wanted to get out of cleaning duty, and nobody thought much of it because the party was wrapping up. Claire’s mom apologized over and over again. I don’t think she’s going to be hosting any more class picnics. Poor woman. We still don’t know who brought the drugs, though.

“Er, I hate to ask, but…it wasn’t you, right?” Beetlejuice was quite casual about drug use, and Lydia could talk him into anything.

Beetlejuice didn’t mind being suspected of providing drugs to children. Maybe to a demon, that was a mark of pride? “I was watching Farscape with Adam during the picnic. I only teleported away when I heard Lyds say my name.” He could always hear the living say it, for some reason.

“The person watching Farscape could’ve been a clone, though.”

“Ooo, now you’re thinking like a demon, babe! But for real—no way would I bring joints for some teens and not for myself. Am I really that generous?”

“You’re right. Sorry, I just had to make sure.”

He winked at her. “I wouldn’t trust me either, baby.” He bit into his third cookie.

“You seemed caught off guard earlier when Lydia said she didn’t hate us. What was that about?”

He shrugged. “Just trying to make myself fart to break the tension.”

“Well, I know that’s a fib. You’re always able to fart.”

He stopped chewing, thought for a moment, swallowed, then said, “Eh…guess I’m just not used to kids and parents not hating each other.”

She touched his free hand. When he didn’t pull away, she wrapped her fingers around it. “That’s awful.”

“That’s life. And the afterlife, I guess, since Ma was there too.” He frowned. The hand she was holding twitched, like he wanted to start fiddling with something like he always did when he was upset or anxious. “Whatever. I killed her with a sandworm, the scene ended on my hilarious joke, and the audience got a happy ending. It all worked out.”

“If you want to talk some more about your mother, Bug—”

“Why, so I can cry about my dead mom, like Lyds? Sing a song about it? Not my brand, babes. I don’t even think about Mom.” He focused very intently on the cookies on the baking tray as he said, “I think about you and Sexy and Lyds, sometimes Chuck and Delia. You’re the people I care about, not that bi—sorry, sorry, that was gonna be a gendered slur, but I caught myself.”

“I’m proud of you.” Barbara leaned over and kissed his cheek.

He grinned. “You know, I don’t think I hear that enough from you guys. I could kill so many people, and I never do. A little more ‘good job, Beetlejuice!’ would be nice.”

“We’ll try.” She kissed his lips. As she pulled back, he leaned closer and kept the kiss going. Then a goopy finger brushed her nose, leaving a trail of warmth down it.

Beetlejuice pulled away, chuckling. “You look like you ate poop.”

She rolled her eyes (was she picking that up from Lydia?) and wiped the melted chocolate off her nose. Beetlejuice hadn’t used the kiss as an excuse to grab all the cookies on the tray, which was surprising.

Not that Beetlejuice was done with the cookies. He grabbed two more then floated out of her reach.

“Do you mind if I tell Adam about this conversation?” she asked. Adam, Barbara and Beetlejuice hadn’t been in a polyamorous relationship long; Barbara wanted boundaries to be extra clear to avoid hurt feelings and miscommunication.

“Girl, you know I love when people talk about me.”

“Even stuff about your mother, which might be a little more complicated than you’re pretending it is?”

“Or maybe it’s not complicated at all? I’m a simple guy, babes.”

“You do like to say that, yes.”

“But, eh, don’t tell Sexy all the crap I said about kids and parents and shit. He’ll just wanna talk. Bleh. Pretend I was always my normal awesome self.”

“Hey, Bug,” she said lightly, “I think opening up to someone you care about is pretty awesome. So, to me, you were always your normal awesome self.”

“Dork.” But he was smiling as he poofed away.

When the cookies cooled, she put two on a plate, poured a glass of milk, and went upstairs.

She checked in on Adam next. She’d left him reading in their bedroom, but now he was staring out the window at the cemetery.

“Hi, sweetie,” she said.

“Hi.” He didn’t turn around.

“Do you want to go visit them?” That cemetery held his parents’ graves. They’d died in a car crash coming home from a Christmas party five years ago.

He nodded. “I know we can’t stay for long because of the sandworms, but just for a few minutes….”

“When Lydia’s done her essay, maybe she could come, too. She’s mentioned wanting to have a solo picnic in the graveyard sometime.”

“That’d be nice. I hope Mom and Dad approved of how we handled Lydia. They probably would’ve liked a good prayer circle, but the Deetzes aren’t that kind of family.” He sighed, rubbing at his eyes. “They were good people, in their way. They knew farm life wasn’t for me, and they never made me feel bad about choosing my own path.”

“Your family was so welcoming when we started dating.”

He chuckled, smiling at her over his shoulder. “Most of that was shock, I think. They bent over backwards because they knew you were too good for me.”

They’d told this joke at parties before. Barbara laughed dutifully. “Your mom never gossiped. You’ve lived here your whole life—you know how rare that is. Most people just can’t wait to spill the beans. But I could tell her anything.”

Adam’s smile dropped. “I couldn’t.”

His parents had probably been part of the reason he hadn’t come out as bisexual until after his death. Barbara set the plate and glass down and joined him at the window, resting her hand on his shoulder.

“I have no idea what I’m going to tell them when we find them in the Netherworld,” Adam said. “’Hi, Mom and Dad, here’s my wife and my boyfriend. I have an open marriage now! I’ve slept with a man who’s not actually a man! He’s a demon.’”

“Well, saying it all at once is a bit much,” she said lightly. “You might need to lead up to it.”

A smile twitched the corners of his lips before he sighed and stared out the window again.

She rubbed at his shoulder, tense under her hand. “We have time to figure it out. We’re not going anywhere for a while. And maybe their perspective will have shifted in all those years in the Netherworld?”

“You’re right. I shouldn’t worry about it. And maybe the fact that we sort of have a child now means they’ll overlook a few sins.”

No, we live with a child. She’s not ours in any way. Barbara said, “Actually, I wanted to talk to you about that.”

Adam turned away from the window and looked at her, concerned.

*

Barbara and Adam approached Lydia’s room 20 minutes later. Lydia’s door stood out against the pale gray wall; she’d had her door wallpapered to make it look like a dingy, cobwebbed hallway with a mysterious figure at the end of it. Barbara knocked; Lydia groaned.

Opening the door, Lydia looked unenthused. “Is this the real punishment—everyone coming to check up on me?” The cookies didn’t even elicit a smile, though she took them with a curt, “Thank you.” She waved them in. “Shut the door, take a seat. Let’s get this over with.”

Her room was messier than Barbara would’ve preferred, with socks everywhere and a pile of folded laundry still in its hamper. Lydia set the cookies and milk down next to a new pile of books on her nightstand. There were already bookmarks in The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness and Yes You Can! Your Guide to Becoming an Activist. Lydia had been ordering books from local bookstores like crazy during the pandemic.

“You missed Delia.” Lydia half-sat, half-fell onto her bed, bouncing a little. “‘Peep these stones, girl! They’ll unblock your chakras because they’re fire. But they’re actually stones.’ I got her out of here by hissing some words in Klingon over her stomach. She thought I was cursing her unborn child—it was great! And, no.” She swung her legs up to stretch out. “That doesn’t mean I hate the fetus. They can’t help being incubated in the world’s worst person. So you can tell Beetlejuice that, if he’ll listen to you. He thinks he knows me so well.” She chuckled. “He only thinks that because he thinks I’m a human version of him. Everything’s a Mommy-or-Daddy issue with that guy.”

She laced her hands behind her head. Her black dress blended in with her black duvet cover and the rooms black walls, making the pale white skin of her face stand out sharply. “And, of course, Daddy dearest came by. Did we cry a bit over my dead mother? I plead the fifth.” She looked at Barbara and Adam, waving a hand. “Speak! Impart to me your undead wisdom. Cure this troubled child of her afflictions.”

Barbara and Adam had worked on what they were going to say, but it took a few moments to absorb everything Lydia had just said. She’d be good in theatre. Maybe we could look into Zoom classes….

Adam sucked in a breath. “Lydia, we’ve been talking about what you said to Barbara earlier today. About how we’ve only known each other for a few months.”

Lydia’s eyebrows twitched up. “Oh…kay?”

Barbara spoke next. “You’re completely right. We don’t actually know you. And once I realized that, I realized it was presumptuous of us to join in with your father and stepmother while they were disciplining you today. It made me think about how we joined this family in the first place. You agreed to let us stay, and we’ll always be grateful. But you also agreed after a very traumatic experience, and none of us really knew what it meant to share our lives together, living and dead.

“We all sort of fell into these roles after Beetlejuice left. We became like your second set of parents. We’ve been calling you our adopted child and everything. But…well, you’re not. And you already have a father and a stepmother.”

Lydia sat up on her bed, facing the ghosts, her jaw tense. “You’re—you’re not leaving, right? For the Netherworld?” She swallowed, gaze darting between the two of them.

Adam shook his head. “Of course not, Lydia,” he said gently. “Our boyfriend hates that place, for one thing. And we want to be here for you and the new baby.” He nodded to Barbara to continue.

“But,” Barbara said, “that doesn’t mean we need to be in your life as parents. We could just be two roommates. We could chat over dinner, watch TV together, maybe bake something once in a while. But if you don’t want us to be, we don’t need to be so involved in how you’re raised. That’s Charles’s and Delia’s job.”

Lydia was clutching her fingers together tightly. “I never even bothered to ask—did you want kids while you were alive?”

“We did…theoretically,” Adam said. “That’s the next step in the life plan once you own a home, right? Some of our friends had four kids already. But in practice, we had a lot of fears holding us back. If we’d been braver….” He looked away, sighing, before he looked back at her. “But we weren’t, and we can’t change that now.”

“Or we might have had a child and hated it,” Barbara added. “Who’s to say?” She patted Adam’s hand. “It’s a bit of a complicated topic for us. You’re a child, Lydia. You shouldn’t have to carry a dead couple’s wishes and regrets.”

Lydia’s gaze dropped to her hands, still gripping each other on her lap. It wasn’t an easy thing they were asking. Barbara gave her silence and space to think.

“You’re not who I want,” Lydia said, looking up at them. “I’ll always want my mother. I apologize for the bluntness, but Mom always made friends with the elephant in the room, and I’m my mother’s daughter.”

“Of course, sweetie—ah, Lydia.” Barbara cleared her throat. “It’s only natural.”

“But you two…. You made me feel normal even when I was so alone.” Her voice was getting quieter and quieter. “You always listened to me talk about her. And you’re…you’re part of the reason I came back from the Netherworld.”

Barbara chuckled softly. “You’re the reason we stayed in the world of the living, originally. We had to defeat Beetlejuice and keep you safe. But that doesn’t mean we need to act as a second set of parents. I’m not sure that’s fair to you.

“Lydia, we don’t have to decide anything right now. We can talk about this tomorrow, or a week from now, or a month.”

Lydia’s dark gaze locked on Barbara. Her eyes shone with tears under a heavy frown. “You probably don’t even want me as a daughter,” she spat. “You probably dreamed of some little girl in pretty pink dresses who played with dolls instead of skulls. I’m too complicated, too messy. But you don’t want to say it. That’s not nice, and you two are nothing but nice. Just stop being cowards! Make it easy on us!”

“Oh, Lydia, honey….” Barbara couldn’t stop herself from reaching out to her. She held Lydia as the girl’s tears started falling. Adam sat down on Lydia’s other side, stroking her back. She rested her head on Barbara’s shoulder.

“I love you guys,” Lydia whispered thickly.

“And here I go,” Barbara said as she started crying, too. “We love you too, sweetie.”

“We would’ve been honoured to have a daughter like you,” Adam said, tearing up. He hovered the Kleenex box over to them, so they could wipe their eyes and noses without breaking the hug.

“I am so fucking sick of crying,” Lydia grumbled as she dabbed her nose.

Barbara wiped her eyes. “Language.”

“Right. Daddy said he wanted to tackle that next.” She smiled. “I’m sorry you got a daughter at this intemperate age, Maitlands. I was a real peach when I was four.”

“You’re perfect,” Barbara assured her. “You make bad decisions sometimes, but you’re perfect.”

Lydia’s eyeroll was somewhat undercut by the fresh batch of tears.

Adam commented, “I guess we’ll need to work on a parenting schedule with Charles and Delia. See what we can figure out.” Adam sounded cheerful at the thought. He always loved making plans.

Lydia raised an eyebrow. “You’re dating Beetlejuice, but you still love rules and order. You’re a mystery, Adam Maitland. In fact,” she sniffled again, “we’re all mysteries to each other. That’s what started this conversation, isn’t it?

“So, hello, Maitlands. My name’s Lydia Deetz.”

“Hi, Lydia. I’m Barbara Maitland.”

It was time for the Maitlands to get to know their daughter.