Oak

(referencing this post)

this is so cute and so funny and i am enjoying shane's embarrassment and despair at the hands of his concerned and loving family so much

david very helpfully volunteers that "the tilapia, uh.... cheated on you? since last time? they said they changed the recipe for the breading and now it has almonds."

shane puts his head in his hands like "maybe anaphylaxis would be better than this. i'm not even that hungry."

"shane! there's no need to be so dramatic," yuna says.

ilya, ever the helpful menace, has a suggestion. "lyubimyy, we ordered loving appetizers for the table to share. you and i could split a main dish as well? it will be like a threeso—"

shane stands up, tells the waitress "i am so sorry for the delay. i'll have the salmon salad without croutons," and goes to use the bathroom for A Moment Of Peace, Please God Above

having a waitress memorize his entire list of allergens and adopt the colloquialisms his family uses to refer to them feels like it goes a good deal beyond that, however. he can not believe this is happening to him. thank god this hasn't been leaked to social media.

i feel like shane would fucking DIE of humiliation if it happened, but the idea of a video going viral that's just the two of them slightly out of frame at an event and at a distance, so what the camera catches is shane takes a bite of a cookie, ilya turns and goes, "no! spit it out *muffled audio* slut. bad." and shane immediately grabs a napkin and spits it out, and then ilya puts a hand on his back and the two of them walk out of the room very fast.

and the reaction online is oh my GOD??? ilya rozanov treats him like this??? what an ASSHOLE?? controlling what he eats?? calling him a SLUT IN PUBLIC?? BECAUSE HE WANTED A *COOKIE*??? and then making him LEAVE???

and how do you even START to explain, "no, my husband has food allergies, and it's an ongoing joke that food loves him or is a slut and will kill him. he thought the cookie was one of the safe ones we requested catering to have, but it was one of the ones from a multi-pack i saw earlier, and there were peanut butter cookies near it, and saying the cookie is a slut was the fastest way to communicate that he needed to spit it out NOW so he could go rinse his mouth out."

Shane is SIMULTANEOUSLY fussing over something big with Ilya that Ilya REFUSES to acknowledge as being a big deal.

It just NEEDS to be stressed that Shane is NOT A CHILL PERSON AT ALL. He and Ilya WILL be nagging each other AT THE SAME TIME while refusing to make a Thing out of their OWN issues.

you get it

"did you call your doctor to get a new epipen before yours expires?"

"I don't know ilya, did you let galina know you need to adjust the dosage on your meds?"

And Ilya comes across B. Dylan Hollis making Fake Apple Pie from 1933 on tiktok one day and goes "OH WAIT LET'S TRY THIS" and yes it's ritz crackers and not apples but if it works it works, right?

“If I have one message to give to the secular American people, it’s that the world is not divided into countries. The world is not divided between East and West. You are American, I am Iranian, we don’t know each other, but we talk together and we understand each other perfectly. The difference between you and your government is much bigger than the difference between you and me. And the difference between me and my government is much bigger than the difference between me and you. And our governments are very much the same.”

Loyalty (1869)

— by Briton Rivière

Loyalty (2025)

we're looking to create an AI policy, and when we were talking about this, my boss (older millennial) was genuinely shocked to hear that younger people do not (seem) to view AI positively (a la the recent commencement speakers being booed)

please rb for larger sample size!

Question 1/3

Thank you for helping with this data collection. Please rb for as big a sample as possible!

yuna and david had slight panic attacks after their ob mentioned possibly inducing at 39 weeks or possibly needing to do a c-section due to the baby's size

shane was born at 9lbs 9oz, 18.5in with the most perfect chubby cheeks and puff of dark hair. he had no issues latching right away and all of the nurses commented on his strong appetite

it was a whirlwind after they first brought shane home bc they quickly realized that none of the newborn diapers or clothes really worked for him. david made multiple trips to the store for different diapers and basic onesies those first couple of weeks

once extended family were invited to visit and meet shane, they dressed him up in a baby newsboy hat and suspenders, placing him on yuna's grandfather's (shane's great-grandfather's) lap for a picture since they now had matching outfits. great-grandpa is a serious man but he got a kick out of his mini-me

shane was only 5 months old for his first halloween so yuna and david turned his stroller into a penalty box and dressed him up like a mcgill hockey player then david and yuna both wore david's old jerseys too

Once upon a time, in a kingdom that was not enormously large, nor very small, there lived a sad and lonely princess.

She was not sad because she was lonely, as one might believe, but rather she was lonely because she was sad. All of her ladies in waiting would chitter and pace at her bedside, urging her to rise, to dress in some of her many fancy adornments, and leave her tower to go and dance in the great hall with them, but the princess always declined.

Soon, they stopped asking.

For years, people lost their will to bother her. She was alone in her tower, and as the months passed her loneliness grew until she could do nothing else but stare out of her decorated window and sigh wistfully out it at the common people below.

But dear lord, this is not a sad tale, I promise it.

For in this kingdom there lived a strange and magical creature. Members of this kingdom might not know what it was called, or where he was from, but the magical creature had a name, and his name was Ricodimous.

Ricodimous had a face like a mouse, eyes cunning and dark, and a shell by which he rolled himself into, in case the world got too much, too loud.

One day, Ricodimous was puttering through the market when he heard the most wistful sigh he had ever heard in his entire life. He looked about, questioning, but saw nothing until he rolled back onto his shell and gazed up, up high until he could see a window over the market square, where the saddest and loneliest princess of all sat on her window seat.

"Hello Princess!" He called. And even though the distance between them was great, Ricodimous was a magical creature, and the Princess heard him perfectly.

She gazed down at the wondrous little creature Ricodimous was, and sighed again.

"Hello Ser," she greeted politely. "You should roll along, for I am not of the finest stock for company."

Ricodimous tilted his head.

"You look to me to be the finest stock of anything," he replied. "Why do you believe not?"

The princess simply shrugged.

Ricodimous pondered for a moment. As a magical creature, his guesses on the ailment of princesses were often correct.

"Your heart is aching," he declared. "But you are too shy to say it."

The princess raised an eyebrow in surprise. "You assume much, Ser."

"I assume enough. Pray, would you come down from your tower, and we shall play a game."

The princess could not deny that she had longed to play a game for a time, even if it was with a mouse like creature.

For the first time in years, the Princess dressed herself in her finest silks, and exited her tower with a flourish. Dressed in deep blues and greens, she at last came down to the marketplace and met Ricodimous by the gardens entrance.

The game they played my lord, is one similar to Croquet. I will admit my lord, that this is a game I myself have never played, so you must use your imagination with my storytelling, and simply believe that while you know the rules, so do I.

And so the Princess and Ricodimous played their game, over the course of which the Princess found herself more and more joyous. She indulged in a full commitment of the sport, soiling her finest clothes all so she could kneel in the mud and get a better angle.

Even more scandalously, the Princess was referred to by her royal title less and less, which tends to happen when one is losing a game so terribly he must roll up into his shell and rock back and forth from frustration. So over the day the Princess was called more and more by her name, Ashley, and Ricodimous was simply called Ric.

But the sun was soon to set, and all stories, no matter how brief must end.

At the end of their game there was only one true winner, and Ashley wiped her royal brow and shoot Rics paw, smiling in victory. The magical creature was not disappointed, for he promised to never give up, and that he would return the next day for a rematch.

Princess Ashley was surprised.

"You mean that you'll come back?" She asked, and she realized how excited she was at the prospect.

"Of course I will!" Ric replied. "I would never run around and desert you."

stede finding a new way to live. stede finding a new way to grow. stede finding a new way to be a man, to be gentle, to be kind, to be loving. stede finding a family that loves him. stede finding a love he didn’t think he could have. stepping into a new world of violence and abuse and saying, what if it wasn’t? what if it didn’t have to be like that? 

it doesn’t have to be like that. they can talk it through as a crew. they can show up for one another. they can stand by one another. they can be happy. 

stede can be happy. 

stede can be surrounded by life and growth and flowers. stede can sit on a beach with a man he loves and love him. and he can be loved. and he can show ed the way through all this, into hope and beauty and gentleness, the same way ed can show him fierceness and self preservation and protection. they can learn from each other. they can try again. they have. they will. 

happy june the third, my dears. 

may you also find life and growth and flowers, and hope and beauty and gentleness, and fierceness and self preservation and protection. may you learn, and laugh, and forgive, and try again. may you find the love you’re looking for.