Magpies and Shiny things

the earliest known version of the story is "the Adventure of the German Student," (1824) which is set in the 1780s and involves a young man who happens to meet a beautiful Frenchwoman with a diamond choker around her neck. he takes her to his lodgings where they make love, but in the morning he finds her dead in his bed when he awakens- dead, and seemingly dead for over a day. he runs for help, and the men who respond exclaim that she's a noblewoman who was guillotined early the day before. insert choker removal and expected result here

the most common version currently circulating, published in the children's book In A Dark, Dark Room (1984) adds the green ribbon most English-speaking adults are now familiar with...but involves the girl/woman growing old happily with her husband and finally giving him PERMISSION to remove the ribbon as she's dying

based on the notes, it looks like the idea of someone hounding the woman to remove the ribbon- and similar symbolism to OP's post -comes from "the Husband Stitch" (2014) a feminist short story that uses folktale and urban legend imagery

Little girl teaching her cats how to draw a flower 

*baby voice* “… and if you have any questions, just ask me! And now… yeah. And now you draw the roots. You draw them all twisted up! Got it? A flower? Now draw it. Did you get it, Luis Roberto? Did you get it, Jurandir? Look. Did you get it? That’s how you draw a flower.”

Im.. Soft 🥺🥺🥺

Because what do you mean they went to the batting cages for some silly fun to watch everyone flail at an unfamiliar sport, only for Shane to need three practice swings before figuring out the force and timing needed to start hitting every single pitch? What do you mean he sets the course record at the mini golf place they have the Pike twins birthday at? What do you mean he learned how to play cricket over a long weekend in the UK? What do you MEAN your Canadian ass that grew up on a calm, tiny lake went to visit Rose in LA and just learned to surf from “some guy” one of the days she was busy??

Shane doesn’t get why they all think it’s so crazy. He’s a professional athlete, he’s good at full body and mind control as well as adaptability and hand-eye coordination, and he’s so used to being the best in the world at hockey that he views being mundanely good at anything else as barely noticeable. He argues with Troy over whether he counts as being good at basketball just because he killed them all at the basketball shooting game at a Dave and Buster’s

They all start making bets to see who can find a sport Hollander isn’t good at. Harris is convinced he’ll win with figure skating because Shane’s muscle memory will want to work against him with a technique that’s so similar but also so different, only for Shane to come out of an afternoon learning from his old friend who was at the Olympics with the ability to do simple jumps and spins and is insisting the whole team learn so they can incorporate it into plays. Harris is not allowed to make suggestions after that

Luca is the one that finds out and is like, but you have a lake at your house and Shane says he doesn't swim in it but they've all seen him do sports and stuff on the water like water skiing and Luca starts to make sure he's near Shane when they do anything on or near water because he doesn't want Shane to drown, (Ilya has no idea Shane can't swim but he would definatly not let Shane drown) and everyone just thinks Luca's crush is showing.