Cabinet

Cabinet

Hello! I’m going to try to start writing short Fablehaven stories, using a single word as my prompt from a random word generator- this one’s word was ‘cabinet.’ Hope you like it! (If anyone has any prompts or ideas, I’d be more than happy to write them!)

It was too tall.

She didn’t have a step.

And everyone else was sleeping.

Kendra didn’t quite understand why the brownies had installed a ‘secret’ cabinet sticking out halfway up the wall in the middle of the hallway, but Grandma Sorenson had quickly taken advantage and hidden cookies in it.

The cabinet was one of those heavy, old-fashioned wooden ones, with legs so tiny, they look like they shouldn’t be able to hold that much weight. How the brownies had managed to suspend it so high up without the wall or cabinet falling down was the biggest mystery on the preserve.

And Kendra was too short to reach it.

When she had woken up in the middle of the night after a nightmare craving chocolate chip cookies, the natural answer was to come to the cabinet. The cabinet she couldn’t reach. The cabinet that was too isolated to drag a chair over to. The cabinet that would probably feature in every other dream Kendra would have for the next million years while she tried to open it.

Looking at the stupid thing again, Kendra tipped her head to the side to think, before trying to jump up to open the door. She missed by a good few inches, and landed loudly. She winced, hoping she didn’t wake anyone up. Vanessa’s room was right next to it.

After deciding that everyone was still asleep, Kendra tried again, thumping down slightly quieter this time, although not by much. Abandoning the jumping effort, she tried to go on her tiptoes again, bouncing slightly with each failed attempt to even touch the cabinet.

It took everything Kendra had not to scream at the annoying thing, and the cookies just out of reach- by a long way. Whenever she was tired, Kendra had always acted slightly more childlike, as if her brain just couldn’t handle being mature when she was so tired, so it just shut down.

A pair of arms wrapped around the bouncing girl, and Kendra nearly screamed, cutting it off as she recognized Bracken behind her. He held her close for a few more seconds, before letting go with one arm and effortlessly taking the cookies out of the cabinet, understanding what she wanted without having to talk.

~

When Vanessa got up the next morning for breakfast duty, she couldn’t help but smile at Kendra and Bracken sitting on the floor underneath the open cabinet, cookie jar next to them, curled up fast asleep. Kendra had a peaceful smile of her face, and was resting her head on Bracken’s shoulder, snoring quietly.

Maybe the Unicorn wasn’t so bad after all.

Kendra with her overpowered crown: Im so tired of magical stuff I'm going to college

Seth with his overpowered swords: that sounds brilliant I'll come too

The unsuspecting college: this is fine

if you could be best friend with one character from fablehaven who would it be and why? :)

Hahaha thanks for the ask-

I don’t know. Warren, Kendra, Seth, and Bracken are all amazing candidates. Warren is funny, Seth is adventurous, Bracken’s caring, and Kendra’s a cinnamon roll. Although I feel like I’d probably get along best with Kendra, because we have a lot in common.

Wow

I’m sorry but Demons by Imagine Dragons is the most PERFECT Fablehaven theme song ever

some notes on anti-asian racism

look. other people have commented on this before, but it seems like it needs to be said again because some of y’all aren’t getting the message. 

asian people are a marginalized minority. what about this do people not understand. asian people are marginalized because we live in a system of white supremacy and in this system, asian people will never be white and will never have the power of white people. just because a lot of asians are relatively well off financially does not mean we are not marginalized; there are other ways to be excluded and treated as unequal besides in terms of money, and this completely ignores the millions of asian people who are poor and working class, including the women who were killed in atlanta. asian people are not basically white- we look different, so we are treated different, just like any minority. it’s that simple. if asian people were not marginalized, why else would hate crimes against asian people rise dramatically in 2020. why else would we be attacked in the streets. why else would people tell us to go back to where we came from. why else would the chinese exclusion act be passed, japanese american citizens be shipped to the midwest during world war 2, vietnamese people massacred by american soldiers in the 70s. asian people are being killed now. if we are not marginalized, why are there targets on our backs for existing. 

black lives matter and stop asian hate are movements for social justice that have the same root cause: destroying white supremacy. black and asian communities have often been pitted against each other by white institutions seeking to take advantage of sowing discord between minority groups, but there is a rich history of black-asian solidarity during the fight for civil rights in the late 20th century. yes, anti-blackness is a real issue in asian communities, especially among older asians. and yes, asians also experience racism from black individuals- see these examples of cardi b using an anti-asian slur, this incident that happened yesterday of a black man pouring unknown liquid on an asian woman. neither is acceptable. supporting one movement does not negate your support for the other. you can do both, in fact, you should do both. realize that we all have a common enemy here, and it’s the system of white supremacy that has oppressed us. we are not free from white supremacy until it is all entirely eradicated, for everyone. 

just because i speak in the collective sense about asian people does not mean that all asian people are the same. even though some of us may look similar, with black hair and “small” eyes, that is only a representative image of some east/southeast asian people. asia is vast and incredibly diverse, and each nation has its own culture, language, and traditions. in addition, the asian diaspora is huge. asian people live all over the world, in varying economic, social, and political situations. different asian people in different areas have very different problems, even within the same country. an asian in a small town in nebraska will have a very different experience than an asian in paris. a korean person will have a different experience in a given place from an indian person. i don’t know how many times in my life i’ve been asked, “are you chinese?” the answer is no, i’m not, and a lot of asians aren’t chinese. tied into this is the mistaken belief of some nonasians in the western world that all asians are still allegiant to the country of their heritage and speak the language of that country, which manifests in comments like “oh your english is so good!” or “are you, like, communist?” first off, it ignores the very real possibility that an asian person could be born outside asian countries, and second, being from a certain country by no means determines whether you’re loyal to it and agree with its policies. i just saw this with an anon claiming all chinese people support the government’s reeducation camps for uyghur muslims. this is absolutely preposterous. 

finally, a word on allyship. i have zero faith in nonasian people- and by that i mean white people- to continue talking about this and spreading awareness about anti-asian racism. part of it is this model minority myth, that asians are basically as well off as white people, at least financially and academically, so they can figure things out by themselves. no. absolutely not. we cannot get out of the hole white supremacy has put us into without white people making a genuine, legitimate effort to confront their own biases. your white tears, your prayers and thoughts, they mean nothing when the blood of our families and friends runs in the streets. they mean nothing if you haven’t bothered to learn a single thing about your own prejudices. i hope to god that i am wrong about this. i hope for my family, my friends, and myself that y’all will continue to be loud about this, because we are tired of screaming for help in a crowd where we are invisible and no one cares. but i’m a skeptic for a reason, and it took a massacre for people to notice what was happening. i don’t know if i’ll ever be proven wrong. 

here are some links and posts below where you can learn about this issue and donate: 

anti-asian violence resources

61 places to donate to help asian americans

donation links 

microaggressions against asian people

twitter thread of resources

asian therapists in the us and canada

asian hate coping resources (in several different languages)