Xismosa Xit

Translation: SKELETONS AND PUMPKINS

Hello all,

Today’s newsletter is sponsored by “i’ve put these links off long enough,” and, obviously,

✨and✨

At The Top

I’m The Top 🤭

🖊️ Prose and Poetry of the “Week”

🐇 Jackalope Burrows

✨ Special Edition: S K E L E T O N A R M Y + P U M P K I N S

🦉 Book Búho

🪶 Quotes Quail

🎵 (O)pposum Playlists

🐦‍⬛ Cuervos Chismoses

🐈‍⬛ The Void Shouts Back

Prose and Poetry of the Week

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October behind the door

Spooky poem! Tried a rhyming scheme for once, not my usual fair.

I Will Hack Through You

BIG VIOLENCE!!!!!! Reader discretion is advised. Got a Top Story though. So uhhhhh

Jackalope Burrows

Things I’ve learned, laughed about, and/or obsessed over

• Y’AAAAAAAAAALLL!!!!!!!!
• I WATCHED YOU CAN SEE EVERYTHING (2026) d. Nathan Fielder and Lance Oppenheim AND I NEED THE REST OF YOU TO WATCH IT SO WE CAN DISCUSS!!!!!!!!
• They even talked about the billboards I saw a last year!
  • Billboard #1 from June 2025
  • Billboard #2 from September 2025
• I have not written about the experience yet bc I’m still digesting it. I went on the THURSDAY before it came out and thought about watching it again on Sunday but I realized I needed two weeks minimum to recover. I didn’t have enough time before this newsletter to write about this psychological horror documentary.

• slide through:

• Another conversation:
  • “Don’t tell me about the twist.” – them
  • “See, I don’t even know what you’re talking about because I was just itchy the whole time.” – me
  • “So it was just like you had a rash and the rash just got bigger?”
  • “e x a c t l y”
• Sources to get you started, as mentioned in the last newsletter:
  • Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup 2018 book by John Carreyrou
  • The Inventor: Out for Blood in Silicon Valley (2019) documentary on HBO Max
  • The Dropout podcast, which goes through the trial
    • I don’t advocate for the The Dropout Hulu series bc it’s a dramatization. I know the whole thing is dramatic, but at least the other sources do try to stick to evidence and eyewitness accounts (including whistleblowers)
    • PLUS it sets up an, uh, unrealistic perception of the real-life people vs their actor counterparts
    • @ my father’s jumpscare seeing the real Sunny Balwani vs Naveen Andrews 😂😭
  • John Carreyrou’s podcast Bad Blood: The Final Chapter except it’s now no longer the final chapter!!
• H E X G I R L S ARE GONNA PUT A SPELL ON YOUUUUUUU

• anyone pregnant with a fruitcake?

• Have y’all thought about Pokémon births?

• One-bag travel videos (for instance, and also), bc I want the whimsy of travel and the satisfaction of minimalism and organization :3
• I should have bought this to wear it to dyke day 😭😭😭

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Skeleton Army Special Edition

And also:

🎃 🎃 🎃 🎃 🎃 🎃 🎃 🎃 🎃 🎃 🎃 🎃 🎃 🎃 🎃 🎃 🎃 🎃 🎃 🎃 🎃 🎃 🎃 🎃 🎃 🎃 🎃 🎃

🎃 🎃 🎃 🎃 🎃 🎃 🎃 🎃 🎃 🎃 🎃 🎃 🎃 🎃 🎃 🎃 🎃 🎃 🎃 🎃 🎃 🎃 🎃 🎃 🎃 🎃 🎃 🎃

Honorable mention of the season:

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Book Búho

What I’ve been reading/listening to bc audiobooks let me do both. Yes, comics count. And sacrilegiously, I even learn from ones I didn’t finish.

• I, uh, did get a free trial Audible subscription for, uh *sweating*, reasons
  • I’ve never hear of Dracula
  • Who’s Jonathan Bailey?

• oh, turns out he is the first 9 minute song by a British millennial gay man to do so.
• But I was able to finish Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir!

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Quotes Quail

I’m always listening 😈 y’all are funny

You know, the funny thing about this section is that is was inspired by the favorite parts of magazines: the quotes sections. And it’s kinda fun that so many of you have said it’s your favorite part too! See if you can find yourself 👀

🪶

• “Show each other that you care enough to put in the work to fix it” – restorative justice practitioner referencing a conflict zine
• “Conflict is a rupture in a relationship and the opportunity to put the work into fixing it”

🪶

• For posterity! The times I have won gambles against my father 🙂
  • In high school, we went to a family friend’s house who had chickens. I watched the chickens, intrigued and observant. My father bet my $10 that I cannot catch a chicken. Within five seconds of shaking his hand, I picked up the calmest chicken I had ever seen, since I had been (as foreshadowed above) observing. 10/10
  • Some random actor in a movie that, to be fair, looks v similar to another
  • A less random actor: Seeing Alan Cummings (AKA Floop from Spy Kids) and my dad thought he was Pee Wee Herman. Once my father looked it up who it actually was: “You cheated! You knew he was dead!!” It’s not cheating when you are betting on HAVING THE KNOWLEDGE BEFOREHAND
  • Most recently: He was looking a can of Cutwater, and he thought it was smaller than a regular soda can. Twas not.
  • Or, as Mulan II (2004) says: “Betting against my [parent] is not a gamble, it’s an investment.”

🪶

• “Bet!!” – mom
• “Ariana is really rubbing off on you” – co-spawn

🪶

• Remember my child?

• Well one time in college a frat had a perfectly-good watermelon so I

• are we surprised by my purple shoes?

🪶

• “I just wanted an answer, not a song”

🪶

• “I think we should ostracize anyone who doesn’t wear purple on Wednesday.” – co-cutie #1
• “You do that anyway.” – me
• “Maybe that’s why people DON’T wear purple on Wednesdays.” – co-cutie #2, not wearing purple
• “Don’t give me such hope.” – co-cutie #1

🪶

• “One hundred and eleven-ty days, good for you guys!” – annoyance about my 111 days since last breakdown

🪶

• “I despise roller coasters” – me
• “That’s why we despise you” – co-cutie
• “That’s only number seven on the list of why we despise you” – co-annoyance
• “Really? I thought it’d be number three” – me
• “You think very highly of yourself if you think that’d only be number three” – co-annoyance
• “I thought [rollarcoasters] were more important to you” – me

🪶

• “If I go out there like this, how cringy is it?” – me in a skirt and tank top that was under my Azteca dress
• “On a scale of one to ten, ten being the cringiest?” – another dancer
• “Yes” – me
• “Like a 3”
• “Fantastic, that’s how I live my life! At a three MINIMUM” – me

🪶

• “I’m going to a funeral”
• His fortune cookie said “get a friend some flowers”
• (In high school and college I used to say “what kind of flowers do you want at your funeral?” when they were being a dumbass)

🪶

• “That’s why I go on tumblr” – me about where I get my gifs or aesthetic pics instead of Pinterest
• “2016, we’ve missed you! We promise we’ve changed!” – co-cutie

🪶

• “How many digits [of pi] did you know when we started dating?” – mom nerd
• “Not that many? 10? 20?” – dad nerd
• “That’s a lot! I’m a bad influence, you only know five now!” – mom nerd
• “I didn’t have to impress anyone anymore!” – dad nerd

🪶

• “I’ve done the math” – me about my crochet project and having to do 4 to 5 rows a day if I want to finish by a planned date
• *after a HUGEEE laugh* “I’m sorry, I HAD to laugh” – mom nerd
• “You’ve seen my spreadsheets! They’re beautiful!” – me

🪶

• “You were going to hit me with your car!!” – me, when I stood in front of her car
• “No, I wasn’t.” – co-cutie
• “You would!” – me
• “No, I wouldn’t. There are witnesses.”
• ;-;

🪶

• “I’ve been telling people, and by people I mean you, [my partner], mom and dad” – co-spawn
• “Same but add two and a half group chats” – me

🪶

• “I learned something today with you” – clerk helping me over the phone

🪶

• I already have two friends who have interacted with death on hills
• Their corpse was on three hills back
• Their were sure someone was going to die on it and I knew that reminded me of something:

🪶

• “What would happen if we gave Ariana Vietnamese coffee” – co-cutie #1 talking to co-cutie #2
• “I’d be up for two days!!” – me
• *after thinking about it*
• “If you can get me a kids cup of Vietnamese coffee before 9am, I can do it” – still me
• I used to be able to have a red eye (shot of espresso in a cup of coffee) at 11pm and be asleep by 2am ;-;

🪶

• “I think you can eat everything cleanly. If you have a wafer cookie, you eat it with your head turned up *shows us how*” – co-cutie
• “Ah, cleanly but not with dignity” – me
• “Yeah!”

🪶

• “I have a couple of screws loose”
• “That’s why we get along!” – me

🪶

🪶

🪶

• “PA-PI STYLE!” – David “Big Papi” Ortiz during an interview with Milwaukee Brewers’ Jake Bauers (I can’t find the freaking clip 😭)

🪶

• “DAAAAAAAAAAAAA YANKEES LOSE!” – Junior Caminero on the Tampa Bay Rays when they beat the Yankees
• to add to David “Big Papi” Ortiz’s legacy

🪶

• they’re frenemies, your honor

🪶

• “Don’t let that white man get you down” – Latina mestiza mom to her kids about their white father, also known as her husband, on Indigenous People’s Day

🪶

• “You’re a fickle bitch” – co-enemy
• “I am not fickle!!!!” – me
• “But you don’t argue with a bitch part?” – co-enemy
• “No, I know what I am” – a bitch (me)

🪶

• “I’m a straight white man, it’s my responsibility to regulate everyone else’s bodies”

🪶

• “You got new earrings?” – father
• “Yes, do you like them?” – me
• “They’re loud.” – the man who was there at my birth
• “Yeah, have you met me?” – me

🪶

🪶

• “If a double-play is a pitcher’s best friend, what’s a triple play?” – father
• “Their wife” – me
• “Their lover” – father
• Listen, wife works all the way around, have you seen the women in the women’s professional baseball league?

🪶

• TO PROVE MY POINT:
• Did y’all know there’s a professional women’s baseball league now? There’s four teams so far:
  • The Boston Hunters
  • The Los Angeles Queens
  • The New York Heights
  • The San Francisco Firebells
• Nice for them and sad for me: merch is sold out!
• But back to my main point:

🪶

• “I believe what you say about yourself!” – co-cutie #1 to co-cutie #2
• “That’s your first mistake” – co-cutie #2’s husband

🪶

• *snapping* “LOCK IN!” – Me imitating my nephew when he turns around and points at ALL of us to pay attention to the movie, and I can only think of Olay & Chill

🪶

• “WHOSE SIDE ARE YOU ON?” – father while telling my co-spawn about accidentally introducing whipped cream to my nephew
• “I didn’t get to finish my whipped cream 😞” – father
• “I’m sorry you suffered such a travesty” – co-spawn

🪶

• “Winners don’t play by the rules” – co-cutie about work’s rules about carving pumpkins vs painting them
• hint: they stink the next day after they’re carved

🪶

• “Damn little lady!” – co-cutie quoting White Chicks (2004) when I told him about eating devouring ribs at Chili’s for my first date with a high school boyfriend, because I don’t believe in being scared to eat in front of a man

🪶

• It all started when HR emailed us that we were going to have a Halloween decorating competition, after two co-cuties had already started profusely decorating

• side note: FANTASTIC use of that scene from Scooby Doo (2002)

🪶

• “The venn diagram that are queer Latinos and people who love Scooby Doo is a circle” – a queer Latino who loves Scooby Doo who is, wildly enough, not me!!

🪶

• “Why didn’t you wait for me?” – father
• “Me desesperé!” – mother about moving her puzzle and she dropped it ;-; (“I got impatient!”)
• “You have to tell Ariana that so she can put it in the newsletter!” – father

🪶

Let’s count, shall we?

• Co-spawn: 4
• Overly-competitive-even-though-they’re-already-winning co-cutie: 9
  • Last newsletter: 11
• Nerd mother: 4
  • Last newsletter: 3
• Nerd father: 4
  • Last newsletter: 2
• Co-cutie that you should investigate first: 3
  • Last newsletter: 7
• Co-cutie who likes to make me anxious via Vietnamese Coffee: 3
• My Wives™️: 2
• Not-as-competitive-more-so-enthusiastic-about-decorating co-cutie: 1

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(O)possum Playlists of the Quarter 

Here, we scream.

And, “apparently,” I listen to my short playlists for a “wildly long time”

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I CANNOT RECOMMEND THIS ENOUGH!!!!!!!

PREVIEW HERE!!!:

Cuervos Chismoses

chisme = gossip. ”e” ending instead of “o/a” in Spanish for more gender inclusion

• I was Joy from Inside Out (2015)!

• I would like the record to show that I was assigned this role in a group costume.
• Wierdly enough, the record will also show that when asked which emotion I would have chosen for myself, I did indeed say Joy 😅
• I got to perform Azteca at Sony Studios!

• Went to go see Laura Ramoso, specifically for her Italian Dad™️ character where she plays her Italian Dad, but also got to see this on the way out:

• me this past week

• Doodling found me on YouTube (more specifically @Doodlewithrachel and her Dumbing Down Doodles series) so I picked it up

• I can now say I performed at a funeral

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The Void Shouts Back

If you would like to respond but don’t know what to say, answer the question below. If you don’t want to, just respond with keysmashing or send me a hug with your thoughts. If you don’t want to do that either, that’s okay too.

• COSTUME???!!!! 👁️👁️👁️

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THANK YOU for reading! If you want some cheap retail therapy to go along with it, please check out my stickers.

Abrazos and/or high fives,

Ariana

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References

• https://www.fontspace.com/bu-boned-font-f11335
• https://www.fontspace.com/gnarly-bone-font-f104993
• https://www.fontspace.com/magic-tropic-font-f117487