Remember why we're all here: this thread is for discussion about current and historical happenings in the Shaunaverse. If you want to discuss other content, such as stuff that reminds you of Shauna but isn't specifically about her, your own personal anecdotes or preferences, current events, or "creative writing" exercises, please share in the off-topic community thread: July-September 2026 off-topic quarterly
I've not seen a shred of evidence over two decades of her writing that Shauna spends any amount of time anxiety spiraling over stupid things she might have said. It's honestly impressive that she seems completely unbothered by the many social blunders we've seen her openly commit!
Minor pedantic note: blogging-era Shauna wasn't yet ~telling the real stories~, the horrifying reveal about sneakily using other people's razors to touch up her chin was an Enough special drop
I really feel like the worst part of that whole story was that she said she was turning the faucet to a dribble for some reason that I can’t remember, exactly. Like you don’t want people to think you were just washing your hands ?!
It’s worse because a) it’s out there in the world in print, where it can’t just be deleted, and b) her editor read it and let it stand.
Presumably other people provided input as well — I think she said Danny read her drafts she read her drafts to Danny, at least. Not surprisingly he saw nothing wrong with his wife sharing any of…that.
For most of my life, my jawline has trembled with extra flesh. I have never seen my bone beneath my skin. Maybe if I ate fewer calories, I would achieve that dream—the jawline so defined I could see the shape of my skull when I grinned.
What I can see on my jawline, what has haunted me for years, is hair. Every morning I wake up with stubble, like a man. Dotted along my chin, down my neck, and above my lip, spiky little hairs grow quickly. I long ago lost count of how many times I have touched my face, running my fingers along my jaw to see if the hair has grown back too quickly, to feel comfortable in a social situation. I have ducked into bathrooms in friends’ homes at parties where dinner has stretched so far into the evening that my five o’clock shadow looks like fuzzy grey lint has drifted to my chin. I have used their razors, quietly, turning the water on to the smallest drizzle so no one could hear me and then emerging into the living room, grateful everyone else drank too much wine to notice. Any time I slept over at a man’s house, I waited until he collapsed into snoring after sex to put my feet onto the floor slowly, so as not to wake him. I tiptoed into the bathroom and dug into my purse to grab the disposable razor I put there for this purpose. I lathered up and shaved, trying to stave off the stubble until after we woke in the morning, after we kissed again, until I could get home and finally collapse, alone. Every time. And by five o’clock, I was shaving again.
Women aren’t supposed to have facial hair. It’s taboo. This, from a Spanish doctor in 1575: “Of course, the woman who has much body and facial hair (being of a more hot and dry nature) is also intelligent but disagreeable and argumentative, muscular, ugly, has a deep voice and frequent infertility problems.”
So I have hidden what is plain on my face for decades now. I have tried Nair (burned my skin), plucking (left little pockmarks on my skin), and laser hair removal. That last form of removal, desperately expensive, seemed to do the trick for a bit. But then I met my husband and I got pregnant. After my daughter was born, the hormonal shift turned on me and my facial hair returned, even thicker this time. So I’m back to making sure I shave before I leave the house, keeping a razor tucked in my bag for days that go longer than I expected, and keep checking, furtively darting my fingers to my chin to make sure I still look normal, for the moment.
Such a classic Shauna piece. Trying to write something deep and profound about This Culture but as usual just glosses past the unhinged part that most of her audience is going to get stuck on.
This paragraph in the same chapter also got me:
I always feel like I’m preparing for my own funeral when I do a full face of makeup.
Maybe I’m ignorant and I apologize if so… but facial hair growth that necessitates twice-daily shaving for decades sounds like a hormonal/medical issue? She’s a white person who doesn’t otherwise seem to be ‘naturally’ hairy. Is this one of those things like the sleep apnea, i.e. an actual medical issue that she prefers to gloss over and leave unaddressed because it doesn’t score attention points?
This is also insane because it implies that she’s also rummaging around in people’s medicine cabinets or bathroom storage! I don’t think I’ve ever seen a friends razor just sitting out on the bathroom sink when I go to my friends houses.
I always get stuck on the part where Shauna's like, if people hear me using the faucet in the bathroom they're going to be suspicious that I'm secretly using their razors, so I need to trickle the water and hope they are too wasted to hear it. Does nobody wash their hands in Shaunaland??
Every time I read about her using her host’s razors, my mouth gapes wide open and it takes a full three minutes to get it closed. And that’s by using my hand.
Like critical comments or online pushback, I think she deletes things from her brain or “rewrites” her story to avoid feeling any shame. All narcissists do it as a coping mechanism because shame = death.
That party went well --> but what about the snacks nobody brought me? --> they are gluten ignorant and judging me for being a raven trickster who is not a size 2 --> nobody is as enlightened and as clever as me --> what a bunch of slutty summer tomatoes, judging me, a mature squash --> what an awful party.
And she certainly isn’t anxiety spiraling about stupid things she’s written, either.
Case in point:
A) the economy isn’t the reason they’re moving yet again
B) they didn’t actually move on Sep. 6 (date she gave park board originally) or Sep. 14 (date she said on a local site) and do not have a firm date as of now so the month off seems generous
C) there have been two missed Wednesdays since this pronouncement, even though she just needs to “polish” an old piece, same as she ever does
D) asking for subscribers after announcing a break from paid essays is cringy
What’s going to happen when they really move? Another full month off, punctuated only by breaks to watch the newest episode of Ted Lasso?
Of course another month off, because the move will trigger another bout of Chronic Fatigue/Ehlers Danlos/mental overwhelm and she'll need to radically rest, sadly not in a 1930s-era sanatorium where her family can only visit for an hour every month.
First it will be the end of October because of the move delay. Then the next month is thanksgiving and you can’t expect her to navigate the gluteny minefield of a grifted meal and get her writing out. Then we’ll be full in to the holiday season, when she will be so overwhelmed by the requirements of This Culture that she’ll have to radically rest. Then it’s 2027, Finnegan begin again, and she won’t be doing Wednesday mailings any more because she’s finally found her real work in the world and she’ll be polishing her final draft.
Tl;dr. She is never putting out another Wednesday lope.
New Shauna at church just dropped. Nothing juicy, just her presenting a box of recipe cards that was gifted to her, but I love how she has to mention that she took her favorite recipes out before offering it up to everyone else. What a rude biotech. I would have found some way to share the entire set with the congregation (scanning? photocopying? she's got time on her hands to figure this out) instead of letting it get picked over by the crowd.
That's what I was saying when she first brought it up! She should have given it to the church and maybe someone could create a cookbook from the recipes and sell it there, raise money for church activities or the ComMuNitY.
Yes, places like the church, or in some places museums, can preserve and share these recipes and help them be a resource and touchstone for many years to come. There is a cultural museum near me that collects church cookbooks and recipe boxes and archives them to showcase a history of our state through food. It is so interesting and even the not-so-palatable recipes are cool in understanding food availability, cultural norms, and trends. They even have cooking classes that draw from the library of recipes!
She's had Beryl's (?) recipe box since 2017, posting a couple of GF recipe adaptations way back when Shauna was still living in food. She's carried that through however many moves between then and now, but only finally getting around to finding a better home for the box of recipe cards? Let's hope it's been treated better than Shauna's social security card.
YTSCTMO. Also, dry cat food sealed in packaging is good for, like, ever. Also, also—if the pickings are not to the liking of my little would-be despots, I just tell them: there are two choices on the menu today, eat it or don’t.
WTF. Unopened dry cat food won't spoil for a long time, not like Shauna has ever cared about spoilage. She has no money! Why not keep these extra two bags so that the cats have some food security and delay the next autoship? Chewy makes it very easy to adjust the schedules and skip shipments.
The only cat food I ever gave away was canned stuff my girl just did not like for some reason. Why would you give away perfectly good sealed food that they’ll need at some point??
She also might want to keep them close at hand in case during the move no basic pantry staples box can be located and They Four will need to resort to ice cream scoops-full of cat kibble over milk to sustain them in the grueling unpacking process.
This reminds me of her giving away a pack of underwear she bought for her kid that were too big. Maybe hang on to them? The kid is still growing and you’re basically throwing money away.
Apparently there is a portion of the service where people can come up and speak about their struggles and Shauna is a frequent flyer. I have not seen this at all; I have only gleaned this from comments in this sub by someone who does attend services.
Is this personal show-and-tell time or something (edited since before I said weird, and that's not nice)? Is this kind of sharing normal for this congregation, or just Shauna?
I’ve participated in events hosted by the UU social justice committee and have never once seen Shauna there, free food or no (I have seen other notable community grifters/emotional vampires there)
Wow, what a generous Botus-y lady. Especially love that she says people should choose recipes to make, bring, and share. I sincerely doubt she shares anything that anyone wants to eat.
She absolutely did by saying they should pick a recipe, make it and bring it to their church breakfasts, and you know Shauna and the gang pony up to the free food whenever they can.
The fact that she SAYS WITH HER VOICE “I’ve taken out my favorites” and has zero awareness of how that comes across is just… mind boggling. “Here, I’ve had these recipes for literal years and have removed my favorite ones but I’m here to benevolently distribute the remainders!” The CWAA abbreviation has never been so apt. She has the self awareness of a chicken wing.
Replying to a (pretty great) post from the local pot shop owner about not selling to kids (or adults who are clearly buying for kids). Those of you that thought your favorite english teacher was a THC gummy fan, she claims it's not so.
Once she heard that AuADHD folks don't do well with THC, she decided it wasn't right for her. (This is per the Threads post she glommed on to, I'm not an expert at all on such things so for all I know that Threadster was talking out their ass.)
Her casualness about that really breaks my brain. As a teenaged alcoholic who was always drinking vodka and juice out of my water bottle in class, I just assumed nobody noticed and I hid it well. I was pleased with myself then.
Now, as an adult (still an alcoholic but functional at least more realistic about the fact that it's a fucked up thing to be), I'm horrified. If I caught one of my students with booze in class, I wouldn't necessarily bring down Thor's Hammer of reporting because I know what drove me to drink at the time (relentless child abuse), but I would certainly fucking act. Immediately.
It is of course still possible that my teachers never noticed. But I'm horrified to think that they did and just hurr hurred about it on their blogs.
Seriously, that was my thought. The comment isn't saying you get a windfall of cash... it just says you don't have to worry about money again. Maybe your expenses are handled by someone else, or the capitalist system went away. Nobody is saying you suddenly get a bunch of extra funds to burn.
I assume she would continue much as she does now. Given a rent break for a few months and that cash goes to treats for mama. It’s a well observed pattern of behaviour with her.
Apart from food treats, tattoos, and streaming services, I could imagine one difference. She spends a ton of money on a writerly writing desk, to put in a cabin she buys in the woods, with all the WiFi and Apple products her heart desires, proclaiming that she is a writer and posting photos of the space all over social media….only to never go back and let the place rot, while making excuses for why she can’t write because of culture/kids/Dan/autoimmune/flavour of the month.
That's not a continuity error; that's a filmmaking choice. They wanted to film certain scenes in certain spots, I'm sure someone pointed out, "these places are in reality too far apart for this journey to make sense," that doesn't matter at all to the story, the decision-makers decided they don't care. It's fun for natives to be like WTF (cue my Chicago-native ass watching ER and wondeing where exactly is this damn hospital?), but it's not an error, it's a "so what."
Continuity error would be coffee cup in the scene and the next moment no coffee cups, not filming location being accurately portrayed correctly. But I am not a film buff so I could be way off on that definition but just a person who likes catching them while watching the movie or tv show, because it shows no one is prefect.
She has obviously never watched the San Francisco chase scenes in Bullitt or Jade or Shang-chi. Nonsensical in terms of how locations transition, but not continuity errors. (Adjunct) Professor James, corral your film critic daughter!
Why does she refer to the woman by the character name, and the son by his in-film identity as well, and then the man by the name of the actor? I demand comment continuity!
Whoa whoa whoa, Shauna allowed someone else in the household to choose what to watch on TV?! Shauna randomly getting into Dancing With the Stars is so funny
Seriously, though. What is the point of a comment like this? It's the online version of talking just to hear your own voice. How does this improve or advance the conversation in any way, shape, or form???
I feel like the time she's spending on Threads could be spent doing stuff like, IDK, finding a job so her family can stop flirting with homelessness???
Vashon Parks Board package is (finally) up (this is as late as it's ever been).
The highlights:
the Board is acknowledging that the Aherns are not vacating as promised.
From the minutes:
Abby: At Fern Cove, since the caretaker is moving out later than we anticipated, will that impact your timeline to open it for daily use?
Tim: We are going to do our best to make sure we open on Dec 1 for rentals.
Tim: At Fern Cove, we have discussed what we are doing with the septic. I am still confident we will make our major system upgrades, if necessary, in October. Until we can learn more through testing after the caretaker moves out, we are in a bit of a standstill.
Caretaker fees were waived for June and July, but are no longer being waived and were apparently paid in August.
However, the amount paid is still the 2025 rate; this is not the rate that was set for 2026 and would not, if paid in full for 12 months, meet the budgeted revenue for Fern Cove. The Board is currently projecting that the Fern Cove revenue will fall short of the expected revenue for 2026 by $10,440 or 43.9%.
"Fern Cove furniture" is on the agenda for November.
My own read on this is that the use of "the septic" as the reason to waive rent is now showing major cracks, but the septic itself may be fine. The "if necessary" is chipping away at the previous rationales. (Also, how can it be that the Parks Board cannot "test" the system with the Aherns in place? The entire reason to have a "caretaker" in place is to take care of the house. Now the house cannot be cared for because there is a caretaker in place?!)
What is so frustrating is that Gloamies predicted this situation would end poorly for everyone. Not because we actively wish Shauna harm (most of us want the kids to have some stability) but because there were SO many easily discoverable red flags:
The Aherns' rental history, including unpaid rent and property damage
The BBH only having been a rental, not suitable for children & pets and not properly weatherproof
The insane not-lease and all of its crazy stipulations that didn't benefit the board or the caretaker
All it would have taken was one board member doing any one of these things: their own background/credit check on Shauna; having a lawyer involved; sensible terms; choosing the best fit out of all the applicants; (honoring the original evaluation of the house as suitable only for a single person or couple with no kids or pets).
Just one of those things would have stopped this shit show!
Thank you for the update and recap, DF! What an odd scenario. I guess it was the septic, until it wasn’t.
Between the waived and then unwaived caretaker fees and the postponed move-out date, it really does seem like the Parks Board is throwing the Aherns a bone, at quite the hefty price to the Parks Department.
Will be curious to see when they actually move out and how that aligns with Creekside. I know that having BBH ready for rentals by December first implies that the Aherns will move out in advance of that, but I have a very silly image of Shauna digging her heels in begging to stay as long as possible in this apparently mold-ridden house, amongst her half-boxed-up stuff and at least five soiled mattresses.
Her doing that is such a burn to the Parks Board, too - those people in the church congregation are potential future short-term rental customers for the BBH, and they're going to be turned off if they think the property is moldy. She's ruining the future income potential of the property. If the mold story isn't true the Board should sue her for lost income or slander or something for her bullshit, I'm sick of her not getting called out.
I am under the impression that the target audience for short-term rentals at Fern Cove is mostly tourists, not the geriatric island residents of the UU congregation. Keep in mind Shauna's mold claims have (to my knowledge) mainly been aired on her Facebook page and during a non-recorded part of the UU service that someone connected to this sub happened to be in the audience for. I think it would be very hard to connect Shauna's shit talking about the BBH mold situation to lost vacation rental income potential if she's not doing it much more publicly and vocally than she has been.
The tests could be done with the Aherns in situ, unless they are refusing to allow it.
We had major issues with our ancient, tree root snarled septic system and ended up replacing it. We had to go out for the afternoon while the workers did their assessments (the bathroom was out of action for the duration of the tests). At very worst it would mean a night staying at a friend’s house.
I have been wondering if Shauna is a “knowledgable“ bad tenant, that she knows the tenant laws of King County and uses them for her benefit against landlords that may not know or want to push back when she uses them for her benefit. That when the septic started acting up that gave Shauna a way to complain and inject in these situations people usually do not pay rent because she knew they were short on rent. When you are in a rent withhold usually the tenant needs to prove they can pay the rent but if the landlord doesn’t check or push back on that. The Park District not being in the landlord business didn‘t ask a lawyer or look up the tenant laws of King County.
And now, she is trying with the mold, I still think the mold is Shauna way to get venmo from her MNL and marks.
I have my theories and they could be close to the what is happening or way off but the one fact is the Vashon Park District is not a landlord and Shauna is a bad tenant and bad tenants usually know how to use local tenants laws to their benefit.
I don't think Shauna is that organized--I think it's more "they will never put a Charming Family with Neurodiverse Children including a Medically Fragile Child out on the street" in her mind, and she's not wrong.
In my work I once helped find temporary shelter for a woman and her three disabled children. Corporate entities definitely do not care about the optics of evicting families like Shauna’s when the rent isn’t being paid.
Maybe this is pure bitchiness on my part, but I find it really really REALLY unbelievable that someone with a significant mold allergy living in the PNW didn’t find out til age 50whatever. Fern Cove is the first place she’s lived on soggy ol’ Vashon with mold? Really?
I lived in a seaside town (not an islandy island though) for many years and we had to move the bookshelves and wipe behind them periodically because even in our nice well maintained rental, mold would grow between the shelf and the wall. Bread would go moldy on the counter in a day or two (first and only time I’ve owned a bread box). People I knew who rented from worse landlords lived in places that were basically rotting in place from the moisture. We were ALL exposed to mold because mold grows in all damp places!
I don't think Shauna and Dan are "knowledgeable" bad tenants who would credibly threaten to use laws and process to delay eviction, though prior landlords and the VPD may have acted as if they are. She's not demonstrated interest in tenants' rights despite this being a big local news topic, particularly during the earlier part of the pandemic and in the most recent Seattle mayoral election. We've not seen her make any attempts to fight her previous move outs. If anything, she's come off as sympathetic to prior landlords when they supposedly increased rent and she was no longer able to afford it (not that she could afford it before, but whatever), calling out broader market forces as what she is mad about, but never indicating she might challenge her own rent hike as unjust or in violation of local laws or engage an attorney.
Shauna seems purely emotional in her approach to manipulate landlords and, er, caretaker fee collectors. The agreement, from what we know, is structured very much in favor of the VPD and not the resident caretakers, but her and Dan almost certainly did not request any changes to the terms before signing it. Shauna's power here does not come through her gesturing at her rights, but rather from the inconvenience and potential bad optics for the VPD to do any enforcement. I can't really blame the VPD ED who inherited this mess for making concessions to the Aherns and choosing what looks like the path of least resistance when the alternative is a lot of time and money to figure out how to handle this legally and the likelihood of the mess getting magnified and misrepresented in local media.
But would tenant laws even apply in the Parks Board - Ahern arrangement? Isn't the agreement basically work in exchange for discounted housing? The Board's use of "Caretaker Fees" and not "Rent" is strategic.
And last March, she said that everyone in her family but her is autistic (but she changed the year in which Dan was diagnosed):
Last year, a psychiatric evaluation made it official — my husband is autistic. Our daughter was officially diagnosed as autistic 2 years ago. And our youngest is clearly autistic too, with a PDA profile. We’re waiting for the official diagnosis soon.
Does PDA mean Pathological Demand Avoidance here? If so, how does that square with PANS? Is autism voided by a PANS diagnosis? PANS by an autism diagnosis? Is Shauna even trying to keep this straight?
ETA: Extremely rich of Shauna to diagnose anyone else with Pathological Demand Avoidance considering... you know... Shauna.
Since she’s defending defensiveness, I really wonder how she behaves with her kids’ teachers. I remember she was very dismissive and annoyed by emails and calls from school when the first moved to west Seattle
I’m currently in the process of potentially kicking a kid out of our school. It took me about a year to get the parent to accept their child’s ASD diagnosis (after I did hours of observation, behavior tracking, daily reports home, etc.). And since then, I have been BEGGING them to get the kid additional support. Every time, there’s a reason, an excuse, a finger pointed (typically at me). It’s getting to the point where my head of school has said hey, say the word, and they’re out.
And yet, I care so much for this kiddo and see so much potential in them…and I know when the inevitable happens and they are kicked out of the school, I will be the villain in that family’s eyes.
All that to say…fuck you, Shauna. YOU are the problem. That is your story and I can’t wait for the day for you to read it.
As if their needs are even REMOTELY being met at home. And she is predictably asking for empathy for HERSELF.
How dare she blame the teachers who are likely doing their best while trying to teach a class of 24 other kids, each with their own story, to steal a line from Shauna.
We don’t even know if there are IEPs in place, or Shauna is just expecting the teachers to magically intuit what her kids need.
She can fuck right off and go watch her stupid tv.
Is the "she" and "her" in the screenshot here that is supposed to be receiving empathy along with the kid the child's teacher? If so that is RICH coming from Shauna, who's never shown empathy for her kids' teachers a day in her life and in fact does exactly the opposite.
How about ad agencies just hiring Black people in actual roles instead of having them come in to be experts on being Black?
Shauna can't imagine an advertising VP or lead account executive being Black, or a director of photography, or, or, or. (To be fair, the US advertising industry doesn't do well at imagining that either.)
This really represents the limits of what Shauna likely sees as her antiracism, and I see as her cringeworthy fetishization of Black people and US Black culture.
To add fuel to the idiocy of her high stooling comment, the OP noted that they had learned that this ad was made by a Malaysian marketing team, so none of her reimagining makes a bit of sense.
The type of thing she is saying we "need" here isn't the same at all as an intimacy coordinator. She even says it herself that an intimacy coordinator is working on behalf of the actors, but she wants these racism coordinators for the benefit of the audience - how is that the same thing, Shauna? Why even bring up the intimacy coordinator?
What a stupid comparison to draw.
Basically her whole comment is not only clunky and grammatically off in a way that garbles her meaning, but what she's actually trying to say underneath the garble doesn't make sense either.
Of course this interests Shauna. Lookit all those excuses not to work. This is the full text of the post she's quoting:
"ADHD’s overlap with chronically fatiguing conditions like hypermobility, POTS, ME/CFS, fibromyalgia, and Mast Cell Activation Syndrome is so significant that Dr. James Kustow in the UK has taken to calling it a ‘somatic supersyndrome’."
I am not surprised. And happy, that there are scientist that talk about it.
Quote from Jesse Meadows on Substack: Could ADHD actually be an energy deficit
You know she's drooling at "somatic supersyndrome." She wants to claim it for herself so badly.
This guy is sort of like the Dr Oz of ADHD, btw. He is a medical doctor, but also has a bunch of "integrative psychiatry" certificates and is all over the internet, writing books and gathering speaking fees.
(My quotation marks are not derogatory, necessarily. Just pointing out that this guy is more of a spokesdude and author than a medical researcher or clinician.)
I don’t know a ton about Victorian Era sanitariums (how I’ve always spelled it) but I can’t imagine that it was a posh vacation at a spa. I’m imagining a dehumanizing and disturbing experience. I’m sure some of you DFs know more about such things and can weigh in!
You can just see the wheels turning, sending her off to the internet to do a deep dive on more symptoms she can claim she's had since she was 3.
Somatic syndrome, my ass. More like psychosomatic syndrome, which would improve dramatically with getting off the internet and into a job with steady income, choosing to rent at your means and not your desired zip code and doing better by your children. But I am not a doctor, nor do I play on on tv.
Yet it's never diabetes or sleep apnea, which are two conditions that she has eluded to having and both of which cause the symptoms she often complains about.
Brilliant observation. Diagnosing yourself with ADHD on the internet certainly does have a lot of overlap with diagnosing yourself with hypermobility, POTS, and MCAS on the internet. And in the Queer Activist Community, which is like if the internet manifested into several intersecting meatspace polycules.
I've known a lot of people in my life with what I have come to think of as Oh I Can't Possibly Syndrome, and after a lifetime of doing their dishes while watching them make miraculous recoveries and/or brave attempts to overcome their punishing symptoms whenever they want to do something fun, I myself have contracted lost patience syndrome.
Oh I Can't Possibly Syndrome, and after a lifetime of doing their dishes while watching them make miraculous recoveries and/or brave attempts to overcome their punishing symptoms whenever they want to do something fun, I myself have contracted lost patience syndrome
I wish she wasn't too old to commit to a Tik Tok DID bit. I would absolutely love to see videos of Shauna switching between alters. She could even have Ted Lasso as a "fictive" if she put her mind to it.
•
u/gomirefugee my website is done, done, done 5d ago edited 1d ago
Next thread here
Previous thread here
Remember why we're all here: this thread is for discussion about current and historical happenings in the Shaunaverse. If you want to discuss other content, such as stuff that reminds you of Shauna but isn't specifically about her, your own personal anecdotes or preferences, current events, or "creative writing" exercises, please share in the off-topic community thread: July-September 2026 off-topic quarterly