Thesis Fairies facing extinction due to lack of faith

The following content is purely satirical and entirely fictional.

As thesis deadlines approach, more and more members of the Class of 2023 have put words to their fears that nothing anyone can do will help them produce a well-written, novel piece of research that they can feel proud to present. Thesis fairies — underclass students tasked with providing treats to seniors as they sink deeper into despair and hopelessness — say they are worried the lack of faith may be their ruin.

As was discovered by J.M. Barrie in 1904, a fairy dies each time a child says they do not believe in fairies.

“I was with my friend Emerald in Spelman to deliver some fresh fruit and a Tico’s smoothie,” Acacia Honeyblossom ’26 said. “We had just knocked on the door when we heard this great sigh from inside. The senior said, ‘Keep your f*cking snacks. My f*cking code just crashed. Nothing matters anymore!’ And just like that, Emerald fell to the ground, dead.”

Another fairy, Bramble Betterstream ’25, told The Daily PrintsAnything that when his friend, Thistle Jumpyglow ’25, sent an email asking her assigned senior where to meet him with a fidget spinner and a box of Milano’s, he responded saying, “Don’t bother. I have to write a 35-page chapter in the next 24 minutes. Respectfully, I know a more useful place you can put the fidget spinner.”

Betterstream said that upon opening the email response, Jumpyglow grew faint and crumpled onto her bed. However, the fairies say their chief concern is not their own well-being but that of the seniors.

“The metamorphoses amongst the seniors make me feel crestfallen,” said Honeyblossom, who was close friends with her assigned senior prior to becoming his Thesis Fairy. “He used to be brimming with joy and optimism. His smile could make butterflies dance on a misty day. But now, he’s holed up either in his room or at the E-Quad or the Firestone C floor, and I fear I’ll never hear his magnificent laugh again!”

Woods Poplarspark ’25, president of the Thesis Fairies Association (TFA), expressed the importance of the TFA’s work:

“Whether it is reasonable to groom undergraduates to feel unworthy and inadequate — if they can’t impress a seasoned academic who spent a year ignoring their emails or produce a publishable paper after just a few months of work — is not our problem. But if we can brighten the spirits of just one soon-to-be unemployed person by providing them with Twizzlers and a boba tea — well, then we will have succeeded as fairies.”

Poplarspark could not respond to the question of whether he thought it reasonable to ask seniors to pay for the binding of their thesis because he had fallen abruptly to the floor.

Liana Slomka is a co-head Humor editor and a senior whose thesis-related stress dreams have gotten more and more similar to her waking reality.