#5 minutes is a generous estimate anyway !!!!!!!!

[picusviridis]

1 Cassius 👀

What’s the maximum amount of time your character can sit still with nothing to do?

Not that long, actually? It kinda depends on if he's in a daydream-y mood or not . He can sit there for hours if he's spaced-out enough........... but if he's, like, THERE? No more than 5 minutes max. Then he starts doing random (inoffensive and mindless) things like flipping through books or cleaning the area he's in until he's gotta do something proper...................................

[whencartoonsruletheworld]

hey so i saw the despicable me 4 trailer and i have a very specific beef with it that's making me insane

so, like, disclaimer, i havent watched any of the minion cinematic universe movies since despicable me 2 came out... holy fuck eleven years ago, jesus christ. but anyway i'm probably gonna get minute details wrong but like hold with me a second

so idr when despicable me 2 takes place in regards to the first film. from what i remember, agnes was having issues with not having a conventional nuclear family for mother's day so this implies it's the first mother's day that the girls have had in gru's household. i'm pretty sure that the first movie took place during the summer-ish, and iirc the second movie is also summer (fitting with my "roughly may" estimate) so we'll say like eight-ish months have passed since the first film. no big deal, right?

so then at the end of the film gru and kristen wiig get married but the timecard states that it's "147 dates later." i doubt they went on a date every single day leading up to the wedding but if we're assuming the date list also covers the engagement and wedding prep period, that's at the VERY VERY least one-hundred and forty-seven days after the events of the film. so with the timeskip at the beginning, that puts us at well over a year since the first film, thirteen months minimum

okay so the third film from my research doesn't state how long it takes after the wedding. so again, let's be generous and say that it's not too long after. i'm pretty sure the film itself takes place over a couple of days so we'll ignore its place in the continuity for now. that brings us to movie number four, which just got a trailer and just revealed a new player in the game

so gru and kristen wiig have a new biological child. this kid is old enough to move and emote, which puts him at 7-12 months old if he's able to crawl. let's again be generous and say it's seven months. assuming that human reproduction works the same as it does in our universe, and again being generous as hell and assuming that lucy may have been pregnant through the third film or right after the wedding, we have to add nine months to all this. so from the first film, we have ~8 month timeskip, then a 147-day minimum timeskip, then let's say 16 months to get to the baby being able to crawl. again, this is absolute bare minimum, and we still get to a conclusion of it's been roughly 29 months since the first film, or 2.5 years.

so okay. two-and-a-half years since the first film.

so then why the everloving fuck are the girls the same. fucking. AGE??

how have these motherfuckers not aged a fucking day??? they haven't grown a goddamn inch. it should have been, again, 2.5 years minimum, more likely 3-4 years if we're being realistic.

and to double check my work, i went on the despicable me wiki and found that they also put movie 4 at a three-year timeskip from the first movie, specifically putting margo at 10 in the first movie and 13 in the fourth, edith at 8-11, and agnes at 5-8; their main source is margo being stated to be 12 in the third movie, and her sisters' relative ages being provided by tweet, so even then this is, again, bare minimum on timeskip. and not only have these motherfuckers not changed style one fucking time, but they haven't changed height, weight, anything. agnes has hit eight years old and is the same height as the tiny-ass fucking minions. edith's hat still fits. margo should be in high school and she looks the same as she did three goddamn years ago

what kind of motherfucking witchcraft is the gru family using to keep themselves young??? they said gru stopped being evil but are we sure there isn't some vampire blood rituals happening in the minion basement

make them a new character model. please god

[andypantsx3]

incendiary | 5 | bakugou x reader

pairing: Bakugou Katsuki / Fem Reader

length: 3.5k | 5th of 8 chapters

summary: When you accidentally go viral in defense of quirkless people, an extremist group puts a target on your back. Pro hero Dynamight is the last person you want watching it.

tags/warnings:  enemies to lovers, themes of discrimination (please see note in fic masterpost), canon typical violence, eventual smut, aged up characters

series masterlist

Almost overnight, things began to change.

Bakugou had apparently decided that ignoring you was off the table now, and he was there the next morning when you awoke, audibly puttering around the kitchen, making his usual ruckus of kitchenware sounds. You listened to him work, slowly blinking awake, trying not to think too hard about the events of last night.

He came back into the living room only a few minutes later, bearing two plates of western-style breakfast, piled high with fluffy mounds of scrambled eggs and perfectly golden potatoes. He shoved a plate in front of you like he’d already sensed that you were awake, then retreated back to the kitchen. He returned with two mugs of hot coffee that smelled heavenly–almost certainly fair trade and freshly ground.

He put one in front of you, then dropped down to his place on the opposite side of the coffee table, watching you scrabble out of the blankets with something like a smirk pressing at the corner of his mouth, as if he knew his food was the fire under your feet.

“New rule, brat,” he pronounced as you finally freed yourself, flinging yourself down at the table and seizing your utensils.

You couldn’t bring yourself to stop now that you were already in motion, so you fit an entire forkful of potato in your mouth, then looked at him questioningly.

The smirk on his mouth deepened. “Your little stunt yesterday attracted every quirk supremacist in a twenty mile radius to this neighborhood, so you’re gonna have to keep away from the windows until they fuck off.”

You inhaled wrong around your potato, the steam catching in your lungs, and you coughed a little. “What? Quirk supremacists—here?”

Bakugou took a slow sip of his coffee, and you tried not to notice the way his bare bicep flexed as he brought the mug to his mouth. He really needed to invest in shirts with sleeves. “Your little cashier friend from the convenience store apparently leaked video onto YouTube already. The attack’s made a couple of the morning news shows.”

Your stomach churned, and you let your fork clatter back to your plate. “They’ve found us?”

Bakugou’s scarlet gaze tracked your expression over the top of his mug. “Not yet. But people know you’re in the general area now. Genius Office is running ID on all the weirdos showing up around here to find out who they are and what the risk is. But until they know what we’re dealing with, you’re to keep away from the windows. And you’re not going outside again.”

You didn’t think you wanted to go outside again anyway, considering the events of last night. Not for a long while, anyway.

You would never tell him, but it was kind of a relief to have Bakugou in here with you, now, understanding the kinds of people you were up against. But that so sucked, not even being able to poke your nose out a window after weeks of already being cooped up.

You nodded resignedly. You took a sip of your own coffee, then had to suppress a shiver of delight. Definitely freshly ground, and definitely fancy.

“They haven’t seen Matsui, have they?” You asked.

Bakugou shook his head. His hair looked a little messier than yesterday, piecey with gel and slightly flattened on the side he must have slept on. “No. Nothing on Matsui yet.”

You picked up your fork again and went back to your breakfast, at least reassured by that fact.

“Any estimate on how much longer this is gonna go on for?” You asked.

Bakugou scrubbed a hand through that thick golden hair. You watched, strangely enraptured, as it sprang right back up again in wild tufts. “Not much if you keep luring them straight to where you are, princess.”

You frowned into your egg. “I didn’t do it on purpose.”

Bakugou’s socked foot poked into yours. “It’s a safehouse for a reason. There were ground rules for a reason.”

You scowled. “Yeah yeah, I get it now. Excuse me for never having been the target of a national witch hunt before.”

Bakugou smiled, a wicked, blade-sharp thing. He leaned across the table. “So you’re gonna be good for me now, brat?”

Your fork clattered against your plate, spattering egg everywhere. You jumped in surprise, registering belatedly that you’d dropped it.

“Good for—? Good—?” you spluttered.

If anything, Bakugou’s smile went wider. “Something wrong, princess?” His eyes were practically glowing as he spoke.

What the hell was he doing? It was one thing to stop giving you the cold shoulder and act friendlier in light of everything that had happened yesterday. It was one thing to make you dinner and breakfast and not loom over you while radiating disdain from every pore. But it was entirely another to do—to do—whatever the fuck that was!

You grasped your fork with suddenly numb fingers, pointedly looking away from him. “No.” You shoveled a large potato into your mouth as if to punctuate that statement.

Bakugou just watched you, too knowingly for your taste. “Uh huh,” he said.

You finished your meal at lightspeed, desperate to get away from Bakugou and whatever that had been just now. Bakugou ate more sedately, seeming like he was mulling something over between delicate bites of his breakfast. You did not care to find out what that was.

You brought your dish to the sink when you’d finished and washed it speedily, then beat a hasty retreat to the bathroom, standing in the shower for a long time. Then you crept back to your room and managed a little bit of homework after you’d dressed, though you were a little too unfocused for your liking.

When you checked your phone you found that messages had started to pile up again, with a litany of texts from Megumi crowning the stack.

MEGUMI ✨🍹🌴💕 girl you almost died are you okay 8:58 PM those douchebags omg 8:58 PM please tell me you’re okay i’m really worried about you 9:06 PM

And then, a couple hours later, in typical fashion:

MEGUMI ✨🍹🌴💕 that rescue was so hot though 12:09 AM the way dynamight was all rough with them and then all gentle with you 12:09 AM it’s okay if you’re dead i would have passed away too 12:10 AM

You reassured her that you were fine, then paused, staring at her later messages, mystified. What did she mean, the rescue had been so hot though?

As far as you remembered, Bakugou had come slamming in there, metaphorical guns blazing, and he’d hauled you out of there much the same way. You didn’t think there had been anything particularly sexy about getting your quirkless ass almost handed to you.

Curiosity prickling in your veins, you googled around for the video Bakugou had mentioned, wondering how it had looked so different to someone on the outside. You found an hours-old upload on YouTube entitled dynamight destroys 7-eleven shopfront to save internet legend drunk girl—a title you thought a little unfair considering you had not been drunk this time, even though that was apparently your internet moniker now.

The clip was shot from a vantage point above the register, and started with the back of your head as the two men from yesterday turned the corner and almost immediately began crowding you towards the register. You saw your own face in profile as you peered back at the cashier for help—his own face conveniently hidden from the video’s perspective—and then turned back and said something muted to the two men. The smaller one stepped towards you—you saw yourself take an alarmed step back.

And then, faster than you had remembered—Bakguou was shooting into the store, the glass windows shattering under the blow from the door as he threw it open.

He was just as much a presence on screen as he was in person, all violence and savage grace. You watched as he grabbed the smaller man’s hand and twisted it at a brutal angle, then produced quirk suppressors from where they had been belted under one pant leg, just above his boot. You hadn’t even noticed it, then, hadn’t even thought to question where the quirk suppressor had come from—but he’d been wearing sweatpants yesterday, a pair not unlike the ones he’d been wearing this morning at breakfast.

But he clearly was packing some kind of emergency supply—and you wondered if he was wearing it now, even clanking around in the kitchen.

Then you watched as Bakugou approached you, saw yourself stumble as he grabbed your shirt to pull you out. To your surprise, you could see sudden concern twisting his features, clear as day, and you watched with surprise as he leaned down to look you in the face, hands going under your elbows to support you.

You remembered that—but it had all been so fast, and the sight of his hands, so gentle on you after he’d been so rough with the two men, made something in your stomach shift strangely. He really did seem to be looking after your safety, like an actual certified, probably-not-quirkist pro hero. You watched as Bakugou said something to you, and pulled you up into his arms. You instantly cringed at how truly princess-like you looked—having to be escorted out of the store under someone else’s power.

Embarrassingly, the comments section under the clip seemed particularly focused on that aspect as well.

2:11 ok but the way his arms flexed when he lifted her????? hello?????? jghgl26 2 hours ago Reply [Thumbs Up] 600 [Thumbs Down]

how he’s gonna carry me over the threshold after our wedding dynadaddy’s girl 5 hours ago Reply [Thumbs Up] 1.1k [Thumbs Down]

THE LIFT!!!!! HOLY SHIT!!! HOW EASY IT WAS FOR HIM?? am i gregnant? am i pegnate?? how to know if pregonate????? Rika Abe 2 hours ago Reply [Thumbs Up] 1.7k [Thumbs Down]

A hunted energy creeped over you as you read through them, your skin tingling. It suddenly took everything you had in you to click out of the video and not rewind it to the part where Bakugou had first hefted you into his arms. It had not been that appealing. And there was absolutely no reason you needed to witness the events again, no reason at all.

Bakugou chose that exact moment to rap on your door, and you accidentally flung your phone across the room in surprise, scrambling upright on your bed.

“Uh—come in,” you said, trying to not sound flustered.

Bakugou had clearly showered too as his hair was still damp, and moisture still glittered in the divots of his arm muscles. You clamped down very tightly on the echo of pegnate?? Am i gregnant???? that was suddenly the only sound in your entire brain.

No no no no.

You would not let Megumi and some internet perverts get the best of you.

“Oi, you just gonna sit here all day?” Bakugou demanded.

You frowned up at him. “I have been doing homework, thank you very much,” you said defensively.

Bakugou made a show of surveying your bed which was pointedly empty of any textbooks or notepads. “Yeah, looks like you’re real hard at work, princess.”

“Well I was,” you said, but you could already tell Bakugou had made up his mind.

“It’s time to talk about your second new rule,” he pronounced smugly.

“Another one?” You asked, heart sinking.

That razor sharp smile cut into Bakugou’s mouth again. “Yeah. You’re learning how to cook actual fucking food.”

You paused and stared at him, mystified. “What,” you asked flatly.

“I told you I was sick of watching you eat garbage,” he said. You could almost taste the disdain, dripping off of him like butter off of the baked potato he had so despised. “I can’t keep you alive if you die of fucking scurvy.”

“I eat fruit!” You bit back defensively. “And potatoes are good for treating scurvy!”

Bakugou wasn’t listening, though. Before you knew what was happening, he’d already fisted his hand in the back of your shirt and was hauling you to your feet. You felt like a kitten being scruffed by its intimidatingly well-muscled mother.

“Bakugou–what the hell—?”

But you were already being herded into the kitchen, where Bakugou had apparently preemptively arranged the instruments of your torture—several knives, a grater, a variety of pots, a rainbow of vegetables, an apple, some chicken, and a knob of ginger. Behind it all you spotted several other types of herbs and spices, some flour, and chicken stock.

“You’re gonna make curry, princess,” he informed you imperiously.

Curry! Okay now curry you could kind of do. You peered around for the sauce mix, poking through the ingredients on the counter.

Bakugou watched you, scarlet eyes tracking you curiously. “What,” he asked, though it was barely phrased like a question.

“Where’s the packet?” you asked, not finding it among the things he’d laid out.

Two blonde eyebrows went up, and you swore you could almost see a vein pop in Bakugou’s forehead. He grabbed the counter beside your hip, leaning back in, and you definitely did not notice the definition in his bicep as he did so.

“Packet?” He demanded, in the tones of someone who’d just witnessed their entire family get massacred. “Packet?”

You watched his handsome face work through what had to be the five stages of grief. “If I fucking ever hear about a packet again I’ll sell you to Matsui myself,” he said.

He reached over and slammed a kitchen scale down in front of you, followed by several of the ingredients. “Now pay attention, brat, I’m not showing you this twice.”

You knew better than to argue.

Under Bakugou’s stern direction, a curry roux—a term you would not have been able to supply before he’d said it—came together quickly. He stationed you at the stove, stirring everything together for almost twenty minutes while he chopped vegetables in front of you, a rainbow of carrots, potatoes, onions, and some leftover asparagus and peppers he’d dug out of the fridge. Then he made you grate an apple and some ginger into a paste while he sliced the chicken in expert strokes, narrating everything in his gruff tones.

It was strangely hypnotic, watching Bakugou’s hands work. You’d not paid much attention before, but he had long fingers, almost elegant but for the various scars and calluses that littered his skin, evidence of his career pressed into his fair flesh. You watched his fingers bunch at the end of the knife, the swift, decisive sweep of his palm moving ingredients back and forth on the cutting board.

Your skin prickled with the memory of those hands on you in the hallway after you’d passed out, the image of how gently those hands had handled you in the convenience store, and you shook off the thought, the back of your neck weirdly warm.

They were just hands. And they were Bakugou’s hands, for that matter. Make one wrong move on the end of those hands and you’d get cooked, faster than the curry you were working on now.

Eventually Bakugou divided everything into two bowls, and shepherded you over to the coffee table.

“That’s real curry, princess,” he informed you haughtily as you sat down, blowing on the golden sauce. It shimmered under the living room lighting, curls of steam rising off of it in tempting twists.

If this was real curry, you never wanted to eat anything else. As with dinner and breakfast, it was perfect—expertly seasoned, everything evenly sliced and cooked just right. You hated how much you liked it, suppressing a pleased groan as you shoveled down spoonfuls.

“I hate you for how good this is,” you admitted to him.

A wicked smirk cut the corners of Bakugou’s mouth, and the sight of it raised a strange heat to your face. You shifted uncomfortably.

Whatever. It was probably just the spice in the curry.

After dinner you helped Bakugou wash up, and you were sent for a loop by how easy it was. There was still some kind of… tension… that you couldn’t quite put your finger on, and it wasn’t like he’d done a complete one-eighty in your esteem.

But knowing now that he hadn’t despised you for your quirklessness… hadn’t even actually despised you at all, really. It seemed like it had somehow flipped a switch inside of you. You’d told him that you’d needed more time to think on it, to come to terms with the things that he’d told you about himself. But really, with the air cleared so definitively, well—

You kind of thought maybe Bakugou wasn’t horrible after all.

You still wanted to bite him, actually–that hadn’t gone away–but you definitely didn’t think he was horrible.

The thought unnerved you.

When you were done you retreated to your room, still mulling that idea over, bemused at the idea that Bakugou wasn’t actually bad if you weren’t looking at him through the lens of your quirk supremacist glasses.

You managed a little bit more homework and cleaned up your notes from one of your previous lectures, shooting off a couple questions to one of your TAs. And that’s when you finally noticed it, an email from earlier this afternoon, sitting primly at the top of your inbox. It read: New Day Japan - Interview Request

You opened the email, interest piqued by the mention of one of the country’s most famous morning programs. What it said inside floored you.

Miss L/N, My name is Honda Ichika; I’m a producer here at New Day Japan. We’re airing a segment on the two quirkless anti-discrimination bills currently circulating in the National Diet, and we plan to cover your story in relation. We would love to interview as part of this segment. Specifically, we are hoping you can comment on: - Cultural barriers quirkless civilians face - Your specific experiences with respect to the events portrayed in your viral video and subsequent run-in last evening, as a microcosm of those cultural barriers, and -Your feelings on the efforts of the assembly to pass these anti-discrimination bills. The interview won’t exceed 15 minutes and will take place Thursday morning in our studio in Nakano (address to be provided upon acceptance). While I can’t offer questions ahead of time, I promise the questions will fall within the outline I mentioned above. The story, once completed, will run Friday morning. Please let us know by Sunday what your interest is. Cordially, Honda Ichika

You gaped, stunned by the idea that anyone wanted to interview you about anything.

New Day Japan was a hugely important morning news program that had been running for something like the last fifty years, and it was a massive platform for anyone looking to speak to the average citizen.

You didn’t know that you in particular had anything worthy of that massive platform, and you were squirreled away in a safehouse besides, having just almost eaten it at the hands of two random quirkist assholes just yesterday. So it was probably not a great idea to draw any more attention to yourself, and it wasn’t like you had some huge message you wanted to share at the cost of your safety.

So you closed your laptop instead of answering, pulling up twitter on your phone for something to distract you.

And yet, even as you scrolled, your mind was helplessly drawn back to the email like a magnet, catching on key points. A segment on the two quirkless anti-discrimination bills, the cultural barriers quirkless civilians face….

Please let us know by Sunday what your interest is.

You had two days to either put it out of your mind, or figure out why it was piquing your interest so much. You could give it more thought in the morning.

You wondered absently, as you drifted off to sleep, what Bakugou would make of it.

[rigelmejo]

Oh also, to hype up this app Smart Books even more (apparently its on app store as Parallel translations of books. Which. Yeah thats literally what it is and it's great:

So in this app, it shows book statistics. Which I'm always fascinated by. Here's my current stats for Guardian:

It shows how fast I'm reading in words per minute, how often I'm looking up words (caveat here that I keep clicking some words I know reading wise for pinyin pronunciation), shows my progress (4% is pathetic but also impressive considering I restarted today and the book is over 100 chapters). It shows how long I have read total and I'm happy to say the timer does NOT count when you minimize the app or switch to other apps with it still open, making the time read quite accurate (and really calling out my ADHD for taking a break from reading every 5-20 minutes ToT). And it shows estimated time to finish the book. Which is a feature I love in any reading app. And I have to say, personally? I am VERY motivated to see the estimated time go DOWN. So when I see it, it motivates me to kick up my reading speed, and remember fucking words so I don't slow down to look them up again. I like motivation, so I love the estimated reading time. And a fun fact about Guardian, the audiobook is around 55 hours if I remember correctly. So the closer I get to seeing that estimated remaining time go down to 55 hours, the closer I'm getting to spoken reading speed! I've already improved a lot as when I started reading it estimated 98 hours, now after a bit of reading its estimating 72 hours. Huge improvement. (And yes, if you load a Chinese novel in this app you'll be hit by the reality a fuck ton of Chinese web novels are from 20 hours for SHORT SHORT ones to 100+ hours to read... for a fast reader). For comparison, I'm also reading 坏小孩 which is only 124k words compared to Guardian at 304k words... and 坏孩子 is estimating ill finish reading it in 28 hours (I think it's audiobook is 20 hours so that's at spoken reading speed).

And Guardian word statistics:

This fun word statistics area lists the words by order of how often they appear, so its great for if you want to pre-study vocabulary for a book. Or if you want to review common words in it. Or if you're curious how MANY fucking unique words are in a book. Fun fact, 坏小孩 has around 8000 unique words, compared to Guardian's 16,740 unique words. Despite this, I find 坏小孩 harder cause apparently of my lexicon of Chinese words I know how to read, it's mostly words priest uses. And the 坏小孩 author uses a word I am not familiar with about every 20 words ;-; to be fair, Guardian leans heavier into case investigatkom stories/supernatural which is the bulk of Other novels I've read too. Whereas 坏小孩 has many more every day words for card games, school, building descriptions, orphanages, which I do not read about as much.

Anyway my point is: this app is free and pretty dang useful if you're trying to read a language you're learning. It generates parallel texts!

[someone-always-cares]

chapter 5, page 60

first - previous - next

[image description: an sac webcomic page. the shelf crashes onto schmidt, pinning them. her mask is now fully formed, aside from the growing horns, showing the eye holes surrounded by branching tendrils that match the ones on her shoulder and hands. markings that are easier to view in the close up of her, glaring directly at the viewer, the highlights in her eyes now more like her tendril shapes rather than the wiggly lines they were before. with one hand on the counter, lewis quickly vaults over the shelf and person trapped under it, all that is seen of them is the sparking hand reaching up at him. jade worriedly grimaces downwards at schmidt, one hand on the doorframe she's facing, the one they just tried a few pages ago. end id]

so i didnt finish this page due to stomach pain on monday so it wasnt done tuesday, so i thought, okay, well, lets get it finished on wednesday after i take my bro out for a birthday movie.

and then i got back, took a 20 minute nap so id have a little energy to draw comics! and then i woke up 5-6 hours later, at 3am. 3 alarms slept through (despite being a light sleeper) and lights still on. the 5 hours sleep each day took its toll i suppose, so i went back to sleep, so heres the comic today!!!

speaking of waits for comics! its time for the annual fucking off period! also known as "taking a break" like i do in december, buts lets be honest, i will not be taking a break. like always i will just be working on other things because i cant just not draw for too long.

hopefully this means i will be working on a buffer, finally. i will for sure be working on making chapter 1 book ready! if im very lucky i will get that sorted and ready before next febuary (got a couple large cons there) but thats a very generous estimate and assuming self funded and not kickstarter, but i can do that with some savings if i only get a small amount of books because chapter 1 isnt long. wish me luck.

so yes, this is the last update until january unless i end up making a holiday drawing who knows.

until then, im also going to try and upload more art to my art blogs (@galaxia-art on tumblr and galaxiaprince on instagram) and speaking of socials, shameless self promotion for my etsy because if youre looking to buy something from outside the uk then the last days for doing that and getting it before christmas is the 4th-7th december (depending on country) (or the 18th if you're in the uk). if you dont care when it arrives then all's good whenever!

anyway, thank you all so much for reading my comic, and i hope you all have a great rest of the year!

[yourgamemasterthewhiterabbit]

Regular sleep experiment day "fuck it" of idec.

Again I fell asleep at some point after 10, woke up some time later and laid in bed trying to sleep for what I would estimate was at least about 2 hours, before checking the clock and seeing it was only 12:30 instead of even 3 am.

I'd propose that what I try next is just sleep in two 4 hours shifts, one at day and one at night, but that's effectively what i have been doing and my night sleep just erased itself.

I have crawled out of bed to have a cokey-cola and watch x-files because I don't want to spend yet another night just laying there from before midnight until after 5 without sleeping.

Illicit nighttime caffeine tastes so cold and crisp and fizzy. I actually put this box of them in the fridge before consuming them all so they are actually cold. I was torn between avoiding aluminium and avoiding microplastics, but I wanted to be able to drink it in smaller portions without the whole bottle going flat, so I got cans. Tasty tasty rule breaking.

I don't think it matters, my only hope now is to completely upend my current 'schedule' so I can sleep for more than 4 hours in a day again. I need to so desperately. I am getting weird chest pains again, and my heart acts up more when I am sleep deprived.

I guess another part of the problem is that the time I get sleepy at acts like I have a non-24h sleep cycle, where I have to push my bedtime by 1-3 hours each day or I just lay there awake, but the time I wake up -usually- understands what time it is on the clock and will be at the same consistent hour anyway. I have no problem with laying there awake telling myself calming scenarios until I drift off, but the problem is that if i do that too much, my brain becomes content to lay there all night thinking. It's best for my sleep in general if I can fall asleep shortly after laying down.

I have considered that this might be due to having an alarm which can force me awake at specific times by uh... Waking me up, but even if I set a sleep time alarm, which I do, which I currently have, it can't uh... FORCE me to fall asleep. So my body is trained to wake up at a consistent 24h kind of hour, which it will do with no alarm, but not to get sleepy at a consistent 24h kind of hour... Melatonin doesn't help set this time and sleeping pills do something weird to me that makes me really wakeful if not alert or full of any energy. [The last time I tried sleeping pills I was awake for 48 hours despite laying in bed for over 10 hours doing breathing exercises...]

None of this is a symptom of any disorder currently known to man, unless it just counts as the irregular sleep patterns you expect from a patient with dementia or certain psychotic disorders, neither of which I have to the best of my knowledge. Except the caffeine not being helpful thing, that's adhd for sure. So I don't really think there's any point in prioritizing this issue with doctors over my other problems because they aren't likely to know of disorders that I can't even find mention of on the internet in either formal or informal spaces, especially not my gp, and they can't prescribe me anything anyway due to my metabolism being weird. I have brought up issues sleeping before and I get a lot of shrugging. It doesn't help that I sleep 16 hours a day the other half of the time, so they can't treat one problem without making the other worse.

I have also tried alcohol to try to sleep by now, for the record, and that's how I was able to scrape about 20 minutes out of this.

So now I drink this can of coke, feed my cat, and see if caffeine helps me sleep.

If I can't sleep from now until 5, I am going to try again at just staying awake all day to delete whatever 'schedule' my brain thinks it's on now so I can sleep more than 4 hours. If I can sleep from now until 5... I am going to do that, but also let myself have caffeine at bedtime again.

Fuck it, I don't even care, I just want to sleep.

This is why trying to force myself onto a regular schedule is always a pipe dream that turns into regrets.

[morphomixz]

Eclipsed Pt 3 Miraculous x Reader

6:21:48 AM Thursday, April 18th, Paris, France

"Okay, you can do this. It's just a high school, you have nothing to worry about." I've been saying that since I got up an hour ago. I'm currently double-checking for the 19th time that I have everything.

 I should probably explain. I haven't been to a real school before. My aunt has had me study under private tutors instead of attending a private boarding school like she initially planned. It's harder to control an image if they aren't under your roof with bodyguards, strict curfews, and Life360 downloaded on your phone despite the fact that you don't go anywhere.  So, an entire school isn't really my forte, nor is making my own friends without them being work partners first. So, I can do work friends, not real friends. Anyways, I have about two hours until school starts, Chloe's still asleep, and I need some air.

I let my uncle know I was heading out and went on a walk to go find a cafe or a park, just somewhere where I wouldn't be surrounded by riches or paperwork for work. It's weird. In New York, if you walk around alone, you're generally asking to be mugged, but it's calmer here. I think the bakery I passed on my way to the hotel last night may be open. 

"Hello, ma'am! Is the bakery open?" I heard my voice come out, slightly higher than I would've hoped. It doesn't appear the lady recognized me, or maybe she registers that it's good to feel like you're a background character for a while. 

"Ah, yes. Hello. What can I get for you?" she responded. Her smile is warm like the bakery. 

I bought two chocolate croissants and was on my way after a short conversation with the woman. She apparently has a daughter about my age, who will be in my class today. Maybe she and I can become friends. I've only been here for maybe 10 hours and there are already rumors spiraling on Instagram that I'm in Paris to hang out with some chick called Lila, or that I'm working on my new project (which is kinda true), or that I'm even pregnant with Dante's kid (which is far, far, far, away from the actual truth). Seriously, I'm 15, not 20, where did that rumor even come from? Dante and I barely even hugged half the time. I really need to stay off social media. 

I was walking back to the hotel when I noticed something. There's an old man who looks confused looking at the sign postage on the corner of 2nd and 4th street.

"I'm sorry to intrude, but do you need help?"

"Ah, that would be much appreciated, young lady. Do you know how to get to the subway station from here?"

"Unfortunately I don't. I've only just come back... but let me look it up for you." I wasn't going to lie to a sweet old man. Especially one that seemed so confused. Perhaps, he's a tourist. 

"Alright, if you follow this road, down to where it connects with Wormwood Avenue, there should be an opening to the subway station along the road." 

"Ah, thank you. Would you mind walking me there?"

"I don't mind, sir. I just need to get to the local high school in time for class."

8:00:39 AM Thursday, April 18th, Paris, France

So, I walked the old man to the subway station. I learned he came from China to France where an old flame used to live and that he'll be staying for a while. When we got to the subway station, he vanished before I could make sure he knew where he was going. I have 30 minutes until school starts and it's about a 20-minute walk from here. Chloe's been blowing up my phone to let her know where I am, so the limo can pick me up. Their estimated time of arrival is in 5 minutes. As it pulled up in front of me, I started to wonder, why should I ride in a limo every day when I can walk just fine? I mean, I went walking for a long while and didn't mind the idea of walking to the school myself. 

Anyways, we pulled up in front of the school about 10 minutes later, and I left Chloe to go get my schedule from the office. There were a lot fewer people staring at me than I expected. Which is a good thing. I'm happy it seems they don't care so much. I'm in the same class as Chloe, but I have P.E at a different time. When I made it to the class, the teacher placed me by two girls that Chloe was glaring at. I'm guessing they don't get along since she texted me to avoid them outside of class and she'd try to get my seat moved. The girls I am sitting next to are glaring at me too... I guess Chloe's burned some bridges. It's going to be a long school year if this is what it's going to be like. 

[necarion]

Slow charging in parking lots?

Was working through a thought experiment with @jadagul about one way of improving car charging infrastructure in the US by using unmetered slow-chargers (120V plug outlets) in parking lots.

Obviously, building out a metered fast charger (or even 240V charger) is going to be far, far more expensive than running a 120V line out to that same space. 120V chargers can charge about 1 kW, and electric cars get 2-5 miles/kWh, so a slow charger space can add about 2-5 charge-miles/hour parked. This isn't a lot, but it's enough to cover a ton of ordinary shopping trips in the US. And even if it wasn't a net-positive, it still reduces the effective milage of the trip by 2-5 charge-miles/hour.

One advantage of this system is that it would tend to increase the dwell time inside the store ("we're getting free charging!") so people would tend to buy more stuff.

The problem is that electricity isn't free. Now, I'm going to take a lot of upper bound estimates here.

In CA, rates are something like $0.30/kWh (CA is an outlier in electricity costs, but it's where I live, so). So for a store to be able to eat the cost of the unmetered space, they need to make $0.30/hour more profit per-customer. As a lot of these places are operating under tiny margins (like 2-3% for stores like Walmart), that's about $17 revenue/customer-hour to make this fully pencil out. And that's assuming that every space that's charging is a customer in the store who might be buying things.

Now, to be a little more reasonable, the extra spending a customer might do at the end, trying to eke out another 5 minutes charging (people aren't rational here) is somewhat more likely to be on stuff that isn't quite as small a margin. Checkout candy bars are like 35% margin, so adding 1 candy bar/hour/space would make up that margin. And marginal profit is generally higher than average profit on anything at the store.

And if electricity prices drop to $0.15/kWh (like they are in Texas during on-peak, a rate which is falling as they add solar) on a store with 3% margin, you're starting to see costs at closer to $5 revenue/space/customer-hour. That might actually reach a level we could subsidize, especially when paired with wealthier customers buying higher-margin stuff.

We could also consider subsidizing it through encouraging stores to add solar. One panel produces something like 500W during daytime, so at two panels you're at net-zero during daylight hours even for 100% occupancy. I could imagine having a bonus subsidy for solar panels if you do 1 slow-charger / 4 panels, or something like that. You could even allow stores to only provide free slow charging during daylight hours, although that makes things less attractive for customers, and for the argument for switching to an electric car, that you can just charge in any parking lot.

Lastly, "free slow charging" is something that works a lot better in places where there is a certain degree of audience-captivity. i.e., paid parking garages. City parking lots could more easily spread out the rate increases to all the customers (which is the direction of the subsidy we want, anyway, right?). If you had a parking garage that advertised "free slow charging" on 20% of its spaces, it could increase the hourly rate by like $0.10/hour on all the customers and come out well-ahead. And for all-day garages, this is even better because you can (1) add $1/day which is a nice round number, and (2) the customers can get 20-30 miles of charge. (Now, this does mean that the garages would lose some customers to garages that don't do that, but this is one place where the subsidy comes in to get the transition in the first place). Movie theaters could also handle that through slightly higher ticket prices.

(Funny option for making the public happy if we do subsidize this: we do this via the car companies, who give the money to the big parking lots on the DL.)

Ultimately, this (free slow charging) is something that might ultimately be a viable option to speed the transition to electric vehicles. I feel like in 10 years, the regular charging network should be sufficiently built-out that we can probably figure out actual metering systems here, even for the slow charging ports. And electricity prices seem to be coming down due to the massive build-out of solar, wind (and hopefully nuclear).

We really need to speed the transition to electric vehicles as much as we can. As a thing developed countries could handle subsidizing for a couple years, adding out free slow-parking in big parking lots seems like something that might just be plausible.

[micahdraws]

Well since my last post on the Dislyte sexualization discourse, some ignorant jackass insists on arguing with bad faith assumptions. So I did a little research into because I was curious and who knows. Maybe I was wrong about my own understanding.

First, they liken being horny on main to "sexual harassment," which it's not. Yes, it makes some people uncomfortable, but it's not harassment to witness a sexual conversation that has nothing to do with you outside of a workplace. People are allowed to talk about their sexual fantasies openly and in public areas outside of work. There is nothing inherently wrong with that. If you're out with your friends and you want to talk horny topics among yourselves, that's not harassment even if others overhear.

Second, in online spaces, everyone is responsible for their own experience. So crying "sexual harassment" and "what about the children????" is not only disingenuous, it echoes the same conservative talking points being wielded in places like Florida and Texas. It's gross, insidious, and ultimately not about the children, but about that person not wanting to take proper responsibility and curate their online experience so they can be more comfortable. Nobody is forcing them to continue exposing themselves to the unwanted content, and the main difference between seeing horny on main content and "sexual harassment" is that online you have the power to immediately cut it out of your perception, full stop.

Also, speaking of "what about the children," you don't get to lump "young adults" into that. Either something is appropriate for adults or it's not. Young adults are not children. They're adults. Don't pull people in their late teens/early 20s into this mess.

The other thing that was thrown at me was a "common sense" assumption that the majority of gacha players are "extremely likely" to be teens. Source: trust me, bro, it's "common sense" because nobody with a full time job and money is going to be playing a gacha. Which...okay, that's a take.

Anyway, here's where I was really curious and did some quick research. This took all of like 5 minutes to compile. This post is already getting long so I'll put the rest under a cut but the TL;DR is the average gacha player is most likely in their 30s.

According to Google Play demographics, the average age of mobile game players is 36.

According to this 2023 study, here is the breakdown by generation:

79% of Gen Z

Millennials are second with an unstated percentage

68% of Gen X We know that somewhere between 68% and 79% of millennials play mobile games, so for the sake of this discussion, we'll assume 74% of millennials play mobile games, putting them squarely in the middle between Gen X and Gen Z.

Estimated population by generation:

Gen Z: 2.56 billion (69.58 million in the US)

Millennials: 1.8 billion (72.24 million in the US)

Gen X: 1.025 billion (65.37 in the US)

Estimated number of players by generation:

Gen Z: 2.02 billion (55 million in the US)

Millennials: 1.33 billion (53 million in the US)

Gen X: 697 million (44 million in the US)

If you look at the totals worldwide, Gen Z only makes up about half of the estimated number of players. And currently about half of Gen Z is adults, so we can assume about 1 billion of this number is not children. That means of the about 4 billion number of players, about 75% of them are adults. In the US alone, millennials and Gen X make up nearly double the number of Gen Z players, and that's even before we cut the Gen Z number in half to account for adult Gen Z-ers.

So yeah, the average gacha player is not "extremely likely" to be a child. The average gacha player is, in fact, far more likely to be an adult.

But hey, I'm sure the "for the children!!!!" people are gonna find some way to explain why this is wrong and/or you still shouldn't be horny on main because they're running out of pearls to clutch with their weird conservative talking points. So whatever.

Bottom line is if you are seeing something you don't like, just fucking block it or mute it or unfollow it or whatever. Grow up.

[brakingpoint]

you went to the london eprix last year right? how did monaco compare?

WELL my faves did better so on that level alone i had a better time :)

anyway - the big downside of both eprix is that the fan village is just... not great. it was slightly bigger in london due to the venue (and the entertainment was better, stan gracey) but in monaco it was just a packed bit of astroturf along the harbour with like, three food stalls, some charging points that did not work, and a small store. at one point between quali & the race they did a q&a with jev that, no joke, i would generously estimate to have lasted about 3 minutes

of course the good thing about monaco is you have basically the entire country to explore instead if you get bored at the fan village, whereas you can't really leave the excel arena once you're in (and the area around it is a big load of nothing anyway). however you do have to be prepared for a LOT of walking on race day because half the country is, well. the track. so there's a lot of detours in place. so getting between my grandstand at tabac and the fan village, which at my fast walking pace was probably a 5-10 min walk the rest of my stay, became a half hour trek. i didn't mind this because i like walking (except stairs as rach will tell you from my incessant moaning all trip) and it killed the time but if you're thinking of ever going to monaco i'd say that is THE thing to be aware of. also a lot of shops around the circuit are closed & the restaurants are all packed with reservations so be prepared to eat at stalls by your grandstand or bring snacks yourself!!

another random thing was at least in my grandstand (K1) i was pretty far from a screen. i could see the action just fine but i had no hope of following the timings or lap count - during quali i got around this by having the live timings up on my phone while watching but when the grandstands filled up for the race my wifi & 4G both tapped out entirely so i just got a lot of fun surprises re: the order every single time the cars came back round hahaha

in terms of the overall experience i'd say i preferred monaco outside of the fan village being worse - the track is obviously so iconic and it's a lot nicer to be in monaco than a convention centre in east london, and i think the racing was a lot more exciting this time round at least - but i had a great time at both and i'm really looking forward to going back to london in the summer :)

[touch-starved-switch]

1. What’s your favorite tickle tool? 2. Favorite Ler? (Tag them if you dare~) 3. Favorite Lee? (Tag them to call them out~) 4. Opinion on blindfolds/restraints? Why or why not? 5. A spot that gets you squealing? 6. How long do you estimate you could last before calling mercy? 7. Ever have tickle fantasies? 8. Why did you make your tickle blog? 9. Does anyone irl know of your interests? 10. Can you say the t-word? 11. Verbal teases, yes or no and why? 12. Upper body tickles or lower body tickles? 13. Neck or ear tickles? 14. Pinned on your back, or your stomach? 15. What do you love about the lees you know? 16. What do you love about the lers you know? 17. Feathers or Paint Brushes? 18. How long have you known about your interests in the community? 19. What’s your favorite way to be tickled? (As in provoked, teased into asking, etc.) 20. Are you/Do you like Polite Lees or Bratty Lees? (Asking for tickles vs Pissing someone off for tickles)

That's all of them homeslice I'll answer 5 of them tho using a random number generator 😁

4-opinions on blindfold on restraints?

It's a no for me as a lee it crosses a hard boundary. I just don't like that amount of vulnerability and also my anxiety would go through the wall.

As a ler tho I would be up for it but there would have to be a serious conversation first

6-how long do you think you could last before calling mercy

Depends on the tickling if it's quite rough 15 minutes if it's a gentle forever. But if there's teasing.... yeah that numbers gonna go down

8- why did you make you're tickle blog?

So ok I actually have two blogs on here and if you find the other one then you're actually James bond! Anyway, I made this blog because I love to shit post stuff and I accidently nearly posted tk stuff on my other one😬

12- upper body tickles or lower body tickles?

Ya see I have no preference between the two HOWEVER my lower body is way more ticklish then the upper half!

16-What do you love about the lers you know?

Well I only know one prominent ler on here and they know who they are! But what I love about them is they never fail to MAKE MY LEE MOODS WORSE

[mlobsters]

there are absolutely people who tolerate the heat much better than my pasty white self. and there are ways to acclimate to heat. but I sweat *a lot* (which is generally a good thing because my body is trying to cool itself, but my heat->sweat threshold is very low) and a side effect I've experienced in varying levels of severity from my antidepressants (depending on formulation) is increased sweating and decreased heat tolerance. earlier today it was humid and 75F/23.9C inside my house and I was sweating just sitting with my kid putting together a puzzle. so, yeah. I hate the heat with a seething passion.

I was born in Denver CO, we didn't have air conditioning. it was dry with summer averages in 80-90F/26.7-32.2C, I still spent a lot of time parked in front of a fan or at the public pool.

I lived in Phoenix AZ from age 11-19, I was a cheerleader in high school. we had outdoor activities like running in the summer. football would have practices in the summer as well.* Phoenix, on average, has 100 days of 100F/37.8C+ degree weather and in 2020 there are a record 145 days of 100+ degree days. with the car parked outside you can have the a/c blasting for a 20 minute drive and still arrive at your destination with your back soaked in sweat. it's so fucking miserable, even with low humidity. there's very little shade due to desert foliage, there's very little cloud cover. it's just oppressive, baking heat for months on end.

I also lived in Miami FL for ten years which is a true tropical climate, it stays in the 80s and 90s March-November but with high humidity. it is also miserable, but I think the heat in Arizona was worse.

anyway, stay safe. look into cooling centers in your city if you don't have a/c.

*Exertional Heat Illness in American Football Players: When Is the Risk Greatest?

From 1960 to 2009, 123 cases of heat-related deaths were reported among American football participants in the United States. Heat-related deaths increased substantially since 1975: 24 deaths were reported from 1975 to 1994, but over the next 15 years (1995 to 2009), 42 deaths occurred. In fact, the 5-year period from 2005 to 2009 included the greatest number of heat-related deaths (n = 18) in high school and collegiate sports for any 5-year period over the previous 35 years.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has signed a law that prevents cities or counties from creating protections for workers who labor in the state's often extreme and dangerous heat. Two million people in Florida, from construction to agriculture, work outside in often humid, blazing heat. For years, many of them have asked for rules to protect them from heat: paid rest breaks, water, and access to shade when temperatures soar. After years of negotiations, such rules were on the agenda in Miami-Dade County, home to an estimated 300,000 outdoor workers. But the new law, signed Thursday evening, blocks such protections from being implemented in cities and counties across the state.

desert creature on the phone: it's not that hot today it's like a comfortable 104 (degrees Fahrenheit; 40 in Celsius) !

me (snow creature from snow land): there is no such thing

no nuance you must pick one

[rigelmejo]

I'm about to make a lot of rough assumptions to get to the point of my notes for myself lol

So this ALG article has the equation for estimating how much comprehensible input it will take to acquire % of a language understanding. And in this case, comprehensible input just means experiences/happenings (or witnessing them) where you understand the main idea of what's going on. Since it's ALG, they assume NO word lookups and no conscious guessing the meanings of stuff, so my estimate is going to be really fucking weird compared to theirs when applied to me as... I did a lot of word lookups, and guessed a lot.

The BASIC LANGUAGE ACQUISITION EQUATION: y = 1-e-kx

where y is how much language they know (1 = native).

x is how many hours they have understood.

k is the acquisition constant: .0018

e is the natural logarithm base:  2.718

The article does go on to say that if you did 100 hours engaged with the language, if you only understood say 50% of what's going on then you would put 50 hours into the equation. Because you want to aim to only count hours worth of time you UNDERSTOOD meaning.

What I find cool about this equation, is 1000 hours is 83% understanding, 1400 hours is 91% understanding (both great goals). 1500 hours is how long Dreaming Spanish estimates learning Spanish will take as an English speaker (less for a Romance language speaker), and it appears this equation primarily made for learning Thai as an English speaker, ALSO estimates good progress by around 1500 hours. At 2200 hours, this equation estimates 98% understanding which is a great goal for doing most anything in a language (and is fairly close to some estimates I've seen of how long to give ALG for languages not similar to your own). Now... since not all hours of study you will understand 100% of what's going on, you're going to want to either double those hours (assuming you understand 50%) or at least assume some of those hours of study only count for 75% understanding. So considering those factors, actual hours of study you understand OR not, is going to be closer to somewhere between 2200-4400 hours to get good enough to understand 98% of the language a native can understand. Now this matches up quite well with people's experiences they've shared, and with the experience of BOOK/classroom/explicit learners, as well as ALG learners. Although... I would guess an ALG method minded person would argue that the explicit learner needs more hours, in general, of comprehensible input, to hit certain milestones. But at a certain point, explicit learners are doing most study hours as just that, comprehensible material they understand the main idea of, like me watching shows/reading/listening to audiobooks now in chinese with word lookups only 5% of the time.

So anyway, for fun, I wanted to see where this equation thinks I'd be so far. So with Chinese, I studied what, 4 years? I'm going to try and underestimate. But I feel like I'm coming up on 5 years, whatever. Let's say 4 years, let's say 2 hours per day on average the first 2 years - so 1460 hours the first 2 years. Let's say 30 minutes on average the next 2 years, because I did take like 3-6 months off of studying to focus only on Japanese, so 365 hours for those 2 years. So a total of 1825 hours. Damn. That's more than I expected! Okay, now lets cut out hours spent not understanding without lots of word lookups (the whole first year of 730 hours. 1825-730=1095. Okay, now let's assume out of the 1095 hours, only 75% of it counts for 'comprehended input' if I don't count times I looked up words often, or I couldn't grasp the main idea. The truth could be closer to 50% or closer to 95% depending on if the times I looked up words occasionally hurt my progress or helped it. 1095*.75=821.25 hours. If we do the conservative estimate of only counting 50% then it's 547.5 hours. Let's see where the equation places me:

1-2.718^(-.0018*547.5)= 63% (rounded)

1-2.718^(-.0018*821.25)= 77% (rounded)

That's pretty good!

Now lets see how that matches up to Thai learners, they're expected to need around 1000 hours for 83% so I will probably hit my next milestone in 200-400 hours of chinese material I understand the main idea of. They're also expected to start speaking around 800-1000 hours, just simple stuff, so I can probably start speaking now or in 200 hours and 'not expect' much damage. (Although I may already have lots of 'damage' ALG thinks concious guessing/translations cause, so I might already be a lost cause there).

My personal guess is that I'll probably need 534 hours, if we assume the stuff I'm engaging with is only 75% comprehensible. Or 600 hours, if we round it up and give me more cushion room for not understanding some stuff.

And for fun for me: if I count my FULL hours studied 1825 hours, I am in Level 7, if I count only comprehended it's 1095 or Level 6 Dreaming Spanish Roadmap's levels wise (which is where I think I feel I am based on skills I can do - around Level 6, Skills include most native media, reading, conversation recommended). If I don't count any of my explicit study, I'm at 821.25 hours or Level 5 (easier native media, reading optional, conversation optional).

[avaguenotion]

12.09.2023 - 8:11pm

damn so I've actually been hyping up this post in my mind for the last half hour or so. I popped my night pills - doxepin sleep aid included. I made some hibiscus tea. *sips tea* I put nothing in it. Just hot water and the hibiscus tea bag. I didn't want to artificially tamper with the sanctity of this moment. I also gave some thought to the music I want to play, at this moment there is none playing. My "The Mars Volta" hoodie came in the mail yesterday and I slept in it to break it in. Something is telling me that it's a Mars Volta kind of night. *sips tea* Not only did all that happen, but I did some good writing in my offline archive. There is a lot I write that I don't post here mainly because of it's more experimental nature. But writing is writing.... and with that 2 things 1. It's either between "Day of the Baphomet," "Tetragrammaton," or "Ouroborous" ...... Tetragrammaton. That one riff. 2. To write?

At present there are an estimated 8,045,311,447 people on the face of the earth. That's man, woman, elderly, adult, teenage, and child. That's every spoken and written language - english being the most widely used.

Quite the audience you could say. That's not including all future generations for as long as the text remains extant. Exponentially multiplying the potential audience.

And I'm doing what exactly? I am endeavoring to convince them all, as many as I can, that it would be wise to acknowledge Allah and Muhammad. To stand, bow, and prostrate in ritual prayer 5 times a day. And to pay the holy alms tax.

There is more of course. But that is succinct enough. It's the methodology that makes the novel what it is. It's not an explicit invitation to the religion with clear and concise commandments or what have you. It's a fictional drama that conveys the teaching as it is lived and experienced. Some of the characters are practicing muslims some aren't. But… If they aren't, what are they? What else do people believe? And what of the aliens we have yet to encounter? Does the scale of the cosmic realm and the possibility of humanity being alone factor into the equation?

Yes. That is indeed what I am doing. So when I share fragments of writing it is only because I believe the person or persons being addressed would appreciate a glimpse of where things are.

But there are roughly 8 billion possible humans being addressed right now.

Humbling. *sips tea* Tetragrammaton begins. Atonal rhythmic brilliance. All hail Cedric Bixler-Zavala!

Let it be clear - the reason "The Mars Revolver" is my music project's name is heavily due to the existence of "The Mars Volta." They're one of those bands that just occupies a very special status. I want to be conflated with them. *sips tea* and the book... and the family tree... and dinner... and god... and fate and choice... and the voices... and all and all ----------

p.s. the tea finished right as the song ended. [ time: 8:34 pm ]

The song looped. Just to be exhaustive and experimental I am going to listen it once more intently to be certain there is nothing else I want to add to this post. The song is 16min and 40 seconds.

bismillah.

[ time: 8:45 pm ] The song is at 12 minutes.

Anyway, "The Zakat Mechanism" led to: Zakat as a Poverty Reduction Mechanism Among the Muslim Community: Case Study of Bangladesh, Malaysia, and Indonesia [ time: 8:50pm ] Done.

[reaveries]

▬  an admiration for perennials

summary: arthur meets a woman with an affinity for cliff maids

pairings: high honor!arthur morgan pov x female!reader

warnings: sad introspective arthur, sh*t word (:o), mention of mary, dying from flu, pollen (?? this thing is so fluffy, i'm grasping for straws here)

word count: 6.2k (estimated 26-minute reading time)

a/n: i have proofread this piece so.. many.... times... i'm so ready to finally publish it and get it the eff away from me. i hope y'all like it, i'm really happy with how it turned out! (i think, i can't tell anymore). i have a part two outline in the works so if you'd like to see that, please let me know by interacting w/ the post! also, this is categorized as a reader/self-insert but at one point there is very brief character description. i try to keep that to an absolute minimum and leave it generally gray enough to remain a self-insert fic. if that bothers you, i'm sorry, just overlook it! anyways, njoy, pardners <3

masterlist archive of our own

Revised for clarity 1/5/2024.

He takes a long drag from the cigarette between his lips, letting the harshness of the warm smoke enter his chest with ease. The cigarette had nearly met its end, so he knew it was getting to be that time. He jabs it into the ashtray along with the ashes from all the other bargoers and bids the barkeep a good night, leaving some change for his good company.

Unfortunately, Arthur hadn't found the solace he was searching for in the homely saloon. He’d filled himself to the brim with watered-down beer and a few shots of whiskey when he felt especially plagued by his thoughts. But as he pushes open the swinging doors and steps into the cool night air, his head still swarms with a myriad of upsetting things. 

His life is a complicated mess, though part of him knew it always had been. It just wasn’t until recently that he realized how unnecessary it was for it to be such. On the same street where he currently stands, he’d been responsible for putting lead in the heads of countless men a few weeks prior. He didn't even know their names, and he surely doesn't remember their faces. It was a wholly avoidable disaster. Not to say he’s bothered by the act of killing, for when he finds it justified to end a man’s life, there’s often no reason to dawdle. No, the mess of it all perturbed him the most. 

Undeniably, the land he calls home is becoming a different entity than the one he was born into, a land of law and structure that spits upon his way of life. The West is becoming a docile place, its wildness broken by the cracking whip of civilization. And if the West can’t survive, then all hope is lost for men like him. The only logical step to ensure that he, and the people he cares for, won’t meet their fates at the end of a rope is to adapt to this changing world. This meant mess would have to be a thing of the past. No more massacres over stolen oil wagons and certainly not wiping out an entire town to free a man he didn’t care for from a cell he belonged in. No more innocent bystanders gruesomely losing their lives over foolishly shallow plans like the botched ferry job in Blackwater. No more lives need to be taken for his benefit or the ambitions of the man who guided him. Somehow though, that man didn’t see things the way he did.

Whenever he brought up these concerns, Dutch always told him, “Don’t be so simple-minded, Arthur. Look at the bigger picture.” 

But the bigger picture was all he could see, and it was a terrifying sight.

His heels sink into the damp earth as he makes his way to Saint’s Hotel, crossing his fingers that a room is available for the night. He made the mistake of riding his horse with a stomach full of liquor before, and somehow it almost ended up with him drowning. How he ended up sopping wet and his horse dry as a bone is still a mystery to him. So, a room at Saint's is in order since he doesn’t particularly care to die tonight, even despite the pervasive thoughts that plague him.

Just as he’s about to step onto the hotel’s wooden porch, he hears a loud banging noise come from behind him. He turns around and, in the darkness of night, sees a woman knocking on the front door of the general store across the street. She raps her knuckles a second time against the door, just as loud as the first. The door opens and out steps the store owner, looking irritated.

“Hi, I know you’re about to close, but I’ll just be a second, I promise!” She says this with her hands clasped together.

“Alright, alright. Come on in,” the man says, stepping aside so she can enter.

As the woman moves past the older man, light from inside the store hits her, and he can see her more clearly. She’s dressed simply with her hair loosely pulled back into a plait that falls past her shoulders. These things are ordinary enough, but then the light catches on a dainty pink flower tucked behind her ear on the left side.

He stops in his tracks.

It looks identical to the one he keeps at his bedside, a memento of his mother. However, those flowers, cliff maids, he thinks they’re called, only grow out west in the rocky terrain bordering Oregon and California. He’s a long way from California and possibly even further from a level head, so he dismisses the possibility, chalking it up to the delusions of a drunken old man.

He heads into the hotel, and thankfully a room is available, the same one as always. He closes the door behind him and starts fumbling with his gear, letting it hit the floor haphazardly in a heap. As he stumbles over to the bed, he regretfully catches a glimpse of his reflection in a mirror. He usually tries to avoid looking at himself unless it’s absolutely necessary. Simply put, he doesn’t like the look of the man who stares back at him. There’s a residual yellow blotch fading away on his cheekbone from a dust-up he’d been in a few days prior. He doesn’t even remember the reason. His shoulder-length hair has tangles he’s had no energy to comb through, and his eyes are lidded for want of sleep. They have a far-out look even when he’s staring right at himself. 

“Maybe it’s you that’s the mess,” he mumbles, then gives way to his exhaustion and collapses against the mattress. His boots, spurs and all, remain on his feet. So remain his worn trousers and unbuttoned maroon shirt, and so does the dirt caked beneath his nails that never seems to leave. 

He checks out of his room early the following day and rides out beneath a sky as golden as dandelions. His mind feels clearer after a night’s rest, and he thankfully doesn’t feel as dreadful as he did when his head hit the pillows. Dew hangs in the chilled air and mists his face as he takes the beaten winding path leading back to Clemen’s Point, this new place his people called home. As he rides, he passes by some cottages and homesteads a ways off the path. He can recall the inside layout of a few of them, and even which ones filled his pockets the most back when he first arrived in the Heartlands.

Tall, thick-bodied oak trees loom over him and dance in the morning breeze. The way the sunlight flickers through them is beautiful but unfamiliar. It quickly becomes apparent that he’s taken the wrong path somewhere along the way, but just when he’s about to wheel his horse around and turn back, there lies a cottage beyond the tree line. 

It’s a quaint wooden home with a thin stream of smoke rising from the chimney. In the window of the cottage sits a vase of pink flowers. The closer he rides, the more confident he is that they’re cliff maids. There must be at least twenty stems in that one vase.

“I’ll be damned….” He says under his breath.

Suddenly, he hears the sound of a woman grunting coming from the side of the home. He presses his heels to his horse’s belly and trots toward the noise source. When he turns the corner of the house, he sees her, the woman he saw last night, pushing a wheelbarrow spilling over with dirt. She attempts to use her weight against the handle, but it hardly makes a difference, and the wheelbarrow doesn’t budge.

He clears his throat to make his presence known to the woman.

“Jesus Christ!” She yelps and turns to face him, shocked to see she has company.

“Didn’t mean to frighten ya. D’ya need any help, ma’am?” He asks.

She looks him over with caution.

“Uh, I’m alright, thanks,” she says slowly, her brows warily drawn together.

Arthur nods his head with a tight-lipped smile and pulls the reins to head back to where he came from. He considers asking her about the flowers in the window but disregards it seeing as she doesn’t seem to care for company. As he begins back down the path, he hears a clattering noise and the sound of the woman cursing.

“Hey, mister!” She shouts. He looks over his shoulder and sees her standing with her hands on her hips and the wheelbarrow completely turned over, the dark soil spilling out onto the ground.

“I take that back.” She says with her head cocked to the side and a bashful smile.

He lightly chuckles at the sight and rides over, swiftly dismounting from his horse a few feet from the mild disaster.

“Could you help me scoop it back in?” She asks as she goes to the front of the wheelbarrow and picks up the dirt with yellow gloves.

“Sure,” he says, kneeling beside her. His hands are perpetually dirty as it is, so a little more filth couldn’t hurt. As he helps her pile the dirt back into the cart, he notices she smells earthy and sweet, reminiscent of the air before a storm.

“Alright,” she says, standing up and brushing her dirty gloves against her smock. “Would you mind wheelin’ it for me?”

He moves to grab the handles and pushes them down with ease so that the wheelbarrow can roll properly. 

“What’s all this dirt for anyways?” He asks the woman walking beside him.

“Just a project I’m working on. It’s back behind here, mister.” She points to the rear of the cottage, which quickly becomes dense with plant life the further they step. 

She crosses her arms over her chest as they enter the more secluded area.

“Don’t get any funny ideas, alright?” She says, looking up at him out of the corner of her eye.

He furrows his brows at the slight, but he can’t deny it makes sense she’s thinking that way. He looks the part of someone with foul intentions. The brim of his hat darkens his eyes, which would normally obscure them from anyone else. But, given that he's a head taller than the woman, she sees their darkness fine. He internally curses himself when he remembers he's wearing the one jacket stained with animal blood. It's still smeared dark brown across his shoulder. Of course, he looks like a damn menace. To top it all off, the rifle slung on his back casts a long shadow across her cheek like some twisted reminder of who he is, lest a single act of kindness threatens he forgets. 

He glances at her with a small smile that raises up on one side more than the other.

“Most of my ideas are funny, ma’am. But I ain’t gonna hurt you if that’s what you mean.”

Her shoulders drop from their tense position as she lets out a half-hearted laugh.

“I’ll take your word for it, mister,” she says, slightly more relaxed than before.

The grass starts to reach his knees, and all along the path are bushes and fruit-bearing shrubs with dangling under-ripe berries. Various species of flowers grow throughout the backyard in no organized manner, like they’d been living here long before anyone else. White bark trees stand tall amidst the entropic garden. Dark moss creeps up their trunks, and instead of leaves, canopies of draping blossoms erupt from the branches like something out of a storybook. They hang limply in the air, and when the wind tugs on them, they sway in synchronization while their blossoms flutter away in the breeze. It’s all so beautiful. He’s never seen an abundance of such natural beauty in all his life.

“Is this all yours?” He asks, turning to the lady with a near slack-jawed expression. 

“It is now,” she says, nodding her head. “My mama used to care for it, as did her mama before her. But uh- well, the flu took my mama a few years back, and as fate would have it, now my grandma’s flame is startin’ to flicker too. So it’s left to me to care for all this.”

“Oh. I’m sorry to hear that,” he responds. Her voice sounds sad, and it reminds him somewhat of Ms. Adler, the widow staying with them for the time being.

“It’s okay,” she says, waving him off. “Sometimes in the darkness, there’s light, and this is definitely the light. I get to care for this thing, and in a way, it cares for me too. Gives me purpose, ya know?”

“S’Good to have somethin’ that makes you feel that way. Lord knows most people don’t.”

“Yes, I’ve noticed that. Oh! I’ll hold the door open for ya.” She leaves his side and jogs ahead of him.

“Door? What door?” Arthur looks around, but he sees nothing but trees and plants.

Suddenly, she reveals an entrance blocked by the tall grass, and he realizes that a small building made entirely of glass is right before him. It camouflaged against the greenery and the vines that drape across it. Now that the door is ajar, he sees inside plants of all kinds strewn about in terracotta pots and deep soil beds.

“What in the….” He begins to say but trails off, caught off guard by the unexpected reveal.

A sort of giddiness takes her when she sees his expression, and she waves her hand excitedly to usher him inside. 

“Come in! Come in!” 

He rolls the wheelbarrow inside the structure, and once again, he’s greeted by the humble beauty of the natural world. Leaves spill out of pots hanging from the rafters, creating curtains that brush against him as he passes through. She gently closes the door behind him, and the air starts to feel thicker, heavier, like he’s being swaddled in a damp blanket.

The pots each have their own label, but the writing is so messy that he can hardly make out the names. Of the ones he can read, he recognizes names such as Sparrow’s Egg, Clamshell, and Dragon’s Mouth. They’re exotic flowers that the corset man in Saint Denis once asked him to collect, but he never got around to doing it. If only he had enough time to frolic through fields and pluck orchids. He’d prefer that over the menial errands he’s been consumed by as of late.

“Back here!” The woman shouts.

He can’t see her behind the tall plant-filled shelves that take up the center of the room, so he pushes past the vines and turns the corner to see her standing next to an empty plant bed. She looks at him expectantly because his task is clearly to dump the soil. But his mind is elsewhere. Behind her is another plant bed. This one is full and brimming with cliff maids so densely packed that he can hardly see the soil they’re in. He’s never seen so many of these flowers in one place. Whenever he found one in the wild, it was usually nestled between two rocks and sprouted three or four blooms. They weren’t nearly as impressive as the ones infront of him.

“What is it?” She asks when he remains in his spot. She follows his gaze and gasps.

“Why, are you a gardener too, mister?” Her voice gets high with excitement.

“Who, me?” He laughs. “No, ma’am. I’m no gardener. I’d make for a pretty awful one seein’ as I’m not too good at keepin’ things alive.”

“Oh, forgive me. I just- you seemed interested in the perennials. Most people aren’t, considerin’ how unassuming they look. Pretty things but nothing outwardly special about ‘em.” She moves towards the tall blossoms and reaches out her hand to stroke the petals. 

“You know, they don’t like it here,” she continues. “They like the sun, which would be easy enough if they liked the heat that came with it, but no, it’s the cool shade of cliffs and rocks they like. These little blooms aren’t easy to care for, but if you can figure it out, they’ll live all through the years. That’s what perennial means, after all. Anyways, these guys are my favorite. I think it’s cause they give me such a hard time.”

She twiddled with the petals between her fingers as she rambled about the flowers. When she finally looks back at him, it’s like she has stars twinkling in her eyes. There’s a new liveliness about her, something that sparked when she was given room to air out her affinity for the pink blossoms. Arthur stands there, attempting to wrap his mind around the unlikely chance of finding someone who holds this particular flower as close to their heart as he does. He doesn't notice his aforementioned heart beating a little faster in his chest.

“I- I like ‘em too.” The words clumsily stumble from his mouth when he realizes she’s waiting for him to speak. He quickly gathers himself. 

“I mean, it was my ma that liked ‘em, but I guess she sorta rubbed off on me. They're pretty little things.”

“You’re kiddin’... what are the odds?” 

He can tell she’s thinking about something during the half-beat of silence that follows, but he can’t find any hint of what it is when he searches her face.

“I never got your name, mister,” she says abruptly.

“Arthur,” he says. “Just Arthur.”

“What, you ain’t got a last name, Just Arthur?” She laughs.

He considers telling her his real name but quickly dismisses it. On the off-chance she recognizes it from the bounty posters, it would mean that whatever was happening here would come to an unfortunate end. Of course, no harm would befall her, but he’d have to leave and go right back to his mess of a life. He’d rather stay here, in the sanctity of the greenhouse, with this person he strangely feels like he was meant to meet. 

“Oh, I didn’t realize we were on a full name basis, ma’am,” he says flippantly, but he can’t help the smile that forms when she raises her eyebrows at him.

“Well, Arthur, you have good taste,” she says playfully, but her gaze falls to the wheelbarrow he’s still holding, and her eyes widen. “Oh, that must be heavy. I talked so long, I forgot you still had that. Go ahead and pour it into that empty bed right there.” She gestures with a quick wave of her hand.

He looks down at the wheelbarrow he also forgot he was holding and does as she says, tilting the lip of it into the wooden frame and letting the soil spill out. 

She smiles at him and pats his shoulder before leading him out of the greenhouse. They step back outside, and the cool air is a welcome feeling. He props the wheelbarrow against the wall of the structure while she shuts the door behind her.

“Thank you again. I would’ve had a much harder time without you there,” she says.

He wipes his soiled hands on the front of his jeans and opens his mouth to speak, but when he looks at her, she’s already looking at him with a gaze sweet as honey. It makes his breath catch in his chest. Not many women have looked at him like that before, and hardly any were as easy on the eyes as her. A thread of sunlight catches her eyes and reveals faint traces of amber, like sap spilling from the source. Her long lashes flutter when she blinks, and they rest against the soft edge of her brow as she looks up at him. Her hair, woven into a braid, is loose, disheveled like she’d slept in it. Stray strands feather around her jaw and frame the angles of her face, not unlike ornate golden borders that surround paintings in a gallery.

He clears his throat upon realizing he’s been gawking at the poor woman like some boyish fool.

“Ah, it was nothin',” he says, directing his attention elsewhere as heat creeps up his cheeks. 

A dragonfly jitters down from above and lands on the stem of some thyme growing over a narrow creek. Water trickles over smooth stones into a basin where leaves float along the surface. Some of them sprout delicate white flowers that open up to the sky. A thought comes to him as he looks at them.

“If it’s not too much trouble, would it be alright if I draw a picture of this place?” He asks. He’s never had to ask anyone permission for this sort of thing before; it felt unnatural. But it certainly would’ve been more so if he’d asked her what he really wanted, which was to draw her alongside it.

She tilts her head and looks up at him curiously.

“How charming…” She says, then ponders it for a second. “I don’t mind as long as you let me see it after.”

He chuckles, “Alright, just don’t make fun of it.”

“I would never!” She says, feigning indignance. “My mama taught me manners, Arthur! That means if it’s bad, I’ll just make fun of it in my head. Now go do your thing. I also have some work to do.”

She waves him off with a smile and steps back inside the greenhouse, closing the door behind her. He lets out a sigh, the tight feeling in his chest relinquishing now that he’s finally alone. He walks over to a bench along the path and sits down, taking his journal from his satchel and flipping to a new blank page. Before him, tall pink flowers that smell of vanilla cast long, dark shadows over the smaller flowering shrubs surrounding them. If they weren’t so dainty looking, their height and the size of their leaves would give the impression they own the place. He gives them the most detail in his drawing. Then he starts to etch the dirt path, adding the indentation the wheel of the wheelbarrow had left behind and the imprint of the woman’s footprints next to his. Just as he finishes up the sketch, adding minute details in the leaves, he hears light footfall behind him.

On instinct, his hand moves to hover above his holster, but once he sees what’s behind him, he feels ridiculous for it.

“Hey,” she says quietly, a sheepish smile on her face. She holds nearly a dozen cliff maids in her hands, stems clipped and bound together with a thread of twine.

“I thought you might like to have these.”

He looks at her for a moment, unsure what to do or say. She’s giving him flowers. No one has ever given him flowers before. That was usually something a man might do if he were sweet on a lady, a gesture shared between lovers. But maybe for a woman who spends all day surrounded by them, it must not have the same romantic meaning he knows it does.

“Those are for me?” He asks. His hands hang loosely at his sides. He doesn’t quite know what to do with himself.

She nods. “If you want.”

The talkative woman from earlier seems to have been replaced by someone different entirely, her sentences suddenly simple and sweet. He also struggles to find the right words.

“That’s too kind of you. Truly.” He reaches out to take them, and she places the bundle gingerly in his hands. 

His hold is gentle for fear he’d snap the stems if not careful. He knows he has to look a little silly. A man as rough around the edges as himself, with ammunition draped across his chest and pistols hanging at his hips, holding an overflowing bouquet of pink blossoms as a gift from a lady. If Dutch could see him now, he’d tell him he lost his edge. But if this is what it feels like to have gone soft, then he doesn't mind that much. The warmth in his chest is too comforting a feeling to let go of.

Her sudden gasp brings him out of his head.

“Is that the drawing?!” She points at the journal lying open on the bench. There’s no time to answer before she reaches over the seat to hold the leatherbound book in her hands.

“Wow… I- you captured it perfectly,” she says, her mouth slightly hanging in awe. “I didn’t expect anything like this.”

“You’re just minding your manners.”

She lightly thwacks him on the arm.

“You’d know if I was, I’m not a good liar. No, this is something special.”

He hardly knows a thing about this woman, and yet for some reason, her songs of praise feel so good that he wants to make ten more drawings. Hell, he’ll move as much dirt as she wants if it means she’ll look at him the way she is now each time. As her eyes flit between him and the sketch, he feels a fondness growing that he could’ve never anticipated when he first laid eyes on her. God, he almost feels like a boy again. It’s a feeling he hasn’t experienced in ages since he was last with Mary. Though, admittedly those feelings were guided by something less innocent than what he feels right now. What’s happening to him?

She clasps her hands together and takes a sharp intake of breath.

“Arthur, would you, um- would you like something to drink before you head out?” She asks. “I have just about anything.”

Without giving it much thought, he opens his mouth to answer, but a ringing noise sounds before the words can come out. It’s a clear jingling sound of a bell, and it’s coming from the house. 

“Oh, never mind. It seems like my grandmother needs me,” she sighs and hands back his journal. “Maybe another time?”

“Another time,” he agrees with a thin smile, deflating slightly at the abrupt goodbye.

She walks briskly to the back door and slips inside the house, the door swinging shut loudly behind her. He approaches his horse he’d left hitched to the woman’s front porch and goes to find a place to secure the flowers. As he’s slipping them through a notch on the saddle, the front door flies open.

She steps out, looking grateful he hasn’t left yet.

“Hey!” She calls out to him. She stands at the edge of the top step with one hand on her hip and the other shading her eyes from the sun.

“I’m sure you know already, but those can only last so long now that they’re cut. Perennials live all through the years but only when they’re planted,” she says, shifting her weight on the step.

Arthur’s mouth parts slightly as he searches for the words to respond.

“Oh. Alright.”

She sighs and brings her hand to her forehead in an exasperated motion.

“Okay- what I’m trying to say but failing at, is that when those flowers start to wilt, you come and find me.”

He tilts his head down, so the brim of his hat hides the smile forcing its way onto his lips. He hadn’t been sure if she was just being polite before, if every word was mere courtesy. But now, part of him felt that maybe some of it was more than that. He could at least tell for certain that she liked him, and that was enough.

“I’ll do that, miss. You take care of yourself, now.”

She then waves him goodbye before heading back inside.

The sun has risen high above his head by the time he returns to camp. Everything seems to be just as he left it a few days ago. Dutch is sitting outside his tent with a book in his hands, a finger pensively to his lips. Some men are sharpening their weapons or cleaning their guns and talking to one another while they work. Over by the campfire, Micah gestures wildly to Bill and Javier, who sit on the log by his feet. 

“If we leave at dusk, they should be sittin’ pretty at the station a while before leaving for town. So once things get movin’, I say Javier handles the lockbox, I’ll deal with Walton and his lady wife, and Bill, you hang back in case anyone else shows up.”

Javier looks up from polishing his pistol, “You don’t think Walton’s going to have any extra protection? He’s carrying a lot of goods, it’d be stupid for him not to.”

“Well, that’s what Bill’s for. Ain’t that right, Bill?”

Bill nods his head with a serious expression. “Damn right.”

As Arthur listens to this conversation, it’s as if he can see a dark thread spinning and tangling itself into a knot. A knot on top of a knot, on top of another. Soon enough, the thread will become one giant, twisted mess so tightly entwined it’ll be nearly impossible to unravel. The way things are headed, this seems like the only plausible ending for his people. But before that happens, the Pinkertons will likely find them again, and they’ll be packing their things again, only prolonging this mess of things a little bit longer, letting it become bigger than it ever needed to be. People will keep dying for nothing like they always have, and maybe he’ll be one of them, an unfortunate tally added to their death toll, necessary for the bigger picture.

The young woman had the right of it. Her words still echo in his head even now. 

Perennials live all through the years, but only when they’re planted. Only when they’re planted. 

The world won’t open its arms to drifters, even with a pistol pressed to its head. It’s past time they grow some roots, start living like people, and stop living like wild animals backed into a corner. Sure, there’s no glory in honest work but there sure as hell isn’t any in dying. Arthur had given this idea some thought before. He wouldn’t mind settling, living a simple life working odd jobs, or even finding work on a ranch somewhere. A peaceful life, a predictable one; it sounded just fine in his head.

He passes by Mary Beth and Tilly, scrubbing clothes on a washboard and laughing. Tilly looks up from her busy hands and waves at him.

“Hey, Arthur!”

“Hey there, Miss Jackson,” he says with a friendly nod.

He finds his tent and sets the bundle of flowers down on the cot before reaching into his satchel. 

“Are those flowers, Arthur Morgan?” 

He jumps as Tilly’s voice is suddenly right behind him.

“What the hell! Don’t sneak up on me like that, girl,” he says, turning to face her and Mary Beth standing just outside his tent.

“My goodness, they are!” Mary Beth says, her hand flying to her mouth. “Where did you find those?”

“A lady,” he responds, biting his cheek to force away a smile he doesn't want them to see. He doesn't want to be stuck rattling off every detail to the excitement-starved women. 

“Like, you purchased them from a lady?” Mary Beth leans forward and raises her eyebrows.

“They were… given to me,” he reluctantly admits as he places the stems inside a gin bottle on the table. He moves a few of them around so they look nice.

“Don’t tell us they’re from Mary, Arthur.” Tilly's voice goes low with disappointment, no longer seeming excited.

He grimaces at the thought. “No! No, they’re not from Mary. I met a woman earlier today, and she gave them to me, that’s all.”

The two women quickly glance at each other and share an enthusiastic look.

“Arthur Morgan, you’re in love!” Mary Beth nearly squeals.

He scoffs loudly, “I am not in love. I hardly know the woman!”

“Well, she’s surely in love then. What kind of person just gives someone flowers if they ain’t sweet on’em?” Tilly says matter-of-factly.

“Exactly! So when are you gonna see her again?” Mary Beth asks.

“I don’t know,” he says, rubbing the back of his neck. He should’ve known this conversation would happen. He should’ve sucked up his pride and said he purchased the flowers for himself to have avoided it entirely. “She told me to come back when they start to die, so whenever that is, I guess.”

Mary Beth hums and looks past him at the flowers in their makeshift vase. 

“Hmm… well, they look a little limp if you ask me. Dare I say… dead even? What do ya think, Tilly?” 

Tilly nods her head dismally, but even she can’t hide her smile, “Yeah, look at ‘em. They’re all sad-lookin’. Seems like you’ll need to head over first thing in the morning. Just to be sure.”

He shakes his head and laughs, “Alright, out. Both of ya. I can’t take it no more.”

He takes both women by their shoulders and guides them away from his tent despite their protests.

“We just want you to be happy, Arthur! Is that so bad?” Tilly cries out.

“I know, I know. Thank you, ladies. But I’m happiest when people ain't meddlin’ in my private business. Now go on.”

“This ain’t the end of it, Arthur!” Mary Beth calls out as they both walk away. They start talking animatedly as they return to work and keep throwing glances that he can only shake his head at.

Later that night, Arthur sits alone at one of the tables, eating his stew and staring off into the water. Most everyone else is off doing their own things, evening chores, and such. He's in the middle of bringing the bowl to his lips to get the last bit of broth when Mary Beth sits down beside him.

She keeps her word, not letting him hear the end of her numerous questions. Some of them he entertains, like when she asks what the garden looked like, and if she can see his drawing to get a better idea. He can practically see the story forming behind her eyes.

"What's she look like?" She asks, leaning against her hand on the table. "I'm picturing a sort of Isabelle Standish type in my head."

"Ah, come on now. You can't ask those sorts of things."

"Oh, Arthur! Please! This is the most exciting thing I've heard in so long. Just give me something to work with!" She gives him a pleading look, to which he dramatically rolls his eyes at.

"Alright. Well, she gives them girls on cigarette cards a run for their money, I'll tell you that."

She giggles, and asks him, "So when are you gonna see her again?"

He shrugs his shoulders, "I don't know yet."

“You don’t want to keep her waiting too long,” she says, in warning.

“Nah, I think she’ll be plenty busy without me. I’ll give it a few days.”

“A few days? But what if tomorrow another man comes by and sweeps her off her feet? What if she gives him flowers and forgets all about you because you took too long?” Her voice gets higher as she spitfires these potential events. 

“Mary Beth. If I visit her tomorrow, I’ll look like an idiot.” His face scrunches up, cringing at the thought. "And if that's really what happens then I can't do nothin' about that."

“Well, if I were her, I’d find it romantic,” she says and pats his hand on the table.

“Yeah, well, you find a lotta odd things romantic,” he chuckles, thinking back on the strange things in her novellas that have made her kick her feet.

For a second, it looks like she can’t tell if she should be offended. But then she joins him in laughter, giggling at herself.

“You might be right about that!”

Following his talk with Mary Beth, he retreats to his tent and slumps in his cot. He closes his eyes and turns to face the side of the wagon, but sleep doesn't come easy. The cot creaks beneath him as he shifts, trying to get comfortable. He groans and rolls over, opening his eyes to stare into the darkness. Against the dark canvas of his tent, he can make out the silhouette of the cliff maids standing tall in their bottle. He traces the outline of their leaves and thinks back to the woman and her garden, the tranquility of her home, and the opposing restlessness of his heart whenever she looked at him. Before he’s ushered into unconsciousness, a strange thought enters his head that he can only explain away as the delirium of drowsiness. It was that in the distant future, he could see himself settling down, working odd jobs, or finding work on a ranch, sure. But maybe, the preposterous idea of taking care of flowers wasn't so bad neither.

[bolcseszgoblin]

i am SO SORRY that i do this to people. i guess it's the ADHD and it's good friend generalized anxiety. i think (with me) it is mostly about denying that i am unable to prepare and i am getting more and more scared that i'll be late. surely not... oh. i'm almost late. i'm gonna quickly put myself together, and i'm gonna make it. maybe. if i run a bit to catch the bus. and if not, i'll be like 10 minutes late, and i can text my friend once i'm on my way, because i will probably go back 3 times to check for my keys, phone, wallet, if I turned off all the lights. oh shit this tshirt is dirty. but i swear i had another one that's cute. oh. forgot to pull the wet laundry from the washingmachine. shit. now i have to find another shirt, a different necklace, and start the machine again to prevent mold, but put a timer so it won't be too loud for the neighbours, will it finish before 8? shit is it past 5 already? i'm laaate. how long is this programme? let me find the manual. can't find it. lets look on the internet. this is in Polish, i don't speak Polish, but i can compare the pictograms right? they are all in the wrong order. oh it's a slightly different model. close enough though. 5 minutes go by, i finally decipher it and set the timer. hey, the bin is full here. let's clean it up, I've been putting it off for days, and now i am going down anyway. but then i can bring down the recycling too! finally clothed, have everything, ready to go, picking up the trash, walking down the 3 flights of stairs. throw them away. when i walk out to the sunlight, i realize i forgot my sunglasses. should i go back? should i not? it's just a pair of sunglasses. don't be a pussy, you don't need it. but did i bring sunscreen? eh okay. i go back. dermatologist said i should definitely wear some with my skin and moles. this is my health. *going back up* hey, look! i forgot my keys in the door! the more it falls apart, the more i am unable to notify the person. once i am on my way, safely on the bus, or at least out of my street after making sure that this time i have everything i need, i'll text the poor person waiting for me, because then i can say with confidence that i am on my way, and i have an estimated time. before that it is just a lie. i used to text i am sorry i am going to be late, probably 10 minutes - and then fail to leave. multiple times. some friends got around this by telling me an earlier time. i didn't catch on for a while. others were simply tolerant of my bullshit, and them i could message: sorry, being late, trying, i'm gonna text you when i'm on my way. we don't risk notifying people if it is just another failure, and makes it even harder the next time. so i am so sorry. but this was me. i don't go out much anymore and a lot of my friends have the same problems, so we just set and end time, after which it is not viable to leave anymore, and settle in for the undeterminate amount of time we are going to wait for each other. (e.g. you can come over from 3, I'll have to leave to my evening class at 6, so you are welcome till 5, after that we can't really talk, but no worries, we can just reschedule) surprisingly this helps with the anxiety and shortens the delay, by getting rid of nervous running around.

i was prone to the first example more, but i can remember a number of times where it was the 'i am already 2 hours late, but i am on the bus now, and explaining what i was doing instead of being at your party. kind. I never did it when leaving someone alone. i was just in a bad place and had to convince myself that i really like this person, and i want to go celebrate their birthday (all 3 cases i remember clearly were birthday parties. and a new years eve. or 2) even if i am scared shitless of how many people will be there, and ask me how i am, and i am... well. i feel like shit. and i don't want to talk about it. because i don't want to ruin the party. but i hate to lie. but i know i'm gonna.

being vague about what time you're going to be somewhere to meet someone and not saying a WORD until the moment you leave the house (assume this happens every single time, for everything) and also not saying a thing all day even if you're going to be later than the vague time until... after you are already late (assume this happens every single time the person is late/later than normal) is