#three and a half hours average daily

[castielsupernatural]

but could a normal person do THIS??

[carry-on-my-wayward-butt]

in-school-suspension was honestly so extremely funny because i had undiagnosed Problems Disorder and unironically i LOVED being sent to ISS.

average day of ISS (sent there for 3 days because i was late to a class three times within a 9-week period):

arrive at school and say a silly dramatic farewell to my besties

stop at each of my classrooms to receive makeup work from my teachers which always ends up being some bullshit worksheet or textbook busywork

arrive at ISS portable and go through the daily rigamarole intro of "you are Bad and you should Feel Bad. welcome to Bad Class, a confirmation that you will never make anything of your life, you horrid creature. you are not allowed to speak, eat, or feel joy. no doodling or reading, if you don't have makeup work or homework i will assign busywork to you. fuck you. *spits*"

spend the next 4 hours doing my busywork. it is QUIET. i can CONCENTRATE. the work gets DONE EARLY.

the work only took 2 hours maximum, i spend the other 2 hours writing fanfiction manually in a composition book pretending that I'm doing textbook work. i am having the time of my life.

our lunch time is the 10 minutes between the two lunch periods. there is no line, because there's only ever 5-15 ISS students. i get to EAT instead of STANDING IN A LINE for half an hour and only having 4 minutes to scarf down my garbage.

at the end of lunch, we are led in a big duck line through the school and we each get to stop off at our usual classes and pick up work to do. i already did this in the morning, so i use my time to say hi to my friends and figure out what the homework will be tonight.

for the last 2 hours of the day i do my homework. IT GETS DONE. this is the ONLY time during high school where homework gets done. zero exaggeration. i never did homework unless i was actively in a classroom with no choice but to do homework.

we get the usual outro of "this has been your day in Bad Class, because you're a Bad Child. some of you will be here tomorrow, some of you will not, but i'll see you again in a couple of weeks, because you are Bad and will always be Bad."

the school day is over, i did not encounter any of my bullies, i did not have to 'participate in class'. i got all of my work done and then some. i got to work on my fanfics. i hang out with my friends after school and talk to others on myspace/facebook.

it is the best three days i have in recent memory.

i will be there again, probably on purpose.

[luvchaew]

behind the scenes 𝆕 caught in 4k

the not-so-average daily life of heeseung and 5th member of aespa if they dated publicly and were horrible at hiding the relationship act one ⨾ where you accidentally join heeseung's live and the camera catches you

“loving isn't a sin, is it?” idol!heeseung x 5thmemberofaespa!reader wc𓈒 690 — not proofread! ✴ fluff, established relationship, cursing, pet names (angel, babe)

𝑚. 𝗅𝗂𝗌𝗍

you had checked your phone twice, maybe three times, as you waited for your two ramyeons to be ready — an extra spicy with chicken and eggs and one not even a bit spicy with veggies — for your boyfriend for you: you had to make sure heeseung was not live, specially not showing his face.

you'd worked all day at hybe building, and even if it seemed a bit scary being alone at a company that you don't mainly work for, familiar smiles and your love for writing music got you through the day with ease. now, you only desired to eat (since you hadn't eaten the whole day) and to finally meet your boyfriend. you wouldn't admit, of course, but the tension of knowing he was there all day had you thanking, for the first time, that you didn't work together, because how could you focus when he was right there?

with two bowls, a purse and a hoodie at hand, you struggled to walk to the studio heeseung was, and despite nearly tripping sometimes, you found your way to the small room. by the door, you checked the number until your brain was convinced that was, in fact, room number #6, and that if you opened that door, nobody but the tall man you waited all day long to see would be found inside.

you opened the door widely without even knocking — because you wanted to make a surprise, and spoiler: wrong idea. — exposing yourself smiling happily, eager.

“babe! i brought ram-,” was all you enthusiasticly said before noticing the grand mistake you'd just done: heeseung, actually, was doing a livestream, and the camera could catch not only him, but the door and everything that came across it.

your eyes widened, and you felt your body stiff completely. you made eye contact with him for some seconds — enough to catch the surprise and the distant fear of his gaze — before you started to bow repeatedly, muttering “i'm so sorry!,” maybe millions of times, and closed the door shut with a loud thud, your heartbeat echoing at your right ear.

you just stayed there, your mind spinning too much for you to just run out of there, and the next thing you knew? heeseung was outside the room with you, his eyes penetrating yours with nothing but pity. he closed the door behind him, stepping closer to you as he picked up one of the bowls from your hand — the one that contained his favorite flavor, by the way.

“wait for me outside until i finish the live, okay? and don't worry too much, we'll handle this. thanks for the ramyeon, i was starving,“ despite the incident, he was calm, almost smiling, a silent reminder to why he was always the one to end your arguments and to perceive everything with a good mindset. both of you knew that would lead to an hour and a half of conversation and a lot of “you can't expose yourselves like that,” 's, but genuinely, it didn't seem as bad as they treated it like. you weren't commiting a sin, were you?

heeseung pressed a lingering kiss to the top of your head, reassuring, understanding, a soft hum escaping his lips while he nuzzled into your hair. he came back to the room chuckling, fucking chuckling, amused. the enthusiasm in which he said “i'm back and with food!,” to his fans made you brave enough to force your legs to walk, the walk towards the hallway now suddenly looking too long, too tiring.

while you patiently waited on a couch next to the studios, every little noise leading you to look at the door of room number #6, hoping it was heeseung, enhypen's manager found you, and the disapproving look he gave you when his eyes lingered on you were everything to prove that, in fact, you were cooked. when your boyfriend left the room, his headphones beautifully resting around his neck, the only thing he whispered to you before walking side by side, hands intertwined, towards the manager's office was: “people at the comments were going crazy. you're really brave, aren't you, angel?,”

first thing i ever posted here, hope it's not that bad >.<

[muffinlance]

State of the Muffin Report 2023-24

Happy belated birthday to my fanfics! Little Zuko turned six back in March. <3 

Behold, my annual roundup stats, because you can get fanfic from the math teacher but you can’t get the math out of the fanfic:

[id: Screenshot of an excel spreadsheet showing my 2023-24 word counts. Important info is that over six stories, I wrote 104k words, for a monthly average of 8.6k and a daily of 284 words. End id.]

Fanfic:

After not touching the birthday fic itself since 2019, Little Zuko v the World is finally finished! Woooo.

Otherwise, a slow-but-steady sort of year on the fanfic front.

Serious Face Writing & RL:

Li’s Friends has now raised $4,206.21 USD for wildlife charity, not counting gift matches. <3

Finished the second book in my original fic series, Fox’s Tongue; The Skin Stealer’s Son officially launched yesterday! (Affiliate link, so that if you happen to buy it, Amazon pays me extra money for the privilege.)

I also created a secondary tiny human, and she is a DELIGHT. She was last seen a half hour ago crawling after her brother like a particularly aggressive tripod, Hop on Pop in one hand, and slap-screaming at it until he read it to her. My children. <3

Year Six (2024-25) Goals

Fanfic: 

Gonna finish the new case of Dark Night in Ba Sing Se. Gonna finish it so good. (This is a donation fic for the winner of my Fandom Trumps Hate charity auction and is therefore due by the end of the year, so woo artificial timelines! Ah external motivations, how I missed you from my school days.)

I’m incredibly excited for Blindsiding Badgermoles, and have that same lovely external motivation in the form of my sensitivity reader, so planning to focus on that this year.

Finish the current book of Towards the Sun. We’re currently on the final field trip, so that should be very doable. —I say, using the exact same wording for the third year in a row. Honestly this one’s less a goal than a joke to see how many years it’s actually going to take me. And hey, I’ve been making progress! We now have the delight that is Lady Jun! Third year’s the charm?

Serious Face Writing & RL: 

Get a solid start on Fox’s Tongue Book Three, Face of the Wolf King.

Get out large print editions of the first two books.

Continue raising children.

Special thanks this year goes to First and Secondborn, who blessed me with the ability to still manage over 100k in a year, which is way more than I anticipated at this time last year.

Cheers,

MuffinLance

[the-most-humble-blog]

Cooking at Home: The Expensive Way to Pretend You’re Saving Money

The Great Cooking Lie

Remember when everyone told us that cooking at home was the ultimate money-saving hack? A way to avoid takeout guilt, eat healthier, and keep your wallet happy? Turns out, that was a scam. By the time you’ve factored in inflated grocery prices, specialty ingredients, and the emotional toll of doing your own dishes, cooking at home often feels like the expensive way to fool yourself into thinking you’re responsible.

1. Grocery Shopping: The Silent Robbery

The grocery store is where dreams of frugality go to die.

Eggflation: Eggs used to be the poor person’s protein. Now? They cost as much as a latte at Starbucks.

Shrinkflation: Food companies are sneaky. That $5 bag of chips? Mostly air. That $3 orange juice? It’s now 75% pulp water.

Impulse Buys: Let’s not lie. You didn’t just buy what was on your list. Somewhere along the way, a bag of gourmet popcorn, a bottle of wine, and three different cheeses mysteriously ended up in your cart.

The Math That Hurts: According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, grocery prices increased by 13% in 2022 alone—the biggest jump in decades. Your “cheap home-cooked meal” isn’t looking so cheap anymore.

2. Time Is Money—And You’re Losing Both

Cooking at home isn’t just about food costs; it’s also a massive time suck.

Meal Prep Hell: Chopping, slicing, marinating—it’s basically an unpaid part-time job.

Recipe Rabbit Holes: “How do I zest a lemon?” quickly turns into a YouTube deep dive that eats your entire afternoon.

The Cleanup Toll: No one talks about how cooking makes you a hostage to your own sink.

You're Your Own Server, So Get to Work: The average person spends 37 minutes per day preparing food and 13 minutes cleaning up. That’s almost an hour daily you’ll never get back.

3. The False Economy of Food Waste

Here’s the ugly truth: cooking at home often means buying ingredients you’ll never finish.

The Herb Cemetery: How many half-used bunches of cilantro have you thrown out this year? Be honest.

Overzealous Bulk Buys: Sure, the family-size bag of spinach was a “deal”—until it became a science experiment in your fridge.

Shocking Reality: The average American household wastes about $1,500 worth of food per year. That’s a lot of takeout you could’ve guiltlessly enjoyed instead.

4. Cooking vs. Takeout: The Brutal Comparison

Let’s crunch some numbers.

Homemade Pad Thai: $25 for specialty ingredients, 2 hours of your time, and a kitchen disaster.

Takeout Pad Thai: $15, zero effort, and no dishes. You don’t need a degree in economics to see which option is the real winner.

5. The Instagram Myth of Home Cooking

Social media is partly to blame for this mess. Those influencer chefs with their immaculate kitchens and perfectly plated meals? Lies.

They’re not showing you the pile of dirty dishes off-camera.

They’re not factoring in the cost of their professional kitchen setups or $200 cutting boards.

Oh, The Humanity: You’re out here crying over a burnt casserole while @FoodieGuru56 is making soufflés look easy. The system is rigged.

6. The Emotional Toll of Home Cooking

Let’s talk about the mental exhaustion of planning, prepping, and executing meals.

The Pressure: “If I don’t cook, am I failing at adulthood?”

The Guilt: That sad, uneaten bag of kale in the fridge stares at you every time you grab a soda.

The Stress: Cooking is supposed to be relaxing, but when your smoke alarm goes off, it feels more like a horror movie.

7. When Cooking at Home Actually Works

To be fair, cooking at home can save money if you do it right:

Stick to simple recipes with ingredients you already have.

Avoid specialty items you’ll never use again (looking at you, saffron).

Embrace leftovers like they’re a gift, not a punishment.

Pro Tip: One-pot meals are your savior. Fewer ingredients, less cleanup, and more time for Netflix.

Just Order the Damn Takeout For Pete's Sake

Cooking at home was supposed to be a solution, but for many of us, it’s become a self-inflicted punishment disguised as responsibility. By the time you’ve navigated the overpriced grocery store, wasted hours prepping, and battled with your oven, you could’ve enjoyed a hot meal delivered straight to your door.

So, do yourself a favor. Order the takeout. Save your sanity. And while you’re at it, follow The Most Humble Blog for more brutally honest takes and unapologetic truths about the madness of modern life. You deserve it.

[would-this-pokemon-be-a-friend]

Dratini, perhaps? I love that blue noodle...!

Unlike many dragon-type pokémon, keeping a dratini as a pet is feasible. Maybe not recommended for beginners, and most certainly far from convenient, but possible. That is, if you possibly have the space!

While they are pretty thin with their worm-like physique, dratini can get pretty dang long. On average, fully-grown dratini average at nearly six feet, but some have been said to surpass that by another half foot if properly cared for (FireRed). This would certainly be something that many pet owners would have to adapt to, but many people care for large snakes with little problem, and dratini could most likely make themselves comfortable coiled up in whatever space is available to them. Thankfully, these pokémon are quite light and not very strong (Ultra Sun), so handling them isn’t too much of a challenge outside of volume.

Here’s the thing though: the habitats that wild dratini make their homes in aren’t very easy to replicate in the home, which makes this a pokémon with some pretty rough ease-of-care. Wild dratini make their home beneath rapidly-flowing waterfalls in order to protect them from predators while they grow (Crystal). I will point out, however, that a normal pool of water might suffice if the dratini feels safe and secure. Regardless, you will need to invest in a watery habitat for your dratini to spend at least some of their time in, which could be cost-prohibitive for owners who don’t already have such a resource on-hand. As a note: handling a dratini in the water is much more difficult then on land due to their impressive swimming strength, besting fishermen for hours in the wild (Moon), so you will definitely want to invest in training for if you need to move your dratini out of this area for whatever reason.

If you are one who is grossed out by animals that shed their skin, you’ll definitely want to look elsewhere. As the first stage of a three-part evolution line, dratini lifestyle is all based around growth: a healthy, growing dratini will be filled with energy and will shed their skin entirely numerous times in their life, or even nearly on a daily basis (Silver, Gold, Ultra Moon). Despite the energy building up within them, driving their growth, dratini live a very low-key lifestyle. They aren’t picky about their food, and spend most of their time quietly going about their day (Ultra Sun). If you’re looking for a playful, personable pokémon, a dratini might not be for you, but those who enjoy the presence of their pet with no action-oriented strings attached may find them a lovely companion.

Thankfully, living such a low-key lifestyle, dratini aren’t very aggressive. This is critical considering some of the concerning moves that they can use. From paralyzing rays like Thunder Wave to draconic maneuvers like Dragon Rush and Outrage, dratini can really pack a punch. Safely keeping a dratini would require a keen awareness of their mood and body language, especially when in the water with them.

Overall, keeping a dratini could be entirely feasible for someone experienced with high-maintenance, high cost pets. Experts in handling dragon-types would find dratini a breeze, while newbie owners may struggle to meet their needs and may find themselves in danger if their pet ever lashes out. I will leave the pet-worthiness of this species to the potential owner’s discretion.

As a bit of a post-ranking note, though: adopting a dratini is notoriously difficult and expensive, which may also be a good reason to look at other species first. Dratini are so exceptionally rare, earning them the nickname of “Mirage Pokémon” due to their low numbers (Diamond/Pearl/Platinum) cause by both their limited habitats and the financial value of their shed skins (Sun).

[thechillsquid]

Weird Grunkles- Blind Eyes Au

Little Drabble writing for the au cause I can

—

Dipper stared long and hard at one of their puesdo-grunkles, Bill, for what felt like an hour before he finally couldn’t stop himself from speaking, “How in the world did you get up there? More importantly, why?”

Bill was by far one of the weirdest people Dipper had come to know since coming to Gravity Falls, only really being beaten by Toby Determined by just barely. The guy was of an average build, about a head shorter than Stan (and just as wrinkly), with strange tattoos along his arms and legs that the boy was about 90% changed daily.

It took a moment to actually get a response, Bill staring back through his curtain of white-streaked curls before shrugging, “Squirrels were looking at me funny, kid, someone’s gotta chase em off.”

The preteen quietly repeated that to himself before asking slowly, “Are you… like stuck up there?”

He got a beaming, almost painfully wide, grin, showing off one golden canine and the gap between the older man’s front teeth. “Perhaps!”

Really Dipper couldn’t fathom half the shit he saw Bill do, espically when he was apparently older than Stan and Fiddleford (and trying to get any answers about any of the three’s ages was a nightmare he’d long given up on trying to figure out). The guy wasn’t exactly strong like Stan or much of an academic like Fidds, but he was sly and scarily insightful. As well as probably insane, seeing as he was most definitely pushing 50 years of age at the least and still got into situations like this.

This wasn’t even the first time this week that Dipper had spotted the guy in a spot where no one should be, like on top of the totem pole or balanced in tree branches. It was weird and unnerving and Dipper was fairly certain the guy wasn’t actually human.

“I’ll get a ladder…”

“Ask Specs, good ole Fez’s got a fear of heights,” Bill practically spoke in a sing-song, settling down so his back was against the tree’s trunk now. “Thanks, kid!”

Dipper just nodded slowly and went to find grunkle Fidds.

This town was so weird…

[fallen-gravity]

Playing Favorites

“I don’t like you.”

Now that’s something Maui’s used to hearing. He gets it so often that he honestly forgets it’s supposed to be an insult. It stopped hurting his feelings about five hundred or so years ago.

…But he usually gets that from people he’s actively gone out of his way to bother, or from gods he’s stolen from for the good of humanity, or other demigods who are clearly just jealous of all of his accomplishments in comparison to their own. And sure, okay, he’s heard it from his fair share of humans after he stole Te Fiti’s heart, but they usually use much…stronger language, and the people saying it to him are usually adults.

Simea’s only…what? Two, three years old? What could he have possibly done to her?

~~

AKA: Simea suffers from jealousy because Moana has more than one favorite person

Notes:

Hi, I'm Cindy, and I like writing interactions that canon will never have the bravery to address 💔

Maui and Simea have so much potential for having a silly little rivalry for No Reason, it's so cute. Maui calls her "Mini Moana" in the junior novelization when he's looking for her to give her Moana's gift and that just solidified my need to write them interacting more. I love them dearly, I am the only one who understands them.

[Moana doesn't actually make a physical appearence in this fic, please be very careful about how you tag this should you reblog]

AO3

Y’know, this isn’t exactly what Maui had in mind when Moana had asked him to do her a “huge favor”. 

Okay, well, in her words it was less that she asked him for help and more that she needed to “get rid of him for a few hours”. She wanted to make trade negotiations with some of the other chiefs from visiting islands, and told him she didn’t want him there because she was afraid he was going to “skewer things” and “intimidate everyone else into giving everything to Motunui” instead of the actual conversing she wants to do with them.

Which…yeah, okay, Maui doesn’t really have an argument for that. He’s definitely a punch first, ask questions later kind of guy. If he were there and he saw some wise guy trying to skimp out on his side of the bargain, peaceful definitely wouldn’t be the kind of word Maui would use to describe that conversation.

Even so, Maui would’ve expected Moana to send him somewhere a little more…dignified. 

Though, knowing Moana, who is he kidding? She’s too full of pride to ask him for help with anything that involves any physical strength, and he hasn’t been around the island enough times to really help out with any of the average daily chores (since, you know, he doesn’t even know what they are), so this is probably exactly what he should’ve expected.

Truth be told, he doesn’t even mind telling stories to kids. He’s done it on hundreds of other islands before and he’ll do it on a hundred more islands before the century is even up. 

But it doesn’t bode very well on his whole all-powerful demigod image. 

Which is probably exactly why Moana asked him to do it in the first place. Sure, she claimed that it was because he’s the best storyteller around, and where better to hear the tales than directly from the source, but there was a mischievous sort of glint in her eyes when she said it, and Maui didn’t trust it one bit. 

Whatever. He’ll show her. He can be the all-knowing, all-powerful, can-rip-a-coconut-tree-in-half-with-one-well-timed-punch demigod while telling stories to small children, thank you very much.

It does certainly help wonders that kids have always been his most captive audience, and that the children of Motunui are no different. They’re starstruck by his embellishments, enraptured by his overly dramatic gestures, and they erupt into fits of giggles and cheers every time Mini Maui starts dancing around on his chest. It’s times like these where he feels the most like himself, where he can be as loud and exuberant as he pleases without a care in the world about who sees. 

Or, well, it would be, if not for the familiar, nagging feeling that someone is glaring at him. 

He looks around the crowd of children huddled together to try and figure out if any of them look like they’re having a bad day, or if any of them are afraid of the story he’s telling, and…

Locks eyes with Simea, just by chance. 

It’s unmistakable. 

Honestly, even if Moana had never mentioned having a little sister, Maui’s sure that he would’ve placed the pieces together himself just by the way Simea’s looking at him. She and Moana have the same exact glare, right down to the way their eyebrows furrow together.  He has to fight back a laugh, really, the way it feels like he’s gone back in time and this really is Moana as a toddler.

As for why she’s so upset…he’s stumped. Maui’s sure that Moana told him that her sister loved listening to stories about his legacy, and he knows she’s not bothered by how he’s telling the story, because he’s seen the way that Moana embellishes the stories she tells, too. He can’t imagine that it’s because Moana isn’t the onetelling the story, because Maui’s also bared witness to Moni telling stories and Simea seems to eat that up.

Is it personal?

Maui can’t think of anything he’s done to hurt her feelings. He hasn’t stolen anything from her, which is usually the reason people are mad at him, and he can’t imagine that he’s exactly said anything to her that could be considered that offensive. They’ve only spoken a handful of times, and Moana was there for all but one of those times, so even if he had said something wrong he definitely would’ve gotten an earful from her about it.

Weird.

Maui makes a mental note to ask Moana about it when she’s finished with negotiations. Maybe she’ll know why her little sister’s so upset. He benches that thought for the time being, and continues on with his stories for the rest of his captive audience.

~~~~

He lucks out, because just when he starts to run low on stories to tell, he notices a small crowd of adults starting to form around the outer edge of the fale tele. If his experience with other islands are anything to go by, that usually means that they’re finished with trade negotiations and that they’re here to pick up their kids.

Maui waves silently in acknowledgement to the crowd of adults behind him, and does his best to quiet the whines of the kids in his audience and assure them that he’ll be back to tell them more stories soon, he promises, before he stands to his feet to start to head off towards the direction of where he last saw Moana. 

He takes about ten steps before he gets the feeling he’s being followed. 

He turns around, and there’s Simea, right on his trail with her arms crossed over her puffed-out chest.

“Uh…” he tries, but she pouts angrily at him before he can get a single word out. 

“I don’t like you.”

Now that’s something Maui’s used to hearing. He gets it so often that he honestly forgets it’s supposed to be an insult. It stopped hurting his feelings about five hundred or so years ago. 

…But he usually gets that from people he’s actively gone out of his way to bother, or from gods he’s stolen from for the good of humanity, or other demigods who are clearly just jealous of all of his accomplishments in comparison to their own. And sure, okay, he’s heard it from his fair share of humans after he stole Te Fiti’s heart, but they usually use much…stronger language, and the people saying it to him are usually adults. 

Simea’s only…what? Two, three years old? What could he have possibly done to her? 

(Then again, he thinks, at the back of his mind, he thought the same thing about Moana when he first met her; “She’s what, twelve? What could he have possibly done to her?”) 

“I’m…sorry?” Maui genuinely tries to apologize, his utter confusion turning it into more of a question. He kneels to meet her eyes better, hoping it’ll help fix whatever her problem is with him.

“I don’t like you!” she repeats, like she thought he didn’t hear it the first time, and she sticks her tongue out at him. 

Spitting image of her sister. He’d laugh if he weren’t afraid she was about to start yanking him around by his ear.

He settles for raising his hands in a defeated gesture. “Heard you the first time, kiddo” he replies gently, but he can’t help the tinge of amusement in his voice. “Do you want to tell me why you don’t like me?”

She firmly shakes her head no, but she looks at him with this baffled, incredulous look, like the reason’s supposed to be so obvious. 

“C’mon, kid, you gotta give me something,” he tries. “You keep staring at me like I stole something from you.” 

“You did,” she replies instantaneously. 

He blinks. “I did?”

For the briefest of moments, the anger in her expression falters, and she looks like she’s about to burst into tears. “You’re always taking my sister away from me.”

…Oh.

Okay, actually, Maui doesn’t have a good response to that; he’s never been great with the whole jealousy thing and it’s not like he’s exactly had that much family to base his experiences on. As far as comfort goes, he’s stumped.

But he does know Moana. 

“Kid, you’ve gotta know that it’s not one person that keeps drawing your sister to the water, right? Curly’s practically got the ocean in her bloodstream. She’d probably live in the ocean if she could.” 

Simea sighs. “I know. She introduced me before she left on her big journey.” She shakes her head, and returns to crossing her arms over her chest. “But it’s different when it’s you!”

That gives him genuine pause. “When it’s…me?” 

“Yeah!” She throws her arms in the air, exasperated. “It’s like, she’s always talking about you! She always tells me that I’m her favorite person in the world, but when you’re gone she’s always looking around for you, or she’s talking about you, or she’s talking to that one drawing of you, or-”

“Wait…she talks to what?” 

She freezes. “Oh, oops, I don’t think I was supposed to tell you that,” she twiddles her thumbs, looking genuinely embarrassed.  “But, um, sometimes she talks to the siapo of you like it’s really you. Mostly when you’re not here. I never really hear what she says, but I think she talks to it when she misses you” she nods sagely, but then she’s back to glaring daggers at him. “But what about me?” she cries. “When you’re not here, she’s always talking about you, and when you are here, she’s always gone!” She wipes at her eyes with her little wrist, trying her hardest to hide the tears building in her eyes.

Maui’s floored. Honest and true. His rattled mind isn’t sure what it wants to focus on more. The part about Moana missing him when he’s gone? The part about her missing him so much that she talks to tapestry of him? 

Or the part that Simea thinks she’s not as important to Moana?

It’s baffling, honestly. He’s sure that Moana’s heart would be shattering to pieces if she heard any of this, given how much he’s seen firsthand how much Moana treasures her little sister.

Maui shakes his head at the thought. Then, glancing from side to side like he’s about to disclose top-secret information, he leans forward.

“Well…do you want to know a secret about her too? Since you told me one?”

Simea’s eyes widen. She doesn’t reply with words, but she nods her head, like she’s afraid someone will overhear. 

Maui smiles. “Moana talks about you all the time, too. Practically every time you’re out of her line of sight.”

Her eyes light up. “Really?”

“Oh yeah,” his grin widens, because it’s contagious. “It’s always Simea would love this and I can’t wait to bring Simea here this, and I need to make sure to pick up a souvenir for Simea that. You’re all she can talk about. She loves you to bits, kiddo. Did she ever tell you that she still keeps your shell in her locket?” 

“She does?” That little smile of hers just keeps getting bigger and bigger.

He doesn’t want to talk about how she almost died with it in her grasp. Or that he almost had to bury her with it in her palm. He hopes he can get the point across regardless.

“Yep!” his voice cracks as he attempts to wave off that train of thought. “Matter of fact,” he tries again after clearing his throat, “she’s always telling me that it’s her motivation to make it home safely. No matter how long or dangerous our voyages are, I always see her gripping onto her locket for dear life like she’s trying to reach out to you from across the sea to promise that she’s coming home. I believe her, too” he nods. “The most upset I ever saw her get on our way to Motufetū was when she almost dropped it into the ocean during a storm.” He shakes his head. “As if the ocean wouldn’t have done everything to give it back to her.” 

He laughs to himself at the thought; of Moana going that much further for someone she loves, just because she can. Even when it involves putting herself at risk.

There’s a deep fondness in his voice as he continues on. “My point is that she’s happy. The happiest I’ve seen since I’ve met her. I thought she’d never stop bouncing on her feet when we sailed to Te Fiti together, and then you come along and that increases tenfold. When she’s out on the water it’s less about getting away and more about finding something new and bringing it home.” He shakes his head, the warmth in his chest only growing stronger. “It’s almost like…you gave her someone to fight for.”

“...Oh,” Simea replies, and when Maui meets her eyes again her expression’s unreadable. She’s not angry or sad anymore, that much he can tell, but that’s about it. She almost looks…embarrassed? Whatever it is, she’s deep in thought over it. 

“Well…” she taps her at her chin quizzically, “I think you’re that for her too”

“I…” Maui stammers, genuinely caught off guard. “Me?”

“Yeah,” she nods, bouncing shyly on her feet. “Like, she’s always happy! She loves doing Chief stuff with Dad, and she always gets so excited right before she goes on a voyage. But she always gets sooo excited when she sees you, or when she thinks she sees a big hawk, or something like that,” she shrugs, “and everyone notices! She gets all bouncy, and happy, and starts running down to the beach as fast as she can, even if she was doing other important stuff.” She looks to the ground. “I think you give her something to be all happy and excited over.” 

Maui…genuinely doesn’t know what to say to that. It’s one thing to think that Moana likes spending time with him and another to tease her about him being her favorite person ever for all time, but it’s something else entirely to hear it from someone she’s close to.

“In that case,” Maui taps at his chin, doing his best to convey the humor in his tone despite the slight waver in his voice, “Maybe we can both be her favorite, huh?” He extends a hand to offer a handshake. 

“Hmm…” Simea considers, tapping at her chin. “I mean, I do have two different best friends. I guess it can be like that” she replies, but doesn’t move to shake his hand. She squints at him again, but there’s not nearly the same amount of anger and hurt that there was earlier. “But how do I know you’re not just gonna run off and tell Moana I was being mean to you? And then take her away again?” 

Maui laughs at that, genuinely. He supposes it’s what he gets for being so proud of his status as a trickster demigod. He pauses to think, eyes gazing around his surroundings as he searches for an answer, but then-

Oh!

Of course!

He knew there was something he’d been forgetting. Maui sits up, reaches into the back makeshift pocket of his grass skirt, and pulls out a small pink-and-white conch shell.

Simea gasps. “Is that for me? What does it do?”

Maui nods. “There’s legends that if you hold these up to your ear, you’ll be able to hear the ocean from anywhere in the world.”

“Woaaaah!!!” Simea squeals, bringing the shell to her ear to test out his theory. “You’re right!! I can hear it!” 

Maui smiles. “Well, yeah, consider that an apology gift. Y’know, for being Moana’s other favorite person.”

Simea’s barely paying attention to him anymore. She’s just turning her little seashell in her hands over and over again. “That’s okay,” she replies haphazardly, like she barely even heard what he said. “As long as you bring me more shells, you’ll be my favorite person too. Then we’ll be even and we can all be each other’s favorites.”

He laughs at that, and stands to his feet as she continues to turn her shell over in her hands, her eyes sparkling in awe. 

“You’ve got yourself a deal, kiddo.” 

[milesluna]

My Favorite Games of 2023.

Hi. Hello. Thanks ever so much for clicking on this page. Happy to have you.

First thing's first: I'm a little freak when it comes to video games. I don't feel the need to beat most games I play. From Software is one of my favorite studios in the industry and I've never finished a single one of their games. This means, fortunately, that I get to play a LOT more games than the average bear.

I've written up some blurbs about my top ten favorite games from 2023, but before that here's the list of every game I remember playing this year that left any sort of lasting impact on me (in no particular order):

Dead Space Remake Resident Evil 4 Remake F-Zero 99 Humanity Dredge Metroid Prime Remastered Anemoiaplois Alan Wake 2 Baldur’s Gate 3 LoZ Tears of the Kingdom Counter Strike 2 Hunt Showdown El Paso Elsewhere Jusant Slay the Princess| Remnant II The Finals Street FIghter 6 Lethal Company BattleBit Remastered Don’t Scream Homebody The Murder of Sonic the Hedgehog Pizza Tower World of Horror Super Mario Wonder Mr. Sun’s Hatbox Fifa 23 Sea of Stars (Demo) Half-Life (25th Anniversary Update)

And the games I played that were NOT released in 2023:

Unpacking Persona 4 Golden Picross 7 The Order 1886 Shovel Knight Dig Lost Planet: Extreme Condition Spider-Man: Miles Morales Pac-Man Championship Edition DX Project Zomboid Quake LoZ The Minish Cap Drill Dozer Wario Land 4 Pokemon Pinball Resident Evil Revelations Summer of ‘58 Trackmania TwinCop We Were Here Visage Cursed Halo CE Half-Life 2 (I probably play this once per year) Witch Hunt Red Dead Redemption 2 Cyberpunk 2077 Borderlands 3 Brutal Legend Cultic Slay the Spire PUBG Rez Infinite Batman Arkham City Alan Wake Alan Wake: American Nightmare Max Payne LoZ: Majora’s Mask 3DS Metroid Prime Metroid Prime 2 Tunic Everhood Final Fantasy VII Final Fantasy VII Remake GOODBYE WORLD Yakuza: Like a Dragon Critters for Sale Dome Keeper Phasmophobia Hades Nintendo Switch Sports

Now that you understand the kind of freak you're dealing with…

Let's dive into my top ten favorite games from this objectively fucked up year.

10. El Paso Elsewhere Developed by Texas indie studio Strange Scaffold, El Paso Elsewhere is a Max Payne-clone with vampires, an opinionated narrator, and lots and lots of bullet time. As a small studio punching well above their weight class, Strange Scaffold leans into abstract, PlayStation 1 minimalism when it comes to visuals and pairs them with a soundtrack that will make your hands sweat. The vibes are here and they're ready for the end of the world. I'm personally also a big fan of everything this studio stands for.

9. Mr. Sun's Hatbox I want you to imagine Metal Gear Solid V. Now I want you to imagine that game as a 2D, level-based, slapstick platformer you can play with up to three friends. If you think that sounds stupid, you'd be right. And it's beautiful. As you build up a secret army of soldiers with various skills (and disorders), you'll start to develop *favorites*. This game constantly asks if you're willing to send those favorites on a harrowing mission and risk losing them forever… or if you'd rather send an idiot you recently captured who blinks constantly and can't kill anyone without fainting.

8. Dredge Every year I feel like I find one game that falls into the “just one more round” category, and baby… Dredge was it for 2023. As a weary fisherman in strange waters, you'll make the most out of your 12 measly hours of sunlight only for your daily voyages to inevitably pull you into the darkness of night, and night is when things get weird. Rocks emerge from the fog that you swear weren't there before, your equipment malfunctions, and you're pretty sure you just saw something in the water… something big. Despite only containing a small collection of islands, the world of Dredge manages to feel vast - perhaps vast enough to swallow you whole.

7. Resident Evil 4 Remake I was curious to see what sort of changes would be made to the timeless classic and father of modern 3rd person shooters, Resident Evil 4. I wasn't let down. RE4 Remake takes all the things that didn't age well about the original, tossed them out, and replaced them with only good things. And MORE things! It's campy, fun, and better than a game of bingo.

6. Jusant I really feel like this one didn't get the recognition it deserves. Jusant is a rock climbing game that combines the quiet contemplation of Journey with the mechanical specificity of Death Stranding. Unlike Death Standing, though, there is very little story to interrupt your flow. There are plenty of collectible bits to find for those curious to learn more about what happened before the events of the game, but the environmental storytelling does most of the heavy lifting. For me, the joy of the game comes from how it feels. Right trigger controls your right hand grip, and left trigger controls left hand grip. Plan your route, manage your stamina, and climb high above the clouds in search of answers.

5. F-Zero 99 This. Shit. Slaps. I've never been a big F-Zero guy, but this MADE me one. The “battle royale”, 99 player format is the perfect fit for the ruthless, high octane world of the game. Races last about three minutes, and friend, they are the most intense, white-knuckled three minutes of your life. The decision to make your boost meter the same as your health meter started in F-Zero 64 (I believe), and it is so much more HARROWING in this game when another player could side-swipe you mere meters from the finish line and blow you to bits. Sadly it's only playable via Switch Online, but it made me cheer, laugh, and scream enough this year to earn a spot in my top 5.

4. Alan Wake 2 Remedy makes weird games that also manage to exist in the AAA space and for that I will forever love them. Although Alan Wake 2 resembles a 3rd person shooter survival horror, I'd honestly say it's more of a narrative game than anything else. There's sidequests, there's puzzles, there's upgradeable skills, but at the end of the day the characters, world, and story are what kept me playing. If you haven't checked them out recently, you should definitely watch a story recap of the original games before diving into this sequel, but the wild swings for the fences this game takes are well worth that small price of admission. There's a god damn musical number, for Christ's sake.

3. The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom I've really got nothing to say about this game that most people don't already know. It's incredible. The fact that Nintendo made a game that redefined an entire genre and then made a SEQUEL to it that ups the ante is remarkable. To be honest, I've only cleared the Rito, Zora, and Goron cities. I got a bit tired of exploring the depths and guiding Koroks to their friends, but I can't deny the sheer level of complexity and polish on display here. I saw someone on TikTok build a functioning Mecha Godzilla in this game. Good God. I've heard that the ending of this game is one of the best in the franchise, and if I'd seen it this year then it may have wound up higher on my list, but for the time being I'll continue picking up this masterpiece from time to time, chipping away at it until the day comes that I can finally smack the tits off thicc Ganondorf.

2. Half-Life (25th Anniversary Update) I know I'm gonna get shit for this, but I don't care. This year was the 25th anniversary of Half-Life and Valve released an update that made playing it (and it's online Death Match) much more accessible. I threw it on my Steam Deck out of curiosity, expecting to play for 20 minutes. I could not put it down. It is unbelievable how modern this game still feels. I simply had so much fun sprinting through the corridors of Black Mesa with a dozen weapons strapped to my back, blasting aliens and military Spec-Op chumps as a 24(?!) year old theoretical physicist.

1. Baldur's Gate III This game is fucked up, man. The sheer amount of writing in this game scares me. We can all talk about how BIG this game is, it deserves it, but the thing BG3 does better than any other role playing game I have ever experienced is actually encourage roleplaying. I've played through Act I four times now, with four different groups of friends, and it has felt fresh every time. I have seen the same events play out in so many different ways that it boggles the mind, but in every one of those play sessions I see players asking themselves “What would my lil guy do here?” rather than "what is the best thing to do here?" The game rewards players constantly for just trying shit and the D&D 5e rule set means playing like the character you said you were from the start leads to frequent Points of Inspiration. Maybe one day I'll see the end of this story (probably not), but I don't have to in order to feel a connection with BG3's world, characters, and most impressively, the characters I made myself.

Honorable Mentions for 2023

5. Dave the Diver 4. Homebody 3. Sea of Stars 2. Humanity 1. Super Mario Wonder

Top 5 Favorites NOT from 2023

5. Metroid Prime 4. Final Fantasy VII Remake 3. Cursed Halo (Halo CE Mod) 2. Red Dead Redemption 2 1. Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask (3DS)

Games I didn't have a chance to play from 2023 but still want to when I find more time...

Viewfinder Venba Chants of Sennaar Thirsty Suitors Hi-Fi Rush Moonring Armored Core VI Laika Aged Through Blood Bomb Rush Cyberfunk

OKAY THANKS BYE!

[kidlit-queen-competition]

Train fact: the longest* train ever

like all things to do with railways, you can get pretty granular and pedantic with this one, so this is likely to also be the longest post ever. Sorry, but actual facts (and pretty pictures) under the cut!

The longest passenger train in regular service is Australia's 'Ghan, a luxury tourist train that runs between Adelaide and Darwin, and averages 774 m/2,539ft in length. that's twice as long as the Empire State building is tall.

(id in alt)

The reason I say "in regular service" is because the longest passenger train EVER was run by the Rhaetian Railway in Switzerland, to celebrate 175 years of Swiss railways, and that was more than twice that long at 1,910m/6266.4ft. Almost an entire Kentucky Derby worth of train! It had to go incredibly slowly, maxing out at 35km/h, to avoid overloading the electric systems of the railway and local power grids.

[Video desc: a youtube video from CBS news of the recordbreaking passenger train. The train is made up of several red electric trains coupled together, and moves through alpine landscapes of mountainds and coniferous forest. It is so long that it is visible only in coils, like a snake. Some shots show the train leaving one tunnel while entering another, or driving under a viaduct while the tail end crosses it, and several shots show people watching and taking photographs.]

But, the thing with passenger trains is that they have a lot of rules and regulations applied to them that freight doesn't have to follow. So freight trains get HYUGE.

The average American freight train (I consider the USA to be freight trains' natural habitat because there is a whole bunch of wide open space for for them to crawl around) is 5400 feet long, and the standard in Europe is around 3000ft. That's a 10-20 minute walk at average adult walking speed, just to go from end to end. You know when you stop at a level crossing, and a train goes by, and it seems like it's going by forever? That was probably one of these.

But the average frieght train is peanuts to mining trains. Trains came from the mines, and they still dominate there. The biggest trains in the world are consists of ore and coal, run by tiny crews from extraction point to export. This has always been true.

For example, the Datong–Qinhuangdao railway in China runs coal trains daily that are 2.614 km/8576 ft long. That's more than 1.5 miles, or three times as long as the burj khalifa is tall. And that's the standard for that line.

(id in alt)

But that doesn't break any records.

The longest production train, running regularly, is the Sishen–Saldanha railway line's maganese/iron ore train. These trains are four kilometers long. 4,000 meters, almost half the height of the highest peak on earth, in wagons full of metals. Too long to be seen in a single photograph- the one below was stitched together from four separate pictures, taken from the air:

(id in alt)

and that's still not the record!

The record for longest frieght train is held by BHP, an Australian mining company. It was made for the record, but the capacity is still there. This train ran on june 21st 2011, and was 682 wagons long, over seven kilometers. Almost twice the length of the Sishen–Saldanha's, and a quarter the height of Olympus mons. If you stood this train on its end, it would be taller than Mt Denali. If you started at the front of the lead locomotive, and ran as fast as you physically could, you wouldn't reach the last wagon for an hour.

There are entire branch lines shorter than this train.

Unfortunately, there are no good photos, because nobody in space had time for railfanning that day, but there are plenty of pictures of other BHP trains!

(id in alt)

[spacetimewithstuartgary]

Wednesday SpaceTime 20240918 Series 27 Episode 113

Recent volcanism on discovered on the Moon

Scientists have discovered evidence of volcanism on the lunar surface as recently as 125 million years ago.

The Strange phenomena people will see at Moon's south pole

When astronauts return to the Moon’s surface as part of the Artemis 3 mission to the Lunar south pole, they’ll experience a very different environment to that which the Apollo astronauts witnessed more than half a century ago.

A new crew arrives at the International Space Station

The Russian Soyuz MS-26 capsule has successfully docked with the International Space station just three hours after its launch aboard a Soyuz 2.1a rocket from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in in the central Asian republic of Kazakhstan.

The Science Report

Study shows up to 19% of dementia cases could be linked to vision problems.

Over 52 million tonnes of plastic dumped into the environment every year.

The growing amount of incorrect AI generated data being generated.

Alex on Tech: are the new iPhone 16s worth it? 

SpaceTime covers the latest news in astronomy & space sciences.

The show is available every Monday, Wednesday and Friday through Apple Podcasts (itunes), Stitcher, Google Podcast, Pocketcasts, SoundCloud, Bitez.com, YouTube, your favourite podcast download provider, and from www.spacetimewithstuartgary.com

SpaceTime is also broadcast through the National Science Foundation on Science Zone Radio and on both i-heart Radio and Tune-In Radio.

SpaceTime daily news blog: http://spacetimewithstuartgary.tumblr.com/

SpaceTime facebook: www.facebook.com/spacetimewithstuartgary

SpaceTime Instagram @spacetimewithstuartgary

SpaceTime twitter feed @stuartgary

SpaceTime YouTube: @SpaceTimewithStuartGary

SpaceTime -- A brief history

SpaceTime is Australia’s most popular and respected astronomy and space science news program – averaging over two million downloads every year. We’re also number five in the United States.  The show reports on the latest stories and discoveries making news in astronomy, space flight, and science.  SpaceTime features weekly interviews with leading Australian scientists about their research.  The show began life in 1995 as ‘StarStuff’ on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s (ABC) NewsRadio network.  Award winning investigative reporter Stuart Gary created the program during more than fifteen years as NewsRadio’s evening anchor and Science Editor.  Gary’s always loved science. He studied astronomy at university and was invited to undertake a PHD in astrophysics, but instead focused on his career in journalism and radio broadcasting. Gary’s radio career stretches back some 34 years including 26 at the ABC. He worked as an announcer and music DJ in commercial radio, before becoming a journalist and eventually joining ABC News and Current Affairs. He was part of the team that set up ABC NewsRadio and became one of its first on air presenters. When asked to put his science background to use, Gary developed StarStuff which he wrote, produced and hosted, consistently achieving 9 per cent of the national Australian radio audience based on the ABC’s Nielsen ratings survey figures for the five major Australian metro markets: Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide, and Perth.  The StarStuff podcast was published on line by ABC Science -- achieving over 1.3 million downloads annually.  However, after some 20 years, the show finally wrapped up in December 2015 following ABC funding cuts, and a redirection of available finances to increase sports and horse racing coverage.  Rather than continue with the ABC, Gary resigned so that he could keep the show going independently.  StarStuff was rebranded as “SpaceTime”, with the first episode being broadcast in February 2016.  Over the years, SpaceTime has grown, more than doubling its former ABC audience numbers and expanding to include new segments such as the Science Report -- which provides a wrap of general science news, weekly skeptical science features, special reports looking at the latest computer and technology news, and Skywatch – which provides a monthly guide to the night skies. The show is published three times weekly (every Monday, Wednesday and Friday) and available from the United States National Science Foundation on Science Zone Radio, and through both i-heart Radio and Tune-In Radio.

[shmowder]

Termites + Clara and getting a toy with their meal

Sticky would pretend he's above it, that he doesn't care about kiddie toys. He'll order whatever Artemy orders to try and feel included with the adults. Except that his tastebuds are still of a 12y overdosing on nuggets daily, and he can not handle anything more spicy than ketchup. He managea three bites before his eyes start watering as he battles the spiciness while Artemy watches unimpressed.

Capella actually doesn't want a toy, but she still orders a meal with one anyway. It was to take home with her and keep as a souvenir of this outing. She's the one being addressed by the waiters and the person who goes to the cashier to correct an error in the order if Artemy wasn't around. While the fast food meal isn't what she usually eats, she finds herself intrigued by the simplicity of the flavours. She enjoys the sugary soda more than she'll ever like to admit, although Notkin clearly shares the sentiment and offers her his cup later as they leave.

Notkin immediately orders a toy meal along with Clara. The both of them end up having a blast using their mini figure toys to stage a fight on the table, using ketchup as fake blood and doing sound effects with their own voices. It's a theatrics show, and they use stale fries as woobly swords for their toys. He doesn't end up eating much but takes advantage of the free soda refills to stock up on 4 or 5 cups when no one in the staff is looking. He ends up "winning" the mini figure fight after tricking Clara into a trap with a paper crown. Taya is over the moon impressed. He soaks up her praise like a sponge and retells her the fight she just watched when they leave the diner... but more dramatically.

Khan actually enjoys the "grown-up" food courtesy to his family's eccentric tastes. His taste buds pretty much got used to most things other kids wouldn't even try. He tries not to say anything when he feels Sticky glaring at him from the other side of the table, half finished glass milk in hand. He absolutely hates the soda and can't understand why anyone would like something so sugary. He orders an average meal and splits it with Grace, insisting she's doing him a favour. Ends up criticising the food within earshot of the waiter multiple times. Makes everyone–Clara and Notkin especially– Clean the food mess they threw on the floor while playing around before leaving.

Taya didn't just ask for a toy. She asked for all the toys there in the whole diner! Although with Haruspex's current lack of stable income, she was content with just one toy and a meal. Immediately giving her toy a name and showing it off to everyone who would make eye contact with her for a split second, even telling the strangers sitting on the other tables about her beloved awesome toy... Only to become bored of it midway through the meal and move on to observe the entertaining fight show that Clara and Notkin are improvising. Her happiness is contagious and other adults ends up giving her some of their desserts just for being adorable. Artemy has to run after her and take her back to their original table after she enhaled half the cake from a stranger kid's birthday table.

Murky clearly wanted a meal with a toy. Not only was it blatantly obvious, but she was very bad at hiding it. Shaking her head when asked about it by the cashier and hiding between Artemy's legs. She didn't budge when questioned and refused to admit that she wanted a toy. At least Sticky was there to pick her food order for her, pancakes with syrup and strawberries. Even if the restaurant stopped serving the breakfast menu by this hour, him and Capella made a valid argument for an exception. Thankfully, it did work, and Clara's plan B of breaking into the kitchen and using her magic on the cook didn't have to come into action... today. Before leaving, Taya entrusted her toy to Murky and told her to keep it and take care of it, especially after Murky gave her one of the strawberries.

Clara immediately goes for the dollar kids menu, absolute zero shame. She briefly glances over the laminated paper menu to look at Artemy and make sure that he is the one paying, correct? Before picking the most expensive dish on the kids' menu, Behold! a three dollars meal, with a complimentary toy. She's the one having the most fun out of the rest of the kids during this outing and being playful in general. Making Grace throw M&M at her to see how many can she catch midair with just her mouth. Turns out... 25 out of 56. Not bad, not bad. She ends up leaving the diner with the paper crown still atop her head.

Grace didn't want to burden the haruspex. She was already grateful for just being invited, really. So she picked the cheapest thing on the menu, small fries. Smiling at Artemy's concerned gaze as he decided to just let her be. She sat content on her side of the table, watching Clara and Notkin playing together. She indulged Clara's games and was pleasantly surprised by how delicious the M&Ms were when Clara insisted that they switch roles and Grace should try catching them instead. Then the M&Ms turned into fries, salad pieces, and finally, chicken nuggets as it became clear that Clara just started the game as an excuse to share her food with Grace. Which counterproductivly ended up with two-thirds of it on the ground instead, courtesy to both of their bad aims.

[mrsrookhunt]

I’ve been waiting for Ango 😈😈

Anyway, can you please do Ango (and any other bsd guy) with a s/o that’s REALLY and I mean REALLY tall, like 6’10.

If you don’t think that’s a good idea or it’s not interesting just disregard this. Have a good day/night! <3

Oh my god I came here to write the bsd men in bed but sOMEONE HAD TO GIVE ME NEW INSPIRATION AHAHAHAAHAH

Absolutely.

As a short bitch myself... I'm so happy to imagine being tall.

A Small Problem

Ango Sakaguchi X Reader

Ango, in his infinite wisdom, had fallen for you, his darling, his other half...

But that was only apparent to you and him. The near daily comments on your 1-whole-foot height difference made him more than insecure.

Ango had never considered himself tall nor short to begin with, being at a good, solid height of 5'10.

He was tall to most women, and average to most men. It was a good balance.

When he met you, it was online. You spoke, sometimes for hours, into the early morning after he finally got off of work. After three months of dating, he was certain, with one-hundred percent of his soul, that you were the one.

Within the next month, he'd emptied out his savings into buying a ring for you, a suitable house, and redecorating said home into a cozy place fit for both you and the possibility of a small family (or pets, let's be real).

Finally, in your sixth month of dating, you'd gotten the unexpected funds to fly and see him for the first time.

Overwhelmed with joy, Ango had absolutely no reservations about finally meeting you, overjoyed that he would finally get to put that ring and that house to use.

When he met you, he was dumbfounded, jaw slack with shock for just a moment. He couldn't believe you were so... tall.

For a moment, you worried that he found you unattractive, but those worries washed away as the most delighted, sweetest young lover's smile broke onto his face, like six months of pure love expressed in one fleeting moment.

His biggest worry at the time was, how was he supposed to be the big spoon?

He wasn't embarrassed to take you around town, showing you off to everyone he knew.

You never took him as someone into PDA, but he regularly rested his head on your shoulder.

While he may not have judged you for your height, others did. Many of his coworkers laughed with what he was certain was envy of his catch, but hurt him deeply nonetheless.

When you accepted his proposal, he was monumentously happy, putting himself through hell and back to arrange a wedding as soon as possible.

However, through all of this happiness, you saw that something dampened his spirits, just slightly, as well.

After discovering that he was treated poorly because of you, it nearly broke your heart. You knew you had to help him in some way, making a point to give him extra snuggles and kisses, knowing he wasn't quite ready to open up about it.

There were times when he did cry with you. He wasn't used to being made fun of, and even more than that, he felt powerless over the situation. He loved you more than the world itself, but he also couldn't leave his work, and who's to say his coworkers at another job would treat him any better?

You start making jokes about his coworker bullies as if he were a small child needing reassurance, likening them to small children who couldn't handle a man and his partner.

It makes Ango feel tremendously better to have you on his side, comforting him. There was a time when he wondered if you saw him the same way, as weak and small in comparison to yourself. But you? You treated him like an equal. And that's all that matters.

Keep joking with him, keep loving him, and you won't have a problem.

"I've got a small problem, my love."

"Oh? And what's that honey?"

"You." ♡♡♡

[dollarbin]

Dollar Bin #54:

Paul Simon's Negotiations and Love Songs

Everyone begins questing after the meaning of life in Seventh Grade.

You're in a body that's changing too fast and not fast enough; you look around and suddenly notice all the garbage surrounding you: broken Chewbaccas, Doritos dust, petrified baseball card gum sticks and Garfield ephemera. And that's nothing compared with the garbage coming out of your mouth.

Somewhere, we all knew at that point, there was something worth striving for. Where the hell should we start to look?

My buddies and I began the search, in reasonable fashion, by mashing together our daily cafeteria slops - baked potato, corn dog and cookie - then spreading the collective result on a curb behind our math class. We would spread it with care. Next we'd take turns running at it at full tilt; a jump would occur and then we'd land in the paste, trying to slide our way along the curb. Invariably I'd fail to slide too far and fail to look cool. Invariably my buddy Matt would wind up splayed out in the ice plant, hysterical.

We did this for weeks.

(This is the same buddy Matt who, in that same era, jumped from the top of the stairs down to my garage-level bedroom yelling KOWABUNGA!, hit his head squarely and immensely on the descending roof line, landed on his back on the stairs, THUMP, then got up right back up, laughing, proud and ready to rock. It's 37 years later and he's still at it.)

I have so many questions: who cleaned up our middle school mess every day? Raccoons, seagulls or janitors? Or all three? And why didn't our teachers notice what we were up to and stop us? For that matter, where were all the teachers during our breaks? Did they have an underground lair wherein they'd chug bio class fermentation projects gone awry and throw darts at our pubescent class photos? And how did we get by without eating any lunch everyday? (Actually, I know the answer to that one: we ate tons and tons of candy.) Finally, did we clean our shoes somehow afterwards or just stride into Spanish class?

I sure don't know. But all the female seventh graders failed to gather about and gawk, hoping for a smooch as we flailed about aboard our lunches. And so it was pretty obvious that we'd yet to tap into the meaning of life.

So, I knew I needed to look elsewhere. Why not, I figured, resume my search at Target?

As I've written elsewhere, there wasn't much music in my childhood home. My famous brother and I heard a whole lot of Emmylou, Linda and Dolly's Trio spinning on repeat through our Vanagon's tape deck, sure, and every now and then we'd talk our folks into The Beach Boys Greatest Hits on a long ride to see grandparents. But the average day meant a half hour of TV before bed preceded by a family grace at the dinner table and if, we were lucky, pasta instead of liver on our plate. No wonder we ate so much candy. Neither the pasta nor liver included a soundtrack.

But, four or five months before Tom Petty's I Won't Back Down and a year or so before World Party's Goodbye Jumbo blew my tiny mind, Paul Simon grew me up and gave me direction.

Target's toy department was already getting old; I didn't need another squirt gun to accidentally step on or another Odie figurine; indeed, I was more into the largely nude images of Storm in the X-Men and the Jose Canseco's pompadoured leer in the Topps Traded Set at that point.

But then I spied a tape sized Paul Simon gazing out at me from beneath a sad fedora. I knew I was never gonna hook up with Storm; I knew my entire chest would never take up the square footage of one of Canseco's eyebrows. But Simon struck me as a fellow traveler: he looked puny and lonely, just like me. He also looked like he'd moved through a middle school food sliding phase long ago. And yet he was famous somehow. Maybe it was his hat.

I decided, right then and there, without ever having knowingly listened to his music, that Paul was my guy. So I talked my mom into buying me the tape.

I probably listened to Negotiations and Love Songs, Simon's straight forward, solo greatest hits package from that era, 5-6 times a week that fall. And in doing so I basically determined not just the meaning of life but also my own future.

Simon wrote and sung in such a convincing manner: his was a skinny white boy's truth and he basically laid out the course of my life through his songs.

Clearly, as an adult, I was going to:

Find myself crazy in love with someone in some kind of unauthorized fashion,

have weird sex with them,

marry them,

freak out with them and over them regularly,

have children with them reckelssly,

let them, and the kids involved, down,

then divorced them,

then hook back up with them

and somehow remain a likeable and very sad dude along the way.

And I was going to move through these stages over and over again for my entire adult life.

After all, that's exactly what happens in EVERY SINGLE SONG on Negotiations and Love Songs.

Don't believe me? I'll prove it.

The whole thing starts with one of the most brilliantly buoyant and pessimistic songs in existence, Mother and Child Reunion. I'd slip my cherished tape into my desk top, lunchbox shaped, deck and listen as the song's terrific drums snapped. Paul dove right in, offering my 90 pound self zero false hopes about the many strange and mournful days that lay in my future:

Me and Julio came next and let me know if you or anyone else ever unlocks the incomprehensible tale within its tumbling grace of chords and hollers. I didn't understand the song but I took its meaning in instantly: clearly the police were gonna crack down on me and my forms of love in a big way in life. I was never going to understand why.

And then there's Something So Right. Name me a sadder song about the meaning of life: you can't. Paul Simon taught me in Seventh grade that I was going to spend my entire life apologizing and miserable. Life was gonna suck. But it was sure gonna sound beautiful along the way.

St. Judy's Comet, up next, was another song about loving a kid from a doomed marriage; Love Me Like a Rock sounded far too happy and slight to trust; and Kodachrome, in addition to suggesting that life was all about treating the number of lovers you could expect as an exponential number, somehow made me worry about winding up in Juvie: maybe, I figured, the cops were laying in wait for me at that very moment, out behind the math room. They'd received word that I was making a baked potato/iceberg lettuce mess, daily among my other crappy behavior, and enough was enough. Maybe that was the writing on the wall.

I typically fast-forwarded through the collection's next track, Have a Good Time. It was just too weird and sexy to deal with: my hero Paul seemed to know far too many foxy ladies.

But my favorite of all those ladies sashayed in next with 50 Ways to Leave Your Lover. I listened to the song like a sociological treatise: tremendously confident and sexy women would show up at all my critical moments ahead and they'd tell me exactly what to do with myself. In the mean time they'd kiss me and, oh wow, it was gonna be some kiss...

Okay, now, do you see what I mean? Simon's a brilliant songwriter, one of our best. But between 1970 and 1983 he wrote the same doomed story over and over and over again.

And we haven't even got to the trilogy of doom that awaited me on the B Side. First came Slip Sliding Away. Forget Something So Right; this is the most beautifully pessimistic song ever written:

I believed ever word of Slip Sliding Away like a prophesy. I was the guy who'd love Deloris like that; I was the guy who'd travel days and days to see the son he'd failed, the guy who'd slip away before the kid even knew he was there. God was watching me: he knew that, like Paul, I was gonna be beautifully, terribly and unutterably miserable.

As if that wasn't bad enough I was also going to drag one of my doomed and far too young spouses to Mexico and make her love me in some obtuse fashion she detested.

Train in the Distance served as the final summation of all the misery I could expect. Another of Simon's fantastic short stories, it's a perfect miniature of the tale Simon had to tell: love was going to ruin my life in a lovely way.

Like you, I wish I could write a letter to my seventh grade self, a letter that would arrive the moment after one of our food sliding sessions or, better yet, in the lonely, terrifying moments that followed my personal traumas, the telling of which would be out of place in my silly blog.

Dear Nathan, I'd write.

It's gonna be alright. Paul Simon is wrong about love, for you at least. You won't mistake your negotiations for your love songs. The thought that life could be better is woven indelibly into your heart and your brain because life is going to be better. In fact, it's going to be great.

Sincerely,

Your Future, Dollar Bin, Self

[dailyrandomwriter]

Day 793

When people talk about pacing in games, it’s often the rate in which the player can progress through the game. This is especially true for games that have a level up system or where the player has to fulfil certain requirements before something else in the game can be unlocked.

It’s very rarely, if ever, used in reference to how much a player plays the game on a daily or weekly basis. This is not surprising as games that have tried to limit a player’s ability to play the game have been met with attempts to override said restrictions. The best examples are Animal Crossing and Cozy Grove, where the games are designed (in theory) to be played only for a certain amount of time a day by linking the passage of time to the real world. In both games, players either have complained about that restriction, or tried to get around it by ‘time traveling’ that is changing the time on their physical device forward so they could continue unlocking more of the game.

I have always appreciated the limitations within Cozy Grove, the ability to play for only an hour and a half and then having to walk away because there wasn’t anything else to do in the game prevented me from over playing. Can’t say the same thing about the latest release of Animal Crossing, as New Horizons’ Nook Miles mechanic encouraged a player to keep grinding even if it was the same day (and pointless).

But I’ve never purposely limited my play sessions. In large part because when I do play games more often than not I have purposely made time to play very long sessions of a game. In large part because I want to finish the game, want to see where it takes me or how it ends. Until recently.

Because I have other things to do in my day, like my job, journal setups, writing, more writing and other video games I put a timer on Infinity Nikki. I had begun doing this for two reasons. The first is that Infinity Nikki is a live service game, which means it's always going to get updated and there are always things going on, so I try to sign on every single day. However, to prevent the game from taking over my life, I play it before bed, which means I have a bedtime, which means the game needs to be put on a timer otherwise I will not sleep before midnight.

So my reasons for doing this were completely practical in nature. It had become part of a routine, I would take a shower, finish journal updates for the day and then depending on the time left over, set a timer so it would go off a bit before it was time to go to bed. Often this would average out to an hour a night.

The act of doing this though, had an unusual by-product, that is, doing it this way would end up making Nikki a far more sustainable game for my long term enjoyment. Live service games tend to suffer from the problem of trying to continuously update the game frequently enough to not lose their player base who would eventually go off to other games if there wasn’t anything else to play. And it often has to do with how players play those games, we play those games like they’re not a live service game.

That is, we’ll sit and devour the content of a game as quickly as possible.

But once that content is devoured there is nothing for the player to do. Infinity Nikki actually already had suffered this problem with their Chinese player base within a month of release because somehow (don’t know how) a lot of players ran through the whole content of the game. Which I assume includes all the quests, and crafting all the clothes, on top of the main story quest.

I however have not, I am only on chapter 6 (I think), and with three more chapters to go, and averaging only 1 hour a night it is unlikely I’ll finish this before the next major update. Especially since I have a tendency of exploring every nook and cranny of Wish Field. I haven’t even finished all the sub quests, instead letting them pile up as I poke my head into every cave, and jump up onto every ledge the game has to offer.

And as I pointed out to @wereah last night, this is actually really great for me. Not only does this method prevent me from burning out, but unless the developers of Infinity Nikki really slow down their content release, I will probably never run out of content. There are already rumours of a 1.2 release for the Lunar New Year, which probably means a large seasonal event, new features and maybe even another chapter.

I would like to suggest this method of playing a live service game to more people, but I also recognize having played live service games in the past, like Children of the Sky, that there is something about Nikki that makes me chill. I don’t feel the need to continuously push forward, or rush to a location.What I do for Infinity Nikki, I might not be able to do for other games like it, and I frankly don’t know if I could play another live service game. Having one, that I really, really like, is enough for me.

[servin-up-surveys]

survey #250

New tats in your near future? Probably not, but I wouldn't say it's impossible. My dad gifts me and my sisters Christmas money every year, and while I'm leaning towards saving it for other stuff this year, I might cave and get a tat, idk.

How about piercings or re-piercings? It's looking like I might get my nose re-pierced for Christmas.

Are there any rooms in your house that you don’t go into every day? Mom's bed and bathroom, dining room.

Have you ever kissed someone who has previously kissed someone you hated? Lol yes, I used to despise his ex because of my own history with her. We're chill now.

Do you have any relatives with red hair? Not that I know of.

Have you ever known anyone who committed suicide? Yes.

Have you ever had rabies? No.

Do you know anyone who ever had to get a rabies shot? Uhhhh possibly?

Ever eaten deer? Duck? Squirrel? How about lamb? None.

What is your least favorite ice cream flavor? I haven't tried too many, but I know I really don't like strawberry.

Have you ever been tempted to steal? GUYS as a kid I was obsessed with Dory and one day I went to a friend's house and she got a Dory toy from McDonald's and I loved it and wanted it and I remember I considered taking it lmfao, but ultimately I didn't.

Would you rather travel to Ireland or Japan? Ireland.

Does tickling turn you on? No.

Have you ever video-chatted with someone you met online? I've AUDIO chatted, but not with video, it makes me uncomfortable.

How many siblings does your best friend have? One.

Have you ever dated someone who was emotionally or mentally unstable? Yes.

Have you ever had a reptile for a pet? Multiple.

Did you attend Sunday School as a child? Solely because I was forced to.

Who was the last person you cuddled with? My boyfriend.

Your boyfriend/girlfriend isn’t around but their phone is. Do you look through it? No.

Have any of your exes ever given you roses? While we dated, Jason did.

Do you think your last ex ever thinks about you? Certainly not romantically, but in the sense that she's a bitter person, I'm sure there are times she thinks of me poorly.

Would you rather have salad or french fries for a side dish? French fries, I'm sadly not thrilled by salads.

Which one of your relationships was the shortest? Well, if you even wanna call it a "relationship," Juan and I were together for literally less than 24 hours.

Which was the longest? Jason, three and a half years.

Would you feel hurt if your last ex is in a relationship? Nope.

Are you going to be getting any new pets soon? No.

Do you like BBQ sauce? Nope.

Should the guy always pay for the date? lol no

Do you know anyone who has autism? Me, my niece, my friend...

Do you use Instagram often? I use it daily. I look way more than I post.

Do you have a Pinterest account? I do, don't browse it much though.

What is one question you don’t like being asked? Hygiene questions because as a person that struggles so much with deep depression, I have a hard time with self-care, and most people don't get it until they experience it.

Who is someone you know who is talkative? My nephew.

When was the last time you saw one of your uncles? It's been years upon years.

Who was driving the last time you were in a car? My mom.

How many times do you talk on the phone a day on average? Zero.

Do you like your bed? I wish it was softer.

Are you tanned? No.

How old is the last person you kissed? 31.

Has there ever been a time where you found yourself to be completely overdressed or underdressed? I don't think so.

Do you wish you were more busy or less busy? I wish I was slightly busier. Not overwhelmingly so, but just a bit busier, because my life is very dull.

Last person you shared food with? Girt; I tried mac and cheese off his plate on Thanksgiving, but I didn't really like it. I'm picky with mac and cheese.

Have you been a happy, angry, or sad person lately? Sad and frustrated.

When was the last time you wore a dress? Oh jeez probably not since my older sister got married like eight years ago.

When was the last time you laid in bed with someone else? Thanksgiving night.

What’s something you remember about kindergarten? I didn't wanna shut up during naptime lmao.

Is there a person you talk to every day with? My mom, and it's extremely rare Girt and I don't message each other.

Does your best friend have a job? Yes, he's had the same job for like... 12 years, I think? Possibly more?

What do you think of people who have sex before marriage? IF you're worried about sexual compatibility, honestly I think it's a good idea to know before marriage. But ultimately, this is purely a personal choice, it's NOBODY else's business when you decide to start having sex.

Do you drink regular or diet soda? Regular, because I despise diet sodas. I'd rather just not drink a soda than drink diet, it's disgusting.

What's one of your favorite artists/bands, and least favorite song from them? Ozzy has a number I'm just not interested in, I don't have a song that REALLY stands out, but for Rammstein, I cannot stand "Seemann," which is crazy because the fandom seems to have a soft spot for it.

Have you ever seen them live? I haven't seen either. ;-; Ozzy's touring career is done (he keeps trying, but his health has stopped those plans many times now), and Rammstein doesn't plan on touring again for I think at least two years according to Paul, they just toured for multiple years straight.

Are you registered to vote? Yes.

Do you consider graffiti to be true art or just messy? I mean, it can be both, and "messy" isn't even inherently bad.

Do you currently have a fan on? Noooo, shit's cold.

Do you take a lot of pictures? No, sadly.

What's your McDonald's order? Quarter pounder or McDouble to save money, fries, Coke.

What do you do when you can't fall asleep? I browse my phone or much more rarely these days, get up to get back on the laptop. Both you're not supposed to do lmao.

Do you know anyone who keeps a Christmas tree up year round? No.

Who were you last in a vehicle with? My mom.

What's the strangest video you've ever seen? Hell, probably an Unus Annus video at some point. What a fucking YEAR that channel was, god I miss it. Mark and Ethan made something so amazing lmfao.

If Kirby absorbed you, what power would they get? Overthinking everything imaginable. :^)

What's your go-to appetizer? French fries.

Have you ever received a present that made you cry? Yes.

What's something you are addicted to? Technology.

When did you last receive a business card from somebody? I willingly took a business card from someone when I went to Pride this year. ... I think? Or did I just take a picture of her socials? Idr.

Would you try that Flamin' Hot Mountain Dew? Isn't that so wild? Okay, as a Mountain Dew and hot Cheetos FIEND, I would TRY it, but I don't expect to like it, honestly.

Do you own any adult coloring books? I do, but I honestly don't really use them.

Do you have any chores you need to get done? I need to dust my room.

Have you ever had a bad sunburn? I've had sun poisoning, and that was hell.

Name three of your favourite crepe toppings. I don't think I've ever had a crepe.

Do you watch How I Met Your Mother? What did you think of the ending? I've seen episodes casually, but I've never watched it willingly.

Have you ever played paintball? Did you get hit? No, this doesn't appeal to me at all. I've heard that shit hurts.

How do you feel today? Tell me about it. I'm... better than yesterday. I had an anxiety attack last night that really upset me. Today, I've tried being more productive and conscious of what I'm doing, and I've started a very popular self-care app.

Do you ever use a laptop in bed? For over five years at least, I LIVED in my bed doing this. It was one of the biggest mistakes of my life. My body fucking withered; I went through muscle atrophy in my legs, and in more recent news, we think this is why I've had two different x-rays where I've been informed I have weak bones. I sit at a desk with my laptop now, I refuse to bring it back to my bed.

Have you ever eaten Caribbean food? I don't believe I have.

Where did you last fly to on a plane? To/from Illinois.

Have you ever been evicted? Why? Yes, because Mom couldn't keep up with rent.

Have you ever worked as a manager or supervisor? No.

Do you eat at a table or on the couch? I either eat at my computer desk or on the couch.

What was the last thing you voted for? A Tumblr survey, I think.

What’s the longest you’ve ever stayed awake? Why did you do it? Three days, because I was manic.

What are the five apps on your phone that you use most often? Instagram, Facebook, Pokemon GO, Dragons of Atlantis, DragonVale.