This blog is a garbage fire

having been talking and thinking about Actual Play podcasts for a few days, I think it's worth noting that the idea of the always-prepared always-witty DM who comes up with these things on the fly is as much a performance as the dragon he's voicing; these are professional products, generally with a team of people to help write scenarios, a lot of off-screen discussion with the players, and also EDITING so when something flops or they play through a scene and it doesn't work out, they can fix it.

Her mom and dad return and give her iPad on first request. She plays with it peacefully while adults talk. Mom moves to take it away for bedtime and it’s immediate tantrum. Screaming and crying tears. The screaming continues all the way to bathtime and bed. Mom and Dad have to cajole her with a snack and lots of attention for about twenty minutes before her crying stops.

Now, I want to be fair to these parents: toddler is overwhelmed by Mom and Dad returning from a, by her standards, “long” time away. It’s getting late, toddler is tired and maybe actually did need that snack. Toddlers also just act different around babysitters than they do mom and dad.

But for a toddler who was a pleasant and attentive kid for three days to dissolve into tantrum of that length as soon as she is reunited with and then separated from her iPad freaks me out. She is not a teen upset she can’t communicate with her friend. She’s not even a grade-schooler who didn’t save their Minecraft world. She’s a toddler who is distressed by being separated from an overstimulation machine.

Her parents have convinced themselves it’s a tool and a convenience by handing it to her and gaining silence at mealtimes and car rides and every request when she’s a bright kid who can spend just as much time with a book as with a screen, with much less distress at separation.

how measurements work in canada (ie/ badly)

Evening Dress

c. 1855

Crème silk and wool mixed gauze with floral print; triple-flounced skirt.

France

I never really realised how much difference it makes until I went to England and realised that here the change of seasons is an obvious, visible, physical change in the world. Like, everything REALLY IS orange and foggy in autumn! In spring there are flowers EVERYWHERE, so much more than any other season, and the trees really do have all blossom and no leaves. Even if it doesn't snow, in winter there's frost all the time and the trees are bare and the sky is visibly greyer all the time. You don't need to be told "this date is the first day of spring", you can SEE IT (although this is getting way messier and less precise due to climate change).

By contrast, most places in Australia the seasons we're taught feel like arbitrary categories - and is it any surprise considering they're colonial constructs? Orange-leaved autumn and blossom-covered spring is a cartoon stereotype with no relevance on a continent where ALL NATIVE TREES ARE EVERGREEN!! Snowy winters are a joke in the desert, and even sunny summers don't ring particularly true considering that much of the country is in the tropics, where summer means monsoons - not that I've ever seen the concept that WE HAVE A MONSOON SEASON taught at an Australian school.

the 4 season model as you and i know it is a european invention, though 4 season models aren't unique to europe! most notably china has the same type of season subdivision.

the club we went to closed at 2am and 45kish steps were after 2am, meaning I wasn't still dancing at the club. we got there at 11:30pm. I don't know when we left.

none of us had any charges on our cards or venmos after getting into the club and none of us were missing cash

we all woke up with all our things and no injuries except some bruises (to be expected from a night out)

I woke up smelling like salt water which would make me think I'd ended up in the ocean(??) except my hair was still straight, none of my things were water damaged, and I was completely dry

from our camera rolls we know we were all together until around 4am, but not where we were because they're all too dark to see, which is fucking weird because we live in a city with tons of lights all night

I didn't wake my roommates up when coming home, managed to take out my contacts, cooked mac n cheese, and passed out on the living room floor

me and everyone else who'd been wearing heels had crazy blisters

my friend found a bunch of rocks in his pockets

two of my guy friends were wearing each other's shirts when they woke up (in their separate apartments)

we all got back to our apartments around 6am which we know for a fact because we all texted pictures of ourselves being home safe to the group chat, so being unbelievably hammered didn't stop us from having enough common sense to make sure we were all okay