Thinking About How Xie Lian Canonically Got Put Into A "fuck Or Die" Sex Pollen Situation AND CHOSE DIE.

My editor keeps telling me 'You understand this guy, you need to move on" but I always feel like I've barely scratched the surface.

Someone hit me with their car and I got isekai'd to a world that's really similar to my old one except in this one my collarbone is mysteriously broken

A drawing showing how Jim Henson Performed Kermit in The Muppet Movie’s swamp scene.

The Scheming Advisors' Group Chat

TreacherousVizier: Anybody else think the King's glass could do with a little… additives? 😈😈😈 (🍷 5) (😈 7) (👍 4)

UnfavouredSecondSon: Father seems so weak lately. Why, he might even perish from a single stumble! (😈 6) (👍 7) (👞 3)

NefariousJester: Ho-ho-ho! Tricks and games my liege might play, but for his sins he may well pay! (👍 3)

TorridTurncoat: It is such an honour to serve as His Majesty's closest friend for so many years! Why, the court is so fond of me that they would never suspect the knife in his back to be planted from my trusted palm! (😈 10) (🗡️ 9) (👍 8)

RighteousSquire: Any body else want to get up bright and early so we might protect His Holiness from the first moments of dawn? 😇😊 (👎 14) (😠 15) (🗡️ 16)

[RighteousSquire has been kicked]

BackstabBot: @RighteousSquire has been added to List: "Guys we gotta get rid off" (👍 8)

if it sucks hit da bricks <- litany against sunk cost

take it easy but take it <- litany against burnout/apathy cycle

fuck it we ball <- litany against perfectionism

now say something beautiful and true <- litany against irony poisoning

i taught a baking class for 12 year olds today and we made your garden variety chocolate chip cookies, but i’m a big believer in Questioning Everything and the who/what/where/why/when/how behind things, so the first part of the class was purposely letting the kids do things the wrong way, to show and explain why we do things the way we do.

“why do we bake cookies at 180 for 9 minutes when we could do 400 for 2 minutes?” -enter the godawful lump of coal with a still gross wet and uncooked inside

“why do we have to scoop out little cookies instead of doing the whole tray?” -ok well that one you can technically do if the spread is even. you just end up with one giant, structurally unsound cookie. “PLEASE CAN WE MAKE GIANT COOKIES” (we did make 1 giant tray cookie)

we talked a lot about why consistency is important, but i don’t think it really hammered home until i said “okay everyone gets ONE cookie, that’s fair, right?” and then handed out cookies of hugely varying sizes. + baked one fat lump of a cookie that still wasn’t done at the 9 minutes, vs the regular one i put in that came out charred by the time the first was actually done.

we also made a row of cookies where each one had one single differing ingredient omitted, like a cookie with no flour, or a cookie with no butter, and laid them all out on a single tray to bake together to see how each ingredient affects the outcome.

two of the little girls added cocoa to their cookie doughs until it matched the colour of each others skin to make best friend cookies, and that almost made me tear up a bit 🥺

got briefly distracted (…for over half an hour…) talking about how eggs form when someone cracked an egg and it had 2 yolks

expertly tolerated being asked how old i am (just turned 31 the other day) which was immediately followed by asking if i watched the moon landing live on tv

was so focused on keeping track of all the kids that in the end i forgot to make a cookie for myself, but it’s ok because one of the girls gave me this

tiny……….