Imo what’s key to a cosy game is that you choose within the game how much you want to challenge yourself. Take stardew, for example. My mum was content just farming crops. I went into the difficult mines with lots of combat etc. You can enjoy the game if you don’t do the hard parts, or you can do them sparsely, or all the time. You choose, and that’s what makes it so relaxing.

I’m not a hardcore gamer, but usually mostly into RPGs. But I’ve also got hundreds of hours in stardew and thousands in the Sims. When I play one of those, I’m always low key scared to grow bored because I LOVE those games and I know that there won’t be another good one right around the corner.

When I got bored of Skyrim, I played the Witcher, and when I got bored of that, I played Fallout. Repeat ad nauseam, because there’s more playable, entertaining RPGs out there than any one human could play in a lifetime.

With cosy games, not so much. When you grow bored of one, chances are, there won’t be another one that’ll be enjoyable to you at all, and you’ll have to hope and wait that something good will come out at some point.

My mum at least asked ‘do you learn about this stuff in school?’, to which i awkwardly said yeah. We did get some pretty good classes on bodies, the biology of reproduction, and contraception. I even remember having a test on contraceptives in biology class.

Unfortunately, it was very cis-het only. I had to figure out by myself that I should be using protection during sex even if both participants had a vulva.

As for drugs, it never occurred to my mum that anything other than alcohol and nicotine could be relevant to us. She did well on keeping me from smoking just by telling me about her experience as a smoker and how hard it was to quit. I kept my drinking and weed smoking from her pretty well because even a mention would make her angry. To be fair, as an adult I understand she had some trauma from her mum being an alcoholic.

I’m not even in tech. I teach maths at night school to support myself while doing my masters. Somehow I’ve become the ‘computer guy’ at my job. All the teachers and even office staff ask me to explain software to them that I myself have never even used. I need to learn to say no.

To add: drink water throughout the day in general. Especially where tap water is safe to drink. You’re going to pass up the opportunity to improve your health and daily wellbeing, easily and for free? WHY?

Random side note. I actually prefer room temperature water. Sensitive teeth. And i try to keep my backpack as light, so it’s a one layer water bottle for me.

My room is a nightmare of a mess and I’m not a drug dealer. We exist

It is indeed normal to use ‘du’ pretty much everywhere on the internet. Even in French i never see ‘vous’ (which to me feels more common than Sie in German usually).

In their defence. I often wear a bucket hat in the same colour.

Thank you. It really feels like it, I’d been carrying for half my life.

Thanks for saying that! My friends joke that I look like a tourist with the bag though

Caught me :)

Yes they are! I have dry cuticles that I sometimes absent mindedly pick so I need those frequently lol

Plus in my backpack, there’s everything I need for staying the night somewhere. I used to live way out of town and frequently miss the last bus, so it became a habit to be prepared.

I have one pair of underwear, one pair of socks, a toothbrush+paste, face moisturizer and hand cream.

Also, a foldable reusable shopping bag, a small umbrella, and a water bottle.

The component of self concept, that’s exactly it! For me it’s not tools. But I love being the person who always has a band aid, a painkiller, a needle and thread, a tampon. You really don’t need that stuff every day, but when you need it, you NEED it. And it’s nice to get to be helpful like that.

Im one of those weirdos that carries a cross body bag full of stuff everywhere. Here’s what’s in it: The pills are my prescription plus paracetamol. The tube thingy is 50spf sunscreen. There should be a pocket knife but I lost it and haven’t gotten around to getting a new one yet.

When I was 11 a cyclist ran me over while I was getting off a bus and then proceeded to scold me for a few minutes. I prefer a bruise and a scolding despite being in the right over a broken bone and an apology. But you do you.

Yes absolutely! It’s a systemic issue and there’s no reason to blame the individuals who take cars because they’re literally not provided an alternative. It’s so fucked that you literally can’t do anything in much of the US if you can’t afford a car.

And of course it’s absolutely critical to start providing an alternative before dismantling existing infrastructure, fucking people over even further. It doesn’t have to start with a big rail line, even local buses and bike lanes and safe side walks within the small town will help a lot in reducing short car trips, such as to the shops or to school.

But for anything at all to happen, there will have to be enough problem in favour of traffic reform, and they’ll have to be loud. The car lobby is a huge opponent. But in local politics, like on a town level, they don’t have as much of a say. Maybe, just maybe, small change is possible

I know none of this will happen over night, but fingers crossed you’ll get to experience a better future in your lifetime.

Cities don’t inherently create this much private traffic. Car centric city planning does. You can build cities that are not centered around cars. It is, in fact, easier to plan for fewer cars per person if everyone lives close together, because the places you need to go will be closer and you can bike or walk, and there’s enough people for public transport to go frequently and everywhere without being half empty.

Tbf there’s assholes who behave recklessly in traffic on every mode of transportation. I’ve been run into by a bike twice in the past few years. But guess what, if we built proper infrastructure for them, they wouldn’t choose the sidewalk in order to protect themselves from cars. Also, the choice between whether you’d rather a bike or a car runs into you is pretty obvious.

If you had access to good public transport you could take a train for those 30 miles and relax, work or read instead of wasting time being focused on traffic. But if there’s too much supply of roads built for the purpose of everyone driving their car everywhere, there won’t be much demand to build something like that.

Biking and walking can then be for mid and short distances, respectively. But both will be dangerous unless there’s proper infrastructure for that. And again, not happening until they stop the over supply of roads.

And for hauling the dry wall, yes, use a car. Imagine how much nicer traffic and parking will be if most commuters who aren’t transporting big loads aren’t in private vehicles.