citrusandsalt

[citrusandsalt]

saying “be safe” like a spell that’ll protect them

[citrusandsalt]

Being the only bi cis guy amongst almost exclusively trans friends and peers is wild because in theory its like im living in a horny manga where all of a dudes friends turn into hot babes, but in reality they are hunting me like the last bison on the prairie. 5 years ago I mentioned bionicle and one of them asked when I was starting estrogen.

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Most annoying thing to remember is that you're litterally just a homosapien. You're just a very smart animal. If you feel like shit, imagine you're an exotic pet for some alien species and do what they'd do to keep you healthy. You gotta be well cared for. Animal abuse is a crime for a reason

"My pet human, Greg, hasn't left his bed in a long time. He's just scrolling his phone all day" Greg needs enrichment. Add enrichment in his enclosure and take him on walks

"Greg has been super lethargic and sad recently for seemingly no reason" Greg need vitamins, take him outside for some vitamin D and fresh air. Perhaps a picnic

"Greg won't sleep even though he's been super lethargic" Greg needs a schedule, especially for the lights in his enclosure.

"Greg has been super distant recently and keeps crying to sad music" Humans are pack animals, he needs to hug another human and hang out. Perhaps pack bond with a rock together

"Greg has been flailing around and panicking, his breathing is way faster than it should be" Greg is overwhelmed. Take Greg out of the situation and give him time to calm down. Perhaps somewhere cozy with tea and a movie

"Greg won't do what he needs to do" Train him. Humans do great with positive reinforcement, give him little treats when he's doing good

"Greg he's been super anxious and tired, he can't seem to enjoy his days" Humans needs to move around. Give Greg something to exercise with. Things like stretching, weight lifting, walking, or even dancing will help

"Even though I've taken really good care of Greg, he still has been having issues" Greg is ill, take him to the doctor. You might need a specialist (therapist, optometrist, oncologist, etc)

I know it feels patronizing, and I know it feels embarrassing or that you're "just giving into the clichés", but you are literally just a creature. You need to sleep/eat on time, you need enrichment, and you need to take care of your social needs. Humans are complicated animals, but they are also beautiful and all deserve proper care. This obviously isn't a perfect analogy, nothing is, but if you saw your friend taking care of their pet the way you take care of yourself, would you be concerned?

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Some time ago (I think in 2021) I had to go see a neurologist over really scary symptoms that resembled seizures. I was a nervous wreck about what I was feeling and had barely slept all week, which seemed to be apparent to the doc’s assistant when I sat down in the exam room for questioning or whatever. Dude was pretty young and soft spoken, around my age. He was laser focused doing something on one of those tablet-laptop Surface things as I spoke, presumably writing down my symptoms.

Midway through talking about my symptoms my voice audibly started shaking as I was describing them, clearly upset.

In the middle of my monologue he turns the tablet to face me, closes whatever program he has open and the wallpaper is this fucking collage of pictures of lord farquaad from shrek, lovingly decorated. Dude just sat there placidly smiling at me until I noticed and stopped dead in the middle of a sentence. We sat there in silence like this for like a solid minute before I started wheezing laughing. Before I could even say anything else or process it he picked up the tablet and wordlessly left the room, and I just sat there dumbfounded until the doctor showed up. 10/10 doctor experience tbh

I didn’t own a cell phone at the time to get a photo so this rendition from memory is all I can provide you

[citrusandsalt]

‘am i Having A Brain Problem or Being a Shithead’: a short procrastination checklist

aka why tf am i procrastinating on The Thing (more like a flowchart, actually)

lots of people who have executive function difficulties worry about whether they’re procrastinating on a task out of laziness/simply wanting to be a jerk or mental struggles. this checklist might help you figure out which it is at any given time! (hint: it’s almost never laziness or being a jerk.) (obligatory disclaimer: this is just what works for me! something different might work better for you.)

1) do I honestly intend to start the task despite my lack of success?

yes: it’s a Brain Problem. next question

no: it’s shitty to say one thing & do another. better be honest with myself & anyone expecting me to do the task.

2) am I fed, watered, well-rested, medicated properly, etc?

yes: next question

no: guess what? this is the real next task

3) does the idea of starting the task make me feel scared or anxious?

yes: Anxiety Brain. identify what’s scaring me first.

no: next question

4) do I know how to start the task?

yes: next question

no: ADHD Brain. time to make an order of operations list.

5) do I have everything I need to start the task?

yes: next question

no: ADHD Brain lying to me about the steps again, dangit. first task is ‘gather the materials’.

6) why am i having a hard time switching from my current task to this new task?

i’m having fun doing what i’m doing: it’s okay to have fun doing a thing! if task is time-sensitive, go to next question.

i have to finish doing what i’m doing: might be ADHD brain. can I actually finish the current task or will I get trapped in a cycle? does this task really need to be finished?

the next task will be boring/boring-er than the current task: ADHD brain. re-think the next task. what would make it exciting? what am I looking forward to?

I might not have enough time to complete the task: ADHD brain wants to finish everything it starts. (if task is time-sensitive, go to next question)

i just want to make the person who asked me to do it angry: sounds like anxiety brain trying to punish itself, because I know I’ll be miserable if someone is angry at me. why do i think I deserve punishment?

no, I seriously want to piss them off: okay, i’m being a shithead

7) have I already procrastinated so badly that I now cannot finish the task in time?

yes: ADHD brain is probably caught in a guilt-perfection cycle. since I can’t have the task done on time, i don’t even want to start.

reality check: having part of a thing done is almost always better than none of a thing done. if I can get an extension, having part of it done will help me keep from stalling out until the extension deadline. i’ll feel better if I at least try to finish it.

no, there’s still a chance to finish on time: ADHD brain thinks that I have all the time in the world, but the truth is I don’t. 

reality check: if i’m having fun doing what I’m doing, I can keep doing it, but I should probably set a timer & ask someone to check on me to make sure I start doing the task later today.

8) I’ve completed the checklist and still don’t know what’s wrong!

probably wasn’t honest enough with myself. take one more look.

if I’m still mystified, ask a friend to help me talk it out.

hope this helps some of you! YOU’RE DOING GREAT SWEETIE DON’T GIVE UP ON YOU

[citrusandsalt]

The Quickstart. The Home Game.

My biggest enjoyment of RPGs comes from running games for people who have never played before. It's what I did for years before covid, and it's why I started designing games. It's something I'm actively starting to do again after a long hiatus. So it's time to make a new home game.

USE CASE The home game is not the perfect game. It's not my desert island game. It's something I am primed to run with minimal friction for new players, where we start playing fast and get a lot done in 60-120 minutes. Some key factors for that:

no rulebook or other external reference needed

basic rules fit on one side of one sheet

customization fits on a small selection of cards, which can be chosen, dealt randomly, and/or traded

rolls lead to interesting choices and big changes

THE SCAVENGING The home game isn't a game I designed. It's a game I stapled together from Apocalypse World, The Veil, and some of my own work. Here are some of the big features and why they were chosen.

- Feelings as Stats: Before every roll, the players have to decide how their character feels. One might worry that this slow things down, but in practice, I've never seen the decision take more than a few seconds. Encourages players to think about the situation emotionally.

- Plain Language: As much as I love powered-by-the-apocalypse games, "moves" and "+1 forward" and other language that lives in the genre isn't very intuitive. So I took a page from Belonging Outside Belonging games and just put "You Can Always…" above the basic moves. And I tried to give them clear, plain-language names.

- Limited Starting Choices: I love playbooks, but passing them around, choosing one, reading the whole thing, and choosing a playbook move can take a while, especially with anxious players who struggle with choice paralysis.

Here there are only 19 moves (mostly called "specials," more clear language), and I tried to pick ones that appeal to the main player types I see:

emulates a trope (warrior, wizard)

asks NPCs for help

befriends animals

chaos monster

And if the game goes past one session, you can add more moves, including from other games, to zero in on a genre. (Someday I'll write a long post about how PbtA doesn't NEED a genre and that it actually rules to mix and match playbooks and moves from different games.)

FINISHING TOUCHES People like cards and little gewgaws, so the specials all fit on cards, and I bring along character cards from Shadowlord!, an old Parker Brothers game, for players who struggle with picking a name or vibe. The leftovers become my NPCs. If I were doing sci-fi, I'd probably find a cheap copy of Coup; I always thought those character cards were beautiful.

A WORK IN PROGRESS I laid this out and printed it the other day, but I've already decided to cut two basic moves (Sway and Ultimatum) because they can get a lot of that info from Read a Person. And I'm going to turn the money move into something closer to Blades in the Dark's quantum inventory. ABC (always be changin) your home game (YHG).

MORE MORE MORE Check out The Ostrichmonkey Hack by Josh Hittie @ostrichmonkey-games and Home Game by Adam Vass.

Get PDFs of my home game from this Google Drive link.

This whole thing is probably related to my Worksheet Manifesto.

What's your home game?

[citrusandsalt]

i loosely followed thedimelions’s tutorial for naturally dyeing a pride flag, with a lot of added research about natural dyes, stains, mordants, sewing, etc, and i wanted to share my results!!

process, notes, and more pics under the read more🌱

starting off i soaked my fabric (100% cotton acquired from joann's during their closing sale, rip joann's ;-;) in a 1:5 mixture of soy milk and water for 12 hours, then let dry on a clothesline in the sun, then dipped and dried two more times (the proteins in the soy milk help the natural dyes adhere to the fabric, creating darker colors and better colorfastness)

while that was happening i started making my dyes, which involved simmering my chosen dyestuffs in some water for 30-60 minutes. i didnt time it, just went until the color developed to a point i was happy with

as far as ratios i didn’t measure, but the more dyestuff = stronger color so err on the side of more

red: turmeric + baking soda, paprika, and yellow onion skin dye as the liquid base

orange: yellow onion skins

yellow: turmeric

green: red cabbage + baking powder (LOTS), turmeric

blue: red cabbage + baking powder

purple: red cabbage

for the red cabbage dyes, i added the baking powders and soda after simmering and just kept adding and stirring till i got the color i wanted. ((BIG NOTE red cabbage, and debatably most of the others that I used, are fugitive dyes, meaning its not a true dye and more of a stain that will fade with time and wash out more easily, especially without mordanting on additives like iron. keep this in mind if you end up doing this project or transfering these methods to cloth you will be using for clothes, ie washing and wearing more frequently))

i also tried to make a pink with avocado skins and pits, which did come out a lovely rosy color, but i didn’t end up using in the final flag, which i might use beet or red cabbage + lemon juice or another acidified for next time to get a more bright pink

now with my dyes ready and my cloth dried out from its previous soy milk dip i cut it into strips and stuck it in the jars, which were placed in the sun for the day (alternatively, you could simmer the cloth in the pot) and then left to sit overnight

the next day i squeezed out the excess dye and gave the ones with turmeric a light rinse to get the grit out, then hung them to dry

((small note i reused the dyes baths to see what would happen since they still looked just as pigmented, but the colors are much much much more faded on the second go around. all in all its doable, but I wouldn't recommend it.))

now time to sew! i procured a second hand sewing machine specifically for this project and had never sewed before, but thankfully this required the easiest stitch in the game (a straight stitch in a straight line). i looked up how to sew a flag specifically to get those clean lines rather than just overlapping, and this video was great (shoutout Suffolk Public Library)

as you can see my flag ended up quite long cause I left a lot of wiggle room, so I just look up flag ratios, trimmed it up (and used the extra strip of rainbow as decoration) then added a white strip folded over to make a way for me to hang it on a stick if I ever so desire.

and ta daaa! i would still like to clean it up a bit, and do a zig zag stitch around the outside to stop the cloth from fraying further, but im happy with the unpolished look of it. once i figure out how to get a pink I like, and how to get browns and blacks, i want to make a progress flag and trans flag. also just started growing some indigo, so excited to see if I can get some blue dyes out of that.

[citrusandsalt]

Whoever said frogs say "Ribbit" was being incredibly reductive some of these guys do say "Ribbit" but a lot of them be saying "ᴮᵉᵉᵖ" some of them be saying "Waauu" and some of them be saying "Fuck" but I don't know who taught them that one.

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Me and my lil crafts 🐱🧶

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For the twenty hot bastards out there on the internet who watch hunterxhunter and listen to Seasons of Hieron!!!

It’s incredibly important that everyone knows I think the Zoldyck family would be a Marieldan noble family with deep ties to the Yellow House, and a portion of their assassin powers come from communing with or siphoning The Heat and The Dark! Nanika escaped too one day and likes humanity too much to go back

Idk if the hunters are more like the lance nobles or the pattern magicians? I have not made a decision either way, and will be influenced by commenters! Tell me your opinions on things!!! I want to read opinions!!!!!!

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broooo did you seriously disturb my eternal rest & bring me back to this mortal coil just because my ancient enemy the eternal night has returned? after i sealed it away and everything? which one of you tampered with my binding runes 🙄

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My friend is trying to name herself, and she's like, "Oh, what's that name that's like marmalade, but it's a name?" and I know she means Adelaide, but I think I can talk her into naming herself Marmalade if I play my cards right here.

[citrusandsalt]

Nicolas Aditi at Louis Gabriel Nouch Fall 25

[citrusandsalt]

been trying to get on top of living alone (schmivorced & we were both lazy) for the last few years and lookin back I think the trickiest parts are

There's a cost / convenience formula and it's different for everyone & and conveniences are changing everyday so it's hard to put into a system

Analog or mechanical methods are usually better up to a point (no need to buy 'refills') but that point can only be found through trial and error (I own so many fucking mops)

Being clean & cleaning is gendered AND moralized AND a shame-pit and just generally not taught at all. So it can feel crazy-making when it's really difficult to do something so simple

Clear purpose makes good spaces so if you don't know what you want or how you live then it's impossible to make a good space

Your house is an extension of your brain & mental health needs clean rooms but with a messy room it can become a real a catch-22

Home goods shopping is an emotional minefield & marketing has hands

Organization is more about logistics than containers & shelving

Make things easy to put away, not easy to get out

Meal planning is powerful but a pain in the ass & takeout is a financial tar pit

A routine is just another name for eliminating as many decisions as possible

I went into it thinking that I had to have a lifestyle vision and then build a system to get there but I'm finding the reverse is true