Absolute Insanity

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it's a beautiful bonding activity, but the "creative" fixes have turned our house into a quasihaunted escape room like contraption where everything works, but only in the wonkiest of ways. you need a huge block of iron to turn on the stove. the oven only works if a specific clock is plugged in. the bread machine has a huge wood block just stapled to it that has become foundational to its function. sometimes when you use the toaster the doorbell rings. and that's just the kitchen.

you might think the average candelabra being 3-ish pounds (1.4 kg) is light enough but have you ever carried a candelabra in one hand at night in the cold annals of a haunted manor in naught but your summer pajamas? bc I have and it gets heavy really fast.

Play Toys

Play Pretend

my SO and i have a projector. our cool neighbors have a vast dvd collection. fundamentally these are toys. we have those neighbors over for movie nights. Play Toys. more broadly shared hobbies fall into this category but it's extra fun if there's Equipment to admire and share.

ttrpgs are obvious but invaluable examples of Play Pretend. HOWEVER your options are not limited to this. i started a local writing group and this is also Play Pretend bc we all talk about our stories together. there are many such creative endeavors in this world.

having someone over for a meal is Snack Time. if you make a lil thing of it and eat at the table and make it nice with dessert and a fancy beverage to share it feels very grown up. and you will feel impressed with yourself for it. but it scratches the same itch as trading fruit snacks and suchlike.

of course these can be mixed and matched. most activities are enhanced by Snack Time if your friend targets enjoy breaking bread together.

and one begets the other. if you Play Pretend with someone for long enough they may eventually tell you about Toys they have and if you want to play too they'll probably let you. if they're nice.

I need every single person to understand how horrible tumblr’s tagging system is

I go into the tag for epilepsy and its all flashing lights. We can’t use our own tag because people without epilepsy fill it up with improper warnings.

Use ‘flashing’ in place of ‘epilepsy’ in your tags. You aren’t warning people of epileptics, you’re warning us of flashing lights. Please please tag properly. Epileptics say this endlessly and constantly and it’s ignored. You are risking lives by doing this.

Here’s proof of what I mean:

So that if there is something flashing in your post (or something that causes a flashing effect when scrolling, like the first design I came up with for the Disability Pride Flag), tagging that post with “Flashing” will allow people who do have epilepsy to block that post and not be harmed by it.

I also want to add because of the mention of the disability pride flag: very tight designs with bright, high contrast colors (remember the chevrons with the really really tiny stripes that were all the rage in the 2010s with the finger mustaches?) can cause that effect and trigger photosensitivity or strain in some folks. You can thank my neurologist for telling me this and moving me away from some… questionable interior decor choices.

Quoted tag:

#also! not all folks who have epilepsy are photosensitive and vise versa