Kitbashed & Curated

[xteacupx]

One year on my birthday when I was struggling with money (earned £6.70 an hour, slept on a mattress on the floor), I had friends visit for a party.

We went to an aldi to get food, and everyone insisted on paying for their own food, buying full bottles of fizzy drink, their own snacks and so on. Some of the friends brought their own baked goods too. Later, one friend covered a Chinese takeaway order for me and everyone ordered lots of food to eat with no hesitation, only to mention that their eyes had been bigger than their stomachs when the food did arrive.

I didn't realise what was happening until the next day, when each person left my flat with the same "oops, bought too much food to take home with me— I'll just leave it with you!" farewell.

I think about it a lot. I don't know if it was planned or not, but they all made sure I didn't need to worry about food for a good few weeks. Back then, I had to freeze loafs of bread to ration them out, and I had an iron deficiency from not being able to afford good food. But alone in my flat, I realised that I suddenly had a kitchen full of reminders that my friends loved me.

[nightscalestudio]

Reptisaurian Blowgunner Minion from Massive Darkness. Another Lizard for the my Sauros collection.

[vintagerpg]

Rivers of London (2022) was a complete surprise for me. I heard Chaosium was developing a new game of that name, but I had no idea what it was about beyond involving magic, nor did I know about the Ben Aaronovitch novels it was based on. It came out, my wife got it for me for Christmas and I entered sans preconceptions. That’s sort of an unusual state for me and an RPG to meet in!

What we have system-wise is a very light weight version of BRP, with room for learning magic and a common skill aimed at detecting the supernatural. It’s all very smooth and welcoming and I daresay…cozy? This is not Call of Cthulhu, where the stakes are high and solving the mystery will send you around the bend. Players are meant to get the clues and push the story forward. Aaronovitch titles his introduction “An Introduction to Collaborative Storytelling,” and I think that says quite a bit about the game’s priorities. Another: combat is just one part of the “Basic Rules,” taking up about 18 pages of 60 (an additional five pages later on introduces some optional rules to give it a bit more tooth, if that’s desired). The next 100 pages deals with magic, lore and all the sort of stuff you need to know about the world in order to properly run the game. In reading that material, I eventually decided to put the RPG aside and read the first Rivers of London novel, titled Rivers of London, or, in the US, because we’re dreadfully dull, Midnight Riot.

The novel sees policeman Peter Grant joining a special department that deals with magical problems in London. He learns some magic himself and gets embroiled in a case involving a powerful supernatural figure. It’s a pretty long novel, and pretty funny. I would say the atmosphere is intriguing rather than anything approaching scary, at least, until it is scary. There are really only three moments that are genuinely frightening and of those, only one, the last, involves anything resembling “combat.” I bring this up because more than most RPG adaptations, I feel like Rivers of London the RPG really matches the tone of Rivers of London the series of novels. Or, at least, the first one, anyway. It’s a collaborative storytelling game, the story is meant to move forward and players are meant to quip and think their way through it, rather than bashing, burning and shooting. It’s a pleasant change of pace.

[teashoesandhair]

I'm in a little local cafe and the women behind the counter started griping to each other, "Oh Christ, Stephen's back again," "It's him, is it? I thought he'd stopped coming," "It's definitely him, look, it's bloody Stephen on a Thursday morning," "Do you want me to get rid of him or are you going to do it?" and so I was peering outside, trying to spot this nightmare customer, this pestilence of a person, this pox upon the cafe trade, and then one of the women from behind the counter ran outside, clapping two trays together loudly and yelling "GET OUT OF IT, STEPHEN!" and it turns out that Stephen is an absolutely gigantic fuck-off seagull who hangs around outside, menacing people for crumbs

[shamebats]

Tiktok post by @ wynunlimited.

[ironicselfie]

“The concept is simple. Take a blank sheet with nothing but the basic outline of a pinup girl and illustrate a unique scene around her.”

[idratherbhigh-deactivated202106]

holy FUCK.

[w-for-wumbo]

I’ll probably always reblog this cuz it’s just mind-blowing, holy cow

[citizenshipandsocialjustice]

[calystarose]

Because treating people fairly often means treating them differently.

[aloneindarknes7]

This is something that I teach my students during the first week of school and they understand it. Eight year olds can understand this and all it costs is a box of band-aids.

I have each students pretend they got hurt and need a band-aid. Children love band-aids. I ask the first one where they are hurt. If he says his finger, I put the band-aid on his finger. Then I ask the second one where they are hurt. No matter what that child says, I put the band-aid on their finger exactly like the first child. I keep doing that through the whole class. No matter where they say their pretend injury is, I do the same thing I did with the first one.

After they all have band-aids in the same spot, I ask if that actually helped any of them other than the first child. I say, “Well, I helped all of you the same! You all have one band-aid!” And they’ll try to get me to understand that they were hurt somewhere else. I act like I’m just now understanding it. Then I explain, “There might be moments this year where some of you get different things because you need them differently, just like you needed a band-aid in a different spot.” 

If at any time any of my students ask why one student has a different assignment, or gets taken out of the class for a subject, or gets another teacher to come in and help them throughout the year, I remind my students of the band-aids they got at the start of the school year and they stop complaining. That’s why eight year olds can understand equity. 

[momo-de-avis]

I remember reading somewhere once “we should be speaking of equity instead of equality” and that is a principle that applies here me thinks

[postcardsfromspace]

I will reblog this every time it shows up on my dash, because, frankly, the world cannot get enough reminders.

[moveslikekeithrichards]

there is no greater joy on this earth than Making Lists, Categorizing, & Sorting

[flying-lemons]

oh do I have the game for you

[dancing-crow]

I could . not. put. this down for 48 hours - stayed up too late, had weird dreams about it, woke up early, and played it while I was supposed to be doing other things. the last several dozen items took a lot of googling, which I do not even begrudge it.

and then. My partner started it. And the SAME THING happened to him.

surprisingly compelling. start when you have free time. like, yanno, a snow day.

[foone]

oh my god, if you are the kind of person who gets sucked into logic puzzles, do not click that link if you have to do anything/go to sleep in the next couple hours

[improbabledreams900]

I was disappointed there weren't more levels, so I made them! The creator's code was under CC Share Alike, so I moved a copy to my website, rustled up 40 new categories, and added buttons so you can generate smaller puzzles!

Check it out! More levels!

[improbabledreams900]

^^My spinoff version now has 100 total categories! Generate puzzles to your heart's content!

[lilyblisslys]

Just learned about Bull Press, a tabletop publisher that focuses on games that are prison compliant (no hardcover, no dice, no maps), and their catalogue seems sick as hell. Def gonna pick smth up when I get paid next. They do a lot of donation work with books for prisoners programs!

[mortalityplays]

As mentioned, Bull Press donate playbooks to prisons out of their own pocket. If you know somebody in prison you'd like to refer to receive books, you can email them with requests.

and if you want to support them:

direct donation

patreon

merch (their shirt designs are sick as hell)

[transatlanticjanet]

The cat's birthday strut

[digitalmyyth]

pinterest simulator

[korunak]

christ in the wilderness, ivan kramskoy

[thatbitchsimone]

he looks like he needs a cigarette

[refuzz]

[hunter-rodrigez]

[revacholianrobot]

In hindsight it's very insulting to be told that flunking out of college due to adhd is actually "quite common"

[revacholianrobot]

just like, if there's a history at your institution of disabled kids not being able to make it you realise that's your fault right. like why don't you fucking do something about it. i guess they tried to do something about it with me and it failed so they let me go. crazy. nice work. why should we try to do any better.

[yourheartinyourmouth]

only 5% of people with adhd who go to college finish a degree. FUCKING. FIVE!!! PERCENT!!!!!!!!!!!

that should disgust and enrage you.

if any other demographic of students had a 95% failure rate, we would be demanding reform and studies to understand why that’s happening

when i was at my first university, trying to get accommodations for my ADHD, they just kept asking me what accommodations i wanted, and refused to answer when i would ask what was available to me. how the Hell am i supposed to know what i can have? what’s available???? also, i don’t know!!!! i’m an adhd sufferer, not a fucking disability expert for the fucking college, unlike you, DISABILITY EXPERT WHO WORKS FOR THE COLLEGE.

but because the us is OBSESSED with making sure no one gets anything “”for free””, she literally would not tell me what my options were until i broke down in tears and asked her why she was refusing to help me. and then she did a big sigh, like i was fucking up her entire career by *checks notes* asking the disability center in my university to help me, a disabled student

at the second uni i went to, i tried to explain to a dean that i was literally two gen eds that had nothing to do with my degree away from graduating and that i was burnt out and broke and exhausted and suicidal and i just needed to be able to finish my degree without the gen eds. and this. fucking. guy. looked me right in my face and said in the most patronizing tone he could muster “if you can’t handle it, then maybe college just isn’t for you.” keep in mind that up until that semester, i had been an honor student who made Dean’s List every semester and didn’t get below Bs. if it hadn’t been for my mental breakdown, i would have graduated cum laude, maybe even summa cum laude.

but this dean of students looked a disabled person right in the face and said well i guess you just can’t do it, short bus

[jecook]

Pulled these from a couple articles really quick but yeah the statistics are not kind. I remember writing a scathing essay about my issues with ADHD and college as part of an assignment for academic probation. I got back an email calling me entitled and lazy. Somehow, this thread helps me feel a lot better. I still have about a semester of school unfinished that I’m unsure if I’ll finish but… yeah. Makes me feel better to know it’s not just me.

[lady-harrowhark]

PSA: The Job Accommodation Network maintains a searchable database of accommodation suggestions for a wide variety of disabilities.

The full database can be accessed here and the ADHD page is here. The full database can be filtered by disability, by limitation, by work-related function, by topic, and by accommodation. Many of these accommodations are applicable to academic settings as well as the workplace.

Here are the section headers for ADHD accommodations ideas to give an overview of what the page contains - this post would become Do You Love the Color of the Accommodation if I attempted to list them all here

The ADHD page linked above also includes case examples and strategies for determining what sort of accommodations might be necessary. More broadly, the JAN website as a whole is a treasure trove of information related to the Americans with Disabilities Act and resources for both individuals and employers.

[trambrosia]

Oh fuck that's really nice, I will read it

Also just heard a podcast interview with a software developer who had good suggestions

Being a developer with ADHD

Do you feel like ADHD is holding you back? Maybe you don't personally have ADHD but you work with folks who do and you'd like to support the

[dandelionsresilience]

The head of disability accommodations at my college just kept ablesplaining to me that “accommodations are to level the playing field, not give you an advantage,” and that her job is to “protect the school’s rights” rather than help disabled students. The only accommodations they would offer me were 1. extra time on tests, and 2. an alternative test-taking location - neither of which I needed. I ended up getting (most of) what I actually needed by unofficially asking the individual professors, but it should have been legally protected.

[xxxball-fondlerxxx]

oh my goddd yes. i remember in high school when i had a meeting to get a 504 plan it was so terrible. it took MONTHS to even get the meeting, and then they also did not tell me what accommodations were available, they talked down to me the entire time like "you know this isn't gonna just get you out of doing your work, right?", and thats not even MENTIONING the fact that i only found out about the existence of 504 plans in my sophomore year, and i found out about them from other students, not the school!

[official-cisphobe]

here's a random word generator--whatever word it gives you is now the thing you are the deity of

[prettydumbloverboy]

Actually, people are good by nature and you're a fool if you think otherwise.

[prettydumbloverboy]

When you sneeze in public, strangers will say "bless you", even though they don't know you.

When you ask for directions on the street someone will show you the way, even though they have nothing to gain from it.

People squeeze their legs against the chair so you don't have to hop over them on your way to your seat in the theatre, and make funny faces to make babies laugh, and purposefully step on leaves to hear them scrunch, and hold the door open for someone leaving behind them, and ask what floor you're heading to when you enter the elevator, and send others photos of things that reminded them of them, and recommend each other songs, and ask if anyone else wants a coffee because they're getting one, and make videos teaching how to sew a button, and wish on shooting stars, and share fun facts, and listen to others rant about things they don't even understand, and let you cross the street first, and give a bit of their food to others, and laugh at jokes they don't find funny to make you feel good, and listen to kids talk for hours about nonsense, and let you know your keys fell from your pocket, and they may be strangers, but with every little gesture they're saying "I love you, I love you, I love you".

[phinarei]

God, I needed to read this today. Humanity is overwhelmingly full of hope and kindness and it's very easy to forget that these days.

[kouratdrhuii]

My little pridefull lizard !

I look forward to painting a few each year so that one day I’ll have a proud army of them

[loveridden1999]

adulting is so insane it has me genuinely saying nothing beats homemade meals