i do think it’s funny when you’ve been into a thing long enough that you’ve done all the serious analysis you can do so now you’re mostly just thinking up looney tunes scenarios to put the characters in
looney tunes scenarios which are most importantly still impeccably in-character because of all the aforementioned serious analysis
Never research horse travel speeds and limitations for your fan fiction; it is cursed knowledge. It will ruin your ability to enjoy horse-travel related fiction forever. They never rest the horses. They never change horses. They run flat out for days. The more you learn the more you'll realize that most modern writers treat them like cars.
Velociraptors are scary but really they aren't that scary because they can't change speed. They always move at exactly the same rate, so they're predictable and you can avoid them. The real one to look out for is the acceleraptor
[Image ID: Tweet from pea poopingirl @/PoopingIRL on 8/14/23 - i think the idea of a shady dwarven salesman selling "cheap" stuff to humans and laughing to himself like "heh it will only last one generation, those stupid idiots, how will they even pass it down to their kids" forgetting that one dwarf generation is like 4 human ones is funny. There's a black bar at the bottom with an iFunny watermark in the corner. End ID.]
Elf ea-nasir selling mithril armor that will last no more than 1,000 years getting death threats from his fellow elves but doing numbers w/humans
Actually, I really like this idea as why elven and dwarven crafts are so good. Something that’s merely acceptable is meant to last most of one of their lifetimes. So even a mediocre dwarven craftsman will make something a human can pass down.
And you can always sell what the apprentice makes while still learning to a human, letting them know it will merely last for the rest of their life.
The elven version of IKEA could be a human family heirloom.
puttering around the house is an underrated form a self-care. make some tea or coffee. put on a podcast. sort the mail. tidy some pillows and fold some blankets. start the laundry. thaw some soup. just casually wander around aimlessly doing little things to make your space and life a little nicer. who cares if you get distracted or only do a little. you aren't being productive. you're puttering.
the really crazy thing about cooking is that once you practice it enough (for all the gamers reading this: "grind enough exp") your threshold for wuat counts as a low effort / depression / I Dont Really Want To Cook meal rises steadily and you can feel yourself becoming the kind of person whose "chill dinner" takes 1h45 and involves three pans
As someone who went through this and struggles with chronic pain and fatigue, add 1 thing semi regularly. And I do mean just 1 thing.
When I first moved out most my meals were instant ramen. Then I started adding 1 egg to that ramen to get a little protein in. In a couple months, 1 egg became two. Then it was 2 eggs and 1 chopped green onion. Then a couple months later I was adding carrots and other vegetables. In about two years I was able to skip the instant ramen part altogether and now use chicken broth and noodles and I’m basically making a ramenesque soup from scratch when I’m craving ramen. It took 2+ years total of just gradually, one at a time, adding one ingredient. Over a period of months/weeks.
Start with where you’re able. If a sandwich is too much, maybe try just a piece of bread and some meat or cheese. Focus on where you can be gradually introducing more nutrients into your body. 1 slice of deli meat. A couple weeks later, that plus 1 slice of cheese. Then 1 vegetable. Maybe they don’t all make it into sandwich form and that’s ok. But if you keep what’s the most basic and simple for yourself and slowly add 1 thing that’s not too much of a hassle, over a couple months you might start toasting the bread before putting cheese and meat on it. Then one day there’s more vegetables. Years down the line you might find yourself owning a panini press or slicing your own bread.
Most of us will never be gourmet chefs and that shouldn’t be the goal. You might not ever get to the point where you own a panini press. But the more important thing is that you’re finding ways that work, for you, gradually, in order to make your meals more nutritious. The expectation to cook a full, unique meal every night for dinner is a relatively new phenomenon and completely unrealistic for most people. Having the same 3 things you can make consistently and keep on rotation is plenty fine, especially if you get to the point where you can mix it up a little bit by adding ingredients in the method stated above. Feeding yourself should be the #1 goal, getting more nutrients in #2, and stepping it up to the next level #3 when you have the capacity to. Like with a lot of things, it’s really just about consistency. Start with where you can be consistent. If that’s 1 meal a week you cook yourself and the rest is hot pockets, but you can do that 1 meal consistently, then that’s where you start. Then when you have that down, maybe try two (of the same) meals a week, or ask what you can add to your hot pocket to make it a little better for you. (Some vegetables on the side for instance).
Don’t try to jump in from 0 to full course meal all at once or you’ll overwhelm yourself. Building a meal outward from bread and butter over a period of weeks is incredibly possible. No two peoples’ timelines will be the same, but it is entirely possible and that success will look different for everyone, and that’s also ok. As long as you’re feeding yourself, that’s what’s most important.
this is so helpful. too many times when I ask how to do something, people tell me to "just do it" like I'm supposed to already know what steps to take. and I almost never know what steps to take. someone actually telling me is so refreshing
For me, it was a matter of simplifying the process as well. Like, there's some merit to acquiring tools meant to reduce prep time/effort. If I had to hand chop an onion and mince garlic every time I wanted to cook, I would literally never cook anything that needed those and practically everything I cook needs those.
But this thing does all the work. I can quarter an onion half in like five seconds, and have it chopped into small pieces in 15 seconds by slapping this bad boy on the hood.
Pre-prepared foods can help, too. Jarred minced garlic isn't quite as good as fresh imo, but saving myself 15 minutes of peeling garlic and mincing it by hand means I actually use it and cook stuff because I don't have to mince garlic by hand, so it's worth it. There's even whole cloves like this now, if I want to mince but not peel, or if I need cloves not minced.
I also think that like... Finding actually simple recipes (difficult, but possible) helps. I just recently had to sift through a ton of recipes to find just one that was simple enough pickles for my taste. I just wanted to pickle some cucumber. Nothing fancy! I picked up cucumbers and dill at the produce market and wanted pickles. But every recipe I was finding had all these extra steps and ingredients that made it seem like so much work and complicated. But it wasn't! When I finally found a bare bones recipe, it was "put water, vinegar, salt, and sugar into a pot, bring to a boil and cool, pour into jars with cucumbers and dill, refrigerate 1-2 weeks" and I added garlic, because I had garlic. It didn't need to be more complicated than that. But everyone was making it seem really complicated and if I had to do all that crap I would never have made pickles.
So if you're struggling, take something you have to do and are struggling with and 1) ask if there's a tool/method to make this task easier, 2) ask if there's a pre-made version of ingredients or even a base item, and 3) ask if there's a simpler recipe.
For example your Sandwich is too much- 1) there's not really a tool to make this easier but 2) there are some frozen premade sandwiches/burgers that you could always thaw/heat and later on add something to and 3) like the person above said, you can just eat the ingredients, you don't have to put them into sandwich form. It's basically a charcuterie board at that point, and if you 2) keep some eating-ready nuts on hand you can add a handful of those and maybe later on 2) fruit that doesn't take prep like grapes (or very little prep, like an apple you can 1) cut with an apple slicing tool), and now you've gone and turned "a sandwich is too much" to "fancy little dinner involving sandwich ingredients." For less effort than a sandwich.
So that's where I started. Figuring out what part was holding me up and sneaking past it with tools and tricks.
All excellent advice. Just wanna share something I found out about a year ago that has absolutely revolutionized cooking for me. Trader Joe’s sells frozen minced garlic and ginger. It comes separated into little blister packs, each square is about one clove of garlic, and because it’s frozen it’s not preserved with oil or other preservatives for room temp pre-minced garlic. It’s absolutely amazing.
Now I need to get one of those onion chopper things up above because that’s my other cooking bane….
Use the shortcuts. Jarred minced garlic, frozen chopped onion, frozen veggies that are already sliced. Pre-made sauces and mixes if you want. Spend slightly more for thin sliced chicken or tenders or whatever. Look for recipes (on Pinterest mostly) that are variations of "dump all the ingredients together and cook" like crock pot or sheet pan meals.
I CAN cook well. (Mostly cause I like it and I taught myself from shows and books.) But I had gotten to the point of only cooking from scratch and then I broke my foot and had to relearn how to half-ass it. The result is almost as good for most things.
All of the above is great tips. For me personally, it's also been about subtly changing the mentality or aesthetics of what a "simple meal" has to look like, because I think a lot of us who are struggling have a tendency to unconsciously "punish" ourselves by reinforcing the depressive vibes. It's a DEEPLY Puritan kind of mindset: "Poor/ill/mentally struggling people are poor/ill/struggling because they're Bad or Failing somehow, so therefore you should just eat grey porridge until you stop being a loser."
But it doesn't have to be like that. "Stuffing a few slices of deli meat or cheese in your wretched mouth while standing at the fridge" is a simple meal. So is a charcuterie board. It's substantially the same thing, but the vibes are different. I can tell you that I have gotten so much more joy and mental/emotional nourishment out of meals when I have taken a little extra time to make them beautiful and "fancy".
Eating ramen? Arrange your toppings like they do in nice ramen restaurants instead of just slopping them in any-which-way. Oh, and get yourself a really beautiful bowl to eat it in. This doesn't have to be expensive--keep an eye out at thrift stores or at the clearance section of stores that sell dishes. Every time you use the bowl, it adds a tiny little piece of beauty to your life, and over time those experiences of scraps of beauty (little moments of things that give you a grain of happiness) contribute to a much more positive and healthy mindset. If you get your hands on a bowl you love enough, then every time you use it will feel like a treat. Give yourself that treat as often as possible.
Eating a sandwich? Cut it diagonally. Why? I don't know, it's prettier that way, and it makes it a little bit nicer to eat. You could use a little ketchup or mustard or creamy sriracha to do those fancy dots/swirls/elegant smears on the plate like they do at really upscale restaurants. (The way you do the elegant smear is to put like half a teaspoon of your sauce or condiment in a little puddle, then use the back of a spoon to drag it out while rotating the plate. Ta da!)
Eating deli meat at the fridge? Get your beautiful plate (presumably you bought a beautiful plate when you bought the beautiful bowl, or use a clean wooden cutting board), and take an extra minute to arrange the meat and cheese nicely. Add a handful of baby carrots. Add a sprig of parsley or a dandelion flower that was growing outside your door, or a maple leaf. Add a spoonful of jam and some crackers. These are all cheap or free, and a charcuterie board is REALLY fast and low-effort to put together. But then you lounge on the couch and tell yourself, "This isn't depression food. This is Fancy. This is Special. Look how lavish and decadent I'm being right now." For me, my brain immediately perks up a little and goes, "Oh! Special treat! :)" Then I'm happy about the food, I'm smiling while I eat, and for a little time, I feel a bit better.
Oh, also: You're gonna buy a wine glass from the thrift store for a dollar and you're going to pour your can of Diet Coke into it. Or water. You're going to float your dandelion flower in the water. You're going to find a mug you adore and drink your tea/coffee out of your favorite special mug as often as possible.
You have to feed your soul. Beauty is a vitally important part of your daily nutritional intake. Don't skip it -- even if it feels silly and pretentious at first, over time it will start to teach your sad, tired, burned-out, weary, heavily-burdened heart that you deserve nice things, that there are small opportunities for precious tiny joys every day, and that the energy it takes to give yourself this supposedly-unnecessary little gift is a small investment for the amount of energy and pleasure it generates in return. I know folks who were straight-up suicidal who started doing things like this, and over the course of a few weeks or months, they realized that it had given them One Good Thing in their day that they could ALWAYS look forward to and to keep living for. This shit WORKS.
Bread and roses, friends: "Hearts starve as well as bodies: Give us bread, but give us roses too."
One legitimately weird thing about Tumblr is that we literally can’t code for shit, many people quit working at Tumblr due to a hostile work environment, and we can’t seem to program a simple blogging website to not flood your RAM.
