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  • What is a Solo Journaling RPG? (Plus a curated list!)

    You’ve heard of Dungeons and Dragons and you’re definitely interested.

    However, there may be a billion reasons why you can’t play. Maybe none of your friends are on board, or you’re shy. No matter what your reasons are, solo journaling RPGs are here to rescue you!

    About Solo Journaling RPGs

    A solo journaling RPG is an outline for your very own adventure, where you get to call the shots. How your game turns out is a product of the RPG blueprint you choose and your own imagination— no one else’s.

    Often, the rulebooks are short zines, meaning you don’t have to pore over multiple books to learn how to play— you can get started in five minutes!

    Some games are long-term and some are short-term. This means that some will be done in a single 30 minute session, while others may take months of work to complete. It’s up to you what kind you want to play!

    Like more traditional group tabletop RPGs, there is often no winner and no loser. You play for the joy of creation and to see where the adventure ends up!

    What You May Need:

    -Notebook and pen/pencil. Most people who write solo journaling RPGs recommend going analog, but you also have the option to use a word processor or other text-based app.

    -Dice. Many games use dice of varying types to add the same sense of the unexpected that accompanies a more traditional group tabletop RPG. (A random number generator will work for this too.)

    -Deck of cards. Other games may use a deck of cards for random selection. Some may use tarot cards! (You can also use a random card generator found through a quick Google search.)

    -Less than fifteen bucks. Most of the solo journaling RPGs I’ve come across are EXTREMELY budget-friendly. Price will be listed in my recommendations below!

    Some Curated Recommendations

    Here are some of the solo journaling RPGs out there that I personally want to play:

    Over the Mountain

    This one is the only one on this list that I have actually played and it is AMAZING. As an introduction to solo journaling RPGs, it’s a great place to start.

    You play as someone in a small mountain town who has a secret. As that secret hangs over your head, you meet local people (and spirits!) of your own design and go on adventures.

    This one is a lot longer than some other ones, as your goal is to fill up a notebook (whatever that means for you). Therefore, it will probably be played in multiple sessions over a span of time.

    Price: Free

    Strange Changeling Child

    This pick is about something dear to my heart, the legend of faerie changelings and their relationship to what we now know is autism. It takes the form of an allegory, and you play as a changeling who goes through many of the same struggles that autistic people do.

    Price: $8

    Gender Bending Reflections

    This one is a little different, in that you can use it to reach for insight on your real life. You play as yourself or a gender-bending character of your own creation and go through the highs and lows of figuring out your gender.

    Price: Name Your Own

    Cast a Queer Spell

    In the world of this RPG, you are assigned a type of magic as soon as you are born. What happens when that’s not the type of magic you want to do? This one is another allegory that will probably prove to be very emotional for queer people.

    Price: Name Your Own

    Hearthfyre

    Use a tarot deck to construct your adventure in this RPG, which deals with themes of found family. It only takes about an hour!

    Price: Name Your Own

    HAUNT

    Play as a ghost who doesn’t remember anything about their life, and try to connect with the living family in the house that you haunt so you can finally move on.

    Price: $12

    Have you played a solo journaling RPG? Which one? Let me know in the comments below!

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  • math class god

    we were the ones that survived, the
statistical anomalies: the accident
of genetics and the last man on earth

    --you are the math priest and the lover
of every single sequin and You calculated well
the best bullets to swallow
to send your cerebellum spinning

I am the automaton, dunked like a witch
in a ceramic grave too shallow
to know if i floated, but permanently cured
of any illusions about the metal i'm made of

    i was that bullet when you
bit the trigger because
i've always had to serve your motivations

and you were the water
lifting flakes of living rust
because you've always been my situation

  • Tools for Autistic Adults

    I try not to stray into consumerism here on this blog, but it’s just a fact that we need certain items to survive, and that might look different for different people. For autistic people, we may have specific sensory needs and challenges that others do not, and so we need different items.

    Here are the best tools I use, as an autistic adult, in my every day life:

    Chewelry.

    Chewelry (chew + jewelry) is a type of jewelry made specifically for oral stimming. That means that it’s a wearable item that is safe to chew on or hold in your mouth, and it can be cleaned easily. Mostly, it comes in the form of a silicone pendant on a necklace, but there are also fabric-type necklaces as well as bracelets.

    My favorite is this feather one, for reasons I will discuss below.

    If you want to upgrade your chewelry, I recommend replacing the default necklace with a thin leather cord. The leather won’t soak up saliva, meaning your entire chewelry experience will be much neater!

    Weighted blanket.

    Weighted blankets have become almost synonymous with neurodivergence.

    I know people that put on the weighted blanket and instantly, visibly relax. I am not one of those people, but I still love my weighted blanket.

    For a price-conscious approach, you can buy mass-produced weighted blankets for less than $100. Most of them are have covers that are plain gray, which suits me just fine as it’s my favorite color! If you’re looking for customization, however, there are also many creators on the internet that make weighted blankets out of different fabrics, so you can choose a print and a texture that suits you!

    The downside of weighted blankets is that they are (obviously) not very portable. To solve this problem, weighted vests or lap pads are available too.

    Ear defenders.

    Ear defenders are the piece de resistance of my autism toolkit. I put them on and I instantly calm down.

    The type I have do not play music or cancel sound using active technology— instead, they muffle everything using soft padding and a tight fit over your head. If you prefer music while you drown out atmospheric sound, that is of course an option, but I prefer silence.

    Obviously, some louder noises still make it through, but the relief I experience when I put on my ear defenders is still amazing.

    I have tried Loop earplugs, but found the sensation to be much worse. Having them directly in your ear makes its own sort of sound (like hearing the ocean in a seashell) which I found to be very unpleasant.

    Telephone cord bracelet.

    Telephone cord bracelets are the obvious choice for subtle public stimming. Like chewelry, it’s wearable, so it’s much harder to lose or to forget to bring. However, since you play with it with your hands and fingers, it’s much less noticeable than chewelry.

    I use my telephone cord bracelet the most during doctor appointments, when I’m trying to appear confident while also focusing on the conversation.

    Phone with notes app.

    If I lose speech (something that happens often in conjunction with my trauma symptoms) I use my phone with its notes app to communicate.

    I have tried just about every free specialized AAC app option on the market, but I found that writing text notes is more specific and just less awkward. For others, AAC apps may be a great option (especially if they struggle with the written word too when they lose speech) but they just did not work for me.

    Food I want to eat.

    If I have a specific samefood as part of my routine, I do my best to continue to acquire that food, rather than forcing myself to eat something I don’t want to eat. Sometimes that means ordering out (within reason!) or extra trips to the grocery store. Not forcing myself to eat food I don’t want is an important gesture of bodily autonomy and a way to buck neurotypical expectations that I’ve internalized.

    On the other hand, there are many tools popular with autistic people that I have tried and not found to be helpful. This doesn’t mean that it won’t work for you or your loved ones, just that it didn’t work for me!

    Here are some things that I tried that didn’t work:

    Elastic bed cover.

    An elastic bed cover was described to me as like a weighted blanket with less hassle, so I decided to try it out. I found it to be nothing like a weighted blanket, and soon took it off my bed.

    Certain kinds of chewelry.

    Unfortunately, if silicone chewelry is too thick, it makes me gag. I’m not sure why.

    Most stim toys.

    I find most stim toys to be unsatisfying, and I have tried a huge variety because they all look like fun! However, none of them compare to my telephone cord bracelet for portability and style.

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  • Rented Room

    the brick kitchen is comforting
and the fire escape adventurous and urban and
during midnight breakfasts cats curl around my calves but

i am the stranger
in the house.

this is the only home on the street.
the others are facades.
with the flick of a switch from the capitol
all the lights dance to life, supporting
spectacular shadow puppets, joints and jaws and all.
i speak to them sometimes, from the sidewalk
and they ask me if i'm alright.
of course i'm alright.

my window borders the church's parking lot,
and old church, with iron-strapped doors that feel like
imaginary months in Europe, and it has a bell
that tolls out over the city, or maybe dusty speakers
and every third hour it plays a ditty like a dour ice cream truck,
and each tone vibrates against itself like a violin lesson.

every night i walk to the gas station to buy beer.
i am only 22 but they know me, or they know
my face and my birthdate. they don't know
my nightmares and i don't know theirs.
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  • Review: The Witch’s Path by Thorn Mooney

    This is by far the best book on witchcraft I have ever read.

    I am one of those people that will research witchcraft endlessly. This is part of the fun for me, but it’s also not actually practicing the “craft” part of witchcraft.

    Here, Thorn Mooney writes a book for ALL witches, no matter their level. In each chapter, she writes about a foundational part of witchcraft. Not in a beginner-textbook way, but in a way that will reignite your spark for that particular aspect. The chapters are sacred space, devotion, ritual/magic, personal practice, and community.

    The best part is the practical exercises at the end of each chapter. They come in sets of four, aligned with the four elements. Air is for beginner witches, fire is for witches that need something quick, water is for witches looking to deepen their practice, and earth is for witches that feel like they’ve already tried everything.

    I highly recommend doing the exercises— I did some highlighting in my ebook and went back to them after I was finished reading. Some of them are long, 30-day “challenges,” so you may not want to wait to do them before you finish the book.

    Note: the author is Wiccan, but she makes sure that the information in her book is applicable to witches of all paths!

    5/5.

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  • Periphery

    I thought I rested in your palms like a music box,
when I hung in your grip
like an invalid. 

"I don't have words," I slurred, absolutely stoned
and oceaned with devotion,
and, fluttering, frustrated your questions
into silence.

You only saw my broadest sweeps, the
dashes and dots, some of the inevitabilites
and a wound or two.

You never could focus.
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  • What Defines Mental Health?

    I spend a lot of time thinking and writing about mental health, so I should be an expert by now, right? Mainly I troubleshoot and problem-solve, but what am I trying to achieve? What state of mental health do I strive for? What does mental health even mean?

    Let’s start with what mental health is NOT.

    -Obviously, it’s unrealistic to expect to be happy and joyful all the time, even though that would be nice. Maintaining perfect happiness is impossible, and therefore not the definition of mental health.

    -Even though people with mental illnesses are often considered “strange” by society, mental health certainly doesn’t mean conforming to what is expected of us— in fact, that’s a fast track to mental illness.

    -We also can’t strive to be totally and 100% ourselves, as many of our baser instincts must be tempered for the good of the people around us.

    The definition of mental health, to me, is emotional flexibility. It’s being happy when there’s a personal reason to be happy and being sad when there’s a personal reason to be sad, and likewise for anger. These reasons may be very unique and not sanctioned by society (many of my happy-making interests are non-standard or “weird”) but they are valid reasons nonetheless, and shaped by a person’s history and personality.

    Often, my emotions aren’t flexible. I was so depressed throughout my childhood and adolescence that I first felt happiness, first felt a positive feeling at all, at age 22. That would be enough to qualify many times over for “bad mental health,” but instead of feeling hopeful about the future, the experience left me even more depressed. I was suicidal in the weeks afterwards because I couldn’t fathom that other people got to feel that way much, much more frequently. They weren’t dying inside at their own birthday parties, blowing out the candles and wishing for an end to it all. They weren’t self-harming to get through the day. They weren’t hiding their emotions until they could be alone to cry. By comparison, my first taste of positivity felt like a gift from the divine.

    (Even in Bipolar Disorder, emotions aren’t flexible more than the phase that person is in. If they’re manic, they’re going to interpret every event through the lens of their mania. If they’re depressed, their outlook will be depressed too. Borderline Personality Disorder, also famous for emotional highs and lows, is not true flexibility either— many times, people with BPD experience distorted emotions that are way off base for the situation, either in scope or in type.)

    Now, as I get healthier, I experience happiness more often. I’m also learning to welcome sadness and anger. I’m no longer depressed 100% of the time. I’m striving towards emotional flexibility, and I’m getting there!

  • Prescription

    i have hit the cold floor again.

my lovers are sleeping soundly, dreaming
that i am still between them

while i grip the kitchen sink, taking sandpaper
to my frontal lobe,
feeling the solitary sage capsule
rattle in my ribcage.

i have cut my hair and
practiced violin and
thrown out my scissors and
i have been a man and
not,

but at least i have a perfect sense of direction.
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  • There is no such thing as mutual abuse.

    There is no such thing as mutual abuse.

    Abuse is a non-consensual power imbalance. The Domestic Violence Hotline defines domestic violence thus: “a pattern of behaviors used to gain or maintain power and control.” This pattern of behaviors (which may include coercion, threats, intimidation, and isolation, among other tactics) is not exclusive to any one gender, though abusive dynamics often mirror social privilege norms (which I will address in a forthcoming post).

    There is, however, DEFINITELY such a thing as mutual toxicity. Often in relationships where one person has power over the other, neither are perfect. Either person may have been or currently be toxic in their other relationships, and engage in many unhealthy behaviors.

    Two people cannot abuse each other, however, because abuse is about having power over another person in a way that they did not consent to.

    This may seem like a matter of semantics, but often abusers will say things like “You’re abusing me too!” after survivors push back on the control being exerted on them.

    When I was first looking into the matter of abusive relationships, it was to support a close friend who had just left one. She had me read Lundy Bancroft’s Why Does He Do That? and I was rendered very uncomfortable. Many of the behaviors were things that I had done— that one time I slapped my partner when he was transphobic to me? Telling someone honestly that I thought I might kill myself if they left me?

    It was only after quite a bit of introspection (and support from aforementioned friend) that I realized that I was the one being abused. Besides the individual behaviors that one or each of us engaged in, the overall dynamic of the relationship leaned heavily in his favor. He got what he wanted, and I didn’t.

    Years later, I found out this was a pattern, and that he had been doing all of it on purpose. The moment of clarity was crystal clear and razor sharp– I had barely avoided serious bodily harm in the four years we were together. After that revelation, I never doubted that all along I was just an unhealthy person trying my damnedest to be heard.

    If you are in an unhealthy dynamic, please remember this. No one can tell from outside a relationship who is abusive and who isn’t, but there is ALWAYS hope to leave and/or to change.

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  • Father/Son Dance

    I am the child that crunched up near the tire grease and spectated intently
and delighted in the music of your voice, the nonsense rhymes
of chrome&cog mechanics

& when I jubilantly said I'd grow up to be Daddy, the miscommunication made you dream
of blueprints and lava soap, and crescent wrenches laid out like piano keys

but what I wanted
was feet to fit your boots,
complete with hairy toes encased in steel

& not the endless meaningless blood,
in gushes and torrents and nauseous waves,
that was at first a shock, a day of tears, but then subsided
into another dull ache of resentment, bone-deep, chromosomal.

You could have passed on to me
the tribal drumbeat XY chant. Instead
my cells hum white noise, one syllable like the Hindu om, ringing like trapped water in my ears.

The peyote god has granted me a different dance but
there's no shining desert beyond the chrome of the kitchen when,
a decade later, we stand at the sink, arms newly scrubbed of grease

and I spit it up finally and your lips go thin and disappear
into your beard. I know our Anglican world won't abide
any of that silly vision business, or drumbeat dancing, or especially swapping

and so the demon Lady Luck clamps down her teeth,
tightening her grip right where it hurts.
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