starless @starless@pixie.town

4. Reverse Bilbo Baggins Date (great for a triad/polycule, good for spoony or Domme hosts, kink friendly)

You know how people showed up at Bilbo Baggins house and harassed him into hosting a party? Kind of? This is like that, but consensual. The host does very little, except perhaps clean the house/provide a place to gather, and the guests cook a wonderful meal together.

Ahead of time, the guests plan dinner. This can be as straightforward as a group trip to the grocery store on the way over, or it could be something more elaborate. Plan to arrive at the host's near the end of their work day.

Once the guests are settled and their work is finished, the host takes a shower and decompresses from their work day. Meanwhile, the guests get to work cooking dinner and possibly preparing cocktails. If you have additional people, they can put a playlist together, vacuum/tidy the space, help set the table, wash dishes, or whatever else. Just try to make sure everyone has something they can do to contribute, and that the host is cool with it.

Meanwhile, the host is getting ready for date night. Maybe wearing something fancy, maybe doing their makeup, whatever, just not being involved with the joyful chaos near the kitchen.

Once appetizers, snacks, drinks, whatever, are ready, the host is served. As prep finishes, more people join the pre-meal hangout, until everyone eats dinner together.

After dinner, the host is likely to have the energy they need to engage with all their lovely guests. And, since the prep work for dinner was shared, their guests shouldn't be too burned out, either. Wink wink.

3. Rope 101 date (better for 2)

Buy a rope book and some simple rope. Hardware store rope is fine, but do wash it, and remember that it's not suitable for suspending people. If you have the budget, you might want to get pretty rope from a kink shop, but it's not necessary to get started.

Read the first chapter or two of the book together while dinner cooks/you wait for food delivery. Skip the wine tonight, since it's best if you do kinky things with a sober head.

Have dinner, and do any dessert prep you need. Over dinner talk about what you liked from the book, and about any boundaries or things you'd like to avoid tonight. It's okay to make notes if you think it'll help.

Afterwards, try a simple tie from the book on the other, and then swap. Don't get too zealous, it's usually safest to try kinky things slowly and easily, a little bit at a time.

After you've done a tie or two, take a break for dessert. Over dessert, talk about how things felt. What were your favorite parts? Did something happen that anyone felt a little weird or uncomfortable with?

After dessert, snuggle, if you like, and maybe watch a movie together.

Once your date is finished, be sure to check in with each other in a day or two. Ask if they're feeling alright with how things went, and if they might prefer if anything went differently. The day-after check in is important, since if something does sit wrong, it sometimes takes some emotional space for it to "settle out" before someone is confident that something is a bit weird.

2. Letter date (poly friendly)
Spend your budget on stationary supplies. A wax seal kit, inks, whatever makes you glow. Compose poems or whatnot for the week or two leading up to the date.

Then, while dinner cooks (get something simple, like a frozen lasagna, or order takeout), write and seal your letters to each other. Whoever is done first can finish up food prep, or possibly even follow brownie mix instructions and set that baking.

Then, have dinner, and maybe some wine. Do any dessert prep that needs to be done (like taking cheesecake out of the fridge to get up to temp). By now, the inks should be dry, and the wax should have cooled.

Read each other's letters, and then share dessert.

1. Perfume date (poly friendly)
About two weeks before your date, choose an online perfume shop that offers samples. I usually find a little etsy shop.

Then, each person picks out 3-5 for each other without letting the other person see (easiest to do by leaving the room in person). Then, place the order.

Once the package arrives, plan for dinner 'in'. If you have memory issues, it can be helpful to bring a list of which perfumes you chose, and to bring up the list of the fragrance notes for reference. Have dinner, and do whatever prep you need for dessert. Then open the package of perfumes together and take turns giving them to each other.

Sometimes they smell nothing like how you'd expect, but you'll get to experience that together, and it's really sweet.

Suggested food: any, but maybe not something particularly pungent.

@antiall3s@kolektiva.social sending solidarity. I had an access need or two before the pandemic, and wound up in that same "caught covid too early to know if it was covid at the time" situation. It really sucks to not "be sure" while navigating long covid.

The blasé attitude folks take towards their own health and the health of their friends and loved-ones just blows me away. We have so many more tools now! Rapid antigen tests (free), rapid PCR tests, slow PCR tests (free!), filtration improvements, stats on outdoor transmission, stats on different kinds of masks, community wastewater viral load testing, and effective vaccines...

And instead, many people seem to want to pretend the last three years didn't happen, and to move back to when our culture was a hotbed for communicable diseases. It's disappointing that in three years, we got two changes: masks in doctor's offices and zoom funerals.

It's exhausting just to think about.

@f0x @Are0h @blindscribe layer zero uses open collective, it's worked well for us (USA-based).

@rolltime ugh, I relate.

Honestly, that file emptied when that relationship was done. Looking back, it's such a relief to realize that emotionally fraught editing and re-editing and scrapping and re-composing is stuff I was doing to compensate for their near-zero allocation of emotional energy.

I haven't found myself in that process (at least with friends/loved ones) in at least a year, and it's fantastic.

Anyways, best of luck, that stuff isn't fun.

@fack glacial, maybe? Monolithic?