#feeling smart and capable

[balkanradfem]

The story of a broken christmas toilet

So the first thing that happened to me on the christmas morning, is I went to the bathroom, and toilet didn't work - no water. Weirded out by this, I opened up the water tank, and the water poured in as soon as I messed with the floatie. I thought this fixed it, only to realize minutes later, that the toilet is now leaking water.

I've never fixed the toilet before, especially not a leaking one, opening up the tank and peering inside was the height of my knowledge. But, I was ready to figure it out. I tried to mess with the parts that were leaking and make them tighter, only to immediately make it leak worse. Panicked, I quickly found the valve that shuts down the water in the bathroom. Now the toilet doesn't leak, but I also can't use the shower or the basin.

Looking at more youtube videos, I concluded that the valve that lets water into the tank, has loosened and broken inside, and there was no fixing it, I'd have to buy a spare part. But as it was christmas, all stores were closed, and would be closed for tomorrow as well.

I had some wrenches I acquired while fixing my own bike, and none of them were big enough to dismantle the tank, but comparing the size, I could tell which sizes I did need. I would ask a friend if she could lend me the right tools, but as my friend wouldn't be visiting for a few days, I had to make do with a non-functional bathroom.

Luckily I love the old methods of washing - using a sponge to bubble up and then pouring heated water from a jug to rinse, that is a very gentle way to experience warm water. I would sometimes wash that way just to not have to use the boiler - because it's a great energy saver.

Anyway, my friend brought the tools to me, and I set on to dismantle the tank. She stood outside the bathroom saying 'I don't know anything about toilets', too intimidated to join in. But I wasn't having it, I called her in to look because, armed with my youtube knowledge, I recognized the broken part, and now knew for sure what I had to replace.

That afternoon, I headed to a hardware store, and since it way my first time there, I asked an employee if he could get me that exact part - I had the original with me. He told me they were 'all the same' and handed me the cheapest one. I pointed out it was important for the brass part to be the same width - and he said it was.

So I bought it, and upon installing it in my toilet, the toilet was now leaking from the outside, where the new part was fixed into the wall pipe. I got confused, dismantled it and put it back together a few times, but nothing worked, it only leaked worse each and every time. Devastated, I went to check how others were doing it, and if I maybe lost a part, or forgot to do something, or had to play with the pressure more, or maybe my arms weren't strong enough. But every other person was fastening it in the exact same way, I wasn't doing anything wrong.

I dismantled the thing again, and compared the new and the original part. The metal part that goes into the wall pipe seemed the same width, and I had to stare really long to notice, but there was the tiniest, millimeter difference in how big the waves in it were. Pissed, I went back to the store, to ask the employee if they had any correct replacement parts, and he had absolutely no idea, so I asked him to unpack multiple ones until I found the exact same size I was looking for. I had to go through the lengthy and annoying process of exchanging the part, but once I got home, I put it together in 20 seconds.

And it worked. My toilet works again. I can now fix toilets. Self-assigned plumber.

I had to do a lot of following my instincts and believing that I can notice what is wrong, and when someone who is supposed to be more expert than me, is giving me false info. Most of this was just about confidence! It is absolutely no-brainer to fasten one pipe to the other if they're the correct size, any kid could do it if shown even once.

If I can do this, even without prior knowledge or tools, with other people giving me negative amounts of help, then anyone can! Any house-repair we usually think m*n can do, are just putting puzzles together, created to be simple and intuitive, and we are very well equipped for it, all it takes is confidence and curiosity in how it works.

[sharkylad]

Thinking about the fact that Mabel and Dipper didn't know they had two great uncles.

Yeah they are 12 and at 12 I had a shotty understanding of my family tree- But really? Nobody brought up their great uncle? Stanley? Especially since they'll be staying with his twin brother, Stanford?

Shermie never went to Stan's fake funeral, which to me means the twos relationship was strained on some level. If Shermie is older that means his view of Stan was poisoned in some way, that even as kids they weren't close. If the Shermie is younger then he never even got to meet Stan and all he knew about him was how he failed his family. Hell, people probably barely mentioned Stanley TO Shermie.

The fact that Stan had become a black stain upon the Pines family name makes me so vividly upset. Stanley faked his death and the family just- seemingly decided to strike him from the record. To pretend he didn't existed to spare themselves the sadness and shame.

Stanford and Shermie Pines. The only children worth mentioning of Filbrick and Caryn Pines.

It was never Stanford that was lost to the world. It was Stanley, ever since he had to leave New Jersy- it was always him that had to be struck from the record. Change his name, change his state, change his affiliations, destroy the remains of ghost that was Stanley Pines. Kill him so the family doesn't bring him up, doesn't ask questions, stops asking "Stanford" about his twin.

I just keep thinking about the fact that since the day he made one single mistake all the way up until Ford walks out of that machine- Stanley Pines was killed and did not exist. And Stan himself had no one to blame, he had to play the part in his own demise- He is the only one who ever knew Stanley was alive and has been for decades.

He lives in the multitudes of every personality he's ever taken, all in the hope that he himself can stop being Stanley Pines.

[lesliemeyers]

@ Butters in Worldwide Privacy Tour

[luck-of-the-drawings]

THIS THING IS SCUUUFFED AS HELL & ITS ALSO THE BEST THING I HAVE ANIMATED THUS FAR. IM SO IN LOVE WITH EMIZEL. JUST WISH I GAVE HIM MORE STUPID TATTOOS. NEXT TIME THO. NEXT TIME. I ALSO LOVE VEX&VIV SOOOO MUCH. charlies flavor of Deranged is my FAVORITE!!

[natjennie]

what's weird about the fantasy high drama is that like. it seems to me like people forget d&d is primarily a) a game you play with your friends and also b) luck based.

I mean it's fine to say that "nothing felt like a challenge" and "they just dominated everything and there weren't any stakes" but like. it's not as if they weren't up against huge threats. they lost the mall fight. the last stand was an onslaught of enemies. they fought a dozen dragons from an airship. the fights were hard. they're just really good. they've had very good dice luck in general this season and are all very high level and highly specialized. fig is gonna beat deception and performance checks. adaine's gonna figure out the arcana. riz is gonna succeed investigations. like. for some reason their strategical competence and wisely picked abilities are. a downside? a disappointment?

the thing about d&d that you need to remember is it's first and foremost a game. it's mostly random and it takes you down weird paths and you're playing to have fun with your friends. the dice are literally telling the story that it's their time, it's their year. they've struggled enough. they've trained enough. they're good at what they do. and in my post about the academic/domestic/personal stressors being the focus, d&d doesn't have any other system to work them out than rolling different skills. that's what d&d is. brennan set specific challenge levels for different tasks and the players strategized to prioritize which abilities they were strongest in. the challenges were there. and the players rose to them. they were both smart in their delegation of responsibilities and lucky with their dice rolls. of which, both are foundations of d&d.

don't mistake them being good players and getting lucky with there being no hardship. just because they smashed through the wall, that doesn't mean the wall wasn't strong. they were just stronger.

[sesamestreep]

sexy himbo jock interpretations of James Tiberius Kirk are silly and do a disservice to the character for a lot of reasons, not least of which is that it fundamentally ignores all the times in canon when Kirk is faced with a scientific discovery or oddity and you can see the effort it takes for him not to clap and skip with excitement. like in ‘the devil in the dark’ when Spock posits that they might be dealing with a silicon based life form and McCoy’s like “but that’s impossible!” and Kirk literally crosses the room to flirt talk excitedly with Spock about the prospect and how it could work! and what it would mean!

What I’m saying is, Kirk’s gotta be smart and a huge dork because how else could he pull a bad autistic bitch like Spock?

[ssruis]

One thing I like abt the rks dynamic is that Tsukasa is able to pretty consistently catch rui off guard… Rui is A Planner and part of planning things is being able to (at the very least) make an educated guess about how people will react to things. & I feel like he’s just kinda carried that over to how he views relationships (in that he’s very observant & knows what his friends are probably going to do). Side effects of developing a habit of people watching. Also he’s just a super intelligent genius I think he tries to think of all the possible outcomes of his actions (barring emotional ones. because he is stupid).

Tsukasa is definitely not an entirely unpredictable person but he does have his moments where he

1) says stuff that Rui clearly did not expect or realize (ie the card story from his twilight festival card where Tsukasa outright says that they’re worried about his health as a friend, not as a director + in pandemonium where Tsukasa says the trip is like a one off show and later points out that Rui should take more credit for his own growth)

2) or does stuff that Rui didn’t predict (ie insisting on doing torpe the pianist because it’d be difficult in dazzling lights + joining the disciplinary committee in his year up 2*)

Which I think is largely owed to Tsukasa being the opposite of Rui in a lot of ways, despite all they have in common. Very emotion driven vs logic driven (…ostensibly. Lmao)/open vs closed off/impulsive vs careful/following your heart vs following your brain*/“ok everything’s good now so I’m fine” vs tending to dwell on what could have happened**/present focused vs future focused.

Tsukasa is able to point out things that rui never would have realized and propose options that Rui never would have considered because he’s on the opposite end of things viewpoint wise. Also neat that this is kind of a continuing theme from the main story (tsk agreeing to Rui’s stunt ideas, literally chasing him down after Rui refused to rejoin wxs and making him watch a whole show Tsukasa put on to convey his true feelings).

*specifically in curtain call. Rui’s been a lot more emotion driven wrt wxs since then, but he does put a lot of thought into his choices before making them, whereas Tsukasa kinda just goes “this feels right so that’s what I’m doing.”

**referring more to ohe with Tsukasa recovering quickly & Rui thinking about wxs nearly disbanding pretty frequently, but Rui does dwell on his past a lot. “It was in the past so I’m over it” me when I lie. there are so many instances in this game of him thinking about his childhood or it being relevant to why he’s having an issue. Meanwhile Tsukasa is like “splendid! Confronting my past loneliness helped me get into character for thorpe! Ok I’m done thinking about it now”

[swamp-mirage]

I just saw a trailer for Velma and I gotta say, capitalism is truly the end of innovation. The ONLY reason that show has the Scooby gang is because they're recognizable. Every character is completely different than their original. If they made the exact same show without changing anything except the characters it wouldn't change a single thing about it. The connection to Scooby Doo starts and ends with the characters and even then they changed everything about them but their name and basic designs. They're using popular characters to gain viewers while shitting all over the characters themselves. I'm just so tired of every popular piece of media being perverted and twisted just because of brand recognition. MAKE NEW CHARACTERS!!! YOU ALREADY BASICALLY DID JUST CHANGE THEIR NAME AND CLOTHES AND NO ONE WOULD EVEN KNOW THEYRE FROM SCOOBY DOO BECAUSE THEIR NAME AND CLOTHES ARE THE ONLY THING THEY KEPT!

[mechatronophilia]

my sick and twisted fantasy: forcibly being taken care of. you see me working much later than i should be, so you take my wrists and push me to the ground and sit on top of me. you rub my shoulders and as the exhaustion creeps into view i start to resist, waffling about how much i appreciate the thought, and you don't have to do this, and that i really am busy. you push my face into the hard wood floor with one hand on the back of my head and explain calmly but sternly that i am not getting up until i fucking relax. then, once i've stopped fussing, you pet my hair and work the knots out of my back until i'm so zombified that you don't even need to hold me down anymore. i'm just your sleepy plaything.

[jesuisnilunnilautre]

listen gorgug is NOT a himbo and it is ONLY because he is NOT BEFFY ENOUGH. he is a SKINNY LITTLE GUY with SURPRISE MUSCLES. he is BUILT like a STRING BEAN. that is NOT himbo stature!!!

[bonefall]

do clan cats have 2 deal w/ Eye Gunk Buildup or r they more dextrous or smthn than normal cats n can just scrape it off

They are considerably more dextrous; I actually imagine they have very small thumbs, like the Kin sprite on the Wiki.

They actually do canonically need a bit of a thumb to do what they already do in the books. In Riverstar's Home, they make a raft with willowbark binding. In TBC, Lionblaze grabs and pins a cat against a tree by the chest-fur. Even just weaving grass for dens requires a pincher grasp.

I've just leaned into it. Their claws are sharper and they have a glorified dewclaw thumb.

Range of motion is still pretty restricted though, simply because it's a fun limitation imo. It's why Clan cats don't really throw things or have slashing weapons; they don't have developed collarbones.

But they're capable of wiping their own eyes, yeah. They can also make some very primitive textiles out of nettle and flax, so a Cleric could give them a hankie.

[generichoneydew]

Have you drawn yourself as a pokemon?

if you have already then draw a random mutual as a pokemon.

Somehow both surprisingly and unsurprisingly no. I have a few pmd ocs, vgc souyo, and a crap ton of doodles of my favorites, but no finley mon :(

Heres some doodle concepts :)

43/52 (Mega?) Ampharos because its the pokemon that I thought of when it comes to similar personality and stats (I would NOT be competitively viable lmao). Leafeon because it was my childhood favorite.

[lautity]

omg how did you guess i think about her.....steps in front of username to cover it. ignore that

edit from after this was written: i am so sorry. i am so so so sorry for this. it's like a whole fic i have no one else to say this to bc no onecares about them HAJKDSAHKSJHD i am . shaking. so sorry. omg. don't hate me

anyway you are so correct ARHJHKS pathetic autistic lesbian who grew up alienated from her peers bc she was "weird" and ppl didn't wanna be friends with her....until zoey came along and actually tolerated her (used her) and turned her into a dog basically.

she'd do anything for zoey....anything..........they are so homoerotic codependent friendship coded. zoey is MOST DEFINITELY in love with hailey but in like a very unhealthy "my feelings for you make me look weak so i need to make you weak by treating you like this" (plus zoey is just a bitch to everyone in general)

and hailey just takes it. bc she admires zoey so much. like she canonically sees her as a mentor. even though they're likely the same age. and yes yes she is in love with zoey because who wouldn't be. who wouldn't fucking fall for the only person who ever like. talked to her. who sings so well and acts so well and controls every room she enters. who has the power over people hailey could only dream to have one day......and also she's SO hot

NOW. THOUGH. it is canon that they have a third roommate. what if i told you it was greenpeace girl herself - harmony jones. (not canon. not even hinted at)

i just think. harmony is soo passionate about the environment. passionate in general. also autistic. good at masking though. but takes no shit. she's the first person zoey can't manipulate or degrade and it SUCKS. she's like 5'10 to me and basically towers over zoey of she's wearing her huge thrifted black boots. and it makes her so flustered and SO angry

and like. it is pretty funny to intimidate hatchetfield's favorite knockoff regina george. zoey passes her in the hallway and actually has to look up to meet harmony's dumb stupid sparkly gorgeous eyes......and harmony just smirks.........and zoey like. regains her composure. tears her eyes away and hisses "get out of my way" and practically sprints to her room. slams the door. and harmony calls after her "sorry princess" and zoey is so angry and flustered she bites a pillow not to scream

hailey and harmony are soo special too. harmony sees hailey, because she's willing to. she likes listening to her ramble. she likes seeing her happy & not constantly hiding herself in fear of being abandoned again. she is soooo down bad for hailey she'd do anything for her.

sounds like a pretty weird roommate dynamic right. WRONG. polyamory beam.

hailey looks at harmony like she carries the stars in her eyes. harmony looks at her the same. zoey is added into this and feels a little out of place. for the FIRST TIME in her life, zoey chambers feels out of place.

hailey and harmony make a huge effort though. because they are also still very much down bad for this bitch.

harmony just has like.....zoey on a leash. a mean lesbian with an even meaner lesbian on a leash. zoey eventually leans into it. her new role of being harmony's pretty princess........

she starts being less cruel to hailey. she's still like a bitch, that's just in her nature, but there's sweetness to it.....she makes an effort to learn stuff about hailey. hobbies and favorite musicals and all that. she learns that hailey can actually be kinda sorta cool (in a lame way) if she's not constantly biting her tongue.

staring at you really hard like a cat. they (you) could never make me hate you zazz haileydilmore.

i am actually really obsessed with 'in love with her, but not as an equal'. princess and handmaid coded. fondness but its buried under so much scorn. you Could tell her. and it'd probably make her more devoted. but she'd already do anything for you, so why give her that leverage?

there's this specific feeling some people (especially like. popular hot girls. lol) give you where they make you feel important. like. just by being around you, by deeming you worth their time, they're calling you special. even if they aren't actually being nice to you. unspoken affection of letting you stay close to them. it's like a really fun addictive feeling and i think hailey is always chasing that from zoey

harmony teaching hailey that she deserves so so much better than how zoey treats her.......i don't think that would be immediate but it would be like. a slow build-up of being less and less comfortable w/ zoey's demands before she finally flat-out refuses to do something. probably with a "you aren't even nice to me, zoey. I don't think you ever have been."

i think....zoey hates seeing harmony and hailey happy together at all it makes her So Mad because she had hailey first. and she's been stolen. by what? being kind??

the Entire Time zoey is ruminating on this harmony and hailey are both trying to kind of invite her in and be like hey we arent mad at you we should probably all talk (The Polyamory Talk™. zoey does not know this i dont think). but zoey is both upset/jealous and maybe a little tiny bit worried that she'll fuck up whatever they have. because she does maybe feel the littlest bit bad about hurting hailey. a little bit. because there is actually something nice about this happier, more confident, more assertive hailey. maybe she feels a miniscule amount of guilt that she was the reason she was miserable for so long.

they do finally ask her out and shes so out of her element waugh......because yeah harmony has her whipped.

+ ur so right zoey is never nice, persay, but harmony definitely dulls some of her edges and she's a lot more able to say things with affection rather than spite. and harmony's reign ushers in clear communication (or else), so when zoey has issues with hailey there is no more passive-aggressive comments that leave her spiralling

ugh i think zoey wld still snap at hailey sometimes and harmony always mediates.....theres something kind of fun about hamony being a protector. maybe zoey feels a little left out sometimes because of this, like she's the third or the spare or the least wanted. not a feeling shes used to! of course they reassure her that this is not true. but maybe she makes a bit more of an effort with her temper, anyways. you understand

[side-b-bumblebi]

Men who view women as their intellectual equals 😍

[astralleywright]

thinking about "murder is okay" still. more than anything i think a lot of people just say shit in meta bc it sounds evocative and vaguely gestures at an actual point

[shslskaterboy]

Fuck it. Two posts in one day bc my personal hc is that Ryuji gets into sports rehab because what happened to him was so shitty and he was never able to get proper care for it, and he wants to make sure no one else has to go through the same thing he did. He wants it to be affordable and accessible bc every kid deserves to get a shot no matter what, and that’s what keeps him inspired and keeps him going through school until he can achieve that goal. His number one goal in life is and always has been helping people, and this is the best way he knows how