#hilary b. price

[smashpages]

Hilary B. Price wins the 2023 Reuben Award

Jay Stephens, Evan Dahm, Sarah Andersen and more win NCS divisional awards.

[pixeldoodles]

Guys Price Tag and Book’s ship name should be Barnes and Nobles.

[savrenim]

the worst bit about being Super Excited about a new original project is, like. the knowledge that. at best. people aren't going to see it for a year and a half to two years. and that it's really hard to go "hey trust me I'm going to have something so cool in like two years so please stick around now"

[thundersoothers]

spike, the dog (still derogatory)

who: John Price x wife!reader

what: continuation of this fic and this thought about john price being a softie for his wife and the dog you found on the side of the road (y’all LOVEDDDDD this, thank u omg)

word count: 0.9k

“We are not naming the fucking dog Gremlin.”

“Pooh Bear.” 

“No.” 

You and John are sitting in the living room, staring at the dog you picked up from the side of the road a few days ago, trying to come up with a name for him.  

Convincing your husband to let you keep the dog was a challenge.  It felt like you were debating with judge, jury, and executioner.  Stakes were high.  He was sitting across from you at the dining room table, leaning back in his chair, arms crossed.  His eyes were narrowed at you and his face was expressionless, giving nothing away as you plead your case. 

Somehow, you won. 

So now, here you both are, brainstorming names to replace “Puppy”.  You’re holding the dog in your arms on the couch and John is sitting across from you in his chair. 

“And where the hell did you come up with these names?” 

“I have a list.” 

“You have a list?” 

“I have a list,” you say, “of dog names and baby names.  Every girl does.” 

And then, for just a second, the room stills. 

“Baby names?” John asks. 

A shiver runs up the bottom of your spine and you sit up a little straighter.  You feel the air buzz and John’s heavy gaze on you. 

“Yeah,” you say, glancing at John and then back at the dog in your lap.  “But—Pooh Bear?” 

After a long second, he says, “No.”

“Georgie Banks.” 

“The actress?” 

“Wha— no, fucker, Georgie Banks from Mary Poppins.” 

“… I’ll consider it.  What else.” 

“Ja’Marcus.” 

“My love,” he says, leaning forward to put his elbows on his knees and clasp his hands together, looking at you seriously.  “What the fuck are you talking about.  It’s a dog.” 

“Tra’davious.” 

“I’m making a list,” he scoffs, sitting back again.  “Jesus.” 

“It’s a nice name!” you exclaim.  “What are you gonna name him, Scout?” 

He looks at you.  

You look at him. 

“No.”  Your face drops and you almost shudder.  “No, John, that’s not even funny.” 

“Oreo?”  The corner of his mouth twitches but he quickly steels himself. 

“Stop.”  You hold the dog close to your chest, horrified. 

“Rocky?” 

“No!” 

“Buddy?” 

“John.” 

“We could just call him Puppy.” 

“What is this, Bird Box?  When Sandra Bullock named her kids Boy and Girl?  We can’t just name the dog Dog.  We would sound like neglectful parents.” 

“Your friend has a dog named Cat,” John says. 

“And that gets confusing because she just got a cat.  I think she’ll have to rename Cat.  And by Cat I mean the dog.  Jesus,” you mutter, shaking your head, eyebrows furrowed.  What a mess that would be. 

“We could name him after your team…?” you say, the idea popping into your head.  Then, you frown.  “I’m not calling him Kyle, though.  That’s too human.  Ghost?  He is—you know.”  You rub over the dog’s mangey back gently.  “A little ghastly, still.” 

“Riley?” 

“Who’s Riley?” 

“No one.”

You eye him.  “Must be one of your other wives…” 

He ignores you.  “It would inflate their egos too much.  They’re already insufferable enough.  And,” he adds, “they don’t need another reason to suck up to you.” 

“They don’t suck up to me,” you say. 

“Sweetheart,” he says.  “They suck up to you.” 

“A pun with Price?  Uhhhh… High?  Low?  Buy one get one?  Bogo?”  You hold up the dog, as if to present him.  “Bogo Price, son of Mr. and Mrs. John Price?” 

“You think you’re funny,” John says. 

“I think I’m hilarious.” 

“How about Mackie?  For Mack?  Soap’ld love that–Scottish for ‘my son’.” 

“… I’ll consider it.” 

“You did find him near Notting Hill.  Maybe Notting?” 

You shudder.  “No.” 

“Why not?” 

“Knotting.  It’s a—I’ll explain it to you later.”  

(By later you mean never.  Explaining A/B/O to your husband who doesn’t have any social media?  And has never heard of the website Ao3?  He’d have an aneurysm and then wonder why you know about it.  And you cannot have that conversation.) 

“What are the characters from Notting Hill again?” he says, scratching his chin. He needs to shave—well. You need to shave him, rather. “We just watched it.  William Thacker, Anna Scott, uh, her shit husband, what’s his name—“ 

“Jeff King.” 

“Jeff King, yeah.  King, maybe?” 

“Look at him, John.”  You turn the dog to face him.  He wiggles in your hands and yips, his tongue falling out of his mouth.  “He’s not a King.” 

He sighs and shakes his head.  “He’s not a King.” 

“What about William’s weird roommate?  Uh, Spike?” 

“Spike,” John repeats slowly. 

You nod.  “Spike.” 

You both focus on the dog. 

“I like Spike,” you say. 

“I like Spike, too.” 

You hum, considering this.  “Spike…”  You narrow your eyes and study the dog closely, holding him tighter in your hands. 

He yawns with a high-pitched whine and then hacks.  

“Jesus,” John mutters, shaking his head. 

“Better than Georgie, Banks, or Mackie?” 

“Yeah,” John says, “look at ‘im.  He’s a Spike.” 

“He’s such a Spike,” you muse.  “He’s gonna be huge, too.  I mean, look at his ears and paws–they’re already too big for him.  Shit, he’s probably gonna be 70 pounds or 30 kilos.” 

“We need to train him.” 

“Yeah.  I can hire a trainer?  Find one online.” 

“I could get a trainer from base.” 

“I do NOT want an army dog.” 

“It wouldn’t be an army dog.  It would be a dog trained by the army.” 

You eye him.  “John.” 

“Love.” 

You sigh.  “Fine.”

“Good girl.”

note: prob gonna make wife!reader and spike a universe/series bc i loveeeee them. I hope you enjoy!!!!

posted 01.02.2025.

do not repost or modify any of my original words on any other platform.

to masterlist.

[mikansei]

Ohh this articulates so well a thought I've had about regional/temporal/subcultural etc. details like this in fic!

It's hard to recall specific instances - when done well, it blends seamlessly and doesn't stick out. I'm always trying to achieve this in my fics while also tempering my need to describe everything in excruciating detail, lol. Paring away the result of an hours-long research binge like gently peeling an apple...

(Wikipedia's blue links are dangerous stuff 😭 like a gacha except the prize is learning trivial shit about everything under the sun for free)

When done well it's a great way to ground a character within their own world and humanize them, rather than just pasting a reference like a sticky note on top the narrative. One way to do it is to get less specific - per the example, not naming Naruto specifically and generalizing to just "anime," so the reader can mentally fill in whichever series they feel might fit. Still gets the gist across without potentially revealing the author's personal taste in Ao3 reading material, lol.

But making it less specific isn't necessarily the best way, you know? Especially for a character who might reasonably know the specific thing being referenced.

Something I'm currently running up against in my fic: the Visored have lived in the Material World since 1901, and are all at least a little tuned-in to human culture - Rose & Shinji's love of music (despite the slight anachronism of jazz in 1901 lol), everyone's fashion, etc. Rose is more classical-themed (his outfit & Kinshara's conductor's baton), so for actual in-text references I'm sticking to classical music: he complains about Shinji making him play the boring bass part of Pachelbel's Canon in D. (Totally not channeling my former band kid woes here...)

Would it be unfitting to mention him singing something more contemporary? Not necessarily. Does naming a modern song directly in the fic feel like transporting myself back in time to 2003 songfic on FF.net? YES 💀

I don't have like, a solution here, lol. In lieu of specific references that might ring false or forced, I've been trying to focus on the non-specific - the reactions, the feelings, the vibes other characters are getting from Rose as "that one friend of yours who bursts into showtunes at any given opportunity." He is That Guy™ who starts singing in the group call and makes everybody groan, not because he's a bad singer, but because this is the third song he's sung in the past half hour alone. They have been down this road before. A lonely road; the only one that they've ever known--

*I am pulled offstage Vaudeville-cane-style*

Another way to make the setting feel like a lived-in place that the characters actually occupy is inventing things for them to do (or avoid), events for them to take part in (or not) - but the trick is to keep it conversational. If the character's talking about a local festival in their hometown, even in narration, they're probably not describing the whole shebang down to the history of when it was first celebrated. Because they're already familiar with it, you can flex their voice by summarizing what about it would be important to them. Maybe it's "You know, that thing where a noisy crowd makes navigating main street hellish for three days," or "Right, the 'festival' - or as I like to call it, 'an excuse to be publically day-drunk all weekend'."

(Bonus: doing that means you don't have to come up with details, lmao.)

Verisimilitude (long thoughts about writing)

Sometimes I get mailed random books to consider for course adoption. The first one I looked at the other day was so incredibly bad I could not make it past page 12--"oh my god I hate books" bad; "trees were wasted on this!!" bad. And then there's this one. I've made it to page 30-something and I could have told you 20 pages ago that Oliver Twist it would remain, but I am still reading it to read it, and maybe keep it to recommend extracurricularly. (The protagonist Alva is a weeb for American culture, whatever the word is for that, which I think could make for interesting study!) But that's all context to say,

AH YES THE INTERNET RABBIT HOLE OF NARUTO FAN FICTION, HENTAILORD. WE'VE ALL BEEN THERE.

SO...

BLEACH MENTION WHEN????

Based on the style of her screen name, the Naruto porn, and her listening to My Chemical Romance and Linkin Park, this girl is definitely living her teenage life in the mid-00s, in ways that are searingly obvious. Which feels like it should be a massive success in terms of using verisimilitude to pinpoint a particular time and place and, by extension, person. But I don't think it does?

In thinking about why this doesn't work for me as a reader:

1. As a general rule, I tend not to enjoy "fandom" subculture references like this in fiction, because they have never felt true to my experience of fandom, or even my experience of others' experiences of fandom. The specificity is there but not the verisimilitude. Whether this is because of an inability to articulate the breath of life that animates fandom spaces, or a feeling of needing to at least kind of translate it for the uninitiated general audience, I don't know. Not that Alva's narrative goes far enough to merit this discussion; she's just reading Naruto porn for one sentence, but it just doesn't land right for me. (Sidebar, this is probably also why I don't enjoy acafandom or fandom essays that aspire to acafandom; there's usually this attempted, manufactured critical/"objective" distance from the text that often feels performative, or at least the wrong [or less interesting] tool for the job. And even where 'in-group' positionality is addressed, the translation required to make these things legible to the out-group is just--well, not what I want in life, I guess!)

2. I am a great believer in drawing greatly from what you know and feel and all those random thoughts and behaviors and emotions and tics that make life interesting, and giving them to fiction. In fanfic especially, I am a great believer in seeing the author's hands in a text, making the story (and the original canon) unmistakably theirs. But I kind of always want them to be hands that are in the act of giving. By which I mean, I think there's a difference between all these things existing in a story and having been given to a character or a world or a story, and integrated genuinely into them.

Like, all I can think about while reading this book is how the author definitely lived through the mid-00s in a particular and very familiar way. Rather than create a richly immersive world, the details jump out of the page and leave the story behind. They don't feel like they belong to Alva (or perhaps Alva does not feel like a character with the depth to hold them and make them hers). They belong do the author, and to me, and to history, but Alva falls out of the equation. And if this is going to work, I feel like Alva can't fall out of the equation.

3. I was talking to a friend about something similar a few months ago. She was complaining about a historical fiction book she was reading with a book club she leads at the library she works at--how it was clearly very well-researched, but dry as hell. The information was not animated by the story itself. And I compared it to a fanfic I'd (not) read, where the author was very proud of all the research they'd done and how accurate-to-life its setting was. (To be clear, I'm not subtweeting Bleach fandom. Completely different fandom! Also this fanfic was published like 16 years ago.) The fic did bring in lots of specific details about trees and highways and city names--things I knew well, too, because it was set where my sister lives--but rather than be as exciting and, again, rich, as I feel like that familiarity could have been, it all felt dead. Because all these things were described specifically, but not true to how the narrating characters would describe them, or mentally catalogue them, or experience them.

And you might think, well, how would we possibly know how a character thinks about highways? It's not like he's explained this in canon. And I'd say, well, you definitely can. There are probably a lot of different ways a character could plausibly think about highways, depending on the specific shade and flavor of your characterization of them, all equally believable; but it's got to be part of the equation. There are a lot of ways to be right, and you know it when it's wrong. The wrong-est way it can be is for the way they think about highways to not factor into the way those dang highways are being described by them, in their POV.

4. I think about this both as a reader and as a writer--certainly more often as a writer, because I find that level of imagining a character's headspace the VERY best part of the process, and also because I am often concerned I am not doing it, or at least not well, lol. I'm positive I've done all the things I've just talked about not enjoying.

These concerns exist at the level of characterization work in general, but also at that level of, is the wizard behind the green curtain? Are his hands giving? Because while I do write fanfic because "it is fun" and because "this idea interests me," I am also usually writing it to work through deeply personal emotions/experiences. Which again, perhaps selfishly, I support that. But from a craft perspective I don't want it to feel, transparently, like "oh lol this author is going through it."

Moreover, from a relational perspective, I don't want that to be the relationship between me as author and the characters. Because one thing I am ALWAYS writing fanfic to do is to indulge my feelings about how much I am in complete, rapturous love with the characters and worlds in question. I don't want to just place things upon them, like a film or shroud; I want them to be given, integrated, arriving in the text wholly in their bodies and in their minds and entirely theirs. And I mean this for both the emotional arcs and conflicts and the random tics and details. I want them to have been given, and to belong, and to feel completely and inextricably theirs.

So, those are my thoughts about mid-00s Naruto porn!!!

I'd love to hear others' perspectives, as readers or writers or both. Have you had similar reactions, or quite different? Why do you write, and what do you want? What's your template for how you think about characterization, or your writerly relationship to canon/characters?

[diejager]

just thought of something really funny for the monster cod au. what if reader has a small emotional support dog, and reader is just kissing, cuddling and saying “i love you”s to the dog. do you think the animal hybrids would get jealous of the dog bc of their animal instincts?

Cw: jealousy, tell me if I missed any.

You came with a K9, a big Shepherd and collie mix that you took in after you completed you medic training, a little friend you trained and spent your time with. You two were a package deal, the Task Force wouldn’t have you without Milo, and vice versa. You were assured by Laswell that they didn’t mind K9s in the TF, it was a welcome sight to have an actual dog rather than a hybrid or monster. You took it with stride, Milo by your side at all times and they were never bothered by it, how protective he was of you and how much attention you gave him, but you hadn’t expected to see some grow… jealous of Milo.

You watched Soap and König especially turn green with envy, their burning glare shot towards you fury friend when you kissed his nose and praised him for being such a good boy. He truly was, your loyal and affectionate companion that you nurtured since he was a pup, fighting side by side with you when you were on the field. Soap - sweet Johnny - would shift more often, throwing himself at you whenever you were walking Milo. Rather than simply walking a dog, you walked a dog and a werewolf, a jealous and drooling werewolf that kept rubbing his side against yours, panting and growling out words that you didn’t understand. It was hilarious, seeing how jealousy made Johnny act, his tongue lolling out to lick over your cheek, demanding kisses and praises with his wide and gleaming eyes after you gave them to Milo. 

König was as unsubtle about it as Soap was, voicing his envy with nonverbal cues for affection. He would trail behind you, his broad figure so quiet, and tugged at your shirt, mumbling incoherent words until you gave him you attention. He’d stare you down, fluttering his lashes for compliments, whether they were teasing ones or loving ones, he took all and anything you gave him. It was rather… König was less eager than Soap was with praises, but he was more stubborn with it, silent demands and needs for the occasional praise or words of affirmation that you still loved him. 

Ghost and Horangi never showed a sign of discontent about the amount of love you gave Milo, but they did towards Soap and König’s unabashed need for it, some slight disgust and growls, snarling at the other for something you truly didn’t understand. Price and Alejandro were… they found enjoyment in your sticky situation, you caught them throwing you a mean grin when you passed them with either Soap, König or both of them stalking behind you. You remembered them calling Soap and König lost pups with heart eyes.

Then there was Gaz and Rudy, godsends, the gentle but logical figures of the team, they would step in to redirect Soap or König’s attention towards them to let you go about your day. If Johnny followed you around, a big wolf drooling all over the floor, scaring others away, Rudy would send his cadejos to herd the big wolf back. If König became your third shadow, his giant figure looming over you and making everyone hesitant to seek your help when they needed needed it, Gaz was there to offer to cuddle up in the couch and let König run his fingers through his wings. 

Taglist: @craxy-person @crowbird @dead-cipher @iwannabealocalcryptid @iizx7y @mxtokko @capricorn-anon @perfectus-in-morte @sae1kie @yeoldedumbslut @bvxygriimes @distracteddragoness @konigsblog @angelcakes-22 @cassiecasluciluce @ramadiiiisme @ramblingsofachaoticthinker @im-making-an-effort @love-dove-noora @jinxxangel13 @daisychainsinknots @h0n3y-l3m0n05 @mul-pi @danielle143 @beau-min @makayla-666 @urfavsunkissedleo @notspiders @brokenpieces-72 @luvecarson @petwifed @randominstake @heartelysia @jggykhug09090 @cassiecasluciluce @hayleybarnesx @shironasumi @sparky--bunny @bloobewy @call-me-nyxx @sans-chara @infpt-zylith @sweetnanah @aldis-nuts @thigh-o-saur @evolutionarry @kaoyamamegami

[animeomegas]

Indie Otome/Amare Game Recommendation List (A+B)

[this is my list of recommendations for indie amare games starting with letter A+B. Each section provides an overview, a link, my review, and who I'd recommend the game for. Let me know if you play any of them!]

A Faerie's Tale

Overview: Essentially, this game is about a faerie who is forced to interact with humans for the first time. They are pretty clueless about human society, and come across humans good and bad. There are some funny moments, some (purposefully) frustrating ones, and plenty of heart-warming ones. It's ultimately a story about accepting change.

I'd recommend it for someone who wants to feel cosy and vaguely introspective.

Pros: Great MC, I liked the magic aspect a lot, the character art is sweet and evocative. The romances were sweet!

Cons: Couldn't for the life of me get the good ending until I looked up a guide. This could just be a skill issue on my part though.

Price: Free.

Customisation: As far as I remember, you can choose pronouns, skin colour, and two (?) body types.

Length: 58,000 words

My favourite love interest: Silas. I love gentle and serious characters that are crying out for someone to see them and invigorate their lives.

Link

................................................

A Heart of Butterblue

Overview: After her father is murdered, Phebe moves to an isolated farming village in search of her grandfather. She finds him missing and must take care of his farm, while remaining cautious to always be asleep before dark, lest the howling creatures rip her to threads. An extremely surreal and dark mystery + farming sim that is ultimately an evocative tale about what it means to be you.

I'd recommend it for people who want a bit of mystery and some deep story themes. Mind the warnings.

Pros: The art is sets the tone very well. The mystery is intriguing as nothing makes sense at first, but when it clicks, it clicks. One of the romances is actually surprisingly sweet, I liked it a lot. I did tear up at the end.

Cons: Sometimes the farming is a little tedious and I was waiting for something to happen.

Price: Free.

Customisation: None. You play as a fully formed character, Phebe.

Length: I played it in one day, but it was pretty long, several hours at least.

My favourite love interest: Love interests are tied to endings (Good, bad, crack.) I won't spoil it but the good ending romance was very well done.

Link

................................................

A New Don

Overview: Growing up on a rural hog farm, Fia ends up chasing a promise of inheritance from her 'grandfather' to the city. Only to end up inheriting a crime family! This game is frankly hilarious. Essentially, Fia uses her rural practicality to her advantage and wrestles control (and hogs) of a deadly mafia family.

I'd recommend this game for someone who wants to laugh.

Pros: Very charming! From someone with a rural background, I loved that aspect of her character. Avoiding death (and dying) multiple times was fun. I love my giant hog daughter.

Cons: My only complaint is that it isn't a 3 hour long movie, because the dynamic is gold.

Price: Free.

Customisation: You play as a fully formed character called Fia, but you do get to name her giant hog.

Length: 24,000 words.

My favourite love interest: Andino. I love forcing stoic characters to experience emotion. He's funny, in the way that he doesn't know he's funny.

Link

................................................

A Tavern at Night

Overview: Taking shelter in an inn, you strike up conversation with a terrifying mercenary orc. This game is a conversation with the orc, and depending on your choices, there are a few ways it can go, including romance. There is also a sequel, I believe.

I'd recommend this game for someone that doesn't have much time, but does like orcs and flirting with them.

Pros: The conversation feels natural and the blushing sprite is very cute. The vibes and setting made it in my opinion.

Cons: It is VERY short.

Price: Free.

Customisation: Customisable pronouns.

Length: Very short.

My favourite love interest: N/A

Link

................................................

Adventures in Clairune

Overview: A medieval fantasy romance, where you must keep your name a secret. Essentially, you get to know one of the three love interests and uncover their backstories. The romances are very cute, and I all the love interests have something they makes them worth playing.

I'd recommend this for someone who loves character driven romances, and likes their characters with a bit of tragic backstory.

Pros: Lovely art! Some great role reversal style vibes, omega energy. I am a sucker for good backstories.

Cons: Sometimes it felt a bit short for the level of character development happening, but it's not difficult to suspend disbelief.

Price: Free.

Customisation: Customisable pronouns and name. You'll also need a nickname for this game!

Length: 28,000 words.

My favourite love interest: Clover. He's another gentle, workaholic, who needs to be shown a good time. I love those. Jin is a close second though! His story was heart-breaking, but I loved the resolution. But honestly, I enjoyed all of the characters and their backstories!! This is a game where I felt like they were all very omega coded 👀

Link

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Ballads at Midnight

Overview: A bard is exiled to a vampire's mansion as a long winded form of execution, but the vampire is bored, so she has the chance to barter for her freedom with songs. This game has a surprisingly strong mystery element, some great character dynamics and the romance does feel heartfelt. I genuinely felt for the vampire.

I'd recommend this game for someone who likes vampires, and unique twists on enemies to lovers stories. Also anyone who likes putting hot men in peril and anguish.

Pros: The mystery is kind of insane. Everything, and I mean everything, connects at the end of the game and it's very satisfying. There's partial voice acting too!

Cons: The main character is a bard, and I really don't mean to be cruel, but the singing... is not great. Another con is that I got tonsilitis half way through playing it, which is probably not the game's fault, but I can't prove that.

Price: Free.

Customisation: You play as a fully formed character, but you can change her name.

Length: 42,000 words.

My favourite love interest: N/A

Link

................................................

Blooming Panic

Overview: I feel like most people have played this, but it's about an unhappy MC escaping into a fan discord for an obscure webcomic. There are four romance options, and you get to know each of their problems and have very fun voice calls with them. Mostly character driven, with great romance.

I'd recommend this for someone who is really feeling the long distance romance vibe, and likes chaos.

Pros: Great character driven romance, fun dialogue, full (and great) voice acting.

Cons: Sometimes the massive group chats can drag a little.

Price: Free.

Customisation: As far as I remember, pronouns and username are customisable.

Length: 75,000 words.

My favourite love interest: Nightowl, I'm a nightowl girly. Yes, I understand that this is a character flaw, but I stand by my problematic babygirl. Honestly though, I like them all except Quest, who seems nice but is not my type.

Link

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[And that's my list! I recommend then all! Let me know your thoughts if you play any from the list, and look forward to my C + D recommendation list which will come out eventually haha]

[ghirahimbo]

Okay, so I am probably going to get hate for this, but I voted for Trump, and I am shocked at how upset people are about his re-election. As a Republican, we have constant allegations of being racist, homophobic, xenophobic, fascists, against women (the list goes on and on). We have been silenced and abused for over a decade, and yes it hurts. I am genuinely curious how Trump is any of those things listed above, despite there being no evidence shown through his actions, besides clips spread by the left-wing media taken out of context or a joke being blown way out of proportion. (Building a wall to keep millions of people from pouring into our country illegally without any screening not counting as racist). It's clear his personality isn't for everyone. His rhetoric is masculine, he obviously is not sensitive, politically correct, or polished, but despite this, millions of other people from all walks of life support him, including MILLIONS of people from so called marginalized groups. I highly doubt that over half of the people in this country are filled with hatred and violence. If anything, I have felt physically unsafe as a conservative around far leftists. (For example, once at a music camp I heard people say that they would volunteer to shoot conservatives into a ditch like the Naz*s did to the Jews, and everyone was like "YASSS QUEEN.") They thought it was hilarious, but I was terrified. Another thing that I noticed was the only concrete thing Harris really talked about in her campaign was abortion. I think it should be available for incest and rape, (there is also so much you can do before it gets to that point too, unless you're a helpless child, like go to the hospital for plan B) but I find it sick how that was basically the only thing focused on in the Harris campaign. I highly doubt that anything will change as far as "women's rights" since it's up to the states now to decide their abortion laws. It's obvious that many people certainly felt scared during his first term, and I am not denying that racism sexism etc. does exist, but to me, it's evident that the scale of the fear had completely been blown out of proportion. There were no wars, no boys in girls' sports, transgendersism being preached to underaged kids in school, and the prices for everything were better during Trump's first term to name a few things. I certainly felt happier and safer. I was scared of my brother being send overseas for WW3 if Harris was elected, so I am very relived. I don't know your personal beliefs, but why do you think so many people are hysterical about his re-election? I really admire you and your work, so I say this in all respect.

For context, I received this ask a few days after the election, and worked on my response off and on over the next few weeks before dropping it altogether because rehashing it all was putting me in such a bad mood, and then honestly… I forgot about it. Having rediscovered this in my ask box, I figured I might as well post what I’d already written since I really did put some time into it, and then try to wrap it up with some sort of ending. It’s long. Here goes:

Hi! You seem to be reaching out in good faith, so I’ll do my best to respond in kind. There's a problem in this country where people seem to be experiencing two very different versions of reality, and I've been grappling this week with the question of how to break through the cycle of outrage and fear that so many of us are trapped in. Maybe this can be a start to that. 

I can also speak to you from the perspective of someone who grew up conservative and shifted drastically leftward throughout my 20s, and who remembers struggling early on with some of the same things you're struggling with. Particularly, I remember grappling with the accusations that people like me were racist/homophobic/etc. because I didn't feel any such way.

With that being said:

When you speak of feeling unsafe, this is due to beliefs that you hold—and beliefs, while an important factor in determining who somebody is, are subject to change over time on both the small and large scale. If your social or political beliefs eventually shift, you will no longer feel threatened in quite the same way. When marginalized communities describe feeling unsafe, this is due to something intrinsic to their nature, whether that's gender or sexual orientation or the color of their skin. There is no way for them to alter themselves in a way that will make them “acceptable” to those who already hate them for who they are.

This is not to argue in favor of belief-based discrimination or to excuse the kids in music camp—young people exist on both sides of the political spectrum and they’re gonna say shit, and I heard the same or worse from people in my grounds crew in college targeted towards a more liberal population—but it's important to recognize that not all beliefs are created equal. Some are straight up incorrect (flat earth theory), some come as a result of undue influence (cults), and some beliefs are flat out dangerous (white supremacy). Where one person's beliefs interfere with another person's rights is the point where most people start to take issue—and all of that is to say that the beliefs of Donald Trump and his party trample on the rights of marginalized groups and others, and whether you personally align with every one of those beliefs simply doesn’t matter. Whether you personally think of yourself as racist, xenophobic, or anything else, by supporting Trump’s presidency, you signal your acceptance of everything that comes along with it, and those who feel threatened by that support won't care whether your acceptance comes out of ignorance or malice. You're going to face, and have already experienced, a lot of animosity due to your support of those harmful beliefs.

Of course, this is the point where we’re going to have to backtrack because you've already mentioned not understanding how Trump is anything negative other than rough around the edges. As bewildering as that statement is when held up against my own experience, you're not the only person I've seen saying something similar—but then, our country's perception gap (how people from each political party view each other) and the effect of echo chambers and algorithms on the information we're exposed to are both well-studied phenomena at this point. You also stated that Trump's first term as president was fairly positive from your perspective—no wars, a stronger pre-Covid economy, and a general feeling of safety. These two points seem related to me, and I’ll address them together.

I guess first of all, whatever information you've been exposed to thus far, I do want to assure you that Trump has clearly demonstrated the content of his character beyond the need for embellishment or anything pieced together out of context. In fact, the old classic “grab ‘em by the pussy” is made much worse by its context: “I better use some Tic Tacs just in case I start kissing her. You know, I’m automatically attracted to beautiful — I just start kissing them. It’s like a magnet. Just kiss. I don’t even wait. And when you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything. Grab ’em by the pussy. You can do anything.”

I just… simply don't have the energy to pull up all the receipts on Donald Trump of all people, but if you're inclined to do some research, look into all the contractors Trump stiffed in previous construction deals, causing bankruptcies and destroying small businesses in the process. Read up on the scam that was Trump University and the predatory tactics used to sell expensive “courses” specifically to vulnerable people. Consider whose best interest Donald Trump has ever and will ever look out for. All of this was well known (I think?) during the 2016 election, but not enough to keep Trump out of office, which is maybe why it's simultaneously treated as common knowledge and never brought up anymore.

Leading into Trump’s first term, I think it’s fair to assume that neither you nor I are in a demographic that was most obviously affected by the worst of Trump’s acts as president, but I do still remember the Muslim Ban: straightforwardly xenophobic, promised first on the campaign trail and then later put into effect during his presidency despite findings from the Department of Homeland Security itself that people from the seven nations affected by the travel ban posed no increased terrorist risk. It sure did fan the flames of hate among those who were already afraid of our Muslim population, though—and consider that according to an FBI report, hate crimes rose by 20% during Donald Trump’s term as president. Consider the wave of racially motivated harassment and texts spurred by the most recent election and realize that whatever Trump’s own views may be, he has always emboldened and empowered the worst of us. I don't care if Trump is personally racist when his policies and rhetoric directly affect minorities. I don't care if he's homophobic when the politicians he places into power alongside him specifically and explicitly want to dismantle hard-won rights for LGBTQ people.

I remember the nuclear pissing match Donald Trump got into with Kim Jong Un on Twitter, and the fear of World War III that lingered for weeks after—a fear famously memorialized in John Mulaney's “Horse in a Hospital” bit which, if you watch it, might explain exactly how that first Trump presidency felt for many Americans. Did that not seep through to the right wing media? 

More than anything else, I remember the “zero-tolerance” anti-immigration practice that came in the form of the child separation policy—and yes, I remember the wall. The wall that Mexico was going to pay for, though of course only US funds were ever used for its construction. The wall that research from the Department of Defense determined would not prevent a substantial portion of immigration—but it sure did make a handy mobilizing symbol, didn’t it?

The lies. There's just something different about the way Donald Trump lies—something that makes you feel a little crazy. Most of them are just so easily disproven that you wonder how he could possibly get away with it… but then he doubles down, and his rabid fan base believes him without question, and the far right media treats it as fact, and suddenly you have to treat his most ridiculous statements seriously because they have serious, real-world consequences (I think I’ve seen this described recently as “sanewashing”). Donald Trump says with no basis in fact or reality that Haitian immigrants are eating your dogs and cats, and a woman in Springfield calls the cops on her Haitian neighbor because her cat has gone missing.

And then poke around a bit. Look up some facts. Research. You've asked me to help explain why so many people are scared of Trump’s re-election, and I've already put literal hours into this response because I'm hoping it might do an ounce of good and I don't know what else to do… 

In fact, do me a favor: go to the Wikipedia article titled “False or misleading statements by Donald Trump”, really internalize this warning:

…And this is where I lost steam when I was initially writing this response because honestly, there’s an essay that could be written to refute every point you’ve made, and I just can’t do that. Political analysts across the country have tried to take apart and analyze voting demographics and campaign strategies and just about everything else related to the election, to varying levels of success—so I’m just gonna wrap this up with the strong suggestion that you can’t see the racism/xenophobia because it’s coming from inside the house, and a plea to you to recognize why you are being led to fear the “other.” 

Transphobia, for example, is not only written between the lines of your ask but soaking it all the way through. I saw enough political ads leading up to the election to know that “transgender panic” was one of THE issues pushed forward by right wing media (right alongside immigration), and if you’re pretty young, which I think you are, then you might not realize how much of a recent development this is culturally? Not transphobia in general—not at all—but the panic part. When I was roughly as old as I suspect you are, it was gay panic, and “think of the children,” and the reaction against Proposition 8 and “I don’t care if they’re together, but why do they have to call it marriage?” And before that it was the satanic panic, and woven all through our country’s history is anti-immigration rhetoric against various groups and ethnicities, because demonizing the “other” keeps your focus off the people who are actually, tangibly making your life worse through the corruption and policies they enact that you don’t notice because they’re pointing the finger elsewhere. It's an old song. And I just scrolled up to look at your ask again, saw that you’d written that “it's evident that the scale of the fear has completely been blown out of proportion,” and burst out laughing because that’s what it is! 

And like, I could link you to some sources that I think do a good job of debunking everything that the “trans panic” is built on (there’s an episode of the podcast Maintenance Phase that has some of the best gathered research I’ve found so far), but you probably wouldn’t find it particularly palatable—and that’s part of the problem, isn’t it? 

Anyway, I don’t think I can stomach reading all this through again right now, but I do wish you luck and a happy new year. I hope this response did any good at all, and I hope my fears for the upcoming presidency prove to be overblown. Can’t say I’m feeling too optimistic, though.

Peace ✌️

[tiny-pun]

The Consolation Price

Personal A is a celebrity, who is sick of their agency’s pressure to conform to old values. They could’ve dealt with a lot of it for a lot longer … if they didn’t pressure them with THIS. So when A hears about a ridiculous invitation to someone’s graduation/birthday/ plus one at someone’s wedding… they spontaneously agree.

“It’s not like I can break a promise like that to a fan, now can I? That’s so rude and the event is at the end of this week.” Is what they tell the agency of course.

Person B, in sight of their graduation/birthday/a friends wedding just want to wallow for a night in their singleness. Of course their best friend helps them … by getting super drunk with them. At the height of the night, their friend suggests messaging different companies or even celebrities, cause

“What’s the worst that can happen? They don’t answer ! But at best they show up and it will be fun! And most likely you’ll get a consolation price like a free signed picture or some free candy!”

And thus they do so. Crafting these ridiculous messages is insanely hilarious for two drunken and lonely people with a bit too much wine. Wondering what the poor social media intern has to deal with when opening such a message or even picturing the face of the various celebrities when reading such a ridiculous text. Especially when it’s clearly written by someone drunk, considering they have nothing but a serious and kind reputation, dealing with the poshest of posh people on a daily basis.

Of course the next day it’s all but forgotten …

Until a couple days prior to the event they receive a bunch of rejections, consolation prices …. And the RSVP by THE celebrity crush of theirs. What the fuck.?!?!

[smashpages]

The Reuben Award: NCS announces nominees for Cartoonist of the Year

The winner will be revealed in September.

[hopeymchope]

Oh GOD the fiendish David Zaslav is rebooting Harry Potter with a new "extremely faithful" adaption of the seven books. J.K. TERFling is heavily involved, she's executive producing, and they've made a TEN-YEAR COMMITMENT already.

Five Rapid-Fire Thoughts I Had in Reaction to This News:

Fuck Zaslav. (Btw, did I mention that — after deleting half of HBO Max's original content — Zaslav has now announced a price hike to the newly christened "MAX" service? As if giving a shitload of money to the planet's most notable TERF wasn't enough fuckery. FUCK that fucking shitheel.)

See below.

3. All y'all who were like "Boycott Hogwart's Legacy or You're Automatically a Terrible Person" or whatever because Rowling was going to make like a 1% royalty off of that game had GODDAMN BETTER boycott HBO MAX (....uh, sorry, it's just "MAX" now, I keep forgetting bc that name sucks — "HBO MAX" wasn't all that good a name to begin with IMO, but now it's worse) from here on out. YES, I know it's harder to boycott an entire streaming service that may contain OTHER content you want, but c'mon now, just bootleg anything you want off MAX in the future. (I'll help! I will send you a link or whatever if you need assistance. Message me. It's cool.) Because this is going to make her SO MUCH MORE MONEY due to involving her FAR MORE DIRECTLY. FUCK. WHY. Why did they fucking do this.

4. There are so many things in the books that are either A) poorly explained workarounds for continuity/logic issues or B) extremely problematic that the movies were actually BETTER for ignoring them. Can't wait to see the scene where every single known Time-Turner gets accidentally broken shortly after Prisoner of Azkaban in order to ensure the characters can never use time travel to fix their problems again! SUPER excited for the plotline where Hermione has to learn that she's silly and wrong for trying to free slaves because the slaves are fucking happier being enslaved! OH BOY!

5. God, a ten-year production commitment UP FRONT. I hope they lose so much money on this stupid-ass project that they wind up dragging their feet to produce future seasons for so long that the contract runs out before they've gotten farther than like, the third novel, and then it just dies on the vine. Would be HILARIOUS.

[annakie]

FIXING THE HOUSE - PART FOURTEEN (B) - THE TRUE FINAL CHAPTER!

Copper Green

Part One: I Do Not, In Fact, Have the Power

Part Two: Let’s Spend Lots of Money!

Part Three: All These Things That I’ve Done

Part Four: I Really Want to Stay At My House

A little interlude.

Part Five: Power Down

Part Six: You Will Leave Some Paint

Part Seven: Backwards to go Forwards

Part Eight: Master of Bathrooms

Part Nine: Within a Room, Somewhere

Part Ten: Rooms With No View

Part Eleven: Big Bang Room Part A and also Part B!

Part Twelve: We Can Make It On the Outside

Part Thirteen: Mauve Haze Symphony

Part Fourteen (A) - In the Kitchen

Part Fourteen (B) - Copper Green (YOU ARE FINALLY HERE!!)

Guys, we've arrived.

I can't believe this is the last Fixing the House post. Well, unless I find some other major thing to fix? But I SURE HOPE NOT. I don't have the money for that. :p

Y'all... I wasn't going to touch the kitchen. I really wasn't. I mean, I needed to get it rewired with the entire house. And it definitely had its quirks like we talked about at the end of the last post but it was... okay. It had the 2009 facelift and there were certainly bigger problems in the house. The "new" countertop and sink were holding up well 15 years later, still looked quite good! And OKAY we needed to replace the floor along with all the other new flooring Arturo put in, it's all one big room pretty much and there was a little water damage around the sink and fridge, but it wasn't terrible.

Well. Then... things happened.

Honestly, the first thing that happened was the flooring, like I talked about. I'd written out a priority list and there were a couple of "nice to have" things in the kitchen but they all ranked low. But the thing was, there had been one thing in the kitchen I really wanted, but looking at my budget, after asking Arturo the price of the floor vs the price of the thing I wanted... I went with the floors.

What I really wanted though was new cabinet doors and drawers.

I'd just said in the previous post (and tbh I added it a few minutes after posting, in case you read the previous post right after I posted it) that the bottom cabinet doors would just open on their own all the time. Annoying. And the drawers kept falling off the tracks, and one drawer had fallen apart and so was wasted space.

So I didn't even want new cabinets, JUST the doors and drawers, maybe something more modern than the cheap and obviously 60's doors that were there. I think the layout of the kitchen is as good as it could get without like HUGE fixes.

(And hilariously - and putting this out there first that we did not do this, - Arturo had A PLAN of what he really wanted to do. He VERY MUCH wants to tear out that entire wall with the oven and pantry, and put in a HUGE island. We'd have to do a post or two for support. I pointed out that I'd lose the pantry, and a couple of days later he came back with a plan to move the pantry to the side closer to the door, and also to raise the dropped ceiling by re-routing the air ducts located there, which is the reason for the lower ceiling in the kitchen anyway. If ever in the future there is an update to this series of posts... that's probably going to be why. But no, we didn't do that. I'm thinking about it for some day when I get a financial windfall though :p )

But... yeah. Looking at the budget, the floor was in worse shape, more practical, more economical.

Then, when I'd made peace in my heart that we were just not going to really touch the Okay Kitchen much, two things happened.

First, my mom called one night to discuss how things were going. We had a good long talk and near the end she asked about the kitchen. I told her that I had thought about the cabinets and had Arturo price it for me, and it would be about the same as the floor, so I'd chosen the floor. "Do both," mom said. "There's money if you need it. I know you're good for it."

Not wanting to take a loan from my parents, I told her thank you and I'd think about it.

And then right about the same time, Arturo told me how his brother, who was also a contractor, had, a couple of years ago, renovated a hotel. In one part of the hotel they'd put in this granite, and then the hotel owner decided a few days later he didn't like that granite and told Arturo's brother to get rid of it and bought some new countertop.

Instead of throwing it away, Arturo's brother stored that basically new granite in Arturo's backyard. Where it had sat since then.

Both Arturo's wife and the city (or maybe HOA?) were telling him he had to get rid of it. He showed me a picture of it. The picture was taken at night and kind of grainy so I wasn't sure about it.

So he brought me a sample the next day, just a like 1' wide piece.

It was black and kind of coppery in person and I fell in love almost instantly. I put the shittiest picture he sent me up there on purpose.

"Well," I asked. "How much?" Granite was a pipe dream, after all. I hadn't ever seriously dared to dream about ever having granite. I mean, really. GRANITE? In this house? Not possible.

"Oh," Arturo replied "you can just have it. You'll have to pay my regular countertop guy for the install but that should only be like, $500."

My jaw practically dropped open. What the fuck. Granite didn't belong in this house. And now I could have it?!? For FREE!?!

I was almost in tears when I told Arturo yes, and thanked him like a thousand times.

That night I called my mom, told her what Arturo said, and asked for that loan.

I mean, hell, I couldn't get granite countertops without getting the cabinets done, right?

---

It wasn't just the doors. When I decided to do this, it triggered something else. I just needed to do the kitchen right this time. It was okay now. But it could be even better, and mom agreed. I was at this point invested in making sure the whole house had all the shitty things fixed. I could have the best kitchen a reasonable budget could give me. I was getting granite countertops and new cabinets and I needed to bring a few more things up to that quality.

Look, I haven't posted many pics yet, so let's start with these. They're kinda like one I posted from 2009! But these instead have Fry checking things out. I guess technically these pics come after the next one because this was countertop day, ah well.

What you can see in these pictures is that the drawers would be on secure tracks along the side instead of one track hanging overhead, that was easy to drop off of.

I made the decision that the backsplash had to get upgraded. That wasn't an easy decision but as much as I loved the copper tiles... they were losing their luster and needed to go.

I didn't want to entirely lose the "old copper" though. I did look into what a new range hood would cost and decided the old one was just fine, thank you, let's keep that and the lazy susan in the pantry as the cool reminders of the kitchen's roots.

I asked Arturo for more outlets there in that pic above by the fridge. New lighting above the sink, wired in and not taking up a precious outlet.

A week or so later, just a day or two after the new floors were in, there was a knock on the door and a whole crew of 20-something guys streamed in. I had no idea it took a village to replace a small kitchen's worth of doors and drawers, but everything had been made.

I stayed out of their way and let them do their thing all afternoon.

Throughout the day the old doors came off, and the naked new doors went in. It was honestly a bit bittersweet, seeing the old doors get stacked up to probably be discarded. They took them, though. Maybe they resold them as vintage. I do not care.

At the end of that day, the kitchen looked like this:

One drawer and that end cabinet needed refitting, and the drawers on the other side, but holy crap, look, I have Shaker-Style cabinets! Not painted yet, no handles or knobs yet, but they had... hinges with springs??!!? They aren't super fancy, no soft-close or anything but the drawers... I mean they stayed on their tracks?? Didn't just fall open!? AND YOU CAN OPEN THEM ALL THE WAY AND GET TO WHAT'S IN BACK?

(Sidenote: Remember how said the old cabinet doors came open on their own all the time? Turns out I was wrong. The night after these went in Pemily started crying LOUDLY in the kitchen when... it turns out she couldn't open these cabinets. Yeah, the old doors didn't have springs in the hinges and SHE was the one opening them all the time, she just hates closed doors! She can't get these open, the springed hinges make them too heavy for her. It took several days for her to stop crying about it. I would show her what's inside sometimes to calm her down.)

---

Arturo said he should have told me before the cabinet guys showed up to empty the kitchen, so I made their lives harder by not having that done, so I got started on that ASAP that night.

That was was RIGHT after we got the dining room furniture put back in the dining room. Got most of the boxes from the Office/DR unpacked (not the green china cabinet, as you can see below) and put away and immediately the DR looked like this.

I also took the opportunity to do a big purge of the kitchen. That huge box in the front left became where I put all the cookware, dishware and utensils that I no longer wanted. I threw out like five trash bags of expired food but mostly expired cleaning products and misc kitchen things that I no longer wanted but weren't good enough for giveaway.

A lot of the things put in that box or thrown out once belonged to my grandparents, a lot of that red and green pattern dishware from that previous post's picture. I just didn't use most of it and had gotten stuff that was more to my taste.

I called my parents and for some reason felt like I needed permission to get rid of it. They granted it, absolving any guilt I had. I just was tired of having crammed cabinets. It was time to make hard choices. I ended up giving that box of stuff to my across the street neighbors. They have yard sales often and so knowing the stuff probably got sold to someone else and is still in use somewhere feels better than knowing it went directly in the trash. I had planned to donate it to Goodwill or something but honestly my neighbor benefiting from it with no more effort from me felt just fine, thanks!

Around this time, another box arrived, something I'd shopped many hours for and had mostly bought with accumulated points on my credit card. I was so excited, it was one of my favorite things I'd bought.

Here's a preview.

We'll get back to it, though.

---

There was a bit of drama with the granite countertop install. Arturo's normal guys decided to try and charge me double of what they would normally charge for an install this size. They showed up to do the work then told Arturo it'd be $800. Arturo got into a slightly heated argument with them and threw them out of my house. He said they were trying to take advantage of me, and wouldn't let them.

Two days later another pair of guys he worked with, normally his second choice, showed up. They wanted $430. DONE!

Arturo is amazing, y'all. And these guys did an amazing job on the countertop install.

That night when it was in, I stood in the kitchen for, I don't know, twenty minutes or so like crying with joy just repeatedly wiping down and running my fingers over the granite. It was so gorgeous, it was beyond what I imagined I could ever have in my house, when I started with that ancient, yellowed, worn-out countertop 21 years ago.

My kitchen was going to be pretty. It could be something to walk into and say "WOW!" about, instead of me feeling like I had to apologize for.

---

So, backsplash.

I looked at several places online but it was on Amazon that I fell in love. I knew the second I saw it that it was perfect. I ordered the boxes without consulting Arturo, and somehow managed to buy the exact right number.

I knew pretty early on what color I wanted the cabinets. It wouldn't be a gigantic change, but I was sure the second I saw it that it was perfect. I wanted classic Americana. I wanted the perfect compliment to the star of the show in the kitchen.

I wanted Sage. Just the sage that was simply called Sage in the Sherwin-Williams Swatch Book. I considered other sages, but no. The classic Sage was perfect.

The final cabinet fitting with the Cabinet Crew happened a week or so after the first. It was really not fun being without a fully functional kitchen for like two weeks but I lived through the inconvenience, I could always microwave or crock pot even on the most inconvenient days. After they were done, Arturo took all the doors and drawers back off. They were all painted in one day in the backyard thanks to spray-pump technology. It took me DAYS to do it the first time in 2004! And look at this, it wasn't much past noon when I took the above pic!

I was even more certain that I made the right color choice as soon as I saw the final product.

It took a day for the cabinets themselves to get painted.

Around then we also started talking wall colors for the kitchen and pantry. I knew the pantry shelves would also be sage, and the pantry door. But the walls...

Something in me said no to green walls. Too much green. Something in me said... go bold.

The backsplash had arrived recently and there was a bit in the backsplash that I really loved, and I was like... would this be crazy? Should the rest of the walls pull out this color?? The color was a very dark brown. Like, a coppery brown. Dark brown walls. Is it insane? Janarie (Arturo's main painter) and my mom both sounded very unconvinced when I discussed it with them. I was split between two browns, and I brought my idea to Arturo, and he said that he actually had a practically new gallon of one of those colors, Black Bean, from his previous job, so we wouldn't even have to buy that paint. Hell yeah.

The doors got put on as soon as the cabinets were dry a day or so later. The backsplash went on that same day, Arturo and his guys stayed late to get the backsplash on so the grout could dry overnight.

The grout... I'd picked a brown, matching Black Bean almost exactly. Pulling it together even more.

When the backsplash was on, Arturo confessed that he thought maybe after seeing it on the walls that Black Bean was going to be too dark with the backsplash and brown grout. We talked about instead painting the walls an offwhite.

The pantry was small and would look even smaller and TOO dark if it were done in Black Bean, we'd both agreed on that. So I got the Sherwin Williams website to tell me what shade of white went well with Sage. It gave me Heron White, so we got a gallon of that, thinking we'd probably do all the walls that color at that point. The pantry walls got done that day and I asked Janarie to hold off starting on the kitchen walls until Arturo and I could talk about it, she painted the shelves sage instead. The Heron White looked more off-white-y on the website than in person and I was like... I do not want pure white walls in my kitchen. I just don't.

So when Arturo got there we decided to go ahead with the Black Bean plan after all, and hey, it's just paint and if we hated it, we do another color.

We did the small wall where the lightswitch is by the microwave first.

And it looked fucking awesome.

Arturo and Janarie quickly painted all of the walls in the kitchen Black Bean. I started a new little project at the end of the day and got all my real copper bottom cookware all polished. I'd bought a used 1960's set of Revere Ware, from when it had pure copper bottoms from Ebay a few years ago. It was an economical way to get some quality copper cookware and I'm very happy with it, though the handles sometimes need repairs.

That night i screwed new (copper colored) hooks into my pots and pans wall, that same wall Dad and I had covered with paneling... and holy shit, look how amazing this looks y'all.

Black Bean and polished copper, an outstanding combination. I love it so much.

We ended up painting the ceiling the Heron white, as it had gotten a bit gnarly with splashes and time, and it looks amazing. That's also done in the above picture.

---

I bought a few more things like perfectly matching sage potholders and dishcloths (from All Clad, sure why not? The color is right!)

One more thing to talk about so I can just post another picture -- another small change i had done was had a light put in the pantry. It was always so dark and hard to see in parts of the pantry. No more!

Heron white and sage pantry! I also bought those new copper canisters for fresh coffee grounds always, and another set behind it for flour/sugars/oats.

One thing about the pantry... THE FREAKING DOOR.

We had to replace the ugly door that came off the tracks with a door that fit, and stayed on the tracks, and was pretty.

We got a solid bi-fold door. Arturo put it on and I LOVED IT.

But then I thought the handle was too high. So I asked if we could move the handle. He said no, but we could flip the door over and it would be lower.

So we did that. And then over the next couple of days I realized it made it so the door as opening from the wrong half of the fold and was harder to open in general.

One of the few times I genuinely annoyed Arturo for during the renovations was when I asked him to flip the door back over, lol. But he did it. SORRY ARTURO. You were right and I was WRONG!

Now painted, with pretty new door pull, too!

---

What knobs/cabinet/drawer pulls were like another big area I spent a LOT of time. I shopped around the stores but I wanted things that went together. I found on Amazon an entire set of things that were handles, cup pulls and knobs. Arturo and I talked a lot about what went where and in what configuration but in the end I found exactly what I wanted. I almost made a real dumb decision to get cup pulls for EVERYTHING but Arturo and some pictures I saw where someone else did that talked me out of it.

The color on the knobs on top in particular is a little brighter than I'd like but the style is exactly what I wanted and it's a very tiny thing I can live with.

Okay and KITCHEN LIGHTING is a big thing.

Those stupid, deep recessed wells where the lights were? Arturo went "Yeah we're covering those up and putting in can lights." I tried suggesting putting some dangling pendulum type lights that would reach the bottom of the wells to keep some of the depth of the wells, since the ceiling is so low in the kitchen, but he said that those still wouldn't distribute light well and it would still be dark in the kitchen. He talked me into covering the wells and putting in can lights like the office/dining room.

So I agreed, and he was right.

---

OK here, judge my 2024 food choices.

Or just tell me how great my Sage and Heron White pantry looks. It's a bit better organized now than in this pic.

----

Okay, y'all. Let's finally do some real reveal pics!!!

Guys. GUYS.

The bright lighting.

The Black Bean wall.

The Sage shaker-style cabinet doors.

The Copper knobs, cup pulls and snag-free door handles.

The All-Clad sage potholders.

THE GRANITE COUNTERTOPS.

The new floor.

THE BACKSPLASH. Copper. Hexagons. In three colors of copper, and dark brown grout that lets the copper be the centerpiece. Closeup of that coming soon.

A sliver of the new pantry door.

OH and I didn't even mention... we painted the oven black with a special heat-resistant paint so that it fit in better. Yes, I still have the same oven. It works fine, except for the 50-degrees off thing which is not at all a problem once you know about it. Maybe someday I'll get a new one, but I truly don't need it now and there were a lot of places that needed the investment more. It blends into the kitchen painted black and I'm very happy with it.

Um, I think at some point I mentioned I love copper, right?

I got copper-colored flatware.

But also... look at these drawers that smoothly pull out all the way and stay on their tracks!!!

A closer look at that backsplash and the painted oven. New copper spoon rest. Also the kitchen utensil holder is new. I've gotten rid of most of the black utensils and replaced them with stainless steel since.

It all goes together so well.

Reverse angle!

Oh! One more new thing I forgot to mention I think anywhere (Maybe in the dining room post? Not sure?) is that we also put a new light and switch in over the entryway. I realized that when we took out the old ceiling fan and put in one that didn't have a light, that when I entered the house from the garage I had no immediate access to any light since the lights in the dining room are on the wall opposite the oven. So we took out a very old ADT alarm panel, which came with the house when I bought it and was nothing but an eyesore, put a new lightswitch and single light there for immediate entryway lighting. Brighter and more convenient!

Also the door handle on the door to the garage was VERY weirdly about six inches into the door instead of a normal length. No idea why, but it required a special doorknob that was in bad shape. Since we were replacing all the doorknobs in the house, Arturo had to drill a new doorknob hole and he somehow seamlessly patched the old hole, I don't know how he did it but you can't even see the old hole. Now the doorknob is right where you'd expect it to be.

But here's a picture where you can see I'd shoved a dishtowel in the old hole for insulation before it was patched lol.

-----

Okay, okay so... let's look at the other half of the kitchen. In just a sec.

My entire adult life I have dreamed about a certain thing in my kitchen... well I mean besides granite countertops.

A copper sink.

So I started wondering if I could possibly afford that.

And YEOUCH. They ranged from pricey but... maybe to lol no that's more than I'm spending on the rest of the kitchen two or three times over.

Also I started really reading into what it took to maintain one and was like uhhh... that seems like a lot of work. Maybe not.

And then I saw online this one company... Strictly Sinks? And they did colored stainless steel sinks? And they were... okay definitely not cheap but relatively affordable. And they made copper colored stainless steel sinks. Pretty well reviewed, too.

And... I just absolutely fell in love. With one in particular.

The next day I showed it to Arturo and asked if we could make it work and he was like "Yes we can, and you have to get that sink. It's beautiful."

So I DID IT.

We'd also need a new faucet, and we measured and discussed how high I could go for a new faucet with the cabinet there. I took a chance with one that I absolutely loved.

And it all came together more amazingly than I could have ever hoped for.

Y'all... just... just look at this.

Pemily says Hi, and wants to know if you can open the cabinet doors for her please.

I cannot believe this is my house.

An under-counter farmhouse style sink in the most gorgeous copper color and the easy maintainability of stainless steel.

A faucet that fits with enough clearance under the sink that's tall enough to fill a big pot, and in an absolutely perfect, oil-rubbed bronze color.

I love that you pull down the head of it for a very flexible hose so you can spray ANYWHERE easily. It has three modes of spray. A regular stream, a light circular shower shown above, and a a button to push that turns it into a heavy spray.

And the sink. It's so gorgeous. I'm so happy with EVERYTHING about it. The sink came with the grates to help protect the bottom and keep the bottoms of pots/dishes soaking from getting gunky. If you look at the close-up pic of the stove area there's a beautiful wooden cutting board that the sink also came with that slots right over the sink for easy chopping and scraping right into the garbage disposal.

(Speaking of which, when they took out my old sink they damaged the garbage disposal so Arturo gave me a new one for free he already had laying around. Let's hope this one stays working well.)

The square bowls and drains are so stylish, too. The color is perfect. I'm so happy about it. When people walk into the kitchen the sink is the first thing they notice and ooh over. It's the centerpiece, and it deserves it as much as the granite. The backsplash gets its fair share of attention as well. And the Black Bean really was the right choice for the walls. The lighting situation has improved so much that even with the darker appliances and black countertop, I really thinks everything comes together and balances so well.

Look at the SHINE!

I had the copper containers by the sink already but my favorite drink mixes and snacks go in there for easy access. Also yay, four outlets! Bought a new toaster, too.

And the over-sink lighting is hard wired, bright LED lights that stretch about 2/3rds of the way under the counter. It looks fantastic and so dramatic in the dark as you can see in the first reveal pic above. I keep it on on all day now, it's bright enough that I often don't turn on the overhead lights.

Who knew a kitchen didn't have to be dim and dingy?!

I love it so much y'all. So. Very. Much.

---

But there's been ONE more big change since these pics were taken.

The fridge there... so we painted it black with a thick sticky paint and... I painted it more after that picture and it looked pretty good!

But it had also been making a lot of noise for the last couple of years, getting worse all the time.

It was 21 years old, and very cheap when I bought it. I wasn't sure it was doing its job that well anymore. And it had the "can't open all the way" problem discussed in the previous post.

My parents had visited a few weeks earlier, as had my bro/SIL+ niblings and all had commented on the noise. The fridge was dying y'all and that is one thing you don't want to delay on too long. I'd been delaying awhile.

So I told my mom I was going to delay paying her back for a little while longer and on Black Friday did a lot of research, went to Lowe's and made a decision.

A side-by-side. Whirlpool so hopefully quality (New dishwasher is Whirlpool and doing great after 4 years.)

It's pretty much the smallest full-size side by side there is and i had very specific size requirements.

Verrrrry specific, lol. Honestly this is bad because it's supposed to have more room to vent, so I have it pulled away from the wall a bit more than I would otherwise. This fridge fits in the space., but not by much.

It's beautiful!

And I can stand in front of it and open both doors all the way.

Please feel free to continue judging my food choices.

It is THE last Big Purchase. It's now time for repayment and re-savings.

Well, as soon as I finish getting the generator hooked up. I have the stuff I need, just gotta get the electrician out to do the work.

---

HEY, if you've read all this, thank you so much for reading/liking/commenting! I know it's been a six-month saga for us both! I hope it was fun / entertaining to read, but mostly it was self-indulgent for me.

I honestly hope every one of you get to someday make your living space into what you want it to in a budget-friendly(ish!) way.

And I hope you all find your own Arturos if you want one!

Merry Christmas / Happy Hanukkah / Happy Holidays / Happy New Year y'all! <3

[pikespendragon67]

Pikes Small Fall 2024 Check-in Post!

I technically can still talk with friends but eh why not

IRL: o ye gods i have 2 interviews next week, one in person and one over the phone that may lead to an in person interview. They pay way more than my current job but I fear deceiving my supervisor to go to the in person ones. I'm in the middle of my annual review for my current job though so I think I'll get like. A very small raise and get asked why I've been coming in late for a while now (mainly due to traffic). Hrm.

It’s gonna rain for 2 weeks fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck

In December I'm making up for not walking for my college graduation since I graduated during quarantine! I met Jamieson Price at my brother's graduation back in 2016 since he was announcing so my foolish hope is that he announces for mine. Sadly not a SoCal school so highly unlikely (especially with BS technology nowadays) but a fish can dream.

I also...spent way more than I realized this year so once I replenish enough funds I hope I can stick to a budget that my mom helped formulate. Getting the new jobs will help a bunch in those. Terrible timing since the Switch successor is coming out next year and who knows what guests will arrive at cons I can potentially go to. (Like if Jamieson Price, Akio Otsuka, Kenjiro Tsuda or Junichi Suwabe got invited to a con I might need to sell a kidney or 3). I tried using a Windows 11 laptop and it is somehow much slower than my 2019 laptop. Like. How. It's more recent. So I might need to invest in a tablet (like an iPad) or something instead since those tend to be faster. If it has HDMI ports I'd be set.

Also terrible timing for going on a budget since I want to get the Shunsui blind keychain in stores like GameStop or BoxLunch. I have Ukitake at least. I'd be willing to trade a spare Soifon that I have. Oh, and also Squishables plushies always tempt me as well as physical DVDs/games/manga but I am running out of storage space aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

I want to get back into art but I need a bag to carry my art supplies and hopefully I can sneak in doodles when I run out of tasks at work. I'd draw on weekends but my computer takes up way too much space on my desk.

And I'm in a bit of a music rut, need to find new stuff to listen to. I usually like smooth cadences in things like electroswing, R&B or pop punk rock, but maybe with how hectic the world is becoming I can get into a new genre of music. Maybe folk? Maybe a ska renaissance that I keep hoping to happen in the public attention?

Animu: I just finished rewatching Digimon Adventure (1999)! I rewatched the dub since I'm nostalgic towards it. I recognized more voices than I did in my rewatch from 6th grade wrow. (I forgot Doug Erholz was in the OG series as Joe's brother and MachineSeaDramon). As a kid my favorite was probably TK or Kari but these days I relate way too much to Joe. I think my favorite arc is the Myotismon arc, and I really loved the Piedmon fight. The show really started feeling special after SkullGreymon appeared. It went from regular monster of the week show to something that explored more character depth, like when Sora felt she couldn't use the Crest of Love. Gonna start 02 next week.

I'm about to finish Delico's Nursery (thank GOD) and Moribito so I can finally move onto other stuff to either watch or rewatch. Maybe Big O, maybe ID: Invaded? Who can say. ...Probably after Beastars season 3 comes out.

Pokemon Horizons' next dubbed portion will air in February so I will see who voices Hassel and Larry then put it on hold until another character I like shows up. Unless something plot relevant happens. It's a good show but hhhhhhhh I only have so much time in my days now.

I'm liking Ranma 1/2! Originally I was a bit squicked about the bathing scenes but I really like the character interactions and the over-the-top jokes (like using your brother as a weapon, hilarious)

Tower of God season 2 is...there. Definitely in the gambler's fallacy where I want to finish this and have it be done with. I really miss season 1's animation.

Orb: On the Center of the Earth is a really intriguing drama. I'm hoping it has a scene that makes me think about life like with other dramas that I've enjoyed. It has sparks of it, so only time will tell.

I’m really enjoying Dandadan so far. I might not delve into the fandom side but I’m loving the art direction and the main character bickering. Dare I hope for a Mothman arc?

In my Jojo rewatch I’m 4 episodes away from finishing Battle Tendency. I’m not the biggest fan of Stardust Crusaders though so I’m gonna see if I can watch the OVAs instead

And finally, I'm not sure how many episodes Bleach TYBW part 3 will have but I'm lowkey waiting for when Shunsui's big moment happens. Hopefully it doesn't feel too rushed, as if we do follow the 13 episode structure we'd only have...5 episodes left to finish this. I'm also hoping that the light novels get animated. Or that Kubo makes the rest of the Hell arc an anime exclusive thing.

Videya games: I thought I could switch between Brothership and Dragon Quest 3, but hoo boy do I feel the grind more in 5 minutes of DQ3 than I do 20 in Brothership. Aside from the Luigi A controversy and odd way to do basic jumps/hammer attacks, I'm liking the combat again. Makes me want to go back to play Dream Team more.

I got Webfishing and I made my avatar Ogata. Life is goooooooooood. Also on some weekends I play with some buddies in either Granblue Versus, 100% Orange Juice, and recently we went through the prologue of Paranormasight. I grinded with some other friends in Granblue Relink and man I need to assemble that squad again so I can get Ambrosia.

Oh yeah, an IRL friend helped me start up collecting for Wii again! Meaning I can hopefully get Gamecube games too because while I do have Dolphin and Parsec, I still have trouble opening files, configuring my controller and configuring a memory card. True there's a risk of scratched discs and spending way more than I need to. Hm.

[lunlumo]

I'm looking at group B standings and the calculations are hilarious:

Spain is chilling BUT they have a minor working overtime and there will be a price to pay

Italy doesn't even have to win, the other two have to lose. or draw, either is cool

Croatia must win and pray Albania doesn't become the best team around. in worst case scenario they have to score more than them at least

Albania must win but also Italy must lose. like. they aren't through even if they beat spain. It is vital that Italians fuck up for their strategy

[phoenixfire-thewizardgoddess]

Behold, an exceptionally obscure concept, based on the way Zestial first incited Alastor to dish the gossip.

Okay, so consider this...

a) Lillith and Alastor are friends, but it wasn't widely known except by the higher-tier gossip lovers

b) They got into Some Shit together and ended up both trapped in deals for whatever reason but no one knows that

c) Zestial and possibly a few of the more I Need to Know overlord types assumed that it wasn't just friendship and Lillith was looking for a little Sinner on the Side

Thus when Zestial was making his 'fell to holy arms' quip with that odd little gesture, he was making a tactful jab at the fact that he thinks Lillith and Alastor were an item, Lucifer found out and obliterated him or that they ran off together to who knows where

The theories are so elaborate its almost obscene.

Rosie, who knows full fucking well that's not the truth but just loves to keep her teeth puncturing the jugular of information in the ring, often participated whole-heartedly in the insanity.

Perpetuating rumours she hoped were so scandalous that Alastor would have to come back from wherever he'd disappeared to just to have a meltdown at the ridiculousness of her 'creativity' and continued patronage of the rumour mills

I would honestly love to see this man do his full 180 degree whiplash thing as he walks pask a newspaper/magazine kiosk only to snap about as his brain reads the headline 'Her Majesty's Deerly Beloved: They're on the same Wavelength' or soemthing equally banal.

Rosie's too busy crying with laughter to stop him incinerating the stand and storming off to take out the publisher.

---

Also like, imagine Charlie's reaction to finding out this was her Mum's maybe secret boyfriend, and he's playing like, the Dad card

She's half-convinced its all an act but like... is it though? The thought keeps her awake.

Now imagine LUCIFER HIMSELF arriving to see what he assumes is his wife's 7ft people-eating boytoy smarming it up at the hotel, acting dadly to Charlie and then immediately going for the throat in the Dad-Off

It just seems hilarious to me.

-------

I think the funniest part would be that while Lillith may have noticed and thought it the price of being Queen, Alastor would be oblivious to the whole thing until the news stand incident.

So he's not reacting to any of it, which some assume is just smug confidence/confirmation and others take it as it being untrue.

Chaotic, quirky, cannibalistic! This theory has everything!

[no-goodbyes-no-regrets]

⚠️If you are still fragile about Tommy & Buck, please don't read this.

I just watched 911 Season 8 Confessions episode and Tommy Buck beak up made ZERO sense to me!! 🤷‍♀️ Honestly, did Tommy break up because he was weirded out by Abby & Buck? Or did he get cold feet when Buck asked him to move in? Or was the ghost of Eddie and Abby too much for him? Like couples who basically love each other and have been together don't just break up with one sentence!!! They did have the option of scale back a bit.

Also, Buck had ZERO reaction to Eddie in his underwear and without a moustache. So, are we to assume that it has happened before?! 🤷‍♀️😳

Also, they made Tommy sound a lot older with Josh's pre Glee post Glee comment!

And the priest knew Eddie from his voice? He has no other preoccupation than to peer over people's shoulders to see what others are buying? Also, we know Eddie at some point is going to have a wet dream about that priest.

Anyway, imo it is hilarious how Shannon and Abby keep showing up as ghosts to prevent Eddie and Buck from getting too serious with anyone else. 😂

Btw what do you think of Josh and Tommy? I want Josh to have a good solid romantic partner. And they are both strong personalities and both kinda pedantic. Might be interesting to see if they are THE PERFECT COUPLE because they are SO SORTED. Or are they a complete disaster because they can't agree on anything!

I am still fragile but I'm kind of healing myself with Lou on SWAT (i never thought I'd actually enjoy that show) and Lou's movies and bucktommy fics (bless fic writers in ANY fandom tbh 9/10 times the fics are better than what's on screen)

and yes THANK YOU - see even a buddie shipper (affectionate) thinks that break up made no sense! Like we've had a few weeks to think/obsess over it and I think the general opinion (Lou included) is that it was a) shit writing and b) Tommy got scared because he's been hurt before/ has been left by a guy who he (thought) he really loved because he was 'just' the first and not the last/not the guy to settle down with/not enough. And then there was Buck saying he admired him and making him out to be some gay hero - which he doesn't think he is at all (big beefy man, zero sense of self worth) and he just ran so Buck wouldn't see who he really is and decide he wasn't enough and leave him xx amount of time down the line.

I think Abby was more of a problem for Buck (at first) and Eddie is Tommy's friend too (he was his friend first and his ankles paid the price) so that wasn't a problem either.

Tommy is 40 (according to Tim) and Josh (assuming he's the same age as Bryan) 45 - so the pre/post glee does kind of make sense I guess. Though I would have gone for pre/post Will & Grace - but that's not a Ryan Murphy show and I suppose he just wanted to pat himself on the back there.

And yeah if I showed up at my best friend's place and he was dancing around in his underwear and had suddenly shaved the pornstache he'd been rocking for *mumbles amount of time* I would have at least been a bit surprised. Even if my boyfriend of six months had just broken up with me out of the fucking blue.

And that priest was fucking weird. Like sure he might have recognised Eddie's voice but then to randomly go "ACTUALLY your pornstache is a mask and you won't let yourself have joy because you don't buy juice" dude - what??

As for Josh/Tommy - maybe. In a world where Evan Buckley doesn't exist. Because #TommyLovesEvan (thank you Lou) I think people like Josh with Eddie more really. Since that time Eddie spent at dispatch and they basically had daily (verbal) bitch fights. I can see it - though I don't think show!Eddie is into guys, but fic!Eddie could be.