#it is all very frustrating

[mrvelocipede]

I spent some time this afternoon in a slightly cold-ish haze, applying stain samples to pieces of wood. Some of the resulting colors may end up on the floorboards, eventually. The weird blue-greens are in there because I want to mix small amounts of them in with some of the browns, to make better shades of brown.

It's absolutely mind-boggling how many different individual components go into building a house. There are obvious materials, like framing lumber and drywall and bricks. (There are so many different kinds of bricks. We got to go to a neat warehouse and look at hundreds of samples of bricks, in many shades of red and orange and brown and yellow and off-white, with and without speckles, spots, textures, kiln-firing marks, and so on and so forth.) But then basically every single visible surface and fixture has to be chosen, and they all have to work together and look reasonably harmonious.

Floorboards. Tile. Faucets. Cabinet doors. Room doors. Doorknobs. Cabinet handles. Sconces and various light fixtures. Window trim moldings. Stair railings. Roof material. Countertop material.

I've learned that kitchen countertops can be made of laminate, like old-school Formica, or else slabs of stone or stone-like materials, and there's very little middle ground in terms of aesthetics or cost. It's either way low-end or way high-end. I mean, there are cheaper and more expensive kinds of stone slabs, but it's all stone, with significant fabrication costs on top of the base material price.

For most of these things, you have to go to showrooms and deal with sales people. And at that point, I begin to run into difficulties.

See, on the internet I get to be the fascinating and mysterious Mr. Velocipede, and talk about whatever projects I've been working on, and post pictures of things I've made. People are willing to think of me as competent, or in some categories an actual expert to some degree, and it's a fairly comfortable persona to inhabit. It's very easy to forget that in the offline world, I'm a very ordinary-looking middle-aged housewife kind of thing. It's not how I think of myself, but it's definitely what I look like to any outside observer.

During the house-building project, I've been constantly, incessantly reminded of why I became Mr. Velocipede in the first place: being a girl in this culture sucks.

I don't actually mind being female (although I often feel like I'm kind of crap at it), but the kinds of assumptions made about you are so fucking insultingly stupid that I've never really figured out how to respond to them. You're supposed to use Pinterest boards and read magazines full of fairy-tale cottages and have a "dream kitchen" that you've been fantasizing about since you got married and stopped fantasizing about your dream wedding.

You're supposed to want to hide all your appliances neatly in tasteful cupboards, so as not to offend guests with your unsightly refrigerator or microwave or washing machine. I've lost count of the number of times I've had to explain to people that I don't want a special board that attaches to my cabinets, to hide the side of the refrigerator. "But you'll see the side of the refrigerator!" they admonish me. "It's not finished the same as the front! It doesn't match the cabinets!"

Yeah, okay, but what if I like having a magnetic surface to stick things on? What if I don't want to spend money on a random unnecessary board that basically dangles from the upper cabinet?

And there is always, always the assumption that you cannot possibly know anything at all about materials and how they work. I got to listen to quite a long speech about how window screens actually block a certain percentage of the light. Did I know that? Well, yes, as a matter of fact I did. That was why I was asking about getting half-screens, instead of ones that cover the entire window.

It turns out that color is a very stressful subject for a lot of people, which I guess I sort of knew, but am now having to cope with more directly. Our architect is all stressed out because I haven't chosen a stain color yet, and I scared him by buying a bunch of sample bottles of weird bright colors of stain. I've been trying to reassure him that I'm very happy to figure out how to mix a custom stain color myself, out of whatever stock colors exist, but this is apparently unheard of.

But I am flat-out refusing to just pick one of the existing stock colors, because they are all too jarringly harsh and simple, and not at all the effect I want. And I can't figure out how to convey the idea that I know how to work with color, I understand that it's going to look different on different kinds of wood, I know what I'm doing, and I'm not going to burst into tears if it doesn't look like some reference photo in a brochure. Those brochures all look awful, and I know I can do better, if only people will stop calling me "little lady" and let me fucking get on with it.

[qoldenskies]

i think its so funny when people take the way donnie acts at face value even though its a horrible lie because he's a horrible liar, while understanding leo is bullshitting very well despite him actually being GOOD at bullshitting. many such cases

[shepscapades]

When I first saw this I was mostly flooded with relatively angsty thoughts, but the more I tried to translate those thoughts realistically onto the page, the sillier and sillier they got =w=

[stompandhollar]

reminding everyone that the in-universe problem with The Doctor and The Master isn’t “ooo horrible nasty enemies who hate each other and don’t get along and fight all the time but are also in love”

the problem is that they get along. the problem is that they can’t stop themselves from falling naturally into a rhythm of riffing off one another and enjoying the other’s company. THAT is the problem. the problem is that it works and that’s the thing that caused all their issues. they like one another. they just click.

[pangur-and-grim]

it is very frustrating that last year I discovered weightlifting and got into the best shape of my life, and thennn broke my leg and lost all my muscle again. I am so impatient to heal and get back to where I was.

[vaguely-concerned]

can you even imagine what a fucking horror show the early game is from spite's perspective, though. not only is this funky forcibly severed little slip of the fade having to deal with the reverse cosmic horror of physical reality as perceived by a spirit and being trapped in it against its will -- existentially confused and disoriented and hurting and nothing makes any kind of sense, at the mercy of human cruelty at its most deliberately sadistic. and then the one source of comfort and compassion and some kind of safety and clarity that lucanis surely must have been to him in the ossuary despite everything just goes and shuts himself in his room inside with a seemingly passive aggressive number of locks between them and no explanation and won't speak to him and they're STILL in the fucking ossuary. rook came and found them and they could be free now (rook is here!) and still lucanis keeps them in the ossuary even though he PROMISED he promised they'd get out of there together!!! what the fuck DO you think at that point? like did he trick me that whole time??? he wasn't like zara before, so why is he doing this to me now? why isn't he saying anything? 'he won't move. I can't reach him'. at least in the ossuary they had a deal, a goal, a hope -- each other. at least he wasn't entirely alone, before.

this poor poor poor little spite spirit really was ferried into the real world like 'hey welcome to reality! as your first introduction to it you're first getting horrifically tortured and then getting to vicariously experience one of THE most distressing and harrowing psychological conditions the human brain can cook up for itself (a fully fledged and deeply entrenched freeze response flaring up with catastrophic severity due to an unbroken ongoing and unlikely to let up any time soon chain of Unfortunately... Recent Events). I think spite is being extremely reasonable and patient about the whole thing, when you put it into perspective. I'm not saying let him eat the self-lighting candles or anything, but he's got some extremely valid points along the way lol. spite is not only child-like, the metaphor work going on is a lot more pleasingly flexible and complex than that, but he is also helplessly existentially dependent on lucanis in a way that, if anything, is a heightened version of the way a child (or child part) has to depend on a parent to navigate the world and survive.

tl;dr: we truly don't give enough sympathy to spite for having to live in the head of lucanis dellamorte. a place even lucanis dellamorte would prefer not to be. to be fair to him I think lucanis would be the first person to agree with this lol

[the-rainbow-of-doom]

(This post was sponsored by a 1+ hour commute)

[humlase]

Sad little eyes in action.

[lilbanili]

I understand that this most was made in good faith, but there's two things I want to address here that I think are big issues on this site

the first is that tumblr the website is a business. people have been so mad about them implementing features to make money, and I understand that. but at the end of the day, tumblr has to operate within the capitalist system just like the rest of us, and the reality is that if you like using this site you're gonna have to be okay with them trying to make enough money to stay afloat. imo things like subscriptions or buying crabs is 10x better than the alternative, which is tumblr putting more and more ads on the site. ads are what turn users into commodities for companies. if we're paying for the site ourself, that means that we're not becoming the product.

the second issue is with the gofundme type posts that float around on this site. I have seen a LOT of these, and I know most of the people reblogging them are just trying to help out. a lot of these posts are real cries for help. a lot of them are not. many, many, many of these posts are genuine scams, and the sad reality is that there's no way to tell them apart. it's not always safe to donate to these or follow the attached links.

tumblr is not a fundraising site. people on here deciding to put their money towards site features rather than fundraising posts is not a failure of tumblr. there are legitimate sites where people can go to get financial help (look at modestneeds, or on reddit r/donations is very popular, others feel free to post more as I am on mobile), but tumblr is not one of them. there's no system here to track legitimacy, and there won't be because that's not the point of the site. I understand the frustration; so many of us are in impoverished situations going through one of the worst worldwide economic crises in living memory. but not every place on the internet is built to address those problems, and I don't think it's reasonable or right to make people feel guilty for wanting to laugh about a silly feature that helps support a site they enjoy using.

i find it funny how like 1 in 10 posts on my dash is a gofundme for a person who is trying to not fucking die but they never get the money they need because the people who have that money only care about stupid fucking CRABS

[yellenasbelova]

2.08 | 3.04

[tubbytarchia]

a Gemtaur thing I didn't like from many months ago

[the-oracle-of-the-lost]

thinking about the effects of Kira being raised in a refugee camp and never (as far as we know) having a formal education never being addressed on the show properly. she's obviously not a scientist or an engineer but her position as first officer still means that she has to supervise all of the engineers and scientists on ds9 to some degree. and as much as the Starfleet characters are uncomfortable with roughing it and the terrorist tactics Kira still needs to use every once in awhile, i think it's a really underrated idea for Kira to be just as uncomfortable with a lot of the high-concept science thrown around between the Starfleet people. she knows all of the practical stuff she needs to – how to repair essential technology, how to fly ships, how to use weaponry – but i could imagine her being really insecure about not fully understanding the underlying concepts the way everyone in Starfleet does.

anyways, i think Jadzia would pick up on Kira's insecurity eventually and would start giving her secret math lessons to get her up to speed so she can join in on all the Science Talk.

[kinkley-love]

Ravi looked over the rest of them.

Chim focused on his phone, no doubt looking at old pictures again. Ones where their family was still whole.

Eddie was talking quietly with Hen, something about trying to get a playdate together before he and Chris headed to El Paso.

They were just waiting on Buck.

Buck, who had texted them in a since-silent group chat, asking them all to meet on their off day.

No one had responded beyond liking the message, but they all were here. All except Buck.

It wasn't like him to be late, but under the circumstances, no one was complaining. Or, at least, Ravi wasn't complaining. Eddie had pulled out his phone, and Ravi caught the tail end of a snide remark about having limited time back in LA. Hen made a face, but didn't argue.

Ravi wished he had heard more, so he knew better what to say in response. Maybe something like, Where else do you want to be? Are we not enough for you?

He looked up at the sound of intentional scuffing, someone making sure their footsteps were heard.

That also wasn't like Buck. He'd call out a greeting, or run up before they could notice and drape himself over whoever was closest. Or, at least, he used to. Ravi didn't know what this subdued version of Buck would do. Scuff his feet, apparently.

Except it wasn't Buck. It was Tommy.

Ravi could tell he wasn't the only one surprised.

Tommy hadn't been on the group chat.

Chimney set his phone down as Tommy sat. "Is Buck parking or something?"

Tommy shook his head. "Evan's not coming."

Eddie rolled his eyes and leaned forward, almost as if he was trying to make himself bigger.. "Oh, so, he texts us that it's so important we show up, but he can't even bother?"

Tommy stared him down until Eddie sat back.

"No. I texted you. I used his phone because otherwise, I didn't think you would come."

Ravi couldn't argue that.

"And I needed you here, because this all?" He gestured to all of them. "This has to stop."

[rattsin]

Fury made Alanna gasp for breath. How could anyone get well in a menagerie? How could Jonathan breathe? This went against all the commonsense rules Maude had taught her for healing: clean air, quiet, absolute cleanliness, calm and reassuring voices. Didn't these people know anything?

[izzyatchi]

HAPPY 19TH BIRTHDAY TO MOTHER 3!!!!!!!

i got kinda emotional while finishing this, I got into the game a year ago and then started posting mother art on Tumblr back in June. A truly beautiful game I played that led to me finding so many sweet people in my life :') i'll never forget it. Thank you Itoi!

close ups under the cut