artistic melody

slowly switching from an everything blog to sideblogs

[sztupy]

Landmark German ruling declares Google's AI Overviews are Google's own words and makes it liable for false answers

A German regional court has ruled that Google is directly liable for the content of its AI search overviews. According to the court, previou

[ayeforscotland]

Let’s fucking go

[made-in-manetheren]

This is HUGE.

1. The court holds Google responsible for statements made by its AI, considering them Google's statements (search engines have limited liability for results in their engine as they're the words of other sites/companies/people), meaning when their AI lies/hallucinates they're liable for the defamation/harm resulting from those statements.

2. Google's defense that customers are generally aware of the lack of reliability and are responsible for fact checking was dismissed. As the court pointed out, that would "significantly diminish" AI Search's stated purpose and it can't be distinguished from Google's business practices/statements as a search tool.

3. Studies have found about 91% of Google's everyday AI responses are accurate, leaving millions of searches per HOUR with potential liability for falsehoods. 56% of correct responses weren't supported by the sources the AI listed. Both of which mean Google is now liable for a LOT more AI "errors."

4. Google was held liable for 80% of court costs in this case and this precedent is expected to reverberate around the world. This is a massive shift from the 3rd-party search provider role Google has previously played and it comes right as they've tied ALL searches to their AI search.

TL;DR Google reeeeeally stepped in it this time.

[lifeafterpsychiatry]

My take is that people who struggle to do good generally do a much better job of it than people who take being a good person for granted and think it's always intuitive

[artisticmedley]

Legit. I was 18 when i realised that the people who tend to say "i just try to be halfway decent" tended to be much sweeter & kinder than people who say "i'm a good person"

And it took me about four years to figure out why.

One group is actively trying to do good; they've accepted they might not succeed but the intent & effort is there.

The other group has unilaterally decided they're a good person. If asked they'll admit they aren't perfect, but if they do something hurtful by accident they can't accept that they did because "only bad people do hurtful things, and i'm not a bad person, i'm a good person, therefore i can't have been hurtful."

[kyleesarthell]

Recollection (1/2

[kyleesarthell]

Recollection (2/2)

[beardedmrbean]

this sounds like a party to me

[beardedmrbean]

they used to let kids have real fun

[afriendofblahaj]

There's an xkcd for that :3

Side note: polonium-210 is a very dangerous isotope, however it "does not pose a radiation hazard when kept outside the body", as the alpha particle it emits have very little penetration power and cannot pierce even the outer layers of dead skin. It has still killed countless people, though, not because of children's rings, but because of tobacco. Polonium latches onto and concentrates in tobacco leaves, leading to heavy smokers being exposed to more radiation than survivors of the Chernobyl disaster.

It's always wild to me seeing comments about different toxins like this on information about random things in the past, but it's never discussed when it comes to cigarettes.

[penumbralwoods]

every time someone realizes they dont have to pick between being a boy or a girl an angel gets its wings btw. and also extremely loud cheering can be heard in the distance from me specifically

[penumbralwoods]

btw if you've ever wondered why i make posts like this and get really obnoxious about nonbinary positivity. this is why

and for all of yall that are still figuring it out or aren't getting the support you deserve:

[xfhsfh]

@this-is-nonbinary-joy

[rederiswrites]

Just watched Adam Conover (of Adam Ruins Everything) make such a solid point that I think we should spread far and wide. Yes, having AI write your emails is lazy, sure, but people love being lazy. We need to really emphasize that sending AI emails (or using AI responses on social media, or publishing AI flyers, or or or) is rude.

It's rude. You're making someone take their time to read something you couldn't bother to write. You're telling them they were so unimportant you couldn't be bothered to actually take the time to say something yourself. And frankly, you're lying about it while you're at it.

It's rude.

[katsdom]

The above is doubly true if the content of the email is something that will be important to the person receiving - especially something that affects them negatively. They see that this thing that affected them so much didn't matter enough to you to write it yourself. I was a bystander to such a thing not long ago and it was just awful.

[fthgurdy]

RUDE!!! that is so very much it.

[becausegoodheroesdeservekidneys]

If I may offer the lecturer's perspective on this idea:

Currently, it's marking season for us in the UK. I have an exam board in four hours, in fact, which is where we all go over every profile of every student on our courses, see what results they've achieved, and work out their "decision" - if all is well, the decision is to let them continue the course, or the final degree grade calculated if they're in final year. If it hasn't gone well, the decision is about whether they get to rework the pieces that failed, resit exams, repeat the whole year, or be required to withdraw.

And, as has been the case for the last two years, the profiles are now littered with plagiarism investigations. Every one of those - every single one - will have come in as an assignment that the lecturer received, and started reading, and then with a sinking feeling thought "This isn't your work." Every one had to go to an academic misconduct hearing. Every one is an enormous draw on time and resources, including the emotional reserves of the lecturer.

And I know that's not the main issue! I know in the grand scheme of things, our feelings aren't the most important part of this equation! But as we're talking about rudeness, let me explain:

Firstly, the work itself. You begin reading, you see it's AI. Contractually, we have to read it anyway, and give feedback on why it's shit, and what makes it bad, and that is absolutely fucking soul destroying. Most students who use AI are doing so because they've managed to train their brains to find reading something boring abhorrent, and they want to skip that part; but a ChatGPT-generated report is bland, vague, and utterly devoid of any passion, insight or personality. In short, it's boring. You simply passed your boredom on to us.

Secondly, regardless of your personal feelings about the assignment, it at least had a purpose. It was there to stretch you, and make you think about the topic so you could learn about it, and to test that learning so we can all make sure you have actually learned what you need to. But the slop you handed in, that I now have to mark? What's the point? Literally what is the fucking point of me marking it? You didn't even write it. None of the feedback I'm obligated to give means anything to you. I'm marking ChatGPT, and it can't read.

Which means, not only is it fucking boring, it's actively pointless. Ask anyone in the world what a boring but pointless obligatory task does to your mood. Imagine that.

Thirdly, the misconduct hearing. Because listen, again, the lecturer's feelings here are, once again, not the main point. Students who cheat like this aren't doing so because life is hunky dory. They're stressed and overwhelmed and struggling, and they think they've found a magic way out, and so being pulled into a misconduct hearing - where the best they can hope for is to have to redo the whole piece for a capped mark, on top of all the rest of the work they have (functionally, a bonus assignment), and the worst is expulsion - is a mental breakdown-inducing experience. That, obviously, is the biggest issue.

But, the lecturers know all that, which means we know what we're triggering if we do report it. I cannot tell you how upsetting it is to receive a slop assignment, realise what it is, and then have to make the call to report it. I know damn well how upsetting that's going to be for you. I know how stressful and painful that's going to be. I know this might mean you're going to be thrown out of university. In some cases, I know it means you will be.

I know I could look the other way to spare you that

And oh, that gets tempting. When things are really bad for you, and I see you struggling, and this is your third strike; fuck me but it's tempting to pretend that I can't tell.

I cannot do that.

Which brings me to number four: the soul-bleachingly fucking horrible ordeal that is the misconduct hearing itself. Most people are non-confrontational; I'm no exception. I also simply do not enjoy a sobbing, panicking student sitting in front of me, telling me about how stressed and scared they are and how they're terrified they're going to fail. But that's how these things go.

Our most recent example is an international Masters student. I don't know the particulars for him; but I do know it's not uncommon in his part of the world for families to go into obscene debt, often to loan sharks, to send their kids to UK universities. Failure means more than just academia for him. Having to sit through him turning white and quietly begging us to give him another chance before he left in tears he tried to hide from us was, obviously, much worse for him than us; but it was honestly traumatic. Even now, two weeks later, I can't get it out of my head. There's nothing we can do; but, I feel guilty anyway. I could have looked the other way.

(It wouldn't have passed anyway. It was terrible. But at least he'd probably be allowed a resit - we're still waiting on the outcome of this one, but he may well be withdrawn)

To bring this back to the point of the post:

I know my feelings aren't really the ones that matter here. I do know that. But, every time a student chooses to use AI to write an assignment, all that is what happens behind the scenes. My job nosedives into being shit. Whether it's reading the boring slop, having to write pointless feedback, or making the upsetting decisions to report it when I know what the consequences will be and then having to deal with the guilt, my job that I love suddenly becomes shit. And that, actually, among the many other things it is, is fucking rude.

[2well2water]

no one cares that you shave your legs because of sensory issues shut the fuck up forever

[2well2water]

really galling amount of people misinterpreting this post so i'd like to clarify. i'm saying that when discussions about patriarchal beauty standards and the way women are heavily shamed and coerced into eschewing their own natural state of being (hairy) are occurring, it is unhelpful (AT BEST) to interrupt and say that the reason YOU remove the hair from your body is because of sensory issues. that's not what we're talking about. stop asking for validation for doing something that society at large wants you to do. stop derailing the conversation because you feel uncomfortable about being made aware that you, for whatever reason it is, adhere to harmful, unfair and ridiculous beauty standards. you're stepping into the middle of an important conversation that needs to be had and making it all about you. shut the fuck up forever.

[2well2water]

also quite frankly i think a lot less people would experience sensory issues if they let their hair grow out so that it isn't bristly and rough and irritating. and i cannot help but wonder why these sensory issues aren't as predominant in men. maybe you're uncomfortable with the hair on your body because you've been taught to be uncomfortable with it. just a thought.

[artisticmedley]

In addition to the part where short bristly hair feels bad:

Your hair is an extension of the nerve. Each hair has a nerve wrapped around the base of it, which is triggered by hair moving. If you are used to having hair and you shave it off (and keep it off), your legs will feel oddly numb for a little while until the nerves sensitise again.

So if you've been shaving, your nerves will be more sensitive and growing your hair out will trigger those nerves a lot more for a little while. Given a little bit of time - couple of weeks, maybe - your nerves will be desensitised and having longer hair likely won't be a sensory problem anymore.

[victusinveritas]

[artisticmedley]

I found the reward needs to be internal, small, and frequent. Oddly enough i was inspired by some guy on some random entrepeneur forum who mas trying to increase his focus, and also (less oddly) by this one tumblr post that was like "you need to let yourself take a mandatory period of basking in the warm glow of your achievement when you finish a task."

But basically,

Internal: "yay!" Thoughts. Let yourself be genuinely pleased. Pause for a moment to let yourself bask in the warm glow of your achievement. I didn't get enough joy out of the reward i chose `cause they usually felt like either a chore or a distraction by the time i got to it.

Small: you aren't spending much time and effort. The other problem with remards for me is they were also often too complicated or effortful or time-consuming.

Frequent: the other problem with rewards for me is there was a huge gap. "if i do 2hr of work on this essay i get a reward" NO! The size of the reward does not match the size of the effort, especially if the reward itself takes effort. It will not work.

What the guy did, was he started with trying to focus on his work before 30 second increments before he got his reward. That was too easy, so he increased it to 2minutes. (Later increasing it to 3, 4, and 5 minute increments.) He used multisensory rewards: he had a violin next to him where he plucked a string, he had a string of ten beads and he would move one along, and once he got to ten beads moved he would eat one (1) choc chip and really savour it. He would also raise is hands in a Y shap and go "yayy!!" and his flatmate would join in when she was nearby.

Anyway. Most of that is too much setup and only works if what you're doing is in one location.

So what i ended up doing for chores and things was to reward myself when i noticed i had started the thing, when i was part-way through it (multiple times for a longer task), and when i finished.

The reward was just noticing, "yay, i [have started | am doing | finished] the thing!]" and a brief pause to flap my hands about it and make damn well sure i was feeling a warm glow of achieving what i wanted to - starting the task, progressing through the task, still progressing through the task, and finishing it.

The thing is, if you are going "ugh i have to do this thing" for an hour then "ugh finally doing this basic fucking thing, fuck`s sake it isn't that hard, should've done it ages ago" kind of thing? That feels bad. You are literally punishing yourself for doing tasks. No fucking wonder you're averse to doing them?

[hyaenidaeful]

can i just

At present, the dominant strand of transfeminism does not promote unity and solidarity. Instead, it has fallen into relying upon toxic and often separationist politics- a crude distortion of the founding ideas of transfeminism. Emi Koyama, author of The Transfeminist Manifesto, was explicit in transfeminisms inclusion of all trans people in its movement. She wrote that transfeminism began primarily for trans women and that "it is also open to other queers, intersex people, trans men, non-trans women, non-trans men and others" (2). Her initial publication of The Transfeminist Manifesto was in the year 2001. Two years later, she revisited it and added the following in the postscript of the 2003 edition "I take full blame for the fact that this manifesto is heavily focused on issues male-to-female transsexual people face, while neglecting unique struggles that female-to-male trans people and other transgender and genderqueer people face" (3). Numerous other transfeminist publications recognise the need for greater solidarity between all trans people and for transfeminism to be explicitly inclusive of all transgender and nonbinary people. Talia Bettcher explained in 2017 that "since trans men are also vulnerable to sexism, transphobia, and the interblending thereof, trans feminism would be ill-advised to exclude them from its purview" (4). [Reference 2: Koyama, Emi. The Transfeminist Manifesto, 2001 & 2003 p. 1] [Reference 3: Koyama, Emi. The Transfeminist Manifesto, 2001 & 2003 p. 10] [Reference 4: Bettcher, Talia, Trans Feminism: Recent Philosophical Developments, 2017, p.2]

"Transandrophobia describes the transphobia primarily experienced by trans men. While trans men do experience an intersection of transphobia and misogyny, they also experience an intersection of transphobia and a hatred of men or masculinity. Arguably, much of what is called transmisogyny for the experiences of trans women is also partially an intersection of transphobia and a hatred of men or masculinity. The ideal word for the concept is sadly marred by disingenuous cis men, but to use 'misandry' here tentatively is not an endorsement of any kind of MRA-style politics, but a convenient shorthand for a kind of hatred of men or masculinity which has a significance in (and only in) the context of transphobia. As alluded to, the term transandrophobia is the most popular term presently for the transphobia primarily experienced by trans men. Earlier terms did include 'transmisandry', which, aside from one academic usage in the context of an intersection of transphobia and racism (5), has not enjoyed much usage due to knee-jerk rejection of the term's suffix. In short, 'misandry' in this solely trans context conveys the transphobia rooted in a hatred of men or masculinity." [Reference 5: Martino, Wayne, Omercajic, Kenan, A trans pedagogy of refusal: interrogating cisgenderism, the limits of antinormativity and trans necropolitics. Pedagogy, Culture & Society. 29, 2021, p.679–694.]

"All trans groups experience a mixture of misogyny, 'misandry' and misandrogyny- the levels of which vary from group to group. Trans women may experience misogyny (such as unwanted sexualisation for being female and trans), however, they may often experience 'misandry' (such as the vitriol some transphobes espouse which accuses trans women of being 'violent males) and misandrogyny (such as transphobic rhetoric which centers around a trans person's appearance being androgynous and thus not easily sortable into male or female categories . This may result in slurs like 'heshe' being used). Trans men, on the other hand, may experience 'misandry' (such as accusations they are going to transition into -'violent men'), misogyny (such as insinuations trans men are being led astray and that they are incapable of thinking for themselves) and a similar kind of misandrogyny trans women may face. Nonbinary people may experience misandrogyny (such as being forcibly put into a male or female category against their wishes, especially in a medical setting), misogyny (such as rhetoric which claims being nonbinary is a social contagion amongst those assigned female at birth) or 'misandry' (such as rhetoric that claims those assigned male at birth who are nonbinary are identifying as such in order to be predatory). In short, every kind of trans person experiences a mix of misogyny, 'misandry' and misandrogyny. It differs from group to group as well as from person to person."

[Excerpts from The Transunitist Manifesto, written by Luke B. 2023.]

[erinmccomics]

Not to brag but my cats are Artists™

[Medium: Claws on rainbow scratchboard]

Remi works with a hesitant, erratic violence, creating a piece as light and fluffy as she is, and signing her work by hole-punching it with her teeth.

Timmy uses bold, strong lines to evoke some kind of powerful event, echoing his powerful presence and loud voice.

Nubbins, truly inspired, creates a high-energy piece that symbolizes the void where his brain should be, surrounded by chaos and mischief.

Kona, a reclusive avante garde artist, refused to work with me around. Only in quiet solitude did she create this haunting, introspective work.

[dwellordream]

“...A lone woman could, if she spun in almost every spare minute of her day, on her own keep a small family clothed in minimum comfort (and we know they did that). Adding a second spinner – even if they were less efficient (like a young girl just learning the craft or an older woman who has lost some dexterity in her hands) could push the household further into the ‘comfort’ margin, and we have to imagine that most of that added textile production would be consumed by the family (because people like having nice clothes!).

At the same time, that rate of production is high enough that a household which found itself bereft of (male) farmers (for instance due to a draft or military mortality) might well be able to patch the temporary hole in the family finances by dropping its textile consumption down to that minimum and selling or trading away the excess, for which there seems to have always been demand. ...Consequently, the line between women spinning for their own household and women spinning for the market often must have been merely a function of the financial situation of the family and the balance of clothing requirements to spinners in the household unit (much the same way agricultural surplus functioned).

Moreover, spinning absolutely dominates production time (again, around 85% of all of the labor-time, a ratio that the spinning wheel and the horizontal loom together don’t really change). This is actually quite handy, in a way, as we’ll see, because spinning (at least with a distaff) could be a mobile activity; a spinner could carry their spindle and distaff with them and set up almost anywhere, making use of small scraps of time here or there.

On the flip side, the labor demands here are high enough prior to the advent of better spinning and weaving technology in the Late Middle Ages (read: the spinning wheel, which is the truly revolutionary labor-saving device here) that most women would be spinning functionally all of the time, a constant background activity begun and carried out whenever they weren’t required to be actively moving around in order to fulfill a very real subsistence need for clothing in climates that humans are not particularly well adapted to naturally. The work of the spinner was every bit as important for maintaining the household as the work of the farmer and frankly students of history ought to see the two jobs as necessary and equal mirrors of each other.

At the same time, just as all farmers were not free, so all spinners were not free. It is abundantly clear that among the many tasks assigned to enslaved women within ancient households. Xenophon lists training the enslaved women of the household in wool-working as one of the duties of a good wife (Xen. Oik. 7.41). ...Columella also emphasizes that the vilica ought to be continually rotating between the spinners, weavers, cooks, cowsheds, pens and sickrooms, making use of the mobility that the distaff offered while her enslaved husband was out in the fields supervising the agricultural labor (of course, as with the bit of Xenophon above, the same sort of behavior would have been expected of the free wife as mistress of her own household).

...Consequently spinning and weaving were tasks that might be shared between both relatively elite women and far poorer and even enslaved women, though we should be sure not to take this too far. Doubtless it was a rather more pleasant experience to be the wealthy woman supervising enslaved or hired hands working wool in a large household than it was to be one of those enslaved women, or the wife of a very poor farmer desperately spinning to keep the farm afloat and the family fed. The poor woman spinner – who spins because she lacks a male wage-earner to support her – is a fixture of late medieval and early modern European society and (as J.S. Lee’s wage data makes clear; spinners were not paid well) must have also had quite a rough time of things.

It is difficult to overstate the importance of household textile production in the shaping of pre-modern gender roles. It infiltrates our language even today; a matrilineal line in a family is sometimes called a ‘distaff line,’ the female half of a male-female gendered pair is sometimes the ‘distaff counterpart’ for the same reason. Women who do not marry are sometimes still called ‘spinsters’ on the assumption that an unmarried woman would have to support herself by spinning and selling yarn (I’m not endorsing these usages, merely noting they exist).

E.W. Barber (Women’s Work, 29-41) suggests that this division of labor, which holds across a wide variety of societies was a product of the demands of the one necessarily gendered task in pre-modern societies: child-rearing. Barber notes that tasks compatible with the demands of keeping track of small children are those which do not require total attention (at least when full proficiency is reached; spinning is not exactly an easy task, but a skilled spinner can very easily spin while watching someone else and talking to a third person), can easily be interrupted, is not dangerous, can be easily moved, but do not require travel far from home; as Barber is quick to note, producing textiles (and spinning in particular) fill all of these requirements perfectly and that “the only other occupation that fits the criteria even half so well is that of preparing the daily food” which of course was also a female-gendered activity in most ancient societies. Barber thus essentially argues that it was the close coincidence of the demands of textile-production and child-rearing which led to the dominant paradigm where this work was ‘women’s work’ as per her title.

(There is some irony that while the men of patriarchal societies of antiquity – which is to say effectively all of the societies of antiquity – tended to see the gendered division of labor as a consequence of male superiority, it is in fact male incapability, particularly the male inability to nurse an infant, which structured the gendered division of labor in pre-modern societies, until the steady march of technology rendered the division itself obsolete. Also, and Barber points this out, citing Judith Brown, we should see this is a question about ability rather than reliance, just as some men did spin, weave and sew (again, often in a commercial capacity), so too did some women farm, gather or hunt. It is only the very rare and quite stupid person who will starve or freeze merely to adhere to gender roles and even then gender roles were often much more plastic in practice than stereotypes make them seem.)

Spinning became a central motif in many societies for ideal womanhood. Of course one foot of the fundament of Greek literature stands on the Odyssey, where Penelope’s defining act of arete is the clever weaving and unweaving of a burial shroud to deceive the suitors, but examples do not stop there. Lucretia, one of the key figures in the Roman legends concerning the foundation of the Republic, is marked out as outstanding among women because, when a group of aristocrats sneak home to try to settle a bet over who has the best wife, she is patiently spinning late into the night (with the enslaved women of her house working around her; often they get translated as ‘maids’ in a bit of bowdlerization. Any time you see ‘maids’ in the translation of a Greek or Roman text referring to household workers, it is usually quite safe to assume they are enslaved women) while the other women are out drinking (Liv. 1.57). This display of virtue causes the prince Sextus Tarquinius to form designs on Lucretia (which, being virtuous, she refuses), setting in motion the chain of crime and vengeance which will overthrow Rome’s monarchy. The purpose of Lucretia’s wool-working in the story is to establish her supreme virtue as the perfect aristocratic wife.

...For myself, I find that students can fairly readily understand the centrality of farming in everyday life in the pre-modern world, but are slower to grasp spinning and weaving (often tacitly assuming that women were effectively idle, or generically ‘homemaking’ in ways that precluded production). And students cannot be faulted for this – they generally aren’t confronted with this reality in classes or in popular culture. ...Even more than farming or blacksmithing, this is an economic and household activity that is rendered invisible in the popular imagination of the past, even as (as you can see from the artwork in this post) it was a dominant visual motif for representing the work of women for centuries.”

- Bret Devereaux, “Clothing, How Did They Make It? Part III: Spin Me Right Round…”

[swords-n-spindles]

If I may tag onto this: it's really astonishing how much spinning you can get done when you do it in tiny increments. When I'm at a medieval market or music festival (back when that was... a thing), I carry my spindle everywhere and just spin a tiny little bit, constantly. Waiting in line for food. Sitting somewhere waiting for the next band to play, in the early morning when nobody's up yet. I can get through 100 gr of fibre in a day like this without consciously dedicating any extended time periods to it (and I'm not the best with a drop spindle). I would imagine that is roughly the way it worked in pre-modern cultures, too, which means that yes, it was possible to supply the fabric for an entire household this way, if the fabric was also taken care of properly (mended, re-used, recycled ...) and the spinner didn't suffer from illness or had any disabilities (!). It wouldn't be easy, but it also wouldn't be terrifying back-breaking labour.

[homunculus-argument]

I'm working on something and halfway through shading I realised that this random layer that's 100% stand-in colours that I'll fix once I've got everything in order, is actually also pretty cool on its own.

[homunculus-argument]

This one, on the other hand, does not look good on its own.

[homunculus-argument]

Starting to figure out how to make two-source lighting! And yeah the blue light is coming from two directions here and there, it was already too late to fix when I changed my mind about not having it do that.

[juliedillon]

pencil sketch for a watercolor painting I'm gonna attempt 👀

[derinthescarletpescatarian]

Every time I repaint one of my dreary blue rooms a warmer colour I am amazed all over again by just how much it improves the quality of the light. "My room does not feel cozy enough" try Warm Palette. The sunlight LOVES it.

[derinthescarletpescatarian]

I keep going into rooms like "did I leave the light on in here? No I did not. That is The Sun.

[derinthescarletpescatarian]

Destroying my home's "resale value"* by painting it in colours that only I can love.

* Painting your home fun colours will not destroy its resale value even if you do care about that. Your home's value is primarily derived from its location and the structure/materials of the building itself. Paint your home however you want and if you do choose to sell it to somebody with better taste then repainting can be their problem.

[derinthescarletpescatarian]

This kitchen is going to be So Orange,

[derinthescarletpescatarian]

#hell yeah!!#One day when I have my own place I shall paint the rooms different shades of purple

I painted a hallway purple with yellow trims and my brother came by while I was doing it to drop off some vodka, took one look, forced a smile and said "It sure is... bright!"

It's not even bright, it's a mid-to-dark purple. I love making people pretend to like things for politeness' sake.

[darkenedyeastextract]

Also I was just with my parents and a builder talking about renovated and he just pointed at a bunch of shit saying “oh yeah these were valuable in the past but now they look cheap”. Value is inbuilt to location and the way how suburbs in Oz (though not Derin’s city) are going the price of things rise around you. The rest is sometimes quite literally a thin veneer that makes the place look and feel good but may be torn out by the next occupier.

Living in a house for your own sake is so important.

But ok the psychological warfare Derin did to their brother is kinda evil. The sort of sibling stuff that I understand can respect tbf but still technically mean (idk he might deserve it - it’s your house)

[derinthescarletpescatarian]

No he's very nice, that's what makes it fun. He has to see my incredibly garish taste and be nice about it.

[artisticmedley]

Oooh one of my favouritest hallways i ever saw was a neighbour two doors down. He was tryna sell and had an open home so i had a nosy with my mate the guy who originally relocated & did up the place.

My mate said originally he painted the hall the same sort of boring taupe off-white thing every house tends to get, and it was the darkest dingiest room in the house.

You couldn't tell. The guy who owned it had painted it the brightest sky brue, with white doors/frames. Honestly, my mood & energy lifted up significantly while i was in that hallway, but like, in a calm & not-overwhelming way. When i went back out to the lounge it felt so relaxing, and i looked back down the hall and it was like something Pinged in a particular part of my occipital lobe - like it had processed the colours as This Is A Bright Summer Sky With A Few Small Clouds.