Bowtyes

Trying to be brave on the internet, one day at a time

[jethroq]

[wettestwraith]

prev dont leave this in the tags

[silvergryphonart]

Literally the definition of imperialism and classism. Doesn’t matter how many peasants you sacrifice as long as the most powerful piece is left standing

[musicalhell]

Proximity of bishops to the rulers promotes theocratic oppression

[juh-was-deactivated19691231-dea]

the horse is so fuckable

[inkskinned]

fucking hate it when the stuff everybody says "actually works" does actually work.

hate exercising and realizing i've let go of a lot of anxiety and anger because i've overturned my fight-or-flight response.

hate eating right and eating enough and eating 3 times a day and realizing i'm less anxious and i have more energy

hate journaling in my stupid notebook with my stupid bic ballpoint and realizing that i've actually started healing about something once i'm able to externalize it

hate forgiving myself hate complimenting myself more often hate treating myself with kindness hate taking a gratitude inventory hate having patience hate talking to myself gently

hate turning my little face up to the sun and taking deep breaths and looking at nature and grounding myself and realizing that i feel less burdened and more hopeful, more actually-here, that i am able to see the good sides of myself more clearly, that i am able to see not only how far i have to grow - but also how much growth i have already done & how much of my life i truly fill with light and laughter and love

horrible horrible horrible. hate it but i'm gonna do it tho

[maculategiraffe]

[lasenbyphoenix]

[depsidase]

[sometiktoksarevalid]

[becausegoodheroesdeservekidneys]

Visiting family for the weekend, including my seven year old niece, who is obviously the most special and incredible child on the planet

Anyway, she really, really loves it when I tell her stories. She loves stories anyway, and at first this manifested as "stories about Tad-Cu Bryn", aka my father (her grandfather) who died before she was born. This has been a lovely way to keep his memory alive, and she adores every story - she has her favourites, which she will request.

Then it became apparent that she specifically loves me telling her stories. She'll happily ask others for them too, but from me she just wants any anecdote at all; which of course is wonderful and demonstrates that she is a child of impeccable taste and wisdom and brilliance, but also she has ADHD and the energy reserves of a seven year old and so this gets Tiring very quickly

Yesterday, in the car on the way back from the wildlife centre, she asked for one of my longer stories, and I was like hey, how about we try something different?

And she was like, no, tell me a story about Tad-Cu Bryn

And I was like, this will be a brand new story and you get to play it and help me tell it

And she was like, explain

So I gave her three characters to choose from. The first was a warrior with a sword she could name, who was nonetheless dyspraxic. The second was a gymnastic elf who could commune with trees but was afraid of heights. The third was a dyslexic witch whose spells sometimes go wrong when she spells the words wrong.

She picked the witch. I pulled up an online d20 on my phone. I went to start, and she insisted my mother had to play as the elf.

So I told them that the new queen of the kingdom had called for them, because their palace treasury had been robbed - specifically, a single enchanted coin that brings luck and wealth to a ruler's reign had been stolen. And tales of enchanted coins were suddenly emanating from across the land, so each one needed investigating until the right coin was found.

It turns out kids who like stories will absolutely lap this shit up. She was enthralled. It was the simplest story - they had to get into a bank, revive some unconscious gnomes, then enter the vault, find the coin that had been deposited into it, then get back to the queen. Enough to fill a half hour car ride, basically, but she managed to fill it with all the wacky hijinks you get from a ttrpg, particularly when she tried to smash a door down with a hammer but rolled a 1.

We finished with the queen saying it wasn't the right coin, and then my niece demanded we go again, this time with her playing as a sapient reticulated python. That time we made it all the way to the final boss fight, which was a sorcerer who created a big coin monster out of loads of coins; I asked my niece what she wanted to do, and she described graphically how she wanted to constrict and eat the sorcerer and immediately rolled a 19. So, sure! Okay. The sorcerer is now very dead. The coin monster, though, was still there, and as my niece tried to say she would do the same thing, I was like, no, you're a snake and you just ate. You're now immobile.

At this point, my sister advised her to regurgitate the sorcerer.

Great! said my niece. I'm going to do it at the coin monster.

And rolled a 20.

So she projectile vomited a dead sorcerer into the coin monster, and won the day.

Anyway, today she immediately demanded we play "the game with the story where we choose", and my brother in law is now asking me how he can do this with her ("Are you making it all up as you go along??"). But yeah, turns out, this is a fantastic way to entertain a seven year old. Vague ongoing quest, then three steps: get into (place), resolve (minor puzzle), boss fight to finish. Boom. Easy.

So far I've done a bank, a tavern, and an art gallery (it featured an exhibit that was just a room full of slippery banana skins). I'm going to do a pirate ship next

[goth-queen]

[shiropoint]

This is mesmerizing to watch.

[fuu-dog-treats]

actually physically painful to watch because you know months were spent masking all those frames for each of the kajillions of transitions in this

[ask-ickle-mod]

[thatsthat24]

Holy………..shmokes…….

[mozzarella-shenanigans]

Oh?? My god??

[pomrania]

I’ll try my best to describe this. It’s a video with a mash-up of a bunch of different Disney movies, set to a song that’s a mash-up of a bunch of other songs. That in and of itself wouldn’t make it praiseworthy, but this is DONE SO WELL that just, holy cow.

[drawnsnake]

HOLY SHIT

[cell113]

Every time I see this, I HAVE to watch.

It is Law.

[mcmansionhell]

mcmodernslopcore

Howdy, howdy, folks.

For many years (ten now, about which, more soon) McMansion Hell has featured many prominent and diverse atrocities from all over these great United States and sometimes beyond them. However, most of these posts have consisted of houses built during the McMansion Era proper -- from the 80s up through around the early 2010s.

This is for a number of reasons. First of all: I like these houses because they are insane. Second of all, they are indeed quite different from one another -- they represent the owner's idiosyncratic if poorly rendered desires and fantasies. They are heavily psychologically loaded buildings. One family dreams endlessly of Tuscany, another wants to recreate the mall. All interiorize previously exterior forms of consumption.

These houses were also very expensive to build compared to their contemporary iterations: all real, solid wood cabinetry and trim, wrought iron railings, marble floors, elaborate murals - none of this is cheap. This is not to say that I'm nostalgic for the classical McMansion (though many are) only that it, like, most other facets of architectural and everyday life, have become progressively cheaper and more bland.

The McMansion never truly goes away. It merely changes shape over time. One of the shapes it currently takes is a particularly loathsome imitation of contemporary high architecture (specifically the kind of houses architects love to build for celebrities in California) executed in the most wretchedly parsimonious manner possible. It feels cheap to use the word 'slop' but their indiscriminate nature - the way they have no regard for why or how the things they imitate even work - allows it. Of all the building forms that could be generated with AI, this is the most likely. At any rate, behold:

Yes this is a real house. Yes you can buy it for $6 million in, yet again, Barrington, IL. It has 5 bedrooms and 5.5 bathrooms totaling 11,600 square feet. But most importantly, it looks like dogshit, and that's with ten layers of Photoshop have been used to gussy it up which, by the way, also makes it appear entirely not of this world. Were it not for the photos of the empty interiors, I myself would have trouble trusting my own eyes. Part of the reason it looks so unreal is because the design itself is absurd, as though someone created four equally ugly vessels and threw them up one by one.

In 2017, in a now-deleted essay for Curbed (RIP - they destroyed the archive) I called these types of houses McModerns, simply because they were McMansions dressed up in modernist garb, which they wore no differently than they would Neo-Tudor or Mediterranean (broadly construed.) These houses don't warrant a new neologism, but they do feel like a degraded or perhaps even gonzo version of even that old concept. Slop works fine too, especially because half of what's in these images isn't real.

Much fascinates me about these houses, however one of the most unique elements vis a vis the last 30 years of building is how overtly and almost hostilely masculine they are. Anything that can be construed as feminized - color, softness, ornament - has been ruthlessly purged. They also rip off tech industry minimalism which only ads to their bro-ey nature. While previous iterations of McModernism (think new builds in Colorado with fake wood exteriors) scream dads with IPAs, these houses scream Reddit to me. They are Elon Musk-adjacent in sentiment.

By the way, this is what that room looks like without the fake furniture. It's basically a sunroom.

Whole Foods would like to call in a robbery.

Because these houses are designed by men, for men, no one involved has learned how a kitchen works. Many are calling this setup the "grindset tiktok video kitchen." This is the kitchen you see in those day in the life of an AI startup founder videos your algorithm forces you to watch against your will.

Virtual staging is actual literal slop. In fact, one can say that it was an early harbinger of the ontological crisis we now face, one of the first instances where one is forced against one's will to question reality, what one sees with one's own eyes. Beyond that, I think virtual staging is literally a form of lying. You can use it to make a space look bigger or smaller than it is. In this -- lying to impress -- it also has a lot in common with AI. This dining room has nothing to do with the world I'm living in. These chairs are not my problem.

It's actually AMAZING how much of what's in this house, beyond the furniture, is fake. Every single material is fake. The stone is aluminum paneling. The plants are plastic. The concrete is printed on some kind of surface (as evidenced through its repetitive pattern), though it's hard to say from just pictures. I don't even trust the floors!!

Ok if you haven't read Kelly Pendergrast's amazing essay "Merchandizing the Void" about how houses are all like stores now, HERE IS THE LINK. Some ideas never die, they just evolve, king. Like you.

Please, I'm very cold.

Unfortunately there are no pictures of the rear exterior of this house, so this is where we will have to conclude for today. That being said, these houses and their antecedents are developing a design language all their own that will, in time, be as culturally rich to us as the houses of yore. The problem is they are less visually interesting. They are houses made to scroll in and scroll right by. Expect to see more of them here, but only if they have something, anything to say.

If you like this post and want more like it, support McMansion Hell on Patreon for as little as $1/month for access to great bonus content including a discord server, extra posts, and livestreams. (Don’t worry! This doesn’t adjust for inflation! Now’s the perfect time to join!) By the way: new subscribers can buy a year of McMansion Hell for just $12!

Not into recurring payments? Try the tip jar! (I would seriously appreciate any and all tips because I am in the process of moving house!)

[leresq]

WE LOVE YOU PEDRO

[milfuetoast]

This is actually such a huge thing for an actor to do. Like we know he is wonderful and correct about this and not afraid to say so but when was the last time an actor this famous called for a boycott of a series this popular on a network THIS BIG.

[scorchroots]

I've never loved anyone as much as I love Ursula Le Guin

[corvidcall]

to anyone in the areas impacted by the wildfire smoke, my #1 biggest piece of advice as someone whos been dealing with wildfire smoke in the NW united states for years, is build yourself a Corsi-Rosenthal Cube

they perform as well as expensive HEPA air cleaners, and are comparatively VERY inexpensive. all you need is a box fan, 4 air filters, a piece of cardboard, and some duct tape!!!!

i think it took us maybe a half hour to put ours together, if that, and we replace the filters every 3 months. it's really made a HUGE difference, both when the air quality is bad, but also with our allergies

[o0fyuu0o]

Saw these easy to read instructions on Twitter. Stay safe 💚

[tinyyellowflowers-blog]

Great time to start pricing this out by the way, fire season starts… on the summer solstice this year, that’s fun. Signs point to it being a doozy.

[fatartappreciation]

Large Figure Kneeling (2018) by New Zealand artist Jennifer Mason

[frogribbit]

i wish people would stop romanticizing not eating breakfast and not getting enough sleep and being dependent on coffee to function and always being in a bad mood and treating yourself poorly because that behavior is very unhealthy for you

[flameraven]

He’s right.

[owllover2319]

[ID: A panel of the manga Delicious in Dungeon. The character Laios is gesturing with determination towards the reader and yelling “WE’VE BEEN EATING THREE SQUARE MEALS A DAY AND GETTING PLENTY OF SLEEP… AND THAT MAKES US MORE SERIOUS ABOUT THIS THAN YOU ARE!!” End ID]

[vamptits]

they want you to make fried rice

[memser]

who is "they"

[vamptits]

the wok left

[solongandthanksforallthefish42]

how am I supposed to make fried rice if the wok left

[6qubed]

skillet issue

[cicadaland]

[planeoftheeclectic]

[witchaj]

u/Streetquats

•

TO OP:

I understand you. I'm with you. I feel like I am close to this aesthetic and I totally get what you mean about wanting to be a 45 year old man. I am a feminine woman and I've told my close friends that I'm "Tonemaxxing" for about a year now and that refers to Tone aka Tony Soprano.

You are not alone. I am a few years deep into embracing this style/lifestyle.

The vibes are blue collar, pancakes at the diner, working on your 90s truck/cursing at your 90s truck, oversized/workwear, reading paper newspapers, and EATING GOOD FOOD. Try to get inside the mind of a 45 year old man. What does he care about? What does he think about? For me I think the essence is that these dudes are confident and fully embrace themselves. They are not performing, they are comfortable being alone or eating out alone. They don't need earbuds in their ears, they are just looking around at the fucking world with their eyeballs. Its pure. Youve truly captured it in the photos your chose. These boys love food, they love being out talking shit and chopping it up at their local diner or deli, they love their cars and they LOVE to complain about their jobs (they secretly love their jobs).

The way to keep it still femme is *balance* - for example, I like to dress on the more tomboyish side, but I keep my hair long, I wear jewelry, I do simple makeup. I will combine skirts or dresses with more boyish boots/masculine shoes. I drive an old truck but I have a cute cherry keychain.

Every outfit I wear has 1 feminine highlight at least. If I am wearing an oversized mechanic jacket and chunky boots, I will wear a skirt as well. Or if Im wearing loose fit work pants, and a mans jacket, I will have a tiny teeny top under that highlights my waist etc.

Daily wear is mechanic jackets, detroit jackets, bomber jackets. Work pants, dickies, ben davis, or jeans. For more formal energy you start moving towards chinos + satin/jersey fabrics, patterns in neutrals like black and tan. But even for formal outfits you add masc energy with leather shoes or a silky mens short sleeve + a skirt. Slinky dresses with masculine boots/oversized jacket. I feel like materials and texture are a big part of this energy: shoes/boots are leather or suede. Jackets are canvas, or corduroy. Pants are demin or canvas or chinos. Then you add feminine textures in the mix as well. A ribbed baby tee. A satiny dress under a boxy jacket. Colors I personally stick to black/tan/coffee colors + olives and burgundies. Very muted colors. Lastly: BRANDS DONT MATTER. These dudes are wearing whatever the fuck. It does not have to be carharrt. We are wearing fruit of the loom wife beaters, it literally doesnt matter.

Dont be afraid to shop in the mens section. When I started doing that, it changed the game for me. The jackets, T shirts, and pants are SO much better. We are pretty much exclusively wearing mens clothing, but each outfit has ONE feminine piece (Tight femme jeans, femme shoes, femme top, a skirt or a dress - and then the rest of the outfit is literally mens clothing).

-

My last suggestion to you, my sister in arms, is to get a blue collar job and the rest will all come together. Not to mention you will meet other women who have this aesthetic. I've been in the military, I've worked in construction, and in emergency response. You are probably drawn to this aesthetic because some part of you is recognizing these lifestyles/careers are fun and vibey. They are. Come join us. We get to yell/curse at men like this on the job and no one bats an eye.

N for the record I am not a lesbian. Its more rare, but you dont have to be a lesbian to have a cool life and good taste.

[goddess-of-doubt]

i’m gonna cry holy shit

[fuckyeahcomicsbaby]

You don’t have to love your body

[naamahdarling]

I really needed to read this today. Thank you.