"The boycott didn't work" It was never a boycott. It's not a mass action. It's just me, saying "I can't be a party to this if I ever want to look my reflection in the eyes again" and "I can't waste my time cultivating friendships with people of such low character."
Have you never made a choice purely for your own benefit and stubborn pride before?
My ideal street layout, wide sidewalk, wide bike lanes, and a 2 lane road that only allows streetcars on it. Yes I know this a bad drawing, I made it in a hurry
Are those (black circles w/ small things) supposed to be eg cafe chairs?
If so, they’re posing an accessibility issue due to blocking the sidewalks. Recommend your street layout allow for outdoor seating without blocking sidewalks.
Agreed. The foundation is sound, but there needs to be plenty of space to walk by seating without getting run over by a bike. Seating that hugs the walls of the nearby structure, and open storefronts that let people and services flow seamlessly between the commercial spaces and the sidewalks would be an improvement here.
If the tracked area is for trams/streetcars only, may I recommend that you make it green track?
Not only does it add much needed greenery to public spaces, but it also reduces heat at street level, reduces the running noise of trams and dramatically improves water drainage at street level. It even goes as far as reducing the damage to the tracks caused by the material expanding and buckling in high heat by simply keeping the rails cooler and better displacing heat.
It doesn't even have to be grass! Different species of plant, local species or hardier, low-maintenance species can be used, and furthermore, it tends to reduce maintenance costs of the tracks, as soil is easier to dig up than concrete or tarmac, and so the tracks can be accessed and worked on easier.
Obviously, if you want the street to be able to accept buses along with trams/streetcars, or other rubber-tyred vehicles, then a hard surface is necessary, but if it's light rail only, then green track gets my vote.
we still need green so maybe put flowerpots in the middle of the sidewalk? Like rectangular ones that only take up maybe a fifth of the sidewalk width, and their intermittent, maybe one between every other set of trees.
Honestly if you want some good green space you should consider bioswales between the bike facilities and the "street", which would help replace some of the lost drainage/filtration function from de-greening the track
You need a BA to be worth talking to, and also it's vitally important that politics and culture be regulated by credentialed experts who will keep the unwashed masses (who can't be expected to know any better) from getting any bad ideas. I'm a leftist BTW
Being extremely generous and interpreting this as the author just forgetting that people without college educations exist, as opposed to any other possible readings.
No, you have to understand, learning about enjambment wasn't just interesting or personally fulfilling to me, it's the deep truth of the universe without which you are a shambling ape at best!
Title that reads: How can I (29M) ask my husband (26M) of 9 months to be in an actual romantic relationship with me?
Text that reads:
I know how it sounds. Hear me out. I will provide backstory so the title can make sense.
I am a gay man and I come from a wealthy, traditional Asian family. We have businesses and stuff in my native country but I manage our business extension abroad. I made it very clear to my family years ago that I would not marry a woman (marriages are culturally important in my country), but that I would not torture them by marrying a man, hence I would just stay single and they would stay out of my business. That worked for about 4 years (kind of) until last year when I went to visit and they trapped me in a visit with this "girl" that was the single "daughter" of my dad's friend. We were both essentially left alone in a room and we both did not want to be there.
Anyway, the person was blunt and was like listen man I'm a trans man and I am not out to my family and I DO NOT WANT to get married to you, you do not want to be with me because I'm a MAN just leave it because he thought I set up the visit?
Yeah, so I was surprised and accidentally was like I don't even like women what do you mean. Anyways I'll spare you the details, we became friends and he found the whole thing hilarious. As did l. We exchanged numbers, my family was delighted I was being cured from my homosexuality (hah) and he was genuinely nice to talk to so it was a good situation. Our families kept pushing a marriage and I don't know why but we were like yes screw it and very quickly got married so our families would get off our backs. This was in June last year. He moved to my country in August and we just pulled a giant scam on our families and got away with it. He had a good thing out of it (attending grad school, I would pay, he would live in the guest bedroom and live his life). I also had a good thing out of it (a "wife" and no more cutting remarks about being gay).
I also gave him "my permission" to cut his hair short and stop dressing feminine like his family forced him to because culturally for us, if a husband is okay with the wife ("wife") doing something, her family can't say anything because her husband has authority. It's gross and misogynist and condescending but it worked out for us. They can't say anything to his appearance even if they wanted to.
Now, things have been smooth sailing. He started school, made friends, is comfortable and happy. I work, come home, mind my business and have a good roommate. But recently, starting around Christmas, we accidentally started getting closer. Not to say that we were strangers before, we did have dinner together (sometimes) but after Christmas, he started watching tv with me, eating with me, buying me stuff, texting me more frequently. He also started staying in my room to facetime his family because he said they complained about how he always facetimed alone and so he would get in my bed to get me to say hi. And after a while, it got tiring to get out of my bed to go back to his own to sleep so he moved into my room permanently (last month). That has slowly escalated to cuddling, awake and sleeping. He will just sprawl out on top of me doing random things and I am unsure what it means.
He's also started sitting in my lap and nuzzling me and stuff like that. He also makes jokes about dating and getting pets and showering together and I can never tell if he's serious because he jokes about EVERYTHING. We also almost kissed twice (initiated by him while cuddling) but he goes red and jumps ship at the last minute and starts making jokes. He also gets flustered around me and he keeps commenting on how "big and tall and strong" I am because he's tiny.
I understand why he might not kiss me: I'm scary looking. I'm not very expressive or talkative and just let him speak because I like hearing him speak. And so when he initiates something and I look at him like a brickwall he must think I don't want this or something? How do I fix that? It's just my face and I'm too awkward to start things.
Now we are in self-isolation together and you can cut the sexual? romantic? tension in this house with a knife since we're constantly together.
I won't say dramatic things like l've fallen in love with him. But I definitely feel something. I want to take him on dates and kiss him and let him speak as much as he wants and watch all the tv with him. I want him to be happy and I want myself to be happy. How can I show him that I like him? I'm not good at gestures so I have zero idea what to do. He's very rowdy and confident but he gets so shy around me and it makes me FEEL things but I can't even show him how much I feel. Even if your advice is to yell at me to get my shit together, please do so.
Title that reads: "He said we were being too idealistic then farted 3 times in succession so we could feel like normal people again."
Text that reads:
"I have never cried and talked as much as this. Ever. In my life. At the end I had to verbalise everything and I started crying so hard. I wouldn’t have made a move this time either but I really underestimated the power of the internet yelling at you and telling you your reaction is normal. I was empowered into it for about three seconds before the idea was horrible.
Anyway it worked out. Not in the way you would think! I misread the ENTIRE situation so badly, he just wants to know how. I mean like we’re together now, logistically. He just wants to know how I got half the stuff I got and then I cried even harder. And then he cried. I don’t understand.
This is not the detailed update I’m physically and emotionally exhausted and I don’t know how to even begin to put everything in one post. But he’s really stupidly pleased with himself and he will make sure I sing his praises and tell everyone how stupid I am so you’ll get an update. Later.
As he put it, I am not the stoic cool man I think I am. And he thinks I’m an idiot. And I like him very much and he likes me very much. I just wish this wasn’t so EMBARRASSING.
Anyway I have a boyfriend now. Husband? Husbandfriend.
Thank you for being patient and kind. I was not expecting this kind of interest. I would not have made a move yesterday if there weren’t comments pouring in telling me it was okay to be nervous and screaming at me to do something. Because I freeze up a lot. I have frozen up around him every day at least once a day for the past two months (at LEAST). So thank you. You did this, or I would’ve never actually done anything.
I will not be going into details because some of them are personal. But I’ll summarise to the best of my ability because I owe you guys that much.
• I misread everything. Everyone told me to kiss him so I went and I was getting really upset and told him I would kiss him, and that I froze up but I’ll do it. So he started laughing and let me kiss his head but then I was getting REALLY upset because he wasn’t even sad or angry, he said he was just teasing me by acting fake mad. But I was worrying so much. So I told him that it’s not funny to me and that I always want to kiss him anyway and I freeze up every time and it’s stressing me out because he stops the kiss too and I don’t want him to be scared because I like him and I was very emotional and talking a LOT so even I don’t remember what I said fully. I have never verbalised this much in my life it was embarrassing.
• He looked at like I grew five heads and said something like hey look at me you know I like you right? Listen to me. You know right? And I looked at him like HE grew five heads and I was like you do? And he said what the hell are you crying about hold on. So we had to go back and have an entire conversation. Once a few months ago, I said something about his favourite anime that I don’t remember and he said, and I remember, “I like you. I really like you man.” And I thought he meant. As brothers. Or friends. I froze up back then and the topic was dropped. And he was like YOU DIDNT SAY ANYTHING BACK SO I THOUGHT I OVERSTEPPED and I started crying harder and then he had to calm me down.
• I was like I thought you didn’t like me or needed a push to like me because you kept making moves and then stopping and he was like because YOU froze up. And I was like no isn’t it because you’re shy and he was like what the hell are you talking about. When have I ever been shy. And I said then you didn’t kiss me because ? And he was like because you looked like you were going to die when I came close to you and I wanted you to come to me at your own pace. And turns out he knew I liked him because I’m bad at hiding it somehow but he thought I was unsure. HE thought I was unsure.
• So I was crying and he was laughing and then I was like I went on a relationships forum for you! I wanted to know how to tell you I like you and express myself. thought you weren’t kissing me because I’m scary looking. And he cackled himself out of his own skin I think. He read the post and laughed HARDER. And then he said that I’m not scary looking and I’m not stoic and cool, but when I freeze up I apparently look so terrified that he felt bad doing something. And I said but you said I’m big and tall and strong so I thought I was scary: apparently that was him making fun of me because I’m a baby? I think.
• Anyway he was cocksure confident in himself the whole time and waiting for me to come to him willingly. And I was waiting for him to come to ME willingly. He called me ambitious, said I am not the top I think I am, laughed at me, cuddled me and then laughed at me some more while I cried. We also kissed and I was very snotty.
• I showed him the letter and said I wrote him this to confess my feelings. He got really emotional over it and I was already crying so we cried and then we cried about unrelated, personal things that I will not disclose. He called me an idiot multiple times, we kissed more and we were both snotty, and then we set physical/emotional/sexual boundaries for a long time.
• And then he jumped me. I found out I’m the shy one actually he doesn’t actually give a damn. I don’t know how I could misread that. He really was blushing and holding back. Apparently he said that was because of what he was thinking not me. He didn’t elaborate.
• He also finds it hilarious that I not only went on a relationship forum but also accidentally viral AND somehow got banned for life. He asked if he can go on my account and start swearing at everyone so he can try and get me banned from the website itself. I said no.
• I told him some comments said that it might have been because he’s trans and he was unsure whether I’d like him or want to kiss him and we had a long discussion about that as well. Well he talked I was too embarrassed to really say anything. He said that he feels respected around me, discussed some personal gender stuff with me, set boundaries and that was it. He also found the power imbalance thing really funny even though I took it very seriously and was like let’s be serious I do things because I want to do them and you let me do them because you like me. IM the power imbalance. And then we laughed but I was still kind of crying. We have napped a lot since then and many other things. I am very happy.
• I love my husband.
End of image transcription]
So this is how it happened!! It's so good, like if it had come out out of a book, and speaking of fiction, they've also made a comment about it
[Image description
Text that reads:"A lot of people want to write this as fanfiction or stories or whatever. Im not entirely comfortable with the idea but I don’t mind if it is just for fun. However, I don’t want to capitalise off our story in any way and I don’t want anyone else doing it either. As long there’s no capitalising involved, I don’t have much of a problem with it. I likely won’t see the stories anyway. But please don’t do it in a way where money is being made or it gets blown up so much, it somehow reaches our families. It’s already blown up enough. Thank you for your interest and support." End of image transcription]
Few people know that the commonly known Mona Lisa (Actually entitled La Gioconda by Leonardo da Vinci) is only part of the full painting. The lower half is seldom unveiled as it’s considered to be of lesser quality than the top of the painting, and possibly unfinished by the artist.
But the Louvre today unveiled the lower half for a new exhibition taking place until this summer. Said Louvre Curator Lou V’Curador, “The Mona Lisa, as it’s known, is more than people think. Leonardo was ahead of his time and this threatened art critics of his era so he kept the lower portion hidden and until now, we at the Louvre have respected this concept. But we felt the time was right to showcase the full work.”
V’Curador went on to explain that many modern art aficionados would be upset by the unveiling, and that it would hurt some of their feelings. But V’Curador explained, it was important to the art world as a whole, and everyone knew- He had to do it to ‘em.
Louis Donatien Alphonse François V’Curador was born in 1977 in a village near Lyon. From an early age he expressed an interest in art. Even at age four he poured over books by Leonardo Da Vinci and Michelangelo. He always favored the classics, eschewing anything newer than early impressionists.
He began to work at the Louvre in the 90s as a preservation coordinator, under former curator Ancien Conservateur. Ancien did not make sweeping changes in policy nor function. All who knew her said she preserved a good status quo, treated everyone well, and upheld the balance between the four major departments of the Louvre:
Paintings, Sculptures, Instillations, and Preservation. Under Conservateur’s leadership, the four departments lived together in harmony. But everything changed when the Painting department expanded into the north wing and annexed budgetary concerns from the other departments. Only Conservateur, master of all four departments, could stop them, but when the Louvre needed her most, she vanished.
Time passed and the Louvre elected a new curator, Louis “Lou” V’Curador. And although his departmental interbudgetary planning skills are great, he has a lot to learn before he’s ready to reorganize the spending policy register. But I believe Lou V’Curador can save the museum:
@fjetspad Skipping random consonants is literally the sole defining feature of the French language, or as it’s called in America, “Le Fonch Len-gwajjj.” I should know, I studied it for 5 entire minutes of The Little Mermaid’s runtime.
the woman in the river shows me an axe of silver and asks if it is the one I lost. I respond that it is. she produces an axe of gold and asks the same question again. I shamefully look away, not sure whether I'm comfortable admitting that I was dual wielding
she stares at me in abject confusion as I take stock of my tools. a look of dissatisfaction brews on her face. "but why is one golden?" the woman asks.
I tug nervously at my coat, feeling the slightest bit insulted. "well, it's not cheap to have a matching pair," I tell her. "not everyone can afford two golden axes."
"why not two silver axes?"
"I had the money for one golden axe."
the woman crosses her arms. "but the gold is worse for everything you'd want an axe to do."
"it's not. it was more expensive and also really hard to find."
"gold" she says, "is softer than silver."
"it's literally not, though," I say. "that's a really common misconception, but pure silver is softer than gold."
"most metal sold as silver is actually an alloy. that axe is probably sterling silver. I don't believe for a second someone made you a pure silver axe."
I look at my axe, then back to the woman, then back to my axe.
"it was pure silver when it went into the river."
an unreadable expression. with a great splash, the woman disappears into the current.
for three days and three nights, I wander along the river's edge, hoping to find the woman again. I throw rocks, twigs, and once or twice a weird looking animal into the water. it's all to no avail.
on the final evening, I see a glint at the river's mouth. I run as quickly as I can, knowing I've finally found... oh for fuck's sake, it's just silver-plated. I lob the awful thing into the river with a huff.
"how can you tell?" asks the woman, peeking out of the water. "that could be the one you've lost."
"it's not."
"but you won't cut your losses and move on," she gestures wide, "one axe the richer?"
"that's too wide of a gesture for a cheap knick knack," I say, gesturing modestly in some approximation of how much I think the silver-plated axe is worth. the woman seems annoyed.
"I've been telling you, you have your real axe. the gold axe is the one that sucks."
"so what?" I spit. "are you suggesting I just use two cheap silver axes instead of my cool pure silver and gold axes?"
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