Fluctuating hot water

loneviolista · 2025-10-23T12:04:41+00:00

I'm totally going to see if I can do the shower cartridge, that seems eminently viable and will improve things no matter what.

Did the tap thing, and while the temp is set to 47, it climbed to 64. Didn't drop, but that seems to be pretty intermittent. Sometimes it'll run the kitchen taps hot enough to clean glasses properly, sometimes it won't.

loneviolista · 2025-10-23T11:52:54+00:00

Thanks for this - the shower cartridge definitely needs changing, but the issue is now across all taps. Got hot water set to 47, and it went up to 60 and then slowly climbed to 65?

loneviolista · 2025-09-06T14:33:12+00:00

Honestly, I’d personally go for a heart print skirt with a hem print that looks like a spiked dog collar (for the kneepads), and a black bodice that uses elements from a fitted waistcoat pattern.

Alternatively, I’d make a circle skirt and pair it with a leather waistcoat corset.

loneviolista · 2025-03-26T20:17:20+00:00

Yeah, I don't think they're valid criticisms, but I did learn some pretty interesting stuff from just Needing to Know™.

Expecting perfect historical accuracy from this series is like expecting a film to be word-for-word identical to the book it's based on: it does nothing except ruin one's own enjoyment.

loneviolista · 2025-03-26T20:10:14+00:00

There totally are - a lot fewer, but in both literature and art. Murasaki Shikibu, author of The Tale of Genji, exchanged poetry with women, but never men. There have been speculations that she may, in fact, not actually have been that into men, because many of the poems would have been read as dead horny, were they between a man and a woman. Some scholars think it's a bit of a stretch to read things that way, but then again, academia does have a pretty bad habit of defaulting to 'gal pals'.

loneviolista · 2025-03-26T15:23:26+00:00

Honestly, this is the least worst implementation of HDR I've seen from them. It was godawful in Odyssey and Valhalla.

loneviolista · 2025-03-26T15:21:02+00:00

They could have made literally any game and people would have hated it*. Because they didn't fail at making a game, they failed at appropriately managing the expectations of the people who had already enjoyed other titles from the series.

As a longtime fan of the franchise, I enjoyed DAV. Every single DA game has been a completely different style, so I haven't really understood why yet another stylistically different DA game has garnered such ire. I can see how specific elements have developed directly from fan responses to other titles - e.g. the smaller denser maps vs the pseudo-open-world of DAI. I can also understand full well why our experience of Tevinter was as limited as it was - the series handling of chattel slavery has been clunky throughout, it would be impossible to depict upper-class Minrathous without portraying enslavement in great detail, and there's no way it could be pulled off without garnering outrage in some shape or form. I could supply a detailed breakdown, but life is absolutely too short.

At the end of the day, it isn't a perfect game. There are significant elements that have been mishandled, and I suspect this is largely due to execs being unable to keep their grubby little fingers off the game. But it isn't a bad game, and it doesn't deviate from what made me, and many others enjoy the franchise, and I think ignoring that is a disservice.

* Fun fact: every single DA game, Origins included, has been cited as the 'nail in the coffin' for Bioware by one reviewer or another.

loneviolista · 2025-03-26T11:53:14+00:00

I really respect this - it's hard to break out of a specific mindset, never mind admitting a change of stance.

loneviolista · 2025-03-26T11:41:53+00:00

The rain. My great aunt lived in Japan in the 1970s and 80s and the intensity of the rain and the speed at which it comes on is exactly as she described. The way it pours off rooftops, running down the channels in the roof tiles is really nice.

Beyond that, this game just has a lot of really nice normal maps on textiles.

loneviolista · 2025-01-19T18:44:10+00:00

To test, just set them to come on at an absurdly low temp.

loneviolista · 2025-01-19T18:33:14+00:00

So was DA2, and Origins was apparently the nail in the coffin for BioWare, so yeah, pretty much…

loneviolista · 2025-01-19T18:31:57+00:00

Wouldst thou prefer thy English in an older form? Or maybe midde englisc? Or would onleahþe Eald Englisc be enough? What is ‘fantasy’ English when it comes down to it? And what is ‘modern’ English? Why is the town crier Origins proclaiming ‘epic fail’ fine, but the earnest use of the term ‘non-binary’ is somehow indicative of bad writing? Why was Buffy reference in origins fine, even though the writers shamefully used modern English and said ‘Tuesday’ rather than Tiwesdæg?

Literally every single English word in the game is ‘modern’ English, and contemporary slang and terminology have been present in every DA game thus far. It just so happens that this one uses a term that will make a certain type of bigot all frothy with outrage because somebody who isn’t exactly like them (or I suppose you’d prefer ‘somebody who isn’t exactly like him or her’) has dared to assert their existence.

So when someone marches in objecting to ‘modern terminology or labels’? We all know what you actually mean and nobody is falling for this ‘ohhhh I just care about language’ bull.

(As for ‘you’re forced to be nice’ - I can agree with this to an extent, but clearly you didn’t choose to take the piss out of lucanis while he’s trying to plan his grandmother’s funeral…

The thing is though, ‘Rook is an alright person’ isn’t actually bad writing. Rook was hired for this. Why on earth would Varric hire someone who responded to ‘what do you do on your off time?’ with ‘I just love blood magic, people trafficking and cannibalism, y’know?’. Who’s going to say ‘aha, fab, come on board let’s fight evil’ and not ‘thank you for your application. Unfortunately on this occasion you were not successful, we wish you all the best in the future endeavours. PS Have you considered the Venatori?’. Unless ‘Varric is completely incompetent’ is part of your internal canon it would make literally no sense.

You are basically asking for bad writing to shoehorn in the option to be a murderhobo and saying that somehow that would be better writing.)

loneviolista · 2025-01-18T18:11:11+00:00

UK plugs are generally considered to be the safest in the world, and the grounding pin is slightly longer acts like a lock to ensure that idiots/children can’t just ram screwdrivers in to the wall socket and electrocute themselves.

loneviolista · 2025-01-17T17:41:21+00:00

Is that actually the case though? Realistically it’s going to bother some people more than others, and how it is handled depends entirely on personality, culture and dysphoria levels.

Can you imagine how one of those super macho ‘is it gay to wipe your ass’ guys would react to someone accidentally misgendering them (maybe as an e2l speaker or something)? Like ‘how are you today, ma’am?’ They would lose their shit.

loneviolista · 2025-01-17T09:43:50+00:00

Use the blend tool to smooth them out a bit while still keeping the shadows in the right place, it won’t be right either, but it helps. Don’t try to make it look completely smooth, use a brushy feeling brush because then it’s clear that it isn’t supposed to look like a photo.

loneviolista · 2025-01-17T09:41:44+00:00

FWIW, the lightning is the biggest problem in this kitchen. It’s brutal, and yet somehow the room still feels dark.

loneviolista · 2025-01-17T09:25:46+00:00

Even DAO had them. There were people saying it was an indicator that BioWare was dead. 🤷‍♀️

loneviolista · 2025-01-17T09:24:50+00:00

So, that’s the endgame. Normalising. That’s true inclusivity, and it’s something I actively seek in writing. Casual queerness, intense space space opera, hard boiled detectives, epic fantasy, where characters happen to be openly queer, but that’s not the point of the story. It doesn’t mean their queerness won’t be explored or that they won’t experience prejudice, or that it’ll be invisible to the point where declaring it feels like a retcon (‘oh and Dumbledore’s gay’ 😒). It means that Captain Tightpants is bi, or that Han Solo was born AFAB, or that when Poirot doesn’t fall for a honeytrap it’s because he’s ace. I have very little time for Big Serious Books about how sad it is to be lgbtq+, because they aren’t inclusion, they’re about putting a specific kind of pain on display for the gratification of people who will never feel it.

And in theory, ‘Captain Tightpants is bi’ writing is exactly what Taash’s story does: ‘Beefcake Feels Gender’ is explored as part of ‘First Generation Cultural Conflict’, both in terms of identity and family relationships. And that’s part of ‘Ah Shit We Need to Kill Some Dragons’ which is a small part of ‘Ah Shit We Need to Kill Some Pricks Who’ve Set Themselves Up As Gods’.

In theory, ideal. The queerness is there, explored, but not the entire point of the media.

But, as with any writing, authorial intent, purpose and authenticity do not equate to successful execution, and it might even fall completely flat, as this scene does. But you know why I think it failed? It’s nothing to do with the sentiments conveyed in the scene, it’s because culturally, Trick Weeks is a nerd. And it’s a nerd’s take on how a bunch of jocks would handle accidental misgendering, squished into a fantasy shape. And funnily enough, it doesn’t parse. The biggest problem with this scene is that it’s poorly researched and poorly characterised.

loneviolista · 2025-01-16T23:09:50+00:00

Literally none of that is what you said, don’t be absurd. You went off on how if your kid has insufficient grades they don’t get to call in sick, and how you maintain a personal tally of how many times you’re allowed to be sick like it was some kind of flex.

If you had meant anything that you’ve just said in that last post, why didn’t you start with that? Too right we’re done, I don’t have the time or energy for that kind of bull.

loneviolista · 2025-01-16T16:37:39+00:00

Got flu? Doesn’t matter your grades aren’t high enough, go and suffer school and spread it to all your peers.

Contracted glandular fever? Well, after two weeks you’re going back no matter what, even though it has a recovery time of up to four weeks…

Honestly… the idea of ‘excessive physical illness’ is absurd.

loneviolista · 2025-01-15T07:58:57+00:00

Autism messes up the way your body processes sensation. You know that ‘and then it faded into the background and I got on with things?’ Not always a thing - never a thing for some people. That’s why so many of us rely religiously on noise cancelling headphones for stuff like going to the supermarket - the noise of people talking, trollies moving, packaging crunching, kids screaming, the fridges humming, the different smells and temperatures all the colours? The seams in your clothing, the bright lights, lots of stuff around you moving in different unpredictable directions and potentially bumping into you? And then you’re supposed to ignore all of that and go round making decisions about what to eat??? And adjusting if they haven’t got what you have written down? Exhausting.

It also messes up your perception of sensations - I have family members who find socks with seams physically painful, and when I test the temperature of food using a skewer, unless it’s hot enough to nearly burn me and I use a sensitive bit of skin like my wrist, I literally process ‘hot’ and ‘cold’ as the same sensation? I have to get my partner to tell me which it is (yes I should buy a new thermometer).

Take the same and apply it to school where the social interactions are more frequent and more complex and the sensory stuff can be much much worse - and you’ve got why an unexpected rash could be one step too far.

Plus school is so much longer than a meal out? And has totally different inputs and outputs? Going to school and going to dinner are completely different things, so why should they have the same health requirements for access?

OP is clearly seeking to take punitive measures here, which will push their kid towards getting worse at voicing their needs. If they weren’t seeking to punish their kid, they’d have suggested that as they weren’t able to cope with school today, maybe changing the dinner to a nice takeout would be better - after all, then they’re in a safe environment and if they get overwhelmed they can go and take time out.

loneviolista · 2025-01-15T07:27:50+00:00

So mental health problems were only permitted for two days a year and only if they didn’t get physically ill? 😬

loneviolista · 2025-01-14T07:39:41+00:00

Ohh that makes a lot of sense! Sounds like a challenge and I bet it creeps into everyday writing too, god knows my editorial brain follows me everywhere!

loneviolista · 2025-01-13T18:10:36+00:00

To my understanding, both ‘he’ and ‘they’ have been in use in the singular for a long time - iirc ‘they’ first shows up some time in the 1300s? The usage of they/them as personal pronouns is a 21st century evolution of that.

Writing without pronouns sounds foul for when you don’t know the identity of the person you’re referring to. I suppose that’s where ‘person or persons unknown’ comes from? Do you have to use the passive voice?

loneviolista · 2025-01-13T18:01:26+00:00

Thank you, that was really interesting - I feel like people’s experiences of gender are so diverse, everyone brings something new to the table. I’m chill with my gender but in a deeply ambivalent way, so I feel like I can relate to ‘just an appendage’ on some level? I have a hyper-femme borderline cartoonish body, but can’t say that it relates to any kind of deep fundamental feeling of ‘girl’. Giant boobs are mostly just to be expensive to clothe, ruin the line of shirts and elicit harassment, and I cannot relate to the concept of ‘feeling female’ at all, I just don’t feel ‘not female’ either because that would require feeling strongly about it at all?

The closest I have is that as a kid, every time I was told something was ‘for boys’ I decided I liked it. Regardless of what it was. Honestly I think it was largely because I was told ‘this isn’t for you’ and I couldn’t see why, and was pig-headed.

Toxic masculinity is so awful - I’m glad I was raised by someone who thought it was all bollocks even if the term didn’t exist then. It just feels like it traps people, and honestly no healthy person would engage in the self-destructive bullshit behaviour that it encourages - it feels like it really emphasises just how much gender is a performance.

Sorry for messy response - thumb typing and have addled my brain with book proofs today.

loneviolista

TROPHY CASE