Avatar

צֶ֥דֶק צֶ֖דֶק תִּרְדֹּ֑ף

@captainlordauditor / captainlordauditor.tumblr.com

Miles, he/him, 20s. Big Jew, big nerd. Batman scholar
Avatar

One of the central dilemmas of my media consumption is that on the one hand, I have serious objections to how bisexual men in popular media are almost invariably depicted as emotionally dysfunctional sleazeballs, but on the other hand, whenever I see an absolute fucking disaster of a human being who isn't bisexual all I can see is all the perfect opportunities for him to fuck things up that the narrative is obliged let pass because he doesn't swing the right way.

[Image ID: tags from @drexelian reading "#de- #dean-" end image ID]

Avatar

since microplastics have now been found in plACENTAS allow me to reiterate: 

faux fur is plastic

pleather literally has plastic in the name

synthetic wool is plastic

stop implying that plastic is good for anything.

“Vegan” fabrics? Yeah that shit is just plastic rebranded

not supporting the fur industry - but remember, vintage furs from thrift stores do not contribute to killing animals and are actually better for the environment than faux fur.

You can also buy fur new if you want. That is not a crime unless you are buying endangered animal furs. It’s also not really worse for the environment or the animals than buying regular meat or eggs from the grocery store, because all those animals are factory farmed, whether for fur, meat, or eggs. Factory farming isn’t solely a problem with fur, and anyway if you want to stop it then you’re better off calling or writing your politicians and getting involved with the larger movement that is trying to end big agra monopolies than only shopping at ‘pure’ retailers. You can’t change the world with your pocketbook, that’s a lie capitalism fed us.

The best furs to buy for warmth are coyote and raccoon, anyway, not mink and such. Sheepskin is also good. Stuff like mink, ermine, and sable aren’t actually very useful in terms of keeping you warm. Vintage bear and beaver are also pretty warm. Rabbit is useless, it sheds and goes bare quickly and isn’t very warm at all. Soft though.

Wool is the only fibre in the world that keeps you warm even when the wool is wet, and silk is among the best baselayers for warmth. Linen is the coolest fibre in the world, better than cotton, has been used for centuries and is a lot less costly in effort and water to produce–cotton is only cheaper artificially.

Down is the warmest and most breathable stuffing for blankets and pillows and it lasts a really long time. Cotton or wool stuffing is available also, but it doesn’t get the loft that down does, nor is it as warm (cotton isn’t warm at all). Remember that stuffing is also made of plastic!

Leather is great stuff, if you take care of it properly. It needs regular care and maintaining, but it will last a really long time if you do, and just get softer and softer over the years. And yes, you can clean it! You use something called saddle soap to clean it with. Patent leather has a plastic coating and may not even be leather these days, unfortunately. Deerskin is very nice, very soft but not very warm.

There’s a movement I first heard about in the historical costuming community, from Pinsent Tailoring: Slow Fashion. It’s a response to fast fashion, and the goals are to have a wardrobe that is more about longevity and quality of the clothing, and also about the clothing being made so that in a hundred years, all that would be left are the metal/horn/bone/shell/wood buttons. It’s very hard to do that with modern shoe soles, but if the heel or insole of your shoe is the only plastic you leave, you’re still doing better than an outfit from Target or something. Making your own clothes is actually not extremely difficult, you can start with extremely simple things, including the Bisexual Shirt (poet shirt), a pair of comfy pajama-style pants, and so on.

Make friends with your local vultures, costume historians, and leatherworkers (which are all, sometimes, also cosplayers)! They’re going to have oodles of resources for where to find natural materials.

Also, support Indigenous businesses!

Avatar

It was always friggin weird to me that real fur became so controversial and socially offensive among people who still eat meat, like PETA activism actually successfully changed our entire culture and tricked people into thinking that wearing an animal’s skin is Exceptionally Wrong, except I guess cow leather because that’s not from like, a fox, which is like, a dog, and therefore special or something

ALSO

I’m gonna say this as a pro-real-leather person:

The way modern leather is mass-produced involves toxic chemicals and is not great for the planet. At all.

“But if our choices are plastic or terrible chemicals, then what?”

Then you can help people and the planet at the same time, because….

……THERE ARE MANY NATIVE AMERICAN SHOPS ON THE INTERNET THAT SELL TRADITIONALLY-TANNED LEATHER.

It will cost more. But it will also last much longer. I met a dude recently wearing a falling-apart leather jacket. He said he figured he’d have to replace it in the next year or two. Kinderlach, HE BOUGHT IT BEFORE I WAS BORN. I’M THIRTY-TWO. IT LASTED HIM ALMOST FORTY YEARS.

Please consider purchasing from Native-owned traditional leather shops. They would love your business and you will get high-quality, low-impact goods.

Been thinking about splurging on a pair of genuine leather boots. Talked to a guy who had them from the same shop I was looking at - he’d had them 20 years and the only repairs they’d needed was when the rubber sole came apart.

I'm looking at a poll that currently says people mostly read physical books (60%) followed by handheld devices, then e-readers, then audiobooks. Since I think this would be really useful data for independent writers to have...

Genre literary conventions! I often buy books directly from the author there if I can, or from smalltime bookdealers there. If I can't do that, wherever the author recommends (often bookshop.org). There's some really cool fantasy and sf conventions in my area and I know there's some horror ones I haven't gotten to, too.

So it turns out that ChatGPT not only uses a ton shit of energy, but also a ton shit of water. This is according to a new study by a group of researchers from the University of Colorado Riverside and the University of Texas Arlington, Futurism reports.

Which sounds INSANE but also makes sense when you think of it. You know what happens to, for example, your computer when it’s doing a LOT of work and processing. You gotta cool those machines.

And what’s worrying about this is that water shortages are already an issue almost everywhere, and over this summer, and the next summers, will become more and more of a problem with the rising temperatures all over the world. So it’s important to have this in mind and share the info. Big part of how we ended up where we are with the climate crisis is that for a long time politicians KNEW about the science, but the large public didn’t have all the facts. We didn’t have access to it. KNOWING about things and sharing that info can be a real game-changer. Because then we know up to what point we, as individuals, can have effective actions in our daily lives and what we need to be asking our legislators for.

And with all the issues AI can pose, I think this is such an important argument to add to the conversation.

I often think issues like this are a result of “The Cloud,” and by that I mean the propagation of this notion that data and the internet exist out in the ether somewhere and not like...on someone else’s hard drives which are housed in hundreds and thousands of huge warehouses which require climate control.

Most humans already have a LOT of magical thinking about computers, and I really wish we spent more time teaching not just basic computing skills (how to navigate an interface), but basic INFRASTRUCTURE knowledge. When you think of it as chatting with Jeff Bezos’s huge garage full of nerd hardware, it’s easier to make the logical leap to say “hey i wonder what kind of resources it takes to keep all these hard drives from overheating...?”

saw your tournament concept and was Immediately like oh man i gotta submit Linda Park. Please help those of us who don't like birdflash i'm drowning

Avatar

Honestly it seems like very DC woman appreciater is drowning

Avatar

I will not in the LEAST be surprised if you tell me Artemis Crock, Wally West’s other major love interest, has been submitted 183493 times

there’s a scene in an episode of the 1966 Batman TV series where Adam West watches a woman he met at a dance club die by falling into a nuclear reactor (it’s like the only death on the show) and sadly says “what a way to go-go”, a statement that lives in my head rent free and comes out of my mouth every time someone suggests that an action might kill me

When my mother forgets a word, she is the queen of coming up with new words. Words that would take a third National Treasure movie to fully decipher. I was talking to her yesterday, and she said this: “You know the time for los jibbities is coming up. You must be so excited!” Oh, is it time for los jibbities already? I must have missed it on my calendar. Are we celebrating something? “Of course! We should all be celebrating, shouldn’t we?” OK, so los jibbities is a happy thing. It’s not like something is giving you the heebie-jeebies, which would have been my one and only guess. “Los heebie-jeebies? Now you’re making things up...and this is my show.” You’re right. The time for los jibbities is coming up. Is this a season? “Yes, the season for love. The season for pride.” OK, los jibbities. “Yeah, sound it out.” Los…jibbities. LGBTs! “Sí, mira cuz you’re gay!” “You couldn’t just say pride season? You couldn’t just… *laughs*

Avatar

I love Los jibbities

Avatar

ADHD in the era of the personal brand is wild.

You get into a thing and hyperfocus harder than anyone ever has hyperfocused. Dozens, hundreds of posts across multiple platforms. You discover things no one knows, you create many new things, you intangibly weave your very digital soul into the threads of this niche thing’s fabric. You are now known as “The Thing Guy” on several websites (despite not being a guy). People screenshot it and crosspost it to other websites, and the comments are like “OH IT’S THE THING GUY AGAIN!”

three weeks later, you drop it like a stone. You still want to do it, but you have no more motivation, and you can’t force yourself to touch it again. Your brain just goes “bored now” and moves on. 

Mere months later someone goes “hey, aren’t you The Thing Guy?”. You are suddenly smoking a cigarette. You take a deep drag. “Used to be, long ago… back in March”. They look at the calendar. It’s halfway through May.