my toxic trait is being fervently convinced that if i ever came across a dragon irl we would make eye contact and understand each other at a primal level of transcendental trust instead of charring me into a crispy onion

TIL Dr. Sigmund Freud was addicted to smoking and failed to quit for good throughout a 45 years long battle that included 33 operations for cancer of the jaw, an artificial jaw replacement, and attacks of “tobacco angina” exacerbated by nicotine . He was known to smoke up to twenty cigars a day.

via reddit.com

Jesus ffucking christ bro.

Seems like he had an oral fixation… Almost as if he were replacing the cigarette with… No i shant say…

Then we’ll all say it together

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I recently discovered laundry stripping and y’all, no matter how much of a crock of shit you think fast fashion is, you’re underestimating.

[image ID: a screenshot of the notes on this post, featuring several people indicating they want to know more. End ID.]

OKAY SO. You know how we talk about how one way fast fashion has made itself “necessary” is that the clothing looks like shit and feels horrible after just a few washes?

Let. Me. Tell. You. Something.

Laundry stripping is a process where you load your laundry into a tub or bin (I’ve been using my bathtub) with warm water, half a cup of borax, half a cup of washing soda, and half a cup of laundry soap (not detergent, SOAP, there’s a chemical difference). Leave it there for at least eight hours. I’ve been going for 12-24.

What you will come back to is a tub full of nearly-opaque black-gray-brown water that absolutely REEKS. This is normal. You are looking at (and smelling) hard water buildup, body sweat and oils that were embedded in the fabric, dead skin, and just regular grime.

Wring out your clothes. Throw them in the washer. (I like to do a spin-only cycle before going any further, because I have one of those washers that determines by weight how much water any given load needs.) Wash as usual.

You will notice I didn’t suggest any further pretreatment, and that’s because 1) you don’t want to layer too many chemicals on top of each other but also 2) you may not even need it.

When your clothes come out, check each one as it goes into the dryer, and if anything else s still stained, set it aside to run again with a regular pretreatment. One of the sweaters I did this with apparently did need a second treatment…to deal with what appears to have possibly been a hot chocolate stain that was previously invisible due to “well, it’s old” dinginess. I was planning to throw this sweater out. It looks almost new now. I need to wash it one more time for the probably-a-hot-chocolate stain, and then it needs to have the hem weighted to block it and bring it back to evenness, but dude. I wear my clothes to rags and I thought this thing was unfixable. “I need to reshape it” is nothing.

Remove clothes from dryer when done. Fucking MARVEL at the colors and how good the fabric feels. Give them a smell. Get righteously and royally angry that you can rejuvenate this stuff so easily, with a process that does take awhile but is 90% hands-off, but we’ve been trained to believe it’s all got to be binned once a year because discoloration and gross fabric is “normal wear and tear” and can’t be fixed.

It’s utterly unreal! I just pulled a seven-year-old work undershirt out of the dryer and this thing looks NEW!! It FEELS almost new!!! One of the shirts I hung up from the last load is older than some of the people on this site and it went from “I keep this to wear on laundry day, for sentimental reasons” to “I could actually wear this out of the house, it looks old but respectable”! The pajama bottoms I’m wearing were from Goodwill and they have BRIGHT YELLOW in them! I thought it was goldenrod!!

I do not know how often you’re supposed to do this (doing it every time can strip the dye out of your clothes, not to mention it’s way too much work to do every time), but once or twice per season seems respectable. I don’t wear white, so I can’t test the “it will make whites look almost-new as well” claim, but I’ve seen a lot of people on the cleaning subreddit attest that it works.

Just remember: WASHING soda. Not baking soda. I tried baking soda and a little bit happened, but not a lot.

Go forth. Rejuvenate your clothing. Strip your laundry.

I have a question about the "set it aside to run again with a regular pretreatment" bit: What is your regular pretreatment?

For grease: Dawn dish soap and a toothbrush. For blood: soak in peroxide, rinse, apply more peroxide. For ink: alcohol. Rubbing alcohol is best, vodka is an acceptable substitute. Do not use colored liquor like tequila or whiskey. Aerosol hairspray will work in a pinch. For red wine or grape juice: white wine. For "what the fuck is that, anyway?" stains: OxyClean Max Force Gel Stick. For "oh shit, there was a red shirt in with my whites" stains: I'm very sorry. Try bleach? Spot-apply all of these. In other words don't just toss your period panties into a sink full of peroxide, pour some peroxide over the crotch. Apply alcohol with a cotton facial pad or, failing that, a washcloth or kleenex. Let it sit for five to fifteen minutes, then throw it in the wash. Try to use cold water; hot water will set stains.

Don't talk to him.. he's not here! You're looking at no one... 😂

Shout out to dr Fareed Bhansali, really loved his actor. What an awesome easter egg to see him in season 1 already. I hope this means we will meet Seth in the future too! :)

We live in a dystopia....

If the background actors don't come in for work because they exist virtually then the background costume and background hair and make up and their catering and transport and all the other departments that look after them get cut too. These things have knock on effects...

I am seeing increased trend with some people in IWTV fandom both here and on twitter, to generate VC book characters with AI art generator tools, and I’m not liking it. I know it’s all in good faith and comes from place of love, and I completely understand the desire to recreate your fave characters just as they are in your mind, and it’s frustrating if you can’t draw to express that.. But we should all understand by now that AI generative art is so unethical, and steals both artistic and photographic resources online, and if you do this and use tools like Midjourney, Canva AI etc - you are participating in the problem. Even more ironic is one of the main reasons the whole industry is shut down now, and why our fave show’s productions are on pause, is AI generative technology, amongst many other things.. so please don’t support it.

My conservative family members seeing me taking up embroidery:

One week later when I post the finished project:

I had to reblog this as soon as I stopped laughing

My sister did this. Only her masterpiece that my parents HATE is

Express yourself through handicrafts 😁

@alldudsnostuds

May I add:

and my mother's all-time least favorite that I have hanging in my bathroom:

Proud of my city tonight

y'all ever reach the end of google

I'm starting to gain insight into why people turn into conspiracy theorists. Some topics are so totally neglected that it looks like they were intentionally and maliciously erased, instead of falling victim to arbitrary lack of interest.

I think it's a vicious cycle; when people don't know something exists, they're not curious about it. Also, people use conceptual categories to think about things, and when a topic falls between or outside of conceptual categories, it can end up totally omitted from our awareness even though it very much exists and is important.

This post is about native bamboo in the United States and the fact that miles-wide tracts of the American Southeast used to be covered in bamboo forests

@icannotgetoverbirds It already is a maddening, bizarre research hole that I have been down for the past few weeks.

Basically, I learned that we have native bamboo, that it once formed an ecosystem called the canebrake that is now critically endangered. The Southeastern USA used to be full of these bamboo thickets that could stretch for miles, but now the bamboo only exists in isolated patches

And THEN.

I realized that there is a little fragment of a canebrake literally in my neighborhood.

HI I AM NOW OBSESSED WITH THIS.

I did not realize the significance until I showed a picture to the ecologist where i work and his reaction was "Whoa! That is BIG."

Apparently extant stands of river cane are mostly just...little sparse thickety patches in forest undergrowth. This patch is about a quarter acre monotypic stand, and about ten years old.

I dive down the Research Hole(tm). Everything new I learn is wilder. Giant river cane mainly reproduces asexually. It only flowers every few decades and the entire clonal colony often dies after it flowers. Seeds often aren't viable.

It's barely been studied enough to determine its ecological significance, but there are five butterfly species and SEVEN moth species dependent on river cane. Many of these should probably be listed as endangered but there's not enough research

There's a species of CRITICALLY ENDANGERED PITCHER PLANT found in canebrakes that only still remains in TWO SPECIFIC COUNTIES IN ALABAMA

Some gardening websites list its height as "over 6 feet" "Over 10 feet" There are living stands that are 30+ feet tall, historical records of it being over 40 feet tall or taller. COLONIAL WRITINGS TALK ABOUT CANES "AS THICK AS A MAN'S THIGH."

The interval between flowering is anyone's guess, and WHY it happens when it does is also anyone's guess. Some say 40-50 years, but there are records of it blooming in as little time as 3-15 years.

It is a miracle plant for filtering pollution. It absorbs 99% of groundwater nitrate contaminants. NINETY NINE PERCENT. It is also so ridiculously useful that it was a staple of Native American material culture everywhere it grew. Baskets! Fishing poles! Beds! Flutes! Mats! Blowguns! Arrows! You name it! You can even eat the young shoots and the seeds.

I took these pictures myself. This stuff in the bottom photo is ten feet tall if it's an inch.

Arundinaria itself is not currently listed as endangered, but I'm growing more and more convinced that it should be. The reports of seeds being usually unviable could suggest very low genetic diversity. You see, it grows in clonal colonies; every cane you see in that photo is probably a clone. The Southern Illinois University research project on it identified 140 individual sites in the surrounding region where it grows.

The question is, are those sites clonal colonies? If so, that's 140 individual PLANTS.

Also, the consistent low estimates of the size Arundinaria gigantea attains (6 feet?? really??) suggests that colonies either aren't living long enough to reach mature size or aren't healthy enough to grow as big as they are supposed to. I doubt we have any clue whatsoever about how its flowers are pollinated. We need to do some research IMMEDIATELY about how much genetic diversity remains in existing populations.

You'll never guess what I spent a month frantically researching myself to madness about earlier this year!

[Image 1: tags that read, “There's bamboo native to the United States??? Hello??? Is this gonna turn into a research thing like @inneskeeper 's soy sauce saga? Either way, this is some of the most information of all time.”

Images 2 to 4: photos of plants.

Image 5: tags reading, “This reminds me of how my professors told me, there's likely so many undescribed extinct species because there's more fossils than there is manpower to go through and analyze them, and the specimen storage space for so many research places/museums are chock full of specimens that have been sitting for YEARS if not decades, that like. Yeah, no one really examined it. I don't know what it is.”

End description.]

I find it personally offensive how many bad writers can get published so easily.

I used to find it reassuring, like, "Haha, wow, if THIS can get published..." but now I take it to mean "It doesn't matter if your book is good or not, all that matters is if you're in the right social circles (and you're not)"

still so charmed by the way rose tyler is so unapologetically lower class without the narrative like. consistently telling you that. it’s all stuff you see between her flat and her bottle blonde hair with roots poking through and and her clumpy mascara and her clothes that don’t fit quite right and her passion for looking out for the underdog. it’s just so refreshing to have the protagonist of a show not be so squeaky clean and polished or a complete antihero but just some completely normal girl shaped by the way she grew up

Rose Tyler met aliens and immediately went “Hello, do you know what unions are? Do you want to learn?” and that’s so powerful of her.

Do not talk about your abusive family on tiktok. Do not talk about your closeted identity on tiktok. Do not talk about your traumas and mental illnesses on tiktok. Do not talk about your plans to move out from your abusive household on tiktok. Do not talk about the ways you disagree with your bigoted family on tiktok.

Do not attach your face or voice to anything on tiktok that you do not want your family members, neighbors, coworkers, or classmates to see. Be smart and stay safe.

Before posting ANYTHING on tiktok, ask yourself what could happen if your video is recommended to someone who recognizes you in real life.

If you're talking about your abusive mother, what will happen if one of her friends sees your video? If you're talking about being a closeted trans teen, what will happen if your friend's parents see your video? Will there be consequences? Will you be in danger? Are you in a safe enoigh position where that information getting out wouldn't put you at risk? What information do you want circulating about yourself?

Hey, I'm seeing some concerning tags on this post so I want to clarify something:

Your parents not using tiktok/not being good with the internet in general does not mean you're safe from them finding your videos. I have a cousin who posted about her mom's abuse on tiktok and that video was recommended to a family friend who showed it to her mom.

Your videos could be seen by a classmate who tells their parents who tells your parents. They could be seen by a teacher who calls your parent about them. They could be seen by one of your parents' coworkers or your cousins or your siblings or one of your neighbors or a hundred other people who could eventually lead it to your parents somehow.

Do not attach your face to this shit. Do not share any identifying information. Tiktok specifically reocmmends videos based on location, your phone contacts, and any other social media you're connected to. Your videos will reach someone you don't want seeing them, even if you turn off location settings.

How tiktok uses your location, even when you turn it off.

How tiktok uses your phone number, contacts, and other social media to make recommendations.

ok maybe there are still some funny people on twitter

[image ID: a tweet from user @ TawandaGona that reads “Ima say Candyman 5 times while my homie says Beetlejuice 3 times and we gon make em fight”. Followed by a screenshot of a blue iPhone text that read “ * WWE Announcer voice * : AND HERE COMES BLOODY MARY WITH THE STEEL CHAIR” /end ID]

Deep Frog

do you think this is what lovecraft meant whenever he described something as being beyond description

“It was a terrible, indescribable thing vaster than any subway train—a shapeless congeries of protoplasmic bubbles, faintly self-luminous, and with myriads of temporary eyes forming and un-forming as pustules of greenish light all over the tunnel-filling front that bore down upon us, crushing the frantic penguins and slithering over the glistening floor that it and its kind had swept so evilly free of all litter.”

— H. P. Lovecraft,

At the Mountains of Madness

This.. actually makes a fine reference to what a lovecraftian eldritch abomination SHOULD BE. not just.. tentacles and darkness. Perpetually changing, not cemented in form, with an otherworldly feel to it. Completely unrecognizable by most human descriptions, and only able to be viable perceived by those fine enough to be an adept wordsmith.

I think that this is very nearly an ideal representation of a lovecraftian eldritch horror, because the video that we see is (I’m fairly certain) footage that has been fed through Google deep dream.

The reason the frog looks so weird is because the program is trying to look at the frog, figure out what it is, and then overlay other images of the same thing.

The the thing about lovecraftian horrors issn’t just that they look conventionally weird or gross or scary. Instead, they are things that are so utterly alien that the human mind cannot properly comprehend what it is looking at. They defy description because they defy understanding.

And here we have a video of a computer, a simple silicon substitute for the human mind, struggling to understand what it is looking at, in much the same way that you would be hard pressed to understand a shoggoth.

deep frog

forbidden knowledge

LGBT students at Yeshiva University are in trouble. Here’s how you can help.

If you don’t want to click the first link the TLDR is that LGBT students at YU formed a student group. The school refuses to recognize them so the group doesn’t have access to all the resources that other student groups have, so the students in the group brought the school to court. The New York County Supreme Court said that the school had to recognize the group so now the school is taking it to the Supreme Court saying that the New York County court order infringes on their religious freedom.

The second link is where you can donate to Jewish Queer Youth, an organization by and for LGBT Orthodox Jews who are working closely with YU LGBT students.

I see a lot of people making comments about how religion is bad or that Judaism is homophobic and I just want to say that there are many queer observant Jews, not just because their family or community has them in a position where they don’t have a choice (although that is the case for many people as well), but there are many queer Jews who do find meaningful experiences within Judaism, including probably many of the students at YU who are bringing their school to court. If you want to be in solidarity with queer Jews you have to support both the Jewish and the queer parts of our identity.

chinese hanfu by 零青子