This is partially because people wear less white and partially because our detergents and dyes no longer leach colour out of clothing. The dyes are more fast, and the detergents are less harsh.
I’ve posted about this before, but you should be separating based on fabric weight and elasticity, not colour.
Things you want to stay elastic: Don’t use softener, use cold water.
Things without elastic: You can use softener if you want, use cold water.
Literally there’s no reason to use hot water anymore, washing machines and detergents don’t need that help any longer unless you’re specifically dealing with grease/oil.
DON’T put bras or elastic in the dryer. That instantly destroys them, it’s like putting them directly into the garbage. Bras are dangerous to wear after being in the dryer, they will fuck you up nine different ways please hang them up.
(I know many folks don’t use softener but those little dryer sheets count)
I only wash towels and my bedsheets/pillowcases in hot water these days. Maybe it’s placebo but I swear my skin breaks out less that way.
sheets are full of oils from your skin so it’s very good to wash them in hot water! Hot water is very good for oil. However, if you ever have blood on your sheets, rub ice on it, use peroxide, and wash it very cold or you’ll set the blood (iron is a powerful dye!)
don’t put binders in the dryer either. it ruins them really fast.
fake relationship but its a king and his concubine that was once an amazing soldier but he couldn’t go up the ranks for whatever reason so the king was like listen. hear me out. you can be my strategy dude. u just gotta be okay w walking around shirtless a lot. and soldier dude is like man that’s an UPSIDE and yknow they end up falling in love
some idiot advisor: I can’t believe his majesty lets his boytoy attend these council meetings, it’s an insult to the noble institutions that uphold our nation, it’s an outrage—
a somewhat smarter advisor: you’re just mad bc he pointed out how dumb your naval attack strategy and no one laughed when you made a mean joke about him
Boytoy has gone from a top fighter who was well respected but in constant danger to wearing silks and eating grapes on daises. That fucked up rotator cuff was the best thing to ever happen to him
Bonus points: at least half the other concubines are experts in assorted fields, the monarch brings them to relevant meetings to both play up a reputation for frivolity, and make sure at least one person there doesn’t have an outside agenda.
my harem?
did you mean: my chief strategic advisors
The kingdom is an absolute monarchy but the harem has become a secret meritocracy. The nobles and official advisors kind of side-eye His Majesty because wow some of these consorts must have like…really good personalities. Kings of the past have had their own specific tastes of course; size, shape, age, color, et cetera. More than one ruler has interviewed consorts feet first and Ardwin the Adventurous’s obsession - God rest him - with snuffling armpits like a sow rooting for mushrooms is well known despite never being alluded to in polite company.
The worst part of it is that the new king takes at least part of his harem with him everywhere and it’s so embarrassing. The Counselors of War have never once met with His Divine Majesty without that hulking battle-scarred consort interrupting with muttered growls or scornful snorts. And the Ministers of Finance all flinch at the sight of that fox-faced one, rumored to have been rescued from the gallows because His Augustness took a fancy to his eyes or some such nonsense. General petition days are even worse, with practically the entire harem drifting in and out of the Grand Hall in turns, insouciant and smug like granary cats who know they’ve been given full run of the courtyards and barns.
It’s absolutely infuriating that the kingdom has never before known such a period of peace and prosperity under this ridiculous monarch.
Tag to this - the biggest secret is the Queen who runs the Kingdom’s spy network.
It’s the envy of all the other Kingdoms around, and not a few nobles!
Not ALL of the Kingdom’s Diplomats are spies. But many of their servants are.
The Queen grew up as a neglected child, and she learned how servants are ignored, but who always know everything that goes on.
Many of the spies are like the Queen - beautiful and seemingly vacuous.
The sp[ies tend to have great fun, and also work closely with the Concubines
I’ve had a bee in my bonnet since this incident the other day, and I figure it’s probably time to get it out of my system.
Darkfic is not a new phenomenon. It’s as old as the hills. For as long as there have been fic writers, there have been fic writers using the medium to explore themes that are taboo in mainstream fiction. Torture and gore, death and destruction, rape and sexual abuse. Every author has their own motives and inspirations for the content they produce, and there’s no ‘average’ darkfic writer. But what I can tell you - anecdotally, from a full decade’s worth of experience drifting in and out of various darkfic communities - is that when you involve yourself with these authors, you start meeting survivors. Lots of survivors. In what I think it’s fair to call a statistically significant concentration.
For some, their survivor status is incidental to their controversial interests; for others of us, past trauma and mental illness are intrinsically tied to what we read and write. Darkfic can be a lifeline, a validation, a liberation, a profound and unbeatably intense catharsis for the shit we’ve got stored in our heads. Darkfic enclaves within fandom are places where we can air our darkest and most desperate fears and fantasies in a safe, supportive environment, in the company of others who remind us that we are not broken or defective just for wanting the things we want.
And here’s the thing: literally no one in these communities wants to force outsiders to join us. We recognise that our content is stuff that the majority of people don’t want to see, and we do our best to protect the rest of fandom from involuntary exposure by using appropriate trigger warnings. We don’t want to hurt anyone, we don’t want to ruin anyone’s innocence - we just want to be left alone to do our thing. But tumblr callout culture has taught people that “speaking out” against things they don’t like is cool and brave and socially progressive. It has created an environment where virtually the automatic response to distress, discomfort or personal offense is to look for a perpetrator, a culpable oppressive villain to whom the offended party can deliver a vicious “smackdown” while their friends look on and cheer.
I’m not going to argue just now about whether that’s ever an acceptable way to treat people. Regardless of anyone’s personal feelings on callout culture as a whole, there’s an intersection between darkfic and trauma survivors that you guys all need to understand before you go targeting darkfic authors as convenient representatives of everything you think is wrong with the world. So let me lay this out as simply and clearly as I can:
When you oppose darkfic because it “harms survivors”, you are talking directly over large crowds of survivors who will tell you they find darkfic to be a validating, healing experience.
When you claim that darkfic is self-destructive and unhealthy, you are privileging your personal beliefs over the lived experience of other people.
When you accuse darkfic authors of glorifying and supporting real-life abuse, you accuse survivors of glorifying and supporting their own abusers.
When you blame darkfic for supporting rape culture, you are making victims responsible for the actions of their oppressors.
When you set conditions around the creation and enjoyment of darkfic - aka “it’s only okay if you’re a survivor” - you create a culture of coercive disclosure, where survivors are expected to trade their right to privacy for the right to live free of harassment.
When you criticise darkfic authors for using survivor status as an “excuse”, you are locking us out of our own communities and denying our past traumas for the sake of a political argument.
If you are anti-darkfic, you are anti-survivor. I’m sick and tired of watching vulnerable members of my community get harassed and bullied by people who claim to be acting in the interests of survivors. I’m sick of being told that survivors like me aren’t survivors at all, that our very existence is toxic and harmful, that we have no right to speak and be heard on an issue that affects us so intimately.
Anti-darkfic fans, you need to pull back. You need to realise that your comfort and safety, while important, are not more important than the comfort and safety of other people. You need to understand that it is your responsibility to learn how to peacefully coexist alongside people who experience the world differently from you, even if their experiences make you unhappy or uncomfortable. You have no right to ask us to stop existing so that you can feel at ease. You have no right to demand that we prioritise the needs of some survivors over others. You don’t own fandom, and you have no right to dictate who does or doesn’t get to participate.
You are not brave heroes speaking out against the spread of moral degeneracy in fandom. You are bullies, deliberately and systematically targeting trauma survivors with your abusive tactics. It really is that simple. And it needs to stop.
Okay, I want to say this just once and make my position as crystal clear as I can:
There. Are. No. Exceptions.
Here’s the thing: I don’t think I’ve ever met a human being who didn’t believe, deep in their gut, that their moral perception was special and unique. Anger and disgust are extremely compelling emotions. When you’re in the throes of them, it’s easy and natural to convince yourself that your desire for retribution is justified. Someone made you feel this way, and they shouldn’t have been allowed to, and it’s only fair for you to be allowed to pay them back in whatever way feels right to you. It’s neverokay to abuse or harass other people, of course you believe that, but this one fic writer is doing something really and truly disgusting and they need to be punished –
You’re allowed to feel whatever you feel. Hell, even if you weren’tallowed, it’s not like anyone could stop you. But the fact that you have emotions doesn’t give you license to mistreat other people. If something is wrong then it’s wrong, no matter how badly you want to do it to one person in particular.
If you accept that censorship is wrong, then censorship has to be wrong no matter who it’s happening to. If you accept that bullying is wrong, then bullying has to be wrong even when you really, really don’t like the victim. If you accept that people are allowed to write whatever goddamn fanfic they want, you can’t tack on a clause that says “unless they’re writing this one thing that I, personally, believe should not be written in which case the angry mobs have my blessing to go to town”. What kind of position is that? How are you going to ask the entire rest of fandom to accept your specific personal boundaries as an objective moral yardstick?
So to the people reblogging this all “I agree with this except for when it’s something genuinely bad being written”, please reconsider. If you agree with me that purity campaigners are hurting vulnerable people and creating a toxic fandom environment, but you still support their tactics under X or Y condition, then you are as much a part of the problem as they are.
What y’all think ‘gifted child’ discourse is saying: I used to be special and now I’m not and that makes me sad.
What ‘gifted child’ discourse is ACTUALLY saying: The way many educational systems treat children who’ve been identified as ‘gifted’ is actively harmful in that it a. obliges kids to give up socialising with their same-age peers in favour of constantly courting the approval of adult ‘mentors’ who mostly don’t give a shit about them, b. demands that they tie their entire identity to a set of standards that’snot merely unsustainable, but intentionally so, because its unstated purpose is to weed out the ‘unworthy’ rather than to provide useful goals for self-improvement, and c. denies them opportunities to learn useful life skills in favour of training them up in an excruciatingly narrow academic skill-set that’s basically useless outside of an institutional career path that the vast majority of them will never be allowed to pursue.
also: the way “gifted” children are taught largely just rewards them for already knowing things or having a specific skill come easily to them, and thus not only gives them severe anxiety about asking for help or not knowing something right away for fear of disappointing those adult mentors, but also actively discourages them from learning HOW to learn things and pick up new skills, thus sabotaging any life they might try to pursue outside of that institutional career.
Just as a PSA, I’ve never reblogged that “your mom will die” post. I’ve seen it half a dozen time so or more and I’ve ignored it every time. My mom’s doing great.
You’re safe. I’ve done the test for you. You can safely ignore it. It is a failed curse. It doesn’t work.
Lmao they really took that chance tho
No, I didn’t. In my mind it wasn’t a chance.
But for some people, it would feel like one. There are people for whom posts like that cause great distress. Not because they think those posts actually work, but because those posts prey on anxiety disorders by exploiting the way anxious brains function. It’s an inherently cruel thing to do and I do not blame anyone who is unwilling to take the ‘chance,’ because regardless of whether or not they genuinely believe their mom will be affected, the emotional distress caused by having seen and not reblogged the post is not worth it.
I do not suffer from this particular brand of anxiety. But I do have anxiety about other, equally unlikely things. So I can empathize with people for whom these types of chain posts cause genuine distress, and I can recognize how needlessly cruel the posts themselves are–particularly because people who DO reblog them often do so at the expense of followers, or at the risk of getting rude comments about how ‘gullible’ they are, or even angry remarks from other anxiety sufferers who start blaming the victim instead of blaming the person who created the damn post in the first place.
My point in creating this post was simply to attempt to ease the anxiety of those who are negatively impacted by those types of chain posts. It has nothing to do with whether or not I actually believe that ignoring that post puts my mom in danger. I don’t. If I’d had even a modicum of doubt about that, I wouldn’t have taken the chance.
But hopefully a few fellow anxiety sufferers now have ammunition against the part of their brains that torments them with that whispered “but what if…?” every time they see the post (or others like it).
That’s all.
hey op you’re a good person
I have also never reblogged those posts and my mom is also fine. She recently called me about labeling emails in her gmail inbox and to tell me about antioxidants.
That’s the most mom thing I’ve ever heard and I love it <3
“I remembered once, in Japan, having been to see the Gold Pavilion Temple in Kyoto and being mildly surprised at quite how well it had weathered the passage of time since it was first built in the fourteenth century. I was told it hadn’t weathered well at all, and had in fact been burnt to the ground twice in this century.
“So it isn’t the original building?” I had asked my Japanese guide.
“But yes, of course it is,” he insisted, rather surprised at my question.
“But it’s been burnt down?”
“Yes.”
“Twice?”
“Many times.”
“And rebuilt.”
“Of course. It is an important and historic building.”
“With completely new materials.”
“But of course. It was burnt down.”
“So how can it be the same building?”
“It is always the same building.”
I had to admit to myself that this was in fact a perfectly rational point of view, it merely started from an unexpected premise. The idea of the building, the intention of it, its design, are all immutable and are the essence of the building. The intention of the original builders is what survived. The wood of which the design is constructed decays and is replaced when necessary. To be overly concerned with the original materials, which are merely sentimental souvenirs of the past, is to fail to see the living building itself.”
i mean this in the nicest way possible you guys but you NEED to take better care of yourselves online. getting severely anxious about mass quantities of horrible things you cant change every single day is normal considering the internet’s ability to educate on worldwide issues, it shows that you have empathy and that you truly do care. but relentless knowledge of constant suffering on this scale is NOT something humans are psychologically equipped to handle. it’s okay to shut off. it’s okay to just take a break and enjoy yourself for a while in your own localized space
There is a really popular post on this site like “men who slam doors are making sure you know how much they want to hit you” and I can’t find the post but I wish it would stop because it is not true and it has the potential to spread a lot of panic and anxiety in already traumatized people.
Slamming doors, stomping your feet, punching pillows, throwing rocks at the ocean, anything physical that doesn’t hurt anyone is an excellent way to deal with anger; it is actually pretty common advice in anger managment (or any type of emotional mediation therapy) to let off some steam when you’re furious so you don’t say or do something in the heat of the moment.
When a person is angry their body floods with adrenaline and it doesn’t just go away so acting out something physically helps your body metabolize all that adrenaline so that you CAN take a few breaths and discuss something calmly.
There are three rules to healthy anger management:
1. You can’t hurt yourself 2. You can’t hurt others 2. You can’t break things that aren’t meant to be broken
This is a pretty common type of anxiety thinking for abuse/trauma survivors and if you find it triggering you should definitely talk to whoever is doing the door slamming about them finding an alternate way to throw off that excess energy. But by itself slamming doors doesn’t mean someone wants to hit you, it’s actually a coping skill for emotional mediation!
While it can be a healthy way to manage anger, you need to make sure you are not doing it “at” someone. Removing yourself from the situation and slamming a door or punching a wall can be cathartic and not harmful.
But being violent towards an inanimate object in the presence of someone else can be interpreted as a threat towards that person. Especially if they have a history of such violence being a prelude to violence against them. If you are going to use violence towards an inanimate object to cope with anger or other emotion, then it is your responsibility make sure that violence is not sending a message of impending violence.
