#something small bc i need them

[for4bes]

@bloodrodeo

there's a silence between them as they sit across from each other in the cave . a vampire on the brink of death and what caroline believes to be an alien sitting across from her . it was laughable, really . when she turned twenty she thought her life was finally beginning, but now she's a vampire and everything just seems like a waste . caroline coughs a bit , not even fumbling with the shackles that were around her hands and feet . her strength would've been enough if she were fed to break them, but being thrown into wherever she was without blood and starving her makes her weak.

glancing over to the man , caroline blinks . " you got any powers that can zap us out of here ? " she asks , voice low and teetering on raspy . like she just woke up . there's a beat before she groans, the feeling of hunger and helplessness going around in circles.

"well , if we're going to die together , i guess i should introduce myself. im caroline . i'm a vampire . usually i'm kind of good about it , but right now i'm starving. "

[moeblob]

What if I straight up didn't explain myself? What if I just said trust me on this? Would you?

[luck-of-the-drawings]

smth smth about 'the thing that the character did that you thought was rly rly funny in the moment is actually linked to a terrible trauma that lies within said character.' or wahtever.

[blueskittlesart]

Feel free to ignore this but as someone who also goes to art school, I find it really interesting how other art schools also have a “don’t date your peers” sort of faux pa. Like so many people I know (including me) refuse to date anyone else who goes to my college 😭

I wonder why that is tbh, small school thing maybe?

being so serious i didn't have anything against dating other art school peers when i first came here and i think most freshmen dont but once you have one or two art school relationships under your belt you realize why all the upperclassmen avoid dating each other like the plague

[rovermcfly]

got tired of all the misanthropic customer service memes, I love getting to talk to people of all walks of life and getting to help them out and learning about regulars' lives. people are wonderful and diverse and kind and the handful of mean ones can't ruin that

[arvoze]

comic practices

[chemicalarospec]

look as someone with medium sized soft breasts it really bothers me when people portray bras as Evil Tools of Oppression that you will chose to frequently forgo once you're (a) Liberated (Woman). I wear a bra every day not because like. men tell me to. or like. i don't want my unfairly sexualized nips to show.

I wear a bra every day because it gives me support. Because otherwise I can't jump without it hurting -- any movement that makes my breasts swing makes the skin stretch, which can be a little painful. I wear a bra (or binder) every day because it makes clothes fit comfortably and I like the way it makes my body look. Going without a bra is not comfortable for me -- for one reason, I don't like wearing pajamas all day long and not wearing a bra puts me in that mentality, but in the same way I enjoy dressing up, I enjoy wearing a bra. (Edit: originally I forgot but they also stop me from feeling my sweaty skin stick together! big win!) But even regardless, my bra is a bag for my two hanging sacks of fat on my chest; it's convenient.

(PS: If your bra hurts, it's too small. Wear it looser or get a bigger one!)

Edit: I have more context for this post in the reblogs but I definitely let it overemphasize my personal feelings when the point I didn't realize I was trying to make was "bras are objects that serve a purpose besides a oppression; it is entirely reason for even a Liberated Feminist to chose to wear a bra". Also I was trying on my binder a different way and realized it's actually not too uncomfortable to not wear a bra with some shirts (may also depend on where in cycle) (I don't think wearing any short of shrug/sweater over would be comfortable though. I don't really like the way it looks but I may pick up lounging like this. #charactergrowth

[skunkes]

guess who was not in the right emotional state to finish watching lars and the real girl

[electrobiology]

this is going to be an annoying rant so feel free to ignore it but so actually are there no good universities in all of the united states that don't leave you in lifelong debt?????? like hello???????? everywhere i look at that seems interesting and doesn't have reviews talking about how no one cares about you and you're on your own the entire time you're there or the staff/students are -ist/-phobic or no one does work and just goes to parties or other such things they're talking about the expenses. i want a degree because i need one if i want to do anything but i don't know if i want it enough to be in debt for my whole life. and why is the us like this. i just want to go somewhere else this country does not seem worth it to me. i want to go back in time and find a way to sink every european colonizer ship that landed on the land of the americas

[brehaaorgana]

Okay so: Does anyone know of a good book or resource explaining the best types of fabrics, cuts/patterns, etc to look for when thrifting, when knowing that you will probably need to tailor the thrifted clothing?

And maybe also "how" to do those smaller alterations yourself, although I think I would be fine just taking pieces I find to a tailor.

@readandneedle do you know this? I want to know what I should just get rid of bc tailoring wouldn't be worth it vs like, what I can alter easily without the seamstress wanting to murder me.

I have a generally good sense of major brands and their construction quality, but less so "what is a total bitch to take in, let out, or otherwise change up."

[c-kiddo]

ok ye . ava walks around and looks for owl pellets n stuff. p good because she can walk up the hillside or down to the water and theres all these rocky outcroppings that owls and birds of prey have dropped bones on. also she likes walking to th main road (its not vry busy) and looking if theres anything lying around there also because the eagles and crows n stuff hang around there wanting to eat any roadkill that ends up there. she makes noises to the birds and talks to them (asks: is that flat rabbit tasty?) things like that

[milkweedman]

what do you recommend for dying with beets? Use raw fiber, batts or already spun yarns? Cotton or wool? Do I have to shred up the beets or can I use the juice in the can and eat the beets myself ? Does it smell like beets? Use color fixer or something more natural? Dyou tbink I can like speckle it on an already commercially dyed pink yarn for pops of darker pink? or dip dye it for pink gradients?

Tbh I would recommend absolutely none of this, for the sole reason that beets, like red cabbage and tumeric, do not produce lasting dyes. The colors you get from them don't want to stick to things and even if you do manage to transfer color from the dyebath to your fiber, it will come out pretty quickly (within months at best) and usually the end result is something that kind of just looks stained.

To attempt to answer most of your questions though (which are very good questions, but would be answered with an unequivocal No if you're asking them about beets specifically):

I personally prefer dyeing things as washed fleece (not raw--you need to remove the dirt and lanolin or no dye will stick). It feels safest to me and I enjoy the extra freedom it gives over dyeing as yarn--with dyed fleece I can alter the color just by mixing other things in as I card it, or I can pull out the most vibrantly dyed sections and process them separately for different effects, etc. But it's entirely personal preference, and you can dye either yarn or fiber using natural materials without much difference.

I would not recommend dyeing batts using any traditional dyeing methods (except perhaps solar dyeing, which is very gentle), as the likelihood that you come out of it with a batt that's still spinnable, at least without reprocessing, is definitely lower than with fleece. I have heard of people dyeing batts by cooking them in a tray of dyebath in the oven, but I've never tried it and can't speak to how well it works. Batts should be alright with acid dyes, but natural dyes are (for the most part) not instant and require more time, heat, exposure, etc.

Wool is much easier to dye than cotton. I would always recommend testing new dyeing ideas on wool rather than a plant based fiber if possible.

Dicing or grating the dye material is not strictly necessary but is a good idea for larger or less permeable materials--for example, I don't bother shredding avocado peels because they just don't need it as they're very thin. But I do always chop avocado pits into small pieces, because cooking whole avocado pits is not very energy efficient, and possibly would not get all the dye out.

I definitely would not recommend trying to dye things using cans of food (especially the juice or canning water from said foods). You will get better, more vibrant color with fresh dye materials than with dried or frozen dye materials, and I have to imagine that extends to canned goods as well. Generally you also want to use both the juice and the fruit/vegetable/whatever, as you'll get a lot more color that way. I suppose if you were only dyeing a tiny amount of fiber, just using, say, blueberry juice and keeping the blueberries to continue cooking into jam, you'd be fine. Same if you had tons of blueberries and could easily amass large amounts of blueberry juice. But a definite limiting factor in natural dyeing is the amount of dye material that you can get your hands on, so people usually use all of that material instead of trying to reserve parts of it for eating.

I have never found that the smell of the dye material transfers to wool when it's dyed. Once it's dry it just smells like wool. Not necessarily the case with plant fibers, but I would generally not worry about making your wool smell like food permanently.

I don't know what color fixer is (the only thing with that exact name that came up was a laundry detergent for colored clothes that may have fugitive dyes--definitely do not use this in the place of a mordant), but the majority of natural dyes need things called mordants to adhere the color to the material. The more natural types of mordants are minerals (copper and iron are very commonly used) or tannins (such as from soaking acorns or from walnut hulls). Unless you are using a dye material that doesn't need a mordant (indigo and woad, for example, are well known for not needing mordants--although you also can't just throw them in a pot with water and simmer for a while to extract the dye from them, it's more involved than that. So there are trade offs), you will always need to mordant your fiber to get a good and long lasting color. For example, if you want to dye some wool with yellow onion skins and you don't mordant the wool, you will still end up with dyed wool. But it's a very light wheat color. If you want rich colors, you need to use a mordant.

Natural dyes are not suited for speckling yarns. Acid dyes work great for that, but natural dyes usually require you to fully immerse the fiber in the dyebath, and then expose it to heat over a long period of time. I do know that you can get speckled yarns using resist dyeing methods--essentially, if you take a skein of yellow yarn and tie sections of it very tightly and then dye it all in a red dyebath, you would get a primarily red (or reddish orange, perhaps) yarn with yellow speckles wherever those ties were. So that is one method that you could use to get a speckled yarn with natural dyes. But the method you're suggesting (just speckling it with a paintbrush or your hands for pops of different colors) is not suited to natural dyes. The most likely outcome of that would be no obvious change whatsoever. The second most likely outcome is probably just yarn with intermittent and random stains.

Natural dyes are not suited to dip dyeing, either. I think you could potentially get it to work, or at least get similar effects--you could mordant a piece of fabric/hank of yarn and then cook it in the dyebath like normal except leave part of it sitting next to and above the pot, which would then remain undyed. But whether the yarn would felt or get weird or whether there would be any unforeseen complications, that I don't know. It sounds like a good thing to experiment with once you already have some foundational knowledge of natural dyeing. But I wouldn't recommend it as a first project, for sure.

It sounds like the parts of dyeing that you have an interest in are better suited to acid dyes, so that might be a better route for you to go down ! If you do want to try natural dyes, I would recommend starting out with some good beginner dye materials, such as onion skins (by far the easiest and least bad-smelling dye material I've ever used, this would be my firm recommendation). Another good option would be powdered madder or other powdered dye materials (I specifically say madder, though, because it yields beet reds) that can be done without much fuss.

I hope this was helpful !

[pepprs]

ok so. today i am going to

fly (and travel at all) by myself for the first time since making the emergency return home from br!ghton bc of c0vid 4 years ago (extremely distressing and scary experience). and fly by myself two weeks after a mixed bag of a conference experience / plane ride home that included a massive scary depressive spiral that i had someone there to help me through as much as they could but it wasn’t enough which was absolutely not their fault but was deeply distressing to me at the time. so im about to be in a very similar environment but this time that person won’t be physically with me and it’s going to wreck my brain in multiple directions in part bc i have not yet recovered from the depressive spiral. i am still in it. lawl <3

ride in an uber by myself for the first time. ride in an uber at all for maybe the 5th time. as a very short young woman. which i have been expressedly warned by my parents not to do. lol <3

check into a hotel by myself for the first time

walk in a big city by myself for the first time (technically slightly untrue bc wjen i was last in ch!cago 5 years ago i did power walk from the hotel to the conference venue (like a block away) on the last day bc i was pissed about a situation but that was like… a block and i saw ppl i knew walking in that area. this time i will be in the same city and know no one at least for today

give myself a self care evening at the recommendation of my therapist…. for the first time. (maybe after i take a walk which i will do specifically when it’s still light out to see what the area is like). tonight no one i know will be in ch!cago yet and i have no plans to do anything. im going to play video games and draw and sing and give myself space and time to just enjoy being by myself and see how it goes

[seahdalune]

how James and Willow became friends with each other: the headcanon

-Willow was shy at first and things were a bit awkward with one another when they were first hired. then one day James asked about the tv show compilation Willow was watching during break, and after getting the name out of her set out to watch a few episodes in order to be a bit more friendly with her. ended up watching the whole show. -when James talked to her about it during break she started rambling about how the show was her favorite and other aspects until she got self conscious and clammed up. and opened up again when James encouraged her to continue. despite it being her favorite show she had no one to talk to about it other than Jackie, due to her anxieties. -(the show in question is called "The Sugary and Natural Made", although fans tend to shorten it to "SugarNatural".) -at some point they started visiting each other's house and watch the show together as episodes aired live. then they just started hanging out and they talked about other things too. Willow learned to be a bit more social thanks to James, and now she has infected (heh, like a vampire) even more customers to watch her favorite tv show >:) -they defos freaked out at the ending, which summoned Hank from their screaming. however, Hank then started freaking out himself and then Willow had to get the shock bla

[hella1975]

idk how irl celebrities handle fame at a young age like at seventeen i had a couple hundred people regularly interacting with me and putting me on a pedestal and that almost made me crazy. i see new writers getting attention in fandom and i immediately have to put myself in front of them and start barking. get behind me girl

[beatcroc]

comic planning/roughs on the clock at work 👍 ok. this one's still a few posts out though