new trope just dropped

Lake Michigan really can do anything, can't she?

we just need someone to put a game up on Steam that's East of an abstract concept

East of Weast

“Bamboo is antifungal”

Because it’s rayon

“Eucalyptus fabric is cooling!”

Yeah, because it’s rayon

“We make clothing called seacell out of seaweed!”

Yeah I looked on your website it’s made by the lyocell process, which means-

-wait for it-

Listen. There is a list of actual plant fibers that are directly made into fabric: cotton, linen, ramie, some hemp. I’m sure I’m missing a couple.

But if you’re wondering “huh how did they turn that plant material into fabric,” 99% of the time? It’s RAYON.

All rayon is made by putting plant material in chemical soup, dissolving out everything but the cellulose, and turning the cellulose into filaments/fibers.

The source of the cellulose has zero effect on the eventual fabric.

Rayon made from bamboo or eucalyptus or seaweed is not any better than rayon from any other sources.

Don’t let companies mislead you!

Hold on I need to DuckDuckGo something

Damn this was supposed to be a joke but turns out it’s hard to get scientifically rigorous comparisons of environmental impact across textile products from a casual search. “It’s all fucking rayon” appears mostly true but also I’m finding plenty of claims that it’s more sustainable than cotton anyway.

But that’s not what this post was actually about anyway so like

So it's worth separating out two things here:

This post is mostly about the first thing. A lot of companies are giving rayon many many different names as a way of disguising that It's Just Rayon, and claiming the fabric has special qualities.

But cellulose is cellulose. The process of extruding it into filaments and making those filaments into fibers/yarn/fabric is what gives it different qualities: some rayon is silky, some is fuzzy, etc.

It's all great at absorbing sweat, and it all takes longer to dry, and it insulates okay until it gets damp at which point it's worse than wearing nothing, which is why it's often blended into other things. The really nice tops I have from Uniqlo's Heattech line are a blend of a couple of synthetics and rayon. They're warm for being so thin and stretchy, but don't make me sweaty-feeling at all. (In a conversation among people with ADHD I found out I'm not the only one who wears them nearly daily for 3/4ths of the year lol.)

The irony of how often it's compared to polyester in the notes of this post is that polyester can also be made into a billion different textures. I have polyester that feels like wearing a plastic tarp, but I also own polyester that's light and breezy and totally comfy in boiling heat. I also have some very soft polyester fleece, as many people do. It's all a matter of how the filaments are extruded and how they're made into fabric.

But to get into the environmental stuff:

People get really into which fabrics are more "sustainable."

And rayon currently is made, 99% of the time, via one of two processes: viscose and lyocell (Tencel is a brand name for the lyocell process). Viscose is an older method and far more common, to the point that if a fabric doesn't specify that it's lyocell (or cuproammonium) you can probably assume it's viscose. Viscose is, generally speaking, far more polluting and hazardous to the humans working in the factory as well. Lyocell uses what's called a "closed-loop" method, so it puts out way fewer pollutants. It's also more expensive, generally speaking. There is such a thing as "ecoviscose" but I haven't looked into it.

(Modal just means rayon made from beech trees and afaict doesn't differentiate which process. Cupro is made using a less-common process called "cuproammonium," and I'm not sure how polluting it is, but apparently in China it's sometimes called "ammonia silk" which is wild.)

Rayon does have two definite advantages, despite everything I said up there:

BUT THAT ALL SAID: every fabric requires something shitty, quite frankly. Cotton takes a TON of water and usually pesticides. Silk requires a lot of farming of mulberry and then electricity to warm the places where the silkworms live and also you have to cook the silkworms alive so they don't cut the fibers. Linen requires its own chemical soup to be turned into usable fibers unless you're making it from flax the old fashioned way which requires a lot of time and a shit-ton of effort. (Like seriously there's rippling, retting, breaking, scutching, and hackling. And THEN you can spin it into thread.) Wool requires a lot of land etc for sheep, but also any wool item you own that's machine washable has had the barbs melted off the fibers with chemicals, and in many cases is also coated with a resin!

And that's not getting into dying. But if you've ever dyed fabric at home you know that it usually requires careful handling and in many cases goggles. Those chemicals are often toxic as fuck.

If you're trying to be sustainable in your clothing choices, the fact is that the absolute best thing you can do is:

"What fiber is it made of" just matters way fucking less than buying fewer items of clothing and using them until they wear out.

But most people don't want to do those things. They want to know which brand of clothes is "sustainable."

The sustainable thing is to buy and throw away less clothes. That's it.

Also: Environmental impact concerns more than just the fibre material.

The supply chains in the fashion industry are so convoluted and intransparent that it is virtually impossible to trace a single item back to its place of origin. Even the seller themselves often has no way of knowing where exactly their items come from. This is on purpose, because a lot of clothing is made under appalling circumstances. Clothes are still mostly handsewn. You can do the maths yourself as to how much the seamstress who put together your 20€ dress was paid - and that's not to mention the workers involved in fabric production, dyeing, finishing the garment, and so on.

Ethically produced clothing exists, but it is generally safe to assume that any clothing you buy is the result of exploitation.

From fibre to garment, anything you buy will have traveled the globe several times over to get to you, no matter how eco-friendly the material itself is.

The fashion industry is one of the most harmful in the world, for the climate, the environment, and for people.

This is why we all need to buy less clothing. Low-impact, ethical, fair, and affordable clothing simply does not exist right now.

Here's some paintings I've done of people looking at screens. These are all available as prints on Inprnt: Art Prints by Ollie Jones - INPRNT I'm also selling a limited edition print of my piece 'Producer' at Black Dragon Press: Producer – Black Dragon Press

those food cat memes always make me think of a kitten wearing a costume that his mommy made him

Montana opening up some incredible possibilities here. imagine the chaos you could cause by filing a fraudulent marriage certificate for two random people who've never met

this is tbe funniest fucking comment

God can't save a man he didn't make

hey girl umm... i think there's something wrong with your fish

they have played us for absolute fools

For anyone who hasn't already, in lieu of the Great Pixilating, go to your Settings> Account Settings> Content You See and make sure you're shit is set so that mature content isn't blurred, like this:

Mine apparently got re-set at some point, so I had to go in and switch things on and off again, myself.

(Unless, of course, you purposely have things set up to block/blur mature content, obviously then this message isn't for you)

Note for iOS users, you have to do this through the website, the app will not show you the setting

Friend said he doesn't like saying he has a "backlog" of games and at the time I was like "lol yeah" but the more I think about it I'm like. Yeah I don't like that, what the scallop. I dont have a """backlog""" it's not my Job to go through this shit. It's a hobby for Funsies let's have funsies

Oof yeah we fell behind this fiscal quarter but if we put in the overtime we should be able to catch up on the Star Wars games and we'll be back on schedule to play Pirate Yakuza. Yes I know the shareholders won't be happy but it's our best way forward

Goddamn it Gerald, what do you MEAN you haven't begun work on Yakuza 0?? Delays because of Twin Peaks: The Return?? Well what the FUCK am I supposed to tell the Board? It's MY ASS on the line here. I covered for you once when you stopped Red Dead to watch all those Godzilla movies but NO MORE

Im gonna be so real can yall actually talk about ways we can support trans women in the UK instead of giving all the attention to fucking JKR. I already know that Harry Poter sucks, I wanna know how to actually HELP people. Something something you have to love the oppressed more than you hate the oppressor

trans actual uk - trans led and run advocacy, education and empowerment organisation

fiveforfive - collective fund for trans women and girls and transfem causes

gendered intelligence - trans led advocacy org

mermaids - supports trans youth

akt - lgbtq youth homelessness charity

loving me - domestic abuse service for trans people in england

not a phase - for trans adults

may i offer you a crumb of nostalgia? or a refreshing sip of vinegar?

some friends & i ended up talking about animorphs a while ago. at some point in the conversation i was explaining andalites to my partner who never read the books, stopped & went ".........you know what i'm gonna do?" to which people responded with "make an andalite bjd?" and yes. they were absolutely correct.

this also finally motivated me to sculpt a centaur body with more joints. i'm very happy with the range of motion in this, especially how nicely it lies down. need to work a little bit on stability, but the poseability is where i want it.