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20dollarlolita · 3 years

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Hi, folks, Pink here, your local textile nerd.

Today, I’d like to remind you that dye lots aren’t what you think they are, and budget yarn’s concept of dye lots is a combination of them making something up to sound expensive and making something up to make you buy more stuff.

What’s a dye lot? We’re going to talk yarn for a minute, and then get into fabric.

Some yarns (and in this case, we can also refer to the thread used to make fabric) are batch dyed. This means that 20-200 skeins of yarn are spun, and then a large vat of dye is made. Those skeins of yarn go into that dye. That lot of skeins are dyed for the same length of time, same temperature, and same dye. Therefore, these skeins of yarn should all be the exact same color. The next batch might be at a slightly different temperature, for a different amount of time, and a slightly different dye mix; this would mean that yarn from a different lot are slightly different colors. Batch dyeing like this is cost-effective if there’s not a very high demand for a lot of the yarn at one time. For example, if a yarn is only sent to high-end knitting stores, there might only be 600 skeins of it total in all stores across the USA.

However, this method is very expensive if you’re making huge amounts of yarn. If you are making enough yarn that every Joann, Michaels, Hobby Lobby, and Walmart has 6 skeins of it, that would take...(*googles “how many walmarts are in the USA*)...a lot of batches. A batch of dye is only good for so many uses until it’s no longer able to dye, and then it has to be thrown out. Working in batches on the large scale is both creating a lot of waste and is not cost-effective.

It’s also frequently not necessary. If you want wool yarn, the natural colors that you have to work with are basically white, cream, and brown. Any other colors that you want have to be dyed, because no one has made GMO pink sheep yet. However, the budget yarn that’s in every craft superstore isn’t wool; it’s plastic. Polyester yarn and acrylic yarn, the two most common yarns you find at Ye Olde Walmart, are plastic. We use polyester all the time, in all kinds of places. Those weird plastic children’s playhouses that my parents wouldn’t get for me because they said I’d outgrow it but that secretly adult me still wants one because it was denied to me as a kid are made of polyester. Those weird plastic playhouses aren’t dyed; the color is put into the plastic before it’s shaped into the necessary shapes. The same thing happens with polyester and acrylic yarn: they start with colored plastic pellets, and then turn those pellets into fibers, and then spin the fibers into yarn.

And it’s good that they can do that, because dyeing polyester fibers is a bitch. The dye doesn’t hold and doesn’t really penetrate, so dyed synthetic fibers are more likely to fade. However, fibers that are colored, extruded plastic don’t fade, because you can’t get better dye penetration than making the fiber with the color already in it.

Some acrylic and polyester yarns are dyed, but they’re not batch dyed. Instead, they’re dyed before they are cut into skeins. While the yarn is being transported over to the skein winding machine, it passes through a vat of dye. This dye is constantly being refilled, but it’s never thrown out and replaced entirely like it would be in a batch dye. When a yarn says “no dye lot,” on it, that’s because there literally was no dye lot. It was not dyed in a lot.

Now, yes, it is very difficult to perfectly mix the exact same dye composition every single time you make dye. If you’re making a batch of dye small enough to dye 20 skeins of yarn, you need extremely precise measuring tools. Small variations might make big differences. This is like when you’re following your great-grandma’s cookie recipe and it says “two pinches of salt” and you have no way of making sure that your pinch size is the side of her pinch size. How big “one drop” of purple dye is depends on a lot of things, like the person measuring the drop and what kind of dropper they’re using.

However, when you’re making 600 US gallons of dye, it’s much easier to be precise, because the volume is so large. It’s much easier to measure out 3 cups of purple dye, and if you’re off by five or six drops, it doesn’t really matter. This means that, when Red Heart is dying all of their Lapis colorway of yarn, the dye they’re using is much more consistent from one addition to the next. To add to that, the dye is added to dye that’s already been mixed, because the dye is added to the batch before the old dye is completely used up. This makes a system that makes consistent color even that much more consistent.

“But but but my yarn does have a dye lot on it!!!” okay maybe it does but probably no it fucking does not. It has a manufacture lot on it. Many things have manufacture lots on them. Go into your kitchen and look at the bottom of a can of vegetables. In addition to an expiration date, there is usually a number indicating what batch the cans were in. This doesn’t mean that the corn was all packaged together. Instead, what happens is that every 1000ish cans, that number is changed. Then, if something bad happens to a can, but the manufacturers don’t know exactly which one, they can recall all the cans in the batch. This is much easier and less expensive than recalling all the cans they’ve ever made.

Budget yarn works the same way. Every sixteen thousand miles of yarn, the batch number is changed. Then, if Red Heart discovers that their machine was broken and the yarn was spun unevenly, they can find what batches were affected and they can ask stores to pull them from the shelves. That’s all that a manufacture lot indicates. It doesn’t mean that they were dyed at the same time, in the same dye, or that they were built in the same way. It means that they were manufactured at the same time, but they might be made from different batches of plastic pellets and they might have gone through slightly different dye. It’s possible, and actually likely, for a yarn skein in a batch to match other batches more closely than it matches its own batch.

Using the manufacture lot number to determine if the yarn is alike is as logical as using the cost of a King Sized Reeses at 7-11 to determine how much a tank of gas will cost there on Wednesday. You’re looking at one measurement and deciding that it means something totally different than what it’s measuring.

BUT MY YARN SAYS TO BUY ENOUGH OF ONE LOT TO COMPLETE THE PROJECT!! Yeah, and my shampoo bottle says “repeat” at the end of the use instructions, because that makes them more money. Caron and Bernat (who are the same company, BTW) both say that on their yarn, even when the yarn isn’t dyed. This is for two reasons: the first is to avoid liability, and the second is to sell more product. First of all, any manufacture process, no matter how big, might have variations in the product they produce. If a batch of Bernat Blanket is a slightly different color from the rest of what they’ve produced, that label covers their butt and allows them to still sell it. When someone complains, they can say, “We’re sorry, but this is your fault for not buying enough of one lot.” The second reason is that you’d normally get four skeins to finish a project, but what if they don’t have the dye lot when you come back? Better get five. You finish the project, didn’t need that fifth one, but do you know where your receipt is? Are you still within the allowed return window? Are you going to get your money back for that item, or are you going to hang onto it?

There’s also a third reason, and it’s the same reason my cat food says “gourmet patte” and my canned sweetcorn says “fancy English style” on it. There’s nothing gourmet about my cat food and my sweet corn was 97cents a can and is as far from fancy as canned vegetables can get. But it makes it look more expensive to say that. Expensive, small-batch yarn NEEDS a dye lot; cheap yarn does not. Therefore, if you put a dye lot on the yarn, it is worth more, even if it’s cheap yarn.

Dye lots do matter in a lot of boutique yarn (not all of them, though. Variegated staple-dyed yarns don’t have dye lots because they’re dyed before they’re yarn). But you don’t need to get all worked up over yarn dye lots if they aren’t actually a thing that exists for that yarn. If it’s made by a big budget brand (Lion Brand, Yarnspirations, Red Heart, etc), and you can hold two strands from two skeins together and not see a difference between them, it probably matches. The way they’re manufactured is more likely to make consistent yarn color than the way boutique yarn is manufactured.

And, like, look, me and my church (The Church of Asexual Jesus and Dinosaurs) really don’t care if people believe outlandish things. People are allowed to care about things that I don’t. However, I don’t like to see people spend extra money or extra effort trying to get something that doesn’t actually exist. But a lot of people believe in things that don’t actually exist, and as a general rule I don’t care.

I dedicated my time to make this post because, of my five years working in craft stores, the rudest customers I have ever met have consistently been people trying to match dye lots that don’t exist. I do not actually get outright yelled at very often, but over 50% of the times that I have have been over not having the right dye lot, not having my store track dye lots in the computer, not matching dye lots when the customer specifically asked it by sending an angry email to noreply@[mystore].com and us not replying tot that email, not having a specific dye lot when the yarn was bought a year ago, not having personnel to check for a dye lot on a busy day when the computer inventory said we had 31 skeins of it, saying that a yarn with “no dye lot” written on it was a no dye lot yarn, and so on. If you want to be wrong, that’s fine, go be wrong. Just don’t you dare yell at my 16-year-old coworker, who is just now learning what chambray is, for not knowing how to read your mind when you’re asking for something that isn’t real.

Go get a new hobby that doesn’t involve you screaming at minors until they have a breakdown in the stock room. Maybe try a new hobby called go fuck yourself.

As for fabrics, here’s an interesting thing: many solid-color bulk fabrics are continuous dyed, but a lot of them are actually batch dyed. This means that brown fabric from different bolts could be vastly different colors. Prints look different at the end of the run than they do at the beginning, as the stamp that they use to print slowly degrades. Batik and marble and tie dye fabrics may never match between putups (which is 100 yards) due to the natural process of how they’re made.

Nobody tracks by-the-yard fabric dye lots, even though they’re just as important as yarn dye lots.

Times I’ve been yelled at for a fabric dye lot not matching: 2, in 5 years. Times I’ve been yelled at for yarn dye lots not matching: someone get me more fingers, because I’ve used all of them and all my toes too.

It’s okay to care about things, but don’t be a dick about it when other people don’t care.

We now return to our regularly scheduled “me being pedantic about textiles in a way that vaguely relates to lolita” content.

BTW, if there’s any demand for it, I can post my knitted wrist cuff pattern. They’re especially good for winter, when your sleeves are just a little bit too short and make a gap between your sleeve and your glove. They also look a lot better if you take the rubber bands off your wrist first.

#not lolita #textile rant #textile science with 20dollarlolita #language cw #long post #how do i forget to tag long post #everything i ever made is a long post

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euphoriabled-memes · 4 years

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𝐔𝐧𝐮𝐬 𝐀𝐧𝐧𝐮𝐬 𝐒𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐞 𝐒𝐭𝐚𝐫𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐬.

𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐒𝐩𝐢𝐫𝐚𝐥 𝐇𝐚𝐬 𝐅𝐚𝐝𝐞𝐝, 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐓𝐡𝐮𝐬 𝐌𝐚𝐫𝐤𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐄𝐧𝐝.

𝕸𝖊𝖒𝖊𝖓𝖙𝖔 𝕸𝖔𝖗𝖎. 𝐔𝐧𝐮𝐬 𝐀𝐧𝐧𝐮𝐬.

❝ How many drugs do you have in your system right now? ❞

❝ The glory of the male body should be seen from the front at all times. ❞

❝ We ate expired ants?! ❞

❝ Do you look down on poor people? ❞

❝ Hold on-! They’re just making baked potatoes! ❞

❝ No better candidate for drowning than [name]. ❞

❝ I will overpower you in any situation. ❞

❝ This is where it happened. This is where the deed was done. ❞

❝ Sweat in your pants? Go out and dance. ❞

❝ What sound does red make? ❞

❝ Do you feel safe? ❞

❝ Condoms are for people that are afraid of death. ❞

❝ If ants were smarter, they could kill everybody. ❞

❝ Never speak to me again. ❞

❝ What if you just walked- and happened upon a field of decomposing bodies? ❞

❝ You can’t go through it, it’s concrete. ❞

❝ Would you stab me with a knife? ❞

❝ Would you take away my life? ❞

❝ Would you become my wife? ❞

❝ I’m gonna paint him naked. ❞

❝ So many men have asked me for a dance tonight. I’m hot! ❞

❝ What a basic bitch death. ❞

❝ Add water to my ashes, mix it together- whisk, whisk it all together. Maybe put some flour in... turn yourself into a pancake! ❞

❝ If I lube myself up, I’ll slip right through Hell and get into Heaven. ❞

❝ I’ve never had a latte in my life. ❞

❝ There’s only one woman in my life, and it’s Joann Fabrics. ❞

#rp meme #rp starters #rp prompts #indie rp meme #indie rp prompts #indie rp starters #indie roleplay starters #indie roleplay prompts #roleplay meme #roleplay starters #roleplay prompts #unus annus rp meme #unus annus rp starters #unus annus sentence starters

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maryellencarter · 3 years

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So the final cause, if I recall my Aristotle (I was terrible at Aristotelian logic, or at least at what the badly illustrated homeschool textbook said was Aristotelian logic), was that my apartment has been growing irregularly more squalorous for months. Occasionally I would have a bout of energy and put my groceries in the pantry, but for the most part I've been doing well to keep up on the laundry. The proximal cause was... probably the coloring books.

Anyway, this morning I put on pants that were not sweatpants, probably for the first time in months, because going to get vaccinated is a festal occasion and one ought to look one's best. (I put on my cute top with the frilly shoulder straps and the little rosettes, too, since I figured it'd be smart to wear something sleeveless. And my combat boots with the pastel tiedye laces, in case of hiking, which also turned out to be smart. I was decked out.)

So then I went and showed a number of people my ID and my appointment email, and they poked me with a timy needle -- not as small as the one they used in the ER for the insulin that time, I didn't even feel that one, but a very nice thin needle compared to my usual standard of needles, which are the ones they use to try and get blood *out* of you, and often fail when you are me. Then they made me sit down for fifteen minutes in case I took an allergy, and then they gave me a lollipop (I got blue cotton candy, my favorite flavor) and a sticker with a hashtag on it and I left.

Then I got to wend my way back from the place where the vaccinations were happening -- it was a big event on the college campus, since they have a lot of nice big rooms and wide open spaces there -- and it happened I was coming back from a direction I do not usually wend my way from, and I dropped into Michaels. Usually I go to Joann's, because they have fabric, which Michaels doesn't, and Michaels is generally a bit froofier in the sorts of craft supplies they stock at least locally, but the Michaels and the Joann's are right across the street from each other, and I still haven't heard anything about my special order on the floss color that Joann's was out of. Michaels doesn't have the full range of DMC colors, but I took a look and they did in fact have the color I needed.

Then I wandered around some, because Michaels actually does have a bigger yarn selection than Joann's, and I found some Patons Kroy (my absolute favorite sock yarn for feel and texture) in a colorway I didn't loathe, which is *not* something I've been able to find since they stopped making that one colorway with all the orange and black and gray stripes, which I loved dearly and can't remember the name of. So I was like "this will be just the thing for that one lace scarf I was looking at that needs wool yarn in case it has to be blocked to look right", because knitted lace is like that and you can't block acrylic. You can "kill" acrylic but that's different and I'd rather not.

Um. Anyway. Then I wandered around some more, because I get into Michaels so seldom that it's handy to look at what-all they've got while I'm there. Over the past... week or so I have had a sudden bout of wanting to color in coloring books, because that happens to me sometimes; there was an impulse trip to the Walmart way out in the boondocks on the unlit road for Crayola colored pencils, because I decided I was not going to pay eight times as much for Prismacolors.

(The really infuriating thing about coloring books, in my opinion, is that right now you can either find the kiddie newsprint coloring books which are with us always, of course, or you can find "adult coloring books" which are *in-fucking-variably* filled with horses and lions and whales and other large charismatic mammals covered in what look for all the world like quilting patterns. If I wanted to color a rendition of a quilt filled with tiny stripes and polka dots, I'd get some graph paper! And the dots and lines and so forth are so tiny that you can *only* color them with colored pencils, because that's Adulty.)

(Yes, I know they sell coloring pages on Etsy and places. I've been avoiding the print shop for at least a month and a half now, when if I would put the things on my thumb drive and go to it, I could start getting my student loans out of default. I would never wind up printing coloring pages off of Etsy. No, I don't know why. Print shops scare me, perhaps slightly worse than post offices.)

Um. Where was I? So I had gone way far out to the Walmart nobody goes to which therefore often has interesting things in stock, and I had discovered that Crayola still does the glitter crayons I had coveted as a tiny, and they also make double-ended scented markers, which are like the coolest thing ever to the tiny early-nineties child I still am in my heart. So as of this morning, my kitchen counter was completely covered with... things. There was already the sewing machine and the Dr Pepper that doesn't taste like an old shoe, and the peanut butter and the elephant-shaped porcelain wax-warmer, but there had been a narrow slot where I could put a plate and eat my meals -- my only table having been co-opted a year ago by my workstation. Now that slot was filled with various Crayola products and a coloring book with mermaids in it, which at least had a few pages that could be colored partly with markers or crayons, instead of being entirely minced into geometric shapes barely larger than a pencil lead.

SO, what happened after I got vaccinated and found yarn and floss, is that I found out that Crayola still makes the *pearlescent* crayons I coveted even more as a kid. I had gotten one in a little sample pack included with my big 64-box, and it was very precious to me. It's long gone now, of course.

So of course then I bought the pearlescent crayons, and then I bitched at Leia for a while about how I didn't have any coloring books I could use these wonderful crayons *on* unless I wanted to go back to the Lisa Frank newsprint of my youth. (They did actually have Lisa Frank. I strongly considered it. But my tastes have evolved beyond newsprint.)

Then I googled some things, and I found Walmart listing a Crayola mandala coloring book. I went to look for it, and I didn't find it, but I did find a different coloring book with "stained glass" style pictures (sadly not on actual tracing paper, but it occurs to me that if I could source some tracing paper, which it further occurs to me that I haven't seen in years although admittedly I haven't been looking, that I could *trace them* and color them and tape them on my windows like the tacky '90s kid I am), which GLORY HALLELUJAH has spaces big enough to fucking color in!

...Michaels also had neon and metallic Crayola crayons. I might go back. They were 24-packs of each. The single silver and gold crayons from my mom's 64-pack were pretty much only used for Easter eggs in our house, so as not to use them up. I just -- I have a wealth beyond imagining of special effect crayons and markers available to me, and I'm struggling to find anywhere to use them. This seems backwards.

So anyway, then I also found a cute sundress big enough to go over my ass, and then I sat in the furniture section for a while and pondered buying a new table so I wouldn't have to keep stacking coloring books on top of the peanut butter jar in order to eat, and it occurred to me that if I took down my Christmas tree, which I've had up since the Before Times (having gotten it from in fact the same Walmart east of anywhere after all the rest in town were sold out of the particular model), then I would have a space along the back of the kitchen counter where I could hypothetically put a table.

So, because I am a sensible and moderate individual, I bought a thing of string to tie up the Christmas tree branches with, and did not buy a table yet. Then it was time for D&D, so I hurried home and put my vaccination card on the fridge and got into the voice chat and started taking down the Christmas tree.

Then it was five hours later, and I had started konmari-ing the whole apartment in order to have somewhere to store the Christmas tree, and I had discovered that my closet shelf was almost entirely full of empty cardboard boxes, so I had pulled all those out and rifled through them to make sure they didn't contain anything important, and after rescuing three cards from a friend and one glasses chamois, I stuffed most of the boxes in a trash bag, jammed the condensed Christmas tree and all the winter blankets and my air mattress and various other wintry things into the giant box my office chair came in, managed to get that giant box up onto the closet shelf (I have some soreness around my injection site but I honestly don't know if it's a side effect of the vaccination or a pulled muscle from wiggling a very large heavy box into a very tight space over my head), and moved the Goodwill oddities into a midsize box that I think I brought my workstation home in, but they just moved the remaining onsite agents into a much smaller room so I don't think I'm going to be asked to bring my workstation back for a while, and when I do go to bring it back I think the monitors will fit nicely in my washtub.

(I'm giving Goodwill my crockpot. After I forgot the garbanzos in it for three days until the chicken broth started to stink, I decided I am not a person who needs to own a crockpot. Also something like eight skeins of rather ugly yarn because I bought too much for the baby blankets I was making.)

(I'm not sure why I own a washtub. It's bright blue and plastic. It does have a use, which is to hand-wash my weighted blanket in occasionally, as of course you can't put twenty-odd pounds of glass baubles in a washing machine.)

(I certainly did make some life choices that led me here, did I not.)

Annnnyway, so now I have an almost empty three-drawer Rubbermaid dresser, an entirely empty and extremely large Rubbermaid tote (I'm pretty sure I could trap myself in there, but I haven't tried), a mostly empty square ottoman which is also a storage box, and a royal shitton of tiny things like office supplies and party favors that don't *go* anywhere.

"A place for everything" is the really hard part, you know. I achieved it once. Then I moved out of that apartment and have never achieved it again. Once things *have* places, then even if you don't have the spoons to put the peanut butter jar back in the pantry right *now*, you know it has a spot between the Hormel and the Chef Boyardee, and it's way easier than "oh god if I open the pantry there won't be any room and I'll wind up putting the peanut butter under the bathroom sink with the Johnnie Walker Black or maybe over the kitchen sink on top of the Thermacare back wraps."

(You're supposed to store whisky upright in a cool dark place, okay. None of the upper cabinet shelves are tall enough, so I could have put it either directly over the water heater or directly next to the oven. Instead it lurks behind the toilet paper, next to the Clorox wipes and the pre-pandemic Lush bath bomb, which I should... probably use at some point.)

Erm. So then I was pondering what-all storage I would need to source in order to begin having places in which to put things, *findable* places which is the real grail, and -- I think I took a pause to read Dreamwidth and someone linked me a plushie trilobite, okay. I haven't yet entirely decided whether to buy it, but it occurred to me that I definitely have no home for a plushie trilobite, any more than for the amazing Zaeed plushie currently trapped under my cross stitching or the Star Wars Build-a-Bear who was supposed to make Ewok noises until three weeks of freeze-thaw cycle in a malfunctioning package locker did for his electronic squeaker, or the poor American Girl doll languishing inside the ottoman.

So then I was like "we used to have that little net corner hammock for stuffed animals when I was a kid, we never could get it mounted right, but perhaps with fewer cooks that would be a good option". So I googled for one, and all I could find was an assortment of JUMBO five-or-six-foot-long double-deep toy hammocks, obviously necessary to keep your child from drowning in the flood of stuffed animals that have taken over beds in the past thirty years.

(Okay, I was pretty toy-deprived as a kid, the 1980s were not in general what you would call a time of less stuff in American households. Still. I have a twin bed. I can hardly even *find* a toy hammock that wouldn't be bigger than my bed in some dimension.)

So then, it being the aforementioned five hours later with a lot of D&D combined with hard physical labor in the middle, I said to myself, said I, "Hammocks are made out of net, and nets are made out of strings." And by god, if there is one thing I'm better at than another, it is making things out of string. I've never actually gotten around to trying out the whole process of making an actual fisherman's net, which is much more closely related to tatting than to knitting, but I have yarn and most of the possible knitting or crocheting supplies I would need to invent things.

Which, at long last, explains why I have paused to write this halfway through creating a triangular filet crochet toy hammock out of sparkly yellow yarn.

Joann's is having a 50% off sale on plastic storage whatsits tomorrow, but I think I'll probably spend a large part of the day putting office supplies into ziploc bags and hanging them in rows on the wall with pushpins so as to figure out what-all I in fact own.

#i feel like this probably needs at least a few warning tags #but i have no idea what those would be at this point

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the-voltage-diaries · 4 years

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I’ll Stay by Your Side, Every Night - Soryu Oh

For our very own, @joaxotome; one of the sweetest, kindest, and most amazing humans I have had the honour to meet. I don’t think I write Soryu that well, because the last Soryu piece I wrote was over a year ago lmao, but I tried. I hope you like this, Joanne. Thank you for being such an amazing ball of energy who can cheer anyone up in a mere few seconds. Love you. <3

Also, since you said you love yourself some angst to love, I tried to make it come true. Cheers to me writing better Soryu fics, hahaha.

This one’s for the discord exchange, and I’d just like to take a moment to thank our very own @voltage-vixen for hosting this beautiful event <3!!

TW: Angst (with fluff... or so I hope.) This work is based around the ideas of abuse; mental, emotional, physical. If you are in any way uncomfortable with that, do not read this.

“Are you going to cry now?” He smirks, his eyes glinting in a way that make the hair on the back of my neck stand up.

All I see is black as my eyelids force shut, not wanting to look at his face for a second longer, too scared to think about what will happen to me if I do.

“Hahaha,” he laughs and I sense him bending low, his face coming closer to mine. “Look at you, scared and shivering like the mess you are.” I shift uncomfortably, feeling his breath creating warm spots on my neck as his voice lowers, almost down to a whisper, “You asked for it, baby.”

“Ugh!” I jolt, my groan muffled against the cloth stuffing my mouth when I feel his fingers stroke the sides of my waist, teasing, testing the waters.

And then, before I know it, his palm comes to rest on my chin and in one swift motion his fingers pull out the dirty piece of fabric gagging me. My eyes burn with unshed tears at the pain in my mouth, caused by the sudden pull, and I take a deep breath, refusing to admit defeat in front of this bastard.

It’s okay. It’s okay. It’ll be okay. I’ll survive. I know I will. At least I hope I will.

“Baby,” he purrs, almost as if coaxing me, “Open those beautiful eyes of yours for me, won’t you?”

My breathing shallows and goosebumps show up on my skin at the nickname, the way he calls out to me in that god forsaken voice.

His rugged fingertips graze the corners of my jaw, almost as if luring me back into him, back into that web of pain, lies and suffering. “Look at me,” he whispers, and I shiver at the tilt in his tone, reminding me of the days when things between us started to go awry. “Don’t worry Joanne, I’m not going to hurt you.”

Just as his fingers tighten around my jaw, I hear the sound of a mobile ringing. He clicks his tongue in annoyance, and my sigh of relief goes unnoticed. I hear his footsteps as they back off and walk in the direction of the device which refuses to stop ringing.

My guess is that he picks up the incoming call, because no sooner than his feet stop do I hear him let out a muted, “What is it?” Again, I hear his footsteps move away, and then a door opens, and then it shuts. And then? Complete silence.

My uneven breaths echo in the silence so eerie you would hear it if a snail moved.

As I try to calm myself down, my mind chooses the worst distraction it possibly could have; my past with this man.

When did we become like this? Why did we become like this? What went wrong?

We had started off on such good terms. Both of us were madly in love. He was the perfect boyfriend; he would take me out on dates, message me constantly, shower me with his love, call me nicknames, spend time with me... or so I thought.

About a year into our relationship I realised how badly had I fucked up. I realised how blind I was to the changes in his behaviour; the way I didn’t notice how him taking me out on dates turned into him forcing me out when I didn’t want to go, just to show me off as his trophy girlfriend, how his constant messaging turn into something obsessive, how him showering me with his love turned into showering me with his abuses, how calling me nicknames turned into calling me a whore or a slut whenever I so much as even looked at someone else, the gender didn’t matter, how him spending time with me turned into him gluing himself to my side, never once leaving me.

Always on the look-out for when I’d commit even the slightest of errors. Because then he would unleash all his names, curses, abuses at me; making me feel like I didn’t deserve to be loved.

Well, maybe I didn’t.

Over time, those curses and abuses turned physical as he turned more violent, slapping me or beating me up for even the most minor of mistakes. Those verbal slurs turned emotional, making me feel like I didn’t deserve to be alive. Hah, what a cheeky little failure.

“Heh,” I scoff at myself, laughing at how naive I was to not realise when our love turned into something that would make most people sick to their core.

What makes me feel the most miserable about our past is that I allowed myself to be used and abused. Even when he didn’t reply to my texts, ignored me for days sometimes, and clearly had stopped even so much as glancing my way... I still hadn’t given up.

Not until that one fateful day when I saw him. In my bed. With not just one, but two bloody women.

Silly girl, one of his sex friends had said, smirking in all her naked glory, can’t you see the truth right in front of you? This is his little kingdom, and you’re not the queen anymore.

“Argh,” I groan, my thoughts coming back to the present when I feel my bound wrists numb with pain at a tear in the thin skin that covers them. Rolling my shoulders to forget about the pain for the time being, I pull at the rope tying my wrists behind my back, in futile hopes that it would come loose.

“Ah, I always loved the feisty side you hid underneath all that cute drama.”

I jump and my body freezes in its spot, my eyes widening at the proximity of his voice.

In my peripheral vision I see his face, his chin coming to rest on my shoulder with him standing right behind me.

When did he come back?

“While you were too busy reminiscing about the beautiful bubble you had created for yourself with me,” he chuckles, as if reading my mind. Looking at the way my eyes refuse to un-widen, he continues, “You were always easy to read. Now weren’t you, Joanne?”

“Why are you doing this?” I whisper, my head bent, refusing to stay up any longer.

“Because, Joanne,” he starts, a lewd smirk lining his face when I let out a choked sob on the use of my name, “I want you to have your epiphany.”

“My what?” I ask, looking up at him, wondering if I heard him right.

“Your epiphany,” he repeats. I feel the throbbing in my wrists relax as the ropes slowly come undone, surprising me. He slowly walks around me, coming to a stop just in front of me. My heart only pounds faster when I catch the glint of the knife in his hands. “I want you to realise what a useless little bitch you are without me in your life. Nobody loves you, kitten. Nobody did, nobody would.”

“Stop...” I whisper, bowing my head in defeat, trying to mute out all his words in an attempt to stop them from having their effect on me.

“You, Joanne, are a pretty little good for nothing.” He smiles, his palm resting on my shoulders. “Your friends run away from you, your peers refuse to talk to you. Ever wondered why?”

No, Joanne. Don’t listen. It’s okay. It’ll be okay. Every thing will be fine. Just breathe.

“Because, oh darling,” he murmurs, dragging the knife’s tip up my neck, slowly, “you are so very broken and no one cares to notice.”

“I trusted you,” I say, finding the courage to meet his eyes from god-knows-where. I meet his challenging gaze head on, trying to sound as angry and frustrated as I feel, “I trusted you so much.”

“Well then you can’t exactly blame me, can you? It was your mistake.”

“What the fuck do you want?!” I yell, immediately regretting it when I see how his smile turns from teasing to predatory.

“What do I want?” He mutters, bringing his face so close to mine I can feel his disgusting breath on my lips. He drags the tip of the knife lower... and lower... and lower, until it reaches my abdomen.

I can’t think.

“You want to know what I want, Joanne?”

I can’t breathe.

"I want so many things," he whispers. "I want your mind. Your strength. I want to be worth your time."

His eyes hold me still, as if commanding me to stay where I am.

His fingers graze the hem of my top and he says, "I want this up." He tugs on the waist of my pants and says, "I want this down." He touches the tips of his fingers to the sides of my body and mutters, "I want to feel your skin on fire. I want to feel your heart racing next to mine and I want to know it's racing because of me, because you want me.

And then I hear the sound of something sharp piercing skin, and the sound of blood oozing out. My eyes slowly travel down to look at my waist where the knife rests, buried deep in my body.

Because you never, " he breathes and pulls me up to him, and looking up, in the depths of his eyes I see the formation of something that makes me lose my mind, "never want me to stop. I want every second. I want every inch of you. I want all of it." He smirks, pushing the knife deeper into me as his fingers come to rest on my chest, where I feel my heart pound, "I want your soul."

And I drop dead, all over the floor.

“Joanne?” I hear a voice call out my name. It’s almost distant. Almost.

All I see is pitch black as I feel my heart pound out of control and my body grow hot.

“Joanne, love,” The voice says, insistent, and it’s as if my body automatically relaxes a little at the familiarity of it. “Can you hear me? Wake up, baby.”

I feel the urge to reach out and grab at the voice, and so I do. I stretch out a hand into the darkness that surrounds me, in the hopes of grasping on to something, not knowing what it is.

“JOANNE, WAKE UP!” I sense someone’s fingers curl around mine, grabbing my outstretched hand, and pulling me towards a strong, warm chest, immediately jolting me awake.

“Wha-What?” I whisper, not quite catching up with what is going on. All I see in front of me is a navy blue hoodie, covering a broad, strong frame, and I look up to meet a familiar pair of eyes, as calming and deep as the ocean.

“Hi,” he says, giving me a relieved smile. But for some reason, while my body calms down, my mind delves right back into the state of panic as I feel my nightmare overlapping with my reality.

“Get away from me!” I yell, pushing him away, and jump away from the bed, running to the opposite end of the room.

“Joanne?” He calls out, his eyes widening in surprise, maybe not expecting me to run away. Oh no, maybe I angered him. Maybe he will beat me up now. Oh no.

“Don’t take my name!” I say, covering my ears. I can still hear his voice ringing in my head, letting my name out from his sickening lips.

He gets out from the bed, slowly, steadily, and looks at me with a warm, comforting gaze, “It’s me, Joanne. It’s Soryu.”

“S-Soryu?” I murmur, slowly looking up to meet his eyes. I try to calm my ragged breathing down as I gradually start registering what is going on. But the moment he takes a step towards me, I immediately jump back.

“Love,” he coaxes, “at least let me clean you up. You’re all sweaty.”

Wait. I am?

It’s when he says that do I notice the state I am in; my face wet with tears, my body sticky with sweat and my fingers trembling with fear.

‘... Joanne, I’m not going to hurt you.’

“Come here,” Soryu says, opening his arms for me.

“Why?”

“Just come here,” he mumbles, taking a step forward.

“No!” I shout, stopping him in his tracks as I flinch away. “You’re going to hit me.”

“I’m not going to hurt you, Joanne.”

“I’ve heard those words before.”

He looks at me, his hair still a mess, and in that moment in the pale moonlight he looks more handsome and more human than I have ever seen him. “I guess I’m asking you to trust me,” he says, opening his arms wide, once again, for me to fall into.

I stand there, shaking in fear for a moment, but when I see his deep, grey orbs look at me with so much longing and care, I finally start to take slow, deliberate steps towards him.

Within a few steps, I fall into his strong embrace, letting it consume me and make me forget about whatever I dreamed of.

When his fingers comfortingly start stroking my back with extreme patience and give me that sense of security I was so desperately searching for is when the dam breaks and all the tears I had been holding in rush out.

He stands there, silent as a graveyard, patting my back in a rhythmic pattern, not once judging.

“Why are you doing this?” I ask not being able to think of an answer myself.

“Doing what?” He murmurs, his voice muffled by my hair as he rests his mouth against my head, kissing the spot before staying there.

“Treating me like a person,” I whisper.

“I’m doing this because,” he starts, pulling away to look in my eyes. His fingers gently grab my chin, guiding my face towards his, to make sure our eyes are locked, “I love you, Joanne.”

My lips form a smile when I realise how much he means every one of his words. “I love you too, Soryu.”

He smiles, his fingertips stroking my cheek, patient. His other arm wraps around my waist, pulling me closer to him.

“What are you thinking?” I ask, my fingers reaching up to play with the soft fabric of his hoodie.

“I’m thinking of how I want-” he stops when he sees my face go pale.

‘I want your soul.’

“Never mind what I want,” he whispers, effectively stopping me from going too far into my nightmares again. “What do you want?”

“You.”

I suck a breath, surprising myself at how I don’t even waste a second to say it to him.

Always you.

“Love,” he brings his face closer to mine, his voice low, “You already have all of me.”

I gasp at the amount of emotion in his voice, the ineffable level of care those eyes hold for me, and he bends lower, his lips almost touching mine.

“May I?” he asks...

... when he doesn’t need to. I smile, gently standing on my tip-toes and pressing our lips together.

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keepingupwiththeboltons · 4 years

Note

Did you ever reveal what your URL is referencing? Just curious

I guess it's time for me to do some explaining, so one of the first jokes me and my sister (the other runner of this blog) had when we first started watching got together was this weird au idea of game of thrones families as shitty sitcoms *all of which are modern au (there were 3 main ones)

That stark show = a sitcom about the stark family in modern day just sorta vibing. Some examples of what some episodes of that stark show would be like in one episode the A plot would be like sansa dumps joffrey to date Margery and then the B plot would be like jon starts playing dnd. Some running jokes in that stark show were bran can blackmail like literally anyone cause he knows everything about everyone, theon has a different girlfriend every episode half the time it doesnt mention it, bran and jon look into the camera like Jim on the office and robb is overly stressed but also incredibly positive (think like Chris trager on parks and rec)

Lannister golden years = it's just the lannisters and baratheons being dysfunctional. An episode of this one could be like the A plot is cersei finds weed in joffrey's room and decides to fire her maid and move the weed just enough for joff to know she knows, then the B plot would be like Jaime getting absolutely wrecked at laser tag by brienne. Some running jokes in lannister golden years are jaime and tyrion have a podcast (some times cersei comes onto it and spills tea), at the lannister house there are 2 master bedrooms, renly still sits at the children's table durring holidays becouse fuck Robert and fuck cersei and fuck stannis and fuck selyse and shireen is chill, cersei goes through everyone's shit becouse she hates people hiding things from her and whenever Robert tries to tell his kids about his past they just straight up dont beleive him

And now time for the grand finale

Keeping up with the bolton's = you know how I said these were modern au well this one is technically still in modern day but it doesnt make sense, ok so one all the bolton's still dress like they do in the show even though it's modern day, two they still kill, torture and flay people openly even though it's modern day and three the dreadfort looks the exact same even though it's modern day. Now whenever they interact with regular people the regular people do react to how strange they are but like the bolton's themselves never acknowledge it. The characters in this one are of course roose, ramsay, walda, theon, og reek and domeric. An episode of this show would be like the A plot is ramsay is trying to hide a body, he tries numerous different places it ends at ramsay just shoving it in like the washing machine and saying fuck it and then roose sees a arm dangling out of the washing machine opens it and just says "i cant beleive ramsay didn't do the dishes." And then he just closes it with the rotting corpse still in it, then the B plot would be like domeric is litterily just going horseback riding with some friends. That's it. Some running jokes for this one would be ramsay calls og reek and theon reek 1 and reek 2, roose and walda sometimes have brunch with catelyn, lysa and littlefinger, walda and domeric act normal but they also don't react to ramsay or roose litterilly murdering people and will really casually make incredibly dark jokes, theon looks into the camera like hes on the office and usually reacts to the others insanity and it just never says what roose's job is like they are super rich but it never actually says how they get money, whenever someone asks roose what he does before he can explain he gets cut off.

Other details: all of them are supposedly in the same universe and happening at the same time (i know it doesnt make sense that reek theon and pre reek theon would exist at the same time, that's the joke), sometimes the shows will interact with eachother, Like someone would make a joke about the lannister bros podcast or ramsay would run into robb at Starbucks and they'd just glare at eachother while both of them buy the same basic bitch coffee. All of them have cold opens that make no sense. Sorry we never thought of a show for dany so she's just never mentioned. It started as pure show but now its a weird hybrid of book and show that makes little sense. There's specifically a Christmas episode of that stark show where the starks invite asha/yara over for Christmas for theon (i just didn't know where to mention that). It's very unclear how old anyone is. Robb, being a workaholic that never takes breaks, had a mental breakdown in college when he walked into a joanne's fabrics and crafts store, went over to the buttons reached out to grab a pack of brown buttons, the buttons fell to the ground and then robb just started sobbing in the middle of that joanne's fabrics and crafts store, after this he decided to take a gap year. Shireen's friend group is rickon, edric storm and daven seaworth (okay I've seen alot of people are down shireen to be friends with rickon but I haven't seen people also age down shireen's friends) and that entire group shows up in that stark show and lannister golden years. Anyways that's all that I want to write

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retail-hell · 4 years

Text

Having worked at two stores that are the polar opposite of each other, I have come to notice so key differences in how they're run:

HotTopic

Pro: Very progressive when it comes to LGBT issues.

Pro: Allows employees to decorate their "uniform", have colored hair, exposed tattoos, and facial piercings.

Pro: I progressed quickly there and was able to make management in a year of being there.

Pro: It's a fun environment to work in, and most of the people that work in the stores are chill.

Pro: Most customers are respectful of employees, and very rarely were there altercations.

Pro: I felt like if I had any issues what's so ever, I could reach out and get them dealt with.

Pro: The employee discount is 40% off most items.

Con: Members of management from other stores were super condescending when I became a new manager.

Con: When my team did finally have issues with our new SM and reached out to our DM, they weren't dealt with appropriately. The SM has gotten away with sexually harassing a sales associate.

Con: I was fired without warning for posting images of a text conversation with my SM (his name, number, and personal info was all blocked out in the screenshot) to Snapchat, where I called him a bitch. I wasn't allowed to explain myself, give a statement, nor apologize. It was an automatic termination. Over a guy who, again, was sexually harassing a sales associate.

Con: My DM made it very clear that she will always listen to the SM over sales associates and lower memebers of management, when I mentioned the harassment.

Con: The company was pushing my store to be more competitive with one another, and it was making everyone at my store super uncomfortable, because we function best as a unit when we treat each other like family than we do like competitors for money.

Con: Once you reach Key Holder, it's hard to advance, because every store is ran differently.

JoAnn Fabrics and Crafts

Pro: Worked a lot of hours as a sales associate, because they were usually under staffed, and I did well with every position I was placed in.

Pro: When I was in a similar situation at JoAnns, where I called a coworker a bitch (cause she was one), my SM fought HR for me, by mentioning that they had never had any prior issues with me, and allowed me to make a statement on my own behalf.

Pro: They take sexual harassment very seriously, and will fire people for it.

Con: Arguments with customers is a daily occurence, because the customer base is all old white women.

Con: I was only considered for management once, and it was within the first 3 monthsnof working there. After that, I was passed up in favor of giving 5 other people promotions.

Con: Strict dress codes don't allow for any self expression, or pronoun/LGBT pride pins to be worn on the uniform.

Con: Upper management doesn't care about its employees at all. Periodt.

Con: The employee discount is only 20%.

So like. On the one hand. HotTopic was great on the day to day, but when it came down to how the company functions, there are some MASSIVE problems with how they prioritize memebers of higher management. JoAnns, however, sucks in the day to day, but upper management will stand up for you if you deserve it, and actually fire sexual harassers.

#retail hell #working retail #retail #retail stories #retail worker

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sourlemonblue · 4 years

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i know that there are more factors than just this and like maybe theres real hindrances and stuff

but one thing that frustrates me is when people come into joann fabrics and talk about how they "could never sew"

bitch me too wtf??? literally rhe only difference between you and me is that i spent a month referring religiously to youtube and i figured that shit out!!!!!!!

NO i am by no means an expert

but theres a huge difference between "i could never" and "i dont have the resources available to do so"

like i taught MYSELF that shit on a cosplay while also making my own patterns as i went!!!!!!!!!!! and also working full time!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! all before i even started working at joan!!!!!!!!!!

you can do ANYTHING yo, give urself a little more credit

(if u tried and its not your thing thats totally fine, it takes practice, or maybe its just not the thing for you. i cant embroider for shit yo i totally get it)

that being said if yall need sewing advice my joanns ass is here for you

#sewing #crafting #cosplay

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theassbuttofsunnydale · 5 years

Photo

My heart: I am 10000000% that bitch My wallet: lol you ain't tho The Joann gods, taking pity on me: you can be that bitch a little #fabric #glitter #halloweenfabric #glitterfabric #costumefabric #crafts https://www.instagram.com/p/B1E489pDum1/?igshid=1lhwwy8w14n89

#fabric #glitter #halloweenfabric #glitterfabric #costumefabric #crafts

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felicityb-reviews · 6 years

Video

youtube

BTS x Steve Aoki “MIC Drop” Remix

What’s that?!?!?

It’s a Jace (aka Felicity B) with her review of BTS’ MIC Drop (Remix)!!

~The Song~

So.

This is a remix.

If this was anyone else but BTS and Steve Aoki (like the Chainsmokers, for example), I’d have skipped this release and cussed out Big Hit for two weeks gay straight.

But I happened to really enjoy this. I wasn’t the biggest fan of the original (it felt like a cheap imitation of their School Life Trilogy era and didn’t knock hard enough), but I put up with it cause it happened to be a highlight of Love Yourself ~Her~.

Which should tell you everything you need to know about my thoughts on that album.

But MIC Drop the Remix is a B A N G E R, sis!!

Mic Drop the Remix builds upon the foundation laid by the original, and takes it to heights it should have gone. I dare one of y'all hatin’ ass heauxs to say you couldn’t at least nod ya head this. Go ahead, I dare you.

Cause this remix has me turnt up, sis. This remix has Thot Mode Level 69 activating, sis. This remix has me runnin’ up on a bitch like I ain’t got nothing to lose, sis.

THIS REMIX IS BOUTA MAKE ME LOSE MY DAMN JOB, SIS!!!

SHE’S THAT POWERFUL, SIS!!!

I got some complaints, tho -

1) There is entirely too much auto tune, fam. I can barely understand half of what they’re saying in the song (and mind you, this song is ~50% in English), and it’s just so distracting. I get that that is partially a stylistic choice.

I respect that.

But what I cannot respect is that this has been a problem I’ve had with BTS since I started checking for them after We are Bulletproof Pt 2. And it’s only gotten worse. Their voices sound so freaking animatronic!!

This is unacceptable!!

2) This really should have been a Rap Line featuring Taehyung or Jungkook song. You can *clearly* tell this is for Rap Line, so there is absolutely no reason for all seven members to be present. If all the vocal parts are too much for one feature vocal, have them split with Hoseok. Ain’t nobody mad at Hoseok stuntin on a bitch with them vocals.

I mean, there is but they can kiss my black ass

And while we’re at it, chop off that extra af vocal section at the end; it kills the energy of the track and causes it to end like weak ass orgasm. After the release (heh heh heh) of the second chorus and Namjoon actin like he’s about that life (he’s not), have Yoongi repeat the hook till the beat builds enough for another drop. And then end that bitch right.

Now…

I accept PayPal and MasterCard.

~The Video~

This video looks like someone at Big Hit wondered what would happen if they made We are Bulletproof Pt 2 with a bigger budget. And considering the subject matter of the song pretty much makes this We are Bulletproof Pt 3, I am not mad at that at all.

There isn’t much for me to report on here, folks - the camera work is pretty standard, the editing is tight, nothing about the sets jumps out at me. This is a very good video for the song, but it isn’t blow your socks off amazing.

I need to address these wardrobe choices real quick, tho.

And not even everybody’s wardrobe, just Hoseok and Namjoon.

Hoseok… I don’t know who told you those fabric tassels hanging from your hat were cute. Cause they’re not.

I don’t know who told you they looked ~Hood~. Cause they’re not.

I’m just confused as to why you’re wearing them. It’s bad enough y'all are wearing bucket hats (I’m not about to go in on them, but suffice to say that they’re ugly), but you gotta have those things dangling from your, too?!?!?!?!.

Mess™

I mean, I’m glad you aren’t wearing those horrid braid things you wore in the Mic Drop stages in this, but sis… Why couldn’t you have just worn a bandanna in your hair, like Yoongi?!?!?

A fuckin waste…

And Joon… I don’t wanna roast you. Just kidding, I fuckin love roasting you. You are my favorite Bulletproof Bias to roast. But this is just asking for it.

The sad part about this hair is that I know the rationale behind it. Unlike Hobert attaching two feet of fabric from Joanne’s Clearance Fabrics to his hat, this hairstyle was super popular with 1st gen boy bands doing a hip hop concept.

He looks like Jaehyun’s mo whack older brother, circa Limitless era. He looks like he was doing a hair masque before the shoot and forgot to wash that shit out. He fuckin looks ridiculous and idk what kind of style he should have done instead of this, but I just want y'all to know that this isn’t a Cute Look™. I don’t wanna see no Boyfriend RapMan MBs with this foolish hair, y'all. I will rebuke you and your whole entire family if I see it.

Just don’t do it!!!

~The Choreography~

BTS, as of late, have been dabbling in more complex formations in their routines, and it’s been really cool to experience as a fan. Their routines are the same old stuff we know and love from the boys, but they’re presenting it to us in very new ways. They’re breaking off into twos and threes to do specific parts, and I admit that seems kind of simple on paper, but seeing it in action is great.

As much as I loathed DNA (yes, even DNA can get this fire), I put aside any kind of animosity I had for those triflin’ ass breakdowns to watch the live performances, because there’s just something so cool about seeing it performed.

Similar to what I said in the song section, I think this kind of choreography shows off BTS’s potential to break off into units/do solo promo. In fact, I think it’s really kind of lame how BTS faded us all with the solo material on WINGS, just to come back with all group tracks on Love Yourself ~Her~.

We didn’t even get a cypher, sis.

And no, I am not counting Serendipity and HER in that, because those songs are less than two minutes long. Give me full versions, and I’ll consider it.

Anyway.

So.

I guess Kim Taehyung wasn’t content trampling all over my bias list with his singing (he has the best technique in BTS, don’t fuckin’ @ me, bitch) and visuals, he’s decided to up his dancing. Because I need another bias who makes me sweat aggressively when they start two steppin.

He’s in almost all the unit formations, and while I’m happy he’s getting the spotlight he deserves, I’m gonna need him to calm the fuck down.

Or come serve me the D, whichever he feels like doing on this good day

~Overall and Final Thoughts~

*ahem*

LET BTS DO SOLO AND UNIT SHIT, YOU FUCKING COWARDS!!!

That’s it.

That’s literally all there is to this 40 page dissertation I’m calling a review.

I like this remix a lot, but every time I listen to it, I circle back to the thought that this would be a Perfect 10™ if it was a unit feature".

It’s Time™, sis. Even EXO has a sub unit. And y'all KNOW SM Entertainment is Determined™ to shove EXO in our faces as a whole, because of their We Are One bullshit.

It is Time™.

I need whoever is in charge of their music (cause Lordt knows Rap Line has dropped enough hits this era that it isn’t them) to take a risk. Or maybe if y'all don’t wanna do unit promo just yet (even though you should), go the Seventeen route and have them record unit tracks for the album b sides. Teen.Age, much like WINGS, was elevated by the unit tracks.

I just need something different, sis. Because Lord knows that BTS has enough talent to deliver. This remix is more than enough proof.

#bts #felicity b #review #steve aoki #mic drop

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kittenstrinkets-blog · 7 years

Text

I just learned that most shops use acrylic paint to color their fur? The seamstress and the artist in me are both kind of screaming right now because of how wrong that is, but I’m really tempted to try it because 1) dying non-natural fibers gives off serious fumes and I always worry for my cats’ health when I do it at home, and 2) if everyone else is doing it, can’t be seen as terrible.

Before I join them because no way can I beat them, here’s my mini rant on why acrylic paint is a terrible choice for this:

1) Acrylic paint is water soluble. Obvious big problem

2) Aside from some special mural techniques, costumes that will only be seen on stage and cheap t shirts, you *never* paint fabrics. You always dye them.

3) Shouldn’t you treat faux fur fabric much more like hair than you would treat it like a shitty cotton t-shirt? For example, I try not to send my fur through the wash, and often use wig spray to detangle it

4) Paint will make the fur hard to some extent, and definitely won’t feel soft to the touch. I don’t care what people say, it’s just the truth. It also cracks and shrinks as it dries.

5) Acrylic paint comes in a wiiiiiiiiide variety of qualities. Do I use my shitty wal mart acrylics on the fur or do I use my precious Dick Blicks? Lolol picturing myself using “burnt umber” on fur. (PS: Burnt umber is actually W’s favorite paint color. I read that in an interview xP)

6) THEY MAKE FABRIC PAINTS for all the exceptions I listed in 2. Why wouldn’t you at least use fabric paint and not acrylics? Just checked to make sure I’m not being stupid here, and even JOANNS sells spray fabric paint that does not appear to be acrylic in any way. I always assumed the top shops had re-engineered their airbrushers to take fabric paint, not that they’re spraying acrylic paint onto their ears. There are actually many kinds of specialized paint that exist for any number of applications, so using grade-school art class basic acrylic seems mindblowing to me.

7) Once again, acrylic paint is water soluble! I feel like I’m taking crazy pills here.

I’m really trying not to be a snob, and I get that paint can be expensive, dye can be expensive, and learning the proper techniques can be expensive. This just feels like when I found out most ears were made by gluing fur to cardboard without dealing with the raw edges. Please understand that these things go against everything I’ve been taught from childhood about crafts from both professionals and hobbyists who really loved and understood their craft. It’s a little mindblowing to find out a shop that sells out within minutes during their releases are using these techniques.

But anyways, like I said I can’t beat them, and luckily for me I have a million paint brushes, white faux fur, and a few dozen bottles of acrylic paints hanging around, so I’m going to be experimenting with this.

Please please don’t let this be my one post that blows up and gets me a reputation for being a snob. If you have issues with my issues, please just talk to me. I promise that 90% of the time I’m not bitching and that if we talk I will be a nice person, even if we never agree. Thanks!

#petplaygear #petplaycommunity #kittenplaygear #kitten play gear #kitten play community #pet play gear #furry community #fur #pet play community #seamstress #fabric #crafting #craftster #diys #cat ears #tail #tails

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