I have a new standard for the level of haterdom to aspire to, and it's Reddit User KismaiAesthetics, who hates doing laundry so much that he got really good at it, so that he can (I quote) do it right the first time, every time, and get back to watching cat videos on the Internet.
and by "really good at it," I mean that he does a bunch of reading on the chemistry of laundry, subscribes to academic journals about laundry, and buys a bunch of different laundry products (including from outside the US) to scrutinize their ingredients and test them for himself. he writes a bunch of incredibly detailed longposts about his findings on /r/laundry and his website, which is also about laundry. he even got interviewed about his laundryposts, in which he revealed he's writing a book about laundry. this man is like ahab and the white whale, if ahab had a reddit account and moby dick was a pile of clothes with cheeseburger stains on them
anyway the reason I encountered this guy was because recently, the household washer has been leaving these gross little oily brown flakes on anything washed in it. this is kind of a big problem for me, given that I not only have (literal, diagnosed, medicated) OCD which includes a contagion phobia, I also sew a bunch of stuff with the intent of gifting or selling it, and sometimes that involves prewashing fabric. only, you know, washing is supposed to make things cleaner, not dirtier.
and my research brought me to (gross photos warning!) Kismai's post on the very topic. apparently this stuff is called "scrud," and it's basically a residue that forms over time inside the nooks and crannies of a washing machine - leftover detergent reacting with mineral traces in tapwater to form a buildup that also traps dyes, grease, and other dirt, which bacteria then feeds on, because it wasn't already gross enough. it forms faster if you have hard water, use too much detergent (which most people do), use fabric softener, wash only on cold and the list goes on and on - point is, scrud is the reason that you have to actually clean your washing machine, or be super fastidious about how you do laundry.
(I'll take "things I wish school/my parents actually taught me" for 800)
so now I am engaged in a lengthy battle against scrud, armed with a tub of oxiclean and a sack of citric acid crystals. (we're renters, so disassembling the machine is out of the question.) pour in a scoop of oxiclean, run a machine clean cycle, pour in a scoop of citric acid, run another machine clean cycle, all while wiping piles and piles of scrud out of the drum at the end of each cycle. I'm on the eighth cycle now. there's still so much scrud. the reddit record for "how many cleaning cycles were needed to get a machine entirely free of scrud" is 22 cycles. help
it turns out that laundry sucks significantly less when your clothes and sheets and etc actually come out of the machine looking, feeling, and smelling clean, rather than looking, feeling, and smelling like despair dipped in slime
like, I have this pillowsheet I call my Depression Era Pillowsheet, because during a Real Bad Time of my life when 90% of all I could do was lie in bed and cry, that was the pillowsheet I laid and cried on. this went on for weeks, and it was never changed out because, again, 90% of my waking hours were Lie In Bed And Cry Hours. it did eventually get changed out, but no matter how many washes I put it through, it remained stained and slimy. like I'd throw it in every time I washed my clothes and it would still come out feeling like someone had applied a fresh layer of Weeping Slime Laminate to it. someone with more sense probably would have thrown it out but idk, I just never did for some reason
anyway! taking some pointers from the freaks over at /r/laundry, I grabbed an enzyme-based detergent, a booster (thing of More Enzymes and oxygen bleach that you add alongside detergent to make it clean gooder), and washed everything on hot (in a machine without a scrud problem), including the Depression Era Pillowsheet. it finally came out looking and feeling like fresh clean cotton?? what?? I hadn't even done the whole "soak it for 24 hours in various unsettling substances" thing??? wack
Quite frankly yall need to be projecting more on the doms. Make the DOM have guilty sexual fantasies !!! Maybe the DOM is shamefully staring at the ceiling after waking up from a dream!!! Yall are cowards. Do none of you have any appreciation for the noble dom identity crisis. Do none of you have any respect for guilty sadists with control issues and who desperately want autonomy for once in their damn lives and who just want to Keep someone, for once, who want to be allowed to Want and Take . Do NONE of yall have any respect for sadists realizing with horror how badly they want to hurt the person they would do anything to protect and take care of and make smile? Cowards, all of you.
Funny when someone introduces you to something, you get really into it, and then they lose all interest in it. Oh so you’re just going to abandon me at the party you invited me to. Dude you were my ride.
“you’re such a ray of sunshine!” thanks! one day i chose to act happy and then i kept choosing it over and over and over and over until the neurological pathways formed like desire paths in the thicket. i dug and clawed my nails into the grooves of my brain and carved out joy. i retouch it every day.
What helped me write trauma better is remembering that the nervous system learns predictions. If danger used to come after quiet, calm can feel threatening. If kindness used to come with a price, kindness can feel suspicious. So healing is not just “they know they’re safe now.” Healing is the slow, annoying, deeply unfair process of teaching the body that the old prediction is not always the present truth.
it’s 11:59. Seconds before the clock strikes 12 and it’s officially my 18th birthday. “18 year olds and older, DNI” i post onto tumblr, swiping and killing half of my followers and mutuals. the clock hits 12. “Minors DNI” I post. going in for the second attack, swiping and killing the other half of my followers and mutuals.
the dust clears. the battlefield littered with bodies. only leaving the spare porn bot and sugar daddy. I’ll be celebrating my birthday alone this year.
Tinfoil hat moment but I don't think he was dumb, I think he was strategic. He put her in a situation in which she had to either: sell her car (so the only means of transportation is now in his name), or maybe even to drop out (to have time for the second job) if she wants to feed the kids. He did it right when she was aaaaaalmost done with her degree. Either way, it's sabotage.
Sometimes when an action makes NO sense to us ("he's like a stupid alien"), it's bc we are not understanding its true motivation/purpouse. If his goal was control, financial pressure and limiting her options due to lack of funds, it makes perfect sensie to buy the truck.
This is classic abuser behavior: maneuver the partner into a situation where they feel trapped and cannot escape. The timing on this is too perfect; he saw her gaining agency & power in the relationship and moved to short circuit that.
I am SO GLAD she got out.
If this happens to you, try reaching out to friends & family first. Chances are they've been watching your situation and are aching to help, but have felt powerless. I can't tell you how many times I've watched this scenario unfold. Ask. For. Help. Nobody will judge you, and they're probably waiting for you to make a move. People notice abuse and want to help.
if you feel truly alone, start out with some free online resources.
There's also online legal help for filing no-fault divorce papers or how to find a lawyer you can afford.
So the thing is boobs really do be jiggling. If having breasts has taught me anything it is that the ladies frolic. I don't even have that large of boobs but every time I go down some stairs all I can think about is that stupid quote about boobing breastily down the stairs or whatever it is because God Damn.
But anime and video game boob jiggling is like. The most uncanny valley shit I've ever seen nine times out of ten. You would think people this horny about tits would have actually looked at some but I guess not.
What we really need is some pervert to compile the ultimate visual guide to boob bouncing physics that's just like 500 hours of meticulously organized videos of breasts of different size and shape and under different fabrics bouncing around from a wide variety of physical movements so horny game devs can finally get it right and I don't have to be creeped out by women who appear to have surgically implanted softballs in their chest under skin made of rubber bands.
Racism against Indians is actually a little insane when you consider how widespread it is even among liberals and leftists . Even people who consider themselves to be progressive will laugh at call center or tech support jokes. All scammers are inherently indian. It’s okay to laugh at jokes making fun of Indians for their feelings towards animals or how they drive. India is inherently backwards and dirty so it’s okay to make jokes about getting food poisoning from even looking at indian food
One thing I'm really loving about the perspective shift between Interview with the Vampire and The Vampire Lestat is how Lestat and Louis appear in each other's narratives, through each other's eyes.
Louis sees Lestat as this primal force of nature who looks like a romance novel hero, can effortlessly control any room, is "preternaturally charming," impeccably turned out, no one can say no to him for long.
but we get in LESTAT'S head, and suddenly he has scars and a tangled mane of hair, people are constantly talking over him, he sweats, he's getting beat up and his clothes are getting destroyed in a non-sexy way, he's flailing around wildly with NO idea what he's doing, people (lestat included) think he's untalented and annoying.
And LOUIS, well. Louis clearly sees himself as uncanny, reserved, compelling but a little off-putting. He is other: cut-off from humanity, holding his emotions and relationships at arm's length.
Then we see him in The Vampire Lestat, and it's like no. This is the warmest, cutest, sexiest, coolest, most desirable man who has ever walked the face of the earth.
I try not to fall into the "I never liked their work anyway" ditch when an artist/creator reveals themself to be a terrible person
BUT
a feeling I do have and will stand by is "While I enjoyed their work overall I did have some gripes that I overlooked out of affection and whimsy, but now that my loyalty is gone and my affection tainted there is nothing holding me back from enumerating my many grievances, to which the revelations of the creator's shittiness may or may not provide a new and infuriating context."
#such a good summation of this actually#because yeah there’s usually things that were always present#but which were easy to overlook or give the benefit of the doubt#that suddenly become relevant after a revelation about the creator#and it’s really not the same thing as the self-defensive “’I never liked it anyway’
when i was a tiny baby queer (aka a 24-year-old), i went to my first pride festival probably three months after i kicked ex-gay therapy to the curb and came out to my parents. being the people they are, my parents came with me. they weren’t really sure about this whole gay thing, but they loved me and wanted me to be safe and happy and wanted to be involved in what was important to me, so they came along. (i also think my mother still might have thought i might get drugged or murdered or beaten by a protester of which there were plenty.)
anyway i wanted a memento of my first pride, you know, and this one vendor was selling keyrings, and i liked it, so i bought one. do you remember those italian charm bracelets that were all the rage like 10-15 years ago? it was a keychain like that, and it had a rainbow rooster, a rainbow cat, and then just a rainbow, and so I bought it.
i run into my mom a couple of vendors over and she goes oh you bought something? what’d you get? so i showed her, and i was like, “I’m not sure why it’s a rooster and a cat. Seems kind of random. But I liked the rainbows.”
and my mom, who was some form of minister’s wife for most of my childhood and teenagerhood, stares at me like she thinks i’m joking.
“What?” i say.
“…it’s a cock and a pussy, Jules,” she says flatly, and that is the story of how i died at the age of 24 while attending my first pride festival.
something about ryland grace erasing Who Am I? off the whiteboard to replace it with flight plan back to rocky. something about the question of who ryland grace is is no longer important to him, because it doesnt matter who he is if rocky is dead. something about him letting go of his distress over his amnesia and his will to go back home in favour of saving his friend.
I watched only two anime last season. And one was utterly fantastic. Let's talk about it.
Journal With Witch
Every so often, I stumble across an anime and just instantly know from the first episode that it's going to be a masterpiece. That it's going to go on my all-time favorites list. I’m happy to say Journal with Witch is one of those. The show started out strong and just kept getting better with each episode.
Journal With Witch, also known as Ikoku Nikki, is a mature, nuanced, thoughtful, and captivating story. It follows Makio Koudai and Asa Takumi. Makio is an independent and somewhat reclusive 35-year-old novelist, and she’s cut contact with her sister, who was hyper-critical of her to the point of being abusive.
However, her sister and her sister’s husband die in a car crash, leaving behind their fifteen year old daughter, Asa. Makio doesn’t feel any real grief or sadness over her sister’s death, but she does sympathize with Asa. When she sees their relatives callously arguing about passing Asa around, Makio tells them off, and offers to take Asa in, while being completely honest with her than while she can’t guarantee she’ll come to love her, she won’t ever "trample on her feelings".
From there, the story follows Asa and Makio’s journey of learning to live together, with Asa navigating her complicated grief for parents she may never truly fully know or understand, and Makio trying to reconcile her feelings about her sister with her role as Asa’s guardian.
It’s an exceptional character-driven show and it's impeccably directed with so much purpose and care. There’s so many moments that hit incredibly hard, like a shot straight to the heart. And I’ll just say it: I’m in love with Makio.
She's so real, relatable, and refreshing as an anime protagonist that's a flawed, complex adult woman. She’s blunt and acerbic and insightful, she’s kind of a mess, and she’s doing the best she can. Her struggle as an introvert adjusting to having someone in her space is extremely real as someone who’s struggled with the same thing.
AND she's a super accurate depiction of a novelist.
(She's so right).
Makio is disorganized, forgetful, socially unusual, and she can get really lost in her own thoughts. I got a lot of ADHD feels off her, only to be floored when the anime actually bought up the possibility she was neurodivergent. It’s incredibly rare for an anime to bring up neurodivergence at all, especially for a main character. While Makio isn’t fully confirmed to be neurodivergent, the author putting thought into this and indicating to the audience it's okay to read her this way is HUGE to me.
Asa is also a fantastic, fully rounded character, She's a teenager trying to find her place in the world while dealing with tragedy. Her evolving relationship with Makio is the beating heart of the show.
In addition to having rich, textured characters, this story deftly touches on a lot of social themes and issues. There’s a subplot about a young queer (probably lesbian) teenager figuring herself out, and Makio subtly noticing and supporting her, She tells her she doesn't have to follow any rules about "normalcy", and that any relationship with love is valid…then offers her Fried Green Tomatoes to watch. Seeing the girl cry as she watched the movie made me want to cry too.
It's a thoughtful moment between a supportive adult trying to help and support a queer girl without overwhelming her, and it's a great demonstration of how stories can help marginalized people feel less alone.
There’s also commentary on real life injustice like Tokyo Medical University rigging its entrance exams to deny women admission, and the story shows one of Asa’s classmates who dreamed of being a doctor struggling with how unfairly the system is stacked against her. Another impressive moment is a discussion between two of the male characters about how they became happier once they rejected the pressures of masculine spaces.
A huge theme in the anime is that conforming to society won’t bring happiness, and that you should find people in your life who don’t expose you to those pressures and accept you as you are. It makes this point with grace and resonance.
It has the same point to make about trauma and grief. Makio doesn’t have to forgive her sister, even as she starts to realize she didn’t completely know all sides of her. At the same time, she tells Asa that her feelings are her own, and that it doesn’t matter if she doesn’t have the “right” reactions to grief, if she doesn’t feel sad right away—all that matters is that Makio will be there for her when she does.
The anime is wonderfully naturalistic—Makio’s interactions with her friends and the teasing way they talk to each other gives an instant sense of their history and really feels like listening to a group of adult friends, not Anime Adults ™ if you get what I mean.
Makio’s relationship with her friend/ex-boyfriend and the lingering feelings they have is depicted in a similarly naturalistic fashion. There’s not overwrought soap opera drama, just a relationship between two people who care deeply for each other that fell apart, leaving yearning, regret and trepidation. To repeat myself, it truly feels like a relationship between two adults, and all the compromises that come with that. You really understand why these two love each other. And the small moments of intimacy are handled in a subtle way that makes it honestly a lot sexier than in other anime.
And of course, Makio and Asa’s relationship is handled wonderfully, and it’s great to see them help each other grow and learn more about each other. The conflicts they navigate are realistic and heartbreaking and messy, but there's always a sense of care and warmth there.
There are so many moments in Journal with Witch that blow me away, whether it's quotes that succinctly hit on something fundamental – “there’s not a single thing in this world that is completely irrelevant to you” being an example—or deeply emotional moments like Asa’s messy breakdown. At one point Makio gives writing advice, saying "write with the intent to kill". It's pretty clear the writer of the series took her character's advice, because this story has murdered me with how good it is.
I could go on forever about this anime, but I implore you to go watch it and see how wonderful it is for yourself. I also can’t wait to read the manga that inspired it (which seems to have additional story the show didn’t cover). This is a true gem of a tale, and you're missing out if you don't experience it.
got caught up on Journal with Witch and i just wanted to save this particular bit of dialogue because it felt meaningful to me. i feel like this is an aspect of raising children that's not often addressed or explored in media. it's nice (and even refreshing) to see an adult express such genuine concern and consideration towards their charge, specifically in acknowledging how their behavior as the adult/caregiver - any careless comment or action - can have a meaningful, long-lasting impact, and that's part of the responsibility of raising a child
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