Couch Feud

ISFJ-Call me Spot-She/Her pronouns - Not a minor (early 20s)

[rhinco]

i love you semicolon. no one look at my 80 word sentence

[angel-fruitcake]

i can handle one (1) Event™ per day. whether it be a phone call, an appointment, trip to the grocery store, play date with a friend, etc. only one, that's it. any more than that and i am Stressed

[spooky-pop]

Some art of the gang ahead of the finale dropping in theaters tomorrow. I can't believe this is the last time we are all waiting for a new episode together, I feel quite sentimental. What a ride it's been. If you're seeing it tomorrow, godspeed. And remember, be good to yourself and be good to others <3

[solarpunk-nightbird]

Heads up from a Southern Californian that it is time to buy any fans and/or KN-95 masks for the summer NOW, before the start of summer and wildfire season!!!

If you wait until your AC goes out to make sure you have enough fans, there will not be fans available for you to buy. If you wait for a wildfire, no one will have KN-95s for you to buy. They will all be sold out, especially as climate change makes summers more and more severe, and fire season longer and longer.

Other tips for keeping cool in extreme heat:

Do not ever leave a child or a pet in the car while it is off. Ever. Not "just for a few minutes," nothing. Kids have died from being trapped in hot cars in temperatures as low as 70 degrees F (21 C)

Especially if you live somewhere that doesn't typically get hot, make sure you own at least 2 tank tops and 2 pairs of shorts if at all possible. Thrift them or search them on Buy Nothing/something similar if you don't have them already. You will want the option

Cotton fabric evaporates moisture quickly and sheds heat fast. Cotton clothes are great for the heat for that reason, and if you're really desperate for relief, get cotton shirts/towels/cloths wet and either wear them or hang them up in front of a fan. The fan will blow the cooler, moist air throughout the room, cooling things down

Open windows and doors on opposite sides of rooms to create airflow

Hydration tablets and electrolyte drinks are magic for dehydration. You need to replace the salts you're sweating out. Salty trail mix is also great for this (you eat it on hiking trails for a reason)

Make sure your pets stay cool! Cold packs inside fabric can be really good for this (and for you!)

Most efficient place for a cold, wet towel to cool you down is the sides of your neck, your hands, and the soles of your feet (but NEVER put ice against your bare skin!)

Don't really expect anything of yourself between 1pm and 4pm - that is the hottest part of the day, and so it's the time you need to be the most chill (ba-dum tss). Movement creates heat (hence why you shiver, hence why exercising warms you up), so try to do as little as possible, and especially try to save errands and exercise until dusk

Many places now have heat shelters. Look them up in your area. The public library is often a spot for these, and if not, still a really good and FREE place to stay all day with AC

Plants cool things down. Standing on the grass will leave you measurably cooler than standing on the asphalt two feet away. Stay on plants, stay in the shade, and do what you can to add plants and green spaces to your area, to help keep it cool

If you live in a wildfire hotspot, try your best to get an air filter or air purifier now, because there will be none left by the time you need one

If you do end up near a wildfire zone: any smoke you can smell is smoke that can affect your lungs. Leave the house as little as possible. Duct tape the seams around windows and exterior doors to help keep out the smoke. And pack a go bag (change of clothes, toiletries, important documents, medications, spare food and water, essentials for pets or kids)

My qualifications: Lived in California their whole life, most of it in Los Angeles, and half my adult life living in buildings without AC. One time I went to a baseball game in 117 degree weather (47 C) and genuinely had a good time. I know things about keeping cool

[asphodelimago]

Heatstroke makes you worse at handling heat. The cells that handle your thermoregulation are literally getting cooked. Do not tough it out. Every time you get heatstroke, it causes damage.

Know what heat exhaustion and heatstroke look like, and how quickly you are at risk. Particularly if you are chronically ill, have/had long covid, or are taking certain medications, you may get heat exhaustion really fast. (I've gotten it in literally 15 minutes flat. It does not need to take very long - if you're beet red and have a pounding headache, that may be heatstroke, take it fucking seriously.)

If you do have known issues with heat tolerance, consider carrying around a thermometer on hot days. Check your temperature if you start feeling "off", or routinely while in the heat. If you're running a fever, you're either sick or have heat illness, get the fuck out of the heat. (Be aware that for oral temperature, you need to have not eaten/drank anything in the last 15 minutes. Armpit will do in a pinch. I am not sure how well infrared works if you're in the "clammy" stage of heat exhaustion.)

If you already have heat exhaustion or heatstroke, fans and wet towels may not cool you down sufficiently. Cold drinks, icepacks, or a cold shower/bath are faster in an emergency - they cool you directly, rather than using sweat/evaporation to cool your skin. If you have limited resources to cool yourself, focusing on pulse points/big veins can help, like putting an ice pack on your neck or the inside of your wrist. Think like a vampire.

Cotton can be ok, but linen is better if you can get it. Polyester and other synthetics are typically fucking hot, avoid, avoid. Check your clothing labels - even "obviously" cotton things like t-shirts may actually be 50%+ polyester.

An adult human can only absorb about 1L of liquid per hour. Staying hydrated in extreme heat can be very difficult, because you may be losing more than 1L per hour. Using a timer to make sure you remember to drink can help.

If water suddenly tastes disgusting, check your electrolytes. Having emergency Gatorade (or similar) on hand can be helpful, because not only does it have electrolytes, but it tastes gross and sweet and chemical to most people who aren't low on electrolytes. No shade toward people who inexplicably like Gatorade on its own merits - but if it suddenly starts tasting way better than usual, take that as a sign. The rate at which people lose electrolytes through sweat varies wildly by person, even without chronic illness in the mix.

Know what discomfort and heat-related illness look like for your pets. Providing cool water and cool places to lay down is helpful. Panting is bad, but many animals are uncomfortable well before that point. (Mine usually start laying around on the coolest ground available and refusing to play around 80F. They are, however, extremely fluffy cats.)

Know what discomfort and heat-related illness look like for anyone you're responsible for, especially children and elderly people, who are more vulnerable.

Support and patronize your local libraries; they're an invaluable resource for anyone without A/C in this fucking world, in addition to all the other great work they do.

Oh, and if you happen to be in California specifically, there's a web tool to help tell you how worried to be, and lists some resources and local cool centers. Might be handy. https://calheatscore.calepa.ca.gov/

[bluebelly-sun-serpentine]

All signs are pointing to a pretty strong ENSO event this year, which, in combo with the low snowpack but decent amount of rain (so decent amount of growth) may make for a bad fire season. Be prepared. All the advice here seems fairly good to me, but I’m going to add that if you’re taping windows and exterior doors to keep out smoke you still need to be airing each room out occasionally if you don’t want to have issues with CO2 - the way we managed this in the 2020 fires was to periodically leave a window slightly open in one room (with the rest of the place sealed), then close it back down and turn an air purifier on in that room on the highest setting. If you’re really serious about air quality you ideally want to have more than one air purifier so that you can run stuff simultaneously (something outside the door to the room currently being ventilated, for instance). We also had to tape up our fireplace (we used plastic sheeting and masking tape) because like many fireplaces it was not sealed.

Plan and get your go bag together before the bad fires start - you can always add to it once things get more critical but there’s some basic shit you can put in there now so you don’t have to think about it when thinking is more stressful. I always have a go bag at least partly packed because we live in a high fire-risk area that’s basically right on top of a fault. If you have an extra supply of your necessary meds, put them in there too. My important docs, extra keys, some key mementos, and a first aid kit live in that fireproof, waterproof bag year round. During red flag warnings or actual nearby fires I put more in the bag or I put the bag in a bigger bag with other necessaries. I have family that lost their homes in previous fire seasons: make dupes of your favorite photos or copies of notes from loved ones now and put them in your bag. If you have one of a kind items you cherish but that aren’t in regular use - heirloom jewelry, handmade gifts, whatever - and they’re small enough, just store them there. If you have important digital files make a backup and put the drive in your bag. People often forget these things in the panic to save themselves, their pets, and the things they use in their day-to-day lives, but some things are not replaceable and you’d be surprised which losses cause the most pain long-term or inflame your grief.

Have an evacuation plan set up before fire season starts. I know exactly where and with whom we’re going to stay if we have to evacuate. If they also have to evacuate (in 2020 we were both under evac warnings because the lightning complex fires hit so many different places over a huge geographical area) we have a backup plan with someone else.

Re masking: not every mask is created equal. Wildfire smoke is really toxic - so is smoke from structure fires - and a surgical mask is not going to protect you. You want a well-fitted N95, and you want to wear it anytime you are outside or in a place without proper filtration. Ear loop masks/KN95s tend to be a lot less reliable/less likely to provide a good fit, but if that’s the only thing you can get it’s better than nothing. Do not exercise in wildfire smoke. You should be wearing a mask even if you’re just walking around the block. If the air in your home is appropriately filtered, exercise at home. Otherwise, just wait for the smoke to clear before restarting your routine. Even an AQI of 50-80 (a lot lower than you’d see with wildfires) is not something you should be exercising in without a mask. You do not need to go on that run. You DO need to check the AQI even if it doesn’t look particularly smoky - it can be quite bad even if it doesn’t look it. If you are directly in the path of a nearby plume and the AQI is in the 300-600 range just chill out. You shouldn’t really be going out even with a mask if you don’t have a really pressing reason. The ash is toxic and you don’t want that shit on your skin or clothes. I know we all need to get groceries and go to work but it’s all cumulative, so think about the ways you can minimize your exposure.

You may see firefighters going about without appropriate PPE but it’s not because they know something you don’t - they’re just embedded in a culture of terminal machismo and a lot of them die of lung and throat cancer because they don’t want to wear the equipment. My uncle spent just a few years as a volunteer firefighter working on wildfires in his early 20s and those couple of years bought him a lifetime of battling different cancers (starting in his mid-late 20s). A lot of people who stay longer don’t even get that lifetime - they die pretty young because putting the mask on felt to them like some “pussy shit” or an inconvenience on top of all the other gear weighing them down.

Mask up! I mean I’m gonna advise you do that well before fire season to protect yourself and the people around you from viral illness, but definitely mask up when the AQI is high.

[bluebelly-sun-serpentine]

Watch Duty absolutely does do more than just SoCal - they’re expanding coverage as fast as they can and trying to build relationships with as many orgs as possible to expand that coverage not just geographically but technically as well. You can use the app to track firefighting aircraft, get timely updates on evacuation warnings and orders, track wind direction and see updated fire perimeters, watch fire cams, check AQI, and set it to notify you of any new fire in your area. They have live humans working as reporters monitoring fire and police frequencies and often have more up-to-date info than local news stations, and are a better resource for updates on firefighting progress than twitter used to be (a lot of fire departments and cal fire units stupidly provide most of their online updates through walled sites like twitter and facebook, and WatchDuty is a much better - less dystopian - way of getting that vital info).

I’d also recommend Daniel Swain’s Weather West youtube channel and blog for context and updates on extreme weather events (both during fire season or big atmospheric river events). He’s both a meteorologist and a climate scientist and I will attest that on several occasions watching his live office hours during fires has allowed me to give advance warning and really useful info to family members in threatened areas. If there’s a big fire event going on in the USA’s west he will most likely be live doing explainers both through his youtube channel and to the many outlets channels that rely on his analysis.

[suncaptor]

linked tree (includes options to donate to Ghanaian projects)

petition to show support

[silurisanguine]

Linktree will be feeding your images with DALL-E, Open AI from 5th July 2026.

Warning to anyone using Linktree.

From the 5th July, they'll be feeding all imagery you use on your landing page into DALL-E by OpenAI.

I deleted my account just now, because there was no way to turn this off or opt out.

[silurisanguine]

Update with some alternatives-

Carrd.co. Free alt with paid features.

Bento.app Currently free, integrated with bluesky

Everlink.tools Closest to Linktree, has some paid features.

Omg.lol Currently $20 a year. If paying for Linktree features this is a great upgrade.

[eddysonline]

The original flag, by Gilbert Baker, June 25, 1978.

[just-another-cat-blog]

pride month!!!

[lemonsharks]

Is that a miette?

[jeanjauthor]

Pride for you!  Pride for a thousand years!!

[lost-and-cursed]

you COME OUT to miette? you come out to her as queer? oh! oh! pride for mother! pride for mother for One Thousand Years!!!!

[lizardsister]

hey boss i can't come in today it's a sunny day and there's a lovely breeze coming in through my window, yeah it's rustling the branches of the tree outside that's finally bloomed so it's pretty serious

[romangod]

It takes 10 books for Percy to realize Riptide can be used as an actual pen.

[lizzibennet]

no but really percy jackson has been such a huge part of my life for such a long time i’m not prepared for it to end

[lizzibennet]

[musubiarte]

The other day I was surfing the internet and I found this specialized painting colour wheel, it shows how real paint colours relate to each other. 

Outside: the purest/brightest colours.

Inside: naturally muted or earthy colors, like browns and ochres.

The Center: dark neutral tones used for mixing shadows.

The Lines: the lines connect colors that are opposites, if you mix them you neutralize the tone creating clean grays or browns instead of muddy puddles.

I want to share this with you because I think it is really illustrative!

Reference: “Quiller Wheel” by Stephen Quiller

[murderofsomeone]

I need to make something really elaborate and cool (doesn't move

[sirnoblesquid]

I think that If merlin ever got the chance to freely explore his magical abilities, it wouldn’t take long before he started hurling random spells at people just to see what happens

Arthur would just have to follow him everywhere and trying to minimise the damage

[sirnoblesquid]

Trying to forbid Merlin from casting certain spells turned out to be absolutely useless. The man would be perfectly happy to throw hands, be it with bandits or arrogant nobles (his self restraint was proven nonexistent the moment he tried to punch the actual prince of Camelot upon meeting him)

[sirnoblesquid]

Not my finest work, but i just wanted to see if I’m able to draw kids

Also, merlin found a bug and Arthur is not really sure how to feel about it

[tylostoma]

it's such a blessing that we can hear a smile in a person's voice