If You Haven’t At Least Tried Sewing Or Crocheting Or Knitting Your Own Clothes, You Really Should.

if you haven’t at least tried sewing or crocheting or knitting your own clothes, you really should. even if it’s just one time and you never do it again, i really think everyone should do it at least once

learning how to crochet was what finally made me grasp the abject horror of the fast fashion industry and realize just how laborious and time consuming it is. i have to take a few days off a week so my back/wrists don’t get sore — and i get to do this as a leisure activity in the comfort of my own home, rather than in a sweatshop. it takes dozens of hours to produce a single item. there is just something about trying it yourself that makes you realize just how little the people making our clothes are being paid for retailers to be able to sell clothes at such obscenely low prices.

i understood in the abstract that people were earning literal slave wages to make my clothes, but that concept wasn’t real to me in a way i could understand until i spent 14 hours making something that i myself wouldn’t have even been willing to pay more than $10-20 for if i saw it in a store.

i have not bought any new clothes since learning how to crochet. every time i see clothes at a store (especially obviously handmade items like crochet), and i look at the price tag i feel genuinely sick to my stomach.

i’m not saying everyone needs to make their own clothes in order to be against fast fashion, but what i am saying is if hearing about the conditions and wages secondhand has not been enough to make you stop buying it, if you find yourself becoming desensitized to the suffering of the people who make your things, you should try making something yourself.

you need to see firsthand how physically and mentally demanding it can be and imagine how much worse it would be if you were forced to sit in a sweatshop for 16 hours a day doing it nonstop, earning pennies an hour to do so. you need to spend weeks laboring over something only for it to turn out looking like shit so you realize just how much wisdom and technical skill goes into these supposedly “unskilled” and undervalued jobs. if the abstract concept isn’t enough to get through to you, then you need to get hands on.

let me be your stolen spoils

rating: E

A pleasant flush spreads through him remembering the first time he woke up with a ring of bruises that Inej had kissed into his skin, circling his neck like a medal he had worked so hard to earn. He had rolled over in bed to face her and preened while she traced her fingers lightly over the marks. Mine, she had whispered. Yours, Kaz had confirmed. Inej places her mouth on the base of his throat now and he feels her canines nip into his skin. He would let her devour him if she asked.

Kaz, Inej, and a sunny spring day spent in bed.

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i love this kanej kanej fanfiction

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violetispersephone

2 months ago

My Heart Is Breaking All Over Again Because Of The Ma Meilleure Ennemie Music Video

my heart is breaking all over again because of the ma meilleure ennemie music video

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arcane arcane jinx my bbg <3

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violetispersephone

1 year ago

rip Vladimir Nabokov, you would've loved talking shit about Booktok.

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Lolita vladimir nabokov pale fire lolita nabokov invitation to a beheading he's such a hater iconic really poshlust

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violetispersephone

1 year ago

My Favourite Underrated Kaz Moments From The Books Pt 2

My favourite underrated kaz moments from the books pt 2

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violetispersephone

11 months ago

I really needed to see something like this today! Thank you @reasonsforhope for all that you do

If you're feeling anxious or depressed about the climate and want to do something to help right now, from your bed, for free...

Start helping with citizen science projects

The Conversation

Explainer: what is citizen science?

Public participation in science is increasing, and citizen science has a central part in this. It is a contribution by the public to researc

What's a citizen science project? Basically, it's crowdsourced science. In this case, crowdsourced climate science, that you can help with!

You don't need qualifications or any training besides the slideshow at the start of a project. There are a lot of things that humans can do way better than machines can, even with only minimal training, that are vital to science - especially digitizing records and building searchable databases

Like labeling trees in aerial photos so that scientists have better datasets to use for restoration.

Or counting cells in fossilized plants to track the impacts of climate change.

Or digitizing old atmospheric data to help scientists track the warming effects of El Niño.

Or counting penguins to help scientists better protect them.

Those are all on one of the most prominent citizen science platforms, called Zooniverse, but there are a ton of others, too.

I spent a lot of time doing this when I was really badly injured and housebound, and it was so good for me to be able to HELP and DO SOMETHING, even when I was in too much pain to leave my bed. So if you are chronically ill/disabled/for whatever reason can't participate or volunteer for things in person, I highly highly recommend.