#maybe it's time to recycle this one

[feralgirlfromatl]

Realizing this shirt is now old enough to buy alcohol in the US 🙃

[terrorofthetrident]

“Every job I do, I’m always trying to hone my craft and develop new skills to add to my arsenal. Every job I do is like an apprenticeship because I never went to drama school. I’m learning on my feet.”

HAPPY BIRTHDAY EWAN MITCHELL!

⇢March 8, 1997

[monodive]

.

[coridallasmultipass]

OMG IT WORKS, I WAS ABLE TO REPLACE THE STRAP WITH A SWATCH STRAP!!!!

Guys, it's been SO LONG since my cheap-ass generic/unbranded watch's strap started breaking, and I had to take off my favourite watch a WHILE ago (you can see the old strap in the bag is completely broken on both sides now, it just crumbled when I picked up my watch to measure it).

I had no clue how to shop for a replacement or which point to disassemble the old strap at! Turns out, it's Swatch compatible! So I went ahead and ordered the name brand Swatch strap for this size, and IT FITS. Well, the strap fits. The Swatch metal posts that hold the strap to the watch body were too thick by a hair and wouldn't slide in the metal watch body. Thankfully, the old posts in my watch were still good to use, since they were original to the watch.

I'm SO glad I can keep using my 2019 impulse purchase. I've already replaced the battery in it once, and now knowing how to replace a watch strap has been a really good skill to add to that. I hate throwing shit out when it stops working, I'd rather repair it, especially because this is a really cool and comfortable watch to me. Yeah it's hashtag retrowave aes, but it also uses a tally system with the LEDs for telling the time/date (as opposed to analog/digital), which is really cool and not something you see often. Also, with the new strap being leather - I know how to care for leather, and it will definitely last longer than the previous plastic that only lasted for a couple years of wear.

I'm so fucking excited.

[sundial-bee-scribbles]

In case it's hard to read/understand: "If I had a nickel for every time I had a story with a blonde girl named after a plant, who has a German father and a French mother but absolutely hates said mom, I'd have two nickels. Which isn't a lot, but it's weird that it happened twice."

weird, extremely-specific tropes in my stories: pt 1

[laneyface]

rant

[kulemii]

kaito... i'm all for you gettin it in but we do NOT flirt with teachers in front of their students when we're supposed to be working, good boy. that's not how we do things 😅

[ladygoofus]

I can't believe that over the course of about a season and a half of Miraculous Ladybug, Gabriel Agreste said, "Revenge is a dish best served cold" four times and then right near the end of season five Chloe got to say "Revenge is a pastry best served cold" to Marinette. Gabriel got four tries at that one-liner and all he did was say it in slightly wordier and more unhinged ways, and meanwhile Chloe manages to be at least marginally witty with it in one take. (The bar was low, okay?)

[beeseverywhen]

Been reading about underground bins in Liverpool and also how now they don't need the alleys for bins in some places they've cleaned them up and put like plants and seating in them so they can sit with their neighbours and wow I'm having intense feelings of envy. I don't know what I want more, underground bins or a clean alley lol

[blujayonthewing]

so the thing about this journal I got for christmas last year is: it turns out I actually (and somewhat to my own surprise) really like this soft cover leatherbound style-- but this paper is... difficult, and while it is very Aestheticque, and it was fun and good to work with it over the last year, I think I want better paper for my next sketch/ hodgepodge book. the PROBLEM is that this style of book construction is SO simple I almost feel that I must make my own from scratch rather than buy one, but that leads me back around to the same problem I've always had with making my own sketchbooks, which is that I dunno where to get loose paper I would actually like :'D

[alagaisia]

And another thing. I know it’s unpopular right now to criticize individual choices as contributing to waste and pollution and overuse of resources and climate change, etc. But I am going to.

I was brushing up some environmental stats/discussion questions in a kids’ activity packet for work the other day and when I was looking for some up-to-date and sourced things to sub in for what was in there, I found a National Geographic study from I think 2008? (Ironically I don’t have the source available to me right now because I was at work) that found that the average American- based on surveys of regular people on individual consumption, right, not stuff done by American corporations or celebrities- uses between two and twenty times as many material resources in a year than somebody in the rest of the world. Twice as much as someone from France. Twenty times more than somebody from India. There were other countries surveyed and mentioned with numbers between that that were all inarguably developed/industrialized/“first-world” countries.

I saw a post on here this evening that asked “what’s a little luxury you buy when you can? Something a little bit fun or expensive that you just can’t have enough of?” And I was all set to talk about the chai latte concentrate I like to splurge on from Costco which is much more expensive and I go through it more quickly than tea bags but it’s just really delicious. And then OP finished the post with “mine is phone cases.” What????

You’re buying and collecting phone cases? Something you can only use one of at a time? Made of plastic and cheap enough that they’re definitely primarily made by people being paid next to nothing for their labor? Something that is not going to be usable long term because phones do not last more than I suppose several years at best? And that having lots of them doesn’t like convey any sort of utility or advantage because I can think of barely a handful of vague situations where one phone case might have different features from another that makes one more or less convenient in different situations and you might want to switch them out. But only if you couldn’t find or afford a phone case that included all of your desired features at once, which if you’re wasting who knows how much money on “never having enough” phone cases, you could have done.

And like, I don’t know if OP was American. And I know tons of things use plastic and are useless in one way or another but it just struck me as such a specific example of such specifically wasteful behavior like. You don’t need that. Nobody needs that. And there are worse things and more wasteful things and yes corporations are bad and everything else. And I am more environmentally conscious of small things like that than most people I know (and yet I still drive to work every day because the bus would take two hours. Curious I am very intelligent meme etc.) and it’s unrealistic to expect everybody to do everything all the time all of that I know all of that.

But this study had also talked about how Americans, the most wasteful demographic on the literal planet, are also the people a.) most likely to believe that individual choices and consumption do not make an environmental difference, and b.) least likely to feel any guilt over their use of resources.

People who use and waste less than half of the amount of useless junk each of us uses in the US feel more compelled to pay attention to and limit their use of energy and material resources than we do. And not hypothetical billionaires or corporations or whoever. Regular people.

We live on a planet with a lot of finite resources! And we are wasting so many of them on dumb useless bullshit like single-serve individually packaged fucking idk pudding containers or getting a new cell phone every six months or buying your kid a rubber duck or three every time you go to target and a hundred other small things that people in specifically the US just don’t think about and they SHOULD. And I know we can talk about how some people need those single-use plastic squeeze tubes of apple sauce, and I’m sure it’s true. I’m not saying anyone should go around to individuals and question and harass them about their choices. But we should all be thinking way, way more about our own personal choices and the choices made by our families and social circles because the fact remains that 90% of kids would be just fine with a bowl of apple sauce poured from a big glass jar.

[valeovalairs]

Brushing the dust off of all my D&D supplies. Joining a new party that starts in a week ish. Time to come up with an entire character between then and now.

[sunderwight]

Modern AU where Shen Yuan accidentally sugar-daddies everyone.

So for the purposes of this, Shen Yuan's family is basically $10 Bananas levels of cluelessly rich. Shen Yuan has almost never had to look at the prices of anything he wants. He and his siblings all get an allowance from the family's main account, which increases when they reach adulthood, and in the interest of fairness his parents made it all the same size. So Shen Yuan gets the same amount of money for his daily living expenses as his older brothers with their penthouse apartments and vacation homes and private jets, at least from the family account (since he doesn't work, he doesn't actually make as much as them in total because they earn more on top of their allowances).

And the thing is, Shen Yuan genuinely just lives a lot more humbly. He likes people but what would he do with a vacation house? Anything really nice would probably require him to fly to get out there, and he gets sick as hell on planes. Living in the central city is also not great for him, because the air pollution is so bad. Having a whole house to himself would also be ridiculous. So he has a reasonable apartment, in a reasonable area, and he splurges every so often on purchases that make him happy and take-out food that he likes, and of course he pays a cleaning service to come in twice a week. Most people assume he's comfortably middle class and has some tech job he does from home, but he's been getting a lot more than he's been spending in his monthly allowances for years now, and the figures are big.

Enter into this environment author Airplane and his trash novels. Novels, multiple, because in this AU there's no PIDW, and instead after some alternate PIDW prototype got popular in the harem genre, Airplane decided to churn out a series of copy-paste shorter stories rather than recycling the same subplots in one massively long epic.

Shen Yuan of course discovers Airplane's writing and becomes as obsessed with it as ever, except this time he notices that if there are delays between new stories, they seem to clear up faster whenever he throws some cash at the problem. And also that the drops in Airplane's writing quality coincide with times when Shen Yuan was having health issues and not keeping up with his VIP purchases. So, he works out that Airplane's probably doing the writing for the money, and that when Peerless Cucumber isn't paying the most for it, Airplane starts listening to the other buffoons in the comment section more to try and entice them to pay his bills instead.

Peerless Cucumber leaves a comment on one of Airplane's latest stories that kicks off the two of them actually chatting, and Shen Yuan eventually gets to the point of offering to fund all Airplane's writing, in exchange for Airplane not doing his crap sellout stuff to appeal to other readers anymore. Airplane thinks he's joking or maybe mocking him. Shen Yuan asks how much it would cost. Airplane fires off a ridiculous number. Shen Yuan doesn't even blink and wires him the first payment. Then he gets annoyed because Airplane leaves him on read for a while, but that's because Airplane is staring at his account balance in shock.

Of course, it's Airplane who starts referring to Peerless Cucumber as his sugar daddy. Shen Yuan is just like "based on your sex scenes I don't think anyone would pay you for that" and Airplane's all "but you WOULD pay for my sex scenes ^_~" and Shen Yuan's like "technically I am actually paying you not to write that shit" and so on. Usual banter. The quality of Airplane's writing improves dramatically, a lot of his readership drops off but he does get new readers and gradually builds up an even bigger fanbase than before, and so on, it all goes pretty well. He eventually writes a few things that take off to the point of getting physical publications and international translations. Technically Airplane no longer needs Shen Yuan to pay all of his bills by that point but he's not going to tell Shen Yuan that! The contract's still good as long as he keeps writing!

Then one of Airplane's online acquaintances runs into some financial trouble and asks for help.

Liu Mingyan used to beta read for Airplane back when he wrote fanfiction (she was like thirteen, Airplane was unaware because internet and hey free beta), and it seems her family has hit a rough patch. She wants tips on how to go pro, but Airplane explains that it was extremely difficult and he mostly lucked out by finding a single wealthy backer. Mingyan wonders if the same guy would be interested in her writing, Airplane sadly thinks not because Mingyan exclusively writes kinky danmei erotica and Peerless Cucumber seems pretty firmly in the closet still and also generally prefers plotty and world-building heavy stuff.

But like, Airplane has definitely gotten a vibe off of Cucumber-bro, and Mingyan's gorgeous older brother does video streams of himself doing cool martial arts and swordsmanship stuff. So he asks her permission and when she gives it, he recommends Liu Qingge's videos to Shen Yuan, being sure to mention that the guy in question can't really afford to keep up with his hobbies and oh what a shame it would be if he had to stop making art like that.

Haha, Airplane, you're not subtle.

Even so, Shen Yuan watches the videos and immediately agrees that Liu Qingge is beauty in motion, and that it would be criminal to deprive the world of more videos of his sword. Swordsmanship! That is the, the art of, martial arts! Definitely. He clicks the donate button, reasoning out that he'll just send a donation about the size of his usual monthly payments to Airplane and call it his good deed for the day.

Liu Qingge is very confused by this new follower from nowhere who suddenly dumped a little over a month's rent into his account. One thing leads to another, with Mingyan and Airplane conspiring to try and get Shen Yuan as a permanent patron, and then Liu Qingge being let in on it. Except that Airplane keeps referring to Shen Yuan as his sugar daddy, and well... it's not like Liu Qingge doesn't ever get 'those' kinds of comments on his videos. At first he's embarrassed, then offended, then mortified that his own younger sister is apparently setting him up to make premium private videos for what he assumes is some old pervert who is going to want him to do untoward things.

However, their options are pretty bleak at the moment, and Liu Qingge worries that if he doesn't do this then Mingyan might. She even mentions something to the effect of having planned to offer herself, and only didn't because she wasn't this "sugar daddy" guy's type!

Teeth clenched, Liu Qingge asks Airplane stiltedly for advice on how to... appeal, to this wealthy benefactor.

In the end though it's not nearly as bad as Liu Qingge feared. He winds up doing more videos in costumes and cosplay, which ought to have been an untenable expense, but Peerless Cucumber always ends up covering the cost of whatever he invests in plus extra. Sometimes he sends Liu Qingge stuff with a request to wear it, but so far it's just been like, badass warrior-themed or historical costumes. Nothing overtly pervy. He does some LARPing, he makes enough to start doing horseback archery again, convinces some of his good-looking peers from various clubs to spar with him, and ultimately the most risque videos he ends up doing are the ones where he demonstrates how to put on certain kinds of gear. He still locks those ones behind paid subscribers only, mostly because he feels like he's doing something illicit now, even if he used to show more skin on his older videos any time he took his shirt off.

Peerless Cucumber doesn't leave creepy comments, either. In fact he seems genuinely nice and supportive, it's hard not to like him, and so even once his situation levels out Liu Qingge decides there's not really much need to stop making videos for him. (He maybe even gets a little giddy thrill over... well, sometimes he finds it all a bit... just when he thinks about Peerless Cucumber watching him demonstrate his physical prowess and finding that alone worth... ANYWAY--)

So that goes on for a while, before Yue Qi enters the scene.

Yue Qi is the childhood friend of one of Shen Yuan's older brothers (Shen bros!) and Shen Jiu owes him a big favor for something that he won't talk about. At least he won't talk to Shen Yuan about it. But Yue Qi is also not the type to ask for help, and Shen Jiu is very bad at offering it, so when Shen Jiu gets word that Yue Qi is having some difficulties making ends meet, he tells Shen Yuan to act as the middle man. Go offer Qi-ge money, he knows you're nice he'll just accept it, and then Shen Jiu will pay the actual bill.

Well it turns out that Yue Qi doesn't just accept it, of course he sees right through it, and gently but firmly tells Shen Yuan that he's not interested in burdening Shen Jiu further than he already has. Etc, etc, stoic stiff upper lips and no proper communication all around. Shen Yuan panics because it's not working and he's also genuinely worried about Yue Qi by now, so he tries to figure out how to make it compelling and basically blurts that, well, see, the thing is that sometimes he pays men to entertain him. You know. To like. Do things, for him. So. He could also pay Yue Qi? To do something for him?

Yue Qi gets the wrong idea entirely, and at first is like, oh, no, A'Yuan, you shouldn't be paying people for that! These things should just happen organically! But Shen Yuan is very adamant that he believes in compensating people for what they do for him, it's not like he can't afford to, and it gets awkward but Yue Qi is like well he does have health problems. It's perhaps difficult for him to meet people. So then he starts worrying about Shen Yuan and all these strange men he's apparently paying for "entertainment". Does his brother know about this?

No of course Shen Jiu doesn't know! He'd hate it, and Shen Yuan doesn't want to hear about how he's doing everything wrong with his life again!

Then Shen Yuan mentions that his prior house cleaning service up and quit on him (they didn't), and if Yue Qi would like to earn fair compensation he could just come over sometimes to help instead, and Shen Yuan would pay him just to tidy up and hang out for a few hours! Which Yue Qi thinks is a fantastic idea, actually, even if Shen Yuan is only doing this because of his brother, this will give Yue Qi a chance to keep an eye on him and his so-called entertainers. Even if he sort of... ends up also being one?

Shen Yuan keeps everything above board, though his apartment always seems perfectly clean and he overpays way too much (Shen Jiu is still footing this bill after all), and Yue Qi starts to think maybe he actually is being paid for intimacy. Of a sort that they're maybe still working up to? Shen Yuan usually has a very thin face after all. He's kind of got two minds about this prospect. On the one hand, he's got his situationship with Shen Jiu, so dating his brother would be absurd. But on the other hand, it's not actually dating, and he does like Shen Yuan, and maybe if they can be good company for each other then Yue Qi won't feel so depressed and Shen Yuan won't need to hire strange men so often.

Meanwhile it's come to Shen Yuan's attention, perhaps through an offhand comment he read online somewhere, that people who are struggling financially often also struggle to "treat themselves". Because even when they have enough money to be comfortable there's often the looming specter of deprivation, and etc, so he figures he should start buying some of his dependents more treats and things. Since they might not buy them for themselves? And also he's enjoying doing this but shhh no he isn't, it's a huge hassle, he's only doing it out of basic moral decency, etc.

So like, Airplane starts getting little things that he'd put on some public wish lists, clearly sent by Peerless Cucumber. And he tells Mingyan to make a list for Liu Qingge too, and sure enough, Liu Qingge (bewildered, slightly flustered) tries to figure out what he's supposed to do with an album from a band he likes and some high-end leather polish. Ultimately settles on playing the music and wearing his nicest leather in his next video. Yue Qi starts arriving at Shen Yuan's place to be plied with his favorite coffees and to have scented candles awkwardly foisted onto him (Shen Yuan does not know what Yue Qi likes in gifts) (he buys these presents himself they're not out of Shen Jiu's pocket).

So finally Shen Yuan's parents start to notice that he's been spending a lot more than usual, and start to worry that he's either been taken in by a scam artist or is secretly dating a gold digger or has developed a drug addiction or something. But asking things directly like normal people is basically illegal in the Shen family, so they decide to hire a private investigator.

Enter Luo Binghe, a young man of humble background who is struggling to make ends meet after the untimely death of his adoptive mother, and is using his P.I. job and his online cooking videos to help pay his way through school (scholarship student). Usually his cases are more like, cyberstalking someone to find out if they're cheating on their spouse, or helping someone planning a lawsuit accumulate evidence on their corrupt employer, or other things like that. When he gets the Shen Yuan case, the idea that the Shen family's son is paying for "company" is well within his list of probable answers.

Though this one is a little... peculiar?

Mostly because Binghe can't find evidence of Shen Yuan actually getting what he would, presumably, be paying for. At first Luo Binghe just goes through the online paper trails, using the info that the Shen parents give him to figure out that Shen Yuan is paying Airplane and Swordmaster Liu (*cough*) what seem to be exorbitant prices just for trashy fiction and cosplay videos. He assumes this is a cover, that someone's actually delivering drugs or going over for "private meetings" or at least actually sending dirty videos as well, but even when he pays for Liu Qingge's VIP access it's just tutorials and such. Neither of these guys are even on any of the sites that are more lenient towards hosting explicit content. Luo Binghe's aware that kinks aren't always obviously sexual, but people don't usually pay through the nose for the kind of content they can easily find for free all over the place, either.

He digs a little more but keeps coming up empty on evidence to clarify which of the many vices the Shen family's son is actually indulging in. Which is a problem because that's the information they're paying him to find out. Plus his curiosity kind of piques as he reads Shen Yuan's seemingly quite invested comments on Airplane's writing and Liu Qingge's videos, looking to see if there's any kind of clandestine code or pattern. But near as he can tell, whatever else Shen Yuan might be getting out of these arrangements, he does genuinely like the stories and videos too? Well. Sometimes. Sometimes he's actually scathingly vitriolic towards Airplane's writing.

Luo Binghe decides that surveilling Shen Yuan himself is probably the way to go. That gets more complicated in court cases, but since the Shen parents just wants to know what's going on and aren't planning on prosecuting their son for anything, it doesn't matter as much if Luo Binghe gets information in sneaky or underhanded ways.

So, Binghe uses the account he created to access Liu Qingge's videos to chat with Shen Yuan a few times, and then recommends his own cooking channel. Shen Yuan doesn't seem too interested in cooking, so Luo Binghe makes sure to include a video that has an image of himself in his recommendation, and then films a few new videos of himself cooking with his shirtsleeves rolled up to three quarters and a few more buttons than usual unbuttoned, adopting a more flirty persona than he typically does for his shows. He takes his cues from some of Liu Qingge's more popular videos for how to be enticing bait.

It takes a few videos, but eventually Shen Yuan comments. Luo Binghe latches onto the chance to start talking to him, playing up a persona of a vulnerable young man with little means who is trying hard to make it through school, etc, and sure enough Shen Yuan seems interested. Well, most predatory people like vulnerable targets, don't they?

However... Shen Yuan just sends him a chunk of money.

Luo Binghe is confused.

Isn't he supposed to ask for something or create some kind of expectation of repayment first? But, maybe this is his approach to handling new targets. Maybe he's just trying to lull Binghe into a false sense of complacency, before he starts indicating what he wants from all of this. Luo Binghe makes sure to move the money Shen Yuan sends him into a separate account, so that if the Shen parents get angry about it then he can return it as a gesture of good faith.

But Shen Yuan just keeps sending supportive comments and donations. Eventually he leaves a comment that alludes to how badly he'd like to taste Binghe's cooking, and Binghe is like finally, but when he implies that they could perhaps meet in person and Luo Binghe could thank him for his support by making him something, Shen Yuan backs off.

Things eventually progress to the point where Luo Binghe, who is a totally normal person treating this like a totally normal job still thank you very much, is basically camping out in the bushes in front of Shen Yuan's apartment building. At some point he conscripts the aid of his weird cousin (finding his birth family was how he got into this business initially), and then almost immediately regrets it because Shen Yuan helps get Zhuzhi Lang a job doing landscaping for his building.

Why would he want Zhuzhi Lang close but not Binghe? Binghe is much handsomer! He'd make an excellent target for seduction! >:(

Anyway eventually Yue Qi catches Luo Binghe lurking around like a creeper and is like, finally, I have caught one of these suspicious men, whilst Binghe is like oh so he does have a lover, well this guy sucks and is clearly not good enough for him, and they both try and chase one another off and Shen Yuan comes home to a heated passive-aggressive-politeness war being waged in front of his apartment. Eventually he realizes the misunderstanding and calls everyone together (zoom conference? in-person meet-up?) to clarify that he is not paying any of them for "special favors", that was just Airplane being deranged about his sense of humor, and then he has no idea what to do when the prevailing response seems to be disappointment.

[frommybedroom]

pls tell me i’m not the only one disappointed by s2

[lilacgaby]

morning patrols were something katsuki hated with a passion. as his break finally rolled around after a day as dead as ever, he slumped onto a random bench.

his peace lasted approximately five minutes until a group of fans came around, phones 'discreetly’ out and pointing towards him, though the flashlight gave away that they were recording. as the one scrambled to turn it off, another spoke up.

“dynamight? no way! i thought you'd be like– going crazy after seeing the rankings that dropped today.”

a record scratched in his head, his head tilted slightly as his eyebrows raised. “i don't think my patrolling is the problem.”

“yeah, it's probably your temper or something!” another one said, finger raised in the air. he didn't have time to be offended, as they then shoved a phone in his face, showing his ranking.

fifteen. not bad for how many people he'd cursed out recently. all he could do was scoff. “'s not horrible.”

“yeah! but she's totally beating you!”

his eyebrows scrunched inwards, his expression incredulous. “..she?”

“your wife! she's in the top ten!”

his eyes widened again, though this time, it was accompanied by a smirk on his lips. one that only grew alongside his pupils at the sight of you in your hero costume, a golden number eight right next to you.

“i guess she is.”

“you're not like.. upset?” they asked, not expecting at all this reaction from the guy who yelled just as much, if not more, at the people that he would actively save.

“nah, she deserves it.” a beat paused, and he looked up thoughtfully. until his fist slammed down onto the palm of his hand. “actually no, my wife deserves better. she's a damn good hero.”

he spaced out slightly, the words they spoke to him going through one ear and out the other as he though about the few missions he'd taken with you.

your mannerisms, the way your personality would bleed into your interactions with others. you had an undoubted professionalism about you. hiding the twitch of your eye with a smile, using your quirk masterfully even in your early career. your face, your body-

he closed his eyes, only after signing the shirts of those fans that had already left, and leaned against the uncomfortable recycled plastic of the bench.

you really did deserve it, and more. he'd have to tell you that..

well, he tried to. but he was beaten by his own words, seeing as the video those fans took of him praising you was trending pretty much everywhere.

as you laid on his chest and scrolled on your phone, a smile on your face as you showed him the screen.

“look, you went up a ranking. maybe you should talk about me more often, huh?”

he couldn't help but laugh. “be careful what you wish for. i could talk about you for hours.”

so now, you actually become an avoided topic for reporters. not unless they want the press conference to last an extra hour just on you.

tags: @k0z3me @darhinadadragon @maddietries @exoticrasin @lavendarstarz @hisonlyobsession @i-the-fluffo @cookielovesbook-akie @frosted-flakes @irenne-stans @lulumi1u @bakunis @twirlyphim @drawingforshitsandgiggles @babylambdietcoke @deimosjay

[teaboot]

I feel like if you're using a lot of disposable plastic bags in your day to day life, you've gotta do something sustainable to make up for it. Like using bamboo toilet paper or eco friendly cat litter or something, yknow

Honestly I exaggerate for comedic effect, while I DO routinely use ziplock bags to hold spaghetti I cook maybe once a month and the bag itself is usually for freezer storage. I actually throw out maybe one bag a week? I DO hate washing plates and tupperware and junk but that usually just means I eat sandwiches without a plate.

I agree though that needless waste should be avoided, and I do avoid it- biodegradable bags and recyclables, empty butter tubs used to store leftovers, etc.

This said, though, not applicable necessarily for myself but for a lot of others- I feel that it's importat to remember that there are many people who legitimately NEED things like plastic straws, or catheters, or pre-packaged foods

And the idea that that's a moral failing that individuals need to personally make up for when a single billionaire blows out more CO2 in a long weekend than I will in my whole life on a superjet meet-cute in the Bolivian rainforest between humvee drag races funded by the river-polluting textiles plants they planted in a third world country to avoid EPA laws and give an entire village stillbirths and stomach cancer is an idea that those very same bigwigs have spent a LOT of time and money investing in planting in the public psyche.

Like- Glass bottles are infinitely recyclable, so why are so many drinks in plastic now? Loads of drinks manufacturers used to buy them back and clean them for re-use, so why did they stop? If they chose to make something out of a limited and environmentally irresponsible material, why is it my failing to track down a correct process of disposal for them? What if there are none in my area? Do I lobby for more recycling plants in my area? Do I set aside some of my limited time outside the pain factory of my job- which I have more than one of, thanks to rising costs of things just like that drink I just emptied- to properly dispose of this company's waste FOR them?

Say coca-cola just rolled up to your town and started dumping millions of empty plastic bottles in the street, going, "wow, you should really think about building and staffing a recycling depot, it would be really shameful of you to just put these in the trash." When companies purposefully use materials with limited lifespans- because yes, even plastic can only be reused so many times- and tell you it's your own fault if it harms the environment- that's essentially what they're doing, just with more steps.

Yes, its important to be as environmentally concious as we can in our day to day life, but responsible sustainability is not catholicism. We don't get good boy points from our lord and savior Captain Planet every time the average low-income household gathers together to hold hands and repent for a single-use plastic that allows them to access something they need.

Entire families could eat trees and shit dead lithium batteries for years and still not do as much damage to the planet as an average dye plant or braindead celebrity does in a week just for fun, and I'm mad about it

...this went on longer than intended.

TL/DR: DO recycle and minimize waste, but don't beat yourself up over the little waste you can't avoid, and follow the money.

EDIT: Part 2