wishthatiwasnessiesgirl

[wishthatiwasnessiesgirl]

“Bamboo is antifungal”

Because it’s rayon

“Eucalyptus fabric is cooling!”

Yeah, because it’s rayon

“We make clothing called seacell out of seaweed!”

Yeah I looked on your website it’s made by the lyocell process, which means-

-wait for it-

It’s fucking rayon!!

Listen. There is a list of actual plant fibers that are directly made into fabric: cotton, linen, ramie, some hemp. I’m sure I’m missing a couple.

But if you’re wondering “huh how did they turn that plant material into fabric,” 99% of the time? It’s RAYON.

All rayon is made by putting plant material in chemical soup, dissolving out everything but the cellulose, and turning the cellulose into filaments/fibers.

The source of the cellulose has zero effect on the eventual fabric.

Rayon made from bamboo or eucalyptus or seaweed is not any better than rayon from any other sources.

Don’t let companies mislead you!

[wishthatiwasnessiesgirl]

One thing they don’t tell you about sewing is that it is actually ironing

[wishthatiwasnessiesgirl]

William Laurence you dense motherfucker this is the third time this man has casually gone all "hey wanna go make a new life together?" and he is absolutely going to climb you like a tree

[wishthatiwasnessiesgirl]

[wishthatiwasnessiesgirl]

"When the rich rob the poor it's called business, when the poor fight back it's called violence"

Poster spotted in Brunswick, Melbourne

[wishthatiwasnessiesgirl]

I don't really think it's fair to dismiss the idea that that guy might have been framed for killing the CEO as like an unfounded conspiracy theory when NYPD has a proven history of planting/fabricating evidence on people. in 2011 there was a massive investigation of the NYPD and hundreds of cases against people were dismissed after a former police officer testified that they literally have a name for planting evidence on people: flaking. you cannot be out here acting like considering the possibility that cops who do this shit under normal circumstances might possibly also do it when they're under intense global pressure and scrutiny is the same as republicans thinking democrats run a secret pedophile ring in the basement of a pizza restaurant

[wishthatiwasnessiesgirl]

[wishthatiwasnessiesgirl]

Bi-Ace Laurence and Aro Roland

Okay so a few weeks ago I made a comment about viewing Jane Roland/Laurence as queer, and @sere-allwehaveisnowasked me to dig into it. This is a slightly cleaned up version of the ramble I gave on the Temeraire discord, just on the off-chance folks from the broader fandom might find it interesting!

So I can see how that description of Laurence/Roland might seem surprising at a first glance! They're an M/F pair, and obviously that lends itself to a very traditional heterosexual reading. But that's not the only possible reading, at all!

"Queer" is a catchall term and an umbrella term, which means there has been a lot of quibbling over what exactly 'counts' is queer. "Is X queer?" is a Discourse repeated ad nauseam; replace X with 'ace people', 'aro people', 'polyamorous people', 'kinksters', 'furries', etc.... It gets really hard to draw firm lines. Which is why I generally subscribe to te definition of queer as "anything which transgresses the social norms in the broadly overlapping space of sexuality, romance, and gender" So on a base level, you have the fact that in the time and setting of the Temeraire series, Jane Roland is breaking So Many gender norms. She's a soldier, masculine, heavier set and with facial scarring. Under some more flexible definitions of queer, almost any sexual and/or romantic relationship she entered into would be inherently queer due to how she transgresses the boundaries. That said, while I do find something compelling there, that alone isn't really why I see Jane/Will as queer, since while Roland might be transgression within the text, to the average 21st century reader, she's not nearly so shocking.

For me, it's much more about how Laurence/Roland fits much much more into broader queer readings of both their characters, notably the bi (and to a lesser extent, ace) experience for Laurence, and the aromantic reading for Roland.

I very much do read Laurence as a bisexual guy who never really realised he was bisexual, partly because his attraction genders were fairly equal, and both fairly low. In book one, he doesn't really seem personally that attracted to the idea of a traditional marriage-- it's just sort of What One Does, and he does like the idea of the companionship a marriage with offer. He's friends with Edith, their engagement makes sense, and he doesn't have any other option that's more appealing, so... Why not? But equally, while he's disappointing to lose that future, he's not heartbroken either.

Specifically, I think what attracts Laurence is military competence. (Or maybe not quite military per say, but certainly something adjacent. Being in the field, getting your hands dirty). And he'd never really twigged to that because... All the women he had met until then were Society Ladies(tm). They were divorced from that entire sphere. And sure, Laurence saw it in men, but he didn't read it as sexual attraction, he just read it as admiration. (It can be hard to untangle the difference!)

But then he meets Jane. Who is feminine while also masculine. A woman who displays all these elements of military competence that Laurence is foremost drawn to. And I really do think that's the Rosetta stone for realising his attraction to men.

I also think there's a really great ace reading of him getting back together with Jane for LoD? Not just that he apparently hadn't had any sex for the previous 3.5 books; that could equally be attributed to his depression and social isolation. But it's the way that encounter has less to do with him craving sex specifically, or craving romance, as him feeling the joy and relief of having regained Jane's trust.

As for Roland... Man I read her as aro, so bad. I can absolutely see the reading where she isn't inherently/naturally disinclined to romance, but basically taught herself to repress her desire for the sake of her career. And that's definitely compelling. But I see so much of someone who just doesn't really care about romance, doesn't really get what everyone else sees in it, and is just going to carry on without it.

And I just love that Roland/Laurence continues throughout the entire series, but doesn't end with them getting married and having kids or anything like that. They have this great fiends with benefits situation which is genuinely SO refreshing.

All of this I think dovetails deeper into my feelings about queerness in the Temeraire series as a whole. These books were published in a time where there was a huge push for greater gay representation (one we're still living through now), and I believe that was a big part of the analysis. And indeed, I think it's fair to examine and ask why there wasn't more of an explicit M/M representation in the story. But at the same time, a question I often grapple with as an a-spec person, is how do you depict the more 'subtle' queer identities? Especially ones like asexuality and aromanticism, which are defined by a lack of something? Especially in historical fiction, where it would be deeply weird to have the characters use modern terminology and bust out some pride flags. And I don't know if any of this was Novik's intentions or not; to a large extent, I don't care. But I do think there's a lot of stuff in this narrative that resonates with a lot of bi, asexual, and aromantic experiences, and that's really interesting to analyse.

[wishthatiwasnessiesgirl]

fandom WILL without fail always pick the INCORRECT character to be the omega/submissive/mpregged guy and then you just have to sit there and try not to cry about how wrong they are and they're torturing mr bodily autonomy issues with all these unwanted pregnancies when mr wants to be pregnant is right there but he's 6 feet tall and has 2 more muscles so he can't get pregnant i guess

[wishthatiwasnessiesgirl]

[wishthatiwasnessiesgirl]

this little glamorized misogyny "joke" has run its course right. can we leave this corny demonic shit in 2023. it is done now. we've had enough.

[wishthatiwasnessiesgirl]

huh. something small but unexpected happened and it threw me off my rhythm. the whole day is ruined now. its gonna take me 3-5 business days to recover

[wishthatiwasnessiesgirl]

High-key my favorite running gag in Temeraire is when somebody reveals something shocking and Laurence would like the tea but obviously it is completely unthinkable that one could inquire further when the other party has not offered the information first, so he and everyone else will simply have to live with their curiosity eternally unsatisfied.

Only for the aviator sitting next to him to immediately say "That's buck wild. So what happened?"

[wishthatiwasnessiesgirl]

So many people keep claiming there’s nothing old in the US when there’s man-made massive earth mounds that are over 8,000 years old. Big earth mounds that were likely made by a bunch of people carrying dirt in baskets. Some of them were burial sites, some were platforms for houses or other things.

This is really impressive! This is really cool! These are ancient structures, some made before the great pyramids, maintained and used for thousands of years! Made by ancient people with frickin baskets! Mound building civilizations! I love them and they deserve more recognition!

[wishthatiwasnessiesgirl]

was suddenly moved to draw a toony sort of character design .. but this is a bit too close to 2013 tumblr sexyman for my own comfort

[wishthatiwasnessiesgirl]

"Justice is expensive," Tharkay said. "That is why there is so little of it, and that reserved for those few with enough money and influence to afford it."

"In some corners of the world, perhaps," Laurence said, unable to tolerate this, "but thank God, we have a rule of law in Britain, and those checks upon the power of men which prevent any from becoming tyrannical."

Laurence. Laurence please.