SpookyStitch

Down in the dungeon, where hunger resides 🩸

I wanted to make a dungeon meshi fanart for a while, and man, I love Falin, so here we go

Prozac: fake polish word

Lexapro: legal research software

Celexa: pokemon

Geodon: another pokemon

Wellbutrin: online stock exchange thing

Paxil: off-brand pope

Buspar: jumble prompt

like idk I don't think it comes from a purposefully fatphobic place and like yes it sucks a lot that the demands of capitalism deny people a lot of opportunities to cook or learn to cook and be more engaged and intentional about their food. but it has this flavor of "poverty is bad because it makes people fat," which only holds up as an argument if you agree that being fat is a terrible thing that happens to people rather than being a completely neutral reality about some people's bodies.

Sewing machines are operated by *people*. Knitting machines are operated by *people*. Yes lots of the process is automated but you cannot tell a machine "make me a t-shirt" or "make me a knit cardigan".

Free PDF available for download

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.

the lyocell process uses a different chemical soup than the rayon process.

Compared to rayon, lyocell soup is less toxic, more reusable, and more energy efficient.

So lyocell *is* environmentally better, even before you consider the effect of using different plants as the source of cellulose. And in addition to being less harmful to the environment, it’s safer for the factory workers.

So if you’re committed to using a cellulose fiber, it’s better to get lyocell for those reasons.

but, yes! The final material will behave exactly the same, because it’s all cellulose.

You cannot iron or machine-launder seacel or tencel or lyocell, for the same reasons that you can’t use heat on rayon.

But when you see all the advertising saying how lyocell is antifungal, cooling, biodegradable etc. etc.,

(and the exact same thing is true of rayon),

that isn’t really *about* lyocell versus rayon.

It’s about lyocell versus POLYESTER.

because obviously cellulose can never replace natural fibers,

but it CAN do everything polyester does, plus all these things that polyester can’t!

Lyocell could completely replace polyester forever, and the world would be a better place!

But, critically, polyester is

1.) dead cheap

2.) part of the Big Oil empire.

Back when rayon was first invented, people were making the exact same talking points.

But Big Oil was like “well, if you don’t care about the environment, we’re the dramatically cheaper option… and if you DO care about the environment, here’s all these scary facts about the nasty rayon Chemical Soup! And your precious cellulose supports the logging industry! Checkmate, haha!”

and so, nothing changed.

Now we have lyocell, which has the exact same qualities and is more Idealogically Pure.

Right now it isn’t that common or popular, because it hasn’t found its niche. It can’t compete with luxury fibers!

But if we all just looked around and saw how fucking much polyester fiber there still is in the world,

and realized that all of it could be replaced!!! with lyocell, or with something else,

we could just STOP USING POLYESTER FIBER and it would be a major win for the planet.

However I did want to correct the bit about fabric care for rayon. You absolutely can iron and machine wash it. Hell, you can even dye it. You just need to use the right settings. Rayon shrinks easily and can be damaged by high temperatures, but that's easily avoided with a low iron setting (use a pressing cloth too if you're nervous) and cold water washing to be safe. (I honestly put most of mine in warm and occasionally hot without ill effect, but it depends a lot of the garment, if it's a blend, if it was pre-shrunk, etc)

I promise you, rayon is not that hard to take care of.