Taxonomy of COVID-19 Masks

[lb_lee]

Life sketches of the various styles of mask (and wearing) that I've seen around.  Not pictured: the N95 (it's basically the builder with a filter) and that one guy we saw wearing an honest-to-god gas mask once. (Survivalist, LARPer, or hardcore power-lifter?  Choice is yours!)

We ourself are an Etsy Muzzle.

Comments

[numb3r_5ev3n]

Awesome!

[stealthsystem]

LOL the Nopes! AAAH that's hilarious!!
We have the official one that goes across your face-hole, and then has what looks like little hair ties that go over your ears, the disposable kind you wear in fire areas when the air quality is shit. Though your names for these are hilarious.

[lb_lee]

All I need now is to come up with a silly "what your mask says about you!" personality test and I'm internet gold!

[stealthsystem]

Dookoooo it! With little altogether-texts for what each kind of mask looks like for us non-sighted folks and then little silly blurbs about what that says about your personality. We'd take it and share!

[minoanmiss]

I love this! may I signalbboost it?

[lb_lee]

Sure, go for it!

[lithophiles]

Haha, we're a Medico. We also have a Crumplecloth, but only wear it for short trips because it makes our nose and lower face feel really hot, which is a sensory no for a lot of us. Anyway, we happened to have a bunch of those cheap medical masks saved up from before COVID-19 because we wore them on buses back in the winter, even after getting a flu shot, because we had a track record of picking up nasty colds from Los Angeles buses. Our immune system was a lot worse back when we were living with Astraea/when we first got out (gee, I wonder why).

We see quite a few Mehs, No-Nosers and Part-Timers on the subway nowadays. IT MAKES US VERY ANGRY.

-Nina

[lb_lee]

That's fair, I can't stand the feel of the paper ones and don't have any anyway.

I also want to make a bingo card of people we now judge and dislike due to new covid-19 norms--like those darn folks who walk three or four abreast and take up the whole walkway.

[sinistmer]

I have an Etsy and what might technically be a The Scarf (it's actually a neck gaiter). I might need to make some more masks that aren't polar fleece now that it's getting warmer.

[lb_lee]

I didn't know you made your own masks! Or that you had a fleece one!

[sinistmer]

The polar fleece is my neck gaiter! My dad made my mask, but I'm thinking of recycling some t-shirts to make some no-sew cloth masks. I know CDC has a pattern.

[talewisefellowship]

Ive been a Bandito and Crumplecloth lol

--Janusz

[lb_lee]

I was a scarf and a bandit before getting my etsys!

[talewisefellowship]

yeah we dont have proper masks so we make do with what we have lol

--Janusz

[talewisefellowship]

Lol is the Nope Edward Cullen? looks like him

--Hikaru

[lb_lee]

It is totally Edward Cullen! Good catch! He seemed the best choice.

[talewisefellowship]

he's definitely the kind of guy to refuse to wear a mask lol. nice touch

--Hikaru

[pantha]

Excellent. We are still on lockdown, so I have no mask as I just don't go out.

However, after seeing this graphic I now can't unsee it every time I see someone doing the "no nose": https://imageproxy.ifunny.co/crop:x-20,resize:320x,crop:x800,quality:90x75/images/9f155b4b91e71308031e2443aa0cccd80b940cf4e8a529a4fa8afe2d7c55ae17_1.jpg

[lb_lee]

I hadn't seen that one! It's funny.

[lithophiles]

That is awesome. I want that on a t-shirt.

-Nina

[dreamer_marie]

I plead guilty to being a part-timer! I wear glasses, and the mask makes them really fog up.

[talewisefellowship]

we have that problem too! its annoying

--hikaru

[lb_lee]

Obviously someone needs to make a mask with little windshield wipers.

[sinistmer]

I have seen tutorials on how to avoid glasses fog, but I think a couple of them require putting a film of soap on your lenses. I've just been leaving my glasses at home; I navigate well enough without them.

[lb_lee]

thebeasts mentioned their trick for glasses fog avoiding here!

[lithophiles]

Yeah, we definitely have that problem! It's one of the reasons we can only wear masks with bendable metal thingies that go over the bridge of the nose, so we can seal it off enough that our breath doesn't fog up our glasses. It still happens sometimes though, and we have to take our glasses off until they unfog.

-Lydia Rose

[nightforest]

HA! Genius.

-Daniel/le

[kaebe]

Yeees, the muzzle is my favorite! (As you may have guessed by the pattern Z made XD)

I've had to go No-Nose for a few minutes at a time because the stupid warm weather + mask has been triggering my asthma D:

[radiantfracture]

Thick-laced complete cloth Etsy-equivalent here

random belated weirdoes dropping by just because <3

[the_beasts]

we do a kind of hijab/niqab-inspired scarf arrangement known as "the toothache," where we wrap a scarf over the back of the top of our head and around our jaw to cross our face that way. so it ends up kind of like a diagonal ring around our head (and often then wraps around our neck too if the scarf is long enough because warmth = less pain, for us). we find having the scarf go over the top of our head stops it from falling down and keeps it in place better. we've also been known to include a "bandito" over the top of that whole arrangement to close off the bridge of our nose more effectively, since that's the problem with it being secured in an upwards direction. either way, we hold it all in place with a hat (partly because we always have to have something to shade our eyes unless it's dark, but the hat does make a big difference in keeping the scarf properly secured as well).

we also now have what's probably a "clothbought" (we think that's what it says in the picture? our eyesight's not great), ours is just a cheap polyester thing with elastic ear loops that looks about the same shape as your possibly-titled-clothbought picture. that one we got because we bought a pride month shirt from rooster teeth and they were giving away free face masks with every order (yay!). we haven't really used it yet because we're housebound and haven't had a delivery since then, but we've been wearing it alone at home just to test it out and see what the problems are/how to work around them.

we also have trouble with our glasses fogging when we wear an ordinary mask instead of our scarf (they gave us a paper one to wear when we had to go to hospital, as well as our home-testing of our new cloth freebie mask). we find rolling up a piece of paper towel, other tissue or lightweight fabric (like a hankie) and tucking it over the bridge of our nose inside the top of our mask helps prevent glasses-fog for us. though it does make our breathing and skin irritation issues a little worse. just thought we'd mention in case anyone who hasn't wants to try that.

also (since we're commenting for once), we recently binged a whole bunch of you guys' fiction stuff and we ADORE your stories! especially everything set in Treehouse. it's so much like our home life! thankyou so much, we so rarely find stories about completely nonhumanoid creatures building communities together, or about societies that aren't some kind of copy of western capitalist earth cultures in some way. usually, even when the authors are trying to write alien cultures they still end up with a whole bunch of the subtle assumptions and biases and norms from whatever human cultures the writers know. you did so much better at writing a nonhuman, un-influenced-by-earth society than we've ever seen before. thankyou for the representation! we needed it so bad. <3 <3 <3 (we also really like your Tree That Wasn't, Tanika, Disabled Cyborgs and Battle The Universe stuff. for similar representation-related reasons as well as just being Good Story.)

basically, keep being awesome, it's helping! <3

[med_cat]

Very entertaining, thank you :)

(I came here via minoanmiss' DW ;)

[ex_not643]

We're an Etsy, though we haven't gone out in nearly a month.

~K.