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nohiketoosmall · 6 months

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Ranking Plush Cobras 🐍

Part 1: ranking plush anacondas 🐍

"Cobra" is a little vaguer than anaconda, because "cobras" include a specific genus and the common names of a variety of snake species. As such, I'll give them more leeway in terms of color accuracy, but I think the shape of the hood will make or break these snake plushes.

Cobra Stuffed Animal by Wild Republic

Length: 54 in

11/10. I chose cobras after I found this guy because I love him, so much. Her cute little face. Their perfect little hood. They look like they're smiling. I can't see the back, but I think this is a creative interpretation of a monocled cobra, which can be striped. The spectacled cobra also has similar front-hood ornamentation, usually seem more "freckled" than "striped". I think this could pass for a creative interpretation of both. Unlike most snake plushies, the proportion of the head is much more accurate and in my opinion, cuter. Wild Republic really redeemed themselves from last time.

Cobra Snake Plush by Top Toy

1.5m

4/10, this guy certainly has the look of maybe a king cobra, and that chunky head shape so many retailers seem to use for snakes actually fits the cobra. But if I want a plush of a deadly snake I would prefer it have the :< expression of a cobra and the big, charming eyes. Also, king cobras should have round pupils.

Cobra Pillow Snake by Unknown (via whiteblackstore)

2.1m

8/10 This is one of the longer cobra plushes, and he has an excellent shape, very huggable, soft, and does look like he'd work as a pillow although I couldn't confirm whether there is wire in her body. I'll note that even the product photo seems to have a manufacturing defect in one eye. This cobra was found on several websites, but I couldn't find the manu. The cape cobra can be orange, so even that works!

Plush Cobra by Haihuiyuan (?) (via aliexpress)

Length unknown

10/10 considering the size and simplicity I actually really like these ones. They all look a little angry but extremely cute, which is what I want in a cobra stuffie. Not angry as in vicious but angry like you just walked in on them at a bad moment and they turned around in surprise. Again, the cobras have heads the same size as their body, which I think is great. There are no blue cobras (I think) but I will accept this inaccuracy for the sake of cuteness.

Cobra snake plush by iharttoys

1+ m

2/10. My partner described these as "muppet like" and I actually added a point of that because thats a cute concept, but I hate these. I despise cartoon animals with this much white in their eyes, but other than that I think the hood just looks awful, like terrible finds, and the scales look too fish-y because they're big. I wish more plushies had open mouths, though, but I would definitely put fangs in them if I did an open mouth.

Cobra Stuffed Animal by WildRepublic (2)

12in* *standing up, longer uncoiled.

6/10 This small cobra is like the platonic ideal of cobra plushes. Its fairly accurate in color, fairly accurate in shape, and uses simple patterns effectively. Its like an 8/10 for accuracy, but it just doesn't charm me as much as some of the others I've seen.

Realistic stuffed cobra by Aurora (via stuffedsafari on pinterest)

13in* *may be standing up, couldnt find confirmation, looks to be longer uncoiled

9/10 another excellent cobra plush. This is more perfect than I ever could have imagined. The material used looks to be textured with different textures on top and bottom. My only complaint with the toy is the hood should be connected a little lower to match the shape of the head. My other complaint is that I can't actually find this anywhere for sale- I think it was sold out but still appeared on the pinterest page for the online store.

Foilkins Cobra by WildRepublic (3)

54in

7/10 I really like the vibe of this guy. Definitely a more flashy variety, not really trying to be realistic with its gimmick of having shiny scales, but it has a cute shape. Could use a bigger hood, maybe. Adorable though.

Cuddlekins cobra by Wildrepublic (4 or 2b?)

12in* *probably longer uncoiled, unclear

7/10 I have no idea if this is real. This snake is present on the wildrepublic amazon page and I could find no other pictures of it. Here is the saga of what I found about it:

One US reviewer posted a photo (2022) of what they purchased and it was clearly the cobra reviewed in WR 2, which does not have the fancier materials. The WR website has the WR 2 snake as being $23 but the amazon listing lists WR 4 as $55. In fact, a UK reviewer on Amazon from 2023 posted that the snake was not shiny and in the photo it looks the same as WR 2. I do hope people aren't buying for $55 from amazon when it is only $22 on their website- assuming everyone is getting WR 2 instead of the above picture. I did check and confirm the prices for plushes are normally the same on amazon and their website. I also went ahead and reported this to amazon, although I have no idea whether they take action on things like this.

Stuffed cobra from Sunny Toy (via stuffedark)

62in

8/10 Now THIS is what I'm looking for when I see a snake with an open mouth. This guy is discontinued so I couldn't find many details but he appears to be a puppet. I love his little fangs and delightful expression. Definitely a shape > pattern and color design, but it works.

Stuffed cobra from Fiesta Toy (via stuffedark)

49in

10/10 I think this snake has excellent vibes and could be my friend. no notes.

Wild Eyes king cobra by Animal Planet

38in (?)

1/10 I despise this snake. Its so ugly. why would you do this to me.

In conclusion

There are way more cobras than anacondas, and I would say they're generally more charming. I think the hood makes the cobra plushes instantly recognizable, but it also seems to be the only thing that will convince designers to make a snake plushes head a reasonable size compared to its body. Most of the hoods do tend to be a bit fin-ish and the nicer ones have the hood taper down the body.

Cobras dont always have their hood up- they do so as a threat display- so I've been ruminating on the techniques one could use to make a fold-out hood without ruining the plushness of the toy. I have not been able to think up a good solution.

#reptiblr #snakes #wildlife #cobras #king cobra #indian cobra #stuffed animals #plushies #plush ratings

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projectadulthood · 2 years

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39 Best Websites to Find Free Textbooks, Research Papers, Study Guides, and Books

Whether you’ve just received a long list of textbooks you need for a specific uni class or are looking for a particular book/research paper for a high school project, books (and journal subscriptions) can be expensive.

The good news is that there are plenty of resources online where you can find free PDF versions of most written materials, starting with Atkinson & Hilgard’s Introduction to Psychology and ending with Shakespeare’s Macbeth.

Note that although some of the websites below provide access to copyright-free texts only, or texts that publishers/authors have agreed to share freely, others have been accused of internet privacy.

However, many people see open access practices as morally acceptable, especially considering the unsustainable prices of academic textbooks and papers.

To quote a recent paper on the topic:

"Since shadow libraries are a product of the cooperation between scholars, who contribute texts and other resources (such as donations, volunteer work, etc.), shadow libraries represent a ‘bottom-up’, radical approach to open access: a physical approximation of the Platonic ideal of knowledge sharing that would exist if there were no legal, economic, or institutional barriers to the circulation of scholarly knowledge."

Free Textbooks

Library Genesis

Library Genesis, or Libgen for short, is a shadow online library website where college students can find academic books (including those that are hard to find/very expensive) and scholarly journal articles.

The site also hosts general-interest books, audiobooks, comics, magazines, and images.

Z-Library

Z-Library is another shadow library website that hosts college textbooks, scholarly journal articles, and general-interest books. It calls itself “the world’s largest e-book library.” It mirrors Library Genesis.

The front page also features some of the most popular books at the time. When we viewed it, these included “Thinking Fast and Slow” by Daniel Kahneman, The Book Thief by Markus Zusak, and Harry Potter the Complete Collection by J. K. Rowling.

You can also use the right-hand navigation menu to see the books that have been added most recently, as well as sort through books based on category.

Use the Book Request option if you can’t find a book you’re looking for. There’s no guarantee your book will be added, but community members look at requests to see what books to upload (you can also upload books).

PDF Drive

PDF Drive is an online library with a ton of free ebooks and PDF textbooks in various categories, including academic & education (but also lifestyle, personal growth, art, linguistics, etc.)

ForCoder.su

Forcoder.su has lots of online textbooks on programming. It also provides free access to online courses, like Apache Kafka for beginners and object-oriented programming with Python. Currently, there are hundreds of free courses available.

Online Mathematics Textbooks

Online Mathematics Textbooks is your source for free digital textbooks on all things math. It’s just one page featuring 77 textbooks.

Tech Books for Free Download

Tech Books for Free Download is where you’ll find free science and engineering books on topics ranging from data mining to general relativity.

There’s no way to search for books easily. However, the site is divided into books on Linux, Java, Microsoft, C and C++, Perl/Python, Science, Networking, Database, Security, and Assembly.

Free Tech Books

Free Tech Books is an open textbook library. It provides access to free computer science books and textbooks, plus lecture notes. All the books and lecture notes listed on this site are freely available on authors’ and/or publishers’ sites.

You can browse books by category (computer science, mathematics, supporting fields, operating system, programming/scripting, miscellaneous), author, publisher, or license.

Directory of Open Access Books

Directory of Open Access Books (DOAB) is a website that indexes and provides access to academic, peer-reviewed open-access books. All disciplines are covered, but there’s a particular emphasis on humanities, social sciences, and law.

Ubiquity Press

Ubiquity Press has been an open-access publisher of academic, peer-reviewed books and journals since 2012. It was founded by University of College London (UCL) researchers.

Research Papers

Sci-Hub

Sci-hub has the most expansive collection of research papers. Its mission is to “remove all barriers in the way of science.”

Directory of Open Access Journals

Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) is an online directory of open-access, peer-reviewed research journals covering humanities, social sciences, technology, science, medicine, and art.

The directory indexes journals from different countries and languages. DOAJ is supported financially by publishers, libraries, and other organizations.

Wiley Open Access

Wiley Open Access provides peer-reviewed open-access journals across topics like biochemistry, economics, sociology, mathematics, and law.

SpringerOpen

SpringerOpen publishes open-access journals across a wide range of areas, mainly STEM.

Elsevier

Elsevier publishes open-access, peer-reviewed journals. You can search for journals by title, keyword, or subject (dentistry, nursing, decision sciences, etc.)

Springer Link

Springer Link provides access to ebooks, peer-reviewed journal articles, and other resources (mostly scientific).

BASE

BASE is a search engine for academic texts, including journals, digital collections, institutional repositories, etc. You can access about 60% of the indexed texts for free.

Study Guides

Bibliomania

Bibliomania has study guides to the most-read books, like “A Hero of Our Time,” “Animal Farm,” and even Irish politics. It also has over 2,000 classic texts, book summaries, author biographies, and more.

Books

Open Library

Open Library is an open library catalog of more than 3 million new and old books. The project was created by the nonprofit organization Internet Archive. It has also received partial funding from Kahle/Austin Foundation and the California State Library.

You can read old books without an account. However, for new books, you’ll need to set one up (it takes just a few minutes).

Internet Archive

Internet Archive is a digital library of ebooks. It also has free movies, music, and software.

Project Gutenberg

Project Gutenberg is a famous site where you can find lots of free books. There are more than 60,000 books in its collection.

Standard Ebooks

Standard Ebooks take public domain texts and make them as nice as new books. They fix typographical errors and typos, create cool cover art, and format the text for e-readers like Kindle and iPad.

Planet eBook

Planet eBook is where you can download free PDF copies of classics like Franz Kafka’s The Metamorphosis, Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment, and Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness.

What really makes Planet eBook stand out is its UX. It’s one of those rare sites that are super easy to navigate and actually look good (aesthetically speaking).

The Ultimate Book Search Engine

The Ultimate Book Search Engine is an ebook search engine that includes 350 open directory sites that relate to ebooks. It was created by the Reddit user u/NotoriousYEG.

Classic Bookshelf

The Classic Bookshelf is a site where you’ll find lots of classic novels, everything from Charles Dickens and Leo Tolstoy.

Literature.org

Literature.org features classic works of English literature, both fiction and non-fiction.

Bartleby

Bartleby is a site that features both fiction and nonfiction books.

Fiction.us

Fiction.us has a ton of books, including fiction, short stories, children's picture books, poetry, books on writing, and plays.

Classic Literature Library

As the name suggests, Classic Literature Library is where you’ll find classic literature works.

Ideology.us

Ideology.us is a site that has ebooks on philosophy, psychology, sociology, politics, and education.

The Complete Works of William Shakespeare

The Complete Works of William Shakespeare is where you’ll find all of Shakespeare’s work. The site is run by The Tech, the largest and oldest newspaper by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge.

Read Books Online

Read Books Online has around 6,000 ebooks, including novels, short stories, poems, essays, plays, and non-fiction.

Public Bookshelf

Public Bookshelf is a site dedicated to romance novels.

Categories of ebooks here include contemporary romance, romantic suspense, historical romance, regency romance, inspirational romance, vampire romance, western romance, general romance, and fantasy and paranormal romance.

The Perseus Project

The Perseus Project is a digital library created by Tufts University with books from Ancient Rome and Greece, published in original languages and English.

Chest of Books

Chest of Books has books on a ton of different subjects, including animals, finance, real estate, science, and travel.

The Literature Network

The Literature Network has books by authors like Anne Bronte, Lewis Carroll, and Lord George Gordon Byron. It also features forums, literature summaries, and quizzes.

The Online Books Page

The Online Books Page is a site by the University of Pennsylvania that houses books in categories like philosophy, history, medicine, science, agriculture, music, anthropology, and more. The site also links to the following:

Banned Books Online: A directory of books that were once banned and links to places where you can read them in full.

A Celebration of Women Writers: A directory that lists online editions of literary works by women as well as resources about women writers.

Prize Winners Online: A directory of prize-winning books.

Many Books

Many Books is “your friendly neighborhood library.” It houses over 50,000 books in genres like romance, mystery, young adult, horror, and non-fiction. You can read books online or download them to your device.

Authorama

Authorama turns public domain books on sites like Google Books and Project Gutenberg into HTML format, making it easier to read them.

Audiobooks

Librivox

Librivox has free audiobooks that you can listen to from any device.

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girlfriendsofthegalaxy · 4 months

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tuesday again 1/2/2024

it’s quite satisfying how the year started on a monday

listening

first song of the year: how could it be anything other than Sabata. this is the theme from the titular Sabata, i meant to pick the theme from Return of Sabata but im not mad about it.

reading

i read Tim Marchman’s Popping Tins newsletter (a newsletter about fish and seafood) less bc i enjoy locking Mack in the bathroom every time i want a tuna melt and more for the droll authorial voice. i have bought a tin of mackerel after reading some entries, and it was very good but much much richer than tuna.

What should I do with this can of krill meat?

after consulting the importer’s website:

This is accompanied by a photograph of the can featuring easily-discerned black eyes, which are nothing to be concerned about, according to the company that produces this can. The first question on its FAQ page is “What are the little black speckles in my can?” “No need to be concerned here!” the answer reads. “Your meat is not dirty, and you did not get a defected can. Our Antarctic Krill meat contains the most nutritious parts of the krill, which happen to include their eyes.

…

The risks here are clear: I could vomit when I open the can and see the nutritious black eyes staring at me; I could destroy the peace in my home by making it smell like sautéed and simmered krill; and/or I could ruin a perfectly delicious lunch by introducing nutritious eyes and hard bits of chitin.

i have no memory of how i found this newsletter.

i keep forgetting i have ten hoopla credits a month through my old library and i want to read more comics this year bc reading comics is fun. in the past in practice this means ive binged all ten credits over a weekend. this weekend i had time for exactly one.

The Riddler: Year One is an extremely direct tie-in to the movie and i think it’s neat they let the riddler’s actor paul dano go wild with his backstory and then turn it into a comic. it’s fun when actors get to do weird tie-in shit.

(non-sequential pages)

watching this forensic accountant’s brain crack and scramble like an egg as he struggles to really grasp the enormity of gotham corruption and why the city is such a dogshit miserable place to live in made me go “oh huh that was a pretty good writing decision in the movie”. not that the riddler was terribly stable to begin with but the despair and the unraveling were very effectively conveyed. this comic has a lot of fun with funky layouts (left) and an entire issue (right) is conspiracy board shit on top of accounting forms which is a neat artistic choice.

deeply depressing but an interesting new little window into the rpatz batman (god i hope we get more rpatz batman films) and fun to look at.

how i found this: trawling the popular comics page on hoopla

watching

this is the seventh year of starting a new-to-me classic black and white movie around 1030/11 PM New Year’s Eve and i am annoyed i didn’t like the movie that started this year but, according to the data, it’s been fifty-fifty so far.

previous years have featured: sunset boulevard, yojimbo, the thin man, it happened one night, bringing up baby, the big sleep, and now roman holiday (1953, dir. Wyler).

this is the platonic ideal of a classic movie. it’s not sterile but it’s so… unobjectionable. wholesome (derogatory) even. not particularly what i was looking for in a movie but, much like the gelato and champagne that pop up, it was kind of a sweet nothing. i don’t think anyone eats any real food this whole movie?

this is never a movie that feels rushed. it is two hours of watching beautiful people traipse around a beautiful city in beautiful edith head costumes. i would not say there is a lot of tension for the first hour and a half. however, imo, it does land its ending and for that i can forgive it a great deal. this is another beautiful movie that is simply not for me.

playing

have you ever wanted an open world rpg where you play as a shark? congrats, this was apparently free on epic a while back

youtube

Maneater has a tremendously fun prologue where you play as the soon-to-be-dead mother shark who is absolutely going to town on a crowded beach and destroying multiple spear-gun-wielding divers and multiple boats full of citizens exercising their second amendment rights. this prologue is an excellent choice by the game bc it locks the fun part (eating people) behind several hours of really grindy shit. i am not entertained by the grind of eating progressively larger muskellunge, avoiding alligators, and collecting license plates. the grind is EXCEPTIONALLY grindy, i put about three hours into it and have only gotten to level 5 (teen) and have only two mutations i can sink loot into (four types of loot gained from eating other fish. this is too many types imo). i am not anywhere near a recommended level to start fucking humans up. im also not super impressed with the open world aspects of it— there are not a lot of things to do, discover, or interact with in the first two areas.

this seems like a really fun game that clotheslined itself with a cripplingly slow upgrade cycle. im sure the mid and late game are hysterically fun, especially on stream. however i am not willing to put in the hours to get to the fun part when i could immediately be having fun in some other game.

making

a lot of profoundly uninteresting cleaning. after not being able to figure out why my office (where Phil [no longer in heat. for now] lives) still reeks of piss even after stealing a blacklight from a friend and cleaning with a blacklight, it is of course bc she has been pissing in secret places i didn’t think she could get to. upside down smile emoji. both the girls got their monthly flea goop yesterday and were deeply unhappy about it.

most of my plants died in the move and i am finally tackling the survivors. fan favorite giant snake plant (not pictured, tidied up and inside) did make it and pull through but is not happy about it. now that i have baby basil and baby dill sprouting in the kitchen i do need to do something with the balcony so they have somewhere to grow up study and strong.

also slammed that silly little blondeyes NFT thing up on the archive

#i do not know how to tag that fic snippet but eh #tuesday again #tuesday again no problem #Youtube

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lancelought · 1 month

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getting seduced by lolita ouji fashion like its 2008 and i dont know that they dont make them in my size and also that the items pictured on the website are to the object i would receive what a platonic ideal is to a child's description of what his father's uncle's friend saw shadowed onto the cave walls

#i just want fancy blouses

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flugmunk · 3 months

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HooooooooooooooooooHHHHOOOOOOOHOHOOHO oh discord really did went and self destructed all and i mean ALL image links that ive used onto website. they werent kidding when they warned discord wasnt gonna be a viable file host. aauuu. thats like . im not gonna bother to check but im gonna estimate thats at least 3 thousand pictures to deal with in one swift blow. so as of right now my website basically looks like the platonic ideal of "barren wasteland of a des"- parking lot. golf course. lawn. at least. at least toyhouse works. at least toyhouse works... oh the curses and perks of being a cheap ass

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springtimesdaughter · 5 months

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What would Eros look like to Percy?

[the god of love Eros, like his mother Aphrodite, is an empathic werewolf, for each person he looks differently, personifying either his ideal of beauty, or being an ideal beautiful mixture of his platonically/and/or romantically loved people].

He is a tall, slender young man with a flexible physique who moves with the easy grace of an experienced fighter.

His hair is a cascade of indomitable blond curls, some strands gently falling on his cheeks and falling on his shoulders.

His skin is pale, with a large scattering of amber freckles instead of tan.

his handsome face, which always looks like he's deep in thought, has somewhat Asian graceful features, - a thin snub nose, rather pronounced high cheekbones, a slightly insular chin and thin aired lips, his thin eyebrows almost constantly converge together.

one thin crease constantly protrudes on his forehead, which gives him either an irritated or surprised look.

his smile is thin and light, only the corners of his lips are raised.

But the most expressive and lively thing about him is his eyes.

They are big, black, like the deepest night, not illuminated by either the stars or the moon, they sparkle from within with their intense frightening and mesmerizing fire at the same time attracting and repelling.

it is because of them, because they are the perfect mirror image of Ethan's eyes, that Percy cannot look Eros in the face without pain.

[By the way, I tried to make Eros a mix of Ethan, Annabeth and Rachel, because Percy platonically loves them, it's literally his sister and best friend].

So I'm going to be honest. I see Eros as only the God of romantic love because of the way that a lot of Greek myths read for him, as well as the general consensus for a lot of description websites and greek mythology books. So honestly I kind of see Eros as a counterpart to Aphrodite. In that way that they occupy very similar spaces but in very different ways. There are other greek cities that occupy the space of other forms of love and I would love to talk about how each of them would appear to PJO characters.

That being said I love the description you made.

What I find fascinating in any AU where Percy ends up with someone else other than Annabeth is the transition of appearances. The way that in my updated Love Amoungst War AU Percy still liked Annabeth but that would transition to a more best friend bond one forged through battle and war instead of romance, and how Percy falls in love with Ethan.

How if Percy came across either Eros or Aphrodite in that transitional period where he was starting to fall for Ethan and Annabeth was becoming more of just a best friend that would affect the appearance.

-/-/-/-

Percy was under the impression that Aphrodite didn't mean to run into Percy on that chilly January afternoon. Simply because she seemed as shocked to see him as he was to see her.

It was because of this that Percy internally sighed because at least he wasn't going to be sent on a quest halfway through the school year.

However he noticed that her hair was a much darker shade than it was the last time. It was brown or black.

Imagine though the pain Percy must have felt when he stood before the Olympian counsel after Kronos was defeated only to see features of the one he loves very much alive and not most likely splattered on the ground somewhere. Aphrodite who now has short hair mimicking a style Percy had only seen on Ethan once, but Percy love because it held personality often hidden under the Armour of being Kronos's right hand. He sees the eye shape and the eye color. Imagine him having to keep it together for the sake of everyone else in this moment. His boyfriend is dead, and the goddess of love has some of Ethan's features.

#percethan #pjo hoo toa #pjo #percethan annon

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tanadrin · 10 months

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my platonic ideal of a website is something like qntm.org, which is simple enough that you could do it all in static html, but that sounds inconvenient. is there a cms that would be suited that?

#fiddled around with joomla for a bit #but it seems a) way more complicated than i need #b) not to be geared toward producing the sort of thing i actually want #and i don't entirely understand the basic site design idiom it's aiming for

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nation-of-bros · 2 months

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[source]

Disappointed by False Heroes

At this point I must also make it clear that I deeply disagree with Jack Donovan's idea of favoring monogamous heterosexual marriages in which husbands merely hang out platonically with other men in order to compete. He had originally sensed the right direction, but is trapped because of his Western conservative world of values, where as a man he wants to pathologically assert himself against lesbians in men's bodies for straight men without any androphilic tendencies are nothing else.

In his answer, Donovan briefly described to me that he hasn't called himself an androphile for a long time and rejects the idea of an androphilic community as "bad." Instead, as already mentioned, he is looking for the – in his opinion "ideal" – compromise in the said monogamous married life with women and a little competition around it as a sharpening of men's masculinity. Here too, there may be some truth in it, as with everything he says, since masculinity can only be shaped by comparing and emulating men who are perceived as typically masculine.

But marriage and the sexual fixation on women kills any form of cohesion between men! So the question is, what essentially holds his favored social model together other than mutual benefits? What if these lower material advantages no longer exist? What else, if not higher ideals, would motivate men to come together collectively with other men? Donovan completely ignores feelings between men and thereby denies their importance in our lives. On his website he even describes himself today as “sexually transcended”. What does this mean? Does he want to please straight men who don't give a shit about his masculinity anyway by dehomosexualizing himself for their fake favor, which is worth a shit?!

Why should they respect him for his masculinity, for his manhood, if they are only interested in women? Rather, they feel offended when a "homo" is more masculine than them, because the only thing they've ever learned as manly is fucking pussies, since they largely don't care about the array of other masculine attributes. But when they are suddenly faced with true masculinity, which exists completely self-sufficiently without being defined by pussyfuck, they can't help but react aggressively homophobic like bitchy dykes. No, they are not men just because they fuck women, they are just sperm donors, because to be men they have to love masculinity, and ultimately other men too. It is rather a shame that they controlled reproduction for generations, with correspondingly miserable results.

The Abrahamic concept of sin and LGBTQ+ are interdependent

Nevertheless, Donovan correctly recognized that boys and young men need male role models so that they don't become hysterical chicks with dicks. However, he misses the meaning of homosexuality. Every young person who emulates male role models experiences a certain level of sexual excitement about it. It's not at all unusual for many boys at this age to have same-sex fantasies and secretly fun with their mates. That doesn't have to mean that they don't like feminity, because basically sexuality isn't a fixed thing. But it shows that homosexuality and heterosexuality are not mutually exclusive.

The problem with our society today is that it draws insurmountable boundaries. Their conservatives nevertheless demonize homosexuality, thereby scaring many men into the left-wing rainbow world, which is not a real refuge for them, but rather a gathering place for defused beta males under the control of man-hating lesbians who are nothing else than straight dudes reincarnated in women's bodies and exchanging their former radical Abrahamic beliefs for a feminist ideology. Accordingly, homosexual men come from bad to worse: Their tormentors have just switched sex, so the situation remains unchanged.

I don't see Donovan offering a solution here, only the denial of androphilic feelings to fit into the Bible-tight worldview of conservative Americans who are generally unable to see any alternatives beyond their left and right oceans, separating their world, characterized by most extremes from the rest of the universe. With their idiotic belief in hell and sin, they themselves are the original source of the LGBTQ+ movement as the radical counterforce. They all don't understand that they depend on each other. My solution, however, is liberation from this polarity through an androphilic new order.

#masculinity #androphilia #androphilic #love #essay

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maybeillkeepit · 5 months

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20. Ready To Run - First Aid Kit

"And perhaps I'll feel like this forever / I'm always ready to run"

This album is to folk and americana what stadium rock is to rock music. And that's not everybody's thing. It's very grand and cinematic, with a lot of emphasis on wide american spaces, from two sisters from Sweden. This song feels like the platonic ideal of their aesthetic, with the narrative of a relationship in which one of the lovers feels the call of the wild feeling very in line with classic Hollywood movies and americana/folk/country themes. I particularly love the combination of quiet self-reflection and huge orchestration and vocals.

19. In the Winter - Janis Ian

"And for a dime I can talk to God / Dial-a-prayer / Are you there? Do you care?"

I'M TRYING VERY HARD TO SPREAD THE JANIS IAN GOSPEL. She is (in my opinion) extremely underrated. If you like the Joni Mitchell/Carole King/Joan Baez-era singer-songwriter style, you would love her. She has recently released her official last album, The Light at the End of the Light which is beautiful. She has old blog posts you can read on her website about her and her wife making pasta. She has skits she has written. You used to be able to send her erotic haikus about Godzilla. She's everything to me. This song is on Between the Lines, along with At Seventeen, her most famous song. In the Winter is about loneliness. Straight up. It makes me so emotional I'm tearing up as I write this. Just listen to it, come on, you want to!

*Inspired by @coffeejoshy, I've decided to post my top songs of 2023. However, this is gonna be a little bit different, since it won't only be songs that came out this year. Instead, I will include one song from each of the 24 albums I've listened to the most this year, according to Deezer. Also, this will follow a kind of 12 days of Christmas structure, cause I love having a little treat everyday. These songs are in no particular order of preference.

#12 days of my year in music #first aid kit #janis ian

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interact-if · 2 years

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Day 6 of our Asian and Pacific Islander Heritage Month Featured Author Interviews, continuing with Shan!

Shan, author of Deliverance

You are the Messenger. Your job is to deliver messages. Get in, get out. Simple, really. Now, it’s time to put your life on the line to deliver the most important and dangerous message yet. A bad omen has driven the lands into a frenzy, and the Prophecy foretells that the Chosen One needs to be found and awoken to bring peace back to the lands. Embark on a quest to seek the Chosen One to help restore balance to the world, or witness the world succumb to chaos and catastrophe.

Read more about Deliverance here. Play the Demo Here. Tags: Fantasy.

[INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT UNDER THE CUT!]

Q1. Hello! Could you tell us a little bit about to yourself and your project?

Thank you for having me! I’m Shan. Writer, cat lover, and fan of all things black sesame.

Deliverance is an Asian-inspired fantasy tale of prophecies, adventures, and possible peril. But more importantly, it’s about coming together despite our differences and finding love in all forms in the people around us. It was also created for a game jam last year. I learnt how to code an IF from scratch, came up with the plot, and churned out the prologue in two weeks as my entry.

Q2. What inspired your current project?

One word - everything. I can’t pinpoint one single source of inspiration because it’s just a mix of works - shows, games, my past writings - sparked by my itch to create and find meaning in the things I do.

I lost the inspiration after Chapter One, actually. Had a writer’s block and everything. I was ready to set this story aside, but then one fine day, my Tumblr suddenly exploded with notifications. People were reading my story. People liked reading my story.

My love for my IF got rekindled. I wanted to write again. But my head was still a big blank void. My heart was willing, my mind was not. Then D&D all but tumbled onto my figurative lap. It was a treasure trove that I dove headfirst into. Inspiration came flooding back in and I picked up my pen once more. And now I am already working on Chapter Five! Never would have thought, but I'm glad things turned out the way they did.

Q3. Do you pull from your own identity for inspiration? How has that been reflected in your work?

I think so. Having lived in Southeast Asia and East Asia, I draw inspiration from shared values and ideals in Southeast Asian cultures (which may also overlap with those in East Asian cultures). The community and collective spirit in times of calamity, for example. Especially since in my story, the threat of a world-ending apocalypse looms over the

characters from the start. The MC is, well, the Main Character, but I’ve always seen all the companions as the main characters too. Which is why I end up making some of the important in-game choices a collective effort.

In terms of sexuality, my identity also shapes how I write the relationships with the MC and the companions. I want to give the MC and the readers choices, both romantic and platonic, with neither being more important than the other. It’s a conscious line of thought.

Q4. What are you most excited about your project?

Whatever that is in the works. Whatever that is waiting for me to manifest my thoughts into existence. Usually it is the next chapter, sometimes it’s a particularly good ask. It’s satisfying and wonderful to see my brainstorm scribbles stretch into coherent sentences on the website. That’s the joy of writing - the power of creation, in the palm of my hand.

Seeing my readers excited also fuels this excitement. That’s the thing about Interactive Fiction. It is not only the fiction that readers interact with, it’s the author too. I’ve not had this experience with my other writing projects. Ultimately, I want to write something I love. But to know that there are people out there who also love something I love? It brings me indescribable joy.

Q5. What has your experience writing an IF and with the IF community been like?

An absolute delight. I would not have been so devoted to writing this IF if it weren’t for a supportive IF community. I think asks are my favourite form of interaction. The fact that they enjoy my story enough to not only take time to share their thoughts, but also come up with questions or little scenarios for the characters is so incredibly lovely. I read their tags too! Some of them are quite funny and I actually do scroll back down to read the memorable ones sometimes.

I also appreciate feedback on coding oopsies. I jumped into this knowing practically nothing about coding, so I am learning as I go along. All in good fun, of course.

Q6. What changes in the IF community would you like to see?

I’m not very up to date with the IF scene so my two-cents might not be that relevant. So my concerns would probably be more technical? I had a tough time looking for codes that I need sometimes, even with the wiki and forums, especially since I’m not proficient at coding. Maybe a more intuitive and consolidated guide would be helpful?

Q7. What piece of advice would you give to fellow creators?

The most important reader is yourself. Write something you love and enjoy. I repeat it like a mantra whenever I find myself in a slump while writing or reading. The moment I force myself to do something about my IF, I have taken the ‘passion’ out of this passion project. Then it’s just a project. Don’t let anyone take your love for your creation away from you, not even yourself.Of course, it’s good to take in feedback and suggestions from others, but at the end of the day it is your story. A piece of your heart and soul that you have shared to the world. So cherish it like so.

#if: events #Asian and Pacific Islander Heritage Month #API 2022

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cruelsister-moved2 · 10 months

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The way people act about fe/bfems on both this website and twitter is so weird bc they clearly view them as poor lost innocents who have been pushed to be transphobic because the evil lesbians drove them from the queer community - there's so much more empathy for bisexuals who are members of transphobic hate groups than there is for the trans people currently being victimized by said hate groups

i havent seen a huge amount of this particular thing bc i just never see people TALK about them honestly like it's all oh the political lesbians the terf lesbians etc and i think it's all just trying to take the misogyny part out of transmisogyny because its really inconvenient for the "terfs hatred of trans women comes from their hatred of men" thing that most terfs are attracted to men. but so many peoples platonic ideal of a terf (or problematic person in general) is a lesbian so they will respond to other lgbt people with harmful ideologies with this sort of bemusement as if they are like a coincidence or anomaly and it's ultimately lesbians' fault & we are the source of all evil lol

#ask #anon #bc its happened SO often where a bi person says something biphobic (whether genuinely or assumed) and then everyone assumes theyre a lesbia

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iamdarthbader · 6 months

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From the Omegle Website:

““Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.” — C.S. Lewis

“In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move.” — Douglas Adams

Dear strangers,

From the moment I discovered the Internet at a young age, it has been a magical place to me. Growing up in a small town, relatively isolated from the larger world, it was a revelation how much more there was to discover – how many interesting people and ideas the world had to offer.

As a young teenager, I couldn’t just waltz onto a college campus and tell a student: “Let’s debate moral philosophy!” I couldn’t walk up to a professor and say: “Tell me something interesting about microeconomics!” But online, I was able to meet those people, and have those conversations. I was also an avid Wikipedia editor; I contributed to open source software projects; and I often helped answer computer programming questions posed by people many years older than me.

In short, the Internet opened the door to a much larger, more diverse, and more vibrant world than I would have otherwise been able to experience; and enabled me to be an active participant in, and contributor to, that world. All of this helped me to learn, and to grow into a more well-rounded person.

Moreover, as a survivor of childhood rape, I was acutely aware that any time I interacted with someone in the physical world, I was risking my physical body. The Internet gave me a refuge from that fear. I was under no illusion that only good people used the Internet; but I knew that, if I said “no” to someone online, they couldn’t physically reach through the screen and hold a weapon to my head, or worse. I saw the miles of copper wires and fiber-optic cables between me and other people as a kind of shield – one that empowered me to be less isolated than my trauma and fear would have otherwise allowed.

I launched Omegle when I was 18 years old, and still living with my parents. It was meant to build on the things I loved about the Internet, while introducing a form of social spontaneity that I felt didn’t exist elsewhere. If the Internet is a manifestation of the “global village”, Omegle was meant to be a way of strolling down a street in that village, striking up conversations with the people you ran into along the way.

The premise was rather straightforward: when you used Omegle, it would randomly place you in a chat with someone else. These chats could be as long or as short as you chose. If you didn’t want to talk to a particular person, for whatever reason, you could simply end the chat and – if desired – move onto another chat with someone else. It was the idea of “meeting new people” distilled down to almost its platonic ideal.

Building on what I saw as the intrinsic safety benefits of the Internet, users were anonymous to each other by default. This made chats more self-contained, and made it less likely that a malicious person would be able to track someone else down off-site after their chat ended.

I didn’t really know what to expect when I launched Omegle. Would anyone even care about some Web site that an 18 year old kid made in his bedroom in his parents’ house in Vermont, with no marketing budget? But it became popular almost instantly after launch, and grew organically from there, reaching millions of daily users. I believe this had something to do with meeting new people being a basic human need, and with Omegle being among the best ways to fulfill that need. As the saying goes: “If you build a better mousetrap, the world will beat a path to your door.”

Over the years, people have used Omegle to explore foreign cultures; to get advice about their lives from impartial third parties; and to help alleviate feelings of loneliness and isolation. I’ve even heard stories of soulmates meeting on Omegle, and getting married. Those are only some of the highlights.

Unfortunately, there are also lowlights. Virtually every tool can be used for good or for evil, and that is especially true of communication tools, due to their innate flexibility. The telephone can be used to wish your grandmother “happy birthday”, but it can also be used to call in a bomb threat. There can be no honest accounting of Omegle without acknowledging that some people misused it, including to commit unspeakably heinous crimes.

I believe in a responsibility to be a “good Samaritan”, and to implement reasonable measures to fight crime and other misuse. That is exactly what Omegle did. In addition to the basic safety feature of anonymity, there was a great deal of moderation behind the scenes, including state-of-the-art AI operating in concert with a wonderful team of human moderators. Omegle punched above its weight in content moderation, and I’m proud of what we accomplished.

Omegle’s moderation even had a positive impact beyond the site. Omegle worked with law enforcement agencies, and the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, to help put evildoers in prison where they belong. There are “people” rotting behind bars right now thanks in part to evidence that Omegle proactively collected against them, and tipped the authorities off to.

All that said, the fight against crime isn’t one that can ever truly be won. It’s a never-ending battle that must be fought and re-fought every day; and even if you do the very best job it is possible for you to do, you may make a sizable dent, but you won’t “win” in any absolute sense of that word. That’s heartbreaking, but it’s also a basic lesson of criminology, and one that I think the vast majority of people understand on some level. Even superheroes, the fictional characters that our culture imbues with special powers as a form of wish fulfillment in the fight against crime, don’t succeed at eliminating crime altogether.

In recent years, it seems like the whole world has become more ornery. Maybe that has something to do with the pandemic, or with political disagreements. Whatever the reason, people have become faster to attack, and slower to recognize each other’s shared humanity. One aspect of this has been a constant barrage of attacks on communication services, Omegle included, based on the behavior of a malicious subset of users.

To an extent, it is reasonable to question the policies and practices of any place where crime has occurred. I have always welcomed constructive feedback; and indeed, Omegle implemented a number of improvements based on such feedback over the years. However, the recent attacks have felt anything but constructive. The only way to please these people is to stop offering the service. Sometimes they say so, explicitly and avowedly; other times, it can be inferred from their act of setting standards that are not humanly achievable. Either way, the net result is the same.

Omegle is the direct target of these attacks, but their ultimate victim is you: all of you out there who have used, or would have used, Omegle to improve your lives, and the lives of others. When they say Omegle shouldn’t exist, they are really saying that you shouldn’t be allowed to use it; that you shouldn’t be allowed to meet random new people online. That idea is anathema to the ideals I cherish – specifically, to the bedrock principle of a free society that, when restrictions are imposed to prevent crime, the burden of those restrictions must not be targeted at innocent victims or potential victims of crime.

Consider the idea that society ought to force women to dress modestly in order to prevent rape. One counter-argument is that rapists don’t really target women based on their clothing; but a more powerful counter-argument is that, irrespective of what rapists do, women’s rights should remain intact. If society robs women of their rights to bodily autonomy and self-expression based on the actions of rapists – even if it does so with the best intentions in the world – then society is practically doing the work of rapists for them.

Fear can be a valuable tool, guiding us away from danger. However, fear can also be a mental cage that keeps us from all of the things that make life worth living. Individuals and families must be allowed to strike the right balance for themselves, based on their own unique circumstances and needs. A world of mandatory fear is a world ruled by fear – a dark place indeed.

I’ve done my best to weather the attacks, with the interests of Omegle’s users – and the broader principle – in mind. If something as simple as meeting random new people is forbidden, what’s next? That is far and away removed from anything that could be considered a reasonable compromise of the principle I outlined. Analogies are a limited tool, but a physical-world analogy might be shutting down Central Park because crime occurs there – or perhaps more provocatively, destroying the universe because it contains evil. A healthy, free society cannot endure when we are collectively afraid of each other to this extent.

Unfortunately, what is right doesn’t always prevail. As much as I wish circumstances were different, the stress and expense of this fight – coupled with the existing stress and expense of operating Omegle, and fighting its misuse – are simply too much. Operating Omegle is no longer sustainable, financially nor psychologically. Frankly, I don’t want to have a heart attack in my 30s.

The battle for Omegle has been lost, but the war against the Internet rages on. Virtually every online communication service has been subject to the same kinds of attack as Omegle; and while some of them are much larger companies with much greater resources, they all have their breaking point somewhere. I worry that, unless the tide turns soon, the Internet I fell in love with may cease to exist, and in its place, we will have something closer to a souped-up version of TV – focused largely on passive consumption, with much less opportunity for active participation and genuine human connection. If that sounds like a bad idea to you, please consider donating to the Electronic Frontier Foundation, an organization that fights for your rights online.

From the bottom of my heart, thank you to everyone who used Omegle for positive purposes, and to everyone who contributed to the site’s success in any way. I’m so sorry I couldn’t keep fighting for you.

Sincerely,

Leif K-Brooks

Founder, Omegle.com LLC”

#points were made #Omegle #internet culture

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