Also listened to “The Sweet Tooth”, which reminds me very much of reading “The Glad Hosts”.
They both feel strongly like somebody took a cliche, paint-by-numbers erotic-horror story, stripped out the conventionally-sexual content*, and gave it to a vanilla audience who wouldn’t recognise its pattern.
And so you’re like “…do they know? Is that what they did, or did they independently reinvent this standard plot?”
(IIRC, there’s an RPA behind-the-scenes bit that suggests they didn’t know, and that they did independently reinvent this plot. Which is interesting, in a convergent-evolution kind of way. “The lure is a chocolate shop, and women liking chocolate is for whatever reason more of a Thing than it is for men” and “this story is porn aimed at gynephiles” both lead to the same result of all-female targets.)
*But didn’t do a complete job of it: you can still see traces. Mai’s “love erotic”; the way the shop preys exclusively on women.
Tags:
#I mean yeah the villain loses in this one #but that *would* be a side effect of translating the plot from a genre where the villain usually wins to a genre where they never do #Red Panda Adventures #sexuality and lack thereof #nsfw text? #reactionblogging #tmi? #for some reason it took me longer to notice with Glad Hosts than with Sweet Tooth #Sweet Tooth I remember thinking a few minutes into my first listen ”I swear I’ve read porn with this premise” #Glad Hosts felt *vaguely* familiar and it wasn’t until afterward that I realised #”oh this is basically just cliche dime-a-dozen mind-altering-parasite porn but with the conventional sexuality removed” #”I didn’t like this plot the *first* six times I read it” #(Sweet Tooth was much less horror-y so I liked it a lot better) #(have I mentioned lately I hate horror?) #oh look an original post
Reached “When Darkness Falls” in my Red Panda Adventures re-listen.
*gently lowers head onto table*
oh god
he’s so tiny
and he has no idea
(and that police officer that blows him off
was that
the same police officer who talks approvingly to the Black Eagle near the end)
Tags:
#Red Panda Adventures #reactionblogging #oh look an original post #you know #in terms of the number and magnitude of positive consequences #sparing Harry Kelly’s memory was probably the *single best move* the Red Panda ever made
80% of the eyeglasses in the world are made by Luxotica, that’s right, no matter the brand name, the source is the same, but not only do Luxottica make the frames, they make the lenses, they own the stores, they even own the largest eye insurance company, Eye Med – which is why they can charge you 400$ for a pair of glasses that costs maybe $20
75% of people who purchase eyeglasses need them out of medical necessity (as I do) so I went and tried the online shop Zenni Optical, and was able to buy no line bifocals with UV coating for less than $70, when LensCrafters wanted to sell me a pair for $550 – and that’s WITH insurance!
Nicest thing about Zenni? You can upload a photo of yourself to try on glasses, and if you don’t like them – YOU CAN RETURN THEM for credit! This is because you don’t need to gouge your customer to make money, glasses really cost only pennies to make. Now I can buy a couple of pairs, and have choices in what I wear, rather than investing hundreds of dollars – sometimes for quality that sucks.
Regardless of whom you buy from, don’t feed Luxottica any more.
Probably also applies to countries outside of US, Luxottica is Italian, and French lensmaker Essilor has agreed to buy Luxottica in a bid to create a new global giant in the sector. The combined group will have a market capitalization of around 46.2 billion euros ($49 billion), based on both companies’ closing share prices on Friday.
just google online eyeglasses and you’ll find plenty of links.
Zenni is international! I’ve been buying my glasses there now for years and I’ve never had any issues. Not with fit, not with lenses, not with breaks – nothing.
I have a strong, difficult prescription and was regularly paying upwards of $700AUD every two years for a single pair of glasses. I bought my current pair of glasses a couple years ago from Zenni and guess how much I spent?
…$7. In total. Frames and lenses. And they are singularly the best glasses I’ve ever had. I wear my glasses every waking hour of my life and these babies have not just survived but they look almost as good as when I first received them.
And because they are so cheap I also have a pair of sunglasses, and TWO pairs of alternative glasses I can wear when the mood strikes me. Since then my mom AND my dad, my uncle, and my cousin have all started to buy from Zenni.
BUY YOUR GLASSES FROM ZENNI! I cannot stress this enough. If you’re paying retail then you’re being ripped off.
I’ve reblogged this before and Ima reblog it again…
Zenni ain’t the only place out there. In fact I shopped there first then found other’s I liked better. I primarily buy off Eyebuydirect but I have also shopped at coastal and Zenni. Eyebuydirect has been overall my favorite. There prices are in the same price bracket as Zenni which is like $12-$80 for frames and where as zenni you can get lenses for free Eyebuydirect the lenses I think are like $14-18
but the quality of the glasses I have gotten from Eyebuydirect felt far superior to those I got from zenni, Eyebuydirect also has great customer service. Basically please look around the internet. Like just cause glasses are fucking awesome and deserve to be a fashion statement as well as a need.
I am currently wearing a pair of glasses from eyebuydirect that I paid a little over $100 I got frames that where $35 and I got those fancy blue coated lenses that help protect your eyes against looking at screens for extended time (I get way less headaches with them!) those lenses where a bit pricier.
but. in comparison, last I checked in at walmart (fucking walmart.) my lenses alone base cost would of been $140 that’s just the stupid glass discs not even the frames.
You do need to get a prescription from an optometrist, that you can’t avoid, however you don’t have to buy the eyeglasses from your optometrist, some don’t like that because that’s where they make their money – others are paid salary by their stores so they don’t care. Part of the prescription is the pupillary distance, and you’ve paid for that, so they have to give it to you. If they still don’t, Zenni has a ruler you can print out, so you can figure it out yourself.
Also, if you eyeglasses are not correct (I have no line bifocals and those can be an issue, though I’ve never had them with Zenni) you just send them back no charge to get re-made, or send them back for a refund. You don’t lose anything for trying except time.
I have gotten glasses from Zenni since 2013, and at this point I’ve probably saved thousands of dollars with how terrible my eyes are and how expensive my lenses turn out in stores.
Also, you should probably go to an ophthalmologist instead of an optometrist, at least if you haven’t been in a while. They are more trained in dealing with eye problems other than just getting your prescription right, but they do that too.
Tags:
#glasses #the more you know #I’ve had the same pair of glasses for over a decade now but I’m sure I’ll need new ones *eventually* #(the prescription won’t be a problem) #(I keep a copy of my glasses prescription in my wallet) #(and replace it every two years with the most recent one) #(it tends to change *slightly* each checkup but not significantly enough to be worth replacing my lenses just for that) #(and so far it doesn’t change in a consistent direction and thus doesn’t add up over time) #I should probably get a poverty/frugality tag; I’ve been talking about that more lately #I will take my cue from the ”who needs dragon capitalism” bit in the electricity post and call it #adventures in human capitalism #(note that ”adventures in dragon capitalism” is an already-established tag)
YOUNG MAN / THERE’S NO NEED FOR YOUR EYES / I SAID YOUNG MAN / TO ROLL UP TO THE SKIES / I SAID YOUNG MAN / JUST BECAUSE OF ONLINE / THERE’S NO NEED TO READ THE COMMENTS
Tags:
#anything that makes me laugh this much deserves a reblog
This is the second quiz from Fetish and You chapter 3.
Picture transcript: Let’s look at some of the thoughts of an evolved fetishist. How many of these do you believe right now? How many of them would you like to adapt as your own?
Fetish Quiz #2 – An Evolved Fetishist’s Perception: 1. My fetish means that I have “out of the box” proclivities. 2. My fetish is a little quirky, but it’s just one part of my sexuality. 3. My fetish is sexually based. The only person who ever has to know is my partner. Even, then, disclosure is solely my choice. 4. I’m a good person based upon my behaviors, interactions and values. Fetish has no bearing on my character. 5. I accept that I have a fetish. 6. I am respectful of the fact that my partner or future partner may not initially understand my fetish. I can make a mindful decision about whether or not I want to tell my partner about my fetish. 7. My thoughts can never hurt anyone. I’m lucky to have something to think about that reliably helps me to orgasm. 8. I don’t believe I’ll be judged based on my fetish. By accepting myself, I can use my energy to be the best person I can be. 9. The more I learn, the more I know that I’m okay. 10. I’m in control of my fetish. It doesn’t control me. I incorporate fetish into my life in a safe, sane, balanced way.
How to Score How many of the modified statements did you agree with? If you agreed even once, you have an open mind. It’s my hope that by the end of this book, you’ll not only agree with every statement but that you will be living every statement.
My response: I agreed with 1*, 4*, 9 and 10*. I rewote them in my diary as: 1. My fetish makes me unique, and that’s OK. 4. I can’t help what turns me on. I’m a good person because I have morals. 9. The more I learn, the better I feel about it. Eventually I’ll be OK with it. 10. I can incorporate my fetish in my life in a balanced, healthy way. I can learn what’s appropriate and how to fit my fetish in.
* shaky belief, falls apart when I’m upset
…is it just me, or does this list conflate a healthy fetish with an unimportant fetish?
#2 and #3 are views that get imposed on me as part of the price of being a Respectable Member of the LGBT+ Community, not goals I aim for myself. I guess #6 could work for some people, but I can’t have a sexual* partner and not tell them about my fetish; what are we even doing sex-wise if not that?
(#1 evokes the stereotype of kinky people being sexually ~adventurous~, but to be fair I suspect she didn’t mean it that way.)
*I’m guessing from context that this is supposed to be the case.
Tags:
#reply via reblog #sexuality and lack thereof #I don’t fit the narrative of #”your sexual-attraction patterns are an Integral Part of Your Identity but everything else sexual is a minor sideshow” #(not either half) #but I’ve seen enough to be scared of what will happen if I don’t *pretend* that I do
When asked, Ms. Frizzle denies that she “knows everything”
However, Ms. Frizzle always knows what her students are up to, knows the answer to every question they ask her, and never shows fear even when in extreme mortal peril, as if she’s experienced this all before
Although we know she was in a rock band called the Frizzlettes and was a Shakespearean actress, Ms. Frizzle’s childhood remains mysterious
Ms. Frizzle is EXACTLY the sort of person to travel back in time to teach herself, and is in fact the most likely fictional character to do so
Nobody is ever named “Valerie Frizzle” at birth
Ms. Frizzle dresses queerly and laughs at her own bad jokes
A lot of the series is about Arnold learning to take chances, make mistakes, and get messy – that phrase is more or less targeted at him as a student
Ms. Frizzle looks a lot like a grown-up Arnold
Holy shit???????
She literally has a giant storeroom full of barrels of pickles because she loves pickles so much what more evidence do you need
Tags:
#… #interesting #Magic School Bus #(I had to google the pickle thing) #(apparently spironolactone causes salt cravings and this often manifests in pickle form)
I had a dream I was able to time travel and I went like 10, 20, 100, 1000, 2000 years into the future but the instant I went to 4,000 I got stuck in a time dilation jail set up by the American government in the year 3,877 in which anyone that tried to time travel back or forth across May 23, 3877 while on Earth would end up stuck in this time dilation chamber trap to stop time travelers but like it was so crazy and mismanaged because it was legit capturing like every single time traveler ever and the place had only been open for 12 minutes and was already getting overpopulated with nonstop multiple recursive instances of this one other guy trying to break previous versions of himself out of this god damn time traveler jail
that is fucking hysterical and absolutely sounds like something the American Government would set up.
Tags:
#I didn’t actually laugh aloud but it still amused me enough to reblog #story ideas I will never write #time travel #home of the brave
During the less thought-requiring parts of my job (sweeping and such), I keep thinking about that Suffering vs Oblivion post. Specifically, the bit where a large fraction of respondents say they would rather die than spend every waking moment of the rest of their life working in fast food.
When I first read that post, I’d never worked in fast food. I *suspected* that given only those two options I’d rather live, certainly a strong enough suspicion to give it a shot, but without more experience I couldn’t be sure.
Now, about a month in, I’m more confident that I’d rather live. My time spent at work has been positive utility: not *ideal*, sure, but all else equal I wouldn’t replace it with unconsciousness. Not even close. And most of the negative bits are the times I’m not sure what exactly I ought to be doing, which get less frequent the more experience with the job I have (and I expect this decreasing-frequency trend to continue).
Tags:
#although to be fair I’ve had pretty decent co-workers so far #and I work in a small* Canadian* town #(*+1 modifier to customer niceness) #so thus far the interpersonal aspect has been pretty much a non-issue #*knocks on wood* #in which Brin has a job #(a better paying job than the last one) #(and with more hours) #(though I might try transcription again at some point if I find the time) #(last I checked there was hardly ever anything but I think that might be from people using it as a summer job) #(note to any relevantly magical entities or somesuch: this post does not in itself constitute permission to sentence me to spend the rest of #my waking time working in fast food) #(whether I’d want to do that depends on what the other options are) #(it’s significantly better than death but not as good as the life I have now) #death tw #oh look an original post #(the following category tag was added retroactively:) #adventures in human capitalism
You know, while I *had* considered the possibility that my and Dad’s differing baseline approaches to household finances was a generational thing, I’d figured it was because he’s from one of the few patches of space-time where single-breadwinner middle-class households were feasible, common, expected, and he still aims for this no-longer-practical goal. I’d never thought of it in terms of differing conceptions of the *apocalypse*, and yet it fits.
For him (part of what the post calls “Generation Jones”), the central example of an apocalypse is total nuclear war. Quick, sudden, binary, inescapable. Either humanity goes abruptly extinct or it continues on as before, and there is not a damn thing you can do about it either way (unless you are (or can become) one of the few people with power over it).
For me, the central example of an apocalypse is global warming. Long, slow, gradual, mitigate-able. The world has been ending for a hundred years, and it will keep ending for a hundred more. Humanity is unlikely to go *entirely* extinct even in the worst cases, and there are many possible cases other than the worst ones. There are many opportunities (most tiny, some larger; large ones mostly only available to the powerful, but everyone has at least *some* opportunities) to make the apocalypse be just a little milder, or work just a little slower.
The goal is something a bit like longevity escape-velocity. You’re never safe from destruction, not truly. You’re only ever buying time. But you can use the time you buy to buy yourself *more* time, and so on, and with some luck and a lot of diligence, you might never get around to dying. You might even live long enough for the powerful to come up with a way to truly fix things, but even if that doesn’t happen, you can still survive, though with death always nipping at your heels.
As above, so below.
Tags:
#I say this having earlier today done a [s]three-hour[/s] 3.5-hour shift at a fast-food place #(it was going to be three hours but we were busy so I stayed late) #thereby obtaining enough income (money and free food) to cover ~3.4% of the total weekly expenses of my household #(probably more actually) #(that percentage is based on 2016 average expenses) #(and we’ve been gradually getting better at frugality over time) #(likely enough to be a bigger factor than inflation) #I was raised with an every-bit-counts mindset towards saving the world and I approach saving my family the same way #oh look an original post #death tw #scrupulosity tw #I feel like this probably deserves some additional warning tag but I’m not sure what #apocalypse cw? #(the following category tag was added retroactively:) #adventures in human capitalism
You know, I think one of the most sheltered things about being blue is how we are not taught to openly appreciate the simple pleasures in life. Often It’s all about posturing and about how *this* expensive place is the *best* and how much money you can spend to splurge on a dessert made by tired kitchen workers that ultimately are just good at making things look fancier instead of tastier and then charge ten times the price. (Not, to say there aren’t very talented cooks out there.)
Anyway, I’m enjoying an egg-salad sandwich that is really good. How about you guys?
The presentation/tastiness tradeoff is a bigger deal than I think a lot of restaurant-goers realize. Especially when you wind up with food that looks nigh architectural; they have to do wacky things to it to make it look like that. I know no one likes to eat beige glop, but once you’ve gotten past “beige glop” there’s not a lot of efficient frontier in pretty food that doesn’t sacrifice any flavor or texture for it.
Tags:
#Amenta RP #food #I didn’t actually laugh aloud but it still amused me enough to reblog #(I’m amused because I’m literally ooc-ly eating beige glop right now) #(and it is very likeable) #((I prefer to mash up my apple crumb pie before I eat it)) #((so that the filling and the topping are blended together))
