The Length of 2 Baseballs and 3 times as Dense

Sparkle on!

It’s Monopoly Mermaid Monday!

It’s been a bit, while I tried ways to tweak the boxes. The thing is with OFF it’s more uniform. Compare it to my other islands that have a bit more variety in block placements. The thing I could add on was a bit of the mall section (which I was unsure was more purple or blue) which I was very happy with.

use overdrive, libby, hoopla, cloudlibrary, and kanopy instead of amazon and audible.

use firefox instead of chrome or opera (both are made with chromium, which blocks functionality for ad-blockers. firefox isn't based on chromium).

use mega or proton drive instead of google drive.

get rid of bloatware

use libreoffice instead of microsoft office suite

use vetted sites on r/FREEMEDIAHECKYEAH for free movies, books, games, etc.

use trakt or letterboxd instead of imdb.

use storygraph instead of goodreads.

use darkpatterns to find mobile game with no ads or microtransactions

use ground news to read unbiased news and find blind spots in news stories.

use mediahuman or cobalt to download music, or support your favorite artists directly through bandcamp

make youtube bearable by using mtube, newpipe, or the unhook extension on chrome, firefox, or microsoft edge

use search for a cause or ecosia to support the environment instead of google

use thriftbooks to buy new or used books (they also have manga, textbooks, home goods, CDs, DVDs, and blurays)

use flashpoint to play archived online flash games

find books, movies, games, etc. on the internet archive! for starters, here's a bunch of David Attenborough documentaries and all of the Animorphs books

burn your music onto cds

use pdf24 (available online or as a desktop app) instead of adobe

use unroll.me to clean your email inboxes

use thunderbird, mailfence, countermail, edison mail, tuta, or proton mail instead of gmail

remove bloatware on windows PC, macOS, and iOS X

remove bloatware on samsung X

use pixelfed instead of instagram or meta

use NCH suite for free software like a file converter, image editor, video editors, pdf editor, etc.

feel free to add more alternatives, resources or advice in the reblogs or replies, and i'll add them to the main post <3

Her friend’s eyes widened. “What?”

“Think about it! When we’re kids we decide who we like and stick by them no matter what. As adults, we’re taught to be polite.

But, friendship is an imposition— at least, I want it to be. Call me after nine o’clock. Don’t think you’ll ever wear out your welcome. Overshare, show up at my door, go to the grocery store with me so we can waste another hour chatting.

^ this? this is not designed to be horny. this is a rectangle. ofc this doesn't stop people from being attracted to the rectangle dog dad, primarily for more abstract reasons like his personality, voice, characterization, fatherhood, etc. when describing him without describing his visuals, he would be an attractive person to a lot of people, up until you mention that he is a rectangle, which aren't very sexy to many people. which then leads them to externalizing this idea of him, this more abstract attraction, to something more tangible, like this:

^ this is just an extrapolation of the conceptual ideas that would be the original source of attraction. a rectangle shaped dog does not visually convey "a stocky, early middle age father with some extra body fat who's sweaty," all traits used to describe the rectangle in the show at some point. people like those ideas more than they like the rectangle. so they manifest it visually in art like this, art that is designed to be arousing and lusted after. i feel like i should not need to explain how obvious this is, given the image, the perspective of him being taller than the viewer, the focal points of the composition being the shirtless masculine torso and the hairy armpit, the exaggerated tufts of body hair throughout, the extremely short shorts, adding nipples to the design. it is not insane to see this as sexually appealing

the issue is that both of these images are "Bandit, the dog from Bluey." and people will unironically and very seriously say that these two images are the same thing. because they show the same subject. which feels purposefully obtuse and stupid. they are the same subject but it's abstracted to the point where the second image may as well be something completely different. this is like, an entry level understanding as to why people are into seemingly completely unsexual characters in things, especially furries.

when people go "how is anyone even attracted to Animal Crossing characters they're like toy dolls" no one is going to disagree, but it feels purposefully obtuse to act like most of those people are jerking it to the models directly from the games. you give one of those animal guys a personality that people are attracted to (ie they're haughty and snooty and a bit domineering toward the player), some people are going to extrapolate that and translate it to works of art that could better visualize their "idea" of the character in a sexual way.

[SIDENOTE: this is not to assert that no one could find these original designs sexual in their own right. there are many people who are plushfuckers or just otherwise very much into imagery that's almost entirely "unsexual" to most people's eyes. and they are #valid for that, ofc. also also many times this sexualization was there from the start. it's a meme to hear furries go "they knew what they were doing with this one!!" but they actually do, very often. artists are horndogs. like they absolutely knew what they were doing with Rouge the Bat or any female lead character in a Disney animal people movie.]