This is one I refuse to be sad about. Refuse.

And it's not because I don't love Betty White. I do. I grew up watching Golden Girls when it was new and reruns of The Mary Tyler Moore Show on Nick at Nite when I was visiting my grandparents, because they were the only ones in the family who had cable until about 1998. She's always been hilarious and frankly, I think she got funnier and funnier the older she got.

I refuse to be sad because Betty White lived to be almost 100 years old, had a glorious career that she thoroughly enjoyed and which spanned decades in an industry that was notoriously hard to crack, had several deeply profound friendships, found meaning in philanthropic causes she held dear, and was told regularly and consistently how entirely beloved she was by many, many, many people.

That is not something to be sad about. That is a life extraordinarily well-lived.

So, I'm going to be frank here. This thread? This thread right here? Is a cause of my RL Anger right now. And it's not because of the fact that this subject makes me uncomfortable. As a woman, as a feminist, and as someone who has been assaulted more than once -- and really, it's telling that I divide my most serious experiences into 'assault' and write off things that are very much assault, like the number of times I have been unwillingly groped at a concert as 'not even worth discussing' -- this arguments and these points that everyone is making are a simple fact of my daily life.

Yeah. Yeah, read that again. My daily life, because there are literally aspects of my everyday routine that pretty much revolve around the idea of "Don't wanna get raped today! Today's not gonna be that day (again)."

This thread makes me angry because I have had to have this argument over, and over, and over, and fucking over. It is frustrating. It is exhausting. And it is like beating your head into a brick wall and wondering why your head is bleeding and the bricks are perfectly fucking fine.

And thanks to so much of our national -- nay, global -- discourse at the moment (don't worry, Ark, I'm not going to get specific enough for it delve into full blown politics) means that I have see this shit come up everywhere, from almost everyone, and I would like to have at least one teeny, tiny sliver of my life, even just one of my hobbies, where I don't have to listen to a heated debated about some useless cockstain that can't won't keep his goddamn hands and his dick to himself.

I am so over this argument.

And yet I don't get to be. Because again, this is my daily life.

So here's where it's at, kids.

As far as I am concerned, a woman should be able to dance the conga naked down Broadway and not have anyone lay a finger on her without her consent. But in no way, shape, or form do I believe that a woman can dance the conga naked down Broadway without anyone laying a finger on her, because we live in a world that -- if we stop dressing it up in bullshit niceties meant to make this conversation easier on the people who already get to dodge every consequence of their actions -- get to treat women as things rather than people, as commodities to consumed and nothing more. I'm not that naive, and I never possibly can be again.

But you know who I'm not going to blame? Even if she does it anyway? Her. I'm not going to blame her. Not once. Not ever. Or him, if it just so happens to be a naked conga-dancing him. I'm going to blame the rapist, because he (or yes, she! legitimate point, but also get fucked #notallmen and "it can happen to men" to because yes, it can, and yes, it does, but you're not trying to help them so much as trying to derail the argument and be willingly obtuse) is the bad actor. They are the one at fault. Hands down. No questions asked. Period. The fucking end.

I was raped once in college. I was drunk. I had flirted with him. I had made a poor selection of friends. Could I have prevented if I'd been sober? Probably. Would he have done if I hadn't "encouraged" him? I don't know. Should I have been a better judge of character? Hell yes, especially in regards to my two male roommates who watched him follow me up to my room several minutes after I stumbled upstairs, but "didn't want to interfere" even though they thought it was a little odd.

I was also assaulted once in high school. When I was stone cold sober. Wearing a baggie hoodie and jeans. Watching a movie with a 'friend' while his parents and younger siblings were home. By someone I trusted, because everyone I knew -- even my dad -- insisted Matt was "such a great guy" and I should really just be nicer too him given how big his crush on me was. About the only thing I could've done to prevent it there? I'd guess "not be female outside the very close supervision of several adult members of my family", but hey. Even after I told my dad what happened, he said that guys are just like that and I should've been firmer in my refusals, so who fucking knows?

Yeah. Yeah, I think women should take as many precautions as they can -- because they have to. Because this world is so messed up, and this bullshit is tolerated and excused by so many people at so many levels, they don't have any other choice.

But if you're one of the people who think the 'problem' is that they aren't careful enough instead of the fact that they get away with it almost every time, in no small part because you feel the need to expound upon all the ways they should've tried harder not to be raped as the preferred solution over teaching society it's not okay to be a rapist?

Then I have two words for you:

FUCK. YOU.

And if this post just so happens to make you feel attacked? Yeah. I'm probably talking to you. Maybe you should spend some time thinking about that.

....I'm going to be honest here. I was one of the staffers on BSO who had to deal with the OP. In fact, I was the first person who reported his behavior to other staff and was promptly told by Dropkick that he was "just being friendly" and I shouldn't be taking it that way.

He continued crossing many lines -- in character, out of character, and if I'd allowed him to contact me off game, which he'd asked about? Likely IRL. He harassed me. He harassed my friends. He harassed my players.

FIVE complaining parties later, including BOTH female staffers, and he was finally banned. Y'know, after he'd driven several people from the game. We spent months trying to clean up the mess he made, IC and OOC.

This thread is manipulative and disingenuous. It is an attempt to continue inflicting himself on women who have made it abundantly clear in the past that they want nothing to do with him. The fact that it exists has pretty much had me angry enough that I'm surprised blood hasn't come shooting out my nose yet today.

I can go on -- at length, and in some cases with logs I dug up on request a few months back after some people suspected he was back on BSO despite his banning -- about some of the behavior this man displayed on one game. Just one. But here really isn't the place for me to do so because frankly, this? This right here? Is the nicest thing I have to say.

And that's after a full day of trying to temper my post, keeping in mind that it's in the 'Constructive' forum. If any of this player's behaviors are going to be addressed, I'd strongly advise adding a thread to the Hog Pit for it because honestly? I don't think that very many of the people who have dealt with him will be able to express the full extent of their experiences elsewhere.

(Edited for grammar.)

Here. I fixed it.

So, my favorite aunt passed away fairly horribly last week. (No, this is not the thing I love, clearly. That was the thing I spent several days ugly-snot crying about and if you've wondered why I haven't responded to anything on game/Discord you sent, that was why.)

What I love is her youngest kid, the youngest of my cousins, and her only daughter. She's 20 years old and far, far too young to be navigating all those important things that women have to figure out in their 20s without a mom to guide her. I told her point blank that as absolutely wonderful as her dad and her older brothers are, they're a dad and an older brother. There's some conversations where they will mean well but not understand, and for every one of those, I want her to call me.

I was afraid she wouldn't.

She just texted me to ask for help finding dresses for her November cello recital because she only really shops at one store and doesn't really know where to go to get a formal gown, especially in her size range. I'm seriously getting weepy talking to her about the secret stores that have good plus-sized clothes, how to get the best discount, and which stores actually have dresses with pockets.

My mom wasn't -- isn't -- a particularly good mother. My aunt tried to do a lot of these things for me when I was 20, to make up for all those gaps my mom left with me. Now I get to do the same thing for my cousin.

After five days of being loose roaming around and me slowly devolving closer and closer to Howard Hughes level crazy as I kept weird hours to be out searching for him at the times of night cats tend to roam and avoided eating because my stomach was in knots.....

OUR CAT CAME HOME. Like, an hour before a snowstorm started.

He managed to lose 10% of his body weight in that time and is absolutely filthy, but he is home and the vet said he was fine. I have ugly-cried with relief, like, three times today.

Obligatory Cat Covered in Gross Pic:

@admiral said in RL Anger:

@Aria I hate to be 'that guy', but men are sexually harassed and assaulted as well. It might not be as prevalent as with women but all abusers should be called to account. Not just those happen to abuse women.

I agree. But here's the thing:

It's the same toxic system that enforces silence on the part of abused, harassed, and assaulted boys/men -- usually for different reasons, but silence all the same. If it was at the hands of a woman? Well, it's not a problem, because men always want it! Twelve year old and his teacher? Haha, lucky him, amirite guys?!?!? If it was at the hands of a man? Suuuuuuper gay. Masculinity in question! Must've been giving off vibes. Should've been able to stop it. A real man never would've took that.

If you're a dude, this toxic system should seriously upset you. And I don't even just mean for genuinely sympathetic, altruistic, 'human suffering is bad' reasons. I mean for entirely personal, selfish reasons. Not the least of which is "demanding you be an emotionless robot, who not only controls his feelings but pretty much doesn't even have them" on one end of the spectrum to "assuming you are so hormonal and uncontrollable that your default state is 'rapist' and every woman you meet will be threatened by you unless she follows some arcane and esoteric set of rules that may keep your dick at bay" on the other.

How male abuse victims are treated is just one manifestation of that.

MY WEDDING DRESS HAS POCKETS.

Today, I received the following in the mail:

• A Christmas card from the head of my House on Arx
• A box of homemade cookies from a friend I played mage with back in 2004

The MU community is full of kind and generous people and I am full of happy feels. Fuck the cynical haters.

@Arkandel

@simplications said in What Would it Take to Repair the Community?:

What seems to happen way more in interpersonal relationships is simply that people can hurt each other in small ways that then spirals into actions of increasingly greater magnitude until both parties are hurt enough to make a move that changes the relationship. Most of the issues I've witnessed where relationships come to a head have been like this. No sole responsibility but instead a shared mess of poorly handled failures to communicate and mutual wounding of emotions and/or ego.

This is so spectacularly put and so profoundly true.

That's all!

My boss just handed me 26 pages of content and a (proverbial) red pen.

You want to make the English major turned communications consultant happy after a shitty, shitty day? You unleash them with a red pen.

My only question was "Chicago style or AP?"

@tinuviel A reaction. This is also fitting, but is not of James McAvoy and therefore less entertaining.

JAMES MCAVOY WISHED ME A HAPPY BIRTHDAY.

IN PERSON.

TO MY ACTUAL FACE.

@misadventure said in Critters!:

@aria What's that big … thing in your post?

That would be said cat, plunked down on my lap.

Unless you mean the stuff behind him. I had to move the laptop and the laptop desk out of the way because he will literally scream at me like he's being tortured if I do not make my lap available on demand.

In early March, we took one of our old man cats to the vet for a check up and he came home with a clean bill of health.

Somehow, since then, he's lost over a pound -- which is a lot, considering the fact that he only weighed about 10 pounds to begin with.

Bless our wonderful, wonderful vet, who absolutely 100% listened to me when I called and said that yes, he had just been checked out, but I wanted a CBC on him right away. They squeezed me in between my own medical appointments on my day off and the time from blood draw to results was less than 24 hours. He has hyperthyroidism, which is not great, but treatable with twice a day ear goop rubbing.

Considering the last time we had an old man cat lose weight suddenly, we were told "pancreatic cancer" and he was gone within a month of diagnosis? I may have ugly-snot-cried (and then paid half again the cost of the prescription to get it shipped faster).

@jennkryst said in Good or New Movies Review:

Everything Everywhere All At Once is amazing, and I am livid that the one local theatre that had it playing only had it playing for a single week.

@insomniac7809 and I just saw it and it was so ridiculous(ly good).

@mietze said in Real World Peeves, Disgruntlement, and Irks.:

feeling very down on myself in many ways

Had to share this with a coworker today, so I might as well share it here, too.

ETA: Holy shit, this image is huge and I have no idea how to make it not-huge. Sorry?

I have multiple herniated discs in my neck.

The treatment my doctor is recommending is not covered by my (normally very good) insurance and costs several thousand dollars.

Cool, cool, cool.

Ugh. This one is a gut punch. I love Taylor Hawkins - his style as a drummer (both for the musicianship and also because I swear he was Animal made human), his sense of humor, his honesty, and his absolute wild love of rock and roll.

I was supposed to see them in July and was very much looking forward to it. I saw them a few years before the pandemic -- the summer Dave Grohl fell off stage and horrifically fucked up his leg, actually -- and Grohl went off on this two minute tangent about how you might think that all the fans blowing on stage were because of the summer heat. But really, it was all for the sake of "Taylor and his fucking Beyonce hair" and Hawkins, grinning like a madman, got up behind his drumkit and started doing a terrible approximation of the Single Ladies dance in front of 25,000 screaming fans. It was priceless and perfect and made me love the Foo Fighters that much more.

It was very clear that the band loves what they do, loves being on tour, and love doing it together, which always makes the show that much better. He's going to be missed.