Best posts made by Aria

Apparently, I slept weird and now I cannot fucking move.

USPS informed delivery is awesome.

True and funny at the same time.

@ganymede At the moment I'm considering it because apparently the fuck up with his severance that we thought meant it had expired due to post office delays was actually due to the company pre-dating the paperwork by three months. Between this and the 401k issues....

The trouble is a lawyer would cost more than we'd get, but I really, really, really want to stick it to these assholes.

So, DOL complaint it probably is.

@crawfish I know I purchased a whole bunch of cat pictures, though I'm pretty sure I have them all now? I thiiiiiiink there's one or two that someone meant for me in the queue somewhere and if that's at all stressing you out, please do not let it.

Obviously I can only speak for me, but.... though I bought pictures because they were cute and funny and clever, I also bought them because you were super excited and having fun and making real support for your family off them, which made me happy. I absolutely do not care when anything does or doesn't get to me if you're having fun making things and able to pay down some bills.

@too-old-for-this said in Crafting Thread Part ?:

@crawfish Now they need an Orichalcum McMahon!

The above was made because the below was made. >.>

@aria said in Crafting Thread Part ?:

Presented without comment, because I am still laughing way too fucking hard to come up with anything really clever.

@derp said in RL Anger:

@meg

I appreciate the hell out of all of you. Like -- I really, really do. I'm kind of floored by how this thing has taken off so far. It's -- just incredibly humbling.

Thank you so much. Each and every one of you. If you guys ever need anything at all, and I can provide it, please let me know. I'll do whatever I can.

Dude, you were already at the 50% mark when I made my donation this morning. You're gonna be fine. ^_^

(But also legit fuck your bank still.)

@arkandel said in Good TV:

@aria said in Good TV:

her great love, Aragorn, the handsome, brooding warrior who becomes the High King of Middle-Earth.*

The High King of Gondor and Arnor. </LotR snob>

I loved that entire rest of the quote.

Seriously, probably the only LotR "meme" that I love more is the one about humans being like elves to dogs. And that one makes me cry.

@ganymede said in Good TV:

@aria

I spent my last Romance day with my partner watching The Heart, Parts 1 and 2, of SPOP because she’s this beautiful, nice blonde, and I’m a fucking cat.

Sam was the hero. I don’t think badly of Arwen, of course, but I do love me Eowyn.

I like blondes.

I mean, Eowyn was objectively cooler than Arwen, anyway. For many of the same reasons that Sam was the hero, Eowyn was also a badass. And not in the sword-swinging sense, though that certainly applies. She was a badass because of the reasons she wanted to swing a sword.

@arkandel said in Good TV:

One way could have been to replace one of the Fellowship members with her of course - Legolas would be the obvious choice in the books.

Can you imagine the number of shrieking early-00s nerdboys that would have resulted from that? I can. Ohh, I definitely can. It is the stuff of nightmares.

Today is Fat Bear Tuesday -- the last day to vote in Fat Bear Week, celebrating the survival, success, and overall adorable rolls of pure chonk of the brown bears at Katmai National Park.

@tinuviel I mean, if you really want to take on a 1,000 pound brown bear, go for it! They could use the calories before hibernation.

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

@wizz yikes, maybe it's time to take that jewelry called nipple shields literally.

Why are cats this way???

"If cats looked like frogs we'd realize what nasty, cruel little bastards they are. Style. That's what people remember."

• Terry Pratchett

@testament Look here, flyover state....

@faraday said in Movie / TV / Streaming Peeves or Whatever:

@greenflashlight said in Movie / TV / Streaming Peeves or Whatever:

@aria I forget if someone else already said this, but the argument against actors being responsible for gun safety is they're not trained professionals. Every movie set has, or at least is supposed to have, two trained, licensed professionals who check every firearm to be used in a scene prior to the cameras rolling, to check that it's loaded with blanks and to announce loudly to the whole set that the gun is either live or not. Adding that responsibility to the actor, who almost certainly is not accredited, just creates another way for the system to break by adding an amateur to a system designed for professionals. I tend to support this position, from my own anecdotal experience with systems that have lots of redundancy.

Exactly. It would be like a novice skydiver taking apart their parachute to try and make sure it's been packed properly. You don't want that; you want them to rely on the expert whose literal job it is to make sure the equipment is safe.

An actor isn't going to understand the subtle differences between dummy rounds (which can't shoot and just look like real bullets), blanks (which have dangerous gunpowder but no bullet) and real live bullets.

I have no experience with the film business myself, but many pro armorers have spoken out in interviews about their own on-set safety procedures since the incident. The gulf between what they describe and the stories coming out of the Rust set can only be summarized as: "OMG WTF was going on in that set??"

@GreenFlashlight @faraday Yeah, that's why I started my post with the caveat that I realize this doesn't quite apply to movie sets. The parameters are different. You are very much, by the nature of what you're using the prop gun to do -- simulate firing a live weapon, likely at someone -- ignoring one of the very basic rules of gun safety.

As @roz has pointed out a big part of the armorer's job is to fulfill that basic safety check with the actor. This is specifically because of the subtle differences between live rounds, dummy rounds, and blanks -- the latter of which are both used on movie sets, albeit for different reasons. The demonstrating the "unarmed" status, whichever definition is being used in the scenario, is supposed to be the equivalent of checking to make sure it's not loaded.

So my point was not "actors should be responsible for maintaining gun safety on set", so much as me sitting here going "Jesus Christ. If I, a complete amateur who actually has zero interest of my own in guns, knows better than what the supposed professionals were doing on this set, what the fuck is wrong with these people? How did they have this job? This is literally the great big thing it's their entire job to make sure doesn't happen."

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

@too-old-for-this said in Real World Peeves, Disgruntlement, and Irks.:

So! Yes, being in the Bible Belt doesn't help (hi, raised in Iowa), but that's not the only part of it. I moved away from the BB when I was 18 and quickly found that it doesn't really matter where you go, poor understanding of how the female body works (even to the degree of the similarities between men and women, like shaving) is still rampant.

Based on my experiences, men from all backgrounds really suck at understanding how the female body works.

Man, I wish I could find it now but....

Just last week, I saw a reposted Tweet from some dude who admitted that it wasn't until he was in his late thirties that he learned "women have a second hole for peeing".

Considering that this was shared in a group composed almost entirely of women, the responses were savage. And also hilarious.

@scar -- I feel like you need to know this exists: Gary the Trash Cat

Meet Gary the Trash Cat, a local Philadelphia 'celebrity'. He was found as an orphaned baby opossum and hand-reared by the couple he now lives with -- with the help of some wildlife conservationists -- as he couldn't (and can't) survive outside on his own for a variety of reasons.

Long story short, your Instagram feed can now be filled with the wondrous glory of a pet possum being dressed up in dorky sweaters and holiday outfits. You're welcome.

@Admiral Fortunately, my husband plays, so he completely understood -- but also laughed at -- my rant about how I'm supposed to get rid of my horrible heir who got caught murdering one of his brothers after they went and disabled it so you can't plot to murder your own kids. Like, maybe lock him in a dungeon and hope with the health modifier, he dies?

I insisted this was totally fine given the remarkable amount of religious tolerance I've implemented despite the number of times I've had holy war declared on me by my one neighbor.

It's not murder. It's justice. Look at me, the fair and righteous ruler. >.>

@wizz Gaston is awesome and I love his write-up! However, I already have two alts. If there's something else I can do to help get you settled, give me a nudge on Mia.

@auspice said in Why are there so many MUs set in Maine?:

@wildbaboons

I was literally talking to @Aria about this.

My theory is that people are drawn to it because of Lovecraft and Stephen King, but feel like they need a CITY for their WoD/WoD-Lite setting.

The thing is, small town was sort of why those stories worked. The lure of Maine, for me, is that it's quiet, remote, etc. I mean that just makes things even more eery if you're going for something mildly horror-ish.

But I guess people feel that a game must have a city to work, maybe?

This was legit why I was asking in the other thread. I don't think the ad or the game was a bad or anything. I had just read that, scanned a few pages on the site, and wasn't sure if they were skipping the default image of Maine that people have, if the addition of a massive city like that was meant to try to counterbalance the sort of fucky and weird that The Reach turned into when they tried to build a game on what was supposed to be the cultural shorthand of American Gothic horror set in sleepy towns in the Northeast and then players came in and went "Major TV studio! Casino! 48 nightclubs! Whooooooo!", or what.

I like the concept! I thought it was cool.

I also wanted to make sure I hadn't misunderstood something because I do think a game can take a split-the-difference approach as long as that's actually what staff is trying to do. But I would rather ask than be the dude who builds his 114-floor skyscraper for his multibillion dollar telecommunications firm in the middle of Paducah, KY or the person who decides that it totally makes sense to plunk a Red Talon cairn down in the middle of Central Park because there are clearly so many wolves living wild in Manhattan.