Posts made by surreality

@silverfox If you really want to piss everyone off, register Independent.

(Three guesses how I know, and the first two don't count. )

@Kanye-Qwest I suspect a lot of the pushback you initially got with Arx and some of the concepts comes from people having experiences like this elsewhere over time.

I think the 'sexy <X>' costumes are a massive problem, period. For the people they represent, but also for the people wearing them. Talk about a toxic trend that is best retired.

@Three-Eyed-Crow Agreed, the 'sexy X' thing is always pretty gross to me, but just... a nurse? Period?!

I know there can be issues with some military costumes if they use pieces of real military gear bought from a surplus store or somesuch in some areas, but that's a whole different kettle of fish.

Re: the clothing NOT on Halloween issue... well, fashion exists as 'is inspired by and reinterprets', and always has. I have a bunch of stuff that people would flip their shit about me wearing now that I bought in Japan or Hong Kong from people thrilled to have me try stuff on and buy stuff, and were anything but 'angry at/insulted by the teenage white girl trying to steal their culture', and were pleasantly surprised at the questions I was asking about how they were made/etc. since I knew about what I was looking at. I always planned to display some of that collection -- because, bluntly, kimono-making is an amazing art form -- if I had the space to do so, but I wouldn't even do that now. So I have some amazing things that will moulder forever in archival boxes in a hall closet until I die and they get donated to a costume museum somewhere.

OK, I'll tackle this one (and please fill me in, JinShei, if there is something?)...

What is the issue with dressing as a nurse for Halloween? Or, I presume, a firefighter or doctor or any number of other professions?

I can understand the reasoning with regional cultural clothing being worn (especially for Halloween) but I have to admit, the whole subject is aughsville to me for a catalogue of reasons.

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

and the spelling "grey" so I'm not so much principled as I am chaotically pretentious.

...I use whichever spelling I saw last on paint or an art supply, since I always forget which is which.

So it is possible to be even more chaotically pretentious! Though I swear that one isn't intentional.

@Auspice Yep, that's what I was thinking of exactly. It was incredibly uncomfortable to watch.

@Kanye-Qwest It hasn't happened to me, either, but I have seen it happen to someone else that wasn't playing any differently than I was (and wasn't playing any sort of gross tropes or similar).

It was bizarre, and uncomfortable to hear spewing all over the OOC room constantly. Like 'archery isn't native to <specific culture> so rar rar rar she's doing it wrong' bizarre... in a modern real world setting where anyone could have learned archery from anyone, anywhere. I dunno, but if I saw someone specifically using some ancient weaponry of <specific culture> that was more or less never used by anyone ever any more, I'd feel it to be more stereotype gross/fetishizing?

It was weird, and it felt weird, and I still don't know how to explain why it felt weird, other than to say 'it felt like someone saying "omg your First Nations character is wearing PVC pants and driving a car, that is not traditional! Doesn't that ignorant player know about horses and leather?!"' and it was very souring and gross.

But, like, I'm not in a position to say anything other than 'this felt very weird and extremely uncomfortable to observe for so very very very many reasons all at once'.

@Wretched To be fair, we have to have much more willpower anyway.

To, y'know... not bludgeon these people with a claw hammer.

And that's before the whole impulsivity facet is considered, dammit.

@Ganymede <also sends hugs to the catbot, if welcome> ...because yeah, I feel that one.

<winces> All the hugs.

I am a hopeless mess at 3d modeling, even if I've been fucking around with it for a few weeks now. (I used to texture, not model. Tweaking existing models is much different, and I used different software when I did that, anyway.)

...but I managed to make a stupid simple bottle before the cat could walk across the keyboard and fire off a dozen keyboard shortcuts and crash the software or turn it into a pretzel well beyond the limits of undo.

I am inappropriately pleased with this stupid, genuinely not-even-good model, because it is obviously enough a stand-in for a basic coffee syrup bottle with a simple metal spout and... if I get brave, I may try to add a label, someday.

Sometimes it's the really little things...

@GreenFlashlight No idea; s'why I'm asking, too. We have a troll that surfaces from time to time, and he spouts gross racist, sexist, and anti-Semitic garble on the regular, though. I haven't seen him pop up for a while, and am hoping he's fucked all the way off.

@Aria I wholeheartedly agree with this sentiment, but... where did this happen? Please tell me our troll isn't back...

@buttercup I will ask him, thank you for that -- that is incredibly kind of you.

@buttercup While I'm not a parent, I've had a similar conversation lately with the husband. My health is not great, and we both provide some care for my elderly parents, which makes it similarly of concern.

(This applied to both the march and 'whoever is getting sworn in whenever Trump gets fired' in our case.)

We decided against going, both for my health and concern over the folks. Our insurance expiring if he can't start working soon played a non-trivial role in that call.

@Roz Randomly, but there is a connection:

About a dozen or so years ago, there was a new law on the federal books re: not making 'drug paraphenalia' for sale (and I think that inventory of the same needed to be destroyed, but I don't recall the specifics of that part). At the time, there was a thriving community of glassblowers and glass artisans who made all manner of things from beads to vases to artsy trinkets, but the biggest sellers were always the pipes. They were rarely usable and were collectibles, but that didn't matter so long as they took the form of a pipe. (As in, you couldn't just seal it off -- even permanently with more glass in every opening -- and make it a vase.)

This is where the bulk of the sales were coming from to support an art form that was already at risk at the time, until the law of unintended consequences kicked in.

...anyone remember how artsy glass dildos came into vogue a little over a decade ago as something other than a obscure rarity, and could now be found everywhere?

@Kestrel Having read... virtual hugs sent by the bucketful. Fingers crossed for you.

I think it depends on your cats.

Even whenever we only have one, the snow weasel is Very Much A Presence, for instance. And we spoil the shit out of both of ours horribly.

If you ever find yourself saying, "Awww, she's murderizing my hannnnnnnd, isn't that adorable?" you can definitely call the title, I think.

(Snow weasel has toys. But Mommy is her favorite to snuggle-wrassle or forage from. Yes, I am my cat's foraging toy. Doomed.)

In all seriousness if I see one more TV ad for bras about how I need to shop somewhere that stops at DDD, I might stab somebody.

Like... though it's next year instead of this year now, I likely have to have a reduction I really still don't want due to something I want to deal with even less. They only remove X amount when doing so, unless they're doing a full mastectomy, and, uh. I would be lucky to get down to a DDD if they remove the max.