labbydragon

[labbydragon]

Trying to start back up on the video thing, starting with this rambly update vlog.

[labbydragon]

I've never before heard a Watcher's Council is lying argument, but my own personal take has always been that the Council is very much incompetent, so even if "vampires have the capacity to be good" is a true blanket statement I don't think the Council is out there figuring that out in order to need to intentionally hide it. This is an organization that has rarely successfully kept a Slayer alive into her 20's (partially because they intentionally try to kill them at 18) and the only Slayers who have lived longer lives have done so outside or in direct defiance of the organization. For whatever reason, they care more about control of the Slayer than actually fighting evil, so I just cannot imagine them having the capacity to fathom a "What if vampires are just people?" situation.

Buffy vampire lore is pretty inconsistent, but the fact so many of you have decided the 'solution' to this problem is "oh, the Watchers' Council are lying to trick Buffy into killing vampires for them and actually vampires are secretly good and nice with rich inner lives" is genuinely infuriating to me. Just an absolute refusal to engage with the fiction in any meaningful way at all. The Watchers' Council aren't even a particularly big part of the show's lore (they're only mentioned by name in about twenty episodes and not at all in seasons one, two or six). Buffy the Vampire Slayer is a show about a girl called Buffy (who is complex and interesting and sympathetic) who kills vampires (who are none of these things) and is right to do it. That is fundamental to the whole premise of the show. If you want to watch something where vampires are all tortured and tragic and romantic and unfairly misunderstood then just watch something else!

[labbydragon]

I feel like the older woman I used to work with who once corrected me in front of everyone when I called a sewing thread a string would hate this post, LOL. I believe it was even literally in the context of me saying I had a knot in my string, and she instantly just goes "You mean thread."

I wasn't trying to start shit because we were trapped in a room for 8 hours that day but I just stared back down at my work like wtf. Was the distinction really worth it? If someone told her there was a string hanging off her shirt, would she turn around and go, "There's a THREAD hanging off my shirt." Like, we all still know what I was talking about, I just happened to say string instead of thread in that one instant. But at the end of the day it really is all just string.

Knitting! Nope gotta untangle string first

Crochet! After I untangle some string

Weaving - untangle lots of string

Cross stitch - hold up, string is tangled and I am full of rage

Sewing: string tangled into tiny knots of hatred

[labbydragon]

Well here I sit, almost exactly 8 years later. Wearing the same fucking tank top.

These fans worked for 1 week and then the lights desynced and I performed with them like that twice, but I have since dismantled and repurposed because I was so mad they never worked the way I wanted them to.

Rehearsed with the LED fans I made.

[labbydragon]

I have a co-worker who has asked questions I had the answer to, but she changed the topic of conversation with herself 3 times before even taking a fucking breath so I just never answered her question. Not like, work related questions, just like shit she's curious about that I happen to know about, but if she can't stop to hear an answer, I don't care to answer 10 minutes later when she takes a break. So yeah, often I'm "quiet" today because I know I'm being talked at and not to.

Yes I broke the format but fuck it.

[labbydragon]

my dnd party has run into an npc who may or may not be evil and may or may not decide to betray us and the dm was in chat today like “just so everyone knows…not addressing this comment at anyone in particular…his favorite colors are red and black…wink” so now i’m desperately trying to get a real physical friendship bracelet done before session tomorrow in the vain hope that i can somehow stop this npc from trying to do a murder on my party

[labbydragon]

I didn't know we were getting to boop again! I didn't refesh the page before scrolling so I didn't see the counter and was confused why we were all talking about boops again.

[labbydragon]

Person I made up in my head: "Oh, are you trying to learn Japanese so you can watch anime?"

Me, staring at the Puyo Puyo franchise: No.

[labbydragon]

every few months landlords will put out some kind of reminder that tenants aren't supposed to live in the apartment complex

[labbydragon]

Oof yeah, this shit is so ubiquitous and more horrifying every time new layers are revealed.

I absolutely got caught off guard one time and accidentally confirmed my address with what was definitely a scammer. I wouldn't have picked up the phone at all if I hadn't been expecting a call about a job I had interviewed for. They just happened to guess right about an issue I have and I wasn't thinking clearly at first (and this was at the theoretically sharp age of 27) but suddenly I realized they had simply said they were from my insurance company and not which company, so I said "Which company did you say you work for?"

"Well we work with a lot of insurance agencies."

"So you can't tell me which insurance I have?"

They were done talking to me after that and I felt very stupid. Fortunately nothing bad ever came of it, but it just starkly made me realize it could only take one day that your rational brain doesn't kick on for whatever reason- or the scammers could get really lucky in taking a close enough guess to something you are actually dealing with to get your guard down.

Phone scam gothic

So my mom sits down and starts telling me about two weird-ass phone calls she had today—she was returning a missed call, and the woman who answered just… sobbed for a minute. I’m sitting here asking, like, a whole minute? Nothing else, just sobbing? Who did you THINK you were calling back?

“United Healthcare, they have my Medicare plan. They’ve been calling me for weeks without leaving any voicemail.”

(Are you sure it was United Healthcare? “It was the same number that’s on my card, I checked, and that’s who the caller ID said it was.”)

Are you sure it was a whole minute? Did YOU say anything?

“Yes, like sixty seconds while I kept going ‘Hello? Hello?’ It sounded like she was having a nervous breakdown, I kept waiting to see if she’d tell me what was even wrong. Finally I just hung up.”

And then my mom turned right around and called back again, because she was gonna get to the bottom of this.

This time she got a different woman, perfectly calm, who wanted to set up “your in-home direct patient care home health visit.”

At this point (at this point?) I’m staring, because no one here currently has anyone coming to the house to help with any kind of medical care. My mom might honestly be the healthiest member of the household, but even I don’t use any home services, herniated discs and all. “Did they have you… confused with someone else?”

“No, she repeated my full name and phone number back to me.”

This lady then started ARGUING with my mother. Why don’t you want us to come to your house to manage your direct patient care? Don’t you need home health care to be managed? Why don’t you need home health care? Why would you not want home health care? “I JUST KIND OF HAVE HIGH CHOLESTEROL?” But don’t you want us to manage your home health care? “WHY DO YOU NEED TO COME TO MY HOUSE TO MANAGE HEALTH CARE I DON’T USE?”

My mom finally hung up on this lady as well, without giving her any real information.

The more we talked about it, the more things we started to notice:

I was incredibly creeped out by the unsolicited use of the word “manage,” for some reason. Very sinister “write me into your will” vibes for some reason—I don’t know what these people want, but they’re gonna get you to sign something over.

My mom got especially stuck on “WHY DO YOU NEED TO COME TO MY HOUSE?!”

My mom has used home health services before… years ago, before she was on Medicare. But this company wouldn’t know about that. However, if you’re on Medicare, you’re over 65. Having not ever dealt with my mother before, someone calling a Medicare user might be playing the odds that a person over 65 is 1) in frail health and 2) old enough to get easily confused.

Fair play to my mom, she’s the one who thought of number spoofing. I’m so busy not answering the phone ever and arranging all my medical communications to happen through passworded portals that I didn’t think of it.

Hey, are you guys, like… holding someone hostage…?

So at this point, I google “United Healthcare scam.”

The “health insurance counselor”

This fraudster will offer help navigating the health insurance marketplace for a fee, capitalizing on people’s confusion about the state-based health exchanges created through the Affordable Care Act.

What to know

This sort of assistance is indeed available and is legitimate, but the people who offer it – also known as “navigators” – aren’t allowed to charge for their services. Also, remember that people with Medicare coverage don’t need to use the state health exchanges. The exchanges are for people under the age of 65, who are looking to enroll in an individual health plan.

Change “navigate” to “manage,” and I think this is it, although the lady on the phone never mentioned any fees. Either my mom didn’t let her get that far, or this is the point of actually getting into someone’s house: persuading them face-to-face to pay something, and potentially refusing to leave until the scammer has worn their target down.

Medicare does not make unsolicited phone calls.

Okay, so it was a scam no matter what it was about. As far as I’m concerned, my mom should contact Actual United Healthcare about it, and I’m here to spread the good word of Never Believing Anyone on the Phone 2k24. I don’t know what to tell you about the lady having the nervous breakdown though.

[labbydragon]

Rings of Power Season 2 finale spoilers ahead.

Watching Rings of Power with my Tolkien obsessed husband has been a wild ride. He's finally decided he hates it now that season 2 is over, lol. He's sitting there seething because the proto-hobbits call the wizard man "Grand Elf" and he goes, "They're going to call me Gandalf." I'm sitting here thinking it's kind of cute, making Gandalf a goddamned pun. My husband is sitting there saying (as if to Gandalf himself) "But you have so many names, why did you pick that one?????"

I just say, "Well he had a vision about the Hobbits calling him Gandalf, that's why."

"No but, he has so many names and they come first!"

"Okay, but in the show right now he's literally only hung out with Harfoots and Tom Bombadil, so he had a vision about what the eventual Hobbits will call him, but since he hasn't met any of the other peoples, he hasn't had visions of what they will call him."

And my husband actually accepted that just fine. Though usually when he's been complaining about things in the show I just look at him and say, "A wizard did it." I'm technically right most of the time.

MY nitpick with the season finale was Sauron still acting like he wanted to fuck Galadriel. I had assumed all the sexual tension when he was "Halbrand" was just part of deceiving her- but the guy legit pulls a you were supposed to be my queen while trying to kill her. Like...why was that choice made? They've not chosen to particularly humanize him or make him some level of sympathetic. Well, except for the other weird scene where he's crying after killing Calibrimbor (this one's probably spelled wrong, fuck it). IMO, Tolkien's works are some of the few where you can leave the villain pretty flat and it's perfectly fine because this is the dry high fantasy of old and it is allowed to embrace being that- for the villains at least. Pepping up and diversifying the heroes is greatly encouraged and I think the show's doing alright.

[labbydragon]

get smushed!!

[labbydragon]

Wait...is that what his fucking last name is??? Fuck.

logan howlett has always been THAT bitch

[labbydragon]

But...did you pull that out of a game of Pass the Pigs. It looks like a Pass the Pigs pig to me.

my record player is cheap as shit and the needle keeps skipping so i put a tiny pig on it as an arm weight

it’s lighter than a coin and working perfectly so i’m just gonna. not bother the pig

[labbydragon]

I feel like any person with two torties fears no god.

People starting apple cider vs pumpkin spice beef are weak, I will demolish any seasonal beverage you put in front of me without hesitation

[labbydragon]

Spyro and Elora to celebrate the spring :>

[labbydragon]

One should always have at least 2 craft projects going. That way, when one of them is messed up and misbehaving, you can switch to another, and let the first one sit there and think about what it's done.