azurelunatic: Vivid pink Alaskan wild rose. (Default)
Azure Jane Lunatic (Azz) 🌺 ([personal profile] azurelunatic) wrote2011-07-18 06:58 pm

(Old stuff: February 5 & 6) Quite a lot of howling

Saturday 2/5
Also from Twitter:

Justin Beiber is not actually the antichrist. He's just another teenage pop star with formulaic hits. (Granted, I do not need to be locked in a room with his music piped in and no way to turn it off, as I'd likely emerge twitching and smiling in a very unsettling way, but it won't actually kill me to click onto a YouTube video.) (I would later hear his opinion of abortion and revise that to 'dangerously uninformed Conservative-Asshole-Christian-educated person influencing our youth' but at least he's Canadian.)

I would like to read a werewolf pastiche of Ginsburg's Howl.

Currently, mental health care in the US is not really accessible. The barriers to receiving it (especially when you've got crappy or no insurance) are things that might daunt someone in their right mind, and could and did make me just give up at the sight of it when I was deepest in the middle of depression and probably needed someone who could actually prescribe me something the most.

I wonder if there's an overlap between anti-vaccination crackpots and pro-Rapture crackpots who really want a pandemic.

Sunday 2/6
Poor [twitter.com profile] LikeALiar was trying to write a werewolf book, and asked the chatfish for ideas. Chat promptly started giving her the most horrible imaginable moon-and-tooth jokes.


A linked article got me going on this, unrelated to werewolves. My opinion on vicious dogs and dangerous breeds of dogs is informed by my opinions on dog training, a study I read that involved newspaper mentions of vicious dogs (used to be that "bloodhounds" were the vicious, feared dogs, and then it meandered through some others, including German Shepherds, and now it's pit bulls), my opinion of people who do dumbass shit with dogs (provoking them on purpose is bad news bears), and the actual danger posed by the meanest, most out-of-control example of the breed.

I think that any line of dogs that have been bred to a standard that does not value the temperament of the dog has a chance of getting mean-ass or unstable dogs. A dog that's generally mean-ass, you might know where you stand. An unstable dog -- I saw video that involved a trainer nearly getting her throat ripped out by a big damn dog because the dog thought she moved wrong. I'm all for attempting to salvage dogs with poor training, etc., but I'd volunteer to drive that dog to get put down.

Poor training can do some jacked-up shit to a dog. Abuse can do some jacked-up shit to a dog.

A vicious, unstable tiny dog: there are physical limitations to the amount of damage one of them can do. The same actions in a huge dog, or a dog with more biting power, are actively life-threatening.

The sorts of people who want a mean dog as a symbol of their masculinity/a macho accessory, are the people who are likely to both pick out a breed of dog with a reputation for being mean, and to train it to be mean, possibly with bad training and possibly by abusing it. Any nastiness inherent in the breed is thus amplified by the jackass owner.

I don't support people drawing lines strictly based on breeds of dog without taking the dog's training and temperament into consideration. I'm also still not going to let my entirely hypothetical two-year-old go up and stick her hands in the mouth of your great big "totally a marshmallow" gnarly-looking dog, because I don't know how the dog is trained, I don't know its temperament, I can't predict whether my child will start gnawing on its ears if I take my eye off her for two seconds, and even a corrective nip from a great big jawsome dog has the potential to do some real damage. Similarly, not allowed to hug the adorable banty rooster who wouldn't hurt anything that wasn't a fly, not without safety goggles on account of how chickens peck anything that might be delicious, and eyes are shiny and move fast and you can't blink faster than a chicken's beak.


"Contains" is an ingredients label. Gay sex is not gluten or peanuts, and therefore shouldn't need a warning.
krait: a sea snake (krait) swimming (Default)

[personal profile] krait 2011-07-19 03:09 am (UTC)(link)
An unstable dog -- I saw video that involved a trainer nearly getting her throat ripped out by a big damn dog because the dog thought she moved wrong. I'm all for attempting to salvage dogs with poor training, etc., but I'd volunteer to drive that dog to get put down.

This. Because I have encountered one. And, later, the same thing happened (with that same dog) to a trainer.

Yes, *most* dogs can be trained (which is not the same as "all dogs of all breeds can be kept by anyone able to say 'sit' in its direction"), and *many* dogs of Breed X have tolerable if not ideal temperaments (again, not the same as "can be kept by anyone and taken anywhere").

But I draw the line at the just-as-prevalent do-gooders who insist that EVERYTHING is training, there ARE no bad/mean dogs, they were probably ABUSED in their TRAGIC PASTS and just need LOVE. (People adore that last one. I have met so many dogs who were introduced to me as being "from abusive situations" because they barked at men/freaked out at hats/growled if you went near the toy/had any kind of behavioural issue whatsoever; the population of dog abusers would have to be approximately equal to the number of dogs in the country.)
cleverthylacine: a cute little thylacine (Default)

[personal profile] cleverthylacine 2011-07-19 09:24 pm (UTC)(link)
I had someone freak the fuck out because my character put down a dog that had been deliberately trained to be antisocial and unstable in an RPG. ALL IT NEEDED WAS LOVE. It wasn't even a real dog and she freaked.
cleverthylacine: a cute little thylacine (Default)

[personal profile] cleverthylacine 2011-07-19 09:21 pm (UTC)(link)
Unless the person is making an exception for GAY sex that they wouldn't make for straight sex I don't object to warning for sexual content. I don't look at it as "warning, sex ahead omg bad bad" but rather "warning, sexual content, be sure you are in a position where you can read this comfortably before continuing."

Because reading porn accidentally at work or on the bus is just not my thing. Contains is a fine compromise but I don't insist on it for myself or others. I appreciate warnings for many things that will not hurt me but which I prefer to be suitably braced for. Like huggy FOAFs and noisy venues and things I shouldn't read if the interns are in and out of my office today.