nun gender with left freak

When you're talking about the design of the boat, you say "it".

When the boat is still being built, your say "it".

When the boat is nearing completion, you can say "it" or "she".

When the boat is floating in the water you probably say "she", unless there is still a lot of work to be done (e.g. no engine yet) then you say "it".

When the boat is officially launched and operating, you say "she". If you continue to say "it" at this point you are not incorrect but suspiciously untraditional. You are not playing the game.

If you are referring to a boat you don't really know anything about you may say "it" ("there's a big boat, it's coming this way"). But if you know its name, it's probably "she" ("there's the Waverley, she's on her way to Greenock").

If you are talking about boats in general, you say "it" ("when a boat is hit by a wave it heels over")

If you speak about a boat in complimentary terms, it's "she" ("she's a grand boat"). If you are being disparaging it may be it, but not necessarily ("it's as ugly as sin", "she's a grotty old tub").

If she has a boy's name, she's still she. "Boy James", "King Edward", "Sir David Attenborough"? The pronoun is she.

If it's a dumb barge (no engine), you say it. But if it's a rowing boat (no engine), you say she.

Today this woman called our information desk and said, “my son’s band is playing tonight. I want to come see him, but he never answers his phone…..I want to be there. Have you heard anything about his band?”

And I felt so bad for this lady but I’m not in the music scene around here so I had to tell her no, sorry.

Five hours later, I’m hiking and run into a group of guys setting up for some outdoor performance, and as I watch them unload the drums it hits me.

“Hey,” I said, “are y’all in a band?”

They said yeah and smiled and I told them “one of your moms called today. She wants to watch you play, but she can’t get a hold of you. Call your mom.”

And they all pulled out their phones and started discussing whose mom it probably was as they presumably dialed their own.

And now, unless we meet again and recognize each other, that’s who I’ll be forever to those guys–some mysterious courier for mom-messages who came out of the woods and told them their mom called.

I didn’t even tell them why their mom called me. Who am I to their mom?? Nobody even asked. They just took my word for it and called their mothers.

of critters in clover

chepie I don't fucking know, like legit I could not tell you what the Actual Plot as intended is something about a glazed donut that got the whole sword society in a tizzy b/c some dead dude a decade ago tweaked out from mercury poisoning and all his secrets were kept in the burn book locked away in elsa's frozen palace.

the way you frame your conversations is important! People with dementia are often, particularly at the earlier stages, very much aware that their memory is getting worse. This can make them very anxious, which isn't fun for anyone, least of all them. One of the most common things that people say to people with dementia is "do you remember ___?" as a way to try and prompt their memory. This feels helpful, but it's not. Because hey, in all likelihood, that person does not remember ___, and being confronted with this fact is not going to make them feel great. Remember that they literally have a degenerative brain disease; they're not going to suddenly regain their memories because you tested them. Instead, try talking about your own memories. Tell them what you remember. Tell it like a story. If they remember, then they can join in. If not, then hey, it's a nice story.

don't correct them if they say something wrong. Their version of reality is not going to be the same as yours. That's just a given. My grandma is often convinced that she's just on a very long holiday in a nice hotel, and that her dad is waiting outside in the car. I'm not going to tell her "uh, actually, you're in a care home and your dad died 50 years ago," because who's that going to help? Quite literally no-one. It'll just confuse her more, and she's already confused enough. Even if the person is saying something that's making them anxious - a common one is believing that people are stealing from them, or that someone is being unkind to them - then it's easier to try and distract them by trying to talk about something that you know makes them happy, rather than to outright tell them that they're wrong. Being consistently told that they're wrong can make them react defensively; they're not children, and they (usually) know it. It's just easier not to get into a confrontation.

get used to repetition. Don't get frustrated when you have the same conversation 25 times in two minutes. It's going to happen. For them, it's the first time you've had that conversation; they won't understand why you're angry at them for asking a question. It's completely normal to feel frustrated, but the onus is on you not to make it their problem. My grandma's short term memory is, charitably, about 3 seconds long. A conversation with her at this point is like rehearsing for a play; I know her lines, and I know mine. That's just how it is. She gets just as much joy out of telling me that she likes my cardigan for the 86th time as she did the first time she said it. People with dementia are not able to retain the information or the memory of that previous conversation; reminding them that you've already answered their question is just going to confuse and upset them.

don't take things personally. They might say things that are unkind. They might say completely inappropriate things. Again: their brain is deteriorating. It is a medical condition. They're not becoming bad people, or showing their 'true selves' to be evil and rage-fuelled. It's a combination of the fact that they're living in a perpetual state of confusion, which can lead to frustration and anger, and the fact that their ability to process and respond to information is affected by the dementia itself. If they say something cruel to you, you just have to take it on the chin and recognise it as a symptom of a disease that they're not able to control. Step out of the room for a moment if it gets too much. I've been fortunate in that my grandma has never experienced this symptom, but it's very common, and it's no reflection of you, or them.

don't treat them like children. My grandmother is 92 years old and she will look at you like you're the bane of her life if you try and tell her what to do, or use baby talk. Keep your sentences short and clear to avoid confusion, but don't ask them if they need you to clean their wittle fingies.

try and avoid open-ended questions, especially ones that involve memory recall, like "what did you do on the weekend?". My grandma was an absolute queen at making shit up when people asked her that, because she couldn't remember a damn thing, and she never liked to admit that she couldn't remember, because it made her stressed and anxious. "I picked up leaves" was her personal favourite, for some reason. I used to just tell her about my weekend instead, and sometimes she would joyfully tell me (completely falsely) that she also went to the shops, and that was much less stressful for her; she wasn't actively trying to come up with an answer to cover for her own lack of memory, and instead felt like she was part of the conversation on her own, equal terms.

most importantly: don't try and pull them back to reality. The best way I've learnt to communicate with anyone with dementia is to enter theirs instead. Sometimes, this is referred to as 'validation therapy'. It's about acknowledging that the reality of someone with dementia is as real to them as your reality is to you, and you're not going to be able to 'reorient' them to your version of reality, because they don't have the short term memory or ability to retain information that would enable that. Put simply: if my grandma asks when my uncle is going to come home, I gain nothing from (correctly) informing her that he's dead. This just upsets her, because every time she hears it, she's receiving the news of his death for the first time. That sends her into a spiral of grief and anxiety that remains even after the memory of his death has vanished again. Instead, I just tell her that he'll be home after lunch. She nods, accepts it, and we're both happy. My uncle is still dead, but in her world, he's going to come home soon. It's a way of having empathy for the person with dementia, and acknowledging that your reality, or objective 'truth', is not more important than their wellbeing.

[Image ID: The Destiel confession meme edited so that Dean answers 'JK Rowling posted upskirt photos of a woman on Twitter' to Cas 'I love you'. /End ID]

No one doing this should be allowed to call themselves a feminist.

Interplanetary Journal of Cultural Studies Volume 16, Issue 3, Pages 322-340

Abstract

The recently decoded Internet Archive includes the digital artifact called “Archive of Our Own” (AO3) from early third millennium Earth.  AO3 is unusually well backed up and therefore is presumed to contain some of the most significant -- perhaps even sacred -- texts of the time.  In this paper we present our preliminary analysis of AO3 metadata, including new insights about the literature, gender and sexuality, religion, and scientific understanding of this historical era: 

I. LITERATURE. We describe the cultural centrality of figures such as the Winchesters and Reader.  We explore how they featured heavily in every dominant literature genre of the era, including Fluff, Angst, Hurt/Comfort, and Oral Sex.  

II. GENDER AND SEXUALITY. We review the overwhelming evidence that male-male relationships were the most culturally significant sexual and romantic relationships, but we also show that it was a culture with an unusually broad set of sexual and gender roles.  In particular, we highlight the unusual tripartite conceptualization of gender as including alpha, beta, and omega roles; we note the apparent prejudice against betas, illustrated in the prevalence of “no beta we die like men” and similar protest slogans. 

III. RELIGION. We describe a newly discovered religious taboo: doves were a common sacrificial animal of the time, but they were forbidden from being eaten.  

IV. SCIENCE. Finally, we present new insight about alternate universes.  While previous scholars hypothesized that the scientists of Earth may have developed a correct early theory of the multiverse by the late second millennium, our analysis of AO3 presents evidence to the contrary.  As late as the early third millennium, prevailing theories postulated highly specific universes, such as a universe in which everyone is in high school, or a universe contained within a coffee shop.