Snips and snails and puppy dog tails
That's what little boys are made of
And don't you mind the pigtails pulled
"That just means he likes you!"
Now little girls
They're sugar and spice
And everything nice
And don't you mind the bitter almonds
Buried in the bake
They say: this, or that
Snails, or spice
They say: boys are tough!
"Boys don't cry!"
They say: girls are nice!
"Girls don't fight!"
They say
They say
They say
"You'll grow out of it"
And make a world
That grows you in
To fit in a box
Pink or blue
Girls vs boys
"Action figures" or "dolls"
Arbitrary schisms
And I think of a cousin
And the toy kitchen set
That he loved so much
That it stuck with him
Forever
And I think of the toy guns
Sitting in a drawer
That my mother never let me have
Until I bought my own
And I think of the baby blankets
Crocheted with love
For a cousin's child not yet born
I think of the square of gray wound with rainbows
Harder to stain, easier to clean
That I cursed at
And grumbled over
And packed in a shoebox
Ready to gift
And I think of the lurid pink bobbles
My grandmother works slowly
With her tired hands
Barely begun
I think of sitting with my cousin
In my room
Picking out colors
I think of my young hands
Swift if clumsy
And the hours spent
And I think of that pink blanket
Barely begun
Having waited to know
An arbitrary pair of chromosomes
Before the work could start
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the worst part of summer is that people get sooo comfortable expressing their disgust at having to see other peopleās bodies. theyāre always complaining about wrinkly old men at the nude hot springs or fat women in bikinis at the beach. I hate that shit. if youāre not capable of being normal about bodies you personally donāt find attractive, just turn your head to look at something else! and if youāre not smart enough to do that, then at least do the rest of us the courtesy of suffering in silence, because we donāt wanna hear your weird comments. thanks.
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this sounds a lot like Y from another slavic language I know which means X in mine so this almost 100% also means X
this word is completely different but I can kinda tell the meaning from the morphology
what
okay right now I'm gonna have to dissect the entirety of this language's history to figure out how the FUCK did y'all get to the point of calling X that and not something more normal
I wanted to ask for X and accidentally called someone a whore
This reminds me of that time my (Czech) family went to Poland for my uncle's wedding (because my aunt - his wife - is Polish and they decided to get married in Poland).
The wedding afterparty was in full swing, everyone was drinking and partying.... and an elderly Polish lady approached my two aunts (who were also drinking a lot and partying hard) and commented something along the lines of "jesteÅcie odporne". Which in Polish means "you're resilient" (as in they're handling the alcohol well) but in Czech it means "you're disgusting".
It took my aunts a bit to remember that it means something different in Polish. š
'pozor' in Czech means 'watch out!', but means 'shame' in Russian
droga in czech means drug, in polish it means road
zĆ”chod in czech means toilet, zachĆ³d in polish means 'west'
odchod 'to depart' in Czech means very specifically 'to depart by foot', while in Slovak it has a bit wider meaning, and buses and trains also combine with 'odchod'. To a Czech speaker this gives the funny implication that departing trains grow legs and walk out of the train station
Croatian 'mrdati' = to wiggle, means 'to have sex' in Czech
otrok in Czech means 'slave' but in Slovenian and perhaps other South slavic languages it means 'child'. Very funny when combined with bazaar, turns a perfectly fine baby bazar into a slave bazaar
My friend has a fun sentence from Slovenian - "Hitri otroci kuhali jed na Dunaji". Literally none of the words here mean what a Czech thinks they mean. No not even Dunaj. Czechs read it as 'smart slaves were disemboweling poison by the Donau river', original Slovenian meaning is 'fast children were cooking food in Vienna'
Edit: wait one more. "srpanj" in Croatian means July, "srpen" in Czech means August. Listopad in Croatian means 'October', in Czech means 'November'. rujan in Croatian means 'September', ÅĆjen in Czech means 'October'. kwiecieÅ in Polish means 'April', kviteÅ in Ukrainian also means 'April', kvÄten in Czech means 'May'. Months are fucked up.
You know, every time I see beautiful art like this of Zelda as something no longer quite human (I know they're technically hylian, you get what I mean) It just frustrates me about how badly they dropped the ball in the actual game.
Like, I have a lot of gripes about the game, but the ending specifically was such a cop-out; we went from
"Sometimes you have to sacrifice the things that are important to you if you want to save the things that make life worth living"
to
"lol nevermind, everything is fine and everyone is back to normal like nothing happened, don't worry about it :)"
I can't even tell you how enraged I am at the wasted potential, for real. Let their actions have consequences!
Let Link be a swordsman who can no longer wield his sword! Let him work with Zelda to try to adapt to losing his dominant arm that was destroyed trying to protect her!
Let Zelda grapple with the fact that she's not entirely what she once was! Let her slowly relearn how to be human from Link after forsaking her own humanity for eons in a desperate attempt to help him!
LET THEM BE THE PARTS OF EACH OTHER THAT THEY GAVE UP TO PROTECT THEM, GODDAMN IT! YOU HAD A PERFECT SETUP TO DEMONSTRATE HOW MUCH THEY MEAN TO EACH OTHER RIGHT THERE AND YOU SQUANDERED IT COMPLETELY! AAAAARGHH!
It is absolutely absurd to me that FIFA allowed America to keep hosting the World Cup, when they are actively at war with a participating nation. There was literally no way that wasn't going to impact the competition for Iran. And now it turns out that yeah, it did. Because the fucking coaches weren't allowed in. To say nothing of how every non-white country is disadvantaged by all the Visa bullshit. I get that FIFA doesn't want to be political, but that means they have to step in when the hosts are being straight up political in a way that makes the whole competition corrupted
Meanwhile, side note:
I haven't had time to verify this yet but I heard America's tourism is down 14% from this time last year
Which, given that they're currently hosting the international world cup for the most popular sport on the planet, says entire sagas
In literally the exact same way people were boycotting Eurovision for including Israel, I hope people are boycotting the World Cup when they let the US in. I can't say I am because I don't really follow the world cup most years, so it's not really in my orbit, but I wish I'd heard a single person make this suggestion.
I've known a number of non binary people in my life and I think single biggest conclusion I can draw from that is that non binary people are not the same. Like if Men fit in box A and women fit in box B, people really, really want nonbinary people to fit in a theoretical box C, and it just doesn't work like that. They are outside the boxes. They defy any simple categorization because they are not a third way of being, but every other possible way of being.
Being supportive of binary people is relatively simple, they have decided to sort themselves into one of the boxes that we have lots of experience interacting with. Being supportive of nonbinary people can be comparatively tricky, because you have to resist the urge to create box C and drop them all there. That's how we end up with various prejudices like "woman lite". Humans really, really like to categorize things. It helps us think. Unfortunately, sometimes it helps us think wrong.
If you have a non binary person in your life, I think it is important to take the extra effort to learn about them specifically.
Ok I understand what is being said here, but I disagree. Binary gender can be just as personalized and unique as non binary gender, but there is a world of practical difference between someone who is binary enough that they can give you man or woman as a starting point that society at large understands and has a place for, and someone who has to start from scratch with nearly everyone they ever meet.
When I say I am a trans woman, I am declaring that I fit inside the societal space for "women" well enough for that to be a solid basis for others to understand and interact with my gender. Even though there is a great deal of nuance within "woman", I generally feel I am in many ways skirting the edge of that category, and society is often hostile to me based on my declared gender, the fact I am able to align myself this closely with a binary gender gives me a great deal of advantages that non binary people do not have.
There is a temptation as trans binary people to say that because our gender is just as nuanced and personal as a nonbinary person (which is true) and our declared gender is often rejected (also true), the fact we align with the major accepted categories does not give us major advantages - which simply isn't the case. Being binary comes with a good deal of privilege that is almost invisible to us, but non binary people have to deal with lacking that privilege.
It is that gap in privilege I am talking about specifically. It is that gap in privilege that makes it necessary for us to put extra effort into understanding non binary people. So no, binary genders do not work the same way.
And look, if you find that using a binary starting point is more of a hindrance to people understanding you than a help, it might be worth considering if you are non binary.
if you learn enough about different cultures it becomes really easy to see how much gender is socially constructed. like different cultures have different markers for what is masculine vs feminine and thus it's not some innate thing that's unchangeable. it's not simply one thing or another either
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biology is mostly coconuts enough so that when you see something that isnt a coconut and can seemingly be removed without destroying everything its assumed theres a deeper process dependant on this that none of us have ever discovered before thats essential to life
I think a great way to improve communication with kids (and adults) is to make every yes or no question a this or that question.
I started doing it when after brain surgery my husband had trouble forming responses to questions for a while, and realized that the habit was helping my students engage more truthfully with me.
Some examples:
Yes/No: āDid you clean up your room like I told you?ā
This/That: āDid you clean up already, or do you still need to do that?ā
Yes/No: āAre you going to sit quietly?ā
This/That: āAre you ready to sit and do our quiet activity, or do you need some time by yourself first?ā
Yes/No: āAre you doing anything fun for your birthday?ā
This/That: āAre you having a party on your birthday, or are you going to relax?ā
I think many children (and adults!) are averse to telling adults āNo,ā especially when a command is implied. (āDid you clean your room?ā āAre you going to sit quietly?ā Hmmm if I say ānoā I will be in trouble with the adult.) So they are actually pretty likely to just lie and say what they think you want to hear.
Presenting a this or that question provides an alternative to lying, a āno, butā scenario where they are presented with the reasonable consequences of a No (āif youāre not ready to sit quietly, you cannot do our quiet activity with us yet.ā)
I find it useful professionally with adults too - "Did you have a chance to finish that project, or is it more of a next-week item?" When done sincerely (rather than passive-aggressively), it gets over rough ground lightly: it gives the other person a solution you clearly already find acceptable, so they don't have to flail around trying to defend/excuse themselves, they can just take the solution and everyone can move on.
Peeling off the broken breastplate of a stoic knight who only fights and never speaks, just to realize thereās nothing in there. Not metaphoricallyāthe armor is literally empty. It doesnāt appear to affect him. If the armor stays mostly in the shape of a knight, he just gets back up to keep fighting. But with the chest plate off he just sits there, equally impervious to curiosity as I reach up into the cavity where his body mightāve gone. Stubbornly, no answers are found anywhere in there.
So I forge him a new breastplate and on the inside, because I know he has plenty of room, I put a little pocket. Not big enough to hold anything functional of course. Just a little extra piece to see what heāll do with it.
He comes back next time with some grievous injury to his nothing, presumably from the massive shredded gash across his thigh plates. He sits and waits. I fix it for him. He is still nothing in there. I decide to add a drawing on the inside, of the type of beast I imagine could rend metal into scraps with a single blow. He puts it back on. He no longer moves as if he is injured.
Over time the interior of the knight becomes decorated with whatever odds and ends I could think to attach to the inside of a guy whoās got room to carry it. What really gets me is that he never removes any of it. Never requests a change. Not even when I installed a curtain rod for a small tapestry, or a bud vase to carry roses for his beloved, or an accordion folder for letters. He didnāt say a word for any of the many, many drawings of mythical beasts that now fight forever inside of his shell.
There are plenty of other forges. Iām not entirely sure why he keeps coming back here anyway. Weāre pretty popular, but he could get his armor fixed a lot quicker (and with fewer ridiculous modifications) literally anywhere else. I asked him if I could get a look at his nothing again. He flipped up his visor and nodded his head so I could take a look. It was the same as it had been, filled with drawings and trinkets and weird little fixtures Iād put in there. I asked if he was annoyed by it, or liked it, or felt anything at all, but he literally only ever says nothing, so Iām not sure why I asked.
Thereās not much room left in his nothing now. When he comes back for repairs Iāve had to fix my own foolish additions. Some of these pieces are intricate and irritating to repair, but I fix them anyway. It feels wrong to take any of it away from him now, even though Iāve been rudely encroaching on his nothingness to the point where itās barely even there. How he squeezes his nothing back into a body so full, Iāll never understand. But itās a game to me now, finding a spot not yet filled and putting something there. A dark part of me wonders if he ever gets filled up completely, if whatever sorcery holds the nothing-knight together may break, and it will all clatter unceremoniously to the floor.
When he hands me his breastplate yet again, it is so shockingly disfigured that I wonder if being made of nothing has somehow kept him alive. No ordinary knight could sustain such injuries. So I fix it. And he waits, unmoving, in a quiet corner of the forge. Itās like heās watching, even though I know the reading glasses I put inside his helmet were just for fun. Iām careful to put it all back exactly the way it was when he last left. Thereās no room to add more this time.
He examines the breastplate, and pauses before putting it back on, like heās looking for something. Is he worried about the fit? But it suits him just as it always did. He calmly points to a little space, about an inch, between a miniature shelf and one of many pockets. Thereās nothing there. I ask him whatās wrong, and again he points. Itās the most emotion Iāve ever seen from him, and itās barely anything at all. I take it to mean he wants something there.
I spend some time engraving a little snail in the gap. He watches, as much as nothing can watch. When Iām finished he holds the breastplate, but he doesnāt put it on right away. I ask him if somethingās still wrong. He says nothing, and puts it on. I tell him I canāt add anything else. Even if he could ask, thereās no room left.
Next time he comes back, thereās nothing wrong with his armorāhe lets me check to make sure. I ask him what heās doing here. Out from one of many pockets, he retrieves a tiny rusted knife. Itās in miserable condition, barely worth saving. I tell him I could make him a nice new one, but Iāll fix it if he likes. He puts it away and reaches around to find something else, a needle and thread. Better condition, but Iām not a sewist and I tell him as much. He puts them away. He then retrieves a little twisted piece of wax paper. I open it. Itās candy. I ask if I can eat it. He says nothing. I eat it. Itās flavored with cinnamon. Iām surprised he let me take it.
He keeps bringing me candy now. His armor is the most laborious to repair out of every client my forge serves, but itās my own fault so I canāt complain. Sometimes he keeps me company while I work. I wonder if he is trying to tell me something when he hands me mints. I wonder again at the lemon lozenges. He stares at me when I eat, as much as nothing can stare.
One day he brings me a little jar of honey. I thank him, I tell him Iāll save it for dinner. He watches me work, he puts his repaired armor back on, and he stays. My shift passes slowly, and when I finally pack up to leave itās dark outside. He follows me out of the forge. I ask him where heās going. He points to the jar in my hand. I ask him if he wants to watch me eat it. He says nothing, but the nothing-knight clearly wants something, so I open the lid and dunk my finger in the honey. I try not to get any on my chin. He stands there, inches away, watching me try to consume this jar of honey without a utensil. It tastes like clovers. About half the jar is left when Iāve finally had enough of pretending to be a bear, but he doesnāt move to leave.
I ask if heās going to follow me home. He says nothing. I tell him he can if he wants to. Again, nothing. I start walking, and he follows at my side. I know heās not going to say anything ever, so I fill the silence. I tell him Iām grateful for the sweets, I tell him about how his various components are made, I tell him Iāve never met anyone made of nothing before. I tell him itās a rare opportunity for a smith to work so much on the inside of something. He says nothing. I tell him again how much I like the candy.
It occurs to me that maybe filling me with sugar is as close as he can get to filling someone elseās empty armor with trinkets. Iām not sure if thatās really why he does it. I tell him I donāt have room to be filled with anything on the inside, not like him. Iām not a container for much besides food. He offers me another piece of candy. Maybe he likes containing something, the way I like to feel full. Maybe itās nothing at all.
ā
I didnāt edit this even a little bit. Thanks for reading!
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Iām sure this will get buried but for the sake of answering all your FAQs
- theyāre Opawz pet specific dyes. Non toxic made specifically for dogs. Once theyāre set and rinsed they can groom themselves normally, they pose no danger to her in any way, no fumes, thereās no bleach involved
- my dog is trained with cooperative care skills, the process is not stressful for her, she gets paid heavily for her cooperation and looks forwards to the opportunity to earn extra snacks with the grooming
- sheās a mini American shepherd, her name is Yoshi
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