I Know Zis Pussy Cat

nobody's better than me = nobody's worse than me

nobody's more important than me = nobody's less important than me

ever since he was very little, he had very masculine interests. cars, guns, toy soldiers. I didn't like them at all and he wasn't into my dolls. but because we had to spend all the time together, we came up with compromises. our preferred game was 'cars with mouths' in which we'd play with cars like with dolls, but there was no drama that I'd allow myself to engage with while playing with girls (I had a period in which all my dolls would fall off stairs and break their necks. my cousin told me to stop it as she grew tired of it).

as we grew up, his interests remained consistent. he loved reading war stories and watching war dramas and documentaries. when I was 12, I was obsessed with a Soviet spy thriller called 17 Moments of Spring, he didn't care for it (he was too young, first of all) and I internalised that stuff like that was for girls.

only at 14, when I started pestering my school librarian by asking for historical adventure novels that were similar to Dumas, and she told me that usually it was boys that asked for them, my image of what's girly and what's for boys, was shaken.

at the same time, I was active in online forums dedicated to Dumas and I realised that most of their users were women, so, it doubly wrangled my mind.

my brother still makes everything I like look girly in comparison. but he's not my main and only model of a guy now.