Rise Up, Oh Heart, For There is Another Battle to Win

dogsonline:

a major coping mechanism for dealing w/ abuse, esp in the longterm, is erosion of self worth. seeing yourself as worthy of basic respect as a human being is incompatible w/ surviving a lot of relationships emotionally

part of healing is rebuilding (or sometimes building for the first time) a sense of your own value. something painful that comes along w/ that is realizing how wrong the shit that was done to you was. when you look at your abuse after internalizing that youre not undeserving of any kindness, its completely healthy to be angry. thats an appropriate response to fucked up inequity

experiencing justified anger doesnt make you scary or a bad person, by any means. you deserve to be safe, and people who consumed you to sustain themselves deserve to be the subject of your righteous indignation

4-pds:

-do that

-do that too

-sorta do that 

-do that 

-would probably do that if it weren’t for the other disorder

-do that

-wait that isn’t normal?

-do that

*easily has enough symptoms to qualify for a diagnosis*

-wait there’s one more symptom on the list

-I don’t do that

-well obviously I’m faking and I don’t really have it

fuckingrecipes:

thecoffeecoyote:

cannibalcoalition:

cannibalcoalition:

cannibalcoalition:

cannibalcoalition:

Okay, so here’s the story about the pumpkins:

My friend got married yesterday and we missed the wedding because of work but we made it to the reception. Because its mid-September and the reception was in a nature center (awesome!) there was a little bit of a fall theme. Not overbearingly, but the tables all had these tiny pumpkins. 

So they’re cleaning up at the end of it and we’re still hanging out because we haven’t seen these people in forever and we can talk until three in the morning when we get together. All of a sudden, the Maid of Honor hands us a tiny pumpkin. 

“Take one.”

“Um… okay?”

“Take another.”

“….?”

“It is my duty as Maid of Honor to make sure that the guests leave with an uncomfortable number of tiny pumpkins.”

So it turns out that she’d gotten a bunch of them for a Halloween party last year and after the party was over her mom threw them into the compost heap thinking that would be the end of it. But what she didn’t seem to realize was that if you put pumpkins in a compost heap- it grows more pumpkins. It grows pumpkins exponentially. Serious mathematical anomaly pumpkins. 

So this year she has even more tiny pumpkins and she figured it would be a good idea to have them as decor for the reception. BUT- she would still have to throw them out at the end of the day and no matter where you throw them you are doomed to have a ridiculous amount of tiny pumpkins growing SOMEWHERE at your fault. 

So everyone left with at least two tiny pumpkins and that’s how we made friends with the Maid of Honor. 

So I forgot about it and then the next morning I woke up and found these two tiny pumpkins in my purse and had a puzzling moment of ‘what?’

We were invited to the Maid of Honor’s house the other day so we could:

• take some of the flowers off her hands
  
• help with some post-wedding stuff
• watch the presidential debate
• play Clue for like three hours
• drink a lot of booze. 

And there are just… tiny pumpkins EVERYWHERE.

They were in the bathroom.

At the end of the night, I counted 26 tiny pumpkins, and that was just what I could see. 

It happened again.

Three pumpkins ended up in my purse this time. 

One of them has a face. 

I need to stop drinking with this woman. 

THIS POST HAS ME DYIN

All Pumpkins

Are Edible

And Should Not

Go To Waste

“Decorative” pumpkins are just pumpkins. They’re all gourds, like Summer Squash. They can be cooked really similarly…. 
Yes, there is a difference in the texture of different pumpkins - specifically bred ‘Pie’ pumpkins (sugar pumpkins) are sweeter and have denser, smoother flesh. Jack-O-Lantern pumpkins have stringier flesh and thinner shells, but…. My grocery store sells pumpkin at $1.70 per pound, but I can get 10lb pumpkin at the local patch for like, $8…. Just like Spaghetti Squash and Acorn Squash have wildly different textures and tastes, the varieties of pumpkins shouldn’t be abandoned to rot… 
Plus they’re way cheaper… and you can roast the seeds. 
;A; 
I just get so sad at all the rotting edibles laying around in autumn… baby pumpkins deserve to be eaten, too! 

naamahdarling:

religiousragings:

There is a famous story told in Chassidic literature that addresses this very question. The Master teaches the student that God created everything in the world to be appreciated, since everything is here to teach us a lesson. 

One clever student asks “What lesson can we learn from atheists? Why did God create them?”

The Master responds “God created atheists to teach us the most important lesson of them all — the lesson of true compassion. You see, when an atheist performs and act of charity, visits someone who is sick, helps someone in need, and cares for the world, he is not doing so because of some religious teaching. He does not believe that god commanded him to perform this act. In fact, he does not believe in God at all, so his acts are based on an inner sense of morality. And look at the kindness he can bestow upon others simply because he feels it to be right.”

“This means,” the Master continued “that when someone reaches out to you for help, you should never say ‘I pray that God will help you.’ Instead for the moment, you should become an atheist, imagine that there is no God who can help, and say ‘I will help you.’”

ETA source: Tales of Hasidim Vol. 2 by Mar

imagine that there is no God who can help, and say ‘I will help you.’”

Holy shit.

Holy shit.

Yes.  YES.

littlestartopaz:

quickbewitty:

quickbewitty:

Why do cows have hooves instead of feet?

Because they lactose

@fujoshi-kianna-leigh @words-writ-in-starlight

💕

stimmysuggestion:

weird-slytherin-girl-ist-geil:

cardozzza:

seananmcguire:

cincinnatifatty:

dewyntersisters:

dewyntersisters:

if a teenager is at your door and they are wearing a costume!! please give them candy!! they are still in it for the halloween spirit and it honestly no different from a little kid in a costume. they are just as excited and happy as all the other lil tykes and dont you dare tell them they are “too old for trick-or-treating” because that will literally break their hearts and that’s not cool.

Its getting close to Halloween again so I just thought I’d reblog this again

this is why I was a ghost from 10 to 18 except at 12.

Also…when I went trick-or-treating with my teenage friends, we made the streets safer for the little kids.  The teens who were out to do mischief, who were generally not in costume or toting their own pillow cases, did not mess with the littles who were near us, because they knew we’d get involved.  Make kids safer by encouraging Hallowteens!

I’d also like to add that a lot of kids–especially kids of color–get mistaken for being a lot older than they really are.

I’d also like to add that Jehovah’s Witness children aren’t allowed to celebrate Halloween or go trick or treating, so many of us go trick or treating after leaving the cult, and most newly freed ex JWs are around 18-25. And some of us, including me, have anxiety about going door to door.

Please keep in mind that some of the older people trick-or-treating might be autistic or otherwise neurodivergent and not understand why people think they shouldn’t be trick-or-treating! And, really, there’s no reason we shouldn’t be. Trick-or-treating is good, inclusive fun that everyone can enjoy, so please be nice if a bigger kid or even an adult comes to your door! Besides, it’s only one piece of candy and you probably have hundreds.

zeeimpalaangel:

xsoldier:

cr1mson5thestranger:

swordchucksyo:

zohbugg:

trishmishtree:

teamironmanforever:

somepretty-things:

hufflepufffharry:

chonceinalifetime:

4rkham-asylum:

chonceinalifetime:

not voting for hillary clinton is a vote for donald trump

But also THERE ARE MORE THAN TWO CHOICES IN THIS ELECTION pls people, I know it seems unlikely, but if everyone who didn’t want either candidate wrote in a name, someone else would stand a chance [and we could live with ourselves, not having voted for one or the other]

no they wouldn’t, literally do not do this

please educate yourself about nader and the 2000 presidential election before encouraging this literally terrible idea

People on both sides say “Not voting for my candidate is a vote for the other guy” No, it’s just not a vote for your fucking candidate. Vote for who you actually believe in, otherwise you might as well not vote.
If Hillary actually gave a damn she would try harder than just say “Vote for me cause I’m not Trump” No bitch, how about you show me something I can believe in.
God damn, no wonder so many people don’t fucking vote.

*sigh*

Let me explain why they say a vote for a 3rd candidate or not voting for Hillary is voting for Trump:

The United States does not have a direct democratic voting system. We have an indirect system called the electoral college.The electoral college is  a compromise between election of the President by a vote in Congress and election of the President by a popular vote of qualified citizens.

To win the Presidency you do not need a popular majority; you need the majority of votes of the electoral college. 

The way the college works is that the two parties select the delegates that will serve as electors, and the electors pledge to vote for the candidates, depending on their party affiliation, of either the democratic or republican party. So, when people go vote, they are actually going to vote for electors that have pledged to vote for a specific party/candidate. 

Each state is allocated a different number of electoral seats, and so not every state is truly worth the same given that every candidate is racing to secure 270 seats (minimum required to win the election). 

What’s important to note is that the electoral college is a winner take all vote in 48 of the 50 states, meaning that the candidate with the higher number of votes in a given state will get ALL of the seats. This is one of the reasons why third party candidates are a wasted vote. 

Based on our country’s history, most States around the country have already been defined as either red or blue, because the majority of the people that go and vote in said states tend to stick to either one or the other no matter who is on the ballot. It becomes a bit of loyalism to a party or, more accurately, just a strong distaste towards the ideals of the other party. However, there are a few swing states that really define the elections, for each election cycle they tend to change depending on who is on the ballot. 

Now, third party candidates, which is often used as a protest vote, have never worked because a) they are not written into every state ballot, meaning that there are states that don’t offer these candidates given that they did not qualify b) have rarely gotten enough votes to even be up for electoral seats c) ALWAYS end up hurting one of the two candidates, for, in close runs, they can make one of the other two candidates lose a SWING STATE.

This is what happened with Ralph Nader in 2000. The votes that he received hurt Gore in certain states, particularly florida, which led to Bush winning as he had the majority of electoral seats even though he did not have the majority in popular vote. 

Now, in the latest poll, it shows that the race between Hillary and trump is very close, and, when third party candidates are involved, it actually HURTS Hillary’s chances. 

Now, if it hurts her enough, Trump can obtain the much needed swing states. If he gets over 270 seats (and thus more than hillary) he WILL win the goddamn election. 

This is not a year to vote for a third party candidate. This is not a man you want in the oval office of the most powerful country in the world. 

There is nothing NOTHING you can pull out that will make Trump the lesser of two evils. 

We live in a country that has a two party system, so yes, a vote for a 3rd party candidate or a non-vote IS actually a vote for trump. 

And if you still don’t get why voting third party will never make a difference in this country and in fact ensure the election of the candidate you don’t like, listen to this nice man explain it with animals so it’s easier to understand

I was a Bernie supporter too, but “Bernie or Bust”ers are fucking idiots. Yes the system is corrupt, but you certainly wont fix anything by letting Trump win. Put your personal ideals aside for the good of the country. 

Here, I even made a graph

If Everyone Pulls Together And Votes Hillary

If Y’all “Bernie Or Bust” People Vote Third Party

See? Not that hard.

Seriously, guys, do not vote third party. The electoral college will not vote third party. I know it sucks and it’s unfair, but it’s pull your heads out of your asses or have President Trump.

And this is why America’s political system really, REALLY sucks at Democracy.

READ THIS PLEASE!!!!!

benicebefunny:

I feel like there’s been at least one Federation egghead who has tried to show proof of queerness in classical Klingon culture as a kind of gotcha to Worf. (Who they assume is a Straight because Klingon.) And Worf is just not having it in that subtle way of his.

Like, “Hey, Worf, isn’t remarkable how homoerotic [insert great Klingon poet]’s third collection is?”

Worf stares at them for a long time. “Those poems were written for his husband.”

fromchaostocosmos:

returnofthejudai:

I don’t care if you’re Jewish or not. If you act like commemorating the deaths of 6 million of our number is somehow a privilege and that we are not allowed to mourn our own dead or speak out against the hatred that caused such horrors without ALSO simultaneously talking about other genocides, you are being antisemitic. I spent a lot of time, effort and ink fighting the Darfur Genocide along with a large number of other Jewish activists and so many of the people criticizing how Jews talk about genocide weren’t there. In fact, many of them criticized us for not focusing our activism on Palestine. I won’t be lectured by these kinds of people. The number one cause of death in my family over the past century has been murder by Nazi. I have spoken to every living member of my father’s family out to my third cousins. I have been told that I should thank Hitler for being alive because my grandparents met at a DP camp and wouldn’t have met were their entire families not murdered. I’ve been told that the “real Holocaust” was of Ukrainians (many of whom were collaborators and whose descendants are trying to deny Babi Yar), or that the Holocaust targeted people who had brown hair (like Hitler himself), or that it wasn’t antisemitic because of other victims, as if “Mein Kampf” didn’t have numerous explicit passages targeting Jews specifically, as if there weren’t boycotts of Jewish families specifically, as if the Yellow Stars were universally applied.

If I take these things personally it’s because they are personal. I am labelled as a “Third Generation Survivor” at the US Holocaust Museum. I have a 90 year old grandmother who survived Bergen-Belsen and the Warsaw Ghetto and there are people who are telling that narrowly avoiding being murdered alongside the rest of her family is somehow a privilege. Or that I somehow “celebrate” the Holocaust. What the hell kind of word choice is that? 

Howard Jacobson is right. We will never be forgiven for the Holocaust. They wish we had the good sense to die out so as not to plague their consciences.

Please reblog this if not Jewish so it doesn’t just circulate around Jumblr only because this is so important and so true.

stability:

no offense but im sick of a school system that constantly preaches “dont be afraid to fail!!!” and then creates an atomsphere where grades are so excessively important and youre anxious if you get anything less than an A

mkkiee:

could the world please at least notice that women in Poland are going be treated like criminals when they even unintentionally miscarry x x x

lwoorl:

I started to read animorphs thinking it would be a funny, cute and happy story of some kids with superpowers, kind of your typical shonen manga style. Some nice characters with strong and vivid personalities, and a simple, lineal plot, centered in trust, friendship, family, love, and all these stuff with some action and a simple white/black morality…. I DIDNT SIGN UP FOR THIS SHEET!

HA.

Oh, honey.

skylarks-thought-and-action:

mto-art:

Me for any underaged ships: “I Disney-Ship this.“

Disney shipping:
I love these characters together they are cute but if what they’re doing can’t be shown in a Disney movie I ain’t interested.

This is perfect. This is absolutely perfect

gendryxaryatrash:

sassycrafty:

mygayisshowing:

iamatinyowl:

The problem is that even if Trump loses all of the people who support him still exist and are still out there creating the social climate that allowed him to get this far in the first place.

Someone put it into words. It’s terrifying.

The best analogy for this situation that I’ve heard:

Imagine that you and four of your friends are trying to decide on something to do. Three of you vote to go to the movies, and the other two vote to kill a puppy. Even though you ultimately end up going to the movies, you still have to deal with the fact that two of your friends are 100% down with killing a puppy.

Damn. Well and terrifyingly put.

inheritress:

so my chemistry teacher has a playful rivalry with the other teachers on her hall and yesterday a teacher anonymously left a note on my teacher’s board that said “my students are better than your students” so instead of guessing who it was my teacher went around the entire hall and stole pens out of every classroom and, as “an experiment in chromatography”, got us to drop water and rubbing alcohol on the note and sample marks made by the stolen pens to see what color the ink turned and when we figured out whose pen was used to write the note she went to the teacher in the middle of class and confronted her about it

official-little-lion:

Tumblr needs 9000% more positivity posts about boys. Gay boys. Trans boys. Pan boys. Bi boys. Demiboys. Ace boys. Straight boys too. Boys just need more positivity because I see a lot of girl positivity posts but almost none for boys. Reblog if you think boys deserve positivity posts too

phantomrose96:

I hardcore headcanon that Ed became something of a mythical figure to the Amestrian military (and probably Amestrian public) after the Promised Day

Like immediately afterward he goes home and stays home to help Al recover, then travels the West as like a scholar, then settles down with Winry and has kids–it’s pretty obvious he never went back to the military at any point during that, and that he’s stayed well and far out of the public eye.

So what’s that leave the military with? “Hey you heard of Edward Elric?” “Oh yeah isn’t he that dude who passed the state alchemy exam at 12, punched God in the face, toppled the whole military coup with Fuhrer Mustang, and vanished? Yeah he had a cubby here for like…4 years.”

And with so many people knowing half-truths about what really happened in Amestris, I fully believe that hundreds of fantastically stupid and marginally correct rumors spread about Ed. “I heard Ed Elric met God twice.” “I heard he’s the only person to ever successfully break the core law of alchemy.” “I heard he’s a 4,000 year old prophet who discovered immortality and that’s why he’s so skilled.” “I heard he fought a tank.” “I heard God personally took his limbs away and that’s why he’s half-metal.”  “I heard he actually invented alchemy.” “I heard he once beat up Fuhrer Mustang with his own hands.” 

Like it’s the most central, prominent piece of small talk among new recruits–who knows the best little factoids about the child prodigy who hangs with God and saved the world and disappeared Jesus-style immediately after. Mustang walks out into press conferences, maximum security with reporters clamoring to lobby their questions at the leader of the entire nation, and somehow he always ends up with a flood of “Can you confirm?” tall tales about Ed.

“Fuhrer, is it true that Edward Elric discovered how to transmute his soul into a higher plane of existence and so he quit the military to achieve the status of a god?” 

“Edward Elric is a 32 year old man who lives in a farmhouse out east and raises sheep part-time. Last I heard from him he was learning how to make raspberry pie and trying to teach his daughter how to count to 7. Who the hell feeds you this information? Next Question”

its-a-trans-thing:

tinyshinytimelord:

mentalhealthwarrior:

- The picture test: If you can’t tell if something is a hallucination or not, take a photo! If it shows up in the picture then you have a keepsake of that crazy creepy Halloween decoration. If not it’s a hallucination (or a vampire. No, i’m kidding it’s a hallucination.)

- Is some kid in mask causing paranoia? Ask them where they got their costume. Did they make it? How did they get the idea? Focusing on the person inside of the costume will help you remember that it’s just a person!

- Avoid haunted houses, haunted hayrides, ect. Actors will not stop scaring unless it’s an emergency, and I’ve yet to find a place that teaches actors how to deal with anything other than physical injuries. (I once met a haunted house actor who said causing a panic attack meant he was “doing his job right.”)

- There’s no shame in asking friends and relatives to avoid sending jump scare videos or anything else that could cause paranoia.

- Here are some tips on how to tell if a video is a screamer.

- (from freeasthepaperburns) Boggart it! If something is making you upset, make it silly. dance with the shadows, sing to the creepies, I bet if make a fish face at the scary face it’ll be a little less scary. I know this is harder than it sounds, but I’ve gotten better at it over the time, and find it helps!

Stay safe babes!

SIGNAL BOOST

For any darlings who may need this! Stay safe sweeties! - Mod Naga

autisticheatherduke:

autisticheatherduke:

Dear hearing aid providers: stop only advertising your hearing aids for old people - from a deaf 19 year old who’s used hearing aids since she was 7

Note: you don’t have to use hearing aids, or have any form of hearing loss to be able to reblog this

princesszeldaz:

remember when Aragorn invented the skeleton war

notpotable:

yamitamiko:

nientedal:

animatedamerican:

feminismandhappiness:

giandujakiss:

teapotsahoy:

survivablyso:

xparrot:

fluffmugger:

vmprsm:

darkseid:

freebismuth:

moonsandstarsandmagic:

vintagegalpal:

emilievitnux:

there-is-irony-everywhere:

jmenfoot:

scavengerridley:

Natalie Portman being confused by the fact that you have to say “hi” to someone before starting a conversation in France got me like ?????

“I feel there’s a lot of rules of politeness and codes of behavior there you have to follow. […] A friend of mine taught me that when you go in some place you have to say “bonjour” before you say anything else, then you have to wait two seconds before you say something else. So if you go into a store you can’t be like “do you have this in another size,” or they’ll think you’re super rude and then they’ll be rude to you.” [X]

#wait you don’t do this is other countries??

So that’s it guys. French are not rude, we just don’t like it when people don’t say “Hello” or “Hi” when they start a conversation. 

Don’t everyone say “Hi” before they ask something to someone? What’s next? Saying please is also a french thing or others countries does that too? 

Canada is similar. We say sorry and please. The Hello thing seems strange, but it actually makes sense.

Bro, this threw me for a loop when I moved up north. Like in the southern United States you say “Hi, how are you?” And then make a few seconds of small talk before you ask your question or order your food and when I went to Connecticut they were like “What do you want?” Without any hello or anything. In other places they just STARE at you waiting on you to place your order and gtfo.

I laid my hand over my chest the first time, and the only way to describe my look was “aghast” before I said “Good lord!” My husband said it’s the most southern thing he’s seen me do. He thought it was hilarious. But…. Like??? That’s rude as fuck??????? Don’t y'all say say “Hello” before throwing your demands at someone??

maybe this is why everyone thinks new yorkers are rude

this is absolutely why ppl think new englanders r rude. no one has any fucking manners

african culture, at least in ghana, demands you greet a person before you ask them something. if youre in an open market they may even ignore you if you dont.

We do this in Australia as well. If you just started straight off saying “yeah I want XXXX” we’d think you’re rude as all fuck.  You say hi, then make your request.  It’s basic acknowledgement of the other person as a person rather than some random request-filling machine.

Huh. Speaking as a New Englander, I usually go with “Excuse me,” but sometimes “hi” or “hey,” but with no pause – it’ll be, “Excuse me, hi, I was looking for X?” From my POV, it seems rude to get too chatty and waste some stranger’s time; I assume they have better things to do than make small talk with me, so I just get my request out there so they can answer me and get back to whatever needs doing. I always thank folks for their help afterwards, if that helps?

(The rules of etiquette are strange. People say New Englanders are rude and cold, but once during an unexpected snowstorm here in Seattle, my car got stuck and I was standing by the side of the road at a busy intersection in the snow for half an hour waiting for my housemate to come pick me up, and not a single person stopped. Back in Massachusetts, every other car on the road would’ve been pulling up to check to see if I was okay, if my phone was working, did I need a lift, etc.)

No but this was the first thing my cousin told me in France? you never ever ever start a conversation with anyone, not even like “Nice weather today, huh?” without saying Bonjour first. You HAVE to greet them or, just like Ghana, they’ll ignore the shit out of you, you rude little fucker

(And “excuse me” or “pardon me” doesn’t cut it. you still have to open with bonjour)

[and I can’t speak for New England but coming from Chicago and then moving Out West where the culture is VERY influenced by the South and DETERMINED to think of themselves as small town folk… I HATE when I have to make small talk before ordering food??? Like, if it’s a coffee shop that’s pretty much empty I’ll chit chat for a few seconds, but I’m still not going to make inane conversation about the weather unless the weather is extreme.

In a big city it is rude as fuck to waste my time making small talk with me when we are not even friends or neighbors??? I am here to get shit done. There are four other people in line behind me, and I don’t want to waste their time. I am here, I HAVE MY ORDER ALREADY DECIDED BY THE TIME I GET TO THE FRONT BECAUSE I AM NOT A CAVE WOMAN, and I am being polite by saying both Please and Thank You and not wasting other people’s daylight.]

I live in a small northern city, and I feel it would be rude to engage someone in more than maaaaaybe a sentence of small talk before placing my order. In addition to feeling I was wasting their time, I’d feel like I was demanding emotional labour (small-talk is emotional labour for *me*) that they weren’t being paid to give.

so bizarre.  New Yorker here.  Saying hi, how are you, etc before these kinds of commercial interactions is what’s rude to me - because ffs, there are people in line behind you, we have lives, move it along.  It’s really just a dramatic cultural difference - but borne of a real practical necessity.

Oh my god saying ‘hi’ takes less than A SINGLE SECOND YOU ARE NOT WASTING ANYBODY’S TIME In Spain you have to say hello to people before you talk to them even people who work in retail deserve that bare minimum courtesy hello??

Transplanted New Yorker here, and the feeling here is: people who work in retail deserve the bare minimum courtesy you would afford anyone else, which is to not waste their time.  You maybe say a half-second “hi” and/or possibly “excuse me” to be sure you have their attention, then you get to the point as quickly and concisely as possible.  You don’t wait to get a “hi” back, you probably don’t ask “how are you”, you definitely don’t talk about the weather.  You smile and keep your tone of voice courteous-to-friendly, you say please, you thank them when you’re done, and you do. not. waste. their. time.

Except ”time” is really only shorthand for the concept:  you don’t intrude on their lives more than you have to.  NY is a very very crowded city which allows for very little personal space, so New Yorkers have developed a form of courtesy that involves minimizing our unavoidable intrusions on each other.  Which is why we hold doors without making eye contact, and why we tend to feel that in any interaction with a stranger, it’s actively rude to do anything but get to the point immediately.

Interesting discussion of regional differences in conversational convention.  But the amount of “my way is the right way; everyone else is super rude and also wrong” going on in this post is giving me hives.  

Hey.  Listen.  "Polite” and “rude” are relative concepts.  Something you were taught was rude may not be seen as rude elsewhere, and might even be the polite thing to do.  Conversely, something you might have been taught was polite might be seen as rude elsewhere.  Saying “no one has any manners” about a group of people whose culture and, by extension, whose conversational expectations work differently than yours is really arrogant. 

In the US the thumbs up means good job or great. In France and Germany it means one, they start counting with the thumb instead of the index finger. In Greece it’s an obscene sexual gesture.

This guy I knew in college worked with the campus d/Deaf/HoH group and told a story about the dinner they had to welcome everyone in. They were trying to tell this little old lady what one of the dishes was, something casserole I forget what kind, and she was getting really flustered. Finally they figured out they were speaking to her in ASL and she was from South Africa. The ASL sign for whatever it was (spinach maybe?) in South African Sign means sex. They were offering this little old lady a sex casserole.

There’s an Italian toast ‘chin chin’, mimicking the sound of the glasses clinking together. It becomes hilarious when Japanese folks are around since in Japanese chin means penis.

As for the South, I will bet you anything that how we have conversations at the register stemmed from the homestead days when a farmer would come in to town maybe once a month and this would be the only time they’d get to talk to someone they didn’t live with. I like talking with customers! If I can get them to smile then it’s a victory and I have a better day for it. It only becomes emotional labor if they’re an outright ass or are sexually harassing me. But in the big crammed city of New York it makes sense to take the get your shit and get out approach, people have a subway to catch. Out here I had to drive myself anyway since it’s fifteen minutes to the edge of town from where I live, so what does it matter if I spend an extra minute at the register?

It’s important to be aware of the differences and ultimately there’s a degree of ‘when in Rome’ that has to happen. Someone who moves from Greece to the US is going to be startled by the amount of thumbs up but ultimately they’re going to have to adjust. Someone from the US is probably going to be shocked that telling someone they did a good job was taken as an insult and they similarly are going to have to adjust. Mom’s a damn Yankee transplant and said it was weird moving to the South and having cashiers younger than her daughter call her dear, but that’s just what we do. Sweetheart, darling, honey, sugar, they don’t have overtly romantic/sexual connotations here. As long as there’s not a leer attached to it if a guy calls me ‘sugar’ when I’m at work it doesn’t parse as a flirt because it’s not one, it parses the same as if he called me ‘miss’. But when a busload of Californians came through it took me three people to realize that ‘baby’ was not flirting, it was just California. NOTHING is universal.

This is the biggest place I’ve ever worked so it took some getting used to, like any skill, but even being socially awkward it’s easy to tell what scripts to follow. Test the waters, if they don’t respond then okay this is a move them through kind of person, be quick and efficient and to the point, feel good when they smile at ‘last question I promise, do you want your receipt’. If they do then pull out the five small talk scripts, get a smile, feel good when they laugh at the cat small talk script.

It’s also important to note that claiming your culture’s way of doing polite right is a fantastic way to fall into some really bigoted nonsense. In Puerto Rico the personal bubble is much smaller than in the US proper, like RIGHT at your elbow close. I had a cashier who was super uncomfortable because our steward was getting in her personal space constantly and he was pissed off because he was trying to HELP her with moving orders why is she mad at him? Once I sat them down and explained the difference they both had this aw shit moment because from their own standpoints they were being polite and from the others’ standpoints they were being rude. After that they were fine, when he got a little too close she’d say ‘whoa man my bubble’ and he’d laugh and shake is head and step back.

Lots of non-white cultures have things like that, particularly since white America has serious problems with sexualizing ANY physical contact to the point we’re all touch starved. The normal speaking voice is at a higher volume or it’s more acceptable to show your emotions or gesture when you speak. None of this is WRONG, but when people star getting into ‘my culture is the only right culture’ then guess who comes out on top? It ain’t the little guy.

the last two adds are great, but: I don’t care WHERE you’re from, it will ALWAYS be rude to take the last donut/cookie/slice of pizza/gulp of juice/etc and leave the empty container there for someone else to find instead of throwing it away YOURSELF since it is EMPTY.

you know you you are.

screw you.

stefairies:

tbh once you find ao3, you can never go back to fanfiction.net