Here's something I've been wondering that you might be able to tell me based on one of your Wezuru protags; How would I express being non-binary in Welsh, and does Welsh have a singular non-gender-specific personal pronoun?
This is such weird timing! I literally just spent yesterday and today talking to someone about this, and I genuinely just had a moment of “But I’m sure you read my blog” before remembering that the whole conversation was actually in Welsh. What a fool I feel.
So, Steff and I put our heads together over a term for ‘non-binary’, because you’ll be unamazed to learn that Welsh has not yet had to form a lexicon on this subject. We’ve come up with “anddeuaidd”, which more or less literally means ‘non-binary’ but also kind of has to cover all forms of atypical gender identity because the language does not yet have the nuance to cover it all. That includes ‘agender’ - Welsh doesn’t have a word for ‘gender’, only ‘sex’, and so ‘agender’ literally - “diryw” - would actually mean ‘sexless’, and have all the same connotations that word has in English.
“Anddeuaidd” isn’t in common parlance or anything, of course. That’s literally just what Steff and I came up with, using his authority as a Translator and Guardian of the Language. And, just like if you said “I’m non-binary” to most people in English, the majority of your audience won’t have a clue what it means, so you’ll still have to follow it up with a brief explanation. But, it’s a word, and I feel a pretty good one.
Pronouns, though. Trickier. Because, you see, Welsh is a more heavily gendered language than English anyway, so there’s no neutral pronouns, but… well.
So, without getting too deep into the grammatical quirks of the Welsh ‘to be’, we’re looking at three pronoun sets rather than the two in English - so while English would have ‘she/her’, for example, Welsh would have ‘she is/her/her (possessive)’. So the trick is something different for each.
With the first, “mae e’n” is “he is” and “mae hi’n” is “she is”. So, for a truly gender-neutral experience, you go for “mae’n”. Which I suppose translates to “_ is”. This is also pretty well ensconced in oral Welsh these days, actually, which is handy. To be hyper correct and formal, for example, “it’s sunny” would traditionally be “mae hi’n heulog” (because weather is feminine), but these days almost everyone would say “mae’n heulog”. So, you just apply that to a human. Simple enough.
The second - starts getting a bit trickier. There’s just no equivalent of “it”. But, that’s fine, really, because you can use “nhw” (“they”), like you would in English. It’s slightly more odd than it is in English, but only slightly. These things get normal with use, anyway.
But, the third! So this one is great, and really fucking Welsh, okay get this. So in Welsh, the word for “his” is “ei”. The word for “her” is “ei”. They’re both “ei”! Hooray! Hoorei! Eh? Ei?
Problem: Welsh mutates. The way in which you distinguish between a masculine “ei” and a feminine “ei” is through the mutations that immediately follow them. Masculine “ei” gets a soft mutation, feminine “ei” gets an aspirate mutation. That’s not foolproof, actually, because some letters are immune to both of those - “ei sanau”, for example, means who the fuck knows the gender of whoever owns those socks. But “ei gi” is “his dog”, while “ei chi” is “her dog”, so. You work it out?
What this means is, mutations are sometimes pronouns. Just to make everything really nice and clear. Sigh.
SO, when you ask people to use your new pronouns, you also have to request the mutations of your choice. Personally, I think the easiest way here must be to just drop all mutations after your possessive pronouns. Given that most people struggle with mutations anyway, that’s probably for the best. But hey, fuck it, if you identify as a third gender, why not use the third mutation type? Nasal mutation! “Ei nghi”! I mean, that’s awful, and no one will do it. But. Philosophically. Pretty cool.
So, TL;DR:
“Non-binary” = “anddeuaidd”
“NB he/she is” = “Mae’n”
“They” = “nhw”
“NB his/her” = “ei” + mutation of your choice (probably drop the mutation).
So there’s a blind kid in my class, and today we were having really bad thunderstorms in our area. All of the sudden there’s a huge crack of thunder and all the lights go out. Some girl screamed “Oh my god i can’t see anything!” and the blind kid goes “Me either!!” and i just lost it
Guys, seriously. Signal boost. I needed this the other night, and a few weeks ago I was talking with someone who needed it. This is the best freaking thing ever.
This is awesome. I know picking up the phone and calling someone can be dreadfully intimidating, so here you lovely darlings go. Talk to someone!
“if trump loses will clinton really be any better?” YES. yes holy shit why is this even a question yes she will fucking be better!!!! have you read her policy!!!! have you paid attention to what she’s saying!! you may not like her but she wants women to have access to abortion, she wants gun control, she doesn’t want to overturn same-sex marriage. she doesn’t want to ban muslims from immigrating to the country. like the amount of hatred for hillary clinton is honestly insane when your other option is donald trump
He wakes up and the first word he hears is wait! and his lips start to form the word burr? but then he sees the speaker: a woman with red hair wearing something obscenely, splendidly tight and he wonders if this is heaven and God is more of a tomcat that he suspected – but then he tries to move and pain flares down his spine, one greedy white jag, and he amends his original assessment: this is Hell, surely. “Pray tell,” he says, “where am I?” and the woman is joined by a sandy-haired man with some strange flesh-coloured apparatus curling around his ears. “New York,” says the man, “who’re you?” The man has a bow. The arrow is notched and aimed at Hamilton’s face. It is frightfully, laughably primitive – but then again the Indian braves have done much damage to westbound farmers with less and so Hamilton bites his tongue on some of his more hysterical questions and says, “My name is Alexander Hamilton. I’m at your service, sir.”
They tell him where he is. He does not believe them. They tell him when he is and he does not believe them – just a moment ago, just a moment ago, there was Burr, the gunshot, the smoke and the blood and I died I died I heard my heart lurch to a stop I saw God, the great beyond and –
They say a lot of words. There is a man in a slim black suit with obnoxious facial hair and he talks far too much and Hamilton is too quivery and out-of-place to understand the absurdity of such a condemnation (Hamilton says Tony Stark talks too much; in other news, a garden pond accuses the Atlantic of being overly wet.) He understands. He weeps. His children are dead, his grandchildren are dead. His legacy is –
there’s a musical, says Stark in a hush to Captain America (tall and blonde and how ridiculous, how perfectly absurd, this nation should not have saints or idols or – )
“A musical?”
There is a musical. There are books and television and the internet – God help the modern world, Hamilton learns about the internet and the first thing he does is write a twenty five thousand word blog on why the memory of Jefferson is overrated and false. He gets Jarvis to proofread it. He gets Jarvis to stick it on the New York Times and there’s a mass panic about someone hacking into the website for the sole purpose of slagging off a long-dead Founding Father. Nick Fury explains about firewalls and internet security. Hamilton rants at him – the Avengers listen through the door, hear things like Sally Hemings and how would you feel if the worst person you knew was remembered a hero and the article is taken down but somehow, somehow Hamilton learns what a blog is.
Things Hamilton loves about the modern world: twitter, blogging, Lin Manuel Miranda, swearing, loose sexual morality, Starbucks, minimal slavery (it still counts, he says hotly, in Africa and Asian it’s still there it isn’t gone yet – )
Yes he meets Lin Manuel Miranda. He rebukes him at length about inaccuracies. He thanks him. He sees his own play fifteen times and starts thinking about a sequel.
Oh yes. There’s a sequel.
Because the fact of the matter is this: Clinton’s corrupt and Sanders is well-meaning but doesn’t have the support and Trump is just…well. Hamilton breaks his nose and writes op-eds for every paper in the country declaring why he was right to do so.
Look: American politics is a mess. And in comes the Founding Father Without A Father, the Bastard Son of a Whore and he says: so what did I miss?
And he claps his hands and grins and says I’m not throwing away my shot and the internet goes mad and the public goes mad and no one is saying he’ll win this election but the next one, oh the next one. Four years is an eternity in politics and Senator Hamilton has the one thing he needed most: more time.
The thing about the rich of this country is that billionaires have more money than is humanly possible to spend. So like, I really do not give any amount of a shit if increasing their taxes is “faaair” because I care more about no one starving to death or going without medical care in fucking 2015 than I do about the great grandson of the guy who invented some crappy toy being able to buy his 17th yacht. We can fucking print out organs and we have people dying of the flu because they are too poor to go to the er. Like??? Tax the shit outta the rich. Take half their money. Idgaf.
And like conservatives are so quick to say its not fair to tax the fuck out of the rich, but then they say to people struggling that “life isn’t fair” like??? If anyone is getting screwed here I want it to be the guy who owns four mc mansions not the family of four living out of their car.
Welcome to the midpoint of 2016, in which this is STILL A FUCKING PROBLEM.
the main reason I can’t buy the “rey is anakin skywalker reincarnated” theory is that I can’t accept that anakin skywalker’s soul could exist on another sand planet for 15 years without immediately going to the dark side
Thing #1 that frustrates me about ADHD/Executive Dysfunction advice:
“Oh, you have a mental/neurological issue that makes it difficult for you to be organized, follow routines, stick with systems, maintain a schedule, do your work, etc.? Well, what you need to do is GET ORGANIZED! Schedule everything! Find a system and stick with it! Maintain a schedule! Do your work as it comes in!”
It’s like that Allie Brosh comic where her fish are dead, and everyone’s offering to help find them, or advice like “feed them!” Or “make puppets out of them!” And she says, “No, see, that solution is for a different problem than the one I have.”
Yes, I would love to do those things! I have tried to do those things! I am still trying to do those things! But it’s like that post about how you’re going through an invisible obstacle course, and what looks like a block to everyone else seems like a wall to you. Instead of saying, “it’s a block! Go around!” It would be much more useful to hand me a bag of flour so I can see the obstacles for myself and how to get around them.
I keep looking for something I can do. I can’t maintain an agenda- closest I can do is lot appointments into Google Calendar. I can’t use to-do lists- they overwhelm and freak me out and I end up doing less than before. Breaking down a task into a bunch of tiny pieces should work in theory, but again, freaks me out, and I usually end up spending an hour planning and then I never actually do. I can’t set deadlines for myself. Whatever part of the brain allows other people to say, “yes, it’s due on the 29th, but I want to be done on the 25th” just doesn’t work. I can’t make my brain think something needs to be done until the last minute. This is especially bad in classes where everything is due at the end of the semester. I end up doing what I just did, and having to do two whole classes worth of work in two days. Oddly, once that level of desperation kicks in, I’m capable of sitting down and pounding through the material- but for some reason, I can’t tap into that level of focus without a short, urgent, important deadline. Maybe one day I’ll figure it out.
Thing #2 that bugs me about all self help: Don’t wait for motivation! Just do it!
I think my definition of “motivation” is different from the usual. Most people see “motivation” as meaning something like “wanting to do something, looking forward to doing something, doing the thing with energy and happiness because it is the thing you want to do.”
My definition is closer to “having enough willpower to make myself do the thing despite everything in my brain begging me to go watch Netflix instead.” So when people say, “you don’t need motivation!” What I hear is “everyone else seems to have this source of willpower they can eventually learn to tap into that just doesn’t exist for me.” My best technique for doing stuff is having other people make me do it. Which freaks out my social anxiety because then I feel like I’m intruding on their time to make them help me with mine.
The thing is, I’m not lazy. If I were just lazy this would all be easier to cope with. I WANT to be doing things, I WANT to be successful, I WANT to be productive. I even try, really hard, and the effort that exhausts me seems to be so much lower than the typical threshold. But every time I try to be as productive as I want to be, I burn out in a couple days.
I want to take a moment to send my love and solidarity to LGBT Muslims in light of what’s going on. I know the pressure on you is already so high. Your faith is not to blame for this, you are not to blame for this. You’re allowed to mourn, too.
quick question for all the fuckboys and rape apologists: why is it when alcohol is involved in rape, the female victim drinking makes her more culpable for the crime committed against her, but the male rapist drinking makes him less accountable for his crime?
-(Heard over the phone) “I don’t care WHAT is in your pants or what you identify as, GET THE FUCKING PISS OFF THE TOILET SEAT”
- “I don’t get why some men like to call themselves straight and then say they’d never date a Trans woman because honestly if you’re willing to exclude an entire subsection of women based on something so stupid you’re probably not worth their time anyways”
-“I don’t know why some guys worry about gay men in the locker rooms because if I was a gay guy, even I wouldn’t date me. I’ve been wearing the same shirt for three days.“
-(Over spring break) “How the fuck do you make Kraft mac&cheese”
-“What do you mean it’s written on the box– WAIT SHIT IT IS”
-“I hit on a lesbian two weeks ago in the SU without knowing it and I still feel bad about it”
-“I honestly think I’d prefer living with a (Trans) person at this point because if they’re even as half as cool as you then it’s got to be better than living with two 19 year old boys who have fucking competitions of who can piss farther on the ceiling”
-“For some reason even in college guys don’t seem to get that the only reason I get so many girls’ numbers is because I treat them like I would treat anyone else”
-“No seriously they think you have to act uninterested or like a dick for some reason”
-“No I don’t know why they think hitting on a lesbian is anything but a lot of secondhand embarrassment for the rest of us”
-“My roommate came into the room looking really dejected and when I asked why he said that he spent hours talking to this girl just to find out that she had a boyfriend the whole time and didn’t say anything” (And after me asking why it mattered) “I dunno, apparently he doesn’t understand the concept of friends”
-(After me saying I don’t get heterosexuals sometimes) “Even I don’t understand straight guys little dude, and I am one”
Also: “I’m actually really glad you’re a boy because now I can do THIS” (pretends to full on body slam me into the couch and then carries me around over his shoulder in a fit of laughter)
omg this warms my heart
Holy shit this got 1K notes you’re all gonna make my brother cocky
If he’s as chill as the last item in the original post indicates to me, that shouldn’t be a problem. I only hope I can someday ally as well as he does.
Where can I find such a quality human being? Are they collectible?
it’s cool that nate and sophie are the ones, out of the main cast, who have a very passionate, tempestuous, evolving relationship. they’re older characters, by tv standards, and normally their romance would be pg because people past 30 can’t have sex what are you talking about??? but they do, more than once before they get together, and sophie is even pushing for a casual sex kind of relationship for a bit and isn’t cast as the bad guy for it and it’s just like. so nice? such a different dynamic. i love this show so much
Would any LGBT Jews in the NYC/Queens area be interested in holding a vigil/saying Kaddish for the Orlando shooting? People of other faiths can come too.
s/o to every closeted person hearing about the pulse shooting who has to act normal and unconcerned so as not too act ‘suspiciously upset’ I see you & I understand
All right, yeah, you know what, I’m fucking sick of watching these news stories scroll past. I’ve kept my mouth shut for a while now and I am fucking DONE.
Fun story about me that you may not know: I’ve been sexually assaulted six times. That number might be one up or one down depending on how you want to quantify sexual assault. Is it a forced kiss? Being held down? Being poked and prodded? Being felt up? Where do you want to draw the line at “I didn’t say yes to this”? According to the statistics, it’s not an ‘if’ for me on something like this, it’s a 'when.’
And let me be perfectly fucking clear. Not one of those occasions happened when I was wearing less than my usual uniform of a t-shirt and jeans. These were guys I knew. More often than not, this happened in public, at school, with more witnesses than I could shake a stick at. In front of peers, friends, teachers, whatever. The first time it happened, I was in the fourth grade. I was eight. I punched the kid in the face and I was the one who went to detention. From a teacher who had watched the entire thing, every day for a month. I was the one who was punished, and the boy was taken to get an ice pack for his cheek.
Because “violence is never the answer,” right?
Because “boys will be boys,” right?
Because “well, sweetie, he just has a crush on you,” right?
Because hush, honey, this is the price I pay to live in this world. Because being pretty is the rent I pay, because if a guy doesn’t think I look “damn fine” at any given moment, then I’m not a person to them, but if I do look good, then I was asking for it. Because when I take a guy to the ground for laying hands on me in an unwelcome way, I’m taking it too far, and he’s the victim. Because it’s all about how “he’s a young man with such potential” but “well, see, she’s had a lot of boyfriends,” so it’s all okay. Because boys are all about their sparkling future, but girls are all about their past.
Because this isn’t about some hypothetical situation, when you say things like “well, but is it really all HIS fault?” It’s not. It’s about a human being whose life was destroyed, and it sure as shit wasn’t the rapist.
Because, hey, let me ask you a question.
If it’s me–in two, five, seven years, if it’s my picture under a headline with the work RAPE in bold, are you going to blame me? Are you going to ask me if I was 'dressed slutty,’ or if I was drunk, or if I was walking alone? Are you going to be asking if it was my fault, and talking about how the person who attacked me was 'such a nice boy’?
Because if your answer is yes, I don’t trust you now, and I sure as hell won’t trust you then.
here’s the official gofundme page created by the glbt community center of central florida raising money to assist victims of the orlando shooting
60k raised already, that’s amazing but every little bit will help. These families will be receiving bills for the ambulances that transported their loved ones to the coroner’s, other will have huge medical bills.
i love every single lgbt person who follows me and i hope you all stay safe and take care of yourselves today. if seeing the news about the shooting is too much please dont feel like you have to reblog/look at everything. do whatever you need for your health, whether its blacklisting everything or going offline. i hope everyone has a nice day regardless of the news this morning. i love all of you
In light of a few messages I’ve received, please remember to take care yourself and log off if you need to. Participation in post-tragedy online reactions is not mandatory to be a good person. There’s plenty you can do as an individual without compromising your own mental state. And if you’re reading this right now, I’m sure you already know the steps you can take to make a difference in a way that works best for you. Namely voting, contacting your local representatives (local, state and national), and donating blood if you are able (in Orlando and just as a general good deed).
If you want to be friends with me you don’t have to be “Hi, um, can, ya know, we be friends?”
It is 1000000000000000000000% percent ok if you just go into my inbox can go. “Man, I am so fucking pissed off at fucking Michael.” And I’ll most likely respond with, “Oh shit! What did Michael do now?“
this is such a good post because asking ppl if you can be friends can make them feel so uncomfortable but if you approach them like this its SO EASY to start a conversation and let a friendship develop naturally
Not only did this shooter ruin the lives of many people but he ruined the lives of most LBGTQA Muslims. He ruined the lives of every Muslim, who is now put into the stereotype of homophobic.
Allah says in the Quran, “Whoever kills a person [unjustly]…it is as though he has killed all mankind.”
No matter you religion, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or status. Muslims are taught to not discriminate and act in kindness towards all.
I stand with all of those who had been affected in last nights attack. My prayers and solidarity are with you Orlando.
Consider this a PSA, and a pre-emptive apology for my attitude.
It’s not that I don’t care. I care very much. I care very much about the lives lost in Orlando, in the country at large, in wherever the newest shade of terrible is coming to the fore. I care very much about the grief of parents and families and friends for someone who is never coming home. I care very much about the hate dripping from the lips of people in power.
It’s just that I can’t dredge up shock for it anymore. I have hit compassion fatigue. I care, all right. I could sit down and cry for days if I let myself. I am not numb to it, I don’t really do numb. I’m just…unsurprised.
As I am currently telling Adler, I’m a cynic, yeah, I can admit that I’m actually jaded as shit. But…these are people. They aren’t my people, but they could have been, in another life. They’re someone’s people. I grieve for them. But I am not shocked, I am not surprised, it does not alter my usual level of anger. I am not even disappointed, because that would suggest a higher level of expectation than I am able to muster for humanity.
hey i want you to know, if you’re lgbt and are unable to post anything about the shooting, that’s not bad. don’t feel bad for putting your mental health first.
Aries: Caught fire because a neighbor fucked up at operating a tractor so bad that literally everything for like a quarter mile caught fire.
Taurus: Stalked by co-worker, sued management for not doing anything about the co-worker. Management defended their inaction on the grounds that the stalker was from Eastern Europe and they thought stalking was “pretty much culturally expected over there.”
Gemini: Hacked a company’s store credit system and bought a bunch of stuff on nonexistent store credit; defended self on grounds that their security system was really badly designed and the store was asking for it.
Cancer: Angry preacher who wanted to shut up the people on the internet saying they ran an “orgy church.”
Leo: Kept a lion in a small enclosure in their yard.
Virgo: Assault with deadly weapon. Deadly weapon in question was a chainsaw.
Libra: Police officer fired for “taking the whole ethics thing way too far,” ie, interfering with other officers’ crimes.
Scorpio: Murdered “an old friend.” Obviously 100% guilty, visibly 100% unrepentant. Jury let them off, to the firm’s total bewilderment. Sent senior partner a lovely fruit basket.
Sagittarius: Used work email account and work computer to exchange sexual fantasies and photographs involving horses with like-minded individuals.
Capricorn: Their goats wandered onto their neighbors’ property “one time too many,” so the neighbors shot the goats.
Aquarius: Shot at neighbors, including a grade-schooler, for walking across their yard. When police were called, was enraged and offended, particularly when the police also walked across their yard. When asked whether the neighbors had in fact been threatening them in any way, appeared to be genuinely hurt by the question, and began complaining about how hard their life was and how little anyone understood their woes.
Pisces: Doctor suing the state for preventing patients on probation from taking their medications, which the state thought were probably basically the same as cocaine.
If you are unable to donate blood, food and clean water donations are also appreciated! Encourage your friends in the Orlando area to give blood as well
YES, ACTUALLY, THIS IS HELPFUL.
If you, like me, are unable to donate blood–my blood pressure is too low, they won’t let me donate ever because it could send me into distributive shock–look into what else you can do. Food and water are good fallbacks.
Instead of saying all lives matter, Jesus said, “Samaritan lives matter.”
Instead of saying all lives matter, Jesus said, “Children’s lives matter.”
Instead of saying all lives matter, Jesus said, “Gentile lives matter.”
Instead of saying all lives matter, Jesus said, “Jewish lives matter.”
Instead of saying all lives matter, Jesus said, “Women’s lives matter.”
Instead of saying all lives matter, Jesus said, “Leper’s lives matter.”
Even though Jesus loved everyone, even dying for their sins, He went out of his way to intentionally help specific groups of people–the alienated, mistreated, and those facing injustice.
So saying “Black Lives Matter” is one of the most Christ-like things we can do.
Yup. Jesus would have been shoulder-to-shoulder at the protests. He was a social pariah in the eyes of the authorities in his day. They had him arrested and murdered because he was basically causing too much trouble for them and raising questions about their power that they didn’t like.
Orlando blood banks are now at capacity. They are full for the time being, but are encouraging people to return in a few days when the blood supply will need to be replenished.
