Alllll the groveling, guys. All of it. Remember how I was talking about totally not having time to write long fics? I TOTALLY don’t. But I am. So here.
Anyone who guessed Enjolras’ in-universe identity before the big reveal gets a cookie. Also I am taking votes on whether I should include smut and up the rating of this thing, and yeah, I’m taking those votes now because it takes me a goddamn long time to write smut. I have to, like, prepare myself, if y’all want smut.
OK people, we have a really important thing
to say about this. OK. Ready?
If you get antibiotics to treat an STD YOU REALLY GOTTA TAKE ALL OF THEM AS DIRECTED. Even if you feel a bit better, or a sore heals
up, or whatever. Seriously. When you do not take all of your meds you may not
actually clear up your infection. And what happens then? THIS:
Health officials have been warning us about the threat of “super gonorrhea“—a strain of the sexually transmitted disease that is resistant to all known antibiotics—for over a year. But the superbug is here, much faster than previously anticipated. On Wednesday the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced a cluster of gonorrhea infections that shows both decreased susceptibility to ceftriaxone and very high-level resistance to azithromycin. It’s the first time this superbug has been found in the U.S.
Reblogging this because ~this is important~
I’ve never been so happy to not have sex.
Reblogging because I tell my patients this all the time and we talk about this at work all the time ☝🏼️☝🏼☝🏼
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.’”
All right, this is the last (and longest) part of Deorum! The rest of the story is in this tag (Parts I, II, III, IV, and V). This takes place a about a week and a half after Part V, and includes the grand reveal about Jack’s…situation. I hope you guys like it, and thanks so much for sticking with me through this mess of a story! If you have any questions, I have a bunch more stuff worked out for the universe, so feel free to ask away.
The newly arrived family across the hall
from Jack hadn’t tried to invite him over again, but Marcus and his wife—Dorothea-call-me-Dot,
as Jack learned upon meeting her—still greeted him when they passed. He knew that the son, Jesse, was quiet and
smiled shyly at him, and Apollo had been elated with the boy’s interest in art,
and that Mac, the daughter, was buoyantly energetic at all times and drove her
parents to distraction. Dot was handling
the adjustment better than her husband, which he knew for a fact because he had
seen her talking to Sekhmet about getting blood out of clothes after Mac’s
latest mishap.
Marcus, on the other hand, had
almost swooned when he saw Hapi and Bragi together in front of Starbucks. Jack had been more than a little judgmental
when he saw Marcus waver and grip the edge of the table outside.
So it was a shock when there was a
sharp hammering on his door on Wednesday afternoon, and Jack opened it to
reveal Marcus standing there and looking disheveled.
“What’s wrong?” Jack asked, sweeping
a glance over the man. His usual tidy
suit was missing its jacket and his hair stuck up in clumps as if he’d been
dragging his hands through it.
“Have you seen my kids?” Marcus
asked, skipping any semblance of polite greeting.
Jack paused. “…no?
Are they not where they’re supposed to be?”
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.
For just one second. I don’t often make posts directly addressing people on anything more serious than fanfiction, but.
The election. I’m not going to spin you the same explanation everyone else has given about why voting third party is dangerous in this situation–all you have to do is google the Bush-Nader-Gore situation and find many people with much better explanations than I could give. I’m not going to list every law that Hillary Clinton would support and Donald Trump would repeal–I’m too tired to put myself through that panic attack. Rest assured, there are many, and the Supreme Court decision of last year regarding marriage equality is just the tip of the iceberg.
Just. Listen.
I have friends, old friends and new ones, who are observant Muslims. I want to keep those friends, I want them to be safe and happy in their homes and in their faith. Under a Donald Trump presidency, that would not happen.
I have trans friends that I adore. I want them to be at ease in their own bodies, given the right of their own names and their own identities. Under a Donald Trump presidency, that would not happen.
I have cousins adopted from other countries, friends who are exchange students working on a citizenship, friends whose children are natural-born American citizens. I want them free to live where they want, with their family or overseas from them, because they’re people and they deserve that choice. Under a Donald Trump presidency, that would not happen.
I have black friends, black family I love. I want them to be safe, and alive, and goddamn, that’s not a guaranteed thing right now but under a Donald Trump presidency, it would be impossible.
I’m queer–men, women, none of the above, all of the above, I don’t care. I want to be able to marry a woman, if I fall in love with one, just like I would be able to marry a man. I want to feel as safe with a girlfriend in my arms as a boyfriend, without a care in the world for what someone might get away with doing to us. Under a Donald Trump presidency, that would not happen.
I have a history of sexual assault that statistically predisposes me to being a victim of rape. In the event that the worst happens, I want to be able to bring that to court. I want to be able to get an abortion without going to jail. Under a Donald Trump presidency, that would not happen.
I am a woman, for Christ’s sake. We are half the world, and we deserve to be paid equally, treated like adults rather than children, respected as thinkers and dreamers, mothers and scientists, artists and politicians and human beings. Under a Donald Trump presidency, that would not happen.
We are people, us who are under threat from this man. And if your plan is to ‘vote your conscience’ by voting third party, whether as a protest vote or as genuine support, far be it from me to dictate your morals. But let me take this moment to remind you that we are people. If Donald Trump is elected and has the prerogative to appoint judges and select cabinet members and run the country, we are not going to be treated like people. If Donald Trump is elected and we are shafted in the process, and you did not do everything in your power to stop that, you bear some degree of responsibility.
So whether what’s driving you to vote third party or abstain altogether is sincere conviction, arrogant moral superiority, or just a desire to not take either of the two options available, think about that. Take that into your considerations. You might sleep great, knowing you didn’t sell out like the rest of everyone who voted for Hillary Clinton.
How are you going to sleep if Donald Trump wins the election after a split vote and the fallout starts to take lives?
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.
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.
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.”
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?
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
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!
RIGHT, sorry for the delay, I forgot this was a thing. Here is Part V, set about six days after the last bit. Parts I,II, III, and IV are also available
It was a Friday morning again when
Jack woke himself up from a dream with shouting in a language he didn’t immediately
recognize. This would have alarmed him
more if he hadn’t discovered, over the past several days, a native speaker’s
knowledge of German, Japanese, Welsh, Spanish, and Slovakian, as well as
passable fluency in a handful of other tongues—including, to Anansi’s supreme
satisfaction, Akan. The shouting was
new, though, and as his brain caught up to the adrenaline in his veins, he vaguely
recognized it as Russian, diphthong vowels dripping from hard consonants.
Jack tried to recapture the sound of
his words, as if he could collect the echoes from where they had settled in
corners of the room and hollows of the blankets, reassemble them into
speech. He opened his mouth and let his
lips move to form the syllables he had heard.
“Something meshok moi,” he said aloud.
“Popast’v meshok moi.”
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.
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
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
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”
- 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.
- (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
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]
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.
“if you don’t consider breasts sexual organs then why do you care if i grab them” well EXCUSE ME BUT IF I JUST STRUTTED UP AND GRABBED YOUR EAR AND FELT IT UP LIKE MMMM YEAH BABY I BET YOU HEAR REAAAL GOOD WOULD YOU NOT BE UNCOMFORTABLE
I work in an ER and we see suicides all the time. And we get at least 3 suicidal ideations a night. We all care about you. I promise, we do. A team of complete strangers who have worked 3+ 12 hour shifts this week who are being screamed at all day and night and probably haven’t had lunch and trust me, we still love you and care about you.
We had a 16 year old patient last night who we couldn’t save. We were in that room with this patient for over an hour, we did everything we could. And let me tell you, we all cried. The EMT’s, the nurses, the doctor. We all huddled together in the doctors dictation room and cried.
I went through the rest of my shift with smudged mascara and tracks on my cheeks.
I remember the names of all the patients that have taken their lives on my shifts.
I remember squeezing the hands, smoothing the hair, kissing the foreheads, and wiping away the blood and the vomit of every patient that has left me too soon.
I can still see every face that I have zipped into a body bag.
Trust me, someone cares about you. You have never met them yet. You don’t ever think about them. They are never remembered when you talk about heroes and role models.
But someone loves you.
damn….
This made me cry
When I was in hospital being seen to, being bandaged and sedated and surrounded by medical staff, my family was ignoring my calls, my friends hadn’t cared to check in. I felt terrified and hopeless and so very unimportant that it was taking everything it had in me to not drink the cleaning products left nearby by one of the cleaners, to make sure I finished the job properly.
There was a nurse though, who came into my room with a soft smile, who held my hand, who took away the bottles when she noticed me watching them for too long. There was a nurse that plugged in my phone to charge in case my family called back, that took away the bloody cloths the paramedics had left me with, that helped me put my hair up when it was sticking to my tear streaked face, because my arms were too sore to do it myself.
There was a nurse that saved my life twice in one night, who made me feel that I was worth being looked after, and her name was Emma and she was the most beautiful person I’ve met.
Months later, I was visiting my mother at the same hospital whilst she was incapacitated with back concerns. Whilst I sat and watched my mum sleeping, a nurse approached to check up on her. She met my gaze and she smiled immediately, face lit with recognition, and she said “oh my gosh, hey! How are you doing?”
People definitely do care about us even if we don’t think they do, and to the original poster?
no offence but when girls stop you mid sentence like “okay sorry but… (insert compliment that makes you feel great all day) …anyway, continue!” > every single song a man has ever written about a woman
as a general rule. if what we’re calling ‘cultural appropriation’ sounds like nazi ideology (i.e. ‘white people should only do white people things and black people should only do black people things’) with progressive language, we are performing a very very poor application of what ‘cultural appropriation’ means. this is troublingly popular in the blogosphere right now and i think we all need to be more critical of what it is we may be saying or implying, even unintentionally.
There is nothing wrong with everyone enjoying each other’s cultures so long as those cultures have been shared.
Eating Chinese food, watching Bollywood movies, going to see Cambodian dancers, or learning to speak Korean so you can watch every K drama in existence is totally fine. The invitation to participate in those things came from within those cultures. The Mexican family that owns the place where I get fajitas wants me to eat fajitas. Their whole business model kind of depends on it, actually.
If you see something from another culture you think you might want to participate in, but you don’t know if that would be disrespectful or appropriative, you can just…ask. Like. A Jewish friend explained what a mezuzah was to me, recently. (It’s the little scroll-thing near their front doors that they touch when they come into their house. It basically means “this is a Jewish household.”)
“Oh, cool,” I said. “Can I touch it? Or is it only for Jewish people?”
“You can touch it or you can not touch it,” she said. “I don’t care.”
“Cool, I’m gonna touch it, then.”
“Cool.”
It’s not hard.
You want to twerk, twerk. I’ve never heard a black person say they didn’t think anybody else should be allowed to twerk. Just that they want us to acknowledge that they invented that shit, not Miley fucking Cyrus.
this is a good post.
Thank you, I was trying to sort this out in my head but you explained it very well.
are you a “i know literally nothing about hockey who’s stanley and why does he have a cup” check please fan or a “i know the blood types of every member of the pittsburgh penguins” check please fan
I want everyone to know what Hillary Clinton did tonight. It isn’t just that she ‘won’ the debate; Democratic presidential candidates have been winning these debates on substance since 1980 and often, it doesn’t help them in the election. She went in there tonight with two objectives: 1) make people warm up to her personally and 2) make Donald Trump self-destruct. Donald Trump’s objective was to make people believe that he is a grown-up, or at least that he can pretend to be a grown-up for ninety minutes.
I knew how it was going to go down as soon as she said, “Donald, it’s good to be with you.” I knew for two reasons. First: because she really meant it. She was genuinely pleased to be on a stage with him. And it’s not because she likes him. It’s because she knew she was going to fuck him up and she knew exactly how she was going to do it and she was really looking forward to it.
Second: she called him Donald. She called him Donald all night long. Consistently and deliberately and for three good reasons. One: it reminds everyone that he has never held a position that gives him any right to a title other than “Mr.” Two: it seems friendly, but it also really pisses him off. And three: By calling him Donald, she avoided repeating his brand name.
This is the level on which Clinton and her team are working. Donald Trump has staked everything on his last name–the name he inherited from his father. It’s Trump this, Trump that, Trump the other. When he puts his name on a thing, it doesn’t say Donald anywhere, it just says TRUMP. TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP. Trump is a good brand name. It’s a noun, it’s a verb, it’s triumphant-sounding. “Donald” has none of those qualities. If she’d been calling him “Mr. Trump,” every time she said it, she would be advertising the Trump brand, which is of course the exact opposite of what she’s there to do. So she called him Donald. And he could not take it.
Without losing her temper, raising her voice, or descending to his level, she made that bastard reveal himself to the Jedi. She brought up things that are going to seem completely unsympathetic to voters, but of which Trump himself is really proud: like not paying any federal taxes (”That makes me smart,” Trump said), stiffing his contractors (”Maybe they didn’t do good work,” Trump said; “I took advantage of the laws,” Trump said), his repeated bankruptcies, the $14 million loan from his father (”A very small loan,” Trump called it). She noted that he exploited the housing crisis for personal gain (”That’s called business,” Trump said). She called him out for his racism; he responded by proving that she’s right (Trump, apparently, is aggrieved that he did not get a medal for opening a club that did not discriminate against Black people even though it was in a really nice part of Florida). When he made what to me was a cryptic jab about her “staying home” while he was traveling, she just smiled and said, “I think Donald just criticized me for preparing for this debate. And yes, I did. You know what else I prepared for? I prepared to be President. And I think that’s a good thing.”
He tried to talk over her. She ignored him. That was beautiful. One, because it’s exactly the way Trump should be treated, all the time; and two, because it made him even madder. His inability to get a rise out of her made him lose his mind. This is a man who wants to be President of the United States. And he spent an entire 2-minute segment begging people to call Sean Hannity so he could vouch for the fact that Trump was always against the Iraq war. Nobody would talk to Sean Hannity, he complained. Why would no one talk to Sean Hannity?
She was capable of actually remembering the original question and getting around to answering it after dealing with the human distraction standing next to her. He often seemed to completely forget the question seconds into his answer. At times, he was so busy talking over the moderator that he didn’t even hear the question.
Hillary Clinton has been dealing with entitled, narcissistic, patronizing, asshole men her entire life as a Senator and as Secretary of State. She has skills in this area. She used them all tonight; and she enjoyed doing it. She looked like she was at ease, confident, and having a great time. She looked young. That was the way I put it to Mrs. Plaidder, and she agreed. She looked fresh, and energized, and exhilarated by the challenge. And that only made Trump’s “stamina” bullshit seem even dumber.
She stayed focused, despite his distractions. She dropped every bomb she came to drop at exactly the right moment. She used everything he bragged about against him. She made him too mad to put together a coherent sentence. And she smiled.
We knew she could to the job. We now know she can win this election.
During, I believe, the 2012 presidential election, people used to pass around a photo of Obama pointing forcefully at the camera with the caption, “Everybody chill the fuck out. I got this.”
Y’all can chill the fuck out now. Hillary Clinton has this shit handled. She knows how he works and if he is ever fool enough to share a stage with her again she will fillet him. And yes. I AM WITH HER.
make sure you’re registered to vote HERE, it’s so easy to do.
like straight up, register to vote. yall cant escape it like tumblr is showing you how to register. fucking hell register to vote and vote for hillary clinton.
No. Do not vote Hillary. For the Love of god and all that is holy dont vote either of them. Vote Gary Johnson. Vote third party. All votes matter and a third party vote is never wasted. Abraham Lincoln was a third party candidate. It is NEVER WASTED.
Except this isn’t even remotely the same and it will be a wasted vote because there’s no way in hell a third party vote will be enough to out number the Republican Trump voters and we’ll end up with a literal actual fascist in the White House.
Don’t vote third party, not in this election. Now is not the time for a protest vote.
Vote Hillary in and then CONTINUE to vote in all your smaller elections. The majority of congress is up for election this year. You wanna see change, you want to make your voice heard? STAY POLITICALLY ACTIVE AND KEEP VOTING. You’re right, every vote can and does count, you can help change the course of American politics and history, but it doesn’t end with the Presidential election. But voting Hillary is the start.
It’s worth noting that even crowdiamagio has changed their stance at this point.
I know Tumblr is largely young and likes to sometimes poke fun at us older people, but please, in this case, listen to those of us who voted in 2000. I GET the idea of a protest vote and wanting a viable third party. I do. I was all about that in 2000. I, along with a lot of other idealistic people, voted for Ralph Nader in 2000. I wasn’t crazy about Gore, but I was convinced that SURELY the American people couldn’t elect someone like Dubya. (I mean, the question is whether the American people actually DID, but that’s another rant.)
I was wrong. We got eight years of one of the worst administrations in US history.
This election IS NOT THE TIME for a protest vote. There’s too much at stake. I don’t care if you don’t like Hillary on a personal basis. She is one of the most qualified people to ever run for President, and her “scandals” are either part of an elaborate 20 year smear campaign or literally no worse than any other politician’s. (See John Oliver’s raisin analogy.)
I honestly do not know how anybody could watch the debates last night and come out of it thinking that Donald Trump is in any way suited to be president. That leaves Hillary. A third party candidate is not going to win. To vote for Gary Johnson or Jill Stein is literally only going to help Trump. Nothing else.
Save your protest votes for local elections, for a year when the choices are not so dire. This election is literally going to mean life or death for a lot of people in the US, and if you’re on this site, chances are good you’re one of them.
Throwing away your vote on a message no one will hear, and which will change no outcome, is sometimes presented as ‘voting your conscience’, but that’s got it exactly backwards; your conscience is what keeps you from doing things that feel good to you but hurt other people. Citizens who vote for third-party candidates, write-in candidates, or nobody aren’t voting their conscience, they are voting their ego, unable to accept that a system they find personally disheartening actually applies to them.
I’m hunting for a fantastic tweet I saw recently, about how saying things like, “I live in a blue state, my vote doesn’t matter, I can vote however I want” essentially creates a two-tiered system, where you grant yourself the INCREDIBLY privileged status of “voting with your heart” while your neighbors do the work of making sure that state stays blue and we don’t all die in a nuclear holocaust.
It’s extraordinary how third-party voters are framing this as a question of ethics, when it’s really your privilege versus collective pragmatism. And as Shirky says in that piece, the major third parties are deeply ineffectual—charities and foundations actually doing this good, moral work could use your dollars and your vocal support to help enact change.
I’m glad the OP (or rather, the first reblogger) has changed their mind, but something absurd, like a third of all under-30s?? are voting third party. Please, please, please spread the word: it’s true, a third-party vote isn’t a waste. It’s just a vote for yourself, and a big fuck you to the rest of us.
I will keep spouting this statistic until the end of time:
If even 1% of the people who voted for Nader in Florida (not 1% of the people who voted in Florida, 1% of the people who voted for Nader in Florida) had voted for Gore instead, Bush would never have been president.
Bush beat Gore by less than the # of votes for Nader in both Florida and New Hampshire; in that election, even getting NH’s 4 measly electoral votes would have changed the outcome. But I’m not sure young people today realize just how fucking close the vote in Florida was.
This isn’t hypothetical - this happened less than 20 years ago. And it can happen again this year.
