Don't get your hopes up @grendelianmind - Tumblr Blog

college is catered towards the able bodied and able minded. school applauds people who can stay up all night, skip meals, and work endlessly. that kind of extreme contribution is expected. why are disabled people being squeezed out of academic institutions? why should I feel inferior because of some arbitrary and ridiculous standard?

sickly-tired

The undying truth.

sylveon-trender-deactivated2019

Not to mention, every college campus Ive ever been on is MADE of stairs and hills.

captainamerica-inmiddleearth

I tried to talk to one of my college professors about my ADHD once and he literally stopped me and said if I couldn’t handle it I shouldn’t be there

closet-keys

Read the book Academic Ableism on this subject. It’s an excellent read and I genuinely think about it all the time still even though I read it a couple years ago.

gehayi

Here’s the Open Access version.

afloweroutofstone

peachpitandpomegranate-deactiva

Tell me this ain't Nicky and Joe. I dare youuu

ground-zoro

I have never seen Islam shown so humanized, so relaxed, so innocent and pure. That’s brilliant and funny.

just-rhys-things

This feels like the equivalent of the school girl running to class with toast in her mouth but prayer

cripplepunk-sylveon

You all deserve to know dude in the foreground is Jewish, and has done his own version of this with Chanukah where he's literally just. Running out the door reciting his prayers in Hebrew and it's wonderful

mypersonalgoblincave

Here's the Jewish version

unbidden-yidden-deactivated20240

This is the Muslim/Jewish solidarity we need LMAO

miss-sagemoon

Both versions are just amazing

lokihiddleston

› request by @thelightofthingshopedfor

traegorn

Predators. They're predators.

traegorn

@thecoloredcanvas wrote

So a couple of things

1. Witch is a gender neutral term

2. Not really sure how anyone practicing witchcraft at home is suddenly a "predator"

3. Not a man.

All that aside, you respond to a video criticizing someone literally targeting vulnerable people to take advantage of them, and your reaction is "the person doing the criticizing is just as bad because of the gender identity I assume they are?"

Like seriously, what the fuck.

libraford

Trae: hey, there's a pervasive problem in my community of people conflating neurodivergent coping mechanisms as magical powers and using that conflation as a means to create an insular community which if gone unchecked can turn into an abusive situation where people can get hurt.

This rando: Ah, but I can see by your video that you are not what I consider female and therefore YOU are the abuser! Checkermate!

Seriously. Even setting aside the fact that Trae is not a man (the big genderqueer flag is visible in every frame, but I guess not everyone is familiar with that flag). There is so much wrong with the mindset that witches have to be female (and implied here as gender-conforming cis female) but also... just to touch...

Women can be predators. Women can be abusers. Women are fully capable of manipulating people for personal gain, whether that be for money or for something even worse. Women are not exempt from criticism of their actions.

I swear to every god. If you think women can't be predatory then you have never had a friend from high school guilt you into a mlm scheme.

guerrillatech

somecunttookmyurl

we should bring back the supernatural fandom somehow having an extremely specific gif for literally every occasion though

i know you guys are still out there. i know you still have your .gif folders. don't pretend you're not.

fade-steppin

somecunttookmyurl

you. you get it.

bettedavisgf

i don’t care what anyone says i love tik tok

tiktoksthataregood-ish

derinthescarletpescatarian

Foreigners tend to assume that the big cultural confusions between Australians and most other countries are gonna be based on our food, or social services, or weather, or weird animals. But it’s never that. In my experience, the real cultural confusions re: Australians are about The Respect Thing almost one hundred per cent of the time.

deathsmallcaps

? I realize im proving your point but what

derinthescarletpescatarian

The broader Australian culture doesn’t, as a whole, have status-based respect. Some individual groups might, because they’ve brought it from other cultures they’re involved in, but the general culture doesn’t. There’s no sense that your boss or scout leader or the guy in charge of your country deserves more respect than you, or that you should behave differently to them than you would to any random person you know similarly well. (The very rare exceptions include ritualised settings, such as courtrooms, and for some reason the fact that children use “Miss/Ms/Mr” honourifics for teachers at school.)

I don’t mean Australians are a “stick it to the man, fight back against those in power” kind of people – we’re generally not. And I don’t mean we have a “we’re going to do the status thing but pretend we don’t and pretend to all be equal in mixed company” thing that middle-class Americans do. I mean the status-respect system does not exist, and if you try to use it, it weirds people the fuck out at best, and insults them at worst. Treating someone most countries would say is ‘above’ you differently in Australia is basically telling that person that you hate them; it’s saying “I’m forced to interact with you due to our current circumstances but I don’t see you as a person and won’t grant you the basic respect of treating you like an equal”. (When I was in America, I was constantly suppressing the instinct that random service people were sassing me because they overuse honourifics and were so keen to help me.)

This makes interacting with foreigners really baffling in a lot of circumstances. In university, my international friends would often describe Australians as “friendly, but very rude”. They thought we were all arseholes because of the way we spoke to our PhD supervisors and soforth, and wouldn’t believe us when we explained that our behaviour was respectful and that being deferential would be weird and awkward and insulting to them. Learning Japanese had a similar problem; everyone in the class could get the concept of different levels of formality and deference in language, ans was happy to memorise the usage of various words for Japanese people, but using them on each other was super weird, and we’d only ever use the most casual form of anything unless specifically instructed otherwise by the teacher.

The reason I’ve been thinking of this lately is because I’ve recently become aware that a lot of countries have like… a special respect for their country’s leaders? I don’t just mean “yeah, that guy makes the rules”, but that having that office makes them better than everyone else, somehow. Which I expect from countries with royal families, because Tradition, but I’ve recently found that Americans feel this way about their President, too. (Except the current one, who seems to be enough of a dick to break the system.) Like, if six Americans were in an aeroplane that was going down and there was only one parachute and one of the Americans was A Generic Non-Trump President, it’s just assumed that that guy gets the parachute? Like he’s automatically the life worth saving over the others, and they’d just give up their chance in favour of him? And that’s so weird to me. An Australian prime minister would have a 1 in 6 chance at the parachute; however the people decided, “this guy happens to be the leader of the country” wouldn’t be a factor.

When Americans don’t like a President, they usually feel the need to work in how he’s “not my president”, either through sheer denial, or by finding some way he’s theoretically illegitimate (different ways votes are counted, wild conspiracy theories about birth country, etc.), and while making sure those rules are obeyed IS extremely important, I’ve recently noticed that part of the motivation seems to be that they’re invested in whether he’s Really The President because being the President somehow makes someone Special rather than just a normal dick who’s been put in charge of the group project. (You see the same thing in “THIS IS TRUMP’S AMERICA!”, like him becoming President gives him superpowers or something).

This is getting off-topic. Point is, in Australia you can run into the Prime Minister and ask him to help you fix your phone and if he’s not busy but refused to help you out he’d be kind of a dick; of course he should help you out. And if I walk into your restaurant and you act like I’m a movie star and you’re going to be super attentive to my every need because I’m The Customer, I’m gonna get creeped out. We’re suspicious and insulted by what most people in the world consider to be basic manners, and vice versa. And it makes interacting with foreigners super weird because I always feel like they’ve got some invisible heirarchical flowchart in the back of their minds that I don’t.

becausegoodheroesdeservekidneys

I have long noticed that Americans have absolutely the same cultural attitude to the President as they would to a serving monarchy. They just think they don’t on a technicality.

drferox

Can confirm that if I call someone ‘Sir/Madam’ I generally mean ‘asshole’ (unless talking to an animal or tiny child) and that if I get called Ma’am I feel like I’m being called the asshole, which made time in Atlanta, Georgia suoer weird.

materassassino

Australians have a very good attitude to respect

onionhighonionandrenown

…so this explains why I have spent the last fourteen years low-grade pissed off at nearly every Australian I meet, because every time I try to be American Polite at them it pisses them off. And, for that matter, why my second boss here, the one I was so careful to be Formally Respectful of and always called “sir,” took such an intense dislike to me.

derinthescarletpescatarian

Yeah, even if that boss understood that you were American and what that meant, their instincts would’ve been screaming at them the whole time that you were being a dick. It’s a difficult thing for us to get used to even when we know the culture is different’.

earhartsease

As a Brit visiting Australia, the most vivid experience I had of this is: in the UK it’s really uncool to get into the passenger seat of a cab - you’re expected to get in the back. In Australia the reverse was apparently true.

derinthescarletpescatarian

… I am only just now realising that inAmerican and British movies and stuff, people don’t get in the passenger seat of a taxi.

whitmerule

covid update: you’re now meant to get in the back seat for social distancing and IT FEELS SO RUDE. sorry taxi person I AM NOT TRYING TO SHUN YOu just I know there are rules and we’re protecting each other. let’s be intensely awkward for a while.

makaeru

Reblogging this because I just remembered the time Molly Meldrum absolutely horrified Prince Charles by describing meeting the Queen as “I saw your mum last week”.

love-lays-bleeding

One of my favorite travel books described humanity as, broadly speaking, having two types of culture: one where formal is respectful and informal is rude, and vice versa. Australian culture sees formality as hostile or unfriendly and familiarity as warmth. It’s decidedly not the case in USA as a whole, though as with any broad category the dichotomy changes as the group gets smaller.

wolverrina

YOU PUT THE THING INTO WORDS!

padeko

Different cultures are fascinating.

healingmachinewithskeletoninside

This is wild! It feels subtle enough in theory (as a Vermonter, where sir/ma’am are not really used) but I can imagine how it could sour so many interactions. Apparently the Simpsons had a bead on this long ago…

derinthescarletpescatarian

That Simpsons episode was surprisingly accurate in many ways. (Mad at them for telling the rest of the world about our Boot though.)

shiisiln

As a pathologically overpolite midwesterner,I assume I would get fucking decked within five minutes in Australia

derinthescarletpescatarian

You’d get a reputation for being a bit of a cunt, definitely.

deathsmallcaps

If an American family moved to Australia and the parents had the kids call them ‘ma’am’ and ‘sir’ unironically would they assume it’s abuse?

derinthescarletpescatarian

Not on its own, but it would definitely have people on the lookout for abuse. If I interacted with that family I’d be extra vigilant in checking that the children aren’t being starved or beaten or otherwise being made afraid of their parents somehow. (Keeping a general eye out for these things is an expected duty for people who work in my industry.) But if the kids were fine people would just accept this as a weird quirk; other kids might tease them about it though.

For most of my life I assumed that when kids on American TV called their parents ‘sir’ or ‘ma’am’, this was supposed to be a tip-off to the audience that they were being abused; it was only in the last couple of years that I learned that in parts of America this is just a normal term of familial address.

postilionstruckbylightning

Adult peers would probably also mock the shit out of the parents if they found out about it.

yourlocalcorviddad

Ok but what about, like, those of us who use “hon” and “sweetheart” as a thing? Does that come off as sass?

derinthescarletpescatarian

Unless it’s to a close friend or family member, or you’re over the age of eighty, it comes off as massively demeaning.

myothertardisisonthemun

As a fellow Aussie, I endorse this post

gayahithwen

This is super interesting to me, because I grew up in Sweden, which is super informal… but there is a specific event that pushed us there. So like, we used to be all about titles. But not generally… generic titles. Like, if you didn’t know someone, sure, a generic “mr/mrs/ms” might be fine. But it used to be that you were supposed to learn and use every single person’s profession as a title. Like “Greetings, Grocer Svensson” (you could even omit the surname if you wanted to), etc etc. And then use second person plural after the fact (“du” = you, singular (like English used to have “thou” for that), “ni” = you, plural… but “ni” ALSO = you, formal (like English just started using “you” for everyone just to be polite and then completely lost “thou”))… But then, we just kind of… in the late 1960s, we just decided to stop doing that? And over the next few decades, it fell out of use completely. To the point that I, being born in the mid-1980s, never titled anyone, ever. Except they tried a little bit in school, but even little primary schoolers were like “that’s bullshit, we’re not doing that” and not only didn’t title our teachers, we called them all by their first names. Or nicknames. We just decided to drop the whole system, and in the end, we wound up instead of the title system and a polite pronoun, we went… call everyone by their first name and use the informal you. And just… at this point, I believe the only institutionalized formality we really have left is a rule that says you can’t just “du” the sitting monarch. And even there, it’s not like “would his royal highness care for some refreshment?”, just… more like “hey, king, want some coffee?” So yeah, going from a country where you address everyone the same to the US was weird. I still don’t feel like I fully “get” it.

kyraneko

It’s kinda like getting invited into the parlor/formal living room versus getting invited into the kitchen. There’s some cultures where the Good Furniture Room is the place to bring your treasured guests, and there’s some cultures where you really know you’re accepted when you get invited into the kitchen.

alarajrogers

The US is actually a totally mixed-up melange of respect/formality. Depending on where you are and who you are, calling someone sir/ma’am might be very respectful or very disrespectful or a weird mixture (you are addressing me with a term of respect that I did not deserve or earn and that makes me feel disrespected). In some places, adults who are friends of the family are Mr or Miss/Ms/Mrs Firstname, or Aunt/Uncle Firstname, or Mr or Miss/Ms/Mrs Lastname. (And some families encourage kids to address adults by first names without a title prefix.) Most workplaces nowadays have everyone address each other by first names, but last name is often part of the email address so it’s hard to figure out email address from the name you were given to call someone with. I’ve never worked anywhere that bosses were Mr. or Miss/Ms/Mrs, and I have lived in Atlanta in the 90′s and have worked in New York, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, New Jersey and Maryland, and began in the mid-80′s, so this is a thing that we’ve had for a while.

I’ve seen a number of ND/autistic people argue recently that America’s shift from formal = respect to familiar = respect over the past 60 years is bad because now we’re in a transitional state where the rules change depending on where you are and who you’re dealing with, and people will do things like have you call them Bob but then demand the kind of deference a Mr. Smith would get. I just solve this problem by never addressing anyone by any kind of name until I’m absolutely sure I know what’s going on.

disease-danger-darkness-silence

I feel like I’d get along with Australians better than most Americans. *sigh* I hate formality. Even at work, I refuse to use sir or ma'am (both because it’s overly formal to my west-coast sensibilities, and because it’s gendered). I’m really polite, but I don’t like formalities. My family has always been very much the casual kind of family - the “kitchen” versus “parlor” type. But parents who make their children call them sir or ma'am absolutely raises my personal alarms about potential child abuse, emotional or physical. I don’t know what it is, but I get a super-creepy vibe from it.

akiyty

I would like to add/confirm, as an Aussie in kiwiland, it’s even more true over the ditch. And its not quite the “PM fix the phone” example but it is “PM pass the bottle opener” so close enough

gumnut-logic

This does explain a few things for me 😁

It particularly explains why TOS Tracy boys showing Jeff such deference REALLY pisses me off. I know it is the sixties and I’m trying to counterbalance, but it never occurred to me it was also a cultural thing that may or may not exist in the present.

There other instances that completely baffle my Aussie autistic brain (people are hard work), but this is my Thunderbirds blog so I’m gonna focus on that 😁

Also, a little terrified to go overseas because I’ll probably offend a lot of people.

Nutty

(Baffled by the rules of my own culture, interacting with another? ::chews nails:: )

tsarinatorment

As a Brit, this fascinates me on both ends of the spectrum. Both the familiarity of the Aussies, but also the straight-up formality of the Americans? I had no idea the US was that strict on hierarchy.

Like, in my day-to-day life (and Britain, like other countries, is not a single idea and different areas and families do things differently, so don’t assume I’m talking for all Brits here - I’m not), the terms ‘sir’ and ‘madam’ are no longer in general use. If I don’t know someone’s name or how to address them and it’s a formal letter (or email, nowadays!), I’ll title it ‘dear sir’ and see how they address me back, but for someone in the street? I won’t use anything at all.

Tbh, most of the time I’m looking to avoid interaction rather than engage it in, and I think this is where my experience of Brits differs from how Aussies and Americans are described above. As a general rule, sitting next to someone is, not rude, but not the Done Thing, unless you know them. Sitting next to a stranger on a bench, or public transport, etc. unless there are no other seats? Doesn’t happen. You do that, you’re a weirdo and someone to be escaped at the nearest opportunity because that is entirely too forward and direct (and especially if it’s a man, as a woman that sends alarm bells ringing all the way through me). The only possible exception to this is the elderly, because they’re generally considered sweet and harmless and maybe they’re lonely and just want a nice young lady for company for a few minutes. Even if there are no other seats, you still have to ask awkwardly if it’s okay to sit there (and be told with a fake grin that of course it is, even though both parties know they don’t want you there - saying no is rude!).

We just… don’t talk to each other here. And when we do we like to dance around things rather than address it directly. I still have online interactions where someone will just say something unexpected to me and I get sheer second hand embarrassment from how can you just say that, that’s so rude! even though it’s not rude in their culture (this is most common with Americans, in fact I think I’ve only had it with Americans - Aussies, while they do tend to be more familiar than I’m sometimes used to, I’ve never found to be direct enough to be rude to my delicate Brit sensibilities!)

derinthescarletpescatarian

#i’ve just realised that tjis is why i hate it when USians write aussies#there’s a difference between being casual and being a dick#and cuz americans don’t know about it they just interpret us as like excessively friendly or rude#and thus the characters are like uncanny valley#not a judgement btw just an observation

lifes-lens

By: Jan Kronies

dankmemeuniversity

explorerrowan

They’re also shooting for 100% renewable plastic sources by 2030! All of the soft plant/leaf elements in sets right now and going forward are made out of bioplastic made from sugarcane, and they’re working on getting the regular hard plastic bricks out of that, too.

lynnafred

They’ve done it, actually! The full bricks are in the prototype stage now, and are expected to be 100% biodegradable without the need for a commercial compost facility. It’s very cool. Right now they’re testing the durability and playability of the bricks and seeing what needs to be revised/reworked on their final model.

So its that easy huh

Of course it is

I wouldn't normally comment on the met gala outfits openly but. In defence of Elliot Page. I feel like a lot of people are missing that this is his first gala since coming out as transmasc and even without considering the green rose in his lapel (an obvious dual oscar wilde green carnation and prom flower reference), his outfit Yells "teen trans boy's first prom suit, borrowed/bought a size too large because it was the smallest available". The obviously overlong sleeves. The cut of the jacket collar. The overlong suit pants. The massive chunky black sneakers. The massive green rose in his lapel.

There's no way it isn't an intentional exaggeration of the young american transmasc experience. He understood the assignment, you all just aren't understanding him

itsapmseymour

So, the 1962 M+Ms Mascots are the best design

I like this one so much I drew them

toastbutteregg

queersamus

my middle school and high school very much had showers and i was in a POOR ass little nothing town, where were y'all that they didn’t even offer a locker room and showers???