If you work in a movie theater and you do this I have no respect for you.
My younger brother is Type 1 Diabetic.
When we go to a movie theater, we always get him diet soda. If he were to get regular when we asked for diet, we would not give him the insulin he would need for it. If that happens, his blood sugar level could go so high he could go into a coma, go blind, or even die.
If somebody gave him regular soda instead of diet without telling us, that person could be responsible for a nine-year-old being killed or blinded.
Just thinking about that makes me so angry. I get scared every time we take him to a movie in case the people working there saw this picture and decide to do the same thing.
Please signal boost this so people know.
This also applies to baristas
Fun story about the baristas doing this kind of shit.
I am very sensitive to lactose, not Lactose intolerant but because of stomach ulcers that are still healing. A couple years ago I went to Starbucks right after my classes with some friends and asked for a green tea latte with soy milk. The barista, for some reason out of malice and/or hate for her life so she took it out on me, gave me whole milk in my latte.
5 minutes after my first sip of latte, my stomach cramped BAD. Not the “Oh! time to poop!” kind of cramp but it felt like someone had stabbed me with a knife and twisted it. Now I’ve had this happen before so I knew the cause of it. I went up to the barista clutching my gut screaming at her that she put dairy in my latte rather than soy LIKE I REQUESTED. She denied it and called me a “pretentious white girl for wanting soy”and so my friends got the manager. I had to explain that I had stomach ulcers that were still healing and if I were to go to the hospital for this incident, they would be responsible for it.
Manager flipped his shit and the barista was terrified out of her mind. Pretty sure both thought i was gonna sue. Manager actually fired her on the spot because of the negligence. My friends managed to get me home in one piece while I stayed home for 3 days in absolute agony and missed my midterm.
So remember kiddies, if someone is asking for Diet or “Skinny” or “soy” or anything that is not regular, give them what they requested because it may not be them being healthy, but a dietary need that can possibly be life or death
also if they ARE trying to be healthy you should give it to them to!! Its not your decision to police or question others food choices!!!
also im lactose intolerant AND ive had stomach infections/ulcers so i feel this.
I have Celiac Disease, so I’m very gluten intolerant. When I go out to eat at restaurants a lot of people just assume that I asked for my food gluten free because of the gluten free diet fad (which is usually a bullshit diet btw).
Last month I went out to dinner with a friend at an italian restaurant that had a small gluten free menu. I had been there once before and had their gluten free pasta and it was great! I think one of the managers had been there and was super helpful when taking my order to make sure that everything was gluten free for me. When I ordered the gluten free pasta again this time though, the waitress who took my order all but rolled her eyes at me. I didn’t think much of it at the time, because the restaurant was so accommodating before, I just assumed it would be the same this time.
But sure enough, they brought out my pasta, I ate it, and about an hour later I had extreme stomach pains and was throwing up (in a movie theater no less).
Barfing and agonizing pain aside, eating gluten when you have celiac causes a lot of internal damage that’s hard to notice. The biggest thing is that it damages your intestines, preventing your body from absorbing nutrients properly, which can take months to heal.
So PLEASE, if you work at a restaurant or anything with food and someone asks for something a certain way, please listen to them and don’t just disregard someone’s order. It’s not funny and it can have serious consequences.
I will reblog this with every single story about someone getting sick because of an asshole giving them the opposite of what they ordered until it sinks in for everyone.
Recently on the news a 16 year old boy with a dairy allergy had gone to eat at IHOP with his family. The specifically asked if they could make dairy free pancakes and they said yes. Not too long after he had a reaction and was rushed to the hospital. This kid died because the was dairy in his pancakes that they asked for no dairy. His epi pen that his mother had wasn’t enough to help him. I know working in fast food or any job that’s serves food and beverage sucks but not as much as causing someone to get sick over negligence.
My youngest cousin – who is now five, he just started kindergarten – has Celiac’s disease. You would not BELEIVE the amount of times I’ve heard my aunt say she’s ordered something gluten free, only to watch the waiter or waitress’s eyes go huge when she gives it to my cousin – my cousin with the medical id band on his tiny five year old wrist proclaiming I HAVE CELIACS and have to take it back.
Shit like this could kill my cousin. Knock it the fuck off.
I cannot tolerate caffeine–it makes me have chest pain and a racing pulse, and also gives me horrible body pain, so I always ask for decaf if I order coffee when I’m out, and doublecheck with the waiter/ress when they bring it. but instead of saying “is this decaf like I asked for?” I always say “oh, did I remember to order decaf?” I shouldn’t have to act like I’m the forgetful one (because I know damn well I asked for decaf) but it seems to work better than implying that they screwed up when I take the blame on myself like that. and if there’s any hesitation when they answer, I tell them, “if there’s any doubt, please get another one, or just give me water–if this is regular, it’ll mess up my heart” and lots of times when I say that, they look alarmed and go change it or get another one.
but I shouldn’t HAVE to share my personal medical history with strangers just to get my order right! no one should! how is it their business? it makes me really uncomfortable to have to do that. JUST GIVE PEOPLE WHAT THEY ORDER!
I’ve reblogged this maaaany times before but there’s a few new stories on here so i’m doing it again.
cut this shit out
don’t be that kind of asshole.
As a diabetic, this would make me so beyond angry. Skinny doesn’t mean they don’t have a life threatening illness. Skinny doesn’t mean they can process sugar the way you do. People that do this are the worst kinds of people. DO NOT DO THIS!
Me and my family went to a restaurant a few years back and one of the dishes we ordered was made with wine vinegar, which I am allergic to, so we asked the waiter to skip it, and he said sure, no problem, that’s fine.
So my food gets to the table, and I start eating and then my throat closes and I can’t breathe and then I start coughing and throwing up right there in the middle of the restaurant and it was very fortunate that I was with my family and they knew what was happening to me.
I had to be rushed to the hospital, and admitted, and I came damn near close to having my throat cut open so I could breathe through a whole on my neck.
Because they put wine vinegar in my food when I explicitly told them not to, because they were assholes, and I could have died.
They probably didn’t mean to hurt me but they did. I missed class, and work, and, again, I COULD HAVE DIED.
i have cyclic vomiting syndrome and can’t tolerate dairy or red meat. violating my dietary restrictions triggers an acute episode, and i have to be hospitalized and given iv saline, ativan, and anti-emetics to stop the (extremely painful and incapacitating) vomiting. if somebody put regular milk instead of soy milk in my latte and i didn’t notice the taste immediately, i could wind up in the er and then spend several days in bed recovering, eating nothing but saltines and dry toast and clear liquids until my body was able to tolerate food again, unable to work or go out or do anything besides rest. whenever i go to starbucks, i WATCH them make my drink. cvs episodes are horrible and i hate them, and i can prevent them if i do everything right, but that means my damn barista has to cooperate. if somebody decided i was a stuck up white girl and gave me whole milk instead of soy they could put me in the hospital and cost me days of income. give ppl the food they fuckin order. it’s not that hard.
Reblogging because it’s so important. I’m “lucky” I don’t have any food allergies or intolerence, but it makes me mad when people take them not seriously, think you are picky or just following a “white girl diet fad”.
90% of people don’t take my cats and dog allergies seriously when I tell them I’m allergic and wondering if a cat or a dog is present at X place. They think it’s just watery eyes. Nope. Well yeah, watery and itchy eyes, but I start wo wheeze and have trouble breathing. They don’t give epi-pen for those (anyway you have to go to the hospital after) just inhaler. It’s no miracle, specially if I didn’t take other meds before.
When people tell you about their allergies or restriction, trust them!
Reblogging for all the stories here because this is sooo important!
I have a severe allergy to gluten and relate to MANY of the stories above. My daughter has a severe allergy to milk fat, and I have had to hold her hair many times while she vomits on the side of the road because we couldn’t even make it home from the “accidental” whole milk instead of skim.
I’m super lactose intolerant so accidental milk is always fun. Severe diarrhea, stomach cramps, bloating, and gas like you wouldn’t believe. Better than death you might say but, I have other medical conditions, so that diarrhea could lead to vomiting(it’s so bad the vomit comes out my mouth AND nose) and dehydration that in turn becomes low cortisol and adrenal crisis. A bitchy barista can land me in the hospital with an intramuscular shot and saline iv. Hun, it takes no time to listen and follow my order. It takes me at least 24 hours to get out of the hospital. Be nice.
I’m allergic to pork. Legit allergic. I can’t count how many times I’ve had to ask it off my food only to receive it with bacon or ham or something on it.
Please respect peoples food requests. It costs 0.00$ to not be a dick.
I actually have customers who say they’ll only eat at my restaurant when I’m there, because they know I require all policy to be followed, as in “I will kick you the fuck off your shift if you skimp,” if someone says the words “I have an allergy.” I developed our allergy policies, for that matter, because what we had in place before was “I guess you shouldn’t change your gloves … . ?” On my shifts your gloves get changed, that line gets wiped down with a new cloth, paper under EVERY ITEM for the person with the allergy, bag their food separately to prevent contact. If there’s a risk of cross-contamination with an allergen, like tomatoes in the guac because stuff spills when you’re moving as fast as we do, I’ll open a new bag of food. I learned the ingredients in every item we serve so I could advise people on hidden allergens (e.g., there’s a small amount of wheat in our beef as a thickener; we fry with safflower oil). We have a grease pencil to mark special builds and I use it liberally on allergy orders. If all of this sounds like overkill, you’ve never watched a child suffer from anaphylaxis. I don’t play around.
Like, I bitch about my job a lot, but food allergies and special needs are not something I will ever bitch about. Even if you’re a complete asshole I won’t risk contaminating your food. (Although people with allergies seem to be way nicer than the general population, I gotta say.) Don’t do it. If someone’s a petty asshole to you, give them too much ice in their drink. Don’t play with their health.
DO NOT FUCKING SCROLL PAST THIS P L E A S E
Reblogging this again because it is important. Doing the right thing has no cost but doing the wrong thing can cost a person’s life. Don’t be a dick, give the person what they ordered
Reblogging always. I especially hate that things that are legitimate concerns for people, EVEN LIFE AND DEATH SERIOUS, are taken as some kind of “fad” or “trend.” The benefit of a something becoming a trend is that it becomes more readily accessible.
The downside is when you actually need it, people assume it just for the trend.
Please don’t be this person. I beg you. Don’t sink to that level. Please.
FOR THE LOVE OF GOD P L E A S E DON’T BE THIS PERSON.
I used to have a milk and eggs allergy as a child (as a baby to about kindergarten age). Both resulted in my having breathing issues and fainting. My parents had to always be watching what the hell went near me so that I wouldn’t have to go to the hospital because they weren’t sure what would happen when I fainted.
I don’t think you would want to be the one responsible for a toddler being sent to the ER, because a) you’d probably feel bad and b) the parents might sue.
Luckily I’ve grown out of it. But as a white bitch I don’t want to know what could’ve happened if I hadn’t grown out of them and had a negligent server at at restaurant…
Don’t question people when they order. It’ll save everybody the energy.
You know what’s funny?
A lawsuit and being charged with attempted murder.
Don’t fuck with peoples orders
Why go out of your way to interfere with someone’s order like that? It honestly sounds like jealousy and bitterness. It doesn’t matter if you think someone is skinny or they’re just taking part in another diet fad and they won’t notice, YOUR ONLY JOB IS TO SERVE THEM WHAT THEY ORDERED!
IT IS NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS WHAT THEY CONSUME! DON’T BE A NASTY CUNT BECAUSE YOU HAVE YOUR OWN ISSUES!
You have no idea what your customer’s health is like, so grow up and just serve what you’re asked to serve. You aren’t paid to give diet advice to the customer, you are not paid to send them to the hospital.
Please reblog this, it’s important
Honestly if you pull this kinda shit and the person you almost killed sues your fucking ass, I will have no sympathy.
These kinds of people deserve to have their shit ruined to set a goddamn example.
also, dont fucking assume all skinny people are on a diet
im pretty damn skinny, it is not because i watch what i eat
its because i have fast metabolism.
and along with everything else the other reblogs have said, why the fuck would you purposefully fuck with someone elses order???? what kind of dick move is that??
as someone with celiac it is SO IMPORTANT that you give someone the order they asked for!! it could make them really sick!! if you want the logistics, someone with a disorder like mine would have issues absorbing the proper nutrients from food for the next few days!!!
ALWAYS give someone EXACTLY what they ordered. you could cause so much harm if you don’t.
allergies, diabetes, celiac, so many different reasons to follow someone’s order!!
WHAT THE FUCKING SHIT
as a diabetic, yikes
This is fucked up. I’d never mess with anyone’s food. I don’t have food allergies, I have sensory adversions. If somebody did that to me, I’d be mad. I can’t imagine someone doing that to someone with a real health condition that could kill them.
It’s still kinda wild how Phineas and Ferb managed to completely hijack an idiom. Now whenever someone hears a sentence leading with “If I had a nickel for everytime […]”, odds are their brain auto fills with “I’d have two nickels. Which isn’t a lot, but it’s weird that it happened twice,” rather than “I’d be rich,” or “I could [action that requires purchasing something requiring an obscene amount of money]”. Y'know, what the idiom originally was
vetted fundraisers from today. please keep sharing and donating as you’re able, it really does so much; even if your individual action feels small, you are helping to save lives.
i know you likely see posts like this every day, but please don’t tune them out. every one of these families and individuals deserves to live safely and pursue their dreams. any contribution you make keeps someone’s bright future alive
shit, sorry, I’ll delete that post right away. I didn’t know he was a mythologist at all, let alone that he was infamous for positing a “universal” narrative structure that reduces a variety of works and storytelling traditions to variations on a single Jungian theme regardless of whether their actual contents line up with his thesis. I only knew about his work with Canned Soups.
bdsm enjoyers r onto something. i think we should incorporate aftercare into just hanging out. i need a buddy to hold me and say “that was really fun and you seemed normal”
what is your most controversial video game hot take? 🎮🎮🎮
mario is a woman and just really butch
Darksouls is an easy game and people should stop talking about how hard it is and how you’ll try to kill a boss 100 times and still fail because it stops people from playing a cool game. It took me many many years to play it because I didn’t label myself as a “video game masochist”
happy disability pride month time to throw back to wheelchair user kaito again!
its been a hot minute since ive done a proper drawing of his chair so forgive it being janky
anyway aoko always gave me the vibes that she took ballet classes when she was little and this plus that one picture floating around of a couple dancing w the guy in a chair inspired this
and there is some stiff competition here at the International Penis Championships in sunny Montreal as the competitors limber up for the all important second round
aspenspeaks said: I’m so sad I found this joke before it has a bunch of notes to scroll through because you know they’re going to be gold
unless they choke in the finals! oh no it’s a wash out
I have an awful habit of leaving things unfinished.
I don’t know if that’s a trait I picked up from my childhood but my projects always end off a cliff. I used to send my writing to friends, excited to show new updates or how much more had been written since the last, and they’d groan playfully, saying they wanted more and to keep going. But once I get that first impression and validation I no longer want to continue. Someone has seen my work and now it’s spoiled. I’m still proud of it, but not enough to finish, not enough to finish the story that I think about when I’m alone in bed. I’m the same with projects. If I don’t finish in one sitting I won’t allow myself to go back to it.
There’s a quote that’s like: I am a mess of unfinished words, of half strung sentences. I am an empty paragraph, a half cleaned kitchen. I am an unfinished love song, a letter that was never sent. I am half worked on and I am waiting for a sculptor to come and sculpt me. A painter to paint over me. I am waiting for someone to take care of me.
I am waiting for someone to move the pen in my hand and finish the rest of my letter. I am waiting for someone to walk with me to the post office and mail my letter. I am waiting for someone to sing my half finished song and to write the last word in my unfinished chapter. I am waiting for someone to complete all of me that is so incomplete.
btw the objective in pointing out that bro, sis, man, girl, dude, ma'am, sir, etc. are gendered terms and can and do make a lot of people dysphoric isn’t to kill your fun, it’s to point out that we collectively need to stop tacking on unnecessarily gendered language in day to day speech, especially ones that directly attack or undermine the identity of the person you’re talking to, but also in general.
being terrified of your friends finding out you have riveting opinions like “trans men experience oppression specifically for their gender” is honestly exhausting
it’s literally just ace discourse but people who never bought into that exclusionism think it’s cool this time
hearing “I’m gonna become a baeddel” from people you heard mocking exclusionism in ace discourse and bi lesbian discourse and transmed discourse when it’s literally the same shit just. hurts. why is itme you forfeit your morals over? why now?
and a reminder: this is how exclusionism functions
it’s the same mindset, the same reasoning, the same arguments, the same tactics over and over and over again. this isn’t a flaw, it’s a part of the design
because it’s Looking for people who are susceptible to the Mindset, but haven’t been shown an “"acceptable”“ victim yet.
people who know that you’re not supposed to hate trans women or gay people or ace people or- eventually there will come a kind of person that you Don’t understand. that’s different from you, or that you have complicated feelings towards, or that you’ve never heard of.
and people who Only know that exclusionism is bad because of the Specific Victims being targeted are vulnerable to this. can be lied to, can be manipulated.
and what makes this scary is that once someone has bought into the Mindset the Victim Can Be Changed.
ace exclusionism was a terf recruiting tactic. this is a known fact. terfs were Openly courting ace exclusionists, they Openly spread ace exclusionist rhetoric, there were terfs who came out and said that they were drawn into it Through ace exclusionism.
it was to the point that a terf post would gain some steam, and within a day the Literal Exact Same Post would show up in the ace exclusionism tag with "ace people” swapped out with “trans women.”
your friends that were willing to stand up for ace people once upon a time might not be willing to do the same in a few years if they’re walking down the exclusionism path now. it’s Easier than some people would like to admit to go from hating one kind of trans person to hating All trans people.
and that’s exactly Why it’s important to understand how exclusionism works, how radfem rhetoric works. it’s not enough to just hate a specific kind of exclusionism or to recognize that it’s wrong to hurt a specific kind of victim. because the Methods, the Mindsets, the talking points, they’re Fundamentally harmful. and you Can be tricked by them if you don’t know what to look for.
Additionally, there are people that full out hate the target, and others who will say “but they’re not as oppressed as they say they are.”
Both of these are exclusionists. Just to different degrees. And thinking the second one will almost certainly lead you to a pipeline of believing the first one.
As someone who has personally had to take those calls, they do matter. It just doesn’t matter what you say in the call: the only way your calls actually reach the politician is a tally sheet of each call received on different topics. End of the day/week, the politician gets told “you had X many calls about people wanting you to do this, Y many calls about people wanting you to do this, etc.”
Individual calls matter little, but if they get tons of calls on one topic then they take it seriously. The example above was probably during a time where the office was flooded with so many calls at once that they took the phones off the hook, which actually means that calls are working especially well. When the phones are blowing up, everyone in the office notices.
The best call to your representative does not involve you making an impassioned and well-argued case, because you’re probably talking to an intern. The most effective call you can make takes 15 seconds: “I am from [place in your district] and I am very pissed about [topic].”
OI. PEOPLE IN THE THREAD. CAN WE REBLOG THIS VERSION PLEASE. DON’T STOP MAKING CALLS.
But also as another person further up says, don’t let your activism start and stop with phone calls either.
DON’T TRUST ANYONE WHO TELLS YOU NOT TO PARTICIPATE
All these cyberpunk-themed tabletop RPGs on itch.io and not one of them that aims for the vibe of those goofy-ass Canadian YA cyberpunk shows that aired on YTV back in the 1990s. You know the ones:
the protagonist is named something safely conventional like Kyle or Jake, while every single other kid is sporting a moniker like “Glitch” or “Fractal” or “K C” with absolutely no indication that these aren’t the names their parents gave them
everybody’s wearing an eleven-year-old white kid’s idea of what hip-hop fashion looks like, except for the ambiguously teenage principal villain, who’s sporting a Spirit Halloween knockoff of a random military uniform
90% of the show is clearly filmed in some anonymous industrial park, apart from a handful of flashbacks which were probably shot in the producer’s house
the writing seems to be unclear on the distinction between “hacker” and “wizard”; there’s a strong possibility none of the writers have ever actually used a computer in their lives
Ryan Reynolds is there
I swear I’ll write it myself if I have to.
(For those asking for examples they can watch, that’s going to be tough because a lot of them were short runs and/or pilots that never got picked up, and many appear to have become lost media; the only one I can think off of the top of my head that you’d easily be able to torrent is The Odyssey – which is technically not an example of the type, being a fantasy adventure show set in a kid’s coma dream, but otherwise very much adheres to the forms of the genre!)
That definitely rings a bell, and I’m pretty sure I watched it when I was like fifteen, but for the life of me I cannot remember what it was called.
I definitely remember watching shows like this just while flipping channels on, like, a Saturday afternoon; but yeah, I’m damned if I have any idea what any of them were called.
…I mean, it was a cartoon, but “The Bots Master” had a similar vibe.
Hey, at least you correctly identified that I’m talking about live-action shows. Half the people in the notes think I’m vaguing about ReBoot.
There was this one where all the adults were gone and the teenager who rebuilt society all had like, bubble-gum pop meets cyberpunk style. At one point they instituted the death penalty by popular vote? Someone in-verse put together a PSA about how the new punishment decided by vote system worked.
Hm. You might be thinking of 2030 CE; it was a very late entry in the genre, debuting in 2002, and the cast skews somewhat older than was typical, but it’s not a bad place to start given that most of the earlier examples are such a pain in the ass to find.
“humans are all emotionally messed up because they all grew up without a Sother (the third parent humans don’t have because of only two people are needed to make a pregnancy)” - aliens
why are british people always so mad when people make jokes about their accents. sorry you say yewchube. it’s funny though innit
This is something I’ve been dying to talk about.
There’s something called culture. People (especially USAmericans) think of culture as cultural dress, cultural food, cultural music. These are culture, but they are only the very superficial aspects of it. Like the icing on your cake. Far more deep rooted is the more meaty bits of culture: the attitudes, the ideas, the taboos.
There’s a guy on tiktok who has done a series that shows this very well, of Germans Vs Irish. In one video the German offers the Irish person two kinds of tea, green or black. The Irish person keeps putting off the choice with things like “Oh sure whatever is easiest”, “Which have you more of?” and, “Ah sure I don’t want to cause a fuss” whereas the German just wants a straight answer. This is a cultural difference of politeness.
Here in the UK, accents mark your class very openly. They let everyone know where you’re from (though this has become less pronounced in the last 50 years,) and what your background is. A lot of people (especially northerners, but also a fair contingent of working class southerners) face discrimination on the basis of their accents.
Some of us (myself included) even change register (though I believe USAmericans call it code switching) in and out of our regional accent and a close approximation of RP. We learn to do it because it makes us seem more intelligent (even though it shouldn’t) and helps us be taken more seriously.
Thus, our country carries a lot of baggage when it comes to accents. Especially those of the working class who have had their accents made fun of, or have faced discrimination based on it.
So when someone outside the country (usually USAmericans) makes fun of our accents they’re stepping on a lot of cultural taboos and boundaries. Especially because the “It’s Chewsday, gonnae wot-ch sum yewchube innit” is a working class accent.
Now, that’s not to say we can’t take a joke, but this is the kind of joke you share with someone who you have been friends with for a while. My boyfriend often will pick up on the way I say certain words, in much the same fashion I pick up on his idiosyncrasies of speech (English isn’t his first language so he says stuff like close the lights, which is adorable.) If we aren’t predisposed to liking you, then the joke you’re trying to make is more like an insult.
The way I like to think of it is if you were in a pub, and made those sorts of jokes to someone. If they knew you, and they liked you, they’d probably laugh along. If they didn’t like you or know you, they would punch you in the jaw.
HOWEVER: I recognise this post as a joke. I don’t personally find these jokes offensive, but then no one really makes fun of me or considers me stupid because of my accent.
Oh that actually makes a lot of sense! It’s like how it’s assumed in media that the southeastern Appalachian (‘hick’ or ‘redneck’) accent is audible shorthand for ‘this American character is stupid.’ That sentiment reinforces negative stereotypes about that region which has historically been home to a large working class population that has suffered from an underfunded education system and other systematic abuses. It is ultimately an underhanded joke, but not everyone from America (or even the region necessarily) considers it to be offensive despite its classist nature.
yes, that’s basically it! it grinds my gears when certain Very Online Americans will quite rightly say that europeans have no right to mock the us’ lack of healthcare/gun control and working-class accents…but then turn around and act like working-class british accents and foods are hilarious and should be mocked ‘bc of colonialism and the bp oil spill’ as though all british people are directly responsible for the oil spill. and then some of them conveniently forget that there are in fact british people of colour - in the wake of brexit, a smug american blog defended saying that british people upset by the referendum were getting ‘karma’ for the british empire, even when british poc pointed out that they were the ones most likely to be negatively affected by brexit, by saying ‘obviously i don’t mean you’, to which said british poc responded ‘THEN WHY DID YOU SAY BRITISH PEOPLE’
The hatred, by the privileged of England, towards Scotland and any Scottish accent was so pervasive that my mother wouldn’t let my brother and I develop a Scottish accent. She was born in Jamaica but her family moved to London when she was 11. She moved to Scotland when she was pregnant with me. Both my brother and I were born in Scotland and spent out entire childhood there. Mum was adamant that neither of us would have the local accent. It was “common” and “low class” and “would hinder us in the future”. She used to fine us half our pocket money if we used any Scottish slang or said anything in a Scottish accent. I got bullied at school for having a “posh English accent” but she thought my job prospects were more important than a modicum of happiness at school. My outsider status was doubled by that. I was brown and “English”.
Even now, after decades in Scotland, I still don’t sound Scottish. The English hear a slight lilt but that disappears as soon as I spend any time with them.
I feel alienated on two fronts now, skin colour and accent. And one of those was avoidable if it hadn’t been for the prejudice against against perceived lower class accents. Even in Jamaica Mum learnt to speak in an English accent like the white girls at her school. She could switch between the two. Jamaican with her parents, posh English everywhere else. Why couldn’t I have had that?
The fact that a lot of regional actors are expected to code-switch their accent patterns the a kind of neutral English accent in Britain shows how pervasive the classism is.
When Christopher Eccleston was cast as the Doctor in Doctor
Who, people were surprised that he used his own northern accent, instead
of performing with an accent like every Doctor before him. That was
only 15-ish years ago.
Regional and working class accents were used as joke accents for decades in British media. Look up old broadcasts and notice how many people only speak RP English (ie. the formal pronunciation that smacks of elocution lessons and enunciation). As media accessibility and productions expanded, there have been more regional accents showing up, but it’s still a big problem.
Putsimply when you mock “innit” you’re mocking poor people and often people of colour. Boris Johnson doesn’t say “innit bruv”.
I would like to add that there was a study by the Worcester College that found that people talking with a Birmingham accent were twice as likely to be accused of a crime as people who speak RP. Accents carry huge baggage in Britain.
As a general rule, if you’re having food cravings, you should probably pay attention to that, because it’s usually a sign that your body needs something. Like, if you’ve just finished a workout and are suddenly desperately craving fries? Maybe you’re low on salt, you did just sweat a whole bunch. Period cravings for junk food? Your body’s under some stress and working hard, you need energy, and foods with a lot of fat and/or sugar are an easy way to get that.
Back in the early 1900’s when exploring Antarctica was all the rage, y'know what was a major part of everyones daily rations? Butter. Just butter. The men out on the sledging teams would have cravings to eat entire sticks of butter with nothing else, so that was included in their rations. And that happened because under those extreme circumstances, their bodies desperately needed as many calories as possible, so their diet consisted mainly of butter, chocolate, and animal fat. Eating entire sticks of butter was the healthiest possible diet for them.
That’s an extreme example of course, but my point is, there’s no such thing as inherently Good or Bad food. Anything that’s edible can be healthy under the right circumstances, just like anything can be an unhealthy choice under the wrong circumstances. Your body knows what it needs. Listen to it. Unless you’re actively going through a serious medical situation, you do not need a tightly restricted diet. Diet culture is a scam, body fat is natural and healthy, food is good for you, and calories are the fuel your body needs to power its continued survival.
Once again wizards all over the world are teased with the promise of the Superb Owl only to have all their hopes dashed by sports ball game that lasts 4 hours
WRONG
Superb Owl Time
(Courtesy of our local zoo which is home to many Superb Owls)
“genre-savvy” no i want a genre-unsavvy protagonist. scratch that, i want a genre-deluded protagonist.
i want a protagonist who is convinced until the last possible moment that they’re in a lighthearted romcom–despite the proliferation of slasher murders. give me a soccer dad who is just so determined to enjoy family vacation, despite the fact the kids summoned an eldritch deity from the lake. a preteen who is experiencing a coming-of-age saga and annoyed their parents aren’t emotionally present (the parents are distracted by a literal zombie apocalypse). endless possibilities