pineapplesquid

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let's struggle to dine with mama

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This is one of the amazing things about having a toddler, because we work hard to encourage her and now she’s old enough to *do it back to us*. “You got this!” when I say that I’m not sure if I can reach to plug a cord in. “You did it, mama!” when I open a sticky jar lid.

My reassurance/motivation language has always been specific and supported by evidence—vague affirmations like “you can do this!” generally don’t mean much to me. Except, it turns out, when my toddler does it to me.

Because I *did* get that jar lid, and in a little person’s world, that’s a big deal!

Genuinely I think repeatedly making "I'm so brave for (doing mildly uncomfortable thing)" jokes is actually really building my resilience, because when I accomplish an actually difficult task I'm then suddenly euphoric and then chasing the high of accomplishing more tasks.

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im going crazy you have GOT to decouple romance/amatonormativity and marriage in your mind. you have GOT to understand that marriage is a legal document that protects you from exploitation especially if you are a woman or a stay-at-home anything. it is not some evil unique to heterosexual people. it is a legal document that says 'this is who i want in my hospital room when i die, this is who i want to have my stuff when i die, THIS PERSON OWES ME RECOMPENSE IF THEY KICK ME OUT OF THE HOUSE I LIVE IN"

You are not immune to being taken advantage of by your partner if you are queer. do not wind up homeless because your garbage live-ins name is on the lease and they decided to drop you like hot coals.

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The word you are looking for is “selfish.” Not narcissist, not sociopath, selfish.

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Miles Vorkosigan and Ekaterin have some of this vibe going.

Too many himbo hero/sneaky heroines plots out there. Where are the just and straightforward heroine with a sneaky boyfriend subversions?

Fry and Leela except if Fry was smart.

Eowyn and Grima Wormtongue if Grima weren’t evil and also gross.

C’mon. Someone must have done it.

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Buffy would be SO jealous of Huntrix.

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Also, no part of the country is *that* solidly red or blue. I live in a state that is very red, all Republicans everywhere, and yet about 40% of us voted against Trump. The people who voted for him don’t deserve to lose healthcare, but those of us who didn’t *really* don’t, and there are a lot of us too.

“Healthcare in America is horrible. Healthcare in rural America is a nightmare. I have an idea. Make it worse. This will definitely boost the economy.”

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Oh, bonus:

Ships and their captains.

Breq is One Esk, so of course her story is about Lieutenant Awn. But I wonder what story we’d hear from Justice of Toren entire. She might never forgive either.

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Ships and their captains.

Breq is One Esk, so of course her story is about Lieutenant Awn. But I wonder what story we’d hear from Justice of Toren entire. She might never forgive either.

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Physical therapy is wild because they're always like "hey do this weird little movement" and you're like "hmm my brain doesn't seem to know how to activate that movement" and then they'll like trick your brain into doing it by making you do other movements first or making you resist against them moving you or some shit and your brain is like oooooh ✅ new movement unlocked. And then they tell you to do that movement 20 times a day and you do and it makes some part of your body you didn't even know was related hurt less. What the fuck.

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let’s get on mama’s last nerve

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The real benefit to having a larger vocabulary is toddler-proof code. The toddler, screaming: “Where is fox! I want fox!” Us, later, when she seems to have forgotten about it: “I haven’t yet located the vulpine companion.”

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I never do this, but I’m trying not to pick a fight with the actual author because I doubt it’ll do any good: acting like you’re an expert in genetics when you use the words “gene” and “allele” interchangeably is a bit rich. And asserting that a whole species has no polygenic traits is ridiculous.

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My (unsolicited) advice to any parents out there who would like to have their adult children and potential partners/spouses come visit them is to raise their children, especially their boys*, to be people who can/will arrange the logistics of a family trip.

This is brought to you by a couple of I’m-pretty-sure-actually-not-passive-aggressive comments from my MIL about how we visit my family more often, and a couple of articles about how the parental grandparents tend to miss out.

You want your kids to visit? Raise adults who will do the work to make it happen.

*this can arise in either gender, of course—my own marriage is proof of that—but let’s not pretend that there isn’t a broader pattern of who is more likely to manage household logistics.