#he really has the audacity to say this while existing as a cat and woman coded character

[kinokoshoujoart]

[carewyncromwell]

1, 10, 19 and 20 for Lane : )

Who was the last person you held hands with?

Lane: "(considers this) Hmm...I suppose it would have to be Judy. She used to drag me along by the hand a lot at school, and even now she likes holding my hands while we're talking or when we meet back up after a long time. Even when we go walking together, it's often arm-in-arm since Judy has had to start walking with a cane -- "

Much to her displeasure.

Lane: " -- and she likes when she can lean against me instead."

Who was the last person you had a deep conversation with?

Lane: "(smiles wryly) Well, depending on what you mean by 'conversation,' I'd guess it'd have to be Kingsley Shacklebolt. The Minister sent me a letter asking for some historical insight into the dementors of Azkaban, and before long, we ended up discussing the creatures themselves and the...morality of their position at the prison."

[Lane's lips knit together very seriously.]

Lane: "(more quietly) Given how much my Winnie's ward Erik in particular suffered at such creatures' hands, I told him we at least would support him if he chose to remove them from Azkaban. Only a person akin to my own father I think is wicked enough to deserve cohabitating with such creatures for any period of time...and fortunately people as cruel and irredeemable as him are quite rare."

[Lane's expression clears ever-so-slightly.]

Lane: "...If you mean an actual verbal conversation, then that would have to be my heart-to-heart with Winnie's boyfriend Orion, after I finally met him."

Do you like bubble baths?

Lane: "(actually giggles) Not for myself, no -- but oh, being able to watch my wee bairns play with bubbles in the tub? That brings back such good memories..."

Do you like your neighbors?

Lane: "At present I actually live rather remotely, so I don't have neighbors...but I guess I can talk about the ones I had when Jay and Winnie were little. In Westminster, I spoke to only two of our neighbors casually -- the family on our left, headed by a woman who entered and won just about every lawn competition in existence, and an elderly couple across the street who went to our church. That couple would look after our cat Ella, if we ever needed to go out of town. I actively tried to avoid the neighbor on the right -- their son was in the same class as Jay, and both he and his parents were actively antagonistic toward him. Once the father of the boy even had the audacity to ask Evan on his way out the door for work if he needed a good paddle to use on Jay, to punish him for his school behavior."

[However quiet and level Lane's voice is saying this, her eyes are smoldering with icy, Charles-Cromwell-worthy hatred just remembering this. Something a bit more like a smirk then briefly flickers over her face as she adds,]

Lane: "...Evan actually shot back with some temper that day. He told the man the only people who deserve to get hit are parents who think that violence is an appropriate way to discipline children."

[As much as Lane's relationship with Evan is fractured beyond repair, it's clear that Lane is still so unbelievably proud of her ex-husband's reaction.]

Lane: "In Liverpool, we had a lot of neighbors in our complex, but Jay, Winnie, and I didn't talk to them all that much, since at that time, I really had no time for socializing around my long hours at work. I did speak to the owner of the building and a woman who owned an ice cream parlor between our building and Winnie's school named Mrs. Sackett, however, and they became Winnie's main emergency contacts while I was at work, in case she'd ever needed to get a hold of me or in case anything happened. They'd always let me know the moment that Winnie passed by them on her way home from primary school, when she had to walk home on her own. Mrs. Sackett in particular was always very kind...she was alone so much of the time, but she always so appreciated whenever Winnie would stop in to visit, especially when Jacob was with her."

Number Ask!

[jjuzoir]

Random Kageyama Tobio HCS

Word Count: 1851

Warnings: just... me being in love with a m*n other than masumi 😔 also! these are my headcanons as in,,, what i personally i think he’d be like ‼️ also me projecting my ideal man into him (as if he wasn’t it already 😋)

A/N: i... i love tobio so much it’s literally unreal... i couldn’t wait for a request (i’m still working on the remaining 4 too lolol) so take me projecting my love for tobio >:(

— Kageyama normally wears loose fitting clothes or athletic-style clothing. His favorite go to outfits tends to be a loose tee, some loose pants with an obnoxious Nike logo he swears are super cool but look like two garbage bags sewed together, and running shoes. Throw a hoodie in there for colder weather, even then he still manages to look good.

— He takes very good care of his hair, like freaky good care, because of Miwa. Once she enrolled in cosmetology school and she saw Kageyama use the same baby shampoo from when they were kids she freaked out (if she’d been any later he’d start using 3-in-1) and chewed his ear off about hair care. His hair is super shiny and there’s literally no freeze, he uses nice smelling shampoo and conditioner too. Ugh, I love him.

— He has a very sensitive nose but it gets clogged easily so he doesn’t notice much unless it miraculously unclogs itself and he’s complaining about everything.

— “Eh! Hinata, why’d you smell like a fucking axe bottle?!” “Why does no one say anything about Tsukishima smelling like strawberries?” “Yamaguchi smells like... milk.” “Hah?! Sugawara smells bad-?!”

— He says he’s a picky eater to appear cool but as long as you don’t say what’s in the food he’ll down it. He’ll say he doesn’t like carrots but if you give him a salad with carrots he might even say “it’s the best salad he’s ever had”.

— He’s a hot sleeper, and not in the “oh he’s sexy” type of way. I’m talking, he’ll sweat buckets if he sleeps with anything other than a flimsy white t-shirt and his underwear.

— Might be me projecting my love for bunny teeth but he has bunny teeth, his front teeth are a bit bigger than average (not to the point it’s super noticeable but it’s still something Miwa teased him about), his aunties probably squeezed his cheeks and called him “baby bunny” when he was younger.

— He doesn’t go to sleep later than 9PM, he thinks if he does it’ll ruin his schedule (which it will) and fuck up his body - he’s seen Miwa screw up hers after she pulled a bunch of all nighters in her third year in high school and has been afraid since.

— The type to forget people were coming over and come out of his room shirtless asking for his clean underwear.

— His sister forced him to let her cut and style his hair which led to many questionable hairstyles. Tsukishima is genuinely so grateful to Miwa, especially when she was first starting - he’s got some pictures of Tobio with the shortest most embarrassing bangs ever saved in his phone in a file for blackmail if the need for it ever presented itself.

— Likes pissing people off on purpose sometimes, during one of the training camps he probably walked into the bath with socks on and was made fun of but out of spite he just… never took them off. Said he’d done it on purpose and all too. Tanaka cried out of fear for like a hot minute when he saw him standing under the shower with Iron Man socks on.

— He’s so petty too, if you make fun of him for messing up he’ll remember until you embarrass yourself to make fun of you. And when I say he remembers, I mean it - he can’t for his life remember when to use make and do in english but he remembers when Hinata made fun of him for wearing different socks back on their first year and yes he will bring it up on their second year when he did the same thing what are you going to do about it?

— Probably got scouted for a modeling agency once and began running away because he thought they were trying to kidnap him.

— If he had Tiktok… he would’ve gone viral after posting a video of him practicing, he posted for a while for fun and to flex on people that he was hot but then he saw a comment saying they wanted to drink his milk under a video of him drinking milk and he deleted his account, he can’t buy from that brand for a while.

— He’s got a video of a gorilla walking in two legs saved on his phone for when he’s feeling down and watches it whenever he’s not going well. People think he’s texting his S/O but no, he’s just watching a gorilla walk like minecraft Steve.

— He can’t pose for pictures to save his life, his default pose is an NPC stance with his arms stiffly hanging down and his eyes wide in surprise, don’t ask him to smile or else he will look like a serial killer.

— He’s got a bit of baby fat on his cheeks that won’t disappear no matter what. It’s become a pre-game ritual to pinch his cheeks. He’s also got dimples you can really only see when he smiles naturally but he doesn’t know and he’d get shy if he knew and try covering his face so don’t tell him, that’s a fact he told me so himself.

— Cannot dance to save his life. He’s so long (?) his limb control is non-existent, it appears in game and vanishes when he steps out of the court. He really just bounces on his heels and moves his arms like a t-rex, don’t ask more of him.

— Buys his clothes one size bigger just in case and Miwa teases him saying he’ll need them when he gets old and fat.

— Gets asked out often but always rejects, then has the audacity to complain he’s never dated anyone like he hasn’t turned down half of the school's population.

— Can’t sing. He’s got a nice speaking voice but ask him to sing and he’s out of tone, out of sync, out of breath, and out of the room in 5 seconds.

— Sugawara joked about having him singing as his alarm clock and Kageyama actually believed him, probably sent him a new recording as a gift after he annoyed him during practice.

— Surprisingly funny when he wants to but most jokes fly over people’s heads since he seems so serious most of the time, it annoys him to no end. Yachi still struggles differentiating when he is and isn’t joking because his tone literally doesn’t change at all and she doesn’t want to offend him.

— When he was younger he liked to collect rocks, not even the pretty ones he’d pick the most average, raggedy rocks off the ground and clean them up and tuck them to bed because he saw Miwa play with her barbies like that. Still owns his first rock, he named it “Johnson” after Dwayne Johnson, aka the rock (he’s had to explain it so many times he’s exhausted).

— Accidentally drank expired milk once and didn’t notice until his stomach began hurting and he thought he became lactose intolerant and he was inconsolable for days until he realized it had expired like a month ago - he went on a milk shopping spree and the milk sales that week saw a 20% rise from the last few months.

— Tobio had bad handwriting until he was in Junior High because his teachers couldn’t understand him and had him practice calligraphy, his handwriting is now one of the prettiest ones in the team and he’s the official inker of the VBC posters (as designated by Goddess Yachi Hitoka herself).

— His biggest fear for a long time was getting eaten by piranhas because he saw it happen so often in cartoon shows he genuinely thought it was going to be a bigger deal than it turned out to be but for like a solid 6 years of his life he avoided suspicions puddles just in case.

— Kageyama has a habit of rolling and unrolling his sleeves when he’s deep in thought, it soon made way to a habit of checking his wrist watch (he absolutely has a wrist watch, you cannot change my mind on that) but not actually reading it.

— His nails are very pretty, like most setters, he takes very good care of them. They’re filed down to a perfect length and he puts oils and creams, his hands in general are so nice. He takes a lot of pride in them, you know his cuticles are pushed back and trimmed and he could absolutely be a hand model. Kags’ hands are calloused, he’s a volleyball player of course they are, but it’s not to the extent of Ushijima or Daichi’s hands.

— Talking about hands, it’s probably one of his favorite features on people. He loves holding hands with his S/O and tracing the wrinkles in their palm, being able to interlock fingers with them and feel the bumps in them.

— Mumbles to himself when in thought too! Very nonsensical if you’re not informed on what he’s thinking about, if he’s thinking about you he’ll mumble your name or something like “pretty eyes”.

— Has a very healthy diet, like extremely healthy and thought out. He won’t eat anything too sugary or that could throw off his body, but he does have cheat days (which are rare but exist). He also doesn’t drink much soda or alcohol (once he’s of age).

— Things like smoking are a big no, he takes so much care of his body he wouldn’t even touch a cigarette or be near a smoking area, lowkey paranoid of ingesting the smoke too.

— When he’s older I can see him having a dog and a cat, the dog would be a big dog; if they stood on two paws it’d be the same height as you, he’d name or something like Tobias and think he was super clever and funny, the cat would probably a small cat he’d name Milk (it probably would be a black cat too but he does not care).

— Probably tried baby formula because he heard it was a substitute for breast milk. No further comments on this.

— I feel like he doesn’t listen to music, but if he had to choose something he’d pick instrumental music - not orchestral music or anything like that - but more of a chill, no deep meaning just guitar and piano track. I could see him listening to Shego Sekito or Joe Hisashi on occasion, he might even listen to some 2000’s pop if he wants something to pump him up during training (he works out to Brittney Spears’ “Womanizer”).

— A cuddle-bug when he’s sleepy, he’ll throw himself across his S/O and not move at all, he just wants to stay there and not move ever again (or at least until he’s not feeling like passing out). He’ll like to wrap himself around them and cuddle their neck, he’ll attach himself to their arm like it’s a lifeline.

— In other words, Kageyama Tobio… b-boyfriend material.

[kachulein]

I'm so irritated I'd love to slap a bitch (metaphorically). [story time rant incoming]

There's this American dude who's lived in Switzerland for a while and he used to interact with my mom and me on Instagram. Back then he had a romantic interest in my mom and got upset that she never posted pictures of herself and instead shared pictures of me sometimes. This led to him starting to attack me and my Instagram feed, and also saying I'm just one of those little tweens who post too many selfies (fun fact, I don't even exclusively post selfies, I also post pictures of landscapes/sunsets and my cat whereas he is the one who has had his face in. every. single. post.). On top of it all, he also criticised our English despite knowing it's not our first language. My mom obviously got extremely angry and told him off (do you really think you can stand a chance with a woman if you insult her kid?!) and told me to block him which I did. However, she didn't block him and so, she can still see his activities on Instagram.

With that being said, his "obsession" with Switzerland and wanting to find a Swiss woman to marry seems very suspicious to me. And especially with what I'm about to tell you, it will become even more clear that he seems to fetishize our people and country rather than having a real interest in our culture. My mom told me he's literally everywhere. Following and interacting with Swiss women on Instagram, following all of our different news sites and he's always dropped his likes already whenever my mom comes across a post. And today, the Instagram account of our "Swiss Radio and Television" broadcasting company made an IG-TV post about a Swiss singer who's one of the judges in a new talent show. And this dude had the audacity to comment under the post something along the lines of "here in Los Angeles, in the heart of the music and entertainment industry, we've never heard of this guy".

Well, duh. You're not in Los Angeles, you're on a Swiss Instagram account who posts about an influential and famous Swiss singer. WHY THE FUCK should people in Los Angeles know of him? Are you only relevant once LA folks know of your existence? Smh.

My mom then replied to his comment and tried to reason with him but his answers kept being entitled and arrogant. This dude is the literal definition of the stigmatised version of Americans who think they're the greatest on earth. But on the other hand, he keeps gushing about Switzerland and how much he loves and misses our country. Something is not adding up here, can you see it already..?

If he had an actual interest in our country and culture, he would get informed about our music scene and the most well-known Swiss singers and bands. Especially considering he's a musician himself and used to play in a band... wouldn't it be expected of him to be informed about our music industry if his interest in our country was as genuine as he claims?

And secondly, at this point I'm assuming it's neither about Switzerland or Swiss women. What I believe is that he has the notion that Swiss people are rich and if he can land himself a Swiss woman he wouldn't have to care about money anymore.

It's just so annoying. He sucks up to every Swiss woman and always boasts about the fact he's lived in Switzerland for a while but then in the same breath, he bashes one of our singers for absolutely no reason?? Just because a Swiss news site posted about him?? What's wrong with that?

To be frank, I've rarely met such an unlikeable person as this dude and I will never forget him criticising our English back then... it's just another display of his entitlement: expecting everyone to speak perfect English. But one thing is crystal clear; my English is miles better than his Swiss German and I'm done feeling insecure about my English skills based on an insult from an irrelevant dude from years ago.

[eclairsts]

meowdy to one and all, step right up to be intrigued by the audacity of this dumb b-word. for intro purposes I’m ambie ! a 22 year old moron who has a reliance on tequila and loves to make reckless decisions that affect my social life later on ! i work for child and family services full-time and im, in school part time.  i’m a libra, i love to daydream and i’m really really nice and love talking to new people. anyway on to the main event !

is that sire eclair ordering a sugar free vanilla iced coffee at mocha ? i heard they’re a twenty three year old security guard. rumour has it he can be a little aloof, but also heartening. i guess that comes with being a gemini. they always make me think of bomber jackets & black jeans, lightning striking in the distance , music playing softly while you drive at 3 am.

sire éclair was born in rockford.  the mother was pretty much in and out of the hospital hours before and after his birth and the nurses and doctor never saw her again. a middle aged nurse present for his birth took on the role of being his care provider those first few days he was in the hospital.

sire is a type 1 diabetic. the medical bills attached to this child were insane therefore he was undesirable to prospective adoptive parents. sire requires insulin injects four times a day and must be extremely mindful of what he eats. sire is prone to hypoglycemic episodes.  

sire was in the foster system for the majority of his developmental years. he had no real attachments and the group homes he was brought up in were just there to support his basic needs.

he wasn’t brought into a genuine, real foster home in neighboring chicago until he was twelve. a woman named roxanne. they were meant to be. roxanne took him in and raised him as her own, and she made it feel like sire had been with her for years. at first he was extremely guarded and nervous to be around her with the fear of being abandoned, but roxanne worked with him and proved that she would not give up on him and that sire would be her son.

roxanne holds an extremely special place in sire’s heart, so much so that when he was old enough he took roxanne’s last name.

in his teen years, sire excelled in school and was actually very bright. he caught on quickly to concepts and ideas and sat at a 4.0 gpa. he did have friends, though no one he was particularly close with. his social status was pretty non-existent and he didn’t really care to engage in that high-school mentality.

he does enjoy music, loves to discover new songs and bands and would drive around with his mom or by himself to listen to albums. he does sing! but is like….pretty self-conscious about it.

when sire graduated he wasn’t exactly…keen on what he wanted to do. there was no dream; no desire to achieve one particular thing and roxanne would never push that on him.

he didn’t go to university, didn’t want to waste money on something to do just because the high school was pressuring him.

he does eventually want to go back, just not at this very moment and is taking some years to enjoy making it to adulthood.

sire became a security guard because he saw this security guard agency type thing post an ad and figured ‘why not’. the pay is really good and hours aren’t bad. he works in a few bars and clubs, rotates them every few weeks.

sire in animal form would be a cat, he’s very on-guard and prickly when he’s around unfamiliar people though eases up once he gets to know them.

sire would never say this but he’s got an incredibly deep rooted issue with touch? Not necessarily touch deprivation but…symptoms of it.

sire doesn’t drink due to his diabetes and if he does ever cave in it would have to be with food and could never get drunk.

sire wears a silver chain medical i.d, it looks very fashionable but  serves its purpose!

he’s been coming to mocha since he turned 18 because he loves the coffee and the syrup they use to flavor his coffee.

sire is always cold and cannot really handle heat. kind of like a reptile.

sire’s daily schedule looks like wake up, sugar check, eat & insulin, sugar check, wash-up, dress up, work out, eat & insulin & sugar check, coffee & read, then proceeds to go home to prepare his dinner, sugar check and have a snack then off to work. nothing really changes and there’s no one to engage with him besides his mom who he has a daily call-in with. (she’s out travelling the world right now)

he really needs more social interaction but he won’t say it, people need to like, kind of force themselves into his life for him to realize like ‘oh…this person wants to be my friend’

sire’s…definitely probably a virgin (he is) not that he never wanted to it’s just, he never had an opportunity and like…people and romance and feelings and sex are so scary.

he has a pet fish ? that is his live-in companion. sire calls him his son? his name is digit.

Mocha is probably like…one of his sole hang-outs besides work and the gym. He loves to go there on days off to sit in the corner and read.

[ehentha]

Maldives Twitter wakes up to a fever dream where everyone is Ali Rameez

At 12AM on Friday the 23rd of November 2018, a whole bunch of Maldivian twitter users changed their profile pictures to the one above. It shows a young Ali Rameez leaning back, relaxing his head against his arm. The incident is referred to by some as #NationalAyyaDay.

This is a bipartisan effort, okay? Whether you’re a snowflake or a YAG supporter or a feminist or a humanist, please come together for this one day so we can all celebrate the greatest Maldivian singer of all time: Ali Rameez. Happy #NationalAyyaDay! ♥️

— KeehveFA (@ShafaRameez) November 22, 2018

Mass confusion spread as everyone’s notifications looked the same.

Yup, giving up on trying to figure out who is who.

— Azzam Pompi Mohamed (@Pompeee) November 23, 2018

To make things worse, many users changed their names to song lyrics by the one time Maldivian king of pop. There was once a time when you could not walk two feet in the Maldives without hearing one of his songs on the TV or radio. I’d post more screenshots of the incident, but most people have already changed their pictures and names back. Guess the world can only take so much Ayya.

Of course I say one time because Ali Rameez is currently a violent extremist “sheikh” who constantly spreads hate and fear speech against Maldivian minorities such as non-Muslims and LGBTI+ people. While being a massive sexist of course. On top of this, he also regularly promotes such lovely things as child marriage.

In the above screenshot, the Dhivehi text reads “Islam dheenun beyru vejje meehaa; gathul kuraasheve’”, which roughly translates to “Slaughter those who leave Islam”. The first comment below it reads “It is best if such children move to a country where they can get the freedoms that they want. No space for atheist in this country”. It doesn’t take a genius to see how this encourages vigilante violence against non-Muslims. I suppose it is also worth pointing out again for the thousandth time that the Maldives is one of the few countries in the world whose constitution bans freedom of conscience. Ali Rameez promotes these views on his official twitter account and his facebook page, where he also pimps out his extremist buddies from religious NGOs like Jammaiyathul Salaf.

With all this in mind, it shouldn’t be surprising to anyone that Ali Rameez hates his pop star past. He did famously dump all of his CD’s into the ocean after all.

Is singer/songwriter Ali Rameez and haabee Ali Rameez the same person? 🤔

— Refty (@Refty) November 23, 2018

So while people took the opportunity to mock / celebrate him by sharing his music and reminiscing about the days when he wasn't a psychopath, others took the opportunity to gaslight Maldivian minorities by claiming that the good sheikh was being bullied.

we advocate for tolerance and acceptance yet we are intolerant to those that have an understanding different to us. I really don't believe @aliramyz should be bullied and bashed like this. This has gone beyond a simple friendly joke. This needs to stop.

— Ghaanim (@Qhaany) November 23, 2018

This kind of gaslighting is typical from “liberal” Maldivians who fall head over heels to defend extremists yet never utter a single word in support of Maldivian minorities whose very existence is criminalized. As such I am sure these people are not ignorant of Ali Rameez’s extremism. Instead I think they are sympathetic. I think extremists like that say what these people are afraid of saying. What they really think.

You will never get any of these people to admit whether they support something as basic as freedom of conscience. However they will rarely admit they don’t support it either. Instead, they will prop up the extremists who have the courage to actually express such darkness. This is why I respect honest extremists who will say to my face that they want to kill me. I have no respect at all to closet conservatives like this who pretend to sit on a fence while they crap on minorities below. It is not an equal conversation when one side has their existence criminalized.

“liberal extremism” is a thing

— Shani 🍂 (@shani1i) November 23, 2018

Can you believe the audacity of such a statement from people who do not think their fellow Maldivians deserve constitutional recognition?

Wait till you are bashed and joked about for saying this.

— Mushfiga Waheed (@MushfigaWaheed) November 23, 2018

Comments like this one are referring to an incident in the past when a woman on twitter made extremely homophobic remarks. For once a lot of people on Maldivian twitter called out this woman for her blatantly bigoted remarks. Not this crowd of closet conservatives though. Much like this incident, back then they sided with the bigot being roasted. How could you bully such an innocent person they all decried.

This past event, and the common occurrence of conservatives and extremists to claim to be victims of “bullying”, is what has led to the creation of the local meme of “bleeing”.

stop bleeing ayya 😭😭 stop bleeing his extremist opinions 😭😭😭 stop admiring his flawless voice 😭😭😭 SAY NO TO BLEEING 😩 https://t.co/Bg2lymNMtV

— imran (@imlatheef) November 23, 2018

This type of gaslighting would be funny if it wasn’t the norm. Gaslighting, for those unfamiliar, is when an oppressor makes a person doubt their own memories and self. It is a common tactic used by abusive people against their partners. Wikipedia defines it as “a form of psychological manipulation that seeks to sow seeds of doubt in a targeted individual or in members of a targeted group, making them question their own memory, perception, and sanity. “

They states that the signs of gaslighting are:

Withholding information from victim;

Countering information to fit the abuser's perspective;

Discounting information;

Verbal abuse, usually in the form of jokes;

Blocking and diverting the victim's attention from outside sources;

Trivializing the victim's worth; and,

Undermining victim by gradually weakening them and their thought process.

When have he ever advocated killing anyone he deems as infidels? Any reference?

— Mohamed Allam Naeem (@8laam) November 23, 2018

Observe this clear example from a tweet calling the original one out.

When he is okay with underage marriage. When he blames the rape victim always. These are the different views you talk about? Yes. I do have a problem with that.

— 𝕲𝖎𝖗𝖑 𝕴𝖓𝖙𝖊𝖗𝖗𝖚𝖕𝖙𝖊𝖉 (@Thathu182) November 24, 2018

Look at the response above. Ali Rameez is well known for blaming rape victims and his support for child marriage. Yet the original tweet dismisses this as having a “different understanding”.

It’s nice that everyone’s having a bit of fun. But do try to keep in mind that @aliramyz thinks it’s okay to marry 13 year olds, promotes violent jihad, is a core member of Jamiyyathul Salaf, and advocates the death penalty for those he considers laadheenee.

— Mohamed Shuraih (@MohamedShuraih) November 23, 2018

The day led to some clashes within the more progressive parts (relative to the Taliban) of Maldivian twitter as well, with some people thinking that the incident downplayed Ali Rameez’s extremism.

Just for fun, would you put a pedo on your Twitter DP? I don't think so. kthnksbye

— @waddey (@waddey) November 23, 2018

Isn't Ali Rameez known for his extremist religious views? ���� Love his songs but finding it strange to be so obsessed with him given who he is now.

— 🍞🌹 (@kopitaaaa) November 23, 2018

Some responses from the twitter cult leader responsible for this madness:

Haha hello my cult, what else should I do today after renouncing feminism and supporting Ali Rameez’s extremism, might fuck around and drop all my morals and principles and become someone N E W

— KeehveFA (@ShafaRameez) November 23, 2018

I would also like to tell you it’s not only Ali Rameez’s beautiful voice that mesmerizes me, it’s also his promotion of extremism (obviously), and presence in Jamiyyathul Salad (OBVIOUSLY) also in other news @imlatheef hates Ariana Grande 😭😭

— KeehveFA (@ShafaRameez) November 23, 2018

Kindly fuck off and let people fucking enjoy today, good lord! 😂 People woke up to an abundance of Ali Rameezs on their TL today, that is fucking AMAZING that it was pulled off. An, miothy than thanah thadhuvaa kudhinnah khaassa lavayeh ♥️https://t.co/hw61dHt1Jf

— KeehveFA (@ShafaRameez) November 23, 2018

Now that we’ve dealt with the drama and my existential bitterness, here are some of the funnier tweets from the day:

Kaia asking me the name of a random internet cat that popped up on my timeline. Told her the first name that popped into my mind. Ali Rameez. Thanks, twitter.

— EhJu (@EhJu) November 23, 2018

If you people don’t get sarcasm that’s really on you at this point. Brb listening to Nudhaashe Mage Loabiva for the 50th time today. :) https://t.co/TOb4K9xIaO

— KeehveFA (@ShafaRameez) November 23, 2018

Brain reading the entire timeline in Ali Rameez voice. Ali: I'm no one's crush. Ali: this cabinet is bullshit. Ali: here's a cat. Ali: I'd rather use tampons but they're too expensive W E I R D

— EhJu (@EhJu) November 23, 2018

me, before and after listening to ali rameez’s emotional masterpiece maruvedhaaney maadhamaa gaimey pic.twitter.com/AzhMts5nDO

— imran (@imlatheef) November 23, 2018

#NationalAyyaDay Ayya: Capitalising on his Freeze Band to make a Freeze Brand!

— Yuna Waheed 🎈❓ (@YuAeKito) November 23, 2018

Ali Rameez towards the end of his music career was in a band called “Freeze Band”. Once he gave up music, he capitalized on this by creating “Freeze Brand” - a company that sells dried fish and other products. Gotta admit that some of their stuff is pretty delicious though.

Ali Rameez and me in the same frame #happiestmoment 😂 pic.twitter.com/kfdXFccxCx

— ⚫️⚪️TEDRY🎈❓ (@tedry) November 23, 2018

With all these Ali Rameez songs floating around, I’m sad I haven’t seen a single “Bunebala ladhu ganefaa erey”. Definitely one of my favourites. #NationalAyyaDay

— Shubbi (@shubaadam) November 23, 2018

On this auspicious day I was just blessed to see Ali Rameez on the road. 😱😱😱😱

— S-laughter (@heyshaha) November 23, 2018

I give up on checking who’s who, I’m liking everything in bulk now

— KeehveFA (@ShafaRameez) November 22, 2018

I can't pic.twitter.com/BmK40l9i3f

— Saaif Shiyad 🇲🇻 (@SaaifShiyad) November 22, 2018

Ayya had moves. #NationalAyyaDay pic.twitter.com/TT8s4o8mjQ

— immi 🐑 (@immimmii) November 22, 2018

The other day at uni i saw ali rameez and randomly started singing “dhanee dhanee” bc obviously i was leaving the uni

— salty (@thelulifaiyy) November 22, 2018

the first time ali rameez looked at me. i was walking on sosun magu with a friend when we saw ali rameez and involuntarily shouted “EY ALI RAMEEEZ”. he looked, but looked away even faster. 😥#NationalAyyaDay

— Naura 🇲🇻 (@ayshathnaura) November 23, 2018

Since @ShafaRameez wanted me to do this so badly, like this tweet and I'll be brutally honest about your Twitter profile picture.

— Mi dhehiy vaathee, loabin gulhifaa (@haesham) November 23, 2018

Tb to the time i made eye contact with Ayya for a split second while eating pani puri @ the place infront of Iskandhar. He was having tea and looked away at the speed of light. Ma iny anga haluvan ves neyngifa

— KirimJehiBanas (@meynakambulo) November 23, 2018

The best part about this is how much I hate Ali Rameez and he still hasn't blocked me.

— San (@dontcallmesatan) November 23, 2018

Did you call him a finifenmaa ?

— Althaf🎈؟ (@AlthafAli_) November 23, 2018

pic.twitter.com/hbrqaLvwh0

— Musal (@FoniLunbo) November 23, 2018

The cat is screaming out lyrics to one of Ali Rameez’s hit songs “Finifenmalakey” (like a rose).

At the end I listened to all the heart broken Ali Rameez songs and now I feel like I have fallen out of love, hard. 😭💔 https://t.co/eVnWk4tmgQ

— Azzam Pompi Mohamed (@Pompeee) November 23, 2018

legends say people are still trying to get over the double vision of ayya from their twitter feeds 🤣🤣

— Awhosun (@awhosun) November 23, 2018

Marinating a chicken with bae. It's so hot man

— Shady 🎈❓ (@shadyfish) November 23, 2018

Ali Rameez had a particularly saucy hit video where he sensuously marinates a chicken with a beautiful woman. Probably one of the sources of his paranoia about his past sins.

#NationalAyyaDay, a day to honor the legendary Maldivian singer @aliramyz 🙏 pic.twitter.com/dTtVKU1WTw

— 🙏 آدم محمد (@Adamiington) November 23, 2018

I’d like to point out the fact that @semiicold has had his photo way before this started and I didn’t see it till after @FoniLunbo suggested this photo so a round of applause for him because we’re living in 2018 and he’s living in 3018. We stan! 👏🏾

— KeehveFA (@ShafaRameez) November 22, 2018

[trendingnewsb]

Sean Penn Wrote The Worst Novel In Human History, I Read It

Sean Penn recently released Bob Honey Who Just Do Stuff. It is, ostensibly, a novel. Sarah Silverman compared Penn to Mark Twain and E.E. Cummings. A Kirkus reviewer equated him to Kurt Vonnegut and David Foster Wallace. Salman Rushdie declared it a book that Thomas Pynchon and Hunter S. Thompson would love, possibly because he longs for the good old days when people wanted him dead. It’s telling that all these figures of comparison are incapable of disagreeing because they’re either famously reclusive or dead. Having recently read Bob Honey, I am confident in declaring it the literary equivalent of renal failure.

Amazon

To help you prepare yourselves, here are just a few of Penn’s many atrocities against the English language (he really likes alliteration):

Evading the viscount vogue of Viagratic assaults on virtual vaginas.

Criminal crumbs and corresponding celebrity crusts, bound together by dough.

This goat-backed lioness began to hoot like a bruxism bedevilled banshee.

1

The (Barely Existent) Plot Is Complete Nonsense

Perhaps the only thing you need to know about Penn’s book is that the brief first chapter, about three elderly people getting murdered in their retirement home, is called “Seeking Homeostasis in Inherent Hypocrisy.” Penn writes like he’s looked up every single word in his thesaurus except “dictionary.” He uses unnecessary terms, then provides 70 footnotes to explain the definition of the unnecessary terms, because he assumes that his readers aren’t at his level of intelligence. In a way, he isn’t wrong.

Here’s a typical sentence, in this case describing a woman: Effervescence lived in her every cellular expression, and she had spizzerinctum to spare. Penn thinks that if less is more, then more must be incredible. He writes novels like they’re a high school essay he’s desperate to pad.

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So, about those murdered old people. We’re introduced to Bob Honey, a successful but disaffected middle-aged white man who is brave enough to be suspicious of some aspects of modern American life. Bob worked in waste management, and while selling his services in Iraq during the American occupation, he became convinced to kill elderly Americans for the government because … well, there’s no actual explanation, because Penn has taken the creative approach of not giving his hero any personality or traits. Penn then boldly satirizes the Iraq War by pointing out that it was sometimes violent, and holy shit you guys, some people may have profited from that violence. It’s an interesting observation if these are the first words you’ve read since 2003.

Now, you might be thinking, “OK, that doesn’t sound very profound, but it’s still reasonable to critique the Iraq War, right?” To which I’d respond that Penn refers to the Pentagon as “the five-sided puzzle palace,” then provides a footnote that clarifies he means “the Pentagon.”

From there, we learn that the American government feels threatened by old people who don’t buy enough branded products. The only real plot point is that the NSA, a covert section of the EPA, and a bunch of conservative foundations are working together on these old people murders because the removal of the flatulence they contribute to the environment allows businesses to pollute more. Way to tackle America’s problems head on, Sean Penn.

After agreeing to help the government kill old people for no good reason, Bob’s wanderings of America and the world eventually cause him to reach the incredible realization that killing people is bad and that, holy shit, America might be bad too. So Bob tries and fails to kill a Trump stand-in while rescuing his 20-something girlfriend who has all the character development of a calculator with “BOOBS” written on it. And that’s it. Penn wrote a series of incoherent angry tweets about America, then stretched them out to novel length with shit like this:

Behind decorative gabion walls, an elderly neighbor sits centurion on his porch watching Bob with surreptitious soupcon. Bob sees this. Feels fucked by his own face.

2

Sean Penn Never Learned What Satire Is

The idea that the government is killing old people doesn’t have a point; it’s just there, because it’s something bad people would do and grr, the government is bad. The whole book is full of that kind of vapid pseudo-criticism. Sean Penn is a man who looked at the world and its many issues in all of their incredible complexity and reached conclusions like maybe the media … might be influencing what we think about! Have you considered that marketing might be … trying to manipulate you? What if politicians … sometimes lie? And technology … could it have … downsides? It’s baby’s first hot take, written at the tender age of 57. Here, for example, is what Penn has to say about millennials:

Adderall and advertisers’ chickens had come home to roost. Bob felt from feline millennials the transmissions of Instagrams blitzingly blazing from all directions … No one spoke to anyone, and when they did, it was more about those anthropomorphic arrows than it was the natural air of organically human traverse … An age group so lost to letters and steeped in transactional sex, it seemed of them that they distinguished little between an active orgasm and an acted one.

Wow, sick burn. Penn careens from “selfies are dumb” to two paragraphs on gun control to a brief aside on why hunting is bad to long stretches during which nothing happens and no point is made. It’s as if Penn thought that slam poetry was the result of getting one’s penis slammed in a car door.

He compares people who buy stuff (nothing in particular, just stuff) to sheep, and then, in case you somehow weren’t getting it, declares: “BAHHH-BAHHH-BILDERBERG.” What do you have to say about marketing, Sean? “Branding is being! Branding is being! The algorithm of modern binary existentialism.” He even talks about ice cream trucks like he can’t get through a single conversation without bragging about his IQ: “The music of an ice cream truck sells sweetness, but its wares are cold and fattening.” But it’s Trump and his voters where Penn is at his least elegant:

Between the id and the superego, the sheep had traded a love of their own children for the chance to cry, “Look at me! I’m a pisser on a tree!” Ouch goes the human heart. Out comes the orator’s brain-fart, this Jesus of Jonestown, this blind man to Newtown, spits bile aplenty, to bitch us all down.

So many words haven’t been used to say so little since Ayn Rand was working. The greatest insight Penn can muster up is calling Trump “Mein Drumpf” and “Mr. Landlord,” before declaring “Sir, I challenge you to duel. Tweet me, bitch. I dare you.” My cat has stepped on my keyboard and accidentally sent tweets that are more politically insightful. And it gets worse, because …

3

Sean Penn Thinks It’s Deep To Use Racial Slurs

Bob Honey isn’t some brilliant subversion of conservative Americans. It’s a rambling polemic for how Penn sees America, mixed with the satirical equivalent of eating a child because you think that Swift guy was onto something. So it’s not super great that the only Mexican characters are drug dealers who love tacos and tequila. Or that Penn uses the term “Jew-speak.” Or that the main gang of Iraq War profiteers and senior murderers are cannibalistic Papua New Guineans who wear grass skirts and use blow guns.

Nothing says profound criticism of modern America like “What if a bunch of stereotypical immigrants are the cause of our problems? And then that’s it, there’s no insightful twist?” The Guinean leader says things like “Caught me a case of kuru! I crackin’ a grizz, my bruva,” because Sean Penn is systematically working to convince us that literacy was a mistake.

There’s a thin line between satirizing racial issues and just being racist, and Penn took a giant dump on that line when he wrote the following in the middle of his closing anti-Trump manifesto. I apologize in advance to like eight different groups of people for exposing you to this:

“You want to kill me because I don’t really believe we’re the ‘best’ country in the world? … You want to kill me, you boogeymen and women, you worshippers of tits, ass, and beefcake, you snivelling, vomitus, kike-, nigger-, towelhead-, and wetback-hating, faggot-fearing colostomy bags of humanity?”

Hey Sean, it’s actually possible to critique Trump and racial issues without dropping slurs like you got a bulk deal on them at Costco. And somehow, that’s not even the worst part.

4

Shockingly, Sean Penn Might Have Some Issues With Women

Penn has a long history of alleged domestic abuse, and while I’m not saying that he has issues with women, he seems to be saying that himself. Bob’s ex-wife is described as a “chubby fuckin’ redhead whose ghost still whorishly haunts his bed.” In reference to a black woman Bob had a crush on, Penn writes: “He thought of her beauty and the lure of her shaved and shapely cinnamon sticks standing at the trailer’s screen door.” Oh, and here’s what he has to say about women with the audacity to destroy America by using makeup: “Had she traded the mythology of her modesty for cosmetic self-awareness? Getting older in America is tough on a woman; seeing what she’ll do to avoid it is tough on a man.”

Then there’s Bob’s girlfriend, Annie, whose traits include being great at taking dick from Bob and really liking Bob. She has no personality, no desires, no opinions. What we do know is that “She may have even been too young. But Bob never bothered himself with those distinctions.” And when Annie writes Bob a note, she signs it: “My love and vagina (on your team).”

Other female characters include a bad young mother, a volunteer who gets drunk on the job, a waitress who is described as an “undernourished nymphomaniac,” and a “lesbo-leaning lunatic” who almost shits herself. There’s also an “awful chimera” who does shit herself while falling overboard and getting eaten by “fifty frenzied sharks (adios, amiga),” in one of several instances of Penn using violence against women for comedy. I think I’ve discovered Penn’s fetish, and it’s women getting hurt and shitting themselves. If you aren’t already turned off, allow me to forever ruin sex for you with Penn at his most sensual:

What a magical vagina, Bob thought, after exploring it for hours.

��Good vagina. Maybe more Vietnam.” (Note: “Vietnam” is what Penn calls pubic hair.)

Tedious trickling of cold cunt soup.

Now here’s a fun excerpt from the, ugh, five-and-a-half-page poem that ends the novel:

Where did all the laughs go?

Are you out there, Louis C.K.?

Once crucial conversations

Kept us on our toes;

Was it really in our interest

To trample Charlie Rose?

And what’s with this ‘Me Too’?

This infantizing term of the day …

Is this a toddler’s crusade?

Reducing rape, slut-shaming, and suffrage to reckless child’s play?

A platform for accusation impunity?

Due process has lost its sheen?

Again, there’s no satire here. Other parts of the poem are serious complaints about issues like mass shootings. Penn just got to the end of a novel that he clearly took less time to write than most people spend crafting SpongeBob memes, and spent a half-second thinking, “Hey, what if it was actually bad that a 76-year-old millionaire was fired for repeatedly harassing women?” And then he zooms on, like a philosophical hit and run. He wants to offer half-assed commentary on everything he’s ever glimpsed in the news. And that, I think, is because …

5

Sean Penn Desperately Wants To Sound Smart

The New York Times called Penn’s book “a riddle wrapped in an enigma and cloaked in crazy.” I have a simpler explanation: It sucks. “Riddle” implies that there’s something clever to be gleaned from it. There isn’t. It’s public masturbation. Penn quotes and references Herodotus, Norman Mailer, Inmar Berman, Jack Kerouac, Phil Ochs, Albert Camus, and more, because like your most annoying Facebook friends, he thinks that knowing the names of smart people makes him smart by proxy.

This garbage has been declared to have “almost immeasurable charm” seemingly solely because it calls Donald Trump fat. The very fact that it was published at all is the ultimate example of grading on a curve. Sean Penn is a celebrity, so of course we have to put out his inanity. Penn took the bold political stance that ha ha, Trump has a small penis, so of course it’s provocative. Even some of the many people who slammed it still called it things like “brave” or a misfired statement. It’s not, and it isn’t. That Penn sees this book as some kind of bold statement against branding is the height of hypocrisy and arrogance. This book is on shelves only because Sean Penn is a “brand.”

I realize the irony here, that I’m contributing to the attention that Penn is getting. But this isn’t just a critique; it’s a warning. Don’t buy this book because Sarah Silverman called it a “masterpiece.” Don’t buy this book out of morbid curiosity. Taunting notes sent by serial killers have contributed more to American culture than this book ever will, and the only productive thing we can do is ignore it like it’s an attention-seeking child. If I still haven’t convinced you, here’s what Sean Penn has to say after a scene in which a helicopter crushes a woman:

“As for Helen Mayo, they did Sikh and find remains. Get it? Sikh! Get it???”

I know you’ll do the right thing.

Mark is on Twitter, and has a book with a better rating than Penn’s.

Guess we’d be remiss not to link you to where you could purchase the book, so here it is if you really want it.

Support Cracked’s journalism with a visit to our Contribution Page. Please and thank you.

For more bizarre celebrity literature, check out I Read Steven Seagal’s Insane Novel So You Don’t Have To and 6 Ugly Things You Learn About Donald Trump Reading His Books.

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Read more: http://www.cracked.com/blog/sean-penn-wrote-worst-novel-in-human-history-i-read-it/

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[gaiatheorist]

Will it change?

Sexual harassment. Everywhere you look, even if you try not to. I don’t even know how to spell the noise I made when I read that sport-coaches are to be banned from having sexual relations with 16-17 year olds. I’d assumed that was ‘a given’, the age of consent in the UK is 16, but anyone working with under-18s should always have been bound by a duty of care not to take advantage of their charges? 

There is hand-wringing, and panicking amongst ‘some’ men, ‘some’ women are encouraging a shut-up-and-put-up approach, and a certain UK celebrity chef has banned his daughter from posting ‘selfies’ on Instagram. (Watch her other platforms, Daddy, it’s a brave move to come out and say you’re policing her profile, but you are only one of many push/pull factors in her life.) Gods, that’s an odd side-spin, the ‘Daddy’ angle, and I need to mind myself not to go off on a tangent of “As the father of daughters...” My mother saw me as a commodity, and wanted to parade me around grotty wine-bars in short skirts and low tops, my father had already laid the foundations of eroding my self-esteem to a point where I should have been ripe for the picking. In a way, I suppose I was.

Away from my possibly-unusual developmental experiences, with my father trying to keep me princess-pristine, and my mother trying to whore me out, I’m observing an attitude-shift, and I’m hoping it catches on. ‘Too late for me’, I suppose, but I will, eventually, re-engage with the world, and influence other people, in whatever way I can, that nobody has to ‘put up with it.’  Not just the sexualised angle, I’m currently ‘having a wobble’ about the gas-men. I don’t know which gas-men are coming to fix my heating today, more to the point, I don’t know if anyone’s coming at all, but that’s just the lettings agents being slack, and not confirming when they said they would. The heating has never worked properly, and I’ve reported it at every gas-safety inspection, and every condescending rental inspection for nine years. The landlord did have the boiler exchanged about four years ago, but putting a new boiler into a system that doesn’t work didn’t fix the heating, it just gives him a better ‘energy efficiency’ rating if he decides to sell the house. 

I’m hardly likely to come across as ‘bored housewife’, and, unless I actually mention it, nobody knows I’m that most fearsome of things, a single 40-year-old-woman. I’m wrapped in multiple layers of clothing, no make-up, no hair-do, I don’t ‘dress like a woman’, I dress like a human. If it’s the horrible old gas-man that usually does my safety inspection, I might not ‘bite my tongue’ this time. (In the ‘verbal inhibition’ sense, not the faux-coy 50 shades sense.) I avoid interacting with him as much as is possible, not because I’m a ‘nice girl’, or because he rambles on about different types of pipe-fittings, but because he infuriates me. He’s old-school, and me not being barefoot and pregnant upsets his view of ‘women.’ I have, on occasion, ‘talked back’ when he’s been offensive-assumptive, the only reason I usually stay out of his way is to avoid him making complaints about me to the lettings agents, and me ending up on some sort of list of ‘difficult tenants’. 

He, like the “Don’t try to lift that, lass, I’ll pick it up, it’s heavy.” father-in-law, are ‘too old to change.’ Defeatist? I don’t think so, more realistic. 20+ years of ‘lifting that’ didn’t stop the mole-man insisting I shouldn’t attempt multiple tasks or activities, due to the fact that I’m female. Old dogs, new tricks etc, a proportion of the population, regardless of the configuration of their genitalia, have very fixed perceptions of gender-roles and such. I don’t, but I’m just a collection of meat no-one eats, my son seeing that has taught him that the old ‘pink or blue’ rules are nonsense. Fair enough, that’s given rise to multiple identity-crises in him, but he knows he’s ‘not done yet’, and, as horrible as the wobbles are when he has them, he comes through the other side every time.  

That ‘family’ dynamic must have been difficult for him, there’s the ‘normalisation’ angle, in that small children just accept and absorb their environments, but, as he started to develop his own identity, I can imagine that the polarisation of ‘me’, and his dad’s family raised some questions in his mind. The ones he asked, I answered. His dad wanted to be ‘looked after’, I hate people doing things ‘for’ me. His grandma, aunts, and female cousins like cake, and flowers, and soap operas, I very much don’t. I made myself this way, as a protective mechanism, rejecting the perceived-vulnerabilities associated with femininity, I won’t have other people’s less-than perceptions projected on to me. The kid spent more time with me than his Dad during his formative years, I worked 20 hours a week, and the ex established a routine of his parents caring for ‘the grub’ during most of that time, grandma was ‘better’ with babies than the ex, and the ex never made any effort to improve his own ‘babysitting’ skill-set. He was 32 when the kid was born, not quite in the ‘too old to change’ bracket, but he chose not to change, handing over his infant son to the grandparents because he didn’t know ‘how’ to interact with the tiny, helpless thing. Neither did I, at first, one of us learned. 

The ex won’t change. He still wants to be the centre of attention all of the time, he ‘sits on’ the kid, when the boy’s busy reading, studying, or doing whatever else 19 year olds do. The man has no perception of personal space, he’s like a cat, if he wants your attention, and you don’t give it to him immediately, he sits on you. The ex has been raised to see a divide between ‘male’ and ‘female’ tasks, the mother-in-law must be in her eighties now, but she takes in his laundry, and cleans his flat, because he works. I worked. I worked full-time and then some, but he was somehow exempt from household chores, asking me to ‘have a quick tidy round’ when he had friends or family visiting. I should have said no, I allowed that to continue.  

There needs to be change. I’m exceptionally cautious on who I interact with because I genuinely don’t have the energy for arguments, that is a defeatist attitude, but I’m still in self-preservation mode. My ‘social circle’ is minuscule, in part because I hate the ‘justifying myself’ aspect of interacting with people, single-disabled-unemployed, and the audacity to be female as well? ‘Most’ people want to fix me, or fix me up. I’m broke, I’m not broken, I don’t need ‘fixing’. I fully accept that I’m the different/difficult one, and that ‘most’ people aren’t intending to be patronising, condescending, or offensive, they’re just ‘trying to help.’ In a way that reinforces the hetero-normative gender stereotypes partly responsible for this whole mess. (The world, not me, I’m almost entirely responsible for my own personal mess.) 

“Ooh, you can’t be on your own in the house all the time!” I can. 

“Do you want me to fix that for you?” No, I can fix most things myself.

“You ought to go out more, and have some fun!” Going out really isn’t fun when you have brain injuries, it’s overwhelming-exhausting. 

“Oh, I didn’t realise you’d split up! Are you ‘looking for someone’ now?” HELL, no, I’m a viable entity in my own right, I don’t ‘need’ to be part of a couple to exist. (Mad cackle, there, at the time I shocked my former managers into silence with “I have no desire to belong to anyone, or anything.”)

It’s a weird one, while-ever females continue to take advantage of their perceived enfeeblement, nothing will change, and some males will take advantage of the power imbalance. We’re not that different physically, and I doubt we’re as different emotionally as old fashioned thinking would have us believe. We’re all just mobile meat, with these invented-accepted rules and societal norms and such. (I walk on the side of the path closest to the road when I’m with my son, fifty, or a hundred years ago, that would have raised eyebrows, because it’s the male party that’s supposed to take the road-side, not the female. He’s taller and stronger than me, but neither of us carries a sword, so it doesn’t matter which of us walks on which side. I take the road-side so that if a vehicle does mount the kerb, it hits me before the boy.)  

For me, the ‘accepted’ could do with examining. Old fashioned good manners are one thing, but the assumption that all females are weak and feeble creatures, incapable of holding a thought in our pretty little heads needs to go. I’m under no illusion that I’ll see equality in my lifetime, but I’m hopeful that, as unpleasant as some of the disclosures are, that they might start a shift in attitudes; this gender power-imbalance needs to be challenged, and it needs to change.