love when men cry about body hair bc "it's hygiene" and yet 15% of cis men leave the bathroom without washing their hands at all and an additional 35% only just wet their hands without using soap. that is nearly half of all men. that means statistically you have probably shaken hands with or been in direct contact with one of these people.
love when men say that women "only want money" when it turns out that even in equal-earning homes, women are actually adding caregiver burdens and housework from previous years, whereas men have been expanding leisure time and hobbies. in equal-earning households, men spend an average of 3.5 hours extra in leisure time per week, which is 182 hours per year - a little over a week of paid vacation time that the other partner does not receive. kinda sounds like he wants her money.
love that men have decided women are frail and weak and annoying when we scream in surprise but it turns out it's actually women who are more reliable in an emergency because men need to be convinced to actually take action and respond to the threat. like, actually, for-real: men experience such a strong sense of pride about their pre-supposed abilities that it gets them and their families killed. they are so used to dismissing women that it literally kills them.
love it. told my father this and he said there's lies, damned lies, and statistics. a year ago i tried to get him to evacuate the house during a flash flood. he ignored me and got injured. he has told me, laughing, that he never washes his hands. he has said in the last week that women are just happier when we're cooking or cleaning.
maybe i'm overly nostalgic. but it didn't used to feel so fucking bleak. it used to feel like at least a little shameful to consider women to be sheep. it just feels like the earth is round and we are still having conversations about it being flat - except these conversations are about the most obvious forms of patriarchy. like, we know about this stuff. we've known since well before the 50's.
recently andrew tate tried to justify cheating on his partner as being the "male prerogative." i don't know what the prerogative for the rest of us would be. just sitting at home, watching the slow erosion of our humanity.
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the dynamic of demigods thinking which other demigod is the most powerful is always amusing to me because. like, we know the big 3 kids are all the most powerful. That's just a fact of their universe. And then we know nearly every character views Percy as the strongest demigod, and most people are very rightfully intimidated by him.
and you look at the powers of the Big 3 kids and there's Percy, but then you realize Nico is just kind of objectively more powerful than him but simply chooses to hang out in Percy's shadow like he's Percy's scary dog privileges. Like, the two of them are pretty equally capable of causing multiple different apocalypses. Nico just also has like four different instakill powers and it's not like he doesn't use them. He very much uses them! Not infrequently, even! And they don't seem to take a significant amount of energy from him! And other demigods are pretty intimidated by both of them! But Nico makes a conscious point to keep his cards close to his chest and not let on exactly how dangerous and scary he can be if he wants to. People are already scared enough of him without knowing anything about him and he doesn't like that. Percy doesn't think about that nearly as much, and so usually just goes in guns blazing and that's part of why he's considered a wildcard. And then Nico himself puts Percy on a pedestal, so those who do know more about Nico's abilities then presume Nico knows something they don't about Percy that implies Percy is even stronger than him.
And even on a meta level Nico's narrative role requires him to be functionally more powerful than Percy, because he very often serves the purpose of getting Percy out of situations he can't handle on his own. That's just part of his function as a character! But also narratively he can't overshadow Percy so he just takes a backseat of his own accord and that's very amusing to me.
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I was talking to a client and they were expressing frustration with having to move or change routes because of their dogs reactivity. It's something they are working on and part of it involves creating distance right now.
They wanted to know if they'd ever get to a point where they can walk by any dog and not have to worry. And I told them, honestly no. You will always need to assess other dogs and sometimes make the call to go a different way.
Because even if your dog can walk by a dog losing its shit without doing the same in turn, it's still not always the best move.
I relayed a recent experience I had walking Forte. Now Forte does really well ignoring other dogs and I am confident in his ability to remain neutral. But I maintain that neutrality by not putting him in sketchy situations. So when we rounded a corner onto a street I immediately noticed a person sitting in their front lawn with their large dog. I paused to see if I could spot a leash or invisible fence markers. While I was looking the dog noticed us, stood up with a wide stance, and started flicking it's tongue quickly. I also noticed that it had nothing on, not even a flat collar.
I turned around and went back the other way. Not because I thought Forte would react, but because that dog gave a pretty clear indication it was uncomfortable with us approaching. And if it had decided to charge us, the person had no way of restraining it.
Could Forte remain neutral if the dog charged and barked at us? Maybe. But there was no reason to put him in that situation. Also, could he remain neutral if it attacked us? I'm guessing no. So for the safety of my dog and the health of his trust that I will not put him in a risky situation, I turned around.
The client thought about that for a minute and then told me they'd not considered that. That part of them giving space or changing course wasn't just about keeping their dog under threshold, but also about showing their dog that they, the person, won't put them in a stressful/risky situation.
So I'm sharing this story in case anyone else finds it helpful.
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how each of the BG3 companions gained their combat expertise
wyll: i was trained as to be a formidable and honorable combatant since i was young, i've protected the frontiers for years, and i have magic devil powers
karlach: i was forced to serve on the front line of the blood wars in hell for the past decade
lae'zel: i was brought up in a strict, militaristic warrior society that emphasized martial prowess even in its youngest members
shadowheart: i spent most of my life being prepared in the ways of subterfuge and magic by a brutal cult
gale: i've spent decades obsessively studying magic and even studied under the goddess of magic herself to perfect my craft
astarion: i've got a lot of repressed rage and a dagger i found on the ground 15 minutes ago. let's go turn someone inside out :)
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Whenever I see a post about Chief Hiccup (or watch Httyd 2, for that matter) I'm always reminded of how Stoick did not want his son to become chief the way he did.
Maybe it's because Stoick saw his reluctance to succeed him, maybe it's something Stoick went through himself when he became chief and he wanted to spare his son the pain, but he had a plan. He was going to retire. Step down and let Hiccup take over in his stead. That way, his father could ease him into this insanely big responsibility, could be there to guide him, help him with the tough stuff he knows Hiccup might have trouble with.
Except, then he dies at Drago's hands. And Hiccup ends up thrusted into a position a feared to be in. And yeah, he does it mostly alone, just as his father did before him, which is exactly what Stoick was hoping to avoid.
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ok so. forgive me for a second but i've been abnormal about skizz and ren since the hiatus between third life and last life and holy shit this season is already not helping.
let's talk about skizz, ren, undying loyalty, and golden apples, shall we?
so the thing that you need to understand about skizz is that he is loyal to a fault. impulse literally says this exact thing about him in limited life, and skizz himself says himself: "you know me and my factions, i never turn." the second thing is that the first person their loyalty manifests for in third life is ren. he and ren run into each other on the second night when ren is getting accosted by mobs outside skizz's door and skizz gives him a place to stay the night. ren decides to trade skizz for his leather, for the upcoming enchanting buisness, and gives skizz a golden apple in exchange. skizz thinks this is wildly more than he deserves but is very thankful. skizz doesn't say it here, but this is the moment he swears his loyalty to ren.
throughout third life, he is willing to do or get basically anything for ren. the two of them literally die together to the tnt trap. when ren dies on the alter and everyone thinks martyn betrayed him, skizz is the first person to get there in the morning. he's in half broken gold armor and borrowed tools from bigb and he still tells ren "get behind me", still tries to protect him from martyn. when skizz is on red, he goes a bit crazy, but he channels that bloodlust into protecting ren. he kills jimmy in the red desert, he kills cleo when she tries to attack ren, he chases down impulse when he betrays dogwarts and dies trying to kill him.
when skizz dies in third life, he's got an unused golden apple in his hotbar. after he dies, he remembers the first time he met ren, etho, and martyn, and he spends quite a bit of time on his memory of ren and ren appears in his first memory of etho. after he dies, ren wields a blade named in his honor.
skizz spends third life loyal to ren- he dies for him and he dies with him.
in last life, ren and skizz end up on completely different sides, and it very quickly gets bad because when ren becomes boogey, he kills skizz. he lures him into a trap. he tells skizz he loves him. skizz literally says "i am broken hearted" when ren kills him. ren holds no regard for the relationship they used to have and yet skizz cannot help but compliment ren's skill with the trap, outright says he can't be mad at ren.
and then it only gets worse because skizz tries to storm ren's tower with impulse after they've gone red. and that! doesn't go well! and while skizz is retreating, while he is eating the golden apple in his hot bar, ren shoots him dead.
and that is the last time they've spoken. two years ago.
because skizz isn't in doublt life. and ren isn't in limited life.
and when skizz's time comes in limited life, he ensures he doesn't have a golden apple in his inventory this time. this time, he hands the apples off to his teammates, where he knows they will go to good use. and then he hands etho a diamond fucking axe (red winter is coming) and asks him to execute him for the sake of their alliance. ok! sure! fill ren's role more explicitly, why don't you!
and that first session of secret life genuinely only made it worse. when skizz is talking to tango and cleo about their alliance, skizz says he wants to give leadership over to someone else: "i want to be more of a soldier than a leader this time." cleo says she'll fill the roll of leader- she doesn't take orders well - and then seals their alliance by giving tango and skizz a golden apple each. because of course she does.
and well, we all know that didn't really work out, so that's one person off the list that skizz can fill the dogwarts shaped hole in him with, so then he goes to bdubs. he says he'll lay his sword at bdubs' feet. he says he'll win bdubs with his loyalty. he calls bdubs "my leige", jesus christ dude, you couldn't be less subtle unless you straight up called him ren's name.
skizz has been (whether accidentally or on purpose is up to you) trying to recreate the experience he had with dogwarts, and particularly what he had with ren, since the moment dogwarts fell. he can't have it with ren because he missed his only chance in last life, so he'll fill the void with whoever he can. his fellow soldier. ren's successor. ren's new kingmaker. anyone. and it's never gonna work. i need ren to come back for like, 900 reasons, but i especially need him to come back so skizz can have a shot at making it to spring.
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