Icon by @ThatSpookyAgent. Call me Tir or Julian. 37. He/They. Queer. Twitter: @tirlaeyn. ao3: tirlaeyn. BlueSky: tirlaeyn. 18+ Only. Star Trek. The X-Files. Sandman. IwtV. OMFD. Definitionless in this Strict Atmosphere.
Being straight is like being in gryffindor: all the main characters are always gryffindor, there’s tons of merch for gryffindor, and no one’s gonna give you shit for being in gryffindor.
Being gay is like being in slytherin: everyone has heard of it, but the merch is few and far between so you have to really want it. The only slytherin characters are secondary and morally gray. Some people think you are evil.
Being bisexual is like being in ravenclaw: there is no merch. there are no major ravenclaw characters. people definitely try to lump it in with either gryffindor or slytherin, and there are a few weird stereotypes.
In the wake of the election of Donald Trump, we are all faced with uncertainty about our future. Minorities’ basic rights, that were obtained through many struggles, are now at stake.
Now more than ever, it is important to know how to be an ally.
Allyship won’t be cut down to “listen and educate” anymore: we need to protect those who don’t have the privilege of not fearing for their lives from now on. We have to expect violence.
Following the model of my first guide about how to help when witnessing Islamophobia, here is a guide on how to be an ally to minorities in general: POCs, LGBTQIA+ people, people with disabilities, people with mental illness… for everyone whose life and choices are threatened by these dark times, you can apply these 4 steps.
Of course, the recommendations I made in the first guide remain applicable to any kind of harassment, too.
I hope it’s clear and can be shared easily, I wanted to make sure you could understand everything quickly. Don’t hesitate to tell me what you think.
Please, take care of each other. If we don’t have any support in the authorities, we must at least have each other, and stand strong in the face of adversity. I believe in you.
any white at a protest who tries to go against police and deliberately provoke a response from them is not to be trusted and does not have the safety of black and brown people in mind.
there is a good chance that they are police too. if anyone, especially a white dude, ever randomly gets your attention and conspiratorially tries to convince you to jump a police officer, then dude is a cop. They have been using this technique and script for at least 30 years.
Something else that’s important is to call that kind of behavior out to the rest of the people there. If you suspect someone of being a cop or a scab, call them out so everyone else can be aware of their presence.
Dear young females, if a man ever interrupts you say “excuse me I wasn’t finished.” and finish ur statement. The looks u get and his mortified reaction will make u unstoppable. demand respect.
On Thursday morning, a group of more than 200 protesters affiliated with IfNotNow, a progressive organization of American Jews, marched into President-elect Trump’s transition headquarters in Washington, D.C., to demand he fire Stephen Bannon. The march also addressed other Jewish organizations that have remained silent.
for chinese new year they get all these famous actors and comedians together and they do a lil show and one of the comedians was like “i was in a hotel in america once and there was a mouse in my room so i called reception except i forgot the english word for mouse so instead i said ‘you know tom and jerry? jerry is here’
jerry is here
my chinese teacher once shared this story in class about someone who went to the grocery to buy chicken, but they forgot the english word for it, so they grabbed an egg, went to the nearest sales lady and said “where’s the mother”
When I was a teenager, we went to Italy for the summer holidays. We are German, neither of us speaks more than a few words of Italian. That didn’t keep my family from always referring to me when they wanted something translated because “You’re so good with languages and you took Latin”. (I told them a hundred times I couldn’t order ice cream in Latin, they ignored that.) Anyway, my dad really loved a certain cheese there, made from sheep’s milk. He knew the Italian word for ‘cheese’ – formaggio – and he knew how to say ‘please’. And he had already spotted a little shop that sold the cheese. He asked me what ‘sheep’ was in Italian, and of course, I had no idea. So he just shrugged and said “I’ll manage” and went into the shop. 5 mins later, he comes out with a little bag, obviously very pleased with himself. How did he manage it? He had gone in and said “'Baaaah’ formaggio, prego.”
I was done for the day.
This makes me feel better about every conversation I had in both Rome and Ghent.
I once lost my husband in the ruins of a French castle on a mountain, and trotted around looking for him in increasing desperation. “Have you seen my husband?” I asked some French people, having forgotten all descriptive words. “He is small, and English. His hair is the color of bread.”
I did not find my husband in this way.
In rural France it is apparently Known that one brings one’s own shopping bags to the grocery store. I was a visitor and had not been briefed and had no shopping bag. I saw that other people were able to conduct negotiations to purchase shopping bags, but I could not remember the word for “bag.”
“Can I have a box that is not a box,” I said.
The checkout lady looked extremely tired and said, “Un sac?” (A sack?)
Of course. A fucking sack. And so I did get a sack.
I once was at a German-American Church youth camp for two weeks and predictably, we spoke a whole lot of English.
When I phoned my mom during week two I tried to tell her that it was a bit cold in the sleeping bag at night. I stumbled around the word in German because for the love of god, I could remember the Germwn word for sleeping bag.
“Yeah so, it’s like a bag you sleep in at night?”
“And my mother must probably have thought I lost my mind. She just sighed and was like ‘So, a Schlafsack, yes?”
Which is LITERALLY Sleeping sac … The German word is a basically a one on one translation of the English word and I just… I failed it. At my mother tongue. BIG
My former boss is Italian and she ended up working in a lab where the common language was English. She once saw an insect running through the lab and she went to tell her colleagues. She remembered it was the name of a famous English band so she barged in the office yelling there was a rolling stone in the lab…
This is literally what my speech therapist told me to do when I have word-finding problems in English (my primary language.) Keep talking aloud and describe the thing. Where it is, what it’s like, things it’s associated with, letter it starts with, whatever you can remember. Sometimes this will shake it loose in your own mind, and sometimes the person you’re talking to will figure out what you meant.
It makes a lot of sense that this is also a successful strategy in a secondary language.
it’s called circumlocution and it’s a high-level language learning skill.
