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Amina Sopwith

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Posts posted by Amina Sopwith

    Relax buddy, I’m not looking at your girlfriend!

    in General Discussion Forum

    Posted

    This happens to me in RL. Less as I've got older but as a teenager, it happened ALL THE TIME.

    Basically, I'm off in my own world most of the time (some people believe I am a maladaptive daydreamer....I've no official diagnosis but I can believe it). As a kid, there were several occasions where I had no idea where my eyes were resting, since I wasn't actually taking in whatever they were looking at, and suddenly there'd be an angry face in my field of vision demanding to know why I was staring at her (it was always a her. Men just tended to wave their hands in front of my face or hit on me).

    It was no good trying to explain that I was just staring vacantly into space while having some epic adventure in my head. I was definitely STARING AT THEM WITH INTENT. I wondered sometimes if it did come across as aggressive, but photos exist and I can confirm I looked as gormless as expected. 

    It was worth it for the time a girl pounced on me suddenly to demand to know why I was staring at her, and startled me so badly (she was really shouting) that I jumped and screamed, which caused her to jump and scream, which caused her group of friends to jump and scream, and while everyone was jumping and screaming I just legged it out of there. 

    • Like 6
    • Haha 3

    I don't have a lot of real friends, but I do have a lot of imaginary ones.

    in General Discussion Forum

    Posted

    3 hours ago, Lewis Luminos said:

    There is sadly no room for vegetarians in traditional British cuisine. Almost the only things that aren't meat or fish, are puddings and cakes, and even then, they often contain suet. Vegetables and potatoes are always present of course, but almost never on their own. The only other things I can think of are cheese and potato pies and Welsh Rarebit. Devilled eggs used to be popular but they are not British in origin. 

    Cheese ploughman's and cheese and mushroom Wellington are also options.

    Vegans really are stuffed. Or not, I suppose.

    • Like 3

    I don't have a lot of real friends, but I do have a lot of imaginary ones.

    in General Discussion Forum

    Posted

    59 minutes ago, Lewis Luminos said:

    Bubble and squeak was a rare treat - there were seldom enough leftovers to make it.  It was one of the few things my dad would cook himself, and one of the first I learned to cook as a kid. 

    As a veggie, I can't participate in a lot of traditional British fare, but I can do this and frequently do. I always overcook the quantities of veg and potatoes at Christmas on purpose so that I can do some Boxing Day bubble and squeak, so it's sobering (and appropriate) to be reminded that many people don't have the choice of having leftover food to make it.

    • Like 4
    • Thanks 2

    I don't have a lot of real friends, but I do have a lot of imaginary ones.

    in General Discussion Forum

    Posted

    5 minutes ago, Madelaine McMasters said:

    Time to practice your sabrage technique, Amina. It'll get the top off, thrill the kiddie, and you can imagine the follow-through skewering Boris.

    I've got a light sabre?

    So a man dies and goes to heaven. Behind St Peter, he sees a whole load of clocks in all shapes and sizes.

    "What are those?" he asks.

    "Oh," says St Peter, "they're lie clocks. Every time a person lies, the hands move forward. That one there belongs to Nelson Mandela. Its hands have never moved."

    "Whose is that one?" the man asks.

    "That's Abraham Lincoln's. Its hands have moved twice."

    "Where's Boris Johnson's?"

    "We're using it as a ceiling fan."

    • Like 1
    • Haha 4

    I don't have a lot of real friends, but I do have a lot of imaginary ones.

    in General Discussion Forum

    Posted · Edited by Amina Sopwith

    On 1/14/2022 at 3:24 AM, Scylla Rhiadra said:

    Richard Parkes, my other alt, is . . . well, a few older posters here will remember him as an obnoxious and slightly idiotic (and hopefully reasonably funny) parody of a Gorean master.

    Only "slightly"? 

    (It's OK. What can you do when the source material itself is beyond parody?)

    ETA: Now you can create your own last name, why not bring him back in all his Gorean glory? The surname can be Head and the nickname will take care of itself.)

    • Haha 3

    Oh my Gawd! - Totally unOfficial Pet Peeve Thread.

    in General Discussion Forum

    Posted

    4 hours ago, Robin Kiyori said:

    As Scylla mentioned, It's the term the radfems use for themselves,  not a slur. While radical isn't a negative term either but neutral depending on context.  (in fact many would call many of my own views radical!) But of course, Terfs sorry "Gender critical" types could hardly be called feminist anyway.

    As Scylla mentioned, a lot of them use the term "gender critical". You claim "radfem" is not a slur then every time you use it, like right now, make it interchangeable with what most definitely is a slur, invoking every negative stereotype about feminism. And you explicitly state that you consider it interchangeable with "gender critical".

    You even have to explain why it's a slur in case anyone could have missed it by now, and as if it's ever levelled at men. (May I add that "terf" is also just a really crap insult? The acronym doesn't spell out anything clever or funny. It's like "your mum" for the present day.)

    Quite apart from anything else, the people you're attempting to invalidate and silence by using it are simply not radical feminists 99% of the time so it's not even faintly accurate. You're not saving it for a particular brand of historic feminism that most people couldn't identify any more. Don't make me laugh. 

    If your points are so valid and well substantiated, you can make them without using these lazy, misogynistic slurs that you insist aren't slurs while using them alongside slurs and explaining why they're slurs. I'm sure you're aware that a common perception of people who align themselves with "terf" and "radfem" as insults is that they're anti-woman. Why on earth you'd want to feed that is beyond me. 

    Perhaps you can channel the energy you want to spend on defending rubbish insults into thinking of ways to make your points without using them. If they're such good points, it shouldn't be that hard.

    • Thanks 1

    Oh my Gawd! - Totally unOfficial Pet Peeve Thread.

    in General Discussion Forum

    Posted

    15 minutes ago, Scylla Rhiadra said:

    "RadFem" or "Radical Feminist" -- their term, so not an "insult" -- is, as you probably know, a particular "school" of feminism that arose in the late 60s and was particularly prevalent in the late 70s and the first half of the 80s. It's historically contingent, and tethered strongly to Second Wave Feminism -- with all of the positive and negatives that that implies. I believe that Radical Feminism is highly problematic: Third and Fourth Wave Feminisms (if we've arrived at the Fourth Wave yet -- hard to say!) have been in large measure both a critique and a necessary elaboration of RadFem ideology. And it's worthwhile noting that some very prominent RadFem thinkers, notably Catherine McKinnon and even Andrea Dworkin, have been trans-inclusive and opposed to the biological essentialism that lies at the heart of modern GC approaches. But most of those who continue to call themselves RadFem are not.

    It is most certainly intended as an insult in its most common usage these days, as lazy shorthand to try to shut people up by invoking every nasty, ancient stereotype about feminism. Don't disagree with me or I'll weaponise this useful stereotype of angry, hateful harridans to include you. Plus ca change...

    I am sorry to say that I have heard people say horrible things about trans people (and argued with them over it) and pretty much the only thing they all had in common was that they really, really weren't radical feminists. They're so far from it, in fact, that the idea would be laughable if it weren't so serious.

    Ironically, it's also directed pretty much exclusively at women. If someone tries to invoke negative stereotypes of feminism at you to shut you up, they definitely perceive you as a woman. No gendering?

    I could wax very lyrically about this, but I'm too full of Covid and it's Saturday night. I'll just say that lazy slurs based in misogynistic stereotypes do nothing to lend weight to these arguments. If one needs to use them to make the point, one's point has failed. I'd ask anyone who does it please to make your arguments stand by themselves. They'll be more convincing and I for one will respect you more for it.

     

    • Like 1

    Oh my Gawd! - Totally unOfficial Pet Peeve Thread.

    in General Discussion Forum

    Posted

    2 hours ago, Robin Kiyori said:

    Scylla normally we're on the same wavelength but I need to kinda point something out. The assumption of gendered socialisation is often radfem/terf retoric used to discriminate  against us trans folk.

    Why must you use terms that denigrate feminism itself, using the most tired of stereotypes (Radical! Bad bad bad!), when making points like this? Does making this argument necessitate invalidating and demonising the women's rights movement?

    I have a peeve about this. 

     

    • Like 3

    Is that how it rolls?

    in General Discussion Forum

    Posted

    I used to be pretty into chess at one point and I never heard "roll" being used to describe a move.

    I played with my grandfather when I was a kid. I thought he would let me win but the men in my family always play to win. I remember thd first time I realised I was about to win, making the move, giving a tentative "checkmate?", and him looking hard at the board, realising I'd won and then raising his eyes to me with a huge grin.

    • Like 6

    How can a woman trust her man enough to bring him to a store for women (and vice versa)

    in General Discussion Forum

    Posted

    1 hour ago, Lewis Luminos said:

    Sadly there are people who do behave like this in RL too. 

    Many years ago I worked with a woman who had an incredibly jealous and controlling husband. She was not allowed to go without him anywhere except work, and if she so much as glanced at another man he would be furious. She was not allowed any friends of her own, he monitored all of her telephone conversations, he did not allow her to have her own money and if she needed anything she had to ask him to buy it for her. If she was late leaving work for any reason she would be terrified of his reaction, and would almost certainly come to work the next day with new bruises on her face.  

    I only worked there a year, but I heard from a former colleague a few years later that she had committed suicide.

    That's absolutely tragic. I'm very sorry to hear it. Shows just how hard it is to leave abusive and controlling relationships, that she thought this was the only escape route.

    And it wouldn't surprise me at all if he was playing away himself. It's a very common deflection and projection tactic in that scenario.

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