Amina Sopwith

You're my wonderwall.

I don't think I've ever heard that. I mean, I expect I would get it from the context if someone did, but I don't think it's an established term. Happy to be corrected by other Brits, maybe it's regional. There's a good bit in the film Life is Sweet, the only scene in which Natalie smiles. She's talking to her sister Nicola about her plans to travel to America: Nicola : You'll find out when you get to America. Natalie : I'm only going on a holiday. Nicola : So? Natalie : What? You think I'm going to get yanked off the plane at John F. Kennedy airport and be raped and pillaged do ya? Nicola : You've got to be on your guard. Natalie : Did you hear what I just said? Nicola : What? Natalie : Yanked. Get it? Nicola : What? Natalie : Yanked! America! I laughed.

Make it Diss Enchantment, and that's a battle rapper's name if ever there was one.

I really don't know why I read it as a soft "ch", but I did. It'll take a while to adjust my inner voice.

Yeah, there are many examples of people "reclaiming" slurs. I'm not 100% convinced by the theory behind it, but it's very common. I didn't know Trump supporters were doing it with "covfefe". I don't think it really works, since it's not an insult someone threw at them to be taken as a mark of honour, it's just a stupid typo made and broadcast by the man himself. Still, if Trump voters are using it, then that means it's appealing to both them and their opponents, and that makes it a very clever move from the Lab. For whatever it's worth, although I don't say it, I've never heard a Brit use the word "Yank" in a genuinely derogatory fashion. I think it's a bit dated now anyway.

I didn't know that. That makes it an even cleverer choice by the Lab than I realised.

I'm not getting into one of these with you, Luna.

Forgiveness is a personal decision and I don't think anyone has suggested otherwise. Abuse should be recognised for what it is, how it looks and how it operates. It may be that the abuse can be forgiven, that's up to the individual. But it is still abuse. And it's important that other grown-up abused children who are reading know this. Because abuse always has a hardship story, deep intense feelings, complex personalities and all the rest. It's not a monochromic act by a flat, one dimensional pantomime villain with no good points whatsoever, but there is a tendency to think that it is, and therefore that anything more nuanced is something else. It's not. That's what abuse looks like and that's largely why people don't leave or even recognise it. It's not dissimilar to rape in that regard. We think of rape as a strange man dragging a woman behind a bush. It can be, but that's statistically extremely rare. It's far more likely to be a lot more complex than that. It's still rape, that's what rape is. But that's also why women don't report it, blame themselves, minimise it....and it continues while pretending it looks different. And then the narrative in which women get beaten, children get traumatised and violent, abusive men get a narrative of redeemable flawed heroism. Yes, of course there are violent, abusive women too and it's every bit as wrong. But in my experience, people are less quick to give these women a sympathetic narrative of human frailty. If I'm wrong, never mind. It's still abuse and that's the point. Forgiveness is a separate issue. A personal decision. You (generic you) may decide you can forgive your abuser, that's your prerogative and nobody is saying otherwise. But it is abuse. That's what it looks like.

It might be my accent. Southern standard English.

I Googled and it does seem to be German...what should it be?

And you were Skiller, until I knew better. Oh God. If I change my surname, clearly it has to be Puddle. Say it out loud. ETA: Oh bugger, it's Puddles. Doesn't work.

Oops. In my head I've been pronouncing it Say-sher. Sorry.

Love shack.

It does seem a lot for what it is, but if people want it that badly then I guess that's what it's worth.

Splycemeigh Mainsail (I semi stole this from Captain Pugwash) Coke Float Silly Hijinks Vectra Voxel Notta Bellisserian ETA: Those rumours about names in Captain Pugwash are entirely untrue. The cabin boy is called Tom, there is no Seaman anything and THAT character is called Master Mates.

I don't really understand the big deal either.

I quite liked Pointless Resident, Nottan Alpha and Brain Cloud. Came up with them yesterday when someone suggested I get a Gorean name.

I'M SPARTACUS

Pop music.

Perhaps Super Nova. I think they can sometimes form supermassive black holes, and that's a fine metaphor for Gor if ever there was one. Plus John Nobhead is a supermassive hole himself.

Idiot Covfefe? Nottan Alpha? Ima Banana? Brain Cloud? Logic Dismantled? Pointless Resident? In a world where Doreen and Beverley are considered to be sexy names, the main protagonist sounds like a knitting stitch and the slave girls moniker was a band that had a hit in 1983 with Too Shy, it's hard to get it wrong.

Oh, ok. I've never cared about owning a home or land, so we might have found the one thing that could entice me to go premium...

I'm so creating a new alt, for the sole purpose of living in fetish wear and exploring every single kink I can think of, while wearing the surname Vanilla.

This is the other thing. As well as looking after your kids, you're also supposed to want them to have a better life than you did. It's not supposed to be some sort of stick you use to beat them, figuratively or literally. This is another way abusive parents often justify it: I can't be abusive because I had to put up with much worse. I do not have any right to abuse my child, or redemption in it, just because I had to endure things that I hope he won't have to. How does this logic even work when the child's own suffering is because the parent is abusive? It is, to use an American phrase, ass-backwards. In many cases, our children have a better life because the world has just evolved towards easier lives. Our parents probably had it better than our grandparents. I can't understand this mentality of people having kids and feeling some sense of entitlement or justification or mitigation about treating them badly. The first thing I realised when my son was born was that I had absolutely no rights over him. I had responsibilities and that was it. Who gives a monkey's what I experienced before he was born? I chose to bring him into the world, I was responsible for him and none of that is any of his problem. I'm the grown up. I'm the parent.

There is always a hardship story. That's part of how it works. It doesn't redeem anything. My father had one too. You now have one of your own and so have I, and as you can see, we have managed not to use it as an excuse to abuse our families. And parents are supposed to look after their kids. It's not a mark of great heroism. I understand he wasn't only one thing, or an evil person. People are complex. That's why abusive relationships are complex. They're still abusive. Romanticising and minimising them is generally how they get disguised and continue. This is complicated, I know. It's not one dimensional. But abuse never is.