silvercat17

Mirrored from Shenanigans - Curiously Lydean.

Echidnas are named after a Greek monster that was half women and half snake, and gave birth to most of the other monsters. That seems a bit unfair, considering how cute they are. There are four species of echidna and they’re related to the one species of platypus. Platypuses will fuck you up.

Lots of links, sorry no pictures this time. Feeling too lazy.

Fossil Words of Yore in the Offing “we may wait with bated breath for something in the offing, but it’s unlikely that anything else in our experience is ever bated, or that we’ve made any other use of the noun offing.” (From the MacMillan Dictionary Blog)

Princess Princess “Sadie and Amira are two very different princesses who decide to take their fairy tale into their own hands!” Short finished comic (44 pages) Lovely bits: Sadie is fat and can’t sing. Amara is a WOC and has awesome hair. The unicorn is not too bright. Not so lovely: they treat a guy like dirt for being a bit sexist and the villain uses fat-shaming and ableist language.

1-Up Mushroom Pizza Rolls “When you need energy to make it through the mushroom kingdom on you way to rescue Princess Peach (again), level up your game with these 1-Up Mushroom Pizza Rolls.” (from Kitchen Overlord)

Look Straight Ahead “Jeremy Knowles is a 17-year-old outcast who dreams of being a great artist. But when he suffers a severe mental breakdown brought on by bullying and other pressures at school, his future is called into question.” TW: depiction of schizophrenia based on the creator’s experience. Complete.

Beyond the Binary: Master Post “twenty four questions about gender, sex, sexuality, genderqueer issues, trans issues, stuff, things, the kitchen sink etc. answered by an amazing panel. Some of it’s 101 – some of it 201 – some questions that we get asked all the time, and some that many won’t have considered before.” (from A Gentleman and a Scholar)

Let’s Be Real: Balancing Life’s Roles “We say that ‘real men don’t eat quiche’ or ‘real women have curves,’ and it lets us draw arbitrary boundaries around broad identities in order to make them more exclusive, more secure.” (from Balancing Jane)

The Problem When Sexism Just Sounds So Darn Friendly… CN: discussion of benevolent sexism and history of research about sexism. The comments aren’t too bad, but there’s gender essentialism, sexism, and call outs of ‘reverse sexism’ there. Of course.

16 Words That Are Much Older Than They Seem (from Mental Floss)

Psychopathic criminals have empathy switch “Placed in a brain scanner, psychopathic criminals watched videos of one person hurting another and were asked to empathise with the individual in pain. Only when asked to imagine how the pain receiver felt did the area of the brain related to pain light up.” TW: the other links of the page are probably triggering (from BBC News)

What is an ontological metaphor? “metaphor in which an abstraction, such as an activity, emotion, or idea, is represented as something concrete, such as an object, substance, container, or person.” (Glossary of Linguistics terms) (Saving for when I get back to conlanging)

English words with Chinese characteristics “Chinese netizens are making up new English words based on very Chinese cultural phenomenon, making the foreign language a unique part of China’s online popular culture” (from Offbeat China)

Willard Suitcase Project – Jon Crispin is photographing the contents suitcases left behind by patients of the Willard Asylum. It’s very non-judgemental and each suitcase acts as a time capsule.

Pokemayan – Pokemon redesigned by a Mexico-based artist (from Monarobot)

SNESbox.com – play NES and SNES games in your browser.

Social justice link roundup (from Pharyngula Wiki)

Mirrored from Shenanigans - Curiously Lydean.

bibliobibuli n. – those who read too much, and hence tend to be unaware of or oblivious to the real world

Trying to clear out the backlog of links so this is going to be a big one. But I’m including pretties this time.

(as always pics are linked to their source and you can view more of my favorites on DeviantArt)

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Mirrored from Shenanigans - Curiously Lydean.

Even though it’s constantly mispronounced (see the sidebar :) ), every time I see or hear my name it makes me happy. It’s my own name, one I’ve chosen and claimed.

It’s not the name I was born with. The first name is similar and I kept my birth surname as a second middle name (in a futile attempt to appease my parents). My birth name felt girly to me and wasn’t something I identified with. And my birth surname was something I was teased with as a kid (that and a dozen other things.)

Lydean feels gender-neutral to me. It used to be Lydia – which got the Beetlejuice references, among other things. Lydia is pretty. I don’t want to be pretty. And I can pretend that my friends and family that can’t be bothered to call me Lydean are shortening it. (Thanks guys, it doesn’t bother me at all)

There’s been disadvantages to changing it. It was expensive – about $700 for the various court and paperwork fees, plus missing two days of work (but that job sucked anyway). And my old last name was at the end of the alphabet (which was one reason I changed it – I was tired of being at the end of the list). But being at the end meant it was easier to find on a list. And the last time I got called to jury duty, my new name meant I got called into a court room faster (lawyers: never ever pick me for jury duty. It’s a terrible idea.)

It took about a year to get all my bills changed. There are a few things I’ve never bothered to change. I have to put down my old name for background checks when I get hired. People can’t pronounce it – but people had a hard time with ‘Lydia’ as well. I don’t know how the ‘n’ got in there, but everyone wanted to call me Linda. I’m not a Linda.

But that’s minor. I changed my name because I didn’t like my old one. It didn’t fit me. But I didn’t have any real trauma associated with it, so it’s not painful to deal with references to my old name (except people refusing to use it or giving me shit about it…)

I love my name.

Lydean is creative and unusual. It feels genderqueer, like me.

Katherine is strong. It used to be Marie, which is common and soft. Katherine is melodious. And I can pull pseudonyms from it. If I want to be Kitty that day, I can. I can be Kat. I can be Rine or even The.

Kenzall is unique. I didn’t mean it to be. I mean, I made it up, but I figured it was a real name somewhere. Apparently it wasn’t. It is now. It fits me too. You could interpret it as ‘kens all’ meaning either ‘understands all’ or ‘know-it-all’. The latter is definitely more accurate. It’s got a z. Z’s are cool.

Lydean Katherine Kenzall. It’s got rhythm. It’s got a beat. LyDEan KAthe’rine KENzall (okay, it’s not a great beat, but I am not musically talented.) I can be who I want with it.

I want to be a guy that day: throw on jeans and boxers, put in a packer, strap down the boobs, slouch and swear. Hey, I’m Dean Kenzall.

I want to be a sophisticated woman: put on heels, slacks and a tight top, line my eyes and put on mascara. Evening, I’m Lydean Katherine. (this never happens)

I feel silly or little: wear a cute hat and a t-shirt, bounce around barefoot. Hi! I’m Kitty!!

Or, my normal self: jeans, boxers, a tank top with a men’s shirt over, a fedora over hair combed to the side, sandals and a smart-ass grin, a backpack full of writing projects. Hi, I’m Lydean Kenzall.

It’s my own name. And it makes me happy.

(edited to remove some unnecessary negativity)