Kids that young are essentially gender neutral, and are still being taught ‘gender norms’ by adults who should know better.
I have the world’s most precious nephew. When he was 3, he asked his mom and grandma if he could be a girl. Now, my family is smart. Both his mom and his grandma asked “why?” He said it was so he could have long hair.
His mom showed him photos of famous musicians with long hair, along with Johnny Depp. His grandma showed him photos of Brad Pitt, Troy Polamalu, and Jared Leto with long hair. Then they told him “Boys can have long hair, see?” He said “oh” and went on about his life being a boy.
When he was 4, this same nephew decided again that he wanted to be a girl. This time, the reason was so he could wear skirts and paint his nails. Same reaction: his mom and grandma showed him photos of men in kilts, and men with painted nails, and said “boys can do that, too.” He said “oh”, and decided he was okay being a boy.
At the root of it, he didn’t really want to be a girl. He just wanted to do the same things he saw his mama doing. When he understood he didn’t have to be a girl to do those things, he shrugged it off and was cool with being a boy.
Now, if he ever adamantly decides that he is a girl, not that he wants to be a girl, myself, his mom, and his grandma will be okay with that. We just want to make sure he actually is transgender instead of deciding “oh he wants to do these things, so he is a girl.” We are extremely firm believers in making educated decisions.
I feel that a transgender four year old is more like a cat who is vegan because the cat’s owner’s misunderstood the cat eating grass to mean it is vegan.
“Listen, keen eyes are important in a Hunter, and so’s a keen mind. Most times, smart thing’s to stay hidden, know when to strike, and make it count.
At least, that’s what they say. I say, don’t forget to take a little pride in what you do. Sometimes you gotta roll in, guns blazing, stick your neck out and see what happens. Sometimes you gotta crow a little bit, let the universe know who you are – you follow?
That’s why I chose you, Ralph. Look at me – look me in the eye, like a real Hunter, and believe me when I tell you that Louis has nothin’ on you.
I speak the other Spanish and I’m angry with Cayde cause he said in my Spanish “Chinese noodles soup” instead of “Ramen”
Also… About other NPC talking in other languages: Ikora speaking a perfect French (among many other languages cause she-nerd..) Zavala and Shaxx talking in Cabal language, Eris and her hive noises, Petra learning Fallen from Variks, Shiro have been so many years in the Cosmodrome that speaks Russian like a boss, Saladin howling to his doges and the fluffy boys howling back to dad, two drunk Hunters speaking their drunk language…
I think a fundamental part of online friendships that people ‘outside’ fail to understand is how comforting it is to have friends right there in your pocket who will keep you company in good times and bad, listen to your rants, let you vent, be supportive whilst offering outsider perspective…
Need to be alone but need support too? Pocket friends.
Something awful just happened and there’s nobody around for you to tell? Pocket friends.
Need to let your feelings out but don’t want people to see you ugly-cry? Pocket friends.
Keep being amazing, pocket friends. You couldn’t possibly imagine how important you are.
For anyone who feels this, let your first sentence be crappy.
Building up momentum while writing is the easiest way to get the story flowing but you need to start somewhere. And the start might just have to be crappy.
Like, let your first sentence be “It was raining.” “He was unhappy.” “When he woke up, his head was hurting.” It’s easy to be hyper-critical of the first sentence you write and that can lead to typing and erasing for hours and giving up. Let it be bland and generic and dull just so you can get the ball rolling.
Edit it later.
Write a place-holder first sentence (sentences, paragraph) that sucks, and then write the rest of the chapter, and then go back and fix that sentence last.
i’d like to add that those opening sentences aren’t actually ‘crappy’ at all, storytelling-wise. ‘it was raining’ sets a tone and states a fact, and allows for the placement of characters in relation to the rain. ‘he was unhappy’ is a fact that sets a hook and allows for expansion, giving the pov character a problem to deal with right off the bat—why is he unhappy? how are we gonna fix that? (or make it worse, but yknow.) ditto ‘when he woke up, his head was hurting‘—it stands to follow that, at some point, he’s going to get out of bed to fix that, or lie still and suffer and regret whatever made his head hurt.
so, second piece of writing advice:
start with a statement of fact
any fact, just pick one thing about the beginning of the story you wanna tell. if it gives the pov character a dilemma or trouble, all the better. it’s not the only way to start, but it’s simple and fairly concrete as a starting line.
definitely still give yourself permission to suck and rewrite later on, but if you just don’t know how to start, see if you can identify something about your story—where are we (location, time, in relation to some other event), what are we doing (verbs!), and/or what’s troubling us (pain, worry, discomfort, confusion, suspicion, etc.)—and slap it down.
Time's Vengeance 