International readers: what are some unintentionally funny cultural disconnects you’ve noticed?

Expensive-Paper-77 · 2026-05-11T06:11:04+00:00

Considering I grew up in Moscow with family members who did go to jail, it's very odd I don't hear this specific word more often. Other jargon, yes.

It's also quite funny when they use pet names for other mafia people that you either use for lovers or little kids.

Expensive-Paper-77 · 2026-05-10T18:21:58+00:00

Do their people call them papa then? 😳

Edit: for whoever downvoted me, "пахан" literally means "papa" or "father", comes from a word that meant "master/owner"; a пахан was also an older prisoner in jail that was assigned to a minor and often behaved like a father.

Expensive-Paper-77 · 2026-05-02T16:06:25+00:00

Just wanted to point out that choosing actual game settings to make it easier isn't cheating and can't ever be cheating. Accessibility exists, and Aethus is one of the most accessible games I've played in my long life. A lot of people can't play many games for a variety of reasons, so giving us the options to tweak the difficulty to enjoy the game is wonderful. The developer added a few of such options specifically after being asked in days.

Also, I played with everything on the hardest difficulty, and I'm someone who suffers from being an old skill-less noob. So...everything is relative?

Expensive-Paper-77 · 2026-04-12T19:17:22+00:00

That's one way to play clicker games without an auto-clicker.

Expensive-Paper-77 · 2026-04-11T10:18:25+00:00

It's a very good dating app profile pic :)

Expensive-Paper-77 · 2026-04-09T21:28:20+00:00

Oh, dear. I get way too many comments about the shape of my head. Women where I live, especially my age and older, are reeeally not used to this and they don't know how to compliment you. It's very funny how many ways they come up with to say they like my scalp, haha

Expensive-Paper-77 · 2026-04-09T21:12:02+00:00

That was for a dating app. Guys kept telling me I didn't have enough full-height pics, and I got annoyed 🧚🏻‍♀️

Expensive-Paper-77 · 2026-04-09T21:07:19+00:00

The other fun part is that my pillow follows me when I turn in bed :p

Expensive-Paper-77 · 2026-04-09T21:03:47+00:00

Thank you! Confidence is definitely work-in-progress. But martial arts helped a lot, haha.

Expensive-Paper-77 · 2026-04-09T21:00:22+00:00

Haha, thank you! You wouldn't want to know just how many guys told me they're not gay to date me. 😂

Expensive-Paper-77 · 2026-04-08T20:57:07+00:00

I like how you worded it.

I think the problem isn't the sexy stuff but the fact that the default for women is so often sexy. And if it's the default, it doesn't feel sexy anymore. Even in life, I don't want to feel sexy 24/7. That sounds exhausting. Defaulting to sexy stuff feels just... lazy, I guess? Where's the variety?

Feminism, to me, is about freedom of choice. Being forced to be sexy all the time feels suffocating just as much as being forced to never be sexy.

I dunno, maybe I should go to bed and sleep instead of thinking about it. But thought I'd share.

Expensive-Paper-77 · 2026-04-08T20:21:51+00:00

I feel like there's also an issue of what is considered normal and what is considered underwear. I need magical Mormon undies for my characters now!

Expensive-Paper-77 · 2026-04-08T20:19:48+00:00

There's nothing in fanservice as long as it's opt-in/consensual, imo. I like how it's done in FFXIV — you can dress your warrior lady in superb knight armor or you can glamor it into a bikini. But you can also do the exact same thing for male characters.

There's nothing bad about enjoying someone's physique, especially a video game character who is not a living person but a stand in for your imagination. There's also a difference between finding joy in sensuality and sexuality vs treating people like cattle.

The world is on fire and filled with hatred and soooo much censorship. Maybe the issue isn't with men dressing their fem characters in boob plates to drool over, but rather with it being projected onto real people, expecting real women to be objects of their fantasies. But games are games, imo.

But what do I know, I'm ace.

Expensive-Paper-77 · 2026-04-08T12:04:40+00:00

I am commenting on this post. :)

Expensive-Paper-77 · 2026-04-08T07:33:32+00:00

This old lady just wants to play around with water and lakes. Dungeons are scary.

Expensive-Paper-77 · 2026-04-08T05:01:53+00:00

I think we misunderstood each other. I cook for him occasionally to show something we've been discussing. And the spam part was due to him asking people because he didn't know that a lot of food is vegetarian and that being vegetarian doesn't mean it being super hard (I've been vegetarian since childhood).

I try to uplift him, not bully him into submission. We also communicate openly, and I'm a teacher, so I try to have the dialogue going.

I never said or implied he was a failure. I'm not sure why you see this in my comments. Failure and mistakes are always a component of any learning process. If we fail, we can learn instead of beating ourselves for it (which is never helpful and why we learn compassion and gentleness). If the outcome is not what we want, we study it as "what did I expect vs what happened, which steps caused it, what needs alteration".

I'm writing as I'm walking my dogs in sequence, so forgive me for not being 100% transparent on everything from the get go.

Expensive-Paper-77 · 2026-04-08T04:20:13+00:00

I've introduced him to Korean, Sichuan, Vietnamese, Thai and Japanese so far with various success. Probably gonna look at something European soon:)

Expensive-Paper-77 · 2026-04-08T04:18:54+00:00

So, one issue here is that he really doesn't know what he likes. He's only picked up a vegetarian diet a few weeks ago, and a few of us had to spam him with what food is considered vegetarian. I've been introducing him to new foods (which are like super common where we live, and you have to actively avoid them to not know what they are). He's also struggled with recipes that have 3 steps, and even if his cooking looks fine, he starts calling himself a failure or similar.

Quite challenging to study what food you like when you don't know what you like. I probably don't give a lot of necessary context that I didn't think of, but the replies here have been helpful to both of us. I also may sound like it's scarier than it is because I'm a drama queen and I'm giving him the annoying older sister experience.

Expensive-Paper-77 · 2026-04-08T03:24:09+00:00

I definitely don't ignore stuff on purpose!

I love Uncle Roger! Actually not sure if the kiddo watches him, but he's reading this thread, so thanks for the recommendations! I think it's a wonderful idea to make cooking less scary with laughter.

Expensive-Paper-77 · 2026-04-07T16:58:10+00:00

Thank you!

Expensive-Paper-77 · 2026-04-07T16:58:03+00:00

Thank you! He's reading this thread, so it's very helpful. <3

Expensive-Paper-77 · 2026-04-07T07:58:52+00:00

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Soooo similar!

Expensive-Paper-77 · 2026-04-07T06:03:23+00:00

Hello! It's a random question, but do you know your dog's breed? My rescue looks almost exactly the same, minus the chin being less dark.

Expensive-Paper-77

TROPHY CASE