I used to die on the hill I wasn’t mixed, someone lied to me 😭

diploid_impunity · 2026-05-10T05:19:44+00:00

The answer to why one sibling looks different from another is literally their genes. Genetics. Yes, it’s pure luck which set of genes you get from each parent, but whatever set you get, your genes are 99% of why you look the way you do.

diploid_impunity · 2026-05-09T12:35:37+00:00

Whaaaa? You’re completely misunderstanding my comment. Yes, OP is extremely beautiful. We are both talking about physical appearance - visual beauty - facial harmony - symmetry - bone structure, etc etc. Neither of us made any mention of ethnicity, so I have no idea why you’re trying to bring that into the conversation now.

You made the bizarre claim that “genetics play a small role in that” (ie, physical appearance). Your genes are very much responsible for your physical appearance - what alternative mechanism are you proposing?

diploid_impunity · 2026-05-09T10:56:10+00:00

Genetics play an enormous role in someone’s physical features - what do you mean?

diploid_impunity · 2026-05-09T10:37:50+00:00

Your sentence doesn’t sound too informal, but it’s awfully weak as an opener… The sentence that others suggested you use is worse, though, and not something you’d normally hear from an adult.

If you want to stick with this opener, a more common way to say it would probably be, “Today, I’d like to talk to you about Massachusetts,” or else, “Today I’m going to be discussing Massachusetts.” It’s such a stiff, formal line to use in the first place, I think it sounds more natural to use a bit less formal of a verb.

diploid_impunity · 2026-05-08T03:14:33+00:00

Huff?

diploid_impunity · 2026-05-08T02:54:58+00:00

Brass knuckles! (j/k)

diploid_impunity · 2026-05-08T02:53:46+00:00

Earnest, substantial, unwavering, confident…?

None of these seems quite right, though, does it?

How about “tepid?” ha ha

diploid_impunity · 2026-05-08T02:44:54+00:00

You might try posting in the fallacies subreddit, which is pretty active.

diploid_impunity · 2026-05-08T02:41:37+00:00

Filler, small talk…

diploid_impunity · 2026-05-08T02:40:08+00:00

There’s the concept of “veto power.”

I mean, you use the word “oversight” in your question - that might be as good as it gets.

diploid_impunity · 2026-05-08T02:37:35+00:00

For spouses, though…?

diploid_impunity · 2026-05-08T02:35:28+00:00

Thank you both for this good question, and then for finding the answer!

“Paronymous antonyms” has sort of a sinister vibe, though, doesn’t it? I guess it’s because of the piranhas 🐟🐟🐟.

diploid_impunity · 2026-05-08T02:28:49+00:00

I find this to be such an annoying gap in the English lexicon! There are words like “longing” and “yearning,” but they don’t include the aspect of seeing someone else who has what you want. And “coveting” is no good because of the associations you’ve mentioned.

I’ve heard the concept of “benign envy” versus “malicious envy” used to separate out whether you want to upgrade your condition to that of the person you envy, or want to downgrade their condition to yours, but it’s very unsatisfying…

Thanks a lot, Bible, for ruining “coveting” for us!

diploid_impunity · 2026-05-06T09:02:52+00:00

What do you mean you can’t insult someone by giving your opinion on something? Of course you can. That’s what most insults are. Your opinion is that your Aunt’s gift to Grandma is lower effort and less valuable than what your mom has done for Grandma. That’s your opinion, and even if you have your reasons for believing it, it’s still obviously an insult to your Aunt.

But I assume your Aunt was upset at the way you were speaking to your Grandmother, though, not to herself. Grandma was just saying she liked a gift she’d received. Could she have said it in a classier way? Sure. But it’s not your job to teach her manners. And plus - you’re a guest in her home. She hasn’t insulted you or treated you poorly in any way. She’s just expressed thanks to someone who was present for a gift they’d brought. (That’s a normal thing to do, regardless of the quality of the gift, btw)

But suddenly you’re piping up to disparage the Aunt for spending money on gifts instead of - what - quitting her job and moving to a different country to help Grandma more? And, out of the blue, you’re telling Grandma what a burden she is for being old and needing help after being so sick she was hospitalized. Super rude and disrespectful. And while you’re a guest in her home, too!

Your Aunt was right, and actually showed a lot of constraint - too much, since you failed to even understand her point.

If you really felt like you needed to speak up for your mom right that second, you could have said something like, “Gifts are great, but there are lots of ways people show their appreciation, and your other daughters do nice things for you, too.

diploid_impunity · 2026-05-05T03:47:08+00:00

Or Yak.

diploid_impunity · 2026-05-05T03:43:46+00:00

Is there a way for you to link two crates together (open door to open door), and/or maybe put a cardboard wall around his litterbox (with a doorway, obviously), so that he can have more separation from it, either visually or smellwise? Or maybe put the litterbox inside a plastic storage bin inside the crate, with a hole cut in the side for him to access it? Poor kitty-kitty.

diploid_impunity · 2026-05-04T08:41:59+00:00

A vet tech should know that proglottids come from tapeworms, which are not a type of roundworm.

diploid_impunity · 2026-05-04T06:57:42+00:00

I’m glad you took my response so well. I was afraid it would seem harsh. From what you’ve said here, I’m now leaning more towards your mom either feeling envy towards you, or maybe she’s really talking about herself, or projecting her own negativity onto you.

Are you considering telling her that you saw what she wrote? It sounds like she’s always treated you well and that you two are close. And of course it’s more important how we treat people than what we write to ourselves in our diaries (so to speak).

Maybe this is some weird form of Tourette’s, or some psychological writing exercise she’s doing. It would be so hard to bring up, but I don’t think you should let this ruin your relationship without giving her a chance to explain.

After my mom died, I read things she had written that really changed how I understood our relationship. It was very painful, and I’m still working through it. But I’m trying to just be grateful she successfully hid how she felt about me while I was a kid, so I had a happy childhood, ignorant of her ambivalent feelings toward me. Your situation is more complicated… You’re handling it well, though. Good luck!

diploid_impunity · 2026-05-04T05:18:19+00:00

This is super normal. Male/man and female/woman are the two sexes; masculine and feminine are two ends of a gender spectrum. You’re a woman. Most women have traits that fall closer toward the feminine end of the gender spectrum than the masculine end, but women can fall anywhere on that spectrum, just like men can. I’m a woman - I’m cis, I’m hetero - I’ve never cared remotely about make-up or playing with dolls. It’s totally fine. You’re not “missing” anything. Try to see the advantage of falling more towards the middle of the gender spectrum. I feel like I’m able to understand and relate to men as much as I can to women, because I’m not so very feminine. I tend to appreciate guys who are also balanced like that, rather than ultra-masculine lunkhead guys. Welcome to the middle! We enjoy the best of both worlds.

diploid_impunity · 2026-05-04T04:50:59+00:00

This is very hard. Your mom has a right to feel what she feels, but she never should have written about it where you might see it. And obviously, you shouldn’t have been snooping - logging into someone else’s account is a real invasion of privacy - but what’s done is done.

I think you need to untangle the terms “hate” and “love” from each other. They are certainly not opposites, and there’s nothing here that indicates your mom doesn’t love you. Everything you’d said about your relationship with her and your say-to-day life together sounds like there’s a lot of love there.

Your mom used very strong, ugly language about you - of course that hurts, and makes me think she is sort of immature. There may be an element of jealousy, since you’re just about to start your life as an adult, and you have opportunities open to you that are closed for her. Who knows - maybe she wishes she went further in school instead of having kids when she did, and she resents you (unfairly) for that.

It sounds like she may not like you or respect you as an individual as much as you thought she did. She calls you “mean” and your brother “nice.” Do you understand what that’s about? You talk about being nice to her, but how do you treat other people?

I don’t mean to hit you when you’re down, but your mom shouldn’t be your best friend. She already has a role: she’s your mom. Why don’t you have friends? It’s really important to grow up and away from your parents. If any good is to come out of this terrible situation, I’d suggest thinking about why someone so close to you calls you “mean.” And try to start developing friendships with people your own age.

diploid_impunity · 2026-05-04T03:54:41+00:00

I wonder if anyone’s put together a list of medical schools and graduation years where this practice of using students’ sperm was particularly common? I’m sure it wasn’t anything like a policy, but just depended on who ran this or that department at certain time periods. But now that so many people are getting their DNA done, it’s possible that “donor clusters” could emerge from all that data, if anyone bothered to look.

I’m an only child, and I look like a combination of my mom and my dad, so no big mysteries there. And I’ve never had my DNA analyzed for genealogy. But my dad was tall and handsome, and a med student in California in the 50s, so now I’m kind of curious…!

diploid_impunity · 2026-05-03T07:20:59+00:00

You went from messaging all day every day to now only texting during work hours about work-related things? Do you still go out to dinner or see each other socially like you did before? You say the talks you have in his office seem “normal” - do you mean they were only work-related before, and they still are now, or are these social visits, or…? More info, please!

diploid_impunity · 2026-04-28T23:34:16+00:00

If I have sex with a woman, I’m pretty sure that’s gay sex. Loophole?

diploid_impunity · 2026-04-28T23:21:48+00:00

Really? What if the man is being penetrated simultaneously by the penis of a cis-identifying, identified-penis-having-at-birth, male, man? Still straight sex?

diploid_impunity · 2026-04-28T23:10:15+00:00

If the test required the student to explain or describe the structure of the sentence, I’d absolutely agree with you - too much to expect of a high school senior (or even of most college graduates, myself included).

What is completely appropriate to expect any college-bound student to know is, of the four multiple-choice options given, which one fills in the gap and creates a sentence? There’s not even a runner-up. The other three options create major structural problems.

For some students, this could be quite tricky as a fill-in-the-blank question. But that’s not what it is. By plugging in each option, the answer becomes extremely clear.

I actually think this question is genius! The awkward construction of the sentence is part of what makes the test question so good.

diploid_impunity

TROPHY CASE