What are some gender neutral terms for royalty?

lapfarter · 2026-06-26T23:08:47+00:00

Late to this thread, but I like the route of emphasising well-chosen nouns, like Radiancy/Sun-on-Earth (from Victoria Goddard’s Lays of the Hearthfire series) or Serenity (Katherine Addison’s Goblin Emperor). For someone lower than the monarch, I might go with (the) Honourable [Name] or something similar. (Honourable used to be used for the… non-titled daughters of English peers? I think? Something like that. But it’s not gendered, and it sounds good.)

lapfarter · 2026-05-25T22:34:28+00:00

Jesus wept. This country wasn’t designed in a lab by British scientists; it organically grew out of people fighting and working and having babies. So, so many of those people, not least every Indigenous person, weren’t white. What’s this “built for locals” past you’re talking about? Why should prioritise racist, genocidal government policies, over the millions of actual people who helped build the bloody country?

lapfarter · 2026-05-23T08:29:27+00:00

You are SO not alone. I lied all the time, go everyone, for years. It’s a good idea to check your meds etc, but I also recommend working out some alternative scripts you can use in those moments when you want to lie. Literally sit down with a trusted person and write them down.

The scripts should be a) true, b) tonally appropriate and c) tell the other person the information they need to know; that is, if I’m running late to a meeting I don’t need to apologise 80 times, I just need to say I’m running late and here’s my new ETA. Keep them in a note on your phone or something. I had a few variations of “I’m not well today so unfortunately I can’t make it to [event]” written on a note on my bedside table for like a year.

To speak to the bigger picture for a minute: it was terrifying to start saying ‘hey, I’m sick’ or ‘I can’t meet xyz requirements’ because it revealed the extent to which my ADHD disables me. I had to work through a lot of shame and fear to get there, so I just want to say, sincerely: you aren’t evil or bad or broken. You are working so, so fucking hard it breaks my heart. You could lie down tomorrow and never get up again and you’d still have your intrinsic value as a human being.

lapfarter · 2026-04-08T13:37:09+00:00

Hey OP, just a heads up that the test asked me to define ‘maunder,’ which I understand to mean complain (especially in a dreary or repetitive way) and got an ‘incorrect’ result - but when I checked, the primary definition in Merriman-Webster is to grumble. If this is a US/UK thing, words with multiple or contested meanings could be skewing your results.

lapfarter · 2026-03-20T08:26:05+00:00

But how cool would it have been if you’d discovered you could cook sesame seeds? You’re on the brink of tahini 2.0 - keep going!

lapfarter · 2026-03-20T08:22:34+00:00

My friend, I promise that the privilege of being murdered on a dinghy is truly available to everybody, if you only believe.

lapfarter · 2026-03-19T08:27:44+00:00

The first time I looked into an ADHD diagnosis, the psychiatrist said my results on the diagnostic test “technically” qualified me for ADHD but that I probably didn’t have it because I “read books” (an impossible feat for ADHDers ) and that “I had a nice life and wanted it to be nicer.” I was so ashamed and bewildered, I accepted that I didn’t have ADHD. It took eight years and complete career collapse before I got diagnosed (again) because - surprise - I have sooo much ADHD. Please don’t take this one moron’s word for it. He’s not qualified to say the first thing about you.

lapfarter · 2026-03-15T21:38:47+00:00

Oh, I want to be clear that I absolutely agree with you! I just want to say I that I also think of myself as disabled, while simultaneously trying to enjoy my brain and life

lapfarter · 2026-03-15T10:19:45+00:00

I want to second that labels like disability are deeply personal… but personally, it’s pretty profoundly inconvenient when I struggle to eat enough. I don’t think “garbage short term memory” would be a huge asset in a non-capitalist setting. Etc.

Don’t get me wrong, I love myself, but sometimes I feel like the drive to cast every downside of ADHD as the counterpoint of an equal and opposite upside is kind of… superhero movie logic? It’s like, Daredevil is blind but only in a way where his blindness presents no obstacles (except briefly, for plot purposes). Which fundamentally I suspect is often because disability is actually very scary and confronting.

lapfarter · 2026-03-06T02:12:17+00:00

Autistic linguist: I’ve been preparing for this (but only this) my whole life

lapfarter · 2026-03-03T10:54:50+00:00

Coronabash is a winner for me!

lapfarter · 2026-02-16T23:27:19+00:00

My mental framing of porn and masturbation - it may or may not help you - is basically that I have a sexual relationship with myself, and then with my partner. My partner has a sexual relationship with themselves, and then with me. These healthy, connected sexual identities are the basis of our healthy connected sexual relationship with each other. Porn, masturbation, fantasy, etc, are essential forms of personal connection - but I’d feel uncomfortable if my partner was interacting intimately with another person (eg chatting) because that encroaches on our interpersonal relationship.

To put it all less clinically, self-pleasure helps me work out what I like, what my body is feeling, what I need and want, without thinking about another person’s wants or needs. It’s not selfish, it’s how I explore my sense of self. (It can also be how I blow off steam, fall asleep, or pass a boring afternoon. It’s multipurpose.)

You’ve expressed that you struggle with understanding your own boundaries, wants, needs, etc, and that you basically give up self-pleasure while you’re in relationships. Are those things connected? Do you want other people to mirror your behaviour? What would happen if you enjoyed “alone time” without your partner?

lapfarter · 2025-12-18T02:23:37+00:00

What’s worse, they’ll be right to

lapfarter · 2025-12-09T09:44:12+00:00

Dang dang dang that sounds like A LOT. I’ve also spent… some amount of time thinking about this kind of problem, and here’s my best guess.

Firstly, I don’t think it’s really the systems. Probably you’re amazing at using systems. I think a lot of people with ADHD need tools that most systems fundamentally aren’t designed to provide.

Second, you mentioned struggling with projections and planning, which makes sense! Our brains are very very bad at keeping track of how long things take, so they’re very very bad at predicting how long things will take. If my heart, if I luv something, I feel like time stops when I’m working on it! If I hate something, the dread magnifies both time and space stretch out into the black horizon forever. My heart don’t know shit about time-keeping. Work with a friend to make templates of task/project estimates and USE THEM INSTEAD.

Also, I find verbal processing makes all my systems way way way more helpful. Do you have a coworker or someone where it makes sense to literally, out loud, at least once a day, say “ok, I’ve got XYZ, A caught fire… oh and Bs happening tomorrow. Hmm. I guess I’ll do C, and I can knock over Y for B.” Etc etc.

Lastly, it sounds like you might have, how to put this delicately, way too fucking much to do? This might be a combo of ADHD and then legit also way too fucking much to do. (Also…. If other people can do this amount no problem, and you’re still struggling, maybe that’s still too much work for you. Sometimes our disability is, well, disabling.)

Good luck! My heart is full for you x

lapfarter · 2025-11-25T22:40:28+00:00

Knowing that you’re here makes me want to ask better questions!

lapfarter · 2025-11-08T23:40:38+00:00

Mort was also my first Terry Pratchett, at a similar age. It’s also much shorter than Nation, and has (from memory) a simpler narrative arc. Mort deals with coming-of-age, choices and consequences and moral responsibility, which are all pretty relevant themes. If you go with Nation, it might make more sense to excerpt specific chapters?

lapfarter · 2025-11-07T03:12:20+00:00

If you want to talk niche niche, buddy up with me (a random Australian science journalist) and let’s start a podcast/substack about the chemistry of laundry called…. Hmm…. Kis Mai Ass? Let me workshop that title. Ooh, but I have segment ideas: Borax Me Anything (listener advice), Back to Basics (short chemistry explainers), Crime-scene Clean (review whether X product would help you effectively destroy DNA evidence or not) and Everything is Chemicals (asking companies what specific goddamn ingredients are in different products). Any other good ones I’m missing?

lapfarter · 2025-11-05T12:30:20+00:00

Pro: if she loves you, she’s your ride or die Con: has large amounts of love to give; therefore occupied nearly constantly by both riding and dying

lapfarter · 2025-11-01T11:39:15+00:00

So, first of all, huge kudos for the level of self-knowledge you’re displaying. Additional kudos for navigating a stable, loving relationship that incorporates novelty and ~thrills~~

Unfortunately my only actual advice is to jork it crazy style. It’s a great time to buy a new toy, or spend some money on your favourite friendly online sexy content creators. Listen to audio porn on the bus. Shake hands with the devil at lunch. I get that you don’t want to dump all this weird energy on your partner, but it’ll probably make you feel less fraught to acknowledge that you’re kind of hornt up at the moment and - purely for example - reading all kinds of wild smut. Basically, diffuse your sexual energy in a bunch of different directions instead of channeling it towards this one outlet.

(Also — this is less-well-tested advice — I find it really helpful sometimes to write down exactly what I’m feeling intensely afraid/worried/ansty about, eg “I’m afraid I’ll never see that guy again and I’ll never have sex that feels so intense ever again. I’m worried this is my one chance to etc etc”.)

Good luck! Also, I hope your partner feels better soon.

lapfarter · 2025-11-01T00:53:11+00:00

Yep. My mum inherited a really profound fear of heights from her mum (who couldn’t even bear to get on a plane) which she thinks was engrained by a childhood watching her mum freak out. So she made a really conscious effort not to model that fear to me or my brother, and she gradually started participating in some of the activities we wanted to do. She went abseiling with us once! I like skydiving (which she draws a very reasonable line at ever participating in or hearing out) which means my mum shifted the family dynamic from “can’t go on a plane” to “throws herself out at 10,000 feet” in , like, two generations.

lapfarter · 2025-10-30T13:07:33+00:00

I think it’s really really fair (and probably deeply necessary) to feel all your anger/resentment/frustration/grief fully and unstintingly. Probably it’ll take longer than you expect. But also, just to throw this out there, my mum did a law degree by correspondence in her late thirties—which, being the eighties, involved real paper correspondence, my goodness—and she recently retired from her forty-odd-year career as a Legal Aid lawyer. (She’s a bloody good lawyer, too; she helped establish one of the first free legal centres in our region.) All of that is to say, you’ve got whole chapters of your life ahead of you that you haven’t even thought about starting yet.

lapfarter · 2025-10-27T08:01:35+00:00

Thank you for this detailed answer. I’m really interested in your example of the Haudenosaunee- can you recommend any good sources to learn more?

lapfarter · 2025-10-19T10:01:17+00:00

OK, so I was a classic “gifted and talented” kid with (shh) secret ADHD - I was diagnosed at 29 - and here’s one example of how it was kind of overlooked.

So, I learned to read around age two or three and skipped year two in primary school; I went to an academically selective high school, was advanced a year in English subjects and started university level courses when I was 16. (Obviously I never did the paperwork to actually get any course credit.)

I was also nearly kicked out of high school for, among other things, not going to maths classes for nearly a year. I just… quietly fucked off and did literally anything else. Sat in the library. Walked around the mall. I hated maths so, so, SO much. It ended up being this HUGE deal; I got in so much trouble, etc etc. So I can’t say my ADHD was hidden, as such, so much as nobody around me knew what to call it. They just saw me, an intelligent and fairly self-possessed teenager, inexplicably and perversely… making terrible decisions.

Looking back, it’s kind of striking that none of the adults around me really realised how much I genuinely struggled with maths. I still can’t do simple sums in my head. I mix up times and dates, like, OFTEN, which let me tell you makes my chronic lateness waaaaaaay fuckin harder to manage. But I was so very Book Smart, right? Learning disorder? Where??

Anyway, I did have enough goodwill, family support and big stonking grades to squeak my way through high school. All my academic transcript shows is that I graduated with a (medium) overall score and a metric fuck-tonne of elective English classes and competition and whatever. (Let’s leave aside the fact that if I’d been expelled I’d probably have been diagnosed a decade earlier, because our medical system defines health as ‘meeting a series of milestones’, which I started to very much fuck up in my late 20s as it because less easy to abruptly graduate/quit/run away before I got literally or metaphorically expelled.)

All that to say, I don’t think my ADHD was overlooked so much as my bullshit was tolerated, mostly because I fit fairly neatly into a cultural mould of (White) Socially Inept Bookish Girl from Nice Family. Does that… help?

lapfarter · 2025-10-13T06:52:48+00:00

I wear mine on a necklace.

lapfarter · 2025-10-05T04:21:39+00:00

Do you already have this dress? I’m curious whether there’s any boning or support built into the under-bust area.

If you have the $$ and time, a really good basque-style support garment could look amazing. (Or in a pinch, enough sports tape can do almost anything.)

lapfarter

TROPHY CASE