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Age does not magically grant you an ability to Understand Stuff*.

Experience is the thing that helps you understand.

Do you know how we get experience?

By encountering new things and processing them, or asking for help processing them. When you do that, you teach your brain new things and you learn. When you have learned a lot, then you have Experience.

You're not gonna get capable Adults with experience to handle things if you throw them in the deep end without ever letting them have guided experiences as teens. Your whole life is about gaining experiences and developing as a person. Why are we suggesting starting that when folks are already adults and need to be functional people in society??

*yes, there is some truth in the idea that brain development plays a role in your ability to comprehend things. but by the time you are a teen, they are asking you to read (and work out the meaning of) complex literary works written by adults about other adult experiences (like war, or economic stress, or politics, and various ethical conundrums) and they expect you to be able to handle those and understand them and write essays about them. These are books written by adults for adults about adult experiences and reading them is supposed to help prepare our minds to be good adult citizens. Sometimes these topics are scary or uncomfortable! But there's a difference between experiencing second-hand upset via text and experiencing it for real, and practicing dealing with your emotions in non-real situations is good. It is a way to develop experience and the skills to comprehend things better.

every time someone makes a post about how book censorship is bad the notes are very “The Lid Patrick The Lid” and there’s always someone in there talking about teenagers as if they’re in preschool. You know teenagers can see and hear you on this website right. Like they can read

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-sighs in Depressed Elder Millennial-

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what the heck is a gender non-conforming haircut?

like, these are the people who are so hot on assigning gender based on which "Two Standard Genital Configurations" they think yours are closest to at birth

so obviously everyone's Hair At Birth is the only correct answer here for Gender Conforming Haircuts

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THIS. This so much!

My family adopted an Aussie mix. (One half Aussie. One half, uh, who knows. Random neighborhood farm dog! But she came out looking pretty damn Aussie with a lot of the breed traits.)

My dad brought her home one day as a puppy. She's been born on a friend's farm and the friend didn't really need more dogs and my dad felt kinda sorry for her.

I was kinda hoping our next family pet was gonna be a cat. We'd had cats before. We're a good family for cats. We're chill. We like routines. We're indoor people who like books and video games. We don't do much outside exercise except for my dad who liked biking sometimes.

Is that raising some red flags for you? It sure did for teenage me. I did the homework. I researched the traits and needs of working dogs and as much as I think a lot of working dogs are cool, I was like, Mm.. ..No. We cannot give this dog the home she needs unless we change up our habits a LOT. I expressed that to my family. I made it clear that I did not really want a dog and I especially did not want this dog and I did not want to be responsible for Dog Things, so if we kept the dog, it would be on everyone else to play with her, and scoop poop, and go for walkies, etc. But also, we really, really should not get this dog.

We kept the dog. Because she was an adorable puppy and they felt sorry for her being neglected on the farm and everyone else was like "Sure! We can magically become different people for the sake of a dog! We will learn new habits and suddenly love the idea of going on walks and doing enough activity to keep a working dog happy!" (cue dry, cynical teenage laughter from Teen Me)

I was cranky. But I went to dog training with the dog. I learned about dog behavior. I watched my family fail at dog ownership. And it sucked. It sucked as a person who didn't want a dog but it also sucked for the dog! (I was the ONE person who had consistent expectations for behavior and interactions with our dog and that was because I would show up in our family room, find someone had invited her inside and then abandoned her and I would go "Out" and point and the door and send her out. It got to the point where if I walked in the room, she'd go plop herself by the door to the backyard, in full confidence that I would immediately send her out.)

Out wasn't that much better than In in terms of enrichment for her. She dug up our lawn because she was bored out of her mind.

We eventually sent her to live with my grandparents who were not really much better, but at least grandma did daily walks. They spoiled her in other ways and she got very aggressive and reactive. And that sucked a lot to see because she was really a very affectionate and eager creature and quite willing to learn if you were willing to put in the time and effort! But my family was just absolutely the wrong family for her!!!

Learn from our mistakes and my regret that I did not pitch more of a fit about having this dog in our home!!

because I feel like anyone who has an Australian shepherd needs to post disclaimers: despite me posting pictures of my cute and lovely dog, i do not think this breed is good for the average owner. i do not recommend aussies for most people!

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I was working in a library when those books first came out and the first copies we had of them looked very self-published. (Like, self-published by somebody with familiarity of what books should look like, but rather indulgently unprofessional all the same and that's rather what the writing was like too.) They utterly reeked of "someone has the influence/money somewhere to push these through" rather than a genuine success.

They were initially shelved in the New Fiction section at my library. But later, when the first book became a series and had new covers, it was moved to the Children's section. I am so curious about when and how that shift was made, but that transition happened while I was away at school and I never bothered to ask. But I wanna know when it went from being "this is a fantasy book we expect adults to read" to "we're gonna market this to middle schoolers who like reading chunky fantasy stories but maybe aren't ready for grown up books yet."

You should always be extremely skeptical of Successful Talented Children/Teens. Not that there aren't talented teenagers out there, but teens generally lack a lot of polish and experience, so if you're seeing "amazing young writer who is soooo talented!" there is a probably a parent with money and/or connections in the background somewhere making it happen.

Honestly, a lot of success is down to Who Do You Know. Skill helps. Passion helps. Determination helps. Luck helps. But if you wanna succeed and you don't have family in the business or connections, then the next best thing is to be involved in the community of your career field. Get to know people. Make friends. Be willing to hype up the work of other people whose work you like. Be someone that folks wanna work with or see succeed.

the moment i first understood the myth of meritocracy i think was when i read the "Eragon" books as a teenager, and it said on the back that the author had started writing them at 15 and it became a bestseller. this stressed me out so much, I also wanted that kind of success in writing at such a young age & kept thinking I should also be able to do it, that I must be doing something wrong – and then YEARS later i found out his parents had a publishing company and financed him touring through the whole U.S before the books became successful

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Just to clarify, there's a bill that would STOP credit card companies from controlling who's allowed to spend money on porn or "risque" (read: queer) content. If you don't think big business should be able to tell you what to spend your own damn money on, call your senators and reps to let them know! It's the Fair Access to Banking Act, H.R.987 in the House, S.410 in the Senate.

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Fallen London is like what if a piece of the most wonderful beautiful world ever dreamt up (by the biggest names in interactive fiction, no less) was just hidden behind this button you must press 16 times. And after that there will be a button you must press 17 times. And after that

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mini-golf is a type of domesticated golf, suitable for most suburban residential areas with some breeds adapted for other environments. people of all types can safely interact with mini-golf, as it has been bred to a manageable sizes, is very social, comes in many charming colors, and has a love of play!

"big" golf is a large invasive species jammed into ecological niches where it cannot survive without unbalancing the surrounding ecosystem. while it's primary prey is The Rich, which is another predator species that is prone to sabotaging its own ecosystem, it's not as simple as culling The Rich in your area. once a big golf has settled in and built its nest (commonly called "a course" by experts in the field), it is already too late. golf are very territorial and claim huge swathes of land, cutting down trees and bushes and reducing the landscape to a monoculture suitable for golf to stake out territories, entrap their prey, and begin their mating rituals. meanwhile, most of the flora and fauna who used to inhabit the area are driven away, though those that remain may become a supplement to the golf's diet.

should you find golf eggs outside of a course, you should destroy them before it has time to hatch and start building its own course. golfs are usually white or off-white with a pocked surface, and will easily fit into the palm of your hand.

mini-golf eggs are very similar but usually brightly colored. please bring them to the nearest mini-golf shelter or mini-golf ranch. mini-golf do not make courses and are easy prey for roving sports predators.

some golfs lay bright eggs (often yellow or orange) to better lure in their prey. if you are not sure if the egg you have found is a mini-golf or "big" golf egg, handing it over to a specialist in golf is still your best bet as they will be able to read the subtle markings and other features that will help them spot the difference and take the correct action.

thank you, and play safe!

when i talk shit about golfing, please know that none of it is about mini golf. it could never be about her. she's done nothing wrong in her entire life. god's perfect little putt putt.

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USA. Technically, a cartoon series animating Grimm's fairy tales was probably my first anime. Tho I suspect my first anime that I knew was anime was Sailor Moon. I am old enough that a lot of my anime watching was via cartoon network's Toonami block of programming, lmao.

That post about death note being "everyone's first anime" (untrue statement) made me curious and now I want to gather data for science

Can you reblog this and tell me where are you from and what was your starter anime?

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I was the sort of kid who read anything lying around the house. Percy Jackson hadn't been written yet. And I had a big book of various myths. And also a D&D Deities and Demigods source book.

I was more freaked out by kids who didn't know about Zeus because for some reason, as a child, I assumed that everybody had a book full of mythology that they memorized and that knowing about a little greek mythology was just one of those basic things everybody knew.

people who learned about greek mythology due reasons that DONT involve having read percy jackson at 12 freak me out, like what the FUCK was going on in your life that you found out that zeus turned into a pigeon to woo his wife like HOW

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I used to think I was a voracious reader.

Then one of those depressions that saps your energy and your focus stole up on me, turned into a full on breakdown. The kind that takes years to come back from.

I kept up the habit of reading. Turning to old favorites I have half-memorized now, as one turns to comfort food in a crisis or an illness. But for a long time, I couldn't stomach anything new.

When my appetite started to come back, I found I'd forgotten how to read like a civilized person.

I pounced on whatever book managed to catch my fancy and gulped it down, as if afraid that if I stopped for a moment, something would take the pages away from me.

Afterwards, I would lie in a daze, picking metaphors from my teeth and sucking out the marrow from the moments I liked best.

Some mornings I wake up and find myself starving for something fresh to read, but I still avoid entering libraries and bookstores.

I budget my reading time as carefully as my wallet, fearing a relapse into my previous condition, fearing that if could be worse and I could paralyze my ability to read anything at all.

My hunger is back, but my eyes are bigger than my mind. I would load my plate with horror and fantasy. Pile it high with history and science. And top it off with short stories for dessert. More books than I could carry much less read, such is my hunger.

I would glut myself on words until they lost all meaning and pleasure. Until I made myself sick on them.

This is what is means to be voracious.

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Gosh yes this might be my biggest pet peeve with fandom right now.

Do you know how depressing it is as an aroace person when every. single. time. a canonically ace character is being discussed, all the comments are like "did you know ace people can fuck and have romances and write smut and are functionally interchangeable with amatonormative people??"

I'm an aroace person who does not fuck, or engage in romance*, and does not enjoy writing filthy hot smut.

When do I get representation in media and fan works?

Why are you all so desperate to post these comments like you need to in order to get some sort of shipping license?

Like. I am not the shipping police. I'm not telling you I'm gonna throw you in horny jail for wanting to write stories about fictional characters fucking or making out or whatever in a way that is specific appealing to you. I cannot stop you from doing that and it's none of my business.

But the way every single ace character is greeted by multiple comments eager to erase the experiences of the aces who Don't engage with sex or romance is exhausting.

Yes, it's true that some aces do all of those things because asexuality just means "not being sexually attracted to anyone" and there's lots of little sublabels in the demi- and gray- areas, and plenty of room for people to choose to do whatever.

It's just, like, yeah, there would be Discourse if this was happening with gay characters. If every single canon (or even fanon) gay character was awash in comments that were like "Some gay people have dated the opposite gender or even gotten heterosexually married! Some gay people write really hot het smut so it's okay to ship gay characters in hetero romances and in fact you should do so because what else is fanfic for lol!" folks would be upset, right?

So, like, I dunno. Give your local tired aroaces a break. Ship what you wanna ship. Tag it correctly. But lay off the comments! Let me appreciate ace rep in media with my fellow fans and fellow aces without the chorus of people shoving every single ace character into an amatonormative box!!! Let me celebrate some rep (especially for characters that are not robots/aliens/other!) in media for folks who don't fit into the idea of Normal but are in fact just part of the normal spectrum of humanity without it immediately being drowned out by people who apparently can't stand the idea that a character actually might not want to fuck/kiss/romance another and be happy!

the way fandoms are desperate to make all aroace characters romance and sex favorable but then dont do anything remotely similar to any other identity is astounding. hmm i wonder why

PLEASE dont derail this about shipping characters of other identities please let this one post be about an aroace struggle

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If you like the word “queer” reblog.

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Academia has some problems, of course.

But if you look at that and go "Well, academia is useless" or "Academia is only for the elites and therefore it should be considered pointless and tossed out!" like, you are not making the world better.

Anti-intellectualism keeps the oppressed downtrodden.

If you want to uplift the people, you find ways to make education more accessible to more people. We don't all need to be college professors, but anyone who wants to acquire that level of expertise should be able to do so.

You don't get there by tearing down the whole system. (unless you somehow have the power to install a new system all in one go with minimal hiccups). You start by fixing what's broken.

And right now, a lot of right-wing people think that what's broken is that anyone other than straight white men have access to education, much less higher education. So messaging that says academia is useless and doesn't deserve funding and all that, fits right in with their goals.

Always be skeptical of anyone that says the right to higher education is not important.

And if you're looking for ways to educate yourself outside of the education system: Read. Read widely. Read lots on the same topic. Read about the people who wrote what you read and think about who they are and how they got their knowledge. Use you library. Most libraries will help you find information on anything you want to know. Many libraries have access to databases of scholarly articles. These can be challenging to start with as they may use highly specific specialist language related to their field. Take your time. Look up terms you don't know. The words aren't meant to make it harder in many cases. It's just the language necessary to be more specific. When you get deep into things, it's normal to have special language to discuss your topic. Fandom has a whole bunch of terms that are incomprehensible to non-fandom people. LGBT+ spaces have terms and labels and microlabels that don't make sense to most cishet people. Academic topics are like this. (Frankly, a lot of academics are just weirdos with a special interest in a blorbo you've never heard of. And sometimes that blorbo is obscure medieval history or a special type of fungus or whatever. )

yeah, yeah, i know, academia is an evil bourgeois lair of useless elitist white cishet men writing self-congratulatory articles about nothing and groping their brilliant female students’ arses and so on and so forth, but occasionally, it is prudent to let some of those useless academics - plenty of whom are women and/or poc and/or lgbt nowadays, how shocking, and who’ve spent their lives learning EVERYTHING about a certain subject - explain a text or a concept to you, so that you don’t run around after with a wildly inaccurate understanding of smth like what ‘social construct’ means, or what Nietzsche was all about, or what Freud actually wrote or did or said, or inventing already invented strains of feminism, etc etc etc

oh, and while i’m at it - this whole “academia is useless” is a belief that the far-right ideology has been extremely fond of all throughout the last century or so. just saying. 

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Consider this an ad campaign

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I own a copy of this cookbook!

It's a good book even if you do not have an autistic child in your life and are in fact looking for help thinking about food as an adult. The book does not talk about food in a "we must trick our children into eating vegetables" sort of way, but does discuss healthy eating. It's not really a "kiddie cookbook" so much as a cookbook to help you prepare foods that kids might enjoy. (or you might enjoy).

The main goal of this cookbook is to help you think about and identify preferences and things you don't like and practice keeping those in mind when looking at food.

There's also a bit of a primer in thinking about preparing food so that it is more palatable to you, in order to increase the variety of food you are eating. About half the book is simply about food itself in terms of colors and flavors and textures and other qualities and also other sensory aspects of eating and things to consider when trying to make eating less stressful for folks with sensory issues. It introduces a lot of cooking terminology and spends a lot of time talking about techniques to be aware of to make food more the color/flavor/texture you prefer!

The author is very sympathetic to difficulties in eating at all, much less eating well! And there's a lot of humor, as they try to make food fun, too!

The other half of the book is recipes. Recipes include notes on colors, flavors, and textures, which I find pretty helpful! The recipes do often use professional cooking language (but there is a glossary and explanation of techniques and words). Some recipes are less beginner friendly than others, though I would not call any of these super complex. Each recipe includes a list of tools you will need along with the ingredients right up front. There are also often variations or additional suggestions and reminders to customize it to your taste.

In typical autistic "resistant to new things" fashion, I have not yet made anything from this book, lmao, but I really enjoyed reading it and sometimes I reread bits of it when I am struggling with food in order to try to figure it what it is I DO want to eat. The compassionate humor can really help when I'm stuck and feeling bad.

It's a slim book and I really wish it was doing better in sales because I would love this chef to get more chances to make cookbooks like this or for other writers to make books like it. It's not terribly expensive as far as cookbooks go so it's worth buying to add to (or start) a cookbook collection! Though, as i mentioned above this is not really what I would call a "beginner cook" recipe book. If you're just starting out learning to cook, i think there are better books out there for that. But I still think this one is worth having around for when you do get more confident in the kitchen. And just for the perspective it offers coming from an autistic chef writing with autistic eaters in mind!

I can't do much but maybe this will interest someone. This cookbook is by a classically trained autistic chef, made for people with sensory issues. It's sold 1/6th of its initial run because apparently no one wants to have an autistic person interviewed on TV.

Apparently it's also very funny.

Spread this around! I bet someone here can use this.