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And this lil piggy was a...truffle? Lechonk Oreo chocolate truffles for Pokémon GO Community Day 🐽🖤

The problem wasn’t what I had access to. It was that I didn’t have access to a safe adult I could actually talk to; someone I could trust to help me without immediately cutting me off from everything and everyone. I remember getting messages from strangers on Skype. I didn’t even respond. But when my parents found out, they banned me from using it entirely. That meant losing most of my contact with friends outside of school. So what did I do? I went behind their backs. And once I was hiding, I couldn’t tell them when something actually dangerous was happening, like when I started being groomed. By the time things escalated, I was already alone with it.

I think about an episode of Scared Straight where a girl was dragged through a prison because she’d been talking to adult men online. She wasn’t doing that because she was reckless or malicious; she was lonely. Her parents weren’t present, she was being bullied at school, and these men gave her attention, told her she was pretty, told her she mattered. She was already being harmed. And the adults in her life responded by terrorizing her. Humiliating her. Calling her a slut. Telling her she deserved it. Breaking her to pieces.

What lesson does that actually teach? Not “this is dangerous, come to us.” It teaches: If you get hurt, we will hurt you more. Do you really think that makes her stop, or does it just make the predators look safer by comparison? They might as well have driven her straight into the jaws of those predators with torches and pitchforks. Because when every path back to safety is lined with punishment, kids don’t run away from danger. They run deeper into it.

If you want kids to be safe, stop treating them like problems to control and start treating them like people worth protecting. Stop ripping away their autonomy the second they make a mistake or encounter something risky. Stop teaching them that honesty will cost them everything.

And my second thought was "oh huh it really WOULD be easy to unconsciously steer her away from playing in the dirt. Unlike my son, whose outfits are usually some kind of solid dark easily washed pants plus a shirt that doesn't trail in the dirt like a dress does."

And even though I'd already known about the ways in which girls are socialised differently to boys, seeing that scene play out really brought home to me how invisible a lot of those gendered lessons are. Because the mother wasn't trying to enforce a behavioural double standard, or expressing archaic views on ladylike behaviour, or anything like that: she was just teaching her child not to show her underpants in public, which is a necessary thing for kids to learn! But because she hadn't put her son in clothing where active play could lead to accidentally flashing, only her daughter was being coached to be conscious of how she played, how she moved, the relationship between her clothes and the gazes of the people around her, why it was important to sit still. And meanwhile her brother was carrying on uinterrupted, completely unaware of the lesson his sister was getting.

i don't have a choice. it's downright cruel to make these different options more expensive. there is no one size fits all diet- every single person needs a unique diet and some folks literally have no choice but to utilize these substitutes. some vegetarians cant digest soy. some vegetarians can't eat beans. i also don't know how to tell you that not every vegetarian or vegan can ingest raw vegetables and fruits, or even cooked ones, for that matter

there are a LOT of health conditions like irritable bowel syndrome, gastroparesis, crohns disease, and other gastrointestinal issues that can cause a person to become very sick or even die if they ingest too much raw plant matter, especially vegetables high in fiber. when these fibers cannot be broken down by a person's digestive system, they can form blockages in the intestines and kill people. not every person on this planet benefits from eating a lot of leafy greans. some people are allergic to chlorophyll. some people are allergic to citric acid. diabetic people have to be careful with certain vegetables and fruits causing spikes or dips in blood sugar, and many people with diabetes end up with gastroparesis, or similar gut issues. there are a lot of reasons why people can't just switch to a diet of salads and fruit smoothies every day.

In fact, I love wordplay of all kinds. Teenage me was fascinated to learn all the types of figurative language there are in poetry and literature.

But paperwork and questionnaires are hard, because there's so much they don't state clearly. Or they don't leave room for enough nuance.

"List all the jobs you've had, with start and end dates." What if I don't remember the exact day or month? Is the year enough?

"Have you been suffering from blurred vision?" Well, if I take off my glasses the whole world is blurred, but I'm fairly sure that's not what the intake form at the optometrist is asking.

Or the infamous (and infuriatingly stereotypical) "Would you rather go to a library or a party?" What sort of party? Where? Who's there? I work at a library. Am I currently at the library for work or pleasure? Does it have a good collection?