Diana Pinguicha

Tommy Tallarico's house is for sale

Witness the end

I saw this on FB today and I wanna try and express something about it. Like, you know the curbcutter effect? Where when curbcuts are put in it benefits everyone (bicyclists, people with baby strollers etc) and not just disabled people?

There is also whatever the opposite of the curbcutter effect is. And this is that.

This isn't just anti-adhd/autism propaganda... this is anti-child propaganda.

Kids have developmentally appropriate ways that they need to move their bodies and express themselves and sitting perfectly still staring straight ahead is not natural or good for ANY CHILD.

Don't get me wrong, I was punished unduly as a kid for being neurodivergent (and other types of kid will ALSO be punished unduly for it... Black kids come to mind) and thus UNABLE to perform this -- but even the kids who ARE able to perform this type of behavior are not SERVED WELL by it. They don't benefit from it.

This is bad for everyone.

When I went to the Kids R Us, Toys R Us, even the supermarket I constantly heard parents yelling and nagging at their kids over virtually nothing, and telling them not to cry. Kids had their own segregated food (unhealthy, tasteless fast food and pizza), clothing, and activities (full of plastic junk toys and meaningless crafts that would get thrown out the day they were made). 

Parenting advice was everywhere, in grocery checkout aisles and doctor’s waiting rooms, with the format “push button, receive behavior” and the goal of making kids do what you wanted easily, without conflict. It drove my mom frantic that it never worked for neurodivergent kids like hers. 

In school, we had to get permission to go to the bathroom. I’ll never forget nearly wetting myself for a half an hour waiting for the kids with the passes to return. I learned that even my most basic basic bodily needs were unimportant and unacceptable.

No one seemed to think kids were actual people, and the segregation and contempt pissed me off even when I was young enough to use a kid’s menu. The anger and hurt are still there, under the surface.

And yes, I was one of those kids who couldn’t focus on busywork or stand in line for a long time. I’d wander off to dance or draw or I’d just let my imagination wander, “zoning out.” It’s the same old story everyone in neurodivergent communities hears ad infinitum. 

Meanwhile, I was told, and I believed, that school was designed for all the other kids, who seemed to do what was expected without struggle. Many of them even seemed content with school and life. It made me feel even worse about myself. I didn’t understand that they were suffering, too, until I saw my generation and then Gen Z going through the resulting mental health crisis.

Somehow, I never realized that strict expectations that require kids to go against their own needs, that teach kids their basic needs don’t matter, are a reverse curb cut effect.

“Even kids who ARE able to perform this type of behavior are not SERVED well by it...the idea that because some kids may be capable of complying with unfair expectations, those expectations don’t hurt them, is a dangerous idea.”

Yes. All kids deserve better.

Neurodivergent ones are just the canary in the coal mine. Things that hurt neurodivergent kids, tend to be bad for everyone.

(secret bonus: the other side of her tag)

it’s been a few weeks, I suppose we should check up on the AHSGSHGAFB?!

ajdhf.

well that’s just,,,

REXCELLENT

HELL

YES

HELL

FUCKING

YES.

HAIL TO THE QUEEN

LONG MAY SHE REIGN!

this year we’re doing a much-beloved character from classic literature, “Dracula with inappropriate straw hat”

thanks everyone, may your weens be hollow and your candy be many!

Q: Realm Breaker features lots of complex wordbuilding. Did you work out much of that before you started writing, or did you figure it out as you went along?

A: A lot of that was done beforehand—the map, the structure of the world, the skeleton on which everything is based. I knew I wanted it to be a world inspired by the Medieval Mediterranean—Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East. I wanted it to be sort of akin to the 13th century, the Crusades. And once I had those two lenses, it was much easier to figure out what I was doing, and use those as references for myself.

My challenge wasn’t how much to build before the book, it was when to stop. Because I could do that exclusively and never start writing, and kind of burn out my motivation. I had to rein myself in, and say, “There are things you’re going to discover as you’re writing the book. Give yourself space to have that level of discovery, or else it’s going to feel a little too constructed.” You have to allow some flexibility for the story to grow.

In Italy we study the Crusades and the Reconquista/Reconquest as different things (Riconquista in Italian, but we generally use the Spanish term).

As we study them, the Reconquest happened in the Iberian peninsula specifically, while the Crusades happened all over the Mediterranean, middle-east, northern Africa.

The Reconquest had the goal of either killing or expelling the Arabs and the Jewish people from the Iberian peninsula. While the Crusades happened for several reasons, and small scale campaigns (which historians still define as Crusades) were used to eradicate pagan or heretic movements or even to solve territorial disputes.

So Crusades and Reconquest aren't the same thing, according to our history teachers.

(I'm not saying this is the absolute truth, just that this is the way we are taught history. You probably know more about it than I do! Just putting it out there that this might be why many people - even from the Mediterranean - use the term Crusades, and it's not because we want to "Anglicize" what happened).

Tiktok sensation LightLark is the final boss of bad fantasy YA— a failure built on aesthetic boards and tropes, unable to pretend it has a heart

Both were books that sold for a large sum of money based solely on popularity and aesthetics;

Both came out and were panned by readers and critics;

Both had big authors blurbing them;

Both hit the bestseller lists;

Both clearly have Throne of Glass and ACOTAR as inspirations;