sing in me, muse, and through me tell a story

Look, it’s a weird hill to die on, especially when I don’t really explain, but children deserve to experience fear, disgust, and discomfort in safe scenarios where they can process those sensations.

"Fairy tales do not tell children the dragons exist. Children already know that dragons exist. Fairy tales tell children the dragons can be killed."

“It’s easy to assume”: someone’s misconception is about to be amiably corrected

grabs you by the shoulders listen. listen to my words. i understand the urge to make fanfiction about yourself and to find a reality in which you're super awesome and great and everyone who hates you is wrong and dumb. i get it. you're better than that. you can love yourself without putting other people down, dehumanizing and generalizing, and retaliating against your oppressors.

genuinely, from the bottom of my heart:

how are all the teenagers who complain about writing 500 words for homework going to get through college without AI

This is a FIXABLE problem, by the way!

The answer to 'how are they going to function' is, and I say this as someone whose mom was a social worker in Appalachia for 20 years: they're going to get scammed. They're going to be victims of fraud, scams, and exploitation, due to their low literacy making them easier targets for others. And then they're going to be unable to read and write well enough to advocate for themselves in a court of law or fight back in any meaningful way.

^^ There is so much profit in exploiting illiteracy and ignorance.

I should also add, for the people who are going to claim that this post is ableist and judgmental of people with dyslexia and learning/intellectual disabilities: Who the fuck do you think scammers like to target the most?

I had a sales woman in furniture store try and tell me not to buy a hot bubblegum pink loveseat because she wanted me to “think about the future”

when I first bought my house, I announced my decision to paint my bedroom purple. I had wanted a purple bedroom for thirty damn years, you fucking bet I was gonna have one now. My friends decided, for some reason, that I meant what one of them referred to as “14 year old girl purple” (through what’s wrong with the colors a 14 year old girl chooses, I don’t know, even if they’re not what I want as an adult). They didn’t believe me until they saw the color on the actual wall, even thought they helped me pick out paints. My mother, meanwhile, decided to get worried that if I painted my bedroom a “dark purple”, it would be “depressing”. As if, with an entire house to live in, I would spend all my time in the bedroom, which I wanted to be dark because I would be sleeping in there. In the damn dark.

I’m thirty and my first big furniture purchase was a custom coffin shaped coffee table that opens up and is lined with purple crushed velvet. I would have loved it at 13 and I love it now. Growing up doesn’t mean you have to abandon what makes you happy.

GROWING UP DOESN’T

I have told this story before, and I will tell it again, because I am An Old now and repeating stories forever is our prerogative:

This is the door to

I’m 35. I have been told my place looks like maybe a LP fan lives there.

When I first moved into my place, I painted the spare room, that eventually became my office, lime green, the kind of lime green that glows down the corridor when I open the door - The colour was only available as an “accent colour” in the section of paints intended for children’s playrooms, and in the shop I got a lot of “Oh your son will love this!” And from people I knew I got a lot of “Oh well, you’re 21 now, you’re basically a teenager, this is a terrible idea, you’ll hate it and need to pull out all the furniture to repaint it.” And I have to report that I am now in my forties and my office still looks like this, and it makes me smile every time I see it.

this is such a modern idea, too

The examples of decorated homes above are both either modern or upper class, which makes it easy to dismiss because “sure the rich people have beautiful homes” and “sure, modern middle-class people have lots of color in their homes.”

I painted rooms in my house these colors and some people had doubts:

My wife painted the walls of my studio ORANGE. Glorious sunset orange.

When we decided it was time to paint our home, we wanted something that very much marked it as ours. I think we accomplished that!

If I ever see any of you in public, the code is “I like your shoelaces”

"I hate how American media will just make up a European nation rather than do any research, so I'm going to get back at them by writing a story set in a fake American state" like, do you have the slightest idea how much American media is set in a geographically impossible fictional small town located in no particular state and characterised entirely by some guy from Los Angeles' collection of half-remembered stereotypes about the American Midwest? They've already got the "lazily inventing fictional parts of America" bit locked down.