The pen is sneakier than the sword

Mother. Writer. Future Arborist. Hot Mess Express. Find me on AO3: Trees_Are_The_Answer

[i-effed-it-all-up-deactivated20]

no, i don’t watch that show, but i do follow its developments extensively via tumblr

[spectre-squared]

With almost all phones having touch screens nowadays, the prevalence of Butt-Dialing has been significantly reduced. That makes me wonder:

When's the last time you butt-dialed somebody?

today

within the last few days

within the last few weeks

within the last few months

within the last twelve months

within the last two years

within the last three years

more than three years ago

I've never butt dialed anyone before

Voting ended onJun 17

[000l]

[shrewreadings]

like to charge, reblog to cast.

[animentality]

[ao3cassandraic]

It matters that we refuse.

It matters that we resist.

It matters that we be loud about our refusal and resistance.

[enigma-the-mysterious]

Everyone point and laugh

[agnesmontague]

you can kinda tell when a writer has spent a lot of time around kids bc they avoid most of the pitfalls that come with writing children. namely, not giving them a too cutesy or twee voice but making them sound more like extremely weird little adults. kids playing pretend will almost never cutely slot into some romantic scenario for the adults' benefit bc the adults are usually too busy cleaning up or wondering what the fuck is wrong with their child. kids also have surprisingly stringent hangups ranging from very petty grievances to downright chauvinist gender roles, more often than not the result of a tragic education but sometimes far surpassing what they were taught in intensity. what im saying is there's nothing inherently wrong with treating fictional kids as stock characters but it's always quite nice to see when they aren't

[derinthescarletpescatarian]

It's extremely common for very young children to suddenly say something extremely cogent and articulate, that's jarringly inconsistent with their normal speech. This is usually something that they heard an adult say recently. A kid will spend ten minutes telling you a story about how they fought a wolf yesterday using simple sentences of fifty cent words, then nibble a snack, wrinkle their nose and say something like "I feel like Mum was overenthusiastic with the salt today, and not for the first time either" before going back to their clumsy story. (They do understand what they're saying when they do this. Kids' communication is usually held back by their vocabulary and pronunciation, not their understanding.)

Young kids are also a lot more socially aware than people give them credit for. Young children are perfectly aware that adults don't take them seriously. They know when their parents don't actually like them. They listen and remember when adults talk about them while they're in the room. Kids will develop basic abilities to charm etc. from babyhood and will begin experimenting with social norms and concepts of deception, appropriate information, and acceptable language and attitudes in toddlerhood. By the time a kid is five or six, they have solid social strategies for relating to adults and separate ones fr relating to their peers, that they'll continue to refine for the rest of their lives. They will also say completely off the wall shit because they don't have the context to know what is and isn't considered super fucked up yet.

By the time a kid is eight or nine, their main difference from adults is in experience, interests, and ability for long-term focus. An eight year old can think as intelligently and coherently as a thirty year old, they just have less experience and information to draw from, and are likely interested in very different things. They're also likely still slightly hamstrung by vocabulary and literacy, though much less so than a younger kid.

Teens will behave like adults who have little power (a teen is often at the mercy of their parents and the state and rarely taken seriously, which is extremely frustrating) and who are high stress and mid-crisis, because they're going through a transitory period where their bodies and moods are changing and are having to constantly learn and adjust; a fourteen year old in a stable situation will act pretty much like a thirty year old with an oppressive boss who's just left a tumultuous relationship.

[derinthescarletpescatarian]

#oh is *that* why i feel 14 again after my fiance broke things off with me and i had to move halfway across the continent back in with my ma?

Yeah that's just what humans feel and act like when they're unmoored and powerless and unpredictably changing. Teenagers are pretty much constantly unmoored and powerless and unpredictably changing, and react reasonably to those circumstances.

[ohcaptains]

[enyter]

[kaity--did]

you don't threaten the pope that's like fucking rule number one my dudes

[haybellewrites]

you ever read one of your old fics and think "damn past self. you went hard on that one. i'm so proud of you." while simultaneously thinking "future self got to get their shit together and actually write something, i mean come on now."

[wrenegade-cylon]

Name a task a houseguest could do with the best intentions but that has the most irritating outcome. I'll go first:

Putting clean dishes away.

Please stop it. It's so kind, and so clearly well-intended. But you've thrown the whole system into absolute chaos and now my four year-old's favorite cup is not in its spot and fuck if I know where it ended up.

[drulalovescas]

everybody say thank you, fanfiction

[batsandbugs]

THAT SNIPPET.

i need you to know that i'm just currently screaming on discord about this, and now a couple of us are highkey just going to reread what's already posted 😂

The next chapter has been sitting half-finished in my docs for ages. I took a good look at it the other day, wondering why I just COULD NOT work on it. And I realized it was awful. So, I went back and reread all of Great IKEA Game - a thing I'd not done for ages, and it took me (the WRITER) aback on how fucking funny it was. Which, like, I know that people find it funny. I wrote it to work on writing humor, but I genuinely forgot. With all of it in mind, I've been slowly working up a few new scenes and I'm getting words down for the first time in months. So, no promises (I've already broken too many of them), but I want to let you all know that I am alive, this fic is not abandoned, and people's continued love for this fic is more than appreciated.

[batsandbugs]

Bruce Wayne's Headache Classification System

Chapter 5 Snippet (heyo I ain't dead!)

Damian growls. “I told you to cease your baseless slander of Marinette. You continued to do so, and I demonstrated the consequences of such a poor decision.” 

“Aww are you sad because I’m being mean to your little girlfriend?” Jason mocks, grin jagged like spikes. “Grow a pair Dami.” 

“How about I take yours for recompense,” his youngest hisses. 

“Enough!” Bruce orders, using the voice his kids knew meant business. “You both are acting like children.”

[kaity--did]

I have a controversial parenting take for you today folks. And while I share it I am begging you to hold space for nuance and understand that I am not talking about babies and toddlers who don't understand right from wrong etc etc

I do not think an adult should EVER hit their child or a child EVER. An adult should never lay their hands on a child.

I think it's imperative that sometimes children get their shit rocked by other children. That's a jury of your peers baby.

[wrenegade-cylon]

And we're back with another episode of Another Name For Logical Consequences! This time, the name of the game is FA & FO.

If you, a four year-old, invade another four year-old's space and do not take your cue to leave (anything from words to a push), the next step for your peer is to escalate so the message gets across. This could range from a scream to a big shove to a slap to a straight up linebacker-style tackle, depending on the child.

Boundaries are discovered by pushing them.

The other important thing to remember is that it's okay for the boundary pusher to be upset, and it's absolutely appropriate to comfort them before laying out the reason they were in the wrong. They're learning the world, and they've only been on it for four years. In the grand scheme of things, that's no time at all.

[nessa007]

@staff

[wrenegade-cylon]

The trouble with having very specific interests and a tendency to fixate on said interests is that you seek out folks with like interests and then you're immersed in a community or communities of folks who have a similar knowledge base and you forget that what seems common knowledge is not actually common.

And this is relevant because my husband had to remind my 36 year old self that not everyone knows that plants need more than just water to live and that I may have overreacted to my aunt watering her plants exclusively with distilled water and then being shocked when they didn't survive because they were nutrient deficient.

[kaity--did]

Unfortunately if you do not respect da deals, you do not get, you know, da deals. This is a lesson we had to learn today and while very sad and angry about it, we now realize for certain that deals must be respected.

The beauty of deals is that I don't have to come up wit wild consequences for undesirable actions, they are built in consequences.

Meaning if we say "I will put medicine on your boo boo and then you will get Costco pizza for dinner, deal?" And you agree to this with a handshake, and then lose your ever loving gob about said boo boo and hit the medicine out of your moms hands, and then REFUSE to apologize because you've gotten yourself so worked up that you're screaming in a parking lot I'm so sorry we are not going to get Costco pizza unfortunately. We're gonna go home were you can have a safe space to feel your feelings and get all the nasties out.

This is deals.

[kaity--did]

I have already received an ask about her only being an child and me being too harsh

I need you all to understand: I didn't yell, I didn't scream back, I very sternly (and loudly cause again she was screaming- she wouldn't hear me) said "okay! Deals off we're going home!" And I took her little 4 yo ass home

My parenting rules are as follows:

1. You gotta respect the deals

2. I will NEVER make a threat, a threat is something you don't plan to follow through on. I will always follow through on the things I say I'm going to do.

This is deals

[wrenegade-cylon]

Deals is just another way to say Logical Consequences. Consequence =\= punishment, it's just cause and effect. If you make the deal to remain calm during medicine so you get Costco Pizza, and then you freak the fuck out, logically it follows that Costco Pizza is not had.

It's not mean. It is age appropriate, developmentally appropriate guidance.

[tiktoksthataregood-ish]

[nitewrighter]

Peer-reviewing tags by @dickwitch