an offering from a god

there is something so so so Appealing about angry/irritated Barnaby. it scratches an itch in my brain. somethin somethin comic relief characters getting to break their mold and be outwardly unhappy

It's giving audience was so distracted with 010 in the opening of s4 that they missed the willel wondertwin evidence right under their noses...

By implying that children are too stupid and rude to learn about the world and learn how the world works and how to interact with others, you are casting responsibility away from the people who are responsible for that child's upbringing and placing the blame on the children (who don't have the autonomy given to them to be allowed to decide what they want) who can't help what they do and do not learn, often.

If the children aren't okay, then investigate why before turning to thought-terminating clichés of, "Well, the kids are just stupid and dumb and aren't even worth the effort because they're lazy!"

Just so you know, if i disappear i either jumped off the roof or finally snapped and murdered my upper floor neighbours.

what they dont tell u about tharjabelle is that it also creates the most insane statlines for their kids. 62 magic?!?! (with limit breaker i know)

thinking about. the boyos. sorry grant + nicky ill draw ur s2 adult selves one day

I sometimes think about how the endless travel of a traveling circus has likely made the Aquato kids social skills poor and made them very lonely

Ohhhh I love that idea! I know that most circuses are actually quite social- they have traveling schools, and families usually settle down for the off-season in the same cities or towns, so kids have both new and old friends.

But I don't think the Aquatos have the typical circus experience! I think their family moves mostly on its own, maybe frequently switching between circuses for larger performances, but never staying in one place. They have too many enemies. They can't go near the big top, and wherever they are they're always set apart, always different.

I think its just so open to interpretation depending on the plot! Maybe some or all of the kids are very socially adept from meeting so many people and keeping up long-distance friendships, maybe they can always fit into a new group because they work with such diverse people.

Or maybe they're more isolated, more nervous, always having a curse hanging over their heads that no one else would understand. They stick close to each other, drive each other crazy. But who else do they have?

I imagine having a boyfriend or girlfriend would be hard for the older teens, and I remember how hard it was to keep friends after moving. It makes me think of all the ways that interacting with the interns could go!

I got into a car accident yesterday and my very fucked up car is currently parked in front of my apartment and when I was coming home from work today (in my rental car) a kid that lives in my apartment complex who I've never met stopped me and asked what happened to my car. I told him I didn't look before I turned and got t boned (figured it might at least teach the kid to be responsible when he's old enough to drive you know?) and he told me that his friend got into a car accident last year and went to the hospital. I told him that really sucks and I'm sorry to hear that. And he told me that he's glad I'm okay. And then he ran back to play basketball with his friends.

This family only needs us two dads and Wendy. That’s enough.

TWO FATHERS 2個爸爸 2013 / dir. Liu Jun Jie

I’m gonna have to let my drivers permit expire again should I just kill myself be honest

What do you teach Pocket? I picture you teaching math.

Not math, social studies! Though I do have a tendency to end up math tutoring more than I expect lol. Writing too

i think it’s funny that from their surveys dorna found that people think motogp races are too short but i tried to watch f1 earlier this year and i barely made it to 12 laps…… i think motogp race duration is perfect 🤍

1Sep22

This second round’s far from sophomoric; The sound’s big, the feeling euphoric. We’re awake, green eyes wide; Lou, we’re bursting with pride … It’s your moment and it’s meteoric.

Also I spent so long thinking I struggled with school bc I was lazy and just wasn't trying hard enough only to return to school as a fully grown adult and still have the exact same struggles!!! Both extremely vindicating and heartbreakingly disappointing anyway I kind of want to just drop out

doing all this reading on cross-cultural parenting styles is so so fascinating. the practical differences are super interesting (ie learning about different cultural approaches to food, sleep, toilet training, safety, respect for others, etc). but i think the most thought-provoking part is just like... thinking about what each culture’s dominant parenting approach reveals about the traits that culture values & the way people in that culture perceive the world and their interpersonal relationships with others. like here are some of the themes that are emerging about american parenting:

americans are obsessed with individual success and individual excellence. much of american parenting focuses on discovering and actively cultivating each individual child’s “gifts,” which are assumed to be unique to that child, relatively fixed, and innate. we also seem to have this idea that if a child demonstrates interest in something or an early knack for something, we have a responsibility to accommodate that interest and make investments (of time, energy, money) to ensure that this gift is being cultivated appropriately, with an eye towards producing a child who excels in that particular field.

a major tradeoff is: that focus on individual achievement often crowds out a focus on interpersonal connection & on helping kids feel meaningfully enmeshed in and connected to a community that cares for them & that they in turn have obligations to.

americans are incredibly focused on and concerned with meeting developmental milestones (and with pathologizing children as deficient or “slow” or medically abnormal if they don’t meet those milestones). conversely, we see it as highly desirable for kids to hit developmental milestones early, so we invest a ton of time and resources into trying to hurry our kids along. we want our kids to walk, talk, read, sleep through the night, play instruments, speak multiple languages, excel at sports, etc etc etc as early as possible and feel very proud when our kids are labeled “more advanced” than other kids their age.

americans talk to their kids constantly, from infancy to young adulthood, and most of this talk stems from a belief that more talk = more learning. we learn that “good” parenting is hyper-involved, hyper-attuned parenting where the parent is always asking the child questions about the world around them, introducing new information, explicitly teaching or instructing, narrating our own actions so that the kid will learn from what we’re modeling, etc etc. we seem to do this because we feel that pressure for the child to be learning faster, learning more, learning all the time, so that they can grow up faster, reach milestones sooner, and demonstrate a capacity for excellence in their chosen field earlier.

american parents worry a lot more about their kids (we are preoccupied with safety and risk in ways that seem one million times more stressful than many other approaches to parenting... though this is partly because we live in such child-unfriendly environments that weren’t designed with children’s needs in mind). but we also worry a lot about (and spend lots of time focusing on) making our kids “independent” of us. we simultaneously try to protect our kids from any kind of risk or setback that could discourage them or delay their growth, but we also try to push kids away from us faster, wanting them to achieve an independent, self-reliant, self-regulating maturity as quickly as possible.

americans are obsessed with “self-esteem” and often try to boost self-esteem by praising children for anything and everything (even if the praise is superficial or not really deserved). we are often afraid to give honest or hard feedback out of fear that it will damage the child’s self-image or make them feel negative feelings about themselves. the result, though, is that we seem to end up producing generations of kids who are much less resilient, prone to melting down over negative feedback or obstacles, self-absorbed/self-focused, and preoccupied with the idea that they have a sort of innate “right” to feel good all the time. this one is SUPER interesting to me because it feels connected to some thoughts i’ve been working through lately about the therapy-industrial complex and our culture’s obsession with mental health, which idk... my feelings here are complicated and require more unpacking than i want to do in this post lol. but i think a lot about how hollow praise can feel and how intensely addictive it can become, and just like... how truly enduring forms of self-worth seem to come from going through painful phases of life and grappling with difficult personal or interpersonal problems and emerging from those periods with a stronger, clearer understanding of yourself and your values. idk much to unpack here... much to think about...

idk there is probably more stuff i’m forgetting... i’m not really going anywhere with this post lol i just want to start synthesizing some of the things i’m reading. they’re like, simmering on low on the back burner of my brain right now... will be interesting to see if/how they end up getting internalized.