A Child's internet, MOMP, My Little Pony, and other thoughts from Noorie
There's no other way I'm making a post peoples I'm sorryyyy
Words! Mere words! How terrible they were! How clear, and vivid, and cruel! One could not escape from them. And yet what a subtle magic there was in them! They seemed to be able to give a plastic form to formless things, and to have a music of their own as sweet as that of viol or of lute. Mere words! Was there anything so real as words?
- Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray
If you ever read the Picture of Dorian Gray and find it tedious at times, read until the end. You will not be disappointed. (It’s taken me months because I thought I should build a nice little consistent habit. LIES. I’M LYING TO MYSELF. I NEED A FEW HOURS TO READ IT ALL IN ONE SITTING. I AM A CREATURE OF SPONTEANITY AND WHIMS. OHMIGOSH THIS BOOK. I HAVE THOUGHTS. I WILL PUT OFF SHARING THEM.)
I need people to understand that one of the cellular processes is called MOMP
MOMP - mitochondrial outer membrane permeabilization. Big fancy thing that basically means “powerhouse of the cell got some holes torn in its outer membrane (not the squiggly one inside) and a bunch of protein killers leaked out and now the cell is doomed”
Break down the walls of the one who once kept us alive and watch the assassins lick their tongues across chipped teeth. For how long did they wait within that electric chain for the thrill of our demise? Do they not remorse the destruction of all we’ve created?
I want to write biology poetry and have it be fancy and utterly incomprehensible. No, I’m not trying to make you understand what it is; I want you to understand what it feels like to me. The freaking powerhouse of the cell is also the cell’s executioner. The executioner caspase (assassin enzyme) has another function of playing roles in replicating the cell. The mitochondria’s ancestor engaged in biochemical warfare with the cell’s ancestor and so many biochemical pathways got repurposed. Holy herbs do I want to write some doomed yuri but organelles. Yes, I have trouble talking to new people.
I find it weird when people say that social media should be reserved for adults only. Yes, having adult-only spaces is necessary and important (and I’d argue that social media itself needs a complete overhaul, and we should go back to decentralized person-owned digital spaces). But at the same time, we can’t kick out children from every spot on the internet when parents increasingly won’t let them leave the house. Libraries get less funding. Suburbia is a ghost town. Children get exploited on an internet that seeks to exploit.
Children need nourishing tv shows and educational content and dress-up game sites. As a toddler, I spent my time playing Starfall games (teaches children to read) and scouring the internet for My Little Pony clips and playing angry birds. Children also aren’t stupid and should be exposed to “grander themes” without it being inappropriate. Avatar the Last Airbeneder poses as a good example. Give them deeper themes so they can start thinking critically about the world. Let them learn at their own pace. AND GIVE THE CHILDREN QUALITY CONTENT AND STORIES THAT REPRESENTS THIER STRUGGLES AND THOUGHTS AND STAGE IN LIFE. (Bring back a young adult and middle grade genre in books with the most thought provoking stories ever written and no smut pleaseeee).
Along the same vein, just because you’re ashamed and embarrassed of who you were as a child doesn’t mean you need to hate children. Also, maybe you should see a therapist about that. (I mean this in the kindest way possible).
To be honest, there was a My Little Pony episode where (can I just use their names?) Applejack, ever so practical, looks at all of Rarity’s fashion interests and doesn’t understand the point of it. Rarity then proceeds to show Applejack that sometimes people belittle that which they don’t value, not realizing that the people who did value that thing put so much time and love and care into it, and that alone makes it special.
Can I just…
I keep seeing all these “men don’t know how to be a human being” notes. The antidote to their upbringing is My Little Pony. My confused little autistic brain wouldn’t have known the first thing about socializing without My Little Pony.
The stories about 14-18 year old characters (???) sideline the parents most of the time. The stories about characters going through their mid-life crisis (late thirties to forties) mention parents with dread, with regret and reminiscence.
I don’t have a coherent thought about this. I have a work in progress novel to sort out my feelings. (40k-ish words of feeling sorting is the plight of all authors, isn’t it?)
Novel Update: I haven’t written anything for it for the past few days (been busy) and I’ve written at least something for the novel for years. That’s probably why I got sick.
That being said, I’ve gotten to the point I’ve been dreaming of for months. That scene. The one the wary writer must write their way through 30k words of set up for. In the Land of the Fallen Fairies’s case, it’s the scene where I finally get to convey the idea of someone I love has hurt me and I cannot see them as someone I fear and someone I need… except I’m learning the context for why they act the way do and thinking about the one who I feel safe with hurts me now. (that’s a mouthful).
But noooo. Brain says I should get epiphanies for every side plot I’ve been stuck with for months. (Traumatic incident your offspring faced? No worries! For a one-time payment of your respect in dryad society, you can give both your offspring’s and your memory of the event to a living mass of conscious archives! Just a quick note darling, your offspring might figure out what happened and hate you for it. Not that they told you when exactly they figured it out. Oh well, they’re gone now.) SMH brain. Get a new job. (or stop sleeping on the job.)
ANYWAYS
I got re-obsessed with them. I’m hesitant to reduce them down to labels… but what else are occupations? Healer and the living weapon. Wow, what drama.
But nooo I have to finish writing the main plotline before I can write theirs. But I have to finish a biology writing project before I can write the main plotline. And I have to finish this post before I can write the bio-
“I am tired of myself tonight. I should like to be somebody else.”
- Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray