#actually you know what i lied

[lizzieisright]

“Every time someone steps up and says who they are, the world becomes a better, more interesting place.” 

This is a famous quote from the Brooklyn 99, and I love it. 

The world does become a better, more interesting place - for you and for others. 

You see, I'm a boring gay - you can't really tell because I look straight-passing. But I need to compensate, so I'm also a loud gay - meaning once we know each other I won't shut the fuck up about loving women when opportunity presents itself.

And I came out as bi at 13 - you can say it was a soft launch - and not a lot of my classmates really cared. A lot of stuff happened and I didn't focus on this part of my life, but then the year 10 happened (year 12 in British system) and oh boy I couldn't shut up.

Which is kinda hilarious if you know that: a) I live in a homophobic country b) all my classmates were straight and kinda homophobic and c) I have zero sense of self-preservation.

I decided I had nothing to lose back then and I got loud again - this time I kinda knew I had a stronger preference for girls (spoiler alert: I'm a lesbian) and I refused to let my straight friends be comfortable if it meant I had to tone it down. 

And my straight friends had to deal with it - with their homophobia, their stereotypes and assumptions. They had to make peace with me, because being around me was literally inescapable: we were classmates and there were only 10 of us, and 5 of us in a closer circle. So they listened to gay jokes, to thirsts after Rihanna, to why parades are important. 

And now, 10 years later, I have 4 straight traditional women as my closest friends who don't know what outing means and how lesbians have sex because it's not part of their life, but they're accepting and supportive, and I know they will defend queers when it matters. (cough my friend accidentally outing me to her family to prove that gays are okay and just because I'm gay doesn't mean she'll stop being my friend cough it fucking worked)

And I know, if I wasn't loud, if I wasn't thirsting after women out loud, if I didn't answer a lot of their - sometimes offensive out of ignorance - questions, they'd have been as homophobic as possible. And they would raise their kids in homophobic environment, or they wouldn't know how to deal with their kids being queer. But because I was/am loud about being gay, they will know how to handle it. Or, at least, they will have me to talk to about it. 

So be loud. Be proud. You may not change the whole world, but you may change the whole world for someone. 

Some honourable quotes from my friends:

“That's not very christian of you.” My best friend when I came out as a lesbian. (It was a joke, obv, but it's even funnier because this friend is very christian)

“We will see what nickname you'll get when you get a girlfriend.” My other friend (and a namesake) when I made fun of the nickname she got from her fiance. (because we're namesakes, we get the same nicknames). Said in front of her fiance.

“When will you two fuck?” Out of nowhere, when I was talking about my crush. + The same friend crying happy tears when I came out as a lesbian because “you must feel so relieved to finally know your truth”.

“Oh, [my nickname] is at it again.” All of them, collectively, when I accidentally stare at a girl. It happens. I'm embarrassed. 

[inkskinned]

the thing is there's like, a point of oversaturation for everything, and it's why so many things get dropped after a few minutes. and we act like millennials or gen z kids "have short attention spans" but... that's not quite it. it's more like - we did like it. you just ruined it.

capitalism sees product A having moderate success, and then everything has to come out with their "own version" of product A (which is often exactly the same). and they dump extreme amounts of money and environmental waste into each horrible simulacrum they trot out each season.

now it's not just tiktokkers making videos; it's that instagram and even fucking tumblr both think you want live feeds and video-first programming. and it helps them, because videos are easier to sneak native ads into. the books coming out all have to have 78 buzzwords in them for SEO, or otherwise they don't get published. they are making a live-action remake of moana. i haven't googled it, but there's probably another marvel or starwars something coming out, no matter when you're reading this post.

and we are like "hi, this clone of project A completely misses the point of the original. it is soulless and colorless and miserable." and the company nods and says "yes totally. here is a different clone, but special." and we look at clone 2 and we say "nope, this one is still flat and bad, y'all" and they're like "no, totally, we hear you," and then they make another clone but this time it's, like, a joyless prequel. and by the time they've successfully rolled out "clone 89", the market is incredibly oversaturated, and the consumer is blamed because the company isn't turning a profit.

and like - take even something digital like the tumblr "live streaming" function i just mentioned. that has to take up server space and some amount of carbon footprint; just so this brokenass blue hellsite can roll out a feature that literally none of its userbase actually wants. the thing that's the kicker here: even something that doesn't have a physical production plant still impacts the environment.

and it all just feels like it's rolling out of control because like, you watch companies pour hundreds of thousands of dollars into a remake of a remake of something nobody wants anymore and you're like, not able to afford eggs anymore. and you tell the company that really what you want is a good story about survival and they say "okay so you mean a YA white protagonist has some kind of 'spicy' love triangle" and you're like - hey man i think you're misunderstanding the point of storytelling but they've already printed 76 versions of "city of blood and magic" and "queen of diamond rule" and spent literally millions of dollars on the movie "Candy Crush Killer: Coming to Eat You".

it's like being stuck in a room with a clown that keeps telling the same joke over and over but it's worse every time. and that would be fine but he keeps fucking charging you 6.99. and you keep being like "no, i know it made me laugh the first time, but that's because it was different and new" and the clown is just aggressively sitting there saying "well! plenty of people like my jokes! the reason you're bored of this is because maybe there's something wrong with you!"

[bixels]

The idea that uni protesters are "elitist ivy-league rich kids larping as revolutionaries" on Twitter and Reddit and even here is so fucking funny to me if you actually know anything about the student bodies at these unis. Take it from someone who's going to one of the biggest private unis in the US, 80% of the peers I know are either from the suburbs or an apartment somewhere in America, children of immigrants, or here on a student visa. I've heard about one-percenter students, but I've never met one in person. Like, don't get me wrong, the institution as a whole is still very privileged and white. I've talked with friends and classmates about feeling weird or dissonant being here and coming from such a different background. But in my art program, I see BIPOC, disabled, queer, lower-income students and faculty trying to deconstruct and tear that down and make space every day. So to take a cursory glance at a crowd of student protesters in coalitions that are led by BIPOC & 1st/2nd-gen immigrant students and HQ'd in ethnic housings and student organizations and say, "ah. children of the elite." Get real.

[heartscrypt]

redraw of this one photo from the link click musical where lu guang holds his hand out for a high five and cheng xiaoshi puts his face in lg's outstretched hand. because its ACTUALLY been tormenting me for days IM SICK OF THEM!!! (+ bonus aftermath sketch bc i lied. i miss them)

[ref photo comparison under read more]

[zishuge]

The only thing I remember is killing people. You say I'm someone who saves people. I won't kill you — but I don't believe you either. Do you think I'm a fool? You're not a fool. Mysterious Lotus Casebook (2023) | Ep. 20

[shima-draws]

Carmine: Kiki’s been acting REAL weird since he got back

Carmine: He trains nonstop, barely even sleeps…

Carmine: He even beat Drayton and took his position as the BB League Champion

Carmine: I’m actually kind of afraid to interact with him now, I mean look at how awfully he treats other trainers that he sees as “weak”

Carmine: Oh but I’m sure it’s just a phase!

Me:

[bacchuschucklefuck]

pygmalion and galatea for aroace people

you should tell your friends what I look like, riz gukgak.

[yendts]

i haven’t even met him yet but i already love him (i’m almost done with house of hades shhh)

[where-the-water-flows]

also like au where teenaged Li xiangyi runs into also teenaged di feisheng mid fight with a di assassin, li xiangyi finds out about the mind control bug via idk overhearing the two Di kids being like 'yeah neither of us want to do this really but y'know. it's not like we have a choice' or whatever, and thus li xiangyi, baby activist for JUSTICE ends up fully derailing his sort of vauge plans to set up a sect in favour of dealing with this terrible injustice because it's, y'know, pretty fucked up and also he's been in the martial world for about six weeks max and in that time he's seen one (1) sect fully massacred like his repressed trauma backstory, presumably thrown himself into a bunch of other unfair fights, and is now faced with a guy only a couple years older than him who's digging his kind-of sect brother's grave after being forced to fight him to death because of fucking mind control slavery

(because on the one hand he's still kind of an arrogant brat, and on the other hand this shit is fucked up and also super personal and kinda complicated in a way that 'just sword the problem to jail/death' can't actually fix, given the whole mind control thing, and he is very rapidly finding out that wow, turns out everything off the mountain is actually very extremely fucked up and way more complicated than he thought.)

shan gudao shows up after like, barely a week away doing idk, sketchy nanyin related things probably, and his arrogant brat of a shidi is immediately hey guess what shixiong new plan we can get back to sect building later, also this is my new best friend he's awesome at sword and barely socialised, also also he's crashing with us now or rather I'm crashing with him and his band of weirdos he's collecting!

[valentjin]

filed under "screenshots of Raphael that look like VN romance cgs"

[unforth]

@esper-aroon has enabled me, so here let me scream at y'all about The Imperial Uncle.

Okay, so I recently read The Imperial Uncle (Huang Shu) by Da Feng Gua Guo from Peach Flower House and I really loved it??? It's first person pov, mlm, about the Emperor's uncle Jing Chengjun, who is mistrusted by everyone simply because of who his parents were and his position, and so he's basically given up on trying to convince people that he's actually a nice, decent person without ulterior motives. He's super trapped by his position, and there's so much he can't say and do, and he's also a hopeless romantic, like, from his own mouth all he really wants is to sleep beside and wake up next to someone who actually gives a shit about him, and even that is basically out of reach in his life. Like, the book starts with his wife (who he has never once had sex with) storming into a meeting he's having and announcing he's a cuckold and she's pregnant.

But also, this poor bastard really thinks he knows what's going on and his very smart. Very unreliable narrator. He's actually kinda a hilarious, impulsive himbo. But the TL:DR is that his loneliness and isolation and the extent to which he's politically trapped routinely lead him to make absolutely terrible decisions.

E. Danglar's translation is absolutely gorgeous, too, and... idk, if you love political plots, melodramatic idiot main characters, a dose of pining, and a slow burn that eventually pays off, come take a look??? (some people think it's a love triangle??? idk, I never really got that vibe, I never felt it was really in doubt which of the two potential dudes he'd end up with, but maybe I only feel that way because I got it right, lmao).

Anyway, I can't stop thinking about how these two idiots end up finally finding each other and getting together, and I have an entire AU in my head (a modern corporate one) and part of another (canon divergent from like a decade before the book starts), and I just want people to love this book as much as I did and scream with me about it.

[uncanny-tranny]

It's just... odd to me, I suppose, going from "what is in my pants is completely irrelevant to most anybody else's life" to the expectation that you must be completely open, essentially, about what is in your pants.

I think a lot of people understand the general idea of why it's bad decorum to demand people offer explanations for private information like this, but they don't analyze exactly why it's bad besides, "asking directly is just rude" and not "asking in any way still enforces the often violent nature of gender and sex, and putting people in the 'right box' is a part of that violence."

It's especially odd when seeing other trans people enforcing the idea that "what's in your pants?" is a genuine, good-faith basis for interacting with others.

[airenyah]

IT'S HAPPENING

HEART AND LI MING ARE ACTUALLY KISSING BEFORE TINN AND GUN I CAN'T STOP LAUGHING

[heartslobbf]

heterophobic nanami real

[ID: two screenshots from 'revolutionary girl utena' of nanami and touga standing in the rose garden. nanami imploringly clings to touga, who stands stiffly with his face obscured from the audience. in the first screenshot, nanami says: 'i know i have to accept that you go out with girls.'

in the second screenshot, nanami continues: 'but don't go out with a girl like her!' /end ID]

[softstuffs]

Au where Moonpaw is in fact Bayshine and Thriftear's kit but the entire clan is convinced its a Squirrelflight and Crowfeather situation where Bayshine and Thriftear adopted Moonpaw from Nightheart and Sunbeam and is a nightsun kit because of her pelt and name, and everyone's jumping to conclusions about it. Moonpaw is a sweet but cunning and devious little devil child who is all too happy to cozy up to her "parents" for extra attention as well as get them in trouble and just generally be a little shit.

aka au where moonpaw takes advantage of the nightsun assumptions to cause problems on purpose

[shima-draws]

Normally Sanji is the most put together person between him and Luffy. He’s probably the most put together person on the entire crew besides Robin. Meanwhile Luffy is a walking disaster, chaos is naturally drawn to him and he’s ALWAYS getting into trouble. When it comes to their actual romantic relationship tho. It’s COMPLETELY flipped lmao

Luffy will walk out on deck with his hair slightly tousled and his vest a bit askew but that’s normal for him. He looks smug as hell but that’s also normal for him. Nobody bats an eye. Then Sanji comes tumbling out of the galley. Shirt untucked and buttoned up the wrong way, hair thoroughly ruffled, clothes rumpled, looking utterly fucking disheveled. His nose is bleeding, he’s stumbling like he’s drunk and his neck is covered in hickies. Everyone on deck proceeds to lose their goddamn MINDS