#but apparently this is accurate according to my many ace friends

[rainthetrain]

Asexual sex

Call that shit riding a train

Maybe holding hands

[bqstqnbruin]

if u wanna rant abt the person u h*te go for it !

I’m going to put this under the cut because it’s just a lot but 

to preface this: it takes a lot for me to genuinely hate a person. Like there are people that I dislike, but that’s different from me hating them, ya know? I HATE this girl.

So y’all know I was a chemistry major in undergrad, right? I did organic chemistry research the summer after my sophomore year until I graduated. There were four of us: myself, the other girl in my year who was also new to the lab that summer, then two girls who were going into their senior year, one that I liked, one that I didn’t. The one I didn’t like was technically ‘in charge’ because she had been there the longest, she was a year ahead of me (she was class of 2019, I was class of 2020). Let’s call her Jane, because there are a lot of people in this story. 

This girl is really smart. Like brilliant. 4.0 as a chemistry major with a physics and math minor, is currently getting her PhD at Harvard in Physical Chemistry. 

She is the kind of girl who would get the highest grades in the class, ruin the curve type of student. And that’s fine, if you’re smart, you’re smart, get those grades. She would make sure everyone knew that she got the highest grades and make snarky little comments about how “well if you just tried harder then you could get these grades too!” like bitch ??? science is hard calm down ! we know you’re smart ! If you got a higher grade than her, she would make you feel bad about it in a ‘well how did you get a better grade than me’ kind of way. 

So I already didn’t like her going into the summer. 

The night before, my friend and I who were new to the research group get a text from one of our friends saying “Hey, just so you know, Jane was bragging to us yesterday that she was planning on hazing you guys. It shouldn’t be anything actually dangerour, but please be careful.” Keep in mind: hazing is against university policy. In the student handbook, it says that anyone who is caught hazing other students will be removed from the university. 

First day in lab, my research partner and I were there, and she starts telling us to do all this stupid shit, like saying we have to weigh everything out on the scale three times to make sure that it’s accurate, giving us random goggles to wear when we used certain equipment, telling us to yell “fire in the hole” when we used the dry ice tank, that sort of shit. Jane was bragging about it to a professor and he literally had to tell her “if I hear Christina and her partner say anything else about what you’re doing, I’m reporting you to the university president” as if her basically telling him she was hazing us wasn’t enough, but whatever. 

In our lab, we use a lot of glassware. For whatever reason, we call them our “dishes.” Not sure why, that’s just the way it’s always been. It somehow fell on me to do all the dishes, to the point where I would have to come to the lab an hour earlier than everyone else and leave an hour later than everyone else just to get everything done. Our lab was joined with another lab (there was a doorway connecting the two), so we spent a lot of time with that other lab group, and the sink was right by the door that connected them. We were all in the back talking to each other, I’m standing there doing all the dishes, and Jane is complaining about how she hasn’t been able to do anything. So my friend, the one who had texted us saying Jane was going to haze us, was like “Well, why?” Jane turns to me and goes “my minion isn’t washing my dishes fast enough for me.” I was shocked and didn’t know what to say because, like, what the fuck? My friend goes “Maybe wash your own dishes instead of making Christina do them when she has her own shit to do.” 

I still ended up doing all the dishes. At one point, she threw a dish into the sink when I was standing in front of it doing dishes, and it shattered in the sink. Shards easily could have cut me had I been standing a little bit to the left. 

Her 21st birthday was during the summer. Lab tradition is that anyone who has a summer birthday gets like a little celebration: we decorate the lab, we make them a cake, that sort of stuff. So we did. We went all out, because that’s what the lab did for everyone, and that was a tradition we did even after she left. She brought in a bottle of vodka to the lab (I think her boyfriend had picked it up for her and brought it to the science center). We’re a wet campus, so having alcohol isn’t a problem as long as you’re of age. We were all in the back room of the lab, and she passes out cups to everyone, and I tell her, “Oh, I really don’t drink, I don’t want one,” and apparently that meant nothing to her because she kept yelling at me to take the shot of vodka until I did, which, considering I was 19 at the time, definitely wasn’t legal. If the professor of the lab we were in had walked in 2 seconds earlier, I wouldn’t ahve had to drink it. 

So that’s not even all of it. This shit continued into the school year. We were all in the chemistry club (because we’re NERDS). She was one of the presidents with the other girl from our research group in her year, the one that I liked, while I was treasurer and our other friend was secretary. At the begining of the year, she sends me an email outlining the potential fundraisers that we wanted to do, and asked me for my thoughts. The included things like having nights at the local restaurants where they give us a cut of the profits, selling custom stickers that we bought, bake sales, that stuff. She told me, “send me your thoughts.” 

One of her ideas was making and selling liquid nitrogen ice cream. Outside. In November. In Philly, it doesn’t get horribly cold in November, but it gets cold enough that selling liquid nitrogen ice cream outside isn’t the best idea. I had suggested “we can do another bake sale, or other clubs are decorating flatware beakers and selling them like that, we could do that instead. And then we could do the ice cream fundraiser during the sping because it will be warmer and more people will want it.” Everything else, I told her, sure, I like those ideas, this is how I can make them work, this is what I already have going through with the restaurant stuff.

She texts the other president throwing an absolute fit that I turned down the ONE fundraiser for November, telling her “she needs to step up and do better” and that “I’m telling her that this is what we’re doing and she has to do them or we’re removing her from her position.” My friend literally told her, “No, Christina said she would do everything but the one fundraiser and I agree with her.” One of the professors had to get involved because they found my crying in the lab over this, so that was fun. 

I had mentioned the dishes before, but that part of the saga continues. I was the only one doing the dishes still. the girl I liked did hers all the time and tried to pick up the slack, the girl in my year wasn’t doing research during the semester and wasn’t technically allowed in the lab because of legal safety reasons. Jane was still using glassware and not cleaning it. Our research advisor tells us “the health and safety inspector came by the lab and saw all the dishes in the sink. If they aren’t clean by whatever date he comes back, we’re going to get in trouble.” So ok. We have three group chats for the lab: one with the four of us and our advisor, one with the four of us, and one without Jane. Both the one with and the one without Jane were going. In one of them, someone said “we need to figure out a schedule of who can go in when so we can get these dishes done.” I said “I’ve been doing them, but no matter what I do, more and more end up in the sink and I can’t keep up. Maybe if her highness did her own dishes instead of expecting me to do them all, this would get done faster and it wouldn’t be a problem.” I thought I was texting the one without Jane. I wasn’t.

She responds back “Um, haha, wrong group chat” I go, “oh well, do your dishes.” So she knew I didn’t like her, and she definitely didn’t like me. It was pretty obvious before, but now it was pretty much confirmed. 

We had a few research presentations together as a group. Keep in mind, she didn’t much over the summer in terms of research, and what she did do, never worked. Which is fine, that’s how science goes sometimes. She spent more time in the lab working on her applications for various shit. She took our research and presented it at so many different conferences. Granted, we didn’t do much, either, since we only had two months of work which isn’t a lot of time, but she left our names off the posters and really didn’t give us any credit. She said it was because ACS rules stated that the only people who need to go on the research poster were those presenting that actual poster. I went alone to a conference in Florida in 2019, and I had to have her name on the poster for some reason, though. 

That’s pretty much the end of what she did to me, but there was so much other shit that she did to other people, too. I mentioned her intelligence. Her boyfriend LEFT HIS MASTERS PROGRAM TO MOVE WITH HER TO CAMBRIDGE. HE LEFT IT. I’m still mad about that. He deserves better.

Before she had decided to go to Harvard, she had the audacity to tell me that she didn’t want to go to Boston because it was more dangerous than Philly (statisically, it really isn’t). 

She had a restraining order on a guy who was a year behind me because he “assaulted her.” I know both of them fairly well. What had happened, according to him and other students, was that he was getting up from his desk, and the way he swung his backpack to put it on, it ended up hitting her by accident. It was not intentional. The rows of desks are close together, and she was standing close to him. He did not do it on purpose. This guy was also not well liked by people, and something tells me they wouldn't defend him if he actually did it on purpose.

For graduation, you know how people wear cords and medals to represent their activities and accomplishments? She was jealous that the girl in our lab group had more chords than her, so she went and bought more for herself.  

What’s frustrating is that because she was so smart and had so many grants and got the school a decent amount of attention, whenever we said anything or talked about it, nothing happened. The professors knew her and I hated each other, but they didn’t seem to believe why. Whatever. 

I think that’s it. I hope she fails in life, honestly. I do not like her at all. 

Sorry that was a lot, but thank you for letting me rant about this oaidjfaoi

[isitfake]

A list of rejections of famous authors was circulating on Tumblr awhile back and, because Is It Fake was in exams at the time, Is It Fake got really into debunking them. It has now been more than a year and Is It Fake is just gonna put it up and let this roll.

See, they’re all or almost all from Rotten Rejections, a book written with a marvelous disregard for facts, and they’ve therefore been in circulation for more than twenty-five years. Some of them are entirely true; some of them are totally fake; a lot of them appear only in Rotten Rejections but can’t otherwise be disproven. Many of the stories behind them are fantastic.

As a general note, although this was only really useful for Plath, if you enjoy this we recommend “Publication is Not Recommended: From the Knopf Archives,” which is available on Project MUSE if you’ve got access and is just… it’s wonderful. Blanche Knopf was a riot.

Okay, let’s get going!

TRUE

Sylvia Plath: There certainly isn’t enough genuine talent for us to take notice.

Not only true, but actually much worse than depicted here. Internal rejection only. The editor, having been told that this is contest-winner Sylvia Plath’s book, rereads, and is marginally nicer and 500% more patronizing: "maybe now that this book is out of her system she will use her talent more effectively next time.” Accurate text available here: http://cloudyskiesandcatharsis.tumblr.com/post/57272275430/sylvia-plath-originally-submitted-her-novel-the

Emily Dickinson: [Your poems] are quite as remarkable for defects as for beauties and are generally devoid of true poetical qualities.

True! Thomas Niles to Thomas Wentworth Higginson, June 10, 1890— the brackets are wrong, because he was addressing another possible publisher, to say that he thought it would be “unwise to perpetuate” the poems, oh my STARS.

Ernest Hemingway (on The Torrents of Spring): It would be extremely rotten taste, to say nothing of being horribly cruel, should we want to publish it.

True, and directly to Hemingway himself. To F Scott Fitzgerald he managed to get up an “I am less violently opposed to Torrents of Spring than anyone else who has read it” but to Hemingway himself, nope, full no.

William Faulkner: If the book had a plot and structure, we might suggest shortening and revisions, but it is so diffuse that I don’t think this would be of any use. My chief objection is that you don’t have any story to tell. And two years later: Good God, I can’t publish this!

True. Both are true. They are so true.

The first refers to Sartoris/Flags in the Dust, and the story is really funny and sad. Faulkner sent it to Horace Liveright (his publisher) with enormous confidence: he called it the “damdest best book you’ll look at this year” and tried to ensure at this early stage that the printer not screw up his punctuation (“he’s been punctuating my stuff to death; giving me gratis quotation marks and premiums of commas I dont need.”) He also insisted that the title was perfect and that he had designed his own dust jacket which he would send by separate cover. Anyway, bye, he was going on a hunting trip, he looked forward to Liveright’s glowing acceptance!

Liveright did not exactly… do that. Besides the quote above he also noted how much he hated Mosquitoes, Faulkner’s last book, and how disappointed he was w/this one and how much he really wanted Faulkner not to submit it anywhere else, in case he got blacklisted, because the book was so, so bad.

WHOOPS

(Thanks to "Flags in the Dust and the Birth of a Poetics” by Arthur F. Kinney for those quotes.)

The second is about Sanctuary, a book Faulkner hated and described as a “cheap idea…deliberately executed to make money.” The full rejection, according to Faulkner in his introduction to the book, was “Good God, I can’t publish this. We’d both be in jail.”

Edgar Allan Poe: Readers in this country have a decided and strong preference for works in which a single and connected story occupies the entire volume.

Not quite the exact quote, because “(especially fiction)” should appear after “works” and “entire” should be “whole”— but true. Harper & Brothers rejected Tales from the Folio Club in 1836 with this phrasing, the second of their three reasons for turning the stories down. The first was that a lot of them had been printed already, and the third was that the papers were too “learned and mystical,” like spooky bonbons.

http://www.eapoe.org/papers/psbbooks/pb19781c.htm

Poe responded to this by writing The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym, which he privately referred to as a “very silly book”, and which is a classic of American literature.

MIXED TRUE/FALSE

Jack London: [Your book is] forbidding and depressing.

Sort of true. This rejection is from the Atlantic on the 3rd of May, 1900, it’s about “The Law of Life”, and it was a lot nicer than this, because according to Ellery Sedgwick’s "A History of the Atlantic Monthly, 1857-1909: Yankee Humanism at High Tide”, this was a period in which the Atlantic was being very ruthless and cynical about what would run, because depressing things didn’t sell commercially.

The full quote is, “We have heartily liked the vigor of it and the breadth of treatment with which you have written it. But the subject is forbidding—in fact seems to us depressing, and so the excellent craftsmanship of it has not changed our mind."

Stephen King (on Carrie): We are not interested in science fiction which deals with negative utopias. They do not sell.

True, but not about Carrie. It’s from Donald A. Wollheim at Ace Books and it’s about the Richard Bachman book The Running Man, which King had written after Carrie got rejected basically everywhere in the world. “The book, unfortunately, was not fantastic,” he later commented, which might’ve been because he wrote it over a weekend in a “low rage and simmering despair.” Thanks to the Stephen King Companion for this one.

UNATTESTED (AND, ONE SUSPECTS, NOT REAL)

Rudyard Kipling: I’m sorry Mr. Kipling, but you just don’t know how to use the English language.

Unattested. ID’d as the publisher of the San Francisco Examiner or Call writing in 1889, or is it 1899? Yeah, probs not, and Is It Fake couldn’t find it.

That said, the Call fucking hated Kipling. For example, the San Francisco Call did write about Kipling in 1899; it castigated him for his poem “the White Man’s Burden,” saying, “the white man’s burden is to set and keep his own house in order. It is not required of him to upset the brown man’s house under pretesce of reform and then whip him into subjection whenever he revolts at the treatment.” (Among other sources, can be found here.)

Another review of “The Lesson” from 1901 opens "KIPLING'S latest poem, 'The Lesson,’ must be very gratifying to Mr. Alfred Austin, for, if it does not confirm Austin's right to the office of Poet Laureate, it at least shows that Kipling has no better right.” 

Dr. Seuss: Too different from other juveniles on the market to warrant its selling.

Unattested. But he was indeed rejected 27 times for his first book. 

The Diary of Anne Frank: The girl doesn’t, it seems to me, have a special perception or feeling which would lift that book above the ‘curiosity’ level.

Unattested. The diary was rejected by 15 publishers before publication, but Is It Fake can’t find any of them who specifically said this. Here’s one from Knopf:

In the summer of 1950, Alfred A. Knopf Inc. turned down the English-language rights to a Dutch manuscript after receiving a particularly harsh reader’s report. The work was “very dull,” the reader insisted, “a dreary record of typical family bickering, petty annoyances and adolescent emotions.” Sales would be small because the main characters were neither familiar to Americans nor especially appealing. “Even if the work had come to light five years ago, when the subject was timely,” the reader wrote, “I don’t see that there would have been a chance for it.”

Joseph Heller (on Catch–22): I haven’t really the foggiest idea about what the man is trying to say… Apparently the author intends it to be funny – possibly even satire – but it is really not funny on any intellectual level … From your long publishing experience you will know that it is less disastrous to turn down a work of genius than to turn down talented mediocrities.

Unattested. Catch-22 (or as it was called at the time, Catch-18) was rejected over and over again, but this exact language is just vapor.

On the other hand, we have some of the language of acceptance, thanks to Vanity Fair:

“I … love this crazy book and very much want to do it,” Gottlieb said. Candida Donadio was delighted by his enthusiasm. Finally, someone got it! “I thought my navel would unscrew and my ass would fall off,” she often said to describe her happiness when negotiations went well with an editor.

And this incredible rejection from Evelyn Waugh:

Dear Miss Bourne:

Thank you for sending me Catch-22. I am sorry that the book fascinates you so much. It has many passages quite unsuitable to a lady’s reading

You are mistaken in calling it a novel. It is a collection of sketches—often repetitious—totally without structure.

Much of the dialogue is funny. You may quote me as saying: “This exposure of corruption, cowardice and incivility of American officers will outrage all friends of your country (such as myself) and greatly comfort your enemies.”

George Orwell (on Animal Farm): It is impossible to sell animal stories in the USA.

Unattested. It was rejected for a lot of reasons, but most of the ones I can find histories of were basically for it being anti-USSR at a time when the Russians were war allies. One publisher was basically ordered not to run it so as not to hurt the war effort, by somebody who later turned out to be a Soviet spy, like a lot of people in wartime Britain.

If you want to read T. S. Eliot rejecting Animal Farm for being too pro-Communist (not a joke) (jazz hands), you can find that here. 

Vladimir Nabokov (on Lolita): … overwhelmingly nauseating, even to an enlightened Freudian … the whole thing is an unsure cross between hideous reality and improbable fantasy. It often becomes a wild neurotic daydream … I recommend that it be buried under a stone for a thousand years.

Unattested. Could be real and internal, but it was never given to Nabokov, because Nabokov gave us a recounting of his rejections, and this wasn’t in them.

Is It Fake’s fave bit: "Some of the reactions were very amusing: one reader suggested that the firm might consider publication if I turned my Lolita into a twelve-year-old lad and had him seduced by Humbert, a farmer, in a barn, amidst gaunt and arid surroundings, all this set forth in short, strong, realistic sentences. (He acts crazy. We all act crazy, I guess. I guess God acts crazy. Etc.)"

Richard Bach (on Jonathan Livingston Seagull): will never make it as a paperback. (Over 7.25 million copies sold)

Unattested, and Is It Fake doesn’t even have anything interesting to say about it.

H.G. Wells (on The War of the Worlds): An endless nightmare. I do not believe it would “take”…I think the verdict would be ‘Oh don’t read that horrid book’. And (on The Time Machine): It is not interesting enough for the general reader and not thorough enough for the scientific reader

Unattested. It is the personal opinion of Is It Fake that they’re both false. The Time Machine was actually commissioned as a novel, so it’s hard to see why it’d receive a rejection like that, and both stories were serialized before publication, not run in book form, so the War of the Worlds one doesn’t ring true. Fun supplemental fact--War of the Worlds was immediately pirated upon release and rerun as “Fighters from Mars,” localized to New York and Boston respectively and run with a story called “Edison’s Conquest of Mars” about how Thomas Edison took over Mars and Is It Fake is not making this up.

Herman Melville (on Moby Dick): We regret to say that our united opinion is entirely against the book as we do not think it would be at all suitable for the Juvenile Market in [England]. It is very long, rather old-fashioned…

This must be false (no one ever appears to have been under the delusion that Moby-Dick was a children’s serial, and in fact he got it printed kind of as like an art book, a 500-book edition with great critical acclaim and no sales) but since one can’t actually prove that it is, “unattested,” but Is It Fake would like to register the strongest possible objections to anyone who would bother to make up a reason for Herman Melville to be sad, dude was like high king and priest of making his own ass sad in the desert, leave him alone

If for some reason your life has been missing negative reviews of Moby-Dick you can find the full spectrum of praise to castigation here. Personal fave goes to the writer who said “There is nevertheless in it, as we have already hinted, abundant choice reading for those who can skip a page now and then, judiciously....”

PROVABLY FAKE >:(

Oscar Wilde (on Lady Windermere’s Fan): My dear sir, I have read your manuscript. Oh, my dear sir.

False. Is It Fake can’t believe even people talking about Oscar Wilde are getting the Oscar Wilde effect. It’s attributed to a bunch of people, but the oldest attribution found was to John Clayton, from Albert Chevalier’s autobiography of 1895, as

“My dear sir, I have read your play. Oh! my dear sir! Yours truly, John Clayton.”

As Albert Chevalier was a comedian & music hall performer and this is part of a collection of anecdotes, one is perhaps not super convinced this was ever real, from anyone. (There’s also a fwithout the last line: “My dear sir, I have read your play. Yours, Fred Thompson.”

Gertrude Stein spent 22 years submitting before getting a single poem accepted.

Possibly true, in that Is It Fake can’t find the date of publication of her first poem, but not substantively true, in that Three Lives ran when she was 35, so unless we’re counting whatever she submitted at 13, this is false. Stein was constantly and continually rejected though. Like just absolutely constantly, and crushingly too. This rejection letter is particularly amazing.

[teachanarchy]

1. The world’s oldest porn, which dates back over 3,000 years, features both male/male, female/female and male/female couples

2. The oldest ever known chat up line was apparently said between two men. A mythological story from the 20th dynasty of Ancient Egypt is between Horus and Seth, who quarrelled for 80 years on who should rule. Seth attempted to persuade Horus to sleep with him, saying: ‘How lovely are your buttocks! And how muscular your thighs!’ They then have sex.

3. In Egypt, two male royal manicurists named Niankhkhnum and Khnumhotep were found buried together in a shared tomb similar to the way married couples were often buried. Their epigraph reads: ‘Joined in life and joined in death’. Having lived in 2400 BC, they are believed to be history’s oldest recorded gay couple.

4. Some historical gay and bi figures have turned their lovers into gods. Alexander the Great wanted to make his boyhood lover Hephaestion a god when he died, but was only allowed to declare him a Divine Hero. The Roman Emperor Hadrian, of wall-building fame, was successful in making his lover, Antinous, a god after he drowned in the Nile.

5. The church sanctified gay marriages in the so-called Dark Ages, with one being the Byzantine Emperor Basil 1 (867-886) and his partner John.

6. In a creation myth by Aristophanes, there were three sexes: those with two male heads (which were descended from the sun), those with two female heads (from the earth) and those with a male and a female head (descended from the moon). Displeased with them, Zeus crippled them by chopping them in half. Since that day, according to the story, we are looking for the other half to create our whole. This is known as the Origin of Love.

7. Mercury represents male and female principles in harmony. In mythology, Mercury fathered Hermaphroditus, who had both male and female sex organs.

8. Ancient Greeks didn’t believe in heterosexual and homosexual. However they did believe in passive and active. The most common form of same-sex relationships were when an older male, the erastes, acted as a mentor and lover to a younger boy, the eromenos. They believed sperm was the source of knowledge and it was able to be ‘passed on’.

9. There was a band of 150 gay couples from Thebes who defeated a Spartan army, and went undefeated for 30 years.

10. In ancient China, homosexuality was referred to as ‘the cut sleeve’ and ‘pleasures of the bitten peach’.

11. Until the late 1400s the word ‘girl’ just meant a child of either sex. If you had to differentiate between them, male children were referred to as ‘knave girls’ and females were ‘gay girls‘.

12. The word drag is apparently an acronym, a stage direction coined by Shakespeare and his contemporaries meaning ‘Dressed Resembling A Girl’.

13. The Virginia Court in 1629 recorded the first gender ambiguity among the American colonists. A servant named Thomas(ine) Hall was officially declared by the governor to be both ‘a man and a woman’. To stop everyone else from being confused, Hall was ordered to wear articles of each sex’s clothing every day.

14. In early 17th century London, there was a gay brothel on the site where Buckingham Palace is today.

15. Nicholas Biddle, an early explorer of America, found in 1806 that among Minitarees (Native American tribe), ‘if a boy shows any symptom of effeminacy or girlish inclinations, he is put among the girls, dressed in their way, brought up with them and sometimes married to men’.

16. Uganda had a gay king. King Mwanga II, who reigned from 1884 to 1888, is widely reported to have had affairs with his male servants.

17. In the 19th century the word gay referred to a woman who was a prostitute and a gay man was a man who slept with a lot of women.

18. Homosexual men in 1900s London made up an entire slang language so they could communicate in public without fear of being arrested – Polari. Some words survived into today’s slang, such as ‘naff’ – meaning lacking style, TBH, standing for ‘to be honest’ or ‘to be had’, and tjuz, meaning to primp or improve.

19. Carmilla, a story of a lesbian vampire that preyed on young women, was written 25 years before Dracula.

20. The US has apparently already had a gay president, James Buchanan. He shacked up for 10 years with a future VP, William Rufus King, and was referred to by President Andrew Jackson as ‘Miss Nancy’ and ‘Aunt Fancy’.

21. The modern use of gay comes from gaycat, a slang term among hobos meaning a boy who accomapnies an older, more experienced tramp, with the implication of sexual favors being exchanged for protection.

22. While the monocle might have gone out of use, it had a huge following in the ‘stylish lesbian circles of the earlier 20th century’.

23. The first celebrity to come out as openly gay was Billy Haines, who came out in 1933.

24. The oldest surviving LGBT organization in the world is Netherlands’ Center for Culture and Leisure (COC), which was founded in 1946, and used a ‘cover name’ to mask its taboo purpose.

25. Gay male victims of the Holocaust, who wore the downward-facing pink triangle, were still considered to be criminals when they were freed from concentration camps. They were often sent back to prison to serve out their terms.

26. Mensa, launched in 1946, claims its name was always chosen to mean ‘table’ in Latin to demonstrate the coming together of equals. Really, it was intended to be called ‘Mens’, meaning ‘mind’. They changed it in order to avoid confusion with a men-only magazine. Not so smart.

27. The 1950s saw gay people try to change ‘homosexual’ to ‘homophile’. They hoped an emphasis on same-sex love, instead of sex, would help.

28. Playboy has been loved by straight men for decades, but it was a gay short story that built its reputation. Hugh Hefner was the only one to accept a science fiction story about heterosexuals being the minority against homosexuals in 1955. When letters poured in, he said: ‘If it was wrong to persecute heterosexuals in a homosexual society, then the reverse was wrong too.’

29. The Royal Navy commissioned a class of fast patrol boats during the 1950s which were prefixed with the word ‘gay’. Names included the Gay Bruiser and the Gay Charger.

30. While many know the handkerchief code, it was popular for gay women to wear blue stars on their wrists in the 1950s and the 1970s to identify themselves in clubs.

31. Jimi Hendrix pretended to be gay to get out of the army in 1962.

32. A 1969 sci-fi novel accurately predicted the mainstream acceptance of LGBTI people. It also predicted rise of China as a global economy, the EU, TiVO, satellite TV, laser printers and the popularity of marijuana.

33. In the 1960s, the term AC/DC became a popular slang for bisexual. It came from the abbreviations for two types of electrical currents.

34. Barbara Jordan was the first African American to be elected in Texas in 1973. She was also a woman, a Democrat, and gay. She later became the first black woman to give the keynote address at the Democratic National Convention.

35. A serial killer, the Doodler, targeted gay men in 1970s San Francisco. He would sketch his victims nude before murdering them. While three victims survived, and a suspect was identified, no one was willing to out themselves in order to convict the suspect.

36. Bruce Banner’s name was changed to David Banner in 1970s show The Incredible Hulk, as ‘Bruce’ was considered a stereotypically gay name.

37. The first openly gay doll, Gay Bob, was launched in 1977. He had a pierced ear and his box was shaped like a closet.

38. Leonard Matlovich was the first gay US service member to come out. When he died, he was buried without a name and known only as Gay Vietnam Veteran. His epitaph reads: ‘When I was in the military, they gave me a medal for killing two men and a discharge for loving one.’

39. In the early 1980s, a book claims the Naval Investigative Service was investigating homosexuality in Chicago. Having heard gay men refer to themselves as ‘friends of Dorothy’, they went on a futile search for the elusive woman clearly at the center of a homosexual ring.

40. The 1985 film Back To The Future had a deleted scene where Marty tells Doc that he’s worried hitting on his mother could make him gay.

41. Ben Affleck’s 1993 directorial debut was titled: ‘I Killed My Lesbian Wife, Hung Her on a Meat Hook, and Now I Have a Three-Picture Deal at Disney’.

42. The US government considered making a ‘gay bomb’. Scientists figured in 1994 that discharging female sex pheromones over enemy forces would make them sexually attracted to each other.

43. Doctor Who actor John Barrowman nearly got the role of Will in Will and Grace in 1998. But he lost the part when producers thought he was ‘too straight’. Barrowman is gay and Eric McCormack, who got the part, is straight.

44. Peter Tatchell, an Australian gay rights activist living in Britain, attempted a citizen’s arrest on Zimbabwean president Robert Mugabe in 1999. He walked up to Mugabe, grabbed the dictator by the arm, and said: ‘President Mugabe, you are under arrest for torture’.

45. Founded in 2004, LGBTI activists in Australia created a micronation called the Gay and Lesbian Kingdom of the Coral Sea Islands. The national flag is the LGBT color flag, the official currency is the Euro, and it still exists today.

46. A group from the Greek island of Lesbos requested a legal injunction to ban gay groups from using the word ‘lesbian’ in their names in 2008, claiming it was ‘insulting’ them around the world. It failed.

47. Chinese news agency Xinhua dubiously reported on the apparent existence of a Swedish town in 2009, a town of 25,000 lesbians forbidden to speak to men. Several Swedish tourism sites crashed due to the number of Chinese visitors.

48. In 2010, Microsoft banned a user from Xbox Live for putting Fort Gay as his address. When he tried to tell them that Fort Gay actually exists in West Virginia, it took an appeal from the town’s mayor for it to be corrected.

49. A Hong Kong billionaire offered $65 million to the man that was able to woo and marry his lesbian daughter. It didn’t work.

50. The first gay kiss to be screened in Saudi Arabia was seen in 2012. It was from UK soap Brookside, the first ever televised lesbian kiss in the UK, which originally aired in 1993. It was only thanks to the London 2012 Olympics opening ceremony.

[bwicblog]

EE: Hellooo

EE: ånyone here?

JV: --ok how do we have so many nerds -n th-s group that an h - s t o r - c a l fa-re makes th-s place dead

JV: --sup ee

SA: i am alive.

SA: hello.

AC: Ø Oh, Prisma! Are you all right in the back? Ø

AC: Ø I'm busy out front, but I can get you anything in a few minutes if you want. Ø

EE: Hey JV EE: Seems like most of the people here åre gone somewhere

SA: yes. my neck hurts but otherwise I am fine. Thank you for helping me.

SA: they are at the faire in Cascara.

AC: Ø It's no problem! And yes, many of us are at the historical fair. .u. Ø

AC: Ø It's very busy! Though Emerel and Hadean's fight hasn't happened yet, that's later. Ø

AP: I'm there too.

AC: Ø ouo!!! really, Budino? Ø

AP: I've been selling what I bake.

AC: Ø Where are you? I'd love to come see you! Ø

AP: Last minute booth entry

AC: Ø Um, if you wouldn't mind that Ø

AP: Cobblestreet Alley

AP: I don't mind. I'm giving out samples, too.

AP: Apparently people buy more when they get to taste.

AC: Ø Ooh, that's a bit of a walk, but I'm sure Pheres will let me have a break in a bit. As long as Prisma's all set I'll go visit you! Ø

AC: Ø I'm glad you're getting lots of customers Ø

SA: yes, it's because they know the product isn't secretly bad.

AC: Ø Pffft Ø

SA: this is a logical advertising scheme.

AP: My product's never been bad.

AP: I taste everything myself before I send out the batch.

AC: Ø People in general won't know how delicious it is though. .u. Ø

AP: Point being. AP: Free samples.

SA: I am fine. I could watch the booth while you are gone, AC. Pheres permission or not.

AC: Ø .n. hmmm, maybe, you don't know our products very well, though! Ø

SA: but I don't want to miss Hadean's fight. I have to see who else they destroy today.

AC: Ø Some of the people here are real sticklers about knowledge, too Ø

AC: Ø Haha, I'm sure you won't miss it, it's not until later Ø

SA: I suppose that's true also... I don't know very much about clothes.

AP: Who is Hadean fighting?

AC: Ø Neither do I. .u. I sympathize Ø

AC: Ø Emerel! Or well, he's MN on here Ø

AP: Clothes are for...covering yourself, pretty much. AP: Then again, I never got into the fashion thing.

AP: Oh. Him. AP: Please tell Hadean to give him a punch to the face for me.

AC: Ø .n. but Emerel's my friend Ø

EE: ooohh, whåt do you måke?

AP: It's our thing. AP: He keeps complaining I stole his sign.

AP: I bake. Bread, cakes, pastries, you name it. AP: I have a booth set up here.

AC: Ø .u. but that's not how that works...at least not according to Kit Ø

AP: Someone should tell Emerel that, then.

AC: Ø .n. but I don't pretend to understand it very well. I...I don't want him to be mad at me Ø

AP: Honestly, he doesn't strike me as the type to get mad easy.

AP: Just something about him, you know? It's hard to explain.

AC: Ø .n. I don't want to risk it, he's always been very nice to me Ø

SA: This emerel seems to be an eternal mystery.

AP: I wouldn't call him a mystery.

AC: Ø And Pheres would never forgive me if I upset him Ø

SA: No, but they are some sort of ambiguous figure everyone knows who everyone eitehr wishes to fight or be friends with.

AP: Maidel, why don't you come down here? I've got something for you.

AC: Ø .u. uhhh, give me... Ø

AP: Don't tell him he's a figure of mystery. His head will swell ten times bigger than it is already.

AC: Ø ...five minutes! It's not very busy right now, so Pheres said I can go. Ø

SA: larger than Pheres's?

AP: Larger than Pheres'.

AC: Ø that's just his hair .u. Ø

AC: Ø easy mistake Ø

SA: Perhaps he should invest in a comb.

AC: Ø It's so poofy Ø

SA: and a straightner.

AC: Ø Noooo, his curls are so nice Ø

AC: Ø I wish mine were nice like that Ø

EE: åw, I wish I could håve gone. EE: I love cåke

AP: I'm not particularly worried about his hair. AP: As much as I am the fact that he's hard to get along with.

AC: Ø .n. oh Ø

AP: I have a bakery in Fiendcroft, outside of Hithliene. AP: You're welcome to stop by there sometime.

AC: Ø Budino makes really good bread! Ø

AP: I try.

AP: Thank you.

EE: omg!!!

EE: I'll håve to måke the trip next time I get some leåve time

EE: Fresh breåd is heåven

AP: I agree.

AP: If heaven was real, fresh bread would be where you'd find it.

SA: it's fresh treats.

AP: That is generally what bread is, yes.

SA: No. Bread is the wrong kind of treat.

SA: I mean desserts.

SA: I don't care about bread. It's bread.

AP: I make desserts.

AP: My table has plenty of chocolate on it too.

SA: but do you have tarts.

EE: Breåd cån be dessert

SA: or historically accurate treats.

AP: Apple or strawberry?

SA: neither...

SA: 😦

AP: I don't know much about history, I admit. But I did at least try to do some research.

SA: Maybe I will visit then.

AP: Please feel free.

AP: Hopefully you'll find something to your liking.

SA: Aren't you going to enjoy aything else about the faire?

AP: Probably. AP: When I run out of things to sell.

AP: It's really the only reason I'm here, though. AP: I'm not that interested in anything else at the faire.

EE: Whåt else is there to do?

AP: Socialize. Eat. Buy. That's about it.

AP: Not much point to it. The setting is the only difference to any other faire.

SA: there' so many things to look at, though. Surely they aren't all the same?

SA: We would never have something like this in Provenance.

SA: And everyone is in costumes.

SA: or.

SA: Hadean and Pheres are in costumes.

AP: I suppose I'm not very daring. It just doesn't hold much interest to me, I guess? AP: The music is nice, at least.

SA: I love the sound of greensleeves playing on an endless loop.

AP: The musician is actually very good. I give props to her.

AP: How is the faire on your end?

VV: ♚ ~Evening all~

AP: Hello.

VV: : ♚ ~mmm I'll have to acquire a little contacts book soon. There's always a fresh face or two or more anytime I come into here. How excruciatingly exciting!

AP: If you say so.

VV: : ♚ ~Oh and I do! I do say so. Here let's get the delightful introductions out of the way, darling jade. Perdia Averic, pleased to make your acquaintince, and you....?

AP: Budino.

AP: Don't call me darling, please.

AP: I just met you and that's very personal sounding.

SA: Oh, the little princess is back.

VV: ♚ ~Very well, Budino since you asked so kindly! VV: ♚ ~Ooooh! My favourite mustard hued friend is here. ❤

AP: Mustard hued.

AP: Somehow that just brings up weird mental images.

SA: I don't necessarily appreciate mustard hued. I would like at least a honey, little princess.

SA: It is rather strange.

VV: ♚ ~ Weird images? Dijon is rather high class in terms of condiments but if you prefer honey, then honey it is.......honey mustard

AP: Why not saffron?

AP: It's rare depending on where you are, expensive, and yellow.

AP: It's a much nicer thing than mustard.

SA: What makes me so mustardy...

SA: Yes, but I am less of a saffron. in all honesty, I am more of a chartreuse.

SA: but most chat clients don't accomodate for that. so.

SA: Here am, with the least apalling version of my color.

AP: Sounds fancy.

VV: ♚ ~It does sound appealingly fancy!

VV: : ♚ ~Very well Honeycomb prince, we'll shed your mustardy name then.

VV: ♚ ~ I feel you're smart enough to not lie about your hue so I'll believe it.

SA: I can show you a selfie, if you would prefer that.

SA: My scelera are the same color as my blood, so there is no way to hide them.

SA: 😃

VV: ♚ ~ I would! I've shared photos here before, so we can do a trade even if you desire.

SA has shared SelfiePart2.png

AP: What happened with your eyes?

AP: Psionics that don't turn off or?

SA: No, it is a completely natural cosmetic differentiation.

SA: I have met other trolls with the same thing, but they are oftentimes from the north or east.

SA: Not the south, like I am.

SA: Or the approximate south, I assume.

SA: I prefer honeycomb prince much more, thank you.

VV: ♚ ~Ah! Someone actually deserving of such a title too, I must admit you aren't horrendous to look at quite the opposite really !

VV: Friendly and a charmer, such a rarity 😦

VV: ♚ ~ Budino, since you brought up hue related....alterations, mm there's a better word for that but no matter, since you brought it up, are you perhaps, one of those incredibly pale jades or do you still happen to not glow like a star?

AP: Drinkers don't exist, Perdia.

AP: It's myth.

AP: And you shouldn't believe everything you hear.

SA: 😊

SA: You are very polite yourself, little princess. I am happy to meet someone so composed.

SA: Rainbow drinkers might exist. It is as believable as a psion being able to lift a skyscraper, or change a city.

SA: I think it's a perfectly acceptable notion, if romantic.

AP: No, they don't.

AP: I know my own caste.

AP: The only dead that walk are covered in mushrooms or what have you.

VV: ♚ ~ Mmm I don't believe you.

SA: they are called cordycepus, sometimes.

AP: You say that like I'm trying to lie to you. AP: But whatever.

AP: Don't believe me. I don't really care either way.

VV: : ♚ ~Are you simply being secretive, maybe, Budino?

AP: You don't matter much in the grand course of my life, after all.

VV: ♚ ~I suppose that's true. Just as it may be true there aren't Drinkers, at least...you wouldn't be one I guess. They're lovely with skin like porceline. Something to be jealous of and write amazing romance novels of but, why would anyone write of a jade who's so crude and uncaring?

VV: ♚ ~Let alone read it I guess! Hehe

AP: Trust me, I'd love to be dead. But unfortunately, that's not in the cards yet, apparently. AP: I'd rather they didn't write about me anyway. There's nothing to say.

AP: He made bread and wrangled a barkfiend. Nothing interesting happened. The end.

VV: ♚ ~Something of a sticky note rather than a novel, yes?

AP: More like AP: A napkin

SA: mistake.

VV: ♚ ~What sort of napkin do you think? A diner or, perhaps one of a fast foodery?

AP: Perfect.

SA: many people find the idea of someone being cruel but able to win over to be a romantic notion.

SA: rainbow drinker literature is like that.

SA: they are mystical and vicious and alluring with a predatorial and authoritive quality over most trolls.

SA: but it's boring as a psion. they are inferior.

SA: If you feel your life is such a tale written on a mcdonald's napkin, perhaps you should do something about it instead.

VV: ♚ ~Oh but there's plenty of militaristic novels. I may not partake in such trashy readings but there are others I know that partake in reading Helmsmen romanticized books!

VV: ♚ ~Psion romanticism is just bubbling under the surface waiting to take the market of literature, Honey prince.

AP: Wish fulfillment sells.

SA: If only that were the case, perhaps I would have a quadrant by now

SA: there is an aspect of forbidden love to psions. They are doomed and property.

SA: and yet.

SA: also, what AP said.

SA: What do you read, little princess.

VV: ♚ ~Unfortunatley a busy schedule such as mine doesn't lend much time for such leisure! Primarily messages I guess haha!

VV: ♚ ~ You could always write your own wish fulfillment novel Budino, maybe you'd be promoted from Napkin in the bin, to say....paper liner on a table with crayons.

SA: I think that is a worse fate than the napkin in the bin. getting bulges draw on oneself is not the picture of success.

AP: I wouldn't recommend quandants AP: It never ends well

VV: ♚ ~ Or it ends wonderfully.

AP: No AP: It doesn't

SA: someone is very bitter.

SA: and very bad at hiding it.

VV: ♚ ~Correct. Once can almost find undertones of sour in the bitter .

AP: Well, I could say plenty of things about your undertones, Perdia. AP: But I'm not that rude.

VV: ♚ ~ Obviously you can't say much if after all these sweeps you can't say a damned thing about your own life.

SA: 🐱 🥊 🐱

AP: Fitting face...things.

VV: ♚ ~"things"....

VV: ♚ ~ Pardon me for a moment.

AP: Things.

VV: ♚ ~ I've returned and I hope you've managed to do a simple internet search for what those are called otherwise I'll have to excuse myself again.

AP: Things.

VV: ♚ ~......Budino, how old are you exactly?

AP: I could ask you the same.

SA: the pinnacle of retorts.

SA: are you proud of that one?

SA: you will need more than that to usurp me as the king of snark.

AP: ...The king of snark?

AP: I wasn't aware I was competing for the title.

AP: Do I have to wear neutral colors for this one

SA: You opened your mouth and tried to get clever.

AP: I guess I'm competing for a previously unknown title, then.

AP: Well then.

VV: ♚ ~ I didn't even think you were close to being in the running.

VV: ♚ ~Also it's incredibly rude to ask a lady her age, and the only ones that even do such a thing tend to be.....rather uncouth so actually yes that seems fitting for you.

SA: 😃

AP: And it's also rude to make demands of a stranger.

SA: we're going to go in circles with this. 🙃

AP: Yes.

VV: ♚ ~Oops! I hadn't noticed I'm not paying too much attention actually, hehe

SA: please don't leave me.

VV: ♚ ~Do I entertain you that much? Or is the lack of stimulating conversation from this non-drinker wearing on you?

SA: No, I am just very bored.

SA: And I like company.

AP: I've never been called a non-drinker as an insult before. AP: I don't know how I feel about this.

SA: yes, you are a typical, average troll, with no ability of note or life of interest.

SA: Like almost all of us.

SA: I don't know whose side i'm on anymore.

SA: I enjoy this orange drink, however.

AP: Is it the fizzy one?

SA: yes.

SA: You are the grape one.

AP: The red one is better, honestly.

SA: little princess is the strawberry one.

AP: It tastes more like cherries.

SA: the best.

AP: I hear they're making a lemon fizz, though.

SA: a mistake

AP: Honestly, that sounds like organ disintegration waiting to happen.

AP: You just drink it down and...everything melts.

SA: there is a melon flavored powerade and that's all i need to know that this planet must be destroyed.

AP: Goodbye world

AP: May you never again taint the universe with melon powerade.

VV: ♚ ~Thats....atrocious.

AP: And that is why this planet must be destroyed

VV: ♚ ~I'd agree but I do have some plans before that happens. I've worked rather hard to get some business in order and finished up practice for a show! I'd hate to have the world end and ruin all my hard work....

VV: ♚ ~ We'll have to reschedule the destruction

AP: No

AP: It cannot be rescheduled

AP: Your show is cancelled

SA: it can be rescheduled for little princess.

SA: but only her highness.

AP: But how do we know she's the real princess

AP: And not an imposter

VV: ♚ ~My, my well I'd think a psionic, if anyone, of course would be able to put destruction on hold.

VV: ♚ ~Imposter? You wound me so...And I fear for damage to your skull if you are mistaking someone as lovely but also rosey hued as I to be an heiress.

VV: ♚ ~ For you I truly hope drinkers are real, our time together can't be cut so short Budino 😦

VV: ♚ ~ We haven't even promoted you to soiled linens yet for your life novel!

AP: No, I'm quite fine with our time together being cut short AP: I'm too busy being blinded by your imposter crowns

VV: ♚ ~ They are rather dazzling aren't they...?

VV: ♚ ~ Would you like one?

AP: Anything to fix my pan damage

VV: Very well I'll drop this one just for you, generosity is a hobby one should dabble in occasionally!

AP: I am honored, your highness

VV: ♚ ~Aw so you can be sweet! I knew it was in there somewhere. It simply needs some bribery and a touch of planetary disaster on the horizon. Tell me Budino, are you political at all? You'd be rather good at it I think.

AP: My first political act is to reschedule planetary disaster

SA: is generosity a hobby or a trait...

SA: i think to dabble in it is too easy.

VV: ♚ ~ Is that so, dear honeycomb?

SA: No, I am rescheduling certain disaster.

SA: stop trying to usurp my one responsibility.

SA: I do not appreciate this.

SA: i think the crowns are cute.

AP: Certain disaster is now rescheduled

AP: I'm the royal politician here

VV: ♚ ~ If you play nicely with Budino's new plan to reschedule planetary disaster perhaps you could get one as well.

VV: ♚ ~ There's truly no other way without resorting to some violent means to usurp the royal position yourself after all...

AP: I also schedule SA in such a way that he misses the date of our duel AP: Thereby rendering me the winner by default

VV: ♚ ~ How underhanded! But clever! I'd of course have gone about it differently but the effort and use of your hues new power is nice.

AP: I wear this badge with pride

SA: I will murder you with ease.

AP: Not when you miss the duel you won't

VV: ♚ ~ My fair maiden heart can't handle such intensity ...

SA: your fair maiden heart has already chosen AP as your champion, as you are pleased to see him using dishonest and unhonorable means of winning the duel.

SA: You are no longer my little princess.

SA: Hadean is my new little prince.

VV: ♚ ~ Ah--

VV: ♚ ~ I could almost weep...You would me my prince....

VV: ♚ ~ I hadn't chosen a champion I simply was commending him-- I see you're the jealous type however oh no

SA: You didn't even slap them on the wrist....

SA: yes. Very jealous. My little princess must be mine and mine alone.

SA: clearly.

AP: Well this isn't turning into an unfortunate anime

VV: ♚ ~Very well then it is so! Whisk me away now before the royal Jade's rescheduled planetary destruction occurs! hehe

VV: ♚ ~ I believe you mean highest rating Novella

SA sends kisskissthisisfuckingridiculous.png

AP: AP sent Iseethatandraiseyouthis.png

SA: my princess already said her heart was mine, how dare you.

SA: put your hand down before i slap it.

AP: AP Sent Talktothehand.png

SA: 😡

AP: Hmph

VV: ♚ ~Perhaps you two should schedule another duel, oh goodness.

SA: why, so you can cheat on me again... i think not.

AP: The only weapon allowed is the white glove

SA: oh so it's a sissy fight.

SA: I see.

AP: Hell if I know AP: I just saw some guy hitting another guy with a white glove earlier

SA: if there is no blood it is not a real duel.

VV: ♚ ~ I am not one to cheat I promise you my honeycomb prince. Fret not. I'm a proper lady after all~

VV: ♚ ~So brutish! Yet admirable. 😲

SA: 🤺

VV: ♚ ~ For traditional standards of our species at least

AP: Hold on let me look through this emotional dictionary

SA: it's a fencer.

AP: 🗡

AP: ...That was not what I wanted but I'll take it

SA: 🔫

VV: ♚ ~ !!

SA: put them up.

SA: I will not be trifled with.

SA: 🔫

AP: ☠

SA: victory

AP: 🦈

AP: This is kind of...fun

AP: I'm not used to that

SA: your edge is showing again.

AP: 🐺

AP: 🐹

AP: I can't believe I ignored this dictionary

SA: little princess 💍

SA: emojis are wonderful.

SA: sometimes i can't find words, and they are very useful.

AP: 🌹

VV: ♚ ~ !!! oh my

VV: ♚ ~ My poor delicate heart can't possibly pump so much to such a rouged face! VV: ♚ ~ A virtual glittering stone for me from a prince. What a delightful night of deathly duels.

AP: 💠 I too offer diamonds your highness

VV: ♚ ~ I accept but on different emotional terms from Prisma's as it wouldn't be polite to upset the duel winner.

AP: But does his diamond have a dot inside

VV:♚ ~ Not inside but outside for wearability!

VV: ♚ ~ Which I would bet is rather important as a feature

AP: It looks like I've lost AP: I must resign in shame from my post

AP: I will exile myself to the furthest reachers of the galaxy

AP: Where I may yet locate my ancestor who has become unexpectedly evil

VV: ♚ ~ I'll have to wish you both a good light then with that turn of events! I'd say it's for beauty rest but I'd be silly use rest for such a thing considering how I already am~ VV: ♚ ~ Good light exiled Budino and Honeycomb Prince.

SA: I apologize, I had to free myself from the booth.

SA: good light, little princess.

AP: See you around your highness

AP: Or I won't because I'm in exile

AP: But goodbye in spirit

SA: I need to go find the others, AP. I'm sorry I can't stay.

SA: until next time 🤺

AP: ☘ I tried to use shame but accept this nice leaf instead. Since shame isn't there

AP: See ya

SA: (shamrock)

AP: (It's a very nice leaf)