#but don't hold mcdonald's to the same standard as like

[2amtechnicolor]

not to be a snob but if your favorite artist is taylor swift or you think marvel movies are cinema i am allowed to throw your opinion on any media ever into the garbage

[j-exclamationmark-l]

Community for me is a weird topic.

I grew up always feeling like I didn't belong - too Asian for the white community, not the "correct" type of Asian for most Asians (Korean people were especially cruel to me in Washington). Even now, I'm too white to be accepted in Asia, which was something I wasn't really expecting before I came here. My dad even made me feel very not at home. I guess what I'm saying is, I had no feeling of community.

My partner is showing me the British drama Doc Martin and the thought of everyone in a small town knowing and recognizing you sounds absolutely mortifying to me. I freak out when my favorite shop says "long time no see." I feel uncomfortable knowing staff at a supermarket notices and comments on the fact I drink a certain type of coffee. On a weird level I kind of proudly held myself to a Parks and Rec Ron Swanson standard - ah, here's a character who knows just how I feel, and he's an admirable and independent man with many characteristics I admire, so clearly being afraid of community is good. I openly told my partner walking into a shop and being greeted by name sounded like a nightmare to me. I said I like Tokyo because there are so many people here that I feel it's easier to not be of enough notice to interact with.

Sometimes my partner browses Tiktok. Today I was just watching his timeline with him when I noticed there were a lot of foreigners coming here complaining about the way they're treated. It's not just Tiktok, for example yesterday on YouTube he started playing a long video by a white girl complaining that Japanese people don't want to sit next to foreigners on trains. There are so many of these videos of foreigners coming here and either thinking they'll immediately be accepted into the community, or worse, think that being foreign makes them a kind of unicorn that's allowed to break these understood social norms and get away with it. My "favorite" is white men who get upset that Japanese women get mad when they cheat, they think they should get away with it because they think they're the only white man in Japan. I've even been messaged by men from the Yokosuka navy base (who didn't clock me as foreign as well) immediately treating me like shit because they think Japanese women are more likely to put up with it (think passport bros).

It struck me today that it bothered me because these people who are complaining have probably never experienced never fitting in to a community before. They don't bother to learn the rules and accepted behaviors here, a lot of them don't care or think it's fine because everyone should understand they come from a different community with different rules. I know there is some leeway we should be granted but a lot of the complaints I see I think could be solved by just being more aware and polite. Don't get me wrong, I hate the police as much as anyone, but I know better than to start a fight with cops and insult them to their face when they're holding your ID.

I see foreigners come here and say there should be more western food and fewer izakayas. I knew a girl who cried once because we didn't want to go to McDonald's for dinner with her. I have low tolerance for people who come here because they like anime and then make fun of Japanese food (don't get me wrong disliking just natto or being uncomfortable with raw fish is fine but when you meet people who hate everything except McDonald's and expect you to go with them every time to get the same food you can get anywhere else it gets obnoxious).

It just feels like foreigners are coming here and not respecting the culture here and wanting to impose their own culture... I came here because I liked this culture. I came here knowing I'd have to adapt and learn a language and learn a different set of social skills, I accepted all of that when I made the decision to move here.

I like the architecture. I like the art. I like the music. I love kanji. I love the flow of the language. I love the food, I love the fashion, I love the beauty in the nature here. I feel safe. I've tripped on the sidewalk and had people rush to help me. I had a man chase me down because he saw me drop my phone and he gave it back to me. When I first moved to Osaka, an old lady dropped everything to help me navigate the trains. I love how I can take the last train home, the first train at 5am home, and despite having had bad experiences here before, I'm not scared to walk home by myself.

In America, I remember owning fu dog statues that were stolen off our property. How? Each one was hella heavy. We also had fish statues. We had to hide them after a while because despite being up the driveway, up the porch and in front of our door, people always stuffed garbage in the fishs' mouths. I accepted as a teen I would be sexually harassed by my neighbors on the short walk from my bus stop to my house. I had a friend from Mexico here in Japan marvel how people felt safe enough to leave things like chairs outside of restaurants because in Mexico leaving things out was an invitation to have it stolen.

I'm so glad I don't have to deal with those things! I'm so glad in Japan there isn't really a culture of stealing or littering and I feel so safe most of the time. I don't want other cultures imposed over this one.

This is getting long and I have a lot to say on this subject but I don't know how to articulate it properly. But it's also 1am so I'll wrap it up here.

[stedesbonnets]

no one asked but. i don't have a problem with women reading "pornographic books". i have a problem with women reading BAD smut thinking it's the most amazing thing they've ever read in their lives. i swear, every single "fantasy" book i see on ig has the same enemies (not really) to lovers (barely) with a morally grey bad boy with a ~secret~ heart of gold, to the point in which all of these books are partically recycled from each other. and the all have spicy scenes which are the worst written, cringey, nauseating prose i've ever read in my life. and they're all written in the same way

i have a good friend who gave a presentation on love theoretically and she kept saying how impressed she was by ali hazelwood's ability to write such a good novel without any education in lit. mind you, in the book, the protag sits on her lover/professor's LAP when she enters a class without an empty seat. ali's books are the worst case of mcdonalds level literature--they're easily written and marketed. there is nothing serious about them. nothing thought provoking, interesting, or unique. they have zero literary importance. and given that my friend said she holds ali's writing as a standard, i find it extremely worrying

ali's "he put my entire boob into his mouth" is just as bad as sarah j mass' "his growls of pleasure filtered out the moans of the dying" or whatever that was, is just as bad as colleen hoover, is just as bad as the other 3858384 variants of take it like a good girl i see on ig. and the result is that women will now only read something if it has "spice" and vampires and elves and werewolves and 12 types of magic (an actual book i saw) and dozens of other tropes to cover up a plot with a backbone of a chocolate eclair

at least erotic books with naked men on the cover are honest about what they are. but no, (white) authors like rebecca yarros have put a thin layer of fantasy on top of a barely edited wattpad romance with insufferable, static protags created from tropes and are getting awards for this nonsense. which is making young women refuse to read anything unless it has "level three spice 😍😍"

so for the love of god, if you want to read porn, at least read a well written one

[bisexual-in-every-gender]

The micro-aggressions I have to live with each day are getting too much for me to handle. My depression and anxiety is at an all-time high. And these little things have contributed to it. The worst thing is that the same people who do this will tell me that "it wasn't meant like that", or to "stop being so sensitive". Excuses because they're not outright bullying me. But it remains a fact that these micro-aggressions get stored in my memory and make me question my self-worth. So what do I mean by micro-aggressions? Let me give you some examples:

- it's happened three or four times now where I was handed less food by a server than what's the normal portion. I know the normal portion because my wife orders the same dish occasionally. Sometimes we order the same dish at the same time and she'll still get more than me (my wife is underweight and extremely thin but despite her BMI being dangerously low, she's considered beautiful because she just happens to be thin). Desserts are always given to her, even if I was the one ordering it. And if I order fries instead of a salad, I get side-eyed. As someone who's lost 15 kg since last year, I don't want to know how they would have looked at me before...There's also a double standard because my wife eats incredibly unhealthy (kebab, burrito, McDonald's etc), yet remains underweight and doesn't do any exercises and when I tell people this, they refuse to believe me. I exercise twice a week and try to eat healthy, yet are already condemned by virtue of being fat. Our cleaner in China thought it's my fault that my wife is skinny and accused me of eating all the food in the house and constantly left food for my wife (which she didn't eat because she's a fussy eater which then when she found it in the bin was, again, attributed to me and that I starved her).

- I typically present more masculine than my wife. It means that I'm never described as beautiful by anyone but her. While she gets compliments left and right by everyone, men AND women, I get none. If I do get compliments, it's when I present feminine and then only by women (I'm too fat apparently to be thought of as beautiful by men, unless they're gay). The women always sound surprised when they tell me I'm beautiful like they weren't aware I COULD be beautiful if I was in my masculine attire instead. Like they weren't aware I had the CAPABILITY to be beautiful before I put that dress on and donned that makeup. They tell me to dress like this more. Femininity to them is beautiful, Masculinity is not. As someone who appreciates Masculinity and finds beauty in it in so many ways, that is disheartening because I also like to be told that I'm beautiful. But to be told that, I would have to conform to their standards of beauty.

- Which brings me to my next point. Men CONSTANTLY flirt with my wife because she is conventionally attractive. That's OK so long as they respect that I'm in a relationship with her. Very often, they don't. I'm just a woman after all, how could I compare to dick? So even when I kiss her, when we hold hands, when I literally shove my tongue in her mouth, they ignore me and keep flirting with her, trying to get her home. And even by people who don't want to get with her, she's asked where her husband is and what he does (it is I. I am the "husband". Literally standing her, having kissed her RIGHT IN FRONT OF YOU).

- I am constantly told I look like I'm in my 40s and my wife like she's in her 20's. I'm told I'm a "cradle snatcher". We are 2 years apart in reality and she is the older one.

- The fact I don't have children means to most people that I don't WANT to have children. Nothing could be further from the truth. I have had 3 IVF failures, one of which was an early miscarriage (I was told after to "just get a dog"). I'm constantly told how lucky I am to not have children, yet at the same time when women at my work place do get pregnant (3 all around the time my IVF failed), I'm told to be happy for them and not make it about me. People ask me why I don't just adopt, not caring that I OBVIOUSLY thought about that but that there's reasons why we cannot pursue that particular avenue. I'm also asked why my wife doesn't just carry since she's "healthier anyway" (no she's not, she's skinny. That doesn't mean healthy. She's dangerously underweight, she drinks alcohol 5 days a week, she eats only fast food and can't carry anyway because she's trans). Additionally, me being with a woman was "my decision, now live with the consequences". In other words, "if you're stupid enough to not choose someone solely for reasons of capability of reproduction instead of Love, you don't deserve to have children/shouldn't want them".

- I'm CONSTANTLY told to smile. Apart from the fact I have Resting Bitch Face Syndrome, I suffer depression and GAD (Generalised Anxiety Disorder) and I'm still mourning the children I lost/IVF that failed/not having a child in general. But that's OK, I should cater to others by SMILING. Because no one really cares how I feel at work - Depression is a myth and constantly ridiculed, mental illnesses have a huge stigma, so I hide my struggles.

- I forgot to wipe a work phone I gave back. It had finger prints on it. No obvious stains etc. I'm told that's disgusting and what kind of lazy, untidy woman am I? Yes, my character is Judged by a phone with finger prints on it.

There's SO MUCH MORE I could go on about but you get the gist. I constantly get Judged, condemned etc and congrats, these people have managed to spike my anxiety to the point I get Panic attacks (had one yesterday where I ended up vomiting from breathing too quickly) and my depression has become debilitating and I find it hard to enjoy things, accept love, open up and not sleep all day. But because these are micro-aggressions and no one's pushing me into a locker or whatnot, I'm expected to be okay with it. Well, I'm not. I'm exhausted. Seems like I'm never allowed to be me and have to always put a mask on. That shit is draining.

[ghostofbambifanfiction]

So motivated by anyone who shares they are working on losing weight. FYI 10kg is nothing to sniff at, esp. if you're not being too restrictive (as a lot of restrictive diets basically make you lose water weight at first, prob not your case). Keep it up!! If you don't mind answering, what are your goals?

I don’t mind, but I’m putting it under a cut because it’s going to be a looooooonnnnng ass ramble and I’m going to include some pics and I’m aware that I’ve already clogged everyone’s timelines with enough pictures today. Before I go off on my tangent, though, I want to make it really clear that I firmly believe that any person can be beautiful and love the way they look at any size. This is something that I am fighting very hard to believe about myself, too, regardless of what weight I am. I am not at all a believer in slimming down for the sake of vanity (despite my negative opinion of my own looks, vanity has never been a big enough motivator for me to lose weight), but this has progressed to the point where vanity isn’t even a consideration anymore.

Okay, so, backstory. When I first moved to England, I weighed 140lbs (63.5kg) and I looked like THIS ↓

Aren’t I BEAUTIFUL? I think so, even if nobody else does, I think so. I think so now. That part matters.

I can distinctly remember that when all three of these photos were taken, you see. I also distinctly remember looking at each one afterwards and thinking, “Fat, repulsive, disgusting.” Fat, repulsive, disgusting. That was my opinion of myself. I repeated those words in my head on a daily basis. I truly believed them. Hence, I’m wearing the same ugly cardigan in two of those pictures, because whenever I wore pretty clothes I felt so undeserving that I was compelled to cover them up with something ugly (the red dress is an anomaly because there was a dress code involved). EVERY TIME. It practically become automatic. “I’ve spent £40 on this dress, so what can I cover it with?” was basically my mantra. It was fine, I thought, because I didn’t care about pretty clothes. Liking pretty clothes was beneath me. This was a lie. I love pretty clothes. I love bright colours. I was drawing pictures of pretty gowns and tiaras from the age of six. But hey, easier to pretend that you don’t give a shit about pretty dresses than admit that you don’t feel worthy of wearing them.

I am seven whole-ass years older now, and I topped out at 283lbs (128kg) on the scales fives weeks ago. That is the heaviest I have ever been. I have doubled my body weight. By medical standards, I am extremely obese, and I’ve had seven whole-ass years to think on how I behaved back then. I’ve thought a lot about how much I hated my body and how undeserving I felt and how I stuffed myself full of junk food and said it didn’t matter because I was repulsive anyway, so why not? I wasn’t being kind to myself. How can I be a kind person if I don’t treat myself kindly? My own self-loathing has cost me my health, because in 2013, I didn’t need to take stomach tablets every day. I wasn’t vomiting a few times a week because of chronic digestive issues. I had regular periods. I lived in Sunderland and would get out of bed on my days off and walk three miles to Seaburn beach, just to hang out with a book and build sandcastles and paddle in the water and thoroughly enjoy my life. I had the ability to do that without wanting to collapse. I had the energy to write for hours on end without getting sleepy after forty minutes. I had lots of energy, lots of it!

I don’t have the luxury of enjoying any of that stuff now. I have lethargy and sluggishness and I get breathless walking up the stairs, and a huge part of that is because I have gained so much weight over the years, and because I have been eating things that specifically exacerbate my digestive issues. And I’m sick of it. My brother’s lottery win has been the most insane blessing to my family in that it is allowing us all to live out our wildest travelling dreams, and I don’t want to be the person who takes an eight hour flight to Paradise, only to sit around and do nothing because she just doesn’t have the strength. There is an eleven-year-old diamond in my life who I would do anything for, and I want more than anything to be able to bring him places and have fun with him and partake, instead of sitting on the sidelines holding coats because I am too fat to ride the rollercoaster (which happened to me, FYI, shout out to Port Aventura for sticking to safety measures, though the woman manning the coaster didn’t have to poke my thigh and say, “fat,” to make her point clear).

The thing is, and maybe this is a tl;dr moment that could have saved me a lot of trouble, but I am unhealthy and I’m tired and this is like...my life. My one life. What am I doing? I owe it to myself to treat my body better.

So these are my aims.

I want to get back to 140lbs. That is a healthy and reasonable weight for my height and body type. I am aware that I will not look the way I did in 2013 because I am seven years older, but I don’t care. I am aware that I will have loose skin and a belly and wobbly thighs when I reach this weight, but I don’t care. I will have energy. I will be healthier. I will be able to bring my stepson to all kinds of places and have the most fun with him.

No fad diets ever. This is all I’ve ever tried before, and the end result has always been the same: lose a bit and put it back on. I am making legitimate and incremental changes to my lifestyle. I am building lasting habits. I will weigh myself once a week to keep track of how I’m doing, but never more than that. I will exercise every day for a small amount of time, but if I miss a day for any reason, I won’t beat myself up about it. I will not skip meals. I will not deprive myself of food.

I am an excellent cook and I love trying new things, so I will be using that skill to find and experiment with new, delicious recipes from all over the world for my family to eat. Once lockdown ends, I’m going to start throwing dinner parties. I think this will really help me to change my attitude towards food and make meals fun for me, rather than a self-inflicted punishment.

No denying myself things. If I want to get a McDonalds I will get a McDonalds because, y’know what? Tomorrow I am going to have lots of veggies and cook myself a good, nutritious dinner, and that McDonalds won’t be anything but a delicious interlude in my week that I am not going to feel bad about.

No hiding myself in drab clothes. I hate wearing brown, grey and black and yet it accounts for most of my wardrobe. Both of those cardigan pics were taken in the middle of summer. I have wasted years of my life sweating it out in long sleeves and leggings so other people wouldn’t see, and for who? For what purpose? I am going to buy all the pretty clothes I like, wear loads of bright colours. Fuck it, it’s just for me.