#hopefully I won’t get covid 😅

[disasterhimbo]

I had a very tiresome day and I’m totally worn out but I saw a lot of good Palestine posts that I’ll try to reblog soon and in the meantime, everyone who sees this should go look at the free Palestine tag (and participate in the global strike, do whatever you can to get governments’ attention and force them to stop killing people).

[secretswiftymarvelfan]

Hi 🥰 how are you doing? 💙

Hey! Firstly thank you so much for reaching out it really means a lot to me 🥰

I realise I have been a bit MIA recently and I never really plan to go MIA on tumblr but it is always the social media platform that I end up never opening when life gets overwhelming and it is usually because coming onto the app makes me feel guilty for not having any updates to post (which I know I shouldn’t feel guilty about and it’s something I’m gonna work on)

And to say life has been overwhelming recently is a bit of an understatement 😅 since going to London to see Taylor (which was amazing and something i’ll never regret) life has been moving at 100 mph without me realising that I was getting overwhelmed until I just broke down one day.

I ended up catching COVID which had me bedridden for a week and even when I returned to work it took another 2 weeks for all the lingering symptoms to completely go. It also meant that I was much further behind in my work than I wanted to be and I’ve been working hard to catch up.

I also had a bit of a health scare recently which I am completely fine at the moment, it will be something that is monitored so it’s going to be something that won’t leave my mind for at least a year.

I’ve just had a lot to do recently and not the time to do them, leading to things falling through the cracks which in turn makes things more stressful 😅

That all being said. I am doing better, plans are in place/in motion to help me feel like I have more control and on top of things which hopefully in turn will allow me more time to write and post because I do miss my Boston Bears boys 🥰

Thank you to everyone who’s patiently waiting and sticking by me it really means a lot 🩵

[softxsuki]

Not feeling too good at the moment. I think I might have Covid 😅. I can hardly move without feeling pain, so I won’t be writing until I’m better. Sorry for all the delays. I haven’t been taking care of myself properly aside from the little bit of time I took for myself yesterday. So I called in tomorrow and Wednesday. I’ll be off work until Thursday when I return (hopefully. If I have Covid then I’ll have to take Thursday off too!) stay safe of there guys, it seems like everyone is getting sick. Please stay home with you feel ill

[uncannyfellow]

Hey anon I’m a trans western expat (aka white foreigner) in China. Pre-HRT trans male and living here for 4 years in a tier 2 city (smaller than Shanghai/Beijing but still pretty big) Was meant to go to Thailand to transition in 2020 but then COVID happened and I’m still here lmaoooo. Anyway I’ll share with you my overall experiences with being trans in China. It’s all pretty much in-line with the stuff written above!

Most younger Chinese people will have an awareness of what trans is, but unless you’re on HRT and pass well they will likely call you by your gender assigned at birth. For me the only exceptions to this are my gf and one of my BFFs, every other Chinese person will call me a girl. A lot of Chinese ppl may also just assume you’re a T (tomboy aka masculine/butch lesbian). My gf also thought I was a T at first until I explained it to her lol

Other foreign ppl will be generally quite understanding but may misgender you if you don’t pass well enough, even the more open-minded ones. All of my foreign friends know I’m trans and will tell others I’m trans/a boy, but most of them will also often misgender me. They don’t mean any harm by it, they’re just not used to being around a trans person. I usually don’t bother correcting them but I’m sure if I did they’d get better at using the right pronouns. There’s transphobic ppl too of course, but within the foreign community you’re never going to be in danger (one wrong move and foreigners can get deported so no one is gonna risk their visa to hurt a trans person) the worst transphobia I’ve experienced from another foreigner is helicopter jokes lol

Most work contracts will have equality clauses but they’ll usually only mention stuff like sex, age, nationality, and sexuality. I’ve never signed a contract that mentions gender identity included in these protections. So at work I don’t bring it up unless asked by someone, including the kids. If a kid asks me if I’m a boy or a girl I just ask them “idk what do you think?” And I just let them decide what to call me. Sometimes it’s boy, sometimes it’s girl, usually it’s boygirl 🤷‍♀️

Overall my advice would be while the young people you meet in cities are pretty understanding towards queer/LGBTQIA+/trans stuff, if you’re pre-HRT then don’t come to China unless you’re okay with being misgendered a LOT 😅

These days being misgendered doesn’t bother me but that was something I had to learn to be okay with. Generally every white/western immigrant coming to China will need to learn to be adaptable and be a bit thick-skinned to be able to live out here long-term, because there’s a lot of cultural differences that you’ll struggle to accept otherwise. “Misgendering” will sadly just be one of the many things on your list you’ll need to learn to adapt around.

(Also adapting is not a concept unique to moving to China btw- culture shock will happen pretty much any place you move to. So if you change your mind about China but decide to go to Japan/Thailand/etc. be prepared to still learn how to adapt regardless of how accepting to trans ppl the country is)

Also idk this for sure but if you’re taking HRT and your documents have your correct gender then I imagine misgendering won’t be a big issue as ppl won’t even be aware you were assigned a different gender at birth! So you’ll probably be okay living in a city with access to a gender clinic. But this idk for sure, it would just be my assumption

Anyway sorry for rambling a bit, hopefully my experiences are helpful for you anon! For what it’s worth, I really do enjoy my life in China, in fact I enjoy my life here a lot more than my life at home in the UK! but it wasn’t enjoyable when I first arrived and I had to grow a thick skin pretty fast 🥲

How would you describe the attitude towards trans people in China? ((I ask this as a trans person who would like to work there as an expat))

I don’t live in China so I couldn’t tell you with any certainty what to expect in real life anyway. But, you asked, so I want to at least take a stab at it, even if I just end up rambling about other things.

I expect you know it’s already hard enough to be trans in the west, even in the supposed liberal utopia of major cities. Now think about moving to another country and having to start out with no real support network. Now on top of that, while recognition and acceptance of queer identities, particularly gays and lesbians, in China has taken strides forward in recent years, it’s still not on the same level with the same sort of sensitive treatment as what you could say many have come to expect in the West (depending on where you live). The official government stance on LGBT issues is a tepid “uhhhhhhmmmm 🙈🙉🙊” (“Laws protect all individuals from discrimination on the basis of gender, sexual orientation, etc, but until something happens don’t look at us for nothing 🤐. Please clap.”), so most LGBT education/awareness largely comes through local grassroots efforts (slow and frequently hampered) and online/global media exposure (tho this also requires a level of voluntary engagement).

So, I’m not trying to spook you, but I wanted to make that clear first, that merely moving to another country as a trans person is no enviable task. If you do immigrate to China or live there for a period of time, you will of course at least have some level of privilege as an English speaking (white?) foreigner, so that might help, especially if you plan on hanging out with other expats anyway. Living in a major city would also help, which is really just to say, city folk anywhere are always going to be more open-minded and so I guess this finally brings us close to more of an answer to your question:

Based on my limited observations, I feel like the attitude toward the every day trans person trends negative compared to the west, perhaps largely due to lack of understanding (why would “choose” to be trans, how could you do such a thing, etc). It is not illegal or anything, and HRT/gender reassignment surgery is available in China, medically speaking, but again, I sense that the knowledge/understanding disparity when it comes to transgender identity is pretty high and therefore acceptance is inversely proportional to that. Discussion of the topic that I have seen has never really been that nuanced. Young people are more likely to accept and support LGBT+ individuals in general, but that’s “in general (like, I supsect that it might be more for LGB support versus trans support, as typically LGB issues receive greater attention than trans issues).

On the more neutral/positive end, there will be people who say “as long as they’re not hurting anyone”/ “a person has to live for themself/respect each person’s right to make their own choices in life” and that sort of thing, but I’ve never seen anything pro trans or pro gender revelations per se (this is true by and large in the West as well I think, so no big diff there), and anecdotally, I’ve seen a lot of those comments toward trans people of like “oh but you used to be so pretty/handsome, why would blah blah blah”, and more emphasis seems to be placed on passing, like I guess the more successfully you transition to the opposite gender (ftm or mtf) the more respect you deserve (as if transition should be the goal) (like if you botch it, visually speaking, you might as well have not even bothered) (but I guess this is also true in mainstream thought in the west), and even if you pass you might still get hit with the “can you believe they’re actually a _?”/ "wow I have to be more careful" treatment.

I guess it’s worth noting Jin Xing, a popular trans celebrity/TV presenter in China, is also highly respected, even amongst older generations (which is cool). To many, she “already counts as a real woman” (to quote a comment I saw once) because she’s seen as dedicated to being herself (a woman), and is a wonderful mother to 3 adopted children. People respect her because she worked hard and she has an attractive personality, but at the same time, she’s also high profile enough that the disrespect can get drowned out by the admirers, so she's not a typical case of the trans experience in China obviously.

TLDR

Soooo. I don't live in China so my perspective is limited (I can't emphasise that enough) and only my own opinion based on discourse/exchanges, commentary, depictions, etc, I've witnessed on the Chinese web (douyin, bilibili, zhihu, and douban forums for the most part).

I don’t know how rude anyone would be to your face. Being a foreigner/expat (I said “(white?)” earlier because I feel like “expat” usually refers to white people) might afford you some extra privilege or at least a wider berth from dealing with assholes. As of right now, my impression of the general attitude toward trans people is: improving but still behind and still with the focus on successful transition. Lots of awareness is still needed but efforts to increase it are slow and hampered.

---

Aaaaah this turned out way longer than I'd hoped 😬 and I always feel like I'm typing up paragraph upon paragraph of unintelligible nonsense but I hope this give you some food for thought, since you asked for my take. I expect you're already quite sober to the realities of We Live In a Society™ as a trans person, so apologies if I sound too pompous or lecture-y at any point.

[mars-onthe-moon]

I saw that picture(s) you just did of Bill and Dipper (lol, they were just being funny in that one), and it mentioned Covid.

Did you get Covid? If so, I hope you feel better. I caught something too recently (either Covid, Strept throat, or the Stomach Flu) and it put me out of commission for like a week (too), give or take less too, and I am just now, kind of getting over it. So I hope you feel better soon too; being sick sucks.

Also, when you are feeling better, I am excited to see ur Mabcifica animation! And it is going to be angsty too! Nice. Even nicer, since your last 2 animations have been more comedic; though still great.

Ur Bill and Ford was funny btw (I esp. love when Ford starts speaking, I think it was Japanese? And then starts levitating, mainly due to the context reasons why Ford is doing so), and ur animation with Mabel, Soos, and the Fairies was so funny and so underrated. Soos, little laugh at the end and the "I am dead"/"I am so dead" (can't remember if that line had a "so" or not) was so SO funny.

My BillDip heart hopes one day to see a BillDip animation from ya, but I still love the animations you have done/will do regardless.

P.S.: I really like ur BillDip fic; one of my favs. And sorry for the anon on this Ask. I got a bit nervous/shy for some reason.

Yeah, unfortunately I think I picked it up from work. So, I’ve been resting mostly. I’m just now starting to draw and write again because, man- those first five days were killer. Now I just have this cough that won’t go away, but fever wise I’m all good, so, thank you! Yeah, being sick is no fun. Its like, on one hand I’ve gotten to miss some work, but on the other, I’m too sick to enjoy the days off. Glad you’re starting to feel better tho and hopefully it’s gone for good soon!

Legit, thank you for your feedback! It’s honestly nice to hear because I feel like I put out the most random shiz content.. so no one is gonna follow it in it’s entirety, but here you are proving me wrong and I’m psyched!

Making the crack animation is so fun. I mean, I love angst and ship art too, but finding funny tiktok sounds and then drawing my goofy boy Bill is a mood boost. Levitating Stanford sends me.

Also, glad the audio worked out for the fairies one! Because I had to splice that Bob’s Burger ep with audio from ‘Soos and the real girl’ and I was worried about the quality diffs.

I have a few billdip animation idea’s in my drafts, so maybe I’ll start to focus on some of those! I honestly have like waaaaay to many billdip wips in general, that I start and then never finish 😅 so yeah, I’ll start going through those!

Thanks about the fic! It’s my first and only one so I really appreciate that! I’ve been in like writer’s/editor block for too long now, I really need to just post the chapters that I have. So, since I have till Friday before work starts up again, I’ll try and get that up for y’all!

Hehe sneak peek time. Rn I’m working on a Bill animation, magical girl style! So, I’ll try to be posting that in the near future as well!

[neuromedical]

Week 20 of 39

I don‘t even know what to write about this week... We spent it at a paediatric clinic that doesn’t really work with my school, got condescending looks from both the staff and the other students, and went home. The most useless placement of them all. All week I wished we could go back to “our” clinic where we actually saw patients and had something to do...

We’re officially past the half of this year. Only 19 more weeks as a medical student. Well, hopefully - I have to pass the rest of my state exams. And there also can’t be a humanitarian covid-crisis. Ah, fuck... I mentioned the other week that they want to take us out of school to help with covid patients which would also mean that they’d prolong the year either by a month or three. This week they finally told us that it pertains mainly to the lower years and the final year will only come in if it’s absolutely necessary. Which makes sense, because we really need new physicians as soon as possible. It’s in the best interest of everyone to let us graduate in term. But, unfortunately, the covid cases are going up. Horrifically. Every single bloody day. I’m praying it won’t come to the worst...

In hopes to get some more Knowledge into my brain, I downloaded Amboss and went through some Step 2 questions (I think Step 2 is the US equivalent of our state exams). It’s tragic 😅 In my defence, all our exams are oral so I’m not really used to that type of questions, but hopefully I’ll get better at them. Also, some of them are just plain dumb (like when you choose a test to perform and the answer’s wrong because “duh! of course we did that!! but what would you do BESIDES that?!” My dude, I can’t read your AI mind!)

I still haven’t finished reading Kith & Kin, but I’m working on it! Yesterday, I watched the first three episodes of The Legend of Vox Machina and fell in love... I highly recommend it if you like fantasy shows - it’s funny, it’s emotional, and it’s very much not for kids which is super refreshing to see - lately the internet has been obsessed with making everything PG 🙄 As if adult spaces weren’t necessary or something... Anyway, have a nice weekend! :) (Also the artwork on the photo is a print, the paintbrushes are there because I plan to gold-leaf it 😊)

[levok]

I'm stuck at home with covid (can't believe I lasted this long without getting it and now, during my finals, I get it, it's rude) and anyway thanks for responding to all of those asks and for levok2, you are keeping me entertained!

I feel you!!! Had it last week (reason I’ve had so much time for Levok2 😅)… two years of nothing, and then right before I’m going on holiday 😓 I’ve recovered and tested negative several times since, so hopefully it won’t interfere with my plans 🤞

I hope you’re not too ill and recovers soon ❣️ and I’m happy I can keep you entertained at least. Good luck with your finals when you’re able to take them 🌸✨

[meltedmush]

Hallo Mushy!! It's C.C.!! I have 2 questions for you!! 1) How are you surviving? and 2) How do you get drawing ideas? I hope your doing well and I really miss you and the others ;-; Hope we can talk soon!! Hope your well!! ^-^💕

OMG C.C. I MISSED YOU ;-;

IT’S BEEN SO LONG— HOW’VE YOU BEEN!??? :’D

Ahem lol, I’m surviving!!! Just been stressed, and tired lately, but I’ll hopefully get better!!! Covid-19 is really wrecking a lot of people’s lives, so I hope you’re safe!! 😅 But it’s kinda giving me a lot of time to draw which I’m not fully taking advantage of— but oh well. (._.;)

Hm... I mainly get ideas from conversing with others and other people’s content I see. But I especially love getting them from conversing with others, especially when they can grow to be fantastically unique. I also get ideas from songs!! I like to dig into the theories of those songs which sometimes become the base of my ideas. *hint* *hint* I’ve been planning a small project with one song I’ve listened to a while ago, but that won’t be started on for a while since I want to find a base for my art. (Heads up; it’s angst ifhdhvndn) Especially when I don’t have a simple style. (All of them are complicated.... I’m sorry that one friend that tried to replicate my art style... XD my techniques are terribly inconsistent.) But I assure you will see it someday! ^^

But anyways, I STILL MISS YOU AND HOPE WE CAN TALK SOON!!! I HOPE YOU’RE WELL TOO!!! FEEL FREE TO SEND IN AN ASK AGAIN ANYTIME! ^^💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖

[byebyeballoon]

I guess I never made an intro post for this blog, so here we go!

I’m in my early 30’s. Very outgoing and would love to chat with others about these shows! Feel free to drop me an ask or pm. Fun fact my first kdramas were My Lovely Samsoon and then The Hotelier. Both aired on the AZN network on comcast with English subtitles all the way back when I was in high school. The channel has been gone for years.

Fast forward to Covid, and being in quarantine as an immune compromised person. I got back into kdramas thanks to them showing up on Netflix, and when I couldn’t get my fill there I found Xumo, Viki, and Kocowa. I stick to the shows that are free if you don’t have membership, so I will be posting memes about those. I only have a Netflix subscription (for now, we’ll see what the future holds!). I can’t say for sure why I ended up pretty much giving up American shows these last two years, but I think it’s because I finally grew tired of shows that had been around 5-10 (or even in some cases more) seasons. I like that most k-dramas last one season and have an average of between 8-20 episodes instead, so the plot has to be wrapped up nicely in that amount of time. They have a better end in most cases bc they know the show won’t continue. Even if some (like Hotel Del Luna) have a cliff hanger clip at the end that leaves you wanting more of that world or story.

I ended up dragging my bestie @terminalsecondleadsyndrome into kdramas bc I wouldn’t shut up about the shows, and I’d send her clips that cracked me up. Our sense of humor is pretty similar. Plus we are both attracted to a lot of the leads. Eventually I roped her into it, especially when I mentioned Bride of Habaek bc she read the comics when younger. She sent me a couple of memes while we watched, and I felt that they were too funny not to be shared with the community on tumblr. She had a thing for the second lead in BoH, and I told her about the term Second Lead Syndrome, and thus her URL was born. Anyway, then I introduced her to Vincenzo and she was just pumping out the memes (over 100 in total!). 😂 So go check her blog out! Also my URL is from that show!

I am especially drawn towards paranormal and science fiction plots. I have been since my teenage years. Fun fact: I met one of the Twilight actors bc of this (technically more than one, I met three at a meet n greet, but met another ‘out in the wild’ so to speak lol). So I’ve enjoyed the likes of Sweet Home, King Eternal Monarch, All of Us Are Dead, Korean Odyssey, Mystic Pop-up Bar, Goblin: the Lonely and Great God, Bulgasal, and more.

Because I’ve been enjoying countless shows the last two years and had figured out certain phrases by hearing them so often, I ended up installing Duolingo (and a few other language apps), and started learning Korean. The alphabet was pretty easy to learn, and I can read it now (still likely have awful pronunciation since I’m not speaking it with anyone… 😅 And I know I wouldn’t be able to hold a proper conversation yet. Hopefully I get there soon!). I also decided to brush up on my Spanish since I took it in high school and college. I’m actually Puerto Rican, which was why I wanted to learn Spanish originally. I was proud of myself for remembering so much. It’s been nice having these things to distract me from my chronic pain issues. If you can’t tell, I like talking. 😅 And I’ve probably talked your ears off (or eyes in this case), so that’s it for this intro post. Hope you are having a good one!

[thedrunkenvixen]

I was desperate for a day off, caught covid and now have a week off 🤷

Oh noooo friend I hope you’re alright!!

I’m triple vaxxed so hopefully I won’t get it but you never know 😅