#speaking as an instagram refugee HAHA

[zorangezest]

in honour of it being around my tumblr anniversary i have to say this site was the last place i thought i would be posting to consistently but. ive grown to love it a lot i would fight for this app like it were my country

[xinyuehui]

I couldn't put on a finger on why the whole tiktok migration to xhs left a sour taste in me until I got annoyed at recent subtle sinophobic comments towards Love and Deepspace left in the tags. (It's a Chinese game that has a global/English server)

Which had me thinking and seeking out if other people felt the same way. The Americans found a new platform, the Chinese on the platform are welcoming and attempts to speak to the Americans in English. Cool, what is left? The third group of people out here that aren't Americans or Chinese in China, it's us Chinese diaspora that live outside of China (in particular the west). We learnt English, forced to erase everything Chinese about ourselves to fit in here fit in there but never fully get accepted into any community. Online spaces are no better, we get all sorts of hate even though we are all communicating in English. One comment that I read on tumblr here a while back that really struck me was op posted something regrading Chinese culture and some white person dismissed op for having a Chinese url so they must not speak English to speak on a Chinese topic.

Americans barging themselves into other people's spaces seemingly with no effort is the most white privilege behaviour ever. Some of them don't bother learning the language, the culture, or social etiquettes. To call it 'refugees' in this current climate is lowkey insensitive even as a joke. Some are just outright racist saying they are there to colonise the app. The offhanded uninformed political jokes are also on thin ice. If this was reversed and a massive group of Chinese people suddenly joins instagram/twitter/tumblr, starts posting in Chinese, the comment sections will not be as 'haha funny' and 'wholesome' as the ones on xhs.

White people posting selfies on the app is harvesting thousands of likes and compliments is the prime example of white privilege, they don't have to work hard to get far, boosting their egos further more. How am I supposed to feel even when I share something on here of my culture either get no recognition or sinophobic comments?

There's a sense of helplessness when I see my people pandering to the white, similar to when Chinese diaspora/Chinese in China on the discussion of cultural appropriation. The experiences the two groups have are vastly different. I don't blame them for this. China, for the most part, is still a very closed society, a handful of them probably never left the country, interacted with a white person or had any prejudice against them for being Chinese. To them, it's just an amusing conversation or two without much thought. At the end of the day when the Americans leave the app, it'll be another fever dream. But for us, we still have to go to work with these privileged white people, come home from work to what I thought was a Chinese safe space to find that insufferable co-worker is on xhs going 'hello China [google translate some nonsense]'.

That said, I suppose for me who is able to post this on tumblr is a somewhat privilege move. For the people in China, it is an avenue to interact with Americans on a large scale without having to use a vpn. The welcoming atmosphere gives me peace knowing that to be respectful is still in our core. For the Americans, whether they are on the app out of spite without thinking of the consequences or to learn about China with an open mind, only time will tell if they will remain on xhs after the fad dies out.

[tandy-angel]

💐 quotev refugee & professional sillyposter

hi there :3 i'm mars short for marshall & i like nicknames (among other things) ! my prns are they/them :3 i'm queer and have some gender in between the spectrum idk. currently in limbo since i haven't thought about it in a while haha

i'm tandy-angel or some variation thereof on most anything just hmu if you're interested in following on other platforms not listed below ^_^

i'm a fairly low-effort hellenic practicioner and modern witch who sometimes believes they used to be an angel. i love culture and religion and i'm currently reading the bible and learning tagalog. i have a moderate understanding of written spanish but do not believe i could hold a verbal conversation. i'm working on it

i have a lot of interests. i love all things beautiful and even those that aren't. i love humanity and romanticize everything! so yeah. i have a lot of interests. i'll link a post below outlining them all <3

more useless info below the cut but please follow & interact if any of this interests you :D i have no idea how to use tumblr despite having had one for years. my gf is coaching me so please be kind >_< anyway. hmu ♡ i'm nice i love talking to people i'll be here. like subscribe & follow thanks. mwah! xo, mars

⭐️ reference to tags i use [ official taglist ]

#hehe :3 things i like. more vague than #mecore

#mecore things i relate to. fairly obvious

#ray speaks truth a raypost i've reblogged and agree with. also obvious imo

#raycore things i think my gf might relate to/things that relate to him

#i love my southern gf idk. more specific gf tag, things that relate to him being southern or things that just make me feel particularly affectionate

#witchery on main fairly self explanatory. i usually post witch things on @mars-witchery

#check misc my "check and sort later" tag

#misc is anything non-fandom related. fandoms will be tagged as such

🔮 other socials

tandyangel2 / ao3 (i use this when i have something to publish that i am pleased with. very rare)

tandyangel / fanfiction (no longer active, yet sometimes i dream of going back ;___;)

tandy_angel2 / twt (also no longer active. have a few good memories from that era though) (edit: i will be heading back + revamping soon. re: quotev death)

tandyangel / pokefarm (i'm here only sometimes. read: barely ever)

mostly on quotev (no longer, since quotev death) & instagram with a personal account. hmu if you want it if we're friends, mutuals, or have interacted once. barely here on tumblr but it's a cute space so i wanna be on more. we'll see

🌷 other links

• interests

• carrd

• side blogs

long story short ! ★

✿ mars, they/them. queer + neurodiv

✿ taken, 1r1p. aroace bi lesbian

✿ likes music. psych + cs major

✿ i hate queer discourse count me OUT

✿ i'm a romantic i love everything else

✿ i'm friendly i promise please hmu

[gplewis]

save your old love letters, throw away your old bank statements

cut from the bottom, add to the top

every day we pray and try to survive memory and obsession

how unmonetizable and unsellable our words and actions are

once we disconnect from obedience

see heartache and heart-growth lead to telling truth and cutting ties with the past, old landlords i could link you to a story about

linking is less important than liking

*

there is only one reader - you

all are you

we are she

divinity is feminine, it’s easy to surrender and adore and be subject to a queen when she speaks on TV i would obey and sing with my countrymen maybe i should move to England and truly become the model of what I am haha it’s only funny until you enlist the train plane and automobile again like you have before, didn’t verbs and metal and rubber and water and petrol get you here, oh god i could call a truck a lorry and drive on the wrong side of the road my mother’s dyslexic can’t do right and left

*

it is good to be sensible about your losses; it is good to scream at a collaborator and not sell your thing to the people she is meeting with

i may lose you now

too many characters

it’s never twice the same, baby

*

community won’t and can’t abandon you, it’s true you can’t be separated from the whole, you are the whole thing, nothing is more special than a self

*

geniuses are lonely because so much of them has to be known; sympathy for the geniuses, being famous is boring, the calendar keeps unfolding and businesspeople are addicted, they don’t know how to not be their job, how to curb the obsession with numbers, figuring assuring, double-checking; without fear of going broke they’d be nothing, unable to function, would massacre and genocide, they’d never put on an old EP and vibe out into a Tumblr post,

* I’m impervious to heartbreak because there is no loss that is not a gain, a gift, our family is growing; my limits and distinctions have been upgraded like a spaceship and I’m Star Fox from Super Nintendo or Link from Legend of Zelda and this is an upgrade, a promotion up to management; memory (and stream of consciousness) is rehearsal for a show that never goes on

* I embrace the artistic temperament; I do what I want when I want and trust it is good for business; enduring is the thing; a powerful love for the future and all living things, a willingness to smile and laugh at the Gregorian (we sure it’s not Julian?) calendar we keenly obey because banks and fathers; this is a dip in the good river, girls gathering at night to go into the forest and do magic mushrooms and learn the secrets of the wolves, 

* I leap up, stretch, work on my singing voice, see myself in the mirror, alone in this apartment I am subletting for three months as time is stuck in slow-motion all stories and images of realities have slowed down to real-time and we are the heroes we looked up to, Björk said it before me, every guy and girl on the @__nitch Instagram account which is my church and gospels; being a bitter old queen like Oscar Wilde is my fate, or like Samuel Beckett or Ludwig Wittgenstein, Sarte or Camus, Nabokov (who was an exile, immigrant, refugee ~ these each suggest a different relationship [see I zoom up to the theoretical plane to survive?] to choice and agency ... always a geography of distance, pressure, shame, memory ~ and whether one has space protected and secured, a perimeter, within which to do the work of [and delight in] remembering, sinewing the neurons, sensing the next move, becoming an animal, convening with the spirit ~ dogs on the Upper West Side of Manhattan seem to love me, be drawn to me, see in me a friend and confidant, a collaborator, more than just a contact but a source, a source of ground; now, is it art and artful to describe my being bolted to the whole? It isn’t news that I belong. What can I do for you now that I’ve learned this? My survival was never different or divisible from yours

*

we eat; life starts at a kitchen table — I don’t know if I can articulate or ‘be right’ my way to covering up and recovering from minor heartbreak, an injury for this athlete that may make me day-to-day as far as health status goes, vital signs; she’s happy, that was always the job of the romantic lover, the real mature poet; oh god, must I define everything to survive? Is this how I cope now? I wanted my freedom and sunlight all day and now I have it, I can enjoy it, with the strength imbued from the flowers, trees, insects, squirrels and geese ~ New York is unforgettable, special as an outsider ... and see how easy it is just to write? Living is something else I do sometimes, at night, when you aren’t here but could be, now my life is set up - I am used to paying the higher rent, paying the higher prices for food out of home; all referents come back to home; we rise from bed to get to rest again; humans are just a kind of tree, growing upward and elsewhere; poetry eventually leads one to one’s language, mother tongue, an image of her we try to replace; father’s love to replace with employment, mother’s love to replace with love, romantic love, partnership, marriage, a violent netting where wild fish are caught, gutted, splayed, washed, sold, transported, brought home, served; it’s all mother’s love anywhere you look on the perceptual plane — it makes it hard and impossible to hate anything (didn’t I write this just the other day?)

*

needed: someone to help me with losing; comfort; luxury; a selfie; proof that my failing and not ‘getting’ is beautiful; hunger for drugs now, for ease, tranquilizer, a way to become tranquil again after it’s revealed something that might’ve worked out won’t ~ she called it hopeless ~ is there are sharper real-world chisel? anything else more shaming and damning? oh, I hunger for the devil, beyond a valid father or boss, even a Queen ~ oh, how to bring my being owned and mastered by an outside force into my heart, brain, words, thoughts ... is this really heroic, this struggle with self and awareness? Is it not navel-gazing in the raw?

*

now, she said in response to my update about living alone: (oh, I could tell you more detail; the only unbearable thing is there’s more time and patience, more time in which we are alive for a brief time before we are gone and can no longer speak; oh, just another heartbreaking boy; ascension is all we’ve got left

*

Spoons in the Sink … a new freedom! Is it just you in your new place?

Maybe the battle with our own minds is endless 😊 … I’m glad life is good - and I hope you can enjoy it.

Love the quote/tweet - it has a unique somber spunk, as it should.

I’ve been trying to find the right words … which is silly in a way and ironic in another … But, I met someone, another man. Actually someone that I’ve known for a while but it recently turned to something beyond knowing - “something more” if you will. It’s sweet and both not easy but also easy in other ways, and equally balanced. I don’t know how much to say or not say. But I owe it to him … and to myself … and to you … to say something. To let you know I cannot tempt flirtation and hopeless (or hopeful as it was) romance anymore with you. To thank you for the romance, for the fantasies that never could be, and most truly, deeply, for opening the world more for me and (I’d like to think) us. Our words and worlds collided in a very special way. And I’m not saying that can’t continue it just can’t continue the way it started. I was enthralled by you in a way … so willing to be taken by the flood. I only meant to send you one sentence tonight… “I met someone as you may have sensed… so while I would love to still correspond, I can no longer be romantic.” There’s more to be said though … so I’m sending you the above thought jumble. I just really hope you know what we shared is not lost on me.

And it’s probably important to say I don’t regret anything … but that includes now… I’m really happy right now and maybe now is all we have - until it’s the next now

^ future Irish poetess extraordinaire; the words and images can be traced back, the emails and calendar appointments, to prove we lived, we loved, we wanted, we spoke, we connected ~ ultimately there’s no one to prove it to except our new selves. Here we are; those old shells of pictures of us aren’t us anymore; the new is always fleeting away from the image, is always a body, is always a woman or wanting one

now what’s the point of wanting? does it end? is the verb our noun, our homeland?

Next song