anyone else get a fuzzy-restless feeling when you need to do something but your brain won’t focus on anything and you’re silently begging yourself to just do one thing but instead you’re scrolling tumblr even though you don’t even want to be … it’s like your head is filled with heavy electric cotton like you’re both uncomfy and unable to stop
listen we’re always pushing back against anti-vaxxers with the science showing that no, vaccines don’t cause autism, but can we please talk about the underlying problem here which is that people hate autistic children?
even if the poorly researched pseudo-science was right and vaccines had any link to autism in children, i would still want myself and my children vaccinated because guess what, there’s nothing wrong with autistic people.
what i hear when people say they don’t want their children vaccinated against deadly illnesses because they believe that vaccines cause autism is not just that they’re horribly misinformed, but that they’d rather have a sick, dying, or dead child than an autistic child. and honestly, that’s pretty fucked up and just goes to show that neurotypical people don’t view us as people who are equally entitled to life.
a restaurant in my hometown got a review that said the servers should “show some skin” so the owner added a potato skin special to the menu and all the proceeds from the special go to the west virginia foundation for rape information services (x)
i know we all like to Joke & Bond over how depressed we are and make jokes about existential dread bc we really are absolutely fucking depressed and there’s certain comfort and humor in knowing we’re not alone but. god i wish none of us were sad. living like this isn’t fun at all and i hope it gets easier and softer for all of you
I want to write an alternative version of Romeo and Juliet where instead of being a little ponce and trying to work things out for himself, Romeo asks his smarter friends what to do about the whole thing and Benvolio and Mercutio come up with the world’s greatest plan:
Marriage of convenience between Juliet and Mercutio.
Think about it.
Juliet’s parents want her to marry into the Prince’s family. Mercutio is a good compromise between no marriage and Paris.
Mercutio probably won’t get his inheritance if he keeps being HELLA FUCKING GAY ALL OVER THE PLACE so a beard is only a benefit to him.
They would probably get along great rolling their eyes at how adorably stupid Romeo is.
Romeo and Benvolio could get a “bachelor pad” right next to Juliet and Mercutio’s house. Every night, Romeo and Mercutio high five as they hop the fence to go bang their one true love.
The second half of the play is just all of them trying to keep up the charade and being “THIS CLOSE” to getting caught all the time. But everything ends nicely because true love conquers all.
Everybody wins. Nobody dies.
THE SHAKESPERE AU I NEVER KNEW I NEEDED
DUDE DID YOU JUST FIX ONE OF THE MOST ICONIC PLAYS EVER CREATED?!
ONCE AGAIN EVERYTHING IS SOLVED BY THE QUEER LENS.
You know what I’ve never understood? Instead of trying to understand where a person is coming from, people dismiss it when it comes from a Japanese diaspora. It doesn’t matter if they are a Japanese National or a non-Japanese. It is typically ignored on both sides. I don’t and won’t dictate what the frame of mind should be in Japan as it’s up to the general consensus of those in Japan but as a Japanese diaspora.. what is so hard to ask someone who is Japanese why they don’t want to see non-Japanese wear their cultural clothing? Why they are uncomfortable? Why they may be mad? What is so hard about TALKING to someone instead of brushing them off as a ‘twisted SJW’? I’ve found that a lot of people have reasons. Opinions from diaspora is often brushed off and dismissed because apparently the opinions don’t matter and while I think that is generally OK when it comes to when it happens in Japan, I don’t agree when it comes to the U.S. or countries like it. Of course I want the Kimono industry to be supported BUT it should not mean taking a shit on Nikkei. It also frustrates me because the history is different and so is the community in the U.S.? That HUGELY changes the mindset and conversation, in my opinion?
Each conversation and situation is circumstantial though?
it’s not about that i know how to do laundry. it’s that when i was four i knew how to fold clothes; small hands working alongside my mother, while my older brother sat and played with his toys. it’s that i know what kind of detergent works but my father guesses. it’s that in my freshman year of college i had a line of boys who needed me to show them how to use the machine. it’s that the first door they knocked on belonged to me. it’s that they expected me to know.
it’s not that i know how to cook. it’s that the biggest christmas present i got was a little plastic kitchenette i never used except to climb on. it’s that my brother used it more, his hands ghosting over pink buttons and yellow dials. it’s that when my work needs cake for a birthday, they turn to me. i get it from costco. i don’t even like cooking. a boy burns popcorn in the dorm microwave and laughs. a week later, i do the same thing, and he snorts at me, “just crossed you off my wife list.” it’s that i had heard something like this so many times before that i laughed, too.
it’s not that i don’t love being feminine. it’s that i came home with bruises from trying to be a trick rider on my bike and heard the word “tomboy,” felt my little mouth say, “but i’m not a boy, i’m a girl”. it’s that they laughed. it’s that until i was sitting in my pretty dress and smiling with a big pretty smile and blinking my big pretty eyes, i wasn’t given back the title “girl”. it’s that until i wore makeup and styled my hair i was bullied; it’s that when i don’t wear makeup i’m a slob, that my mental health diagnosis hangs on the hook of being dressed up. it’s that my therapist sees me returning to bright red lipstick and tells me i am looking happier and i have to explain that i am more sad than i have ever been. it’s that i dress myself in as many layers as i can every time i ride a train because it’s better to be laughed at than harassed.
it’s not that i know how to clean, it’s that my brother’s chores were outside where i wanted to be, and mine were inside. it’s that i would have weeded the garden better than he did if they had just let me. it’s that i am put in charge of fixing other’s messes, expected to comply without complaint.
it’s not that i can’t open the jar. it’s that you ask my brother first every time. it’s that i am pushed into docile positions, trained to believe that my body when it’s strong and healthy is ugly, trained into being less, weaker. it’s that the jar is also science, is also engineering, is also every job, every opportunity. it’s that you laugh faster when he tells a joke, that you take him seriously but wave off me, that when he raises his voice he’s assertive but when i do i’m hysterical. the jar is getting into a car with a stranger as a driver and wondering if this is our last ride. the jar is knowing that if something happens to us, it’s our fault.
it’s that i’m weak and i don’t know if it’s because i just am or i was trained to be. it’s that we need to sit pretty with our pretty smiles and our pretty words trapped pretty and silent in our throats, our hands restless but pretty when idle, our bodies vessels for nothing but a future white dress. it’s that we are taught someone else needs to open the jar for us.
here’s the secret: run metal lids under hot water, they’ll expand faster than the glass they’re around. here’s the secret: when you keep us under hot water, we do more than boil. we expand over our edges. and we learn how to open our mouths, our claws, our screams hanging in kites over cities. just give me a chance. give me a chance when i am four when i am seven when i am twenty-three. i promise i can be amazing. give me the jar. i’ll show you something.
i promise i can be amazing. give me the jar. i’ll show you something.
you gotta remember that the idea of cultural appropriation isn’t really about
“oh, well white people enjoying a culture that isn’t theirs pisses of the people in its country of origin because they can’t do it right”
it really has nothing to do with the country where the people of that culture are a majority.
it’s about the people who are in an ethnic minority in a country and how they feel about the ethnic majority using their culture
it’s more
“how come white people can do this thing from my native culture and get praised for being so cultured cool, when the people in an ethnic minority can’t participate in that culture without being criticized for not assimilating enough”
its about how if a Japanese American kid went to an american school in a kimono, they’d risk serious harassment, so it seems kinda insensitive to be white and wearing a kimono acting like its some across the sea culture that isn’t being repressed at the house two doors down