#literally just saw a tiktok comment and thus happened

[fablekitty]

Hey, I know I am the last person you wanna talk to rn, but my life is in genuine danger (still) because all I wanted was for a apology for the misconception.

I honestly meant no harm at all, and https://www.tumblr.com/lunarsilly/725681668334256128/all-i-wanted-was-for-fable-alologize-for-the

If you read this it will make a lot more sense.

I’m low empathetic and it takes a while for me to feel epmathy, and I think it’s hitting me like a bus

I never meant for you to be harassed anything (as I said in my OG callout posts) and I have not ONCE put your life in danger.

However, Davis has put mine in danger cuz he took some things I said in the wrong manner and it has caused me to get harassed to the point where I have to deactivate most of my accounts.

No, this isn’t ‘karma’ at all because I didn’t even want anything bad to happen to you and I didn’t mean to be malicious, all I wanted was for people to be aware that you could have possibly done this stuff, and benne like

“Hey, I have a choice if I wanna continue supporting them.” And unfollow if they please.

I have not once tried to put you or anyone else in danger, all I was doing was being like “hey, this can be seen as sams since you tagged it as such.”

Also to call you out for your ableism towards your own community.

That whole ‘no TSBS fictives and no factives’ rule is not only ableist, but it further Demonizes DID by saying that alters are their source when they aren’t,

People had a choice to support you, and I hadn’t meant for it to become this huge thing because a mess up in my wording )which I mostly wrote them at 1-5am, mind you. There’s going to be some mistakes since I was obviously running on 2-4 hours of sleep, and I always apologized if I said anything wrong in Davis’s DMs)

I get why you’re upset but this whole thing has gotten me death threats and it has also put not only me, but my family at risk.

Anyways that’s pretty much it, dm me on this app if you wanna respond.

This whole situation began because instead of trying to talk things over with me, you instead chose to cast a stone at me publicly. I’m not unreasonable. I would gladly have clarified anything you were concerned about, whether it be the claims of ableism or concerns about Lulu’s design. Instead, you publicly accused me of being a pedophile, not once, but twice. Which. I won’t lie; is a VERY harsh accusation that shouldn’t have ever been tossed out on a whim. The first was in a comment thread on one of Davis' posts, the other was a public callout post. You cannot downplay it by saying you just wanted to 'spread awareness' and 'let people choose to support me.' All I wanted to do was be left alone, and you wouldn't have it. 

You took my art and made fun of it, called me names, called my partner’s alter names, and tried to make connections to an accusation that wasn’t there to begin with. I have co-workers that follow my SFW account on Twitter. I could have lost my actual job over this. You losing your Twitter account is not comparative to my entire livelihood. You can say you never wanted me to be harassed, but you slandered and insulted me all over Twitter and Tiktok during the entire duration in which this all played out, not to mention all of the posts and videos about me being ableist and treating me like some sort of class traitor.

I only spoke out about it when I was at the end of my rope, which you also mocked and slandered, and thus the harassment continued.

Davis reached out to me about it because after doing his own research, he saw it as unfair that I was being falsely accused of something that could literally ruin my life and career and put my safety in danger.

I didn't ask him to post it, and I certainly wouldn't have asked him to take so much time out of his busy schedule to research and write that entire google doc. All of the accounts he posted there are public socials, all of which have the Lunarsilly moniker attached to them somehow. He's never really talked to me much if at all outside of this situation.

As for the comments made towards people who were clearly against you, entirely unnecessary. If you wanted people to stop and leave you alone then you should have never responded. This stirs the pot and makes more trouble, it also makes you look bad.

I can't convince people to stop attacking you, despite telling them not to come after you in my last tweet about this situation. I can't order Davis to remove your socials from the google doc. All we can simply do is drop the subject and move on.

None of this would have happened if you just came to me first instead of airing out dirty laundry into public places where you were fully aware I was in. Next time you think you've been wronged in some way, instead of acting out, take a step back and breathe. Walk away from the computer/phone and clear your head so you can think straight. That is my absolute best advice to you.

I understand that you're only 15 and probably have some stuff going on at home, and the last thing I want is for anyone to get hurt. Death threats and doxxing are wrong in general, let alone to a teenager, and if you're reading this and have done either of those things to Lunarsilly, I am incredibly ashamed of you.

As for the damage? My alter is traumatized by the claims you've made. My early design of Lunar was never canon. His design belongs to me and I can use it however I please. He is not canon show Lunar.

Speaking of Alters, I want to address the ableism thing.

Once again, all this stress could have been avoided if you’d have just come to me privately on Discord when this was first addressed. I asked you politely to please keep alters of real people from the show avoidant of fronting in the TSBS server. I asked this of you with the knowledge of what was written in the moderator handbook that each moderator must read and follow in TSBS, and had no idea it wasn’t written in the public rules. I will admit fault for not checking that. It was never my intention to come off as ableist towards you nor anyone else.

We didn’t just come up with rules on a whim. We put rules in place to try and keep everyone in the server safe and comfortable, systems and otherwise. Ultimately, the bottom line was that some of the voice actors from the show found discomfort in seeing alters of themselves and their characters in the server, and the business that owns the whole shebang also agreed, and their word is final.

I entirely understand the frustration behind having alters from the show. I have a few of them myself and so does my partner. Yes, they are not their source. But that doesn't prevent the original creators, or actual person from being uncomfortable, much like some alters are uncomfortable with doubles. Everyone's system is different. Mine isn't large. It's not small either, but my alters all do have one thing, a mutual agreement to work together and harmony. If that's something you can't control, then I'd recommend staying out of larger servers such as TSBS.

I was also never obligated to tell you that I'm a system. I don’t exactly go out of my way to make sure every individual who interacts with me is aware of this information about myself. However, if you ever took a moment to look in my discord profile, you would have known. The first line that is on my profile on Discord is “Marshmallow System-DID” and it’s been there this entire time.

All I want is to be left alone. I want this all to finally be dropped so we can move on with our lives. I’m old and tired and simply do not have the time or energy to keep putting towards this situation. Just please, move on and leave me be.

[princeluna]

Purgatory Theory?

More questions than actual answers…

Something that keeps coming up in Good Omens is dichotomy. We have the obvious dichotomies of good vs evil and heaven vs hell. We have more subtle dichotomies like coffee or death and when Mr. Dalrymple said he could be a hero or condemned for his actions.

The story thus far has been very clear that Crowley and Aziraphale live outside of these dichotomies. They quite literally talk about being “shades of gray.” And that is partly because they find comfort in earth and humanity. Humans seem to fall in between these ideas of good and evil. So it makes sense that the ineffable husbands resonate more with humans than with one side. I mean they gave up their positions with heaven and hell just to save earth and humanity.

But what if that’s just the tip of the iceberg? What if all these references to dichotomies are signaling something more?

I, like others, have been wondering why Maggie misspelled urgency. The show connects poor spelling to being demonic. She also refuses the wine that Nina offers and then later we get a flashback of Aziraphale refusing wine because it���s “the source of drunkenness.” These actions out of context are nothing, but with the other examples, it makes me wonder why it was included for her character. Maybe I’m way overthinking this and these traits were given to Maggie, a human, to emphasize that humanity fits into the same gray area as our protagonists. Or maybe Maggie isn’t human? Not angel, not demon, but something else.

As far as I know, purgatory hasn’t been mentioned in the story as of yet. But what if it will become important in season 3. What if that’s where Maggie is from?

At the end of season 1, Beelzebub made a comment about getting 10 million demons to stand down and go back to work. If that was only 4 years ago in story, why is hell so short staffed now? Are these demons maybe running off to purgatory or is something more sinister happening to them?

I saw someone on TikTok saying that they think by the end of the story Crowley and Aziraphale will have to change. That they can’t continue being a demon and an angel. Some think that means they’ll be human. But if it’s true that they must change, there’s a chance they could become agents of purgatory instead. And of course they’ll still retire to their cottage in the South Downs.

And maybe, just maybe, Beelzebub and Gabriel somehow found their way to purgatory from Alpha Centauri and we’ll get to see more of them in season 3.

Like I said, I might just be overthinking this or misinterpreting these Clues, so take all this with a grain of salt. But it is a lot of fun to ponder how purgatory could fit in to all this.

#im just having fun over here okay? #excited to see what actually happens though #good omens #good omens 2 #crowley #aziraphale #Beelzebub #gabriel #ineffable husbands #ineffable bureaucracy #good omens purgatory #purgatory theory #maggie good omens #good omens spoilers

[golbrocklovely]

hi, i don’t know what really to think of this situation, but this just peaked my interest since i saw a comment on tiktok that basically said that elton is copying them, as well as corey basically using them for whatever he could and then leave to go with elton.

it doesn’t make sense how corey said he hated doing the things that sam and colby did with the seances and everything, but then does some provoking on elton’s channel? i understand he could’ve gotten more confident but at the same time, why leave the people that were there for you at the start, and not the person who you literally had a petty argument with and had elton move out because of how stubborn he is.

i just don’t really know why they all stopped talking to one another, obviously except sam and colby themselves. maybe something behind the scenes had happened and the fact they don’t live near one another is also a factor ( not sure about jake talking to them, but i don’t see why not ), but i find it so horrible that elton are copying sam and colby. like? especially whenever did they do their ghost adventures 😭

sorry for the rant, i just dislike people like elton. have a good day 🫶🏻🫶🏻

i've talked about corey and elton a lot on here before, especially my distain for elton lol

i do my best not to pay attention to either of them, since they clearly want nothing to do with snc anymore.

while i don't think corey used them per se, i do think him leaving was probably motivated by other reasons. idk about the whole situation at large bc it just seems confusing.

corey moved out, claiming he wanted to focus on music and whatnot, but then he moved in with elton and just immediately jumped headfirst into paranormal videos again. and corey has alway been hesitant in videos with snc about doing anything related to seances or anything of that nature. but once fans started calling him out for it, he got super defensive and was like "i never said i didn't like doing the paranormal, i've been doing it since i was kid, ect ect" and it's like…. while that might be true, you ALWAYS bitched in snc's video about doing literally anything, borderline crying every time. hell, he skipped a whole trip with them strictly bc he was done with the paranormal, only to jump back into by the end of that series.

and elton…. elton is just jealous of snc, or at the very least doesn't feel confident in the content he makes and thus takes it out on others who are equal or more successful. the second snc announced 25x25, elton jumped to the conclusion that they were copying him, and even tho in his own argument with fans he proved that he was WRONG, he went on to copy them once they stopped doing 25x25, i guess to even the score or whatever. he spent half of 2021 just being petty towards them and shit talking them to fans, and they never even acknowledged him. that's fucking embarrassing lol

and then for corey to just up and move onto elton, WHILE elton was shit talking snc…. that's just wrong imo. i get not wanting to be the friend in the middle, but corey had been friends longer with snc than he did with elton. at one point him and elton hated each other, so like… why keep siding with him other than bc yall collab now??

and jake is just a weird, side thing too. from what it seems like, he got upset he couldn't do everything and then some in a house that wasn't his. but the fact that not only him, but a lot of snc's old friend, just moved onto knj… is just strange to me.

i don't think anyone purposefully used snc (minus a few, i think, in snc's old friend group), but clearly they were fine with up and leaving like snc never mattered to them. and now to awkwardly ignore their name or not even mention them is silly to me. while they don't want to be friends with snc, they're glad to continue the facade to the fandom that they're still snc's friends (even tho they don't mention or hang with them anymore) bc it still brings ppl back to their content. imagine if any of their old friends said "oh i'm not friends with snc anymore"…. they would lose followers. so instead, they just keep ignoring the question even tho most of the fandom realizes they aren't close anymore. it's all just so dumb to me.

#ask #personal #elton castee #corey scherer #sam and colby

[sanjarka]

listen, i get where people are coming from when they say that the hunger games movies focused way too much on the romance but at the same time what romance? do you mean the ,,love triangle"? or adding that kiss between katniss and gale in catching fire? are you team peeta or team gale? who is hotter - josh or liam? because the actual romance doesn't exist.

what about he gives me a smile with just the right touch of shyness that unexpected warmth rushes through me? for a moment i feel foolishly happy? there's a whole world locked away inside of him? how don't his eyelashes get tangled up when he blinks? he plays with my hair while i make a flower crown? his voice is like the morphine they give me? in a minute i can see his smile and hear his laugh? i wonder if those kisses would feel like the ones from the beach, the ones i hadn't let myself think about until this moment? did you really hear him screaming? don't let him take you away from me? let me go - i can't? none of this is shown or implied.

no, this isn't a romance book and there are a lot of other extremely important scenes that the movies don't focus enough on (for example: the death of her father and how important that relationship was and still is so important to her? how much she misses him? how she never had the time to grieve him?) but the romance that does happen between the main characters is a big part of the plot - it moves the story, it creates conflict. the main story depends on it. this isn't just a story of war, it's also a story about the life of its protagonist and it's only natural to want her to find joy and peace. and no, not everyone has to like it, love it, be obsessed with it (i don't care about that, nor is it a realistic thing to expect or the focus of this post), but can we just stop pretending like it doesn't exist? like it's a bad thing to enjoy it. that you are exactly like the capitol because of that. that even katniss herself doesn't care about it and is somehow above that - she's a confused, traumatized child who doesn't have time to prioritize her own feelings and emotions. at 17, she should be able to think about that beach kiss for every second of every day and not feel the need to hide it because she's afraid of expecting too much, or wanting too much, or needing too much.

the movies left a lot of damage, not because they focused on the romance, but because instead of filming what was already on paper they went ahead and glamorized it, deleted it or changed it. they deleted the fact that seam people are poc. they aged up the cast. dehumanized kato, clove... didn't show how ugly the capitol really is. how haymich lost everything because he didn't want to be their piece in the games. how finnick was sold from the age of 14. how johanna isn't just angry and mad but damaged and broken. how gale isn't a war criminal but a teenager who got lost in trying to see what is right to do in a war. how war changes people and how, in the end, it usually loses its right side if it ever had it. how you can still be damaged and worth something. that the real revolution isn't in the fight but in helping those around you, by giving them bread on a rainy day or singing them a song when they are dying in your arms. that peeta lost his leg, his sense of self and his entire family. that both him and katniss had traumas prior to the games. that they truly loved each other and were each other's hope. that it would've happened anyway. that it's only him. that their love is a lot of things but never practical or just for comfort. 

the romance that the movies presented was shallow and superficial. the tragedy in their love story isn't gale, or that it only happened because it was forced, or because of their shared trauma. instead it was snow and the capitol. they weren't allowed privacy and to move at their own pace. they were used and manipulated with, hijacked. the tragedy of their love story was that it was tainted. that they weren't allowed to think about it as just theirs.

and then after everything they were still the only ones who could have healed one another. after all of that, they still somehow grew back together. the movies forgot to say that it was absolutely everything to both of them. that they are fully equal in that love.

so no, the problem with the movies isn't too much romance.

#i get where this is coming from and maybe i'm just to sensitive or literal or whatever but i just had to say #literally just saw a tiktok comment and thus happened #but it is something that i see quite often in general #not saying you are a bad fan if you enjoy the movies #but i think we can all agree that without the books they do not have the same effect #anyway glad that's out #thg #thg: movie criticism #the hunger games #the hunger games: meta #everlark #everlark: meta #mine #mine: thg

[synthmusic91]

thoughts? kjfhlkjdfh asking bc i rb'd the original post from u a bit ago because i agreed w/ original poster but i just saw this rb of it and wanted to know what u thought. ciaran(.)tumblr(.)com /post/652413157345820673/there-is-a-genre-of-posts-thats-obsessed-with-the

well first of all i hope this isn't a bait ask. this reply really doesn't deserve the time and effort i put into refuting it, but there was a point in time when i was emotionally confused by these..."arguments", so whoever u are, anon, i hope this is helpful. i also recommend some distance - literally, "go outside and touch grass", which is a lot more difficult than it sounds, but it needs to be done. anyway, here's my "analysis":

for context, here's what the post in question said:

and the tags:

at a high level, we can see that what ciaran is saying doesn't really respond to what OP was talking about. for this reason, i'm not going to bring in much of what OP said, because it's uncontested in this context, and look at ciaran's reply. i'll try to break this up...

EDIT: i had a long-ass response here, but then i realized it was dumb because the source material is dumb. i cut out most of it, but here are the highlights.

"there is a genre of posts that’s obsessed with the notion that fandom is something much larger, more prevalent, and more able to affect the way media is processed and consumed, than it actually is in reality."

so, as we can all see on tiktok and, indeed, on the electronic lore olympus billboard that takes up a side of a literal skyscraper, fandom is no longer the niche thing that "fandom olds" make it out to be. also, we can't ignore how many (white) fandom players go on and work in the industry (cassandra clare, whoever wrote 50 shades, man idk much of anything so there's probably many more). so this comment is sort of myopic. and since this is what characterizes the rest of the reply, well...it's not great.

also don't look up lore olympus; it's basically a dd/////lg fanfic that happens to be one of the most popular series on the line webtoon app, which is rated for teens...and for $1 to the creator's patreon, you can view not sfw p*dophilic art, so. also obviously i didnt do that; there was a video essay about this. i can't find it though

"ironically but understandably, these posts are made by people who are so terminally fandom-poisoned that they ascribe phenomenal power to it, and think of it as some great evil that must be defeated (by making posts on tumblr, which is obviously a very influential thing to do)"

"fandom-poisoned" is such a nebulous term, especially since it appears to mean "has had some really significant, (in this context) bad experiences with fandom." this is, first of all, a huge assumption to make about a stranger, and second, not the own they think it is. i'm just going to link this post, and hopefully you can see how it relates.

anyway, the "making posts on tumblr is meaningless" is um...interesting, seeing as off the top of my head i can think of two very influential tumblr blogs that talk about really important issues, Gradient Lair and Red Light Politics. I don't know as much about Red Light Politics, but Gradient Lair is frequently cited by academics (not getting into academia nonsense now but... -_-). also, they sound more pissed that the original post did gain traction, but whatever. this paragraph doesn't really make sense, but nothing here does, because i wasn't given much to work with.

"...and then because these people have basically no imagination and unfailingly pick on others for their own faults, they project their own experiences on everyone they perceive as being more ‘in fandom’ than them,"

jesus christ. i'm going not say anything about the tone of this because i put too much effort into this for some rando to call me a cyberbully.

i think what they're thinking about is how there appear to be some "fandom critical" people who try to, holistically, "ruin everyone's good time" by "stirring up drama" about popular fandom artists/writers/whoever else idk. oftentimes these people will also make jokes about fandom whatever, seemingly picking on random people's interests.

however, if you look at the long history of fandom racism, fandom's normalization of p*dophilia, and even general fandom harassment, and then you look at fandom's visceral, unwarranted reaction to criticism regarding these things, you can quickly see that disillusionment towards fandom is entirely reasonable. as for the joking, well...this an oversimplification but not everyone needs to like what you like. it sounds like they just need to get over themself.

and go “You, a 27 year old queer blogger who is into [tv show/anime/movie] an embarrassing amount, are now going to be the face of Capitalism” with no self-reflection or critical thought given to how fucking cringe it is-"

so, i'm regretting putting so much effort into this because this is so fucking long and i have to analyze this nonsense...it feels like i'm back in my feminist thought class. nightmarish. but anyway, this seems to deal with- [CUT FOR LENGTH. nothing important was missed].

EDIT 2: actually here's a summary of what I had. it deserves better than to be a response to this nonsense, but first it detailed how this took 1. the op's post and 2. a comment that we don't even know if op agreed with and misinterpreted that, and threw quite a fit about this- and i hate to say this because this term is misused so often by redditors, but- strawman.

I then went on to discuss how, for example, PoC can uphold systems of white supremacy. while obviously no person of color is going to be the "face" of white supremacy, the discussion still needs to be had, especially within that group. similarly, while fandom constituents may not be the face of capitalism, there needs to be a discussion, within fandom, on how they support and are defined by capitalist (and other) systems.

it was really too good of a point to be making for this trash reply. I could go say more, but I'm still trying to stay on topic, unlike ciaran.

"to act like random people on the internet, end users with no influence over corporate decisions, are the ones personally responsible for the fact that late-stage capitalism has destroyed popular art and culture in an increasingly sordid attempt to make money."

we've been over the "no influence" bit - because in fact fans do have influence, especially since media creators are literally fans, etc etc. i'm tired of people acting like they have no power and using that as an excuse to support and perpetuate harmful, easily avoidable behavior.

also, to act like the nebulous system of late-stage capitalism is the only cause of bad media is ludicrous. first of all, someone has to make these so-called "corporate decisions", and the people making artistic decisions are, again, overwhelmingly members of "fandom." this comment is really trying to keep marvel trash and lore olympus-esque nonsense in the same atomic, indivisible category lest someone catches a whiff of nuance.

"the above post is a great example of this phenomenon because op admits freely that they only think fandom is destroying media because they have been spending more time in fandom and thus have an over-inflated sense of its importance in greater culture. posting your own Ls indeed."

i'm so tired. this person literally has 120 works on ao3 like...who is spending more time in fandom.

and the tags:

#i assure you that fandom has no bearing on my actual real life #and if it does on yours. then that is your problem #it's also a very funny problem to

now this is just egregiously tone deaf. you do not need to do more than a cursory google search to find a bottomless well of examples of fandom harassment, threats, doxxing, and violence, much of which is racially motivated. you can see why it would be bad to make fun of this. 

also the way that “fandom has no bearing on their actual real life“...120 fanfics on ao3. 120.

conclusion:

the reply clearly misinterprets of op's point, and as such, does not refute it. they responded to another issue altogether, which is that of the sanctity of their ~coping mechanism~ or whatever it is. their argument in this respect was, in my opinion, delusional and pathetic, especially given that they wrote it on someone else's unrelated post.

FINAL NOTE: i cut out lots of this because the reply went in so many different directions, so some stuff might not make sense. let me know if you have any questions.

#answered #anonymous #fandom #long post #q slur #s

[incorrectzutaraquotes]

i’m sure you’re tired of me posting non incorrect quote or non zutara things, but there are things i want to talk about. it started, i guess, as a trend on tiktok where people would share their stories and experiences with racism as people of color in the united states(or anywhere really, but everyone i’ve seen has been from the us). as a woman of color, i felt compelled to participate, but wasn’t sure how to. i didnt want my face showing up globally because i knew that with posting that, not only could people i know in real life find it, but so could the wrong side of tiktok, thus leading some nice so not comments being left under the post. with tumblr i like the anonymity. i can talk about this in as much detail as i want without anyone being able to put a face to my name. despite being here for almost 19 years, i’m still not completely comfortable talking about these experiences when people know what i look like.

i’m going to put this under a cut so it doesn’t take up too much room, and so you can skip if you want.

for starters, my name’s holly. i’m asian american. i was born in china, but shortly after i was born i was stuck in an overcrowded orphanage. this resulted in being adopted by white parents when i was about one and a half to two years old. i lost fluency with my native language and that eventually lead to losing the language completely, and i lost touch with my culture.

i was in second grade, that’s how far back i can remember my first real encounter with racism. i was seven in a classroom full of white kids. there was this boy with blonde hair and blue eyes who sat next to me for a good portion of the year. i remember walking into class everyday, and every day he would ask me the same questions. “why is your nose so flat?” and “why do you eyes look like that”. i was seven. and whether or not he intended to hurt my feelings, it stuck with me for a long time. at first i was confused, because i didn’t think i looked different. i didn’t view myself as looking different until then. until i was constantly reminded everyday that my facial features were “weird” and “odd”. that my face was undesirable. it lead to years and years of insecurity and self hatred.

i wanted so bad to look like the other white girls in my school. i wanted a cute upturned nose with a perfect bridge shape. i wanted blue eyes. i wanted eyelids that didn’t connect in the corners and eyelashes that were naturally curled and turned up unlike mine, that just rested straight forward. i wished that i had lighter skin and blonde hair. i didn’t want to be different and undesirable. i thought i was ugly, and i would look at myself in the mirror for long periods of time, picking out everything that set me apart from the other white kids at my school.

that same year i found out that i needed glasses, and i’m pretty sure i cried. i didn’t want another reason for myself to stand out. i refused to wear them for an entire year and a half, before i realized that i had to wear them if i wanted to see. i was seven, eight. i wasn’t even in the double digits yet but i had this idea in my head that i was ugly because i wasn’t white. whether that kid had meant to hurt me like that didn’t matter, because the damage had already been done. and the worst part was that i had no one i could tell, but none of my friends and none of my family would understand what i was going through. so i suffered in silence and dealt with it the best a child could.

when i was in middle school, i can vividly remember kids mocking asians for laughs. they thought it was funny. funny to be racist. i remember this one time i was out walking the track with a group of kids during gym class. i was walking just behind them and i overheard their conversation. they were making fun of asian’s eye shape, and pulling their eyes back to make them smaller. and it hurt. and they knew i was walking behind them. they knew i was there and that i could hear their whole conversation, but they didn’t care. and i was too scared to speak up for myself, so i had to sit back, listening to and watching them mock people who looked like me because they thought it was funny. i was in seventh grade.

that next year, i was in eighth grade. i had a class with a boy. (i was convinced i liked him, but i’ve come to realize that was not the case at all. i was just forced into thinking he liked me, and i felt obligated to like him back. i realize now that that is just how society (and a get normative society) has conditioned women to feel, but that these feelings were nothing more than platonic. this will make more sense as i continue to tell the story.)

as i was saying, i had a class with a boy, and we began talking and becoming friends. or, i thought we were friends. i realize now those feelings were one sided, and that he only used me to pick on me. he and his friends would take my things and hide them. they sat behind me and would move my desk during class while i was trying to work. they’d throw things at me, whatever they had available. sometimes it was paper, sometimes it was coins, i remember a few times it was a stick they’d found on the track. and now, it doesn’t seem like a racially motivated thing, and maybe it wasn’t and i’m just overreacting. but i saw how he treated other girls. i saw how he treated his girl friends. i saw how he treated my friends. i was with them all the time, and yet i was the only one who was ever on the receiving end of this treatment. and that, that sucked. but i didn’t tell anyone again, because i knew they would just tell me “that means he likes you”. but his actions went further then a playful slap in the arm, and became almost dangerous. i was only fourteen.

in high school i tried my best to stay away from those toxic people. instead, i could remember the racism i faced in those four years coming from my own family, rather than my peers at school. i cant possibly name every time my family has been racist, but i can specifically remember times when i was constantly told by them that my eyes “didn’t look asian”. that my sister looked “more asian” than i did simply because her eyes were smaller than mine. as if i didn’t already have an identity crisis because i wasn’t white enough to fit in with my predominantly white neighborhood, but i wasn’t asian enough to fit in with the few asian kids at my school. it was my dad who continually pushed me to be an engineer(which im not doing, to clarify). don’t get me wrong, he wanted all of us to be in a field where job demand was high, and he did want my sister to be an engineer, but he didn’t bring it up at the rate that he did with me. he still does it. and this plays into the stereotype that all asians are smart and that because we’re smart i have to go into a field that requires high intellect. he didn’t put that immense amount of pressure on any of my other white siblings. just me.

there’s a chinese restaurant down the street from us. we order from there a lot, and usually they’re really good with getting our orders right. in fact, this was the only time i can remember them getting our order wrong. and immediately they began to make fun of their understanding of english and their broken english. immediately they jumped on that opportunity to mock their language, using words like “ching chong” to describe their words. and the saddest part is, i wasn’t even surprised. and yet i couldn’t say anything because i didn’t want to start a fight, and i knew if i did i would be told that “it was just a joke” or that “you’re being too sensitive”. i often wonder if they’d mock me if i didn’t have perfect english. if i spoke with a “chinese accent”. it makes me wonder if i’m only really accepted because i’ve been so assimilated into whiteness that you can’t even tell i’m asian unless you look at my face. this happened mere weeks ago.

last week i went to get my hair done. because of covid everyone is required to wear masks, but there were at least 10 people in there. i was sat down in front of the mirror while my hairdresser cut my hair. in the reflection of the mirror i could see this older white women getting her hair one behind me. she wasn’t wearing her mask properly. it resting under her nose, eventually her chin, and at one point it came off completely and her hairdresser had to tell her to put it back on. the entire time i was sat in that chair, where i could only look straight ahead in that mirror, she was watching me like a hawk. giving me side eye glances and even turning her head completely towards me at times. let me remind you that there were other customers in there. it wasn’t just me and her. i could feel myself starting to get anxious, my heart starting to speed up and my fingers under the apron they put around you, tapping the side of my phone in my hands nervously. i was genuinely afraid that she would start throwing racist slurs and start blaming me for the coronavirus the entire time. i was scared. and it was literally just last week. im tired.