saw some good trees yesterday

there's currently a free japanese indie film festival being held online! all the films have subtitles in english, spanish (latin america), thai, indonesian, simplified chinese, and traditional chinese and the films are available to watch worldwide (except japan and some others depending on the movie):

bachiranun (2021)

tenzo (2019), not available in france, belgium, switzerland, korea

an artisan's legacy, tsunekazu-nishioka (2012)

lonely glory (2022)

hanagatami (2017), not available in china, us, canada, uk, and ireland

bon-uta, a song from home (2019)

and your bird can sing (2018), not available in korea, china, taiwan, us, and canada

hey! our dear don-chan (2022)

techno brothers (2023)

a muse never drowns (2022), not available in the netherlands, and canada

a girl in my room (2022), not available in korea, china, and taiwan

follow the light (2021)

the festival will be held until october 31, 2023 :))

So I’m in a deeply red incredibly conservative state.  I ran a pride month 5k awhile back. The usual group of 3 protestors with an incredibly loud bullhorn showed up to yell at us about how trans people are mutilating themselves and AIDS is God’s judgement and we’re a menace to children etc. etc. etc. But they were vastly outnumbered by runners and volunteers. One of the first race announcements was that they hadn’t ordered enough T-shirts for the amount of people who ended up running, and would have to reorder, so anyone who wanted another race T-shirt should sign up now.

We’re all used to the protestors by now, they show up everywhere. We just ignore them. Interacting with them just encourages them.

I hadn’t realized how early the race date was this year compared to previous years and hadn’t prepared as much, and there were a lot of hills; not to mention there was some confusion as to the race route which resulted in the announcer referring to it post-run as a “4-mile 5k” (they are supposed to be about 3.5 miles. One guy ended up in an entirely different district of the city from where the race route was and still finished first.) I ended up walking a lot of the race, but I finished it, and did do a fair bit of running.

I had top surgery a few years ago but I’ve only gotten comfortable running shirtless this year as body fat redistribution happened. I had been trying to decide if I wanted to run shirtless or not before the protestors showed up and started yelling, then I was like ah. I will run past the transphobes shirtless like a human middle finger. And that is what I did. was wearing delightfully garish rainbow shorts I found at a thrift store and my pink triangle necklace.

Some Americorps volunteers were directing runners at one of the more confusing junctions, I high fived one and panted that I had just joined Conservation Corps. The sound of angry bullhorn shouting faded almost immediately behind us, and there were rainbow flags hanging in several of the yards we ran past throughout the route.

As in previous years, a lot of tough incredibly fit beautiful older people, mostly women, breezed past me during the race. One jogged up even with me with an encouraging “what would you do for a klondike bar!” I wasn’t sure how to reply to this and didn’t have the breath to express that I did not want anything thick or creamy at that moment, but what did come out was “you did remind me that there’s beer at the finish line.” Another lady who walked and jogged near me for awhile near the middle-latter half of the race talked a bit and complained that one of the volunteers organizing the race hadn’t set up the “water” table with fireball shots that she did for some other races and we just got a regular water and gatorade station!

Coming back to the finish line I was handed a flag and ran past long rows of cheering people. Around the corner the protestors were still lurking, but were mostly silent now. Apparently they had gotten worn out by just standing there and not running. As I passed the bullhorn guy shook himself out of his torpor enough to give a halfhearted “is it a man? is it a woman? who knows anymore?” I passed him and the sound of cheering, and then the 80s music (I remember Blondie and ABBA) they were blasting closer to the finish line.

Once most of the runners were back there was a fun run for the kids. A couple of the older ones had also run the 5k (I just know the protestors were awful to the poor guys ughh) but all of them made a lap around the parking lot and got handed medals. All of the adult volunteers and participants spread out around the middle of the parking lot so that there was someone cheering and waving flags for the kids along every step of the route.

There were free snacks, water and beer courtesy of our sponsor [brand redacted]. There was also non-alcoholic “beer”, which I thought was nice to see, I’d been thinking there was a heavily alcoholic element to a lot of local queer events. I drank a lot of water and ate some food before getting a free beer, which still hit me pretty hard after the run. While I was hovering around the refreshment table a big handsome butch came up next to me and I noticed a faded tattoo on her arm of a chain, each link a different color of the rainbow.

I went to put something down in my car just as the protestors were starting to leave, and realized that they were moving on a course that overlapped with mine as I walked to my car. I decided I wasn’t going to stop or veer out of their way and just see what they did. As I got closer they seemed to be talking about how we had definitely totally noticed that they were leaving (no one had.) They noticed me coming towards them and suddenly got quiet, avoided eye contact and skittered out of my way. Ha.

I stumbled into the nearby fundraiser to cool down and sober up in the air conditioning before I left. They were playing girl in red, rupaul, that girls/girls/boys song by Panic! at the disco, and that Taylor Swift song “You need to calm down” that some people on this site complained was cringe. The lady next to me sang along to “shade never made anybody less gay.” I bought a baseball hat.

It’s easy, I think especially if you’re very online and not very active in your local community, to start feeling like there’s no queer community in your area and we’re outnumbered by people who hate us. Unless you live in the middle of Westoboro Baptist territory that’s generally not true. I cannot stress enough how incredibly conservative and red my area is. We’ve got like 3 very loud people with nothing better to do who bother us at every event, and large amounts of people across all demographics who show up in support. I’ve been thinking about this post by @headspace-hotel about not being able to find stuff online and this is a slightly different thing but yeah. If you don’t know what there is in your area, you don’t know what you’re looking for or where to find it when searching online. If you search “is there queer stuff happening near me” google is going to shrug and recommend you Products And Services that it can Sell You. When I moved back home after spending some time in a much more blue state (but which had much less of a sense of community--I think it’s the way we band together down here when we know just what the stakes are) I felt like I was going to be the only trans person in the state, then someone mentioned to me that there was a local private facebook group for trans people to share personal posts and resources with many hundreds of members. There are more of us that aren’t on facebook. The Facebook group, though, introduced me to many more resources I hadn't known were in my area.

Get outside. Find some sort of local queer event and ask around. There will be other queer people. There is very likely something you’re interested in already happening or people who would love to work with you to start it if not. Even if you’re in a very red very rural state, you’re not alone, and chill or neutrally polite people vastly outnumber the few assholes, it’s just that the assholes are very loud and especially if you’ve been marinating in overwhelmingly toxic online environments it can feel like they’re everywhere. They’re not. Don’t give them that power.

The current legal landscape is terrifying and needs a lot of work but it doesn't reflect lived experiences. Get outside, find your local community, show up to in-person events if at all possible, it’s so encouraging.

white lesbians tend to fail to comprehend the existence of lesbians of colour

when they think of the lesbian community, they think of their fellow white lesbians

that's part of why lesbians of colour get accused of lesbophobia when we talk about racism in the lesbian community. because they see us as outsiders attacking a community we don't belong to, rather than community members addressing a widespread issue that impacts us every single day

it's a very similar experience for Jewish and Muslim lesbians. people believe there is an inherent conflict between our faith and our lesbianism, so we are discounted from lesbian spaces and conversations

so when Jewish and Muslim lesbians talk about islamophobia and antisemitism in the lesbian community, we are again accused of lesbophobia, because we aren't seen as members of the community. people who know nothing about our religions decide that we can't be Muslim and gay or Jewish and gay.

being a brown Muslim lesbian, I experience this regularly. white lesbians don't see me as one of them, so any critique that I have of their racism/islamophobia/antisemitism is dismissed as a lesbophobic attack from outside the community

I'm tired of the whiteness of so many lesbian spaces. I'm tired of being ignored and dismissed and excluded and vilified and told who I can and can't be

but I'm so grateful for my fellow lesbians of colour, my fellow Muslim lesbians, and the Jewish lesbians that I stand in solidarity with

I wish we didn't have to build our own community to escape the white supremacy, but I'm so glad that we have each other. that we support each other when the white lesbian community excludes us

we're still here. we always have been, and we always will be.

i have a disease and the only cure for it is a nice soft belly in my face

people will spend days and weeks and fucking months getting upset at you for not doing things that are literally out of your range of abilities and youll spend days and weeks and months and years fucking years trying to politely explain to them how these things are difficult and impossible for you and theyll refuse to listen and tell you youre making up excuses and the one time. the ONE FUCKING TIME you lose your temper and scream at them suddenly youre the bad guy sure suddenly youre a monster who cant control yourself. suddenly youre the one being unreasonable.

comic about something that i still don't understand

they hang over me, weighing on my chest and holding the wounds open

I’ve been thinking a lot about how gay people say I love you, and I mean that literally. 

I’ve known people for a few hours most, and said “I love you” and meant it - new years parties, university tutorials, anime conventions - the gay woman who was a friend of a friend giving my friends and I a lift home in the winter cold was an angel, and I meant it when I said “Thank you, I love you, get home safe.” The person from high school that I lost touch with then reconnected with telling me about their girlfriend was like filling my lungs again for the first time in years, and I meant it when I said “Please, next time bring your girlfriend, I love her already.” My grandmother that told me about how she used to use bandages to bind back in the 80s and how her first husband was gay was the first person in my family to make me feel normal, and I meant it when I said “I love you, I hope you’re happy now.” The friend I found through our shared love of Scooby Doo and then proceeded to run the gamut of labels and pronouns with is my home 8000 miles away, and I still mean it when I say “I love you, we should call more.” And I mean it when I scream “I love you” to every person I meet in fleeting hugs and hand-holds at the pride parade, even when I’m overstimulated and exhausted by the time I get home, glitter-sick and shy.

I think we say I love you for every reason you could say I love you, but more than anything, it’s the simple fact of seeing someone who is your family that makes you want to grab them by the shoulders and tell them that you love them. Gay people have such a long history of being family and community when no one else would take us, and every time I see someone being openly queer, I love them. I love your smeared lip-gloss and your septum piercing and your dyed hair and your crooked teeth and your leather harness and your pronoun pins and your Doc Martens and your chipped nail polish and your loud laugh and your T-beard and your Adam's apple and the way you twirl a little clumsily in your skirt. It’s 100 meanings of the word - what you said was funny, I love you - you’re a dickhead, but I love you - I’m glad you figured things out, I love you - you don’t need to say anything, I love you - thank God there’s another trans person here, I love you - you make me feel whole, I love you - we hurt each other, but I still love you.

"We live in the bad timeline" is not radical. "We are so doomed" is not radical. To concede moments of despair in private is understandable, even inevitable, in the midst of an ongoing struggle against a great imperialist beast. But to hold ourselves to a standard of belief and conduct that change is at least POSSIBLE, that cruelty and injustice are a state of affairs and not an essential truth about reality, is rigorous, disciplined, and NECESSARY to any revolutionary politic. If we do not believe in our ability to change things, it removes our ability to act. Revolution and changing of the global order require method, yes, and rigor, and investigation. This is without question. But we should approach these with discipline, by holding ourselves fast to the belief that it is at least possible for us to change the world.

Despair is counterrevolutionary, and it needs to be challenged, it needs to be defended against internally in the self and externally by holding our comrades accountable when they express despair. It is an act of love to say "comrade, chin up, there is still hope, and you are better than this."

mattie images for @cryptotheism

Pin-Lee suggesting that Murderbot start reacting to its injuries more to let humans know it’s been injured after realizing that it’s been casually walking around after a fight leaving a trail of Fluids. It’s like “I could.. probably write some code for that I guess.” and Dr. Mensah is like “don’t worry about it if it would be distracting to you. Just.... tell us afterwards. We want to know how you’re doing” and it’s like “i can give status reports yes.”

Pin-Lee is like “I still like the idea of you giving an indication you’ve been hit. For example.” she points finger guns. “Bang oh no I have definitely hit you with a projectile. Indicate that somehow.”

Murderbot, with extremely flat inflection which would not immediately seem like a distress call to nearby humans: “Ouch. I Have Been Injured.”

Pin-Lee is like “hm no there’s gotta be some sort of. I don’t know, you don’t have to verbalize if you don’t want to, maybe there’s like an alarm noise you could make? or an “AAA!” sound? Okay let’s try again BANG”

There is a brief delay (less then a second) and then Murderbot responds with damage vocalization option 2.

“File:Wilhelm_Scream.ogg” blasts through the station.

Social media fatigue hits too hard these days, so I made a meme 😮‍💨

last night i got home kind of tipsy and very much in tears and my mother told me the force you exert to keep someone in your life is proportional to the force with which they will leave your life. if you have to fight tooth and claw to keep them, their leaving will be just as hard, just as harsh, and just as definite.