joey taking on the og role of hot chocolate boy mended my soul

ok maybe life is gonna be okay and everything is falling into place and maybe the world doesnt completely suck

The world is good actually

I bought myself a happy meal bc my friend wanted McDonald's and I wasn't that hungry and it came with a lil dinosaur toy.

I put the dino in my little side pocket in my car door and then we got out of the car and walked around.

When we came back I found my dino in my outside door handle. He had fallen out of the car and onto the ground and somebody saw him and not only didn't steal him but put him in my door handle so that I wouldn't lose him.

I had to take a minute. I actually almost cried.

People are good.

I'm sure this has been reposted here already but it's worth posting again.

To quote (paraphrase) today's stream:

"wouldn't it be cool if [in reference to being harassed] 'it's the internet, what did you expect?' went the other way around? Yeah, 'look at all these different people putting their creative works out there. It's the internet, what did you expect?' I know it's wistful thinking, but it'd be nice."

The world is good, sometimes

So... I was getting pizza at this kebab joint today (Germany be like that).

And it was in this wreck of an Eastern German town, with more skeletons of former shops than is probably healthy for a town, with the kebab shop nestled into the side of a big chain super market. The town itself, btw, is about as conservative as the rest of East Germany right now, which... it’s not great. Quite the opposite of great, tbh.

Anyway, I was getting pizza, and as I was about to pay, the woman behind the counter gave me this look. This once-over that my mind immidietly filed as “oh no, this person heard of trans people”.

For context: I was wearing a binder, an MCR T-Shirt, men's shorts, and shoes with rainbow-coloured laces. I also still have a mowhawk, and had managed to give my order in my best approximation of a male voice that I can do without T. I also have zero reference for how well I pass when like this.

See, I'm an idiot, who's (relatively) fresh out of the closet, and still relies on being able to fall back on the old "oh no, I'm just very flat and gnc, haha" trick when necessary (or panicking), because that had and has worked for years (even on myself). Only that the trick hurts more, now, and I'm a really shitty liar when caught unawares.

So the woman gave me this look and I hurried to get my defences up. In my mind, I had been clocked, and this would be the first time I would have to deal with a bigot directly, and I was not prepared.

She counted out my change, handed it to me and asked, in a friendlier tone than I expected, as if she legitimately just wanted to check: “You are a boy, right?”

And I hesitated for maybe half a second (”This town is way more dangerous ground than uni, But you’re out of here within the next thirty seconds anyway, and this is the least painful way to get to the end of this exchange, so fuck it, you can bluff being cis.”), before I gave a nod (which, in retrospect, probably looked a little too enthusiastic and relieved for plausible deniability, but what can you do when social anxiety rules your brain). And she smiled and nodded, and I thought the exchange was over, but then she said:

“You know, there is someone coming in here every now and then, looks like a boy but is actually a girl.”

And I kinda stood there like... 'huh?', and I didn’t say anything to that, just took my pizza, nodded, said “Thank you” and disappeared onto the street.

The reason I write this post is... Like, I know how that last sentence sounds? But I’m telling you, I’m telling you, her smile was so warm and nice, I legit think she was being affirming. I don’t know if she was talking about a gnc woman or a trans woman (or both?), but I am quite certain she wasn’t talking about someone like me. And I am that certain, because... because she kept smiling at me like that, warm and friendly, even as my stupid voice cracked on the first syllable of “Thank you”. See... I think she knew, and I think she wanted to be nice and not assume, and so she just asked me, and then tried to reassure me, and...

And...

Well. Do you know The Grin? If you're trans, you most certainly do, and if you're cis... I guess it depends.

The Grin is a thing that happens when gender euphoria happens. It spreads across your face, and you can't stop it, you can't escape it, and it will stay there, it will stay and you will grin like a fucking idiot ("like a honey-cake horse", if you're German (gods, how I hate that phrase)), and it is the most wonderful thing in the whole world.

I was grinning like that all the way to the car, and for a good while after, and as I am typing this now, it is coming back to tug on my face yet again. Honestly, I'm kind of suprised I even made it to the car, because it wasn't just my face that had to yield to the joy. My whole body felt light as a fucking feather, my legs were half-way to jello by the time I got to sit down again, my chest felt like I could breathe fully and freely for the first time in millenia, and the whole time, I was feeling like I was a kid again, like nothing was wrong in the world, like magic was real and I alone got to see it.

The world is good, sometimes.

The world is good.

I'm awesome, actually, that's why I love everyone at this exact moment

randomly came across your jindo post & just wanted to say smornty is so handsome! 🥰 ty for posting him!

thank you, bless you, have a wonderful dayyyy! The world is good.

happy new years everyone!

sometimes, you meet nice people online

I don’t know if he knows, but seeing markiplier struggle but still try to learn korean is very comforting as someone who struggles to learn their family’s native tongue

cant tell you how bad it feels to constantly tell other artists to come to tumblr, because its the last good website that isn't fucked up by spoonfeeding algorithms and AI bullshit and isn't based around meaningless likes

just to watch that all fall apart in the last year or so and especially the last two weeks

there's nowhere good to go anymore for artists.

edit - a lot of people are saying the tags are important so actually, you'll look at my tags.

#please dont delete your accounts because of the AI crap. your art deserves more than being lost like that #if you have a good PC please glaze or nightshade it. if you dont or it doesnt work with your style (like mine) please start watermarking #use a plain-ish font. make it your username. if people can't google what your watermark says and find ur account its not a good watermark #it needs to be central in the image - NOT on the canvas edges - and put it in multiple places if you are compelled #please dont stop posting your art because of this shit. we just have to hope regulations will come slamming down on these shitheads#in the next year or two and you want to have accounts to come back to. the world Needs real art #if we all leave that just makes more room for these scam artists to fill in with their soulless recycled garbage #improvise adapt overcome. it sucks but it is what it is for the moment. safeguard yourself as best you can without making #years of art from thousands of artists lost media. the digital world and art is too temporary to hastily click a Delete button out of spite

❤❤❤ (tweet ❤)

The manga industry, especially JUMP, needs to hurry up and do away with weekly scheduling for mangaka. There needs to better regulations put into place for their health and safety because this is pitiful. Two weeks - monthly updates should’ve already been the standard for the manga industry at this point. These money grabbers will only continue to put the lives of these artists at stake for the sake of capitalism unless some serious changes are implemented.

the whole guilt-tripping language in posts about important topics paired with how I'm still getting bitches in my notes talking about why it's actually good to tell "bad" people to kill themselves continues to prove to me that a lot of people have absolutely no concept of social justice or activism outside of assuming the worst of and then viciously attacking strangers on the internet

Eating peanut butter crackers and orange juice rn Perhaps God is still looking after us, or perhaps we have grown independent enough to survive without him.