blueguyorgirl

[blueguyorgirl]

Hey guysss!!

I'm going on hiatus for a few months for academic reasons.

See y'all in a bit!!

[blueguyorgirl]

[blueguyorgirl]

online communities are so strange because people slip away so easily. you can be on here for years, folding people you've never met into the fabric of your daily life, and then they disappear, leaving only ghost posts scattered across tumblr behind. or their blog stays dormant, for weeks, months, years, until you're only still following them because you remember that they love sunflowers or they were kind to you when they didn't have to be or the last thing they posted was sad and raw and you still worry about them sometimes.

and sometimes they come back when you least expect it, years later, even, and there's this sudden rush of relief like there you are, there you are, even though you barely knew each other.

there's a strange kind of love to it. i don't know you and i want to hold your hand across miles and time zones and oceans. i can still see the imprint of you in this community you left. you don't anyone will notice or care when you're gone, but we notice and we care and we wish you well.

i hope you're all okay out there. i hope the sun is shining on your face and you are breathing deeply. i miss you.

[blueguyorgirl]

Photographers all know about polarizing filters. They remove reflections off the surfaces of objects. We use them to see into water or windows that are obscured by those reflections. But anything with an even slightly glossy surface has a layer of reflection on top. So if you have a shiny green plant, it can remove the shiny and reveal a very saturated green underneath. Polarizers also remove a lot of scattered and reflected light from the sky. Which reveals a deep blue color you didn't even know was there.

Here is a photo I took of my circular polarizer.

And the first thing I noticed when walking outside during the eclipse was the color of everything was more saturated, just like in that circle. Apparently, an eclipse significantly reduces polarized light and I got this creepy feeling because I was only ever used to seeing the world like that through the viewfinder of my camera.

The other thing I noticed was my outdoor lights. I leave them on all the time because I never remember to turn them on at night. And usually the sun will render them barely visible during the day. On a very sunny day they almost look like they are off.

But you can clearly see they are shining and even flaring the camera during the eclipse.

Our eyes adjust to lighting changes very well so it was hard to tell how much dimmer things were, but that is a good indication. I took this photo a few minutes ago and you can see how dim the lights appear after the moon has fucked off.

I did a calculation using the exposure settings between these two photos. The non-eclipse photo has 7 f-stops more light. That is 128 times or 12,700% more light.

A partial Pringle eclipse cut the sun's light by 99.2% and somehow our eyes adjusted to make it seem like a normal sunny day (with weird ass saturated colors).

[blueguyorgirl]

death will not do us part you stupid cunt

[blueguyorgirl]

picture this, i give you a glass bottle and tell you to open it, but bottle openers are forbidden, how do you do it?

[blueguyorgirl]

Oppression of Love (Can I fight for my freedom?)

Keerti’s father gripped her hand tightly, as if scared she’d run away (Where would she run to?). The wedding drums sounded like funeral music. The blessings, like knives, stabbed her heart. She felt like she was a boat floating in a foggy sea; lost and alone.

Her father sat her down on a chair, and after a while she stared into the potted water and the face of her groom. He was handsome, but nothing could compare to Varali. Her only love. Her greatest regret.

Keeri remembered the day they met like it was yesterday. How they bumped into each other on navratri, how she danced and swayed in the band’s music, how the kind hand that she accepted was so, so soft. They were created to heal, to protect.

Arjun’s hand was rough, filled with scars and built to hurt. When they held hands around the fire, Arjun pulling her along as she stared at the tied cloth connecting them like a chain around her hands.

When Varali had never pulled her, only held her hand as Keerti led her through the market stalls, wary of any white officers guarding the edges of the place. Her lover would whisper to her dreams of a free Bharat, a whole Bharat, where they could live freely, without the oppression of the White Men of the West. Where they could love each other freely, without fear of death.

But it was still a time of revolt and oppression and blood and death. If Keerti couldn’t find the courage to fight against her own marriage, how could she hope to fight for her country’s freedom?

She took the garland in hand and placed it around her husband’s neck, imagining her lover in his place for just a second. The illusion vanished when he placed the garland around her neck. It felt like a noose, cutting off her breathing. Keerti wonders if this is how Varali felt in her final moments.

The carriage ride to the mansion was agonisingly long. Her ‘husband’ gripped her hand tight. She stared into the the distance, imagining her late lover’s eyes as they landed on her standing among the crowd. Her face covered by cloth, and her final cry of “Jai Hind!”.

Keerti was pulled back into reality by someone shaking her shoulders. She was there at the doorframe of the house, the tamba of rice in front of her, waiting.

So she put her right foot forward, and toppled the tamba-

And toppled off the roof.

White Rice spilled onto the floor-

Red blood soaked the grass.

Arjun smiled at her face.

She could see Varali’s eyes.

She was finally home.

She was finally free.

~~~

{Would you believe me if I told you I made this for a school assignment from my IT teacher?

It was a proxy period and she told us to make stories and tell them in class. I told her I could make her a story but I’d need time. That night I watched ‘Ae Watan” and got inspired. It wasn’t even supposed to be angst.

She has never bothered me when I sleep during class till date. I should totally do this to all my teachers.}

[blueguyorgirl]

Made the worst brownies ever created just now

[blueguyorgirl]

My only flaw as an Indian is that I rebel and speak out against what I see is unfair. That I dare raise my voice against the Education System which churns out robots or corpses every year, and that I refuse to follow fucked up, misogynistic traditions.

My only flaw as a good Hindu daughter is that I'm sometimes a son, sometimes a daughter, and sometimes just a child suffering silently in pain. Lucky enough to be born to Parents who don't enforce religion, don't judge any other religion, and have never taught me to do so, but my fatal flaw is that I HAVE no religion, for EVERYONE must have faith in some deity they deem worthy of trust, right?

My greatest flaw in living in India is I thought I could make a change. Forever gave up the chance to leave this country and go study in the US like the countless Sharma Ji Ke Bete, for the sake of staying here and trying to make a change.

And yet when I say I dream of changing the outlook, I am hit with meaningless opinions from ungrateful people who would never once hesitate to leave the country and run away from their problems. When I say I want to join the armed forces for a good cause, a good reason, I am hit with backlash, I am a woman after all. We have no seat at the table that makes decisions for the country, that fights for the country, that has the power to make a change.

And as injustice spreads like the plague, killing my fellow students, my fellow men and women, my trans siblings, brothers and sisters, my queer friends, my fellow REBELS, all I can do is watch. Powerless. If I wait for a miracle, all I will get is decay and destruction. If I take a stand now, I will be brushed off like an insect because what good could an 18 year old middle-class girl do, she hasn't even finished college!

I guess, ultimately, my fatal flaw as an Indian is that I'm not a rich man with political influence.

But I will use what little influence I have on this app, to call out to my fellow Indians. Whether you're straight or gay, cis or trans, man or woman, a student whose friends are killing themselves out of extreme pressure, or a corporate worker unhappy and dissatisfied with their job, please, I implore you.

Stand.

Don't be just another person who lived and died, lost to the pages of history. Rebel, take a stand against the injustices you see in this nation, and fight.

For my sake, and yours.

But hey, to the next person who reads this, enough about me.

What about you?

My only flaw as an Indian is to think too much, know too much. My only flaw to being a good Hindu daughter is that I’m bisexual, that I sympathize with muslims, that I speak up about the darkness of the world.

My greatest flaw living in India is my imagination, my thoughts. I cannot think of the outside world for a second until my head is shoved towards my maths textbook. I cannot express my opinions without being seen as a stupid child.

I loath the children in the streets who see not the bigger picture. I feel jealousy crawling up my spine as I look at my classmates praised for their grades behind which they hide their animalistic behavior.

All I can do is ignore and bear it, remind myself every time I look in the newspapers that speak of war and devastation in far lands that there are people out there suffering more than me- how dare I pity myself? I should study, finish the Marathi homework I must give in two weeks. Yet how can my mind focus when all I can see is suffering and tragedy and pain?

I am stuck in a loop and I can’t get out. I am told to think when I get older, but by then I know it’s too late. If i wait i’ll be blinded by bias. If I wait, I’ll be married off to a random boy my parents deem ‘hindu’ enough for me.

But enough about me, what about you?

[blueguyorgirl]

[blueguyorgirl]

Wow wtf HIV/AIDS was discovered by Flossie Wong-Staal, an Chinese-American woman, and she’s the reason the HIV test even exists. AND THEN she invented the molecular knife that lead to treatments for HIV/AIDS. And she’s STILL ALIVE. We don’t hear about the contributions of Women of Color enough, my word. Madness.

[blueguyorgirl]

[blueguyorgirl]

that comment about how you should not borrow grief from the future has saved me multiple times from spiraling into an inescapable state of anxiety. like every time i find myself thinking about how something in the future could go wrong i remember that comment and i think to myself: well i never know, it might get better. it might not even happen the way i think it will and if it does happen and it is sad and bad ill be sad about it then, when it happens. and it’s somehow soo freeing

[blueguyorgirl]

I fucking hate James Tissot’s paintings because in ALL OF THEM there is ALWAYS someone staring right at you, but it’s not always immediately visible. You just feel watched by this mf. Sometimes the little shit is right there at the centre, but others the bastard is just gazing from the distance, it is CREEPY, my guys

[blueguyorgirl]

Throwback to when I took painkillers and woke up with Photoshop open on my computer to this image I had made

[blueguyorgirl]

i feel like we as a society don’t talk about this enough

[blueguyorgirl]

i can't padhai anymore