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Met an old teacher today and we got talking about ‘the good old times’ and ten minutes into the conversation I jokingly said the one regret I have from middle school is that I never won anything at her magnificent tombolas? Because, like, she used to hold this game about once a month so we’d learn the numbers in French and it was never big prizes, but as a 12-yo I desperately craved them - a cactus-shaped eraser, a bright blue notebook with slightly larger-than-usual squares, a set of coloured pens - and never ever got a single one of them. 

(Actually spent a good few months thinking I was genetically unlucky and researching ancient family curses with my grandma.) 

So today I don’t know what I was hoping for - nothing, really?

(I mean, that part of me that’s still twelve was probably expecting this sweet old woman to have a set of glitter stickers in her purse and just go ‘You know what, you’re right - I’ve been saving this one for you all these years, here you go’ but I’m a solidly rational person and I know that’s stupid.)

No, I thought we’d just laugh and it would be a good shared memory and that would be it. Instead, my teacher got flustered and a bit embarrassed and explained the game was rigged. It was never about learning French at all. She’d just noticed some kids couldn’t afford even basic stationery, so she’d buy a few half-fancy items every month with her own money just for them. She didn’t want them to feel different or left out. And obviously the way she used to walk around in the classroom, looking over our shoulders - it wasn’t to prevent cheating. It was because she was cheating herself, wanting to see which number a particular child needed to get a Minnie Mouse pencil case.

Guys - the world is fucked up, but so many people out there are just good and kind and humbly heroic it honestly gives me hope. 

It’ll be alright, you’ll see.

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Hey friend! If you want a non-abridged, audio version of the Journey to the West, may I recommend the audio drama by the Fifth Monkey? They're doing their own translation of the original text (with production notes and historical context for patrons!), and the narrator is Chinese so you get the correct pronunciations too. They're doing an amazing work! (Also I personally love the voice the narrator does for Wukong)

Just bear in mind it's a work in progress, they're currently on chapter 26, and putting out a new episode every 2 or 3 weeks.

https://open.spotify.com/show/5tNkEI7tYMlfawg2nrFZXI?si=zfD7r3fET0eoUIgYIyRk6g

OH MY GOSH THANK YOU, THAT'S AMAZING! 人´∀｀)

That's exactly what I need to go start filling in all the gaps from the abridged version I've been listening to! It's been killing me a bit -- I settled on the abridged when I figured that, eh, it's easy to get and should be good enough to introduce me to Classical Literature. But now that I've fallen in love with the stories and characters I've been kicking myself over missing out on so many adventures 😭 What do you mean my new blorbos have been going on fun little quests that I KNOW NOTHING ABOUT??? plus learning the proper pronunciation would be very nice since they currently exist in my brain as a jumble of anglicized names and my own awkward attempts at sounding the chinese names out...

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by @beetlemoses

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A trans woman was just sentenced to 15 years in prison for defending herself from an attacker. She wanted no part in the fight and witnesses described her actions as self-defense. With right-wing media constantly portraying her as "evil" since the incident, the trial was over before it began.

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Ideas are cooking for my pride outfit.

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Happy Pride!

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THEY MIGHT HAVE FIGURED OUT WHATS CAUSING LONG COVID?!?!???

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Pride 2025

These Colors Don't Run!

this Pride remember your roots, fight the fuck back, remember your allies and friends and don't get distracted.

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hot artists don't gatekeep

I've been resource gathering for YEARS so now I am going to share my dragons hoard

Floorplanner. Design and furnish a house for you to use for having a consistent background in your comic or anything! Free, you need an account, easy to use, and you can save multiple houses.

Comparing Heights. Input the heights of characters to see what the different is between them. Great for keeping consistency. Free.

Magma. Draw online with friends in real time. Great for practice or hanging out. Free, paid plan available, account preferred.

Smithsonian Open Access. Loads of free images. Free.

SketchDaily. Lots of pose references, massive library, is set on a timer so you can practice quick figure drawing. Free.

SculptGL. A sculpting tool which I am yet to master, but you should be able to make whatever 3d object you like with it. free.

Pexels. Free stock images. And the search engine is actually pretty good at pulling up what you want.

Figurosity. Great pose references, diverse body types, lots of "how to draw" videos directly on the site, the models are 3d and you can rotate the angle, but you can't make custom poses or edit body proportions. Free, account option, paid plans available.

Line of Action. More drawing references, this one also has a focus on expressions, hands/feet, animals, landscapes. Free.

Animal Photo. You pose a 3d skull model and select an animal species, and they give you a bunch of photo references for that animal at that angle. Super handy. Free.

Height Weight Chart. You ever see an OC listed as having a certain weight but then they look Wildly different than the number suggests? Well here's a site to avoid that! It shows real people at different weights and heights to give you a better idea of what these abstract numbers all look like. Free to use.

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my utopia

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White people love to be like "I avoid Black people because I'm scared I'll accidentally be racist to them" and think it's 1) somehow not racist to do this 2) a normal thing to do and admit

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“Dude are you being stupid on purpose”?

— Jake The Dog, Adventure Time

new reaction image

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I am spoiling the live action Lilo & Stitch. And I am doing it up front and plainly.

Do not fucking see this movie. Do not waste your money on this. Period.

They made Nani give Lilo up to the American government. They made Nani LEAVE Hawaii and pursue being a marine biologist. They made a native Hawaiian character give up her sibling to pursue a dream that she originally did not have. This is imperialist propaganda at its FINEST.

The original fucking movie is about family staying together. It's about indigenous people being able to stay with each other and stay in their home and be together! That's the whole fucking point! Nani is Lilo's last living relative on her homeland—it is jarring, it is disgusting and disturbing that Nani would not only leave her last blood relative alone, give her up to the very government that is harming native Hawaiians TODAY, but also travel to the "mainland" for her dream!

Not to mention, Nani's actress isn't fucking Hawaiian. She's much paler in photos and real life. They fucking darkened her for this movie.

Don't even get me started on the transgender subtext of Pleakley's "human" disguise from the original movie being completely erased in favor of him being played by a regular ass white man. Jumba doesn't have his accent, they made him more villainous, and his "human" disguise is a non-fat white man—which part of his original joke, I know, is that he was bigger and was more clumsy in the movie because of his size, but to have the main shape of his character completely removed is also fucking weird.

This live action movie is a desecration to the original. I encourage you to not see it, please. Don't give Disney any of your money on this one. Just watch the original. Please just watch the original.

The new message in the live action movie is disturbing and gross.

This is one of the most disrespectful live actions I've seen and heard of. I implore you to not watch it.

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I hate these motherfuckers and I hate everybody whose actions contributed in any way whatsoever to how we got here. None of this bullshit needs to be happening and none of it would be if enough people had pulled their heads out of their asses on or before November 5, 2024.