CriqueduTurtle

A blog dedicated to circus and turtles, because really what could be more badass then circus and turtles… Maybe turtles doing circus, or circus doing turtles…. That sounded wrong.

[minaa-munch]

A Misunderstanding

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The misunderstanding begins at the gates of the Land of Tea, beneath a sky the pale blue of watered silk.

The road has spent the better part of the afternoon winding through steep green hills, where tea bushes march down the slopes in clipped, orderly rows and workers in broad straw hats move between them with baskets strapped to their backs. The air smells of wet earth, woodsmoke and crushed leaves: sharp, clean and faintly bitter on the tongue.

Kakashi walks beside Minato with his hands tucked into his sleeves, looking profoundly unimpressed by the beauty of the countryside. At fourteen, he has already mastered the particular expression of a shinobi who suspects scenery is merely an ambush with better lighting.

“Lovely, isn’t it?” Minato asks.

Kakashi’s visible eye travels over the hills, the distant river and the tiled estate rising beyond a pale stone wall.

“There are archers on the eastern roof.”

Minato glances at him. “Try not to assess our hosts as potential enemies before we meet them.”

“I assessed the bridge too.”

“Of course you did.”

“It has structural weaknesses.”

The estate gates swing open before Minato can explain that diplomacy generally requires observing things other than how efficiently they might be destroyed.

Minister Daichi comes down the broad front steps to greet them, wrapped in green silk embroidered with gold tea leaves. He is a cheerful, round-faced man with the expansive manner of someone who has never once doubted that a room will welcome him. Behind him, officials, guards and household attendants wait in precise rows while an elderly woman in plum coloured robes watches from the veranda with the bright-eyed concentration of a person already assembling several rumors.

Daichi bows deeply.

“Lord Fourth. The Land of Tea is honoured by your presence.”

Minato returns the bow and gestures toward Kakashi.

“This is Kakashi---”

“Your son,” Daichi finishes warmly.

Minato pauses. Kakashi looks up at him.

There is no resemblance between them that could survive even modest scrutiny. Minato is fair haired, blue eyed and currently wearing the patient smile of a man trying to prevent an international incident before tea. Kakashi has silver hair, one dark eye and the wary posture of a child who has already counted every weapon in the courtyard.

The only trait they visibly share is a habit of checking exits upon entering unfamiliar places, which shinobi generally do not consider hereditary.

“How admirable,” Daichi continues, clasping his hands. “The Hokage brings his heir to witness the work of governance.”

Minato falters, “He is actually---”

“A great honour, Lord Kakashi,” says one of the officials.

Kakashi’s eye sharpens. Minato (unfortunately) knows that look. He has seen it before bell tests, minor thefts and every occasion upon which Obito has made the catastrophic mistake of saying, You wouldn’t dare.

Kakashi inclines his head with grave courtesy.

“The honour is mine.”

Minato turns slowly toward him.

Daichi beams. “Such composure. Just like his father.”

Kakashi is already standing a fraction straighter, as though he has spent his entire life preparing to inherit a country he learned existed yesterday.

“He is my student,” Minato manages.

Daichi’s expression softens.

“How fortunate,” he says. “For both of you.”

And that is how Kakashi becomes his son before they have crossed the courtyard.

The title follows him indoors with astonishing efficiency. A servant escorts Lord Kakashi to the room adjoining Minato’s. Another arrives carrying a ceremonial sash reserved for the immediate family of visiting dignitaries: deep green silk woven with silver branches, soft enough to gleam whenever Kakashi moves.

He allows the attendant to fasten it around his waist with the solemn dignity of a clan heir being dressed for his first council session.

Minato leans against the doorway.

“You are enjoying this.”

“It would be discourteous to reject a local custom.”

“You rejected a medal last month.”

“The ribbon was orange.”

“That was not the official reason.”

“It should have been.”

The attendant presses her lips together, though her shoulders tremble.

“Lord Kakashi will be seated beside his father at tonight’s banquet,” she says.

Kakashi inclines his head as if this has always been the natural order of the world. Once she leaves, Minato folds his arms.

“Lord Kakashi?”

“I didn't invent the title.”

“You accepted it with suspicious speed.”

“I was being diplomatic.”

^/----^/----^/----^/----^/----^/----^/----^/----^/----^/----^/

The banquet hall opens onto the river, its paper screens folded back to admit the evening breeze. Lanterns sway beneath the dark beams, casting warm gold over low lacquered tables crowded with grilled fish, glossy rice, pickled vegetables and little cakes shaped like tea blossoms.

Kakashi is seated at Minato’s right on a cushion noticeably finer than those assigned to the actual escort detail. Lady Hana, Daichi’s wife, takes one look at him and decides that the Hokage has been starving his only child.

“You are much too thin,” she says, placing a generous piece of river fish on his plate.

Kakashi lowers his eye with exquisite modesty.

Minato narrows his.

“Don't encourage her.”

Lady Hana adds candied plums. Kakashi accepts them with the subdued fortitude of an orphan finally encountering competent guardianship.

The effect upon their hosts is immediate. Lady Hana begins asking how often he trains, whether he sleeps enough and why his father permits him to look so tired.

Minato reaches for his tea.

“He always looks like that.”

Kakashi turns toward her. “He says that instead of addressing the problem.”

Minato nearly inhales his drink. Lady Hana gives him a reproachful look.

“Kakashi.”

“He works late as well,” Kakashi continues.

“You are changing the subject.”

“He forgets meals.”

“I do not forget meals.”

“You once ate cold rice over a patrol report at midnight.”

“That was dinner.”

“That was despair with chopsticks.”

Daichi laughs so loudly that one of the attendants startles. Lady Hana immediately orders additional food sent to Minato’s room.

The conversation shifts toward trade, but Kakashi has already understood the tactical advantages of filial status. He answers every question politely, speaks only when addressed and permits the assembled officials to interpret his silence as extraordinary discipline rather than the careful calculation of how many sweets he can acquire before Minato intervenes.

“Have you inherited your father’s speed?” Daichi asks.

“No,” Kakashi says. “Only his paperwork.”

Minato sets down his cup.

“You have never completed my paperwork.”

“I have watched you suffer through it.”

“That is not inheritance.”

“It has shaped me.”

Lady Hana laughs and gives him another rice cake. From there, Kakashi begins testing the outer limits of family privilege.

He asks whether the Hokage’s son may visit the private gardens.

A guide appears.

He asks whether young dignitaries are traditionally shown the tea vaults.

A curator is summoned.

He asks whether ceremonial desserts may be sampled before formal service.

An entire tray arrives.

“Kakashi,” Minato murmurs as the third honey dumpling disappears behind the mask, “you are exploiting a misunderstanding.”

“I am participating in the local culture.”

“You asked three separate officials whether visiting families receive gifts.”

“I wanted reliable information.”

“You are extorting a sovereign territory.”

Kakashi considers this with appropriate seriousness.

“Politely.”

The rumors begin by breakfast. One servant believes Kakashi was adopted after a heroic battlefield incident. Another insists the Hatake are a distant branch of the Namikaze line whose children are born silver haired as a protective adaptation.

By noon, the elderly woman from the veranda has developed an elaborate theory that Kakashi’s hair is simply in the process of becoming blond like his father’s.

“He is only fourteen,” she explains to Lady Hana behind a painted screen, unaware that Kakashi is standing on the other side. “These transformations take time.”

Kakashi touches his hair thoughtfully while Minato pinches the bridge of his nose.

“Do not.”

“I said nothing.”

“You were considering it.”

“I was wondering how long the process usually takes.”

“Never.”

The elderly courtier continues. “Perhaps by sixteen.”

Kakashi looks at Minato. “That gives us two years.”

By afternoon, the story has acquired several more respectable details. The mask is now a traditional Namikaze coming-of-age garment. Kakashi’s dark eye is expected to turn blue once his chakra settles. His silver hair is evidence of delayed paternal colouring.

One adviser, who has clearly never met a shinobi child before, asks whether Minato was also this quiet at fourteen.

“No,” Kakashi says. “He was probably exhausting.”

Minato looks at him.

“You have no evidence.”

“I have met you.”

Minato makes three separate attempts to correct the household. Each fails because Daichi wants to discuss tariffs, Lady Hana wants Kakashi to eat another bowl of rice, and an elderly official urgently wishes to explain that Lord Kakashi’s blond transformation may begin at the roots.

Meanwhile, the gifts arrive before the formal negotiations begin. A lacquered tea box sits outside Kakashi’s room beside carved chopsticks, a folded silk haori and enough imported sweets to compromise Obito’s moral character from several hundred miles away.

Kakashi crouches beside them with the quiet satisfaction of a hunter who has successfully stalked ceremonial hospitality.

“This is excessive,” Minato says.

“The Land of Tea is generous.”

“You manipulated an entire household.”

“They acted voluntarily.”

“You implied I do not feed you.”

Kakashi lifts the lid of the tea box. “You work late.”

“I don't neglect you.”

Kakashi’s hand stills against the polished wood. The humor thins between them so suddenly that even the sound of the river below seems to sharpen.

Minato had said it lightly. The words land with more weight than intended. Kakashi does not look up. He begins sorting the sweets into two neat piles, precise and deliberate, as though the distribution of candied fruit has become a matter of national security.

“I know,” he says quietly.

Minato lowers himself onto the veranda beside him. Kakashi pushes the smaller pile across the boards.

“Your share.”

Minato looks down. “Why is mine smaller?”

“You have an adult salary.”

“I am also apparently your father.”

Kakashi considers this, then transfers one sweet to Minato’s pile.

“Parental allowance.”

Minato takes another.

“That one was mine.”

“You inherited my generosity.”

Kakashi stares at him for a beat before a small huff escapes behind the mask. It is not quite a laugh, but Minato has known him long enough to count it.

^/----^/----^/----^/----^/----^/----^/----^/----^/----^/----^/

Later that morning, Daichi announces that the household painter would be honoured to commemorate the visit with a portrait.

Minato tries to decline but Kakashi is already following the attendant into the garden.

The painter places them beneath a flowering plum tree beside the river, where the branches bend beneath clouds of pale blossoms. Petals drift over the grass and catch against Minato’s white cloak, along Kakashi’s shoulders and in the sharp silver spikes of his hair.

The painter studies them with mounting dissatisfaction.

“Lord Kakashi,” he says, “stand nearer your father.”

Kakashi moves half a step.

“Nearer.”

Another half-step brings his shoulder against Minato’s arm. The contact is slight, but Kakashi stiffens beneath it. In an instant, the jōnin, the prodigy and the opportunistic young dignitary all fall away, leaving a fourteen year old boy who does not quite know what to do when affection is offered publicly and without cost.

Minato shifts just enough for their shoulders to settle together more naturally.

The painter beams. “Perfect. Though I imagine the resemblance will be clearer once the young lord’s hair completes its transformation.”

Kakashi’s eye curves. Minato looks toward the branches overhead for patience.

“Do you have an estimate?” Kakashi asks.

“Perhaps sixteen,” the painter says confidently.

“I’ll inform my team.”

The moment survives because Minato laughs, helpless and warm, and after a second Kakashi’s shoulder relaxes against his arm.

^/----^/----^/----^/----^/----^/----^/----^/----^/----^/----^/

During the negotiations, Kakashi sits at Minato’s right hand with the green sash still wrapped around his waist. The mischief recedes beneath his attention. He studies the maps, tracks every figure and listens to the advisers with the calm focus he usually reserves for battle plans.

When one official proposes that Konoha assume responsibility for protecting the southern trade road without receiving authority over local patrol routes, Kakashi writes a sentence and slides it beneath Minato’s hand.

They want us blamed for failures they will not let us prevent.

Minato reads it once then proposes a counter-measure.

The revised agreement grants Konoha joint authority over the route and divides the cost of additional patrols between both parties. Daichi resists, bargains, sighs dramatically and finally signs with the grave expression of a man who has lost money but retained his dignity.

When the ink dries, he turns toward Kakashi.

“You have served your father well, Lord Kakashi.”

Kakashi opens his mouth, perhaps to offer another clever answer but Minato speaks first.

“He always does.”

Kakashi goes very quiet.

There is ample room for correction.

Neither of them uses it.

^/----^/----^/----^/----^/----^/----^/----^/----^/----^/----^/

By the time they leave the Land of Tea, the estate has agreed upon several immutable facts: Lord Kakashi is Minato’s son; the fact was probably concealed for security reasons; silver hair is a temporary Namikaze adolescent condition; and all future correspondence should be addressed to the Hokage and his esteemed heir.

The elderly courtier personally assures Kakashi that she expects the blond to come in beautifully.

“I’ll remain vigilant,” he tells her.

Minato walks faster.

^/----^/----^/----^/----^/----^/----^/----^/----^/----^/----^/

Obito and Rin are waiting at Konoha’s gates when they return. The late sun has turned the village walls honey-gold, and the road is crowded with shinobi returning from patrol, merchants dragging handcarts and children chasing one another between the adults.

Obito spots the sash first.

“What are you wearing?”

“Diplomatic attire,” Kakashi replies.

Rin notices the lacquered box under his arm. “Did they give you presents?”

“Kakashi was mistaken for my son,” Minato explains.

Obito stares.

“For the whole mission?”

“There was no appropriate opportunity to correct them,” Kakashi says.

“You were gone for four days!”

“The schedule was crowded.”

Obito peers into the box and catches sight of the sweets. His outrage deepens into something nearly spiritual.

“You got gifts because they thought you were Hokage-sensei’s son?”

“Lord Kakashi,” Kakashi corrects.

Rin covers her mouth.

“That is cheating!”

“It is diplomacy.”

“You’re not even his family!”

The words leave Obito before he has time to examine them.

Kakashi stops. The movement is small, but the air around them seems to still. The gate noise carries on - the calls of vendors, the clatter of sandals against stone, the rattle of wheels - but for a moment it feels distant.

Obito’s face changes at once and Rin's smile fades. Minato steps forward and rests his hand against the back of Kakashi’s head.

The gesture is brief and familiar, gentle enough not to become a spectacle.

“He is,” Minato says.

Kakashi goes perfectly still beneath his palm. Then, because there are limits to how much tenderness he can endure in a public roadway, he ducks away and begins walking into the village with suspicious speed.

“He also abused the misunderstanding shamelessly,” Minato adds.

“I upheld Konoha’s diplomatic interests,” Kakashi calls back.

“You asked for ceremonial sweets.”

“They were offered.”

Obito tears after him, demanding a share. Rin follows at a calmer pace, rolling her eyes once, and Minato watches the three of them disappear into the evening crowd.

^/----^/----^/----^/----^/----^/----^/----^/----^/----^/----^/

The finished portrait arrives three weeks later.

Kakashi examines it in Minato’s office with the severe professional scrutiny of a man evaluating enemy intelligence. The painter has captured the river, the drifting blossoms and the precise moment Kakashi’s shoulder rests against Minato’s arm.

“They made you too tall,” Kakashi says.

“That is perspective.”

“My hair looks strange.”

“Your hair always looks like that.”

“It's the shiny kind of silver.”

Minato looks at him. “Was it supposed to be blond by now?”

Kakashi’s eye curves.

The larger portrait remains in Minato’s office.

A smaller copy appears in Kakashi’s apartment soon afterward, resting beside the folded green sash and the lacquered tea box.

No one asks where he got it.

No one asks why he keeps it.

[baatjr-deactivated20150830]

yes teenage girls can be dramatic and wild but honestly have u ever even seen what happens when u tell a grown man ‘no’

[whaile]

late summer / early fall thoughts

[futileexercise]

[cirqueduturtle]

Lindsey grandma is dead.. honestly I expected more crabs. Come on Tumblr we're better than this.

[beardedmrbean]

they used to let kids have real fun

[afriendofblahaj]

There's an xkcd for that :3

Side note: polonium-210 is a very dangerous isotope, however it "does not pose a radiation hazard when kept outside the body", as the alpha particle it emits have very little penetration power and cannot pierce even the outer layers of dead skin. It has still killed countless people, though, not because of children's rings, but because of tobacco. Polonium latches onto and concentrates in tobacco leaves, leading to heavy smokers being exposed to more radiation than survivors of the Chernobyl disaster.

It's always wild to me seeing comments about different toxins like this on information about random things in the past, but it's never discussed when it comes to cigarettes.

[stardustandtea]

Adding a relevant source on the polonium-210 in tobacco and how the industry tried to keep it quiet

[itsexclusive]

[artdetrump]

[notsorryiml8]

Happy Summer!

*this was a labor of love inspired by a friend who said, in Part 1, if his hair is THAT high, it'd be a LOT longer...

[verymarykate]

Parenting in the 80's Part 1 with Jenn Marsala

[glendathegoodone]

[awesome-bluehair-universe]

In case you writers ever wondered. Made by Carrie Patrick on Facebook.

[saybyebus]

The object comparisons are things of an equivalent weight, not things you can cut with the swords. Just saying so to preemptively stop cursed comments.

[grandgobbobarb]

Like a claymore it takes two hands to properly wield a baby

[poneystoney]

REBLOG IF YOU'RE 40 OR OLDER :)

Let people know you're here!!

[thekhoolhaus]

25 years ago an unknown Chinese protester stood in front of a tank in defiance of the government. No one knows the identity of the man but he was given the nick name “Tank Man”. This is one of the most iconic photographs of the century.

[fluffynexu]

It’s actually been 27 years now since the incident known as the Tiananmen Square Massacre occurred. The picture above, famously referred to as “The Tank Man” was actually taken on June 5, the day after the massacre. (Which honestly makes him the one of the bravest person, to go back and stand up to a regime after such a terrible event transpired)

So what happened? I’m gonna give the TL;DR version:

April 15, 1989. Hu Yaobang, a former Communist Party Chief dies.

Many people, including  workers, laborer, students and some officials come to mourn. You see, those protestors were originally there to mourn, not protest.

Time passed and there were some hunger strikes, and protests, and a call for accountability and reform from the government.

Eventually, things went south, because the communist party doesn’t have time to deal with these sorts of “demands” and grievances.

Keep in mind, the people wanted not the end of the Communist Party, but for the party to stop with the official corruption, rule of law, and the gross monopoly of information and power.

Incidentally, China still suffers from all of these SAME problems to this day…

June 3, 1989. The massacre started at night to disperse the crowd. Many were shot, wounded, and killed.

June 4, 1989. Some of the parents of the protestors who never came home went looking for them. It was still total mayhem.

June 5, 1989. The iconic image of the tank man was taken. To this day, no one knows what became of this person.

Content Warning for video: blood

“Tell the world…”

I cannot stress how important it is that people remember and know about this event. Do you know how China responded? With lies and censorship.

Even now, in 2016, we do not have an official death toll on the Tiananmen Square Massacre, the Chinese government doesn’t even acknowledge the event as a “massacre”. And they weaves these cover stories of “counter revolutionaries trying to overthrow the government”. Therefore, the violence was necessary to ~protect~ the people. (Or some bullshit like that)

The amount of lying and censorship in China is, quite frankly, scary amazing. Tumblr, which somehow managed to fly under their radar, found itself being blocked in that country.

After all, tell a lie often enough and it becomes the truth.

And those who remember the incident in China? …………well, you tell me.

Please at least REMEMBER this tragedy. Untold innocent lives were lost, and a nation has been fed a lie for almost three decades now from their oppressive af regime.

[learningtoacceptchange]

I have never seen this video before.

What the fucking hell.

What the hell.

[naanima]

Tiananmen Square happened when I was seven, and let’s just say children have a really interesting way of interpreting information.

I just remember thinking it was a happy event, because all these people were out on the street, and at first the army were interacting with these people. And it almost looked like a festival because people were singing and talking, and hopeful. And then tv coverage for the events got cut off.

The blocking of the live coverage had all the adults anxious, nobody said anything for ages, I just remember my grandmother saying, “Just be glad your father isn’t in China, now.”

And that stuck with me to this day. Because yeah, if dad had been in China then he would have been in Beijing studying, he would have been on those streets with those other students.

It was the first time I knew that something horrible had happened to all those people I saw on the television. I don’t even remember how I knew that the army must have shot at the civilians, I just knew. Because when you grow up in China, especially in the 80s you knew there were things you don’t say, that you can’t express in a public forum, because that can get you and your family in trouble. You just knew, and it didn’t fucking matter if your were a child or an adult.

To this day I don’t remember how I found out what happened in Tiananmen Square, because the news covered it up, but people found out. My grandparents knew, my uncles and aunts knew. Extended family visited my grandparents, I remember people telling my mother not to mention my father’s name because my father was a Chinese Beijing University graduate, who had gone overseas. Because there were people who died in the protests that my dad knew.

And it was all just so frightening because nobody was telling me directly what was happening, but I just knew that all the people on the streets was probably dead.

Looking back on it, Tiananmen Square instilled in a me a life long distrust of governments, but especially the Chinese government. I’m ethnically Chinese but I never want to return to China, not even for a holiday, and this has been my attitude even before Xi Jinping took power. Because Tiananmen Square was a peaceful protest that ended up with the army using heavy artillery against their own people. How can you trust in a system, in a government like that? Because if my dad had delayed further studies overseas by two years he would have been one of those students, one of those fucking kids on the streets that would have died.

And you know, when the Umbrella movement was happening in Hong Kong I was deeply panicked and just anxious because I kept on thinking all those people, all those kids are going to be killed. And when that didn’t happen it was such a relief.

When I found out years later that Chinese people a few years younger than me didn’t know what happened in Tiananmen Square I was so fucking angry. I can’t even articulate the rage and the sheer tiredness of it all.

Dad and I talked about Tiananmen Square a few times through the years, broadly, politically, and at times with sheer rage on dad’s part. I don’t even know what I wanted to say, but just fuck this fucking regime.

[potteresque-ire]

I was In Hong Kong when Tiananamen Square Massacre happened. Hong Kong was still a British colony then and had full freedom of press, and its reporters were there recording live footage while trying to stay as long as possible when tanks rolled in and shots were fired, when students lay in blood and their fellow students piled the injured bodies on those wooden plank carts to get them to the hospitals, while asking the Hong Kongers who were there to support the movement to please remember that night and spread the story of the massacre far and wide, because they already knew they would be silenced, if not imprisoned or murdered.

That night, and in the upcoming months, Hong Kong was in perpetual tears, and in literal shock.

Hong Kongers were mostly Chinese, just south of the border with people traveling back and forth. It also shared a language, and so HKers could follow the whole movement and hear news that western media had little access to without the distorting effect of translations. And they followed very closely, because by then, Hong Kong was already scheduled to be returned to China in 8 years time. How the Chinese government dealt with the movement would be a sign of how it’d treat dissent, how it’d treat people who’re used to the idea and practice of freedom.

What they saw was deadly. Ugly. It broke the hearts of millions of Hong Kongers who trusted that The Chinese Government had left its Great Leap Forward, its Cultural Revolution days behind. Those who could leave, left. Everyday the airport was filled with families about to be torn apart, who decided to trade the life they had in one of the richest, most vibrant and freest city at the time with the unknown, just so their own children would have the freedom to speak their minds, to have a higher education and not to be seen as the enemy of the state because higher education always led to independent thinking, to questioning, to asking for a better government as those university students in Beijing in the spring and summer of 1989 did.

The heartbreak and fear was almost palpable in its intensity. Most HKers were refugees from China or 1st generation of them. Unlike the HK youths now protesting who are more generations removed, they felt much more connected to the people in China. They still saw themselves as Chinese, like those students in Beijing. They mourned. They cried and cried and cried. They wore black or white everyday like it was the death of their closest relatives. TV stations played these Tiananmen Square clips all day. I can still play many of them out of my memory, can still recite what the students and government officials said (for example, they didn’t use tear gas because they only had three), the songs played — I know every word of China’s national anthem for that reason; the students were singing it. They were patriotic. They demanded reforms because they wanted their country to do better. 8964 was and still is, etched in my psyche. It is just one of the long list of atrocities this government has done against its people, but this one, I was close enough to feel it.

China censored the June 4th Massacre quickly and thoroughly — if you believe China has censored queer material, for example, I’d say this — the extent of that censorship is not even close to what a true China censorship does. A true Chinese censorship is you can’t find the info, or a hint of that info anywhere. You can’t talk about it in a roundabout away. You can’t change some elements of time/place/person and pretend it’s fictional. It would literally ban the numbers 8,9,6,4 from search results, even though the searcher may really be just be interested in the numbers themselves. Whoever speaks of it may be sent to the police station for a “discussion”; their family would be sent, if the speaker is outside China; the speaker may be arrested, and may never be seen again.

The western worlds pretended to be enraged about the massacre for a while and soon forgot about it, kept its diplomatic relations with China and did business with its government as usual. UK returned Hong Kong to China as scheduled, on July 1st, 1997. The city has been the only place that insisted on the mourning the victims and had done so insistently, consistently for 30 years, holding a yearly candlelight vigil in Victoria Park until this year, when because of the protests, the Chinese government decided to not even pretend to honour the international treaty they signed that promised HK its freedom until 2047 anymore. They shut the vigil down in the name of the pandemic (there were <10 cases/day then). Still, some people risked being arrested to go to Victoria park and lit their candles.

The Chinese government fears HKers for this reason. They are outside their iron curtain / firewall but have always been close enough geographically, culturally and ethnically to know and more so, to care. And there’s nothing more a government like China’s fear than people who insist on remembering the truth. With the National Security Law in place in Hong Kong now, probably the yearly vigils can’t continue. To understand how insane that law is, by writing this reblog, by saying things that make you dislike the Chinese government, I’m already in violation of its Article 38. It doesn’t matter I’m writing it in a foreign country. It doesn’t matter I’m a foreign citizen. That law includes everyone on Earth.

Yes, that includes you. And you. And you. And you. They can arrest you for trying to overthrow the Chinese government if you pass the borders of Hong Kong.

Please help remember 8964 Tiananmen Square Massacre. That summer day, Beijing citizens asked Hong Kongers to please remember this event for them because they knew they wouldn’t be able to afford to remember it themselves. Now that Hong Kongers can’t afford to remember it anymore, I’m hoping that everyone who reads this to please remember it, for the students who perished only because they wanted their government to be better, for the Tank Man who, on his way home with his groceries, decided to stand in front of a tank all by himself because it was the right thing to do.

[redhenrik]

I mean, when people literally have to invent the date “May 35th” because “June 4th” is censored, you know that there’s something major that people in power don’t want to have discussed.

[notwiselybuttoowell]

This may be of interest, what with personal accounts and images being part of it:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/jun/04/tiananmen-square-massacre-preserving-memory

[sunnysimone]

[goatrodeo72-deactivated20221113]

#goals. I too want to be strong like bitch who fights bears in the forest!

[headspace-hotel]

she has her priorities straight

[its-funnytwittertweets]

[okthisway]

#the beauty of tumblr is that any new show i start i'm able to say oh that's my friend. from gif.

[zmpl]

has anyone noticed that after the porn ban of 2018 tumblr was essentially killed from the mainstream and everyone flocked to other social media sites like twitter and meta. then those sites got enshittified to where twitter became Nazi Central and meta sites had an entire meme around getting “zucced” aka mark zuckerberg himself would ban you for saying a no-no word like fuck. and then the mainstream shifted to tiktok where infamous toddlerspeak sentences like “he got unalived by a pew pew” were born because if you once again say a no-no word like kill or gun or any other word that isn’t corporate i mean kid friendly then the algorithm will bury your post into the ground. and somehow we’ve come full circle and tumblr is now the most bearable social media site because although we can’t have female presenting nipples we can at least talk to each other like adults. has anyone noticed that at all or is it just me and the flaming skull