j/e

> spotted him at the bar > fixed his collar > said “oh you’ve got no one to do this for you?” > seven mins later he asked me out it’s not hard friends

BREAKING: Fascists attacked trans counter protesters protecting children attending a drag time story event in Honor Oak Pub this morning. The fascists grabbed people and began attacking them, breaking the pub window and causing serious injuries.

Some explanation of a few of the HK responses. Every community going through some shit has its fair share of members with extremely poor aim, who aren't really clear on which fights are a priority, or who their allies are. Hong Kongers are going through some shit, they have reason to resent the people who are bringing unasked-for change upon them. Unfortunately, they tend to blame and resent Mainlanders as a whole, not the government. They're angry and the legitimate targets of that are out of reach so they lash out at the targets they can reach, desperately seeking something they can claim to take offense at- in this case the use of Mandarin instead of Cantonese. But, on the Mainland, language choices matter. My girlfriend uses her Mandarin name- not her Uyghur name, I do not use my own Cantonese name given my high profile, and I use the official national dialect to pronounce all Chinese names- even if it's with a fairly strong Cantonese accent from refusing to speak Mandarin for most of my childhood. This is because whatever issues you want to draw attention to, get justice for, that gets a whole lot more difficult very, very quickly if the Powers That Be get it into their heads that you are dog-whistling separatism. Piggy-backing other political issues onto this particular tragedy won't do anything to solve those issues- it will just ensure this one is completely buried with no chance of the true nature of the crime being acknowledged. It *is* polite to use the Cantonese pronunciation of the victim's names, most of you should, but it's rather obnoxious privilege to demand- from anonymity, that extremely public individuals advocating for them at significant personal risk do the same.