Brain dump here

The above is a video shared by smrchildsadness on Twitter, showing a person participating in a pride parade exchanging a pride flag with a person standing on his (am using his pronoun based on the TikToks/Tweets of what happened) doorway who had a Portuguese flag. There are sounds of cheers and crying and the two people hug each other as they exchange the flags. The man at the doorway then waved kisses to the crowd within the pride parade.

The Tweet says: "NO YOU DONT UNDERSTAND HE WAS WAVING THE PORTUGUESE FLAG BECAUSE HE DIDN'T HAVE A PRIDE FLAG AND THEY TRADED FLAGS AND HE'S SO EMOTIONAL TO GET HIS OWN PRIDE FLAG I'M EMOTIONALLY RUINED"

For context, apparently they were worried that maybe he's a nationalist because he was waving the Portuguese flag and some nationalists opposing the pride march were waving that flag. But upon interacting with him, it turns out he didn't have have a pride flag and he wanted to wave *a* flag in support of the pride march. So they had an exchange and now he has his own pride flag 😭🥹.

The image above is a Tweet by kunwara_ladkaa that says "I'm crying so much right now (Image taken by Manuel Fernando Araújo/Lusa)". The image shows the same man from the pride parade crying as he hugs his new pride flag.

The above image is a Tweet by dudz_zZzz that says "ainda não parei de pensar nele," which according to Google translate from Portuguese to English is "I still haven't stopped thinking about him." The image is a drawing of the person from the pride parade, crying as he hugs his new pride flag.

This year, on the 31 March, we lost Gilbert Baker, gay artist and creator of the gay pride flag. Today we would celebrate his 66th birthday. Let’s remember him as the wonderful person he was.

so i posit for your consideration:

autistic shane who becomes like a cat when he's comfortable with someone (speaking from personal experience)

yes, draping himself on ilya at every opportunity, biting ilya's face and then tearing off laughing when ilya jumps up to chase him, leaning his full weight on the top of ilya's head when he's trying to answer emails or be even slightly professional, sneaking his hands under ilya's tank or shorts just to self-soothe on his husband's warmest, softest skin

but also

leaning with his arms dangling over hayden's chest like a living backpack while talking to jackie (probably with the twins on his back), and hayden ignoring it completely

curling up against Yuna's side, shoulders touching, while they watch a game together, each person used to subconsciously dodging the other's wildly swinging arms at a bad call or goal

laying with his head on rose's lap when they go on a "bffcation" to cabo, each on their phones with drinks at their knees, showing each other memes and tipsy giggling

curling his arms around harris's neck and putting his cheek gently against harris's while harris scrolls through the photos he took for the latest social media campaign, talking excitedly about them

and some reporter asks ilya if he thinks shane is cheating on him bc ofc the tabloids have caught wind of this behavior and his face gets that particular smirk that means someone is about to be verbally defenestrated. "genius observation. they hire you at top of your class? breaking news: man is affectionate with loved ones. congratulations your pulitzer will arrive in mail in 6-8 weeks. no, truly brilliant idea for next Centaurs social media campaign. adopt a hockey player. ‘shane hollander: domesticated but not trained. may climb into pockets unsupervised.'"

of course it goes viral. of course shane reams ilya bc what was all that media training for??? and ilya just shrugs and gives him the big eyes like no one talks shit on you but me, but also fuck toxic masculinity and shane sighs and pets his hair and grumbles i knew i shouldn't have let you on tumblr

and of course harris absolutely loves the idea and begs shane to let them do it, which he acquiesces to.

shane's has an entire reel of him hanging off of people and shane is mortified bc he didn't even realize he was doing it but he's not actually mad bc it proves how many people he can be open and loving with, and the response is insanely positive

and then ilya's goes live and it leads with that infamous image of him skating away smirking with blood running down his chin.

The documentary includes a brief clip of a 1954 televised newscast about the rise of homosexuality. The host of the program interviewed psychologists, a police officer, and one “known homosexual”. The “known homosexual” is 22 years old. He identifies himself as Curtis White, which is a pseudonym; his name is actually Dale Olson.

So I tracked down the newscast. According to what I can find, Dale Olson may have been the first gay man to appear openly on television and defend his sexual orientation. He explains that there’s nothing wrong with him mentally and he’s never been arrested. When asked whether he’d take a cure if it existed, he says no. When asked whether his family knows he’s gay, he says that they didn’t up until tonight, but he guesses they’re going to find out, and he’ll probably be fired from his job as well. So of course the host is like …why are you doing this interview then? and Dale Olson, cool as cucumber pie, says “I think that this way I can be a little useful to someone besides myself.”

1954. 22 years old. Balls of pure titanium.

Despite the pseudonym, Dale’s boss did indeed recognize him from the TV program, and he was promptly fired the next day. He wrote into ONE magazine six months later to reassure readers that he had gotten a new job at a higher salary.

Curious about what became of him, I looked into his life a little further. It turns out that he ultimately became a very successful publicity agent. He promoted the Rocky movies and Superman. Not only that, but get this: Dale represented Rock Hudson, and he was the person who convinced him to disclose that he had AIDS! He wrote the statement Rock read. And as we know, Rock Hudson’s disclosure had a very significant effect on the national conversation about AIDS in the U.S.

So a while back (I can’t remember exactly when but I think it was some time around the 40s/50s), a bunch of penguins escaped. A keeper left the gate open so a bunch of penguins just… followed them. And the people loved it. Look at these adorable birds outside their cage just following that guy around! So they get all the penguins back inside and realise that none of them really ran off, they just followed the keeper and went back inside and crowd thought it was amazing, so why not make it a regular thing? Get enough people there that if one of them goes to make a run for it (which at least one has in the past), they can’t get past the people, and let the ones who want outside have a little wander. So every day, they get a crowd, they open the gate, and whatever penguins want to get out can go, waddle about, squawk at people, and then hop back inside.

prev, i'm sure you mean my guy Leonid Pasternak