Hey, Pobody's Nerfect

I am in elementary school. I have discovered something in myself that is different from my peers. I have no words to express this feeling, so I instead live in discomfort for years and years and believe it to be normal.

I am in seventh grade. I have lost my entire friend group because a rumor was spread that because I am queer, I must be a creep. My last sleepover with those friends was spent sitting in the same room as them while they texted each other talking shit about me.

I am in seventh grade. I have endured homophobic bullying from snarky comments to food being thrown at me in the cafeteria, and today finally swing back. I get one of the bullies on the floor and the teacher breaks us up. I get in trouble for fighting while she continues to bully me. Nothing is done about the bullying when I speak up about it.

I am in seventh grade. I am being outed to my entire classroom by the people I share a table with. They are walking to every single desk and telling each classmate I am queer. I watch as every head turns to look at me in disgust. I am completely alienated from that class and spend my days working alone.

I am fourteen or fifteen. The discomfort I have lived with my entire life finally has a name: dysphoria. I have come out to my family as trans. I am in my room alone on my birthday, crying because every card has "girl" on it.

I am fourteen or fifteen. I get a tone with a family member because I am tired of her excuses for continuously misgendering me. Her husband corners me outside and threatens to hit me if I ever talk back to her again, and tells me my identity is made up. My family sides with him.

I am fifteen and sixteen. I wish I could die instead of living in stagnancy.

I am seventeen. My country is passing law after law to restrict my community. Trans people are going missing and being murdered, and their lights are snuffed without so much as a whimper. I am disgusted and afraid and grieving alongside my trans brothers, sisters, and siblings.

I am twenty. I do not speak to much of my family anymore, my mother has only ever called me my birth name, and I have lost every single friend I ever had except one, and had to rebuild myself and my circle from the ground up. Family holidays are hollow. I have self harm scars permanently etched on my skin, purple half-moons under my eyes that are like stains at this point, and I will never forget how I have been treated and what I have endured. My heart breaks knowing millions out there experience the same things and worse.

I am twenty. I am crying in my boyfriend's arms about not feeling like a real man. I am hearing him reassure me that he sees me for me and he loves me as the man I am. My small friend group strictly calls me by my chosen name and pronouns. I am in love, I have more support than ever, and for once, I'm starting to feel glad I'm alive, glad that I held on. For once, I have hope.

Honestly tho, in terms of lazy chill I don’t think anyone’s gonna beat this bear:

And let’s not forget the time an entire pride of ten lions decided to take a nap in a single tree

They have the same PR team — Motiv.

And the assumptions underlying this, more or less, break down to:

Everybody is secretly bad deep down. They're born that way (no, this is not original sin, wdym, it's just an Honest and Realistic assessment of human nature!) and have to be taught to cover it up through childhood with facades of politeness. Everybody is lying all the time by pretending to be better or nicer than they really are, and this facade takes active effort to maintain. When the effort drops and the facade slips, the true underlying rottenness shows through.

All actions taken are rational and reasoned, at all times. Lying is always a deliberate, purposeful action meant to advance a person's aims and goals. There is never any reason to lie except to make yourself look good. Therefore, any good or nice statement or action may be a lie, but any bad or harmful statement or action must be true.

Ergo: anything a person (or a character) says or does when in states of emotional extremity, overwhelming grief, incapacitating pain, exhaustion, illness, head injury, is Peeling Back the Facade of Goodness to reveal the True Rottenness Underneath.