Change The Narrative

Enjoying fics, fandom, meta, the occasional fangirling, and screaming for positive representation/visibility of LGBTQIA+ in media. She/Her.

[🪐 Mundo GL 👩🏻‍❤️‍👩🏻🏳️‍🌈 @viudanegrabi]

3 minutos de todos los besos de #JanJingjing 😍❤️

[yasmin | ⵢⴰⵙⵎⵉⵏ @reyskyhime]

very underrated lesbian fantasy books 🧵
1. the tiger's daughter by k. arsenault rivera
written as a letter after an empire falls into crisis, 2 girls are forced into political roles: one preparing to be empress, the other trains to fight demonic threats spreading across the land

[Seth @fiercepatricks]

It’s not just a rainbow, it’s a symbol of pride, hope and security. Happy pride🏳️‍🌈

[fanofGL 🌻🍮🌶️ @peanutbglf]

Broken (of) Love is making history in so many ways, but casting Apasiri and Yarinda was pure brilliance. Two incredibly respected, multifaceted artists delivering a scene so devastating it leaves emotional whiplash every single time. Absolute cinema 🎬

🔗 full episode https://t.co/gCZRjWr8Ya

[wlwframe @wlwframe]

สิ้นชีพพพพพ 😳🥵🔥 (Edited ver.)

#TKphinyanech #nurdesoraya
#TKNur

[Arnaud Bertrand @RnaudBertrand]

This strange square 👇 is undoubtedly the most extraordinary work of literature in human history. Yet, unfortunately, barely anyone in the West has ever heard of it.

There was this woman poet in 4th century China called Su Hui (蘇蕙), a child genius who had reportedly mastered Chinese characters by age 3.

At 21 years old, heartbroken by her husband who left her for another woman, she decided to encode her feelings in a structure so intricate, so beautiful, so intellectually staggering that it still baffles scholars to this day.

Came to be known as the Xuanji Tu (璇璣圖) - the "Star Gauge" or "Map of the Armillary Sphere" - it's a 29 by 29 grid of 841 characters that can produce over 4,000 different poems.

Read it forward. Read it backward. Read it horizontally, vertically, diagonally. Read it spiraling outward from the center. Read it in circles around the outer edge. Each path through the grid produces a different poem - all of them coherent, all of them beautiful, all of them rhyming, all of them expressing variations on the same themes of longing, betrayal, regret, and undying love.

The outer ring of 112 characters forms a single circular poem - believed to be both the first and longest of its kind ever written. The interior grid produces 2,848 different four-line poems of seven characters each. In addition, there are hundreds of other smaller and longer poems, depending on the reading method.

At the center a single character she left implied but unwritten: 心 (xin) - "heart." Later copyists would add it explicitly, but in Su Hui's original the meaning was even more beautiful: 4,000 poems, all orbiting the space where her heart used to be.

Take for instance the outer red grid of the Star Gauge. Starting from the top right corner and reading down, you get this seven-character quatrain:
仁智懷德聖虞唐，
貞志篤終誓穹蒼，
欽所感想妄淫荒，
心憂增慕懷慘傷。

In pinyin, it is:
Rén zhì huái dé shèng yú táng,
zhēnzhì dǔ zhōng shì qióng cāng,
qīn suǒ gǎnxiǎng wàng yín huāng,
xīn yōu zēng mù huái cǎn shāng.

Notice how it rhymes? táng / cāng / huāng / shāng

The rough translation in English is: "The benevolent and wise cherish virtue, like the sage-kings Yao and Shun, With steadfast will I swear to the heavens above, What I revere and feel - how could it be wanton or dissolute? My heart's sorrow grows, longing brings only grief."

Now read it from the bottom to the top and you get this entirely different seven-character quatrain:
傷慘懷慕增憂心，
荒淫妄想感所欽，
蒼穹誓終篤志貞，
唐虞聖德懷智仁。

The pinyin:
Shāng cǎn huái mù zēng yōu xīn,
huāngyín wàngxiǎng gǎn suǒ qīn,
cāngqióng shì zhōng dǔzhì zhēn,
táng yúshèngdé huái zhì rén.

It rhymes too: xīn and qīn, zhēn and rén

And the meaning is just as beautiful and coherent: "Grief and sorrow, longing fills my worried heart, Wanton and dissolute fantasies - is that what you revere? I swear to the heavens my constancy is true, May we embody the sage-kings' virtue, wisdom, and benevolence."

That's just 2 poems out of the over 4,000 you can construct from the Xuanji Tu!

At the very center of the grid, the 8 red characters wrapped around the central heart, she "signed" her poem with a hidden message:

詩圖璇玑，始平蘇氏。 "The poem-picture of the Armillary Sphere, by Su of Shiping."

Or reversed:
蘇氏詩圖，璇玑始平。 "Su's poem-picture - the Armillary Sphere begins in peace."

Many scholars, and even emperors, throughout Chinese history have been completely obsessed by Su Hui's puzzle.

For instance, in the Ming dynasty, a scholar named Kang Wanmin (康萬民) devoted his entire life to the poems (https://t.co/4exP9zpqbc), ending up documenting twelve different reading methods - forward, backward, diagonal, radiating, corner-to-corner, spiraling - and extracting 4,206 poems. His book on the subject ("Reading Methods for the Xuanji Tu Poems", 璇璣圖詩讀法) runs to hundreds of pages.

Empress Wu Zetian herself, the legendary woman emperor of the Tang dynasty, wrote a preface to the Xuanji Tu around 692 CE (https://t.co/yW7aR73MPc).

Incredibly, there's even far more complexity to the Xuanji Tu than just the poems:

- The name 璇玑 (Xuanji) - Armillary Sphere - is astronomical in meaning and the way the poems can be read mirrors the way celestial bodies orbit around a fixed center. It's a model of the heavens.

- Her original work, with the characters woven on silk brocade, was in five colors (red, black, blue/green, purple, and yellow) which correspond to the Five Elements (五行) - the foundational Chinese philosophical system that explains how the universe operates. So it's also a model of the entire cosmic order according to ancient Chinese philosophy.

- It's also of course deeply mathematical with this 29 x 29 perfect square grid, with sub-squares, lines and rectangles, and a structure which allows for symmetrical reading patterns in all directions

- Last but not least, the content of the poems themselves contain multiple registers. On top of expressing her personal grief and longing for her husband, it's also filled with accusations against the concubine (Zhao Yangtai) he left her for, reflections on politics (with many references to sage-kings) and philosophical reflections.

So the Star Gauge is simultaneously:
- A love letter (expressing personal longing)
- A legal brief (arguing her case against her rival)
- A cosmological model (structured like the heavens)
- A Five Element diagram (encoding the fundamental structure of the world according to ancient Chinese philosophy)
- A mathematical construction with perfect symmetry and precision

And yet, for all this complexity, we should not forget this was all ultimately in service of the simplest human message imaginable: a 21-year-old woman asking the love of her life "come back to me".

Her husband did, eventually. According to what empress Wu Zetian herself wrote in her preface to the Xuanji Tu, when he received Su's brocade he was so "moved by its supreme beauty" that he sent away his concubine and returned to his wife. As the story goes, they lived together until old age.

The heart at the center was filled after all.

[non aesthetic things @PicturesFoIder]

This is fireee 🔥

[Leaders 𝕏 Junction @LeadersJunction]

Here's how you know someone is highly intelligent✅

[The Sigma Mindset @thesigmamindset]

Understanding this changed everything for me ‼️‼️

[Travis Akers 🇺🇸 @travisakers]

A message from a Kindergarten teacher:

After forty years in the classroom, my career ended with one small sentence from a six-year-old:

“My dad says people like you don’t matter anymore.”

No sneer. No malice. Just quiet honesty — the kind that cuts deeper because it’s innocent. He blinked, then added, “You don’t even have a TikTok.”

My name is Mrs. Clara Holt, and for four decades, I taught kindergarten in a small Denver suburb. Today, I stacked the last box on my desk and locked the door behind me.

When I started teaching in the early 1980s, it felt like a promise — a shared belief that what we did mattered. We weren’t rich, but we were valued. Parents brought warm cookies to parent nights. Kids gave you handmade cards with hearts that didn’t quite line up. Watching a child sound out their first sentence felt like magic.

But that world slowly slipped away. The job I once knew has been replaced by exhaustion, red tape, and a kind of loneliness I can’t quite describe.

My evenings used to be filled with construction paper, glitter, and glue sticks. Now they’re spent filling out digital reports to protect myself from angry emails or lawsuits. I’ve been yelled at by parents in front of twenty-five children — one filming me with his phone while I tried to calm another child mid-meltdown.

And the kids… they’ve changed too. Not by choice.

They arrive tired, anxious, overstimulated. Their tiny fingers know how to swipe a screen before they can hold a crayon. Some can’t make eye contact or wait in line. We’re expected to fix all of it — to patch the gaps, heal the trauma, teach the curriculum, and document every move — in six hours a day, with resources that barely fill a drawer.

The little reading corner I once built, full of soft beanbags and paper stars, was replaced by data charts and “learning metrics.” A young principal once told me, “Clara, maybe you’re too nurturing. The district wants measurable results.”

As if kindness were a weakness.

Still, I stayed. Because of the small, holy moments that no spreadsheet could measure —
a whisper of, “You remind me of my grandma.”
a shaky note that read, “I feel safe here.”
a quiet boy finally meeting my eyes and saying, “I read the whole page.”

Those tiny sparks were my reason to keep showing up.

But this last year broke something in me.

The aggression grew sharper. The laughter in the staff room turned to silence. The light went out of so many eyes. I watched brilliant teachers — my friends — vanish under the weight of burnout, their joy replaced by survival.

I felt myself fading too, like chalk on a board that’s been wiped one too many times.

So today, I began my goodbye. I pulled faded art off the walls and tucked thirty years of handmade cards into a single box. In the back of a drawer, I found a letter from a student from 1998:

“Thank you for loving me when I was hard to love.”

I sat on the floor and cried.

No party. No applause. Just a handshake from a young principal who called me “Ma’am” while checking his notifications.

I left my rocking chair behind, and my sticker box too. What I carried with me were the memories — the faces of hundreds of children who once trusted me enough to reach out their hands and learn. That can’t be uploaded. It can’t be measured. It can’t be replaced.

I miss when teachers were partners, not targets. When parents and educators worked side by side, not in opposition. When schools cared more about wonder than numbers.

So if you know a teacher — any teacher — thank them. Not with a mug or a gift card, but with your words. With your respect. With your understanding that behind every test score is a heart that cared enough to try.

Because in a world that often overlooks them, teachers are the ones who never forget our children.

[Ch3Thailand @Ch3Thailand_33]

ยาไหนๆ ก็รักษาพี่ตะวันไม่ดีเท่าน้องไอร่า #เพียงเธอEP11
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#เพียงเธอ #OnlyYouTheSeries
ทุกวันศุกร์ เวลา 20.30 น. ช่อง 3 และ 3Plus
ย้อนหลัง > https://t.co/V41awm1ZYS

[sapphics like: @sapphicslike]

wanmai and saifon from thai gl series ‘queendom’

QUEENDOM THE SERIES EP 8
#QueendomEP8

[♤ @eckarys]

saying it will be less awkward to kiss on screen because you're already close in real life, is this what they meant? 55555

QUEENDOM THE SERIES EP8
#QueendomEP8

[Champagne Joshi @JoshWalkos]

This dude found the music version of the lost library of Alexandria.

You’re welcome.

[Your Emotional Healing Coach @AfsaRosette]

I don’t know who needs to hear this but date someone who actually follows through. Bc we live in a world obsessed with beginnings. There’s a diff between someone who promises with emotion & someone who shows up in practice. Many of us confuse effort with energy. Let me explain..

[J @JamxxxxBF]

Thai GL series!!!! #ThaiGL

Mon - ❌️
Tue - ❌️
Wed - LosingControl Part2
- WhaleStoreXOXO ( 25 June)
- RollerCoaster ( 13Aug)
Thu - Denied Love
Fri - OnlyYouTheSeries(25July)
- Your Apple
Sat - Harmony Secret (26 July)
- Your Apple
- B-Friend
Sun - Your Apple

LINE UP SERIES 🤩🤩

PoisonousLove
DreamMind TheSeries
Dangerous Queen
4Elements : Earth,Water,Air,Fire
Like A Palette Series
Runaway (Genre :Horror)
My SafeZone
Queendom
ClaireBell
Iam Devil SS2
BuyMyBoss
Cranium
Girl Rules
TheDragonHouse
Shades
Somewhere Somehow
StuckWithMe
Remain
My Only Sunshine
No Romeo
Love Design

[🧡🤍🩷 @SAPPHlST]

rastro comeback after a decade thank you philippines!!!

[Little J 7878❤️‍🩹 @FANFILMFILM]

เบื้องหลังมาที สาววายตายหมด🔥😖

#Namtanfilm #น้ําตาลฟิล์ม

[Dudes Posting Their W’s @DudespostingWs]

In 2016, Yousuke Yukimatsu was diagnosed with brain cancer, on that same day he quit his job as a construction worker to become a DJ.

His Boiler Room set, which was uploaded two months ago, has nearly 9,000,000 views