Darkoshi

I've been reading Translation State by Ann Leckie; it is as gripping a story as her others.

Today, looking at the available smiley emojis on my phone, I realized the melting face emoji fits the story.

Today I again chose to wear my yellow/blue/pink striped socks which I got at the Pride Festival last year. Those are the colors of the pansexual flag. I am asexual, not pansexual, and got the socks mainly because the colors are pretty. Few people around here would know what the colors represent anyway.

Looking down at the socks on my legs, I belatedly realized that the blue and yellow colors are also like Ukraine's flag.

.

I still have my old LiveJournal account. Several years back I imported all my old entries to Dreamwidth and deleted them from over there.

I've considered deleting the account, as I want nothing further to do with a Russian company, given the current government's abominable policies and actions.

But doing that seems like a wasted opportunity to post a message of some kind in an area where people from Russia might actually be able to see it. Perhaps I'd have to turn on Cyrillic services in the settings though, for my posts to be accessible from over there? Hmmm.

I hadn't noticed or remembered this from before, but on the LJ homepage there is a "Top LJ" dropdown which includes entries for: Cyrillic, non-Cyrillic, Russia, Ukraine, Belarus.

It is interesting to browse through those Cyrillic and Ukraine entries, using Google Translate to translate from Russian to English.

It is also wearisome, wondering who is behind each post and all the comments, trying to make sense of some of the translations, trying to figure out what side if any they are on in regards to the war in Ukraine, what nationality they are and in which country do they live, are they being paid to post misinformation, or are they writing what they truly believe based on what they've themselves experienced or based on the news they listen to?

Considering all that which is being posted, I doubt anything I could post would make the slightest impact on anyone, even if they did see it.

What kind of small flag was the British team waving in their hands while walking in the winter Olympics opening ceremony? It looks like a quarter section of the union jack. Does it represent anything other than Britain? Has it been used before? I searched but didn't find any info on it.

This article has a photo that shows it - the athletes at the top of the photo behind the main flag bearers are holding the small flags:

https://e3.365dm.com/22/02/2048x1152/skynews-winter-olympics-beijing_5662490.jpg


Edited to add at 1:44pm:

Yesterday while searching about that unfamiliar flag, I came across this:
Welsh dragon and St George's cross barred from Olympics as Chinese ban 'propaganda' flags

At the time, that article didn't seem related to me. But this morning after waking up, it occurred to me, is the team using this quarter-union-jack in protest at not being able to show the individual countries' flags? A quarter-union-jack could represent one the 4 countries in the U.K., but if everyone on the team is waving the same quarter flag it's ambiguous enough that China can't claim...

Aha! Now that I look at the above photo more closely, some of the quarter flags have the red horizontal bar on top, and some on the bottom. Simply coincidence, or not? My web searches on the topic still aren't having any success.

Maybe news outlets are purposely not reporting on it, so as to keep it under China's radar?

Update, 2022/02/27
I still didn't find a definitive answer, but I did find someone else curious about the same thing:
Great Britain Question: small flags are one quarter of the Union Jack?

This photo (from this Team GB tweet) has great detail and shows the small white round design on the small quarter flags is a "Team GB" logo. The flags in this photo all have the red bar at the top, not the bottom. But this image still seems to show one flag with the red bar at the bottom.

Team GB's outfits were designed by company Ben Sherman. It's possible the small flags were designed simply to look good, matching with the team's sweaters, which also show only a portion of the flag. But it is still an odd thing to do for an actual country's flag, small or big, versus a flag design being put on clothing or other merchandise.

I am unhappy.
I don't know what I want.
I can't think of anything I would want.

I don't know what would make me feel good.
I can think of things that would make me feel bad, but not good.

I don't think BDSM can make me feel good anymore.
Does that imply it made me feel good in the past?

Short little spikes of feeling good.

But I don't think it can do that anymore.

My mind can't create the good feeling.

I went for a walk in Georgia once.
And scratched my sign by a trickle of water.

I went for a walk in Massachusetts,
and cried in the rain.
Or was it snow?

I went for a walk in the desert once,
but it is gone.

I don't feel about this
like I feel I should feel.

I don't like penises and scrotums and vulvas.
I still don't like them.

Maybe tonight I'll dream
a wonderful feeling.