#they're messaging me saying we've talked a lot and i've given permission to them but now im denying it and why would i do that ???

[mediawhorefics]

Hi love. I found a book on Wattpad that is a translation of TTS but they changed the name so you don't find it. They also made a fake chat and said you gave them permission.

https://www.wattpad.com/story/335366886

i know, i saw. i'm so confused. i feel like i'm being gaslit is2g.

[starryalpacasstuff]

Knock Knock Boys: A Queer Asian Lens

I didn't watch Knock Knock Boys as it was airing, because it didn't really seem like the kind of show I'd be into. However, this post by @lurkingshan and @waitmyturtles' enthusiastic recommendation convinced me to give it a shot. Having binged the entirety of the series in a day, I can say that the show was an absolute delight to watch.

I've seen plenty of people talking about how wonderfully sex positive the show was, so I'm not going to bother with going too much into it, but I will say that the drama clearly showed the kind of sex education and awareness that is desperately needed around the world. I also really liked how Lukpeach and Latte were the ones responsible for pretty much all of the sex education in the show. It was very realistic in that, in my experience, it's extremely common for teenagers and young adults to get a majority of their knowledge about sex from their friends and the internet. The show had a very clear message about the importance of talking freely about sex with younger generations, because the taboo on the topic only harms teenagers in the long run.

Now, besides that, there was one more issue that I thought the show did wonderfully: it showed how asian kids are often hesitant to discuss things with their parents because they assume the worst in the beginning. I'm having some trouble articulating this, because it's such an abstract, ingrained concept to me, so forgive me if this is incoherent. I'm also generalizing my experience as an Indian, so please do correct me if I'm wrong here. That being said, having been raised in a society that values respect and listening to elders without question, discussing alternate ideas with parents can be a very difficult thing for most of us. It's easy to assume what parents would say to an idea and decide that trying to convince them otherwise is a task that is either futile or requires too much energy.

The best way I can describe is that the mindset becomes "It's better to ask for forgiveness if you get caught instead of asking for permission straight away". For example, had Almond asked his mother if he could stay with three other guys, she would've most definitely flat out refused, since she would've had a lot of preconceived notions about the idea. But, because Almond is able to show her that he's happy as he was, she was perfectly fine with him continuing to stay with the others. I think that's the hallmark of most asian parents, they want us to be happy but they're convinced that they know what kind of life will make us happy. They did something similar with Peak and his father, but my feelings on that are a little more complex, so we'll come back to this.

Peak and Thanwa, man. I loved Latte and Almond but these two just stole the show for me. I know some people felt frustrated with Peak's dallying and hesitance, but I just felt so sad for him, and something about his situation just hit very close to home. And Seng, the actor that he is. One particular moment that stuck with me was the scene when he leaned against the door while Jumper attacked Max. I must've rewatched that moment half a dozen times, because his acting was impeccable. I will say, I wish that they'd given us a better resolution on the arc after Max, but those are mostly minor quibbles. What I really wanted to talk about was the arc with Peak's father. Peak gathering the courage to tell his father with the support from his found family was beautiful. The scene at Knock Knock House the day before Peak left was one of the most magnificent, emotionally charged scenes I've seen in asian ql in a while. Coming from a societ wherein arranged marriage is the norm, the storyline hit hard in all the right places.

But. I did not love the resolution of the arc. I think we've had some conversation about how some shows try to be both in the bubble and out of the bubble simultaneously, and the last two episodes of the show felt a little like that. From what we knew about the father, it felt almost too easy for him to simply accept everything right away. There should have been some struggle for reconciliation. I know that the show has a theme of assumptions and lack of communication disrupting parent-child relationships, but in this case how fast they move on just seems unrealistic. My cynicism aside, even if we assume that the father wasn't homophobic, there should've been more of a conversation on the breaking of the engagement! The social implications, the father asking him why he didn't say anything for so long, Jane's involvement (how did the father know that she knew about this?). The only argument I can see against this is that the father, while initially put off by the revelation, chose to act otherwise to support his son. But then, he most likely wouldn't have insisted they take his car. And there still should've been some sort of a conversation about the engagement. Arranged marriages have a purpose; it's to provide financial and social security. I find it extremely hard to believe that a father who arranged a marriage for his son wouldn't have so much as discuss the implications of being gay with him. They tried to have the engagement have consequences with the wedding banquet, but the resolution for that really only made it worse. This is cynical of me, but I simply cannot suspend my disbelief enough to believe that the entire wedding party was perfectly happy with the turn of events. This whole resolution just seemed out of place in a show that was otherwise so wonderfully grounded in reality while still being absolutely hilarious. I think, if the show had done something a little more similar to GAP, it would've felt more realistic.

All of that aside, I really did enjoy watching the show. It was hilarious and heartwarming, and the characters were absolutely wonderful. The resolution of the final arc did drag it down a little, but I would be lying if I said that watching two queer couples get to celebrate their relationships with their community didn't warm my heart at all (Also, side note- Jane having a girlfriend was a brilliant subversion). All in all, it's a great series. It definitely felt like something new and fresh compared to the kind of qls that I've been watching lately.

[twstedpometea]

Addressing the "No Harassment" rule people are still breaking.

Hello everyone it's been about 5 months since I last posted anything Ugigiugi-related. However, I was recently messaged over something I still have to address because some of yall ain't listening to what many of us have been saying since this Ugigiugi drama began. This will be a long post.

There has always been a rule of "No harassing" people about the Ugigiugi situation.

This rule has always extended to people who do not want to see/hear the drama in the Twst fandom but also to people who used to/currently follow Ugigiugi. Anyone who's followed my blog knows I've already had to talk about harassment/spamming before but it seems no matter what people keep breaking this rule.

I was recently messaged that one (former) follower of Ugigiugi was being harassed. This same person who messaged me is someone who has helped save/sent us some of Ugi's now hidden art and given us some art sources since the drama unfolded. They have already explained to me that they only follow Ugigiugi on DA now for the sake of keeping an eye on her activity and nothing else.

Now I'm aware there are several reasons people still follow Ugigiugi on DA. I know some people follow her by watching her profile. Others use tabs/HTML links to said profile and so on. Whatever reason doesn't matter people follow people for different reasons. That being said once again I am still seeing this type of harassment going on and it needs to be addressed. I was sent these screenshots and have permission to post these by the person being harassed.

So first off. This is STILL harassment. I'll keep saying it till the cows come home. Harassment of any type is against what a lot of us here have been saying to not do. Secondly, Let me correct people here on something. A watch doesn't equal a "boost" or supporting number on a profile. DeviantArt doesn't work the same way Tumblr or Twitter works when it comes to boosting a profile to the "popular" side of a Social media page. Engagement/activity/views on art pieces are what boost the algorithm. (More so you have to be breaking BIG NUMBERS to get your profile on the front page) That being said? Ugigiugi's numbers have dropped since she was exposed. She used to be pretty close to 600 watchers. She's now down to 315. So if anything she's lost half of her numbers, and with her no longer posting on DA she's lost traction as of this time. Thirdly, it's juvenile to be going after Ugigiugi's "watchers". At that point, you're just looking to start a witch hunt for people. Ironically, you're also going after the people who have been helping me and others since the drama unfolded. I need people here to stop going after people like this. You shouldn't be harassing anyone. It doesn't even matter if they're a watcher/or a fan of Ugigiugi or someone who might be helping keep an eye on her. We've stated time and time again, to not be harassing anyone. PERIOD! I'm going to go ahead and say this if anyone is getting harassed about the Ugigiugi stuff please just go ahead and block or report them. I'm getting very tired of having to repeat the rules because people are looking to use their "ugi hate" on someone. As for whoever this Cerulea--blue person? I don't know if they are a user here or if their under a different name on Tumblr but if you see this post? Kindly, stop. If you have so much energy to be doing something then go source Ugigiugi's traced art (there are still plenty of unsourced pieces) or something more productive than harassing people. You are literally not helping no one at all and you are just breaking the rules and boundaries a lot of people have been set about this drama. -TwstedPomeTea

[fierceawakening]

So you guys probably know if you've been following me a while that I'm coming to terms with some stuff about how my mom has always treated me that's difficult and tough, and that part of what I've needed to do in order to give myself free rein to think about what's really going on is to ignore some of the taboos Tumblr puts on words/terms: "your abuser isn't narcissistic, they're just an abuser" types of things.

Not tabooing "narcissistic" helped me to think about/focus on the way that a lot of her bad treatment focused on how I look to others/how the family looks. The idea that certain things would send messages to the community that would get us all shunned if I went ahead with them.

(FWIW, I don't know if I'd label her narcissistic or not now that I've thought about it. I just think that if I hadn't given myself permission to use that adjective if it fit, I would have had a harder time thinking through how much of it I do think is her having overwrought concerns about how she looks to other people and how her loved ones look as that "reflects on" her.)

Well. We've got another one.

I was talking to my therapist the other day about the way my mom will... agree to do something she really doesn't want to do and then complain about it, often and loudly. My therapist referred to this as "attention seeking behavior."

Wham goes the anvil. Another taboo. "If someone is engaging in behavior to get attention, it means they're being deprived of something they need."

Which, I realized... if that's what I believe about attention-seeking behavior, then whenever she does it, she NEEDS something, and if I can't find someone else to take care of the NEED, then a NEED is going unmet, and that leaves... me.

I'm beginning to think (well, more than beginning, but solidifying an amorphous belief I already had? I think) that a lot of these shorthands, "narcissistic," "attention seeking," etc. differ in usefulness depending on who they're being said TO.

If you say to someone asking you for mental health help, "you're just a narcissistic attention seeker," then you're rejecting that person in a massively and unnecessarily cruel way. "You don't actually have an issue that I can help you solve, you just have an entitlement problem."

But if you say to someone at the end of their rope with a difficult loved one, "they're kind of narcissistic and attention seeking," what that's saying isn't that the person doesn't have an issue or isn't experiencing legitimate pain. You're saying TO THE LOVED ONE "that's probably not something you can help them solve. Part of it's an entitlement problem, and in order to see that and commit to fixing it they need someone uninvested to help them notice. However much you love them and want to help, that uninvested person is never gonna be you."

[vaspider]

I actually don't really think they're joking. I think that a lot of people in the queer community don't realize how much the political lesbian/radfem simplistic view of "men bad" has infected the community as a whole.

You see it in the "my sexuality is every girl and precisely one man" which is hugely widespread in the way m-spec women discuss their sexualities. (Which is not to say that a lot of women don't feel that way, just that when I've pointed this out to my friends, and how shitty it made me and other transmascs/men feel, a bunch of them went 'oh shit, you're right.') You see it in how m-spec women are made to feel like they should apologize for being attracted to or involved with men/mascs, and how lesbian/sapphic/queer spaces eject -- sometimes violently -- m-spec women in "straight-passing" relationships. (This also happens to m-spec mascs/men, but not so loudly, and in a different way.)

You see it in the long and storied way that transmascs and trans men have been treated in our community. This isn't the first time that trans men have been told they are 'giving up womanhood' and how dare they. There's a scene in The L Word, a show that ended 12 years ago, which has a character literally saying that to a trans man, that he's 'giving up the most beautiful thing' by transitioning, and that thing is 'being a woman.'

This isn't a new message, that men are the enemy, and that anyone who voluntarily chooses masculinity or manhood (whatever form of masculinity or manhood they choose) is a gender traitor, "joining the enemy," deluded, attempting to "opt out" of misogyny, or any number of other loathsome ideas. This spills over into the idea that transmascs/men have "aligned interests" with TERFs, that we don't actually face societal transphobia, that we aren't targeted by institutional transphobia in any way, that we're 'collateral damage' of the "real" transphobia that transfems face, that we magically just gain male privilege the moment we start transitioning, that we're never targeted by misogyny, that we don't face physical violence, that we've "joined the oppressors" and are somehow capable as a class of being the oppressors of transfems rather than simply another oppressed class (which is its own topic that deserves like, a whole-ass essay, but whatever) that transmisandry isn't a "real" thing and transmascs don't face any sort of specific-to-us discrimination or issues... and all of those ideas damage our ability as a community to discuss and ameliorate these sometimes-fatal and always-damaging ideas.

Hell, to listen to people within the community talk, you wouldn't think that JK Rowling's horrible essay didn't spend a huge chunk of time misgendering and gaslighting transmascs, or that one of the big "bibles" of TERFery (Ab*gail Shrier's 'Irreversible Damage') wasn't targeted very specifically, fucking laser-focused, on transmascs, including non-binary transmascs. And this all spills out from the idea that we don't face any 'real' oppression because we've 'joined the majority/oppressors,' and "men are bad," which is such base-level 1970s retro radfem nonsense.

And honestly, at the end of the day? It doesn't matter if it's a joke, and I'm pretty displeased with "oh they don't understand that it's serious and they think it's just a joke." These sorts of "jokes", levied at transmasc people, aren't okay. Maybe if it's just you and your buds who have given each other permission to shit-talk each other, and you know each other and have personal context with one another, sure. But in this sort of open, parasocial context where you have people who don't know these two transhets, it is always damaging, and saying "gosh I think they just think it's a joke" does the opposite of excusing it.

This lateral aggression shit is terrible and damaging to lots of people -- I honestly think there's no segment of the queer community that this doesn't directly damage, and we should challenge it whenever we see it, not make excuses or permission for it in the slightest way.

link to original tweet