#you did NOT see me label this as 2023 XD

[putschki1969]

2024/01/05 Blog post by Wakana 2024年〜あなたの今の想いを聴かせてください〜

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2024〜Please Let Me Hear Your Current Thoughts〜

Hello everyone, the old year has ended and a new year has begun. I am looking forward to your continued support in 2024.

First of all, I would like use the opportunity to express my deepest condolences to those affected by the Noto Peninsula earthquake that occurred shortly after the start of the year. I think everyone in the disaster-affected areas continues to live in a state of anxiety as the future remains uncertain. I hope you are all staying safe and staying warm. With new information being broadcast on TV every day and so many sad news, I am sure that everyone's heart is aching. However, please never give up, let's all try to look ahead and do our best.

If there are people out there who are all alone, please know that I am always by your side with my music. You are not alone! For those who feel lonely, I will always try my best to convey my feelings through singing and writing.

Please share your current thoughts in the comment section of this blog. I am planning to discuss some of the comments written by Jan 7th in my podcast on the 10th. (Of course, I will also read the messages of those who submitted something for the talk theme! And as always, the people whose messages I read out will receive little presents so please look forward to that♪) If you have anything you would like me to talk about on the podcast on the 10th, please let me know! Anything is fine. Your current thoughts, questions, anything! Whatever your request is, I will respond to it as soon as possible to the best of my abilities. Let's not give in to our fears and anxious thoughts! Let's share our sorrow to get some sense of relief.

Of course, I will also be reading the comments left after the 7th, so please write as many as you want! I just want us all to have a little bit fun in these trying times.

Right now, what I want to convey most to you is my music. However, there are various restrictions and it is difficult to do so. I am so sorry. But in the next podcast, I have some good news to share with you that incorporate all of my current thoughts. Please look forward to it! [Note: Huh...I wonder what "restrictions" Wakana is talking about here? Is her agency keeping her from doing certain things? Are these restrictions related to the current situation with the earthquake? Is she maybe involved in a project and just can't talk about it yet? So curious! Also wonder what those good news are going to be]

We all share the same time and space. we are not alone. I am here and so are you. Even when we feel lonely, our hearts will always stay connected. I'm forever by your side. And thank you for always being by my side as well 😊

My Schefflera has been slow to grow lately but new buds are always being born🌱 My Queen of the Night has been celebrating a super bud festival ever since the end of the year🌼🌼(Currently there are 20 bbud!!!!! With 5 more on the way!😂)

I hope this year will be a year in which many beautiful flowers will bloom.

＊＊＊Wakana＊＊＊

[sparkles-oflight]

Okay, I'm sorry for going on a rant, but I'm going to talk why the line "Are you straight, Are you LGBTQ or none of the above?" Is actually important.

First of all, let me clarify something: YOU DON'T HAVE TO LIKE SSOL! You are free to enjoy whatever you like (maybe I wasn't clear enough, because sometimes I can sound very pushy and rude and I'm sorry for that), it's just that it shocked me to see a lot of people who don't like while I thought the opposite was going to happen 😶

The line, from what have seen, has either being called cringe, or cool, or lazy or too direct to the point (or even too political). Now, I'm not going to say "it's 2023, everything is political" because that notion is simply stupid. Everything has been "political" since long ago (I really hate to call human right causes "political", but alas) - a good example of a song that did the same as Joker Out YEARS AGO is "Born this way" by our queen Lady Gaga 👑.

I actually want to talk about queer culture and even the social context.

The first one is the one we all know about: Queer people have for centuries had to hide their feelings and identities through metaphors, rhymes, and tragedy in the media they produced for their own safety. I'm not saying I don't enjoy it! I LOVE SUBLIMINAL QUEER MESSAGES AND CHARACTERS WHOSE LABELS ARE UNKNOWN! But, if cishet people are allowed to express themselves explicitly, why shouldn't the queer or ally people do the same?

Now comes the second part: social context. Joker Out comes from a Balkan country. Now, I'm not a Balkan person, but there are some reasons the internet meme about my country being the long lost sibling of the Balkans 💀. Portugal is one of THE SAFEST countries for queer people!! On paper.... We are called slurs, we are made fun of, we are hurt on the streets, we are told to "suck it up" because not only is our country still heavily religious (specially the north, where I come from) but also misogynistic and young to the concept of democracy and freedom (we were in a dictatorship until 1974 and then we had to deal with colonial wars until the early 2000s). I literally told my bestie yesterday (before the song came out) that it would be easier to just say "I'm a lesbian" to my parents than bisexual and NB because they don't believe in those concepts. If we are one of the safest countries on the whole fucking world, I CAN ONLY IMAGINE what happens to queer people on the Balkans - with all of their diversity and wars.

Sometimes, having a big celebrity just saying the worlds LGBTQ is already such a revolutionary thing as much as you all say "it's cringe, it's lazy, it's political...", to us...it means the whole world.

Now, I don't know JO members sexualities, neither do I care or should care, but knowing that they are - at least - allies, makes my fucking heart melt, even if we aren't from the same country.

And I like silly funny songs too XD I'm biased yes yes

Edit: I forgot to add this: FEEL FREE TO ADD TO THE DISCUSSION ANY TIME

[aeternallis]

KM Discord Server

As a POC (SE Asian) who was also dogpiled on a much a smaller scale in another discord server, and as one who'd witnessed in real time the events that unfolded in December 2023 in the KM discord server, I think the one thing that's been lost in all this chaos and drama is the human decency of giving people the benefit of the doubt.

Feel free to skip this section!

And for a little background, here's my experience: I reblogged a post on my blog and ranted about a few headcanons that I don't agree with in the tags. Some people read my tags, and concluded from that one post that I'm an outright ableist. Mind you, it was one day, and one post when I had absolutely no filter. Yet still, in which case, the conclusion drawn about me was fair, since in retrospect, I see where I went wrong. Again, I was frustrated for one day in that post and did not think of my tone whatsoever. I face the repercussions of that misjudgment today. For the record, just because I'm a POC, it doesn't mean that I'm immune to hurting other people, no matter the fact that that was never my intention. I did hurt certain individuals with that one damn post and the tags I wrote, and I'll be apologetic and remorseful about it for a long time. But having said that, I'd honestly expected certain people in this fandom to be mature enough to reach out in private first and ask for some clarifications, not to be immediately gossiped about in the discord server we were a part of. On top of that, besides that one incident, I hadn't even realized there was already growing resentment towards the metas I've written for KP/Kimchay, besides one of the few times I brought up personal frustrations I experienced as a POC. Lol

From what I've noticed with this incident in the KM server as well as the small discord server I was a part of, when POC share their own cultural context and understanding of something, not just the piece of media for which is the reason why we were all there in the first place, the knee-jerk reaction for most westerners are almost always to think of those things as "fandom policing."

In fact, in a separate conversation from my experience, one of them even said, "it's not so much about culture!" LOLOL To have that sentiment hurled towards me, while I was speaking of my frustrations of when culture erasure takes place in conversations of certain topics, while the conversation took place in a discord server meant to celebrate an Asian piece of queer media…was quite an experience. XD Goodness, I can only wonder what it's like to be able to have the privilege to say that so easily. That's all I'll say. Ha~

Yet still, from my own point of view, do I call the people who hurt me “individuals with a colonizer mindset” and that other word that’s hanging around right now and unsaid, just because of these few incidents? My knee-jerk reaction is to say yes, considering I wasn't even given a chance to explain myself, but I'll clamp that knee-jerk reaction down as much as I can, because despite everything, I still personally think the KM discord server and that other discord server still did more good than bad (not by much though), in the grand scheme of things. Those servers allowed for some instances of astounding cross-cultural communication (even if it also allowed rampant western ignorance to thrive), and for what it's worth, there are still good people in this community, despite everything.

And at the end of the day, who am I to hurl hurtful labels towards those who'd hurt me, when I hardly even knew them in the first place (two of them I never even talked to, LOL), and I know to myself that they meant no harm at the end of the day. Even if they certainly didn’t hesitate to throw the label “ableist” at me without a second thought.

It's a serious thing to throw a label like that at someone, even if my own experience as a POC who was dogpiled on by a number of westerners...hmm, let's stop that train of thought.

Getting back on track. Even still, these opinions I hold won't erase the experiences of other POC members in this fandom and in the KM discord server, the hurt they've experienced, nor can I speak for any one of them.

I think the bad habit of knee-jerk reactions—specifically the knee-jerk reaction of those wanting to protect the KM discord server in the way that's perceived to result in the least amount of drama, the gut instinct to not want to be caught in the crossfire, the conscious choice to tolerate such things, for the sake of preserving the safe space that one has left—is pretty much what's dominating the behaviors of people responsible right now.

The mods who run such servers like the KM server and others like it—they're not perfect, but I would have at least expected from them to be more open and proactive to the concerns of its POC members. Perhaps it's too much to expect that they would be equipped to handle very sensitive issues as the ones its POC members experienced, but damn...the bar is quite low, even just to meet the minimum.

And that's the most frustrating thing, to be honest. All this time, in all these various situations for those who’ve spoken out, it's the POC members of the community who are ALWAYS the ones who are pressured to having to give people the benefit of the doubt, to have to be careful of what they say, but NOWHERE in these situations is that sentiment even remotely returned to POC.

It was the POC members affected by the incident in December who had to remain patient with the mods, it was the POC members who had to face the backlash of negativity that happened, it’s the POC members of the community who’ve had to face the accusations of fandom policing, it’s the POC members of the community who have to face daily micro aggressions in this fandom, when all we’ve done is express opinions and our viewpoints.

At the end of the day, it’s POC members of the community who face the repercussions of having spoken out, yet the rest of the westerners in this community have the damn luxury to walk away, unscathed, to think to themselves that they did nothing wrong.

So I’ll be blunt this one time: yes, for the most part, there are good people in this fandom, there are. But even so, not a single one of us here is perfect, we’re all human.

And if I do say so myself, there is indeed quite a desperate need for fandom spaces, not just the KP fandom, to decolonize their ways of operating, starting with: giving POC the benefit of the doubt and actually trying to handle our concerns with some effort.