#yes india

[heart-of-the-morningstar]

I was thinking about how genuinely heartbreaking it was for Pavitr’s last line in the movie to be “Is everything going to be okay?” No one responds to his question either, Gwen can’t seem to even look at him. He stands there looking so confused and sad as he watches Mumbattan be enveloped by this black hole.

My heart hurts 🥺

[insane-in-the-membranee]

Men fucking scare me.

Now, some are going to go like, "it's not all men", " Are you also scared of your dad/brother/male relative?", "Another 'feminist' hating on men" and so on probably. Sure, it's not all men but it's always men.

I was scrolling insta when I came across a reel where a guy is complaining about how whenever there is a crime concerning a woman, we raise our voice and protest yet when there is a crime concerning a man, there is barely even news coverage. Which is certainly true and fair. But seriously, right now? Why is it that men always complain whenever people are trying to give justice to a poor victim girl?? I totally agree that whether men or women, all victims should get their justice but have some fucking sympathy instead of complaining?!?

Next, another reel where a lawyer guy was talking about women's safety laws and all, the comments? "Law for women, la*da for men". Well, why don't you go and take a look at the statistics? Maybe read the news daily, I mean the local one. Again, I'm NOT against men's safety, ofc no. It's just that, why can't men complain or raise their concerns without pulling the women with them? What do you want? The laws that are made for us (not that they're REALLY useful) to go nil??? Or what?? Equality? That is feminism. Fucking equality!! You don't hear a true feminist complaining, "why do men get paid more than us? Salary for men, chillar for women" or anything, instead it's "We want to get paid the same as that of a man." Again, I'm NOT speaking against men particularly, just the ones who feel enraged towards us just because we want to get treated as a human first, and equally.

I was talking to a guy friend and his attitude is, "Yeah what happened to her is TERRIBLE but hey, it's not like I can do anything about that? I would never do that and be a good person but that's all I can do, I can't tell the rapists that what they did was wrong and they'd too be like 'oh yes yes oops we did wrong' right?". Now, I do understand his perspective but sure a bit more sympathy and kindness won't hurt anyone?? He even has a sister!! And in the age of social media, anyone with a phone can contribute to some extent.

When I read the details of the case, my soul cried out. I can't even imagine her sorrow. Oh my goodness. My insides felt all queasy reading those gruesome details. All girls of all ages have almost experienced a bad incident with men. Harassment, molestation, abuse, assault, SOMETHING! So many cases everyday and so many more which don't even get registered. Rapes have become so common in India that unless and until it's something very gruesome, people don't even bother that much. It's always "What has it got to do with me" until it's someone you, someone who is close to you. 78 years of independence yet girls are still caged behind walls.

It's always "Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao", Beti padh toh li lekin Beti bach nahi pai. Why is it always "Arre voh toh ladhka, voh toh aise he karega", Voh aisa kyu karega?!?

Why is that ladhkiyo ko mana karte hai raat mein bahar jaane ke liye because it's not safe for her, lekin ladhke puri raat awaaragardi kare, koi dikkat nahi.

Why can't we just teach boys to respect women? To not just respect women, but to respect everyone? The next person is a living being, is that not a good enough reason to not be cruel??

https://www.instagram.com/reel/C-ry4xNvZw0/?igsh=N2M0bW51c3dueGpi

Ajeeb toh hai.

[feministfang]

Listen! I don’t give a fuck how these ugly brown men are treated in the west. Stop showing sympathy for them. Everybody knows what happened in india a few days ago. These are your poor "victim" brown men that some of you think are better than white men. I literally smirk whenever something bad happens to them. I feel happy when Muslim men in india get lynched by mobs. I love it when these men kill each other out of hate. They all deserve it. They deserve worse. And i hope they all burn in hell for eternity.

[bethanydelleman]

Speaking on the Ellen Show, Knightley said her daughter (who was born in 2015) was “banned” from watching Cinderella, which Disney produced as a cartoon in 1950 and a live-action film in 2015. “[Cinderella] waits around for a rich guy to rescue her. Don't. Rescue yourself!

Says the woman who starred in a trilogy that said, "No murderers and theives were good actually because they wanted freedom."

[nightanddusk]

ISTG, no one sees the vision, it’s obviously: Pavitr x Miles x Hobie, I BEG

[pinkflipphonez]

I'd like to think that we ruled the world for a short moment in time.

femslash february day 1: POWER

[m1ssunderstanding]

oooooooooh what does Junk have to do with John???

"Paul McCartney knew he was in trouble the morning he couldn’t lift his head off the pillow. He awoke facedown, his skull feeling like a useless dead weight. Day by day, his condition had been worsening. His sleepless nights were spent shaking with anxiety; his days were characterized by heavy drinking and self-sedation with marijuana. For the first time in his life, he felt utterly worthless. Everything he had been since the age of 15 had been wrapped up in the band. Now, he was 27, and even though he couldn’t tell the world, that period of his life was almost certainly over." -- Man on the Run

“He'd fallen in love, and none of us was stupid enough to say, 'Oh, you shouldn't love her.' We could recognize that, but that didn't diminish the hurt we were feeling by being pushed aside.” -- Paul in Anthology

"Buy, buy"

Says the sign in the shop window

"Why, why?"

Says the junk in the yard

[scltbvrns]

homogenising something that has always been inherently diverse will kill us all one day.

[mariaajade]

[da-birb-writes-sometimes]

CONGRADULATIONS ON THE 100 FOLLOWERS!!!! Can I request Idia with the stargazing prompt? Can it please be romantic and fluffy? This event is so fun! I hope you have a wonderful day!!☆彡♡ :)

Stargazing; Idia Shroud

Content; Fluff, gender-neutral reader, romance

Word Count; 700+

AN; Thank you, Sofia! I hope you enjoy the fluffy Idia! He deserves to not always be a wet cat (affectionate) As a reminder, do not put my work — or others for that matter — into AI as it steals. Link to Masterlist

The heat of the day was finally gone. Dew covered the grass. Crickets chirped in the undergrowth. And above you were millions of stars, and visible galaxies and nebulas, not obstructed by decades of light pollution. It was beautiful.��

Sitting beside you on the blanket that was spread out to provide a somewhat comfy barrier between you and the ground, was Idia. He had the hood of his sweater tied on tight, as so to hide the fact that his hair was nearly neon pink, and a dead giveaway of how he was feeling. And even though he was out of his comfort zone, he wanted to join you. And he was happy that he did. Yes, he felt nervous, but it wasn’t just because he was out in public — it was because this was a date, an official date. And while the two of you sitting in his room and playing games or watching shows were technically dates, this was the first public one.

“Hey, Idia,” you tugged at his sleeve, pulling him out of his thoughts. “Do you have a favourite constellation? A planet?”

He cleared his throat and hesitantly held your hand in his. His hand shaking the slightest bit. “Not really,” he said quietly looking up to the sky. Well, his head was pointed up, but he wasn’t looking at the countless stars. He was looking at you from the corner of his eye. “And you?”

You hummed, looking up at the unfamiliar sky. “Pluto. It’s a planet from… from back home.”

Idia gently slipped his hand into yours and squeezed it. “I-if you want, you can talk about it,” he internally cringed. He hadn’t stuttered like that since he had truly started feeling comfortable around you.

You squeezed his hand back and leaned your head on his shoulder. “Well, it used to be a planet but then got demoted to a dwarf planet. Which is kind of ironic, seeing that it’s named after the Roman god of the underworld.” You sigh and turn to Idia, whose hood had slipped down, revealing his hair. It was a lovely shade of pastel pink, and it was the entirety of his hair, not just the tips. It cast the both of you in a soft rose light. “... a person people tend to underestimate and judge.”

Idia clamoured to get the hood over his head, but he was stopped by your hand, which gently placed the hood down. Why are they looking at me like I’m the milk bread protag in some cheesy shounen?! He was in his own head, but all of that went away when he felt your hand cup his face.

Idia was similar to Pluto, and not just in the themes of relating to the god of the underworld. For so long, people only saw them as unassuming. But when you get closer, then you can appreciate the beauty and tiny details. Someone that you would stand next to and defend at all costs, even when the rest of the world may say that you shouldn’t, that you should just let it be as is.

“I love you,” you whisper, looking into his gold eyes.

That was the first time you had said that, well, said it out loud. Maybe it was the fact that Idia did something out of his comfort zone for you, maybe it was the setting, or maybe it was something else entirely.

You place your forehead against his. “I love you, Idia Shroud,” you say again, still looking into his eyes.

If Idia’s hair were not already as bright and pink as it could go, it would have gotten brighter, but it was as bright as the sun. But his face was now warm, and he was holding eye contact; even though he wanted to hide. “I-I,” he shut his mouth, took in a deep breath and centred himself. He didn’t want his first time saying the phrase to be stuttered. He wanted it to be perfect. I can do this. “I love you too.”

Shyly, he placed a kiss on your cheek and held eye contact for a few moments before hiding back in his hood. He swore that you were more stunning than all the stars that glittered above.

[desigirldairies]

— 🌸

[urmuminnitt]

BESTIES!! WIP ❤️

edit : finished drawing!

[demigod-of-the-agni]

Local man, his two boyfriends and his two girlfriends buy TRANS ICON BLÅHAJ

[dreamings-free]

👀 indeed.. 31/10/23

[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.

[dancersofcolor]

Alexandra Hutchinson of Dance Theater of Harlem and India Bradley of New York City Ballet, profiled by the New York Times.

Photo by Ye Fan