#(anti-)romance

[castielsprostate]

i hate you "influencers", i hate you tiktok, i hate you "content creators", i hate you "unalive" and "s€x" and "dr/ügs", i hate you instagram, i hate you consumerism, i hate you family friendly, i hate you puritans, i hate you facebook, i hate you family vloggers, i hate you violating other people's privacy, i hate you modern day social media

[premiumbitch]

me acting nonchalant infront of my s/o like i dont wanna jump him right then and there

[ratunderneathahat]

STOP THREATENING TO TAKE AND BURN BOOKS BITCHES

THEY COULD BE THE MOST BADLY WRITTEN, AWFUL QUALITY, MOST CRINGE SHIT YOU EVER SEE

THEY COULD BE 99% SMUT WITH NO STORY DARK ROMANCE BOOKS

IT DOES NOT MATTER

BURNING BOOKS IT BAD

REMOVING BOOKS FROM THE LIBRARY BECAUSE YOU FIND THEM WEIRD/DISGUSTING/CRINGE IS BAD

IDK IF IT'S ICEBREAKER OR LOLITA OR THE OTHER SHIT PEOPLE GET SO WORKED UP ABOUT

BOOK BURNING AND BOOK BANNING IS BAD

[spookyteeth]

wow! how helpful!

edit: the first version of this post had something about adl. i was misinformed and had a lack of understanding that they were shitty. i'm sorry to everyone, i wish i researched a bit more. thank you for everyone that told me!

[papenathys]

"Authors should be allowed to explore dark themes in fiction! WRITING IS NOT CONDONING!"

That's so cool dude I agree with you absolutely!!! I am also against censorship and purity politics in fiction!!!! Wait dude- what are you doing- why did your white MC just call their POC love interest a racial slur and assault them......... ah........ I'm "moral policing" you???........ I see I see , my bad....... I just thought when you said you're "anti censorship" it meant you wanted to meaningfully explore complex themes in fiction........ oh nvm you just wanted to write a dark romance with a barely legal teen banging a 35 year old and not be judged for it........ My bad dude. My bad.

[littlenastieswewhispered]

“buffy ended the show single :)” ok but only because her current love interest just DIED!! (he near quite literally died in her arms! in sacrifice for her!) her last words of the entire series were telling him she loves him and then saying his name in admiration. she isn’t single; she’s a widow.

[g1rluninterruptedd]

i hate “dark romance”

it’s just romanticizing creepy men harming women. like seriously what is so amusing to these weirdos about a fuckin stalker impregnating a woman who is literally fucking grieving? or stories where he breaks into her goddamn house and “has sex” with her (it’s borderline if not definitely rape).

anyone who writes or consumes this shit needs to go to hell. stop turning women’s suffering into entertainment and 🌽 for ur amazement.

[stars-obsession-pit]

A random paranormal romance fan (who lives nowhere near Amity Park), while doing some research on ghosts for their next project, comes across the Anti-Ecto Control Acts.

And as they dig deeper, they start to realize this is a way bigger deal than they were ever imagining.

One thing leads to another, and they end up publishing a whole exposé on the matter.

…they just have to make sure no one ever learns just how they got started down this rabbit hole in the first place.

[premiumbitch]

scripting my s/o had a dream about me for a year before we even met. every single night of that 1 year. no exceptions. i want him to go mad thinking about me ୨ৎ

[mrstellmeafuckingsecret]

"remus lupin isn't for the bookworms, he's-" just because you can't read a book that isn't 80% porn doesn't mean he can't. he IS for the bookworms. he's for the girlfailures and self diagnosed freaks and he is not for the sex addicted booktok biketok teenage girls

[romanceclub-confessionss]

Confession:

"girl if i was dia that girl evthys is not getting a single night of undisturbed sleep! im haunting the shit out that ho! wdym im being tortured and having my fingernails ripped off while protecting u and ur out here playing sadosexual games with my tormentor?? girl fuck you 😭"

[puppygirlxoworld]

Bro STILL hasn’t asked me to be his valentine, anyone else like to volunteer? 🥰

[fullcollapse-mp3]

i love mcr sososososo much and you ppl know this but OMG they are so awkward in interviews. like damn can those boys make music but do NOT ask them questions bc they will go "um uh well it's kinda like, uh, yk how it is, it's kinda like, well-" the whole time 😭😭

[zhoras-bitch]

Me after reading just 2 episodes of HWTU:

[yourhighness6]

Me, screaming into the void: I DON'T HATE MAI I JUST FEEL LIKE SHE NEEDED MORE DEVELOPMENT OUTSIDE OF ZUKO AND HER ARC SHOULDN'T REVOLVE AROUND HER LOVE INTEREST

Also me, still screaming into the void: I DON'T HATE AANG I JUST QUESTION WHETHER HIS ROMANTIC INTEREST IN KATARA BRINGS OUT THE BEST SIDES OF HIM AND FEEL AS THOUGH HE AND HIS DEVELOPMENT IS NOT ABOVE NECESSARY CRITICISM

[ecoterrorist-katara]

Why I feel like Ka/taang is one-sided, despite textual evidence 

ATLA does try to convince us that Katara has romantic feelings for Aang. For example: she seems thoughtful when she realizes that Aang is a powerful bender; she’s offended that he didn’t want to kiss her in the Cave of Two Lovers; she gets jealous when Sokka says On Ji and Aang look good together.

So…what’s wrong with anti-Kataangers? Do we just lack media comprehension? 

To be clear, on their own, these gestures can indicate romantic interest. But at the same time, we have stuff like “Aang is a sweet little guy, like Momo.” We have her ambivalent facial expression after he kisses her before the eclipse, and her hedging during Ember Island Players, and her anger when he kisses her anyway. In the context of these conflicting cues, Katara’s possibly romantic reactions can absolutely be interpreted in a different way, because: 

Acknowledging a friend as a potential romantic interest is not the same as actually being romantically interested in them. (Imo this is something young women struggle with, due to a combination of romance-centrism and heteronormativity that make women feel like they should be in romantic relationships, and that boys and girls who share intimate and deep feelings for one another must be romantically into each other) 

Wanting someone to find you desirable is not the same as desiring that person. (Which is something a lot of women, especially young women, struggle with. Remember all the discourse around Cat Person back in 2017?) 

Being jealous when someone flirts with your friend is not the same as wanting to be with your friend. (Especially when you see your friends as family, or if you’re accustomed to a specific type of devotion from that friend. It is jealousy, and it is possessiveness, but it doesn’t always arise from romantic feelings) 

Growing up in a patriarchal society means that your desires are always filtered through what men want from you, sometimes in an abstract male gaze-y way, and sometimes in a very visceral and interpersonal way when a boy wants you specifically. And Katara’s reactions are just that — reactions. Reactions to what other people — including Aunt Wu, Sokka, Aang himself — have insinuated about her and Aang. She’s not really proactive in her interest in Aang: we don’t really see Aang, romantically, from Katara’s POV. Under the framework of “Katara is reacting to a romantic prospect she’s kind of uncertain about,” it is completely plausible — and indeed likely — that she would sometimes act in ways that indicate romantic interest, in addition to moments where she indicates the opposite. 

Ka/taang shippers often bring up other evidence, like Katara’s despair when Azula hits Aang with lightning, or how protective she is of him when Zuko joins the Gaang. The thing is, these pieces of evidence aren’t necessarily indicative of romantic love. The fact that Katara genuinely loves Aang makes the whole thing more complicated, not less, because — especially at that age, especially when Aang is twelve years old and grew up in a sex-segregated society of monks — it is really difficult to tell the difference between platonic love and romantic love. Their mutual devotion is layered and complex yet straightforward in its sincerity. What was not straightforward, until the last five minutes of the show, is whether this devotion on Katara’s end is romantic. The romantic arc for Katara and Aang is not really an arc, as Sneezy discusses in this classic ZK video. Katara actually becomes more conflicted over time and we never see an event that clarifies her feelings. She seems more interested in him in The Headband than on the Day of the Black Sun, and she has never been more hostile to his romantic overtures than in the penultimate episode. 

And in light of this, it’s pretty easy for fans to fill in the blanks with a different interpretation: maybe Katara’s weird expression after their kiss at the invasion means she didn’t enjoy it; maybe the kiss made her realize that she doesn’t actually feel that way about Aang; maybe against her will and her better judgement, she’s developing feelings for another person, a person who hurt her and whom she fervently tried to hate until he pulled off what is in my opinion the greatest grovel of all time in the form of a life-changing field trip. Maybe. Am I saying that Zutara has more romantic interactions than Ka/taang? Of course not. But ironically, the lack of romantic interactions means that it’s not inherently one-sided, the way Ka/taang became in the latter half of season 3.

I’m not arguing that Katara’s unequivocally not into Aang. Obviously the text declares that she is, because they get married and have kids. But I am saying that there’s a very good reason that so many people, especially women, see Katara’s interest in Aang as ambiguous. It’s not because we can’t pick up “subtle” hints of growing affection. It’s because we know not all affection is romantic, and it’s really easy for someone else’s insistent romantic intentions to muddle what you want.

P.S. I first started thinking about these topics (platonic vs romantic love, desiring someone vs wanting to be desired, etc) in the context of compulsory heterosexuality, a term describing how queer women contort themselves into relationships with men even if they’re not really into men. I saw a post a few days ago joking about why so many queer women seem to be into Zutara. I wonder if part of the reason is because as queer women, we are very sensitive to the ways in which we can talk ourselves into wanting things we don’t actually want, and Katara’s romantic interest in Aang can be easily seen that way.