#because I don’t deserve it

[liesmultixxx]

.

[whatohitsonfirewelp]

You know what? I don’t WANT an awkward double date. I don’t WANT buck coming out and people having the ‘I know’ reaction or the ‘is it Eddie’ reaction.

You know what I do want?

I want Buck panicking over what to wear for the date. I want Buck flopping on his bed like very teenager after their first kiss all giggly and happy and touching his lips because he kissed a boy

I want Buck smiling every time he says Tommy’s name because maybe it isn’t forever and maybe he’s not even looking for forever anymore but he’s so happy and he’s so light and being with Tommy feels good

I want Tommy to keep calling him Evan, because before Buck was Buck he was Evan and Evan deserves to be happy to be treated so softly and lovingly and Evan deserves to be free.

I want Buck to be happy. To be happy and free and queer in the way we all deserve.

[crabussy]

by the way if you think an endangered species deserves to go extinct because it takes effort to save them/they can’t look after themselves, you need to reevaluate the way you look at the world because that is an extremely flawed, messed up, and sad worldview.

[potato-lord-but-not]

Your most recent post I just made me think about John (because I’m always thinking about John) and if having his wrists pinned would freak him out. Like, the level of trust he would have to build with Oscar to give up what little control he does have, give up that little piece of autonomy he clings too. Idk your art makes me crazy and then I get thinking and here we are—

no you’re so right my god. I need to draw more of these three navigating being intimate because it makes me go INSANE. I need more John being reluctant to trust Oscar and Oscar being patient with him because he’s probably a little bit scared of him but also he knows what it’s like to be ignored and to lose some of your autonomy (I mean he’s coming from the religious trauma stand point but still you get me) NOW YOUVE GOT ME RAMBLING DAMN IT I need to draw them so bad

[margoshansons]

Dreamfyre you’re still the mother of Daenerys’s dragons in my heart and will be until GRRM comes out of his hole to tell me otherwise

[ecoterrorist-katara]

The tragedy of Katara’s parentification

Sokka and Katara were both parentified, and it’s a profoundly life-changing thing for both of them. One of the saddest things in ATLA, though, is how Sokka sort of got to outgrow parentification, but Katara never did.

Sokka’s told to be the man. The provider, the protector. He’s not so good at the former (his hunting failures are a consistent source of comic relief), and he takes failures of the latter very, very hard. He doesn’t manage to save Yue, and that wrecks him. After Yue, he becomes extremely protective of Suki in a way that’s borderline offensive to her. He’s willing to do anything to protect his friends and his family, including something as irresponsible as breaking into the Boiling Rock. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that Sokka is the only one of the Gaang who unambiguously kills. The rest of them may technically have clean hands because of cartoon logic, but Combustion Man is very dead, and Sokka is the one who killed him. We don’t know how he feels about it, because the show never goes there, but I have a pet theory that Sokka is so uncharacteristically (remember he was team “leave Zuko to freeze to death”) against Katara confronting Yon Rha in The Southern Raiders because he’s the only who knows what killing feels like and wants to protect Katara from it.

But by the end of the show, Sokka’s in a place where he can start to let go of his need to protect. Objectively, all his friends are unbelievably powerful and can take care of themselves, including his sister and his girlfriend. Suki is the one who saves him in the final battle, representing not only a reversal of his initial cartoonish misogyny, but also demonstrating that he is worthy of protection. And of course, he and his friends saved the world, so there isn’t really an enemy that he has to protect them from anymore. Sokka’s loved ones create the conditions under which his parentified behaviour is no longer necessary. Sokka would still have to take the first step to stop seeing himself as the one who has to lay his life on the line, but at least it’s possible for him.

But not Katara.

Katara had to take on the mom role after their mother was murdered, which meant she was responsible for domestic labour and emotional support. Sokka says in The Runaway that her role was to keep the family together. Unlike protection, that’s always a full time job regardless of the war. We see Katara spending more screen time than anybody cooking, getting food, mending, and generally doing women’s work. We see Katara giving everyone emotional support, including strangers and her enemy. We see Katara putting aside her own discomfort and her own hurt in The Desert because if she falls apart, they all die. Nobody ever showed her that she doesn’t need to be the only one who cooks, or that somebody else can be responsible for the emotional wellbeing of her friends, or that — god forbid — someone else can actually be responsible for her emotional wellbeing.

That’s why I never cared for the Ka/taang argument of “he teaches her to be a kid again!” Putting aside the fact that Katara ends up taking care of Aang a lot more as the series goes on, the whole tragedy of parentification is that you can never again be a child. That part of your childhood, your god-given right, is robbed from you. It is extremely precious and important to still be able to be a kid, but breaking free of parentification is not about seeing yourself as a kid. It’s about breaking free of being responsible for everyone’s feelings and behaviours.

For Katara, that responsibility is not problem of perception, but of reality. Unlike Sokka, who was told and shown that his loved ones are capable of protecting themselves, Katara has zero reason to believe that her loved ones are able to feed and clothe themselves and not fall apart emotionally. Between Toph and Sokka who emphatically don’t want to do this work, it all falls on Katara. Telling a parentified child that they just need to loosen up is akin to telling an overworked mother that she needs to just relax (“happy Mother’s Day! You get a break from chores, which you will catch up on tomorrow because nobody else is doing them”). It doesn’t accomplish anything if nobody creates the circumstances under which it’s possible to let go of responsibilities. A lot of Zutara fans, spanning all the way back to the early days of the fandom, like the “Momtara and Dadko” trope where Zuko also does chores. Why? Because even without the concept and language of parentification, many fans recognized that Katara’s performance of domestic and emotional labour is inequitable and probably very taxing.

Growing out of parentification is about more than just letting go of old expectations: it’s also about finding a new way to value yourself beyond the role you grew up with. I’ve said this before, but it’s very important to acknowledge that just because a kid is parentified doesn’t mean they’re actually good at being a parent. In fact, it’s probably a given that they’re not, because they’re kids performing roles that are developmentally inappropriate! Sokka remains a shit hunter; he becomes a decent fighter but he’s still miles behind his friends. A big part of healing from his parentification is finding another area — strategy, engineering, project management (what else do you call that schedule) — where he actually excels, to which he can dedicate his time and from which he can derive satisfaction and a sense of identity. For Katara, fighting for the oppressed and combat waterbending give her that. Crucially, however, Katara does not stop being a girl when she becomes a warrior. She’s still responsible for domestic and emotional labour. Unlike Sokka, whose protector duties were more or less relieved as the series went on and he found new ways to contribute to the group, Katara continued to perform her old role in addition to her new one (which is depressingly realistic btw, look up feminist theory around the concept of the second shift). Still, it’s important that she found these new ways to value herself and her contributions…

…which disappear in her adult life. Where’s adult Katara fighting for the oppressed? Where’s adult Katara enjoying her status as a master waterbender? Where’s Mighty Katara? Where’s the Painted Lady? Where’s the person who vanquished a whole Fire Lord?

What do we know about adult Katara? She’s no longer a rabblerouser or an ecoterrorist. She did not translate her desire to help the downtrodden into a political role, like being Chief or on the United Republic Council. She’s not known as the best waterbender in the world, only the best healer, even though her combat abilities are what she took the most pride in. Even as a healer, she established no hospitals, trained no widespread acolytes (except Korra, I guess?), and made no known contributions to the field.

What Katara is known for…is being a wife and a mother. The same role she was forced to take on at age 8. One which she performed for the next 80+ years.

[pokemon-radical-red]

Trans men are literally just a joke to so many people. I’ve seen multiple Tik Toks like “When the trans man with HUGE BOOBS(!!!) in a crop top gets mad at me when I misgender him.”

One of these had the OP’s comment of “Why are so many people in my comment section being transphobic towards trans men?”

It’s because you made this a safe space for people who hate trans men!!! You decided to describe trans men’s bodies in dehumanizing, sexualizing ways to make a joke out of us! In what world does “smh trans men are SO EMOTIONAL and expect us to instantly know everything about them and cater to them even though it makes my life so hard (I have to change a word),” not come off as repackaged sexism?

If you say that this is a made up situation, these people will immediately claim that this happens and has happened to them. It’s interesting that either they’re lying or they’re admitting that they’re sexualizing a real man’s body in a way that could easily trigger his gender dysphoria.

[atelierlili]

I always wondered why Katniss factored marriage and children into the equation when it came to reciprocating Peeta’s feelings for her. It’s a rather large leap, especially when Peeta himself never expresses wanting children at any point in the story. He uses children as a tool to persuade Katniss and the Capital to save her life, but the only time we see him express any desire/feelings of having one of his own is when he’s crying after the baby bomb. But we never hear his real thoughts.

But you wanna know who does express wanting children? Gale.

It’s one of the first thing he mentions in chapter one. And it pisses her off so much.

(I also want to add that Gale reframes/establishes the dynamic of Katniss and him caring for their siblings from something that is sibling-sibling to parent-sibling. And he is not wrong. Katniss doesn’t refute him. Both Katniss and Gale are surrogate parents to their siblings. Which is also why Katniss love and affection of Prim, is not just sisterly. I’ve seen people say Katniss is only sisterly to Prim- but she’s not. She’s parentified their relationship to the point she subconsciously see Prim as her child, which makes this a tragedy because she’ll loose her first child no matter what she does by the end of the story.)

But Gale’s phrasing here elevates himself as a potential suitor to Katniss by placing them both as the parental roles to these children. (Which irritates her a lot ). Which is why she brings the topic up with her relationship with Peeta. Because she’s subconsciously aware of Gale’s efforts and knows it will be a point of contention between them. It hangs over her head in a way.

With Gale, children are extra mouths to feed. (But Gale will do fine. He can work. He can hunt.) It’s all framed with calculated survival in mind. But it’s also not something she had planned in the future at any point.

But Peeta’s children? Oh they deserve to be born because Peeta deserves to be a father. He would be such a good father. They deserve to exist in a world where they can be safe and happy. (Even if it’s not with her.)

This is also why I think she subconsciously sees Peeta’s baby as her own. And I don’t think of it as a cruel/heartless thing, it’s just you’d be more protective of your own child compared to someone else’s. Katniss sees Gale as a reliable person who’s equipped to look after a kid. She doesn’t express the same kind of maternal instinct/yearning for the Baby Hawthrone’s safety as she does with the idea of Baby Mellark, because she doesn’t think of Gale’s child as her own. She never hopes for a better future for them, but she does with Peeta because he and that baby gives her hope. And she loves him that much.

[bixels]

Cozy Glow is such an interesting litmus test for die-hard bronies. I was checking r/mlp to prep a post and there’s a discussion post about how she deserved what she got and. How do I tell bronies that children should not be tried as adults. How do I tell bronies that psychopaths and sociopaths deserve human rights and treatment and support. How do I tell bronies that cruel and unusual punishments are bad. How do I tell bronies that the death penalty is wrong. How do I tell bronies that a ruling body should not have absolute say over putting someone to death, least of all a 6-year-old child.

These are all my recent google searches.

[juiceicicles]

Steve having a sexuality crisis is all good angst and realistic writing, and Steve having known for a while and being confident and learned is great too, but I love Steve “just skipped the crisis part” Harrington.

Because really, who gives a shit if he’s gay when he’s fought monsters?

His best friend is a lesbian, and he loves her, so it’d be hypocritical not to accept this part of himself.

He’s had to protect his friends from mind demons with Kate Bush songs, this is not even a blip in the crazy shit he’s had to deal with.

One of his children friends has telekinetic powers and can go into your mind to figure out your location and save you from giant spider demons.

He almost died, everyone he loves almost died, who cares?

[ciderjacks]

infantilization

[cordiallyfuturedwight]

you'll be seeing me very soon for @jinstronaut ♡

[happypeachsludgeflower]

So, in PIDW, there was obviously wife plots that could bring back the dead (mushroom body being one of them), and since we know Airplane is a hack that reuses concepts over and over, there’s probably multiple wife plots that could work, so like, where’s the PIDW fics where Liu Qingge somehow comes back to life, memories of Shen Jiu trying to save him intact, and goes to hunt the asshole down so he can repay his life debt, and along the way accidentally clears Shen Jiu’s name of all his crimes and now everyone is convinced Shen Qingqiu is a saint.

[everything-is-as-it-was]

Don’t get me wrong that video was a certified banger that I’ll have to come back to in order to process fully, but I was so so hoping that they were gonna address the lack of latam or Asia dates and when they didn’t and instead said they’re adding MORE dates in Europe/usa…. It’s like read the room a little bit pls

[spooksicl-e]

doodle of the only ever

[moonilit]

FFXVI serving some of the best dynamics