Alyssa ~ 24 ~ California ~ Philadelphia
“Every day you gotta wake up and be yourself even if you suck, especially if you suck, because no one else sucks like you suck.” -Patrick Stump
You weren’t ugly 10 years ago, you were a kid, or a teenager, or just a human person. 10 years ago cameras weren’t that good. We still used CDs. People had flip phones. 10 years ago Instagram wasn’t a thing. I hate to say it but every year we spent perfecting our social media presence is not a glow up. A grainy picture of you just existing in the era before curated existence next to a perfectly lit and framed “candid” is not an accurate comparison… Be nicer to your younger self, man. Think about what it’s telling the kids.
one thing i do want to say though is i think as h*mosexual women but also just as women in general is that we need to recognize that “i’m not performing for men” is only one half of the picture. maybe you don’t want men’s approval but how much do you need women’s acceptance? how much are you smoking and drinking and doing coke and running and dieting and posting about forgetting to eat and performing other kinds of violence for the approval of other women? how much pressure do women put on you to negate the features of your body or your race or your sexuality or anything else…can you get away with stimming around other women? can you get away with not shaving? can you be around your female friends and feel fat without saying “i feel fat” so no one would mistake you for not punishing yourself for what is (erroneously) assumed to be a “transgression” of the body? can you look ugly and know that the female store clerk or the barista or the girl at the sink next to you or the girl on the bus with you or the girl with you on the elevator on the girl you have to squeeze past in the lecture hall to get out of the aisle will be kind and respectful to you and not act disgusted. can you be around your female family members without them commenting on your body? so much masochism and violence remain normalized among women because we say “well I’m not doing it for men, so it’s my choice” but how much are you doing out of a fear of women?
and thats how things like makeup and shaving get baked into “feminist” rhetoric because we forget the degree to which feminity is enforced by other women, not men. so even for people who have no stake at all in being appealing to men…there’s still the threat of being punished by women. and every post that’s critical of makeup or whatever that ends up with reblogs that say things like “learn to do eyeliner ugly” or whatever stupid shit just proves that. we’re out here doing the same things we’ve always done we’ve just replaced “attracting men” with “placating other women”
Oh to be a character in a keith haring drawing. Just dancing around… oh shit, look out! A baby! We have to cherish this baby! Oh shit, a cool dog. Oh man oh fuck, I need to have some safe gay sex with my partner
Oh to be a featureless stickman with no secondary sex characteristics, having my gender be relevant ONLY when I’m being gay with someone
me: the entire foundation of mai and zuko’s relationship was built on how miserable they were together, and how they would just sit there and hate the world together— letting their misery fester as they enabled each other’s depression— and I think that’s really unfortunate because they would work so well as friends if they weren’t trying to make their dumpster fire of a relationship work. similarly, what makes zuko and katara’s dynamic so compelling is that they share the same flaws, only as opposed to mai’s apathy and misery, it’s katara’s rage and guilt that zuko identifies with. they both share trauma over having lost their mothers, and both in a similar way (sacrificing themselves for them) and they both cope with their grief through rage, often misplaced. in the southern raiders, they both act deeply insensitively towards sokka by acting as if his grief over his mother’s death is somehow less valid simply because he is a lot quieter in his coping mechanisms and doesn’t project his rage & guilt onto everyone else. katara and zuko have a deep & profound friendship, but if they were to be in a relationship, they would only bring out the absolute worst in each other thru enabling each other’s rage and emotion-driven decision making. conversely, when they go to the boiling rock, it is shown that sokka and zuko make an excellent team, as they balance each other perfectly. sokka thinks big picture, and plans ahead, but zuko will charge into situations, and account for the details of the plan, such as when he breaks the lever for the gondola. in that same scene, we see zuko jump off the platform and sokka catch him without any communication that either was going to do so. zuko later catches sokka from slipping off the side of the gondola. when they’re fighting azula, again they fall into wordless trust with zuko on the defense blocking azula’s fire, while sokka takes the defense, using the opening zuko creates by protecting him to charge at azula with his sword. throughout the entire episode, zuko supports all of sokka’s decisions without question, telling him that it’s his call to make when he wonders whether they should stay another night, which is the kind of trust sokka always needed to receive as the leader. when sokka is about to give up because he’s afraid of failing again, zuko inspires him and even encourages failure, a lesson that sokka still needs to learn, especially after the shame he feels after losing the invasion. throughout the episode as well you can see the steady building of their friendship, and they’re shown to trust each other unconditionally. the next episode, zuko asks sokka to recount to him one of his most traumatic memories in excruciating detail, and even though sokka could easily say fuck no, he tells zuko about the death of his mother because it is important to him that zuko and katara get along. zuko also genuinely smiles a hell of a lot more than he does pretty much any other episode, even though the situation is incredibly tense, because he enjoys sokka’s company, even when he’s in prison. zuko and sokka have a lot in common, a lot of the same experiences struggling with limitations of masculinity and feeling worthless compared to their prodigious younger sisters. and that’s not to mention that they have a lot of interests in common, such as swords, and the arts (sokka likes to paint & draw, zuko is a theatre kid etc), not to mention they share a similar dry, sarcastic, offbeat sense of humor. as opposed to zuko and mai, who are two miserable people who make each other miserable, zuko and sokka are two miserable people who make each other HAPPY
therapist: okay……..but how are you?
I never thought I would read a Zuko/Sokka manifesto in the year of our lord 2019 but I am so glad I did
please remember that it is possible to cross contaminate dishes if you use the same utensils between dishes. so say if you have a dish of pasta and a dish of beans (a common allergen) and you use a single spoon to dish both out, congrats the pasta is now contaminated with allergens. I know, it doesn’t seem like it could be dangerous but it only takes a little bit to set off an allergic reaction for some people.
reblog to save a life, plz.
addition: wooden serving spoons, bowls, etc can retain gluten particles even after washing, because they are porous. if you are cooking for someone w celiac disease/severe gluten sensitivity then always use non-porous materials like metal, ceramic, or silicone
