How Could You Ever Be Broken?

exactly

okay, but, like, I feel like we need to emphasize more on how important it is to have a partner you can just talk to. I was telling this to someone the other day, but Hollywood and media focuses so much on sexual tension and explosive passion in a relationship, and while those are completely valid and understandable things for certain, not all, people to desire (even I myself do), I feel like there’s barely enough light casted onto the value of being able to converse with your partner and relish in their company even in the most neutral discussion. I can barely count how many films, particularly romance ones, have emphasized on the importance and value of being able to speak to a partner like they are your close friend, and being able to absolutely adore their company, and engage in conversation with them about anything and everything, even if it isn’t romantic. Lexi and Fez, Aristotle and Dante, Marianne and Heloise, Jesse and Celine, Connell and Marianne. so many people adore these couples because they showcase such a human, genuine connection through conversation. Lexi and Fez discussing God and the backlash of social media. Aristotle and Dante’s talks on finding identity and how life feels better when the shoes are kicked off. Marianne and Heloise debating over what it meant when Orpheus turned around, and the release found within music. Celine speaking to Jesse about how the media is controlling our minds and how she thinks she really loves someone when she can detect every detail of them, Jesse speaking to Celine about when he saw his deceased grandmother in the sprinkle of a hose and the things he remembers his parents having said to him. Connell and Marianne sitting under the summer sun, eating ice cream, discussing the differences in their class and how money can be simultaneously corrupt and indescribably appealing. all of these couples have made me realize how while passionate kisses under the rain and loud proclamations of your love for someone are valuable for certain people, it is also inexpressibly important to find someone who you can linger in the passenger seat for just to hear what they thought about the movie you watched last night. someone who you take your time putting your shoes on for just to hear about the physical sensation they got when the second last line of your favourite song reverberated through their headphones.

The way Maeve/Isaac and Ruby/Otis as pairings helped each of the four characters grow and mature as individuals, with Otis growing more selfless and empathetic, Maeve and Ruby letting their walls down to let people know their ill parents, Isaac owning up to his huge mistake by himself and apologising, only for the writers to fall back into the will they/won't they of Otis/Maeve where the pair can't even communicate....

adam groff's soft little 'i look quite pretty' rb if u agree

i think we are all forgetting something when we talk about how toxic patrick, tashi, and art are — or when we decide one is “worse” than the other. they all have moments of seeing right through it, seeing each other’s toxic behavior for what it is, and STILL want and need each other in this possessive, envious, visceral way.

1. in the way beginning, tashi is clearly flirting more with art than patrick, and patrick is visibly annoyed. art sees right through it and even challenges him like “okay, let’s leave”, and has this little smirk on his face because he knows patrick won’t give up on tashi.

2. tashi immediately sees the visible tension and love between art and patrick, and literally orchestrates their first kiss. she sees right through their repression, and even calls herself a “home-wrecker” but still entangles herself with them, especially patrick because he’s clearly the better tennis player at that point and that is tash’s ONLY true love. tennis. that’s what she desires most in him, and patrick knows that. he even calls her out on it in the dorm room scene. but they have this mirroring fire in each other that neither of them can give up, not until patrick breaks the balance and bails — tashi’s injury is literally a metaphor for the balance shattering between all three of them when patrick leaves her.

3. before this, patrick sees right through art trying to break them up, and even admires that quality — maybe even feels smug and flattered because art is jealous and feels left out from both tashi and patrick. patrick has known this all along, we saw it in the “tick-serve” scene, where he even swears to tashi he won’t tell anyone but he still tells art, who is desperate to feel a part of them and patrick wants that, too — even keeps that close intimacy with art that we see in the churro scene (swoon swoon swoon).

4. haven’t you noticed that arts desire to be great is only ever tied up in patrick and tashi? how he needs to beat patrick to win tashis affection, how he needs to win in tennis so that tashi can live through him, how he lives up to his potential in the ending only because tashi and patrick push him to it, in their little fucked up ways? he knows this — he even admits that he’s playing for tashi, that he knows she’s living through him. he even admits he’s playing a fucked up little game with patrick when they’re in the sauna. yet he still does it. again, he knows what’s happening, sees right through them — still does it, still loves them.

5. when tashi calls patrick to come pick her up he knows it’s not just to tell him to throw the match — and despite how she battles him about it, they still have sex in the car, because he already knows. he’s so fully aware of her and her game and he’s so willing to be caught up in it, the same as art.

just some examples of how they all have moments of clarity and agency and yet they still choose to be entangled in one another because they’re all fucked up in their own, individual ways, and they’re all living through each other for their own specific needs. arts is to be seen as worthy, as great, but only through their gaze. tashis is to have the career that was stolen from her. patricks is truly to be in love and in lust with both of them, because we even see that from the beginning that tashis love alone will never satiate him; it has to be arts love, too. that scene in the sauna when he thinks he’s lost it from art is the most sad and fucked up we ever even see patrick. on top of tashi asking him to throw the game — he’s so defensive of arts feelings.

in short this is an actual love triangle (and i would go as far as to see it as a polyship). you can’t erase one without the whole thing unraveling, and you can’t say one character was the “worst” without picking apart the motivations and pointing to the fact that their bad behavior was never a secret or left unchecked.

even at the end, patrick signals to art that he slept with tashi — art knows and they still have that intimate completion at the end, all three of them. art living up to his potential and embracing patrick fully (id argue this could even be a metaphor for embracing his bisexuality), patrick having both tashi and arts affection again, and tashi playing a phenomenal tennis match through her little white boys — in such a visceral, emotional way that she cries out like she did in the beginning and the last frame is her smiling.

in a fucked up way, they all get what they wanted out of each other.

Make it this and I’m in.

I swear 90% of anti Zutara posts are just Kat-aang fans projecting their own dislike about their canon ship onto Zutara.

Zuko brings out the worst in her? Aang refused to acknowledge her pain and grief, and constantly encouraged her to suppress any negative emotions.

Katara would be a powerless if she marred Zuko? She spent her entire adult life confined to Air Temple island, away from her tribe, rarely venturing like 20 minutes into Republic City to help people (unless you count banning blood bending, a technique with a lot of practical value, and doing nothing to enforce that ban, but that's another story).

Katara would be Zuko's trophy wife? The series ends with Aang and Katara kissing, because Katara's affection toward Aang are him being rewarded for being the Avatar.

They'd fight too much? Zuko and Katara reconcile after they fight and work together as an amazing team. Meanwhile, Katara and Aang have serious problems at the end of the series that end in explosive fights and they never get resolved.

Zutara is too physical? They hug once. Kat-aang kisses four times (two of which were non consensual, one of which was under duress), Aang checks her out multiple times in the series and fantasizes about kissing her, but they almost never have intimate conversations where Katara gets to open up, unless she is sharing her grief for his benefit.

Zutara fans only like it because Zuko is hot? Aang looks like a small child, especially when compared to Katara.

Zutara fans just like the bad boy/good girl trope? Katara is "darker" then Aang (and Kat-aang fans, apparently) want to admit. Her strong sense of justice, i.e. the thing that makes her "good," is just as rooted in anger as it is empathy.

They'd bring out the worst in each other? Aang is entitled, angry and irresponsible when it comes to Katara, and Katara is a pushover and shortsighted when it comes to Aang.

Zutara would be abusive? Aang lashes out at Katara when he gets angry or jealous, even when that jealousy comes from actors in a shitty play she had no control over.

It's a colonizer/colonized relationship? Aang has no respect for Katara's culture: he mocks her food, her beliefs, he tries to impose his cultural values on her, and post-A:tLA he rejects their waterbending child and denies their airbending access to his watertribe heritage, and Katara stays away from her people for nearly their entire relationship.

Zutara fans are delusional and deny canon? You can acknowledge something and not like it, criticize it and create fanon content that differs from it. That's not denial, that's critical thinking and creativity. But if Kat-aang fans are so in love with all aspects of canon, they are welcome to embrace at "The Ember Island Players" and "Love is a Battlefield."

Zutara would be toxic? Look at Kat-aang.

Just saw a TikTok where this bi woman was like,

‘I’m a woman-leaning bisexual and you know what pisses me off? The fact that I’m dating a skinny white man and I love him and I’m happy, like what the fuck.’

And I just have to say. What pisses me off as a bisexual woman is that TikTok.

This is the Woke version of ‘my wife is the ol’ ball and chain, doesn’t it suck to be married,’ jokes. It’s not funny. Your queerness is not negated or tarnished by opposite-gender attraction, dating men isn’t inherently worse than dating women.

Love your partner.

Cherish them.

For fucks sake.

can i reclaim this slur?

d//ke:

only women who are attracted to other women can use this slur. it has historically been used to degrade the womanhood of sapphics because of being sexually unavailable to men, and to make wlw feel like less of women.

f//g and f//ggot:

only men who are attracted to other men can reclaim this one. it is, and historically has been, used to degrade mlm’s masculinity, and make them seem less manly for being same-gender attracted.

q//eer

you can only reclaim this slur if you experience same-gender attraction (being lesbian, gay, or bi) and/or gender incongruence (being trans/non-binary). this slur has been used historically to make lgbt people seem weird and different — because that’s exactly what the word means.

it is never ok to say a slur you cannot reclaim. and even if you can use one, you should never use it to describe anyone else (unless they’ve told you they’re ok with it). yes, that includes calling the lgbt community the “q//eer community.” please don’t.

Found this on Twitter and man, Sex Education really did THAT