So, here are just a few the things that have happened this week so far

Can someone PLEASE explain to me just what the fuck is going on here?

We didn’t start the fire~ 🎵

I just watched Avatar for the first time all the way through, and yeah, it’s great, but the one thing that surprised me was how different Katara was compared to the fandom interpretation I’d seen and internalized before watching.

Like, before you watch Avatar, you’ve seen all these memes about Katara and her mom, and based on those memes, you assume it’s one of those lines you have to get used to hearing at least once every episode. But then you watch the show and realize that she only talks about her mom maybe five or six times per season and you also realize she only brings her up when she’s trying to comfort someone or empathize with them because that’s how she processes her grief and that’s one way she connects with people.

Or you hear the infamous line, “then you didn’t love [our mother] the way I did” and you prepare yourself for one of the worst character assassinations ever only to see the scene after nearly three seasons worth of context and realize she was kinda right. She’s been the mother, the nurturer, the comforter. She’s been patient, gentle, and accommodating where everyone else has gotten to be insensible and reckless and childish, and the one moment where she allows herself to feel her grief, suddenly she’s this evil bitch and not, y’know, a 14 year old girl whose been thrusted into adulthood in a way no other character has. A 14 year old girl who should be allowed immaturity and raw emotion and anger instead of the patience and grace she’s been forced to extend to every character without even the smallest amount of gratitude or even consideration in return.

Or you see all of the clips where Katara puts Aang in the “friendzone” and you expect to have this wishy washy back and forth where Aang is putting his feelings out there only to have Katara neither commit nor express any clear reciprocation or rejection. Then you watch and realize that, as cute as the ship is initially, that there’s never a point where Aang returns any comfort or grace to Katara despite her always doing this for him to the point of coddling. That for as much as Aang says he loves her, he never seems to outgrow his perception of her so he can recognize her as someone who feels grief, anger, and pain as much as she expresses love, kindness, and maturity. And instead of having moments where he learns to see her beyond her strength or compassion, you’re instead given moments where Aang forces his feelings onto her, both romantic and non-romantic, and Katara is expected to just…shoulder those feelings the way she shoulders everyone else’s.

Katara is the most misunderstood character in the show. As much as people recognize the complexities of Zuko, Sokka, and Azula, they struggle to do the same for Katara because they see her struggles as somehow lesser, and therefore, less deserving of sympathy. They can handle her so long as she’s being endlessly patient and loving and kind, but the moment her endless love, patience, and kindness runs out, she’s suddenly this annoying bitch who can’t shut up about her mother or reciprocate Aang’s feelings. But Katara’s trauma does matter as much as anyone else’s. No, she wasn’t banished from her kingdom. No, she didn’t lose her entire community, and no, she isn’t the only one who lost her mother. But the difference between her and everyone else whose experienced loss because of the Fire Nation is that she’s never given time to process her trauma. Aang gets to lean on Katara constantly. Toph gets to express her feelings to Katara, and yeah, Sokka also lost their mother, but unlike Katara, he isn’t put in the position of being a substitute for everyone’s parent. He even admits that he sees his sister as a mother. The only characters who ever comfort Katara or allow her to vent is Zuko and her father and that’s, like, three scenes in a show where the other characters are consistently given opportunities to seek out Katara for unconditional support.

The fandom interpretation of Katara has been so bastardized that even those who haven’t watched the show know her for this fanon version and not for who she is. She’s such a interesting character beyond her fandom limitations, though. She’s brave, hot-headed, and hopeful as well as gentle and caring. She wishes to learn waterbending, not only because she wants to fight in the war, but because she wants to continue her culture’s practices because, and people often forget this, she also lost an entire subculture within her already fractured tribe. And she wants to defeat the Fire Nation both because of her deep love and empathy for other people, but also because she wants to avenge her mother. But because some of the fans have reduced Katara to a bitch who constantly whines about her mother and friendzones Aang, you wouldn’t know any of this, and it sucks because she’s the only character whose been dumbed down to such an extent.

Sing it

Also going to add that she's the only character who gets consistently hated on in my fanfiction when I allow her to have an internal life.

Salvage!Katara who's fighting to restore bending culture to her people? Apparently a SJW, whiny, too mean to Zuko, and a few other select adjectives. Whereas Salvage!Sokka, also explicitly trying to relearn his culture and actively yelling at Zuko, was a sympathetic icon.

Little Zuko!Katara was a bitch for being scared on an enemy ship, and yelling at Little Zuko for telling her he was going to poison someone's pet.

Don't even get me started on Towards the Sun!Katara. People REALLY want her to get her comeuppance in the Northern Tribe arc, for the crime of... Continuing to be suspicious of Zuko. Zuko who just advocated for keeping the Earth Kingdom's land and then started a civil war. From where she is sitting, HE IS PRETTY UNTRUSTWORTHY, FOLKS.

Let girls be angry 2023.

Hi,

It’s your friendly neighbor fanfic author here. In the light of this apparent new trend of people feeding unfinished fics to AI to get an “ending,” and some people even talking about “blanket permissions,” let me just say this:

I EXPLICITLY FORBID ANYONE TO FEED MY FICS TO AI. DUDE, THAT IS ABOUT THE LEAST RESPECTFUL THING YOU CAN DO. IF YOU DO IT, SHALL YOU BE EXCOMMUNICATED FROM YOUR FANDOM AND WALK ON LEGOS BAREFOOT TILL THE END OF DAYS.

That is my anti-permission.

Thank you for your attention.

reasons to love live action ariel/eric

Eric found one (1) person who was willing to listen to him rant abt his hyperfixation and decided that's his soulmate. same

in the same vein, ariel found some guy willing to die for his dog and decided that's the love of her life. same x2

⚠️ this blog does not support works created by AI software ⚠️

at this point it would be less of a liability for elon’s lawyers to just kill him and take their chances on a murder trial

i’m spending today thinking about how saber toothed cats ALSO probably had a potato form.  how they also had a stage where they were fat little babies with very triangle tails and tiny squeaky voices.  how they also probably play wrestled and failed badly at calculating jumps.

i’m going to fistfight god for killing them off before i could personally see fat potato saber kittens

Go watch “Walking With Beasts” on YouTube…

I did not sign up for having my heart ripped out like this!

New rule - you don’t get to comment about how Xena is queerbaity if you haven’t watched the show.

so here’s what I really mean by this.

We keep seeing you guys tagging your current wlw fandom experiences as “not as queerbaity as xena!” or similar. And I could do the thing there I throw chapter and verse at you about how, specifically, Xena is not queerbaiting, but for the sake of brevity, here’s why that makes us furious:

1) you really mean it.

2) you have no idea how good we, as a community you belong to, had it twenty five whole years ago

3) which means that in your conception of wlw rep and what’s possible, you’re left with shows that are actively queerbaiting you. That these queerbaity fandoms are the only shoulders you have to stand on when you’re looking to build your way to a newer, better future.

The fact that Xena is still so revolutionary today speaks VOLUMES about the current wlw media landscape. The fact that whenever we get new people in the fandom - myself included, just three years ago! - the universal wide-eyed response is, “I had no idea.” It says so much.

It is both astonishing and infinitely disheartening to me that the world has forgotten about Xena - or rather, that the world has been cajoled into forgetting about Xena, dismissing it as “ugh that lesbian show” by the greater media canon before modern gay rights was a thing. And there’s a lot more too that I want to say about how the fact that we are #blessed to live in the current era of truly unprecedented gay rights does not mean that we also live in the best era for gay representation in media - but that’s another (albeit very very related) post.

But the greatest travesty is that you, modern wlw viewer, have been convinced to dismiss it yourself and among your communities, sight unseen, and have become complicit in EXACTLY the erasure it received at the end of its run for - get this - BEING TOO EXPLICITLY GAY.

How’s that for irony?

And in doing so, you’re actively participating in the erasure of not just wlw media history, but also the possibilities of what actually good wlw media can look like in the future. You are actively pushing over the shoulders of literal giants on which all wlw media rep - even your current show, the one you’re tagging “not as queerbaity as xena!” - is standing on.

I’m sorry your show is hurting you. We can all do better. We can all demand better. But first - actually watch Xena, and see what better already has been.

Y E S.

And I will just add, I think part of why people don’t understand how good Xena was in this regard is that they are so goddamn used to canon wlw ships being the ones that are off to the side that they don’t realize that Xena is explicitly ALWAYS centering Xena and Gabrielle’s relationship. There are two driving factors of the narrative: Xena’s guilt over her past, and their relationship. If you removed it, it is not an exaggeration to say that the show would not function. It’s absolutely integral. And that’s the main thing missing with the scraps of rep we get these days. You mostly get three flavors: tacked on, pushed aside, and queerbait. With Xena, Xena and Gabrielle’s relationship is a core part of the show and the main way all of the themes are expressed, so it’s not tacked on; Xena and Gabrielle are the ONLY main-main characters (there are lots of other reoccurring characters sure but none of them are at the same level) so it’s impossible to push them aside…so that leaves queerbait right? Which clearly it must be because 90s am I right? WRONG. Before Ellen came out and had her career ruined for years because of it, Xena and Gabrielle kissed. They are explicitly, textually, soulmates. They find each other in life after life. They are something we never seem to get - narrative centers.

I could rant about this for hours, there’s so much historical context here on so many levels that makes Xena just…mindboggling even now, but I’m gonna restrain myself. tldr;listen to tunemyart and watch the damn show

I’m also noticing that younger wlw are defining what’s canon and what’s not, in very limiting ways. Actual, purposeful subtext and subtle main text in media is being considered not canon and queerbaiting, which is just not true. Xena was a subtextual (and very often pretty damn textual) gay love story. This is canon. It wasn’t a marketing ploy to get gays to tune in, it was the narrative.

This conversation has also come up within the Warehouse 13 fandom pertaining to Bering and Wells, yet another subtext canon love story between two women who people dismissed as not canon and queerbaiting despite the actors admitting that their characters’ were in love and they played their scenes as such.

Just because you don’t have full on coming out scenes, kissing scenes (tho Xena had those), a spoken confession of romantic love scene, or a ‘they slept together’ scene, it doesn’t mean a show isn’t purposely telling queer narratives. Not all subtext is accidental turned queerbait.

all of this! ALSO! children, please, please remember that when Xena started airing, Ellen had not yet come out. when she did come out, her career was ruined for years. shows were literally not allowed by their networks to show explicitly gay relationships. the reason Xena approached the romance between Xena and Gabrielle the way they did is exactly because they could not show it any other way. had Xena said, on-screen, “I’m in love with Gabrielle and we’re going to get married” THE SHOW WOULD HAVE BEEN CANCELLED. so the writers did everything they could to show us their romance while still flying under the censors’ radar. this is called “queer-coding”.

there is a reason this show, by its second season, had been adopted by the lesbian community and that its fan base, to this very day, is still so rabidly sapphic. so it got to be know as “that lesbian show” in the mainstream media, and – this is very important – THAT WAS NOT A COMPLIMENT.

you see, queer-baiting requires one crucial component: a desire on the part of the corporate overlords to appeal to queer people as a demographic, while having plausible deniability for their more conservative advertisers/viewers.

when Xena started airing, there was no such thing as queer-baiting. you know why? BECAUSE NOBODY WAS TRYING TO APPEAL TO US AS A DEMOGRAPHIC.

no company was like “you know the untapped demographic of the queer community, which is still viewed by most Americans as perverted, sick, unnatural, and a blight upon society? we should totally advertise to them. that won’t backfire on us in any way.” babies, nobody was advertising to us, because we were anathema. we had just lost a sizable chunk of our community to AIDS and a whole lot of people thought we deserved it. nobody wanted to admit to our existence in polite society. this is why it was so brave of Lucy and Renee to staunchly stick up for us at every opportunity, which they did. it was risky for them. it could very well have cost them their careers.

I am pleading with you to understand what a beacon this show was for us back in the day. I am pleading with you to understand how groundbreaking this show was and how cleverly they slipped in so much under the noses of the straight censors. far from being queer-baiting, this show is a loving gift to our community and remains part of our community. it was the only piece of media that not only saw us, but didn’t apologize for it. yeah, we had gotten a couple of wlw kisses by the time the show hit the middle of its run, and I’m glad we did – but they were tentative steps, pushing the boundaries of what was acceptable, and the shows and networks suffered huge backlash. meanwhile this campy little show in New Zealand was centering the romance between its two female leads, canonically showing them as married in later seasons, canonically having them be soulmates, canonically having them say things like “no matter what, know my love for you is endless.” this show was groundbreaking, and it is ours.

*points above*

and allow me to bring all this home again: Xena is still a revolutionary show precisely because of the ways it shows a committed, loving wlw relationship. Not revolutionary for the time, not revolutionary for ye olden days of the 1990s - revolutionary for right the fuck now in 2021. I say this, again, as somebody who discovered the show only three years ago, and who has been through my share of actual queerbaity media.

And this is what I mean when I say you’re denying us a million beautiful ways to move forward when you deny the way Xena told a wlw love story is still relevant to us.

Y’all who haven’t watched the show and are applying the word “queerbaity” to it are simply too fucking unimaginative. You want the definition of “canonical romance” to be absolutely nothing less than “applying labels used today”, “kissing every scene on screen”, and “coming out to each other and the audience.”

Why???? Why are you limiting yourself to a) the kinds of wlw stories we can have and b) how you conceive of wlw relationships in general?

“Queer coding” does not mean “they aren’t actually queer.” “Subtext” does not mean “not canon.” (Though again, again, I have to protest that the romance between Xena and Gabrielle is very much main text.) And I guess that’s something a lot of y’all have to learn for yourselves. But I’m begging you to be more imaginative - to not limit the wide, wide future of wlw media rep to something so rigid and narrow.

Hold the F*** up, people are calling Xena Queerbait?

The show that acknowledged and validated Transwomen in the early 90s?

The show that explicitly framed Xena and Gabrielle as each others most important relationships, and didn’t need sex or make-out sessions to show it?

Tell me you haven't watched the show without telling me you haven’t watched the show.

SLAMS REBLOG

I think the Jedi council should have at least considered sending obi-wan over to Dooku to be like “yes hello I am here for sith training” just to see what would happen

Like, we know from the rako hardeen arc that he’s a good enough actor to pull this off. Combined with Dooku’s clear affection(?) for him, I think the council would have most of the separatists’ top military secrets in a month, max

I mean, even if Obi-Wan got caught transmitting information

Dooku:…what are you doing

Obi-Wan, panicking slightly: I’m a double agent. Passing them bad intel.

Dooku: I didn’t ask you to do that

Obi-Wan: …i’m taking initiative????

Dooku:

Dooku: We’ll it’s about time SOMEONE around here did

Palpatine: There have been far too many “coincidences” with the Jedi lately. The information your new apprentice is transmitting is accurate, I’m sure of it.

Dooku: My boy would never do such a thing

Palpatine: Your b— you know, the whole “no attachments” is a Jedi thing but I think we need to have a talk

VAL WE’VE TALKED ABOUT THIS

This side by side comparison sure is something

The difference is that one of them cared about accuracy, the source material, and good special effects, and the other just wanted bragging rights.

All things that you should not have to be rich in order to do

#those things shouldn't be fucking pipe dreams!

- You want to be able to work part time/casual without worrying about paying the bills.

- You want to be able to take vacations

- You want to be able to afford to put some money in a savings account, or add a little extra to your retirement fund

We’ve got an itinerant cheese-selling woman who comes into town every Friday morning to sell the cheeses she purchases from local farms, and I like this old-fashioned way of buying cheese (other people, like the mayor, find it mortifying that our village is too small to support its own cheese shop). She stations herself in the plaza and likes to share news about the farms and villages she’s visited this week (at the moment we get a lot of baby animal news, like new calf announcements.) She has the unfortunate habit of denigrating her own cheeses without meaning to because she is a cheese perfectionist. You ask for a bleu, she grimaces hesitantly and says “Ah, poor choice, it doesn’t look quite right to me today”; or you tell her “I really liked the brie I picked last time, so creamy!” and she shakes her head and goes “Ah, you got lucky, often that farmer gives me such shitty brie with a chaulky texture—” then she suddenly looks frustrated with herself, you can tell she’s thinking “why am I giving this information to a client?? I’m the worst cheese saleswoman ever.” It’s very endearing. 

She also sells eggs, and always writes the name of the farmer she got it from on each carton so you can make sure to buy your friends’ eggs and avoid your enemies’ eggs. You’ve got to be like “Six Gilbert eggs please” and publicly announce where your loyalty lies, it’s a whole Thing. If one day you decide to go rogue and ask for Agnès eggs instead you can be sure people will notice, and they will talk. Getting my own chickens is the only way I have found to avoid pledging egg allegiance.

I am OBSESSED with this egg based clique culture

Some things are just extremely French

Gotta say that “…the mayor [finds] it mortifying that our village is too small to support its own cheese shop…” is The Most French sentiment I have ever heard in my life.

a few possible reasons we don't know anything about Obi-Wan Kenobi's birth planet, Stewjon: it's doesn't fucking exist

regardless, Anakin tries to look up 'Stewjon' for years in hopes of learning more about his Master and loses his mind when all he ever finds is Obi-Wan's intake form

BBC Merlin (2008-2012) a family show™

Poe Dameron did nothing wrong

Hot take and total offense. Poe did the right thing in destroying The Dreadnought

Poe did nothing wrong. Holdo didn’t just keep Poe in the dark, she kept the ENTIRE RESISTANCE in the dark. Holdo did more damage to The Resistance than the actual people trying to kill them

One: I had this convo almost verbatim with @drougnor after VII was released. I was so fucking INFURIATED. Aside from the excellent breakdown of Holdo performed here–as a military commander, she did EVERYTHING you DO NOT DO as a military commander. I don’t care what universe or fandom you’re playing in. Her actions were detrimental, destructive, and unnecessarily secretive, and nearly destroyed the entire Rebellion.

Fuck Holdo, and fuck her glorified “sacrifice.” It was a bullshit Hail Mary Save My Reputation move that she didn’t deserve from a command or a writing/filming perspective.

Poe Dameron was always right.

Hello everyone,

I thought I’d share some information I found on Pinterest that compares Autistic Traits and Autistic Trauma. I found this interesting and the person left the link to the actual twitter post. Which will be here if you all want to see it.