#whitewomantears

Huh. Cute!

Never forget what this scene did for us. I could never. …

LADIES MEME: [3/3] non-warriors > maeve wiley

Oh besties... we've got a live one on our hands...

*edit* I've actually read this fic myself, and so have others. If you haven't read it but want to, DM me for the link. I want to give this writer as much support as possible. I will be reviewing this fic later because it is good. *

Ehem... so I don't have a problem with people expressing their opinions on something, but this is bullying.

Taking someone's fanfiction and posting it on Tumblr to make fun of the writer is fucking stupid. Someone wrote this with a lot of time and thought, voicing their opinions through their creativity. That's like me going into the kat*ang tag on AO3 and posting someone's hard work just to ridicule them, then completely invalidate their work of FICTION because I don't like the pairing.

I'd never do that because I'm not a fucking bully nor am I an idiot.

But Zutarians are called toxic and delusional. The only delusion is that people believe they have the moral high ground because their pairing is canon. So fucking what?! It's fanfiction created by passionate fans of a beloved show.

Get over yourselves, Kat*anglanders. You aren't perfect. And your morals suck.

At least we don't do shit like this.

what a beautiful day to think of dante basco’s headcanon that zuko fell in love with katara but buried it for the sake of duty and mae whitman’s headcanon that katara fell in love with zuko but only realized it when it was too late 

Abusive parents can say “I love you”

Abusive parents can give their kids an allowance, gifts, toys and nice things sometimes.

Abusive parents can seem like parent of the year to outsiders.

Abusive parents can defend their children from outside threats and get them in all the best schools and programs and deal with school bullies.

Abusive parents are still abusive, regardless of the things they get right or the nice things they sometimes do.

It's not that I think Zuko took lightning for Katara because he loved her, or that she healed him because she loved him, but I do think that it's only after the adrenaline fades that they truly realize what it means to care about someone so much that you do the impossible for them. I think they will always have this between them, this understanding that transcends whatever other relationships they may have, romantic or not. Katara's hands still remember what it felt like to hold Zuko's heartbeat between them, and if everything she touches still carries a bit of that heartbeat, bleeding out from her fingertips, she doesn't show it to anyone, but the firelord somehow knows, somehow always finds her hands, catching her fingertips in his warm ones briefly in passing. And if Zuko is always seeing shadows in the thunderstorm, a torrent of memory in the split second before lightning strikes, he is soothed by the silent eyes of the Water Tribe ambassador, watching him from across a crowded room.

Katara's Story Is A Tragedy and It's Not An Accident

I was a teenaged girl when Avatar: The Last Airbender aired on Nickelodeon—the group that the show’s creators unintentionally hit while they were aiming for the younger, maler demographic. Nevermind that we’re the reason the show’s popularity caught fire and has endured for two decades; we weren’t the audience Mike and Bryan wanted. And by golly, were they going to make sure we knew it. They’ve been making sure we know it with every snide comment and addendum they’ve made to the story for the last twenty years.

For many of us girls who were raised in the nineties and aughts, Katara was a breath of fresh air—a rare opportunity in a media market saturated with boys having grand adventures to see a young woman having her own adventure and expressing the same fears and frustrations we were often made to feel. 

We were told that we could be anything we wanted to be. That we were strong and smart and brimming with potential. That we were just as capable as the boys. That we were our brothers’ equals. But we were also told to wash dishes and fold laundry and tidy around the house while our brothers played outside. We were ignored when our male classmates picked teams for kickball and told to go play with the girls on the swings—the same girls we were taught to deride if we wanted to be taken seriously. We were lectured for the same immaturity that was expected of boys our age and older, and we were told to do better while also being told, “Boys will be boys.” Despite all the platitudes about equality and power, we saw our mothers straining under the weight of carrying both full-time careers and unequally divided family responsibilities. We sensed that we were being groomed for the same future. 

And we saw ourselves in Katara. 

Katara begins as a parentified teenaged girl: forced to take on responsibility for the daily care of people around her—including male figures who are capable of looking after themselves but are allowed to be immature enough to foist such labor onto her. She does thankless work for people who take her contributions for granted. She’s belittled by people who love her, but don’t understand her. She’s isolated from the world and denied opportunities to improve her talents. She's told what emotions she's allowed to feel and when to feel them. In essence, she was living our real-world fear: being trapped in someone else’s narrow, stultifying definition of femininity and motherhood. 

Then we watched Katara go through an incredible journey of self-determination and empowerment. Katara goes from being a powerless, fearful victim to being a protector, healer, advocate, and liberator to others who can’t do those things for themselves (a much truer and more fulfilling definition of nurturing and motherhood). It’s necessary in Katara’s growth cycle that she does this for others first because that is the realm she knows. She is given increasingly significant opportunities to speak up and fight on behalf of others, and that allows her to build those advocacy muscles gradually. But she still holds back her own emotional pain because everyone that she attempts to express such things to proves they either don't want to deal with it or they only want to manipulate her feelings for their own purposes. 

Katara continues to do much of the work we think of as traditionally maternal on behalf of her friends and family over the course of the story, but we do see that scale gradually shift. Sokka takes on more responsibility for managing the group’s supplies, and everyone helps around camp, but Katara continues to be the manager of everyone else’s emotions while simultaneously punching down her own. The scales finally seem to tip when Zuko joins the group. With Zuko, we see someone working alongside Katara doing the same tasks she is doing around camp for the first time. Zuko is also the only person who never expects anything of her and whose emotions she never has to manage because he’s actually more emotionally stable and mature than she is by that point. And then, Katara’s arc culminates in her finally getting the chance to fully seize her power, rewrite the story of the traumatic event that cast her into the role of parentified child, be her own protector, and freely express everything she’s kept locked away for the sake of letting everyone else feel comfortable around her. Then she fights alongside an equal partner she knows she can trust and depend on through the story's climax. And for the first time since her mother’s death, the girl who gives and gives and gives while getting nothing back watches someone sacrifice everything for her. But this time, she’s able to change the ending because her power is fully realized. The cycle was officially broken.

Katara’s character arc was catharsis at every step. If Katara could break the mold and recreate the ideas of womanhood and motherhood in her own image, so could we. We could be powerful. We could care for ourselves AND others when they need us—instead of caring for everyone all the time at our own expense. We could have balanced partnerships with give and take going both ways (“Tui and La, push and pull”), rather than the, “I give, they take,” model we were conditioned to expect. We could fight for and determine our own destiny—after all, wasn’t destiny a core theme of the story?

Yes. Destiny was the theme. But the lesson was that Katara didn’t get to determine hers. 

After Katara achieves her victory and completes her arc, the narrative steps in and smacks her back down to where she started. For reasons that are never explained or justified, Katara rewards the hero by giving into his romantic advances even though he has invalidated her emotions, violated her boundaries, lashed out at her for slights against him she never committed, idealized a false idol of her then browbeat her when she deviated from his narrative, and forced her to carry his emotions and put herself in danger when he willingly fails to control himself—even though he never apologizes, never learns his lesson, and never shows any inclination to do better. 

And do better he does not.

The more we dared to voice our own opinions on a character that was clearly meant to represent us, the more Mike and Bryan punished Katara for it.

Throughout the comics, Katara makes herself smaller and smaller and forfeits all rights to personal actualization and satisfaction in her relationship. She punches her feelings down when her partner neglects her and cries alone as he shows more affection and concern for literally every other girl’s feelings than hers. She becomes cowed by his outbursts and threats of violence. Instead of rising with the moon or resting in the warmth of the sun, she learns to stay in his shadow. She gives up her silly childish dreams of rebuilding her own dying culture’s traditions and advocating for other oppressed groups so that she can fulfill his wishes to rebuild his culture instead—by being his babymaker. Katara gave up everything she cared about and everything she fought to become for the whims of a man-child who never saw her as a person, only a possession.

Then, in her old age, we get to watch the fallout of his neglect—both toward her and her children who did not meet his expectations. By that point, the girl who would never turn her back on anyone who needed her was too far gone to even advocate for her own children in her own home. And even after he’s gone, Katara never dares to define herself again. She remains, for the next twenty-plus years of her life, nothing more than her husband's grieving widow. She was never recognized for her accomplishments, the battles she won, or the people she liberated. Even her own children and grandchildren have all but forgotten her. She ends her story exactly where it began: trapped in someone else’s narrow, stultifying definition of femininity and motherhood.

The story’s theme was destiny, remember? But this story’s target audience was little boys. Zuko gets to determine his own destiny as long as he works hard and earns it. Aang gets his destiny no matter what he does or doesn’t do to earn it. And Katara cannot change the destiny she was assigned by gender at birth, no matter how hard she fights for it or how many times over she earns it. 

Katara is Winston Smith, and the year is 1984. It doesn’t matter how hard you fight or what you accomplish, little girl. Big Brother is too big, too strong, and too powerful. You will never escape. You will never be free. Your victories are meaningless. So stay in your place, do what you’re told, and cry quietly so your tears don’t bother people who matter.

I will never get over it. Because I am Katara. And so are my friends, sisters, daughters, and nieces. But I am not content to live in Bryke's world.

I will never turn my back on people who need me. Including me.

my mom says she’s not a hugger. but when i put my arms around her on a gloomy day or after bad news she’s the last to let go. my dad says he doesn’t want gifts on his birthday, but i see the way his face light up when i get him a card with a nice message and a box full of chocolate anyway. he’s just a kid inside, still. it makes him giddy. my brother never says i love you. but when i tell him “i just need to finish the dishes before i vacuum!” he wordlessly goes to vacuum the entire house before i can, and if he sees me struggle with a wrapper or a jar or a bottle he mutters ‘c’mere’ and opens it for me without even sparing me a glance. the thing is, people love you quietly, and you love them quietly, and the air is buzzing with tiny but grand gestures & once you look for them, you find them everywhere. i think that’s really beautiful.

I still have some thoughts about season 3, and I'm sure as hell gonna throw them out there.

So, after watching the new season I realised something with full force. Up until now I felt kinda bad about thinking critically about Eric's choices.

But oh, not anymore do I feel bad about it.

Because you see, seeing as his personality basically went to the shitter this season at first I thought "hey, that's so unexpected!". But then I realised, it wasn't unexpected at all.

A lot of people gave Adam shit back in season 2, because Eric cheated with him on Rahim.

But like... Eric cheated on Rahim.

It was Eric's decision to:

1. Kiss Adam during detention.

2. See him when he reached out after coming back from military school, throwing pebbles at Eric's window that first time.

And it was Eric's decision to continue meeting Adam at night behind Rahim's back, the pieces of broken porcelain on his nightstand a testament to the fact that he kept on making the choice to go back to Adam despite being in a relationship already.

And then, he said Adam's full of shame and that, essentially, he can't be with him if Adam isn't out.

So, Adam came out to the entire school, by declaring his feelings for Eric.

But it still isn't enough for Eric.

Because now he wants Adam to come out to his mum. And Eric seems to suddenly have zero idea about how strained Adam's relationship with both of his parents is. Even though in the first two seasons he seemed really perceptive when it came to Adam. It seemed he could see right through Adam's thick shell, having at least the faintest idea that there must be something more to this guy than what meets the eye.

Adam is trying so hard to be the person that Eric wants him to be. In season 3 Rahim asks Adam "and what about you? What do you like?", and honestly, I'm shocked by how refreshing such treatment of Adam was. Because nobody except Ola seemed genuinely interested in Adam himself before, in his thoughts and what he has to say. I honestly thought I could include Eric in that little group, but now I see very clearly, that I can't, and I never really could.

And then of course there's also the issue of the two of them having sex.

Eric really wants to, and Adam does too it would seem, but he has trouble voicing what it is he actually wants.

And it just worries me, because this is the second instance of Adam being under the pressure to have specific kind of sex with his partner, and he isn't given understanding or patience in the matter.

What's bad is that it also makes it seem like only the kind of sex when you're inside someone or someone is inside you is "real" sex and real, ultimate form of intimacy, and that if you don't get that in your relationship, it somehow nullifies all other instances of intimacy that aren't inherently sexual in nature.

Can we form a prayer circle with the thought that third time's the charm and that the next person Adam's dating will be patient and understanding with him in all matters, including intimacy and sex?

Eric thinks Adam is embarrassing quite a lot in season 3, and gives him way less credit than is due. Slowly I started to realise that Eric never really saw Adam for who he was.

And Adam was trying so hard. He was learning to be vulnerable and open, he said "I love you" first, he was getting out of his comfort zone to make Eric happy. But it still isn't enough for Eric.

Because now he's at a family wedding in Nigeria and he meets a stranger who brings him to a club and kisses him.

And Eric admits to it and instead of just apologising and saying that it didn't mean anything, he says that it meant something. He says that it wasn't nothing.

Adam has been trying so hard to be someone deserving of Eric's love, and yet he wasn't enough. Again.

Do you perhaps wonder whether he heard his father's voice in his head at that moment?

Do you think that the boy he loved so much suddenly reminded him so vividly of the man who by all accounts was supposed to love him, but somehow always managed to only bring him down, make him feel like he meant nothing?

Because I do.

I think that Adam's heart got absolutely shattered on that bridge.

We'll burn the bridge when we get to it, eh?

I think that he has been feeling like less than enough for so many years, and now, suddenly having this person he loved, and who he thought loved him, he saw a little light at the end of the tunnel.

Only to have this light be snuffed out right in front of his eyes.

Because I don't think Eric really loved Adam, or that he loved Rahim for that matter. I think that perhaps Eric knew what kind of love he wanted in theory, so he was following a script he has written in his head. But when reality sets in and he gets bored, or he realises that his boyfriend isn't the way he would like him to be exactly, he goes and cheats, feeling no remorse whatsoever.

And just, I hate that. I hate that so much.

And I most of all hate the girlbossification of the moment right after he broke up with Adam. It was framed by the narrative as some sort of triumph, an "everybody makes mistakes" kind of moment. A "we're wild, young and free, let's live our lives and think of the consequences later". Not to mention that it was mixed with the atmosphere of the end of Otis' arc this season, which was feeling very life affirming given that his mum was on the brink of death, but she was now okay, and he also had his newborn little sister.

But Eric Effiong is not Hannah Montana.

He has now hurt two people in a very similar manner, all because he has not taken the time to know himself or know what he truly wants. In the end I would not be surprised if it was Eric that is actually full of shame that is just laying unresolved and covered with obscene amounts of fake confidence.

But we will see about that, won't we?

In the end, both Eric and Otis have hurt some people really badly this season, and making it feel appropriate to end the season on a high note with that thought in mind is just in poor taste in my opinion.

I really, genuinely hope that Eric will get his shit together in season 4. Because as of right now, I really cannot stand him. He used to be who I considered to be the best character on the show, but now I can say with full confidence that he is not.

Finding yourself should not be an excuse for treating people like shit. You can really do that without breaking hearts.

But I guess Eric doesn't know that, does he?