Toph’s Pointing Out That She Is Blind Photoset | Requested by puzzlegirlsandpoprocks
Toph is the best.
asjdfl;kasjdfs
Toph’s blindness was one of the most excellently handled aspects of AtLA because it wasn’t treated like a disability. So often in shows (and especially children’s animation) disabled characters are limited to apperances in “very special episodes” where the main characters have to learn a lesson that these people are capable “in spite of” their handicaps, like that episode of Kim Possible wherein Kim constantly stumbles over herself around Felix. This approach is often just as insulting as making them the butt of jokes, because it’s patronizing and it limits the amount of roles disabled characters are allowed to have.
Avatar challenged that stereotype with Teo, and then sent a giant middle finger its way by introducing Toph. She’s turned what would otherwise be a disability into an advantage, and she’s not afraid to crack jokes about it. She functions well enough that the other characters often forget that she is blind, but at the same time it’s an integral part of her bending and allows her to be the greatest earthbender ever. It sends a powerful message that having a physical disability does not make you less of a person, and often affords you a unique perspective that the so-called “normal” people never get to experience.
One of the many reasons I love this show.
^
this.
THIS
ATTENTION CASTRO:
Gay men are not hated because of how they fuck.
Gay men are hated because they are perceived to be effeminate; no matter how “macho” you are, the mainstream equates being gay with lowering oneself to the inferior status of a woman.
Your misogyny—your hatred of women, trans folks, and femme men—is oppressing your community and yourself.
HOMOPHOBIA=TRANSPHOBIA=SEXISM
(Source: maymay, via sanaa-tamir-is-leaving-deactiva)
#THIS #ALL OF THIS #homophobia #transphobia #sexism #heterosexism #cissexism #misogyny #Castro #the Castro #SF #San Francisco #SF Bay area
(via fashionistazapatista)
Co-dependent love is constantly represented as the ideal. “I can’t sleep/think/ live/function without you, romantic partner” leads to the inevitable crash of despair when things don’t work out because you’ve set up someone else to meet the impossible expectation of completing you. “Forsaking all others” doesn’t just imply sexual partners but in a nuclear model of family, seems to also speak to friendships and extended family. Why do mother-in-laws stay getting a bad rap?
And yet, there’s something really real about co-dependence in a culture that doesn’t value interdependence. A romantic partner is expected to be there, in “sickness and in health” in ways that we don’t demand of friendship. Subsequently, a spouse or partner has legal and social rights that a friend does not. For queer folks this is particularly important when unsupportive biological family can legally trump chosen family. Our legal system actively limits who we can call on which reflects and exacerbates social beliefs about relationships.
I have a more playful, flirtatious way of thinking about intimate relationships which usually rubs up against (and not in a good way) a social expectation for monogamy. I have romantic friendships that are not quite platonic, sexy time friends that aren’t quite lovers, close kindred spirits that should really be on my insurance before a romantic partner. And while pop culture flirts with poly possibilities, it never quite goes all the way. There are an endless number of songs that reference men cheating or women cheating on their boyfriends b/c of the supposed sexual prowess of whomever is singing/rapping the hit. So while there’s a tacit tolerance of cheating, intentional polyamory remains off the table. And even with an occasional “my girl’s got a girlfriend” and “ain’t no fun if the homies can’t have none,” women are tools for male fantasies, heterofying homosocial sexual behavior. Folks are more into the illicitness of affairs and the freakiness of multiple sex partners than building articulated intimacy with more than one person. I digress…
I want to live in a world where there isn’t a hierarchy of relationships, where romantic love isn’t assumed to be more important than other kinds, where folks can center any relationships they want whether it be their relationship to their spiritual practice, kids, lovers, friends, etc. and not have some notion that it’s more or less important because of who or what’s in focus. I want to feel like I can develop intimacy with people whether we are sleeping together or not that I will be cared for whether I am romantically involved with someone or not. I want a community that takes interdependency seriously that doesn’t assume that it’s only a familial or romantic relationship responsibility to be there for each other.
reading this soothes a part of my soul. and i feel simultaneously fired up and re-energized about taking my relationships into my own hands and defining them by their own boundaries, in their own contexts. love.
(via manicpixiedreambakla)
i.love.this.so.much!
THANK you
Owning my weight, my past weights and my future weights, has given me more agency over my body than any thinspirational positive thinking bullshit ever could.
(Source: kissakerho)
ansoni:Ifuzzpup:extrafirmhold (via nowmybutthurts)
And here I was thinking I couldn’t love her any more.
