Disapointment Center

@alilcajun @aralioideae

literal first paragraph of the wikipedia article for learned helplessness. this is a depression symptom. it is frequently caused by lifelong abuse from controlling authority figures. it is the exact OPPOSITE of an abuse tactic and would most likely be displayed by the WOMEN in that kind of scenario!!

None of this cheerleader stuff for soccer, oh no sireee, I mean, no disrespect to cheerleaders who put a LOT of work and effort into their performances, but somehow "Rah-Rah! We're the best" from peppily gymnastic young things can't quite match the sheer power of entire stadiums of grown up fans yelling at the top of their lungs things like....

It's unclear if this one originated with the English of Scottish games (spelling of "old" as "auld" notwithstanding), but either way, well done.

And it's striking home too! :D

This night a girl, Michelle, came out in class. She had been taking my courses for two years and had never given any sign of being queer, but this one evening she read a story about falling in love with a girl in high school and starting a passionate sexual relationship. When her parents found out, they gave her an ultimatum. If she wanted to have a family, she would have to break up with her girlfriend. Without much thought, she followed their instructions. Three years later, waiting in the bathroom line of a Staten Island straight dive bar, she met another woman and fell in love. In her story, Michelle described uncontrollable desire, accompanied by the knowledge of the tremendous familial punishment that lurked, waiting to pounce. And it did. After one year together, again there was a terrible show-down with her family when they confronted her with her hidden cache of L Word DVDs. There was another ultimatum, and finally she again broke up with her lover in order to have parents.

At the end of the story, the protagonist finds a boyfriend, Danny. She says that she is able to “be comfortable” with him. And the story closes with her parents gleefully welcoming Danny into their home to watch the football game, offering him a glass of beer.

Later in my office, Michelle tells me, “I know my parents love and support me. This is just too hard for them to understand.” I say nothing, but I know that her parents do not love and do not support her. All they care about are themselves. They do not see her as real. And for now, she agrees with them.

Although the young queer artists and Michelle come from diametrically opposed class positions, they are having a similar experience rooted in a lack of consciousness. For some reason, neither has any cultural context for being able to imagine a more humane, truthful, and open way of life, in which their expressions and self-perceptions would not have to be diminished for the approval of straight people. To be more assertive about their own experience.]

Are you... are you daring me to make photosynthetic Zuko give you feels? Because that's how you get Zuko first starting to realize this while on that raft after the North Pole. That's how you get his hunger waning, and he's reasonably sure that maybe he's dying because he should feel hungry, shouldn't he? Not feeling hungry at all is probably not... not...

But. But Uncle is older than him and already suffering so much from the lack of water, it's been two days since the last rain fall, so when Zuko manages to catch a fish while Uncle was sleeping

(Sleeping or unconscious and he couldn't cross the few feet between them to check because what if this was the time that Uncle didn't wake up when Zuko shook him--)

when he catches the stupid fish he tells Uncle he actually caught two, he already ate his, stupid lazy old man just take it Zuko isn't hungry, no he will not eat half.

(Uncle's stomach can still growl.)

And somehow they make it to the colonies and neither of them are dead. Zuko... still isn't hungry.

He isn't hungry when he's traveling alone, and he meets a boy named Lee and (badly) fixes a roof and accepts only the bare minimum of food at their table, because it's clear that they're hungry.

Other travelers wear layers to keep off the burning sun; he sheds his until he's down to a thin sleeveless robe, and basks.

He isn't hungry again until Ba Sing Se. Until shifts at Pao's tea shop, stuck inside from sunup to sundown, and Uncle finds him out back hunched over his stomach and promises that things will get better, here, have the other half of his lunch, you've barely been eating nephew--

(Zuko hadn't recognized that he was hungry until there was food in his hand, and then he was ravenous.)

When he goes to free the Avatar's bison (how did the Avatar lose a bison) (how did the Avatar not realize the Dai Li were behind every disappearance in this city), when he sees it down in that lightless cave, growling and backing away as far as its chains allow, the revulsion hits him like hunger pains, the kind that stab and twist. How dare they lock it away in this too-small stagnant hole with the darkness pressing down--

He's already freeing it when Uncle shows up, how did Uncle get in here, well good because it's not like he can free a bison and not free all of the actual human beings trapped down in this awful place, if Uncle is here he can help.

(Nephew when I said you were not thinking this through and questioned where you would store a bison, that also applied to all of these people--)

And then they run into the Avatar and his gaggle of combat prodigies including Jet--

Could we not. Try to stab each other. For five minutes?

Anyway, he's done prison breaks with the Avatar before. And Long Feng can drop all the rocks he wants, they have the Dragon of the West with them. Turns out selective parts of Lake Laogai, namely the ones that were never supposed to be there, are highly flammable. With the application of enough fire.

(Most things are.)

Zuko is starving by the time they get out. He doesn't really remember getting ushered on the bison by his Uncle, or the glares and/or bewilderment the Avatar's people shoot at him. (Or the extra toothy smile Uncle has for Jet, who looks away with a grumbled knew you were firebenders.)

"Thank you, Miss Katara," Uncle smiles later, in a much different way, and brings a bowl of rice out to his nephew in the courtyard next to their house.

The Avatar's children (plus some Freedom Fighters) stare out the window as Nephew Grumpy And Mildly Incoherent rolls away from his Uncle's attempts to coax him into eating, sprawling out in a patch of sun.

"Is someone going to explain why Prince Zuko is shirtless in our courtyard?" Sokka asks, because someone has to. "Did Long Feng get him in the head?"

Appa lumbers over for licks and cuddles. Inexplicably Shirtless Prince shoves his giant head away, grumbling about six-ton furballs blocking his light.

"Oh," Aang says, like something just clicked. "He's a Fire Lily!"

"...A what now."

"He gets his energy right from the sun!" There is something both delighted and vaguely threatening in the Avatar's expression when he states, with no regard for the consent of the person he's speaking on behalf of: "He's my firebending teacher."

Human 1: (points at animal) What’s that?

Human 2: Cow.

Human 1: (points at bug) What’s that?

Human 2: … little cow.

Human 1: But it’s so much smaller. Who would have use for such a small cow?

Anyway my friend had some not so nice teeth and during dinner the father of his fwb was like “you work where you work, you sleep with him and his teeth look like that? Get him an appointment.”and then bounced. So his fwb made him an appointment at the practice she managed and my friend ended up needing like 3k worth of dental work and his friend with benefits just gave it to him for free.