it is hard to explain without sounding vain or stupid - but the more attractive others find you, the more you're allowed to do. the easier your life is.
i have been on both sides of this. i am queer and cuban. i grew up poor. for a long time i didn't know "how" to dress - and i still don't. i make my sister pick out any important outfits. i have adhd in spades: i was never "cool and quiet", i was the weird kid who didn't understand how "normal" people behave. i was bullied so hard that the "social outcasts" wouldn't even talk to me.
i got my teeth straightened. i cut my hair and learned how to style it. i got into makeup. it didn't matter, at first, if i actually liked what i was doing - it mattered how people responded to it. like a magic trick; the right dress and winged eyeliner and suddenly i was no longer too weird for all of it. i could wear the ugly pokemon shirt and it was just "ironic" or a "cute interest."
when i am seen as pretty, people listen. they laugh at my jokes. they allow me to be weird and a little spacey. i can trust that if i need something, people will generally help me. privilege suddenly rushes in: pretty does buy things. pretty people get treated more gently.
i am the same ugly little girl, is the thing. still odd. still not-quite-fitting-in. still scrambling. still angry and afraid and full of bad things. of course it became my obsession. of course i stopped eating. i had seen, in real time, the exact way it could change my life - simply always be perfect, and things can be easy. people will "overlook" all the other things. i used to have panic attacks at the idea others would see me without makeup - what would they think? even for a simple friend hangout, i'd spend a few hours getting ready. after all, it seemed so obvious to me: these people liked me because i was pretty.
i worry about how much i'm being a bad activist: i understand that "pretty" is determined by white, het, cis, able-bodied hegemonies. if i was really an ally, wouldn't i rally against all of this? recently there's been a "clean girl" trend which copies latinx aesthetics: dark slicked-back hair, hoop earrings. i almost never wear my hair like that; i can hear the middle school guidance counsellor advising me that i might fare better if i toned it down on the culture.
the problem is that i can take pretty on and off. that i have seen how different my life is on a day where i try and a day where i don't. i told my therapist i want to believe the difference is confidence, but it's not. and when you have seen it, you can't unsee it. it lives inside your brain. it rots there; taunting. i get rewarded for following the rules. i am punished for breaking them. end of story.
pretty people can get what they want. pretty people can feel confident without others asking where they got their nerve from. pretty people can be weird and different. pretty people get to have emotions; it's different when they get aggressive, it's pretty when they cry with frustration.
of course people care about this. of course it has crawled into you. of course you want to be seen as attractive. it's not vanity: it's self-preservation.
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Jews are allowed to hate Christianity 🤷🏻♀️ You know how many Jews have been killed by Christians? How many thousands of years they have persecuted us? How they're still, in many ways, persecuting us because they're angry they didn't supercede us? Christianity has done a lot of harm to us, and so have individual Christians who try to convert Jews on a daily basis.
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WHY EVERYONE SUDDENLY STARTED TO HATE NINAKATE?????
I THOUGHT WE ALL LOVED OUR FELLOW LESBIANS, WHY DO YOU FEEL CRINGE NOW?????
I don’t think it’s everyone!! I think the ship just isn’t that popular to begin with, but me my friends and my anons like it! But it is REALLY random. Totally get why people might be thrown off unless they’re in the same bubbles as me LOL
I just love it cuz 1. Fits perfectly in my AU 2. I love butch/femme couples 3. My fave songs work perfectly for Ninakate 4. They fit tropes I like 5. THEYRE ME AND MY GF!!!
I think it’s okay if people don’t ship it and even if people hate it HAHA it’s not everyone’s cup of tea and that’s cool! If people are making you feel uncomfortable over a fictional ship come to my inbox I will do a mspaint Ninakate doodle. Trust. I got u.
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i hate to make the cr thing sound like a dumb ship war but they canonically had beauregard confess to being in love with her best friend, the party member she was objectively closest to and had the best chemistry with, to whom she was the turning point for her entire major character arc, and then immediately walked it back to pair them up with the characters they flirted with in episode 1 and had no chemistry with. and then spent the rest of the series making arguably lesbiphobic jokes about it.
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im sorry to hear people are stomping all over your boundaries, big props to you for sticking up for yourself and putting your foot down. I hope you're doing ok (/gen)
on another, hopefully happier note, i noticed your info post mentions that you self ship! I'd love to hear about your favourite self ships if you're comfortable talking about them some time?
i actually never did or had interest in this but then haitham waltzed in so hes the first and only one (this whole thing flusters me so its smth i indulge in for myself in private by reading or daydreaming or sometimes i babble and ramble about him very in depth)
(most hkvthm things i draw is just me going 'wish that was me' and drawing it LMFAO)
ohh also same w kaveh but in a slightly different way than haitham (theyre both the only ones) i want them to hold hands. i want them to hold my hands. there
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