"asexual discourse" is so funny cause dude that's not discourse and it's never been discourse. it's not an argument and it's not a conversation bitches are just yelling at us unprompted and then making up people to get mad at 😭
I keep hearing that sex has no place onscreen and doesn't further the plot, but Jordan having sex with a man in their dorm and talking about Marie the whole time is the epitome of furthering the plot.
“my first girlfriend turned into the moon” “that’s rough buddy” is adorable not only because zuko positioning himself as sokka’s friend is simply wishful thinking and desperate projection on his part, but because sokka referring to yue as his girlfriend is also just. incredibly lovely. like, back when they were together in the northern water tribe, yue was trying not to explode from overwhelming lust and affection, but meanwhile sokka was like. “we’re literally just friends. this dynamic is nothing more than an innocuous, platonic friendship. the fact that we’ve kissed and clearly want each other and have spent the past month solely in each other’s company talking little strolls around the city and romantic bison rides on appa (and who knows what else) means nothing as long as you just. repress all the emotions and desires and every last shred of humanity you’ve ever had and convince yourself that this is a reasonable way to live a life.” even while yue was adamant that living in utter denial was intolerable, actually, sokka was just like “i don’t get what the big deal is. repression is so easy.” but then yue changed everything by giving up her mortal life to become a spirit, and in the process transcending the human, patriarchal paradigms that prevented their love from being realized. like, if anything, yue wasn’t sokka’s girlfriend, he was her mistress. but then again, yue never wanted hahn; she wanted sokka, and they both knew it. so by shedding those limitations as she sheds her corporality, she is also giving sokka (as well as herself, of course) the permission for them to redefine their relationship on their own terms, beyond simply being forced to succumb to the patriarchal stipulations that dictated the terms of their love. and who knows whether sokka ever admitted it before, to himself or otherwise, but here, in this moment, he can reevaluate what they shared, and instinctively, he knows. she was his first girlfriend. his first love.
when i hear "found family" in relation to an ensemble of fictional characters in media there's two different things that could be happening here.
often it's what i think of as forced family, which is like "i found myself in a situation with these people" but a key part of the trope is that, like most families of origin, they're stuck with each other and can't leave without taking extreme action. voyager's "found family" is a forced family. i'm watching m*a*s*h now and it seems that way too. in both cases there's an outside constraint where you literally cannot escape these people and so grow to love them as a result, often in a codependent or unhealthy way but you are closer to them than you will ever be to anyone who did not share this experience. you would sell some of them to satan for one corn chip but god help any outsider who tries to break you up or even understand the situation. sometimes you get lucky and there's a person or two in there that you would choose to spend every day with regardless of circumstance (but would you really? can you even tell for sure??). but also it's "i will never ever speak to you again as long as i live but i'm really bored so can you give me a ride to the 7-11 first."
meanwhile chosen family is more like star trek the next generation where they are placed in this group at random but there's no hostage element to it. any one of them could request a transfer at any time, but they never will because this community and group of people have become an inseparable part of their identity. in both cases they'd saddle up and risk their lives to save each other forever at any personal cost ("not to me, not if it's you") but forced family also contains the element of "i'll fucking do it but christ alive." not every ensemble fits into one or the other but i think it's fun to distinguish as a concept.