#the cheerleaders are frightened too btw

[comradekatara]

I just saw your reblog of the “Zuko and Sokka are rivals ... in tennis” post (which I love and agree with btw) and it made me wonder. What sports/physical activities do u think the Gaang would enjoy? I was on a competitive jump rope team as a kid and I really think Azula would be into it.

katara loves all and any sport, because she excels at all of them. she’s especially good at ice hockey and competitive swimming, but she also loves soccer, specifically kicking azula’s legs out from under her and making her slam into the grass, which she always claims was an accident. katara has an entire wall that is just a shelf decorated to gold sports trophies. that said, she is morally opposed to both golf and football, which is complicated because she is also morally opposed to the ableist institution that denies toph from being allowed to play football. katara thinks that toph should play football if she wants to, but also that football should be banned. it’s complicated.

aang loves basketball and laser tag (which sokka claims is not a sport) and modern dance. he goes to all of katara’s games without fail, and katara shows up to all of his dance recitals with increasingly more exotic bouquets. at this point aang’s windowsill is covered in succulents, all gifts from katara.

sokka really likes baseball and softball to the point where he claims that they are two different sports. they are, because you have to take into account the weight of the ball and the bat when assessing the field. he is so good at baseball it’s scary, but since none of his friends give a shit about baseball, they do not find this remotely impressive. he also has a morbid fascination with cheeserolling.

zuko is frightened by most sports, not because he’s bad at them, but because he finds the uniforms tacky and the culture surrounding sports to be coarse and overloud (his words). the closest he’s ever come to appreciating a sport is fencing, but even then he finds the stupid little outfit horribly offensive. he spends every gym class running away from the ball and trying his hardest not to participate. but, on some days, his rage will take over, and he ends up taking it out on whatever sport they’re playing that day and he’s a fucking beast and he decimates everyone. it’s honestly quite concerning.

toph really wants to play soccer and football and basically any sport where you get to kick people and barrel past them, but the grown-ups won’t let her because they’re a bunch of doodooheads. she and katara petition to let toph join the soccer team and even though they get a bunch of signatures (you don’t say no to katara and toph) the administration still won’t let her join. toph and katara start a wrestling club instead, and aang joins out of solidarity, and then everyone else joins because they love aang. it’s all perfectly legal and above-board, so the administration can’t disband it. take that, you ableist fuckers.

suki is captain of the soccer team and the softball team and the basketball team and also the roller derby team, and she’s usually the one in charge of bringing snacks to toph and katara’s wrestling club. she also knows like twelve different martial arts and teaches self defense classes to young girls. she is also, embarrassingly, really into cricket.

azula loves any sport that allows her to take her rage out on others. she is like zuko in this regard, only she is consistently full of rage, and thus the consequent verve. she excels at soccer, basketball, tennis, golf (which katara loathes her for), cricket (which suki begrudgingly respects), softball (but she’s not as good as sokka and this fact haunts her every moment), rugby, volleyball, dodgeball, competitive jump-roping, lacrosse, ballet, gymnastics, kickboxing, and every martial art you could name. she doesn’t swim or play hockey, though, because deep down she knows she would lose to katara and she doesn’t know how to handle that.

ty lee is really good at gymnastics, cheerleading, martial arts, basketball, and softball. it’s scary how good she is. toph keeps trying to get her to join wrestling club, but it conflicts with pai sho club, which both ty lee and sokka agree is far more important than toph and katara’s little wrestling thing. sorry :/

mai does not play sports. sports are stupid. unless said sport involves knives, in which case mai is there and she’s ready. she’s way too good at those dumb carnival games, and ty lee’s room is filled with gigantic stuffed animals because of it.

iroh claims pai sho is a sport. it is not.

[multiverseofimagines]

Hi sorry to bother you love, may I request a borhap/queen ship please? I’m 5’3, I have straight brown hair, dark brown eyes and well, let's say I don't like my body at all. Btw I love drawing, baking, listening to music (I'm a huge fan of Harry Styles and Queen of course). I’m a little bit shy, but once you get to know me I'm outgoing and fun to be around. I’m also very stubborn and emotional.

I ship you with

Joe and John

For Joe

You sat upon a park bench in New York city. Your sketch book laid upon your lap.

Your attention had been caught by a man who sat upon the grass. He was relaxing against a tree, scrolling through his phone. He was beautiful, and definitely worth sketching.

You had been so caught up in drawing that when you had looked up from the sheet, he was gone.

“ Is that me? “ You jumped at the voice, slamming your sketchbook closed as you did so. You turned to him, his eyes wide with gleam, a huge smile spread across his face.

You wanted to run away, your embarrassment taking over. But you just nodded slowly.

“ Sorry to frighten you, I just couldn’t help but notice you staring at me-“

“ Could I keep it?- the drawing?” He asked. You thought about it for a second, opening up your sketch book to look upon the drawing.

“ Yeah- sure. It’s not my best work though.” You shrugged, ripping the page out of the book.

“Well maybe you can draw me again- some other time.” He smiled down at you.

You flipped the page over, turning it slightly away from him, writing your phone number down.

You smiled before handing him the paper, “ Yeah, maybe I could draw you again- some other time.”

Extras

Adore you has to be your guises song, I’m sorry I don’t make the rules.

Your sketch book is literally just his face and body everywhere. He’s your main reference and the muse of your art.

Baking together ( especially around the holidays.) 

When he’s working on an acting project, you will constantly bring homemade cookies and cupcakes to set for the crew and cast.

Getting very annoyed with Joe’s quirks but loving them at the same time.

Joe loves to playfully tease you, especially when you are already annoyed.

Joe loves being by your side, he is your constant cheerleader and will be behind you through everything. Even when you are most defiantly over reacting, he is always there.

For John

You guys are one word; Wholesome.

At the time you had been taking over a managing position for John Reid, due to him being on tour with Elton whilst Queen was on a separate tour.

And though the guys had Paul along with them, John could tell that leaving Paul all alone with the four of them would raise hell. 

So there you were, on tour with the biggest rock band in the world, Queen. 

Every night was a new city as they embarked on a World Tour. And every night brought you the same issues. Brian had misplaced his toothbrush around four times. Roger had brought random girls with him onto the bus. Freddie demanded to stop off at every place possible to call the cats at extremely specific times.  John wanted toast, but the boys had used up all the bread. And Paul refused to help with most of it, as he also brought random men onto the bus.

On one of the days off, a very rare occurrence in their reality, you finally had time to pick up some groceries from the shoppe. The only issue was that almost all the boys had ditched out on you, except for one; John.

“ Why didn’t you go with them?” You asked, the two of you strolling the half empty shopping cart around the supermarket.

“ I have tried skiing more than once y/n. It is not my forte.” He laughed. You couldn’t help but let your heart swell as he did so.

“Why didn’t you ask Paul to do the shopping? You could have gone with them.”

“ Are you hearing yourself Deacon? Ask Paul? That’s like asking a wall to talk.” You sighed, “Plus I’m not super close with you guys, it would be a bit weird, yeah?”

There was a moment of silence before John turned to you, stopping in his tracks, “ What’s holding you back? From being close to us.”

“ I’m just- shy is all.” You admitted, avoiding eye contact from him. 

“ I understand all too well. I’m willing to be your friend though- if you let me that is.”

“ Of course.” You smiled back at him, finally giving in to his eyes. Beautiful eyes that you found hard not to pull away from.

Once you had gotten back from shopping, it felt like things had changed. You both had a desire to talk to each other and build a common ground.

Through out the rest of the tour, you both had each others backs, especially being the shy ones out of the group.

Extras 

He was so smitten with you after the supermarket. I mean, he was also smitten with you beforehand as well. His entire reasoning to come with you was based around him liking you. Roger knew this from the moment John had said no to skiing. John had been skiing plenty of times, and quite enjoyed it whenever him and Roger had planned such a thing.

The guys teasing him quite constantly about his crush on you. 

Freddie coming up with elaborate ideas for John to tell you.

But he ends up telling you by accident due to an argument between the two of you. 

One night after one of their concerts, they decided to head down to a club. John practically dragged you along, despite your many complaints. 

While at the club a girl had come onto him. It had left you jealous, leaving you wondering if anything would ever happen between you two.

Instead of being happy for him, and dealing with it in a calm way, your emotions got way out of hand, leading you to start getting real close and personal with Roger. Of course that wasn’t going to end well, I mean, its Roger.

One thing led to another and John had left the  girl in a fit of drunken anger over what he was seeing unfold in front of him.

He pushed Roger to the ground, whilst spitting perhaps the nastiest of words to ever come from his mouth. 

“ You fucking man whore, what the Christ is wrong with you?”

You grabbed Deaky’s arm, holding him back from Roger so Freddie and Brian could help him up. After they had assisted Roger in standing up, they had guided him back to where they had parked the Bus.

You turned to Deaky, anger seeping out of your body language, before speed walking to meet the others back at the bus.

John had ran after you though, and once you both were outside, it was him who was holding your arm this time. Holding you back. 

“ What the fuck do you want John.” you pulled away from his grip staring up at him.

“ I’m sorry” he cried out to you. “ I can’t do this anymore y/n! I can’t keep pretending that I don’t love you. I can’t keep watching you from afar, as if you are forbidden to me. I try so hard to forget about it, to let it go but I just can’t.” Your eyes went wide at his words. You were confused as to why he was so torn to tell you, it wasn’t as if you were taken by anyone.

“ Then what is holding you back-” You choked out, your voice lowering to a whisper. His drunken tears had invoked your emotions to spiral.

You started to talk again, airing out how you had felt, “ It’s not like I’ve been taken Deaky! Do you know how hard it is for me to sit there and watch you with these random girls every night, only wanting to fuck you to have another Rock stars name on their bedpost- When I would give anything just to hold your hand and-” Your body went still, and your mind was numbed as John had grasped you in his grip again, this time desperate for your touch and closeness, as he planted a soft kiss upon your lips. 

Idk this was shit please forgive me, I’ve been so sick with the flu ahhh.

[brokenmusicboxwolfe]

On a post about how Mom felt uncomfortable about seeming smart, and mentioned in passing my family’s “place” in the community...

aconitum-napellus said I was made to feel ashamed constantly for being clever, at school. And they celebrate physical prowess with sports days. There’s nothing public like that for intellectual prowess.

But just to dial back - your family were shot at and threatened? What? Why? WTF?!!!

On another note, I found this post both interesting and profound.

Oh, I always used to grumble about sports being the focus of everything. In fact the cheerleaders were held in higher regard, and here they didn’t even do any acrobatics, just shake their pompoms and ass at intervals. I’m not being nasty but accurate for my school. In fact as far as I can tell the “elite” team of cheerleaders, the “Silver Bullets”, walked around in what looked like silver swimsuits and boots but didn’t even have to do that much. Athletes and cheer leaders were the stars. But good at anything academic? HA! 

As one teacher said when asked why the struggling  students got stickers as rewards and the ones doing well got nothing... “Good grades are their own reward. You don’t need any praise!” Maybe not, but it might have been nice to feel like it was valued. I mean, theoretically the purpose of the school was to teach those “boring” subjects and not just have football and baseball teams!

You wonder about the dangers my family faced...

(I hope you don’t mind me making a new post about this, but it might be a bit long for a re-blog.)

(Ok, it is VERY long!)

I started to say it has to do with the 1960s, but it dates back farther. While my family has had this land since the area was first stolen...sorry ...”settled” by the English, my great grandmother was orphaned as a baby and raised by an older cousin. I don’t know when great grandma and cousin Annie moved back to the farm, but it was after my grandmother grew up in Norfolk, Virginia. Now while the locals didn’t think a couple of old ladies were outsiders, that would NOT be the case when my father’s parents came back to the farm too.

My grandfather was from around Boston, the wild child son of a wealthy dentist. When he he married grandma (they would be married over 50 years BTW) they moved near where he grew up. That would cause problems with certain members of his family for marrying a southerner, and in fact one of his sisters would never consider us “real” family and try to demand back all his belongings when he died. Still, generally, there time living in Massachusetts would always be remembered fondly. “Home” Pop called it.

Unfortunately a childhood illness had damaged gradaddy’s heart and he had become a pack a day smoker. He was told he had months to live, so he quit cold turkey and became a passionate anti-smoker, so much I was shocked to be told he’d ever smoked. Still, his health was fragile and they told him he needed to move south for the climate (really? This crazy place where temps  in January this year  ranged from 9 to over 80 F? Ok...) And so they came to live here on the farm.

Actually, they toyed with moving near Highlands in the mountains, which would have been right down from Mom’s family home in Franklin. Instead they moved here a year or two before Mom and her mother came to live with an aunt after her parents divorced. If I believed in destiny I would think it wanted my parents together! LOL

Anyway, my father and his parents moving here was not welcomed by the community in the 1950s. They were “Yankees”, which around here seems to mean anyone from north of Virginia. Yankee was an insult. They would chase my father home from school throwing bricks at him and there was a general shunning going on. One teacher his senior year burned their gradebook telling the witnesses “Thay will keep that yankee from going to college!” And this was after my father had won some national science prize (sorry, I forget the name...I think the one for the laser came later). In fact my grandfather (who while ultra charming and with an amazing sense of humor was super tough having been a first mate in the Merchant Marines) ended up going out to the school and pinning the principal to the wall, informing him that this was going to be corrected in no uncertain terms. There was a reason my father had no nostalgia for the era. As a child I defiantly self identified as “half yankee” because even that much later it was looked down on.

Even more appalling than where they were from were their attitudes. See, my family believed in the shocking notion that people were people. They had friends of all sorts of backgrounds, including black ones. The current head of the NAACP’s father was friends with my father, and even in the 1980s I remember the shock of bystanders as they greeted each other as “cousin”. They did that, in case you are wondering, because they might very well be since some of our ancestors had owned some of his ancestors. My family did little things like donate turkeys to the local black school (remember segregation) at Christmas. I really don’t know all the small gestures they were involved in) While not super activists they simply refused to treat people the way the local culture demanded. 

There were apparently rumors my family were jewish, and that made them hated too. Now actually they weren’t. On my Mom’s hillbilly side I DO actually have jewish ancestry, but not on the “Wolfe” side that the locals suspected. My family never corrected them because there nothing wrong with being jewish and why even seem to agree that it’s something you shouldn’t want to be? To this day folks still assume we are jewish.

Now between the outsider status and the views on equality, things were going to inevitably get worse as society took a darker turn. As the 1950s became the 1960s both the civil rights movement AND the KKK were active. In fact, not just this region but this state were hotbeds of the KKK. The tensions were high, making my grandfather’s heart problem worse, so my parents (now married) left college before getting their PhDs (Mom always regretted that to come back here to help.

This area in the 1960s was an ugly place, but it had been an ugly place for a long time. Lynchings did happen, in fact my high school English teacher told how her favorite cousin was lynched when she was growing up. Black friends of my parents were beaten up by cops for walking on the “wrong” side of the road. The first time my grandfather visited the area with grandma they saw the aftermath of a mob castration of a jewish man back in the 1920s, but the tensions had gone in waves. The 1960s were one hell of a spike in hate. 

I have no idea if there was an initial trigger to the death threats, but my family started getting them. And I don’t mean veiled threats or anonymous voices on the phone. These were face to face “We are going to kill you!” threats laces with profanity and slurs I won’t use here.   

You must be wondering why they didn’t go to the police. Well they did, but they say the local sheriff was a nice guy but a coward. There was no way in hell he was going to arrest anyone. Instead he told my family that when they come for you shoot, and shoot to kill. Then bury the body in the swamp and never tell anyone what happened. Especially not him. You will notice it was “when” not “if” they come for you, since the reality was very bleak. I don’t know what percentage of the white male population were KKK, but certainly the majority.

My family were effectively on their own to deal with it.  This meant they ended up with three German Shepherds (one a rather scary ex prison guard dog)  and a bunch of guns. They would make a big show of their target practice, especially the fact that Mom turned out to be a crack shot. It runs in her family, with cousins that were top shots in the military, and here is was very handy so they didn’t assume the women folk were easy targets. Guns were kept at the ready, for instance tucked under the table where the fiberglassed in the business they had started or under the seat of the motorboat. These would be sensible precautions. 

Since I wasn’t alive then I can’t really tell you how many times they were shot at. There were many incidents of pot shots meant to frighten them, clearly underestimating my family. Some incidents were more serious.

Take the one where my father and grandfather were out on the river. Someone up the bank made a serious attempt to shoot them. Since they missed either my father or grandfather pulled out the automatic they had (sorry, I forget gun names), one of those military type serious firepower. They returned fire, aiming roughly towards the area they had been fired at from. They got to see their attacker running for his life!

Actually, returning fire but in a sort of “won’t shoot you if you back off” way was something they did a few times.

You know that big boat of ours I’ve posted photos of? Well, they had a big barn they built to construct it in. Naturally the ones that hated them for existing intended to burn it down. Goons were caught crossing our  fields carrying buckets of gasoline to set it ablaze. They were spotted. At gunpoint Pop told them to put the buckets down and get the hell out. He’d chuckle telling it saying  he got a couple buckets of gas out of it. 

And there was the incident where they got word the KKK would be marching through on the highway and intended to burn a cross of out front yard. Pop and Grandaddy parked out in the front yard in chairs with guns on their laps and the dogs at their side, waiting. And along came the KKK. The KKK mob stopped in front of the house, grandaddy made a show of getting his gun ready, and there was a very long pause as the two sides faced each other. Nobody on either side said anything...and then the KKK turned and went on walking.

Anyway, that’s a selection of the stories I was told. My family was scared of course, despite their determination not to be chased off or intimidated. My parents married in 1959 but didn’t dare have kids until the 1970s because it simply wasn’t safe. While things had cooled down by the time I was growing up I was very aware that some folks mysteriously hated my family. I also knew Pop bristled at certain people, like never setting foot in what was then the only store in town. When I asked why he said “A man seriously threatens to kill you to your face you don’t just forget.” 

Generally though, the community did seem to forget.  I expect now the grandchildren of KKK members don’t even know about their beloved family member’s history. I’d like to think some were ashamed, I know for some it was just realizing the tide of society had changed. In their hearts they might hate, but they didn’t want to get into trouble. In public they whispered their slurs, but what they said at home was probably not so quiet. Classmates would whisper to me things, not unlike what their grandparents had said and then be shocked when I loudly disagreed. They didn’t realize my family’s stance. Funny isn’t it they could forget the past but not the underlying hateful attitudes.

 I suppose it’s nice their dislike of me was based on my own merits! LOL

Anyway, sorry to have written so much but a short “They were liberals in the US rural south, which was nothing like 1960′s hippie nostalgia Beatlemania montages.” seemed a bit too short.