You'd Have To Stop The World Just To Stop The Feeling!!

reblog if you are ok with mass booping

it's pretty implied that ellie never came out to joel in the proper sense. she lets him assume that she's into men, gives him the false satisfaction of "seeing" her "crush" on jesse, does not correct him. she's fairly confident in being gay in public for others to see and having others close to her know; so why not correct him? why dodge the topic?

was it out of fear? could it be that she never broached the topic despite being close to him in the early years because of the possibility of his reaction being negative? that she was afraid that out of all things that could force them apart (further apart after they split), him reacting badly to her being gay would be the worst?

what about at the dance? would she have been as wound up as she was if the moment hadn't been an encounter with a vicious homophobe? maybe she would've still snapped without this context, but why is she immediately on the defensive against joel after he sticks up for her?

what about the porch scene? why did she refute his question of dina being her girlfriend so insecurely, looking away, nervously and quietly stumbling over words? why isn't she mean about it? why doesn't she get defensive at the question? why did she lash out again when he expressed acceptance?

i think these scenes revolving around her queerness indicate it as such; that ellie never told joel for fear of a response, that she lets him think what he wants because that's the easiest way for it to be. then, when she's ready to face off against a homophobe, because that's the way things are, that's what she can expect, and joel defends her, she lashes out.

it's such a clear juxtaposition of support and hatred between joel and seth, and being faced with joel's acceptance is too much, makes her turn to the anger she'd been holding onto and reinforce what she thinks is true -- that she doesn't need him. and in the fallout, as her regret dawns on her, so too does the realization; he was protecting her, like always, without hesitation, over this thing she was always afraid he wouldn't accept her for.

in the porch scene, joel chooses his words wisely, and asks if dina is her girlfriend -- not "so you're gay?" or "why did you never tell me?" or "how long has this been a thing?" -- with such a casuality that it seems to throw her off. it's like ellie can hardly get the words out. she refutes the idea, fumbles for each following part of her response, is tense. she wasn't prepared for the question.

and when he finally asserts his support for her, in as explicit terms as he can, you can see ellie become emotional, touched for a moment but overcome, before she launches into the defensive again, exactly like at the dance scene -- meeting his kindness with hostility as a way to cope with her emotions.

and then, in response to her basically saying her life doesn't matter, he affirms that it does.

so he's now affirmed two things that ellie has doubted: that he accepts her being a lesbian, and that her life matters. a conflation of the two, in ellie's mind, may have come after; and after that, her olive branch.

and yeah, him affirming these things for her is fully in the context of his overwhelming parental love for her and her complex feelings about being the cure, but within a queer subtext, it means more. it's such a familiar thing to slink around loved ones and hide being gay/queer for fear of any type of response, and lying by omission in conversation just to keep that state of peace, of normalcy. ellie, with all her brutishness and bravery, falls into it like anyone else, because even while mad at him, she valued that response from him.

a lot of people seem to think that the approach to ellie's queerness is nonchalant, that it's just some unrelated thing about her, but i think that it holds more weight in the narrative that what is explicitly spelled out. it's subtle but it was a deliberate choice to place her queerness at the center of the confrontation. i think that's why ellie's relationship with dina took center stage in the story, and why so much time is devoted to just them -- because her being queer matters to her character, but in a way that perhaps only a queer person can see, analyze, and appreciate (without being blatant enough to anger certain other fans).

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eSims for Gaza

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Women for Women International

Institute for Middle East Understanding

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Urgent support for medical professionals in Gaza

Emergency Relief for Gaza

Anera

Taawon

Being angry is okay. Screaming at people and breaking stuff isn't. Being jealous is okay. Sabotaging relationships isn't. Being anxious and insecure is okay. Seeking validation by guilt tripping and manipulating people isn't. Being sad is okay. Intentionally dragging other people down with you isn't. What I'm trying to say is that while all of your emotions are valid, you still have a responsibility to express them in a healthy way.

OP isn't exaggerating. There are countless of videos of the IDF shooting at crowds of Palestinians trying to find food for themselves and their starving families. The UN World Food Programme even suspended delivering aid because the IDF won't stop shooting people.

wfp.org

UN Food Agency pauses deliveries to the North of Gaza | World Food Programme

ROME – The UN World Food Programme (WFP) is pausing deliveries of life-saving food aid to northern Gaza until conditions are in place that a

Heartbreaking news out of north Gaza today

We write to inform you that renowned journalist Ismail Al-Ghoul and cameraman Ramy El-Rifi of Al-Jazeera were murdered just a few hours ago by the occupation. They were going out to document the scene of another bombing attack, when they were deliberately targeted by the occupation. Footage provided by journalist Osama Al-Ashi in the immediate aftermath of the attack shows that Ismail and Ramy were murdered with targeted precision weaponry, meaning the occupation watched them, waited for them, and executed them in cold blood (warning: graphic footage).

Ismail and Ramy have been documenting the genocide at immense personal cost since the 7th of October 2023. They were previously kidnapped and tortured by the occupation, but survived and continued to remain in north Gaza and document crimes against humanity. They have had many narrow escapes, and today, the occupation was finally successful in its illegal goal of assassinating these prominent journalists.

When western journalists hand-wave their suppression of the IOF’s atrocities in Gaza by claiming no journalists are “allowed” in to report, remember these men. Remind them of these men. These men who lost friends and loved ones, who suffered immensely, and yet chose to remain and continue documenting the genocide against their people. They join the ranks of more than 150 Gazan journalists who were murdered by the occupation to hide its crimes and retaliate for speaking the truth.

حسبنا الله و نعم الوكيل

أنا لله و أنا اليه رجعون

God suffices us and he is the best disposer of affairs. We belong to God and to Him we shall return.

Keep fighting for Gaza. Don’t stop talking about north Gaza.

it's funny when my sister shows me videos of a few pro-Palestinian protesters calling for the death of all Jews and saying that they love death. I've seen hundreds of videos of pro-Palestinian protesters being peaceful and actually treating people with kindness. All videos of Palestinian activists have no trace of antisemitism.

yet, whenever I see a video of a pro-Israeli activist or someone protesting for Israel, there's always hate. I have seen videos of nine and ten-year-old children saying that they wanted to kill the arab child they met and how they want to make all Arabs their slaves.

every single video I have seen of an Israeli official speaking about the genocide has nothing but hateful and disgusting things to say.

the double standard is real. it is real and it is very much still present in today's world.

one video, just one video, of a pro-Palestinian person who says they wish all Jews were dead can outweigh the millions of other activists who know that Judaism and Zionism are fundamentally different and cannot be correlated.

yt no matter how many videos of Israelis and Zionists being hateful come up, people will never say anything.

it disgusts me that this is the standard our world has adopted.

Beautiful people of a beautiful land

Just a reminder that Free Palestine doesn't end with a ceasefire.

Gaza is in rubble and will have to be rebuilt. Gaza would still be a concentration camp where there's a lack of clean water and food allowed in. The west bank would still be filled with settlers and settler based violence.

Gaza had the mean age of 18 before this attack. People lost their everything, you don't just recover from that.

A Free Palestine ends once there is a true ceasefire. One the apartheid "state" of israel is no more.

Once Palestinians can go from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea, Palestine will truly be free. Edit: Here are some learning sources

Daily click:

arab.org

Home – 2020

arab.org aims to empower every person & every organization to do Good.

Free documentary about Gaza's Fight For Freedom:

means.tv

Gaza Fights for Freedom

Gaza Fights for Freedom