#these days its all sayid this ben linus that | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

comradekatara · 3 years

Note

ok I love your sokka/mai/toph dynamics and I want to hear your thoughts on the relationship between toph and mai in particular , as rich girls who resent their families I feel like they’d have a lot of common experiences growing up which would be a good start to their friendship, but how would it progress from there ?

yess their friendship would be so fucking good. like they’d just Get each other, and toph’s encouragement & understanding would definitely help mai figure out that she doesn’t need to dedicate her life to pleasing her parents, or anyone, for that matter, and she can go after what she wants without shame. and of course they both think the other is hilarious and badass and awesome. they’re always hanging out and causing chaos together. here are 10 bullet points about their friendship:

they are each other's automatic assumed plus-one to family events. this arrangement begins one day when they're in their teens and mai is bemoaning an upcoming family dinner. toph first suggests that mai simply skip it, because that's what she'd do, but when mai admits she wants to see tom-tom (toph: "ew, why?") they hatch a scheme together. toph will accompany mai, and she'll begin the evening by acting like a perfectly composed young lady, but get steadily weirder and make mai's parents more and more uncomfortable as the night progresses. by the time the dessert course rolls around, toph is fully metalbending the dessert spoons out of their hands and cackling when they reflexively grab for them. this amusing display becomes a tradition – if mai is expected to attend anything, it's assumed that toph will be there as her mischievous date. toph even begins attending her own family events for the first time just so she can take mai, who will obligingly derail dinner by doing knife tricks for the horrified guests. in true theater kid tradition (much like her ex-boyfriend, mai's always had a fondness for live theater), any fancy rich people dinner becomes "dinner and a show."

when they are in their early twenties, there's a brief period of time when mai and ty lee are temporarily "off." it's not important whose fault it was (it was both of theirs) but for weeks on end, neither one can shut up about the drama. while ty lee cries in suki's arms, mai sullenly stays in toph's little hovel, getting high a lot and eating all of toph's snacks. at some point during this period, mai suggests – with deadly seriousness – that she and toph should just hook up. toph is like, "okay, yeah," but by the time they lean in to kiss, they've already thought better of it. they both suffer through a very awkward kiss (and it's not even bad, just terribly self-conscious) and then pretend to get distracted by other topics. they don't mention it again.

neither one has the faintest idea how to do laundry. the first time they go on a trip together just the two of them, they can't figure out why their clothes smell so increasingly… weird. mildew-y. it turns out that you can't simply wave your clothes around in the river without any soap and then leave them out on a rock all balled-up and expect them to be dry in the morning. they wind up having to toss all the clothes they brought with them on that trip. it is a humbling experience.

one day, while staying at the fire nation palace, toph spontaneously decides to prank mai by pretending she and azula kissed last night. she claims the kiss was surprisingly good and then works her way up to shyly "confessing" that she thinks she's developing feelings. mai completely falls for it. she squawks and objects and threatens to tell katara. they cause such a commotion that azula actually wanders downstairs to see what's going on. though toph attempts to nonverbally communicate that azula should just go with it, azula reacts like an absolute space alien, letting loose a stream of nervous giggles and barely managing to fumble out the words, "i-i-i-i've never kissed a girl, actually." afterwards, mai is a little embarrassed for believing in it, but they're both way more embarrassed for azula herself. toph decides that kind of backfired.

for mai's thirtieth birthday, toph metalbends her a knife. engraved into the metal is a perfect image of toph herself, a kind of signature. the more normal thing to do might be to put this logo on the handle, but toph puts it right at the tip of the blade. this overt branding of the knife as an extension of toph herself leads to an inside joke where mai will sometimes ever so casually turn to toph and say "you killed someone last night," and toph will be like, "nice! good for me."

toph gets super offended on mai’s behalf whenever someone refers to her as “lady mai.” it’s an outrage! toph insists. SHE’S NOT A LADY, SHE’S A DYKE!!!! (toph repeats this point so often that at some point, mai realizes she’s gone from quietly resigning herself to the reminder of her nobility to being just as outraged as toph.)

it’s a widely-known fact among mai’s friends that she is really, really jealous of sokka’s hair. toph’s like “so just cut your hair, then?” and mai’s like “but his hair is a cultural thing, it would be weird if i just. had his haircut.” so then toph suggests that they both cut their hair to look like sokka’s (pictured here & here), that way, it can’t be cultural appropriation! and mai’s like “that doesn’t make any sense.....but it sounds hilarious, so i’m in.” they also get glasses similar to his, despite the fact that mai has perfect vision & toph has none at all, and stop wearing shirts with sleeves, just to complete the look. at first sokka is like “okay, haha, very funny,” but like a year into them both sporting wolftails, glasses, and sleeveless tunics, it’s become apparent that they’re actually both deeply attached to these fashion statements. but it would have nothing to do with the hordes of girls who have been hitting on them... nothing at all...

toph thinks it’s extremely funny that mai dated zuko. of course, she has enough tact not to voice this while they’re still in their teens, because it’s still a sore wound, but once they’re in their twenties, toph’s like “hey remember when you dated ZUKO?????” and starts laughing hysterically and then suki’s like “what’s so funny” and toph, between wheezes, is like “i just remembered when MAI dated ZUKO” and then suki starts cracking up too and then ty lee walks by and is like “hey guys whats going on” and stuttering between breaths, crying with laughter, toph and suki are like “remember when MAI??????? DATED?????? ZUKO??????????” and ty lee is like “DO I??????????????” and they’re all just rolling around on the floor trying to breathe through their laughter and mai is just. completely stone-faced, like “yeah that was pretty bad.”

toph, mai, suki, and ty lee almost immediately become a Squad after the war ends. existing on the periphery of this squad are sokka, the other kyoshi warriors, and aang, who is technically invited to any group hangout because his presence is always delightful. they invited zuko once, and they all agreed that it wasn’t fun for him. they invited katara once, and toph was like “watch out guys she’s gonna be such a buzzkill because she HATES FUN like a BORING OLD MOM” but actually katara got wayy too wild and the four of them had to rein her in. well, mai, toph, and suki egged her on; ty lee reined her in. but still, toph and mai definitely got a taste of the Sokka Lifestyle that night.

the first, and last, time toph is forced to babysit tom tom, it is because literally everyone else is absent from the fire nation. even zuko, who would probably agree to hold tom tom while in diplomatic meetings, is currently in the earth kingdom or something, so toph is literally the only option mai has. approximately 15 minutes later, once mai has returned from her errand to both of them, somehow, covered in jam (and possibly blood??) mai’s like “...well?” and toph just says grimly, “i am never having kids.”

#asks #arthoe-iceland #c #well. chell wrote the first 5 points i wrote the last #but still.... i miss her presence on this bloggue :(#these days its all sayid this ben linus that #i dont even know what it means!!!!#mai&toph #mai #toph #not tagging everyone mentioned #anyway #i love lesbians #postwargaang

177 notes · View notes

aurorawest · 4 years

Text

ten faves

Rules: name ten favorite characters from ten different things (tv, movies, books, etc.).

Thank you for the tag @thegirlwholied!

Loki (Thor, The Avengers, general MCU)

I mean...obviously, right? He’s got it all. A sympathetic villain with a tragic backstory, a snarky, sarcastic sense of humor, The Smart One, but also, complete and utter trash fire, emotional wreck; just wants to be loved. His redemption arc hits me right in the feels and I’m here for the disaster of a relationship that he has with his big brother. His angst and dramatics make him an utter joy to watch and write about. V pretty, too; makes me wonder if I am in fact just a little bisexual.

King Candy (Wreck-It Ralph)

YMMV but another villain with a sympathetic backstory. The way he turns on a dime from goofy and fun to kind of straight-up murderous is great. Another one where there’s a rich trove of angst and pain to explore in fic. Alan Tudyk’s spot-on Ed Wynn imitation made me fall in love with this guy before three words had left his mouth the first time I saw Wreck-It Ralph.

Stephen Strange (Doctor Strange, general MCU, yes I’m cheating because this is 2 MCU characters)

Okay, so my soft spot for Strange admittedly came about because I ship him with Loki, but I’ve come to love him in his own right. He’s a smartass and a jerk—plus magic! How can I not like a guy who has all the terrible qualities I love in a character, but who dies over and over and over again to save humanity? And in a weird twist, I vastly prefer Benedict Cumberbatch’s American accent to his actual English accent.

George Weasley (Harry Potter)

Though I came to be a huge Snape fan later, my first loves in Harry Potter were the Weasley twins. And George is the one I keep coming back to. Who doesn’t love the Weasley twins, right? But I appreciate kinder, gentler George, and imagining his life after Fred’s death has resulted in thousands and thousands of words of fanfiction.

Weyoun (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine)

We stan one Vorta clone who presided over a genocide, got his neck snapped by Worf, eats pizza with chopsticks, and had to put up with both Dukat and Damar. Another villain for the list here. Weyoun (and the Vorta in general) are fascinating and it’s a crime that we never got to learn that much about them. The DS9 writers seemed to think we all wanted to know more about the Jem’Hadar, but I just wanted more of these weird, purple-eyed gremlins. Weyoun trying to appreciate art despite his lack of aesthetics? A+ moment from a guest star in a series that was full of them (both A+ moments and guest stars).

Megavolt (Darkwing Duck)

Ah Megavolt, the character that I’ve loved since 1991. He’s crazy! He’s definitely committed murder (he’s been sent to the electric chair multiple times)! And yet there’s something kind of sad about Megavolt; high school bullies turned into who he is, his memory problems are...a hindrance. He’s not all bad either—he has a friend group and sometimes he even works with Darkwing Duck.

Vinny Santorini (Atlantis: The Lost Empire)

(with bonus Audrey Ramirez, because I’m not going to lie to you, it was hard to choose between the two of them)

Vinny is the snarkiest on this team of looters and he blows stuff up, so how can I not love him? Atlantis does its best to give us character development for its ensemble cast but it can only give us the broad strokes (its runtime is only 96 minutes. 96 minutes!), but it’s hard not to see Vinny as someone who uses sarcasm and humor to cover up a pretty big heart. In a way, a character with a minor redemptive arc, since the team betrays Milo.

Benjamin Linus (Lost)

The first thing you need to know about Ben is that he spent the majority of Lost looking beat up, which is a really attractive quality in a character. Ben is another one of those villains with a sympathetic past and a redemption arc—though unlike many of the villains I love, he actually survived! So he’s an exception to redemption=death. I loved Ben, I think, from the moment he hypothetically detailed how, if he were an evil Other, he would have tricked Sayid, Ana Lucia, and Charlie and lured them to their deaths, and then looked up at Locke and asked with that dead-eyed stare over his cereal, “Got any milk?” He was the one character who continued to get interesting on Lost as the rest of the show was falling apart.

Telemain (The Enchanted Forest Chronicles)

So I couldn’t find a photo of the back cover of Calling on Dragons, which actually features an illustration of Telemain, so you’ll all have to trust me that he’s My Type. His description from the Enchanted Forest Chronicles wiki:

Blue eyes, dark hair, and neatly trimmed beard and mustache

Plus he wears knee-high black boots and a giant, useless belt with a bunch of stuff hanging off it? Might I point you to another wizard on my favorite characters list. Telemain is a know-it-all wizard who doesn’t understand how to talk to others like a normal person. He’s very smart, fiercely solitary, and very snarky. Hm.

Éowyn (The Lord of the Rings)

How can you not love her? The absolute shit this woman has been through. Her parents are dead. Her brother is banished. Her cousin is killed. And her uncle looks like a ghoul and is going crazier by the day, all while she’s got freaking Grima Wormtongue undressing her with his eyes at every opportunity. I love Éowyn because she’s basically in the process of having a constant meltdown but dammit, she’s going to keep it together because what else can she do? And I mean, obviously, “I am no man.”

I’ll tag...ummm @iamanartichoke, @mareebird, and @thelightofthingshopedfor but no pressure! And anyone else who wants to do this definitely should! Consider yourself tagged, I’m always interested to know what characters other people like!

#meme #loki #stephen strange #ben linus #weyoun #megavolt #king candy #long post

18 notes · View notes

pass-the-bechdel · 7 years

Text

LOST s06e17 ‘The End’

Does it pass the Bechdel Test?

Yes, four times.

How many female characters (with names and lines) are there?

Nine (33.33% of cast).

How many male characters (with names and lines) are there?

Eighteen.

Positive Content Rating:

Three.

General Episode Quality:

As much flack as it cops, I actually think this might be the best and most fulfilling series finale of any show I have ever watched. Near perfect, in my eyes.

MORE INFO (and potential spoilers) UNDER THE CUT:

Passing the Bechdel:

Juliet and Claire pass in a line at the concert. Kate and Claire pass together, three times.

Female characters:

Kate Austen.

Rose Nadler.

Sun Kwon.

Juliet Burke.

Claire Littleton.

Shannon Rutherford.

Charlotte Lewis.

Eloise Hawking.

Jane.

Male characters:

Desmond Hume.

Jack Shephard.

David Shephard.

James ‘Sawyer’ Ford.

Hugo ‘Hurley’ Reyes.

Sayid Jarrah.

Charlie Pace.

Ben Linus.

John Locke.

Bernard Nadler.

Miles Straume.

Richard Alpert.

Jin Kwon.

Frank Lapidus.

Boone Carlyle.

Daniel Faraday.

Pierre Chang.

Christian Shephard.

OTHER NOTES:

Aww, Hurley is so happy to see Charlie:

“This would be so sweet if we weren’t all about to die.”

Rose and Bernard are the real heroes of this show.

Good news, Richard. The fact that the show is about to end means that your days of being thrown around by a smoke column are coming to a close.

Not gonna lie, I’ve seen this episode (and show) many times already over the years, but when the music kicks in as the characters experience their awakenings I’ve still got fuckin’ chills.

I know it’s just procedure and whatever, but Locke, completely bald, wearing a hair net as he’s about to go into surgery? I’m laughin’.

“You’re not John Locke. You disrespect his memory by wearing his face” it is nice to hear Jack speaking out in Locke’s defense, and for a real reason, unlike when Jack was just kinda feeling adrift in life and guilty because of Locke’s suicide.

“I was shot by a fat man.”

Claire is having her baby, and did NOT just instantly announce it the second she felt a contraction.

Kate LITERALLY has her awakening triggered by CLAIRE and her baby, rather than by a romantic connection. Chant it with me now: Kate’s character and life is not defined by men! Kate’s character and life is not defined by men!

KAAAATTTEEEE SAVES THE DAYYYY!!! KATE KILLS THE BIG BAD! KATE IS THE HERO! “I saved you a bullet.” She’s my badass. The greatest badass in all the land. Never try to tell me she’s just some flip-flopping floosie.

“What’s your timetable?” “DON’T BOTHER ME!” “...Sounds like they’re making progress.”

Obviously I object to the idea that Jack could be considered Kate’s ‘soulmate’ despite being an abusive fuckwit who treated her like total crap the entire time they knew each other. As intensely hetero as this finale is, it mostly doesn’t bother me because the relationships were pretty great, but Jack/Kate is a major exception to that rule, man.

Kate loves Claire Kate loves Claire Kate loves Claire

Oh my God. Ben, outside the church, apologising and saying goodbye to John. And then the scene on the island where Hurley appoints Ben as his second-in-command on the island, and then back to the church where Hurley pops out to thank Ben for helping him so well in that job. All three scenes, back-to-back, and FUCK they’re good. I’m not saying that this, and Jack’s complicated history with Locke, and Kate’s bond with Claire, etc...I’m not saying it really makes me realise just how strong the non-romantic relationships on this show have been and how much more I wish they had balanced the awakenings and such with platonic love as well as romance, but...as good as those (SUPER HET!) romances mostly were, the show and its characters had so much more to give, and I wish they had acknowledged that more explicitly.

Note the multi-faith interior of this afterlife-church:

Look, I get that a LOT of people think that somehow this show ended with ‘and then they were all dead all along!’ but that is...explicitly stated OUT LOUD as not being so? The whole explainer-conversation Jack has with his dad here at the end. It’s very clear. I would almost argue that it’s TOO clear, that they coulda been more subtle with it, but then the huge number of people who apparently did not pay attention and managed to misinterpret it anyway must mean the level of explicitness was the right call. Any more explicit and they might as well have just brought on the showrunners to literally explain the story directly to the camera. Sorry if it seems like I’m being awful rude about other people’s intelligence or comprehension here, but I just. Am baffled that this is such a common misconception. They were not dead the whole time. The island is not purgatory. The ‘flash-sideways’ IS the afterlife, and that’s why it’s a place where they each learn lessons or achieve goals that they were never able to work out when they were alive; they complete the journeys their souls had been on, and then they come together so that their spirits can move to What Comes Next together. The island is real and everything there happened is real and they were alive on the island. The ‘alternate reality’ of them all off-island in SEASON SIX ONLY is the afterlife. Honest to God it’s not complicated.

Whew. Ok. Got a little heated there for a moment but look, I have been defending this ending for seven long years. As with any finale - and especially for something as huge and existential as LOST - there are plenty of people who hate it, and that’s their right, etc. But I love it to death and continue to consider it one of the absolute best finales I’ve ever seen. Probably still THE best, actually. For all those who complain about the ‘unanswered questions’ left behind: honestly, I think there’s only ONE question I’ve encountered that I couldn’t find an answer for (and I can’t even remember what it was because it was a minor detail, not anything important). I pretty much guarantee you, there’s an answer right there in the show, you just gotta look for it. Personally, I am incredibly thankful that they not only tied up all of their loose ends, they did it without hanging a lantern on absolutely every piece of the puzzle as they filled it in. I like going “but what was the deal with [thing]?” and then putting some thought to it and finding the solution myself, and then applauding the writers for doing such a wonderful job of combining all their elements so organically that they function as if they were simply meant to be. It seems to be a pop culture buzz-phrase these days to make some joke about LOST+lack of payoff, but for anyone who just parrots that, it’s lazy, and anyone who actually believes it? Needs to try a re-watch and maybe pay attention this time. It’s not rocket science, and I hate feeling like I’m being intellectually superior when I say so. It’s not confusing if you just...use your critical thinking skills? I swear, this show is not confusing, it IS dealing in metaphysical meaning-of-life stuff that can be kinda heady for some people (I LOVE that shit so obviously it doesn’t bother me), but it’s not some big blustery build-up of weird that never goes anywhere. Everything has a purpose in the narrative, it’s all there for a reason. Everything except maybe Jack’s tattoos.

#LOST #LOST season six #Bechdel Test #female representation #The End

4 notes · View notes

dharmawire · 5 years

Text

The Hydra The Arrow The Swan The Flame The Pearl The Orchid The Staff The Looking Glass The Tempest The Lamp Post The Wrench The Hatch

The Safe The Safe NE The Safe NW The Safe SE The Safe SW

The Hydra Station Number: 1 of 6 Blast Door Map: bottom right Quarantine Marker: Not Found Possible Function: Zoological Research Orientation Film: Found Found By: Ben acquired possession of the tape sometime after Hurley became protector of the Island Further Information: The Hydra was the name of a zoological DHARMA Initiative station. It included an underwater aquarium section, a number of animal cages above ground, and multiple large above-ground buildings. In the past, it held animals such as sharks, dolphins, and polar bears for experimental purposes. The Others controlled the station and did unspecified work at the location. The station was on a small island off the coast of the the main Island. See also: Hydra Island

The Arrow See main article: The Arrow Station Number: 2 of 6 Blast Door Map: top Quarantine Marker: Found Possible Function: Development of defensive strategies, and Intelligence gathering Orientation Film: Found Found By: The Tailies Further Information: The Arrow station was once one of the DHARMA initiative research stations referred to in the Swan Orientation Film. In 2004, the station was largely empty except for several boxes, one containing a glass eye and copies of the Bible. Its name and symbol were noted on the blast door map. As in the Swan station "QUARANTINE" was written on the inside of the door. The station still had power and light, operated by some kind of switchbox. No Arrow-specific Orientation Film was found, but an aborted take was shown being filmed. The tail section survivors of Oceanic Flight 815 lived here before merging with the middle section survivors.