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#this is why people just dismiss them
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Do you ever look at a certain character and you wished the franchise did more with them but they just practically leave them quite undeveloped despite the potential they have?
#characters#franchise#txt#i feel like this about a few characters#like eric from tlm. i mean the animated version specifically#he is the least developed major character in all of animated tlm franchise and it's quite annoying#they gave him a decent/good enough development in the original movie#but his character was practically pushed to the side in the sequel and wasn't even present in the third#i think eric's status as the “representation” of humanity and ariel being a mermaid hasn't allowed his character to be expanded in the way#he really shoulda been. his character was left quite untouched till that novel came out a year ago#it's messed up that it took that long for writers to FINALLY pay attention to his character and depict him as more than just ariel's love#interest/arm candy#honestly most disney princes are quite underdeveloped specially the earlier ones#this is why people just dismiss them#and eric's case is interesting in that he is the only one to smash a non-human and that represented or symbolized humanity#he was the only one to not have a song and honestly he shouldn't have been given one. he didn't need to sing unlike the others#like eric is the only prince who was directly pursued he didn't need no song lol#for as much sh*t as the animated pairing gets they are the most unique and peculiar in all of the disney princess romances#this is what i didn't like about the remake they gave ariel's traits to eric basically. he was the one being infatuated now#like i'm sorry but one of the things i love about ariel was her fangirlism. they took that away from her and gave it to eric#they turned it into a traditional relationship in a sense when they weren't supposed to be that#idc idc idc this is how i feel about it#anyways i shoulda left that for another post tbh 💀
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findafight · 7 months
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Robin chose Steve. Robin made the conscious and deliberate decision that she could and would trust Steve. She already liked him! She had fun working and bantering with him! They were already on their way to being weird little bffs and the torture just expedited the process. Steve chose Robin just the same! He thinks she's fun and cool and likes her so much! He chose to be honest and open with her too, putting himself out there.
Even though their interests on the surface level don't match why wouldn't they share them? Steve clearly caves when Robin wants to watch a movie he doesn't think he'll like, Robin can watch a March madness game or five.
Stop trying to take away their bond oh my god people can be close to more than one person!!! Their best friend doesn't have to be dismissive or mean or whatever in order for a romance to be special to them!
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maerhiya · 2 months
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in regards to the constant dismissal of his aroace identity, i hate it when alastor 'fans' say and use the excuse: "he's fictional, he won't get offended."
like, you're right, but it can and will offend us.
when you see yourself being represented on screen, of course you'd feel enthusiastic about it — representation allows individuals to see themselves reflected in the media they consume, validating their identities and experiences. but when so many people take that representation and decide to disregard and discard it, it is so fucking frustrating. we finally have another character to be part of the tiny amount of representation we have, but then people don't even care about how much it means to us? like yeah, alastor won't get offended because he's not real, but it frustrates and annoys us. do you realize that it's also technically invalidating the aroace community? that you're invalidating our feelings? imagine feeling like you're finally being seen because your orientation is finally being represented in media, and people just decide to blatantly ignore, discard, and invalidate it.
media has such a powerful influence on real life, representation being a prevalent factor of it. there are numerous posts that dictate how people went to watch a movie/show or read a book just because a character depicts their identity in it — obviously, being represented is an incredibly uplifting and validating experience.
which is why seeing an aroace character in a popular show is so meaningful to us because we live in a world where romance and sex are literally everywhere and prioritized above all else. (and it's pretty obvious that alastor's on the repulsed end of the spectrum, but even if he wasn't, at least make an effort to acknowledge his sexuality instead of continuing to portray him as allo; aroace folks can be in relationships but it's not going to be the same thing with allos' experiences.)
any and every representation matters, but why does that seem to stop at people under the aroace spectrum? like y'all can't even let us appreciate the scraps of representation we have. we barely have any, so are we really that dramatic for being upset at how people easily disregard and dismiss our identities that are being depicted on screen just like that? is it truly wrong of us to want to defend and maintain the little representation we have?
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shutupineedtothink · 7 months
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I’m still s h o o k that people do not see exactly what’s going on with Moiraine throughout s2 and people are dragging her and dismissing her without an ounce of empathy for what she’s been through, so I’m bringing the full character analysis for y’all (and my own sanity). So this is a big ol in defense of Moiraine (and Lan) rant, so if that’s not your thing, scroll down now. Here we go.
I just… The AUDACITY some people have to look at Moiraine and be angry and pissed off at how she acts in S2. To not feel any sympathy and empathy for her and the monumental weight she’s under every goddamn day. There’s a reason we start with that bath scene in 2x01 – it shows you everything. How she’s just going through the motions. How she only lets herself cry when she’s alone in the water. How she literally curls into the fetal position and looks reproachfully devastated over her knees as she hugs them to her chest in a futile attempt at comfort. Not to mention the direct comparison/callback with the bath scene in 1x01, where she has both her power and Lan still, and now she’s lost her connection to both of them.
How is it not painfully obvious that every interaction she has after that bath scene is infused with a trauma response? Let’s tally up the devastation she’s been through. At the end of S1, she was 1. banished from the sisterhood of the white tower (they literally turned their backs on her), 2. was separated AGAIN from the love of her life fully expecting to never see her again, 3. was cut off from the other love of her life (that would be Lan, for the record) which is all the worse bc it’s her own fault for masking the bond, 4. was fully made to believe she’s been stilled from the one power aka an integral part of her being, AND 5. she’s “failed” her mission at the eye of the world – the one goal she’s had for the last 20 years, her life’s purpose – because instead of locking away the dark one she’s directly caused Rand to set Ishamael free.
You don’t think it's justified to be a little pissed off and standoffish after all of that? You don’t think the weight of that guilt, grief, pain, and loss is a reasonable cause to be distant, cold, harsh, having a little bit of a death wish? That’s TRAUMA, baby! She is absolutely wrecked, and it’s coming out in the worst way in her interactions with others (especially Lan because we’ve seen how they should be), but it’s absolutely not because she actively wants to hurt the people around her. In fact after almost every moment she lashes out at someone, we see an equally sad/grief-stricken/devastated moment from her and THAT’S the real emotion hiding underneath the anger. This woman needs therapy and understanding and patience, and does not deserve to be judged at the worst time of her life.
Ok fine, you say, but Lan IS patient and understanding with her! And she’s still an asshole to him! You’re right, Lan is absolutely trying his best and doing just about everything he can to be there for her in 2x01/2x02 (with a little help from Verin and Tomas). But 1. It’s STILL not about him, Moiraine is not obligated to respond in a certain way to her grief and pain that makes him feel better, and 2. This is Moiraine goddamn Damodred and even her trauma response is also a front to protect him, to push him away from her and what is now certainly a suicide mission to fight the dark without her powers.
This is SOOO important to really get Moiraine’s character — y’all gotta understand this: Moiraine truly loves only TWO people on the whole fucking planet: Siuan and Lan. They are also the only people who truly love her, unconditionally, with all of her flaws and imperfections. Please please ingrain that into your brain, especially for Lan, in this context. (Siuan is a whole other conversation I won’t get into at the moment.) Moiraine loves Lan, he loves her, deeply. That’s the foundation of everything they go through with each other in this season, despite what’s happening on the surface.
Once you accept that as fundamental truth, everything makes a whole lot more sense. She is a dick to him to push him away. Literally tells him he failed her to put the final nail in the coffin of driving him away, which is his worst nightmare. On the surface it seems egotistic at best, plain cruel at worst. But look underneath. Moiraine always has reasons 2, 3, 6 layers deep for everything she does.
With everyone else she’s mean to this season, namely her sister and her nephew, it’s born out of distrust (and the aforementioned trauma response). She can’t afford to trust anyone because anyone could be a dark friend. (And if they’re not a dark friend, then they become a liability and endangered.) Anything she lets slip could be used to hurt/control Rand and push them all one step closer to eternal darkness. Oh and when we see Barthanes’ true nature that turns out to be fucking justified, by the way. But I digress.
Right so why is she an asshole to Lan then? Because she doesn’t trust him? I don’t believe that for a second. These two have been on the same page, literally sharing the same headspace, for the last 20 years – she knows he’s the best person she’s ever met, the least likely to ever turn to the dark, ever. It’s an actual impossibility. So it’s not that she doesn’t trust him. She literally marvels at how courageous he must be to fight the dark with only a sword.
The true reason is: she does trust him, she does love him, and she KNOWS him. She knows that he will never leave her like this, in her darkest hour. He is both honor-bound to her (which he takes very seriously) and deeply cares for her. The problem is that now his life is in serious danger by staying with her. But there is no calmly explaining to him that he should return to the white tower for his own good and bond to another aes sedai who can actually channel, who can actually hold up her end of the partnership and protect him and heal him in return for his loyalty and sacrifice. Or better yet, find Nynaeve, who is not only ridiculously powerful and has probably the best chance of protecting him out of anyone, but who also loves him.
If Moiraine loves him and wants him safe, the ONLY option she has to protect him, the one good thing left in her life even if their bond is masked, is to drive him away. To make it so that he’ll stay far away from her of his own free will, and never come after her and her suicide mission to defeat the dark. Because she has already lost everything, she has no control over her fate anymore (if she ever had any to begin with), but the ONE thing she can still try to do is keep him safe. And hopefully, maybe he’ll be happy, one day. Her reasoning is directly confirmed for us in the last thing she says to him in 2x02 before she leaves: “Light protect you, al’Lan Mandragoran.” That was her goal all along, to protect him.
That’s the true reason she’s Like That to him. It’s all out of her love for him, and a desperate desire not to drag him down with her when she’s sure she’s destined to die on this mission. Is her strategy misguided? On the one hand yes, because she does need people to help her and she needs to trust someone, as he points out. On the other hand, she’s absolutely fucking right because look what happened with the Fade fight at the end of 2x01. Both her and Lan would have died without Verin and Tomas, and it would have been because she couldn’t channel. He is factually, logically, physically better off without her as long as she’s “stilled.”
This is why it makes sense how Lan eventually responds the way he does. He initially sees right through what she’s trying to do, he literally says he won’t let her push him away. He knows her too, better than anyone, including Siuan at this point. But he isn’t expecting her to go as far as she does, and it shakes him to his core. She tells him he failed her, has his worst fears confirmed, and then hears the words “we were never equals” and hears that she thinks she’s better than him, when she means the exact opposite. Tomas tells him to really listen but he can’t, in that moment.
But then he gets some distance, and some perspective thanks to Ihvon and Maksim, and he remembers: he loves her. He believes in her and he knows her and he knows what she’s doing to push him away (although maybe not why, when it comes to protecting him, because he doesn’t see himself as someone who needs protecting). Even better, he realizes that her situation is actually not what she thinks, that she’s shielded not stilled, and he can do something about that.
I LOVE Lan in 2x07 because he’s got Moiraine’s number now, and he will not be swayed by any further attempts (rather weak attempts at this point) to lash out at him. He just takes all the shit she throws at him, and calmly asks her what he needs to know and tells her what she needs to hear (“hopefully everything we’ve lost” and “that’s what I thought” and “you need to trust someone, Moiraine”), and is truthful with her even if she is still putting on this act with him in her fear and grief. He isn’t having any of it, he sees straight through it to the fear and pain underneath. And he literally DECIDES they are going to be okay, and then he fucking. Follows. Through.
He is not a doormat to her rage, he is not her servant, he’s not going back to her with his tail between his legs. He SHOWS UP for her in her darkest hour, when NO ONE, not even Siuan, can see what’s going on with her. That’s a true friend, a true hero, and absolute king behavior.
In conclusion, Moiraine’s behavior in s2, while not cute, is totally justified given the trauma, circumstances and everything she’s dealing with (jfc the lack of sleep alone) and makes sense in light of her ultimate goal to protect the world, which includes protecting Lan. And Lan’s response, once he figures out what to do, is the absolute correct way to handle the situation and is not weakness at all but strength in the highest order.
I’m so glad we got the payoff of all that with their conversation in 2x08 and reconnecting the bond. It was so beautiful, so earned, and reminded us of the level they’re on with each other — which is a soul connection way beyond what any of us can imagine.
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comradekatara · 2 days
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sokka, katara, and the paradox of “the gifted child”
something i’ve noticed is a tendency to (mis)characterize sokka as someone who is dismissed due to being a nonbender, when that’s only partially true. sokka is certainly dismissed by some for not being a bender (namely, by benders), but i think there’s a key difference between being dismissed and not being valued in one specific way. katara was valued by her tribe for being a waterbender for the very crucial reason that she was the last one left. had she been a dime a dozen in her tribe, which would have been the case were it not for the systemic extermination of her people, she would not be valued as highly for possessing this skill. that said, while sokka clearly does hold some resentment over his lack of bending ability, calling himself “the guy in the group who’s regular,” i think it’s folly to assume that this means that sokka was dismissed and discarded as “average” while katara was put on a pedestal for being special. because while katara obviously was considered special, sokka is also clearly considered special by his family, merely in different ways. and if anything, sokka embodies the archetypal struggle of the so-called "gifted child” far more than katara does.
while sokka clearly believes himself to be disposable and intrinsically worthless, i don’t think that he was actively neglected by his family. even if katara was clearly marked by her bending as embodying the last hope of their tribe, that doesn’t mean that she was seen as more gifted than he was or was designated as her family’s obvious favorite. for example, the way hakoda talks about sokka (saying he trusted him with leading and protecting the tribe when he was thirteen, calling him a genius, and other such insanely high praises to heap on a child) shows that he clearly views his son as particularly exceptional and has never been shy about showing that. sokka is distinctly insecure around his father for assumptions he makes regarding hakoda's faith in his abilities and his insecurities when it comes to his perceived failure in not measuring up as a man, but from the second we meet hakoda, it's evident that these insecurities are entirely internal and completely unfounded, at least in terms of his father's perception of him. hakoda is nothing but incredibly proud of sokka, constantly emphasizing just how capable and brilliant he believes him to be. whether or not sokka is capable of internalizing it is another story, but it's clear that hakoda is not stingy in his praise and affection, not even a little bit.
moreover, while katara is clearly kanna’s favorite on an emotional level, she nonetheless affords sokka far more respect. she admonishes katara and tells her to do her chores, and notably, she also impresses the importance of “listening to her brother,” and backs up sokka’s decision to banish aang from the village. you can claim that sexism plays a factor in how sokka views his own supposed position of authority, but kanna is a woman who traveled the entire globe as a teenager because she wanted to escape patriarchal impositions dictating her life. she’s simply far too smart to treat sokka as any sort of authority within their village if she did not fully entrust him with that responsibility. she treats sokka almost like a peer, as if she is legitimately co-running the village with a fifteen year old boy.
katara is only a couple years younger than sokka at most, but her dynamic with kanna is very different. on one hand, kanna clearly sees more of herself in katara, can identify with her sense of adventure and rebellious spirit, but on the other hand, it means that she views katara as a child to be taken care of, who needs to be reminded to do her chores and bailed out when she gets herself into trouble. sokka doesn't want to be viewed as a child, and so he does everything in his power to position himself as kanna's equal rather than her grandson. he takes his duties and responsibilities very seriously, and is obedient to a fault whenever he is submitting to any authority he actually respects, especially his father and grandmother. to be honest, a lot of what katara considers coddling is probably just sokka never being bossed around by their grandmother because she never actually has to tell him to do his chores. because despite katara's claim that he simply faffs about "playing soldier," sokka's problem is actually that he takes himself too seriously for her liking. and with the exception of kanna saying "be nice to your sister," which is the kind of teasing a parent says to their child, she clearly respects sokka's position in the village. when katara tries to run away with aang, kanna takes sokka's side and forbids her from acting impulsively, but when sokka is the one who packs supplies and plans to save aang, kanna gives them both her blessing.
katara is the only person who takes umbrage with the notion of sokka running the village and telling her what to do all day. and those frustrations have likely accumulated up from a lifetime of being told to “do as her brother says” and “why can’t she be smarter and more responsible and levelheaded blah blah blah.” she clearly thinks that she’s punching up when she yells at or mocks him, which may seem crazy to anyone who understands that sokka’s entire identity and existence revolves around being katara’s protector, but katara doesn’t actually know this. in her mind sokka is merely the perfect child who has always represented this impossible standard of “genius.” and what's more, he's absolutely insufferable about it.
and to be clear, this isn’t to say that katara herself isn’t highly intelligent, capable, competent, and skilled. she’s not only an incredibly talented waterbender, but also clever, quick, witty, creative, resourceful, practical, mature, and thoughtful in other ways. at one point, toph calls her a genius (“a stinky, sweaty genius”). and she is, indeed, an extremely powerful and innovative waterbender, both due to her hard work, but also because she is genuinely brilliant. that said, she’s smart in the realistic way that a kid is smart; she works hard to be good at what she cares about (and she has an existentially devastating reason to care about being a good waterbender, mind you), and she’s also good at thinking on the fly when she needs to. however, unlike sokka, or even toph, her intellect may be impressive, but it isn’t astonishing. sokka’s mind functions completely anomalously. i wouldn't say he's unrealistically intelligent, because i do know some people in real life who are similarly adept at processing all kinds of different information with the ability to deftly apply it near-immediately, but it is certainly abnormal, both for real world standards and within his universe.
i normally bristle at this term and its applications (for multiple reasons), but since it is explicitly stated multiple times across the show, it is important to acknowledge that sokka is referred to as a genius multiple times, including by his father. katara is referred to as being a genius by toph for using her own sweat to waterbend (which, as hama points out an episode later, isn't even that clever because you can literally bend water from the air around you); conversely, sokka is referred to as a genius for helping to invent hot air balloons and for figuring out multiple escape routes from the world's most secure prison in less than a day. we don't know the exact timeframe under which katara trained with pakku and earned the title of master, but she clearly worked incredibly hard to earn that title, not only as a master, but as the greatest waterbender in the entire world. i assume it was any time between a few weeks and a little over a month in which zhao would organize a fleet to arrive at the north pole, which is, of course, extremely impressive in itself and a testament to her passion and determination. however, on the other hand, piandao claims that sokka has basically mastered the sword and is ready to make his own within less than a day. it's important to remember that katara is also brilliant in her own way, and possesses great skills that sokka lacks: not only bending, but also midwifery, and an ability to locate her own emotions and allow herself to be vulnerable with others, two skills which should never be looked down upon for their association with womanhood and femininity, and are also particularly impressive considering just how young katara is. she is brilliant in her own right, and in any other family, katara would easily have been "the smart one." and yet, sokka is simply in a league of his own.
so, yeah, he can stand to get thrown around and yelled at; everyone her entire childhood just kept on impressing how special and perfect and brilliant he is, he can handle it. she has no idea that he is depressed, depersonalizes, loathes himself, and thinks he’ll never be good enough, because he never actually communicates any of that to her. the closest he ever comes is admitting that he’s jealous due to not having bending abilities, and even that shocks katara, even though it’s such a small and obvious admission in the scheme of things. she has no idea what’s going on with him psychologically, how he views himself in relation to others, and specifically in relation to her, so she kind of just assumes he’s entitled because surely he must know how special he is and thus feels owed accolades by the world at every turn. he deserves to be humbled, and she is in fact righteous for humbling him.
when she makes fun of him for being stupid or miserable or paranoid or cynical, she thinks she’s owning him the way a righteous underdog fights against an oppressor. it's similar to how zuko wants to "put azula in her place." in katara and zuko's minds, they are both the valiant underdog siblings who had to fight and struggle against the siblings for whom everything came so easily. and in katara’s mind especially, she is always punching up, and she always has a moral justification in lashing out at anyone she pleases. so she couldn’t fathom that the reason sokka puts up with her antagonism without complaint isn’t because he’s so above her that he can simply ignore her taunts and gibes without a care (if that were the case, he wouldn't bother to taunt and gibe in return), but rather that he feels so detached from his own personhood that he would never think to actually explain his feelings to the person whom he has defined himself through since childhood. and if he did ever, somehow, communicate that to her, she’d have to reevaluate their whole entire lives and dynamic. but he never will communicate that to her, so she’ll never actually have to do that.
moreover, even though katara often does tease sokka and cast doubt upon his competence and abilities in low-stakes situations constantly, whenever they are actually facing a real problem that requires an immediate solution, katara seems to forget that sokka is supposedly an unhelpful, lazy, immature idiot because she immediately turns to him to fix all their issues. and then once that issue is resolved, katara goes back to finding his existence bothersome. sokka, on the other hand, falls into this role of problem solver instinctually, with the one exception that when they actually name him as the idea guy, he jokingly complains that it’s a lot of pressure to be one who is always expected to come up with solutions. and while he is joking during that conversation in “the drill,” he’s being honest to an extent, because his perfectionism and fear of failure is truly dire.
when katara is faced with failure, whether as the consequences for her own actions or otherwise, she simply gets back up and tries again. she can’t be knocked down, she can’t be deterred from achieving her goals. she has a very healthy approach to making mistakes, and while she doesn’t always learn from them in the longterm, she does always try her best to fix them and amend the situation as immediately as possible. katara is someone who is incredibly resilient and is constantly demonstrating the sheer magnitude of her inner strength, especially in particularly difficult moments. she has the ability to fail as many times as it takes without letting that failure affect her own self-esteem or desire to keep striving for what she believes in.
sokka, on the other hand, is very physically resilient (he gets beat up a lot), but his emotional resilience is actually quite pathetic. he has no tools for coping with failure. from even the slightest mistake, like not actually being able to open the doors at the fire temple with his makeshift explosives, to a catastrophic one, like his failed invasion, sokka immediately retreats inward. in “the boiling rock,” sokka demonstrates how his first ever real failure that rests squarely on his own shoulders is so devastating to him that he becomes totally irrational and suicidal in an attempt to “rectify” the situation. he does not know how to cope with failure, because he expects himself to be perfect at all times. and it’s not because sokka is overly proud, but rather that his guilt complex is so profound that he blames himself for every single thing that goes awry at all times, even when it isn’t actually his fault whatsoever. so that guilt and shame is magnified a thousand fold when sokka is actually culpable for those losses.
one of many ways in which it is evident that sokka is the older sibling is that he clearly lives with the mentality that if katara messes up or gets herself in danger due to her own impulsive inclinations, it’s always actually sokka’s fault for not being a better, more attentive brother. when she sets off the booby trap in the banned ship, sokka banishes aang from the village so as to protect katara from herself. when katara experiences the consequences of heedlessly blowing up a factory, sokka gets mad at her for her recklessness, but also immediately finds a way to help her fix this situation, because that’s his job, and in fact, his primary purpose on this earth. this is a dynamic sokka has probably internalized even before he was assigned the role of her sworn protector, because that’s just how being the eldest is.
sokka’s tendency to take responsibility for everyone else’s mistakes and his desire to shoulder everyone else’s pain at all times, coupled with his implicit belief that he, uniquely, cannot afford to mess up ever (if other people make mistakes it’s fine and he can help them fix it, but if he makes mistakes he no longer has a purpose on this planet, goodbye cruel world), definitely indicates that he was held to an incredibly high standard all his life. he expects himself to be able to handle a lot of responsibility with perfect ease because he always has. he isn’t used to making mistakes of any kind. if he puts his mind into learning a new skill, he always masters it within a couple of days, whatever that skill happens to be. unlike katara, sokka is used to things coming easily to him, and what he isn’t used to is failure.
katara and sokka are both exceptional, of course, but in very different ways, and for very different reasons. katara grew up with a lot of external pressure to excel as a waterbender, because she needs to embody her cultural legacy and prove that her mother’s sacrifice was not in vain. it’s an unfathomable burden to place on a child, and the rate at which she improves her waterbending once she is actually given the resources to hone her skills is a testament to her perseverance and untiring dedication. katara becomes the greatest waterbender in the world not because she is a natural prodigy (which is something she bristles at when aang does display prodigious skill), but because she is incredibly determined and no one can outmatch the strength of her heart and unshakable commitment when she is pursuing a goal. as pakku even says, raw talent isn’t everything, and katara’s abilities prove that despite not being “naturally gifted,” hard work and determination is far more important when it comes to excelling in any given domain.
however, if katara’s motivation to be excellent is externally imposed by the tragic circumstances of her life, sokka’s motivations are, at the very least, internally maintained. as aforementioned, i have no doubt that he received a lot of external validation and praise from the adults in his life as a child with a dazzling, brilliant mind. as has been established, sokka is constantly displaying an ability to synthesize new information at a staggering rate, which likely means that before katara had even discovered her ability to waterbend, sokka was probably being fawned over for the impressive rate at which he was picking up new skills as a baby. since pretty much everything (cerebral, at least) comes easily to sokka, i can only imagine that hakoda, who never hesitates to express to his children how proud he is of them, would constantly affirm sokka’s intellect. and by boasting that sokka takes after himself (hakoda also refers to himself as a genius, completely sincerely), he unwittingly plants the first seeds in fostering sokka’s belief that he must be exactly like his father in every way, and that any deviation from hakoda’s image would prove him unworthy. but he will never be the spitting image of hakoda the way that katara is "the spitting image of kanna" because sokka is already the spitting image of kya, if not – perish the thought – his own person entirely.
unlike katara, who spent her whole childhood trying to waterbend by herself with little success (beyond, of course, isolated instances demonstrating her sheer raw power when her bending was being influenced by her incredibly strong and passionate emotions), sokka always felt like he could handle the amount of responsibility he was given, because everything came easily to him. until the day that his life changed forever, and suddenly the stakes were no longer abstract, but tangible and personally devastating. sokka had never learned that it was okay to fail as a child because he never had a reason to, and then suddenly, he could not afford to fail under any circumstances. failure of any kind went from being a (purely hypothetical) blow to the ego, to being something that could directly endanger the lives of his loved ones. and so sokka decides that the only way to not be culpable for his potential failures is to be a martyr.
of course, there are instances in which sokka is proven to be inept, such as on kyoshi island or with piandao, wherein his humility and open-mindedness are put on display and sokka puts aside his own standards of perfection to learn from a master, but i don't think these instances qualify as failures. for one thing, sokka happens to master the forms he is being taught in less than a day, at an unprecedented rate, and thus these initially humiliating blindspots in his knowledge become victories as sokka absorbs new knowledge. sokka is always eager to learn, and willing to acknowledge his lack of expertise in area, humbling himself to learn from others any chance he gets. no, what i mean by "failure" as it relates to sokka's self-perception and ego is not a lack of knowledge, but an inability to protect another. to sokka, his existence is defined by his ability to provide and protect, and thus, a failure is, specifically, when someone gets hurt under his watch. that is what it means to not be able to afford to fail. he is not overly proud (if anything he is overly insecure), but he also understands that the stakes of failure – real failure – are tangible.
so when it comes to failure that carries grave consequences, he would rather be dead than fallible (or, responsible for not adequately protecting his loved ones), one million times over. and so every time someone makes a sacrifice for him, he feels as if he has failed on a fundamental level, because simply being exceptional is not enough, he must also bear the entire world’s suffering alone – as (in his mind) hakoda instructed him to when he left him behind to protect and provide for the village. otherwise he has failed in his promise to be needed, which is his raison d’être. sokka’s complex is very obviously not informed solely by his upbringing as a “gifted kid,” and in fact largely informed by the dehumanizing logic of war as it necessitates sacrifice, but his inability to accept his own fallibility as a product of his self-dehumanization is, at the very least, compounded by his debilitating perfectionism.
thus, katara and sokka's dynamic within their family isn’t “gifted kid and neglected kid,” but rather “two gifted kids who are gifted in different ways, one of those ways being valued more on a cultural level due to its scarcity as a byproduct of genocide.” while katara was put on a pedestal her entire life due to her ability to waterbend, it doesn’t mean that sokka wasn’t put on a pedestal in other ways. if anything, the reason hakoda entrusted a child with the burdens he did was specifically because he put his son on a pedestal. sokka assumes that hakoda didn't think he was capable enough to join his army, but that couldn't be further from the truth. hakoda trusted his thirteen year old son so much that he genuinely thought it best to leave him alone with this duty to defend his village and protect katara at all costs. he didn't leave a single man behind, not even the other teenage boys, because that's how much faith he had in a child to take his responsibilities seriously and perform them competently. and if that decision gave sokka one million different complexes and fucked him up for life, it wasn’t because he wasn’t valued for his abilities, it’s because he was overvalued and given too much responsibility at too young an age.
both he and katara struggled to live up to the expectations placed on them, forced to fulfill the roles of their parents instead of being allowed to exist as children. but crucially, katara sees the injustice in that, and clings to her childhood even as she strives for greatness, and sokka simply doesn't. he's long accepted that injustice, and in fact feels guilty that he cannot better live up to the impossible portrait of an idolized father, an idealized masculinity, an illusory model of the infallible, unshakeable warrior. despite all his achievements and natural giftedness, he nonetheless feels totally inadequate, deeply flawed, and ontologically worthless. perhaps, in a world beyond the pressures of war and its dehumanizing logic, sokka would have internalized the praise he was constantly receiving his whole life for his gifts. but since he was only ever a prodigy in ways that didn’t matter (within that colonized paradigm), he doesn’t actually care about how clever and brilliant and creative and talented and unique and special he is, because that would first require him to see himself as fully human, and he can’t even do that.
#analysis#sokka#katara#katara&sokka#hakoda#kanna#kya#hakoda&sokka#kanna&sokka#kya&sokka#kanna&katara#whew...! 20+ paragraphs about sokka and katara’s childhood. it’s more likely than u think (highly likely at all times)#see but this is why sokka is so clearly a mirror to azula to me#like not just in terms of crippling perfectionism and devastating fear of failure and being a child prodigy who is put on a pedestal#but simultaneously dehumanized etc etc#but also the fact that like. zuko treats her the same way katara treats sokka#he clearly thinks his immediate hostility and aggression towards her is like. him nobly fighting the battle against his tormentor#when that is literally his little sister and she is struggling so much and desperate for support from LITERALLY ANYONE#katara and zuko are like ‘let’s put azula in her place’ and high five#and that’s just so fucking apt because they truly do believe that it’s their duty to put their perfect prodigy siblings ‘in their place’#but those are truly two of the most miserable people on the planet#so to any outside observers it’s just like………. why are you being mean to them they’re literally suicidal and shaking like a leaf#but also everyone already knows that azula is the prodigious gifted sibling bc zuko says it like one million times#so there’s rly no need to argue that#whereas katara loves calling sokka an idiot so i do believe that some clarification is in order#but like. yeah there’s no way sokka was dismissed or neglected as a child#he’s dismissed and neglected by the world at large#but within his tribe he’s like a mini celebrity . he’s their young sheldon (sorry)#anyway im running out of room to write tags but um. perfectionism is a disease get well soon xoxo bye
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roseofcards90 · 5 months
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The fact that people were so willing to completely dismiss what happened in After Pain and Harrow after they saw It's Not My Fault and Deep Cover paint Mu and Kotoko in a worse light really shows that some people don't have literary comprehension 😭
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technicalthinker · 5 months
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I feel like debating who Loki was talking to when he said "For You" in the last episode, is missing the point of the scene. And people referring to it as "cowardly" and a "no-homo" moment is just?? Baffling to me tbh because like;
First of all, it is obviously intended to be to both of them? If they only wanted to make it about Sylvie, Mobius wouldn't be there. If they only wanted to make it about Mobius, Sylvie wouldn't be there. If they wanted to make it about everyone they would've just framed it more equally, he does do it for all his friends ("for all of us"), but they have that scene to highlight these two specific relationships. The framing is quite clear, they have him take a last look at all of his friends before going down the stairs, but Mobius and Sylvie runs after him to have a final significant moment.
Which absolutely makes sense and is consistent with the show we have seen so far, s1 and s2 combined, which is what I love about it. And it was to be honest a surprise! Going into this season, I had little hope for Loki/Mobius interactions, just didn't want to expect too much since S1 had a lot of their connection, but that could've been it. I was shocked when s2ep1 was full to the brim with Loki and Mobius scenes? And then they kept reinforcing every week that they care about each other, is a funny duo to watch, and are important to one another.
And despite this, I expected the rug to at some point be pulled, especially compared to Loki's relationship to Sylvie. No matter people's personal viewing on the show, she is still cited as a love interest by showrunners and is just portrayed as that by the narrative a lot of the time. Sidelining that, even in s2 when the romantic hints are more vague, she's still a very important person in Loki's life. She played a central part of the plot and Loki's own character development of understanding himself.
So to me, I was surprised seeing Mobius and Sylvie side by side in the end. Both being framed as The important people in Loki's life. Then, however you wanna see in what ways they are important is up to you, but they are the people he keeps coming back to for advice and self-reflection. You can frame it as "oh it should've been only been Mobius and they added Sylvie to downplay it", which, I just disagree with (If they wanted to go for explicitly canon Lokius they needed to set that up even more earlier in the season but that's a post for another day). Sylvie is still like, a constant in the narrative and driving force of s1, even if s2 changes things around a bit, and imo it would be inconsistent if she just vanished here. I guess I am used to media that downplays a meaningful dynamic between two dudes in more aggressive ways, which they absolutely could've done, and would've taken me out of the story to be honest... but they didn't, Mobius and Sylvie got to be side by side in the end and that imo validated the Loki/Mobius dynamic way more than downplays it.
TLDR; The "For you" was for both Mobius and Sylvie because why would you frame it that way otherwise, and having them side by side like that validates Lokius way more than downplays it in a "no-homo" way considering the full context of the show.
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scatterpatter · 3 months
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Feeling normal again
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reel-fear · 1 month
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MIKE BLOCKED ME ON TWITTER FOR ROASTING HIS DUMBASS RESPONSE TO THE GRAPHIC NOVEL STUFF!!
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grown ass man scared of the 19-year-old queer being mean to him over his public meltdown more at 8.
#ramblez#little white boy sad? U sad bc nobody likes you? Bc u constantly make a fool of urself and show off ur distaste for ur fans? lmao#this is one of the greatest things to ever happen to me imagine how mad he'll be when he finds out the fangame Im making has queers in it#hes gonna have a whole other white boy meltdown on main KJSNFDGKJHFGKJHGKJHSDFGSD#hes so fucking sensitive maybe just get off of social media Mike this never ends well for you#batim#batdr#bendy and the ink machine#bendy and the dark revival#and look Im joking around about this but it really is sad that the bendy devs cant handle this kind of critique towards their decisions#it seems despite the backlash once again they are choosing to ignore their fans which is yknow upsetting#But hey ig if the devs being awful was a dealbreaker for this fandom I wouldve left a long time ago and I havent#dw Im not going anywhere <3#also if anyone else here was also criticizing Mike maybe check his acct to make sure ur not blocked now since apparently#old habits die hard and this is certainly a pattern with him KJHDSFKGJHSDKFGJHDFGSD#also look before anyone asks yes I was kinda mean to him over this but to put bluntly if hes gonna be this dismissive to his fans concerns#he deserves it. Theres this persistent attitude esp in bendy fanspaces of being defensive of the devs#and I dont know why they have been extremely horrible people every single chance they get#and its very hurtful to see how many people would rather tell me to be kinder to the people who broke the heart of a child me when they#dismissed any ideas of putting queers like me in their stories than to realize Mike n Meatly bring this bad attention to themselves#to put bluntly I dont owe them kindness not until they at least apologize for the shit they did which they still havent#mike hasnt even addressed his vent poem in the code of BATDR let alone the other shit he said n did#so no I will not be kind to him ever hope this helps!
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The more I listen to political discourse, the more it seems like the disagreements start with what problems people are willing to believe exist.
Like. The 'human trafficking isn't real' folks and the 'racism isn't prevalent in any significant aspect of our society' folks and the 'diseases can't kill you in a way that matters' folks and the 'abortion isn't eugenics' folks and just.
It seems like if you walk up to someone and say, 'hey I have a paper cut, can I get a bandaid' and their response is 'paper can't cut you, paper has never cut anyone ever, here is a statistical analysis about the safety of paper as compared to knives' then that's just not very helpful, is it.
We won't get anywhere until we start believing each other.
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martyrbat · 5 months
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detective comics #509
[ID: Bruce Wayne sleeping in his penthouse, his eyes squeezed shut as the narration reads, ‘Gordon's strained laugh sounds hollow, but it echos in the Batman's mind... and haunts his dreams...” Bruce awakens to a hand on his shoulder and before he can think, he's twisting it and holding it down. The panel expands, revealing the hand belongs to Alfred as he's almost toppling over! He cries out, “M-master Bruce—my arm!” as Bruce groggily realizes who it is. He lets go at once as Alfred moves to the end of the bed and holds his arm while stammering an apology, “S-sorry, s-sir... Sorry if I startled you.” Bruce looks at him with aghast as he cries out, “My god, Alfred—I almost broke your arm!” Alfred reasons, “You must have been having a nightmare, sir.” as Bruce sits up and puts his face in his hands. He weepily dismisses, “A nightmare—what kind of an excuse is that? Old friend... forgive me...” Alfred reassures, “Nothing to forgive, sir. Just bad nerves, sir.” END ID]
#THIS ONE !!!!#bruce and his neverending guilt complex#just immediately regretful and so apologetic as alfred is quick to reassure and dismiss it#holding his arm because of fucking course it still hurts but when bruce lifts his head he stops ....#always thinking of how he was a caretaker for bruce since he was a small child/infant and how many little things bruce does now will remind#alfred of those days#he likes his grilled cheese q certain way. he cries if he thinks he hurt someone. he blames himself for a lot. he gets bad nightmares#like so much has stayed the same as so much continues to change but the love and care thry have for each other is always there#(<- guy who is always number one in bruce is disabled and needs a caretaker but also in how the people around him know bruce loves and cares#about them. its not about not being loved its about how heavy his love is and how bruce will subconsciously use his love to harm himself#(from blaming himself to his parents murders and jason's future death to something as simple as this and how he'll beat himself up#for hurting alfred and not able to protect him as well from himself)#(like his mental illness is forever using his stupid bleeding heart against himself as a reason for why hes awful)#this is all fully sidetracked im just fucking wired today sorry lol#but while im talking and something more related to the panel itself::#after this line bruce looks up and says ‘the batman suffering from bad nerves? lets hope not. gordon can worry about the election but i#cannot afford to. still its not just the campaign. lately so many other things are pressuring me—mostly as bruce wayne’#and like !!!!#it wasn't about batman! it wasnt about his burdens and responsibilities!! alfred was telling HIM. BRUCE. that its okay#and bruce automatically ‘its not because batman cant behave like this’ like !!!!#batman is the priority in the sense of he thinks he needs it to protect people. even his family even alfred and every single stranger#he won't ever allow himself any grace even while sleeping because batman cannot afford those ‘slips’#just GOD 70s/80s batman makes me insane for forever and ever amen#c: detective comics | i: 509#crypt's panels#bruce wayne#alfred pennyworth#alfred & bruce#‘awake or asleep—it scarcely matters anymore. the nightmare never seems to end.’#<- nightmare bruce tag <333
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plan-3-tmars · 8 months
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I saw some people say that the gay Kazui theory is "an insane reach" because there's no hints to it in Half so I went to do some digging and made a compilation of lyrics that I do think hint to the theory
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"Please tell me what I should do, feelings shrouded in lies will float away and disappear" is one that might not seem obvious based on Half alone, but the context of Cat helps alot.
Shrouded means 'a thing that envelops or obscures something'. What Kazui is saying in this lyric is that 'the feelings he's hidden will go away'. We know that Kazui lied "for the sake of true love" from Cat so we can assume that the 'thing' obscuring his hidden feeling is his marriage.
Now, holding that thought, here's a piece of queer history. A "lavender marriage" is when a m/w couple get married under the sake of convenience to conceal the sexuality of one or both partners. Now this was done with the consent and knowledge of both partners, but sounds familiar doesn't it? Getting married to hide true feelings. Feelings being shrouded by lies if you will.
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There's also this lyric which I find very interesting because the distance in their relationship is caused by Kazui's sin, further proved in a scene that shows right after this. Kazui got married because he thought it would make his true feelings on love dissappear, and when it instead does the opposite and just make his sin more obvious he gets confused and starts to doubt if this is actually "true love" or as he says, happiness. Obviously we know that straight romance isn't the only one to exist, and isn't the "true" or "peak" romance but Kazui is the oldest prisoner in Milgram, so he most likely grew up surrounded by the view that gay marriage is wrong, hence why he doesn't view it as "true love"
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this is the distance scene btw, we can see that the green apple (Kazui's sin) is litteraly putting a wedge in his relationship by being in between he and Hinako
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guckies · 4 months
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I don’t have many hopes for any lore conflicts especially with the soulfire members considering all the relationship conflicts were just seemingly thrown out the window as soon as they got back to quesadilla
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lakanakana · 27 days
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how did the april fools boop day go for you ? Do you miss the boop?
I sent out about 4000 boops yesterday and my arms were about to split in half fr!!! (つ╥﹏╥)つ
I was visiting my dad for easter and had to fight demons to restrain myself from eating any more chocolate eggs because my idiot ass just kept vacuuming them into my mouth to the point I felt like throwing up, but the moment I felt fine my brains were immediately like "hmmmmm. maybe another egg won't hurt (:" and that. that was the devil itself talking I stg
Some of my friends sent videos and pics of their Easter bonfires (a Western Finnish tradition) and I wanted to be there so baaaaaad!!! Just watching all the snow gradually melt and form tiny little streams that glimmer around the bonfire is just so 👌👌👌👌 My roomie was back home and apparently there was a huge thunderstorm too over the weekend?? Like a total armageddon tier thunderstorm even tho it was like 3 °C (37 °F) outside????
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lonely--seeker · 3 months
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For all the shit Twitter was talking about Hazbin hotel... I was not ready for chapter 4
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suffarustuffaru · 8 months
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Just wanted to say thank you for the ottosuba posting you've done lately. The English speaking fandom is absolutely barren with Otto content, let alone ottosuba content. So to have someone as awesome about it as you post via Tumblr posts, fanfic, fanart, etc. on a good(-ish) website like Tumblr is like finding a diamond in the rough. Anyhow, looking forward to any future ottosuba content from you!
(。・ω・。)ノ♡
anon you made my day fr these are very high compliments T^T <3 i appreciate it a lot pfft a part of me is always like "I CANT REVEAL HOW MUCH MY BRAIN IS ROTTING OVER THESE CHARACTERS..." bc i get a little embarassed a little shy bc what if i am posting the same things too much...??? but then i simultaneously go "lol my blog my rules anyway im gonna make a gazillion billion content *clicks post*" which is how all the otto and ottosuba content gets churned out alsdflj. especially bc - like you said - the english speaking fandom is a BARREN DESERT when it comes to otto and ottosuba content T^TT ive been thinking about it lately bc they seem to be a lot more popular in the japanese speaking fandom i think, but theres next to Nothing with the english speaking fandom :o interesting difference there.
but regardless :o yeah i keep making otto and ottosuba content bc i am in Desperate need of it... its a desert and i gotta feed myself too HAH theyve always been interesting to me but in the years ive been into rezero that Interest has skyrocketed bc of all the interesting developments pfft (and also the lack of english fancontent for them HAH). i just think theyre so underrated in the english fandom.... thank you for liking my stuff anon <3 :DD
#ask#also you made me remember that ive been otto(suba) posting in like so many mediums lajdfljsl#i ended up sneaking a bit of meta into these tags oops aljsdfljsf but.#also i just think otto and ottosubas feralness is super interesting and my taste in characters totally isnt predictable (i say this as a p#five shuake fan also. cries.) but also like. people in the english speaking side of the fandom dismiss otto a lot which is interesting to m#like its u know that typical fandom tendency to sometimes only see characters for how they look on the surface. and its also interesting b#ive also been seeing a few people like. almost kind of miss how toxic ottos being in arc 8??? and also ottos general. subaru obsession#things yeah. like why do people miss this stuff??? he literally says his reason for being / existence is to oppose subaru??? what sane#person does that lajdslfjsldfj what sane person is so ride or die theyd rather leave a whole country + their bffs daughter figure to die??#what sane person manipulates all their friends in order to save them??? understandable motive but literally insane lajsdlfjsld#yeah so anyway im super curious on why english vs japanese fandom have different attitudes towards otto and ottosuba HAH#being an emilia otto AND astrea fan is so weird bc people are so kind with the astreas usually and then being an emilia fan means suffering#through all the sexism and then being an otto fan is just going “YOU GUYS WERE FOOLED BY HIS SOFT BOY AESTHETICS???” and begging people to#remember that he cares about subaru. but that goes for many emilia camp members treatment in fanon.#and also yeah being a fan of almost any character in this fandom is suffering i think alsjdfljsd#granted i was also fooled by the soft boy aesthetics but that was way back when okay. i know now. hes my silly fucked up little guy now HAH
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