casthesixteenth - Tumblr blog

[casthesixteenth]

i really hope as a wedding gift sally gets the front page newspaper of when annabeth percy and grover were on the fbis most wanted list and frames it for them

like the weddings super private so when they open it everyone around them kinda knows the joke abt it and it’s like a cute moment

then when they get their own house they have it over the fireplace mixed in with other random cute pics so no one truely notices what it is until annabeth has her mom friends over and their wine drunk and one of the moms is like “you two were wanted by the FBI???”

and annabeth has to remember what the story was that they had made up and is like “lol yeah it was a huge misunderstanding we were actually kidnapped by this guy and percy had to have a standoff with him bc he was holding us at gunpoint...it was a wedding gift😁”

and their all like “…oh….haha…”

then they all go home and look it up

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Reblog with your score

[casthesixteenth]

i think about their relationship so often.

the chiastic parallels between kanna risking her life to travel to the other side of the world during a war, only for katara to make the same perilous yet inverse journey north two generations later. how the shot with kanna looking on with tears in her eyes as hama is taken by the fire nation, the ship's hull closing as she looks out at her decimated tribe, her best friend with tears in her eyes, is a beat for beat exact callback to katara looking on at aang, the only difference being that aang attempts to smile hopefully for katara before his face, too, ultimately clouds over with despair. the fact that kanna is constantly nagging katara to do her chores, to stop messing around, to follow the rules, to stay put, to listen to her brother. she knows katara, knows her intimately, because she once was her. that brave, daring, hopeful, adventurous girl who wanted nothing more than to escape the confines of her of her monotonous existence, who wanted to travel and find freedom and hope elsewhere.

but katara is now her responsibility, and she knows all too well that a girl like that can be trouble, can be a danger to herself and others. especially if she's a waterbender. kanna saw her people massacred, her best friend taken by the fire nation, her daughter killed sacrificing herself for katara, the girl who carries the hope of her entire people on her shoulders. and she loves katara, she loves her so much, sees so much of herself in her, but it is also her job to rein her in, to keep her indoors, doing domestic busywork like sewing and laundry so she doesn't try to run off, try to run all the way to the other side of the world, so her antics, through her bending mishaps or otherwise, don't cause her to accidentally alert the fire nation and have their entire fragile existence come crumbling down after she and sokka have done so much to maintain it, to protect katara, even when katara feels like she is being smothered and overdisciplined and robbed of a childhood.

katara wants the opportunity to train with a master. of course she does. she considers her waterbending the most important part of her identity, the part of her that brought hope to her tribe and killed her mother in equal measure. she's the only person left who holds the key to their cultural artform, this crucial piece of their heritage. and of course kanna would love it if katara could hone her craft, but her first priority is always keeping katara alive, and if that means she can't become a bending master, then so be it.

raising a teenager is hard, really hard. they don't like being told that ordering them around and telling them to stay in the borders you've drawn for them is "for their own good." the only reason kanna doesn't have the same problem with sokka is because he doesn't actually consider himself a teenager (although he very much is), and he not only follows her rules but enforces them. they are on the same page; safety is the priority, katara is the priority. but katara hates how restrictive their rules are, hates how sullen and strict and serious they are. how hopeless they are, how resigned they are to leading lives of misery in the fraught safety they've created for themselves. she wants to see the world, to have fun, to have friends, to help others instead of being the one constantly being protected and sheltered.

of course, kanna and sokka are not hopeless and depressed and numb by nature; they have been hollowed out into shells of themselves by the war, by the promises they've made to keep katara safe. sokka grows so much by traveling the world, absorbs so much new knowledge so quickly, makes new friends and lovers, gains new perspectives, reaches his full, incredible potential by being dragged out of the comfort zone he clings to in the pilot. and kanna has already undergone her bildungsroman, lifetimes ago. she knows what it is like, what it means to experience the adventure katara desires. but she never told her. she never once mentioned to katara that the south pole is not all she knows, that she too once longed to leave the place that was stifling her, suppressing her freedom. she is afraid to tempt katara, to be anything other than the strict authority from which she once left everything she ever knew behind to escape.

until the avatar returns. until the legend she used to tell katara before their world became too hopeless, of the old days when the avatar kept balance and the world was not at war, is made real again. when katara, who found aang, who believed in him from the beginning, brings the avatar back, through her desperation and her rage and her indomitable hope for a life that can be bigger and better than kanna and sokka's dour little pocket of resignation and grief.

kanna has always believed in katara, has always known that there would come a time when katara was to bring back hope to their tribe. so now, trusting sokka, katara's sworn protector, to stay by her side and do right by her, she ushers them on their journey. katara, her little waterbender, hero of the southern water tribe, and spitting image of kanna.

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it’s so funny to me when ppl discuss “sokka’s sexism” like it’s a defining character trait but then simultaneously refer to zuko as some kind of tacit champion of feminism who has never heard of misogyny in his life and is baffled by the very notion. like, just collecting the data here, zuko is way more misogynistic than sokka is throughout the show. which isn’t surprising at all considering that sokka is defined by his remarkable receptivity to new information and his rapid ability to grow and change, whereas zuko is oblivious and recalcitrant and requires the same lesson drilled into his head approx one million times before he can even somewhat begin to grasp it. but then again, i am sokka’s defense attorney and zuko’s prosecutor, so i may be biased ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

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so on a scale of aang (killing is always wrong) to katara (killing is a statement) to sokka (killing is a tool), where would the rest of the gaang + ozais angels go?

toph is hard to pin down because she’s the only character who ever actually kills people outside of the context of war. and i don’t know if she even realizes what she did, because she’s 12 and the adrenaline rush of discovering that you can actually metalbend probably supersedes any logical reasoning in that moment, but like, she did just leave two guys to die a gruesome death in a metal box. so i do think it’s more nuanced that simply saying, “to toph, killing is fun and flirty,” but like, there is a not insignificant part of her that will gladly kill as a means of asserting her power over others and individual autonomy, and has no compunctions about killing those who threaten her autonomy specifically, as it is such an acute point of trauma for her. but also, she’s twelve so like, she’ll probably develop a more nuanced approach to that quandary as she ages.

zuko’s stance on killing is mostly that he’s happy to outsource that violence and then take credit for it as long as he personally doesn’t have to get his hands dirty. like he’ll hire an assassin but won’t bring himself to admit that “end them” means “kill them,” or he’ll threaten to kill zhao and then try to save his life at the last minute. he wants aang to kill his dad but would never actually kill ozai himself, just as he wants katara to kill yon rha, but would never actually kill ozai himself. and i’m sure zuko thinks this is all because he’s a coward who simply lacks the capacity to be ruthless and effective (like sokka), but actually it’s symptomatic of zuko’s greatest quality, which is his inherent sensitivity, his queasy stomach for violence, his predisposition for gentleness, the fact that he actually struggles to deny his own inclinations and simply submit himself to a logic of brutal death and destruction. he thinks it makes him weak, but the fact that he actually has a desire to do the right thing and be a good person despite it all is truly his greatest strength.

azula is always operating from a place of survival because it was impressed to her from a very young age that she exists in a world that is unforgivingly cruel, and it is kill or be killed. she does not want to die (which is quite possibly one of her greatest points of deviation from sokka, but i digress) so she wholeheartedly submits herself to this logic, and unlike zuko, who struggles to erode his own humanity even under the threat of violence, azula is very good at becoming something “monstrous” (her words) out of fear, can contort herself into any shape necessary as long as the threat is tangible enough. so obviously azula approaches killing in the same way sokka does, no surprise there. murder is a tool to achieve her ends, to ensure her own safety and survival. it is simply a mechanism of war. but unlike sokka’s view of it, she also believes that the strong kill the weak because the weak deserve to die, and that logic she inherited from ozai.

we never see suki actively kill anyone, but she does threaten to feed sokka to the unagi, so like, even if she is (probably) joking, i don’t think suki is flat out against killing. i think she’ll kill if she absolutely has to, but would also prefer not to because she clearly values and holds a deep appreciation for life. but also, whenever there is a gap in our textual understanding of suki, i usually just fill it in by being like wwkd (what would kyoshi do), so maybe that’s why i just said. who knows

mai always makes an effort to never actually stab people with her blades, but rather pin them in place. that said, whether this is because a Y-7 cartoon simply isn’t allowed to depict blood or if it’s because mai is genuinely that attuned to not seriously hurting the people she throws knives at, i’m not entirely sure. i like to think that mai doesn’t actually want to hurt people, because like zuko, she is naturally inclined towards sensitivity and gentleness, but i think there’s also a part of her that would lock people in a metal box if she could. i think the best way to summarize mai is thus, excitement is valuable (including the heat of battle), but killing is unpleasant.

ty lee has actively refined a technique that makes her extremely dangerous without ever actually having to cause long-lasting damage to someone physically (psychologically is another story). yet another W for ty lee air nomad heritage theory, but i digress. ty lee is smart enough that she never actually has to be personally responsible and culpable for killing anyone ever, but she is also submitting to and enabling the violence of an empire for the sake of her own survival, so it’s not like she’s not complicit either. so to ty lee, killing is also a tool, but one she personally doesn’t need to employ, which is a comfort to her.

iroh (technically you didn’t ask about him but he’s fascinating so i can’t just leave him out) used to view killing as a tool, and now views it as an inviolable taboo because it took him like over 50 years to recognize the inherent value of human life and the grief of losing a loved one. so it’s not that he grew up in a “kill or be killed world” that fostered his need to kill to ensure his survival, but simply that he grew up in paradigm that dictated that “killing is the path to attaining glory” and he was good at killing, and thus glorious. but then he experienced the consequences of that worldview firsthand, and had to completely recalibrate his own logic of conquest and domination. and so now he’s still capable of violence in equal measure, but is less willing to exercise it for purely shallow, destructive reasons. yay..??

jet actually does think that killing is fun and flirty. anyone who disagrees with him deserves to die because he is simply right about everything. sokka? closet fire nation sympathizer, obviously. guy he met on a boat who said “hey im not really interested in joining your child militia”? well he’s probably the prince of the fucking fire nation (okay he was right about that one but he had no way of knowing it so). he watched the rough rhinos burn down his house and murder his family with a smile on their faces, and a part of him that day calcified and decided that the only way to truly reclaim his power was to beat them at his own game. so he does everything in his power to control the people he can, to control his narrative, to refine his logic in a way that makes him the uncontested hero no matter what. but in truth, it’s quite simple: he wants power because he has none.

haru exists somewhere between “killing is a statement” and “killing is a tool.” killing is a tool because it functions as a statement. killing is a statement because it functions as a tool. violent resistance is necessary by any means necessary, but you know, in a nice way. he’s basically just the model of the “good” colonized subject who fights for collective liberation instead of personal empowerment, so it makes sense that he’s introduced before jet as like the emblem of what katara should do (how she should fight, what she would fight for) versus what she shouldn’t. which is like, perhaps a simplistic reduction of “good” vs “bad” methods of resistance into “our noble collective action” vs “their senseless terrorism,” but like. lol. what can you do

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One thing I like about Nimona that I haven't seen brought up yet (and maybe I'm alone here) is that Nimona becomes more sympathetic to the audience at the same pace that she becomes more sympathetic to Ballister (kinda long analysis below sorrys)

Like, I know not everyone agrees, but on my first watch of the movie, I found her downright annoying for the first like, quarter of the film. I don't find her annoying upon rewatch at all, I absolutely adore her, but the first time I watched it I reacted with a similar distaste as Ballister-- not because she was a shapeshifter or queer, obviously, but because she appears completely tone-deaf to Ballister's situation when the man is experiencing probably the worst thing anyone could imagine, she jeopardizes his reputation even more by pretending to be him while menacing the public, constantly undermines his efforts to minimize harm and clear his name, and just does as she feels without regard to others.

Then you start to learn why she acted that way, just as Ballister does. You (and Ballister) start to see that his efforts are in vain, that trying to minimize harm or clear his name doesn't work in his favor and is impossible to achieve, and Nimona knew that all along so of course she didn't care! She's seen this film before enough times to stop taking it seriously. If the outcome is always the same, why not have a little fun with it?

Her whimsical mannerisms start to look less annoying and tone-deaf and more powerful and brave (that she could be so determined to be herself despite everything). She starts to look less carefree, and more jaded. You realize that she's only carefree because it hurts too much to care.

And Ballister's line "Let's break stuff" is the turning point where we see that she (or rather, the Institute) has taught him to embrace chaos and be himself, because they're not going to listen either way.

And the subsequent scene, where Ballister offers to take her away from the walls and she says "No, this isn't right, we have to take the Institute down" shows that Ballister taught her to care again because he proved that people can change. They both had an important lesson they needed to learn from the other, basically: "Don't expect the system to work in your favor but don't be a doomer about it either" lol

And it hurts when Bal turns on her because you can kinda see where he's coming from, it would make sense that a lonely, lonely creature would possibly sabotage someone else hated by society so that they could finally have a friend. It would explain why she acted so cavalier about his reputation, constantly threatened people and undermined him, made them both out to be far more villainous than they were. She was acting out of indifference, but it came across to him as malice, and while we the audience know that obviously the eponymous character isn't a twist villain, Ballister wouldn't, and further, how much easier would it be to believe that this one person double-crossed you, rather than to believe everything you ever knew was a lie? So he turned his back on her.

And he, and the audience see what a huge massive fuckup that was.

What I like is you don't even NEED her backstory to sympathize with her, and neither did Ballister. This isn't a case of "character was unbearable for the entire time but they have sad backstory so they're now likeable I guess Snape). She was already sympathetic and likeable. We already understood her. The backstory was just extra context, nothing more, and that is fucking excellent writing.

We slowly learn to love Nimona for herself at the same rate that Ballister does, rather than being irritated wishing she was something else. And I absolutely, absolutely love that. She doesn't "become" more likeable, you learn that she was likeable all along.

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The fact Reginald didn't have Allison rumour Viktor as 'You think you're normal' or 'You think you don't have powers' but instead went with 'You think you're ordinary' is so insidious.

Because it didn't just affect Viktor's belief around his powers, it affected his whole world view. You can't excel in anything if you think you are in no way special or distinct. He had the talent to be first chair (yes his power helped but his power couldn't make bad playing appear good, he still had to play well) but he didn't believe he did and so was stuck at third chair. Even in teaching he talks himself down when Harold compliments him, saying his next student could probably teach him (but if that were the case why would that student's parents not just get another violin tutor?). It's also part of why he falls under Harold's spell, because he's ordinary and along comes this guy who seems great and thinks he's special, something Viktor literally cannot believe he is because of the rumour, so how can he not be won over by that attention?

I also believe this was completely intentional, because believing he is in no way special, coupled with being numbed by his medication ensures he will be a docile child and easily manipulated. Seeing as Reginald didn't predict the siblings would leave as adults, he had intended to control Viktor his entire life.

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Imagine if Ambrosius was that kid that said random shit when he was little so innocently but still that left everyone confused and scared, especially his parents.

Like:

Like Ambrosius, 5, wakes his father up for a glass of water, and his dad gets him one and walks him back to his son back to his room, where he tucks Ambrosius in and says "goodnight" but instead Ambrosius says "Goodbye daddy." to which Ambrosius' dad stops in his tracks and turns around saying "... No, Ambrosius. We don't say goodbye, we say goodnight." and Ambrosius shakes his head and snuggles up in his bed saying "No, not this time. Goodbye daddy."

Mrs. Goldenloin woke up the next morning to her husband sleeping next to Ambrosius' door.

Or

Ambrosius: I hope death is like being carried to your bedroom when you were a child & fell asleep on the couch during a family party. I hope you can hear the laughter from the next room.

The person next to him (either Ballister or his father): ..... Ambrosius, please.

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I agree that Rhaenyra isn’t obligated to get along or form a relationship with her siblings. You know her father remarrying and having children with someone who isn’t her mother. so since her siblings don’t come from her mother, she probably felt no reason or considered to form a relationship. Or it was just hard for her.

However with that said.

You can’t be mad at Aegon ii, Helaena, Aemond, and Daeron for not going to their older sister. They don’t have any type of relationship with her.

“Oh but she’s the rightful heir”

You honestly think they give a damn. Yeah she’s the heir to the throne but they aren’t lords and ladies to Rhaenyra. They are are her siblings. They are blood related to her. They are more closely blood related to her than daemon and Rhaenys.

Also they didn’t make any oaths to Rhaenyra, their mother did yes but they didn’t. That’s why it was probably so easy for Aegon ii to make his claim to the throne after Ser Criston Cole convinced him to do so. Yeah aegon knew Rhaenyra was his fathers heir, but seeing how quickly he took it when he was convinced his family will be danger or killed if he didn’t, that shows how much of the relationship they have. It’s practically none because Aegon ii really believed his older sister would have his family killed for her throne. That should have been like eye opener on the way the dance of the dragons was going to be.

Aemond practically hates Rhaenyra even more than Aegon ii, with the way he talks about her and how he shows no regret of killing her son lucerys(His own nephew).Helaena is Rhaenyra only sister and yeah she doesn’t call her “half sister” but says “sweet sister”. But in a asoiaf, saying “sweet sister” is never really a good thing. They don’t even have a relationship at all despite how much Rhaenyra wanted a sister. Daeron is old enough to be Rhaenyra son as he is around the same as jacaerys. So they definitely didn’t have any form of relationship.

People need to understand the relationship of the siblings before they say “oh why didn’t alicent children just go to Rhaenyra”. It’s not that easy and you can’t blame them.

[casthesixteenth]

Once when the gaang visits the Fire Nation, they’re all just on the side of too tipsy when Zuko leans in with the most grave expression imaginable.

“Aang,” Zuko says, “This has been… haunting me…. Why did your friends need to suck on those frogs?”

And Aang just gasps, and does not explain the frogs, because he has suddenly remembered that Miyuki is still wanted by the Fire Nation and that just won’t do. So Aang demands that Zuko pardon Miyuki for her crimes, which then gets the rest of the gaang to dogpile on and also demand justice for Miyuki. 

Zuko is willing to hear him out. 

…Zuko is significantly less willing to hear him out when Aang mentions that Miyuki is a cat.

(Zuko finds it difficult to believe that a cat is legitimately wanted by the Fire Nation)

But because they are all the worst, he relents and they all drunkenly stumble down to go find the records of Miyuki’s crimes and write her up a pardon, much to the chagrin of the night-shift archivist.

[casthesixteenth]

all goofing aside I genuinely don't understand the urge to reimagine Taylor Allison Swift as a secretly queer icon when the pop music scene(TM) is like. literally overflowing with women who actually like women. Gaga and Kesha and Miley and Halsey are right there. Rina Sawayama and Hayley Kiyoko and Rebecca Black and Kehlani and Victoria Monét and Miya Folick if you're willing to get slightly less top 100. Janelle and Demi for them nonbinary takes on liking girls. like what are we doing here. like I'm not even saying you can't enjoy Taylor but why would you hang all your little gay hopes on her.

[casthesixteenth]

imagine: you are chilling in front you your house getting high. along comes an old family friend who you last saw when you were six, you are now in your 50s. after a brief convo where he is kind of a dick to you, he’s like damn you’ve changed :/. and your like yeah bestie it’s been five decades why the fuck are you here. he leaves. later that night a shit ton of people show up and trash your house. just throw and absolute rager. halfway through the family friend from earlier shows up. he announces in full earshot of everyone that he wants you to come with him to rob a bank. you of course say wtf??? one of the people who broke into your house calls you a pussy. another person shoves you a contract which declares if you get shot robbing the bank they will not pay for your funeral. you pass out. when you wake up you find the contract on your table and your house almost completely back to normal. you stare at the contract for a moment and decide, fuck it this is just as a good a midlife crisis than anything.

this is what happened to bilbo baggins

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in my head the star wars equivalent of tswift is some human woman named tay’lor spiff or something and her stans are losing their minds over theories that she’s secretly a jedi singing about the horrors of war, even though she’s from a neutral system that hasn’t seen so much as a moral panic in 50 years

[casthesixteenth]

i'm sorry but this is the only submission to this trend that i'll consider giving any thought to

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sokka gets offered the position of chief first because he’s the eldest and (let’s be real) hakoda’s favorite, but he immediately turns it down bc he has no idea why he’d even be offered that position in the first place when katara is right there. and katara is like “i should not be chief it is simply in my nature to rebel against all forms of authority but if I AM Authority then who am i supposed to rebel against now??? huh???” and sokka’s just like “idk. figure it out.” and eventually she relents, but also the second she “takes office” sokka starts micromanaging her every move the way he does with zuko and kuei and everyone in the white lotus, and katara is like “why did you even turn it down if you were just gonna be like this….” and sokka’s like “nooooo trust me. this is so much better. for both of us.” and eventually they learn to strike a balance where she actually takes his advice but also he trusts her to make good decisions on her own. so they’re basically co-running the swt in everything but name, but they’re also both very insistent that KATARA is chief and sokka is simply her second in command (because he knows that distinction is important to her, and he respects that). but then it leads to the kind of awkward situation where because he’s not officially chief of the swt, arnook approaches him and is like “hey i’m getting kinda old, and i don’t really have any official heirs…. can we just say that you married yue so that you can be chief of the nwt once i die???” and sokka’s just like “ummm let me think about that……… no <3”

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Y'all, the world is sleeping on what NASA just pulled off with Voyager 1

The probe has been sending gibberish science data back to Earth, and scientists feared it was just the probe finally dying. You know, after working for 50 GODDAMN YEARS and LEAVING THE GODDAMN SOLAR SYSTEM and STILL CHURNING OUT GODDAMN DATA.

So they analyzed the gibberish and realized that in it was a total readout of EVERYTHING ON THE PROBE. Data, the programming, hardware specs and status, everything. They realized that one of the chips was malfunctioning.

So what do you do when your probe is 22 Billion km away and needs a fix? Why, you just REPROGRAM THAT ENTIRE GODDAMN THING. Told it to avoid the bad chip, store the data elsewhere.

Sent the new code on April 18th. Got a response on April 20th - yeah, it's so far away that it took that long just to transmit.

And the probe is working again.

From a programmer's perspective, that may be the most fucking impressive thing I have ever heard.

[casthesixteenth]

Matt : "Evontra'vir, the Great Tree of Atrophy. It's a powerful ancient tree spirit whose roots supposedly winds between the realms of life and death to watch over the cycle of renewal. Its home is on the island of Kalutha, in the midst of the Shattered Teeth."

Some of the former cast of ExU Calamity who are sitting right there :