#I don’t know what I want more of

[thirsty-4-ghouls]

What frustrates me the most about liking the fallout games and elder scrolls games (I still need to play more of them and there are CERTAINLY exceptions) is that i don’t actually know what it is exactly that i like about them. People will be like “Bethesda games suck” and I’m not going to disagree that having mammoths fall from the sky and my gun sink into the floor forever is good game mechanics, that it’s a work of art in the coding department, but i don’t know what it is that makes me love the experience of playing them. People will be like “oh, you like that thing? Try this” and what they suggest isn’t bad, but it doesn’t have the same, idk, combination of things? I just wish I knew what the exact combo was so I could look for more of those things. I can’t put my finger on it and I’m not sure I can find the same combination of those things anywhere else. I don’t really care that the fighting isn’t super dramatic every time, hitting things and blowing things up is fun by itself to me, i don’t need a work of art there. I like the characters and the way you can just go do shit, especially when you don’t have a super pressing timeline. I can build a house before stopping the end of the world in Skyrim (multiple times) and it doesn’t actually make the time more stressful. If I want to take it super seriously I can try and grind through the main plot and after that I’ll still have a bunch of stuff to do! And the things I do will affect other things, but in a certain way I can’t explain? I can’t put into words. I know that they aren’t the finest masterpieces and I’m sure that there are games with things i like about these games but done better, but do they have the combination? The one I can’t put my finger on? Probably not. I play games to have fun and there is so much fucking around I can do! There are little details in the environment, little things to npcs. There are certainly things that left me unsatisfied, but there is also a bunch of things that do? I’ll admit to not playing their newer stuff though. I’ll consider eso but my brothers have already tried some of their other new stuff and left me with some not great reviews. I kinda wish people would stop trying to recommend me games because “oh, you like that part of that game? Here is one that is so much better. You’ll see how terrible the one you’re playing is” because I’m playing the terrible one for a reason. I like it, even knowing it’s not the best, and i would love to see more games that do that thing, but if you are recommending them because they are “better works of art” or “better mechanically” are you also recommending them because they are fun? That’s why I play games. I have my limits, and I respect other people who play games for the sake of the art form alone, but sometimes terrible or just okay is fun too, sometimes with less stress, and fun can keep me occupied for hours. I’m not saying I never play a game for a story, without much of one I often do get bored. I wouldn’t play the ace attorney series if I didn’t like stories too, but i loooove sandboxes and i can’t put my finger on why i like those Bethesda sandboxes so much. It’s infuriating because I really do want to find more stuff that scratches that specific itch, but the vibes are never quite there. I don’t expect the exact same thing, but I do want to try more of that sort of thing, yet I can’t put my finger on what it is about the thing that I need to look for! Very frustrating.

I like lore and environmental storytelling and interesting npcs and sandbox games, i don’t enjoy super complicated combat because i am stupid. I like being able to pick and choose things and seeing one thing affect another but not needing to do things in a specific order. Is that all? I don’t feel like it. There is something more and I can’t put my finger on it. There are obviously games I play that do not check off every single box of mine, look at the ace attorney series! But those ones don’t really take as much of my time. Once you finish the story you just kinda, leave it for awhile. You’re done. You might go back later, but probably not right away. With the games like Skyrim and fallout I can just come back after a busy day and do random low stress tasks and activities, or I could go hard at it for a bit, either way I have fun. I don’t know how to replicate that. I also like when they add some elements like the sims. I know some people hate it, but it gives me even more shit to do, and I can have a part of the map that feels like “this is MINE!” and I can leave my stuff (and some npcs) there and feel like I’m not just shoving it wherever. Sure, you get beds when you join certain groups, but in Skyrim and fallout 4 you can have your own space. If i don’t want to go on some adventure after a long day I can just garden or something, even when it’s winter irl! (Although the gardening isn’t like irl gardening, it still feels better than nothing). I know a lot of people hate how they put certain things I listed into a game that is “supposed to be about the story, or fighting” but i like the eclectic combination of activities, and i feel like they manage to do it without the things feeling like a completely separate game. It still feels tied in, unlike some games where it feels like they just shoved it into the game on the side without any connection I guess. I’m not explaining this well and I’m sure there are people who absolutely hate the things I listed, but there are plenty of games without them, I’m trying to find more with them.

And it has to have interesting npcs, even just mildly interesting ones that you can fill in the blanks for in your boredom. I can’t stand the feeling of being in a completely empty world (with the possible exception of Pokémon go, but they have added so much stuff that it feels parallel to the real world, not completely separate and empty) although, when it comes to Pokémon go, I actually did stop playing for awhile because it felt so empty, now you can at least interact with other players a bit more (even if I’m not great at finding others to play with) and they have added more npcs. I play that game so i don’t get bored at the grocery store and can convince myself to go out and walk around sometimes, so it’s not the same. Idk what I actually really want from a game, I can’t put my finger on it.

[seren-dipitous-art]

I’ve been obsessed with the Olympics for the past week, and obsessed with Dick Grayson for longer, so here’s the crossover we all deserve.

Plus, gorgeous sweaty acrobat in gymnastics poses? Only positives.

[waywardstation]

Look for anything (or anyone) that could be familiar

For part two:

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🔼 for Ingo to find Emmet

🔽 for Emmet to find Ingo

[notherpuppet]

This is why his character is so compelling

[timethehobo]

Had the thought of what if Manfred really just pantomimes normally, but because The Lighthouse is in the Fade, he can while they’re in there?

[chloesimaginationthings]

would love to see any drawings/ur design on jeremy fizgerald (if u have any)!! /nf

Been working on a design, can tell me what yall think!

[doctorsiren]

give this angle another tri

[trans-androgyne]

Over the past month or so there have been more people using the term transandrophobia while saying shit about how trans women are male socialized or whatever the fuck and I’m gonna have some kind of fucking breakdown. It was bad enough being accused of that shit and always having to apologize for other random transmascs when there weren’t people like that in the tags, but now I don’t even know what to do, it’s just something else that’s gonna be used against me. Can I sleep for 30 years and see if the trans community is okay again by then

[ecoterrorist-katara]

The tragedy of Katara’s parentification

Sokka and Katara were both parentified, and it’s a profoundly life-changing thing for both of them. One of the saddest things in ATLA, though, is how Sokka sort of got to outgrow parentification, but Katara never did.

Sokka’s told to be the man. The provider, the protector. He’s not so good at the former (his hunting failures are a consistent source of comic relief), and he takes failures of the latter very, very hard. He doesn’t manage to save Yue, and that wrecks him. After Yue, he becomes extremely protective of Suki in a way that’s borderline offensive to her. He’s willing to do anything to protect his friends and his family, including something as irresponsible as breaking into the Boiling Rock. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that Sokka is the only one of the Gaang who unambiguously kills. The rest of them may technically have clean hands because of cartoon logic, but Combustion Man is very dead, and Sokka is the one who killed him. We don’t know how he feels about it, because the show never goes there, but I have a pet theory that Sokka is so uncharacteristically (remember he was team “leave Zuko to freeze to death”) against Katara confronting Yon Rha in The Southern Raiders because he’s the only who knows what killing feels like and wants to protect Katara from it.

But by the end of the show, Sokka’s in a place where he can start to let go of his need to protect. Objectively, all his friends are unbelievably powerful and can take care of themselves, including his sister and his girlfriend. Suki is the one who saves him in the final battle, representing not only a reversal of his initial cartoonish misogyny, but also demonstrating that he is worthy of protection. And of course, he and his friends saved the world, so there isn’t really an enemy that he has to protect them from anymore. Sokka’s loved ones create the conditions under which his parentified behaviour is no longer necessary. Sokka would still have to take the first step to stop seeing himself as the one who has to lay his life on the line, but at least it’s possible for him.

But not Katara.

Katara had to take on the mom role after their mother was murdered, which meant she was responsible for domestic labour and emotional support. Sokka says in The Runaway that her role was to keep the family together. Unlike protection, that’s always a full time job regardless of the war. We see Katara spending more screen time than anybody cooking, getting food, mending, and generally doing women’s work. We see Katara giving everyone emotional support, including strangers and her enemy. We see Katara putting aside her own discomfort and her own hurt in The Desert because if she falls apart, they all die. Nobody ever showed her that she doesn’t need to be the only one who cooks, or that somebody else can be responsible for the emotional wellbeing of her friends, or that — god forbid — someone else can actually be responsible for her emotional wellbeing.

That’s why I never cared for the Ka/taang argument of “he teaches her to be a kid again!” Putting aside the fact that Katara ends up taking care of Aang a lot more as the series goes on, the whole tragedy of parentification is that you can never again be a child. That part of your childhood, your god-given right, is robbed from you. It is extremely precious and important to still be able to be a kid, but breaking free of parentification is not about seeing yourself as a kid. It’s about breaking free of being responsible for everyone’s feelings and behaviours.

For Katara, that responsibility is not problem of perception, but of reality. Unlike Sokka, who was told and shown that his loved ones are capable of protecting themselves, Katara has zero reason to believe that her loved ones are able to feed and clothe themselves and not fall apart emotionally. Between Toph and Sokka who emphatically don’t want to do this work, it all falls on Katara. Telling a parentified child that they just need to loosen up is akin to telling an overworked mother that she needs to just relax (“happy Mother’s Day! You get a break from chores, which you will catch up on tomorrow because nobody else is doing them”). It doesn’t accomplish anything if nobody creates the circumstances under which it’s possible to let go of responsibilities. A lot of Zutara fans, spanning all the way back to the early days of the fandom, like the “Momtara and Dadko” trope where Zuko also does chores. Why? Because even without the concept and language of parentification, many fans recognized that Katara’s performance of domestic and emotional labour is inequitable and probably very taxing.

Growing out of parentification is about more than just letting go of old expectations: it’s also about finding a new way to value yourself beyond the role you grew up with. I’ve said this before, but it’s very important to acknowledge that just because a kid is parentified doesn’t mean they’re actually good at being a parent. In fact, it’s probably a given that they’re not, because they’re kids performing roles that are developmentally inappropriate! Sokka remains a shit hunter; he becomes a decent fighter but he’s still miles behind his friends. A big part of healing from his parentification is finding another area — strategy, engineering, project management (what else do you call that schedule) — where he actually excels, to which he can dedicate his time and from which he can derive satisfaction and a sense of identity. For Katara, fighting for the oppressed and combat waterbending give her that. Crucially, however, Katara does not stop being a girl when she becomes a warrior. She’s still responsible for domestic and emotional labour. Unlike Sokka, whose protector duties were more or less relieved as the series went on and he found new ways to contribute to the group, Katara continued to perform her old role in addition to her new one (which is depressingly realistic btw, look up feminist theory around the concept of the second shift). Still, it’s important that she found these new ways to value herself and her contributions…

…which disappear in her adult life. Where’s adult Katara fighting for the oppressed? Where’s adult Katara enjoying her status as a master waterbender? Where’s Mighty Katara? Where’s the Painted Lady? Where’s the person who vanquished a whole Fire Lord?

What do we know about adult Katara? She’s no longer a rabblerouser or an ecoterrorist. She did not translate her desire to help the downtrodden into a political role, like being Chief or on the United Republic Council. She’s not known as the best waterbender in the world, only the best healer, even though her combat abilities are what she took the most pride in. Even as a healer, she established no hospitals, trained no widespread acolytes (except Korra, I guess?), and made no known contributions to the field.

What Katara is known for…is being a wife and a mother. The same role she was forced to take on at age 8. One which she performed for the next 80+ years.

[sholmeser]

anyone else losing it kinda

[moonkhao]

WE ARE | EP16

[bottombaron]

oh ok so its the usual no-homo bullshit you always hear, good to know.

[wigglebox]

Destiel Pride - Day 5; Cursed or not

[artsymeeshee]

I had this idea that’s been stewing in my head for a long while now that I’ve slowly been trying to draw out. I can’t really explain it, I was thinking about future events after the summer when the show ended and what could be a continuation of sorts. Just wanted to show a small preview of a small comic I had in mind that will maybe be done one day…!

[ragingtrees]

my friend dimple

[turtleblogatlast]

Leo getting hit with a truth curse but instead of forcing him to admit to super sad or worrying things it’s things like “it was me who broke the remote” “I saw Mikey prank Donnie and helped hide it because it’s way funnier if he didn’t know who it was” “I rip my clothes to look more like Raph’s because he’s really cool” “my stripes aren’t even red they’re pink!”