#I hope I'm quoting that right

[accidentallyatekneecaps]

Kuboyasu the most feared gang leader from where he's from turning into just a silly guy is the best transformation ever

[seventh-district]

Making Incorrect H:SR Quotes Until I Run Out of (hopefully) Original Ideas - Pt. 1 - Ratiorine Messages Edition

[Pt. 2] [Pt. 3] [Pt. 4] [Pt. 5] [Pt. 6]

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

It's the 2 month anniversary of this blog! Here's all the main MTXT couples to celebrate.

[vidduality]

It's disturbing how much rage bait ONE line said by a young teenage girl in an EW cover story with so much other content can generate. Dozens and dozens and dozens of click bait articles, rage video analyses, and SO many angry meta posts with people practically ready to tear Katara's actress apart with their bare hands. All for having the audacity to say that she found some of Sokka's more brazenly sexist lines "iffy" in the OG cartoon. She implied it wouldn't translate as well in a live action and that they had toned it down, and you'd think she announced the Avatar is going to be a warmonger the way the internet's turned on her.

This week's fandom discourse has been about as low key and rational as S1 Zuko being offered some calming Jasmine tea...

[umbrellagoaway]

Soda: "one fis-huh twoah fis-huh"

Pony: "are you serious?"

Soda: "YOU PICKED A HARD ONE ON PURPOSE"

Steve: "ITS A DR SEUSS BOOK YOU FUCKING DIPSHIT"

[noxious-fennec]

Trying out some new designs (aka playing dress up)

[secretidentie]

"My name is Batman. I'm your favorite vigilante's favorite vigilante. I'm your darkest night's Dark knight. And I'm going to serve exactly what Gotham needs.... JUSTICE"

-Bruce Wayne 2024 probably

[athousandbyeol]

whether it's a ghost, a demon, or a human; i'll protect you.

[hamletshoeratio]

Can y'all just be you know normal Marina Thompson for like 5 seconds? Because christ, the sheer Misogynoir that some of you spread about her character is insane and you don't even realise it.

[crime-in-progress]

"Forget it, boyo."

i.e. This scene from Titanic, but make it Sebinis.

(With Garreth & Amit.)

[queerprayers]

Happy Transgender Day of Visibility in honor of El Roi, God Who Sees, who made all things, visible and invisible. We know a God of justice and protection, of vulnerability and truth, a God transfigured and transubstantiated, unashamed of scars, breaking gender roles, bringing resurrection. The God who loves us knows firsthand the rotten fruit of political oppression. They have commanded and blessed name changes. They are father and mother, beyond and encompassing our ideas of gender. To all my trans siblings: I am so lucky to know you, to see your God-given gifts, to be present in your joy. I pray today especially for those for whom visibility brings danger, and for those only fully seen by God. The Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you. The Lord look upon you with favor and give you peace. Amen.

[seventh-district]

Making Incorrect H:SR Quotes Until I Run Out of (hopefully) Original Ideas - Pt. 3 - Random Screenshot Edition

[Pt. 1] [Pt. 2] [Pt. 4] [Pt. 5] [Pt. 6]

[six-of-cringe]

I think that one of the reasons why people misinterpret Wylan's character and arc, among others, is because they misinterpret the relationship between him and Kaz. This post has kind of mitosised off from the BFWP (Big Fucking Wylan Post) I'm writing because it's a bit of a different focus and constitutes its own post.

A lot of people talk about Wylan's character and development as though it's meant to match Kaz's - starting out as a nice kid who the city forces to become amoral, indifferent to violence, and well-versed in crime. These qualities are usually talked about with a weird reverence as an irrefutable symbol of "badassery", as though it's always a positive development for any character regardless of the story's narrative, which annoys me but is not the topic of this post. That's part of the BFWP's job.

Following Kaz's exact development is not the point of Wylan's character. The point is that Kaz and Wylan narrative foils - very similar in many ways, but with a fundamental difference that creates the "broken mirror" effect/shows how they could have turned out if they'd chosen differently. I think that difference is how they respond when they climb out of the harbor after their respective betrayals. Narratively, Ketterdam represents a very harsh system that presents the people struggling there with very few options. You can either choose to ditch decency, play by the Barrel's rules, and live, or you can hold on to decency and die.

When Kaz returns to the streets after Jordie's death, he chooses the first option. He copes with what happened through ideas of revenge, and to survive long enough to see it he quickly turns to thievery and violence. He thinks to himself after he robs a kid for money and food that it was much easier to survive when you've left decency behind. He survived through violence, creating the Dirtyhands persona around himself for protection.

When Wylan has to fend for himself, he choses the second option. He finds "honest work" at the tannery, where they exploit workers and expose them to toxins. He wonders if he'll live long enough to use his savings to leave the city, or if the chemicals would kill him first. He was smart enough to steal and survive, but he chose decency, and with it, he chose death. There are a number of reasons why he chose differently than Kaz despite their similarities - his older age and thus more developed moral code, having no one to avenge but himself when he believed himself worthless, his more privileged upbringing, and his relatively low drive to live. Alone, he would have died.

Then Kaz steps in. Kaz's role in all the crow's lives is that, intentionally or not, his ruthless rule of the Barrel creates a sort of haven that allows them to survive where they would have died had they stayed alone. Wylan is a really clear example of this, and though Kaz's intentions were at least partly self-serving, his involvement both kept Wylan from dying of exposure or street violence as well as prevented him from needing to do the more terrible things that it takes to survive in the Barrel. Throughout the books, we see Kaz kind of taking the brunt of enacting violence in Wylan's place - traumatizing Smeet's daughter, killing the clerk on the lighthouse. Wylan could get by making explosives in the workshop rather than having to shoot or stab or beat the life out of people. And at the end of the series, Kaz sees to it that he never will have to. Of course Wylan did bad stuff to survive when working with the Dregs, it's the Barrel. But the extent is greatly lessened because of Kaz's involvement.

Wylan's arc was never about becoming comfortable with violence, or becoming just like Kaz - the way people characterize him as some sort of ruthless murder mastermind is inaccurate and redundant with Kaz's character. He isn't nonchalant or celebratory about crime or death or violence by the end of the book. He doesn't HAVE to become like Kaz, because Kaz himself gave him the space to continue being decent, intentionally or otherwise. Understanding that dynamic is important to understanding what Wylan is like as a character and as a person. If you assume Wylan's trajectory is to become "Kaz 2.0", then you're going to mischaracterize him. I've seen posts about how Kaz was the Jordie that he didn't have to Wylan, and I think that makes a lot more sense. Because Kaz is willing to do the horrible things in his stead, Wylan has the third option otherwise impossible in the Barrel - maintaining his decency and surviving.

[blood-mocha-latte]

excerpts

[sanshinexx]

I'm just making this because there are already so many of these and I want them all in the same place smile

The Bad Batch:

Part 1, seven chairs and ten kids

Part 2, rules are made to be broken

Part 3, family game night

Part 4, death is a social construct

The 501st:

Part 1, left unsupervised

Part 2, cooking duty

Part 3, you and me

Most of these are inspired by ScatterPatter's Incorrect Quotes Generator :]

___

Actually, as a bonus here's my other (actual) TBB and TCW art as well because why not:

Family portrait

Another family portrait

Fives and Echo

Crosshair

Wrecker carrying Tech carrying Omega

The 501st boys

<3

[siren-of-agony]

Can't believe they're gonna cut a whole ass organ out of my belly tomorrow and then I just get to? go home right after?