#In case that wasn't super clear

[sophieswundergarten]

Because apparently I like angst, I was thinking about the various iterations of "Kate gets adopted by Curtain" AUs, and my brain went to...

The TPJ Cave Scene

Because, I imagine that in this version of events, Kate really was on the Society's side. She wanted to join them, and she tried her best to help them at the Institute, but when push came to shove she couldn't leave SQ.

(SQ knew a little bit about the whole situation, but he has, like, negative ten self-confidence, so he's caught in the middle of his headstrong sister and control freak dad, and he's pretty sure that Kate and the others must just be misguided, but it's his job as the big brother to protect Kate, so he doesn't tell Curtain a single thing)

So she went with Curtain and kept quiet about her mutinous thoughts. Sure, she still snarked at him and pulled him into arguments about his paranoia or his treatment of SQ, but that was nothing really out of the ordinary. She sent a few letters, far too vague and far apart for the Society's comfort, with no return address and no details beyond "We're safe. I'm so sorry."

So they end up on the island in hiding and Kate is doing her best not to rock the boat, but still begging SQ to trust her and leave Curtain before something worse happens.

Meanwhile, the Society is losing their entire minds because immediately after Kate apologized and slipped away to check on SQ, Milligan shows up. And he's regained his memories.

Anyways, instead of a scavenger hunt they're just actively searching for Curtain/Kate the whole time, and when eventually they figure out he's probably looking for duskwort, Mr. B and Number Two have been doing field research while the others stay at home and research that way. But cue Mr. B and Number Two going missing, and that whole crisis, and the kids go off on their own.

Because they were actually involved in the search this time, they get to where they're going much quicker. They still get to meet Noland/Cannonball/Sophie because I love them and they need to be included, but at last they get to the island!

There they find Kate hanging out in the forest/abandoned village because she got mad and ran off and Curtain let her because A) Where's she going to go? It's an island, and B) He's spiraling down the paranoia hole at this point and can barely pay attention to anything.

The Society is super excited to see Kate, and assure her that they understand her not wanting to abandon her family, and she fills them in on all the details. Number Two still escaped, and is... somewhere. They're trying to come up with a plan when Milligan shows up!!

The kids all look at him and Kate uncomfortably, and he announces loudly and forcefully that they will be focussing on one problem at a time, and right now they need to deal with getting everyone off the island safely.

So, they formulate a plan, and then the Ten Men or Grays or whatever show up and think they're trying to kidnap Kate :)

Milligan fight scene, and the kids get to the cave

The Society gets captured, and Kate gets in serious trouble. She has a fight with Curtain where he yells at her a lot and tries all his nasty manipulation tricks like telling her her real dad didn't love her and how great he is for adopting her, and then goes somewhere else to Plot.

SQ tries to comfort her, and the kids take this moment to try and convince him how awful Curtain is. SQ is too scared and uncertain, though, and while he's definitely not going to hurt the kids or tell on them, he isn't about to give up the only protection he and Kate have ever known.

Mr. Benedict has to do his hypnotism trick, but Kate doubles back after a minute and arrives just in time to see Curtain going berserk, just so angey at poor SQ for messing up. Kate hides until Curtain storms out again and rescues SQ, who is so miserable at this point (And after being confronted that 90% of what made his life bearable was Kate, and thinking she had finally gone because he made too big a mistake) that he agrees to go with them.

Aaaaand then they find Milligan and get back to the Shortcut (Where Number Two is) and SQ does his best to help in whatever way he can and sticks right to Kate's side the whole time, and then they get to head back home!!

At this point it's basically a backwards version of the lovely @sqenthusiast's post here, but I will never get over the Cave Scene, so here's what came out of it this time :)

[aimer-arts]

(kisses the top of explorers partner's head) my god you've been through so much

[transmechanicus]

[greenticklerdreams]

The underarm tickling gifs and videos lately have been INSANE and I am clearly letting myself get distracted by feet and tummy too often.

They're so vulnerable when they're all stretched out... there's almost something a bit embarrassing about how ticklish they can be. (Any embarrassment you might feel is cute, by the way.) There's all these different areas and parts to explore, soft curves and crevices, all of which respond differently to different touches and tools... And when you stray off the armpits to the undersides of their arms, lees always look SO shocked when they're THAT ticklish there...

My favorite part of all, though, might be that your face is RIGHT there. You're not going to miss a word of my verbal teasing. I'm not going to miss any of your responses, if you're the type to fight back (and I love your type). Most of all, I'm not going to miss a single reaction like I would all the way down at your feet, or playing with your pretty tummy (whether I'm occupied with using my mouth or just watching it quiver). I can easily enjoy your laugh - how it looks on you, and how it changes as I switch spots or techniques. See what makes your eyes widen with surprise. See your face scrunch up when you can't take any more of my tormenting that one spot. Try to get you to throw your head back, or thrash it around. I can make direct eye contact while hovering my tools and hands just over your spots, making you wait, making you squirm, making you grin and giggle in anticipation, or you could protest, beg, or banter right back in my face. Maybe I could even kiss your neck while I'm getting those underarms - it's in reach. So is the rest of your face...

Yeah. Good spot. Should not be overlooked. Reminder to myself.

[dreamhot]

sorry this has probably already been mentioned but while i'm here . isn't it odd to think about twitter likes going fully private (idk when exactly) cos like how are people gonna keep up with whatever the fanart acc has been up to

[soranker]

fav character dynamic of trigun?

it’s probably bc i saw a tweet abt it recently and agreed wholeheartedly (but also bc i truly do love this dynamic and these characters) BUT WOLFWOOD AND ELENDIRA LMAOOOOOOOO oh my god it’s kinda sparse and short but their interactions are SOOOO FUNNNY elendira gunsmoke’s no. 1 comedian ☝️☝️☝️ we need her back 😩

AND THEN ANOTHER but putting this under a readmore bc massive manga spoiler………

vash and livio T_T how quickly they bond and trust each other over shared grief… it’s so beautiful to me and i find a lot of comfort in them after having been thru smth similar… ugh love them so much 🥺

[name-doggo]

One thing I really wish the FF Community would Stop doing is Removing All Nuance from the Parents in Those Stories in order to Make Them Abusive Supervillains who Never Loved their Kid.

Like... In the Four Years I've been here, and for how Small the Community really is, you'd be surprised how many Times I've seen it-

[illdothehotvoice]

Super Paper Mario pretty much single-handedly ruining the Paper Mario series is still one of my favorite pieces of trivia btw.

[biracy]

Tbh I should probably take a break. I almost definitely won't but I should, yknow

[rescuefield-arch1]

anyway thinking about claire nonchalantly lean against that fence as if there wasn't a bunch of zombies ready to jump her

[tomwambsgans]

wild that in the same week of that episode *i* wind up losing serious sleep 2 nights in a row due to having crazy insane amounts of sex. for me it's a win though bc it's gay sex

[vampiricsheep]

Yknow as an addendum to that vegan post i wanna say that there are definitely nonvegan ecofascists, and don't for a second think just because you don't ascribe to one ideology that is easily recruited into those groups that you're immune. There are a LOT of routes to ecofascism, and it takes critical thinking to not get sucked in. Be very careful whenever joining new groups and ascribing to new ideologies. Many are benign, and some are mostly benign, but listen to what's being said and consider the implications

[ifitsbritishimprobablyafan]

learning other languages has this odd mix of “this is so much easier/smarter - why the fuck don’t we do it like this in English” and “why do you do it this way??? this is so confusing????”

[pixiis-blog]

Not me coming out as Ace to my friends last night and them going "yeah, we figured as much"

Lmao I'm dyingggg

[quillthequilava]

I have a video game due on the 9th that hasn't been started yet; it's still all in my brain, and ngl, i'm getting a little concerned

[tobiasdrake]

*deep breath* Okay. Here we go.

I don't think the Netflix Avatar show likes women very much. It's a great show for fans of Aang, Sokka, Zuko, and Iroh specifically. All four of those characters get a ton of great material. In fact, it's super great for Sokka stans, because the show takes him ultra-seriously and can't go five minutes without one character or another (usually a woman) praising him.

But the way it handles its female cast is troublesome.

Katara

So, all three of the main trio got some changes made to their stories. They changed Aang's story so that he wasn't running away from his responsibilities; He was just clearing his head and somehow accidentallied himself into a tsunami. Whoopsy-dooodle. Aang did nothing wrong.

They changed Sokka's story so that him being a leader of his people and a great guardian warrior is treated with complete seriousness. Multiple times, characters stop to talk about how brave and noble Sokka is for taking on such an intense responsibility, and tell him to his face what a great warrior and a wonderful leader he is. Also his misogyny is erased.

And they changed Katara's story so that she directly got her mom killed because she sucks at waterbending.

Katara tries to waterbend to attack the Fire Nation soldier but couldn't manage it, provoking the soldier to start actively searching for her and forcing her mom to fake a waterbending attack and draw his fire. They changed Katara's story so that her bad decision making fucking got her mom killed.

This is treated with the same level of severity as "Sokka was bullied by mean kids and also his dad doesn't think he's good enough to be a leader."

"I hoped Sokka would do better but not everyone is meant to have people's lives in their hands," Sokka's dad says of him.

Yeah, you're right, that's totally comparable to watching your mom get barbecued because you tried to waterbend in a situation you shouldn't have and then failed.

In fact, they give Sokka's greatest trauma more weight because it gets examined again with Yue next episode, while Katara actively getting her mom killed isn't brought up again at all. We get traumatized glimpses of it throughout the season leading up to the reveal, but after this scene in episode 5, it never comes up again.

But to be fair, Katara was a child. An event this significant would surely have motivated her, driving her to become the great waterbender she is now, right?

No! Katara sucks at waterbending and needs men who aren't even waterbenders to teach her how to waterbend. She requires instruction from Aang in episode 1 to learn how to waterbend, then from Jet in episode 3 to learn how to waterbend better.

And unlike the show, her relationship with Aang isn't a give-and-take; Katara doesn't teach Aang a single goddamn thing. He never learns to waterbend. She is a strictly a pupil throughout the whole season. Though she at least gets officially labeled a master in episode 8, so there's that.

In any case, the whole traumatic memory thing isn't even the only time she's directly compared with Sokka. Episodes 3 and 4 see Katara and Sokka bicker over whose morally dubious side character is better. Sokka likes the Mechanist and Katara likes Jet.

Ultimately, Katara is forced to eat crow when Jet turns out to be the worst, while Sokka is vindicated when the Mechanist sees the error of his ways and reforms. But not before two separate arguments where Sokka calls Katara childish and accuses her of acting like a little girl.

Arguments ultimately resolved when Katara apologizes to Sokka for not adequately respecting his very serious and ultra important role as village protector and leader. Gives him a whole speech about how great and glorious he is. And Sokka... appreciates Katara learning to respect him properly, I guess, because he never offers any similar sentiments back to her.

The show just... They need you to know how important Sokka is, okay? It's very important that you respect Sokka.

Suki

Suki suffers tremendously from that whole "Sokka's misogyny was removed" thing. Y'know, because they need something else to do with that episode. The show is deeply aware that Suki is Sokka's love interest, so they just do that right off the bat. Suki falls madly in love with him from the moment they meet, and spends the entire episode making goo-goo eyes and trying to get him to Notice Me Senpai.

They still do the "Suki Trains Sokka" stuff. But Sokka is a serious, dignified manly man worthy of the deepest respect now, so of course they don't make him wear the Kyoshi uniform. Instead, the main purpose of his training is to allow them to flirt some more. It's less martial arts training and more an excuse to grope each other and near-kiss.

Suki's just a waifu now. She still fights real good, but all of the stuff that made her relationship with Sokka interesting has been erased.

Yue

Yue, similarly, leaps straight to shipping from the word go. They write out her fiance, Hahn, by having Yue briefly meet Sokka earlier in the season. She spends one minute talking to him in the Spirit World about Spirit World lore; In that time, she falls so desperately, madly, unfathomably in love with him that she breaks off her marriage to Hahn and devotes herself to waiting for him to one day come to her.

"Never have I known such joys as that time you let me explain the spirit bear Hei Bei to you. Truly, we are destined to be together for life."

Like with Suki, they go out of their way to have Yue and Sokka already be a ship from the word 'go' so they don't have to spend time developing any kind of meaningful attraction.

They just. They really want you to know that Sokka is the manliest and most desirable man ever to walk this earth. It is very important that you understand how great he is. Women hurl themselves into his arms with zero effort whatsoever, because he's just so goddamn irresistible.

Fortunately, Hahn is super okay with this turn of events. He's the most chill guy ever, he gets along perfectly well with Sokka, and he completely supports Yue's right to dump him! In the famously misogynistic Northern Water Tribe, no less! What a swell guy. Aren't men swell?

June

June gets hit with that "rewritten as hollow waifu" stick too, but her eyes are set on Iroh. They rewrote June to be super attracted and flirty towards the man who was her unwanted sexual harasser in the source material. So that's fun.

Also, she barely does anything. Zuko hires her to find Aang, she succeeds, and then she fucks right off out of the show - But she manages to find time to express how unbelievably sexy Iroh is twice during that time.

She seriously just dropped into the show to flirt with Iroh and leave. She is unbelievably inconsequential.

Kyoshi

And then there's Kyoshi. They really want you to hate Kyoshi. She's constantly shot from below, as if looking down on Aang and the audience. Her voice takes on a demonic echoing reverb at one point as she's screaming at Aang that "THE AVATAR MUST BE A MERCILESS WARRIOR!!!"

She despises Aang, calling him a coward for running away from his responsibilities - Which, I remind you, is no longer a plot point because they unwrote that flaw from his character. So she's just a complete and utter asshole, shot from the asshole angle, yelling violently at him with asshole sound effects. They want you to despise this woman.

Azula

Awkwardly, they do not seem to want you to despise Azula.

There's a lot to be said for how Ozai treats Azula in the original show. The way the favoritism he shows her is every bit as cruel and manipulative as the unfavoritism that he shows Zuko. Ozai does not love Azula. He loves the reflection of himself he sees in her eyes, and his encouragement urges her to polish herself to ensure his reflection always shines through.

This is not that. The show instead erases the favoritism entirely. Ozai doesn't really care one way or another about either of his kids. He plays them against each other, bragging openly to Azula about how great Zuko is and unpleasably writing Azula off as weak and useless.

They've rewritten the dynamic between abusive father and his two abused kids in order to take Azula's pride away. Reimagining her from a gifted prodigy who excels at imitating the toxic behaviors of a father who doesn't truly care for her, to a put-upon overachiever tearing herself in knots to live up to the standards of her unpleasable father.

This results in a truly wild portrayal of Azula as insecure and jealous of Ozai's seemingly love for Zuko. Here, she is simply a browbeaten child constantly complaining to her friends about how mean her father is and conspiring to get one up over Daddy's Golden Child Zuko.

Which she fails at, because she backs Zhao. Zuko deftly defeats her without even realizing they're in competition.

Conclusion

The season ends well for some of these women. It ends promising that maybe we'll see Katara teaching Aang some day. It ends with Zhao bragging that Ozai just used Zuko to train Azula so maybe we'll see the more confident and misguidedly proud Azula some day. Yue becomes the moon like she's supposed to. June's still out there so maybe she'll get to do something again some day.

Katara gets to fight Pakku and lose, but she looks pretty cool. She gets to fight Zuko and lose, but she looks pretty cool. Azula learns to lightningbend because she's just so mad about Ozai's contempt for her and favoritism for Zuko, which isn't how you lightningbend.

But promises of future content fall flat when the content that exists is so underwhelming. This season made its feelings on these characters pretty evident, and it's unwise to expect better material from creators who've disappointed you with the material they already made.

The women of Netflix Avatar simply do not get to shine, outside of superficial moments like the "Women of Northern Water Tribe demand the right to fight and then fuck off and don't do anything for the entire rest of the episode" bit.

"In the midst of battle, we demand that you stop being sexist and give us permission to fight! This is a way better idea than convincing you to teach us to fight before the battle begins."

The characters of this show feel as if they've been reimagined to glorify the boys at the expense of the girls. The boys are treated with a great amount of care. They're dignified and made important movers of the plot, with their rough edges sanded off. While the girls are molded around them.