#and by that i mean i cannot think about anything else

[stuckinapril]

One of the most gratifying things about getting older is being secure in both my American and Iraqi identities. Like I used to think that I had to compromise one for the other, or that being half of each would always make me “diluted,” but I’ve never been more comfortable in my Arabness while simultaneously not caring for the western gaze & just making peace with what it means to be Iraqi American. Like I feel so lucky for my Iraqi heritage every day and I know that’s sadly not a feeling all Arabs experience……. But I cannot imagine being anything else and nor would I ever want to be

[comradekatara]

Can you go a bit more in depth about your post about Sokka in the Burning Rock episode? You said that it was basically his suicide mission, which I agree with. I'd really like to hear more of your thoughts on it.

okay yeah i mean i'm sure i've covered all these points before extensively because i love weaving a tapestry of sokka's fucked up psychological landscape more than anything in the world, but every so often someone will comment on one of my posts and be like "i think you're reaching i think sokka is the paragon of mental health actually" and i'm just like um. did we not all watch the boiling rock. did we just ignore the apotheosis of sokka's entire character arc. like katara's apotheosis in "the southern raiders" is both very overt and impactful and also, arguably, subtler than sokka's, because they don't explicitly spell out the themes every five seconds, but like. if you didn't watch the boiling rock then you cannot understand sokka. and weirdly enough i also believe that zuka shippers are the biggest culprit of this despite this episode being thee zucchini episode because they somehow still have the audacity to characterize sokka as "goofy sunshine who exists to comfort zuko" when like. the entire point is that sokka is legitimately suicidal here and zuko is doing everything in his power to support him thru what is quite literally a mental breakdown. like their relationship is legitimately interesting i don't understand how people have taken that and made it deeply boring.....but i digress.

the boiling rock is quite obviously sokka at his lowest. the worst thing that could ever happen to him – fumbling a mission that was squarely his responsibility, from its conception to its execution, due to not being able to sufficiently compartmentalize his emotions, leading to the mass imprisonment of most of his comrades, including the men of his tribe whom he idolized his entire life and felt immense pressure to live up to, including his father who he is deathly afraid of disappointing (for reasons that have nothing to hakoda being malicious or neglectful in any way, fwiw), and thus being directly implicated in the failure and the harm caused by said failure – happened. sokka is someone who is especially bad at dealing with failure, because a) he is exceptionally talented, and thus has less experience dealing with failure in both minor and major ways, and thus lacks the emotional resilience developed through the process of struggle and growth that normal people (such as, incidentally, zuko) go through and b) to sokka, whose primary desire at all times is to protect and provide for others in any way he possibly can, for someone else to sacrifice themselves for him constitutes a fundamental disruption to the order. there is a perverse wrongness to kya or yue or hakoda or suki making sacrifices on their own volition, because it means that sokka has existentially failed to protect them by martyring himself. like, he somehow feels so guilty about suki being imprisoned that when azula reveals this piece of information to him, it literally distracts him from his own mission. and mind you, there's absolutely no way sokka could have known or been responsible for suki's imprisonment. but he still feels guilty nonetheless. and azula knows that, knows exactly how to twist the knife to make him break, because, well, it's honestly pretty obvious.

sokka obviously cannot retroactively save his mother or his first girlfriend, but he can save his father and his current girlfriend. in "the awakening" aang says he has to restore his honor after the guilt and shame of his failure in ba sing se (aang is also an incurable gifted kid perfectionist, btw, as is azula. posts for another time...) and sokka repeats zuko's line again in this episode, after experiencing the guilt and shame of his failure during the eclipse. the driving motivation of zuko's entire character, feeling like he has failed in some ontological way and must therefore redeem himself or die trying, is reinforced through aang and sokka's respective experiences mirroring that drive. aang goes out in a storm and nearly drowns to redeem himself in some vague, nebulous way, because he isn't thinking rationally. and likewise sokka, who usually always has a plan and always thinks things through, feels that caution and foresight is pointless, because he came up with a genuinely brilliant invasion plan and it didn't work, so clearly there's something wrong with him (just as he always suspected) and no amount of planning even matters, because he's a capital F Failure and always will be. and so he vows to save his father, as he promised him he would when they parted on the day of black sun, or die trying, because if he can't even do that then what is he good for; at least he'll die a martyr, which to him, is basically his ideal situation. because to sokka, dying as a martyr is basically the highest form of fulfilling his purpose (being needed, protecting people) and so if he dies a martyr, then maybe his catastrophic failure (that is entirely his fault and rests squarely on his shoulders btw) can be forgiven. so his plan is basically just to sacrifice himself for his father so that he can die "redeemed." very normal, rational, healthy behavior, i would say.

sidenote, i also see people claim that "the boiling rock" makes sokka look stupid because why wouldn't he take any of the insanely talented benders to a prison in a giant volcano surrounded by a boiling lake, and it's like. sokka literally admits that he's not being rational, that he doesn't think he's going to survive this, that this is not a good idea. it would go against sokka's entire modus operandi if he brought the children who he feels a deep, presiding responsibility to protect on a suicide mission that he's lowkey hoping will fail (because he not so secretly loves courting death. it's like she's the moon or something). he only lets zuko come with him because he doesn't actually care whether zuko lives or dies at this point. sokka has absolutely no faith in zuko whatsoever (and frankly, why would he, zuko has yet to actually prove himself to him. he didn't even kill combustion man; sokka did) so he has no idea that zuko is actually going to be helpful and supportive in a meaningful way. and frankly, if he had known that at the beginning, or even remotely liked zuko as a person, he probably wouldn't have caved so easily when zuko invited himself to join. if he didn't think that zuko was objectively worse than him and basically worthless as a human being, i doubt he would have let himself be so vulnerable with zuko in the first place. meanwhile zuko is eating it up bc he's like "omg he's confiding in me he's letting me help him we're basically besties" because he doesn't actually know sokka well enough to realize that sokka doesn't actually do that shit with people he remotely respects. shit like "my first girlfriend turned into the moon" and "i had a feeling this was going to be a one way trip" are simply not things that sokka would say out loud 98% of the time. the fact that he is admitting something real is not a testament to the trust he places in zuko, but rather the opposite. sokka spilling his guts (you know, for him) to his resident collateral damage, sokka bringing his lovingly crafted space sword on this mission, sokka not even confirming whether or not his father is actually there beforehand – he's simply stopped giving a fuck, he doesn't care whether or not he lives to see another day, because to him, he has nothing left to lose.

but of course, that also isn't true at all. i mean, for one thing, zuko still needs to teach aang firebending, so he does serve a pretty important function to the group, and zuko simply telling him to do hot squats in his absence does not qualify as significant tutelage. but also, even more importantly, sokka is integral to the fabric of the group. when he's gone for a day in "sokka's master" they literally all just shut down and start complaining about how much they miss him (we don't actually see any b-roll of the gaang hanging around the western air temple because the episode is simply too busy for that, so who can say whether the same thing occurs twice). sokka cannot afford to simply die just because his first plan failed, he still has a major responsibility to his friends. fucking idiot. i've said before that sokka has the emotional resilience of like. a pathetic wet newborn kitten caught in the rain. but like, come on man. i mean, as someone who has also suffered from debilitating perfectionist issues and never had to be responsible for a failed military invasion that cost my people their freedom, i do get it, but still. not his best moment. although there is something genuinely admirable about the fact that after he finds suki, he decides that saving suki is enough, and genuinely does want to succeed in his mission going forward. like his love for suki is one of the only things that consistently makes him happy and makes him forget that his greatest dream in life is to be murdered, and that's so beautiful to me.

the entire point of this episode, by the way, is that sokka is wrong. if that isn't obvious. sokka's entire worldview, that he only has value insofar as he exists to provide for others, and if he fails to protect people in any capacity, he has fundamentally failed to uphold the one reason he even exists on this earth, and thus he does not deserve to exist unless he is bearing the weight of everyone's suffering or otherwise proving his worth through sacrificing himself for others, is um. fucking stupid???? and incorrect. and stupid. the thing is, unlike zuko, sokka can't really point to any one person who taught him to see himself this way. he can't just face his father and tell him that his abuse was cruel and wrong, because hakoda is a good father who has never not supported and believed in and encouraged him, done everything in his power to protect him, loved him unconditionally. hakoda has inadvertently damaged sokka's psyche in various ways, of course, but never with any intention to hurt him. like, ozai tried to kill zuko, on multiple occasions. it's a pretty obvious indicator of the primary source of harm in his life. but sokka is equally if not more Unwell, and there's no one single figure he can blame, because his complex lies within a tangled web of what my best friend fanon calls the "massive psychoexistential complex" of the colonized subject. he is being dehumanized not through interpersonal abuse, but through the violent logic of imperialism. sokka's formative traumas inform his psychology as he understands that he only has value insofar as he is protecting the people he loves (namely his sister) from being murdered by imperialists, much like his mother did. and that logic is continually reified through the violence he is being subjected to, until he truly absorbs the belief that his life has no value on its own, that he is genuinely Less than [human] in some fundamental way. which is obviously deeply tragic, but also lowkey kind of comical because he also happens to be the specialest boy in the world, who literally did come up with multiple working escape plans at the world's most secure supermax on the fly, mind you! but whenever anyone tries to point that out, including piandao literally saying "you're the most exceptional and worthy person i've ever met in my life" sokka is just like "um. that is incorrect actually." like NO ONE should depersonalize themselves and feel that their only value lies in their ability to serve and sacrifice themselves for others, but it's especially ironic that sokka literally does not think he has any value as a human being, and yet he is also objectively exceptional. like, do you understand why i adore this character so much. do you.

anyway. the point of this episode isn't that sokka has worth because he's exceptional, either. that's lowkey the point of "sokka's master," but also a) sokka doesn't really internalize it and b) the more important part of the episode lies in how much the gaang just misses his company because they miss their neurotic control freak big brother who makes bad jokes. but even if he couldn't come up with multiple working escape plans on the fly, suki and zuko still stay by his side anyway because they care about him. they are demonstrating that they would risk their safety and possibly even their lives, in the exact way that sokka is always trying to for everyone else, for him. that sokka doesn't need to be the one who always protects everyone else, and that he isn't a failure for letting people who care about him help him and protect him. and sokka has to accept their help, because suki and zuko are simply too stubborn not to force him into letting them support him. they are standing in a literal maximum security prison in the middle of a volcano and they are still choosing to prioritize sokka's mental health and wellbeing, which is honestly crazy, but also exactly what he needs in this moment. suki has known sokka for what, 3 days maximum? yes they're soulmates but like, girl get up. and in zuko's case, "girl get up" is magnified tenfold, because he literally risked his life to go with him to the boiling rock (also largely motivated by the guilt of not being able to stage his own prison break with iroh, but still!) and let himself get imprisoned despite being the fire nation's most wanted criminal, stayed by sokka's side no matter what including getting thrown into a literal torture chamber for him, jumped across a gaping boiling chasm with no guarantee that he'd survive except for the implicit expectation that sokka would catch him on the other side. like zuko is so fucking pussywhipped and sokka didn't even value him as a human being until like halfway through their entire mission. insane.

in conclusion: "the boiling rock" is a beautiful story of the most mentally ill boy on the planet (he took first place ever since jet died rip jet forever in our hearts), and his two ride or die bitches who he met like yesterday, and also his dad, and a casual homophobe named chit sang, all working together to demonstrate to him why killing yourself is a bad idea in most cases, probably. it's also the story of the most insane dyke drama of all time, but that's for another post (of which i have of course made multiple, most recently, here). i said it's the apotheosis of sokka's arc, and by that i mean it's the most overt acknowledgement of what his fundamental issue is, and the first steps one must take in actually resolving it (namely, accepting help and support from your peers and loved ones). do i think that sokka is magically cured after returning from the boiling rock? no, probably not (in fact, because i'm somewhat sick & twisted myself, i like to imagine that once the war ends, he actually gets worse). but he does seem genuinely happier after they return. and maybe that's just bc kyoshi warrior pussy hits different, but like. he was able to rely on others for help (including mai my best friend mai) who supported him unconditionally and prevented him from simply giving up, and that's so incredibly important. that kind of support is always important, to everyone, of course, but as we've established, it's especially important to sokka specifically, at his lowest (quite possibly ever), in this situation. no one has an obligation to risk their life for someone else, but sokka is something who thinks that his purpose is to risk his life for other people (namely katara), and so for people who really have nothing to gain and everything to lose in standing by and promising not to leave without him, to actually show that they support him unconditionally is huge. if sokka has no fans then i am dead and so is suki zuko hakoda toph aang piandao iroh the mechanist etc etc etc. perfect episode <3

[atthebell]

i think one thing that's always been interesting to me is that people really believe/take for granted that the federation's goal is the islanders' happiness, when we really don't have any way of knowing if that's the truth. cucurucho says it a lot, claiming to care about islanders' happiness above all else, and it's been scattered throughout some federation lore (as well as being hinted at with the reset cinematics), but that doesn't mean it's actually true-- it could still be a smokescreen of what they really want. which, imo, is not happiness.

if it's all one big experiment, supposedly one of many, the idea that this one is the one that involves seeing what happens when islanders are happy is not a provable thing still, nor is it clear what that actually means to the federation. does happiness mean the islanders are content to remain on the island? does happiness mean building relationships and connecting with others? does happiness mean self-fulfillment (something deeply immeasurable)? it's not clear what it means to the federation, nor if that is their true goal. it could be that that has nothing to do with their goal, and is a complete misdirect. it could be that cucurucho's prime directive is the islanders' happiness (not that it's very good at that), but that's meant as a tactic to stymie islander curiosity/resistance. it could be any number of things.

and i think viewing it from a more meta lens of "we cannot tell what is or is not the truth; not only are all character povs biased but so is the larger narrative presented to us." i think comparing this framework to something like the good place is helpful, in that when you assume that what you're presented with is the truth and don't look at the setting critically, you will miss the fact that things presented to you as fact by any kind of source (including the framework of the medium itself or the established setting) are suspect and should be examined further.

i can even put it in a smaller way; there are ways within a limited character pov to present things as directly happening when they are not, and these are ways that mcrp creators have utilized. playing out an event that did not actually happen, canonical hallucinations, dream sequences that are not explained as such, physical representations of metaphorical experiences, etc. etc. are ALL things that mcrp creators of done. tricking your audience is an incredibly interesting and at times vital part of mcrp. so if just one creator within their own pov can do it, why can't the whole narrative? why can't you be convinced you're in a different genre, why can't you be convinced that the physical location your characters are placed in is someplace that isn't?

all this to say, i think a major issue in terms of analyzing media like this is allowing yourself to go along with assumptions without thinking about why you're falling so easily into them as truth. making all of your lore assumptions based off the notion that it is objective fact that the federation cares about and has the goal of islanders' happiness means you are going to miss details and fixate on others without looking at the full scope of possibilities. which i think was a serious issue during the height of investigation/mystery stuff-- people fell into the trap of "i KNOW this to be true" without considering the man behind the curtain. sure, cellbit found documents indicating that the federation was founded on isla quesadilla-- considering who sent him on the trail of said documents, who's to say that that's the truth?

i think bagi is a particularly interesting investigator when it comes to this kind of thing-- she's VERY good at holding onto a lot of different possibilites in her mind, even going so far as to act on a lot of them at once, and that means she doesn't take anything for granted. having all of the data in front of you, without attempting to skew it to a theory you already have in mind (which i admit is very difficult to do! humans are biased and are geared towards pattern recognition), is an important skill when it comes to any kind of data analysis or investigation.

anyway idk where i was going with this i just started thinking about like. what is involved in good theorizing and how focusing on something you believe to be fact can lead you in the wrong direction, and i think the idea of the islander's happiness as the federation's main goal is one of those very fraught assumptions people get caught up in.

[ghostflowerhotpotch]

How do you think the spider gang would react to Gwen coming out as trans? I think they'd all be supportive, but I'm curious if you have details

I am going to be honest with you anon, I had been looking at this question for weeks, thinking about it, and...I am not coming up with much.

I am trans, I don't have that much experience with people reacting to that- and I am not making any more comments about that.

Going back to the original question- I think all of them would be supportive; regardless of background or history, I feel doing anything else would be a disservice to the characters, and also, a type of story I really don't have interest entertaining, (Would Noir, being from 40s, be reasonable to have his apprehensions and need to overcome it? Yes, I am interested in seeing something like that? Personally, fuck no.)

Now, it doesn't mean there cannot be hiccups- all well intending, of course.

(Specific characters under the cut because, as always with me, it got long.)

Peter B I see going over the top; talking how brave Gwen is, and that he supports her no matter what, he also reads a book on trans people and tell hims about the people in his universe who are trans. Gwen appreciates it, but it can be uncomfortable at times.

Noir, regardless of time period, would be supportive, but mixes up terminology. The poor guy already struggles with the pop culture lingo, so throwing queer lingo into the mix can make things awkward; specially since, as a spider-man, he has defended the marginalized people of his dimension and is aware of the community, but- that community had its own terminology that may not be appreciated to day. Is a growing curve.

In my opinion, Ham is a much of a man as Bugs Bunny, meaning gender isn't as important as commitment to the bit; so I can see him busting a dress all of the sudden and saying "I get you sis." Accordingly, if asked about his own gender, he is pretty much "normally a guy, but in general whatever fits better with the scene."

Peni I headcanon as nonbinary, so I think she would be happy to meet another person who isn't cis. Definitely would have lots of talk about presentation, tricks for clothes a make up, the works.

Margo is cool about it, there isn't much to say there; she just tells Gwen that it doesn't change anything between them, and she is still invited to come for the slumber parties (Margo has thrown a bunch in the Spider-Society, because anything to spend as little time mentally at home as possible.)

Pavitr: "Oh so you are like a hijra? That's so cool!" (This is a term from a place I am not from, so I can't talk in length about it, feel free to look it up because it is indeed, very cool.) While not the same, he ends up telling more about how people in his dimension see transgender people, Gwen finds it overall really interesting.

Hobie is, of course, cool about it. He is a punk, noncomformist, and "hates labels," he could probably tell Gwen a stupid amount of things about queer history, intersectionally, so far and so forth. Despite using he/him pronouns, I believe with all my heart Hobie would not give a shit about gender roles and dress how he likes, and be okay with any pronouns. This has nothing to do with your question, but I headcanon that Hobie has been the queer awakening of many other teens of the Spider-Society as he strolls down in whatever outfit he feels like it.

Now Miles, is obviously supportive. I think he may be oblivious to many things (I headcanon him as bi for a long awhile, but I am not sure if that's something he knows already or has yet to discover,) so he asks questions, but is always respectful and has no trouble answering. Overall, Gwen thinks is cute how much Miles dotes on her, and reminding her that she will always be the prettiest girl alive to him.

Huh, I guess I had more to say that I expected, this was fun! Thanks for the question and sorry for the delay.

[outsockk]

goofiest fellas

[respectthepetty]

*watching the stairs scene for the eighty millionth time*

Kenta was moving closer as he stared at Pete. Pete turned his head, moved into Kenta, kissed him, and liked it. Then Kenta backed away, got up, and walked away.

PETE kissed Kenta.

PETE liked it.

KENTA left him.

And now Pete just lets Kenta push him against the wall and on the floor. He doesn't even try to overpower Kenta. Is it because Kenta rejected him before?! Is this why he was looking at his lips here?

What was the pink for with Way if you've been in love with Kenta?!

Call me Jeff because I can already foresee that I will get no rest and no peace all week since this will be the only thing I think about when I'm not thinking about Way taking a bullet for Babe.

[seth-burroughs]

Why. WHY is it that such a big part of the fandom and even Kodaka himself think that Yomi sending F-Zilch on that train mission is a testament of him seeing him as expendable cause he died or something. Does nobody except me in this fandom know what a hitman is? Let me. tell you. He was put on that express so he could hit men, which is his job, then leave. He got sent out there because he had a job to do, which was to kill people which he has done several times before and succeeded. "oooo but it was too dangerous :((" yes that is in the job it's generally considered to be pretty dangerous to try and efficiently kill people. And it definitely wasn't dangerous at all to F-Zilch because he fucking succeeded, EVERYTHING went according to plan and he would have returned home the same had Yuma not used his creature. Something which nobody could literally account for? If Shinigami didn't Shinigami all over then literally nothing would have happened to F-Zilch. The ch0 mission was not some elaborate scheme to brutally get rid of F-Zilch, the point of it was to. kill. the. Detectives. And WHY, I am asking on my arms and knees sobbing and shaking, would Yomi want to dispose of one of his most loyal little henchmen and """""one of his most trusted advisors"""" like even if we go the route of "Yomi disney villain that hates everybody equally and loves crimes and causing misery for everyone around him with zero goal in mind whatsoever" that people love to believe for some reason despite the game saying otherwise and implying several other infinitely more interesting reasons as why he's Like That, but whatever: why would he not want to keep that extremely fucking useful guy. Please. Please. But more importantly the above Amaterasu Express point because I feel like I'm losing my goddamn mind the pain never ends

[atopvisenyashill]

ultimate hater take is that there are two types of targ nation people, there's the rabid twitter people who think every single targ except like three or four (usually aegon ii, aemond, aegon iv, sometimes maegor and aerys ii) are Undisputed Uncomplicated Heroes Of The Story and that the series will end with a targ restoration happy ending. then there's the targ nation people who think basically every single historical targ was a villain EXCEPT FOR dany and she is not only the Undisputed Uncomplicated Hero Of The Story but will absolutely burn/sack both Vaes Dothrak and Volantis but these will be Good Things because she's killing slavers.

[musical-chick-13]

"This show is SO good, you should watch it!!"

I gotta be honest. If I look at a character list on Wikipedia and get five characters down without seeing a single woman, it's probably not for me.

[mars-ipan]

look i love my asexual headcanons to death and what i’m about to say in no way discounts said asexual headcanons. with that disclosed i do not think aziraphale is a “virgin” (<- virginity isn’t real but you get my point) take one look at that angel and tell me he didn’t go to bacchanals i mean come the fuck on

[matchandelure]

realizing that all of the fictional characters i love the most can be sorted into three distinct categories: the one with questionable morals willing to do anything for the person they care for, and the one who’s just there to vibe but has no idea how to be a person because they were never taught how to, and the detective

[mandyyvibes]

i work a seventeen hour shift today and i’m going to make it everyone around me’s problem by not shutting up about hawkeye

[iliveinprocrasti-nationn]

one thing abt being disabled/chronically ill that some people don’t get is that sometimes body maintenance that ensures you have the absolute minimum amount of function can also be something that takes away a lot of control and autonomy. you can argue till the cows come home that making those decisions to try and help yourself (or realistically to try to make sure things aren’t worse than they already are) is something that exhibits control and autonomy and stuff, but they can be so limiting in practice because they’re things that take up so much time but have to be done to do anything else

[readymades2002]

i turn 25 in almost two months. christ

[aladork]

hunter: so how did you learn to not be so antsy and stop striving for impossible expectations

alador: I'm not--

alador: ..well, hm.

alador, trying to be a good role model: first....someone has to tell you that you are doing that?