#missionizing is cultural genocide

[hachama]

This shouldn't have to be said, but apparently it does and that makes me incandescent with rage,

Coming on to a post about modern antisemitism to word salad proselyvomit about oily Josh is not going to make you any friends.

It will get you invited to get in line to be launched into the sun.

[communistkenobi]

Hi, genuine good faith question if you'd like! How is TOS racist? It was my understanding that the OG Series was like, huge for equality in media?

I’m speaking primarily about the content of TOS itself, not its historical impact - I understand it had various historic firsts in terms of having characters of colour in respectable roles, which I’m not dismissing. My experience with the discourse on here surrounding the show is that people front-load these character representations as emblematic of the show’s progressive politics. Which, if we want to go that route, TOS was contemporary to the US civil rights movement, which provides us with a handy measuring stick to see how TOS actually grapples with race, not just the presence of characters of colour themselves. I'm going to be kind of defensive in this explanation, not towards you specifically, but because I have had this conversation with people online many, many, many times, and so any defensiveness on my part is in anticipation of arguments I know will come up as a result of making the basic claim that a show made in America in the 1960s is racist. I'm also going to be copy + pasting from an older post I've made on the subject since it's been a while now since I've watched TOS so some of the details are fuzzy.

Like okay, the premise of TOS is that the Enterprise, as an ambassador of Starfleet/the Federation, is seeking out new alien life to study. The Prime Directive prohibits the Enterprise crew from interfering with the development of any alien culture or people while they do this, so the research they collect needs to be done in an unobtrusive way. I think this is the first point at which people balk at the argument that TOS is racist or has a colonial conception of the world - the Enterprise’s mission is premised on non-interference, and I think when people hear ‘colonial’ as a descriptor they (understandably, obviously) assume it is describing active conquest, genocide, and dispossession. Even setting aside all the times where Kirk does directly interfere with the “development” of a people or culture (usually because they’ve “stagnated” culturally, because a culture "without conflict" cannot evolve or “develop” beyond its current presumed capacity - he is pretty explicitly imposing his own values onto another culture in order to force them to change in a particular way), or the times when the Enterprise is actually looking to extract resources from a given planet or people, I’m not exactly making this claim, or rather, that’s not the only thing I’m describing when calling TOS racist/colonial.

The show's presentation of scientific discovery and inquiry is anthropological - the “object” of analysis is alien/foreign culture, meaning that when the Enterprise crew comes into contact with a new being or person, this person is always read first and foremost through the level of (the Enterprise’s understanding of) culture. Their behaviour, beliefs, dress, way of speaking, appearance, and so on are always reflective of their culture as a whole, and more importantly, that their racial or phenotypic characteristics define the boundaries of their culture. Put another way, culture is interpreted, navigated, and bound racially - the show presents aliens as a Species, but these species are racially homogeneous, flattening race to a natural, biological difference that is always physically apparent and presented through the lens of scientific objectivity, as "species" is a unit of biological taxonomy. Basically species is a shorthand for race. This is the standard of most sci-fi/fantasy genre work, so this is not a sin unique to Star Trek.

Because of this however, Kirk and Co are never really interacting with individuals, they are interacting with components of a (foreign, exotic, fundamentally different) culture, the same way we understand that a biologist can generalize about a species using the example of an individual 'specimen'. And when the Enterprise interacts with these cultures, they very frequently measure them using a universalized scale of development - they have a teleological (which is to say, evolutionary) view of culture, ie, that all cultures go from savage to rational, primitive to advanced, economically simple to economically complex (ie, to capitalist modes of production). And the metrics they are judging these cultures by are fundamentally Western ones, always emphasising to the audience that the final destination of all cultures (that are worthy of advancing beyond their current limited/“primitive” stages) is a culture identical to the Federation, a culture that can itself engage in this anthropological mission to catalogue all life as fitting within a universal set of practices and racial similarities they call “culture.”

This is a western, colonial understanding of culture - racially and spatially homogeneous people comprise the organs of a social totality, ie, a society, which can then be analysed as an “object,” as a “phenomenon,” by the scientists in order to extract information from them to produce and advance state (ie Federation) knowledge. The Enterprise crew are allowed to be individuals, are allowed to be subjects with a capacity for reason, contradiction, emotion, compassion, and even moments of savagery or violence, without those things being assigned to their “race” or “culture” as a whole, but the people they interact with are only components of a whole which are “discovered” by the Enterprise as opportunities to expand and refine the Federation’s body of knowledge.

Spock is actually a good example of what I'm talking about, because he is an exception to this rule - unlike the others in the crew, his behaviour is always read as a symptom of his innate Vulcan-ness, where his human and Vulcan halves war for dominance in his mind and character. Bones (the doctor, one of the main cast) constantly comments on Spock's inability to feel things, that he is callous and unsympathetic, ruled by Vulcan logic to such an extreme that his rationality is a form of irrationality, as his Vulcan blood prohibits him from tempering logic with human emotion and intuition. Now you can argue that Bones is a stand-in for the racists of the world, that Spock proves Bones wrong in that he is able to feel but merely keeps it under wraps, that Vulcans are not biologically incapable of emotion but merely live in a socially repressive culture, but this still engages in the racial logic of the show - Vulcans are a racially-bound species with a single monolithic culture, and Spock's ability to express and feel 'human emotions' is the metric by which he is granted human subjectivity and sympathy.

And on the flip side you have the Klingons - a “race” that is uniformly savage, backward, violent, and dangerous. In the episode Day of the Dove, where Klingons board the Enterprise along with an alien cloud that makes everyone suddenly aggressive and racist (this show is insane lol), the Enterprise crew begins acting violent and racist, but the Klingons don’t change. They aren’t more violent than before (because they already were fundamentally violent and racist), and they don’t become less violent when the cloud eventually leaves (because they are never able to emerge from their violence and savagery as a social condition or external imposition - they simply are that way). Klingons are racially, behaviourally, psychologically, and culturally homogeneous, universally violent and immune to reason, and their racial characteristics are both physical manifestations of this universal violence as well as the origin of it. The writers and creators of TOS are explicitly invoking the orientalist idea of the “Mongolian horde,” representing both the American fear of Soviet global takeover as well as blatantly racist fears about “Asiatics” (a word used in the show, particularly in The Omega Glory where a fear of racialised communist takeover is made explicit) dominating the world.

This is colonial thinking! Like, fundamentally, at its core, this is colonial white supremacist thinking. Now this is not because TOS invents these tropes or is the origin of them, it is not individually responsible for these racial and colonial logics - these conceptions are endemic to Western thought, and I am not expecting a television show to navigate its way outside of this current colonial paradigm of scientific knowledge. I’m also not expecting an average person watching this to pick out all the intricacies of this and link it to the colonial history of Europe or the colonial history of western philosophy/thought. But this base premise of Star Trek is why the show is fundamentally colonial - even if it was the case that the crew never intervened in any alien conflict, never extracted any material resources from other people, this would still be colonial logic and colonial thinking. The show has a fundamentally colonial imagination when it comes to exploration, discovery, and culture.

I think a good place to end is the opening sequence. The show's first line is always "Space! The final frontier." I do not think the word frontier is meant metaphorically or poetically - I think the show is being honest about its conception of space as an infinitely vast, infinitely exotic frontier from which a globally Western civilisation (which the Enterprise is an emblem of) can extract resources, be they material or epistemic

[sepublic]

In lieu of my latest reblog about people taking compelling characters and projecting their writing onto some other (usually white) dude, I want to bring up a post I had drafted all the way back from April, but never posted because at the time I still had enough patience not to. But now is different. I do think this analysis is a bit outdated because it doesn’t consider the mediocre white dude angle of Belos that I find paramount, but it’s good enough for my repurposed point.

-

            I find it funny when some people complain that the narrative was unfair to Belos despite his “trauma” and circumstances, like there aren’t multiple characters out there who parallel his issues, and get sympathy AND a redemption, in all but one case! Belos is narratively condemned not for what he has in common with others, but for what sets him apart, particularly his stubborn ego. Cases in point;

         “Belos deserved to have sympathy for having an unhealthy attachment to his more confident sibling that was mixed with resentment over being abandoned for someone else, culminating in guilt over hurting them and regretting it!”

         Lilith exists. She’s motivated by a massive inferiority complex with Eda, Gwen favors her. She’s clearly salty about Eda going off to have fun with Raine, and claims to Luz that she’s Eda’s ‘real’ family. She cursed her sister and felt enormous guilt over it… But in the end, Lilith IS given sympathy by the narrative, and the chance to redeem herself. And she takes just that.

         A lot of the people claiming Belos deserved better theorize that stabbing Caleb was an accident, and you know what? So was the permanence of Eda’s curse, Lilith expected it to only last a day and certainly not transform her sister. But Lilith still owned up. And she learned to make other friends while respecting Eda’s boundaries.

         “Belos was an orphan raised in a culture that encouraged genocide and a hatred of wild magic!”

         Caleb exists, he went through the exact same childhood as Philip, but still chose to change. And while they weren’t orphans at the time, Hunter and the Collector were also raised on genocide, taught to find wild/Titan magic apprehensive. But they loved it instead.

         “But Belos actually lost his brother, his loved one died!”

         So did Hunter’s! And he was shown to be snappy and aggressive, pouring himself into a mission to cope! But he still owned up, apologized to Willow for rebuking her. He lost Flapjack, and instead of making replicas of his lost loved one to keep to himself, discarding anyone that wasn’t close enough, Hunter made a diverse array of palismen for other kids, to give them the loving relationship he lost! Even his own palisman was clearly carved to be different from Flapjack, reminiscent but still their own thing.

         Then there’s Darius, who lost his mentor the previous Golden Guard; His own ‘Caleb’, so to speak! And he was also unpleasant about it, he took his grief out on Hunter, who had nothing to do with this! The canon audio diaries even confirm the apprehension has been going for a while… But Darius realized he was wrong to have projected onto Hunter, made up for this by practically adopting the kid and giving this kid the happy ending his mentor didn’t have; Passing the cycle of kindness the Golden Guard started. And his own grief is pointed out to the audience by Hunter himself.

         “They should’ve shown how having a hero complex and a desire to live out a fantasy can corrupt anyone!”

         Luz and the Collector. Luz herself makes these comparisons for Belos, and there were times where she hurt her friends trying to live out her fantasy, and/or planned to leave them under the impression she was doing the ‘right thing’. Luz makes a legitimate consideration that she could’ve been Belos, if she refused to listen to others and change. But Luz owned up! As did the Collector, whose escapism and wish to play the role of the ‘hero’, in this case Luz, causes them to do some pretty terrible things. But they still change after being called out, and are still given sympathy over the loneliness and trauma that fueled their escapism, as was Luz.

"Philip struggled with getting over a different type of fantasy, one that relied upon him conquering and hurting others!"

As did King! And King got over that, he quickly learned that other people would always be more important than his fantasies, even if the 'sacrifices' were a lot more minor. King started off the same, the difference is that he still grew up and that's why we judge his antics as so much more light-hearted.

         “Well that’s not fair, Philip’s examples were more extreme!”

         How about Eda’s curse? Belos never brings up his other sources of trauma as an excuse for his actions, but you know what he does invoke? His curse, claiming to Hunter and Luz that it forced him to act certain ways. But we see Eda, who got a rawer deal with her curse; She didn’t bring it upon herself, as Belos did. She legitimately loses control when it takes over. She scarred and disabled her father because of it, and you know what?

         Eda never uses her curse as an excuse. She never lets that justify what she’s done to people, and she even befriends the creature at the source of her curse, the Owl Beast. The curse she deals with is objectively worse, objectively more unfair, than Belos’. But it’s only Belos who actually cites his curse as an excuse, and the palismen at the source of it? He kills them.

         “Belos’ cursed form is treated as ugly and evil!”

         The palismen amalgam in his mind looked almost exactly the same, to the point where Hunter, who had seen Belos’ cursed form in person before, thought they were identical. But in the end, the palismen amalgam, despite resembling Belos’ cursed form, is a sympathetic and tragic victim who is murdered. Luz and Hunter mistaking him for Belos is justified, but it’s also still regrettable that they are judged by appearances.

         “It hurts people to sacrifice their morals for the greater good, you know!”

         Raine did that, they felt compelled to drag Darius and Eberwolf (one of whom was a childhood friend) into a murder-suicide, because as far as they knew, they were already going to be caught and executed, so may as well take their oppressors down with them! And they aren’t called out for it, because they couldn’t have known about Darius’ actual intentions…

         Because in the end, sometimes you have to punch a fascist, and sometimes you have to oppose a friend or loved one because they took the fascists’ side. It’s why Lilith is expected to change for Eda, not the other way around. Raine is not the aggressor here, it’s all from the principle of self-defense for themselves and the isles as a whole.

         And in the end, it’s because Raine is approaching from a place of actual good intent and moral concern that there are lines they still refuse to cross; As soon as they learn about Luz and King, they sabotage their own plans because they refuse to orphan these kids they just found out about for the ‘greater good’. When one of those very kids, Luz, makes Raine promise to keep Eda safe, you can see the conflict between their morals and their obligations in their eyes as Eda accepts the Bard sigil, and ultimately Raine powers through the draining spell to save Eda’s life, simply because Luz asked them to.

         I’ve talked since their debut of how Raine has some similarities to Belos, in particular how they both work their whole lives to infiltrate a group from within to topple it, even as they publicly support it as a celebrated leader. They both had to lie and work under the radar, and make effective rhetoric; They each wear their own masks. Raine has to constantly lie to and rebuke Eda about being brainwashed, and we can see the moral agony it gives them!

         But Raine is opposed to a legitimate threat, whereas Belos is completely making one up; Raine has to work under the micro-management of tyrants with control over them, Philip has been free from his colony for centuries, and even after finding out Gravesfield gave up on its witch hunting mission in the present, still traps himself of his own will. Belos feels no guilt for any of his ‘necessary evil’.

         Raine had actual morals unlike Belos that they did sacrifice, for an actual greater good, and they actually hurt over these choices. They dedicated their whole life to stop a dark and twisted parallel, which makes their inclusion in the finale as the only person outside of the core trio to help against Belos all the more deserved; They even help deliver the killing blows. And Raine is rewarded for all of their effort, allowed to see it come to fruition and rest happily afterwards, because they really were sincere, and actually did make sacrifices, something Belos preaches but never follows. Most importantly, Raine knew they couldn’t justify everything even for their morally-justified mission.

         “Belos was still legitimately wronged by Caleb for nothing, he didn’t deserve to be abandoned!”

         Even if we believe Caleb did ‘abandon’ Philip or whatever; The Collector was legitimately wronged by the Titan, imprisoned and isolated for millennia despite being innocent. But while he justifiably calls the Titan a bully, he never takes this out on King, or any other Titan for that matter, remembering the rest with love. Nor is the Collector expected to forgive the Titan; The Titan accepts she made the wrong call. After all, imprisoning the Collector left them in a vulnerable state to be exploited by Belos, and give him the draining spell…

         The Titan and Caleb’s mistakes were very much that, but the Collector matured for others, without needing an apology from the dead person who wronged him. And based on what we see of Belos’ memories, Caleb probably DID get to deliver that apology when he was alive, and Philip still insisted on being bitter!

         “His only childhood friend just ditched him for someone else!”

         That’s what happened to Willow, and that’s how she understood it for most of her life; Amity leaving her behind because she was too weak, and kids like Boscha and Skara were more popular, stronger, etc. But not only does the show say her rage against Amity is totally warranted and that the onus is on Amity to apologize, even if she didn’t choose to leave Willow (keep in mind she still saw Willow as a weak person to protect without input, as we later see in Labyrinth Runners)…

         Willow is still kind. She still opts to be compassionate to Gus, and to Luz, and in general a nurturing person despite her abandonment. And when Willow is given the chance to take revenge on Boscha by stealing her glory in Grudgby, she doesn’t kick the girl while she’s down to do so; But Willow is also allowed to still hold anger towards Boscha, as we see in Season 3. And assuming Caleb wasn’t malicious about leaving Philip behind, we clearly see how he welcomes his brother back and wants things to get better, just as Amity does; He had his own side of the story. And Willow doesn’t kill Amity despite being primed to very easily do so…

"But imagine finding out they CHOSE to leave you, when you thought they didn't!"

Camila?!?! In fact, Camila was THE precedent for this, and people went and applied her tragic scene to Philip to make HIM into some angsty sadboi! And last I checked, Camila didn't exactly murder Luz... Plus, Philip had infinitely more time to see Caleb and Evelyn interact, and thus figure out that Caleb wasn't being kidnapped or brainwashed; Compare that to Camila who is just dunked into that situation out of nowhere, and is barely even adjusting to Vee's existence on top of finding out Luz was someplace else the entire time, and dealing with Jacob.

"A lot of family members at least start off as well-intentioned when hurting loved ones, they could've shown that!"

Bold of you to assume that Belos' selfish entitlement towards Caleb is the same as Camila or Gwen's legitimate concerns for their daughters; They did unconditionally love and they were misguided. But when shown they were causing pain, they actually shifted gears instead of focusing on how they were fight because they knew better. And what they were doing WAS still harmful, even though they DID care.

         “Belos was probably a weirdo himself, and suffered from internalized hatred for his deviancy!”

         Lilith dyed her hair to fit in with the coven, and be taken seriously. Amity suppressed herself to be a stoic perfectionist, constantly trying to justify her own existence as she says; She had to work to be good at magic while others like Gus, Emira, and Edric were naturally talented, and was made to hate those who weren’t successful as witches. Hunter too loathed his own lack of bile magic!

         Most tellingly, Camila herself was taught to hide her weirdness, grew up thinking she was successful for doing that, and even tried to impose the same on Luz because of that misconception! But Camila realized what was done to her was wrong, and the same applied to her daughter; Accepting Luz’s weirdness meant accepting her own.

         “Even if he still chose to double down in villainy, Belos could’ve at least been given a moment where he was sympathetic, where his sadness was shown, before nevertheless deciding his fate!”

         Kikimora had an entire episode where she agonized over her obligations to a mother that seemed low key abusive, given her threat to disown her. We see her hesitate, cry, and be legitimately disappointed when she’s rewarded for staying with Belos by ‘getting to live’, a reward that doesn’t even last by the Day of Unity! Even after Kikimora makes her choice to betray Luz and Amity, we still get a final scene of her looking uncertain and even regretful of her decision, before she commits. Kikimora isn’t redeemed but is still humanized, despite being less human than Belos, so to speak.

         She’s even a dark parallel to Lilith, having jealousy towards the Golden Guard, an emotionally abusive mother, and an inferiority complex towards other members of the coven despite working directly with Belos! And she is given many chances to escape Belos, a few months where she is legitimately free from him, and chooses to remain in her ways because Kikimora’s difference with Lilith isn’t that life was more unfair to her, it’s that she refused to change.

         Now this is a bit out there, but there’s also the other Coven Heads! Mason, Vitimir, Hettie, and Osran! The show was shortened, so who knows what they could’ve provided for the story… Mason, Hettie, and Osran especially, since they’re not included amongst the coven head loyalists who still cling to power, even after Belos’ death. The show could’ve easily set up sympathetic moments to indicate a possibility of change, paying off in the epilogue; But because of Disney, you can’t blame the writers for not delivering everything they could’ve.

         “How about a character who was just… an asshole, no outside reason given?”

         Boscha, who was popular and privileged. While she does allude to some pressures that motivate her, as far as we know, there wasn’t really anyone or anything that made her be so cruel towards those she perceives as lesser. But despite this, Willow doesn’t see any point in trying to take Boscha’s spotlight as a Grudgby captain, when offered by her teammates; She doesn’t kick Boscha when she’s down. And Boscha is ultimately still recognized as unhappy with the loss of her friends, so even if she does do egregious things during the Collector’s reign, Amity offers Boscha the chance to become better and improve, as she did. And she takes it!

         “Well, none of these characters had to grapple with having done things nearly as bad as Belos!”

         And why do you think that is? Why are Belos’ sins so monumental in comparison, how did they get so bad? Because he kept refusing to change, kept refusing each opportunity, and got worse because of that. His first confirmed murder was Caleb, who right beforehand embraced his brother during what appeared to be a manifestation of the curse. But Philip still chose to commit his first sin despite receiving such unconditional sympathy, because he wanted control, not happiness. He didn’t start off as a genocidal dictator, he worked his way up to that over centuries.

         “They make it seem like Belos was born evil!”

         Our earliest chronological appearances of Philip are as a happy, carefree child who plays games with the brother he loves and looks up to; That isn’t the portrayal of someone ‘born’ evil. This is the portrayal of someone who became that way, over time, because he refused to concede anything to anyone, and wore away what decency he had across centuries, until we see the Emperor that Belos is when the show starts.

         An evil dictator who ravaged an entire world for hundreds of years came from an innocent little kid, and Luz becomes self-aware of how this can apply to her, even as she’s reminded that she also ISN’T like Belos because of this critical reflection and willingness to listen. Belos, on the other hand, consciously cultivated an echo chamber for centuries, killing any Grimwalker he felt disagreed with him, despite their unconditional love and support. He deliberately shut himself off from the isles and ignored the kindness of others.

         Bump reminds Faust that it’s disingenuous to project malice onto children who often simply don’t know any better, and just need to be given a chance to be taught and educated. But kids also have to take initiative to mature when they get older, hence why we hold adults more responsible; The established logic is that Belos wasn’t an evil child, he was simply a child who never grew up and that’s where his evil came from, rather than being some pre-existing source.

         To be honest, I think the narrative doesn’t bother showing sympathy to Belos over his trauma because he’s already HAD more than enough sympathy, across centuries, from his brother, the Grimwalkers, his followers, even Luz and the Collector! So the story doesn’t feel the need to waste tears on someone who already got them, and instead focuses sympathy to characters who haven’t received as much, if any; People like Lilith, Amity, Hunter, etc.

         Belos is the culmination of other characters’ traumas (who prove you can still choose to be better and happier despite these things), and was practically coddled by the people in his life for it. But he still chose to be bitter, never opened up to accept help, and his rejection brought even more pain that he could only blame on himself. Belos’ only tragedy is his refusal to change for the better; Even the narrative has made it clear he had chances, tears wept for him by people he knew.

He is a mirror to so many characters, what could’ve happened if they looked at their own pain and used it as justification to continue lashing out, because clearly they are the underdog heroes who have been wronged and are fighting against an injustice, right? The hero of their own story, if you will. Hell, we still also get that with Kikimora, as I just said! What I’ve listed is not a double standard, but rather proof that Belos was not uniquely condemned by his circumstances, for he is alike many characters as I mentioned. And Belos does not need to be portrayed “sympathetically” in order for the audience to understand the relevance of these parallels; Namely, that Belos has no excuse to still be like this when those similar nevertheless choose not to be cruel, and will accept others’ compassion.

         And besides, with how the show was shortened… Who’s to say the writers didn’t plan to throw Belos a sympathetic moment of genuine loneliness, before doubling down? Not that they really would’ve needed to. But if they planned it, the writers had to leave it out to prioritize the weirdos this show is actually about, due to the shortening.

[themagicbrew]

everyone! Meet Utrom.

The original traitor. The first defender of earth.

You may be able to read more about him Below. (side note: some things in my previous posts may be reconned)

(edit: sorry about any of the spelling and grammar errors)

Assigned Name: Utrom

Age: Uknown

Gender: Unknown (Queergender)

sexuality: Pansexual (poly)

Current occupation: Part-time nature conservationist, full-time tourist. (formerly) Rebel leader and Kraang surveillance scout

personality summary: Utrom is a jovial charismatic bundle of love, who cares deeply for the world around him and is burdened by his past. He continues to learn and grow for centuries, wishing to right his wrongdoings. He is a strict pacifist, however, Utrom is still capable of intimidating others when needed. Think of him as the fun laidback uncle of Earth! (for the most part)

Backstory!

Pre-Rebellion:

Utrom started out as any other Kraang, born on planet primordial and raised to be a soldier for their glorious empire. He was by no means, a cut above the rest. Utrom was just another nameless soldier- another cog in the machine

He (just like any other member of his species) took pride in what he was. Despite his big hulking figure, Utrom served as a surveillance scout for the empire. His occupation was to scout out planets prior to the oncoming conquest. He would study various things like the enemies' ecosystem, culture and technological advancements. Utrom had a deeper fascination- perhaps, even a hidden admiration for other lifeforms but not to the extent where he’d feel remorse for aiding in their complete genocide. 

Unlike most Kraang, Utrom would acknowledge to some degree his enemies were capable of outwitting them- though he knew no creature could ever overpower the might of kraang, Utrom also knew blindly underestimating their prey would have consequences.

This was not a common ideal, even for scouts like him. 

His comrade. The one assigned to aid him on all his missions. Kraang2. Had a completely different set of ideals, ones that were more aligned with the common kraang soldier. They were polar opposites in many ways BUT- their differences were what forged their strong bond. 

Utrom had even developed deep romantic feelings towards Krang2 but due to the culture they live in. Recognising or understanding such complicated emotions was nearly impossible. From his perspective, Kraang2 was his comrade and nothing more.

Sure, he liked the way She’d slaughter their foes or how she’d recklessly jump into battle without a thought or- even the quiet moments where they talked about climbing the ranks together but, She was just a comrade. Nothing more. 

Utrom never knew why but Kraang1 (2’s elder brother) did not trusted him. He didn’t understand what warranted such specific hostility directed his way. Utrom never made the connection that his close friendship with 2 may have been the root of it. Kraang1 never outwardly showed his concern for his younger siblings, especially in front of others. Kraang1 was also a higher-ranking member of the empire, he is considered a prodigy to General Chre’ll. 

He would abuse his authority over Utrom, singling him out from other soldiers for petty reasons.

To describe dynamic in the simplest of terms: they are like petty coworkers. a lot of their interactions would range from passive aggression to straight-up hostility or (more commonly) strained professionalism.

Utrom, being a lower rank could not bite back- otherwise, he'd be met with severe punishment. The abuse he undergo was something normalised within their society. Utrom would quietly question The kraang as a whole, however, his doubts would be buried. His head 6ft deep under the propaganda he was raised upon.

He was a soldier, meant to aid the empire's glorious crusade. To keep the natural order of things. the strong will devour the weak.

Utrom's betrayal/rebellion:

Names are important things within their culture. They are symbols that are achieved, rather than a title given upon birth.

Typically, a kraang would earn their Name after ascending the ranks and becoming a general however, a name can be earned through other means...more importantly, earning a name isn't always a good thing within the kraang.

Planet Earth was meant to be Kraang1's first conquest. Think of it as a crowning, one where Kraang1 would assert himself in the empire as "General Prime" (after a successful invasion.)

So what exactly happened?

Utrom, someone who was never seen far from kraang2's side- working in tandem- Was tasked with scouting out earth, alone. He was no position to question Kraang1's decision as per usual and thus, remained silent.

Once Utrom arrived on Earth (landing in Japan during the Heian period.) He went through the usual motions, Examining and collecting data. However, during this time- without his beloved comrade to distract him, his doubts began to take hold.

It was then he met a Sōhei, one who was unafraid of Utrom. Normally, when an enemy discovers him- Utrom was quick to kill but.. this time, he didn't.

the Sōhei fascinated him. They had simply struck up a conversation and even in that moment, they had hit a personal cord with Utrom. With words alone, he began to wonder- his doubts beginning to unearth.

So he did something he'd never thought he'd do.

Utrom began to befriend the enemy. He learned many things with the Sōhei and eventually, other humans too. A whole new world of opportunity had opened up to him, one that he'd never considered if he was with the kraang.

All of this was done under the Kraang's (metaphorical) nose.

Utrom saw how imperfect the empire was, thanks to the help of his human friends. Yet, he wanted others to see it too. Utrom wanted his fellow comrades to know, that there was more to life then blood and conquest.

He began to orchestrate an entire rebellion, gathering kraang from lower ranks to rise up and defend Earth. Kraang2 was the first to know about this but opposed the idea. Yet she remained silent, thinking that Utrom would come back to his "senses" (which he never did.)

This rebellion was how Utrom earned his name. Once word got out about a traitorous scout, he was 'branded' and named Utrom.

However, this act would lead more kraang to aid Utrom. He was a normal loyal soldier like they were, if he had the courage to fight authority then perhaps they could too?

This lead to a full on Battle on earth. The rebels and humans were getting decimated, despite everything- they were losing to the kraang.

Til the very last second, the human friends pulled out a piece of precious kraang tech. One built by a rebel and meant to seal in the kraang....and perhaps the rebels too.

Utrom knew this and allowed this, knowing that he too may be sealed as well.

Once the Key was unleashed, the battle was over in an instance.

Utrom somehow managed to avoid being sealed into the prison dimensions along with only a small handful of rebels left. The rest were sucked into the prison dimension where they'll no doubt, meet their demise.

This... Affected utrom in many ways he never thought it would. Unsure what to do with himself. He gifted the Key to one of his human friends.

The lost of kraang2 cut him deeply... Now stranded on earth, all he can do is heal and live a new life.

Post-betrayal

Utrom spent his first century on earth within Japan, living closely with the Sōhei he trusted so dearly. He had vowed to become a pacifist after the war, which was a tough journey for Utrom.

He had lived his whole life as a soldier. War was the only thing he knew but with help from his Human friends. Utrom managed.

Eventually, one by one his friends would pass on. Their lives were so much shorter than his.

He than decided too travel across earth. learning from humans without involving themselves in their conflict. Utrom would spend many centuries attempting to conserve the planet's ecosystem, socialising with humans and more importantly, trying to forget kraang2

Fast forward to present day

Utrom received word from the E.p.f that there was a failed invasion within NYC and that his presence is required. He was horrified to know, that he'd be helping with Kraang2 interrogation.

He did not work for them, serving more so as a "kraang consultant" due to his former role as a rebel leader. Yet, given that this was his old comrade, he felted the need to stay.

Now Utrom is trying hard to undo the damage that she and her brothers have caused.

Triva:

Utrom voiceclaim is Keith david (x)

Utrom likes telling stories about his time on earth. His antics with vary but all of them bizarre in their own special way. Utrom is essentially one big history book. A living artifact.

Utrom begins to keep an eye on those involved in NYC's invasion. Whether they be good or bad.

He struggles with being a pacifist, even til this very day. He often worries about snapping at someone since he's constantly aware of his strength.

Utrom great with dealing other peoples emotions however, closes himself off from his own feelings. He feels responsible for everything that had happen and is trying hard to 'fix' everything.

He still retains strong romantic feelings towards kraang2 and will continue to visit her once The E.p.f efforts in finding her brothers prove to be fruitless. (biggest simp in all the galaxy)

[conundrumoftime]

Fandom grandma tales: how I survived canon ruining two of the ships I liked.

(Written after a discussion with some of my TROP fan pals about how canon can break your heart re: shipping, and how fandom manages. There are spoilers here for the entire run of Babylon 5, and for one story JMS wrote after it. yes, that story. sorry.)

Babylon 5 was a sci-fi space opera show that ran from 1993 to 1998. It is sci-fi of the era of 22-episode seasons, of huge ensemble casts with characters who get their own B- and C-plots, with an effects and casting budget that doesn’t always match its ambition, and - something it was quite pioneering in, at the time - grand pre-planned story arcs. 

It’s the first fandom that I was involved with in internet spaces as it was running, or at least when its final season was (there’s Discourse and drama from earlier years that I missed). Its showrunner, J. Michael Straczynski - ‘JMS’ - was very active in (non-fanfic) fan community spaces, and you always knew exactly what he was thinking about things because he was part of the discussion around them. There was also fanfic, which he didn’t stop but didn’t go near on the grounds of legal liability for story ideas. 

Most of the fanfic in the early days as the show was airing was focused around two big ships, of which one was canon endgame (Delenn/Sheridan) and one was canon all-ends-in-despair (Marcus/Ivanova). I, as a teenager discovering a developing online fandom for the first time with all the overwhelm and excitement that causes (ask me anything about what reading fic was like before the days of tags/ratings/warnings!) got into Marcus/Ivanova and also into one of the minor ships, Delenn/Lennier.

Delenn/Lennier was never, ever going to happen in canon. This is obvious; it clashes with Delenn/Sheridan which was JMS’s baby darling OTP, the show’s big love story. Delenn is married for the later part of the show. Lennier is her diplomatic aide, is absolutely devoted to her, and they have a very intense mentor/student relationship, which it seems is kind of standard in their culture (when Delenn’s own mentor died she went briefly insane with grief and started a genocidal war over it) but is still Very Intense. He is canonically in love with her, but that’s as far as the explicit canon statements go.

However. HowEVER. Canon also gives us, for that relationship, some wonderful ship fuel. Lennier knows about every bad thing Delenn has done, including all the stuff she doesn’t/can’t tell her husband. He’s her link to her previous world and culture and stands by her even when they kick her out. She says at one point, “without him, I would stumble and fall and never get up again.” 

And then… we had Season 5, the final season.

Season 5, for various complicated production reasons, was operating a little outside of pre-planned story arcs and in this season the Delenn/Lennier stuff ramped up about three gears in one go. It was still very obviously never, ever going to be canon, and was almost certainly not intended by the creator (who wrote most of the episodes himself) to look like there was even anything there. At this point Delenn is married; any relationship with her aide would not only be going against the show’s OTP, but going against it in the sense where she’s cheating on her husband, and there is Just No Way JMS would have gone there. And yet! Season 5 gave us:

A scene where Lennier says he can’t stay, it’s too painful to be around her now she’s married, and she’s devastated and has the following conversation with her husband about it:

S: I got your message about Lennier. Is there anything I can do?

D [snapping]: Almost certainly not.

S: Is it because of me?

D: In part, I think so.

S: Yeah, I was afraid of that. Well, as we say back on Earth, three’s a crowd.

D: On Minbar, three is sacred.

S [slightly uncomfortable laugh]: Well, I don’t think I’m ready to handle that one, Delenn.

Delenn then calling Lennier back to the station to do some secret mission thing for her, which involves her sneaking out of her bed while her husband sleeps to meet Lennier in a darkened alley behind a bar, where she tenderly strokes his face and they have a whole conversation about whether her husband understands her or not.

A scene where Lennier comes back from his secret mission to meet both Delenn and Sheridan, Delenn goes to greet him with a hug, and Lennier does this very pointed step back and nod in the direction of her husband, and she pulls back and just sort of pats him on the arms instead. 

I MEAN.

But, the issue here is not what fans did about it but what canon did about it. Canon did the canon equivalent of dragging that ship outside and shooting it in the head. 

In the final few episodes of the entire series, Lennier tries to kill Sheridan, runs away in shame, and then someone finds his diary in which he’d been writing for ages about what a bad decision he thought Delenn had made and how her whole marriage was an awful idea. Even to this day, it’s fun/awful watching people go through a first-time watch when they get to season 5 and hit that. ‘Character assassination in the form of a diary’ was a whole thing for a while. It’s been 20+ years and the actor who played Lennier is stilll mad about it (not because of shippy stuff, but because he - correctly! - thinks Lennier absolutely would not have done that). 

What *fandom* did, on the other hand, was Fixed The Problem.

Delenn/Lennier was not at all a big ship when the series was airing, and for a few years after. Then the fandom dynamics started to change. With less pressure on what canon was going to do, it felt like fandom had more space to play around with things it didn’t do. Fanfic got less interested in trying to fit within the overall story being told and started spinning off in all its own directions. And *this* ship started getting bigger and bigger. People did really interesting things with it, canon divergence went in all directions, everyone wrote a fix-it story of some variety, some authors did a great series of connected stories based on an idea that Minbari have three genders, the quality of the writing has been brilliant. And I think without that absolute whiplash feeling of what happened in canon, there would never have been this feeling of “well I’m not having THAT” which led to all this.

We did not need canon! Canon had done its thing. And canon had broken our hearts enough ways with many of the other stories it told (entirely on purpose) and we weren’t just going to sit back and let it ruin us forever.

By comparison, the other ship I was into was Marcus/Ivanova. This is entirely doomed. Susan Ivanova’s love life is just perpetually doomed. The first partner of hers we meet is an ex who’s interested in getting back together, but then it turns out he’s just using her to infiltrate the station for the fascist terrorist group he’s secretly joined. Then she falls for an archrival of hers, Talia, who works for Psi Corps, the organisation she loathes most of all things - but it’s okay because it turns out Talia is starting to question them too! Maybe these crazy kids can make it work! They have one night together and then OOPS turns out Talia was being secretly controlled by a sleeper personality implanted in her by Psi Corps the whole time. Ivanova’s love life is doomed. 

So for two seasons, she has this sort-of-flirty, sort-of-bickery, sort-of-friendship going with Marcus, who is on the surface of it very much “why not fall in love at first sight like a true romantic, YOLO!” but it turns out is actually deeply messed up himself and full of survivor’s guilt and pain and, you get the clear impression, would have died of shock if she’d actually called his bluff on the OTT flirting and said “yeah, let’s go for it”. And then he sacrifices himself to save her life. It is a very tragic ending, it is absolutely the way he would have wanted to go, she wakes up both furious and absolutely distraught, says that the last thing she heard was him saying “I love you”, says she wishes she’d at least slept with him once, and says that in a way all love is unrequited. PAIN. 

So, lots of fix-it fanfic, lots of ‘Marcus comes back to life’, lots of canon divergence AUs where he doesn’t die and they live happily ever after and both get over their huge levels of unresolved pain. Pretty standard for that kind of pairing. And as a pairing it doesn’t get in the way of any big canon pairings, it doesn’t imply anything icky like mentor/student power imbalances or adultery. And JMS clearly quite liked it. So that’s better, right?

NO. It was WORSE.

JMS wrote an Marcus/Ivanova story himself, published in one of the sci-fi magazines, to try to give them a happy ending. This happy ending involves Marcus, many many years in the future, waking up from the cryogenic suspension he’s in (it’s sci-fi, keep up, keep up). Ivanova is long dead, but he isn’t about to let this get in the way, so what he does is to *create a new Ivanova* by getting some kind of DNA + computerised memory/personality bank thing, finding a doctor who will clone her, putting himself back into animated sleep until the clone reaches the age Ivanova was when she died, then - THEN, I’M STILL GOING - takes her to a distant planet where, with her memories wiped and their spaceship having deliberately been crashed BY HIM so there’s no way back, they live out their lives in peace.

WHAT.

That pairing still does okay in fandom but it’s not really taken on a post-show world of headcanons and riffing on other people’s ideas and tropes in the way that Delenn/Lennier has (and we all just pretend that story never existed). 

So! This has been my experiences in the field of What We Do When The Show Has Thoughts On That Non-Endgame Ship We’re Into. Fandom manages. Fandom will see you through. And in the words of Susan Ivanova:

Babylon Five was the last of the Babylon stations; there would never be another. It changed the future, and it changed us. It taught us that we have to create the future, or others will do it for us. It showed us that we have to care for one another, for if we don’t, who will? And that true strength sometimes comes from the most unlikely places. Mostly though, I think it gave us hope that there can always be new beginnings - even for people like us.

[leportraitducadavre]

Alright, since I’ve received multiple asks about who I ship Sasuke with (or if I have a problem with specific ships), I’ll reiterate my posture regarding shipping culture:

I think it’s very poor, borderline shortsighted, to focus so incredibly much on the possibility of a character –that never specified being sexually interested in anyone, having a romantic partner. Besides the fact that Sasuke is a very traumatized man, a survivor of state-sanctioned genocide which affects his libido to the point of it being non-existent, the entirety of his characterization revolves around him seeking justice for his family. No. It’s not about his bond with Naruto, it’s not about his apparent sexual tension with Karin, nor is it about his crush (the fuck?) on Sakura. 

It’s Naruto the one whose characterization revolves around his bond with Sasuke, it’s Karin the one whose characterization revolves around her sexual desire for Sasuke, and it’s Sakura the one whose characterization revolves around her crush on Sasuke –Sasuke’s entire arc differs completely from theirs, as his entire goal, through the entire series, is about seeking justice for his family. 

What happens once Sasuke realizes he won’t be able to kill Itachi if he stays in Konoha? He leaves because he chooses his goal as an Avenger before his connection with Team 7 (yes, Itachi’s presence also reminded him of the imminent threat of having bonds that Itachi could easily destroy, but he doesn’t leave to protect T7, but to seek power to kill his brother). What happens once Sasuke kills Itachi? He learns about the truth behind the UCM, and decides to barge into the Kage Summit to kill Danzo and not return to Konoha. What happens once he kills Danzö? He still decides not to return and plans to bring the entire system down. I mean, where is his “bond with Naruto” in all this? Where is his “sexual tension” with Karin in all of this? Where is Sakura’s relevance in all of this? At no single moment does he focus on these bonds, often questioning the reason why these people are so adamant about pursuing him. Am I saying that they don’t matter at all to him? No, and you know that’s not the point of the post unless you’re looking for a reason to get upset in which case, I cannot help you. What I’m saying is that they’re not relevant to his main goal or characterization, as that power rests upon Itachi’s shoulders. Each character here mentioned has either more or less importance throughout his journey, but none of them are detrimental to his objective and none of them are important enough for him throughout the manga to deviate from his ambition (he even tried to kill each one of them when he deemed them a liability or they threatened the continuation of his mission).

Who do I ship Sasuke with? Nobody, I don’t enjoy a single pairing that is attributed to him, and I wish the fandom would realize that the entire plot revolves around the actions and consequences of a fascist regime, and not about who wanted to secretly or not so secretly fuck who, or who deserve his dick and who doesn’t. Yes, I’m being blunt, and some of you will think I’m exaggerating, but if you don’t see me talking about ships as often as you see me speaking about feminism or politics inside the Naruto manga, well, what a shocker, there’s a reason for it.

And to prevent people from putting words in my mouth, let me say this: I’m not saying you can’t enjoy a ship –go crazy if that’s what you want, do art, fanfics, and whatever rocks your boat, I won’t go after you trust me, but oh my god how come some of you would give a “potential romantic couple” so much more relevance than the actual plot?! Sasuke plainly and continuously reminds the characters and the readers what his true goal is and what he wants, and still, some of you will force a deep reading of a bubble of speech detached from his overall characterization to prove that he was smitten with x,y,z all along!

[zvaigzdelasas]

"The first session of the 118th Congress was one of the least productive in the body’s history. Only 22 bills were signed into law this year by the president — by far the lowest total since at least 1993, the first year for which the National Archives have data. (For comparison, the next least productive year during this timespan was in 2013, when 72 bills became law.) Despite the slow year, members nonetheless found time to introduce an abundance of bills relating to the threat of China, which was the focus of hearings in committees ranging from Financial Services to the Judiciary committee, and of legislation concerning everything from fentanyl distribution to TikTok. In 2023, members introduced 616 pieces of legislation that contain a variation of the word “China” — more than 3.5 for every day that Congress was in session on average. That’s already more than any two-year congressional session, except for the 117th Congress (2021-2022; 860 bills) and the 116th (2019-2020; 620 bills), according to a search of the congressional record. One of the few “accomplishments” in Congress this year was the formation of the Select Committee on the Strategic Competition Between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party — which was almost instantly dubbed the “tough on China committee” — in January."[...]

Members of Congress introduced at least nine bills aimed at restricting foreign ownership of agricultural land in the United States. As RS has explained, these efforts are not always logical, even if there are some legitimate national security concerns over China or other nations buying up farmland.[...]

Rep. Andy Ogles (R-Tenn.) and five co-sponsors introduced the “Defund China’s Allies Act” to “prohibit the availability of foreign assistance to certain countries that do not recognize the sovereignty of Taiwan,” aimed at 21 countries in Central America and the Caribbean. The bill argues that the “United States efforts to condemn these countries’ willing diplomatic shift toward a genocidal government is undermined by an incomprehensible adherence to the so-called ‘One China’ policy, on terms dictated by the Chinese Communist Party,” implicitly calling for an end to the policy that has maintained peace in the Taiwan Strait for decades.[...]

bills introduced by Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), Reps. John Curtis (R-Utah), and Chris Pappas (D-N.H.) [...] would have renamed the Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office (TECRO) in Washington, D.C. to the Taiwan Representative Office, because it “better reflects its status as Taiwan’s de facto diplomatic mission to the United States.” That was only one of many bills that were purely symbolic and antagonizing, including one that demanded that Beijing “must be held financially liable for $16,000,000,000,000,” because of its responsibility in the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic and a resolution that declared China to be the biggest threat to freedom in the world. “Whereas it is the opinion of Congress that the Chinese Communist Party is the greatest threat to freedom and to the free world,” reads the text, introduced by Rep. George Santos (R-N.Y.). “Be it Resolved by the House of Representatives (the Senate concurring), That Congress agrees that the Chinese Communist Party is the greatest threat to freedom and to the free world.” That’s the entire resolution.

27 Dec 23

[rlyehtaxidermist]

I think there’s a bit of a tendency to portray Saileach as almost an ingenue? Playing up the contrast to the more physical Bagpipe and more troubled Reed, and leaning in to her characterisation early in Chapter 9. But I think this is a pretty major misreading of her post-Chapter 9 characterisation, as seen in her oprec and profile.

Yes, she’s noted to be kind and beautiful. Yes, she was a rear-echelon soldier with primarily ceremonial responsibilities as a garrison’s standard-bearer. Yes, she has no combat experience prior to leaving the Army. But that’s all stuff that happens before everything goes to hell in Chapter 9. In quick succession, she:

discovers a pending terrorist attack

tries her hardest to negotiate a peaceful resolution to the pending terrorist attack

finds out her own side is planning war crimes and genocide against their own citizens using the pending terrorist attack as an excuse

quits the army on the spot and runs around trying to save as many people as she can, including other soldiers and members of the aforementioned terrorist group

while also picking fights with her former superiors and the terrorist group

joins RI as pretty much the only organisation not doing crazy war crimes

ran around in the aftermath of a dirty bomb but didn’t suffer many ill effects on account of being Built Different

does a bunch of research on and adopts a codename from the language of the people her former superiors were trying to genocide in memory of her friend who introduced her to their culture

shows up and immediately starts a one punch man training regimen intense enough that people who work with noted hardass anime drill sergeant Dobermann take one look at her and say “hey maybe you should chill”

in response, went and got a doctor’s note that basically boils down to “i don’t need to chill. i’m Built Different. you should chill”

in her oprec she basically founds a town and negotiates a peace between surviving victims of the aformentioned war crimes

after getting the rundown from Reed - acting leader of the aformentioned terrorist group and the one directly responsible for the death of her friend - about Reed’s own guilt and relationships that led to it (per RTFS’s file), makes some understanding with her and starts working with her to help her people

some choice bits from her file:

“Where she differs from Bagpipe is that she doesn't, in any way, consider this a duty. From the moment she decided to leave the army, she never again held herself to be a Victorian soldier. In truth, she took to her new identity as a Rhodes Island Operator exceptionally well, and very quickly was proactive in throwing herself into all manner of combat/non-combat missions. She more than once mentioned the deceased elite operator Outcast's influence on her. Returning to Victoria, to her, is more of a calling. She holds a sense of justice deep in her heart, firmly resolved to spare no effort, looking to stand off against the evils that brought her such bitter memories. “

“ As an emigrant of Sargon living in Victoria, coupled with her sensitive nature, Saileach never forgets the challenges of minority communities struggling in the world. Whether she realizes it or not, this is where her longstanding empathy with the oppressed originates; and with her clearer grasp on the differences between herself and said people, it's only more commendable that on missions, without any qualms, she sees Infected children bleeding and offers a hand. “

She starts as a bit of a sheltered idealist, but drops the “sheltered” like Rock Lee’s training weights the instant shit gets real and has been doing 80 hit fighting game aerial combos against Terra being a cynical shithole ever since

[fireemblems24]

Golden Wildfire Ch 11

On we go to ch 11. Things are . . . uh . . . interesting.

MAIN STORY

So if you didn't see ch 10, I failed to recruit Byleth. I retried the level a few time, but honestly I just want to finish this game so I didn't bother.

Plus, the reason I failed was that Claude just sat there instead of moving forward on the escort mission, which got really frustrating, and honestly I didn't want to bother.

Ugh, I don't want to fight the Kingdom.

So those Houses that wanted to defect to the Kingdom didn't because Claude's battle was that bloody in that fire map.

Poor Dimitri and co seems like he's just betting bullied for no real reason by two imperialistic maniacs.

I love how Arval is getting snooty over Shez getting credit for their tactics lamo.

Man, this dialogue is dragging.

So Nadar is going to cause diplomatic chaos by utilizing the Almyran army without getting real permission.

Wait, Claude riled up Sreng? So much for "ending racism" lamo. Wasn't having two cultures not be prejudice against each other like his MO? The writers really just threw him in the trash, hunh.

I feel so bad for Claude fans. He's really a piece of work in this.

MAP/SIDE STUFF

Everyone missing Judith has a lot more punch than Randolph. Even Monica was like "get over it" to Fleche (but nicely).

So, let me make sure I have this right. Mr. I Want to End Prejudice Between Cultures just provoked Sreng into attacking the Kingdom so Edelgard can take it over because Rhea is the reason for everything bad. Did I get that right?

Unlike SB, GW is entertaining as hell, but man is the logic here is just non-existant. And poor Claude RIP.

Like, I know I'm biased and all, but I don't see how you're supposed to be the heroes and not Dimitri here. The people just defending themselves are getting attacked on all 3 fronts for the crime of *existing.*

Not going to lie. I kinda wish Claude didn't side with you in AG either. It would've been hype to kick everyone's ass as Dimitri after getting cornered by all these land-grabbers.

GW!Claude is really just the mean girl's sidekick. 😂

If Felix and Rodrigue die in this chapter I swear to God . . . (I just remembered Rodrigue is dead in SB now 😭 - LET THIS MAN SURVIVE).

I had to fight Felix in a side mission. Lysithea said they had to "defend this place" - like, girl, you are invading.

When the challenge is "you can't dodge" but you're using Lorenz 😌👌 (FYI, he just does not take damage in this game)

SHEZ & HILDA A SUPPORT

They're talking about how Hilda exerted energy in a battle because she worried about Shez.

Hilda claims it's just self-defense bc she was cheering for Shez on the front lines and enemies were there (honestly, this is pretty boring so far)

It's the same-old Hilda claiming she's weak but that not being true.

SHEZ & CONSTANCE C SUPPORT

I know she's an Empire character, but whatever.

She wants to create new magics to restore her noble house and wants to research Shez bc of their weird magic

Lamo, Constance low-key called us dumb

Shez suggests she get her house back through military accomplishments.

Constance refuses to train right now, she wants to at night (it's her dual personality thing, right?)

CLAUDE & LYSITHEA B SUPPORT

Their first one. Claude's unhappy Lysithea charged in the last battle. But Lysithea kicked ass, so she's upset with Claude.

Claude calls her plan dumb and that he thought Lysithea was smarter than that. Lysithea still argues it ended earlier bc of her.

Lysithea doesn't back down.

Honestly, I side with her here. Claude's being patronizing. And it's rich of him not to care about all the other deaths dragging out the battle would cause and only Lysithea dying because she's *important*

CLAUDE & HOLST A SUPPORT

Oof, this one hurts. Claude accuses the church of creating all the systems to serve their own interests, because he doesn't know the truth here. That the Empire actually created most of it, and that all the church ever did was protect a genocided race from being murdered by more power-hungry humans.

It's also hysterical to hear Claude talk about wanting to improve foreign relations while instigating a war between two cultures.

Oof, Holst doesn't care about any of this. He's only worried Claude's going to send Hilda to marry a big, brown, scary foreigner. NOT a good look.

Holst says he cares more about Hilda's future than the whole Alliance. Yikes.

HILDA & HOLST A SUPPORT

They're preparing a feast.

Oh, it's nice to see Hilda's insecurities about Holst's "perfection" come up in this, bc so far she hadn't said much.

After that last support though, Holst is actually a pretty shitty leader.

Holst wants to make the feast all about Hilda instead of himself though. Hilda likes the attention.

Hilda basically had to set up her own feast lol.

HILDA & LINHARDT A SUPPORT

Hilda's cleaning, and Linhardt's honestly upset that he's lost a fellow lazy person.

Hilda claims she never pushes work on people. That, is a lie.

Linhardt is mostly worried how bad it'll look if he's the only one not working instead one of two.

All this support confirms that Linhardt is by far the superior lazy.

LORENZ & LYSITHEA A SUPPORT

Their only support.

So, not related to their support (and watch it counter it), but I find it pretty amusing how getting a leadership position faster matured Felix and Sylvain, but Lorenz is still a bit of a joke and the butt-end of every support he's in.

He's just bragging about how awesome his position and power is.

Lysithea says she's not inheriting her house. She claims it's because she doesn't like what comes with nobility, but we all know why.

She worried that the land will go to chaos without it's leaders though. Lorenz offers help (which, imo, he's actually mature here!)

Lorenz suspects she's turning it down for another reason and encourages her to rely on others to help.

RAPHAEL & LEONIE B SUPPORT

Raphael keeps snapping bows in half when he uses them. Leonie's shocked.

Leonie seems to actually make one and invites Raphael to test it while on guard duty with her.

IGNATZ & MARIANNE B SUPPORT

Marianne found his picture. He puts it down, but she likes it (it's a horse, well a pegasus, but of course)

Ignatz gets carried away talking about it, but Marianne finds it cute.

Ignatz finds Marianne loving pegasus cute. She blushes.

He wants Marianne's help, helping him paint a pegasus bc they don't like men, but if Marianne is around he can get closer and get a better painting. She's happy to help.

Honestly, this whole support is really cute.

MAIN BATTLE/STORY

It sucks having to attack the Kingdom over and over again when all they want to do is exist in peace.

Oh, joy, Nadar wants to plunder Faerghus. I can see why Fodlan is so evil for not wanting to let them do what they will.

GW really had a chance here to finally do something interesting with Almyra. It even marketed itself as a route that WOULD. But instead it's just doubled-down on Almyra being a one-note lawless place full of barbarians. At least we have Brigid and Duscur so the only brown country isn't some racist stereotype. Since it's only 1 of 3, it's not AS bad of a look.

Fuck. I don't want to kill Felix and Rodrigue. It would be one thing if the Kingdom actually provoked this, but Felix and Rodrigue haven't done anything to deserve this.

I get to recruit Ashe again. Is he miserable here too?

Ugh, I was hoping Felix and Rodrigue weren't here. It seems vastly unfair that it's only Kingdom characters who die for reel in this.

Wow. Claude's really an A-class asshole. He told Ashe to surrender because Dimitri wouldn't want him to die. Maybe don't invade for no reason then?

Is Claude also going to single Felix out as a citizen of Faerghus who deserves to live? Or does only Ashe count and not the nobles and unnamed grunts he's slaughtering because he decided to team up with the person who plans on taking over his rule? (not hate to Ashe at all, I honestly feel awful for him in this game)

Ok, so fighting Felix is just a side quest. I'd rather fail a side quest than fight Felix so, going to try to avoid having to kill him. Ugh, he's attacking the engineers. And he's damn right saying he has every right to kill the people who are invading his home.

Thank God, he just retreated.

I still love how Claude got bent out of shape over Ashe, but Lorenz alone has killed 500 citizens of Faerghus this chapter so . . .

Felix is so worried about Rodrigue. I swear the writers wanted you to feel like shit playing this route.

Oh, fuck. Just when I thought I was finished killing people for defending themselves, Daddy Gautier shows up :( He's sacrificing himself to safe Felix and Rodrigue, isn't he?

Oh, fuck. He died for real 😭

It's really hard to like these characters, making mindless chit-chat after killing Sylvain's daddy. I hope Sylvain fucks them up a new one.

I've never wanted to slap a character more than I'd love to slap Claude right now. The moron has the audacity to be surprised people are going to die while he's invading a foreign country. What a fucking stupid moron.

He's also blaming - get this right - chivalry.

I'm like. I'm speechless right now.

That's right guys. Margrave Gautier died defending his king, his country, his home, and most importantly one of his fucking best friends from an asshole invader. But it's CULTURE'S fault he died.

I'm really confused what the hell Claude thinks he's doing. Does he REALLY think killing Rhea will magically allow people to live as they please? Didn't he grow up in another country where they had princes and shit and NO Rhea?? All he's doing is making Edelgard's take over easier.

This is starting to feel like a borderline spoof. Look at us end the war by invading another nation!!! I mean???

What's his plan? Kill everyone in Faerghus - profit - "freedom" from Rhea - Edelgard takes over - no profit???

The writing in this route has gotten really fucking stupid. Like, I LIKE the idea of evil!Claude. Either a Claude who wants to take over all of Fodlan or one who's ruthless and will do anything to preserve Leicester.

But what I don't like is really fucking dumb Claude, which is what GW's devolved into.

Oh, God, now we get a flashback between father and son. Sylvain and Gautier :(

Sylvain better not be fucking recruitable in this route.

Now Sylvain's in charge 😭😭😭😭

I'm convinced someone who's a major Edelgard stan wrote the larger plot of this, but then a Dimitri stan wrote the actual dialogue 😅

We really go from one moment Claude being like - it's Rhea's fault Gautier died bc Kingdom culture bad because church bad to Sylvain being like, naw, he died defending his friends.

At the very least, I'll give Hopes credit here. At least they didn't write anyone opposing Edelgard as either evil or like they're idiots for resisting invasion, but I almost feel like they made the Kingdom especially too sympathetic which makes Edelgard look more interesting (since SB is more honest than CF) and Claude just look like a bozo. Rhea just doesn't look like anything since she's not even here.

Though, I REALLY wish Claude didn't side with us in AG. I really wish we got to see Faerghus backed into a corner and kick everyone's asses. They've very much the underdog and watching them do that would've been awesome.

Felix and Rodrigue are beating themselves up over this.

See, this is what I mean - Sylvain just said he's reserving all his hatred for the foreign invaders who take everything for no reason - I really feel like a Dimitri fan saw how everyone collectively decided to take a dump on the Kingdom in the big plot and got revenge by making everyone look like villains (or morons in Claude's case) for doing so in the writing.

xxx

[keshetchai]

Not to be yet another salty Jew in your inbox, but a mormon acquaintance of mine posted about "israhell" and like.... Girl you people literally go on cultural genocide trips as a rite of passage, shut the fuck up 😭😭😭

Honestly the only reason why Mormons wouldn't be just like all the other Christian Zionists is because they're mad they can't mission in Israel so this is like...several layers of funny.

[natlacentral]

For ‘Avatar’s’ Dallas Liu and Paul Sun-Hyung Lee, Zuko and Iroh’s relationship ‘was the most important thing’

One of the most emotional callbacks in Netflix’s “Avatar: The Last Airbender” is in the music.

The fourth episode of the series, “Into the Dark,” features a flashback to a funeral. As young Prince Zuko offers his condolences to his Uncle Iroh on the death of his son Lu Ten, the score transitions into an orchestral version of the familiar melody, “Leaves From the Vine.” The song, first heard in the animated “Avatar” series, has long been associated with the Fire Nation general’s grief.

“That wrecked me,” said Paul Sun-Hyung Lee, who portrays Iroh in the new live-action adaptation, now streaming.

“I only just heard the [new] song in December,” added Dallas Liu, who plays Zuko. “I started imagining our scene and [it] killed me.”

The live-action “Avatar” co-stars were in high spirits as they discussed the show and their characters’ relationship over coffee at a West Hollywood hotel earlier this month. (This reporter borrowed a page from Iroh’s book on the joys of spending time with fascinating strangers and opted for tea.) 

Both actors say they are big fans of the animated series, which originally aired from 2005 to 2008 on Nickelodeon. More than once they mentioned the high bar set by the original show and the responsibility they felt to honor its spirit (a previous attempt was not well received), especially because everybody else on set loved the show, too.

“Not even just me and Paul,” Liu said. “Our cast members, our writers, even our transportation and craft [services] team.”

“Avatar” is set in a world inspired by Asian and Indigenous cultures, where certain people have the power to manipulate elements through a martial arts-infused ability known as bending. The original series was the rare children’s cartoon that touched on weighty topics such as war, genocide and imperialism within a fantasy coming-of-age story of a young hero destined to save the world.

“Zuko is a character that I’ve always loved since my childhood,” said Liu of the exiled Fire Nation prince. He is desperately searching for the Avatar — a special bender reincarnated into every generation tasked with maintaining harmony in the world — in order to win his father’s approval and a way back home.

Accompanying Zuko on his mission is Iroh, a renowned general and former heir to the crown who’d spent years at the front lines of the Fire Nation’s ongoing war to conquer the other nations.

Iroh “seems very jovial, but you know there is way more to him than that,” Lee said. “He carries a profound sense of sadness and loss.”

Working within a franchise with a passionate fanbase is nothing new for Lee, who has appeared as New Republic pilot Captain Carson Tevain several recent “Star Wars” series including “Ahsoka” and “The Mandalorian.” But getting cast as Iroh has offered the “Kim’s Convenience” actor a chance to take on the challenge of portraying a character that is already well-loved.

For Lee, Zuko and Iroh’s relationship “was the most important thing to get right.”

“It’s such a backbone to [Zuko’s] story arc,” Lee said. “To his pursuit and where he starts and where he ends.”

Because while “Avatar” is a story that follows Aang (Gordon Cormier), the world’s last airbender, as he figures out how to embrace his destiny and become the hero he is meant to be, it’s also a story about the teens in Aang’s orbit carving out their own paths.

Knowing this, Liu appreciated that their “Avatar” explores Zuko and Iroh’s past a earlier than it was revealed in the animated show. While there are some hints, it’s not until the second season that the animation digs into the Fire Nation royal family’s (dysfunctional) backstory. And some flashback scenes, like Lu Ten’s funeral, are original to the adaptation.

“I was excited because there was no expectation for it already,” Liu said. “I think there are scenes and dialogue [from the animated show] that people are going to look for with a certain level of expectation. But for everything that is new for Zuko on our show, it allowed me to be an artist and be creative.”

These moments were blank canvases Liu relished. He explained that to prepare for the younger version of Zuko in these flashbacks, he took hints from what he learned from his time on “PEN15” watching creators Maya Erskine and Anna Conkle portray middle-school versions of themselves.

“I think I got to tap into that younger side of my own self because I do see similarities between myself and Zuko,” said Liu. “Especially 14-year-old Zuko because there’s no ounce of evil in him.”

Iroh is despondent at Lu Ten’s funeral, as a procession of guests stop by to express their sympathies for the death of his only child. When it’s his turn, Zuko only offers the sentiments that are expected of him at first. But then he shares more heartfelt words as he tries to console his uncle. It’s one of the show’s earliest looks at Zuko’s humanity and capacity for love.

“Dallas does some really, really beautiful work at that funeral scene,” Lee said. “That speech that he delivers is just so heartbreakingly beautiful and comforting. He does all the heavy lifting. I just needed to react to what he was giving me.”

Not for the first time, Liu is quick to respond to the compliment by expressing his own appreciation for everything he learned from Paul during their time together on set. 

“Especially that scene, and in a lot of our other emotional scenes, I can’t stress how much I actually relied on Paul,” Liu said. “He was always there every day to support me with honestly all of our scenes.”

Equally charming was when Liu tried to credit Iroh’s influence as the reason why Zuko is able to open up, for one brief moment, with Aang during another episode. Lee is quick to point out that Zuko’s compassion was something already within him from when he was younger, as seen in the flashback scenes. 

Lee is aware that “Avatar” fans have wondered whether he would sing “Leaves From the Vine” on the series. It was first featured in Season 2 of the animated “Avatar” in an episode that shows Iroh singing the song through tears after he sets up a small memorial for Lu Ten on his birthday. (That segment was dedicated to Mako, Iroh’s original voice actor, who had died before the episode aired.)

“I didn’t want to spoil anything … but I knew that one scene was coming up,” Lee said. It’s one of the reveals that leads to “everybody look[ing] at Zuko differently. I love that. This adaptation, it really is about subtext, past experiences, traumas, success, failures, all of that stuff.”

Both Liu and Lee hope that their Zuko and Iroh will get to continue on their journey.

“What I love about their relationship is, Iroh is there to give advice, but he never tells [Zuko] what to do,” Lee said. Zuko’s “got to find his own way, and he supports him. … I really do wish [we get] to do more [seasons], because I want to see that relationship flourish even more.”

[thewriterowl]

Luke Skywalker is Mand’alor

Now that season 3 is done and I was able to stew over it, I find myself liking it more than the initial watch (not in love but I know it is that final scene that has made it loads better/worth it)...but I LOVE the idea more on Luke is the rightful ruler of Mandalore due to the ridiculous line of defeat of the Darksaber

Can you imagine?? We’ve had so much fun watching Din “my god let me just be a side character in my own show” Djarin do his thing...but Luke?? The guy who keeps getting pushed as the center of the galaxy? The poor guy. He already has to deal with being a “shared” Chosen One with his formerly very evil father, seen as a galactic hero who “single handedly” (he keeps saying this is not the case) took out the Empire, reviving a culture that was genocide-d basically on his own (his aunt seems to not be very involved in his life???), going on near-death missions still after doing his Chosen One duties...and now is a king by some weird technicality??

Do you know how DONE he would be???

Because he defeated his father, who defeated Kenobi, who defeated Maul? Or because he defeated his father who defeated the Emperor who defeated Maul? OR  because he defeated his father who defeated Ahsoka who defeated Maul? 

Luke would try to say, “The Emperor defeated me!” or “I didn’t win against my father, technically!” or “Weren’t at least one of those previous matches a draw or something???” or “Surely with all the hands it’s been passed around to the line was officially broken?????”. And like all of them have a counter-argument that still leads back RIGHT TO HIM because, even IF Anakin defeated the Emperor who defeated Luke, he still ADMITS that Luke defeated him by saving him from the Darkside with like his dying breath!! Or, even better because it is the words from Din in the season, he defeated the enemy who defeated/captured/cornered Din & Bo-Katan on the cruiser--cause, within the scene, it is heavily implied they were all about to die (aka be defeated) if he hadn’t shown up!

There is like literally no escape from it!

He literally just wants to be a teacher, like a pre-school teacher at this point and do fun flips over rocks while doing things to make people happy and not kill any more.

And he is made to be a king of a “cursed” planet of a former enemy.

Because of COURSE a Skywalker would have that luck.

[randomthoughtswhileeatingdonuts]

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[communistkenobi]

i don’t know if you have seen the TOS movies so i will try to be as vague about this as possible so to not spoil them for you. i think a large portion (or at least a portion) of the issues presented in TOS are because starfleet sucks, to put it in the best words. this is not including the issues and harm it has done on real people, im talking about the in-universe starfleet and how it presents itself and its rules (example: colonization (encouraging its captains to colonize, encouraging its captains to make other planets and civilizations join their “american” federation)). a larger and more prominent explanation is how its, as described in VI, a “homosapiens-only club”. the klingon who says this also goes on to say that the federation is racist. and this is shown after both kirk and spock say they believe that the federation is peaceful. and obviously they think that because that’s what it presents itself as to it’s employees. another example is in TSFS when a higher authority from the federation tells kirk that he doesn’t believe in vulcan rituals, therefore, if kirk does this ritual, he will be fired. i know this is shown in the show as well but the more obvious examples are from the movies; to me it feels like they’re outright saying it in the films

i know this is not how it was intended to be perceived but this is what the show presents it as. i could be missing something or misunderstanding but this is how i see it, and from what i’ve heard, this is talked about in ds9

also starfleet coincidentally decides that the dark skinned aliens are enemies (this is more of a writing choice and the writers (and character designers) are at fault for this but it presents itself as an obvious issue, in universe, in V & VI)

I’ve seen the first four movies! My recall on canon and the intricacies of starfleet etc are not so precise, so I appreciate the context and some of that sounds familiar. I’m assuming you’re responding to my bitching about the politics of tos and how disconnected it is (in my view) with the fandom’s perception of tos as a progressive cultural text. 

I think those examples are good highlights of a lot of the in-universe problems with Starfleet. To go a step further, I think even absent Starfleet’s racist or discriminatory history in-universe, the show itself (at least tos, I haven’t seen the others) operates on a colonial imaginary, by which I mean, its basic narrative premises and assumptions are colonial (and therefore racist) in character.

Like okay, the premise of tos is that the Enterprise, as an ambassador of Starfleet/the Federation, is seeking out new alien life to study. The Prime Directive prohibits the Enterprise crew from interfering with the development of any alien culture or people while they do this, so the research they collect needs to be done in an unobtrusive way. I think this is the first point at which people balk at the charge that tos is colonial - the Enterprise’s mission is premised on non-interference, and I think when people hear ‘colonial’ as a descriptor they (understandably, obviously) assume it is describing active conquest, genocide, and dispossession. Even setting aside all the times where Kirk does directly interfere with the “development” of a people or culture (usually because they’ve “stagnated” culturally, because a culture without conflict cannot evolve or “develop” beyond its current presumed capacity - he is pretty explicitly imposing his own values onto another culture in order to force them to change in a particular way), or the times when the Enterprise is actually looking to extract resources from a given planet or people, I’m not exactly making this claim, or rather, that’s not the only thing I’m describing when calling tos colonial.

Its presentation of scientific discovery and inquiry is anthropological - the “object” of analysis is alien/foreign culture, meaning that when the Enterprise crew comes into contact with a new being or person, this person is always read first and foremost through the level of (the Enterprise’s understanding of) culture. Their behaviour, beliefs, dress, way of speaking, appearance, and so on are always reflective of (and represent a microcosm of) their culture as a whole, and more importantly, that their racial or phenotypic characteristics define the boundaries of their culture, ie, culture is interpreted, navigated, and bound racially. Because of this, Kirk and Co are never really interacting with individuals, they are interacting with components of a (foreign, exotic, fundamentally different) culture. And when they interact with these cultures, they very frequently measure them using a universalized scale of development - they have an evolutionary view of culture, ie, that all cultures go from savage to rational, primitive to advanced, economically marginal to economically dominant (ie, to capitalism). And the metrics they are judging these cultures by are fundamentally Western ones, always emphasising to the audience that the final destination of all cultures (that are worthy of advancing beyond their current limited/“primitive” stages) is a culture identical to the Federation, a culture that can itself engage in this anthropological mission to catalogue all life as fitting within a universal set of practices and racial similarities they call “culture.”

This is a western, colonial understanding of culture - racially and spatially homogenous people comprise the organs of a social totality, ie, a society, which can then be analysed as an “object,” as a “phenomenon,” by the scientists in order to extract information from them to produce and advance state (ie Federation) knowledge. The Enterprise crew are allowed to be individuals, are allowed to be subjects with a capacity for reason, contradiction, emotion, compassion, and even moments of savagery or violence, without those things being assigned to their “race” or “culture” as a whole, but the people they interact with are only components of a whole which are “discovered” by the Enterprise as opportunities to expand and refine the Federation’s body of knowledge.

And on the flip side you have the Klingons, which you brought up - a “race” that is uniformly savage, backward, violent, and dangerous. In the episode Day of the Dove, where Klingons board the Enterprise along with an alien cloud that makes everyone very aggressive and racist (this show is insane lol), the Enterprise crew begins acting violent and racist, but the Klingons don’t change. They aren’t more violent than before (because they already were fundamentally violent and racist), and they don’t become less violent when the cloud eventually leaves (because they are never able to emerge from their violence and savagery as a social condition or external imposition - they simply are that way). Klingons are racially, behaviourally, psychologically, and culturally homogenous, universally violent and immune to reason, and their racial characteristics are both physical manifestations of this universal violence as well as the origin of it. The writers and creators of tos are consciously invoking the orientalist idea of the “Mongolian horde,” representing both the American fear of Soviet global takeover as well as blatantly racist fears about “asiatics” (a word used in the show, particularly in The Omega Glory where a fear of racialised communist takeover is made explicit) dominating the world.

This is colonial thinking! Like, fundamentally, at its core, this is colonial white supremacist thinking. Now this is not the fault of tos as an individual show, this is a problem with western science in general, and I am not expecting a television show to navigate its way outside of this current colonial paradigm of scientific knowledge. I’m also not expecting an average person watching this to pick out all the intricacies of this and link it to the colonial history of Europe or the colonial history of western science. But this base premise of Star Trek is why the show is fundamentally colonial - even if the crew never intervened in any alien conflict, never extracted any material resources from other people, and even if the Federation did not have all these explicitly racist practices that you outlined, this would still be colonial logic and colonial thinking. The show has a fundamentally colonial imagination when it comes to exploration, discovery, and culture.

And so my problem, which is maybe where I need to adjust expectations for tumblr fandom, is when people call this show socialist or durably progressive in any way. This is not because socialist societies can’t be colonial or can’t be racist, obviously they can be those things, but because people are bundling “post-racist, post-bigotry, post-discrimination” in their labelling of tos as “socialist media.” When I hear someone call a piece of media socialist I am also bringing my own assumptions into those things, ie, I am expecting this claim to be actually reflective of the politics within the show to some degree. There can of course be debates about the exact nature and quality of those socialistic politics (see conversations about the politics of Disco Elysium, a contemporary canonical example of actual “socialist art”), but I’m at least expecting there to by a whiff of them in there! And I don’t think tos stands up to basic scrutiny in this regard. I genuinely do not even buy that it’s progressive, for reasons I’ve outlined above. Again that’s a genre problem, I think all sci-fi has to contend with this, but tos is certainly not a progressive exception to the political norms of sci-fi as a genre. 

And THIS IS OBVIOUSLY not me saying you can’t like tos or that you’re racist for doing so, I deeply enjoy the show on its own terms, and its politics (good and bad) are part of that enjoyment. I’m also someone who is in university & complicit in all of these colonial scientific assumptions and practices, I’m not positioning myself as morally superior in this discussion. But when people package their enjoyment of the show with their analysis of it as socialist, as progressive, I think that is pretty fucking stupid and leads to a lot of handwaving of its fundamentally racist narrative premises. Hence my bitching 

[zvtara-was-never-canon]

I think ZKs are projecting Sokka onto Katara. Since let’s think about it, how much of their claims applies more to Sokka?

1. Being one of Zuko’s foils. 2. Being a “Parent” of the group. Sokka does want to be seen as the leader and he often behaves as the Dad Friend. 3. X Has irrational hatred for the Fire Nation, which Zuko and a few others helps him with. 4. Their stories making it make sense to pair them together. As mentioned, Sokka does want to be the Leader. 5. Zuko understands Sokka better than Katara.

Sorry to disappoint, anon, but I STRONGLY disagree.

On them supposedly being narrative foils

Zuko has three narrative foils: Aang, Ozai and Azula. The show goes out of it's way to make that clear through tons of episodes directly highlighting how simmilar Zuko is to Aang, designing Ozai to look like an older version of him that doesn't have the scar, and Azula is a look at the tragic fate he would have had if he had stood by his father's side until the bitter end.

Sokka wanting to be a warrior is not that special in a series about martial arts/war, and him wanting to be the leader is constantly shown as being about his relationship with Hakoda. At most, the "I want to make my father proud" thing would be the real parallel here (and one paralel does not make characters true foils to each other), with Hakoda being a good dad that is worth admiring and taking inspiration from, while Ozai is the cautionary tale his son needs to use as the exemple of what NOT to do.

Leader/Parent

Sokka is not the parent of the group, and neither is Zuko. Katara is the mom friend, and she has mixed feelings about it exactly because, while she naturally takes on that role, she's the ONLY ONE to do so, and thus she sometimes resents her own motherly nature because she fears her friends see her as "mom friend" first and "one of us" second.

As for the leader of the group, that is very clearly Aang, with Katara taking charge/co-leading sometimes because, duh, he's the main character and the whole show is about HIS mission, of course he calls the shots.

Sokka, at most, has moments of frustration when people are being stupid or disregarding a plan, and the show constantly makes fun of him for taking himself too seriously and trying to pretend he is the "adult in charge". Not at all the same as being the dude in charge of changing an entire nation's philosophy on war - which is ALSO very different from being the dad friend or a leader of a small squad.

Racism VS Righteous Anger

Zuko was indoctrinated from birth to be an entitled, selfish, racist prince, and he also experience emotional and physical abuse, as well as victim blaming after it, and it all made him prone to lashing out at people who have done literally nothing to deserve it. He is trying to help his family, and Fire Lord, commit genocide.

Sokka meanwhile hates the Fire Nation for the DECADES of raids on his tribe that killed his culture and his mother, and forced his father to leave. Still, he speaks out against things like Jet's plan to kill a bunch of innocent people to "free" them from the Fire Nation, doesn't have anything against Piandao, is horrified by Hama's actions, and accepts Zuko into the group once he proves he truly has changed and doesn't want to harm them.

He wasn't eager to save the guy that was constantly chasing him, his friend and his sister around the world, and was willing to kill a tyrant to save himself and others. That is not the same as "irrational hatred" - no, I don't care what a spirit that will not be killed if the Fire Nation wins the war has to say on the matter, it's really easy to say "violence is always bad, even in self-defense" when you're not the one in danger.

"They understand each other more, so it makes sense to pair them together"

Does it? Does it though? Because The Boiling Rock makes a running joke of how much of a not ideal match they are. Awkward silence during their conversation followed by an equally awkward "that's rough, buddy", and Sokka CONSTANTLY not understanding what in the fuck Zuko is talking about when trying to give advice.

Sure, they managed to make it work in the end, but that's not the same as the effortless pair up of Aang and Zuko in the Blue Spirit episode, or Azula always knowing how to get to Zuko so he puts himself in vulnerable position during a fight (and him then using her own tactic against her in the finale) but also working as a great duo with him in Ba Sing Se without having to say a word, or even the time he and Iroh fought against the earthbenders in book 1.

Just because Zuko reacted when Sokka said the word "honor" and they talked about girlfriend trouble doesn't mean they have some deep understanding for one another. Sokka is legitimately one of the few characters that has even LESS of a connection with Zuko than Katara. They're on the same side and they're friends, but they're not as close to each other as they are to literally everyone else in their friend group.

[atopfourthwall]

Really? Don't get me wrong, I like the Doctor Falls speech more too but I'm genuinely surprised you didn't like the ZI speech and now I'm wondering if I wildly misinterpreted what it was about. Not to presume I'm an expert on your opinion just because I watch your show, of course, but the horror and pointlessness suffering of war and swearing to never let anyone feel the same pain they have feel right in line with things you love about hero stories, let alone Doctor Who.

The Doctor is attempting to defend a "peace" that forces the world to pretend that the Zygons do not exist, that they are not allowed to be themselves, and suppress their culture and identities. It's not even a matter of unfortunate subtext - the writer episode said in an interview "If you are being harassed and targeted and oppressed, you have to reach an accommodation with them." - Doctor Who writer "wouldn’t change" divisive episode | Radio Times If you want a real life equivalent, it's basically saying "Oh, I don't mind if you're gay - just don't shove it in my face." That kind of horseshit but worse because it also involves erasing memories. It's generic "WAR IS BAAAAAD" rubbish that ignores the actual POINT OF THE ENTIRE CONFLICT. And I'm sorry, Doctor, but there are legitimate reasons why you will go to war - that you HAVE to go to war. Invoking the Time War is especially idiotic with that - as if things would have been fine if the Time Lords had just tried to give peace a chance WITH THE GENOCIDAL PEPPERPOTS. I won't even get into Moffat continually reducing the nightmarish imagery invoked by RTD's era when talking about the Time War to just "Daleks and Time Lords shooting at each other and generic war stuff," but it's especially laughable when time and again throughout his history the Doctor has encouraged oppressed people to rise up and destroy their oppressors. No, no, the solution is just "maintain the situation that isn't actually working because apparently they've done this multiple times now." Him going "Oh, I forgive you for murdering a bunch of innocent people" is really kind of disgusting, too. The Doctor's morality can certainly fluctuate depending on the situation (because often it's not about universal moral standards but attempting to set a PARTICULAR situation right or just in some fashion), but he is not really one to side with the people killing innocents. It's why I his speech to Missy and the Master is SO much better - because it's a personal declaration of who he is and what he does and why, a character-defining moment and mission statement of who the Doctor is... although amusingly with both speeches: neither convinces his opponents. The reductionist, simplistic view of what war is and why war happens is bad and his speech is bad. And sometimes the alternative to war is worse than war. To quote another science fiction series, "Because sometimes 'peace' is another word for 'surrender.'"