thesapphicfox

[thesapphicfox]

[thesapphicfox]

Trans women are allowed to be masculine, actually, and it doesn't make them a bad woman or person for loving their masculinity. Masculinity is not violent or harmful, it is neutral, and can feel wonderful. Let masc trans women live in peace without having to be some Political Statement one way or the other.

[thesapphicfox]

There is no actual, tangible reason why we allow people to starve, to be homeless, to suffer and die needlessly. Food is plentiful. Empty homes are plentiful. Medicine is plentiful. It’s hidden away behind constructs and we pretend those constructs mean something. There is an empty home and a homeless family, give them it. There is a sick child and common medicine to treat it, give it to them. There is a starving person and so much food wasted by corporations or hidden behind a dollar sign, feed them.

[thesapphicfox]

happy (belated) valentine's day to these extremely formative lesbians

[thesapphicfox]

I hate to say it but I really dislike how the comics resolved Azula’a arc.

I understand her “going crazy”, she essentially had a mental breakdown in the season finale and portraying her as okay after that would be unsettling. But all it cumulates in is Azula running away, which gives off this vibe that there’s not happy ending for her. Which feels stupid, because she’s even younger than Zuko. What, because she did the same sort of stuff as Zuko before his redemption but scarier and more efficiently she’s not deserving of a second chance?

I think it’s because they kind of didn’t know how. Like most people would say “redemption arc”, because there’s no way she could still actively antagonize the main cast in the same way as she used to (she can’t bring her father back to the throne. the world is changing. what she she going to do, coup? Again, she’s fresh off dealing with mental issues). But I think that even with how crazy people are going with redemption arcs these days, people know Azula enough to get a (typical) arc like that wouldn’t work. Redemption arcs often go bad because 1 the character feels unredeemable and the only way the writers can try and fix it is give them a weak sad backstory that doesn’t justify anything/and you feel bad for them AT ALL, 2 they’re extremely boring to watch and don’t take anything unique about the character’s personalities into account, 3 all of their interesting traits come from them being antagonists and now that you’ve made them “good” they’re boring characters.

I think the best redemption method for Azula would’ve been to give her a friend she bonds with because they’re similar. Maybe they’re a noble kid that was raised with the Fire Nation’s conquering ideology, they hate all the change happening in their home, they’re never lived in a time where the world isn’t at war, etc. They can even start seeing her because they view her as the “true” Fire Lord, the last dying ember of the old world. Then, because they have support Azula didn’t in her life, they start to change. They get used to the new normal. And as they slowly show more and more of this, Azula repeatedly gets angry with them, but realizes that if she wants to keep her only friend she’ll have to put up with it. She’s already attached oh no.

And then over a very LONG time she starts to truly change.

At first you can tell she’s just tolerating it. She’s still mean, still psychologically manipulates people. But she’s kind of aimless. This is very Regina George of me, but I actually think she would do great in sports? We saw her dominate at volleyball, and she’s love ordering around a team. An example of her slowly changing would be her becoming captain, treating everyone like she used to do to her old friends (habit) but they realize she can’t execute them or whatever if they tell her to stop being an ass, so they do, and Azula’s livid. They argue back and forth to the point it’s exhausting, and Azula eventually concedes because she realizes it’s easier and if they don’t get back together soon they’re going to lose an upcoming game. It’s not real progress. But they she kind of gets into the habit of being a little more decent to people; she’s shitty and snide about it, but it’s a tweak, and that’s basically the whole thing. She tries to boss around people at home, but since she doesn’t want to be under Zuko’s watch “home” is her friend she’s crashing with, and again, no one’s catering to her every whim anymore. It’s not even defiant. People just have things to do, and since she’s not truly royal anymore she’s just not a priority. So she has to get used to not filling her time “at home” playing mind games with servant or getting ready to enact some highly strategical war plan or training for battle. Maybe she picks up another hobby. She doesn’t think it’s wrong to act as she once did exactly, she just falls out of it. Maybe she decided to learn other fighting styles from the other nations as a hobby, that’s another thing she can compete in. Etc, etc.

In the end, you’d have an Azula that doesn’t mentally torture those she’s close to or complete strangers anymore, but is still pretty verbally brutal to people she hates. Maybe she finds small ways to ruin their days behind the scenes — petty. She’s still intense with a dominant personality. She still loves to win, loves to be in charge. She still loves to fight. She’s snide whenever she sees any of the old characters from the series but it’s slightly less bitter. She keeps all of the traits that made her fun to watch without her still being the “villain”. But we see more of what we saw in The Beach episode; she goes after people when they’re to check in and attempts to get them to feel better, she psychoanalyzes their issues, and she helps formulate plans to help her friends get what they want. She’s whatever Riverdale and every other show that tries to make a “good Blair Waldorf” is actually trying to achieve.

I’d imagine on top of her new hobbies, professionally she’d be a sorta-socialite or a psychiatrist. Azula still has a a lot of tactical/diplomatic training and being someone whose just well off and socializes with powerful people sounds like it would fit her as long as it wasn’t shallow. She gets her money from being the head of committees or or having stakes in organizations or leading community initiatives or whatever. She’s always the most intense when it comes to meetings. Her passion isn’t really there but it gives her excuses to mess with people so there’s that. She gets along well with old politicians that are still grumbly about all the radical changes. Azula being sort of a bored well off power broker sounds like it would be really funny and would present a bunch of chances for her to socialize like she did in the beach episode when she was trying to be normal. It would also neuter her in a way. She’d come up with these intense plans to accomplish goals for her job she barely cares about only to discover she’s like 10x more hyper competent than everyone around her.

The psychiatrist idea is almost entirely a joke on my part. Like she can still use the socialite thing I suggested for character development. But this is 1000% gag fodder. Since she’s so used to psycho analyzing people in the series, it turns out she’s also really good at pinpointing people’s issues and telling them what do do about it — even if she ends up being a little harsh and her plans for improvement are a tad too intense.

At the end of the day, she ends up forging a new life. She still runs into the cast a lot, but I can’t imagine her ever pulling them into her life the same way eventually Zuko eventually did. I can see her apologizing to Mai and Ty Lee, but I actually don’t like them being friends again? Even if she’s better, it feels like putting two people back into an abusive relationship. It’s not like they never suffered from her either, but I can only see her forging a deeper bond with Zuko (he asserts in the comics he’s willing to be there for her, so it feels less like he’s being forced to do it and more like he acknowledges the risks) and Iroh (which I feel would be incredibly interesting. I have my own thoughts about their relationship in the series that has to do a lot with the way Azula’s mom seems to have treated her but this is getting long). Overall:

Azula’s redemption arc wouldn’t be about her “becoming a good guy”. It’d be about her moving on.

[thesapphicfox]

The word "religion" does not mean "Christianity."

The word "faith" does not mean "Christianity."

The word "spirituality" does not mean "Christianity."

You have got to stop equating all of these things. You have got to stop doing shit like saying "all religion is bad" or "all faith is destructive."

You have got to understand that you can't truly support Jewish people and Indigenous people and immigrants and refugees and marginalized communities if you're looking down your nose at their cultures.

There are more religions than Christianity.

[thesapphicfox]

yk how the people who live the longest r like those old people in mediterranean countries who just sit by the sea and smoke and drink and eat good food all day and every time you see a story about them everyone will joke about how they need to start smoking a pack of day so they can live to 100. but then go back to their carb free diet that they hate and never going for walks outside and refusing to indulge in even the smallest pleasures bc they’re ‘unhealthy’. like when will we learn that the key to living long is to enjoy yourself even if it means having a glass of wine occasionally. never eating bread is not going to add 20 years to your life

[thesapphicfox]

okay anyway i have a thought tonight and that thought is that society utterly failed when we started making boy/girl relationships inherently romantic like weve lost so much by making romantic implications between any close boy/girl relationship i literally just wanna see them lying against each each other in the most platonic way possible i want to see them playing with each other's hair without any kind of implication i want them holding each other very tightly and i dont even mean canon romantic implications i just think weve been so conditioned to automatically start seeing romantic tension between two characters even if it isnt some kind of canon relationship (yet) (and its totally fine if you do ship some characters obviously) but i literally just wanna see them do the most intimate friendship things without it seeming romantic. in essence my point is i want them to be so intimate the way other friendships can be so intimate without the weirdness associated w the relationship being boy/girl does this make sense

[thesapphicfox]

fuck all romance except for that one queer coded ship that should have been canon because the characters are so obviously and painfully in love but the writers were too much of cowards to make it happen

[thesapphicfox]

“I hate obvious symbolism” bro shut up sun and moon couples are a pillar of our society

[thesapphicfox]

romanticize un-illuminated brown and black eyes. romanticize the way dark eyes look without being blinded by flash. romanticize brown eyes that don’t have streaks of gold and yellow. romanticize black eyes that are so raven it’s hard to distinguish where the iris is. the depth of your dark eyes is enchanting. brown and black eyes draw you in, wrap you up, and leave you wanting more. fall in love with them.

[thesapphicfox]

[thesapphicfox]

[thesapphicfox]

she’s a little too easy to love #1

terfs don’t interact

[thesapphicfox]

Friends

[thesapphicfox]

Sokka and Zuko can be together without sokka giving up his entire culture, home, and heritage send tweet

[thesapphicfox]

the decrease in costuming quality over the last 20 years has been soooo precipitous & nauseating. i’m not even talking abt marvel’s cg supersuits or anything this time, look at the fabric quality, structure, layering, character, and craftsmanship of older costumes in 102 dalmations (2000) vs cruella (2021)

ever after (1998) vs cinderella (2021)

lord of the rings (2001-2003) vs the rings of power (2022)

this trend should upset you not just because it looks cheap, but because it suggests a strong anti-art and anti-labor movement in film and tv making. don’t forget costumers are unionized